The TOTP repeats on BBC Four entered the year 2000 a couple of weeks back, I thought it would be a good place to discuss a golden era for the show as it entered its final few years as a regular Friday fixture. There is a double bill every Friday from 7pm or you can catch up on iPlayer (note that due to the cricket this week, the next episodes air from 17th July).

BBC Two now for The Biggest Hits of 2000 and then The Story of 2000 straight after

Currently playing 'Groovejet'.in The Biggest Hits of 2000.

Just watched both the BBC Two "Biggest Hits" and "Story of" shows for tonight. Alright overall, but some glaring revisionist editorial choices. That Joey Negro record could hardly be considered a massive hit of 2000. I would have more readily given that slot to Fragma "Toca's Miracle" or Darude "Sandstorm" which were actually big. No Madonna either. Also no offence to the Eels but their two top 10s were in 1997, only one of which could be classed as widely known ("Novocaine for the Soul"). Crowbarring them in as one of the big music stories of a year where they really weren't isn't it.

And my God I'd forgotten just what a self important knobend Chris Cowey was. Whilst he did a decent job in his first couple of years, his obsession with turning the show into something it didn't need to be oftentimes verged on the cringe a little bit and clashed awkwardly with where music was at the time and ultimately played a part in what happened to the show's eventual fate. Mate. You were producing Top of the Pops, not The Old Grey Whistle Test.

Edited Saturday at 22:062 days by ThePensmith

We already have Gezzas thread for this?

1 hour ago, Jester said:

We already have Gezzas thread for this?

Where is that sorry? I checked a few pages back on this forum and couldn't see anything

It’s the top 10 sales thread - we discuss TOTP there as it’s posted weekly in line with the 2 episodes shown.

10 hours ago, ThePensmith said:

Just watched both the BBC Two "Biggest Hits" and "Story of" shows for tonight. Alright overall, but some glaring revisionist editorial choices. That Joey Negro record could hardly be considered a massive hit of 2000. I would have more readily given that slot to Fragma "Toca's Miracle" or Darude "Sandstorm" which were actually big. No Madonna either. Also no offence to the Eels but their two top 10s were in 1997, only one of which could be classed as widely known ("Novocaine for the Soul"). Crowbarring them in as one of the big music stories of a year where they really weren't isn't it.

And my God I'd forgotten just what a self important knobend Chris Cowey was. Whilst he did a decent job in his first couple of years, his obsession with turning the show into something it didn't need to be oftentimes verged on the cringe a little bit and clashed awkwardly with where music was at the time and ultimately played a part in what happened to the show's eventual fate. Mate. You were producing Top of the Pops, not The Old Grey Whistle Test.

Yeah it was a nice mix of artists, although not sure I'd have considered Eels an essential part of the 2000 story, although I really do love Mr E's Beautiful Blues and it turned up in a lot of films around that time too so felt bigger than its No.11 peak.

I laughed when S Club said they didn't want to do Reach initially as it felt like Rainbow. Presuming they mean the children's TV show theme, and I completely get that thinking about it! In essence it's a very corny song that you could even imagine Lolly or Tweenies or someone doing, but they really turned it into a classic, and one of those cheesy songs that everyone loves. Such unlucky timing to go up against Sonique for three weeks because both should have hit the top.

I'd completely forgotten about that Joey song until it popped up on Big Hits, agree that it would have been nice to have Fragma, or Oxide and Neutrino, or any other dance act really. I liked that it was pointed out that come 2000 dance performances became more elaborate, because even in the 1999 shows dance was either completely ignored or just a sharply cut down edit of a song with a DJ standing behind a box. You can't really continue to pay it dust when dance tracks were at No.1 for so much of the year.

Argh at the big section devoted to We Will Rock You at the end. "Probably their best track," says Cowey. Errrr, no.

I always like the wider context shared in these shows, like the mad floods and petrol strikes (which both had a huge impact where I was living), and the incoming effect of downloads and file sharing although I didn't download any MP3s myself until 2002.

We Will Rock You is so bad, people should be arrested 🤣

I watched the first of the two episodes (before the big match) so will catch up on the second one today.

I enjoyed the show though, and pretty much every song was a decent sized smash… until Joey Negro 😂 can’t say I even remembered it at all which was odd! Shame we didn’t get either of Mel Cs 2 number ones either as I was expecting her to pop up at some point!

I am a massive fan of Five but by no means is "We Will Rock You" their best single. Honestly they belonged more on the 1998 or 1999 episode.

Also. No Robbie "Rock DJ" (given that's where the video premiered and where the whole controversy around it started), Coldplay launching or even Westlife given their string of number ones / defeat at Xmas to Bob the Builder that year being on this episode were choices as well.

I just felt the overall editorial on the retrospective of 2000 let the side down massively.

Edited Sunday at 11:301 day by ThePensmith

1 hour ago, ThePensmith said:

Also. No Robbie "Rock DJ" (given that's where the video premiered and where the whole controversy around it started),

Rock DJ did feature on the first episode at least?! (Complete with Robbie dropping trow) 😂

1 hour ago, Lee_J11 said:

Rock DJ did feature on the first episode at least?! (Complete with Robbie dropping trow) 😂

I know it was on the Biggest Hits show but it was such a key talking point regarding the show that year when they showed the video. I remember one of the first issues of Heat magazine my eldest sister had it was all over that with "the screen caps they tried to ban" etc!

10 hours ago, Jester said:

It’s the top 10 sales thread - we discuss TOTP there as it’s posted weekly in line with the 2 episodes shown.

Ah sorry, if a mod wants to merge the posts here into it then that would be fine

21 hours ago, ThePensmith said:

And my God I'd forgotten just what a self important knobend Chris Cowey was. Whilst he did a decent job in his first couple of years, his obsession with turning the show into something it didn't need to be oftentimes verged on the cringe a little bit and clashed awkwardly with where music was at the time and ultimately played a part in what happened to the show's eventual fate. Mate. You were producing Top of the Pops, not The Old Grey Whistle Test.

Agree with this. I appreciate the point of the show is to promote the weekly shows but I think it also needs to reflect what went wrong with TOTP. Truth is that by 2000 it had largely lost its selling power overtaken not only by specific music channels but also terrestrial TV like CD:Uk and it was too late to make some changes whixh may have helped (for example moving the show to Sunday) which by the time they got round it had no effect at all given the damage was done.

I think also it moving away from showing what was in the charts to "exclusives" didn't help as it should have reflected the charts and kept the prestige of appearing on the show only when you had a hit. I won't even mention showing the same performance sometimes 3 times! It wasn't like there was a dearth of new hits to promote weekly....

9 hours ago, Gezza said:

Agree with this. I appreciate the point of the show is to promote the weekly shows but I think it also needs to reflect what went wrong with TOTP. Truth is that by 2000 it had largely lost its selling power overtaken not only by specific music channels but also terrestrial TV like CD:Uk and it was too late to make some changes whixh may have helped (for example moving the show to Sunday) which by the time they got round it had no effect at all given the damage was done.

I think also it moving away from showing what was in the charts to "exclusives" didn't help as it should have reflected the charts and kept the prestige of appearing on the show only when you had a hit. I won't even mention showing the same performance sometimes 3 times! It wasn't like there was a dearth of new hits to promote weekly....

I was gonna say CD:UK was miles ahead for me at the time, because it was more reflective of how things were moving a bit faster compared to four years previously. Plus it being attached to SMTV Live worked massively in its favour.

One thing a conversation I had with someone yesterday over DMs on Instagram about regarding the absence of Fragma that I mentioned above on the "Biggest Hits" show did give me pause for thought.

Because Coco who did vocals on the original "I Need A Miracle" that was sampled on "Toca's Miracle" has had a lengthy and well documented dispute over lack of royalties paid from the single, and she has a reputation for actively yanking it down from YouTube etc (I know "Toca's Miracle" is on DSPs as of a couple of years ago, but it had a re-recorded vocal from another singer). (I also inadvertently found out I was blocked by her on Instagram. Go figure)

It does therefore make me wonder if the episodes when it's number one will potentially be skipped as a result. I guess we won't know for another month or two until the reruns resume after the Proms but something to bear in mind.

I think it was settled about 10 years if I recall correctly. I think it should be fine, also I don't know the technical aspects of it but it seems that TOTP owns the right to broadcast their own shows rather than the acts on it. Hence the fact that whilst the promo for Fragms was not on youtube, the TOTP performances of the track always were