Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - Chart Music #47 (Part 4): 25th December 1977 – The Last Supper Of Showaddywaddy

Episode Date: December 27, 2019

#47: 25th December 1977 – The Last Supper Of ShowaddywaddyA sort-of-festive episode of the podcast which asks: Jesus, why do we always leave this to the last minute instead of doing it in August like everyone else?It’s the arse-end of the year, and you know what that means, Pop-Crazed Youngsters: another ram of our hands into the Quality Street tin of a Xmas TOTP. This year, it’s 1977, which means that Noel Edmonds has taken one of his suits that all look the same out of the wardrobe – but this year he’s joined by Kid Jensen, in full Stylistics clobber. No trifle-related interplay this year, then, but it’s quadruple overtime for the Top Of The Pops Orchestra, who have stashed a dozen or so Party Sevens under their chairs to keep them going, and Team ATVland (combined age: 19) are sulking that they can’t hook their Binatone Pong to the telly, moaning that their Ricochet Racers isn’t much cop, and leafing through the 1978 Starsky and Hutch annual and dreaming of chocolate pancakes respectively. There were some astonishing singles that came out in ’77, but musicwise, and bar a couple of exceptions, this is your Nana’s Top Of The Pops. Showaddywaddy pretend to have a futuristic buffet. Some kids are bussed into White City to wave a tassel on a stick (or just the stick). David Soul’s head floats in space. Johnny Mathis pops up again. You can hear Kenny Rogers’ arse as he lowers it onto a wicker bar stool. And oh God, it’s Manhattan Transfer. But here come Abba, Space, Denice Williams, Hot Chocolate, and the return of Floyd Flipper as a fruity Santa! Oh, and there’s Paul McCartney’s Living Shortbread Tin and Bing Crosby. It’s a massive, sixteen-song evisceration, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, done with the care and attention you’ve come to expect from the little elves of Chart Music.Neil Kulkarni and Taylor Parkes join Al Needham for a long, hard stare at the winners circle of 1977, complete with such tangents as the Showaddywaddy Hanky Code, Lobbing It Out on Channel 4, assuming French is just English you don’t know yet, the gang war between Brighouse and Rastrick, Space Crumpet, when it’s time to finally let go of the Radio Times Xmas issue, and a chance to see someone from Chart Music looking like a massive potato on telly very soon. Merry 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 to? Chart music. Chart music. The Starsky and Hutch Annual 1978,

a book which is being devoured by the youth of Britain on this afternoon of December 25th, 1977. Chocolate Pancakes. Make a batter with two ounces of flour, two tablespoons of milk, two egg whites and 4 egg yolks. Add sugar and a pinch of salt, then beat well with 2 tablespoons of cream. With this batter, fry some very thin small pancakes, browning one side only. Lay them on a dish, unfried side upwards. Grate enough chocolate over them to cover tops completely. Roll them up, dust with castor sugar, put them in a long

buttered fireproof dish and bake in moderate oven for 20 minutes. 375F gas mark 5. Ey up, you pop craze youngsters, and it is now time for the final part of this deep dive into the 1977 Top of the Pops Christmas special.

I'm here with my confederates Taylor Parks and Neil Kulkarni. And as we've learned, the ravers have lied to us. For it is not going to be a punk rock Christmas. Not now. Not ever. But now, not ever. But on, on we plunge. The first number one of this year. On this very special day,

Langston Co. have invited a special friend along to help them move to the sounds of Stevie Wonder and Sir Duke. Kid flags up the second appearance of Legs & Co and warns us that they've brought a special friend along with them as he introduces Sir Duke by Stevie Wonder. We haven't covered Steve Lamorris enough on Chart Music and this single, dedicated to Duke Ellington amongst others, became his highest performing single in the UK since Yes To Me, Yes To You, Yesterday got to number two in December of 1969. It was the second cut from the LP's Songs In The

Key Of Life and follow up to I Wish and got to number two in May of this year, held off number one by Three by Denise Williams.s and here for their second shift come legs and co with a special appearance by floyd pierce formerly of ruby flipper who was popped in to take over the reins and to paraphrase the great school ed i look into the mirror i say damn santa was a black man it's floyd yeah it's it's really something this clip is oh yes oh yes i'm actually disturbed by how erotic this really is um we saw on last year's christmas special that we did yeah how this time of year seemed to push some kind of switch in flick colby's psyche yes or libido and inspire these routines which are authentically sexy rather than the usual chuckling parodies of sexiness right so last time we got that slow motion lesbian orgy in narnia

to the sound of dancing queen and this year it's uh it's festive fetish night on the snowy rooftops while the city sleeps and somehow despite its playfulness and its overt silliness, it, again, inspires that deep, dark, staring silence from heterosexual male viewers, which is a response they were usually quite careful to avoid, you know, with the painted-on smiles and the self-conscious air that this is only larking about. Yeah. But, yeah, this time it kind of hits you in parts of the body

they usually try and steer clear of. But season's greetings, eh? Except I don't know whether to thank her for this because there are certain feelings you don't necessarily need at ten to four in the afternoon, surrounded by your family. 10 to 3. You know, with your half-dead gran snoring in a torn paper app three feet away from you. You know, when you're trying to be a different person.

And Legs & Co. were always walking a line in that titillation is about balance and control. It's a hint of the carnal, but delivered with a friendly wink. And one step over that line can just change the mood entirely. Like actual pornography, if you leave aside the sex industry and its sometimes dubious practices, the end product, by which I mean, you know, any artistic or pseudo artistic or non artistic content, which just empties the brain of everything except sex and temporarily flings open the doors of the psyche and lets all the filth pour free. poor free that can be a healthy or an unhealthy thing depending on various factors and the main one is context because it's like if you get pissed on a friday night in a room with your mates it's a healthy release but if you get pissed at 10 a.m on a tuesday when you're driving a lorry load of

nuclear waste it's a fucking disaster and similarly if you open that door to your own untrammeled depravity and enter the porn dimension in private, knowing what's what, you can make peace with your own desires and celebrate them. But as soon as pornography shifts into the everyday world and brings those feelings with it, it becomes toxic because suddenly it means something totally different. And inflaming those urges, especially in men, outside a safe, controlled environment can be bad in all sorts of ways.

And, you know, even for yourself, at the very least, it gnaws at the soul and at the dreary balance of responsibilities. And it's frankly depressing, you know, and it hurts a bit. And that's the trouble when anything slightly oversteps that line. So in that sense, I'm a little bit very gently perturbed by this clip coming out of the blue on Christmas Day, albeit with most of its erotic potential muffled by the bromide of a hundred weight of christmas pudding

but you know also as always with things of this nature i have to wonder is it just me like perhaps to everyone else this is just a delightfully saucy bit of festive fun you know i don't know some strange constellation of signs which hits me at an awkward angle. And, I mean, it would be odd because I don't mind admitting to the Pop Crazy Youngsters I'm not obsessed with pony girls and I don't have that creepy white guy thing about interracial sex. And an icy rooftop does nothing for me. And I've tried, you know. But as soon as you start picking at the threads of your own sexuality your brain starts to unravel you know so fuck it people worry too

much about everything to do with pleasure the only thing the only thing's worth worrying about to do with pleasure are a is it mutual and b where is it you know and but you know everyone else expects you to worry. So you worry. But I think in 77, this would have perturbed quite a few people for reasons completely opposite to yours, Taylor. I mean, you know,

the racial politic of this, a black Santa, you know, two lines of mainly white women. And I think, I think it becomes dead sexy down to a tiny little detail. It's the heels. The heels are really important to making it little detail. It's the heels.

The heels are really important to making it sexy. But this Black Santa with quite a flamboyant, outwardly sexual performance, these two lines of white ladies, that would have had your gammon's apoplectic before their Christmas dinner. Oh, just to think he came into our kids' bedroom last night. But unbelievably, this is the second appearance of a black Santa on BBC One today, and it's only fucking 25 to 3. Only half an hour ago on Are You Being Served,

Mr Granger won the Santa competition after he couldn't remove his make-up after playing the part of a black and white minstrel in the Grace Brothers Christmas review. Oh, dear God. And Mr Grace decided that he'd send someone out to pull a child off the streets to pick out the best Santa. And, oh, would you believe it?

It was a black boy. Holy Christ. Yeah. I mean, maybe some viewers would have seen this as an oblique just ruining christmas for us that i mean it it's i i was watching this um feeling faintly aroused but also wondering is it the same rooftop used by morcombe and wise in that you know the routine where they're both um reindeer and bruce forsyth comes out the chimney at the end of it and starts whipping them it looks it looks exactly the same as that did that no comment but um yeah it looked like exactly the same set i mean the fact that we've been we've

spent sort of five minutes talking about this dance routine shows how effective it is because we're not talking about the fucking amazing record that they're dancing along to. No, no, no, no, no. We won't for a little while longer because, you know, Floyd, he's been, you know, he was asked out of Ruby Flipper

all about 14 or so months ago. But, you know, he's been quite a regular on Top of the Pops in 1977. He was always drafted in when they needed a lad. You know, he was obviously the best dancer, the best male dancer on Ruby Flipper in any case. He'd been on Lonely Boy by Andrew Gold in April. You're Gonna Get Next to Me by Bo Kirkland and Ruth Davis in June.

And I Feel Love by Donna Summer in August. And here he is again. I mean, the thing that offendsends me that he's only got a moustache not a beard what's going on there he's got a proper um village people moustache going on which adds a new dimension to it but he's he's not being really he's not really being a sexy Santa it's not about him no no he's he's not being a sexy Santa but I think he's being quite libidinous he's he's I'm sure he nearly pinches an ar Santa, but I think he's being quite libidinous. I'm sure he nearly pinches an arse at one point.

Well, that's what I thought, but he's actually picking up one of the reins. Yeah. Yeah, he's only indulging in light bondage, Neil. Nothing to worry about. He's definitely closer to Clarence Carter's backdoor Santa. All the goodies for the Christmas do not touch me than he is to a more traditional department store. Yeah.

And Legs & Co, they're in a silver bra and pants set with bits of fur hanging off the sides. They've got silver reindeer horns on a fur-lined hat, silver gloves and matching boots and uh oh dear once again they're doing that paws up thing that they did when portraying cats their interpretation of stray cats a few years later i mean with cats you can just about get away with it but reindeer no reindeer walking on the back legs but the performance is very rudolph but most of the dancing is left floyd mostly what they do is chorus line type stuff yeah skipping around because you can't really do much else in

those shoes um but the shoes to me yeah they're the things that um improve my satisfaction quotient by a good 75 i would say yeah but the song's good. The song's great. The song's fucking amazing. But I mean, you know, the weird thing with Stevie is, this album that it comes from, Songs in the Key of Life, is probably now my favourite Stevie record. But I remember it being the first 70s Stevie that I picked up retrospectively in the mid-80s, entranced as I was by Paul Gambaccini's 100 Greatest Albums book.

I went straight to that one. And I shouldn't have actually. Great though that album is, don't get me wrong. I should have gone to Talking Book or Innovisions first because there were still moments in Songs and the Key of Life that I wasn't old enough to accept in a sense

or I still had that residual distaste for 80s Stevie that I could still sort of hear there but I mean fuck me what an amazing album and what a tune, if you can't if you don't dance to this you're not a human being, it's one of those the only thing

as an old fart fan now is that I actually found Legs & Co's steps when Stevie's singing the line about Satchmo and Basie and Ella, I found them a little disrespectful to be honest with you i thought they should have been far more serious at that point in the song but it's a but it's a cork they should have just stood still and put their hands over their hearts

and bowed their heads well no i thought i was expecting them to do like trombone type movements and like musical instrument type movements but they didn't. Although in the context of this routine, that might have looked a little bit... Even more strange. A bit risque. Yeah, yeah, I guess so. I guess so. I mean, this is the other song that takes me right back to 1977 because it just reminds me of the summer of that year or at least the couple of weeks that my dad had time off work.

And it would be the time-honoured tradition of him driving us down to the golden ball, locking us in the car and I think at this point I had a radio or something, there was a radio that wasn't the car radio which was not allowed because it would flatten the battery and this song was on all the fucking

time so when I hear that I've got the taste of Apollo Cola in my mouth and I can feel one of them little travel mastermind pegs in between my finger and thumb. That I played on my own because my sister didn't want to, which was the most futile thing ever. That game though, man, it's mind blowing still to this day.

I can't, my brain actually couldn't cope with it sometimes. Yeah, but there's nothing more futile than playing travel mastermind on your own, because you've actually had to load the fucking pegs in. You either do that and know what they're going to be, or you do it with your eyes shut, and then there's no one to tell you which ones you got right or wrong. So yeah, fucking 70s childhood in a nutshell there, I feel.

But yeah, imagine if Santa and Leg legs and co had to do that in every house in the world man it would take them fucking years to get around anything else to say probably best to leave it there yes taylor yes the follow-up another star would only get to number 25 for two weeks in september of this year and if we're not counting Ebony and Ivory and we are certainly not he'd have to wait another seven years before finally getting to number one with I just called to say I love you Floyd would make another four appearances in 1978 culminating in another Christmas Day stint would appear with Legs and Co in the stud and join them on Larry Grayson's Generation game

before becoming a member of the Doogie Squires dozen who backed Lulu on her appearances on the Les Dawson show before joining Hot Gossip. people stevie wonder what a great record that was. And Sir Duke. And coming up on the show... Sorry. What's up now?

Oh, I've got a Lucille here. Oh, talking of Lucille, here's Kenny Rogers. I don't believe it. You couldn't stoop so low. Not so low. In a bar in Toledo Across from the depot On a bar stool she took off her ring

I thought I'd get closer So I walked on over I sat down and asked her to name me Edmund stumbles into Kid, but it's not a heart attack, alas. He's doing another joke about a malfunction in his lifts because they're introducing Loose Heel by Kenny Rogers. Born in Houston in 1938, Kenny Rogers was a bassist who joined a jazz trio called the Bobby Doyle Three in the late 50s until they split

up in 1965. A year later, he joined the successful folk band the New Christy Minstrels, who were at the tail end of their career and going through a string of lineup changes, including the addition of Kim Carnes, the Bette Davis Eyes hitmaker. In 1967, two of the minstrels decided to set up on their own as a rock band called the first edition and took rogers with them and immediately took off in the usa and by the time they made their first appearance in the uk charts with ruby don't take your love to town which got to number two over here for six weeks in December 1969, January 1970. They were known as Kenny Rogers and the First Edition. The follow-up, Something's Burning, would get to number eight in April of 1970,

but they never troubled the UK charts again and they split up in 1976. Rogers immediately signed a deal with United Artists, surged into the laid-back country style he'd wanted to do with the first edition for ages, and enjoyed moderate success in the country charts with his debut LP. But this single, taken from his second LP, Kenny Rogers, put him over the top, getting to number five in America, and taking the number one spot in June of this year from God Save the Queen by the Sex Pistols. Oh no, actually

I don't want to talk about it by Rod Stewart. Wink wink. Kenny Rogers, we get a video and it seems to be made specially for this episode. If not for Top of the Pops. I'm actually disturbed by how erotic this really is.

It's weird, though, isn't it? Really weird. I don't know what this clip is. There's clearly not a live band playing. No. But there does seem to be a live vocal to begin with. Yes. Because you hear that roomy, ambient sound on the voice.

And then he walks over to the bar stall in this bar where it's set and you hear his footsteps from his black slip on shoes with a bit of a heel on them then he sits down on it and you hear the leather squash down and the wood creaking it's strange to go in and

out of realities like that Kenny's on his own in a posh bar presumably in London or in the UK in and out of realities like that. Yeah, I mean, Kenny's on his own in a posh bar, presumably in London or in the UK, because there's a bottle of Pimms on the back bar, which there's very little call for in Toledo. Hey, boy, give me one of them P-yums. And a bottle of J&B gets a nice bit of product placement.

It's funny, you go around the world, J&B is still one of the top brands of scotch whereas here it's practically gone the same way as cutty's art or white horse which i don't get when the top selling brand is that fucking creosote they call bell yeah i mean you do see jmb now it's in Yeah. Like priced up, like it's something fancy. No, the point is it's a pale sweet scotch that's nice in Coke and it's not fancy at all. Although, speaking of drinks, you saw there's a glass of orange juice on the end of that bar

or maybe vodka and orange with a stirrer in it. Yeah. Sort of about three-quarter full, as if there were some women in this bar, but for some reason they've left in a hurry without bothering to finish their drinks. The backing track clearly isn't provided by the top of the Pops Orchestra

because they would be fucking four deep at that bar. Kenny would be poking his head above them while the crisps are being ripped open. I mean, the footsteps and the creaky chair are really fucking weird, aren't they? Suits a weird record because like Ruby Don't Take You Love to Town

this has got this broken man thing to it. And Kenny Rogers with his doleful, sad, polar bear like eyes almost. He's the perfect person to deliver it. It's a weird record. Yeah. Because, I mean, Kenny Rogers, for me,

gets mashed up with an assortment in this period, late 70s, of bearded American gentlemen, including Jock Ewing and Grizzly Adam. Yes. And various people. You know, he's kind of indistinguishable from these people. And it's a weird song anyway. When the singer of the song witnesses

you know lucille's um husband imploring her you know about about four hungry children and a crop in the field it's a strange strange song that's impressive cock blocking isn't it what is the crop i mean if it's sorghum or tabaki then i guess he can't feed his kids. But if he could just harvest it himself, he could fucking feed his kids, you lazy bastards. So it's a weird, weird song, this. Really, I mean, this has got to be the strangest thing I've seen on Top of the Pops in a long, long time. Just by dint of that creakiness, what is happening here?

Are we hearing the record? As a kid, this would have put me in loads of confusion yeah it's this particular strain of music it's it's generally overlooked now a bit isn't it because it's not pure old-fashioned country so it's no good for hipsters and it's not really country rock it's just that very straight, radio-friendly, middle-of-the-road country pop, which was country music as far as the mainstream country audience was concerned for many years. I mean, country was huge in Britain in 1977. There was always Sing Country and all that kind of stuff was on BBC Two.

Essentially down to Ted Mams and Dance calming down a bit but still wanting something american yeah yeah and then as now it was huge in america but almost underground at the same time you know like these people selling out you know 30 000 seat of places and no one's ever heard of them yeah there's still people like that now um and you know maybe you couldn't make it through a whole album of this stuff at least not by the same artiste but it's a genre where a lot of really great singles yeah i mean this is this is what gave us jolene you know this style of music and that and ruby don't take your love to town and this isn't quite up there but it's okay and if you're not too squeamish about big guts hanging over big belts and the self-pitying tears of the great American patriarch

then I don't see what there is to dislike about this record. There's oceans of worthless mainstream 1970s adult-orientated country that you can swim through before you get to genuinely talented people like Kenny Rogers. The best way to access that kind of music, great 70s country, is buy a compilation with a cowboy on the front of it or something like that. It'll be called Country's Greatest Hits.

It's guaranteed to have Joe South games people play on it. And it'll have Dolly Parton, Kurt Many Colours on it maybe. And also Jolene. But it will also have Find Time To Leave Me Lucille. And it will probably also have Ruby Don't Take Your Love To Town on it. Because some of those 70s country singles are fucking brilliant. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But the thing about popular country music, it's a straightforward force. Do you know what I mean? It's bluff and it's kind of artless in a way. And some people are uncomfortable with that. Or they're so terrified of the idea of the southern US white proletariat that just the sound of a pedal steel, it's like a fistful of rings swinging at you you

know which is a bit unfair to most of the country greats not quite all of them but most of them what i like about this like the abba record it's unusual in that it only makes sense emotionally to adults um although unlike that song this one is hard to take completely seriously just the idea that you would tell this story like this right it's basically oh i was chatting up this woman in a bar and while i was doing it her husband came in and they separated while i was sat there chatting her up and he oh he was visibly heartbroken and then how weird is this when he then left and we immediately afterwards went off to fuck it just didn't feel quite right oh what's what's wrong with me you know yeah yeah very strange scenario yeah and it's hard to gauge

how seriously you're meant to take it i mean i suspect a hundred percent but I can't be absolutely sure but it does chime for those over 35 in a way it couldn't for luckier people because there's just that feel of genuine tiredness with life and a sort of hard um Jack Regan-ish acceptance of the world of a and of a romantic world where everyone, including yourself, looks a bit rough and is damaged physically and emotionally. And that's quite un-pop. And obviously the genius of ABBA is that they can pull it off within pop, and the very best pop,

whereas no one involved with this record is a genius. But it's nice to have a bit of that sometimes when somebody can properly pull it off. involved with this record is a genius but it's it's nice to have a bit of that sometimes when somebody can properly pull it off you know and the ending the ending sorry is really really key because it ends with a note of moral doubt and and impotence basically he can't get it all yeah because he's thinking of this this guy's walked out it's a similarly startling ending to to you know the last line of ruby don't tell you love to town that that for god's sake turn around line is such an odd end to a record and it's got the same sort of feel here yeah yeah yeah and it's a much better kind of adult music than the usual kind right for proper

grown-ups which is usually just a symptom of surrender to all the avoidable calamities of midlife right like complacency and coziness and loss of focus and loss of self-awareness and this isn't that whatever else you can say about it you know this is a record which has come to terms with the unavoidable calamities of midlife and with scars and grey whiskers, you know. But it can still feel like the king of the castle if it just has one little drink, you know. And that's probably easier to do in country music, not just because it's a pretty age-tolerant genre,

but emotionally because it's got that grounded feel and the reassuring inevitability of the melody lines, which always resolve and don't make a fuss. And within that setup and that security, musically, you feel as though you can face almost anything. And again, like many country songs that were hits around about this time, you know, you're hooked in by the story on the first listen. Yeah.

Yeah. Not so much the seventh or eighth or ninth or 27th time. You hear it, of course, but you know, there you go. Oh, um,

uncle Jesse and the Dukes of Hazzard as well, Neil. Of course. Yeah. So Lucille would only stay at number one for one week, taken down by show you the way to go by the jacksons the follow-up daytime friends would only get to number 39 in september of this year and he drifted away from the charts until coward of the county got to number one for

two weeks in february of 1980 With four hungry children and a crop in the field I've had some bad times lived through some sad times but this time you heard won't be you picked a fine time to leave me

Yes, Kenny Rogers, of course, and Lucy. I hope you're enjoying this review of 77, Christmas Day edition of Top Of The Pops. Let's go on with the number one sound from Baccarat. BACCARAT Edmunds hopes that we're having a lovely afternoon, which is nice, and introduces Yes Sir I Can Boogie by Baccarat. We've already covered Baccarat, Baccarat, I thought it was the Osmonds, fuck off Edmunds!

And this song on chart music number 23, With Us Three. It got to number one in October of this year after wrestling David Soul and Silver Lady off the top of most of the pop of most and here they are again so yeah this was always going to happen at some point wasn't it chaps there are going to be songs

that crop up on separate episodes but usually it's like oh well you know there's someone else here who hasn't talked about it but you know here we are we've already talked about this so uh yeah let's get it over with quickly i wouldn't have minded if it was a song that um i liked but i don't i don't like this i still don't like this song much yeah but christ by now at the end of the year on christmas day if i were an adult i would have hated this record yes it's catchy yes it velcro like attaches itself to you to your brain but by the year's end that would just be annoying i would have heard this far far

too much and the performance would have annoyed me as well because i don't understand the hand gesture for the word boogie um that they both do i don't know what they're doing with that um so yeah i would have disliked this record when it came out earlier in the year and i would have been angered by the fact that it's cropped up on them top of the pops at the end of the year too all i've got to chuck in is nice set some kind of rainbowy thing going on and no top of the pops orchestra this time so we just get it i think they just mime into the to the track yeah probably for the best yeah basically just yeah go and listen to whatever the chart music number 23 a classic episode if i may say so myself soul rail replacement service yeah the only the

only difference basically between that and this is they've changed their outfits yeah um and now look even more like extras in a low-budget 1970s Euro horror film. So basically it was either this or turn up topless and immaculately made up with a state knife sticking out of the sternum and a shabby, poorly dubbed detective standing over him going, this killer is a sexual deviant. The taking of human life excites him. That or being hosed down naked in a women's prison. So it's probably fortunate for them that they could boogie,

even if they're not actually going to. So, yes, Sir I Can Boogie would only stay at number one for one week before it was slapped down by Name of the game by ABBA. The follow-up, Sorry I'm a Lady, would get to number eight in February of 1978 and they were done as a chart act in the UK. Great Big Owl What? Great Big Owl Stop saying that

What about Great Big Owl? It's a family of podcasts Ooh Who's in this family? Well there's rule of three That's us There's Brian and Roger Hi Roger

It's Brian There's the The One Show Show There's nowhere else you would find A four or five minute film about pine martins. Yes. Without a sight of one pine martin at all in the film. There's Barry and Angelos. Gooch, gooch, choo-choo.

Remember that lovely one? And there's Smirshpod. Could you eat first? I think we know. Well, I don't know if I'd want to eat Lazenby. Basically, look for Great Big Owl on your pod, what's it? Good idea. Have we got a sting?

Owls don't sting. GreatBigOwl.com And I know the Paul McCartney family will be celebrating their Christmas up in Scotland in a big way this year, because they're still at number one in their beautiful Mull of Kintyre Kid claims to know that the McCartney family are simply having a wonderful Christmas time when for all he knows Paul could be going berserk that John hasn't sent him a card again

as he introduces Mull of Kintyre by Wings. We've covered Wings in chart music more than once and this is their 15th single. It's the follow-up to their live cover of Maybe I'm Amazed, which got to number 28 for two weeks in March of this year and was scheduled as a stopgap single while the band were recording their sixth LP, London Town, after the band was reduced to a trio due to two of them pissing off. It's a tribute to Paul McCartney's Back Garden.

It features the Campbelltown Pipe Band, and after entering the charts at number 48 in November, it soared to number five the following week and got to number one in early December, It soared to number five the following week and got to number one in early December, and it's now celebrating its fourth week there as this year's Christmas number one. Oh, where to start on this one? Well, it's funny.

This is a record you quite often hear, but almost nobody ever actually listens to. Yeah. I mean, for fairly good reason. But when you do stop and listen and take it in a few things are suddenly clear right firstly even at his worst paul mccartney is a genius in the same way as other sometimes evil geni that we've previously identified like elton john right but more so like this record has got no artistic worth but it became an instant standard um for many years this was the best-selling single of all

time in britain without any uh external driver like a charity connection or a tie-in to a major event or something and that really doesn't happen by accident. I mean, this is an insultingly simple and unexciting song, but with no effort or care, he's created something which does stick in your head, does have a strong melody, albeit, you know, strong in the same way as the smell of rotting cat food, and just feels like a massive and hugely popular hit um and you know a simple

worthless smash hit is something that every idiot thinks they could create themselves until they try it and and the the other thing that strikes you when you properly listen to this is that like so many paul mccartney songs it's supposedly simple and direct emotional appeal is all pretend and it's all emerging from a mask it's a a song of nostalgia for a highland past which is not his he's in character sneakily as usual um like sweep through the heather like deer in the glen carry me back to the days i knew then he only bought this place as a tax dodge you know and he hardly went there until the 70s and he's coming on like a kilted old lead in a leather armchair you know underneath a painting of his great grandfather banging his stick on the ground and so rarely could paul mccartney say anything in song even something as

basic as i like my house in the country it's dead nice up there without doing this without creating a country house of the 70s isn't it but it this brings you to the third thing that you realise when you listen to this record, which is a familiar thought to Wings watchers. It's just, what the fuck did he think he was doing? What was going on in his long head? Paul McCartney is still alive because he stayed sane. And to do that, he first had to go slightly mad and then maintain that level of insanity. I think if Paul McCartney hadn't been this weird,

he may have been yet another casualty of rock. So this is the price we pay for his continued happiness. There is an evil genius. Maybe not necessarily evil, but there is a genius at this record i mean i'd like to stress i don't like it and by the end of the year of 77 you could not buy a chart compilation without this on it front and center i mean i remember at the time liking it initially as you do and then hating it is perhaps my first apprehensions at a young age as it was with the similar in a way sailing by rod stewart that a song that sticks around and doesn't go anywhere

in it and i don't mean go anywhere within the song i mean it just stays at the fucking top of the charts for ages because this is like four weeks in now number one and it's got another five weeks hasn't it i think yes um so that can get massively annoying and also at that age i had utter confusion about the lyrics i didn't know what a mull of kintyre was and i didn't even realize it was a place to a certain extent but yeah like taylor says apart from charity records and death records this was the biggest selling uk single of all time and it is the genius of paul i think to hit upon something really special and that's the ability to make a song that would appeal to people who don't even

like music um so people scotland or scotland but i mean no i mean people who perhaps did not buy a record that year will have bought this because its tune is simple and it returns it's infantile melodically in a way, just two chords. The bagpipes would have reassured that kind of silent majority audience that this record had as well. I mean, obviously... Oh, yes, it's Amazing Grace again, isn't it? Yeah, this is it.

And it's a simple song with single-syllable words mainly. And it feels less... What Paul manages to do is create a song here that feels like it has existed before, in a way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's really... You know, that is an incredibly difficult thing to do. I absolutely don't ever want to hear it again.

But I can understand why in the bleak midwinter of 77, a song about home, a song about getting home and going home and loving your home would have been appealing, especially when couched in such a musically, instantly understandable and simple form as this. So I begrudgingly, I think all of us have to begrudgingly, you know, nod our heads that Paul was a genius at doing this kind of thing of creating these records that that didn't just appeal it's not even important that whether it

appealed to people like us or people music fans this was just a record that kind of all sorts of people could could buy into and and that's why it was so hugely successful it's a real skill doing that mccartney would spend most of the 80s trying to have the big christmas hit you know as simon said uh in a previous chart music when we did pipes of peace i think it was simon you know he really wanted to be part of your christmas yeah and this did the trick for him big star because it's a convivial song it is an arms round your mates in the pub sway along kind of thing. But also it's British country music, isn't it?

Yeah, it is, yeah. I think part of my problem is that I don't feel the Scottishness of it in a nice way. I mean, despite my starey pale blue eyes and unhealthy complexion suggesting I have at least some Scottish blood. I'm not really a fan of the Scottish Highlands. I mean, appealing as the country looks post-election. Those big empty misty hills and rocks,

which people find so good for their soul. It just looks like death to me. I don't want to be there. Do you like shortbread? I'm not allowed to eat it anymore. It just looks like death to me. I don't want to be there. Do you like shortbread? I'm not allowed to eat it anymore. It just gets worse. But the worst moment of this record, of course, is when the pipes come in.

But, I mean, that's the worst moment of any given day. And it's all the worse for that warning blast you get first, right? Which is like the scream of a doodle bug informing you that you're in for it. Get under the table. Yeah. And it's that same feeling of rapidly gathering misery as when you hear upstairs washing machine

going on with a spin cycle. It's like you know something horrible's coming. And then the fucking pipers walk on. And I just, every one of those bastards belongs in a transparent plastic tube on sale next to a tin of shortbread, a gonk in a tamo shanta, a jigsaw of cumben old town centre, and a packet of novelty elastoplast bearing the slogan, Glasgow's miles better. Yes.

And I don't think they're even very good pipers. I don't even know that there is such a thing, but I do know that he just went down to the nearest town and got the local pipe band. He didn't seek out the kings of the bagpipe scene. No. So, for all I know, to a bagpipe connoisseur, this might sound pretty much like it sounds to the rest of us yeah um like 20 pneumatic drills heard through a concussion

but what i do know is that being paul tight as an otter's pocket he paid them about 20 quid each yes it's fair enough and you do get only get a flat fee for session work. And there are quite a lot of them. But it's quite funny considering that it sold about 10 million copies an hour. And they would still have been eating bannocks in front of a three-bar fire in black and white, like two miles away from his house. I mean, we get the video for this which is paula wandering through the mist playing his guitar until he's joined by denny lane also playing his guitar and then they both

discover linda sitting on a rock and then the pipe band wander through and then it essentially becomes a living shortbread tin doesn't it it's a big set it's a big big set it makes it's a shame he couldn't get ringo to pretend to be all woolly and sit on a bucket in the distance this is ostensibly kind of like a down not a down home song but it's a simple little song but the set belies that because it's huge it's just a big big video you know and it's a big country neil it is it is a big country but i mean that you know i i wondered why they couldn't like like, film it in the genuine Highlands. I'm guessing because it wouldn't have looked quite as nice. It wouldn't have looked as shortbread tinny, as you say.

And I wonder how this record went, not went down in Scotland as such, but I remember hearing it an awful lot. And at the time, I was living in an area of country called Stoke-Ordemore that was sort of not notorious as such but it was an area that had a massive massive sort of scottish expat population in that part of coventry and i remember it just hearing it an awful lot maybe not because of those people but maybe because of those people um yeah you know if you're adrift in england then the sound of the pipes i guess the sound of that calling you wouldn't they well i'm guessing that was part of its appeal anyway

but that certainly doesn't account for all of its appeal i think yeah its appeal is mainly it's a it's a piece of music designed to appeal to people who don't even like music um it's those bagpipes though don't you think that they sound just like the guitars and big country records it's amazing tell you what i really i really feel for my homie denny lane um that professional gooseberry just you know like third wheel and he's just walking out of the mist with his mind on that co-writing credit, trying to block everything else out, you know, inside this grotesque parody of Scottishness, English style, like averting his eyes from Linda's tartan pop socks

and smiling manfully as he, you know, sings this song and tries to recall those happy times in Paul's post-apocalyptic farmhouse on the Moolah of Kittah. Because, I mean, it might possibly be done up quite nice now, but notoriously, back in the 70s, he didn't have electricity in there or anything or any heating. And he dragged the various lineups of wings up there to stay and because they do pre-tour rehearsals there with a generator in the barn um and he'd make them sleep in empty brick

buildings on stained mattresses um i did it at hamburg if it's good enough for me it's good enough for you famously the road crew once got so bored and unhinged and cold that they painted the outline of a television on the bare brick wall and sat around watching it well meanwhile scrooge mccartney and linda were in the main cottage sat by the fire and if it got really cold they'd light it but no but denny's problem was that his missus and linda mccartney fucking hated each other because linda knew that she'd started off as a groupie trying to have it off with paul and was maybe a little bit younger and prettier and it was all a bit awkward, apparently, in that unimaginable paradise of privilege and wealth and security. So, yeah, I always feel a little bit for Denny Lane,

stuck on the private jet with all the kids running around screaming. It's like he was half a rock star, you know what I mean? And, of course, this essentially ushers in 1978, which was the most Scottish year ever. Oh, yeah. Up until the first half of the Peru game, of course. You know, people forget that this was a double A side. It was a double A side in the same way that Wham was a duo

and Gono was one of the Marx Brothers. Yeah, the other side. Girl's School. Yeah, it was a great song called Girl School which was written after Macca was passing time on an aeroplane on tour looking at adverts for dirty movies in the back of a

magazine and he decided to write a song which was a synopsis of a porno film about a convent that he had made up in his head now presumably he thought this was a good idea about a convent that he had made up in his head. Now, presumably he thought this was a good idea to put something raunchy and rocky on the B-side of Mulliken Tire to protect the counter-cultural image he may still have imagined that he had.

Or perhaps more because he thought American radio might have one listen to mulligan tire and think what the sam hill is this uh i think he was right about that as well because i don't think it was a very big hit in america but the upshot was millions of grannies ended up with a record in their collection even if they never played that side with the opening line sleepyhead kid sister lying on the floor 18 years and younger boy well she knows what she's waiting for now is that a good thing not especially but it is the kind of cultural detail that you know enlivens the overcast pop charts of 1977 and underlines what a terribly confusing person Paul McCartney really was.

Like, eternally bemusing and impossible to fully understand. And, of course, I've got a bit more fondness for this than you, because this is the introductory music at Forest Games. Is it? Yes. Yeah, because right about this time, Forest were breaking the rest of Division 1 over their knee, the

Terrace song was City Ground, all mist rolling in from the Trent. You see? And they still play it now. So you go to a Forest game, Mulligan tie will come on and everyone will stand up and belt it out and then they'll sit down and be dead quiet for

the next two hours or so. Because football's rubbish nowadays. I'll tell you what was bothering me for ages. Has there been a number one since this in Walt's time? And I thought about it. Oh, good point. Eventually I thought of one. Mistletoe and Wine.

Oh. Right. A record whose one good point is that it allows you to appreciate the artistry and charm of mull of kintai mull of kintai would spend nine weeks at number one giving way to the majesty of uptown top ranking by althea and donna in the last week of January 1978. It would become the first single to sell over 2 million copies in the UK and currently stands as the fourth best-selling single in Britain after Candle in the Wind 1997, Do They Know It's Christmas and Bohemian Rhapsody and is still the biggest selling non-charity single when you knock out the sales figures of the 1991 re-release of Bohemian Rhapsody.

The follow-up, with a little luck, got to number five in April of 1978, but diminishing returns began to set in, and Denny Lane would leave Paul and Linda to get on with it in April of 1981. MUSIC PLAYS Here, here, oh, Mulligan time Really perfect for this time of year, but sadly that about winds up our festive feast of past hit 45s on the programme. I'm glad I got that out. Thanks for joining us, and I hope you've enjoyed it as much as us. Don't forget, 3.25 tomorrow on BBC One for the Boxing Day edition

and more hits from 77. We leave you with what probably is the biggest-selling Christmas record of all time, Bing Crosby, of course, and White Christmas. Bye-bye. Merry Christmas. I'm dreaming of a white Christmas Just like the ones I used to know Kidd and Edmonds stand neath the tree.

Show part two of Top of the Pops 1977, which will be on tomorrow, and sign off with What Else? White Christmas by Bing Crosby. Born Harry Crosby Jr. in Tacoma, Washington in 1903, Bing Crosby was America's highest grossing performer of the 30s and 40s, and this is his biggest hit song from a career spanning 46 years.

It was written by Irving Berlin, either in Hollywood or Phoenix, nobody can remember, in 1940 and it was immediately bagged by Crosby who sang it for the first time in public on the NBC radio show The Craft Music Hall on Christmas Day 1941 and then forgotten about for a few months when Crosby recorded it when he was doing the soundtrack for his forthcoming film Holiday Inn which was released in August of that year. When the film came out the single immediately got to number one in America at the end of October and would stay there right

through the year but seeing as our charts wouldn't begin for another 10 years there is no record of how it did over here. Two months before this episode Crosby died of a heart attack on a golf course near Madrid so it was blatantly obvious that the single was going to be re-released and it's currently at number five in the chart but it's the 1947 re-recording which was made because the master of the original single had been worn out through countless repressings during world war ii and we don't get a clip from either holiday inn or white christmas the 1954 film that was on BBC One yesterday afternoon we get to contemplate some oversized balloons don't we that show what he what he had finished with yeah yeah and by this point to be honest with you age five I would have been out of the room by now I would have been setting

up my streak track heard this song too many times it's only as you get older you realize you know ben crosby's actually for several reasons a really pivotal figure in the history of pop music and in the history of recording music and in particular his development of the microphone and that close and intimate conversational crooning style is really important his support of of um john mullen who brought back magnetophones from post World War II Germany and then his passing on of those machines to Les Paul was hugely important hugely important and the radio show that you mentioned is obviously it's perhaps the first radio show to be using tape technology to erase things like dead air and to start using things like canned laughter so he's really important

um in the development of recorded sound i just don't like any of the sounds that he recorded including this record which is such a standard it's it's but it it's beyond critical analysis it's beyond any analysis it is just there it is white christmas it is going to be part of everyone's christmas you're probably going to be part of everyone's Christmas. You're probably going to hear it in the next few weeks. There it is. Yeah, I'm exactly the same. By this point in this Top of the Pops,

there would have been chocolate fingerprint on the Beano book. And Bing would have been crooning this to an empty bean bag and an untouched bowl of walnuts um and yeah i've never been a fan of ben crosby although yeah he was you know arguably the first modern singer yeah because he doesn't project he sings in a way that you only could in the 20th century because of the you know electronic wizardry allowing him to stand in front of a full orchestra and sing quietly um yeah yeah you know it's like when movie actors suddenly realized they didn't have to mug like david soul singing a ballad because the audience were not 40 feet away anymore um yeah but yeah i'm not

a big fan of bing crosby apart from his name you know his first wife was called Dixie, I was just off for cocktails at Bing and Dixie's but it's it is weird at the end of this episode to suddenly, even such a ballad heavy episode as this to suddenly hear someone with a proper

voice singing a carefully crafted song and it all seems very labored and wheezy which will be how it sounded to the people of 1977 but nothing better illustrates the triumph of pop by this point in history um but you know you gain something you lose something there there aren't too many pop melodic you, post-rock and roll melodicists who could write such an elegant and effortlessly dreamy hook as the first two lines of this song.

Like the gentle tensions and yearning and the rise and fall in the music whilst being so simple. I guess Brian Wilson, you know, Burt Bacharach, maybe Paul McCartney, although not this year. But at the same time, no pop record has ever sounded this stiff and repressed because it's 1942 and you can't really be anything else in public now, you know.

And of course, when he says he's dreaming of a white christmas he's not fucking joking because it doesn't get much whiter than this record which is odd considering it was written by a russian jewish songwriter but you know probably a majority of 20th century all-american culture is the result of jewish creativity it was mostly mostly Jewish immigrants and their families who dragged the old, you know, hymn-singing, country-whooping America into the 20th century and built its modern cultural identity. Yeah. But it's hard to really feel Irving Berlin songs now

if you're not American, because there's no link and there's no line from there to here so you end up admiring the craft but thinking you know come on put a donk on it or whatever you know what I mean before Charlie Chaplin snuffed it earlier today uh Bing Crosby was the last massive celebrity death of 1977 of which there were quite a few. I mean, everyone in your family would have suffered a musical loss in 1977. Your mum and dad grieving over Elvis.

If you had an older sister, Mark Bolan. But Bing Crosby really hit home to non-Auron Grandpa, I feel. And so it's quite apt that this episode ends with this song because it's this episode if nothing else has been the triumph of the grandparents hasn't it has yeah and it's interesting you mentioned those names you know what you have to ask there's been nary a mention of Elvis you know yeah that's unbelievable isn't it which is odd I mean I don't know whether the the Boxing Day episode was a, you know, featured Elvis. Well, Way Down was on it.

Right, I see. But it's so odd because, I mean, it goes to show I don't think Elvis's audience in this country was being catered for by Top of the Pops anymore. Do you know what I mean? They were kind of like, Top of the Pops wasn't for them anymore. To be fair to the BBC,

they'd already rammed Elvis up your arse right through Christmas because they'd put one of his films on every morning. Right. So, you know, I mean, to me, 1977, the key event of 1977 is Elvis dying. Far more important than the Silver Jubilee or anything else. So, yeah, it is very strange not to have the King paying a visit on us on this christmas day

but you know rca didn't seem to think to release blue christmas which is just the fucking most obvious thing to do and and ben crosby's record label were uh obviously a lot more savvier yeah it was down to danny mirror to speak for all of us yes and it is a very weird choice in this two film versions of this song. And BBC have elected to use neither of them. But I think they probably did the right thing not showing the clip from the film White Christmas, because there is that bit where he takes his pipe and plays the baubles on the Christmas tree, which would have caused a lot of breakages in houses across the country this afternoon

so white christmas would go on to sell an estimated 50 million copies as a single and 100 million if you factor in its many appearances on compilation lps it would be his first solo top 40 hit in the uk since 1957 and his last but the previous night his last. But the previous night, his last ever TV show, Bing Crosby's Merry Old Christmas, was screened on ITV, featuring Twiggy, Ron Mooder, Stanley Baxter and the duet sung by Crosby and David Bowie, Peace on Earth, Little Drummer Boy,

which was released five years later and got to number three on Christmas week of 1982. And that concludes this episode of Top of the Pops. What's on telly afterwards? Well, BBC One pile into the Queen's speech, where she thanks everyone for giving her arse an extra special lick this year, and then gets stuck into Billy Smart's Christmas Circus,

The Wizard of Oz, and then basil through the looking glass, the Lewis Carroll tale recast by the King of Foxes himself. After five minutes of news, it's a Songs of Praise family carol special from the Royal Albert Hall, the Christmas Generation game, the Mike Yarlwood Christmas show with special

guest Paul McCartney and Wings and then the last ever Morecambe and Wise Christmas show on the BBC featuring Angela Rippon getting her legs out again, Arthur Lowe, John LeMissurier and John Laurie in a sauna, the There's Nothing Like a Dame number with practically every male BBC presenter of the era and Elton John singing in a deserted studio at the end. Those last two shows pulled down 28 million viewers, by the way. After the news with Angela Rippon, they finish off the night with the 1968 Barbra Streisand film Funny Girl. Barbra Streisand film Funny Girl. BBC Two is running Alpha Omega,

the Bruno Bozzetto cartoon about the life of a man from childhood to old age, followed by the lively arts in performance, with the Marseille Opera and the Ballet de Marseille, have a go at Coppelia. Then it's In Deepest Britain, a documentary about some geese on the south coast. Then Celebration, a clip show about the Jubilee, a repeat of the Queen's speech, the 1976 Australian film Storm Boy about a lad who looks after some pelican chicks. Then a repeat of Thanks for the Memory, a collection of clips of

the general public talking about telly and their memories of it over the past 25 years. Then it's A Christmas Past, a collection of homemade movie clips from the 20s and 30s, followed by Country Holiday with Crystal Gale, Larry Gatlin and George Hamilton IV, and they round off the day with the 1946 Humphrey Bogart film The Big Sleep. ITV gets the Queen's speech out of the way before Frank Muir introduces To See Such Fun, a clip show of British comedy films from the 40s to the 60s. Then it's Emu's Christmas Adventure featuring Arthur Lowe, Jack Douglas and Henry McGee. Then the news, then the Muppet Show with our very special guest star Julie Andrews. After a seasonal sale of the century, it's Stars on Christmas Day,

a festive episode of Stars on Sunday, which shoehorns a clip of Bing Crosby from last year amongst contributions by Gracie Fields, John Mills, Harry Seacombe and Don Estelle. Then it's the evening film, the 1972 biopic Young Winston, which is on for nearly three hours. After the news, it's Stanley Baxter's greatest hits and they close out the night with celebration, more God-bothering from Wales

and a Christmas message from Dr Donald Coggan, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Fucking hell. So much religious rumble on the telly. What's going on? What's going on with young Winston for three hours as well? Jeez Louise. I know.

ITV have... They've blown it. ITV have ballsed it up this year, man. BBC won all the way in our arse, that'd be. Fucking hell. Imagine something going on for three hours. Nobody's going to make it through the whole of that but i mean they're probably looking at more common wise mighty i would just thinking bbc have

this you know don't matter what we put on let's just put on some shite that's cheap so me boys what are we talking about where we're trying not to fall off our skateboards in the street this afternoon. Seriously, not a lot. Maybe Magic Fly. Maybe. But there's nothing to snag you here as a young person. No. It's for grannies and granddads. So I don't think I'd have been talking. I'd probably have been talking about how rubbish it was.

Yeah. Total lack of anything outrageous, even playfully. Unless you count Legs & Co. Pride all up in Baker foil knickers, but other than that, yeah this is a slump this is going to be a

Christmas afternoon slump and what are we buying with our record tokens on Boxing Day? if the record shops open on Boxing Day, it might not be Abba, Denise and maybe Space. Yeah, same. But that's about it because I'm not made of money.

And what does this episode tell us about 1977, apart from the total domination of punk? Well, that's the major thing. Pop is still triumphant in a sense although it's not really pop i mean pop in the strictly popular sense if you like so we have these dreary slow undanceable records that have dominated the year by david soul by wings by you know these records for people who kind of perhaps aren't in a pop music that much um pop goes on punk is a minority concern and and and doesn't even get close to this episode um you know and i suspect that even if if

even if a punk band had had the number two or number one hit that wasn't god save the queen i don't think they'd have got on it would it would have interfered with the vibe of this show especially because the vibe of the show especially because the vibe of the show is odd and haunted because it's a deserted studio so punk was never going to work in that sort of scenario anyway no so rumors of the punkness of 1977 voter x punks may be really really important to the rest of britain yeah there weren't that many punks about. There was just one house, the punk house, and that was it. Well, I mean, if you looked at this, you'd think, fucking hell, weren't you allowed in record shops

under the age of 35 in 1977? Yeah, and you'd have no clue what had happened in that year that was interesting. You'd also have no clue as to what's going to happen in 78. Yeah, I mean, because they've split it up into two parts. Yeah. You know, there's a lot of good shit that we would have had an absolute ball talking about in that episode. You know, I Feel Love, Weigh Down, you know, stuff like that.

But this one, it is proper fucking non-R-bait. The good old pops, if you will. And that, me ducks, is the end of this episode of Chart Music. All that remains for me to say now is www.chart-music.co.uk. You can get us on facebook.com slash chartmusicpodcast. Reach out to us on Twitter at chart music t-o-t-p and shove some money down that g-string at patreon.com slash chart music thank you taylor parks let the magic of christmas bring god's peace to you and yours and to the world tar ever so neil kulkarni merry christmas out and a happy new year

to all chart music listeners and And on behalf of Simon Price, Sarah B and David Stubbs, my name's Al Needham. We'll see you at some point in January, but until then stay pop crazed. Chart music. In association with the British Market Research Bureau and the Pop Craze Patreons, the Chart Music Top 40 of 2019.

At number 40, Dadisfaction. Number 39, it's Tito Jackson's bollocks. The number 38 act of the year, bummers like Duran Duran. Good lad. In at 37, Mark Chapman and the Bullets. At 36, the Sikh lad at a show waddy waddy.

At number 35, the erotic dreams of Mrs. Slocum. Nice. Number 34, Oasis. At number 33, it's Neil Cougar Culcarnet. Got it. There at number 32,

the Gug City Slaggers are residing in the number 31 slot, Pig Wanker General. Into the top 30 and at number 30, it's Soul Rail Replacement Service. Number 29, the Definitive Non-Sandwich Band. Residing at number 28, the Granny Claps. Number 27, Mad Phil and the Gummy Woman. Good to see. They're at number 26, Serving Suggestion.

Yes. At number 25, It's Gamony Sludge. Number 24, The Queen's Fanny. Standing at number 23 this year, Seven Days Jankers. In at number 22, Granny Wants Your Spunk. At number 21, The Whiff of the Catermeat. into the top 20 and at number 20 Quo Wadi Wadi at number 19

it's Tony Blackburn and the Gay Ones remember this from earlier in the year number 18 the Alligators with tits Remember this from earlier in the year Number 18 The Alligators with tits At number 17 Floella Benjamin in a dustbin At number 16 The Doolies with ghoulies

At number 15 Simon Price and the receptionist from Hong Kong Fue. Yes. At number 14, Lesbian Door Factory. Not bad for a free flexing. A former number one at number 13, Hot Rex. In at number 12, Fred Westlife. At number 11, it's Dave D, Creeper, Twat and Cunt.

The top 10 for 2019 goes like this. At number ten, Jeff Sex. At number nine, Man to Man meet Al Needham. At number eight, Clit Richard. This year's number seven act, Chicken Steven. At number six, Taylor Parks' 20 Romantic Moments. The number five sound of the year, Serebian Rakim. At number four, it's Bergerac meets Rockers Uptown. Easy now.

At number three, here comes Jizzum. At number two, Your Dark Mates, which means... The number one act of 2019. It could only be Bomber Dog. My name's Al Needham. That was 2019 for Chop Music. We'll see you next year. Stay pop crazed. GreatBigOwl.com