TOTP 80.17 24/04/80

BBCFour repeat here.
Full chart here.

Introduced by Steve Wright. A lot of 'repeats' from last week (in the year 2015), but a few interesting new ones too.

Rodney Franklin - The Groove

Straight in at no. 27 (from 70) so this since forgotten number deserved a spin. Apart from one big new entry in the Top Ten the charts aren't terribly exciting this week. Notwithstanding the dullness (and Steve Wright) it's not a bad show.

Smokie - Take Care of My Baby

Oh dear. What are this lot doing here? This the eighties! Very much in the David Essex category of making some kind of 'comeback' after a run of success mid-70s-ish,although this was just about the end, my friends.

Paul McCartney - Coming Up

And here is that exciting new song of the week, featuring a goofy Macca 'n' Linda (last seen in a Christmas mood) in state-of-the-art video montage with all the special effects, which is what you'd expect from a multi-millionaire who still feels it fit to churn out pop songs now and then.  This was the first of two singles off upcoming album McCartney II, in which Macca had discovered the synthesiser. Maybe he'd got The Human League in to advise..him. Nice homage to Buddy Holly and Ron Mael too.

The Cure - A Forest

For those interested, "Goth" starts here. This was one of those singles which was milling around in the lower reaches of the cahrts, gets a leg-up on TOTP, doesn't do much and becomes legendary. Robert Smith still with short hair, but looking suitably alienated and angstful, something which hundreds, nay thousands, of groups/singers would imitate. The thing is with A forest is that it never had a decent follow up either although John peel would continue to champion them (see also Siouxsie & the Banshees) til they made it big time.  

Elvis Costello - Hi Fidelity

More post-punk/new wave fayre although in a somewhat lighter mood and Mr Costello of course being no alienated and angstful stranger to the the pop charts. Bizarre video (much in the vein of the last one) although oddly though this didn't get any further than this week's no. 30 spot.

Sky  - Toccata

New performance from these musos who are obviously still having a good time despite the poor lighting. Now up to no. 11 but could do better... Not sure about Steve Wright's jerky hand movement between this and the next one, but there you go.

Sad Café - My Oh My

Super special effects to introduce this one, which still remains dull and is inexplicably up to no. 14 already.

Cockney Rejects - Cockney Rip-Off

With poor faux-Cockney accent intro, of course. A bit of a mad thrash but at least they liven the place up a a bit. But what's with the scarf tied to the guitar neck Bay City Roller style mate? A bit anarchic but so it should be. i wonder if they met Sky for a drink after?

Bobby Thurston - Check Out the Groove

..or even went out clubbing with the Legs? the mind boggles, as indeed ido the eyes as the girls doing a bit of  what was effectively even then old school disco-style  'strutting' in their knickers! Plenty of low lying camera shots too. Phew! Calm down a bit...

Bad Manners - Ne Ne Na Na Nu Nu

But no! Don't sit down just yet folks as it's time for this lot! Actually since the panting and heaving Legs gathered round Wright for the introduction they might as well have stayed on and joined in. Sadly this is not the case and we get the big fat sweaty bloke and his pals instead. This was their first hit, so I imagine that, as with The Cure, this was their TOTP debut.

David Essex - Silver Dream Machine

Second time for Essex and his new song/new movie plug. Doing well in the Top 10, although that was perhaps not the case for said film at the box offices.

The Undertones - My Perfect Cousin

Is it me or does this show seem to be going on for like forever? Anyway here's another repeat of the la's from 'Derry (or somewhere like that). Just noticed that the drums sound a bit like the ones on A Forest. Is there any link? Answers on a postcard...

Johnnie Logan - What's Another Year

Oh God. What's this? Eurovision winner? Rubbish! It's not even in the charts! But Logan did indeed win the contest in The Hague on the 20th of the month with a massive 143 points so obviously he's got some kind of automatic qualification for the Pops. This show was long enough already but the "wait" for Blondie is made even more agonizing!

Blondie - Call Me

And here they are! No they aren't! Wright very unceremoniously announces the new number one and indeed Blondie's second in a matter of weeks. In fact it's obviously all been a bit too quick for them too as they haven't even got a proper video together. So what we get is even more of a movie-plug than David Essex's thing, and indeed more of Richard Gere than Debbie Harry. The film was of course American Gigolo and effectively launched Gere as a Hollywood superstar (probably because he bared his arse to the camera). Back  to the song, it was written by Harry and the legendary Giorgio Moroder, although Wright doesn't mention any of this and just plugs his radio show instead.

Dexy's Midnight Runners - Geno

This had rocketed up to no. 2 from no. 12, so Blondie 'n' Moroder beware!

Be back in two weeks. T'ra.

TOTP 80.16 17/04/1980

Full chart here.
This show was not repeated on BBC4 in 2015, as it was presented by J*mmy S*vile, but here's the line-up anyway, courtesy of Turn it on Again > Top of the Pops 1980:

Leon Haywood – Don’t Push It, Don’t Force It (chart rundown)
Not a terribly exciting chart this week, the highest new entry being Sky's Toccata, as featured last week. There are however are couple of big movers who make fairly unlikely bedfellows in the battle for the top spot before long....

Phil Lynott – Dear Miss Lonely Hearts
Thin Lizzy leader had obviously got a bit peed off with working with bandmates so decided to embark on a solo career à la John Foxx. Unlike Foxx however, Lynott continued to stay in Thin Lizzy at the same time and even have his band mates guest on the album Solo in Soho. Confused? Well never mind cos this will get nowhere. Lynott's biggest solo hit would be Yellow Pearl, co-written with Midge Ure for said album, which would later become the TOTP theme tune. Midge Ure of course replaced John Foxx in Ultravox - see what I did there?

Barbara Dickson - January February
Stable at last week's no. 11, but somebody obviously decided she needed to a leg-up. Which she didn't get.

Girl – Hollywood Tease
Blimey! Who's this? Some kind of glam-rock outfit who don't want to join the new heavy metal movement? Reminds one of early Japan (David Sylvian's band, not the country) but more Led Zeppelin than Roxy Music. I swear I'd never heard this before in my life, and probably never will again either.

Blondie – Call Me (Legs & Co)
This one is already at no. 2 - yes number two - guys n gals, without so much of a Pops' credits run-out up to now. Still no sign of Debs and the boys though so one will have to make do with the Legs, dressed a kind of ska suit affair with coloured tops, Pauline Black wouldn't be seen dead in.

B. A. Robertson – Kool In The Kaftan
Tiresome and thankfully here for the last time with this one.

The Selecter – Missing Words 
Again, struggling somewhat chart-wise but they won't need to make the trip down from Coventry again for a bit.

The Ruts – Staring At The Rude Boys
New in at, er, no. 51 folks. Not a patch on Babylon's Burning but this wouldn't do too badly for them.

The Pretenders – Talk Of The Town
Top 10 again after their no. 1 smash, but we won't have to endure this tedious video no more. Still a great tune though.

Dexy's Midnight Runners – Geno
Geno! Geno! Geno! This one's up to no. 12 this week and obviously causing a bit of a stir up and down the country as the single is bought by young punters who had no idea who Geno Washington was. And to think Record Mirror called this "a turgid eulogy with few redeeming features". Stay tuned.

The Nolans – Don’t Make Waves
Bubbling under the Top 30, and we still have I'm in the Mood for Dancing still ringing in our ears. Lovely ladies with a lovely dance routine and a lovely live vocal. Lovely.

UB40 – Food For Thought
Up one more place for the Brummie boys who were hitting their peak with this one at no. 4.

Sham 69 – Tell The Children
More fag-end of punk rock, although would fare much worse than, say, The Ruts. But Sham 69, you may now disband.

The Detroit Spinners – Working My Way Back To You
My colleague Angelo has reminded me that this is actually a medley with Forgive Me Girl. Still at no. 1 but I think that's quite enough of the '70s for now thank you very much.

Bobby Thurston – Check Out The Groove
Oh no! More seventies?

TOTP 80.15 10/04/1980

Introduced by Simon Bates
BBCFour repeat here
Chart here.

Liquid Gold - Dance Yourself Dizzy
Charts: Dexy's and Selecter just manage to creep into the Top 30 after last week's performances, although it's giant leaps for The Pretenders and Madness after theirs. Blondie are back big time, as is, surprisingly, Mr David Essex. Messrs. Doctor Hook and UB40 both make Top 5 and there's a new No. 1 ...

Undertones - My Perfect Cousin
Surprisingly (The) Undertones had only made the Top 30 once in the one and a half years since their debut, the seminal Teenage Kicks, being perhaps too strongly linked to their champion John Peel to be accepted into the mainstream. Five singles later however and here is what would become their biggest hit, and quite rightly so. Notable for its witty lyric which name-checks Sheffield synths-only band The Human League, cleverly rhyming 'advise her' with 'synthesiser'. As a homage, the NME ran the feature "The Human League's Guide to Synthesisers" later in the year. Fact.

David Essex - Silver Dream Machine
Wow! He's back! Looking at David's wiki page, he seems to go back further than we'd like to think. He did of course reach his peak around 1973-75, when he was endowed the enviable mélange of 'dishy' looks (or so my sister used to tell me) and some damn fine songs to make into hit singles. Later in the seventies he'd had to rely on the Evita musical to get another top-5 single (namely with Oh What A Circus in 1978) but since then ..naffink. This one put him back on, er, track for a few weeks though and was taken from/made for the feature film Silver Dream Racer, starring Essex himself. Apparently it was a complete flop although the single would do better.

Dr. Hook - Sexy Eyes (Legs & Co.)
Uh-oh, it's getting complicated again. The girls form a circle and so a kind of folk dance round thing, although "special effects" has to quadruple up the screen for some reason, they we get a close up of each dancer in turn, each doing more or less the same things over and over, with the occasional flash of knicker, and then we get some silk scarf slow motion pseudo-ballet dancing too. Hmmm. Last week's thing is going to be very hard to beat.

Saxon - Wheels of Steel
..and following on from David Essex and his motor-cycling saga, here's Barnsley band Saxon, originally named 'Son of a Bitch', fact fans with their new offering. While the rest of the country was getting excited and hot under the collar about punk rock, new wave and all that, these lads were waving the 'heavy metal' flag and indeed continued to do so through much the eighties, bless 'em. Rousing stuff.

Sky - Toccata
It's about time we had a novelty instrumental band/single back in the charts after The Shadows let us down a bit earlier in the year. Emerging from the classical-cum-progressive scene in the early seventies, this mixed Ossie-UK outfit (guitarist John Williams their most famous member) had enjoyed a big success with their debut eponymous album in '79 and were now ready to for the Pops with this adaptation of Bach's "Toccata and fugue in D minor", as a preview of their second album, adventurously named Sky2. Great stuff.

Judas Priest - Living After Midnight
More rock/heavy metal à la Saxon, and those tight trousers are now up to no.12

Siouxsie & the Banshees - Happy House
Another slow mover and another repeat although we're obviously a bit short of material this week to be able to show anything better and more exciting. Except for David Essex.

Sad Café - My Oh My
Somebody obviously thought this one needed a push too. Strangely it went up one place the week after this but then up seven more places the week after, which probably means we'll be seeing them again. Groan.

Bodysnatchers - Do Rocksteady
It's the ska band slot and the all-female Bodysnatchers are slowing climbing up so it's their turn. They won't get any higher though, not with this or anything else. Ever.

The Buggles - Clean Clean
Well after a run of four slow movers, it's about time for something new! With scary intro (see above)! The Buggles hardly seem to have been away two minutes but  they're back with another single, lifted from their Age of Plastic album. Hardly sound of the eighties material this one though. Since Video Killed, chart performances are getting progressively worse and this, I fear, is the last we'll ever see of them on the Pops.

Detroit Spinners - Working My Way Back To You
..and they've worked their way up to the no. 1 spot, knocking The Jam  down two places. A good song but hardly no. 1 material, one thinks. Not really what the kids want.

Secret Affair - My World
Quite frankly I'd have expected Blondie and their new smash Call Me to me to have been played here, Secret Affair having climbed just one place after last week. But no matter.

See you next week!

TOTP 80.14 03/04/1980

Introduced by Kid Jensen
BBCFour repeat here
Chart here.
Full show on youtube here.

Cheeky! Kid Jensen excercises his eyeballs (see Legs & Co.)

Judas Priest - Living After Midnight
The Priest were up ten places after last week's appearance so get the chart rundown slot.  Indeed many of the acts on last week benefit from last week's show (except for John Foxx and The Dooleys, both non-movers), especially Genesis, The Brothers Johnson and Secret Affair although it's those creepy Dr. Hook who storm into the Top 10, beating even Madness with their new one. The Top 5 is still pretty much distributed between the usual handful of artistes although The Vapors are on their way down and Liquid Gold dangerously close to the top spot.

Madness - Nightboat to Cairo
And indeed here are the nutty boys from Camden appropriately dressed for this Egyptian pastiche straight in at no. 14. It was actually the lead track from their Work Rest and Play EP, a compliment to their debut album One Step Beyond (which featured 'Cairo') and a stop-gap prior to their new album in the making.

Barbara Dickson - January February
Here's Babs again with one of her best known numbers, doing very nicely thank you at no. 12. In April.

Dexy's Midnight Runners - Geno
Their debut effort didn't do so well chartwise, despite a rousing TOTP performance, although by now word had obviously got round that this lot were a bit good and Geno would become one of those new wave/eighties anthems still renowned to this day. Still bubbling inder the Top 30 but destined to do a lot better. A lot better indeed.

Pretenders - Talk of the Town
Another much anticipated new single after their surprise No. 1 success earlier in the year. Here the lads 'n' lass appear in a Blondie-esque promo-video (for 'tis surely captured on new-fangled videotape rather than film) on an eye-dazzling set. Very Kenny Everett-ish in a way, which is probably what it was made for rather than drab old TOTP. Great track by the way.

Leon Hayward - Don't Push It Don't Force It.
Kid invites us to exercise our eyeballs on this one and sound advice indeed as this week Legs & Co. really are rather phwaor. (Male chauvinist mode on, note the flash of bum in the opening seconds) The skimpy night dress things remind one of Kim Basinger's favourite kitchen get-up in a future 9½ Weeks, and the girls here really show us how silly animal/workman/ballet costumes often get in the way of the enjoyment. So don't force it, keep in simple girls, keep it simple. (Male chauvinist mode off).

UB40 - Food for Thought
This was by now blaring out of the nation's radio sets morning, noon and night as is reflected in its formidable no. 10 spot. Ironically, in a few years, they will not only be appearing on the same show as Chrissie Hynde (albeit virtually) but on the same song even.

The Selecter - Missing Words
Yet another eagerly anticipated follow-up single from these 2-Toners who as usual give an energetic delivery with lost of jumping around on the wobbly TOTP stage. Discrete success for this one although their chart performance was decreasing with each release.

B.A. Robertson - Kool in the Kaftan
Slow chart progress for this Scotsman who seems even more irksome than last time. This kind of 'comedy' single seems to have aged even more poorly than, say, Captain Beaky. Love and peace, man.

The Lambrettas - Poison Ivy
More jerking and jumping about à la Selecter which is quite a relief after "B.A.". The Lambrettas had gone Top 10 with this cover version, although this is as high as they got with it. No matter. They'll be back again soon, I'll wager.

Prima Donna - Love Enough For Two
Well it's April and so it's Eurovision Song Contest time and this is the UK's 1980 entry folks. A fairly banal affair although to their credit it got to third place with cent et six points, pipped to the top spot by Ireland's Johnny Logan (more of him later). The German entry came second, although that year I was of course rooting for synth-poppers Telex from Belgium who naturally came third last.

The Jam - Going Undergound
But enough of this soppy Eurovision malarkey! Let's get back to real English music wot ver kids are interested in. Yes, Weller & Co. hold out at no. 1 for a third week. After which it may have seemed as though The Jam had their moment of glory, but it ain't over yet!

Doctor Hook - Sexy Eyes (play-out)
Thank you Mr Kid Jensen for an ace show by the way - pity we had to end with this but, sadly, it was doing rather well.

See you next week!