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19/05/2023

Top of the Pops 1988- April 1988 Mega Post !

Reviewed by Chris Arnsby 

07/04/1988
Gary Davies: “It's the UK's number one pop show. Hello. Welcome to Top of the Pops. In an action packed programme tonight we have Hazel Dean, Ben Goldsmith, Scott Fitzgerald, and the Pet Shop Boys.”
Simon Mayo: “And we are starting at number fifteen. She's been chased by the press everywhere. Taylor Dayne, Prove Your Love.”

 [15] TAYLOR DAYNE: prove your love. The audience are rowdy tonight. To the left of Gary Davies a couple of blokes (one with a very eighties flattop) run through the gamut of Top of the Pops audience reactions; they applaud, they whoop, they wave at the camera (well, flattop appears to be waving not at the camera but at the image of himself on the monitor which suggests some remedial understanding is required of how television works), they smirk, and they round off by doing some ironic dancing.

Taylor Dayne has been “chased by the press everywhere,” according to Simon Mayo. A quick, free, search of the British Newspaper archive reveals 1988 was certainly Taylor Dayne's year; 486 results compared to 49 in 1987 and 80 in 1989. The most intriguing* result is from the Daily Mirror, 05/02/1988, “*SEXY new pop sensation Taylor Dayne has launched an attack on Madonna, with whom she is constantly compared. Taylor at No. 8 with her wonderful single Tell It To My Heart can't bear Madonna's tarty image. She ...” Alas for research, that's where the free preview ends. 




[13] FLEETWOOD MAC: everywhere. On video, with “a lot of snogging,” according to G.Davis, London, W12 8QT.

TOP 40 FROM 40 TO 31.

[16] GLEN GOLDSMITH: dreaming. I've got nothing. [inspiration strikes] What does the free British Library Newspaper archive tell us? Glen Goldsmith appeared live somewhere in the Bridgewater area, admission £3, that was February 1988. You could catch him in Liverpool in November 1988 at DISCO ALL NIGHT with Jacki Graham and Bruno Brookes. More topically for this write up the Aberdeen Evening Express, 01/04/1988, ran an interview with Glen. Sadly the free preview only reveals this titbit. “...thing he did often. 'No not at all', replied Glen a bit surprised. 'In fact they made the whole thing up. Basically I’m a really boring guy who just likes to get on with music.' You said it Glen old chum! So Glen, what scandal have you got to thrill our readers ...”



TOP 40 BREAKERS: I've been a bit lax about reporting minor format tweaks recently (for shame) so in an effort to make amends... Paul Ciani has been getting the hosts to introduce the Breakers while standing in front of a bank of monitors showing the Top of the Pops logo. (In fact, Paul seems quite keen on bringing a bit of branding to the show, check out the pan during Taylor Dayne's song which starts on a wall-mounted Top of the Pop's logo before sweeping round to the band). This bank of monitors has previously been set up on one of the stages, but that obviously reduces the amount of performance space, so this week the monitors are in a corner of the studio. This is worth commenting on because the Breakers are introduced with a shot which slowly zooms towards our two hosts giving:

A) us a chance to see the studio floor. It's painted black and looks a bit lumpy.

B) confirms that the Top of the Pops hosts do indeed have legs. We normally only see them in mid-shots cropped at the waist.

The Breakers. [no 24 NATALIE COLE pink cadillac]; [no 23 PEBBLES girlfriend]; [no 22 AC/DC that's the way i wanna rock and roll]; [no 25TAYLOR DAYNE prove your love].

[20] HAZELL DEAN: who's leaving who. Gary's still in Breaker's corner to introduce Hazell Dean. Paul Ciani has made me a liar. This isn't a corner of the studio. It's one of the stages. The studio lights have been turned up a bit and now I can properly see the perspex scenery around the edge. Also, the picture on the monitor has been tweaked. It's now showing the Top of the Pops logo (branding, again) and the magic of Quantel has been used to make the logo rotate as if it was pasted to the outside of a box.

Hazell Dean is on a corner stage, with two sets of stairs down from scenery walkways acting as stage wings. Floor Manager Iain McLean has arranged a string of audience members down the stairs on one side, along the back of the stage, and then up the stairs on the other side. I've already mentioned that the audience are particularly boisterous tonight, and this means a line of excited dancing people can always be seen in the background. Chris Kempton's Lighting colours the crowd at the front of the stage orange, and the people at the back blue, while Hazell Dean stands out because she's lit with while spotlights.

The overall effect is to take a song which is fun but pretty average and give it a boost via the presentation; which is, sort of, the Top of the Pops mission statement.

TOP 40 FROM 30 TO 11.



UK SONG FOR EUROPE, SCOTT FITZGERALD: go. April? Again? How jejune. Scott Fitzgerald has actually been on Top of the Pops before with two performances of a duet with Yvonne Keeley, If I Had Words; 19/01/1978 and 02/02/1978.

Go is a dreary ballad. Naturally I headed to Wikipedia to look up the song's fate, somewhere around seventeenth would be my guess. Nestling in the bottom third of the scores. However...

This dreary ballad came second. And only lost by one point. To Switzerland. How did that happen? The UK is traditionally out of step with Eurovision, releasing bouncy disco songs in years when slow songs clog up the top positions and vice versa. Except in 1988 we somehow got the timing right and did really well. The UK was ahead, 133 points to Switzerland's 118, with three countries left to vote. And the contest was only lost because the final three countries were a triumvirate of Britain's historical enemies; the French (no points to the UK, 1 point to Switzerland); Portugal (UK 3 points, Switzerland 12); and Yugoslavia (no points to the UK, Switzerland 6 points).

The winning Swiss song was called Ne partez pas sans moi (No Parties at my House) and it was sung by Céline Dion. So, My Heart Will Go On is the fault of France, Portugal, and Yugoslavia. Scott Fitzgerald is singing out of Breakers Corner, with the eight monitors now showing the output of one of the cameras.

TOP 10. Oh no! Bros are stuck at [2] again. What a personal disaster.

[1] PET SHOP BOYS: heart. Chris Lowe has gone for a nautical theme to celebrate mucking Bros around. He's dressed in assorted shades of blue, wearing a light blue t-shirt with The Yacht Club written on it, and wearing a sailor's cap.

For the first time, Quantel transitions are used on a non-dance music song. Vision Mixer Hilary Briegel spins the picture off screen on some of the orchestral stabs. A freeze frame is also used to good effect towards the end of the song, when the music briefly pauses.

[21] JELLYBEAN/ADELE BERTEI: just a mirage. Bruno Brookes and Steve Wright host next week. Bluegh.

 *actually, the most intriguing article of all is the next one down in the list of search results. A story which has been rendered nonsensical by weird formatting. 20/12/1988, Staffordshire Newsletter, “Sooty snag is solved A SOOTY snag could have Dayne Taylor has offered to snuffed out Santa Claus in take down and rebuild the Church Eaton this Christmas. chimney for free, so long as The chimney of the Village villagers pay for the scaffold- Institute.”

All about that what's?

 PERFORMANCE OF THE WEEK: Hazell Dean, Who's Leaving Who.

 The Roxy Playlist, 05/04/1988: Studio Performances; Jermaine Stewart, Get Lucky; T'Pau , Sex Talk; Lloyd Cole & the Commotions, From the Hip; Pat & Mick, Let's All Chant; Bananarama, I Want You Back. On video; Aswad, Don't Turn Around.

That was the last episode of The Roxy (you can watch it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHmMbw8oYYI). Hosted by David Jensen, Pat Sharp, and  Paul Nolan.

The last edition featured a performance of Let's All Chant by Pat & Mick aka Capital Radio's Mick Brown and Pat Sharp. You know, one of the hosts of The Roxy. Obviously it's great for The Roxy  to have one of the hosts introduce their own record (a privilage denied to D*v* L** Tr*v*s when his terrible single Convoy UK featured on Top of the Pops, 29/04/1976) and it will be interesting to see how Top of the Pops copes when it enters the Gallup Top 40.

 14/04/1988
Steve Wright: “Hello!! Good evening!! And welcome to Europe's number one TV pop show!! With me Steve Wright!! And Bruno Brookes, 'ere!!”

Bruno Brookes: “Thank you very much. And we start with Bananarama who have the highest climber on the chart this week at fourteen. I Want You Back!”

 [14] BANANARAMA: i want you back. Banarama enter a new phase following the departure of Siobhan Fahey, and her replacement Jacquie O'Sullivan.

It's been about eight months since Bananarama last graced the studio, I Heard A Rumour 16/07/1987. That was the performance where they brought along three oiled men wearing baseball hats, sunglasses, shorts, socks, and shoes. This time Bananarama are once again supported by three men but they are more sensibly dressed for the changeable spring weather. It's not a satisfying performance. The song sounds squeaky. It's produced by the inevitable Stock, Aitken, and Dennis Waterman and maybe the problem is that it sounds a lot like a lot of other songs in the charts. The performance also looks a bit over rehearsed. Overall, it's an unsatisfying package. Bruno Brookes microphone isn't turned up enough as he back announces Bananarama and much of what he says is lost under the studio noise.



[11] NATALIE COLE: pink cadillac. On video.

TOP 40 FROM 40 TO 31. Actually, I'm not sure if the problem is with Bruno Brookes microphone. He's perfectly audible going into the charts but what he says sounds like, “Natalie Cole's turbo and suits Steve that.” All the words are recognisable but, like some of the assemblages of words that fall out of Simon Bates' mouth, it doesn't make a lick of sense.

[3] CLIMIE FISHER: love changes (everything). Simon Climie now looks 67% more comfortable with being the lead singer of a pop group than he did on the band's first appearance; all the way back on 31/12/1987. He decides to sing the opening lines of the song directly to someone in the audience. He crouches down, gazes into their eyes and then scuffs their hair. Disappointingly the camera cuts away before we can see the reaction of the person he did this to.

TOP 40 BREAKERS: Typical, I mention Breakers' Corner for the first time last week and it's disappeared. Bruno and Steve introduce the Breakers from in front of the big colour screen on the main stage.
[no 20 DEF LEPPARD armageddon it]; [no 25 S-EXPRESS theme from s-express]; [no 23 T'PAU sex talk]; [22 JERMAINE STEWART get lucky]

[15] JELLYBEAN/ADELE BERTEI: just a mirage. Jellybean featured three times on Top of the Pops USA. Now that's been cancelled he has to fly across the Atlantic to stand behind a keyboard wearing a hat, while the camera focuses on his companion. 

Chris Kempton's Lighting has been a bit dull so far. Very sensible. Very blue and purple. Now he goes nuts and throws caution to the wind. Jellybean's stage is lit fiery orange and yellow. It looks like the apocalypse is breaking out in a small corner of studio TC3. It looks great.

TOP 40 FROM 30 TO 11.
[13] PEBBLES: girlfriend.
Another traveller across the Atlantic. If only there was some American music programme that Top of the Pops could pull performances from. You could call it The American Roxy
Once again Chris Kempton pulls out the Lighting manual and throws it away. The colour of Girlfriend is deemed to be purple with neon pink highlights, and there's a mirrorball at the back of the stage because, well just because. The perspex scenery picks up the colours of the pink lights and looks weirdly organic at times.

Pebbles herself is wearing a purple ruffled dress with a ragged, lacy cut at the bottom. She slinks across the stage, ankle deep in dry ice and while this is obviously a well practiced performance it feels more natural than the one from Bananarama. I can't stress how good this all looks. Helped by some inventive hand held camera work. The best moment of the programme comes when one of the camera operators crouches down at the side of the stage and catches an upward angle taking in Pebbles, the purple and pink scenery, the mirror ball, and the dry ice rolling off the stage in the foreground like a waterfall.



TOP 10. Poor Bros, [2] again.

[1] PET SHOP BOYS: heart. A repeat of last week's performance.
[2] BROS: drop the boy. Simon Bates and Peter Powell next week. ¡Ay, caramba! Top of the Pops closes with Craig and his support band on video.

 PERFORMANCE OF THE WEEK: Pebbles, Girlfriend.

 21/04/1988
Peter Powell: “Hello! Welcome to another edition of Top of the Pops which I think tonight features a future number one and certainly the biggest dance record in Britain at the moment!”
Simon Bates: “And it's the return of the platform heels. Here's a lady called Sheelo. She is six foot two inches in her heels, she's standing next to Michelle of S-Express on Top of the Pops at number three.”

 [3] S-EXPRESS: theme from s-express. I can't check Simon Bates' “Sheelo” POP FACT. Google is resistant to giving me any search results for Sheelo and S-Express. (I apologise in advance if I'm spelling her name wrong but I don't have subtitles available).

Writing about the 23/03/1988 edition, I talked about how the presentation of Bass (How Low Can You Go) didn't do the song any favours. I feel the presentation of Theme From S-Express comes perilously close to making the same mistakes. Paul Ciani is very fond of his long, slow, panning crane shots but they don't always work. The problem is, during the crane shots, there's a lot of stuff going on “over there” [*makes arm waving motions*] in the middle distance but it's too far from the audience at home to have any impact. Then sometimes we cut from a panning crane shot to another panning crane shot and it the visual presentation feels slow and repetitive. Compare it to the moments where handheld camera operators are dashing around on the stage getting right in the middle of the action. Those moments are exciting, especially when one of the handheld operators moves in so close to Mark Moore that his camera gets bonked by the edge of Moore's keytar.

Less crane shots. More handheld action. Get on it Paul. You need to be more Michael Hurll. Work your studio crew harder and faster*. I've also mentioned before that Paul Ciani seems much keener on branding. He finally reaches the logical conclusion and uses the Top of the Pops logo as the background to some of the Quantel transitions.

My new favourite fact -and apologies to everyone who already knew this- the bloke saying “enjoy this trip/and it is a trip” is Gene Roddenbery. It's taken from a spoken word record called Inside Star Trek, and you can hear the originals here https://youtu.be/pZrRY-SLAig?t=270



[14] GEORGE MICHAEL: one more try. On video. Good news for worried George Michael fans, Peter Powell reveals he's “just reunited with his girlfriend in San Tropez.”

TOP 40 FROM 40 TO 31.
[15] DANNY WILSON: mary's prayer.
No one in Danny Wilson is called Danny Wilson, or indeed Danny or Wilson. Why would they lie about something like that?

TOP 40 BREAKERS: Breaker's Corner is back and Simon Bates and Peter Powell stand in front of monitors arranged into two 2x2 groups. In what can only be described as a presentation breakthrough, the picture on the monitors alternate so that some are displaying the Breakers logo full screen, while the others are displaying the Breakers logo on the side of a rotating cube. [no 19 PAT & MICK let's all chant]; [no 21 WILL DOWNING a love supreme]; [no 25 JAMES BROWN the payback mix (part one)]; [no 24 PATRICK SWAYZE FEATURING WENDY FRASER she's like the wind] -or, according to Simon Bates, “She Likes The Wind.”
[17] JERMAINE STEWART: get lucky. This week Jermaine has A Flock of Seagulls style hair.
TOP 40 FROM 30 TO 11.

[6] HAZELL DEAN: who's leaving who. Simon Bates goes wildly off road during his Hazell Dean introduction. “There's a lady who always has a summer hit,” it's April Simon and also, always doesn't really cover two Top Ten songs in 1984 and followed by another in 1988, but please continue. “Third time lucky...” What? “...It's spring into summer.” What?

TOP 10.
[1] PET SHOP BOYS: heart.
On video.
[10] THE JACKSON FIVE: i want you back. Gary Davies and Nicky Campbell host next week.

 *oo-er missus. Etc.

 PERFORMANCE OF THE WEEK: S-Express, Theme from S-Express.

28/04/1988 
Housekeeping first. Thanks to mumu03 who commented under titanic March 1988 megathread. He pointed me in the direction of this link https://www.theatrecrafts.com/archive/documents/lsi_01_topofthepops.pdf and a 1985 interview with Eric Wallis, Lighting Deity (as I believe was his official BBC designation). It's a really interesting insight into the way the programme was lit and how visual effects, the set designer, and lighting director all work together to define the final look of each episode. It was clear the new sets, introduced 19/11/1987, were the product of teamwork because they were so carefully designed to pick up and reflect the studio lighting. However, I didn't realise this cooperation was a weekly event. In my naivety I assumed each department turned up for Wednesday recording and did their own thing as directed by Paul Ciani. I also didn't realise Top of the Pops ignored most of the studio lighting and instead rented a lot of kit on a regular basis. This explains why Top of the Pops looks so much better than other BBC shows; see this virtually contemporary Going Live!* performance of I Want You Back by Bananarama from 02/04/1988 https://youtu.be/FmWXo54PWb4?t=3157

We now return you to your scheduled programme.

 Gary Davies: “Hello. We're so glad to see you again. Welcome to another Top of the Pops. In the studio tonight we have Fairground Attraction, Bananarama, Will Downing, and S-Express. And Nicky Campbell!”
Nicky Campbell: “Oh yes. Thank you very much. But we're going to start off this evening with a London based band who are zooming up the charts with a charity record. Here's Mick and Pat.”



[15] PAT & MICK: let's all chant. Check out Gary Davies' smirk when Nicky Campbell refers to “a London based band.” It's the funniest thing he's heard for ages. Obviously it's a dig at Pat & Mick, the Capital FM DJs who are raising money for Capital's Help a London Child charity drive, but I'm sure it's all jolly-good-knockabout-fun and everyone had a laugh about it in the BBC bar afterwards; as is referring to the pair as “Mick and Pat.”

Let's All Chant is a weapon grade earworm and breaches two multinational treaties. Listen carefully to the audience cheers and applause mixed into the title sequence and you'll hear some diabolical fiend cutting loose with a pre-emptive “woop-woop.”

Pat Sharp briefly worked for Radio 1 in 1982/83 and hosted a few Top of the Pops; 02/12/1982, 30/12/1982, 10/02/1983, 26/05/1983, and 21/07/1983. In fact, Gary Davies and Pat Sharp were both hired at the same time and introduced as new bugs on the 02/12/1982 show along with Janice Long. Pat Sharp was also one of the hosts of The Roxy. I wonder if it was a little frustrating for the Top of the Pops team, they've just seen off the competition and now its ghost is back, risen from the grave like one of those Draculas which were such a nuisance in the late eighties.

What else? There's been a slight redesign of the main stage with the addition of a couple of podiums for the four dancers. Permanent or temporary? Stay tuned! The podiums keep the audience back further from the edge of the stage than usual so this is the first time I've really noticed the steps running from the front of the stage to the floor, although they've pretty much always been part of the set.

“All of that money goes to charity, probably how to teach Pat Sharp how to dance,” Gary joshes at the end of the performance. Still I'm sure it's all  jolly-good-knockabout-fun and so on and so on.

[14] JAMES BROWN: the playback mix. Yes. I know the single is called The Payback Mix Part One but round these parts we go by the BBC caption. Oh, and congratulations to the audience member who does this during Gary's introduction...



TOP 40 FROM 40 TO 31

[12] FAIRGROUND ATTRACTION: perfect. My dad didn't much like this song. He thought it was weedy. I can see his point. The song's jaunty but a bit twee and hearing it played to death on the radio, and then in a million ASDA adverts didn't help.

Lead singer Eddi Reader leans into the folky-free-spirit sound by waving her arms and spinning round in a circle so her big coat billows out around her. This makes her a bit of a menace when she gains in confidence towards the end of the song and her billowing coat threatens to get in the faces of the drummer and guitarist. No wonder the band broke up in  1990.



TOP 40 BREAKERS: Scrolling caption. [no 23 BRENDA RUSSELL piano in the dark]; [no 26 THE PRIMITIVES out of reach]; [ no 28 LUTHER VANDROSS i gave it up]; [ no 29 JOYCE SIMS walk away].

[5] BANANARAMA i want you back. This is the episode briefly featured as behind the scenes footage in The Story of 1988. A clip is shown of a production meeting with record pluggers where Paul Ciani says, “Bananarama at number five... with dancers. Same dancers [indistinguishable]... wearing something different please... wearing something [laughter].” This is less a reference to their first outing for this song, with its semaphore arm movement choreography, on 14/04/1988, than the oiled men of 16/07/1987.

There's a nice piece of direction going into the first chorus as the hand held camera operator starts on Keren Woodward -for the “how could you go/how could you go” with the hands held in a lateral stop-in-the-name-of-love gesture, then pans to Sara Dallin - “we had a love/most people never...” spin arms into Vampirella pose-, and finally to Jacquie O'Sullivan - “...knoooow/oooooohhh” arms-straight-up and then back down.

“There's Bananarama,” says Nicky Campbell afterwards, “with some great dancing. Mick and Pat eat your heart out.” Still I'm sure it's all jolly-good-knockabout, etc.

TOP 40 FROM 30 TO 11

[16] WILL DOWING: a love supreme. Or, “Will Dowing,” if you read the caption at the end of the performance.

TOP 10.

[1] S-SEXPRESS: theme from s-express. A repeat from 21/04/1988. Visibly cut short.

UK SONG FOR EUROPE, SCOTT FITZGERALD: go. Bruno Brookes and the rarely seen Adrian John next week. Theme from S-Express is, presumably, snipped to allow the final song to play out in full. Le Royaume-Uni's mimsy but unexpectedly successful** song for Europe.

 PERFORMANCE OF THE WEEK: Fairground Attraction, Perfect.

 * This edition of Going Live! also includes an interview with Mike Smith just after he announced he was leaving the Radio 1 Breakfast Show. It's mainly about his interest in motor racing but there's also a bit of brief chat about the Breakfast Show and this report from Showbiz reporter Neil Clements in “Thursday's Daily Express”. “Although he's not severed links with the BBC he will still continue to work on Top of the Pops and Going Live! The BBC show hosted by former Blue Peter presenter Sarah Greene.” https://youtu.be/FmWXo54PWb4?t=1871

Sterling work Neil. 100% right. Except for the bit about Top of the Pops. And Going Live! PS- Mike Smith is dating Sarah Greene.
** but not successful enough.

 

 


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