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

What is naboo?

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/whats-on/music/clubs-boosh-fans-party-away-129255

Fascinating! No recollection of this whatsoever

https://x.com/archivetvmus71/status/1731614276559704378?s=46&t=bJOqpCuQneT7ju08y55VSA

Two acts in and I'm more or less certain the most exciting thing about this week's first episode is that it's hosted by Dale Winton.

but the first act was Jinny. Keep Warm what a record.

Why is Craig Mclachlan cosplaying as Hard Gay?

Christmas 1977 edition on at 7pm if anyone can stand it.

Since they went to the trouble of filming Kenny Rogers in a bar, I was hoping that they'd at least stop the song when it gets to the line "for a minute a thought I was dead" and just have Rogers staring up at some huge dude for a full 60 seconds before continuing.

Xmas 1977 made it seem like the most depressing year that ever existed, I wasn't born until 11 years later but everything seemed so brown and maudlin. Also that bar Kenny Rogers was singing at had far too many lamps at it, it would have been a nightmare to work at.

Xmas TOTP isn't til Thursday and New Years Day, eventually it's just not going to happen at all

Well, the Christmas special from 1969 got rebroadcast comparatively recently (jsav presented so not hugely recently) but I did recall from the original broadcast how terrible it was!

some of the listings mags have entire nights of totp repeats

5th jan, 10 episodes of either totp, big hits or story of

12th jan, same, but with two hours of snooker in the middle

Christmas 1983 TOTP - better that 1984 because the big records of 1983 haven't been played over and over as much since?

I'll say it again - I have absolutely no memory of JoBoxers.

I once saw JoBoxers supporting Gary Glitter, and that right there is the unfortunate story of my 1980s

ive been watching the 80s xmas specials and i could have lived the rest of my life happy without knowing who "shakin stevens" is (this dude DID NOT make it to the us)

joboxers did make it over here tho. just got lucky got played on kroq a lot.

one of joboxers did a lot of interesting stuff - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_McLusky

Normal service resumed tonight from 7pm.

Agent Smith from The Matrix takes a break from chasing hackers to perform a cover of The Beatles' 'I'm Only Sleeping'. Or it might by Suggs (Suggs... Suggs...). The album this track is taken from ('The Lone Ranger') is actually pretty good.

Oh yes, the h-h-h-h-hilarious performance of 'Roll With It' where Noel and Liam swap places.

just catching up and lol what happened in that Tina Arena perf? Voice insanely louder than the backing track, feels like she's doing karaoke of her own song

all Steve Wright all of the time

Couldn't the BBC have picked an episode without Black Lace?

Tonight's first programme, starts with Roy Chubby Brown, ends with Mick Hucknall.

Did no-one tell you we would over-act this way?
Our show's a hit. It's shit. You watch it anyway...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Exe7T9TpJZo

The Rembrandt's singer looks like Guy Pearce in Memento. No wonder he wanted to forget.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9IDDLXcrMA

BEAT ft General Levy - Incredible - TOTP - 1994

Would love to know how Iron Maiden ended up thrashing through ‘Man on the Edge’ on top of an ancient hill fort in Israel

The pieces are beginning to slowly drift into place as we approach Spiceageddon. The shiny metallic look of the studio bathed in big washes of colour from the lights. Bryan Adams turning up to do odd duets with various people. East 17 looking like they might actually win the war of the boybands against Take That. Somehow even fewer people in the studio audience than before, and they have enough space to all do this non-commital sway-y/shuffle-y dance. Suggs keeps popping up either as the presenter or performing a song.

I'm behind. Hale & Pace's attempt at satire in their presenting capacity was hugely confused, to be charitable.

Camp ageing rockers in Blur and Oasis tees, for some reason? Still less loathable than Keith Allen's joke presenting a few months back.

Fairground's a pretty odd number one really. I kind of like it, Hucknall's obvious off-putting qualities aside. Nice groove in the verses, huge chorus drop.

Were they pre existing H&P characters? That would make more sense.

As much as I despise the human rodent that is mick hucknall, I really love 'fairground'

It's a good song! Actually come across more decent 'Red tracks than expected over the TOTP repeats.

Next episode, Ant & Dec invent electroswing.

Enjoying the well curated TOTP2 snippets at the end

My longstanding in-joke with a friend was that jazz was a genre floundering until PJ & Duncan dropped "Krazy Katz" in the autumn of 1995, at which point sales for jazz records increased 100,000% overnight, much as sales for Western classical music did in the wake of the Toy Dolls' Orcastrated earlier in the year, and luminaries like Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller and Dexter Gordon were disinterred and paraded in celebration of the new music.

I'd forgotten how many singles PJ & Duncan released. I thought it was basically 'Let's Get Ready to Rhumble' and one other, but no, they were polluting the charts like Robson & Jerome's kid brothers.

Well this Beatles song that's been cobbled together from an old demo sounds grating, I guess they won't be trying that again.

xpost yeah almost all of their hits live in the "forgotten" zone.

There was a budget "best of" in Poundland, one track was clearly too expensive to license but it had all the other 'hits' (except the football one, too new I guess)

They had three studio albums but five compilation albums. Is there any other artist or group who have had far more compilation albums than original studio albums, apart from people who have been dead for decades?

Ant & Dec are credited as songwriters or co-writers on nearly all of their original songs. Which is both simultaneously impressive for what was essentially a comedy inflected boyband, but also pretty tragic when you listen to the actual songs.

It would be impossible for something like their music career to happen nowadays. I think the nearest, in broad terms anyway, is LadBaby, but he's only released singles.

one track was clearly too expensive to license

That would be the cover of 'Stepping Stone' I'm guessing.

No. The one that everybody knows..

A&D's strong but now invisible hits career is a subject I love to bring up (and have already during the TOTP runs). The pair of them are obviously more than eager to pretend there was nothing more than LGRTR.

My fav Ant & Dec single is Shout - classic boyband maturity move that. Look forward to when we get to it.

I have that budget comp (Takeaway). The best one (if more A&D = best) was the 'essential collection' double set that came later that I definitely remember Tesco stocking. Still no We're on the Ball though.

lol Takeaway isn't even in the list of five compilation albums on Wikipedia. And it doesn't have Rhumble - https://www.discogs.com/release/7661579-Ant-Dec-AKA-PJ-Duncan-Takeaway-The-Best-Of-Ant-Dec

Yep, that's the one

Gary Barlow looks so cross all the time he's singing.

Barlow (thinks): I can't chuffing BELIEVE that I'm having to sit at THIS PIANO singing THIS RUDDY SONG *fumes*

Compare to how Mark Owen always looks like he's having a great time.

Oh here's Damon - at least the crowd here are singing along.