We’ve reached the day in September 1981 when I celebrated my 21st birthday, not that the people of TOTP bothered to acknowledge that momentous occasion. Simon Bates is our host.

 

We start with a band who were big in my early teenage years, Slade.

 

On to another artist whose best years were behind him, Alvin Stardust.

 

Bringing things a bit more up to date, it’s Depeche Mode. And they still get that extra syllable as well as Bates getting the name of their previous single wrong.

 

Dave Stewart and Barbara Gaskin have been dropped. Time for tonight’s editor to be dropped as well.

 

Into the rubbish section of the programme with Linx followed by Diana Ross and Lionel Richie. Ah well, time to switch over to the football. I’ll watch the rest at half-time.

 

And we resume with the first part of the chart before going back to some more dross with Imagination.

 

That means that Japan and Heaven 17 have also been cut. This editor really doesn’t have a clue.

 

Anyway, after the next bit of the chart it’s a return to quality with Madness.

 

The top ten rundown ends with one of my best birthday number ones, from Adam And The Ants.

 

The Police bring the show to a close.

I'm missing a commentary tonight and getting withdrawal symptoms! There's no footie or Suede gigs tonight surely? :lol: Sorry for interjecting with this additional review, I thought you'd forgotten!

 

I forgot about this and came in half through the glamtastic Slade. Lock Up Your Daughters was written as an early warning about one of the regular hosts of the show. True fact...I imagine.

 

Another glam-tastic 60's veteran, with a 50's standard, as done by Nat King Cole, and done rockabilly pop style by Alvin Stardust and nearly as good as Nat. Alvin had been dropped by Magnet records by now, but the cooler than cool Stiff records picked him up. Result: his best record in 7 years.

 

Girls Aloud up next, featuring Vince Clark of Erasure and his backing singers Depeche Mode. So sweet and poppy they had no option but to split immediately to avoid contracting Diabetes, and head down a more satisfying route respectively.

 

Ahh, Linx, loved their sweet soul, and this one had me wallowing in sweet British soul sadness, one of those story pop songs that seem to have all but disappeared. This one was also so sweet Linx had to split up soon afterwards to allow David Grant to pursue a solo career to lesser effect, give or take Jaki Graham duets.

 

Quick hit the fast-forward! Not only Endless Love, it's Legs & Co making a terminally dull song even worse. A bit of a low point for both Lionel and Diana.

 

Imagination well into their run of hit singles, also smooth soul, pleasant and cool enough for British soul (compare with Richie & Ross) - Leeeeeeee John was of course years away from his career highlights: appearing on Doctor Who, and giving me a hug and kiss in a Bournemouth club when I said I was fan. I may have mentioned that before two or three or four times, but hey, you get what you give :lol:

 

Madness. Nutty Boys, Shut Up! No don't, I adored Madness from start right up to their most-recent singles, very British, very endearing, one of a kind. Their videos were always a laugh.

 

Simon being very naughty asking for a slow hand for the Pointer Sisters on the rundown, and Prince Charming is still pantomiming it up big-time. huge fun. Adam was great in his prime.

 

Fade out is one of my fave Police singles, Invisible Sun, about the troubles in Northern Ireland, and not really doing the singalong biz for them, but a great track anyway.

My comments are above, complete with an explanation for why they were a little late :lol: It's always good to get a second set of comments :D

Love seeing a performance like that from Depeche Mode - my weren't they young then look like 14 year olds but it's an absolute classic that track!

Can't wait for Thursday's show as it's the first one I ever saw when I was nowt but a four year old.

Can't wait for Thursday's show as it's the first one I ever saw when I was nowt but a four year old.

I'm sure you remember it well :lol:

I do actually - Adam and the Ants were no.1 with Prince Charming and I was mesmerised by the video. Also featured Hands Up by Ottawan and the Birdie Song!

We’re into early October 1981 with an edition hosted by Mike Read.

 

Cutting the first song of the show makes for an awkward edit, so there is no option but to show The Tweets. One of them seems to have come dressed as Boris Johnson. Tweets have sent Twitter into meltdown.

 

Repeats from Godley and Creme, Sheena Easton and Teadrop Explodes have all been cut.

 

That takes us to The Creatures featuring Siouxsie Sioux and Budgie. It’s all very ornithological tonight.

 

Having bored us rigid with D.I.S.C.O., Ottawan are back to bore us again. Legs & Co don’t make it any better. Their producer begat half of Daft Punk.

 

It’s Toyah time now. Her producer had nothing to do with Daft Punk (as far as I know).

 

Another piece of Bad Manners. Not their finest hour.

 

A week late for me in 1981, but Altered Images are along to wish us Happy Birthday. A truly classic piece of early 80s pop. For an actor, Clare Grogan isn’t great at miming.

 

The first section of the chart rundown, including another version of The Birdie Song.

 

Oh dear, it’s medley time from Gidea Park followed by the next bit of the chart, including the correct pronunciation of Depeche Mode.

 

More dross from Dollar. Even by their standards, this is awful. The bloke on keyboards is Howard Goddall who composed the theme tunes for Red Dwarf and Blackadder (thanks Twitter).

 

Adam and the Ants are still number one, thereby ending the show on a high.

 

Well, almost finishing on a high. There’s another medley over the closing credits. It’s been a busy night for the clappers.

 

The next show is Yewtreed, so expect some instant repeats tomorrow night.

Also from Twitter...

 

How very dare they edit out Godley & Creme & Teardrop explodes with Birdie Song and Gidea Park available. :o

 

Loved the rest, even Ottawan, and I just rushed to itunes to buy The Creatures, one of the few great tracks around about then I never managed to buy a copy of in the ex-chart bargain bins. They were fab. Yay Siouxsie!

 

Saw Clare Grogan on tour a few years ago, one of the 80's mega tours, and she was so smiley and happy and having a ball it was infectious.

 

Dollar is fab, Trevor Horn could polish a turd and make it great, and this one is pretty damn fine in the first place. Most of Dollar's singles were Trev's commentaries on how he saw the Barbie Doll couple, most tellingly Mirror Mirror.

 

I really miss The Police and Human League getting the chop every time :(

 

 

Well, that was quite special - and I do recall being quite wowed by Toyah when I saw that the first time too. I also seem to remember my babysitter (the teenage bloke from across the road) getting pretty excited during the Legs & Co routine for Hands Up and, of course, Adam Ant swinging on a chandelier is still a great moment. My parents never watched TOTP so this was an isolated episode for me before I started watching it off my own back around 1987.

 

By the way, is it my imagination of is the line up of Legs & Co ever changing in 1981? I know they were on their last legs (& co - boom boom!) at this point, but keep seeing new faces, new legs, new co.

Edited May 20, 20169 yr by richie

How very dare they edit out Godley & Creme & Teardrop explodes with Birdie Song and Gidea Park available. :o

 

The Birdie song is great. Had forgotten there was a second version lower down the charts.

 

The Creatures song was awful but thankfully short. Never did like Siouxsie though.

Edited May 20, 20169 yr by Common Sense

The Birdie song is great. Had forgotten there was a second version lower down the charts.

 

The Creatures song was awful but thankfully short. Never did like Siouxsie though.

 

Yes, but I had to endure getting dragged onto youth club dancefloors to do the bloody dance at the youth club I helped out at. I'm scarred for life :lol:

Here we go again then with David Jensen overseeing the proceedings, his first show for over a year. Earlier in the day, Norman Tebbitt made his notorious “On yer bike” speech, although he didn’t actually utter those words.

 

Gary Glitter has been cut. As the song was a cover of And Then (S)he Kissed Me, it may be axed from the longer repeat tonight.

 

We start with a repeat song, but this time Toyah has a video and the hair is even bigger. That looks like the old Waterloo underpass.

 

BA Robertson next, teaming up with Maggie Bell.

 

We get The Tweets again. This is Legs & Co’s last full performance. What a way to go. I’m not convinced the costume designer knew what song they would be performing.

 

Now that’s over, it’s time for Squeeze. Unforgivably, Godley & Creme have been axed again, along with The Exploited.

 

A typically inaccurate chart prediction leads us in to the first part of the rundown.

 

We get The Creatures again. That’s good, but why no Godley & Creme?

 

The next bit of the chart rundown includes the brilliant O Superman. I don’t suppose we’ll be seeing that in full in the next few shows.

 

Another instant repeat now from Bad Manners. No second showing for the video though. Looks like Buster Bloodvessel has dressed himself from the Oxfam shop.

 

The top ten rundown leads us into the brilliant number one from Dave Stewart and Barbara Gaskin. A truly great cover version. Dave Stewart (not that one of course) was previously in Hatfield and the North whose second album gave Jonathan Coe the title of his novel The Rotter’s Club.

 

Oh dear, we end on another medley. This time it’s Blondie songs (some of which were covers) getting brutally murdered.

 

The next episode is another Yewtreed one, so next Thursday we’re only two days from Hallowe’en.

Producer of The Tweets birdie song Henry Hadaway was given an MBE by the Queen, for services to Music!! :lol:

 

http://www.hho.co.uk/news/

Edited May 22, 20169 yr by fiesta

The Creatures song was pretty good - sounded a bit like early drum and bass!!

Here we go with the first of this week’s two programmes. It’s nearly Hallowe’en so Norman Bates’ brother Simon is on presenting duties. We’ve skipped another episode, so expect more repeats.

 

After TOTP and Blankety Blank viewers could see the second episode of a new sitcom, Sink Or Swim starring Peter Davison. It doesn’t ring any bells with me, but there must be someone who remembers it.

 

Anyway, we start with a repeat from Altered Images. A good start. Surely it can’t last.

 

Rod Stewart and The Fureys & Davey Arthur.

 

We missed the song about being Sweet Sixteen, now here’s Olivia Newton-John, already long past her sixteenth birthday.

 

Someone called Trevor Walters is next. Who? I suspect I might have forgotten this one simply because I never managed to stay awake until the end. This really is seriously boring.

 

BA Robertson and Maggie Bell deliver another repeat.

 

Debut time now with 20-year-old Nick Heyward’s Haircut One Hundred. As time goes on, we will have plenty more performers (other than children) who were younger than I was at the time.

 

Time for a history lesson from the wonderful Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark. After seeing lots of youtube videos of recent performances, they now look very young.

 

We interrupt the top twenty with another repeat, this one from Squeeze.

 

The top eight rundown ends with Dave Stewart and Barbara Gaskin still at number one. Hurrah!

 

As an extra bonus, we’ve got through a whole programme without a medley. Things are looking up.

Sink Or Swim? Nah, don't recall that one, I'd given up on British sitcoms in the 80's, unless they were cool and alternative, Comic Strip, Young Ones, New Statesman, Red Dwarf and Girls On Top. Old-fashioned cosy sitcoms just grated on me. :lol:

 

Livvy incredibly was having one last huge chart hurrah, one minor follow-up and that was that for ONJ. that would have been unthinkable at the time!

 

The Fureys and Rod were actually pretty decent so a shame they got cut. Trevor Walters I'd forgotten about (and I own the single!) so it was nice to hear a song I've not heard for a couple of decades. BA & Maggie were fab with the PJ Proby cover. PJ was a hit in our house in the 60's, if only for his big voice and trouser-splitting antics.

 

Nick was just so boyish and cute everyone loved him - well, girls and some boys at any rate - and this was a pretty cool popfunk track. OMD always fab, still right now fab, check out the Eddie The Eagle song they did for Taron Egerton, Thrill Me.

 

Squeeze also always classy, and still classy in concert and on record. They have just topped my chart for the very first time with a new track (Nirvana) which is even better than this diversion into country.

 

Great chart-topper, I never did manage to record this promo video (only had the studio version), so hurrah! finally got it 35 years late :cheer: By this time I had bought a betamax recorder, much cheaper tapes, and I was videoing every promo video I liked a lot, plus a few studio performances. I should probably bung a few of the rare ones on youtube if they are missing... :D

It may be late May outside, but it’s Bonfire Night in TOTP land. Peter Powell hosts. He seems to have been on a safari somewhere and hasn’t had time to change.

 

Modern Romance get things underway. This should be one of the night’s low points. Apparently the singer (yes, they had one) went on to write episodes for Birds Of A Feather and May To December.

 

The Police are an improvement although that isn’t very difficult. Sting has yet to turn his hand to writing sitcoms.

 

The Dukes are next with a song that missed the top forty. It’s not hard to tell why, and that ‘tache has nothing to do with it.

 

After two successive number 41 hits, Rush finally had another top 40 hit. It has been cut.

 

Jets have also been cut, depriving me of a chance to mention Mark Twain being followed (almost) by Napoleon.

 

We had Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark last night, now it’s Electric Light Orchestra’s turn, accompanied by some alleged dancers. Twitter reminds me that they were called Zoo. Who let them out of their cage?

 

Anyway, it’s countdown time.

 

Former goalkeeper Julio Iglesias makes his TOTP debut. Well, sort of. We get some concert footage. It was too late for him to use the money to buy some condoms. Enrique was already six by now.

 

More charty stuff.

 

Another debut, this one from ABC who are on tour later this year. Powell manages to mention that it is not in the chart, but also that it is selling very well.

 

A brief chat with some dancer bloke precedes the top ten rundown.

 

Dave Stewart and Barbara Gaskin continue their glorious reign at number one. I wonder who stuck all those Smarties on her outfit.

 

The Four Tops play us out.

arf!

 

Writing Birds Of A Feather is not punishment enough :P

 

Not a classic episode though, until you get to the very very under-rated Twilight, just as ELO fell out of fashion for a few decades until everyone realised how wrong they were to stop loving them. Zoo, I always felt, should be behind bars. I'll take Enrique over Julio, in every and any sense of the word :P

 

ABC on twice tonight, on BBC1 plugging their latest fab single and Lexicon Of Love 2 lead single, while on TOTP they plug lead single to the very classic Lexicon Of Love. I have my tickets to the concert. On quick flick-through of the album, I feel a distinct lacking-Trevor-Horn-ness is a missed opportunity, but the mood is fine.