Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - Chart Music #52 (Part 1): February 14th 1985 – British People React To REO Speedwagon

Episode Date: August 5, 2020

The latest episode of the podcast which asks: if The Smiths were still making singles today, would they have a still from Sex Lives Of The Potato Men on the cover?The latest episode – another five hour-plus plunge into the very depths of your favourite Pop TV show – lands us on the very perineum ‘twixt Band Aid and Live Aid, in a shameful era when even the Weetabix are pretending to be American street youths, and on the very cusp of the achingly slow decline of The Pops. The majority of the Zoo Wankers have been culled, the flags and balloons are being reined in, and even though it’s Valentine’s Day, the roiling sexual chemistry between Simon Bates and Janice Long has been dialled right down. Thank God.Musicwise, oof: Top Of The Pops throw the kitchen sink of Pop at us, with no less than 21 acts getting a shine, resulting in 1985 looking better than it has any right to be. This Year’s Most Lovable Bisexual puts a wrecking ball plastered with mirrors through the wall of the charts while he threatens legal action against his label for being mingebags. The Commodores don a black vinyl poppy for their fallen comrades. Bill Sharpe and Gary Numan look at a fax machine. The entire show is derailed when Jonathan King forces us to look at some chlorinated American stodge, but put firmly back on track when Jaz Coleman stares at us. Morrissey machine-guns the audience. Kool and the Gang channel the spirit of Girlyman. And there’s a load of mid-Eighties rammel.Taylor Parkes and Neil Kulkarni wrap their Dads’ ties around their heads and join fellow Street Punk Al Needham for a rampage through the streets of 1985, veering off on such tangents as rubbish Americans not understanding Ribena, getting started on for laughing at the death of Apollo Creed, why standing on a boardroom table for a publicity shot isn’t a good idea, why sneering at girls singing a love song directly at their music teacher is a worse idea, and a revisit to the Perils of Priapic Price. You know there’s gonna be swearing.Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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That's a great question. If you say he was my age, I'm gonna fucking die. And we veer wildly off track. Pop that Prosec. Available on all your podcast apps. That's not right. Can just cannot say uh in the advert available on all your podcast platforms just search bitchin or great big owl we'll see you there that was all right

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Chart music. Chart music. Chart music. Hey up, you pop-crazed youngsters, and welcome to the latest episode of Chart Music, the podcast that gets its hand right down the back of the settee on a random episode of Top of the Pops. I'm your host, Al Needham, but so fucking what? It's all about my guests. Not my guests, my fucking partners. How dare I deem these people as guests? Those people are Neil Kulkarni hello there

and taylor parks boys team atv land if you will you will tell me now of the pop and interesting things that have occurred of late well well like i mean like most people and like most listeners i'm sure i've been losing my fucking mind of late, going slowly mad. But one thing I've noticed is that I've heard from a lot of people a kind of recurrent phrase, which is, oh, I've been saving a lot of money during lockdown. I've been kind of combating that of late by just buying utterly pointless shit off the internet.

Oh, yes. I've already rotated through things that i can vaguely justify you know so i've bought a drum kit and i'm gonna buy a keyboard and i've joined the ranks of cheating guitarists by buying a capo as well but um i'm now just getting daily packages of just pointless shit because i mean we're all spending you know dawn till dusk basically on our phones where a lot of people are looking at 5g conspiracies etc i'm just looking at shit facebook ads and buying pointless shit so i now own um a stethoscope um why well it's it's been a long long-held want to be honest with you that i've

always wanted to listen to my stomach you, because it makes a lot of noise after whatever I've eaten, because I eat a lot of trash. And it's just tantalising. So I spent like 10 quid on a stethoscope. And now, I've got to admit, most of my evenings are spent listening to the... It's like sort of Pierre Schaeffer

produced by King Tubby, what goes on in my stomach. Can you record it for us? I'll give it a go, mate. Everyone should get one. There's symphonies going on inside of you. The body is an amazing sound factory. So that's one thing I've got.

And one thing I've also got that I'm not wearing at the moment, perhaps I should have worn it, is a posture corrector. Right. Which, look, it was an advert it appealed because i've i've spent my whole life getting slapped on the back by various women in my life telling me to stand up straight and um this thing is back lovely boy yeah this is it so of course by the the music industry generally well done neil we appreciate it yeah yeah so this is like this sort of humiliating harness um that you put yourself in and the trouble is you can't actually put

yourself in it yourself so you do have to ask somebody to strap you in to a certain extent um a process that repulses my daughter immensely um but i've got to say it does it does work i've got to put my dad's reverse bra on every morning well quite uh it does what it has been making me stand up straight it does have like 47 years of slouching to battle um so it's going to take some time and obviously within a couple of hours chafing issues are paramount but But I think it works. It hurts, anyway. It must be working. So yeah, that's what I've been doing. Pointless shit off the internet. I bought one

of those the other week. With a target demographic. And I'm wearing it now. You're wearing it? Yes. Just a spate of photos popped up on Facebook of me sitting in pubs back in the olden times. And I'm like a fucking Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and not in a good way, man.

I'm just hunched over like a fucking poisoned rat. I'm just thinking, oh, this is not going to get me any sexy lady action, is it? Looking like this. So I thought, you know. This was my thoughts as well. Before I went full quasi, you know, I just wanted to stand up straight. And I must admit, when I put it on for the first time, it's like, oh, blimmin' heck, I am tall, aren't I? Look at the height up here.

Look at my perky breasts. It's weather. I mean, the key thing is, good on you for having it on right now. I've got to admit, I haven't had it on today. So I've got to make that daily sacrifice. Are you going to go out in public with it on? I've already been out in public with it on. Because I know you can wear it outside your garments,

which looks a bit foolish as far as I'm concerned. Well, just imagine that you've got a gun strapped to you on the inside, Neil. It very much has got that Travis Bickle thing to it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but no, I've been keeping it underneath garments, which obviously changes what you can wear

because just a simple T-shirt can reveal this strange man bra thing. Yes. So you've got to be careful. But yeah, yeah, I've got to stay dedicated to it, Al.

We can be posture corrector buddies and gee each other up on this score. Form a bubble. Yes. It's all the rage. Taylor, you were loaned out, weren't you, the other week to the one show show?

Yeah, but it means nothing. Well done, mate. Excellent performance. I haven't heard it yet. I'll take your word for it. I don't like the sound of my own voice, you know. You were fucking brilliant, Tony, mate. Didn't fucking plug chart music, though, did you? Well, I told them to do it. I don't like the sound of my own voice, you know. You were fucking brilliant, Tony, mate. Didn't fucking plug chart music, though, did you?

Well, I told them to do it. I thought it'd be... The whole point of the fucking thing. Did they not mention it? Taylor, that was your job. Was it? Yes. I thought it'd be a bit unseemly.

At no point did I hear you banging a drum, shouting chartmusic.co.uk. Well... That's the whole point of these things. Actually, me, and david are on the when saturday comes podcast pretty soon aren't we for the 400th issue of wed saturday oh yeah i mentioned chop music quite a lot actually well good well done now yeah cross-platform brand synergization that's what it's all about i'm surprised i could remember anything to be honest

i cannot tell a lie i'm starting to go a bit mad now being locked down this long um it's i mean people moan that they've completed some box set right i think i'm now on the verge of completing youtube which i i'm less proud of than i should be really um i've gone past all the stuff i used to watch like you know weather forecasts from 1979 like footage of old caravan sites and stuff a lot of the stuff that is apparently enjoyed by the general public and now i understand what's happened to the world over the last 10 years or so because this brain rot is completely hypnotic um It gets ever more soothing as life around us deteriorates. First, I got into watching these videos called things like

Americans React to British Snacks. Oh! There's an epidemic of this. It's just endless clips of non-personalities sat in their kitchen with bags of monster munch going like oh my god i heard about cadbury chocolate and they just they get everything wrong you can't reach through the screen yeah and shake them yeah you just have to sit watching them eating digestives without a cup of tea yeah i mean they've just got a little bottle of water there. They're going, it's kind of dry. Yeah, but it's because it's like you're eating a cup of soup

without any water in it. The best or the worst was this lad who got really excited about Ribena because they don't have black currants in America, I found out. They were banned until the 60s because they can carry a fungus which wipes out pine trees. It's like, save the american timber industry they ban black currants when that ban was yeah and then when that ban was lifted in the 60s they never caught on so they don't have ribena in america so these kids they go and i've heard

about this stuff oh i can't wait to try it and he just takes the lid off and starts chugging it he drinks about a quarter of a bottle and then he wipes his lips and goes whoa that's sweet and the thing i hate about it they've all got the same sort of um screen grab on the front which is an american person looking absolutely gobsmacked by yeah i don't know clopper castle i know well the thing is you don't get anything out of it. Because we all say, oh, yeah, I want to see what... It's this sort of narcissistic, like Derek Jameson, do they mean us?

They surely do. You want to know what... It appeals to all your worst instincts, right? You want to hear what people are saying about you. But you get nothing, because these people have got nothing to contribute and you realize that whatever anyone says about the democratization of opinion the democratization of criticism is a terrible thing and the end point of that is just me

sat in my house watching a couple of twats eating hobnobs in Scranton, Pennsylvania. And I'm waiting for this articulation of their culinary culture shock. And all they ever say, they eat it. And then they go, hmm, that's pretty good. Don't forget to click like on the video. Subscribe to my channel. Here's my Patreon. And it's like the internet has brought the whole world into my front room capping and yeah and they're boring and then you you look at the thing underneath and it

says like 908 000 subscribers i know they're going now let's get it up to a million like as if we're all in this together yeah come on everyone we can get it up to a million yeah a million people watching an american eating a biscuit yeah we do a podcast which is essentially british people react to an old episode of top of the pops but for fuck's sake we're a bit better than that surely yeah at least we're not just sitting there eating in front of people yeah yeah and i and i moved on from that to those americans visit london clip where like it's just like homemade travelogues of people's holidays. And I'm thinking, OK, they've got nothing to say about curly whirlies,

but maybe it would be more exciting. Because, I mean, neither have I. Let's face it. So let's see if they've got something more interesting to say about the city. But no, because they only stay in Zone 1, which nowadays is not really London. It's like England world. It's like a Harry world yes i've done up like a harry potter theme park for tourists because that's the only thing americans associate with

britain now and it's the only thing they're interested in so i just spent all these hours watching shitty looking juddering phone footage of gray skies and stuff and with the this terrible stock piano music tinkling away underneath because i think it makes it look more professional so i've got this horrendous midi fake piano noodling oh yeah and again they got nothing to contribute they go to westminster abbey and they go oh well there it is it's like yeah i could have could have experienced this myself by typing westminster abbey into google images then shaking the screen while on hold to a provincial nursing home. And the only thing they're interested in,

they go to King's Cross fucking station to look at a sign on the wall announcing a platform which doesn't even exist. Oh, yeah. And they go to Nando's. That's the other thing. They've heard about it. They're really excited. Guys, I'm super excited. We're going to Nando's. That's the other thing. They've heard about it. They're really excited. Guys, I'm super excited.

We're going to Nando's. It's like people from New Orleans where you get better chicken than that out of a bin. You know what I mean? They think it's fucking amazing. Obviously, what you need to do, Taylor, is set up your own YouTube channel called Taylor Parks Reacts to Americans Reacting to Things.

Yeah. It's just a photograph of me with no expression. And the mouth moves and it goes, click like on the video. It does seem to be mainly one way, those videos, i.e. Americans reacting to our stuff and Americans not being that fussed about our reaction to their stuff. It's not because they know what we're going to tell them. It's a fucking cod and it's shit.

It is our worst instincts it's that neediness um that we had i mean with that derek jameson program was the same thing we need that validation still yeah and i mean to be honest with you it's that worst instinct that i think is also appealed to with that genre of youtube videos where it's um i don't know young black hip-hop fan listens to Pink Floyd for the first time. Yes. You know, those videos. Oh, wow, a black person likes white music. Wow, isn't that delightful and delicious?

Yeah, and it's blown away by the musicianship. Yeah, and you never get videos called white indie fan reacts to Sly and the Family Star. No. Well, obviously they don't have the melodic sophistication the thing about those videos though i the kids in those videos are shrewd because they've worked something out which is that most white rock fans or a lot of white rock fans don't have any black friends but they would like some because they're not racist they just don't know any black people and they've also worked out that secondarily

if those people did have black friends the first thing they would want to do with their black friends is play them white rock music of the 60s, 70s and to a lesser extent 80s and 90s what do you think of that then?

what's gone? listen to this one the one I'd love to see on YouTube is Jamaicans reacting to reggae like it used to be and the doolies. That would be fucking amazing, wouldn't it? But I can't slag this stuff off too much because I'm surviving on that and Four Roses bourbon, which is a really nice drink. Little known fact, Four Roses bourbon, which is a really nice drink. Little known fact, Four Roses Bourbon,

actually named in honour of the pop group Vanilla, who surely captured the hearts of a nation. As in, no way, no way? Manaw, manaw. Yeah, don't get fresh with them. No. Is that true? Of course it's not fucking true.

Oh, right. Unless they're around in 1883. Oh, okay, all right. I don't fucking know. I don't know anything anymore in this crazy new normal. One thing I do know, however, that this is the moment in the episode where we stop, we drop, we bow the knee,

and we praise to the skies the latest batch of Pop Craze Patreon people. And this month, those people are in the $5 section. Mike Conyard, Ross Hawkins, George Schilling, Rich Simiska, Phil Bolton, Colin Callanish, Parso, Chetanka Dodwala, Emily McQuaid, Anthony Stenson, Mark Lassoer, Simon Rooks, Sivy Negrik and Andy McLeod. Thank you, babies. Go on then, thank them.

Yeah, thank you. It's amazing to hear Michael Burke taking a break from his moral maze duties to throw $5 down our G-string. Thank you, Michael. Not the first time he's tried to help out starving people. And in the $3 section, we have Gordie McNair,

Tim Daly, David Cray, Alistair Brown and Mark Lewis. Your names are down and you are coming in. And Doug Grant and Matt Verrill, you are getting special

thanks for jacking your donation up and above and over and beyond the odds. Wow. You get to come in the back. Yes. So, if you want to join those lovely special people, and you want the full episode of Chart Music in one go, without having to listen to adverts for piss pads and God knows what else,

you get them little fingers over to the keyboard, you step up to the pay window, you tap in patreon.com slash chart music, and you pledge. Do you get them adverts? When listen to chart music on acas i always get the piss pad adverts it's really unsettling i don't get the piss pad ones no yeah you're a younger generation to me you see you're still in your 40s no i think it's already been sorted mate because um back when tenor men were giving away free samples my children thoughtfully applied for a box for me,

which arrived. How kind of them. I've kept them, obviously, because they're going to be useful at some point. Nosebleeds and whatnot. And pissing myself. It's not that far away. Well, yeah, that too, yeah.

Yeah. It's worrying, though, man. I mean, the advertising algorithms on my own fucking podcast keep telling me to stop pissing myself, and I don't. My bladder is as tight as a drum pop craze youngsters everyone assumes that the the minute you wake up on your 50th birthday your mattress is awash with piss did you get your free pen awful man sorry did you get your free pen with your life insurance plan when you hit 50 because Because that is fucking what I'm looking forward to.

Oh, I'm going to get that done. And people start asking about your fucking funeral as well. Have you planned for your funeral yet? It's like, no, I'll be dead. I don't give a fuck. Chuck me in the bin wagon. I don't give a toss. Yeah, I was impressed.

The day after all the coronavirus stuff got really serious. I just started getting adverts on my Facebook telling me to make a will. It's like, I'm on Facebook, you don't know me as well as you think. Make a will for what? Cast lots. And, of course, all those Pop Craze Patreons get to tinker with the latest Chop Music Top Ten. Shall we have it, chaps?

Oh, yes, please. Hit the fucking music! We've said goodbye this week to the English Rock Defence League, Lion Bellend, the Bummers Conga, and last week's number one, Chip Pan's People,

which means one up, four down, one no change, and four new entries. Down two places from number eight to number ten, it's Dave D, Creeper, Twat, and Cunt. It's a three-place drop for this week's number nine, Jeff Sex. Last week's number two, this week's number 2 This week's number 8 Romo Ralph Wiggum

Down from number 4 to number 7 Here comes Jizzm Going up 4 places from number 10 to number 6 Lesbian Door Factory. The first new entry of the week comes straight in at number 5, Flaky Pastry. A new entry at number 4, Frumper Pumper. Into the top 3 and no change for Bomber Dog. the top three and no change for bummer dog in at number two it's a new entry for dusty shelbyville which means the highest new entry and this week's chart music number one spiteful armored bollock wow oh what a chart that is. Very eventful.

So many new entries. So many new entries. Turbulent times. Recognition at last for Flaky Pastry. Didn't want to come into the Top of the Pop studio though because it was a bit too far out for them. Great musicianship. They don't take themselves too seriously either.

Frumpy Pompey. Well, obviously, you know. Legs and Co. if Hyacinth McKay was every member of. Dusty Shelbyville. Well, there we go. And Spiteful Armour Bollock. That's proper doom metal, isn't it?

Industrial. Novelty hit. Just cashing in. They've got a band logo, I can't... Industrial. Novelty hit. Just cash it in. They've got a band logo that you just can't read. And when you do decipher it, it says something else in Tyler. Yeah, with an umlaut on the O in Boris.

Which one, though? Oh, they're all good. Yeah. So this episode, Pop Craze Youngsters, takes us all the way back to february the 14th 1985 we've walked down this road before haven't we neil we have yeah yeah we were confronted by opus it's fair to say that all of a sudden in the no man's land between band-aid and live aid

we're being bombarded with pop at this time aren't we yeah we're up to our necks in it there's whistle test which has been moved to mid-evening and has knobbed off all the bearded progos for uh you know more pop artists the rock and roll year starts in 1985 uh so does the golden oldie picture show over on itv there's razzmatazz for the kiddies if you turn the knob to channel four you know the tubes in its third series there's razzmatazz for the kiddies if you turn the knob to channel four you know the tubes in its third series there's also the other side of the tracks with paul gambaccina uh asa with nicky horn and gary crowley and we're not too far away from the rocks there and the chart show so you know top of the pops is getting a bit crowded there for a mint it well

very much so and that's exactly what this what this episode shows i think it's mad this episode and and you know it really is kind of previous the previous episode that we saw from 85 i came out of it with my traditional opinion intact i either 85 is a fucking horrible year um you know much like 75 much like all these mid-decade points tend to be um but in a weird way this episode i know we always have this argument on shark music best year for pop and i'm certainly not going to start arguing that 85 was a great year for pop but in a way i kind of i would almost show this as an episode that exemplifies all that's great and shit about the 80s in a way more than, say, an episode from 81 or 82.

Because episodes from 81, they're all full of good stuff, and that's not really what it was like. This episode gets that perfect balance of being a pop fan, i.e. stuff that you're rapturous about, but lots of stuff that you feel betrayed by, angry about, and annoyed about. And it's a really interesting episode yeah it's like uh it's like 1984 was the hinge between the early 80s and the bad 80s but 1985 it was when the bad 80s really kicked in but there's still a fair bit of good music in the charts and certainly in this

particular top of the pops uh but it's funny how much of that good music feels like a bit of a holdover um it's like it's following trails which were laid post-punk and were about to be blasted into oblivion yeah you know there's not a lot of great 1985 music that is unmistakably 1985 music like something new you know yeah it was a weird time wasn wasn't it? It was a weird time. I mean, I remember this period really well. And I mean, I was 12 when this episode went out and deeply entrenched in my newfound opinions. And this period is really sharp in my memory. And it really did feel like the end of the old world.

On the one hand, you had the end of the Miner's Strike, which is about a fortnight away at this point, which made it clear that those old dreams were over and done with. And on the other hand, this was also the last possible moment that you could sort of wear a navy blue blazer on Concord with a pocket square and sip champagne. You know what I mean? It's that old kind of success, right?

Everything was changing beyond recognition, and the new rules were being set in socio-political terms by thatcherism and in cultural terms by america and you see a lot of it in this the the the good stuff tends to be the the dying embers of the british pop boom of the early 80s and a lot of the bad stuff is blowing in across the atl The only consolation at the time was that that particular 70s bleakness was finally going away, right? And it's not that the mid-80s weren't a bleak time, but it was different, right?

In terms of what things looked and smelt like, there was an improvement. And British food was just beginning its slow climb towards acceptability and you know in a lot of ways britain was going backwards on social issues and stuff but it was also becoming a less insular and less old-fashioned place uh in a lot of other this was a time when pasta was um an actual food item yeah in a british kitchen as opposed to a display object yeah yeah in a jar and you'd see a baguette and stuff like that you know but there was a trade off because hang on taylor french stick french stick yeah but there was a there was a trade-off because yeah on the one hand you had this feeling that even if you were poor you no longer felt like you were living in an eastern block country but on the other hand you no longer felt like you were living

in a culture of ideas i mean like that had gone that was finished the the that post-war wave of socially politically and artistically radical thought uh was. And from now on, the essential Philistinism of Britain was no longer one side of a culture war. It was a culture. And after this, you could do great things as an individual, but it wouldn't be part of anything bigger. You would just do it and go home. And as far as Top of the Pops goes round about this time,

I mean, it's settled down a bit from the Yellow Hill era. The event-driven aspect of Top of the Pops goes round about this time, I mean, it's settled down a bit from the Yellow Hurl era. The event-driven aspect of Top of the Pops, it seems to be finally behind us because this is Valentine's Day, but we're not going to get Dave Lee Travis hanging from the fucking lighting gantry with a bow and arrow. Thank fog. But it's fair to say, and, you know, we've got to say this right now if you thought the last episode was long pop craze youngsters or wait till you fucking get this one we have got a very

long day ahead of us let me tell you because top of the pops are just throwing the fucking kitchen sink at this episode aren't they yeah yeah everything's in it's jam-packed you really didn't know there was so much in it. Yeah, it's going to be a long... It's really hot and sunny outside. I've set up with all the curtains closed. I've set up with all the windows shut to keep the noise of kids outside from coming in.

By the time we finish this, I'm going to look like Al Pacino halfway through Dog Day Afternoon. If he was going rather grey. So let's not funny about pop-crazy youngsters. Avante! My mate bought a toaster. We go through celebrities' Amazon purchase histories

so you don't have to keep calm and love Dom Jolly novelty keyring. Yeah, I love that. Fridge magnets. Yeah, I love that. The G-spot. The good vibrations, guys. Green dot laser sight rifle gun scope. I've bought that quite a lot of times.

Right, OK. The sex doctor's guide to keeping it hot. Ah, interesting. Did another child come along nine months later? Yeah. Loads of great eps up now, and new ones dropping every Monday. That's My Mate Bought a Toaster from Great Big Al. Radio 1 News In the news this week, the civil servant Clyde Ponton is about to resign from the Ministry of Defence

after leaking documents about the sinking of the Belgrano. Remember resignations? Yeah. Them of the Belgrano. Remember resignations? Yeah. Them of the days. Meanwhile, Michael Hesseltine, the current Defence Secretary, is pelted with flour, eggs and stink bombs at Glasgow University. Staff at a hospital in Dulwich are instructed to burn their work clothes and have blood tests after an aged patient is discovered in a ward. Ian Botham has been fined £100 at

Scunthorpe Crown Court for possession of two grams of cannabis. Quite right. Disgraceful. The first prosecution for driving a Sinclair C5 whilst under the influence of alcohol has taken place in Whitehall. What, someone got really

pissed and thought it was a good idea to buy a C5? They shouldn't prosecute that bloke because let's face it, he was only endangering himself. The death watch for Konstantin Chinenko ramps up when a prominent Soviet heart doctor cuts short a visit to Cleveland. He would die three weeks later. he would die three weeks later. George Best is denied a day out from fraud open prison by the governor to appear in a video for Junior's latest single,

which features Junior having a five-a-side match with the likes of Osvaldo Ardiles, Glenn Hoddle and Garth Crooks. It all sounds like he's actually picking up a blank passport for Inky Stevens under the auspices of Genial Harry Grout but I'm sure it was all above board definitely yes

an episode of the LWT show South of Watford which concentrates on leather and rubber fetish wear shops with scenes of arse whipping and what not has been pulled at the last minute by John Burt as he feels it's a bit too strong for

Londoners. Dick James on behalf of the writers of the Barry Manilow single Can't Smile Without You are suing George Michael for ripping the tune off for the recent Wham! single Last Christmas. The case is later settled out of

court. But the big news this week is that rumours continue to persist about a satellite link-up concert tentatively called Live Aid to take place on June 6th at Wembley Arena and Madison Square Gardens. Yeah, sounds like it's going to be amazing. Yeah. If only that had happened. On the cover of Melody Maker this week, Mick Jagger.

On the cover of Smash It's The Power Station. The number one LP in the UK at the moment is Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen. And over in America, the number one single is Careless Whisper by George Michael. And the number one LP is is like a virgin by madonna so boys what were we doing in february of 1985 well i think our age taylor because i was 12 as well when this episode came out and and you know like you i'm sure i was an appallingly precocious little cunt um but what's also becoming apparent to me in 85 is that i'm becoming entirely at least culturally colonized by american stuff from from telly to literature to film to music and film

changes its nature anyway at this point not because the film's being made but because we have video shops now and a lot of us have video you know recorders um so we and also because we i don't know i was 12 going on 13 i was moving away from kind of shared cultural experiences to solitary cultural experiences basically i wasn't listening to music or watching films with people that much do you know i mean or through the conduit of my older sister it was more accessing stuff myself way more and and that ties in really with it was a latchkey year for me my parents were working a lot 85 so a very latchkey life from getting getting ourselves out and getting yourselves

through three bus journeys to school and everything to getting yourselves home and everything and you'd spend a lot of time alone i mean i remember christmas day 85 um i didn't even see my parents till about eight o'clock at night because they're both working. What were they, elves or something? No, no, no. My dad was working away on Christmas day and my mum just had the day and night shift at the old people's home. So I just didn't see her much that day. And I just remember waking up,

I got signed a family stone, there's a riot going on for my present. Fucking hell, get you Neil. I was a stuck up little bastard. But I mean, look, you know, I remember waking up and eating an entire box of Just Brazils before about 8 o'clock in the morning and then just throwing up

for the rest of the day. So at that age I didn't want to hang around with my sister and as a 16 year old she definitely didn't want to hang out with me. It's a family affair. I didn't like Just Brazils because it was just like more nut and less chocolate. Yeah but they're lovely man. When your mum was wrapping up the Just Brazils for Christmas,

did she nick one and then push the remainder together like in the end? Oh, God, yeah. No, she didn't. No, she wrapped them up. Good for her. Truth be told, they weren't for me. They were just for the house.

But I ended up scoffing a lot and just throwing up for the rest of the day. So, yeah. But, I mean, that's the thing. Age 12, 13, you know, you are making your identity at that point. So the library, the record shop, all of these places become hugely important

and new bits of the record shop and new bits of the library open up to you a little bit. So it's a really, you know, normally early 80s episodes, even though, you know, I was cognizant obviously i was in double figures in terms of my age it's still a bit foggy for me whereas 85 is crystal clear because i remember becoming in a sense who i am and also you make that decision you don't know

you make that decision but you kind of make that decision when you're 12 13 as to who you're kind of going to be and and kind of i don't mean job wise i just mean you decide right i'm going to stand a little bit off to the side here do you know what i mean i'm of going to be. And kind of, I don't mean job-wise, I just mean you decide, right, I'm going to stand a little bit off to the side here. Do you know what I mean? I'm not going to belong. I'm going to look at old stuff, et cetera. So very, very important year 85. As reflected in this episode,

it brought back a hell of a lot of memories. Yeah, it was a big year for me as well because it was the year we moved down south. And although this was already happening in Kderminster that sort of put the seal on it that this was like the time when we properly made the leap from upper working class to lower middle class through the barricades yeah people often think those those two things are the same right when he's a upper working class like it like it's C sharp and D flat, you know, like it's the same note, but it's just called different things

depending on which angle you're looking at it from. It's not. There's a big difference between those two social groups. It's just not, and this is key, just not as big a difference as people making that jump themselves used to believe um i mean upper working class really just meant we you know didn't live in a council house um you know newman knives and forks and we had a color telly and a painting on the wall it was two leopard cubs

with their mother painting by an unnamed artist um and then all of a sudden like there were more books in the house some read some not um we switched from the sun to the daily mail um plates from the franklin mint began appearing on the welsh dresser that was some just it was a chelsea flower show i think like flowers from the chelsea flower show, I think. Flowers from the Chelsea flower show. Is it what Elvis said? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That would have been a downward move, Al. Yes.

And the leopard cubs were replaced with a cheap print of Turner's The Fighting Temeraire took to her last birth to be broken up, which is a painting I can't even glance at now without a shudder having spent so long staring into that golden sky while trying to blot out the sound of another bollocking from my parents but it's but it's an interesting class jump to make it's the most common class jump to make even now when social mobility is very restricted and if you're a passenger in a family that does it and you've

got your eyes open it teaches you quite a lot about quite a lot including the fact that money is not the key to it because we had less money after you moved down south even though my dad was getting paid more for the simple reason that we had to sell our house in Kidderminster and move into another new-build, semi-detached house on an estate, which was almost identical but cost twice as much because it was in the southeast. So all the money went on the mortgage for years and years and years.

We were completely skint. So, yeah, the intricacies of the English class system became one of several things I got obsessed with around the age of 13. And like all those other things, in the end, it did me no good at all. Paintings of big cats, man. That's really, yeah. I had the tiger one, two tiger cubs in its mum yeah um everyone had these things but it's that point they disappear those things they just stop they

just stop being seen yeah but i always knew right even before we started putting on airs i always knew that we were just one notch on the social chart above Manan because she had a picture of big cats. But at least ours was finished as though it was a real painting, whereas hers, the cats were made out of velvet, or probably velour, sort of on almost like a fuzzy felt. It was like a fuzzy felt board. So I want to put a frame around it. I i mean what it was it was like a fuzzy felt board so i want to put a

frame around and i'll get on the fucking wall and i'm thinking this is something that we would no longer do as a household hang that on the wall i'm trying to think about what paintings we had in our ass and nothing green lady i mean if it didn't come off the round my dad was still a removal man yeah and so if something was being lobbed out at the house he was moving out he'd bring it back i think the only ornament he brought back was a plaster maccasin bottle that he got off the round and he actually wanted it in the house and my mom was dead against it and then he tried to put it in the garden and she was absolutely dead set against that as well so he ended up getting lobbed out when he was at work.

And then he was going out one morning and the, the, the Ben wagon came round and it's had the Makison bottle on, on the front grill of the van. And he was furious. And the only new things we had in the house at this time were all technology, you know, a video recorder,

which meant the only thing that looked like books in our house was those videotape cases that looked like old books with a sheet of gold leaf so you could write, I don't know, Bottle Boys Series 2 on it or something like that. And a microwave. Right. You know, a resolutely working-class family. No time for fripperies.

If you can't record Only Fools and Horses or Cookie T a bit faster, we weren't interested. I think my parents used this time to reassert their cultural identity a bit because I remember Indian stuff starting to turn up on my walls. Not my walls, but the walls of the house a bit more. A few more weird goddesses with 20 heads. They're brilliant, though. Yeah, and a few more weird goddesses with 20 heads and you know they're brilliant yeah and a few more a few more dancing uh dancing ladies embroidered ladies with their tits out things like that so

yeah yeah i remember going around my asian mates house for the first time when i was about seven and they had all that stuff on the wall and i thought it was fucking brilliant it is great i mean you know so why we got this in our house well like elephants with big swords fucking killing people yeah that's what you want well quite and women with like eight arms riding on tigers yeah decapitating people yeah all of that imagery is fantastic and and you know i can drive up falzard road now and buy those images untouched uncut unchanged that is a style of art that has remained the same forever oh you just you just remind me of something when i was when i was about i think 14 and i was into like psychedelic music and stuff i got one of these

i can't remember where i got it from and it was like yeah it was like a guy riding a chariot pulled by like eight tigers or something through the cloud um And I put it on the wall of my bedroom. And about two days later, my dad sat me down to give me a talk about how I shouldn't take drugs. Quite right. I had that as well with my dad, but it was because I had a red light bulb. He came back from the pub and went fucking mental.

Says, you're making the house look like a fucking knocking shop you're on drugs red light bulbs you could get them and they did add that little tinge of exotica to your room yeah if you weren't going to be allowed jaw sticks or patchouli

oil in the house then a red light bulb strange times I'm still at sixth form well I say I'm at sixth form but I'm bunking a red light bulb. Strange times. Strange times. I'm still at sixth form. Well, I say I'm at sixth form, but I'm bunking off by now. Just aimlessly wandering the wastelands of Top Valley, Nottingham. Just felt an absolutely shit time to be 16. You know, I'm being constantly told not to do drugs or have sex while I'm not finding any drugs or any sex lying about.

Just basically walking about in a green ma1 flight jacket with a cold nut doll sticker wondering what the fuck i was supposed to be doing you know i mean this was like this was supposed to be the golden years of my life and it's like well is something gonna happen now did you have a look you were going for in 85 al because this is something that i was trying to remember what I was aiming for. I mean, I was only bloody 12. Well, I was still just about the last mod in Nottingham at this time. So all I was wearing really was the stuff I'd bought from London because I'd be going on my excursions.

The highlight of my life at this time was round about just after Christmas and just after my birthday where i'd just rake up as much money as i could go down to london in the morning and spend all day there just buying clothes and stuff that i couldn't get in nottingham yeah yeah no i can actually see myself now wearing like these dog tooth check trousers from carnaby Street or the Prince of Wales Czech one. A pair of black loafers or, no, no, no, no, the oxblood loafers. I got them first from that shop where Madness got their dogs.

I'm wearing a green jacket with a Colnock doll sticker on one side. And then later on, I'd have a Tampa Bay Buccaneers patch on the left-hand side because I really liked American football. I was obsessed by it. And wearing one of the two Judge Dredd T-shirts

I had at the time, which didn't feature Judge Dredd on them. One of them was Pug Ugly and the Bugglies, the punk band. And it had Get Ugly over the top. And the other one I wore, I think it was later on actually, was Arnold Stodgman

who was um a champion eater who died during the world uh eating championships which of course was illegal yeah he died because he uh he went for the ton he tried to eat a ton of food when there was no need to and he saw this massive pie, and he just said, give me the pie, and his manager said, no, no, you don't need to, and he said, I said, give me the pie,

and so he had a t-shirt of Arnold Stodgman, this big fat fucker, with all this food coming right down his chin, and onto his chest, and in a Frankie Goes to Hollywood style, it said underneath, Arnie say say give me the pie.

So that was me at the time. It's a show he didn't survive they could have put him on at Live Aid. Been about as tasteful as Bob

Goldoff's performance. It was always a thrilling bit of the Guinness Book of Records the eating record stuff because it was always mentioned of

trencher men like we were meant to know who they were or what that meant a trencherman's appetite at least your ensemble though that sounds vaguely coordinated um yeah yeah kind of yeah because i was confused obviously i was only 12 so you'd kind of you'd wear this shit that your parents got you i like a jacket with turbo on the sleeve or something like that and but i'd combine it with just bright ideas that i'd get from a pop video or something so i'd watch some pop video or i'd even watch fucking wimbledon and i'd like the idea of headbands so i'd grab one of my dad's ties tie it around my head and go into town like that and

what the fuck was i thinking but ho-hum i had I had a pair of those Prince of Wales check Cardi B Street trousers, but the cut wasn't very good on them. So I thought I was going to look like one of the small faces, but I actually looked like one of the black and white Doctor Whos. I really wished I had an older brother at this time to just show me what to do or at the very least hand me down things. I think when I was about 10 or 11 and getting bullied at school i started putting around that i had a imaginary older brother who was fucking rock he was called and i actually put it around the playground that

he was so hard he was the only white man who was allowed into the gherkas so yeah i really i really needed and uh the imaginary older brother at this time how bizarre how bizarre my cousin um at this time he wrote a piece about his family for his school they were asked to write a piece about their family and he he created this sister that he had called doris um and he's called Hirschen, and his actual brother's called Sundeep. You know, good Indian names. Where he came up with Doris from, fuck only knows. But yeah, fantasy siblings. It must have been a thing.

Yeah, I mean, this wasn't a problem for my sister. She knew what to do. You know, she'd just basically hang around with lads who had nice Ticini tracksuit tops and kind of, like like get them off them. I'm cold. Yeah. Right about this time, actually, I mean, mum got it into her

that she would get some tracksuit tops made for her and her best mate. And they were both called Tracer. And whoever made it made the absolute fucking error of doing their own logo, which was a T in a circle. And my sister went fucking mental.

I can't wear this. I can't wear this. People think I've got a knockoff Ticini tracksuit. And my mum couldn't understand. So there was a good week where I was just sitting in the living room, minding my own business, while my little sister and my mum were just screaming abuse at each other because neither could understand yeah this is the time when I'm aware of labels but it seems to be something that everyone else is doing everyone

else is getting Lacoste shirts and Sergio Ciccini and Lacoste sportif it's the age of the head bag isn't it yes in a big way but I stuck religiously to my little rucksack and I never got anything labelled up, unfortunately. The shit has the alternatives instead. I mean, music-wise, I'm already digging into the second-hand record shops and record fairs, but I'm just casting around just for anything that wasn't Radio 1 or Radio Trent and everything. I mean, by this time, I was even listening to Laser 558. Do you remember that?

Oh, yeah. I remember a big article in Smash It about how they were going to take over from radio one because they were so amazing and then when you actually listen to it they had they played the same records as radio one it was just the same it was a very dave lee travis like playlist wasn't it i mean the idea the idea was that you know it was much more music and the the djs didn't prattle on but the only reason people wanted to listen to it was to hear american djs and stuff yeah i bought one of these massive radios out of a daily mirror classifieds that could pick up you know it was a really powerful radio that picked up stations all over the world

in the vague hope that i'd be able to pick up you know american radio or something which of course never happened so you know you'd listen to radio moscow and yeah you know all that kind of stuff just because it was something else and then laser 558 came along it's like oh yeah yeah i'll listen to this yeah you would hear a lot of prints they were massively into print yeah but along with all the prints you you would also get a lot of Eric Clapton and all this 70s American soft rock shit that I really wasn't into. So, you know, swings and roundabouts.

I think in general, there was just more available. In comparison to the cultural glut that we could all sort of access now, it was nothing. But video definitely made a difference to me and and 85 I mean 85 is also the I think I said previously where albums start bossing my listening a bit more than singles so it's all about Frankie and The Cure that year to a big extent but also radio listening beyond Laser 558 I'm starting now that my my radio listening is in the evening

not just on a Sunday after the chart. So, you know, I am starting to listen to things like Janice and Peely and stuff like that, which is expanding things a lot. I mean, I'm looking now at the 1985 wing of my record collection, and, ooh, it's very sparse indeed. There's, you know, Our Favourite Shop by the Style Council,

Rum Sodomy and the Lash by the Pogues, a Go-Go compilation 19 by paul hard castle strike by the enemy within and a couple of redskin singles yeah i think i bought my first first few 12 inches that year um 85 it's a poor crop yeah but i bet you al there was shit tons of stuff old stuff that you were listening to in 85. Because 85 was so rubbish in a lot of ways. I mean, radio by LL Cool J comes out this year. It does.

But it would be a good year before I picked up on it. So, you know, there's good shit happening in 1985. But it's not getting into my tab. Yeah, but Al, seriously, how many people in this country knew about LL Cool J or Schoolie D? Or even Run DMC, you know, at that time. We didn't, but that was going on. So, as is the style of chart music, here's the moment when we stop and rummage through some of the cardboard boxes

and pull out an issue of the music press from this week. And this time I've gone for the February the 16th edition of the NME. Shall we leave through, chaps? Yeah, let's have a look. This time I've gone for the February the 16th edition of the NME. Shall we leave through, chaps? Yeah, let's have a look. On the cover is a photo of a knee poking through some ripped jeans and the headline, Old Punk, New Punk, Rip It Up and Start Again. I think the NME's had enough of the music of 1985.

In the news, the main story this week, according to the NME in any case, is about their current row with Mick Jagger's publicists over extracts of an interview they were intending to run this week, but have now pulled after Jagger's press people claimed he should have been given full clearance on it first.

They claim it was a pretty boring interview in any case. Well, it is the NME in 1995. It probably would have been. Gallup have announced that they will be installing their chart return machines in a handful of specialist reggae shops after Trojan Records complained that their reissue of 5446 was my number

by Toots and the Maytolls last year sold 60 000 copies without getting any chart action at all a bootleg of a song john lennon demoed in the summer of 1980 the bob dylan diss track serve yourself has been spotted in certain record shops in london an investigation conducted by gavin concludes that Fred Seaman, Leonard's former PA, who is currently on probation for nicking a sort of personal bits and bobs, could be

behind it. The article concludes with a footnote, readers are reminded that as bootlegs are illegal, NME is unable to enter into any correspondence or phone calls regarding this record. Have you ever heard that song?

It's typical weirdo, Edipo Lenin. It's all mothers with him. It's very creepy. There's UK tours announced for The Associates, Grandmaster Mellymell and the Furious Five, The Sisters of Mersey, Test Department and David Johansson. That should have been one tour. Yes.

Just 15 minutes each, all travelling in the same bus. Yes. Value for money. And Billy Mann reports a shocking development from Liverpool, the reintroduction of flares. It's actually more of a bootcut thing, with Lee and Wrangler jeans and cords with 19-inch bottoms being snapped up across the North West and a club night with a tribute band called Ground Pig

who play Simon and Garfunkel and Lindisfarne covers and are becoming very popular across Liverpool. Oh, dear, man. It's starting. It's disgusting, isn't it? Because, I mean, at this time, all the shady lads round our way started wearing Farrah's. And it was like, you'd look at them and go,

they're flares. What the fuck are you wearing them for? And they also made you have a really massive arse as well. Farrah's. They were fucking horrible. My dad had a pair. And that's why I didn't wear them. As soon as my dad's got some i don't want to wear them in the interview section bieber koff manages to spin out a very

brief interview with the jesus and mary chain into a center spread feature with a big photo of the sitting on the floor looking all sulky taking up an entire page he attempts to trace a link between elvis and them while they say things like we don't want people to trace a link between Elvis and them, while they say things like, we don't want people to come away from our gigs and think, hmm, not bad, and points out that they don't like bands who tune their guitars on stage. Penny Real bumps into Barrington Leavitt in Stoke Newington,

and they reason about the reggae scene in London, his forthcoming push into the mainstream, and why he covered how your panty get wet under the name Eccle and Jekyll while saying seen a lot, because that's what you've got to do with reggae artists. You've also got to reason with them, which makes them sound really unstable and potentially violent. That persists with reggae artists especially with the like people like lee perry there has to be the announcing first few paragraphs that he's a bit

crazy and a bit mad and we eventually got to some sense out of him matt snow and barney hoskins link up with joey and dd ramone for a chat about the good old days and why everything is so rubbish now joey reckons it's because kids these days are so shit scared about nuclear war that they don't give themselves the chance to live for today he can't see the point of jiran jiran and culture club and points out that he's never been a conservative while dd mentions that debbie harry is currently in a bad way. David Quantink drops in on the Monochrome set, who have just released the single Jacob's Ladder, and he's shocked that he's being played by Mike Reed.

They try to wriggle out of Quantick's accusation that all their singles sound the same and, like the Ramones, bemoan the rubbishness of pop in 1985. I've got a few friends who were school teachers and the information i get is that kids only seem to listen to two bands wham and duran duran says lead singer bid i recall when i was at school there were a million bands a million directions meanwhile danny kelly sits down with the cane gang to discuss the rumors that have been swirling around the biz about them.

They claim that no Judy Zouk sat in tour jackets were used to get their last two singles into the charts and the rumour that their recent gig in Liverpool only attracted 27 punters is bollocks. They're more keen to talk about their new LP and to also have a moan about the state of pop. Everything is geared up to beauty, press-ups and breakdancing, says Paul Woods. If I wanted to see that sort of thing, I wouldn't go to a gig.

I'd go to a circus. Yeah. We saw Spandau Ballet on TV when we were in Germany. Three of them were stripped to the waist while Hadley led the audience clapping. And this is the band that started with all the arty manifestos about breaking the mould or whatever.

They've become the status quo of pomp rock. It's true, though, isn't it? The single reviews this week are conducted by Stuart Cosgrove and he has three singles of the week. Doing Bad, Jamming in the Big M-Town by Robert and Tom Sanders, which is an urgent and restless surge of party funk. You Got Me Hypnotised by Cece, a soul ballad which is tragically great. Hypnotized by Cece, a soul ballad which is tragically great.

And You Turn Me On by Bruni Pagan, a Latino cover of the Rick James tune, which is also produced and arranged by him. Anything that two-bit tosser Prince does, Rick James does better, says Cosgrove. That's proper old school, isn't it? You know what I mean? It's like, however wrong it is, you've got to let old Cosgrove have his head there, because that is proper old school though isn't it it's like however wrong it is you've got to let

old cosgrove have his head there because that is authentic old school thing he really believes that with his in his loafers with his closely shorn neck the double a side drop the bomb pump me up by trouble funk is gleefully seized upon as the real sound of urban america the former is certain to cause angst at your local cnd while the latter is a nod to the block parties of the bronx fucking tune both of them war dance by funkmeister the latest attempt to meld verbals to beats in the wake of no sellout by keith leblanc this time utilizing speeches from hickler churchill and lord horhor is routine according to cosgrove who points out that the bbc who own much of the original audio have demanded that two people side is to be donated to the british legion however it's a coat down for the minor strike rap by michael rosen

which is about as helpful to the strike as hilda's new lodger can you fucking imagine oh i've got to hear that now no i want to keep it as in my imagination i think contract of the heart by Spelt Like This is given equally short shrift. The three-layered record sleeve is so complicated it took 20 minutes to get the record out only to discover a very ordinary pop song. Yeah, it's all hype.

Money Changes Everything by Cyndi Lauper is brilliant rubbish. You're the Inspiration by Chicago is predictably uninspired. A cover of I Want to Know What Love Is by the New Jersey Mass Choir reminds the reviewer that foreigner is still the best argument I've heard for xenophobia and High On You by Survivor tastes of phlegm. you by survivor tastes of phlegm in the lp review section the main review is given over to what else meets his murder by the smiths paul denoyer thinks it's dead good after calling morris said the natural successor to george form bear and meaning it as a compliment he he proclaims the new LP is the equal of the last two

and could even be better in time, thanks to Johnny Marr starting to come to the fore. Although the title track won't make him change his diet, De Noia says pop propaganda has really come so powerful. It's also a meaty thumbs up for VU, the long-awaited compilation of outtakes recorded by the Velvet Underground for MGM before they were dropped.

Ten tales for everybody, ten songs to shake the world, writes Matt Snow. VU belongs right up there between the third album and Loaded, a masterpiece and a good friend. Adopt it today. Just try and ignore the disgusting 1985 remixes on every track, including putting gated reverb on Mo Tucker's drum tracks to make it sound more...

Yeah, they did. It's like creeping up on someone while they're asleep and dressing them in Ray-Bans and a shiny suit jacket with the sleeves rolled yeah it's like someone thought velve adegar fans wanted to hear that you know they were trying to make it sound 80s weren't they because i remember that's got um i can't stand it anymore on it hasn't it yeah and it's got this big thumpy echoey 80s sound and i remember hearing it in 85 because my sister was a big vu head at the time i just think god this sounds so modern. And now I listen to it, I just think, this doesn't really sound that good, actually.

Sounds really dated now. Yeah, they've since put out the 1969 mix and the drums quite properly, you know, sound like it's hitting a sofa and it sounds much better. But yeah, I don't know what the thinking was. It's like they thought maybe a 1985 mass audience might hear Temptation Inside Your Heart and mistake it for In The Air Tonight and buy it by accident. The bad and low-down world of The Cane Gang by The Cane Gang

is an attempt to catalogue the tedium of small-town UK in much the same way as Uncle Bruce sketches his worm's-eye view of living in the USA, according to Adrian Thrills. But the band's brand of earthy truth and justice testifying becomes dull and repetitive when stretched over an album. Talk About The Weather by Redy yellow laura is as conservative as anything by toto and as cliched as the thompson twins but matt snow would still play it again

and hopes they get rid of their rubbish name while former skids lead singer and current channel four presenter richard jobson's second solo lp and afternoon in Company is the first thing he's ever done that Jim Shelley actually likes. The gig guide this week, well David could have seen 999, UK Subs and the Exploited at the Lyceum,

Mikey Dredd at Dingwalls, The Pogues at Enfield Middlesex Polytechnic, Shalamar at the Dominion Theatre, Time UK at the Marquee, and Phil Collins' six-night stand at the Royal Albert Hall, but probably didn't. Which one of them would David least want to go to? I think the first one.

He'd probably get his nephew to record the Pogues for him and listen to it down the phone. Taylor could have seen Joan Armatraden at the NEC, Chumba Wamba at the Darleston Theatre Foundry, Stigma at the Red Lion, Joe Boxers at the Digbeth Civic Hall, or George Melly and the Feet Warmers at Birmingham University. Neil could have seen Misery and Roots at Coventry Poly,

Killing Joke at Warwick University, The Blow Monkeys and then Jericho, also at Warwick University, or treated himself to a night out in Wolverhampton to see Chas and Dave at the Grand Theatre. Oh, man. My cut run if over. Sarah could have seen King at Hull University,

Bad Manners and Amazooloo at Leeds University, or Mark Riley and the Creepers at Leeds Beer Keller. Al could have seen Killing Joke at Rock City, The Commodores at the Royal Albert Hall, The Membranes at the Garage, Dawn

Trader at the Hearty Goodfella, or gone to Chris Needham Land to see the Rubets and the Glitter Band at Loughborough University. And Simon could have seen the Boomtown Rats at Cardiff University, Chas and Dave at Cardiff St David's Hall, and fuck all else. In the letters page this week, Paolo Hewitt is at the controls and he's had to deal with a backwash of responses to a letter printed last week which contended that band-aid was a cod and the real beneficiaries

were the evil pop stars who took part in it the star letter is written by john halloran of cambridge who believes that we can chastise bob geldof only for raising a vast, urgently needed amount of money by somewhat devious means. So Midyore thinks that the miners have a choice in their destiny, as opposed to the Ethiopians who have no choice whether they starve or not, writes Tony Webb of Swansea. I, however, can choose whether or not to buy Ultravox records. I never have, and now I never will either.

Meanwhile, Peter Coyne of the Sid Presley Experience is well dischuffed by a gig review by Andrea Miller in Glasgow who responded to their cover of Cold Turkey by writing if I was a 16 year old unemployed junkie I'd

resent some wanker with a record deal telling me about it he he points out that they didn't have time to sound check as they had been on the tube that night and had only got to the venue half an hour before the 750 or so people who were there that night demanded three encores and she didn't mention in her review that she had spoken to him after the gig and didn't call him a wanker to his face miller could never do what i do but i could do her job standing on my head how about it neil neil spencer current editor of the enemy hewitt responds by stating that if he does want a job at the NME, he could start by removing the graffiti he wrote in the lift and the office toilets. I love that.

Some wanker with a record deal. Like these children of privilege. The Sid Presley experience. They probably lived in a squat. You know what I mean? They've got a record. Yeah, with pint and milk records. They have to take the tapes to the pressing plant themselves

on a big bike like the goodies. Fucking sellouts. Tony Parsons did the singles review page of Fortnite ago and people are still queuing up to put the boot in. Rusty James of Brighton thinks it's nice that the old bastard still gamely struggles up to town to help the younger writers while smelling of nappies and sick, while Jan Laskowski of Ealing coats him down

for saying that Funky Nassau was originally recorded by Beginning of the End and not calling the gang. Fucking El Tone. Even Jeff Travis of Rough Trade gets stuck in, berating him for slagging off the label in a review of The June Brides when they're not even on rough trade. How long will the NME continue to shout the praises of those dated rags

pathetically known as fanzines, says Edgar Rice Crispies of Leeds. The Namby Pamby efforts currently circulated are either absolute shit or they're sub-NME brothel sheets with every weedy hack trying to be your next chosen disciple. Hewitt responds by saying, fair enough point, but wouldn't you be better actually writing to the people involved? You can find the addresses for Melody Maker and Sounds by ringing directory inquiries. Cheeky little fucker. Away. Surprise Paul Welleky little fucker. Fouché away. I'm surprised Paul Weller let him say that.

44 pages, 45p. I never knew there was so much in it. Although not as much as usual, I find. Pretty crap time to be writing for the music press, it seems. Just everyone's harking back to the past. Everyone's moaning about the present and doing nothing about it. But, you know, I mean, now I kind of want to be a poptimist about 1985 and stick up for a little bit.

But at the time, I remember feeling the same way as a smash hits reader that, yeah, things were shit. I mean, like, when you read out most of that stuff in the enemy it was about things are awful now how are we going to make things better or how are things going to get better and smash hits didn't avowedly say that but as a reader you go from early 80s years where i don't know every other page had some weirdo on it to the smug face of paul king looking at you and and you know those same haircuts and that same sort of bland professionalism and expensiveness everywhere um so it wasn't just the

enemy picking up on that it was it was everyone and even things like the jesus and mary chain you know perhaps in another year the jesus and mary chain you know might not have been so special but i remember in 85 that and Psycho Candy and that being special moments and special things because they were genuinely something

a suggestion that there might be something else going on than what was usually popular at the time so we were all in 85

we were simultaneously lost in the past because we had so much reconnaissance to catch up on and just appalled at the present with these odd little glimmers. I'm glad I was 12, 13.

If I was 10, I would have just fully, wholly accepted the mainstream in a sense. But at the age of 12, 13, you can develop that little grain of resistance where you're looking elsewhere. I mean, yeah. I mean, the NME famously declared war on pop only five months earlier at a Culture Club gig

that Simon was at, I believe, in Birmingham. So, yeah, Simon's the Raggy Omar of music war correspondence there. Well done, Simon. I mean, they're already waving the white flag, aren't they, here? Yeah. I mean, it should have been the triumphant sort of tail end of new pop, in a sense. But it isn't quite that uh what's going on in 85 in fact it's it's a kind of those bands culture club duran wham they had become monsters they'd become so big yeah that regardless of what

you thought of their music as as irrefutable and undeniable commercial facts, they just developed resentment because they were always everywhere and obsequious and omnipresent. And 85 certainly didn't feel like that. It didn't feel like that music resonated, really. Yeah, the ladder had already been pulled up even before Live Aid. So what else was on telly this day? Well, BBC One commences at six in the morning

with half an hour of C-Facts followed by a Valentine's Day breakfast time with special guest Richard Bryers. When you think of romance, you immediately think of Richard Bryers, don't you? Then it's an hour and a half of pages from

C-Facts, play school and then two hours and 40 minutes of more CFAX. That's more romantic than Richard Pryor's. After the news and regional news in your area, it's Pebble Mill at one in Bavaria. It's another chance to see Bob Langley and Paul Coyer arsing about on skis in Garmisch Park in Kirchen,

followed by Bagpuss, the afternoon show where Barbara Dixon looks at new initiatives arsing about on skis in Garmisch Partenkirchen, followed by Bagpuss, the afternoon show where Barbara Dixon looks at new initiatives for unemployed young adults in Dere and punk hairstyles. After another hour of pages from CFAX, it's regional news in your area, Play School, The Family Nest,

Tina Heath-Reed's cycle star Star Repealing Tower in Jackanora, then it's Dog Tanya and the Three Muscahounds, Blue Peter, Doctor Kildare, The Six O'Clock News, Regional News in your area, then Tomorrow's World examines the science behind kissing, and they've just finished the Paul Daniels quiz show, Odd One Out. BBC Two kicks off at 6.55 with two hours of the Open University

and then 20 minutes of Pages from CFAX. Then they plunge into five hours and 40 minutes of schools and colleges programs. Then at three o'clock, they unleash a two and a half hour CFAX data blast. Then it's Pride of Place where the Marquis of Anglesey witters on about country houses. Then at six o'clock, the catfish and the shape changer have a falling out and the earthquakes in Monca. Fucking yes.

Then there's a cartoon and they're currently an hour into the 1955 gene kenny and cinderella's musical it's always fair weather itv opens up at a quarter past six with tv am then it's a two and a half hour splurge of schools programs before the little green man moon cat the sullivans news at one regional news in your area falcon crest the magazine show daytime then the fashion based The Sullivans, News at One, Regional News in Your Area, Falcon Crest, The Magazine Show Daytime, then the fashion-based So Proper Gems, Sons and Daughters, The Little Green Man Again, The Moomins, Sutter, The Educational Kids Show Words, Words, Words, Danger Mass, Blockbusters, The News at 5.45, Regional News in Your Area, and Michael Knight is currently investigating the death of a racehorse in Knight Rider. Channel 4 starts at 2.25pm with The British at War,

two hours of World War II propaganda films, then after Countdown it's Sabrina Fair, the 1954 Audrey Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart and William Holden rom-com. And they've just finished Channel 4 News. Boys, 12 years old, hoovering television into your eyes, no doubt. What's jumping out on that schedule for you? Well, I mean, Falcon Crest, the scene of my sexual awakening, to be honest with you. I mean, obviously what leaps out massively

is all that fucking C-fax. Good Lord. Yeah, I'm looking at these listings. There's a show, which you didn't mention, called Assaulted Nuts. Oh, that's later on. Yeah, it says Timbrook Taylor, Cleo Rockos, and Daniel Howdodooitalldoitpeacock,

also responsible for Cave Girl, the closest thing we've ever seen to a soft porn children's series. It's like, who put those nuts together and assaulted them? So, chaps, I believe that we've laid the table properly and put the knives and forks in the right order for this episode of Top of the Pops, don't you? So I think we'll leave it there. We'll come back tomorrow with part two

of Chart Music number 52. So thank you very much, Taylor Parks. Oh, cheers. God bless you, Neil Kulkarni. Toodle-oo, mate. Stay pop-crazed. See you in a bit. Ah!

Chart Music. bit. Chart music. GreatBigOwl.com This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon Pull ApartApart 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.