Top of the Pops March 1988 Mega Post !

 

Reviewed by Chris Arnsby

03/03/1988
Gary Davies: “Hello. Good evening. Welcome to another Top of the Pops. We've got a lot of rapping, scratching, and singing going on here tonight. In the studio we have Derek B, we've got Erasure, and The Sisters of Mercy.”
Simon Mayo: “And we're starting at number nine with a great house record. With Coldcut featuring Yazz and the Plastic Population. Here we go. Doctorin' the House.

 [9] COLDCUT FEATURING YAZZ & THE PLASTIC POPULATION: doctorin' the house. Second time round for Yazz, and all the other people on stage. Paul Ciani keeps the presentation the same as last time, 18/02/1988, with in-performance Quantel effects to add visual interest and long sweeping wide shots during the chorus. Let's take it as read that it looks great. Like it did last time.

Yazz, is the singer, obviously. And Cold Cut are the two blokes fiddling with the record decks. That means the bloke in the bowler hat must be, the Plastic Population? I wish he'd chosen something better to wear. He's dressed in a brown boiler suit about two sizes to big and someone's decorated the suit with a couple of hand drawn, coloured stars. The overall effect is as if he was wearing a giant toddler's romper suit. It don't look great. “Watch out for Yazz, she's about to record her first solo single,” is Gary's hot tip. This would be The Only Way Is Up. A song with which I have a complicated relationship but we'll get to that in July.

I can't work out what Gary says before that. It sounds like “Do you know what the equiminal stage there is come out of their bedroom.” I'm pretty sure that can't be right. I don't think equiminal is even a word. Less cloth-eared readers might like to submit their guesses. On repeated listening at high volume (that reminds me, I need to apologise to the cat) I think it might actually be “do you know all the equipment on stage there has come out of their bedroom.” A statement so mundane I'm not sure it was worth the effort or indeed stress to the cat; she simply cannot abide Gary Davies.

[4] RICK ASTLEY: together forever. On video.

TOP 40 FROM 40 TO 31: Format change confirmed!

[13] THE SISTERS OF MERCY: dominion. It's time for the weekly, Eric Wallis is great praise. Andrew Eldritch is lit by a couple of white spotlights but the rest of the studio is kept much darker. He's wearing a white suit so he really seems to pop out of the background in the wide shots.

Eric Wallis' lighting also sells the size of the studio. It's never going to look as big as the soundstage used for Top of the Pops USA, but there's a clever layered effect to the lighting. Rows of red and blue lights shine down through the studio smoke to make walls of light behind which the scenery is visible, and then within the set are smaller alcoves lit brighter to stand out and make it seem the set extends back even further. I was about to make a crack about “how come Doctor Who never looked this good?” but it turns out Eric Wallis did the lighting for notorious turkey Time Flight; everyone has an off day.

TOP 40 BREAKERS: Scrolling caption. [no 17 BELINDA CARLISE i get weak]; [no 32 JOHNNY HATES JAZZ heart of gold]; [no 28 TAJA SEVELLE love is contagious]; [no 33 AZTEC CAMERA how men are].

[20] ERASURE: ship of fools. A moody and smokey stage with the dry ice machine set to maximum power. The fog is so thick is nearly obscures the back wall of the set, which can't be more than seven feet behind Andy Bell and look up the name of the other one later on google.

There's good use of a hand held camera for this performance. Check out the 40 second single camera shot as the operator crouches and works his way around Andy Bell and Vince Clarke, twice. It's a long shot but it never feels dull because the camera is always moving and giving us something new to look at, and it fits the slower pace of the song.

TOP 40 FROM 30 TO 11

[19] DEREK B: goodgroove. Derek B? I wonder how long it took for him to get fed up with being mistaken for Eric B, or was that the point?

Part of the pleasure of these repeats has been the chance to re-evaluate performances I loathed at the time; Eric B & Rakim with Paid in Full, Doug E. Fresh & The Get Fresh Crew, The Show; and probably loads of others I've forgotten, MC Miker G & DJ Sven, Holiday Rap -possibly not so much.

Anyway, I want to like this more than I do. The song does a lot of things right -showing its UK roots by deliberately referring to the unglamorous M4 rather than a more rock n roll road like route 66- but somehow this performance never gels.

Or maybe it's my fault, I got distracted by Derek's early use of the word “mission” and expected the next lines to be “When there's a battle got the enemy wishin'/That they stayed at home, instead of fightin'/These ninja masters with moves like lightnin'.” But that's Turtle Power by Partnerz in Kryme.

TOP 10.

[1] KYLIE MINOGUE: i should be so lucky. Back to the Top of the Pops “exclusive” video.

[16] MEL AND KIM: that's the way it is. On video. Mike Smith and Steve Wright next week.

 PERFORMANCE OF THE WEEK: The Sisters of Mercy, Dominion.

 The Roxy Playlist, 01/03/1988: Studio Performances; Belinda Carlisle, I Get Weak; Primitives, Crash; Sisters of Mercy, Dominion; Johnny Hates Jazz, Heart of Gold; Derek B, Goodgroove. On video; Rick Astley, Together Forever; Kylie Minogue, I Should Be So Lucky.

10/03/1988

Steve Wright: “Hello viewers!! How are you!! Welcome to another happening Top of the Pops with Smithy and me!!”
Mike Smith: “Or, another way of saying that is, bonsoir madame et monsieur et bienvenue a Top of the Pops pour madamoselle Vanessa Paradis.”

[4] VANESSA PARADIS: joe le taxi. Paul Ciani wants a smoky Parisian nightclub vibe so Eric Wallis turns down all the lights and visual effects fill the place with dry ice. Oh, and the audience have all been give JOE LE TAXI scarves to wave. Very French. Paul is getting the hang of directing Top of the Pops now. He repeats the long handheld shot from last week, this time the operator creeps down some stairs around the back of one of the saxophonists and along the front of the stage. Plus, Paul Ciani has clearly been watching the recent Batman repeats on TV-AM and he's discovered the beauty of the Dutch angle. There's a couple of corkers in this performance, saxophonists have never looked so good. The best one being a profile shot of the trio so Dutched that everyone is at 90 degrees to the screen.

[23] JOHNNY HATES JAZZ: heart of gold. The Johnny Hates Jazz performance ends (sorry guys, it's a lively enough song but I've got nothing) with an unusual side angle on the main stage. Following the usual end-of-performance wide angle there's a cut to Mike Smith and Steve Wright -who's being obnoxious as you'd expect- with the bongo player visible in the background, and then the camera slowly pans round before the programme cuts to the charts. It's a minor thing but it stops Top of the Pops seem more like one unit rather than lurching from performance to link to performance to link. More live, is probably the phrase I'm looking for, ironically as live editions are now falling out of favour. As with the handheld camera wandering around the stage, above, and dividing the charts into three, there's a sense of Paul Ciani poking into the edges of the programme and asking “what can I do to make this feel different?”

TOP 40 FROM 40 TO 31. Coming out of the charts there's an unfortunate edit which is just slack enough to register that the audience are cued to start applauding.

[13] BELINDA CARLISLE: i get weak. On video? Paul, Paul. You've got a performance of this from Top of the Pops USA*, Paul. Do you want to use that clip Paul? Paul? It's from Top of the Pops USA Paul. Okay, here's a different question for you Paul. How did The Roxy get Belinda Carlisle last week, 01/03/1988, but Top of the Pops didn't?

*22/01/1988 (not December 1987 like Youtube will try and tell you).

TOP 40 BREAKERS. Mike Smith boldly attempts an impression of Stavros going into the Breakers. At least I think it's Stavros. It's only really the “Okay everybody-peeps,” bit that I've got to use as context. Scrolling caption. [no 21 ERIC B. AND RAKIM i know you got soul]; [no 20 HEART these dreams]; [no 26 EIGHTH WONDER i'm not scared]; [no 27 AFRIKA BAMBAATA & FAMILY FEATURING UB40 reckless].

[9] PRIMITIVES: crash. The last time Primitives were on, 28/02/1987, they were sparky and engaging, this time the performance seems flat and dull. What happened? There's no real difference between either performance. Paul Ciani, on both, tends to treat the verses as excuses for long sweeping crane pans but second time around it feels like they bleed energy out of the song. There's a mistimed cue at the start of a long pan in, where the camera doesn't begin moving until a second after we cut to it* and it just... feels (sorry this is so stupidly subjective)... off.

I think the difference between the two performances might be a classic death of a thousand cuts situation. The Primitives are moved off the main stage to a corner of the studio where everything is slightly more cramped. The wide slow panning shots cover less space and so the camera has to move more slowly to make the shot last the required length. The cameras also have to get closer to the band and so the wide shots are less wide than they were first time round; a lot of the performance is mid-shot after mid-shot.  The cameras are also placed lower and so the audience more frequently block out the band. The audience also seem a little less engaged second time round which doesn't help. There's no single thing wrong. It's a lot of tiny stuff.  If you get the chance, watch the two performances back to back and see if you can work out what's going on. As I say, it's all so stupidly subjective that it might be me. 

*in fairness to the Director I think the intent is to hold on the wide shot and begin moving after “here you go.”

[17] TAJA SEVELLE: love is contagious. Please assemble for the weekly meeting of the Eric Wallis fan club. Look at that opening shot. It's lovely. The studio is dark, virtually the only source of illumination comes from white lights under dry ice which billows and glows and silhouettes Taja Sevelle and the audience. At the top of the screen, the curved perspex front of the stage reflects the white light and makes it look like a gothic arch.
TOP 10.

[1] KYLIE MINOGUE: i should be so lucky. Back to the official video.

[22] ASWAD: don't turn around. Gary Davies and Mike Reid next week.

 PERFORMANCE OF THE WEEK: Vanessa Paradis, Joe Le Taxi

 The Roxy Playlist, 08/03/1988: Studio Performances; Bomb the Bass, Beat Dis; Erasure, Ship of Fools; Taja Sevelle, Love Is Contagious; Aswad, Don't Turn Around; Aztec Camera, How Men Are; Videos; Heart, These Dreams; Kylie Minogue, I Should Be So Lucky.

17/03/1988
Gary Davies: “Hello. Good to see you again. Welcome to another Top of the Pops. In the studio tonight we have Erasure, two artists making their first appearance, Eighth Wonder and Aswad.”
Mike Read: “And when will I er, When Will I Be Famous  was their first hit. Drop The Boy is their second, the highest new entry this week, in at seventeen it's Bros.”

 [17] BROS: drop the boy. I'm sorry there has been a mistake. I pronounced Bros over when they failed to reach Number 1 with their first single; kept off the top spot by Tiffany, may flights of angels sing her to her rest. Anyway, in what is surely some tragic clerical error, Bros missed my review of the 11/02/1988 Top of the Pops and have accidentally released another single.

Third Bros man [checks notes] Craig (John -Surely you mean Ken?) is in a lively mood. The BBC Canteen must have been serving oysters and Tabasco again. He's worked up a little skipping dance and gambols around on stage like a lamb in springtime. Last time Bros were on (04/02/1988) Craig got 0 close ups, now how's that dance working out for him? One, two, three, four close ups in a four minute performance. Cripes! This is clearly his breakthrough moment his Q-Rating is skyrocketing.

Two days before, Bros were on The Roxy. Did Craig do his skipping dance then as well? Sadly that performance hasn't made it onto the internet but I can confirm that he appears to be doing it in Bros Live at the Hammersmith Odeon. I say appears because it's the epitome of terribly directed concert footage, with cuts between random camera angles every two seconds. It gives the impression the editing process involved chopping the film into strips of equal length, throwing it up in the air, and sticking it back together as it came out of the pile.

[12] HEART: these dreams. On video.

TOP 40 FROM 40 TO 31: Like Craig, Mike Read and Gary Davies are full of pep. They've planned a bit of clowning around before the chart countdown. It starts with Mike Read commenting that Heart are the only band in the charts named after an organ, and then Gary Davies (who, in a nice piece of blocking, is carefully positioned to be hidden from camera behind Mike) pops into view to ask, “what about Keith Sweat?”

[6] ERASURE: ship of fools. A repeat from 03/03/1988.

TOP 40 BREAKERS: [no 30 SINITA cross my broken heart]; [no 29 SIMON HARRIS bass (how low can you go); [no 31 KEITH SWEAT i want her]; [no 27 DAVID LEE ROTH just like paradise]

[20] EIGHTH WONDER: i'm not scared. “Eighth Wonder have been very busy recently,” Gary Davies tell us. In fact they're so busy that only Patsy Kensit has been able to get to Television Centre for the recording of I'm Not Scared. In 1988 I thought at the time I'd stumbled on some amazing POP SECRET by knowing this song was written by the Pet Shop Boys. I'm slightly embarrassed in retrospect to discover everyone already knew. Mike Smith mentioned it last week, and now here's Gary Davies talking about it again in his introduction.

Neil Tennant has such a distinctive persona that it's odd seeing a song performed by someone else, when it's obviously written for him. Patsy Kensit is from the literally-explaining-the-lyrics-through-movement school in comparison to Neil Tennant's more detached oh-is-there-a-song-going-on-around-me? presence. Check out Patsy's hands-to-the-head-mind-blown gesture on the line “if I could read your mind/I think I'd take a look.”

Eric Wallis, how do I love thee? He's slung a glitter ball behind Patsy Kensit and... that's it. A simple effect but it works brilliantly as the ball sends shafts of light moving through the studio smoke. Oddly, Paul Ciani seems to resist the obvious shot of positioning the camera so the beams of light appear to be radiating out from Kensit herself, it happens once. Perhaps he thought it looked a bit cliched, but I like it. Another striking shot comes in the first chorus when Vision Mixer Hilary Briegel cross fades two angles of Patsy Kensit and holds the pair of images on screen. Again, it's possibly a cliched Light Entertainment image, but it's not one Top of the Pops tends to use often and it works well here.

TOP 40 FROM 30 TO 11.
[4] ASWAD: don't turn around. The Top of the Pops rules are pretty simple. Bands aren't supposed to come back two weeks in a row, but Aswad are here the week after their video closed the 10/03/1988 show. However, one of the other rules of the programme is that it should always feature the highest climbing song, which this week is Don't Turn Around. Evidentially Paul Ciani feels the highest climber rule trumps the other one. This raises the opportunity for an interesting* debate about the status of the closing video -is it part of the show or is it a bonus song? However, let's stick a pin in that concept and wait and see if Paul Ciani does it again.

TOP 10.
[1] KYLIE MINOGUE: i should be so lucky. Back to the official video.
[13] ERIC B & RAKIM: i know you got soul. Mike Read unwisely tries to impersonate his fellow DJs as he tells us who is hosting next week. His Simon Bates is tolerable but I'm not sure where he's drawn inspiration for his hilarious** camp Peter Powell. It's one “chase me” away from a Duncan Norvelle.

 *levels of “interesting” may vary from person to person.
** levels of hilarity may vary from person to person.

 PERFORMANCE OF THE WEEK: Eighth Wonder, I'm Not Scared.

 The Roxy Playlist, 15/03/1988: Studio Performances; Bros, Drop the Boy; Communards, For A Friend; Eighth Wonder, I'm Not Scared; Belinda Carlisle, I Get Weak; Glen Goldsmith, Dreaming; INXS, Devil Inside. Videos; Kylie Minogue, I Should Be So Lucky.

 
24/03/1988
Simon Bates: “Hi, welcome. It's Thursday night, it's Top of the Pops, we have the new a-ha video coming up a liddle later on the programme.”
Peter Powell: “And also on video Whitney Houston!”
Simon Bates: “Plus this week, special week on Top of the Pops, because after five weeks of Kylie Minogue at number one, we have a new number one.”
Peter Powell: “And for starters! Here's Sinitta! Cross My Broken Heart!”

 [14] SINITTA: cross my broken heart. Simon Bates and Peter Powell appear to be introducing Top of the Pops from a black void. They've been stood on one of the stages with their backs to the main studio space and then most of the lights behind then have been carefully turned off. It looks how I remember the show in the late seventies/early eighties before the scenery was built up to produce walls and a solid edge to the studio.

Gary Davies has been given the week off to prepare for the final episode of Top of the Pops USA, which was transmitted on CBS on Friday 25/03/1988. For everyone wondering, the line up of the final show was Sting, David Bowie, Roy Orbison & k.d. lang, Joe Cocker, Jody Whatley, Richard Marx, Buster Poindexter, Bourgeois Tagg, Natalie Cole, and Squeeze.

Sinitta continues 1988 as she began with a song that's the very definition of generic going-through-the-motions. The most notable bit of her performance is the way she wanders on stage fifteen seconds into the introduction -as if late for her own tune. Her multi-coloured skimpy dress throws a piston in Simon Bates' brain. He back announces the song with, “brilliantly designed, that dress stayed on with absolutely no stress at all. That's Sinitta. Broken promises and broken hearts were crossed.”

[14] A-HA: stay on these roads. A pre- recorded performance. What gives it away? I could bluster about the Quantel transition from Simon Bates to a-ha, always a giveaway when the show tries to hide an artificial join. Or I could waffle about the song being in the second slot, which is the preferred space for promos and performances played in from tape. I could even concoct some spurious theory about the abrupt change in studio lighting and atmosphere. However, what really gave it away was Simon Bates who talked about “the new a-ha video,” in the introduction. It's not a video, obviously, but someone must have mentioned to Bates that a-ha were being played in from videotape and that fact lodged in his brain, and was mangled and regurgitated in his own inimitable style.

a-ha are plainly a big deal for Top of the Pops. For once they've scooped The Roxy who have to make do with the video. The band get a tremendous reception from the crowd, with a good thirty seconds of applause and cheers right across the introduction. There's a sweet moment when Morten Harket looks a bit overwhelmed and he briefly turns and grins at the keyboard player before looking down at the floor, composing himself, and getting on with the song.

TOP 40 FROM 40 TO 31: Vision Mixer Kathryn Randall uses a Quantel transition into the charts, flipping the picture of the two hosts to reveal the charts on the “back” of the picture. The background for this transition is a bright yellow and orange slide, and one line of this slide can be seen right at the top of the screen where the main picture doesn't fit completely over the background. On good old cathode ray tube televisions this rogue line would have been hidden by overscan, because the picture would have been slightly larger than the screen itself, but it's clearly visible on modern television partly because the background is such a bright colour compared to the dark colours of the Top of the Pops studio.

[16] SIMON HARRIS: bass (how low can you go). These repeats give me the chance to re-evaluate stuff I hated in 1988; mainly dance music and rap. I've really enjoyed songs like Tired of Getting Pushed Around, 28/01/1988, and Beat Dis, 18/02/1988, and the way Top of the Pops has approached the problem of getting an interesting performance out of a song which doesn't lend itself to the programme's format. So, why doesn't Bass (How Low Can You Go) work? It's doing everything those other two songs did; there's a frontman -whose job is to mime along to the samples, there's a drummer, there's a couple of dancers, there's Simon Harris himself in an orange jacket, and he's flanked by two people whose job appears to be to stand with their arms folded and occasionally throw shapes.

A bit like The Primitives and their performance of Crash on 10/03/1988, there's not one thing wrong. It's a lot of tiny stuff. For starters, the frontman doesn't know how to play to the camera. He's dancing around and waving his arms and generally doing his own thing, but he's not paying attention to which camera he's on and he's frequently facing the wrong way. Compare this to the moment when Simon Harris gets to mime to the line “the bass has arrived,” which he does nicely to camera in a close up. Ten out of ten Simon.

The other problem is, Paul Ciani often spurns medium and close ups in favour of wide panning crane shots; with some exceptions. The result is there's a lot of stuff going on, there's dancers “over there,” there's Simon Harris “over there”, and the frontman “over there” (facing away from the camera again) but there's no focus. It's all happening in the middle distance. And it gets a bit boring. The points when the picture cuts between cameras pointed at the dancers, or the drummer, or whatever, are much better, but it seems like we keep cutting back to panning wide shots just as things start to get interesting.

It's not terrible, it's a rare misstep that just looks a bit messy, and it's interesting because it shows how narrow the line is between something working and not working.

TOP 40 BREAKERS. [no 25 WET WET WET temptation];  [no 22 DEBBIE GIBSON only in my dreams];  [no 26 CLIMIE FISHER love changes (everything)];

[4] IRON MAIDEN: can i play with madness. On video.

TOP 40 FROM 30 TO 11

[5] TIFFANY: could've been. Also on video.

TOP 10.
[1] ASWAD: don't walk away. Aswad get a rare third appearance in a row, their video was shown on 10/03/1988, they performed in the studio last week, and here they are again.

[15] WITNEY HOUSTON: where do broken hearts go. Nicky Campbell and Mike Smith next week. Simon Bates lounges with his arm extended across the scenery behind Peter Powell. Is he trying to rest a hurty arm? Is he trying to look like he's best mates with Peter Powell, without actually touching Peter Powell? The truth is revealed when Simon Bates moves, and the can of Coke he was trying to obscure from camera can been seen behind him.

PERFORMANCE OF THE WEEK: a-ha, Stay on these Roads.

The Roxy Playlist, 22/03/1988: Studio Performances; Wet Wet Wet, Temptation; Simon Harris, Bass; Sinitta, Cross My Broken Heart; Aswad, Don't Turn Around; Climie Fisher, Love Changes Everything. On video; a-ha, Stay On These Roads; Tiffany, Could've Been.

 
31/03/1988
Mike Smith: “Good evening. Welcome to Top of the Pops, tonight we have Status Quo on video, we also have in the studio Clime Fisher, Wet Wet Wet, and him.”
Nicky Campbell: “And me as well but we're gonna start off this evening with a sensual and sensuous blonde but enough of Mike Smith, here's Patsy Kensit from Eighth Wonder. I'm Not Scared.”

 [10] EIGHTH WONDER: i'm not scared. Are the rest of Eighth Wonder really in Italy, as Mike Smith claims at the end of the song? Do they even exist? It's notable that when Eighth Wonder appeared on The Roxy (twice) the line-up was Patsy Kensit and no one else. We'll see what happens if the “group” returns to Top of the Pops.

I don't have a lot to say about this performance, it's largely indistinguishable from Patsy Kensit/Eighth Wonder's first outing on 17/03/1988. Oh no! Lighting guru Eric Wallis has moved on and been replaced by Chris Kempton. Eric's off to light Alexi Sayle's Stuff, and The Noel Edmonds Saturday Roadshow, and Coppers & Co! Well, they can't all be gems. Fortunately Chris Kempton makes a good showing first time out. Behind Patsy Kensit are a pair of green lights which shine through a rotating narrow slit. The effect on the studio smoke is something like a laser, with the advantage that people don't burn out their retinas if they accidentally look directly into the light.

This is Mike Smith's final outing as Top of the Pops host. Come May, he'll also be leaving his Radio One Breakfast Show. The final shows of which are oddly high-concept. On Monday Mike Smith presents the show as normal. The Tuesday one is described by the Radio Times as, “Live from Gatwick Airport. Mike, together with the two winners of the Sound Experience competition, prepares to take off on the trip of a lifetime, to Walt Disney World. Join them on Saturday morning for breakfast in Florida.” And then Smitty's away for three days (with Mark Goodier standing in, ugh, that's no way to start the day) and returns on Saturday for his final show. It seems like a weird broken-backed way to end a run, but it obviously made sense to the Radio One mandarins. Simon Mayo takes over on Monday 23^rd May.

[11] CLIMIE FISHER: love changes everything. I've not really got anything to say about this one, sorry.

Climie, or it Fisher, is aghast at such a snub but Fisher, or possibly Climie, doesn't care what 21st century bloggers think of them. 

TOP 40 FROM 40 TO 31.

[13] DEBBIE GIBSON: only in my dreams. On video.
TOP 40 BREAKERS: [no 28 JELLYBEAN FEATURING ADELE BERTEI just a mirage]; no 29 FLEETWOOD MAC everywhere]; [no 24 GLEN GOLDSMITH dreaming]; [no 25 TAYLOR DAYNE prove your love].

[22] STATUS QUO: ain't complaining. On video.

TOP 40 FROM 30 TO 11.

[17] WET WET WET: temptation. “It gives me great pleasure to introduce this next band,” claims Nicky Campbell. His microphone stays live at the end of his introduction and catches him adding something else, but annoyingly the sound is too indistinct to work out what he says.  A member of the audience briefly waves a poster -or possibly a hand made sign- at Marty Pellow, and that's about as exciting as it gets.

TOP 10. What's this? Bros are stuck at [2] and being kept off the Number One slot? Just like what happened with When Will I Be Famous being kept off the top of the chart by Tiffany. Oh no! What a terrible coincidence. This surely means Bros are over and will never darken the inside of my television set again.

[1] ASWAD: don't turn around. A repeat from 24/03/1988, but Aswad are doing a heroes job in keeping Craig and Co. away from Number One so I'm happy for them to have a week off.

[7] PET SHOP BOYS: heart. Gary Davies and Simon Mayo next week. Mike Smith's off after hosting 69 editions; according to the Popscene database.

 PERFORMANCE OF THE WEEK: I guess it's Clime Fisher, Love Changes Everything. It's not been a great week for studio performances. Unless of course you really like Marti Pellow.

 The Roxy Playlist, 29/03/1988: Studio Performances; Status Quo, Ain't Complaining; Taylor Dayne, Prove Your Love; Glen Goldsmith, Dreamin'; Eighth Wonder, I'm Not Scared; Aswad, Don't Turn Around; Brenda Russell, Piano In the Dark. On video; Pet Shop Boys, Heart.