TOTP 80.35 30/10/80

First broadcast 30/10/80
Repeated on BBCFour from 29/10/2015
Presented by Peter Powell
Guest presenter Colin Berry
Full chart here.

We open up the show with the party already in full swing, with loads of balloons and not a drop of Babycham in sight. Peter Powell in full-smug mode on, light blue T shirt and with him (in dark blue T shirt) is, er, Colin Berry. Who? Apparently some posh geezer from Radio 2 who has been 'getting up early'. How interesting. On with the show please...

Adam and the Ants - Dog Eat Dog
Second performance from Adam and his mates who are up to no. 13 and prepare for world domination. It's a pity they're on first as all the rest is made to look even more rubbish than it actually is.

Watch me Daddy-o!

Odyssey - If You're looking For a Way Out
Boring song, sung by boring people in boring video. Boring. (cit. Rick the Student). At no. 6, obviously.

Bad Manners - Special Brew
Slightly less boring although ska really was reaching its end surely? You know the score - lots of nuttiness and the big fat bloke in a grass skirt. Redeemed only by the ace line "I wanna spend all my money on you". One place above Odyssey and the last we'll see of them for a bit.

David Bowie - Fashion (Legs & Co.)
New in at 20 and Peter Powell shows us he really knows his stuff by telling us the full title of the latest Bowie album. We'll see the proper video for this in a couple of weeks time although while we're waiting for The Dame to make it, here's the luvvly Legs strutting their stuff, although sadly the cameras remain frustratingly distant from the stage/catwalk.

Beep beep!

Sheena Easton - One Man Woman
Our Sheen has been busy making a video for this one so she didn't have to bother about going to the TOTP studio too often. Not a great song but the whole look and feel of it is very Eighties. But that's the only redeeming (max) factor I'm afraid as the song is a bit rubbish. At no 17 but will peak next week at only 14.

I'm sure Phil Oakey is watching this.

Olivia Newton John & Cliff Richard - Suddenly
Oh dear. More dreariness from this perhaps unlikely couple. This is another one from Xanadu although Olivia did more interesting things on that album/film/concept with ELO. This dirge was written by John Farrar who'd also done better things for Olivia on Grease. They'd better hurry up and get physical, physical...

Showaddywaddy - Why Do Lovers Break Each Other's Hearts 
Or indeed why do a band like Showaddywaddy continue to have hits and appear on Top of the Pops? Not very Eighties at all, aside form the coloured streak in the singer's hair. At no. 22 but I don't think we'll ever see them on the Pops again. And why after seeing this do I get the impression they might have been a (closet) gay band? Never mind..

Oh it's Top 10 countdown already.

It's eight fifteen...

Barbara Streisand - Woman in Love
It's the third slow ballad (yawn) of the night but this is obviously way ahead of the rest. At number one for the second (of three) weeks in fact.


Don't forget to order your special T-shirts from the Radio Times and we'll see you next week as the TOTP-Tardis whooshes forward in time! Byeeeee!!

TOTP 80.31 02/10/80

First broadcast 02/10/80
Not repeated by BBCFour in 2015.
Presented by Dave Lee Travis
Full chart here.

Not repeated due to DLT presenterage. Despite having paid him good (taxpayers') money for 25 years, the BBC now deem him unfit for broadcasting, even in a historical context. One wonders if they still have it in for him after his on-air resignation in 1993, but there you go. Anyway thanks to those nice people at Popscene and Turn It on Again/TOTP 1980 here's a brief description of what came up on this particular show, with a few comments.

Show preview in (three) videos is preceded by a lengthy rambling about a special car and a motor show or some such. But on with the show.

Gillan - Trouble
Highest chart entry at 22 and it's back to the heavy-metal 'head banging' genre, even without Tommy Vance at the helm. As DLT duly informs us this is a cover version of an Elvis Presley song (from 1958), and pretty dismal it is too. This might as well be 1973. I'm no expert but he sounds like the bloke from Deep Purple to me.

..a lot more rambling on about that stupid car then..

Stevie Wonder - Master Blaster (video inter-spliced with studio dancing)
At no. 2 and the first of a string of hits by Wonder over the next few months or so. It'll be 'Happy Birthday' within a year so we should be grateful for this.

Matchbox - When You Ask About Love
Their follow up to....the previous one, and more 50s-nostalgia nonsense. Now at no. 38, this did surprisingly well although thankfully has since fell into the depths of oblivion.

Thin Lizzy - Killer on the Loose (video)
Not sure if Lynott is warning us against the killer or actually saying he is the killer given all his aggressive posing, snarling and finger wagging. Anyway having abandoned his solo "career" he's on his way to the Top 10 (for the last time) wiv Ver Lizzy.

Change - Searching (Legs & Co.)
We had a quick preview of this one in the credits run-out last week, and a classy bit of soul-funk it has turned out to be too. Legs give it their all, dressed as French maids (what else?) but you'll have to do some "searching" (geddit?) around for that for yourselves. Up to their no. 11 peak.

30-20 rundown. Good to see Lynx at 23.

Odyssey - If You're Looking For a Way Out (video)
Better have some more disco music then. Oh no..it's a slow one! This is the follow up to their unforgettable no. 1 of a few months back (the title of which escapes me) and will likewise go top 10, staying Top 40 for 12 weeks. And we haven't even seen the back of them yet.

The Charts (sic.) 19-11

Madness - Baggy Trousers
Well they've certainly kept the best til last and I can imagine that a large part of the viewing public had been eagerly awaiting this "nutty" studio performance (we only had the video last time).  Up to no. 4, which is a gross injustice innit. Love Suggs' stop/start 'dancing' and all that arsing about. At least it meant max. audience participation, something which was still largely lacking on The Pops.

Top 9 rundown, including The Giant Sombrero. Then DLT kisses two young girls on the lips while handing out free LPs. 

The Police - Don't Stand So Close To Me (video)
Summers/Copeland/Sumner continue their run at the top. One wonders whether there could've been some kind of Madness vs. The Police rivalry competition if this chart had been some years into the future when record companies and such liked to play up such things (hello Oasis and Blur).


Bob Marley & Wailers -  Three Little Birds (credits)
The band had just completed their massive Uprising World Tour even though Marley was already very ill. But he didn't worry 'bout a ting.


Tune in Thursday 08/10/15 for the 09/10/80 show.

The Ones (and other hits) that got away

Here's a list of songs which were hits during the TOTP strike period:

Number 1's:

Don McLean - Crying
We'd already seen the promo video a couple of times, and after three weeks of a song about suicide the Great British public chose three weeks of a song about crying. Britian was obviously a very miserable place.

ELO & Olivia Newton John - Xanadu
But enough moping already! Here's a shiny new Olivia and the fabulous Electric Light Orchestra from Brum who sadly didn't get the chance to show off their first and only time at the top spot on national television on a Thursday night. Travesty indeed. ELO also got to no. 20 with I'm Alive and to no. 11 with All Over the World, all by themselves.

Farrar, Newton-John, Lynn: The Xanadu team (pic.: donosdump.com/xanadu/)

Odyssey - Use It Up and Wear It Out
A chart-topping anomaly in these TOTP-less wilderness days perhaps. They knocked Olivia and pals off the top spot and stayed there for two weeks.

Abba - The Winner Takes It All
This one was however fully justified in making it to the top. More miserableness, true enough, but a classic heart-wrenching ballad about a post-split couple hurtling into a divorce. Bjorn says it was totally non-autobiographical and we totally believe that, don't we. Top promo video too, but I still can't bear to watch it when Agnetha looks into the camera and sings in trembling voice "Now I understand, you've come to shake my hand..". Their seventh UK no. 1 and the first to be shown in the new style Pops, coming up.



Other Big Ones

Kate Bush - Babooshka
Still one of her best known songs but as it peaked at no. 5 in the first week of August the classic promo-video never made it to the Pops.

Leo Sayer - More Than I Can Say
This one also peaked beginning of August, making it to no. 2. The permed-one never got to sing this smoochy classic on a TOTP stage (although a stand-in did for the nigh-legendary pilot show).

Bob Marley & The Wailers - Could You be Loved
Some cheery summer rasta sounds at last, peaking at no. 5. Marley would be dead within a year, although not even a posthumous release of No Woman No Cry managed to beat this chart-wise.

UB40 - My Way of Thinking
More summer reggae sounds man in this follow up to Food For Thought. Peaked at no. 6.

Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart
It's still debatable as to whether this post-punk classic went Top 20 because of radio-play dominance through TOTP's non-showing or whether it would have been a hit anyway, following singer Ian Curtis' suicide at the end of May. But no matter, it's another classic and their one and only chart hit, which would re-surface again in 1983.

The Korgis - Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime
More sloppy gloomdom, although a bit more 'sound of the eighties' than most of this kind of stuff that was around. Sadly they never managed to make a decent follow up and the parent album Dumb Waiters (great cover) only made it to No. 40.

Splodgenessabounds - Two Pints of Lager and Packet of Crisps Please
Again we are left to wonder if this novelty-punk record would ever have got to the Top 10 or even onto Top of the Pops in a non-BBC-orchestra strike parallel universe. But it was a bit of a laugh, and we all know how us Brits like to have a laugh amid all the crying. Especially if it's about crisps and beer. Or a strike.

We're laughin'! (Official dispute pic.: overgrownpath.com 01.10.2010)