Reviewed by Chris
Arnsby. Andy Peebles: "Hello. Good evening. A very good welcome to Top
of the Pops and heeere's Janice." Janice Long: "And we've got some
great things in the show; Depeche Mode, Howard Jones, and Freeez, but at number
twenty-four it's Love Will Find A Way from David Grant."
[24] Love Will Find A Way: David Grant. Towards the
end of the instrumental, David Grant drops into a crouch and has a go at one of
these break dancing moves he's been hearing so much about lately. It's clearly
something he's still learning because he does it at half speed and it looks
very lacklustre. David Grant's not a bad dancer, but this is a pretty dull song
and performance to start Top of the Pops, and the timing is not great
because coming up next is...
[6] The Rocksteady Crew: (Hey You) The Rocksteady Crew.
On film from New York. Here to give David Grant a lesson in dancing are Crazy
Legz, Prince Ken Swift, Kuriaki, and two others whose identity I'm not sure
about. Their names have been overlaid in a font that's quite tricky to read.
One of them is called Buck and the word Buck is then followed by a number 4
that's made up of smaller number 4's; so that would be Buck 4? Or possibly Buck
4444444. Then there's someone whose name I can't make out at all; it might be
dBze. Is that a sideways letter n? Could he be called dBne? I don't know. Any
way, the Rocksteady Crew are the funkiest RSC this side of the Royal
Shakespeare Company.
[3] Howard Jones: New Song. Howard Jones has brought
Jed along "of course," as Janice Long says. Also along for the night
are the Howard Jones fan club. I can't think of anyone else who would be quite
so enthusiastic; e.g. Howard presses a button on his keyboard= chorus of
excited whoops from crowd. Oh, and now they're all singing along to the
"ooh-ooh-ooh" bit in the chorus. There's too much audience
participation for my tastes
[25] Billy Joel: Uptown Girl. On film, obviously.
Billy Joel doesn't do Top of the Pops. Half the successes of this song
must be down to the promo. The two seem indivisible in a way that Karma Chameleon -to pick a random example- isn't from it's
video.
[36] Gary Numan: Sister
Surprise. Gary Numan has eased off on the
orthopaedic Mad Max look he was sporting when he performed Warriors (01/09/1983
edition) but he's still wearing a lot of black leather. You'll have plenty of
time to study his clothing as this song eats up almost five minutes of valuable
Top of the Pops time; and it outstays its welcome after two. Be grateful
for small mercies, on the album this song runs for eight minutes. Imagine if
they'd played the full version, the next song would have to be dropped.
[26] Freeez: Pop Goes My Love. The next song turns out to be Friz. Who are still
monstrously rubbish. Maybe playing eight minutes of Gary Numan wouldn't have
been such a bad thing after all.
[30] Elton John: Kiss The Bride. "Elton John's been doing really great things in the
charts this year," says Janice Long. Has he? I say in reply. It appears
Elton John has been affected by the Curse Of The Human League (try reading that
in a spooky Gothic font). The Human League sprang into BBC4's repeat of the
1981 charts fully formed, like Athena from the head of Zeus (culture), with
Don't You Want Me because their previous hits were all performed on shows which
couldn't be shown. In 1983 Elton John appeared on Top of the Pops eight
times and BBC4 skipped five of these editions. I'm Still Standing was the most
unlucky song. All three performances were not shown, including one snipped from
an episode with Andy Peebles and Peter Powell because it was part of the US
Chart Update hosted by J-n-th-n K-ng. Anyway here's the bonkers video for Kiss
The Bride in which an uncomfortable looking Elton John is dressed in a morning
suit and perched on a pile of cars for a cold night shoot.
[21] Depeche Mode: Love In
Itself 2. Depeche Mode are surrounded by
the audience, so there's some amusement to be had from watching the crowd dance
uncertainly to the stop-start tempo of the song.
[13] Men Without Hats: The
Safety Dance. On film. I'll always have
time for this song, if only because of the bravura way Ivan Doroschuk rhymes
dance and hands.
[1] Culture Club: Karma
Chameleon. A repeat from the 22/09/83
edition.
[17] Meat Loaf : Midnight At
The Lost & Found. Audience dancing and
the closing credits.
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