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

Ah, this Shaking Stevens song is written by Gary Glitter, let's put the Subtitles on and see what's it about..

... oh!

fucking hell that dance routine...

Holy shit, so it is! Surprised that it wasn't cut from broadcast, in that case. Maybe they were counting on nobody picking up on it, or maybe the BBC themselves didn't.

Anyway, a passable number one, although still not one of Madonna's finest.

A depressing episode, this. No wonder acid house, grunge and Britpop had to happen.

Can it hurry up please?

We had the Jesus and Mary Chain on recently, (or as my mother had it earlier today "That band you like,"Mary and Joseph", you know...") but.

The '80s really was a decade of two halves, wasn't it? Watching these 1987 episodes, it feels like the exciting pop future promised by 1980-1984 just didn't happen and instead we have Curiosity Killed the Cat. The dominance of Stock-Aitken-Waterman and Bros is just around the corner. The shift seems to happen around the time of the Band Aid single, and then after Live Aid pop music seems to go through this weirdly bland period with the occasional act (Prince, Pet Shop Boys, The Cure, Erasure etc.) brightening things up.

Of course, we all know that lots of great music was put out 1986-1988, but there seems to have been a higher level of crap around too and it feels like the artier end of pop wasn't getting much of a look in anymore. Could something like Japan's 'Ghosts' have become a hit in 1987 like it did in 1981? Somehow I doubt it. The charts had changed and what people were looking for from pop had changed. Sadly.

I think there are some tracks like "Ghosts" which were undeniable, and would have been hits at any time (not now, obv, charts have been successfully narrowcasted)

Well, looks like Bananarama's metamorphosis into Stock-Aitken-Waterman puppets is now complete. Siobhan looking cool as fuck, but sadly will have fucked off within the year. Stock-Aitken-Waterman's reign of terror on the charts is, of course, just beginning. That Bruce Willis is still sticking around on the chart is fucking confounding.

Humba ma layba a looowwhohhhoohhh...

I don't care who you are, there is no reason for anyone to wear a bass guitar that high. Lower your fucking strap!

Hue & Cry with Another Song About Thatcher(tm), although as 80s songs about Thatcher go, it's pretty good.

pseudosatisfaction, baby

AAAARRRGH KENNY G FUCK OFF! *mute*

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGHHHHH Peter Powell fuck off

oh someone in the audience please jump up and grab that mic wire...

This is funny to watch with the sound off. He looks like he's getting a bit overexcited. The subtitles say "HE PLAYS SOPRANO SAX" ...

... ah, Mel & Kim! *unmute*

What the fuck was that?

overexcited

It's really bad with the sound on.

I take it I made the right call, then!

Wow, 'Catch' sounds really sluggish after 'La Bamba' ...

Los Lobos with that song where you know - or at least think you know - all the words despite not speaking a word of Spanish.

Of course George Michael is the vocalist on this Boogie Box High version of 'Jive Talkin'!

I thought it sounded like him!

I can believe it if it turns out that the vocal was sped up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boogie_Box_High
lol it is George as well!

Yeah, it sounds to me like it was sped up. A quick Google confirms that GM was unable to be credited for contractual reasons, and that Boogie Box High was GM's cousin!

To think that Smash Hits wrote an "obituary" when Tennant left the mag, only for Tennant to become one of the best things about pop music in '87...

"he'll be back in a year"

Although to be fair to SH, I look more like a pop star than Neil does in this picture:
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/640x360/p01j0ltn.jpg

Thinking back I'm sure that 'Labour Of Love' was one of the songs I had on my yearly 'I'm going on holiday for a week with my tedious family and need solid chart tunes to play incessantly on my Alba "walkman"' mixtape.

Also has Heart's 'Alone' ever been used in a TV advert for a financial services company?

Aha I get it.

Posts ah, but that is what pop stars looked like back then. Elvis Costello, him off The Farmers Boys, Lol Kingmaker, ooh..

Xposts not posts, damn spelling corrector!

Labour of Love is fucking banger.

Sherrick? Yeah I don't remember him either, but I do recall the song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFZNPRSmyns

Gary Davies' eye-popping lime green jacket is very 1987, particularly the rolled up sleeves which are p-similar to a jacket young snoball had at the time. Except mine was a far more tasteful black.

Also has Heart's 'Alone' ever been used in a TV advert for a financial services company?
― just another country (snoball)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS_aFMtmT60

Rickrolled by BBC4...

Wax. Because "Gold & Gouldman" sounded too much like a law firm, I assume.

Five Star. I would like to ask Five Star why they're so FUCKING CRAP, they're etc. etc.

My problem with Five Star is that they're so boring. All their songs sound like shelved Jackson 5 demos.

Also, even though I lived through the 80s and was a teenager at this point, until these repeats I'd forgotten how frequently Five Star were on TOTP (and thinking about it, on TV in general at the time).

Yeah, that's pretty much my beef with 'em as well. They seem like a diet version of what they should have been.

(x-post)

Metallica at 27! JAMC at 25!

Sherrick's "I want to be the one they call your guy" seemed like an awkward line to me at the time, but it's not bad really. The production makes it sound like a record from earlier in the decade though.

Urgh. Bon Jovi.

That photo of Wax in the chart rundown makes them look like two background henchmen fro Die Hard.

"Remember when we lost the keys/and you lost more than that in my backseat, babe!" ... Urgh.

"you lost more than that in my back seat baby"

lol ninja'd

I hate Bon Jovi but especially those slower songs that they seem to have calculatedly written specifically to appeal to women (that end up sounding super crepe anyway).

The one positive thing I can say about Jon Bon Jovi / Bon Jovi is at least we're not watching Steve Tyler / Aerosmith.

Yes! Prince! Some music of real quality!