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

I watched Erasure on last night's episode then skipped the rest.

I've said it before but 89-91 might be my favourite musical period, just not this.

Me and my partner unanimously switched over the THIRD time J-Don appeared.

I posted this on the favourite mixes of 2021 thread

https://soundcloud.com/sorry-records/sorrymix10

The night before the club's final morning, longtime resident boxofbox took the decks one last time; delivering a six hour set that stretched well into the morning hours, going a full two hours past the city’s legal closing time, and playing record after record to deliver their final love letter to the sweat-packed floor of revelers that called the club home. Thought to be lost to time -- a new trove of DAT tapes containing the complete soundboard recording of that legendary night were recently unearthed from a box found deep within a storage closet in the long dilapidated and recently shuttered subway station record shop MTA TRAX which operated on the Northeast side of Times Square - 42nd St. station for the better part of the last forty odd years. boxofbox’s DATs contain a tracklist that is simply stacked with some of the greatest dance hits from the era, where radio-candied pop hits meshed with sultry rnb and the emergent sound of new jack swing, as well as some early signals of the rave era to come as it was taking shape.

basically a six hour mix of crossover dance music from the late 80s/early 90s, it aligns perfectly with the good stuff (or at least, what I think has been the good stuff) on TOTP repeats lately

Nice, thanks :)

Been enjoying this Boxedjoy, as far as I can see this club never existed, but a great concept and a great mix of some amazing tracks. Before the penny dropped this wasn’t quite as in seemed I was absolutely in awe of some of the drops and blends on a live mix.

I guess why I was so sold on this mix was remembering dancing to so many of these tracks at the first clubs I started going to with my fake ID :)

Hmm, Noel does his last totp from an office, for the Xmas 78 special

Darts, then Boney M, then Brotherhood of Man, then the Brighouse and Rastrick brass band?

This is why punk had to happen...

Oh, wait

was this the one done whilst strike was on? ie was clips ratther than all live?

(my pvr doesn't like recording things over the 19:00 channel changeover, i get sound but no video, so i've missed the start of some of these)

I don't think so, but I know what you mean.

Den Hegarty was still in The Darts when "Boy from New York city" was a hit, but here it's the new guy doing the bass notes

"Boy from New York city" was my "anarchy I

"Boy from New York City" was my "Anarchy In The UK".

Nee to watch this

need. this phone....!!!

Darts were way worse than i had envisaged. Still marginally better than Showaddywaddy.

in 1978 i liked Love Don't Live Here Anymore the least. in 2021 i enjoyed it the most.

Wikipedia says -

"Love Don't Live Here Anymore" incorporated the use of the Electronic LinnDrum machine, and was one of the first songs to effectively use the sound reverbs of the instrument.

shurely shome mishtake.

must mean syndrum.

LinnDrumm, syndrum, Quality Street

i boycott Nestlé Confectionery.

caught the repeat. so much dancing to travolta films.

very mixed bag as mentioned above

> Darts, then Boney M, then Brotherhood of Man, then the Brighouse and Rastrick brass band?

smurfs too. the darts has actually grown on me, i wonder if two-tone took any inspiration from that performance? but, yeah, the whole show is like punk never happened.

Oh, I was meaning the descending quality of the show. Darts OK, BoneyM was alrightish (rasputin), then....

...two more boneyMs

the abba in the middle looked effortlessly cool somehow. we aren't even trying and yet the result is this.

Rasputin is the only one i loved then that i still love and hearing The Floral Dance again induced some mild trauma.

Where was Dreadlock Holiday?

Christmas 1998 starting now.

...and it honestly could have stopped a minute later.

I'm honestly not nostalgic for the late 90s at all.

Christmas 2002 on now. Better, but cut from the same cloth. The presenting style has gone from 'CBBC street' to 'early evening BBC1 street'. Liberty X clearly not making much of an effort here.

missed 98 but 2002 looked like tiktok, seemed to be about dance routines more than anything. and the blokes looked like they were all from the pages of Lisa Simpson's "non-threatening boys" magazine.

"this was originally a hit for blondie", er, no.

This year's Christmas programme is on now, and is even more tiktok/insta. It's a bad sign when you need to have Clara Amfo and Jordan North talking over the top of the songs telling you why you should give two shits about any of it.

The 2002 edition reminded me what an incredible time for pop music it was, although the Girls Aloud performance showed they took a bit of time to become the force they were.

This year's edition just showed me they can only persuade a limited amount of stage-school performers onto the show.

An incredible time with possibly the worst configuration of TOTP. The enormous wide stage with the video wall in the back, the backing dancers there to fill in the gaps, everything overlit, the weird backstage 'diner' or whatever it was supposed to be, the terrible presenters.

So for whatever reason this year's New Year Special was on BBC1 at 4:15pm, while 2014's New Year's Eve programme is being repeated tonight on BBC4 at 7pm. I'll watch the latter - it'll be the most recent TOTP repeat I'll have seen. How much difference between 2014 and today? Not much, I predict.

in our house we have a Becky Hill sweepstake, how long into the episode will it be before she appears this time?

Not much, I predict.

haha first act is Ed Sheeran

second act - Jess Glynne, who used a transphobic slur on the radio earlier this year
third act - The Vamps (yeah I don't remember either) with a song that uses the chorus of Simon & Garfunkel's 'Cecilia' but substitutes it's own crap verse lyrics
fourth act - Professor Green in the TV studio with the music career no-one cares about in 2021

Remember when seemingly all white UK rappers sounded like this? I honestly didn't think Green looked like that, but that goatee and hair combo makes him look like a weasel.

And now a recap of stuff your local commercial radio station probably still plays on a loop, unless they've been taken over by the Greatest Hits RAdio behemoth.

La Roux dressed as a disinterested David Bowie impersonator by way of Sheena Easton, demonstrating my main problem with 2014 (and frankly a lot of other year's music as well) - I don't know what all this music is supposed to convey, what it represents, what the people behind it are trying to get across, or why I should care about any of it either at the time or seven years later.

It's all very safe and sanitised. There's nothing here that makes me say "what the FUCK is this?!" as my eyes bug out, the way new music should make a 40 year old (as I was at the time) react

Now this is more like it - Carter USM performing 'Rubbish'.

"Blue Pearl are going to melt your boots" - was that actually a phrase people said? I don't recall ever hearing.

Oh look it's Britain's top MAneskin tribute band Queen. In all seriousness, RIP Freddie, the main reason I gave a shit about this band. According to Mick Rock, "Freddie remained a gentleman to the end". BoRhap sums up my feelings about Queen - when they energy, enthusiasm, intelligence, and humour into their music, they were amazing. Without those ingredients, the same band produced songs that were empty scaffolding.

Best episode for ages! Surprisingly early and extremely Bjorky Bjork appearance, Carter being much better than I registered at the time, a glimpse of propa hardcore Prodigy, and a couple of decent dance tunes I have no recollection of. The Blue Pearl thing's pretty naff, but in a fun way.

Senseless Things - not my fave, but early 90s Indy was sooo much better than what it became a few years later.

The hosts remain complete fucking joy vacuums.

Nice to see the current live vocal policy embraced by notorious acoustic folk purists 2 Unlimited.

Shakespeare's Sister to Curtis Steiger - I'm sure that there have been more boner killing transitions in history, but also sure that they can be counted on one (ahem) hand.

When I had long hair it looked like Curtis Steiger's (not by design)

they seem to have gone back to studio vocals though, and they are lower on the mix than usual, or something, harder to make out.

and that must be a re-release of Bohemian Rhapsody, off the back of something? there was something else from Bill and Ted as well

Charity re-issue after Freddie’s death. Also a hit in the US (bigger than in ‘75) later in ‘92 off the back of Wayne’s World.

Solid first episode this week, second not so much. Seem to recall Curtis Stigers LP being released same day as In Ribbons and Everything’s Alright Forever; MM scribe teasing Pale Saints and Boo Radleys in feature about adding CS to their co-headline tour to bring in the punters.