Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - Chart Music #53 (Part 2): May 12th 1988 – Boing! Boing! Boing!

Episode Date: October 7, 2020

Chart Music #53: May 12th 1988 – Boing! Boing! Boing!The latest episode of the podcast which asks: if the first girl that Prince met on Alphabet St happened to be Blunder Woman, would he jerk his body like a horny pony would? This episode – THE LONGEST EVER, Pop-Crazed Youngsters – finally sees us slipping the surly bonds of this rubbish century to touch the smiley face of 1988. We’re on the very cusp of the Second Summer of Love, but your panel are a) leafing through Athena posters and avoiding Neighbours, b) Gothed up to buggery and living with elderly Greek widows, and c) sifting through their own vomit in the Market Square. And Top Of The Pops is reacting to the Acid House and Hip-Hop explosion by, well, playing the shittiest examples of it they could find, hosted by two people going in opposite directions. Simon Mayo: hungrily eyeing the alpha-male position of Radio One. Mike Read: he grows old, he grows old, he shall wear the sleeves of his leather jacket rolled.Musicwise, it’s a Pic ‘N’ Mix of the late Eighties – The Lateies, if you will – speckled with not one, not two, but three joke dance records. Harry Enfield and Star Turn On 45 Pints remind us what a progressive and hardcore act Jive Bunny was. Bill Shankly assumes the Malcolm X role. Derek B gets paid in pounds, not dollars. Belinda Carlisle slinks about on a beach. Ringo Ringo Ringo pass round the hat for Esther Rantzen. The Asda advert is Number One. And Prince and Prefab Sprout rush in to save the day.   Sarah Bee and Simon ‘Sorry, Girls – He’s Engaged’ Price don their Sun Bizarre Acid House t-shirts and dance around the abandoned warehouse of 1988, veering off on such tangents as knowing people off Withnail and I, Tony Blackburn’s face on a stick, how to cross our palm with Bummerdog, and Tony of Sneinton’s secret longings, painted on a living room wall in 1968. GET ON SOME SWEARING, matey!    Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Um... Chart music. Chart music. Chart music. Hey up you pop craze youngsters and welcome to the second part of the 53rd episode of Chart Music. The difficult 53rd episode, if you will. Once again, massive apologies for that. My fault, nothing to do with my colleague Sarah B and Simon Price. And on behalf of them, it gives me great pleasure to say, all right then, you pop-crazed youngsters,

it is time to get stuck into this episode of top of the pops always remember we make odan your favorite band or artist but we never forget they've been on top of the pops more than we have It's seven o'clock on Thursday, May the 12th, 1988, and we are five months into the reign of the fifth executive producer of Top of the Pops, Paul Charnay, a 46-year-old BBC veteran who got his start on Zocco, the BBC's first attempt as a Saturday morning kids show hosted by a talking pinball machine which was made by

Janet Ellis' dad in 1969 let's go through his other credits me dears, so after that he did 23 episodes of Jack and Ori in 1969 in 1970 he did Ed and Zed, the Saturday morning kids show

which starred Ed Stewart and a robot. Hope and Keane's Crazy House in 1971. Outer Space, another Saturday morning kids show from 1973. Bonnie, a kids show about a female sea captain in 1974. The Hope and Keen scene in 1975, and after a few episodes of Rent-A-Ghost in 1976, he seemed to have taken a break from the BBC, coming back in 1979 to do a couple of series of the Basil Brush show in the 80s.

From there, in 1981, he oversaw the relaunch of crackerjack for four years then he did two series of the keith harris show he reunited with the hosts of crackerjack to produce the cranky's electric comic while producing 129 episodes of call my bluff and the most recent thing he's done is the recent series of the kenny ever television show. I'm detecting a pattern in all of that, aren't you? In what way? Kids shows. Well, yeah, kids shows and light entertainment. And I suppose it's an example, not the first example either,

but of Top of the Pops being given to somebody whose track record is in light entertainment rather than the arts. And I know Top of the Pops was never the arty music show but even so you can kind of you can kind of see see that in the fingerprints that he leaves on it i mean he'd only do 66 episodes at top of the pops uh he became hiv positive in the summer of 1989 and would die in 1991 he didn't have much chance to change a lot of things the two key things he did was in 1989 he started introducing albums back into top of the pops uh but the main thing is he's the one who brought in all the kids tv presenters so you've got um simon parkin uh anthea turner andy crane

that lot presenting top of the pop so which was a bone of contention when we discussed this in a previous episode of child music i was definitely even even as a child as i was at the time i was definitely kind of like hang on what are they doing here it was just sort of an odd dissonant kind of thing like you know because i didn't feel i suppose yeah if you think about it top of the pops is quite an awkward thing it isn't either fish nor fowl, you know, where I can imagine there were a lot of furrowed brows over what to do with it and where to put it and how to deal with it. You know, like, is it like entertainment? Is it kids? No. Is it a kids show? No. But, you know, and yeah, and the failure to sort of take it seriously in that way is quite evident in some of its more kind of threadbare periods but um yeah i i didn't i didn't really want to see anthea turner's you know chirpy face apart from anything

else i mean much as i've complained about you know the various deficits of of different top of the pops presenters it's always weird when you see someone who's a who's really professional about it as kids tv presenters were at that time know, very sort of sharp and on it. And you get that with the sort of the late period, you know, the sort of end days of Top of the Pops. That Cat Dealey-type professionalism, you know, was just a little bit, or Amthia Turner-type professionalism was just a little bit, just kind of didn't quite fit.

Yeah, I mean, because when I was a kid, I absolutely fucking loved Top of the Pops. But I kind of like the idea that they were presenters for different things. I like the fact that Brian Kant and Fred Harris would never mix with DLT and Tony Blackburn. Actually, though, I'm thinking a Brian Kant-presented Top of the Pops could have been kind of amazing. Oh, yeah. yeah, definitely. Well, they could have gone the whole hog and just, you know, I don't know, get Bagpuss in. Yeah!

Get Bagpuss to sit up on the gantry and just awaken. And then after the number one's been on, he goes to sleep and everyone in the fucking studio goes to sleep as well. Oh, that's adorable. I'm just imagining that now in the fucking studio goes to sleep as well. Oh, that's adorable. I'm just imagining that now. That's all I want to see now. And, you know, you'd have the backing dancers

would just be the little mice, you know. Simon Bates was yaffle. You could have a dance troupe called Chocolate Biscuit Machine. I didn't have a TV, as I mentioned, and I wouldn't have watched it anyway because because i was and i was i wouldn't watch it anyway because i was a miserable goth but um had i caught an episode and there was anthea turner on it i'd have been like fuck off anthea turner that's you know that's the last

thing i want to see yeah really yeah i would i would have hated that development but apart from that i would it would seem that uh paul charn shiny was mainly given the jobs a safe pair of hands you know just sort of continuing what had been set in place in the 80s yeah he had a heck of a cv really i mean i know it's kind of not quite anything like this but you know he's done enough sort of interesting stuff and weird stuff i can't believe how many series were there of the keith harris show enough oh man it's never off the fucking telly christ yeah again even as a kid found that entire thing just a bit weird and creepy and unfunny and unappealing i wonder if it was a bbc ploy to have a pool of presenters who would start off as children's presenters and then grow old with

their audience so there'd be eternal older brothers and sisters because by this point the idea of a tv presenter you know in in the 70s it would be you know people like tony hart and brian count like kindly uncles and then by the 80s these people are you know your cooler older brothers mates or something like that i think that's happened with people like philip scofield you know i mean started off as a kids tv presenter and now he's doing whatever shit he's doing now fucking yeah this morning shitty adverts there's terrible adverts that are on all of the time i don't know but i didn't like it i didn't approve of it i felt patronized yeah but the trouble is, when people are brought in

because they chime with a particular generation and then they're allowed to grow old, it means that the next generation along inherits them and is a bit kind of baffled. And that's why, if I can mention the S word, we inherited monsters like Savile. And, you know, even leaving aside his crimes, just the presence of that creepy fucking freak.

And never mind Savile, DLT, DLT. You know, you're just like looking at these people as a child thinking, well, I don't really understand why they are there. You wouldn't have had the sort of context or the cultural knowledge to think, well, maybe in my parents' day, they were somehow relevant and young and fashionable and and they're still here because that's their job you it was it was just this kind of confusion at least from the late 80s onwards there was a bit of a turnover yeah and

people didn't just stay there for fucking ever yeah doing the job yeah it used to be in reverse didn't it because people like sa Savile and Noel Edmonds, their next move would be to do kids stuff. True, yeah, very true. You know, swap shop, Jim will fix it. And Mike Reid, of course, Saturday Superstore. Yeah. Now it's gone the other way around.

The good thing you can say about children's TV presenters is that they're not trying to be cool for the most part. And there's that desperation that I just find really exhausting on the part of a lot of these, of these uh you know the kind of the old guard or they're trying to be self-deprecating but they're trying to be cool it's just so knackering they're just they're very hands up who likes me about themselves and um you know somebody like anthea turner andy crane actually is is um i'd forgotten i did i did think he was really good at it he was just really natural but yeah i've never i mean look you know how I feel about this.

The one true presenter of Top of the Pops for me is Julian Cope and he only did it the one time. It was the best day ever. We are greeted by a blast of The Wizard by Paul Hardcastle with graphics of dissected guitars, saxophones, cassette tapes and vinyl, but not cds before settling upon the non-more 80s logo of top of the pops which i happen to be wearing right now on a badge given to me by gavin hogg of the giddy carousel of pop the smash hits podcast they do what we do with top

of the pops to to smash hits so you know when you finish listening to us, chuck them a tub. It's kind of caught somewhere between Tron and Asteroids, the graphics, isn't it? And it's very basic 3D, and the 3D-ness is overdone because it would have been novel at the time. So, yeah, we are spinning in black space through these kind of blocky notional representations of as you say cassette tape saxophone guitar record and so on and i guess i mean it's it's hard to be sure at this distance but um i would have been impressed at the time by that viewers

would have been impressed because at that point the idea of even owning a computer would have been like owning a mountain or a nuclear submarine or something yeah yeah i think i was one year away from uh owning a second hand amiga and you certainly couldn't do spinning saxophones on that so it's like new new stuff modern stuff futuristic stuff spinning towards you yeah exciting new stuff yeah i like i like these titles it does it does definitely engage your brain in a particular way and it's like right Heuristic stuff spinning towards you. Yeah. Exciting new stuff. Yeah, I like these titles. It does definitely engage your brain in a particular way, and it's like, right, prepare to be excited by things. But saxophones in 1988.

Oh, well, as we now know, thanks to a friend of the podcast, Chris Oakley, the last proper saxophone solo in a pop record was in 1988. Oh, and? It was the best. Oh, and? It was the best. Not simply the best, just the best by Tina Turner. Thank you for getting that right.

Previous, yeah, it's important. Unless, of course, you know better. Unless you know better, I want to know. I'm still, you know, he's done amazing work researching this, but I'm intrigued to know if any Dre ones in the 90s. Yes, thank you very much, Chris. When was Curtis Stigers? Because that was his whole thing, wasn't it? Playing the sax. That was a 90s one, wasn't it?

I don't know. Your hosts for this evening. Mike Reid, who is now 41 and now a strictly weekend fixture at Radio 1, hosting Singled Out, the renamed round table on Friday tea times, holding down the 10am slot on Saturday mornings between Peter Powell and Adrian Just,

and manning Jimmy Savile's oldies slot on Sunday dinner times. Your other host, Simon Mayo, who joined Radio 1 from Radio Nottingham two years ago, and has started the year as Janice Long's replacement for the evening show which was the old Kid Jensen slot which is currently sandwiched between Bruno Brooks and John Peel. He's also become the new host of the school's quiz show

Pop of the Form taking over from Mike Reed and in 11 days time he will be the new host of the breakfast show ripping Mike Smith down from the alpha male position of Radio 1. Oh, chaps. Simon Mayo, 29. Mike Reid, 41.

Here are two people going in the opposite direction on Radio 1. Yes, they are. Yeah, I mean, Mike Reid is a ghost of a man at this point. He's, you know, as you say, he's no longer doing Saturday Superstar. He's no longer doing Pop Quiz. And his status as a kind of central figure in BBC Entertainment is fading. He's still clinging on to Radio 1 just about, but only Saturday mornings. And he's got a biker jacket with the sleeves rolled up.

But the jacket is way too new and it screams a midlife crisis isn't it and yeah you can sense the simmering tension here there's no rapport no chemistry it's very much you say your

bit and I'll say mine a bit like when me and Taylor are on Shark Music he knows if you and Taylor are on Shark Music. He knows... If you and Taylor are Simon Mayo, I might read Who's Who. No, come on. Come on, Sarah, Who's Who? No, I'm not going there. But he knows that Mayo is the rising star.

He's the younger man, as you say, he's 29. And at this point... The mayonnaise rises to the top. The mayonnaise rises to the top, yeah. You know, as you say, he's 29, and at this point The mayonnaise rises to the top. The mayonnaise rises to the top, yeah. You know, as you say, he's doing the evening slot, but only two months later, he's being given Mike Reid's old job on breakfast. That's got to hurt. That's got to hurt

Mike Reid. I mean, Mayo is not particularly cool himself. He's not like a hip young guy. He's in a bad beige jacket with his sleeves rolled up. But the crucial thing is, Mayo, and I don't have any problem with Simon Mayo by the way, I think he's alright. I've got no animosity

towards him. But one thing that's in his favour here, he isn't desperate to appear cool. No. And Reed is. When Reed comes out with his car crash non-wise cracks, Mayo has the decency to look embarrassed for him. mayo's whole shtick

um is being the everyman that the coric role as he calls it on the film show he does on five live with mark kermode yeah and he's already doing it here really because he's i feel that if you just look at his expression when mike reed makes a non-joke, that Mayo is channeling the audience's mixture of discomfort and pity towards Mike Reid. I mean, it is tough to be the straight man if the other guy is not funny. You know, if the other guy is not. That's a tough gig, man. But like, and yeah, it is hard to do when when you're you're wearing your your mum's jacket i mean mike reed has objectively the better jacket here even if it's

not really his jacket in any meaningful sense but you know it's 1988 what are you gonna do i mean i don't mind i don't mind sign my at all i mean you know very much like the condiment that bears his name sort of bland but reliable with many applications one of the few former radio one djs and top of the pop so she wasn't making an ass of himself these days and actually carved a really nice niche for himself yeah yeah well he's got he's the sort of presenter that i prefer and that he's got that slight dryness it's that you know very sort of english kind of very slight kind of without being fully kind of eye rolly cynical or mugging he doesn't mug you know he's not a mugger so you know i mean he's not he's not john peel but nor is he no fucking edmunds you know and i mean yeah

he's not kid jensen either but you know who is so you know i'll take it and reed is mugging like a motherfucker here isn't he oh yes you know from the from the very start, he's shouting in a Cockney accent and waving banknotes around and he goes top of the wads and promises the show will have loads of singers, mainly tenors, tenors. And it took me a while to realise what he's doing, which we're going to come to. Because, right, it falls into that pattern of read saying something that has the shape and the

rhythm of a joke, but isn't actually a joke. He's so desperate to be funny, but he can't carry it off. Never could. No. Well, I mean,

the thing about Simon Mayo is every time he was on top of the pops, he always looked like the central character in a young person's bank account advert. You know what I mean yeah yeah and as is the style of the of this era he has got his sleeves rolled up on his horrible baggy thing but rolling up the sleeves of a leather jacket sarah this has been on my mind ever since i wanted to do this episode your thoughts rolling up the sleeves on a leather jacket we have discussed this before i believe you made quite an impassioned defense thoughts rolling up the sleeves on a leather jacket. We have discussed this before I believe.

You made quite an impassioned defence of the rolling the sleeves up thing against David's opinions. Yeah I'm fully for it. Even a leather jacket? Even a leather jacket. The thing with a leather jacket

is you don't it's not it's a different no no no it's all in the technique right because you're not rolling up the sleeves it's more of a shunt

it's just a kind of light shunt so you don't roll it all the way up so you're just exposing it's quite nice because it's you in the technique, right? Because you're not rolling up the sleeves. It's more of a shunt. It's just a kind of light shunt. So you don't roll it all the way up. So you're just exposing. It's quite nice because the leather jacket is kind of the uniform of the rebel and the malcontent and everything. And you're giving it a little bit of a slightly feminine edge by exposing your wrist and just a whisper of forearm. So you're just taking the edge off off the off the style a little bit and you know that is a good i don't think everyone can get away with it i i think certain people can get away with it jacko in the beat it video can get away yeah yeah that that red that red leather jacket which pushed up it's oh god

i loved i wanted that i had a t-shirt of that jacket printed on the T-shirt. It was great. Oh, my God. Simon Le Bon can get away with it as well. Yeah, yeah. But Mike Reid, not so. No, no. On Mike Reid, it looks like,

you know if the hairy bikers were vets instead of cugs? That's what they'd be wearing. The hairy vets. He's just gone off his bike and he's about to plunge his fist up a cow's arse. It's not right. And also with a leather jacket, and particularly with a new leather jacket, it would take a lot of effort to roll that up.

Yeah, you can't fight it too much. And if it's new and it's all kind of creaky still. But no, we do have quite an assortment of various vintages of leather jacket in this house and uh i mean my my my bloke um he he does it partly because his arms are slightly uh slightly longer than the average so he you know and you don't want the kind of you don't want it to just naturally end just above your wrist because it looks doesn't want to show wrist no just it's got to be wrist and a couple of inches of forearm that's like you know that's the idea so yeah and i'll do it as well i've got one that that is more comfortable to just sort of

shunt up a bit and i mean obviously women are kind of we can we can get away with stuff without people like us going oh what you're doing rolling up your sleeves yeah but still you know i think it's i think it's fine it's partly you you've got to, it's like anything. You have to just be able to carry it off with a sort of what, you know, and that is kind of laugh proof. You know, you're not going to get someone going, look at you with your stupid jacket. It's like, what? Which is the first thing that came out of my mind.

Yeah, but that's because, bless him, Mike Reed cannot pull off a leather jacket, especially not, this is a, you know, this is kind of close to the platonic ideal of a leather jacket i think with the you know with that that collar even though he's popped the collar but you know but but that's that's a good leather jacket but not on him because he's eric canton but he's you know he's wearing it like a like a suit jacket really because you know he's wearing it like a blazer which which you can't do so but um i don't

know i mean i have the most rudimentary fashion sense i'm kind of skidding inexorably towards just wearing one sort or another of pajamas indoors outdoors whatever as i think a lot of people are at the minute but you know um leather jackets i would say you are allowed to shunt them up sarah as rudimentary as you may consider your fashion sense to be, I think you're allowed to have a go at Mike Reed. I think you are still. You are in a position that you can do that. Is it punching down or is it punching across? I don't know.

Yeah, I don't know. Just as long as you punch him, though. Just as long as you punch him. He wouldn't feel it in that jacket. It looks pretty tough to me. I couldn't help noticing that there are many, many leather jackets in this episode of Top of the Pops. Possibly more than are in Sarah B's house.

So in a way, you know, Mike Reid with his leather jacket there is foreshadowing the entire show, isn't he? So many jackets. Yes. He's with it. He's with it. Definitely with it. Oi, you!

Shut your mouth and watch this show! I think what Mike is trying to say is he's got a pretty good programme coming up. We've got loads of acts, we've got loads of singers, mainly tenors, on top of the wads! In other words, on top of the pops at number four, Harry Enfield with an awful lot of money. Oi, you! Shut your mouth and look at my wad! Nodes of Money! This is a journey into money. Nodes of money.

Honey, honey, honey, it's time to make... Read! In mid-life crisis sunglasses, a black T-shirt and a leather jacket with the sleeves rolled up immediately launches into an appalling impersonation of the comedy sensation of the moment, while Mayo, in a horrible puffy taupe suit jacket with the sleeves also rolled up and a navy and white hoopie top, acts as straight man, while assorted kids who have been lacerated by the late 80s stick surround them and whoop and gurn the fucking crowd man yeah they're oh my god they're the squares aren't they the

squares it's the invasion of the squares because because you know in in previous top the pops is earlier in the 80s we might moan about zoo wankers or the people who look like they wanted to be zoo wankers fucking clothes horses and show ponies yeah people who look like they wanted to be zoo wankers fucking clothes horses and show ponies yeah people who look like they've been only just turned away from the blitz club but desperately wanted to get in and you know all those sort of people fucking bless them at least they were going for it yes trying something this lot with their fucking waistcoats and their floppy hats and just kind of gray and beige and just, oh, God. They're neither fashionable nor unfashionable. They're just sort of there.

Yeah. Fucking hell. They're like the extras in the Who Me YTS advert. Right. You know, the one where one of them kicks a can about and then Graham Taylor leans out the window and signs him up for something. I don't know.

Fucking lies. Yeah. While Reid wears a half-smug, half-embarrassed smile at his own shitness, Mayo introduces us to the first act who's just had their catchphrase ruined. It's Loads of Money, Doing Up the House by Harry Enfield. Created by Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson for Harry Enfield in 1988, Loads of Money was a plasterer who was based on Spurs fans who would wave £10 notes

at away fans from the north. After making his debut on the Channel 4 comedy show Friday Night Live in February of this year, Loads of Money immediately took off, working both as a satire on rampant C2 Thatcherism

or as a blatant celebration of the southern boom, depending on which side of the fence you were. As the latest series of Friday Night Live, which had practically turned into the show with loads of money on it, wound down at the end of last month, Enfield cashed in with a novelty single on Mercury Records with the assistance of Crunch Groove, one of the pseudonyms of William Orbit. It entered the charts last week at number 17,

and this week it soared 13 places to number 4, and here are Enfield, Whitehouse and Higson in the studio. Number fucking 4. Where do we start with this? I mean, in three months, loads of Money's absolutely blown up across the UK. He's just been the guest reviewer in the latest issue of Smash Hits, where he gives the following review for single of the century, Loads of Money, doing up the house.

This is the best record ever made. It's exactly like Beethoven, except without all that classical music rubbish and disco instead okay so musically if you can say that let's just get that out of the way I mean it's not is it it's sort of it's like a heap of fragments and it's just it's very very hard work I mean it's like a sort of musical aneurysm and you sort of get what it's getting at but it but why but why it is just you're kind of like why why have you done this especially when i discovered it was william orbit which i didn't realize it's like what the

fuck william orbit responsible for one of one of my favorite records ever fascinating rhythm you know and it's like what what are you doing man you know i know everyone's got to make money and stuff but it yeah it's very odd isn't it and especially for like you know the the first you know the opener of of the top of the pops it's so strange and you you know that it's satire and you know what it's satirizing and you can kind of put all that together but again you're just left with this really empty feeling of like what why why has everyone involved done this what's the sequence of events what's what's the what decisions led to this you know yeah it's like you've ordered pump up the volume by mars on wish.com isn't it follows the rules of of of dance music at the time um i mean the samples

and pastiches are just layer upon layer so you you start off with the paid in full remix uh you know this is a journey into money you really Really Got Me, Hey Big Spender, an actual sample of Money, Money, Money by ABBA. You know, a year after the jam sampled Dancing Queen and got the fucking arses ripped off them for it. Money Makes the World Go Round from Cabaret. Buffalo Girls, you know, all this scratching's making me rich. They've got the bass line or whatever to Money, That's What I Want.

And, of course, know you got soul and then sing a song of sixpence so it's lots of songs about money just mashed together so you know getting willie morbid in was a good move because he is obeying the rules it is a a dance record well sort of but silence i'm not trying to defend it i fucking it's awful no it it's it's really grim i mean and the thing is that it is it's a comedy well okay if it's a comedy song it's more it's not really a song and and nor is it especially funny so so why what what's you know what is this endeavor supposed to achieve i just really got a real kind of injection of that to the brain. It's quite depressing.

I mean, the thing is that this isn't even the low point of this episode, for fuck's sake, but not by a long shot. Oh, God. But it is that there are, as we will speak of later, something that does something very similar, but somehow worse. But it's, oh, God, so I was making my notes and it's like, oh, it's trying to... What's it doing?

It's trying... It's sending up stuff like S Express. And I was like, oh, God, sending up. It's such a horrible phrase and it's appropriate, you know, because it's not... It's Essex Express, isn't it? Yeah, but you see, that that you just pulled out of your arse

is actually more clever and amusing than anything in this kind of three-minute upset. I mean, the BBC would have been very happy to have the top comedy star at the moment on their channel. So they've pushed the boat out somewhat by actually allowing the video to be played in the top corner. Oh, yeah. At the same time.

Oh, yeah, they kind of cut to and fro, don't they? There's lots of prop money being thrown about, which apparently has been especially printed up and features loads of money with his arm around the queen who's winking at us and it's got bank of wads of dosh printed across the top so yeah as far as production standards go bbc have pushed the boat out a bit on here i think paul whitehouse is there just kind of looking gormless i guess he's supposed to be i don't knowormless. I guess he's supposed to be. I don't know what the idea is there. He's supposed to be just out of it. He's Lance, the YTS lad.

Oh, right. Okay. I don't know. But, you know, and they start kind of actually destroying some decks with saws. And then finally a colossal comedy hammer. Yes. A really, really big one that looks quite solid. And, you know i it is on

record that i i love the use of props on top of the pops but but not like this not like this you're just wantonly destroying things for no reason and the idea is that it's sort of it's going hey you all know what this is and you know you all know how absurd it is when people go on top of the pops and all they have is decks and they're just dancing and miming, even though everyone did. There's a slightly sour element of superiority in the whole thing. But it doesn't land in any way. It's supposed to be subversive, isn't it? But at this point, it's just it's not going to land.

And loads of money has become kind of stripped, I think, by now of its sort of satirical punch, if it ever had any in the first place. So, yeah, I'm just depressing myself talking about it please someone else say something. Simon I mean you didn't have a telly so what did you know of Loads of Money? Well you couldn't avoid it even if you didn't have a telly it was just this huge cultural fact you would run into it somewhere at somebody else's house

or on somebody's t-shirt or it was just everywhere I've got to say um watching this performance is the least fun i've had doing a chart music um and i i'm sorry i'm sorry to say that but um you know because i i love recording this podcast with you guys but this felt like fucking work um i think yeah I think I hate this. I hate this more than anything we've covered on Chart Music and I include in that B.A. Robertson and Oasis and anyone really.

First of all, Harry Enfield himself is despicable. Right. We've seen that as recently as this year when he was defending the use of blackface. I mean, that's the hill he decided to die on. Oh, yeah. Do you remember when things were being removed from Netflix and so on, like Little Britain and various other things due to having used blackface?

Well, he, Harry Enfield, went on Radio 4 defending having done that himself. He, of course black faced up as Nelson Mandela he portrayed Mandela as selling drugs and alco-pops to kids and his argument was well that was the stereotype of black people and

he was subverting that by basically repeating the fucking stereotype right and that's exactly what he's doing here that's exactly what he's doing here. That's exactly what he's doing here. In 1988, we didn't have the word chav and we didn't have the word cosplay, but this is chav cosplay.

That's what it is. And when you get things like this, I guess like, you know, Lee Nelson, Vicky Pollard, things like that, it always feels like punching down to me. It always leaves a sour taste. I suppose they're the odd thing that I'll give a pass to, like, Paul Carff, because, you know, Steve Coogan's not posh himself. And Ali G, because it's done with intelligence. Steve Coogan's not posh himself. Ali G, because it's done with intelligence.

But I just think that the supposed satire going on here just does not work and never did from the beginning. It's meant to be a satire of Thatcherite avarice, but as you said yourself, Al, it was taken by a lot of people as a celebration of that. I've gone it syndrome. Now, anybody could have seen that coming, right? Obviously, loads of people... Loads of people!

Sorry. It's the only time I'm going to do that. Many people thought it was something to aspire to. Yeah. But Harry Enfield is an educated man, expensively educated man. He should have seen this coming. And I'm always saying this about things like

Bored in the USA by Bruce Springsteen or Rocking in the Free World by Neil Young, that if you write some kind of big fist pumping patriotic chorus, if people don't read the small print and don't read the I think it's on Harry Enfield here that uh everybody just took it as celebration of being a kind of crass newly minted Essex man in a track suit um and that that whole thing you mentioned Al of him basing it on Cockney fans football fans waving wads of money at Liverpool supporters well this only escalated it people were doing it even more on the back of this people in football stadiums were shouting loads of money and waving wads of money at Liverpool supporters

if they were from London or something like that I'm guessing you never saw Saturday Live or Friday Night Live as it was by this point maybe once or twice

but I didn't like it he did that kebab shop man as well didn't he yeah and that was dodgy as fuck as well I mean oh god Channel 4 moved it this year to Friday Night which practically invented that kebab shop man as well, didn't he? Yeah, and that was dodgy as fuck as well. I mean, oh, God.

Channel 4 moved it this year to Friday nights, which practically invented their Friday night comedy strunt. And it was also a repository for the sort of bands that Channel 4 sorts liked. You know, this series that has just ended featured Voice of the Beehive, Fergal Sharker, Hue and Cry, The Communards, Magnum, Madness, The Primitives, Roachford, Eurythmics,

The Christians, Squeeze, Hot House Flowers, and Was Not Was. And a month ago, they got the pogues on to do Streets of Sorrow and Birmingham Six, but ooh, they cut to an ad break without telling them before they got to the Birmingham Six bit. Right, yeah. So yeah, so in this context, I mean, Ben Elton introduced loads of money in the to an ad break without telling them before they got to the birmingham six bit all right yeah so

yeah so in this context i mean ben elton introduced loads of money in the first episode of the new series saying oh you know we've moved to friday night um we've got a new set oh one of the plasterers who came in he's got something to say and that's how loads of money was introduced as as practically a hate figure for channel four sorts yeah so everyone can laugh at the idea of plasterers you know because they're so common and but but they've got a bit of money and enfield's idea of how to portray that is to jut his chin out and talk in a horrible mangled estuarine accent and to walk in a sort of bandy-legged way because that's what he thinks working class people are, you know? And just his idea of hip-hop is equally patronising and outdated.

You've got to remember, by this point, we'd already had fucking comedy hip-hop records like Wicker Rap by The Evasions and that John McEnroe one that I can't remember the name of now. The Brat. Yeah, yeah. And Morris' Major in the Minors, a minor in the majors, whatever it was. Which also

came from Saturday Live. Right. Right. So there you go. The thing is with this one is that Enfield and his, I guess he and William Orbit, but whoever else was responsible for this. For a start, they conflate house music and hip hop. It's as if

the only thing they've heard is the Beatmasters. they just think hip-hop and house is the same thing oh it's all that stuff it's all that kind of like like fake machine music that young people like let's sort of jumble it all together and make make fun of it and it's all a bit of a cod yeah yeah and and these are people like ba robertson and and like Jonathan King who hate pop, right? They certainly hate hip-hop and house. They disdain it. And they think it's easy, right? This record implies that it's a piece of piss to make a hip-hop record.

But ironically, it only serves to show that it isn't. It's more of a pastiche of house music than hip-hop, I'd say. Well, it's both because you've got the bit, all the scratching's making me rich, and then the DJ runs his needle needle across the grooves not inside them um so you know he thinks it's self-evident to any decent right-minded person that hip-hop is a easy and b shit right and i think that was a prevalent view it really was it was really hard to fight that off in my circles because if you were into kind of alternative rock music there's a lot of that among indie fans this

is why the war broke out at NME because a lot of people thought hip-hop wasn't even music well yeah I mean it really is showing it's saying so much more about them than they would have wanted to you know it's very very complacent it's very patronizing you know the entire thing and it's like oh we we are you know we will effortlessly skewer this thing that we haven't really cared to learn anything about you know you know i mean if you're going to satirize something there needs to be like a base level of respect for it in order to know enough about it to be that precise you know and obviously there's nothing precise about this it's just it's just a kind of mush of of of snotiness and and self-congratulation um i mean i do think if you're making a thing whether it's comedy drama or whatever you can't allow yourself to be too cowed by the worst

possible interpretation of it you know you can't go who's the most literal minded shit bag that will have access to this work and how will they interpret it you can't go who's the most literal minded shitbag that will have access to this work and how will they interpret it you can't kind of cow to that however i'm not sure that really applies here because yeah you are walking straight into it and irony only works if everyone buys into it it's you know much like social distancing in fact like it only works i can social distance from you but then if you don't do the same thing, then it's broken and I have broken it because you've broken it. So, you know, this is kind of recursive collapse of whatever patina of irony there was on this is just in this context. They've just they've just dispensed with it, really.

It's like, oh, well, you know, people like this and who cares why they like it. And let's just barrel ahead and get to number... What number is this at? Four. Fuck me. Four. Let's get to number four. Also, I discovered that Higson and Whitehouse did get royalties from this record, but they didn't have a formal contract. They lost out on the rights to the Loads of Money character, even though they co-created it. So they just got a fee in the first place. And then Harry Enfield went on on did adverts for like seconda and stuff and half the royalties from this went to abba anyway yes and then harry so i mean there's kind of meta ironies

in that harry enfield going on to do those cheeky adverts cheeky i mean this is pro it's proto bants isn't it really and it's that horrible thing where you now get anything unpleasant or wrong-headed or outdated or generally unhelpful is going to get waved away by Ice Bantz, and then it's on you because the failure of humour is on you. Oh, if you can't take a joke. Can't take a joke. And I've had a fucking bellyful of that, to be honest,

and there is a thing like this for me later but orders of magnitude worse it's like an attempt to drill down to the center of the earth right about this time he's he's asked the sun for a retraction after they used a picture of loads of money on the front page to promote their bingo game without his permission. The Sun responded by printing a story called Loads of Monies, where Stan Boardman, Jimmy Cricket and Max Bygraves told him how lucky he was to be promoted by The Sun. And they also issued an editorial which read, shut your mouth and look at our wad. Seriously, we believe you should buy yourself a decent sense of humour. This could well be the stage where alternative comedy stops being alternative.

But at the moment, it's still them and us. And Harry Enfield's still on the side of us. Hang on, is the implication that he objected to being on the front of the sun politically or just that he wanted to be paid for it? I'm not sure i'm guessing this is pre-hillsborough but i'm guessing comics of his status didn't want to be associated with the son yeah well he did plenty enough damage without needing their help honestly right i'm not exaggerating that loads of money is in the sort of top five maybe top three things in the late 80s that made me feel alienated from british culture

just made me despise this country and made me glad when i got out for a year when i fucked off to france in late 88 and it's just good to get away from this fucking cesspit that it was becoming because of stuff like this stuff like this being celebrated and aspired to which just to repeat myself but Enfield should have seen that coming maybe he did and he didn't give a shit that's the thing exactly he didn't give a shit and he sold loads of videos

but he did yeah sold loads of VHS's and t-shirts and whatever else off the back of it I mean the thing that would have offended me at the time is that what's this shit doing on why don't you put some proper dance music on? That's exactly it, Al. It's a given for this posh cunt

that hip-hop is rubbish. And I would imagine a lot of people at the BBC, at Top of the Pops, would have kind of agreed with him. So they were happier to put by the way, not one but two actually not two but three parody hip-hop records on this show

than give any kind of airtime to real hip-hop. There's a direct diss in here, by the way. I don't know if you picked it up, where he says, Derek B on your bike. Yes. Rude! Yes. So the following week, loads of money doing up the house dropped two places to number six

and he never troubled the charts again good as it turned out and as sarah's pointed out the single failed to raise a substantial amount of cash for co-creators white house and cakes and when they realized that 50 of the royalties had to go to abba for the money money money, money sample. And they didn't have a formal contract with Enfield, which meant he got what was left, and all revenue from an advertising campaign with Seconda Watches later that year. After Friday Night Live was cancelled by Channel 4, and loads of money was referenced in speeches by both Neil Kinnock and Margaret Thatcher, he was killed off in March of 1989

after giving Comic Relief a massive check for 10p and then being knocked down by a Ford Sierra outside the BBC studios. And a year later, Enfield appeared in the sun again under the headline, Bish Bosh I've Spent All Me Dosh, where he revealed that he'd lost a fortune on property deals, but he became a full-on BBC man in 1990

with the sketch show Harry Enfield's television programme. Devo, Devo, Devo, Devo Wash, wash, wash Sing a song of sex Prince with Alphabet Street. Reid, loitering around the side of the studio with the kids, including a goth girl with a ridiculous permy quiff and her mate, tells us what a great start to the show that was and that the next act is properly minted. It's Prince with Alphabet Street. We've covered Prince in chart music number 30 and this single, the follow-up to I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man, which got to number 25 in December of 1987,

is the lead cut from his 10th official LP, Love Sex, which came out at the beginning of the week. It entered the charts at number 18 last week, and this week it soared nine places to number nine. And here's a sliver of the video, which features him princing about in front of some computer-generated graphics. Simon, at last, Prince. Proper Prince. Can I shock you?

No, surely not. I don't love this. No? Don't you? Here's the thing. Here's the thing. Of all the Prince records That are any good It's one of the least good It's doing an impression

Of a great song Right It seems on the surface of it To be a great Three minute Three chord pop song It's doing all the moves Pulling all the moves

Of a great pop song Even the fact of being called Alphabet Street You just think A B C It's just simplicity And all of that But

I'm not gonna say it's shaking kiss but but it's it's it's kiss light it's diet kiss it's kiss zero it's got the same trebly sound range and the same use of space and silence um the same very minimal production and and don't get me wrong right it's it's it's better than anything else in this episode of top the pops by a million miles sorry to spoiler that but it is it's fucking prince right if if i was making a mix cd remember making mix cds for people rather than fucking spotify plays if i was making a mix cd of the best of prince which i have done many times for many people obviously this has to be on it because it's expected it's it's one of the biggies but i don't love it it leaves me a little bit cold it's a little clunky rather

than funky i would say uh in places and i probably sound like a real sort of entitled spoiled cunt for saying that because it's prince and it's a good record but it's just not right right up there the song actually picks up in the full length version, the album version or the 12-inch version, where you've got Cat Glover coming in, doing a rap going, talk to me lover, come and tell me what you taste. That line, by the way,

corroborates a theory about the song which I guess we're going to come to. And that bit of jerk your body like a horny pony. Yeah, jerk your body like a horny pony. Well done. It's amazing, isn't it? That bit. Obviously, yeah, there's a theory that it's about cunnilingus,

specifically the alphabet technique, where you spell out each letter of the alphabet with your tongue. I don't know about that, but yeah, that bit where Kat goes, tell me what you taste, does seem to sort of back that up. It's the lead cut from Love Sexy, which I would say the last of his run of indisputably great albums. Not that he didn't make great records after that, but he had that unbroken run, probably from his debut, but certainly from Dirty Mind, right through to Love Sexy. Just masterpiece after masterpiece. right through to Love Sexy, just masterpiece after masterpiece.

In hindsight, also, though, Love Sexy was what I would call the start of his bullshit, right? Because there's this whole conceptual thing going on about the battle between Christ, who is Love Sexy, and the devil, who is Spooky Electric. And some of that plays out in the extended alphabet street, indeed. But, I mean, as a fan, there's stuff on the album that just blows my mind and sends shivers through me, like Anastasia. It's just one of the greatest things, just greatest piece of music of that decade,

greatest things he ever did. The album had only come out two days before this episode of Top of the Pops. Did you buy it? Yeah, yeah, I did. I probably hadn't really had a chance to digest it all yet. Two months after this Top of the Pops, I went to see him. My first ever Prince gig. And it was the Love Sexy Tour.

Did you see him, Al, on that tour? Only on Channel 4. Oh, right. Okay. So anyway. They broadcast a gig from Germany live. Right, yeah. So you know the whole setup that he had this big sort of hydraulic open-top car that he's going around.

And there's a bed. And he plays a bit of basketball, and all this shit going on. It was just amazing. And also, sorry if I digress into talking about the gig and about Prince in general, but as a fan, and I was, I couldn't afford to own all his records yet at that stage. It's not like now, you can just fucking nick it all off the internet. Yeah.

I could maybe borrow a couple of things off mates and tape them, but there were holes in my knowledge of his catalogue. So he starts off with Erotic City, which I'd never heard before. It's actually the B-side of Let's Go Crazy. That just blew me away. Just to open the song, the song I'd never heard before, like where the fuck did that come from? And then midway through, there's just him on his own with electric guitar,

and he plays this blinding, melodic, new wave guitar song solo, which I'd never heard before, which was When You Were Mine. Yeah. Imagine hearing that for the first time and hearing it live, him in front of you, and you're thinking, what? Is this new? Where did this come from? Yeah. So just the whole experience was overwhelming.

I remember even getting to the gig was this weird kind of road to Damascus or pilgrimage to Lourdes kind of situation because it was a boiling hot July day and I couldn't afford public transport to get there. I was so skint. I had to walk from my then girlfriend's house, which is in Crouch End, all the way to Wembley, which if you know your London geography is a fucking long walk actually i walked i walked all the way there by the time

i got there i was like dehydrated and uh at the end of the gig i thought did i hallucinate the whole fucking thing because it was that good so yeah um i've got a lot of love for love sexy a lot of um great memories associated with it because of that. I think with Alphabet Street, because he pushed the boat out artistically quite far with the Sign of the Times album, which is obviously a total masterpiece, probably his greatest album, that or Parade, I think there was probably pressure to start this campaign with a hit.

So Alphabet Street has got a hit written all over it, hasn't it? Yes. campaign with a hit right so alphabet street has got hit written all over it hasn't it yes um he recorded it on in the festive perineum of 87 uh 30th of december just before new year's eve um paisley park which he'd only just paid for and built with you know all these i guess purple rain millions the next day he played a benefit gig in Minneapolis for the homeless. The Minnesota Coalition for the Homeless. He used to do these kind of benefit gigs. With Miles Davis as his guest. And they played this song together.

Well, actually, it was part of the finale of the gig was this interminable funk jam, It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night, which people will know from the Sign Of The Times album but quite often that will just turn into like a 20 minute, 30 minute funk jam with whatever else thrown in and he's throwing in bits of Mother Popcorn and Cold Sweat by James Brown and all kinds of stuff like that

but he throws in a bit of Alphabet Street now I've listened to a bootleg of it and I've scammed through it quite a lot and I can't find that bit so i don't know if it's almost unrecognizable but yeah um in theory the world's first appearance uh performance of this song was with miles davis um blowing hard you know so uh yeah that's that's a nice bit of history to it i feel like i've got some stuff to say about the lyrics and about the video but I've been wanging on about it for quite a bit so I need to let Sarah in. Sarah, as a ten year old

what's Prince saying to you at this time? I think I didn't quite know what to make of Prince yet but this would definitely have been a good sort of gateway to Prince at that time. It's such a joy, it's so playful i mean i i'm sure i i

obviously i i um i yield to to um simon on his prince knowledge but for me this is just one of the most joyous sounds i know i mean if it comes on anywhere i will bust a move i will i have to you know i i will go on the floor and i will do the popular squirrel dance. You know, it's just that's what's going to happen. It's, you know, it's such it's got this kind of I'm sure. Yeah, it is like he could have done this in his sleep, but it's very it's got such a kind of positive current in it, you know, and it's. Yeah. And of course, any any suggestion of rudeness would have gone way over my head. But there's a clear and present naughtiness about it. know it's really obviously rude in some way um but it's just very it's very happy it's very positive it's like a sort of quite an explosion of serotonin and

probably other things but you know yeah i mean but in terms of the video as it's placed here i mean after the slog of loads of money you know it's such an emotional rollercoaster this episode what are you doing to actually jesus and you go yes fucking prince and it's such a you know thank god but it's such a it's a meatloaf moment isn't it it's like you play there's you go from some horrible british sludge that is a real insult to everyone's intelligence and then a flash of american brilliance for a minute and 40 seconds and then and then they just snatch it away and replace it with something shitter um no spoilers but it's like oh thanks i mean my relationship with prince is very similar to david boa and you know when they both died in the same year i got the same feeling oh this is fucking horrible but

i know so many other people who it's gonna hurt more and i immediately thought of them i mean as i've said before when i was at college you could divide people into two camps morrissey people and prince people and you always wanted to be around the prince people i was both so catch me on a good day you know you might want to hang around with me but i had a mate who just dealt me a tape of love sexy right away and i had the same feeling as you simon i heard this before i heard the album i thought oh here we go again and you know i've gone back and listened to love sex uh this past week and yeah after sign of the times anything's going to be a bit of a, not going to say disappointment,

but it's not grabbing me as much as Sign of the Times did. But of course, before then, I'd heard the Black Album. Yeah. And I know you had that, Simon. Yeah, I got a bootleg from Camden for 20 quid, yeah. Which was a lot of money in those days, yeah. Didn't see Prince live that year, but I did see the Sign of the Times concert, which comes out in the UK, I think, a month after this.

Which is weird timing, yeah. Yeah, massively weird timing. And the abiding memory of that, apart from the bit where he slides across the floor under Cat's legs and pulls a bloody skirt off with his teeth. And God knows I've tried that so many times and failed so many times. Just before the film starts,

it starts getting dark in the cinema and someone in the audience said, you know, everybody in the house go, and my mate who was with his girlfriend, so he was sat a few rows behind me and me other mates, just shouts, how about everybody just shut the fuck up

and uh yeah that that's that's my main reminder of the of that film but yeah i mean the video all one minute and 20 seconds or whatever it is i mean it would have seemed massively futuristic in 1988 but like uh the michael jackson video for you are not alone it's not aged well has it no i stated really badly these floating letters of the alphabet um yeah going around him um i mean first of all just about prince himself he looks really beautiful oh yeah i mean he's not saying yeah it does but even by his standards he's wearing some lovely clothes um. He's got this kind of mint green and black colour scheme going on. He's moved on from peach and black. He's got this mint green shirt, polka dots and these boots.

He's going through a big polka dot phase actually around this time. And lovely long wavy hair. But the video itself just looks really cheap. Yes. The floating letters of the alphabet. It's kind of like they fed prince and a car and some legs into a word processor and then sat on it oh he's gone down the trocadero i went to look at the uh the full version i mean not not very much to be fair not very much else

happens i mean you've got you know that basically it's a kind of prince writhing on the floor in some tracky bottoms emblazoned with the word prince, which I would love some of those. You know when you've got a pair of trousers with your name on them, you know you've succeeded at life. Unless you're called Joe Bloggs or Giorgio. His mum sewed that on. It's in case he lost them at school. He'd lost them so many times.

Prince! Right on, like, up the half the thigh you should have got some someone with price down the side oh trust me i've thought about it i've actually photoshopped um you know price of the revolution it's a little kind of that was i think that was my facebook profile pic for a while so yeah i mean we've just there's a nice selection of things like a sort of box of chocolates of Prince, you know, Prince's best moves, you know, shot of Prince's bare chest that you should linger on for slightly too long.

Prince pretending to drive and then Prince kind of actually driving. Prince crawling after some legs. Yes. Heels. And Prince's eye with extra eyebrow. You know, but yeah, all the words kind of flying about. There's messages, not hidden messages.

There are sort of semi-hidden messages, including, yeah, including God I love you, heaven is so beautiful, don't buy the Black Album, I'm sorry. Yeah. He'll be pleased to know that I didn't because I got my mate to tape it for me again.

So don't worry, Prince. And H is for punks. H is for punks h is for punks yes and he doesn't mean punks is a good thing he doesn't think punks are cool so his heroine he's basically yeah i mean he's using it in that kind of yeah like like sort of clint eastwood clint eastwood style punks like go ahead yeah yeah there's also for the light dance yeah if you don't mind and david stubbs criedried When He Heard the Ugly Duckling by Mike Reid. On the YouTube video that I watched, always look at the comments,

because I know YouTube comments are famously a kind of toxic bin fire, but you often get really interesting stuff in there. And there are comments purportedly from the people who made the video. There's from three years ago and two years ago, respectively. PR Epstein. I'm the one that directed this cheesy video. I was supposed to supervise the edit, but time constraints and scheduling were conflicted.

So Prince went on without me and cut it at some facility in LA. I remember Prince had this idea to shoot this at six o'clock on a Sunday evening. We filmed until 6am Monday morning. Down the road I made a better director's cut. Didn't he watch Highway? What the fuck's wrong with him down the road i made a better director's cut with better contrast i tried to post it several times but youtube kept taking it down because of stupid copyright infringements thank you pr epstein and then uh yeah and then after that peter bait good day to you all my very polite my name is peter and I made this video with... So I guess this is the guy who edited it.

I made this video with Prince back in the late 80s. I worked at Editel, which was one of the premier edit house in the day. He had shot all the footage at his place and showed up one Monday night with a box of tapes because he knew of my effects work. Remember, this was before the computers and software of today. I had to layer each letter in the video one at a time. So like it might look shit but like loads of work went into it he said i enjoyed a healthy working relationship with him a nice guy

incredibly talented i still have other versions of the video with more messages in it but we felt we wouldn't get away with it as much as we did i'm so glad this is available to all thanks so there you go that's something to dig into isn't it it is um this is really interesting right because i also did some reading up on on the video and what sarah has said there corroborates a lot of what i found out um it's quite an incredible story and it's very prince it's very prince this whole thing yeah so apparently until the last minute despite this being the fucking lead single from his new album, he was refusing to even shoot a video, right? Just being Prince, being stubborn.

Then he suddenly decided he did want to make a video on a Sunday in Minneapolis in the middle of a snowstorm, right? So he got Alan Leeds, who's one of his management team, and also the brother of Eric Leeds, who plays Sax on the album, to set it up that instant. They had to shoot it that day. Just fucking now. Do me a favour. Snowstorm, Minneapolis on a Sunday. Eric Leeds tries telling Prince,

look, you're not in Los Angeles. There aren't just top quality film crews on every block, right? He wasn't taking no for an answer. So Eric Leeds just had to be seen to be making an effort. He rang absolutely everyone in the broader Minnesota area who was up to the task. And a lot of them either didn't get back to him or they were snowed in or they just refused, right?

So eventually Eric Leeds has to start flicking through his roller decks for and i don't i don't want to sort of uh say this about the the nice gentleman that sarah was just quoting but the second and third rate people but he did find this up-and-coming guy who may have been uh one of those two i must have been one of those two uh people who was desperate for a break so as for a location the best thing they could come up with was a local cable TV station. All the effects done on blue screen. And yeah, they didn't start filming till 11 at night. The director had to add, as we've heard, all the lettering, including the message about

not buying the Black Album and that anti-drugs, ages for punks thing. This is after Prince had done all his prancing and writhing about. He'd gone home. He'd gone home and just left him to it. Off for some sex. Yeah, probably. That's why it looks like it cost about 50 pence even by 80s standards. The other thing I was going to say about it is

the one minute and 20 seconds or whatever, 40 seconds that we get here, there's just a really heartbreaking bit in it as a fan. It's when i think the first thing we see him do he falls into the splits and then does a reverse split without using his hands just springs back up again yes in fucking high heel boots so that ultimately is what got him on the buprenorphine the opioids you know so and i i get that when i see any prince footage now that there was a gig that got shown during lockdown

of one of his gigs from the Purple Rain era, and he just jumps off a high speaker stack down onto the stage without even bending his legs. And you just think, oh, fucking hell, man. No wonder he was in such pain towards the end and he got addicted to opioids. So, yeah, it's weird how these things become tainted with a bit of sadness

the lyrics though right so I'm going down to Alphabet Street I'm going to crown the first girl that I meet right I mean leaving aside the oral sex bit and what he means by crown exactly

the first girl that he meets, right? Yeah. Really, I mean, I know people reckon... I know a lot of people say Prince had quality control issues. And there's your evidence. So what, he turns the corner in his dad's Thunderbirds, right? He turns the corner into Alphabet Street and he literally starts chatting up the first girl that he meets.

Oh, you know, Princess Chagot. What if it's Bella Enberg or something? Oh, that'd be great, though. But he's always gone on about how looks don't matter. You know, no, not the body, your mind, your soul, and you don't have to be beautiful, etc. But you never heard about him in real life dating Hatchetface from the john waters movies

did you do you know what i mean so i don't know if i believe him there and also just the whole thing of him driving around in the car hassling women i mean he's he's not he's not a scrub in the passenger side but he is still driving around bothering women and i i don't know if that's cool yeah but but summer is gonna talk so sexier. She'll want him from his head to his feet. It's alright though. Like, it's not real. It's not real. It's not real, Pricey. It's alright. No actual women

or legs were harmed in the making of this song or video. Can I stop worrying? I can stop worrying about it. Yeah, yeah. It's alright. Stand down. Stand down. I appreciate your allyship. Your allyship is noted and appreciated. Well, these days you have to be performatively ally-like don't you I mean it's where the money's at

but he did describe it I believe as an oral cartoon and it definitely has that kind of Tex Avery thing about it of like I'm going to drive to Alphabet Street I'm going to take off one of my dainty little high-heeled shoes and I'm going to theatrically bop myself in the head with it while howling but um i i don't know has anyone suggested so okay so maybe it's about oral sex okay that that's that stacks up especially because uh the

risk in the long version the recitation of the alphabet at the end misses out the G. Coincidence? Don't think so. Why wouldn't he do the G, though? Because he's already on the G. It's Ingrid Chavez doing that. It's Ingrid Chavez, yeah. So maybe it's like the man with two brains and her brain's been put in a glass jar that's been heated too much and they cooked her G's they cooked her g's

why the inhumanity the other theory is that alphabet street apparently is uh it's a strip of road in minneapolis there it is i was just gonna say it links up 26 streets named from a to z uh but we don't know which one precisely because there are seven streets like that in Minneapolis so it's not really about noshing, it's about roadworks well it's about, so okay, he's not actually he's having to, you know, pull over the car a few times just because there's stuff in the way

no, but Alfred, if it's a street of, you know, ladies of the night and then the first girl that I meet is going to be of a certain standard I don't know yeah oh my god what the fuck is this podcast but do you know like if it's if it's the notorious alphabet street where all the women come to ply their wares then you know he's probably gonna luck out he doesn't have to be picky why can't you just do a song called i like licking fanny

jeff sex would have done that he don't give a toss i mean he probably did i'll be honest with you now i know we don't like going off on tangents on chart music but about 10 years ago my mate bought an ass in nottingham off this nice old couple and um you know they moved in and started doing it up and the living room was just layer upon layer of manky 70s wallpaper so they start stripping it off and they get to the end and on the wall in paint in graffiti in massive letters were the words i like eating fanny tony now tony was the the bloke in this nice old couple and they'd only just moved up the road, got a bungalow or something, and she came round to pick up some bits and bobs,

and my mate was in two minds whether to show her or not, but she did in the end, because, you know, you've got to, haven't you? And the woman looked at it, and she looked at my mate and said, oh, he must have done that in 1968 when we moved in, and then she looked back at it, and then she looked back at my mate again and said, well, he never told me. So there you go. Prince could have performed in front of that.

Saved himself a lot of money and a lot of effort. I think, I mean, subtext is a thing, you know, that apparently for all that Americans aren't supposed to be that subtle, you know, they're definitely, in this episode of Top of the Pops so far, in terms of subtlety and subtext, it's America 1, Britain 0. Yeah, but Prince had his moments of being very direct and I expect that somewhere, maybe on the crystal ball

or the vault Old Friends for Sale or one of those, like, Obscurities compilations, there is indeed I Like Licking Fanny. So the following week, Alphabet Street dropped two places to number 11, although Love Sexy would enter the LP chart the following week at number one. The follow-up, Glam Slam,

would only get to number 29 for two weeks in July, and he didn't have to wait a year for his next UK top ten hit when Backdance got to number two. for two weeks in July and he didn't have to wait a year for his next UK top 10 hit when Backdance got to number two and four years later he got loads of money when Arrested Development used the word Tennessee in their single of the same name without clearing it and his lawyers demanded and got a flat fee for $100,000. They were quite nice about it, though. They waited until it had been successful and stuff,

and then, you know... And apparently he was very nice about it later, but, yeah, he still... You know, he was like, yeah, that's fine, I like the track, but also it was 100 grand, so, you know. Mm, yeah. I mean, he could have demanded a percentage. He was a bit like James Brown,

in that he didn't like hip-hop to begin with. He didn't trust hip-hop to begin with he didn't trust it um you know he thought it was all just you know stealing talent from real musicians like him i think he sort of changed his tune very belatedly on that but um yeah that probably explains a little bit why he's setting the legal boys. Alphabet Street's like Sesame Street, only with more letters. And now here comes our first look at the charts. Part one.

A new entry at number 40, Heart and What About Love. And a new entry at 39, Billy Ocean and Calypso Crazy. Ofra Hazza enters at 38 with Im Ninalu. And new at 37, Debbie Gibson and Out of the Blue. Also out, Out of Reach, The Primitives, this week standing at number 36. New in at 35, Poison, Nothing But A Good Time. Pebbles and their girlfriend are down to 34. Next new entries there at 33, Somewhere In My Heart, Aztec Camera.

Brenda Russell's Piano In The Dark this week is at 32. And Belinda Carlile is in at 31. Circle in the Sound. Wonderful, brilliant, mega-superb. All words that have been used to describe our next band making a debut on Top of the Pops. They are fabulous. At number 23, supporting Fleetwood Mac, The Adventures, Broken Lamb. Yes! Reid and Mayo, now realigned, run down the chart from 40 to 31 before Mayo, flanked by two blonde women and a pig man in teal who keeps whooping for no reason whatsoever, tells us about a band who he claims has been described as wonderful, brilliant, mega, superb.

superb. As he and his minions rush off to the other side of the balcony in excitement, we discover that it's the Adventures with Broken Land. Formed in Belfast in the early 80s, the Adventures were fronted by Terry Sharp, who appeared on top of the pops in September of 1979 as the lead singer of Star Jets, whose single War Story got to number 51 before they changed their name to Tango Brigade and split up after a flop single. After a stint as the fill-in lead singer of the Angelic Upstarts, Sharp returned to Belfast and formed The Adventures, who were signed to Chrysalis Records in 1984 and hooked up with a manager called Simon Fuller. Although they bagged a support slot on Tears For Fears' 1985 world tour, their first four singles languished in the wrong

end of the top 100, and they spent the next two years wriggling out of their Chrysalis deal, signing to Elektra and working on their second LP. This is the lead cut from that LP, The Sea of Love, and it's the follow-up to Two Rivers, which got to number 96 in October of 1985. It's been given a massive push by Electra and loads of airplay. It began a slow pull up the charts in late March, it finally entered the top 43 weeks ago, and this week it's up seven places from number 30 to number 23. And two days before they support Fleetwood Mac on the European leg of their world tour, here they are on the top of the pop stage at last. Well, me dears, as is the style of this era, the band picks woefully competent again, aren't they? I mean, the only thing that's leaping out to me is the style of this era the band picks woefully competent again aren't they

i mean the only thing that's leaping out to me is that picture of poison where one of them's sticking up two fingers but in an abusive way like foreigners do when they attempt a peace sign and get it all wrong i think debbie gibson leapt out at me i can't remember the song out of the blue but just the existence of deb Gibson and she and Tiffany were very much the kind of Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus of their day, but they never made it to the doing interesting stuff stage that, that those two have done these kind of germ free adolescence that America was foisting on us.

And they were very much sort of analogous to the stock-aching Waterman stars and starlets. And yeah, we've talked before about how Jonathan King forced or sort of sped up the Americanisation of Britain in the late 80s. And I think it was really reaching some kind of horrific peak around this time.

Yeah, nothing really stands out to me. Like you said, they've cottoned on now to the fact that you need to make the pictures good. Yes. I was quite struck by just the beautiful hair of pebbles. Oh, yeah. Filling the entire, just sort of gorgeous crimped black hair, just filling the whole frame. So I was just distracted by that and going god that's good hair um i mean generally given this is 1988 there is it's quite a hair

filled chart yes primitives lots of hair poison even more hair heart so much hair i just loved how telling the little intro and outro to the to the chart was um about the relationship between or the non-relationship between Mike Reid and Simon Mayo, because Reid goes Alphabet Street, like Sesame Street, but with more letters, which is exactly what I'm talking about. It's not a joke. It doesn't mean anything. Hang on.

Sesame Street use more letters. They use the full alphabet. They do G. Good point. Don't even try and pick it apart. It just doesn't. It don't even. Okay. Sorry. But It just doesn't, it don't even. Okay, sorry.

But Mayo just blanks him and he tumbleweeds him. He fucking tumbleweeds him, which is brilliant. He just jumps in to say, let's look at the charts, part one. And then when we see Mayo

at the outro of it, he's not there anymore. He's filmed below from a jaunty angle, which I guess that might be Paul Chiani at work there. But one thing I noticed about the crowd in general, the people hanging around him, they're all these kind of hyped up, gibbering idiots. They're really overexcited.

I wondered, are they all pissed? Are they all drunk? Right? And I found an interview with Anthea Turnerer talking about the porciani era she says that uh he he turned it top of the pops into a big party and that the team the production crew the camera cameraman everything used to sort of whip everyone up whip the audience up into this state of enthusiasm and and that there'd be a big party in the bar afterwards. And that kind of corroborates my sense of watching this episode, whether it's the women with frizzy blonde hair and bad hats

or the men who all look like spam-faced young David Camerons. You know, they all look fucking drunk. There's this atmosphere of just sort of like a pissed newsy party where people don't really care if they like the record or not. It's just like... Yeah. There was a guy earlier, actually, that I didn't pick up on on the last intersection

where he was clapping, but not just with his hands, with his whole forearms. Like a seal. Yeah, basically. Like a walrus or something, like an excited walrus it was it was quite something so the adventures wonderful brilliant mega superb i mean i know absolutely

fuck all about the adventures but thankfully simon mayo does he might not be the radio one breakfast dj just yet but he's already cutting some major deals. I have in my hand a copy of yesterday's Reading Evening Post, which features his column, the unoriginally titled Simon Says. He nicked that off you, Simon. I am going to sue. He fills his column inches laying out the red hot pop goss on the people of Berkshire.

And the lead article in this week's column is Tickle Tackle from the Tabloids. Congratulations to Irish band The Adventures, whose broken land has given them their first chart hit and who seem to do equally well with the atmospheric new album Sea of Love. However, as singer Terry Sharp told me, success has also meant papers with less integrity than this one have been making up stories about him and his long-standing girlfriend, Sarah of Bananarama.

It doesn't bother me so long as they print the truth, said Terry. But I did one interview and they asked me how intimidating it had been to live in the shadow of a famous girlfriend. I said it had never been a problem. I think her success is great. We get invited to the best parties. But when it appeared, it said I'd confessed to years of heartbreak about living in her shadow. The unfortunate thing is that a lot of unintelligent people believe what they read in those papers and the gap between the truth and what is printed is astonishing.

I don't mind talking to responsible papers like this but I'll never talk to Sarah To any of the tabloids Ever again Oh the lamestream Media Can't believe the MSN man Fake news So Terry or as I'm going to call him

From now on Mr Sarah He's got his hair Gelled back and he's wearing the sort of Short leather jacket that beloved of bros around about this time uh teamed with ripped 501 so you know it's that look that makes him look like an extra in a bar scene in top gun isn't it that's quite a sloppy ensemble isn't it yeah it's it's very soft the leather it's it's a lovely soft brown leather blouse on. It's like chamois, chamois leather.

You could buff your family saloon car with it in the driveway on a Sunday. In fact, that's what you're supposed to do to really bring it out. Yeah. It's a bit love joy, I think. Well, he's not over... He's one of those frontmen who's not necessarily a natural frontman he's not overburdened with

either charisma or front because this is sort of it's reaching for anthemic the tune which I appreciate the ambition of that always when people do that but it doesn't quite hit it.

And his voice is not quite up to an anthem either. It's a bit reedy. I'm suddenly overcome with just self-disgust, though. He's sitting here going, look at them, Tom the Pops. Does this happen to you occasionally or is it just me? You just go, God, I'm such a cunt. No, they're on top of the pop we never forget that they've been on top of the pops more than we have yes i know this is a disclaimer but still

and also they've been given the opportunity to be on top of the pops so if they're not up to it then you know tough shit fair enough the thing is that um i thought when we were um when when you were telling us about this episode i was like I have no idea what this is. And then when I heard it, it wasn't until the chorus kicked in that I went, oh, it's this. And I knew it from, apparently it was the most played track on Radio 1 in 1988. Yes, which shows just how little of Radio 1 I was listening to at the time.

Because I swear down, this is the first time I've heard this song. Yeah, no, I definitely heard it. Which shows just how little of Radio 1 I was listening to at the time. Because I swear down, this is the first time I've heard this song. Yeah, no, I definitely heard it. And I was just like, oh, okay, but there's no memory attached to it at all. Do you know what I mean? You know when you hear a thing and you go, ooh, and you get a flash of some half-remembered something in your brain or just a feeling or a sensation. And with this, it was like, oh, oh, it's that.

And so it was just like somebody very boring in my brain went, yes, we have heard this before. I was like, oh, oh, it's that. And so it was just like somebody very boring in my brain went, yes, we have heard this before. I was like, oh, okay, thanks. Thanks for the information. It was just completely neutral, you know. But then I realised, I was like, what does this remind me of? And I had to sing various things in my head until I hit on it. And it's Wouldn't It Be Good by Nick Kershaw.

Yes. Yeah, yeah, big time. That's what this is. It's a sort of slightly kind by Nick Kershaw. Yes. Yeah, yeah, big time. That's what this is. It's a sort of slightly kind of sleepier version of that. But yeah, I mean, the thing about the chorus is that there's a, I mean, it starts in the way that I like things to start. There's a kind of loping grandiosity about it and a melancholy, which is like, oh, this is all up my street.

It's a slightly talk-talky sort of thing with the strident piano which is nice it's really nice and then the chorus kicks in and it's like oh there's a sort of there's the Irish whistle that aligns with the vocal line I just thought it's kind of it's it just feels unnecessary I mean it's like of course you want to align yourself with the proud tradition and you want to reference it but it's just kind of not adding anything here it's like no it does go a bit Irishy at the end doesn't it yeah to start off i've got to say that the drummer um paul crowder um messaged me on twitter earlier this year about something or other um you're not gonna strike my band off are you he makes music documentaries so i just want to say that the drumming on this track is wonderful brilliant

mega superb. Because, yeah, he's... Oh, by the way, he was also the engineer on Last Christmas by Wham! and Kayla Swissper. Oh, was he now? Last Christmas by Wham! and Kayla Swissper, George Michael. And on Susie's Nocturne live album. And in terms of films, he's won awards for films about skateboarding. This is one called Dogtown and Z-Boys.

Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. And he co-directed the film about the American football team, New York Cosmos, Once in a Lifetime. Fuck! Yeah, yeah. So he's a significant filmmaker. So I just want to praise his drumming.

What amazing careers people have. The thing is, once you start doing it, and this is going to come up again later as well, is these three minutes that you see of someone on top of the pops might be the height of what they've done, right? Might be nothing compared to what they went on to do, you know? Exactly. But yeah, we've heard a bit about the singer Terry's past before this moment.

And he was already 33, so it's kind of last chance saloon for him. And you look at the rest of the band, they all look fairly old as well. They all look like knocking on a bit. I actually watched the clip of Terry Sharp in his previous band, The Star Jets, on Top of the Pops. And I've got to say, to some people, it might look like very tinny amateur punk, but it dawned on me that if somebody put it to me

that it sounds a bit like the early manic street preachers, I couldn't really deny it, because it kind of does now i like war stories i was shocked when i was doing the notes of this and found out that it wasn't a top 40 yet because i remember that song very well i loved it at the time it's the first time i've heard it i've got to be honest um and then i guess he had his moment making a cameo in the bananarama video shy boy right he was the shy boy was it yeah yeah yeah He's in that video. But yeah, you do get the sense that this is his last big shot or their last big shot at it.

It only reached number 20, but it feels like a bigger hit. And Sarah mentioned that it was the most played song on Radio 1 in 88. You said, Al, that you can't remember it. I can. This is my thought. It's like, all right, well, it wasn't a big chart hit this is my thought it's like all right well it wasn't

a big chart hit but the reason it's stuck in my head because it really is stuck in my head is that it was on the radio all the fucking time it really was radio one really wanted that to be bigger than it was the verses of the song as sarah pointed out are quite you know quite talk talkish with the piano quite uh white pajjama, I would say. If anyone doesn't know what white pyjama music is, where can they find out, Al? You can go to the Chomp Musicator's head, Al Wicker. Yes.

Or you can just collar Simon in a pub. After you've shouted bummer dog at him, ask him to explain to you about white pyjama music. After you've crossed his palm with bummer dog. Yeah, yeah. So it starts off in that quite kind of downbeat way but the chorus spoils it or improves it depending on your taste by going all all epic you know it's one of those kind of standing on a cliff top gazing meaningfully into the oncoming wind with you know your your your mullet flapping in the breeze he spoils it by not having a mullet, actually. This band, they sound like they've got mullets.

They haven't, but they ought to. But somehow they don't quite have the conviction of their own mega epicness because, you know, when it comes to the bit, in the shadow of this truly dying world, something catches his eye in the Top of the Pops audience and he does a cheesy grin. And it just seems to kind of go against the the sort of tone of what he's trying to say in the song but the the chorus it all right yeah it is um very similar to the nick kershaw song wouldn't it be good but it is massive it's a it's an impossible to argue with chorus you're just like

oh okay um i'm gonna just sit here while you do your thing, chorus, because you are huge. It's a very big chorus. A weird thing to still be happening in the late 80s, this kind of music, or then again, maybe not, because there was a lot of what I call record company rock knocking around at this time. So it was bands like Diesel Park West, River City People, Goodbye Mr. McKenzie, lots of three-word names.

And then also people like Hurrah, the Milltown Brothers, then Jericho, who actually broke big for five minutes. Danny Wilson, who are actually in this top 40 finally after the third reissue. But this sort of airbrushed, stonewashed pop rock

that record companies really spent a lot of money on and really thought could break big. And usually it didn't. The song, the Wikipedia entry for it says the song references their experiences of the Troubles with a capital T. Well, yeah, it does. But it's not exactly suspect device. It certainly isn't.

It's not even Sunday Bloody Sunday. It goes, These rivers run too deep With schemes of men for days that lay ahead They sell their souls so cheap They breed mistrust and fill my heart with dread. So it's not very explicit about... Why don't they just make some love on wasteland?

Exactly, right? I guess they're trying to appeal to all communities and make a plea for unity through the barricades, as you say. But even if you didn't know that one of them was called Gerard Spud Murphy, you could probably figure out the community that they're coming from. I mean, it's got the tin whistle and the fiddle, and there has to be a genius to sort of kind of decode that um and indeed terry sharp went to saint malachy's college which is a big catholic school in belfast amon holmes went there martin o'neill that's where he's coming

from sorry this is some really grandiose i have to take my hat off to to you for the depth of your research here this is amazing man i'm i'm fucking pro here yeah um so uh they were managed by simon fuller who later invented the spice girls and s club and simon fuller right was certified by billboard as being the most successful british music manager of all time and that's that's including people like brian epstein and uh andrew luke oldham so i read an interview and again deep research here, with Terry Sharp from The Adventures, where he says, I think he made all his mistakes with us. Yes.

So he's laughing about it now. I find it kind of hard to hate this song. It's very not me. It was very much against everything that I was into at the time. There's something a bit upsetting about how the guy, when he sings Open Up Your Arms, it's actually whoopin' up your arms is whoopin'. I never liked that kind of thing.

But it's kind of, as I say, it's this kind of steamroller of a big chorus that's impossible to argue with. I don't think they necessarily had much else in the locker. In the dying seconds of this performance, I don't know if you noticed, but he crouches down and frantically waves at something in the distance

and I would say it's the Avengers chart career leaving them. Taxi for the Avengers. No wonder he's fucking put off though, Simon, because, you know, top of the pops are rolling out their new innovation. The camera crew, they've got handheld cameras now, which means they can really get involved on stage.

And it gives us as the audience the opportunity to see the keyboard player cupping his bollocks as he plays with his free hand. I didn't see that. Yes, yes. Another thing I thought was kind of sweet about this is that there's a female member of the band uh eileen gribbon i think her name is she plays the viola and backing

singer and on this record she doesn't appear to do anything she doesn't really appear to do any backing singing but they're obviously like well look you're in the band we're on top of the pops you're fucking coming with us yeah so she just sort of stands there and sort of boogies a little bit yeah you can't bez just yet can you you just bring your knitting in that and you know yeah that'd be really good if someone just sat there and knitted a scarf the only other note i've got for this uh song is stop fucking whooping stupid audience but they're all pissed yeah they're all smashed out their minds on on malibu and pineapple yeah god yeah this is such a malibu and pineapple situation this this entire era of top of the pops isn't it so the

following week broken land slipped up three places to number 20 but got no further the follow-up drowning in the sea of love would only get to number 44 in July of this year, and they never got to suckle at the teat of the top 40 ever again. After taking a folkier direction, their next LP, Trading Secrets with the Moon, flopped in early 1990, and they were dropped by Elektra. And after being picked up by Polydor, they put out two more LPs, which also failed to chart chart and they split up in 1993 Alright Impulcrate Jumsters

I do believe it is time to step back from this episode and catch a bit of a breather. So come and join us tomorrow for more 1988-related larks and jollities. On behalf of Sarah B and Simon Price, my name's Al Needham. Go easy. Step lightly. Stay pop-crazed. Stay pop crazed. Shark music.

GreatBigOwl.com Heavy Pencil. An actor of my experience, you just get run dry. A podcast sitcom with Anna Crilly and Tony Gardner. I played Edmund Gelder and he played Fanny Snatch. The Observer called it a lovely thing. Wonderfully funny, pitched perfectly, produced with a light touch. I'm not having any more of this. I need you to pull me off immediately. Heavy Pencil from Great Big Owl.

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