Words: Chris Arnsby
22/03/1990
Gary Davies: “Hello. A very good evening to you. Welcome to Top of the Pops coming to you in stereo on Radio 1FM. Three bands making their debut tonight we have Snap, we've got Orbital, and They Might Be Giants but we start off with no strangers to Top of the Pops with Handful of Promises, it's Big Fun.”
[3]
ERASURE: BLUE SAVANNAH. Promo VT.
CHARTS: 40 TO 31. A bad
showing for two thirds of last week's Breakers, Fish and Wet Wet Wet already
going down.
[28]
ORBITAL: CHIME. “We were banned from Top of the Pops for being utterly boring!”
Paul Hartnoll told NME.com* in December 2023. Well, yeah. That's because you
were utterly boring.
“We
were doing something new and ‘other’ than rock and roll, so having to do
something as old-fashioned as miming your music on Top of the Pops felt like a crock of shit. I’m
quite Lars Von Trier about things. If it’s not happening for real, I can’t do
it. They didn’t let us bring our own equipment, and had to get tables from the
BBC canteen because we refused to use their fancy keyboard stands. I’d only
stand there twirling a plug or playing with the on/off switches, so we stood
looking awkward.”
I don't want to rag on Orbital. They are clearly good guys (and well done for wearing the No Poll Tax shirts) but I keep going back to the question; what's the point in accepting the Top of the Pops invitation, if you know that the format of the programme and your performance style are two irreconcilable objects? The uncharitable explanation, it's a cynical publicity grab. Lots of lovely publicity and moolah from sales. If you are making that sort of calculation then there's no point in comparing yourself to Lars Von Trier when you're clearly tipping down the Big Fun end of the scales.
The
most charitable explanation I can come up with: it's a triumph of hope over
experience. You accept the invitation to appear of Top of the Pops
because you watched it as a kid and it's exciting to be asked. You know that
you'll be asked to mime but you hope you can reach a compromise with the
production team. And then you get there, and it's a day of camera rehearsals
and no time to have a sensible conversation and people keep saying no to your
ideas and you realise with mounting disappointment and anxiety that you are the
square peg which the well oiled machine is determined to mash into the round
hole. And then you get banned for being utterly boring.
* A mystery about the NME.com interview. The interviewer says Orbital appeared on the same programme as Liza Minnelli. They didn't.
[14] 49ERS: DON'T YOU LOVE ME. Promo VT.
BREAKERS
[34] QUEEN LATIFAH & DE LA SOUL: MAMMA GAVE BIRTH TO THE SOUL CHILDREN
[33] HEART: ALL I WANNA DO IS MAKE LOVE TO YOU
[36] JAM TRONIK: ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE
[12] SNAP: THE POWER. A cracking performance. The one critical comment I would make, I think it's a mistake for the camera to keep moving when Turbo B stands and raps at the podium. Keep the camera still as if we were actually watching a news conference and I think those sequences would have more impact.
Can you spot the Hartnoll brothers? Once their performance was over they stayed in the studio to watch Snap.
[7] DAVID A. STEWART featuring CANDY DULER: LILY WAS HERE. Promo VT.
CHARTS: 30 to 11, Don't sit at home waiting for Top of the Pops to play that song at [19], E-Zee Possee, Everything Starts With An 'E'; it's been banned.
[17] THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS: BIRDHOUSE IN YOUR SOUL. Another great studio performance as John Linnell channels David Byrne in his twitchy and twisting dancing while John Flansburgh hams up playing the guitar. (John- Just saying; this is one of the best songs of the 90s but nobody really knows what it's about!)
This is clearly a pre-recorded performance; but when? It's not easy to tell, the purple and blue lighting is a less intense version of the colour scheme used to illuminate Candy Flip last week. The thing that really sells me on the idea this was recorded in the week of 15/03/1990 is: You can hear the shrieking audience member again. The one that was so excited at the presence of The Mission last week.
TOP 10. Is J-n-th-n K-ng still in the Top 10? Yes but he's down to [9].
[1] BEATS INTERNATIONAL featuring LINDY LAYTON: DUB BE GOOD TO ME. Promo VT.[32] JIMMY SOMERVILLE: READ MY LIPS (ENOUGH IS ENOUGH). Promo VT. Nicky Campbell next week.
Performance of the week: A three way tie. There's no way I'm going to try and separate Orbital, Snap, and They Might Be Giants. They are all memorable performances in their own way, so everybody wins. Except Big Fun.
29/03/1990
Nicky
Campbell: “Top of the Pops! No less than six bands in the studio tonight in the
flesh flashing between your eyes and before them like a phantasmagorical
fantasia but on with business and on with Bizz Nizz. Here they are. Don't Miss
The Party Line.”
[22] BIZZ NIZZ: DON'T MISS THE PARTY LINE. Is the lead singer very tall
or are those dancers very short?
More
importantly, what's happened to the Triangle Stage? It's been reconfigured. The
starburst-shaped element with the neon tubes has moved to stage right, and been
stood up on the point of one of its triangles, and the dangling Christmas tree
thing has been moved left, to where the starburst used to sit on the floor. It
makes the stage look very busy.
I
went back to the 22/03/1990 show to see how the Triangle Stage was configured.
It's difficult to tell because it doesn't feature prominently. It just kind of
drifts by in the back of some of the handheld camera shots while Orbital are
on, and Gary Davies briefly uses it at the end of Orbital's performance.
The
short answer, for the 22/03/1990 edition the Triangle Stage looked different to
how it does this week but -and this is the important bit- it also looked
different to the way it was setup for They Might Be Giants; confirming that
performance was pre-recorded.
[23]
HEART: ALL I WANT TO DO IS MAKE LOVE TO YOU. Promo VT.
Nicky
Campbell is all kinds of unbearable again this week. You'll have seen from the
introduction that he's rifled through the big book of big words, well to
introduce Candy Flip he does a spoof fashion commentary about Candy Flip's
clothes. He's basically doing a bad impression of that “up” voice Alexei Sayle
sometimes uses (you can hear it best in The Young Ones episode Oil
just before he starts singing Doctor Martin's Boots). Nicky Campbell also
throws in a variation on the “this is what we'll all be wearing” phrase that I
associate with Ben Elton's The Man From Auntie Series (and
coincidentally, series one was airing across March 1990*).
It's, poor, unfunny, and unoriginal. Classic Nicky.
* I remember the phrase cropping up in the title sequence each week but when
I went back to check, it turns out that what I remember is from series two;
that doesn't air until 1994. You win this round Campbell!
CHARTS: 40 TO 31
[14]
INSPIRAL CARPETS: THIS IS HOW IT FEELS. Paul Ciani is recycling his camera scripts
again. This performance is close to a shot-for-shot remake of the one from the
15/03/1990 edition; allowing for minor differences in camera position, etc.
Slow
track in during the introduction; cut to a hand held camera left profile of the
keyboard player that circles round to the right; cut to left profile hand held
shot of of lead singer, camera moves round to his right and then pans back to
the left while also moving slowly in and out; cut to quick shot of the drummer;
and so on. The only thing missing is the old school circular wipe. Maybe this
studio doesn't have the button to do that.
[26]
JIMMY SOMERVILLE: READ MY LIPS (ENOUGH IS ENOUGH). A nice enough song for a
worthy cause but I have nothing significant to say.
CHARTS:
30 to 11. E-Zee
Possee up to [15]. Disgraceful.
[24]
THE FAMILY STAND: GHETTO HEAVEN. Eric Wallis gradually brings up the lighting on the stage adding
in some purple to take it from a stark grey and white industrial look. It's a
subtle effect done well.
[21]
JAM TRONIK: ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE. Bilge. Ah yeah!
TOP
10
[1] SNAP: THE POWER. Promo VT.
[18]
QUEEN LATIFAH & DE LA SOUL: MAMMA GAVE BIRTH TO THE SOUL CHILDREN. Promo VT, Anthea Turner
next week.
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