Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - Chart Music #46 (Part 4): 17th December 1987 – Mission Accomplished, Agent King Cole

Episode Date: December 19, 2019

The latest episode of the podcast which asks: why didn’t they let Simon Bates do Top Of The Pops USA?We're out of the Critics' Choice series, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, so it's time to grasp the fly-encrusted and whiffy end of the Eighties Stick. It's a Thursday evening one week before Xmas in 1987, and your panel are a) in a Soho pub, chucking their musical-journalistic weight about, b) trapped in a bingo hall in Nottingham being handled like a piece of meat by randy octogenarians, and c) sprawled out on a rug in Yorkshire, with a garter snake wrapped around their glasses, waiting to be dazzled by the life-affirming beauty of Pop. Two of these people made the right choice that night.Musicwise, this is a heavily adulterated, gelled-up, suity, unwiped arse of an episode, with only a couple of standouts. Mike Read and Gary Davies pretend to be mates. Wet Wet Wet attempt to do True and fail. Mel Smith's attempt to encourage kids to hide in fridges is denied by the BBC. Mick Hucknall - leader of the Kennyist band in Pop - reminds us he can sing a bit. Nat King Cole cock-blocks Rick Astley. We finally get to see a bit of Top Of The Pops USA. And Kirsty and Shane and Neil and Chris ride in to save the day. None of these people are The Young Gods.David Stubbs and Sarah Bee join Al Needham for a rummage through the Quality Street tin of Xmas 1987, and - as always - the detours and tangents are manifold, including what it was like to work at Melody Maker in the Laties, how to buy a shark in Yorkshire, the lack of a decent wine cellar at Dingwalls, the pointlessness of CD Walkmans, the annual F-word debate, how Marti Pellow ruined Stars In Their Eyes, and an open apology to the Pogues for a 33 year-old LP review. Now available in Fun-sized portions, and full of rich, chunky swearing. Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | TwitterSubscribe to us on iTunes here. Support us on Patreon here. This podcast is a member of the Great Big Owl family. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The following podcast is a member of the Great Big Owl family. This will certainly have an adult theme and might well contain strong scenes of sex or violence, which could be quite graphic. It may also contain some very explicit language, which will frequently mean sexual swear words. What do you like to listen to? Um... Chart music. Chart music. Chart music. It's still Thursday night.

It's still Top of the Pops. It's still December the 17th, 1987. I'm still Al Needham. There's still Sarah B and David Stubbs. And this is still Chalk Music. Hey, you pop-crazed youngsters. We are now into the final part, the final furlong, if you will, of this particular episode of Top of the Pops.

And I've got to say, me dogs, it's picked up a bit, hasn't it? It has a bit, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Non-committal noises, isn't it? Couldn't really pick down anymore, could it? It certainly couldn't. Let us cut the chit in the chat and let us plunge headlong into the final part of this episode. Take it away, pop world of 1987 here's the highest new entry on the chart this week at number 19 in our la studio on

top of the pops belinda carlisle davis just about remembers that the next act is coming at us all the way from a studio in Los Angeles. It's Heaven is a Place on Earth by Belinda Carlyle. Born in Los Angeles in 1958, Belinda Carlyle began her musical career in 1977 as a drummer with the LA punk band Germs under the name of Dottie Danger, although she was forced to leave the group without ever playing live with them after a bout of glandular fever. In 1978, she helped to form the Go-Go's, and by 1980 they supported Madness and the Specials on their US tours, which helped them land a deal with Stiff Records in the UK.

But while their debut LP Beauty and the Beat got to number one for six weeks in the US album charts in 1981 they got nowhere near the UK top four with their only placing on their first go around being Our Lips Are Sealed which got to number 47 in June of 1982. When the band split up in 1985, Carlisle went solo and had immediate success in the USA, but it wouldn't be until this single came out that she made a dent on the UK chart. This is the lead-off single from her new LP, Heaven on Earth,

and it soared 24 places this week from number 43 to number 19 and we're being treated to a recording of a performance on Top of the Pops USA an hour long show which has been running on CBS on Friday nights for the past two months features performances from their studio and the BBC one and is co-hosted

by Nia Peoples a former cast member of fame who appeared in the video for Raspberry Beret and Gary Davis who didn't. We need to talk a bit about Top of the Pops USA Don't Win Me Ducks because there's an episode or two floating about on the

internet and it's massively disconcerting, isn't it? Yeah, it's all wrong. It's all wrong. I mean, you get the Wizard intro and the set's sort of similar but it's all in ntsc so you got that sheen on it there's an actual young woman presenting yeah uh the dancers are aerobicized to death and everything's just massively super professional and then it wangs back to london and there's gary davis with some gimpy brit Yeah. In shitty suits and manky ties.

I think from the perspective of a podcast like this, there's too little to kind of get your teeth sunk into, really. It's a bit sort of slick. And it's just, yeah, they've managed to kind of airbrush and deodorise it and play away all the kind of sort of slightly grotesque idiosyncrasies of the top of the Pops we know and love. Yeah.

Gary Davis was the regular presenter on the Top of the Pops USA. Oh, that must have caused ructions at Radio 1. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, I mean, who else are they going to have? I can't see Mike Smith doing this. It's such a fun... I definitely can't see Simon Bates doing it.

Can you imagine American Satatone being fucking assailed definitely can't see Simon Bates doing it. Can you imagine American Satatone being fucking assailed by the sight of Simon Bates? Yeah, it's like they picked the most presentable child to kind of shove out to the front when the important people turn up, you know. But I mean, I think Gary Davis was like, oh, brilliant, an American career beckons and then it didn't.

Poor Gary. It's a bit of a shame. Maybe Gary Davis could have possibly carried it off because there's a certain sort of nondescriptness about him. But, you know, Batesy and people like that. I mean, it's like Alan Partridge making it in America. I mean, they'd be too far away. The idea of being thousands of miles away

from the nearest motorway service station, I just think they'd find the whole atmosphere alienating. They'd be lost in it. They'd crave twixes and marmites and things like that. The thing is, their shit just wouldn't wash in America, would it? This kind of bumbling,

fuffling, oily British bollocks just would not wash there. It's like, what are you guys doing? You realise we're on television right now? You realise those cameras are on? I like you realize you realize we're on television right now you realize those cameras are are on i like it i i like there's kind of it is weird there is a sort of uncanny valley vibe about it where it's like oh my god it's like looking into a parallel universe where top of the pops isn't yes kind of the kind of adorable shambles that we all know and love

but i it's kind of a breath of fresh air for me because you know it's just the oh the sort of british shambling oh after a while i just go for fuck's sake i just need a dose of cold hard professionalism you know it's like it's i mean britishness is so exhausting and i say that as a as a british person and of course americanness is exhausting as well but it's like i have you know countrymen of of each play you know I need to ricochet between the two really in my soul yeah I mean I think that there is like with the British one you know there's all

kind of bristling and snarling with subtext I mean you know just these kind of very snatched in between songs there's so much you can sense whereas I think in America you dick cavits and people like that there's no subtext at all it's just clamped firmly you know, with a sort of Richter's smile

and a kind of Richter's presentation. You know, that's the big, big difference. I'm sure a la Larry Sanders, there's all kinds of shit going on behind the scenes, but behind the scenes, it stays. Obviously, for Top of the Pops, this is win, win, win, win, win, isn't it? Because it's a great opportunity for them

to get footage of American acts. And for British acts, you know, there's a very good chance that they'd suddenly be on a big American network on a Friday night. But sadly, it only lasted 26 episodes due to poor ratings. Yeah. Oh, those Americans. I mean, if they'd have done this in the early 80s, probably would have taken off. You know, giving the Americans a chance to see Culture Club and Duran duran and all that kind of stuff all the stuff they liked but you know by 1987 what what can we offer them yeah and in any case there's always that sort of deep

resentment of british invasions it's like that moment in pulp fiction where he sort of says the go hey flak of seagulls you, and there's like a sort of deep cultural hatred ventilated there for British invasions and whenever we go over there and try and show them how it's done. And yeah, so I think there's always that kind of ingrained resentment. It's funny that little weird little catch

when, you know, he says, and in our LA studio, it's like, has he temporarily forgotten the location, the city, you know, thinks it might be. Of all people, Gary Davis forgetting that because you know he'd be fucking wanging that round

in the canteen. Oh yeah, you know, my LA studio. Where I present my show, Top of the Pops USA. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, imagine if Savile was still around and he presented it. Fucking hell. No, but there is a certain

you know, something that truly there was that there was a certain you know you know something that truly reminds you that there is something that is so idiosyncratically british that it it evaporates you know when it kind of leaves the shores of the uk yeah yeah i mean and when we cut to the audience in america you know there's definitely no suits in evidence but no they're not wearing much of anything either really are they there's yeah there's no sense that we're missing out on anything no i mean this is it i mean there's you know apart from all those brilliant r&b that's going on and jimmy jam and terry lewis you know producing brilliant singles every half an hour yeah it's it's a slightly down time and of course the uh i think the worst thing that came over this crossover

period was uh we got to see kiss perform crazy nice which is no word of a lie the worst performance ever on top of the pops they're fucking shit yeah and also i think from a british point of view the idea that she's coming from la it's just like well come on you know get on the plane come over here you know so it's like you're too grand for us yeah and then they would have been greeted by the huh what are you doing here exactly you know. It's just like you're too grand for us. Yeah, and then they would have been greeted by, huh, what are you doing here then? Yeah, exactly. You've got a massive country over there.

What, you're going to come over here and steal the towels out of our hotels, are you? You fuckers. We used to own you. Yeah. They can't win. But this song, though. I mean, the Go-Go's were massive in America in the early 80s.

And over there, she accounted a little bit of a backlash for selling out and being all pop. But this is pretty much a coming out party in the early 80s and over there she accounted a little bit of a backlash for selling out and being all pop but this is pretty much a coming out party in the UK isn't it we know no other Belinda Carlisle but this pretty much I mean I know that if Pricey were on I think he would probably

mount some sort of Stoughton Sterling defence for this but I don't know I can't muster the sort of sense of irony or kitchell not even those things whatever because he wouldn't do it in that spirit um i mean you know and she she seems a likable old cove as um belinda carlisle but um but it's it's it's it's it's just relentlessly atrocious and it's not even like particularly her it's not even singling out her it's it's just relentlessly atrocious, and it's not even particularly her. It's not even singling out her. It's just... I mean, this is interesting. This is about the only remotely guitar-based song we have all night, isn't it, I think?

Yes. Everything else is... It's almost like Top of the Pops has very belatedly caught on to the concept of rockism and the guitar being on the way out, whatever, in the 80s, right around the 90s, just as actually it's just about to make this great resurgence. Because it's this kind of glazed glazed poodle hair is sort of la processed crap that passes for rock music you know that's just lots of sort of like posturing the sort of you know like um it's shaving cream ad rock you know it's it's um

and this is what i've been reduced to and this this is what, in the future, this is what you... Kitty cat, that's living. That's right, yeah. Ooh. Yeah. Or was it Soundshop or something like that? Some sort of, like, record outlet, a bit like Our Price, and it says, time to catch all the bullets from Soundshop.

You know, everything's like that. Yeah, yeah. Do you remember that one? Yeah? Yeah. Oh, yes. I think it was called Soundshop or something like that. Yeah.

And it's this histrionic, squawking, balls-less parody of rock. Yeah, I'm not going to... I'm sorry. I haven't warmed up, otherwise I would do the body form. Oh, yeah. Of course.

Of course, body form. Well, continuing the fine tradition of course body form well continuing the fine tradition of disagreeing with you on pretty much everything I love this song are you kidding it's like it's very I know exactly what it I know precisely what it is it's very basic

chug-a-lug anthemic pop rock that is kind of it's sort of precision tool to fit a certain dumb hole in your skull and it's very last song of the disco very sort of drunk you can't really dance to it it's like you have to be sort of drunk to feel feelings about it um and it's very bit of a punch in the air though couldn't you but it's kind of perfect in itself it's like it's this solid block of kind of euphoric nonsense i love it i mean orbital play it in their sets

and not in a sort of ironic way because you know they're kind of that that is that is not something to which they stoop and it's fucking great and it completely fits in the midst of all this kind of electronic um kind of squalling craziness um it's interesting that I haven't seen evidence of this, but apparently this song is featured in Black Mirror and also The Handmaid's Tale. So I find this interesting that some producers have seen in it or heard in it the kind of note of dystopian kind of wrongness. And it's because it's the dissonance, isn't it?

It's because it's so dumb and happy that that's why, because that's going to sound great over images of you know people being weirdly estranged from each other because of technology or whatever um but yeah there's also i really respect the fact that there's this kind of because i i love a key change as regular listeners will know but this one is really rude and abrupt it's just like fuck, fuck you! This is a key change! USA! USA! And, yeah, I'm okay with it. Every time, you know, whenever I hear this,

I wouldn't put it on, do you know what I mean? But there's so much music that I wouldn't put on. I wouldn't choose to, you know, I wouldn't reverently take down the vinyl and kind of, you know, blow it off. But, you know, if this comes on in a cab, I will, you know, I will off but um i would you know if this comes on in in a cab i will you know i'll feel a surge of punch the roof in yeah which is where it will come on yeah it's fucking great she's cut she's she's sort of really she's such an adorable presence as well like when she was in the go-go she had that very i love how the go-go's sound exactly like their name it's always really

pleasing when somebody it's there's a sort of very all-american thing but with a slight undercurrent of something a bit more spiky you know and she just looks very very wholesome and sweet and she's got that sort of priscilla presley thing about her and which apparently according to an extremely um oleaginous neil mccormick review from this year she's 61 now and seems to just be overjoyed to be performing she's always sort of skipping about and grinning like a little girl which is which is very endearing and i think this this whole performance is very like i said it's such a kind of the the whiplash that you get from seeing something like the pogues you know and then and then this which is so all the guitar

you know there's there's several probably more guitarists than there are guitar parts and they've all got the stance and all the you know and the there's a the drummer has like three different mullets kind of stacked on top of each other like like like pancakes and it's just like oh look the americans have turned up and i'm not saying that that's better than the Pope's. Of course it isn't. But it's just there's a delight in the contrast of how, of that complete other end of things, you know. She's got a little black suit on with massive shoulder pads. Obviously, it's 1987. A big sort of cabbagey buttonhole.

Even Belinda's got a suit on as well. Belinda got a suit on. She's, you know, because she's flipping her hair. She's doing the hair flip back and forth with her lovely brandy snap hair. Yeah, she's dressed like a secretary at a wedding. And little heels. Yeah, she's got a suit on. You know, she's on brand. And of course, she sings

like, you know, she sings like a... But she looks better in it than everyone else. Oh yeah, obviously, yeah. As I'm sure Neil McCormick agreed at great length, but I didn't read the whole thing because, you know, when things fade out on the telegraph and you haven't paid for it, and it's like, I'm not paying to listen to Neil McCormick agreed at great length but I didn't read the whole thing because you know when things fade out on the telegraph and you haven't paid for it and it's like I'm not paying to listen to Neil McCormick

ooze about Belinda Carlisle and how she doesn't look any different to how she did when she was 19 she's got that very distinctive slightly annoying voice it's kind of like a sexy goat sitting on an old washing machine but again I don't know it's kind of like a sexy goat sitting on an old washing machine but um again i'm finding that i

don't know i'm just i i give up trying to trying to break down why it is that i'm okay with things i just am okay let me live i think all of those observations are correct actually um it's just that when i hear it it makes me sad and angry are. And I think it's shy and all that. But I think actually it always helps. Interesting thing about the suit, actually, we talked a lot about the suit, is that we're in this kind of pre-ladderism, pre-loaded era, actually. And it's women, you know,

Linda Carlyle is clearly very beautiful or whatever, but there's no sense in which, you know, the way that she dresses, you know, in the kind of suit, it sort of defies, you know, objectification or whatever. I'm sure that Annie Lennox, whatever, was doing the same sort of thing at the same time. So, you know, I would at least say that. Dottie Danger's a fucking shit punk name, though, isn't it?

That's proper Quincy punk. It's what Beryl the Peril would have called herself one week in 1977. Oh, bless her. And her dad gives her the slipper with a safety pin through it at the end. God, that was weird, isn't it? We keep talking about the Beano and whatever and Wizarding Chips where little eight-year-old girls were given the slipper at the end.

Linda Carlyle isn't Australian, is she? No. No. No. I've laboured for long sections of my life assuming she was Australian. I think it's because she once met Andrew Muller, who wrote for Melody Maker, and he's Australian. What?

You just rubbed off on her? I mean, you know, it's possible that on that basis alone I'm disqualified from expressing any kind of authority on Belinda Carlile. I don't know, I just disqualified from expressing any kind of authority on Linda Carlisle. I don't know, I just thought she was Australian for some reason. Have you got any Australian in you? Yeah.

Anyway, you know, obviously I'm fully disabused of that now. No, but I mean, obviously this is the LA-ficification of rock music it's like sunset stripped of all of its kind of sort of raucousness oh nice quite nice that wasn't it did you have that one written down yeah yeah um and um basically already the forces were mustering um to kind of rid the world of this scourge you know and you know the early stirrings of grunge and what have you because you, you know, they were really in revolt

against the whole kind of poodle hair tendency of, you know, whether it's Bon Jovi or whatever, et cetera, et cetera. You know, that's what they came to drive out. Or New Order in that one picture. Yes, indeed, yeah. So the following week, Heaven is a Place on Earth jumped 11 places to number eight, and three weeks later it deposed this week's

number 1, spending 2 weeks there before being usurped by I Think We're Alone Now by Tiffany which was fucking weird because she looks like Belinda Carlisle's niece the follow up I Get Weak got to number 10 in March of 1988

and she'd have 3 more top 10 hits in the 90s and be a chart regular all the way up to 1997. I think this is the biggest achievement of Top of the Pops USA, isn't it? It gave us Belinda Coleisle, she just won't stop calling me I said Belinda it's over I said I wish you'd call me sometime Tell you what we'll do right now is have a look at this week's top ten. Number ten is Jelly Bean with Elisa Fiorello

and Who Found Who. Madonna goes up six to nine with A Look of Love. The Pogues and Kirstie McCall, The Great Fairytale of New York, up from 19 to eight. And at seven, What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For from Shaky.

Mel and Kim, a rise for them to number 6 with their Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree. And to power's former number 1, China in Your Hand is this week's 5. Up 5 to number 4 goes Alison Moyer with her version of Love Letters. And Michael Jackson, The Way You Make Me Feel stands still at number 3.

Standing still at 2, Rick Astley and When I Fall Alone. So that means we have a brand new number one, and what a year it's been for this band. They were number one earlier in the year with a song called It's A Sin. And now with Always On My Mind, Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant, the Pet Shop Boys, are back there again at the top. Maybe I didn't treat you Quite as good as I should Reid fantasises that Belinda Carlisle is stalking him Blue tulip Belinda Carlisle if you will While Davis wishes that she or anybody else from the

American top of the pops would just give him a call before they go into the top 10 they end up at the very top of the pile with always on my mind by the pet shop boys formed in a hi-fi shop in Chelsea when Neil Tennant who was working on assorted TV tie-in books for ITV, bought a Korg, and Chris Flo, who was in a work placement with an architectural firm and had just designed a staircase for an industrial estate in Milton Keynes, said it was dead nice. The Pet Shop Boys took their title from a nickname

they had given to some mutual friends who were working in a live domesticated animal emporium and apparently not from some American lads who were shoving hamsters up their ring pieces. When Tennant landed a job on Smash Hits and was required to travel to New York to interview Sting he took the opportunity to look up the high-energy producer Bobby Orlando and convinced him to produce the duo, who then spent 1983 and 1984 working up a demo tape which contained West End girls, which became a US club hit but was only available on import 12-inch over here.

After finally getting out of their deal with Bobby O, which involved signing off a million dollars worth of future royalties, they took on Tom Watkins as their manager and signed to Parlophone. Their debut single, Opportunities, Let's Make Lots of Money, only got to number 116 in the summer of 1985, but the follow-up, a re-recording of West End Girls, got to number two for two weeks in January of 1986, and they rapidly became one of the most successful British groups of the late 80s. This is the follow-up to What Have I Done To Deserve This, the collaboration with Dusty Springfield, which got to number two

for two weeks in August of this year. In the same month, they pitched up to the central tv studios in nottingham to take part in love me tender a two-hour tribute to elvis to mark the 10th anniversary of his death and they covered this song which was originally recorded by bj thomas in 1970 and then covered by brenda lee and gwen mccray in 1972 until it was claimed by Elvis later that year who took it to number nine in the UK in January of 1973. Their performance on the show went down so well there was a clamour for its release. It was the second highest new entry last week at number four

and this week it's leapfrogged When I Fall In Love by Rick Astley and Taken China In Your Hand by T'Pau down from the top spot. And here they are in the studio. Mission accomplished, Agent King Cole. Thank you for your service. That Love Me Tender special, that was fucking weird, that one. It's amazing! I had a look at a few um a few performances

including uh meatloaf doing jailhouse rock yeah fucking hell god bless meatloaf honestly because you know that he cares he cares so much and he gives it loads and then some more it's just oh it's i i've once cruelly described him as Mick Jagger in a walrus, and I am going to repent on that, but not yet. No, why not? I'm going to feel really bad when he dies. I'm going to feel so bad. I mean, it was a some-star cast for this special. I mean, you had Mystery Train, Lordy Miss Claudia and Hound Dog,

sung by Roger Daltrey. Blue Moon of Kentucky, Good Rockin' Tonight and Paralyzed, Dave Edmonds. and hound dog sung by roger daltrey blue moon of kentucky good rocking tonight and paralyzed dave edmonds one night with you and big hunk of love kim wilde heartbreak hotel and loving you by kiki d a mess of the blues love letters my baby

left me elkie brooks and all her looks suspicious minds and money honey by benny king hard headed woman j lasts and Money Honey by Benny King. Hard-Headed Woman, J Last Rock and American Trilogy by Meatloaf, and Are You Lonesome Tonight and Teddy Bear by Boy George. There was a lot of onstage performances, apart from Kim Wilde, who was rolling about on a bed for one night with you. But the Pet Shop Boys, they did a video,

and it involved a lot of trains, and it involved them dressed up in a lot of leather with you. But the Pet Shop Boys, they did a video and it involved a lot of trains and it involved them dressed up in a lot of leather with caps. It was like, you know, Neil and Chris of Finland, if you will. It's a camp... I feel like it's a lost camp classic, this entire glorious fiasco. But shaky doesn't get a look in. Yeah.

Shaky. It doesn't get a look in, does it? I mean, that's a real snub, isn't it? Yeah, that's not... That wouldn't have worked. How would that... Maybe Shaky turned down Elvis. You know, Elvis should be covering me. It's never been released on DVD or anything,

so it's just that there's... No. The whole thing is on YouTube. It's been ripped off of VHS. Yeah, bits and bobs, yeah. It's great. I was surprised, was surprised actually how happy it made me did a bit of research and uh on a on an elvis forum somebody called andy said i remember it well i was there it was filmed at the central tv studios lenton lane in nottingham where bullseye was filmed of course nottingham cradle of pop i remember meatloaf never finished american

trilogy it had to be spliced dr robert from the blown monkeys did follow that dweem or at least that's how he pronounced it and walked off to complete silence no surprise there kim walt was amazing and i spent a little while talking to her in the corridor outside her dressing room as the heat in the TV studio was incredible and I had to get a drink, but oh dear. Boy George was disgusting, playing with himself on the stage before the camera rolled.

Oh, George. Boy George, he turns up on that as Sue Pollard, doesn't he? He's got these massive glasses on and some blonde wig going on. It all comes back to Nottingham, doesn't it, somehow? It does. And also, it looked like Carl Perkins' rug had died ten years previously as well. But, yeah, I mean, the Pet Shop Boys on that, they were just like Earth, Wind & Fire on the film version

of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band they were the only ones who took an old song and dipped it in fresh new colours. I mean, as a writer at the time, I remember I did give Pet Shop Boys quite a hard time really, you know, as I said earlier, not the young gods etc etc, but I just kind of

felt that they were sort of pop ironists who'd arrived a few years too late to the game and I just found their sort of archness, you know, slightly kind of grating. But now as I approach middle age, I'm beginning to, you know, I can see, I can recognise retrospectively their merits, definitely.

I mean, what you've got with, you know, Neil and Chris is not so much yin and yang. I mean, a lot of these kind of duos were yin and yang, weren't they? Like in Sparks or Suicide, Soft Cell and all that. And here you not so much yin and yang. I mean, a lot of these kind of duos were yin and yang, weren't they? Like in Sparks or Suicide, Soft Cell and all that. And here you've just got yin and yin, haven't you? Because they're both, you know, pretty much in that kind of sort of deadpan,

deadpan demeanor. And it's strange, you know, it's almost like there's something Smith's-esque about them as well, in the way that they're kind of, you know, they're sort of a sort of morn distant delivery in the context of things like Top of the Pops, but doing it in the idiom of the time, in the sort of dance idiom of the era or whatever. So they're sort of dead central from that point of view.

So that I like. At the time, I would probably have disdained it, but no, retrospectively, I can see it was a good thing. I fucking hated this when it came out. Because we were in Elvis' house. And it was my mum and dad's song. Yeah, my dad was a lorry driver right through the 70s. So I didn't see a lot of him.

And he didn't see a lot of me, ma'am. And he was a really quiet bloke as well. And, you know, it was just their song you know and uh he got played at his funeral as well along with the wonder of you i was a bit upset about that i think they should have knocked out the wonder of you and put in tutti frutta which was my dad's favorite song ever but yeah so when that when this came out it was like oh fuck how dare you i mean i was no elvis fan by 1987 but it's like how the fuck dare you yeah but now like you dave a little back on it and go no this is this is all right this is this is a worthy number one yeah i can see they brought

that shit into your parlor room haven't they and you know look at that yeah yeah that's i would understand that is that that is that is difficult when uh i think everybody's got a song that is sacred to them and it's like where any fucker covers it it's just like fuck you get out of my house um so i i totally totally understand that um i i'm pretty sure that i heard this before i ever heard the original right this would have been the first time i heard this song and i probably thought it was you know at this time I probably thought it was it was theirs but um yeah I mean I love it I mean I love the Pet Shop Boys always have done um I've never I mean I never found them arch I never found them aloof I've found them very warm and very practiced and

sort of but without ever being stiff and without ever being removed in that way or having any sort of deep down warm yeah it is kind of startling like how compressed it is it is like a toasted sandwich you know when you get a massive massive bulging sandwich and then you iron it in a in a breville and it's like how how the hell has all of that gone gone so flat but you know but perfectly you know it's done it's done so well it's kind of this sort of steamrollered horn section and it but it's it's great it's this very sort of melancholy wistful big tune and they've turned it into a kind of pounding disco lament yeah and um it's a really good performance it's kind of surprisingly good i know i always talk about whether people seem comfortable or uncomfortable but he's neil is um you know incredibly comfortable he's acting

out the song without it being cringy whatsoever you know he's so he's looking directly down the camera which you know obviously is is a that's a hard thing to pull off but he's he's like smoldering down the camera and i was like i never thought of he's so unassuming that it's it's almost a little bit it's almost a bit odd but you know i never realized he's got actually neil lovely eyes you've got there he's kind of given it you know he's he's really he's really working it i was like how how interesting i don't remember i don't remember him being this much of a pop star in this way you know there's all these little rueful expressions and kind of sighing and sort of shaking his head and then and then doing a little smirk and kind of falling out of character and going back into it

again and you know at one point he bops himself in the head like oh little things i should have said and done bop with the heel of his hand and it's just really charming and of course chris there behind him just you know in a in a bobble hat and a sweater just kind of doing what he does i mean it's it's funny like he's he's he's kind of like Gromit out of Wallace and Gromit, isn't he? He's just very sturdy and reliable and totally, totally deadpan. Covering Elvis songs, this was beginning to, you know, people were beginning to approach Elvis songs by this time. We were only a couple of years removed from Suspicious Minds by Fine Young Cannibals.

We can't go far, we can't go... Sorry. But does having this song sung by a gay man in 1987 do anything to it? He's gay? Does it? Australian as well. Yeah, that's the thing, is that I think at this point it would still be a sort of quietly, very subtly subversive thing.

Without it being disrespectful, it's not kind of, you know, turning over the tables and smashing shit up. It's just like, it's like Boy George doing Teddy Bear and Are You Lonesome Tonight. So Boy George on this thing wandering around a kind of, the staging of this, sorry, just to go back to the 1987 Elvis special thing. The staging of it was amazing. It was really weird. So he's in like a diner and there's loads of kind of extras standing around as if they're dancing, but they've sort of frozen. And he's wandering around doing the spoken bit

and kind of walking right up to them. They're all scared rages. Oh, fuck it, Boy George is on drugs. Oh, no. Oh, my God. You know, also look at him. Is he mad at a woman? I'm so confused. This is super odd.

But, yeah, I mean, he's got like 12 inches of makeup on his face as he would at that time and kind of red lippy on his teeth. And he looks kind of a fright, but he sounds beautiful. And he's got these great sad eyes and he's taking it really seriously i don't think it yeah i don't think it's a kind of disrespectful thing like yeah we're going to take this very very heterosexual thing and claim it claim it for the gays but i think yeah it's good it can only be a good thing right well because the thing is round about this time any song sung by a gay man that isn't totally 100 percent happy you know people go oh it must be about aids or something like that

yeah I mean that's weird that actually because obviously AIDS was uppermost in people's minds in 1987 it really was coming through as a kind of you know major issue that people try to engage with this kind of level and yeah I don't recall anybody actually making that particular connection I mean I may not have been paying enough attention but, but I just think of it as a sort of standalone, yeah, an appropriation of a kind of rock standard and giving it the full sort of high-energy treatment. But, you know, creating something, actually, that is, I would definitely acknowledge,

is actually immaculate. Hello there. Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Quickly, quickly, we haven't got long. Please listen to the all-new Angel of Sanderberry podcast. It's a funny one. Oh, my God, it's hilarious.

There's so much muck in it. So, Neil Tennant's in a suit because it's 1987. Chris Lowe, though, I mean, he looks like he's been parachuted in from 1998, doesn't he? He's got a baggy sweatshirt on with a toy robot on it and, you know, a Benny hat with Posh Boy on the front. I always thought of him as very, very style conscious, Chris Lowe. And I think he would basically definitely made and he would have understood the cliche the trope that with the suit was becoming and said i'm not having that and you know get me the bobble hat i'm gonna give the dialectical wheel of style and fashion a big spin and come up with the bobble hat yeah and his kit you know a keyboard setup with a green

monitor on the side that's kind of quaint by 1987 isn't it it? It's a bit of a throwback. Yeah, it looks great. We're all conversant with Commodore 64s. You know, we've got colours on them and everything. And he's got a green screen that just spits out the word Pet Shop. Yeah, like Amstrad, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, by this time, David, 1987's kind of like the year when people are comfortable with synthesizers now, aren't they?

Absolutely. They're used for everything. They're ubiquitousitous and that's what i was pointing out earlier the guitar singers who completely supplanted in this instrument craftwork um made effectively the last album the year before 1980 you know um um i actually mentioned this early on ironically but craftwork made um electric cafe in 1986 and probably didn't probably because their work was done, the electrification of pop music was complete. So, yeah, I don't think synthophobia was really something that played on people's minds at this point at all.

Synths had gone from something that made a dead weird noise to something you used instead of session musicians. Yeah, and that would really make a good point there, actually, that they kind of lose the sort of otherness. If you think of like 1972, whatever, Virginia Plain, and then Brian Eno comes in with... You know, there's a real sense of otherness about electronics or something like that, and that's kind of lost by 1987.

The kind of retro monitor kind of speaks to their care about staging and stagecraft, really, because they've now sort of blossomed unbelievably into just one of the greatest live bands. Their shows are, and they're just theatre shows really, but on this huge scale and just wildly inventive. And even their sort of festival shows, I saw them at Festival No. 6 a few years ago.

And they've always, you know, they will always do, you know, the big thing and the kind of it's not to cover over any gaps in the songs you know all the all the um arrangements are are just just blown out into these huge things um and they got because they were you know being being in wales they got uh the welsh male voice choir to do go west so at the end you know this is kind of the finale and there's like 30 kind of bewildered Welshmen in there like 60s, 70s or probably

80s all singing Go West. Which was very jolly. Have either of you interviewed Neil Tennant? I never did, no. I did very briefly. It was just a kind of... Oh man, what was that like? Oh, it was lovely. It was delightful. It was, it was delightful.

Um, it was a very brief. So how was the gig type interview, which I, uh, I think that was in 2000. So it still would have been the maker and yeah, they were,

they were so sweet. Um, what was it like interviewing someone who'd already done your job before moving on to being a pop star? Um, that would intimidate the fuck out of me. It didn't occur to me actually that, yeah, but now you say that it's like yeah i think i'd be grateful for it actually well i'd be grateful because i think you you know what we need you know yeah they understand what it's like to be on the other side although people don't always it's like you know every arsehole who

who honks at a learner driver was once themselves a learner driver. So, you know, people forget these things quite easily. But no, he was absolutely charming and cool. And I seem to recall already sort of sipping champagne, because that's what you do. You come off stage, you drink champagne. And, you know, but Chris, Chris didn't really say anything, but I've got to say he is just a beam of sunlight. And he's just, he's got this huge grin.

He's got like a massive head splitting grin, which is like, because he just makes him look like a different person. Like you can't believe that that face kind of divides itself into that, you know, given that he never smiles on stage, which somehow just makes it even better. Like I know now what he looks like when he smiles.

That made it all worthwhile. So, yeah, it was, like, literally a really quick sort of three minutes, five minutes or something. I would really have liked to have interviewed them properly because I think they're intelligent musicians who have a lot to say about things. So you were always, on my mind, claim the christmas number one spot and they'd stay there for four weeks in total before giving way to heaven is a place on earth by belinda carl

lyle it would be the last uh non-christmasy christmas number one for three years because we got mistletoe and wine do they know it's christmas and then Saviour's Day. After knocking back demands to release the LP track King's Cross, a song which predicted the tube fire in November, for charity, they followed it up with Heart, which got to number one for three weeks in April of 1988, which would be their last number one single in the UK. Oh, by the way, the BBC countered that August by broadcasting the Elvis Comeback special, which unbelievably

was the first time it had ever been shown on British television. That's fucking insane, isn't it? It was 68, wasn't it, it first came out? Yeah, yeah. Well, it was like the James Bond films, you know. They weren't, things like Doctor No, which came out in 1962 or whatever it was, that didn't appear on TV

until 1974, 75, that sort of time. Oh. They're just excellent Pet Shop Boys Britain's brand new number one with Always On My Mind but will they be the Christmas number one?

You can find out by watching Top of the Pops on Christmas Day with Gary and with Mike Smith at 2 o'clock Thanks for watching Have yourself

a fantastic Christmas and we'll leave you with the number 9 record this week from Madonna Goodnight Goodnight record this week from Madonna. Goodnight. Goodnight. Goodnight. Reed and Davis, surrounded by a mass of frothy perms, making them look like they're recreating the Rolling Stones

video for its only rock and roll, but with real human hair instead of foam ruminate over the possibilities of the pet shop boys being the christmas number one shill the christmas day special once more and sign off with the look of love by madonna we've discussed madonna so many fucking times on Chart Music, Jesus. And here she is with her 19th single in three years. It's the follow-up to Causing a Commotion, which got to number four in September of this year, and is her third release from the soundtrack to Who's That Girl, which also featured tracks by Club Nouveau,

Coty Munde and Scritti Polite. The film has already been released in the UK and has died on its arse, losing $10 million at the box office, but Madonna doesn't give a toss because she's raked it back and more in her recent world tour of the same name. So we're being treated to a big long advert for the film

with the assistance of her co-star griffin dunn and a cougar called murray and it's up six places this week from number 15 to number nine well yeah at least she's not wearing a suit i suppose yeah see i um i i did i i love madonna as well you know but uh don't remember this at all. And it's partly because it's not it's not very memorable. I never saw the film and a big fan of Desperately Seeking Susan. I think it's great. And the thing is, you can tell even from the clips in this video that I mean, kind of famously the thing with Desperately Seeking Susan is that Madonna just kind of played Madonna and it worked. She's just this kind of dirty hustler yeah here I think um I mean it is it is known that she she she just really wanted to be

taken seriously as an actress and she tried too hard and you can see it she just looks a bit awkward and it's this sort of kind of zany throwback screwball kind of comedy and you can see even from these bits that it just kind of doesn't it just doesn't work and she's not right in it and um i feel kind of bad for griffin dunn who is is really good a really kind of underrated actor who was in american wealth in london he's uh the guy that buys it quite early on and then comes back and makes a nuisance of himself yeah in an alternate universe you know he's basically tom cruise and tom cruise is just some mad bastard who follows Scientology um yeah so you can you can just see that you know money was spent on the wrong things in the wrong ways

and Madonna kind of couldn't quite bring it hopefully she's realized by now that she's not really she's not really an actress she's a pop star she's a great great pop star um but you know not everyone can uh do all of the things. And I think this proves it. Although, yeah, like I said, it's not like this is even a good song either. But she has an embarrassment of good songs. So, you know, one or two missteps are forgivable.

In the 80s, Madonna's forgettable songs are always the slow ones, aren't they? Yeah. It's weird. It doesn't have a tune which you need in a pop song, really. It's kind of striking for for dark atmospherics and mood but it misses that mark so yeah i mean this film came out three months ago and has already disappeared from the cinemas of the uk i mean that week you could have gone out to see crocodile dundee

a nightmare on elm street bigfoot and the Hendersons, The Witches of Eastwick, Santa Claus the Mover, The Rescuers, Dirty Dancing, White Flesh is Weak and Talk Dirty to Me. Wow. So, you know, why don't we have some clips from those films to this music? That'd be good. Yeah. to this music, that'd be good. I think song-wise with this, it's almost like they've taken the same tea bag that they brewed Who's That Girl with and sort of seemed to get another cup out of it basically. Yes.

In that respect. This is Why's That Girl. Yeah. Why's That Girl fucking doing this? Yeah. I mean, it's amazing. She really was kind of box office anathema at this time. There's multiple attempts, especially when she was with Sean Penn. I agree with Sarah.

Desperately Seeking Susan is great. Box office arsenic. Yeah, yes, I suppose. Yes, box office arse. But then there was the infamous Shanghai Surprise, which was a movie with her and Sean Penn. And I'm just looking at one or two of the reviews at the time. The Lexington Herald leader called it a turkey.

This film is bad. The acting is terrible. The hackneyed screenplay traffics in stereotype and yuck-yuck jokes. And the point is nonexistent. And then, of course, Who's That Girl, which was from this year in the Schenectady Gazette. Schenectady. Ah, OK, thank you. Anyway, the correspondent from the Gazette felt that

Who's That Girl is not simply an awful film, but is positively unbearable. It's a movie without a head or a brain, a picture of such crass stupidity that it can't even make you angry. Instead, it numbs you to death with its moronic platitudes, its pretensions to comedy. It's a vanity project which is so amateurishly produced and conceived that it makes you want to cringe in shame.

And then in 1989, there was Bloodhounds at Broadway, which was, I think, based on the short stories of Damon Runyon, which is excellent source material. And it's just a two-word review shit sandwich. Actually, there isn't really. There's not even that. It just says produced on a budget of $4 million. The film grossed less than $44,000 in its limited release. Good Lord. It was just difficult. I just think that was a problem with Madonna

is that she had this... I think there's something kind of ruthless about her. We saw in interviews or whatever, she's almost like lacking a dimension. I think it's perhaps that lack of dimensionality that finds her out when she's on the big screen. She just didn't quite have the requisite presence.

I mean, in contrast to someone like Cher, who obviously starts out as a pop star, and she was a great actor, and she had this kind of all-round humanity and versatility, what have you, and she's able to kind of make that transition. But despite... She made quite a few films after this did Madonna,

or appeared in a few including a James Bond at which point you think okay James Bond needs a reboot if you're dragging Madonna into it but she was really really on the up this year it's an interesting fact that Madonna in Britain she made her first appearance in the UK

I think it was about 1983 she just appears at Camden Palace and she does like a little 20 minute set, a showcase no one knows who she is I think it was about 1983. She just appears at Camden Palace and she does like a little 20-minute set. It's a showcase. No one knows who she is. The second time she appears in the UK after that is this year. And it's at Wembley Stadium. She does these massive gigs as part of a sellout.

I actually reviewed her this year at Roundhay Park in Leeds. And it was a pretty formidable gig. She was top of the world. I just remember, unfortunately, my Leeds kinfolk let themselves down a bit down the front because they started shouting, get your tits out for the lads. And he was like from the stage going, my what? Genuinely couldn't make

out what they were saying. My what? Sorry, my what? Tits out for the lads. Oh, God, Leeds represents. See, should have won a suit. That'll shut them up. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. They got what they asked for a few years later, though, didn't they?

They did, yes. They had to pay about 70 quid for it in a bummed up book. Yeah, she called their fucking bluff, didn't she? But yeah, Leeds' fault, that is. The sex book is all the fault of Leeds. Yeah. Yeah, there's a difference between getting your tits out for the lads and getting your tits out

for yourself. Exactly. And make a shitload of money. Yeah. And make a fucking exhibition of yourself. And no one's better at that than Madonna.

Yeah, you never got the sense that she was anything other than complete control of, you know, her own sort of, you know, inverted commas objectification. Yeah.

Yeah. So, anyway, this clip, we get to see Madonna kissing posters of Elvis and Marlon Brando in her cell. Then she skips out of prison. Then she hooks up with the bloke in glasses. And then they arse about in the scabbier bits of New York. And then she strokes a cougar. And then she tries to be Marilyn Monroe again.

And then she eventually snogs that bloke. I mean, you know, from, I've not seen the film but from this it does look very much like shaking something wild doesn't it yeah

that's a good snog though it's a decent snog it's a proper like big movie kiss the actual jaw movement the kind of static lip press shenanigans that you get and you know cougars are good but that's about the best you can say about it yeah what oh yeah there's a you know i looked up the kind of the synopsis of it and i i

kind of didn't want to know actually i love the fact that she's just suddenly the big snog scene is um in a sort of jungle which is clearly like in it it's on a roof or something and there's suddenly so the cougar is there we're familiar with the cougar and then there's suddenly a zebra and oh there's a kangaroo over there and what are you people doing I know it's the 80s but like come on So the following week while

Madonna was busy getting shot of her biff crazy piss headed husband the look of love dropped five places to number 14 making this her worst performing single in the UK since Lucky Star got to number 14 in April of 1984. After pretty much taking 1988 off, the follow-up, Like a Prayer, spent three weeks at number one in March of 1989, setting her up for a run of 18 top 10 hits on the bounce into the mid-90s. So what's on telly afterwards?

Well, BBC One follows up with EastEnders, where Doc Cotton and her manky side-burned husband end up in court. The obligatory Christmas tragedy this year is Mary's daughter being kidnapped by her dad and ending up in a car crash. this year is Mary's daughter being kidnapped by her dad and ending up in a car crash. Then it's the Tomorrow's World Christmas quiz, a question of sport, the nine o'clock news, rough justice to the criminal court documentary series and they round off the night with a repeat of the show jumping and a repeat of the TV version of The Untouchables. BBC Two is 10 minutes into Thinking Aloud where assorted intellectuals discuss the idea of evil and mull over whether it's obsolete or absolute. Then Patti Colwell presents Remember Terror, a follow-up to the documentary about Terry Maidler who died of AIDS earlier this year. Then Jim Hacker has to deal with a French diplomatic gift of a Labrador puppy and

yes Prime Minister 40 minutes looks at assorted Christmas parties then it's part four of the documentary series Sharansky the making of a dissident and they close out the night with news night and the weather ITV is running a repeat of Only When I Laugh, then it's Strike It Lucky with Michael Barrymore, the 1973 TV film Birds of Prey, where David Jansen plays a radio traffic helicopter pilot who gets tangled up with a bank job, News at Ten, a regional politics show, and they finish off with The Prince's Trust giving dreams a chance

where they suck off Prince Charles for an hour. Channel 4 kick on with North to Nowhere Quest for the Pole, a documentary about an 800-kilometre race to the North Pole involving Japanese motorcyclists, an elderly skier, an Australian helicopter pilot and an American woman and some huskies. Then it's the 1970 film The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer, starring Peter Cook and John Cleese, Arthur Lowe and Ronnie Corbett. Then Chasing a Rainbow, the Emmy award-winning documentary film about Josephine Baker,

and they finish off with Kings and Desperate Men, the 1981 film about a Canadian radio talk show host who gets tangled up with a terrorist group starring Patrick McGowan and Margaret Trudeau. Telly's not kicking into Christmas yet, is it? Which is good. So, me dears, what are we talking about in the playground tomorrow? All the suits. Just all the suits.

It's like, is that what adulthood is going to be? Just suits. Yeah. Suits and cover versions. Yeah. I think in my instance, in the playground, they've been saying, you know, what are you, a 25-year-old man, doing in this playground, handing out cassettes of the young gods?

Yes. Get out of here. But in the Office of Mel have i mean we wouldn't have watched it to be honest we'd be all down the pub so um you know but surely the pokes one of your bands on top of the pops yeah i think probably i mean the pet shop boys would probably have been genuinely the um the most the most favored item um i don't think with the post at this time in this particular single i mean it has taken on a kind of life of its own and I think people have come

they had the chance to sort of contemplate it year after year after year and of course this is just its first outing so it probably wouldn't really have kind of impacted at this particular time And what were you buying on Saturday? Patch Up Boys

I'm afraid I'm not buying any any of that stuff i don't actually have to go to record shops i get it sent for free you're not playing the game properly david if if all right oh i'm sorry i'm not playing okay yeah um if i had to if i'd be given a free voucher and it was like you know only redeemable over this weekend then i guess i would have bought the pet shop boys and then you know given it away to someone in exchange of beer and what does this episode tell us about december 1987 well for me it feels like the kind of poppers at the sort of arse end of some really kind of interesting spiking ideas that first came to the fore in the early 80s, all to do with, like, a sort of white soul,

white music's relationship with soul. Also ideas of, like, retro style or whatever, you know, like you had with that ABC. I mean, they were suit and booted back with Lexicon of Love in 1982. But all of this has become sort of played out, overdetermined, whatever, by this stage, and deadly earnest as well. It's lost all of its sense of irony.

I mean, the only real irony that's left tonight still resides with Pet Shop Boys and what they're doing there. That's the last gusfer. But what's happening is that the forces of modernity, they're really sort of scraping their hooves, and whether it's house, whether it's hip-hop, whether it's grunge or whatever, the 90s are galloping around the corner and they're going to kind of remake pop completely

and all this is just going to be sort of blasted aside, you know. And that's going to be reflected actually at the kind of superstar level. Hip hop is going to go global. House is going to lead to sort of acid and rave or whatever. That's going to remake the whole sort of beatscape completely. And then, you know, Nirvana and people like that are are going to dominate all that is already beginning to happen yeah but there isn't really much of a hint of the rumbling of it even in this particular episode if you bought your melody maker though we're all across it yeah it tells us that apparently no one knows it's christmas apart from

the pokes yeah oh and kim wilde sorry i look at this now and i think fucking hell i was in the prime of my life back there and and this was the best the world could offer me so yeah still angry about it there's a certain a certain cynicism and a certain laziness at play even if the artists themselves aren't necessarily aware of it i mean there's the kind of um you know artists don't necessarily express these things themselves and people can be completely sincere in what they're doing without realising that they are, you know, tools of the big ugly machine of mediocrity.

So, you know, I get it. Just put out a cover version. That'll do. Yeah, there's a lot of laziness, actually. It's a little bit like what you get now with uh with film where with popular film where there's the lament of where the good new stories is is kind of growing you know it's because people do fall back into kind of well let's reboot this and retell that and you know and it's people are getting kind of yes knackered by it because it's

like why aren't there good new stories, you know? Yeah, this episode is suited and rebooted, isn't it? Ooh! Well, things are about to get booted. They're about to get booted up the arse, basically, by what's coming next. I look at this, and I just, you know, unbelievably, I think to myself,

fucking hell, no wonder people fell upon the stone roses in their ilk a few years later yeah i know yeah yeah no something needed to happen yeah it did it did definitely but it was happening from all sides it was from all fronts you know and rock whatever you know that um but yeah it's just it's just laziness i mean i'm sure that mick hucknall would protest you know i worked very hard on that single you know yeah 20 30 40 takes you know i I worked very hard on that single, you know, 20, 30, 40 takes, you know, I've sang my heart out. But there's not a point. It's laziness in terms of the decision-making

and laziness in terms of applying yourself to the idea of, like, is this necessary? Why are we doing this? You know, what is the point? You know, what point are we trying to make? It's just a complete laziness there. No, it's difficult. That's a slippery slope, though, once you start going, is this really, is this artistic endeavour really necessary?

Once you start down that, it's not long. Depending on what start going is this really is this artistic endeavor really necessary once you start down that it's not long depending on what mood you're in you know you can just end up going fuck all this forever there's no point

to any of this you've got to be careful you've got to tiptoe around that kind of nihilistic pit you know yeah you do if you're

McNugnell Merry Christmas everyone and that me ducks is the end of this episode of Chart Music all that remains is the usual promotional flange www.chart-music.co.uk facebook.com

slash chart music podcast reach us on twitter chart music t-o-t-p money down the g-string patreon.com slash chart music thank you very much David Stubbs. Thank you. Ta-ra, Sarah B. God bless us, everyone.

My name's Al Needham, and I am not the young gods. Chart music. This is CBS. It's music and action on top of the bus with Debbie Gibson, ABC, Def Leppard, Go West and many more. The hottest performers are coming home tonight on Top of the Pops with Debbie Gibson, ABC, Def Leppard, Go West, and many more. The hottest performers are coming home tonight on Top of the Pops. Michelob, so exceptionally smooth, the night belongs to Michelob. Michelob is sponsoring Top of the Pops. Friday, Top of the Pops rock legend Paul McCartney, Tiffany, The Alarm, and Roger.

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