Top of the Pops 14 Mar 1985

Reviewed by Chris Arnsby. Mike Smith: “Good evening. We have a great crowd in here tonight and some fabulous tunes. Welcome to Top of the Pops.” Gary Davies: “And making their debut on the show tonight with a great song called We Close Our Eyes, Go West.”

[16] Go West: We Close Our Eyes. I'm still on my YouTube adventure so this episode has more sources than HP. We start our journey with a file called Top of the Pops 14/3/85 p1.Excitingly, this starts with the (then) brand new BBC1 computer generated globe and the continuity announcer “Rodney's aspirations to become a rock star receive a fatal blow from brother Del in Only Fools and Horses which is why he's not appearing in Top of the Pops, introduced this evening by Mike Smith and Gary Davies”. Top of the Pops 14/3/85 p1 cuts out as Go West start singing. Disappointingly the only other copy of this performance was uploaded 10 years ago and the picture quality is blockier than a Lego set. It's recorded from an edition of TOTP2 so assorted POP FACTs start popping up on the screen. Thus we learn that “Birthday boy Peter Cox is 42 on Tuesday.” How does that work? Is always going to be 42 next Tuesday? And “The band didn't take their name from the Village People. And have nothing to do with cowboys” Who knew, everyone in Go West suffered from pistolpetaphobia.

Go West- We Close Our Eyes (except when its snowing)

[2] Philip Bailey & Phil Collins: Easy Lover. On video. Which reminds me, The Radio Times entry for this edition included a plug for the Top of the Pops VHS, priced at an outrageous £14.35. It featured studio performances from; Blancmange, Living On The Ceiling; Mobiles, Drowning In Berlin; Fun Boy Three, Summertime; Duran Duran, Rio; UB40, So Here I Am; Haircut One Hundred, Nobody's Fool; A Flock Of Seagulls, Wishing (If I Had A Photograph Of You); The Jam, Beat Surrender; Haysi Fantayzee, John Wayne Is Big Leggy; Monsoon, Ever So Lonely; Gillan, Living For The City; The Maisonettes, Heartache Avenue; Toyah, Be Proud, Be Loud (Be Heard); Genesis, Paperlate; and Madness, Our House.

"Alright, Phil?" "Ok Phil"

[11] Alison Moyet: That Ole Devil Called Love. A jazz song covered by, among others, Billie Holiday, Tony Bennett, and Ella Fitzgerald. It's also a song that exposes my innate philistinism. It's simple and well sung but it does nothing for me. 
Top 40 Breakers: [26] New Edition, Mr Telephone Man; [24] Sheila E, The Belle Of St Mark; [15] Nik Kershaw, Wide Boy. 
[9] Paul Young: Everytime You Go Away. Paul Young appears to have a thing for the number 9. His last single Everything Must Change spent nine weeks in the Top 40 and was becalmed for over a month at the number 9 slot. Numerology fans will be delighted to realise that there are also nine people on stage; Paul Young plus his overstaffed eight-piece band. And how many letters are there in the name P-A-U-L Y-O-U-N-G...? Oh, and look nine vowels in the song title.
Paul, you are plainly suffering from the curse of nine. You need to ditch the current band and team up again with The Fabulously Wealthy Tarts (no honestly, that was their name). With only three people on stage you can advance another six chart places. Wait three plus six... why that equals...!

Paul Young- Every Time You Go Away...You take my boat with you.

[10] Prince, Let's Go Crazy; [9] Paul Young, Everytime You Go Away; [8] Elaine Paige & Barbara Dickson, I Know Him So Well; [7] Jermaine Jackson, Do What You Do; [6] David Cassidy, The Last Kiss; [5] Commodores, Nightshift; [4] Stephen Tin Tin Duffy, Kiss Me; [3] Madonna, Material Girl;[2] Philip Bailey & Phil Collins, Easy Lover.

[1] Dead Or Alive: You Spin Me Round (Like A Record). And here's where the limitations of Youtube become apparent. “This video contains content from WMG, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.” It turns out WNG and Youtube fell out in 2008. The lovers tiff was resolved the following year, but songs from WMG are often blocked. Which is a bit of a bummer. I'm not sure which of the Top 10 videos has resulted in this block. Elaine Paige, David Cassidy, The Commodores, Madonna, and Phil Collins are all, or were, represented by WMG. Dead Or Alive don't seem to be the cause of the block. There assorted Top of the Pops performances are all over Youtube. Except for this one. There's the 14/02/1985 edition (sunglasses), 28/02/1985 (banana yellow suit), 07/03/1985 (eyepatch and giant fright wig), and a performance from the Christmas 1985 edition of Top of the Pops which I'm not allowed to watch yet, because it's April.
For some reason the 14/03/1985 performance has fallen into the memory hole. Maybe this was one of the shows which didn't get a UKGold broadcast. Anyway, as a substitute why not go to Youtube and watch the inaccurately named DEAD OR ALIVE You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) TOTP Top Of The Pops which is actually recorded from BBC2's Oxford Road Show. 
[4] Stephen Tin Tin Duffy: Kiss Me. Audience dancing, and credits.