Top of the Pops 8th August 1991

 Words: Chris Arnsby

 Nicky Campbell: “Oh, very good to see you. Thanks for joining us. Listen, tonight’s show is wonderful. Rock and roll up for the greatest pop show on Earth, Top of the Pops and prepare to marvel at the line up tonight. Truly incredible. Let’s start off with three fun loving guys from Amityville. The phenomenal De La Soul.”

 [22] DE LA SOUL: A ROLLER SKATING JAM NAMED ‘SATURDAYS’. Henry Barber is still doing the Lighting and it looks great. Lots of colour. Lots of studio atmosphere. Good use of the hand held camera operators by Stanley Appel. Yes, this is a really positive start to the show. I could do without Nicky Campbell quoting the Zip-a-de-doo-dah lyric at the end. When he does it, it’s not cool.

[2] EXTREME: MORE THAN WORDS: Promo VT and charts from [40] to [2]. I didn’t realise Bryan Adams potentially kept this dirge off the Number One spot. Keep up the great work Bryan.

[32] BEVERLEY CRAVEN: HOLDING ON. I’m struggling to find much to say about this edition, which is odd because Nicky Campbell and Extreme aside it’s not terrible. Tempting as it is to up the word count by heaping abuse on Nicky Campbell (he’s particularly insufferable this week but I’ve only got to sit through one more session of him hosting before he’s removed in The Great Tribulation), I need to be more constructive. Regular commenter mumu03 sent me a link* to The Top of the Pops Annual 1992 published on 31/07/1991.
Lets start with the cover which is so bad it looks like I designed it.

Most of the annual is sub-Smash Hits verbiage and POP FACTS about Gary Davies having slightly above the average number of legs. At least one of the POP FACTS was becoming outdated even as the annual sat on shop shelves.

Anyway, the real meat of the annual comes on page 60 with a chance to win a day out at the Top of the Pops studio in...ELSTREE?
“Smile sweetly! at the six frantic cameramen as they hurtle about the dance-floor. Shake the very hand! of one of your favourite DJ presenters! Wobble with excitement! at the sight of the chart’s hottest stars mouthing the words to their latest hit!” It’s clear Stanley Appel didn’t share any of the details of his proposed revamp with the unknown copywriter. I’m slightly amazed the news was allowed to dribble out in such an unspectacular way but it’s entirely possible the move away from Television Centre is a much bigger deal to me than it was to anyone at the time.

* https://archive.org/details/topofpopsannual10000unse

[5] METALLICA: ENTER SANDMAN. Promo VT.
[4] THE SHAMEN: MOVE ANY MOUNTAIN. Live mixing and live scratching but this isn’t a repeat, it’s a chance for Stanley Appel to have another go. This time the boy does better. He’s helped by Henry Barber’s lighting but the direction is more fluid with a better and more exciting choice of camera shots and angles. I think a little echo has also been added to the vocal tracks which stops the song feeling quite so sparse.

“Shamen live and direct on Top of the Pops for the second time tonight,” says Mr C. Proving A)that the rapping is also live and B)that this must be take two.

[28] AMY GRANT: EVERY HEARTBEAT. Promo VT.
[26] BLUR: BANG. Damon Albarn has brought along one of the chicken heads from the cover of the Leisure album. It’s on a stick so he can waggle it around. He gets bored of the concept during the bridge and it is discarded on the floor. I wonder if someone else grabbed it?

Watch out for the point during the second chorus when Graham Coxon drops his guitar pick and has to quickly bend down to recover it, just before his close up.

[19] YOUNG DISCIPLES: APPARENTLY NOTHING. Henry Barber is the hero of this edition. He’s got some very stylish lighting going on during the introduction, a row of spot lights that shift rapidly from side to side casting an almost strobe-light effect on the band.

BREAKERS

[40] TECHNOTRONIC Featuring REGGIE: WORK

[36] MICHAEL BOLTON: TIME, LOVE & TENDERNESS

[35] SOPHIE LAWRENCE: LOVE’S UNKIND

[1] BRYAN ADAMS: EVERYTHING I DO (I DO IT FOR YOU). Stanley Appel has decided to slot the Breakers into the old Top 10 countdown slot. He’s recognised Top of the Pops needs something in front of the Number 1 song to separate it out from the rest of the rest of the programme and give it a sense of occasion. I don’t understand why he doesn’t just do the obvious and bring back the Top 10 countdown. Lumping it in with the rest of the Top 40, in the second video slot, has resulted in it getting a bit lost.

[33] VANILLA ICE: SATISFACTION. Promo VT. Gary Davies next week.

 Countdown to Year Zero revamp: 8

Ratings: Uncharted this week. Top of the Pops was watched by fewer than the 6.06 million who saw Waiting For God. Meanwhile in 1990 the equivalent show placed at [26] with 6.95 million viewers.

Performance of the week: Henry Barber, obviously. Although he’s not performing in the sense I normally mean. De La Soul, A Roller Skating Jam Named ‘Saturday’.