Top of the Pops 20th + 27th October 1988

 Words: Chris Arnsby

20/10/1988
Steve Wright: “Hello!! Hello!! Good evening and welcome to another exciting edition of Top of the Pops!! This is Caron Keating!!”
Caron Keating: “And this is a presenter I made earlier. We start off tonight with this week;s number three. It's D-Mob featuring Gary Haisman and We Call It Acieed.”
Steve Wright: “Acieed!!”

[3] D·MOB FEATURING GARY HAISMAN we call it acieed. On video.

A video, first in the show? Who's directing this thing? It's Brian Whitehouse, back to claim the chair of the Director and the chair of the Producer; one buttock to each presumably.This is an odd show with a strange running order. There are nine songs featured but only two are new studio performances, of the rest two are repeats and the other five are videos. What's going on? Was no one available? Did no one want to be in the studio when Steve Wright pulled a face and shrieked “acieed!!” I don't blame them.

Caron Keating makes a good host and like Andy Crane she uses use her presenting experience to appear natural and confident in front of the camera; in her first link she's effortlessly more assured and likeable than Steve Wright.

We Call It Acieed feels like it's fallen backwards through time from the early 1990s. It doesn't really sound like it belongs among the rest of tonight's songs. (I do, of course, know nothing about music). If you told me it was a stable mate of The Shamen I'd cheerfully believe you.

The video also looks more modern than others in tonight's programme. It uses a lot of effects I associate with nineties music videos and television title sequences; the collage look of overlaying someone onto a background with a drop shadow (adding a shadow gives a very different effect to the flat look produced by superimposing someone straight onto a background, see the Harvest for the World and Orinoco Flow videos); the use of footage speeded up by (I think) dropping frames to give a stop-motion appearance; even those paper mache newspapers and cardboard backgrounds seem to (pre) echo the post-industrial look that every television show went for around 1992.

Paul Ciani should have commissioned D-Mob for a 20 second instrumental snippet of We Call It Acieed to replace The Wizard on the titles. That would really keep the show relevant. Except, of course, there was a massive moral panic swirling around this song and rave culture and my brilliant idea would probably get the show banned.

[9] CHRISTIANS: harvest for the world. On video.

TOP 40 FROM 40 TO 31.

[5] ENYA: orinoco flow. On video. No... wait. Enya's in the studio. Although you'd barely know it from the glimpses of her sitting at the grand piano before Vision Mixer Priscilla Hoadley cuts back to the video. It seems weirdly disrespectful to invite Enya to perform in studio and then focus so much on the video; especially considering this is one of the two studio performances on tonight's programme. I guess Brian Whitehouse was worried about making her performance visually interesting, but that's the Director's job Brian.

BREAKERS: [29  DEACON BLUE real gone kid];  [20 MILLI VANILLI girl you know it's true].

[4] ERASURE: a little respect. A repeat from 06/10/1988.

TOP 40 FROM 30 TO 11.

[11] KYLIE MINOGUE: je ne sais pas porquoi. Kylie at least gets her whole performance  played out. It's just a shame it's not very interesting.

TOP 10.

[1] WHITNEY HOUSTON: one moment in time. On video.

[6] WEE PAPA GIRL RAPPERS: wee rule. Top of the Pops closes for the second time with a repeat performance instead of a video. Is this a format change? The footage is also from the 06/10/1988. On some of the reverse shots of the Wee Papa Girl Rappers you can see Erasure's big R-E-S-P-E-C-T letters across the studio. A happy accident which makes this show seem more seamless than it really was.

Simon Mayo and Anthea Turner next week. Hopefully along with a few more bands.

 PERFORMANCE OF THE WEEK: Really? A dull Kylie Minogue or 90 seconds of Enya. I refuse to participate.

 27/10/1988
Simon Mayo: “Hi. Welcome to Top of the Pops. Brand new number one and a brand new presenter. Anthea Turner.”
Anthea Turner: “Hi! It's great to be here! We're going to kick off tonight's show with Milli Vanilli! But first Simon's got something to say!”
Simon Mayo: “Yes some important news. Drug Alert starts today on Radio One. 0800 500 800 is the number you need to remember.”
Anthea Turner: “Right! Let's get going now! It's Milli Vanilli at number seven! Girl! You Know It's True!” (John- Oh, I wanted to hear the Drug Alert single)

 [10] MILLI VANILLI: girl you know it's true. Ahh, it's Milli Vanilli. We all know how that story ends.

It's tempting to speculate that the Radio 1FM/Top of the Pops Drug Alert campaign is a direct result of the We Call It Acieed moral panic. It probably isn't, campaigns like this normally take months to organise. The real test would be to consult an authentic Radio Times and see if its mentioned in there. If it is, it's been planned for ages.

I was never a fan of Anthea Turner and I realise now she reminds me of Mark Goodier. The enthusiasm of both seems very perfunctory. A performance that's put on like a hat rather than anything genuine. Like Caron Keating, Anthea Turner has come from Children's BBC but not Blue Peter, yet. Turner started on CBBC in 1987 hosting a short before-the-programmes programme which ended up being called But First This. She moved on to UP2U the 1988 summer replacement for Going Live and that's where Paul Ciani Stanley Appel Brian Whitehouse plucked her from. She won't host Blue Peter until (checks Wikipedia), blimey, 1992. I didn't realise it was as late as that.

BREAKERS: The Breakers, second? Oh no. I don't like that at all. [29 TANITA TIKARAM twist in my sobriety]; [18 ROBERT PALMER she makes my day]; [11 YAZZ stand up for your love rights].

[19] ART OF NOISE FEATURING TOM JONES: kiss. An abrupt edit into this performance makes me suspect it was pre-recorded. Confirmation comes at the end when the picture cuts from a wide shot of the stage to a closeup of Simon Mayo and Anthea Turner who, along with a crowd, are suddenly standing in front of the Top of the Pops neon logo where Tom Jones' grand piano was moments before. I say Tom Jones' grand piano. It may belong to someone else. If it does, I hope he asked permission before walking all over it.

A set of stairs has been cunningly concealed behind the piano and Tom Jones climbs them and on the line “think I'd better dance now,” does so, in the slightly uncertain manner of someone much further off the floor than they previously realised. Sensibly he doesn't try to climb down again. Although I'd like to see the out-takes.

TOP 40 FROM 40 TO 31.

[17] ROYAL HOUSE: can you party. A song which persists in confusing me by constantly playing the riff from Pump Up The Jam, a year before Pump Up The Jam is released.

TOP 40 FROM 30 TO 11. Here's the first real effect of the Acid House moral panic. Simon Mayo is unable to say the name of the Jolly Roger song at [28] (whisper, it's called Acid Man).

[21] DEACON BLUE: real gone kid. Further proof, if proof be proof be needed be proof, that Tom Jones was a precorded performance. Deacon Blue appear on the same stage as Tom Jones and I refuse to believe BBC stage hands would remove a grand piano that quickly. Oh, and all the lighting has been rehung and changed.

I wonder if Tom Jones was recorded last week?

TOP 10. Hey, Simon. What's the name of the song at [4]? The one by D-Mob and Gary Haisman?

[1] ENYA: orinoco flow. On video.

[14] BEATMASTERS WITH P·P ARNOLD: burn it up. Time for one last plug for Drug Alert. Mark Goodier and Nicky Campbell next week. great.

Beatmasters with P P Arnold is a repeated studio performance from 13/10/1988. Format change confirmed. I'll sound the gong. 

PERFORMANCE OF THE WEEK: Art of Noise featuring Tom Jones, Kiss.