Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #65 (Pt 3): 8.7.82 – Dancey Reagan

Episode Date: April 19, 2022

David Stubbs, Neil Kulkarni and Al Needham continue their intensive tuck-in of a wildly influential episode of The Pops. AC/DC get their cannons muffled, and then Jonathan King introduces the UK to Deeley Boppers, Mr T, and a steaming dollop of white American rubbish. But here come the Germans to save the day!Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull-apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks for the small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. 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?

Chart music. Chart music. Hey up, you pop-crazed youngsters, and welcome to part three of episode 65 of Chalk Music. I'm Al Needham, standing firm with my good friends Neil Kulkarni and David Stubbs, and we are tucking into an episode of Top of the Pops from 1982 that is so good that thoughts of turning over for the build-up of the World Cup semi-final are currently far from our minds. We're not interested in the slightest about fucking about. We want to get stuck into the next bit of this episode.

So to use the parlance of the playground of the day, Socrates goal! Shalamar and A Night to Remember. And by way of a contrast now, let's join ACDC in concert for those about to rock. Kid, finally surrounded by some real kids, including a youth in an orange Hawaiian shirt who looks like he's in an orange juice tribute band, a girl in a blue banana-rama vest, and a really chunky black lad in a white dinner jacket that he's actually tucked into his jeans, warns us not to either pop or lock without adult supervision

and calls him Jeffrey Daniels again. He then offers up a change of pace as he introduces for those about to rock by ACDC. Formed in Sydney in 1973, ACDC were a glam band put together by Malcolm and Angus Young, two transplanted Glaswegians whose older brother George was a member of the Easybeats and the co-writer of Love Is In The Air for John Paul Young no relation

and whose sister gave them the inspiration for the name when they saw it on a sewing machine after rapidly rising through the ranks of the local scene and bagging a support slot on Lou Reed's tour of rising through the ranks of the local scene and bagging a support slot on Lou Reed's tour of Australia in the summer of 74, they changed their management, relocated to Melbourne, ditched the glam for a blues rock sound and knobbed off their lead singer for another Scottish immigrant, Bon Scott, who had recently come out of a three-day coma after having an argument with his previous band,

the Mount Lofty Rangers, getting pissed up and having a bit of a crash on his motorbike. In 1975, they put out their first LP, High Voltage, and a year later, they landed a worldwide deal with Atlantic Records, which led to them playing the Lock Up Your Daughter's Tour, sponsored by Sounds, and being properly introduced to the UK. They made the first dent on the UK singles chart in 1978, when Rock and Roll Damnation got to number 24 in July of

that year, and they spent the rest of the 70s making more of an impression on the LP charts than the singles one. In February of 1980, they were back in the UK to promote their latest single, A Touch Too Much, which they performed on Top of the Pops, but 12 days after that performance, Scott was found dead in a friend's car in East Dulwich after a night at the Music Machine. Although the remaining members of the band were inclined to finish there and then, they were told by Scott's parents that Bond wouldn't want them to, so the search for a new frontman was on.

After being turned down by their first selection, Noddy Holder, they were advised by their producer, Mutt Lang, to give Brian Johnsonson the former lead singer of geordie a fair go remembering that scott had bigged him up to the band after seeing a performance in the 70s which ended with johnson rolling around and screaming on the floor and having to be taken off in a wheelchair and unaware that johnson didn't normally do this but was suffering a severe attack of appendicitis at the time, they tried him out and gave him the job.

They immediately set to work on their next LP, Back in Black in the Bahamas. And when it came out in August of 1980, it smashed into the UK album chart at number one, staying there for two weeks and eventually selling over 50 million copies worldwide, and becoming the second biggest LP of all time after Thriller. This is the second cut from the follow-up LP of the same name, which came out in November of 1981. It's the follow-up to Let's Get

It Up, which got to number 13 in February of this year. It entered the chart at number 25 last week, and this week it's up 10 places to number 15. And here is a sliver of the 6 minute 18 seconds video, which was filmed on tour in late 1981 at a gig in Landover, Maryland. And finally, ACDC's Step in the Arena. And this is the reason that we're doing this episode, Pop Craze Youngsters. Neil threatened to knock me out with those American thighs of his if we didn't do an episode with ACDC on it.

So there we go. Much to talk about, but I think the first thing we need to discuss is fucking hell, Noddy Holder, really? Oh, absolutely. You know what, though? That would have totally worked. Yes, it would. He's got just the right voice for DC, that kind of raucous growl, but also an ability to do pop, which you need as an ACDC vocalist.

It boggles the mind. Yeah, confirmed by him in an interview, straight from the lathe's mouth, if you will. I mean, it could have worked. It almost feels like too good to be true. I just wonder if Noddy Holder would have, you know, with all of the kind of the baggage and history that he brings, he might have, like, overwhelmed it. I think that Brian Johnson is just right.

It would have overwhelmed it in Britain and bits of Europe, but in America, they didn't know who he was, really. No, no. I mean, several people were up for audition for ACDC. They did end up with the right man for audition for acdc they did end up with the right man for the job yeah i've wanted to talk about acdc for ages because for me they're one of the greatest um that i mean i firstly i'd like to if that's okay to talk about the bon era for me that period um they are one of the great reductivist rock bands of all time that run of

albums they did from 76's high voltage through their high point power age i think to their perhaps true masterpiece of crossover highway to help it's one of the best runs of the 70s this being on top of the pops even though it's just a sliver i can just hear the denim creaking in living rooms of the country just enjoy at this the wristbanded fists would be pumping the ear right now oh yeah just so big with the kids and also grown-up metal fans and the thing is though although they're tied in with heavy rock and metal of course they've always stood somewhat apart from that for acdc i think the distance of australia might have helped in a sense yeah they look at

heavy music the rest of heavy music that is in the 70s and they they kind of look at it with a kind of contempt beyond that i think they look at the 60s with contempt they see everything going wrong with rock and roll as soon as elvis joins the army basically you know when you listen to songs like rocker or a song like let there be rock which attempts to you know biblically tell the story of rock and roll and claim that history. It reveals fundamentally, you know, they're Little Richard obsessives. That's what they are, ultimately. And we should always be looking for the Little Richards obsessives in the 70s, including the New York Dolls as well. So musically, you know, ACDC stand apart in the 70s from the rest of the kind of metal brigade, if you like.

There's an almost punk-like insistence on simplicity on three or four chords yeah you know which is ironic because they hated punk yeah when they came to the uk people come up to say are you punk then because you're dead loud yeah and yeah they weren't impressed but let there be rock that album is loved by punks precisely because of its raucousness and kind of its simplicity you know everything they do is three or four chords angus is this amazing virtuoso but what he's playing it's not van halen type shit or richie blackmore type shit it's just pure licks and magic there's no attempt to bring anything outside of rock into rock or progress it in any way the attempt always with acdc's music is to just purify and distill

the impact of rock and and i've got to say as a rhythm section there's an almost disco like solidity that sets in by about 78 to what malcolm angus and phil rudd do when you listen to the grooves of something like touch too much which i think is possibly the high point the disco groove of that is really brought out by mutt lang he really pushes them to a new level if you like and in this period before we're seeing them here um atop of all of this is was bomb who called himself a toilet poet yeah i would argue he's one of the greatest rock lyricists ever i mean granted that they're kind of laughable you know the body of venus with arms you know, and things like that. But there's too many amazing couplets by Bon to pick up. But crucially, he has this openness and generosity in his lyrics

that are unlike anyone else in rock. For my daughter, who's 16, you know, getting to learn 70s rock, she loves Zep, she loves DC. She noticed this. When you think about Black Dog by Led Zeppelin, for instance, you know, big-legged woman's got no soul. I mean, I'm not saying it's body shaming or anything, but contrast that with Whole Lotta Rosie,

which is just a celebration of this enormous groupie. And he's always like that. He's got a real... Bonner's just got this genuinely canny ear for really iconic lyrics. And the symbols of the latter half of the 20th century that were important and that become totemic things for the band. All of the ACDC songs from that glorious run I'm talking about,

they're all about electricity, cars, tattoos, V8 engines, and very, very elemental rock and roll. It's kind of lyrically, he's actually quite a lot like Mark Bolan, but entirely shorn of that kind of Beltane Way Elfin stuff it's pure blue collar and when Bon Scott I mean I just think it's one of the greatest runs of albums and one of the greatest bands of the 70s so when Bon Scott

dies it's a big deal it's not kind of something that's going to be easy to replace unlike a lot of metal bands who struggle with new singers like Sabbath and Dio, Ronnie James Dio, for instance, ACDC are always going to just sail on because of the innate simplicity of the music. But you have to have a frontman that, you know, makes it work.

There's never going to be any musical differences in ACDC because they all just basically have a massive intolerance for fannying about. So, you know, Johnson, as you said, he's an idol of Scott who recalls, you know, seeing him as a front man for Geordie. The good sign, actually, at the audition is they're waiting

for him upstairs and he doesn't turn up. They find out that Brian Johnson's actually downstairs playing pool with the roadies, which is a good sign

if you're going to be in ACDC. You know, you get on with roadies, you're a drinker, etc. And he auditions with a whole lot of roadies. He also does

Nutbush city limits yes which i wish i could have heard that you know he's still living with his mum he is yeah but as a rebrand what they do with back in black it's amazing you know in like you say it's such a big seller in the year it comes out it's only outsold in the states by like five other albums the only rock album ever to sell more worldwide than this album is Dark Side of the Moon. And it's a massive totemic album for kids who'd missed the 60s and 70s. And I do think that for a lot of new ACDC fans, it's the start, you know, back in black. I'm not saying the Bon Scott era is forgotten, but they're a new sort of sized band at this point

because they're stadium-sized now. And Brian Johnson crucially has a stadium-sized voice. Yes, he does. What was warm and lovely about Bon Scott's voice was it's almost kind of sleazy nightclub size and feel, which suited childish songs like Big Balls and stuff like that. Balls was another obsession of theirs. But by sticking to what they did, they carve out this very unique turf and i have to say you know i have been

in the past very much you know you know what i'm like with bands when they split up i'm kind of very doctrinaire oh no aussie no sabbath you know and i was for a while kind of oh if it's not bon scott i'm not interested that's not not DC anymore. I have to say though, the first couple of albums with Brian back in black, the masterpiece and the one that this is from as well is, is still a good record, but they're, they're unique at this point in metal.

I know, I know they're kind of almost array of metal cliches in a sense, but you've got to realize on the one side of heavy metal, you have bands like Iron maiden and priest and merciful fate what are they doing they're more time signatures lots of fiddliness lots of galloping no groove you know and progging it up you can't dance to those bands you can only kind of headbang and on the other side i would argue you've got motorhead you've got saxon and you've got acdc you can dance to these bands they've got groove rather than just gallop.

In fact, you could see this very track, for those about to rock, as a kind of twin of Saxon's hilarious yet brilliant denim and leather, a celebration of the audience akin to sort of We Are The Champions. But for me, it does reveal the shortcomings, if you like, of this new iteration. Brian's voice is kind of unlovable. It's this squawky thing. I should stress, I've only seen ACDC once at the NEC. It was like about 10, 15 years ago. And they were fucking amazing.

It was in a period where I was watching bands playing stadiums, rock bands, like Pearl Jam, for instance. And what a band like that does in a stadium, they play what they'd play in a club and they just assume a stadium should get with it. ACDC never did that. They're full-on showmen. Massive bell that Brian swings from and big catwalk that Angus can do his duck walk down

and all of that. And at the back of it, there's the rhythm section and the rhythm guitarist just staying virtually still and just keeping this massive mammoth groove going. They were fucking amazing. But as a recorded phenomenon, from this time on really, ACDC become a singles band more than albums band.

And they get kind of repetitive in a bad way, ripping themselves off over and over again. And without Bon's humour and his lyrical grace, they become a bit cold. It all becomes about power and electricity. And there's, I don't know, there's no warmth to it. There's still, as you can see in this video, although, my God, what a grainy fucking video this is. You can barely see through the murk. But they're still gloriously cartoonish albeit now with you know

seemingly someone from the jocks and the geordies in them but that but that that comically overdrawn thing with the lyrics always means no one can really take offense my only kind of problem with this i guess is it does signpost the future when it's the acdc become increasingly less relevant although when the beastie boys bring out Licensed Twill, you know, I mean, that's covered in ACDC samples. ACDC become a real source. This appearance here, this video, it's great that Top of the Pops is showing it,

but it's too brief. It seems almost tokenistic. But for the kids who are into ACDC, this would have been a mega fucking moment. This would have been, you know, one of our band's appearance. So it's glorious to see them. I think, yeah,

for me, Bon Era tops everything. And it's one of the greatest discographies in all of rock. By now it's becoming a bit samey. And I don't think Brian's enough to sell that sameness. He's not got enough wit and humour, but you know, I'm still hard pushed to resent this.

They're still good at this point and it's glorious to see them on top of the pots in a mitzvah this episode in particular they really are completely out of the blue in this episode yeah I mean that's one of the interesting things about metal fans isn't it they're extremely forgiving of big line up changes

in their favourite bands yeah we spoke in the previous episode about Echo and the Bunnymen getting rid of Ian McCulloch and struggling on their own and the undertones and people like that. It's like, no, that's game over. But with metal fans,

they're all right with it. They're all right with it. I mean, beyond being all right, I mean, I remember when Ian Gillan, you know, is kind of, becomes Black Sabbath's vocalist. He's got absolutely no problem doing Paranoid and all of these things that Ozzy did.

He's also got, Sabbath had no problem doing Smoke on the Water, you know. There's this, yeah, there's this kind of openness to that kind of thing because for metal fans, these big totemic bands are massively important. They don't want to see them disappear.

No. And everyone, truth be told, everyone was really heartbroken about Bon Scott going it was too soon there was lots more to do so I remember amongst my mates

who were metal fans at this time they were ever so ever so happy that ACDC were carrying on and not calling it a day because even

to this day there's something that happens with Angus Young where he can still knock out at least one killer riff per album it's normally the single and it sort of justifies their existence in a way is it because in metal bands

the lead guitarist is the real front person because angus was the absolute star of acd amongst my peers without a doubt i mean if angus my mate had a dog called Angus after Angus Young. Yeah, I mean, Angus was not only... Yeah, he's almost like the mascot of the band. He's like Eddie as to where I am made in. He has to appear on every sleeve. You know, there's lots of ACDC sleeves where he's the only person on it. And, you know, I mean, Angus crystallises everything

that's amazing about the band. Look at his duck walk. Total homage to Chuck Berry. But also a statement, you know, that rock and roll got ruined once the 50s were over it's a real kind of purist idea um if angus had been unfortunate to have passed on acdc there's no way they would have continued um another guitarist simply would not have done it um at all sabbath as well if tony iomey went you know i mean it just would not happen but that's i think i think to a certain extent that's partly to do with the fact that with a

lot of metal bands the guitarists are the prime motivators and instigators of the band um because they're the ones into guitar rock they're the ones who want to be guitar heroes and they consequently are often the ones who start the bands and if the band you know lose them they're forced to fall apart i mean richie blackmore hasn't let a band happen in a sense that he's not part of you know even when rainbow were popping out he was very very angry about all of that guitarists dominate heavy metal you're right um much more than frontman yeah i'm not saying frontman are interchangeable but you know um they're a lot more interchangeable than the guitarists. Same thing happened with Iron Maiden.

Yeah, Paul D'Arno, first album. Yeah, and then Bruce Dickinson, Forevermore. Unfortunately, D'Arno was great. I would actually not mind Maiden if he'd have stayed vocalist. Can't stand Bruce Dickinson. There's just something a bit Brexity about that guy. We'll come to that in good time. Let the rock expert have his say.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's true about, you know, guitar heroes. No one wants to be a bass hero, for instance. Yeah, I mean, it is very's true about, you know, guitar heroes. No one wants to be a bass hero, for instance. Yeah, I mean, it is very much a human thing. So anyway, it's 1982. There I am in the junior common room at Mylesford College in my semiotic trousers and red braids. It rocks. Well, yeah, yeah.

But of course, you know, I'm very much anti-rockist at this time in line with NME orthodoxy, and my lip is inevitably curling at the prospect of acdc i mean at this point metal was just despicable it was it was like the tory party something like that people like the tigers of pantang were like norman tebbit or something like that in my aesthetic ideology you know which is why there was sexist troglodyte all my kind of cultural values were you, metal wasn't a deliberate affront to them. My aesthetic

values were everything. I would have sneered a bit at ACDC at the time. I think I made a sort of, you know, I cut a sort of rather cutting quip in the college magazine. Led Zeppelin meet the Crankies. Which sadly didn't torpedo their careers. I would go and see led zeppelin meet the crankies yeah

but i mean it's you know it didn't torpedo their careers and i think that's just as well really we jimmy page now the thing about when ac about acdc when you actually sort of listen to them as i did i would have confused feelings you know basically it's a bit like finding hitler a bit erotic or something like that. Well, actually, it's not that. It's beyond that. Genuinely, they're fucking good. You know, you'd not just have a heart of stone, not to, like, ACDC, but ears of stone and, frankly, a brain of stone.

There is an Australian component in a sense. You know, it's like Ayers Rock. It is pure rock. There's no twaddling about. It is, as Neil said, it's reductivective it's getting to the absolute essence of rock you know and it i mean motorhead kind of got a pass i think you know by the punks and i think acdc should that similar sort of thing yeah the fact that he does dress like a school boy and there's that wonderful sort of masculine self-effacement going on just in that really you know there's no sort of self-glorification or whatever, you know. And I think there was always a sense of that, you know,

that there's just no bullshit about them. Yeah. If you didn't know ACDC, you wouldn't be able to tell them from their own roadies, would you? Absolutely. No, you wouldn't. No, absolutely. No, I just think that, you know, Brian Johnson is, you know,

he's got sort of sufficient pedigree, but he isn't, he doesn't really have that much of a style. He feels kind of replaceable in a sense, really. I think what he provides is a texture. sort of sufficient pedigree but he isn't he doesn't really that much of a star he feels kind of replaceable in a sense really i think what he provides is a texture he provides a necessary element but what's really important is obviously angus young and the rock and the riffage the thing is with the school uniform with angus what it also neatly does it destabilizes any sense of egoism yes really and that that's absolutely crucial to ACDC. ACDC are not a band of egos.

What they are is a band of... It is five cogs in a machine, ultimately. And it's the machine-like nature of what they make that makes it so beautiful. It glides, it's got hydraulics to it, it's lubricated. It's a lovely, lovely thing when it's set in motion. Now, I don't think Angus is replaceable because he's the main

songwriter but i think by doing that by making himself look a bit daft basically he stopped any sense of ego in a sense you know that i'm at the front and i'm the most important or look at me i'm amazing it's just you know when these guys plug in and play something fucking miraculous happens and and it still happens and you can see it happening here brutally truncated though it is i mean maybe that's just me as a metal fan thing oh that's not long enough but it just felt a bit you know clipped um yeah but it was it's lovely that they put it on i mean well you know back in black was a massive success so it makes sense for top of the pops to put it on but it would also make complete sense for them to not bother but these are the moments that you know

kids will remember. If you're sat there with your sister who's in a pop and you're in a metal and this comes on, that's a fucking moment and a half that you'll probably never forget. So wonderful to see in the midst of an episode that, apart from this, is obviously like really, I mean, apart from some of the dreadful shit that we might run into soon, it's quite free of rock. It's nice to have a bit of raunch and heaviness in the middle of it here i mean of course being a jam lad who was still

reeling from the events of the autumn of 1981 when i went back to school and discovered that most of my peers had swapped their madness modness badges for acdc patches i would have been watching this not necessarily with disgust, but with puzzlement. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, when my nephew was five years old, his favourite thing to eat for his tea was half a cucumber rolled in salt. Yeah, lovely.

And I would sit there just watching him thinking, really? You actually really like that? Seriously? And I'd have been doing the same thing with this, you know, just trying to work out why my peers were into something that absolutely reeked of the 70s yeah yeah yeah and i'd be thinking did we have the lambrettas for nothing then i mean i get it now of course but

at the time it was like it felt like a step backwards but I didn't hate it because ACDC were absolutely impossible to hate. Definitely, yeah. There was a lot of tribalism in the 80s and, you know, you're just overcome. Yeah, there's much easier metal bands to hate in this period. Like fucking Maiden, for instance. Maiden are the zenith of that kind of ridiculous, laughable side of metal. I hope we get on to Maiden, actually, because I want to slag him off at some point but um just to annoy my daughter but yeah there was that totally laughable side of metal acdc no if you're laughing you're kind of half getting the

point to be honest with you with acdc so you're telling on yourself if you laugh at them yeah i mean yes it is good that top of the pops have put this on but you know you've got to downgrade them a little bit for lopping off the intro which sounds a bit like barbara o'reilly era who and they've cut it before they get to the cannons going off which is clearly the best bit yeah 1812 moment isn't it yeah yeah maybe they were worried about kids going off and playing with artillery afterwards i mean that the reason they put the cannons in apparently was when they were recording this album they were in london and you know they were watching the telly when the royal wedding was on while they were rehearsing and they saw all cannons that'd be good let's bunk some of those they know their crowd you know and they distill things down to simplicities so many metal lyrics

at this period were full of sort of nonsense acdDC really, they could have read out, I don't know, the manual for some new capacitors or something. It's just like, it's pure. It's right down to electricity, cars, and energy and power, almost seen as abstract concepts almost in some ACDC lyrics. It's rock and roll, yeah, taken to this sort of abstracted um place where it doesn't really make much sense but as a kid it's pure pure adrenaline and that's what you want from rock and roll at the time I like everyone else had a metal mate hey up Jake wherever you are

he tried to get me into ACDC and he played me this song and he said wait till you hear this the cannons bit and it was like and i nearly wavered it was like oh actually that's really good i really approve but we don't get to see it on top of the pops which is a damn shame it is a damn shame but truth be told acdc at this point they don't need the help of top of the pops no you know no top the pops need acdc perhaps a little bit but not the other way around anything else to say about this the only thing i can stress is yeah power rage is the best album highway to hell is a fucking amazing record i consider if you don't have them you're bereft of knowledge about rock and roll music and why it means so much so the following week for those about to rock stayed at number 15 and would get

no further the follow-up guns for, got to number 37 in November of 1983 and they'd have 11 more top 40 hits throughout the 80s and early 90s. But their biggest hit on the singles charts came in 2013 when a live version of Highway to Hell got to number four in December of that year. So in closing, I would like to add this quote in

my first conscious decision with music was when i heard back in black by acdc and i was sold acdc always were are and will be the greatest rock and roll band in the world. Nobody will beat them. Fuck your Stones, fuck your Beatles, fuck all your White Stripes and all your new fucking bollocks. ACDC are the greatest rock and roll band ever. Bon Scott first and then Brian. Thus spake the great Chris Needham. I knew halfway through that. I thought you were going to say Keir Starmer then for some reason, but yeah.

ACDC are ten places to number 15. Well, last Sunday, the 4th of July, there was great celebrations right across the United States. It was Independence Day. Let's see how Jonathan King celebrated as he goes through the billboard chart. Kid! Standing amongst a smattering of zoo wankers

and actual real-life people has to remind us that we're four days past the 4th of July because British people still haven't cowered before the might of American cultural power just yet as he informs us that we're about to be treated to another instalment of Jonathan King's Cuntertainment USA. Fuck. David, me and Neil have already had to deal with one of these.

So come on, tell us, how did you feel about this sort of thing at the time? I didn't care for it. It wasn't the America that I wanted. And Jonathan King, I mean, he had that whole business. I mean, it's like Prince Charles meeting Jimmy Savile, looking at Jimmy Savile and thinking, you know, yeah, he's a perfectly sound, decent bloke. I mean, sometimes you really can judge a book by its cover can't you Barbara Cartland or something like that I think I know what to expect here you know like call me

prejudiced but I think I'll give this a swerve and I mean he looks like what he is does Jonathan King and you know that's possibly appearances-ist but yeah again it's that sort of transatlanticism I don't think that Jonathan King was at all a Reaganite in fact I do remember him doing one of these

broadcasts in which he was assuring us that you know you might be fearing that Ronald Reagan's going to get elected but and that would be a dreadful thing because it would be him and George Plastic Man Bush but I think it's safe to say that Jimmy Carter will win the 1980 presidential election thanks Jonathan but it just feels like the sort of I think it's safe to say that Jimmy Carter will win the 1980 presidential election. Thanks, Jonathan.

But it just feels like the sort of, yeah, the famism, the transatlanticism about all of this. I mean, I guess there is a sort of a closer relationship, you know, post-Freddie Laker and all of that between the two continents. But I just feel like we're getting the shitty end of the stick of it all, you know. Especially through this conjurer. I mean, what joy has this man given anybody ever yeah yeah i mean even doing this for charm is i felt such a familiar feeling whenever this couldn't appears on anything it's just you start feeling these precious seconds of your life just swirling away from you into an unrecoverable void yeah yeah whenever he appears

on screen and so it proves in this. And this is the thing, you know, we always talk about like there being half an hour every week. You know, there's just a sliver of entertainment that's kind of relevant to our pop lives. But of course, in the end, it's not even half an hour. Quite often, it's only about 10 minutes

or something like that because there's all of this to wade through. And he gives us a bit of a fucking history lesson at the beginning, doesn't he? Oh, yes. Because that's just what you want in Top of the Pops. Definitely, that's why I tuned in. Yeah, but come on, chaps, let's not moan.

It's America in 1982, isn't it? So, Afrika Bambaataa, Tom Tom Club, Prince, Grandmaster Flash in The Furious Five, Rick James, oh, this will be fucking good. Bring it on! Bring it on! 207 years ago, this was British soil. 206 years ago, America declared its independence, and they're still celebrating that with various guns going off,

parades and so on. However, the British influence on music is still pretty strong in the American charts. Hiccup 100 and Kim Wilder slowing down. Lower down the charts but you'll notice that fleetwood mac have jumped from 22 to 12 and tainted love by soft store goes from 11 to 9. and at number seven juice newton with love's been a little bit hard on me rather like these guns I've got nothing to be ashamed of Love's been a little bit hard on me We're whipped over to a very boring part of New York

as someone dressed up as a revolutionary war type does some bugling. And as the camera pans back, we discover King, dressed and looking like Simon Bates after a night spent sleeping in a skip standing in front of some cannons he reminds us about that war we lost as the cannons roar sadly pointed away from him and then he tells us that a load of singles we rinsed late last year are finally showing up on the american charts but never mind that because here comes love's been a little bit hard on me by juice newton born in new jersey in 1952 judy k newton spent her college years in california and had a go at being a folk singer eventually forming the

country rock band juice newton and silver spur in the early 70s. After middling success, the band split up in 1977 and Newton began a solo career, and a year later she had a moderate hit in America with a cover of Bonnie Tyler's It's A Heartache, while a song that she'd co-written, Sweet Sweet Smile, was covered by The Carpenters.ers in 1981 she put out a cover of the 1968 merrily rush single angel of the morning which sold over a million copies in the usa got to number four on the billboard chart and got to number 43 over here in may of that year this is the follow-up to the Sweetest Thing I've Ever Known, which got to number seven in America late last year

and did arse all over here. It's also the lead-off cut from her new LP, Quiet Lies, and it features Andrew Gold himself on guitar and backing vocals. And this episode screeches to a halt doesn't it fucking hell let's talk about the fourth of july bollocks for a start because that meant nothing then i mean this is it as neil said this is you know this isn't michael portillo's great train journeys or something like that it's fucking top of the box get on with it yeah we don't need to be told about a war that we fucking lost well yeah i swear that when i

first started going on the internet i got involved in this uh internet forum in like the late 90s that was a kind of like american sports themed i was the only non-american on that on the thing and i'd get non-stop shit from fucking morons saying oh you lost that war dude and your scoreboard on you and all this kind of stuff and i just say well number one i wasn't there so i don't give a fuck number two a load of people telling the british royal family to fuck off good on them what a shame we haven't done that yet yeah yeah and yeah i mean crucially, a lot of British people telling the British royal family to fuck off. That's the thing.

I mean, Americans winning that war, it's not exactly what happened. But I mean, you know, Jonathan King is a time sponge, man. And yeah, this opening section, yeah, what you said, Al, about the cannons not being pointed at him, gutted.

But anyway, this thing here, I mean, this would be like Solid Gold or American Bandstand devoting five minutes to the latest British videos and we gave them the oldest swinger in town by Fred Wedlock or fucking Fandabi Dozi by The Crankies over an abattoir video. I mean, no offence to Juice Newton, but what the fuck is she doing here, man?

She's about as comfortable on this episode of Top of the Pops as if she'd be if she just walked into the men's toilets at half-time at a third-division football ground. It's like, Juice, sorry, no, this isn't for you. No, go. The thing is, this persists to this day. This thing that, you know when i was trying to research juice newton because i've never heard of it before watching this you know

and it what you get is a lot of people saying why was she never a big star in the uk you know how how inexplicable is her lack of success in the uk look we don't because of this well we don't care about this shit i mean it's like you know this still the desire to get the uk into american mainstream country music persists you know whispering bob harris the enemy of pop he had his own country show on radio too a while back and you know on a weekly basis he was moaning about why this stuff wasn't big you know bar certain members of the birmingham line dancing community nobody gives a fuck about this stuff wasn't big. You know, bar certain members of the Birmingham line dancing community, nobody gives a fuck about this stuff.

And by the way, I'm not just making it up about Birmingham line dancers. I wanted to check out if my idea about Birmingham being the Texas of England is true. So the other day I was looking for line dancing clubs in Birmingham and I found four. Now, come on now.

Oh yeah, you've got Dancing Tonight Line Dancing Club. You've got Bobby Sue's. You've got John's Jive. And you've got Smokey Mountain Country Music Club. All in the... Where's the Smokey Mountain in Birmingham, man? Well, I looked at the Google map of it outside. It just looked like some sort of warehouse, basically.

Well, not even a warehouse. It's like Norman Fletcher starting that cowboy club. Yes. There was a bloke next door to my best mate It's like Norman Fletcher starting that cowboy club. Yes. There was a bloke next door to my best mate who was into all that kind of stuff. And every Sunday afternoon, while my mate and his family were settling down to tuck into something traditional and British,

all they'd hear is the cunt next door firing his guns in the air and whooping and yelling. And at the same time on central news there was a news story about a bloke who uh dressed up as a native american and spent a lot of time in a tp in his back garden and the bloke next door had a right moan about it to uh my mate's dad saying look at this cunt here who the fuck could do something as stupid as that while he's dressed up as a fucking cowboy that's the thing that you know we need that imagery in a sense to get into it this is why stuff like juice newton remains stubbornly kind of unloved over here i think to an extent it's down to our perceptions in this country of country music i

mean we take some of the music seriously but for it to become pop music to us, it has to contain a bit of gimmickry. So it has to contain songs about gambling or poverty or the novelty of Kenny Rogers' beard or Dolly Parton's tits or whatever. Ray Stevens, the streak. I think it's unique to England, you know. Irish and Scottish friends of mine

are far more likely to have grown up listening to country pop regularly rather than the sort of Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton records that we all have. Whereas to us, you know, in England, listening to country is a bigger crossing of the racial tracks than listening to reggae or soul or bongra music, you know. And this, Juice Newton, she's not even got any of that cowboyish gimmickry. It's just mainstream pop, really, with a country twist.

And why the fuck would we be interested in that with a twang yeah i mean i paid close close attention at this point you know to the charts and this if i even knew this existed um i forgot it did i mean i may have missed this episode or just gone for a slash during this particular segment or something like that now you were watching jimmy greaves weren't you could well yeah i was all geared up for that no you know possibly as well but Willing the Germans on, no doubt, David. No, not at all, no. I was an absolute

Germanophobe, that strutting Schumacher. Good grief, no. It took me a long while to recover from that, actually. Yeah, definitely. I was very much a Francophile this night. If I saw it, it just evaporated,

I couldn't even muster the... Much as I can't now, really, to be honest. I can't really muster the words or the energy to say anything about it. It is just nondescript. It's fucking cat shit, isn't it, this? I mean, the only thing that I... I tried to make notes from it.

It's pretty much a blank page. And then I just thought, looking at some of the video and whatever, there's nothing worse in this world than a slightly new-waved, influenced American from the early 80s. That's all, again, in terms of, like, you know, the sort of attire that people were wearing

in the kind of video and stuff. Also, that weird video, it's a bit like that sort of Dangerous Brothers type vibe. Yes, it is. I mean, it mainly consists of Juice Newton and her band, who are the textbook definition of serving suggestion. I mean, which one did you hate the most out of that band? I think it was the one who was properly new-waved up,

i.e. non-flared trousers and a skinny tie. Exactly, yeah. That's what I'm talking about. Yeah, a horrible band, definitely. And it's interspersed with clips of her being severely and repeatedly injured by a thick pons of a boyfriend yeah yeah we see him picking her up outside her house and then slamming the car door onto her leg yeah yeah he then goes on to accidentally whack her in the face with her own crutch as he gives her some flowers and then he accidentally pushes her wheelchair over a

cliff and that was have you seen the whole video yeah yeah oh it's like a fucking public information film that wheelchair going off on a cliff it's really fucking graphic and she ends up with uh her legs wide open in a full body cast in hospital as i say it's not quite done with the dangerous brothers panache though you know there is an art to this kind of morbid slapstick, and I don't think... I mean, this is for mums, isn't it? This is the reason the mums have not done

well out of this episode so far, so this is for them. Maybe so. Yeah, but what mums are going to be into this? But it's just a litany of domestic violence, accidentally or otherwise. It's really, yeah. Which goes well with country music, I suppose. Well, I suppose, you know, there's always that humorous, you know, Cletus the Slapjawed Yokel

type vibe, I suppose. What's that one on The Simpsons? Came home one night, caught my wife in bed with my best friend. You bid her? Uh-huh. Bid him too. That's funny. That's a joke. So, yeah, this is what America's got to offer at

the moment yeah it's not enticing is it great i think even the mums would have felt you know is this what we get it's like a shit mother's day card so love's been a little bit hard on me ended up doing fuck all over here and rightly so and she never bothered our charts again. Good. Quite right. Next. These ridiculous things are dealie bobbers. Everybody's wearing them all over America. But back to the charts. Going up from seven to six is the Daz Band with Let It Whip. And jumping from nine to five is a future number one record by Survivor. From the movie Rocky III. It's called The Eye of the Tiger.

We cut back to King standing outside a cinema who introduces the UK to deely bobbers and chaps. The 80s have truly begun, man. The age of Aquarius, sort of. It starts with a nadir, basically. Him wearing fucking dealy boppers.

Yeah, the age of nadirious, if you will. I mean, King is a spiritual dealy bopper, so I don't know why it's kind of like, you know, in this sort of detached sophistication and superiority. You know, you are a dealy bopper. You know, there was good 80s and bad 80s, as far as I was concerned. There was a very sharp divide, and good 80s was ABC, the Associates, Scrutipoliti, you know, Simple Minds in the early 80s, as far as I was concerned. There was a very sharp divide. And good 80s was ABC, The Associates, Scrooge Politi,

Simple Minds in the early 80s, et cetera, et cetera. And bad 80s, and it was Zoo Wankers and Dealey Boppers, et cetera, et cetera. And crucially, Jonathan King telling us that all Americans are wearing Dealey Boppers on an almost constant basis. Yeah, wow, there's loads of people milling about, walking past him, and none of them are wearing them. No, they're all walking their pet rocks, but, you don't have dilly boppers yes invented in los angeles in 1981 dilly boppers were a headband with two springy baubles attached to them and with a brainchild of steven askin who

had already come to prominence in america by marketing Ayatollah Khomeini dartboards during the Iran hostage crisis. After making a load of them in his kitchen, he took them to the Los Angeles street fair in the summer of 1981 and sold all 800 of them at $5 each. He sold the invention onto the Ace Novelty Company at the end of the year who called them dealie bobbers by the summer of 1982 an estimated two million other fuckers have been sold by ace novelty with the market's a wash with cheap imitations and this is their first appearance on british television and somewhere out there dave lee travis is stroking a thoughtful beard, isn't he? When I see Dealey Boppers, and I do call them Dealey Boppers

because I'm damn convinced that's what they were called over here, I immediately associate them with Dave Lee Travis. Yeah, with characters. Yes. Total Colin Hunts. Yeah. And Jonathan King wearing them is a nice start, in a way, to the phenomenon. Yeah, set the tone.

Yeah. He then reminds us that Americans get films ages before we do, as he introduces Eye of the Tiger by Survivor. Formed in Chicago in 1977, Survivor were a rock band formed by Jim Petterick, the former lead singer of the Ides of March, who had a number 31 hit in the UK with Vehicle in June of 1970. After forming and then dissolving the Jim Petrick band, he intended to go into radio jingle work, but was talked into giving it another go by his road manager. So he formed Survivor,

who were almost immediately picked up by Atlantic Records. Their first LP, Survivor, who were almost immediately picked up by Atlantic Records. Their first LP, Survivor, flopped in 1980, but the follow-up a year later, Premonition, spawned the singles Poor Man's Son, which got to number 33 on the Billboard chart. Later that year, Sylvester Stallone was wrapping up the filming of his next film, Rocky III, and he knew exactly what he wanted for the theme tune. Another one bites the dust by Queen, which he had inserted into the preliminary cut of the film. But when John Deacon knocked him back, Stallone left a message on Petrick's answering machine saying he liked the working class rock stylings of Paul Manson and wanted something similar for the title theme of Rocky III.

And by God, this is it. It's not available in the UK yet, but over in America, it's jumped 10 places from number 19 to number 9. And as the video we've come to associate with the single isn't available, Top of the Pops are giving us another film clip of Stallone over-emoting in a boxing ring, while Lawrence Churro, a former bouncer in a nightclub called Dingbat's Discotheque, turned tough man boxing champion, turned bodyguard for Michael Jackson and Muhammad Ali, glares on at ringside displaying regretful

compassion for the imbecilic oh boys we're bound to run across the official version of the video at some point so let's put that aside and focus on this because once again the BBC are practically running an advert for a film aren't they yeah they are and then to be fair the video makes the film look pretty damn good um yes it really does but you know much like with the film uh when i did get to see it let's be honest it's clubber lang you want to see um you know we're we're a way off at this point 82 we're a way off you know mr t cereal and the Mr. T cartoon series, which I actually feel is his greatest work. Oh, yeah. When he manages a diverse gymnastics team.

Well, not only that, he punches a shark, he throws an alligator about, he does loads of stuff. I would recommend the compilation on YouTube, by the way, of his moral messages at the end of the cartoon. Or be somebody or be somebody's fool. Homespun common sense homilies on the importance of not bragging and not moaning and basically you know don't be bad be good um but he was the most compelling thing about rocky three mr t yes he was and this is the first time

we get to see mr t isn't it first dealie boppers now this fucking hell that america right yeah yeah absolutely rocky three is also the first time that we see Hulk Hogan, so a cultural monolith. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, I mean, I liked Mr. T, I think, from things like Top of the Pops, because obviously this is way before A-Team as well. But I was finding something with the Rocky movies, because I was taken to see Rocky, probably the first one, really young,

and I did watch Rocky II as well. So I was looking forward to Rocky 3. I felt old enough to watch this kind of stuff now. But I was detecting something. I didn't like Mr. T's defeat in this film, you know? And the way the film, I mean, obviously you know, it's about the great white hope

all of the Rocky films are. But the way that Rocky 3 in particular, it kind of rewards Carl Weathers for being the right type of black boxer, you know, giving it up for the white saviour. And Clubber Lang gets demonised for being angry, basically. Yes. For being an angry black man. I mean, by the by, if you really want to open up a can of indignant worms and trigger white Americans, just suggest somewhere online that the Rocky films might be racist.

They really do not. Racist as fuck. Just as somebody that was kind of conscious of African-American culture and a cute boxing fan. I mean, it's just a ludicrous exercise in wishful thinking. Yeah. You know, the whole thing. It's Chuck Wepner.

I think it was a guy called Chuck Wepner who went a long way with Ali. Yes. And he took him all the way. And I think that's what inspired him. You know, perhaps a white man could beat up a black man. You know, and it's all there is to it yeah yeah yeah I mean look Stallone in a weird way he's a good popular artist my favorite of his is by the way the fever dream of action cinema that is Cobra but um Rocky 3 I remember that being the first one I think where

I started detecting the faint racism of Rocky films and having a big problem with it. It really does trigger a lot of Rocky fans and boxing fans if you dare to suggest that the Rocky series is in any way racist. I suppose by Rocky 4 it's just entered cartoonism. Rocky 5 don't bother with. Rocky Balboa

I've not bothered watching although I was amused that Carl Weathers wanted to be in it. Sylvester Stallone pointed out hold on a minute you were killed in the fourth one and because Carl Weathers

got so pissed off about that that he wasn't allowed to be in Rocky Balboa he could have been a ghost yeah as a ghost or something who knows

he refused to let Sylvester Stallone use any of the Apollo footage from any of the films yeah because if you have a ghost box that how are you going to land on it

you know what I mean yeah it's a host of difficulties isn't it yeah rocky three's the first one where i sort of start detecting that there's something up with this series but that said i mean yeah talking about the video you do have to sort of talk about survivor at the same time yes you do it's a good intro this tune it does its job um do survivor lyrically tells the story of the film without really mentioning any any specifics which frankly would have been ace i would have loved to have heard the words rocky and apollo in these in these lyrics you know when they do the exact same trick in rocky four and they do burning heart um that film they do actually mention the sort of you know the socio geopolitical import of rocky four IV. There's that line,

seems our freedoms up against the ropes. But this song, although it inhabits the same sound world and dynamics of something like Stevie Nicks' Edge of Seventeen, whereas Stevie's a totally compelling lyricist and singer, the chap from Survivor isn't. Isn't, no. It is what you'd expect from a band

pretty much made up of jingle writers. It's rock produced and sheened to the point where nothing really grabs you and everything snags your esophagus a little bit it's got that weird sense of this is meant to be heavy while sounding really fucking weedy yes once it gets going you know but the intro is good i can't deny it's a good build for the film it's used cleverly in the film but survivor don't really care about rock and roll they're timpani types not really rock and rollers. They're Tim Pan alley types, not really rock and rollers. So I kind of applaud the craft but loathe the sentiment.

But the film itself, you know, I was having problems with that as well. Perhaps the first time I had problems with the Rocky series is definitely Rocky 3. It's really funny though now because Clubber Lang obviously heralds the arrival of Tyson. Yeah, very much so. And also when a white heavyweight boxing

champion finally comes around he's a bit nearer to ivan drago than rocky yes indeed yes there was articles in the village voice and places like that when the first rocky came out suggesting you know this is all about white working class people feeling that black people have been given too much progress and this is about claiming something fat not many people picked up on the racism of rocky free at the time it came out um it was very triumphalist when it came out but yeah it's pretty blatant i haven't watched the film for a while i must give it another viewing but as i recall mr t is given this character clubber lang clubber lang is he's like a mandingo type figure of fear and kind of hypersexual sexuality and and all the rest of it it's a

real cowalescing of a lot of a lot of stereotypes and he's throughout the film i think contrasted with apollo apollo learns to acquiesce to the great white hope learns to actually help the great white hope you know and is a businessman and all the rest of it um club alang is this angry young black man and consequently he's demonised throughout the movie and I remember feeling distinctly uncomfortable about that Yeah, it's a definite vibe of good black man and bad black man definitely

It's interesting that another one bites the dust I don't think that would have worked particularly well No, not at all I can't stand this song One of my worst nights ever was in Leeds at some pub and it was one of those it was when the

London Symphony Orchestra kind of produced hits of the day to a kind of little 4-4 disco beat or whatever and did some version of Eye of the Tiger

and I just felt so sorry for the players in this you know they come into this world to play Bartok and Stravinsky and Schoenberg and they're playing

fucking Survivor the poor sods but I actually think it kind of does its job in terms of, like, capturing the sort of cheapness, the sort of cheap emotion, the sort of contrived adrenaline or whatever of the Rocky film. I actually think it's a kind of

a decent match. My beef with... One of my beefs with Rocky, again, as a boxing fan, is just the awfulness of the ridiculousness of the boxing scenes. I mean, they're risable. Oh, he mystically over-eggs it, doesn't he, Stallone? Absolutely. I mean, it's ridiculously. just the awfulness of this the ridiculousness of the boxing scenes i mean they're risable oh yeah you're fistically over exit doesn't he still absolutely i mean it's ridiculously at a time when

boxing was fucking amazing yeah absolutely i know and then you got this nonsense you know it's pretty much like world wrestling federation stuff really three or four scenes in which people boxers are not clean off their feet i can recall this happening you know like in the same round you know and it's it's like you like with roundhouse punches or whatever. I only saw that once in heavyweight boxing. It was George Foreman in 1973 against Joe Frazier where he actually does land an uppercut and you see Frazier actually just jump off his feet.

And this is happening on a sort of four or five times per round basis in this film. Yeah. I mean, this is a time of Hagler and Hearns and Leonard and Duran and oh. Oh, no, yeah, absolutely, yeah, I know. And Sublime, these are wonderful things to watch. And Robert Lindsay.

The idea that this is some idealised version of what boxing ought to be and that the real thing is a bit boring is absolutely ridiculous. This is risible. Also, your boxers, put your fucking dukes up. The way that the fights sway back and forth and no one has any idea of like how to sort of conduct a defense it's just just insulting really yeah and and it's kind of insulting that you know stallone when he's making the rocky films he seeks out people like joe frazier for advice and stuff like that and and it's not joe frazier who ends up with a statue in Philadelphia. It's fucking Sylvester Stallone. Do you know what I mean?

Fucking Philadelphia. What the fuck is wrong with you? But this song, I mean, it does become just a general kind of motivational anthem, applicable and usable in all kinds of different scenarios. When Mike Walker has his short, unhappy reign at Everton, he gets them to ditch his head cars in favour of Eye of the Tiger. Fuck. It doesn't work for them.

You know, but it's that kind of fucking song, isn't it? I think I've only seen one Rocky film in my life, which was the original one, when the BBC showed it after the England-Germany semi-final in 1996. And I just remember sitting there, pissed up, absolutely maudlin, just looking at it and going, what the fuck are you going on about miracles come true? Fuck off.

So I've never watched another Rocky film, but after seeing this, I don't have to see Rocky film. I get everything. Yeah, you completely do. It's a really good little capsule of a film. The thing that jumped out at me was the images of Stallone all over the magazines and newspapers, particularly the London Examiner,

which reports on another rocky victory alongside a news story where the headline is Chelsea's frenzy, which probably had more to do with their supporters than anything the team was doing in 1982. World of Cricket

and the tantalising headline Eagle Farm Today. I'd love to know what that's about. Well spotted. The films are weird because the films are this weird mix

of kind of like almost kitchen sink drama but the boxing scenes they're for children. I mean there's more realistic action sequences than fucking Scooby-Doo or something. Yeah, absolutely. But great advert, BBC.

Yeah, they've done a good job here. They've done the film well. But immediately, the most captivating thing is not Sly, it's Mr. T. And we want to know more about that guy. And as time will tell, we do get to know more about that guy. I mean, the only good thing I've got to say about survivor is uh and this song is that eye of the tiger was the first song i ever played on guitar hero about 15 years ago so you know i've got a bit of residual fondness for it i used to love guitar

hero did you partake chaps i didn't partake i have heard though that this song is a particular joy to play on guitar hero oh you know what it's that chord just after he sings eye of the tiger you know you know the bit that goes it's the pow oh yeah yeah and the first time i hit that chord it's like oh man the power of rock compels me the best thing you could ever do with guitar hero is have a load of people around and make sure there's one or two musos who are sitting off to the side refusing to get involved with their arms folded and faces like smacked arses oh it's not real musicianship you know i used to love that i used to just stare at him while i was playing and go look at me i'm a guitarist everyone it was

like having your mate who's a fucking carjacker coming around watching you play grand theft auto and going oh no it's not like that. Yeah yeah. It's a total misrepresentation of the art of stealing cars and hitting people and King's going to give himself a pat on the back and claim that he introduced Survivor

to the UK isn't he? Yep you get Survivor Genesis. Chalk another victory up for JK Two weeks later, Eye of the Tiger would run all the way to the top of the marble steps of the American chart, deposing this week's number one, and

would stay there for six weeks, eventually being battered to the floor by abracadabra by the Steve Miller band. On the last day of this month, it entered the chart at number 54, rocketed 25 places to number 29, then soared 23 places to number 6 and stalked the number 2 slot for a fortnight before taking down Come On Eileen and spending four weeks at number 1 over here,

keeping Save A Prayer by Duran Duran, Private Investigations by Dire Straits, and The Bitterest Pill by The Jam off number one, before yielding the floor to Pass the Dutch Air by Musical Youth. Oh, mate. The follow-up, American Heartbeat, got to number 17 in America, but didn't get anywhere near our chart and they had to rely

on Stallone again for their second and final UK hit when Burning Heart from Rocky IV got to number five in March of 1986. The single was nominated for an Oscar losing to Up up where we belong and was nominated for a grammy losing to always on my mind by willie nelson but received the ultimate accolade when it was covered by cilla black in surprise surprise have you seen that neil oh yeah thanks for sending that through and like many singles of its ilk, it experienced a strange afterlife last decade when all manner of American Republican cunt politicians were sued by the band for using their song

to whip up banjo twanging inbreds at their rallies. at their rallies. Sticking at number four this week is Asia, with Heat of the Moment, and jumping over it from number five to number three is John Cougar and Hurt So Good. Come on baby, make it hurt so good Sometimes love don't feel like it should We cut back to a long shot of the Statue of Liberty while King leans awkwardly on a rail

like people do when they're having a photo taken and think they're going to be out of shot. He tells us some more chart info that we're not that interested in before introducing Hurt So Good by John Cougar. Born in Seymour, Indiana in 1951, John Mellencamp was a college student and Roxy music fanatic who played in the local glam band Trash and left his wife and child behind to pursue a music career in New York in 1974. A year later, he was discovered by Tony DeVries, the founder of Main Man, who had just finished being David Bowie's manager, signed him up to MCA, and he was immediately rushed into the studio

to record his debut LP, Chestnut Street Incident. But it wouldn't come out for another year and when it did Mellencamp discovered that De Vries thought his name was too Germanic and had it changed to Johnny Cougar after being dropped by MCA after the LP only sold 12,000 copies and a follow-up LP that De Vries refused to shop around to a new label, The Two Parted Ways. However, Mellencamp was picked up by Billy Gaff, Rod Stewart's manager and the owner of Reva Records in 1978, and he spent a year in London under his wing, changing his name to John Cougar in 1979. This is the lead-off cut from his fifth LPp american fool which features mick ronson on

guitar and backing vocals it came out last april and it's the single that has finally put him over in america having jumped nine places to number 20 this week and here's the video which was shot in madora indiana a place that's currently undergoing a population boom at the minute chaps the last census has the population at a whole 853 it's now 635 somehow they didn't manage to capitalize on the uh on the tourist value of it being the site of a John Cougar video. It's a horrible video. Oh, it's fucking awful. It's vile. There's one moment where he cakewalks

kind of between these lecherous pensioners on bikes who are pouring his two kind of rock chick dollies he's got with him. It's vile. On chains as well. Oh, God, it's horrible. I mean, just the awful smugness of it. Yeah, just running the gauntlet, you know, of these appreciative, as you say, sort of aging Hell's Angels.

The fucking worst-looking Hell's Angel gang in the whole of America. They're the Hell's Angel version of the orphans, aren't they? Yeah, you go over there and knock over their bikes in a domino effect thing, and what are you going to do? You look shit. But I first became aware of, well, it was Johnny Cougar, I think, in an advert in Melody Maker in the late 1970s.

Yes, well, yeah, let's address this right now, David. As far as I'm concerned, there was only one Johnny Cougar, and he is the kind of the seminal wrestling madman of Tiger and Scorcher fame, you know, a walking compendium of, like, Native American cliches, you know. Hear, hear, sir. That's Johnny Cougar. You, your heat big cunt is what you are. Yes, exactly, David. Yeah. I mean, you might as well call

yourself Billy Dane or Skid Solo. Yeah, I just thought it was a pretty good name. You know, Roy Race. It's just not on. And then also... Or Hot Shot Hamish. Absolutely, yeah. With his song, you know, when he talks about how it just came to me, it just seemed like a pretty good title.

It's already been done. Millie Jackson, you know, had a talks about how, it just came to me, it just seemed like a pretty good title. It's already been done. Millie Jackson, you know how to hit with this. You know, the idea, just absolute thief. Yeah, the song's awful. Terrible Substones bollocks. The first thing, well, the second thing, after what David correctly said, what a knob end he looks.

He's got this dead tight black leather waistcoat on with a bandana around his neck, and bizarrely, he's got cream-coloured chaps around his jeans, which is fucking thick. I mean, no chap wearer am I, but surely the whole point of chaps is to keep the dirt off your trousers. So why would you wear light-coloured ones? No, it doesn't work like that.

He's not quite worked his look out yet. I still think he's got a bit of glamness to him from his early years. But what he's aiming for here is really something a bit more blue-collar and it ain't working out for him at all. He looks like the worst-dressed homosexual in the Castro, doesn't he?

Which was Fred Wedlock's ill-advised follow-up to his one and only date. Yeah, very much so. He looks awful. He sounds terrible. And as is the case with much of this bit

this whole Jonathan King bit you just sat there a British kid at home just thinking when are the charts coming back on

yeah our charts and why haven't you know the proper charts there's so many records they could have played man

that they could have played the video consists of him doing a turn with a band of absolute fucking American egg and chippers before he leads the crappiest motorcycle gang in history and then The video consists of him doing a turn with a band of absolute fucking American egg and chippers before he leads the crappiest motorcycle gang in history.

And then he walks down Main Street with two women who are clearly not gossip. And they pretend to enjoy it while they avoid being groped by the rubbish bikers. This whole segment really feels like there's some sort of cultural necessity for American white rock and pop that we may not have considered before to be promoted in the UK. It's almost like there's some sort of charitable work that's required. It's ridiculous. We're not interested. It's shit. Absolutely. But it sounds like, won't you give Johnny Cougar a hearing?

No. Somewhere Johnny Cougar is waiting for your help. Yes, exactly. Thank you. Do you consider yourself a rock and roll singer? More than an opera singer, I guess, yeah. But you think rock and roll may be coming to the end of its life? Well, I think rock and roll's a dinosaur.

You know, it's been around 27 years, and I don't know what else they can do new, you know? I mean, you know, synthesizers aren't new, guitars aren't new. I mean, you only play DG&A so many ways and that's it, right? If it ain't DG&A, it ain't rock and roll. Well, then what's the next phase? Next phase, I don't know. You know, if I knew, I'd tell you and we'd go out and do it and be rich, right?

John Cougar, thank you very much. We're treated to an interview with Cougar where he pretty much says that rockism is dead, which a young David Stubbs would have been nodding furiously at, no doubt. Hey, David? Well, yeah, absolutely. I mean, he kind of warms me a little bit in this interview.

First off, because when Jonathan King says to him, would you consider yourself a rock singer? And there are so many people in various sort of, across the musical spectrum, who would have said, that's just a category. You're obviously a rock singer. He says as much. You're more than an opera singer.

So I don't like that kind of slightly warm-trimmed act. And yes, of course, for his prediction that rock was dead. Obviously, his own rock is stillborn and sterile. That's certainly true. But it's reasonably kind of honest stuff. I did slightly warm- to him as a

result of that interview but the interview does make the entire record that we've just seen yeah just seem entirely cynical exactly yeah he doesn't believe in any of it it's a load of shit and i'm just trying to turn a pound off there yeah do you want to buy some dealie boppers off me totally i mean it's just like you know when frank zaffer said jazz is not dead it just smells funny and i mean this is you know a similar sort of thing really smells funny but you know it's just like, you know, when Frank Zaffer said jazz is not dead, it just smells funny. And I mean, this is a similar sort of thing, really. It smells funny. But, you know, it's a video from the heartland, which is going to be shoved up her arse over the next few years. It's just basically American Long Eaton, isn't it, this place?

So Hurt So Good would eventually spend five weeks at number two in America, unable to dislodge Eye of the Tiger, but did fuck all over here. However, the follow-up, Jack and Diane, would get to number 25 in the UK in November of this year, his one and only top 40 hit as a solo artist, and not even changing his name to John Cougar Mellencamp in 1983 and reverting to John Mellencamp in 1991 could help him much over here okay back to the American charts at number two is Rosanna by that fantastic band Toto and at number one well a few

months ago Phil Oakey complained in the press about Top of the Pops wasting time always looking at the American charts and why did we do it? Well, I'll tell you why we do it. This week's number one in America is a record called Don't You Want Me by the Human League. King tells us how fantastic

Toto are before taking massive offence at Filoki when he spoke for the nation and said that this section of Top of the Pops is absolute cat shit and what's the fucking point of it anyway? Why do we do it, says King? Well, I'll tell you why we do it. This week's number one in America

is a record called Don't You Want Me? by the Human League. What the fuck is he going on about? What does that even mean? If that proves the value of this segment, you know, and his reported complaints from Phil,

they would have had a nation nodding vociferously. Oh, yeah. Especially us pop kids. Yeah. Phil's 100% correct. Yeah. And if the charts are just a wash you know with the british invasion stuff then the whole section would be superfluous anyway yeah no the type of section is to showcase people like juice newton and johnny cooby that no one is interested in phil yes absolutely right and when phil's talking

you usually get some sense we've already covered this single the christmas number one of 1981 the biggest selling single that year in the uk and the fifth best selling single of the 80s in chart music number 49 since then it's been handed down to less modern and cutting-edge countries such as america and my god it's driven them synth pop crazy and this week don't you want me to shove the piano that paul mccartney and stevie wonder were sitting on right off the top of mount popmore and taking its rightful place as america's number one yes fuck ebony and ivory it's all black plastic and white plastic now, isn't it? Me and Neil have already covered this. So, David, your thoughts?

I mean, this song, it's more than a hit. It's like a sort of fact of life these days. It is just absolutely preserved. But obviously at the time, I think that the words synth-pop were inevitably followed or preceded by the word disposable. And I think the idea that they were the sort of the deedy boppers of their you know, the charts or whatever and

the things that would truly last the ages would be the great sort of stone and metal edifices of like Prog or the kind of current relevant works like the Tigers of Pantang all of which are just fallen to dust really in public memory and what has actually endured is the synth pop, whether it's Depeche Mode or Human League, you know, here's yeah an absolutely prime example of it you know that this is

disposability is absolutely not yeah i think just what i love about this point of human league though it is it is the takeover of when you know joan catherine susan sullivan they come in and and i think that they almost force the issue maybe sort of i think it's something that they're very kind of conscious of wanting to do that they represent themselves that they are what the human league are about they are the absolute essence of it it's not joe callas it's not adrian on the slide it's not any of the other kind of musicians that came in and out it's them they are the pop essence the sort of the smash you know the sort of slightly kind of uncoordinated dancing a certain spirit of smash hitsness of popular music in the 1980s and that has endured

right through and they're still touring now they're still on the road yeah just the absolute durability of it i think is just a great thing so once again the whole artifice of this section has been completely exposed because hey look here's that thing that you all bought seven eight months ago yeah yeah yeah this is basically a section that reduces a 40-minute show to a half-hour show of relevance, really. And look at what they could have won. Look at what they could have been playing in the 10 minutes that we get here. When I look at the chart...

In five minutes. Well, five minutes. Okay, but... But it feels like 10. It feels like 10. When I look at the charts and when I look at the records in there, Japan, hot chocolate,

even dollar. Fuck it. Ataman, Soft at the records in there, Japan, Hot Chocolate, even Dollar, fuck it, Ataman, Soft Cell, Bow Wow Wow, ABC, Visage, Roxy. Just, I mean, fuck it. In fact, never mind other good records in the charts. They would have been better off just giving imagination five minutes. Just give them five minutes. Do what the fuck you like. Do whatever you like.

Free swim. That would have been better. Or get Jeffrey Daniel out and say right show us in real slow motion how you do that backside that would have been more value to the nation

than this shit so Don't You Want Me would spend three weeks at number one in America giving way to Eye of the Tiger and as in the UK would be their only number one in the USA. Well, we may have lost the colonies,

but at least we've still got the number one record in the American charts. From Jonathan King at Independence Day Parade in New York, back to the studio. A fantastic achievement, that, for the human league. Well, a couple of weeks ago, Jonathan King was going to the studio. A fantastic achievement that for the Human League. Well, a couple of weeks ago, Jonathan King was going to the European number one and at that time,

Trio were number one in Austria and Switzerland and now they have a hit in the UK and here they are with Da Da Da. You don't love me, I don't love you.

Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Kid, next to a zoo wanker with all glitter in her hair that makes it look like she's been involved in some Cyberman bakar care, gives the human league a pat on the back. I think that woman is definitely using glitter spray, which was one of the adverts that would be seen on channel four in its first year and was absolutely fucking hammered to death man you know the one that goes you got a glitter just keep this spray 18 beautiful inches away

you glitter girl that was on all the time it was that and them adverts for Freddie Barrett's off licences, which was fucking mad, which no one outside of London had the slightest clue what was being advertised. It was just this middle-aged bloke gnawing on a massive bone or doing something mad. Good old Channel 4. He then goes on to virtually claim full responsibility

on behalf of Top of the Pops for the success of the next single, Da Da Da, by Trio. Formed in Bremen, West Germany in 1966, McBeats were a band put together by vocalist Stephan Remy and guitarist Gert Krawinkel, who were heavily influenced by Das Roland Stonen. After changing their name to Just Us, they became a regular feature on the North German beat combo circuit, but split up in 1969.

Undeterred, Remy and Krawinkel formed a folky prog band called Krawinkel, which signed to Philips and put out two LPs before splitting up in 1972, which led to the two of them spending the rest of the 70s as teachers. In 1979, however, they decided to have another go and recruited Peter Behrens, a veteran of the Hamburg scene who was in the krautrock band Silberbart before attending the Milan Circus School and was currently working as a clown and pantomime artist. After renting a house in a hamlet in Lower Saxony and moving in together, they pieced together their debut LP, recording it in the cellar.

After shopping it around 23 different labels and being rejected by 23 different labels they found a champion in klaus vorman yes that klaus vorman made to the beacles and bassist of manfred mann who had seen them in concert and recommended them to his mate who was the german anr manager for phonogram after signing Phonogram and being given Vorman as their producer they commenced work on an LP called Trio which came out in West Germany in October of 1981. While touring the LP around at assorted record shops across the country they wrote and played out this song which leaned heavily on the teenage spod lust object of

the age the casio vl1 which was retailing in wh smith at the time for 39 pounds 95 pence which is about 163 in today's rubbish money they were so knocked bandy by the response, they immediately pegged it over to Zurich to borrow Yellow Studio and knock it out as a single. It was put out in West Germany in the spring of 1982 and immediately shot up the charts, getting to number two but being unable to dislodge Der Kommissar by Falco and Ein Bischen Frieden by Nicole, but it spread like wildfire through Europe, getting to number one in Switzerland and Austria and lodging itself in the top ten from Norway all the way down to that there Spain.

Three weeks ago, on Top of the Pops, Jonathan King presented his segment from Madrid so he could show off that he was at the World Cup and you weren't. But also to break down the Euro charts. And they played 30 seconds of da-da-da to the UK. After which Simon Bates went so far as to say, Well, we reckon at Top of the Pops that Trio, if that record was released in this country, could be a British number one. As we all know, Simon Bates' word is bond.

And when it was released over here at the beginning of the month, it entered the chart at number 54. And this week it soared 24 places to number 30. And here they are in the studio with Top of the Pops pushing Das Boot out to put them over. And oh, chaps, all is well with the world again because this performance is skill on so many levels and I don't even know where to start with it.

It's magnificent. Isn't it just? It's one of the most memorable Top of the Pops appearances of the entire first half of the decade, I would say. Yes. On an episode where Jeffrey Daniels done his pieces. Fucking hell, we're spoiled tonight. Obviously, we have to give the floor over to the rock expert,

the author of Future Days, a definitive book on krautrock, and Moss by 1980, which does likewise for electronic music. Come on, David. Thank you. All right, here we go. Well, perhaps I'm going to sort of drop a bit of lukewarm water here, just based on how I felt about this at the time, because I was pretty fierce about my music.

And I was actually hoping to like this more than I actually did, because it was European, and it was kind of mentioning Dada, and we already touched on my passion for Dada. You know, this is terrible. Al, I realise I perhaps don't have any kind of sense of humour. I've always thought I was one of the chaps, you know, game for a laugh and all that, you know, chuckle. But what happened, it was like this.

I've long been an admirer of the great Dadaist sculptor, poet, Jean Arp, also known as Hans. Also his wife, Sophie Toiber Arp, who exhibited at the Tate, modern recently. Since about 1981, I've been aware of the Dada movement. But I was listening to this Danny Baker podcast recently, and for some reason he was discussing this great artist. And the first thing he said, he says, like, his up i mean what's funny shit that's funny isn't it hands up of course you know ottawa hands up me oh my god and in 40 odd years i didn't get this and it never occurred to me that this is funny so i just feel terrible i feel like possibly you know as i say i've always thought of myself as having a lighter side and all that i have no sense of humor at all

terrible terrible business but this song right what's up with it david why don't you like it what the fuck's wrong with you i don't know because so obviously why do you hate germans absolutely i i love germans but i think i don't know as it kind of progresses in this kind of willfully enervated way you know with this kind of ticking deadpan casio i just think what would hands up baby hands up have made of this i don't think that he would have felt that this is the true dada spirit there's something else that perhaps they're just sort of exploiting the reductiveness of the dada moniker or whatever. So I felt a bit stern about that. Also, I just felt at this point,

a lot of groups that were kind of operating in a post-punk era in Germany and having this kind of sort of brutalist sort of neo-Krautrock type thing going on in a sense. And all of a sudden it was getting codified as the Neue Deutsche Welle. And I always figured that like this, with its kind of quirkiness, was a sign that things were just about to go wrong and we were all going to get a bit 99 red balloons any second. Oh, he's having a go at fucking Naina now.

I know, it's terrible. I just felt a bit like when people like Nick Kershaw and Howard Jones rocked up in 1983 and thought, this is the end of something here. So I kind of felt a little bit embittered about it on that basis I guess I didn't I thought it should have never mind trio I thought it should have been da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da A little piece. A little piece, yeah, which won the Eurovision Song Contest that year. DAF immediately came out with their own riposte, Ein bisschen Krieg, A Little War. And I just thought, that's what we want.

That's the stuff to give the troops. And, yeah, so I suppose I just found all of it and the kind of the quirky roboticisms and all that. And I thought, no, no, Kraftwerk do that properly and more thoroughly and better. Also, you're not DAF. And so I think I kind of resented it on that basis. But obviously now you can perhaps appreciate from afar the strangeness of it the audacity of it nevertheless you know perhaps i'm sort of setting you know like setting up high hurdles and strict standards or

what have you um i just suppose i can never quite get over that initial disappointment you know no i can completely understand that um you know, at the age you were, David, you know, elitism is a big part of listening. I mean, for me as a kid, obviously, nine, ten years old, if we can just talk about the record before we even get on to the performance. Yes. The record on the radio had already, you know,

entranced me, really, mainly because that Casio beat, that was, you know, it's both melody and rhythm. But more importantly, it's accessible to me. I can go into Dixons and I can press buttons and make that sound happen, you know. It might not be the sound of the street in 1982, but it's definitely the sound of the high street. And yes, Neil, like me, utterly infectious to people of our age. Massively reachable. You know, we had some of these keyboards

in our school in the music room so there was that as well oh you jammy bastard i know jammy bastards but that a massive pop hit could be hinged around something so simple was it was a real revelation to me because simps you know in the hands of people like human league etc they were everywhere i looked but they always seemed kind of impossibly expensive, you know, used by technicians. And here they're being used by people who definitely aren't slick in a way. And they're being used in an almost childish and infantile way in terms of the expertise needed. It's a really mind-blowingly kind of minimal thing, but it's immediately arresting because of that sound when you're a kid. It's real arresting because of that sound when you're a kid. It's real earworm. And so every element that then gets blended in on that basis,

you know, the basic rock and roll guitar that we hear, and of course the motif melodically that ends up getting played on the Casio, they become big pop moments. And that's the thing. It's a big pop smash made out of very small moments. The only record it reminds me of in that regard is something like The Flying Lizards. It's one of those records that's right on a tightrope. It's totally catchy pop magic, but it's also showing you the nuts and bolts in a way.

It's like this kind of Wizard of Oz revealing method of production. And of course inviting the question, even as a kid, are we getting played by this record? Do you know what I mean? Are we getting conned? So it's an amazing record for a little child. But the great thing about, I think, this performance is that everything good about it, including its odd stance somewhere between sort of despair and a smile,

it's accentuated by Top of the Pops. Yes, it is. Hurl completely goes along with the weirdness, which is really lovely to see. The VL1 sound sound it's one of those sounds that kids fucking go mental for we're four years away from that beat that happens in the first round of three two one which kids always used to get up and dance to we're about four months away from hearing the countdown bit for the first time so yeah this is a golden age for bleepy bloopiness.

Bleepy bloopiness. Exactly, exactly. Michael Hull's played an absolute blinder here. So let's break it all down. So first of all, for the first time in the whole episode, they've actually let us see the kids. They're all sitting around the band in a horseshoe, holding up pieces of card with faces drawn on them.

And that's giving off some severe vibes of the opening credits of rolf on saturday okay yeah which was produced by michael hull of course oh but we can still see them peeking out from behind the cards yeah and they look a million times better than the zoo wankers oh too bloody right yeah i mean there's one lad who you think's part of the band at the beginning because of the camera angle and he's got a theater of hate logo stented on the arm of his leather jacket he's sitting behind a girl who is the absolute dead spit of a teenage rose west there's loads of miniskirts on the girls which are coming back into vogue and there's one white girl with dreads you know this is months before do you really want to hurt me becomes a hit

yeah and there's one bloke who's a bit older and he looks the dead spit of mick mills who's just come back from spain so yeah there's a lot going on just with the audience yeah and i wonder about those pictures that they're holding up i sort of started assuming and i think i did at the time that the audience had been asked to draw pictures of themselves. That's what I thought. Yeah. I'm not sure what point that makes, but I loved its oddity and its boldness. Well, according to someone on YouTube who was there, the kids were given the portraits, which had already been done,

and were conjoled into getting involved. Basically saying, if you want to see yourself on telly, you hold this card up. It's pretty clear that about two or three different people have done the artwork yeah i think that goes with the image on the t-shirt that stefan remy is wearing which is the cover of uh the single which is you know childish drawings of the band yeah yeah feeling into that dada thing a little bit but i mean yeah and making it appear that the the kids are part of the band yeah definitely and I remember

the response to this especially in the smash it to letters page and stuff being about how ugly Trio are right and you know because they're not

tarted up they're not made up like everyone else is in this episode no they are I wouldn't say they're ugly

but if they are ugly they're ugly in a way that we've not seen on Top of the Pop since really punk since the kind of punk era yes you know and that in itself they're kind of unmade up unoutfitted sort of what the fuckness it is kind of revelatory in itself you know and you've also got you've got so much

else going on in this performance you know yeah the top of the pop's video screen's been brought out of storage in order to show us the lyrics. And there's a robot dancer in a boiler suit who is neither tick or tock. He's a black dancer. So, yeah, black robots. Good Lord. Is that not Daniel? Do you reckon that might have been Daniel?

Oh, no. No, no. You sure? Yeah. Well, look, when I watched it, I chose to think it was him. No, well, that's what we're saying now, then. No. I think what you're saying really makes sense.

And it's another reminder as well of our age gap. As like fathers of the chart music house, I realise what an old git I am. And I was like probably a bit 10 years too old, even at this point, in a sense. You know, I think what you say does make sense. I mean, obviously what they are doing is, it is an act of deconstruction it's sort

of string things back and also it's a kind of anti-pop thing going on so metapop is almost like a brechtian thing going on yeah yeah yeah i don't love you you don't love me it's all shades of like you know is it peace yeah yeah jungle wedge and the vegetation i think it wasn't it yeah yeah i mean 1982 is the most german year in british culture isn't it you know craft work number one with a model uh high mats das boots oh it's all going on yeah we're finally opening up to uh to our german cousins but every time every time i watch this clip something inexplicable catches me i mean this time it was the parasol behind the drummer yes why the fuck is that there and one other thing i noticed which might seem like a tiny detail but

let's face it chart music's all about tiny details it's the fact that the singer chews gun was a big deal for me i thought that was so cool i the only other person i remember chewing gum a lot was obviously paul weller who always seemed to chew gum um he might have nicked that habit from nick low and it's also that great bit of course when uh you know something you just wouldn't see pre-watershed at all oh god yeah when the guitarist um sparks up a fag um yes agent purchased it on his guitar string and then that don't work so he lights up another one these are odd things for top of the pops performance and you know yes'm sure Trio perhaps just did what came naturally. But by doing that, they've made something really memorable.

Really memorable. I don't know about that, Neil, because being Germans, they would have seen a lot of Top of the Pops throughout the 70s. That is true. Because Music Laden and all the Top and Poppin' shows were always showing Top of the Pops clips. So they would have come to this knowing what was expected of them and what they could do to put themselves over. Yeah.

But yeah, I mean, the band looks sinister as fuck. And you're right, I was getting a lot of punk vibes off it. Yeah. vibes off it yeah as we mentioned when we do punk era episodes at top of the pops there was always that element of the singer just staring at the camera and shitting up children and we get that here stefan remi he looks like glasic who's the the scabby outsider in high mat he's in a shapeless black suit with a brooch on his lapel shaped like a woman's arse, over a Trio band t-shirt, which he kind of like flashes at one point, and a big inside pocket so he can whip out the Casio VL1.

But halfway through singing one of the lines, he just snarls at the camera. He does, he does, but it never feels... And it's fucking brilliant! The thing is, the crucial thing is, it never feels mean-spirited. I mean, I read an interview with Trio by Gary Bushall, I think. Right.

And, you know, their English isn't great. None of this Gary Bushall's, though, is it? But at one point, the lead singer does say, you know, the word we use for our music is frolic, which is near to your cheerfulness. Right. That's what he says. And he says, you know, we're the first of german new wave orientated bands who put entertainment into the act and little gags he says before everything was only

frustration and anger we make rock and roll with entertainment but it's more like a cynical cheerfulness where you don't know whether to laugh or cry there's a black humor to it and he also says by the way um we don't want to be lumped in the same bag as Grupo Sportive or Haircut 100 who are only entertainment with nothing to refer to so they're not pure pop but they're also

not scowley punk that there's a kind of in-betweenness to the record and this performance that as a kid certainly you don't know where to put this

in your mind or file it and that's always a memorable moment you know I mean also it's one of those things, you know, you've got like John Cleese and the Germans, you Germans have no bloody sense of humour.

And yet again, yet again, especially through the music, you know, there is a profound and sly sense of humour. Not only a sense of humour, but a sense of humour of which British acts or whatever actually wouldn't be capable. I mean, and humour has a way of enhancing a lot of great German music, like Kraftwerk, like DAF. You know, objectively now, I can see that it was a very, very special thing, and it was, you know, it is an occasion.

I still feel that if somehow or other DAF or Der Plan or even maybe Hentotenhausen, if they'd have gone on top of the Pops, it might have been even more blind. Oh, God, yeah. Mind-blowing. That's the thing. Didn't write a hit record, though, did they, it might have been even more blind-blowing. That's the thing. Didn't write a hit record, though, did they, David? Yeah, well, this is true.

Unless you've got De Mussolini, you know. Meanwhile, Gert Kravincourt, he looks like an absolute krautrock refugee, doesn't he? Wearing faded double denim and a Where's Wally hat. And yes, his bit is lighting up the fag in the studio and screwing it into a springy cigarette holder on his headstock, which again would get him flung straight out of Sparks. Peter Behrens, the drummer, he's come as a skinhead tinting, essentially, hasn't he?

In a white T-shirt and incredibly thick red braces. And he kicks his bass drum at the beginning. It looks like he's wearing a pair of kickers. And then, in a heartless plunge of the dagger into the hearts of the English pop craze youngsters, and Mick Mills, who's in the fucking studio, he brandishes a Telstar football with thank you written on it. And then just smiles really fucking evilly.

A clear dig over West Germany topping their second round group three days previously. I mean it's interesting what you mentioned at the start about was it McBeat and the fact that 1966, the kind of group they would have been in, I mean Trio in a sense precede and succeed

Krautrock because Krautrock was actually part of it, was a response to the fact that like so many german groups are simply aping the beatles the rattles people like that it was almost like a sort of cultural martial plan that was going on they felt look you know we're germans we're creative we need to sort of find something you know original of our own that isn't just sort of following anglo-american orthodoxies you know it's actually vital as part of our post-war regeneration you know they're kind of thinking in those musical terms and so it's hard you know that they should be part of all of

that and of course have the klaus woman connection uh to exacerbate that but then yeah and then but then come out and be part of almost i suppose i do think as the point where sort of post-punk west german moment was perhaps just beginning as much as it was in the uk was just beginning to sort of fade um but um so yeah so perhaps i bring you know sort of a certain amount of begrudging baggage to trio that they don't merit so i'm glad that you chaps uh you know and get the joy of it well i mean part of what gets this across to me as a kid is actually hurl actually i have to say this that you know that we've often talked about hurl being sort of overlooking a slight golden age but also we've picked out the things that he did wrong but what

he did right i don't think what he did right was tell bands what to do he just did that perfect thing of putting things in place yeah and letting accidents happen a little bit yeah i mean they would have pitched up and he would have said, look, we've got this for you. We want to do this, we want to do that, we want to do that. You cool with it? Good, let's do it. Yeah, exactly. And this is where magic happens in living rooms.

Yeah, that's the very dada, you know, the element of chance. I was on a German exchange in the spring of this year. You know, and I've been back about six or so weeks ago. Hand on heart, I can't remember hearing it once when I was in Germany, which is fucking mental. Maybe it was played out by then, Al. Maybe it was like a done deal. Maybe it was.

But when it was on top of the pop three weeks ago, just 30 seconds of it, it fucking rocked the fucking playground to its foundations. I remember one of my mates, Daryl, just saying, have you heard that song that just goes, da, da, da, da? Yeah, it's fucking mad, isn't it? And we got it instantly, of course.

But, you know, as we've already pointed out, it created an absolute generation gap. Even with someone who's only a bit older, like David, you know. Our parents fucking hated it and started wondering who won the war anyway yeah absolutely this is a record that would be held up as kind of is this even music yes you know it's that kind of i do have to be distinguished from members of that generation because of course as we know i am a very rarefied soul in terms of my refined aesthetics so we can point out since no one else is going to point that out. You know, I just thought I would. Well, a letter in the Daily Mirror soon afterwards, which I dug up, entitled,

What a load of da-da-da. I couldn't believe it when I saw the German group Trio on top of the Pops, pointing to the words of their hit song, Da-da-da, on a board. Oh, for the songs of my childhood. Why can't today's composers write such happy numbers as Keep Your Sunny Side Up,

Happy Days Are Here Again, or The Sunny Side of the Street? Yours sincerely, R.M. Lord, Rochford, Essex. Ah, fuck off, grandad. Yeah.

Kids live in it. Anything else to say about this? It will always be returned to da-da-da, I think, when something needs to be summoned, i.e. this kind of futurism that failed, if you like. And, you know, like slang-tang, it's a rhythm that's a melody that's a whole record in a way. Yes. God, yeah. Same year, isn't it?

Yeah, same year. I'm shocked that we didn't hear more of that sound on records. All I can think of at the same time is The Bubble Bunch by Jimmy Slicer. And that was sampled by Delight for Who Was That? And of course, Poor Georgie by MC by MC Light which is fucking devastated when that kicks in man yeah but most

musicians you see they'd be getting better kit than a Casio one of those little Casios whereas Trio they're deliberate

I don't want to call them fucking pranksters because that makes them sound awful but they're deliberately going for the cheapest thing you

can get yes and it's great when he just pulls that out and holds it close to his face, going, look at me, look what I'm using. Yeah, yeah.

Two absolute landmark performances on the same episode of Top of the Pops and an example of Michael Hull getting it absolutely right. Absolutely, yeah. Hats off, sir. Yeah, definitely. So the following week,

Da Da Da soared another 23 places to number 7 and the week after that it jumped to number 2 held off the top spot by fame it would go on to be number 1 in New Zealand and South Africa and sell 13 million copies worldwide

and a week after this episode in the wake of Italy beating West Germany in the World Cup final, Italio Chanza's masters put out Mundial da da da. Not very good. The follow-up, Anna let me in, let me out, only got to number 113 over here, and they returned to being a German- concern splitting up in 1984 but the song lived on ending up on an Ariston advert in 1987 then a Volkswagen advert in America in 1997

and an unparpar version was deployed by Pepsi for an ad campaign during the 2006 World Cup. Sadly, Stefan Remia is the only surviving member of the band. What a shame. I just imagine just living on a sort of island. It was 13 million sales. I just imagine just, you know, at the end of Trading Places, the island they all retire to. Or a massive luxury apartment block shaped

like a Casio. And on that glorious life-affirming note, we're going to step away from this episode of Top of the Pops for a little while and reconvene tomorrow for the thrilling denouement. And oh, don't forget, pop-crazed youngsters, if you want to drill down deeper into July of 1982,

we've got a massive video playlist. Every song that's on this episode of Top of the Pops, everything we talk about and loads more are just waiting for you at youtube.com slash chart music t-o-t-p so on behalf of david stubbs and neil kulkana i'm al needham stay pop crazed why don't you chart music