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

"High Energy" and "So Many Men So Little Time" are great singles but it's not because of the production

"Senza Una Donna" is a divorcecore classic. Zucchero whispering "even doing my own cooking" like it's taking all he has to admit he has been reduced to such a shameful condition is chef's kiss.

Thanks to the link to the Ian Levine wiki for alerting me to the existence of the single 'Doctor in Distress'. 😱

― Piedie Gimbel

"The music was played by Hans Zimmer on a Fairlight II synthesizer" lol.

Ian Levine and Hans Zimmer collaborated on quite a lot of tunes in the late 1980s, bizarrely enough.

hans zimmer produced the first krisma record!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5a9Tx_GCS

oops dud dink:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5a9Tx_GCSE

I had no idea of Hans Zimmer‘s earlier career. I like that Krisma track.

He was briefly The Damned's producer too.

Would be quite confident in putting tonight's first up as the worst edition in the history of the show

The second show tonight was pretty bad as well.

brambles not mingling with the proletariat, i notice.

Yeah, weird greenscreen experiment tonight, and they've found a new way to ruin the chart rundown.

kenny thomas looks like a cross between shrek and barry from eastenders

Rebel MC though! Best tune for weeks. "People Are Still Having Sex" very enjoyable too.

Conversely Any Dream Will Do is even worse than the first time round. I seem to have erased from my memory that horrible plinky sound that's all over the arrangement.

It won't be long before we get 16 weeks of Bryan Adams.

well 8 weeks

yeah, you can probably outrun the police in your flash car, but those personalised plates are going to make you easy to track down.

Just the one episode this week. Shame it's presented by Bruno Brookes and features Bros.

Axl Rose: Waste of Ammo...

that wasn't Kirsty MacColl singing with billy bragg. is that why the camera never focussed on her?

lisa lisa using samples nobody had touched for ~10 years.

A brief flash of Morrissey waving a Jobriath album at the camera there.

Nice to see Frankie Knuckles this week.

Everyone's favourite Covidiots, Right Said Fred.

This studio performance is awful. The video is a lot better. But why did anyone care about this record? I have a theory that for everyone there was exactly ONE time they could have played this record out loud and it would have been OK (for example, driving down the high street of the nearest large town 'blasting' this through your Goodmans stereo).

"I'm Too Sexy", more than any other song I can think of, seems to me to exist now solely for the purpose of sparking nostalgia for late 1991. Fairbrass might be a Covidiot now but him and his brother (in the words of another pop duo) "have both made such a little go a very long way".

They were one hit wonders three times over. Were part of the general furniture for a bit. Then they came up with "Bumped" as their 'new single after being away for a bit" in full confidence, and nobody liked it much.

The singles section of their discogaphy is just depressing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_Said_Fred#Singles

I had their first LP and liked it, I mean I was 12 but I think it probably would sound fine now

Marcello liked it too

http://nobilliards.blogspot.com/2020/12/right-said-fred-up.html

I remember Deeply Dippy, but not Don't Talk Just Kiss. I'm assuming it's not a cover of the Wedding Present song of that name.

it's not, I had the opposite experience when I first listened to Bizarro

Bear in mind, "Three one-hit wonders" is a compliment. Three very strong singles, not hugely similar, but undeniable hits.

Then they had the idea that they were popular personalities, and to be fair, they were. But not necessarily with people who buy records.

Then it drifted into mediocre songs, did they lose focus or just lucked into it in the first place?

I remember the first time I heard "I'm too sexy", I knew it would be huge and take over that summer. So how did it get turned down by every record label until they got signed bu Gut Records (and is that the german for "good" or a reference to stomachs?)

Still it had a directness and a lot of tongue in cheek, whereas "I'm So Attractive" by The Photos didn't have either...

"What's the name of Right Said Fred's only UK number one?" is a classic pub quiz question. Also works with A-ha, T'Pau, Prince.

Hmmmm. I knew the A-ha one and, as with Right Said Fred, it's not the track that most people would immediately think of, whereas the T'Pau is exactly the track everyone would immediately think of. I had no idea for Prince and now that I've looked it up, I don't think I would have ever guessed that.

Indeed. Please elaborate on the T'Pau one.

It's China In Your Hand. That's their most famous song by far.

China In Your Hand, Covid In Your Lungs

sorry, should have put "x post". i meant with regard to T'Pau in the pub quiz as it is indeed surely exactly the track everyone would immediately think of, ie China In Your Hand, Covid In Your Lungs.

T'Pau's most famous song is "Heart and Soul" - at least outside of Europe.

Bit samey this week. Just waiting for Dannii Minogue to turn up.

Horror of Dracula is on Talking Pictures, might watch totp later.

(I was jokin’… it’s three hours of Bach’s St Matthew Passion)

That's what I thought! But they keep changing it at the last minute, so who knows?

The Bomb the Bass song was good.

Charly says always tell Bruno 'Tory' Brookes to go fuck himself.

TBF I'd be quite unsurprised if Liam Howlett were a Tory these days.

Charly AND What Can You Do For Me? AND Insanity all in the same show?

I mean also there was that horrible version of Happy Together by Jason Donovan, but basically going very well so far.

Old derelict deco terminal at Speke only good thing about that Farm video.

Didn't even spot it was Speke and that's where my family's from