Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - Chart Music #53 (Part 4): May 12th 1988 – Boing! Boing! Boing!

Episode Date: October 9, 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.

This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull-apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks for the small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. My name's Jason Fleming. The More Than My Past podcast will see me talking to a wide range of inspiring people. People who have confronted and overcome addiction or imprisonment or both and turn their lives around. I did mad things that was hurting myself and hurting other people. Everybody grows up in a house called normal. Heroin addiction and chaos was my normal. Some people don't understand the word moderation and I was definitely one of those people. The More Than My Past podcast. don't understand the word moderation and i was definitely one of those people the more than my

past podcast the following podcast is a member of the great big owl family this will certainly have an adult theme and might well contain strong scenes of sex or violence which could be quite graphic it may also contain some very explicit language which will frequently mean sexual swear words. What do you like to listen to? Um... Chart music. Chart music.

Hey up you pop crazy youngsters and welcome to the final part of episode 53 of Chart Music. A mammoth trawl through May the 12th 1988. I'm your host Al Needham alongside Sarah B and Simon Price. And before we get stuck into the final bit, the denouement if you will, another public service announcement. I don't know if you know this but we always do a video playlist for every episode of Chart Music we do and this one for this episode is fucking massive. fucking massive. There's about 154 videos in there all related to what we see and what we say. So if you want a deeper chart music experience

get your arse over there. bit.ly dash chart music vids all one word. Thank you. Onward! Here comes the sexiest act on top of the box tonight, no question. Because they almost couldn't make it because their dance match was going to be held tonight. But it's okay. They are here.

Star turns on 45. Pump up the bidder. This is a journey into space. The names of your kids to protect the committee. So knock the wild hood, bring the drums in, let's have a party. Pump up the bitter. Shh, test it. Mayo, on the balcony, prepares us for the sexiest act on the show tonight,

who almost couldn't make it because of a darts match or something. It's Pump Up The Bitter by Star Turn on 45 Pints. Formed in Whitley Bay in 1981, Star Turn comprised of Steve O'Donnell, who produced a couple of records for the female new wave band Girl Squad in the late 70s, Colin Horton jennings a former member of the prog band the greatest show on earth which also featured norman what roy of the blockheads and jay vincent edwards the lead singer of the newcastle freak beat band the answers

who became an original member of the west end cast of here and co-wrote Right Back Where We Started From for Max in 90 Gale in 1975. Drawing upon Edwards's experiences in the working men's club scene in the northeast they formed a group based on the concept of the pub singer and their first single Are You Affiliated achieved moderate local success. Then as the charts of 1981 were gripped by medley fever they seized their chance and put out star turn on 45 pints which got to number 45 in october of that year after putting out the lp are you affiliated in 1984 the project was put on hold but when the youth of 1988 went dance crazy all over again they realigned for this single a pastiche of mars's pump up the volume obviously it's entered the charts two weeks ago at number 39 that soared 24 places to number 15 after the video appeared at

the end of top of the pops two weeks ago and this week it's jumped three places to number 15 after the video appeared at the end of top of the pops two weeks ago and this week it's jumped three places to number 12 before we get into this i forgot to mention when we did kenny rogers in the last christmas episode there was a pub singer round our way called fine time fontaine and uh what he'd do is he'd do the rounds of every pub in the area that had a turn on, demand to do Lucille by Kenny Rogers, and then piss off to the next pub. So yeah, big shout to Fine Time Fontaine there. So yeah, ripping the piss out

of the Wheel Tappers and Shunters would have been absolutely fine in 1981, where they did it with the original star turn on 45 pints, but in 1988? Even 81, it was a bit old hat i would say i mean yeah but that was the joke yeah i mean the concept of the pub singer was a standard comedy trope of the 80s wasn't it i mean steve wright used to do it all the time and then you know vic reeves did it didn't they

i was wondering about vic reeves um about whether this record predates vic reeves doing it he predates him doing on telly but whether vick reeves was doing this in his show his big night out down in new cross i don't know i mean yeah obviously it was a standard thing and yeah i mean vick reeves kind of just made it fully fully absurd like made a sort of balloon animal out of it um but like a balloon animal that doesn't quite have the form of an animal and you know as such it was it was it was pretty funny but this man alive it's for a start it's very generous to call it pastiche um i feel like that pastiche requires more thought and and uh but i'm not

sure they were even i have to try okay I've got to just like try not to get too enraged about this because it just made me really angry and I resent having to sit through this fucking bollocks but anyway that's okay that's alright but it's a low

it's a very really low send up and it has no charm it has no humour really it has nothing to recommend it whatsoever it's a very really low send up and it has no charm it has no humor really it has nothing to recommend it whatsoever it's i mean loads of money is worse in terms of how nasty it is but this is pretty nasty and it's got some some moments in in its 20 minute lifespan which is how long it felt watching it it's got some like some low points and then some even lower points. I mean, it is a low point. It's a low point for this episode.

It's a low point for this television show. It's a low point for this year, for this timeline, including the pandemic. It's a low fucking point. And I'll be intrigued to hear any defence of it on any level at all. It's like a bad chip shop curry directly to the brain. Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure I would even call it a pastiche so much as a protest record.

I think it's a protest record made by people who, as I said when we were talking about loads of money, people to whom it was self-evident that dance music and hip-hop was shit. You know, right-thinking people. To me, it's the ancestor of the mindset of that weird alliance of far-right libertarians and anarcho-hippie lefties that got together and and shared their germs

in Trafalgar Square recently with the British Union of Fascists flag hanging down in front of Piers Corbyn and all of that essentially Covidiots and Brexiters it's that kind of mentality going on here this kind of stubborn it's teaching it's teaching a pug to give a nazi salute isn't it it's that level of of yes humor yeah it is it is and you look at these fuckers they are dead behind the eyes they're dead they're dead-eyed they're dead either shark-eyed they're dead-eyed and in turn it-eyed. They're dead-eyed. And in turn, it leaves me stony-faced. The humour in it, it's so, so weak. The first thing we see, another example of deliberately bad scratching,

like the loads of money thing. Yes. From a guy who's doing that face where you're pretending you've forgotten your false teeth, that face. Gurning. Yeah. It's like champion gurning, isn't it? Yeah, yeah.

Which we'll see a lot of over the next few years. Yeah. It's like champion Gurning, isn't it? Yeah. Which we'll see a lot of over the next few years. Yeah. A big like. Well, people are performing dance music. Yeah.

Pioneers, man. But this guy's more harking back to the nationwide thing of having like a rubber tie around his neck with British Gurning champion on it.

Yeah, absolutely. So it's that guy. He's on Worthington-y. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The main guy, J. Vincent Edwards in uh horse racing cap and his tweed jacket by the way um it's very generous of wikipedia to say that he co-wrote right back where we started really by maxine

nightingale because that song no much as i love it it's a fantastic fucking wikipedia's write me down again no no i mean i'm just disagreeing with it on the basis that Right Back Where We Started From is just a fantastic record, don't get me wrong. Yes. But it was lifted 80, 85% from a previous record, Goodbye, Nothing to Say, by Nosmo King and the Javels, which was a Northern Soul hit a couple of years earlier.

So, yeah, he co-wrote it in that he basically nicked somebody else's entire fucking song and changed the words. As great as the Maxine Nightingale single is. The humour in this is based on the assumption that we all share the idea that playing the spoons or the simple words pork scratchings are inherently funny it's that bathos of britishness that um leaves me cold i just don't don't fight maybe because i'm not english you know i'm from wales which is a bit off to the side and we sort of we we sort of watch we watch with a certain bemusement um hey listen i'm i'm English and I'm very, very embarrassed. All right, well, yeah, I probably can't claim that as... Also, I'm Northern English, really, which is even worse.

You are Northern, so it's your fault, Sarah. Yeah, exactly. Well, no, I'm born in London, mate. The whole Northern thing was just a distraction. Oh, like Stubbs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But going back to the thing of, you know,

it's self-evident to these people that that Hip hop and dance records like Pump Up The Volume Are rubbish There is that bit where he goes Okay gang what do you think is this load of garbage Because the assumption is That the audience is going yeah it's a load of garbage Said by Tony Blackburn Yeah on a stick

Tony Blackburn on a stick A giant Tony Blackburn face On a stick that sounds like such an insult look at him over there look at that tony blackburn on a stick i mean it's like fucking boshy in this isn't it it's like a boshy and nightmare playing out on the top of the pop stage over several hours it's just fucking horrible it's such an easy target as well. Like, pump up the volume, because I remember that coming out, and as a nine-year-old or whatever, just a ten-year-old, not knowing what to make of it. But I enjoyed it, and I was like, there is obviously something there.

There's something at work there. And again, playfulness, without being stupid or kind of base or faffing about like a twat. You know, it's precise and it's got ideas flying around all over the place. And it's like, that's great. And there's not an acknowledgement in this bullshit that these records have a sense of humour and lightness about themselves to start with. You know, Mark Moore of S Express was larking about. Yes.

Raves were larks. Like people were dicking around. People laughed. There's humour in that. It's not jokes. But there's no target either. It just is of itself. And it's fun.

is of itself and it's fun it's about having fun in in a really quite elevated and and wholesome way and that's the thing is it just some people just it rung them out completely they did not know what to make of it at all oh look all the funny bleeps and bloops oh look at the funny baggy pants look at they're not even singing which is always you know, always the first line of stupid criticism. It's not proper music. But it's so deeply conservative in every single way. They think they're taking the piss out of something that is kind of po-faced and chin-scratchy. But it's like, no, it was dance music to be danced to.

Yes. By, in a loose and natural way, however you feel needs to be expressed through the medium of your bones and muscles, however it comes out. And that's what that is. And this is like the opposite end of the universe to all that is good and true and high, basically.

It's, yeah. Fuck everything about this forever. They've tried to set up the stage like a working men's club stage. You know, they've got a bingo blower and they've got, you know, various signs everywhere. I mean, the one thing about the Tony Blackburn thing, it's essentially a Tony Blackburn mask that you can wiggle the chin about.

So it looks like him but on the video it looks like a mask of Paul Young why? why him? that is odd well you've got the fake Elvis guy in a gold suit

the second star turn yeah that's right he is actually star turned but the second gold Elvis suit this episode yes by someone from the Northeast. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

A lot of it about in the Northeast. I mean, like the king of rock and roll, Startern is a faded singer trying to keep up with the times. This is the whole joke, basically. Yeah, but it's Dapper Laugh's grade joke, though, isn't it? Do you know what I mean? It's like, oh, I'm doing like after the fact,

you can kind of go, yeah, but I was doing a character. It's like, but is, in order to do a character, you have to actually create a character. And I don't, I don't see one there. Yeah. See, I don't trust them an inch. I don't trust that this is real self-deprecation. Like, oh dear, we're, we're behind the times and we're sort of, you know, silly old duffers. I don't, I don't trust that this is real self-deprecation like oh dear we're we're behind

the times and we're sort of you know silly old duffers i don't i don't buy that at all i think this is actually a really arrogant and dismissive thing i mean the thing is that from their perspective or from this perspective i kind of don't want to talk about them as as like what they do because this is like so clearly a kind of belch from the bowels of the culture. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? It's a reactionary outburst. So it's kind of like they don't necessarily even realise what they're doing.

Do you know what I mean? It's like these things are working through them. From their perspective, something like Pump Up the Volume is a novelty record. They're not going to think of themselves as punching up or down, just like across. They're not going to think of themselves as punching up or down, just like a cross. It's basically one traditional strand of the culture instinctively attempting to assert itself over an emergent one through this kind of casual comedic disparagement. It's producing something of, as far as I'm concerned, zero value that purports to be a withering smackdown of something that it thinks is even less value yeah it's basically it's it's middle age looking down its nose at youth and its parents looking down their nose at kids it's pub looking down its nose at rave and it's beer looking down its nose uh ecstasy it's a bunch of

blokes displaying their ignorance like it's worth something the thing is that in lots of ways you can safely ignore it you know the the kind of great natural cultural juggernaut of like it's worth something. The thing is that in lots of ways you can safely ignore it. You know, the kind of great natural cultural juggernaut of what it's taken the piss out of doesn't need defending. It's completely fine. This is nothing. I mean, if you played this to somebody who, well, if they were on a comedown, maybe they'd start crying. But, you know, if you played this to somebody who is of that... I'm just playing this in a chill out room

then people would just kind of be like you know they wouldn't like they just be like what's this this is this is silly you know they're not going to be like well no maybe they would because people have very profound emotional experiences to do with you know what they're taking the piss out of and so maybe people would get upset but i don't know but hey look i've got upset about it look at me so you know shows what i know but the thing is now we are quite painfully and acutely attuned to like how prejudice manifests itself as we've discussed at great length already in this episode in so many different ways but and this is you know it's it's proto-bants and everything but there's some really really unpleasant moments in it. The worst one being... I don't even know where to start with it.

I mean, so one of them, so your man, there's a sort of sample of, is it a sample, is it somebody? No, it's him singing. It's a cover. He's doing an impression. He's doing an impression. He's doing an impression of Offer a Hazard on Pump Up the Volume. Imin and Lou. He's doing like a sort of faux Indian yodel.

And then the other one says, can somebody help Mrs. Patel out? She's having one of her turns. Yes. And I just... I only have two fists, but I just want to... There's at least eight punches incurred by that.

And, you know, if I could reach back to 1988 and duff them up for this until they wept. Absolutely fuck off in every way forever. I've listened to their back catalogue and Mrs Patel is a reoccurring character. Okay. You've put more research into this than they fucking deserve maybe maybe you actually enjoy listening to their old lps or something but steady as far as i was concerned you've got you've got this guy it's fucking elvis guy starting doing that yodeling impression of offra hazard who by the way is israeli same same thing potato potato you know

what i mean yes it's just straight up nuclear weapons grade racism yeah yeah this record this is this record is just straight up brexit that's it's so fucking brexit and and you know also uh you know uh secondarily um sexist and um what we would now describe as ableist i guess having having one one of her turns, I hate that shit. That's so close to like, oh, is she on her period? I was just, I was, you know, express the mildest. I've had people say that to my phone. I mean, not so much, you know, recently,

which I guess is progress. But I've literally had people, to be honest, men, you know, sorry, you know it's men. I'm going to say it's men. Just take, like the expression of the mildest disagreement or anything at all period like you cannot make a peep around some people without being accused of being hormonal and or mental which is basically the same thing you're basically saying you have been overtaken by your by your weird mysterious icky female bodily functions and you don't know what you're doing yeah and i don't take anything you have to say

seriously god i'm getting so angry now i'm actually like smiling in that way that you do when you're just yeah it's about to reach for the knife all all my teeth are getting an airing in this room right now. And the thing is, they fuck it up. Because you can clearly see that E is singing those lines. So it's like, what are you going on about? I can't clearly see anything through this red mist. It's just gross. It's just really, really grim. Now, you know what?

We knew well enough in 1988 that this was wrong. We did. You know, the idea that anyone who's a bit foreign singing in a funny voice, it's all the same, whether they're from Israel or Yemen, as Ofra has us family originally, or they're from India, it's all the same. And you could just call them Mrs. Patel, right?

And I don't care if it's a recurring character, right? Because essentially what they're doing, they're saying, oh oh people from over that way they're all the same that is pure Bernard Manning shit and it was in 88 it already was even in fucking 78

because that record also it's not displayed to its finest in the sample because it's kind of sped up and compressed and it does sound a little bit it's a bit of an odd thing the way that it drops in the sample because it's kind of sped up and compressed and it does sound a little bit... It is a bit of an odd thing, the way that it drops in the middle of that record.

Which I love, by the way. I don't know. Let's get him to pump up the volume maybe after this because it's fucking great. How influential are Eric B and Rakim at the minute? They're everywhere. Insane. It is their...

That's kind of the atmosphere in which everything else exists. It's amazing. you know, that's kind of the atmosphere in which everything else exists. It's amazing. And rightly, because fucking hell. We can slag off this group all we want, and we have. I'm not done yet. There's blend to be ascribed elsewhere. What the fuck is Top of the Pops doing putting this on?

Yeah, what is Top of the Pops doing putting this on? Choosing to put this on. And loads of money. Why is that? This is what top of the pops thinks dance music is oh it's all the same so so strange and and enraging but yeah it's it's im nin aloo such an amazing mad record itself such a beautiful soaring record and her voice was incredible it still gives you shivers when you hear it now and so put that on that's in the

charts it's so good and she yeah just don't do this what are you doing i'm sorry i did have so much more to say about this that isn't just like roars of of crossness but fuck fuck no go with your heart sarah i mean this is this is like the nadir this is i like this is the Nadir. This is one of the worst. I feel like of all the low points in Top of the Pops, this has got to be down there. So the following week, Pump Up the Bitter dropped nine places to number 21. The follow-up, Lock, Stock and Barrel, a tribute to Rick Astley and Kyler,

only got to number 97 in July, and they closed out 1988 with Christmas Party getting to number 88 in December. They resurfaced in the mid-90s to have a go at Robson and Jerome with covers of I Believe and Up on the Roof and the LP may be definitely the best turn album in the world ever

which featured covers of Parklife, Roll With It, Gangsters Paradise, Killing Me Softly and Killing an Arab. the world ever which featured covers of park life roll with it gangsters paradise killing me softly and killing an arab and now come the charts part two. This week's number 30, Jermaine Stewart and Get Lucky. Climbing Fisher at 29, Love Changes Everything. I'm 11 to 28, go Prefab Sprout and the King of Rock and Roll. Joyce Sims walks away at number 27 this week

big rise up 10 to 26 bad young brother from derrick b the born again christians at number 25 patrick swayze featuring wendy fraser she's like the wind at 24 and up 7 to 23 the The Adventures in Broken Land. Rise of 7 to 22 for Start Talking Love from Magnum. Fleetwood Mac at 21 in Everywhere. James Brown, The Payback Mix, standing at number 20. And George Michael with one more try is at 19. The Pet Shop Boys, former number one, Heart, is at 18.

And at 17, a Love Supreme, that's Will Downing. Up six for Narada, Divine Emotions this week at number 16. Back into the new entries at number 15, Kylie Minogue, Got To Be Certain. Pat and Mick, Let's All Chant at number 14. And the Liverpool Football Club, the Anfield Rap, is in at 13. Star turn on 45, Pints at number 12 with Pop Up the Bitter. And at 11, Natalie Cole and Pink Cadillac.

The NME Child Life single this week at number 5 from the oven, Sergeant Pepper, Knew My Father. One side is Billy Bragg, she's leaving home. On the other side, Wet, Wet, Wet, with a little help from my friends. As Mayo visibly cringes at what he's just seen, Reed ponders the fate of another former breakfast show host reduced to a cardboard cutout on a novelty record and dies a little more inside. Then Mayo throws

us into the chart rundown from 30 to 11 we cut back to reed being bothered by disheveled whooping girls as he tries to introduce with a little help from my friends by wet wet wet we've covered wet wet wet in chart music number 46 when they did angel eyes and this is the follow-up to Temptation, which got to number 12 last month. It's, obviously, a cover of the second track on Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band, which Joe Cocker took to number one in November of 1968, and it's the lead-off single from the LP Sgt Pepper Knew My Father, a track-by-track cover of the LP, put together by the nme with all profits going to child line released as a double a side with billy bragg's cover of she's leaving home on the flip

side it's crashed into the chart this week as the highest new entry at number five and here's marty and the mckens in the studio well before we get into this, have you heard Sgt Pepper Knew My Father? No. I can't say I have, no. No, my research has not gone that deep. So here's the track list. Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Three Wise Men,

London rappers, with a little help from our friends Wet Wet Wet, obviously, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds by the Christians, Getting Better by The Wedding Present, Fixing a Hole seeing the sky with diamonds by the christians getting better by the wedding present fixing a hole by hue and cry she's leaving home billy brag being for the benefit of mr kite frank side bottom within you without you sonic youth when i'm 64 courtney pine lovely rita michelle shocked good morning good morning

the triffids sergeant pepper's lonely hearts club band reprise the three wise men again and it finishes off with a day in the life by the fall i mean there are some amazing beatles covers but none of them seem to be on that album. I mean, some people say that Sonic Youth and The Fall are the standouts, but not my cup of tea. What it needed, obviously, was I Want To Hold Your Hand by Dollar. Yeah. You know what? When you read down that list, if you'd only read the name Michelle Shocks, I would have been able to place it in 1988.

Yeah. It's such a 1988 name yes is this the moment where the rehabilitation of facial hair beacles started because you know we did get a beacles splurge earlier in the decade in the wake of the assassination of john lennon but it was all the early period beacles i mean stars on 45 doesn't go any further than rubber soul i suppose so because i mean late period beacles people just kept the fuck away from it in the 80s people weren't down with beardy beacles i mean i got sergeant pepper out the library in 1984 just to see what it was like and i would play it dead quietly in the living room because i was terrified that the other kids on the street would

hear it and start calling me a hippie which is you know as we've just seen is it still a huge insult to drop on somebody in 1988 as as paddy mccalloon has pointed out yeah but anyway here's marty pello doing the obligatory ringo song on that album thing is it's kind of i know that we have to take all of these things in isolation and we can't, but it's especially difficult in this episode because just the, just being wrung out after the previous track that wasn't even music and wasn't even anything at all. Cornish pasty on the side of the M21 on the way to something better. And whatever came after it was going to be at least appropriate and at least something. So, you know, I can't and I know that I can't let that cloud my critical judgment. But, you know, it's gonna and I'm feeling but it makes me feel more benevolent towards Marti Pello and and this entire this entire operation. So so I'm just to run with it. It's fine.

I gave Marti Pello a hard time last time. Well, come on, Sarah. He's not the young God. Oh, but yeah, this is kind of, it's sort of like a kid's telly version of a Beatles song, isn't it? And that's okay. That's all song isn't it and that's okay that's all right you know that that's that's valid i'm okay with it um marty pello is the person to do it he's actually he's having a nice time it's always nice to see someone having a nice time being young and good looking

and being a pop star and you know it's hypocritical of me really to kind of say that i enjoy robbie williams as a pop star and not to give a bit of credit to marty pello the kind of proto robbie williams the cheek you know he's a he's such a cheeky chappy and he's got so much gel in his hair and that's all right as a thing i'm okay with it he's like he's kind of like marty pello is and he seems really relaxed and he seems quite happy to be to be to be there and he's got a lovely toothy grin and he's enjoying himself and everyone else seems to be enjoying it it's good my brain has just been destroyed now it's terrible but no he's kind of like what Marti Pello is if uh Star Turn on 45 Pints is the creepy fucking local bloke the professional local sitting in the corner of your pub,

just shouting his opinions at you, whether you want to hear them or not. This guy is sort of the guy behind the bar who never did any work at school because he knew that his, like, ultra confidence would be enough to breeze him through life to a certain extent. And it kind of wasn't, but it sort of worked. And he stayed in your hometown and he runs the pub

and he's worked his way through all the popular girls and then a few of the mums and it's kind of wasn't, but it sort of worked. And he stayed in your hometown and he runs the pub and he's worked his way through all the popular girls and then a few of the mums. And it's kind of charming to everyone else. And we'll wink at you as he hands you your two dogs lemonade. And in spite of yourself, you will blush. That's who he is. But the song, I mean, you know, does anyone hate the song? Is it a song you can hate?

Of course, all of the, so many beatles songs well fair enough let's get to that i think this is fair enough but it's just part of the fabric of your life if you're alive at this point in history and so it's it's um and there are the big popular songs that everyone's a little bit tired of and this is one of those but i feel like this is a very very pub episode of top of the pops like it's 1988 and this episode of top of the pops has has us like trapped in a stinky old pub just being being kind of breathed on but anyway um i think it's i i have no strong feelings about this it's just like a sort of a nice glass of sparkling water after a palate cleanser it's a

palate cleanser in this context but there is a broader context simon please explain well i don't know i mean first of all um it's hard to deny uh what sarah said about that kind of twinkly charm that Marty Pellow has with his heterosexual pierced ears and he has the look of in fact this is a contemporary reference of the Australian tennis player Pat Cash who had won Wimbledon

the previous year and had that similar kind of casual boy next door charm to him. He's wearing another soft leather jacket. There's lots of them in this episode. Lots of soft leather. I feel like there's almost nothing to say about this record other than awful song and awful version.

You know, this is where I do disagree with Sarah. No, I don't care. I would even take Joe Cocker having a fucking hernia and a prolapse as he strains to shit the song out through his arse over this version

I think I would I mean if the wonder years had begun with this version the telly would have been turned right off straight away fuck that yeah another one of your TV references 100 years have begun with this version. I hope the telly would have been turned right off straight away. Fuck that. Yeah, another one of your TV references I don't get, I'm afraid. But there we go.

The thing with Marty Pello is he can't not sing. He's not a terrible singer. No. But he's perfectly serviceable, but he's not amazing. And that's why the Limmy sketch works. Do you know the one I'm talking about? No. Because I don't watch telly nowadays.

Oh, God. We each fill a gap in the show. Yes. Yeah, Limmy, the amazing Scottish comedian, he does this bit where he's telling an anecdote about somebody going to a karaoke night in a pub and a singer gets up and they just go to the microphone and they just blow everyone away and everyone is just sat there with their jaws hanging open just shitting themselves uh how amazing this

singer is like can you imagine this singer who's just the best thing you've ever seen in your life and it's just in a pub doing the karaoke and so limmy's got his listeners sort of wrapped in attention like hanging hanging on to find out what the punchline, what the kicker is to this. And he goes, do you know who that was? Marty Pello. It's just hilarious. The reason it's funny,

apart from the fact that Limmy is just inherently funny, is that Marty Pello isn't terrible, but he's not amazing. It's not like if, I don't know, Janis Joplin had got up or something like that. It's just Marty fucking Pello. And yeah but he's not amazing it's not like if I don't know Janis Joplin had got up or something like that it's just Marty fucking Pello and yeah he's alright he's got a little bit of a soulful timbre to his voice but do you know what I really dislike about this

performance actually there's one verse that he does I don't know if it's the second or the third where rather than singing the normal melody he does the harmony line or the sort of descant line just to kind of show off and I'm like oh fuck off there's no need for it just sing it or don't sing it

I mean obviously we're talking about a song that Joe Cocker's done but he does attempt to over soul it and it's like no because the song doesn't need over soul and number two you're Marty fucking Pello just smile there just just stand there and smile it kind of doesn't matter though does it i mean it because it's such a you kind of can't

dent the beat the beatles it is a songbook that no nothing is going to no amount of terrible covers or whatever is going to make any difference whatsoever and and this is kind of it's a frivolity isn't it it's a frippery itery. It's like it doesn't make any difference to anything. It's fine. You know, it doesn't. Well, personally, I mean, I'm trying to just take it on its own merits or demerits. And I just kind of don't have, I don't really have strong opinions about it. And in the absence of strong opinions, it's like, it's fine.

I didn't have like a bodily spasm while I was watching it at all. Which is, I know that's a low bar. But I was watching it at all, which is, I know that's a low bar, but I just went, Oh, it's Marty Perlow. He's all right. Yeah.

Bless him. You know, I hope he's, I hope he's doing okay now. He's had a really hard time in his life. Yeah. There's this song. Yeah.

I've heard this song a billion times, you know, this is partly why I had to give up writing about music because I could not summon most stuff that I heard. It's like I don't want to slag it off because it seems unfair. I don't have strong feelings about it. A lot of the time it would just be like, well, in conclusion if you like this sort of thing

This is the kind of thing you'll like. This is the kind of thing you'll like and it's like that is the time when you've got to hang it up because you're done. Yeah, whereas I'm the sort of writer who goes, if this is your sort of thing, you're a fucking terrible... Fuck you! You're a fascist.

You're a fascist, yeah, yeah. I mean, this episode by now is getting right on my tits. It's a fucking wanker of an episode. Particularly as we reach the final third of this episode. The vibe I'm getting is, well, there's your silly dance nonsense out of the way now let's have some real music on some proper instruments yeah true in terms of beatles covers not denting the beatles back catalogue we can't forget of course that the

previous year ferry aid were number one with let it be um that's um a record by the way which i had to double check that marty pe wasn't on. I don't know how he escaped being on Ferry 8. Maybe he wasn't quite famous enough. And I wondered actually if this Beatles cover is the record, and indeed, maybe this is the performance that

sealed his status as the kind of twinkly David Essex for the mums of the 80s. You know, it's very much one for the mums. Maybe this is the one where they all looked and thought, oh, he's a bit lovely, isn't he? He's wicked lush.

Yeah. But yeah, to me, this is the beginning of the slippery slope to Free as a Bird. So yeah, thanks, NME. Well played. So the following week, with a little help from my friends, jumped four places to number one we would stay for four weeks before giving way to doctor in the tardis by the time lords after marking time by putting out the memphis sessions lp the outtakes from the original recording session

for their debut album they came back in 1989 with the l Holding Back the River and the single Sweet Surrender, which would get to number six. And with a little help from my friends, got to number one for a third time when it was covered by Sam and Mark, some pop idol knobs that I don't know anything else about, in 2004. What a shame the NME didn't do a cover like this for the White Album in 1989 and I've jived Bonnie doing Revolution No. 9. A little help from my friends. My friends. At number five this week, Wet, Wet, Wet with a little help from my friends. And now we're back to the charts starting at number 10.

At number 10, Michael Jackson with a Jackson 5, I Want You Back. And up at nine, Prince and Alphabet Street. Hazeldean, this week's number eight with Who's Leaving Who. And at seven, Mary's Prayer from Danny Wilson. I Want You Back, standing at number six for Banana Ramen. The highest new entry is there at five. It's a double A-sided single, Billy Bragg and Wet, Wet, Wet.

Oh, you, the highest climber's gone up 13 to number four, Ari Enfield, loads of money. And at number three, New Order and Blue Monday, 88. Former number one, S-Express, the theme from the S-Express, number two. This lot are about to go mad, they've been noisy all night. Britain has a brand new number one and they've made it with their first single. That's right, it's Fairground Attraction, perfect, and with lots of crazy instruments. Here they are, top of the box. I don't want

A heart of love for once I need someone who really cares. Reid and Mayo, away from the whooping gibbons in perms, slide into the top ten before warning us that the pop-crazy youngsters are about to go the fuck off over the new number one, which has all manner of crazy instruments on it. Perfect by Fairground Attraction. Formed in London in 1985, Fairground Attraction was originally a side project put together by Eddie Reader, a former backing singer for Gang of Four, who went on to do the same for the E-Rhythmics and Alison Moyet, and Mark E. Nevin, who played guitar for Jane Eyre and the Belvederes in the 80s

before becoming the musical arranger for Sandy Shaw's mid-80s comeback. After going from pub to pub to play impromptu gigs, rather in the manner of Fine Time Fontaine, they decided to put together a band and added Roy Dodds, the former drummer of Working Week, and the bassist Simon Edwards, formerly of Red Box. And when they started looking round for a record deal, they were caught up in a major label feeding friends there in the wake of the booming demand for proper music played on proper instruments.

After signing to RCA, mainly because they were the only label who guaranteed them free reign on how they looked and sounded, they put this out as their debut single at the end of March. It entered the top 40 at number 35 three weeks ago, soared 23 places to number 12, then jumped 10 places to number 2 last week, and this week it's not themed from

s express from the summit of pop mountain and here they are on a victory lap in the studio before we get stuck into then that that top 10 a few things that jumped out of me michael jackson and the jackson five what's that all about was that a cold cut remix i seem to remember because obviously that there were there was god time has not been kind to my memory but i want you back yeah yeah i want you back which was samples on uh one of the eric b and rakeem um remixes i hate that kind of thing by the way i hate it when on the t-rex reissues it's it's uh mark bolan and t-rex which it never was in real life or um when i when i went to the um the aforementioned culture club gig with belinda carlisle supporting it was billed as boy george and culture club no fucking culture

club so yeah i i don't know i don't know why that was back in the charts but maybe it's like saying people and two-man sound that's wrong exactly exactly i guess the uh the the um sort of uh piano and guitar from i want you back had been sampled all over the place and was just kind of current again in the same way that imnin alu by ofra haza was newly current because of being used on other things and fucking hell look at azel dean what's going off there yeah she's beat the gym. Yes. Good on her. Yeah, looking good. Quite foxy. I'd forgotten I want you back by Banana Rom, and I had to check that it wasn't a Jackson 5 cover,

and I saw the video, and they're done up like the Supremes, and fucking hell. That video would stimulate a lot of sensible point and counterpoint on Twitter today. Let's put it that way. Are they blacked out? Well, they're unpaled.

They're tanned up yeah it's quite near it's a bit yeah from a perspective of today you just look at it and go or you know you'd have a really short discussion about should we pretend to be the supremes and then just go no no don't bother i wonder if um if you ask bananarama about it now they would double down as harry Enfield did, or whether they would say, you know what, it was a bit wrong. I don't know. I think that they're decent people, Bananarama,

and I think they probably would maybe share our discomfort. I'm second-guessing that, but I just think they would. A banger of a track, though. It's a good song, though. Yeah, yeah. It's great. I was more of a fan of their swain and jolly period the early stuff um rather than purist you know yeah well i prefer the when when when siobhan was in in the

band yeah of course yeah yeah um uh but the the sort of uh jackie o'sullivan material with stock eking waterman i heard a rumor and this i want you Back, I think are great songs, even though I wasn't much of a fan in general of SAW. Good luck to them having their second win to their career. The fact that Billy Bragg's standing in the middle of Wet, Wet, Wet, that just looks wrong. Yeah, that might. It was like looking at that picture. It's like, you know, those AI things where it's like I've got a neural,

I've trained a neural network on faces and this is what it's come up with it's just kind of some eldritch horror of like it's sort of mass of flesh with some eyes here and there and for fuck's sake stop doing loads of money voice Reid

you can't stop now one thing that struck me about this I mentioned earlier that there's no rapport between Reided and mayo and you really notice it when they're doing a chart run down this way where it's just taking it in turns taking it in turns and uh you know i think in in the earlier chart run down mayo actually made a slightly reed-like joke when he called the christians the born again christians which is like referring to his own religious background, possibly, because he's a bit of a Bible basher, old Simon Mayo. But, yeah, prior to that, we'd had Mike Reid,

having just witnessed the dancing hot dogs in the Prefab Sprout video, saying something about that's mustard or that cuts the mustard or something like that. And they're both at it making these terrible jokes, but they're not bouncing off each other. It's almost like they're in separate studios. They might as well be. And I quite like that.

I respect Mayo for that because he's obviously looking at Mike Rees and thinking, fuck this. I had to say the last link that he did. So Reed does one on his own and then Mayo does one. And it kind of swooped up to the gantry. It's like, actually, I felt some of my muscles just unclenched seeing that it was just Simon Mayo and not Mike Reid with him.

It's like, you know when your mate turns up and it's like, oh, it's them and then it's their mate behind them. And it's like, oh, no, not that guy. But it was just the one guy. And Reid says, Narada. Come on, man. I know you like to have a bit of chat about the photos and about anachronistic ones. I noticed that the Prince one is a sign of the times era photo

for a Love Sexy single. So, yeah, want to sort it out, guys. Danny Wilson, Mary's Prayer, fantastic record. Maybe we'll talk about it properly one day but I love that song that got in the charts on it's third attempt like Nevermind Prefab Sprout taking two goes with When Love Breaks Down this was, this is almost a standing

joke for me Danny Wilson, you know the amount of attempts it took to get this in the charts but great great song what do we think about New Order Blue Monday 88 because I'm a sceptic, I've got to admit. It's slightly different, but I just don't like it. No.

I'm not asked about that song anyway, so. I can see why they did it. I mean, because famously they lost money on Blue Monday 83 because the 12-inch sleeve was so fancy with a hole cut in it like a floppy disk that every copy they bought actually lost the money. So I can see them wanting to recoup a little bit. Fair enough, yeah.

I mean, I'm kind of quite version agnostic when it comes to Blue Monday. I'm pro entirely. So any version, as long as it's not completely shit, is fine by me, as long as it's not a cover. As long as it's done by Star Turner. Oh, Jesus. What would they have called it?

Brown Monday. Anyway, yeah. Yes. So this song, the crazy instruments that Reid alluded to are a guitar on, the little mariachi bass, and some drum brushes. It's not like Ali Bongo's trolley that's got a piano on it or something. This is also a protest record.

I think that everybody was willing them to be a thing. Simon Mayo at the end says they are not going to be one-hit wonders. Well, they weren't quite. They sort of had another hit. But even them winning the Brit Award, hit wonders which well they sort of they weren't quite they sort of had another hit um but even even them winning the brit award because they won a brit or two um in the following february um was a statement by the industry i think of like we want this this is what we want we don't want too much of that cold cut bomb the bass mars nonsense s express yeah none of that filling

up the charts we want this real music they were seen. Yeah, none of that filling up the charts. We want this real music. They were seen as refreshing. A breath of fresh air is the sort of thing that was said about them. That they were somehow, you know... Crazy. It was as much of a reaction against hip-hop and house as any of the novelty tracks that we've seen on this episode, I would argue.

Well, at least they're proper instruments and not just records. I mean, you can play those in your own house, can't you? I mean, is that their fault? You know, that's the thing. I suppose it's, you know, they're just kind of tools in a larger cultural nonsense, I suppose. It is a very, it's an eminently hateable record, this, partly, again, because of its overexposure,

because it ended up in what advert?da it was asda and it was it has to be worth it oh there you go but it was in the asda campaign for what felt like an extremely long time it was the 90s equivalent of slapping an arse yes um so it's very it's a lot of the things that i um generally have i have a very low tolerance for tweenus in general and it's it's quirky and it's very it's a lot of the things that i um generally have i have a very low tolerance for tweenus in general and it's it's quirky and it's jaunty and i hearing it again i didn't cringe i didn't whince too much i just went actually this is for what this is it functions like it's supposed to and and i don't hate it and the main reason that I don't hate it is Eddie Reader's voice, which is gorgeous. She's got this really lovely clarity to her voice.

And they know this because they have the vocals kick off the song, you know, without any backing, just for half a bar. And it's lovely. If you were in your, again, back in the pub, we're in a nicer bit of the pub, or maybe we've left that pub, we've gone to another less shit pub and if this lot showed up in a pub and played, you'd listen, you wouldn't talk over it I mean I found myself in my local pub once a million years ago when you could just go to the pub like it was nothing

and on like a Wednesday night and a load of people kind of turned up quietly and so you didn't notice them and it's like oh that's a lot of people, oh look they've got And so you didn't notice them. It's like, oh, that's a lot of people. Oh, look, they've got ukuleles. And of course, my first response was like, oh, no, for fuck's sake, man, ukuleles. And they just, you know, it was the local ukulele club. And they just sat around a big table and played various songs together and sang quietly.

And it was perfectly adorable. And they weren't making a big thing of it. It was actually really nice everyone sat and listened and went that's nice i mean you know if it's good enough for marilyn monroe it you know but um so yeah i have a low tolerance for this sort of caper but this is nice um i appreciate that she looks the way she does a woman with a number one single in 1988 she's wearing kind of stripy i think they're leggings rather than tights it's an important distinction kind of beetlejuice black and white

leggings very in vogue at the time yeah and boots and and a big gray sort of overcoat which i would wear that's the kind of thing that you find in in a charity shop now and go, okay. And lovely, rumply red hair and glasses. Yes. She's wearing glasses on top of the pops. Yes. And I appreciate her for that. Thank you, Eddie. I wore glasses from the time that I was...

Oh, God, was it around this time? No, it was earlier than this. I think I had them from the age of eight or nine. So I would have been getting used to them by now. The lenses hadn't popped out in a pile of vomit either. Not at this point, no. them from like the age of eight or nine so i would have been getting used to them by now the lenses hadn't popped out in a pile of vomit either not at this point no and not not in fact ever afterwards and hopefully i can get through to the end of my life without that happening to me that sounds really unpleasant and i'm sorry that it happened to you anyway she's wearing spectacles on top of

the pops i whether she's short-sighted or not i i am not at home to people wearing clear glasses as a fashion accessory because it is an expensive minor impairment that does affect my life and you're mocking it and making it a fashion thing and stop it it's cultural appropriation yeah i wouldn't i wouldn't call it that but like it's it's rude you're being rude and and you and you must stop. It's like there was a while back, there were t-shirts that said like weirdo or dork or whatever. And you get these former popular girls wearing

them. It's like, no, you don't get to do that. That's like a biker club. Try wearing a Hell's Angel jacket when you're not a Hell's Angel. See how far you get. The nerds will have you. But yeah. on podcasts on on podcasts and on on podcasts only um but still um but yeah she's wearing specs and i salute her for that because

it was shit to wear specs then it's a lot easier now nobody gives a shit but um and i hope that it's easier for kids but it was rubbish rubbish. That was all that it took. Where if you were 10, particularly if you're female. Yeah. Yeah. That was all that it took for them to write you off forever. As you know,

like you grew up, you grew up into that and it's like other girls would be like, Ooh, you know, they're, they're kind of, um, becoming,

becoming young women, you know, and like, and you don't get to do that because you have this fucking structure on your face that signifies to everyone else that you're not pretty funny you should say that sarah because at the time when this came on you'd be like oh there's the lead singer and everything didn't you know just just didn't give her a second look like now i'm looking to go oh yeah she looks really nice in them glasses yeah yeah it really they're good glasses and they're really they they suit her and uh yeah but she just she kind of looks like um i don't know she

looks like a philosophy student or something or like she's just she's just come off a shift at the bookshop yeah nice librarian look yeah and i you know i like that and um i have to say by the way the the second best batman film soundtrack came out in I think 1995 it was the Batman Forever soundtrack kind of outrageously terrible but enjoyable movie and really good soundtrack it's got fucking Nick Cave and stuff on it and Eddie Reader doing a song called Nobody Lives Without Love

which is gorgeous and I would treat you to look it up it's really nice I'm not bothered about this song I mean yeah it was played to death but it's a nice story this is the triumph of the side persons isn't it just a loose collective of people who've done things for other people having a go on their own and here they are at number one lovely it's like a film i suppose i just don't like it i mean if you're if you're a backing singer to alice and moya you

can't be shit no she's She's enjoying it. She's not staring down the barrel. She seems a bit bemused that she's there on top of the pubs singing the number one single. Yeah, it's not like a stunning performance or anything. No, not at all. It is a bit sort of

calculatedly diffident, I suppose. But again, I'm okay with it and I would like to think that even absent the trauma that i've been through in this podcast i would uh in this in this episode i would still feel that way the one key moment in this performance that sticks in the mind is the mobile camera crew they're getting involved again probably because they're trying to get eddie really to look at them yeah and there's one point where they really fuck up their timing and it cuts back to a full view of the stage

and they're right in the middle and they just go, oh fuck, and just leg it off stage. A nice moment, that. So the following week, Perfect dropped one place to number two, relieved of its duties by Ringo, Ringo, Ringo. And it would go on to be the 13th best-selling single of 1988 one place above one moment in time by whitney houston and one below first time by robin beck

it will go on to win the best single award in the ill fate at 1989 brit awards alongside first of a million kisses winning the best lp the follow-up, Find My Love, got to number seven for two weeks in August of this year, but it would be their last lick of the charty fan-ed. When they reconvened in late 1989 to record a second album, musical differences ensued and they split up. While Reader went on to a solo career and Nevin linked up with Morrissey on the LP Kill Uncle, the song had a second life as the Asda advert jingle for much of the early 90s. Perfect, it's got to be perfect.

The great new number one fairground attraction. They are not going to be one-hit wonders. Catch them on tour soon. That is called Perfect. Even more perfect next week because we have the Mr. Perfect on, Simon Bates and his sidekick, Gary Davis. We're going to play out with Kylie Minogue. See you soon. Bye-bye.

After Mayo tells us that fairground attractions are not going to be one-hit wonders, Reid threatens us with next week's episode hosted by Simon Bates and Bruno Brooks. Simon Bates, still, 1988, fucking hell. They sign off with a video of the last artist of the night, Kylie Minogue, and got to be certain. Born in Melbourne in 1968, Kylie Minogue was a child actor who bagged a minor role in the soap opera The Sullivans in 1979, and then a year later appeared in the airport soap Skyways as the sister of Jason Donovan. in the airport soap Skyways as the sister of Jason Donovan. In 1985 she appeared in the children's drama series The Henderson Kids and made her singing debut on the variety show Young Talent Time which featured her sister Dana as a regular cast member. A year later she was cast as Charlie

Mitchell, a school girl who wants to be a mechanic when she grows up, in the brand new soap opera Neighbours. When Neighbours was broadcast for the first time on BBC One in October of 1986, it immediately took off, particularly amongst the youth, and after it was reported that truancy was up in schools across country due to kids bunking off school to catch the dinner time transmission they started running it twice a day in 1987 she joined some of the cast of neighbors to perform at a benefit for the Fitzroy Lions a local Aussie rules football club and sang I got you babe with John Waters the presenter of their version of play school and effectively the Brian Cant of Australia, and encored with the Locomotion, which she had demoed in hopes of launching a music career like her sister.

It was passed on to Michael Gudlinski, the head of an independent label called Mushroom, who showed little interest in it until he mentioned it in passing to his nieces from London, who went berserk at the mention of her name. Two weeks after the wedding of Scott and Charlene on Australian television, the locomotion was released in Australia, went straight in at number one, stayed there for seven weeks, and became the biggest selling single of the decade in Australia. For a follow-up and her debut release over here,

Mushroom flew Kylie over to London to link up with stock-ape King & Waterman, who had forgot that she was coming, kept her waiting in a hotel for 10 days, eventually knocked out I Should Be So Lucky in 40 minutes while she waited in reception on her last day in the country and had it in the can an hour later. It was put out in the final days of 1987,

entered the top 40 at number 31 at the end of January and then rocketed upward, spending five weeks at number one in February and March. Shocked by the success of the single, Stock, Akil and Waterman then realised that they had treated their newest and biggest factory component like shit. and then realised that they had treated their newest and biggest factory component like shit. So they sent Mike Stock to Melbourne for a meeting with Kylie, Jason and their manager, which, according to an interview in The Guardian,

began with him crawling on his hands and knees, apologising profusely and vowing to make amends on the follow-up. This is that very follow-up, which was written for and had already been recorded by Mandy Smith, the CC je suis un rock star victim, but ripped out of her hands because she wasn't in any soap operas at the time. It's the second cut

from her debut LP, Kylie, which comes out in July, and it's entered the charts this week at number 15. And here's the video, which was shot in melbourne carly's about to film her final scenes for neighbors in australia but over here neighbors has got to the bit this week where scott's in hospital after he saved charlene's

life after a barbecue explosion and he's given her a friendship ring and they're talking about moving in together which was a very contentious thing in australia sorry it's just the barbecue explosion i know it's not funny really but no wouldn't wouldn't be if you were involved in one no i i but a very australian accident one can imagine is there a more king of the hill yeah yeah yeah sarah best start with you you're 10 that you you're a prime candidate for being all up for Neighbours, surely? I was not into Neighbours. I thought it was... No? No, no. I was irritated by its ubiquity at the time and I never got into it. But I do realise that I somehow, I was always at someone else's house or something. It always seemed to be on regardless. I mean, my mum didn't watch it it or anything but it just was in the air and just everybody knew what was going on somehow i mean

i guess my friends at school must have been into it i don't know i just kind of i um no i wasn't into it at all i just remember yeah the whole it being on twice a day thing so if you if you were ill or whatever you'd somehow you know yes be subjected to it twice yeah i don't know why maybe the telly was always on in our house but i don't i don't recall being a telly always on house but maybe we were i found neighbors to be a poor replacement for crown court you kind of learned something about crime in that neighbors it was like it's really funny because i i think i mentioned this before when we've done jason donovan that you know right about this time i was looking into emigrating to australia australia seemed fucking brilliant at the time like a working class paradise like a like a nicer skegness essentially but as soon

as neighbors came on he put me right off the idea well i, I guess I can see that. But also, you know, Neighbours was just kind of like a really elaborate school play, you know, in somewhere really obnoxiously hot. With spiders. That's the thing with Neighbours, you never saw any massive spiders jumping out of the toilet at your throat or anything like that. No, the worst you're going to get was maybe a playful nip-off bouncer

or something, yeah. Yes, who was dreaming about getting married yeah you've got that's that's some lynchian shit you've got to hand it to them for that really kylie's i mean well charlene in neighbors is by 1988 standards she's a feminist icon isn't she well she's oh well she's rosie the riveter she's rosie the riveter yeah of ours God, that's even more kind of progressive than glasses. It's like wearing overalls. Holy shit. But yeah, Kylie,

I was, how could you not be aware of immediately because that was the whole point. I don't remember having any special feelings about her at the time but I wasn't very into the Stock Aitken and Waterman sound in general. There's a couple of like standout tracks. I loved you spin me,

you spin me around like a record. That was, that was something that I definitely was into, but yeah, Kylie at this point, she just, oh, she looks so little,

doesn't she? In the video, she's obviously still winsome, cutesy Kylie at this point. This was, you know, her first incarnation as a pop star. No expense has been spent, really, on the video.

But she's sort of skipping down the prom during the chorus. It's divided into two, isn't it, between the verses and the chorus. So verse, she's in a sort of cartoon house, putting some art into some suitcases for some reason. And then in the chorus, she's skipping down the prom in Melbourne. And there's not much going on. I mean, it's really funny because Wendy James has been called out on the NME Letters page this very week for slagging off Kylie Minogue for perpetuating the old bimbo sex image.

But I'm looking at this video and I'm looking for the sexiness and the bimbocity, and I can't see it anywhere. I mean, look, she's wearing hold-up stockings and she's wearing a tied mini dress, but she's essentially the Therese Bazaar of the late 80s. The late-ies, if you will. If you will. She's kind of Doris Day at this point, isn't she? She's Australia's sweetheart.

Very wholesome, yeah. Definitely the vibe. Very wholesome and winsome. She wholesome very um yeah and and and winsome she hasn't met michael hutchins yet she hasn't met well this is the thing right so she met him at some point in 88 and dated him for a couple of years and there's a moment you can pinpoint where she becomes uh sex kylie and it's kind of that sounds ridiculous but it's so obvious and so clear and so natural as well. It's not something that has been imposed from on high.

Like now we're going to hitch up your skirts and we're going to reposition you as a hottie. Because the music is still kind of, by the point of her second album, it's not much more sophisticated. So I had to look this up and I was kind of astonished to see that the first single off the second album, Enjoy Yourself, is the first single is Tears on My Pill my pillow so the you know yeah the cover and then the second one is better the devil you know and better devil you know the video is where you go oh my god who is this what has occurred because her hair is all rumpled and her eyes it's the eyes you see this it's it's more than a glint it's like the lights are on and somebody's home and they're covered in scented oils and their body is ready. And you can see it in her entire being.

It's like, fucking hell, she's been and had some mind blowing next level sex and also drugs with Michael Hutchins. And now it's on. And now she has become her. She has blossomed into this kind of fox. Tears on My Pillar came from that film. Is it called The Delinquents? Yeah, yeah. And they were saying, oh, yeah, Kylie, new sexy image,

and all this kind of stuff. And she gets up to all sorts. And it's essentially her taking her knickers off underneath a quilt. Yes. That's it. I remember that being like a big scandalous thing at the time and it being in smash thing at the time and it being in yeah smash hits and stuff you know but what i mean but that's the thing that shows how invested i

suppose people were in the idea of kylie as this sort of quite chaste girly you know and it was just it was really wonderful to see and obviously there is often a very cynical thing where you know now now girl is sexy now you will feel this way about her. But you love to see it. It's a bit like when Sheena Easton, who's possibly another example of a very wholesome, chaste singer from a few years earlier, met Prince. And that happened.

It kind of changed, yeah. Oh, right, yeah, yeah. yeah yeah her look is quite um quite restrained in in this video but i think it hasn't dated badly at all um all right no the look where she's frolicking along the harbour is a bit cheesy sort of and it's very it's dated badly but the thing where she's in the artist studio and i mean I think she looks really lovely in the indoor scenes with that little red dress and her hair in kind of almost 1940s style victory rolls. Yeah.

Yeah, I just think it's a really sort of classy and classic look that hasn't aged badly at all. This song is considered, I suppose, one of her lesser songs by most people. I found it really likeable at the time, probably more likeable than I Should Be So Lucky. I Should Be So Lucky was one of those stock, aching watermelons in their pump, kind of steamrollers. You had that and you had Too Many Broken Hearts by Jason and you had Never Gonna Give You Up. And you had Sonia, was it Never Stop Me From Loving You?

And they were these relentless monsters coming off the PWL conveyor belt. And I really disliked those. But this has got an understated charm to it. It's got a lovely kind of clockwork TikTok to it, this song, I think. At this point, obviously, as Sarah Sarah said we didn't know about the image change that was gonna happen to Kylie but we also didn't know about the musical changes that

you know she would sort of become indie Kylie and then disco Kylie and and do all kinds of you know sort of fairly interesting things with with people like Nick Cave and so on. For all we knew, this is all she was going to be, was this kind of soap opera starlet who made a few pop singles. But taking on its merits, I did think that this was quite sweet and quite nice. The idea of her being some kind of puppet, I think, if it was ever true, and I'm sceptical about that anyway, I think there came a point where it stopped being true, and I'm sceptical about that anyway, I think there came a point where it stopped being true and I actually believe she's a pop genius. I've got to be really careful to clarify what I mean by that

because she's not a musical genius in the way that Prince is a musical genius. She's a pop genius and pop is a multidisciplinary form and it involves collaboration and it involves knowing the right people to collaborate with at any given time. And a lot of the artistry with which people will happily credit Madonna, they won't extend that same credit to Kylie

and I think they should. I think if you look at the, if you've been to any of her gigs in the last 20 years some of them have just the production the kind of artistry of them has been extremely high

and she's worked just picking people like Calvin Harris when he was just about to break big to work with on on her album 10 was was a masterstroke obviously um there was the whole Indie Kylie phase where she worked with people like the Manic Street Preachers and Saint Etienne and um even though that album didn't sell very well there was some great stuff on it uh and you know those are just a couple of examples. I think that she's very rarely put a foot wrong.

And I think she's just indisputably a force for good in the world. I just think she brings joy and cheer. And I've often thought of her as our generation's version of Vera Lynn, this kind of force's sweetheart. You know, she just just whenever you're feeling down you just think you know oh we need Kylie Kylie's come and cheer us up I just think she's completely and utterly wonderful I remember when um she she had breast cancer and yeah she was out of the limelight for over a year I think and she came back and played these gigs. I was at one of them at Wembley Arena

and I've never experienced an atmosphere like it. Just this wave, this tidal wave of love and goodwill when she stepped out on the stage just really brought home how much she means to people. And, you know, just on a personal level, I've interviewed her, I don't know, three or four times and just always found her to be utterly, utterly charming and smart and switched on and aware of her kind of place in the scheme of things.

She's got a lot of sense of humour about herself. Just everything you'd want her to be, really. Does she remember you? Well, I hope so. I think so, yeah. I mean, she certainly, if she doesn't remember me, she makes sure that she's done her prep beforehand and found out that I'm the guy she talked to, you know, three years ago or whatever.

The horned one. Yeah, yeah. If we could take someone from 1988 and play them this podcast, what your two have just said about Kylie Minogue is going to be more of a shock to them than the global pandemic bit at the beginning. The idea of Kylie Minogue having a career spanning decades would be shocking.

Yeah, you wouldn't necessarily get that from this, especially not this second single, which is all right. I have no particular feeling for it. It's kind of less... I mean, I Should Be So Lucky was so ubiquitous and so everywhere and it is a steamroller to the head. It's like, fucking hell.

And this was much more kind of low-key relatively and it's okay. I don't know if it would be anybody's favourite Kylie song, but, you know, there's, yeah. But I'm in complete agreement with um simon just what a treasure she is um and and i hope she's gonna get her the credit that she's due i think she already has i think i think a lot of people you know realize it because she's sort of plowed her own furrow in this in this really good and truly artistic way it's not just kind of mindlessly chasing whatever

is happening now she's kind of really struck out so many times and yeah she somehow doesn't fully get the credit from a lot of people for having that kind of for being an artist really because maybe the hangover maybe the sort of her initial kind of um the kind of caterpillar phase you know it's like she hasn't reached her next form you know she hasn't reached her next form. You know, she hasn't reached her final form. Larval. She's larval. Larval, that's it, yeah.

That's what I meant, thank you. Which would sound great in Australian accent, actually. Larval. Larval. Then the larval phase. I'd throw another larva on the barbie. Oh, no, it's exploded. She's had more of a career than Craig McLaughlin

and Stefan Dennis, put it that way. Well, you mean Craig McLaughlin and Stefan Dennis put it that way you mean Craig McLaughlin and Check One Two Check One Two or Check One Two that rose to the surface of my brain earlier when you were talking about it is not right after the fact say so and so and their band when it wasn't that

in the first play just adding and Check one two to anything is just delightful but yeah Kylie fucking great I mean that Glastonbury performance that she did which because she was lined up to headline Glastonbury wasn't she on the Sunday night and then couldn't because of her cancer

and then she came back and did it was it ten years later or something I think it was great and she got very emotional about it and everyone got emotional and it was really beautiful and that performance like you said the production values are so high it's such an incredible show without being fully you know without just being camp or nostalgic or anything like that she does like there's a segment of it where she kind of does the old stuff and she does like a medley of them but then there's a whole bit where all of her dancers kind of it's like the best most fun wedding ever yeah

that was like the distinct feeling of like you know when a lot of the time you go to weddings i mean obviously not no pressure simon but a lot of the time you go to weddings and it it's not quite how you want it to you know it's it's kind of it's a bit of an endurance and it's like but the best weddings are the greatest thing and the best parties. And she just did that for the entirety of Glastonbury. And I've no idea how, but she did. It's amazing. Yeah. Yeah.

And she got to have sex with Michael Hutchence, which, you know, I think any of us would. I should be so lucky. So the following week got to be certain, leapt 11 places to number four and then spent three weeks at number two held off number one by wet wet fucking wet the follow-up a re-recording of the locomotion got to number two for four weeks in august kept off the top of most by the only way is up by yaz and the plastic population see i remembered the other ones there. She gets stuck in the number two slot again when Je Ne Sais Pas Pouvoir was held off by Orinoco Flo by Enya,

but she'd reclaimed the throne for Christmas when she teamed up with Jace for Especially For You. Kylie Minogue's had 11 number two hits in the UK. That's amazing. And that closes the book on this episode of Top of the Pops. What's on the telly afterwards? Well, BBC One kicks off with your

bi-weekly dose of Cockney Misery in EastEnders. Then Judith Hand celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Gramophone record in Tomorrow's World. Then it's Mastermind, the Nine O'Clock News, Crimewatch UK, Question Time,

Crimewatch Update and the highlights of the cricket. BBC2 has just started Call My Bluff, then William Wollard test drives the Toyota Celica, the first car on sale in the UK that runs solely on unleaded fuel in Top Gear. After Michael Burke conveniently takes a look at lead-3 petrol in the eco-news programme Nature,

along with a threat to British water sports enthusiasts by diseased rats, it's the Rory Bremner Show. Then it's a look at two people stuck on the NHS waiting list in 40 minutes, four female saxophonists play music from four centuries in the fear of sax. Then it's news night, the weather, and they close out the night with more open university. ITV goes into a repeat of the second series of Alvide Zane Pet.

Then it's Lingo, the game show hosted by Martin Daniels, followed by This Week, LA Law, The News at 10, Regional News in Your Area, a local politics program, It's Sex Next Week, a documentary about the future of sex education in schools, and they plunge into the nighttime strand with the 1972 Alain Delon film Dirty Money, Sports World, Rock of Europe Europe and Job Finder. Channel 4 listens to John Burt banging on about his job at the BBC and how journalistic standards have slipped in opinions, then it's Treasure Hunt, then Anthony Hopkins and Jim Broadbent starring the latest film on 4, The Good Father, followed by Sid's Family, the 1972 documentary about a Windrush family in Bristol,

and they finish off with Farewell, the 1981 Russian film about a village threatened with flooding for the benefit of a new hydroelectric power station. Oh, good old Channel 4, you never fail to disappoint. So, my dears, what are we talking about in the playground tomorrow i think maybe prince and uh you know his his crappy video um and maybe prefab sprout and their funny frog man yeah same yeah i think so yeah what are we buying on saturday hopefully prince i mean it's so difficult this is like theoretical me as as 10 year old who didn't know shit.

I would hope, you know, definitely not Star Turn on 45 points unless it was to like do violence upon it. Prince because I had to because it's fucking Prince and Prefab Sprout as well. In fact, I can easily check check I've got both those singles I must have just bought them at the time and also the albums from which they came so from Langley Park to Memphis by Prefab Sprout and Love Sexy by Prince

and you know what if I had a little bit of spare money I might have bought the Narada single because why not I liked it boing boing boing boing all the way. Boing, boing, boing. Boing all the way home from the record shop. Like a jumping frog.

And what does this episode tell us about May of 1988? It tells us that the summer of 1988 could not come fast enough. Or mental enough. I was going to say it tells us fuck all about 1988 because i was thinking about all the great records that came out that year you know all the things like you know pixies and my bloody valentine and public enemy and young gods hello david um all this all all the stuff that melody maker was banging on about all that kind of stuff which generally didn't make the charts but also all the great stuff that that did Maker was banging on about, all that kind of stuff, which generally didn't make the charts,

but also all the great stuff that did make the charts, but we just happened to pick a duff episode here. Sorry about that. Well, it's given us something to talk about. Yes. I started thinking about it a bit more deeply, and I realised that when I contrast the lateys with the early 80s um I usually say that the early 80s were a more tribal time um because there are more that there were a greater number of factions and a greater number of tribes in that era but in in a way the late 80s were also very tribal it was a lot more stark a lot more sort of dualistic black and white and um less factions quite literally yeah yeah

yeah and um i uh just started thinking about where i was at the time at uni and i remember that there were real factions in the sort of student union social committee there were loads of kind of dance music heads who were you know going to wag club and they were into rare groove which probably wasn't called rare groove yet and and all of that they're into their hip-hop and i kind of felt alienated from those people i thought you know i don't really like them they're not my people but i also kind of loved a lot of the music they were into so i was i sort of i was this sort of goth guy who sort of thought oh yeah i like your music but you're a bit full of yourselves you lot despite the fact that i felt tribally different from them when i watched this episode of top of

the pops and you've got these fuckwits like harry enfield and star turn on 45 pints taking the piss out of that kind of music and and making out that it's just cheap shit i actually close ranks with people who culturally culturally i felt different from and and thought you know what fuck you fucking proto-brexit assholes for thinking for daring to think that you are somehow superior to what's going on culturally and musically right now you don't know what the fuck you're talking about basically those those people and i'm i'm getting angry again for about the fifth time now yes yes they are the sort of people who think all lives matter they're the sort of people who don't really think all lives matter that they would fly a fucking plane over a football match with a banner behind it saying that that's who these

people are fuck them fuck harry anfield fuck start turn and you know long live bomb the base and mars and s express and cold cut and all that lovely stuff yes yeah i get the feeling from this that hip-hop and dance music has won and top of the pops can't accept it yeah it's like the times that we're living through now it's it's kind of a huge pushback against progress, isn't it? From all angles. And it's very scary and tiring to be living through. But you do get that there is a sense that you have to remember that I know that all across the world, the worst of the right wing is in power. It's very bad.

But there is, it's definitely a reaction back against that's how powerful progress has been, that it's had this almighty pushback. Good point. And you get, you get a whiff of, you know, I tried to, you know, I'm trying to be positive somehow.

Because, you know, you do get the sense that this is the dying screams of a completely redundant way of being. And, you know, that's this, you kind of get the rumblings of that under this episode

of in cultural terms um yeah things are changing and we don't like it yeah and it's you know it's old blokes going oh what's all this then yeah i mean i don't for one minute think that paul chiani and his uh minions are sitting there going oh the the dancy people are taking over we've got to stop them it's it's more of, well, we like having bands play music. We can make sense of that. Dance music's problematic. And as we'll see, it will be problematic over the course of the 90s for Top of the Pops.

But that's not the music's fault. That's your fault if you can't deal with it. So fucking deal with it. Yeah, man. Jive Bunny is coming, you bastards. And that, me dears, is the end of this episode of Chart Music. All that remains for me to do now is the usual promotional flange, www.chart-music.co.uk,

facebook.com slash chartmusicpodcast, reach us on Twitter at chartmusic, T-O-T-P, money down the G-string, patreon.com slash ChartMusic. Thank you, Sarah B. Toodle-oo. Thank you as well, Simon Price. You're very welcome. My name's Al Needham, and the reason why my voice is so clear is because there's no smack in my brain.

ChartMusic. Great. in my brain. Shark music. GreatBigOwl.com You recording this? Are you doing this on record? I think so. Is it? I can't hear no synthesiser. Oh yeah, here it is.

It's a much a battle we're going to All right. Got it. All right. Let's see, let's post and comment what you thought that one was like. I thought it was all the shit, really. That was called The B-Side.

On The B-Side by Harry Enfield. Coming next, it's Running Out Of Time, Digital Orgasm, the 12-inch Nugget Wave Radio Edit. Acid House music has been described as a sinister and evil cult which encourages young people to take drugs. One person has died after taking ecstasy,

a drug associated with the music. But few people know where the acid house craze came from and how serious a threat it is to young people. Acid music has had some commercial success with records like this one. We call it a seed by D-Mob getting into the top 10. But the link with drugs has hindered their chances of further success. Gary Hazeman, singer with D-Mob, says that since the controversy, 20 engagements have been cancelled. The ban on Top of the Pops gave the impression that the BBC had banned Acid House music completely, making it even more unacceptable to parents.

I can categorically say that the BBC has not banned Acid House music, and in particular Radio 1 certainly hasn't banned Acid House music. What has happened is that Top top of the pops uh the bbc's premier pop show has decided not to play uh tracks that have references to the word acid we on the other hand decided to carry on playing acid house music because we've been aware of this for some 14 months it's almost a bit of a storm in a teacup, really, after quite such a time. And we understand what the true meaning behind acid house music and the term acid is in this particular genre of music. Is it once more a cynical exploitation of youth culture by the media merely to generate headlines to sell newspapers?

Some newspapers have called acid house music a sinister and evil cult which lures young people into drug-taking. The message is certainly getting across. What do you know about Acid House Music? There's meant to be a drugs-related craze. Seems to be the most worrying thing. And where did you find that out? That was in the paper.

Do you think it's anything to do with a certain religion, do you think? No. Is there anything like that? No, it's more to do with a kind of a drug, isn't it? It's a drug. Well, those that take it want to be ashamed of themselves. I presume they do frenzied dancing, that kind of thing. Probably out of control, not behaving like normally

they would because they're under the effects of the drug. I've just read about it in the newspapers that acid house music, I assumed it was something to do with the drug scene. It must affect the brain in some way. Unless it's just the music that does it. All them larts flashing don't do you any good either, do it.

I wouldn't even go in the pub with them larts, huh? Oh, no. They drive you mad, don't they? Ted Hines is the Sunday People's Acid House correspondent. Hello, my name's Beth Murray, and if you'd like to hear funny people talk about giving birth, then have I got the podcast for you. Poor Richard, he made the schoolboy error of standing up

to see the baby while I was on the operating table, and I think that's really not recommended. You were scarred for life, he was scarred for life. In the latest series of One Torn Every Minute, a whole labour ward of new guests tell me their birth stories in hilarious and graphic detail. Gas and air can suck, mate. That's One Torn Every

Minute, available now on all good podcast platforms. I suppose you wouldn't do it at all, would you, if you really thought about it? Hey! This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull Apart, only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks with a small coffee all day long.

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