Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #58 (Part 4): 23.10.1980 – Top Of The Gear

Episode Date: April 15, 2021

Taylor Parkes, David Stubbs and Al Needham bring an appalling episode of Top Of The Pops to a close, as Travis has a final lunge at the Motor Show models, Barbra Streisand shows us her slides of all the Hollywood crumpet she’s dipped her bread in on, and Legs & Co invent dogging.Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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. 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 listening to? Um... Chart music. Chart music. Hey up you pop crazy youngsters and welcome to the final part of Chop Music 58.

I'm your host Al Needham, they're David Stubbs and Taylor Parks and oh dear we have put some right shit on your shoulders in this episode, haven't we? Fucking hell. Gilbert O'Sullivan's Erotic Buffet, Nolan Tentacle Porn, and the unedifying sights of DLT going full PLP, as in Pepe Le Pew.

There's still a little bit more to go, so come on, let's gird our loins and dip our hands back into the shit bucket that is this episode of Top of the Pops Hello Matthew Hello Are you well?

I'm surviving, thank you, yes Now, I want a close-up of your face on there because everyone's got to look at it because you are actually starting with Doctor Who as his new assistant this coming Saturday, right? I'm surviving, thank you, yes. Now, I want a close-up of your face on there, because everyone's got to look at it, because you are actually starting with Doctor Who as his new assistant this coming Saturday, right? That's right, yes. Are you going to play some sort of monster, or are you a normal human person?

Well, I come from another planet, but I look fairly normal. Well, you look as normal as I do, which doesn't say a lot, really. You've got a record you're holding in your hand there, which is not the Doctor Who theme on close-up on camera three. I don't believe it that's superb well matthew we wish you all the best we'll all be glued to our sets to see exactly who you disintegrate and such like thank you for joining us on top of the pops you can you can even go over and shake hands with the girls because you're too small to kiss them leave that to me

um right i want you all very carefully to have a look at this. Travis, sporting an expression like a lion achieving climax, has his arm round the throat of a young lad. Why? It's the 18-year-old actor Matthew Waterhouse, who is about to take on the role of Adric, the new assistant to Doctor Who, this Saturday on BBC One. Oh, Taylor, that must have excited you. I told you there'd be more for the Loser Massive coming up, didn't I? It's Adric with DLT's arm clamped around his neck.

An equal opportunity space invader, if nothing else. At least this time Adric has been trapped, restrained and tormented by a bearded evildoer. He's managed not to get a hard-on. Another in-joke for the loser massive there, which I don't expect anybody else to get. Right, explain. It's not funny even you explain a joke, Al. What, he got a bunk on during filming?

No, honestly, it's a Doctor Who in-joke that if I explain it to you will not seem funny in the slightest. You'll be drummed out of the secret society, won't you? But this is quite the clash of worlds. Like, look, for anyone who doesn't know, Adric was an alien dweeb stroke twink introduced to Doctor Who by the new producer, supposedly in an attempt to connect directly

with the young male audience who were clearly semi-correctly perceived as annoying, sulky, immature, effectively sexless little brats who were good at maths and very, very bad bad at acting it would be wrong to say that matthew waterhouse was the worst actor ever to appear in doctor who because that's a bar set so low it's located somewhere in the mantle of the earth but he might possibly be the worst actor ever to appear as a regular character in the series provided you don't count sylvester mccoy as an actor and why would you um but probably the most

entertaining thing about adric is studying the contrasting ways in which the two doctors that he worked with visibly express their real life irritation at having to share a set with him tom baker who by this point is three quarters gin won't even look at him even when he's supposed to uh and when he speaks tom just continues to stare off set and makes an expression like he's just caught a whiff of decomposing fish tom's taking it out now whereas peter davison being a very professional character actor tries to channel some of this annoyance into his character. So it's actually the Doctor who's getting the hump. But there's no mistaking the visible and immediate shift up and down in his enthusiasm as he switches between scenes

with a usually skilled and well-respected guest star and then back to the misery of the TARDIS with this whining incompetent anyway spoiler alert in the end adric gets blown up in a spaceship crashing into prehistoric earth and wiping out the dinosaurs because tediously in doctor who nothing that's ever happened in the history of the world doesn't turn out to be the product of alien interference um and all his companions in the tardis when he dies go oh no and then in the next episode they're like oh look there goes concord again uh many reports of young fans cheering his death and slightly ashamed to say that I was one of them. Oh, Taylor.

Can you imagine Travis as Doctor Who? Oh, God. Groping a Cyberman. Initially, with this encounter, I thought that he'd mistaken the geezer for a girl, actually, and then had to kind of, you know, and he got his hand around it and realised, fucking hell,

and had to sort of find out a bit about him and, you know, as his top of the pops wants, improvise something. I love how at the end as well he says, well, you can't kiss the girls. You're too small to kiss the girls. That's for me. It's like, yeah, also too gay, as it happened. But these are the days before most of us realised that almost everyone who's ever been involved with Doctor Who is gay. Or stop to wonder why that might be.

I mean, we were loathe to admit it back in the day, but it's possible the show may be a little camp. After enquiring whether he's going to be a monster or normal looking, After inquiring whether he's going to be a monster or normal looking, he then encourages the lad to shill something else, the new single of the Doctor Who theme tune, available in the shops now on BBC Records. He then tells us to look at something he doesn't even bother to mention by name, Enola Gay by Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark. Formed in Wirral in 1978, Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark was the brainchild of Paul Humphries and Andy McCluskey, who had known each other

since junior school and went on to arse about in various bands in the Merseyside area, forming a distaste for rockism and a love of boffinisation. After recruiting a TIAC reel-to-reel tape machine which they called Winston, they made their debut gig at Eric's in Liverpool one month into their career supporting Joy Division. Not only did it help them land a one-shot single deal with Factory Records, their debut single Electricity, but they were also approached by someone in the audience who invited them to support him on their next tour, Gary Newman. Although Electricity failed to chart, it put them right at the front of the burgeoning synth-pop movement and helped them land a deal with Din Disq, and their next single, Red Frame White Light, got to number 67 in February of this year,

and their next single, Messages, got to number 13 for two weeks in June. This is the follow-up and the only single cut from their second LP, Organisation, which comes out tomorrow. Despite it being banned on Swap Shop, it entered the top 40 at number 35 a fortnight ago an appearance on top of the pops helped it to soar 17 places to number 18 and this week it's slithered up six places to number 12 and here's a repeat of that studio performance oh many things to unpack here chaps i think that swap shop band is is 50 to do with the song being about bombing folk and 50 because no lemons didn't want to say gay on swap shop i was going to say this record significantly ups the already quite large number of times the word gay has been heard on this book

which i think is good because it does act as a counterweight to the display of toxic heterosexuality, which kind of dominates the episode. So, yeah, who knew? OMD's first gig supporting Geordie Vision. Tough gig. You know, you've got to jolly the crowd up for them, haven't you? Yeah. And also, there was always this kind of clash culturally

between Liverpool bands and Mancunian bands, and Mancunian bands always had very laconic names, like The Fall, Magazine, The Passage. And Liverpoolian bands always had very extravagant, long-winded names, you know, like Hamby and The Dance and Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark or whatever, you know, for instance. Dalek, I Love You. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That was my favourite. But I suppose, in a sense, what they do have in common is they're both coming, both Joy Division and OMD. It's not about America anymore. They're products of Europe and, you know, Europe-influenced stuff. There's stuff that comes from obviously from Kraut Rock and Cadbury Voltaire, Throbbing Thistle, Thomas Lear, Robert Rensselaer, The Normal, even Gary Newman. And now this particular distillation, it's now, I mean, a band like Orchestral We Lived in the Dark confirmed that Kraftwerk are the new fact of pop life

as is of course the huge great shadow of nuclear war and yeah there's various things in play in here I guess like you say with Enola Gay so there's that sort of effeetness is ironically referenced the fact that as I said earlier on I mean I like a great many people was absolutely

shitting myself about nuclear war. It was on everybody's mind if you were a teenager. I mean, you know, CND's membership went up tenfold around this time. Oddly enough, it was a track I learnt to dance to, probably, such as my dancing ever was as Ilona Gay, because it's nice, it's got these little kind of right angles, and right angle again, shuffle right angle you know so um yeah so it's set my dog andy mccluskey's your dance teacher it's not a good well maybe not maybe not but uh you know it laid it laid a sort of

it laid a foundation is that the section you cut out of your book? Yes. Yes. Yeah, I didn't mention it in the book. Exactly. Yeah, that might be a bit too self-indulgent. Yeah, because, you know, it is time for the rock expert to explain himself because you are, David, the author of Mars by 1980. Yeah. The definitive story of electronic music, as said by me just then. Yes, that's right, yes.

You paid OMD as much attention in that book as you did to that Pogues album you reviewed. Yeah. So, yes, come and explain yourself because virtually every synth act that sprouted up in the early 80s, in interviews they go to great lengths to praise OMD for demonstrating that this sort of music was chart-worthy.

And it was going to be around for a while. Yeah, so I think, you I think from that point of view, they were definitely important. And I suppose in the book I was probably concentrating on previous pioneers and innovators like your Edgar Varese's and Stockhausen's or whatever. I probably didn't give them enough attention. I had a word count.

The beginning of the book starts with an apology for all the kind of people that don't really get a proper mention, including Jean-Michel Jarre, although to be honest, in his case, that don't really get a proper mention including jean-michel jarlo to be honest in his case i don't really have many regrets about that to be honest um and also i think i wanted to kind of privilege uh people that hadn't enjoyed a lot of chart success or whatever i mean you know there is this constant tendency today to equate pop success with validation yeah and that you know then you kind of explain backwards. So I wanted perhaps to focus on people like Suicide who never got remotely near the charts or whatever

and give them a bit of the old lion's share or whatever. I mean, I did sort of talk a lot about Depeche Mode, I guess, because I was just fascinated by how a group like Depeche Mode, who Paul Morley once described them very provocatively to annoy the Iron Maiden fans as hard groups like Depeche Mode. But in a sense, there was a hardness about them. There wasn't actually a durability, an unlikely durability about them. Yeah.

But, yeah, but generally, I suppose, yeah, I didn't probably give OMD the attention they might have merited, actually. But that's the case with quite a few bands around this time. And especially since they did teach me to dance. Yes. Yeah, that's the case with quite a few bands around this time and especially since they did teach me to dance. Yes. Yeah, that's right, David. Talk up your expanded second volume. Well, this is it, yes.

He's crying out for an expanded volume. Jive Bunny as well, mate. Yes, I know, yeah. I actually went slightly mad actually with the book. Any time I'd hear anything electronic, I'd think, why isn't that in the book. Anytime I'd hear anything electronic, I'd think, why isn't that in the book? Shit. He was playing Mario Kart one day, and I was thinking,

why haven't I mentioned the Mario Kart tunes? I mean, that's significant, isn't it? Why aren't they in there? Definitely. But OMD, you know, I mean, by 1980, for lads like me, we'd had Gary Newman, who was a bit rockier. Then all of a sudden, OMD come out,

and they're a pop band, and you forget how weird this sounded, coming out of the radio, just this weird Casio shit going on, that's right, yeah, because this is a time, that you could prick about,

on those Casios in WH Smith, and not get very far on them, but it's like oh fucking hell look what this can do and I suppose the thing about me at that point as I was 18 and I was already listening to Stockhouse and Stun Raz or whatever so perhaps although I enjoyed dancing to them

I perhaps never didn't quite see what you say the sense of the originality that this was actually unprecedented in the context of pop well my problem here aside from theality that this was actually unprecedented in the context of pop well my problem here i mean aside from the fact that this actual version of the song takes second place in my brain to the version that comes into my head whenever i hear mention of the footballer idrissa

gay sure this day that i hope yes the thin and icy sound of this record is all very nice but once dare has been released what's the use of it it's you put this next to open your heart or something and it's like putting you were made for me by freddie and the dreamers next to i want to hold your hand it's like they're both doing the same newfangled northern thing but one of them is the sun and the other is a warm baked bean you know the similarities are superficial and the difference is significant and i also have never understood andy mccluskey of OMD, which is not to say that I find him intriguing. I just, I don't understand what he thinks he's playing at. Why does he perform like that? It makes no sense.

Why does the bass line of this record do absolutely nothing? It's like Sid Vicious on bass or something. What's he playing at? And the singing is abominable too and he's there bopping away as if he loses money every time someone thinks he's cool I mean what's his game I don't understand it what are they doing they've got the school jumpers and the you can do the cube haircut and it's it's like he thinks that unusual automatically means original or interesting. Whereas, in fact, unusual can just be the result of really bad, incoherent artistic choices made by people with no vision, which might just be what's happened here.

Do you know what I mean? might just be what's happened here. Do you know what I mean? Well, I suppose in a way that OMD are kind of, you know, pointing ahead, you know, towards the 80s and electro pop, but also very much of their time, you know, and what you're talking about, that dancing, everything was kind of quirky and jerky and a bit Leonard Lovitchy and a bit Elvis Costello-y.

That was just sort of the element of the time, really, and they don't really escape it, I guess, in this. I guess, but it's very striking i mean even after watching a lot of early 80s pop acts perform the sheer cuntiness of his performance is like i don't i don't even know what it's meant to suggest normally you look at a singer doing his thing and he obviously wants you to see him as a a tough guy or a sex god or a I don't want you to see him as a tough guy or a sex god or a lovelorn, sensitive type. Or just, you know, an energetic, fun-time party person.

But you watch this, carry on. You can't even guess. Do you know what I mean? What it is, it's like he looks like he might end up filing for a living. Or on the other hand, in two years you might see him hammering on a cockpit door shouting something incomprehensible you know it's like he combines the dreariest aspect of sanity and madness and is there anything worse than being weird but boring i don't think so do you think it'd be better if it stood stock still? Yeah, absolutely.

And remained silent. That would have been perfect. Because the thing is with OMD, they're really early performances. He could have been doing anything. I mean, he's obviously copped a lick or two from Ian Curtis's stagecraft. But whenever you saw them on the telly at first, your eyes were immediately drawn to the fucking

reel-to-reel tape player yeah it's like look what they've done they haven't got a drummer they've got that and they're doing it and they're getting away with it fucking hell i mean people say that it's a long-running joke you know whenever they do the the retrospective documentary talking head things from the early 80s oh you've got to got to mention Andy McCluskey being the worst dancer. But that's because it's fucking true. I have had fantasies about Andy McCluskey and Roland Orsabal getting married and being at their wedding and just wondering what the first dance had looked like. Can you imagine that, fucker?

I can see your point about, you know, old Roland Orsabal, yeah, his particular upper body antics, but... Oh, it'd be glorious. Yeah. I mean, in this case, he's got a bass in front of him, and it's almost as if the rest of the band go, look, just give him this.

This'll curb the worst of the excesses. But I don't know. I don't know how to feel about this. It's clearly a decent song, and it's interesting that, you know, someone's done a jaunty song about dropping a nuclear weapon on some Japanese folk. But I never got on with OMD at the time.

And I still find myself struggling to get over with that initial hatred. To me, they were the sort of band that were liked by older boys who wanted racing bikes and cameras for christmas you know what i mean yeah my mate at the time gormy dawner mark dawn he was well into omd and this is where my my dislike of him stands because he was just playing them all the fucking time going on about him all the time he was the one i believe i mentioned him in a

previous chart music he was the one who had omD printed on the back of an Arrington, which really offended me. The lettering of the D was a bit disjointed, so it looked like he got Omo on the back of his Arrington. Ill-advised. And I put it around the school playground that it was actually supposed to be Homo, but the H had fallen off and i i got thumped

for that so yeah yeah so i started putting around the joke who likes omd only mark dawn think about it yeah yeah yeah very good very good but this this can happen and this can affect you know having a lifelong sort of adverse effects on your appreciation of a band. And, I mean, Simon's always getting at me about ELO, but, I mean, I constantly battle with my brother. I mean, he was always trying to play out of the blue on the family record player when I was trying to play him in Faust. And so, you know, it's things like this

that can kind of affect your opinion of a band for the rest of your life, really. Yeah. You know, you'll never forget, you know, old Mark Dawn.'s going to be like a like a shadow like the shadow of nuclear war he's gonna you know yes a giant shadow of your appreciation of animal i'm a bit distressed by this idea that um andy mccluskey being perceived as such a terrible dancer given that it was him that set me on the road this could possibly explain 30 years of embarrassment, I suppose, of me on the dance floor.

You know, set on completely the wrong path. Taylor, you're always going on about kick-starting new movies. Let's do a remake of Dirty Dancing with Andy McCluskey and David. Yeah, and Roller Doorsable and what's his name, Out of the Fine Young Cannibals. Yes. But look, we're talking all about Andy McCluskey here. Come on, let's talk about the other members of OMD.

I've forgotten that there were these two other blokes in OMD as well. In fact, I forgot about them while they were actually on screen with their grey v-neck jumpers. Like the other keyboard player, who isn't the one that you think of as being in OMD, looks like a civil service whistleblower found dead in his greenhouse. And the drummer looks like he's just a bit annoyed

that he's had to put down Mini Munchman for a couple of minutes. I say, OMD, fuck them. That's what I say. I would rather listen to Stu Francis than OMD. At least he could crush a grape, which I reckon is probably beyond these failed milk monitors. My flatmate, Ricky Cleaner, I mentioned before,

he used to put photos of cocks under his pillow. He knew Mal, who was the drummer in Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark. And when we were going through our period of sitting at home, getting caned, watching Top of the Pops on UK Gold, every time

OMD would pop up and he'd piss himself at what Mal was wearing that week. There was one period where he had this kind of like black netting over him, like a jumper made out of black netting. And yeah, he pissed himself for a good 10 minutes. So yeah, good on you, Mal. I remember Smash It's printing a joke that I think someone sent into the letters page. Right.

think someone sent into the letters page right what do you call a man vacuuming his front room at three in the morning with a bird of prey on either shoulder hawk kestrel man hoovers in the dark and i can honestly say i've had more joy out of that joke than the lifetime's work of OMD, who somehow own houses and can replace their shoes as soon as holes appear in the soles. It's a funny old world. I won't miss it.

I'm just a little bit stunned and subdued by the idea that for 30 or 40 years I was dancing the wrong way. So the following week Enola Gay jumped four places to number eight, then dropped one place to number nine, then nipped up to number eight one more time, but no further. It would go on to be a number one single in Italy and Spain,

despite, or possibly because of, the fact it was temporarily banned on certain continental radio stations due to the gay bit the follow-up souvenir the problem went no no it's all right it's not gay it's about killing loads of people well that's all right then the follow-up souvenir did even better getting to number three in september of 1981 sparking off a run of three top five singles on the bounce, and they'd have 12 more top 40 hits until they split up for the first time in 1996. But two years later, on the advice of Karl Bartosz of Kraftwerk, McCluskey put together a group to showcase the songs he couldn't use for OMD,

and they grew up to be Atomic Kitten, who would have 13 top 10 singles and three number ones between 1990 and 2005. Yes, Kraftwerk is to blame for Kerry Katona. Didn't fucking hear that

mention during the tributes for Florian Schneider last year, did you? again this mother's proud little boy today all this kiss he gave is better than the good thing Richard and Mel Gonna make your lives better today If you'll subscribe to our podcast

You know it's all about how to get the most out of your partner And we're partners So we know all about it It's good Get it wherever you want to get it when you go and get it from your podcast place. Richard and Greta. You know.

You know. That's Enola Gay for you there and it was from Orchestral Manoeuvres and Art No. 12. I've got one of the legs here. It's Pauline. She's bigger than she looks, I'm telling you. This is Disco, our little motor show theme. Travis, back amongst the kids, now has his hairy paw clinched around the waist of a new victim, Pauline, out of Legs & Co.

After mocking her size, he introduces her and her mates, cavorting to DISCO by Otter One. Yeah, the worst bit about that bit with Pauline, well, no, the worst bit is when Travis says, I've got one of the legs here, as he also wrote in a taunting letter to police. And then when he releases her from his grip and she dances away, he goes, hee, hee, hee, hee,

and does a little point like he was looking at a cartoon mouse, which Pauline shrugs off with the weary air of someone working in a klaxon factory who just doesn't hear the klaxons anymore. Formed in France in 1979 by the Franco-Belgian production team of Daniel Van Gaard and Jean Clouguerre who had previously worked with Sheila of Sheila B Devotion fame, Nana Moscore, Sasha Distel Petula Clark and was currently mastermising the rise of the Gibson brothers Ottawa were a duo formed as a French response to Boney M with the Caribbean born Patrick Jean Baptiste and Annette LTC mime into

some session singers originally recorded in French when it was put out in 1979 with the english version on the b-side it ripped through the euro charts becoming a top five hit in austria belgium germany the netherlands norway and switzerland and after it made its way to the continental countries in the summer of 1980 it was released over here entering the top 40 at number 28 at the end of september then soaring 20 places to number eight and this week sees its third week at number two held off for the first two weeks by don't stand so close to me by the police it's been on top of the pops three weeks on the bounce now. It was the outro music the week before and the week before that.

But instead of going to the video, which they played a month ago, here come L, E, G, X and Co. They are L, lovely ladies. They are E, ever so elegant. They are G, gyraceous. They are S, lovely ladies. They are E, ever so elegant. They are G, gyraceous. They are S, super saucy. They are co-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o- They've been dealt an exceptionally bad hand here, haven't they? Yeah, yeah. I mean, Travis at this point is just getting worse and worse.

He honestly needs taken out with some sort of blow dart full of anti-testosterone sedative of some sort. It's just atrocious, really, the groping. And poor old Legs & Co, I always thought there was an understanding normally that they get to perform at a remove, that they're not within groping distance and i feel that like that has been breached on this particular sordid occasion there's a sort of do not touch thing that has been grossly breached so i do feel for them i mean it's not i mean and i think that's obviously must sap their will a little bit i suppose but the outfits the tartan skirts skirts, the kilts, what's that all about?

It's an invidious task that they've been set. I mean, for Legs & Co, it's a life of invidiousness, I suppose, in lots of ways. But it's not one of the greats, definitely. I mean, Otawan, it's the sort of thing, my mum used to dance to this at her keep fit class in the 50s. And I think that's kind of the record. It is, really.

I mean, it's the ultimate schlagerification of disco. It's very Shape Up and Dance with Peter Powell, isn't it? Oh, yeah, very much so. But there's something slightly arbitrary about the legs and know, the Legs & Co costumes there. I mean, you know, the line dancing boots, or maybe they are slightly appropriate. Maybe there is a sense of this is disco as line dancing, I suppose. They're wearing kind of like white boob tubes,

tartan skirts and white cowboy boots, which is known nowadays as the porn outfit, isn't it? Yeah, it's just brazzers, isn't it? Yeah. But this whole thing is legs and co finally reduced to being the mute attractive women who stand near new cars at motor shows it's their inevitable creeping fate you know and i mean it's painful to see i mean fuck it's awful they're underneath some bunting and they're surrounded by men in cars. The whole thing looks like the ceremonial opening of a dogging event

in the festival of Brexit, doesn't it? That is the awful moment when you realise that these cars aren't unoccupied. You see the arm outstretched, you know, like caressed around the side of the car door. You realise, fucking hell, they've got blokes in these things. Yeah. Making the headlights on the TR7 go up and down as well, man. It's so fucking sinister.

It's like chucking out time at the local dance school, isn't it? It's awful, but it just gives it this weird ear effect of a kind of close-up driving Legs & Co event, you know, up close and creepy. It's awful. I really feel for the girls on this one. Yeah. and the fact that they've got all the cars there means they've got about the length of a plank to dancing yeah so there's nothing they can do but but proto line dancing yeah and i mean this routine i think has been choreographed in a bit of a rush. They're just doing mad Lizzy moves

and by the end they're reduced to pairing off and wagging their fingers at each other in time with the music which is, it's like the secret Flick Colby signal for I've run out of dance moves and it's already Tuesday. It's like blinking

her eyes in Morse code while delivering the hostage message. Maybe we shouldn't be too harsh because this is still what a lot of Italian primetime television looks like today. Except with less

boxy cars. And women who don't look like they could possibly have been spawned by anything so lumpy and imperfect as a human being. So considering that this fiasco is further in time from where we are now than it is from World War II in the opposite direction, maybe it's not worth that much of a grouse.

But I don't know. It's all formative wasn't it you know that's the thing it's i i'm actually feeling sorry for the cars at this point i think they're beginning to feel as immobilized and humiliated as some of the women you know as if they're kind of mutely saying look if we could auto ignite if we could self-propel we'd be ruining the fuck out of here yeah it's just a shame one of them isn't christine but i like this song right i know it's not very good i know it's not very good it's not a weighty groove and you know but there are there are thousands of worse records than this which still exist right and when i was eight i thought it was catchy. And I was intrigued. Oh, come on. Who doesn't like the spell out bit?

Who does not like the bit where it goes, she is de-dyspeptic. She is, I, still infectious. She is, S, super squashy. She is, C, cylindrical. She is, oh, which it does stand for, right? O does stand for, oh? Oh does stand for oh. Yes. And there aren't any other words that begin with oh.

No wonder this was a big holiday hit, because once again, like Baltimore and Tarzan Boy, there's a bit where you could just go, oh! Yeah, yeah. Which is, you know, that's gold for a song like this. It's true. If you can get some twats in Union Jack shorts to hold both their pints up, Which is, you know, that's gold for a song like this. It's true. If you can get some twats in Union Jack shorts to hold both their pints up while you're singing it,

then you're on to a winner, aren't you? Yeah. I know they've arrived a bit late with this sound. Just a bit. It's all a bit Invicta plastics, but it serves more of a purpose than Enola Gay, because at least some people have had a good time while it was playing,

including me, when I was eight, at receptions for various doomed family weddings. You know, all hepped up on cheese footballs. I've got nice memories of this song. And, if nothing else, you can't help but be intrigued by the fact that this group is called Ottawan,

as in a person or thing native to Ottawa, Canada. Yeah. Because how many other groups on this show genuinely have something about them that makes you think, what, I didn't see that coming. Yeah. I mean, it's not much. It's like calling your disco band Brumme. Yeah.

I mean, I'm not saying that grants them free entry to the hall of rock and roll greats, but in a cavernous NCP car park stewarded by Dave Lee Travis on heat, it's something wholesome to cling to. Well, it's actually the most wholesome element of this performance. It's certainly the least sinful aspect of it. That's true. So the following week, DISCO dropped one place to number three.

This was nearly a number one. Fucking hell. And slowly descended down the charts, still remaining in the top 40 a month later the follow up you're okay only got to number 56 in december of this year but just when we thought we'd seen the back of them they responded with hands up give me your heart which got to number three for two weeks in september of 1981 disco finished the year as the fifth best-selling single of 1980, one behind Super Trooper by ABBA and one ahead of The Tidies High by Blondie. It would have a

second life when N-Trance did a landfill rap version that got to number 11 in April of 1997, and a third life when Chico Slimani took it to number 24 in August of 2006. Chico is the only pop star whose house I've been in. Is there a story at that? I did an article for the Daily Mirror before he was on X Factor or whatever, when he and somebody else called mac attack were lap dancers and they had a lap dancing night at uh caesar's called lap attack and i was a trainee lap dancer for the night went around chico's ass and he showed me the ropes so he got he had some ropes did you just look at him or did you get to experience i wasn't as successful as i was as it was a male stripper

when i was a male stripper you could get away on your hutzpah and yeah you have a goners but being a lap dancer for women you had to essentially be a brick shithouse yeah but the problem was that they gave me an officer in a gentleman outfit and i i just looked like a fucking skegness deck chair attendant not a good look and there appears to be two official otter ones still in existence one based in dusseldorf the other in st petersburg and of course daniel vanguard is best known today as being the dad of one of daft punk that's right. I just imagine Otter One would have just long ago bought the little private

Mauritian island next door to Trio, you know, the geezers did da-da-da, which is one of the top five best-selling ever singles

or something like that. That's probably why we don't hear an awful lot of them these days. It's so special. Crazy, crazy. Oh, oh, oh. She's deep. Till I crazy She is deep, oh, oh, oh She is deep, delightful

She is high, incredible She is awesome, special She is sweet, sweet, sweet That's been very special. Especially top of the top. Disco, which was performed to Ottawa and amongst all the cars. Talking of cars, there are lots of cars, of course, at Birmingham for the Motor Show this year. And you're at the show as well there, aren't you?

Yeah. Just showing yourself around generally, and yourself. Yeah. Oh, they get all the best ladies at the Motor Show, but we pinched a few for tonight. Now I think we'll have a look at the charts from number ten upwards. George Benson, Love Times Love.

Excellent record goes up 11 places to this week's number ten. We could have had George Benson. Yeah, excellent record, just not for kids. Only footballers. Yes. From 14 to number 9, it's the Curtain Song from the Nolans. Gotta pull myself together.

The lovely eggs. Down four places to number 8. Tweet, tweet, sweet people and the birds were singing. Oh, oh, oh. Pause, pause. We've got to talk about this. Sweet people. Yeah.

And the birds were singing. Fucking hell. Yeah. I have never heard that song. Completely passed me by at the time. How the fuck did that get into the top ten? Yeah, it climbed as high as number four. Yeah.

Very popular with people too lazy to switch on the demo setting on their Bonte Bjorgen and listen to it with the window open, which is basically what this is. They're Swiss, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Godfather's a Swiss rock. You couldn't have had the Young Gods without the sampledelic sound world

of sweet people. They're collapsing the walls between art and life with their brave field recordings, definitely, yeah. It's only a shame that the third man wasn't made 31 years later than this record could have taken the place of the cuckoo clock in Orson Welles' speech. I've seen sweeter-looking people than the geezer on the left, I have to say. He is a Russell Grant with straightened hair.

Yes. I think doughy people was a more opposite title. And one that in a few years' time is going to be an absolute classic is still at seven. If you're looking for a way out, Odyssey. Oh, this fucking band. They're meant by it. He's very reverential about African-American women vocalists, isn't he?

A sort of reverence comes into his voice. Oh, yeah, yeah. He's very, very reverential about African-American women vocalists, isn't he? A sort of reverence comes into his voice. He doesn't feel entitled to tread. OK, you're on. That's Matchbox now. And when you ask about love, moving up four to number six. Oh, phew. People still have baggy trousers. This is madness down to number five. Oh, why isn't People still have baggy trousers? This is madness

down to number five. Oh, why isn't this on the f***ing top of the pops? It's already been on eight times. See, look, he's not dancing like Andy McCluskey. Don't mind him.

Up from five to number four it's Stainless Quo. What's your proposal? Oh, he's doing the nose thing again. This is what you get after a good group wank,

whoever there's no, you know. The police, ex number one for a couple of weeks, now drops down to three with Don't Stand So Close To Me. The most embarrassing moment of my life was when my mum caught me dancing to this in front of the mirror. As you were hanging limp over that drink in a bar in foreign parts this year, this is probably the record you remember.

It's number two from Ottawa. I went to Skegness Bottlings that year. Fell in the boating lake. And up from number nine last week to number one. Very special for Barbra Streisand because it's her first ever number one hit across the two sides of the Atlantic. Here it is, Woman in Love. Life is a moment in space

When the dream is gone It's a lonelier place We cut back to Travis with the two most bored-looking women in the universe on his arms as he incorrectly calls the last single Disco again. He wangs on once more about how there are lots of cars in Birmingham and then asks the red-headed bald woman if she is going to be there. Yeah, she replies.

Just showing yourself around generally. And yourself, says Travis to the bald blonde woman. Yeah, she says. They get all the best ladies at the motor show gushes travis he then brings this appallingly painful segment to an end by running down the top 10 fucking hell things these ladies again are professionally tolerant but we're not told who they are or what they do. Only that they are just showing themselves around generally. But they take it very well.

And it makes me think we look askance at Dave Lee Travis sliming up to all these women. But what if they all loved it? What if after this episode, ten of them went back to his place to suck on one toe each while he

lay back on the bed with his hands behind his head, smoking a cigar the size of a telegraph pole. Now a pipe. Accompanied by the excellent sound of the electric light orchestra. Don't underestimate the unfairness and lack of

logic in this life. I've been caught out that way myself. I mean, those two women, they come off as Bodie and Doyle's girlfriends who get involved in heroin in an episode of The Professionals, don't they? Yeah. Just nothing about them. Being on top of the pops means fuck all to them. It's just another gig they've got to turn up at.

I like to think that those two years aren't evidence of dumb airheadedness or whatever, but a kind of calculated, open nihilistic displays of passive aggression. The mood which has been accumulating throughout the show. But all chaps it's a grim life being a model at the motor show. In an article from the Daily Mirror two days

from now, headline peril of car show hand rovers. the menace of the hand rovers is driving models at the motor show to despair groping men are running their hands over the scantily clad beauties on the display stands and the worried models are having trouble escaping from their clutches one girl was forced to lock herself in a car when an admirer tried to hug her too closely and another slapped the face of an elderly man who is attempting a naughty maneuver the motor show maulers move into action when visitors pour onto the display stands under Under cover of a crowd,

they can let their hands stray with little fear of being arrested. Model Kathy Burnett, 21, of Harrogate said yesterday, the groping has been really bad at times. I had to hit one man over the head with one of our giveaway paper hats another girl 19 year old jackie baker of sheffield said i have had my legs grabbed and been felt in other places several times it really is a menace but last night show organizer jerry cunts says some of these girls are wearing very sexy outfits and i suppose you have got to expect red-blooded males to try it on a bit occasionally. Bit of nominative determinism at play there.

See, girls, it's your fault for being female and putting on the outfits we make you wear. Fucking amazing. That motor show preview with Noel Edmondss that we we saw fucking hell it opens up after noel's not been killed by being dragged about by a helicopter he's there amongst the display of some mitsubishis and there's models there and they're essentially wearing plastic bra and pants with mitsubishi logos over their tits and crotch fucking awful man after running down the top 10 he introduces this week's number one woman in love by barbara streisand born in new

york city in 1942 barbara streisand attempted to launch an acting career at the age of 16 when she did the rounds of Broadway casting agencies but fell into singing when she won a talent competition at a gay club in Greenwich Village in 1960. Six months after being signed up to perform at the Bon Soir nightclub in Greenwich Village she moved uptown to Blue Angel in Manhattan and made it to Broadway in 1962, appearing with Elliot Gould in I Can Get It For You Wholesale. A year later, she transferred to television, appearing on The Tonight Show, The Mike Douglas Show and The Ed Sullivan Show and opened for Liberace at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas. She signed to Columbia Records in 1963,

putting out what were essentially soundtracks of her TV specials, but she wouldn't make an impression on the UK charts until 1966, when second-hand Rose got to number 14 for two weeks in February of that year. But she'd have to wait five years for her next UK hit, when Stoney End got to number 27 in March of 1971. She spent much of the 70s as one of the highest earning actors in Hollywood, with only intermittent chart success over here. The Way We Were only getting to number 31 in 1974,

and Evergreen getting to number three in 1977. But as the 70s tailed off, she switched back to recording, teaming up with Neil Diamond for You Don't Bring Me Flowers, number five, December 1978, and Donna Summer for Enough Is Enough, number three, December 1979. This single, the follow-up to Kiss Me In The Rain, which failed to chart over here, is the lead cut from her new album Guilty, which came out last month.

It's been completely written and produced by Barry Gibb, and even the cover has Barry and Barb having a bit of a furcle. It's entered the chart at number 22 a fortnight ago, then soared 13 places to to number nine and this week it soared again right to the top of pop mountain and here's a mash-up of the video and legs and co's performance from two weeks ago it's very strange video this is isn't it when i reacquainted myself with it i was convinced that the bbc had cobbled it together as it's essentially a cut and shut of film clips and stills but no apparently this is the official video and fucking hell what a shoddy mess it is yeah it's bizarre just to sort of cobble together bits of previous movies it's should we go through it in order so we we start off with photos of bob and sexy lion barry in a clinch

then a close-up of barbara looking very pleased with herself then barbara and chris christopherson on horseback in a star is born looking like they're about to defend afghanistan from the soviet union then there's a still a barbara with robert redford and then it cuts to legs and co and i i just assume that the bbc have put this together at very short notice and just went oh you know what fuck this we've got some legs and coat footage let's let's put that in but no it carries on with the footage of barbara in the bath with chris christopherson with no clothes on and he actually rubs her shoulder and obviously the bbc are going to have none of that then we go to the wedding scene in a star is born where there's some poor cow trying

to give him a present and she's left standing there for ages because they're they're too busy looking at each other which i thought was fucking wrong and selfish of them yes yes then we get some more photos of barbara and then we get barbara on on Ryan O'Neill's piano in What's Up Doc with an inevitable snog. Then it's back to snogging Chris Christopherson on the grass. The essential feeling you get from this is that Barbara Streisand's got you round her house. She's showing you a collection of slides and going, Oh, look at all the Hollywood man crumpets I've copped off with. She's essentially the female Hollywood version of Jack and Stan

in the On the Buses trilogy, isn't she? She's getting stuck into the hunky crumpets of Tinseltown. The one thing I always admired about Barbara Streisand, I mean, you know, was that she never got a nose job or anything like that. I always thought that was a gesture of defiance. But you kind of, as a kid, you kind of see everything that's on telly or whatever. You're exposed to so much. You just watch stuff whether you like it or not sometimes but barbara streisand films tended to completely to pass me by really so none of this evokes any

particular memories for me um i i remember more as a pop star really than as a film star i guess but yeah i mean it's i mean a gluten-free Top of the Pops wouldn't include this track, that's for sure. No, certainly not. Obviously, it's the give factor, you know, working its magic. But, I mean, Bee Gees, when they're doing the disco thing, are the most thrilling thing. Some of the most thrilling music that's ever been made.

But when they slow up, apart from things like How Deep Is Your Love, you know, it's usually this sort of treacle really isn't it and I remember the fact is I know this track so well and that's the difference between then and now really kids don't have to endure this sort of thing if they don't want to it's something they can expel instantly from their lives I mean Alicia my daughter I mean you know she can just live in her own sort of apple-curated bubble of music and tunes or whatever, and there's never going to be times in her life where she has to

sit through some piece of M.O.R. build, you know, for people three or four times her age. Yeah. But this was my fate, you know, and this was the fate of anybody at this time. I mean, I would have heard and had to endure this countless times. It was as inescapable as

dlt's grope dungeon basically um and um and also it made me think about the fact that at this point in 1980 there were probably people actively consuming and buying pop music and feeling invested in watching top of the pops whatever and maybe even going back to the records that if they were alive now they would be almost 100 years old. You know, there was always, you know, I think it was still very much family show at this particular point. So, you know, stuff like this lived alongside, you know, the OMDs and people like that.

Already this year, we've had Coward of the Counter by Kenny Rogers, Together We Are Beautiful by Fern Kinnair, What's Another Year by Johnny Logan, and Crying by Don McLean as number ones. And here's some more grown-up shit to toss onto the pile. Why? What's going on? Well, according to this week's edition of Music Week, in a talk on music industry demographics, Bill Judd, who was the business planning manager of EMI,

has stated that the population decline in the UK throughout the 70s means that, quote, the kids who should have formed the market base in an 80s creative selling cycle have not been and are not being born. Which means there are fewer teenagers around in this decade to buy records or to form a new creative push in music as happened in the 60s and again in the 70s. So yeah, effectively the charts are shit because our parents didn't have enough unprotective sex and are still buying singles. The bastards. Makes absolute sense. He also said that if there is going to be a B-class of the 80s,

they're already about, they've already been discovered. He assumed that it was the police, that was going to be their job, to be the B-class of the 80s, they're already about, they've already been discovered. He assumed that it was the police, that was going to be their job, to be the beakers of the 80s. I always find it facile when people say things like the new Beatles or whatever. So there was only going to be one Beatles and that was the Beatles and that was their job at that particular time. And that's not going to be replicated cyclically. It doesn't work like that.

Well, obviously it means that one band that's going to sell shitloads of records and keep them in Judy Zoot tour jackets who did actually have the biggest single. I think that Don't Stand So Clip was actually the biggest selling single of this year, I seem to think. Yes. But there's an upside to this semi-takeover

of the charts by old stuff for old people. Because as a kid you react to what you find and you make the best of it and you find something there to to uh stimulate the imagination right and it's funny that this song turned up on this episode because i was thinking about it really recently and i wanted to watch the video again because I remember it sticking in my head at the time and being on my mind, right? As I think I said before, when you're about seven, eight, nine,

especially if you're an only child, you can become quite fascinated in quite an anxious way with the adult world, right? And trying to make sense of the adult world. And whatever else this record was, it certainly seemed to be a direct transmission from the adult world. Slightly mysterious and unnerving

because you don't quite understand it as a kid. And like every other disconnected fragment of the adult world that a kid might be able to observe in 1980, like bits of the newspaper, snippets from someone else's dad's Monty Python album, pages from porno mags that you found in a bush. The sketches that you didn't understand on Not The Nine O'Clock News. Yes. didn't understand on not the nine o'clock news yes it was just combed through and studied all these incomprehensible documents you know full of clues as to what was surely to come as if it was like something you had to decode using whatever primitive knowledge that you'd gathered already and the sometimes misleading suggestions of your friends so it's true that kids

today are sealed in their own bubble of their own stuff i don't know if that's wholly positive i remember seeing this video yeah not necessarily definitely i was in this video full of men with muscles and bushy beards embracing this woman who didn't look like a girl right all of it was coded adult right and the strange weariness and quivering emotion of the song and what it reminded me of was going around the houses of my mates whose parents were all slightly younger and more modern than mine and observing bits of their relationships, almost all of which were heading for divorce or else they'd already separated and got back together,

you know, for the sake of the kids. Looking at all of that, I'm thinking, fucking hell, this isn't top of the pops. Yeah. More than anything else, the weird sense that sex had happened in this house yeah right and maybe still did the most confusing and spellbinding thing of all barely real right like at that age sex was like paranormal activity right you never saw it or experienced it you barely even knew what

it was but you heard about it all the time and it had this mysterious psychological power like just the thought of being in a building where it had happened was overwhelming yeah and mind expanding i felt like this when i was 18 then you add to that this concept of relationships right which is what this song is about. Adults having relationships. Not being boyfriend and girlfriend. Yeah. You know, having it off.

It's a relationship. Or a marriage, this weird connection between adults who didn't seem to like each other very much or ever have any fun. What was this? other very much or ever have any fun what was this what people devote in their lives to misery and duty and missing out on everything right yeah and i never got a sense of that from my own parents because they never argued and they never gave any suggestion of having the slightest interest in sex so i was fascinated to observe this in other people's houses yeah try and work it all out all the rules and the logic of the adult world and the closest i ever got to an answer

was what i found in this record in this video which yeah clearly from the title down is a song for and about grown adults with what they called sex lives. There were no children in this room. I mean, you get a similar adult thing from late period ABBA records, but ABBA at least seemed to acknowledge the presence of kids. They were just very Swedish in how open they were in our presence. That made it less mysterious, right? This is after bedtime, doors closed you know it's grown-ups time maybe someone is crying and what came across as a feeling which didn't seem to

make any sense to me at the time which was uh okay this is about a combination of pride and emotional helplessness right nobody singing for kids or teenagers ever carried themselves the way Streisand does on this record, right? It's like, as an adult, you're terrified and suffering, but you're opening yourself up to more of it and simultaneously holding your head up high, right? And the pride and the helplessness are codependent it's like it seemed that the adult thing was not to change things or to run away but to suffer

and tough it out and wear that as a badge of honor a mark of being truly adult because adults are the craziest people. And I never knew an adult well enough to ask them, why don't you just give up and leave, walk away, go and have some fun and fucking cheer up a bit. So I never heard the answer, which would have been, well, it's not that you don't,

it's that you can't. And I'm really glad I never heard that because I would have given up on the spot. I'm a bit older than you by this time, so I didn't see any of that, Taylor, and just thought, oh, fucking hell, this is cat shit. Fucking hated this song. Like David said, it was the fucking monolith

that you had to endure if you wanted to watch Top of the Pops or listen to the radio or the top 40 rundown at this time and i can recall every time it came on the radio or on top of the pops just sitting there just praying that they'd fade out before the bit at the end where she goes proper nanomascora and just starts fucking howling it's a ride i fucking hated that bit yeah i quite like it it's like going around your mate's house and being alone in the living room and seeing the joy of sex on the bookshelf and you rip it down from the shelf and open it up and it's just some drawings of some bloke with a

beard just masturbating. It's like, oh, is that it then? Is that all there is? I'll tell you what, though. The best thing about this record, I think, is not really the song, which is, yeah, it's not one of the stronger Bee Gees emissions. I think her singing is the best thing about this song.

Right. Like, regardless of how lovely the sound of it is, I think that's where all the feeling is coming from. I mean, it's a showbiz professional, right? She's like a pure Broadway singer. And yet somehow the voice is the one raw and wild element on this track. Those big notes are not to everyone's taste. No.

But they have a force and a desperation to them. Yeah. Which may well be acting, but it sounds completely genuine to me. You know, as genuine as any confessional singer-songwriter doing their heart-rending ballad on stage for the 14th consecutive night. You know, it's only acting like that's acting. And I was genuinely astonished listening to this record for this for the first time in years to find that I've caught up with it

and I quite like it. And I'm not sure that that's a good thing. But like most of adult life, it's not a choice. Yeah. I can see what you mean, that it's an impeccable theatrical performance, but that's as much consolation to me or as much thrill or joy to me

as the fact that the band don't play any bum notes, really. Yeah. Yeah, yeah yeah it's not real kids issues is it no well you might prefer a disco material have you heard a version of shake me wake me when it's over no the four tops it's really good produced by rupert holmes i never heard this till the other week um i mean you think oh it's a disco cashing, right, yeah. But it's actually from quite early on. It's 1975, I think. Right. And it's great.

It's really tasteless and really campy, but in a really exciting 70s way. It's all wah-wah and hi-hat and analogue synth. Just too much of everything in the mix. Yeah, it's pretty good. It's pretty cokie, but it's pretty good. So pretty cokie but it's pretty good so woman in love spent two more weeks at number one eventually giving way to the tide is high by blonde the follow-up guilty a duet with barry the sexy lion got to number 34 in january of 1981 and bar a cover of elaine page's memory that also got to number 34 in april of 1982

she'd have to wait until 1988 for her next big uk hit when she teamed up with don johnson and took till i loved you to number 16 in november of that year. Get you into my world And hold you in me Women in love, and that should be particularly pleasing for Barbara Sprysand. She's number one now, both sides of the Atlantic, which is great. Well, I hope you'll join me tomorrow for breakfast on Radio 1, and next week, Peter Powell, who himself has just got himself a new car he's proud of, will be doing top of the box. Till then, on behalf of the whole gang,

we leave you with coffee and Casanova till next week. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Travis, back with the kids, tells us once again that Woman In Love is number one here and in America, before telling us that Peter Powell, who we'll be presenting next week, has got a new car. I'm doing that Alan Partridge shrug. He then signs off with Casanova by Coffe.

Formed in Chicago in the mid-70s, Coffe consisted of Leonora D. Bryant, Glenda Hester and Elaine Sims. Originally a soul act, they scored a local hit with Your Lovin' Ain't As Good As Mine, but in 1977 they succumbed to the lure of disco and were signed to Delight Records, the home of Cool and the Gang and the Crown Heights Affair. records the home of cool and the gang and the crown heights affair this is the lead cut from their wlp slipping and dipping and a cover of the 1967 soul single by ruby andrews it's currently number one in the smash hits disco charts usurping master blaster by stevie wonder it entered the big boys chart at number 29 at the beginning of the month jumped 10 places to number 19 and helped by the twin powers of legs and co got up to number 13 this week it stuck fast there at number 13 but it's still a perfectly serviceable bit of music

to play out on this episode and it's not d i fucking s cunting co first question chaps have you seen the legs and co routine to this song no fucking hell they might as well have called the song look at our knickers go on look at them but this song mint and skill i believe an indication that dance music is more than capable of undergoing its own purge and renaissance you know less of the cheesiness more of the funk this is or should be post disco yeah it's the perfectly appropriate piece of music to the relief that you almost feel surging through the studio this awful ordeal is actually over i mean the way people are kind of getting down to it it's like this surge of energy, as if the word has got round that

DLT has left the building in the Vauxhall convertible that he's persuaded them to ride around until Monday. He's fucked off, the old man has left, and now we can actually have some actual funk and fun. Yeah, although there's only 38 seconds of this

on the original broadcast yeah 38 fucking seconds the best record on this show yeah and this is the kind of song that you need to hear a bit more of it to let it seep into your system well it's a groove yeah yeah it's like but no we had to make room for dlt fucking an exhaust pipe and gurney. Who needs this gently thrilling rhythm when you could just have the grim up and down of Travis's fist on his own simian member

all angry and purple. You know, with his sprawling jet black pubic forest glistening. Everything all lubed up with Duckham's Q. That's what the people want. That's what the people want, even if they don't think so.

Do you think he slept in the Vauxhall convertible alone that night? Not alone? Wouldn't have thought so. Dave Lee Travis. Everyone's getting down. The facade of the fucking car segment, that's gone now. The 4B2 wankers are trying to cop on to some of the girls in the audience, but there's one lad who's come dressed up

as the Hoffmeister bear. He's latched right onto Sue, and she's, you know, she's giving it back. There's nothing sinister about it. It's like, hey, you're dancing, so am I. Let's dance while looking at each other. And there's also a bearded bloke in a soft leather jacket

and shapeless cords who's sort of teacher dancing. Yes. Batting a balloon around as though he weren't one of the crew shunted out onto the floor to make up the numbers. I thought his job was bringing a TR7 to the studio and making sure it didn't get scratched up by the youth. Yeah, it could well be, yeah. Because you see a lot of them about.

You see more old people than usual for an episode of Top of the Pops. Yeah, it could be that, couldn't it? Yeah, they've just opened the door and got out of the car. And right at the end, there's one lad who looks the absolute spit of Jimmy Purcell,

and it did take a lot of re-watchers to establish that it probably wasn't. The fact that he didn't shout, Hello, Mum! Guess who's on the end of this episode of Top of the Pops then? That kind of swung it for me. Although that is a sort of archetypal face, isn't it, Jimmy Percy? The big eyebrows and dog eyes.

There's a lot of those walking around. But yeah, mostly this is the spectacle of people trying to look like they're in a disco while hemmed in by two-door saloons and yeah they wear hats branded with the logos of the spark plug companies um except the except the girls who are obviously models who don't have to yeah but i mean this is the only thing on this episode that you can dance to, really, isn't it? So they had to put it at the end. But it's great.

I always imagine a woozy George Best dancing to this with Miss Border Television at, like, Flipper's nightclub, Marbella, you know, and finding the lyrics hitting a little close to home. Yes. Either that or Chick Brodie when that dog jumped up at him. Another one for the teenagers there. Sorry, I'm tired now. It's an indication that disco's going to transform.

I mean, Shalimar have already been in the charts. The solar sound is kicking in. And British people are picking up on it. You know, this kind of stuff is always going to be welcoming the charts throughout the early 80s and good show to that I say so the following week Casanova dropped

two places to number 15 the follow up Slip and Dip only got to number 57 in December of this year and they were never heard from again and that closes the book on this episode of Top of the Pops. What's on telly afterwards?

Well, BBC One kicks on with Blankety Blank featuring Timbrook Taylor, Lorraine Chase, Noel Gordon, Larry Grayson, Roy Hood and Sylvia Simms. What a fucking line-up that is. Who do you think's in the nutter seat? Oh, Timbo. Yeah, yeah.

It wouldn't be Noel, would it? It wouldn't be Arnole. No, no, no. No, they wouldn't put Larry Grayson there. Larry Grayson is a seat-wanner. That's followed by the first episode on the new and final series of Rings on their fingers the sitcom starring diane keen and martin jarvis after the nine o'clock news it's the eighth part of mckenzie the drama series

about a builder in london from 1955 to 1974 followed by question time featuring roy hattersley and nigel lawson the news headlines and they finish off with a repeat of Kojak, where Telly Savalas pretends to be a bent copper in order to bust a narcotics ring. BBC Two is 15 minutes into more fucking snooker, then it's the latest in the series of BBC television Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew, featuring Susan Penn Halligan, John Byrd, John Cleese, series of bbc television shakespeare the taming of the shrew featuring susan penhalligan john bird john cleese captain peacock and shuey mcfee fucking hell what another lineup that is that's

more impressive than blankety blank crossroads just dominating television tonight yeah after a 10 minute preview of the ludovic kennedy travelogue great railway journeys of the world it's news night and highlights of the snooker itv has just started benny hill and they follow that up with tvi looking at the people who are organizing ronald reagan's presidential campaign then arthur daly's reunion drink with his old regiment ends up with his best mate played by brian glover going a wall having it off with a prostitute played by georgina hale throwing his trousers out the window and losing them to the bin man natural air terry mccann is dispatched to sort it all out after the news at 10 it's a regional politics programme and they close out the

night with Lou Grant and what the papers say. So boys, what are we talking about in the playground tomorrow? Well, I don't think I would have quite had the sort of, I'd have been sexually, politically advanced enough to be kind

of tut-tutting about Dave Lee Travis's egregious between-song performance. Oh, it would have just washed over you, wouldn't it? Yeah, you know, that's just how it is. Yeah, this is it. You know, there was that sort of fatalism about this sort of thing, really. And I'd have been bitterly disappointed at the chart rundown that what we didn't get to see.

Yes. I think I would have been quietly resentful of this. I think I'd have been talking about what it would take to grow up to be like dave lee travis and have all those lovely ladies around you hanging off your arm not realizing that the actual answer is narcissistic personality disorder pretty much the long straw to draw from the closed fist of mental illness in terms of your own happiness and your own happiness and your own progress through life

you might even end up President of the United States let the haters hate unfortunately most of us got the shit ones that end up with you shivering in a flat with a broken shower fully aware of everything you've ever done wrong and unable to put it

right, quack quack, oops. What are we buying on Saturday? Well, I would have bought Enola Gay by that fine band, Orchestra of Menus in the Dark. And that set me on my dancing path for many decades hence. Good to see you didn't forget them when the time came to write a book about your journey through electronic music. Oh, I spent many sacrifices, murdered many babies, you know. And I've also bought the

old Casanova. If that 38 seconds had managed to kind of seep into my consciousness, you know, if I hadn't just already switched over or stormed out in disgust or whatever at this point, I would definitely have acquired that. Yeah. Nowadays, I'd be buying coffee. I mean, back then, as an eight-year-old, my favourite of these songs will almost certainly have been Otter One.

And, you know, when you look at it coldly, what else here is honestly that much better? And what does this episode tell us about October of 1980? Yeah, it's still the age of the dark rafters. I think there is perhaps a sense that, despite a few, you know, there's a lot of quirkiness about it.

And I think a lot of people thought that the implication of punk would just be a lot of new wave quirkiness, anything from Madness to Elvis Costello or it's or omd lots of like jerkiness and what people didn't really i don't think people will post punk in terms of war and joy division never really got a sniff in the charts but um that next wave of like beginning with like human league which is just coming through abc all that kind of stuff when punk you know ex-punk goes pop and seeks to kind of infiltrate and um and create a sort of idealised version of pop. That's not quite happening yet.

So people like Gilbert O'Sullivan might think, OK, I'm in the clear here. There hasn't been this sort of nuclear transformation of the landscape, leaving me charred and obliterated. I'm still standing. Better way wrong, of course yeah i think what it tells us about october 1980 is that it was not a safe place yeah i mean if it wasn't gleaming sweaty beard air and pipe breath zooming towards you it was a mid-priced rust bucket car with shitty brakes and no power steering uh driven by someone not wearing a seat belt i don't know how any of us survived this episode it did exactly what it said on the

tin it's cat shit it was cat shit then and it's cat shit now it just stands as a historical artifact that you know it would not surprise me if clips from this episode of Top of the Pops were being used in the BBC, showing new presenters how to not interact with the general public, particularly the female part of that general public. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Also, it's funny, just from a musical point of view, though,

having to endure an episode like this, it's actually formative if you go on and become a music journalist or a rock critic or whatever, because quite often a lot of the energy you get and a lot of the kind of invective you derive is having had to endure things like this. and bad music or mediocre music or even like Oasis or whatever, if that maybe precludes or cuts off the idea of pop criticism, rock criticism as we used to know it, in which the negativity, the invective was something that you kind of bounced off in order to celebrate the positive and the relief. I do wonder if everybody's just sort of in their bubble of listening to stuff that actually really suits them,

then where are the future David Stubbses and Taylor Parks is going to come from? I ask myself. How will that world manage without us? Yes, a chilling thought. And on that note, we've come to the end of the latest episode of Chart Music. So all that remains for me to do is the usual promotional flange. www.chart-music.co.uk facebook.com

slash chart music podcast twitter at chart music t-o-t-p money down the g-string patreon.com slash chart music thank you David Stubbs thank you God bless you Taylor Parks cheers Al it's

been something that happened. My name's Al Needham, and I am disco. Chart music. GreatBigAl.com Rock expert David Stubbs Rock expert David Stubbs Hi, I'm David Stubbs Rock expert David Stubbs Rock expert David Stubbs Rock expert David Stubbs.

Bringing you a hellblazing mix of hard rock and hard facts. We're looking back on the year 1980. I was in high school back then, in Kettering. Back in 1980, a street kid like me had two choices. Either you were down with the Nolans or down with the Quo. Status Quo. Either you're in the mood for dancing or in the mood for rocking. I was heads down, down the line, all the way down, deeper and down with the Quo. Down the line, all the way down, deeper and down with the Quo. But in a school like mine, that could spell danger. Oh sure, I got my head kicked in a few times, my ass kicked.

I'm thinking of you, Joanne Greenwood from Class 4A. The Quoari never forgets. Still, I battled through. Sustained by the mighty licks of the Quo at their hard-driving finest. Who could forget the riff to whatever you want? He's a rolling and rocking and rocking and rolling Rock expert David Stubbs Status Quo Formed in 1962 at Sedge Hill Comprehensive School, Catford, London First smash hit, Pictures of Matchstick Men.

Original catalogue number 336979393T-G. That's 336979393T-G. Except no alternative. Since then, they've gone quite literally from strength to strength. I saw their frontman one time Mr. Rossi at the bar at London's Astoria nightclub I called out to him Hey, Paolo He stared right through me

Asshole Still, I never lost faith in the quo Even after they went disco with You're in the Navy Now Rockin' and rollin' Rollin' and rockin' lost faith in the quo. Even after they went disco with You're in the Navy Now. Rockin' and rollin', rollin' and rockin', rockin' and rollin' and rockin'! If you want to hear more from me, rock expert David Stubbs, subscribe to me on YouTube. Address, HTTPS,

or colon, slash, slash, www.youtube.com, slash, watch, question mark, V, equals, Q, K, L, E, H, dash, O, O, F, D, 8 amps and T, equals, 134S. Rock on, Quo! And screw you, Joanne Greenwood. I'm Mark Haynes and for the last 32 years I've been a fan of professional wrestling my friend Pete Donaldson from the Football Ramble he hasn't

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