Top of the Pops 12 October 1989

 

Words: Chris Arnsby

Gary Davies: “Hello. Good evening and welcome to Top of the Pops, we have a great show for you tonight. In the studio we have Cliff Richard, Sinitta, Belinda Carlisle, Living in a Box but first we start off with a guy who was last on Top of the Pops a year ago with On the Beach. Here's a new entry at twenty six with Road to Hell, here's Chris Rea.

 [26] CHRIS REA: the road to hell (part 2). Gary Davies gets the wrong caption. In fact, now I check, Steve Wright and Jakki Brambles also got the wrong format caption last week. Come on guys, a little consistency please. Or have the Powers That Be decided they hate the new-style target captions and gone back to the old-school asterisk ones? I hope they make up their mind soon because I keep spelling asterisk as asterix (damn you Goscinny and Uderzo) and I'll be glad to never mention this ***** topic again.

Meanwhile, Chris Rea is on the road to hell where I hear the paving is really nice. The album splits The Road to Hell into two tracks with a total running time around nine minutes, far too long for Top of the Pops. What we have here is Part 2, also released as a single, and shaved back from the single's running time of 4:35 to around three minutes. Part one, which is a study in atmosphere and synth groans and biblical lyrics, runs to another 4:52.

What caused me some confusion is, I remember the radio version being different. A mash up of bits of Part 1 and all of Part 2. Can I find it anywhere? Can I bobbins. It's fallen off the internet to such an extent I was beginning to think I'd imagined it. I finally tracked down a reference to The Road to Hell (UK. Edit) which, according to Wikipedia was only commercial available on the US CD single and is described as The Road To Hell (Parts 1 and 2) (UK Edit) 6:49. Still too long for Top of the Pops. If you've got a copy of this, upload it because I can't find it online.

Kathryn Randall, Vision Mixer, squeezes the 4:3 ratio picture down into a faux 16:9 one, presumably to make the studio footage look more cinematic. There's something charmingly analogue about the way the black bars slide in and out. It's not smooth, you can imagine a dial being slowly turned.

[4] JIVE BUNNY & THE MASTERMIXERS: that's what i like. Promo VT. In at [4]? In the name of god, why? Gary Davies calls it “That's The Way I Like It.” Even he can't be bothered with this.

CHARTS FROM 40 TO 31.

[28] CLIFF RICHARD: lean on you. The audience love Cliff. He gets a whole lot of hooting and a-hollering, constantly. To the point where I wonder if it's sarcastic.

The style of direction is languid. Lot's of long swooping camera moves and slow zooms. It feels different and, sure enough, we have another name on the credits; returning Director Tony Newman. Back for the first time since, I think, 10/11/1988. Stanley Appel only takes the Producer credit this week.

BBC Genome draws its programme information from the relevant Radio Times, and credits Stanley Appel as Producer and Director this week. I wonder if there was a last minute snafu on Appel's other series, Blankety Blank? The final episode of the 1989 run also went out on 12/10/1989 at 8pm.

(In fact, it's a pretty good night of telly. 7pm Top of the Pops, 7.30pm avoid Eastenders by nipping upstairs to play Populous on the Atari ST, 8pm Blankety Blank, 8.30pm Brass on Channel 4 although you can stick with BBC1 to watch In Sickness and In Health if you want, 9pm switch to Police Squad on BBC2, 9.30pm Blackadder Goes Forth.)

[14] BELINDA CARLISLE: leave a light on. A pre-recorded performance. And not one I can date with any ease. Regular commenter mumu03 suggests last week when the main stage didn't feature, and that seems like a reasonable theory.

I am fascinated by Belinda Carlise's backing guitarist. The one all dressed in black leather, with chains and studs and a headband. He's rocking out and having a whale of a time, and looks like he belongs to a different band. Did Belinda Carlise collect the wrong guitar player from the luggage carousel when she came through Heathrow?

CHARTS FROM 30 TO 11

[10] MILLI VANILLI: girl i'm going to miss you. Promo VT.

[23] SINITTA: love on a mountain top. BBC VT. It's possible someone has pulled down the mirrorball which was hanging above Cliff while he waggled his bottom at the audience, but it's more likely Sinitta was recorded in an earlier week. Once again, there's scant evidence as to when.

This is garbage. A car crash of conflicting styles and fashions. There's the frantic squeaky tune, the banal lyrics (what rhymes with mountain, fountain!) and whatever the heck is going on in Sinitta's costume department. Let's all dress up in school uniforms! Sure, why not. That won't look at all grotesque while we're singing about making love and doing frantic high energy dancing. Can you also make one of the dancers too tall, so he towers over everyone else and looks really awkward doing high kicks in an adult version of school shorts. You can? Fabulous! The whole thing actually ends up looking like an Alan Partridge spoof of this sort of performance.

[18] LIVING IN A BOX: room in your heart. More slow panning and zooming from Tony Newman. Lead singer Richard Darbyshire is shot in left profile a couple of times and behind him, in the depths of the studio, you can see the Cliff Richard/Sinitta stage with its mirrorball still hanging. Sinitta pre-record confirmed! (

TOP 10

[1] Black Box: ride on time. BBC VT, from the 31/08/1989 edition. Six weeks at Number 1. I remember Ride on Time had legs but if you'd asked me I would have guessed four weeks at the top, at most. It's a great song but let's wish for a new Number 1 next week. Monkey's paw won't let me down this time!

 [22] FRESH 4 featuring LIZZ E: wishing on a star. Promo VT. Mark Goodier next week.

 Performance of the week: Chris Rea, Road to Hell.