Top of the Pops 25th July & 1st August 1991

 Words: Chris Arnsby

 25/07/1991

 Mark Goodier: “Hi. Good evening. Welcome to the UK’s number one hit music show, Top of the Pops with stereo sound on Radio 1FM. We’ve got Danni Minogue on tonight, we have Cher, we also have OMD, and we start with the brilliant Shamen. Rapping, scratchin’, and singin’ live on Move Any Mountain.”

 [9] THE SHAMEN: MOVE ANY MOUNTAIN. It’s all a bit flat. Stanley Appel directs Vision Mixer Ben Fuller to mostly bounce between static camera angles when a song like this needs energy and oomph. It needs panning cameras and constantly moving handheld camera shots. It needs more dynamic lighting and atmosphere. Where are the strobes and the spotlights and the smoke? Why are we limited to flashing banks of orange and blue lights along the studio roof? Basically, why is this all a bit boring? It should be brilliant but somehow the direction and staging sucks away all the life.

Move Any Mountain is a great single. This is three minutes of a bunch of blokes doing their best but being offered no support. It’s as if Stanley Appel expects the viewer to be so impressed by a live vocal that no other work is required. It’s like offering someone a cake and dumping eggs, flour, milk, and sugar on the table. Additional work is required.

[4] C&C MUSIC FACTORY Featuring F. WILLIAM0S: THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO HMMM… Promo VT and charts from [40] to [2].

[14] DANNII MINOGUE: JUMP TO THE BEAT. Oh. Here’s all the dry ice and panning camera shots and fast cutting and handheld camera shots. I didn’t realise it was rationed to one performance only.

[8] EXTREME: MORE THAN WORDS. Promo VT.

[7] OMD: PANDORA’S BOX. During the instrumental, Andy McCluskey dances over to awkwardly fist-bump the keyboard player. He fist-bumps too hard and knocks the keyboard player’s elbow back just at the point a handheld camera operator moved in for a close up of the keyboard. The result, an ugly picture judder as the elbow makes contact with the camera.

[10] CHER: LOVE AND UNDERSTANDING. This was pre-recorded over a month ago during the studio session for the 20/06/1991 show. Cher is on the same stage as the one used by Bette Midler when she performed From A Distance. The Stonehenge stage when it was decorated with all the disco balls in the world.

Commenter mumu03 pointed this out to me and also noted that Cher recorded a performance of her follow up single Save Up All Your Tears on the same day. This went unused. Maybe because Top of the Pops had entered the Year Zero era by the time the single was released in October 1991. It would have been too obvious it was old footage. The performance finally leaked out on a January 1999 edition of TOTP2. You can see a bit of it here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMX0vXSYL0w Cher is wearing the same light dress over a dark top.

[26] FRANKIE KNUCKLES: THE WHISTLE SONG. That’s a flute, not a whistle. Oh I see, the whistle comes in later for all of 30 seconds while the flute player has a rest. This should have been called The Flute Song.

BREAKERS

[34] DEACON BLUE: TWIST AND SHOUT

[33] SEAL: THE BEGINNING

[30] BOMB THE BASS: WINTER IN JULY

[1] BRYAN ADAMS: EVERYTHING I DO (I DO IT FOR YOU). BBC VT. A repeat of the studio/VT footage from 11/07/1991.

[29] MORRISSEY: PREGNANT FOR THE LAST TIME: Promo VT. Simon Mayo next week.

 Countdown to Year Zero revamp: 10

 Ratings: A week when Top of the Pops didn’t make it into the Top 30 programmes. It rated less than the 5.70 million who watched Six O'Clock News on Wednesday. It was a better week in 1990 when the programme got to [28] with 6 million viewers.

 Performance of the week: That’s a good question. I think it’s The Shamen, Move Any Mountain, as a cautionary tale.

 01/08/1991

 Simon Mayo: “Hello. Good evening. This is Top of the Pops. We’re going to start with the summer hit of 1991. You know the one. It’s going to drive you mad all summer long. Normally it turns out to be an import from Italy. This time it’s an export from Putney. At number twelve. This. Is. Right. Said. Fred.”

 [12] RIGHT SAID FRED: I’M TOO SEXY. Henry Barber is on Lighting this week. He’s already putting in more effort than anyone did in the last show. Check out the way he’s angled the spotlights over the Main Stage to create an abstract shape in the studio smoke, which slowly untwists as Simon Mayo ends his introduction.

Whatever went wrong with The Shamen’s performance last week has been mostly corrected here. The direction is less leaden. The studio looks more atmospheric. Generally speaking it’s all just a bit more fun.

I can’t put my finger on it but there’s something about Stanley Appel’s directing style that is not gelling for me. Maybe it’s the shot composition. It just seems a little off. At times it seems less like I’m watching a performance and more a random selection of shots.

Why is Right Said Fred’s guitarist also doubling up as the keyboard player? Did the real keyboard player go to the wrong studio?

[26] DJ JAZZY JEFF & FRESH PRINCE: SUMMERTIME. Promo VT and charts from [40] to [2].

[24] VOICE OF THE BEEHIVE: MONSTERS AND ANGELS. This is better. I think Stanley Appel is using more close ups than he did for Right Said Fred. I wonder if Right Said Fred just kept moving around to much for close ups, and that’s why we got a series of slightly duller mid shots for `I’m Too Sexy`.

Obviously I’m going to obsess over tiny mistakes made in the heat of the moment. On the line “I'm nobody's company” Check out the way Vision Mixer Dinah Long briefly cuts to a picture of the drummer, before rapidly cutting away to a profile shot of the singers. Somebody pressed the wrong button!

Check out how lead singer Tracey Bryn satirises the whole of Top of the Pops by holding her guitar the wrong way round. No wonder they had to do a year zero after that mockery. Or maybe she’s showing off that Morrissey appears to have signed it? These days I assume she’d want to keep quiet about that.

[15] DEACON BLUE: TWIST AND SHOUT. Once again I find myself with nothing much to say about Deacon Blue. Maybe they could try getting their accordion signed by Right Said Fred?

Oh hang on. One of the guitarists has been inspired by Voice of the Beehive and is also doing a satire. He’s let go of the neck of his guitar so it points to the floor but he’s still pretending to play it. Take that, the musical-television complex!

[24] COLOR ME BADD: ALL 4 LOVE. Stanley Appel has gradually moved back to the old way of recording introductions, with the host standing in the foreground and the group in the background. This has the advantage for me of making pre-recorded performances easier to spot. Here’s one and judging by the rotating lights hidden behind the wings of the main stage it was recorded last week because there’s a similar effect going on behind The Shamen.

[25] MORRISSEY: PREGNANT FOR THE LAST TIME. This seems like a studio performance heavy show. It isn’t but it’s got an unusual structure. We’d normally have another video as song four, and then some Breakers. Instead we get the standard video and charts in slot two and then four back to back studio performances.

[14] BOMB THE BASS: WINTER IN JULY. Make that five back to back studio performances. This is probably a pre-record but I can’t work out when it would have been put to tape.

There is some cracking camera work on display here which stops me using my (old and cliched) joke that Stanley Appel couldn’t even direct traffic. Check out the lovely slow full 360 degree handheld panning shot around Loretta Heywood. Then on the synth break, when one of Bomb The Bass goes to noodle on the enormous bank of controls, there’s another brilliant shot . The handheld camera operator moves in to capture a picture of the hands of the keyboard players with the audience dancing in the background.

Having said I’m not a fan of Stanley Appels’ directing style, I’m beginning to wonder if he’s more comfortable with slower songs. The direction on everything except I’m Too Sexy (and Move Any Mountain last week) is pretty good. Maybe he goes to pieces with faster paced stuff.

Oh, you’re going to leave the Breakers here at the end of the programme are you? Okay.

BREAKERS

[38] BEVERLEY CRAVEN: HOLDING ON

[36] MARILLION: NO ONE CAN

[35] DE LA SOUL: A ROLLER SKATING JAM NAMED ‘SATURDAYS’

[33] YOUNG DISCIPLES: APPARENTLY NOTHIN’

[1] BRYAN ADAMS: EVERYTHING I DO (I DO IT FOR YOU). One last chance to see the Promo VT because obviously this isn’t going to be Number One next week. (John- Thank ####! Bells, whistles, trumpets herald across the kingdom. Because even Maid Marion was tired of this serenade by now and had moved to a different tree)

[28] SEAL: THE BEGINNING. Promo VT. Nicky Campbell hosts next week. And check out the Radio 1 Roadshow in Weston Super Mare, Minehead, Ilfracombe, Bude, and Newquay.

 Countdown to Year Zero revamp: 9

 Ratings: 5.07 million which got Top of the Pops to [30]. Not so good in 1990, the programme got fewer viewers than the 5.68 million who watched the 9 O'Clock News on Thursday.

 Performance of the week: Winter in July is really good but I think it’s Monsters And Angels, Voice of the Beehive. (John- It was Winter in July but I suppose its your column!)