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

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.

Punk's dead

top 30 countdown

30 Charlie Daniels Band
29 Cats UK
28 Dooleys
27 Thin Lizzy
26 Dynasty
25 Buggles
24 Isley Brothers
23 Chic
22 Madness
21 Earth, Wind and Fire
20 XTC
19 Errol Dunkley
18 Iris Williams
17 Herb Alpert
16 Kool and the Gang
15 B A Robertson
14 Donna Summer / Barbra Streisand
13 Ramblers
12 Viola Wills
11 Suzi Quatro
10 Specials
09 Fleetwood Mac
08 Selecter
07 Sad Cafe
06 Abba
05 Commodores
04 The Jam
03 Queen
02 Lena Martell
01 Dr Hook

strange how it turned into such dreck so quickly.

actual playlist was slightly different from the above though

Dynasty (over countdown)
The Jam
Cliff
Donna & Barbra (Legs & Co)
Thin Lizzy
Tourists
B A Robertson
Suzi Q
Moody Blues
Kool & his Gang
Secret Affair
Ramblers
Showadywaddy
Dr Hook
Isley Brothers (over end credits)

at least 70% of that top 30 is great!

21 of that 30 totally do it for me.

was totally into the 2 tone stuff and the jam and xtc at the time

no idea what dynasty, ramblers or viola wills are without looking them up

yes, the two tone thing was coming up, but that's the only ray of sunshine in that list.

(xtc wouldn't been 'making plans for nigel', which is ok, was on last month. jam was eton rifles.)

ramblers were that one hit wonder sub-st-winifreds song about a sparrow.
dynasty and viola wills are, like a lot of that top 30, landfill disco.

(even if the artist names look appealing, they were all well off the boil by now, it being late 79. the secret affair and showaddywady, for instance, were both things i hadn't heard before, shadows of things i did know)

i remember sitting watching these the first time around, continually disappointed that there'd be one thing i liked in each 40 minutes.

Cliff song was pretty good I think, it was a flop but he was going through a good spell.

play that Saturn 5, drummer boy.

odd episode. no crowd shots, all videos / repeats of previous performances. industrial action?

which Cliff song was it?