Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #70: April 17th 1986 – The Rishi Sunak Of Top Of The Pops

Episode Date: April 18, 2023

The latest episode of the podcast which asks; has Rock Expert David Stubbs come from The Sky?After all the lovely Pop trifle we’ve had in recent episodes, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, it’s time for some necessary roughage, as we take a tentative walk down Nineteen Eighty Six Street once more. And yes, it’s stillone of the most rammel years for 20th Century Pop, but somehow we managed to find one which doesn’t have the whiff of the dog's arse about it.It’s only four months into ’86, but our Favourite Thursday Evening Pop Treat is having another of its regular crises, this time brought on by the after effects of Michael Grade taking over at BBC1 and pissing about with the scheduling, meaning that ten whole minutes have been lopped off, and the results are not pretty; everything has been crammed in like a Japanese tube train at knocking-off time, videos have been cut off at the knees, there’s a neon set better suited for a Miss Wet T-Shirt competition in Romeo & Juliet’s Doncaster and the chart rundown – the whole point of the show, mark you – has been utterly defiled.Musicwise, it’s better than it has any right to be. Gary Davies – a man bursting with so much sexual potency in 1986 that the sex workers of Amsterdam are pitching themselves through windows to get at him – has been given the chance to run the show solo for the first time in years, but we don’t see that much of him, because there's no time. Big Country pitch up in Success Coats. Michael Hurll practically rips the wig off Falco’s head and wipes his arse with it. A-Ha continue their spell as the premier teeny band and get creative with a bit of masking tape. Suzanne Vega gets judged by a poster of a German sex-colossus. And then, oh God, it’s the longest examination of a single EVER on Chart Music. Janet Jackson stares her ponce of a boyfriend out. It’s Immaterial look absolutely knackered and wonder why their label didn’t make a video. George Michael drops the weirdest Number One of the decade, and Whitney Houston spoils everything with a huge dollop of mawk.Sarah Bee and Neil Kulkarni join Al Needham to gingerly pick through the wreckage of 1986, veering off on such tangents as Nick Ross’ Drug Buffet, Neil’s Gin and Vomit Shame, being mistaken for Pete Docherty’s stalker, the best way to tell an interview subject that their new album stinks of unwashed cock, how the Ukraine War would have shagged up TOTP if it was still going, an appreciation of Euro-Ponces, how the BBC thought Bob Monkhouse, Barry Cryer and Nigel Havers could stop youths on dingy estates from taking heroin, and a huge Birmingham Piss Troll update. You know the swearing is going to be intense on this one…Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon*** Listen to Sarah’s new podcast HERE *** Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull-apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks for the small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. This will certainly have an adult theme and might well contain strong scenes of sex or violence, which could be quite graphic. It may also contain some very explicit language which will frequently mean sexual swear words sharp music Hey up, you pop-crazed youngsters, and welcome to the latest episode of Charm Music,

the podcast that gets its hands right down the back of the settee on a random episode of Top of the Pops. I'm your host, Al Needham. And standing with me today are my dear friend Sarah B. Hello. And Neil Kulkarnet. Hello there. Colleagues, the pop things, the interesting things, what of them? Tell me now.

Well, the pop and interesting things are somewhat reduced these days as I've kind of joined the secret club of people who've fallen through the floorboards of society. But I do have a new podcast. Ooh, shill, baby, shill. Yes. Thank you for this opportunity. What's it called?

It's called TeleDrome, which is a name i was astonished no one else had had so it's always good when that happens when it just comes to you it's like let's call it that and it's like and you get remember you used to do google whacking where you'd google a thing and there'd be no results and it's like oh look at this desert of opportunity so the first two episodes are out now a skinny little 90 minutes each. I mean, barely there, really. Fucking hell. We have got nerdy and ranty about the two massive fantasy shows of recent months,

which were House of the Dragon, a Game of Thrones thing, and The Rings of Power, which is a Lord of the Rings thing. One of these we loved to distraction, one of which we thought was absolute bollocks from hell. So have a listen. But which one, listeners? And who's the other bloke? Sorry, it's me and my

brilliant friend, John Tatlock. Good old John. Hey up, John. Hey up, John. We did a podcast together based on a joke idea that I had, and he kind of called my bluff on it. In the before times, we did a Game of Thrones podcast called The Night's Hate Watch, which is still, it fell off the internet for a bit i think it's back up now which is an exhaustive account of how bad the final season of game of thrones is um you can

you can actually track as as the will to live leaks from our very souls along the way presumably finally extinguished by ed sheeran i, I'm guessing. Oh, God. He really haunts the whole thing. You know. This is all modern stuff, isn't it? No, we're doing all sorts of stuff. Yeah, just anything. Literally, if you can see it on a screen, in your house. You know, so it's quite a broad dreamer, really.

The next one we're doing, I can exclusively reveal, is we are going to talk about Hellraiser um which and horror remakes hellraiser from uh 1987 you remember that one you know the god yeah jesus wept jesus wept spoilers um and they've remade it and we have opinions about that so um yeah we're doing that by the way that's um that's our own epically late Christmas episode, which is itself an even later than that. Even epically

later Halloween episode. So basically, don't feel bad. Time now means nothing. No. And we don't have a schedule. We do it when we are healthy and not too busy. Ooh, and the name of it again, Sarah? The name of the podcast is TeleDrome. And where can you get it? Anywhere

you find your podcasts. Yes answer neil come on in step into the side well i mean i think the last time we spoke al it was back in november in the old times our salad days if you will but yes a very strange end to 2022 and a sort of odd start to 2023 it's been a weird couple of months for me i mean mean, you know me. I essentially just want to be left alone in my bubble and write reviews of records that no one listens to. But a couple of things in recent months has sort of problematized that a little bit.

Since I was last on with Simon, obviously Terry Hall passed on. And the quietus asked me about 8 in the morning that day to write something. And by 8.30 in the morning, I had write something and by 8 30 in the morning i had and by the afternoon i was getting calls off like radio 5 and channel 4 news to appear and say a few words yeah i mean i suppose i should feel that as kind of vindication you know this is what a journalist should do put themselves about a bit um and there's no point me bearing that grudge that

it's always enemy fuckers or that incestuous band of mutual mates that passes for London's music media who gets all these gigs um you know if when I get given this opportunity I don't take them so I did them both Radio 5 was good um Channel 4 a little bit more revealing I was shunted after 10 seconds in preference for Tim Burgess or something but but truth be told it all felt a bit distinctly uncomfortable out yeah i was much happier a couple of days later by which time people on twitter had got around to calling my piece a moronic you know take and that returned me to my comfort zone excellent yes oh man you can always rely on cunts can't you to recenter your world again indeed

they keep you grounded yes um but um you know conversely i had a lovely moment the other day right that reminded me really that not all response to stuff has to make me feel like some kind of talking head cunt on a bbc4 documentary i was in stratford-upon-avon morrison's right opposite the college there where my daughter goes and i went up to the fag kiosk right um to buy some stamps and i asked the bloke behind the counter like do you sell stamps mate and he just stares at me in like this dumbfounded silence right so i sort of added you know a book of first class please just to nudge him into action but he's still kind of staring at me and then he says are you a sort of big pause on chart music podcast

i know it was mental and i'm like yes i am are you a pop crazed youngster and he's like neil kulkarni oh my god he it was so sweet he was so flustered i had to kind of let him serve the kind of building angry queue of smokers behind me and and then then we sort of stopped for chat it was it was really touching to hear how much chart music podcast meant to him oh so that was absolutely lovely and you know hello to alan from stratford morrison's hi alan i will pop in for a longer chat i mean the way journalism's going i might pop in for a job as well um and and you know maybe a pot of tea in future but that was that was a really touching thing oh my respect to you alan yeah you gotta watch out though neil it is a double-edged sword being

recognized in the street i used to get it a lot about 20 years ago i moved back to nottingham 20 years ago this month right after being in lond London and doing a lot of late night tele-rammel. Mm-hmm. And so consequently, I was recognised all the fucking time when I went out in Nottingham. And to the point where I'd go out with a mate who I hadn't seen for years, and I'd go into a pub, and just before I went in, I'd say to her, look, before we go in, I've got to let you know, there's a really good chance that someone neither of us know is going to come up to us and start talking to us because they recognize me off the telly yeah and

she didn't know anything about this and she just looked at me went fucking oh you you've become a right arrogant bastard haven't you and i said no no no seriously open the front door of the pub i'd only got about three foot in when someone who i didn't know never met again just turned around pointed at me and just shouted fucking hell it's you the legend and i just looked at my mate and her jaw just hung wide open yeah welcome to my world baby but the other edge of that sword always sharp and cutting couple of months after in the same pub this girl comes up to me and i can see her coming across to me from the pub immediately knowing what's gonna happen right where she comes up to me said excuse me i'm really sorry to bother you but have you been on the tell

and i said yeah i have yeah and she looked at me again and said are you pete doherty's stalker on that documentary? The fucking death ray glare I fired at her made her scuckle all the way back to the pub. And I just thought, thank God you were a woman. If you'd have been a bloke, I would have, fists would have been brandished.

Oh, man. It's tough when you've got a doppelganger on telly because, I mean, obviously, I had years of it with Dev Allahan from Coronation street i know the feeling but anyway fuck the randoms and the hoi polloi let's talk about the special people of this world the latest batch of pop craze patreon subscribers and this time in the five dollar section we have pete hibberdeen judy finnegan's wake ewan wallace circuit three gary mcpherson joe keating mike daley adam harrison john rafferty ian hamilton mike atkinson, Wayne Codd, James Purdy, Kit Lynch, DS, Dave Caffrey, Joe O'Donnell, Ian Ron Saunders, Graham McPherson, Mark Corcoran-Lettice,

and introducing the Ghostface Scylla! Never could get iller. And in the $3 section we have Phil Prothero, Kevin Cope, Will Collinson, Russell Parsons, Dan Metcalf,

Michelle Lyons, Marie, and Pete Gibson. Thank you, you lovely, lovely people. We are the rain, you are the sun, and now we've made a rainbow. I think it's beautiful, don't you, Neil? Indeed. Indeed, what a beautiful rainbow. I mean, you know, that's a whole flotilla of new Pop Craze youngsters.

That's fantastic. A lot of people have left, but a lot of people have come on, man. It's a nice, steady churn. Indeed. Which is nice. i wish them all you know regular bowel movements and a lovely love life this year pete gibson you jacked it right up didn't you make right up to the armpit in fact and we're sore but we're grateful so thank you and as well as keeping chart music alive and getting new episodes in full

days before everyone else we know advert ramble, the Pop Craze Patreons get to slip into the back room of the record shop and fiddle about with the chart return book for the brand new chart music top ten. Are we ready, babies? Oh, God, yes.

Hit the fucking music! We've said goodbye to the Airbnb 52s, Dag Vag, the Nagasaki Hellblaster, and rock expert David Stubbs, which means one up, three down, two non-movers, three new entries, and one re-entry. It's a re-entry at number ten for Jeff Sachs.

First new entry, straight in at number nine, the two Ronnies clash. Down one place from number seven to number eight, here comes Chisholm. A new entry straight in at number seven, Sex Under Artex. Down one place to number six, Bummer Dog. Into the top five, and it's a one-place jump for the bent cunts who aren't fucking real. Last week's number three, this week's number four, Eric Smallshore

of Eccles. The highest new entry smashes into the chart at number three, Noel Edmonds as Wank Fantasy. No change at number two, the provisional O-R-O-R-A, which means...

Britain's number one. Oh, yes. He's still there as the chart music top ten number one, the Birmingham Piss Troll. Oh, my God. What a chart. I suspected that would be the case, to be honest with you. I mean, you know, much as I suspected Bummer Dog would still be there. The dark side of the moon of the chart music chart.

Those new entries, sex under Artex, what are they saying to the youth? I don't know, but yeah, that's a bit close to home, actually. Problem with Artex is it fucking funks for ages after you put it up. But once it's up, there's no shift in it. That's it. That's that thing for life then. Yes. Yeah.

I can see sex under Artex. Sort of early 80s concerned. Sort of popping up on Riverside with some performative dance troupe. Indeed. It's the X's, isn't it? It's always X's. That's a definitively, yeah, 80s thing. It is, yeah.

It doesn't matter what year it is. There's something futuristic about an X. It just speaks to a sexy future that you'll never get to. The two Ronnies clash. Well, that's either some heavy-duty discipline dub or Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett doing some thigh-slapping impersonations of Mick Jones and Joe Strummer.

Or it could well be two Ronnies One Cup doing a wah or a fetus, if you know what I mean. Oh, I see what you mean. Changing their name to adapt to the new styles. I just see lots of blacking up there. It's deeply problematic. Oh, yes. And Noel Edmonds' wank fantasy,

well, that's clearly a dance troupe in the style of Sarah Brightman and Hot Gossip. They're all dressed up as helicopters and rally cars with legs. Yeah. The thing is, it'd be easy to say that his wank fantasy would be Mr. Blobby or something, but clearly Noel Edmonds is one of those people

who wanks in front of a mirror. Yeah, Birmingham Piss Troll sticks. He really does. I have got a small update. Oh, yes. Come on, give it. On the phenomenon that, I mean, all the kids are talking about. Indeed.

It's true that, you know, when I first suggested the phenomena of the Birmingham Piss Troll, I was at first sort of confounded by Pricey's quite legitimate and forensically scientific interrogation of the narrative. You know, he was right to observe that my indeterminacy over whether the Birmingham piss trolls sort of locomotive aspect was one of scuttling or wading. And I was floundering, to be honest with you, at times under his questioning. Oh, man. Yeah, floundering in a pool of Birmingham piss. Proper journalism ruins everything, doesn't it? Yeah, it's the Snopes thing, isn't it? Print the legend, man. Yeah, floundering in a pool of Birmingham piss. Proper journalism ruins everything, doesn't it? Yeah, it's the Snopes thing, isn't it?

Print the legend, Simon! But, I mean, therefore, it's both revelatory and sort of really gratifying to read a frankly terrifying testimony from a young brummie on the internet, who are, so it must be true, who are 1.15 in the morning on a cold october saturday outside the aforementioned subway club in brum had a bpt experience oh yeah this guy had descended the spiral staircase down the canal bridge outside the subway club to have a piss in the canal as so many previous victims have and after a few seconds um this guy um he sees underneath his tinkle of

piss and this was what blew my mind a mask yeah i mean terrifying seemingly floating in midair and not some cheap halloween mask but a kind of expensive dio de las muertos style skull mask you know i mean serious business like a luchador yeah and the guy thinks you know clearly as anyone would oh fuck i'm pissing on someone he shouts oh fuck sorry man and immediately diverts his stream of piss away from the man with the mask who's on the receiving end of it i think what happens next is what's truly terrifying in this testimony the masked figure moves to follow the stream of piss and the guy starts screaming even more you know what the fuck are you doing but you know as i've heard before actually the bpt doesn't answer he just he just silently stands there gleefully i mean

presumably showering himself in this sort of stream of alco piss and of course the guy is just traumatized he comes away tells his disbelieving mate and swears down that this must never happen again obviously you know the next week the guy like a fool goes back to subway city and it happens again but this time you know! Yeah, he seeks, like any scientist, in search of the nion cryptozoological, which is, I mean, I think we can put BPT in that category. I mean, who knows what an unknown branch of the hominid family tree BPT might be

the last living exemplar of. But, I mean, he gets verification by getting another mate, you know, to have a piss as well, and do the same. And in subsequent weeks, according to this chap's testimony, several of this guy's colleagues verify this experience. And they start trying to confront the BPT with questions. And perhaps the most eerie bit of the testimony, in fact, is that the Birmingham piss troll never answers. But he does. and this is just shudderingly awful he emits this small groan you know i've never heard that groan but even

the imagined sound of it you know makes me twist and shudder in my sheets at night this is like a groan of satisfaction i'm assuming i guess so he lives for the piss he does live for the piss but finally anyway the guy and his mates they kind of pile down en masse to confront you know this micturant masked men but he gets um apparently the bpt gets spooked and they kind of never see him but but once again and as ever with the bir piss troll, you know, this leaves more questions than answers. Indeed. I mean, number one, could the Birmingham piss troll be a woman? That's a possibility.

No. Possibly not. Possibly not. But, you know, let's be fair. I mean, number two, is the mask indeed a mask? Or is it? Yes. The grotesquely deformed features of some as yet undiscovered adjunct to mammalian primate development?

Birmingham's a, you know, that kind of place. And, you know, is the Birmingham piss troll no more? Can the Birmingham piss troll communicate? Is the mask perhaps part of some strange initiation ceremony to an actual whole community of piss trolls who have to obscure their faces as they might be recognised as famous members of Birmingham's high society. Oh God, like David Hunter. Indeed. But you know, these could be among the primary top-ranking members

of Birmingham's powerful line-dancing community, and I think the public have a right to know. Oh, definitely. These are the questions that actually handily form the titles of each episode of my forthcoming history channel series cracking the bpt code it's been green lit by national geographic should be on your screens come autumn fantastic rtv spent all this money on a fucking thing about noel gordon jesus have you considered um the theory that it could be a curse oh the birmingham pistol

might not want to be the birmingham pistol but he has to serve the birmingham piss gods oh my god yeah and perhaps if you get too close you know the mask slips in a sense and you find yourself in the mask and then you have to take on that role it's like ring you know uh you piss on the birmingham piss troll and seven days later you become the birmingham the series is coming out i mean my people are currently in talks with greg wallace's people so let's see what happens but yeah terrifying verification though i feel vindication yeah fuck you simon i'm worried now that there's going to be like hordes of people going down there like you know cock in hand ready to lure it out sarah there was a guy on twitter i think

who in response to that episode yeah he did go check it out yeah i think the bpt is long gone but um yeah you know let's see well can't we it's gonna be all over tiktok piss talk what's gonna happen to the, you know, the canal is going to be a delicate ecosystem. There's more people pissing in there than ever before. Sarah, it's a canal in Birmingham. It's fucked up. Trust me.

It can only help. So if you want in on the never-ending thrill ride that is being a Pulp Craze Patreon, you know what to do. You take them sexy fingers of yours, you hide them over to the keyboard, you mash, mash, mash patreon.com slash chart music

and you step up to that pay window, daddy, and lay your money down right now. Please. This episode, Pulp Craze Youngsters, down right now please this episode pop craze youngsters takes us all the way back to april the 17th 1986 reason for this me dears is twofold uh first let a pop craze youngster stop me in a supermarket a while back and asked me to sort out a mid-80s one so you know it's been a while and fair enough second layer you know i think it's fair to say that we've had some absolute pop trifle of late with the episodes that we've covered and i think it's now time for a bit of bran don't you let me stir a bit of cat shit back into the mix. Because, you know, we've done 1986 only twice before,

and, oh, God, we've witnessed the bright stars of new pop burning out, the dinosaurs of pop roaring back in the wake of Live Aid, and very little new stuff in the charts to get excited about. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, this is obviously an age thing for us all i think i mean by 1986 i was a little wanker basically um about pop so it kind of confirms all those old horrible opinions but you know it is also a reminder that you know there's a bit more nuance to it but you're right the dinosaurs are well they still walk don't they yes and nothing kind of completely bracingly new has come along in terms of like a scene it's more

like individual figures uh kind of still giving us a bit of excitement but it's a thin episode i think this reflecting a bit of a thin time sarah of course you're a bit younger than us so this is kind of more your top of the pops of mine yeah you know like when you've got um some manky toys and you just want to hand them on to your little sister or something they say yeah that's yours now i've got a better one yeah it is i mean this is obviously before i learned cynicism and disdain for so everything's great for me at this point the pre-Beakle 60s, 1975, 76. The tail end of the 90s. Most of this on Wiped House of a Century.

Why do fallow periods of chart music happen, me dears? Because, you know, after all, there's new bands and artists popping up all the time. So surely there shouldn't ever be a downturn in pop. There always should be something pop and interesting and new happening. There's ebb and flow always, though, like in nature and in pop. There always should be something pop and interesting and new happening. There's ebb and flow always though like in nature and in music and in so why would Top of the Pops be

any different you know I mean also it's like the mids whenever you get the kids say mid now don't they to mean meh. Right. It's one of the mids.

I know Taylor said before that he considers 1986 a late 80 like the first of the late. I think if you run at the sort of hectic pace that this decade has, you are going to experience a greater degree of wear and or tear by the six mark.

I mean, I don't know. And maybe it's a British thing. Maybe British pop kind of exhausts itself more often than, I don't know, pulling this idea out of my arse. But there is a certain flaggingness about it. So what you're saying is that the 80s has spunked its load all over its jumper and there's no tissues under that's precisely the mental image that i now have i think you can roughly kind of coincide those periods where it feels like there's a bit of a dip with fundamentally a period when the biz

feels most in control yes so you know mid-70s mid-80s it's the biz exerting their muscle and and you know art is kind of feeling you know needy um they've got the begging bowl out they want to get signed obviously i mean this is a thing that happens all the time but there doesn't seem to be anything happening palpably in the background or in the underground if you like um that might feed into an interesting pop chart so you know when you look at the chart it is mainly in 86 it is it is sort of industry sanctioned if you like yeah we've had like you say al that big sort of era defining live aid moment of you know we're in control yeah and you know we're always going to be in control.

And these old dinosaurs who just refuse to go away. In fact, the resurrection of a lot of those dinosaurs, thanks to Live Aid. And we're kind of basking in 1986 in that period, where the biz has just got complete and utter control over things. Yeah. I mean, the only new band or artist to get to number one in the LP

charts in 1986, Five Star with Silk and Steel for one week. For one week. Yeah. I mean, you can point towards the bitter aftertaste of Live Aid and combine that with a transition of CD output from classical music to more, quote,

modern stuff. Meaning that there's a load of yuppie twats out there who want their copies of Brothers in Arms and Diamond Live to sound as crisp as possible. And hoovering up CD copies of lps have already got but i feel you also have to blame the pop craze youngsters not the pop craze youngsters listening but the pop craze youngsters in general because things have got so fucking conservative with a small c in 1986 yeah yeah i mean it's not just down to old people buying old dinosaur vans young people are buying the shit as well yes young people are seeing you know dire straits as the

zenith as this is as good as music gets yeah um in 86 so yeah you're entirely right it's not just a load of old farts you suddenly start buying pop records it is the pop audience just happen to be buying shite yeah i guess it's significant that, you know, there's this new way to listen to music at this time called the compact disc. And it is as beautiful as an oil spill in the sun and as futuristic as a robot that sings whatever song you like as long as it's Lady in Red by Chris de Burgh.

It's weird to be looking back on this now, isn't it? But it was, you know, it did provide a much- much needed supplementary income for struggling music journalists who yes ended up selling them by the plantain box load to one guy from guildford called bill and it will it was never cool was it i suppose it was cool to the very few prosperous wankers of 1986 who were you know high on deregulation and what have you but it started out as something because it was so expensive it started out as something for only for middle-aged parents and a couple of generations later ended up as something only for middle-aged parents yes thing about cds yes you would hear about them all the time but you know me owning a cd player in

1986 is like me owning a pair of hover boots in 1986. Just wasn't going to fucking happen. If you had a CD player in your house, it would be on the unit in the living room because it belonged to dad. Dad had the control again. And when dads have control of pop, things go bad. Yeah. Too right. And crucially, you know, you walk in a record shop, the CD section.

I mean, not only is it limited in 1986, but, yeah. Too right. And crucially, you know, you walk in a record shop, the CD section, I mean, not only is it limited in 1986, but the prices, you just look at the prices and you just think, fuck that. The players are prohibitively expensive as well. The price of Walkmans has just kind of come down in 86 to the point where a lot of us can afford them. So yeah, it's tapes and records all the way. Yeah.

If you're any sort of below the age of 40, basically. To my mind mind the big story of the year in pop was zigzag sputnik and the general reaction and rejection of them because you know not only did the enemy take against them with their four million pound for this crap cover but even smash hits who up until then were the champions of the pop and interesting thought they were going around thinking they were summer. So you've got an environment where anything even slightly flamboyant and different needs to be taken down a peg or two, because it's not really proper music.

Yeah, completely. I blame Noel Edmonds sneering at Prince in the previous year's Brit Awards for all this. But I mean, you know, for an awful lot of us, Zig Zig Sputnik, who we heard about before we heard, you know for an awful lot of us zigzag sputnik that who we heard about before we heard you know yeah the initial flare of excitement about them was reminiscent for me as a pop fan of kind of oh i remember them going mental like this about frankie now frankie were exciting and thrilling when you finally heard the records they were amazing now much as i dig love missile um you know zigzag weren't in the same league to be honest with you in terms of that satisfaction

and consequently an awful lot of people would have just taken one look at that and the wedge is in then pop's going to be silly and daft you stick with peter gabriel sledgehammer and proper music made by proper people you know so they really were not proper people in the best way yes yeah yeah yeah we have often said like, you want your pop stars to seem like they've beamed in from elsewhere or come down in a spaceship. And they really, like, who is more spaceship, really,

than Zig Zig Sputnik? I saw them, actually, once at the Borderline, all of these things that are now one of the many defunct clubs of London. And, you know, they were great. And obviously this is many years after, you know, but it was fucking great. That obviously this is many years after, you know,

but it was fucking great. That's the thing. I mean, I think the kids' rejection of Zig Zig Sputnik wasn't the fact that, you know, oh, they were too weird or too underground. It was precisely because it felt like a biz game in itself. Yeah. That I'm not going to get played by that, you know. But you were already told that it was an enormous hype.

Yeah, that's it. Not only by the band themselves, but, you know, this is around the time that all the tabloid newspapers had actual proper pop columnists every day we were being told how the game was played yeah exactly light was being shone upon magic and you fuck that yeah we were being shown the workings basically yes exactly i mean let me stress right now as far as 1986 episodes top of the pops go this ain't that bad if it's a shit sandwich then at the very least it's an open-faced shit sandwich isn't it there is little in the way of cat shit there's some

fucking awful stuff but you know a lot of it's not that bad is it no but but in general the treatment of pop by this episode is it's a bit like what we were just talking about the sort of pop sort of not joked about but but pop denigrated ultimately in the way this episode is presented and as we'll see as we go through this this points towards a general kind of denigration of Top of the Pops that lasts for quite a long time. Brace yourself, pop craze youngsters. We're going in hard. 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. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. Radio 1 News. In the news this week, America drops loads of bombs on Triple F from British airbases in retaliation for Libya being behind the bombing of a disco in West Berlin, which causes Islamic Jihad to kill three British hostages and kidnap the journalist John McCarthy in Beirut and keep him there for over five years.

It also forces Bryan Adams to pull out of donating the track only the strong survive to the soundtrack of an upcoming film called top gun in disgust the shop spill 1986 an attempt by the government to end the ban on sunday shopping is defeated in the House of Parliament and would have to wait until 1994 to come into effect. The government has been coated down by its own MPs for not making the wedding of Nance, Andrew and Fergie a public holiday, describing the move as killjoy and spoilsport. In other royal news,'s been announced that prince charles is letting a very special competitor in next sunday's london marathon nip into buckingham palace to have a shower and a nice cup of tea it's sir james vincent savel obe kgsc but then, lucky Jim deserves it, writes the Sunday People.

It was he, after all, who persuaded the Royals to allow the marathon to run along the Mall. Course organiser John Disley said, This man Savile has the key to so many doors. I just don't know how he does it. Ross Davidson, hunky male nurse Andy O'Brien in EastEnders, is to be axed from the soap following revelations that he and his on-screen wife, Shirley Chilton, have been having it off in real life and she's about to walk out on her real-life husband.

Rumours of a split hang over the Rolling Stones after Mick Jagger sends telegrams to the other members informing them that he will not be able to tour this year as he'll be working on his second shit solo album but it's definitely splitsville for boy george and alice temple the 18 year old former british bmx champion who were expected to be getting married a month ago, according to the tabloids. But the big news is that Mike Reid will be broadcasting his final Radio 1 breakfast show tomorrow,

with Adrian John filling in for a fortnight starting on Monday before Mike Smith takes over for two years. But don't panic, Blue Tulip. He's set to score a massive hit in the West End with his musical about John Betjeman. According to John Blake in the Daily Mirror, Andrew Lloyd Webber is thinking about backing it and the likes of Midge Orr and Steve Harley

are fighting to bagsy a role. I'm really excited, says Mike. Lady Betjeman told me that she thought my music breathed new life into his poems. Sadly, the musical ends up only being performed at assorted charity events, but a CD called Sound of Poetry is released, featuring Harley, Cliff Richard, John Anderson, Gene Pitner, Donovan, David Essex, Captain Sensible, David Grant,

Alvin Stardust, and Mike Reed is released. Christ almighty. He had so much clout, Mike Reed, simply by being the fucking Radio 1 Breakfast DJ. I've read articles about Top of the Pops where there's been guitar playing coming from a dressing room and someone's gone in, and it's virtually half the acts that were appearing in that night's Top of the Pops

sitting around listening to Mike Reed playing the guitar and singing at them. Fucking hell. I know. On the cover of Melody Maker this week, Suze. On the cover of melody maker this week suze on the cover of smash hits the bangles on the cover of record mirror the blow monkeys on the cover of number one simon lebon on his yacht which is just pulled into uruguay and at this moment is still upright. The number one LP in the country is Hits 4 by various artists. Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits is at number two

because of fucking course it is. Over in America, the number one single is Rock Me Amadeus by Falco and the number one LP is Whitney Houston by Whitney Houston. So, me dears, what were we doing in April of 1986? Oh, God, I wasn't doing a lot. I mean, I was, I now a teenager, still at school, horrible little sod, really. I know I always say that about myself, but, you know, I do want to retroactively reach an arm back and just slap myself. Because I was, yeah, a precocious little sod.

A slap and then a hug, Neil, surely. Perhaps so. Did you have specs by then or not? I did, oh, God, yeah. I'd been wearing specs since 1979. So I was well into it by then. Obviously because you liked Morrissey. Yeah, of course, fucking hell.

But, yeah, I mean, you know, my sister remembers being an annoying critic at the age of five. So, golden was what I was like then. You know, and I started discovering my body thanks to things like Falcon Crest. So, I was quite literally, in all senses, a little wanker in 1986.

That's all I remember, to be honest. I was just about to turn eight the very day after this episode, in fact. Early birthday treat for you then sarah early birthday treat for me yeah on the massive well there's different types of massive tellies we had that you know that that type of massive telly um but i was just glad to be still alive at this point because if i think about it i lived in an extremely dangerous house in that classic 80s style it wasn't quite a terrace house there. There were two in the front and two behind.

And incredibly steep stairs, which I learned to shin up and down like a little monkey because it was my house. But whenever any of my little friends came round, they would sort of teeter down and I would hold their hand because it's like, ah, you know, sort of vertiginous steps. I definitely nearly set myself on fire once by getting too close to the gas fire in the kitchen in my very flammable pink robe made of fibers unknown to man my mum made me a swing

because there was like for some reason there was a set of outdoor stairs to the first floor for no reason at all and she hung a swing off it was made out of wood a bit of wood and clothes line and i used to swing on that so that was it was lucky that i didn't just fly off into infinity from that oh man if ever a girl needed a ginger tom that spoke like kenny everett it was you sarah charlie says don't sit on the swing your mum made it's not been checked by health and safety but steep staircases i mean when you're a kid you appreciate them but the older you get and the more likely you are to get drunk um they just become a real problem don't they steep staircases are fucking brilliant for getting in a sleeping bag and tobogganing down i don't think i ever did that because it was actually

two because they were sort of turn around at the bottom and and you know plus party drama is good with a steep staircase i've seen people fly down a staircase to pin somebody against the wall by their lapels and jab their finger in their face it was it was fantastic and it wouldn't have happened without the steep staircase well i was 17 and still at sixth form finally getting me arson gear and re-redoing my O-levels after six months of walking out of the house, turning round when it was safe and then going back and bunkering in my bedroom for the day. I was playing truant at a college

that I didn't have to play truant from. I could have just left it. Yeah, yeah. But there was fuck all else to do. I couldn't see myself getting a job. I look back now and i just think what the fuck were you doing man was i depressed i don't know i think i probably was i became a proper hermit in any case i couldn't think of anything i wanted to do with

my life i mean i had a typewriter and i was doing little bits of writing and stuff like that i'd done an american football fanzine but i think i'd finished that by now right i just had the extended childhood that a lot of people of my age did and still do yeah yeah you know being an adult didn't seem like any fun whatsoever so fuck it and i feel really guilty about that now because i was still living at my mom and dad's and i was just poncing off them but i blame thatcher it's difficult if things suggest themselves to you but you go well I'm never going to make a living at that yeah if I'd thought more about it you know when I first got into writing and if I hadn't immediately got

scooped up by uh the benevolent melody maker then you know I would have been in a similar sort of position just going what the fuck yeah writing when you don't live in London it just feels like a pie in the sky thing doesn't it oh god yeah the weird thing is now of course 17 year old kids are kind of being forced in a sense to yeah what are you going to do what are you going to be yeah and honestly if i mean like you al probably you know if i'd have been asked at that point i would have said fucking astronaut or something i really did not know yeah but you know i think we benefited from that and you might have benefited from these six months of basically doing fuck all. Basically, it's a way of making sure that you stop doing fuck all, maybe.

Yes. Because I hated my sixth form. It was just like being at school again, but without football or any of the other things that make going to school tolerable. Music-wise, due to a combination of being skint and the charts being shit, I'm seriously burrowing into the second hand record shops now and i'm still picking up gold from the 60s and 70s because you know why should i spend what was it 10 pound on a cd when i can pick up sly and the family stone's second album for two pound yeah i'm a couple of months away from hearing raising hell by run d DMC and everything changing. But I do remember having my first of many Walkmans

round about this time. So yeah, just a period of isolation. Should have been a Smiths fan really, but I couldn't fucking stand Morrissey. I just can't see it, man. I just cannot see that at all. So Pop Craze Youngsters, you know how we go about at this point of the episode.

We retreat to the crap room and rip open a box or two and pull out an example of the music press from this very week. And this time, we've gone for the NME, 19th of April, 1986. Would you care to riffle along with me, me dears? Go on then. On the cover, Test Department. In the news, the big story this week is that Jerry Dammers and Dale Tambo, the son of ANC leader Oliver Tambo, are poised to launch artists against apartheid,

with, quote, one of the most impressive lineups seen since Band-Aid. one of the most impressive lineups seen since Band-Aid. Damas tells the NME that various big concerts and a benefit record are being planned, and in light of the government's failure to do so, we hope to encourage individuals to impose their own sanctions. For example, stop trading with fascists. Tambo adds that members of Artists Against Apartheid will not play Sun City, but they will go and play in a free, non-racial South Africa and be welcomed not only as artists,

but also as fellow freedom fighters. Among those fellow freedom fighters who have expressed an interest are simon lebon the fall hugh massacala billy ocean the pogues junior gizcom and harry belafonte oh a big shift this year i think politically in terms of people getting into the um anti-apartheid movement um you know because obviously in 1985 bob geldof had sorted out world hunger yeah and you know frankie goes to hollywood had sorted out world hunger. And, you know, Frankie Goes to Hollywood had sorted out nuclear war. So, yeah, this was definitely the thing of this year. Nob Smeldof isn't completely edged out of this week's do-gooding news, however. He's made an appearance for a slap-up lunch

at the Hard Rock Cafe in Covent Garden to give his blessing to the launch of S.T.A.R.S. by hearing aid. 39 of metal's heaviest mothers have taken time off from their normal pursuit of dipping their dorks into the steaming entrails of freshly slaughtered goat in order to make their contribution to the usa for africa foundation reports matt snow as paparazzi flashed and french fries flew, St Bob pronounced benediction upon the project while disclaiming any credit for it. Most of that goes to Mistoffelees lookalike Ronnie James Dio, who initiated the enterprise and penned the song. Many of the

project's contributors are there, including nugent yingui molstein and members of do judas priest iron maiden quiet riot motley crew twisted sister queens reich wasp and of course spinal tap also in attendance is quote radio on fire brand simon bates continued fundraising efforts on the grounds that the scrooge regimes of the west would be squealing with renewed embarrassment having hoped the fad would die down oh you see they are caring considerate persons not just thrash metal fans i've never heard that is it any good new oh it's crap it's rubbish it's rubbish don't bother i mean even sophia who loves all of those names that you just mentioned uh yeah don't go for it it's no good

the thing is every one of the people involved in that could legitimately do the tonight thank god it's them instead of you line oh they must have been fighting over it in gig news the beastie boys have had to drop out of their support act on the big audio dynamite tour because they've all caught colds pete shelly is back on the road after a long post bus cox absence doctor and the medics kick off their new new Messiahs tour to coincide with the release of their new single, a cover of Norman Greenbaum's Spirit in the Sky, and there's new national tours from AHA, America's rudest rock act, the Butthole Surfers, Ray Charles, Patti LaBelle, Pauline Murray, In Excess, Sonic Youth, The Go-Betweens the mission and queen it's a mere week before the smiths release their new lp the queen is dead but the big smith's news this week is that bassist andy rourke has fucked off out of it his replacement is craig gannon one-time member of aztec camera a well-known session musician, says the NME,

promising that on the 20th of May, the Smiths will play the whistle test live, featuring their new line-up and songs from the new LP. Shame they couldn't have got rid of the frontman, really, but never mind. Finally, under the headline, wash these scum off the streets, we're informed that a new police training manual issued by california union city police department has punk rock and heavy metal firmly in its sights the manual entitled punk rock and heavy metal the problem one solution lists van halen rush husker do ozzy osbourne and Wasp as deserving of censorship,

claiming that such bans are likely to be used as a form of rebellion against the government. The manual, which those friendly neighbourhood Union City cops recommend should be given to any parent having problems with their rock and rolling offspring, also cites publications as cream and hit parader as the mind camp of the new generation likening rock activity to that of Adolf Hitler's brown shirts

no wonder Debbie Harry had those Union City blues quips Fred Deller imagine being in an American heavy metal band and not being listed in that manual you'd be well oh man the kids only want to rock wasp fucking i've so been trying to play me wasp of late oh really it's not gone well in the interview section well billy bragg has just returned from a tour of

east germany organized by the youth section of the local Communist Party, and he's keen to tell Danny Kelly all about it. It turns out the tour was instigated after Bragg was approached in the toilets at a folk club in Edinburgh and asked to play East Berlin's 16th Political Songs Festival. Oh, that old fucking chestnut. I followed a very Western-looking gent accompanying five or six singers on the piano, he reveals.

They did this real bouncy-flouncy number, like Bugs Fizz or Brotherhood of Man, and I was thinking, aye, aye, the Commie Vision Song Contest. But later I heard their song translated translated and the verses were entirely composed of the text of mikhail gorbachev's speech promising to rid the world of nuclear weapons by the year 2000 fantastic yeah less embarrassing probably than sexuality by billy brad which is a song i still can't listen to meanwhile paisley park act like sheila re is in town to promote a love bazaar, which results in a sit-down with Gavin Martin. She immediately gets all giggly when asked if the song, about having it off in a limo and on a bed of flowers,

is autobiographical, and stresses that she's never had it off with Prince, and they've only been friends. The rest of the interview shuts down quickly, especially when Martin asks her, what do you dislike most about America? and they've only been friends. The rest of the interview shuts down quickly, especially when Martin asks her, what do you dislike most about America? Sheila gives me an incredulous, quavering look.

Dislike about America? That's what I said. Nothing? Oh, come on. No, I like America. There must be something. No, I like America. There must be something. No, I like everything. People, some of them must annoy you, says Martin.

No, I like everyone. Blissfully bland in the all-American state of grace, is celebrity. Sheila's E may be for excitement, electric and effervescent, but look a little further, and you'll find e is for empty headed two writes martin oh a bit harsh yeah a bit harsh i mean that really sounds like she's kind of like there's a lot of things there and she feels like she can't say any of them not even like if she starts talking about how uh the hot dogs are bad then she'll just end up on a full-on rant about

how extraordinarily racist it is. And she's not going to do that to Gavin Martin of The Enemy at this time. So, you know, and her brain just shorts out. I don't know, I'm just speculating. Maybe she did just like everything about America. You know, it's like, who the fuck are you? You limey bastard. David Quantick has an equally confrontational chat

with Susie Sue and Steve Severin in a West End tea room about the new Banshees album Tinderbox. Suzy is looking at me very politely. Severin is looking at a teapot. I've just told them that I think Tinderbox is an album whose only distinguishing mock is that it sounds like suzy and the banshees and it has no thrill or excitement to it that kind of argument doesn't really penetrate because it's been said of every album since the scream says suzy before quantic accuses the band of being afraid to take risks severin raises his eyes above teapot level it's just basically an album of really strong songs and that's all we wanted to do as opposed to being the banshees zooming off in one direction

or another it was all done to be one complete overall album okay so you've made a nice complete album a nice complete staid unadventurous album that's incredibly same air says quantum people say you're all dried up severing gives me one of the most extraordinary looks i will ever see suze just smiles at me pityingly there's a lot of spikiness isn't that it's very spiky have you ever done an interview where you basically started it by saying well you're shit aren't you what the fuck your latest album's fucking cat shit mate as an opening interview gambit i mean i don't have the bravery to do that kind of thing no it's kind of revealing in a sense that the story with these bands has gone yeah they've come up and now they're just other bands you know just bringing albums out just like every other band and it's kind of

there's nothing to snag so yeah a lot of these interviews seem to be getting a bit spiky yeah i mean i would just have have died i would have just let it like well sarah go in there and i mean no one to be fair no one ever told me to like go in there and and you know say uh yeah what have you got to say for yourself this album ain't all that is it really i mean what do you think you're doing are you pop stars or what and i could i could not have done that i would just go and lie here on the floor quietly and die next to the bin i just i couldn't i couldn't have done it i think there's there's a way to do that and to to get a response but i don't know what response dave quantic would have expected here really i can't tell whether

it's balls or just arrogance i mean i just would not be able to do that at all and i've been given advice by other journalists, you know, that if somebody, say, dries up during an interview or they're not really giving you much, you know, get spiky, get confrontational, start calling them shit. But honestly, if an interview's going badly for me, that's it, I'll just call it a day.

I'll lie and I'll say, yeah, I've got enough. Cheers. Would you even have been able to do that by the time you bowled along in the 90s? Oh, I think I would have. And I think there were people who did when I started. But I could to do that by the time you bowled along in the 90s oh i think i would have and i think there were people who did um when i when i started but i could never do that i mean because interviews just always terrified me anyway i always just wanted them to be a conversation

that went okay so so this idea of starting an interview you know sitting down with a band and then your album saying your album's shit i mean i just don't have the cojones to do that i don't believe that you know you have to go in and kiss everyone's ass no i ended up um one of the best features i ever did ended up being with the cardigans because they were just knackered and just like you know and they've been going for for long enough that they were just kind of tired in that very particular way which i saw encapsulate a bit just like the ennui of the um the long-term band i suppose which is an experience that is that is really common just like the ennui of the um the long-term band i suppose which is an experience that is that is really common just like yeah what what are we they're tired of talking about themselves that was the reason why i didn't like doing interviews a lot of time is because i was like

poking people to go go on get be enthusiastic like trying to get people to be enthusiastic when they're just really tired and they've said all this stuff before and you know it's like oh so it can be so joyless i mean i don't want to be ungrateful i met some great people but not under the best circumstances you know and for fuck's sake they've put a new album up they haven't fucking shut down libraries or something they're not politicians the confrontational interview is uh i don't know it kind of sometimes it works if he's stephen wells then it's fucking great but yeah other people it's just like oh don't go the mate just i don't know take them to lego land or something oh fucking don't fucking

say that out but no i mean the thing is with confrontational interviews like this i i really completely swells was amazing at them but with things like this bands are just going to go into that default mode of defending themselves and they're going to say the same stuff right yeah whereas perhaps suggesting in an interview in a kind of vaguely positive question that oh you know you're running out of ideas i mean it's ways of doing it without you know pointing fingers if you like yeah and i think you can let bands hang themselves a little bit more than you having to sort of swing the noose when i used to advise people about giving interviews and stuff, I'd always say, well, yeah, it's all right to say,

well, what's the point of this? Why would anyone be interested in this? And they'd say, you can't say that. It'll offend them. I'd say, no, no, no. You're giving them a full toss so they can just whack out of the fucking cricket ground. It's just a good way of getting people to say,

this is what I believe in and this is what I've done. Yeah. But sometimes it doesn't work. Susie's not going to respond to that, is she? No. I mean, ultimately, you're absolutely right. The most important question, really, to ask anyone that you're interviewing

is why are you doing this? Yeah. There's ways of getting to that. I mean, starting off an interview with your new album, Shite, yeah, that's not really going to go anywhere. No, it's not. Simon Witter links up with George Clinton about his new LP, R&B Skeletons in the Closet,

and how committed he is to remaining a creative nuisance, while revealing that he's been working with Sly Stone, Prince and Vanessa Williams, and ensuring that the covers of new p funk releases will give you bathroom reading for the next month but i may have to draw something new what with all this reagan gaddafi bullshit in a tedious bieber cop feature cover stars test department tell neil's current editor that their new ministry of power show slash happening is an attack on the complete mediocrity we see around us maybe 50 years from now people will look back on this time and all they'll see is an endless repetition of the same program

the same bleach musicians playing the same instruments and following the same patterns oh nearly 35 years and he's kind of right isn't he yeah yeah it's odd that test department are on the cover to be honest with you this isn't a liar for the enemy this is the sort of thing that melody maker would absolutely start doing in about 87 just putting weird bands on the cover but it's odd for enemy to do this and in the thrill section there's a small interview with jackson brown who feels the need to tell the enemy about his current political inclinations brown tells john mccready that his appetite for endless introspection has diminished somewhat and snarls fuck it u.s policy in central amer America is fundamentally dishonourable.

Reagan is making it all up. The CIA are tapping my phone, and they're the richest terrorist organisation in the world. Blimey. Who'd have thunk it? Singles reviews. Well, in the chair this week is reggae correspondent Penny Real. So naturally, she commences by sifting through the slew of jamaican releases that are cashing in on supercats pioneering boops cuts which uses the highly popular techniques rhythm not getting into it sarah you win what hang on am i i was i thought about this the other day and it's like because i know i'm gonna pronounce it either but on am i i was i thought about this the other day and it's like because i know

i'm gonna pronounce it either but like am i any whiter than you really no who's if you're gonna rank the the chart music crew in order of whiteness these include sugar minots as john boops michael profits no call me john boops anthony red roses me no want no boops king kong's don't touch my boops and junie ranks as cry for me boops the term boops apparently refers to the kind of man sweet on the ladies she helpfully points out. Sadly, they missed out on boops upside your head. These boops were made for walking. And boops, I did it again. There's a cluster of singles released by women this week.

So Real naturally lumps them all together under the heading, Let's talk it over in the ladies' room. Another Day Comes by Kiki D is dismissed as an ugly, monotonous and cliché-ridden dirge with a nod in the direction of Eurythmics, performed with what Kiki D probably likes to think of as passion or a prolonged screech to you and me. Live to Tell by Madonna gets equally short shrift.

The lure of diminishing return sets in as a singer's thin sulky voice fails to rescue a ponderous ballad for mcnamara and bangles commit the cardinal error when the song goes on too long with if she knew what she wants i fucking hate live to tell do you yeah you hate madonna so like when i was bunkered up in my bedroom i used to with If She Knew What She Wants. I fucking hate Live To Tell. Do you? Yeah. You hate Madonna, so like... When I was bunkered up in my bedroom, I used to listen to Laser 558 and Live To Tell was on all the fucking time and it's...

It's very glum. Yes. It's a very glum song. Squeezer's still knocking about and Real observes that their new single, King George Street, is like arriving in Greenwich on the number 54 bus on a rainy Saturday evening,

having spent the previous couple of hours huddled along 3,000 other diehards inside Charlton Athletics' capacious stadium at the Valais. A somewhat specific reference, Lan. Billy Graham's Going to Heaven, the debut single by proto-House Martins The Larks, is Canterbury speed rap notable for the line bring your money to qpr and the flip side maggie maggie maggie which borrows a led zeppelin

chorus to preach the wholly admirable sentiment maggie maggie maggie at at at your wildest dreams by the moody blues is vapid and silly. Tongue Tie by Kenny Charles similarly embraces vapidity sometime before it ends. It's Just a Matter of Time by Glen Campbell lets cornball strings and production intrude to turn the whole thing into a piece of indigestible smalt. Lost Some Blues by La Tentat is more of a whimper of distress than an actual song an apocalyptic by twinks is sing along a metal that might find some adherence at a biker cafe on the a127 but real doubts even this yeah twinks is a heavy metal band name that's not

aged well has it but i mean it's telling isn't it think about all these singles that penny's writing about if you looked at that singles page and somebody asked you you know what's going on in 86 then i mean this page is kind of like yeah what the fuck is going on yeah it's just a load of sort of stuff with no center to it really um that doesn't feel like there's any sort of prevailing thing happening. Yeah, and there's a lot of avoiding of more chart-friendly releases this week, I'll be bound. Yeah, probably.

Yeah, I mean, Penny had a real sort of reggae focus. I mean, I used to do the same when I did the singles. I just used to fill it full of hip-hop. It was your one chance to have a say in an editorial direction, in a sense. Spray your musk. Indeed, indeed. In the LP review section, the main review this week is given over to Tinderbox by Susie and the Banshees,

and Cath Carroll is distinctly underwhelmed. The band themselves, apart from judging it brilliant, see it as a coming together for the new-look banshees as they break in new guitarist John Valentine Carruthers. This explains the overall impression of a group suspended in aspic. The tone of the album would suggest a group forging on in search of an inspirational oasis while surviving on unsatisfactory resources.

When they get to the bottom bottom will they go back to the top let's hope so the art of noise have put out their second lp invisible silence and is rewarded with a zany conceptual slagging from nick coleman shorn of paul morley's wiggly words, the Art of Noise are a slightly different proposition, writes Coleman. You see, I have made this amazing discovery. The Art of Noise's new LP only answers to the name Kevin. Call him Geraldine or Leopold or Glenn Hoddle or Mr. Art of Noise LP, and all you'll get is a sullen round silence. But call him Kevin and he is yours forever. He's pretty undemanding, Kevin. Take him to see Absolute Beginners and he sits there quite unmoved in his nice jacket.

Ask him to show you his nipples and all you get is a round black stare. Kevin is the beast, the apocalypse, the collective unconsciousness. He is not a rock star. Although he would never admit it, his favourite TV programme is Tomorrow's World, and he delights in the notion that in the 21st century, scientists say, all music will be constructed in this way. kevin is a boring pretentious little git but and i'll tell you this for nothing he does make my stereo sound bloody expensive cool how we've moved on since this is a toe tapper that will get the brain working there are no new kevins being made you know there's no new kevin no lots of new joshes but

no new kevin are we post kevin we're fully in the post kevin era no definitely talking of bland non-pop star names danny kelly has got hold of slang tang by wayne smith which is finally out over here on green sleeves among his contemporaries and, he must have been well to the rear of the queue for names. By comparison with Tenor Saw, Nitty Gritty and Coco T, Wayne Smith sounds like a cattle brow Division 3 centre forward. Pleasant enough but too familiar to shock you a shock. Too homogenous to sting you a sting slang tang is very much a case of too little too late what danny kelly didn't know then but probably knows now because he's well into his reggae that wayne isn't even his real name what's his real name his real

name is ian smith which no reggae artist is going to use, even in 1986. No, no. He might as well have called himself Eugene Terrablanche. Is that it? Vic Goddard's debut solo LP, T-R-O-U-B-L-E, which he recorded two years ago with the jazz band Working Week, has finally been picked up and put out by rough trade, and the legend has trouble of his own in understanding why.

It has about as much to do with the noisy guitars, immaculate out-of-tune vocals, and harsh pop tones of Subway sect as the new Style Council single has to do with In The City. Matt Snow, while apparently singing the praises of stop pretending by la girl band the pandoras still manages to call them these broads says the record farts and chews gum at one and the same time and signs off with the line suck on that ziggy ziggy Nick. Circuses and bread by Durati Collum might be potentially damaging to the mental stability of tier 4 O and A level students

who listen to this sort of stuff during their stress-filled study breaks, according to Donald McRae. And new Liverpool band High Five have a debut LP called Down in the No-Go, but Mick Sinclair doesn't reckon it, or them. I doubt that the High Five really lack a sense of purpose, but there is no evidence of it here. They seem to take half an hour to say very little, and make recording an LP sound like a dull chore, rather than an adventure or a challenge, veiling virtually everything in lukewarm rhythm, guitar dabs and generally uninspired playing.

Oh, straight to the record shop we go, Pop Craze Youngsters. Indeed, indeed. Nice to see the legend in there, my future editor and teaching colleague, as it goes. Oh, really? Yeah, it's Jerry, isn't it?

It's Jerry Ferry, Everett Tripp. Ah. He's the legend. That's where he started. Is this a self-declared sub-declared sub-dk oh yeah i mean he bought that single on creation didn't he under that name of the legend he occasionally cycles back to it amongst his many personas yeah he was just up the road for me uh on sunday playing the songs of the fall on the piano at the walthamstow trades hall and i hear it went well yeah my friend went in the gig guide well david could have seen fine young cannibals at the town and country club depeche

mode at wembley arena james brown at wembley arena the godfathers at the marquee gino washington and the ram jam band at brentford red Lion or then Jericho at the 100 Club. That ain't right. Then Jericho at the 100 Club. Fuck that. What do you mean? Fuck that because the 100 Club's too small? No, because the 100 Club, you just think,

oh, punk and all that kind of stuff. Then Jericho, not allowed to go there. Just imagining David's face watching then Jericho. Jen-ther-ico. There's the tribute band. Yeah. Taylor could have treated himself to Jennifer rush at Birmingham. Odeon spaceman three at the Birmingham mermaid,

big audio dynamite at Birmingham, Portland, or trekked out to the layer of the Wolf Rooney and to see horrendous shirts at Wolverhampton, Cleveland. the Wolfroonians to see horrendous shirts at Wolverhampton Cleveland Arms. Neil could have seen Salem Foundations at Coventry Red House, FM at the General Wolf,

the go-betweens at Cough Pollay and fuck all else. City of culture. Sarah could have seen Big Country at Sheffield Town Hall or Pulp at Leeds Adelphia, but would probably be best off checking out Bingo Reg

and the Screaming Genies, backed by Stuttering Jack and the Heart Attack down at Chesterfield Top Rank. My faves. Al could also have seen Big Country at Nottingham Concert Hall, the Redskins at Chivago's,

Twisted Sister at Nottingham Concert Hall, the Blowmonkeys at Rock City and wound up the week with Big Audio Dynamite also at Rock City I can't remember seeing the Redskins at Zhivago's Yeah Zhivago's was the right fucking Gary and Sharon place

Certainly not the place that the Redskins would have been at. Used to be a venue Little Richard played there in 1972. Blimey. Yeah, it's now a Taco Bell. And Simon could have seen the temptations at Cardiff St. David's Hall, Attila the stockbroker at Keffencoed Rugby Club in Merthyr Tydfil, and wound up a thrilling week of pop intensity

watching Shirley Bass's two-night residency at Cardiff St. David's Hall. In the letters page, well, Stephen Wells has drawn the short straw this week, and the main topic of conversation is the piece about the Redskins having a lovely time in Moscow in a recent issue. But Ernst Vestergaard of Exeter is not impressed. It's blasé and flippant for the Redskins to say that they are aware and conscious of their

philosophical weakness, but they seem to ignore this and blunder on. Exactly what form of corrupted Marxism are they peddling? I use the term corrupted Marxism as I believe that this is what the Redskins represent. Surely the reason the Redskins have to play gigs in the middle of nowhere is because they have become another band to be manipulated and exploited by the music industry. They have become the cliches that they so obviously despise. Apparently the Redskins have been on the verge of packing it in, yet they haven't. Why not? Because they still enjoy preaching to the converted, despite their awareness of their political confusion and negation.

Is that why? Where were you in 1917, Christine? why where were you in 1917 christine yeah where was david stubbs when the rainforests were burning as well that still needs to be answered dmp from manchester joins the pylon when he writes can we take them seriously i suspect not from where this punter stands, behind the short hair and Diana Ross sing-song lies nothing but regurgitated clichés and cast-off Weller and Bragg lyrics. Do music and politics mix? Yes, when done with a bit of imagination, something the Redskins probably don't seem to think matters these days.

But to your average punter, take it from me it does oh poor redskins man you can you can sort of hear the the immense rustling of a lot of black cardigans in this letter's page the other thing in the previous issue that got on readers tits a feature on the federation of conservative students is commented on by p ellis of glasgow under the headline hooray hitlers pleasant reading the piece on young tories what a joy to read the absolute shite coming from these posers nice to know that while the nus and labour clubs are trying to fight racism these wankers are fighting other

students any attempt that's made to restrict the working class should be fought every inch of the way beginning with organizations like the fcs whose views and racist ideas should be stomped out fred titmus would be appalled after reading annie mahhorter's FCS article in the April 5th issue of NME, I pondered this question. Why are there not so many musicians who are outwardly right-wing and or racist, says CJ Cunningham from Manchester. I can tell you why. Because the roots of 90% of pop music originated from foreign styles.

Not only Bo-Air, he's not racist, but Screwdriver's OI music are derivative forms of R&B. Stuff the FCS and their pseudo-anarchist crap because this is useless and only keeps the money and power in the hands who have always had it. Just waiting for Noel Gallagher. Yes. hands who have always had it just waiting for noel gallagher yes speaking of oi in 1980 fucking six tim from red action under fives kilburn nips in to correct some prejudices about the genre every time i pick up a music paper which isn't very often i find little of interest to read what i find more upsetting is the middle-class snobbery

towards different types of music. I personally like and have been into Oi since the days of Sham, Menace and The Ruts before all the Oi, the bank balance stuff. Does that make me a nazi? Fuck no! Sure, there are NF elements on the Oi scene, but to pay them attention and ignore the rest of

it is an insult to all the committed socialists on the scene and by that i mean raving commies and not national socialists end air quotes it's been left-wing punk skins and herberts who have stood up to the front at gigs where Where are all you trendy lefties then? So what if the so-called godfather of Oi is a scab bastard? That's no reason to slug off Oi as a whole. There was Oi before Bushel and there will be Oi after him. During the Miners' strike, Red Action organised a victory to the Miners' tour and it was predominantly punk and skin bands that played also me and my mates have been involved with things like anti-fascist action you don't have to be a student to be a socialist to smear all oysters as nazis is an insult and just shows

you up for the narrow-minded bastards you are. The way that starts, you know, that every time I pick up some music paper, which isn't very often. Yes. That's such a, I mean, that's a Twitter thing almost, isn't it? You know, here's how unoffended I am by this thing that you've written.

Yeah, TLDR. One of the recent topics of conversation in Gasbag, King Kurt and their alleged-stage animal abuse raises its ugly head once again i would like to reply to the two concerned king kirk groupies from essex you state kirk do not and have never thrown live or dead animals about on stage well frankly that's bollocks writes one of the cheeman Sutton ex-Curt crew. I myself saw Curt at least a dozen times at the 100 Club when they were still a support band, and it was not uncommon for the odd rabbit corpse

to suddenly appear in mid-air. Ask the band about their early performances. Ask Rory about the dead cat he kept in his freezer. And where did the pig's head come from? And finally, in more you-can't-say-that-anymore news, John Crowley of South Arrow is furious with the NME for printing something he doesn't agree with. Last week, you printed a letter from an Ulster Unionist!

I know that you're trying to be anti-trender, and printing a letter from an Orange Man is anti-trender, because the IRA have always been a very fashionable organisation to support. But printing correspondence from one of those reactionary swines is just ridiculous, as well as boring. Publications such as yours should be pro-IRA. Yours, with Margaret Thatcher and the Queen's death very much in mind, John Crowley of South Harrow.

Blimey. 52 pages, 45p. I never knew there was so little decent fucking music in it god what a time to be a music journal 1986 poor bastards thin pickings isn't it the enemy are firmly into their ignore the charts at all times uh policy and it's yes it's not working it's not working because they're just going to end up with suzy on the cover every three months the cure on the cover every three months and it's just they're just going to be completely sort of beholden to the the cycle of the music industry um you know but it says a lot about 86 in fact that this issue is so thin although that letter

about king kurt did remind me of hans moretti the freaky magician on the paul daniel show used to chuck alligators about so So that was a nice memory. Live ones? Yeah, yeah. He got massive complaints about them. What, juggle them? Yeah, no, he hypnotised them. Right. And then he'd start sort of swinging them around

and there were massive complaints on Points of View the following week. I can imagine. Because it was animal cruelty. He was a really disturbing magician, Hans Moretti. He used to do things that were just frankly not suitable for Paul Daniels' slot. I remember he did a thing where he, me and my sister were watching it,

and he came on and he got a knife out and just started stabbing himself in his arm and all his blood came flying out. Me and my sister were like, what the fuck? This was like 7.30 on a Saturday, you know, and I think he got complaints about that, but he kept on getting invited back. Maybe he hypnotised them. Well, exactly. And started swinging them around.

Probably kept being invited back to Paul Daniels' sex dungeon as well. Yeah, he was part magician, kind of part at least a Crowley type figure. He was a bit disturbing. Lovely. But yeah, 52 pages, NME. I mean, it's thin as fuck, isn't it?

And there's not much in it. So what was on telly today? Well, BBC one kicks off at six in the morning with a 50 minute cfax data blast and then frank boff nips out of his sex dungeon to join debbie greenwood for breakfast time at 20 past nine it's another cfax data blast then play school then a 40 minute cfax blast, the afternoon news and regional news in your area. Pebble Mill at One offers sewing advice, a musical tribute to Brighton,

and celebrates the last ever episode of Pop Black. Then it's Hokey Cokey with Carol Chell and Don Spencer, then Racing from Cheltenham, and they close down for 12 minutes before roaring back with regional news in your area then Floella Benjamin climbs out of her dustbin and travels back in time to the era

of knights and damsels in distress in Leon 5 followed by Laurel and Hardy getting involved with the American Civil War with Southern Hospitality Johnny Briggs attempts to win the school rabbit for the holidays, hopefully not give it to King Kurt. Ulysses 31's annoying kids accidentally travel 5,000 years back in time.

Then it's John Craven's news round, and Simon Groom manages to get his 1965 Jaguar done up into a racing car at Silverstone on our licence fee in Blue Peter. Robbie Vincent and Angharad Meir force some nans to do some aerobics in the Keep Fit show Go For It, followed by the news at six, and they've just finished regional news in your area. BBC Two commences at five to seven with some throbbing open university action and then closes down for an hour and 40 minutes before coming back with a five-hour CFAX mega blast

at 2pm it's the British premiere of Le Fin du Jour the 1939 French film about a retirement home for actors that's fallen into disrepair. Then it's Show Business, the 1944 Eddie Cantor musical about the Ziegfeld Follies, followed by a new summer air, then a repeat of the 40 Minutes documentary Johnny Oddball, the follow-up to the 1975 documentary Minnair about an 11-year-old serial arsonist who was incarcerated in an assessment center then it's young musician of the year and they're currently showing discovering birds with tony soper itv opens up at a quarter past six with good morning britain with claire rayner having a good snuffle around the subject of underage sex. Then it's regional news in your area

followed by The Abominable Snowman, the 1957 Peter Cushing film about the titular yeti. Then some cartoons. After a repeat of Fireball XL5, it's about Britain, Raggy Dolls, Puddle Lane and the Sullivans, followed by news at one and regional news in your area after the drama series hotel shaking crossroads it's home cookery club daytime university challenge even more regional news in your area and sons and daughters the show where some australians realize that love is very strange as it can come and go. It can also happen when you're young or old, don't you know? So I hear.

After a repeat of this morning's Raggy Dolls, it's James the Cat, Basil's Joke Machine, starring the vulpine BBC refugee with the felt teeth, then Bellamy's Bugle, repeat of super gran and connections the quiz show they used to bung on whenever blockbusters was on there with sue robber after the news at 5 45 and even more regional news in your area calf fellows disgraces herself at the hathaways and crossroads and they've just started emmerdale farm where jo Sugden and Tubby Turner fight like rats in a bag for the top job at North Yorkshire Estates. Channel 4 has its usual dos in bed until 2.15 when they bring us the thrills and excitement from the House of Lords yesterday in their Lordship's house. Then it's two hours of racing from new market then

countdown then it's this england the 1941 propaganda film about an american tourist who visits the village of cleveland and discovers how many times its residents told foreign invaders to fuck off after that it's the documentary's autobiography of a jeep and to the shores of Iwo Jima, and they've just started Channel 4 News. Anything jumping out there, me days? Well, mostly I'm thinking of you stuck at home, bunking off. Yeah.

And this is what you've got, man. No wonder you were fucking depressed. I know. Fucking ramble, isn't it? Nothing really jumping out, but I do now have the theme from sons and daughters in my head probably for the rest of the day so uh thanks for that all right then pop craze youngsters it is time to go way back to april of 1986 always remember we may coat down your

favorite band or artist but we never forget they've been on Top of the Pops more than we have. It's seven o'clock on Thursday, April the 17th, 1986, and Top of the Pops, midway through its grim slog through the 80s, spelt A-Y-D-E-E-Z, is once again in crisis. of 1984 when Michael Great, the former director of programmes at London Weekend Television who went on to work in America, took over as controller of BBC One and immediately started to fuck about with it. He scrapped beauty contests on the BBC because they were outdated and sexist. He attempted to cancel Doctor Who because he thought it was too expensive, too violent and he didn't reckon it but later on caved into pressure and brought it back 18 months later and he got into a huge row with Thames Television when they put in a bid for the ninth series of Dallas and threatened to spin out the remaining unscreened episodes the BBC owned all the way to 1989

to fuck up ITV's screenings. But most importantly for the pop-craze youngsters, he decided to piss about with the running time and scheduling of BBC One's primetime weekday programming, hammering everything down into 30 minutes in an attempt to spoiler ITV's output, because that's what American TV did, and shoehorn his new pet projects, Wogan and EastEnders. Although neither have been run on Thursday nights as yet, Top of the Pops put out its final regular

40-minute episode on Valentine's Day 1985. And although the show managed to claw back five minutes here and there in the spring of that year, and even ran a 40-minute show in July in order to pad out the scheduling between the last of the series of Little and Large and the new series of The Laughter Show with Les, Dennis and Dustin G, it's been a 30-minute show ever since.

And over a year later, Top of the Pops and Michael Hurl is still trying to come to terms with it. Panel, we've discussed this before, but we have to bring it up again. Top of the Pops should always be at least 40 minutes, don't you think? Oh, without a doubt, I think. And sadly, in this period top of the pops just starts being seen as this movable kind of pop feast yeah that always has to be chivvied around the kind of general mainstream prime time slots yeah so yeah eastenders is

massively important the competition to eastenders from emmerdale is massively important in in this kind of reschedule it reaches a nadir this kind of shuffling about at the top of the pops, years later. I mean, I think the low point is in June 1996 when it gets shunted to Friday night because of Euro 2016. Never finds its way back after that. A real fatal move.

Euro 96 was so damaging in the long run for everything, wasn't it? Ultimately, yeah. It was a real fatal move for top of the pops, definitely. You know, shifting it to Friday night, my God. It lost its importance as a show to sit down and take pop in with the family and it just became this more kind of this ghastly kind of lifestyle background choice to kind of accompany pre-drinking yeah grades treatment of top of the pops is just another reminder that pops usually denigrated on

telly yeah look down upon in comparison to other programming the The BBC would never dare to move or interfere with the time slots of, I don't know, Grandstand or Question Time or Come Dancing or Paul fucking Daniels or Songs of Bloody Praise. But, you know, top of the pops, who cares? It's for kids, right? And yet, if I was thinking of telly from this era that actually had a formative changing influence on a huge amount of British culture and left an irrefutable document of that culture,

it would be pop telly. And that movability, as I'm sure we'll come to discuss, is possibly a product of increased competition as well. If you've got competing shows, then it suggests that your pop show, which used to pretty much be the only pop show, is now this kind of just this counter that can be moved around the board to maximum advantage.

Because after all, kids can deal with that. they're not going to be writing letters of complaint into to points of view or either controllers of the bbc schedule so they might do some really good drawing zone yeah yeah colored in felt it but yeah this is the first sort of sign at top of the pops that was for so long just an essential part of thursday night and an essential part of the time slot is occupied both what followed it and also what came before it it's just this movable little bean counter if you like that the schedulers can shift around and it was i remember it being aggravating at the time especially the shift down to the 30 minutes because what we'll see later on in particular components of this show is just what a bloody rush it feels in,

in a really, I think, damaging way. Yeah. But on the other hand, to someone of Sarah's age, which was seven going on eight, seven o'clock's better, isn't it? Something to watch before bedtime. It was probably better for me at the time, you know. But I think this whole thing is exemplary of a sort of greater malaise that persists to this day,

which is the sort of British establishment disdain for popular culture. Like there are people who get blue plaques and people who don't, you know. And I mean, I was saying the other day about the Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park where everyone played. Now it's an evangelical church where they'll cure your AIDS if you give them your car, allegedly. A terrific venue in a brilliant spot that was just let go. And this sort of thing happens a lot.

I think it's all of a piece, you know, just the kind of, oh, it doesn't really matter. That's the sort of frivolous stuff for kids that isn't prized at all, that is really persistently undervalued i don't think that's ever going to change to be honest and so that's a twinkle of that unpleasant stuffy you know it's such a cliche it's really depressing yeah yeah i mean there's a sense that almost the

rest of the schedule is kind of rolling its eyes at top of the pop so is that still there let's just tuck it in get over with with. Yeah. Which is a real shame. And, you know, the schedule change I could cope with, but like I say, the loss of 10 minutes, it's not so much that, oh, no, that's two less great songs that we're going to be on because they're probably going to be shite anyway. But it means that the presentation

and the whole style of the episodes, I think, changes a little bit. And it becomes, yeah, this half-hour kind of headache rather than a show for pot fans really furthermore the so called mainstream media has once again caught the gamey tang of blood in its nostrils

and the knives are out once again for our favourite Thursday evening pop treat here's a sample chaps of the coverage throughout this year mainly from the Dublin Evening Herald for some reason here's a piece the coverage throughout this year, mainly from the Dublin Evening Herald for some reason. Here's a piece from January of this year, written by Thomas Myler,

entitled Top of the Pops Hits Bottom Note. Is this all over for Top of the Pops? That's the question the music business was asking last week after the geriatric show plunged to an all-time low a single play on the program used to virtually guarantee a hit but research shows that half the records featured on last week's show dropped down the charts afterwards well we know that happens all the fucking time yeah yeah and viewing figures have fallen to a new low of eight and a half million. It's not fucking bad.

I know. Imagine that. BBC bosses are so worried about the problem that they are thinking of introducing a new look twice weekly top of the pops that would allow them to cover new acts who have not yet made the top 10. It has definitely lost its grip, former presenter Tony Blackburn claims. It's out of date, too short at 30 minutes, the DJs are too old, and I think producer Michael Hurl might like to retire a month later patrick murray piles in with the headline top of the pops a bore i have given up watching top of the pops i admit that age could be responsible

so too could disco music that dreadful sound that some people seem to like it's 1986 mate but i honestly believe that it has more to do with the fact the top of the pops has gone to the dogs there was a time when you could tune in and be sure of seeing the acts performing their hits in full, for some reason, the long-serving producer Michael Hurl has decided that one-third or a quarter of a song is ample. It is annoying, so much so that the programme is no longer enjoyable to watch. But then again, maybe I'm getting old. Surely not. I'm fucking on. He is getting old. I'm slightly with him though in terms

of the the cutting into and the talking over of songs um in this new 30 minute format it is a difficult yeah yeah and a week later presumably after watching this episode murray returned to the prone body of top of the pops and got some more kicks in when he wrote, What has happened to Top of the Pops? Is it just age? Have I got it all wrong? Did I miss something along the way? My memories of Top of the Pops, and believe me, they go back all the way, are of a programme that gave us punters a chance to see our favourite acts performing their hit songs. The programme has simply lost its way. It is quite simply a waste of time.

Kill it off! Stop it, mate. It's not worth it. I mean, the thing is, he seems to be clinging on to memories of Top of the Pops past, and I don't think that's a reason to mourn what's happening with Top of the Pops. Yeah, I mean, if Top of the Pops was going today and I had to review it i'd be saying oh fuck it what's all this shit what's going on but i'm supposed to that's my fucking age it's not for me i'm not the key demographic as they say it's really irritating when columnists do that kind of um you know is it just me what's going on i don't know who can say not me like isn't this part of your job to kind of figure this out you know who knows it's a mystery anyway

fuck off not only that but channel four who have already rolled out a swathe of music shows since it started nearly three and a half years ago are finally coming at the king with the first episode of The Chart Show a 45 minute data blast of multi-genre video bittiness which came out last Friday in the tube slot the first serious encroachment by the rival channels on top of the popops' charty patch. Three days from this episode going out, the Observer will run a feature on the new programme in its ilk,

written by... Julie Burchill. The real dilemma of Pop TV is that young people, more than any other viewing group, want to get out. It is because of this call of the wild, or at least Spudgy-like and Space Invaders, or Get Down With The Kids, Julie, in 1986, that no music programme, not even Top Of The Pops, widely believed to be as entrenched a British institution

as Marriage and Broadmoor, ever makes the top 50. Top of the Pops, widely believed to be as entrenched a British institution as marriage and Broadmoor, ever makes the top 50. There was the old line about how the only people who ever saw Tomorrow's World were kids waiting for Top of the Pops, but now they have been separated. Tomorrow's World makes the ratings, while Top of the Pops doesn't. Aping the schedule of Ready Steady Go, many of Channel 4's pop programs are screened on a Friday evening, and there has been an immense amount of C4 pop programs. ECT and Paintbox, heavy metal. Airsay, interviews. The Other Side of the Tracks, ponderous interviews. Max Headroom, glory-seeking overgrown puppet introducing old videos, Soul Train and Solid Soul, black music shows effectively blowing two of the

three best myths blacks ever had going for them, that they know how to dress and know how to dance, and of course, The Tube. With The Tube away for six months, part of its Friday evening slot has been taken over by The Chart Show, which is basically Top of the Pops without the bits you found the most irritating. The smarmy DJ presenters and the mime in time saves nine units live acts. Just three quarters of an hour of video clips linked by computer looking graphics what could go wrong a lot hell is other people's taste in graphics between the rewinds and pauses and fast forwards you get the usual clips of prince madonna and the rest of the preening hordes

this is the first tv pop show to take the top of the pops line hordes. This is the first TV pop show to take the top of the pop's line on music that the people's choice rather than the producer's preference is what matters. Nevertheless, due to the ridiculously dated modernity of the links,

this is appalling. The weekend starts somewhere else. Her problem with the chart show is that it's a chart show and that it's a pop show. I don't think she'd be into any pop show other than the Tube at this point, probably. And that's precisely what was good about the chart show. She almost hinted at it.

But for us, the good thing about the chart show is fundamentally that none of us had mtv or cable or anything exactly it was a little sort of 40 minute slice of what it'd be like to have mtv to have mtv and not like anything and constantly flick over those bands that didn't have videos and they do some wacky graphic shit with that with just a photo of the band that was always entertaining and also don't forget you know the chart show it had those indie charts and those dance charts which frequently are a crock of shit but it was at least they seemed to display an awareness of things away from the charts as well as just what was in the top 40 yeah i mean whatever you were into you were guaranteed to hear at least 10 seconds of

something you liked on the chart show so there is that yeah and if you were into particular genres i mean i remember with metal you kind of once the rock chart was on you could calculate like this isn't going to be on for another three weeks on the chart show so i won't bother watching it um for another couple weeks but then you know you come back so yeah i like the chart show god birchall was such a sour old ball wasn't she even when she was young what did she like what do you she's the fucking morrissey of pop music journalism. Basically what she is. If Morrissey would have got a job from all those letters he sent in,

he would have written... I mean, him and Birchall. They'd have ended up, you know, with their own show on GB News by now. Oh, yeah, yeah. And the thing is with Birchall, that copy you read out, Al, I mean, fucking hell, she's not a great writer, man. No. Not by a long chalk. Your host for this evening is Gary Davis.

We've chanced upon the sexy camel of Radio 1 many a time and oft, and although he's still wedged in between Simon Bates and Steve Wright in the early afternoon slot on weekdays at Radio 1, he's clearly the alpha male of Top of the Pops at this time. In a presenting pool which currently consists of John Peel, Mike Smith, Steve Wright, Janice Long, Bruno Brooks, Peter Powell, Dixie Peach, and Pig Wanker General.

Still, in 1986. This is his 36th appearance, but more importantly, he's the first presenter to go solo for the first time in nearly a year. Only the second time that's happened since the beginning of 1983, when Michael Hurl instigated the doubling up rule on presenters. also along with pat sharp tony blackburn and kid jensen taken the murdoch shilling by moonlighting on sky channel's music programs not only that but he got his own pop column in the sunday mirror last month alongside roland rat's rat chat and has become that rarest of things, a male top of the pops presenter that some people actually seem to want to have sex with. Here's the opening salvo from his first ever column in the Sunday Mirror, entitled Me and My Sexy Fans by the Golden Boy of Pop. of pop here we go go go with the sunday mirror's great new pop columnist radio one disc jockey gary davis six million listeners tune into his daily record show and today gary reveals the

sizzling secrets of his sexy fan mail it's his voice they fall for first. Then they want his body. Girls send him proposals. Housewives send him sexy proposals. Handsome, dark-haired Gary Davis is the golden boy of the airwaves with a following of female fans who utterly adore him. Gary says, I receive 2,000 letters a week and it would be accurate to say these ladies do not want me for my mind. The letters are all very personal. They range from kids who just want to say hello and ask for an autographed picture to housewives who tell me exactly what they want to do to my body.

Sometimes it's proposals of marriage or the suggestion of a kiss or a cuddle. But some letters are straight out of the pages of pornographic magazines. Gary has been nicknamed Medallion Man because of the jewellery that hangs round his neck. He doesn't exactly have a stable attached to his North London home, but he does have a string of female friends. I find I take a different girl out every night, he says. Oh, that's good to know, isn't it? Gary Davis doesn't keep loads of women in a bar. Yeah, I wondered where they were going with that. For Gary, it's the jet-set lifestyle.

Every so often, he goes off to Verbier, Switzerland, with his best mate, actor Chris Quinton, Brian Tilsley of Coronation Street. He gets the girls who watch Coronation Street and I get the girls who listen to Radio 1 and watch Top of the Pops, he said. Just such a sad, squalid little wrecking crew that, isn't it? Gary Davison.

Sarah, if you were in a bar somewhere and you got chatted up by gary davis and chris quinton who who would you back away from the most it would depend where the uh the exact location of the entrance to the cellar i think um in that bar i don don't know, man. This is pretty sad, isn't it? There's also a sidebar piece where Gary tells us that he was taken to Amsterdam recently, had a walk through the red light area with his Dutch work colleagues

and all the sex workers jumped out of their windows and ran towards him as they'd seen him on Sky Channel. So there we go. Hopefully the windows were open glass flying in all directions that sounds hugely unlikely to me terrifying though wouldn't it all these sex workers just jumping out at you going oh gary davis on the radio oh he also offers

us a chance to meet fergal sharky as a a competition prize, which is a prize that you can win nowadays by standing next to a polluted canal and just waiting long enough, I suppose. Oh, bless him. It's interesting, though, that Gary is, as you said, I didn't know that, that he's the first to kind of, you know, helm a TOTP show solo in a while. I don't know if it's deliberate or not but probably not because he is being groomed as the face of top of the pops in 1986 yeah and kind of dependable in a way just

gets on with it but he is um you know as i think you mentioned in the past he's kind of eased into that kid jensen role yes definitely but me, without remotely the likeability, you know, despite him being seen as perhaps Radio 1's, you know, hunkiest, dishy dreamboat of a DJ, there's just nothing to get your teeth into with Davis for me. He literally is the sloppy bit in the middle of the Radio 1 schedule. And consequently, he can be seen, I think,

along with other figures at the time, like Bruno Brooks, Matt Goodyear, Nicky Campbell, Simon Mayo. He's this kind of stopgap transitional figure in between Johnny Birling's accession to Radio 1 and then Birling's enforced departure with the advent of you know Matthew Bannister in that so he's there he's needed in a way Davis to usher out the old guard yeah but stylistically he's kind of indistinguishable from that old guard he's very very what's the word, square basically I think is the word I'm looking for

watching this episode I concluded that he truly is the Rishi Sunak of Top of the Pops just this kind of emptily earnest slick, dead behind the eyes I'm not going to be able to shake that image I mean also the eyebrows as well is what made me

think of it. I think you called it right, Neil, when you compared Rishi Sunak to Spike Dixon of Heidi Heimer. Well, indeed. I can't shake that. But just in one of those, yeah, quarters at Cardi's, that's Davis, isn't it?

And it's kind of the way he looks in this episode, actually. Yeah. And also the thing is with Davis, you know, as a voice, I suppose not objectionable i find him more objectionable when i see him because there's a revolting flirty sincerity in his eyes that really turns me off in a big way maybe he can't help it maybe it's just got eyes

like this yeah he has that constantly like he's sort of yeah he's trying to be a mate but he's also sort of trying to make you fancy him as well. And neither of them ever really happened for me. He's trying to be your mate, but he's got his eye on your girlfriend. Perhaps that, yeah. He also has that I don't have to try kind of attitude, you know. So why try harder? All the girls, they love me.

So, you know, like why try harder? We don't know it yet, but he's about to be asked by Wham to compare their final gig at Wembley Stadium in a few months' time. Maybe he should have teamed up with Andrew Ridgler. He's also going to be lined up as the permanent UK presenter of Top of the Pops USA next year. Right. But there's more to him than that, because he is still basking in the satisfaction

of being the Mo-molem of pop article in the sunday mirror february the 2nd dj gary's pop piece radio one disc jockey gary davis has patched up a bitter feud between two pop groups matt bianco singer Mark Reilly and fine young cannibal star Andy Cox came to blows when a custard pie prank went badly wrong. Millions of viewers of Noel Edmonds' Late Late Breakfast show last night saw the fight at an awards ceremony in France. But back in London, Gary called both stars to heal the rift. Yeah, boot tross, boot tross, Davis. Have you ever seen that clip? No. It was ringing bells now that you've mentioned it, that there

wasn't a sort of untrammeled viciousness to it. It was actually a song contest for Midem, the French music trade show, which Matt Bianco won and Fine Young Cannibals didn't. And as some sooty baldy frenchie gave riley the award cox put the pie in and riley responded by trying to kick him in the bollocks and it all ended up with him standing there with bits of foam running down his face and the lady

host saying don't bother these things happen life is life fucking hell my being in matt bianco in the mid-80s was just a procession of televised humiliation wasn't it indeed but that's touching what that lady said showing showing the impact of opus there um in healing wounds but yeah another thing about davis so just to mention it permatand know, and people weren't then, apart from Tony Blackburn, nobody was then. This is pre-tanning salon, so what's going on there? That kind of rubbed me up the wrong way as well. I mean, I'm not as militant on Gary Davis as you two appear to be,

but particularly when you compare him to the current talent pool. To my mind, there's very little here that gets on your tits in the way that Travis and and edmunds oh god yeah he's like that youth at college who has girls hanging off his arms and you immediately take a dislike to him for that but then you end up getting to know him and you discover to your absolute dismay that he's he's all right actually you know and if simon bates went off to um janice long ago oh look at that fucking gary Gary Davis going around thinking he's something. That would say more about Simon Bates than it ever would about Gary Davis, don't you think?

Yeah, I think you're probably right. He would be somebody who rubs you the wrong way. Then you meet him and you're just another sap with hearts in your eyes looking at him. Welcome to Top of the Pops. And here to start us off big country and look away we're immediately thrown towards a neon purple proscenium arch which looks like a gazebo for a garden party in Tron, as the disembodied voice of Davis gets the party started with Look Away by Big Country. We covered Big Country in Chart Music 60, when they made their first appearance in the top of the pop studio to perform their

first hit, Fields of Fire, in April of of 1983 which helped it get to number 10. Since then they've peeled off a run of six top 30 hits peaking in January of 1984 when Wonderland got to number eight and their second LP Steel Town entering the album chart at number one in October of that year. However, by January of 1985, after the band had recorded the soundtrack to the Scottish comedy film Restless Natives and contributed to Do They Know It's Christmas by Band Aid, Stuart Adamson, burned out from four years

of relentless touring, writing and recording, demanded a time out and spent much of the year running his pub in Dunfermline, even though he'd gone on the wagon the year before, while the rest of the band chipped in on Roger Daltrey's solo LP Under the Raging Moon and Pete Townsend's White City a Novel, and drummer Mark Brazicki went on loan to the cult to finish off the Love LP after the sack Nigel Preston,

and even appears on the video for She's So Sanctuary, despite not having played on its recording. By the end of the year, and with Adamson ready to jump back on the treadmill, Mercury, their label, decided it was time that the band were kicked up into the big league, alongside their counterparts U2 and Simple Minds. were kicked up into the big league alongside their counterparts U2 and Simple Minds and to this end they replaced their regular producer Steve Lillywhite with Robbie Miller who had worked with Sade and Fine Young Cannibals for their next LP although no one really liked the results and he was replaced by Walter Turbitt who had worked with Cause, and Malcolm McLaren. This is a lead cut from that album,

The Seer, which will be coming out in July, and it's a follow-up to Just a Shadow, which got to number 26 in January of 1985. It entered the charts at number 18 last week, and a screening of the video in last week's Breakers section has helped it jump up eight places to number ten. And here they are in the studio, in front of the Top of the Pops neon set, which was introduced in late 1985 and will loom large over the show until mid-1987. Chaps, before we tuck into Big Country, let's talk about that set because it's a radical

departure from the usual top of the pop sets isn't it apart from a few tweaks with the lighting it's an incredibly monolithic structure and it's changed the vibe of top of the pops in my opinion from being a pop show in an obvious tv studio to one in a gig venue yeah i'm guessing that is what it's attempting exactly and and you know we're firmly in that period now another thing with this this set and also it should be mentioned that this new half hour time slot means that the title sequence it literally lasts about six seconds before you before you're in and then we're in this set, which... I mean, the thing is, that attempt to kind of make it like a venue, I guess, make it like a very bells and whistles venue,

I should feel a bit more of a sense of identification with the audience. Whilst the pop stars would provide the alienation, the audience might provide a sense of identification. But actually, with this set, it's the audience I feel most distant from because all you see is incessant clapping, happiness, and shit dancing and shit clothes. It's just this neon feel most distant from, because all you see is incessant clapping, happiness and shit dancing and shit clothes. It's just this neon frightmare, really. So, yeah, it's already not looking good

in terms of the production values of the show, I think. Yeah, I mean, it's cut any interaction between presenter, kids and act, hasn't it? Yeah, yeah, completely. So you get no more shots of sulky girls chatting shit to each other while the band attempts to put their new single over. No more shots of gormless lads trying to chat shots of sulky girls chatting shit to each other while the band attempts to put their new single over. No more shots of gormless lads trying to chat up said sulky girls. No more kids looking at themselves in the monitor.

It's essentially a nightclub setting where everybody involved knows their place. Yeah, and a nightclub setting which essentially then engenders a certain response from the audience. Which is nothing but, yeah, weeping and frothy happiness. happiness these are valid criticisms but for me this is kind of in my brain what top of the pops looks like those little blocks of flashing neon although the set for big country they're obviously like in a corner which is more like a sort of industrial perspex greenhouse with like big banks of different colored bulbs It's like they're in a grow tent. Yeah, I do think of this as kind of a classic set. I know it's very busy and I realise that it kind of changes the relationship between the bands and the viewers and the audience probably for the worse.

But I can't help it. I just, I don't think you can have too much neon. I just think neon is the, neon, it just means glamorous nighttime stuff for me. Did you know, by the way, where most of the world's neon comes from? Go on. It is a gas and it's around us all the time. It's what gives that distinctive alluring glow. Most of it comes from Ukraine.

Oh, really? It's used obviously in lights, but it's used in the manufacturing of microchips and stuff as well. in lights, but it's used in the manufacturing of microchips and stuff as well. And basically, the Soviets during the Cold War were really into the idea of making laser weapons, which you need neon for. So they just amassed huge amounts of it. And then afterwards, there were just loads of neon

facilities doing nothing. So they started selling it to the rest of the world. And it was expensive before, and inevitably it has now gone up by, it says here, 5,000%. Fucking hell. Imagine if Top of the Pops was going now. It'd be an absolute crisis. Oh, God, yeah.

There was a call in the Metro newspaper last week to bring back Top of the Pops, but I think this kiboshes the idea. Yeah. If there's a dry ice shortage as well, yeah, we're fucked. But the problem with this is that Top of the Pops have obviously pushed the boat out, but they've inadvertently set up a tableau

that's going to suit certain acts down to the ground and be absolutely unsuitable for other artists. I mean, Sunita and Man to Man with Man Parish are going to pitch up on Top of the Pops, look at what they're going to be performing in and go, oh yeah, we could do some fucking business here, but others are going to look massively out of place, as we shall see later on. Yeah, and would you include Big Country in that? Because to me, in their performance, and this is something you start detecting from here on in really the

top of the pops yes like you say certain bands absolutely suits them down to the ground certain bands will smirk about being on such a stage and they'll show that in their performance um and i get a bit of that from Big Country. I think they're sincere enough, but just knackered. I don't know. So, Big Country, they're forever lumped into the windy Celtic triumvirate of the early 80s with U2 and Simple Minds.

Both of those have absolutely soared into the pop stratosphere, but while the former played Wembley and the latter played Philadelphia, Big Country's only appearance on Live Aid was as part of stratosphere but while the former played wembley and the latter played philadelphia big country's only appearance on live aid was as part of the herd during the rendition of do they know it's christmas at the end in between roger daltrey and adamant and apparently that's down to richard jobson the former lead singer of the skids who heard on the dunfermline grapevine that big

country were off the grid assumed that they'd split up and that information got passed on to his recently divorced wife who was doing the PR for Phonogram at the time and she passed it on to one of her artists a certain Mr Bob Geldof right so the invite never went out to Big Country because he thought they'd split up. And even ten months after the event, the pop world still divided between live aid acts and non-live aid acts. And Big Country have found themselves in the latter camp. Yeah, which is odd because, you know, in 84, Stuart Adamson says in an interview, there's only four rock bands left in the world, us, U2, Simple Minds and the Bunnymen.

And out of them, it's definitely U2 and Simple Minds who are ascending at this point and Big Country. I mean, look, before we go on, I've got to get this out of them it's definitely you two and simple minds who are ascending at this point and big country i mean look before we go on i've got to get this out of my system because i'm duty bound because i'm a music journalist um big country big country more like so i just had to get that out oh man that has fully ruined the thing i was gonna do i had an entire bit well i mean i must admit the last time i did i think i did big country on cmp with with pricey and and what pricey was saying it did kind of open my eyes a bit early on in big country's career there's no reason i should have sort of snobbly shunted them aside when i do love

a lot i mean i love early 80s scottish bands basically i mean to me scottish bands of the early 80s altered images simple minds orange juice etc they're far more important to me and part of my listening than, say, the much more lauded Manchester bands of that era. But much as by 1986 I'd started loathing

the sound of Simple Minds, I'd really started properly hating Big Country as well by 86, I think. I didn't like that just juiceless, big sky, clattery,

big room sound that rock had at that time. And Big Country seemed to absolutely enshrine that. Out of those three bands, of course, you two were going to be the winners in terms of that big sound. But this is Big Country's biggest and consequently most ubiquitous hit. You know how most of the time when you think of a band, there's like a first song that you think of? With Big Country, it's actually that Big Country one. But then it rapidly transmogrifies into this record that, if nothing else, I think we can entirely blame for the likes of Delametri and Diesel Park West and fucking bands like that. It's their biggest hit, but it's just a half-decent chorus in search of a verse that isn't dog shit, really.

And there's all kinds of little horrible details to the sound and a fundamental lumpiness to the groove of this. I was watching it just thinking Thin Lizzy would have done this about a billion times better. I mean, by the way, I was idly jotting whilst watching this, and I jotted down a quick worst-ever Scottish band list, not including big country. Number five, Gun.

Number four, Run Rig. Number five, gun. Number four, run rig. Number three, Texas. Number two, wet, wet, wet. And number one, although this is stretching it a bit in terms of them being Scottish, but fuck it, any excuse. Primal scream, it's got to be for me. But I mean, look, I think my problem with big country is the same problem I start having at this time, aged 14, with Simple Minds and particularly U2, actually.

I mean, there are aspects of those bands that I like. But by 86, it's not just the sort of increasingly flatulent sound of their records that I don't like. But it's simply the fact that they're so positive and happy. I kind of like guitar music to not be happy at this point in my life i like it not to be anthemic but kind of introspective and not to be stirring and emotional and positive but but far more sort of mindless and angry and negative really um this kind of period 86 is part of my start of coming back over to metal a little bit and stopping laughing at it all which i had done for previous years because the wobble home got so preposterous and because i've been digging back into the 60s i was looking for rock

that was badly produced and murky and kind of properly heavy rather than just all this well appointed uber produced guff which is what big country seem to be doing for well-produced stuff i wanted it to be pop or hip-hop at that time because those productions were so much more exciting to listen to in this period than the way rock sounded, especially this kind of big, rolled-up-sleeve, long-coat rock like this. It's just so passionate in this kind of fist-clenching way. It's very outdoorsy, this music.

Yeah, it's a kind of go-outdoors warehouse of rock. And at age 14, I already knew that the outdoors particularly the outdoors outside the city you know smelled really so i wasn't gonna get fooled by big country and in terms of this performance as soon as it started i was watching it and i thought gary davis is gonna say what a great way to start the show so it proved i mean it's only been a year and a bit since her last single but so much has changed in the world of pop that this is very much seen as the comeback record so what's changed since the skull of the mxr m129 pitch transposer and the cry of shah stirred the celtic heart of

a young simon price and led him to a car park where i Ian Asprey was shagging a groupie up against a coach. Well, the look has changed, hasn't it? Oh, God, yeah. I mean, the most obvious change is that Big Country have lobbed their flannel shirts onto a bonfire and are now suited up to fuck. Bad 80s suited up to fuck at that, with their sleeves rolled right up

and adorned with globular brooches and bootlace ties. Oh, dear me. Stuart Adamson's got on a sort of oversized striped Hessian bathrobe. It's a success coat, as Simon calls them. It is remarkable. It looks like Howard Hughes' dressing gown, doesn't it? I mean, it's not so much a success coat as a I've just won a Californian Powerball lottery coat.

He didn't fucking get that from Millett, let me tell you. They all look terrible, I think, apart from Tony Butler on base. Yeah. And his coat fits. The rest of these bean poles, they just look malnourished. They look like Rodney does when Dale gets him a sheepskin that's way too big for him. Yes, yes!

I bet they always regret it. That camel coat. Yeah, exactly. Big coat tree, if you will. Big coat yeah exactly big coat tree if you were a tree big coat down is what we're doing yes um comfort is important to me increasingly in my dotage you know and it's like god you're gonna be too hot not in the kind of pleasing sheen of sweat under the makeup kind of way just like people just never learn on top of the big fucking coats all the way it's awful and you look at that coat you just think well you can't go out in that you

certainly wouldn't go into the pub with it no you'd be absolutely terrified of people nubbing the fags out on it accidentally or otherwise i just realized it's actually the same coat that one of the coreys wears in the lost boys when he first goes into the comic shop and they're like we're just scoping, what are you doing man? Yeah we're just scoping your civilian wardrobe As we're going to see there's a lot of bad coatiness going on in this episode

There is. I've got to say for all the talk of bigness I don't receive this as a big tune it's kind of a sketch of something big but it's sort of quite chuggy with quite forgettable vocals and there's like no top line you know there's nothing you can really play on a penny whistle and yeah it's kind of the same issue that i had with um deliverance by the mission which was

an opener of an episode i did a while ago and it's like yeah this is here we come with the big song and it's like it's okay but where where is it? You know, it's kind of quite, if we're talking about, you know, the outdoors, it's like a sort of cloud of a rock song. Yeah, no, absolutely. It looks massive, but there's kind of no substance to it, you know. And also in the performance, I mean, maybe this is my smuggery detector is a bit too sensitive,

but I get the sense there's a slight smirk to this appearance. And at the time, I remember getting the sense in interviews at the time that Big Country were usually scornful of pop. I mean, Bruce Watson says in an interview this year, you know, I'm not a pop star. I hate that word. I just want to play my guitar. And Stuart Adamson, in the same interview, he says it would have been easy for us to come out with The Crossing Vol. 2.

It would have been a wise career move. And we could have done it in two weeks because nobody can pastiche us as well as we can ourselves i don't do things to make career moves for the sake of selling an extra few hundred thousand records so they've got that smuggery but at the same time this is totally trying to be a charge smash yeah and the way they're dressed it does appear like a decision was made yes you know that this is our look now someone chomping on cigars banging on the table going big coats that's it but it is only the bass player looks at halfway decent he looks okay actually his coat kind of suits him although there's a bit of shawody waddiness to it as well oh yeah he's got white shoes on which is white

shoes and white trousers he's gone double white there, which is a bold move. But the other guitarist, I forget his name, he looks dreadful. And the drummer appears to have a leather coat on. But again, it's that sleeve rolled up thing. Why fucking do that? It's 1986, though. Yeah, I know. It was the style at the time. I know, I know.

But that's an unrehabilitatable look, that. As we've learned in previous chart music, Sarah, you're a bit fond of a bit of man wrist, aren't you? I am a fan. And I'm equal opportunities as well with women too. It's just, you know, a good leather jacket. It's acceptable on women. On men though, Neil, come on, back me up.

Not on big coats though. I would draw the line at the forearm because it's that dissonance, isn't it? It's like when you've got a big coat on but you you want to expose your forearms what's going on there if you got a big coat on and you're rolling the sleeves up you're obviously fucking sweating cobs just take the fucking coat off mate i don't know i mean i might try the look i've never done that look i might do it i might try i'm off out tonight to brum free the forearm man i will do the four yeah is it both forearms or is it just one no that looks strange wouldn't it both sides that's mason's

territory neil yeah yeah yeah no you can't you can't just have one that makes you look like you've just come off a long shift and assisting the country vet ah yeah yeah up to my elbow but no actually oddly enough i'm off to a masonic bash later on this month. Oh, you know. You can't tell everyone that. God, they're not going to let you in now. Oh, no, no, don't worry. It's all above board. It's all above board.

My friend is the Grand Worshipful Master this year. And my even closer friend is his partner. So she's got to do the ladies' night. And I've got to refer to her as lady sarah all night which i'm looking forward to but crucially it's at warwick masonic lodge and i can't wait to stumble down a corridor and stumble into some arcane ritual that i really shouldn't bear witness to um but i might do the long coat that night good lord wow okay and when it is lady's night neil don't forget to tell Lady Sarah that everything's going to be alright.

Of course. The major thing that's pissed me off about Big Country and them being on this episode is obviously preparing for Chart Music Podcast. Yes, I found out that, yeah, they backed Roger Daltrey. Yeah. His 85 solo album, Under a Raging Moon. They were watching his back. But it made me inevitably have to google the sleeve which inevitably made me physically sick so go on go on cheers big country no i mean

it's just the facial shot of adultery but that's all i need for that emetic trigger not being a centaur though no he's not being a centaur he's never gonna top that for bad lp covers no no ride a rock horse my final thought on big countries that i always think of them as big country because of the song in a big country which they wrote and could have written to scan however they chose but they kind of did i mean that sort of erroneous emphasis can be really fun and playful but you've got to do it like deliberately and this is like a metal guru but in a bad way but you know in a big country you sit on sofa play with roger doll tree and eat some pasta this is the single that was going to

kick them up into the big league and yeah you do get this feeling of a slight smugness as if they're saying oh here we are on top of the pots but get a good eyeful of us while you can because we'll be doing bigger things from here on in but you could argue that it actually turned out to be the single that killed them because apparently phonogram was so desperate to get them over in america that their new producer walter turbot was caught by guitarist bruce watson lording the tracks in the studio with his own guitar parts which led to stewartson, who formed the Skids and felt that Richard Jobson had aced him out and took over, believing that it was happening all over again

and everything was coming out of their hands once more. Right, right. But, I mean, the trouble is with Big Country, they have this unerring belief that they're real musicians and if they were just left to make real music, everything would be all right. But what actually emerges from their albums is, fuck me, apart from the singles,

Jesus, it's dreary, dreary shit. Really? It really, really is. So they were never, ever in a million years going to get as big as U2 and Simple Minds, who were both a bit more playful with pop. I mean, granted, just as big and wide and flatulent, but you never got the feeling that U2,

I don't know, sort of had contempt for... I'm not saying Big Country had contempt for their audience but you two were happy with any audience whereas big country you felt they wanted specific you know proper real music fans to be into them and that's just going to alienate everybody i think they did really try for the yankee dollar if you will in the next album which turned out to be the lowest-selling big country album in America. So, yeah, they fucked it. Yeah, they fucked it. Are we counting them as shaking minds at this point, then?

Ooh! Yeah, yeah, that's it. So, the following week, Look Away nudged up two places to number eight, its highest position. But the follow-up, The Teacher, would only get to number 28 at the end of June. And although The Sear entered the LP chart at number 2, they finished 1986 with Hold The Heart, only getting to number 55 in December.

The first big country single to miss the top 40 since their debut single Harvest Home in September of 1982. debut single Harvest Home in September of 1982. Although they came back in 1988 with King of Emotion getting to number 16 in the singles chart and Peace In Our Time getting to number nine in the LP chart in August, diminishing returns continued to set in throughout the 90s and they finally split up in 2000. From the days in the stories that were told From the way, from the way From the bad, bad, bad way Down deep in the summer What a great way to start, Big Country and Look Away.

So, all on my own in the studio tonight. Well, not exactly on my own. Also in the studio we have George Michael, we have A-ha and It's Immaterial. But but first here's this week's top 40 over this video from falco and rock me amadeus we're whipped back to davis standing in front of the disgusting new top of the pops logo sporting an appallingly oversized light grey jacket, which appears to be made out of an elephant's hide,

with the sleeves rolled right up the elbow. Over a disgusting blocky multicoloured shirt and matching grey trousers. Oh dear, oh dear. Big Country had their sleeves rolled back as well, but they were playing instruments, Gary. What's your fucking excuse i mean the overall effect is miami vice yts lad isn't it i mean he's a medallion man you know revealing that chunky seiko on his wrist but the shirt's buttoned right up isn't it oh yeah

no i can't be doing with that i must point out by the way the way to do the sleeves pushed up is you push them up you don't go past the elbow. That's the thing. Once you go past the elbow, all is lost. And wait a minute, Sarah. There's too many wrinkles. I've got to check this shit because I might be wearing this later. Is it just a push-up? Should I fold?

No, no, no. No, just push up. Got you. I mean, some garments will not allow this, you know, but ideally you want it to just under the elbow. I don't know. I don't know anything about it. You know more than us.

I live with a man who has long arms and is usually a tall man with long arms who normally most jacket sleeves are too short for him. So he has to. I was just going to say. You know, like it's just, it's utility. But, you know, he makes it work. Okay, okay.

Anyway, but yes, don't go over the elbows because then, you know, you do get the elephant hide effect. So, you know, just shove them up until they come to a natural stop, just before the elephant. OK, I'll bear that in mind. Thank you. Yeah. To be fair, with Gary's fit, there's a pearlescence to his oversized doctor's coat, isn't there?

You know, but I like it not. And that is a blouse. It's definitely a blouse, which is fine. Men can wear blouses in the 80s, and indeed any time. But it's sort of purple and peach and orange and it's it's a lot going on yeah i reckon that's a casio as well not a psycho ah well spotted what a great way to start says davis before informing us he's without a partner tonight oh but not for long knowing gary davis in his stable right and then spoil us a sizable chunk of tonight's bill of fear before throwing us into Rock Me Amadeus by Falco.

Born in Vienna in 1957, Johann Herzl attended the Vienna Conservatoire, Austria's version of the Kids from Fame, at the age of 16, but could only stick it out for a year and ended up doing national service for a bit. In the late 70s, he gravitated towards the Weimar Republic-like nightlife of Vienna, playing the bass in local band The Hallucination Company, before switching to the art rock and

narco band Dradiwabo and adopting the stage name John De Falco, where he wrote and performed the song Gans Vienne, which he would play as a solo interlude at their gigs, which featured the line, All of Vienna is on heroin today. When the manager Marcus Spiegel saw the now-entitled Falco perform the song at an anti-drugs benefit gig in 1980, he signed him up to a solo deal and he put it out as a single in 1981,

where it was immediately banned by Austrian radio. But when he put out an English-language version, it got to number 11 in Austria but failed to chart anywhere else. At the end of that year, he he lined up a follow-up single, Helden von Heuter, a tribute to David Bowie's heroes, but his label preferred the B-side, Der Kommissar. And although Falco was convinced that it was too extreme for the pop-crazed Teutons, as it was mainly a rap that leaned hard into Superfreak by Rick James,

it soared to number one in both Austria and West Germany. And although it did nothing over here, it became a top ten hit across continental Europe and got to number 74 in America. And an English language cover by After The Fire got to number 47 in the UK in April of 1983. An attempt to capitalise on the success of De Commissar failed when his second LP failed to do anything outside the Germanosphere,

so in 1985 he linked up with the producers Rob and Ferdy Bolland, the South African Dutch brothers, who had a number one hit in Finland and Norway with their synthy Vietnam war song You're In The Army Now in 1981. Yes, that's You're In The Army Now. Stand up and fight. This is a lead off cut from his forthcoming

LP Falco Dry which is due out in October and has been put out by his new label A&M. It was inspired by the 1984 film Amadeus, which won eight Oscars only three weeks ago, and the original version has already ripped through Europe last year. But when it was remixed for the USA and UK

with beefier drums and some bird on vocals, it entered our charts four weeks ago at number 58, then soared 31 places to number 27, then another 17 places to number 10 after he appeared on Top of the Pops. This week, as it begins its third week at number one in America, it's nipped up two places over here to number three. And as he's already been in the top of the pop studio twice here's

our first chance to see the video sort of where do we start chavs because we've got a bit of a problem here haven't we what uh fastest loss well because 40 seconds in yes this happens well we don't really know what he's singing about so we might as well have a look at this week's top 40. Down to number 40, it's Culture Club with Move Away. Ah! What the fuck are you doing, Top of the Pops? Yeah, it's bad. It's very bad.

It's so fucking rude. I hate it when they go, hey, that was great when it wasn't, but it's a lot worse when they go, well, who cares? We don't know what he's singing about anyway. What a senseless diss. The video gets squeezed into a little box

so Gary Davis can shit out the charts from number 40 to number 11. So there's no band pics. There's no respect given to the charts and no chance to enjoy the number three single in the land properly. In a world where there's no MTV for most people, no access to cable or satellite for most people,

how else are they going to see the fucking video if it's not on top of the pops? Yeah, it's really bad. This is so clearly a bad idea. Obviously, it's not Gary Davis' idea, but whoever's idea it was. It's the worst idea, I would say, since very early,

let's do the top ten rundown at the very start of the show thing. I mean, I'd have been only 14, but I would have been sat there just thinking, frankly, this is a shambles. I mean, it's chaos. And it's an absence of sort of thought, absence of vision for the charts.

It's exactly what you see in the rundown here. It's really poorly formatted, every single bit of it. The script that Davis has to speak, it's kind of geekyy but imparts no information at all and the one thing that really angered me was this occasional deliberate refusal to name the records they're talking about they just name the artist it's written so i'm like a spod but it's infuriatingly imprecise yeah i mean the assumption obviously is that oh well the kids watching this will know what what the name of the song but i don't not from a fucking distance i'm an old man now this is it and the decision to have davis speak

over falco is kind of disastrous both for falco but also for any idea of actually knowing what the hell's going on in the charts yeah and it's just kind of demonstrative i think of the general lack of care that's going on here and that rush that we were talking about engendered by the switching time that now set in so let's put three different things on the screen none of which are going to make any sense because they're cancelling each other out I mean even the top of the pops of the 90s have more respect for the charts than this and that was very little it's like the nine o'clock news running a story about the bombing of Libya and then Sue Lawley saying well oh you know how this is going to turn out, so here's

some pictures of fucking Fergie. I mean, what Sarah said is spot on. I would have been really pissed off at that line that Davis says, you know, about, you know, we don't know what he's on about. Yes, we fucking do. Yeah. If I'm a superstar, for fuck's

sake. But also, like, what's it to you? I mean, because it, because obviously it's a double dose of disrespect there because it's like, well, you're talking over the, you know, an artist's work after the first verse, but also it's like, oh, it's in foreign, who gives a shit? Exactly. I would think that was his interjection. But, yeah, I mean, the thing is that my bloke somehow managed

to get into his 40s without ever having experienced Rock Me Amadeus or Falco at all. What? I know, I know. It's just something that passed him by and he was like, what the fuck is this? I was like, okay, I'm going to stop this here and I'm going to pull up the full thing on YouTube so you don't have to have your first experience of this tune ruined by

Gary fucking Davis barrelling in and going, hey, well, what's over there? Which is, you know, in this kind of attention apocalypse. If any video doesn't need reducing to about a third of the screen, it's this one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shall we talk about Falco now?

Fuck Gary Davis, let's talk about Falco. Yeah, why not? Yeah, fucking Falco and fucking Rock Me Amadeus. What a wonderful thing. And it was so great to see the sheer delight on my bloke's face. Like, what could this be? What is this delightful nonsense like it's it it's bonkers it's so brilliant and so not like anything else and i

remember this striking me at the time when i was a kid and going having that same response really like what yes even with less context about music you know as i was sort of forming my opinions at the time you know it's really hard to describe it and it's very hard to critique it because it's i think bonkers is the word it's so joyful and it's kind of you don't even think of it or i don't i don't think of it as like oh it's it's a white guy rapping because it's not really it's like anti-flow it's like he's cutting up what he's so it's sort of in deutschlish and german kind of consonant clusters and the shape of words in german sort of lends itself more to this kind of non-flow than english and he's sort of bending the language into different angles as

you go as if that's just a thing that you do as if like yeah this is what i'm doing and this is completely appropriate yeah he's establishing himself for the rest of the world as like the a son of vienna you know like oh you know like like mozart you know no big deal me and wolfgang just hanging out in history you know having some nice cakes i'm a cool austrian guy and you know who else is a cool austrian guy no no no no no no mozart it's cool i mean this is not something any of us could attempt at karaoke, let's be fair. No. I don't think anyone can or should attempt it, but it's like you need a concrete diaphragm for it. He must have had abs for days like that for three minutes straight.

Oh, you could grate cheese on him. Yeah, I mean, only he could do this. It's not coverable, you're absolutely right. And obviously it has a great chorus that once you have heard it is just graven into your skull forever it's so simple it's kind of almost insultingly simple and daft and glorious i mean it's yeah if you could remain kind of stony faced watching and listening to and experiencing rock me amadeus then you know there's you're gonna have to leave my house, I'm afraid, and never come back. I come back to that word, bonkers, Sarah, because I think it's bonkers lyrically.

I mean, every single second of this record is bonkers. The sound of it's nuts as well. And I think we underestimate in this country, you know, Falco is a complete hero in Middle Europe, in Austria and Germany. He really is hugely venerated which is odd because ultimately he was always just chaos really okay i mean as a human being as well you know he was it's funny that he was spotted doing this anti-drugs thing because that certainly wasn't

something that he adhered to yeah while doing a drug song yeah yeah he's a relic of an age really in which pop stars could be totally out of control when all that post-punk artiness and be appreciated for indeed and he's coming from that post-punk kind of arty thing but he hits massive commercial success so rot me amadeus is just this weird outlier of a record its impact here was definitely because there was that elemental confusion in all of us who first heard it is this got anything to do with the film? Is this on the soundtrack? You know, is it part of it? Yeah. It took some time to establish that, you know,

the song wasn't at all in the film. Although the film's kind of punkification of Mozart's look does extend here a little bit. I don't think that mattered in the States at all, which is where it became majorly big, to the point where in 86, you know, Falco's considering moving there permanently. But the other touchstone for this, it reminded me of is Adamant.

And not necessarily sonically, but the video has a lot of similarities to Adamant videos in just being these big, you know, epic productions that are absolutely dazzling. And it's the first record in my recall, really, in my life to put German-ness, or rather, sorry, austrianness in our chart since da da da really life is life with last year yeah there is that but it's in terms of austrianity opus last year falco this is it's just a golden age for urs to rock isn't it indeed and there's an actual clip on youtube of opus and Falco together performing this song. And it's fucking really good.

Opus are fucking brilliant, man. Oh, wow. I've got to seek that out. It'll be on the TMP playlist. Video playlist. Yeah, brilliant. By the way, you've got to put Decomissar on the playlist. Oh, my God.

What a tune. What a fucking tune. And, you know, doing CMP for this has reminded me of Decomissar. And I just haven't been able to stop playing it it's so fucking good yeah it's amazing and the same reaction happened

I was like alright here was his first single over here and Bloke was like beside himself how have I never heard this

what I am now the biggest Falco fan it's astonishing that wasn't a hit and hilarious video because it's about a couple on the run from the law

with a giant bag of coke just going oh there's a cop better run away and he's kind of doing that it's a really bad kind of green screen thing with like cop cars and he's just doing that terrible like on the spot running yeah and then occasionally just wiping his nose in a very sort of yeah oh no i have been very naughty and i mean that's the thing falco is extremely I will often say that things have gone coke as a you know as a negative which it usually is like London having gone coke and a lot of me you know a lot of things having just gone brash and shallow in the worst way but Falco was very coke in the best way yeah yeah if the commissar came out like today with that video oh you know people be going fucking nuts about it it looks like

a tiktok video doesn't it it does it does but luckily rock me amadeus isn't necessarily you know something i'm playing every week i'm glad i experience it every time i experience it i mean and lest we forget you know we have to be grateful it exists because if only without amadeus there'd be no help me dr zeus that wouldn't be a life worth living can i play the piano anymore of course you can well i couldn't before but also also beyond that right rock me amadeus is is illustrative of something that's going on in the charts throughout 86 yes the dinosaurs still walk among us but there's been a kind of minor extinction event as well previous to 86 radio one didn't really have a daytime playlist and that's why sort of a lot of their djs could just

play any old shite that they fancied this daytime playlist sort of gets reintroduced 86 and it's to do with what radio on djs predict might be a hit yeah so what starts happening with that kind of more organized playlist based around new songs that could be hits is that in the next few months in 86, we're going to get really big hits from unknown artists, fundamentally, who make the list. So, I mean, none of them are remotely as good as Falco, but, you know, It Bites have a hit, and Hollywood Beyond have a hit, and Owen Paul, and Cutting Crew, and Robbie Neville, and all these people.

Ooh, golden days. Well, quite. But, you know, there's also conspicuous failures by artists who could previously have counted on radio support. You know, Howard Jones, Nick Kershaw, these people. Yes. Ultravox, they all have singles that don't chart, and it's quite disruptive to the charts, in a sense.

The trouble is, all these new bands coming through have no big fan base, and they usually disappear when the follow-up, you know, doesn't make the cut, or isn't a hit. Or doesn't get unwogen. Thatogen that's it and the older acts they got kind of branded as failures and they can't come back i mean it creates a sort of vacuum in the charts really that's going to last the rest of 86 i mean jack your body is the first number one of 87 and it gets no radio play and then we have an onslaught of stock and waterman after that but this is this weird period where yeah yeah the big dinosaurs are about,

but they're mainly rock bands. Pop dinosaurs are going. And they're being replaced by odd little records like Rock Me I'm a Deus, Gatecrash and the Charts. The great thing about the video is that he puts Falco over as a right Euro Ponce. And to my mind, that's always a good thing.

Yeah. Euro Ponce has always livened up the charts in the mid 80s whether you like the song or not you know i'm thinking about people like ryan paris but my favorite euro pons of the era has to be sabrina's keyboard player in a clip i found on spanish television that sadly doesn't seem to be there anymore because he is poncing it up on that keyboard so hard that you actually forget that you're supposed to be looking at Sabrina's breasts. But Volko here, he comes off as someone who would drive his Audi right onto the beach at Marbella, take the union jack towel that you've hung over the sun lounger at four in the morning,

rub it against his arse, throw it in the sea and then spend the rest of the day just lying there in some very expensive pants, seat and then spend the rest of the day just lying there in some very expensive pants waiting for someone to fetch him a malibu looking down his nose at you in your crappy cna shorts yeah apparently he did have this extreme self-confidence that uh you know that was quite hard to take sometimes it was very exact about i always love that when i perceive it i mean yeah of course people like that can be a massive pain in the arse, but they can also just get some really great stuff done because it's like, no, this is how we're doing this. Which is something backed

up by every single interview I've ever had of Falco. He's just fucking hilarious. It's an image that Falco's happy to play up in an interview with the NME in a London hotel this month where he flicks his fag ash into a complimentary bowl of dry roasted peanuts, tells

Simon Witter that he's very good mates with Mozart and saw him in the pub three days ago, stops talking every now and then so he can watch his eyebrows go up and down in the mirror, tells the photographer to take one picture and get out, arsehole, kicks a light over

while the photographer's setting up and then locks himself in the toilet for a bit, eventually comes out, arsehole. Kicks a light over while the photographer's setting up and then locks himself in the toilet for a bit, eventually comes out, hugs everyone in the room and concludes by telling the readership of the NME, I fuck everybody, I fuck you all. That's what you want out of your pop stars. Yeah, yeah. Completely, completely.

That's not just a Coke thing. I feel like that's you know coke takes the edge off that sort of personality you know but i do think that if there's any reason for us to be here as tragically overdeveloped creatures that we are i mean other to be like kind and all that shit it's to give the fullest and most honest expression to whatever ideas happen to come to you and they might not be whatever the value or worth of the ideas, they might be something or nothing, but if you have them and you have the wherewithal,

you should express them with your entire self and blow the bubble as big as you can for the world to see. And that's what Falco did here with his bizarro little bop about a tragic 18th-century musical genius, which is why we're talking about it 37 years later and 25 years after he died so you know he he did he did it right maybe some austrian will do a song about him in a 200 years time who knows maybe so maybe so i hope the video's good it'd be holograms by them wouldn't

it or or a pill that you take maybe by then holograms will be old hat and people will be kind of doing the thing of going back to more practical real shit, you know, but like actual candy floss for a wig. We need to get over to Europe because I've got a friend who was in Belgium over Christmas and New Year. And apparently after New Year's Eve sort of goes, you know, after midnight, loads of stations just start playing fucking Volko. Really? Which I think is brilliant. Fucking hell. That'd be a great way to see New Year.

Yeah. Fucking hell. That'd be a great way to see the New Year. Yeah. The following week, Rock Me Amadeus took one more step up the ladder and sat there at number two for two weeks, biding its time before finally assuming its place upon the summit of Poppenburg,

where it stood proud for a week before being deposed by... the chicken song by Spitting Image. The follow-up vienna calling got to number 10 but he never troubled the top 40 again and he became a german-speaking concern only eventually dying in a car crash in the dominican republic in 1998 at the age of 40 but the song became and remains the first and only german language number one in the uk and the first foreign language single to get there since jetem by serge ganzborg and jane birkin in 1969 and of course the song lived on in the musical stop the planet of the apes starring troy mcclure in the musical Stop the Planet of the Apes. I want to get home.

Starring Troy McClure. Falco and Rodney Amadeus right now in the top of the box studio at number eight in the charts with Train of Thought. Here's Aha! Davis, standing in front of the new Top of the Pops logo, which was introduced a few weeks ago, said something that I can't fucking remember for the life of me as I was too busy staring at the shitness of the new top of the pops logo why it's fucking disgusting isn't it

we've said it before but fuck me this is awful quite busy oh yeah somewhat overly busy i mean the perfect logo for its time but perhaps that's why you hate it so much, Al. Yeah. It does look like of the top pops. Of pop the tops. He eventually gets round to introducing Train of Thought by A-Ha. Formed in Oslo in 1978, Bridgers were a Norwegian rock band formed by the drummer Pal Vaktar and the guitarist and vocalist mags furor holman after recruiting more members and waxhaar switching to keyboards they put out their debut lp facultog in 1980 and while touring that lp they played a gig in aska where one of the audience

a young lad called morton harkett, introduced himself to them afterwards with a view to having a go at singing. After Bridges set to work on their second LP in 1982, Wachter and Fiora Holman, who had always written their songs in English, felt the band had gone as far as they could in Norway and pushed for them to relocate to London. But when the rest of the band didn't fancy it, they dissolved on the spot, the LP was unreleased, and the duo spent six months on their own in the UK, to no avail. On their return to Norway, they linked up with Harkett, who by that time was fronting the covers band Soldier Blue,

and invited him to start a new band, which got their name when they riffled through Waktar's songbook for a word that was used in both Norway and England. They returned to London in January of 1983 and recorded and shopped around a demo and by the end of the year they signed a deal with Warner Brothers who linked them up with Tony Mansfield formerly of New Music and prepared an old Bridgers number called the Juicy Fruit Song which Harkett heard at their gig and liked and had worked on together in Norway. That song by now renamed Take On Me was put out as their first single in October of 1984 but only got to number 137 over here, although it got to number three in

Norway. However, the parent company in America got a glance of how the band looked and signed them up over there, telling them to get rid of Mansfield, get in Alan Tarnay, who wrote and produced We Don't Talk Anymore and co-wrote Wired for Sound for Cliff Richard and had spent the early 80s writing January, February for Barbara Dixon and co-wrote Orchard Road with the old sailor. When it was recorded and put out again in April of 1985, it flopped over here once more, but over in stateside USA, Warner Brothers pushed the boat right out for the band, in stateside USA, Warner Brothers pushed the boat right out for the band, forking out for a massively expensive video which took four months to make, where Morton was displayed in all his pencil-y gorgeousness, which was played on MTV and in clubs for a month before it was released

in America, where it immediately got into the Billboard 100 and eventually got to number one. immediately got into the Billboard 100 and eventually got to number one. Emboldened by said video, it was released for a third time in the UK in September and by the end of October it began a three-week stand at number two, held off by the power of love by Jennifer Rush. The next single, The Sun Always Shines on TV, went one better, spending two weeks at number one in January of this year. And this, the follow-up,

is the third cut from their debut LP, Hunting Iron Low, which entered the album chart at number 24 in November of 85 and immediately slid down, but then rallied in the wake of the success of The Sun Always Shines on TV and spent five weeks at number two in January and February of this year. It entered the chart at number 23 a fortnight ago and they were immediately invited to cluster under the neon on top of the pops, which helped it soar 14 places to number nine this week it's only

nipped up one place to number eight but that's not stopping them from making a return to the studio looks like top of the pops has given up on that let's repeat old performances bit which is a good thing i think anyway aha as they were saying in norway around about this time juran juran spandau ballet hollywood beyond blue is some wixi out of eastenders can you hear me maggie thatcher your boys took one hell of a beating because at this moment in time, the kings of pop, the vikings of pop, if you will, they're from Norge and ooh, they're fucking gorge. It's more foreigners. Hooray.

Yeah. What Gary probably said is, oh, some more people from somewhere. Yeah, where are the English people in pop? What's going on? Here's the thing. Why did this not open the show? Whose idea was it to not have this because it this is not my favorite of aha's many many very very good songs but it's really not bad

it's propulsive without being too hectic i know it's got some sort of compressed pan pipes in there but you know we can we can forgive that yeah but it's you know this is this is what should have started off the show i think i have some bad luck actually maybe it's just me i can't remember the last time that we did an episode and i was like wow that actually was a great start to the show yeah yeah it's usually something that's a bit lacking i think sarah if say before um sunaway shines on tv got to number one that would be a definitive show opener it couldn't go anywhere else yeah whereas this yeah it is propulsive but it's a little bit more melancholy and a little bit more down so maybe they shunted it on um in preference of the big blustery nonsense from big country instead yeah it's a

commute song isn't it apparently based on the works of existentialist norwegian writers and dosty f scare which is you know it's a bit of an advance on lovely girls and nice relationships which bands of this ilk are supposed to be singing about yeah it's essentially cardiac arrest by madness without the horrible ending right i'm not sure they've ever fully gotten their due as a really really good band they are aha um who was and they're still going out it's not bad for a heritage act you know because their music is quite sort of grand and sophisticated with sort of a bleak English as a second language lyrics. And yeah, this sort of pervasive melancholy.

This is not like a melancholy led tune, but it's definitely in there. Oh, yeah. You know, it permeates their whole sound like a sort of gentle mist. I just have to point something out, by the way, that I didn't spot this, but they've taped over the Yam

in Yamaha Paul's Yamaha keyboard he's blocked out the Yam on the side so it reads Aha and then he picks it up and wanders over to Morton so they can do a bit of a quo it looks really heavy as well

I think you regretted it it's not a keytar is it although I should say in the Moonbears I did stick I only want to help you in front of It looks really heavy as well. I think you regretted it. Yeah, it's not a keytar, is it? It's not a keytar. Although I should say, in the Moon Bears, I did stick, I only want to help you in front of Roland on my keyboard. It's a classic way. How do we feel about keytars, by the way? If there was one line about, I'd definitely have a go on it.

It's so clearly one of those things where someone had the idea and went, well, is there any reason we couldn't do this? Like, no, maybe. The trouble is they've become hipster keytars now. Whereas there is one photograph for which I excuse the existence of keytars and that's of James Brown at his worst, looking

really groggy and big and fucked. And he's playing a keytar with a big grin on his face. Anyway, more Euro-ness. And of course, until very recently, the British opinion of Norwegian pop was that it solely existed to provide a string of entertaining

null-pointers in the Eurovision Song Contest, but last year the hardcore rockabilly sound of Bobby Sox took the continent by the throat with led to swing a led to rock and roll they'll be hosting eurovision in a couple of weeks time and now aha have come along fucking hell everything's coming up norway and the norwayness is important in as i mean i know we shouldn't draw national characteristics like this like but we're going to

we're going to well i mean you do start thinking of wintry kind of melancholy and gloom um that that is threaded through throughout aha's work and i totally agree with sarah aha are majorly underrated their first couple of albums are fantastic records but they were never comfortable really i think with the roles they were being shoved into in 86 pot needed in a sense a new duran duran yes this new monolith and i feel aha was sort of somewhat unfairly ushered into that role with harker is the new lebon because he was so fucking gorgeous yes and you mentioned them actually out if you can say this sort of big three of pot were on their way out

you know duran are failing at this point spandau are definitely failing and Wham are splitting up then AHA are the kind of only likely contenders yes to replace all those posters on the wall you know and get that screaming hysteria back and you look at the two other big pop happenings of late 85 86 Curiosity killed the Cat and Five Star they're not going to fill that space no but you know it's very telling as well that A-ha rapidly become not only a watchword for pop, but you start seeing in interviews, you know, proper bands saying, you know, we're not fucking A-ha. Yeah.

Much as they would have said, you know, we're not fucking Wham! or we're not fucking Kajagoogoo a few years earlier. In other words, we're not successful. But that's it. I mean, all of this masks the actual kind of melancholy and gloom of A-ha's work. They start off their career with one of the biggest pop video smashes of the entire 80s.

And then they seem to spend the rest of the 80s kind of retreating from that glare of attention that they get. Yes. I can't say I was actually massively into A-Ha early on because Take On Me grew old pretty fast for me. Right. But The Sun Always Shines On TV tv that turned my head around completely because i thought it was ace and then the album also had a couple of corkers on it non-singles yeah but also this and there's this kind of interesting rub in a heart between the obvious total hotness at morton harkin well they're all good looking lads aren't they they are they're a good looking bunch

of lads but there's this dismalism in the lyrics and the music the music's kind of big but it's also kind of associates like it's kind of ultravox like um which contrasts with the role they're being set up for they were never going to be perhaps as consistently massive as duran were early on um but there's some amazing you know hunting high and low cry wolf things like train of thought i actually really like and i I really like Manhattan Skyline as well. Even though they're never really going to bother the top three. Duran kind of had this thing, not desperation, but I'd say Duran always managed to add something new every now and then

to show that they were sort of vaguely attentive to what was going on and sort of were progressive. Ahad didn't, they were not that kind of band. They were much more, not traditional. They were almost an indie-minded band who'd become pop stars. They just seemed massively uncomfortable as well with a vital part of the pop process, at least in the UK, which is being a gobby bitch in the pages of Smash Hits,

you know, confessing all. They never really did that. I mean, even at this point, they've had a number one hit, you know, and they've got this massively selling album out. You know, what did we really know about A-Ha that wasn't sort of dragged out of them reluctantly? In interviews, they're quite serious. They're kind of amused at UK pop daftness. They're not really participating in it.

They're more likely to discuss Kierkegaard than bitch about Pete Murphy or something. So there's that kind of little bit of nordic distance as well i mean they're all good looking lads but then again i've been to norway and trust me you could go anywhere in that country and swing a big fucking long chain about and ensnare at three other blokes who are just as good looking because norwegians man they're an extremely dolly looking race of people you know when i went, the minute I stepped off the plane, I thought, A, fucking hell, it's proper code. B, I've never seen a sky that pale blue before.

And C, immediately feeling like fucking Gollum. You just looked around and thought, oh, please don't look at me, I'm English. I was there about 23 years ago to give a speech at bylom their music business conference about how the porn business was making loads of money off the internet while the music business was losing it and when i got there i was told that it had been an ongoing local news story expressing outrage that a respected industry event was about to be sullied by a smut peddler from london and i was told and i never saw this

and i fucking wish i could see this i was told that there was even an editorial cartoon about it consisting of someone who was supposed to be me in a big white fur coat and a gold chain drooling over the fair maidens of tromso. So you can imagine their disappointment when I fucking turned up in my suit looking like a gay football hooligan. But yeah, he just looked around and went, fucking hell, everyone's attractive. Even the horrible cunts that you see in any pub, they were attractive.

I was having a piss, and the bloke next to me said, hey, English, I fuck your bitch. And I just stood there, had a bit of a shake and just thought to myself well i haven't got a girlfriend at the minute mate but if i did yeah she'd definitely think about it because you're you're a decent looking bloke what's up with you go and talk to some women instead of me but anyway this single i really like this track i really do yeah it really works as the second track off the album as well, because it's straight after Take On Me,

and it suggests the album's going to be different from that. Although I should say, you know, we're saying, oh, A Haar and Major League Interrated, there has been something of a resurgence in recent years in terms of, like, you know, serious bands saying that they were massively influential on them. So, you know, Coldplay did an interview where they went on about A Haar and Keane

and Liam Gallagher and Adam Clayton said in an interview from U2, he described A-ha as a rather misunderstood band. They were looked upon as a group of teenage girls, but in reality, they were a very creative band. You know, as if teenage girls can't be into anything creative. I don't want Coldplay or Keane to be their legacy, but they are majorly underrated actually aha and and i i like this track i mean perhaps it is my brain being racist but there's a sort of impossibility throwing off the dim traces of abba and what they do i i hear a slight similarity to lay all your love on me in the verses in the groove of it they were like you say that they're meant to be the next

but they what was beautiful about them um beyond the cheekbones was that they're meant to be the next Duran but what was beautiful about them beyond the cheekbones was that they always seemed reluctant with that they'd made themselves stars and then they kind of spent the rest of their time retreating away from that spotlight I think that happens with a lot of people because you can't possibly know what it's like until you're there it's like anyone else they wanted to do

the thing and they did the thing and then some stuff came with it that they probably had to just endure I don't want to do this interview on fucking saturday superstore can't you just draw a cartoon of me talking to mike reed please they do resist being anyone's like favorite band just because there's a certain and again i don't want to draw the kind of broad cultural assumptions either but people grow up in a culture and they reflect it you know and it comes out there's a certain aloofness you know there's this great magnetism that you are drawn to and then there's an aloofness that keeps you from fully madly loving them you

know like i i i am very very fond of aha and not just because as previously stated morton harkett is a singularly handsome man the thing is that with yeah they're all good looking but it's like he's just preposterously like he just and he kind of knows it as well yeah and he stayed good looking for ages as well yeah yeah yeah

but he has this little smirk that is very knowing smirk that he sort of wears all the time he just has resting smirk face really very is a very knowing smirk that he sort of wears all the time he just has resting smirk face really um which is great which is a great thing for a pop star to have where it's just like that confidence that puts you at ease and goes yes i'm looking at a pop star now and everything is right with the world that person should be on that stage you know um but yeah um also i don't think people are really responsible for um whoever is influenced by

them you know yeah it's like that's that's something that happens you know but yeah sometimes you you do get a bit um johnny marr about it and just go who said why do you david cameron you you don't like the smiths yeah i forbid you i forbid you to like it and also they look very 1986 but they don't look like a bunch of cunts, do they? No. I mean, this is the era of the ripped jean. One of the few fashions of the era that have been picked up upon

by our worthless and disappointing youth. Morton's look like he's put them through a fucking wood chipper, man. They are shredded. I reckon they were expensive as well. Like, I've seen... There's a video, I can't remember which one it is now,

but he's wearing those exact same ones with the exact same rips in a video. So they're obviously faves of his. And maybe this was like a challenge within the group, like see how long you can get away with wearing these jeans before they actually fall apart. Oh, no, they've been pre-ripped. Because there's no rippage around the crotch.

Do people do that? Do people actually do that? I thought that all the ripped jeans were just like, it was because they were poor and they had to just wear the same jeans all the time. Seriously, this has blown my mind. Like people actually, who would do that? Who would wear deliberately ripped jeans?

I mean, I would send them back. I would say I've received these jeans in the post. Well, no, it's 1986. There's no such thing as receiving genes in the post i suppose well i would go i i i didn't realize until i got them home these have got tears in them it was an era of genes adaptation wasn't it really yes sitting in the bath with them and all that yeah sorry i fear that i'm not taken seriously when i say things on this podcast and it's like do you think I'm some sort of child of the forest who has been a foundling who didn't know about ripped jeans?

But it is, it's a classic. I think he wears this quite a lot and it really suits him. It is a classic look, isn't it? White shirt, black belt, ripped jeans, black boots, bracelets, big hair, necklace, cheekbones, sweet, Morton Harkin. What's the most ripped jeans you've ever worn? You see, I never did. You know, now, when you get ripped jeans, it's like there's rips up the thigh bit.

Yeah. For me, it was always about the knees. Just the knees. To the point where, yeah, it was like a Chelsea grin all the way around, and your knee was sticking out. Yeah. It was always a knee thing, not those upper rips, which seem to be all the vogue these days.

I don't know if they still are, but I got some from a few years ago that are black with, like, a scattering of subtle, sort of frayed bits on the thighs. Slits? Yeah, just like little, you know, so you can't really see, you know, it's, they're not sort of, but yeah, I've seen some that really, really push the boundaries of actual garment.

I had a mate at university whose jeans were severely fucking ripped to the point where there was more holes than denim. But also around the crotch, and he teamed that with boxer shorts with a hole in them. So we'd be sitting on the tube for I to lean over and go, mate, your fucking bollocks are hanging out. That's the Swiss cheese thing, isn't it? It's like when the holes align, then it's all over. Also, sorry, when you rip your go, mate, your fucking bollocks are hanging out. That's the Swiss cheese thing, isn't it? It's like, when the holes align, then it's all over. Also, sorry,

when you rip your jeans, right, you know you've got these big strands hanging out. What do you do with them? Do you clip them, or do you just leave them? Yeah, because mine always got too bloody long to the point where the threads were sort of dangling down my fucking shoes. I was like, Roger Daltrey's fringe jacket. That's it. I could never quite get that look right.

But it's a remarkable year for them, really. They have a number one single. They have a ton of hits. Yeah. I mean, they've got a fair few records getting in the charts this year. It's their big year, isn't it, for a half? Yes, they've just announced their first tour of the UK

at the end of the year, which has immediately sold out. They played two dates at the Royal Concert Hall in Nottingham, which was a huge fucking deal. Morton's also about to come the first teeny lust object to have socks thrown at him at gigs instead of knickers apparently during a tour of japan he was interviewed and said that the downside of being a pop star was that he never had the time to wash his own socks and had to lob them out after wearing them which resulted in thousands of Japanese fans

sending their local label socks, rather in the manner of the ATV studios, being deluged by knitted woolly hats when Benny couldn't find his in an episode of Crossroads. But as it was Japan, you can imagine there were really nice socks in really ornate packaging. That's brilliant. I mean, for me, he's like Nick Kershaw, man.

If I met him, I would not be able to speak. Because he's just too pretty, isn't he, Morton? He still is. I didn't know this. You'd quite Morton Harkett with Nick Kershaw on that. They similarly would leave me speechless. Right. In a way that sort of more important figures to me musically wouldn't.

Right. Because I'd immediately just blush and giggle. Oh. I never knew you felt this way about Nick Kershaw. Oh, massively mad. I would agree. Massively mad. And he still looks amazing, Nick Kershaw, as well.

There's just something about him. Yeah, he is adorable. Wouldn't it be good, eh, Neil? I've got two strong arms. And they absolutely belong on Top of the Pops. They're so good on this show you know in contrast to the kind of slightly embarrassing things they're forced to do elsewhere um at the end of this appearance uh i think gary davis mentions the tour yes that's coming up later

and you know when that tour um actually starts later on in the year the kind of first tv appearance of a heart in that period is on blue peter um yeah and he's on blue peter that for some reason you know it's actually blue peter is the show on which the cry wolf video makes its debut really yeah and and you've got janet ellis there going and here's morton just back in the country making friends with bonnie and you know more and being slobbered over by bon and the big blue Peter Labrador while Janet asks him questions about the tour. And the other presenter, Mark Curry, he tries to give Morton a blue Peter badge.

Right. And he says, just in case Crywolf doesn't get to number one, which I'm sure it will, you'll have to share it with the whole band. It's a weird first appearance back, but they're much more comfortable in this milieu on Top of the Pops. I've been on the piss with Janet Ellis. She's fucking mint. band it's a weird first appearance back but they're much more comfortable in this milieu on

top of the part i've been on the piss with janet ellis she's fucking mint about 20 years ago i was doing an article for the daily mirror where i was essentially being jimmy saville and getting in touch with people who wrote tv shows like jim will fix it or blue Peter to do things. And they never got a response. So I'd make their dreams come true. One woman wrote to Blue Peter, never got a response. So me and Janet Ellis went round her house and we made a dog cake. It was really good.

I was really impressed. And we went to the pub afterwards. And yeah, we had a bit of a session. Janet Ellis, by that time, had developed the filthiest laugh i've ever heard on a woman it was just like oh you're fucking mint that was the article where we went around tony hart's house as well so yeah you went around tony hart's house glory days how was he he was mint the only thing about him was he didn't have a cravat only had his shirt open but no cravat so it was like he was standing there with his bollocks on.

But a lovely bloke. I imagine Janet was. You can tell. With some kids' presenters you can tell that they're a bit naughty off screen. So the following week Train of Thought

dropped five places to number 13. The follow-up Hunting High and Low got to number five in June and they finished off the year with the singles I've Been Losing You and Cry Wolf, getting to number eight and number five for two weeks in October and January of 1987, respectively. And their second LP, Scoundrel Days, got to number two for a fortnight in October.

And they spent the rest of the 80s and early 90s as a regular chart concern until they split up for the first time in 1994. Aha, they're about to start on their first world tour, Australia, next month. And also we'll see them here in this country in December. Right now, here's some closer look at the charts. It's the top 40 breakers. And up 13 places to number 27, it's Suzanne Vega and Marlena on the Wall. Rise and fall, every soldier passing through. But the only soldier now is me.

I'm fighting things I cannot see. David, on a stage with an applauding hand in the bottom corner, which is the nearest we've seen of an actual audience member so far, tells us that our horror off to Australia, and we've got to wait six months to see them he then pivots to the breaker section and first up is marlena on the wall by suzanne vega born in santa monica in 1959 suzanne vega was the daughter of a Swedish-German computer analyst mother and an English dad who divorced soon after she was born. Two years later, after her mum married the Puerto Rican teacher and novelist Eduardo Vega, she was relocated to New York

and eventually studied dance at the High School of Performing Arts, the actual Kids From Fame school. While studying English Lit at Bernard College in the 80s, School of Performing Arts, the actual kids from fame school. While studying English lit at Bernard College in the 80s, she got properly stuck into the music scene of Greenwich Village, putting herself about at assorted folk venues. And in 1984,

she landed a deal with A&M, was linked up with Lenny K, the Nuggets compiler and guitarist for Patti Smith, and her debut LP, Suzanne Vega, was put out in May of 1985. It led to rapturous reviews in the American music press and a live review in the New York Times, which called her the Joni Mitchell of the 80s. This single from her debut LP was put out over here last year,

but only got to number 83 in November of 1985. It's the follow-up of sorts to Small Blue Thing, which got to number 65 in January. It was re-released last month, entered the charts at number 92, then soared 31 places to number 61, and then took three weeks to nimbly scale the ladder to number 40. This week it soared another 13 places to number 27,

and here she is on top of the pops for the first time ever in a minute and a half of video. More non-Englishlish people what's going on well here's a turn up chaps here's a lady singer songwriter strumming away on acoustic guitar in 1986 and in 1986 singer songwriter means hippies and flares and peace man the thing is what's going on here i think when you're this good it doesn't actually matter what else is going on in the culture at the time. God, I fucking love Suzanne Vegas. She's so New York and she's such an intelligent

and emotionally intelligent and exacting songwriter and a really beautiful singer. And I mean, there are songs of hers that I can't think about without welling up, you know. But it's precisely that it is 86 that that necessitates this kind of thing i mean it you can say you know what's a singer-songwriter doing in this period but that's

why you know i don't think suzanne vega is part of any folk revival by the by but you know a folk revival is a constant threat in a way because it always means the same thing it always means a retreat into something small and intimate and personal rather than the big and the universal and the stadium sized it's this desire not to be larger than life but to be as small as life and i think that's what vega is appealing to in a big big way so no matter how big and brash the era there will always be people who come to success precisely because they offer an alternative to that she was a pretty big deal round about this time once yeah oh yeah i mean five months

from now i'm gonna be at a better college doing a drama in english course and suzanne vega was fucking massive amongst all the women on my course oh yeah i mean she was right up there with sylvia plath if suzanne ve Vega had done a song called Fuck Off Ted Hughes, it would have been a fucking anthem at my college. And if you wanted to be around these girls, and you did, you better be prepared to listen to a shitload of Small Blue Thing and Undertow. Well, no, it's just that Vega is one of the first artists that taught me that taste doesn't matter.

And I don't mean that in a critical way of Suzanne Vega. What I mean i mean is when i first met my missus she was a huge suzanne vega head and you know you realize at that point look shared taste isn't what compatibility is about and actually i got into suzanne vega because my wife played her a lot and i just wanted to pick up on one thing sarah said about the new yorkness i think that's hugely important um yes there's a real seinfeld thing to vega's appeal you know every single character in friends listen to suzanne vega before they actually moved to new york yeah and she's definitively a new york artist with all the attendance sort of references that go along with that you know coffee shops and diners and restaurants and bohemianism but you know you know, in interviews, she's a fuck-shite sharper

than these sort of characterisations, if a way. She was smart enough not to let her fame, and it was big fame, derail her. And she's still doing great, is Suzanne Vega. Who's buying this in 86 is, I'd say it's kind of Janice Long listeners a bit and Andy Kershaw listeners, perhaps. But those pop listeners, ultimately, who want a bit more substance, I guess.

Not necessarily disgusted with modern pop, but they're not fully committed to going entirely underground. And actually, when you dig into the songs on those first couple of albums by Susan Baker, she's a remarkable songwriter. This is one of my favourites of hers because I'm just that basic. But I mean, I know that she thinks of it as like sort of juvenilia now. But she's a songwriter who sort of writes about emotional truth and will draw on her own life experience without necessarily literally translating it into her songs. You know, some of them are like, I mean, Tom's Diner, I think, is really about a moment that really happened. But this, she said, is more broadly, it's about like coping with loneliness. that really happened.

But this, she said, is more broadly, it's about like coping with loneliness. And she did actually have a poster of Marlena Dietrich, movie goddess, activist and rampant bisexual badass on her wall. She didn't necessarily have what sounds like a succession of one night stands under it. But it's a pretty good way to illustrate the feeling of being deeply alone in yourself.

This kind of line of anonymous dicks, you know? It's like the loneliness of the long-distance shagger. It's quite a sort of student-y song, in a way. I mean, it's in the best way. I mean, for me, it kind of always sounded like she's sort of communing with this poster, which is smirking down at her, possibly for only doing it with boys,

when there are so many hot girls out there, darling. What are doing she's drawing strength when i'm not from the sex and not from the wall art but from you know the depths of herself and i think it's about being sort of young and ridiculous and not finding fulfillment in the usual young person shit but seeing a way ahead beyond that because not everybody suits being young either like i definitely didn't make the most of it because I was just like, it's like there's a certain awkwardness, like this time in my life doesn't fit and I kind of want to get past it. So just seeing a way ahead to maturity and authenticity

and a bigness of self that you don't get in a skinny student bed with a mattress like a slice of sunblast. No. She's usually appealing to the awkward. When she's touring this year when she plays in manchester she she says to the audience it's really special for her to be in manchester because it's morrissey's town and i i think there is that appeal and and look there's no point

hiding it i sort of quite fancied suzanne vega in 1986 the trouble was what i found when i used to read interviews with suzanne vega is that interviewers, especially male interviewers, they did the usual thing of not failing to mention her appearance. You know, they had to do that. But then they almost try and draw her into kind of criticizing female pop figures. And Vega would do that. You know, when Vegas asked about Madonna, she's quite critical of Madonna and things like that. Which is pretty ironic because she auditioned for Madonna's's part in desperately seeking susan yeah the other year in a way you know going to the to the famed school i mean it was called the famed school it's a very new york thing and those things

are going to be hugely appealing yeah the new yorkness is hugely important and i think you know the tom steiner is the actual you know it refers to the exact restaurant that they use in seinfeld so that's why i'll make that connection in my mind right to be fair to vega i think she was like everyone else is going to start getting sort of pigeonholed start getting put into a certain category she was always a little bit too smart for that i think and that's why she kept her sanity through this huge success because i mean this the album this is from it goes platinum you know it sells a fucking lot of records yeah there's a lot of people in the uk sipping mugs of gold blend wishing that they were flicking through the village voice in a brownstone him out the halifax advert showing off his new cash point card he's probably got this on his cd player

and he's converted where else when he's got the ladies around yeah but i mean she's great also at stepping into characters and kind of not not making it a sort of whiny thing in any way she's observant and i think she's just a good writer um she knows she knows how to observe she also knows how to let other people speak in her songs and and consequently you know these things stick around a bit longer than it just being hey look if you don't like what's going on in modern pop this is different um that it sustains a bit longer than that it's not just a reaction to what's going on there's something unique about it in itself yeah it's just she's just so fucking beguiling i can hardly stand it

so the video a and m have dragged her into the 80s by running a bit of synthiness through the song and uh dropping another regulation 80s big jacket on her because this is the time when all pop stars had to look like a five-year-old who's just broken into the dad's wardrobe the shoulder pads had got out of control at this point oh god yeah and that's juxtaposed with her doing as much of a sex as she wants to, which involves wearing a cocktail dress and adjusting her stockings and applying her lip hair. And there's an extra in Bonfire of the Vanities trying it on with her. She is being very much positioned as the anti-Madonna here, isn't she?

Yeah, there is a bit of that. She looks great. The trouble is with this video, and it's not actually a problem with this video, it's the problem with its context in this episode of top of the pops is i was watching it and i was just thinking when's gary davis going to interrupt when's gary davis going to interrupt how long is this going to last you know never mind that here's my shopping list for tomorrow and that sense of rushness that they've actually got too much to actually fit into half an hour so

it's going to be a bit breakneck it yeah it just makes it not for a relaxing or even exciting experience in a sense because you just think this is going to get spoiled much as a daytime dj is going to talk over the best bit of a record something's going to happen here that's going to annoy me yeah but she's put over far better in this video than she would be on that neon step. Yeah, I'm not entirely sure that would have worked at all. No. Especially if the lights were in their full pelt kind of swirling around thing. Yeah. And what would the crowd do?

I mean... Well, we don't see them anyway, so who cares? She would definitely have looked out of place and it would have felt uncomfortable, even though she's got that very above it cool that, you know, can cope with anything. Yeah, and crucially i i don't think vega ever came across really as as perhaps what andy kershaw or somebody might have said about her oh and i mean you mentioned actually the word sarah authentic there is an authenticity to vega but she's also i'm not saying authentic about inauthenticity but there's mystery there as well

it's it's not just you know here's my here's my soul here's everything uncovered there's something playful and poetic about what she does that keeps her interesting i think rather than just being you know here's something i forged in the smithy of my soul it's a bit more thoughtful and playful than that yeah so yeah you know a time in the chart was fleeting but you could argue that she kicked the door back open for the likes of tracy chapman and katie lang and tori amos and and all that oh undoubtedly because each one of them will be compared to her almost immediately yeah i mean it's the laziness as well i mean what it's kind of what you said you know she's the 80s joni mitchell she's not she's absolutely not really no no one can be the joni mitchell of the 80s was joni mitchell well if there was a joni mitchell

of the 80s it was probably actually prince but um you know yes this is the laziness of uh it's what we were talking about earlier in that you know in in that singles review page lump all the female singers together um under that title but um yeah i don't like that either however i i have to weakly defend it in the sense of like the fewer people there are to compare than the fewer people there are to compare you know so it's kind of it's the sin was committed like earlier before it reaches that that level but also it's about stature isn't it it's not necessarily comparing musically but once you get a bit of perspective on it and you go okay this person is is up there with you know the greats and i think

it's very at that point it's fair enough to talk about her in in you know the context of joni mitchell oh and it did the job i mean it got assigned so yeah yeah so how's this use so the following week marlena on the wall jumped six places to number 21 its highest position the follow-up left Left of Center, which was part of the soundtrack of Pretty in Pink and featured Joe Jackson on piano, got to number 32 in July, and she rounded off the year with Gypsie

only getting to number 77 in November. She roared back, sort of, in June of 1986 when Luca spent two non-consecutive weeks at number 23 and then spent the rest of the 80s as a bit player in the lower reaches of the top 100. But her biggest hit was DNA's remix of Tom's Diner, her 1987 single which got to number 58 in July of that year and it spent three weeks at number two in August of 1990. Held off number one by the more hardcore Turkle Power by Partners in Crime and the UK underground banger

Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini by Bomb Ballerina. Oh, God. 1990, what were you like? Yeah, cheers for reminding us all of that. Tom Steiner Day is November the 18th, 1981. That's when it happened. That's when that devastating resonant moment

that has been immortalised in song actually happened. So it's like it was a good day by Ice Cube. Someone worked out what day that was, when the Lakers beat the Supersonics. Exactly. In so many ways, it's exactly like that. Good old Suzanne Vega. She had a nice cup of coffee and she didn't have to use her AK.

LAUGHTER This is the highest new entry on the chart this week, the anti-drug song, which is called Just Say No, at number 26, the cast of Grange Hill. Just say no. Just say no. No, just say no. Just say no, no, just say no. Sometimes you act like a great big star. You can be a hero, be who you are. Say no, no, just say no.

Formed in Lower Mesopotamia in 3400 BC, opium began its career as a forage medicine for assorted ailments, which caught on throughout Asia and the Far East via imports from its label, the East India Company. In 1898, during a tour of Germany, morphine, the front alkaloid of the group, teamed up with a biopharmaceutical company in elberfeld to form an offshoot called heroin after starting his career as an over-the-counter morphine substitute cough remedy which became very popular across germany heroin across the atlantic and

started to collaborate with jazz musicians such as billy olad Charles and Charlie Parker. By the 60s, Heroin started to take on rock influencers, working with Eric Clapton, John Lennon, Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin before falling out of favour in the mid-70s. In 1977, however, Heroin supported Johnny Thunders and the heartbreakers on their tour of the uk which introduced it to a string of punk acts and underwent a revival which was boosted by a deluge of cheap imports from iran and afghanistan that flooded the british market by early 1984 heroin by now in its imperial phase had had become so popular throughout the UK, there had been an estimated increase of addicts numbering 40% year on year.

With a Guardian report of the day quoting a government expert who said, LSD was a drug of the 60s. It was supposed to expand the mind to take in new horizons. Heroin is the drug of the 80s. It blocks out the pain and the hopelessness of unemployment and the bleakness of the future. Meanwhile, over in stateside USA, Nancy Reagan, the first lady who was looking for something to do when she wasn't telling a senile knob-end of her husband where to go and on what date according to what her personal astrologer said and allegedly giving Frank Sinatra a scene to when he was out doing those things, visited a school in Oakland where she was asked by one of the kids about what to do if someone offered them the drugs.

Taking her cue from an advertising slogan that was floating around at the time, she just said, just say no. While she was spearheading the anti-drug message over there throughout 1985, appearing on episodes of Different Strokes, Punky Brewster and Flintstone Babies, as well as the music video Stop the Madness, which featured New Edition, LaToya Jackson, David Hasselhoff, Herb Alpert, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Casey Kasem, Boogaloo Shrimp and Stacey Keach, whose appearance was edited out at the last minute when he was busted for coke, the BBC decided to pitch in. And in July of 1985 broadcast Drug Watch, a two-hour,

July of 1985 broadcast Drug Watch, a two-hour, ten-minute melange of crime watch and that's life, which combined Nick Ross telling us what drugs were, Esther Ranson having assorted interviews with parents of drug addicts, a panel of politicians and medical experts, and assorted celebrities. In one piece on Drug Watch, documenting how the Americans were dealing with the drug problem over there, they aired a clip of a music video, which was written by Al Gore Goner, who played guitar on Leader of the Pack, Brown Eyed Girl, The Sound of Silence, Walk Like a Man and Chapel of Love, and George McMahon, who was working at the time with Denise Williams. The video was being aired non-stop on MTV and was entitled Just Say No. As part of the BBC's campaign against drug abuse, they enlisted the services of Grange Hill,

which was formed in Northam, North London in 1978, and had immediately got into trouble with the BBC, parents, teachers and politicians for encouraging the youth to die in swimming pool accidents, put grasshoppers in Roland's sandwich and say flipping heck, but was rightly lapped up by the youth for depicting real kids' issues. Consequently, on January 6th of this year, the ninth series of Grain Chill began with Zamo Maguire, played by Lee MacDonald, showing off his new motorbike and attempting to rig the

weight of Mr. Kennedy's moustache in order to win six quid. Then he went on to sell his bike and started to ponce money off everyone, including Roland Browning, who now worked part-time in an amusement arcade where Zamo had been knocking about with assorted wrong-uns. And on February the 21st, the mystery was resolved when Roland found Zamo on the floor with a bit of foil in his hand, having chased the dragon

and receiving a smack on the nose. Just over a fortnight ago, directly after the final episode of the current series of Grange Hill, where Zamo's been busted after being found with a wrap of smack secreted in his pocket calculator, Drug Watch aligned with Newsround and Grange Hill in a triforce of televisual drug prevention in the programme It's Not Just Zamo, which culminated with the world premiere of a cover of Just Say No, performed by the cast of

the TV show, which was rushed out on BBC Records, with all proceeds going to the Standing Committee of Drug Abuse, otherwise known as SCODA. It came out last week and has immediately launched itself into the chart like a sausage on a fork, becoming this week's highest new entry at number 26. And here is a clip of the video. And oh my God, Pop Craze youngsters, I hope you've had a big tea because we've got a long day ahead of us

talking about this one. Fucking hell. Indeed. A lot to talk about here. So, heroin. Don't know what the fuss is all about. I can handle it. Just got a touch of the flu today.

So yeah, let's place ourselves back in 1986. I'm 17, Neil's 12, Sarah's 7 or 8. What did you know about drugs at the time? Well, I mean, like you say, I was young, 12 going on 13. I hadn't really come across drugs. I'd had friends who'd done drugs. At that age? Yeah, I mean, not sort of serious drugs.

And they're not silly drugs like paracetamol and a can of coke either um you know glue butane that sort of stuff um yeah but you know um but in contrast to the way i became as an adult i was kind of cautious about drugs before getting to not because i hasten to add of things like just say no but because of a cautionary experience that taught me that you know if i got out of my face i'd get caught just like i did with everything right i got um arrested by the british transport police um no yes oh my god well i was about 13 14 and um yeah and and i thought it was a bright idea to drink an entire bottle of gin at Memorial Park in Coventry.

Right. And then went, for some reason, to the cafe at the station and woke up in a pile of vomit. The British Transport Police, not proper coppers, but British Transport Police, they took me upstairs at the station and put me in a cell and found me mum. And so the sight of that cell door swinging open and my mum stood there silhouetted against the the harsh light of commentary station that kind of stuck with me and i mean she didn't actually bollock me i think she realized the shame was enough but um yeah that kind of put me off drugs a little bit so soap bar and red lab and speed and acid and mushrooms they really only started becoming part of my life aged about 16.

And at this point, when Just Say No comes out, beyond those few friends who did kind of glue and gas and stuff, I wasn't really exposed to drugs. But I do actually blame this record and the moral panic at the time and the inevitable way that getting back into 60s music makes you ever so curious about drugs. You know, what's this hero heroin this guy's singing about? Sounds Moorish. I blame all of that for my subsequent drug use. But this did not help this record because it made straight edginess so uncool. So not loads of drugs knocking about my life at the time. But I blame this record for sending me that way.

Sarah? I blame this record for sending me that way. Sarah? Well, I mean, all the cool kids at my little West Yorkshire C of E village school were skagged up to the eyeballs at this time. We used to call them right bloody pricks, but as a compliment, one time, right, they raided the Brickhouse and Rastrick Brass Band practice room and found a kilo of primo Afghani brown with a street value of two grand stuffed into the euphonium

of course we were too young so we just sniffed the pritt sticks and dreamed all that brasso line about those sarah well there was that that was like the gateway drug for everyone but um yeah i don't know i was no i was entirely innocent at the time i was like all through school really like i don't remember but i wasn't like one of the cool kids or even one of the uncool cool kids you know like people talk about oh yeah i was an outsider at school yeah so you were cool then actually i was neither of these so um i had no idea um i don't remember either i was i'm drawing a complete blank as to what like we got told about it or what we got taught about it. There must have been something. Oh, God, there was. I just don't remember at all.

I recall this period being, you know, there's a growing barrage of propaganda about drugs in this period, of which this was the culmination, really, this record. I'm 17 at the time, and I've got to admit, I knew and had experienced precisely fuck all. Like you, Neil, it was all glue round our way. But glue was on its way out by 1986. It's weird, isn't it?

Because when I think about walking around in the early 80s, the sight of glue bags was as common as kind of those gas canisters are now. But yeah, you're right. It was on its way out. When I was 12, I had one sniff of me grandpa's tin of Bostick and spent the rest of the night in an absolute state thinking well am i gonna die now yeah i'd left comprehensive school in 1984 and the only bit of drug education we ever got was when mr gallagher our science teacher spent an

entire lesson telling us what happened to our bodies when we sniffed glue and it was proper shit up and it was fucking brilliant and it's it's one of the two lessons that stuck with me throughout all these years so good on you mr gallagher but that was it at our school the teachers might as well have said you know don't poke a fucking line in the face with a stick on your way home tonight even now in 1986 drugs are seen as something that only posh shows and hippies did who can afford them around that way it was just say what just say air i mean round about this time the nearest i got to drugs was going to rock city or the garage and seeing a group of lads in leather

jackets who look like they could be the support band uh passing a needle about at the bar and pretending to inject themselves but looking back now it's obvious that it was all a cod and they were showing off because they were injecting it through the sleeves of their leather jackets but it was like i was proper terrified just got to the other end of the club yeah there just weren't a thing around my way i think this was probably um i didn't i was like too young to watch grange hill um but this was probably my first inkling that drugs were even a thing in the world you know and it was mysterious and not in an alluring way but in a sort of bemusing way and i kind of got the message on some level because it's

you know as i'm sure we'll get into it's so incredibly simplistic i mean at school yeah i do remember a lot of people wanting to take sociology specifically so they could do stuff on youth culture because that's where all the drug information was and you were allowed to get the books that told you about acid and mushrooms and all that kind of stuff but yeah it was definitely seen as something that people did in the past yeah yeah or just that people did elsewhere in gritty cop dramas and stuff like that yes it was never kind of yet on the street or in front of you no which makes the moral panic sort of like really quite odd um at this time and counterproductive obviously

yeah unlike you i did get some sort of drug education at school right we got the propaganda from the government basically that the before this campaign of drug watch there is that one-off never broadcast minder episode yes a little bit of give and take which is filmed and it's sent out it's half an hour long and it's actually the last time cole and waterman play those characters because oh really yeah the series had actually ended by that point but they both decided to kind of do this because it's an important message and this this little mini episode of minder is filmed and it's sent out to schools by you know norman fowler at the dsl and i i recall it after that's disseminated to schools i seem to recall watching this far more than I recall.

Lenny Henry also had a little video that he sent out to school called Chasing the Bandwagon, which I don't think I've watched it. But a little bit of give and take, the Minder episode. I didn't like Minder, so I think I turned off around about, not turned off, but mentally turned off and started looking out the window about 10 minutes in. If it had been Gideon says no to drugs you you'd be a bit more interesting wouldn't you different kind of fish or ludwig we've got to start with that episode of drug watch because

we've seen it haven't we i mean fucking out i mean drug watch today sounds like belodi observing some spices having a fight in a shopping precinct in mansfield. But, fucking hell, it's a remarkable document of the age, isn't it? Yeah. It is. I mean, it's simultaneously sort of gogglingly odd because of the celebs involved. Oh, yes. But, my God, it's deeply bleak as well.

It starts with Nick Ross standing next to a groaning table of drugs to show your man what she should be looking for in your pants drawer when you're out. Including a line of cocaine, apparently costs 15 pounds uh next to some red and white striped straws like a dismembered humfrey and a chunk of ash that you could club an elephant to death with it's a fucking 999 bar i was just waiting for him to sneeze you know just just fluff it everywhere it does look like sean rider's buffet table doesn't it yeah yeah i love how he he points out he goes um this is marijuana the the leaves it's like mate that is dill you and the bbc have

all been had but then we get some fucking horrific interviews with parents who have lost their kids to drugs or are losing their kids to drugs or are working out how to kill them if they ever come back in the house looking for something to nick to get drugs with i mean that's the that's life segment of it and that's fucking horrible oh god yeah when it steps outside of the studio and actually talks to people affected by the issue fucking hell it's it's, yeah. This is the era of threads, don't forget. Yes. It's just as depressing. It's that colour palette, isn't it?

That sort of dingy, sort of depressing look that these things have, and it's just, you know. And then the sort of weirdly, like Esther Anson is such a strange presence. It's not that she's upbeat, but she's got this sort of light twittering voice. It's like, ah! It was just really, really jingling my nerves yeah what a shame cyril fletcher wasn't there either or doc cox talking about some jobs were drug dealer couldn't watch

all of it i have to be honest it was so so unhappy it was awful um there was a woman who's talking about um her son who died yeah she's in the studio and esther anson goes and like there's an audience there and there's some guy who wants the mic and and the woman is like well i blame myself for my son's death and esther takes the mic over to some random who goes yeah i blame you too yeah and no one says same wasn't it no one says anything thereane, wasn't it? No one says anything. There's no murmuring, there's no anything. It's so eerie. It's like ambient Jeremy Kyle. And isn't David Mellor really small?

You see him on this panel of politicians and he's fucking tiny. Well, that's probably not his fault unless, you know, maybe his mum did loads of drugs and that was her fault. How did a Tony DeSantia get his fucking Chelsea shirt on? Would have been a kid's size, I would have thought. have thought yeah mind you you would want it just over your head if you were being shagged by david meller well yeah i mean look the thing is nick ross is a deeply antagonizing presence i find um him lecturing you you just don't want it it's simultaneously designed to do its job of saying the bbc are

sort of like anti-drugs and it keeps on saying as well just in case you were wondering yeah we're going to give you the truth we're going to give you a balanced thing but it doesn't emerge like that it emerges as being lectured by a load of grown-ups yes and you know consequently it doesn't really work the celebs on it oh well the end bit is just fucking remarkable I mean they announce a special guest near the end to sign a wall with just say no plastered across it and you think well this is obviously going to be Nancy Reagan because

she would have pitched up on fucking Murrumbus Stansiger if she could have banged on to him about drugs but no his lady fucking die it is who signs the wall and then says nothing of worth to esther but but still fucking out i know it's a bit of a coup that yeah um and it provides a sort of a kind of counterpoint to who we then see well yes around this yeah it's essentially a rounding

up of the bbc bar isn't it it is basically it's incredible yeah i mean diana kind of gets a pass from me forever because of what she did to break down the stigma of aids you know yes it is quite surreal to see her just kind of wander onto the set well of course i thought this was a a tremendously important subject and i just had to come and put my name to it yes um she's a fucking angel well there is this reverence, isn't there, from everyone? Yes. She has got star quality in terms of the kind of little hushed reverent silence that happens. I understand why she would do it.

I understand why they'd want to get her, you know. Like, it is this whole thing, much as it is relevant to most people. I think you can feel the idea behind it is that they just want to hammer down on this to put the fear of god into the kids before they even start to really think about what drugs even might be at all it is quite bbc apocalypse isn't it like she does draw on the fact that she's a mother and she's worried about her kids taking drugs yeah we know how they turned out and i don't think drugs was what she needed to worry about yeah so yeah but the people like spotting the because there's just there's a crowd just milling about people just never ends you have

to watch it about five or six times to get everyone after diana has signed the big drug watch wall everyone else just gets a sharpie and adds their signature i've got a list yeah me too with my chart music head on the first person I spotted, of course, was Simon Bates. He's accompanied by Noel Edmonds, John Peel, Terry Wogan, Susie Quatro, with a proper

Mam came back from Greenham Common and Dad started sleeping in the spare bedroom haircut. Des Lynham, Lenny Enre, Sebastian Coe. He's so oily. hate sebastian ko he's an oily man yeah he does look proper captain of the cricket team david watts style doesn't he there yeah adamant yeah chatting to christopher ryan mike the cool person i'm so confused now but he's there to say i don't want to say anything negative but

no rolf harris who of course does a massive role for rue he does hog quite a large bit surely a smackaroo would have had more impact like a horrifying human marsupial hybrid lying in a pool of its own vomit with a needle sticking out of its weird little arm. We also have Alison Moyet, Mick Tolbert, Colleen Nolan, Sarah Green,

Floella Benjamin out of her dustbin, Wendy Craig, Ernie Wise, Barbara Dixon, Sandra Dickinson anna carteret joanna lumley pete townsend i think emlyn hughes oh bob munkhouse and of course jingle nonce obe Jingle Nance OBE. And... Nigel Havers, did you mention him? No. Oh, he's there.

But there's also signatures as well from people who obviously were passing through the BBC and wanted to register their displeasure with drugs. They include Ian Durer, Sue Cook, Leslie Crowther, Sting, Paul Weller, Shelley

and Mike from Bucks Fizz, Spike Milligan, Barry Cryer, Wendy Richard, Rue Lelenska, John Craven, Samantha Fox, and Jonathan King. Fucking

hell. Imagine if I was at home in a fucking bedsit taking smack. If I'd known that Barry Cryer was against it. I mean, God love Barry Cryer, but fucking hell. Yeah, it's an odd mix, isn't it? It's an extremely odd mix. And the thing is, all of these celebs, they're stood around because once they've signed the wall, there's not a lot for them to do. There's no refreshments. Like, let them at the buffet table that we saw earlier yes i think

that's what brought half of them there you know right are they giving out party bags afterwards the thing is to be totally fair most of these people and uh will be on the level and won't have done drugs they'll have done worse things than much worse things but you know but a lot of them won't have done but i Ian Jury, eh, you know, I know that Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll is not meant to be taken literally, but he liked to spliff as I understand it. He was, you know,

he was a pothead, you know. See my dealer, he's called Simon. Yeah, it was kind of disappointing seeing his name on there actually, yeah. Yeah, but the thing was, you could say, oh well, I'm just talking about heroin here. Yeah, really specifically. No-one's going to say, well, you know, I do heroin.

It's fucking me. What's the problem? It's interesting as well to kind of see the pre-ecstasy landscape of drugs as well, because obviously ecstasy is on its way over in Mark Armand at this point. So, you know, this is going to hit soon. There was a really good moment, by the way, in that it's not just Zamo Newsround special,

where John Craven, I don't know whether it was scripted or not, but he adds to all these warnings, you know, that you shouldn't do it and it's dangerous, you don't know what you're getting and all this sort of stuff. But he flips back into an almost sort of Victorian thing. He goes, it will bring disgrace upon you. These messages are destined to fail. Because no matter how they tart it up and hide it as kind of,

we're going to take an even-handed look at these things, it is just being hectored by grown-ups. It's all very Catholic, I think. There's this drilling down to the sense of shame that they feel is what is going to ultimately motivate people. Shame and terror. Not even about the criminal aspect, but like the moral notion of like your sinful desires and the pollution of the body. You know, it's like only the corrupt would soil their person with these, you know, vile substances. It's like really there's some really like seriously grim so there

we go there there's celebrities sorting out the problems of the world once again but now the big guns have been dragged out grange hill chaps did you partake i did i i loved grange hill oh yeah early grange hill was great not because it was sort of what it set out to be and what it got complaints about i mean i went to school with people who were banned from watching Grange Hill by their parents. Fucking hell. But it really wasn't this gritty portrayal of real school life, but it felt like school. Yes. By which I mean the kind of laughs that you have to grab at school to fend off the misery.

And the corridors and the staircases and and the beating zones and everything else it did capture that kind of on the edge feel of school where you've got these preposterous rules and this mix of teachers the bastards and the and the soft touches in the what a cynic you are mystical corner speaking as a teacher but yeah well which one are you um definitely a soft touch but it did capture all of that in the in the in the tucker benny pogo years of seasons one to eight it captured all of that but of course by now um in 86 a lot of the founding characters are gone the whole tucker doily dynamic has been replaced by the gonch uh danny kendall dynamic and it's got a bit preachy with asamo is this central christ-like figure

this kind of druggy redemption where we find grain jill here it always freaked me out at this point it's kind of shedding its past but susan tully still seems to hang around at school um yes looking like robert smith you know running up against bridget she turned up dressed up like boy george didn't she in that one episode but she just keeps saying to bridget the midget you know i don't go here now i could i can wear what i want but but fundamentally yeah i'm in the extenders now fuck you you. But fundamentally, at this point, the old guard have gone. And my watching of Grange Hill is going to taper off from here on in, really. Yeah, I find that the older you get, as you progress through the comprehensive system,

the less of a hold Grange Hill has on you because you've seen that it's a sham. Yeah, yeah, yeah, completely. And what we see in series eight and nine, which straddle 85 and 86, I mean, we've got a new script editor, Anthony Minghella, who'd later make the English patient. He brings more comedy in via Gonch and Hollow and another whole set of characters

who we see here. The first real change of the guard since season 5 in 83 when Zamo and Faye Lucas, who takes lead vocal on the track, by the way, and Roland, et cetera, were introduced. So we do have all these new characters in Grange Hill at the moment. Sarah, did you partake or were you banned?

I dabbled, I guess. I never really got into it. I suppose I was too young at this time and then I sort of missed it. I would sort of watch it out of one eye occasionally. I didn't have the best time at school and so I don't really want to be reminded of it when I was not at school, I suppose. But it definitely gives you that atmosphere of like, it's a bit, you know, the lawless zones of the stairwells and things. When it first started, I was still at junior school.

And it was around about that time where it was like, oh, you're going to big school soon. Kids shove your head down the toilet every day and people were making it sound really grim and you look at grange hill and go oh actually it's not that bad but when you do get to school it's like oh god school shit i got swung around by my ponytail once by another girl and that was that was so i mean you you wouldn't if you saw that on grange hill you go nah it can't be but yeah that was uh i was even as I was going around in a circle and passing out I was I was impressed so you gotta be strong yeah I mean ultimately Grange Hill for the first kind of few years it's like um it's like scum for kids

you know it's all about fear and and yeah which is a big component of school but yeah it was slightly distressed in those early serials yeah yeah i mean it's it's it's phil redmond sir phil redmond if you please who is you know an important writer who gave us the obviously the first on-screen pre-watershed lesbian kiss in brookside and also crashed a fucking plane into emma dale so like you know that was him so he definitely had a yen for disaster in that way it was a bit of an imitation edmunds because in the grain chill annuals he always banged on about his helicopter and it's like oh yeah i have to go you know i work in liverpool and so when i have to go for film for grain i'll get into my helicopter my helicopter's brilliant i mean

obviously he's just saying, well, you know, loads of lads are reading this, what are they interested in? Oh, yeah, helicopters. I'll talk about that all the time. But, yeah, he used to fucking bang on about his helicopter. All right, mate, we know you've got an helicopter. Yeah, yeah. I think he's loosening his grip, if you like, on Granger at this point.

I think his last kind of concrete act here is putting Ziggy in the Scouse character. Yeah. Always seemed like a really unlikely pupil at Grange Hill. It prepares us for the moving of the whole fucking school

to Liverpool. Oh, God, yeah. At the end. Which is mental. That's on a par with Bobby in Dallas. Yeah. Coming to

and realising it was all a dream. Oh, we're actually all in Liverpool now, are we? Okay. So, yeah, I mean, this is a period. It's in transition.

Loads of new characters. Vince Savage, this kind of gormless troglodyte. Robbie Wright, Trevor Cleaver. Mr Bronson makes his first appearance in this series. God, like Mr Bronson. Yeah, and you've got sort of a new set of girls in the grain show. Callie Donington and her mate Ronnie Birtles and Laura Reagan.

They're the ones, by the way, who do the don't listen to anyone else bit in the song. And Jones, he's kind of got a really big bouffant haircut. And Jones, yes. Yeah, he's undoubtedly a reflection of George Michael, I think. Yeah, oh, he's definitely there as the heartthrob of Grange Hill. Yeah, and he delivers, of course. The new stew pot. Yeah, and he delivers, of course. The new stew pot. Yeah.

And he delivers the line, all you've got to do is be yourself in the song. Oh, he's so serious about it. Let's talk about the video then, because it starts with Zamo in an extremely old school gym while some youth attempts to sell the drugs to a very young John Alford. So, you know know an intervention's made

and then immediately we whip to the past because we see tucker jenkins the fucking don of grange hill djing a youth club disco which danny kendall's being dragged to with shots of youths walking up corridors with their arms around each other trying to make it feel like the breakfast club and then faye lucas who appears to have come as someone's nan in a pink cardigan starts emoting at the mic in a studio with kendall emelda davis who was the gripperette of the current series and of course roland and his helpful nemesis janet yeah but the thing is they're all getting along right yes and i recall one of the things i immediately didn't like about this video at the time is that all the dynamics of the actual show

just kind of esconded completely in the video everyone's friends and everyone joins in we're seeing the cast not the characters yeah i know but i it's the way that they pick up danny kendall on the stairs and yeah part of the fun i hated danny kendall he was one of the nastiest most hateful characters i thought he was brilliant character it was surprising that it was uh zamo who got into smack and not danny yeah yeah i know what you mean that's partly why this is such a profoundly i think there are many reasons why this is a profoundly uncomfortable watch but it's partly because even not having the deep knowledge of grange hill it's like are they in character or are they out of character it's like this sort of no man's land between the two and they don't know i mean they're actors you know they i think they're

kind of going i'm not really sure what we're supposed to be doing here and they're doing their best exactly and because zamo's like that you know he's just gone through this drug ordeal he's still going through it yeah i mean him warding off this kid at the beginning yeah and telling him to just say no with real earnestness the kid kind of looks guilty in a sense whereas you know any kid having zamo lecturing them would you say fuck off zamo hypocrite he does sell it though to be fair just say no like he really gives it and and everyone else that you know just say no is repeated i didn't count but i don't know 30 times in the following three minutes and no one else looks like they mean it i mean the thing is it does look like it's in a school right it's got that typical grange hill

staircase yeah which always reminds me you know you know expulsion legends at school where you'd hear that a kid had been expelled and you didn't know why and then you found out there was a kid called billy woodhead in my school i went i remember going to his house once and he had a massive knife collection it was a bit of a badden um but i remember hearing a legend because he just suddenly disappeared from school and everyone was wondering where he was and why he got kicked out and it turned out he chucked our headmaster who was called taff he chucked him down the stairs it It was a legend. And those stairs were very, very much like the ones that we see here. So, yeah, no, but Sarah's completely correct.

It doesn't quite know. Yes, it's the cast of Grange Hill. Yes, I know we've been told that. But it's kind of uncomfortably on the edge. Yeah. So, yeah, you know, Danny, Danny Kendall, he would be dealing. He'd be chopping out Roland's first line of code. It annoyed me because it kind of perpetuated that school disco fiction that everyone gets along on

the last day of school that's bollocks isn't it it's bollocks although the school disco parts of the video are fairly realistic i mean i don't recall the light show at our school disco being quite so spectacular it was more like my sister's game of disco lights at my school. But what happens next? The gym bits. We cut back to the youth club with Annette Fuhrman, I think. Is it Annette Fuhrman?

Because she left at the end of the last series. I think it is, though. Right? Well, that makes no sense. And Ant Jones, who's clearly being pitched as a heartthrob of the programme. When he sings sings all you got to do is be yourself it's the most self-conscious bit of singing since Morrissey was accidentally booked onto Soul Train he's just yeah the sort of gently half closed eyes and the

sort of the gentle tipping of the head to and fro like he's really really getting into it and into the idea he's lining himself up for that career isn? If I'd have been a few years younger and watching Greg, I would have fucking hated him. Oh, yeah. But obviously being popular with girls. It was direct George Michael influence, I think, on his entire look and his presence in that show. And then they show us all the fun things that we could be doing

instead of taking drugs, including dancing in leotards if you're a girl or gawping at girls dancing in leotards if you're a boy or shaking your ass in front of a big mirror or being in a gym the musk of the kids from fame still lingers over the music scene in 1986 doesn't it i think that's really directly taken from the american version as well like the the whole kind of aesthetic and the whole like kids from fame which obviously the american version does better this is like i mean we've got better gyms aren't there for a kickoff well yeah but there's there's like the the the little you know advert version from the states and they're all out in the street like in in fame and it's much more diverse you

know like basically everything about the uk version is sort of it's a really close analog but about 70 percent whiter setting up like physical exercise and expression as like the antidote really but that's what you do instead of drugs yeah we know that you're like you've got an urge to do something why don't you do aerobics in the disco and there is like a little dance routine within the school disco which like you said is more realistic apart from that because everyone's just like shuffling about yeah in that way that you do before you understand how to move your limbs at all you know the pinnacle of the discomfort of this video i think is is seated within the little hand gesture which would have got you beaten to

some sort of jelly if you ever used it yourself to just say no. And you can see them kind of... Well, I'm glad you brought that up, Sarah, because, you know, up until this morning, I would have just sat there and sneered at you, more or less, and said, oh, well, obviously, Sarah, they're doing sign language. Oh, oh. You know, because deaf kids need to be warned about drugs as well.

I mean, they do this series of hand gestures where they ball their fists up and cross them over really quickly before sweeping the right hand away and yeah for nearly 35 years i've assumed that they're doing sign language in order to get the hearing impaired youth up to speed but i checked on the internet to see how accurate it was because i'm that thorough and it's all bollocks it it's all bollocks according to the british sign language diction rare okay we can all do this at home now all right if you want to say no to a drug dealer but can't be bothered to talk to them here's how you go about it right so just is bringing up the left hand in a pincer movement like you were picking a pear from a tree okay all right say is pointing to your chin with your left index finger

and then throwing it out to the person you're talking to. And no is shaking your head and bringing the flat of your palms out, like Tommy Cooper, right? So we can safely say that the cast of Grange Hill are not doing that at all, are they? No, they're not, are they? That would have been much better.

Because I'm extra thorough, I thought, oh, hang on a minute, this is an American song and they're ripping off an American video. So I went over and checked the American Sign Language Dictionary because they have a different way of going about with sign language because they're all cunts who think the summer. Which means that if you're British and deaf and you bump into a deaf American person, you can't talk to each other.

No. That's fucking mental. Such a silly country. But anyway, so I checked their sign language dictionary and it's even less like what we use a Grangell are doing. So that raises the question, why? Why are they doing that? And who told them to do that?

Yeah. Yeah. Somebody's devised that yeah the shittest illegal paper rock scissors move ever somebody paper scissors rock no like you can see that they're all like giggling in this quite a way because it was either that or cringe themselves literally inside out because they all get it wrong some of them them do it with the left hand. Some of it do it with the right hand. Some of them, you can see them bashing their fists together

and laughing about it. So, yeah, it's fucking stupid. So, if there are any pop-crazy youngsters out there who are conversant in sign language, I'm begging you, please look at the video, available on the video playlist and tell us what they're actually signing if anything because for all i know someone on the film crew could have got them to sign hail lord satan heroine is skilled just for the laugh

very strange oh my god that's like four weddings where she learned sign language so she can flirt with the deaf guy. And it's like, would you like to dance? That would be mice. It doesn't help that the gym bits, I mean, they happen over perhaps one of the most sort of objectionable 80s sax solos. This side of Kelly Loggins' The Danger Zone, really. And I think Sarah's right. Undoubtedly, this is a nod back to kids from fame a little bit yes because it's kids in their pants pretty much in a gym it can't help coming across like the opening of that thermal cock sex ed video which i still can't erase from my mind but i mean crucially

you know if you're a young adult who this video is presumably trying to reach this model of health and efficiency provided by the cast it's vile and unsexy and unexciting and nothing you really want to get involved in and then because it's the mid-80s we get the sole british contribution to the song some rap performed by a mulky christa and i've said that wrong and i do apologize to him who played kevin balan mainly because he's the one black male yeah in great show is this season's uh benny isn't it yeah so what was it made you do it you had no need first a taste then a craving then it turned to greed calling me your main man you didn't

really understand after all you did to me expecting me to shake your hand no here we go i love how it's that sort of proto john barnes flow you know catch me if you can because i'm the heroine man three lines on my desk i know we can't go wrong get around here for some crack. That bridge, the... It's been in my head for weeks. My brain just keeps defaulting to it. I'll be there just trying to, like, you know, make a cup of tea. I have to hand it to them. It's not a very good song, but that is a very catchy hook.

You're right, Sarah. It is catchy. And yeah, we end back at the youth club with the girls doing some proper kids from faming with a stop motion jump and kick. They missed a trick in this video because what they should have put in to really drive the message home is Mr. Bronson dressed up as a hippie

in a fucking Jethro Tull t-shirt with a spliff on, giving the peace sign and playing a guitar solo through it yeah that would have been me how could they have done this better like because it seems neither one thing nor another it's kind of not in universe it's not in the real world either um like how could they i mean they would have had to either go comedy like go full on kind of slapstick silliness or go much darker about drugs well yeah so they couldn't ever have done that so but this is the thing i feel like this is a compromise born

of just the sheer awkwardness of like well how do you fit this into that and how does this go with it and you just kind of it seems like it should be logical but once you start and i've done so many like little um kind of copywriting jobs like this where they go we want this idea in there but you want it through this prism and there's and it's like ah no that isn't and we want it to go viral as well oh god yeah oh I used to fucking hate that oh yeah we want to do this thing but we really want it to go viral can you make a viral video and so I think well yeah okay then get your managing director to stand outside a school with no trousers or pants on, doing Hitler salutes, and then eating his own shit out of an ice cream tub. That'll go viral.

That'll do it. It won't cost you much either, apart from bail. What's really weird as well, you know, in researching this for CMP, I did the thing immediately, Google the lyrics. Yes. And I couldn't find any i mean the shame is so deep around this yes that you know it can't even be rehabilitated in any way it also needs saying that the actual central lyrical conceit here just say no right how rude yeah just say no thank you no thank you you know very real yeah and the idea that all you gotta do

is be yourself so a 14 year old whose fucking hormones are going berserk the last thing they can do is be themselves they're turning into this fucking beast with the hair where there wasn't before well i mean what if being yourself is taking shit loads of drugs i mean or conversely you know what if being yourself is living in a tiny shit old town with no friends and nothing to do? You know, it's a weird message, be yourself for kids,

because it reminds you as a kid, as Sarah hinted, you know, yourself is precisely sometimes who you don't want to be. And it's this recurrent bloody message that you take drugs to fit in, like everyone's a junkie zombie out there. Yeah, peer pressure. Well, you do drugs take drugs to fit in like everyone's a junkie zombie out there yeah

peer pressure well you do drugs precisely not to fit in you know with a true zombification of capitalism or whatever you're thinking about at that time and i remember very soon after this there was one of those smith and jones talking heads and mel smith goes there's a great campaign you know it just means that if a copper asks you if you've got any drugs, you just say no. I mean, really, in this case, just say no. It's no different to Marie Antoinette saying, just eat cake, or that mad woman in the cabinet saying,

just eat turnips. I mean, yeah, it is. I mean, this is all stuff I could rant about, all the live long day, drugs or no drugs, But it is going to be more complicated than that. It's so insultingly reductive to just say no. I mean, yeah, like you said, if it's about peer pressure and the delicate sort of social ecosystem of school, just barking a refusal at someone who might be trying to bring you into their group,

you know, in the way that friends might do. It's not necessarily like, ha-ha, I've got drugs, I'm going to bring you into their group. You know, in the way that friends might do, it's not necessarily like, ha-ha, I've got drugs, I'm going to corrupt you with them. You know, it's like, well, mate, maybe we want you to be our mate. We think you're sound. It's like, no, this is not going to be good for you. However bad drugs are for you, that's not good either. Oh, God, I'm doing it now.

No, thank you. I mean, also, the weird slippage that you get with this with the message and the song and the video is like yeah most of the lyrics that you can hear are just really vaguely about like i said that kind of social ecosystem of school and about the kind of dynamic between people i think they obviously kind of swerved being really explicit about it but you just end up nowhere and it's like well are you talking about being yourself which you might not want to be you might want to go jesus christ well i a i don't know what that means yeah b ah no i mean don't

listen don't listen to anyone else all you got to do is be suffer for all we know god might have said that to peter sudcliffe in that graveyard in Polish. Yeah. It's so fucking vague, isn't it? That's not necessarily a good thing. No. I'm not saying British people shouldn't do American stuff. That is true a lot of the time, though.

It is. But, I mean, it's still a mawkish pile of shit, this record, in its American iteration. But it would have been a professional-sounding mawkish pile of shit, probably with a fabulously appointed video. I mean, because it's British and because it's the living version of, you know, the front cover of the Come and Praise Him book, i.e. the Grange Hill cast.

It's this weird thing of this rub between this attempted professionalism, but just this endless amateurishness. As a kid, you would just find, I mean, I guess what you'd say now is totally cringe. And I showed this to Sophia and she literally cringed herself inside out so the cringe factor in this just hasn't gone away and this is why it failed you did see like the american version didn't you whatever yeah there was a little clip it was much tighter and you know it still had the kind of

slightly unpleasant sax not that i'm completely anti-sax but it was you know, it still had the kind of slightly unpleasant sax. Not that I'm completely anti-sax, but it was, you know, it's not the best. It's not the best use of the controversial instrument. You practice safe sax, don't you, Sarah? Absolutely, always. But yeah, it was, it wasn't funky, but it was funkier. There was a whiff of funk about it, at least. You know, it's a whiff of the street.

Yes. There is no whiff of the street here whatsoever it is the damp indoor air of a comprehensive school obviously chaps lee mcdonald uh zamo is the centerpiece of the entire operation i mean zamo's got another series in him uh the next one focuses on his rehabilitation his reunion with Jackie Wright. But Lee, the actor, has an eye on the future. As a Daily Mirror article at the end of the year spells out. Headline next to him posing with Frank Bruno. Frank and fearless.

I'm ready to be a champion. Says TV's junkie kid. Pocket-sized TV star Zamo is a knockout with Grange Hill fans. And Lee MacDonald, who plays the drug-taking sixth former in the hit BBC series, is aiming to pull no punches in real life.

The 18-year-old Lee is a brilliant amateur boxer with his sights set on a place in the British team for the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. Lee has no fears about combining acting and boxing. I'm going to keep boxing until I'm 21. Then, if I'm good enough, I'll turn professional. I love boxing and I love acting and I want to keep both going for as long as possible. That's why I've also applied for a place at drama school. My ambition is to get a part in EastEnders. But Lee

still finds time to enjoy himself. I go out with my mates from Grange Hill every Friday and Saturday night, says the chirpy cocknair.'re all vip members of the hippodrome string fellows and the limelight so we're there almost every weekend oh absolutely no chance of coming across anybody with any drugs in those places is there i mean before we go any further chubs because we've only just scratched the surface of this, we have to absolve the cast of Grangel for any responsibility for this shit. Because, you know, it's pretty obvious that they weren't allowed to say no

when it came to a recording of this. I mean, people fucking bought it. That's what I can't quite fathom out. If you're a certain age and you hear the cast of Grangel are making a record, you're going to buy it, aren't you? I guess so. And you know the BBC of grain chill are making a record i guess you're gonna buy it on you i guess so and you know the bbc are shoving it up at every child's arse on the telly at the moment incessantly yeah incessantly perhaps why it fails but i mean why it fails is because i mean

the whole campaign fails drug watch and also that it's not just i'm a news round special yeah we do need to talk about why it fell but before before that, why are Grain Chill and the government and all the advertising campaigns just focusing on heroin? Because there's other drugs about. I think it's possibly something to do with, you know, it being a drug of deprived areas and stuff like that because then that's a nice, neat way to kind of put the personal responsibility on you to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you know,

because then you don't actually have to do anything like build good houses or anything like that yeah yeah that's really important also i think it's that heroin because we don't we've never had like meth in this country in a big way and heroin was always that i i think it was just like the the ultimate drugs you know it's like like the worst. The boss level of drugs. Yeah, yeah, it's the end of level boss of drugs. You know what I mean? It's just got that, I don't know where that came from, but I think it's just sort of got this mythos around it.

I've got to say, I don't know anyone in my entire life who's done heroin. That's been the one drug that everyone's just kept away from. Oh, God. It's not a party drug, is it? No. No, it isn't. No. I mean, I know a couple of people who have tried it once in order to,

because you can actually do that, you know, contrary to a lot of... Don't listen to Sarah Popcrate. No, she's right. She's completely right. Don't listen, don't listen to... It is, as I understand it... Okay, I feel like I should do a caveat which is that you know we are we are sticking our asses way out of our remit for this this podcast in

some ways um and you know none of us are drug or drug policy experts just people who've done done some and lived um but well that was the problem sarah because the way they were going on about drugs not so much in this video but on the advertising you know the heroin screws you up it's like you take this you die eventually yeah yeah yeah you will that was the problem because a few years later you know my mates and eventually me started dabbling it's like oh shit i'm still alive they were all talking bollocks well that's absolutely yeah yeah i had a sort of similar similar thing when i was uh you know i mean later even than you know slow coach kulkarni who didn't do any drugs until he was 16 god that's so lame but um yeah i was you know 18 or something and

then when i was at university and the whole leah betts thing happened and that was i think i've spoken about it before and those big posters with her her smiling face and the whole Leah Betts thing happened. And that was, I think I've spoken about it before. And those big posters with her smiling face and the black and the white kind of grainy thing. And it's like sorted. Just one ecstasy tablet took Leah Betts. And I had the fear of God put into me about this. And then when I actually did it and I had two kind of failed attempts because I was I I wanted to try the thing, but I was terrified. And that actually, because it is quite sensitive to your moods. And I think I probably had bad stuff to start with anyway.

So I had a pill and then just spent several hours just going, I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. And I did not die. And then I didn't die the second time. I didn't have a nice time either. And the third time I did it, I had an amazing time, which is the whole point. And then the next day I wake up and you pat yourself down and go yeah I didn't die ah yeah it's quite a cliche really but you do

then start to question what you've been told in the larger sense like yeah okay why has there been money spent to terrify me and stop me and and make me think make me fear that I'm gonna die yeah to stop me from doing this and obviously it's like that's your personal experience that that it's a hugely complex um large thing but your personal experience is to go huh well what else am I being liked about and it's that's where it goes and so that's why you start to understand it's not just about the drugs yeah it's not just about how much they care about whether you live or die it's about bigger stuff than that yeah yeah i mean look up until you have your first drug experience or up until you have that you experience drugs for yourself these kind of campaigns they do work in a sense because they they put this terror in you yeah the nature of a moral panic is as sarah's hinted that it completely

ignores obviously this entire campaign the sort of systemic complex reasons why there's a lot of drug use in this country it tries to instill this almost pavlovian response to drugs that like you know you just you see the word heroin and it's terrifying and you know once i ended up i mean look i didn't end up in the shooting gallery or anything all i mean is once i ended up sat in a room and somebody was doing some heroin, yes, I thought, God, that looks really squalid, and I didn't want to do it. What made you want to do it?

You had no need. But, you know, I mean, it's something I think about a lot because I have to have these conversations, in a sense, not only with kids that I teach, but also my own kids. But crucially, it's a conversation, conversation you know because no one wants teenage kids to be doing anything adulterated you know i mean well no no i mean look what drug watch is doing what just say no is trying to do is yeah it's like a pavlovian dog it's this it's like when you go to get hypnotized to stop smoking or something they just kind of repeat this phrase

until it's so in your head yeah that that would ward you away but out of the moral panics of the 80s i guess the americans had satanic panic and we have this yes but both of them just ignore the really complex reasons because that's messy and difficult and you know takes time um they'd rather just kind of it's almost like this kind of idiot training just say no just say no let's just keep saying that until kids don't do it yeah it's behavioral conditioning is what it is that's it yeah and it's perfect in its way in the sense that it's a total abdication of any greater responsibility um and because it puts it completely on the individual yeah to um it's so you know it's so simple just say no and then if you don't do that and you get yourself into some trouble with the law or with your health

should have just said no i mean yeah expecting me to shake your hand just say no it's essentially government saying look we're getting our arses kicked in the war on drugs and there are things we could do to deal with it like you know legalizing some drugs or making their use as safe as possible and you know taxing the shit out of it to keep the nhs going but we're not going to do that so if you actually take drugs and it all goes wrong it's all your fault mate well yeah i mean it's it's kind of, I hesitate to draw this parallel with recent events, but the same kind of personal responsibility absolutism that has given us some of the highest drug death numbers in Europe also gave us some of the highest COVID death numbers in the world.

Because for me personally, like I've risked my health outside the law for a good time, and I've risked my health inside the law for a good time and i've risked my health inside the law for a good time and guess which one had the life-altering consequences in each case it's like it's all on the individual to do the best risk assessment that they can with really scant information this is the thing as well as the kind of withholding of information which still happens now like there's been some progress on this with with kind of drug testing at festivals and then things like that and i mean the talk to frank website which is kind of better than nothing just about although i'm not sure how how often it's being updated now but um basically you don't have you know you were saying earlier about like oh you could you know if you studied this you you were

allowed access to the the book with all the stuff in it about drugs it's like well why is that restricted in the first place you know it's well because just saying that why would you need any of that when you could just say no like the thing is it has been proven as a policy which came from america and then we adopted it ourselves in in a kind of vague but persistent way it's been proven not to work what works is you know actual education actual information yeah and talking more about it and in a more nuanced and non-judgmental way, that's what actually works, but that's more expensive. So it doesn't work, but it works because people want it to,

because people believe in it at some really like primal level. And so it's never going to go away, I don't think, because it's too, like I said, it's just too perfect. Well, just say no, but it doesn't work but but it has to but just just say no i mean if i tried saying to like my daughters just say no i mean i mean start as that's not a conversation you know that's that's just me telling them to do that yeah when you're talking about drugs with kids you know you have to realize that drugs are a part of their life even if they don't take them because their friends will be taking them i mean you know kids at secondary school now are doing things at the weekend right that their adult parents are doing and it's

pointless me saying to my daughter just say no just don't do anything i have to say the sense of i mean perhaps this isn't the sensible thing but what i've said to my daughters is you know never pay for anything apart from weed and look just be fucking careful you cannot destroy that impulse to get out of your head no or to or to get out of your face you cannot destroy that simply by saying you don't need that in your life you know go to the gym instead yes um so it has to be crucially it gets proper steroids there mate human growth hormone it is very telling isn't it that the boxing gym and the gym always seems to be the solution but yeah i mean these are these instead of damaging your brain damage someone else but crucially none of this campaign either in the states or over over here is a conversation

it's not a conversation. It's not a conversation. It's hectoring. Yeah. It's abstinence, isn't it? It's abstinence only, which doesn't work any better for drugs than it does for sex because these are natural urges. No. The terrible thing about just say no is that, of course, it's going to work for some people.

Yeah. Some people would have been like me and they would have seen that Leob betts um poster and gone no no no thank you or some some variation on that and just not not tried it ever at all but you know i had the urge and i was not a kid then i was you know a young adult and it was extremely sensible and i was very cautious and you know and it wasn't about peer pressure it wasn't about any of these other things it was just like i want to know and that's something that is really difficult for people and societies to deal with but it is not going away and a lot of great things can come out of that indeed i don't want to come on here going yeah drugs because you know i'm not a dickhead like i understand that this is a huge issue and it can really destroy people's lives i mean there are at least three

artists in this episode of top of the Pops alone whose lives have been blighted by drugs, you know, including Sammo, who survived, but, you know. It's scary, really, to think that this is like, this is still, really, this is nearly 40 years later, and we haven't significantly

moved on from this. No. No. Good God, no. The message is still the same, isn't it? The only thing that's moved on is the drugs no good god no the message is still the same isn't it the only thing that's moved on is the drugs yeah if granger was still going today and they did an anti-drug song the first question would be well okay what drugs should we focus on the crappy ones like the nitrous oxide or crocodile or something like that we should say actually as we're recording at this time the government has announced that as part of a crackdown on antisocial behavior yeah they're criminalizing the possession of nitrous oxide or laughing gas which was already illegal to uh manufacture or supply under the psychoactive substances act of

2016 which i remember laughing about grimly when it happened it's one of those impossible pieces of legislation that doesn't make a lick of sense because it's like um okay any uh novel substance that you know because they were trying to deal with legal highs which obviously were a huge problem they had to do something but not this because that you could say scented candles if they make you if they give you a nice sense memory of when you were 12 and you went to the beach like anything that makes you feel a feeling at all no just say no and all political parties have to do that they have to talk tough constantly about this issue um i mean labor last week we're talking about oh yeah these poor families who smell a bit of weed in their back or whatever as if it's the end of the world and

and yeah this this talking tough rhetoric it's never end of the world and and yeah this this talking tough rhetoric it's never going to go you know and this is why every now and then you'll get a politician asked whether they've done weed and those all of them seemingly you know didn't enjoy it yeah or you know and it's just the meant the maintenance of that tone constantly means we're not going to go anywhere with this issue you're not crediting the kids with anything you're not crediting the kids with their own reconnaissance in a sense the only way to really find out about drugs is to yeah to live ultimately to live into your 20s where these things become part of your life um not part of your life on a daily basis i just mean you get exposed to the realities of drugs rather than this nonsense that governments have to shoot out.

The thing is, one of the many, many insulting and patronising ideas that persists is the kind of casual user to addict pipeline, which it's a different thing. That's insulting to both people who struggle with addiction and to casual users because these are, yeah, of course, one can, you know, you don't become an addict without first being a casual user. But being a casual user does not necessarily mean that you're going to end up, you know, dribbling in an alley behind a bin with a needle in your arm. That's not how it works. I mean, I was going to say, like I said, not being an expert, but I do understand that heroin specifically, it does, it's legendarily addictive, and it is very addictive, but it's not like you have one go and you're like, oh, that's me that's my life it takes a while to get physically addicted to it i think if you like it then you're going to feel addicted to it sooner than your body starts to need it but there's a reason for that drugs are a solution before they

are a problem they're a solution to a larger problem where people have pain or grief or just they're lost in some way and that's often why you know there will be reasons there'll be psychological reasons why people yeah end up in that you know like i said it's very complicated the psychological and hereditary and social reasons for drug use just they're not a part of any of these campaigns at all but going back to the mid 8080s i mean about a year after this episode zammo became the absolute byword for a custard gannet or anyone you knew who did drugs i mean by the end of this year i'd start going to another college and i started to mix with kids from the posh end of town all on the hash and everything and you know my working

class background just prevented me from tucking into the drugs because it was just like no we don't do this shit they'd be there having a spliff and pass it over to me and i'd immediately say no thanks mate i saw what it did to zamo i get high on life yes yeah and around about that time some of the dancers in my year at college did a show somewhere in town and they were supported by a nearby comprehensive school who'd done a musical about the drug problem set in a school where even the dinner ladies were dealing hash on the side and I wish I could remember every second of it but the only thing i can remember is near the middle where um the female central character just appears under a spotlight and sings a song which sounded not dissimilar to a little piece by nicole and the opening lines were

i'm so depressed and I don't know why. I'm hooked on drugs and I'm going to die. My entire class just sliding off their chairs, pissing themselves laughing. Oh, I wish I could remember more about it. I wish there was someone out there who was in that musical to tell us all about it i wish there was someone out there who was in that musical to tell us all about it and so i can apologize to them for just laughing so derisively at them by the time i got to university and was living with a load of custard gannets we did have in the window of our

shared house a picture of zamo which had been ripped out of the grand johannion and someone cut his eyes out and done a bit of a spirograph of them. I mean, that's the thing. This isn't even a song or anything that sort of like took time to pass into joke folklore. No. It was a joke as soon as it appeared. The people it was trying to reach just laughed at it.

And of course, Top of the Pulse was feeling very pleased with itself and lecturing the kids you know just a couple of years before they play they call it acid ease are good he's ebony i was in an office i was doing a like a social copywriting job a few years ago and radio one was on in the office and everyone there was much younger than me and ebony's a good came on and it's like is this real? Yeah.

They couldn't believe it it's like what? This was a real record that someone people bought it and it was in the charts and stuff and I was like

yeah yeah yeah and they were just like what? Why didn't anybody do a fucking crappy rave version of this? Yeah.

I would have sold a fucking shit load. In that period where 70s stuff was getting parodied and stuff and rave changing yeah it would have been big. And someone else should have done a cover of the firm's tune

arthur daylair is all right opportunity missed oh yeah yeah imagine what's going on in the universe where that happened so the following week just say no saw 21 places to number 5, where it stayed for two weeks. It ended up selling a quarter of a million copies in the UK, and the cast were congratulated in the House of Parliament for covering their sorry arses in the fight against drugs, and they appeared outside the Adelphi Theatre in October, forming a big no, Good Morning Britain opening credit style. Article in the Guardian. Members of the

cast of TV's Grinch Hill spell out their view of drugs. No! They will be joining show business stars in the Just Say No gala evening at the Adelphi Theatre to raise cash for drug counselling centres. Others who have agreed to appear include

Sasha Distel, Wayne Sleep, Alvin Stardust. Kids, you must be out of your tiny minds. John Inman, Don McLean and members of the cast of Emmerdale Farm and Coronation Street. Well, that's going to put some sense into the kids, isn't it? Sasha Distel, just say no. The kids from Grange Hill hill i think some of them

turn up in ferry aid in a couple of years so this isn't the last time you know and emboldened by the chart success of just say no phil redmond creator of the show hustled his cast back into the studio to record grange hill the album a mixture of medleys and original material. Are you ready for the track list? Oh, yes, please. You know the teacher, open brackets, smash head, close brackets. Girls like to do it too. That ain't right.

The It turns out to be bullying. Yes. Led by Imelda Davis. Phew. Do you collect stamps yes no just say no we also have school love no supervision at break biology this sounds like a fucking gary glitter or jonathan king album doesn't it i wonder if school love is a cover of the anvil tune that would be amazing and i now need to hear that because that's a tune man just say no of course don't stop a lad's medley which includes my

generation the walk of life the wanderer and Rocking All Over the World. Jesus Christ. And Jones performing I Don't Like Mondays. Oh, what? Do they know what that's about? Then there's a girls medley, which includes What a Wonderful World, Sweet Nothings, Why Do Fools Fall in Love and Do Do Ron Ron. And a medley of The Greatest Love Of All And That's What Friends Are For.

I hope Roland and Janet sang them too. But it, and the single taken from it, You Know The Teacher, Smash Head, failed to chart. But later this year, the cast of Granger were whipped over to Washington DC to appear with Nancy Reagan at the White House for a special just say no day with Zamo sat next to the first lady and Faye Lucas presenting her with a 12 inch of just say no which according to Lee McDonald she lobbed under the sofa forgot about at the end and just walked off, presumably to have it off with Frank Sinatra again. Ten weeks after this episode was broadcast, the tabloids announced that Heroin was back and collaborating with boy George. Yeah, junkie George has six weeks to live.

And after falling out of favour and being superseded by ecstasy in the late 80s, Heroin made a comeback when it teamed up with a sort of grunge and Brit pop-axe in the early 90s before working with the Libertines and is still going today. And by recording this single, the cast of Grange Hill slapped a target on their back. In 1999, John Olford failed to heed sammo's instructions in the gym and was convicted of supplying drugs to the fake sheikh mazir mamoud of the news of the world and jailed for six weeks round about the same time irkan mustafa who played roland browning was caught in another sting by the sunday mirror when he offered to get them heroin, cocaine and ecstasy,

claimed he was making £900 a night selling drugs in his club and bragged that he and the cast smuggled drugs into America and he was ripped to the tits in the White House, which he later said was all bollocks and he bit him fiercely in the arse. He also claimed in that Sunday Mirror interview that he went to Top of the Pops off his face to mime the song, which is absolute bollocks,

because the two appearances of this single were the screening of the video. And in the mid-90s, the journalist Taylor Parks, who's in the green room of the word for a Melody Maker article, when he chanced upon that week's guests, members of the cast of Grange Hill, running round animatedly singing Just Say Yes. I'm 21 places to number 16. it's Michael Jackson's sister. She looks like him, she dances like him.

Janet Jackson, what have you done for me lately? Your friends think you think that you're so bitchy keen But my friends say neglect is on your mind Who's right? Born in Garret, Indiana in 1966, Janet Jackson was the 10th and youngest spawn of Joe and Catherine Jackson and was three years old when the band her older brothers were in. The Jackson 5 suddenly became massive and the family were relocated to Los Angeles. After being allowed to have a piss about in the Motown studio

whenever her brothers were on a break during the early 70s, she caught the bug, abandoned her dreams of being a race jockey and made her debut as a performer with her brother Randa at the MGM Casino in Las Vegas at the age of seven. In 1976, at the age of 10, she was a regular on the Jackson's own TV show on CBS and for a while appeared to be gravitating towards an acting career as she spent the rest of the 70s as a cast member of the sitcoms Good Times, A New Kind of Family and spent three series as Willis's girlfriend in different strokes. In 1984 she appeared in the fourth series of fame as Cleo Hewitt, a new student who has a major crush on Leroy, but she packed it in because she felt that her and the rest of the cast were being treated like shit. and put out her debut LP Janet Jackson in 1982 which got to number 62 on the Billboard album chart

but her second LP Dream Street which was released in October of 1984 fared worse in the charts despite having a lead-off single featuring Michael Jackson doing his vocal ticks and the track 2 to the Power of Love being a duet with the childblood vintner of pop, Cliff Richard. That was put out over here, but it only got to number 83 in September of that year.

Well dischuffed at the way her recording career was going, she severed all management ties with her family in the wake of the failure of Dream Street and turned to Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, two original members of the Time, Prince's support band, who had just worked with the SOS band on Just Be Good To Me, but had been sacked from their own band by Prince for being caught up in a blizzard and being unable to make a gig. They said they'd be happy to work with her

on the condition that she relocated to Minneapolis to get away from her interfering dad and she knobbed off the acting career. After helping her transition from Michael's nice little sister into an independent artist steeped in the R&B sound of now, the LP, Control, was in the can. But when Jackson's manager swung by Minneapolis to hear it, he told them it was too short and they needed another song. On their way to a restaurant

to finish the haggling, Lewis played a tape of demos they were working on for their own LP, and when the third song came on, this one, he was insistent that Janet got to bagsy it. This is the lead-off cut from Control, which had been released in February, and is currently number 26 in the Billboard 200 LP chart. It's a thinly-veiled go at her ex-husband James DeBarge, where she tells her paramour that he's not stepping up to the mark and he's going around thinking he's summert it's a follow-up to dream street which failed to chart anywhere and it's entered our chart at number 67 four weeks ago it took three weeks to get into the top 40 and she was rewarded with a spot on top of the pops's breakers section last week this week it soared 21 places to number 16

and here she is in the breaker's section again in a video set in a greasy spoon choreographed by a pre-fame paula abdell in the breaker's section for two weeks in a row what you talking about michael well well well i mean look before all of us start talking about this record and video could i just take a moment to add a personal note here oh go ahead yeah okay right um everyone be quiet right this is a message purely for janet jackson if she's listening i cling on to the idea that janet's absence her disappearance from public life for the past decade or is down to her just being able to live all of our dreams, i.e. fucking around on our phones from the moment we wake up to the moment that we sleep.

And, you know, I think she might be aware of every time she's mentioned. So if you're listening, Janet, I just want to explain something. I patiently explain to every partner I've ever had. It's an elemental thing you have to accept if you're going to be with me. You don't need a J-A-O-B, but you do to accept if you're going to be with me um you don't need a gaob but you do need to know that I am in love with Janet Jackson I would do anything for Janet Jackson and if Janet came a calling I would drop everything literally everything my home my kids my family my work to be with her right even your cat yeah no sorry it's Janet I love her so

much Janet I can vouch for Neil. He's lovely. Oh, yeah, yeah. But now that's out of the way, can we talk about how shit Gary Davis's introduction is to this? Oh. You know, he just constantly makes reference to Michael. He sings like her, he dances like her, he looks like him.

And that's the way Janet Jackson was perceived by a lot of people, just a female jacko. To the point where there were rumours going about that Janet Jackson actually was Michael Jackson, doing a bit of a Cam a female draco to the point where there were rumors going about that janet jackson actually was michael jackson doing a bit of a camille like princeton you read that in interviews at the time you know she's endlessly asked about her brother and her family which is precisely the family she's seeking to step away from yeah and it's really annoying i mean it's also noticeable by the way and and the contemporary press how many male journalists they feel absolutely fine

referring to her as chubby yeah and things like this but you know of course all of this totally ignores how out here as punters in potland compared to michael janet's records control in particular sounded modern and thrilling um like nothing else and even though control wasn't a debut album it's a record that's so good from the title to the sleeve shot to everything yeah this album control bossed my 86 in a big way and like nothing else apart from parade by prince i've been in love with her ever since such a ridiculous record the whole thing it's so daring and spare and kind of spiky i came to it after rhythm nation like i got into her through rhythm nation and then went back to control it's like when was this recorded i was

into michael jackson at the time as well but that they couldn't be more different really in most ways it's understandable that people would ask her you know it's just logical but also it was extremely tiresome the way that she was spoken about and to at this point. But she obviously was so driven and so talented and had such good judgment in who she worked with that, you know, she triumphed in the end. And triumphed right from here, actually. I mean, like, look how amazing this is. You can see that she's still kind of somewhat raw in a lot of ways because she carried on just refining her thing and developing it. But it's just so exciting, you know,

especially after the kind of listless whateverness of Just Say No. Yeah, after what we've had so far, this is a much-welcomed glimpse into the future of what would be known as R&B. Yeah, completely. And her aligning with the founder members of the time, it's like an arranged marriage between the two dominant households of modern black music and it's actually come on oh yeah it's an absolute triumph i mean it's amazing control because it successfully repels the

objectification of janet either as a sexual figure or just a figure of kind of jackson related curiosity um but also i mean it's because of the sound and janet's words which which of course have impact for women but further i think they just have impact for anyone being pushed around basically yeah it's an absolute fucking masterpiece that album and this single like for many of us was was my first introduction to them and unlike gary davis none of us who were listening to Control were remarking on how like Michael Jackson. Exactly. At all. We were talking about how actually Janet seemed better than MJ at this time.

She has been around for a few years now, but a little to no attention in the British music press. I mean, she was first seen over here in 1981 when she was acting as michael jackson's interpreter in an nme interview with danny baker but when her own career started it was given the absolute shortest of shrift but here she is now very much her own woman totally it's a fucking bm off control because it prophesizes so much in black pop and beyond of course you can hear the sort of birth pangs of new jack swing here you can also hear shades of what would become the sound of rap music here too i mean it's no accident that jam and lewis they use the same i

mean to get geeky they use the same and sonic mirage synthesizer that public enemy would use next year on rebel without a pause and really this is a time 86 where when we think about what white imaginings of black music are they're kind of firmly located decades in the past that this kind of dream of soulful warmth and passion whereas what black pop itself is actually taking on is this sort of inhuman almost industrial sound with with control in particular and it's becoming self-sufficiently something that can can be created no longer by sort of funk bands with 20 members but by just production duos and singers it's so prophetic of what happens in the 90s and it's so ahead of its

time in that regard although of course that idea in itself touches back to donna summer and georgia marauder i think this album is just as pivotal as that moment. Control is a real shift in everything. If you can say that Black Pop has three revolutionary changes from 75 onwards, you can say that the first one's I Feel Love, the second one's that first Chic album, and the last one is this. It totally sets the tone for the subsequent decade.

It's an amazing record. Yeah, you really want to, it really compels you to listen to it as well because there's so much space in it and it's so minimal and it just draws you in in that way into the spaces of it and then that you've got this kind of fantastically itsy bitsy but not sort of leaning too hard onto she's got quite a soft um sweet voice but she's using it as a little stabbing weapon you know and in the video she's got this kind of baleful stare oh and this kind of in the in the lyrics this is sort of it's very confrontational so you get this delicious kind of combination of those elements those kind of disparate elements um which just makes you go oh yeah it's so exciting it's great so the video janet's sat in a calf with her

mate with paula abdell oh is that paula abdell yeah yeah fuck well she's sat in the calf with paula abdell who provides quite possibly the first bit of sass the people of britain have ever encountered when she coats down janet's bloke and suffice to say there is a lot of snake necky gesture what has he done for you lately oh the video's fucking ace isn't it like all janet videos no one's talking to any hands just yet but you know that's imminent i love the set because there's no pretense at realism it's like a stage show sort of musical type set but there's a total realism to the attitude of janet and that face that sarah met you know that unbroken fierce face she never smiles in this video no so when she does smile later in the when i think of you video it's a big moment

when we see janet smile later she does a little smirk in uh the for Nasty. She's sat in a car and just does a little... So close the door if you want me to respond. Smirk. She just does this little... She sort of rolls her eyes to the side and does a tiny smirk. And it's... Because these gestures are so little. And like I said, you just lean in to kind of take them in, you know.

And like the little murmurs in this as well. It's kind of little, tiny, you know, as well as the in in between sort of way lower in the mix you know it's just i swear it's like oh my god this dude so then we actually see the bloke poncing his way past the window and he absolutely thinks he's summit doesn't he he's dressed up like the fonz this is pre-run dmc sportswear and big trainers which would have happened in six months time but you know he's just walking along as if to say yeah I am going out with Janet Jackson actually aren't I brilliant and you just know what's going to happen next because if pop videos have taught us anything chaps it's the pop stars and particularly black

American pop stars they don't just sit down and talk out a relationship dispute there has to be a lot of dancing and staring at each other doesn't they're backed up by their racially diverse mates videos that set up an adversarial situation are always great i mean me and sarah talked about the meatloaf and share video and i think this is possibly the greatest video like that since that one. I think Serious by Donna Allen is the gold standard. And the granddaddy of them all, of course,

is America in the film version of West Side Story. That's the origin point, isn't it, of all this? More people should settle their relationship disputes with a bit of a dance with their mates. And what fucking dancing, yeah. Oh, yes. it's almost a disappointment that it seems to work in the end yeah i kind of wanted to they sit down and he buys her a donut and stuff and it's like oh no it's like the bar is still pretty low here like

you know i i wanted her to just you know stomp out of there and take everyone with her including the chef so he couldn't get anything to eat at the diner. Yeah, the chef's a right tramp, isn't he? He hasn't bothered to tie his hair back, and we see him picking the icing off a cake and licking it. Yeah, he's the comic relief. Yeah, played by Larry Hankin, who went on to be Mr Heckles in Friends. It's a whole little story told in shoulder movements. Yes.

On blinking straight into camera stares. Yeah. But it's nice that it works out at the end. For now you know. You can tell he's on his last warning. It works out but there's no softening to Janet. No. And that's because of the dance moves. Yeah. Of course sort of rigid lines in dance

movement had existed before in terms of doing a robot and all of that sort of stuff but nothing is fluid in these dance moves. Everything's straight lines but that rigidity uncovers the funkiness in the arrangement of the song so it's just a perfect combination um between dance music and the sound of the music yeah dance moves that have actually been choreographed with a care for the sound of the record as far as the lyrical sentiment of the

song goes this is not yet the standard female line of domestic argument of the nainties i.e no money no fanny janet's essentially saying come on lads step up to the mark or we're going on jeremy kyle if only jeremy kyle had dance routines he'd be still on today the jeremy kyle dancers jesus christ lie detector and co it's more about the the kind of emotional involvement isn't it it's more about like are you going to show up in the larger sense in this relationship or not which is a recurrent theme in pop but it's rarely done with this kind of reasonable aggression yeah and it stems from crucially jam and lewis being the first people to actually ask janet what she wanted to do yes and what she wanted to sing about and what she

wanted to write so they gave her songs and they worked with her on songs that she wanted to do that had never happened before in her career yeah she wasn't going to be little janet jackson and consequently you know control is obviously an important title for all kinds of reasons and i've said that it prophesizes the future but starts a lineage of black female artists who have just stayed uncompromised slightly isolated who live off their heads and whose sporadicness just amplifies the myth around them so i you know i think so much comes from this like i mean tlc and stuff like that obviously but missy lauren hill mary j bludge erica padu it all kind of starts with control i think and she's still only 20 at this point which is no age at all when you think about

it no i just can't believe i met her you shook her hand didn't you yeah went see him in rotterdam oh my god what a show i remember that review holy shit somewhat hysterical yeah no there was a meet and greet afterwards and I never normally do those things not not because I'm above that kind of thing it's just that they scare me but my god you don't get many chances to meet Janet Jackson and it wasn't like you know we had a big effusive conversation I was I was on the conveyor you know going past Janet very small obviously and i just uh sort of leaned over and shook her hand and said thank you that was the show was amazing and she just said thank you very much and that was that but yeah this hand um has touched janet jackson's hand oh my god oh how

long before you washed it now i didn't go crazy about it but oh my god what a moment it was a levitating moment that it was every now and then in this shitty business of writing about pop music you just have these moments that are just like fuck me i can't believe that happened and that was one of the pinnacles for me but a year after this episode when she's in london she gets the privilege of sitting down with none other than rock expert david stubbs in an interview for melody maker oh neil you must have been right jealous of that i'd be i mean stubbs was my hero at this time anyway 86 87 so you know it was a meeting of minds there but i remember david unlike virtually everyone else who spoke to janet in this period but just didn't condescend and didn't you know

do those uh didn't ask loads of questions about fucking michael maybe that's because the first words out of her mouth to david were are you from the sky oh yeah and he immediately assumed that she was just barking mad or something but then she said that she meant sky magazine and then david immediately distinguishes himself by asking her if he could nick a grape off the table only to be told by her that it was actually an olive i remember that then he asked her what she's up to and uh she says oh i've just got myself a pet bear as you do sadly or luckily wasn't sat on her lap at the time staring at david and yeah she just said that her time bunkered away in minneapolis was a proper wood shedding period that dragged her right out of

the showbiz bubble and helped her to become her own person and david thought that was nice i don't know if he shook her hand i'm sure he did but you know the miraculous thing about john i mean sarah mentioned the Rhythm Nation album the more you listen to that album it's actually better than Control a little bit it's an astonishing album that but she's managed to keep her mystique intact Janet completely intact in all the years since um you know wardrobe malfunctions notwithstanding she's oh yes she's done that it's great that um since she has read every mention of her ever she will now know that you believe her to be the first human who evolved to actually have sex with

herself yes i believe i did such a great line but you know that that's the thing about writing live reviews if you do them on the night or like in the morning because you're on a regarding his ideas about, you know, making references. Because I said in the review, I think I said, yeah, we're not in Kansas anymore because her show was amazing. All sorts of costume changes.

And it came out and it said something like, and just like Dorothy in the classic film, was it was, we're not in Kansas anymore. Fucking with my rhythm, man. But anyway, yeah. So the following week, what have you done for me lately soared another 10 places to number six and a week later got to number three its highest position the follow-up nasty got to number 19 for two weeks in june and she completed her 1986 run of singles with when i think of you getting to number 10

in september and control stalling at number 42 in november she went on to rack up 35 more top 40 singles including 15 top tenors and she got one of her nips out of the super bowl and made american religious bellends throw a proper mod on, which was skill. I wonder what event she's saving to get the other one out. That's Janet Jackson. Right now, here's my favourite of the new entries this week.

Straight in at 28, making their debut on top of the box tonight. We welcome It's Immaterial with Driving Away From Home. Hey. Now just get in. And close the door.

And put your foot down. We don't even get the benefit of seeing Davis back in the studio because there's so much to fit in. So while Janet and her bloke do the dance of reconciliation, he prepares us for what he reckons is the pick of this week's new entries, Driving Away From Home, Jim's tune by It's Immaterial. Formed in Liverpool in the mid-70s, Albert Dock and the Cod Warriors were an art rock group led by John Campbell,

who were the in-house band at Eric's, the spawning ground for Liverpoolian bands of the 80s, and supported the Sex Pistols there in October of 1976. In April of 1977, they changed their name to Yachts and supported Elvis Costello at Eric's, which led to a one single deal with Stiff Records, but soon afterwards Campbell left the band to return to his art school course. However, he soon plunged back into the music scene and in 1980 he formed It's Immaterial, so called because they didn't give a toss what the band was called, along with assorted members of Yachtz who were floundering

by this time despite supporting The Who on their 1979 tour and would eventually split up in 1981. A year later they tacked on Jarvis Whitehead, who Campbell had first met at that Sex Pistols gig and started picking up John Peel sessions and occasional appearances in the independent charts. But after a while, assorted members started to drift away, including Henry Priestman, who went on to form the Christians, and they were reduced to a two-piece. This single, the follow-up to Ed's Funky Diner, which failed to chant,

was recorded in Milwaukee under the supervision of Jerry Harrison of Talking Heads, but they didn't like the country and western feel he'd decided to drape it in or the rhythm section he'd got in, so they went behind his back and got the engineer to record their own version. However, they did keep in the harmonica bit, which was recorded by a local musician called Jim Lieber, who did regular session work in Nashville, hence the Jim's tune part of the song title. To their astonishment, it entered the charts at number 96 a fortnight ago. To their even greater astonishment, it was picked up on by Daytime Radio 1, who played the shit out of it, which caused it to soar 38 places to number 58.

And this week, after an appearance on Wogan, it soared another 30 places to number 28. And here they are on the Top of the Pops stage making their debut performance. Well, what a meteoric rise, chaps. But oh dear, the limitations of Top of the Pops' new neon set reveals itself in full, doesn't it? It does, because the Top of the Pops stage is kind of like a stage in a very busy nightclub or venue. And it really does not work for essentially sort of dismalists like this band are.

Yeah. There's a real incongruity between their appearance and what they look like and the song that they're singing and the kind of buzzy flounciness of the stage. Yeah. I mean, on that stage are a couple of understated post-punk veterans with an old school radio mic and an acoustic guitar and they're backed by a woman on a keyboard and a bloke on a stool with a harmonica underneath a glowing pulsing pyramid looking for all the world as if they've been accidentally booked to play barry noble's a story or miss wet t-shirt nights or an advert for terry's pyramid it's a clash isn't it i remember seeing

this and i seem to recall on chart music i talked about tears for fears and how disappointed i was with what they look like um and how they dance no doubt well yeah because i i remember all that radio play and it did get a lot of radio play catchy chorus so i kind of liked it and i i didn't know anything about them or where they were from and you know seeing them actually in the flesh i just got this crushing sense of disappointment i thought you were expecting you well i mean the record is quite a suggestive record and i just thought they were americans or something or at least americans were involved i don't know i thought they they'd look cooler than they did i think i'd seen the video but what was the video for this because i know they they

did one for the tube and then there was one later that turned up the videos are far more sort of collaged indeterminate affair where you can kind of ignore the google maps has had a point too many nature of the lyrics because the visuals were kind of cool the sound was kind of ignore the Google Maps has had a point too many nature of the lyrics because the visuals were kind of cool. The sound was kind of American. It almost convinced me they were American. But here in the studio, in the Top of the Pot studio, you get what its material actually are.

You know, a few drippy Liverpudlians who happen to have stumbled on a great chorus. Why do you think Radio 1 played this to death? I mean, Radio 1 would do that every now and again, but it'd be stuff like The Oldest Swinger in Town or Captain Beacon. Why do you think Radio 1 played this to death? I mean, Radio 1 would do that every now and again, but it'd be stuff like The Oldest Swinger in Town or Captain Beacon. I mean, to Radio 1, this is an absolute novelty, isn't it? I think the novelty aspects are the verses.

Those chatty verses, spoken word kind of about the M62 and other things, that kind of makes it, oh, I know those places, I i know those roads and then the chorus is undeniably catchy it's funny i've seen some heated arguments about this record among music journos and other nerds oh really yeah yeah there's a big love hate divide and i'd completely get it because i was like i don't know how i feel about this i remember it from the time where i remember the chorus because it was everywhere i guess i would have just heard it on the radio um i don't remember seeing this performance so i had no notion of what they looked like until where I remember the chorus, because it was everywhere, I guess I would have just heard it on the radio. I don't remember seeing this performance, so I had no notion of what they looked like until now, really.

And then I was like, oh, yeah, no, that makes sense, yeah. The chorus seems to come out of nowhere, but the verse is definitely of that guy who's a sort of floppy student fop, you know. But I winced a little bit because he doesn't really have the driving voice if you will for that sort of spreck-a-gazang talking over music in the first but it totally works I am fully on board with this now having listened to it and looked at

it several times and it's so clever and it's so sweet, yeah it sounds American mostly where that comes from I think is that bass line. Yeah. Which is a very classic country and western kind of bass line. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. And ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho.

That's what it reminded me of. It reminded you of what? How? Right. It made me want to make a tank out of a cotton reel and some matchsticks. Oh, how? How? Oh, God. Yes, I blanked that out completely, yeah.

Oh, Sarah. Terrifying. It was terrifying. Anyhoo, it's the sound of country and western. Also, it's the sound of going in a car across America, isn't it? Doesn't that just ping that neuron in your head? It's like, it sounds like a road trip. There's just something about that

that evokes such an experience. So, you know, that's obviously not an accident. But then you get the lyrics, which are very kind of self-consciously like, ooh, teehee, we're in this funny little country and we're pretending like we're in America and going on a massive road trip. Ooh, it's only 30 miles to Manchester down the the road and i first winced at that really hard and just went oh god and then i

was like no no this is really charming because the way that the chorus then sweeps that away and is so evocative and it's really brilliant i think there's um oh it's also it's a lot like not to suggest that they ripped this off at all but Prefab Sprout had their album Steve McQueen out last year right

and there's a track on that called Farron Young which sounds you know which is a lot like a lot like this it's very Stan Ridgway as well isn't it

do you think oh yeah there's a bit of that and it's kind of Chris Isaac-ish as well the production's lovely I'd love to know what Simon thinks about this because it

it really does lean deep into I lost my bag at Newport Pagnol territory. But, you know, I remember hearing this as a 17-year-old lad who had failed his one and only driving test. The idea that you could leave your house, get into a car, and go to another city did my head in. And the idea of having mates who lived in manchester or newcastle or or even glasgow that was a mind blast you know right about this time i got to know

someone who lived in surrey ay up paul hope you're all right doc and you know i crashed around his ass one weekend it was like being abroad like all the chain shops were in different places to each other that was insane! Yeah, when cities look different, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure we've all had that sense of, like, claustrophobia that this song evokes, of, like, how small it is here. And especially now, I think there's this sort of

suffocating sense of shrinkage, where it's, like, harder to do anything here. It's harder to even exist at all, and it's harder than it's ever been to go and live anywhere else and you that's that's an unpleasant fucking feeling and you know that it's been driven by malign forces but it's easy to forget like even before the pandemic like we just went on holidays here because it's like well there's a place we haven't been we haven't been there either it's lovely you know it's just like oh yeah you haven't been to this that you know it's

an island there's loads and loads of places on the coast that you can go to and they're all so so different from each other yeah and it's not that's what especially if you don't drive you know it's it's not that small you wouldn't want to fucking drive across it in a day would you well maybe across it but not not not the whole length of it and um you know it's from an american perspective obviously they drive five hours to like buy a nice coffee mug which is not necessarily good no you you're sort of trying to think is there like a bit of smugness in in this uh because he does he does have a slightly smug sound to his voice but i think it's just it's awkwardness you know and i think there's this lovely combination of things going on in this and it's partly there's a kind of expression of that yearning to be elsewhere just somewhere else you go down the motorway for 30 miles and it's somewhere

completely different with different people with different everything yeah and that's such a part of the human experience and specifically the kind of yearning of some of the english for america like that largeness of self and that uninhibitedness that a lot of people i think feel i've definitely felt that in my life just gone you know i was going to go and live there i've got family there and stuff and i never did which is probably for the best but just the sensibility i think of just going i'm frustrated by the constraints of this culture and the smallness of it and i want to go somewhere else but if you can't you make the best of it where you are and that's all in there and it's just the vocal line of the chorus that does this for me it does sound like trundling

down a motorway at night in a ford fiesta with the heaters on full blast and there's like a comforting little metallic rattle and it can't be identified but it's not getting any worse and it's that thing there's this lovely melancholy to it and also just a sense of like defiantly romanticizing where you live why not do that do that yes but the thing is i agree it has this yearning to it but my relationship with the record has completely changed over the years because you know i'm not a passenger anymore i'm the driver now i'm dad cabs i have to drive everywhere um if you're in the back seat oh here we go if you're in the back seat right of a car you can entertain these kind of dreams um and that record this record really did speak to me as

a frequent passenger you know down the motorway it has got that yearning to it but these chatty verses um with the lead blokes kind of increasingly annoying thoughts about the view out of the window they just annoy me now um as a driver there's a midnight run sense in which if this guy was your kidnap victim you'd pull over on the hard shoulder straight pass and just abandon him there because he just will not shut up with his rambling. Oh, wow, well, little chef, perhaps we could go for breakfast or if you'd rather I've made some sandwiches,

would you like cheese? I've made them all. Do you want a United or a club or a trade? Just get out, man, you know? I mean... Oh, man, he's brought all his stuff from home and he cut the sandwiches, like, diagonally instead of crossways, you know? Bless him man he's brought all this stuff from home and he cut the sandwiches like diagonally instead of crossways it's got to be mint for me orange yeah orange I'm with you Sarah

and look if you got in a car with this cunt fairly rapidly you would just be really angry with him I realize it's a kind of you know all the world's our oyster you know vague song but I mean look if I'm in the driving seat I want to know where are we going? You know, Manchester, Newcastle, Glasgow. There's no mention of stopping at services either. As a dad who likes to plan journeys like this, I can feel my dadly rage rising at his Kerouac style. You know, let's just hit the road and see where it takes us.

Imprecision. That's kind of like in television, you generally don't see anyone go to the loo. Because you know that that's going to happen at some point, but you don't need to see it. You know, it's like going to the services is a really functional part of travelling that you don't need in your sort of romantic little song about the M62. No, but I mean, for me, going to the services is romantic because my dad, he never stopped at services oh he always just kept going i mean unless we needed a way that was a different thing but that'd be pulling over the hard shoulder and having a slash in a bush or something i mean i remember these long journeys mainly because whenever we pulled into a petrol station

and my dad had this weird thing um of writing down the mileage and how much he'd paid for the fuel and right all of this in a little red book that was in the glove compartment oh like keith pratt i reckon it's a post opet crisis thing i don't know what it is but um yeah i mean that was the only break that we had canal but yeah the annoyance of this song now is probably because i'm a driver and it is not helped by the the top of the pop stage um no. Which really doesn't do them any favours. I think they would have been much better off, yeah, just playing the video for this. I mean, this is their moment in the sun after years of toil. Don't seem to be enjoying it, do they?

It's sort of in character, kind of. It would be weird if they came out smiling. They have done a lot of driving away from home of late because in tomorrow's Liverpool Echo, John Campbell talks about how it feels to have made the big time after so many years of near misses and knockbacks and doesn't sound like he's having a laugh at all. Quote, ask him if he really wants to be a star and the silence is deafening before he says yes. If there is a reluctance, it is only because he wants it on his terms.

Already the pace of having hit the charts in one of the fastest-selling singles of the year has taken its toll. Seven television appearances in eight days. No sleep for three nights while they work in the studio on a debut album. Interviews, appearances, more interviews, photo sessions, and so it goes. I'm knackered, he says. It really has gone crazy. The single has come from nowhere, and we really didn't expect it to be like this.

I can see how some people just get blown away from it all. I never want us to be in the position where our music suffers because of all the razzmatazz. It worries me a bit because at the moment it hasn't really sunk in. You spend all your life wanting to be successful and then when it happens it seems like it's happening to someone else. You watch Top of the Pops and Wogan and suddenly you are on it i was standing there on wogan miming along they won't let you sing live on it and thinking there's 11 million people watching me standing here miming and my bottle nearly went it was all so weird i wanted to get

back home for a pint you don't know what it's going to be like until it happens. No. And then you still don't know what it's like because it's this weird machine that is working without you and you're just sort of in it. I totally get that. This is a foreshadowing of all those other indie-ish bands who suddenly become massively successful, isn't it? Yeah, but when does that start happening, those indie bands becoming massively successful?

I would argue that after 86, that doesn't happen for a while. And, you know, what we're about to see in 87 is Stotic and a Walkman coming in. And these kind of one-off little hits that would weirdly get a load of radio play. I mean, like, it's immaterial. Like you said, they've got these long roots back in Liverpool's kind of indie past.

They're almost like the last knockings of that liverpool scene from the avengers very much so i mean i think the christians do have hits don't they or a hit at least but that kind of thing of a band with a history getting a hit like this that's going to stop for a few years until kind of manchester and britpop come along and that starts happening again so this is a kind of last hurrah for that because in 87 Static and Waterman are just going to take over

Anything else to say about this? I always hated the name, I think it's a silly smug name, it's that very sort of we're above of pop bands with their silly names you know and I thought I bet this is you know this is one of those proper one hit wonders where that's all they had so i actually listened to the album it's really good right it's a really gorgeous sound and very interesting songwriting all restrained just the right amount because

you can tell that they've figured out that they don't want to be you know too self-consciously quirky which is what you get a bit of in this single. There's a mass of ideas, but it's all really thoughtfully arranged and nothing is too crammed in. So it's really dense, but lots of space. There's a bit of, it sounds a bit Teardrop Explodes, a bit Tears for Fears, a bit Scott Walker. Right. And a bit Talk Talk.

Like I read an interview with John Campbell saying that they were the band that they had the most sort of kinship with when they were around at the time. It's, you know, and there's almost a bit of crowded house in there just that sort of softness right yeah it's really good i really recommend it i'm fully on board with this band now and i think they didn't get their due at all no there's loads of like lost bands who you sort of think you know well in another universe they're as big as you know they're as big as tears for fears or whatever

yeah but it's like it's partly there's loads of stuff that went wrong they just were sort of doomed yes bands like this i i have sympathy with because they don't fit in immediately and you're a bit unusual you end up nowhere because labels and publishers don't have the imagination to promote these things on their own term that's something that that is never going to change i think yeah sarah b persuades me to listen to it's a material was not something i predicted for 2023 maybe they should have put them in a vintage car like the mixtures back in the early 70s or got them to dress up as um paul burnett and dave lee travis doing convoy uk so the following week driving away from home leapt another 10 places to number 18.

But a combination of the label not having pressed enough copies of the single, the band burning themselves out from making so many TV appearances, no available promo video to fall back on at the time, apart from one recorded by The Tube, which appeared only once and they weren't going to let out to the BBC, and their label Siren moving on to other bands as they assumed their work was done, leading to the single dropping four places the week after, and it slipping down the charts,

with a rushed out official video doing nothing to turn the tide. The follow-up, a re-release of ed's funky diner only made it to number 65 in august their debut lp life's hard and then you die got to number 62 in the lp chart in september and this remains their one and only appearance on top of the pops. They're still active today, putting out their third LP, House for Sale, in 2020. 27 years after they first started work on it. It's not fair he's got a bigger microphone than me. It's immaterial. Right now, let's have a look at this week's top ten.

And going up eight places to number ten, Big Country, Look Away. Up six to nine, Simple Minds, All The Things She Said. Aha, and Train of Thought. They're at one place to number eight. The Real Thing, You To Me Are Everything are down one to seven. And down three to six. Sam Cooke with Wonderful World.

Down one to five. Samantha Fox, Touch Me, I Want Your Body. Up three to four. Queen, A Kind Of Magic. Falco, Rock Me Amadeus is up two places to number three. And after three weeks at the top, Cliff Richard and the Young Ones are down to number two, which means Britain has a brand new number one. Here in the studio, George Michael at a different corner.

After displaying severe microphone envy, Davis breaks down the top ten. Oh, two re-releases in the top ten, chaps. You To Me Are Everything by The Real Thing and Wonderful World by Sam Cooke. Why, it's almost as if the nation is starting to give up on the 80s, music-wise at least, anyway. Yeah, a lot of us were, a lot of us were.

Before we move on, i've got to point out that i am no judge of the female gaze and i'm speaking as someone who isn't even a child's finger painting let alone an oil one but i must say that i've seen very little in gary davis's performance tonight that would make the housewives of britain cut themselves in a special place especially when compared to the next act so why are these sex workers throwing themselves through glass to get to him now it's in the eyes man it's in the oh he's got gary davis but they are it's got fairly big eyes they They're kind of, yeah, wet with longing. And perhaps the hair as well. Yeah.

I've got to say, he's an extraordinarily good Nick nowadays. Fucking hell. He looks better now than he did then. Much like all of us, I think. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely. Finally, Davis introduces the number one single,

A Different Corner, by George Michael. We've covered George Michael in his debut solo single, Careless Whisper, a couple of times on Chart Music, and this is the follow-up. He's still a member of Wham!, but not for much longer, because seven weeks ago he announced that he was not only splitting with the duo's management company after they were bought out by another company that was 40% owned by a South African investments group that also owns Sun City, but he's splitting the duo up. Even though there's a farewell single, LP and Wembley Stadium gig to come this summer,

the solo career has already started. And this single, which was written and recorded from gun to tape in 14 hours, was released three weeks ago. And when Simon Bates played it for the first time on Radio 1, he was so taken by it that he lifted the needle, dropped it at the beginning and played it again because he's Simon Bates and he does what the fuck he likes. It smashed into the chart as the highest new entry

at number four a fortnight ago, nipped up to number two last week, and this week it's pushed the double-decker bus containing Cliff Richard and the Young Ones off the summit of Mount Pop. And here he is, actually in the studio like he was a real-life human being, doing his stubbly, mullety thing. And it's clear by now, chaps, that George Michael has won the 80s hands down,

isn't it? Yeah, yeah. I mean, practically all his contemporaries from the early 80s have either fallen off or become the things they were railing against when they first started. And it is he and he alone that stands at the top of the summit with his future mapped out, seemingly for the rest of the century. Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, he looks like fucking Lion-O from Thunderdome. He looks great, in a way. Amazing boots, jeans, big hair, fresh stubble. He still looks like a pop star, and the audience are looking at him like he is. Yeah. And they're not chucking balloons about. No.

Well, they'd just burst on his stubble, wouldn't they? His peers, or his new tier of peers, are falling over themselves to shower plays upon the man, the musician, and yes, the business model. He's already recorded with Elton John and David Cassidy. Just been announced today that he's going to be working on a single in Los Angeles with Stevie Wonder. According to John Blake's White Hot Club in the Mirror,

it's a ballad in the same vein as Careless Whisper, but somehow it's more adult. It's very electric and possibly the best thing he has ever done well it probably wasn't because nothing ever comes of it but he's very much in demand by the giants of pop i mean elton john himself said along with perhaps blank george michael is the greatest songwriter of his generation who do you think blank is who do we think elton john thinks blank is uh yeah um i don't know we'll come to that later then shall we i've got to say this is a fucking weird number one isn't it probably one of the weirdest number ones of the 80s it's so

strange to be to be number one yeah do you think this would have been number one if anybody else but george michael had recorded it no probably not that's the thing isn't it is that it's george i mean it's partly all these people have fallen over themselves to work with him because sometimes talent will out and sometimes you recognize that someone is on track to join the greats you know it's this very sparse deeply weird chorus-less song and the fact that he only he could infuse it with this sort of billowing emotion and that's why that's why it's number one is because it's fucking heartbreaking and it does stuff i mean the thing is i don't experience synesthesia you know the thing where like colors taste of things and stuff um but this song has always

done explodey things to my brain and like this song is obviously very bright white isn't it yes it's white it's a huge white empty song and it's like and it tastes of crushed ice there's a clip a little tiny clip in the middle of the video which is indeed george sitting around a massive white room and that's what it had to be because that's what this song is is a huge white room and there's this amazing contrast between like the deep familiar roasty warmth of george michael's voice and this kind of ice palace around it you keep waiting for some strings or something that never arrived something because there's a sort of drone you expect some sort of flourish or something to hold on to and all you get is this kind of there's a sort of sympathetic spanish guitar which i think they could have left

out because it adds a sort of note of comforting sorrow which is not really what this song is about yeah it's almost like yeah oh you know maybe you start looking through airbnbs in minorca maybe i can start to heal go on a nice holiday maybe even have a little holiday romance no no you have to sit in that corner with your pain as if it will never end that's you know and there's a kind of shattered tremulous piano it sounds like it's playing way down the hall somewhere all you have to cling on to is this kind of light synth bass which is kind of round and friendly bomb bomb bim and it kind of bounces but also establishes this sense of hollowness it's almost like the prisoner ball coming towards you well how bad can it be it's just a big white ball no no it's misery forever that's what it is yeah i mean it's almost like the music you

there when channel four ad ad breaks with no adverts a few years previous no this is not something you could ever put i'm really glad it's never been licensed to my knowledge like there are so many things where you know you hear an advert and and you go how has that been allowed is there not some sort of council where i know it doesn't matter but it's like sometimes you'll hear like nina simone i think you go how what why is this on a car advert you know fuck fuck the now but i was just gonna say oh i wonder what happens when george michael dies what music will be using the adverts and then i go he's dead he died fucking years ago it's still. It still doesn't compute that George Michael isn't on the living side of the world. He is one of those. It is like an error in reality.

Indeed. I mean, it was Christmas Day and the news came through. And I got it. This is how I always end up hearing the news of big people dying. Is somebody that assumes that I already know going, oh, isn't it sad about Amy Winehouse? Isn't it at a festival? What? Isn't it sad about George Michael winehouse isn't it at a festival what isn't it sad about george

michael what what the fuck and i was with you know all my favorite people and we were all quite quite merry and stuff and just like oh it was heartbreaking and it was you know it was so sad well i i think um the the word sarah used was sparse and and that's exactly it it's so weird for me to see this in its original context because i remember when this song came out i simply did not get it because i was young and this is an intensely adult song in a lot of ways it's got no drums i mean i hated all records without drums pretty much and and as a young person it just seemed like this got to number one because it was george yeah because you only buy that because you fancy him.

Yeah, because he's a big enough star to just generate this instant sort of buy before you try thing. He has this commercial momentum that can't be stopped. I mean, I still think that actually, but the older I've got, the more this song gets to me. And the more this song rises in the George pan pantheon to the point i'd put it only second to to fast love i think it's like it's one of his finest moments and it is such a sparse number one yeah barely there at all you know just two verses really and the first george michael record i think where rather than going somewhere or doing something, he's paralysed in this record. It's all wispy and cloudy

because the protagonist of the record, George, is confused and despairing and just kind of wandering around his own paralysis. Yeah, he's not going for anything at the moment, is he? No, and crucially, it's one of his first records to not mimic anything, to not sound like club music. It's completely unique. On the back of the sleeve to this record, it says,

dedicated to a memory. And on the front, there's just this black and white shot of a guy with his back to the camera, some distance away, walking into a park, kind of totally alone. It looks like the cover to Joy Division's Atmosphere. Right. Now, althoughorge was still officially one half of wham it's hard not to read this song as a kind of farewell to all that

and it really is a true solo record you know entirely composed sung played and produced by the same person and we won't get that again until sort of white town and it's the first one of those since stevie wonders i just called to say i love you the sound of this record though it's more like sort of eno or ambient music yes and i kind of wonder a lot about what was influencing george at this time yeah he has recently appeared on a at this point on a bbc2 arts documentary where he reviews mark johnson's um an ideal for living book about Joy Division. And on that, he speaks really warmly about Joy Division's music. Yes, he does, yeah.

Isn't that the one with Morrissey in it as well? Yeah, I think so, yeah. And Tony Blackburn. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fucking hell. A meeting of minds. Yeah. But, I mean, beyond the Farewell to Whamping, there's also a subtext here that perhaps couldn't be discussed at the time.

The song seems to be about a friend he can't bring himself to tell he's in love with. You know, I would promise you all of my life, but to lose you would cut like a knife, so I don't dare. Yeah. Because I've never come close in all of these years. You're the only one to stop my tears. I'm so scared this paralyzing fear of rejection that prevents him from getting close to his desired other but also stops him from moving away it's this torture of a kind of lifelong compromise and all of this amazing lyrics is

conducted in perhaps the first yeah george michael it doesn't feel like a pastiche of other music wham records picked off genres and whammed them up yes you know whether that's rap or 60s motown or disco this one really doesn't and in a weird way it's almost like it's a very indie song in a way it's like a homage to jimmy webb or carl wilson type songwriting the beach boys at their most strung out yeah i mean it was startling to hear a song like this from george at this point it's about disillusionment and broken hopes but there's a dissonance in this performance because yeah it's a song coming from this small cramped space but he yeah he looks like fucking lion oh he still looks like a pop star all the neon's gone replaced by a burst of white light presumably in an attempt to ape the video,

and a background of huge Perspex test tubes with George in a dark leather jacket with all manner of fringing on it over a white shirt with jeans and brown cowboy boots. It's got to be said, he looks fucking awful, man. He looks like he's just joined a cowboy club up the road. Okay, my argument, my counter to that, Al, is who gives a shit? Well, okay.

And also, kind of chucking, it was 1986. In the top of the pops a week before, Brian Ferry pitches up doing his latest single. He's got a fucking awful blue jacket on with all the fringing it's like he's wearing every single one of roger daltrey's jackets from the early 70s and fucking out in 1986 even made brian ferry look shit i think i i do think brian ferry is slightly overrated as a style icon because he did wear some ludicrous shit in his time but yes it was it was 1986 what what are you gonna do deliberately ludicrous in 1986 this is the look he's going for and it's oh it's dreadful video playlist pop craze

youngsters are we talking about brian ferrari now can we get back to talking about george michael talk about george michael poor poor yog he deserves better than this i mean i just i think he was he was a great pop star and that doesn't mean that he wasn't sometimes slightly, I mean, obviously he was uncomfortable in his own skin because, for obvious reasons. And I think sometimes that went all the way to the clothes. But Sarah in the video, he looks mint. He's almost white pyjama, isn't he?

Yeah, it's the kind of very expensive, like linen, white flowing kind of garb. That's sort of a seating, maybe I'll just go and become a monk kind of way. You could, I suppose, imagine George doing a different corner in his video garb. But that wouldn't have been significantly better, I don't think. I mean, it is weird to see him singing this bright white song of desolation that is literally like being inside a cloud that is filled with your own tears but um i and so it's weird that he's wearing jeans and a and a fringed cowboy jacket and cowboy boots like it you know like a normal man who wasn't aching through to his soul but he had to wear something you know it's like but also the thing is i think

that as you mentioned the audience you can't even sway no all you can do is stand still and that's because the music is is evoking this sense of frustrated movement yeah what you experience is total stasis like you and paralysis and that's what the audience do there's a couple of them that are having a go at swaying but it doesn't really work and then there's two of them that i noticed there's one long shot just over a girl's shoulder you just see like her big fluffy hair to the left of the screen and she's completely still as if she's wrapped with attention and you know obviously he's miming he's not even you know but that's what the record does to you it freezes you yeah and there's a boy with bleach blonde hair

down on the right and he's so still he looks like a mannequin when i spotted him i was like oh man it's so fucking emotional but it's like a liminal state in song form so putting that i mean it's incredible that it's number one and it's incredible that it's on top of the pops top of the pops can't really contain this song the performance and the song and the reaction to it it reminded me of four years previous on top of the pops ghosts by japan right just this really sparse song that the kids just go pat it's a fucking weird record this and i think definitely the weirdest number one of the eight is if george michael was was more hip in a sense at this time this would have been rightly hailed as a total masterpiece you know one of the most important records of the decade but what stops the record being a hip indie

record is the vocal because at key moments that choked vocal he's kind of doing becomes a full-on the michael roar if you like not to force force the Lion-Ove stereotype too far, but tellingly, in the arrangement, what happens the louder George gets is that he feels further away. Yeah. The production gives the record that kind of fisheye lens feel.

And this is George's decision because he's done this himself. Yeah. You know, that fisheye lens feel that at the point he's trying to come across as strong is actually the point in which he recedes into his his own bubble of loneliness even more i mean of course none of this would have registered with me at the time at all and at this point in the episode i'd have just thought no drums and walked out but some things i just think you have to grow

into and this is definitely one of them it It's become one of my favourite records. And it points towards Listen Without Prejudice massively, I think. And what's odd is how it's become an almost forgotten George Michael track. Yes. You know, because you never hear it on the radio or anything. But it's one of his absolute best. Yeah, you can understand really why it doesn't get played and stuff because it's just so affecting.

You know, I mean, like you said, that echo of his voice at the end, it is like he has left the room and like his soul has left his body and is offering itself to any entity that could promise him a return to being lonely and confused because that is better than this. Fuck! You know, that's not that no i mean it is like this sort of suspended waltz it's kind of hanging there in the air and it's kind of not a pleasant listen in some ways because it's really it's so full of pain and so it aches every line of it just aches and i i remember feeling this at the time it was one of those little inklings that

you get as a kid of what adult life is like and i was like woof yeah this doesn't sound good like it was just it was there was this great mystery about it that really drew me in and you couldn't help but feel something it was just like i don't know what's going on here but i um i feel it you know um this is the other thing that this made me think of i haven't thought of for ages that um i went to an anthony gormley show about 15 years ago and there was an actual artificial cloud that was created by humidifiers in a big glass box. It's called blind light. And you could go in like a few people, like 20 people at a time could go in. And it was like a cool when you went in.

It's like, oh, it's cool. It's this fine white mist and you could breathe perfectly normally, but you couldn't see anything. So you have to blunder around with your arms out. Suddenly there would be another person like a stranger right there on your face and so there was much bumping and giggling but there is no bumping in a different corner and certainly no giggling nor may there ever be again you're in this room of mist all alone and if you reach out for the touch of another human being, all you find is a cold wall of glass. I mean, he's still a member of Wham, but this is the most unwam single ever, isn't it? Very much so. And a bizarre choice as a single, really.

I mean, they could be sure it would be a hit. It's George. Do you think anyone would be seeing this as a new Wham single? Because after all, it's not like Andrew's contribution to this is any less than it was in last christmas or i'm your man it's just not in the video this time well as one dissolved and george started his solo career there was a sort of confusion about you know the status of the band that's what's odd really thinking about this performance he's made this song and if you make a song like this it changes everything in terms of what you realize that you're capable of and it must have been so odd for george to go from this you know back to singing wake me up before you go go yeah i mean

he had he had range you know yeah i mean it is a one-off but like you say it points towards what he's going to produce in the future and i think he was very sure of his own ability and his own vision and what he wanted to do and so he did it but there's a mystery to this record that i think was possibly also mysterious to george himself you know sometimes artists they just make something that i'm not saying is beyond their capabilities and certainly he he was responsible for all of this but there's a magic and a mystery to this that that goes beyond even his authorship of it it's it's a really odd record yeah i'm so glad we got to cover it because it really is remarkable this one yeah if you if you make art at all sometimes you will have that experience where you go shit where did

that come from and you see why is that people just go oh you know it's it's uh it's god working through me or whatnot but if you you know if you don't believe in that way there's still something where you go that's beyond me i how am i capable of that because work comes through people and it is of them but it's not necessarily it's it is it's a mysterious process and so yeah of course if if you are in tune with, if you're good and you're sort of in tune with your own instrument and you are sincere and you're not trying to make it all about yourself and you want to reach other people and connect somehow with, I mean, God, this is so, this song is so, so desolate, but it does also reaching,

it is reaching for for contact with someone else and hey that could be you because you're listening to it and that's why he was one of the greats because he could do that and yeah i'm it it is transcendent do you think there's a comparison to be drawn between george michael in 1986 and paul weller in 1982 you know because he is splitting his band at their absolute peak no i just don't think george michael needs to disown his past quite as much as paul weller does i'm not saying paul weller's disowning the jam but he's going in a deliberately unrocky direction george michael post wham i think as a songwriter he's just realizing fuck me i can actually talk about the reality of my situations

and i don't have to plaster on the the perfect smile anymore but he's actually he's gone beyond that in terms of it could have been awful man he could have made deliberately dark music which this isn't it it's something else and and he's realizing the variety of stuff that he's capable of i think this is a record beyond all of us but also beyond george a little bit and that's what's so special about it because people tend to forget that one were the only teeny group of their era that also had a sizable chunk of male fans you know there were loads of lads in my year when i was at secondary school just went mental with the hairspray and the fake tan and the feeler tops if only to look like something that girls of the time fancied and I can't see them lads being into this preview of softer solo George,

because it's even more of a departure than Careless Whisper. Yeah, yeah, completely. But I mean, you know, it is at number one. Someone must have bought it. Well, yeah, someone's bought it. I think partly, yeah, there is that automatic, it's George, buy it. Yeah. But partly, you know, I mean, imagine hearing this coming out out of the radio there's going to be some people who are grown

up enough to accept it and it was just going to be stopped in their tracks by this record well you won't see this record in the end of year enemy or melody maker polls as a great single but it it pisses from a great height on virtually every other thing um that probably was getting lauded this year. But you can't laud it in the inkies because it's George Michael. But like that Anthony Gormley exhibition, Sarah, there are clouds on the horizon.

In an interview with the NME a couple of months from now, on the verge of Wham's last gig, Matt Snow brings up the rumour that the news of the world have a George Michael scandal story that they're not going to run until they feel it's safe to and he asked George about it and he says people do keep telling me there's going to be a story but I can't think what it would be the news of the world's angle would have to be if it's big enough that they're sitting on it some kind of gay story either that or a pregnant girl it's unnerving to think that they're

only waiting because they think the public likes me enough at the moment hopefully they'll have a long wait and even then i'll sue the arse off them laughs i mean we're 12 years away from george finally coming out or at least being frog marched out by the LAPD but it's been an open secret in the pop world right from the off hasn't it yeah yeah but I mean it that's so depressing to hear yeah yeah it's so depressing I mean it's just incredibly tough to be gay and be yourself and be a pop star in the 80s you can't do it because of these cunts at the news of the world and and the rest of it yeah that's heartbreaking to hear man right about this time kelvin mckenzie's got fully on board with the

who's gay and who's not to the point of having a fucking whiteboard in the sun officers with a list of who they know is gay who they think is gay and who they know isn't gay and he's top of the list isn't it there's been uh rumors going around the club scenes in new york that he's had a dirty weekend with a fashion photographer but the tabloids held out for a very long time throughout the 80s and it was only on the last day of 1985 that the sun came out with a headline it's a hit gender bender dj thumps wham george about an altercation in a club where a drag dj played i'm your man and sang lyrics about a fake relationship they were having and George went up and had it out with him. And since then, the poor sod's been walking about with a sword of murder-cleese

hanging over him. Yeah, I mean, there was that documentary recently which just recapped the whole fucking gruesome circus around his outage. And how he, you know know it was like a truck load of lemons fell on his head and he made the hardest gayest glitteriest lemonade out of it and put out outside the most wonderful fuck you there has ever been but yeah it's disgusting i didn't feel good watching it because it is just people now who really haven't done any reflecting you know basically blaming him for like well that's what happens when you try to keep a secret

and it's a betrayal of your fans. And this is kind of horrible punitive thing that they've used to justify the monstering that they're doing of another fucking human being. And it made me really glad that I never got into news in that way. Like, I did a little bit of news and I could not have done it. I just couldn't.

And I understand, yes, people are just doing their jobs, etc. But but fucking hell yeah but what what a shit job yeah what a shit job what the fuck are you doing at what point do you realize like you're tearing around going to brazil to like door stop the grieving mother of george's dead boyfriend and stuff you know just like what are you doing i never get that to be honest with you sarah from from fellow journalists who are like you know oh, oh, it's work. You know, he that toucheth pitch shall be defiled. Biblical, but, you know? Yeah.

I mean, that's the thing, is like a few hours after he got outed, he went on, you know, he went on CNN and was like, yeah, I am not going to apologise for this. Yes, I am gay. Yeah, of course I couldn't say anything before because look what's happened now. And I'm not ashamed. And it was was incredible and he must have you know he knew that one day it was going to

happen and all of these fucking vile vultures going you knew this would happen you knew this would happen it's like yeah yeah i did and now it's happened so get over it you know well that's what's heartbreaking about him not still being here yeah that's what's so horrible about this era fuckers like kelvin mckenzie it's abuse and and they're keeping this kind of info on their files and exerting all the power over this and and it's just grotesque to see yeah so yeah this is why it's so heartbreaking that george isn't here now i never got to see him live man and i would love to fucking watch george michael sing this precise song yeah because i suspect this precise song is something that george could have kept on singing for the rest

of his life because it speaks of a feeling um that's just you know immense and universal even though even though it's so private and so personal everyone has at some point felt this kind of paralysis of of grief or whatever whatever sadness you're going through. Yeah, it's just heartbreaking. Imagine his voice now singing this. It would have been fucking amazing. Anything else to say about this? No, I need to dab at my eyes a little bit.

Yeah. So a different corner would spend three weeks at number one, eventually giving way to Rock me amadeus it made george michael the first solo artist to score two number ones with his first two releases in the uk the first person to score a number one in britain with a single that he wrote performed and produced but most importantly it got to number seven in the billboard, which forced his American label to get their thumbs out their arses and prepare for a massive push when his solo career began in earnest. Two months later, The Edge of Heaven, the last Wham! single,

smashed into the chart at number two and then spent two weeks at number one. He then took the rest of the year off singles wise roaring back in january of 1987 with his duet with aretha franklin i knew you were waiting for me entering the charts at number two and also spending two weeks on the summit of mount pop his first single as a properly solo artist i want your sex got to number three in june of that year and he spent the rest of the 80s 90s and aughts as a regular chart presence but he'd have to wait nearly 10 years for his next fully solo number one when jesus to a child made it for a week in january of 1996. And the other greatest songwriter of his generation,

according to Elton John? It's not Morrissey, is it? Nick Kershaw. Hey! George Michael, A Different Corner. Watch out for the big WAM concerts of world coming up this summer. Janice Long, Dixie Peach doing Top of the Pops next week. We'll leave you with a chart entry at 33 from Whitney Houston. Good night.

I believe in you, I believe in you Teach them well and let them lead the way Davis, aside the Top of the Pops logo of shame, reminds us of the big Wham concert at Wembley he'll be comparing soon. By the way, chaps, do you know who the support acts were for Wham the final? Erm, no. Nick Kershaw? I don't know. They started by screening the documentary

Wham in China, Foreign Skies for the first time, breaking the record for the biggest audience for a film premiere, by the way. And then it was Nick Haywood and Gary Glitter. Oh, my God. I know. Why Gary Glitter? That is bizarre.

He then tells us that Janice Long and Dixie Peach will be in the chair next week and signs off with The Greatest Love of All by Whitney Houston. Born in Newark, New Jersey in 1963, Whitney Houston was the daughter of Sissy Houston, who started the Drinkard Sisters with her sisters in 1938 and was later joined by Sissy's niece, Dionne Warwick. In 1963, when Warwick embarked on a solo career,

Whitney's mum formed sweet inspirations with Doris Troy and Dionne's sister Dee Dee, who signed to Atlantic Records and spent the rest of the 60s backing practically every Stax artist, as well as Van Morrison on Brown Eyed Girl and the Jimi Hendrix experience on Burning of the Midnight Lamp before backing Elvis when he returned to the stage at Las Vegas. By the age of 11, Whitney was soloing in a local gospel choir, but had also started to dabble with secular music, making her debut appearance at Manhattan Town Hall singing Tomorrow from Annie. By the late 70s, she was dividing her time between backing her mam, who had gone solo, and starting her career as a fashion model,

appearing in Cosmo, Glamour, an advert for Canada Dry, and singing an advertising jingle for the restaurant chain Steak and Ale. And while the likes of Michael Zagre and Luther Vandross came a-knocking offering record deals, they were politely knocked back by her mam, who wanted her to finish school first. In February of 1983, an A&R from Arista Records saw her singing with her mam in a club in Manhattan and immediately begged his gaffer Clive Davis to sign her up. But there would be two years of woodshedding before she put out her first LP, Whitney Houston, on Valentine's Day of 1985.

The first single from the LP, You Give Good Love, only got to number 93 in August of 1985 over here, but the follow-up, Saving All My Love For You, did miles better, getting to number one for two weeks in December of that year, and would have been the Christmas number one were it not for Comrade Shaker

delaying Merry Christmas Everyone for a year to magnanimously allow Do They Know It's Christmas to have its little moment in 1984. This single, the follow-up to How Will I Know, which got to number five in February, is the seventh and final cut from her debut LP and was originally co-written in 1976 by Michael Massa, who wrote Touch Me in the Morning for Diana Ross, who was approached by Columbia Records to write a theme song for their Muhammad Ali biopic, The Greatest, and had actually relocated to Jerusalem to write the song

because he felt just drawn there or something, I don't know. It was originally recorded by George Benson, got to number 27 over here in October of 1977 and became part of Houston's early 80s repertoire. And although Clive Davis thought it was too syrupy to put on a young new artist's first album, Houston, backed up by Massa, who she'd become mates with, threatened to scream and scream and scream until she was sick

because she could if it wasn't put on the album it's entered the charts last week at number 46 and this week it's jumped 13 places to number 33 so here's a bit of video filmed at the actual apollo in harlem under some credits and fucking hell chaps who would have thought that this song was about muhammad ali and we can lump this in with Cassius Clay by Dennis Al Capone, Ali Shuffle by Alvin Cash, Rumble in the Jungle by The Fuges and The Black Superman and In Zaire by Johnny Wakelin. Fucking hell. I mean, you do not expect that at all. And I like the George Benson version of this. Yeah. Oh, poor Whitney.

We're ending on two stars and we're no longer with her. I mean, I prefer the Whitney who's allowed to dance with somebody. With anybody. You know, I still contend that It's Not Right is such a fucking amazing record because of that voice. But I think because of the success of this exact record, The Greatest Love of All, she's going to be firmly shoved from here on in, into this thing of doing ballads, which kind of inevitably ends with the Dolly Parton cover.

Yeah. And she's encouraged to just let her juggernaut voice do these big schmaltzy numbers. The trouble is, none of her producers or arrangers are smart enough to realise, with that kind of voice that Whitney's got, that melismatic, gymnastic voice, it's best to keep the arrangements kind of sparse. The trouble is with this record is they try and match it. And consequently, we keep getting these records,

as a listener, you feel kind of bullied and frog-marched into emotion. These kind of indistinguishably bombastic backing tracks always with that nest cafe gold blend sax oh yes it kind of hammers the songs home but it also hammers all possible emotion out of the experience of listening to them so this left me a bit cold yeah it's too fucking much isn't it really like i i do i i think this is horrible and i i loved whitney and i didn't realize this actually until i was like when george michael died there was this pure sorrow that i could have known was coming and with whitney i was taken aback actually how upset i was when she died because i wasn't like a fan you know but some of them just get to

you and for whatever reason it had something to do with how she had this great purity about her in some ways not to fetishize it as a lot of people did but this great incredible voice and she just ended up dead in a hotel bath like any number of you know rock and roll assholes and it's just there's something so grim about it yeah you know it's like we may coat down your favorite pop stars but they're human beings who hurt you know and there's this incredible as horrible dissonance between you know the way that she was there to kind of spread joy and bring excitement to the people and then there was this horrible pain behind it which

is you know tale as old as time isn't it well i mean the thing you realize now of course is that actually these records like the greatest love of all although they're selling themselves on soul on exposing whitney's inner being and emotions they're they're sort of actually a front and that they're hiding real torment and despair that she can't bring to the surface whether she won't allow herself or probably more likely she's not allowed to you know and her journey to this record greatest love of all i think starts with saving all my love for you in 85 and it ends up through one moment in time in 88 with that winter in 92 where she just stays number one for like what feels like 300 ever yeah i mean the first female artist to do 10 weeks at number one since doris Day in the 50s, you know.

So commercially, you could argue that this is a very, very smart record. But I think for us as listeners, it leaves us kind of, yeah, sad and cold, really. I do have a soft spot for Saving All My Love For You. And what was the other one you said? One Moment In Time, which is like this. And it's like someone singing it as they're leaping from a tower, just going, ah! It's ridiculous, but in a good way. It is interesting and tragic in some ways, the way that her career went.

I think she knew what she wanted to do. But yes, I'm not sure that she ever really got to do it. You can just feel there's kind of a chafing, you know, because part of it was that, I mean, she got really slammed for going too white and too commercial and too pop um al sharpton called her whitey houston which is which is just painful this is not something that i'm qualified to speak about but there's oh god i heard that and went well i mean contrast this with janet well exactly yes there is no way either of them are going to fail but oh man who would you sooner listen to a

compilation of well yeah i mean it's fundamentally the difference between an exertion of control which is exactly what janet's doing whitney always felt buffeted about by her her pay masters if you like um i know she fought to get this record on but this is the thing with whitney there's a slight confusion about her motivations for me. And that's why I've never really bonded with her, if you like, as an artist, because there seems to be a really steely commercial sense.

But the trouble is it's not right. That record she ends up making really late in her career. That really suggested like, fuck me, you could have been amazing if perhaps you'd have exerted some of this control back then. But you you know i'm not judging whitney on that it's it's a shitty business you know and you gotta get along but oh man it's lots of wasted years of this big big pompous bombastic ballad oh i mean i fucking hate this

song it's it's like being pinned down by the bad 80s and having it fart on your head for four minutes it's fucking awful it's it's for it's for karaoke cunts and future x-factor contestants who are waiting for simply the best to be made it is so kind of gloopy and it's like being in a theater and it's suddenly being flooded with the slime out of ghostbusters 2 oh sarah you said ghostbusters 2 which makes me just think of me and Sarah's favourite line from that film, which I want to apply to this record now. Everything you are doing is bad. Everything

you are doing is bad. I want you to know this. I mean, it's not right, but it's okay. It's almost like a proto-Destiny's Child track, isn't it? It's amazing. Everybody loves that. I mean, you know, I'm Your Baby Tonight is a bit slept on um which was written by um la reed and babyface to challenge her like they wrote it to be unsingable and she

said hold my beer and nailed it inside an hour yeah because she was brilliant at these big bellowing runs but also the little precise ones you know and it's horrible when you uh when you remember that you know she lost it to drugs you know and just had this that was all kind of destroyed yeah um i mean she was you know by the time she died she was getting better again this is what always happens they get better and then they fucking die in the bath if only she'd watch drug watch sorry that's fucking hell but i mean there's for me like my, my favourite... Like I said, I don't... I definitely don't hate all of her output.

This is, like, the thing that I feel like is most closely associated with her until you remember that she did I Want To Dance With Somebody and then you go, oh, yes, fucking hell. Which is just pure joy, isn't it? You know, you can't resist that, really. I mean, the problem I have with Whitney Houston

is that, to my mind, she was born in the wrong time. If she'd been about in the 60s she'd been competing with Auntie Dion for the Choices Cuts from the Bacharach David Kitchen. In the 70s she would have been working with Gamble and Huff or Rogers and Edwards but it's the mid 80s so she gets a few decent

peppy tunes but she also gets a ton of mawkish shit like this. Yeah it is mawkish. Oh it's awful. I mean my favorite performance of hers probably is that um i don't know if you've ever seen this she sang the star spangled banner at the super bowl in 1991 fucking up and if you can there's this horrible kind of military shadow over it quite literally there's like a flypast at the end if you can separate it from that which is you know it's a bit tricky but it's mind-blowing and she's so giddy to be so she just rocks up there in a track suit and she's so giddy to be so in control

of her instrument and to get the response in real time to what a staggering force she could just casually unleash upon all the thousands of people there you can't deny the power of you know a black woman singing the american national anthem for one thing but it's her and she's having so much fun i can't think of a clip that better communicates to we mortals what it's like to be able to really sing like a goddess on a mountaintop and hear thousands of people respond to going ah that's the problem though we we know how good she is and in the end it's just like listening to fucking eddie van halen or someone like that yes man i know you can play the guitar. So why are you fucking over-whittling everything? Yeah, that's the thing about that performance, though.

She does not over-whittle at all. You know, and it's like, and it's in like 4-4 as well. It's this weird sort of march arrangement. So it's very strange. Yeah, I mean, the Star Spangled Banner is the parallel bars of singing, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can make it your own, and she really did. Marvin Gaye is a good example.

Cole Lewis is a very bad example. I think Krusty the Clown did it best, really. Yes. Obviously, the king was Leslie Nielsen in... Oh, God, yeah. If you want a proper compare and contrast, you've got to go to one of the fights between Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis in 1999.

They had fucking D'Angelo doing the Star Spangled Banner. We had a Cockney version of Fine Time Fontaine who they dragged out of a pub in Mile End to our shitty dirge. Oh, it was awful, man. He finished by going, God save our Queen! Oh, man, National Anthem is fucking cat shit. But anyway, the video, fucking hell,

I wish I'd have known at the time this video was set in the fucking Apollo. Because round about this time, I had bought and was absolutely rinsing the original Live at the Apollo by James Brown. And would just spend all my time lying on my bed listening to it, just imagining how skill it would be to be inside that building. Yeah. And here it is. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's Whitney's mum, isn't it? Yes.

Starring in it, helping a little girl out who's obviously going to turn into Whitney Houston. So the video's not bad. What's weird, though, of course, is that in the top of the pop studio, we see the people not doing a lot, and then the video becomes a screen almost that they're all looking up at, but they're not really. And it's that same old confusion about the production values that seems to go throughout this episode, really. Yeah, I had bad feelings watching this video because a couple of years ago i had terrible cramps and i just took as much codeine as i was safely allowed to and for some reason watch both

of the whitney documentaries back to back there's like two feature-length ones oh mate it's okay if you've had codeine it really takes the edge off but i mean they're both very good they're extremely grim obviously and one goes further than the other and suggesting how bad her childhood was um but and also both contain a wealth of evidence that bobby brown is a thoroughly useless piece of shit who to be charitable about it did not help anyway she's there's a there's a moment where she takes her daughter bobby christina a tiny like three or four year old bobby christina on stage and kind of prods her to sing and the kid obviously doesn't want to be there and it really reminded me of that because

whitney like meets her own younger self on stage and it's like oh bobby also who died exactly the same way as her a year and a half later and it's just so if i could have enjoyed this video at all before i definitely couldn't have done after that. Poor Whitney. So, the following week, the greatest love of all, sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo and finally made it to number eight. The follow-up, the lead-off cut from her second LP, Witnair, I Wanna Dance With Somebody, smashed into the charts at number ten and would spend two weeks at number one as the meat in a nothing's gonna stop us now slash Star Trekking sandwich.

And she'd go on to rack up two more number ones, ten more top ten hits, and 29 more top 40 entries before she died in 2012 after an accidental drug overdose. It's not just Zamo. And that, Pop Craze Youngsters, brings us to the end of this episode of Top of the Pops. What's on telly afterwards?

Well, BBC One kicks on with more cockney misery in EastEnders, where Loftair asks Lou Beale for Michelle Fowler's Andy marriage. Then Tomorrow's World looks at all the nuclear waste Britain reprocesses and asks why do we bother?

Charlie Spedding, Michael Robinson, Willie Thorne and Susan Devoy join Bill Beaumont, Emlyn Hughes and David Coleman for a question of sport. Then it's the nine o'clock news. I woke up one morning. The Carl and Elaine sitcom that everyone's forgotten about. Then it's question time.

The documentary series Brazil, Brazil. The weather. And they close down at five to midnight. BBC Two is currently halfway through Best of Brass, where Yorkshire and the South Midlands throw down in a semi-final brass clash at the Assembly Room's Darby. Then it's a Saturday Review special, where Russell Davies interviews the German director Edgar Wright

about his 15 hour film high matt which is to be broadcast over 11 consecutive nights on bbc2 from saturday i fucking loved high matt great show the documentary series brass tax wonders if a chemical leak of the type that happened in bhopal a couple of years ago could happen over here and pinpoints over 200 communities who don't know that they could be at risk. And then it's the last in the present series of 40 Minutes, which follows a knackered old coaster boat captained by Edward Heath's former buckler

as it delivers unglamorous cargos around the North Sea. Then it's the grand final and last ever episode of Pop Black with Jimmy White beating Kirk Stevens, presented by David Icke. That's followed by Newsnight, The Weather, an Open University preview of all the weekend's pulsating programmes, and they finish off with an Open university show about St. Lucia, closing down at 20 past midnight. ITV bangs out a repeat of The A-Team,

followed by the sitcom The Brothers McGregor, then Robert Carradine stars as a cop killer in the reboot of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, then TVI looks at the life of Kurt Waldheim, currently running for the presidency of Austria, and asks whether he was a nazi or not. After news at 10 and regional news in your area, it's a repeat of Kojak, followed by a repeat of Six Centuries of Verse,

then That's Hollywood, a clip show of theme songs from the likes of Star Wars and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, then it's Night Thoughts and Close Down at half twelve. Channel 4 continues with worldwide reports who have a good tut about acid rain and wonders if a new power station in Ireland is directly responsible for dead trees and river pollution in Wales.

Then it's the first in the new series of the music show Club Mix, featuring Janet Jackson, Paul Blake and the Fire Posse, and Trevor McDonald. Then it's real kids issues in the drama series What Now?, where some youths in Liverpool have a shit time of it on the dole.

Then it's Fellow Travellers, the 1983 film where an Israeli pop singer raises money for a Palestinian university, unaware that his mates are funneling the money towards terrorist groups and Mossad is on his arse. Then it's the discussion programme Voices, which talks about the failures of revolutionary socialism and scientific reason, and the modern world's loss of shared values. scientific reason and the modern world's loss of shared values then it's more of their lordship's house and they close down at midnight there's a fun evening on the fourth channel eh so me dears what are we talking about in the playground tomorrow probably i mean falco because he's got to be talked about oh yes uh the janet video how shit the jane grain chill video is

yeah and probably at the time oh what was what the fuck was that george michael song all about because i just did not understand it there's there's been so much in this episode really i mean like some really next level singers like morten harkett suzanne vega george michael whitney houston what the fuck you know i mean so maybe if i had my head about me i'd be talking about what a selection that is but yeah i probably end up talking about just say no at length as i have done i don't know because that's that's the stand out for all the wrong reasons isn't it what we're buying on saturday um george if I was feeling melancholy Janet if I was feeling nasty Polko Aha probably Vega as well

and yeah not George because I didn't understand it but yeah Janet was already bagged by then and what does this episode tell us about April of 1986 it tells us a bit of a lie it tells us

you know things aren't that bad. I know. I mean, I think 86 was pretty bad. For me, it was like about a couple of albums. It was about parade and control. So I was listening less, perhaps, because there was so much dross out there. But this is not a bad episode for 86.

Not a bad episode at all. It's almost as if Top of the Pops knew that it was going to be a landlord inspection and they've had a bit of a tidy up yeah i think it suggests that british eccentricity is always going to endure and evolve kind of beyond itself and into interesting new shapes but we should still not try to do what americans do unless we really know what we're doing and have a full tank of premium unleaded and that pop craze youngsters brings us to the end of this episode of chart music all i gotta do now is trot out the usual promotional flange website chart-music.co.uk facebook.com slash chart music Thank you, Sarah B.

Thank you. God bless you, Neil Kulkarni. No worries. My name's Al Needham. I fuck everybody. I fuck you all I get angry just thinking about it makes me mad. Little kids doing drugs, it turns my stomach. That stuff hurts.

It stops you from living up to your potential. It holds you back. It hurts the user. It hurts his family. And it hurts his friends. I just want to shake some sense into you kids that are using drugs and think about using. So remember, don't or else. Okay?

I always feel very sorry for people. And in fact, from my own personal point of view, I take a great deal of pleasure in beating people who I think are on drugs just because it just gives me that added satisfaction. Well, third attempt at 490, and he's clear. The master is clear. The ultimate advice I could probably give you, and that is just say no.

I can't really imagine any drugs helping a sportsman. I think the whole thing is a question of being fit, a question of being mentally alert, and I can't believe there are too many drugs that really help that. Six more, then. Glorious. alert and i can't believe there are too many drugs that really help that six royal glorious well i suppose the simple advice is to say no i can't really see any point of taking any sort of drug whatsoever if any kids think that drugs are going to help them a get a job be be much more relaxed in company, they've got another thing coming.

It's all over. Steve Davis then continues his tapestry of titles. If you're with your friends and one of your friends offers you, even though it's going to be hard, just say no, because otherwise you'll be at the end of the queue. Ray, no-one ever Because otherwise, you'll be your hair It's the things that you say in conversations It's the things you do It's up to you

You don't have to wait a minute It's your life So choose life Say drugs aren't in it Drugs aren't in it Feel your candy Choose life, not drugs