Top of the Pops 22 November 1990

 Words: Chris Arnsby

 Anthea Turner: “Hello there! Nice to have you with us! For another edition of Top of the Pops! And a special welcome if you are joining us via the airwaves of Radio 1! In FM Stereo! On tonights show we've got! The Proclaimers! 808 State! But we're going to start off with EMF at number five!”

 [5] EMF: Unbelievable. Check out the way James Atkin treats his microphone. It's been a while since we've seen BBC property so disrespected. The stand is dragged around and the microphone gets frequent slaps as part of the hand gesture punctuation used by James Atkin.

The microphone is pulled out from the stand and there's a sticky moment when Atkin tries to pop it back but it won't go, so he briefly tucks the stand into one armpit like a crutch. Then James Atkin gets the microphone back into it's holder, relief, and for the next verse it looks like he is making a conscious effort not to out put his hands too close to the damned thing. But the mood of the song takes over James Atkin, and on the penultimate “you're so unbelievable,” he knocks the stand over and has to turn round and pick it up. After that, it's liberty hall on poor treatment. The stand is dragged and knocked and our final sight of it has the microphone pointing down at the floor, as if defeated.

[3] VANILLA ICE: Ice Ice Baby. Promo VT.

CHARTS: 40 TO 31

[17] THE PROCLAIMERS: King Of The Road. The double-bass player has a sticker of J-n-th-n K-ng prominently displayed on his instrument. Alas for the BBC in the future, everyone involved in recording this performance seems determined to feature the sticker as prominently as possible.

[12] ROD STEWART & TINA TUNER: It Takes Two. Promo VT. The first of two versions of this song tonight.

CHARTS: 30 to 11

[11] JULEE CRUISE: Falling. Here's another one for the Pantheon of great Top of the Pops performances. Obviously Julee Cruise's performance and the song lend themselves beautifully to sweeping camera moves and slow cross fades, all of which we get from Paul Ciani and Vision Mixer Carol Abbott. What elevates this is Chris Kempton's Lighting of Julee Cruise. He makes her look strange and ethereal. Constantly moving stark white lighting will bleach out her skin, robbing it of defining lines or contrast or depth. Then the shadows shift and half her face is glowing while the other has almost too much detail as tiny shadows highlight the smallest texture of her skin. Technically it's all wrong but it works so well.

[8] JIMMY SOMMERVILLE. To Love Somebody. BBC VT from 08/11/1990.

[10] 808 STATE: Cubik/Olympic. It's odd how quickly Top of the Pops can turn itself round, from a disappointing edition last week to one that's almost a perfect cross section through the music* of 1990. EMF to The Proclaimers to Julee Cruise to 808 State.

*Alright, the chart music of 1990.

808 State are old hands at this, their first appearance was just over a year ago with Pacific – 707. Now that they've split from MC Tunes, Graham Massey returns to acting as a frontman. For  Pacific – 707 he tootled away on some sort of electric oboe, here he rocks out an electric guitar and does a jolly good job of pretending an electric guitar was front and centre during the making of this single.

There couldn't be a more stark contrast between this and Falling. Julee Cruise is shot to look dreamlike and strange. 808 State are industrial and harsh. Spotlights stab down from the ceiling. Banks of lights flash. Someone has found the plug for the vertical-neon-tube-thingy and it's fully illuminated for the first time in ages. It looks as much like a rave as Top of the Pops can get away with, note the way Paul Ciani drops in frequent shots of the crowd dancing, and of course the ironic thing is, no rave was ever this well lit.

Paul Ciani has been holding back on the Quantel shots tonight so he can throw them all at this performance. A big round of applause for the colour-replaced shots of Graham Massey, that's an effect that hasn't been used for a long time. And well done to the handheld camera operator who dashes down the stairs, dodging the dancing audience, and quickly runs round the side of the stage. He comes along at quite a lick. The shots almost look speeded up, but I don't see how they could be. I think the camera operator is just sprinting.

TOP 10

[1] THE RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS: Unchained Melody. NBC VT, The Andy Williams Show 1965.

Children in Need: BRUNO / LIZ / RADIO 1 POSSE. Pudsey Bear is here. Actually, it's Richard Marson who would go on to edit and produce Blue Peter. Over at Roobarb's DVD forum he wrote: “That was me inside the Pudsey costume. Paul Ciani offered me £50 to do it and I blithely agreed without realising how grim it was going to be inside the thing! Still I did my best to bump and grind!”

Pudsey Bear is here to help promote the video for Bruno Brookes and Liz Kershaw's sequel to last year's It Takes Two. Can you spot a visibly embarrassed Gary Davies? There's Simon Bates and Steve Davis pretending to be great pop mates. It's an entertaining video because this is the beginning of the end for old-school Radio 1. Over at GLR, a bloke called Matthew Bannister is working with Chris Evans and Danny Baker. A chill wind of change is starting to blow.

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 Countdown to Year Zero revamp: 45

Performance of the week:  Julee Cruise, Falling, AND, 808 State, Cubik/Olympic