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

There's very little about 'A View to a Kill' that's aged well - I actually don't mind the song itself, but the production is really lumpen and the video, as you say, is cheesy and shit. Particularly when Simon le Bon goes into his Bond spiel.

If the cracks were starting to show on Seven and the Ragged Tiger, Le Bon's bum note at Live Aid was the moment it all smashed to pieces.

Pure 1985 toss so far tonight. It says something that I'm actually almost glad to see Fish's "oh I just smelled a really noxious fart" gurning face.

I have a lot of time for Robert Palmer but Power Station's cover of T Rex's 'Get It On' is fuck awful. Also I'm fairly sure Bowie saw this and thought "I can do way worse that this" and then formed Tin Machine.

It's been said upthread already but 1985 is peak 'shite video with huge budget'.

Basically everyone got a tonne of cash to make whatever crazy video they wanted no matter how 3rd rate their singles were.

Depeche Mode break new ground by having half a shopping trolley on stage.

Steve Wright and Mike Read really are the ultimate when it comes to guys who think they're cool but totally aren't cool.

It's been said upthread already but 1985 is peak 'shite video with huge budget'.

― 2018 has to be better (snoball), Friday, March 2, 2018 7:46 PM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Basically everyone got a tonne of cash to make whatever crazy video they wanted no matter how 3rd rate their singles were.

― 2018 has to be better (snoball), Friday, March 2, 2018 7:47 PM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Hah, yeah! Although we're in peak MTV territory now, aren't we? This was, after all, the year even Dire Straits were singing about MTV - although I think MTV Europe was a couple of years away from launching. But yeah, you can tell that people are basically competing against each other for screen time at this point - huge video budgets thrown at terrible songs etc. - the thinking clearly being that if the song doesn't grab 'em, the video will. Duran Duran and Michael Jackson have a lot to fucking answer for.

Looking at the Be Near Me video by ABC on Youtube and it has more than double the number of views that When Smokey Sings has which was a much bigger hit in the UK. Was Be Near Me on an episode of Twilight or something? I know it was club hit in the States..

No-one really had a clue what to do at this point in the 80s, did they? Should I wear a jacket and then not tuck my shirt in?

Whoever picks the music for Co-Op in-store radio clearly watches this programme, since Bryan Ferry's 'Slave To Love' was playing while I was buying some chocolate yesterday.

Has Alexei Sayle been on yet? That's the all time low point for me before House music comes along to save the day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXEXO1YHpmQ

Bane of the cheap musical keyboard section of WH Smith's in the mid 80s, Harold Faltermeyer's 'Axel F'.

Late 80s sighted with the first mention of the Fine Young Cannibals.

Alexei has been on, yes.

Since 'Ullo John Gotta New Motor'?

(where he looks alarmingly like someone I used to work for)

Stephen Fry in his 2nd book of memoirs says that, the first time he caught Alexei on telly (very early 80s) he found him "frightening". People aren't frightening on telly nowadays are they? It's all a lot more cuddly. I wonder if that's a good thing..

Caught up with a load of these I had recorded the other day. I was in a strange situation as a kid without my own record player: my dad didn't trust me to put the stylus down carefully enough so insisted on doing it himself. As a consequence of this, he said I couldn't buy singles, only albums, as he didn't want me calling him every three minutes to change the record. I put up with this for several years until my patience snapped in the period of 1985 that they've just been showing (when I was 11). For some reason it was We Close Our Eyes by Go West that broke the camel's back and then I started buying 7 inches with my pocket money: Scritti Politti - The Word Girl, Duran Duran - View To A Kill, Depeche Mode - Shake The Disease, Mai Tai - History, Harold Faltermeyer - Axel F (which have all been on recently) and a mediocre comedy version of '19' about cricket by Rory Bremner (which thankfully hasn't featured). Then my dad finally gave in and got me a record player for my 12th birthday.

Can anyone remember any reason why they only played about ten seconds of the You'll Never Walk Alone (the charity song for the Bradford fire) when it was number one in the charts?

No specific reason that I recall. Charity singles became much more numerous in the late 80s.

It's because Rolf Harris and Dave Lee Travis feature prominently on the video.

It was originally broadcast in full but been cut from the reruns:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKTe2o6q6xY

Ah, right. If they can do that, you'd think they could show us all the episodes the keep missing out because their presented some Yewtree case or other, just cut out the bits linking the songs.

Having watched that video: is that bloke with the dyed red hair and sunglasses the cockney from Auf Wiedersehen Pet who died?

Well spotted yeah that's him, jeez he died a few months later.

Didn't he have a band? Or did his character have a band? Or both?

Oh, The Heavy Metal Kids / the Kids.

Big in Norway, apparently

And were on TOTP before.

They're mentioned upthread. Seems like a long time ago relative to 1985.
I'd forgotten all about Russ Abbott's follow-up single to 'Atmosphere' but boy does that video bring the horror crashing back.
We're really on the edge of the '85-'86 plastic seaside bowler hats era of TOTP aren't we.

lots of these too

"Most of the worst songs about Serious Issues ever recorded were made in the five years after Live Aid."

'Johnny Come Home' by Fine Young Cannibals - I don't think I really appreciated it at the time, but it's great. I had no memory of the 'dancing' by the guitarist and bass player from The Beat - did they keep doing this on the later songs?

My memory is that the bass player always danced like that with The Beat but the guitarist only started doing it later on and got sillier as he went and he ended up being known as the guy in The Beat and FYC who did the funny dance - which always kind of annoyed me.

Me and my OH had a month long spell of constantly singing "Love & Pride" thanks to TOTP on BBC 4.

xxp did they keep doing this on later songs? did they ever!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxWCpwOhplQ

This pleases me

FYC, yes a perfect blend, smooth soul vocals, great songs and the marvellous rhythm section of the Beat

Paul King is a posing twit.

"recorded on the south coast of Britain"

Tuning in now to find Phil Collins bellowing 'Take Me Home' while rocking his mid '80s almost-skullet and wearing a jacket which nobody should require ... gotta say, I saw the vid for this on a previous episode and I was struck by how much the video just didn't fit the song.

This episode is some real 1985 style barrel scrapping.

Dio gazing into his crystal ball, though!

crystal bollocks more like

Kate Bush's 'Running Up That Hill' sounding like a transmission from another planet compared to most of this shite.

shut up Peter Powell you faux-earnest self promoting twit.

OTM. I just wish they'd played the whole video. The further we get into 1985, the more I wonder what the fuck people were thinking... even compared with 1984, each episode is increasingly looking like a mardi gras of fashion disasters. Peter Powell obviously thinking he's the mutts nuts as well.

They are repeating 1983 shows as well.

Which is nice - I was going to save a couple of those for posterity but my Tivo deleted them....

Anyway, those ones are looking much better than the 1985 ones.

Watched some of this yesterday, even more assured in my view of 1985 as the nadir of the decade, also getting to stuff I can remember watching, which is an odd feeling.

Bizarre to think that Jack Your Body and Pump Up The Volume are just around the corner.

I can't see it getting much better until about 1988 or 1989, tbh... but it'll be interesting viewing for that reason!

Just catching up and seen the one with Opus doing Live is Life in the studio. You would think that would obviously be the low point, but Denise Lasalle's 'My Toot Toot' is actually even worse, far worse than I remember. It's basically the birdie song.