Del Boy
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Post by Del Boy on Jan 9, 2018 22:38:35 GMT
Hello pop fans and Happy New Year !!!! I was thinking to myself the Beeb must of abandoned the TOTP repeats as i saw a load of 1981 stuff scheduled. Turns out I forgot to renew the series link on my new V6 box I plan to watch this on good old catch up Head over to Fours site to read more and get info on scheduling on the link below: The Story Of 1985 BBC 4Anyway below is the write up from the above link : The Story of Top of the Pops 19851985 sees the 'Big Four' of 80's Pop - Spandau, Wham, Culture Club and the Durans - have a relatively quiet year which ushers in a new generation of Pop talent. The show becomes a barometer for the state of the nation as the ambitious King and A-ha, propelled by the most expensive video of the year for 'Take On Me', compete for attention with passionate politicos Billy Bragg and The Style Council who, fired up by the ongoing miners strike and continuing threat of nuclear war, give the studio audience their all with 'Between The Wars' and 'Walls Come Tumbling Down'. 1985 also sees Electro dance hit the mainstream as Dead or Alive top the charts with 'You Spin Me Round', the first number one for producers Stock, Aitken and Waterman, and Paul Hardcastle holds the top slot for five weeks with '19', a spoken word single made with new sampling technology and released on the 10th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam war. Meanwhile, movie tie-ins and record companies eyeing a 'housewives' market see a run of power ballads hit the charts from Jennifer Rush to Tina Turner to our very own Bonnie Tyler with 'Holding Out For a Hero' . And back in the real world, the heroic Bob Geldof brings the Pop generations together for Live Aid and Shakin' Stevens marks his 50th appearance on Top of the Pops and lands his first Christmas number one with a song he has waited a whole year to release. Featuring original interviews with A-ha, Shakin' Stevens, The Style Council, Billy Bragg, Bonnie Tyler, Pete Waterman, Paul Hardcastle, King and Loose Ends. ********************************************* Don't forget As ever The Story of is accompanied by Big Hits of 1985 Enjoy
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Cartman
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Post by Cartman on Jan 10, 2018 8:46:40 GMT
I’ll have to pass on this one Del, the last year, chart music wise, which I bothered with was 1983.
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Post by Frank Spencer on Jan 15, 2018 8:57:17 GMT
I'll be there Del Boy ! It wasn't until 1987 that my interest in chart music began to wane a little - and even then most of that is a million times better than the majority of the tripe that fills the Top 40 in 2018 !! Just got to finalize the tax return first before I return to the sofa telly ...
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Del Boy
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Post by Del Boy on Jan 15, 2018 20:42:32 GMT
Good lad Frank. And yes have to agree with you that chart wise even the late 80's was better than now I enjoyed The Story Of 1985 more than I thought I would. There was still a good few choons about. I'll do a full review in due course because I want to watch it again.
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Post by Dirty Epic on Jan 16, 2018 16:14:35 GMT
Liked the bit on Paul Hardcastle especially how the sampling upstart kept Duran Duran's Bond single off the top step too. Although dated and a bit clichéd (with what came later) 19 is still a good dance/electro track from that period and did pioneer a lot of the sampled based dance music too. Will be interesting to see what 1986 throws up too.
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Post by Frank Spencer on Jan 19, 2018 20:07:06 GMT
The Story Of 1985 was another cracking hour well spent, I was glued to the box from start to finish, as I have been with all the previous "Story of..." shows. Loved the Pete Waterman tale about the "TDF" mix of "You Spin Me Round" ! And so onto the first episode of the year. "New format!" Richard Skinner and John Peel excitedly tell us - and what a mess the Beeb made of that ! Counting down the Top 10 in order till the end of the show means they started with two very minor hits - the totally forgotten Sal Solo solo effort and the odd five minutes of fame for Smiley Culture, not a personal favourite, but not a track you could forget in a hurry at least !! I was always told when planning radio shows, start with a great "hour opener" a really big song everyone will know / like and if they same theory works with TV then avoiding Top Ten hits for the first ten fifteen minutes is suicide - I wonder how long this format survived for ? As for the music / videos / performances, though much looks quite dated (being 33 years old !!) I can still drool over Madonna's "Like A Virgin" video, but I guess it was too early in the year to expect anything else fresh to reminisce over. Clever idea by Wham (or the record company more likely) to flip "Last Xmas" and highlight "Everything She Wants". Not for the first time, Andrew failed to learn the same dance moves as George, Pepsi & Shirley, but at least they gave him another toy guitar to play with and also a very loud black and white checked suit to wear, so he did catch the eye occasionally in the corner !!
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Post by Frank Spencer on Jan 31, 2018 19:24:54 GMT
I thought I'd get through another three episodes to see how things settle down before offering my opinions on the latest batch of TOTP highlights and it does seem that they seemed to want to show "more hits" (mostly videos!) eithere as "breakers" or in the Top 10 run down, so stand out performances in the studio were harder to come across. I was quite pleased with myself for recognizing Haywoode singing with The Limit on the 17/1/85 episode before Peter Powell confirmed it was her at the end - still got it ! - and that was followed by a full video of Prince doing "1999" which I quite enjoyed, especially those two girls on keyboards !! But after that it was all about cramming in the entire Top 10 and it didn't feel like a special "show" anymore. Add in the breakers on 31/1/85 and it was even more quickfire, although again I was pleased to see Big Sound Authority again, opening up the show with "This House" a track I recall liking a lot at the time, very 'blue-eyed-soul'. And while I have my soul boy hat on, what a shame we appear to miss out on seeing both Chaka Khan & James Ingram in the studio for the 24/1/85 show due to Mike Smith's involvement. Finally, I just watched the 7/2/85 edition (yes, they are a week ahead already!) and it was the best one so far this year, with studio appearances by King, Phil Collins and Howard Jones to savour - not for the first time it was all about the hair ! Three of King had LOTS, Phil Collins had a big clump of it dangling behind his ears and Howard Jones already wild "creation" seemed to be bigger than ever before By the time we got to number one, there was no point in anyone else trying to look their best afterwards anyway as Elaine Paige and Barbara Dickson must have used up all the hairspray available at BBC TV Centre !!! Last but not least, it was good to see Kirsty MacColl in the video for "New England" - she was pregnant at the time with son to be Jamie, who 15 years later she saved the life of pushing him away from a speedboat in Mexico in a water accident that tragically cost her own life in the process. It must have been quite a touching moment for him to see that video, if he was watching or saw it elsewhere... Chaka Khan on TOTP 24/1/85 - quite an outfit, she is clearly very proud of her thighs !!
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Post by Dirty Epic on Feb 1, 2018 9:58:05 GMT
I enjoyed The Art of Noise/Close to the Edit performance last week again like with Paul Hardcastle and the Pet Shop Boys the sort of beginnings of the 'sampling' boom which accelerated in the late 80's, but their outfits... very dated very naff!
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Del Boy
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Post by Del Boy on Feb 1, 2018 21:25:57 GMT
I've watched a few of these and must review.... coming soon
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Post by Frank Spencer on Feb 9, 2018 23:58:07 GMT
Got back from a tough day doing battle with the dreaded M25 today, then slumped on the sofa to watch a couple of episdoes - and, hey, I stayed awake ! It was very hard to find much of note to report on in the "Valentines Day" edition from 14/2/85, but really the star of the show was Janis Long, clearly loving being a TOTP host and so full of genuine enthusiasm for the acts she introduced - especially the Smiths !! Sometimes on "average" shows like this one of the best bits is to watch the crowd dancing at the end and see what everyone was wearing - this was a classic example and I could instantly pick out the girls I would have fancied back then, remembering my tastes in clothes and hairstyles from 33 years ago, though fashions have changed a million times since then - great nostalgia ! There was a bit more to catch the eye and the imagination in the next show on 21/2/85, kicked off by Howard Jones, whose music I quite liked at the time ( I liked nice catchy simple pop music then and there was plenty of it about !) but looking back I probably missed the subtlety of his creativity with the hair, the outfits, the tweaks to his music ... and then there was "Jed" too who makes a comeback this time dressed as Charlie Chaplin !!! Bill Sharpe from Shakatak performing with Gary Numan always confused me as I liked his group and their hits, but couldn't stand Mr Webb's dreary music and his awful "voice", but though I dsmissed it at the time, in a strnage way looking back, it did "work" ... just ! I am sure somebody will know better, but I am pretty sure I never saw The Eagles on TOTP doing any of their hits in the studio back in the 70s, so it was interesting seeing Don Henley performing "Boys Of Summer" with a very 80s sounding looking backing band (including the inevitable hot chick performing virtually inaudable percussion!) while he danced awkwardly here and there. The song itself has cred which has remained in tact over the years, vastly different from his band, but it was still a rather odd performance. Then there was a TOTP debut for Bryan Adams who looked quite old though he must have been in his 20s !!! He certainly looked better as a 30+ rock star in the 90s And finally, at the risk of being reallly REALLY boring - it is STILL so frustrating that someone at the Beeb can go to the trouble of editing out (very clumsily) the presenters announcing that Mike Smith will be hosting TOTP the next week (not even Saville or DLT anymore!) yet they can't edit out the person in question's links and let us see the show with just the acts each time !! Looking at the Poscene episode guide, it looks like we will miss quite a lot of shows this year due to Mr Smith unfortunately not signing that bit of paper
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