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Top of the Pops on Thursdays, bbc 4.

blackcat
in 20th Century Retro

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X Ray Spex were awful. Just a loud of shouting. That's not music.

 

Just what most fathers said from behind their newspapers when it was originally broadcast.

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This week's summary...

 

 

Yvonne Elliman over the chart with the Gibb brothers-penned If I Can’t Have You.

 

The Real Thing with a song I’d forgotten ever existed although it did sneak in at number 39. With luck I will have forgotten about it again soon.

 

Blondie - now this is more like it. And we get two Debbie Harrys!

 

Heatwave with a mind-blowingly repetitive song.

 

1978’s Eurovision winner didn’t make the edit but it will be on tonight. Also missing the cut were James Galway and Thin Lizzy.

 

Tavares not much cop either. Blondie aside this is turning into a bad episode with a distinctly Gibb flavour.

 

And a change of mood for Black Sabbath with a somewhat younger Ozzy Osbourne.

 

John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John - plenty of time to get fed up with this in the months to come.

 

Ian Dury raising the quality rating massively. The b-side - Wake Up And Make Love With Me - was even better but not quite early evening material at the time.

 

Oh, and now it’s Cilla Black. She hadn’t had a top 40 hit for four years and this did nothing to change that.

 

And Cilla somehow fits in between Ian Dury and Sham 69. This episode is turning out not to be so bad after all.

 

And, of course, we finish with Boney M again.

 

And, with the World Cup meaning there was no programme the following week, we get Rod Stewart’s Scotland song to play out. The song was rather more successful than the football team.

I mostly enjoyed it, I'd also forgotten the Real Thing but it was OK. Tavares is a classic (ditto Yvonne Elliman) but ruined by awful sound quality. Dury sounds great, much as I loved Livvie n John, n Boney M at the time, over-familarity is a problem these days.

 

Sham 69 were an average pub singalong "Oik" band, who's career was mercifully cut short by their stupid Oik fans trashing venues and using them as a focus for right-wing racist nonsense. Hello mum I'm on Top Of The Pops? Ahhhh what a sweet boy.

 

Ozzy was probably fairly articulate at this point of his career and its still one I can singalong to.

 

Disco Cilla? Hmmm I forgot that one fairly quickly too!

  • Author

Thanks for the feedback on the foreign language songs, actually, a few missed out, e.g. Pavorotti's Nissan Dorma did not, as I recall, feature any English, also Julio Iglatias's one and only number one in the UK, from memory, was an all Spanish affair.

 

Not one of the best episodes last night, Ian Dury and Blondie probably the highlights for me too, Suedehead. Loved Ian's songs and lyrics when he was at his best.

 

Trivia for this week, one of those questions you either know or don't know. 1978 saw a larger than normal batch of million selling singles in the UK, (that is, singles that sold a million in the UK market alone), at least one of which featured on last night's show.

 

Please try and name all of them, if you can.

 

All the best,

 

BC B-)

You're The One That I Want sold a million as did Summer Nights. Rivers Of Babylon reached that mark as well so there were two million-sellers on the programme. Boney M released another million-seller, Mary's Boy Child, later in 1978 although I don't know whether it had sold a million by the end of the year. That's four for the year with two of them - Rivers Of Babylon and You're The One That I Want - being successive number ones.
On paper Cilla Black's Silly Boy should have been a big hit, written by Dominic Bugatti & Frank Musker (Three Degrees, Bonnie Tyler, Sheena Easton) and produced by ex Springfield Mike Hurst (Manfred Mann, Showaddywaddy etc).

I'd forgotten the Real Thing song too, and have done again already! :D

 

The Cilla song was awful. The wife said it hurt her head!

Edited by Common Sense

You're The One That I Want sold a million as did Summer Nights. Rivers Of Babylon reached that mark as well so there were two million-sellers on the programme. Boney M released another million-seller, Mary's Boy Child, later in 1978 although I don't know whether it had sold a million by the end of the year. That's four for the year with two of them - Rivers Of Babylon and You're The One That I Want - being successive number ones.

 

Yeah, 1978, along with 1984, were the two biggest years for singles sales. Lots of million sellers. Think 1984 had more though.

 

I'd love to know exactly how many Brown Girl In The Ring buyers actually hadn't flipped over their copy of the single they'd already bought!

Yeah, 1978, along with 1984, were the two biggest years for singles sales. Lots of million sellers. Think 1984 had more though.

 

I'd love to know exactly how many Brown Girl In The Ring buyers actually hadn't flipped over their copy of the single they'd already bought!

Anecdotal evidence at the time suggested that there were indeed rather a lot of people who bought the single twice :lol:

The Cilla Black song was absolutely awful so I'm not surprised it never made the charts. In fact I can't even remember the song so presumably I only ever got to hear it the once when it was featured on Top Of The Pops in May 1978.

 

One song that she did record in 1978 was more successful in that it helped sell more bars of Cadbury's Dairy Milk. Does anyone remember this advert?

 

Yeah, 1978, along with 1984, were the two biggest years for singles sales. Lots of million sellers. Think 1984 had more though.

 

I'd love to know exactly how many Brown Girl In The Ring buyers actually hadn't flipped over their copy of the single they'd already bought!

Sales wise 1979 had higher sales than 1984 though there were more million sellers in 1984 (5, 6 if you include 'Last Christmas' which passed a million sales after the New Year, 1985) than in 1979 (2, 3 if you include 'YMCA' which had its sales split between 1978 and 1979 and now 'Another Brick In The Wall' has sold over 1 million though it took downloads to take it over the million mark). The years 1996 to 1998 were also years of high sales with 15 of the 25 million sellers in the 1990s decade being released in those years.

 

There was quite a lot to like in last night's edition.

 

Debbie looking gorgeous as usual, though I can't for the life of me remember what the song was! (Probably had something to do with the half bottle of whiskey I'd drunk during the Bowie doc on earlier.)

Cut to Tavares (I think) and what a load of dross. Sabbath showing what an absolute travesty they had become by then.

15 secs of the wonderful Dury cutting to an absolutely dreadful track by Cilla that must have sounded dated in 78.

Sham were great, especially the first few words by Jimmy Pursey.

 

So all in all not a bad program. Typical TOTP really.

 

Oh yeah and I loved the Lizzy track.

  • Author

Grebo, Always Touched By Your Presence Dear was the Blondie song in question!

 

Thanks all for the million selling input, four million selling domestic singles in the UK market in 1978, but only two acts did those four!

 

And those two acts, Olivia and John, and Boney M, were on last night's edition.

 

Best thing about last night's edition - which I have just seen on the iplayer - were some of the male groups. Good records from Manfred Mann's Earthband, Lindisfarne, The Rolling Stones and AC/DC. A certain amount of dross inbetween though, from the likes of David Soul and The Brotherhood Of Man.

 

Plastic Bertrand on again, the lovely dancers of Legs & Co added some much needed spice to his already energetic performance.

 

Novelty records from The Smurfs, and the forties sounding Loving You Has Made Me Bananas, with a touch of good soul from Maxine Nightingale, made this week's top of the pops a varied mix, at least.

 

Trivia question - how about some AC/DC hit singles and albums, the names of the brothers who have been at their core, and the name of the Aussie based sixties group that they kind of evolved from.

 

All the best,

 

BC B-)

Grebo, Always Touched By Your Presence Dear was the Blondie song in question!

 

Thanks all for the million selling input, four million selling domestic singles in the UK market in 1978, but only two acts did those four!

 

And those two acts, Olivia and John, and Boney M, were on last night's edition.

 

Best thing about last night's edition - which I have just seen on the iplayer - were some of the male groups. Good records from Manfred Mann's Earthband, Lindisfarne, The Rolling Stones and AC/DC. A certain amount of dross inbetween though, from the likes of David Soul and The Brotherhood Of Man.

 

Plastic Bertrand on again, the lovely dancers of Legs & Co added some much needed spice to his already energetic performance.

 

Novelty records from The Smurfs, and the forties sounding Loving You Has Made Me Bananas, with a touch of good soul from Maxine Nightingale, made this week's top of the pops a varied mix, at least.

 

Trivia question - how about some AC/DC hit singles and albums, the names of the brothers who have been at their core, and the name of the Aussie based sixties group that they kind of evolved from.

 

All the best,

 

BC B-)

 

Good edition I thought, give or take the odd bit of MOR/novelty. AC/DC I seem to be alone in rating the Bon Scott years over everything AC/DC since. I'll take the Geordie years over a lot of AC/DC since Bon Scott. I know, I know, sacrilege and all that...

 

The only 60's Aussie group I know was the Easybeats, and they evolved into Flash n The Pan, I think. Young brothers? a little niggle makes me wonder if it was an uncle or something in the Easybeats...?

Edited by popchartfreak

AC/DC hit singles? I'll give you Thunderstruck from 1990 - I really hated it at the time, but I've got a bit of time for it now...
thunderstruck was OK, yes. Best: Whole Lotta Rosie, Touch Too Much. I'll let others go for the later 80's hits...

I love all periods of AC/DC both with Bon Scott and Brian Johnson.

 

Hits...

 

Shake Your Foundations

Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution

Money Talks

That's The Way I Wanna Rock n Roll

Who Made Who

For Those About To Rock

 

and of course Back In Black.

Finally seen last week's (full length) show. Great start with Manfred Mann's Earthband before a downward plunge with another yawnfest from David Soul.

 

Another showing for the famous Belgian who is Plastic Bertrand followed by Lindisfarne's first top ten hit for six years. Then the Rolling Stones while they were still able to release singles that were at least of decent quality. Not long to go before they were unable to do that. By contrast, Brotherhood Of Man never released anything of decent quality.

 

I'd totally forgotten the Goldie song which made the top ten. What came first, this outfit or the Blue Peter dog? I'd also forgotten the flop from Maxine Nightingale - if I ever heard it at the time.

 

Another showing for one of the year's more bizarre hits - Loving You Has Made Me Bananas. Then into AC/DC doing what they still do when they can be bothered.

 

And of course, there's Boney M at number one for the last time - until Christmas. What memories!

 

The worst possible play-out with the Smurfs.

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