Top of the Pops 14 Sept 1989

 

Words: Chris Arnsby

Simon Mayo: “Hello. Good evening. Welcome. It's another one of those BBC1 and Radio 1 simulcast things.”
Andy Crane: “And on the show tonight we've got Madonna. We've got Tina Turner. And we've got Simon Mayo.”
Simon Mayo: “First of all. It's a jump to the left [Andy Crane, Simon Mayo, and everyone else jumps]. It's a step to the right [Simon Mayo steps, everyone else jumps -including Andy Crane, the clot]. It's got to be Damian.”
Andy Crane: “And the Time Warp. Over there.”
Simon Mayo: “Number seven.”

[7] DAMIAN: the time warp. Good news everyone. Top of the Pops has finally remembered how to do the new look captions they introduced on 24/08/1989. Right style, right graphics. Right colours. Excellent. Now do it again, next week. Damian is back rocking the same Joker look but a different wardrobe.

How come no one in the crowd is doing the Time Warp? It was the same on the 31/08/1989 show. I assumed this song was a success because the clubs were full of people doing the pelvic thrust at each other. Was I wrong? Does this explain why everyone fails to follow Simon Mayo's instructions in the introduction?

[16] MADONNA: cherish. Promo VT.
CHARTS FROM 40 TO 31.

[19] TECHNOTRONIC featuring FELLY: pump up the jam. Stanley Appel is in the chair of the Producer (and Director). Where's Paul Ciani? I don't know. He's away from Top of the Pops for an extended period which started last week. The same thing happened in the autumn of 1988 but then Ciani was off working on Call My Bluff. This year he's just away. No credits are listed on BBC Genome. Paul Ciani will be back briefly for three weeks in November and then he's off again until the end of January 1990.

Stanley Appel decides to play with the tech a bit. He gets Dave Chapman (video effects) and Hilary Briegel (vision mixer) to apply a frame reduction effect to Felly, which gives a strobe-like flicker to her movement. This flicker is also applied to the final pull back to the host, and Andy Crane briefly blurs as Hilary Briegel has to switch the camera feed out of the Quantel box.

The studio microphones appear to be on, and because Pump Up the Jam is quite a sparse song you can hear the floor manager yelling instructions more clearly than normal. At one point as the camera crane is lumbering around I'm pretty sure you can hear him yell “stop” and “stand clear” at the audience. A reminder that the dark and crowded Top of the Pops studio could be a potentially hazardous place.

[5] TEARS FOR FEARS: sowing the seeds of love. Promo VT.

CHARTS FROM 30 TO 11

[17] SYDNEY YOUNGBLOOD: if only i could. Sydney Youngblood has chosen an odd balletic performance style with some Voguing thrown in for good measure. I can't put my finger on why it doesn't work. A group like Big Fun or Five Star can be dismissed as putting more effort into the dance routine than the song but that's not the case here.

Best I can suggest, the routine is a bit too disjointed. You'll get a couple of lines of song and then Sydney will dance over to one side of the stage and throw some vigorous shapes before dancing back to the microphone and singing a couple more lines while also pantomiming gestures that kind-of match what he's singing about. It never quite gels.

BREAKERS

[37] LONDON BOYS: harlem desire

[36] THE ROLLING STONES: mixed emotions

[35] W.A.S.P.: forever free

[10] TINA TURNER: the best. This is the source of the rubbish “high definition” clue from the write up for the 07/09/1989 edition; which is when this performance was recorded. Commenter mumu03 pointed me in the direction of the BBC Annual Report 1989/90 (https://www.worldradiohistory.com/UK/BBC/BBC-Annual/BBC-Year-Book-1989.pdf) and page 16, a section called HDTV Progress.

Various experimental HD programmes are mentioned. The Ginger Tree, a four part series made with Japan's NHK, and broadcast in SD starting on 10/12/1989. The FA Cup Final and Wimbledon also got early HD treatment, along with “Viennese night at the Proms and Tina Turner on Top of the Pops.”

You get a reasonably clear look at the camera right at the start of Tina Turner's performance. It's front and centre on a tripod, and a few people online remember seeing the single camera HD footage at BBC presentations (https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/popscene/viewtopic.php?p=40023893#p40023893)

The Ideal Home exhibition is one place mentioned in the Annual Report where people could see demonstration footage. None of this is my own research, it all comes courtesy of mumu03. What can I add? Computer magazine ACE recommended people visit the London Ryan Hotel on 16 September 1989 for an “H.D.T.V. Exhibition”. They raved: “Apparently, watching a recording of a goldfish bowl on HDTV is exactly like watching a real goldfish. Incredible.”

TOP 10

[1] BLACK BOX: ride on time. Despite the hard cut away from the hosts, and back at the end, this performance is not a pre-recorded. Black Box were in studio.

[23] AEROSMITH: love in an elevator. Promo VT. Nicky Campbell next week.

 Performance of the week: Technotronic featuring Felly, Pump Up The Jam.