Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #56 (Part 2): 25.12.1983 – Oh Dear!! A Bat Bit You

Episode Date: January 6, 2021

Our New Year’s do has only just begun, with two very special guests – Price the Wolfchild and The Incredible Kulk – dropping in to lob their coats in the spare bedroom and pick at the sumptuous buffet that is the Top of The Pops 1983 Xmas episode. Revel in the joy of Inky Peebles refusing to join in the Panto atmosphere as Freeez caper about, the Bad King of Pop reveals a hitherto undiscovered love of Billy Britain and SWANT, and Taylor and Sarah discover that just when you think you’ve got the measure of Shakin’ Stevens, he reveals even more denimy depths…Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon 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. The following podcast is a member of the Great Big Owl family. 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 what do you like this Chart music Chart music

Dance Come on, let's see you No, it's in there, trust me Not that one No Definitely Not that one. No. Definitely not that one. Hey! Hey up, you pop-crazed youngsters, and welcome to part two of episode 56 of Chart Music.

I'm your host, Al Needham, and the party is starting to rev up. Sarah's currently ripping through my tape box looking for the Christmas 1983 Top of the Pops, and Taylor seems to have nested in the drinks cabinet. But never mind, we'll get him out in a bit, and you're here, and that's all that matters. So all that remains to be said is... Oh! Who the fuck's that now? All that remains to be said is... Oh! Oh, who the fuck's that now?

Fucking hell, it's Neil Kulkarni! Hello there, boys. Hello there, boys. Happy New Year! Hey. How are we? We're all good. All the better for seeing you.

Oh, excellent, excellent. Well, I hope you don't mind me dropping round. No. No! Come on in, sit down, get on the setting. We're thinking of watching an old episode of Top of the Pops. Yeah, why not? So, Neil, just by the look of you,

it looks like you've got a big bulging sack of pop and interesting things. Why don't you come and ram them into me stocking? Hey, you know what? It's not been a bad Christmas at all. Excellent. Considering my day, you know my christmas day started with a big slug of quantro good yeah well left it out for santa lightweight bastard didn't even touch it or the mince pie to be fair um so i had to knock that back and the day ended with a

fairly equally sized slug of jack daniels it It went surprisingly well. Booze does help, doesn't it, at Christmas? It does. It's great booze. It really does. And I've got some pretty good presents as well. Ooh. Including, not exactly poppin' interesting, an air fryer, which I believe is,

it's this year's posture corrector, I'm telling you. It is. It's going to be the thing that's going to, you know, it's going to enable me to lose my birthright as an asian man and change my body shape from the pot belly and skinny legs that all asian men have to something a little more svelte i'm allowed to say that by the way it's not racist and it's christmas so um yeah good presents nice booze um i am kind of what's the first thing that's went into the air fryer i think it's got to

be chips hasn't it yeah it's got to be chips going in there i hope it's chips it's chips i hope it's chips i am kind of falling into that dad slash granddad thing of being the guy who's asleep on special occasions usually about two in the afternoon um but that's you know booze does make everything better at christmas i'm now looking at all my decorations because I've got two rooms full of Christmas tat. Wondering whether it would be too brutal to take them down already. But yeah, I'm actually in the festive spirit this year. I've one normal room and I've one Christmas room. Yeah, yeah, maybe.

So, Neil, Christmas 1983. Well, must be frosted with beautiful memories. Well, you know what I really remember? Because normally I can remember what presents I got and all this sort of stuff. What I remember is a really strange memory. But I remember staring at a luminescent clock for two hours from four in the morning on Christmas Day. You know, of course course i didn't have a

fucking phone to go on or a tablet or a laptop to go on it's 1983 and i got up too early because i was in that in-between time you know i was 11 so i was dead in between kind of still getting really excited about christmas you know but also a little bit of an adolescent disinterest that you affect later on so i woke up really early like i always did like at four a fucking clock or something whereas ordinarily you know perhaps when i was 10 or 9 or whatever i might have gone and bothered my parents to ask if i could open my presents i just remorselessly stared at this clock until it turned into a time so it's burned in my memory just it was one of those luminescent kind of bedside ones

that looked like it should go with the Goblin Tees, mate. Did it say West Clocks on it? Yeah, it may well have done. And it was luminescent just watching that. It's startling how many memories I have in my life of just trying to force time to pass quicker. It's weird because when I remember, I was thinking the other day,

most of my memories of the 90s are actually of getting the train back from London to Cobb and knowing that it takes exactly 13 minutes to get from Rugby to Coventry. And as soon as the wheels started rolling out of Rugby, I'd start counting to 780. That's my memory of much of the 90s. And my memory of 83 Christmas, yeah.

I can't remember what I got. I can't remember what I watched on telly. I can't remember what my parents were about that day. I just remember remorselessly staring at a clock, trying to make time go faster. It doesn't work, of course. It just makes it drag. But, yeah, that's my main memory from that year. Beautiful. Anyway, why don't you come and sit down for a bit and we'll get stuck into this oh yes please

all right then pop craze youngsters this is now time to go way back to christmas day of 1983 always remember we may coat down your favourite band or artist but we never forget they've been on Top of the Pops more than we have first an end of the year reflection of Top of the Pops 1983 It's 2pm on Sunday December 25th 1983 and as is the law of the time

the Christmas episode of Top of the Pops is about to commence, but not before we get a flash of the 1983 BBC One ident, the last incarnation of the big snowflake, which has rotating fronds or whatever. It's nice, isn't it? It's lovely.

The BBC One ident, we used to get it about six o'clock on Christmas Eve and that was it then. When you saw that, Christmas was on, bitch. Yeah, and no cutesy claymation animation or any of that shit. No. Thank God. I fucking hate it when they do it in November now, man.

It ain't right. This is what pisses me off about Christmas. Everyone lumps into it too early. And by the time it comes, it's like, oh, this again. Yeah, yeah. Hence it loses its specialness somewhat. It's all about the frenzy of Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve is the most volcanically exciting day of the year as a child.

I'm not sure it is anymore, but Christ, I'm an old bastard. So once again, chaps, Top of the Pops is stuck in the 2 p.m. slot, which is the most awkward fucking time, isn't it? Yeah. We've mentioned this before. It's just evil putting it on at that time. Where's that awful dead spot in Christmas Day where there's that cold stillness and pale light outside

and that eerie silence all over the estate, you know what I mean? All these crappy house front Christmas decorations flashing on and off to no effect in the bleak daylight, just wasting that precious electricity. And then there's like one car going past every three or four minutes, like going somewhere that no one in the car wants to go. And that's where the Christmas top of the pops would always sit. And it is a very un-pop

atmosphere, isn't it? Yeah, but where could they schedule it? I mean, to be honest with you, on Christmas Day I wouldn't want to wait until the evening for it. No. So, yeah. Perhaps a little bit earlier, midday, something like that? Yeah, well, they did that this year, didn't they? Yeah, it's just chucking it away, though, isn't it?

Yeah, but it's... No one cares. Yeah, yeah well no one does care now do they so they got the scheduling right just when it didn't matter anymore but you know it wasn't always on at 2 p.m and i think it's time for a potted history of the top of the pops christmas show okay come and sit by the fire and let the old man tell you a story unbelievably there was no christmas day top of the pops in 1964 the year it came into being but the episode on thursday the 24th was expanded out to an hour and was a showcase for the biggest hits of the year, a format which remains to this day. It was also given a slot in that year's Christmas Night with the Stars, BBC One's annual showcase of its stars and sitcoms.

The entirety of it was given over to the barren knights doing impressions of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. The first proper Christmas Day Top top of the pops in 1965 went out at 10 35 in the evening went on for an hour and a quarter and was repeated the next day at a quarter past noon for the benefit of the youth in 1966 it was shamefully put back to boxing day the only other time it was locked out of the Christmas Day schedule, but it was also the first time it was shown over two parts, both going out at 6.15pm. In 1967, it was slotted into the 2pm slot on Christmas Day,

fucking up Christmas dinner arrangements right across the country. The BBC, in a real lapse of sense, brought the 1968 show forward to 135, followed by the black and white minstrel show, meaning it was the turn of racist nans to want their dinner potting in the oven. From 1969 to 1971, Christmas Top of the Pops ran from 2.15 to 3 o'clock, establishing itself as a de facto programme to put on before the Queen's Christmas message, expanded out by five minutes from 1972 and finally going back to a full hour in 1978. Although Top of the Pops finished 14 years ago,

it still makes an appearance on the BBC One Christmas Day schedule it was on at 5 to noon for an hour between something called Zog and something else called The News so chaps what would have been the ideal time for Top of the Pops on Christmas Day I'm going for about 4 o'clock after your dinner's gone Dan

and after everyone else over 30's passed out in an armchair. Sort of tucked in just before Disney time kind of slot you're talking about. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. That might have been ideal. That might have been ideal.

I mean, I think we all had to work around it, didn't we? I got used to it being at two o'clock. So it did become a bit of a yearly tradition. But yeah yeah that horrible thing that sometimes happened at christmas where you actually had to be dragged away from it to the dinner table yes oh horrible times horrible times yeah you couldn't have the telly on while you're having your christmas dinner yeah well that's wrong man well i mean i suppose i should

have been the same this year i did christmas dinner at mine i had the kids around and all that and um you know i suppose i did insist no tablets no phones at the table have the kids around and all that. And, you know, I suppose I did insist, no tablets, no phones at the table. What the fuck am I turning into? I should have just let them be on it. Hickler. So today, we are blessed with four hosts. In order,

number one, of course, could only be Simon Bates, who has just clocked up his sixth year in the mid-morning slot and is pulling down 11 million listeners a day. He's been in the news this month for being photographed while giving Paul McCartney a cheque from the BBC for two pence. It's the royalties for one of his singles being played for a musical contribution

to Radio 1's Merseyside Week earlier in the year. Alas, he's lost his other presenting job. Unbelievably, he was the host of the first ever series of Food and Drink on BBC Two in 1982. Who the fuck knew that? And has been replaced by Henry Kelly. But he's recently appeared on the vintage quiz a looks familiar type show only available in the tvs region with charlie chester and sharon davis

but rest assured because he's making another very special guest appearance on bbc one over the christ period. Oh, Christmas without Simon Bates, man. It's like sex without drills. Well, as we've said before about the master, you know, he's avuncular, reassuring.

He does say, you know, don't worry. No matter how madcap and zany things get, he's going to keep a firm hand on the rudder and ensure it doesn't slip into you know senseless ugly carnage your next host is janice long who took over from peter powell in the drive time slot this march and is into her first full year as a top of the props presenter and would be the only woman allowed to do the man's work of saying the names of bands and singers for the next five years on the pops

she's fun and she's looking good in this episode too yes she's all done out as um is it dick whittington i think it's dick whittington yeah yes yeah or just a sort of generic principal boy yeah but she's very odd tonight, isn't she? There's a definite edge to her. Oh, yeah. A little bit of lewdness. Oh, yeah. A few suggestive comments.

Most uncharacteristic. Like she's been at the sherry trifle. And it's good to see. Yeah. But it is also a little bit like your mum twerking. I don't know what's got into her, but fuck it, it's Christmas, and the ladies are not going to get any sexier,

so you might as well make the most of the moment. Yeah, she looks good. I like the sauciness she's got with her slap-of-my-thigh outfit and stuff. She's the person you want to be with at the party, at the Christmas party. Probably the person who would probably end up slagging off Simon Bates as soon as she a chance uh when you're in the kitchen by yourself

but she looks great and and the lewd comments she makes throughout it provide for me the only daddisfaction in this episode to be honest with you i mean as we all know simon bates was not a popular man at radio one and according to johnel the first thing people did when they attended the Radio 1 Christmas party was check the seating arrangements to see how far away they were from Simon Bates. Wasn't it John Peel and Kid Jensen and

Andy Peebles who decided that they were going to beat Simon Bates up in the car park? Yes, supposedly. Then decided not to. I bet fucking Janice was in their ears or leave it he's not worth yes the third in line dressed up as a pantomime dame is mike smith who has been promoted up from the six to seven a.m pre-breakfast show slot to the lunchtime slot in May. He's also been popping up on the new BBC Breakfast Time show as an occasional presenter whenever something pop and interesting needed

talking about. He's also made his acting debut this year as a radio DJ on Night Kids, a play about two homeless girls in London, which was part of the series Live from Pebble Mill. I think this partly answers the question why Mike Smith didn't want his Top of the Popses repeated. Yeah, his weirdo twanky thing here. It just sounds like he's been kicked in the balls, to be honest with you, this first joke that he attempts. And he is kind of using this momentary transvestitism

as an excuse to aggressively sexually proposition male colleagues that he's harboured silent, latent thoughts about. So often the way when a massively heterosexual man dresses as a woman. Yeah. We're still in the, oh, a man in a dress, tee-hee-hee phase, aren't we? We are, we are. But it does end up looking like they told Mike Smith it was fancy dress. And he's the only one who turned up wearing it.

Like the older boys have probably got it down in their contracts that, you know, pale coloured sports jackets only, you know. Bates would have issued a public statement. I feel that such costumes are not in keeping with my dignity and my status as a professional broadcaster. So it's like Mike Smith's just turned up and looked around and immediately thought, oh, shit. And because Janice is a nice person,

she'd gone and found a hat from somewhere, just stuck it on top of the perfectly ordinary 1983 clothes he was wearing before. Just try and make him feel better. He's a weird one, Mike Smith, isn't he? Smitty, who could forget the plaintive cry of Sarah Green on Ghostwatch? Edmund's enabler.

But, you know, he's not so much the forgotten man of Radio 1, but he's kind of like the man who knew too much, in a way. The Dr. David Kelly of BBC Light Entertainment. so much the forgotten man of radio one but he's kind of like the man who knew too much in a way the dr david kelly of bbc light entertainment i mean i know he ends up a success i know that he ends up running flying tv you know hiring helicopters out yeah and he also of course coined it in from the car phone warehouse shares that he took as payment uh for a car phone warehouse sad yeah very lucrative in the long run but you know you do sense i always sense perhaps this is me imagining it but that he knew secrets you know and that there's a reason noel doesn't invite him back to house party after that murder what they've done i mean um you know

i mean that terrible accident of course where an audience member died but you know smith presented didn't he on that show the live stuff outside and and i think he got tarnished by that and even though noel had told him not to talk about it to the press it was noel who immediately just started hawking his fake grief and still stayed hired oh yes yeah and and i know that caused a massive rift between them so smitty's an interesting one he He was thoroughly conventional at the time in a sense and I would have appreciated him

as that as a child. But ever since, yeah, it gets dark, doesn't it, with him? And the fourth host, who else? Andy Peebles, who at this point

is still the second to last person to interview John Lennon before he was shot. Actually, he's currently holding down the 7pm slot on Friday nights, presenting the Get A Pop Star To Pick Their Favourite Single show, My Top 12, on Saturday afternoons, and the evening show, Andy Peebles On Sunday, on Sundays. Presented by Andy Peebles.

Well, nothing says Christmasmas like andy peebles they should have replaced his uh spherical head with a christmas pudding just for the day yeah i mean we we've only covered andy peebles one so far me you and david taylor yeah at the time he you know as david rightly pointed out he looked looked like Paul Bearer and a grub in a suit. But he's beefed out a bit since then, hasn't he? Fucking hell. Well, he's had to, just to survive at Radio 1. In 1983, Andy Peebles looks like a dad who's got on stars in their eyes as 90s era George Michael. He does look odd. He looks like some kind of weird mix of a sort of Garth Marenghi

and some kind of East End villain in a way. Like some counterfeiter called Inky Peebles who could do you a really diamond-type passport, but he also might shank you for getting the name of a Teddy Pendergrass B-side wrong. He's an odd presence here. I used to like The Quiet Storm and his show. I used to like his show his voice is great and he's a he's a great creator of mood on his radio shows but he's here he's

really demonstrative of how kind of you know good radio presenters don't necessarily make great tv presenters as well i mean i'm glad he's here yeah but he's extra to be honest with you he's extraneous isn't he as to be honest is bait I mean I think Janice Long and Smitty could have coked but I guess these elder statesmen are there to reassure the very little kiddies and the old folks that it's all going to be

okay no one's going to be licking shit off anyone's boots on Christmas day but he had absolutely no pantomime costume for people's I reckon what happened was boots on Christmas Day. But he had absolutely no pantomime costume for Peebles. All good to God, no. I reckon what happened was when Smith realised he was the only one dressed up, he looked like

he was going to cry and went off and kicked a big hole in his dressing room door. And then Peebles went in and pointed a little stubby index finger right in his face and said, hey, chopper squad, I like your frock was it a present from your boyfriend and smith just stared at the floor he's like shamefaced and he turned around

to walk away but then people's reached out grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him back around and repeated it he said hey chopper squad i said like your dress. Was it a present from your boyfriend? But luckily at that moment, Michael Hurl walked in, or Bullet Hurl, as they used to call him. And he just disappeared like a mouse when the light goes on. Yeah, no, Hurl was like, everything all right, Mike? And he was like, yes, sir, everything's fine. But that's why, years later,

Smith ended up flying Sarah Green into a tree because he was in the copter and he saw a full moon and got a NAMM-style flashback to Peebles' perfectly round face and he just glazed over and aimed the copter straight at the ground. Like... With all along a watchtower playing in his head i mean all four of them together it's a very weird setup isn't it i mean gone are the days when it is you know we were happy to see Noel and DLT sitting around an oversized turkey. Yeah, but they used to divvy it up, didn't they?

They used to give the young people presenters sort of one episode and the old farts another episode. This is, it seems, excess to requirements for all these four presenters. Were it a sandwich, not that I need food analogies for everything, but if it were, I think what we have here is a kind of slightly, we've got two slightly dull doorsteps of white bread sandwiching some kind of bold new exciting 80s faces. It's like sort of two Finder's crispy pancakes in a mother's pride bed, if you like.

But I mean, the four of them together, it's as if the accounts department have drifted off from the Christmas do and have somehow found themselves in a nightclub for the first time in a decade. I mean, Bates and Peebles look particularly out of place. You just see them there amongst all the neon and the noise and everything. And you just start thinking, oh, man, something's going to go really fucking wrong here. It's odd that Peebles even wanted the gig, to be honest fucking wrong. It's odd that people's even wanted the gig, to be honest with you. Yeah.

Whose nostrils did he threaten to split to get this spot? That's what I want to know. I mean, this was a standard yellow-hurl ploy at the time, wasn't it? Bung on as many presenters as you can. The second part of the review of 1983 would feature Peter Powell,

Tommy Vance, Richard Skinner, Gary Davis, and Adrian John. Proper lads' night out, if you will. part of the review of 1983 would feature peter powell tommy vance richard skinner gary davis and adrian john proper lads night out if you will but i mean they're trying to show the diversity on radio on you know lots of white men and one woman to me it just goes to show that there are no standout radio one personalities anymore yeah you know why are they sending a Bates and Peebles and Smith and Long to do a Travis's job? Yeah, well, there was this sort of slow fade, wasn't there, from the early 80s on, where, first of all,

Radio 1 DJs kind of lost their status as the gods of light entertainment. And then they sort of became these gentle, sweater-wearing blandies. Then they started to be phased out of presenting Top of the Pops at all. Then finally the knock on the 12-bedroom Berkshire mansion door at midnight. In a way, it was more insulting what happened later. It's pretty insulting to be served up Dave Lee Travis on the understanding that you're going to like him.

But it was sort of worse that afterwards, when it's like radio on DJs are meant to be just like you, except richer, you know? Yes. As opposed to what we grew up with, where the whole point was they weren't like you like whatever they were they weren't like you and it's like you know on the one hand like almost any price was worth paying to secure the downfall of those you know failed human experiments and

turbo shit machines but it wasn't necessarily progress because in the end what really did for people like baits and dlt was not their crimes against media it was their difference it was the fact that they were freaks and their inability to fit in unobtrusively do you know what i mean and so i think 1983 it's like the start of the discouragement of freaks and oddballs generally you know mike fucking smith i ask you i mean there's no dave lee travis on either show but you know he is still part of our christmas in 1983 he plays the trombone on the Warhols advert. The one with Joe Brown as a ringmaster,

Rula Lenska, Susie Birchall out of Coronation Street, Daley Thompson, Lenny Bennett, Eric Bristow, and Jeff Capes. What a lineup. Yeah.

You know what, though? You know what Radio 1 people would have been talking about in the playground the next day? Bates. Wellcies Janice still. It's so blatant, man. He's got his arm around her at the beginning. Yeah. Yeah, totally blatant.

And, of course, you can imagine Saville with his feet up at checkers telling Maggie Thatcher what a bunch of cunts these lot are. Hello, Maggie. Hello. Happy Christmas afternoon, but welcome to a real pandemonium of Top of the Punks, but it's star-studded. Merry Christmas. I'm the principal boy. This is Michelle. Hello. I'm just so glad you could all come to the ball.

Yes, Mike Smith is going to be making a dame nuisance of himself all afternoon. Let's start with a hit from 1983, back to July. Here's Freeze and I Owe You. I Owe You. After Yellow Pearl kicks in, we're hit with a cascade of gold bubbles, a Christmas 83 logo, and are confronted by Bates, Long, Smith and Peebles underneath a massive Christmas 83 logo, while a bloke in a brown jumper and a policeman's tash talks with his mate in the background. They all concentrate on getting their appalling introductory lines out,

such as, this is Michelle, and Mike Smith is going to be making a dame nuisance of himself. Finally, Peebles half-arsedly points at the stage and introduces the first single of the night, I Owe You, by Freeze. Formed in London in 1978, Freeze began life as one of the best-known bands in the burgeoning Brit funk movement, which emanated from southern England during the Aventis. They self-funded their debut single, Keep In Touch, in 1979, and after that they signed a one-shot deal with Pi Records, and the single got to number 49 in June of 1980.

After the follow-up, Stay failed to chart. They signed to Beggar's Banquet at the end of the year, and their next single, Southern Freeze, hit the jackpot when it got to number eight for two weeks in March of 1981. The follow-up Flying High got to number 35 in May of 1981 but their next two singles flopped and they dropped off the radar for two years trimming down to a two-piece lead singer John Rocker and bassist Peter Maas. However, in early 1983, they linked up with the New York producer Arthur Baker, who had scored massive hits with Planet Rock for Africa, Bambarta and the Soul Sonic Force,

and Walking on Sunshine for Rocker's Revenge. And he wrote them this single, which entered the top 40 at number 23 in June, then soared 16 places to number seven and then slowly and methodically scaled the top 10 and eventually spent three weeks at number two in late july early august held off the top by wherever i lay my hat that's my home by paul young and that gentleman is fucking criminal because this especially teamed with a video absolutely screams

the summer of 83. Isn't it fucking brilliant? Yes. It is great. I mean, my first thought when I saw it, because I don't think I'd ever seen this type of pop's appearance before, it's a record that I'd mainly heard on the radio, was where the fuck are they all? You know, there's only three people on stage.

I mean, it happens in this period that a lot of these funk collectives simply don't need as many people anymore. No. The same thing kind of happens to Lynx. It goes that saying for me that Southern Freeze is 10 billion times better than this, but this is a strangely prophetic record. It really does predict the 80s a lot um a lot of what's going to happen so even though arthur baker's production sounds kind of dated now at the time there weren't really

that many electro records in the charts and a lot of those brit funksters if you like those brit jazz funkers they are looking to change electronically when i think of what paul harcastle does a couple years later you know and he's coming from the same kind of thing. And what I, you know, listening to this, which of course is a tune that we're all really familiar with, what really struck me was how eerily reminiscent of Stuyken and Waterman it was. How sort of it predicted their kind of dominance later in the decade.

There is one thing wrong with the record and that's the spoken word bit. I mean, fuck me me how did that pass arthur baker's muster that was not a good idea no but i mean it's it's just in your head instantly this record yes instantly 1983 might be one of the best years for summer songs i mean juicy fruit cruel summer long hot summer all night long the mary jane girls version club tropic corner temptation the sun goes down waiting for a train love town the crown rocket get down saturday night tour de france hip-hop bebop don't stop and this i mean for fuck's sake i just want to

bung all of that onto a tape. Find some youth skulking about in the shopping precinct and just chuck it in their fucking face and tell them that my formative years pisses in the mouth of theirs. And if they ain't got anything to play that tape on, it's their tough shit for being born in such a shithole century. It's fucking brilliant, man.

I hear this and I'm back in the summer of 83. Yeah, yeah. And it's like, as Neil alluded to, the only thing wrong with it is that because it's credited to freeze, the 3E stand for extra exciting energy. Extra exciting electro. Yeah.

But it means that you have to compare it in your head whether you want to or not to southern freeze which yes which does does it no favors because that is a better record but this one doesn't have that sort of that great sullen untutored vocal that yeah southern yeah yeah yeah and so although southern freeze is very its time, the backing track sounds more sort of timeless because it's just like a nice sort of, a nice funk track. Whereas this is, as you say, so 1983 that now it sounds slightly dated. But I think that's a good thing

because if you're making a pop single, it's good to make it sound like the year that it comes out. Yeah. Rather than sort of trying to sound timeless, which you just end up sounding smug, you know. But it is a comparison you can't make. But if this was a single by another group or even by the same people,

but they'd given themselves a different name, like if they called themselves Goose Juice or, you know, The Bugger Grips or something, then you can see how great it really is, despite the efforts of various people on the stage because they're not a visually appealing group. No. No, they're not, are they?

No. They look like they're being played by Trevor and Simon. Yes. There's a definite resemblance there, especially the singer. There's that keyboard player in like X-Men shades like he's going to try and post a letter into his eyes

but yeah the singer slightly spoils this record well not spoils but just maybe takes something away from it because this is not a personality record this is a producer's record personality that comes across here is that of arthur baker but there's some producers records which deliberately leave a big space for a big personality performance like yeah yeah two tribes

you know or you spin me round right or even like other like leader of the pack or something it's still a producer's record but the whole point is you have a big personality there in the middle You Spin Me Round, or even like Leader of the Pack or something. It's still a producer's record, but the whole point is you have a big personality there in the middle. This one doesn't. All you have to do is go in and sing it and not ruin it. And his actual singing is passable, but the whole sort of camp male singer in a white singlet bit is like a foreshadowing of erasure but without their

personal likeability yeah he's essentially dressed up as a male gymnast isn't he all in white with a singlet yeah he could have done something on some pommel horses or something during the middle eight or whatever do you reckon the keyboard player is actually arthur baker no could be you reckon arthur baker's a hairy fucker yeah i think i had a lot of hair it could have been people though robo people but i mean that that would have annoyed me i mean watching it kind of yeah they're not a stage they're not good on stage in a sense no in the you know i mean i shouldn't expect, you know, documentary-like reality

with this stuff, but, you know, clearly, this is a record not played or touched by anyone on this stage in a sense. The bass player's

playing a bass line you can't hear. The keyboardist is playing all these two-handed chords you can't hear. He'd have been better off just using one finger, you know,

and just pushing out the... Ed Miliband on keytar there. The one thing that I do like about the singer, despite the fact that he, yeah, he looks like Andy Bell out of Erasure if his tailor was Georgia Asden. Andy Bellend, if you will.

I like the fact that he's not actually athletic enough to get away with his athletic type outfit. No. Because if you look, his tight white vest is just slightly hanging over the waistband of his white trousers. And there's just a little bit of tit jiggle when he does that jigging about.

You can pinch more than an inch. Yeah, and he's got his shoulders a bit too far back and his knees are pointing in opposite directions when he does his marching back and forth dance you know and it's a it's a hard performance to pin down or to understand what he thinks he's doing you know and that's before you get to that talk over, yeah, it's got to be the least appealing talkover on any record in history. It's the way he goes, Girl, I know you care. I'll never love another.

It's like a heroic pledge of undying love delivered like something you'd hear in a minicab office in Gould at ten past three in the morning. After he's done it, he should keel over to one side and be sick into his girlfriend's cup so they don't have to pay the driver for cleaning the upholstery oh man i know at least one person who enjoyed that that spoken bit because i mean this this was the fucking anthem at my school. And there was one lad, and his shtick was to pick a girl he fancied out at the playground and then just drop to his knees and then bellow that bit out while everyone else just pissed themselves laughing.

I suppose it's a bit better than getting your cock out. Yeah. Waving it. Marginally. But not by much. Was he wearing a string vest, though? No. Because surely, for any kind of pop group, rule one is no vests. Yeah, unless you're in the Fun Boy 3.

I was just thinking, has any good pop music ever been made in a vest? Yeah, okay, Fun Boy 3. The drumming at Live pompeii and this no one's done it in vest and pants so that's still something for the groups of today to reach for imagination could have done it in vest and pants could have done it in just their vests forget the pants but um i mean yeah the thing is though just to reiterate it's a fucking genius producer's record and and the reason is is because when it gets to the hook which is already going to

be velcroed into your head um arthur baker just makes everything do the hook like you can hear all kinds of different things doing the hook until it's like drilled into your skull um it's so murderously effective, this record, in getting the hook across. Yeah, absolutely genius. And I'll tell you something else as well. A little glimpse into why this record is so good. I only found this out at random

when I was fast-forwarding through the episode. But if you drop in just here and there and play a tiny split-second section of it, like as you're skipping through. And you can do this with any record. Just listen to like a quick snippet, too short to hear any melody or any words. Just one beat. You get a snapshot of what your brain hears at a sort of animal level,

like the frequencies and the basic sonic shape of the record uh without the actual melody getting in the way like the mechanical sound of the track and what you normally hear when you do that is like a sort of a booming sound or a rushing sound or a or something like that but with this you hear like a cacophony it's this really harsh clash of tones so it's this whole record with a catchy tune and a danceable sound and it's built out of awful noise arranged really carefully like sort of metal pipes banging together sort of noise and that's why it catches your ear because it's really sweet and poppy But the actual fabric of the sound of the track is as harsh and as aggressive as You Really Got Me or something, you know.

Which is not true of a lot of the other superficially similar dance records from this sort of time. Yeah, it's got that maximalist thing. It's like when we were talking about You Spin Me Round, actually, I think definitely started Akin andman and listening to stuff like this. Because it's got that set everything to stun thing. It's not really a record with space, but you don't have a choice in the matter. Once it's on, this is getting in your head and it's going to stay there the rest of your life.

It's late 1983, but it's got to be said that in this episode, the zoo wankerishness, which could have been absolutely jacked up to the maximum, it's been damped down quite a bit, hasn't it, Neil? Yeah, it has a bit. They're not foregrounded as much, for starters. They are there. They are there, but they're not foregrounded. They're not, all of them,

doing the same shitty-ass strolling moves that they've done for fucking years and actually some of the music in this episode i'm not saying it was made for zoo but it kind of suits in a sense some of their styles a little bit better they're not there it just doesn't seem so artificial but mainly you can't see their fucking faces you can't see their expressions and that's what's key i mean one of the maddening things about zoo was always the idiot joy on their faces you can't see that they're mainly in silhouette i mean they do have dancers for this performance but they're not zoo wankers are they they're actually break dancers who know what

they're on with yeah popping and locking and all of that yeah yeah and they're doing it well they're doing it well nothing massively spectacular but by late 1983 standards it's like oh fucking hell look at them yeah look at them now now spinning on the back and everything isn't it good yeah first year i mean i seem to recall 83 being the first year that sort of those street sounds comps come out um so yeah definitely the year of that and yeah it was great that it was on top of the pubs and there is quite a bit throughout the show actually of that which is good to see I mean this is 1983 is the year that Geoffrey Daniel came out on his own for

A Night To Remember which is one of the definitive top of the pubs performances. Yeah really the only thing wrong with this is that they didn't show the video instead. It would have been much better. I mean because that video like the record is a nice reminder of the days when each individual year had its very own distinct character you know and i discovered from the comments underneath that video on youtube

that apparently everyone always thought the lyrics this song went a e a e i o u and sometimes why which of course made a lot more sense so freeze would follow up i o u with another collaboration with arthur baker pop goes my love and he got to number 26 in october but they closed out the year with love's gonna get you only getting to number 80 last month. John Rocker left the band in 1984 and they split up a year later. However, I.O.U. enjoyed a second life when it was used in the 1984 hip-hop film Beat Street and a remix version was put out in 1987 when it got to number 23 for two weeks in January of that year. I'm so done for

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. Welcome to All Rather Mysterious, the podcast that aims to unlock the mysteries of the past with the key of fact. My name is John Rain. My name is Eleanor Morton. My name is David Reid. Please join us as we present to you mysteries that have baffled the world. You had any noises? What about a door creaking? No, you don't have to do that. That weird ka-dunk that lights going off makes for some

reason in films. All rather mysterious. Frees and I owe you from 1983 and 1983

has really been a renaissance year for Michael Jackson with Billie Jean he had a number one

hit and it was fantastic but the video was something else. Bates in his oh hang on is that the doorbell Taylor

do you want to get it oh can't you get it oh fucking hell Simon come on in mate how are you hello ho ho na dole chlauen

alright yeah how you doing happy new whatever it is Simon i can't believe you're sitting around watching an old top of the pops i know it's terrible isn't it isn't that just a bit of a busman's holiday a bit much like the day job but but why not get you sent a sherry i say you appear to be dressed like ian asprey simon what's going on there yeah um i kind of slept in my costume from last night in which I was at an online interactive event, which, let me just say, that is my idea of hell,

but at least it was online. You know those sort of immersive theatre things or like murder mystery things that sometimes you get roped into quite often as a sort of team-building exercise? Yeah. It was a friend's birthday and I had to take part in this kind of like you know murder mystery thing and uh the theme was conspiracy cult or corporate so obviously uh only one words jumped out at me there and uh you know me i didn't have to dig too deep in my wardrobe

to find um a sort of frilly musketeer shirt some tight white jeans and a black wig and a paisley headband and a fuckload of rosary beads. So yeah, that was the photo that delighted all my Facebook friends last night. Can I share it with the Pop Craze youngsters? Yeah, go ahead. Yay! So Simon, Christmas 1983. Yeah. Any memories? It's funny,

we've literally discussed the episode three days before this one. Neil and I did it, I think, episode 16? The week before. Yeah, yeah. The week before this one. Yeah, yeah.

We've already done that episode. Yeah, and it was, of course. Here comes JISM, the episode that gave us that immortal chart music meme. Yeah, so I've already talked about where i was at in my life quite a lot i even re-listened to it just to check let the pop craze youngsters go back to that episode then go find all that so you know yeah i talked a lot about how i gained acceptance through the the twin-pronged attack of a cardigan and being funny um but um the other thing that i sort of remembered that i didn't mention that time was just my my knowledge of music in itself became a thing to make me popular.

I remember because I was just such a sort of music geek and that gave me a huge amount of respect at that time. Rather than, you know, it could have made me kind of laughing, like, what's wrong with this guy? But yeah, at that time it wouldn't. No, I mean, i was known for this encyclopedic knowledge people used to try and catch me out at school i remember this one kid coming up to me and saying all right then and he thought he had a really good one here all right so all right then i bet you can't name the lead singer of echo and the bunny men and this was i think possibly the bunny men hadn't quite started having hits yet but they

were quite a known band and you know he thought that was a really obscure one and quick as a flash I played Ian McCullough and he just walked away

like smack yeah yeah and he walked away sort of like shaking his head like you know like this guy

fucking out it was so easy so yeah cardigans jokes and knowing about music meant that I could relax a bit more yeah yeah it meant i could walk home from school without wondering who's going to jump out at me

uh you know wondering what what foe may assail me on the walk things things had relaxed a little bit by then so it's it's quite a nice year yeah good good and this is a fucking corking episode isn't it sorry al i don't know what you mean you mean this episode that i've just walked into your living room when you happen to have one yeah of course yes yeah well it's been good so far even though there's only been one song yeah i i remember exactly the episode you mean it's almost as if i watched it yesterday yeah it it's uh it's still a time when um what's in the charts and my own tastes haven't parted ways significantly. So, you know, my own taste was a real scattering of things without any particular central focus,

like ABC, Culture Club, Style Council, Dexys, Big Country, Madness still hanging on in there. I had a brief Joe Boxers phase wearing wearing a string vest um uh things like the smiths and the cure were just starting to appear on my radar but i hadn't gone alternative yet i was very much a smash hits kid and 1983 is very much a smash hits year and i think that that sort of vibrancy of pop does come over in this christ episode. Also, I hate it when people try and retrospectively cool wash their tastes. So I'm going to admit here that two of my most played albums

of 1983 were Labour of Love by UB40 and No Parley by Paul Young. But both albums which people don't tend to say, oh yeah, of course, of course I was into No Parley and Labour of Love. But, you know, can't change the facts. That's what was on my turntables at that time and yeah there's

plenty of stuff in this TOTP that having fought my usual battle with my elder relatives to even get to see it on Christmas day because they thought we should just sit around maybe playing charades telling stories of old and maybe

watching the Queen that's the only thing we allowed to watch was the queen talking about the fucking good old days yeah yeah yes yeah so yeah you'd want to do that yeah um yes exactly so so um having won that battle um i i would have thought it was it was worth the fight because there's enough decent stuff on here to enjoy so let's continue then bait in his supply teacher jacket and a tintily lay surrounded by the kids and a scattering of members of city farm tells us that it's been a renaissance year for the next artist and that we really need to check out the video it's billy jean by michael jackson we've covered michael jackson many a time and often chart music and this single was the follow-up to the girl is mine the duet with paul mccartney which got to number three in november of 1982 according to the biographer j randy tarabarelli

it's based on a woman who sent Jackson a string of letters throughout 1981 claiming that Jackson was the father of one of her twins, culminating in her sending a photo of her, a gun and a letter telling him to kill himself at a particular date and time and that she'd do the same to the baby and herself so they could all be together in the afterlife. So Jackson naturally did what all of us would and hung the picture up in his family's dining room. According to Jackson, he was so obsessed by the song that while he was going through his head on the way to sessions for Thriller, he didn't notice that his car had caught fire.

It was put out as the second single off thriller in january of this year and in the first week of march it became the number one in america where it stayed for seven weeks and then became his second solo number one in the uk after she's out of my life when it deposed too shy by kajagoogoo seeing as michael is about to have his Christmas dinner underneath the photo of his stalker in America we get to see the video directed by Steve Barron who did the videos for Strange Town, When You're Young

and Going Underground for the Jam Time for Action by Secret Affair Ant Music by Adam and the Ants, Made of Orleans for OMD, Stepping Out by Joe Jackson, Love Action and Don't You Want Me by The Human League, Promised You a Miracle for Simple Minds,

It Ain't What You Do, It's the Way That You Do It for the Fun Boy 3, and Bananarama and Africa by Toto. Fucking hell, there's a CV. Yeah. Or a show reel, if you will. I mean, some of those are sort of bog standard doing the job videos,

but Take On Me by A-Ha, that is a solid gold classic. Just very innovative, obviously. Oh, he did that later on, didn't he? Yeah. I mean, fucking hell, it still shocks me that this, this fucking song

was not the first thing we heard off Thriller. And he went with A Girl Is Mine with Paul McCartney. It's weird, but I suppose in a way, sort of hooking himself onto paul mccartney's legend status was it was a signal a sign really of how almost how low um jackson's own um reputation had fallen at that time because obviously we're talking about an era when things move so quickly that three years was an eternity yeah and um i mean previously like everyone else uh well maybe not everyone else but i'd loved off the wall um

especially the title track but that felt like a million years ago by yeah by late 82 so he comes back doing a duet with mccartney and it's almost like oh yeah remember him um and certainly so this is Billie Jean um you know second single off the album but his first kind of solo single if you like yes there's no guarantee it was going to be number one just because it was Michael Jackson do you know what I mean no at that time it wasn't a banker it wasn't even nailed on that it would be a hit at all plenty of stars of the disco era were now struggling even to crack the top 40

and we're talking about people who had huge hits in 78, 79 so everything was kind of up for grabs and you know

Thriller had only come out a couple of months before this single came out they brought it out in January which is always always the trick isn isn't it, to get a cheap number one? You know what I mean?

Because there's hardly anything else about. So CBS thought, look, we need to get this guy a big hit. Let's just bounce it out there where there's very little competition. And it's weird to think of that now because this became his biggest selling single ever. It's one of the defining tunes of his career and of the 1980s.

But it is worth remembering that the success of this track, which now seems so obvious, was not obvious at that time. I remember being absolutely shocked when it got to number one. And another thing as well is that around about this time when the Style Council started up, I joined the fan club, the Torch Society. And they'd send out kind of like newslettery things every now and then. And I remember reading it and it saying, oh, you know, congratulations to Michael Jackson to get into number one with Billie Jean or something like that.

And I was absolutely shocked that Paul Weller liked this song. Right, yeah, yeah. And that was the kind of like barometer for me at the time or if paul weller don't like it i don't yeah it is surprising though you're right thing is um he did seem kind of an old-fashioned figure um something from previous age when when he turns up simon bates goes on about what a great video this is and it's probably just hindsight but you look at it now and think is it is it really i mean they they threw they threw a lot of money at it i guess by that era's standards but it's very corny this very corny sort of detective mystery angle to it

you know jacko being pursued by a private detective slash paparazzo who who sets off a polaroid camera but guess what when the picture comes out jacko's not in it and all that but um it does it does seem um the sort of production values that you would now expect bare minimum from a shiny flawed itv saturday evening dance routine you know yeah um it's got a big cat in it fair enough any any 80s video with a big cat is a winner as far as i'm concerned you've got you've got um you got a panther in hall and oats man eater and uh adam and the ants prince charming of course in which diana doors waves her wand and a normal cat turns into a panther and that's kind of what happens here you've got a cat it jumps behind um a dustbin the sort of dustbin that you only see in sort of american fiction like in um yeah where top cat

lives top cat yeah exactly yes and it comes out the other side and it's a fucking tiger or at first is it a tiger is it like a sort of ocelot or something a bit smaller? Then finally at the very end is this huge fucking cat. But yeah, it's a bit underwhelming through modern eyes, perhaps. Yeah, but at the time, I mean, Bates can tell us all he wants to watch the video. But if you're a pop craze youngster in 1983, you could just shut your eyes and you could see virtually every frame of this in your head. Because it got played a lot. That's the thing.

And at the time it was, oh my God, look how glossy and mad this is. It's interesting to me how memorable every second of this video is to me. Yeah. And not just this video, almost everything in this episode. Because I didn't have a VHS recorder. I didn't even know anyone who had one at that time. I may be one kid. Because I didn't have a VHS recorder.

I didn't even know anyone who had one at that time, or maybe one kid. So, you know, you had to sort of... You maybe see these videos three or four times if you watched every music programme and you happened to catch them, if you were lucky. Yeah. And they just sort of imprinted themselves on your retina. It's really interesting how,

whether that's a sign of the era or the impressionable age that that we were at at that time but yeah jacko seems almost like a kind of a figure from the golden age of mgm musicals or something like that there's a bit of a kind of bob hope or um gene kelly kind of feel to him even his trousers trousers, right? His trousers, they're a bit half-masked. They're a bit, you know, to show the white socks and to show off his footwork. But they've also got a very slight flare, though,

a very slight kick flare on them. And you know me. You know me. I was the Matthew Hopkins of flares. I was the Saxon Finder General at my school. The Saxon Finder General. Going around my school shaming kids who had a slight flare on their trousers and um i would definitely have shamed jacko for his trousers had he been at my school if he'd been at my school of course there would have been all kinds of

eyebrows raised for all sorts of reasons but let's not go into that but um but if if i if one of my friends had expressed even a liking for michael jackson that would have made them a flared person in my mind you like michael jackson and and you know i've been on about what what he looks like and so on and what the video looks like and it's obviously him stepping on a paving stone and it lights up was like oh it was mind-blowing was mind-blowing at the time. We can't, we can't take that away from it.

That was so fucking cool. But there was something. It was like nightmare, wasn't it? Right. Yeah. Game show. I suppose the precursor for something like that would have been the lit up

dance floor in Saturday Night Fever, but that was just making random patterns. That wasn't responding to the dancer and where they put their feet which is just yeah to to this day you watch you think okay that is pretty fly that is and his dancing even though it is that old school gene kelly kind of dancing it is brilliant you've got to say you know it's i don't think i value dancing as an art much in those days. I just thought, oh, whatever, you know. All right, stop showing off. But it is pretty fucking incredible, some of the stuff he does.

But again, old-fashioned, because we've just seen Freeze doing I.O.U. with breakdancing in it. So straight after that, you've got this guy doing normal, traditional fancy footwork, like an old-fashioned hoofer, and it does seem dated. And in a way, that applies to the record as well. So, all right, Quincy Jones production, you can't really argue with that, written by Jaco himself. But there's something very, it's very hi-hattie,

it's very trebly, there's not a lot of bass or oomph to it as a dance record. It's very hi-hattie, it's very trebly. There's not a lot of bass or oomph to it as a dance record. Obviously, it's dance-able, but it's a move on from disco. It's not, you know, this isn't a record you could have imagined sitting on off the wall or any album of that era. No. But it doesn't really point the way forward either.

It's hard to think of much that was influenced by Billie Jean. It's one of these weird anomalies in pop that is one of the biggest records of the decade. But it's kind of a full stop or a question mark on its own, I think. What Bates actually says at the start is the record is fantastic, but the video is something else. So he might not actually have been bigging it up because video really isn't that fantastic.

And I like the cats in it, but yeah, you're right. It probably was pioneering at the time, but it just pioneered and broke ground for a lot of other videos with stylised city sets and coloured lighting and stuff. But the bit I do like is when he's going up the stairs and there's some graffiti on the wall behind him which says, Viz Rules.

Which is pretty hip for 1983, but he was a very early adopter. He liked Skin Heed and Paul Wicker, the tall vicar. He used to get it from the Gosforth Hotel on Salters Road. Old Trent House. What I think is so amazing about this record is that it seems to be driven by inexplicable magic because when you look at all the component parts,

it shouldn't be quite this good because it's not got that much of a tune. The beat is quite pedestrian compared to a lot of off the wall and yet it is mind-blowingly great it's like some interdimensional being has blown on it and created some unearthly internal illumination and I'm tempted to suggest that that interdimensional being was called Quincy Jones, which is not to play down the contribution of the bad king of pop, but to me, this is another producer's record. That atmosphere of tension and brooding anxiety

is so strong and so beautifully controlled by the rhythm track, and it just glows and seethes in a manner that's so subtle that you can listen to it a thousand times and you can either dissolve into the darkness or just groove on it and dance and and be happy and when people gripe about commercialism in pop music which in itself is a hilarious missing of the point. I would always direct them to this record, which wouldn't be this record if it was allowed to run free and if its entire

sound and structure were not so carefully constructed to create a worldwide radio smash hit. It's the discipline and concision that's instilled by having to think about this and having to think about other people

basically and balance your creativity and your innovation with a basic popular appeal it's the main driver of greatness in popular music um and it's why this is what it is it isn't jazz it's simultaneously something easier and harder it isn't funk it's something simultaneously easier and harder and better and worse um and i think the key to understanding this record how it actually works as a piece of music is its deep similarity to or similarities to i heard it through the grapevine which musically does precisely the same thing that this record does. And I don't know whether that's conscious or a coincidence, but there are uncanny similarities which go beyond, you know,

like a brooding bass line and very similar string sections. And I think if you study those similarities similarities it can teach anyone a lot about arrangement and production like however much they already knew you know although I sometimes wonder if the the air of darkness and paranoia on Billie Jean is helped perhaps subliminally at least for British people by the almost exact resemblance between that string shiver that appears out of nowhere in the chorus and the electronic, for want of a better word, jingle on the Protect and Survive adverts with Patrick Allen.

You know the ones that wrap your nan in polythene and leave her in a crater? I mean, I'm 100% sure that's a coincidence, but it is quite a creepy one. I thought we were going to come to nuclear paranoia a little bit later in the episode, but yeah. Get it in now. That's a really good comparison with

Heard It Through Grapevine. Hadn't thought of that before. Obviously, I'm now going to ruin Taylor's really good Viz joke by talking about what it really says uh and the graffiti on the stairwell which is the whiz rules which of course a reference to the 1978 adaptation of the wisdom of us in which michael jackson plays the scarecrow now the thing with the whiz is is that Jackson got fairly good reviews himself. And he said doing that film was the greatest experience of his life to that point.

But critics hated it. So this little thing in the video, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to think where it says Wiz rules. It's not some random bit of graffiti. There it is. You know, he's basically saying, screw you to the critics. Yeah. Can you imagine if The Wiz came out now? Can you imagine the response on social media

and the comment sections of tabloid newspapers? It's like The Wizard of Oz, but there's one big difference. Not sure that would go down to well with certain sectors of society. Yeah, yeah. Fuck them. I'll tell you what, it's always bothered me about thriller right like thriller obviously is a great album it's where the 80s really got started it's it's not anticipating the 80s or pointing the way towards anything it just is that thing it's already. And every part is moving freely. It's like, here you are.

Here is the decade you're living in. But, and look, honestly, I don't know whether what I'm saying here is shit and ancient hacky student stand-up material, right? Like mocking the grammar in Live and Let Die. But I've never seen anyone point this out. So tell me, this film genre that he's referencing in the song Thriller with zombies and monsters and evil things lurking in the moonlight,

that's not a thriller, that's a horror. It's a completely different genre. His second favourite genre, but the first is not legally available in the United States. It's like if he'd done a song about men in black bowler hats bumping into each other and falling off step ladders and

landing arse first in barrels of water on scratchy black and white film and then the chorus went, it's a sci-fi! Yeah! It's just, no. Satire! Someone should have said, Mr. Tebby. Fair enough, yeah. If anything yeah it's just no satire someone should have said mr fair enough yeah if anything it's the billy it's the billy jean video that's more like a thrill or even that's more of a film noir yeah kind of thing going on yeah i'm speaking of titles did he not think there was a slight issue

with the title here i well there's one very famous person called billy jean who was even more unlikely to have had michael jackson's child than he was to have fathered it and the song's narrative is completely dependent on you never making that connection in your head lest you big bird it forever right i mean it's like i came out with a song called nigella and i went nice yeah it's just about a girl called nigella yeah you can't cook yeah totally i mean at the time um i certainly thought that diana as well remember well yeah oh yeah yeah it's just any sort of diana yeah um billy jean king totally um that that's what i thought straight away when this when this record came out it's like why why is he singing about

billy jean king what the fuck because nobody had heard of any other billy jeans and i guess to this day i still haven't really yeah no yeah and dodging accusations about his private life of course would become a theme throughout his later career. Get him in early. Yeah. This must be the first time that sex has reared its head in a Michael Jackson song. I guess so, yeah.

I don't want to look too deep into Ben. Oh, God. That's not what he said. Ironically, when Michael Jackson did eventually father children of his own, the sort of suspicion of the paternity suit in the court of public opinion, let's say, was that they weren't his kids, you know? So, of course, 10 years after this,

he could have had the DNA test live on Jerry Springer rather than go into all the trouble of doing a song about it. Yes. This video, of course, is hugely significant in terms of MTV as well. This video, of course, is hugely significant in terms of MTV as well. Of course, yes. They wouldn't show it. I mean, they just weren't showing black artists.

And Walter Yetnikoff, the president of CBS, had to bully them into playing it, quite rightly, into playing it. He was going to go public and tell the world that they weren't playing this guy because he's a black artist. And he was going to pull all of CBS's artists off MTV.

David Bowie, of course, called out MTV's racist policies. That's amazing, that guy. That interview on the channel itself. Or a tin can, as he would call it. Well done, well done. So eventually MTV put it on heavy rotation. The first 52, I think, videos on MTV had no black artists in at all,

and the 53rd was the specials, who were mixed. And then they went back to just like white stuff over and over. So, yeah, I mean, they definitely had a case to answer. You haven't a number where the first black people are on MTV then? I believe so, yeah.

Fucking hell. Yeah, yeah. Did you ever hear the quote from the head of MTV when someone asked him about this? They said, why are you not playing any videos by black artists? And he said, we're not here to cater to minority audiences. Fucking hell.

I mean, that's pretty much the line that the interviewer gives David Bowie in that interview. Yeah. And, you know. Because no white people ever like black music. Exactly, yeah. The number of people who like Billie Jean by Michael Jackson, it's a very small minority of music fans. Now, Michael Jackson with this song, he essentially became the one go-to person.

If ever anyone came up to you on the playground and said, what music are you into then? Who are you into? What are you? And you didn't really know. You just go, oh, Michael Jackson. Really? Yeah. That's interesting. Did you go to a mix school though i went to an all boys school yes right there we go at my school

nobody would admit to being into michael jackson absolutely no way it was just something about that testosterone the atmosphere that um anything less heterosexual than the jam was frowned upon, really. Yeah, the style cancel. Oh, yeah. No, let's not go there, man. Yeah. So, Billie Jean spent only one week at number one, knocked off the top spot by a single we're going to see later on. The follow-up, Beat It, got to number three for two weeks in April, and he'd have two more top ten hits with Wannabe Starting Something and Thriller in the UK,

as well as getting to number two with Say, Say, Say, his duet with Paul McCartney, which featured on Macca's Pipes of Peace LP. And Steve Barron went on to direct Mike Bassett, England manager, in 2001. But, you know. The Big Chiefs and Marge. The Big Chiefs and Marge. Go and be the king. The Big Chiefs and Marge.

What a great year it's been for Michael Jackson. Shecky's had a good year as well. A successful album, The Bot Won't Stop, and the single from that album, Made No. 3, last month. Shecky Stevens is here. It as well. A successful album, The Bop Won't Stop, and the single from that album, Made Number Three, Last Month. Shecky Stevens is here. It's Cry Just a Little Bit. I know it's crazy and I don't know why But I died just a little bit Died just a little bit Janice, who's being bothered by that blonde zoo wanker

who was next to Bates last time, tells us about someone else who has bestruddled the world of pop this year like a white-shod colossus. It's Shakin' Stevens and Cry Just just a little bit but hang on a second that very strange energy in the intro right janice is standing there and they've got this really sort of more glamorous and very smug looking woman to stand next to her with one long satin glove fist on a jutting hip smirking right into janice's face from less than a foot away as if to say oh i see you managed to get to cna before it

closed so it's like a sort of mean girls vibe right she wasn't giving that to simon bates yeah i know but then as soon as Janice introduces Shaky, this woman just immediately melts into a big grin and throws her arms in the air in celebration. Diffuses a potentially uncomfortable situation, which is what Shaky and Stevens is all about, bringing people together. Having women next to Janice, I don't know. I don't know how to feel about that.

It wasn't all sisterly, was it? Put a man there. What they ought to do is put a man next to her showing her the same deference and respect as that woman showed Simon Bates. Yeah. Don't you think? Yeah, yeah.

It's 1983, for fuck's sake. Come on, Top of the Pops. Give Janice some cock. She's not going to want for cock, though, in this. Or pussy, to be fair. I mean i this whole thing that you're saying i didn't even notice i didn't i only had eyes for janice and and her thighs yeah rarely seen she looks great she's so saucy i just and and the thing is she does look kind of like when there's like two people in fancy dress who like didn't get the memo you she does look kind of like when there's like two people in fancy dress who like didn't get the memo you know that's kind of the look but also it's fine

because they are bates and andy peebles yeah yeah basically they didn't get any of the memos at all for many years and that was not by accident you know and nor were they invited to this thing so it is you know that's that's the party that I would want to go to is the one that Janice was going to and Mike Smith. You know, that's where the party's at. But what pantomime costume would you put Simon Bates and Andy Peebles in? Two back ends of a horse. Yes, yes.

Or, I mean, you know, pantomime is Cinderella. Let's just leave it at that. you know pantomime is cinderella let's just leave it at that we covered comrade shaky last fucking episode god and this his 22nd solo single in the uk what's the follow-up to it's late his cover of the ricky nelson song which got to number 11 in august it's been a quiet year by shaky standards but no longer because this single the lead cut from his new LP The Bop Won't Stop which was written by Bob Heatler who gave the world Japanese Boy by Anika came out in early November immediately launched itself upon the charts and spent two weeks at number three at the end of that month. It's still in the charts and spent two weeks at number three at the end of that month it's still in

the charts actually currently residing at number 24 and here he is in the studio making the first of three appearances on the telly over the christmas period oh tidings of heterosexual comfort and joy everyone christmas wouldn't be christmas without an aging hack putting his white shoes all over the turkey he did actually do that once didn't he uh there's uh um because he's got a new anthology out there was an interview that he did with in the guardian um and uh he was that he did he once did um i have more respect for him after reading this, actually, he was playing a company party and furious, furious at the tepid response, it says,

he reputedly climbed onto one of the dining tables, feet in food, and bellowed, scream, damn you, you would scream for Tom Jones, you can scream for me. Yes, yes, after that, I would, actually. That's from his biography biography isn't it that was written by his old manager yeah that's right yeah he's it's an amazing quote i'm assuming there are many other amazing quotes yeah it's a very good read that is yeah yeah if you're into the

welsh rock and roll scene of the early 70s it's an essential textbook but basically a lot of shaking his mates lying about in bands with beer spilling everywhere and the occasional shag. The occasional shag. So there's some story in there that was mentioned in that Guardian bit. I don't know if you get an answer to whether or not he snogged noted novelist Edna O'Brien at the birthday party of Kenneth Tynan's daughter. birthday party of kenneth tynan's daughter like you know the whole like what you do it for the anecdote thing or like it's like you don't

even need that's just like you don't need to know any more than that do you that's that's the best shaky story i've ever heard i think you pulled edna o'Brien yes a guest on the first ever question time they're sort of considering how sort of pedestrian his oeuvre is there's some interesting shit in the margins there yeah I don't have

I fundamentally don't get Shakin' Stevens because he's kind of just some bloke he's done incredibly well and he's got, he was the biggest singles artist of the entire decade and spent longer in the charts than fucking Michael Jackson and Madonna. But I think, I guess the thing is that he's sort of, he's a relatable pop star, isn't he?

He's a reachable and sort of knowable in that way. Like that's one of the types relatable pop star, isn't he? He's reachable and sort of knowable in that way. That's one of the types of pop star and one of the types of celebrity is the sort of next door, wave over the garden fence kind of pop star. Yes. He's a traditional seaside holiday, isn't he? I don't mean that he's end of the pier. I just mean that he's a static caravan. He's fish and chips.

He's a stroll along the prom. He's a stick of rock. He's fishing ships. He's a stroll along the prom. He's a stick of rock. You know, that's kind of what this is. I mean, this is not a great song. He's not selling it very hard either. He seems a bit tired. But I've got to give props to the outfit. That is a really good outfit.

That's a very good iteration of monochrome black shirt and trousers. White shoes, black strides, white coat, black shirt and trousers. Yeah. White shoes, black strides, white coat, black shirt, white tie, black mic, white shoes,

white shoes, sweet Mike Barrett. There's one in every town. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, it would have been, it would have been enhanced by him if they'd had like a little trestle table of like a

Bessad buffet and he'd like got up there and kicked some volvance about yeah the thing is though it would be a good outfit except unfortunately he's he's committed the ultimate faux pas of turning up to the top of the pops christmas special wearing almost the same outfit as sim Bate. Yeah. That's, yeah. And looking a bit like Mike Reed, actually. Doesn't he look like Mike Reed a bit? He does now. Him and Mike Reed, who are the same age,

are almost the same age. Look, it's like, have you ever seen him in the same room? Any day of the week, I'd rather see Shaking Stevens hove interview him than Mike Reed, but that's by the by. Yeah, I mean, by shaky standards, this song is practically futurist, isn't it? Yeah.

It's got synths on it and everything. Is it? What's going on, Shaker? He's trying to move into the 80s with that electronic beat, but even then, it's like a sort of 1950s electronic. It's like, hello, I am rock and rolling robot. Watch me do the twist. Like with plastic concertina bits

joining the limbs onto the central dustbin. Metal Michael. That's the switch it's meant to flip, isn't it? But it's not leaning on it very hard. I mean, it's not like a proper sort of rockabilly shuffle thing it's just a bumger bumger and you know the kind of there's sort of some some key changes at particular moments but it doesn't really go anywhere it doesn't say an awful lot it's a pops it's meant to be like a winsome pop song about being sad and it's meant to make you feel that particular sort of twinkly feeling of melancholy 50s pop.

Yeah, but moderately sad. Yeah, not too sad. A single tear. Rolling cinematically down. A little bit of what makes you miserable does you good. Yeah. Is what he's saying there, isn't it? He's only sad in a natural way

and he enjoys sometimes feeling this way. From those Shaking Stephen's Aprestatin EP. only sad in a natural way and he enjoys sometimes feeling this way from those shaking stevens aprestatin ep cafe formica yes but it is ruined by the synths this record not because they're synths in themselves but because it's got the nastiest most tasteless early 80s synth keyboard sound there's someone vamping all the way through it on this this like ice rink organ sound like john shuttleworth yeah or keyboard cat like in lieu of any audible guitar and it's fucking brutal it's like a nasty yamaha preset it sounds like a Cyberman's kazoo it's practically the only melodic element of the backing track and because

there's not much to this song it sort of has to sound appealing and it doesn't thanks to keyboard cat pounded away with his stiffly outstretched paws but it's it's kind of pointless digging too deep into individual

shaky works because really these are all extracts from a continuous performance like this fades down but he doesn't stop bopping and three months later they just fade him back up again for three minutes call it a different song and there's his latest million seller is i mean i thought when i first watched this episode i thought no i'm all shaken out now i haven't got anything left but there may actually be an infinite number of observations waiting to be made about shaking the churning engine overheating at this point as he steadfastly refuses to move from the spot. Yeah, he's got his heels caught in a tram line

and he can't get them out. And it's like your own heartbeat. It's as boring and samey as your own heartbeat, which you never think about until it stops. It's like the dignity of labour because something on this show had to follow billy jean right yeah shaky is the one artiste who is completely unruffled by that prospect because it's it's just another day's labor for him you know the coal face of self-contained

yeah and i i love that about him because he has no self-importance and he has no need to communicate anything no or to be just here i am again yeah shaking for you yeah i know yeah it's just food on the table and one more hooligan off the street yeah that must be part of the appeal is just the sheer reliability of him is you know he is he is completely you you know it's it's a crazy world but that's one thing that you can you can uh you can rely on is it's shaking stevens i'll tell you what he makes me think of he's like one of those boxers who only exists to lose you know the blokes they wheel in to fight serious boxers who are on their way up so they can put together... All the jobbers in wrestling.

Is that the same thing? Yeah. Because you know how boxers, like, when they get to title fights and that, it's like, he's unbeaten for 20 fights. And it's because they brought in these cauliflower-eared motherfuckers to fight him. You know, you meet them and they're like, you know, I fought Klitschko. I fought Joshua in a pub in Forest Gate and it's like well did you win? No I was neither able nor allowed

to win and it's shaky he reminds me of that a bit, he's always happy to pad out the undercard you know and make up the numbers and you have to have him there it can't all be solid greatness because you would get bored and there it can't all be solid greatness because you

would get bored and there would be no winners and losers you know this is top of the pops doing something for the oldens aren't they in this in this episode because he's supposed to be a family show remember yes but also even in the context of top of the pops if wham and frankie goes to hollywood to seem as thrilling as they should you you've got to have a shaky, you know. And it takes a certain amount of skill and guts to play that role. You know, just standing there every three months getting the crap punched out of your eyeballs by Michael Jackson and Freeze. It's a tough but a noble way to make a living.

Well, it is noble noble it's not like um you know much as i don't have a lot of feeling for him it's he's not pathetic you know there is a dignity there there is you know and he's he is now you know singing kind of socially distanced one song gigs at houston for secondary royals you know and and having a really and having a nice time going oh that was great comrade shaker consorting with the royal family that ain't right but you know i'm uh i'm i'm pleased every interview i read with him now just he he sounds sounds like a stand-up guy and he's had a he's had a great career and people love him and he's massive in poland and apparently so he's got this

19 CD anthology out now and like a singles collection. Yeah, I know this because every single time I go on YouTube I get adverts for it, targeted, no doubt. I'm afraid. People rag on Shakey for a perceived lack of imagination

but do you know what he's called his singles compilation? It's called Singled Out. Do you get it? Do you get it? Say yes. Do you get it? Say yes. Yes. Yeah?

Apparently he signed so many copies of, he went to the record company and signed so many copies of his mighty works that until his hand bled. Oh. What a pro. That's almost the quintessential Shakey story, isn't it?

He just did a mundane thing until his hand bled and you've got to hand it to him. You do, in fact, have to drippingly hand it to him. But yeah, just my final word on Shakey is that my bloke's mate used to be his sound tech about 10 years ago. Right. Had to do his monitors. And the whole of the road crew signed a contract

that you had to call him Shakey. Oh, yes! That's how he had to be addressed. Not Mr. Shakes, not Lord Shakington, not Mr. Stevens, not his shakeliness, but shaky. So it's weird that because it's such a weird combination of like arrogance and humility. Yeah.

You know, you're going to please call me shaky, but hey, call me shaky. But like it's a sign here and like imagine the look you'd get if you if i don't know mr shaking well we saw what happened to russia madley when he called yes yes although he to be fair shaky i'd spent the afternoon with status quo and yes content yes rick parfit's inside jacket pocket allegedly shaky's new lp can't stop the bot but it may have been coated down by the capitalist imperious melody maker but at the end of the cassette version of the bot won't stop something quite remarkable happens doesn't it

shaky grasps yes the white heat of technology you get this message from Comrade Shaker. Hi, this is Shaky. If you've got a Sinclair Spectrum 4.8K computer, why don't you try my game? The program follows shortly. If you haven't, please fast forward to the end of the tape so that you can listen to the album again. The Sh shaky game.

Yes. If you've got a Spectrum. You've got a Sinclair Spectrum 4 8K computer. I think I can tell you right now who hasn't got one. Yes. It's the worst computer game of all time. The story is the programmers had never programmed a game before no and never did again and we're given about three weeks to do it um it's about vampires and bats chasing you

which is a deeply unshaky like thing no it's as if they're it's like they'd written the Bauhaus game didn't want it So they just offered it to Shake. But they tried to bolt it on to Shaking Stevens. The first thing that happens is a text screen comes up and it says, Hi, I'm Shaky. It's late. Even Clive Sinclair has to address him by Shaker. It's late, close to midnight which is not many people realize if you bought the cassette thriller it had a game at the end on it for the

vic 20 where you had to fix the shingles and find time to fix the floor before you got savaged by the hot dog. What happens in Shakey's game is you have to reach the old house of vampires. He says, you have to help me reach the old house of vampires before my fuel runs out. Watch out for the flying bats. They will drive you crazy um oh because when you actually see it it makes the infamously pointless and headachy paul mccartney give my regards to broad street game look like red dead redemption too it's just some lines in a square maze around a house which is supposed to be this old house although it looks like a barrett new build yes and there's a little racing car going around it

which is you driving shaky to the old house um and some bat shaped things moving around and you go bleep bleep bleep until you get no no soundtrack or anything there is sound but not a really nasty version of this whole house or something like in that minder game whether did i could be so good for you that's fucking brilliant the version of i could be so good for you in that minder game is the best version ever of the two it's the best version ever. No, what you're hearing is not gently pasteurised rockabilly music. No. It's this hideous, it-crest-file frequency assault that attacks the alpha rhythms of your brain

and makes you go out and assassinate someone without knowing you're doing it, you know. So you get to the old house in your car with Shakey, which takes about nine seconds. If you're good. And then a sort of teletext-level rendering of Shakey's face appears on the screen with a speech bubble saying,

you're at the old house. And that's the end of the game. And then it just starts again a bit faster. Or if on the way you collide with one of the bats, you get the same shaky face, but this time the speech bubble says, oh dear, a bat bit you. In an eerie foreshadowing of the mess we're all in right now.

Oh Christ, yes. You have died of bat bite. I just, I don't understand more than anything else why Shakey wants to go to the old house if it's full of vampires. Yeah. He doesn't like the vampire bats,

but he likes the vampires. I would say that that's a good explanation of why you ain't going to need this whole house no longer. No. Not where you want to go. Unless it is Shaken Stevens' vampire killer and he's got a massive jeweled crucifix. And he's just going to cut a swathe

through these swooning black-ed figures i don't know but that sounds like a better game than the one that we're playing um i don't know why you needed a sinclair spectrum 48k computer to play it because it looks like it would have run just as well on a kettle and i don't know why they think the kind of person who would have a sinclair spectrum 48k 1983 would want to buy a shaking stevens tape it's 4 8k out oh sorry 4 8k do apologize i just imagine shaking stevens core audience ignoring all that and then all of a sudden it goes and thinking what i'll fucking the fuck is going on with Shake Here? But I do have to say, that track is David Stubbs' favourite Shaking Stevens track.

He wrote a chapter about it in his book, I think. It just sounds like the golf game that Bart Simpson gets that is a terrific disappointment. And imagine trying to get the car to go faster or try and get yourself bitten by a bat just to see what happens. Like, you have selected power drive. Yeah. Yeah, and speaking of Simpsons, Shakey's spoken intro is,

I've never heard anything more like Kry the clown doing the voice for the crusty doll he's just like hi i'm shaky really want to drink um here's the game but later that night on itv comrade shaky dropped the czar bomber of heterosexual rock and roll when he unveiled his follow-up single, A Rocking Good Way, with none other than Bonnie Tyler for an unprecedented show of Welsh force on Jimmy Tarbuck's Christmas All-Stars. That single would be released a mere five days from today and eventually got to number five for two weeks in January. But it wouldn't be the last time Comrade Shakey made himself available to the proletariat over Christmas,

because on Boxing Day, he would be the special guest of the Keith Harris Christmas party. Mingling with Orville. Listen to this list, man. Mingling with Orville. Cuddles. Dippy the Dinosaur. Stu Francis.

The Green Goddess. Mike Reed. John Craven. Fern Britton. Janet Ellis. Floella Benjamin. Outside of the dustbin. Ian McCaskill.

Patrick Moore. And Simon Bates. And whoever else was knocking around the BBC bar at the time. I always stick with Keith Harris. He never really found his role in life until he changed his name to Bendover. LAUGHTER Cry just a little bit Cry, cry, cry Cry just a little bit Cry just a little bit

Cry, cry, cry Cry just a little bit Cry just a little bit Cry, cry, cry Cry Oh, man, the party's getting properly started now. Simon's over there on the decks pumping out some proper pricey bangers. Sarah and Neil have nipped the beer off before it shuts and me and Taylor have got the urge to flap the fish.

So, you nip out the back garden for a bit, come and taylor have got the urge to flap the fish so you nip out the back garden for a bit come and rejoin us for part three of this massive episode of chart music don't set the neighbors off don't piss up against my back wall and stay pop crazed sharp music great big owl dot com it's an S-Pod thing the podcast revisiting S Club 7's

insane TV show yeah I can't imagine anyone's going to watch this anyone who's not on drugs thank you for bringing this into my life. It was honestly truly

appalling. Guests helped me analyse the show in more detail than anyone ever asked for. It feels weird to me to say the phrase sex object in a show that was aimed at six-year-olds. Do you think one of the problems with this show is that seven is too much? It's an S-Pod thing from

Great Big Owl. One of the problems with this show is that seven is too much. It's an S-Pod thing from Great Big Owl. 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.