Top of the Pops on BBC Four

[daf]

27 February 1986: Presenters: Paul 'croissants' Jordan & Steve Wright

(7) SIGUE SIGUE SPUTNIK – Love Missile F1-11
The Arse of Noise
(19) TALKING HEADS – And She Was (video)
Stop Motion Sense
(27) AUDREY HALL – One Dance Won't Do
Totally Tropical
(24) ALEXANDER O'NEAL – If You Were Here Tonight
Beige Baggies
- - - - - - - - - - - - (breakers) - - - - - - - - - - - -
(26) KATE BUSH – Hounds Of Love
(25) TAVARES – Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


https://www.flickr.com/photos/51106326@N00/sets/72157660867179981

(10) BANGLES – Manic Monday
The Paisley Overground
(1) BILLY OCEAN – When The Going Gets Tough The Tough Get Going (video)
DeVito Vetoed
(29) COLONEL ABRAMS – I'm Not Gonna Let You (audience dancing / credits)
. . . present another show, Paul

[monkfromhavana]

I never realised that the lead singer of The Bangles was so hot.

[DrGreggles]

I never realised that the lead singer of The Bangles was so hot.

Isn't that what they're most famous for?

[the]

Just occurred to me that I quite like Love Missile F1-11, it's just the pissy little drum track and moronic bass synth that lets it down. Replace those with some proper thuddy motorik drums and chuggy guitar and it'd be quite a listenable post-apocalyptic Eddie Cochran pastiche.

[TheMonk]

Isn't that what they're most famous for?

Still absolutely banging to this very day.

[Spudgun]

Just got to add my thanks to you, daf, for your contributions to this thread. Please keep up the good work!

P.S. I've just sent you a PM.

[non capisco]

BILLY OCEAN – When The Going Gets Tough The Tough Get Going[/color] (video)
DeVito Vetoed

Yeah, why was there an edit that cuts out DeVito miming the sax solo? That's the best bit! Especially with B. Ocean doing his one trademark 'groovy marching' dance move that he does.

I really like that Colonel Abrams followup single played at the end which I've never heard before. It's not quite 'Trapped' level but it's decent.

I also didn't remember until this year and his '86 appearances how physically massive Alexander O'Neal was/presumably still is. I wouldn't dare "criticise" him to his face, he'd have your head off. Size of the bastard.

[Phil_A]

Yeah, why was there an edit that cuts out DeVito miming the sax solo? That's the best bit! Especially with B. Ocean doing his one trademark 'groovy marching' dance move that he does.

They covered that in the Story Of 1986, it was some musician's union bollocks that said you can't have someone miming the part in the video that wasn't the credited musician on the recording, so they had to re-shoot that bit with the sax player who actually played on the song.

[studpuppet]

Isn't that what they're most famous for?

That and the blonde one that looked like a member of Def Leppard.

[non capisco]

They covered that in the Story Of 1986, it was some musician's union bollocks that said you can't have someone miming the part in the video that wasn't the credited musician on the recording, so they had to re-shoot that bit with the sax player who actually played on the song.

Ah right, I'd assumed it was some bollocks like that.

I'm quite anal about how I watch these repeats and don't watch 'The Story Of' programmes until the year in question has finished, faintly pathetically because of 'spoilers'. I also try and squint at the title screen on iPlayer so I can't see who the act is and mute the first DJ link in case they start saying who's going to be on the show. I know, what a cool dude, eh? Stop trying to break my door down to have sex with me, everyone, I'm watching the Top Of The Pops repeats.

[daf]

Just got to add my thanks to you, daf, for your contributions to this thread. Please keep up the good work!

Cheers!

[Better Midlands]

I really like that Colonel Abrams followup single played at the end which I've never heard before. It's not quite 'Trapped' level but it's decent.

The Colonel had a big Paradise Garage/proto house club smash just before Trapped too - Music Is The Answer.
https://youtu.be/f18MENh8W4A

[Dr Rock]

Great episode, I thought everything went to shit after 85 but not yet. I love the ol Sputnik, did anyone spot my tagline in this one? I may have to change it now. So, samples, can anyone help? Obviously 'first you get the money, then you get the power' is from Scarface - but they also have a sample of someone saying 'Scarface' - that's not from the movie is it? Could be wrong. Anyway I like the catchy rhythm from Giorgio Armani* and when the drums kick back in.

And She Was is a decent Talking Heads single. Not many I liked after this, Wild Wild Life is good.

Audrey Hall... not much of a tune but I didn't hate it at the time, I think I enjoyed it a bit.

Alexander O'Neal can fuck off with his boring townie shite. Shouldn't have ever signed him Prince. Fast forwarded this one in the end, torture.

Snippet of the Hounds Of Love video. Awesome!

Oh Bangles I love you. Look to the right then look to the left Susanna. You and Kate and Martin Degville in one episode, take me know Jesus. Though I don't think you'd get to work quicker if you had an aeroplane - but depends where you work, maybe she works at an airport.

Tavares Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel - makes me want to dance on my crippled foot.

Ah Billy Ocean, I'm afraid I never liked this. But there's Kathleen Turner in the video so what a bevy of sexy ladies we have been treated to.


*pretty sure that's right.

[buzby]

27 February 1986: Presenters: Paul 'croissants' Jordan & Steve Wright

Mr. 'No Charisma' and The Dickhead, together at last (why is Wright holding a 4-colour pen?)

(7) SIGUE SIGUE SPUTNIK – Love Missile F1-11

Produced by Giorgio Moroder - I'd love to know what he thought of them. Mick Jones was heavily involved with the band too - although Tony James says it happened accidentally, the sampling of film dialogue was very much an extension of what Jones was doing with B.A.D. (the samples were uncleared, and were replaced by badly-voiced impersonations on the US release). From the crunchy nature of them, they might have even used Don Letts' Ensoniq Mirage sampler.. On the subject of James, he/s not kidding anyone with the Roland GR700 MIDI guitar - the bassline comes from a Sequential Pro One (a gift from Jones) running off it's internal sequencer (they used the same program for 21st Century Boy).

Chris Kavanagh and Ray Mayhew play a pair of Simmons SDS kits, which by this time were just on the cusp between futuristic and old-hat cliche. Martin Degville's clothes stall partner Yana YaYa (Jane Farrimond, who previously designed Steel Pulse's stage costumes) provided 'dub effects', which in this case were mostly on Degville's voice using a Roland Space Echo tape delay. She also has James' Motorola DynaTac phone perched on top of the Space Echo.

(19) TALKING HEADS – And She Was

According to David Byrne, the song was written about a hippie girl he knew in Baltimore who used o go and lay in the grass, take LSD and hallucinate she was flying over the city.
The video was directed by artist and animator Jim Blashfield, who had previously made the video for Nu Shooz's I Can't Wait. Byrne saw his short Suspicious Circumstances and asked him to direct the video, supplying him with some rough storyboard sketches. He went on to direct more animated videos for Paul Simon (Boy in The Bubble), Michael Jackson (Leave Me Alone) and Tears For Fears (Sowing The Seeds Of Love)

(24) ALEXANDER O'NEAL – If You Were Here Tonight

He's a big lad, innee? Unsurprisingly he was a linebacker in his high school football team, and got an athletic scholarship but dropped out of college as he couldn't handle the academic aspect (so not a professional then, Paul), After various labouring jobs he started singing and ended up in the band Flyte Tyme with Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis. They were signed by Prince, who changed their name to The Time, but O'Neal wasn't happy about the royalty deal they were getting (Prince was getting most of the money, though there were also rumours that Prince thought he was' too black' for the image he wanted) so he was fired  and was replaced by Morris Day (Prince came to the studio where he was waiting, said they weren't recording today and gave him $50, and never called him again).

He eventually got a deal with Tabu Records, starting by singing backing vocals for other artists on their roster (which is how he ended up on Cherelle's Saturday Love). This was his first solo hit, a re-release of the second single from his first album (written and produced by Jam & Lewis) after his duet with Cherelle became a hit (it had previously peaked at #81 the previous August). The lead single A Broken Heart Can Mend peaked at #96 in May 85 and was re-released in the wake of this song's success, but peaked at #53.

Unfortunately he developed a coke (and later crack) habit when his solo career took off, and in 2017 described himself as a functioning drug addict for the past 30 years.

[buzby]

Great episode, I thought everything went to shit after 85 but not yet. I love the ol Sputnik, did anyone spot my tagline in this one? I may have to change it now. So, samples, can anyone help? Obviously 'first you get the money, then you get the power' is from Scarface - but they also have a sample of someone saying 'Scarface' - that's not from the movie is it? Could be wrong. Anyway I like the catchy rhythm from Giorgio Armani* and when the drums kick back in.

It starts with a sample of Walter/Wendy Carlos' Music for the Funeral March of Queen Mary from the A Clockwork Orange xoundtrack and Alex saying 'Ultraviolence', and later a clip of Alex saying 'Righty-right'. The extended version also samples Carlos' Ode To Joy from the soundtrack. The video even has them walking down the same underpass on the Wandsworth Trinity Road roundabout backlit, just like Alex & his droogs where they beat up the tramp at the start of the film, and the flyposter for the single was a modified version of the poster for the film:


The 'Money , Power, Women' and 'Scarface' samples come from the Scarface trailer

The 'iI's a test, designed to provide an emotional response' and 'Let me tell you about my mother' are Holden and Leon in Leon's V-K test at the start of Blade Runner. Roy's 'I've seen things you wouldn't believe' is also in there too on the extended version.

'The Terminator' is from the The Terminator trailer

'Soon the whole world will know my name' is Ivan Drago from the Rocky 4 trailer

According to James, they weren't sampled, but played in off VHS into the mixing desk and recorded onto the multitrack. That would explain why they sound so gritty. A lot of the samples came from the film clips James had pasted together for the 'pirate video' he used to shop the band around the record labels.


As I said above, it's very hard to find the original UK 7" single release on Youtube. It's mostly the US version or remixes that had most of the samples removed or re-voiced. 

[Dr Rock]

Thanks Buzby! I knew all of them expect the 'Scarface' one (where someone just says 'Scarface'), sorry if I suggested otherwise - but it's great to have them all listed in our super thread. I thought the 'first you get the money' one sounded re-voiced in some versions, which was going to be my question, but then I thought maybe they were badly recorded. The choices really stand the test of time though, Ivan Drako is probably cooler now than at the time.

The next single 12"* has more Blade Runner samples as I recall, I tried to do my own remixes on cassette which just involved making the record stop and start and go back a bit. Never bought the album though, sorry Tony, Martin, Chris, Ray and Yana.


* without googling 'I'm a space cowboy, 21st century rocking boy...'

[Dr Rock]

On further research and thinking back with my brain, Love Missile 12" had all the good samples   and 21s Century Boy had their own bullshit 'sounds a bit like Blade Runner' samples.

Pretty sure it doesn't make TOTP so here it is

https://youtu.be/a6wIpJ7zgu8

[bim sherman shirts]

"Ultraviolence in Japan, awop-bop-a-loo-bop, thank you ma'am!" (at least I think that's what he says) is a fantastic lyric.

[buzby]

On further research and thinking back with my brain, Love Missile 12" had all the good samples   and 21s Century Boy had their own bullshit 'sounds a bit like Blade Runner' samples.

Pretty sure it doesn't make TOTP so here it is

https://youtu.be/a6wIpJ7zgu8

Yes, when the single was climbing the charts selling 60k copies a week and they were just about to record the album, James was called in to EMI's legal department at Manchester Square and the head of Legal Affairs asked him if the samples had been cleared. His reply was 'What does clearance mean?'  nobody involved up to that point, even the band's lawyers, had even thought about it. They then had to redub the samples from the single for the US release, and he had to scrap the samples he was going to use on the other tracks on the album. He reckons the band's account is still in debt to the various copyright holders (though they never got popped for the Rocky 4 sample).

Kubrick apparently heard it on the radio while he was out shopping, and was on to EMI straight away (he had famously withdrawn Clockwork Orange in the UK soon after it was released, and there it was on the the radio).

[Dr Rock]

I wonder what other samples she had up his sleeve. Rambo I assume. I rate Sigue Sigue Sputnik as a glorious failure, but so much energy and ideas went in (like working with Giorgio Moroder), compared to some crap like Curiosity Killed The Cat (soon to fucking annoy me on these re-runs).

[Sebastian Cobb]

And she was is a fantastic Talkingheads tune.

Without being all 'eh lads, eh?' I think it's safe to say we all want to give Suzanna Hoffs a special cuddle.

[Pauline Walnuts]

Just occurred to me that I quite like Love Missile F1-11, it's just the pissy little drum track and moronic bass synth that lets it down. Replace those with some proper thuddy motorik drums and chuggy guitar and it'd be quite a listenable post-apocalyptic Eddie Cochran pastiche.

Have you considered Suicide?

They're a bit like a more lo-fo Sigue Sigue Sputnik.

[Pauline Walnuts]

but O'Neal wasn't happy about the royalty deal they were getting (Prince was getting most of the money, though there were also rumours that Prince thought he was' too black' for the image he wanted) so he was fired  and was replaced by Morris Day (Prince came to the studio where he was waiting, said they weren't recording today and gave him $50, and never called him again).

???

[daf]

Have you considered Suicide?

That's a bit harsh - everyone's entitled to an opinion! 

[non capisco]

Heads up for all the pop crazed youngsters like me that sadly didn't start watching the BBC4 repeats from the start of the run, I've just discovered that the website archive.org has all the non-paedo 1979 episodes up for streaming.

https://archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22Top+of+the+Pops%22&sort=titleSorter

I've started tucking into them and am delighted to see Racey are on the first January episode doing their naff knock-kneed formation dancing to 'Lay Your Love On Me'. What a treat!

See you on the other side of 1979, gang.

[daf]

I've started tucking into them and am delighted to see Racey are on the first January episode doing their naff knock-kneed formation dancing to 'Lay Your Love On Me'. What a treat!

(3) RACEY – Lay Your Love On Me
Sue having now finished her pie, makes it out on stage just before the whole thing is hastily faded out.

it was a much more glacial thread back then - the whole of 1979 shows contained between pages 10 and 14 with plenty of room to spare!

[daf]

6 March 1986: Presenters: Gary Davies & Dixie Peach ('More Hits Than Ever before' Special!)

(25) MIKE & THE MECHANICS – Silent Running (On Dangerous Ground)
Exodus feat. Faux Collins
(12) TAVARES – Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel (video / chart)
Producer Must Be Missing A Brain-Cell
(18) KATE BUSH – Hounds Of Love
Pouty McPoutface



(10) FRANK SINATRA – Theme From New York New York (live clip)
This Coconut Wig . . . is fooling no-one
(16) JIM DIAMOND – Hi Ho Silver
Taumata-whaka-tangi-hanga-kuayuwo
tamate-aturi-pukaku-piki-maunga
horonuku-pokaiawhen-uaka-tana-tahu
mataku-atanganu-akawa-miki-tora
- - - - - - - - - - - - (breakers) - - - - - - - - - - - -
(29) MR MISTER – Kyrie
(27) PRINCE – Kiss
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
(14) WHISTLE – (Nothing Serious) Just Buggin'
B-B-Bol-Bol-Bol, Boh-Bol . . .
(1) DIANA ROSS – Chain Reaction (video)
. . . And this is me!
(11) HUEY LEWIS & THE NEWS – Power Of Love (video / audience dancing / credits)
Video Killed the Dancing Crowd Stars

[monkfromhavana]

Watching Mike & The Mechanics....you can see why people would spend the next 8 years or so rejected all that type of crap.

[daf]

Singer wanted for top 'Name' band - must look like a Cockney baked bean - no jackets required

[Satchmo Distel]

"Silent Running" is another B.A. Robertson atrocity. I always heard it as "Can you hear me Ronnie?"