Top of the Pops 28 September 1989

 

Words: Chris Arnsby

Sybil Ruscoe: “Good evening and welcome to Britain's best pop music show, in brilliant stereo on lead-free Radio 1. Tonight we're making history.”

Jenny Powell: “Yeah Sybil. We must be the only two girls to present Top of the Pops, mustn't we? Well to start the show we've got Sydney Youngblood he's number four with If Only I Could.”

[4] SYDNEY YOUNGBLOOD: if only i could. Lead-free? Sybil's topical reference refers to EU legislation which required unleaded petrol to be widely available from October 1989. And the week of 25 September to 1 October was named as National Lead-Free Petrol Week by CLEAR (the Campaign for LEad free AiR -who designed that acronym?). There was a lot of excitement and confusion about what this would mean for the man on the Clapham omnibus, besides lower levels of lead in his blood. The result was reports like this from Top Gear “on the mysteries of going green.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bngMZhYgYg.

Meanwhile, Top of the Pops is making history. Hosted by two women for the first time. After just 25 short years. So soon? Do you think it's wise to move that quickly? Speaking of moving quickly, I appreciate time is limited during the introduction but Jenny Powell could have been allocated at least an additional sentence to reflect on her part in this moment. Instead she is forced into a hefty tonal gear change between HISTORIC STATEMENT and MUNDANE ANNOUNCEMENT. It's as if in 1969 a BBC continuity announcer said, “and there you have it, man has landed on the moon. And now here's Pot Black, the first in a new series of televised snooker.”

Stanley Appel goes for lengthy shots while Sydney Youngblood dances and gurns and sings. The most effective moment comes just before the second guitar bit, a handheld camera operator stands stage right of Sydney and slowly moves towards and around him. The effect as Sydney Youngblood notices and starts to perform to the camera is briefly like David Byrne's preacher performance from the Once In A Lifetime video.

[12] KATE BUSH: the sensual world. Promo VT.

CHARTS FROM 40 TO 31.

[9] THE BEAUTIFUL SOUTH: you keep it all in. The Top of the Pops studio looks great this week. Henry Barber is doing the Lighting, and he's lit the studio like a fairground. Bright flashing yellows and reds, with blues and purples in the background to illuminate the rest of the studio. The colour is boosted to make the picture really pop and it looks fantastic.

The staging is really good. Paul Heaton is in the middle, Briana Corrigan to his right and Dave Hemingway to the left. The structure of the song means Paul Heaton is responding to the solos of the people to each side of him, as if he is in the centre of an argument. Was it accidental or deliberate, and if it was deliberate who came up with the idea? The band or the director?

[3] TECHNOTRONIC featuring FELLY: pump up the jam. Promo VT.

CHARTS FROM 30 TO 11

[14] WET WET WET: sweet surrender. Shrieks of delight interrupt the charts twice. Once as Billy Joel appears at [29] and again as Wet Wet Wet's caption is revealed at [14]. I suspect the shrieks at [29] were less to do with We Didn't Start The Fire and more to do with Wet Wet Wet taking the main stage.

Stanley Appel's prefers to bookend performances with a big obvious start and finish shot. He's not a fan of panning from host to band and back again at the end. This is obviously very sensible and saves time during editing but it does make it hard to tell who is in studio, and who's on tape. I could have believed Wet Wet Wet were pre-recorded if it wasn't for the screams.

BREAKERS:

[29] BILLY JOEL: we didn't start the fire

[27] CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT: name and number

[6] ERASURE: drama! Promo VT.

[23] GLORIA ESTEFAN: oye mi canto (hear my voice). Gloria Estefan isn't in the studio. She was pre-recorded during the studio session for the 07/09/1989 edition. How do I know this? I'd like to claim it's my natural genius but I was told by regular commenter mumu03. He suggested I head over to the BBC Photo archive site (https://bbcphotosales.co.uk/search/?searchQuery=Childs%2C+Ian) where six photos can be found. These pictures are credited to Ian Childs, section head at the BBC’s Engineering Research Department at Kingswood Warren. He was involved in the BBC's HDTV research.

Ergo (I'm really sorry, I'll never use that word again), he was in studio on 07/09/1989 for the experimental HDTV recording of Tina Turner, and he took a few pictures of the bands he saw which ended up in the BBC photo archive;l Tina Turner, Gloria Estefan, and (for some reason) the new-look Marillion -maybe he had one photo left to use up his film?

Is there a chance Gloria Estefan was also captured in HD? It's possible, but I can't see a big obvious camera, like the one plonked in front of the stage for Tina Turner. There is a camera operator stationed looking up at Gloria Estefan but he seems to have a standard handheld camera which is being used to catch her left profile shots.

TOP 10

[1] BLACK BOX: ride on time. BBC VT, from the 31/08/1989 show.

[34] KARYN WHITE: secret rendezvous. Promo VT. Steve Wright and Jaki Brambles next week.

 

Performance of the week: The Beautiful South, You Keep It All In.