Top of the Pops 1980 27 Mar 1980

Guest post by Chris Arnsby

BBC4: Top of the Pops 1980 27/03/1980

Peter Powell, "Hi everybody! You're listening to The Vapors and you're going to see the chart! All in all it's another edition of Top of the Pops!"

Chart music: The Vapors. Turning Japanese [3].

Liquid Gold: Dance Yourself Dizzy [4]. Still as loony as ever!  The drummer is kept more in the background and it's one of the guitarists (made up as a clown!) who gets the hilarious xylophone solo played on his hat. Were the other band members getting jealous of the attention the drummer was grabbing? Is this a hint of fault lines in the United States of Craziness? "A wild... bunch of... fun loving musicians," says Peter Powell groping for the right words as he back announces the song. The camera crane operator also appears to be having problems as Peter Powell drifts in and out of focus.


Genesis: Turn It On Again [23]. A repeat from the 13/03/80 edition.
Brothers Johnson: Stomp [11]. The set for tonight's Legs & Co routine is a shiny pillared box. The end result is one of Legs & Co's better routines and a vast improvement on the technicoloured yawn last week.
Doctor Hook: Sexy Eyes [38]. I have come to realise that I find Doctor Hook deeply creepy. The songs, the subject matter, the delivery, the lead singer. The way he spits out "sexy eyes" in what he thinks is a sensual whisper makes my skin crawl.
Judas Priest: Living After Midnight [25].Imagine if Tim Brooke-Taylor dressed as Avon from Blake's 7. Some good solid heavy metal after the sinister Doctor Hook. Bonus points to the band for not rhyming midnight with moonlight.
Siouxsie & The Banshees: Happy House [21]. Another repeat from the 13/03/80 show.
Secret Affair: My World [27]. A noticeable uptick in the band's smartness this week. Vision Mixer Carol Abbott goes nuts during the saxophone solo. She's worked out how to move a small picture-in-picture box around the screen and does so a lot regardless of the fact that the effect really doesn't fit the song.

It was difficult to sing with half a ton of timber stuck to his back

The Dooleys: Love Patrol [29]. A third repeat from 13/03/80. John Foxx: No One Driving [32]. There's an episode of Father Ted which features a Kraftwerk-like group of priests. That's who I was reminded of watching John Foxx (the extra X is for, um, Xylophone) and his band. Best band member, the bloke whose main job is to press the button that makes the 'tssk' noise. The Detroit Spinners: Working My Way Back To You – Forgive Me Girl (Medley) [5]. With a burning love inside? You need antibiotics not forgiveness.
Number one: The Jam, Going Underground. The full force of Quantel effects are brought to bear on The Jam whether they deserve it or not; picture-in-picture, strobe, colour replacement, a tunnel effect of picture-in-picture to infinity. This is not so much visual enhancement as just pushing buttons randomly.

Closing titles: Leon Haywood,  Don’t Push It, Don’t Force It [30].

Performance of the week: Judas Priest: Living After Midnight.