Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #65 (Pt 4): 8.7.82 – Dancey Reagan

Episode Date: April 20, 2022

Neil Kulkarni, David Stubbs and Al Needham fight to resist the Siren-like lure of the ‘ITV1’ button and the West Germany – France game as this episode of TOTP enters the final stretch. Odyssey drop one of the greatest singles EVER, Bananarama cock a leg in some giant nappies, Bucks Fizz have a day off from bombing Hamburg, Captain Sensible brings along some giant rabbits, and some underwhelming magicians pitch up…Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This will certainly have an adult theme and might well contain strong scenes of sex or violence, which could be quite graphic. It may also contain some very explicit language, which will frequently mean sexual swear words. What do you like to listen to? Um... Chart music. Chart music. It's Thursday evening. It's about nine minutes to eight.

It's July the 8th, 1982. And this time, more than any other time, Top of the Pops is doing it right. If you disregard Jonathan King's Entertainment USA, which we most certainly do. But the last ten minutes of this episode of Top of the Pops is going to overlap with the first ten minutes of a World Cup semi-final. The boy Michael Hurl has done good so far, but he's going to have to pull out all the stops to prevent a mass switchover at 8 o'clock. Hey, up, you pop-crazed youngsters,

and welcome to the final part of Chalk Music 65. I'm Al Needham, and along with Neil Kulkarni and David Stubbs, let us rejoin the episode in progress. Now, why wasn't that the German entry to the Eurovision Song Contest we were under? That's Trio, this week at number 30 in our top 30. Right, Odyssey, stay at number 3 with Inside Out. Woo! Woo!

Kid, back with the zoo wankers, including the one I hate the most. Some twat with a tash and a bouffant, with what looks like Hulk Hogan's thong around his head. Regrets the fact that Da Da Da wasn't the West German entry for Eurovision, while Hulk Hogan thong twat blows a kiss at us. I hate him, I've seen him on previous episodes of Chart Music, and I've always wanted to mention him, but he's not done anything yet, and now he has.

I love the fact you have a most hated Zoom. You've got two, haven't you? Have you got one, Neil? I think it might be him. I think it might be the same guy, yeah. Yeah, I mean, you had a particular dislike for that horrible smug twat dressed up as Dracula in that Halloween episode.

I haven't seen him since. Up next, Inside Out by Odyssey. Formed in Stanford, Connecticut in 1975 from the ashes of the Lopez sisters, Odyssey consisted of Luis and Lillian Lopez and a rotating cast of male singers before settling on Bill McEachin who immediately jumped on that disco train and rode it all the way to chart land in 1977 they lifted a track from Frankie Valli's latest LP Native New Yorker and had a whopping hit with it getting to number five for two weeks in January of 1978 but management problems and an

attempt to move away from disco resulted in two years in the wilderness until they roared back in 1980 with use it up and wear it out which got to number one over here for two weeks in july of that year this is the follow-up to It Will Be Alright, which got to number 43 in September of 1981. It's the lead-off cut from their new LP, Happy Together, and was written by Jesse Ray, the Scottish braveheart of funk, who was working with Bernie Worrell

in the P-funk band Space Cadets. They're apparently backed up by Slave, the Dayton funk band best known for having Steve Arrington as their lead singer. And it's entered the top 40 at number 18 of Fortnite ago. And this week it's jumped four places

from number seven to number three. This fucking group. And this fucking song. Chaps, our Simon's made mention of certain songs that while you're hearing them is the best single

of all time and I've got to say this is one of mine and I was shocked to hear it on an episode of Top of the Pops as late as 1982 because I always peg it

two years earlier at least and the way Odyssey look is kind of at a date as well especially the chap oh god yeah he looks like he could be from yeah yeah, 78, 77 sort of era. Yeah, totally.

I was just going to say that. It's party for rocks. They haven't sort of, yeah, drunk the old Chalamar Kool-Aid yet. Definitely. Yeah. No. This is their last ever appearance on Top of the Pops, this. Yes.

But what a way to go out. Oh, yeah. Their last Top 40 here. But you think of the run from Native New Yorker to this. It's amazing. I mean, for me, it's not actually this record that is my favourite Odyssey. I think it's I Cannot Get Over Looking For A Way Out.

I fucking love that record. Yeah. I can't forget that. But yeah, they're so great, Odyssey. Lillian Lopez, what a fucking voice. And she's also, in this performance, she does this thing she repeatedly does, actually. Remember when I was telling you way back when, I think probably first chart music ever did how scared i was of kate bush and

her wide eyes lillian lopez does that all the time as well it's quite creepy but um yeah this is a wonderful record wonderful like you say odyssey are clearly not 1982 people the lopez sisters are 47 and 49 respectively. And they're there wearing very ornate dresses in the Lopez sisters. Almost looks like a sari. Yes, I was going to say that. So they're wearing that. And Bill McEachin's

come as Big Bill Wurbinook, hasn't he? In his snooker outfit. And they're doing not much of anything. There's no real... There's kind of a cursory wave at a routine but who gives a toss exactly is doing all the work exactly glorious it is and i really wouldn't want it any other way than it is the only sight disappointing was actually old david jensen's intro kids intro he just says um odyssey who built up a large fan base in the uk

because they're constantly touring that's it i thought you're gonna get a quip or something like a really half-arsed noel edmunds type quip or something like that yeah um of the sort he's been sort of tempting throughout the show i just thought it was a strangely flat it's a very very boring fact indeed really barely a fan really um that's the only note of disappointment this is a beautiful magnificent single and the fact that I mean Slave who are fantastic you know they're really sort of undersung as Slave

their involvement is great Just a Touch of Love is a fucking tune mate it's a fucking tune man did that ever get in charts here we're never going to see that on Top of the Pops are we

no we're not absolutely brilliant yeah watching you all that kind of stuff brilliant absolutely excellent I mean I just love the way

that the slap bass keeps sort of picking really sort really sort of high and keeps sort of um popping up through the mix you know there's actually something strangely understated in a sense about about the whole vocal performance it's yeah it's enigmatic in a sense but all praise to jesse ray oh god yes what a character i mean like he lived in america for a while he was he became a runner in the new York Stock Exchange just to sort of make his money with that. And that's how he met Roger Trattman and Bernie Worrell. And obviously he made such a strong impression on them.

You know, when he did his own solo stuff in the late 80s, they all sort of dutifully came out to the Highlands or whatever and performed on these videos that he did. Yeah, over the sea. Mentioned before, fucking amazing. That's right, yeah. That should have been a hit. Yeah.

I mean, Jonathan King should have been sent up to scotland to fucking yeah totally yeah do his bit and i just love the fact that you know he just didn't hold back there was so much kind of sort of scottish you know wet wet wet type sort of white soul moment i thought now this is what you want you want yeah you know absolutely mega funky but unapologetically scottish as jesse was scottish people are fucking mad into funk, though, aren't they? Absolutely. When I was in London, if I ever met a Scottish person, it would be about a 75% chance that we'd end up talking about

Sly and the Family Stone. I went to that Sly and the Family Stone gig in Bournemouth, fucking hell, about 12 years ago, and I just ran into a gang of proper meaty scottish lads from glasgow and they were fucking mint we were gabbling on for ages about funk and what we were into and what we grew up on all that kind of stuff they'd had a hotel room i was planning on sleeping out on the beach and getting the first trainer and says nah come back come back to the hotel we'll get pissed up it was like yeah fucking brilliant and i lost their phone number and i've always wanted to thank them so if they

are listening respect to you my dears yeah yeah and of course this song is rightly revered and beloved and very very well known but i would definitely encourage anybody to seek out anything by jesse ray on youtube or whatever and just you know in his full kilt and regalia and um armor and whatnot and um but you know as you say itilt and regalia and armour and what not and you know as you say it's an absolutely logical link and I just thought it was an absolutely brilliant riposte to all that kind of Marti Pello-ism and you know that was emanating from Scotland at the time

you know but he's such also politically he's so strange because basically obviously as you can imagine he's a Scottish nationalist Jesse Ray but he wants to take it further. First of all, he wants Scotland to get its independence and then for the Scottish border regions, Berkshire,

to declare their independence from the rest of Scotland. Blimey. He's on a mission. This record, you kind of don't want it to end. You do need it to end in the context of Top of the Pops, but whenever I listen to it, it's like, I don't know, i know it's not looped in on itself but it almost is you don't want it to end because the lyrics they've got no narrative to them it's about those first few weeks of love when you're so bound up with someone it's amazing this record well it's a bit more than that neil

it's about um being in love with someone who's with someone else at the moment. Well, yeah, there's that as well. But it's, yeah, it's just this beautiful, gaseous, glowing kind of beautiful thing. It's just full of desire, this record. And it's just unrequited desire, but a lovely place to be. You just don't want it to end. Yes.

Yeah, the bit where it goes in, side, out, and the bass goes fucking mental. It's just like, no, can we have this for like half an hour? And again, it's another example of Britain adopting and cherishing American songs that can't get played in their own country because disco sucks. Fuck off. Absolutely.

And it's as funky as it is soulful. Yes. As soulful as it is funky. And that sounds almost trite, but there's not an awful lot you can say that about and that perhaps might be something that is extinct these days it may not be actually possible for whoever is in the moment to make a record like this

it belongs, you know, obviously it's eternal but it belongs to all of us here and could it only really be made at a certain time I'm coming after Jonathan King telling us that the Americans we should be listening to are Juice fucking Newton and John Cougar you know the standout song of this Jonathan King telling us that the Americans, we should be listening to a juice fucking Newton and John Cougar. You know? Yes. Absolutely, yeah.

The standout song of this episode for me. One of them, yeah. Thank fuck it's still early enough in the episodes that I wouldn't have missed it. Yeah, of course. Of course. So, Inside Out would spend one more week at number three, its highest position. The follow-up, Magic Touch, stalled at number 41 in September and they never troubled the top 40 again. Although the band are still going to this day, it's a complete

triggers broom situation as both Lopez sisters died last decade and McEachin retired a while back. We'll see you soon though, Odyssey. You're featuring a lot of early 80s episodes of Top of the Pops. Yes, their performance is somewhat dated, their clothes are somewhat dated, but it could have been so much worse. A couple of weeks before this, Zoo danced to this record. Yes, they did.

Oh my fucking god. Scrape my eyes out. I think that was the last performance of Zoo as a dance troupe. Yeah, yeah. They wouldn't let him do it after that because it was so fucking rubbish what they do to this record.

They almost take the piss out of it, you know? And that's what really aggravates me about Zoo's performance of this. It's saddening being dead. I just remember there was a certain time when I realised that astronauts and disco stars were dying of old age and that sort of depressed of old age, and that's somewhat depressing.

Thanks, David. Odyssey, who built up a large fan following in the UK because they're constantly touring, and that's number three, Inside Out. Right, it's time to go to the electric scoreboard now and check out the charts. New at number 30, it's Trio and Da Da Da. At number 29, up one for Dollar and Videotech. At 28, Goody Two Shoes from Adam Ant.

Heart Stop Eating in Time from Leo Sayre is is at 27 at 26 do i do stevie wonder at 25 soft sell with torch at 24 i want candy bow wow wow with abc at 23 the look of love at number 22 up from 28 leonard skinnerbird. At 21, it's Night Train from Visage. And at number 20, Bananarama. And here they are with Shy Boy. Kid! Next to some of the kids and a zoo wanker on another zoo wanker's shoulders

just in case we don't see them tells us that Odyssey are big in the UK because they're always touring then he whips us into the first third of the charts settling upon Shy Boy by Bananarama we've already discussed Bananarama on chart music number 27 when they and the Fun Boy 3 struggled to be picked out amongst a blizzard of zoo wankers and balloons while recording Really Saying Something which got to number five for two weeks in May of this year.

This is the follow-up of sorts to that and not only is it their first single since the Funboy 3 gave them a leg up into the charts, it's their first non-cover version, written by their new producers Steve Jonnelly and Tony Swain, the knob twiddlers behind Imagination. Originally called Big Red Motorbike, which the group didn't like at all and demanded a lyric change, which the group didn't like at all and demanded a lyric change, it was released just over a fortnight ago. Enter the charts at number 61 last week, and this week it soared 21 places to number 20. And although there's a video, directed by Midge Orr and Chris Cross of Ultravox, where the Rommers give a spod, played by Terry Sharp,

the boyfriend of Sarah Darllene and future lead singer of the adventures a makeover here they are in the studio let's get into them chart pictures first chaps because as always at this time of top of the pops gestation period they're pretty and sadly professional in the main aren't they they are there's no no no i didn't spot a single oddity amongst the chat i've got one or two i'll have you i mean trio are wearing the same clothes as they did in the top of the pops performance leading me to believe that the bbc didn't have an actual image of them and hustled them outside for a last minute photo shoot yeah probably there's that great photo a soft cell poncing about with oversized musical notes,

which pops up quite regularly on top of the pub. It does, and I think it's on the front cover of The Art of Dancing. Ah, there we go then. There's a really 70s-looking washed-out photo of Dollar when they should have used the picture of them in this week's Record Mirror when they're all Japanese-ed up. Have you seen that one? Oh my gosh, no. I can only imagine. Therese is all geisha'd up

and David Van Day's gone full samurai. David Van Day's the water margin, if you will. All the cultural sensitivity of a Japanese boy, basically. Yes, exactly. There's a satisfyingly crappy shot of Ronnie Van Zandt bellowing into a microphone with a big hat on for Freebird because that's been re-released. There's a bit of a

Greb revival going on. And a pic of Bananarama looking extremely pissed off at the fact that they've got to hold up some inflatable bananas. Yes. Kind of like predating football terrorist culture by a good ten years or so but they're still not happy about

it, are they? Yeah, they do now. It's under protest but perhaps that's our idea. Perhaps they concede, you know, the idea. Let's hold up some bananas and make out we're pissed off about it. That would be very meta, very post-punk. So this performance then. I mean, the good thing about it is that it looks like three of the better-dressed women in the audience

have come on stage to do a turn. And in this case, that's the bad thing too, because let's get this out from the off. To me, this is no really saying something. Well, you say it's their first non-cover, and it is a cover of Come See About Me, basically. It's very much a cover. The thing is, you know, as a poptimist,

I should be into this. I should really support Bananarama as a kind of counterpoint to to lad rock and lad pop but it's tremendously difficult holding something like shy boy up as anything other than a record really in which everyone us and banana rama themselves really are being entirely cynically manipulated um you said there that they didn't look like they were happy in the shot of them holding but bananas i mean the key thing for me with Bananarama, really throughout their career, is that never post their work with Fun Boy 3,

they never look like they're enjoying being pop stars, to be honest with you. There's always this kind of sense of manipulation, sense of stuff that they're uncomfortable with. I mean, I realised that this record is never going to be a powerhouse Motown type song. I realised that the point of Bananarama is their weakness, in a sense, vocally. This isn't music for girls to sing along to in their bedroom mirror.

This isn't sort of Betty Everett doing the shoop-shoops. It's the sound of girls singing along in their bedroom mirror, in a sense. You know, there's no harmonies in Bananarama's music. They all sing the same note. And that kind of amateurism can be really endearing. But the trouble is what I find here, what's sad about this, it's obviously a tremendously exciting period for the girls. But I think here be the seeds of problems that they face later on.

You do have to wonder how much autonomy they're exerting over their appearance. And, you know, this single, The B-Side, Don't Call Us, is better because it's theirs. It's them, their own song. There's an interview with, oddly enough, another sort of all-female band, but obviously completely different, The Raincoats in 1982 that I've read, where Vicky from The Raincoats, she talks about girls being brought into ornament groups. And she's talking about the human league. Now, by then, I think the girls in the league

have totally proved themselves. But Bananarama certainly become, in this period, a target for that kind of idea of manipulation, really thanks to records like this, because it's a weak-sounding record. They sound kind of bored, which can sometimes be a good thing, but they feel and they look on this appearance,

they feel a bit pushed around, a bit pushed into this this and i know that's the bargain that they're accepting do this yeah get hits don't feel particularly happy about it but it always made bananarama for me a little bit uncomfortable in a sense um to really get into you know yeah neil because when we cover bananarama when they did Really Saying Something in a previous Top of the Pops, we were all for them. Yeah, yeah. You know, they came off as the three older girls sitting on a wall that if, you know, they nodded at you and acknowledged your existence, that was a really big deal.

And there was a dubbiness to Really Saying Something that lifted their take on a Motown song. Yeah, yeah. But that's gone now, and it leaves their singing abilities exposed. So while you could appreciate their take on a Motown song. But that's gone now, and it leaves their singing abilities exposed. So while you could appreciate their take on a Velvetex single, with this original song, you're left wondering what the Velvetex

and the Motown house band could have done with it. And a bit more than this, I'm afraid to say. Well, the thing is, Bananarama, they're punks, and they're post-punk girls, you know? And that's why their work with Funboy 3 suited it. Now they are being pushed into this new kind of type of pop for the 80s and and it'll befits them i think a little bit i mean don't of course it doesn't because they end up having a fair few hits but at no point

i don't think they're enjoying i think already then we're obviously years before the the pizza incident that blows the band apart. But, you know, I sense already they're not enjoying this. No, it's interesting, Neil, that you say that because I think, in a sense, that suspicion is kind of vindicated by when they hooked up with Stock Aitken and Waterman. However, I'm a lot more positive about this single and the two chaps. And I was at the time. I really liked it. It's interesting, I think, before,

why did they seem to get so much press? I mean, obviously, you know, there's the fancy ability factor, but I think they used to work as sort of press officers, used to come up to music press officers before my time and sort of hand out vinyl, you know, to journos and editors and probably, you know, built rapport that way. So there was probably a sense among journalists that there were some of us, as it were. Similar thing with

Emma out of Lush. I remember that when she did that. But I do like this. I think there is a sort of kinship with Human League, what I was talking about earlier on in a sense. There's a certain effortlessness, not in the Usain Bolt sense of qualifying for the 100 metres final, you know, in the semis, looking like he's strolling

through. Not that, but a sort of lack of, I don't know, like-robusting strenuousness that you get from the 1990s onwards. It's that era in pop when women in pop become re-objectified, frankly. There's a certain withering disdain about them. There's this little half-smile that Keren gives to the camera on the line every minute we're together, and it reminds me of a similar smile that Joanne out of Human League does

in the video to keep feeling fascination. You know, it's a sort of, you know, it's a hard one. It's very sarcastic. You know, they're out of sync when they're dancing. That's great. I mean, whack a handbag down there on the stage and that'd be about the size of it. And if those geezers are only fools and horses,

like Mickey Pierce and his mate come sidling up to them, they'll just mouth, piss off, without missing a beat. You know, I like all of that. I like them. I mean,

I like, I always liked Sarah, or Sarah, her iciness. She never cracked a smile as far as I was aware throughout the 80s. So,

yeah, I do like them. I found the song a little bit weak. Yeah. But perhaps I'm reading in later Bananarama problems into what they're going through at this point. Maybe they're completely happy doing this.

And they've got a big hit all by themselves without having to, you know, have some male band introduce them. So it is a successful moment for them. But I just never got the feeling with Bananarama they enjoyed success much. No, well, they're shooting each other looks as they're performing and cocking a leg and lifting a knee and all that kind of stuff as if to say, what the fuck are we doing here?

You know, we've been through this week's NME where they were interviewed on Music Laden. And I've seen that performance and it's fucking brilliant simply because the Funboy 3 are on there as well. The audience are a typical European pop audience, like bored shitless, not reacting to anything. And Terry Hall was exactly the same, performing on the stage.

So you get this feedback of boredom between him and the audience. It's fucking great. And I think that is okay. It's kind of mandatory. When I was a kid at school, one of the worst things you could do was have a cheapie i.e. be over enthusiastic

about something he's having a cheapie there isn't he you really have to curb your enthusiasm and I think that was kind of mandatory at this era of punk I mean if one thing slightly lets them down, it's what they're wearing it is distinctly

zoo wankerish, but in every other respect yes. It is distinctly zoo-wankerish. But in every other respect, they are the antithesis of zoo-wankerdom. I mean, they're all mainly in white with sort of colourful bits and bobs here and there. You know, they're wearing banana... Well, one or two of them are wearing banana-rama vests, obviously. Unfortunately, in Karen and Siobhan's case, their outfit involves baggy shorts that just look like massive nappies. Yeah, yeah.

So they end up looking like Pamela Stevenson pretending to be Claire Grogan on Not The Nine O'Clock News. Yes, yes, there is a bit of that. And yeah, by this point, I'm starting to wonder what Jimmy Greaves is saying about Germans on the other side. Yeah, indeed. I mean, Bananarama is one of those bands where you do have to take their singles on a case by case basis and this one no it's not doing anything for me do it for me I mean what normally happens with bands is that they start exerting

more control as time goes on I think it's the opposite with Bananarama and by the time they're working with Stike and a Walkman they really feel pushed around and they're not enjoying it at all at least here we're getting a sense of joy there is a really powerful sense amongst them and in between each other.

The looks that they're shooting at each other are exactly what you said, Al. They can't believe they're on top of the pops doing this. And that is always wonderful to see. And I celebrate the slight amateurism. I celebrate the fact that musically they're not harmonising. They're just all singing it like girls would, who were teenage girls who were singing along to this in the mirror,

much like their fans would end up being. But at the same time, do I want to hear it again? Not sure. Not sure if I want to hear it again. But a good presence in pop, and certainly useful for the music press in as much as putting Bananarama on the cover in 1982 makes a statement of a sort, definitely,

about what kind of music you think the future should look like. So the following week, Shy Boy soared 11 places to number 9, and a week later it got to number 4, its highest position. But already the group were dissatisfied with Swain and Jolle, claiming that they wouldn't let them record their own songs and wanted them to be an 80s update of the 60s girl group, and the partnership was immediately dissolved. Linking up with Barry Blue,

they put out the self-penned Cheers then, which only got to number 45 in December, and were slacked off in smash hits for sounding a bit like the coffee tastes nicer with coffee mate advert jingle so they reunited with Swain and Jolly and roared back to number

five in March of 1983 with a cover of na na hey hey kiss him goodbye with a video featuring them roaring off into the night on three big red motorbikes. And Shy Boy had an infamous afterlife in February of 1983, when Channel 4 broadcast the first episode of Mini Pops,

a show produced by Mike Mansfield featuring extremely young kids dressing up and karaoke-ing the hits of the day. Featuring three frizzy-haired tots singing, He gives me loving like nobody else. I like the way he turns me on. Which led to an outraged letter to Channel 4's right to reply, which read, Mini Pops should be called Mini Whores.

Are you people out of your mind? hell mini pops is it the children's fault yes it's the children's oh did you ever see that though i did and even as a kid even as a kid you felt like a pedophile i mean yeah it's a really immediately spot it was totally dodged and just should not have happened let alone on channel four you know i know very shocking that that even ever existed and those three girls doing that song it's deeply unpleasant not only because of what they're wearing but they're made up as well heavily made up as oh total man yeah the homosimpson makeup gun yeah fully deployed well exactly and coupled with those lyrics god it's horrific I don't think Mike Mansfield realised how

Sexual lyrics were getting By 1983 I'd love to do a bonus episode of Chant Music Where we do that But it's just You could not sit through a whole fucking episode of that It is on YouTube everyone Bits of it

At your own risk Mini Pops is just immensely bizarre because it's when one tries to identify who would watch that and you cannot answer that question without yeah a host of nerdy worlds and characters yeah it's just appalling who the fuck would watch that i think it was supposed to be something for the oldens and something for the kids but the kids would fucking hate it oh god yeah simply because oh that kid they they're famous and i'm not fuck them i mean kids singing pop songs is one of the greatest things in life ever i've got a video of my niece when she was six singing i love rock and roll while i'm playing it on guitar hero

and it's the most brilliant thing ever but that's because she's so fucking amateurish and thinks it's called put another dime in the dew drop baby yeah it's all the kids on minipop so all that stage school yeah it's all about isn't it yeah you'd have jimmy saddle wanking in his caravan you know but please david neil before we go explain the pizza incident. Oh, the pizza incident was one of the major things that broke up Bananarama, or at least that led to Siobhan leaving. It was down to, they all shared a flat, obviously.

I mean, if you're going to share a flat with people, that is especially people that you're in a band with, that you then have to sort of tour with and do everything with. It's a recipe for disaster. I think the pizza incident was the one that shoved them over the edge in as much as there was a slice of pizza on the floor that had attracted cockroaches and um yeah it caused a massive argument because i think it was siobhan that left this slice of pizza on the floor boom siobhan leads the band oh yeah over that pizza slice and that cockroach which to be honest with you is

better than most of the reasons that bands split up. It's a more legitimate reason, I would argue, than musical differences. Yes. Kieran, Sarah and Siobhan, collectively Banana Rama. And that's Shy Boy. Right, that's number 20. Let's go zooming back up the charts.

At 19, Roxy Music with Avalon. Up 3 to 18, it's Murphy's Law from Cherie. Las Palabras de Amor from Queen is at 17. At 16, Hungry Like the Wolf, Duran Duran. ACDC's For Those About to Rock is at 17. At 16, Hungry Like the Wolf, Duran Duran. ACDC's For Those About to Rock is at 15. At 14, Wonderful Thing from Kid Creole and the Coconuts. At 13, up from 20, Bucks Fizz and Now Those Days Are Gone. At 12, it's Ico Ico from Natasha. At number 11, The Beatles' Movie Medley. Now we're going to put our engines into reverse thrust, go back to number 13, and catch up with Fox Fizz with Now Those Days Are Gone.

APPLAUSE In the midst of another failed attempt to integrate the zoo wankers and the normal people, Kid handles a second part of the top 30 before rewinding and coming forward with Now Those Days Are Gone by Bucks Fizz. We seem to have accidentally become the world's leading podcast authority on books fizz and this their sixth single is the follow-up to my camera never lies which became their third number one single in april ending the foul reign of seven tears by the gumbe dance band and giving way after a week to ebony and ivory by paul mccartney and stevie wonder it's the third cut from their second lp are you ready which came out at the end of april was given a 10 out of 10 review in smash hits and got to number 10 in the album charts and it's entered the top 43 weeks

ago at number 37 that soared 17 places to number 20 and this week it's jumped seven places to number 13. So here's the video which was partly shot in Hyde Park and features Mike Nolan as lead singer for the first time on a Bucks Fizz single. Well chaps, this video starts at the exact same moment that the World Cup semi-final does, and I'm afraid to say you can practically hear

the ricochet of the ITV1 buttons clicking right across the country. Oh, no doubt. Like a shot. Shameful. I mean, was this deliberate scheduling by Hull? I mean, we've said he's front-loaded all the good stuff, and this is definitely the arse end of the episode as we're going to find out.

Yeah, without a doubt. I mean, most of us will have seen this video well before this appearance of it on Top of the Pops, so we definitely don't need to see it again. Nothing miraculous is going to happen in this video that hasn't happened in this video before. And of course, the video misses the key moment of the filming of the video.

Yeah, you know, the swan attack. Yes. Is it Bobby or Mike who gets attacked by swans? It's Bobby. It's Bobby. And I believe he was mildly injured in this. Yeah, he had to be dragged away by the camera crew. Oh, man.

Because we all know what swans can break. They can. The Frank Baird of the animal world, that is. Size of a dinner plate. Well, quiet. Never trust mute creatures, swans,ans rabbits just don't trust them if top of the pops has said stay to the end because we're going to see that swan attack for the first time we're going to recreate it in the studio bobby g is going to be in a cage fighting with loads of swans don't turn over to the world cup

you don't want to miss it well i mean we would have stayed without a doubt of course before we get into all this books fizz goodness let's rewind a bit and go through them chart picks because you know there's one or two interesting ones roxy music yeah oh brian ferry looks like the manager of a nightclub who's come out to have a diplomatic word with a difficult punter exactly by a couple of his bouncers, doesn't he? No trainers, tracksuits or baseball caps in Brian Ferris' club, I'm afraid. Brian Johnson looks like an angry dad

trying to tell Angus Young that he's a big lad now and shouldn't be on his shoulders anymore. Buxfizz themselves are basically a four-torsoed Blake Seven villain, aren't they? Natasha with Ico Ico, I believe, standing in front of some space invaders,

which is incredibly passe by the summer of 1982, don't you think? It's all Donkey Kong around here now, isn't it? It's all Donkey Kong and Defender. Yes. You know, definitely. And they've just slapped up the cover of Let It Be for the Beatles movie medley,

because, you know, who gives a fuck? It's only the Beatles, after all. So, yes, chaps, chart music. You know know it's been a voyage of discovery for all of us and two things i've learned is that bucks face seem to be on top of the pops all the fucking time in the first half of the 80s and more importantly and more frighteningly i've come to realize that you know what books for us are actually all right you know i mean we've not done my camera never lies yet but that is one of the maddest number one singles of the decade it just goes all over the shop and it's like oh fucking hell this is all right actually well it's you know it is telling like you said the album that this is from it gets 10 out of 10 in smash yes and the review i've read

it is extremely positive about the songwriting and everything else. In 81, I needed books for a bit of national pride. But by 82, I still needed them, even though I was seeing them as shit already or starting to see them as a little shit. You kind of needed books to be the centre of pop. Yes. To make your own ordinance kind of away from that centre, more plain. You do need a figurehead of the mainstream

yeah to make your musical choices a little bit more interesting and books for definitely sort of stepping into that um come 82 with videos like this um and they're total real i mean let's be honest their inheritance of the abba mantle if you like yes i mean i think they've gone beyond brotherhood of mania oh god yes and they are so not as big as abba in terms of how many years of success they've had but they're doing i mean they're doing very abba like songs as this one is as well yes i mean 1982 is books for this imperial phase isn't it they've already got two number ones under the belt and it's still only july and it's only them and the jam who managed two number one singles in 1982, let's not forget.

But the thing about them was they just couldn't or didn't want to break out of their family-friendly end-of-the-peer Cracker Jack ghetto. Well, perhaps at some certain level, certainly. I mean, it feels like they are definitely trying to shake off the Shakin' Abba thing, obviously, by this stage. Shabba. It's Shabba. Shabba. It's Shabba. Shabba.

Yeah. And this is very ambitious, and it was actually nominated for an Ivor Novella award. Yes. And those dresses are definitely staying on. There's no doubt about it. Yes, yes. They're serious now.

Perhaps they feel that this is the moment at which they kind of ascend way, way, like in a balloon beyond Brotherhood of Man, certainly, indeed. And, you know, they join a pantheon, I don't know, Jacques Rell, Tim Rice, the Bacharachs, you know, the sort of realm of, like, mature songwriting and craftsmanship. Little do they

know that right down at number 29 of the charts there's an interloper-in-waiting like Corporal Hitler in 1918 who's going to cut them right up a few years down the line. The great Bob Stanley described this as home county's potting shed balladry of the highest order yes they were ruthless at this time bucks fez i mean this is an obvious play for the radio 2 audience isn't it and that's radio 2 in the old money i mean i can imagine cliff richard absolutely fucking fuming he wasn't offered this while he's pouring another bucket of child blood on his vineyard.

Well, quite. I mean, look, Bucks Fez, they could easily have taken sort of wall space in the old people's home that I was living in, you know, next to Torval and Dean and that. I mean, they're ruthless at this time. Three number one singles, and they're each selling half a million. Only the Human League beat that in this period. Oddly enough way yeah it is and oddly enough books are offered this year in fact a 50 minute tv special on easter monday which ends up falling through it never happens

bobby has said that their guests were going to be the human league and i mean who knows where that might have ended up oh man especially seeing as the you know the books for his live show at the time included a medley of of my kind of life hot stuff do you think i'm sexy and rocking all over the world so where human legal who the fuck knows talking about their tour it's another example of them kind of like downplaying themselves a little bit you know surely band with three number ones you can command some pretty big venues yeah their tour which starts next month takes him seaside resorts and mansfield leisure center is down there yeah on one of their dates

and their support act is bob carol jesus spit the dog. But that is them, isn't it? They were uncomfortably in between the two. But I mean, you know, these are venues that Dollar wouldn't play. Bucks Fizz should probably be playing the sort of venues that Dollar are playing, if not bigger. I mean, they're enormous at this point. Why isn't Paul Morley banging on about Bucks Fizz? That's a really good question. I think he might have done, you know, actually.

I think he might have done. Not to the same extent as Bananarama, who he did bang on a great deal about, and Dollar, certainly, of course. I think Eurovision is always a big thing to have to live down, really. And you don't necessarily see. But they've done it. They're a standalone group now, aren't they? Very much so. Making songs that I think the two words that most

apply to them are expertly crafted. And that's what this is, you know? I mean, even though, for me, it's gagging for a kind of abba-like pulse behind it um it works it works as a piece of nostalgia for the people that you know might take it that way but it also works as just a nice bit of harmonized pop the only trouble is it's acapella for a long bit and that always has that little bit of acapella smuggery it kind of reminds me quite a lot this of the new seekers anthemuggery. It kind of reminds me quite a lot, this, of the New Seekers anthem from 1976.

It's kind of similar. But, I mean, the video in itself, much like all books for those videos, they'd started becoming events of a sort. They're doing something for the olders in this video, which takes us all the way back to the 40s, don't you know? Bobby G, in his RAF togs, is essentially taking time out

from giving the luff waff a biff in by slapping it about with both rita crudgington who looks so fucking 40s looks like she's just walked off the set of shine on harvey moon man she was born too late that woman and jay aston who's essentially playing playing Jane in the old Daily Mirror cartoon. And in the meantime, Mike Nolan's in an old school radio studio with one of them proper microphones in a dinner jacket, ruining the 40s effect by keeping his Lady Di hairstyle on. The only thing that's missing from this is David Van Day in a stuka with an iron cross dangling from his throat.

To be fair, both the boys in Bucksfizz are letting the side down a bit, I think. The two girls, they look convincingly wartime. But if you had hair like Bobby or Mike in the 1940s... Seven days jankers. You'd have been shot as a fifth columnist or something. And also, how have they got bread

to feed all these geese in the park? Don't they know there's a fucking war on? Do you know it's bread, though? It might be powdered egg or something. It might be, but, you know, they're using up one of their ration coupons. Yeah, traitors.

You're right, they only semi-commit to it, really, don't they? It's funny you talk about, like, taking us back to the 40s. That, of course, today wouldn't have taken us back to the 80s. Which I think just goes to show that certainly in pop time, you know, there are decades and there are decades, you know, because the 1980s are much closer to the 2020s than the 1940s were to the 1980s. Well, exactly, David, because at the very end of the video, we see Gene Baker sat on a bench and then they transform into what I assume is an elderly version of them 40 years later, which is pretty much what they would be now. But the 68-year-old Cheryl Baker and Bobby Gubby certainly don't look like that today.

Fucking hell. Oddly enough, I mean, I remember lying to my mate and saying that the old couple at the end were Bucks Fizz made up, that they were Cheryl and Bobby made up. He believed it. I know it might seem that I was a lying little cunt back then and I just spent my whole time conning the credulous. But I'm sure I wasn't the only person to, you know,

have a second look at that video sometimes. I think, oh, that could be them, you know? We need to go back to that old people looking like actual old people. Yeah. This is a really, really competent song that is going to mop up a big part of the pop market. But its appearance at this point, yeah, I would absolutely be fucking killing myself

to turn over to the footy by now. Yes. Oh, yeah. I mean, you mentioned a pulse. You know, anything that didn't have a pulse to me, it was just dead to me, basically, at this point. I mean, we're two months away from the first anniversary of Bucks Fizz winning Eurovision,

which was made quite a big deal of by the band and the media, which is mental because it's only a year, but the fact that everyone seems to be commemorating it sort of signifies that they have moved on. Yeah, absolutely. And it's like, oh yeah, do you remember we did this? Every single after making your mind up was almost like a gradual step away from that.

Oh yeah, look, the fact that we are even remembering Bucks Fizz a year after their Eurovision appearance is a miraculous achievement in itself. Yes. So the fact that they're having huge hit albums, huge hit tours and all the rest of it, and I do recommend people seek out the 10 out of 10 Smash Hits review.

This was not a band that could easily be castigated as Eurovision cheese. They were taken seriously as a pop band. So the following week Now Those Days Are Gone nipped up five places to number eight its highest position. The follow-up saw them take another swerve and transform into

fucks biz when they took If You Can't Stand The Heat to number ten in January of 1983. Oh, yeah. And 24 years later, Now Those Days Are Gone became the only official books for his release to contain obscene language when the demo, recorded by co-songwriter Andy Hill, was put out on their Lost Masters 2,

the final cut anthology of unreleased songs and off-cuts. Yeah, he Fs and J's a bit at the end. It's disgusting. Disgraceful. Cut. I love you. mid-jewers at number nine last week 11 no regrets at number eight up five for the jam just who is the five o'clock hero at seven i've never been to me from charlene chalamar with a night to remember is at number six still at five imagination with music and lights irene carra's fame the highest new entry at number four and And three inside out from Odyssey.

This week's number two from the Steve Miller Band is Abracadabra. And incredibly at number one once again, it's the wonderful Captain Sensible. And here he is with Dolly Mixture performing Happy Talk. Happy Talk. KID, back amongst the zoo wankers, breaks down the top ten before alighting on this week's number one, Happy Talk by Captain Sensible. by Captain Sensible. Born in Ballam in 1954, Raymond Burns began his career as a member of the proto-punk band Johnny Moped in the mid-70s, before being invited by Malcolm McLaren to join a new group called Masters of the Backside, which featured Dave Vanian, Rat Scabies and Chrissie Hind in 1976. The band fell apart after one gig, but the non-female members decided to stick together and form a new group, The Damned, who immediately signed to Stiff Records.

In August of 1976, while a coach party of bands, including Eddie and the Hot Rods and the Pink Fairies, were waiting to depart for the first European punk festival at Mount De Marsan in France, Burns got his name when he turned up pissed out of his skull in a shirt festooned with epaulettes and lurched up and down the aisles, pretending to be an airline pilot, leading someone to exclaim,

Oh, it's fucking Captain Sensible, and the name stuck. Although the Damned are credited with releasing the first ever punk single, New Rose, in October of 1976, and the first punk LP, Damned, Damned, Damned, in February of 1977, they split up in early 1978, and Sensible was invited by the band's former road manager to front a Dutch band called The Softies

to record a cover of Jet Boy Jet Girl, an Elton Mattelo single which utilised a backing track put together by the godlike Lou De Prick of two-man sound, which he later put out himself under the name Plastic Bertrand, called Sa Plan Pour Moi. Due to the lyrical content, about a 15-year-old boy in a gay relationship with an older man who he wants to kill because he's now got a girlfriend, it was strangely never released in the UK.

In the spring of 1979, the dam reformed and finally broke into the charts when Love Song got to number 20 in May and Smash It Up got to number 35 in October but diminishing returns started to set in. By 1981 when Sensible noted that loads of people at dammed gigs had Crass logos stenciled on their leather jackets he linked up with Penny Rambo and spent a week with him at Dial House, Crass' anarcho-pacifist open house, and together they worked on his first solo release, the This Is Your Captain Speaking EP, which was released on Crass Records with a cover of Sensible's face

on the body of his pet rabbit in November of 1981. It got to number three in the independent chart. Earlier this year, while The Damned was still active, he landed a solo deal with A&M and was linked up with the producer-musician Tony Mansfield, a former member of the Nick Straker band who had just split up New Music, the band he had fronted since 1977.

They immediately commenced work on an LP, mainly consisting of Sensible songs that Adam had rejected for being too melodic, but discovered they were one song short for the album. When Mansfield told him to pick out a cover version to make up the shortfall, Sensible considered Waterloo Sunset or See Emily Play, but knocked them back when he realised that he couldn't improve on them. So, on the encouragement of Mansfield, he rummaged through the record collection of his parents, who he was still living with at the time,

and pulled out their copy of the soundtrack to South Pacific. The 1949 musical written by Rodgers and Hammerstein and zeroed in on the song where Juanita Hall gives her daughter and an American Marine that she's knocking off some relationship counselling. When A&M discovered that another artist was ready in a cover of Happy Talk for release, they took a chance and rushed it out as a single three weeks ago and after extensive play on radio one it's entered the chart at number 33 which led to a performance on top of the pops with mansfield rod balkett a keyboard player and arranger who worked with cliff richards stackridge fern kinney marty kane and bernard cribbids on the single make someone happy every day which was recorded by buzzbear you know the massive yellow orange bird who used to nag at you for not ringing up your mam and dolly mixture

an all-woman post-punk trio who were signed to paul well as respond records were once supported by you too and had just come off the bad man as gosh it Tour. To the amazement of everyone involved, the following week, Happy Talks sold 32 places to number one, becoming the first single ever

to jump to number one from a position outside the top 30 and breaking a record which was set by the Beatles in 1968 when Hey Jude jumped from number 27 to number one. I think that's going to be the biggest sword I'll ever do on chart music. Well, I mean, it's the biggest soaring.

That record, that lasts for many, many years, that record. This is its second week at number one and he and Dolly Mixture are back in the studio for the third time well where to begin with this i'll start with you david you obviously knew all about captain sensible being at that age in those trousers yeah and i was just about aware that he was in the damned and a punk but what did the young neil kulkcani know of him um me i wasn't aware of the damned um even though i think they might have been on top of the pops i wasn't aware that he was a member of the damned at all so what i knew about him was yeah this record and these appearances

yeah and did i emerge from that with much sense about who the fuck he was no because this performance and this record to a certain extent they're kind of a joke i wasn't getting to be honest with you at that age um although you know eventually i would come to love certain solo captain sensible things like what yes um what worked because it's pretty much a pop version of oggy oggy oggy yes um you know this this just seemed odd this long-awaited return to number one for rogers and amistad um it was just strange and the performances didn't help much to be honest with you um i wasn't that familiar with what drunk people look like now of course i can look at this and think he's pissed out of his face and he was probably well in fact as later as later reading of features and interviews with Captain Sensible revealed,

he was pretty much drunk for the entire period of the early 80s and was drunk when he made the record. But yeah, what I had in my head was who is this eccentric chap? But he wasn't captivating particularly. I was much more captivated by the dolly mixtures, I think, than Captain Sensible. Yes. Yeah. Well, I would have watched this, and my semiotic trousers would have rolled up and down with contempt. Primarily because, obviously, I knew, I would have seen everything in the context of punk and pop entries and whatever,

and that was a project that appeared to be reaching a zenith in 1982, and even the Human League had already cracked number one. But, you know, there were things, there was sort of would-be pop, like Scree-Polity. There was The Associates, ABC, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Now, that was the trajectory that was set, how you were supposed to go from punk to entryism to pop. Not this.

You know, they just cracked it. This is something else. There was sort of the wing of punk that was in it for the kind of getting pissed and having silly names like Captain Sensible, because he's not sensible at all. He's a bit bit nutty it turns out um nor is he a captain no no he's not no that's right yeah yeah i'm gonna say this is the wing commander it's a bit sorry isn't it but there you go um so yeah um i would have yeah i would have disliked this intensely and i would have despaired at the um at the country that was like buying this in droves or whatever.

Musical eras like this were precisely equivalent to Thatcher keeping getting re-elected or whatever. It really was. I mean, when I first heard it and when I heard about it, I was convinced at some point it was going to pull on my way with Sid Vicious. And, you know, start in a sort of serious way but then just go off on the song yeah and as I listened to it the first time and as it went on that the realization sunk in that he wasn't going to do that at all and it was just like oh god is that it yeah yeah and of course now it comes off as a big in joke played on the old ones who bought it in drugs but immediately took against it Sid definitely didn't die for this, I felt.

No, certainly not. But no, I think that's true. I think it is just that, basically. It is a parody of the shit one-off St Winifred's type single, basically, delivered with a vast, vast dose of sarcasm. But what is happening is, nonetheless, people are unironically going to record shops and paying

unironic cash for it. We're talking about the old ones. We're talking about, there would have been people sitting in living rooms, having this beamed at them, who would have grown up in the Edwardian age. And I think that this is genuine nostalgic, feel-good balm for a certain existing

demographic, as it was. Because you can't, clearly it was an And I mean, because you can't... Clearly, it was an enormous success, and something has to account for that. It's we'll meet again for the Falklands War, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, friends I'd make later, older friends, they'd say that when this came out,

they'd be dealing, if they were working in record shops, with little old ladies coming in, asking for records by Captain Sensible, and having to resist you know selling them tam dam dan for instance um it's odd thinking of the fates of that class of 77 if you like the jammer in the top 10 the clasher break in america stranglers kind of in their way also have an oddity kind of record with golden brown they're all finding ways to do stuff away from the center of pop perhaps while still having hits but this i, I mean, this is just, yeah, like David said, this is definitive novelty fare.

It's weird because obviously it's number one, but it's not a big seller. Do you know what I mean? It's one of those for a few weeks smash midsummer novelty hit that attracts enough attention during a kind of weak sales period to slip up to the top position you know it only noticeably spends eight weeks in the top 75 in total so the joke obviously wears thin quite quickly for a lot of people happy talk i looked at the charts for the top 50 best-selling singles of the year and happy talk's not even in that top 50 yeah that's which oddly enough is a distinction it shares with beat surrender um right you know you know similarly big smash but they don't stick around long and they don't sell sell sell that big um just needs noting dolly mixture um their album that they sort of put

together themselves themselves for a reason called demonstration tapes which bob stanley i think reissued bob stanley's coming up a lot today isn't he um yeah he he reached it on i think his mint royale label it's actually well worth seeking out that you know they had that they were great um but captain here is clearly as pissed as he was when he was recording it there's a fantastic interview by the wonderful carol clark um in melody maker with captain sensible right about the time this was coming out uh this very week this very week indeed where he says you know he backs up everything you said obviously out about the recording of it i mean he says what can i do with this song i couldn't play it because it had a key change and i can't play the black

notes on the piano so he says all i did was go down a pub get extremely drunk and wait for them to make the music yeah and he seems to have continued that drinking all the way through to this appearance because this isn't just wacky zaniness this is he looks trolled to be honest with you it's not unpleasant to watch no but it's not dangerous or anything like that um yeah it's a big fat fucking laugh so that's how he's being portrayed in the music press. Let's have a look at how he's being framed in the tabloids because there's an article in last week's Sunday Mirror called This Star Is So Daft.

He's sensible. Call him a disgusting slob and he'll love you for it but clear away the smelly socks and general disorder from his pad and he'll probably spit in your eye this is britain's number one hit loony captain sensible a name specifically chosen because that's what he's not throughout my interview with him he was hell-bent on maintaining the image of the nauseating layabout i have been known to be sick all over myself he said and generally behave in a revolting manner so would money and newfound stardom change his bawdy habits nah governor said the former toilet cleaner from croydon south london

who now does gigs in the nude i won't change i love living in squalor and there's a photo of him naked playing the bass i bet he did not use the word governor thankfully not holding the bass to one side like ashley out of imagination we don't see any uh any of that nonsense i mean although it predates the tv show by nearly six months to these jaded eyes of mine captain sensible's coming off in the media as a one-man mashup of the young ones oh yeah yeah you know what i mean he's got that tinge of violence like vivian he's got a beret uh like rick uh he's a bit of a hippie like neil and i couldn't think of anything to do with Mike so let's ignore that you know he's a lovable layabout yeah he's a bit wacky I think there is definitely an understanding you know that he has

some sort of punk origin you know there's a strong inkling I think even the old girls were watching this would have a sense of that always it was one of them punks exactly yeah yeah I think he kind of plays on that there's a little bit at the beginning of this where he seems to kind of be kind of like, yeah, to the rabbit girls before sort of backing off as if to say, nah, it's all right.

We're all right, really. We're just, you know, we're punks and all that, but we're cuddly, really. You know, have a cup of tea. Yeah. Like the sex pistols in that Danny Boyle atrocity

that's about to happen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I can see again, you know, and I say, you know, this is betrayal. You know,

you've deliberately de-radicalised yourself for the kind of Top of the Pops chilling, you bastard. This is his third appearance on Top of the Pops.

What has he come as this week, chaps? He's sort of Wurzel Gummidge Pirate, isn't he? Yeah. Yes, Wurzel Gummidge Pirate. He's got the,

has he got the bird on his shoulders like in the previous one? Yeah. And Dolly Mixtra are rabbits singing into giant carrots. There's daisies painted on the studio floor. There's tinsel and balloons everywhere. And as in the previous performances,

there's a model seagull that's flapping its wings overhead. Looks really realistic. It looks like it's been stuffed, which is a bit grotesque. There's a deliberate shitness to it isn't it yeah there's kind of deliberate mathness to it and i think he is kind of cocking a snook uh the sort of po-faced pomposity of certain aspects of new pop here yeah there's a very telling quote in the interview with carol clark the aforementioned interview where he says we all liked happy talk after we've done it i thought it was definitely better than the human league i don't

like them they stink of dog shit so nice yeah very nice you know i think he is surprised that this becomes a hit oh yeah and he's sort of surprised and delighted as our dolly mixture it shouldn't have been that surprising though i think if you're going to take this particular song which i've got to say as ever with chart music i've been fucking humming this all bloody week. It's an incredibly well-crafted song. Yes, it is. And it was a song that was known about. It was on the national playlist for quite a while. Yeah.

Rodger and Hammerstein, first return to the charts since You'll Never Walk Alone, actually. Really? Yeah. I mean, it's their first number one since then. A lot of people seem to think You'll Never Walk Alone is a Joey and the Pacemakers song. But it ain't. It's from Carousel, isn't it? first of all since then um a lot of people seem to think you never wore colonist joey in the

pacemaker song um but it ain't it's no it's from carousel isn't it yes i think he's massively surprised consequently he's kind of taking the piss with all of his appearances but there is a little bit of look we're going to use sense we're going to do this old cover um we're not as po faced as what else is going on in british pop music at the moment and yeah return for tony mansfield new music we've raved about them not even covered them once on chart music yet but we're dead keen on them so good to see him back but what shame it's on this yeah i think that's the trouble though not wanting to be po-faced is part of the british disease yes yes i mean he sings the song straight which is a bit bad but

then on the other hand you know imagine this in the hands of someone else he doesn't lean into the pigeon englishness of the original which yeah was a song written by two jewish americans sung by a black woman and mimed to by a mixed race woman pretended to be polynesian imagine if he the punk took the vocals. That would have been truly awful. Oh, fucking hell, yeah. I mean, I'm not to pick on the guy, but, you know, I imagine Jimmy Percy doing this

and something like that happening. Oh, fucking hell. Do you know what I mean? Whereas at least he just keeps it flat. And consequently, you know, for the old folk, and let's face it, it is going to be old folk buying this. Yes.

His punk roots are completely eliminated he's more just the kind of wacky zany ken dodd type figure definitely um you know more than anything else i tried to find out who the other major artist was who was thinking of covering this song all right couldn't find it anywhere but i'd take a guess uh anika yeah yeah yeah she's got form for this sort of thing oh yeah it'll be part two of a racist trilogy no doubt

but it's calibrated to appeal to everybody apart from the people who usually watch Top of the Pops i.e.

people like me fucking hated it at the time doesn't get played enough for me to hate it now so you know there is that

but the only fond memory I have of this song is that I've got a tape somewhere of me mam hate it now so you know there is that but the only fond memory i have of this song is that i've got a tape somewhere of my mom singing it to my sister at the time and when he gets to the golly baby i'm a lucky cuss bit my sister just says did you say cunt and my mom corrects her without batting an eyelid and and they carry on i mean that was the thing you just thought well there's got to be one time where he just sings i'm a lucky cunt even if it's unintentional maybe this would be it this uh this performance but no he does draw it out a little bit inviting of course he does yeah

yeah yeah that story you told earlier on about the recording it just reminded me of that apropos of nothing really i when i was about 15, and it was my Catholic school, and I had a school essay, and it was just meant to be sort of in the kind of vernacular of a northern man, you know, a sort of Hovis-y type thing. And, you know, he kept saying couldn't a lot. And quite innocently, you know, I kind of, you know, he says, you couldn't make it up.

You couldn't credit it. And I was writing C-U-N-T every time in this thing. And it came back with this red rings you know my teacher handed back the exercise book actually glowered at me and it was honestly i was not being subversive you couldn't make it up you couldn't 12 times in this short essay and obviously i really really wasn't i was an innocent boy but i also think i mean look this is not a record about nuclear war. It's not a record about Falklands War or anything sort of socio-political.

But in a sense, the enforced geology of it is in a way making us, not a political point as such, but I think that's potentially why it sold so much. There's no subtext here. Well, it's not ghost town, is it? No, no, it's not. So the the following week happy talk dropped to number three being usurped by irene carer the follow-up the adamant diss track what got to number 26 in september and his lp women and captain first only made it to number 64 in the same month while the damned's new LP, Strawberries,

got to number 15. After putting his solo career on hold for two years, he left The Damned in 1984 and his next solo release, Glad It's All Over, got all the way to number six in April of that year. That's a fucking tune, that is. That's the great lost new music single. Don't remember that one at all tune that is that's the great lost new music single don't

remember that one at all oh it's brilliant okay but diminishing return set in when he's double a side christmas catalog and relax yes that relax only got to number 79 in december of 1984 and he was dropped from a and m sensible rejoined the damned in 1996 and still tours with them today, while his record was eventually broken by Pixie Lott in 2009, when boys and girls jumped from number 73 to number one in September of that year, because it's the 21st century

and the charts don't mean shit. Well, absolutely. That record just goes. And before you know it, you're in a world where yeah, you know, Lily Allen entered the charts last week at 168, now soars to number three without a lot of an eye.

No, it's not the same, is it? But it's interesting to learn that your mates working at the record shop and fighting not to sell damned records to non-Oz because I always thought that was a bit of an urban legend. It would have happened. And the weird thing is, I mean, with Watt coming down the pipe a few months later,

Watt was traditionally held up by all the old people that I knew as, you know, this is terrible, not offensive, but kind of ridiculous that this can be a pop song, this kind of back and forth chant. So he's kind of, you know, Captain Sensible is kind of held up in about a few months time as evidence just how empty and shit pop is um but these were all the fuckers who were buying happy talk oh man the old ones turned the back on captain sensible they went off and bought spread a little happiness yeah and went to see the film that it was in fickle old bitches. Yes. Yes. Ooh Kid, back amongst the throng of zoo wankers, warns us that Peter Powell's coming on next week

and signs off with Abracadabra by the steve miller band born in milwaukee in 1943 steve miller was the son of a jazz crazed mom and dad and the godson of les paul when he was seven years old the family relocated to dallas and offered up their back room as a demo studio to the likes of t-bone walker charles m Mingus and Tal Farlow. And the young Steve was encouraged to have a bang on the guitar by Godfather Les. In the mid-50s, he started his first band, The Marksmen, which consisted of him, his brother and his best mate at school, Boz Skaggs. And when he started attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1961,

he started up Steve Miller and the Ardells with Skaggs in tow. They were put on hiatus when Miller went to the University of Copenhagen for his final semester, but he packed it in with only six hours of study left to be completed and decided to take his band to Chicago and get immersed in the blues scene of the time. After running into and jamming with Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and Buddy Guy, he linked up with Barry Goldberg, a keyboard player who was in the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and was a part of Bob Dylan's backing band during his electric performance at the Newport Folk Festival and they formed the Goldberg Miller Blues Band and moved to New York, but didn't get on with it, and he ended up in San Francisco,

where he formed the Steve Miller Blues Band in 1966. After they backed Chuck Berry on the 1967 LP live at Fillmore Auditorium, they were signed to Capitol Capitol knocked the blues off their name on the recommendation of George Martin and ended up on the bill of the Monterey Festival in June of that year it would take five years and eight albums for the Steve Miller band to get properly sorted out in America when the Joker got to number one on the Billboard chart in January of 1974. And it would take another two years after that for their first dent on the UK chart when Rockin' Me, his second US number one, got to number 11 in November of 1976,

their only British hit thus far. Earlier this year, when their 12th LP, also called Abracadabra, was being prepared for release, Miller pushed for this to be released as the lead-off single in America, but Cabical Records didn't reckon it at all. However, Phonogram, their European label, were all for it, and it got to number one in Austria, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. And even the Brits went for it when it came out last month when it entered the chart at number 38

then soared 26 places to number two. After an airing of a very expensive looking video on top of the pops it jumped eight places to number four and this week it's up two places to number two now normally chaps that would warrant a pan of the kids and the zoo wankers in the studio or a fish eye view of the studio lights but hey it's 1982 so michael hurl has riffled through the classified section of the stage and booked in some magicians to do their pieces in between clips of the video. I mean, he rolled the dice with Trio and came up with whatever's

good in craps, which I've never understood, but in this case he's tried to repeat that trick and this time the dice have gone right off the table and under the settee and been hoovered up by his mum and lost forever. i contend indeed i i i concur you contend and i concur definitely the magician's not really that magic is he um

well there's three of them well the one who looks like a kind of mustachioed fraser crane um yes he's bloody awful definite animal cruelty issues going on with what he's doing. He starts pulling a variety of species out of a box. And I'm fairly sure a couple of those creatures are dead. They don't seem to be moving much. And then he closes his stuff by pulling a deeply unimpressive amount of handkerchiefs out of a cocktail shaker. A cocktail shaker that looks perfectly adequately sized to contain that many handkerchiefs. cocktail shaker that looks perfectly adequately sized to contain that many handkerchiefs it would be it would be more magical for me to pull tissues out of a man-sized kleenex box it's not really magic well no that's more difficult you know the first the first few you usually get a right

fucking watch don't you that's true that's true i mean the stream that there's one in a dinner jacket who looks just like a zoo wanker, who was actually standing right next to Kid Jensen and kind of like walks off when the song begins and starts dancing before he starts doing his pieces. There's that bloke, that animal cruelty bloke with a receding hairline, but there's someone else with an absolute fucking uber Keegan of a perm who does ball tricks. Amazing hair.

He looked like like he reminded me of jim mclaren from porridge actually a little bit that guy um but um he's what's he doing kazoo in his mouth bouncing a football on it this is not magic no no also with magic magic requires undivided attention well exactly good didn't he you know bloody steve mill bloody Steve Miller's harpy on in the background. It's not an ambient thing. Well, magicians kind of do suit top of the pops in this era because magicians are all about look at me, look at me, look at me, but they're also about distraction. So you've got loads of zoo wankers doing the look at me bit

and then you've got them and you've got the video and you've got the music and you've got the neon and you've got the balloons and you've got the flags and you just got the neon and you've got the balloons and you've got the flags and you just can't focus on anything. It is a bit of a headache, isn't it? It is. But you do need distraction from what Zoo are doing, most definitely. Of course.

There's an appalling bit where City Farm, they join hands and they start jumping up and down steps. It's horrible. Yes. It's horrific. I think near the end, you know, there's a really horrible bit, it's like really blokey and space entitled, you know, there's a really horrible bit. It's sort of like really blokey and space entitled. You know, all those sort of chaps get together.

The sort of people who barge their way onto the centre of the dance floor at the Ballet High nightclub or something. You know, there's no grace about it. I mean, Pans people, there was always grace, wasn't there? Yes. You know, not necessarily gracefulness. But there was grace in terms of their presence. They didn't feel invasive.

There was dignity. These feel, yeah, exactly. These people just feel invasive and horrible. But truth be told, couldn't they have shown the video? Couldn't they have just shown the video? Yeah, I know. Well, they've already shown the video. They don't like showing the same video twice.

Yeah, but it's a well-expensive... Even though it's 1982, how many times have you seen it? Well, this is it. You know, there's no MTV. You probably haven't got a video recorder. You're not going to see it on Breakfast Time or TV AM because they don't exist yet. There's no Channel 4.

Just show the video. The song for me, because I'm a kid, I'm an idiot at this time. I mean, look, I love this song. It's well catchy. And it was intimately associated with the video for me. I was annoyed in a sense that it kept cutting to the video and then just depriving us of it and showing us City Farm wankers again. Yeah, which we've seen.

We've seen them. We've seen them plenty of times. We don't need to see them anymore. It is... I mean, I cannot believe that Capital didn't think this was a single. It's mental, isn't it? It's mental.

It's blatantly the single off any album that it would appear on. It's catchy as fuck. Very, very simple song. But it's simple, catchy, and it has, I'm not saying it's avant-garde or anything, but the guitar solo is kind of mad

and kind of wacky and full of sound effects. It's got a similar sort of appeal to the reflex later on by Duran. It's kind of gimmicky, but absolutely. It's like being trapped in Defender, isn't it? It is, but immensely ear-catching for a kid. So let's talk about the single.

I mean, I've got a very sweet tooth for Steve Miliband. Fly Like an Eagle and Rocky Mayhem. I've been playing them recently. It's like, fucking hell, these are good. I'm not supposed to like these, but fuck it, I do. Yeah, I would have just hated it. I'd have a very salty tooth for them, really. It's just slick, white, orthodox.

But I will grant you that it is absolutely very, very memorable indeed. I mean, so from that point of view, I mean, it certainly does a job. Horrible lyrics. Very sort of Donald Trump, isn't it? Grab, you know, grabbing by the pussy. Yeah. Well, let me stop you there, David, because it's actually the woman in the song that sings that.

Because the lyric goes, just when I think I'm going to get away, I hear the words that you always say. So she's the grabber. And of course, you know, that's all right, because feminism, et cetera. Well, I don't know. I think it's still very risky, really, because, you know, he's saying it.

If he'd sort of said, abracadabra, I want a creature, you know, and conveyed a distinctly feminine voice, then it would have been in the clear, absolutely, I want a creature, you know, and conveyed a distinctly feminine voice, then it would have been in the clear, absolutely. I want a creature to grab you. You see, that's obviously a woman. Yeah. Obviously.

Yeah. Such a fine line between sexy and sexist, isn't it? It is. And the thing is, you know, it's like, who's listening to the lyrics? All you're listening, it's a bit like the Bruce Springsteen thing. Born in the USA. Didn't you listen to the lyrics? No, of course not.

You know, you listen to the key line. So all I ever heard for years and years was a bloke singing, I want to reach out and grab you. I mean, maybe Donald Trump could have used that defence. In any case, you know, Steve Miller's clearly

in a consensual relationship involving magic. So if he wants to reach out and grab his partner, as long as it's not too grotesque and she doesn't mind that he's not just doing it to show off to his mates, long as it's not too grotesque and she doesn't mind that he's he's not just doing it to show off to his mates i think that's fair dues okay fair enough you're a bit

you're a bit more liberal in nottingham well why did you have to say consensual relationship involving magic and i've now got you obviously mcgee and daniels and their scat dungeon i i think it's a bit doubtful for For years, I think it was a stigma. I think it affected me. It probably affected my attitudes to women for many years. Who's to say? I mean, in your formative years, when you hear these things, the sort of things that are sexable.

My case comes up on Thursday. In any case, what else rhymes with abracadabra? I mean, come on. Well, I know. I mean, it's tough, isn't it? I mean, obviously, he's done it because he was thinking of something that rhymes with abracadabra. I mean, come on. Well, I know. I mean, it's tough, isn't it? I mean, obviously he's done it because he was thinking of something that rhymes with abracadabra. I suppose it would be like, hey there, hey there, hey presto. I really want to molest you.

Just as bad, I suppose, isn't it? Yeah, pretty much. Or he could have sang, I want to take you to Tesco. Maybe, maybe maybe i suppose i can scoff at you david for being lyrically wrong about abracadabra but my head is bowed at the moment because um talking of lyrics that you didn't get i've come up with a absolute oh what wow moment oh really i've had it in my head until today, that the lyric in this song goes, silk and satin, leather and lace, black Betty with an angel's face.

Right? Which is a callback to the Ram Jam classic of 1977. But I've only just realised what it actually is. Do you know what it is? Go on then. Black panties with an angel's face. And that changes everything for me because not only a pair of drawers with an angel's face on it would be all kinds of fucking wrong particularly if it was a biblically accurate angel as taylor's pointing out but now i mean

all i've thought about all day is Frank Spencer going ooh panties so yeah I never heard the Black Betty thing but now of course I'm thinking about Betty Dry yes not in a pair of knickers with a biblically accurate angel on it though eh no I'm going to stop now actually but yeah Neil leather and lace

leather ampersand lace he's brought that into the dictionary of rock. How astoundingly prophetic of him. And I'm sure he didn't know the legion of shit rock compilations that would ensue. There it is. David's thoughts are actually very much reminding me

of Miles Davis's quote about Steve Miller, which I love. In his autobiography, Miles Davis says, I remember one time, it might have been a couple of times, at the Fillmore East in 1970, I was opening for this sorry-ass cat named Steve Miller. Steve Miller didn't have his shit going for him,

so I'm pissed because I got to open for this non-playing motherfucker because he had one or two sorry-ass records. I mean, you've got to imagine that in Miles Davis' voice. Yeah, absolutely. I just hate the fact that he's called the Steve Miller Band or whatever.

He does what he says on the tin. Give yourself a name, ACDC, whatever. But yeah, it's a slick white orthodox, as I say. And I think what really would have bothered me i mean you made a list earlier one of all the things that are imminent al you know like um video and channel four this is the very very last the last knockings of the era in

which pop time is really really precious and this yes this would have pissed me off because it was really eating into my very precious pop time what you moaning about david you're watching fucking your heroes west germany oh i mean by this on itv now well yeah it's a show well to be honest though we all would have been by now i would have thought yeah i would have flicked back about three or four minutes in and gone oh it's that it's abracadabra okay flick back you know because i would i'd be hoping it was just who is the five o'clock hero by the jam who suddenly just made an appearance on top of the pops out of nowhere i was terrified i was going to miss something like that so i'd flick back and then gone oh and flicked back over again but i suppose with things like this precisely because they're actually well crafted in a way

they don't just occupy precious minutes of top of the pops they sit in your brain you know they're earworms or whatever so they have that kind of add-on insidious effect and this was one of the big anthems of the summer of 1982 yeah yeah but i mean i didn't know life was just very very different these days i mean by and i carried this through right into being a music journalist and for me it justified you know the kind of absolute roastings i would give out to music i disliked because you know a song like baby jane by rod stewart i think is the worst song worst pops i ever made or whatever i just deeply resent the fact that i heard that 80 90 times and i could play it now in my head i deeply resent that the way that people resented you too putting their

album out on everybody's um you know mobile phones and all that shit but now i don't get bothered in the same way with this anymore. I think I must be. You can just live in a bubble, really. There's rubbish music out there, but it doesn't detain me for one single second. I don't have an opinion on Adele because I had never knowingly listened to an Adele record.

You know, it's not eating up space in my head or sort of taking up my precious time. The only thing Adele takes up is that rack in Tesco's where the toughies used to be you know what I mean yeah yeah

video's expensive though isn't it I like that spinning ball I still can't work out how they do that and they've got animals in it but it's a white rat

being treated nice by a slinky woman who is Joan Severance who was a model at the time really yes she later became Hulk Hogan's love interest in the film No Holds Barred.

So there you go. That's my second Hulkster reference. Anything else to say about this? No. I'm saving my abracadabra story, which you could say would be appetite here. I'm saving it for Halloween. What? Oh, no. There was a moment in my life where i heard the word abracadabra in a truly terrifying scenario oh no come on you

can't leave oh i was just lying on my bed in my flat in york right where i studied and um this flat had a bit of a history to it um we were students and we wanted to move in in june as i recall for our final year at uni and we were told by our landlord no sorry you can't um they found a body under the floorboards um and then they found yeah they'd found a skeleton now york's obviously an ancient city it could have been ancient but um we didn't tell one of our roommates and luckily he got that room but that room was full that whole house was full of spooky shit. The one thing I really distinctly recall, and I honestly, I wasn't doing drugs or anything. I was lying on my bed, listening to something, and I don't know, the record had finished, the needle lifted. And deep in my ear, well, right in my ear, this demonic voice, genuinely demonic, said abracadabra in my ear.

And it scared the living fucking shit out of me um now you could say did it reach out and grab you no we didn't fuck but my god that was scary um i granted i was a suggestible child and teenager and young adult but i'll never forget that that was terrifying i mean i can listen to abracadabra by steve miller no problem it doesn't raise traumatic memories but um yeah oh what about if he crept up behind you and whispered it in your ear don't now that's shitting me up don't don't sorry man so the following week abracadabra i don't even want to say it now neil it's creepy it was the following week that song stayed at number two for one more week before entering a large box, having swords thrust into it and disappearing out of the charts.

However, its success over here and throughout Europe forced the hand of Capitol Records, who put it out in that there Yankee land where they make all the films. And it got to number one for two non-consecutive weeks in september fucking hell man we're even ahead of the game on america's own fucking singles man useless bastards backwater the follow-up keeps me wondering why only got to number 58 in september and that was their lot over here for the rest of the decade but in 1990 Levi's ran an advert where someone who looked like Madonna's latest boyfriend rode a motorbike into a stock

exchange office and lobbed his girlfriend some jeans to put on to the sound of the Joker their 1973 single and it spent two weeks at number one in september of that year it is unfathomable to me why this record company thought this wouldn't go down well in america i know is it do you reckon it's because steve miller in america has got a bit more of a catch it and kind of people like know who he was and therefore the contrast with him doing this quite new wavy kind of record oh yeah um might have unsettled them a bit. I don't know. But it's mad because it's an insanely catchy song.

It's a big, dumb, catchy song for a big, dumb, catchy country. You know, I don't see what the problem is. I think they're worried that the likes of Johnny Fever wouldn't play it because it's too disco. Of course. Maybe, yeah. Maybe, maybe, yeah. But you see, I would have refused to have danced to this on principle. You know, I was very, very discrimed.

There were certain things you'd dance. It didn't matter what, you know, if it was something kind of romantic brewing on the dance floor. If this came on, I would absolutely, as a matter of principle, whatever the situation, storm off in high dudgeon. You know, you only dance to funk. It could be white funk, it could be black funk, but you do not dance to...

I was very strict. I wonder if I wouldn't even dance to Motown. I just thought... Or if I did, I'd do not dance to... I was very strict. I wonder if I even danced to Motown. I just thought, or if I did, I'd do it in a pointedly sarcastic way. Why? You want to sort of bust some contemporary moves, you know, with some nuanced rhythms and what have you. That's how I felt about it. I was very, very strict about this

sort of thing. Dancing like fucking Andy McCluskey, eh, David? And that, dear boys and girls, is the end of this episode of top of the pops what's on afterwards well bbc one whippers straight into the fourth episode of fame where coco's band do a benefit show but bruno develops stage fright but everything turns all right in the end because it's fucking fame after the news is episode six of the drama series oppenheimer where the inventor of the atomic bomb starts getting mithered by joe mccarthy

after that it's the concert series night music and this week it's a chance to see sky in concert great then we go back to david coleman for highlights of the World Cup semi-finals in World Cup Report. Then the weather. Then close down at a quarter past midnight. BBC Two eventually ensures that my dad doesn't stop me from watching the end of the football by putting on summer festivals, where Paul Gambaccini and Fran Morrison take us to the chittest of festivities to see someone play the piano in a cathedral.

Then it's news night, highlights from today's cricket, and they shut down at five past midnight. ITV are ten minutes into the West Germany-France game with no goals as yet, and unaware that they're about to screen the first ever penalty shootout in a World Cup, which fucks the rest of the schedule right up. So they presumably follow up with news at fucking ages after 10, followed by regional news in your area. Then TVI nips over to Toxteth to find out if any lessons have been learned after last year's riots.

Then it's Hill Street Blues, what the papers say, and they close down at God knows when. So, boys, what are we talking about in the playground tomorrow morning? Imagination, of course. Shalimar, for sure. Yes. Although probably, you know,

with equal avidity to haven't seen it the first time. Oddly enough, you know, I genuinely did go out and buy Shy Boy by Maranarama, right? Right. I got a very soft spot for that. to haven't seen it the first time oddly enough you know i genuinely did go out and buy um shy boy by bananarama right like i'm a very soft spot for that didn't like much bananarama before then or subsequently but that that one kind of you know it got me so is that because you were a shy boy david underneath those trousers good good good to be oh yes yes could well be yeah that's probably it yeah i think we'd have been talking about, yeah, Jeffrey Daniel.

Yes. I think it'd be top of the discussion. Probably about how sick we were getting of that Captain Sensible tune. Yeah. My mates would definitely have been talking about ACDC. Mm. And I think imagination were always talked about whenever that appeared. So, yeah, that's what we'd be chatting about.

What are we buying on saturday so as a kid i'd have been getting imagination trio and possibly that's about it as an adult odyssey yeah shalimar yeah um dc um in fact quite a lot of them yeah what a strike rail in this episode. There is, definitely. Sorry, another thing I would have been talking about, probably, in fact, inevitably, would have been which member of Bananarama I fancied the most,

which was probably Karen. I would have bought, I actually did buy Odyssey, of course, and I did buy, as I said, the Bananarama. It was the only Bananarama record I ever bought, and I think that's about it. I would have probably not bothered this time with Imagination. Already got it, really. And, of course, I would have already got Don't You Want Me.

And I should have sort of not been quite so much up my own arse and actually invested in ACDC. He might have made a man of me. But I didn't. And I was just disappointed. I had high hopes for Trio and Da Da Da, and I felt they were dashed, really. So, yeah.

But, hey, we got a decent chocolate bar out of them, didn't we? Trio doing the advert music for Trio would have been fucking amazing. With that girl. And Derek Griffiths, fucking hell. They could have done a whole album of that, man. They could have done the United one as well. You know, my name is Dan, I am a fan, all of that.

I am the boss, and sometimes I get cross. And what does this episode tell us about July of 1982? Well, you know what? It was a lot more interesting than I might have thought, I think. Yes. You know, I think pop's getting more colorful in a way than the kind of glowering early 80s years things at the moment when this episode comes out they could have gone kind of one or two ways we could have ended up with more perversity and oddness if you like a la trio or we could have gone more competence and slick professionalism as in all

the shit that jonathan king throws at us yeah unfortunately jonathan king's world wins um as i think 83 and 84 prove but things are still sort of nicely up for grabs in this period in a way that i wasn't expecting i think this tells us that 1982 has got to be taken really seriously as one of the great years of music. I think we have to extend that golden age out from 1979 right past 1981 and into at least the middle of 1982. I think the problem with 1982 is, like 1980, it's a year stuffed with brilliant music, but the number ones are shit. Yeah, yeah. Because the oldens and the nor'olds and the kids are still having their say. The toddlers.

What a high-water mark of humanity July of 1982 is. This kind of quality on top of the Pops and a decent World Cup. Fuck hell. Take me back there, please. Great, yeah. Yeah, great times.

And I would agree. I think I'd ultimately probably plant for 82 as the greatest pop year. Right. You know, Simon makes a strong case for 81. You know, and I think it is a strong case. I thought it was a great year too. And then 83, the descent begins.

I mean, it's Howard Jones, Nick Kershaw, who are just kind of peroxided chancers, basically, who don't have this kind of punk trajectory. Yeah. And actually, the Smiths, although I loved them at the time, they're the kind of you know the first white group in ages you know coming from that sort of mankinian background who are clearly who without funk who have no relationship indeed have a disdain for black

music or morrissey certainly um and i think that in itself you know although you know the smiths early smiths records are very great they represent a kind of re-caucasian firing as it were of rock and pop music and you know they're the first group to break off that relationship with great black music that you had since punk yeah and in 82 kids are still into music if you like that is and when i say kids i mean not little kids yeah like you said out a few minutes ago you know little kids and oldens um i mean teenagers they're into music that their parents can't fathom out and that their parents think this isn't proper music whereas in 83 those kids are into things like like David said Howard Jones you know Howard Jones is never gonna rub an older person up the wrong way with his feather

cut and his basically sort of synthy prog type music whereas in 82 there is still that thing of i mean i remember my parents saying to me this is barely music that's what you want to hear as a kid you really want to hear that you know that is what you want to hear whereas in 83 i don't think that's happening as much so yeah an underrated year 82 as this as this episode proves really as I was almost saying to my daughter Alicia, this isn't noise, it's just music. And so we come to the end of another episode of Chart Music. All that remains for me to do is the usual promotional flange. So www.chart-music.co.uk facebook.com slash chart music podcast

reach out to us on twitter at chart music t-o-t-p money down the g-string patreon.com slash chart music thank you Neil Kulkarni as ever a pleasure god bless you David Stubbs

a pleasure indeed my name's Al Needham, and golly baby, I'm a lucky cunt. Chart music. Thank you. When we were young and free, love happened easily. Dreams never died, life sung a pretty song. Now those days are gone. Starling.

Hey, everybody got to wear clothes. And if you don't, you get arrested. But that don't mean you got to let some fashion designer in New York or Paris tell you what to wear. Clothes express your personality. So express yourself and not someone else. Will Calvin Klein, Bill Blass, or Gloria Vanderbilt wear clothes with your name on it? No, of course not. So you table the label and wear your own name.

All dressed up with no place to go. No sweat, says Kelly. I'll just run around the block a few times. And she probably won't be running alone in this versatile outfit. Perfect for stopping traffic and starting who knows what. Manny.

All the brakes been going well for Manny. He's wearing the B-Boy look. B for breaking, and boy, do that look tough. Look, B for breaking, and boy, do that look tough. David, who's the hippest cat in town. Ain't no doubt when David's around with semiotic trousers and hair and fitness. He's the 80s nod to 50s splendor.

Stay cool, David. And the dust starts to blow When the game's done now I'm not gonna stop Just a bet And I'm still to survive It's me I am the tiger It's the thrill of the fight Rising up to the challenge Of a rival

And the last Don't survive A storm to praise And keep watching us Thank you. I love rock and roll I love rock and roll That's the thing Down, down, down So Thank you. Yeah, babe Go Put a dollar to the baby Rock and roll

Big screen Ow Ow Thinking Long ago When we were young and free. Love happened suddenly and we could not see where we were going wrong. Now those old days they're

fucking gone they fucked all right