Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - Chart Music #49 (Part 2): January 7th 1982 - Yellow Hurll

Episode Date: March 29, 2020

The latest episode of the podcast which asks: would you treat YOUR kids to a day out at Flick Colby's Zoo?We're returning to one of our favourite years for music television discussion, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, but if you think it's another Eighventies splurge, think on; that era is not only officially dead, but its corpse is being gleefully stepped upon by assorted Pineapple dance studio chaff. Peter Powell - when he's not doing the Running Man - takes us through a chart which is coming out of hibernation after the Xmas truce, and what a battered selection box it turns out to be.Musicwise, hmm: Zoo have their coming-out party, which involves a BDSM Cossack Human Centipede. Alton Edwards overdoes it with the Jheri Curl activator and fucks up his expensive jacket. There's an appalling video of Foreigner in 'action'. The pace picks up with Meat Loaf and Cher copping off with each other and the introduction of Romo Ralph Wiggum, but then The Mobiles forget to top themselves up. Shakatak. A bodybuilder with an eyepatch for pants makes an accidental Nazi salute at Peter Powell. Vangelis self-isolates with nine synths. The Number One Single reminds us how good things used to be. The Zoo Wankers desecrating Madness shows us how bad things are going to get.Sarah Bee and Neil Kulkarni join Al Needham for an extensive tear-down of the first week of the Eighties Proper, veering off on such tangents as regional ITV, the humbling of Communism in Sneinton Market, mysterious greasy stains on bus windows, how 50% of Chart Music bonded over the Bummer's Conga in Bristol in 1995, and why hiding cock photos under your housemate's pillow isn't the done thing. Probably even more swearing than usual.Video Playlist |  Subscribe |  Facebook | Twitter |  Look at our Wiki, it's MINTSubscribe to us on iTunes here. Support us on Patreon here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull-apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks for the small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. 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 Chart music Hey up you pop craze youngsters And welcome to part two of chart Music number 49. I'm Al Needham.

Oh, sorry, yeah. Are you? I'm waiting for myself to say hello. What a knob. I'm Al Needham. That's Sarah B. Hey. Neil Kukorn is just over there. Hello, Chucky Bab. And we are about to get the fuck right out of this unwiped arse of a century

and bury our faces into a top of the pops from 1982. Oh, that looks like a nice, safe place now, doesn't it? The blessed balm of nostalgia. Before we get into this episode, some of you have been asking, thank you very much. Yeah, the chart music beacon's gone up, the one that's shaped like Simon Bates on a broomstick with a cat face zoo wanker.

Everyone else in Chart Music is just fine. Don't worry about us. We're all right, aren't we? We are. And at least three of us are basically shut-ins anyway. Yeah. The adjustment period is probably not as painful as it's going to be for others.

So, yeah, let's get stuck into this episode. And in the words of the recently departed Julie Felix, we're going to see zoo, zoo, zoo. How about you, you, you? You can come too, too, too. We're going to see zoo, zoo, zoo. Neil, here we go. Here's your chance, man, to splurge on zoo.

My nemesis, arch nemesis um unrivaled zooness to the to the power wank i mean they're fully confident in what they're doing and at their most repulsive i would argue in this particular episode all right then pop All right, then, Pop Craze youngsters. It's now time to go way back to January of 1982. Always remember, we may coat down your favourite band or artist, but we never forget, they've been on top of the pops more than we have. It's 7.25pm on the evening of Thursday, January 7th, 1982, and Top of the Pops is finally about to emerge from its Aventus chrysalis with the glistening pastel-hued wings of the Pops is finally about to emerge from its Aventus chrysalis with the glistening pastel-hued wings of the 80s. Let's have a brief timeline of that transition from the old to the

new. So, August 1980. Robin Nash, the executive producer of Top of the Pops, is promoted to head of variety at the BBC and is replaced by Michael Hurl, who also takes over from Nash as the executive producer of Crackerjack, as well as continuing to hold down his position for the two Ronnies and Little and Large. Hurl immediately announces that the DJ presenters and legs and co will be retained, but pop news will be given out between numbers

and the audience will be encouraged to sit the fuck down. As soon as Top of the Pops returns after a two-month layoff due to the musicians' union strike, Hurl changes the hard and fast rule of giving away the top 30 at the top of the show, spreading it out as the show progresses and bins off the Top of the Pops Orchestra. April 1981. An advert in the stage announces,

Flick Colby requires young girl dancers, indicating a new female troupe or a shake-up of legs and co. is imminent. 9th of July 1981 The introduction of Yellow Pearl and the reigning vinyl opening credits for the 900th episode October 1981 Another advert in the stage announces Audition for Flick Colbert But this time it's for Quote

Boys and girls A week later Hurl announces the new look for Top of the Pops from November, which will include a pool of 80 dancers, which he hopes will include Legs & Co, in a shake-up of its Terpsichorean wing. As Hurl said, under the new system, the dancers appearing over a month will average out to about 24, But whereas one week a song might suggest a routine with two dancers, the next week we might want 16. A few weeks later, Legs and Co. make their final main performance, dancing to the Birdie song.

And a week after that, they make their final appearance, dancing behind Haircut 100 as they do favorite shirts boy meets girl november the 5th 1981 the introduction of zoo who get in the way of modern romance as they try to perform ayayayay mouset and in november the 12th 1981 we have the introduction of an irregular slot about the American charts presented by Jonathan King so you could say that this episode really does mark the death of the Aventers and the birth of the

top of the pops that you're two in particular know and sort of love definitely definitely with Yellow Pearl of course and of course with Zoo oh god fucking Zoo. Yeah. Overshadowing the kids.

Yeah. I mean, as a kid, I hated Zoo from the off. I mean, the difference to me, of course, is by 82, for starters, video is starting to make the idea of a dance troupe redundant already. As a kid, I would have much preferred watching the pop video that a band would have created to some rubbish dance routine. But beyond that, as we started to get familiar

with the ever-changing cavalcade of cunts that were zoo over the coming months... The cunt-alcade, if you will. The cunt-alcade, yeah. A lot of bad things come out of them of their performances that they simply didn't seem as in control and as controlled as legs and cone pans people were they were they were just allowed control it seems and all their routines just seemed hasty and overly flamboyant and crucially show-offy that that's the key thing

show-offy which is something that pan's people and legs and co uh never seem to be so in a sense zoo suited an age in which selfishness and individuality and competitiveness rather than togetherness we're going to be we're going to be preeminent. Legs & Co and Pans people never really felt like they had something to prove or that they were being rewarded for going at routines with particular gusto. Zoo, however, just seemed to always be showing off and not in a good way. Yeah. That they were the most suitable dance troupe for Top of the Pops trying to embark on a new era.

But out of all of those changes that you listed when Hurl came in, I would say that they're probably the weakest link in those changes because you couldn't really see any discernible improvement in Zoo from Legs and Co and Pants people. And also their role itself seemed really unsure in this period, particularly early 80s when they're just coming in. Were they there to be part of the crowd? Were they doing... I mean, they were shouldering out really what,

as retrospective viewers now, makes Top of the Pops joyous. They were shouldering out the kids. And really you couldn't tell if they were there to do routines. Even when they did, it was kind of hasty and thrown together. And it's that crucial difference, isn't it, we keep coming back to, between arrogance and confidence. Legs & Co. seem confident. Pans People seem confident.

Zoo seem arrogant with this unjustified confidence because they're not that good. And also, although you could almost link Pans People and Legs & Co. back to something akin to a counterculture that kind of 67 is idyll of ephemeral pop presentation zoo were just sweaty in in a sort of really unpleasant way they just look like they reek so from the off um i wasn't keen on Zoo it was a different vibe and it seemed a vibe determined to shoulder out those unpleasant

things called the kids who were always provided the real entertainment in a sense, watching the top of the pop they shouldered them out in favour of this endlessly extravagant, flagrant displays of show-offiness so it's that i hated zoo from the off um and and you know this is where they started sarah is top of the pops a

thing in your life at the time uh probably not quite yet but um do you have any memories of watching the top of the pops with zoo on it i don't i mean it it clearly it didn't uh didn't affect my enjoyment of it you know i didn't i wasn't uh i'm afraid uh i wasn't like oh who are these who are these cunts um but apparently i mean the thing is that i have actually uh in i've been having a nice time dancing in a club and gone up on a thing to, because there's a bit more space to throw shapes and, uh, been turfed off. Right.

By, you know, by, uh, unceremoniously by some professionals who'd been hired to do the thing. And they were just doing their job, but it is like this, this seems,

this seems incorrect. You know, now I, not because I, not because I wanted to show off but i just you know what's it a bit of space just want a bit of space to flip my arms around and so yeah it does i totally get what neil is saying about yeah they're just sort of elbowing out and it's like no no no stand aside this is how it's done so yeah but it honestly it doesn't really like watching

this episode it's like yeah there's there's some you know there's some decent moves being thrown there right uh i always i suppose they're a bit more i guess the intention which is partially successful is they're more of a kind of a bridge between the kids and the audience or at least that's a partially kind of successful thing that i don't know i'm just pulling this out my ass but um i do hate i always bristle at that notion that uh you know that that is a thing that is needed or desirable it's okay for there there's a natural hierarchy for there to be like performers who perform and you stand around and look at them yeah and they are going to be up on a stage higher up than you and that doesn't mean you don't have to get in a get anything about that you know you don't have to go well i they think they're better than me

it's like well they're better than you at this so that and that's fine and they're actually performing for your enjoyment so you don't have to get i hate that whole kind of false democracy of like oh no everyone's good at a thing and everyone's got a talent that's how you get youtubers do you know what i mean yeah but it's revealing how that you said there were like 80 dancers they were calling upon yes to be into i mean that rotate you'd think of such a vast rotating cast of dancers would lead to some i don't know some different dancing some different varieties of dancing but really well some good dancers but all they do all zoo ever do um if they're not actually directly involved in a routine that involves backflips or something

is that brassy walking step that is the default zoo setting and they just do that incessantly um replacing the audience it's one of the worst things that Hurl did to the show I would argue and he just wasn't cognizant unfortunately if you're going to put a zoo routine in, hey just put the video on it'll be better and there is also, I know I've

complained about this in the past and I go back and forth, there's a lot of mixed feelings about a lot of Top of the Pops for me and sometimes I find it a bit vexatious, the endless awkwardness and all its permutations of the audience and of people being trying to have fun, trying to look like they're having fun, trying to perform, having fun, being told how to perform, how to have fun. That is all quite a lot and I find it quite wearisome. But then when you get someone who is

doing this kind of slightly shinier version of you know it does yeah like top of the pops is kind of supposed to be about a load of people being a bit awkward there's yeah that's kind of the charm of it so yeah yeah it is it is an odd it is an odd thing and i'm not sure it completely works they're dancers that stop other people dancing. That's the thing. Yes. That's what's terrible about it. They're stopping other people dancing

because not only would you feel somewhat inadequate, what you notice with zoo performances over the years is people watching them. People used to watch Legs and Co and stuff, don't get me wrong, but they'd also be having a boogie as well because they didn't feel intimidated out of their slightly crap dancing whereas zoo have that effect on the audience they just stymie natural expression um in that way and it's really noticeable from this kind of period onwards they've become the midpoint between us as the audience watching it and the and the kids in the

in the studio and the djs it's the djs job to jolly everything along and say that everything's brilliant but you know in many an episode of top of the pops we've commented on you know you look to the kids because the kids always tell you the truth you know we've seen them with faces like smack tosses or getting bored and restless yeah rabbit ears behind their mate's back and you know the kids will always tell you what's good and what's shit and now they've been moved out the equation and to zoo everything's brilliant and everything's danceable and you know i mean there are episodes we haven't even approached yet where zoo are being called on to dance to things that you just can't dance to and they look so out of fucking place

and that's the only good that's the only time that you actually enjoy seeing zoo on there no you're right you're absolutely right and and there's a kind of disdainful thing about the way that they dance to pop music they always have to dance to pop music with this stupid big smile on their face always stupidly happily reactive to every single change in the music that's not the way you dance to pop you get into the groove of it you you don't keep showing off like this so that i always got the sense with zoo that they actually hated pop music and they were deliberately acting juvenile dancing is fun but it's also bloody serious pans people didn't always smile i i perceive as i mean maybe this is a retroactive

justification for my loathing of a fairly anodyne dance troupe but i always thought that zoo looked down on pop and and and yes you know i palpably get that from an awful lot of their performances on this episode actually yeah this is their springboard to um other things isn't it yeah exactly that exactly that which turned out to be in one extreme uh a career presenting on mtv in america and in the other extreme doing the what no meat advert oh and one more other thing before we really get stuck in pop crazy youngsters this episode of top of the pops is a week before the one we covered in chart music number 11, David Van Day's Chart Music. So, you know, you may want to listen to that one right after this,

if only to hear how much my editing and presentation skills have improved over the last two years. It's way back. And how better our microphones are. Uh-huh. Yeah, thanks to you. Your host for this evening is Peter Powell. At this moment in time, Powell has clocked up a year

in the weekday tea time slot and is garnering a reputation as the man at Radio 1 who breaks the bands. He's already been credited with giving Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet their first airings on Radio 1 and this year he'll be doing the same for Culture Club. This afternoon he's been sandwiched between Steve Wright in the afternoon and The Record Producers, a documentary series hosted by Andy Peebles.

As well as being folded into the rotation of Top of the Pops presenters, he's also in talks with BBC North West to co-present the forthcoming Saturday morning show Get Set for Summer with Mark Currie. And by the end of the year, he would replace Robert Elms as the host of the new series of the Manchester-based youth, with an F, music and culture programme Oxford Roadshow, with an F, music and culture programme, Oxford Roadshow, the TV show, let us remember, that was the inspiration for nosing around on the young ones, which was a bit of a fucking cheek,

seeing as Ben Elton was a regular presenter in the first series. Oh, I mean, this era of Top of the Pops, practically tailor-made for Peter Powell, wasn't it? I mean, Michael Hall must have had him in mind, because he is Mr Wow. He is, he is and he's crucially he's shorn of that 70s smell of the old farts, he's a safe pair of

hands in a sense for this vibrant young aspirational decade and crucially although the 70s were often called the sexy 70s with two E's on the end obviously there was a strangely asexual or inappropriately sexual feel to many of the presenters um but if you go looking for creepiness in peter powell i have to say i think it's mainly down to the milieu that he was in

you do get the feeling with powell slightly creepy though he is that he may have actually had a sexual relationship with something that wasn't i don don't know, tinned fruit or a domesticated animal. You know, he has that sense of normality to him. But the key thing for any presenter to put across, especially with a new format, in a sense, he's got to deal with,

you know, new chart rundowns, new dance troops, et cetera. The key thing for him to put across is that you are safe here. Now, the only problematic, in a sense, of unsafe presenters of Top of the Pops at this point,

in as much as they don't leave the audience feeling necessarily that secure, are probably John Peel, Kenny Everett, and, you know, as Alf Garnett called him, that peroxide Ponce, who we haven't talked about yet. But Powell is emblematic of that kind of security, in a sense. But all that said, I've never seen Peter Powell look the way that he looks on this episode. He looks like a member of Kraftwerk. He's got this straightened hair that replaces his previous kind of bubble perm.

And this shit red tank top. Ready for the 80s. Yeah, just not helping, really. He does this, in this initial intro, he does this throw of his hand. I can't tell if it's planned or not, but it doesn't come off. No.

You know, but yeah, he's the ideal host. He's young. That's what's crucial, and that's precisely the image that Top of the Pops is trying to put across in this period. Yeah, and overwhelmingly positive as always. Yeah. Yeah, you're quite right about the creepiness quotient is

about as low as it gets for a Top of the Pops presenter, I think. Let us not forget though that according to Simon Price's dad, Peter Powell is a perv. Oh yeah, of course, of course. Yeah, yeah. Remind me?

Simon was watching Top of the Pops with his dad and his dad just said Peter Powell's a perv. And Simon regrets not pulling his dad up on that and finding out more. Oh, okay, so we might never know. Maybe he was just trying to do a new twist on Peter Piper picked a peck of people. The outfit is,

is kind of, I would say he's serving funky Mr. Rogers realness there. He's in a white shirt with wazzy collars and the sleeves rolled up. The shirt doesn't fit. And it's kind of, there's a sort of long knit waistcoat kind of thing. Yeah.

But it's the color is the exact color a gilet. Yeah. But it's the colour, it's the exact colour of cherry flavoured tunes. Ooh. Yes. It's the exact colour of one that's been in your bag for a while and has gone a little bit,

you know. And he has a tie striped with a red that is not the same red. I can't tell you exactly what red it is and bad trousers and a sort of,

what I can only describe as a lady's rectangular watch with with a leather strap in in yet another well spotted another shade of red so he's got he's trying to coordinate but none of those reds are are the same and it it's it's a bother i've got to tell like it's a bother on the eyes he does seem appropriate to this phase of topper pops he's incredibly awkward i feel it has to be said. He's not kind of... Yeah, there's the kind of hand wave, which is meant to be a sort of like, go! kind of thing.

And it's like, oof. But also, he's kind of got this slightly strangulated... His delivery, he's not breathing. It's like, breathe, breathe, man! It's like... I mean, you've seen Thelma and Louise, right? There's a bit where Thelma and Louise are on the run, and Louise gets Thelma to call Holmes

want you to call Daryl and says if you suspect anything if he sounds weird at all, hang up because it means the phone's tapped and the police are there and the police are there the FBI are all sitting around and the phone rings and Daryl kind of gets himself together

and picks up the phone and she's like, Daryl it's me and he goes, Thelma, hello and she hangs up the phone he knows shit and all the fbi looking was like what but it's like that's the thing you can just hear his entire body like constricting around his voice box you know so that's basically the delivery like everything he can't get through a sentence without just kind of go like that so it i felt kind of bad for him but you know he does a he does a fair enough job he's possibly nervy because i'm not sure how many he'd presented all by himself um in this period quite a few by this oh i do because i'm used to seeing him you know next to kid or next to

noel or something like that so that surprises me yeah he just needed to just needed to breathe a little bit more. He relaxes later when somebody smart tells him to take his waistcoat off. Yes. He relaxes a bit then. Hello and welcome to the first of the box of 1982. We've got a show stacked full of good stuff, including the number one band in the studio.

But right now, for starters, New Year 25, Philip Lyon at a yellow ball. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Pal, in a white shirt with wazzy collars and the sleeves rolled up, stripy tie, red waistcoat and black trousers, stands on a platform with a smattering of zoo wankers, including a lad dressed up as a British Airways pilot. He tells us to prepare for a show stacked full of good stuff.

Then, without warning, he pretends to throw the microphone at us and breaks into a running man dance that looks like one of those flick books of Goofy walking along. That was incredible. Was that planned?

Oh yes. As we've seen in the week after's episode, it's clearly a policy now that the radio on DJs and the presenters have to dance. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because we got that shot at the end of the next episode where Dave Lee Travis is forced to dance to being boiled. the thing is like i'm i'm not a dancer but i can under the right circumstances running man i have got a respectable running man but you need it takes it takes a bit out of you and you can't just do it to anything like you've got it the feeling has got to be there you know yeah you can't running man to yellow pearl it just doesn't it's not the right yeah it doesn't have the right vibe it's a plod isn't it the plodding man you could do the plodding man the kind of yeah the sort of shuffling to the shops man but yeah it's not i mean obviously he has a little it's quite sweet it's more like a

sort of what that is it's not really the running man it's more like um i'm sure in 1982 i had a hobby horse that that my mum with with like a with made with a lovely head and then just a broomstick and some reins. And you had to try to get it between. It's a terrible rubbish toy. I mean, I remember mine. I've just had a really fond memory of mine, actually, because my mum made it as a white horse with a lovely mane and mad eyes, you know. white horse with with a lovely mane and mad eyes you know but you have to try to like put put the stick sort of between your knees and keep it there and then sort of do the horsey movement with the rest of you and it it's quite awkward and you don't feel there's no like oh i can i can now

drift into a dreamland where i'm actually riding a beautiful horse across the countryside it's just that's what he's doing he's doing the hobby horse yeah and he's got to do it all the way through the song as well yeah and right in the beginning he looks behind himself and i don't know whether it's he was being like my niece because when my niece i used to watch top of the pops with my niece when she was about three and every time legs and co or pants people came on she'd get up and just dance to it. But she'd look behind herself to make sure she was doing exactly what everyone else was doing. Ah, yeah. So either he's looking behind himself to see if he's doing it right,

or looking behind himself to check that everyone else is doing it and he hasn't been conned into making a twat of himself. While everyone else is just standing there laughing at him. Well, the person who got this right time and time again was John Peel. His dancing was always a hoot to look at because he deliberately made it awkward and made a thing of it. Powell was precisely aiming for this smooth kind of move and, oh, God, it's mortifying.

Also, there's this kind of feeling that, like, he's... It's like, you've got to really sell this because it's like, we're really proud. This is our theme tune. And it's a weird sort of top of the pops folding in on itself moment. It's a really, isn't it? And just especially because it's right at the start and it's like, well, I've just heard this and I'm hearing it again and seeing it in this weird, well, I mean, which we'll get to,

but like, it's a lot, isn't it? Somehow it's very strange. So the song they're all dancing to happens to be the song it's a lot, isn't it, somehow? It's very strange. So the song they're all dancing to happens to be the song we've just heard a couple of seconds beforehand, Yellow Pearl by Philip Lynott. Born in West Bromwich in 1949, Phil Lynott was the son of an Irish mother

and a Guyarnan father who was relocated to Manchester as a child and then adopted by his grandparents in Dublin. In 1965, he became a member of the covers band the Black Eagles, then became the lead singer of the band Karma Sutra, and then became the frontman of the blues rock band Skid Row in 1967, where he linked up with the guitarist Gary Moore. In 1969,

Lynott took time out of the band when he had his tonsils removed and Skid Row continued as a power trio, eventually making him redundant. However, the new lead singer compensated him by teaching him the bass and Lynott formed his own band, Thin Lizzy,

which landed a number six single in February of 1973 with Whiskey in the Jar and would go on to notch up eight chart singles in the latter half of the 1970s. In 1979, Lizzy's tour of America was disrupted when Gary Moore walked out halfway through, forcing Lynyrd to draft in someone he had already written LP tracks with, Midure, formerly of Slick, who had caused the rich kids to split up when he wanted to play synths instead of guitars

and was in the initial line-up of Visage. During Lizzy's tour of Japan, Yur had switched to keyboards and would spend rehearsals and soundchecks dicking around with a new tune, which line-up remembered when he started working on his debut solo LP solo in Soho and the co-written song inspired by liner and your nosing around electrical shops and

seeing the yellow magic orchestra in Tokyo ended up on the LP in the spring of 1980 and was released as a single in March of 1981 but it's only got to number 56. However, after its release, Lynette was approached by Michael Hurl and invited him to write the sixth theme tune for Top of the Pops. When Lynette asked him what he wanted, he was told something like Yellow Pearl. Lynette responded, use Yellow Pearl then. After a remix, it was introduced as a new theme tune on the 9th of july 1981 and lo the colored vinyl rained down from the skies after being played non-stop for the rest of the year it was re-released last month enter the charts at number 47 on christmas week on Christmas week and this week it soared 22 places to number 25 and here are Zoo and the

Running Pal to dance dance dance the fuck out of it I mean there is a lot to unpack here chaps but let's begin by discussing why 1982 was so fucking dancing because after all

this is the very night that the first episode of fame was broadcast in America. I mean, we wouldn't get it until June, but it seemed that every other person on telly in 1982 was in a leotard. Why? Why not? You know,

it's a time for, you know, Lycra is now readily available and, you know, it's affordable and easy you know lycra is now readily available and you know it's yeah and affordable and uh easy to click who knows um it's there's an energy there's a thing in the air um if you know and it's a time when if you want you can jump up on a car and let it all hang out and there will be consequences to this but still it is a thing that you can do it's odd

that this is before fame came out because i think fame would exert quite a big influence actually ever what would happen in the next huge influence in the next couple of years why do you need to dance i guess to get out of the gloom to get out of the gloom of the previous years and the change over the decade there is this stridency this flamboyancy this desire to be out and loud and proud and sort of sort of demonstrative of your your physical abilities to a certain extent let's get physicals just been in the charts as well so yes yeah there's there's that sort of change in mood or if you like from from yeah 81 gloom into 82 bright shininess um and and dance dominates things it that it dominates this

episode it dominates my understanding of this song to a certain extent because this song i remember loving it and that's why it's shooting up the charts because it got such big airplay it's a powerful um i i remember just digging the hook immensely not really being cognizant of the lyrics it's probably my favorite passage of music that midure has ever been associated with but in terms of this performance on Top of the Pops of course it is the dancing that sticks in your head and gets on your tits yes I mean if you've not seen it

I implore all of you to go to the video playlist and consult the launch show of TSW which happened six days before this episode because that is a textbook example of televisual danciness of the time it's essentially some people in leotards doing interpretive dance in front of footage of blacksmiths making horseshoes and car ferries and loading and affairs with a y and an r and an e but isn't it odd the british kind of dancing that we see i mean think about break dancing going on at this time um and new sort of steps happening and what have we got we've got

for this song this this bizarre and unwanted meld really of kind of the russian cossack steps from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite with BDSM wear and a few shit breakdancing moves thrown in as well. But as ever with Zoo, that hastiness of preparation, I think, is massively in evidence. There's a few signature standout moves that are meant to be impressive, but they just end with people just lying on the floor after they've done a gamble, you know, having to get up like you did in PE. It's not seamless and it doesn't seem cognizant of the music. And as ever with Zoo, you just start wondering how many of them are there? Yes. Welcome to All Rather Mysterious, the podcast that aims to unlock the mysteries of the past with the key of fact.

My name is John Rain. My name is Eleanor Morton. My name is David Reed. I'm doing the man in the iron mask. Oh, Lord Lucan. The Hollinwell incident. The Versailles time slip of 1901. Tam Amshud.

Who was Kaspar Hauser? The Dyatlov Pass incident. I'm glad you said it. Yeah, I've no idea how you pronounce it. It sounded right. Dyatlov? Dyatlov. Dyat. The Dyatlov Pass incident. I'm glad you said it. Yeah, I've no idea how you pronounce it. It sounded right. Dyatlov? Dyatlov! Dyatlov! Dyatlov! I'll be doing some deeply culturally sensitive

accents throughout this. Russians don't listen to things. I mean, the dance routine. I mean, obviously they're trying to put Zoo over big here this is their coming out party isn't it to coin a phrase it's wild

it's so oily and gay and dark and weird I mean it's like the early shift at the sex dungeon isn't it this is like the warm up act for the naked fire eater it's in it's in three stages isn't it the main bit is four leather cossacks who start backflipping and doing kip-ups yeah and then uh

there's a collection of second tier zoo wankers who i am now from now on going to call city farm and they're in this sort of costumes i mean there's one dressed as a nurse there's one in a cap and gown there's a proto goth traffic warden there's a sailor there's a bloke in camouflage and a beret and there's one woman who's i think she's just come and dressed as your man popping out to do the shopping she's got a belted raincoat and a headscarf. But yeah, don't assume that the kids are being completely pushed out of the shop because we see the top of the heads of four of them at the front of the stage. Including one dressed up as a police officer.

But that's not all because there are two bodybuilders just posing. Yeah, yeah. Strong men. In these strappy sort of metal studded things that metal fans were in at the time and tiny posing pouches. Tiny, tiny. Practically an eye patch. It's astonishing. I mean, yeah, there's like oiled up strong men pulling all the poses.

I mean, there's so much going on, it's overwhelming and you know, the kids have got to stand well back for their own safety really, there's some, at one point there's but yeah, it is all like just whatever just thrown at the wall it's not even this'll do, it's just

like and, and this, yeah and what else can we cram in, so there's at one point they sort of that there's like four guys who form a kind of uh human centipede and then they kind of pass there's a woman in in kind of white tights white tights which are almost never a good idea um and they kind of pass her they've been holding her up in a in a sort of vegas showgirl kind of kind of move or american cheerleader kind of way. And then they kind of pass her

because they're all kind of in quite close proximity. It's like madness, actually. It's like the rude X-rated version of the madness thing where they're all in a line. The bummer's conga, as David calls it. But they pass... So there's a woman, they've been holding her aloft and then they pass her back through in between their legs,

and it's like that party game where you had to pass a balloon between you. Yeah. It's incredible. It's massively awkward as well. I mean, there's one bit where she gets passed around between the four blokes, and you can just see the terror in their eyes out of fear of dropping her. Yeah, yeah. It's not Cirque du Soleil, is it? there's this one shot where it just pans across the stage and the bodybuilders packets

just hove into view now at that time you know that teas are coming right off laps and being thrown at walls across the country you know we've talked about dad is factured this is dad enragement isn't it absolutely yeah yeah i'm making sarah's right they throw a lot of shit at the wall uh in the hope that it will stick but truth be told some of these zoo people they've not worked out enough for the duration of the song so they've not worked out enough things to do no so and it doesn't help of course that halfway through the song they all seem knackered. They all seem like they're breathing heavily. So that repeated sacrificial motif they have with that lady,

like they're mourners lugging a particularly heavy coffin, that just starts to look increasingly exhausted by the end of it. So, yeah, I mean, we certainly get the full panoply of Suzu weirdness in this opening thing. It's a definite introduction to them. And I'm sure as a child, I would have been both, yeah, faintly alarmed, but also probably quite firmly repulsed. It's not really the vibe either, is it? It's like for the track.

No, it isn't, yeah. no it just doesn't where have they got this like where how have they gone what will be good for this i wouldn't you want to be a fly on the wall in the households of legs and co and pans people yeah this is on fucking there must be a cherry gillespie must be sat at home with a phone presser air and a fag on saying oh we never got this kind of budget they're all together like roaring drunk so much money on this they're all together sitting there just roaring drunk like throwing empty cans at the screen yeah fuck this we can't lose sight that there's a song in there somewhere yeah you know we've touched upon that song many a time and often i mean speaking as a person of the far future you have to take your hat off to someone like Phil Lynott for having

a go at the new style, but at the time, him doing this felt like status quo suddenly turning up dressed as Pieros. Yeah, I mean, metal fans, metal fans and fans of Thin Lizzy would have felt massively betrayed by this. You know, but he was always pushing in those interesting directions, Phil Lynott. It's a really

interesting figure, Phil Lynott. He's one of those figures who was usually taken seriously by spoddy little boys. But the other group that really liked him were like my mum and people her age. People her age fancied the fuck out of Phil Linnett in this period.

He was incredibly good looking. And Irish Hendrix alike. Fucking hell. This is it. He was gorgeous. You go very far with that. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, he was introduced by Jimmy Savile on the 900 Top of the Pops as Mr. Thin Lizard and the composer of the song, which meant, once again, Paul Midge was pushed out of the spotlight.

And as previously discussed, you know, the lyrics are properly fucking batshit. I mean, the song might as well be called Kill All The Japanese People. I've written down faint racism, but is it a little less than faint? It's not called Yellow Peril. It's slightly affectionate towards Japanese culture, I guess. Those lyrics are insane. I think you'd be totally against 5G. But it's a beautiful thing to create.

I mean, even though your major is part of it, that passage of music, that hook, I love choruses where suddenly there's no singing, and that is the chorus. It's like an instrumental chorus. This is one of the best. And, you know, it's instant 80s, instant 80s for me. I'll tell you what, though.

I hesitate to say this because it might ruin it for you, but I'm going to. I've realised, like, just on this listen of it, that it sounds like a remix of the Chariots of Fire theme. Ooh. But you forget. I love the floral dance and I also

love the chariots of fire thing so that's not a problem I don't actually want to ruin things for you sometimes it's like can I say this when I pointed out to my bloke that the guy from Tinder 6 sounds like Homer Simpson doing

Mr Plow advert I like the Tinder 6 sounds like Homer Simpson doing the Mr. Plough advert. Oh, Sarah, I like the Tinder 6. I'm sorry. Oh, no, I ruined Tinder 6. I don't not like Tinder 6, but that's what it sounds like. I'm sorry. Spoiled forever, though. But he didn't carry this on, did he?

Old Phil. No, he didn't much. Which is a shame. It is. It is. He's got a good voice for it. Exactly. And, you know, he always had a lovely heavily

textured voice that always sounded great with lizzy but would have totally suited this kind of synth heavy thick sound i wish he i wish he had done more of it i wish like robert palmer and other people who were in 70s bands but then were getting to grips with the 80s yes i wish he would have immersed himself more into it perhaps Perhaps not with Midge Orr but it would have been fascinating to see him work with perhaps other electronic producers

at the time. Yeah. Just to really piss off the Lizzy fans i.e. the Melody Maker readers. Yeah. Yeah, it's so weird isn't it when people

I mean people are resistant to new things a lot of the time but it is a bit depressing isn't it? Like how regularly that happens. It's like oh somebody's going to somebody that is known for doing one type of music is now

going to try this and it's like the outrage it's like what they're just doing that's good isn't that good don't you like it would this have been as good a single if midior had done it no no no i don't think so at all i mean for, for starters, Midge Orr would have done it. Midge Orr's voice, if you mean Midge Orr like singing on it, no, I don't think it would have been as good at all. The delight in this record is precisely because Linnet's is a voice that you are familiar with, but you are familiar with hearing it with Gary Moore's guitars and a rock band playing it. The deliciousness of hearing that voice,

which still sounds exactly like Phil in it, but with a bit of extra electronic texture, with this electronic music, is precisely what makes this record so good. Hearing Midyore do it now. I mean, hearing Midyore do anything now. So the following week, Yellow Pearl nudged up three places to number 22. and the week after that it got to number 14,

its highest position. Lyna spent 1982 dividing his time between Thin Lizzy, whose next single Hollywood only got to number 53 in March, and his second solo LP, the Philip Lyna album, which failed to chart and spawned no-hit singles. But snippets of Yellow Pearl would be played on top of the pops all the way until March of 1986, two months after Lynette died of... I'm saying Lynette now because of you. It's all right. No, it's fine, mate.

Two months after Lynette died of pneumonia in Salisbury and two days after this episode, Lynette would reappear on BBC One when Thin Lizzy played Hollywood with a 70-year-old grandma on keyboards on Jim'll Fix It. That was the sentence. Yeah.

Stacks of energy and a lot of fun to Yellow Pearl from Philip Linus, and it's new in the chart. And that's our theme tune, and we're proud of that. OK, let's go with Foreigner now, waiting for a girl just like you. The camera whips back to par while the bodybuilders are still doing their pieces and the camera angle makes it look like one of them is giving him a nazi salute. Powell tells us that Yellow Pearl is the top of the pop's theme tune as it has been for the past five months and they're very proud of it. Then he over personalises the intro to the next song by saying he's been waiting for a girl just like me.

Ugh! Imagine such a thing. It's actually Waiting For A Girl Like You by Foreigner. Formed in New York in 1976 when Mick Jones, formerly of Spooky Tooth, found himself at a loose end when his previous group, the Leslie West Band, split up. Foreigner consisted of three Englishmen, including Ian MacDonald, who had been in King Crimson, and some Americans, including Lou Gramm, formerly the lead singer of Black Sheep. After signing to Atlantic in 1977, their debut LP sold 5 million copies and their first eight singles made the American top 40 but they had only had two top 40 hits in the UK in the

late 70s. Feels Like The First Time which got to number 39 in May of 1978 and Cold As Ice which got to number 24 in August of the same year. This is the follow-up to Jukebox Ice which got to number 24 in August of the same year. This is the follow-up to Jukebox Hero which got to number 48 over here in October of 1981 and is the second cut from the LP4 which did pretty much fuck all when it was released over here in the summer of 1981. It features Thomas Dolby doing the synthy bit at the beginning and it's currently been at number two for six weeks in America held off number one by Physical by Olivia Newton-John over in the UK it's gone up seven places from number 19 to number 12 and here's some video of them doing it live well I mean this was not one of the songs that Jonathan King forced upon us in his segment,

but it fucking might as well have been. Yeah, yeah, it might as well have been. And suddenly, just all the heat leaves the room. You know, it's just such a fucking fall. I mean, not that, you know, anything could keep up the heat of Zoo's performance on Yellow Pulse, but if a DJ was playing a set like this, you'd kick off putting this on.

It just suddenly flattens everything. The fact that this song ended up being covered by Paul Anka and Cliff Richard kind of reveals exactly how anodyne it is. But I have to say, Lou Graham has a great voice for this kind of music

it's a decent half decent power ballad and there's an argument for saying that bands like you two were trying to write shit like this for the longest time but most annoyingly even though it's i mean it wouldn't have annoyed me at the time but it kind of vexes me at the moment they've done this thing they've gone to this video and the video is your typical big american rock band on a big american stage video like i mean this was the official video as well this is all they could get yeah but i mean we get a verse one chorus and that's your lot and and and you know that's all we get the song but that's enough well it is enough but it does seem crowbarred in there to satisfy somebody a record company or maybe

jonathan fucking king um who knows but it feels like a sort of yeah we need a minute and a half here jack that in there um with very little consideration for the vibe of the show because the vibe of the show by the end of this minute and a half of this song, is completely dissipated. It's a bit of a vibe killer, this one. I used to get so annoyed with that. Just on principle, when you're expecting... I mean, obviously, I'd be glad to see the back of a thing

that I didn't like, but there just seems something wrong about the shepherd's crook just kind of... Yeah. ...hoving into view and just going yoink or we join the band in progress yeah yeah it's like they've thought better it's like they've made they've made some sort of error and it's like right that's enough of that whoop you know and it's like no that's don't do that like play either play the thing or don't play the thing don't do this verse and a chorus and never no there it's gone it's like it's too

it's jarring in and of itself to pull a thing like that sarah i was interested in your take on this song because you're kind of you're not part of this era i've i've heard it since i'm familiar enough with with foreigner and you know i i remember i but i remember um i want to know what love is which is which just just kind of wins you over with its sheer... Yeah. It's just like a kind of giant vat of syrup overturning on your head and it envelops you and you can't, you must submit to it. You know, if you talk about power ballads, that is such a power ballad. Absolutely.

It's like a towering power ballad. This is kind of a pale imitation of that, I would say. The thing is, I do have a kind of Pavlovian response, so Thomas Dolby introduction, kind of this poignant sort of histrionic synth, and my brain just goes, oh, it's something, this is a thing you like, Sarah, and my heart just kind of flies to it

like a moth to the moonlight, but then it turns out that it's just a slightly dusty paper lampshade just kind of littered with the corpses of my over-eager leopard doctor and brethren. So yeah, it doesn't, it kind of doesn't do anything for me.

But it's funny, a Lugram is kind of very, very intense and serious, and he's got, and it's like he's so intense that he's actually his bicep has like popped just through sheer intensity of like yes and um and and a fine head of hair as well but it's yeah i mean if billy bramner had played australian rules football this is what he'd look like um but this is like there's so much where's all that energy gone

you know because what comes out is not very, it doesn't really reach you. It's like a tiny bit of song is escaping. Like if you try to let the air out of a balloon really set. Like that, it's just a tiny, where is all that tension going? I feel like it should produce something. He does have a good voice, but it just doesn't connect, does it? It just doesn't get to you. These sort of big stagey rock videos for rock bams,

where there's no audience there, and they've clearly been filmed just before a show, you know, during soundcheck. They've decided, oh, no, we've got a spare four minutes, let's create a video. And they've just done a sort of dress rehearsal, in a sense, and filmed them. They get a lot better, those kind of videos,

towards the late 80s. By the time you're through to, like, White Snakes in the Still of the Night, these things have been perfected, and people are spinning guitars around their necks and stuff. And it's properly cut, and excitingly cut, so that people can point right down the camera and stuff like that. At this stage of development of that kind of rock band video,

it hasn't got to that point yet. So you have one moving camera, a couple of statics, and it's a fairly dull performance. And that space between the band members, because this stage is like the size of an aircraft hangar, it's not populated by any heat. So the episode just dies on its arse

right during this minute and a half. I mean, we can talk about this from this perspective but to me, I'm 13 at the time and to me, this is just a load of dads in cap-sleeved t-shirts which makes them look like a cross between Australian rules footballers or

if there was a punk band on WKRP in Cincinnati this is about how they'd be dressed. I'm surprised that one of them isn't wearing a Union Jack one or a Japanese Sun one, which was, you know, quite popular at the time. Very popular, yeah. I mean, practically the first thing you see is a guitarist with a perm and a tash,

and he's doing that musician's cum face look. Yeah, yeah. Which looked really good on Jimi Hendrix and fucking stupid on everyone else. Especially when the music's so soft. Yeah. Immediately we cut to the line that always pissed me off with this song. When we make love, it's understood.

What the fuck does that even mean? It's basically a load of recently divorced dads bragging on about their new partner and how they get up to all sorts and she's wearing the the slinky underwear and he's getting a nosh that's what it sounds like to me yeah because you know i mean in all his previous relationships when we make love it's understood fuck all his previous relationships he was just waiting for a girl like you all those are irrelevant yes it's all about it's understood. Fuck off! In all his previous relationships he was just waiting for a girl like you. All of those are irrelevant. Yes.

It's all about this one. I know what you mean, yeah. Yeah, he was faking it before now. I bet Kel out of Kath and Kim fucking loves this song. You know what would make

this good though is if you just started from the top with that zoo performance and just played the, you know, I want to see that like that performance just with

all the other music because it will go just as well or badly with anything else and that, like the woman going through all the guy's legs to I've been waiting for a girl like you I want to see that I've been waiting for a girl like you

to be held awkwardly over my head I mean all those twats that you don't see on the news anymore because something really important is happening in shitty market towns in the north you know if they'd been moaning on about foreigner as opposed to foreigners I'd be in agreement with them

I can't be doing with this band at all and I don't care how short it is it's not short enough there's no ridiculous aspects to it that's the trouble they are dressed like i don't know if you saw a live video of genesis from 79 they'd probably look fairly similar yeah they haven't got yet because it's very early in the 80s that whole leather and lace iconography around that kind of power metal, that kind of power balladry, hasn't quite been worked out yet. So you've just got this band who seem to have turned up in what they slept in,

playing this dreary song in a big, massive stage with nobody watching. It's the kind of shirt where you feel you don't have to wear deodorant when you've got it on. You can just lift your arms up a bit, catch a breeze yeah sort of a more organic

Madonna sticking her armpits under a hand dryer thing for this kind of music for this kind of power ballad what you need

to make up for the slowness and the dullness of the music is some kind of histrionics from the singer he needs to be looking right down the mic

camera and you need that kind of posiness thatics from the singer. He needs to be looking right down the mic, camera. Yeah. And you need that kind of posiness that great late 80s power ballad videos have. And actually, there's a video later on in the show which demonstrates exactly how to appeal to that kind of audience, but in an entertaining way. Yes.

Yes. But it ain't this. It ain't this. To me, it's like, oh, you know that song that you don't like when it's on the radio? Let's have it, but done even worse. Yeah, yeah, completely. So the following week, Waiting For A Girl Like You nipped up one place to number 11,

but the following week it got to number 8, its highest position. The single helped kick the LP all the way up to number 5 the following month, but the follow-up, a re-release of Urgent, which got to number 54 in September of 1981, would only get to number 45 in May of this year. And it would spend 10 weeks at number two in America when I Can't Go For That, No Can Do replaced Physical at number one at the end of the month.

Good. That's quite right. Far superior record. OK, folks, one of the biggest selling disco records in the country has got to be this from Alton Edwards. I just want to spend some time with you. to you. Pow! Surrounded by members of City Farm, including Sailor Boy,

a twat in a red rubbery suit and gold bow tie, a sulky lad in a headband and someone normal in a denim jacket, who all start jumping up and down and getting all jostly with Powell as he introduces I Just Wanna Spend Some Time With You by Alton Edwards. Born in the former Rhodesia, date unknown, Alton Edwards began his music career playing the old drums in the 60s before relocating to Zambia to study the flute. After returning to his home nation, he joined the soul band Sabu as a vocalist and bassist, moving on to form his own band, Unity. In 1978, he moved to Zurich and linked up with the disco band Superlove before moving on again, this time to Los Angeles to work with Clay McMurray, a producer at Motown. a producer at Motown.

Last year, he moved to London and signed with a CBS dance-off shoot, Street Wave, and this, his debut solo single, entered the chart this week at number 62. And with chart movement thin on the ground, as it always is in the first week of a new year, that's good enough for an appearance on Top of the Pops.

Oh, that introduction. Powell's at it again again he's seriously coming on to me now and it's not a comfortable feeling i must say there is a lovely i mean the lovely thing about the introduction is that we yes we finally see someone normal and and and they look better than anyone out of zoo yes um they look way way better alas the sight of a non-pro ale bloody lulia um you know and we're what we're three songs in and we haven't seen a normal person yet the girl to powell's right is normal she's dressed normally she's being normal and it's it's like manna from heaven in the midst of all these um zoo wankers that we've had up until now i mean alton edwards i mean

i always got him mixed up with Alton Ellis, the rock steady singer, but not Alton Towers, at least as that. Or indeed, or Alton 8. This is pretty much his big break, isn't it? But he's fucked it up a bit, hasn't he? There's been a bit of a malfunction. So I did not know who Alton Edwards was.

So who is Alton Edwards? Alton Edwards is a man who has seen the video for Rock With You and has listened to Rock With You and the rest of Off The Wall, perhaps once or twice, I think we can safely say. Also, he is a man who has

he's got a lot of soul glow on his hair, hasn't he? Tonight, for the Top of the Pops. And possibly too much? Well, he's made the big error of overdoing it with a Jericho activator while wearing an expensive grey jacket. Yeah, big mistake. Oh, mate, it looks like...

Those two things don't mix. It looks like somebody's sort of sneezed extravagantly on his shoulder and he hasn't noticed. Yeah, there's going to be a lot of overtime at Sketch Liz this weekend. I mean, I consulted a mate who knows about this sort of thing. He confirms that it is a jerry curl

because, you know, I always associate jerry curls with Eazy-E and the like. But no, it was a thing this early in the 80s. Oh, definitely. He believes that Alton's perm has grown out a bit too much, hence the over-reliance on the stay soft throw or soften free. He says he should have checked in at the salon before going on top of the pops. Yeah, or just don't wear the jacket, man.

You didn't need that jacket. How hot's it going to be in that studio? He's got activator all over his jacket. This is the era where mysterious stains would start appearing on bus windows due to youths who were curled up resting their greasy heads against it on their way into town. It's like someone's taken a box of chicken and just rubbed it against the window.

And I always wondered what that was about. Now, my mate pointed it out to me. It's like, ah, mystery solved. And it's distracting from his other sartorial choices. Massively distracting. You know, and his other sartorial choices are quite bold. Those boots and those trousers, they're a bold combination for somebody that tall.

Very white, very tight denim jeans, aren't they? Bold combo for somebody that tall, but we're not looking at that. We're looking at his jacket that looks like somebody's jizzed all over it. You know? Yes. It's not helped, of course.

He does that move, doesn't he? He does this kind of hand-jivey mood that just looks like an exaggerated wank as well. So, yeah. Why is this record on? Here comes jizzing. It's on the line where it's when he says making love as well. There's a lot of making it's on the line where it's when he says

making love as well there's a lot of making love going on and none of it's none of it's good none of it is anything I want to be involved in yeah

he's looking to leave a stain on someone's pillow again isn't he someone's curtains who knows but yeah I want to spend some time with you

as long as you've got a carrier bag and elastic band I can use I mean it's reminiscent of that glorious moment in that proto hip-hop uh tv show graffiti rock where there's a lad who does a backspin and he sprays a perfect arc of jerry curl juice across the floor oh it's wonderful well it's like death

of a jerry curl in hollywood shuffle um yes brought that to mind as well but i mean you're absolutely right in the in the in this being the first episode after Christmas, loads of big bits of the top 40 that would ordinarily be kind of ignored, that would ordinarily be out of bounds. You can get those singles in, but why this one? You know, the better records that they could have chosen include, like, Earth, Wind & Fire and Fun Boy 3 and Kraftwerk, Altered Image, Soft Cell, they're all in there.

This, again, like Foreigner, has the feel of payola to me. Yeah, well, it gives Zoo something to do again, doesn't it? Well, yeah, but you need... The thing is, after Foreigner and after the dementedness of that opening Zoo routine, you kind of do need just a full stage that's all business and energy. And he's got a backing band. He's got a conventional backing band. The horn section wearing-shirts with uh his name on it in star wars font which is nice it reminds you of who's who's who's watching it but but of course top of the pops

are worried that hey oh it's just a band making music boring so they cut intermittently to the zoo wankers there's one lad you know everyone's kind of like clapping in a horseshoe while someone does some dancing. One of them looks like Tucker Jenkins, which was interesting. You know, we need more dancing. Put the dancing in now. The Tucker Jenkins lookalike is not the only Grange Hill doppelganger involved in Zoo, as we'll see in a bit.

No. You know what I couldn't deduce? Maybe you can tell me. Is this a fresh performance for this episode? Because we do finally get a sense of an audience. But am I clinging on to that just because I want to see the blooming audience? No, this would have been a fresh performance.

No way would this have been on Top of the Pops before Christmas. No, I guess not. Only just enter the chart. They could have chosen better records. He could have chosen a better jacket, hair product combo. It's all gone a bit wrong for him, but I'm sure it had a positive effect

on this record's placing in the charts. It's your bog-standard post-disco record, isn't it? Which would come to be known as Brit Funk. Yeah, but most of those Brit Funk records, I can remember them. I listened to this last night. I am looking at the title now. I can't remember it. I can't remember a thing about it.

I mean, the song, I mean. All I remember is those spots on his jacket. Yeah. It's quite a nothing song. It's got a lively, squidgy bass line, but it's not much over the top of it.

It's quite, you know, the lyrics are pretty asinine and there's kind of a female backing singer who is dressed for tennis, who does a bit of, she gets to sort of interject a bit of sort of gabbling. I just want to be with you. Which doesn't really add anything either. It's all kind of, you can see what they're getting at,

but it doesn't get there, you know, so, yeah. He does just need some lessons, that there is a difference between doing the hand jive and just making the wanker sign.

Yeah. It's a fine line. It's a very fine and sticky line. The following week, I just want to spend some time with you. You soared 29 places to number 33, and it would spend two weeks at number 20, its highest position.

However, the follow-up, Strange Woman, failed to chart in the spring of 82, and he never got the chance to spend any more time with the charts. Alton Edwards, I also discovered, appears in an incredible documentary. It's a Carol Morley documentary that came out in 2011 called Dreams of a Life. Did you see this?

Right. It's about a woman who... I did see this. It's an amazing film. It's incredible. It's about a woman called Joyce Carol Vincent who died in her flat in Wood Green in 2003 and wasn't discovered for three years.

And the telly was still on. She was surrounded by wrapped Christmas presents. And the documentary is this, was Carol Morley's attempt to sort of unravel this mysterious woman's life. And Alton Edwards is in it. As himself, yeah. As himself, because there's kind of some reconstructed bits

where they try to piece together who she was and what her life was. And yeah, so he, and she's kind of, she does some singing and he's there at one point. So that's what I now know about Alton Edwards. What's his hair like? Don't know. I'm not sure he's got much, to be honest with you. No.

Or no wonder. well I don't know about you but I need a break before we go any further because this episode of top of the pops us for is not engorging my music-enjoying penis with the blood of skillness and mentocracy. Well, yeah. Nor mine. I'm thoroughly flaccid with the undecentness about flaccid. Yeah. Well, you know, it's early days.

It's early days. We're going to sign off there. So here's Al Needham, along with Neil Kulkarni and Sarah B, advising you to sit tight, ring your mum up and see if she's all right, because she's wickling. Sort your kids out, if you've got any. And we'll see you real soon. But always, always stay pop crazed.

Chart music. GreatBigOwl.com Hi, I'm Hannah Norris and this is my husband. Carl Donnelly. And we have a new podcast for you. It's called The Keith Cheggers Podcast and it's about pregnancy because that is what's happening in our lives right now. And inside your belly. Yeah.

So we are recording weekly episodes throughout the course of my pregnancy, talking to each other and interesting and funny guests that we have on about their experiences with pregnancy. So we can work out a bit more about what the hell is happening and what is coming up for us. So tune in, subscribe and have a listen to the Keith Cheggers podcast. Bye. Bye. This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon Pull Apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks with a small coffee all day long.

Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply.