Our group declare to be truePeter Powell welcomes us to our first #TOTP Mystery Year.
"Wanted" by The Dooleys plays during the chart. They were a family group from Ilford, it's the first of a handful of hits.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwc0iriZahI
#TheDooleys
YouTube
Another week, another #TOTP performance from Sham 69. "Hersham boys" this time, filmed in a horrid brown-yellow filter.
David Hepworth was unimpressed for Smash Hits: "A tired, hollow effort struggling between weary attempts at rabble-rousing and blush-making pseudo-Springsteen 'street' songs that reek of desperation and contract fulfilling. As empty self-satisfied a record as anything they supposedly set out to replace."
Yeah, but why's the drummer got a dead animal on his head?
#Sham69
Olympic Runners perform a song called "The bitch". Title track to the Joan Collins film.
It's not the most liberated disco number. Begins with close-up of the female backing singer, who moves front stage later in the song.
The band was put together by Mike Vernon, who does the percussion here. Olympic Runners split up later that year.
#TOTP #OlympicRunners #NotThatSort
"If I had you" chimed The Korgis.
A weedy bloke in shirt and tie sings a weedy number, loosely based on a Rachmaninov interpretation of Paganini - but more classical work on BBC4 a little later this evening.
If this is the sound of summer, bring back spring.
#TOTP #TheKorgis
As promised, some classical work. On video, "Voulez-vous" from ABBA.
"Bang bang" from BA Robertson, which - inevitably - has lots of shots of BA's bandmate banging his massive drums.
The lyric mentions Johnny Fruin, an exec at BA's record label. File this alongside "Orinoco flow" as a big hit naming a label exec.
#TOTP #ABBA #BARobertson
A 40-minute #TOTP doesn't fit into a 30-minute slot without some editing. Snipped here: the video for "Girls talk" by Dave Edmunds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uEXJNS1llg
It's Legs o'clock: "After the love has gone" by Earth, Wind & Fire sees the gals lounging on a BBC beach boardwalk.
#DaveEdmunds #LegsAndCo
'Girls Talk' - Dave Edmunds
#TOTP production meeting.
- How can we portray "Beat the clock" by Sparks.
- A montage of clocks?
- Brilliant idea. Trebles all round!
The glamsters worked with disco producer Giorgio Moroder.
Sadly, this is the Mael brothers' penultimate appearance - we see 'em in November, and never again on TOTP.
#Sparks
"Gangsters" by The Specials. Terry Hall looks incredibly young in a striped shirt, with two Running Men by his side. The rest of the band jigs about, playing guitar or blowing their brass section.
For viewers watching in black-and-white, you're missing *nothing* - everyone's in shades of grey.
More of the single's impact came from its B-side, "The selecter"; ska-punk can be eerie and morose, not just sunny and peppy.
#TOTP #TheSpecials
Another snip for time: "Duke of Earl" from Darts. A repeat performance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFpVlkOCtOs
"Ooh! What a life" from The Gibson Brothers. A very purple staging, two guys at keyboards and one singer.
The singer's got great stage presence, and I need to hear this song a lot more.
#TOTP #GibsonBrothers
Darts - 'Duke Of Earl' - TOTP 2nd August 1979
Number one: "I don't like Mondays" from The Boomtown Rats.
This video tells a story: children in a school assembly, the Rats stand on stage and sing. And then to a sitting room, and only then to the trademark white studio, before finishing back in the school.
I'm too young to appreciate how groundbreaking and subversive this was - if, indeed, it was like my cousins claimed.
#TOTP #BoomtownRats
#TOTP credits to "Born to be alive" from Patrick Hernandez.
And while Peter Powell stays in the hammock, hoping to surprise Legs & Co when they get back, we look at other channels.
Next on BBC1, Citizen Smith, where there's been a theft in the factory. Andrew Lloyd Webber conducts the Schools Prom on BBC2, and ITV sees Miss Ursa Minor crowned Miss Universe 1979.
Zap! Bang! Pow! More #TOTP in a few moments, it's one of my all-time favourite editions.
Jenny Powell and Steve Wright introduce Gun with "Better days".
Record Mirror summed up the mood:
"There hasn't been so much excitement about a new pop metal band since Def Leppard thumbed a lift from Sheffield many years ago. Gun are still hungry kittens in a world of sleek fat cats, and let's hope they always maintain some of their youthful enthusiasm. Deserve to be a surefire success." #TOTP
"Better days" is a tremendous driving rock track: it gets into the groove, gets loud, and by the second chorus we're all cheering with fists in the air. It is utterly brilliant, and Gun were impressive in this debut appearance.
Go listen to their album "Taking on the world", it is an under-rated classic. #TOTP
Martika with the video for "Toy soldiers", the standout single from her not-as-good-as-it-ought-to-have-been debut album.
She'll be in the studio in two weeks' time, channelling the spirits of Robert Smith and k d lang in one package.
Move over Terence "Trout" D'Arby, pop has new swoonesomest peepers!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV4iw8FFxzk
#TOTP #Martika
Martika - Toy Soldiers - TOTP - 1989
"This one" from Paul McCartney.
HRH Sir Lord Paul Fab Macca Whacky Thumbs Aloft!!! McCartney of Kintyre is back in the studio, with Dame Linda on keyboards and tambourine.
Paul rips his jacket open to reveal a heart on his t-shirt, and the twangy and psychedelic love song is well under way.
#TOTP #PaulMcCartney
"This one" is centred on a mondegreen, hearing "this one" as "the swan".
Absolutely typical McCartney song, comes across as insubstantial at first, but by the final chorus we're singing along.
Melodically, the song is trite; lyrically, it treads familiar ground (seize the moment); the combination gets stuck in your ear and does not leave for *years*. We'll all be humming this next week.
#TOTP #PaulMcCartney
A bit of the video for "Alice Cooper" by Poison. Wait, strike that, reverse it.
Kerrang!: "Desmond Child wrote it, and it shows: slowly-picked guitar verses and a big, big chorus with heaps of backing vocals. I think he's singing about kissing his snake, though I could be wrong."
#TOTP #AliceCooper
Transvision Vamp are in the #TOTP studio for "Landslide of love".
Wendy James has come dressed for tonight's weather, a bra just large enough to contain her bosom, denim shorts just large enough to keep Mike Read quiet.
The performance is lit really brightly for the Paul Ciani years, we didn't often see the backing band share the spotlight with the singer, particularly when the singer is the focal point of the band.
#TransvisionVamp
"Landslide of love" sounds naggingly familiar, a cross between "Leader of the pack" and something by Blondie that we can never quite put our finger on.
Smash Hits was impressed: "the Vamp now give us a tribute to 60s pop producer Phil Spector. Nips between sensitive quiet bits and immensely loud bits with everything and the kitchen sing thrown in while Wendy (the grumpiest woman in pop) yearns, in squeaky anguish, for lost love."
#TOTP #TransvisionVamp
Wendy and Lisa are in the studio for "Satisfaction". Corks, to be in the studio tonight!
The couple are Prince protogées, and write in the funky vein of The Purple Miniature.
"Satisfaction" has Lisa behind the keyboards with the sumptuous groove, Wendy does some excellent guitar work and takes lead vocals.
#TOTP #WendyAndLisa
"Satisfaction" is familiar - sounds like every Prince funk wig-out from the past five years.
And it's modern without sounding modern, the gals were about four years ahead of the curve with a jazzy number for warm summers evenings. Why this didn't replace Gun at number one remains a mystery.
#TOTP #WendyAndLisa
Ian K Tindale
IanMoore3000@daweaver isn't the song meant to be about a school shooting? They might have thought that was a bit much for the video
Peter Nagle
Dudula the Dud@daweaver Weren't they sponsored by Casio?
@BackFromTheDud I hadn't heard that about The Dooleys, though it's the sort of thing they could have done.
[adds to my pile of Pop Culture Things to Research]
@daweaver I seem to remember an advert for Casio keyboards featuring them. "Can it play ukulele?".
Of course, I may be wrong because "It's been 40 years".
Of course, I may be wrong because "It's been 40 years".