Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #7 - August 22nd 1985 - Nobody Ever Said; "Oh No, Jaws Is Coming"

Episode Date: July 17, 2017

The seventh episode of the podcast which asks: if Les Dennis and Dustin Gee were Torvill and Dean, who would be who? This episode sees us firmly on the wrong half of the Eighties, with Live Aid a mere five-and-a-bit weeks behind us, and the Greatest Pop Programme Ever is not coping very well with it. At all. For starters, it's been shunted up to 7.55pm to make way for Eastenders, The Kids are burdened with pom-poms and manky pastels and pushed right to the back of the studio and danced at by Pineapple Studio Wankers, there's a compulsion to lob in as many videos as possible, Garry Davies is wearing an appalling jacardigan, and there's Steve Wright. As for the actual music, Lisa Lisa is with Cult Jam (but without Full Force), Drive by The Cars is trotted out for the second year running, Kate Bush rises about it all as usual, Stock Aitken and Waterman make a record that actually manages not to get on your wick. and oh look, there's Madonna with her pits over the hand dryer. And there's a woman cupping a right handful of a gorilla's breasts. Al Needham is joined by Taylor Parkes and Neil Kulkarni for an unflinching gaze into the open wound of post-Live Aid Pop, breaking off to discuss failed Marxist dictatorships in Ethiopia, failed attempts at breakdancing, Psychobilly caravan holidays in Skegness, persistently homosexual Mexicans, the Curse of Arsewasher's Back, and white boys from villages going to black hair salons in order to look like a wrestler. And swearing. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon Pull-Apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks with a small coffee all day long. Tax is extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. What do you like to listen to? Um... Chart music. Chart music. chart music chart music

hey up you pop crazed youngsters and welcome to the latest edition of chart music the podcast that sweeps up the droppings left behind by the hit parade. I'm your host, Al Needham. And as always, I'm joined by two people who piss intelligent and informative music criticism out of their arses. First up, the welcome return of Taylor Parks. Hello, Taylor. Hello there, Al. And my other guest is the man called Neil Kulkarni.

How are you, Neil? I don't know what accent I was going to go into there, but I And my other guest is the man called Neil Kulkarni. How are you, Neil? I don't know what accent I was going to go into there, but I reined myself in. Hello there, Al. I'm fine and dandy. I was on that Pirate Radio 1994 tip. Anyway, we're picking up new listeners like nub ends off the floor at the minute.

So if you're one of those people, this is what we do. We take one episode of Top of the Pops, the greatest British pop programme ever, and we break it down to its very last compound there's a chance that your favorite band or artist might get coated down but we never forget they've been on top of the pops more than we have this episode goes all the way back to august the 22nd 1985 well i look at the 80s and I see good 80s and bad 80s and the dividing line for me is Live Aid and this is the first one we've done which is on the bad side of the 80s. How do you feel about

late 80s compared to early 80s when it comes to chart music? Well I think traditionally the cut off point between good 80s and bad 80s as you say kind of comes early it comes like about 83 but by 85 certainly for me it started becoming that time when I started realising that the charts could be shit and that basically I think

an awful lot of people my age at that time because I was about 12, 13 we just started exploring old music ruthlessly and kind of digging out old stuff. And that was kind of our education to a large extent, forced into it really by the shitness of what was contemporary.

But I mean, I wonder whether that's down to age or not, Al. I mean, maybe you, were you still watching Top of the Pops by this time? Just about, yeah, just about. You know, early 80s,, yeah. I was thinking, you know, early 80s, I'm guessing I was about 10 and I was generally a bit happy. By the time I was 13,

of course I was a miserable teenager. So maybe I just started thinking the charts were shitter than they ever had been. But watching this episode, I do think we've reverted back to those ratios that we had before 79, where you're plucking out kind of tiny little bits of gold from the kind of morass of mediocrity really like my 80s were sort of

bisected in the same way as pop music's 80s because um about a week after live aid i moved down south um and i can't trace the exact day but i could if i wanted to because uh when we arrived put the telly on and it was an episode of bottle boys followed by the style council doing come to milton keynes uh on some variety show with a load of string players dressed in monk's habits and yeah oh man we've got to dig that out it's the thing is it the the cultural shift that i experienced of going from a playground where the worst thing you could possibly be called was a posh snob to go into a playground where the worst thing you could possibly be called was a pauper or a tramp um sort of reflected in pop music.

And, yeah, suddenly they were wearing proper suits. It wasn't like something they'd got out of Oxfam and customised. And, of course, yeah, it all spins around the fulcrum of Live Aid. It's not a fulcrum. It doesn't matter. It all spins around live aid. The point is that... The black hole. Yeah, pop music trying to be heroic in a vainglorious way

by laying down its life, almost literally by laying down all the things that ever made it what it was in an attempt to solve a problem it could never solve or even significantly ameliorate. So after the disaster of Live Aid, disaster for pop music, because the damage lingered on and there was this horrible arrogant piety and adherence to common sense and received wisdom for the next half decade until the drugs changed and the thing is that i think that's spot on and the sanctimony of live aid the trouble is it started getting reflected in the sounds and the

textures of pop so so pop started mirroring that kind of inflated sense of self-importance. From 84 onwards, you get these big drums and big synths and big open-air blustery sounds. Everything has to be anthemic and sound big and blustery, a kind of mirroring... Sound good in a stadium. Yeah, exactly. It was a kind of, yeah, a total reassertion

of that kind of messianic pomposity of pop music. Punk was most definitely dead by 85, I would say, most thoroughly. And yeah, it's odd because I always worry about mourning ages that go and saying that things were awful at a certain time. Because quite often that comes from a place where people are starting to worry about the influence say of black music in pop this is why tradition well well a lot of people at the moment think the charts are shy basically because there's an awful lot of black influenced music in there and i worry about that that i'm getting engaged in this kind of moral morrissey like insistence that the charts were terrible in 85 because of the pervasive influence of black music when i I think about black music in 85,

you know, I'm thinking LL Cool J and Roxanne Shantae and Schoolie D and Dougie Fresh and people like that. None of which is really reflected in the charts that much. Hardcore hip hop has been going for a couple of years, but most of the influence you feel of hip hop in the charts is really hip hop as a fad, as a joke,

really as a detail that can be applied to pop as opposed to its own genre itself. And yeah, 85 was a bit of an idea, there's no denying it. Shall we see what's in the news? Yes, let's. Radio 1

News In the news on this day, the CIA accuses the Soviet Union of dusting US diplomats with tracking powder. Mandy Shires is crowned Miss UK while her house in Bradford is being burgled. Routine screening on all blood donations for HIV is announced by Health Minister John Patton. blood donations for HIV is announced by Health Minister John Patton. 55 people have been killed in the Manchester air disaster, but the big news today is that Prince Charles has sent a message to the Notting Hill Carnival organisers saying that he regrets that he'd be unable to attend,

but he'll be there in spirit. It's particularly bad because he was bringing the weed. Yes. It's particularly bad because he was bringing the weed. Yes. On the cover of the new Musical Express this week is Her Out of Propaganda. On the cover of Smash, it's Billy Idol. The number one LP in the UK is That's What I Call Music 5.

The number two is Like a Virgin by Madonna. In the US, the number one single is sharp by tears for fears and the number one lp is reckless by brian adams so chaps what were we doing in august of 1995 we've already sort of said but we'll say again in in august 85 i was actually for the second time in my life i was in india um i actually traveled to india on the day of live aid and um i was gutted about missing live aid actually um you know because everyone was going on about it um and i remember being gutted about missing it i remember being staggered to see other indian people at the airport going to india and they had american accents that had never occurred to me

that asian kids could have american accents it totally blew my mind and in india i was there for eight weeks i think and the only access to western pop culture i had was a copy of lip sync funky town on 12 inch and um night flight to venus they were the only two western records that were over there um in 85 i remember there being much more of a relationship for me at this time between watching top of the Pops, listening to the radio, and taping the charts on a Sunday night. And beyond that, pushing beyond the charts and listening to Annie Nightingale and already opening up to me the possibility that what was played on daytime radio on Top of the Pops wasn't sort of the whole story.

So it was a year really where I was listening to albums as well for the first time in my life not really good ones cameo single life I remember meant a lot to me head on the door by the cure around the world in the day by Prince it was it I was getting off the charts a little bit and more into more into albums in 85 yeah I'm the same age as Neil so I was about the same point in my musical development I've been like into old music for ages but i was in terms of contemporary music i was getting away from the charts um and also i was uh beginning the

process of changing my accent from west midlands to uh sort of cockney barrow boy stroke s street i can already feel it slipping back being on this podcast with you two Midland chaps. You're becoming outwardly mobile, aren't you? Well, yeah, to you, yeah. That's what it would sound like. Because I've now lived in or near London for almost 30 years, so day to day I tend to sound, you know, like some sort of pickpocket or something. Whereas I spend more than 30 seconds

in the company of people from the old country and i sound like an oldie holder like dragged dragged howling and drawling back to the black country it's like i'm in that clip of that clip on youtube of robert plant doing a free concert for charity in kidderminster shopping center backed by a pickup band of mustachioed policemen if you've not seen that if you've never seen it and i've never seen that yeah it's yeah if you go to youtube and put in robert plant live in kidderminster yeah he was um it that it was there was some sort of charity event where the local police were raising money and he drank in the same pub in kidderminster as uh this is like at about 1991 or something um and so yeah they said well we've

got a band and yeah the rest is uh the rest is history preserved for all time on youtube it's the if you've never been to kiddermin, you basically watch that and you never have to. So what was on telly this very day? Well, BBC One has broadcast the 54th episode of EastEnders. The plot is Michelle is depressed, Kelvin and Ian have more problems with their knitting business and Sharon continues to sexually harass Lofty and has just finished an episode of Body Matters

with Graham Gordon looking at people's knees. Thanks to EastEnders, Top of the Pops has now moved out to 7.55pm. Can you believe that? Yeah, and I assume it was lost there, wasn't it? Top of the Pops going to 7. It's not right, man. Half seven.

That's when Top of the Pops should be on. Half seven after Tomorrow's World. Yeah. Fucking progress. Well, it's the Top of the Pops should be on half seven after Tomorrow's World yeah fucking progress it's the middle of August people are having their tea lately yes they weren't having barbecues though in 1985 that's for sure

certainly not BBC 2 has just had an episode of Sergeant Bilko and is 30 minutes into the Bellstone Fox with Eric Porter, Rachel Roberts and Dennis Waterman protecting a baby fox from hunt scum. ITV is screening the final countdown, the Kirk Douglas film about an aircraft carrier

that goes back in time to Pearl Harbour. Channel 4 has broadcast The Gong Show, Channel 4 News and is now running a documentary called Spaceflight. So yeah, not a lot of competition tonight, as always. Thursday nights, it's all about Top of the Pops, isn't it? Absolutely.

Good evening, I'm Steve Wright, he's Gary Davis, welcome to Top of the Pops. The hosts for this evening, because we're still in the phase where they have two hosts on Top of the Pops. First off is Gary Davis. And at the moment he's doing the weekday early afternoon slot on radio one um we've already talked about him taylor in a previous chart music here he is a couple of years down the line the man for whom the 1980s had to invent the word wally he's because he's not because he's not a cunt you know i mean you couldn't really call gary dav Davis a cunt without being accused of somewhat overdoing it. You know, he's appalling, but he's harmless. What he wants to do is have a boogie, meet a lady, get in his car, go back,

put some mid-80s soul on and make love. He doesn't fuck, but also, unlike a lot of people in the 80s, he doesn't bonk. He makes love. And he also has got one of those repulsive T-shirts that young dickheads wear now with the neck comes down much too high. Oh, yeah.

Muscle shirts. I think they call them. Yeah, but he's got no muscles He's just Or tit shirts If I'm wearing them Or indeed If Gary Davis is wearing

Who do you think would be Out of all the radio One Top of the pulse returns Who do you think would be The most caring lover in bed Gary Davis You've put him up there Taylor

So that's That's what's brought him up It would be for his own You know Sense of himself though Rather than yeah of course but you know that's that's okay i think he'd be a gentle and sensitive lover i mean he was kind of marketed in in that sense wasn't he gary davis i think kid jensen would make cooing noises he was gary davis just it wasn't his tagline kind of young free and single or something like that. And he likes to mingle, yes. That's right.

And I mean, in the midst of the cavalcade of perverts elsewhere, I guess we should have been grateful that he was somebody vaguely resembling, I don't know, normality. And I remember him most potently as the guy who tried to instill a bit of order on the catastrophic Brits ceremony of 89. Did he? Yeah.

Oh, yes. It was a new band award that Brosh should have won. And I think they gave it to Bill Wyman and Ronnie Wood to present. And it was, you know, the whole night was chaos. Mick Fleet was making some really off-colour comments. Gary Davis was the one who stepped up to the mic. You know, new things were falling apart and said, shouldn't we read the nominations first and I remember that

moment Ronnie Wood couldn't read the nominations and just announced Bross and gave it to Bross but he was trying to impose order at least he seems like a decent decent person in a sense but he was the first bloke to play radio head on national radio so we should always hold that against him

no one's going with my who's the most caring, considerate lover thing. Just try not to think about it. Okay, okay. The other host for the evening is Steve Wright. Born in Greenwich, Steve Wright's career began in the early 70s as a librarian for Radio 2. He started broadcasting in 1976 at Thames Valley Radio in Reading alongside Mike Reid.

After a year and... Oh, God, I can't... Every time I say someone's name now, I'm trying to think what they're like in bed. Why did I do this? With Mike Reid, just play a bit of the icicle works and it might help you... Yes! It might help you picture the scene. Oh, God, I'm sort of choking now. That's what she said. No, no, no. I think DLT will probably cry

after he climaxes. After a year-long stint at Radio Luxembourg in 1979, he joined Radio 1 in 1980 for a couple of weekend slots before taking over the afternoon slot in 1981. I'm thinking about Simon Bates now. That's also what Mike Reid's girlfriend said. Steve Wright is best known for popularising the zoo format

with his posse and a selection of characters. One of these characters was called Pretentious Music Journalist and, according to Wikipedia, was supposedly based on a number of 1980s rock-pop reviewers, perhaps especially Simon Reynolds, Paul Oldfield and David Stubbs of Melody Maker.

I don't believe for one minute that Steve Wright read Melody Maker in the late 80s. Steve Wright sat there reading Skinny Puppy and Thin White Rope features going, oh, I don't like this Paul Oldfield. He's a bit highfalutin in his

language, isn't he? No, no. There's no way that happens. The annoying thing is, though, Al, it proves my age. I listened to him the other day, because he's now on Radio 2, obviously, and he didn't annoy me that much. But I remember at the time, his posse, his ideas, but particularly his habit of singing over records

used to drive me absolutely spare. I mean, I sort of teach radio production where I work. And, you know, I've met Breakfast Time hosts. Fucking help me then. I've met Breakfast Time hosts. And every link that they do, you know, every little bit of their show has to be micromanaged to a lunatic degree.

The idea that the most popular radio station in the country managed to a lunatic degree the idea that the most popular radio station in the country um in 85 gave production ideas and space for people like steve wright is astonishing now i mean we shouldn't really be surprised that it led to a lot of off-color stereotypes um you know homophobic and other things but i can just about stomach the idea that a radio one dj isn't there to just sort of compare the playing of records, if you like. But it's that invasive way that you were welcomed into their vision of what a good radio show was. It's now a bit upsetting. I mean, it's so much time wasted listening to him and his massively unfunny characters.

Yes. Yeah. I mean, he used to get right on my tits in the 80s. And, you know, people go on about how bad it was for unemployment in the 80s um and i you know people go on about how bad it was for unemployment in the 80s i i'm of the opinion that there were jobs knocking about in the 80s but a lot of people didn't want to take them because it meant they'd have to listen to fucking steve wright at work in the office or or on the shop floor he was fucking oh he just got right on my fucking wick what's funny is if you look at his wikipedia page it's got a big list of his characters and yes when you read it straight like that some of them sound really funny but they weren't

but they weren't at all the problem was he was too well it was part of the fundamentally second nature of britain in the sort of mid and late 80s where suddenly people kind of wanted to be more American. And it's always a bad idea, always a bad idea when British people actually try and do that. I mean, the idea of Steve Wright making it as a DJ in New York is just completely ludicrous. He would obviously dearly have loved to. It was never going to happen.

But he also doesn't have the shabby Britishness of the 70s DJs. So you're just stuck with this kind of crappy version of Kenny Everett. I'm not even a big Kenny Everett fan, but I do admire him for the way he could translate his genuinely troubled soul into a genuinely peculiar radio. Steve Wright's just slick and wacky. The words happy shopper, Kenny Everett, weren't far from my mind or my mouth, Taylor.

Yeah. I totally agree with you there. And, of course, he was one of the first people to popularise celebrity gossip as well, which is an absolute blight on our society. Neil, do you remember listening to him when you were this age? Steve Wright in the afternoon? I mean, I'm guessing I was at school.

I was at school when Steve Wright was on. But I can't remember if he had a weekend show or not. I think I listened to him slightly later on. It's astonishing how long he persisted. But I presume he was part of the... But actually, he wasn't part of the ones that were got rid of by Matthew Bannister, I'm pretty sure.

No, he was the breakfast DJ at the time and he went of his own volition, apparently. Right, yeah. I mean, he lasted an alarmingly long time and he's still doing it on Radio 2, pretty much identical to what he used to do. But just shorn of all the non-PC characters that he used to do.

Yeah. God, yeah. We haven't even spoken about Steve Wright's contributions to the charts, have we? He released three records. I'm All White, You're All White. Have you not heard this? Yes, yes. No, it's just the way that you said it made

it sound like an edl anthem um and the gay cavaleros of course that story was based on the the idea that that steve wright would have to cover his ass if homosexual men were around, which in itself is the most unbelievable part of the story that he relates. And then there was that rubbish he did in the early 90s Arnie and the Terminators or something. I genuinely didn't watch that link out because...

I sent you the links. I offered you the opportunity to revise and you didn't take it. I don't blame you, really. Fucking awful. And according to someone, some random bloke online, I'm not a violent person,

but I'd happily punch Steve Wright in the face until I ran out of strength. Then I'd go for a sleep and come back and do it all again. But since my fists would be sore, I'd use bricks or chairs to smash his bloody face in. So there you go. Do you want to take a guess

how old Steve Wright is in this episode? In this episode? 85? In 1985? 38? I was going to say 33. He's 35. Yeah. He's just about to say 33. He's 35. Yeah.

He's just about to turn 35. Gary Davis has just turned 30. 30? Gary Davis? No, that sounds about right. He's been knocking around for a couple of years. But Steve Wright is simultaneously always going to be simultaneously younger than he looks and older than he behaves.

Davis, welcome to Top of the Pops. We've got a brilliant show for you. Don't move away from your TV. We've got Princess, Kate Bush, Baltimore, but first to get us underway, Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam with I Wonder If I Take You Home. Davis in a dark blue, I want to say, cardigan with the sleeves rolled up over a light blue shirt and Steve Wright in a really crappy blue and white sweatshirt

that he probably got off the market in some really shit jeans demand that you do not move away from your teller and introduce I wonder if I take you home by Lisa Lisa and Colt Jam. Before we move into this, just one more thing about Steve Wright. Just looking at his appearance here, do you think he's actually looked at himself and thought, you know what, I could be the white Lionel Richie? There is a bit of that, isn't there? Because if there's one thing the world's been waiting for.

And they introduce I Wonder Can I Take You Home by Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam with Full Force. Formed in New York in 1983 when Lisa Velez, a shop assistant at Bennington in New York, met up with Mike Hughes, who was a drummer for Full Force. Formed in New York in 1983 when Lisa Velez a shop assistant at Benetton in New York met up with Mike Hughes who was a drummer for Full Force and along with Alex Mosley they recorded I Wonder If I Take You Home in 1984

but it wasn't until the song ended up on a European compilation LP called Breakdancing, great name that, a year later that the song took off over here in America. It's up this week from number 26 to number 15 cult jam uh the two blokes on either side of lisa do some very very poor dancing when the song's calling for some proper hardcore break dancing yeah throw downs guy in

no way in no way synchronized they're both doing separate stuff oh they're terrible all of it all of it rubbish yeah it, it's like, you know, when you've got mates who are really good at breakdancing and they want to go down the shopping centre on a Saturday and they're doing all the

spinning on their head shit and you can't do it but you can, you can do the kind of like move from side to side stuff. That's pretty much what they're doing, isn't it?

Well, they're not dancers, you know. They actually play on the record. Yeah, yeah. They're sort of producers. I don't know why they've not been armed with a keytar or something well you'd think wouldn't you they're doing something but um i like i mean the thing about this record it's not a great record i do like um the weakness of lisa lisa's vocal it it she's not got a great voice and i know and i really i really like that it's kind of there's a kind of vulnerability to her vocal she doesn't really hit I really like that. There's a kind of vulnerability to her vocals.

She doesn't really hit the notes that well, and there's a kind of weakness to it that I really like. I remember that breakdancing compilation. It was a great compilation that an awful lot of people had. But this track, it really does kind of identify that place, sort of post-disco, where dance music got infected with electro and a bit of hip hop somebody defined latin freestyle which is which is what you you kind of call lisa lisa and culture as a latin

freestyle band as a mix between planet rock kind of era bamba and and shannon's let the music play and i think that's probably about right i like the weakness of the vocal they had bigger hits i think later um but this is probably their best one um it's funny you should say that neil because when she auditioned for full force um by singing for your eyes only by sheena eastern uh fact fans um they they actually liked the fact that she sounded normal that she didn't have this amazing voice yeah and she just sounded like some girl on the bus yeah yeah that's exactly what's kind of

charming about it I mean the other thing I want to bring up here is that one of them has got some really decent sunglasses on

you know those really big chunky full you know almost full face never mind full force and he does look like a very weedy younger brother

of Humpty Hump out of Digital Underground he looks like his nose would lift off with those glasses, you're right. Yeah, definitely. But maybe that's why he's dancing so, you know, gingerly. And how do we begin to describe what Lisa's wearing? How do we? She's got this baggy satin white coat over a white bra and there's a

bit of white lace wrapped around her head and and she's she's got everything's white it's like she's like a white barbara cartland and she's got them socks with the frills at the top that my niece wears nowadays so they always make her look as if she's just trodding some meringues. But tying things... And just endless, endless bangles and just loads of air, just everything. She looks like she's been put in a cannon and fired through a cancer research. Fired through Claire's accessories. Tying things around your head,

that's an instant way of being able to look street and American. Yes. Because I remember doing that with one of my dad's ties or something but um but i i remember doing that and you know america what taylor said earlier about steve wright being sort of partly you know the start of this thing that everyone wanted to be american i think that's a really pervasive thing about this episode. It's not that the Britishness has been erased from this episode,

but it pretty much has, hasn't it? I mean, it's kind of, apart from Kate Bush, perhaps, everything else is in some way trying to emulate something American. Yes.

Perhaps because the most exciting new music was coming from there. but yeah, it's odd that little shift that happens there. Oh, that's the other thing we've got to talk about the music sounds new and everything but the lyrical content is will you still love me tomorrow it's also

it's not quite an anti-sex record but it does fit into that the thing that was getting very big in the 80s of anti-sex or sort of finger wagging records, um, which,

you know, you can forgive this one because it's her saying, you know, like her boyfriend's probably a bit of a ne'er do well. And she's like, well, well, well,

well, you know, I know what you're, I know what you're like, but it, the, the anti-sex thing was definitely too strong around this time. And I mean,

this is a couple of years before AIDS went overground, i.e. began to matter to straight people. But there's still that sense of, you know, like, hey, it's the 80s, we can stop all this childish rubbish about sex now, you know. But as Ice-Q and Eazy-E, a few years after this, demonstrated she was totally right to be cautious at 13 I was immune

to this record I really like it now a lot like if you put in sort of a young female vocal singing a playground song or nursery rhyme melody over an acoustic guitar then I want to run if you put it over some electronics

i'm a sucker for it every time but but the at 13 i was totally immune to it because i was sort of allergic to the surface that sort of electro casual thing all the people i knew who were into this record and this sort of music were casuals and they weren't bad people, but it was very different from the idea I had of myself at 13. Because at 13, I don't know, certainly in those days, you saw pop in a sort of a weird aspirational way in terms of what you wanted to be or where you wanted to fit in or not fit in.

And also, like nowadays, the thumping lindrum on this record sounds amazing to me. But at the time, it's like, what the hell is this? It sounded kind of primitive and I don't know. But what it is, and I realise now that at that age, I wasn't tuned into rhythm like a lot of sort of uh like a lot of kind of you know anglo-saxon kids right I just I for some reason whether it's like the way you brought up or what you just you have to get to a certain age before you understand how rhythm in music worked and you

know what funk is and what and stuff like Because at this age, all I understood was melody and the texture of sound. Yeah. So it wasn't that I didn't like records with a good rhythm because I like loads of them. And it certainly wasn't that I didn't like, you know, black music or Latin music because I like loads of that too. But it's like stuff where the rhythm is the main thing of the record I'd be like well

what's this you know there's no tune and I think now looking back at it as well in terms of the actual sound like the sound of the record it's really comes down to this thing that a lot of teenagers have of whether you're more French or German, right? It's a bit of a pet theory of mine, right? That there's stuff that's French, right? Whereas it's all about self-absorption and maybe a sensual atmosphere. And it's sort of cerebral but to some degree narcissistic. Whereas the German style is more clean lines and dark shadows,

and it's more brutal and more subtle at the same time. And all indie music is French, for instance, whereas all dance records or electronic records post-disco and pre-'90s are German. And I was too French. So at the time, you were French you were too French there is such a thing yeah too French whereas now I the older I get the more German I become oh don't we all Taylor don't we all I mean I was I mean in my state loads of kids were into electro and into this and I just couldn't get on with it because it was too too

tinny for me it was just too trebly and also i didn't want to dress up like a fucking games teacher you know all that casual shade well they were called shadies around our way and i just didn't get it you know you either look like a games teacher or you look like fucking ronnie corbett sitting in an armchair telling you a story. I just wasn't interested. Do we know that two goons are cult jam? Yes, they are. There's definitely them.

They're not just – I mean, they're obviously not professional dancers. No. They look like they've just been pulled out of, I don't know, the most outrageous gay club in Hell's Kitchen. But also, they look cool in a way that, for instance, Gary Davis doesn't, right? Now, objectively, they look stupid. But whereas Gary Davis is sort of, I don't know,

it's like there's this sort of an edge of honest absurdity to their appearance. Jerry Coles. Yeah. That was the thing of the time. Did anyone here partake? Because my friend, I had a friend who I believe was the only white man in Britain to wear jerry curls in the early 90s because he wanted to look like Bret the Hitman Hart, the wrestler.

He lived in a village in Shropshire, so he had to, I don't know where he went, but he had to go right out of his village to find a black hair shop. of his village to find a black hair shop. And yeah, just, I can't imagine the bravery that must have been needed to go into a shop like that. I can picture the scene now that he would just, I can picture him going and saying, hello, long pause, hello. I've come in to get some jerry curls, long pause. Okay. hello um i've come in to get some jerry curls long pause okay just this sort of harold pinter like landscape of the conversation there'll be 18 euro kids knocking about nowadays in bands

who would kill to look like cult jam looking like knobs in this top of the pops and then again but then but then again you've got to compare them with the background which is the kids dancing and we don't see a lot of the kids in this era of Top of the Pops do we?

They've kind of been shunted off into the shadows We hardly see them at all you're right I think we see them more towards the end and when we do it's kind of

in a way it used to be I guess the great Top of the Pops appearances I remember is when the kind of audience that they're not looked down on.

In this episode, it almost seems like they're avoided by the camera because the camera people or the director are just kind of vaguely embarrassed with the way that they look. And as the episode goes on, I think towards the end, we do get to see them when they're just dancing to the final record. And you can kind of understand why the horrible dancers that Top of the Pots has at that point

are like dancing at these people, almost like asking them why they can't dance as well as them, it's really uncomfortable the treatment of the audience throughout this episode I think they look like YTS dancers don't they

one final question did did anybody attempt to break dance at this time only the arm wave because everyone tried to do the arm wave and everyone could pretty much do the arm way shrimping and all of that no i didn't not on a playground concrete no yeah me and my mate had a go once and uh we couldn't get any lino though so we got we just got a bit of cardboard box and he tried to do a well he was he said he was going to try and spin

on his head but he was really doing a forward roll and his head went over a pebble that was underneath the cardboard and it put a put a dint in his head and so we went fuck this and

we we went home and played Kevin Tom's football manager instead so I wonder if I take you home nudged up to number 12 the following week, which was its highest position. Follow-up, can you feel the beat fail to chart? And Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam would have to wait until May of 1991 for a next chart hit. Let the beat hit them, which got to number 17.

Full Force would have a hit of their own in December of this year with Alice, I Want You Just For Me, which got to number 17. Full Force would have a hit of their own in December of this year with Alice, I Want You Just For Me, which got to number nine. Baby, I'm your carpenter, please let me lay your tile. Lisa Lisa and Carl Jam and I wonder if I take you home. Well, one of the most beautiful records in the charts this week is at number five. As of Live Aid, all proceeds go to Ethiopia.

Here are the cars and drive. Formed in Boston in 1976, the cars first hit the uk charts in 1978 when my best friend's girl got to number three and follow up just what i needed got to number 17 after a minor hit in 1982 with since you're gone the cars next big hit in the uk was drive which got to number five in october of 1984 the follow-up you you might think, died on its arse in December of that year, and that seemed to be that. However, in the run-up to Live Aid, David Bowie saw documentary footage of the Ethiopian famine made by CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and demanded that it be shown after his performance, even if one of his

songs had to be cut and somebody whacked drive over the top of it the song was immediately re-released in the wake of live aid and is currently up from number eight to number five right where do we begin with this chaps because that footage with drive over it was pretty fucking harrowing when it was first put on Live Aid. You missed it, Neil. I did. But I can imagine. I can imagine it. And I know our focus with regards to Live Aid

should be about the effect that it had on music, etc. But I think what needs saying about Live Aid is that it was pretty much tantamount to seeing the plight of the German people in early 1945 and doing a benefit for the German people and then sending all the money to Hitler. It's staggering, really, when you look back on it, that yes, it's a pop concert. Yes, it did this. It raised this amount of money. But that money went

to one of the most evil regimes ever so even though you know distance should lend a kind of i don't know a kind of i shouldn't be getting angry about this this many years on but it really is a a crowning turd in in music history um that event what it did that not only the sanctimony it gave to pop and the way it kind of changed the sound of pop for a while but just in effect what it did for the people of ethiopia is shocking and harmful and horrible and kind of glazed over i guess because they are black people from africa um and and. And that shouldn't be forgotten, I don't think. Now, with regards to this song, I actually don't really believe in guilty pleasures,

but I love this song. I really like this song. I liked it when it came out. But much like, I don't know, Everybody Hurts or Hallelujah, it's become one of those songs just sort of guaranteed to be played when money needs prizing out of people by celebrities to spend on their own pet causes. And as with Hallelujah, it seems to utterly sidestep the lyrics.

I remember what touched me about the song in 84 when it was first released. It's actually quite a scary little song in terms of the relationship that it depicts. It depicts depicts I think somebody falling apart and somebody trying to offer help and it's kind of a bit of an open ended song, nice big thick Yamaha keyboard

textures and stuff I think Rico Kasich who's got a lot to answer for but also produced good albums by Bad Brains and other people wrote a really good one here and Ben Orr's vocals really nice so it's a great song but it's use and consequently it's

re-emergence in the charts here it's tainted for me now by it's association with Live Aid yeah I mean according to the video it's actually about how his girlfriend who's a model is in some kind of asylum and she's hallucinating about

members of the cars and a robot waiter in a monochrome edward hopper style snack bar but that's why it was but that's why it was so useful for depoliticizing the ethiopian famine. Because it was a sort of a... It was a sort of vagueness to it. I mean, the point is... I mean, the reason they use that is clearly for the line, you can't go on thinking nothing's wrong. Yeah, but... It's a bit of a waggy finger, isn't it?

It's a weird thing, though, because the famine, it wasn't depoliticized for political reasons because the main culprit here was a classically corroded Marxist regime. So there would be no awkwardness in saying these people are bastards. It was depoliticized so as not to bore or alienate people in britain which is always the problem with charity um and it yeah it just leaves a bit of a leaves a bit of a funny feeling behind i mean there's got there's going to be people listening

to this going what raised a load of money for for people who wanted something to eat um and raise consciousness what's what's wrong with that well those people out and should Raised a load of money for people who wanted something to eat. And raised consciousness. What's wrong with that? Well, those people out should, and I'm sure I was probably one of those people at some time, but they should basically Google Live Aid, The Terrible Truth, an article that appeared in Spin Magazine in 1986,

which tells the truth about where that money got sent, what it got spent on, and what it propped up. And when you read that, you can't really come away from LiveAid with anything other than nausea. You know, it funded horrible, horrible stuff being done by the Mengistu regime in Ethiopia. And, you know, Bob Geldof moaned about that article after it appeared and said it was down to them, him refusing to be interviewed by spin, but,

you know, they requested an interview and he turned it down actually. But, but you know, it's, it's a really good expose that of the kind of the kind, the horrible sanctimony of understandably people wanting to do something and people wanting to help something and people wanting to

help but catastrophically not planning things and just slinging money at something um in an attempt to solve their conscience in an attempt to solve everyone's conscience but actually causing far much more harm than than help i know there's this thought and this goes on with comet relief as well and other things like it that well that much money must do some good you know it's 100 million quid it's three billion pound i think they said they said in the long run that they raised that amount of money must do some good well it can also do a hell of a lot of harm and i think that's what happened with live a mangistu only spent the money on the bits of his country that he cared about. He left other bits of his country to die. And he also undoubtedly spent much of the money on building up his own security services

and building up his own regime. So, you know, I don't think you can really extract anything positive, in a sense, from Live Aid. It made the West feel better. I think that was its main purpose. In which case, mission accomplished. But in terms of helping the people it set out to help, a complete failure on all fronts. And also, even if it had done a whole load of good,

on a pop music podcast, we'd still be perfectly entitled to talk about the harm it did to pop music. Which is not to say you would in those circumstances go back in time and erase it from history. But if it had a bad effect on pop music, it had a bad effect on pop music. So let's talk about it. Yeah. But it's still

a good song. It's alright, you know. It's the car small. Although I'll tell you what, at the start when you know how um occasionally on top of the pops the djs will editorialize and when they're introducing the record as they now this is one of the most beautiful records yes chance this year and it's always something that kids don't like yeah when they say they love or something they never yeah they never say that

about you know the show by doggie fresh by Dougie Fresh or something by Wham. It's one of the best records this year. It's Freedom by Wham. It's always something, yeah, something adult-oriented. It's like, listen to this one. It's actually good. Will You by Hazel O'Connor. Oh, did you say Layla?

Yeah, that was Dave Lee travis did so when it got re-released in the mid 80s dave lee travis um just basically sat everyone down and said you're about to listen to the greatest song ever gary davis's first ever record played on the radio and also the last one he played yes he did yes he did, yes. Yes and then Danny Baker came on straight afterwards and said if you want to hear that song over and over again go and tune to Virgin. But then he went and played

the fucking Beatles so you know he can talk. So anything else about the video? I mean to my mind it's a pretty shitty video of the era. But then again, anything that isn't people dying isn't going to have much of an impact, is it?

Well, apart from that amazing 80s video argument that you get right at the end. Oh, yeah. With, like, cuts between Rick and this lady, like, sort of arguing with their hands. Is that really? Yes. Okay.

Yes. But they're doing a very sort of, you know, like comedy Italian type argument. Lots of hand movements because you can't hear what they're saying. And all it really needs is for a slow motion shot of her flinging a vase of flowers against a wall. Or a bird cage where the bird just breaks free or some shit like that. But yes, this woman here, Polina Poroskova, she's a model. She's 18. She's not very good at pretending to be mad, but she's very good at sitting there and being attractive.

she's not very good at pretending to be mad but she's very good at sitting there and being attractive that's probably how she got her job I attempted to literally what Rick was saying at the end and also why does it cut the video at that point I'm guessing it's just a timing issue but maybe the video was just getting

a bit I don't know you know fractious and they just wanted to move on. I attempted to literally what he said. I think he said, what are you doing? That's all I could make out. Maybe they were about to have makeup sex. So the BBC had to pull it.

But the following week, Drive moved up to number three, its highest position. And it raised £160,000 for Live Aid. But that was the last time the cars darkened the charts and they split up in 1988. But the good news was that Rika Kasich dumped his missus and married Paulina Poriskova, so the video wasn't a complete waste of time. Well done, everyone.

If you've been on holiday to Europe, you'll have heard this song before it's now in great britain it's my favorite it's tarzan boy Steve Wright is on the balcony with a dancer with his knee up for some bizarre reason, as if he's trying to get over the fence and dive on stage like he was in ECW wrestling or maybe he's trying to be cool. He looks like one of them cool teachers or one of those, looks like one of them cool teachers or, you know, one of those sort of sexually threatening teachers. Al, Al, as a teacher,

I can confirm that sitting on a chair the one way round and straddling it is an immediate way to connect with the kids and show them that you're cool. Right. Did you never watch Fame? Yeah, but what about getting one leg up? I had a teacher that used to do that we used to kneel

with one leg on the desk it was unpleasant he was also a swimming teacher he used to play with his zip toy with it as you did lengths below him really that sounds worse when he was doing his length possibly and he introduces his favorite song, Tarzan Boy. And also he says that everyone's heard it on holiday. You obviously knew you'd gone to India on holiday in 1985, so presumably you didn't hear Tarzan Boy? No, I can't say I did. A lot of Night Flight to Venus, as mentioned, but not Tarzan Boy. That's right, yeah.

Taylor, where did you go on holiday in 1985? It would have been our caravan. We had a timeshare on a static caravan in Wales. We were there twice a year, every year. Actually, no, what am I talking about? This was the first year we went abroad. Oh. Yeah, because my dad had just got promoted, so we went to France.

Oh, yes. Oh, yes. No beaches for us. Oh, no. No so we went to France. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. No beaches for us. Oh, no. No, we went to Brittany. Nice. Did you hear Tarzan Boy? I've heard it so many times in my life,

it's hard to put a time and a place on it. I went on holiday to Skegness with my mates who were a load of psychobillies. So we definitely didn't hear Tozz and Boy. We heard a lot of the Meteors' first two albums over and over and over again. And then I just got sick of the shockingly low state of personal hygiene in that caravan.

So after a couple of days, I pissed off down to Ingle Mills where my mum and dad were in their caravan. So yeah. Formed in Milan in 1984 when jimmy mcshane a stage dancer stroke red cross emergency medical technician from derry met a record producer called marizio basse the european summer hit of 1985 getting to number one in spain and france where it stayed at number one for five weeks taylor you must have heard it released in the uk in the late summer it's the highest

climber of the week from 33 to number 11 see on my computer i've got a folder with 16 hours of italo disco on it um and this is not in the top drawer, not quite. It's not up there with Clouds by Angie or Faces by Cleo or Witch by Helen, let alone the best one of all, which is The Night by Valerie Doré. Wow, she got a surname, did she? Good for her. Yeah, but it wasn't a real name. So, in fact, I think they had about two different,

like, you know, over the course of the time they were releasing records, it wasn't even the same one. But these are genuinely great records. And there were loads of these that were truly fantastic pop records that never really made it in Britain, even though they were better than a lot of what was in our charts, because they were too European, you see. They were sort of redolent of

stonewashed jeans and backpacks with Snoopy on. Jumpers tied around the neck. Yeah, it was a bit, it was bluesless, you see. It was completely bluesless. It was like the sort of the craftwerk vision of European pop,

but with no airs. But this isn't as good as that, but it's pretty good because they've learned the lesson of this kind of music, which is that if you can't write a song that's got a poignancy or an emotional pull to it, which all the best ones have, then what you need is, um,

something to make it stand out. You just need to make it stand out from the other 16 hours. So you need, you need, um, like, let's say a jungle theme, uh, a bit where the music goes complicated, like, let's say, a jungle theme, a bit where the music goes complicated, a good hook, and there you go.

And it's actually pretty good. When you listen to it, the melody in the verse is quite nice. It's just the problem is you are sort of distracted from that by the electronic elephant trumpeting and the fact that the fact that it's being sung by rocco sifredi's less well-endowed little brother who feels he has to overcompensate by leaping around um and i never noticed how good it was for years for those reasons but it is actually, it is good it is a good record

although I was disappointed to discover that the lyrics aren't as I assumed for three decades jungle life, we're living in Europa which I thought was so, it doesn't say that it's a real letdown we're living in the open. That's right. Right.

Yeah, which makes a lot more sense because there aren't any jungles. But, you know, I thought your imagination can run free with that. But, no, he's just literally singing about being in a jungle. I mean, this jungle motif is a bit played out by 1985, isn't it? I mean, we've already had, you know, it's already peaked with Tight Fit and On Safari with Christopher Biggins.

Which is what this song reminds me of. I mean, Jimmy McShane's the only band member there, which is going to reinforce the misconception that he is Baltimore and not the lead singer of the band Baltimore. And there's a woman with a bikini dancing with someone in a gorilla suit.

Yeah, it's a bit sinister that. The man in the gorilla suit is advancing quite amorously on this girl. Yeah. And everybody else, the punters have been given pom-poms because it's fucking 1985. Neil, what's

this doing for you? The thing is, all day the hook is all powerful. That hook is all powerful and I've been singing it all day. You talk about the guy being called

Baltimore and people have that misconception. It's a misconception that's actually reinforced by Gary Davis at the end isn't it? because Gary Davis says his name is Baltimore I mean why do you think the rest of the band aren't there? actually I think that confusion or rather Jimmy McShane

getting called Baltimore caused the internal strife which meant that the band broke up so you know but it's a catchy little number and yeah the odd thing is I don't remember this at the time at all possibly because I was

in India who knows but I don't remember at the time at all but as soon as I heard it I instantly thought fucking wonga.com advert because it's on one of those adverts and I think it's been used in a lot of ads precisely because of its catchiness. But it does have that jungle. I think you're right.

That jungle motif is played out by that point. Jimmy McShane does a decent job of the performance. He keeps doing that annoying thing with his jacket where he flaps it up to show us his chest, which is a bit odd. But it's kind of, it's a sad story, really, what happened to Jimmy McShane after the band fell apart. So it's tinged with poignancy watching it now.

But it's, yeah, it's a cute, catchy little pop record. I mean, I fucking hate it. I can't like it. You get us on my tits this song. I mean, obviously, like so many kind of like foreign records that catch on and that are brought back to this country like the plague, it's just simple as fuck. I mean, you can imagine. I mean, Christ, the opening words,

you just sound like a pisshead doing it. You know, it's just, it's just, oh, that's pretty much, you know, the average British conversation in Malbea, isn't it? Yeah, the football terraciness of that does somewhat, rather like the electronically simulated elephant, does rather trample all over the more subtle elements of this song. Yeah, and at the end, the woman's actually behind the gorilla and grabbing his tits.

Oh, okay, that's right. She was just playing hard to get. That's the European-ness, isn't it? Shut up, Lou. What are you saying? That was Brexit. That's what European-ness, isn't it? Shut up, Lou. What are you saying? That's Brexit. That's what they're like. That's a good argument for Brexit.

I mean, are there any other examples we can think of where people have got the names of the bands wrong and thought it was the singer? Because, I mean, the one I can think of is there was always one thick twat at my college who thought Mick Hucknall's first name was the singer. Because, I mean, the one I can think of is there was always one thick twat at my college who thought Mick Hucknall's first name was Simply. He thought Simply Red was Mick Hucknall. Well, the most famous is Blondie.

Yes, of course. There's also Jaws. Yes, of course. But there's also Jaws. Yes. Jaws? Nobody ever said, oh, no, Jaws is coming. If you watch that film, look out, it's Jaws. They don't say it. So the following week, Tarzan Ball soared up to number five,

got as high as number three, and stayed in the top five for four weeks. The follow-up single, Woody Boogie, did absolutely nothing and they were done as a chart act. After the band split up in 1988, Jimmy McShane returned to Northern Ireland and unfortunately died of an AIDS-related illness in 1995. And of course, according toary lineker in 2001 baltimore is pedophile to pedophile code for i'm running at them now with my trousers down baltimore he comes from northern ireland living in Milan, and currently he's got a number one in eight countries in Europe. And now, may we please look at the tunes that are bubbling under right now.

Here are the top 40 breakers. It's been five and a half years since this last guy had a hit in this country. Well, he's got one now, a new entry at number 40, Dan Harmon, and I can dream about you this is his first chart here for five years taken from the film Streets of Fire

you ever seen Streets of Fire? can't say I have it's the guy who wrote Living in America with James Brown it is yes this is the first time

that there was 84 was when they started showing the top 40 yeah yeah it's a bit Billy Joel isn't it 84 was when they started showing the top 40. Yeah. Yeah. It's a bit Billy Joel, isn't it? And he's got a black guy to pretend to be him.

What's going on here? And yes, this is a follow-up to History, a chart entry, Body and Soul, Mike Ty and number 36. I love this record. Yeah, I like this hippo in the mud bass line irresistible yeah

this was the follow up this would jump up to number 11 goes high as number 9 it was the last hit for them they do better than

anyone else on this episode of communicating simple enjoyment yeah the dutch say no more yeah helps enjoying this yeah the Dutch say no more yeah

helps last time this guy was in the charts was together with Bronzekibi he's got the highest new entry on the chart this week straight in at 34 Mark together with Bronski B. He's got the highest new entry on the chart this week,

straight in at 34, Mark Ullman and Stories of Johnny. A new clean cut of Mark Ullman, isn't it? It is, yeah. Never seen anything other than black before this, I think. Yeah, I don't like it. I prefer, you know, scarily electronic Mark Ullman. I heard an amazing story about him when he had his stomach pumped. No!

The level of trust involved in the irony in that joke. It's like being a trapeze artist launching yourself into open air just hoping you'll be caught by the ankles. I thought I'd risk it because I trust you chaps.

Implicit. Oh yeah. Okay and we're up to number four. This really is a haunting song. It's really nice to see Kate Bush back on top of the pops and live in the studio with Running Up That Hill.

Right here. Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush. The first single from the new LP, Arms of Love. This is the first single released since The Dreaming got to number 48 in 1982 and the first Top 40 hit since Sat in Your Lap in 1981. The original title of the single, A Deal With God,

was nixed by EMI after they were worried that a song with God in the title wouldn't get played in Italy, Ireland, France and other countries. It was last week's highest new entry at number nine and it's now gone up to number four, which begs the question, why wasn't this on last week? Raises the question. Or asks a question. Yeah, raises the question. Maybe last week was just too jam-packed with all the other great records that were out in the summer of 1985 like my toot toot and yes yeah i mean fucking hell there is some right dog shit in this chart isn't there it doesn't look great

also there's as i don't want to don't want to hold back the discussion of kate bush but there's a there's a always whenever we do these there's at least one record in the charts i don't want to hold back the discussion of Kate Bush, but there's always, whenever we do these, there's at least one record in the charts that I don't remember, despite having been young and obsessed with the charts at the time. This week, it's Takes a Little Time by Total Contrast. I've never heard it. And the name Total Contrast. Sounds like a hairspray.

Well, it sounds like a local band, you know, where they have names that are just a well-known phrase or saying, like, you know, like dilute to taste or, you know, a stitch in time or something

like that. The ones that I don't know are in your car by the cool notes. Yeah, I remember that. It was sort of

like a sort of retro slick soul, like for casuals, music for casuals music for casual yeah back on to kate bush neil she seems to be following you around mate are you scared are you still scared of kate bush by this time in your life no no my balls were starting to drop and um i think i wasn't as scared by kate bush in in 85 Basically she wasn't doing the wide eyed starey thing. She wasn't as creepy by any

means. And I think actually The Hounds of Love, that was the album where she started, it's a horrible word, but started connecting with me in a bit. As opposed to just scaring me. I love this song and I loved Cloudburstin as well I remember. And I remember taping the album from the library and liking it.

Because somebody played you know there's there's an unavoidable nastiness of texture to a lot of 85 music um this has got that big sound thing but but the songwriting is interesting enough to sustain it and and i like the kind of the backwards background voices that kind of add to it it's a big sound but it's not like a wide open sound it's quite close up and intense and a little bit too close up in a sense. So even though it plays with the same kind of sound palettes

that an awful lot of mid-80s pop plays with, it does it in quite an interesting way. So yeah, I mean, if we're plucking out little crocks of gold from this episode, I'd say this is one of them. It's a corking song. I don't usually like kate push but um objectively i can see that she's really talented it's not like i

think she's rubbish or something it just usually it doesn't do anything for me but i think you'd have to be quite ill to not like this one which is um strikes me as being quite clearly one of the best singles of the second half of the 80s it's like it's like mid-period talk talk but with a sort of uh authentic but performative madness to it which means that it works better as pop um i don't think it's any better as music but it works better as a pop record even though there's almost no visual interest in this performance except for uh bobby ball on the triangular banjo who kind of steals the limelight a bit um and also one of the backing musicians has disobeyed the order to just wear black it's the bloke with the keytar and he's turned up in his pyjamas or something

completely spoiling it I bet Kate wouldn't be happy about that because it is weird that Kate Bush has started to knock about with the band instead of being in a leotard getting a piggyback off a roller skating Satan or

some mad shit. Yeah, but it's odd that she's actually appearing at all. Because the video, as I remember, is a really memorable video. But I mean, I seem to recall that the video wasn't shown that much. No. Because, I don't know, I remember reading that basically people who showed music videos didn't like the fact that you couldn't basically see her face singing all the words they like kind of lip sync videos where people sing the words and you can see them singing it and i seem to recall that video

being some kind of strange contemporary dance yeah mtv mtv weren't happy about it and the actual debut of the single was on wogan i remember when I remember, when she had a bow and arrow, you know, an actual real-life one, that she didn't fire, but she drew the bow back at the end. And I'm sure BBC Health and Safety of the mid-'80s weren't happy about that. Hence its absence in this performance on top of the list. Also, the audience of Wogan were not going to be able to get out of the way quickly. No, no. By now, I think also,

she'd kind of safely avoided by this time, I guess, Faith Brown doing a shit impersonation of her. Yes, yes. Always important. The following week, it moved up to number three, its highest position, but the follow-up cloud-busting only got to number 20. Running Up That hill was remixed

and re-released in 2012 after it was used in the closing ceremony of the London Olympics and it got to number 6 what a shame she couldn't use that bow and arrow on Russell Brand in his fucking top hat doing fucking

what Beatles song was it benefit of Mr. Kite rather not say. I'm repressing that memory quite fiercely at the moment. Super K-Boys running up that hill watching after a first album in three years

called Hounds of Love coming out next month. And now Gary Davis with the charts. There's a new entry at number 40 And now, Gary and Soul at 36. And at 35 is The Cool Notes, In Your Car. The highest new entries at 34 for Mark Holman, The Stories of Johnny. Bruce Springsteen, Glory Days is at number 33.

And up to 32, Dio, Rock and Roll Children. At 31, The Cult, She Sells Sanctuary. And at number 30, Jackie Graham, Round and Around. Gary Moore, Empty Rooms is at number 29. Trans X, Living on Video is at number 28. At 27, Five Star, Let Me Be the One.

At 26, Prince and Raspberry Beret. And moving up to 25, Go West, Goodbye Girl. Madonna, Crazy for You is this week's number 24. And Harold Baltimore with Axl F is at 23. Going up 18 places to 22, Takes A Little Time, Total Contrast. At 21, Sister Sledge and Frankie. At number 20, The Cure, In Between Days. Phil Collins, Take Me Home, goes up 9 to 19.

And at number 18 is Kool and the Gang with Cherish. D-Train, You're the One for Me, goes up 10 to 17. And at 16, Opus, Live is Life. Up 11 places to 15, I Wonder If I Take You Home from Lisa Lisa. At 14, Nick Kershaw and Don Quixote. And up 26 places to 13 the biggest climber king alone without you up to number 12 amazulu and excitable baltimore at tarzan boy goes up 22 to number 11 and up to number 10 she's here in the studio here's princess and say i'm

your number one and Say I'm Your Number One. After a piss-poor bit of banter between Steve Wright and Gary Davis and a chart rundown, we're introduced to princess and say I'm your number one absolutely no chemistry between the two of them is there just like the chemistry between us three trying to hold back I've been saying too much why are why are top of the pops still going ahead with this two presenter job when

a balloon with a face drawn on it would have sufficed it's the BBC family thing isn't it it's the Radio 1 family there's not much

kind of natural chemistry if you say if you like you can't imagine the two of them going off to the pub afterwards

can you the only time you got a sense of it being a pairing was when it was john peel and janice long now yes it was always john peel and janice long janice long would appear with other djs but especially after kid jensen wasn't there anymore uh john peel would only appear with janice long now if i was john bill i'd have been getting a bit paranoid because

it's like when I was at Melody Maker and quite often I'd be sent abroad to do something say oh who's the photographer who's coming with oh it's uh Lily Wilde who was a great great person and I love Lily but it was always Lily and I started to wonder like they used to send me with other photographers what has got back and looking back at the 1990s i think i was probably quite justified in that paranoia but you know poor old john peel born desiree heslop in london princess spent the late 70s as a backing singer for osibisa in 1983 she hooked up with stock aiken and waterman full names ken stock ken aiken and p Pete Waterman who had just had hits with Divine, Hazel Dean

and You Spin Me Round with Dead or Alive. This has moved up one place to number 10. Stock, Aitken and Waterman, who knew? This song's fucking brilliant. I love it. Yeah, I mean, and it shows the kind of, even though Stock, Aitken and Waterman kind of got associated with a particular sound,

especially around about 86, 87, they could change things. Pete Waterman knew his stuff. The monster hit that they had that year was Spin Me Round. This couldn't be more different. This is like a Luther track or an Orange Juice Jones track.

Pete Waterman creates a simulation know a simulation of that a kind of confection of that kind of black American pop and he does it really well basically because you know I mean Pete Waterman's history is of playing black music in nightclubs so yeah um he manages to create this this song sort of perfectly and I think you're right I think it's a storming single in my memory it's up there as one of those kind of one-off r&b one-hit wonders like i don't know joy sims come into my life or something like that yeah it's a great tune and um yeah i mean even though star eight can walkman got associated i think with a particular sound especially in the kylie years and the mel and kim years um they they they could they could change it around a bit and and is unlike any other Static and Waterman song that I can think of

in that it's pace is quite slow and her vocal is wonderful, I think she's brilliant you have to know that Princess is British to tell it's British I think the simulation of American Soul is so complete, although maybe I'm under-reading it, maybe you can

tell the Britishness, but I can't, I don't think. I had to find out, in a sense, that Princess was British to realise that... Because the last time you were on, Neil, 1979, I believe, you were saying that the black British artists were years behind their American counterparts. Yeah.

Do you think they've caught up now? Do you think there's a sense that the Brits are catching up? Because, I mean, you know, a year before was Mama Used to Say. A year before was Mama Used to Say by Junior. I think this year as well, Hanging on a String by Loose Ends. You know, it's a lot of very, very decent shit coming out from Britain around about this time.

As soon as electronics get properly incorporated in and and british bands black british artists aren't sort of harking back to like you say four years previously this is a contemporary sounding record in 1985 it's up to date um you know and it's revealing that princess a black british artist with stuyken and morton who are kind of you know reviled in a way ever since, create this quite contemporary sounding record. I mean, later on in the chart rundown, you see fucking UB40 and Chrissie Hindoo and I Got

You Babe. And that's the kind of BPI version of reggae, if you like. But you know, 1985, that's the year of Under Miss Lentang and things like that. So it's so ludicrously behind the times. Whereas this record is is kind of banged up to date with with what black american pop was doing in that year yeah i mean that this

song the minute i heard this song it was the first time when doing the research for this it was first time i heard it in fucking years and it just whacked me right back to the summer of 1985 it really did so yeah love it, love it. Taylor? Yeah, it's all right. I'm not as big a fan of this because, to me, it does sound a little bit – I mean, it's good. It's not like it's a bad record, but, to me, it does sound like a bit of a thinning and a taming of a sound

that should maybe be a little bit more sultry and atmospheric and absorbing. I mean, it's – I don don't know maybe it's my imagination like projecting this i can sort of so i can feel the beginning of that sort of mr by right stock aching and walkman thing coming through but i don't think that's anything to do with uh i mean i i to me i can i could say it doesn't sound jamaican or american you know it sounds like a british record but i don't know that might i like a British record, but I don't know. That might be my imagination.

But I don't know. I mean, there's a couple of unusual modulations in the song which sound like they've been put in there to stop it getting boring. And they pull them off quite well, but it's just like the song turns around and heads off in another not that interesting direction. I don't know. I mean, it's like compared to most of what was in this week's chart,

it's pretty good. But I don't know. To me, I've never – I don't think this is a classic. I really don't. But, you know, I'm happy to be outvoted on it. As for the performance, it's, yeah, she's kind of, she's sort of got a pared down version of what Lisa Lisa was wearing. She's got this kind of longish leather jacket with a bit of netting at the bottom,

over a bra again. She's got earrings in the shape of a number one, and she's got a red bowler hat at a jaunty angle. According to my notes notes a bit like a paper hat worn by a dad at christmas it's the bra thing al it reminded me immediately of judy finnegan and yes i couldn't shake that whilst watching it so i felt a bit sorry for her in that regard anyway but i think she was a backing singer for a band called Brilliant who were picked up

by Stockheck and Waterman who had like youth in them and they were quite you know they're June 40 and people that yeah and that's how she got

that's how she linked up with Stockheck and Waterman isn't it yeah yeah yeah so they all went on some other things she basically had that hit didn't she

I don't think she did much more no she didn't no unfortunately so say I'm your number one, jumped three places to number seven the following week, stayed there the week after and got no higher. The follow-up after The Love Has Gone

made it to number 28 in November of this year and she'd have two more chart hits. We're going to have a look at the rest of the charts on video. Stentorian Scottish Melismas Worst record of the year It is the worst The worst

This video's fucking great It's a great record in the same way that Quattro Was a great drink It's throw away and it's now been Thrown away that Quattro was a great drink. It's throw away and it's now been thrown away. And if this is what it's like beyond Thunderdome I'm staying this side of Thunderdome. Yes.

Oh, fuck off. I fucking hate this song. Video cost as much as a feature film. And this one's up three places to number five this week. The Cars and Drive. What are you doing, Steve? That's what you're saying. Yeah.

And up five places to four. Kate Bush, Running Up That Hill. Oh, yeah, what you're saying. Yeah. And at five places to four, Kate Bush running up that hill. Oh yeah, look, modern dance. Yes. It detracts from the record. She's down one, and number three, it's Madonna and Holiday.

Holiday actually is one I don't know. Yeah. Because of Jellybean. Watch out for this. It could be next week's number one. At one place,

the number two. UB40, Chrissie Hines and I Got You Babe. Oh, fuck. I hate this fucking song. Oh, shit. This is the worst bit as well. This is the only good bit

in the original record is where they sort of ad-lib at the end and the music sort of lifts off a bit or the singing lifts off a bit and they just drag it fucking right down like a shock kestrel. And in what fucking dimension

is Ali Campbell and Chrissie Hynde going to be in a fucking relationship? She is currently on honeymoon with her new husband, Sean Penn, everybody's favourite sleazebag. Yeah, she's number one for four weeks running now. Here's Madonna and Into The Group. Gary Davies and Steve Wright are getting very chummy indeed.

Gary's got his kind of like arm on Steve's shoulder. And, you know, it's like they've come to terms with something. He's got his arm on Steve's shoulder. It's like they've come to terms with something. I'm still trying to work out what Gary Davis is wearing. It's like a dressing gown or a really big... Has that got a collar, that coat? It looks like it has, but you can't tell. Yes, it has. It's got a little bit of a lapel there.

It's a Jackardigan. Yes, a Jackardigan. He wasn't the only one to wear them. I can distinctly remember them being a thing at the time because I had a dressing gown, and when I used to wear my dressing gown, I'd think, look a bit like Gary Davis. Gary Davis!

No, I didn't used to think that, but it's, yeah, it was, they were not uncommon those at the time, yeah. Anyway, Steve Wright feels the need to drop in some celebrity goss about Madonna going off on a running moon with Sean Penn, as if anyone gives a fuck, and introduces Madonna

and into the groove. The seventh single released by Madonna and the official follow-up to Material Girl which got to number three in March of 1985, Into the Groove became her first number one in the UK. It's the fourth release from the LP Like a Virgin and it's used in the soundtrack of Desperately Seeking Susan, her first major movie. So consequently the video we see is a selection of scenes from the film. It's at its fourth week at number one, and it's the third

Madonna single in this week's top 40. The re-release of Holiday is at number three, and Crazy For You is still in there at number 24. I think we are at peak Madonna, my friends. Around about this period of time, it just felt that we were being told that Madonna was going to be a star, was going to be the biggest star. We were told she's got this movie out she's got these singles

out and we just like didn't have a choice in the matter i've always been kind of resistant to madonna in in it in a way she seems to have made a career out of overestimation of her own importance and talents ungratefully copying out ideas from people without sort of credit and thinking she's a renegade because she manages to kind of be controversial to slow moving and slow-witted people so she she kind of shocks idiots and consequently thinks she's cutting edge i think only ray of light by madonna has ever really grabbed me she's a total blind spot for me yeah i'm not a massive fan of her although i do like this one it just sounds like a like a decent sort of new york gay dance record but with a sort of toughness and polish to

it that you don't get on all of her other records but you know the intro steve wright introduces her as everybody's favorite sleaze bag which, I don't know it sort of suggests Steve Wright has not known an awful lot of sleaze in his young life because there's something a bit business like about Madonna's sleaze, you know what I mean apart from the bit in the video where she

goes over to the hand dryer and dries her armpits on the hand dryer which is just, that's sleazy in all the worst ways. There's people who do that at my gym as well. Really? I'm not like Right Said Fred. I don't own a gym.

I go to the council gym, right? But there's people who do that. Yeah, I've seen people come out of the gym and instead of having a shower, dry their entire bodies on the hand dryer. Oh, that's fucking minging. Yeah, it's like a sort of... Chatting as fuck. But it's like a sort of but it's like a sort of aroma therapy

because all you're really doing is caking the sweat onto your own body aren't you baking the sweat yeah and wafting it into the air it's terrible and I'd have expected better from Madonna yeah and of course

the introduction of the Dyson Airblades is going to just drive that into the sea now, isn't it? Yes. Yeah. And I tell you what, I tell you what, we're talking about chatty things

that you do in the toilets with fucking dryers. Dyson Airblades, I worked in Dubai a couple of years ago for about six weeks. Those Airblades are fucking brilliant for arse washers back in Dubai in the Arab countries they have these kind of like little pressure hoses

by the side of the bogs and you know I thought fuck it when in Rome wash your arse and I kind of like got the angle slightly wrong and just the water went right up my back. I caked my shirt, but Dyson Airblade, you get your shirt down the back.

30 seconds later, nobody knows. Fucking brilliant. Thanks for sharing. Yeah. Is the film any good? I can't remember seeing it. I've never seen it. No.

No, I went to see it at the time because we thought, you know, yeah, there might be sort of boobs in it or something, you know what I mean? Because it was sort of, she had this image, didn't she? It was like if you were too young for porn or whatever, you know, it was like Madonna provided a sort of a, like the shandy of porn. Yeah, the gateway drug. Yeah, but it wasn't really like that.

I mean, I still think in a way that the best thing about Madonna as a pop star was that she was genuinely interested in sex as a subject. And pop stars who are genuinely interested in sex are always a bit more interesting, especially female ones because it's you know a less a less labored perspective the trouble was her internal psychosexual landscape turned out not to be very interesting she was actually quite conventional and quite mainstream and the furthest out she got was a bit of light spanking and she didn't really have anything to say you know like she fancied sort of

good looking guys with quiffs and muscles and it was all a bit boring and she didn't really have anything new to say about any of it. What a shame she never did any songs about scat or cock and ball torture eh? But you see in 1985 this was better than nothing because or for the

most of the late 80s because because everyone else was basically saying, hands off, you know. Yeah. I mean, the thing about this video is, to me, because I've not seen the film, is that it's just an extended Coca-Cola advert. We know nobody drinking Coca-Cola in it. You know, everyone's having moments

and either getting really angry or really passionate or dancing. It's filmed exactly the same way as well. The film stock that they use and the way it's lit and the way it's shot, it's exactly the same. It gives you that sort of weird churning feeling in your guts.

It's kind of testament to how weirdly puritan the times were that the fact of her drying her pits on that hand dryer. I remember it being mentioned a lot. I remember people talking about that. I remember people being shocked by that.

And in such an environment where people are so easily shocked, Madonna was bound to become huge as she did. The only sleazy thing I remember about those hand droids is people used to throw poppers in them

in a certain place in Cobb a certain club called The Dive yeah I remember walking in and it wasn't like a gay scene

or anything in that place but I remember walking into toilets and a guy flipping it you know so it's pointed upwards like Madonna did actually but unlike Madonna throwing a popper a guy flipping it you know so it's pointed upwards like Madonna did actually

but unlike Madonna throwing a popper in and then sticking his face in it I don't know whether it works or not but yeah I never tried that method myself but yeah somebody should try that again So is there anything, we've drifted on to poppers that kind of says that we haven't got much more to say

about this video The truly remarkable thing about Madonna is that someone can be that big a star and that provocative in their own time and yet be so unremarkable and uninteresting when you look back 20 or 30 years later.

I mean, what is that? There's almost nothing to say about Madonna. Whereas, yeah, I mean whereas, I don't know, Prince, Michael Jackson, there's shit loads to say about Madonna. Whereas, yeah. I mean, whereas I don't know, Prince, Michael Jackson, the shit loads to say about them. Um,

so yeah. Yeah. It was a, that's the thing about Madonna that has always started putting me off at. I think partly with Madonna, we're asked, we're called upon to basically admire the ambition and the drive. Yes.

Um, which, you know, it's all very well and good honor you know but um it's not enough it's not enough to love a pop star um just our ambition you've got a there's got to be enough lovable music and something lovable and intriguing about them and i don't think she has yeah and the way they were going on about it is as if it was a new thing for women to be this ambitious it's like oh well okay what was Diana Ross then

yeah but also it was like you were being encouraged to applaud as your money was taken from you you know what I mean that's what I never understood it's like yeah I mean that goes on now you know that still goes on now where you're

sort of encouraged to spend your money on people because they're rich you know like you've got to take out a subscription to watch this this consumption you know but it's i don't know yeah at least you got at least you got the odd decent pop song out of madonna yeah so this was the last week at number one for Into The Groove. It was usurped the following week by UB40 and Chrissie Hines' I Got You Baby. Both Sia and Geffen would release Madonna singles in late 1985, meaning that she had four more top five releases before the year was out, and she'd go on to have 12 more number ones in the UK.

Well done, Madonna. ones in the UK. Well done, Madonna. So she's still number one. Next week's Tell the Fox is a live show featuring John Peel and Janice Long. Yeah, thanks for watching tonight. I hope you've enjoyed it. We'll leave you with the number 12 record of the moment from Amazooloo and Excitable from Steve

and myself. Good night. See you soon. See ya. Formed in London in 1982, Amazulu were originally a six-piece, five-female, one-male ska reggae band who were championed by John Peel and picked up by Falcon Stewart, who managed X-Ray Specs and Classics Nouveau. After they released their debut single Cairo in March of 1983

they appeared in an episode of The Young Ones. This is their first chart hit and it's moved up from number 13 to number 12. And it's the first chance we get to have a good look at the audience and fucking hell. It's sad isn't it?

It is. It's Christmas party time isn't it? It is sad. It is. It's Christmas party time, isn't it, at the office? There's nothing... I mean, this is 85, isn't it? I was thinking, oh, there's nothing there that makes it look like... But actually, yeah, this is 85. It's horrible. It's really horrible. The dancing's appalling.

The clothes are dreadful. The clothes are fucking awful, man. There's nothing generous to the audience about any of this Top of the Pops. It's just big, expensive pop music. When quote-unquote real people appear, they're shunted around and kind of made to look terrible. If you'd have asked me before I watched this

what the audience is going to be wearing, I would have said, oh, okay. Well, the lads will be wearing fucking, I don't know, jumpers made by Gino Gianelli or something like that. I'd have no idea what the women would be wearing. But you look at it now and it's

just a lot of manky pastel. Yeah, the top of the pops dancers are allowed to look as 80s as possible. Yeah. Like Ormus and the rest of it. But the audience they're, yeah, they're fundamentally they're dressed like kids. But yeah, the song.

I mean, I always mix up Amazulu and the Bell Stars. Wasn't there some sort of connection or am I dreaming that? Yeah, I think you're dreaming it. I think you are anyway. Yeah. I'm not sure. No, I think I am, yeah. But...

Well, it's another singer who can't really sing but is trying and another weird processed sounding version of what was originally an earthy and organic sound. It's not terrible. It's better than their other hit. Do you remember that? Too Good To Be Forgotten. Yeah, yeah.

Which I think was... The cover of the Childish song, yeah. Yeah, and they did that in a... It was a really nasty sort of slightly nauseating sound to it. And this has got the same horrible sound, but it just works slightly better, even though it does sound very vacuum-packed. It sounds very social worker

high life doesn't it um but honestly this track excited but i don't remember a thing about it i know i saw it earlier on today i don't remember a single fucking thing about it basically because i was goggling at the audience and yes and there's a long long scene here where two dancers are doing a really annoying dance like all 80s paid dancers did on Top of the House and they're just doing it at a bloke who's dancing opposite and he has to kind of do something

so he's kind of shifting his weight from foot to foot but he looks embarrassed he looks appallingly embarrassed and the dancers are no longer kind of joining in with the audience if you like or part of the audience. They're there in an accusatory way, asking the audience, why aren't you this cool?

Why are you just normal people? And it's a really uncomfortable thing. The treatment of the audience throughout the episode, I think, they're basically shunted out of sight until this last scene. It's perhaps revealing of the way that show's going. Yeah, and we've done enough of these now to know that the most enjoyment you can wring out of a Top of the Pops is by looking at the audience.

And we're being denied that now. I mean, you look at all the great TV pop shows and it's as much about the audience as it is about the bands and the presenters, you know, like Ready Steady Go. Yeah, but I mean Ready Steady Go used to bring in, not professional dancers, but Ready Steady Go

used to go around the clubs and get the best dancers and get them in, but that's slightly different. That's what Gary Glitter used to do, didn't it? Yeah, but on Top of the P, they take these awful, awful wankers, you know, these professional duds who always, you can spot them a mile off, and they look horrible, and they've got this kind of permanent half smile.

And they quite literally put them on a pedestal. Yes. So you can't even miss them. It's, oh, no, it's awful. It's awful.

Yeah, I mean, and partly, I think, you know, it's reflected what we were talking about earlier, in that, you know,

live, I'm not saying Live Aid had an effect necessarily on the fact that the dancers are dominating this last bit, but that bigness, that general bigness, that goes all the way from the music, to the videos that have been played to the fact that the top 10 rundown was really almost like it was like watching mtv or something yes it shows them totally surrendering to video and the audience which like you say is

often the most fascinating and interesting part of top the pops is unfortunate it's like unfortunately the audience have to be there but they'd rather they were yes in a sense and and things have changed completely um i don't think things have changed so completely that the audience are now say comfortable with the cameras or anything like that i think there's still that naivety there but we're not allowed to see it it's far more controlled and slick and and kind of almost bpi sanctioned um in a way far more than previous you know even two three years previously you've got a flavor of what the audience was like here you really really don't so the following week this song went back down to number 13 the follow-up

don't you just know it got to number 15 in november and biggest hit, a cover of The Child Like It's Too Good To Be Forgotten, got to number five in the summer of 86. And that is the end of that episode of Top of the Pops. So what's on telly afterwards? Well, BBC One is now running The Laughter Show with Les Dennis and Dustin G pretending to be Torval and Dean. I wonder which one was which. I watched one of those the other day on YouTube. Did you now?

It's not very good. No. I think Dustin G is going to be Jane Torval. But you don't know because they're both blondes, aren't they? Everyone's blonde in that equation.

You know, I grew up in an old people's oval. Yes. The only pictures they had on the wall were the Queen, the Queen Mother, and Oval. Yes. The only pictures they had on the wall were the Queen, the Queen Mother, and Torval and Dean.

Yes. From my hometown, don't you know? Oh, I see. Yeah, throughout the 80s they stayed there. What were Torval and Dean? What, Bolero? Bolero, Torval and Dean? Yeah, Bolero era.

Were they having sex? No, no, no. They're practically shagging, Neil. It was just a lovely... You know the final thing when they collapse on the ice? It was that. What, post-coital? Post-coital, yeah. Right.

And that is followed by the 1985 final of Come Dancing, which was North West versus Midlands and West, and the final episode of Salem's Lot. BBC Two is showing Sing Country from the Silk Cup Festival at Wembley Arena featuring Conway Twitter, Tom Gribben,

Ronnie Prophet, Glory-Anne Carrier and Narvel Feltz. Fucking hell, when you're Conway Twitter and you've got the least stupidest name in a line up you know you're doing well ITV is broadcasting Seeds of Hope a documentary series about famine relief and Channel 4

has George Gershwin's Concerto in F a play about Mares and René Werner Fassbinder's Berlin Alexander Platz so a typical 80s Channel 4 night there. So chaps, what are we talking about in the playground tomorrow?

Did you see the Bellstone Fox last night? Yes! This isn't a classic total pot, is it? I mean, we were talking about this beforehand, Taylor, and you were pointing out that it's not very indicative of 1985 for you.

No, not really. What were you expecting? Were you expecting Queen and U2 and all that shit? Yeah, apart from Madonna, none of the real big hitters are about, are they?

There's no Duran Duran, and there's no Prince and no Michael Jackson. It's all these kind of, quite a lot of these quite sort of small European records, you know, trying to sound big. I think probably what

I would have been talking about in the playground, unlike previous episodes where you've asked me that question, I've been able to say i would be talking about this particular performance i think what i genuinely would have been talking about age 13 would have been how much i hated it and how much i hated all the music on it and how much i didn't like it and and it was the start of that wedge i think for a lot of us 85 and it wasn't like we knew live aid was the signpost of this but 85 was the time when you

really started actually disliking most pop music or most of the stuff that's in charts and most of the stuff that was on top of the pops i think taylor was possibly doing this before i was but from the early 80s my sister was bringing home shit loads of old records so the doors and velvet underground all that became part of things but I think 85 was definitely the year where I kind of retreated into the past to a large extent in horror at the present

What are we buying on Saturday? Kate Bush Yeah if I went back in time maybe Lisa Lisa but probably Bush much better than George W Maybe Lisa Lisa, but probably Bush. Much better than George W. and Mel and Bush. And what does this episode tell us about 1985?

It was a bad, bad time to be 13. Yeah. I keep doing these things, trying to be charitable about these years. I was trying to be charitable at 75 and I think we came to the conclusion it was as shit as everyone says it was. And I think with 85 I'm in the same boat.

It's a bit of a... It is a bit... I mean, I'd say it's in the deer, but I can't remember 86 that well either and whether things got any better i think no got worse got worse yeah there's no continue which which which um taylor mentioned no raspberry berets in the charts isn't it and another world around the world in the day was i love that album that year um prince started asserting himself a little bit more the following

i mean parade came out the following year so Prince was massively important to me then. But, I mean, the thing is, these big textures, these big sounds that we're moaning about, I don't actually see those sounds disappearing or going anywhere for a long, long, long, long time. And part of my anger or frustration, perhaps, with the things that were later on in the 80s, people said they were kind of displacing all this stuff like the stone for me the stone the problem with say the stone

roses is that it has this horrible big big drums big sound kind of thing that is a very 85 thing um yeah i don't actually see those sounds going anywhere for a long, long time. And even the dance music of the late 80s, early 90s, you know, people talk about fucking anthems, you know. It's all about bits in the song that just stops and calms down so everybody can stand there with their fucking hands up in the air. There was never a moment after this where I watched Top of the Pops and thought, this is good. From here onwards, really, Top of the Pops was always

mainly kind of crap, right? Right the way through till it's death, really. Well, I mean, I must say that when I was when I went through me kind of like mania of downloading old episodes of Top of the Pops off the internet of various torrent sites and thank fuck I did because I wouldn't have a

podcast otherwise. I had a clear rule in my head, nothing after Live Aid. And this kind of demonstrates why I was so right. I mean, as far as 1986 goes, I think it's very similar to 1975. It was an era when all the good stuff wasn't getting into the charts. And of course, you know, me being 17, the fact good stuff wasn't getting into the charts. And of course, you know, me being 17, the fact that it wasn't getting into the charts was a very good thing. You know, it made it even, I made it like it even more

because it made me feel a bit different and, you know, alternative. So, and, you know, I mean, that was with me and hip hop. And I'm sure for other people my age, some of the, you know, indie bands that were coming out in 1986 had the same kind of cachet so yeah it got to a point where music got more interesting but the charts didn't so

I just wonder how often we'll be dipping into the late 80s we're going to have to I would say that if it did get good again it would actually be much later and it'd be kind of with the re-emergence of europeans into our charts with eurobeat in the kind of mid-90s it wasn't actually britpop that made um 90s top of the pops watchable perhaps it

would have been things like yeah i mean yeah the eurobeat thing made made for some interesting performances on top of the pots but we've got a long haul until then we've got another 10 years of shite until that comes around yes basically it's a desert

until the mad stuntman somersaults into view so that is the end of this episode of Chart Music all that remains for me to do is to point you

towards the usual places where you can find us on the web fucking hell look at me being all early shut up Al is this the world wide web yes

you can go to a cyber cafe and type in www.chart-music.co.uk or you can get us on Facebook, which is facebook.com slash chart music podcast or you can be one of the dozen or so followers on Twitter

at chart music T-O-T-P. All that remains to say now is thank you very much, Taylor Parks. Thank you. Thank you very much, Neil Kulkarni. Cheers, mate. I'm Al Needham and I'm currently on honeymoon

with my husband Sean Penn hello this is my new album You Hello, this is my new album desert corner now 16 great songs, I think you'll like Who's gonna tell you things aren't so great? You can't go on thinking nothing's wrong.