TOTP, the end

At the end of the day it deserved to put down as it = crap music = crap Tv programme

Just look at the miserable top 40 at the mo
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/chart/singles.shtml

commercialized bland female singers
soft rock / corporate rawk atrocities / shite NME bands
pop trance rubbish

matty TAYLOR for last show!

40. REM performing Crush With Eyeliner on video link from Japan with the support band dancing around in bear suits. The last recorded evidence of Michael Stipe's sense of humour.
39. The drummer from Eels trashing the toy drum kit he'd been miming on.
38. Bis doing Candy Pop. A nation looks on bemused.
37. Gnarls Barkley's slowed down Crazy. Proof TOTP can still produce magic.
36. Flaming Lips with Justin Timberlake on bass and dolphin suit wearing duties.
35. Nirvana playing Teen Spirit. Kurt singing in a silly gothic voice.
36.

29. John Peel miming the mandolin grimly during Maggie Mae.
28. That plain wrong Pan's People performance featuring live dogs. Wasn't it for some Gilbert O'Sullivan tune?

There's bound to be a resurgence of TOTP2 in the wake of the nostalgia this decision will stir.

Yep, it was for Get Down. "You're a bad dog baby, but I still want you around".

Ah man, someone's gotta youtube this!

They didn't know how to deal with the pirates in the '60s - it's a demonstrable truism that most of the classic singles which hit our charts in '64-7 were played on Caroline first and BBC a long and very reluctant second - and I doubt they've really learned anything since.

Hahaha, I was going to say that TOTP (and New Order) died for me when they started doing rubbish like that. Now, New Order doing 'Thieves Like Us' live in the TOTP studio, that was more like it.

-- Marcello Carlin (marcellocarli...)

b-b-b-but totp wasn't as behind as bbc radio (though it was following 'ready steady go' innit).

Tony Blackburn OTM?

AND the Inspiral Carpets! The Holy Trinity of Madchester! Halelujah!

Halelujah and Fools Gold.

I managed to tape this and hook in the stereo radio broadcast on the video track. Worked quite well.

Peel did very well when it came to music on TOTP he didn't like, but Clarkson just sounds like everybody's square dad when he does it.

I'd say Blackburn was pretty much OTM except that the problem with TOTP is that it only worked when it appealed to everyone - i.e. when it was an impartial reflection of that week's Top 40. Getting the Cool Police in was a big mistake.

Of course that was in the days before the chart became unapologetically based on major label marketing priorities rather than actual record sales. But TOTP could have done a much better job of adapting to the changing market.

Thus its slightly disingenuous for the Beeb to talk about it losing its relevance as being cutting edge somehow. And, lets face it, for all their talk of the kids and myspace and podcasts and downloads and what-have-you, what's really killed it off is the pop idol type thing, which is 'entertainment for the whole family' in the same way, but utterly insulated from any outside trends.

Has my memory let me down again? Ah well - there definitely were three Manchester acts on one night, so maybe it was Pacific State.

i agree. i guess this puts me with the cool police (happy mondays, kate bush, etc) over all the completely unmemorable bullshit that clogged the show 99% of the time.

I actually thought that including downloads in the singles chart would bring it back to life, and that it would get popular agian, but EVEN WEIRDER.

everyone has 'the hits' on channel 18 now, people don't buy that many singles, they couldn't get the format right, and being on a sunday night i doubt it was much of a draw for big names.

has this been done only to satisfy the older BBC viewers

not really. young people don't watch tv though.

What a surprise no one's watching it at 7 pm on Sunday, up against Antiques Roadshow and Emmerdale.

Or was watching it at 7:30 pm on Friday, up against Coronation Street.

So maybe the BBC were trying to kill it off slowly anyway.

About the X Factor - I don't recall ratings for TOTP falling off during the era of Opportunity Knocks and New Faces.

xpost

808 State were on the following week...

except one is now locked, so it's more a "when Fontana withdrew Je t'aime" and both labels' versions were in the top ten one week scenario.

numbers two and three!

A bit of a spoiler, this suggestion, as many PP/Legs&Co. performances deserve their own place in the chart. There's the Gilbert O'Sullivan one, as already mentioned. And I used to love it when they had to do an interpretive dance to non-pop songs, e.g. Rush's "The Spirit Of Radio" (one of the great TOTP wtf moments).

nice list of highlights too

Absolutely OTM.

Also, "Monster Mash".

like. it. was. yesterday...

Yeah, he sort of is. I mean, turning a blind eye to the vague misogyny, the bit where he says:

"I did it for about 12 or 13 years and it was very linked with Radio 1. All the people compering it were DJs. But for some reason, they started introducing small little blondes from children's programmes. And you thought 'they're not really music people'".

...is right. The problem is, those tv-types-who-don't-know-about-music are the same people who get the Radio 1 DJ jobs anyway, now.

Can doing I want More, introduced by Noel Edmonds!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuXVhAihfrQ&search=manic%20faster

*The Wedding Present doing "Flying Saucer" dressed as Altern 8

*Fischerspooner doing "Emerge"

Not only that, she stood still in a sea of dry ice just waving her arms and pointing at the audience instead of dancing.

But "Alex Party - Don't Give Me Your Life" was probably the ultimate worst performance I have ever seen on TOTP. She was dancing to a different song entirely.

I shall never be on Top of the Pops.

And I hadn't thought of Momus' variation re: Alice's "Ramones Mk2" band.

i've just posted links to new order doing "blue monday" and "thieves" here. i've never actually seen the latter performance ...

holy shit, yes, that was glorious.

as was erasure's "chorus": i'm so glad other people remember these moments.

i remember seeing soft cell do "bedsitter" with marc sitting in the little portable padded cell thing, wearing black leather and a peaked cap, and thinking, WOAH, this is the most disturbing and brilliant think my five- (or six?) year-old mind has ever seen.

Apparently, they haven't worked out the format yet.

works for me......

Highlights: Fox doing "S-S-Single Bed"...ooh, very nice indeed, whatever did happen to the lady born Susan Traynor?...and the Skids doing "The Saints Are Coming" from '78 with Jobbo and Adamson still sporting their Bay City Rollers mullets! Tremendous, as evinced by the fact that I got the song off the shelf and played it 18 times in a row afterwards (I counted)!

Funnily enough, I saw a copy of Alan Freeman's "By Invitation Only" compilation on "Pick of the Pops Records" via Atlantic. Reminding you of how "Pick of the Pops" ended up, before the current revival. Twas all "Karn Evil Nine" and all that...

Actually that was Fluff's Saturday Rock Show. By the time of "Karn Evil Nine" POTP was Solid Gold Sixty with Tom "Funkin' For Jamaica" Browne.

It was on "Pick of the pops" records though, although it was more a translucent logon on the normal Atlantic records label...

First of an ongoing series, the sleeve says. Presumably a series of one.

But perhaps you already know this.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,818840,00.html, for anyone who cares. He tried to buy MGM once, you know.

Not exactly getting excited over this prospect.

Public service or no, the show will still be run by the same idiots and it'll fall into the same traps which killed it last time; presenters who might as well be muzzled and on a lead for all the personality they're allowed to project (and no Brand or Ross to upset the easily offended), the same muddled attempts to be "cool," the same old clips we've seen a billion times before.

Who needs TOTP when you've got YouTube?

Expect a return of miming – which was banned in the chart show’s latter years, upsetting some pop acts – and an end to the “three-minute rule”, which forced rock bands to play edited versions of their hits.

The loss from the schedules of Jonathan Ross, who is under suspension, has also acted as a reminder of how few slots there are for live pop performances on peak-time, main-stream television. Aside from Ross’s talk show, the only remaining slots are on Strictly Come Dancing, on which Beyoncé performed last week, and The X Factor.

There is the nub of it: People actually do want this, and ironically the stuff that they tried to remove from the TOTP by the end is the stuff that can survive- the 'family friendly' stuff that can quite happily go on "X factor" and/or "Strictly Come Dancing" (i mean, wtf? Beyonce on SCD looked about as wrong as having Nirvana on the sooty show would have been)

So, it *has* to be on Saturday night, half an hour, with the left field as well as the famfriendly, miming allowed, live performance also allowed, and GET SOME BACKBONE on running the show! Less kowtow to stars demands, make it something they WANT to be on.

(that's it)

The irony is that on a Saturday peak time basis the show would probably work better on ITV as a sort of bulwark between the Harry Hill and Cowell/Ant and Dec blocks.

But if BBC1 tried to stick it in between Dr Who and Casualty and go up against X-Factor or Saturday Night Takeaway the show would be slaughtered in the ratings.

Either way it's not going to happen. "Public service" will mean they'll shove it on in whichever graveyard slot they can get away with a la religious programming and just pump out the same old tired claptrap instead of looking at actively revitalising it - TOTP needs its Russell T Davies but he won't be found within the current ranks of the BBC.

In short:

1. It needs to be something that the artists want to be on

2. It needs the producer(s) balls on the line, and not "the next step in a career on the up"

3. It needs presenters who are allowed to demonstrate real character and personality and not. Talk. To. Their. Au-di-ence. As. Though. They. Were. Niiiiiine. Years. Old.

i.e. not Fearne Cotton.

If acts do mime then it's just gonna get the same old complaints from it's detractors. Why cant they just sing ffs.

it was mimey for 300 years in total so they can fuck off

here's a format idea i like:

Saturday night (piss off Casualty)
45 mins

studio performance #1
3 minute news report (artist or scene-related)
studio performance #2
40-11 countdown while hot new video plays
studio performance #3
breakers (brief clips of songs expected to chart the next day)
studio performance #4
interview with artist that performed first
studio performance #5
top 10 countdown
#1 performance or video into the credits

I'd watch that

Following further consideration a Saturday slot would be useless as a TOTP performance would have zero effect on the charts.

No live performances; there's Jools Holland if people want to be craftsmanned to death.

Why?

They sing on the records, so if you want that you can watch the video or listen to the record. Why cant they sing live on TOTPS?

Singing live would be OK, as a minimum.

No one should be prevented from performing live, but damn! make it sharp! or get EDITED!

I don't really care if it's live or mimed. It's nice to hear a good singer sing the song live, but not a terrible one. One thing they shouldn't do is mix in noise from the 50-strong 'audience' (which they used to do in the '80s and '90s and it sounded awful).

I was sorry to see the show go when it did. I had become accustomed, over decades, to the weekly routine of both the show and the singles charts but I think the moment has passed. Bringing it back now would not be interesting to the majority of people.

It's nice to hear a good singer sing the song live, but not a terrible one.

I would say yes, but then I think back to seeing New Order do stuff like 'Thieves Like Us', and those are some of my favourite TOTP things.

and that awwwweeesome time when they played "Love will tear us apart" with the audience whoops and dancers and all that.

Things not to be done:

Pointless dancers so prominently placed that you can't actually see the band (Lotus Eaters)
Stupid audience clapalongs ("Creep")
Live performances of any stripe - "Een-jicted wee-da py-son WE NO NEED ZIS ANIMOAR!"/"GO!!!"

Fuck live muso crap, I want my TOTP to be bright and superficial (but daft dancers are not bright and clapalongs are the wrong sort of superficial).

Actually, some of those daft dancers were friends of mine.

But, you're right...

Well I don't see why anyone should have to mime. I don't see the point of anyone miming. You may as well watch the video on youtube then.

or just listen to the CD. or just go to their gig!

Because TOTP is supposed to be mainstream entertainment, not a credible music show.

It's basically because the one rule that should, um, rule, and be immutable, is:

1) NO VIDEOS!

(apart from that chart run-down as detailed above. OK, maybe that one. Unless they got a new dance troupe together and did over-litereal performances of current hits. Yeah, like, "I predict a riot" where they could all throw sponge bricks at each other. or "are we human, or are we dancer" where half could be dressed as human, and the other half as dancers. Am I onto something here? Actually, no.)

No "Bo Rhap" if that rule had been exercised in TOTP's "golden age."

Pan's People doing "That's Not My Name" - strutting around with huge placards saying that they're Keith Chegwin, Robert Kilroy-Silk &c.

1) Yeah, but thems were the days where videos were particularly rare things.

2) Now you're talking!

Fulfill your fantasy of looking like a dork on TV by standing at the back of the Top of the Pops Christmas and New Year's Eve Specials.

Minimum age is 16.

Wonder what the maximum age is.