Top of the Pops Triple Decker! 19, 26 Oct & 2 Nov 1989

 

19/10/89

Words: Chris Arnsby

Mark Goodier: “Good evening and welcome to the best of BBC radio and television together. It's Radio 1FM and BBC1 for Top of the Pops. We have the full top forty rundown tonight and Britain's brand new number one. We start with the third straight hit for D Mob with Cathy Dennis. This is C'mon And Get My Love."

 [36] D MOB introducing CATHY DENNIS: c'mon and get my love. Mark Goodier is excited, observe his little kangaroo jumps when he spins to look at the main stage. Of course an excited Mark Goodier is still Mark Goodier, it's like someone has put a party hat on a plate of boiled potatoes and rice.

Alan Jeffery takes the Lighting credit this week and does his best to use as many colours as possible. Like Henry Barber on the 28/09/1989 show he takes the colour wheel and throws it out of the window, and lights the studio as if it was a fairground. It looks fantastic. Stanley Appel is back fully in control as producer and director. He gets good use from the handheld camera operators, and this performance is as good an example as any of the difference between wide shots and close ups. The wide shots of the stage look down on four people crammed together in the middle of the otherwise empty main stage. The close up, handheld shots, look up at the performers and are fully of energy and occasional abstract imagery as bits of dancers or a keytar intrude into frame. I'm coming to the conclusion that filming pop stars is a bit like filming Daleks. Framed head to toe they look silly but filmed in close up they look exciting and weird*.

(*sorry, I've been watching Remembrance of the Daleks.)

[7] BILLY JOEL: we didn't start the fire. Promo VT. About 120 seconds, that's long enough to go from 1949 to 1956.
CHARTS FROM 40 TO 31.

[33] MARTIKA: i feel the earth move. Referring back to the 28/09/1989 edition again, I mentioned how Stanley Appel seems to prefer bookending performances with a nice starting/finishing shot. And yet here the links into D Mob and Martika both feature nice pans across from Mark Goodier (Mark Goodier, excitement level -observe the way he waggles his arms like someone doing a chicken impersonation). And, check out the pan at the end of Martika's performance a smashing camera move from a stage at one of the studio to the Crow's Nest at the other. Lovely. Has someone had a word about formats and making sure the programme looks like it is recorded live?

This episode was recorded on Tuesday 17 October and in London news of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake broke just after midnight. This song was considered acceptable for broadcast by Thursday, but it was a different story on Wednesday as the news focused on coverage of the immediate aftermath. See this story from the Daily Mirror.

BREAKERS: (Mark Goodier, excitement levels rising to critical, he's now pumping his neck to an imaginary beat like Mike Smash)

[28] ADEVA: i thank you

[26] QUEEN: scandal

[24] DE LA SOUL: eye know

[9] CHER: if only i could turn back time. That's what the caption says. Promo VT.

[21] DEBORAH HARRY: i want that man. This must be a pre-record. The guitarist waggling the arm of the toy bear makes for a nice in for the VT editor. But when was it recorded? My best guess is back on 5 October when the stage lighting matches the setup for The Rebel MC and Double Trouble*.

(*and, I've just realised I've wasted a lot of time duplicating information which had already been passed on to me by mumu03, doh as all the cool kids say).

CHARTS FROM 30 TO 11

[34] SYBIL: don't make me over. Promo VT.

TOP 10

[1] JIVE BUNNY & THE MASTERMIXERS: that's what i like. Promo VT.
You finally really did it.
You maniacs.
Damn you.
God damn you all to hell.

[37] OH WELL: oh well. Promo VT. Bruno Brookes next week.

 Performance of the week: Deborah Harry, I Want That Man.

26/10/1989

Bruno Brookes: “Good evening. How's things at your place? Welcome to Europe's number one TV pop show. This is Top of the Pops. Later in the studio live we have Adeva, Chris Rea, and Living In A Box. First of all, Rebel MC and Double Trouble at three with Street Tuff.”

 

[3] REBEL MC AND DOUBLE TROUBLE: street tuff. Right, checking my notes I see it's been two weeks since I last complained about the hosts being given the old style caption (asterisks and not the target-shaped ones). Bruno Brookes gets an asterisk, and so did Mark Goodier last week. I guess the Powers That Be hated the new look captions and have reverted them.

What else? There are 10 songs featured tonight and only one of them is new. The other nine have all featured previously in one form or another. I may not have a lot to say.

[25] QUEEN: scandal. Promo VT.

[4] BELINDA CARLISLE: leave a light on. Promo VT.

CHARTS FROM 40 TO 31.

[12] CHRIS REA: the road to hell. I'm a big fan of making the Top of the Pops studio look big, bright, and colourful and Alan Jeffery is doing a great job. Except.... I'm also a fan of fitting the lighting to the mood of the song and in this case I don't think the bright and fun yellows and reds do that.

Do I have any suggestions? Not good ones. I'd be tempted to try replicating the sickly orange glow of the old sodium road lights, maybe with a lighting effect to suggest headlights passing. It might look terrible. It might not be technically possible. I'm not a lighting guy.

[13] LISA STANSFIELD: all around the world.  Promo VT. The one new song in tonight's show.

[7] LIVING IN A BOX: room in your heart. They've flown in from Hollywood. So I feel I should make the effort to type something.

And that was it.

CHARTS FROM 30 TO 11

[16] DE LA SOUL: eye know. Promo VT.

[17] ADEVA: i  thank you. This looks pre-recorded but in some of the panning crane shots you can see the Rebel MC's keyboard still set up on the stage opposite*.

* This is wrong. Once again, thanks to mumu03,for telling me Billy Joel was in London the week of recording this show. He appeared on Wogan on Monday 23 October and sang We Didn't Start The Fire. There's a picture (this one, https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/640x360/p01l3zhv.jpg) showing him on the neon tube stage -opposite the one used by Rebel MC et al- and sitting at a keyboard which looks very much like the one you can see on the stage opposite Adeva. However, We Didn't Start The Fire was going down the charts so what did he perform? Most likely Leningrad, which didn't do well enough to get into the Top 40. It got stuck at a peak of [53] in the charts for 23/12 and 30/12/1989.

TOP 10

[1] JIVE BUNNY & THE MASTERMIXERS: that's what i like. Promo VT.

[2] MILLI VANILLI: girl i'm gonna miss you. Andy Crane and Anthea Turner next week. Promo VT. Well, it's Promo VT if you are watching the archive copy (like wot I am). If you were watching on BBC1, what you saw was this:

https://youtu.be/9IedRei6G3o?feature=shared&t=96

A quick cross-fade to Bruno Brookes who manages to blurt out “Whoa-ho! That's what I like...” before being replaced by a hastily made caption screen; it's been made so fast they didn't have a chance to find the © symbol.

What's going on? Well, over at 11 Downing Street, Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson was getting pretty steamed over criticism from Alan Walters, Chief Economic Adviser to Margaret Thatcher. It's him or me. He told Mrs Thatcher. Extended news coverage of his resignation pushed the schedule back which meant Milli Vanilli had to be omitted in order to get the schedule back on, erm, schedule otherwise the Nine O'Clock News would be starting at 9.05. Once again, thanks to mumu03 for the information.

 Performance of the week: No one.

 02/11/1989

 [VT Clock]

Voice 1, possibly Andy Crane: “What's it called?”

Voice 2, unidentified male: “Um...”

[Titles]

Anthea Turner: “Hello! Good evening! And Welcome! To the show that you have voted the top television music show in Britain! And here's the award!”

Andy Crane: “Terrific. Thank you very much indeed if you did vote and congratulations to all the people that work on the programme. Don't forget, Radio 1FM has tonight's sound and we kick off with Martika. Over here at number twelve.”

 [12] MARTIKA: i feel the earth move. The “What's it called?” exchange briefly takes place over a 10 second countdown clock before the main titles. It's between Andy Crane and a mystery man, and I assume it relates to the A4-sized hunk of perspex with SMASH HITS etched into it which Anthea Turner holds up for the camera. I don't think the award has a name unless anyone knows differently.

Top of the Pops won the Best Music TV Programme category every year from its introduction in 1985 until it was phased out after 1992; The Roxy was robbed.

Captions: the new style captions are back although the colours on the logo have been inverted. They were previously a white cross overlaid on a blue circle, and looked quite chunky. Now it looks more spindly, a blue circle and cross on a white background. The caption for Martika pops in at an odd time as well; while the camera is still panning across from the hosts to the stage. I think it was brought in deliberately early so the caption is on screen for long enough that it can be removed just as Vision Mixer Susan Brincat cuts to a close-up of Marika, and Martika punches up into the air. The overall effect looking as if Martika hits the logo and sends it flying upwards.

[19] LUTHER VANDROSS: never too much (remix '89). Promo VT.

CHARTS FROM 40 TO 31.

[21] D.MOB INTRODUCING CATHY DENNIS: c'mon and get my love. Promo VT.

[8] DEBORAH HARRY: i want that man. “At number thirteen!” according to Anthea Turner but at [8] according to the person who runs the caption generator. Who is correct?

This is a repeat of the 19/10/1989 performance. BBC VT, as the jargon goes,

[2] MILLI VANILLI: girl i'm gonna miss you. Promo VT. A quick repeat for this video to compensate for the not being shown at the end of the 26/10/1989 edition.

CHARTS FROM 30 TO 11. Deborah Harry at [13], Anthea Turner confirmed correct.

[22] PHIL COLLINS: another day in paradise. Stanley Appel comes unstuck. He's started the Phil Collins performance with a nice wide crane shot of the stage which also includes the studio bridge running between the two stages at the far end of the studio. Unfortunately this is also the bridge that Anthea Turner is standing on and her sudden disappearance between two camera shots reveals this is a pre-record. I'm not 100% certain but on the opposite stage (the one with the vertical neon tubes) you can see a drum kit and piano setup which sort of matches what you could see behind Adeva on the 26/10/1989 edition.

The pot of paint is back on the piano. This must be the famous Phil Collins sense of humour I've heard so much about.

BREAKERS:

[26] BELOVED: the sun rising

[23] MIXMASTER: grand piano

[17] KYLIE MINOGUE: never too late. Best Female Solo Singer and Most Fanciable Female on the Planet according to 1989 Smash Hits readers.

TOP 10

[1] JIVE BUNNY & THE MASTERMIXERS: that's what i like. Promo VT.

[31] TRANSVISION VAMP: born to be sold. Promo VT.Nicky Campbell next week.
BONUS MASTERTAPE BIT: An empty main stage. The audience applaud and Janet Jackson and a cohort of dancers walk on, dressed in black quasi-military jumpsuits and caps. It looks like Rimmer's costume from series 3 of Red Dwarf.

“No applause into this,” is the instruction from one of the studio crew for some reason. The camera zooms in on Janet Jackson's face and its fascinating to watch as she struggles to keep a blank expression. She cracks a small smile and then a bigger one as the awkward wait stretches on. She holds her fist up in front of her face, the first move of the dance routine. And waits. And waits. And waits. Eventually she has to put her hand down again. The wait continues. Fiddle with the baseball cap. Look around. Smile nervously. Fist back in front of face. “Right we're going to go. No applause [inaudible]” says a different voice, probably Floor Manager Carmella Milne.

And we're off into Rhythm Nation. Then, oh no, an overly vigorous head nod loosens Janet Jackson's baseball cap and she breaks from the routine to put it back on. The music stops. “Okay, that was a good test drive,” says someone from the studio floor. And the screen goes black.

Everyone resets. Hat pins are presumably driven firmly into Janet Jackson's traitorous millinery. Take two goes well. The picture fades to black and then the videotape rolls back into life for the start of take three, but my copy cuts out mid-performance.

Performance of the week: Janet Jackson, Rhythm Nation.