Top of the Pops 4 January 1990

Words: Chris Arnsby 

Bonus master tape bit: The recording starts on a VT countdown clock held at 10 seconds. The Next Generation by Neneh Cherry is playing and mixed with the low mumour of the studio audience. Several of the studio crew can be heard attempting to gee up the crowd. “Ah go on,” says someone who is probably Gary Davies as the clock begins counting down to the titles.

 Gary Davies: “Hello. Good evening. Welcome to Top of the Pops. Firstly, happy new year. Secondly, happy birthday because Top of the Pops is twenny six years old tonight. And thirdly we are totally live tonight. So we have a real fast frenzied show for you. To start us off, here's Hey You from Quireboys”.

 

[24] QUIREBOYS: hey you. Top of the Pops is not exactly 26 years old. It's birthday was actually 01/01/1964 (between Town and Around 6pm, “A daily presentation of news and views from London and the South-East. Introduced by Michael Aspel.” and Tonight 7pm, “Introduced by Cliff Michelmore with Derek Hart, Alan Whicker, Fyfe Robertson, Trevor Philpott, Kenneth Allsop, Macdonald Hastings, Christopher Brasher, Julian Pettifer, Brian Redhead.”) New Year's Day didn't become a bank holiday until 1973.

The Quireboys are on the tall neon stage and the boys from Visual Effects have packed the neon tower full of pyrotechnics which produce safe showers of sparks. The Quireboys themselves are the disappointing phutt of a damp banger. I wouldn't have chosen them to kick off a new decade. There's one wearing a headscarf, like Axl Rose and one wearing a hat like Slash. Two others share a microphone because they are all grate rawk mates. They are endearingly rubbish, the “if wet” version of Guns N' Roses.
TOP TIP: The Quireboys, if you want your girl to stand by your man then stop calling her “hey you”. She has a name.

[5] MADONNA: dear jessie. Promo VT.

CHARTS: 40 to 31.

[18] SILVER BULLET: 20 seconds to comply. Promo VT. Missing out the start of the song which is a sample from Robocop; the bit where ED-209 blows away the unfortunate Kinney, while being demonstrated by Dick Jones. Possibly the sound of shrieks and gunfire was a bit strong for the BBC.

[12] LATINO RAVE: deep heat '89. Promo VT. Jive Bunny for people who think they are too cool for Jive Bunny.

[20] SONIA: listen to your heart. Oh good. A studio performance. Oh bad. It's Sonia. The most notable thing about this performance is, the two perspex uprights from the Review of the 80's have been repurposed. “THE 80's” stencilling has been scraped off and the uprights are being used to fill a bit of space at the side of the record needle stage.

CHARTS: 30 to 11. To prove its live, here's a mistake. Chris Kempton is in charge of Lighting and he's clearly tuned out while Sonia was on stage.

Gary Davies is up in the crow's nest to introduce the charts, and Chris is supposed to turn on the main stage lights on the cut from Sonia to Gary. Chris Kempton doesn't but Gary burbles on like a pro in the brief moment of darkness.

[8] DE LA SOUL: the magic number. Promo VT. This is going to be one of those shows, isn't it?

[23] 49ERS: touch me. Promo VT. Yup. This is a real New Year's hangover show. Two studio performances, and that's your lot. Was no one, other than Sonia and The Quireboys, available? Is this some weird BBC accounting trick. Like, the Review of the 80's show had a double studio session (eight songs) so this one can only have half of a standard session (ie, two), to balance the books? Why bother being live if the host is only required to link videos?

Ian Simpson (video effects) and Susan Brincat (vision mixer) pull off a clever transition at the end of the song. The 49ers video uses electronic effects to fold the picture into a rotating arrow shape. “Hey,” says the BBC, “look we can do that as well,” and Gary Davies is duly folded and rotated and overlaid on top of the picture. He sits there spinning for a good three or four seconds before his cue. It's an example of the programme actually drawing attention to the cleverness of their effects, rather than just whizzing them off screen.

[9] NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK: hangin' tough. Promo VT.

[11] ROB 'N' RAZ featuring LEILA K: got to get. Promo VT.

TOP 10.

[1] BAND AID II: do they know it's christmas? Promo VT.

[25] F.P.I. PROJECT: going back to my roots. BBC VT from the 21/12/1989 edition. Simon Mayo next week.

Bonus master tape bit: As Going Back To My Roots fades, the picture cuts first to a blurred still from the title sequence and then the Top of the Pops logo on a white background.

The studio audio cuts in: “Ding ding ding ding ding, ding-ding.” Sings someone to the tune from Eastenders.
“Right thank you everybody. We have gone into [can't make it out] that was live and now we can go.”
“Thank you very much.”

[Clapping, applause and cheers] 

“Take your bags with you.”
“So how was it now?... Get the door... Get the door please. Get the door please.”

[Crowd noise and studio chatter].

 Performance of the week: No one. Stanley Appel, hang your head in shame.

Fast forward: New Kids on the Block.

Mute: Sonia.