Evening, all.
The Queen of England, Janice Long, and the Rt. Rev. Simon Mayo host this edition. Janice returns from her maternity leave.
"There's more to love (than boy meets girl)" - The Communards
Jimmy is in smart white shirt and cream trousers; Richard has a dark jacket over a message t-shirt; the studio is lit in a very nice gold light.
Who in this mystery year would have put *Richard Coles* as the celebrity vicar from this lot?
"Roses are red" - The Mac Band Featuring The McCampbell Brothers.
Four of them dancing and gyrating around. It's the new sound of hip-hop: clearly more stuttery and rap-influenced than two years ago, but still smooth and affectionate.
Can you hear this, Five Star? This is what you should be making, this is how good you should be.
"I don't want to talk about it" - Everything But the Girl
Missed their date on #TOTP five years ago, and finally (finally!) have a big hit. Shame it's a Rod Stewart cover.
Tracey Thorn (singer, mid-cut spiky hair, oversized blue jacket, white shirt, white trousers) and Ben Watt (seated guitar player, black jacket, grey trousers, effortlessly cool) have had three albums of cult favourites, and gosh we've missed them.
Breakers!
Debbie Gibson turns heads and impresses with the moody love song "Foolish beat", shouting into the mirror and looking all Intense and Driven while walking along the prom with a childish bow in her hair.
This song is the point at which I think, hmm, maybe Debs has more about her than blonde bimbette pop...
Erik B and Rakim "Follow the leader", hard rap at the poker table.
Natalie Cole with "Everlasting", a soulful jazz-funk groove of the sort we could have heard in 1986.
Asute readers might note how "Roses are red" slots neatly between these last two songs.
"Never tear us apart" - INXS
On video, all mean and moody through the cathedral quarter of Prague.
The long introduction in full, Michael walks through the island, day turns to night through some nifty editing, and the band wanders off as far as the communist authorities will let them.
Simon was right: this is a fabulous song, proof that INXS can do emotion as well as they can do rock. Their biggest radio hit over here,
"Cross my heart" - Eighth Wonder
Patsy Kensit has her backing band back!
Low-cut bolero top for the singer, matching denim shirts and white trousers for the Cheesy Wotsits behind her.
Perfectly fine dance-pop, much glossier and shinier than their last hit - the Pet Shop Boys always bring a little bit of darkness to their projects.
We have a new number one! Glenn Medeiros storms up from 11 to 1 with "Nothing's gonna change my love for you", denying "The twist (yo twist)" a week on top.
Glenn's in the studio, singing live, and wearing the uniform of denim jacket and denim jeans as though he's dating Debbie Gibson. (According to Smash Hits, they're friends and nothing more.)
Finds the camera, makes eye contact, makes us all go a bit wibbly and want to ruffle his hair.
Kim Wilde walks on with a birthday cake for Glenn, who is marking his 18th birthday. Eighteen! Blimey!
Kim is in the studio to pre-record "You came", which we'll see a couple of weeks later. On *that* episode, she'll be the best-dressed star - but not tonight, Queen Janice Long's frock beats allcomers.
"I want your love" - Transvision Vamp
Wendy James and the Cheesy Wotsits play their rock-out track from someone's front room.
The first Mystery Year was 1988. More next,
"The crunch" - The RAH Band
Another hit for the "Clouds across the moon" art group, lead by Richard A Hewson.
This week, RAH comes as a man wearing a black one-piece binliner with gloves and balaclava.
"Sam" - Olivia Newton-John
As the gearbox on Tony Blackburn's jalopy begins to groan, we get a very middle-of-the-road song from everyone's favourite.
Word is that Olivia's going to appear in some musical film set at an American high school. Don't expect that will amount to much.
"It's your life" - Smokie
You know what this show needs? More circles on the backdrop. And circles around the camera lens to show the group in a wibbly-wobbly way.
You know what else this show needs? Actually playing the records all the way through, not fading them out after about ten milliseconds.
"Angelo" - Brotherhood of Man
The ballad of the shepherd boy and his illicit love.
Not to be confused with the ballad of the soldier ("Fernando"), the ballad of the lovers ("Figaro"), or the ballad of the politician ("Rasputin").
"Oh Lori" - Alessi Brothers. A spectacularly bad conversion from Yankee telly. Smooth jazz meets Philly soul, and works as neither.
"Three ring circus" - Barry Biggs. In which our falsetto-and-moustache singer gains a red coat and top hat.
Shame the Beeb haven't yet invented the spotlight they can move.
"Ma Baker" - Boney M
Danced by Legs & Co. Long frilly skirts and chair dancing, while another trouper is on the screen behind.
"So you win again" - Hot Chocolate
Errol Brown's defining moment: the hero shot, looking up at his bald hair, with that silver microphone waving around somewhere near his mouth.
Playout is "I feel love" - Donna Summer. A recent crowdsourced poll reckons this is the second best song of all time in the entire history of recorded music ever.
The winner? "Superstition" by Stevie Wonder.
Our second mystery year was 1977.
Blondie night on BBC4 next, marking Debbie Harry's 50th birthday.
ELO night on BBC2 tomorrow.
Sunday on BBC2, it's the first two parts of a Landmark Series on Live Aid.
Just one hour next Friday on BBC4, so whatever you're doing this week, have a great one!
Our group declare to be true
Ebly Pamplemousse
Snaprails
Sarah W
Tracey S