The Rolling "Top of the Pops" BBC4 Revival thread.

Bonus track on midnight showing was gen x - valley of the dolls. And chic. Also a much bigger chunk of staircase mystery over the lights at the end.

I think this one is a keeper!

had forgotten that Members song. cod reggae in places, but prescient. also

Cod reggae all the way through (and not very good cod reggae either), what a weird subject to write a song about

I got the feeling they were trying to be 10cc crossed with some Boomtown Rats political content.

last night (1979) had the damned (love song) and last week had the banshees (staircase). both what i would call 'goth' but both previously 'punk' bands. when did that fork happen?

(wasn't just a musical thing - they'd both adopted a non-punk dress style also (ok, apart from captain sensible)

and bright eyes got short shrift again. was number 1 in the charts but i don't think i've heard them play more than a minute of it. which i find curious.

The BBC can't afford to pay for extended usage of the film footage (see also Grease and Saturday Night Fever last year). Maybe they could have done if they hadn't paid all that money to former TOTP presenters and other "characters" in the past.

when i read this week what the BBC allegedly used to pay Susanna Reid i almost turned into my old man for a moment

some sterling performances from the young Billy Idol is recent weeks. All those evenings spent in front of the bedroom mirror pretending to be Alvin Stardust are paying off.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BmoFAcnCUAAikeR.jpg

that sparks single was another i bought at the time. (my first two batches of records ever, one from earlier in the year, one from around now). still sounds great and the long version on the b is better.

long version of the show had a repeat of the execrable monks song

This ABBA song sounds out of place enough on 'ABBA Gold', but compared to The Police and The Undertones it's like a relic from another era.

Wait what the shitting fuck? A disco cover of 'Bridge Over Troubled Water'?

Max Webster seems to have been written out of musical history. Probably those trousers.

Different bit of bright eyes too. Still v short though.

Xtc, m and Judas priest on the long version BTW

what's with the long version? did TOTP used to be 40 minutes long in the 70s?

The Tubes song is good this week(Prime Time?) never heard that before. sounds more modern than millions of records since.

yes, the 7:30 showing is cut down to 30 minutes (to fit bbc4 schedules?), the 00:00 showing is 40 minutes.

It used to run from 7.30pm to 8.10pm as I recall. Got trimmed to 30 mins at some point when the BBC decided that programmes had to start on the hour/half-hour.

are we going to start seeing DLT presenting shows again?

spoilers:

http://z6.invisionfree.com/popscene/index.php?s=2245a36f16e870d44e381f23043ae0a4&showtopic=8918
24-5-79: Presenter: David Jensen is next, i think. first tubeway army?

Only if he's cleared of the remaining charges against him.

Who the hell were "Liner"?

I remeber this being a mainstay of bargain bins when I was starting to spend lots of time in record shope in the early 80s but I don't think I remembered who the band were even then:
http://gdm.glorydazemusic.com/images/reviews/liner79.jpg

(That pic stolen from this article which has told me all I need to hear about Liner: http://gdm.glorydazemusic.com/articles.php?article_id=2668 ...even given my recent higher-tolerance for 70s AM music I'm not sure this will be for me.)

Spoiler2: I wonder if in a few weeks David Kid will say "tune in next week for the 800th TOTP's with Jixxx Sxxile" ?

xpost it was post-yacht rock.

was easy enough to find on youtube, probably taken from that very totp episode. one for the ffwd button, methinks.

Richard Jobson in terrible miming incident.

Liner, the Lidl Bee Gees.

playground twist, death disco, are 'friends' electric?, theme from grizzly addams...

So has this been canned now, or are we moving through a period of DLT/Savile/etc hosted episodes?

It's the Proms.

revive!

this was on again thursday (i missed it and the pvr forgot) and is repeated tonight.

Yes, it's the second week back after prom-break.

Kate Bush doing a track from her live ee.p.

Just watching the Saturday extended repeat. What the actual fuck? Tree Thatcher song. Makes the ukip calypso seem reasonable.

Quite poor this week. Specials and Rico the obvious highlight.

Last week's was dreadful, one before that was stone cold classic.

what was the Thatcher song?

Had never heard it before. Was Janet brown dressed as Thatcher singing how she'd horsewhip people into submission.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iron_Lady_(album)

Ilx didn't hyperlink the trailing ) BTW

'produced by John Lloyd'?! who knew.

the last 5 episodes are still on the iPlayer. seems they keep them up longer than they used to.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00704hg/episodes/player

it's 30 days for everything now (TV and radio).

Yeah that episode with the Thatcher song is one of the weirdest I've ever seen, barely recognised anything. Looked like a heavy handed parody what with that toothy group who all looked related singing about the chosen few and Peter Powell perving over literally everybody. Was quite enjoyable in an unheimlich way.

interesting mini spiel on the iPlayer; "1979 is maybe the most diverse year ever for acts on Top of the Pops with disco at its peak, new wave, 2 Tone, reggae, rock, folk and electro records all making the top five.. "

1 november 1979

sparks (not heard this before, feel like a rehash of #1 song)
some kids choir
darts
the jam (eton rifles. probably more relevant today than it was at the time)
lene lovich* (birdsong, something i don't ever remember hearing before. taught hazel o'connor everything though.)
earth wind and fire (legs and co)
thin lizzy
suzi quatro
b a robertson
lene martel
fleetwood mac

nothing if not mixed...

* wow at this - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lene_Lovich

Sparks and B.A. Robertson were great in this. Wtf were Darts? I mean they were total shit but there's something interesting about them

Trying to remember what dance track sampled that Sparks tune. Felix Da Housecat, maybe?

Gwen Stefani owes Lene Lovich a fair bit too

kagami sampled it.

one of the very first records i bought was by darts. their audience was probably 90% 10 - 12 year olds.

i loved Darts when i was 10

That Darts song was produced by Roy Wood, which perhaps accounts for why it sounds so different from their other hits.