Top of the Pops 19th January 1991

 

Words: Chris Arnsby

 Nicky Campbell: “Welcome to Top of the Pops” [pauses, does an exaggerated forward lean and looks over shoulder]. “You're in for a thirty minutes of untold aural and visual delights. And what a start. They come from Hackney in the east end, they've just taken America by storm with a top twenty hit, first appearance on Top of the Pops. Soho.”

 [26] SOHO: HIPPYCHICK. The VT countdown clock at the start of the master tape says this programme was scheduled for transmission on 17/01/1991 but the file supplied to me by Billy Smart is called 19 January 1991. Surely some mistake?

02/08/1990. Thursday. Iraq invades Kuwait.
20/11/1990. Tuesday. The United Nations Security Council sets 15/01/1991 as a deadline for Iraq to withdraw their forces.
15/01/1991. Tuesday. The deadline passes.
16/01/1991. Wednesday. Top of the Pops is recorded. Later, the multinational military coalition begin bombing Iraq.
17/01/1991. Thursday. The television schedules are ripped up to accommodate round the clock coverage of the war. The Six O'Clock News runs for an hour with the regional news bumped back to 7pm displacing Top of the Pops, which is moved to Saturday at 6.25pm. 

The whole thing can be illustrated by that meme showing a line of dominoes of increasing size, with the smallest labelled Saddam Hussein orders the Iraqi army into Kuwait and the biggest labelled 'Allo 'Allo repeat postponed; fans of 'Allo 'Allo had to wait until Saturday 26/01/1991 for the repeat of series 7 episode 3, Fleeing Monks.

Soho know nothing of this although the deadline has passed when they record their performance. Ironically the two singers are wearing tabards decorated with the Peace symbol; at the time Radio 1FM was not playing Give Peace a Chance, A Little Peace, or even Boom Bang-A-Bang, among others. Soho are also carrying flowers which I choose to interpret as a reference to the photo of George Harris placing a carnation in the barrel of a rifle carried by a soldier.

All that said, the most remarkable thing is the leaping skills displayed by one of the singers. A standing jump of about one and a half feet straight up. And yes, I have just measured my leg from the floor to the knee in order to make that estimate, I don't see anything odd about that.

[25] BELINDA CARLISLE: SUMMER RAIN. Promo VT.

CHARTS: 40 TO 31

[18] ALEXANDER O'NEAL: ALL TRUE MAN. Wearing a suit with the texture of a leatherette car seat. I was going to expand on this note but I think I'll leave it.

[10] BILL MEDLEY & JENNIFER WARNES: (I'VE HAD THE TIME) OF MY LIFE. Promo VT.

CHARTS: 30 to 11

[5] THE KLF: 3 A.M. ETERNAL. A blisteringly bonkers performance. Everyone is wearing monk-style habits (possibly in tribute to the postponed episode of 'Allo 'Allo? Sub, please fact check). And I'm very taken with the tape/pyramid symbol picture on the front of the habits worn by the backing singers. What else? The synchronised pointing left on the “ancients of Mu-Mu” line is silly and great at the same time; although it's disappointing that the audience don't join in. Then just as you think things can't get any better, a bloke in a kaftan wanders across the stage tootling on an oboe. (And, on the production side, check out the brief stage view from up in the Crows Nest. Very nice. More please).

If 1991 can give us more performances like this, it should be a very good year.

BREAKERS

[28] THE HIGH: BOX SET GO

[27] A TRIBE CALLED QUEST: CAN I KICK IT?

[28] THE STRANGLERS: ALWAYS THE SUN Wrong caption alert, they're at [29]

[22] STING: ALL THIS TIME. Promo VT.

TOP 8

[2] SEAL: CRAZY. The Top 10 is cut short to bring in the [2] song.

[1] ENIGMA: SADNESS PART 1. Promo VT.

[21] RALPH TRESVANT: SENSITIVITY: The Quantel graphics have had an upgrade. I think we're now well into the era where a Little & Large sketch would end by folding the picture into the shape of a wine bottle in lieu of anything approaching a decent punchline. I mention this because the Sensitivity promo appears on screen in the shape of what's probably supposed to be a deflating balloon, judging by the way it drifts across the screen. Unfortunately for international news, it looks a lot more like a falling bomb.