Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #42: August 27th 1981 - Non-Stop Erotic Kattomeat

Episode Date: August 8, 2019

The latest episode of the podcast which asks: What's more important, the Taint or the Love?Part Two of our Critics' Choice series, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, and Our Neil has dragged us back to the idyllic summer of 1981, where the panel were a) replaying the 1970 World Cup with Subbuteo, b) wearing burgundy and c) playing The Omen in our bedroom respectively. And good Lord, what an episode he's picked! Musicwise, it's a ridiculous mix of soaring highs and plunging lows, where the new era of synthiness forces the old guard to shed their facial hair, pare back on the widdliness and learn to rollerskate. Marc Almond throws the sunglasses to one side and delivers one of the landmark TOTP performances. Some Dads pretend to be the Bee Gees. Midge Ure comes on all Peaky Blinders. The Rolling Stones have a glorious piss-about. Cliff gets wanged across a shopping centre in Milton Keynes for some Danger Skating. Legs & Co are shackled to ELO again. And the Number One is, er, a Futurist pan-Asian classic.Neil Kulkarni and Simon Price examine the potato bag of '81 for signs of blight with Al Needham, veering off on such tangents as playing football with Action Men, the star power of Stan Stennett, The Rumour, The Oriental Riff, The Pickwick Top Of The Pops compilations, Specials cover versions at Butlins, and Manslaughter On 45. There's swearing. But you knew that anyway.Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook  | TwitterSubscribe to us on iTunes here. Support us on Patreon here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull-apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks for the small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. This will certainly have an adult theme and might well contain strong scenes of sex or violence, which could be quite graphic. It may also contain some very explicit language which will frequently mean sexual swear words sharp music Hey up you pop craze youngsters and welcome to the latest episode of Chart Music, the

podcast that puts the trainers to the anus of a random episode of Top of the Pops. With me today is the psychopathic thinker, Neil Kulkarni. Hello there. And the man who's like, now you see me, now you don't, Simon Price. Am I? What's all that about? I'm your host who sits back and watch you play yourself and all that and see you there and know you lying,

and I take you to court after that i'll need them and once again we form like voltron and bummer dog happens to be the head so i've been watching that wu-tang documentary series all right okay i just thought you had some kind of breakdown but it's okay you know boys pop things interesting things tell me all about them well i mean it's okay, you know. Boys, pop things, interesting things. Tell me all about them. Well, I mean, it's summer, isn't it? And it's a time when music gets out and about and you're in constant danger of hearing an acoustic guitar or a cajon or a legendary festival appearance or something.

So for the discerning pop fan, I'd say it's all about pop avoidance in this period. I've avoided Glastonbury completely well telly off all weekend miraculously I managed to avoid Godiva Festival just down the road from me well played who was on this year the the levelers oh no and uh feeder yeah it's almost like they design it to piss me off but I managed to not hear a single note from the festival which was great because you're not far from it, are you? I'm not far from it at all.

They could have come round your house. They could have. But no, I was even sat out in the garden and genuinely could not hear a lick. The wind must have just been blowing favourably that day. So I didn't even hear a note of There's Only One Way of Life. Or I can't even name a fucking feeder song, but I know I don't like them. So yeah, I managed to avoid all of that and miraculously i finally joined you people i.e the human race i.e this century and i've got a

smartphone to replace my drug dealer's burner that i had um so i'm happy now to be ruled and surveyed and become a zombie like all you sheep lovely simon what you've been up to something pop and interesting, no doubt. I know what's really funny here, and Neil mentioning acoustic guitars in public, because as you can imagine, living in Brighton, as I do, it's fucking rife around here.

Just the other day, Janie, the other half, and I were walking through the centre of town, and there was, you know, there's loads of cafes with kind of outside dining and there was a couple sat outside this cafe and the guy had a Spanish guitar, you know, plastic strings and all that

and he sat there and he's sort of plucking away at it with this kind of meaningful, sexy face on, you know, like he's lost in this kind of reverie, lost in music or in a track. But sat opposite him, his date, this girl was just sat there, just sort of prodding her chips with a fork, looking incredibly bored and it was just like

we were just thinking, fucking mate, grab that guitar off him, smash it over his head shove it up his arse, you know this is not a relationship you want to be staying in, this is just awful so yeah, yeah, I can see, I can see. I know the hazards of which Neil speaks of. Coventry actually had a busking festival recently in town,

which warmed me off just by dint of it being a busking festival, but also warmed me off by the fact it had three stages. One was called the selector tent. One was called the specials tent. And the third one was called the enemy tent tent and and the third one was called um the enemy tent yeah someone at all cops legends there fuck's sake there should be you know the the kulkarni porter cabin or something at least so as you know paul craig's young says we're currently running a little mini seriesette where i let the rest of Team Chart Music do my job and pick out an episode.

And that burden has fallen this time upon our Neil. Let me tell you right now, he is stuck in his thumb and he's pulled out a plum. Haven't you, Neil? Without too many spoilers, tell us why you picked this one. I chose this episode because as Eric Morkham might have said it satisfies a long-felt want um about I mean it gives me the opportunity to talk about a couple of artists that I've been gagging to talk about and that miraculously haven't popped up for me anyway in chart music podcasts and also an artist um that kind of uniquely occupies both my dreams and my nightmares

but we'll come to him not too many spoilers but yeah it gives me a chance to talk about both things that i love but also things that i'm i'm afeared of as well lovely lovely lovely but before we get our hands right up this particular episode we We need to shake that arse for the pop craze youngsters who have stepped up to the pay window and made it rain for us on Patreon this month. And in the $5 section, those people are

Oliver Gibson, Trinity Calway, Sam Barton, James Rook, MSG, Lynn Robb, Jordan Anderson, Jay Bunnell, Dave Morris, and Wayne Azzaratti.

Oh, lovely people. We love you. Each and every one. Just got to drop in here. Mike Melia, you bumped up your donation even more, didn't you? You lovely, lovely man. You can do that, you know. We say $5, you bumped up your donation even more, didn't you? You lovely, lovely man. You can do that, you know.

We say $5, you can go, no, no, no, have more chart music. And in the $3 section this month, we have Pie Museum, Jonathan Reilly, Circuit 3, Sean Foster, Dave Nichols, Ben Coleman and Riley Briggs. They're lovely as well aren't they an intriguing set of names there particularly pie museum so if you are not one of those people who are dropping over a little bit of dollar into our patreon g-string what the fuck is wrong with you we are an artisan bespoke handcraft handcrafted, mouth-spoken podcast. And you may notice that we advertise nothing but our love to you, the Pop Crazy Youngsters.

We don't do adverts. We don't do that, Pop Crazy Youngsters. I'm not sitting here now and telling you to subscribe to this service where you get all your ingredients of your food ordered. No, fuck that. subscribe to this service where you get all your ingredients of your food order. No, fuck that. You go to Lidl or Tesco and you can buy the fucking ingredients while you're listening to chart music. Do you want Neil to prostitute his talent and ability

to shill some podcast that we shit on on a great height? Conrad Knight sucks. Exactly, Simon. Conrad Knight sucks. Exactly, Simon. Conrad Knight socks. Truth be told, though, I'm not averse to sponsorship offers from Bobby's Crisps and K-Fresh Crisps. I just want to put that out there.

But would you want, say, David Stubbs to sit here and advertise a service where you can order in razors specifically designed to shave your bollocks and your pubes. That's the latest thing going around this company. Special razors to shave your bits. What's special about them? Have they got a special handle?

I don't know. I honestly don't know. But actually come to think of it, I would love David Stubbs to advertise something like that. It'd be perfect, wouldn't it? Just tell him that's what we're doing now he won't know any different yes we'll find out if he actually listens to podcasts that he's not on

he'll have to call himself David Stubble-less but anyway if you really really really love chart music like you say you do, and I've got my hands on my hips and being all sassy while I'm saying that, you know exactly what to do. See that G-string, yank that waistband, grab that dollar and shove it down.

And of course, all our Patreon subscribers have the honour of picking out the latest sharp music top ten. Are you ready to jump on your bike, Simon, and cycle back to school? Oh God, yeah, here we go. Hit the fucking music. Down from number five to number ten, the Granny Claps. A re-entry at number nine, it's the return of Clit Richard. Last week's number ten, this week's number eight, Serving Suggestion. A former number one down four places to number seven, Chicken Steven.

Back up three places to number six. Here comes Jizzum. Yes. Get in. Another re-entry all the way up to number five. Bergerac meets Rockers Uptown. This week's second highest new entry straight in at number four. Soul Rail Replacement Service. Wow.

Into the top three and it's down one place for Bummer Dog. Number four, Seoul Rail Replacement Service. Wow, good luck. Into the top three, and it's down one place for Bummer Dog. Last week's number one, down one place, Sarah B and Rakim, which means... Britain's number one. This week's highest new entry, straight in at number one, Man to Man meets Al Needham. Oh, what a chart that is.

What a chart. And great to see Here Comes Jizz and making a re-entry, as it were. Oh, yeah, they just, it bobs about, doesn't it? Jizz and bobs about, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So if you want to get involved in that you know what to do www.patreon.com slash chart music as chris need would say sermon over at last well hang on right this sorry hal but like we've got a comment on the number one there surely yeah i was a male stripper in a

bingo hall i think the song i wasn't sure if this is the episode when you're finally going to start telling us your stories or is that going to be hell for another time no no i try and tailor my stories for the year okay right right we're looking at 98 99 for that you know by the time this this episode came out i'd have been 13 so no no no not not even not even bill wyman's world is that okay. No. But we're going to come on to that. So this episode, Pop Craze Youngsters, takes us all the way back. Neil, you can say it.

It's your choice. Where are we going to, Neil? We're going to 1981. August the 27th, 1981. And yes, we know we're back in the child music comfort zone but my god we cannot keep away from it can we it's addictive it's toothsome 1981 there's just so much great stuff it really is for good and for bad you know simon you've laid out a very convincing case over the months about 1981 being the year for pop music yeah do you think that a factor in your choice is something to do with the fact that 1981

absolutely stank of unwashed cock in every other sphere? And the only thing good about it was the music. I mean, that might be something to do with it. It's funny. I'm actually wavering in my belief slightly of late. It might partly be because at Spellbound, my 80s night that I do in Brighton, we recently had a 1979 special.

Aventus night. Yeah, well, exactly. I've been living in 1979 world for a while lately. And yeah, we did have a 1981 special a couple of years ago. But when we're doing any of these kind of special things, I get really, really into it, and I get so lost in that world that I've started sort of wondering whether 79 slightly edges 81. I had a sort of interesting discussion, I think it was on Neil's Facebook actually,

just sorry to completely lock out the pot-crazed youngsters in our little cliquey world of social media. In our salon-like environment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think, you know, I sort of came to the conclusion that maybe 1981 is more intensely rich for the stuff that I'm into, you know, which is usually the kind of weirdo pop, you know, stuff that gets into the charts,

but it's made by absolute freaks and lunatics, and, you know, but isn't just on the fringes and gets right up there in the top five. That's what 1981 was all about. But I just think 1979 maybe had a greater breadth, you know, because there's all the amazing disco stuff as well. Yeah. So I don't know.

Yeah, I'm torn like Natalie Imbruglia. So why is 1980 completely out of the picture then, Simon? Well... What's wrong with that? I mean, it was a sort of... I'm not going to say a dip, but maybe caught between two stills. The new romantic thing hadn't really taken off yet.

I guess Two Tone was kind of in its pomp, which I absolutely loved. But I think there was a lot of absolute crap around, a lot of sort of Radio 2 country music getting into the charts and stuff like that. Bad number ones. Bad number ones. Maybe I'm being overly sentimental about the quality of 81, because as we'll see in this episode, it's not all gold, is it?

Oh, no. There are some very high-ranking records, shall we say, in this episode which don't fit the pattern. No. But on the whole, as Sinatra would say, I would say it was a very good year. Mmm.

Radio 1 News In the news this week, well, the President and Prime Minister of Iran are killed by a bomb in the latter's office. North Korea fires a missile at an American jet in South Korean airspace, but it misses. The Rolling Stones announced their first tour in four years. 21 dates in America, a guaranteed million dollars for each gig. Moira Stewart becomes the BBC's first black newsreader. Atomic Rooster, Vardis, Wishbone Ash, 9B0Zero,

Gillan and the Kinks are about to play the Reading Festival. Wow. Rita Webb has just died at the age of 77. 200 mods invade Brighton on bank holiday weekend and throw petrol bombs at a miniature railway. But the big news this week is that Mark Chapman has been jailed for 20 years to life for the murder of John Lennon

and making Simon Price cry. Shut up! Did you punch a fist in the air when that verdict came out, Simon? As you well know, Al, I was quite indifferent to the whole subject of John Lennon's death. It meant less to me than Vienna did to Mijur.

But a cruel myth went around the school that I was heartbroken and I never quite lived it down. On the cover of The Enemy this week, Blue Rondo a la Turk. On the cover of Smash It, Annabella of Bow Wow Wow. The number one LP in the UK is Time by ELO. It's just not the official BBC album of the Royal Wedding off the number one spot. Over in America, the number one is Endless Love by Diana Ross and Lionel Richer. And the number one LP is Four by Foreigner.

So, me dear boys, what were we doing in august of 1981 well um we've covered 1981 quite a bit the summer holiday summer holiday of 1981 well increasingly driven indoors by nasty incidents outside and indoors my kid my my sister was no longer a playmate really she was more of an antagonist by that age um crucially um itv had shown the omen um i've become i've become singularly obsessed with that film um that and an episode of hammer house of horror which also dealt with similar kind of obsessions with the number 666 so i was kind of increasingly driven inside and you know how how back then, obviously, pre-everything, all you had was the books that were hanging around the house that weren't really for kids.

But I remember just reading anything that would come my way, including the Pears Cyclopedia, which was a big blue thing from the Reader's Digest. And I've still got this book in my house because all these books stay and I was flicking through it the other day and just as testament to my omen obsession

when I got to the entry for Satan I've written Daddy next to it, I was obsessed with that fucking film I was obsessed with that and another thing that I was obsessed with reading and I just used to read it repeatedly because it excited me but it just proves how bored

you could get was Dr DJ Hessian's Vegetable Expert book which was a gardening book which I read obsessively only because there was a small entry in the section about potatoes which had a bit about what to do with

certain illnesses that you saw in your potatoes, certain blights that you saw in your potatoes. And there was one little thing that I found it the other day again, and I'd actually drawn a circle around it because it was so thrilling, that if you got black potato blight, the recommendation wasn't just to spray it

with some insecticide or anything. The recommendation was destroy all tubers immediately and notify Ministry of Agriculture of outbreak, which was just thrilling for an eight or nine-year-old to read that. That's like seeing the posters in post offices of the Colorado Beetle, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you see one of them, you get some money for crisps and sweets so yeah i used to spend so much time looking for fucking colorado beetles as a kid

yeah me too man it was colorado beetles dutch elm disease and humphreys were the three big scares of the seven yeah yeah so just scouring yeah boring literature for for exciting bits like that and yeah becoming increasingly obsessed with the omen when i played by myself it wasn't really war or british bulldog because obviously you can't play them by yourself it was it was a little game i had to myself which was kind of based on the omen about me you know having access to secret knowledge of who the antichrist was so yeah yeah i was a weird little kid who was it um it didn't matter it might have been but yeah um becoming an increasingly weird obsessive lonely little kid but but happy you

know not miserable just but just obsessively reading and and perhaps i think dipping into music a bit more listening to albums a bit more than just singles you know yeah i'm just blown away by this daddy thing next to the entry for satan because like oh no i mean like let's assume that um maybe your parents didn't watch the omen with you so they didn't and they happened to flick through the encyclopedia and just see that oh my god i know imagine they they'd have they've been sort of contacting child psychologists and all sorts i know but but back then parents had the right idea and just left you to your own devices and couldn't really give a couldn't really give a fuck about what you were interested in or what you were maniacally obsessed

about as long as you were interested in summer that didn't involve neither in them yeah exactly exactly simon well again yeah we've done 1981 before but i was 13 years old um so i was going around head to toe in burgundy um but um i yeah i was still as big as my school as well as mentioned before this was the year that our school was allowed to vote on the colors of the school uniform oh wow yeah burgundy won, yeah, Burger did one by a mile. Well, the other colour scheme I associate with that time is this particular shade of pale grey with sort of very thin red and white diagonal stripes on it, which was the design you saw in sort of teenagers' wallpaper

and duvet covers and all that kind of stuff. It's just funny how sometimes, you know, the whole Proustian thing about taste or smell, sometimes it's just colour schemes like that can be the thing that sum up a year for you. That summer, I was still very much in my Rude Boy phase even though Two Tone

was kind of falling apart. Specials, as we will see, are in the top 30, although it's kind of their valedictory single. But Madness was still going strong. And I guess I was sort of getting into a few unrelated things like the Human League and stuff like that.

But mainly, you know, it was full steam ahead with the whole Scar thing for me. I refused to even contemplate for a second that the wheels were coming off. And I suppose my summer would have mostly involved a lot of playing football, just going up the local park, Chicken Woods, where there was a sort of concrete football court,

I suppose. We just spent all day up there until our mums came and shouted at us that it was tea time. And breaking into the local tennis courts at six in the morning and breaking into a hole in the fence and playing for three hours for free until the parkie turned up. Playing what?

Just playing tennis, yeah. But I know, I know. On our estate, we had tennis courts in the school. Only ever be used for tennis in Wimbledon fortnight. Right. And everyone would dash off to Martin's, the local newsagent, we had tennis courts in the school only ever be used for tennis in Wimbledon fortnight right and everyone would dash off to Martin's the local news agents and buy these I don't think they're even aluminium these these really cheapo rackets and if you couldn't get a tennis ball you'd rely on the dog ball again so after two weeks yeah your racket would be bent at a right angle yeah yeah

and then as soon as Wimbledon finished, oh, fuck tennis, play football again. Yeah, I suppose there's an element of that. I had a sort of quite nice, but very old-fashioned wooden Dunlop racket. Oh, did you now? Yeah, it had quite a small head. It wasn't like these, you know,

I kind of looked with envy at the aluminium ones with those massive sort nets-shaped heads. The Roscoe Tanner jobs. Yeah, they looked amazing to me, but no, I had some kind of old-fashioned 1940s type thing. So there was that, and then I suppose if I had a bit of pocket money, then me and my best mate next door neighbour, Andrew, who was a metallerer would go into Cardiff

and just go record shopping and that was kind of my life just going around and not only the record shops like Virgin and Spillers and HMV but Boots and BHS, WH Smith, just department stores that all sold records and because nobody went

there to buy their records they would have everything on discount I was just hoovering up the charts at this point stuff that I didn't even just stuff that I quite liked if it was 49p I was having it yeah that was it I was fairly happy I think

and doing ok 1981 to me was the last summer of Subutio my mom and dad were both working so i'd usually spend the six-week holidays uh i mean on our grandpas i'd just get up in the morning i'd lay out all the sabutio stuff and uh i think this was the year that i redid the 1970 world cup i had the uh topical times book of football for 1917 from a jumble sale and it had all the stats in it all the fixtures for that World Cup

so I played that. So you kind of rigged the results so they matched the real results? No, no, no, no, no, no. I replayed it. I can't remember who won. I think it might have been Israel or someone like that. I was banging to Sputio myself actually and I had my own league. I had a fictional country that I invented.

Oh, yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool. The country was called Oxenania. Why? And it was, theoretically, it was an island in the Baltic. A nation state, a sort of Nordic nation with a sort of, you know, a cross-shaped flag like all those other Nordic nations. What colours? Green and white yeah and and it started off with action men and other action figures when i was a little bit younger you know kind of like star trek figures

and six million dollar man and all that um with ping pong balls playing against each other um i was an only child as you know yeah i used to do that so I used to do that as well with ping pong balls. Yeah, yeah. I used to do that with rolled up fag paper for a football and football cards. Right, yeah, well, there we go. You'd lay them out on the carpet and you'd get some goals up. Yeah. And whoever was nearest to the ball got it.

And you kind of like picked the card up and you flicked the corner. So it kicked the ball. Oh, nice. And then you had a goalkeeper like resting against the crossbar at an angle. That's amazing. Yeah, we didn't need no stinking tablets in those days. So I had a whole league.

You know, the country had a map and it had towns and cities and it had a league. Billy Lyre, Simon. I know. league uh you know i had you know the country had a map and it had towns and cities and it had a league um billy liar so i know i mean the main um uh back in the 70s in the action man days the the uh preeminent team were gog city slaggers sounds like a clash single yeah yeah gog city slaggers were the main team um it was supposedly because there were loads of slag heaps there it's like a really industrial town gog city um and they would compete against my next door neighbor andrew's team who were called gubby brothers fish food city um and sometimes we play against um suzanne down the road whose team was called giggles wick and um her brother had a team called loudy forgan. I remember that.

But yeah, yeah. And then, you know, when it moved into the Sabutio age, another team kind of usurped Gug City Slaggers and that was Wellston Rovers. And their main player was Juan Torres, who was, back in the Action Man days, he was Robin out of Batman. Oh, wow. So he was this kind of exciting masked striker.

But, of course, when it comes to Subutio, you couldn't really replicate that without a very fine paintbrush. So he just played without the mask on. So, yeah, as you can see, I was very much an only child. That was my world. I spent way too long in my bedroom listening to Dexys records and playing Subutio when it was raining and Dexys records and playing Subdutio. When it was raining and we couldn't go and break into the tennis court.

Well, indoors you could lead a fantasy football life that you couldn't actually replicate when you were playing with your mates. I mean, I started realising as a goalie, which is my sort of ordained position, that though I was fine in the playground with the airflow ball, I weren't that good when having a proper football kicked at my face. So, you know, being inside and just having this fantasy football life was much better. Anyway, pop music. Well, no, I want to carry on with this Subutio thing because by the end, I mean, this was the last proper full year I played Subutio because if I was not in my non-os living room playing

sabutio and watching the ashes or listening to the radio a lot of radio listening in the summer of course you know i got i got to taste simon bates oh dear but um i i'd started going into town and uh because they they were only uh like two minute bus ride into town because they were only like two minute bus ride into town from where they lived and there was a shop called Vista Video on Friar Lane just across the road from the castle

and they had and I think I was the only child in Nottingham who knew this they had an Atari set up oh my word and I would go in there in the morning and play on it all day

and basically got adopted by the staff there. So I played Missile Command all fucking day. Oh man. Just thinking I was the king of Nottingham, which in a sense I was.

Did it have Defender? I think Defender hadn't come out yet. Ah yeah, you might be right. I was quite lo-fi. I only had Pong on like a Bynatone

rip-off of Pong on the telly. I didn't have any of these fancy Atari. And you played that on your own? Yeah, I did. I used to set it up. Which was really hard because it was the control thing. You had to hold it in one hand and twizzle the knob at the top, didn't you?

So you had to wedge it between your legs and fiddle away. I would often try and get it locked into a pattern where the ball was just hitting the same corner over and over again and hitting the bat. So you get this kind of repetitive tune. Do-do-do-do-do-do-do. Do-do-do-do-do-do-do. Over and over again.

And I'd just sit and I'd be so pleased with myself that I got that kind of rhythm going. It's the sort of thing, David Stubbs would have written a whole chapter about that in one of his fucking books. Yeah, I mean, music-wise. Simon got i've got to go back to this got to go back to your um your your current rude boyness because i've always wondered when you you started to turn and pivot towards the ways of the blouse wearer that was more i guess it was about 90 sorry not 83 about 83 83 because i carried on with the Rude Boy thing through 82,

although I was into a lot of other stuff, like Dexys and Culture Club and the Human League and ABC and various other things. But 83, I went very Style Council. I went full-on Style Council. And that was a kind of gateway. Yeah, that was it, wasn't it, Simon? It was the cover of Wolves Come Tumbling Down

that turned you on to the new romantic ethos. A little bit. Way too late in the day. Do you regret that? Do you regret not being on that straight away? No, I don't, because I love being into two-tone. You couldn't really go halfway. You couldn't merge Rude Boy with being Blitz.

I think I've said before that in my town, girls were into neuromatic stuff, boys were into two-tone. really go halfway you couldn't merge rude boy with being blitz you know it was you know i think i've said before that in my town girls were into neuromatic stuff boys were into two-tone or the jam um and that's just how it was um and i don't really regret that i suppose i was going through that phase that all teenagers go through is sometimes only lasts about 18 months to two years where you desperately want to fit in um and then you then you come out the other side of it and suddenly you want to be different in every possible way. But there is that window

where you just want to fit in and the Rude Boy thing dovetailed nicely and fulfilled that role for me. Although that wasn't my primary motive, I just absolutely fucking loved it. But I was sort of semi-secretly also digging things like Soft Cell and the Human League

and ABC at the same time. But I think the Star Council gave me permission to sort of take a bit more care in the sort of tailoring of my clothing, just wear nice things, wear things that weren't just, you know, what you sort of kick about up the alleyway, write graffiti on the walls and stuff like that. Just actually kind of quite nice clothes, like, you know, black and white loafers with tassels on them and stuff like that yes you know just just just nice stuff and and I sort of moved

on from that into I started wearing like ribbons in my hair and stuff like that and having a bit more of a kind of romantic idea about who I was and uh then I think um just one uh one house party I turned up with a bit of eyeliner on and my hair a bit Robert Smith and you know a frizzy mohair jumper that my mum had knitted for me because I just wanted to try out that look so that was you know so probably around

84 I was starting to go into that kind of new romantic-y thing but I was also a Smiths boy by then but we're getting way ahead of ourselves but yeah basically well um summer of 81 I was you know I I could not imagine a time where I wouldn't be wearing Dr Martin shoes braces Fred Perry's and all of that we're a couple of weeks away from going back to school yeah and of course you know summer holidays is a time when you get to be a teenager to to retool your look a little bit and burst out of your chrysalis. Well, did you?

No, I'm the slightest. No, because I didn't have any money. The only real chance I had to get any new things was my birthday. My birthday's in September. So, you know, no, basically summer, I was wearing the same old shit I'd had for almost a year. To my surprise and disgust,

when I got back to school, because, you know, I was on the other side of town from everyone else, so I didn't know what was going on. When I got back, all these people I know who used to be mods or rude boys had suddenly become futurists or grebs. They'd just gone like that.

And it's like, no, no, how do you do that? That's like coming in and saying, oh, I don't support Forrest anymore, I support Newcastle. No, you don you do that that's like that's like coming in saying oh i don't support forest anymore i support newcastle no you don't do that so is grebs the same as in the late 80s people talk about greebos so it's like like long long dirty greasy hair yeah yeah just get heavy metal yeah they were known they were known as greebos and grebs in nottingham in the early 80s yeah and there were fucking loads of them and they were all to a person from the posh estate on the other side of the school

so they had neatly ironed denim jackets and rainbow patches when you say rainbow do you mean the band? yeah oh that would have been I would have gone for that I think it was because

spoiler alert Pop Craze, there's no heavy metal on this episode so we can talk about this now. I think it was because of the patches because I was always envious of the massive patches Greg Banz had. Those metal badges. It's all about the accessories isn't it when you

are that age and you know I got me patches and I got me badges and I even had me madness comb holder as mentioned before but then all of a sudden you know all these massive massive patches turn up and they just fit a denim jacket real nice it's like oh if only them bands

were really good and I liked them I could wear that shit that's the weird thing that completely still goes on my youngest is a massive metal head and her priority because music you know you can just get it

on your tablet that's not her priority her priority is patches so my recent life has basically been a succession of patches arriving in the mail

for shit 80s metal bands like Halloween and shit like that oh no oh yes she's full on she could have been she basically full on she could have been she basically looks like

she could have been airlifted in from about 1983 good lord and it's me sewing them on oh man incessantly

on a denim jacket and she's actually also got a denim I don't know would you call it a vest or a jerkin or something one of those sleeveless jobs

which is now yeah which is now getting populated by patches as well. So it's nice to know that this is still strong. Basically Vivian from the Young Ones, right? Yeah, basically very metal. Wow.

And even though poster place, the shop where you could get all these things from Cov, doesn't exist anymore, strange people in China are more than willing to send them to you via email. So that's my life at the moment. Good Lord. Wow.

Oh, she becomes an Hell's angel though man you'd have to sew the the bottom rocker on oh seriously man she's on about it every time we see a motorbike out and about she like cannot take her eyes off it she's obsessed with motorbikes she's obsessed with metal she wants to become a hell's angel and she wants a van and she's turning my garage into she's actually put a sign above it that says metal heads and thrashers welcome, no normies and all this. So... You must be very worried about this, Neil.

I mean, headbanging. Headbanging, absolutely. And she's waiting. Basically, she's only 13, so she can't really go to gigs much. But she's waiting to, yeah, to mosh, to be in a mosh pit. Good Lord.

So does this mean you score maximum points for your career of interviewing people like Marilyn Manson and Korn and stuff like that? Slightly, but, you know, obviously I'm not going to just like accept all of her taste. No. Because some of it's horrible. Yeah. I will never like Kiss, I'm sorry. No, not this shit. Kiss is shit, we can all agree on that. Yes. Yeah, yeah. And I'll never like some of'm sorry Kiss is shit we can all agree on that

yes yeah yeah and I'll never like some of the shit she's into so there's still that friction which is nice but yeah it's nice to be able to coast

on things like the fact that I've interviewed Ozzy Osbourne and things like that and it's also gratifying I'm a little bit of a metal head obviously so headbanging with her to Black Sabbath

is a lovely shared experience oh bless that's amazing when she gets married, Neil, you've got to headbang your way down the aisle when you give her away. It'll be like the Guns N' Roses November Rain video.

Yeah, yeah. My flaxen locks, well, they've long gone. No, she's got long, long curly hair precisely because she wants to look like fucking Robert Plant or something or Gillan this isn't a thing whereby she's into like new metal or anything like that

she's absolutely assiduously into 80s metal I haven't shown her Chris Needham yet I will do though because the self recognition there will just be immense and it's funny I've got a warning from history I will do though, because the self-recognition there will just be immense.

Yeah, and it's funny. Chris needs a warning from history. Obviously, I've got guitars in the house and she likes plugging in the guitar and having a wang on it, as it were. But, you know, I didn't even attempt to teach her a chord. No. Because all she wants to do is just whittle her hands about on the fretboard,ding as she calls it seriously she's fucking talking about ying wei jay mal steven stuff she's absolutely um airlifted in from 83 um which is great because in contrast to the boy bands with guitars who currently grace the covers of karang i'd rather she was into that old horrible shit than the new horrible shit to be honest with you. Yes. You know when we

do come across a band like that when you're on it Neil, she's got to make a guest appearance. Oh, we'll get her on. She'll have an opinion without a doubt. Fantastic. So what else was on telly today? Well BBC One kicks off at 6.30 with a double bill of programmes

about international aid and halogens and noble gases in the Open University. Then reopens at 9.50 with the Wombles, Jackanora, champion the Wonder Horse! Take heart. Then it's over to the Oval for the first session of day one of the sixth test in the Ashes.

England have already won. It's a dead rubber. After regional news in your area, the midday news in Chigley is back to the oval. Then it's the second in the series, the skill of lip reading, regional news in your area, play school, Scooby-Doo, news round, the swish of the curtain, the evening news and regional news in your area once again. At 6.20pm it's now get out of that the Oxbridge Takeshi's Castle presented by Bernard Falk and they've just finished looking good, feeling fit where we learn about Patti Boulay's beauty secrets and get the chance to see Richard Stilgo leading 600 women in an aerobic session in the Royal Albert Hall.

BBC2 starts at 6.40 with more red hot Open University action. Then it's play school. Then they close down for four and a half hours before picking up the final session of that day's cricket. Then it's half an hour of the Open University and then FACTS,

which stands for Football Association Coaching Tactics Skills, featuring Ron Greenwood, Jeff Hurst, Charles Hughes, Keggy Kegel, Ray Wilkins and Vince Hilaire. And they're now halfway through 100 great paintings where they look at a self-portrait of Van Gogh. I remember that football thing. Yeah? Yeah, I just meant,

because you'd watch anything football related, wouldn't you? Even if it was quite dry and quite scholastic, something like that was. And this was. This was extremely so. It was just them lot just standing about while they're being shouted at by Charles Hughes. ITV begins at 9.30 with Larry the Lamb in Toy Town,

then the Lost Islands, Animal Locomotion, Laurel and Hardy, Sesame Street, the Ark Stories, Get Up and Go, The Sullivans, News at One, Regional News in Your Area, Emmerdale Farm in its rightful place, not getting in the way of fucking top of the pops music from the flags here today the documentary in evidence the bomb this is this is school holiday time this is what they've given to us here is your future children the drama series no fence for baron little House on the Prairie,

The News at 5.45, Regional News in Your Area, Crossroads, a short Disney cartoon, and they've just started the 1978 TV movie, Ski Lift to Death. Out of all those listings, the thing that jumped out at me was the skills of lip reading.

Yes. I mean, what the fuck? I don't think, I mean, I don't remember that. That didn't, that can't have made it to Wales because if it did, I would have watched it. Apart from anything else, it's episode two, episode two of a series on it. What leaps out to me about listing and what you've mentioned,

on the presence of cricket, the Test match being on all the time because my dad always used to have it on yeah and you know that's why names like like joel garner and viv richards yeah malcolm marshall and richard abley and capital dev and all these people and dennis lilly in particular are all in my head because of boring long summer holidays stumbling across test matches and watching the cricket and and since Sky took that away from us just like they have with our well the whole of our national sport in life in a sense they've left us bereft haven't they I don't think kids really watch it anymore no no I mean I caught the end of the um you know the world cup final recently so I was in someone else's house and uh and it was super exciting but I just thought imagine how you know how many more people

could have enjoyed that if it was on terrestrial it would have been absolutely amazing well it was super exciting. But I just thought, imagine how many more people could have enjoyed that if it was on Terrestrial. It would have been absolutely amazing. Well, it was on Terrestrial. Yeah, but just the final. Was it? Yeah, just the final. But I suppose we were meant to...

Yeah, when they realised that, oh, oddly anyone's watching this. Right, right, right. And this is it. We were meant to feel kind of grateful to Sky, I think, for allowing it on a Terrestrial. But imagine people watching that last bit and thinking fucking hell is this what cricket's like all the fucking time

when I watch this yeah good luck with that yeah but Neil's right you just watch any old crap, any sport any sport on TV, you'd watch it all the balls yeah you'd watch anything I found myself hero worshipping

graham gooch um just because you know um i i saw i saw an essex game once and he seemed pretty good you know and yeah and someone asked me recently for to venture some opinion on the england cricket team and i just had to stop them and say look right if it doesn't if it doesn't involve graham gooch ian botham bob willis alan not john m Mike Brearley, Basil D'Oliveira or something like that. You know, I can't help you, mate. You know, because as Neil says, that, you know, that was kind of the era. And that was the cut off point, really, for when I even knew what was going on. In the summer holidays, if I'd have been knocking about with my mates, we would have played cricket.

Yeah. Because that's what you did. Yeah. And this was just at the tail end of the period where, you know, when Roy the Rovers, when the season was over, oh, Roy, you'd have a go at cricket. Because that's what you did because you were British. Yeah. We're going right off on tangents here, aren't we?

Imagine that. All right, then, pop craze youngsters. It is time to go way back to August of 1981. Always remember, we may coat down your favourite band or artist, but we never forget they've episode of Top of the Pops and we're almost two months into the Yellow Pearl era, instigated by Michael Hurl, who took over in mid-1980

and is continuing to hone the programme in his image. Chaps, we've not really discussed the impact that Mr Hurl had upon Top of the Pops. It was very severe, wasn't it? In both positive and negative forms. Yeah, definitely. I mean, there are good aspects to what he did. And there are bad aspects. You know, he scraps the top of the

pops orchestra that's a good thing i think um although you do sort of miss at our age anyway i miss the kind of pissed up lumbering bad versions of things that they used to play oh can you imagine what they could have done with some of the stuff going on oh my god yeah well no this is it but but at the time i don't think i would have noticed that that it had been done but i think it improved the show away from a kind of a light entertainment show into being something more big and starry and and poppy the most noticeable change as a kid i think would have been that the rundown is obviously moved from the start of the show and put in the middle of the show i think that's that's a really good idea as well it builds attention builds the middle of the show. I think that's a really good idea as well. It builds attention, builds the build of the show. Yes.

It tells a story. Yeah, and they invariably stop the rundown at a song that they're going to play. So it gives it certain logic. I like that. Also, with regards to the rundown and with regards to the records that are featured, I think he started focusing the playlist,

random though it was, purely on things that were in the chart. So you don't get sudden appearances by bands for no good reason yes playing a song that isn't even in your charts again that's a good thing that's a good thing that's gonna happen not too long from now with right with the jonathan king section of course oh christ but light entertainment of it that was funny you should say that neil because i was having a nose over his track record and he's definitely from that department. So, yeah, he started his career in 1963 with the BBC when he did a section on Christmas with the Stars,

which was the thing that was on all night on Christmas night on BBC. You know, all the big sitcoms at the time would do a little skit. And then in 1965 he did And So To Ted, the BBC One late night comedy show starring Ted Rogers. He did the pop show Gadzooks, It's All Happening. I'd love to see one of them. The Ken Dodd Show. In 1967, he did The Illustrated Weekly Hood with Roy Hood.

In 1968, he doubled up on The Wakey Wakey Show with Billy Cotton. And he did 55 episodes of Cilla. In 1969, he did the Roy Castle Show and the Cliff Richard Show. In 1971, look, Mike Yarwood! In 1972, he did Sasha's in Town. Sasha Distel, obviously. In 1973, he did The Young Generation, The Dance Troupe.

And in 1974, Clunk Click with Jimmy Savile. In 1975, he did All This and Corbett 2. In 1978, he did the first series of The Little and Large Show. In 1979, he starts pivoting towards pop a little bit because he did Abba in Switzerland and Disco in the Snow, which was a one-off show hosted by Boney M and the Old Sailor. And he also switched over.

He crossed the floor to LWT to do the first series of Cannon and Ball. And he's joined Top of the Pops from Cracker Jack. Cracker Jack. I read a quote from him about Cannon and Ball where he worked on all their series but hated them. Really? He basically said he felt they were as funny as a cow's crotch. That was his exact phrase. So, yeah, that light entertainment thing is really important because because it enabled him as well i think to make things like

the crop of the flops to ronnie's sketch where you know he could he could use the actual top of the pot set um set and if you if you do seek that out by the way yes have a look at the photo of celluloid burr yes because at the back I do believe that's Jonathan Ross isn't it as the tall fella but you know he did a lot of good things for the show getting shot of Savile in 83 good you know

but there are problems with some of the things that he introduced I think introducing like co-hosts and having those little guest chats now and then, they usually didn't work. Oh, come on. If you rule that out, we'd be denied Roger Daltrey telling people to mind their backs

or Kevin Keegan's amazing performance and all that. True enough. But he also got a shot of Flip Colby, didn't he? Yes, he did. I'm presuming he's responsible for Zoo. I mean, not personally responsible, but for bringing them in, which was definitely

a bad thing. So it's a mix, isn't it? This episode, Zoo, hasn't happened yet. But it's very clearly heading that way, isn't it? You know, I don't think his light entertainment background counts against him, necessarily. I mean, if you look at Robin Nash

had a background in very cosy BBC variety and sitcoms and some of the pioneering music programs, like Jack Goode launched Six Five Special and Oh Boy. He wasn't a rock and roll kid. He was too old for that. But he understood what was needed for

television to make it seem exciting. Same with Al Canale and he did Ready Steady Go. They weren't cool young people, the people running the shows, but they just got what was needed. And I think, as Neil said, interjecting there a few times, I think some of the innovations were good ones. And even just right at the top of the show the the title sequence yes for me you know the um the colored picture discs exploding and the yellow pearl that's kind

of that that is um canonical to me that that in fact that is you know top of the shop that is what top of the pops is to me yeah the um the old whole lot of love in its various versions is more of a kind of heritage thing it's more you know i it's it's ancestral it's it's where the show was rooted and where it came from but in terms of you know my actual life of thinking this is my world now i can switch obviously my music i associate it fully with yellow pearl era yellow pearl for me all the way although i did notice one of the things i would have noticed in 81 sad omen obsessed freak that i was and the numbers that come flying down oh my god where's this going well well the first one's six right and then and then the second one's nine

yeah what happens if you turn nine upside down yeah think about it and then 23 a magical number with a k in it um you know two times three what's that six yes it's all heading in that direction presumably you you didn't have a video recorder at the time so you're just watching this live at the time and like you you're like really sort of trying to take in the numbers really quickly and look it's a six it was kind of an upside down six and like oh my god it's like that scene in the omen when the vicar comes out of the church and a massive orange single falls from the sky and goes through his neck. Yeah, it's a squeeze picture disc or something. Do you remember the whole Procter & Gamble scare? Oh, God, yeah.

Yeah, people were looking for satanic signs anywhere. There was this whole rumour going around that Procter & Gamble, what do they make? Sort of like household cleaning products and stuff like that toothpaste and things yeah yeah yeah that um that they were some kind of satanic cult and this was all based on they had a logo tucked away on most of their packaging that was some kind of weird man in the moon type um image and people thought that there were hidden uh symbols in that that were to do with you know to satan or or daddy as neil would call it so yeah it's a bit like that and it's like that whole thing oh you know if you turn a packet of

marlboro on its sides and flick it around three times kkk yes who clicks glad so so you you were watching top and presumably right neil you were watching top the pops and not thinking oh man this is awful satan's um influencing us via top the Pops. You're like, bring it on, father, come to me. Daddy's coming home. We never had any of that satany shit round our way. The only symbolism we

went looking for was the Queen's Fanny. Do you have that? Is it a £10 note or £5 note? Yeah, yeah. If you got a £5 note, you turn around to your mate and go, do you want to see the Queen's fan air? And you'd fold it in such a way that, kind of like crease

under her chin. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I remember that. I don't know if you could do that now with a note. We can't even folder focus. This is why, you know, this is why they've ruined everything by bringing in the plastic notes. Yeah, yeah. But also, you know, their chin's got a bit baggier as well. Well, you know, perhaps...

No, let's not go there. Yes, it's the programme that brings you the dream of the crop of British pop. And we're going to start off with a bit of Star Trek's Club Disco. Just like this Star Trek's disco. Hey, are you ready? Are you ready? Let's go! This episode of Top of the Pops is hosted by Richard Skinner. He's currently holding down the 8 to 10 in the evening slot after Mike Reid was promoted to the Breakfast Show in late 1980. And tonight, he'll be taking over from Paul Gambaccini's

hour-long appreciation of Dusty Springfield, before handing off to John Peel, of course. He's also become Tommy Vance's understudy for the Saturday evening show Rock On. And in October, he becomes the new host of Roundtable, where him and a collection of pop sorts pick over the latest new releases. I bet you all too listened to Roundtable didn't you?

Yeah. I listened to anything on Radio 1. Just pretty much had it on all day long. But Roundtable was really good because you could hear people slagging off other people's records. After Kit Jensen left the BBC to become a news reader for Ted Turner's WTBS Superstation inanta skinner made his top of the pops debut on september the 11th 1980 as jimmy savel's yts lad this is his sixth top of the pops performance this year and a year

later he became one of the rotating presenters of the revamped old grey whistle test but he was part of the cast of top of the pops right through to 1985 so you know he's actually a key figure for the good half of the 80s isn't he for top of the pops and pop music radio and television he is but god he's so fucking boring isn't he i I mean, it's weird because as a kid, a kindly face can be enough, I think. He's just got the most bland voice imaginable. There's no edges. There's nothing of interest about him.

He never threatens to be interesting. I guess that's what they wanted. He's kind of like Bernard from Yes Minister or something. But as a team, later on in the 80s, that wasn't enough for Kindly Face. And I'll never forget, you know, they used to do a chart rundown on the Earl Grey Whistle Test.

They used to talk about the new entries. And I'll never forget him calling Cameo worthless. No. They shouldn't be in the chart. Oh, yes. And that they shouldn't be in the charts when running down the chart

on Earl Grey Whistle test so fuck him and the fact that he worked closely with that embearded poltroon Richard Branson on the launch and programming policy of Virgin 1215 means that he's indirectly responsible for the rise of Chris Evans so fuck him in the ear

fuck him in the other ear the rat bastard he does actually look like some kind of rodent the human equivalent of Roland Rack but yeah he's just dull as fuck isn't he Skinner I was going to say he's hard to hate until I heard all that

I'm finding it easier I'm finding it easier I mean we've done Skinner before he is very much you know an empty taxi pulled up and Richard Skinner got out and yeah I remember on a previous episode describing He is very much an empty taxi pulled up and Richard Skinner got out. And, yeah, I remember on a previous episode describing Simon Bates as looking like a maths teacher on a Friday afternoon who sort of unbuttoned his top collar

and just sort of letting his hair down a little bit. And Skinner's got that as well, right down to the fact that the shirt he's wearing in this episode looks like it's made out of graph paper. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which just puts you... It puts you in mind that you're at school.

Oh, I bet you wanted to fill in every other square, didn't you, Simon, at that time? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, of course I did. Madness, modness. Madness, modness. Yeah, totally. Neil mentions a kindly face.

I think Skinner kind of does have a kindly face and his presence on the show isn't as egregiously kind of teacher-esque as Bates. He doesn't have that aggressively parental, stern, disapproving thing going

on. You can tell he's not really into the music that's being played, but he does enough of a professional job. A bit like Gary Davis did in the early 90s episode we did recently. He's just there to sort of move things along. Although, as

we will see, he does kind of overstep the mark in some pretty weird ways in this episode. He does, yes. I mean, we talk about the dullness of Richard Skinner, but the last episode we watched from 1981, we had Travis trying to out weird the axe and there was

no need for that in 1981 there was enough weirdness going on that you did need a calming influence in between and Skinner fulfills that role for me in this. Tell you a weird thing though because again letting daylight in upon magic and tugging away the wizard's curtain just a little bit but

on Facebook the other day al you you shared with us um a sound clip of some old uh richard skinner sort of jingles yeah radio one i mean do you want to talk about it or i mean oh well yeah it's um just just basically uh any old band who wants to get played on radio one they've got a you know there's a price to pay isn't there, they've got to shelve the DJs, some of them are really out of character there's one thing, I don't know who it was but some kind of very geezerish voice threatening headbutts and stuff if you don't listen

oh that was John Otway, was it, right okay and then you had Splodgeness Abounds doing a sort of two pints of lager and a packet of crisp based thing again which is like really not that's not his persona at all and then there's this landscape do you know i don't know but it's very very odd i mean was were people that desperate to get played on his show that they do that well yeah i mean

eight to ten slot you know that's uh that's their natural habitat isn't it i guess so it's yeah it's just it's just... The idea of... Can you imagine him down the front of the Splodge gig, is all I'm saying? No, I can imagine him being the person getting served while Max Splodge is waiting for his two pints of lager in a pub.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like those people who go out on New Year's Eve for their one drink of the year, just clogging up the bar and wasting time deciding what they want and he's getting around it and he asks for the guinness last yeah so skinner in an open neck white shirt with a graph paper pattern and powder blue slacks stands in the middle of the studio with the ladies of the early 80s clustered around him as well as a greb lad with very lank hair and mike reed glasses he promises the

cream of the crop of british pop and introduces star tracks club disco by star tracks formed in london in 1981 star tracks was the brainchild of the British producer Bruce Baxter, who began his career as the songwriter for the Swedish beat group The Soul Reps under the pseudonym Seamus O'Toole, before writing for Miriam McCabe, The Spotniks, and the Swedish rock and roll singer Little Gerhardt. After moving into production for Pickwick International in 1970, knocking off cover versions of Hair and Tommy, he oversaw the production of over 50 compilation LPs for Hallmark Records

from 1971 to 1978 under the title Top of the Pops, after they discovered that the BBC hadn't trademarked the name. After Baxter backed away from the project at the end of 1978, he acted as a conductor for the orchestral sections of Barbara Dixon's LP Sweet Oasis and did the score for the Dutch TV series Jewel in the Depth in 1979 and has just finished his latest gig

as the music arranger of the Anglo-Dutch cartoon series, Dr. Snuggles. In the meantime, Jaap Egermont, the former drummer of the rock band Golden Earring and the current overseer of Star Sounds, has been in the top ten for six weeks with Stars on 45, a Beatles medley which got to number two in May of this year and Stars on 45 volume two, an ABBA medley which also got to number two only last month. Both singles kicked off a medley infestation in the charts and Baxter, noticing that the Bee Gees hadn't been bagged yet, has weighed in with a seven-part cut-and-shut tribute

to the Isle of Man's greatest band. After entering the charts at number 47, it's been on a four-week pull up the lower reaches of the top 40, and it's up this week from number 21 to number 18. Well, you know, one thing I've noticed about Skinner, when he knows he's talking bollocks, as my mum used to say when I was playing a Torah,

he's not owning his mouth right. He does this very Jonathan King-like half-snarl as he lies to the pop-crazed youngsters about this being the cream of the crop of British pop, when we all know it's actually the chaff of the spaff this is 1981 isn't it Simon for a lot of people I'd kind of forgotten

sorry I was going to do that throughout the whole conversation do the whole episode if you want you mentioned Stars on 45 who I guess that was the big one but I actually without giving too much away, I counted how many of these medleys are in the top 30. There are five of the fuckers,

which means one in six records in the top 30 is a medley. So you've got Star Tracks, you've got Enigma, which I don't actually remember. It's not the Gregorian chant guys from the 90s. It's somebody doing a disco mega mix. It's a Philly soul medley. I love music. At number 25.

You've got Louis Clark, Royal Philharmonic, which is a huge hit. Number three. Lobo, the Caribbean disco show. Yeah, number eight. And tight fit with one of their back to the 60s records I guess number 9 which it's mental

that you know 1 in 6 records in top 30 is one of these don't forget Beach Boy Gold by Gideon Park oh is that still in there oh it's 1 in 5 records then and outside of the top 40 I think around in the early 70s

the Beach Boys have done their own Beach Boys medley. Right. This may well be, this week, may well be the high watermark of the medley record. And what does it tell you about the state of DJing at the time? I mean, club DJing. You know, I mean, do you think when people like, you know, Cool Herc and Grandmaster Flash were pioneering the form, that they thought it would end up like this some fucking cunt of butlins can just stick on uh six

minutes of of the beach boys or the bgs or abba or whoever it may be and just go off and have a pint well i was thinking who who bought these fucking things because you know yeah and then i thought yeah djs must have bought but that doesn't account for that many records in the top 30. No, true. So people are buying them, listening to them at home. Why would you do that? Why? Why would you?

Well, I guess it's because greatest hits albums were quite hard to come by at that time. You know? Yeah. A lot of these bands didn't have a greatest hits out. So, you know, if you only had, you know, 99p or whatever to spend on it, you could get the whole lot. But I'm not justifying it. I never bought any of them. No.

But I suppose that was the marketability of them. I actually don't remember this one. And when he said Star Trek, and first of all, you see the audience all dancing like crazy. I thought, well, that's a nod. With two balloons each. Yeah. And I thought they flipped the show almost.

I thought they'd sort of done the crowd dancing bit that's normally at the end first. Because that's what it looks like. And then gradually the camera zooms in and you realise there's an actual band in amongst there. And from a distance they look like old folkies or something. Yeah, they look well dinner danced, don't they? Or like the Strabes or the spinners

or something like that you know um as in the english spinners not the detroit i don't know which one the baxter one is but i'll go through what they look like to me the front man looks like james wale right yes um there's there's there's another one the one who goes hey are you ready let's go who looks like bob carol g's but without spit the dog and he's got in a very shiny red shirt red shirt very high-waisted slacks and white shoes right yes there's a drummer who looks like a high court artist's impression of phil collins and there's a keyboardist who looks like what would happen if he dressed a turtle up as the yorkshire ripper but um the the one the one who fascinated me the most though is this guy, he's got very thick hair

he's the guy who does the Night Fever bit of the medley he plays the bass and he's just got this expression he's got this thin lipped expression where he looks confused and faintly disgusted about being there, like there's a bad smell like the James Whale when he's farted or something

and he looks to me, he looks how Brian Wilson probably looked in 1981. And there's a weird bit where he's going into Is It How Deep Is Your Love? where it goes, I see your eyes in the morning sun. He does that line, then he mouths, ow, like he's

hurt his finger on the strings. What's he done? Has he got an electric shock? Probably not, though, the miming. Well, quite. And you look at the state of them and you think, technically, what's he done has he got an electric shock probably not though the miming well quite and you look at the state of them and you think technically these blokes were pop stars

they were pop stars as you say in intro they've been on top of the pops more than we have and for once that seems really wrong yeah if this Bambron

opportunity knocks you'd be stroking your chin and going oh they don't belong there I mean the bloke in the red shirt you know who he looks like? You know Gunnar Parkin off...

Yes. When he turned up, when he turned up in Only Fools and Horses as a copper with that moustache, he looks just like... I found that bass player incredibly disturbing. Yes. He's got cold, dead shark eyes.

Yeah. And a really scary presence i mean god how i wish this had been a legs and coat thing i mean it's a terrible record that shouldn't be on there anyway but it's awful but it's a performance that goes from it's quite at the beginning they're sort of smiling as they realize that the crowd recognize the tunes yeah playing yeah as soon as they're most of them are about three or four years well yeah exactly and then there's a slight sense of worry as they sense that the crowd realize that this is all they're gonna do um and that's the act yes and then they just start fronting it out like a shit seaside act it's really that's exactly what it's a pretty bad start to the show and really should have been a legs and cone number. It makes you hunger for the charismatic stage presence of Morris Gibb,

doesn't it? Only a few years after this, I was working in Butlins, Barry Island. And most of the bands, there were bands that were just playing the bar doing covers. And this is exactly what they look like. And I'm talking about 1984, 85. They still look like that. So yeah, this is totally what they were.

Oh, mate. I remember going to Butlins the year before and there was a band who looked just like Star Trek's and crowds full of skinheads and mods. So they're having to play the modern stuff and they did Rat Race. And I'll never forget, yeah, I'll never forget the lead singer saying

instead of the promises you make tomorrow carry no guarantee, he sang, your mother says you you make tomorrow carry no guarantee he sang, your mother says you'll make tomorrow carry no guarantee. Oh no go wrong. Oh man. Yeah that was me with my freshly

ironed on jam patch t-shirt with peanuts across the top. Just shaking my head going no mate. You weren't like actually throwing yourself into it. You were thinking this is my one moment of like music that talks to me and just like go down the front and really, you weren't like Jimmy in Quadrophenia, you know, in that dance scene.

When I fell into that boating lake with my new t-shirt on, my mum would have said that I make tomorrow carry no guarantee while wagging a finger. So yeah, you know, I think he improved on terry hall's lyrics there but i mean we have to bear in mind that the real life actual bgs are about to release an lp that no one will buy next month it only gets to number 73 in the charts so here they are being upstaged by these dads and the weird thing is that they've they've thrown massachusetts in there yeah they've got all the disco hits

and in the middle they've got one of the 60s ballads. Why? Is it just because it's a fairly famous BG song? It just doesn't work at all. We only get five of the seven so it's more than a woman, night fever, tragedy, Massachusetts and how deep is your love.

At least they didn't do anything out of Cucumber Castle that'd be amazing like some some real deep cuts I mean we need to talk chaps about about the Pickwick Top of the Pops albums did you ever have any oh yeah definitely and and you know my first introduction to Death Disco by Pill was that was that yes which is in some way superior to the original um that yeah they just took they were the now of their day if you like um yes you had to get them not only for the sexy stunners on the cover but also for the for the pickwit pops orchestra but well not they didn't butcher things they gave things an

interesting slant i think on some of those on some of those albums but i had pretty much all of them from about 79 to about 82 i would think i i did did not have any of them because I was a K-Tel kid. So the first three K-Tel ones I had was Midnight Hustle, which was a hand-me-down from my granddad, and Night Moves and then Video Stars. Ah, Night Moves. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Night Moves was my favourite.

That was brilliant. But some of my friends had these Top of the Pops albums. I remember going around someone's house, and I guess I i'll name and shame carl humphries hey man um so uh he insisted that it was the real versions and i was trying to know no yeah and he was he was playing uh um i think it was like he might have been too much too young by the specials or something mad like that and i actually went home and brought my single of it and said no no no listen it's not the same it's gone yes it is and people just you know just didn't want to believe that they that they've been conned it's funny i'm assuming that would be the single version which was live well well exactly

yeah and did they say too much too young at the beginning oh I can't remember but oh I need to dig that out now of course in my head it's Elton John doing it because famously Elton John did loads of that but I guess he had bigger fish to fry by 1980 I mean what's the worst

medley record you've heard they're interchangeably awful for me but I mean honestly I think it's this one I think it's Star Tracks yeah because of the interpolation

of Massachusetts in there that really fucking angered me and the sheer lazy implacability of the beat and of Massachusetts in there, that really fucking angered me. And the sheer lazy implacability of the beat, and it just does nothing. The record does nothing, goes nowhere. It's just, it could not be lazy. They've just caught their leg and

pinched this one off. It's just, yeah, I think this is the pits actually, Star Trek's. There's actually a really ropey T-Rex one called Mega Rex. It joins, I think, three songs together in a really kind of cut and shut way because if ever a band's music doesn't lend

itself to it's T-Rex because it's all about boogie and feel. And then you've just got somebody trying to jam it together like that. Really bad. With Hockton Classics at number three, you've obviously heard Classical Mudley the portsmouth symphonia haven't you no that band that 70s experimental band where no one can actually play the right but have you heard the punks of 76 by friendly hopefuls no all right should i i think you ought to go over to the video playlist now and have a listen to it it will

rile you Simon I'm probably going to love it you know there's about 40 people behind the band and they've got balloons on and everything but there's two girls who have thrown away their balloons because they're lost in the reverie of the clapping but they're still clapping on the

fucking on beat what the fuck is wrong with them? Yeah, it was a contagion. Granny claps. Yeah, this is it. This is where it came from. This is what you do to music from here on in, kids. Wasn't it a shame that Pickwick didn't put out a Top of the Pops LP and have nothing but cover

versions of all these medley records? I think pop would have disappeared up its own arse at that point. That's hurting my head just thinking that That'd be nuts So the following week Star Trek's Club Disco dropped six places to number 24 The follow up

A medley called Reggae's Greatest Hits Featuring Young Giffner and Black Wonderful World Beautiful People Monkey Man And Obladi Oblaba. How do you do the granny claps to Monkey Man? For fuck's sake. I don't want to hear that.

I really do want to hear it. I do. I can't find it anywhere, man. If anyone's got that, alert me to it, please. But that failed to chart, and they were never heard from again in the UK. Although they put out the LP, Rock and Dance on 45

in Yugoslavia featuring the Bee Gees medley, an Elvis medley, a Rod Stewart medley, a Credence Clearwater Revival medley and a Middle of the Road medley. That's the band, not the genre. And one month after this episode,

the single was last seen being jumped on by two skinheads in Carnaby Street as part of a Smash Hits feature where they invited the general public to destroy medley records. And of course, what do we know about that, Simon? That feature? Sounds like a British version of Disco

Demolition Night. It sounds faintly sinister. It's also the first appearance in the British press of Boy George. Oh my God. Yeah, he's holding up Stars on 45 on one of their medley records and someone else is soaring through it. Star Class. Hot Disco doing well in the charts at the moment. When they are on the sky Start-lapse.

Pop Disco doing well in the charts at the moment. Also doing well in the charts is Mr Cliff Richard. He's wired for sound and vision. I like small speakers I like tall speakers With bad music They're wired for sound Walking about with a head full of music playing music the wire was sound walking about with a head full of music

cassette in my pocket and I'm gonna use it, stereo out in the streets you know oh oh oh in the car surrounded by two Asian ladies of both persuasions, one orientental, one Subcontinental,

quickly hands off to the first video of the evening, Wired for Sound by Cliff Richard. We've discussed Cliff Richard all the fucking time on Chart Music, not least in the last episode, when he performed I Can't Ask for Anything More Than You, Babe, which got to number 17 in September of 1976. Since then he's released five LPs, had a couple of flop singles, had a number one LP in 1977 with the compilation 40 Golden Greats, roared back in 1979 when We Don't

Talk Anymore got to number one, received an OBE in 1980, duetted with Olivia Newton-John on the single Suddenly and changed his name by deep hole from Harry Webb to Cliff Richard. This single, the follow-up to A Little In Love, which got to number 15 in February of this year, is the first and title track from his forthcoming and 24th LP, which will be released in a fortnight. It was co-written by B.A.

Cunterson and it's accompanied by the video, which was shot in and around the central Milton Keynes shopping center, which was opened by Margaret Thatcher two years ago. And it's the second highest new entry this week at number 27. Oh, boys, boys, boys. Well. I get the image of your two like Babe Ruth

lumbering up to the plate and pointing your bat at the upper deck and calling you shocked. A crack in my knuckles here, literally, yeah. Never had a chance to talk about Cliff. Oh. Actually, can I stop you there, Neil, right? Yeah. Because I think that we need to sort of knuckles here literally yeah never had a chance to talk about cliff um oh actually can i can i stop you there neil right yeah because i i think that we need to sort of properly let you off the

leash with cliff because you haven't done cliff before but just before yeah yeah i just want to quickly rewind to the link that skinner does there because you mentioned now that you know he is i mean he's flanked by let's face it two very foxy women um yes and uh yeah one uh the indian appearance one of Far Eastern appearance. And I could now wondering what the latter is going to make, without spoilering anything, what she's going to make of the number one record. So I just want to leave that hanging.

Just going to leave that hanging there. Right, Neil, off you go. Well, the thing is with Cliff, that even though there's plenty of pop stars who give us kind of a fantasy of what it might be like to be British and be from here. Artists as various as, I don't know,ie boland the stones are specials bands that looked at how you can

both avoid and disguise the fact that you're from here and also celebrate and explore being from here bands that kind of convince you that the establishment don't always win in this country cliff for me is proof of perhaps a deeper more adult rather than adolescent truth and that's that the establishment's always with us will always win and and has the power to endure and if i was being honest and i wanted to give someone an index of british pop it would be it horribly it'd be cliff that i'd send them to um it's telling that all those other bands had international appeal and cliff never really did australia because anywhere else i think his transparent i'm gonna say mediocrity i think

would be exposed anywhere else this kind of national curriculum hold he has over us just doesn't fly he's just another singer with not a particularly great voice or a great stage presence but you felt as a child throughout his films and his music that he was into it not really for reasons of pleasure or joy but because he felt it was his calling and and as time goes on there was a great phrase that pricey came up with a while back about the beatles about the fact that that kind of you have to listen to the beatles it's almost like part of the staple diet and it was sit down and eat your beetles and i use that phrase all the time um there's a sense of that with cliff but of course the further you dig with cliff and you do as time goes on the more

unpleasant he becomes so you start finding out what he said about Bowie for instance um in 1970 well in 73 he condemned Bowie completely he said here's a genuine married man dressing up as a woman the impact is not on people like myself or those in my age group but on the youngsters who become tomorrow's people what will those 10 and 11 year olds think of someone who's a man dressing up as a woman at a pop show he upsets me as a man um you find out things like that i recently in a spirit of kind of stupidness uh picked up a book from a charity shop called jesus god and me by cliff richard and digging into it there's there was a very very telling and convenient quote if you're at school and you've cheated your way through exams God can forgive you if you've lied

or deceived or been unfaithful to someone you love God can accept you as though you'd never done it and this is the key bit if there's something that has been on your conscience for years and it feels like some permanent stain on your life god can wipe it clean completely and forever yes very convenient and what have you done cliff what have you done one man's stain is another man's furcle 60 years ago with a consenting adult well this is it the thing is with cliff hello cliff's lawyers at the moment we have to say innocent of all charges and and we have to say that if he has done anything i think it's so deep and so dark that it will never come out until after he's gone and you know he has the ability to shut people up um you know politically as well with cliff he's he was an an unstinting supporter of Thatcher I can't forget his demanding of an apology from the audience when Kenneth Baker got booed at the 89 Brits I can't forget

really I know he's not unique in that he played Sun City an awful lot of people did you know taking advantage of that flimsy legality that you know it wasn't part of South Africa um and you know Elton John and and you know Queen and and uh Rod Stewart a lot of people played Sun City but whereas when when Sabbath or Quo's played Sun City I can sort of see it as ignorance mainly with Cliff when he was questioned about it about his incessant trips to perform in South Africa he asserted that the wider politics of apartheid had, and this is the quote, nothing to do with me. That's got to do with economics or something.

But why are we talking about politics? It's an abstract thing that hangs over countries and has no meaning. I'd rather talk about God. And he said, I go wherever Christians invite me to speak about Jesus. It's a platform I've been given by God. He's creepy to me in a way

that reminds me massively of the school that I went to reminds me of those authority figures who used religion as a way of hiding um a real darkness in what they were doing and and for me Cliff has that simultaneous kind of comedy feel almost. You can laugh at him, but there's also a deep, deep creepiness about him. But because he's part of your pop diet from a seriously young age, he's like, I don't know, he's like the Farley's Rusks or the Great Water of Pop.

And he never loses that unpleasant taste for me. But by the time I was eight, I'd heard the hits and I'd seen the films, I was aware of them. I'd obviously seen and understood the fact that everyone could do an impression of him as well it was like he had everyone fooled just like my teachers did and

you know it's not that I don't believe he's capable of horrible things it's just that I do think that he's I don't think I don't want to say anything libelous obviously but if there is a truth about Cliff that isn't the squeaky clean truth

that he's presented to the world, I think it's so contrastingly dark and so disturbing that we'll never learn it in his lifetime. So there's all that thing for the prosecution. For the defence, I would say perhaps this record, maybe, Wired for Sound, perhaps. This is essentially Cliff's midlife crisis being played out.

It is, though. But you know what? Right, he was 40. And I am going to do that thing now. So that means he was the same age then as these people are now. Okay? Robin, Sophie Ellis-Bexter, Nelly Furtado, Usher, Adam Levine from Maroon 5,

and Julian Casablancas from The Strokes, right? Who all people have been around a while, but we don't think of them as elderly. You know, if basically, if Robin came out with a roller skating video now, we wouldn't be laughing at her. Do you know what I mean? But this was, it was quite a sight, wasn't it? It was at the time, yeah. Yeah, so Cliff, obviously, you know, as Taylor and David said

in the last episode, every now and again he goes in for a bit of a retooling and a revamping to look vaguely of the times and it's 1981, just turned 40 time to go in again, but he's not wearing a blaze and pixie boots

nor is he singing songs about Rubik's Cubes orb radio he's gone he's gone for roller skating and hi-fi i never got into skating myself um i remember once uh my cousin came around and she had some roller skates that were just those ones it's literally just the skate bit and you tie it onto your shoe right and i tried it on and instantly i went over backwards cracked my head on the doorstep and it's like oh maybe this is not for me and i remember um one of my mates had a skateboard when that when that craze first came over which would be about 1977 78 and uh again i i managed to stay on it for about two seconds i just thought i'm not made for this at all so fair

play to cliff h40 he seems to have mastered the art of not just skating, but danger skating. Danger skating indeed, yes. I mean, this to me is the landmark video of the early 80s, as far as I can see. It is something that every time you go back, there's something new that just jumps out. Yeah, it's kind of amazing.

It is. So the video starts with Cliff trapped in a roller labyrinth with Marshall Stacks piled up behind him. And I say, you know, danger skating, yeah, danger rolling. Okay, all right. I mean, he manages to stand upright.

We don't know how many takes it took. But you do get the feeling that off to the side, there's a load of people just kind of like wanging him into shot. And he's basically trying to stay upright. Yeah. And that danger skating is him just trying to get his balance, I think. Yeah, you do get the sense that the other skaters

are moderating their routine somewhat. Just because they're good. And going by this video, the only males who could actually roller skate in 1981 were all black. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they're good and going by this video the only males who could actually roller skate in 1981 were all black yeah yeah yeah and they're his friends we're meant to believe that these are his friends yeah he's dark mates he's dark mates so i mean we cut to cliff in a black and gold jacket black pvc trousers yellow t-shirt and a son Sony Walkman but knowing Cliff and know how wide and how wide for sound he is

it could be a stowaway which was the original title of the Walkman in the UK and he's strutting past the Octo Sculpture which is a stainless steel figure 8 which resembles the infinity symbol which sounds like a different religion I'm not sure Cliff should be doing that

did you ever go to Milton Keynes out of curiosity in the 80s? You know, Paul Weller tried to... You know, I actually did, yeah. Yeah, same thing. When I was into American football, my local team played the Milton Keynes Bucks. And so we went to the Milton Keynes Bowl. And I'd heard of it before, of course,

because that's where status quo played and i turned up there and it was just a grass dip i thought oh this is shit yeah but that's all i saw of it i just saw a field didn't even see the concrete cows or anything i seem to recall a family trip being organized to fucking go and see why i don't it might have been down to this video or something no but the notion of a shopping centre was a new thrilling exciting thing I mean we had the ball ink

don't get me wrong but this was different and glistening in you but I remember getting there and being pissed bored within about half an hour once you've seen lots of square panes of glass you've seen it I mean this essentially is Cliff trying to do for milton keynes in the early 80s what he did for birmingham in the early 70s isn't it do you

want to explain that to everybody oh they know if they listen to the last chart music they'll know what they're all about brunberger okay yeah yes yeah and also this is the equivalent of stan stennett doing that bye bye meat meat and fish at the boring shopping centre. Oh, my God. You remember that, Neil, don't you? Vaguely, yeah, yeah, yeah, vaguely. No, but the thing is, the reason that that's just given me all these kind of mad memories is because Stan Stennett, every year, performed in Panto in Bari, where I'm from.

And, like, we were assured that, oh, he's a national figure, he's famous. But we hadn't heard of him from anything other than being in panto in barry and it was just a weird sort of closed loop of celebrity like how was he famous you're the first people i've ever heard mention the name stan stennett who didn't come from barry he was in crossroads for fuck's sake yeah milton keane's though rightnes though right it was always the very tired jokes by stand up comedians around that time or just people complaining about the

modern age like everything will be like Milton Keynes one day at the time I don't think I had that much of a problem with it because I mean what was the alternative if Milton Keynes was this then no of course you wouldn't people complained about the Milton Keynesisation of Britain

were the sort of people who wanted town centres to be all kind of like half timbered Tudor pubs and stuff like that and I didn't want that either

so I kind of being a sort of contrarian teenager was like actually bring it on I want the future to look like this why not

you know and the fact that he's got a Walkman was mind-blowingly futuristic he does look like he's living the dream to some extent you know and the fact that he's got a Walkman was mind-blowingly futuristic he does look like he's living the dream to some extent you know in a previous chart music when we were talking about Walkmans

I managed to locate I was trying to price them up for the time and the nearest I could get was a Binitone one yeah it was a standard deliver video £50 a Binitone one in Argos I actually found the 1982 spring

catalogue for Argos. Sony Walkman. Do you want to have a guess? I remember them being prohibitively expensive. I reckon, what, £79.99. Yeah, I was going to say something like that. Go on, what is it? £190.99 £190.99

Allowing for inflation that's about £416 today Jesus Christ and there's Cliff with one on his sultry PVC clad hip and also the jacket

black and gold kind of thing going on there's a logo of what I believe is Patch Records well it is patch records on the back it said well it says patch records on the back right and i've only been able to find two of their releases an lp by goth hewitt who was a folk and gospel singer who did an lp with the cliff on backing vocals right and uh in 1983 they put out the single dusty bin Bin by Ted Rogers and the Young'uns yeah a prestigious label, the Motown of its

day. But this is like Cliff's new pop anthem in a way it's an optimistic record and it's completely bereft of religious content or any of that, it's just a hilarious enjoyable record, especially in the video form that we see it in here. Oh it's amazing. I mean it's not

enough to deflect really from the leathery turtleneck horror that is Cliff but it's good and it's kind of really after this he sort of disappears a little bit I would say Cliff and it makes a reappearance towards the late 80s

I would say but I would say this isn't although it's a reboot and a new start for him I mentally put this at the tail end of his late 70s early 80s revival I put this with records like We Don't Talk Anymore and Carrie and things like that which might be better records

I think this is the last great Cliff single yeah his voice suits this sound this kind of thick glistening sound he gets on this record and he can't be didactic on this record. He can't be God-bothering, basically. He's just part of the record. Wired for Christ.

It's a good song despite B.A. Cunderson's presence. And even the fact that Shed 7 covered it can't spoil it. I think we have to sort of just man up and say because of B.A. Cunderson's presence, you've got to give credit where it's due. Because I know that in a previous episode, we've thoroughly done B.A. Cunderson to death to the extent that Taylor wanted to go and travel in a time machine,

grab hold of him as a baby and smash him against a sink. But had he done that, we wouldn't have got this record. We wouldn't have this. And yeah, I agree with what where he says it's optimistic. It does have this weird utopianism to it, which really appeals to me. The weird thing is, though, it's not pop. What it is, it sounds like advert music.

It sounds like you expect it to be talking about Moolenex making things simple or Cookability, the beauty of gas. Yes, and that includes the price. Yeah, yeah. It's got that kind of advert feel to it, which is kind of weird. Yeah. It's like a nicer clockwork orange, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the Milton Keynes thing, I wondered if it's... I mean, it is weird that it's his idea of an exotic location for a pop video. And I wondered if, you know, by this point, he's gone maybe a bit prematurely Brexit. Maybe after his early years of bus holidays in France on camera and nuclear... He's having a staycation.

Nuclear incidents in Spain, let's not forget, in another film. But I wondered whether he was burned by Eurovision failure and never wanted to leave England again and just, you know. Yeah, maybe. The whole skating thing, I wonder how that came into his life. And I wondered, right, and I've got a theory about this. I wonder if this was afters from Xanadu, right? Because Cliff sang the love theme suddenly from Xanadu

with Olivia Newton-John. And I like to imagine a scenario where one night in Munich, because this is where they recorded that song, after a long and exhausting recording session in Music Land with John Farrar. I like to imagine Cliff and Olivia had a bit of a heart-to-heart and he goes,

do you ever feel like you need something else in life? And Olivia senses he's about to give her the God speech. So she goes, yes, and I know just the thing. And Cliff recoils, thinking she's about to give her the God speech. So she goes, yes, and I know just the thing. And Cliff recoils, thinking she's going to offer him some wacky-backy or worse. Because after all, she was in Nashville in the 70s.

And you can't tell me that ONJ hasn't partied, right? But instead, she reaches into her bag and says, here, try these. And she hands him a spare pair of roller skates from the film. And then they both kind of zoom off into the night, swirling around a deserted Bogenhausen district, laughing and carefree and, you know, just,

just, just free spirits. And Cliff thinks I've been missing this all, all these years. I must immediately on my next record, do something about this. That's all I can imagine. The song's about him being mental about sound and,

you know, speaker systems and all this him being mental about sound and you know speaker systems and all this kind of shit but you know you see him with a walkman on and you just think what the fuck would cliff richard listen to on a walkman and i can't think of anything else but cliff richard yeah well you know inspirational speeches or something the entire catalogue of patch records you know including dusty bing. Yes. There's many favourite bits to pull out of this, but I do like the one where he's malevolently bowling along a darkened subway, because

it reminds me of that scene in The Warriors where they meet up with the punks. You know that gang who are all dressed up like Rod, Jane and Freddy? And there's a point man on roller skates. I can imagine Cliff doing that. I like the bit when he spins round with a black girl I think

his girlfriend yeah and that's all he does for about 30 seconds because he can't do anything more complicated I think it accompanies that key line in the song which is I said you love me then love means you must like what I like

yes get ready to spend loads of Saturday mornings I said you love me, then love means you must like what I like. Yes. Yes. What is he getting at there? Get ready to spend loads of Saturday mornings at Lasky's and Richard Sandstock looking at The Separates. He's that kind of person who would not walk into that Not The Nine O'Clock News sketch and say, yes, I want slimline salad dressing in my stereo.

He knows you won't be able to fall cliff. Anything else? Yes, actually. Yes. Being an old goth, recovering goth, as I am, the thing that struck me about this video, the first few seconds when he looms into sight through a cloud of smoke in a black shiny jacket

and mirrored sunglasses, to me, at that moment, he's indistinguishable from Andrew Eldridge of the Sisters of Mercy circa this corrosion, right? Yeah. And there's also another bit just after the first chorus where Cliff is shadowed against a backlight. It's kind of vortex of light. And that's very much like the Sisters video for Walk Away.

Oh, what we're saying is? Well, Eldridge,itch right used to pretend that the biggest influences on the sisters were i don't know like leonard cohen and suicide and the doors and iggy pop and all that but he obviously had his chart pop side as as proven by their cover of hot chocolates emma um so i'm saying maybe that the secret uh influence behind the sisters of mercy was Cliff all along. Wow. Imagine Cliff doing this corrosion. Good lord. But the ending

of this video is key as well. The way it loops, the way it repeats is properly scary and terrifying. It gets a bit Starlight Express at the end, doesn't it? It does. That bit when he swoops into the camera crouching and that woman's arse is behind his left ear.

Yes. On a repetitive loop. And they're pulling a train on him. Oh, is it the same bit over and over? I wasn't sure if they just re-shot it slightly differently every time, you know. I think it's the same bit over and over, which just accentuates Cliff's scariness. I think the only thing that is stopping this from being even more

of the greatest video ever is they should have had a scene of cliff dressed as a rastafarian on his roller skates with a ghetto blaster that's the one piece of the hi-fi jigsaw that was missing so the following week wired for some sword 16 places to number 11 and And the week after that, it got to number four, its highest position. The follow-up, brace yourself, Neil. A live cover of the 1961 Shep and the Limelight song, Daddy's Home. Jesus. Spent four weeks at number two in December of this year. Held off the top spot by don't you want me you could do

a really amazing mash-up of daddy's home with um the scary choral music from the omen and just i really freaked me out man that is actually scary I like smooth music, then a wide ear for sound I like smooth music, I like smooth music I like smooth music Here they go. APPLAUSE Formed in Leeds Polytechnic in 1977 by Dave Ball and Mark Almond, an art student and a performance art student who used to smash things up, have it off with a mirror and smear himself with cat food, Soft Cell began their recording career by borrowing two grand off Ball's mam

and putting out the independent EP Mutant Moments in October of 1980 which sold 2,000 copies. This brought them to the attention of Stephen Pierce better known as Stevo a 17 year old mobile DJ who put together the futurist charts for sounds who was so taken by Mutant Moments that he hitchhiked up to Leeds to see them in concert after which he offered to manage them and put them on his compilation LP of unsigned synth bands entitled The Some Bizarre Album. After cutting a deal between Some Bizarre and Phonogram Records which involves Steve-O negotiating with the label via a tape recorder stuffed inside a teddy bear which was dressed as Robin Hood and Steve-O being put on a weekly retainer

of some toughies. They put out the single Memorabilia in March of this year but it failed to chart. This is the follow-up, a cover of the 1964 Gloria Jones B-side written by Ed Cobb of The Four Preps which was salvaged in a Philadelphia record shop in 1973 by the Northern Soul DJ Richard Searling, who played it out in the Bolton club Var Var. As it spread throughout Northern England, Jones saw fit to re-record it in 1976, but it didn't chart. But after this version entered the top 40 two weeks ago, and the subsequent top of the pops performance it soared 17 places to number nine and this week it's up seven places to number two and oh my god what a one-two punch this is absolutely and this where do we start chaps well i believe the first thing we need to do

is to run a finger along the chart music bookshelf and pick out Tainted Life, Mark Ormond's first autobiography, which details this very performance. Back in Leeds, I got a telephone call. They want you on Top of the Pops, the legendary Top of the Pops where I'd watched my childhood idols growing up. The program that I had wished so many times to be on but never thought I could be, not in a million years. Something like Top of the Pops seemed so far away, so dreamlike and unreal. A land of starburst lights, chrome sets, luminescent pink smoke and dancers wearing fringes and lycra, sprinkling handfuls of bad taste everywhere. The land where it was always the 70s.

I was to stand on the stage of the most famous show in Britain, the marker of having made it. Everyone who'd ever known me would see me, and all of those who had dismissed me, laughed at me, or been mean would, with luck, be sick to their stomachs. I was dazed as I arrived at the BBC that day and was shown to the studio. It was disappointingly small. Roger Ames, phonogram's A&R, hovered around, concerned that we say the right things to the right people. It has always amused me to see powerful record company executives kowtow to the Top of the Pops producers. Nothing was as important as Top of the Pops, and Michael Hurl put the fear of God into them all. of the pops and Michael Hull put the fear of God into them all. Roger grew increasingly concerned with what I'd chosen to wear, particularly my bracelets and thick eyeliner. He feared that I

was going to blow it with a major display of campness. Those little demons on my shoulder encouraged me and I decided that I should do just what I wanted and be me we'll come back to that later but this is this is pretty key isn't it this performance it is as I mentioned before I did quite a lot of work with soft sell last year when they were doing their sort of farewell gig and their um their box set key chains and snowstorms uh for which I wrote the big kind of booklet essay. And I interviewed them. And so I can kind of corroborate what Mark said there from Dave Ball's side, because they were sharing a flat at that time. So he says he remembers the moment the phone rang.

And the place was very soft sell. It was very sort of bedsitter video. He said at one point, he was so pest infested at one point, he had to decapitate a scurrying mouse on the draining board uh but anyway he goes so yeah he says we were in a housing association building mark had a room i had a room there was a pay phone in the hallway we were waiting for a phone call from phonogram because the record was doing really well in the clubs and shops and he said make sure you're in because we might get top of the pops if you're lucky mark goes and answers it and i hear this screaming oh my god oh my god ah and he goes it's

number 26 we've got top of the pops fucking hell so it's frantic calls to your mum mum you'll never guess what that three years at our college wasn't a total waste i quite like that and it also corroborates um my chat with him corroborates that bit about people fretting about what Mark looked like. Because he said to me, I had a big row with the boss of the record company before I went on. He said, you can't wear all those bangles. You've got to butch yourself up. And he goes, and I don't know what you mean. I love that.

Like, you know, yeah, what do you mean? What's not butch about me? I love that. It's amazing. Those performances, I mean, all three of them, they're totally burned into my memory. And the bangles were absolutely key for me. As a little kid with girls' wrists,

the fact that his bangles were too big for his skinny wrists, I'll never forget. It's the way he clanked them together when he clapped. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's such a, that's seared in my memory just that the banging together the bangles and it's odd because you know there's the there's the record company worried that he's going to intimidate and alienate people but that was why i immediately fell in love with soft sell because of these appearances um you know because of mark's face and his voice and his manner it was clear from the off that

here was an outsider and a geek and the kind of kid who'd probably be picked on but who could fight back with his voice and perhaps with fists as well um soft sell well i mean it's first non-stop erotic cabaret is the first album i seriously got into and there was just so much that set them apart from everyone um their use of synths just seemed hooligan it wasn't searching for a future it's a way of making their music grimier and heavier and bassier and unlike say the other synth pop things were being flung our way at the time say Depeche and Spandau and Durant they weren't good looking boys they were weird looking dark and their music wasn't bright and shiny it It was dark and heavy and bassy.

It was really, really telling how they, you know, what other synth pop band would have covered Paranoid by Black Sabbath early on? You know, there's a few things about Soft Self. Firstly, no one in the early 80s, I don't think, produced music quite like Dave Ball. He had an ear that was informed by just wider stuff than his contemporaries. And when he gets as frenzied in his production as Allman gets in his voice there's just this Hitchcockian thing to their music that's just wonderful and

next to Soft Cell to me and not just now but at the time so much early 80s electro pop sounds thin and weedy yes compared to Soft Cell Soft Cell just sounds confidently bizarre and street level and committed. And Bull's just a genius. He made Mark's fondness for things like suicide

and his own fondness for pop and 60s pop come together. So when you listen to Tainted Love, even then, it didn't sound exactly like the future. It sounded like technology kind of cranking into action. Listen to the intro of Tainted Love. That doesn't glisten and glide it rattles and hisses and it sounds potentially hazardous it's not macho like newman but it's not polite like depeche mode he was so important they thought and if anything else his mustache was key as well because it added it

added to soft cells's seediness enormously, that moustache. And like I say, Mark had a really kind face and a vulnerability, that's the key. The original of Tainted Love is a kind of frantic record. It's a strong, amazing record. It's a glorious record. It's a wonderful record,

but you don't ever feel really in that, that Gloria Jones is ever totally out of control. Whereas Mark, he focuses on the taint of the love if you like he's totally wrapped by it and and these performances of tainted love all three of them like I say they're just burning my memory not just the bangles but the way he clapped you know the hand claps to see someone not invited to the pot party starting their own party in their own way, was just wonderful. So everything about this performance, including even the split screen at the end,

I remember it's burned in my memory. And of course it helps that Mark, I think, has one of the greatest voices in British pop history. He can do everything. He can do pop hysteria. He can do sleaze. He can do snarliness. He can do everything.

If you imagine anyone else from that generation of synth pop singers covering Tainted Love and they'll probably smooth it out and calm it down a little bit

Mark accentuates the emotions not just in his voice but in the way he snaps his head back and the way he throws his arms about much more confident

than the previous appearance and the way you know, anyone I think anyone listening to this record to this day, on the bit when he pushes his voice on the don't touch me please line, when you hear this record

it's so enjoyable shouting that line, singing that line, because it's a chance to inhabit the drama of the torment that he's going through singing it I instantly fell in love with soft cell and have stayed in love um ever since probably my favorite of the early 80s acts and the danger is for me is that soft cell are kind of in the hands of compilation makers and rock historians

they might get bunched together with every other rap combining electronics and pop in the early 80s but but to me they're totally uniquely on their own tangent this this is it's got a granite hard toughness this music um i know they all did amazing things all those other bands de peste you're on spandau abc having something to say but if i had to salvage one single synth record from that era it would definitely be non-stop erotic cabaret always And just one more thing, sorry. A few years ago, I wrote some pieces about Mark Bolan for The Quietest. And I think one of the high points in my life, let alone career, was when Mark Orman read one of them and he said nice things about it on Twitter.

For me, that was just validation. I fucking love Mark and I love Soft Cell. I want to echo what Neil said about focusing on the taint rather than the love because I really think that Mark managed to squeeze more out of those lyrics than is there. Ed Cobb's song is just a fairly standard pop song, but Mark seems to manage to infuse it with all kinds of dark hidden meaning that was never intended I don't think and and that that's a that that's a brilliant way of doing a cover version and there are so many things about how this came together that you know the

combination of Dave Ball and Mark Almond in the first place that rely on just chance and serendipity like the way they met in the first place which is that Dave Ball was trying Almond in the first place that rely on just chance and serendipity like the way they met in the first place which is that Dave Ball was trying to register at Leeds Poly on the first day and he was lost and he saw this guy with a leopard coat and bleached

hair and thought well he must know where the art department is and that was that and then that um it goes back even before they met with with this song um separately they were both in love with what was let's face it a fairly obscure record and what had happened uh b-side but what what had happened in uh in in dave's case is he was in blackpool and he was working for an ice cream company and it was a rainy day and rather than take his ice cream van down the beach,

he just sat in the staff room and one of his colleagues was playing Autobahn by Kraftwerk and that blew his mind and he was like, what the fuck is this? And then not long after that, at night time he because he was always on the northern soul scene he went to the highland room of the blackpool casino and and the dj played tainted love and he just had this kind of light bulb moment of what if i put these two things together you know this northern soul song with that kind of craft work sound and meanwhile over in leeds mark had heard um ianhurst, who was the DJ for the Wigan Casino, play Tainted Love at the, is it the Leeds Warehouse where Mark used to hang out? And he just went and said, you know, what's this song?

What's this song? And Dewhurst gave him a tape of it, which is quite cool because Northern Soul DJs were usually very, very protective. Yeah, yeah, they did. So all these sort of chance things kind of came into this even existing in the first place. And I also want to endorse what Neil said about the kind of passion that Mark puts into his vocals,

which is really important. And for the booklet that I wrote, I interviewed Mike Thorne, who produced the record. And, well, for a start, it was produced relatively cheaply uh it was um the budget for recording this and the uh and the sort of b-side because it was originally sort of tainted love where's our love go all recorded in one long sort of 10 minute take or something um the budget was 600 quid which sounds like quite a lot of money, you know, made for 1981. But a big chunk of that included hiring a synclavier, which they ended up not using, I think.

It was just Dave Ball's Korg. It was a kind of thing going on. Anyway, in the vocal booth, Mark was singing his heart out so much that he was sending the needle into the red and it was over compressed. And the, the engineer reached for the off switch and, you know, one is another take,

but Mike Thorne stopped him and said, no, no, no, this is great. And that, that ended up being the take that they used because he was just belting it out too much,

which I love. So, so there's, there's, there's all that stuff, you know, quite kind of chancy things that, that made it the record it is.

And the kind of dynamic between, as Neil said, the kind of vulnerability of Mark and the kind of almost intimidating presence of Dave Ball was really important. Dave Ball described himself later on as looking like a minder. And he actually had to play that role in real life on occasion because as soon as this song took off when they were out in leeds you can imagine the shit that they started getting he said that there were all these uh national front skinheads that you know went over and you know calling calling mark a fucking puff and dave always had to step in and sort of be his minder but that is the thing mark looks so skinny and flimsy he looks as if the weight of those bangles and the thing around his neck could actually snap him oh he's

dookie fat gold yeah yeah yeah he looks like he could buckle under and under the weight of his own jewelry and i i love that and um it's it's interesting what a rage he sent people into i mean i'm sure there were televisions kicked in around the country we talk about starman moments this is the starman moment of the early 80s this one is but even more so than boy george um this more than the previous appearance because uh we've alluded to the fact that this is their second appearance with with tainted love um the first time and it's not really mark's fault maybe maybe it's it's the cameraman or the producers on the day he doesn't look down the barrel very much in that first performance

it's like he doesn't know where the camera is, this performance he knows where the camera is, he's totally given it loads and he's somebody who would have grown up watching this actual star man of Bowie twiddling his finger down the camera and going I wanted to call someone so so I picked on you.

You know, that whole thing. He knows the power of that, Mark. And he's just, he's going for that at any opportunity. Tainted Love appeared on Top of the Pops four times. And this is the second version, as you pointed out. And you can see him coming out of the fucking chrysalis. Yeah, you can. Every time.

By the third one, it's like a victory lap, isn't it? It's like, yeah, we're top of the world. Yeah, yeah. Yes, it is. And the eyeliner gets thicker and thicker and thicker. And it's just like, oh, why did Adam and the Ants release a single? Why wasn't this song number one for about five weeks? Because I think in a month's time, he would come on,

and it would be fucking Elizabeth Taylor. But it was the biggest selling single of 81. I've had severe false memory about this because the way people go on about Mark Coleman's performance on top of the Pops of Tate and Love, it's as if he crawls out of the fucking teller and starts noshing your dad, looking at you. But this is exactly it, right?

I think the rage that he instilled in dads around the country, kicking in their TV screens, it's almost because they didn't know what to do with him. It's not like he wasn't a drag queen. He wasn't even a sort of 1970s gay stereotype or any of that. They couldn't quite put their finger on what they didn't like about him because he's a man. He's not presenting as a woman in any way.

The weird thing is, obviously, only a year later, we'd have pop stars like Boy George and Marilyn who literally look like women. But that's a different thing. Mark Almond doesn't look like a woman, although I think everyone knows a woman who looks like Mark Almond. So when I was growing up, my parents had a friend called Judy and

she really looked like Mark Almond. She had the haircut and the nose and everything. So it was so weird seeing him on Top of the Pops. Bob Stanley in his book, Yeah Yeah Yeah, Story of Pop describes Mark Almond as looking like a Jewish mother. And obviously Bob, coming from of pop um describes uh uh mark almond as looking like a jewish mother um and and obviously you know

bob's bob coming from the background he comes from that's probably what was in his mind um so so there is that but he's not they they can't say get this filth off our screens as a man in a dress he's not wearing a dress he's a man yeah um it's almost as if the gayness in him is is more real it's almost as if the gayness in him is more real. It's like when he's singing about doing dastardly deeds, he means it. He's going to do those things. You know what I mean? What enrages people is confusion, not sureness.

If they can be sure and safely took someone away, then that's okay. What enrages the mainstream audience is, yeah, that confusion. And he was a confusing figure. This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey and just five bucks with a small coffee all day long.

Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. As a kid, he's an instantly likable figure. until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. As a kid, he's an instantly likeable figure. You know, there's nothing scary about Mark. You say that, but I remember, I recall there being a lot of hostility against him. Oh, certainly.

You chose your camp, as it were. No pun intended. Immediately, almost the day after in the playground there would be so there'd be some people saying horrible shit about mark allman and i'd just be there thinking he was fucking great and he looked amazing thought that from the art i i can totally imagine how people who felt kind of alienated or felt like outsiders um would watch that performance and yeah um it's not even in the lyrics is it that it's not it's not even in the lyrics, is it? It's not something as obvious as a, I don't know,

as a Smith song where it's all there in the text. It's not there in the text at all. It's all in just the sort of hints and the symbolism that he's giving off, just the vibe he's giving off. Makes you click with him and think, he's one of me, I'm one of him. Yeah, absolutely. And they were accidental pop stars. This is the thing. And even though... Because I'm one of him. Yeah, absolutely. And they were accidental pop stars. This is the thing.

And even though... Because this came out of nowhere. Yeah, because obviously they released Memorabilia. It wasn't even reviewed in Smash Hits, this single. And it was a slow burner, wasn't it? It took six weeks. Yeah, in Melody Maker's singles column, Lyndon Barber called it

one of the limpest, pathetic pop singles of all time twat the older generation of music reviewers would have known the original whereas i didn't it would have been about 10 years before i actually heard the original version yeah probably so you know i've been i've been working in offices and i've had a compilation tape of Soul. And this has come on, the Gloria Jones version. And people just sit bolt upright and just look at me going, fucking hell, I didn't know that was a cover version. Yeah, but they totally made it their own to the extent that when anyone covers that, when anyone covers Tainted Love now, they're covering the Soft Cell version.

So, for example, Marilyn Manson is totally just basically doing a slowdown version of Soft Cell I don't know if Marilyn Manson or his band or his people even bothered listening to the Gloria Jones do you know what I mean so so there is that um but yeah I I love this idea of Soft Cell becoming pop stars by accident it's a weird contradictory thing because he really rose the occasion and he he's almost like like a born pop star who didn't realise he was a born pop star until that moment where he's on top of the pops and suddenly, oh my God, I'm this thing. Because obviously, as you mentioned in your preamble,

they started off as this very kind of underground alternative performance art act and even at this point, they've still got a whiff of the Kato meat about them, I think, you know what I mean? Yes. And that whiff of Kato meat and wrongness, about them, I think. You know what I mean? And that whiff of cat-o-meat and wrongness,

it carries through into Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret. And just imagine how many millions of people... Non-Stop Erotic Cat-o-Meat. Imagine how many millions of people bought Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret on the back of this single. And suddenly, they're in this whole

world of BDSM and porno cinemas and all this weird shit that's going on in yeah um and and that that's their mission statement i mean obviously i'm alluding to the song sex dwarf partly there which is amazing yes um and the the refrain that uh repeated in that song um isn't it a nice sugar and spice luring disco dollies to a life of vice that is what they're doing that is what's happening in this exact moment on top of the pops soft sell are luring disco dollies to a life of vice and that is amazing it is amazing because this this is august right and in november non-stop heroic cabaret is going to come out and it's going to arrive in my house and and there go by November I'm listening to songs like Sex Dwarf

and Frustration and Entertain Me and you know How old are you again Neil this time? Well I'm nine So not quite a disco dolly Yeah and I didn't quite understand what was going on, it is you know

the sleazy documentation of Soho's Sworded Corners but god it was it is you know the sleazy documentation of soho's sordid corners but god it was exciting you know excited they made synth music exciting in a way that to me didn't happen again until frankie um they made since jizz they made since you know you know what i mean though that they're dirt that's dirty sounding record and and yet beautiful as well at times and you know by the time things like bedsitter and stuff are hitting the charts i'm completely wrapped up in them i think neil's right about the importance of dave ball's pop influences as well as all that kind of you know arty sort of

suicide type stuff um and throbbing gristle and all the things that mark was into uh when i when i interviewed dave um and asked him you know what him what his early musical influences were it was all stuff like James Bond themes like John Barry and things like Born Free theme and stuff like that which you can kind of hear actually not on this record

but if you listen to something like Say Hello Wave Goodbye the sheer kind of cinematic sweep of that so that's all there and that was kind of it was uncool at the time. It was certainly overlooked. It was a part of pop history that nobody really cared about. But he grew up with that kind of Radio 2 influence in his life.

And I think that's another thing. It gave a certain kind of warmth to Soft Cell's music that might not have been there if they were purely into Cabaret Voltaire and all of that you know what I mean? A similar sort of unfashionableness of influence as Jerry Damers was having at the time. Yes

yeah yeah yeah. Neil got to ask what was your mum's opinion? Oh I think she just I mean do you think she'd have immediately seen she'd have detected immediately she was the only person who knew that freddie mercury was gay after all no she liked she liked him straight off i think just like i did we were definitely a soft sell house although that didn't after all the things that could have meant it didn't mean any of that but we loved them immediately i think there is something very Blackpool about Dave Ball's synth sound

there is something pleasingly kind of weirdly cabaret and end of the pier about it at times not so much on this track but oh and by the way this shows how still sort of far behind we were in Top of the Pops terms even if the orchestra

had been abandoned the power of the musicians union was still such that orchestra had been abandoned, the power of the musicians' union was still such that when Dave Ball filled in the form, he wasn't allowed to put that he was a synth player. He had to write piano and bass, even though there's no piano and bass on the record. So this shows that even though they weren't futuristic in a kind of Newman-esque sense,

they were still way ahead of what the BBC establishment were willing to put up with. So it's quite pleasing in a way that they were on top of the pot so often. And I think maybe that was down to just their personal charm. You can imagine, it's impossible not to like Mark Almond. And even Dave Ball's a pussycat when you meet him. He's not that terrifying. He's just a really nice

northern guy with a voice that sounds like Finchie from The Office when he talks. You say that everyone loves Mark Almond and everything but let's go back to the text and he describes his performance. One of his performances on Top of the Pops. I frugged onto the TV

screen and a nation's jaws dropped open. Immediately and from then on, it seemed girls wanted to marry me. Mothers wanted to mother me. Grandparents wanted to have me arrested. Oh, I can imagine seventh age jankers having something to say about this. Lads wanted to smash my head in.

Fathers buried their heads in their papers and many young teenage boys blushed and made an excuse to leave the room so they could go upstairs and write love notes to me just as with bowie and bolan in the 70s war was declared in school playgrounds the day after no it wasn't because it was school holidays you get the idea yeah maybe this should have been a big emergency playground meeting during the school holidays to discuss mark holman after that first top of the pops appearance i was spat at in the street punched in the face by strangers insulted and ridiculed both in public places and on radio, on television and in the press in the most homophobic way imaginable.

Simon, as you say, quite rightly, this was the year that the freaks came out and dominated the charts. But the downside to that is it's also the year that the freaks came out into the charts and became tabloid fodder. It's also the year that the freaks came out into the charts and became tabloid fodder. Yeah, I mean, we don't have to talk about some of the tabloid myths around Mark, but they were essentially well-worn homophobic tropes that had been applied to previous gay singers. So basically, they hit him with the usual weapons that they hit all gay singers with, and certainly did in those days. that they hit all gay singers with, and certainly did in those days.

But I think Soft Cell just handled it in a brilliant way, in that they were always living this double life. I keep going back to this, that they were accidental pop stars. So when you see them on the front of, for example, Flexipop, with balloons and streamers in sort of party mode, they were happy to play that game. But at the same time, they were still that alternative grimy performance art act from Leeds who, I mean, their early stuff is all sort of dark satires of consumerism.

They're writing songs about kind of supermarket subliminal sales techniques. And that stuff is still there on the album that became one of the biggest selling albums of the year. So, yeah, I'm sure it was horrible for Mark. It must have been, I can't even imagine. It must have been just horrific, the amount of shit he got from the Red Tops. Shall I quote what he said in his book about the rumour?

All right. And if you're having your tea and don't know this, you might want to skip ahead. So yeah, this is what he says in Tainted Life. The rumour, the most untrue urban myth of all time. The one according to which I'm supposed to have ingested between two and eight pints of semen, depending on your tabloid source,

and as a consequence had to have my stomach pumped. In fact, the rumour wasn't even exclusively mine, for two superstars of the 70s had allegedly suffered the same smear too. Both of them are rich and extremely famous. One known to sue easily, and the other consistently heterosexual. It constantly surprises me that intelligent and liberal people feel the need to perpetrate the rumour without stopping to consider how deeply hurtful it might be. Because it's been around for so many years, many self-proclaimed liberally minded people accept it as a matter of fact without having the intelligence or sensitivity to question it or to consider how deplorable or contemptible reiterating it is. Perhaps all those people

should bear in mind that their remarks fuel the aggression and violence that homophobes need to express themselves. Every time a reference to the rumour appears in print or on TV means another day that I get insulted, shouted at or threatened. Those who perpetrate such rumours are themselves more distasteful than anything of which I have spoken, written or sung. Well, well said, Mark. And also, you wonder, talking earlier about Michael Hurl being the producer, you wonder if, say, if Soft Cell had appeared before Hurl became the producer, would they have made these repeated appearances? Would the response to those rumours to have actually got Soft Cell off the air, in a sense? Yeah, because I remember this rumour pitching up around our school in about mid-1982,

and yet it caused loads of people at my school to just stop being futurists. And, you know, I've got to admit, I was a right little homophobic come back then. But, you know, a banter homophobe in any case. But I totally believed it because, you know, Mark Holman had immediately become that gay person. You know, he usurped John Inman and Larry Grayson. and he'd usurped John Inman and Larry Grayson. So anyway, years later in 1990, I remember the first conversation I ever had with a load of people from around the country at the SU

was about the rumour. And I was absolutely shocked that everyone knew about it and there were different variations on how much it was and how it was ingested and all that kind of stuff and a week later uh me and a couple of mates decided to go to london for the day and we end up in soho and we walk into this cafe and as soon as we walk in this bloke turns around from the counter to leave and it's mark fucking almond wow and i i'm just standing there in shock and he just looks through me as if oh here's another random cunt what's he gonna say to me now and uh i just wanted to drop to the floor onto my

fucking knees and apologize to him for being such a cunt back then because yeah i was definitely on the wrong side of history and he must have gone through so much shit back in the early 80s he did but but i'll come back to what Pricey said about Mark's likeability. I think that's absolutely key. Hurl, the producer, as somebody with an experience of light entertainment, would have been dealing, not only being a producer and knowing all about filming, he'd have basically been a psychologist. He'd have been dealing with monstrous egos all his life.

And I think with Soft know, with Sauce Cell, I loved the passage you read about what Top of the Pops meant to Mark. That, to me, is completely the right way of thinking about Top of the Pops. The fact that it was so exciting for him. And I think that probably just immediately endeared him and ensured that despite the homophobia that was going on in the press and despite the homophobia that Mark was encountering out in the street as a result of these appearances soft cells still had these three appearances that to this day are burned in so many

of our memories it's interesting hearing you say that um mates of yours stop being futurists um yeah because that's kind of pixie boots lobbed in the bin. Yeah. Because I suppose to a lot of people, Soft Cell were connected to that Futurist scene or the Blitz scene. And to some extent, that's fair enough because Mark did come down to London to the Blitz and he had his own sort of neuromantic night up in Leeds. But on the other hand,

Soft Cell was so different from those bands because it just... And a lot of it is just down to his voice. Because if you contrast the way he sings with the kind of the sort of dispassionate and cold singers of the Blitz scene, you know, like Steve Strange or, you know, your man from Classics Nouveau, whoever it may be, Tony Hadley, you know, he, Mark doesn't just emote, he over emotes.

And to the extent that a lot of people just think, oh, he can't sing, he's just, but again, I think that's the wrong question. The question should never be, can Mark Alleman sing, but does he sing? And like, oh boy, he sings, you know. Oh yes. So, yeah, it's weird that they get lumped in

with all that stuff because they kind of were and also weren't part of it. Yeah, they were. That's the weird thing about Soft Cell. They, in a sense, they really genuinely captured their own time and place perfectly. But that's precisely what makes them timeless to me. Timeless in a way that some of the synth pop bands aren't.

Some of the synth pop bands are tied to that time, but because of Mark's emotion, these records speak to me today. And because of Dave Ball's production, these records are still heavy-hitting songs that sound fucking amazing coming out of big speakers. So the following week, Tainted Love rose to the very summit of Pop Mountain,

deposing this week's number one. It stayed there for a mere two weeks, to the very summit of Pop Mountain, deposing this week's number one. It stayed there for a mere two weeks, but managed to keep Prince Charming by Adam and the Ants at number two on its second week before being usurped by the dandy highwayman. Tainted Love finished the year as the biggest selling single of 1981, selling to date 1,350,000 copies in the UK. The following year, it spent a record-breaking 43 weeks on the American charts, getting as high as number eight.

However, due to them slapping another cover on the B-side, where did our love go? The duo received precisely nuppance in royalties. Oh, Steve-o. Fucking hell. That bloke who did the fucking Star Trek song, he made more money out of that just by doing that six seconds of song at the beginning.

Yeah, and they tried to recoup by reissuing it several times with their own songs on the B-side. But yeah, that has to go down as one of the biggest fuck-ups in music business history along with supposedly Decker saying no

to the Beatles. It's way up there with that, isn't it? The follow-up, Bedsitter got to number four in December of this year and they'd have three more top five hits on the bounce before Diminishing Returns set in and they split have three more top five hits on the bounce before diminishing returns set in and they split up in 1984

so now you know what the eyes look like behind the glasses. That's Soft Cell, Saving Love, one of my favourites. A favourite of most of the people here I know. It's Lowlands now and a bit of a chemistry lesson. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Skinner tells us that now we know what Mark Holman looks like behind the glasses, even though he wasn't wearing them at any point during the performance. Or the previous performance. So what is he talking about?

Well, according to Tainted Life, Mark Holman had been wearing sunglasses in the studio all day in order to hide the eyeliner that he'd put on. And he whipped them off before taking the stage, causing Roger Ames and the phonograph staff to have kittens. Brilliant. So yeah, Skinner's obviously gone, oh, look at him pretending to be a pop

star. It's an odd shot as well because it ends, the whole ending of the soft cell performance is a relic from the pre-Hurl era. That weird shot that BBC Top of the Pops cameramen were unaccountably fond of. The shot of the band finishing with the presenter with his

back to the camera watching the artist is meant to doff their cap to them or something. It's a strange shot, that, isn't it, really? It is. It's as if he's somehow kind of... He's some kind of loner, some stranger who's wandered and come across this scene, you know? It's like that film, The Swimmer,

where somebody basically travels across Los Angeles from back garden to back garden. Or a bit like The Silver Surfer, travelling through time on a surfboard. the swimmer where somebody basically travels across Los Angeles from back garden to back garden. Yes. Or a bit like the silver surfer travelling through time on a surfboard. Skinner's just sort of this man in white or off-white just sort of appearing in the corner of the screen and witnessing these strange goings-on. But he's both present and excluded. It's a really odd shot.

He then introduces us to one of the favourites of the staff at Top of the Pops, the Nolans with Chemistry. We've already discussed Maureen, Linda, Colleen and Bernie in Chart Music 34 and since December of 1980, they've released

a single exclusive to Japan entitled Sexy Music. In the UK, this is the follow-up to Attention to Me, which got to number nine in May of this year. And it's been written by Nicky Graham, a former member of Tucky Buzzard

and the Spiders from Mars, and Robin Smith, the group's keyboard player. And it's up this week from number 29 to number 26. And oh oh here we are chaps here are your disco dollies this is

the third act in a row to wear black and gold isn't it it is yeah black and gold's the it's the motif of the era I think you know looking like an expensive chocolate box knocking them cold in black and gold to quote Sex Dwarf by Soft Cell there you go

there you fucking go I love to imagine that Mark literally lured them to a life of ice it wouldn't be great if he just appeared at the side rubbing his hands with glee getting one of them big long crooks dragging one of them off

I'm thinking beforehand before they go on stage, they were probably going to wear some nice kind of cotton slacks. Yeah, old flowery, old rashly dresses. But then Mark says, now what you want is some skin-tight PVC. Yeah.

The rubbery, they're wearing sort of rubber-like black catsuits with ornate gold percade. They look like Margot Lebbetter on a night out at the mineshaft. There is a touch of that. They're sort of black patent leather bodysuits. They're great, but they're slightly flared, aren't they, in the leg? Oh, yeah.

I sort of thought... Well, that's the only way you can get the fuckers on, I suppose. I guess. But surely by 81, they should have been perhaps tapered. But the flair might be an incredibly subtle way of putting them in with the country disco market, like a Dr. Hook thing. Oh, yes. Because their vocals are very kind of Linda Ronstadt on this.

But the flares make them into, yeah, it's kind of Kate O'Mara in Triangle or Stephanie Beachman Connie later on in the year. Yes. I mean, I only want to help you, Nolans, because this is probably my... It's probably my fave of theirs, actually, in a sense. Really?

It's not a great record, I know that. I thought it was a very poor follow-up to Attention to Me. The lyrics, the thing is, the lyrics kind of, and I don't know why, they remind me vaguely of Fern Kinney's Together We're Beautiful a little bit. I can hear that. Which sort of residually makes me slightly fond of this um and they look great you know as a as a a nine-year-old pre-pubescent child um i'd have been dimly aware of the um the sexiness of what they're wearing but this could perhaps have been

a moment where i would have had to have stepped out of the room in shame Do you fancy him? We know the answer to that question for a certain Mr Price don't we? Yeah I think we've already talked about Oh Colleen she's taking she's fronting up isn't she?

Yeah well you know we've talked about my monstrous and unholy crush on Colleen Nolan previously. We have to make mention that this is Colleen Nolan now, not then. Yeah, I mean, all right. At this point, she's 16, only a few years older than I was at the time. She's a bullet in your heart. My crush.

So watch out! My crush... So watch out! My Colleen Nolan crush is... And I know it's really wrong, but it's very much from the present day. And yeah, I know she's compared gay rights to ISIS, right? I know she's very socially conservative, but the heart wants what it wants.

Other parts of the body want what they want. And I just get the impression that despite her socially conservative views, she'd be a right laugh to get drunk with. I just don't know how she actually would. I'm fascinated by her hair in this clip. Because it's like the Bob equivalent of a mullet, right? So at the front, it's like a Bob like Purdy, you know?

Yeah. It's a mash-up between Purdy and Tricia Yates, isn't it? Yeah, it sort of carries on down the back with its Bob-ness sort of curling in. I don't know how the hell that effect was achieved. It's quite impressive. But this is not my favourite Nolan single by far. I mentioned before that Don't Make Waves is an absolute banger.

That's the one for me. Chart Music 34, I think we last talked about them when I said that. Yes. But, yeah, there's always something very end of the pier about their take on disco. It is very Doolies, and it's probably not a coincidence because Robin Smith, one of the songwriters who you mentioned, did write for the Doolies, among other people.

And in terms of sexiness, I mean, I probably would... I don't think I perceived this at the time. It wasn't my agenda watching them. I would have thought they were awful. But the thing with Colleen and Bernie and Linda and Ken is that they all do the same move at all times. Have you noticed that? When they're dancing, there's no variation.

They could have done with a bit of Flip Colby in there, to be honest. They're literally four identical little sort of puppets moving the same move it's kind of odd in itself but um no i'm not i'm not having this i'll be honest and i'm not one of these people who's sort of like oh the nolans pop trash whatever not now anyway but um this song's not doing it for me that line uh it's a mystery like ancient history. Well, ancient history's not really... I mean, you can study it, you know. There's such a thing as archaeology. Anyway, I am the guy who pedantically takes pop songs to Italy

and picks them apart. And you're right, too, Simon. You're right, too. Anything else to say about this? I feel the well's running dry on this one already. Skinner likes it, doesn't he? Oh, yes. Yeah.

Well, yeah. The top of the pop staff seem to like the Nolans. Yeah, because they're always on. Nice young girls. Probably, you know, help move a camera or two if needs be. Skinner goes, they've certainly got their chemistry right. And it's like, ugh. Yes.

I mean, it's not great, is it? It's just a bit. right and it's yes i mean it's not great is it it's just a bit no and coming from anyone it's not great but coming from a man whose shirt looks like graph paper as i previously established it's yeah it just seems a bit wrong it seems it seems off brand for skinner yes and it's not not the only time he says something a bit weird but it's a bit it's a bit better than what simon b which was what? when he slurred an entire religion oh yeah that whole thing about there's so many of them it was all about birth control wasn't it like rabbits terrible

so the following week chemistry jumped up 11 places to number 15 it's highest position the follow up don't love me too hard got to number 14 for two weeks in April of 1982 and would be the last dent

that Nolan's put in the top 40. Nicky Graham of course went on to write I Owe You Nothing for Bross and Let's Get Ready to Rumble for PJ and Duncan while Robin Smith became Colleen Nolan's first serious boyfriend until she caught him

knocking off a backing singer. Wow. We, we got the chemistry right. We didn't have to try. We didn't have to try. They certainly got their chemistry right. That's the Nolans, and congratulations to Linda and Brian

on their forthcoming marriage. It's the Rolling Stones next on Top Of The Pops as they say, stop me up. MUSIC PLAYS Skinner congratulates Linda Nolan for getting engaged to Brian Hudson, the Nolan's manager, and then introduces the video of Start Me Up by the Rolling Stones. Formed in London in 1962, the Rolling Stones are the fucking Rolling Stones. This is the lead-off single from the LP Tattoo You, which was released earlier this week,

and saw the Stones digging in the crates for outtakes of material recorded throughout the 70s and finishing them off in time for their latest world tour. It was originally recorded in 1978 as a cod reggae song during the sessions for the Some Girls LP. It was overdubbed and rocked up in the Power Station studio in New York and is accompanied by a video directed by Michael Lindsay Hogg, who directed the Rolling Stones' Rock and Roll Circus in 1968

and was their go-to film bloke throughout the 70s. It's a follow-up to She's So Cold, which only got to number 33 in October of 1980, and it's a new entry this week at number 28. Well, Neil, in the Q&A session you did with Sarah not too long ago, this was the band you wanted to talk about. Well, yeah, because I never have

and they're my favorite band ever they would have meant nothing to me at the time that this top of the pops video showing bar kind of Kenny Everett impressions of Mick Jagger you know yes but in 83 Formula 30 aforementioned rock LP came out and on the first track on side one was honky tonk woman whose drum sound I don't particularly like that song much anymore but the drum sound was just instantaneously just this contact high that I had to come back to and side three of that compilation started with let's spend the night together where again the drums and everything else just grabbed me and like any 11 year old really in 83 with a with a library ticket i could explore everything so i started reading and

listening and becoming obsessed and when i ran out of books from the library to read about the stones i stand in bookshops reading about the stones they became and sort of remain my favorite band ever and yet i've never spoken or written a word about them basically because i suspect if i start i won't stop right for me if you if you start him up yeah for me they get to the heart of everything and they foreshadow everything that interests me in pop I mean the thing is with favorite bands for anyone asked to name their favorite band it's kind of never just down to the music it's almost like a faith it's part of your heart and soul and they kind of shape who you are and your attitudes towards life so if I can state it simply why they're my favourite,

I'd say that the party I want to be at, in a sense, is the party that the Stones make with their music. And sure, I'll go to people's houses who play the Beatles, but it's the parties where the Stones are being played that I want to be at. And it's Rolling Stones people who I end up loving and not just liking, which becomes difficult to defend given the likes of um well take your pick fucking primal scream for instance yes you know the thing is with the stones they're so canonical i've heard plenty of people say that they don't like the stones like

that earns them a medal in sort of contrarianism how can you say that well i think if you don't like the stones and i think i might be quoting a pricey review here um if you don't like the stones and I think I might be quoting a pricey review here. Um, if you don't like the stones, you don't like rock and roll. You don't like pop. You don't, you don't like the darker turns that the entire culture took, which you could say led indirectly to the velvets and Bowie and the rest, just as much as they led to the kind of lame copyists like Primal Scream,

who, who caught the licks and the looks and missed the spirit. I think the stones started it all in my head anyway they started it all the idea of pop and rock as being transgressive forms and key to that is mick and keith but where the normal formulation is that keith is the heart and mick is the head of the band i see that in total reverse what keeps me captivated by the stones is mick's lyrics the way he skewers his own class in a very jerry dammers way i have to say by exaggerating middle class cruelty and world wariness and the way he avoids all the

pitfalls that could be there of being a skinny white middle class boy singing black music by basically being unapologetic about who he is yeah about his own intelligence about his own impotence as well as his horniness. For me, Keith is the surface of the Stones, the look, the thing that the likes of Primal Scream latch onto. Mick's lyrics are things that these bands can't do. They're unlike anyone else's, and their stance, that kind of self-deprecatory but also capable of selfishness,

that kind of open-hearted but also vindictive, that hard-boiled but also hopeful gritty and committed but also superficial uh sense in their lyrics that's who i have become they have shaped me this band so you know those nights where you need to just put on music that celebrates you in a sense and makes you feel better that's the stones for me and they've followed me everywhere in my whole life and and these you know teenage investigations backwards made me realize that between 63 and 65 they were just the greatest garage rock band about rock music would have just been beatles copyists

and suits and harmonies and cuteness and totally unthreatening without them um they were tough as fuck and ragged as fuck there's a punk aggression to those early records and the darkness of things like play with fire and 19th nervous breakdown in contrast to the beatles these records were a mess they were a thrilling mess and it really helped that they were produced by andrew lou golden because he was their image manager he was always going to be more interested in sound and flair and excitement than actual good recording. So when Jagger and Richards start writing together and writing things like Paint It Black, to me, it's just the opening up of pop to these darker possibilities and a bit of chaos where the Beatles offered nothing but good craft, I guess. good craft, I guess. Now, between 66 and 67,

I think they were a better psychedelic band than the Beatles, doing things on Aftermath and Between the Buttons that the Beatles couldn't dream of and making singles like We Love You that piss over everything being made in the UK at the time. Brian, really important.

You shouldn't just be denigrated as just this horrible figure. Between 68 and 72, I'm sorry to say, from jumping jack flash through to Exile on Main Street, I am completely doctrinaire and ordinary about this. They were the greatest rock and roll band in the world. I'm a total traditionalist on that.

And some of the stuff on Sticky Fingers is, you know, that's my funeral music. Between 73 and 76, they were a great coked out, wasteful mess of a band. And between 78 and 83, where we find them here, I think they provided among the best responses to sort of punk and new wave and disco of any band of their vintage.

Not just on Some Girls, which is the album everyone goes on about, but also Emotional Rescue. This is perhaps their last great single. Although I would still give a shout out to Undercover of the Night and Too Much Blood off their next album. I think their tunes man, and they sound great in a club, it, you know, this kind of period I guess is the last time you really get to hear what's important in

the band musically, and that is, it's Bill, unfortunately, and Charlie, and Keith, it's the wobble between those three guys, so you know, that's what, you know, excites me about this band. Even though this song came out of a riff from, I mean, from way back, it's possibly been despoiled by its use since, start me up, as some kind of presidential sports anthem almost. Yes. But I don't begrudge the Stones a damn thing since. I mean, I lost interest with them as soon as Bill went, really,

and probably before Bill went, because musicallyically what was interesting about them had then gone um but but long may their bank raid continue to be honest with you they've helped me through so many moments in my life and and they're just that that i don't want to say spiritual i don't want to say like cliff richard but they're so close to my heart and soul that you know the stones it's not cut my arm and the stones are running through them but you know they're so close to my heart and so this video that we get on top of the pops is a hoot yes um everyone isn't it sloppy as fuck but every everyone playing their part just like the stones always did you know charlie just this slack jawed but total authority we're giving a lot of side eye like oh yeah you know what they're doing now those boys

keith the shape and the sort of stagger and the kind of wastedness of the stones ronnie his perfect twin bill as ever the creepy not right fucker who shouldn't have been in the band in a sense but that was precisely what was right about him as a basis yeah needs pointing out that CC Je Suis and rock star Bill Wyman's paedophile single is at number 17 this week down from number 14 we missed it again

damn I can't wait to get to that but Mitt by this time I mean he knows he's kind of laughable there is this kind of playing with his past stance. Yeah, but he also looks like he doesn't give a fuck. And he is.

Yeah. He's a scary motherfucker in this. If I'd have been your age, Neil, I'd have been terrified. He looks, he's got this kind of like mauve stripy tank top on and some white jogging bottoms. So it looks like he's just been out just doing his

car yeah and he's the kind of person that you really don't want to knock on your door when your parents are out well this is it but i mean he looks like he's been prodded awake at the beginning of the video and he's kind of you know i mean yeah he's always at times lurid but he's always just compelling and watchable and and it's notable as well in this particular showing in the video that where radio would fade out the last line about you'd make a dead man come. Oh, yes. Yes, it's there.

Yeah, it's there. From that old Shave Em Dry tune by Lucille Bogan. Yes. You know, I've got nipples on my titties as big as my thumb. I've got something between my legs to make a dead man come. They leave that dead man come line in, which is quite shocking. Thanks for ruining my uh sign off line for this episode oh shit never mind but but um do it anyway you know 81 yeah we were probably approaching the tail end

i should probably say that they're a horrific band with all kinds of damaging impacts on rock but i will never say that i fucking love this band and and i can't really get close to the heart of it but what i can say is that they're not authentic but i feel them deeply do you know what i mean yeah that i don't feel them because they they are gritty or sort of they that they know their music or their rootsy or any of that. They, to me, capture precisely the way that you can be honest but also dishonest in the second half of the 20th century about pop culture. For me, they foreshadow so, so much and not just the lame kind of way that they've become.

This kind of, I don't mean what the band have become but the way they have become interpreted yeah is yeah tune your guitar this way play a sort of key fish riff and that's what the stones are all about no no no i i would strongly suggest that people really properly listen to the stones and don't just listen to the comps dig into albums like aftermath and between the buttons and the Buttons the way they wrote songs was unlike anyone else and it's something that everyone who's copied them since doesn't quite

get, if I was going to draw a line on from the Stones it wouldn't be to any of those copiers, it would be to just bands where songs don't go from A to B and they go interesting places and that's why I would just always love them and I would always return to them over and over

again they were a touchstone for me I mean the Stones they were in a weird position in the early 80s because I think they were the only British band from the 60s who didn't get tainted by the mod revival in a way that even the Beatles did

because they were still number one they were still going and they were a rock band you know if you were a greb you could get away with the Rolling Stones patch on your uh denim jacket yeah in a way that you couldn't really wear uh a little Rolling Stones badge on your Arrington yeah and and and but crucially as I mean I I think throughout their career they were real they were moddish in a sense in that their music was always a response to black music quite often a response to black music so you know even they were too loose yeah mod mod abhors looseness yes and the stones had too much looseness in their music but think about what they're doing in just

the two three years before this you know miss you and emotional rescue these are these are high points in a career these are not sort of like tail end stuff yeah so yeah i mean but they're also in the stage of their career where a big hit isn't guaranteed yeah they've got to earn their they've got to earn their spot in the charts i think left to keith the stones would have disappeared into just kind of being a blues rocky kind of thing and and they they they would have been respected but incredibly boring mick always bought the pop he always bought the the the kind of interesting song structures and this the great lyrics i can't stress this enough i think he's majorly underrated as a lyricist mick jagger um youger If you wrote a parody of a Stones song

It won't be like a Stones song It won't quite hit the precise balance Between believability and ridiculousness That makes so many Stones songs so good Nobody ever did a Stones version of The Ruckles Did they? No no it would be it would be quite hard to do it would be quite hard to do and and I have to say you know here and there they provided just absolute high points of rock and roll Jumping Jack Flash it's just one of the

greatest songs ever fucking made and these things are mainstays for DJs you know I used to play the Stones a lot when I dj'd and i barely ever played the beatles i played the stones because that's the party i want to be at i can't put it any i i know i've got loads more to say and i'm not going to say it i'll probably save it for the bloody book or something but um it's the party i want to be at they that they make me feel good and they remind me of good people good people that i've loved uh are associated with the stones for me throughout my whole life simon i've got this idea about lead singers being twats okay they have to be that is their job and it all comes back to mick jagger he invented that um and you see it everywhere you see it for example in uh in blur

so damon alban pretty, but he dicks about. He does the jazz hands and the big eyes and basically makes himself into the fool. And that gives a license to the guitarist to be the cool, moody, interesting one. Well, Mick Jagger invented that in his dynamic with Keith Richards. Mick Jagger's twattishness as a lead singer uh is is basically um it gives it hands the freedom to keith to to be the cool

one yeah right um and this video is the epitome of jagger as twat lead singer he's brilliant at it he is so fucking good and he's enjoying it as well isn't he yes he is he's there in his purple v-neck top and his white jogging bottoms and he is giving it loads he's this my my whole theory about about the lead singer being a twat i might sort of show people this video here just here it is just watch there it is that's that's that's the whole theory and um you're right it is a very weird weird directing by Michael Lindsay-Hogg. I can't imagine there being too many takes for this. Well, it's the way that...

I mean, how many cameras did they have? It's the way Ronnie and Keith keep kind of looming up in front of Jagger. It's like he doesn't know about zooming out with a camera. They loom up like gonks to have a throwback to a previous episode of Shark Music. Or like in the Muppet Show, where just all the muppets just jump into Shark. Yes!

That's exactly what it's like. I share Neil's love of this relatively late period of the Stones' work. You know, for me, some of my favourite Stones singles are Miss You and Undercover the Night that we just mentioned and Emotional Rescue, which is a phenomenal track.

For me, Emotional Rescue invents Kiss by Prince. And I know that Taylor, in a previous episode, broke down exactly where Prince nicked kiss from but i'm saying the feel of it is from emotional rescue by the stones so yeah for me my favorite phase of the stones is when they're a bit too old to be doing this and they're these sort of silk-shirted sleazy old pervs, you know, doing their thing. And, you know, they're tarts. They're male tarts, really. And I love that face. And I get as much from some girls as I get from Let It Bleed

or something like that, you know. So, and, yeah, obviously you can't argue with some of the 60s hits, like, you know, Gimme Shelter, Sympathy for the Devil, Paint It Black, all of that stuff, all of which Neil quite correctly points out was pivotal in bringing about the dark stuff into modern music. But in terms of enjoyment, just sheer enjoyment, it's this era, really, that does it for me more than anything.

And Start Me Up is a great single. It might not be my favourite from this era, and it is overplayed and it's almost as if it was written to be the opening song at gigs which many many many times they have used it as their opener at a gig um but it's still a cracking song uh in my role as goth police um i will uh um quickly uh point out that the cult completely ripped it off for Love Removal Machine and good for them but also in this video, already in this episode of Top of the Pops

we've had one star man moment where Mark Almond stares down the barrel of the camera there's a much creepier one in this video, it's every time Bill Wyman stares down the camera there's a there's a much creepier one in this video it's every time bill wyman stares down the camera he's and and like like mark and like bowie before him he is staring down the camera through the television and into the living room of 13 year olds um not 13 year olds like me of course but 13 year olds like mandy smith and uh yeah um cc chasuis and rockstar he is

hiding in plain sight. That's the bizarre thing about it all. But my very favourite thing about this video, and you've already mentioned it, is Charlie Watts. Yes. He's totally, in any Rolling Stones clip,

he's just such good value. You only ever see a few seconds of him, but there are about three good shots of him in this video. And it's the smirk. It's that look of, it's that look of, fuck me, these idiots. He's always got that. And it's this affectionate smirk, but also like, fucking hell.

Basically, the look that says, I could be doing jazz, you know. Yeah, I could be a Ronnie Scott right now. He could be a Ronnie Scott, exactly. And he's always got that look. If you go back to something like the video for It's Only Rock and Roll, where they're in that tent, they're wearing sailor suits, and they're in that tent that gets filled up with foam. And, of course, he's the first one to drown because he's sitting down.

But, yeah, up until the point that he disappears behind the foam, he's just got this kind of resigned look of, oh, well, you know, this is what I've signed up for. This is what pays the mortgage. It's only rock and roll. It's only rock and roll but yeah i i would love to just his inner monologue must be amazing because it is totally it's just these fucking guys i love him i love him i love him i love him by this time people were thinking oh well this is it this is like the last hurrah for the rolling stones they can't be going on much longer.

Well, in a way, they were right, because as a recording act, they brought out an album every few years, but they've mostly been dog shit. Yeah. But, yeah, they were entering. Because I seem to remember that, all right, after Undercover, their next really big hit, and this is off the top of my head, was a cover of Harlem Shuffle.

Oh, yeah. So, you you know so basically they've already become a variety turn an entertainment turn yeah yeah but by the mid 80s yeah so in in a way this is a bit of a sort of watershed yeah they stopped mattering i mean in as much as they mattered they stopped mattering pretty quickly after this yes um you know and become what they are now which is a rotating circus that goes around the world hoovering up money yes um but i don't begrudge you the bit no no i mean i remember going to see them at main road in 1990 with my mate because i thought oh shit well you know

what what else i was there i was there no yes i was exactly the same gig good lord awesome ships in the night yes and the reason i wait is because well when am i going to get the chance I was there. No. Yes, I was at exactly the same gig. Good Lord. Awesome. Ships in the night. Yes. And the reason I wait is because, well, when am I going to get the chance to see the Rolling Stones again? Yeah. They might die.

That's exactly why I went as well, yeah. Yeah. And here we are 30 years later. I'll tell you an interesting thing about this tour because it's the Tattoo You album, Tattoo You tour. Prince supported them on some of the stadium dates in the states and um prince and his band came out wearing um stockings and suspenders and corsets uh this would have been the dirty mind era uh for prince

um and and um so incidentally that that's how the stones themselves are depicted in the brilliant book Rock Dreams by Nick Cone and Guy Paylard but Prince and his band were pelted with bottles by Rolling Stones fans which is fascinating to me because Stones fans were okay with a white man stealing black music and acting

a bit gay but not with actual black men playing black and white music and acting a bit gay I'm disappointed with actual black men playing black and white music and acting a bit gay. I'm disappointed with Stones fans for doing that. But it's only American Stones fans, Margie. So the following week, Start Me Up leapt 15 places to number 13 and would go as high as number seven. Over in America, it got to number two, held off the top spot by Arthur's Theme by Christopher Cross and Private Eyes by Hall & Oates.

The follow-up, Waiting on a Friend, only got to number 50 in December of this year and Start Me Up remains the last Stones single to make the UK top ten. It became their go-to opening song on every tour since, has featured in every Stones compilation since, and in 1995, Microsoft lobbed $3 million at Jagger & Richards to use the song in their ad campaign for Windows 95. Yeah, if you start me up, it'll be a fucking miracle without three updates. LAUGHTER And I'm dead in time Skinner

surrounded by a trailer loader trailer loader trailer loader gal ignores them completely. He only has eyes for Legs and Co, who are about to cavort to Hold on Tight by ELO. We've discussed the Electric Light Orchestra many a time and oft, and this is the first cut from their ninth LP, Time,

which came out early last month and is the current number one LP in the UK. It's the follow-up to Don't Walk Away which got to number 21 in December of 1980 and has nipped up one place from number six to number five and has been accompanied by one of the most expensive videos ever recorded at the time costing 40 grand. But we're getting Legs & Co like we did with all over the world a year ago why are legs and co always put together with the elo round about this time it's odd because you wouldn't order no i mean elo don't leap out as a band suitable for legs and co routines necessarily which no no there is much satisfaction in this though in the utterly inappropriate dancing in a sense it's a difficult song to dance

yeah very much so I mean and the video would have served the band and us pop craze youngsters a lot better because you know it's a pastiche of old movie trailers and we get to see what Jeff Lynn looks like if you get rid of about two stone of hair from his head and face

he looks odd man I mean Neil says dad is faction But I'm saying not kid is faction Because I mean alright Apologies to Pop Craze Youngsters Why does anyone care about The sexual thoughts

Of a 13 year old boy in 1981 As remembered by a 51 year old man In 2019 But with that caveat I'm going to say of a 13-year-old boy in 1981, as remembered by a 51-year-old man in 2019. But with that caveat, I'm going to say, right, Legs & Co.'s appearances, and I guess Pants People before them, but I was a child at that time, but Legs & Co.'s and Zoo's appearances were a pointless lull in the show for me.

I never got anything from them, certainly not anything in terms of them being sexy. I never understood why they were meant to be sexy because they all had, you know, long blonde hair or permed and frizzy. And in this one, they're wearing dresses that would probably have been called gypsy dresses, probably made of cheesecloth. It's a very 70s aesthetic sexually.

Yes, very much so. You know, they had that phrase, legs up to their armpits, which sounded hideous. It was grotesque. They're not like they're wearing a collection of habitat throws, don't they? They basically are. I mean, they might as well have been wearing macrame earrings

to go with as well. Very whiff of the late 70s about it. I remember a friend of mine had access to a pornographic magazine which was hidden in a hole in a patch of waste ground near his house. And, you know, he took a bunch of us around there and rummaged around and found this magazine and showed it to us. And I didn't get any stirrings from it at all because it was all women with, like, long legs, suntans and blonde hair,

which, to me, basically Rod Stewart girlfriends. You know, that's what... And this is what Legans and blonde hair which to me basically rod stewart girlfriends you know that that's what and this is what legs and co look like to me if legs and co had looked like because there's five of them right in this case if if they if they had looked like joanne catharine tracy ullman claire grogan annabella lewin and tegan from doctor who right so basically like modern women with short hair cool hairstyles yeah maybe i'd have been triggered but um as it is they're these sort of 70s women in 70s clothes of 70s hair prancing about in a really 70s way it did nothing for me whether it did anything for for dads i i can't say but just that whole aspect of enjoyment atop the boss i used to sort of mentally switch

off for four minutes when they were on every time yeah girls no girls great but these like 70s women you know yeah yeah i mean they are legs as you pointed out simon legs and car are down to five at this point because pauline peters the one who was born in burma had left in the spring to pursue an acting career and she's about to appear in the first two episodes of Tenko as a servant and she rounds off the year dressed as a geisha sitting on a beanbag and having a go

on a matchbox race chase set in the Woolworths have a cracking Christmas advert along with Anita Harris, Don Estelle Windsor Davis and two of the goodies because you know fucking Billy O'Day ain't getting involved in that shit. I can't believe I've left it this long but

I'm about to relate to you my most pathetic brag ever. Right, my mate Jiggy G who listens, A up Jiggy, he told me once that his mum worked with Pauline out of Legs & Co in a department store in Richmond.

And for years afterwards, I used to brag on in the pub about that. This fourth hand claim to lame. And it wasn't even fucking true. I said to him, I said to him one time, ask your mam a bit more, get a bit more information out of her. And he came back to me and says, oh no, it was a dancer from something else that wasn't legs and co if you've ever sat in a pub with me and i have bragged on to you that my mate's mam worked with pauline out of legs and co in a department store in richmond i apologize for bullshitting to you the other thing that needs to

be mentioned about legs and co is that they are two months away from being thrown on the scrap heap in Thatcher's Britain. And they don't know yet. They must have had an inkling. There's been so many changes in Top of the Pops, they must wonder. Because they are starting to be relegated, as we're going to see later on, to being the side piece in other bands' acts.

Perhaps being deliberately given songs that are inappropriate for them to make them look out of date you're saying they've been nobbled perhaps by ELO well not by ELO by Hurl perhaps yeah who knows but good lord this song

to me it's not a great song I don't think it gets bored with itself doesn't really have enough ideas the production as ever from Lynn is really ear catching but for me it's like a one minute song that can only extend itself by going into French to kind of make itself longer

I think I was anti not anti ELO as such at this age but anti beard so at a young age that would have put me off this and many ELO songs it only grew to that would have put me off this and many elo songs it only grew to like them later for me of course living thing is the one um my favorite i'm wondering i know pricey's a big elo fan where this stands in the pantheon as it were very low very very low indeed yeah i mean this was a huge hit this was a number four hit single And if you exclude Xanadu

Which was their only number one But it was a duet So then basically you've got Don't Bring Me Down got to number three Living Thing got to number four And this got to number four So this song, and this depresses me This was their equal second biggest hit

And it just doesn't deserve to be And I absolutely adore ELO and I can't begrudge Jeff Lynne having a hit record but this is very very weak isn't it there's a difference in music between emotion and sentiment

and this is sentimental, a lot of ELO stuff is very emotional, listen to something like Telephone Line or Showdown or something. It really can tear you apart. But this is sentimental, which is a whole different thing and just not very pleasant.

I hated it then. I don't like it much more in hindsight. It's got that... There's also a thing in some ELO records which most of their stuff was really futuristic sounding you know in a way I always think of Daft Punk or I think of ELO when I think of Daft Punk put it that way because they had this kind of utopianism about them and I guess it's partly the imagery of a

lot of their record sleeves you know kind of spaceship thing and all of that but they seem very forward-looking sonically and just the spirit of it. But they also had this tendency sometimes with things like, I don't know, Roll Over Beethoven or Rock Aria or something like that to be quite backward-looking and a bit cheesy. And this is probably why, unfortunately, it's easy for some people to dismiss them as kind of Alan Partridge fodder. Records like this by ELO, I think they enable people to say they were beatles copyists or something like that so in the novel paperback writer by mark shipper which which

comes out in 1976 in which the author imagines the beatles reforming um sorry not in 1976 later on but um in the novel paper writer this is one of the songs that the reformed Beatles record um this ELO song um because the Beatles in this novel can't come up with any decent songs by themselves um and and it's got that little touch to it definitely one of their weakest songs but but a lucrative one for them is a big hit and then of course used the following year in the join the coffee achievers advertising campaign in america oh my god how do you achieve in coffee oh you'll have to watch the adverts precisely cicely tyson in it and it's it's a mad advert and and again a completely inappropriate use of this song and it's also around this time wasn't it they had that hit

with rock and roll is king which which, is another sort of throwback record. And it's basically as if Jeff Lynne's abandoned any idea of pushing things forward. And, yeah, it is just about good old days, good old times music, you know. And that's all he wants to do from this point onwards, which is fine. And I've been to see um the revived yellow uh i saw them at high park on the big comeback and wrote a huge review for the quietus which is out there if anyone wants to read it where i i really go into it about how much they mean to me and uh what a place they

have in my life is this kind of epitome of my kind of um pre-awakening pop innocence you know that that moment just before I discovered the cool stuff you know the moment before I discovered like specials and you know kind of alternative music and stuff with a bit of an edge and then I ended that review by saying that I want all my clever records to leave me alone I want metal box by pill just go somewhere I don't want to know all i want for a fortnight is just to wallow in elo and sometimes i just love to do that they are they are that kind of band that i can kind of totally lose myself in and i don't care if people find them naff it's just you know i could not give less of a shit and i'm not i'm not even doing it in a kind of

contrarian way of you know picking a band that everyone thinks is naff and sort of making a stance of like well actually I think they're great, I just genuinely adore them and this song could be wiped out the history without me shedding a tear but like I said I can't begrudge Jeff for having a hit. Those ELO albums

they were in everybody's house I just remember them being there that and the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack was just it was like it was issued to every single member of the population Out of the Blue and Discovery and also that greatest hits one with a medal on the front you'd see those everywhere

so the following week Hold On Tight slithered up to number 4 it's highest position the follow up Twilight would only get to number 30 for two weeks in November of this year and like the Stones, they'd never get a sniff of the

top ten arse again. Yeah, hello. Hello. Hold on tight. Legs and Cone, from one great set of figures to another as we look at the top 30 charts. And at number 30, it's the specials, Ghost Town. 29, Everybody Salsa, Modern Romance. It's new at 28 for the Rolling Stones, Stuff Me Up. Wired for Sound at number 27, Cliff Richard. The Nolans Chemistry is number 26.

At 25, I Love Music from Enigma. The Jacksons, Walk Right Now, that's number 24. Sheena Easton is 23 with Your Eyes Only. And it's a rainy night in Georgia at 22 for Randy Crawford. REO Speedwagon take it on the run at number 21. And chart number one is number 20 for Spandau Ballet. And at number 19, here's Ultravox and The Thin Wall. We're treated to the first third of the top 30 rundown, or, as Skinner puts it, from one great set of figures to another.

He doesn't wear it well, does he, that sexism? No, no. This is what gets me. I'm not saying sexism is ideal from anyone, but if it was, I don't know, if it was Tommy Vance, right, you'd buy it a bit more, wouldn't you think? Okay, well, you know, he is that guy. With Skinner, I don't buy that he is that guy,

which just makes it that bit weirder. He then announces The Thin Wall by Ultravox. We've already covered Ultravox in Chart Musics 2 and 5, and this single is the lead cut for their fifth LP, Rage in Eden, which was recorded in Cologne and co-produced once again by Connie Plank and is out in a fortnight. It's the follow-up to All Stood Still which got to number eight in June of this year and this week it soared 18 places from number 37 to number 19. Despite having an expensive video which involves Midge dressed up like a 30s type

while sitting in an old car full of water and having all hands coming out of the wall and trying to grab his bollocks while he's ambling down a corridor, here they are in the studio. Where do we start with this dear boys? Ultravox, how did you feel about them at the time Simon? dear boys. Ultravox, how did you feel about them at the time, Simon? Ultravox were a weird one really because even though I did cross over a little bit with the New Romantic

stuff, they seemed both of that scene and not of it in a different way to Soft Cell because to me, Ultravox were the synth band for prog boys, right? There were older boys at my school who they were into you know kind of

emerson lake and palmer on that kind of stuff um and their only concessions to the new wave there were two bands that they they accepted as being okay from the new wave one of them was xtc strangely and the other one was ultravox and um i i try not to sort of let that put me off ultravox i try not to judge them on on on who some of their fans were but i think there's certainly an element that one of them has facial hair they aren't gaying you you know they aren't gaying at you with ultravox um but you know leaving that aside um I do like this single. I think it's their second best single after Sleepwalk. I really like the keyboard bits by Billy Curry, which I don't mean the kind of chords,

I mean the sort of monophonic single notes that he plays on every beat. And it's a lovely thing, actually. And the lyrics are kind of interesting. Supposedly it's about the man and being controlled by the establishment. But there are lines like, they shuffle with a bovine grace and glide in syncopation. The image dance starts once again. Yeah.

They drive by night and act as if they're moved by unheard music, which I think is really good, I've got to say. Who's he having a go at there? Well, it's they, isn't it? Didn't get into the Blitz Club that night, did you, Midge? It's the traditional rock song, They, the ever-unnamed They. It's the man in it.

I often wonder about Midge Ewer's place in Ultravox, and is it them doing a bit of a deal with the devil? He had a track record of some success in the past before being in Ultravox. And I often liken it in my mind to when Liverpool signed Paul Ince.

And I just remember thinking, it's all wrong. It doesn't feel right. He's not a Liverpool person. He's a Man United person. You said that Midyar's the governor of Synthpop. He is the governor of the Gov apostrophe Nor of Synthpop. Yes. Yeah, yeah.

So I think he turns up in the band at a point where they are weak. They've lost their former lead singer, John Fox. And in a way that I thought, OK, OK, it's fine. Liverpool can sign Paul Ince. He's horrible. He's from Man United, who are completely against everything that we stand for but he's a winner and he might help us win the league

he didn't even help us win the bloody league but I often wonder if like you know Ultravox had a bit of that about them of you know this mid-year guy he's a journeyman he's a hack he's sung for loads of different bands already he's not really an Ultravox person but he's had success he's sung for loads of different bands already uh he's not really an ultravox person

but he's had success he's had success and he's got that kind of quite operatic powerful voice he can he can belt it out he he's in in the same way that tony hadley is not really a spandau ballet guy but he was the the the vehicle for it all so And in the meantime, everybody else watching this is going, oh, that's Midge's band there. Yeah, exactly. Exactly right. I'm quite intrigued by his look in this performance.

Very Peaky Blinders. Peaky Blinders with a flat cap, but also he's got these zoot suits pants with his tie tucked into the waistband. I believe there are Oxford bags he's got on there. Oh, right, okay. Yeah, I suppose they are.

Yeah, yeah, I suppose they are. Proper Northern Soul jobos. You know, already 1981, Mitch is trying to get flares back. But they make sure there's enough smoke around his feet. Yes, there's plenty of dry ice. I bet the band insisted on that. You can't see his lack of dancing skills yeah yeah leave it leave the saxons out i've actually warmed a bit to mid-year lately

and you probably know why uh it's basically crazy yeah yeah i mean even though i've i think i may have have slagged him off on previous chart music so you know um maybe maybe a tiny bit uh yeah a weird thing's happened i keep getting bombarded with notifications with emails from linkedin um everybody's favorite completely useless job search website uh saying do you know mid-year and i i don't know why they're picking on him and picking on me but I asked around and other people are also getting bombarded with this question do you know Midge Ewer

it's like that half man half biscuit song do you ken Ted Malt it's really odd it may be Sim reeking of revenge on all ex-Melody Maker writers from what Carol Clark did it could be that for those Clark did. Yeah, yeah. Yes. It could be that.

Yeah, because for those who haven't heard this bit before, Carol used to ring him up and prank. Carol's our news editor. She used to ring him up and prank call him all the time. And he used to basically, he'd answer the phone,

sometimes pretending to be his own PA. And he'd say, he's not in, he's not in. But yeah, it was really, really unfair. But the thing is, I mentioned on Twitter that I'm getting these notifications, do you know Mijur? And I didn't tag him in it.

So evidently he's one of those people who searches for their own name. But leaving that aside, he was kind of cool and funny about it. And he's like, oh, sorry, Simon. And I just thought, oh, you bastard, you've won me over by being kind of cool and nice and funny about it. And he's like, oh, sorry, Simon. And I just thought, oh, you bastard, you've won me over by being kind of cool and nice and funny about it. So yeah,

yeah. There you are. So easy it is to turn Simon Price. Yeah, basically. Yeah. Fucking, we think we're tigers,

but we're pussycats. We roll on our backs. Yeah. And have our tummies scratched. So anyway, yeah, your turn, Neil.

Off you go. Well, I mean, to me, this is, it's like in the context of this show, this is a perfect illustration of why things like Soft Sale were so special. Don't get me wrong. I mean, to me, this is... It's like, in the context of this show, this is a perfect illustration of why things like Soft Cell were so special. Don't get me wrong.

I mean, look, as a kid, I loved Vienna, for God's sake. But then as a kid, I used to think the 1812 Overture was a great piece of music and I thought Gandhi was a great film. I grew the fuck out of it. It's so composite, this. The look... Right, the band looks like Kraftwerk. Midyar looks like... I think he's aiming for actually

a Bowie Circa Young Americans look in a big way and look how shittily un-seedy his Tash looks because I just get this like Simon said about them being a band that

prog fans could dig it's kind of these are people who you feel are still sort of residually touched by a slight musicians union shame about since to a certain extent um that they're a bit puffy and so they have to play them aggressively in a way that ball didn't but this would and have fucking loads of them as well yeah absolutely yeah an absolute bank of them um you know these are the these are the people who would end up perhaps spawning howard jones more than more than soft sell but but this would actually this song would probably be a a mid-york era uh ultravox song i would say because it i mean it works like a brochure of connie plank's studio it's like a demo of the state

of the art and and and the sound is similarly brittle and funky as a song that we've looked at, Robert Palmer's Looking for Clues. It reminded me of that a little bit. I didn't get on with the lyrics, to be honest with you. And I kind of thought to myself, if these were on a Bowie song, would I like them? And I think that Bowie didn't write them.

I think they were a tad forced and a bit over the top. It's just a shame they're out of this amazing kind of studio sound they've got, that they've attempted to make a song out of it in a way. Not only for us at home, but also for the audience who seem a bit nonplussed. But what's good about this is that Hurl has basically obviously said to the Bat Room Boys, go absolutely batshit with the effects. Yes, they do they do this is like an asian wedding video on heavy heavy opiates it's it's like they've got the fx machine and

they're just going mad on it better than any better than anything more measured and considered would be but unfortunately it's only the ugly mugs of ultravox that this is being applied to imagine if they'd applied these kind of effects to soft cell probably something would have been lost you need to focus on mark and his eyes but um but yeah the effects are nuts on this and they kept me absorbed enough as did the sheer sound of the the quote-unquote song it's barely a song to me it's kind of like a series of good sonic ideas looking for a hook but um yeah out of all of that era of Ultravox, it's probably one of the songs that I'd salvage. Yeah, I didn't mind this song at all when it was out

because it just sounded weird. And yeah, visually, yeah, it's a treat, isn't it? It's extremely Doctor Who. Yeah, but look at what the Ultravox keyboard players are doing to their keyboards it's so unlike David Ball for Soft Cell that they are completely

being they're not being Rick Waitman exactly but they're throwing in that sort of floridness of touch that is more conventional the thing is with David Ball whenever I watch soft sell on top of pops or anything else he barely seemed to do anything he barely seemed to move here and that was what was amazing this this sound was coming out and you couldn't quite connect it with a human touch with this it's all quite musicianly um which is different but also um the way they're set up

their synths and uh their little drum pads and all that kind of stuff, it's like a lab. It's all on some kind of scaffolding. It's as if they're saying, this isn't pop, this is science that we're doing here. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, and the visual effects bear that out because there's a lot of phasing on the fringes and some mad fucking blobby laser orbs. It's like the orbs that Derek and Yvettevette are looking for on most haunted aren't they but i wish kind of those effects i mean it perhaps not so

i would have liked to have seen these effects applied to the associates or something like that or yeah or zigzag sputnik that would have been something so the following week, the thin wall jumped five places to number 14, but could only hold its place the next week and slid out of the charts. The follow-up, The Voice, got to number 16 in December of this year, and they'd have to wait two years for their next and final top ten hit, Dancing With Tears In My Eyes, which got to number three in June of 1984. I thought you were the reason I thought you were the reason What we're going to do now, though, is dip back into the hip parade and look at the places in the middle range of the charts. Number 18 this week is the Star Trek's Club Disco.

At 17, CC, Je Suis un Rockstar, Bill Wyman. Tempo Tudor, Wunderbar at number 16. It's new at 15, Gary Newman, She's Got Claws. Beach Boy Gold, Gideon Park at number 14. At 13, Water on Glass from Kim Wilde. And at number 12, here they are, it's Genesis, Abacus. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Skinner throws some golfy shade upon Midyore, breaks down the chart from 18 to 12 leading us nicely into Abba Cab by Genesis. Formed in Charterhouse School in Godalmin, Surrey in 1967, the original

lineup of Genesis, led by Peter Gabriel, were immediately picked up on by Charterhouse old boy Jonathan King who signed them to a one-year deal with Decca Records while the band was still at school. After two flop singles and an LP, From Genesis to Revelation, which only sold 649 copies in its first year because record shops kept putting it in the religious section, they took a year off to finish their education

and reformed in 1969. After struggling along with a flop second LP and losing original band members, they were supplemented by the guitarist Steve Hackett and, after their original choice for new drummer, a pre-Queen Roger Taylor turned them down, Phil Collins, who had failed to get into Vinegar Joe and Manfred Mann Chapter 3.

Although they went on to become the darlings of the heavyweight music press, it wouldn't be until 1974 when their seventh single, You Know What I Like, In Your Wardrobe, broke the top 40, getting to number 21 for two weeks in April of that year. And it would have gone higher had they not turned down a top of the pops invitation as they felt it didn't fit in with their image in 1975 gabriel left the band claiming he'd had enough of the music biz and wanted to doss about with his family and after the band tried to find a new singer by placing an advert in melody maker for a Genesis-type group failed to attract anyone suitable,

Collins stepped in. Despite releasing two successful LPs, they'd have to wait two more years until their next chart single, the Spot the Pigeon EP, which got to number 14 in July of 1977, by which time Hackett had left and the group were reduced to three. However, their next single, Follow You, Follow Me, got them to number seven for two weeks in April of 1978, establishing them as a regular-ish chart singles act. This is the lead cut from the LP of the same name, which is due out in three weeks, and it's the follow-up to Misunderstanding, which got to number 42 for two weeks in September of 1980.

It's also the first airing of Genesis since Phil Collins launched a solo career and took In The Air Tonight, which was an off cut from recording sessions for their previous LP Duke, all the way to number two in February of this year, held off number one by Woman by John Lennon. year held off number one by woman by john lennon and followed it up with i missed again and if leaving me is easier which got to number 14 and 17 respectively after entering the chart number 27 last week it's leapt up 15 places to number 12 and oh man they are not cocking their nose up at top of the pops now are they not at all not at all all. Do you notice in the preamble to this that Skinner, unironically, talks about the hit parade? Yes.

He's not doing the wink or anything. He actually calls it the hit parade. So Genesis are in the hit parade. Now, Genesis, they were, in 1981, someone of my age, Genesis, they were your teacher's band, weren't they? Yeah, they were. Yeah. But they're also starting to become phil collins side project well it it's like phil collins had some hits and genesis kind of said can we do that too so yeah so they're sort of doing songs with earth wind and fire and and we're now on a road with that band with genesis

that would eventually lead to horrors like the video for I Can't Dance. But, you know, let's not think of that horror now. Let's just, I quite enjoy this, to be honest with you. I don't hate this now.

I would have then. It sounds pretty dated. It's got a pure 70s prog keyboard sound, but like everyone of their age at the time, they're trying to adjust to new waves. So they've knocked all the florid long sections out of their songs. And this episode is all about bands from the 70s trying to adapt yeah yeah yeah absolutely and and let's just appreciate you know phil's great kit work and and also note that the rugby top that

the keyboard player is wearing is one of the worst garments ever to be worn on top of the pops i see this is just another example of anti-welsh racism do you realize who that club is it's carded oh is it it's carded yes it is and i'm i should just walk out of here right now i'm actually to be fair to be fair that kit that color scheme was probably used by other teams as well but it was definitely carded well i just can't i just can't stand seeing rupee shirts and things like that on top of the pops because because brings back memories of Noel Edmonds in uh Brown Sauce I just want to be a winner doesn't it yeah it kind of says something about their attitude towards top of the pops I think it's kind of because hey he just happens to be a

guy he happens to be a musician right and he just wants to play his song and this is top of the pops that you know this is top of the pops you decided to be on national telly and kids will be watching and they want excitement something to lift them out of their drab every day and you turn up looking like that i mean i'm not saying they have to turn up wearing i don't know a diamante dunce roller skating yeah or diamante dunce's cap or anything just wear a fucking suit or something but see bands like genesis at that point they don't need to wear a suit because a rugby top far more than the suits that actually younger poorer bands are wearing on top of the pops a rugby top says um I just finished the sheep dip and I hopped in the Ferrari and I drove to the top of the box studios and and you know afterwards hey I'll be heading back to lay down some tracks

with Dave Gilmore and we'll both be fucking wearing rugby shirts. In his barn, yeah. I went to school with cunts like that and I'm glad I'm not invited to their weddings and I don't like that, seeing that kind of shit on top of the pops. But Genesis are one of those bands that for me, they're put on that ever-expanding list of bands

that I probably should have listened to, have never got around to. Because people I trust and like recommend Genesis. Like Taylor, basically. And also the drummer in my band. They both swear down by early Genesis. But then again, they both also swear down that Marillion are great.

So it's a slippery slope. It's a slippery slope, I feel. Never let that be forgotten. It's a slippery slope. But also remember, Neil, you only wear a suit for two reasons. Getting married and dying dying which are both the same thing that's one of the best

Needham quotes I think I do actually, I quite enjoyed this, I don't hate this now, might have done then, it probably would have been a bit too sophisticated for me at that age but now I quite enjoy it precisely because it does sound a little bit dated it sounds like a sort of old Pink Floyd song

or something we're going on about the style of Genesis let's bear in mind that Phil Collins is wearing a grandad shirt which would catch on amongst the youth in a year or so's time true but they look stupid

they don't look like they've washed to disinterm an old trope I wouldn't eat a sandwich made by these people no the weird thing about this performance well there's only three of them there's no bassist and yet you're hearing a bassline

the bassline is that kind of ostinato bassline that doesn't change regardless of the underlying chords. It's on the keyboards. It's Tony Banks in the rugby shirt. They're doing that. And when you look at the whole setup, it's almost as synthetic as Ultravox in a way.

Well, you know, notice how the supposed old Fart Prog band have got four left synthesizers on stage in Ultravox. There's not much of a difference between the fan bases, in a way. As I say. And this is why, similar to Neil, I would have hated this at the time because I would have perceived them as the enemy, definitely.

Genesis, as much as Pink Floyd, would have been a byword for everything that we young people hate. But, you know, this record caught me unawares a little while ago. I was in a pub somewhere and it came on. And I just started thinking, this is actually great. It just sounds really good. It's just got a real kind of propulsive power to it.

And actually, Turn It On Again by them is another one. Great song. Yeah, yeah, from around that time. If you play it now, it's better than you remember it being. Yes. They don't make it easy for themselves. There's so much about them to hate. Even Mike Rutherford's hair I hate, right?

He's got that particular kind of long hair that rebels from getting any longer. It doesn't matter how much he grows it, it won't go past his shoulders. It just sort of bunches up. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. It refuses to go any longer it doesn't matter how how much he grows it it won't get it won't go past his shoulders it just sort of bunches up do you know what i mean yeah it refuses to go any longer than that it's very sheepy and um you know so so yeah i just i i think they they look awful uh but it's it's just one of those things of um a good record by a maybe a mostly bad band. I can't really slag this off. It's decent.

I enjoyed sitting there for three and a half minutes and listening to it. I did. And before we move away, I just want to give a big shout out to Prog Teachers. Sounded like I was slagging them off at the beginning, but it was really handy to have a Prog Teacher in the early 80s

because they would always help you with that one clue you couldn't get in the smash, it's crossword. Which usually was Jethro Tull. Yeah, yeah. Marker James Harvest. Yeah. Just want to give a big shout out to Mr. Hill. Yeah. We need to talk about the title.

Abacab, A-B-A-C-A-B. Which I interpret as meaning all bastards, all cops are bastards Yes Yeah, it's the song structure isn't it? No, no, no they're completely doing a kind of hip hop thing there

but just getting it slightly wrong I might save this for an episode where we do Phil Collins solo but Janie's mum went out with him when they were teenagers. No! Maybe you need to get her on. Get her on.

So the following week Abba Cab nipped up three more places to number nine, its highest position. The follow up Keep It Dark would only get to number 33 in November of this year but they'd go on to score eight more top 40 hits throughout the 80s

and keep going all the way to 1998. It's always good to have Genesis on the show. ABA, CAB, Abacab. That is number 12. We move on now from some letters, musical letters, to musical numbers. Numbers 11 to 1. And at number 11, the message is, Happy Birthday from Stevie Wonder. UB40, 1 in 10 at number 10.

At number 9, it's Back to the 60s with Tight Fit. Lobo's Caribbean Disco Show is number 8 this week. Duran Duran, Girls on Film at number 7. Some love action from the Human League at number six. At five, it's Hold on Tight, ELO. Shaken Stevens, Green Door, that's down to four. At number three, Hooked on Classics, Louis Clark and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Soft Cell, Tainted Love at number two. And at number one, it's Anika singing all about her Japanese boy. Here she is. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE He said that he loved me, never would go

Skinner drops the top 11 upon the youth of Britain before unleashing the number one Japanese Boy by Annika. Born in Edinburgh in 1947, Mary Sanderman made a living in the 70s as a folk singer until she was approached by a local songwriter called Bob Heatley to record this song, on the condition that she change her name and get all nipponised. One riffle through the Edinburgh phone book later,

she was renamed Annika. This is her debut single under the Annika name and while she's continued to hold down a career singing about dead fishermen in Orkney it got picked up by commercial radio and was played to death. It entered the charts as the highest new entry at number 19 a fortnight ago. A top of the pops appearance kicked it up 15 places to number four last week and this week it's not green door by chicken steven off the top of the charts and she's had to cancel a folk gig at the edinburgh festival to don the geisha outfit an emote to the pop craze youngsters oh here's your blistering future isn't it anika by the way i thought it was anika not

not anika yeah sorry simon you're right anika see i reckon there were two different strands that led to this record happening in culture right right first of all you got orientalism which was a thing that began in the 18th century really you had people like the prince regent who uh had brighton pavilion built in a kind of Far Eastern style and if you go around the interior of that building you can see all kinds of examples of things that were either brought back from the Far East or were sort of mimicking the patterns and designs of the Far East it was a very fashionable thing in that era and there was a real revival of that in pop in the late 70s early early 80s. Obviously with the band Japan

but all kinds of other people. Suzy Sue using the rising sun as a backdrop and wearing kimonos. Uncle Gordon. You could even go as far as Level 42's The Chinese Way.

Who knows what they know? They know how to make shit we used to make. Wow, yeah. A bit of politics there. But there's also the strand of yellow face, yellow face humour, okay? Which you can look at something like Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's

or pretty much any sort of TV comedy show of the 70s and even 80s with, I guess, people like the Two Ronnies or, you know... Benny Hill. Benny Hill, cannonball, putting ping-pong balls in their eyes and pretending to be, like, you know, the guy from Kung Fu. Flied lice. Yeah, exactly.

Lots of kind of RSO-based humour. Of course, yes. people wearing those big round cone hats and all of that so you've got that kind of very low brow mockery of the Far East and also that kind of almost awestruck respect for it in pop

all of these things converging at this moment where suddenly Anika is number one in the charts with her racist classic Japanese boy and at this moment where suddenly Anika is number one in the charts with her racist classic Japanese boy and and it really is extraordinary isn't it um for a start uh I think she neither she nor the producers of Top of the Pops are particularly bothered here about what is Chinese or Japanese yeah oh yeah yeah it's all the same yeah it's all the same to them because uh I noticed people in the background are waving uh placards uh of one of those um those horrifically and flattering portraits by um uh Toshisa Shiraku of uh Otani Iniji you know the words that that

that guy it's those sort of demonic looking faces but they uh they're waving those around but hanging from those portraits they've got paper lanterns and paper fish which maybe I'm ignorant here but to me that's totally a Chinese thing. At least they're not waving packets of Vesta sweet and sour about Exactly Or samurai swords

So it's all the same is basically the thinking here So she's or Mary Sanderson there wearing wearing the wig she's taking the the the dollar or or the yen or whatever it may be and and and to happily playing this character this this racist character which apart from you know she's got chopsticks in her hair and all of that but apart apart from anything else it doesn't make any sense right hang on a minute right yeah she isn't japanese the boy is the boy the whole conceit of

it why is she dressed up japanese yeah but you what one thing another thing we also know about the japanese at this time salmon is that they are very cruel and so the you know tenko about to come on what so you think her japanese boy made her dress up subverting her to his will maybe but yeah what i reckon is it's like that, there's that bit in Friends, and I know you're going to hate me for quoting Friends here, but there's a bit where Phoebe's temporary, short-lived boyfriend is going to go away and live in China,

and there's a bit of an emotional moment, but she sort of gives him the permission and says, go live in China, eat Chinese food, and then there's a pause, and Chandler says, of course, over there, they just call it food. Right? So that's what the song should be. Eat Chinese food And then there's a pause And Chandler says Of course over there They just call it food Right So That's That's what the song should be

It shouldn't If If she's a Japanese woman Which she's presenting as It shouldn't be Mr. Will you tell me Where my lover's gone

He's my Japanese boy It'd just be like He's my boy So if she's living in Scotland There ain't gonna be many Japanese boys knocking about True enough Maybe that's what she's saying

Yeah maybe To help sort of You know police maybe Missing persons To enough. Maybe that's what she's saying. Yeah, maybe to help sort of, you know, police maybe, missing persons, to find him. But that's the weird thing. It's in this odd place. It's not that I can't tell if it's racist or not. It pretty much is. It's the white and yellow minstrel show, isn't it? But she adopts,

I think, in her manners and her accent, she adopts a slight Japanese accent, I guess. Which is odd, yeah. Very immediately shrill isn't she immediately struck me as odd why would somebody japanese sing he's my japanese boy um i think it's stemming from yeah that if you write a song on a piano and only play the black notes you will think it ends up sounding japanese yes actually of course of course this song failed in Japan because it sounds Chinese and it has Chinese scales but I mean it's akin to the way Sting would reggae up his accent for

police songs to a certain extent so it's not quite blackface or yellowface rather but it's getting there the way she puts her hands together the way she tilts her head oh god the hands thing yes very very close to that orientalist thing that Simon was mentioning. Yeah, she kind of steeples her fingers, doesn't she, in a sort of praying position and holds the microphone between those hands in that position the whole time. Yeah, I'm charitable enough to think,

I'm not saying it's harmless. I don't think she was necessarily aware of exactly how racist this is. And like Simon said, we've got turd in Japanese, we've got and like Simon said we've got turning Japanese we've got Hong Kong Garden, we've got China Girl in a few years time. This actually echoes this actually echoes turning Japanese because it's got that

thing in the back. Ah the oriental riff do you mean Simon? Yeah if you play those black notes if you play those black notes you will get that kind of vibe to it The oriental riff was written for the stage show The Grand Chinese Spectacle of Aladdin in 1847. Nothing to do with Japan or China or anything,

but by this time it is the law that you have to work it into any Oriental sounding song. So it was last heard in Kung Fu Fighting and, of course, Turning Japanese. And, you know, I think that the band Japan should have been forced to work the Oriental riff into all of their songs, man. Can you imagine? When my chance came to be king, the ghosts in my life blow wilder. Then the wind diddly-diddy-diddy-diddy. Instantly better.

That was a great David Silvian impression, man. Thank you. It's a crap Brian Ferry impression. We do have Japanese listeners, you know, chaps. Yeah. And if any of them listening, hello, by the way, if any of our Japanese listeners

are members of the Olympic Committee, I just want to say, please do not use turning Japanese in your opening or closing ceremony because it doesn't mean what you think it does I believe that the BBC music for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics also got in the charts and that had vaguely Japanese theme to it but but this I mean the thing is use those black notes it does end up sounding either Chinese or oddly enough Scottish

which is you know where the singer's from this doesn't particularly sound Japanese written by the same guy who did the theme tune to Funhouse

with Pat Sharp who'd have thunk it oh yes wow but yeah would I want to hear this again probably not it has

I've totally forgotten that this existed but have I been whistling it all fucking day? Yes. You know, it does get in your head. The thing is, the thing is, chaps, that a mere two weeks after this episode went out, I would be decamping to my summer residence,

which was my auntie May's caravan on the Summerlands site in Ingle Mills. And along with my family, my nana and me grandpa and her best mate Aunty Gert came along and every time this song came on the radio, me non-art and Aunty Gert would sing along to

it. And it's like, how the fuck do you know this song? It's because it was played on Radio 2 as well as Radio 1 and Radio Nottingham and everything. Well there you go, that's who's buying it. played on Radio 2 as well as Radio 1 and Radio Nottingham and everything. Well, there you go. That's who's buying it. That's who's buying it.

Because it's a musical song, isn't it? It is. I can quite easily imagine Danny LaRue belting this out at the Leeds City Varieties Hall. Well, it's got that Mikado kind of Gilbert and Sullivan thing to it, hasn't it? Yeah. But I heard that when Tony Blackburn played this on the radio,

it might have been on the radio when he introduced it on Top of the Pops, he said, well, that certainly puts a different slant on things. Oh, no. Tony. Tony. Dear, oh, dear, oh. Yeah, I mean, the dancers. Is that Legs & Co, by the way?

That is Legs & Co because they're doing what they're doing at this stage in the twilight part of their career, which is backing up anything that needs backing up so they've got long black wigs um their makeup's done a bit kind of japanesey they've got shorty kimonos yeah kimono mini dresses yeah and then they've got paper parasols they're twirling around yes and right here's the thing um in a lot of ways i i don't agree with the rhetoric of cultural appropriation you know I tend to sort of think that

the more that we share things amongst different cultures the better and that the logical end result of banning cultural appropriation is that British people have to basically dress up as Morris dancers or wear bowler hats right and fuck that

obviously I realise it's not as simple as that and there are power imbalances involved etc but just parking that for a moment i you know this if ever something is an example of insulting cultural appropriation it really has to be this and i do wonder you mentioned that um i'm sure we have some Japanese listeners. And I do wonder what they and indeed the lady who was stood next to Richard Skinner early in this episode make of this. I mean, because you're saying, Neil said that the fact that they got it wrong with the kind of black notes bit. And it actually sounds more Chinese than Japanese. I don't think that's necessarily the only reason it wasn't a hit in Japan.

Perhaps not. The title character doesn't get put over very well, does he? He's been acting very dishonourable. Well, yeah, but... No, but this is it. Honour, inscrutability. Yes. All of these things were mashed up together

so that basically the far east was one place to most british culture chinese chinese and japanese you know interchangeable so it's really revealing of the way that we looked upon that culture i mean especially when you consider that the music that was actually being made in japan at the time by yellow magic orchestra and others oh yeah of a completely different ilk, you know, than this. So, yeah. Yeah, I wonder if she'd done the song, Mr. King, tell me where my love has gone.

He's a black man. Well, exactly. I don't think he would have charted. It's funny how it was okay to do this kind of stuff about the Far East at this point. But, yeah, possibly not about other ethnicities. It wouldn't have gone over so well. And there is a danger of being too po-faced about it

and taking it all too seriously. But there is a certain thing where you look back and you flinch a little bit. You flinch while laughing at it and say, well, different times. But even at the time it felt a bit, I don't know, this is a bit wrong. But at least the hands were used to do some weirdo miming

as opposed to pulling at the eyes. God, yeah. Well, Bowie does it in the China Girl video. He does, yeah. But that kind of racism, it was... I'm not saying it was the last acceptable racism because there was tons of racism that was totally acceptable. There's plenty of it left to go.

Yeah, but for a long, long time, that racism towards the Far East and, you know, a load of diverse cultures just mashed together as this Far Eastern Oriental thing. That was acceptable for the longest time. Yes, it was. And it's possibly because we didn't have a huge immigrant population from that part of the world. That's absolutely right.

So it was kind of like, oh, well, they're not going to see it. Who cares? Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's not going to be an who cares yeah yeah yeah yeah there's not going to be an internet or anything yeah yeah and of course you know if you're uh if you're if you're seven days jankers or someone from that generation you know oh it's been a bad half an hour hasn't it you've had to watch mark almond and now you've got this woman going on about having a sexual relationship with with someone who who quite easily put the whip on your back

for not building a bridge properly as soon as look at you. Yeah, they're probably the bad guy in Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence or Tenko or something like that. The following week, Japanese boy was relieved of the number one spot by Tainted Love. The follow-up, Little Lady, failed to chart and after a flop LP, Sanderman discarded the kimono went back to singing about old Scottish stuff and was last spotted working as a tour guide in Edinburgh. Japanese

Boy eventually sold five million copies worldwide. It also became a massive hit across South America when it was recorded by Zacchi Ashiiro and it was even dubbed into French by the singer Marion under the title Sayonara Monsieur Kung Fu. Wow! Yes! And it doesn't even mention the fucking song title in the song. That's stupid.

But as Niels pointed out, it was not released in Japan after they were told that it sounded too Chinese. And songwriter Bob Heatley went on to write Cry Just A Little Bit and Merry Christmas Everyone for Shaking Stevens. And the theme tunes to Funhouse, Wheel of Fortune and Trap Door. and trapdoor. Yes, she's number one, Anika, and a Japanese boy. Don't forget your number one pop show, back the same time next week.

In the meantime, it's goodbye and everybody, salsa! Formed in London in 1980 by the core members of the Leighton Buzzards, Jeffrey Dean and David James, Modern Romance started their career as a piss-taking new romantic band. But after two flop singles, they ditched the blousers, linked up with the trumpet player John DePrez, and went all Latin American. This is a follow-up to Tonight, which failed to chart,

and it's jumped nine places from number 38 to number 29 this week. And, well, this is the signpost for where Top of the Pops is going, isn't it? It's office party time. Yes. It's kind of one of my favourite bits of the show for some reason. Well, for a few reasons. I mean, this is clearly one of Hurl's ideas, but it's not yet reached the stage of organisation whereby the best dancers are at the front.

Yes. So you do for a glorious minute basically watch British people dance which is always a joy everybody lumber I think the song should have been called it really blew my mind to see an Asian kid on there

with a tash did you notice it I would have noticed that at the time and I would have felt simultaneous kind of pride and shame in his presence I like the essential confusion of it. They're getting their salsa mixed up with their conga. It is very

office party-ish. But it's a joyful moment because the cameraman doesn't quite know how to do it and they haven't shoved a load of well the zoo wankers aren't there yet but they haven't shoved a load of pro dancers at the front. You do essentially get to see some great shit british dancing for a good long while yeah it's beautiful it's it's very new year's eve party it's very butlins um but yeah you

know it's um anika is in there as well so not only have they got they've got their salsa and their conga mixed up but they've got that oriental uh element thrown in there so basically they're still waving all the oriental ramen about aren't they they are so it's latin plus oriental which i guess equals the philippines or something fusion it's like fusion cuisine isn't it i i'm kind of interested in um modern romance as to what their intentions were apart from making a fuckload of money because it's almost a kind of art project um because they they were coming from a kind of new wave background but basically it's almost an experiment to see how long they can get away with releasing the same song over and over and over because we've got everybody salsa you've also got

uh best years of our lives yes i i i i moosey yes which it's all they're all the same song yes and uh at at the time i i hated them they were it wasn't just them it was the people who were into them the people who were doing that kind of dancing that we're seeing in this clip yeah it was everyone i hated they were i would have thought they're mindless and i do think they're mindless um i'm not i don't even know why i said that in a sort of distancing sarcastic voice um but that said they they did have a couple of good songs. I loved Queen of the Rapping Scene. Queen of the Rapping Scene, which I thought was amazing. And also they did a ballad called Walking in the Rain,

which I think if it had been sung by somebody like Smokey Robinson, people would recognise as being a real classic. But other than that, you know, they're pretty appalling, aren't they? Yeah, I mean, yeah, Anika's still there. It's, you know, essentially they haven't got time to get her off. Yeah. And they just want the fucking show over. So she's stuck there.

But, you know, you have to say she's enjoying herself. She's come all the way down from Edinburgh. She might as well, you know, and she knows. I think, I feel she knows that this is her last stand on the top of the pop stage. So she's making the most of it. And, yeah, one of Legs & Co starts a conga. And it's amazing just to watch people just immediately latching onto it. You don't need to ask British people to join a conga line, mate. They just do it.

If only they'd have done it at the job centres around the country at this time, there wouldn't have been any riots whatsoever. Oh, Queen of the Wrapping City. I've completely forgotten that. No. But it's got that line in it, hasn't it? Don't kid yourself, you waste of space. You're a super slob with an ugly face.

I love that one. Next time you try to make a pass, just stick to women in your class. It's a great record. Yeah. It's what the Style Council could have been. Yeah, so, you know, it's party time at Top's what the Style Council could have been yeah so you know it's party time at Top of the Pops

and it will be for many years to come it will but it's refreshingly innocent at this stage it's amazing how it all works without Zoo you know they introduce so many problems into this they're still in their crates at the moment aren't they yeah doubtless gyrating in objectionable ways i've been captured in the wild and tranquilized

anything to stop their foul gyrations so the following week everybody salsa jumped 13 places to number 16 and would get as high as number 12 the follow-up i i Aye Moose, got to number 10 in December of this year and they go on to notch up six more top 40 hits, three of which went top 10 before splitting up in 1985. Jeff Dean went on to become a scriptwriter for Birds of a Feather, Babes in the Wood, Friday Night with Jonathan Ross and Chef and is currently writing the screenplay for the official biopic of Amy Winehouse, while David James became the manager of Sinead O'Connor, The Wonderstuff and Republica.

And that, me dears, closes the book on this episode of Top of the Pops. What's on telly afterwards? Well, BBC One continues the evening with a repeat of the last ever episode of Citizen Smith. And then it's the second to last episode of It Ain't Our Fart Mum where the concert party finally head for home. Oh, fucking hell. That episode ruins me. It's the one right at the end where the charwal has caught them up on the docks while they're departing. And he's bought all them presents for them.

And they realise that he's actually been a really good mate to them. Oh, it breaks your heart man. I've not seen it. I can hear you tearing up now, Al. After the 9 o'clock news, it's the third part of the documentary series, The Four Seasons where people in their 80s who are still busy are featured.

After the TV play Kate, The Good Neighbour, they round off the night with Spike Milligan in Q9. BBC Two is ten minutes into a talk by the director Roger Corman at the National Film Theatre. Then it's the documentary series Fame about people who become dead famous all of a sudden and have to deal with it. This week, Trevor Locke, the hero of the Iranian embassy siege. Then it's Folk, a series of highlights from the Cambridge Folk Festival featuring Donovan and the Roachers, followed by part two of the Eugene O'Neill drama Morning Becomes Electra. Then it's Festival 81, the magazine show about the Edinburgh Festival,

and they finish off with Newsnight and highlights from the cricket. ITV finish off Ski Lift to death. Then it's the final episode of the documentary series Rule Britannia where the author James Bellini predicts the state of the UK over the 80s and asks his civil strife is round the corner. Then it's the first part of a double header of episodes of Spearhead in Hong Kong, the Michael Billingham drama series about some British soldiers. Then the news at 10, then it's the first part of a double header of episodes of spearhead in hong kong the michael billingham drama series about some british soldiers then the news at 10 the other episode of spearhead in hong kong holiday snapshot tips in me and my camera and they end the night with what the papers say so dear boys what are we talking about in well it won't be the playground but wherever we're dossing about tomorrow

up the park playing football yeah soft sell probably although you know they'd already been on once so failing that probably Cliff roller skating Cliff Richard roller skating that's got to be it like did you see that basically yeah absolutely did you see that grandad

trying to roller skate exactly I think yeah soft sell i would have been talking about they're the dark little heart of the show soft sell uh and even though i'm a stones fan soft sell are the big big highlight of this show and what are we buying on saturday wired uh tainted and start i'd already bought um a couple of records that are in the top 40 but not on the show So I'd bought Love Action by the Human League

And Ghost Town by the Specials So that's probably my pocket money accounted for But if I did have a record token or two To spend then yeah Soft sell Or the Stones maybe And what does this episode tell us about August of 1981? Fuck all

Except people love medleys yes, racism is fine as long as it's the Japanese and Richard Skinner is surprisingly sleazy, yeah it doesn't really tell us that much about what's about to happen to pop or anything but it does give us a big hint as to what's exactly

going to happen to Top of the Pops and that me dears is the end of this episode of Chart Music. You know what I do now? I go www.chart-music.co.uk facebook.com slash chartmusic. You can reach us on Twitter, chartmusic

at T-O-T-P. You can thrust money down our G-string at patreon.com slash chartmusic. Thank you ever so, Simon Price. price you're welcome tell very much neil kulkarni cheers chucky egg my name's al needham and all i'm gonna say is the average male ejaculation is 0.9 mil which means the number of ejaculations in a pint is 631.4 so for two pints we're talking 1263 people263 people. And for eight, it's 5,051,

which is comparable to the average attendance of Northampton Town FC last season. Simple mathematics, pop craze youngsters. It didn't fucking happen. Chart music.. Richard Skinner. I saw my mate between eight and ten. He hadn't got Richard Skinner on. I'll give him headbutts. I'll give him headbutts. I'll give him headbutts. I'll give him headbutts.

Then I remembered it was Friday, and he's only on Monday to Thursday. 275-285. Richard, Richard, Richard Skinner. Richard, Richard, Richard Skinner Richard, Richard, Richard Skinner Richard Skinner Radio 1 Oi, oi

Oi, oi Two pints of lager and turn on the radio, please Two pints of lager and turn on the radio, please Two pints of lager, turn on the radio I want to hear the Richard Skinner listening to Richard Skinner Show. Richard Skinner Show. Ladies and gentlemen, you are listening to Richard Skinner on Radio 1. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it.

Ooh. Ooh. The stars are falling by. keep on turning in your mind But we can work it out, remember twist and shout You'll still not tell me why and don't reply This is a song about a girl and a boy Falling in love and taking in joy Hazy love nights to look at a star Look at the stars

I feel sudden death from my guitar That's cool track. me more like knocking me out with those american thoughts making more than my share have me fighting for air she told me to come but i was already there cause the walls start shaking the earth was breaking my mind I need you, I need you, I need you You shook me all night long Yeah, yeah The stars are falling by

Keep on turning in your mind But we can work it out Remember, twist and shout You still don't tell me why And don't reply Tell me why I'm so replied. part only at Wendy's. It's ooey gooey and just five bucks with a small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply.