Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #59: 3.7.1986 – It’s ‘Orrible Being A Slave On War Orphan Farm

Episode Date: May 30, 2021

The latest episode of the podcast which asks; The Monkees as the cast of Monkey - who's going to be Pigsy?Jabbed up and preparing to throw itself back into the world (to the extent that they might go to that gig in Cheryl Baker's back garden, depending on what the toilet facilities are like), Team ATVland reunite for a massive trawl through an episode of The Pops from the long, mediocre, pointy-headstocked, porn-frizzed, success-coated Summer of '86. The World Cup hangover is still in full effect - so much so that the menfolk of Top Of The Pops appear to be too busy frothing at the mouth over Diego Maradona to attend and have left Janice ‘All Night’ Long to mind the shop.And what an episode it is! Sure, like every episode in this era, it’s strewn with cat shit – but what interesting, marbled, and bizarrely-shaped cat shit it is. The Housemartins demonstrate that they’re not actually made of Plasticine. Gary Numan plays a gig at Stringfellows with Serving Suggestion. Saucy Soaraway Sam has a go at being a Vixtress with a former member of The Clash. Claire Usher delivers the last of the Kiddiepop bangers. Bucks Fizz invent World Music. A genuine actual brilliant single pitches up, before Wham! go Splat! with a remake of Parisienne Walkways set in Megas Wine Bar, Birmingham. And a presenter made out of fibreglass who isn’t Simon Bates pitches up.Neil Kulkarni and Taylor Parkes join Al Needham for an intensive scowl across the landscape of  the Fun Pub of 1986, veering off on such tangents as Mork’s body odour, the unbelievable grimness of British girls’ comics, being recognised in Scandinavia, the decline of Cheesy Wotsits, why Tommy Steele cried at his own party, and an intensive tutorial on the correct way to Tie Off. An obscene amount of swearing on this one, and too much appalling singing from Al: soz.Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Remember leaving the house and going to stuff? Well, it's back because Great Big Owl is bringing some of our favourite shows to the London Podcast Festival starting September 2nd and we'd love to see you there. So if you're a fan of... Two Mr Peas in a podcast. Brian and Roger. My Mate Water Toaster.

Friends with Friends. The The One Show Show. Richard and Greta. From Queer to Eternity. Wrestle Me. Or just daytime drinking. Then go to the King's Place website and grab some tickets now. And by some tickets, we ideally mean eight tickets.

That's one for each show. Actually, bring a friend and make that 16 tickets. Great Big Owl, the only podcast network with the audacity to ask you to buy 16 tickets in one go. But we'll be thrilled if you just buy one. 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 to listen to? Um... Chart music. Chart music. Hey up you pop crazy youngsters and welcome to part three of episode 61 of Chart Music. I'm your host Al Needham, over there is Sarah B, just to the side of her is Simon Price

and I feel I've got a handle on this strange and futuristic world of 2003 so let's not fanny about let's plunge back into this episode oh running DJs everywhere beware that. That was the mighty Nerdinals. Now there must be something in the stout, as the Emerald Isle produces yet another successful boy band. Flying in the dark steps of Boyzone and Westlife, dig the new breed, Enjoy Decides. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh What are you doing tonight? I wish I could be a fly on your wound

We fade into Cotton, looking at a tiny video screen of the last performance as she warns us to beware of murder dolls. She then pivots into some nonsense off the autocue about Stout as she prepares us for another Irish boy band and invites us to dig the new breed as she introduces Invisible by Deeside. Cobbled together in Dublin in 2001 by the Sweeney twins, a pair of doctors who were dabbling in band management.

D-side were a boy band who were quickly signed up to the Hamburg media company, Adel. They were immediately linked up to the managerial capabilities of Kim Glover, the former head of radio and TV at Arista Records, who was part of the management team of New Kids on the Block, the manager for a short time of Princess Stephanie of Monaco in her doomed attempt to become a pop star in the early 80s, and a guided PJ and Duncan let loose and bewitched towards the top end of the charts.

Their debut single, Stronger Together, was only released in Ireland, getting to number five there in august of 2002 but they landed support slots on tours by westlife and blue and a slot on the smash hits tour leading to their next single speechless being put out across europe it slammed into the uk chart at number nine in april of this year but immediately slithered down this is the follow-up and it's a brand new entry this week at number seven so yeah first things first dig the new breed do you think the fern cotton of 2003 would have been into early james brown or jam live albums i think not yeah i mean it really becomes more obvious as the show goes on just how auto-cued it is doesn't it

I mean again you know Sarah said we're never happy when it's sort of shambolic or when it's not shambolic there's got to be a happy medium there does yeah I mean Derek Okora for one but in the early 80s we used to you know we've done episodes where we've moaned about people like you know

Mike Reid or whoever ad-libbing and just talking absolute bollocks. And then when they don't, it's like, oh, it's so scripted. But, yeah, it does jar a little bit where it's clearly somebody else's words, possibly Chris Cowie's words, who knows. There's a production assistant that handles all this now. But I think Cowie's put that in. Right.

And all that business about the Emerald Isle and all these clichés, yeah's like god please weak source so anyway d side wouldn't have known them if they'd have shagged me mom no same like like wayne wonder i mean it was it was my job to know this stuff and they totally passed me but three top 10 hits apparently not yes nope nope not a fucking clue i mean but being called d side i would have assumed they were from Shotton or Connors Quay. Yes. But no, yeah, Irish boy band. And I guess if Westlife are shaking Boyzone, then D-side are shaking Westlife,

or shaking, shaking Boyzone, to put it another way. I prefer the continuity Westlife. They do have a bit more energy than Westlife i mean westlife were quite wet weren't they they're standing up that's a start yeah standing up and moving around and and in some cases sort of jumping and pogoing in a rock style i had no memory of them at all either but it's hard to lay into a boy band or a girl band because it's like there's so many of them and so they had such a short shelf life um i mean they did okay they sort of lasted for a bit didn't they this these guys and they did okay in japan at this time they appear to be the coming boys of pop after five and blue

or at least smash it seemed to think so did they really think that well they're on the cover of the latest smash hits and when they approached them for that cover the band had to tell them that they they couldn't make a photo shoot because they were touring germany at the time and smash it's got back to him and said oh okay well we're gonna fly out and take you to malaga and they finished the gig in berlin they got whipped straight onto a plane put on a yacht given a wardrobe of clothes to put on they did the photo shoot did the interview flown back to germany in the morning so you know smash hits clearly thought that that this was the next thing the money that was still sloshing around in journalism and in the industry at that time successful journalism in any case yeah yeah well smash it's needed bands

like this to sort of keep coming along at regular intervals so they had a hugely vested interest in this sort of stuff i mean three top 10 hits none of them got any higher than number seven, I think. So it didn't quite work out. But they've got to number seven more than we have. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the song, it's bog standard boy band balladry, isn't it? I mean, if they were on stools, they'd stand for the key change.

It's that kind of song. Written by Andreas Carlsen, who wrote for NSYNC and Backstreet Boys and Westlife. Yeah. And Chris Braid, who's written for everyone. So inevitably, it's that kind of song written by Andreas Carlsen who wrote for NSYNC and Backstreet Boys and West Life yeah and Chris Braid who's written for everyone so it's inevitably it's generic although there's this creepy voyeur twist the lyrics isn't it if I was invisible then I could just watch you in your room yeah that's quite twilight isn't it yeah it's up there with knock three times by Tony Orlando at dawn for wrongness the thing about that is as as a sort of, I don't know if you can call it a trope, but I guess it's something that does occur. Like a lot of things that are presented to you as romantic,

they're actually very fucking creepy. There's a whole bag of that shit. You can't give consent to be watched as you sleep. They haven't really thought this through as a sort of romantic concept partly because the creepy element partly because like you know if it's like i'll watch you in your room and it's like when women are alone in their room they're not going to waft around in a in a satin slip like all seductive like a fucking flake advert they're going to be in their old fucking baggy boy cotton pants and they're going to sit weird and they're going to belch freely and they're going to mutter to themselves

and pick their feet and sing out of tune and just be relaxing you wouldn't like it you wouldn't like it women are women are gross you wouldn't like it yeah i mean if you're invisible sorry a lad of that age if he got the opportunity to be invisible he'd go I'm going into town and nicking all the Xbox games. Yeah, you'd do other stuff, wouldn't you? Yeah. You'd go and stick your wet finger in people's ears and watch them go

Exactly. The main singer lad looks like Owen Jones, which is a bit unsettling. But one of them looks like David Moyes, which is even more unsettling. So they're not the sort of, i mean given that they are created to be objectified they're not very objectifiable i would say no um i mean you know easy for me to say looking how i look but anyway there's what makes me laugh is there's there's a bad boy one isn't there yes it's the law it's the law with a boy you have to have one yeah yeah he's got he's got spiky hair and frosted tips and and a thumb ring and and uh and he pogo's about and he

does some sort of fred durst type like rap metal dancing but it's all a bit try hard isn't it that might be dane geden okay who is thoroughly enjoying the fruits of pop fame at the moment because he was in the papers round about this time squiring jodie marsh about okay there was an article in ireland sunday world which reads they may have been snatched leaving a club together for a torrid night of wild sex but this is the first picture of irish boy band star dane geden and glamour girl Jodie Marsh posing for the cameras. Page three girl Jodie, infamous rival of Jordan, claims she spent five hours making love to Dublin a Dane. She added, he was like an athlete. He went on for hours, five to be exact. He may look like a teenager, but he's all man. Thanks, Jodie.

Five to be exact. I'm sorry, that's not exact enough. I want like five hours and 11 minutes. Yeah. Handsome Dane laughed. I just wanted to give her plenty. I just want to say that I love that kind of journalism because it's something no one's going

to deny you know it's obviously it's entirely made up the quotes are obviously completely made up but nobody from either um stars pr company is going to get in touch and threaten legal action and say no no actually i'm shit at sex i lasted three minutes you know so it's so it just so you got free reign to just say any of that shit but anyway the performance is absolute fucking cat shit i mean yeah you're right as we've mentioned boy bands have clearly progressed from all sitting down and then all standing up together at the emotional bits but they've not been choreographed at all of that they look like five lads in a club who've been dragged up on stage to pretend to mime to a D-side record in order to win a wicked key ring.

You know, they're all doing their own performance. It's crap. I think that's probably deliberate, though, isn't it? It's like they're all meant to be, you know... Individuals. That's that one and that's that one, you know, in a very rudimentary way. Yeah, but they don't do anything that's interesting. I mean, the only synchronicity you see in the performance

is you notice that they do a bit of group walking to the back of the stage so they can all rush up to the front again. And they all hold their radio mics right at the top, which is what I tend to do during a pub quiz or when I'm doing karaoke, to boost the volume a little bit. And of course, one of them near the end the bad boy

does the tipping the mic to the audience bit to sing along to a song that's only just come out that nobody seems to be that into so they don't know the fucking words yeah that's brilliant there's a set of moves that you go through and that's one of them yeah a bit preemptive there's a bit previous you know yeah one of the reasons to keep going through through the hellscape of of the music industry is the thought that one day you might be on a stage and people will sing your song back to you that's the kind of shit that'll make it all worthwhile but you can't just do that no it's a bit of a leap of faith isn't it you know you've got to earn it it's one step down from just turning around and then just falling into the audience hoping you're going to be called

I think if Deeside had tried to get the entire audience to sit down they might have sat down but they wouldn't jump up again. Yeah it's a bit of a jumble it's very forgettable. They have the same problem that Wayne Wonder had as well I think where they're just it's like they can't hear themselves

but hey they're the first band to actually be there for this episode. Oh, yeah. So we get a sweep from Fern Cotton to the stage and back again. So, you know, well done to them for being there when they needed to. De-cider in reception. Yes, they're punctual, if nothing else. I was going to, you mentioned Let Loose,

and they were the great lost boy band. They had a couple of absolutely cracking singles. Right. I don't know if they were, yeah. Yeah, they were really good yeah you should we should put them in the playlist yeah so the following week invisible dropped 10 places to number 17 because even the young girls aren't buying singles these days the follow-up real world entered the chart at number nine in december but no higher and after pushing me out only got to number 21 in june of 2004 they never bothered the chart again and after a spell of being moderately

sizable in japan in the mid-naughties like spinal tap they split up in 2006 with derrick moran going on to present the channel 5 kids show, Milkshake. That's mentally... We were used to indie bands in the 90s entering the chart high and then dropping straight down. But bands like this, going on top of the pops, surely it's supposed to push them up a bit higher, isn't it? Yeah, that's got to dent the ego a little bit, hasn't it? Fucking hell. Appearing on top of the pops used to be, you know, you've got to a certain position and here's your reward and it's you're going to sell

more singles by this time it's just a reward for getting that high in the first place yeah strange times and sad times in a backhanded way it's a sign of the success of record labels in that they've really got their shit together marketing wise and they can have a sort of impact date, as they call it, rather than a release date for a single, and make sure that everybody buys it in the first week. But then it fucks it up. It doesn't have that long tail, and you don't get the lovely long climb of a proper hit record.

So, you know, in a way, yeah, the major labels being a victim of their own success. Oh, well. Fuck them. Wait, I already am. All of television history is contained within the box of delights. It was happening in front of us. Incredible.

In our living rooms. It was amazing. Guests pick their favourite television moment. And tell us why they love it. And is this the episode where Daisy's just been for the interview at the Woman's Magazine? Flaps. That's it, flaps! Yeah. Named one of Radio Time's best podcasts of the year.

I don't understand people who don't see the joy in drawing the curtains, mug of hot chocolate and something nice on TV. Like, what could be nicer than that? Than having a snuggle. Exactly. Nostalgia in bite-sized chunks. Box of Delights. From Great Big Owl.

There's another new boy band on the block. That's D-Side. Still to come, we've got Beyonce, Benny Bernassi, The Coral, and the official Top of the Pops Top 20. But for now, Fern is in the star bar, reliving her fondest memories of those days back at the Academy. Yet another boy band on the block, sniffs Bonin, who then goes on to spoil the rest of the show

in case she was starting to wonder what was going off in weatherfield she then whips us over to cotton in the star bar knocked up by bbc carpenters in 2001 the star bar was part of top of the pops as brand new set when it returned to television center in october of that year in an interview with the BBC News website that month, Chris Cowie said, much more important than the move is the fact that we've got a new set, meaning the programme will be much more the way me and the team want it to be. Now we've also got the Star Bar. The Star Bar will be a glorified green room and it'll be a great place to be. A place where artists can relax, hang out, bring their entourage, girlfriends, boyfriends, lawyers and rub shoulders with other stars.

As we've come to learn on Chart Music, me dears, Top of the Pops has always been happy to pad out episodes with interviews with people like the old sailor, motor show models, American acts who are passing through, little and large in their panto gear, even Peter Marinello, for fuck's sake. But this is next level fucking with the formula, isn't it? Yeah, you know what? It's funny because on a recent episode, in fact, the most recent episode, we complained about the kids from fame being there in person on top of the pops but hardly getting to say any words um well watch out what you wish for isn't it really yes because we do get this

really overly long section which completely kills any momentum the show had um with fern in the star bar while you know you've got all these smartly dressed young media professionals from It completely kills any momentum the show had with Fern in the Star Bar. While, you know, you've got all these smartly dressed young media professionals from London having a cocktail in the background. Like, you know, we're meant to somehow care who they are. They don't look like lawyers to me. No. No, and it's all to cross-promote the BBC's new Season of Fame Academy. I mean, right at the very beginning, when we see them in the intro, these two cuts, who are they? Why are we meant to care?

I mean, the general assumption about the Star Bowl was that it was inspired by the interview sections in TFI Friday, but, you know, come on now. This is a direct nick from the tube, isn't it? Where they had a pub across the road from the studio called the Egypt Cottage, and that was used as the green room and used on occasions for interviews and the like good spot i hadn't clocked that but yeah and so you know cow is at this in

his back pocket for a while yeah yeah the problem is is the fucking decor in the star bar is so sterile that it looks like you're watching a canteen in a trade show where you know people in ties and lanyards burn their mouths on a panini while they try and sell software and photocopiers to each other. It's not pop and it's certainly not interesting. Yeah, you can see what the idea is. It's like they're trying to establish it as like, ooh, come with us and peep into the inner backstage sanctum. Yeah, the breakout room of pop.

Yeah, but it looks exactly like the set outside, which bends your brain a little bit i mean at least there's enough people in it it's not like there's a couple of people standing around awkwardly it does seem like it's a bar and there's that kind of authentic ambient noise so it isn't like too it could have been cringier but it's still not it's it's just a bit odd isn't it it's just yeah it's very sterile it's very um very not very top of the pops and i think we've all experienced the the sort of dubious frisson of of being in that place you know being back in the bit where other people are not allowed and it's it's not always sometimes

it's exciting and and and cool but it can also be really boring and sort of weirdly bleak and empty and kind of make you question your life choices. It doesn't matter how much free booze there is. It's like, yeah, free booze. And then it's like, oh, is this my life? Is that all there is? Is that all there is? And you don't really want that in the middle of your Top of the Pops, do you?

Yeah, what it's like, it's like, you know, in Zoolander, there's this bit where there's some party and there's like a velvet rope and behind that there's the VIP area. And then they make it through there and then there's another velvet rope and another. And eventually they get to the VVVIP area. And when they get there, there's just Winona Ryder sat on her own looking really depressed. That's what these places are often like. And I think Cadbury's got something to say about this. That's what these places are often like.

And I think Cadbury's got something to say about this. Ah. It would have been good if they'd had it as like Starbar sponsored by Starbar. But they weren't quite that cross-pollinated at this point. This section is not shot through with peanuts, is it? It is the sort of place that... Shot through with arseholes. If your mate arranged to meet you there for a drink, you'd turn up and you'd have one drink and then you'd say,

do you mind if we go somewhere else? You just worked, you know. Yeah, it's just too weird. I'll tell you what it reminds me of, actually, with all the white everywhere. It reminds me of that, you know, that the W Hotel that popped up in Soho? Yes.

That one, it's just around the corner from Leicester Square and it's just white and it looks like it's just landed from Tokyo, but not in a good way. As if Godzilla's just lobbed it yeah you may have noticed pop crazy youngsters that we haven't said anything so far about the kids and that's because so far there've been nothing more than a row of silhouetted heads and arms that's right yeah even the spectators in Roy the Rovers get a speech bubble every now and then. But finally, we get to see two young women who've been told to stand in the background holding a drink while two lads on the other side look at them.

A great place to be indeed. I've been wondering about this because, obviously, we've already learned that they film various bits of footage in France or Italy or wherever and patch it in. And I wondered if it's because the audiences in those places would look too different from British audiences. You'd just be able to tell. Or those sombreros.

No, but you know what I mean. They look very Euro. But that's the thing, Simon, because now they've committed to pre-recording stuff, there'd be no sense of continuity in the audience. Yeah, but it would give you more of a sense, like if you don't see the same people all the time it gives you more of a sense of there being more people there yeah it's quite sort of audience porridge isn't it it's quite yes quite a sort of mush yeah you get the general sense that people are quite happy to be

there it's not it's not too flat but i do get the sense and i wonder if you know in their little kind of instruction well not an email but in their little instruction leaflet that they would get like don't dress up like dress down just dress relaxed and stuff because you used to anyone that you would see on top of the pops any of the kids would be dressed to the nines mostly um and you know obviously the blokes would generally lag behind but you don't really see there's not like standout outfits or anything. Dress like you're from somewhere between Britain and France. Dress like you're from Guernsey. Yeah, welcome Carrie Grant and Richard Park to the Star Bar.

Hello. Hiya. The Star Bar immediately became a weekly fixture on the show, containing three minutes or so of interviews with bands and artists, but it wasn't shy in breaking up the flow with a blatant dollop of cross-platform brand synergisation, and this week is no exception, as we're treated to an advert for the new series of Fame Academia.

Squeezed out of the arsehole of Endemol in 2002, Fame Academia was the British franchise of the Spanish TV programme Operacion Trifuno and was a mash-up of Fame, Pop Idol and Big Brother, where contestants were boarded in a mansion in Highgate and given an intensive musical and performance art education over ten weeks with live online streaming and highlights shown on cbbc and bbc3 and they compete for a 1 million pound record contract and the use of a luxury apartment in london and a sports car for one year sports car the first series which concluded in october of 2002 gave the world the gift of dav Sneddon,

who got to number one in January of this year with his debut single Stop Living the Lie, and the second series begins tomorrow night. So here's two of the teaching staff. Born in Kirkcaldy in 1948, Richard Park is a former DJ on the pirate station Radio Scotland, Richard Park is a former DJ on the pirate station Radio Scotland, who was part of the original pool of Radio 1 presenters, working primarily on the Radio 1 Club and Round Table. After moving back to Scotland to concentrate on football on Radio Clyde,

working his way up to head of entertainment, he came back to London in the late 80s to assume the role of Programme Controller of Capital Radio. In 1997, he formed Wildstar Records and was responsible for the signing of Craig David. By 2003, he's the head of his own consultancy company, the radio consultant for EMAP and the headmaster of Fame academy in the shaking cowl role so richard park is actually a big shot in in the music industry and the radio industry yes and he's only the age i am now uh in this uh footage he looks well leathery like an old wallet doesn't he yes and he's the headmaster on fame academy and yeah it quickly becomes obvious from the the way they feed him lines to kind of you know be snippy about other

people that he is the shaking simon cowell you know because pop idol was going already by this point we go in a couple of seasons and richard park he's doing that cowell thing of being the the hard to please judge and fern helpfully points out that he's mr meanie like yeah we get it you know born in enfield in 1965 Carrie Grant made her top of the pops debut in 1983 as a member of Sweet Dreams the UK entrant in that year's Eurovision song contest with I'm Never Giving Up which finished sixth and got to number 21 in May of that year after the follow-up single 17 Electric flopped the group split up at the end of 83 and grant fell into vocal coaching with her husband david grant formerly of links since then

they've worked with take that and the spice girls and in 2001 she was recruited by pop idol as an on-screen vocal coach and was poached along with her husband to do likewise for fame academy and they're already matey with fern it turns out because she's been on the celebrity version of fame academy we learn and there's lots of hilarious bants about how she can't sing and all that so obviously i looked him up carrie grant's a vocal coach she was what we find out she was once um a eurovision entrant in a group called sweet dreams who i was gonna say nobody remembers i don't know if you do but i just don't and they were like a shaking bucks fizz and and it turns out one member of them bobby mcveigh actually later

joined the fizz yes which is shows how incestuous this world of kind of eurovision slash talent show groups is i mean fame Academy was something that definitely contributed to the shittening of Saturday evening TV, where it seemed that terrestrial television schedules had been put together by Joe Maplin. So you got a fucking singing competition, then you got a dancing competition, you got a personality competition.

You know, I can't believe that nowadays they haven't done a glamorous grandmother show or celebrity knobbly knees. What the fuck happened to those good old days when we were entertained by Jeremy Beadle dressed up as an oil shake? Yeah, it's, I mean, I never watched any of these things, really. I watched bits and bobs, but I can't, my secondhand embarrassment is too acute. Like, I just, it's not entertainment for me.

It's not fun at all. It's just like, ah, no, stop it me no it's not fun at all it's just like ah no stop it stop it they're already dead even when you get past yeah i just can't the the pressure of it is too stressful for me yeah it's really odd there's such a dissonance about having that plopped in the middle here in so many ways i mean i'll say with sarah i i never watched fame academy and you know you've you've mentioned Sneddon um and he did okay out of it he had a number one and apparently then became a successful songwriter for other people and that first season um they all did all right Sinead Quinn came second had a number two

hit the big winner was actually Lamar who came third but had a run of yes seven top 10 hits but by the time of this season coming around, they're desperately trying to plug here. The public were obviously already bored of it because the season they're trying to sell us here was won by Alex Parks, who had a number three hit and then a number 13 and then got dropped by a label. And that was the end of Fame Academy in Britain.

No one gave a fuck. Now, Fame Academy starts tomorrow. So what can we expect from the new series? Well, I think there's going to be sweat and there'll be tears again. As you know, when you came into the celebrity show, you shed a few. I think that we're raising the standard

that we're looking for. We're hoping to produce a real star, but in doing so, we want to make sure that we work everybody to the very extremes. This Academy, though, is the best place to learn, Fern. Now, Richard, obviously we have met before, Celebrity Fame Academy. I don't know if you saw, but Richard was quite horrible to me. Will you be as mean and tough this year?

I think I'll be exactly what I was with you, which is honest. I told you, you couldn't sing, and Fern, you can't sing. I'm moving on, Carrie. Defend me. I wasn't that bad, was I? I think you were just very nervous. I think you can sing, but you got hit with nerves. So what are the contenders like this year?

Oh, my gosh. Well, there are 25 of them, and I would say I'm personally excited about maybe 10 or 11 of them. The British music business could actually use something special for it. And I know that Carrie, David, myself and Robin Gibb will be looking for the very best and will be starting tomorrow night, 6.30, BBC One, and the first seven will be giving it all they've got.

Now, what do you think of tonight's talent, then? We've seen Beyoncé. You fans of Beyoncé? Now, Beyoncé is the dawn. She's so fantastic. Her voice is great, she looks great, her performance is great, and she's got nice big girly hips, which I like. She can shit that booty. Cotton, perched uncomfortably

on a bar stool leaning against a TV screen, asks Park and Grant what the second series of Fame Academy is going to be like. Park says there's going to be a lot of sweat, blood, and tears, and reminds Cotton how rammel she was when she did the obligatory comic relief does fame academy

in March of this year being the second one to be eliminated one after Paul Ross, one before Joe Brandt he could have at least banged a big stick on the floor when he's saying sweat you know, come on, get it right mate I've seen clips of her doing it she's not a bad singer she's better than me put it that way yeah but the whole thing of this

is to go oh you were shit and you have to go oh yeah i was shit and there's something really unpleasant about that it's like oh it's all in good fun it's all in good fun there's so much of everything that's saturated with that thing now where it's like oh it's just a joke it's just a joke funny it's a just suspense and you have to if you're in the you know if the camera is on your face or you know you're you're in the public eye whatsoever you have to take it in good humor that's quite a lot to ask of somebody but it just becomes it's it's just becoming normalized at this point and it's assumed that we're all in on the joke and we're all enjoying it along with them you know it's a bit like on fucking more common wise when they used to get des o'connor on and make a joke about how shit he was and everything which well actually no it's not is it because that

was that was all right that was actually quite funny cotton asks park if he's going to be as much of a horrible bastard this time as he was last year and he says he was just being honest she turns to grant and asks her what she thinks of be. Grant reckons she's dead good, and it's nice that she's got a bit of meat on her. Then the TV screen switches to D-side, still standing on the now darkened stage, and this happens. And how about D-side? I thought that as a coming boy band, they're not quite together yet. I don't think they've probably worked hard enough for a long enough period of time. I like the song because it was slightly obvious, but a decent pop number.

Again, Mr Meany. Park says the song is alright, but D-side aren't together yet, and he doesn't think they've worked hard enough for a long enough period of time. They stare on, with nowhere near the reaction cow we obviously wanted so they cut back to a replay of the performance we've just seen this entire thing is not in the spirit of top of the pops at all no it's a jolly upbeat show that celebrates all things that are pop and interesting you know and even things that are pop and a bit shit yes like that's fine you don't it doesn't really ultimately it's not like it's too saccharine obviously people

would take the edge off it but it's like those people have all earned their place there unless you're i don't know who was the worst for being just a big bitch maybe baits i don't know but like you don't really seriously cock a snooker anyone. And then there's these two cunts who've come from wherever the fuck, from somewhere else, who have just sitting here and they're like, yeah, well, no, I'm not sure about this. No, I don't think you're very good. Having a go at the presenters even and just like, yeah, well, you were shit at that when you tried it.

It's kind of like somebody turns up to your house party and goes, hmm, yeah, sofa's a bit saggy i don't think that wallpaper really works it's like get out of my house what are you doing i mean they are desperately trying to play up the shake in simon cowell thing you know fern has to sort of telegraph it by telling us that he's mr meanie you know and yeah to prove it we hear his opinions on d side here's the thing right chris cowey loves an ambush obviously he loves a fucking ambush because of what he did johnny rotten yeah so you know we hear um richard park's opinions on d side that they're apparently not quite there yet they haven't worked hard

enough and then we see them in this sort of dark blue lit bit of the studio reacting to it and yeah they've been ambushed in the man of johnny ron that one lad should have said well fucking ask jodie marsh who works hard enough for a long period of time then what it reminded me of i don't know if either of you remember this when the bbc rebooted jukebox jury for a little bit i think i guess it was the late 80s early 90s yes glenn medeiros famously was on there and the panel didn't know that he was out there in in in probably not even a green room but probably a broom cupboard and um just completely slated it and destroyed it and then they brought glenn out and he was in tears and he's got to go up and front it up to the panel and it was that kind of really awkward telly i guess you have to kind of agree to that you have to sort of uh you have to

kind of consent to doing that and that's why this this um d-side bit is so like unpleasant it's like however good or not they were they earned they earned their spot there it's really pulling the rug in a really unfair way to uh say yeah actually you shouldn't be here it's like you've just you know you have crashed this place and you should know it's like what yeah i mean i suppose we got to assume that unlike tearful glenn medeiros they were maybe primed for this they were told what was going to happen yeah i don't know i don't know i don't think so i mean they should have but yeah they should have been i think a floor manager just grabbed all the d-side at the end of their

performance and said could you just stay here for a bit stand here a minute yeah stay here for a bit we've got a surprise for you but it is just kind of like they're not they're a professional band just because they are a boy band you know and they may have been put together in whatever way it that's kind of not the point like they're not auditioning it just really weirds me out how they've kind of how they've done this it's like no they've passed that point so yeah Sarah's so right about saying that this is contrary to the spirit of Top of the Pops in that sense of somebody coming on and crashing the party and being a cunt but there's also another aspect in which it's contrary to the spirit of it because what they're assuming by having these guys on there is that if we're

Top of the Pops viewers we are by default we'rec one viewers and that we're just generally yes interested in the channel's light entertainment output i don't think we are because something like fame academy isn't a music show as such it's a reality show you know fans of the murder dolls or wayne wonder or the band we're about to see next aren't going to be tuning in for that you know it makes as much sense as top of the pops having an elongated plug for national lottery live or strictly come dancing or or the vicar of dimly you know any of those would have been better any of one of those shows aren't going to return the favor are they for fuck's sake you know and this this whole this is the trouble this is what cowl and cowl's imitators had done to pop. They effectively had turned pop, or a large chunk of it, into light entertainment.

Yeah. So, in a way, it's just a sign of the way things were. The cross-platform brand synergisation wasn't all one way, though. An episode of Tomorrow's World in April of 2002 featured Kate Humble in the star bar demonstrating a metal-detect detecting glove for nightclub bouncers who were looking for knives and guns in the wake of 9-11. It sounds like some kind of anxiety dream.

Yes. Yeah. Can I just give a shout out to another podcast? The Tomorrow's World Audit Time podcast. They dredged that up. They basically do for Tomorrow's World what we do for Top of the Pops. So all we need now is podcasts on fame and question time.

And the independent podcast community would have Thursday nights on BBC One. Absolutely locked down. That podcast again, Tomorrow's World audit time. Hi. But the whole section lasts two and a half minutes. That's basically 10% of the show. Yes. And that's a single we

could have uh listened to it is i i looked at yeah right because people yeah you're right people will be switching over to weatherfield in their droves the next song is only two minutes 12 seconds long so they literally could have fit another song in there and you know um uh you got neil and i to have a look last time and see what we could have had and do a sort of counterfact to the pops well going by the rules that it has to be going up and it can't have been on the previous week unless it's a number one I had a look um and in this stupid fucking star bar section here's what they could have they could have had Jane's Addiction or Killing Joke or the Polyphonic Spree right I mean Jane's Addiction on top of the pops would have been a real moment yeah you know but no we get fucking eurovision failure woman and leathery neck man it's shade all the way down

and side to side is this because they're having a go at d side who and i know i said my own things but those are good boys you leave those boys alone when they're standing there it's like fucking hell that's it's not fair it is not fair but also it's shade on the producers of the fucking show to say that that band that have just been on were not really ready that's saying that the producers of the show and everyone who chose to put that band there instead of any other that they could have had that's saying that they got it wrong they made an error there and then it's also shade on the on the viewers it's like well you know, you know what? You just watched her. You thought that was a professional job, but you were wrong because here I am, the arbiter of these things

who you've never clapped eyes on before probably. And yeah, that's what I think. And it's like, what? Like, if you just enjoyed that, which you might have done if you were a young'un, and then you have this guy just going, yeah, no, no, they're not ready. It's just an insult to everyone. Tali really started

sticking its oaring by this point it's like oh well we can create stars out of bloody women who can't drive and blokes who work in airports oh let's have a go at making some pop stars and you know they were very successful at it but not very good pop stars in the main no i mean the whole thing was predicated on the idea that the chief requirement for being a pop star was being technically good at singing yes reaching a standard and we all know that it fucking isn't and having a tragic backstory oh yeah and it also pulled back a curtain on the music industry you know it was saying oh this is how it's done none of this bollocks about you know actually performing a band or working your ass off and gaining a following you do this you get on this and and we'll sort it out for you and it absolutely ruined

the battle for the christmas number one oh for years years and years yeah oh god yeah yeah it was great when let's get a thing to number one stunt is a little bit tired now but it was great when they got rage gets the machine to number one just to just to cunt them all off it was brilliant Cotton brings up the fact that this isn't Grant's first appearance on Top of the Pops when the monitor brings up her performance on the April 14th 1983 episode the one after the episode we did last month performing I'm Never Giving Up by Sweet Dreams everyone here has to submit to the stocks apart from your man parks who i'm assuming has never done anything remotely embarrassing ever like that might have taken the edge of it a bit if

it had been like haha here's a here's a picture of you in your tin bath when you were two yeah i know this is kind of a cliche to say but it's like this seems to be a man with without charisma or talent or anything much to offer the world, you know. I wonder about the kind of dynamic between young singers and somebody like Cary Grant, because I wonder if it's similar to footballers where you get managers who were no great shakes in their professional careers, you know, or didn't even have one.

Like some of the most successful managers, like Arsene Wenger or Jose Mourinho, didn't really make it as as players and i always wonder like you know some of the players i'm sort of like oh show us your medals then you know yeah and what's carrie has just been in a you know um a group who kind of flopped at eurovision or certainly didn't win it well they did all right i mean fucking hell i think the uk be totally happy with the withth or 7th place finish in Eurovision. Well, they've been on Eurovision more than we have, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They didn't get booed and blamed for football violence that year, put it that way. No, but, you know, if you're being coached by, I don't know, Elkie Brooks and all her looks or something, at least you can point at some hit records. It only matters when it's on the wall, eh, Simon? Yeah. I mean, the most famous vocal coach back in the day was Tona DeBrett and she wasn't a professional singer and everyone

used to go to her but then she wasn't on TV all the fucking time you know strutting about telling everybody their shit so I don't know. Well I suppose it's different I know exactly what you mean but also it is kind of different skill sets I guess like David Sneddon who was not Great Shakes as a pop star

just wasn't quite ready yet but went on to be a decent songwriter he co-wrote um national anthem by lana del rey which is an absolute banger but i know what you mean but yeah i mean the thing that got on martin it's about a fame academy was the bbc dipping its hands into the shit bucket of populist tv but still managing to be really snooty about it. Oh, we're a Fame Academy. Yeah, even the fact that it's in Highgate, you know, fuck off. Yeah, it used to be known as Fame Secondary School before the Tories got in. When the first episode of the second series of Fame Academy was broadcast,

the tabloids had already pointed out that most of the contestants were already on songwriters' contracts, and it quickly became apparent that the format had changed to Big Pop Idol Brother, with clips of contestants falling out with each other being broadcast in highlight shows, and accusations that the feud that was building up between Park and presenter Patrick Kilty was completely fabricated. Even worse, it ended up being directly scheduled against the new series of pop idol and coming off worse in the ratings the eventual winner alex parks got to number three in november with maybe that's what it takes but diminishing returns set in very quickly

and a third series slated for 2004 was quietly scrapped park went on to work for global radio who now own all those shitty radio stations and grant went on to work with a singer who had won a national talent competition held in a chain of wine bars but couldn't get a record deal because labels were only interested in people who had already been popular on TV talent shows, forcing her to enter X Factor, Leona Lewis. And the Star Bowl was knobbed off a few months later and became the costume storage room for Strictly Come Dancing. Fucking hell.

Now, there's also a new band on the block. They're called Sweet Dreams. Do you remember Sweet Dreams? Oh, Fern, you wouldn't scrape the barrel with that, would you? Here's Carrie on top of the pops. A very long time ago, shall we say. It was a very, very long time ago. And that just goes to show you that with coaching, you can get better.

That is a lovely hairdo there, Carrie. Lovely now. Thank you so much. That's fucking fashion. What are you going on about? Really? I think I'll be keeping mine to this, Starley. Thank youo there, Carrie. Lovely now. Thank you so much. That's fucking fashion. What are you going on about? Really? I think I'll be keeping mine to this style. Thank you.

Cheers, guys. Now, a group who are far too surreal to take part in a reality TV show is the Super Furry Animals. Thank you. He said the devil When I met you at the roundabout After Cotton tries to take the piss out of Cary Grant and we get an achingly fleeting glance at the Yellow Hurl era, this nearly three-minute dead spot comes to an end

when Cotton introduces to a band who are far too surreal to be bothered with all this reality tv bollocks super furry animals a golden retriever formed in cardiff in 1993 from a sort of welsh language bands super furry animals signed to the wel Welsh indie label Angst in 1995 and put out the Clanfire PG in space EP. Yes, I did completely dodge that name. After gigging around London in 1996, they were spotted by Alan McGee of Creation Records at the Camden Monarch,

who approached them afterwards and said he was willing to sign them on the condition that they started singing their songs in English. They told him that they actually were singing in English, but the PA was shit and they signed to the label. Their first release on Creation, Hometown Unicorn, got to number 47 in March of 1996, but the follow-up, God Show Me Magic, put them into the top 40,

getting to number 33 in May of that year, sparking off a run of 11 top 40 singles throughout the rest of the 90s. After creation wound down in 2001, the band put out Ming. Did I say that right, Simon? Mung. Mung, I thought it was, yeah. I thought it was, but I didn't say it.

It means Maine, like a lion's mane. The band put out Mung, an all-Welsh language LP on their own label, Placid Casual, which got to number 11 in the LP charts in May, was commended in the House of Commons for bigging up their native tongue, and remains the biggest-selling

Welsh-language LP of all time. A year later, they were picked up by Epic and resumed their run of chart hits. And this, the follow-up to It's Not The End Of The World, which got to number 30 in January of 2002, is the lead cut from their sixth album, Phantom Power, which came out last Monday. And it's a new entry this week at number 13.

Wow. Simon, as a fierce champion of the welsh music scene a man who famously quit melody maker when they wouldn't put max boyce on the cover let's not forget yeah a man who accused me on an internet forum of being a massive racist when i said that i thought murrenbich Stansiger was Welsh. Fucking hell, Simon. I was only saying that I thought he had a Welsh name. I wasn't implying that the Welsh lived under other people's sinks, for fuck's sake. You need to have first go at this. Fair enough. By the way, I don't remember that, but I'm sorry. I do. Where to start? Where to start Where to start I mean yeah

There have been times Many times When I think That the Super Furry Animals Are my favourite band In the entire universe And For me

They're the greatest Of all the Welsh bands Certainly And I'm including Manic Street Preachers in that I don't think the Manics Would disagree I know

Nicky Wire bows down Before the genius Of the Super Furries He knows they can do things the manics can't do so um i'm gonna have to ramble on for a little while about why i love them so much before i shut the fuck up and let sarah in and before we get down to the specifics of this song but the thing is because i love them so much and because i'm often the go-to guy for wel stuff, I've written about them so many times. And I gathered a lot of my thoughts together on the sleeve notes for Zoom, their greatest hits album, five years ago.

So I'm going to have to paraphrase what I wrote there a little bit, if you don't mind. But to begin with, way back when I tried to figure out how the Superfairy Animals emerged the way they did, how a band as brilliantly strange as that could emerge from Wales. I used to see it in evolutionary terms, because there's this thing in Darwinian evolution called island gigantism, right,

where isolated populations of animals can mutate into outsized and freakish versions of themselves. So you get things like the dodo or the komodo dragon or the giant tortoise due to the lack of predation and the lack of outside influences and forces and in musical terms wales particularly the welsh language music scene really was a world to itself certainly the pre-internet age where you know you could be 20 miles from the English border, but a whole different universe, because there was no connection.

So, you know, the Welsh language scene was separated linguistically and geographically from the swing of things, you know. And even though Superfair Animals were formed in Cardiff, they're a North Wales band in a lot of ways. They're actually from all points of the pig's head. Dav is from Bangor um Kian is from Bangor they're brothers um Gito is from Cardiff Bunf is from Cardiff Griff was born in in Pembrokeshire Haverford West I think but grew up in Snowdonia right so there's a a North Wales majority just about and the thing with North Wales or just rural Wales in general is you get these

weird little pockets of stoner culture up there in the mountains you know where people just sit around getting wasted and listen to these mad psychedelic records that nobody in england has heard of and without giving a fuck what's cool in london certainly you know in the 90s it's this real isolated little thing you just get this kind of weirdness that evolves naturally from sort of like-minded people in these isolated places getting together and forming their own path this sort of counterfactual reality it's got nothing to do with what's going on in the music press and what's going on in in sort of centers of things and that isolation used to allow bands a rare freedom to develop, I think. And I think it helps Superfairy Animals grow into this truly unique and fully formed musical force,

not in an ostentatious or performative or affected way, like, look how weird we are, although there were, you know, elements of that, I suppose, but just naturally so. And without any ironic intent and without kind of second-guessing the whims of tastemakers in the london scene and i think that's what cripples london sometimes is the second guessing of oh how are

people going to react to this you know yeah this thing that we're doing is a comment on the thing before and will people understand that comment and it's so refreshing for a band who would just fuck all to do with that yeah and i i do still think there's something in that theory, the island gigantism comparison. But what's wrong with that theory is that it implies an insularity that was never really there in the super theories. Because if you listen to their work, there's such an evident love of German cosmisch and Brazilian psych and Jamaican reggae and Philly soul, Nashville country.

You know, they're an internationalist band that just happened to come from Wales. And that was so important at a time when the press was obsessed with Little Englanders. I didn't necessarily get it at first. I was put off by the press around them. They were missold as a lads band, like a druggie lads band, you know,

signed to creation, wearing cagoules, like a Welsh oasis. And obviously that put me off. And, you know, you used to get those adverts, have you been missold PPI? Well, I was missold SFA to begin with. But it's funny how you can remember exact moments. I remember the exact moment it clicked for me,

and it was the afternoon of the Reading Festival, Saturday 23rd August 1997. I stood in the middle of the field. Superferry animals were halfway up the main stage bill, and I'm sort of standing there with moderate to low expectations. And Griff restart singing. Clarity

just confuses me. The line's drawn on the map, a strange assembly. That bit from Demons, except that when he sang it, it was the most beautiful thing in the world and it just transfixed me just fucking grabbed my heart you know his voice his voice man it's so rich with warmth and humanity and vulnerability and empathy and he became my i say my equal favorite male singer alongside smoky robinson and I think I developed a bit of a man crush on Griff. He's so handsome.

And he's got this sort of slow, calming, zen, wizard-like presence about him. And he takes quite a long time to get the words out to answer a question. And when I've interviewed him, I've never been quite sure whether he's translating his thoughts in his head or just contemplating it really carefully.

But then again, one time when I was interviewing the super theories, someone turned up, possibly one of Howard Marks' minions, and slapped a bag of weed the size of a pillow down on a table. So, you know, that has to come into the equation. But he just gives you this sense

that everything's going to be okay in the world. I'll never forget walking through Bordeaux after Wales had beaten Slovakia 2-1 in our first game in Euro 2016. Because Welsh people never go on about that tournament, do they? No, never. And a tram went past and Griff Rees was on it and he waved and smiled at me through the glass. Fucking hell.

And I just thought, oh, we're going to be all right here. I said that they're not performatively weird. I just thought, oh, we're going to be all right here. You know, all the kind of, you know, I said that they're not performatively weird. They kind of are. All the peripheral stuff is fun, of course. You know, that Pete Fowler monsterism artwork that they have, the alien helmets they wear sometimes. And famously, the time they spunked all their record company advance

on an army tank, painted it blue, fitted it up with a PA system. And they used to roll into the backstage areas of various rock festivals blasting out techno. And then they got bored with that, and they sold it to Don Henley out of the Eagles, who collects tanks. Do you guys know about Big Tank Chess? Yes, and it's about time it was mentioned on Chart Music. I don't know about this.

Sarah doesn't know about it. All right, okay, right, so I should explain. Yeah, explain yeah so really the super theory selling their tank to don henley was the origin of it's this fictional pastime of big tank chess which i invented with with john doran and john tatlock who we all know and sarah did sarah did her game of thrones podcast with and um there's another rock star who collects tanks i can't remember who it was but we we started speculating that in fact loads of them do it right and that's and that the rock aristocracy all get together in the mojave desert and sit in these big wooden control towers and move their tanks around in in a game of big tank chess laid out in the desert and the fun was deciding who would definitely be a big tank chess player so don henley obviously

and we came up with people like jeff lynn lindsey buckingham um ringo star they were all definitely in yeah definitely big tank chess men and we can now um by the way factually almost add steven morris of new order who genuinely collects tanks right so that So that was Big Tank Chess. So feel free to play at home. Who would be a Big Tank Chess player? They usually sort of wear aviator shades and sort of cheesecloth open-neck shirts. I feel that's the kind of vibe of it. But all that kind of daft stuff around Super Furries

isn't just bolted on. It's not like they were a conventional Brit rock band with a few eccentric hobbies. They weren't basically cast with a tank. They've got a genuinely left-field thinking approach to pop and that that's probably helped by griff's unusual method of playing guitar because he plays left-handed on a right-handed guitar strung upside down which i think i'm right in saying paul mccartney did that jimmy hendrix but but but it's quite rare and and it forces you to look at music

in in a different way but it's very rarely experimentalism for its own sake i would say they never abandoned pop melody for too long i i was i remember i got drunk and i tried to explain what super furry animals meant to me and i blurted out they understand me with their melodies right and i and i got laughed at for that but i meant it because their melodies they their melodies do seem to understand you the chord changes intuitively anticipate your own emotions and this song is not an example of that but it's a lot of fun but i am going to shut the fuck up for a bit so Sarah can come in. Before you come in, Sarah, well show aces. Don't look back in Bangor.

Yeah, there it is. Yeah, I have a great love for this band also. I was at university in Aberystwyth, and while there was a thriving local scene and bigger bands did sometimes slip all the way down through the mountains to get to us, we did have to do our own excursions. And I remember the local record shop organized a bus trip to Tenby to see Super Furries.

Wow. That was a couple of hours away. And it was great. It was like a school trip, but good. And, you know, yeah, it's interesting what you're saying about like how how they sort of evolved out of the landscape in that way. I mean, obviously, there's a thing about the about the coast as well. Coastal towns, which are weird. what you're saying about like how how they sort of evolved out of the landscape in that way i mean obviously there's a thing about the about the coast as well coastal towns which are weird there was a obviously that i i hate to use these words but there was the whole cool comery thing

that you know journalists of the time tried to make happen um i think the opposite is also true i think it is a sort of there is a sort of cultural madagascar thing that happens there and yeah a lot of it has to do with weed like there were a lot of people that i knew who uh were in bands who had gone to abris with to study stuff like countryside management or physics and then dropped out and just you know smoked weed dealt weed whatever and were in bands and you know they weren't all good but there were people like the crockets who were really good and um murray the hump who begat keys sorry the crockets who begat the crimea who just a really wonderful band so you would get stuff like that the people who were just doing their own thing in the most natural way um but of course this also roped in the

stereophonics who are incredibly pedestrian and kind of conservative, kind of gives that, you know, it's almost the exception that proves the rule, I suppose. But yeah, Superferries, they're such a fun band. It's just so fun and clever and so kind of sweet and warm and so inventive and not like anybody else. A lot of sort of psychedelic pop can be quite ponderous and kind of quite inward-looking and quite full of itself and very superficial. And Super Furries were kind of very light hearted, but with real depth as well.

And like you said, there was a weirdness about them, but it's not contrived. It's a very natural thing. Unlike your two, I wouldn't know the Super Furry Animals if they shagged me nono. But I was quite impressed by this. wouldn't know the super furry animals if they shagged me none are but i was quite impressed by this i mean the one thing that did hit me in the face was this absolutely reeks of the album of the week slot in early 70s top of the popsers do you think that was what cowie was aiming for here what because it's a proper band playing live kind of thing maybe but it was high in the charts it was just a commercial fact that couldn't be ignored i mean the studio set has been massively

bright and sterile so far but this performance gives us a chance to see where the money's been spent where the band do know what to do with themselves i mean the blocks at the back have suddenly gone all satiny and shimmery and there are people standing at the back in like archways in in kind of orangey orangutangy chewbacca costumes yeah wookie or yeti or whatever yeah they're like sasquatches aren't they they're like big blonde sasquatch yeah which is from the video by the way that costumes yeah yeah some of them are playing well almost all of them are playing kettle drums apart from one who's just standing there like a bouncer aren't they timpani rather than and floor toms in one case yeah oh yeah you're probably right but yeah there's that one guy there's that

one guy who's like standing guard looking impass're probably right. But, yeah, there's that one guy. There's that one guy who's, like, standing guard, looking impassive. Probably one of their mates. Probably the guy who whacked the pillow of weeds down on the interview table that time. Is he, like, the Bez of this band? Yeah, maybe. Yes.

Fucking hell. Super Furry Animals are one of two actual bands on Top of the Pops tonight. And in this era of Top of the Pops, you can pick and choose whether you want to play live or mime or sing live over backing tapes. But if you're in a band like this, you can't get out of playing live, can you?

Yeah, I mean, it definitely is live. There's all that chaotic guitar overload near the end, which is not on the record. Yeah, I mean, it's audibly definitely live, isn't it? I heard a podcast called Off the Beat and Track the other week with Dougieie pain out of travis turns out he's a pop crazed youngster so a up doug stay pop crazed oh hello yeah and he said that when travis first went on top of the pops him and the rest of the band were they were a bit

knocked that they had to play live because it felt more to them like a gig that they had to nail than a chance to perform and put themselves over you know he said that they couldn't enjoy themselves like slade and t-rex obviously did when they went on top of the pops i suppose you can't ease your way into it the way you could with a gig you've got an hour and a half and you can kind of warm up a little bit yeah but like yeah you've just got to go and nail it in three minutes yeah you can't have a guitar made out of chocolate yeah there is that it does seem like it's it's kind of uh it's neither fish nor fowl isn't it performing live on top of the pops it's not quite a tele performance it's not quite a gig and i'm sure there were people who who um might who

regretted it afterwards like ah you know it's just a bit weird and super furry animals have got around that with the um sasquatches but the problem with is, is Chris Calvert's decided that they're the focal point and not the band. They cut back to them all the time and it's like... Look at those alcoves, yeah. We've seen them, mate. Let's look at the band.

Super Furries themselves used to wear those costumes during gigs, but only at the very end because they used to get really fucking sweaty. Oh, yeah. Oh, imagine that.

Oh, God, the whiff, especially if you had weed into it. Christ. Yeah. That meant that around this time, you always knew that Golden Retriever would be the encore because they're only going to come on for the encore in that outfit. Also, I've got to shout out to Griff Rees' hair here.

What a gorgeous 70s mop. A mane. Yeah, it is a mane. A mung. A mung. It kind of looks like both the Alessi brothers at once, or like a brunette version of Tommy, you know, in Carrie. You know, in the film Carrie.

Tommy Ross, he takes Carrie to the prom. He's sort of like a negative version of Tommy Ross. Bless him. Yeah. I mean, this is a throwaway song. But the thing with Super Furries is that even their throwaway songs take a kind of off-kilter boomerang throwing path you know um so it's it's a 70s glam pastiche similar feel to i reckon um back off boogaloo by ringo star or he's

gonna step on you again by john congos that kind of feel yes and i just remember the first time i heard it it just made me laugh out loud because what they've done is they've taken a hard rock trope about women you know she's a witch or she's a snake or she's a vixen or she's a tiger or whatever and they've satirized it by making it about a really basic british yellow dog you know the default dog you know she's a golden retriever but making it sound all sexy and badass. Supposedly it was written about two actual golden retrievers, the dynamic between Griff's girlfriend, two dogs, one male and one female.

And also it's taking the piss out of that old blues trope about Robert Johnson meeting the devil at the crossroads, except it's a roundabout, and then it's a puppy at a zebra crossing. My favourite bit is, Stop, said the puppy. That's just the best bit in the song yeah it's done completely deadpan as well that's the thing is they were never self-consciously

they weren't they might have been weird but they weren't fucking wacky yes this is from the album phantom power as you said which is one of the good ones it's not not my favorite sfa album not probably not even the top three but it does have glorious stuff on it. Maybe the best one on it is Hello Sunshine, which is also a single, and it's the opening track. Yeah, that's lovely. It has the legendary verse, I'm a minger, you're a minger too, so come on minger, I want to ming with you.

Which was always a massive, joyous sing-along moment at the gigs, that was. This performance, yeah, it's great, I think, because they are playing live but um there's gold tinsel all over the floor but they're just the way they are seems to be almost in defiance or against all all that crap you know um i noticed that griff yes never smiles uh he looks a bit pissed off in fact i wonder if there was a backstory to that i don't know but yeah liz bonnie now introduces them as the sublime super furry animals and i thought she's bang on go on liz she gets it

so the following week golden retriever dropped 23 places to number 36 while the lp entered the chart at number four the follow-up hello sunshine got to number 31 in November of this year and they go on to have two more top 40 hits before winding down for the first time in 2010. Ooh, and on that note, Pop Praise Youngsters, I do feel that this is as good a time as any to step away from this episode and catch us breaths. So, please come and join us tomorrow for the denouement of episode 61 of Chart Music. My name's Al Needham.

On behalf of Sarah B and Simon Price, I command you to stay pop-crazed. Chart Music. GreatBigOour.com this podcast you should do more thanks kerry godliebman it's called this is such a great idea by the way what great podcast shappi korsandi you're too kind the podcast is biographical you can get all sorts of information out of people this is a very good idea thank you nick helm it's called my mate bought a toaster i'm gonna listen to this podcast thanks alex one can you tell your friends