The return of BBC TV's Top Of The Pops

I always hated it when artists sang live, it never sounded as good as the record due to the limitation of the studio. They are pop stars, just mime and look fantastic.

 

They seemed to have phases went artists mostly gave live performances. Leo aside, I don't think 1982 was one of them.

 

I think that was a latter day thing to try and modernise the show and boost ratings to compete with other British TV shows that were featuring live music but ultimately it failed

 

All the artists wanted to mime to the single. It was far easier. But there were some union laws which meant they couldn't and they had to record a new version of the song. If you watch the Elvis Costello performances from 78 this is very evident as they are clearly different performances. But imagine spending two weeks in a studio with a top producer and getting the sound perfect for the single only to be told you had an afternoon to re-record it for TOTP! Bands started cheating and sneaking in a tape with the actual single version on, and swapping the tapes over. A way round this seemed to be to sing the vocal live. All very confusing.

The worst example of this was Uptown Top Ranking which is a fantastic record, recorded by the cream of Jamaican musicians in a studio in Kingston or wherever. It sounds great. But if you watch the TOTP version the music is recreated by the BBC session musicians, and they are no way up to it.

Later on bands wanted to sing live to appear to be more authentic and 'real'. But then you have Kurt's bizarre version of Teen Spirit.

 

As I recall, the only David Essex single that was any good was 'Stardust'.

I remember this, absolutely wooden, wasn't it? Good chance this is on YouTube, but I'll spare posting it.

 

This is possibly the funniest thing I ever saw on TOTP. Lame doesn't come within light years of describing the orchestra's 'performance'.

 

There are others. New Order insisted on performing live and it sounded dire....
There was a period in the early/mid 90's when TOTP insisted on live performances (vocals anyway) and it was never as good.

 

New Order didn't sound that good on their records either.

 

Some of the early ones were very good. Lamplight, Rock On, Gonna Make You A Star..

I always thought Stardust was basically just a rewrite of Rock On anyway..

 

Like @bob60, I just wanted to hear the songs like they were on the singles.

I remember a really bad live performance from Belinda Carlisle on TOTP in the early 90s. She just totally lost it!

 

Even miming caused some bands problems :-

All About Eve – Martha’s Harbour (TOTP) »

 

It looked like she just couldn't be arsed.

I'm surprised I don't remember that one. I was still watching TOTP at that point.

 

Iron Maiden played live a few times in 1980/81, sounded good but as they complained it was too quiet in the TV studio so lacked the real power. It never really worked having acts play live in the TOTP studio.

 

Watched this weeks two episodes last night, both presented by John Peel.

Top of the Pops, 23/09/1982 »
23-9-82: Presenter: John Peel

(9) DAVID CHRISTIE – Saddle Up
(17) FAT LARRY’S BAND – Zoom (video)
(36) DOLLAR – Give Me Some Kinda Magic
(6) SHALAMAR – There It Is
(18) DEPECHE MODE – Leave In Silence (video)
(26) MUSICAL YOUTH – Pass The Dutchie (video)
(38) CULTURE CLUB – Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?
(22) CHICAGO – Hard To Say I’m Sorry (danced to by Zoo)
(15) EVELYN KING – Love Come Down ®
(1) SURVIVOR – Eye Of The Tiger (video)
(4) ROCKER’S REVENGE – Walking On Sunshine (crowd dancing) (and credits)

Top of the Pops, 23/09/1982 »
14-10-82: Presenter: John Peel

(8) MARI WILSON – Just What I Always Wanted
(36) BARRY MANILOW – I Wanna Do It With You (video)
(38) TEARS FOR FEARS – Mad World
(US 9) OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN – Heart Attack (video)
(US 8) AMERICA – You Can Do Magic (video)
(US 2) MEN AT WORK – Who Can It Be Now? (video)
(US 1) JOHN COUGAR – Jack And Diane (video)
(27) THE PINKEES – Danger Games
(37) MELBA MOORE – Love’s Comin’ At Ya
(30) THE PRETENDERS – Back On The Chain Gang (danced to by Zoo)
(20) ULTRAVOX – Reap The Wild Wind (video)
(14) THE BEATLES – Love Me Do (video)
(1) MUSICAL YOUTH – Pass The Dutchie (video)
(12) CARLY SIMON – Why (crowd dancing) (and credits)

US chart is edited from the 2nd show, not clear why as earlier in the year BBC4 showed this, I know Jonathan King presented that section, not sure what has changed in the meantime.

Pretty good shows overall, always entertaining when Peel is presenting. They'd best get a wriggle on to get 1982 finished before Christmas with 8 broadcastable episodes, alas Savile/Travis are part of the Christmas shows so we wont get to see them.

 

Apologies for sharing this but a few weeks back they did show a 1982 TOTP repeat featuring the video for Dire Straits Private Investigations followed by an appalling novelty song by "Wonderdog," which I now understand was a Simon Cowell creation, his first "hit." He's the one dressed up as the blue dog. Starts 4:00 minutes in. I need to listen to some quality music now to sooth my ears!

Top of the Pops, 09/09/1982 »

 

So annoying that they're not showing the US chart segments now. They've totally mucked this TOTP run up. They may as well have stopped showing it when the Savile story broke.

That said, there wasn't a lot on either of these shows for me. Was that Barry Manilow song his answer to Physical?

Nice to see Musical Youth and Tears For Fears again, though.

 

Nice to see Simon hasn't dropped his standards in all these years.

 

I always thought Pale Shelter came out before Mad World but maybe wrong, possibly that was on a banned episode. Nice to see it though.

The Manilow song was awful, always liked the Depeche Mode and Ultravox singles.

 

I think Pale Shelter was first, but it flopped.

They re-released it after Mad World and Change.

The Manilow song was bad. He was coming to the end of his hit-making days and clutching at straws.

There were a lot of these 'sexy' songs about... Physical, Muscles, Sugar Walls etc.

 

Was that the first Culture Club appearance too? "THE" performance that always gets mentioned, "was it a boy or girl?" I remember seeing that or one of the early appearances at the time. Looks like after that number 1 they released Time (Clock of the Heart,) before Christmas.

Over the coming weeks we've got the first appearance by Wham! Bowie and Crosby and the final single by The Jam. Then onwards into 1983.

 

Yes, it was the first Culture Club appearance. I remember George missing his cue and coming in late on his (mimed) vocal.

Why was John Peel hosting so many shows? He spent his entire career snooting down on the sort of music that was on TOTP...

 

Not sure, around '82/'83 he was back in and presenting a lot. I seem to remember a number of joint appearances, almost a double act with Kid Jensen which worked well, likely in '83.

 

No way! There's been loads of great clips and shows repeated on BBC4 since then. They would have stopped just as they were getting interesting, after the mostly dismal 1976 & 1977 shows.

It's understandable but annoying that they won't show the Savile and DLT shows or clips from them at all. I get that people, including me, don't want to see Savile on TV again, but it would have been good to take highlights from the shows with unfortunate hosts and compile them into more 'Big Hits' compilation shows with the hosts completely edited out. I am grateful BBC4 are showing what they can though. As for the US chart being edited out, personally I couldn't care less. I always thought those bits were cack and didn't like Jonathan King when I was a kid watching first time round!

 

They also skipped more episodes between the 2 this week and those the week before which is really annoying. Surely they could just edit the presenter out. I certainly don't miss Jonathan King's voice on it (let alone his face!), as for Saville just edit him out and have a slightly shorter running time

 

Let's just hope "Kid" Jensen doesn't get outted for anything or we can say goodbye to the 80s tun!