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

Bruce Springsteen enters Soft Rock hell.

"You know what I'm going to do? Appear in the crowd on TOTP standing next to Janice Long while holding a taxidermied goose."

I really thought for a moment that Kim Wilde was going to push that cake right in Glenn Medeiros's face.

I realised I'd had that t'Pau song in the back of my head for 30 years and had forgotten it was them

Is this Andy Crane's first TOTP?

Worth sitting through Glenn Medeiros with the sound off to get to the video of George Michael's 'Monkey'.

Anyone else would look like a prize fool Jason Donovan in that hat-and-braces combo.

This is a bit 'songs heard while shopping' but I think it fits better here. After work this evening I was in WH Smiths trying to buy a Twix - which they didn't sell, I mean since when doesn't WH SMiths sell Twixes? I could have bought a giant Toblerone, but not a regular Twix. Anyway they were playing Bros' "I Owe You Nothing", and if the decor had been poo brown and orange (which is how WHS used to roll before they switched to white and purple in the early 90s) it would have felt just like 1988.

You'd think with all their jumping around that Shaky and Yazz would have teamed up to produce an aerobics video.

All About Eve in lipsyncing (in) action.

...and now live.

Top quality nonsense Iron Maiden lyrics here. 14 year old snoball liked this song quite a bit, enough to stick it on a mix tape with IIRC George Michael's 'Monkey' and Michael Jackson's 'Dirty Diana' either side.

Which member of Chris Rea's band on this performance of On The Beach '88 would you most like to hang with?

Mike Read's on the beach / breakers segue actually made me lol - possibly the first time in a while from TOTP.

SPOILERS this Julio / Stevie joint wasn't a future Number 1 after all.

Whew!

LOL at Chris Lowe's 'pissed up Brit in Spain' outfit for this performance of 'Domino Dancing'.

Andy Crane's slicked back haircut makes him look like a mildly creepy shop window dummy that's come to life.

Just looking at tonights episode: '88 was such a dreadful time for pop music. A Jason Donovan bland-out, Phil Collins at no. 1 emoting through his sweaty lips. Pig vomit. No wonder, I paid no attention to the charts at the time and played with my Transformers instead.

might be one for the 'tech advances actually backwards' thread but these TOTP episodes were simulcast in stereo on radio 1. try doing that now...

I don't even remember that Lovely Day remix but wow was that phoned in

"Big Fun" at the outro was lovely though so not all bad

I didn't see that one, was watching around 9pm and the Pasadenas were the outro. I did see Big Fun come up in the chart countdown and said oh that's a classic to my wife

xxxp I feel that simulcasting made them clean up the audio a bit and get rid of that echoey mono sound with loads of crowd noise over everything that the last few months worth of episodes have had. I don't remember if it was Christmas 1988 or 1989 when I got a Toshiba 'walkman' with built-in radio to replace my £6 shit-arse Alba, but I did try the whole simulcast listening experience a couple of times. I usually couldn't be bothered - don't know why, as the sound on our TV was mono and tinny. Simulcasting only lasted for a couple more years anyway, because of the introduction of NICAM. Predictably we didn't have a TV capable of decoding NICAM until years later.

'88 was such a dreadful time for pop music

I can't agree with that. I probably bought more singles in the first six months of 1988 than any other time and it's been great seeing them all on TOTP again, especially S-Express. That said, I got less and less interested in the charts in the second half of the year, only bought three singles (as far as I can remember - Yeke Yeke, Teardrops and Need You Tonight), and after the hell of Mistletoe & Wine v Especially For You pretty much gave up on Top of the Pops altogether by 1989.

It's not quite as bad as the mid 70s, but for a couple of years there was an increasing disconnect between the charts and actually interesting music (particularly hip-hop, house, etc.). Although TOTP doesn't get as bad as the light entertainment wasteland of 1976, because the big artists still went on the show. Among other things that does mean we're in for an increase in performances from SAW acts - Pete Waterman even mentioned during an interview how much they valued getting their singers on the show. It's a situation that doesn't start to line up again until Madchester becomes nationally big in late 1989.

ffs the studio audience clapping out of time to Erasure's performance of 'A Little Respect'.

I remember the simulcast thing, managed to hook up the radio to the stereo audio in on the video. I got the stone roses and happy mondays totp that way.

Was the whole of the UK in FM by that point? I can't recall but i thought that was more towards the start of the 90s. Either way i wonder how many people even bothered with the whole simulcast business. It was very much of the 'Beerling' era wasn't it, all that '31 days In May' stuff and round-the-world yachting trips and suchlike.

I remember that there was a big push to promote Radio 1 as being on FM, because around 1990 the standard station jingle became "Radio 1 FM". Although even in 1988 I sometimes had trouble tuning in.

(Only slightly connected) I used to listen to Capital Radio as a teenager, despite living maybe 8 or 9 miles outside the M25. Chris Tarrant in the morning, Pat Sharp later on (I'm not really selling this, am I?), lots of adverts featuring Willie Rushton (or something who sounded like him) promoting 'London Car Telephones' to the tune of 'Hanging on the Telephone'. As I was outside of London, the FM signal wasn't strong enough for my radio to pick up, so I used to listen on medium wave. At some point in the second half of 1988 I was devastated to wake up to hear loads of 'golden oldies' from the 60s being played by an unfamiliar DJ. It turned out they'd split it into two radio stations and now the MW signal was 'Capital Gold' and Capital was only available on the FM which I couldn't get. I think I listened to Radio 1 for a few months after that, but hated the DJs and just drifted away from pop music. Not sure why I felt compelled to share this, but I've typed it now so might as well post it.

I lived slightly further outside the M25 at the time, and I remember one sole occasion around 1986 where I managed to pick up Capital on my mono radio cassette recorder. At the time we had a TV aerial that was large enough to get LWT, and there'd be adverts for Capital and I fetishised London life through watching programmes like The Six O'Clock Show.

Meanwhile this week, Milli Vanilli mime on TOTP. And everywhere else.

Oh look it's the latest Terminator reboot starring Tom Jones.

I'd actually forgotten how excruciatingly bad this cover version was. The original Prince version gets away with the lyrics because he performs them in a light handed way. But this is like watching a task from The Apprentice. Or Celebrity X Factor.

Incidentally that segue of Anthea Turner over-excitedly introducing Royal House's 'Can You Party' featured in a TOTP documentary, specifically a section about how bad the show became in the mid to late 80s.

I lived slightly further outside the M25 at the time, and I remember one sole occasion around 1986 where I managed to pick up Capital on my mono radio cassette recorder. At the time we had a TV aerial that was large enough to get LWT, and there'd be adverts for Capital and I fetishised London life through watching programmes like The Six O'Clock Show.

I hear you.

And now "Capital" radio is everywhere St's local radio station

Blummin spelling corrector!

Chris de Burgh, the Alan Titchmarsh of music.

Actually that's kind of harsh on Alan Titchmarsh.

Brother Beyond encapsulate that era perfectly. I don't think I've ever heard that Prince song. I must give Lovesexy a listen sometime. I ignored it as I heard it was poor.

Who was the lady co-presenter? She looked a bit uncomfortable presenting, her eyes were darting everywhere

Sybil Ruscoe.

Ah, it's the time of the acid house scare where they don't even say the track name if it has acid in the title (Jolly Roger, acid man)

Don't think I've ever heard the Kraze track that is in the charts.

A quick YouTube tells me I'm missing nothing

Would that be The Party? It’s a classic crossover house track.

"Jack To The Sound Of The Underground" by Hithouse AKA 'Theme from The Mary Whitehouse Experience'.

Yes that is the violin player from Dexys Midnight Runners playing whatever that wind instrument is next to Tanita Tikaram. I could never figure out what some of the lyrics to this song were - "pig out til you've seen the light"?

susie mathis? was she ever a dj? oh, bbc radio manchester, i guess that counts.

"Subsequently, in 2009, Mathis became a Charity Manager working for Mohammed Al Fayed."

yazz seems to be on every episode recently.

(it's an oboe, i think)