Interlude: Valentine's Day '80 Pops LP

Pic and further info: Top of the Pops albums website

For the uninitiated these 'Top of the Pops' LPs were budget-priced records which issued throughout the seventies and into the eighties by the Hallmark label. They featured cover versions (never the original versions) of hit songs of the particular period, and the front and back cover bear a scantily-yet-tastefully clad female in seductive pose as a not-so-subtle marketing device, which presumably worked its magic mostly on Dads.

Here's the February 1980 release, in fetching 'Valentine's Day' red. 

Interlude: RIP Steve Strange

Some shock news that archetypal 'New Romantic' pop star Steve Strange died last night in his sleep. An untimely death at just 55 years of age, although it must be said that the man certainly lived life to the full during most of the eighties, and was also enjoying a renaissance recently with a rather good new Visage album Hearts and Knives and orchestral re-workings of the classic Fade to Grey and other Visage songs.

As the eccentric impresario figure behind the whole Blitz Club scene, there are certainly a whole range of bands who benefitted from his groundbreaking approach to music in the 'new romantic' opening years of the decade. Fittingly, he only appeared on TOTP in 1980 in video-promos; firstly as an 'extra' in David Bowie's iconic Ashes to Ashes video, and later in Visage's own Fade to Grey (a song which he didn't actually write). But here's the man in a TOTP performance of a later hit Night Train in 1982, executed naturally with impeccable style.

Thank you Mr. Strange.