Top of the Pops versus American Bandstand*

thanks, that i never realized.

 

Top of the Pops was a basic part of life for most of the 70s and 80s. Something everyone watched, even old folk. You watched it in the way that you watch the news, you timed your week by it.

Everyone’s dream was to be on it, and for me as a child the significance of a record being no.1 in the charts was not so much being the top selling record but that that act would definitely be on at the end of the show, receiving their recognition - the no.1 slot on TOTP was like taking your gold medal winner’s place on the Olympic podium.

American Bandstand seems to have interviews - none of that of TOTP, which wasn’t really a magazine programme, but more like a radio show on tv.

 

A number of ITV regional channels ran pop shows during the 70s that were shown in a couple of regions at most but never networked. There was a Marc Bolan half hour that ran for a few episodes and a similar Bay City Rollers half hour- both were low budget and quite cringey

 

Top Of The Pops didn't always end with the top 10 run down and the N01 for a while in the 60s the show began with the chart rundown and straight into the N01 as the first performance on the show!

 

That’s true I know, but still doesn’t seem right in those old clips!

 

I like watching videos now of TotP, but I grew up with American Bandstand and I loved it!

I started in Public School and I would rush home to see it starting at 4PM and it was on Monday through Friday!

Consider this: The best dancers or best looking dancers on AB would regularly get fan Mail from viewers!

 

I can’t comment on TOTP as I’ve never seen an episode. But I was an avid AB viewer from around 1971-75.

The popular music of the day almost seemed a soundtrack to the dancers, who were “stars” in their own right.

It was kind of bland, but at least for a time (and again maybe later, after I bailed), the producers of AB tried to better acknowledge the strength of “rock” as a commercial force, though they were awkward about it.

I can only imagine the sigh of relief Dick and his staff felt when disco came onto the scene as it was the perfect genre of pop for a bunch of pretty, young dancers to boogie to. I’m not saying that as a negative…it actually made the show less awkward and more watchable, especially for a young teenager looking at eye candy on the, er, boob tube.

 

These were mostly produced by Muriel Young for Granada (which was the ITV franchise in the North West of England), there was a whole succession of them and they were broadcast nationally.

Muriel Young - Wikipedia

These were made for children's TV.

The Tony Wilson show "So It Goes" was also a Granada production but was for an adult audience, this wasn't broadcast nationally.

So It Goes (TV series) - Wikipedia

The first Joy Division TV appearance was on Granada Reports, a regional news programme (and therefore not of any interest to anyone outside the region!)

 

I'm In Love With Cathy McGowan.

 

TOtP was way better!

 

TOTP was appointment TV in our house every Thursday for as far back as I can remember-three older siblings made sure of that. It was the one half hour of the week when my parents actually left the room and ceded control of the "telly" (sounds so archaic now, like "wireless" did before wireless was a thing). It was chart-based, so there was a lot of cr@p. However, I was one of the millions who saw Bowie's now-legendary performance of "Starman" that allegedly launched the careers of everyone from Echo & The Bunnymen to Boy George. I saw Roxy Music, The Faces with John Peel miming the mandolin part in Maggie May, the famous early video of Bohemian Rhapsody for weeks on end as it sat at #1. TOTP really came into its own a little later when I hit my teens-The Jam, Madness, Buzzcocks, Elvis Costello, Ian Dury & The Blockheads, The Specials and the SEX PISTOLS!!! doing Pretty Vacant!!! Rotten singing "Vacant" with the questionable pronunciation on the second syllable was the talk of school the following day...

For me it was something I grew out of as the 80's progressed-I would watch if I knew somebody I wanted to see was scheduled to perform, but that was superseded by the video jukebox in my local pub...TOTP was very much a part of the culture in the UK for over twenty years, and a valuable part of my musical education.

 

Yes Marc Bolan & The Bay City Rollers shows were networked, I omitted to say that in my post!

 

As much as I liked TOTP - the Chart Show on Ch4/ITV, with it's indie, dance and rock charts, was the indispensable music show on UK in the late 80s and early 90s. It was here that I first heard Bjork - as part of the Sugarcubes who's Birthday song was in the Indie Charts for yonks but never got close to the Top 40 or TOTP.

It was also on the Chart Show that I first heard INXS's Need You Tonight many months before it finally hit big on the UK charts.

 

Ha, exactly the same situation, older sis used to watch it, saw the Starman episode, and then in the late 70s would be checking if any punk bands had gone high up enough on the charts to get the TOTP call up. By the mid 80s The Tube had taken its place as the never miss show.

 

With a certain generation those words could spark a riot! Lol.

 

RSG! and The Tube were both edgier and cooler than TOTP's. The ITV shows had a looser format and helped promote newer edgier bands and artists and included fashion and wider pop culture n the format. The Tube was also an extended show taking up the hour. TOTP's stuck rigidly to the singles chart which was both its strength and its weakness. At the end of the day TOTPs outlived them all to rule the TV Pop charts for almost 50 years- far longer than any other similar show. As a lover of R&B and Soul music TOTPs and the BBC did not serve the nation well. RSG! and the Tube did a better job. A UK version of Soul Train ran for a season on Channel 4 in the mid 80s.

 

Top of the Pops, for much of its life, had a 'light entertainment' vibe. It had to cater to a broad audience, hence its inclusion of child stars, novelty acts, punks and old crooners, sometimes in the same show (well, almost). It was never cool - even its name wasn't cool - but it was entertaining, and its chart-based eclecticism was a strength (even if it didn't seem like it at the time.

ITV had some music shows with a bit more credibility, like Rediffusion's Ready Steady Go! (when fronted by Cathy McGowan, not so much with Keith Fordyce) and, much later, ATV's Revolver (with Peter Cook). Granada's Lift Off with Ayesha was less cool, but included some essential performances, and we were back in the realm of light entertainment again with ABC Weekend Television's Doddy's Music Box (with Ken Dodd). And there were also some strictly regional ITV music shows too, but they could sometimes be a bit 'homespun' (I'm desperately trying to remember the name of Westward's early-'60s offering, but it's escaped me).

I've never seen American Bandstand, but I did see a bit of a much later US music show in which Casey Kasem's jumper (sweater) seemed to be the main star. From what I remember, it wasn't at all bad (both show and jumper).

 

If the atmospheric conditions were right here in Scotland we could just about pick up the American Forces radio broadcast of Casey Kasem's American Chart rundown which was scheduled on Saturday afternoon if I'm correct. Along with Radio Luxembourg doing a countdown of the Billboard Top 20 on Wednesdays at 9pm and the Billboard charts published in Record Mirror that was our only direct insight into the current US music scene. We really were isolated way back in the 50s 60s and 70s. Unlike today where pop culture is everywhere. The UK Pop chart has always been a strange beast when compared to the Billboard Hot 100. There are so many cringeworthy records that the UK public bought by the bucketload while records and artists who now have legendary status were ignored. A lot of that was down to the BBC and its notorious playlist. The Musicians Union also had a stranglehold on who could perform and where! So many American acts were unable to appear on shows like TOTPs as a result of these draconian rules- that was to the advantage of continental Europe where many of those artists were able to appear on Top Pop while we got... Pan's People...

 

Guess it’s a location thing.
Or chart preference.
I’m going with
TOP OF THE POPS

 

Both equally useless.

Germany’s Beat Club beat them both, hands down.

 

"We're all heads"

 

The short-lived Top Pops was the only UK music magazine I know of that printed U.S. Record World's charts, from 1968 to 1970 (coincidentally or not, RW up to 1970 called their singles chart "100 Top Pops"). Once they reorganized as Music Now, unfortunately, they played "follow the leader" and, like NME and Melody Maker, printed the Cash Box charts for U.S. positions, while both Record Mirror and Record Retailer / Music Week went with Billboard (which, at one time or another, owned both).

It would seem TOTP had two U.S. equivalents: American Bandstand on the TV side, American Top 40 on the radio.

But the point about the UK situation vs. U.S. on what made each chart: The de facto monopoly the BBC enjoyed, especially on radio (even with ILR stations signing on in 1973), plus all else. In the U.S., back then, there was considerable diversity in media ownership - the three major networks, plus Mutual Radio, plus a host of small and medium-sized "groups." And local stations with a devotion to the community you don't really see anymore, what with huge media corporations now owning thousands of radio stations each.

As far as the UK Musicians Union - there was a time, in 1965, when its U.S. equivalent, the American Federation of Musicians, would not allow certain British acts into the U.S., thus hurting their chances of "breaking through" here. One group so affected (albeit, in their case, that was only one of their problems) was The Kinks.

And your "strange beast" comments: Having overseen and/or participated in many a thread of UK #1's, I can attest to how sometimes out of a different planet (let alone side of the pond) each of the two countries' charts could be at times. I've oft referred to it as coming down to the "yin / yang" factor. With some weeks I oft asked which number on one chart could be swapped for one on the other.

 

The Granada TV region had a huge reach, broadcast from Manchester yes, watchable as far north as some areas of Scotland, a fair way into North Wales and as far East as parts of Yorkshire. Probably watchable by upwards of fifteen million viewers.

 

The various regional stations were affiliated to the ITV network with the stations all broadcasting a core of programmes at key primetime slots throughout the week- the big hitter for Granada was of course Coronation Street which was and continues to be ITVs flagship show, a national institution since 1960. The regional stations would create content and attempt to sell it to fellow stations or to the network. They often produced local programmes for their own region exclusively- all part of their contract. Local news magazine shows were show in each region following the network national ITN News