Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - Chart Music #52 (Part 3): February 14th 1985 – British People React To REO Speedwagon

Episode Date: August 7, 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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swear words what do you like listen to um music Chart music. It's Thursday night. It's about ten minutes past the eight. It's Valentine's Day 1985. It's Simon Bates and Janice Long. And this episode of Top of the Pops, so far, is way better than it has any right to be Hey up you pop-crazed youngsters And welcome to part three of episode 52 of Chop Music

I'm your host Al Needham, by my side are my main dogs, Neil Kulkarni and Taylor Parks. And let's not fanny about, let's get stuck in, and let's see if this episode can keep up the pace. Thinking of you. They are the colour-filling Katrina, the lady you saw there. It's one of those ladies who, when she's out of work, does singing telegrams. OK, let's go to America with Jonathan King and look at the US Billboard chart. Bates, still alone, reveals that he's been doing his usual

sniffing around the female singer's routine when he tells us, for no reason at all, that Katrina Phillips is, quote, one of those ladies who, when she's out of work does singing telegrams oh yeah the fuck is that all about i doubt i'm dubious about that entire thing to be honest with you i mean he might as well said when katrina isn't wasting her life with her delusions of being a pop star she can't even get a proper job and is reduced to doing that he He's a one for that, isn't he? He always wants to drop a bit of gossing, doesn't he? Yeah, and a hint of a mild

rebuke, really, because she's not a proper lady and she's not wearing a dress or something. I don't know. Well, I'm surprised I didn't ask her what football team she supported. That's his usual routine, isn't it? To confuse her. He then tells us it's time to go over to america where jonathan king is waiting

to tell us what's in the billboard chart is he in america though by this time top of the pops has dispensed with sending a camera crew to follow him around america and yeah they've just plonked him in front of a video screen that might as well be on the other side of the studio where he is on the other side unless somebody has pointlessly recreated the top of the pop studio in New York for no reason at all. Like on the bridge. He's there.

He was there earlier in the day before the audience came in, which is probably a good thing. We've already covered Jonathan King in Chart Music No. 38 when he was the puppet master behind saccharine and their cover of sugar sugar since then he set up UK records and scored a few more chart hits was one of the original backers in the rocky horror show signed up 10cc ran in the Epson and Ewell by-election under the royalist party then left the music business in 1979, claiming that much of the charts was decided by promotion and marketing,

and relocated to New York, where he commenced a media career as a talk show host on WMCA radio. He also linked up with the BBC, presented a weekly slot called A King in New York for Radio 1, Postcard from Americaica for radio four acting as the radio one correspondent for the 1980 presidential election and breaking the news in the uk of john lennon's assassination in november of 1981 as part of the yellow hurl relaunch king became a regular fixture on top of the pops after he approached them and pointed out that so many American hit records weren't repeating their success over here. And somehow that was wrong. So he was given a slot, usually filmed from different cities, to briefly run down the American charts,

foist foreigner and sticks onto the kids, usually eat a hot dog, because that was American, and gave Top of the Pops the opportunity to bung loads of clips of videos on. This segment became so effective that King is credited with getting Africa by Toto to number three in February of 1983, nine months after it originally flopped over here. Thanks, mate. And King was rewarded later that

year with the BBC Two series Entertainment USA. By this time, the segment has been pared down to a straightforward US chart rundown, but this very month, King has been signed up by Kelvin McKenzie to write the weekly column

Bizarre USA for the Sun and is working on the forthcoming first series of No Limit, the BBC Two youth programme, which comes out at the end of the year. Hmm. Oh, Jesus, this cunt. I mean, even as a kid, right, King's importance and the way that everyone kind of kowtowed to him

and had to work around him and he kept getting incorporated and involved in modern pop shows was a total mystery to me um i mean exemplified actually by no limits which comes out later in the year and the creepy kind of svengali role he played in that mentioned but never seen um i'm still in love with jane powell but he creeped me out from the fucking off that combination of the smirk the camp buffoonery the wacky clothes and the colorful glasses i mean given the school that i went to my non-star was actually pretty well attuned by 85 and he just always said really creepy signals i mean i'm doubtful always anyway of anyone who takes such pride in being an irritant

especially when their supposed i don't know dissidents to the mainstream is entirely propped up and sustained by support from that mainstream he's a wally and a prat and he's proud to be a prat and he's got that supposed outsider status even though he's writing he's going to be writing a weekly pop for column for the sun which which starts picking up letters of complaint pretty instantly. So he's the beadle of pop. And I don't find his shit. I don't know. When I read Jonathan King interviews,

as I have done in preparation for this, it staggers me sometimes how he was tolerated for so long. I mean, he wants to bring out the yorkshire rippers phone things out in 1979 yes oh yeah to put the yorkshire ripper tapes on a single and sell it for 33p a copy under the title the rippers speech yeah on blood red vinyl on blood red vinyl yes and and all of these things i don't know he says he's got a strange sense of humour and you know there's repeated quotes throughout his interviews that are just vile. I suppose this is what a Cambridge student makes of

pop. He loathes pop fundamentally from the beginning and you know he wants to keep its ambitions in check in a sense so everything he does is kind of cutting pop off at the heels but he always keeps for himself that get out clause that chances and

cunts always use which which is it's all a bit silly it's all a bit of a laugh i was just taking the piss yeah you know but in combination with that he also has a beyond everything else he's he's aldridge prior hopeless liar um the way he looks at pop history you know when you read interviews with him he's talking about like i don't know he was the one who introduced sort of bombardier jacket to john lennon and that's why sergeant pepper looks the way he is you know and he was the one who spotted mark bolan and he was the one who spotted bowie and and his parts of top of the pops were always as a watcher of it with my sister and as a talker about Top of the Pops afterwards in the playground

his parts of Top of the Pops were fucking hated by everyone not just smash hit readers everyone and this avowed justification he had for that bit that he wanted to bridge some sort of gap that these American records by these poor you know impoverished artists

like fucking Toto deserved a shout over it. I just do not get that at all. No. So I've always had major, major, I mean, I'd be doubtful of anyone who didn't have major problems with Jonathan King. But this would have been a section

where I perhaps might have walked out of the room because even at that time, at the young age of 12, you could tell he was a wrong gun from the off the off you know well the the first thing to say here is that the transition from a shot of simon bates yeah with a hand mic to a shot of jonathan king standing there with a hand yeah yes on almost the same spot at a different time of day i reckon is really troubling because they are superficially similar. Yes.

They're both men in their 30s, late 30s, who look and seem a great deal older. Big specs, side-parted dark hair. They're wearing mostly pale colours, loose-cut jacket, old-fashioned oily media delivery, albeit in different styles. But it's a peculiar visual shift which could not be more flattering to simon bates yeah we all know by now that simon bates was foolish but not dangerous and yet such is the enmity we've all felt towards simon bates historically aggravated beyond all reason by this podcast.

And the last few years of forced exposure to his nonsensical baritone bullshit. We lose our sense of proportion and it's a real wake up call. Seeing this dark metamorphosis in front of you. Yes. You think, hang on a minute. Really? Bates is just a stuffed elephant with a

ring in the back that you pull to make him speak but that that's broken right he seems completely harmless yeah and almost but not quite lovable once you seen this direct ab comparison with pure evil it's like jonathan king is simon bates if he dropped his soul in a puddle of syphilitic piss and then tried to dry it off with a hair dryer stuff full of typhoid shit or simon bates is jonathan king if he spent too long in a detoxification chamber and came out all spongy and babbling and inert. And it's not something I ever wanted to see. Like how this section is not something anybody wanted to see. Yeah.

Yeah, it's like seeing Peter Wythe being interviewed on Matcha Day then all of a sudden the Yorkshire Ripper pops up. The other massively offensive thing about this segment is you know just like in the 70s when the bunged on lulu and silla when they were nowhere near the charts top of the pops is once again giving airtime to bands and artists that haven't earned their spot yeah well they're rigging the charts aren't they i mean it's like i don't know the nine o'clock news looking at their bulletin for tonight and thinking oh there's there's not enough death in this and getting Kenneth Kendall to go out and bomb a tube station. You know, that's wrong.

The role of Top of the Pops is supposed to be to look at the reflection in the river of pop, not chuck a shopping trolley into it. And I don't think people now would fully understand why this bit seemed so objectionable at the time. No, they wouldn't. Apart from, obviously, the presence of Jonathan King. But it was, right? I mean, Atlanticism was not a new thing in British pop, obviously. Like, the back and forth between Britain and America

is a massive part of our pop music developed but around 1985 there was that kind of obliterative Americanization going yeah well that's how it felt like this one-way cultural traffic and suddenly the the musical or even the like the broader cultural relationship that Britain had with the USA which used to be about yearning repressed brits reaching towards something bigger and wilder and freer now it was like it was about shutting down all the awkward or uncommercial or unprofitable parts of british culture and subtlety and you know irony and idiosyncrasy and all the things the country actually does well and resetting British culture, resetting the country culturally

the same way it was being reset economically, you know. And these are the things that people always say about Americanisation, but it was really strong around this time. And it was felt all the more keenly because of the political situation. And the reaction against it was really strong it was like the pop charts were a cultural green and common you know it's like it was everywhere this idea only american stuff was any good yeah even even the wiener bicks went b-boy yes i mean in the in the the feeblest soggy in the milk kind of way but yeah-in-the-milk kind of way. But, yeah, that was a real sign.

Fucking Quizland. Yeah, I mean, this isn't exchange, you know what I mean? Yeah. Obviously, this isn't exchange. This is Jonathan King saying American music is superior to British music, in a sense. It's more serious. It's all about good songs.

Yes. And that's because, I mean, as a kind of yeah and as a kind of vaguely transatlantic soul as he is you know his understanding of britishness is what gives us i don't know records like jump up and down and wave your knickers in you yes that's the way he sees britishness he sees it as this i don't know yeah these saucy postcard kind of cliches yeah um and he always has and and that kind of cultural imperialism that we're talking about in 1985, he's definitely on the American side of it. You know, don't forget, in 1980, he's reporting on the election,

the US election for Radio 1. You know, he's been doing this for a while. Not just, you know, he's running in the Epson by-election and all that. He's obviously in a vowed Thatcherite. But yeah, that's all this section ever seemed to come across like. Grow up, England. This is proper music. Well, fuck you.

This is how a lot of people fell into the Morrissey hole, I think. Because suddenly that sort of soft English nationalism felt almost defiant. Yes. Like we weren't an imperial power anymore. We were facing this huge external existential threat, you know. So to be over-deliberately British in taste and manner became almost like an underdog thing for otherwise liberal English people who started feeling towards America the same disobedient pride and resentment

that Scots, Irish and Welsh had always felt towards England. But you have to be careful with that stuff. Yeah, very much so. Very much so. And yeah, as we'll see later. So as is the style round about this time, we're going to get clips from four videos. You know, America 1985, so cameo, zap,

schoolie D, DMC. oh this this will be good a look at the brand new american chart this week and rio speedwagon have their first hit in a long long while it's a great song called i can't fight the feeling I've forgotten what I started fighting for It's time to bring this ship into shore Formed in Champaign, Illinois in 1967, REO Speedwagon took their name from a prototype pickup truck which was manufactured from 1915 to the early 50s and they started life as a covers band at local student bars after signing with epic in 1971 they spent most of the

70s as a moderately successful rock albums band but it wasn't until 1980 when they softened the fuck up that they made it big in america With their 10th LP, High Infidelity, and the lead-off track Keep On Loving You getting to number one in the US LP and singles chart. In the UK, Keep On Loving You got to number seven for two weeks in 1981, and the follow-up Take It On The Run got to number 19 in August of that year,

but they were never heard of again in the uk until now this is a follow-up to i don't want to know which did fuck all over here it's the second cut from their 12th lp wheels are turning it's currently number seven on the billboard chart and nowhere in the charts over here because we're a fucking proper country so yeah here we go fucking oreo speedwagon i mean the video uh was directed by john jobson who started as a cameraman at formula one races and worked on the documentary film speed fever the film which features that fucking appalling accident in the 1977

South African Grand Prix, where a marshal runs across the track and clips a driver with a fire extinguisher and kills him, and then he's flipped up in the air with such force that it rips his overalls off, which was used in the advert for the film in Japanese television.

And he's got another car crash to deal with here, hasn't he? Well, we only get a little blast of the video, so we don't apprehend the full horror. Yeah, but a little blast of Oreo Speedwagon goes a long, long way. I mean, I do recommend, actually, people do watch the full video, because this isn't just Asian wedding video. This is Asian wedding video, Vanden Pla edition. It's fucking amazing.

You know, flying candles, teddy bears, wedding video this is asian wedding video vanden platt edition it's fucking amazing you know flying candles teddy bears and that ending where the the aged protagonist finally faces the black door of death um which is always fun but fucking hell this realizes oh my god i've spent so much time listening to fucking reo speed wagon do you know who to blame for this, though, for this being a hit? Brummies. Really? I would say so. Right, this is 85. This is peak leather ampersand lace years. By which I mean those comps were really popular,

and you get all these kind of, you know, stuff like this was indulged by older metalheads, I'm convinced. The split was in. So you had these old priest maiden fans. Now, you had a choice as a metal fan in 85. You were either going to go underground, in a sense, and start listening to Metallica and Thrash and all that sort of stuff, or you were going to latch onto anything that still contained the signifiers of rock music, long hair, denim, etc.,

even if the music was transparently soft as shite. So this song is the spiritual twin of a few records, actually. Foreigners, I Want to Know What Love Is. I'd say it's the spiritual ancestor of White Snakes, Here I Go Again as well. It's one of those sort of revelations of tenderness, as if it's surprising from a rock band. That, hey, we look like, you know, one-waving, tit-tearing motherfuckers but we've got soft damp parts that warrant inspection um but it's it's not a great one it's not a great one it's one of those songs like toto's africa actually which we will probably

be told in this day and age oh it's classic it's great classic it's good well no it ain't and i remember i was at the time it was terrible and this wasn't really played by rock djs you wouldn't find this being played in a rock club and you wouldn't find this being played by by tommy vance or alan freeman on the radio no you know it so yeah it i blame the the leather ampersand lace years and i blame brummies for that fundamentally um because those were the fuckers who you see them like four years before this um propping a pint of brew 11 on their belly putting motorhead on the jukebox in 1985 they're putting shit like this on the jukebox so yeah i mean it doesn't even qualify as soft rock does it it's it's shale it's funny how often you hear songs by immaculately produced american bands who can all

play really well and they're consummate professionals and it sounds like the fifth song you ever wrote when you were 14 it's amazing how many of these superstar serious musicians they've got like the compositional now so sort of a kid putting stickle bricks together. You know what I mean? This song is like, it's like he's written in a music class at school. Yeah. The shots of the band as well in the video.

It's all a load of bollocks about the circle of life. Yeah, yeah. And obviously dead expensive. So you get some floating babies, you get women with kind of like vortexes for faces appearing at the window. And there's one bit where some bloke's about to propose to his girlfriend, but before it does that, a load of butterflies come out of his crotch.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All that's there to distract us from the performance bit, which is just a fucking dad band. Yeah. It's like you've gone to to someone's 21st birthday do and they've gone oh he he doesn't know this is going to happen but he's his dad and his mates have got together to form a band and they're going to do a gig and you've got to sit through it and they're going to do a cover of oreo speed wagon i don't think they'd be dads though

they just look like social inadequates. They're well-dressed social inadequates because they got ready for a video. And they look awful, don't they? They look fucking terrible. I mean, the only thing you can take away from this video to sustain you through watching it is that

when you notice it, you can't get it out of your head. The lead singer, Kevin Cronin, is the dead spit of Norman Scott, isn't he? Oh, God, yeah. Norman Scott with a bit more hair. And when you've got that into your head, if you start watching it and going, this song's being performed by Jeremy Thorpe's spurned lover

who's still waiting for his national insurance card. He just makes it 50 million times better. Bunnies can't and won't fight this feeling anymore these people would look would look okay right in grainy sort of 60 millimeter film with flares on and looking a bit dirty and grimy playing at some festivals some greasers festival in san diego in 1973 but in 1985 because they've been cleaned up slightly and they've been put in new denim and horrible kind of rugby shirt type shit yes um they are they just look appalling they look awful i mean yeah neil you were saying that this was an older bloke rock music but i i recall that the posh grebs on the nice estate on

the other side of the school. You know, they'd have their neatly ironed, untainted denim jackets with rainbow and ACDC patches. But there was always room for an Oreo speed wagon patch on there as well. Fucking hell, man. I know, I know, I know. I'll tell you who this is aimed at. Jane, isn't it? It's the Janes of the world.

It really is. Yeah, world. It really is. It really is. And I just listened to it, I just think, poor fucking Chris. He's got Jane in his bedroom and he's going to have to listen to this kind of shit

in order to get his feel. My favourite bit in the video is where you have a shot of a window with all these symbols of the suburban straight world man floating by. There's a Barclay card, an Amex card, a dollar bill. There's all the same thing really, isn't it? A house, a car, a wedding couple, like off a wedding cake.

It's like, yeah, okay, we get it we get it cuddly toy yeah and a maraca for some reason i don't know if they're thinking specifically of davy jones um because they should have added a horse and a bottle of scotch but they just saw past the window as though you know as though on the kansas hurricane and it's like you're supposed to think oh life goes so fast it's so grey and predictable like in a very real sense REO Speedwagon

are a howling protest against the blanding effects of age and expectation I mean the other thing about Kevin Cronin as well he's got an appalling case of American R hasn't he because he always sings

and that got on my tits got on my tits before in the early 80s when they had two hit singles and just when you think you're rid of the cunts here they are again marching back triumphantly anything else to say about this no can we move on please yeah so two weeks later

can't fight this feeling enter the uk chart at number 100 beginning a slow pull upward which culminated seven weeks later with them getting to number 16 by which time it had spent three weeks as the american number one, usurping this week's chart topper, and being usurped itself by One More Night by Phil Collins. The follow-up, One Lonely Night, failed to chart over here, and they were done with the British charts forevermore. However, in 2019, Can't Fight This Feeling was covered by Bastille for the Christmas advert for posh Woolworths. Okay, now.

To accompany some shit about a dragon. I don't know. I never saw it. Al, Al, you know you just mentioned the records that replaced this at number one and stuff. Yes. I just wanted to say, one of the most obvious things to any pop fan in 1985 who was British, I always used to think this, and I'm sure you did too. You used to think, the fucking American charts are fucking rubbish.

Yes. In comparison to us, they were shit. So the BBC giving Jonathan King this fucking five-minute advert for the American charts was always fucked. Sorry, I just wanted to say that. No, no, no, that's fine. And it got to number 39 that December. Fucking hell. That's how shit this fucking unwiped arse of a century is.

We fucking won't cover versions of Oreo fucking Speedwagon. Yeah, but come on. Because they remind you of Christmas right away, don't they? Or done by milk-faced poshos as an advert. Why do kids nowadays like this shit? What the fuck is wrong with them? Slight generalisation there, Al. What does your daughter think of REO Speedwagon, Neil?

Sophia thinks, right, I asked her deliberately and specifically about this song, Can't Fight This Feeling. I said, Soph, what do you think of REO Speedwagon's Can't Fight This Feeling? She was very matter-of- RBSB Can't Fight This Feeling she was very matter of fact about it she just said yeah it's quite an effective rock ballad and that was it

but she don't listen to it she don't sit around listening to Journey or any of that she's got thin Lizzy albums to catch up with good for her next Good for her. Next! Perhaps the number one heartthrob in America is the lead singer of Van Halen, David Lee Roth. He's got a solo hit single at the moment

with a great video, California Girls. Let's go! Wow! I wish they all could be California. I wish they all could be California. I wish they all could be California. Born in Bloomington, Indiana in 1954, David Lee Roth was transplanted to California in his early teens and linked up with Eddie and Alex Van Halen at Pasadena City College. After a period as the lead singer of the Red Bull Jets in the early 70s,

he joined Eddie and Alex's power trio, Mammoth, which changed its name to Van Halen in 1974 when a more successful band started using the name. After they were approached by Gene Simmons of kiss in 1976 when he was trying to poach eddie van halen for his rubbish band he helped them work up a demo tape and they were signed to warner brothers in 1977 in early 1985 van halen had become one of the biggest rock acts in america earning a spot in the guinness Book of Records for the highest paid gig when they netted one and a half million dollars for a 90 minute set at the Us Festival in San Bernardino

in 1983 but over here they were an albums band with one top 40 hit Jump which got to number seven in March of 1984 and a guest appearance by Eddie Van Halen in Beat It. However, a severe personality clash between Roth, who wanted a poppier sound, and the rest of the band to stop being such custard gannets, and Eddie Van Halen, who was all about the rock and liked his drugs, led to Roth considering a solo career. This is being promoted as the lead-off single from the EP Crazy From The Heat, which came out last month.

It's a cover of the Beach Boys single, which got to number 26 in September of 1965, but is best known to the youth of 1985 as the tune from the British Caledonian airline adverts. It's just entered our chart this week at number 84 and is currently at number 10 over there. Oh, fucking hell. Thanks for the contribution, David.

This is one of those records that no one ever thinks about because, you know, why would you? It's only saving grace that it's one of the more ignorable records of the 1980s. But when you actually are forced to stop and contemplate the concept and the reality almost knocks the breath out of you how unjustifiably shit this is and i'm all for being disrespectful to rock history but it's not even that if anything it's nauseatingly respectful even as it smears its own waste product all across the the beautiful young face of the original and yeah i mean it's got it's got no artistic purpose no practical use um they would

have said at the time is david lee roth with an update of the beach boys classic i mean it's an update of the original record in the way that a toilet full of warm shit is an update of steak and chips. Why would anyone bother making, buying or ever listening to this single? Imagine if you were David Lee Roth, right? And it's the mid-80s and it's Monday morning. What can you wake up? What can you do that day? You think of all the possibilities spread like a hand of cards

and then you contemplate the thought of going in and recording a worthless karaoke version of California. Why would you do it? Even if you weren't David Lee Roth and it wasn't the mid-eight, what possible reason could there be? Making this record is like cutting off your own cock, putting it through a blender and then injecting

it into your own eyeball. You could do it, but why? Why would you do it? Why? There's no point, is there? Well, it's the video, isn't it? This is the only concession to daddisfaction in this episode

of Top of the Pops. Yeah, maybe. Directed by Pete Angeles, who did a stupidly massive light show for Van Halen's 1980 World Tour and went on to do their art direction. And yeah, he edited their video for Jump and went on to be the manager of the Black Crow. Even dads wouldn't get satisfaction from this though, as far as I'm concerned. It's so...

I mean, the point is this... It's Benny Hill without the subtlety and panache, isn't it? Well, this is it. Benny Lee Hill. It entirely fits in with Jonathan King's version, or vision rather, of what classes as pop entertainment I mean it's successful right that's his first criteria it's American that's another criteria it's a good song because obviously King always goes on about good song there's a video in which

sex is giggled out and kept at a giggly distance and dealt with through stock characters and stereotypes which is all king could ever deal with uh when it came to portrayals of sex and beyond that it's a cartoonish kind of demonstration of just american might you know when it comes to money and pop music and pop videos you're not really meant to listen to it you're just meant to goggle at the expense involved yes but i mean it's telling actually i didn't know that thing about kiss uh because you know i've interviewed a lot of shit metal bands over the years american metal bands and virtually all of them especially american ones have cited kiss as a big influence and van halen as a big influence and these are both bands that just passed britain by to a large extent um um but solo roth is entirely inexcusable he's copping the kind of loony grinning madness of ozzy osbourne but he's got just got total steely mercenary

control over it all it's almost as if sharon osbourne put on ozzy's wig you know it's a weird thing um this is an inexcusable record I mean I've never actually been that fond of California Girls as a song anyway um but yeah just seemingly pointless but it what King sees this is this is the best pop can get you know and this demonstrates his contempt for pop music and and just what a shame this wasted 30 seconds of this um is in top of the pops the women involved in this video they're ridiculously aerobicized and uh i mean i was convinced there was some bare breasts in this video when i watched it originally uh but no it's a flesh-toned bikini yeah yeah yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, there we go. And the lyric of the song,

I mean, it's not his fault, but the lyric always struck me as being a bit thick because it's basically saying, you know, there's loads of women all around the world and they're nice, but they're not a patch

on the local ones. But I wish they all lived round my way. So, what are you going on about, Brian? Oddly enough, I think Carl Wilson actually does backing vocals on this does he i could be wrong about that i probably need to sorry fact checker we need a fact checker on that but i've got a feeling he did anything else to say about this no yeah i'm actually looking right now at a photo of dave lee roth and carl wilson next

to each other and And yeah, background vocals by Beach Boy Carl Wilson along with Christopher Cross. Fucking hell. See, Mike Love was kept well out of it though. Probably for the best. So the following week California Girls moved up

12 places to number 72 and a week later got to number 68, its highest position by which time california girls had got to number three in america and roth had left van halen the follow-up a mash-up of just a gigolo and i ain't got nobody failed to chart in the uk although after teaming up with steve vi he'd have two more minor top 40 hits in the 90s with Just Like Paradise and A Lil Ain't Enough. He spent the mid-90s as a lounge act in Las Vegas before briefly rejoining Van Halen in 1996 and then trained as an emergency medical technician in New York before rejoining Van Halen again in 2012. Trolled from Great Big Al, Tracey-Ann Oberman

interviews celebrities about their experiences of abuse online. If you want to sit in a room and talk to another fellow sitting in his room and have an argument, that's fine too, or you can not do that. On trains. I had to get on the train and this woman hit me in the back and said you're an arsehole. And on a bus. And I think it's weird that you would suggest that a woman is so ugly to get sex when you

basically look like a potato. All that and more. That's Trolled with Tracey Ann Oberman from Great Big Owl, out now. Paul and Oates follow up their number one with Out Of Touch with their new single, Method Of Modern Love. M-E-T-H-O-N-E-O-F-L-O-V-E It's nothing to my love Performed in New York in 1970, Daryl Hall and John Oates had previously first met in 1967 at a Battle of the Bands competition in Philadelphia

when they both hid in a lift when a gang war broke out in the audience and people started shooting each other. After discovering they were both studying at the nearby temple university they started dossing about with each other eventually sharing a flat and after oats returned from an extended stay in europe they teamed up signing to atlantic records after signing to rca in 1975 they released the lp daryl hall and john oats notable for their first hit single sarah smile and a cover done by david bowie's stylist where they took homer simpson's makeup gun full in the face while they became an ongoing chart concern in the u.s the nearest they got to our top forte was when She's Gone got to number 41 in October of

1976 and Running From Paradise got to number 41 in July of 1980. But they finally went over the top in November of that year when Kiss On My List got to number 33. By February of 1985, they'd been a regular-ish

participant in the hit parade, scoring four top 40 hits including I Can't Go For That No Can Do which got to number 8 in February of 1982 and Man Eater which got to number 6 in November of the same year. This single, the second cut from the

1984 LP Big Bam Boom is the follow up to Out Of Touch which got to number 1 for two weeks in America last December, but only got to number 48 over here last October. It's currently at number five on the other side of the Atlantic, and over here it's jumped up 12 places this week, from number 66 to number 54.

Yes, so this one, directed by Jeff Stein, who got his first credit as a writer on the who film the kids are all right and then he wrote the american police sitcom barney miller which was uh a favorite of the uh aventis itv graveyard song yeah uh his first music video was rebel yell for billy idol but his video for dancing in the dark was scrapped halfway through the shoot and he was kicked out in favor of brian de palma but uh here he is back in the saddle making a very odd curious video for a very odd curious song by this point we have to talk about the people who actually make the videos because you know they've become absolutely crucial at this point haven't

they yeah i mean this is a big production it's hella expensive for a song that takes over a minute to deliver a hook. Oh, yeah. But Hall & Oates are odd. Anyway, the Steely Dan with hits. I mean, and this is an odd record. Odd, curious record, this. But I found it strangely compelling,

even though it's only on for a little bit. And it wasn't just the immediate spot of the classic 80s video cliche, drummer with massive outsized beaters um yeah but an odd record that's nothing compared to the last video for out of touch where they're trapped in a massive drum kit and the drummer he's got drumsticks the size of a lamppost it's incredible i'll have to watch that. But yeah, Hall & Oates, an odd little band with this odd, big, big video. I dug out the full-length video because I wanted to experience the song more. And I'm not sure I'm satisfied with it.

But there's curious pleasures to be had in that odd chorus and the strange sounds that they're making. So yeah, Hall & Oates are always intriguing. One of those bands and i know i frequently say this on chart music where i should have a night falling down a hall and oats rabbit hole and see what i'll come out with there's a lot there shit i like i love sarah smile and you know i can't go for that it's a tune oh yeah i kind of only know the singles you know i mean yeah but this period hall and oats is a peculiar prospect, isn't it? I mean, they're like the Go West who had already gone west

and got scurvy on the trail. I mean, they're better than Go West, but so is Gout. But I don't know, this is the thing with this segment, and it's not really fair to target Hall & Oates specifically with this. But there used to be this fairly widely held belief, which the internet has now blasted into irrelevance, that you should make a little bit of room in the mainstream and potentially the marketplace for the avant-garde or the experimental or the brand new,

even if it wasn't what was selling because it was good for people and it was good for the health or the brand new, even if it wasn't what was selling, because it was good for people and it was good for the health of the culture. And besides, it gave people a chance to see and hear things they'd never experienced and wouldn't otherwise see or hear. And who knows, maybe that would change and enrich somebody's life.

So for instance, you might dump one of the top 40 hits from top of the pops just one and give that time to something a bit weird or unusual because that's how art and life can prosper uh but instead here we've lost one top 40 hit that people might actually have wanted to hear and given that time to haul a note because uncool American men in their 30s like them, so you should too. Yeah. Top of the fucking pops. The last time,

you remember the last time they tried this was Hootie and the Blowfish. Oh, yes. They won't be trying that again. I mean, I have absolutely no recollection of this single. No. Back in 1985. And the only thing I know from it is

M-E-T-H-O-D Man. Yeah, of course. Yeah. I didn't even know that Method Man, you know, I'd never heard this song before or this chorus. Yeah, I mean. No, Hall & Oates have given much to hip-hop. They have. A lot of samples.

Say no go, De La Soul. But I had never heard this before uh being asked to watch it for um chart music which strikes me as odd i mean they were big hollow notes so why didn't i hear this record perhaps there's a reason for that perhaps it was a hit in america and not in the uk and perhaps you should have fucking stayed that way um i don't see the urge like these records are burning away in jonathan king's consciousness we deserve to hear them they're going to improve our lives not exactly no from the from the standpoint of you know 40 odd years on it's a curious little thing to look at but at the time did we need to know about this record by the multi-million platinum selling

hall of notes that wasn't getting a fair shout somehow yeah yeah it's it's odd i remember it but i remember finding it annoying because it's spelt out method of love yeah and it's called method of modern love and it's like come on obviously they couldn't have spelt the whole title out or it just people would have thought there was something wrong with the radio yeah if paul weller can spell apocalypse properly yeah i bet he that he required a dictionary for that no but it's do you know what i mean it just it just seemed wrong to me it's like either either go big or don't one of the problems that hauling outside is by this time they look like your dad's mates who run a garage or something

I mean Darryl Hall is he is Lenny out of Laverne & Shirley isn't he with his quiff he's losing his sharpness

I think at this point isn't he he's looking a bit more rocky yes because he's only got a t-shirt on he's not got the

usual sort of big linen suit on no so he's aiming for a different look but how much longer did hauler notes have i can't remember any hits post 85 for them well the following week method of modern love jumped 13 places to number 41 entered the top 40 a week later and a month from now it would get to number 21 its highest position in may of of this year, Hall & Oates teamed up with David Ruffin and Eddie Kendricks of The Temptations

and recorded Live at the Apollo, which featured one side of soul classics and one side of remakes of Hall & Oates singles. Although they reprised their performance during the Philadelphia Wing of Live Aid, the single from the LP, A Night at the Apollo Live, only got to number 58 over here in September of this year, and they never troubled the top 40 in the UK ever again. And according to Sebastian Coe in 2001, Hall & Oates became the same paedophile still at large

in the United States and believed to have a low status job in the music industry i'm you know this is mad because i'm getting angry again we just know we're just the existence of this section in top of the pops anyway crack on crack on and a brand new american number one this week, knocking foreigner off the top spot, it's George Michael and Wham! with Careless Whisper. Born in East Finchley in 1963, George Michael is George fucking Michael.

This, of course, is Bill Dizzy's debut solo single, although it was one of the first songs he ever wrote, with Andrew Ridgely getting a songwriting co-credit and was on Wham's demo tape, along with Wham Rap and Club Tropicana in 1981 which landed them a deal with Inner Vision Records. It's the second cut from the 1984 LP Make It Big and this is the follow-up of sorts to Wake Me Up Before You Go Go which got to number one for two weeks in June of 1984 and it got to number one in the UK for three weeks in August of last year.

While Wham! are still very much an ongoing concern, with Last Christmas being flipped for the B-side everything she wants, it's still at number 33 in this week's chart, and currently resting between the two legs of their five-month world tour, which will take in China in six weeks' time. five-month world tour which will take in china in six weeks time this single has been billed as by george michael and wham in the us and has just knocked i want to know what love is by foreigner off the top of the american charts i mean this is directed by duncan gibbons who'd already done just got lucky for joe boxers who's that girl for your rhythmics Joe Boxers, Who's That Girl for Eurythmics,

Robert De Niro's Waiting for Bananarama, and Club Tropicana for Wham! And it's got that tang to it, hasn't it? It's George outside, having a bit of fun, then being a bit miserable. Shot in Florida, don't you know? Yeah, and didn't it, like, it blew, like, $20 million billion dollars or something because

he got his hair cut halfway through yeah yeah the shooting was interrupted for a couple of days because george decided he didn't like the way his hair was looking and demanded that his sister was flown over to sort it out yeah yeah but this is the ultimate absurdity isn't it in this this bit like it's yeah hey you fucking turnip eating british peasants bow down feel inferior before the mighty us number one oh it's that record you bought last summer that they've only just heard yeah fucking ridiculous yeah yeah it's like staying up all night to watch the halftime show for the super bowl and then getting a fucking dog handling display team and a marching band.

Yeah, I would have left the room in anger and confusion at this point. I would have been so angry about it. I mean, I was already angry about this record anyway, not for any particular reason, other than the confusion sown by the credit in that I didn't know where Wham were at this point. And was this a Wham record?

Was this a George Michael record? And then it turns up on a Wham album. So added to that confusion, the fact that we're getting it shoved our way six months after we fucking put it at number one. What is the point, King, you fucking wanker? Stop wasting our time.

We don't see that much of the video, so we're not going to talk about it too much. But you've got to point out that George Michael's got a really impressive beard by this point. she's called lisa stall who was a cheerleader for the miami dolphins and had become a model and she'd go on to be in baywatch now a successful photographer so all right because they had to reshoot the cutting uh they had to reshoot the kissing scene didn't they because they lost some footage yes lisa stars always said that she wasn't she wasn't upset about that

at all no she loved it yeah no you wouldn't be would you no of course not but I mean the problem is

with Careless Whisper from here on in is that every time I see it and particularly this broadcast on Top of the Pops my mind's just going back and imagining a 16 year old

Simon Price feeling extremely embarrassed thinking about his pants tent with the treacherous Steph. Pryopic Price. It's always bugged me slightly anyway

because I don't like the sax solo. It's one of... No. There's a lot of bad sax solos in 80s pop. It's the Baker Street of the mid-80s, isn't it? There's a bloke outside my local... Back when I used to be able to go to my local Tesco's, there was a bloke outside, I think it was last summer,

busking with a saxophone before being told to move on. And all he did was play the sax riff from Careless Whisper and then the sax riff from Baker Street. Oh, no. And then go back to the top and start again. That was his whole repertoire. Yeah, it found its American equivalent in the sax solo that you might have forgotten from Kenny

Loggins' Danger Zone. But 80s sax, yeah, always sounds pretty awful, man. Yeah. But other than that, I mean, it's, you know, George, he's great. Yeah. I mean, it's amazing how much stick George used to get. That's not a euphemism. But do you remember like around

this time like william would would do miners benefits and people were astounded like they'd find a way to turn it around on them yeah all these trendy nme people you know they go oh they're obviously just after publicity and it's like well hang on they were number one in the fucking charts they're always on the front cover of the tabloids. And as far as those papers were concerned, and a lot of Britain, doing a miner's benefit was like playing a fundraiser for the paedophile information exchange. How is this useful publicity?

It was just assumed back then that if you played commercial music for people to dance and have fun to, you were obviously a Tory. Yes. But it's great. And I'd forgive him anything for Fast Love. Yeah, yeah.

That's one of the all-time greats, Fast Love. Yeah. And a lyric which I think only a gay man could get away with, but I'm glad he did because it means that now it's there for everyone. There's something really defiantly beautiful about that song. This is a miraculous song for a 17-year-old to write. God, yeah. Really.

Hey, two 17-year-olds. Two 17-year-olds. Sorry, you're quite right. It wasn't just an act of outrageous generosity to put Richard's name on this song, I'm sure. I mean, at the time, I kind of resisted it because it sounded like a Sade record, but I've grown to love Sade, and I've grown to love this record, too.

So, Careless Whisperer would spend three weeks at number one in America until it was deposed by I can't fight this feeling by Oreo Speedwagon. By which time, Wham had already put out Freedom and Last Christmas over here. The official

follow-up, A Different Corner, got to number one in the UK for three weeks in April of 1986, disposing Living Doll by Cliff Richard and the Young Ones before giving way to Rock Me Amadeus by Falco. And he'd go on to have two more solo number ones in 1996 with Jesus to a Child and and fast love so there we go loads of white people one medium-sized hit one flop one last minor hit for hauling oats and an old single there's america for you in 1985 yeah nice one cheers king you fucking cunt. He claimed in a recent Smash Hits interview that this would be a two-way thing with American acts coming over to Top of the Pops more,

seeing the local produce and spreading the word about it. But, you know, I'm pretty sure that Black Lace and Shaking Stevens didn't appear on Solid Gold or American Bandstand. You know what I mean? I mean, that segment, that is four minutes of Top of the Pops airtime and that's

feasibly two singles so let's see what Top of the Pops could have put in there that was just outside the top 40 and really needed a push so here I come Barrington Leaver that could have been a top 40 hit

just another night Mick Jagger number 42 Here I Come, Barrington Levy. That could have been a top 40 hit. Just Another Night, Mick Jagger, number 42. It's the Sweet Mix by The Sweet. Breakfast by The Associates, that was at number 49. Well, that'll do. Get that in there. Mutants in Mega City 1 by the Fink Brothers. Fucking out top of the pops, you cunts.

You know that one, don't you? Yeah, I forgot about that. Two members of Madness pretending to be mean and Fink Angel out of Judge Dredd. And sex over the phone by the village people, which is at number 59. That would have been fucking amazing on top of the Pops. Can you imagine

Simon Bates introducing that? However, this appears to be the final appearance of Jonathan King on top of the pops in an official capacity for reasons we'll discuss later.

And no, that reason isn't one of them. the field. Long on a balcony next to two very 80s youths. One in a yellow t-shirt for Stu with love hearts. The other with a top of the pops t-shirt. Both sporting luminous fingerless gloves, white trousers and Peter Sarstedt belts. Blows Jonathan King a kiss and tells us he's such a nice boy.

She then introduces us to one of the biggest live bands of the moment and mentions that we can go and see them tonight in Anle. But just in case we don't fancy going to Stoke-on-Trent at such short notice, here they are in the studio, Killing Joke with Love Like Blood. Formed from a Melody Maker advert in Notting Hill in 1978, Killing Joke started their own label, Malicious Damage, a year later and put out the EP Turn to Red, which was championed by John Peel and led to a deal with EG Records with distribution by Polydor.

They made their first appearance in the Chops in 1981, when Follow the Leaders got to number 55 in May of that year, and a year later they made their first appearance on Top of the Pops when Empire's Song was perched at number 43. But despite, or maybe because of, being introduced by Garth Crooks, it slipped down the next week. Yes, that actually happened. Despite, or maybe because of, being introduced by Garth Crooks, it slipped down the next week. Yes, that actually happened.

However, lead singer Jazz Coleman wasn't in attendance in the Top of the Pop studio as he had suddenly relocated to Iceland halfway through a UK tour in order to survive the forthcoming apocalypse, only to be deliberately run over by someone in a Land Rover. When he returned to the UK, the band was reformed and their next five singles skulked around the mid-reachers of the top 100. This is the second single from their fifth LP, Nighttime, which comes out at the end of the month, and it's the follow-up to A New Day,

which got to number 56 in July of 1984. It entered the top 40 last week at number 32. And this week it's jumped eight places to number 24. Well, chaps, killing joke. I always lump them in with New Model Army and bands of that ilk. And looking back and looking at this,'m i wonder why i don't know i didn't know what to make of them yeah i mean i didn't know what to make of them i remember at the time but actually this disappearance and this single this was a a real it was an earthquake

moment for me um it was a it was a kind of revelation as a fan of old rock music in 85 that modern rock could sound as dramatic and could be constructed to build cumulatively like this does and could leave space. But beyond that, beyond anything else, Jazz Coleman just blew my mind because here I am, I'm an Asian kid with no one bar Sheila Tranger really to conjure with in the 80s.

And Freddie Mercury was still hiding his Asian-ness. But here was someone who looked like my relatives. You know what I mean? Yes. Because, Jaz, I think he's got a half Bengali, he's got a Bengali mum, I think. And, you know, he looks like my relatives and he's going for it. He's being a rock god. Yes.

So when this came out, I remember loving this record. It was a big year for air drumming for me with with knitting needles and chopsticks and stuff and this and slave to the rhythm of my two sort of tunes that that kind of beat and riff combo it's got this zeppelin like togetherness and honestly in 1985 all it took really was was one thing tearing your head off to sort of change everything and make you make you a bit more optimistic and love like blood was one of them there's problems it goes on for too long goes on for way too long and the band looked pretty awful that white polo neck that the guitarist has got on is particularly nasty um and the jackets uh the big leather jackets that they wear aren't particularly nice they're not good are they

they're not great they're not great leather jackets in the 80s man just fucking stupid just be a leather jacket i think i think the the crucial there was a time when leather jackets stopped being just de rigueur things that all look the same and leather fashion started coming in and then you started getting things like leather warehouses which is a great name for a gay club actually but um you know you've got a more extensive collection, and this is what they're modelling. And, you know, as well with the song, I mean, who knows what it's about, but it's glorious.

What I particularly liked was that you kind of got used to weird bands turning up now and then on Top of the Pops and just sort of playing to their fans, almost with a smirk on their face. Killing Joke are playing this kind of quite dark, sort of anthemic new wave rock, I guess. But they're still making the White High Heel crowd move.

It's like the townies are kind of confronted with something they can't help but physically respond to. Although, like I did probably as a kid, I grew bored because it does go on too long. But yeah, I mean, this was an earthquake moment for me in this show, but also in 1985 this single in particular it was just oh god rock can be good and not deodorized and poodly and you know it can be it can hit heavy um again so yeah i really like this single at the time and i love this performance

too i mean everyone goes on about pete burns but fucking old jazz colman's 10 times scarier in this yeah he looks like he's been made from the dissembled body parts of all the members of the Stranglers. I was never able to work out how serious or how funny this was meant to be. Because you look at it and you think they can't be totally serious. But then his later excursions into, you know, religious stuff. No, no, this is for real. And, of course, irony of ironies,

there are more laughs in this than anywhere else in this episode, thanks to that wonderful performance of comical intensity from Jazz Coleman. I mean, he is self-evidently ridiculous with his sort of crazy googly eyes and his tortured grimaces. It was the way he clutches his own head as though the sheer intensity of the content was just explosive and at any second it could go off, just shower the audience in fragments of brain and bone.

But, I mean, that's all common enough in rock music but he takes this so much further than anyone else ever thought they could get away with and every time the music reaches a crescendo uh he strikes that freddie mercury pose yeah the front of the dominion theater with like his fist up and spread legs And it's like he's looked at himself and thought, blimey, I sort of kind of look a bit like a fascist. I'll tell you what, I'll dress like a fascist. All he needs is some mirrored shades, you know, the tooth of one of your family members on his key ring.

But he gets away with all of it, just about, for three for three reasons one he's authentically a bit scary two and this is perhaps not unconnected to one he appears to really really believe it and three he does it in a way that's compatible with pop music like he doesn't just stand there expecting us to take his word for it that he's in terrible pain he gives us an entertaining performance of it and of course his name's jeremy and he's a bit posh and he's from cheltenham and he is a massive cornball but he's not a fake i mean there's nothing wrong with being a fake if you can fake it excitingly especially if your fake is more interesting than your truth but if you're not just

a fake you can always get away with that little bit more you can get away with being that little bit more ridiculous and you know i don't give a toss about killing joke or any of this 80s pumped up thundercloud rock you know all of which was happening in the wake of bloody u2 whether these bands would like to admit it or not yeah definitely man there's a definite you to influence here isn't it yeah but it's like the you two have shown bands like killing joe it look is how you have a hit right without compromising yourself but i quite like this record at the time and i think i like it even more now because it's a decent catchy pop single with a good doomy gimmick right it works

on that level um which i don't think any of their previous records have it's like the horror bags of pop music isn't it yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i mean the only thing you need to know here is that just before he starts doing his 15th century lunatic in prison eyes, he visibly glances around to check which camera he should be performing it to. And good for him, you know what I mean? We're going to talk about Jazz Coleman all through this dissection of the song because the rest of the band are just well Kenny, aren't they? Very much so.

I mean, you could have flown in all the Kens in Dead or Alive and put them behind Jazz Coleman and you wouldn't have noticed Well the obvious one that you just want to point and sneer at is the guitar player obviously but I think I hate the bassist more because he looks like

he was created by a neural network that's been shown every episode of Top of the Pops from the previous 12 months and then told to design a bassist. And also, he has the impressively gothic but slightly unfortunate name of Paul Raven, which, alas, he doesn't just share with the 1990s West Bromwich Albion defender. And, strangely enough, Paul Raven, he has one sleeve rolled up and one sleeve rolled down, and I don't know why. I don't know why.

It perhaps helps him. Perhaps he's on drugs. Perhaps, perhaps. But it's weird with Jazz because, you know, he's one of those figures where the myths are often sort of so preposterous that you've heard them in sort of piecemeal fashion. You sort of disbelieve them before realising, finding out

that they're true. You know, that he's like official composer in residence of the Prague Symphony Orchestra and things like that. These are all true. The man who ran off to the Sahara to avoid supporting the cult. It's just all a bit bizarre. Everything I've heard about

Jazz Coleman, for music journalist colleagues in particular should probably put me off him but i kind of admire his yeah it's just persistent commitment to nuttiness and ahead of his time in terms of conspiracy theorizing as well um i would argue i can believe that i mean this is particularly melody maker reference with with him when he delivered a a load of live maggots to our reception desk back in the day. And I mean, this will have resonances for Taylor. It was,

it was actually Marcia on the desk. So you can imagine what that was like, but you know, he held up a pet. He, he, he was actually being interviewed, I think by Neil Perry at the time for,

for a different magazine. And, and part of the story became that he went to a bait shop bought a load of live maggots turned up at mm's reception desk held up a pair of scissors in a cross um chanted some latin plunged the scissors into the liver um threw the maggots everywhere and scarpered you know things like this that you kind of hear is that's can't be right do emerge as true as when he i think killing joke once gaffer taped a journalist to the speakers as they sound checked they had a real kind of hostility towards journalists a mutual friend of me taylor and pricey's actually and a

kind of mutual writing hero of me taylor and pricey um is chris roberts and he remembers yeah he remembers early doors in his career having to interview Killing Joke and it going incredibly badly, very frosty. They insisted he took his beret off because they called it puffy and then they insisted on having their photo taken on the phonogram boardroom table.

I've got it here. Killing Joke decide to stand on the mahogany boardroom table so that they can be photographed like gods. Our own true situation. As the fourth member clambers on and I chew my gloves distractedly,

there's an almighty splintering and it cracks. It really cracks. Everyone bumps arsewards to the floor. Somebody says oh shit, like a guilty school boy. Jorday fixes me with a stare the first time he's acknowledged my existence

in about 10 minutes and states dryly, just when things were going so well. It's no use. I've long since surrendered to a fit of manly giggles and I'm hugging the wall. Killing joke have since been banned from EG Records boardroom. Yeah.

That's terrible, man. The trouble with people like Jazz is that you do always find yourself wanting something really inappropriate and levelling to happen to them, which would never have crossed your mind had they not come on like the dark lord of castle no jokes you know i mean you're just waiting for him to step backwards and trip over a runaway pig and land in the sitting position with his bottom in a water

barrel or uh or for a little kid with a giant lollipop and a sailor suit to call him a stinky bum and two-handedly push him off the end of a jetty. And then when he walks back out of the sea, there's a massive crab dangling from his nose by one pincer. Can you imagine how thunderous his face would be if that happened? Yeah, always hilarious. I'm guessing you've seen that weird 30 second appearance when he's on That's Life

oh god yeah yeah really bizarre street interview you know he's just he's just kind of he's just strolling down the street but he's unmistakably even in that

he doesn't pass as a normal person or a member of the public he is clearly a rock star oh yeah it seems with Dot Com they should have covered each other's songs. That would have been an interesting experiment.

It's mentally like Doc Cox is standing in the street and he's got some words written down on a big white board. Hello, I'm free. Seems like a nice boy. I'm off on holiday. Anybody like to come camping with me? I love you all. And then stage direction minces away so the basically doc cox is on the street with a bbc camera crew enticing people to act as a

comedy homosexual yes and yes along comes jazz coleman and doc cox doesn't know who he is and he does it and then walks off. Does he mint? Yeah, and tells Dot Cox to fuck off, I think. I mean, it's just one of those beautifully serendipitous moments. But it's part of the myth. It's part of the legend of jazz. And, you know, I think Pricey did something with Jazz Carmel last year

and he's still completely unhinged. Jazz, not Pricey. Which is reassuring. I mean, you can imagine he's probably right up to his neck in 5g corona conspiracies at the moment but i mean he's been doing this for 30 40 odd years now and killing joke we're always about that i mean i should really say i disagree with the u2 influence to be honest with you i think late 70s early 80s killing joke which i love is an influence on u2 which in an odd way then probably feeds back in a way.

But, you know, when U2 started getting good, they sounded like early Killing Joke. But yeah, this was, I mean, I think probably the last Killing Joke record anyone should care about. Although people do swear down by the later 80s ones. But yeah, I mean, I can't stress enough, Jazz Coleman's presence,

just seeing somebody with skin my colour being a nutty rock star was fantastic and crucially he was unplaceable that was what was exciting about it about Jazz Coleman's

face and manner basically he was massively unplaceable in terms of where the fuck he was from but it was just

that slight spark of familiarity I felt with such a great record as well was it was really important so it's a big moment for me in 85 yeah i remember them being interviewed in smash it when this came out because you know they were worrying the top 40 uh the only two things i remember about it is one of them threatened to punch the interviewer in the face which was uh you know a novelty in those days.

And the other one was there was a quote from Jazz Coleman saying, and I might not get the wording exactly right, but he said, our music is a beautiful music, a unique music, a music exclusively for the 80s. And he may have been right on that, unfortunately. exclusively for the 80s and he may have been right on that unfortunately but i yeah i enjoyed this if just because it made the cut back to simon bates's shiny sausage face and tv screen glasses seem really jarring and if you're gonna be a noisy rock band you have to at least do that yeah and bates the thing is when it cuts back to base he almost seems apologetic for it yes he's like you know he's not appalled by what he's just seen he's seen it all yeah but he

he wants to move on quickly put it that way so the following week love like blood jumped five places to number 19 and a week later it got to number 16 its highest position the follow-up kings and queens only got to number 58 in april of this year and they'd have to wait nine years for the next top 40 hit when millennium got to number 34 in may of 1994 and they split up for the first time two years later. Till I feel your nice love And as the tang of chlorinated chicken in pop form still lingers in our mouth despite the best efforts of Jazz Coleman now's the time to step away for a bit

and come back tomorrow for the final part of this episode. Before I go though, just want to remind you we do have an extensive video playlist for every episode of Chart Music. And this one can be found at bit.ly.com slash cmvids52. Or you can just go to the website or you can look at the link on your video player. Have a look. Have a good nose around 1985. Anyway, my name's Al Needham

They're Taylor Parks and Neil Kulkone See you tomorrow Stay Pop Crazed Chart Music GreatBigOwl.com Hello, I'm Chris England, and I'm here to tell you about the Fun Factory podcast, available now on Great Big Owl.

Each time, I will be reading a couple of chapters of my novel, The Fun Factory, a historical comedy about the history of comedy. So it will kind of be like a free audiobook, which you can listen to at the gym, or jogging, or at your desk while pretending to do your job, or on the train, without the embarrassment of people seeing you actually reading a book like some kind of SWAT.

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