Top of the Pops 15 Nov 1984

Reviewed by Chris Arnsby. Mike Read: "Hey, lucky you caught us. Me and Bruno here are in a mellow mood, luckily we're going out nightclubbing later on."

Bruno Brookes: "Absolutely. I feel in a cocktail mood already. Tell you what, let's go with Matt Bianco right now."

[34] Matt Bianco: Half A Minute. Mike Read and Bruno Brookes are both wearing dinner jackets, and Mike Read has adopted what he believes is an American accent. Is all this talk about nightclubs and cocktails a clever reference to Matt Bianco and their music for wine bars? I neither know or care. Matt Bianco are on the main stage, the one with the audience at the front and back. I wouldn't dream of suggesting that this performance leans a tiny bit in the direction of possibly being not very interesting, but this is a good time to study the studio lighting grid. It's been upgraded. The lights above the performers are organised into geometric shapes that project down through the studio smoke. It looks great in wide shots.

The new lighting layout was introduced last week and premièred above Limahl and so-called Mandy. I didn't notice at the time because I was distracted by Richard Skinner mouthing "help me" at the camera while Simon Bates told me what time it was in 1984 and went on and on about Spurs and got Never Ending Story's title wrong. Bill Millar is credited with Lighting on this and last week's edition, so I'm going to assume the new lighting layout was his idea. Well done Bill.

 

Top of the Pops 9 Aug 1984

Reviewed by Chris Arnsby. John Peel: "Hello and welcome to another half hour of the hardest street sounds around like Hazell Dean and Frankie Goes To Hollywood."

Richard Skinner: "We've got street-credible Blancmange and beach-credible Tracey Ullman here's Sunglasses."

[26] Tracey Ullman: Sunglasses. Gordon Elsbury has been credited as Producer since the start of August. This normally means that Michael Hurll is off doing something else. In this case something else might be organising the new series of The Noel Edmonds Late Late Breakfast Show which starts on 01/09/1984 with an ambitious live cross Channel (English, rather than BBC1 and 2) extravaganza. Who's going to be directing that outside broadcast? Oh, it's Gordon Elsbury again, in his ongoing role as hired gun for Michael Hurll.

Designer Rod McLean and Gordon Elsbury are trying something different for Sunglasses. They've constructed a new set rather than invite Tracey Ullman to perform in front of the standard perspex scaffolding. It's just a blue backcloth with a spotlight shining a sun in the middle but it's surprisingly effective and it's good to see the production team thinking of simple ways to ring changes in the presentation.

Also on stage is the world's largest deckchair. Now, Google tells me that Tracey Ullman is 1.66m tall (that's about 5'4'' in old lengths) and the seat of this deckchair is at the height of her waist. Why does the BBC have a deckchair that big in stock? What's it for? Who had it made? And why? Don't get me wrong, I'm glad it exists. Having impractical and bizarre props on hand is exactly the sort of thing the BBC should do but I'd love to know what programme requested the oversized deckchair. A strange Lilliputian version of Summertime Special?

Top of the Pops 19 July 1984

Reviewed by Chris Arnsby. Richard Skinner: "Hello and welcome to Top of the Pops where the music may be recorded but the stars are all here live and here in person." Peter Powell: "On the stage you're going to see Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Divine, Billy Idol, Blancmange, but for starters The Mighty Wah! and Come Back!"

[28] The Mighty Wah!: Come Back. The Mighty Wah! finally make it on to BBC4. Their previous song Story Of The Blues got all of 90 seconds airtime on the repeat of the 03/02/1984 edition. The full performance went unrepeated as it featured on an edition blocked by the estate of Mike Smith [06/01/1983]. Of course, on that show the band appeared as Wah! Lead singer Pete Wylie has got through more band names than Spinal Tap; Wikipedia lists Wah!, Wah! Heat, Shambeko! Say Wah!, JF Wah!, The Mighty Wah! and Wah! The Mongrel. It's entirely possible Pete Wylie isn't taking seriously this whole being a pop star thing. Regardless of name, The Mighty Wah! are the ideal band for Peter Powell. They've even got his preferred punctuation built into their name.

Top of the Pops 22 Sept 1983

Reviewed by Chris Arnsby. Mike Read: "Hello chums. Welcome to Top of the Pops. Listen, it's bad enough us having to work together on the radio in the mornings, but we're stuck with each other on Top of the Pops now as well." Simon Bates: "Looks like being a good evening, though. Here's our first on Top of the Pops. It's Howard Jones, New Song, for the very first time. Over there."

[44] Howard Jones: New Song. Bad news everyone. This isn't a live edition of Top of the Pops so Simon Bates refuses to tell us the time. It's 7.30pm for anyone worried. On stage Howard Jones is joined by the Answer Prancer from Brass Eye or maybe it's just any old passing dancing fool who has painted their face, stripped to the waist (the top half), and donned plastic chains. It's deeply symbolic. (John- It’s Jed of course. Everyone knows Jed.) "I don't want to be hip and cool," sings Howard Jones as he abandons the synthesiser to dance in front of it in an uncool way (and yet somehow the music keeps going). The Answer Prancer is the real star of this performance. By the end of the song he has undoubtedly cast off his mental chains, but not his physical plastic ones. Which is odd because they look like they'd just snap off.

Top of the Pops 1 Sept 1983

Reviewed by Chris Arnsby. John Peel: "Howdy pals. Sure am glad you could mosey on down for another Top of the Pops.  We're live again this week, so far." David Jensen: "That's right Sundown. Hope you're comfy as we launch into another Top of the Pops with Modern Romance."

[9] Modern Romance: Walking In The Rain. BBC4 has just jumped two weeks into the future, for anyone suffering from temporal whiplash. KC and the Sunshine Band's triumphant three weeks at number one have been cruelly cut short. BBC4 only skipped 7 of the 30 editions between 1st January and 28th July 1983. In the back half of 1983 they'll be skipping 9 of the 23 remaining due to the increased presence of the forbidden hosts. Meanwhile, here's Modern Romance. Hope you enjoy their new direction. Previously they've specialised in what the Germans call le ohrwurm but now they're into soulful ballards. It's rubbish. Check out the lead singer and the blonde guitarist. I don't think I've ever seen two men modelling Princess Diana fringes before. The standard "chart position" "band name" "song" caption doesn't appear until halfway through the first chorus, just after the line "and cast aside those feelings of despair." This is a live edition, and someone in the gallery obviously forgot to display it at the start of the performance. I'm just surprised that Top of the Pops is so committed to its own format that a caption must be displayed, even if the song is well underway. Having said that, it's possible the technology of the time can only show captions in order and that unless this one is put on screen the rest of them won't work. (John- It's produced by the legendary Tony Visconti of all people!)

 

Top of the Pops 31 Mar 1983

Reviewed by Chris Arnsby. Steve Wright: "Good evening and welcome to another Top of the Pops. Sorry about the studio tonight. It's a bit messy, we're spring cleaning and we couldn't get all the scenery in. Richard Skinner: "But we've made with it with some excellent live bands in the studio. All of them. Kicking off with New Order. Playing live. Singing Live. With Blue Monday!"

[17] New Order: Blue Monday. Welcome to Easter 1983. Richard Skinner is very excited. Maybe it's the presence of the Easter Bunny (some poor audience cheerleader in a furry bunny suit, clutching a basket). Whatever the cause, Richard Skinner is peaking at approximately 0.75 Peter Powells (or 0.9 Cheggers for those of you who prefer imperial measurements). Despite his overuse of the word "live" it's not actually clear if this show is live. BBC Genome doesn't think so, and it seems unlikely that BBC1 would schedule two live editions back-to-back. New Order are definitely -and defiantly- live but they seem oddly subdued. You'd think they'd be over the moon at being allowed to sing and play live in studio but for some reason they seem almost embarrassed. Bernard Sumner is doing a remarkable job of hiding as much of himself as possible behind the microphone stand. Stephen Morris probably summed up this ramshackle performance best on Top Of The Pops: The Story Of 1983, "we made the cardinal error of looking like we were miming but actually playing it live."

Top of the Pops 3 March 1983

Reviewed by Chris Arnsby. John Peel: "Hello again. We're the joy boys of radio." David Jensen: "Chasing electrons to and fro." John Peel: "Welcome to another Top of the Pops. Lots of treats again this week including the Top Ten Video Show." David Jensen: "Our opening melody comes from Icehouse and Hey Little Girl."

[17] Icehouse: Hey Little Girl. The David Jensen/John Peel double act continues to develop. Tonight the pair are wearing jumpers with the others name on the front. Rather unfairly John Peel's jumper reads "Kid Jensen," when David (that's Mr Jensen to you) dropped the Kid moniker ages ago. In case you were wondering, that "joy boys of radio" comment is a reference to Ed Walker and Willard Scott of Washington D.C. radio station WRC. (John- Is Chasing Electrons a band? It’s a good band name)

Top of the Pops 17 Feb 1983

Reviewed by Chris Arnsby. Peter Powell: "Hi folks! Welcome to Top of the Pops! Gary just give me two names of any bands that are on the show tonight." Gary Davies: [talking over Peter Powell, in a very unprofessional way] We've got Madness, Fun Boy Three..."

Peter Powell: " And Tears For Fears! And Haysi Fantayzee! Gary Davies: "And we're going to get underway with Wham! and Wham Rap!" Peter Powell: "Yes!"

[8] Wham!: Wham Rap! Peter Powell and Gary Davies dash off through the recently revealed secret DJ exit from the Top of the Pops set. Peter Powell, being the old hand, knows how to do this off camera. Gary Davies isn't quick enough. His exit can be witnessed at the back of shot. It looks like he's moving a little too fast for the shiny studio floor. He stumbles a bit. This is a breakthrough performance for Wham! Andrew Ridgeley finally gets a close-up (about two minutes into the performance). Proof positive that Top of the Pops now considers him half as important to the band as backing singers Dee C. Lee and Shirlie Holliman (keep up, Pepsi won't replace Dee C. Lee until sometime after Club Tropicana); who get two close-ups. For those keeping score Andrew Ridgeley's got some way to go before he's considered as important as the Greek chorus who get to say lines like "D.H.S.S." and "yeah." They get a mighty seven close-ups. A feature in the Smash Hits Personal File must follow soon.

Top of the Pops 13 Jan 1983

Reviewed by Chris Arnsby. [John Peel and David Jensen are both wearing Mexican mariachi hats] John Peel: "Hello. We're on a five pounds a man bonus for wearing these hats. Welcome to another Top of the Pops. We're the Burke and Hare of British broadcasting. I'm John, he's the likeable Canadian." David Jensen: "And this week we're going to kick off, amigos, with Incantation and Cacharpaya."

It's a new year on Top of the Pops. Michael Hurll (now credited with Production, rather than as Producer for some reason) has resurrected the dual presenter format. Wisely he's gone for two Radio 1 DJs instead of the terrible DJ plus guest format used in 1980 that gave us such combinations as Peter Powell and BA Robertson, or Tommy Vance and Roger Daltrey. Also different, weirdly, are the Top of the Pops titles. The 23/12/1982 edition introduced a modified version where the Top of the Pops logo was superimposed over the flying records rather than being on its own slide with a black background. This week we're back to the original film which strobes as it rapidly cuts between the logo and the records. Three editions of Top of the Pops have just been skipped by BBC4 and a quick check of Youtube shows all these (25/12/1982, 30/12/1982, and 6/1/1983) used the old titles. Was the new version done as a one-off technical demo, or did Michael Hurll hate it, or was it just lost in the Christmas hangover? Lets see what version gets used next week.

Top of the Pops 9 and 23 Dec 1982

9 Dec 1982. Watched by Chris Arnsby. Simon Bates: "Welcome to BBC1 on a Thursday night for an action packed Top of the Pops. We've got Shalamar to kick off with, over here at number 19 with Friends."

[19] Shalamar: Friends. Top of the Pops must have some money left over from the budget because this performance uses both dry ice and smoke. Unsurprisingly the effect is to gradually obscure the studio while Shalamar do their best to penetrate the fug. Shalamar singer Howard Hewett is wearing a smart Darth Vader t-shirt, and seems to be going for a Han Solo look in general with a holster slung low on one thigh. Watch out in the background -at least until it's obscured- for the bloke wearing the same white slit top as the lead singer from Blue Zoo a few weeks ago. It's possible that it is the lead singer from Blue Zoo. Damn this fog.

Shalamar wonder if the buses will still be running in this fog

Top of the Pops 18 Nov and 2 Dec 1982

18 Nov 1982
Reviewed by Chris Arnsby. John Peel: "You can call me an old silly if you like but I think this is the best line up for Top of the Pops we've had for a very long time indeed. Laughter and melody and lots of good clean fun. Here are Modern Romance".

[32] Modern Romance: Best Years Of Our Lives. Modern Romance are in their pomp. Six of their eight songs have started Top of the Pops since they first appeared in September 1981. There were other, bigger, and better groups but no one else was so clearly favoured by the show. Watching Modern Romance perform Best Years Of Our Lives you can see why. It's sets the mood of the programme; fast paced, energetic, and a chance for the crowd to cut loose and show they're all having the best possible time. I just wish I liked Modern Romance. How do all their songs manage to be both bland and earworms?

"Hey mate, R2D2's behind you!"

Top of the Pops 11 Nov 1982

Reviewed by Chris Arnsby. David Jensen: "Good evening. It's my turn to introduce you to the big musical numbers and this week we kick off with Blue Zoo and Cry Boy Cry."

[21] Blue Zoo: Cry Boy Cry: We've skipped a show presented by Mike Smith (for boring rights reasons rather than anything salacious) and so there's a degree of repetition between this edition and the last one repeated on BBC4. Blue Zoo have been promoted to the top of the show slot. The lead singer is wearing his split top again (it looks draughty) but he's lost the red tabard which covered it last time. The hat-wearing guitarist is still doing his own complicated private dance routine but he's left his hat at home. Apparently he was given a choice and preferred the dance over the hat.

[2] Dionne Warwick: Heartbreaker. A second song from the 28/10/17 edition. Dionne Warwich, unlike Blue Zoo, doesn't do return engagements and so she appears in repeated footage. (John- But does she have the tabard and the hat?)

Top of the Pops 28 Oct 1982

Watched by Chris Arnsby. Simon Bates: "Hello. It's Halloween night on Top of the Pops so we've got a party here. Why not join us? Here's three ladies from New York called Raw Silk and Do It To The Music."

In 1982 Halloween fell a mere three days from the traditional Thursday night slot of Top of the Pops. What better excuse for a zany Halloween themed show? Producer Brian Whitehouse sets the tone by having Simon Bates burst out of a sarcophagus. It takes two people to open the sarcophagus for him and the process startles a woman dressed in white who jumps as the disc jockey emerges. Evidentially she was expecting someone else. (John- Or she was amazed that an ancient Egyptian King looked exactly like Simon Bates!)

[33] Raw Silk: Do It To The Music. The audience are dressed as witches, and ghoulies, and draculas. It's bonkers! One audience member is carrying 1982's must-have accessory, a cardboard werewolf on a stick. Several members of the audience are dressed in long flapping white sheets as ghosts. This is a bad idea in a space filled with trip hazards and swooping camera's bristling with bits to snag loose fabric. Simon Bates' open sarcophagus (not a sentence I expected to write this year) can be seen rocking backwards and forwards behind Raw Silk as it's jostled by the dancing crowd. It looks disturbingly like someone is trapped within and trying to escape. Which is at least appropriate for Halloween.

Top of the Pops 21 Oct 1982

Watched by Chris Arnsby. Peter Powell: "Hello! Welcome to another edition of Top of the Pops! We've got Toyah! We've got Bauhaus! We've got Kool And The Gang! And we've got a new number one! But for openers it's The Piranhas and Zambezi!"

[37] The Piranhas: Zambezi. Top of the Pops is in full wacky party mode tonight. Check out the audience cheerleader dressed early for Halloween as a skeleton. The Piranhas are keen to join in for their first studio appearance in two years. Lead singer Bob Grover is dressed as Dennis the Menace, complete with a copy of The Beano sticking out of his pocket. The backing singers are done up as school girls. And the drummer is wearing a magnificent colourful budgie costume, lovely plumage. It puts to shame the lousy dead-eyed efforts The Tweets wore in 1981. (John- Brilliantly the lyrics include the line “Zambezi, Zambezi, Zambezi, Zam.”)

Top of the Pops 23 Sept & 14 Oct 1982

Watched by Chris Arnsby. 23/09/1982

John Peel: " Hello millions of humble admirers and welcome to another Top of the Pops. We've got a lot of treats for you, one rather a special treat. David Christie doesn't sound like a very French name, but French he is, here he is at number nine."

[9] David Christie: Saddle Up. The director (this week it's Brian Whitehouse again) has worked out a kind of walk-down routine for some of the Top of the Pops cheerleaders. At the start of the show they stand adoringly around John Peel and then as the camera pulls back they follow it and dance down to where David Christie has been set up on a podium. The move has a theatrical look that seems a little too stylised for Top of the Pops. Still, it's a very swish camera move. The crane pulls back and around David Christie to give us a wide shot of the studio. Eric Wallis is on Lighting, and he gives us a studio filled with pools of light and shadow. It looks great. Unfortunately someone has positioned the Zoo dancers (wearing skimpy cowboy outfits, natch) in shadow so their efforts go largely unseen.

[17] Fat Larry's Band: Zoom. Fat Larry has been hitting the rhyming dictionary hard. Boom/moon (a bit of a cheat). Rang/sang. Away/play. But wait. What's this? Bloom/wonderland. Why that doesn't rhyme a bit. Luckily the next line is whack/back and the natural order of things is restored. Wikipedia tells me this song was featured in the 1982 Only Fools And Horses Christmas special Diamonds Are For Heather, which would probably have started production around the time this episode aired. Someone is playing around with the caption generator at the end of the song. They've rigged the band name to appear vertically one word at a time with each word a different line; each word is also repeated horizontally across the screen. Unfortunately this means the first thing to appear is FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT.....

Top of the Pops 18 August 1982

Reviewed by Chris Arnsby. David "Kid" Jensen: "Hello there. In our line-up tonight we have Haircut 100, Duran Duran, Soft Cell, and many, many more. But we kick off with Modern Romance with the original golden horn of the legendary Eddie Calvert performing Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White."

[34] Modern Romance: Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White. Modern Romance present more music for wine bars. The bass and percussion remind me of the song Christmas In Heaven from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. I looked up Eddie Calvert on Wikipedia. He's a 1950's English trumpeter. Eddie Calvert led me to the Wikipedia page for the song Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White, which led to the page for Modern Romance, which led to led to the page for John Du Prez (he's the bloke playing the trumpet), which by one of those odd coincidences led to the page for 1983's The Meaning of Life. It turns out John Du Prez scored the film with Eric Idle but that work didn't include Christmas In Heaven. Who'd have thunk it?

Top of the Pops 12 August 1982

Reviewed by Chris Arnsby: John Peel: "Hello and welcome to Top of the Pops. Who's sold out then? To start the programme yet another one of those ensembles that has a funny foreign name."

[34] Toto Coelo: I Eat Cannibals. Toto Coelo -or, if you are more cynical, someone in Toto Coelo's record company- has done a lot of thinking about how to look good on Top of the Pops. The group is distinctively dressed in multi-coloured bin bags, and they've worked out a dance routine which works well on camera. There's a lot of hip-swaying and stamping on the spot but not too much moving around which allows for shots to be well framed, and makes life much easier for Vision Mixer Carol Abbot when she wants to cut between cameras. Toto Coelo's second and last Top of the Pops appearance is available on YouTube (it's embargoed on BBC4,  D*v* L** Tr*v*s), along with the official video, and it turns out Toto Coelo only have one dance routine for this song. This reminds me of The Brotherhood of Man who also used to devise one cringy routine per song and then plod through it on multiple Top of the Pops (sample example: Angelo, where the band assumed Flamenco-like positions while singing the ANGELO! bit of their cheery song about teen suicide). It should be noted that I Eat Cannibals is infinitely more fun than anything by The Brotherhood of Man. Toto Coelo won't be seen again. Their follow-up single Dracula's Tango (Sucker For Your Love) reached 54 in the chart. This is something of a relief for me as I'm finding their name very hard to type. My fingers keep rendering it as Toto Coleo. Oddly enough The Brotherhood of Man gives me the same problem; it keeps coming out as The Brotherhood of Mann.

Toto Coelo fail to spell their name

Top of the Pops 29 July 1982

Reviewed by Chris Arnsby. Mike Read: "Hello gang. Welcome to Top of the Pops. Terrific show lined up for you tonight, lots and lots of fab artists starting off with Dexy's Midnight Runners and Come On Eileen."

[2] Dexy's Midnight Runners: Come On Eileen. Where's Mike Read been? He last presented Top of the Pops in February. Why is Kevin Rowland the only person allowed to wear a shirt under his denim dungarees? How repulsed are the audience that Dexy's Midnight Runners are performing with no shoes and the raised stage places their stinking feet at face level? So many questions with no answer.

[3] Yazoo: Don't Go. An endearingly bonkers video in which Vince Clarke (and his stupid hair) makes a Frankenstein, and then dresses up as Dracula to menace Alison Moyet. The relevance of all this to song is tenuous but it looks like everyone is having a great time raiding the dressing-up box.

Top of the Pops 8 July 1982

Reviewed by Chris Arnsby. David "Kid" Jensen: "And a warm welcome to another forty minutes of hit sounds in vision. And we begin this week's music and lights with this from Imagination."

[5] Imagination: Music And Lights. Leee John and Ashley Ingram are having a contest to see who can wear the most stupid clothes. Under normal circumstances Ashley Ingram would win; he's wearing a top modelled on American Football shoulder pads and gold lame trousers. However, Leeee John has pulled off an ensemble in white lace and padded cloth which makes him look like the one of the alien delegates from the Doctor Who story Mission to the Unknown. The drummer barely gets a look in. Which is probably just as well. He's wearing a long coat that covers his shorts so he appears to be trouserless. This is a standard Imagination performance which means it features lots of groin thrusts and kissy faces but Leeeee John goes too far and punctures the erotic atmosphere with a move that involves opening his coat and fanning his chest as if his nipple is too hot. And where does Ashley Ingram's guitar go? It disappears while he's off camera. Does he toss it into the audience like Elvis used to do with towels? (John- Yes, in all 8 people were injured over the years)

Imagination: Yes, it was his turn to wear the triangle this week

Top of the Pops 1 July 1982

Reviewed by Chris Arnsby. A bad day for television, unless you really like sport. At 19.10 Top of the Pops is a ray of sunshine against the gloomy backdrop of a day where only Chock-a-Block and Playschool break up the monotony of a BBC1 schedule composed of alternating news and Wimbledon coverage. But wait... what's on when Top of the Pops finishes at 19.40? Oh it's World Cup Grandstand until the News at 21.55. Time for bed.
John Peel: "Hello and welcome to Top of the Pops. Getting to be a pretty regular gig for this... for me this and I always think it's very important when you're on television that you don't look stupid, you know what I mean. Rather a short programme because we've got football on later and I hope you'll stay for that. We've got some good things for you though; Queen, The Jam. We're going to start with Visage.  

[34] Visage: Night Train. Ron Bristow is on Lighting duties again and he uses a flickering light effect to subtly imply motion. It takes two people to produce this effect. The first is on the right of the stage spinning a square mirrored box by hand. The second is over to stage left and he's standing by a light making sure it's pointing at the box. Meanwhile Steve Strange dances around on stage. It's probably Visage's first time performing in the Top of the Pops studio, or something.

Steve was not impressed by the enormous microphone