TOTP 80.7 15/02/1980

Repeated on BBCFour as from 05.03.2015
Full chart here

For those reading in 2015 welcome back to TOTP '80 after a week's break, and if you're reading in 1980 then you'll have realised that the Pops wasn't in the usual Thursday slot this week but moved forward a day 'cos of the Winter Olympics, which have just opened.
So anyway, put your skis and padded anoraks away for the moment, and enjoy this week's show, presented by Simon Bates. There's something for everyone tonight, including no less than five cover versions - can you spot them all?

Kool & the Gang  - Too Hot (chart rundown)
Promoted from the "OK, get the kettle on" run-out credits spot a couple of weeks ago, they're now promoted to the "come in, sit down, shurrup, it's on" chart rundown spot. Good work.
Chart notes: The Rats have jumped up to number 4, the Nolans are stable at No. 3, despite all their dancing and romancing in the TOTP studio of late, and there's a new No. 1, more's the pity. TOTP going all out on the 'special' effects with double image for each position. Oooh! Clever!

Matchbox - Buzz Buzz a Diddle It
Well let's get the party started albeit with a blood curdling banshee-like cry from a Matchbox wannabe cowboy. Slow progress for our nutty rockabillies, so someone thought they needed a bit of a boost by placing them in the prime first act on slot. They slipped down again after this no. 22 peak, but they'll be back.

Keith Mitchell - Captain Beaky
And here's the little kids' favourite nice and early so they can go to bed before any lunatic punk rockers come on to traumatise them. This novelty record had already reached no. 5. So much for the punk revolution. Nul points Simon Bates for the 'feathered-friend' co-presenter but top marks for Mitchell for the live vocals and that jacket.

Flying Lizards - T.V.
Oooh! Hang about a bit longer kids, it's the novelty punk/new-wave band slot! Hopes were high after the bizarre yet catchy version of Money last year, and Simes shows us he's really 'with it' by having this as his record of the week. This original composition was nowhere near as good as Money though and didn't even make it into the Top 40, making the Lizards effective one-hit wonders. Nice try, and probably one of the bizzarest TOTP performances ever. Very, very, very ...Dada.

Elvis Costello - I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down
Seasoned new-waver Elvis Costello and his Attractions were straight in at no. 15 this week with htis stomper. It had been almost a year since their smash hit Oliver's Army but this tune was certainly up to that high standard and an excellent taster for his new album Get Happy!! which was also just out. Nice early promo too, possibly filmed on a wet day in South of France. This how to be bizarre and successful - Flying Lizards take note.

Michael Jackson - Rock With You (Legs & Co.)
It's Jacko! No, actually it's only Legs & Co. "as you've never seen them before!". Up from 35 to no. 12, just one place ahead of Cliff Richard whose Carrie possibly gave him inspiration for the future hit Billie Jean - we can but speculate. But back to now, and God knows what Flick Colby had been on this week to have dreamt this one up.

Dave Edmunds - Singing the Blues
Bit of an odd one this bluesy boyo, who had a number 1 hit - I Hear You Knocking - back in 1970, and seems to have lived off the success of that ever since. He did quite well with Girls Talk and Queen of Hearts in 1979 (I challenge you to whistle either of 'em) and this new one would also give him the same medium-sized/mediocre success. As Simes quite rightly points out Nick 'Breaking Glass' Lowe also features on gee-tarr, as does another bloke who looks like Keith Chegwin.

Jon & Vangelis - I Hear You Now
Back to the 'sound of the eighties', or almost. This seems to have been around for ages already. Video features a bloke in a leotard jumping out of a synthesiser. Don't ask. Moving swiftly along..

The Shadows - Riders in the Sky
'Simes' has to remind us that this next group are really famous and successful by showing us a big record in a frame. Again, it was slow progress for Cliff's former mates but amazingly they did get even higher than this week's no. 22 spot. The band are all modern now because they've got four (count 'em) syndrums and even a Moog hidden in the background. It was, alas (snigger), their last top 20, nay 40, hit. I'm not even going to mention what they did next.

Marti Webb - Take That Look Off Your Face
Andrew Lloyd Webber and co were obviously trying to follow up the success of Don't Cry for Me Argentina from Evita, although he would do better with Cats a year or so into the future. A nice enough song though and a good one for wives and girlfriends to shout into the faces of cheating partners. Webb is even more chilling and motionless than John 'Underpass' Foxx a couple of weeks back. Does she even blink? Scarey! Features TOTP orchestra and...tubular bells!

Stiff Little Fingers - At the Edge
It's punk rock time, and this week it's Stiff Little Fingers all the way from Belfast. They were only just bubbling under the Top 40 although someone obviously thought it was time they had their prime time break (at a suitable distance from Capt. Beaky) after being championed by the likes of John Peel. I had this down as being suitably shambolic yet it wasn't really, although compared to Marti Webb even The Wombles would have seemed energetic.

Kenny Rogers - Coward of the County
It's No. 1 but Rogers hasn't even bothered to come to l'il ol' England to go on Top of the Pops and it's that awful live promo film instead. Interestingly that makes it the second no. 1 in a row featured only via a live promo film. As far as I can make out this one isn't about teenage preganancy and contraception though. Not that I've ever listened to it properly.

Ramones - Baby I Love You (credits)
Well at least we're left with a slightly sweeter taste from another kind of American act. It's all been a bit rushed tonight becuase of the Friday slot and you won't be able to discuss it with your mates tomorrow morning either. Tough.

Did you spot all five cover versions? Answers next week!

TOTP 80.5 31/01/1980

Repeat shown on BBCFour  from: 12.02.2015

Hello everyone: a bit late with the Pops commentary this week, due to a strange mix of mourning Steve Strange and Valentine's Day celebrations. But here we are with the last TOTP of January '80, and it's Dave 'Kid' Jensen's turn again, this time with a 'sensible' jacket (as worn by Simon Bates) with short collar worn in a definite seventies style. What happened to the eighties, Kid?

The Selecter - Three Minute Hero (chart run-down)
Not sure if the 'colourful' chart run-down quip refers to the garish (eighties?) colour scheme used in the graphics or indeed The Selecter themselves, whose new song is in at no. 29. Thirty-second heroes only this week though I'm afraid.

The Revillos - Motor Bike Beat
OK, here's the 'novelty' one to get the ball rolling, with yet more 'colorful' on-stage japes by Edinburgh post-punks Revillos, previously known as (the) Rezillos who'd had a hit single ironically entitled "Top of the Pops". Confused? Well so is this performance which seems to have numerous band members jumping around all over the place, even finding space for a, er, motor-bike of course.

Kenny Rogers - Coward of the County
Oh dear. This really was the sorry state of American music at the moment, but one which of course was still finding its way over here too, probably receiving ueber-playing by Radio 2 'disc-jockeys' throughout the day. Now we know what Father Christmas does when he's not being Father Christmas. Like Margaret Thatcher, this was already at no. 10.

Azymuth - Jazz Carnival 
Oh dear (2). Lithe young women dressed in tight fitting animal 'costumes', locked in cages. Hmm. What's worse, they've got 'Kid' donning an explorer's type hard-hat in order to give us a David Attenborough-like description of each 'animal'. Quite what this has to do with a "jazz carnival" is somewhat beyond us. The dance routine is equally as embarrassing. Better move one

John Foxx - Underpass
From the ridiculous to the sublime. It's hard for me to give any kind of objective description of John Foxx's (né Dennis Leigh) first TOTP appearance as it was one of those jaw-dropping, life-changing moments that would change me, and my tastes in music, forever. This was Foxx's first solo single, and indeed the first all-out electronic track, even though as Kid rightly points out he'd been dabbling for the genre for some time. TOTP cameras must have been a bit lost here as there's no drum kit, no guitars to (wrongly) zoom in on at opportune moments: even Gary Numan had brought along a drummer and a bass guitarist. Foxx was accused of imitating Numan, which is ironic as it was Foxx with his former band Ultravox! who had inspired a young Gary to make his own music in the first place. However, unlike Numan, Foxx failed to hit the number 1 spot with this fabulously gloomy track about "standing in the dark", "lifting the receiver", "world war-something" and so on, done solely with synthesisers and drum machines. But history has proved him right and this song and parent album Metamatic have since been revered, revisited and re-purposed in the new world of electronica. Click, click, drone...


Madness - My Girl
But enough gloom and doom! Let's get the Nutty Boys back in again, albeit in the third showing of this eighties-opening studio performance of almost a month ago, making Madness and indeed this performance the most featured to date. They were stable at no. 3.


The Shadows - Riders in the Sky
Oh dear (3). After John Foxx's static synths, the cameramen must have been glad to have had some guitars and a drum-kit to zoom in on at last, although this time no lead-singer, and so we have to make do with Hank Marvin's unique facial gestures for entertainment. To their credit these guys had been having hits since before The Beatles even knew how to play chords, although with this one you get the feeling their time was already up, notwithstanding the inclusion of four (count 'em) disco-effect syndrums to the drum kit. Next!


Rupert Holmes - Escape (Pina Colada Song)
Oh no, it's this again, and to add to the boredom it's a repeat from a couple of weeks ago. Somebody had obviously decided this needed some kind of 'boost' as it was already flailing as a non-mover at no. 27. Somehow this showing managed to get him and his bloomin' pina colada up a few more places.


Ramones - Baby I Love You 
Ooo! Who's this? Ramones? Aren't they American punk-rockers? But is this The Ramones who 'spearheaded' (sic.) punk in the USA from about 1976 onwards? But what's this? Doing a sloppy love song with the TOTP in-house orchestra (average age 60)? It's all very confusing but then again The Ramones never were going to do things normally. They would in fact wipe the board with this one and get to Top 10.


Jon & Vangelis - I Hear You Now
Better tone things down a bit and get one of those new fangled 'videos' in, with loads of special effects in to keep folks interested. I always really liked this song but the video is a tad embarrassing (perhaps even more than Legs' animal thing) and ages it terribly, as in fact most videos are wont to do. Hovering around the lower reaches of the Top 20, the record buying public heard them and gave Jon & Vang a wee boost.


Billy Ocean - Are You Ready
Um, for what exactly? Billy was already a household name, having had a few hits in the late seventies (including the ambivalent Red Light Spells Danger) although despite this one sounding a bit like what one Michael Jackson would be doing a couple of years hence, it bombed. Ocean would do better in the wide shoulder pad years.


New Musik - Living by Numbers
More, er, new (wave) music even though it's another repeat from a couple of weeks ago when they opened the show as the 'novelty' act. Speaking of numbers they'd now reached no. 20 and this repeat showing would edge them a little closer to the Top 10. (I've since checked out their album From A to Z which is/was actually quite good).


Keith Mitchell - Captain Beaky and his Band
In which bespoke Shakespearean actor recites children's poetry about animals over spritely orchestral musical arrangements whilst wearing 'sailor' cap and outfit. And gets to no. 5 in the charts. This could only happen in England, and it did. We have people Tony Blackburn and Noel Edmonds to thank for this.

Before the no. 1, 'Kid' introduces us to new boy Steve Wright who is obviously very shy, if rather more 'trendily' dressed, and gets to introduce....

The Specials - Too Much Too Young
And it's a new number 1, shooting up from last week's no. 15 whence it had already appeared from nowhere. Again, it's the live filmed footage as shown last week, although there's some logic to that as it was the lead track of a live EP, featuring four other songs (if we split the 'Skinhead Symphony' into its three respective parts). Despite the subject matter it didn't get banned, although I've a feeling that that final 'try wearing a CAP!' as well as being cut off again on TOTP, suffered a similar fate during what prime time radio play it would have received. Fun fact: first live track to get to no. 1 in the UK since Chuck Berry's My Ding-a-Ling.

Queen - Save Me (play-out)
After the smash hit Crazy Little Thing Called Love expectations were high, and this Brian May-penned number would do them well.

See you next week for the first February '80 Pops! Remember to get your TOTP80 selected video clippage here.