Top of the Pops 22 & 29 January 1987

 

22 Jan 1987: Presented by Chris Arnsby. Steve Wright: “Weeell good evening and welcome to another exciting Top of the Pops with Gary Davies and me, Steve Wright!!” Gary Davies: “Yup. He's the stars and I'm the stripes. Action packed programme for you. We start off with Dead or Alive.” 

[12] Dead Or Alive: Something In My House. Last week I got terribly excited by a snippet of studio footage at the end of my downloaded copy of the 15/01/1987 edition. “It's a band of four and one of them has a bouffant hairdo and is carrying a guitar.” Now, who should open this edition of Top of the Pops but Dead or Alive, a band of four with a bouffant haired lead singer carrying a guitar. Could this be the performance recorded at the end of 15/01/1987 edition? Initially it seems like a dead cert. Vision Mixer Hilary West cuts from the hosts to a wide shot of the band on stage, which is what you'd expect if they were transitioning from a recorded as live introduction to a performance played in from VT. Except... visible behind Gary Davies and Steve Wright are a few studio cheerleaders; one in a red-ish dress, and three dark-haired women standing in a group with one, on a step, higher than the other two. What do we see behind Dead Or Alive? A woman in a red-ish dress and, you guessed it, a group of dark-haired women.
It seems there are two options. Option A) The BBC cares enough about continuity that it made sure the studio cheerleaders were consistent across a performance and an introduction recorded on two different weeks. Option B) Top of the Pops paid for Gary Davies and Steve Wright to come in a week early and record an introduction for a performance which might not be used if Something In My House stiffed. Neither seem likely, so lets introduce Option C) I'm mistaken, the band glimpsed in the behind the scenes footage wasn't Dead Or Alive. It certainly looked like Pete Burns' silhouette.

 

Meanwhile, Dead Or Alive have bowed to the inevitable and released You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) for a second time, or at least a song that sounds a lot like it. Terry Brett is Lighting Director this week, and he lights Pete Burns from below with a flat pale blue light. It makes him look terrifying. Oh, and check out the instrumental when Pete Burns finally unleashes his guitar. He holds the dread instrument limply across his waist and thrums vaguely at it, and generally gives the impression he's never seen a guitar before. No wonder he casts it to one side when the instrumental is over.
[13] UB40: Rat In Mi Kitchen. On video in Russia.

[20] Randy Crawford: Almaz. A song which has meandered since it first entered at [91] on the chart for the week 22/11/1986. It's spent two months going up and down the charts; [72], [57], [58], [56], [50], [60], [56], [35] and will stick around for another eight weeks, peaking at [4], before slipping back down the Top 100.

Top 40 Charts: Randy Crawford's record company is too cheap to supply a photo for the chart countdown, so Top of the Pops has to use a still from her performance.

[15] Curiosity Killed The Cat: Down To Earth. Invest in berets. They're about to become 1987's hot fashion item. I never much liked Curiosity Killed The Cat as a teen. They seemed a bit smug and pleased with themselves. Watching them now, I struggle to find the source of my unreasonable teenage bile and then lead singer Ben Volpeliere-Pierrot starts dancing and posing like he thinks the Sister Sledge song He's the Greatest Dancer was written about him... a great big acid burp of rage bubbles up.

It's only dancing. I don't need to make such a big deal about it. I'm hardly in Curiosity Killed The Cat's demographic anyway. Think about nice things. Count the number of week's Top of the Pops has used a still from the opening titles as a background to the closing credits. I am calm. I am a lake reflecting the sky... Oh God, Ben's nodding his head and sloping his eyebrows in a quizzical way.

Pause for calming breaths. I am a cloud. Unburdened from the ground. No anger to hold me down.

Ben Volpeliere-Pierrot's Wikipedia page has a section called Post-Curiosity which makes it sound like he is no longer interested in things.

[24] Taffy, I Love My Radio; [22] Pepsi & Shirlie, Heartache.
[14] Siouxsie And the Banshees: This Wheel's On Fire. Siouxsie Sioux has a Pete Burns style bouffant hairdo, could this has been the song carried over from last week? No, the camera pans straight from Steve Wright to the band. They're all in the same studio together.
Top 10 Charts.

[1] Steve 'Silk' Hurley: Jack Your Body. “Here's a guy who had a choice of appearing on Top of the Pops tonight, or getting married. Guess what? He got married.” Really Gary? The video's pretty good. A well edited and neatly timed selection of clips which raise a few laughs in places; the shot of the women being tossed in the air as someone (Mr Hurley himself?” grunts “hurgh” on the soundtrack and then a second clip of one of the women being caught accompanied by a more satisfied “haagh” from the audio. The clip of the dancing pantomime horse is best. I think I could watch a full three minutes of that.

[7] Swing Out Sister: Surrender. On video. Mike Smith next week.

 PERFORMANCE OF THE WEEK: Dead Or Alive, Something In My House.

 29 Jan 1987: Mike Smith: “Very good evening. Welcome to Television Centre for Top of the Pops. We've got some great hits coming up tonight. Lets cross over to this stage here for this week's number seven, here's Pepsi and Shirlie and Heartache.”

 [7] Pepsi & Shirlie: Heartache.  Tonight's programme starts with a Wham! double feature. Former backing singers Pepsi & Shirlie, followed by George Michael. Heartache is fine. It's one of those songs which washes over you and leaves no trace, then two days later you realise you are absent-mindedly humming the chorus while you empty the washing machine. Whoever chose Pepsi and Shirlie's wardrobe has decided a little sex appeal won't hurt. The pair are both wearing short skirts and long socks which give them a slightly schoolgirlish appearance; 1987 being a time when a sexy schoolgirl image was seen as more charming and innocent than it is now. Pepsi's skirt is perhaps an inch shorter than Shirlie's, but it's a crucial inch. The shots from the camera operators stationed at audience level, looking up at the pair on stage, are largely restricted to above-the-waist pictures. Was there debate about precisely how much titillation was appropriate for the audience at home?

[2] Areatha Franklin & George Michael: I Knew You Were Waiting For Me. On video.

[20] Raze: Jack the Groove. “Now for the past three weeks on Top of the Pops there's been this band called Raze in the chart rundown. We've never known what they look like. They've come in from New York to join us 'cause they're at number twenty. This is Jack the Groove, Raze.” It's all true you know. Raze have been illustrated on the chart rundown by an enigmatic still. A black triangle with the word RAZE block printed, with a drop shadow behind. The real mystery is, from where did Top of the Pops source this image? It's not the single cover.

Producer and Director Stanley Appel keeps up the mystery by starting Mike Smith's introduction with the camera facing the host, and pointing away from Raze. As Smitty talks the camera pans and zooms back. Raze are revealed as Smith says “we've never known what they look like.” They're a trio. Two men and one woman.

Unfortunately, what this trio have brought all the way from New York  is a very sparse and po-faced dance routine which harks back to the days of Flick Colby's Zoo and their multimedia studio-dance-installation/performance/happenings. No one on the Top of the Pops crew seems to know how to make Raze's performance work. Although, to be fair to the team they are trying stuff which has worked in the past. We get head to toe shots of the group dancing, which is great for people like Jeffrey Daniels doing Night To Remember (24/06/1982) but falls flat here because the tiny figures doing faux-ballet moves in the middle-distance just look isolated and silly. And the cutting between cameras is too slow. Again, this is great for charismatic lead singers like Daryl Pandy, but here each shot lingers too long and the energy dissipates.

Could this performance be “fixed”? Yes. Almost certainly. Lose the instruments which line the stage and surround and hem Raze in, and give the impression the band are trying to dance in a tiny four foot square. In fact, get the band off the stage. Get them to perform at audience level with the crowd around them. Use a couple of hand held cameras and keep them moving, and pick up the pace of the shot changes. This ends up as a worthy attempt to bring something new to the kids in the studio but it fails. The problem is, you need failures like this to learn what doesn't work.

[3] Robbie Neville: C'est La Vie. I've obsessed about the snippet of behind the scenes footage tacked on to the 15/01/1986 edition for the last couple of weeks. Finally, I think this is it. Here's the case for the prosecution; 1) Robbie Neville has the required bouffant hairdo and guitar. 2) It's recorded on the same main Top of the Pops stage. 3) Mike Smith isn't fooling anyone when he says “meanwhile down over here,” and points off screen, only for Vision Mixer Carol Abbott to cut to the pre-recorded footage via a Quantel mix. Case closed!

Top 40 Charts. Raze have their mysterious graphic replaced with a photograph taken on the Top of the Pops set. That's very unsporting, what if they preferred the other picture?
[25] Vesta Williams: Once Bitten Twice Shy. Mike Smith flubs his introduction, “Vesta Williams she's from Ohio in Cali... and she lives in California...” Smith smirks and his voice wobbles slightly but he drives on like a pro and finishes the link. Should we go for a retake Mr Appel? No, the relentless pressure of recorded as live means there's no time. No Time.

Is the opening line of this song really “Your name is Dracula/You suck the life right out of me.” Yes. Yes it is. But then a later line is “Once bitten, twice shy/And be suspicious when the moon's high.” That's the Wolfman, Vesta, not Dracula.

Once Bitten Twice Shy is notable for having a lyric which the internet has decided cannot be understood. Every lyric website I checked listed has a line which reads “Why am I here tied up today?/In a room full of past [Incomprehensible].” I listened to it twice and I couldn't make it out either.

Top 40 Breakers: [27] The Blow Monkeys, It Doesn't Have To Be This Way' [24] Michael Crawford & Sarah Brightman, Music of the Night.

[15] Taffy: I Love My Radio. Mike Smith is joined on one of the studio bridges by a woman dressed in orange. It's Taffy, she's “from Deptford”, the idea came from “just made it up,” and she's “5'11'' or 6' when her hair's up.” So far so bog standard for one of Top of the Pops' probing Weekend World style interviews but the twist comes when Taffy runs down the stairs to the stage and launches straight into the song. If only Weekend World had done something similar. A boring interview with Leon Brittan, who then jogs to the B-stage for a couple of verses of Ça Plane Pour Moi.
Top 10 Charts: This week Randy Crawford's record company have remembered to send a photo for the chart countdown
[1] Steve 'Silk' Hurley: Jack Your Body. Next week's show is presented by Janice Long and John Peel. Wait, surely it's too early for goodbyes. No. Stanley Appel has boldly chosen to tamper with the format. Michael Hurll must be away. It makes sense for the programme to play out on the Number 1 song, when it's on video and a repeat. It's not a completely original decision on Stanley's part. Top of the Pops has ended on the Number 1 before, most recently (as far as I can tell) with Paul Hardcastle's 19 on 06/06/1985.

 And then...

 When the video for Jack Your Body finishes my copy of Top of the Pops still has four minutes to run. After a brief fade to black the picture returns on A-ha, lit a sultry blue by Terry Brett again -who obviously likes the way it looks. A-ha then perform Manhattan Skyline, not released until 16 February.

I'm downloading Top of the Pops direct from Doctor Terror's vault of horror (https://mega.nz/folder/h0snQACa#uiNNqosfbdrfzODHsE1clw/folder/kpVhQAqJ) and now they all seem to be copies digitized directly from the BBC Archive (they start with countdown clocks as well). There's no behind the scenes footage, just the song, captionless obviously because they'll be added as live when this recording is played into the appropriate episode.

 Performance of the week:  Taffy, I Love My Radio (John- Surely you mean Aha, Manhattan Skyline?)