I give a mark out of 10 to every single featured on Popular. This is your chance to indicate which YOU would have given 6 or more to, by whatever standard you wish to impose. And if you have any ‘closing remarks’ on the year to make, the comments box is your place!
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Tom in FT /Popular • Pop/popular year poll • 2,214 views
All, 1–25, 26–50, 51–75, 76–103.Back up to post. More comments: All, 1–25, 26–50, 51–75, 76–103.
All the UK number ones since 1952, reviewed in order and rated by whim. As featured on Radio 2, The Times, Metro, Paul Cornell's LiveJournal, etc etc.
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If glam was passé, as shown by Slade and GG last week, the New Seekers were right out of time – although it’s always good to see my first crush Eve again.
Here’s a time capsule – The Brothers on Opportunity Knocks, complete with songwriters Mr and Mrs Greenslade from Exeter, Hughie and the clapometer. Can’t have been all that WTF though Jim – reached number 8, although they’re true one-hit wonders. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixNJC6uZHVA
Belatedly catching up 2 weeks worth:
1) /Slade is what happens when the amount of work they previously did to win (i.e. Dave’s outfits, the production of the song, the song itself) seems like too much bother, so they loosen up a little and end up with no hit/ .. / Donna Summer’s live video not as good as the actual single / .. / That Jesse Green song suffers the BBC orchestra treatment, the single was OK / .. / Silver Convention’s song came from their concept album “The world is a madhouse” about mechanised society and also contains the not-hit-single “I’m not a slot machine”
I’m surprised they didn’t blank Gary Glitter’s picture out of the countdown it’s getting that ridiculous.
Surprised there’s so much bewilderment about The Brothers it got massive airplay and was one of the few songs that I remember filtering down into our generally uninterested First Year class to the extent that I remember it being sung around the school by someone
Likewise as regards loads of airplay (on Capital anyway) the Andy Fairweather-Low record which I also haven’t heard since – unusual that a vaguely catchy tune with that kind of exposure and on the back of 2 big hits should have been such a flop. Capital saturated their playlists with those 2 too they must have really like him.
The Moments – not a patch on ‘Girls’ probably echoed in the fact that that track (and often elongated with the mixing in of it’s b-side ‘More Girls’) was the only one of theirs I remember getting played occasionally on the jazz-funk scene as an oldie in the 80s.
Why can’t they have someone in charge of broadcasting these re-runs with a genuine interest in them – AFAIK they’ve got a keen and regular following and are discussed on quite a few websites so the presenting of this should refect their significance.
The way they’re being done makes me think that the people involved have no more realisation of their real value (as social documents etc)than their counterparts in the 1970s would have had and if they had their way they’d probably still be wiping them.
“The bears came home and found Goldilocks” one of the most ‘out-of-context’ lines within a song ever?
# 79 – What tickles me about this Moments offering is that the whole point of the lyric is that the guy is assuring his sort that his devotion to her is “a fact”. In order to underline this, he offers similar well known “facts”, involving a Jack in the Box, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and Little Boy Blue to compare. This, of course, should have told the bird that the Moments bloke was taking the piss, would play away at the drop of a hat and that by far the wisest thing she could do would be to tell the grinning tosser to fuck off.
Given that “the horn belongs to Little Boy Blue,” I’m surprised the BBC didn’t slap a Judge Dread-style veto on the record!
You’re absolutely right, MC. Little Boy Blue and the horn was indeed included in one of the Judge’s string of hits – all banned. And didn’t Auntie initially also red-card the Mr Big single for mentioning someone taking someone else to bed?
a show suffocating under the influence of light entertainment – whether that be sensible jackets or the TOTP orchestra
fascinating to see how the (full) programme covered ‘Don’t cry for me Argentina’ – with an assortment of press clippings – from the news department presumably? Was there a fear of being accused of treating a ‘serious’ political story with a lack of respect if they had allowed Legs & Co (for instance) to dance to it? Had Julie Covington refused to perform the song?
God, The Moments were a sight.
Less than a month after this was broadcast I went to see The Stranglers play at Crawley College – ‘Something better change’
Charlie Brooker just tweeted this video. Thought everyone here might appreciate it.
I’d buy a ‘Best of the Moments’ CD. If the music was remastered from the original analogue recordings, that is.
I went to see The Stranglers play at Crawley College
For some reason I thought they played the Leisure Centre rather than the College. Dunno why, the college makes loads more sense now that I think about it. I was only 12 so too young to attend, but the gig was legendary at my school.
Not the most inspiring episode.
The Moments’ innuendo passed me by, aged 11, but it’s pretty obvious now. Me and my sis thought this was risible at the time; now it sounds incredibly repetitive at best.
I love the way the camera pulled as far back as possible during David Parton’s horrid roses-for-the-ladies routine.
Mr Big – they were confident, weren’t they? Had any of them done anything before? Still can’t work out if I like it, something about their precise ee-nun-see-ay-shun rubs me up the wrong way.
No WTF about the Brothers, not unless you think every X Factor winner is similarly WTF. Bloody tedious record though. Worst thing about them is that they called themselves… The Brothers. Just because they were. Not like those fraudulent Walker and Righteous tykes.
Andy Fairweather Low – “What audience was he targeting?” I had the exact same thought. I really have no idea. Noel Edmonds?
re 85 The Stranglers did play the Leisure Centre, supported by Wire, later in 1977, as recorded here:
http://www.xulucomics.com/Live.html
I also attended the Leisure Centre gig. By that stage ‘punk’ had become more visible and there was a larger and more varied audience than the earlier show.
When my friends and I attended the concert at the College there was a rumour that there was definitely going to be a fight – probably involving knives. We duly attended in a state of giddy anticipation – and nothing happened (much to our relief). At the later gig there WAS a fight, with skinheads in DMs/braces etc. throwing glasses and we got out of the way pronto.
Mr Big had been ‘knocking the door’ for some years, (I remember “Christmas with Dicken”, a sort of “oy oy” Cockney Xmas ditty) so by now they had their chops well down. Possibly they’d find themselves out-of-favour after Punk happened..
(Quick uplook, they formed in 1972 and “XmwDick” was 1974)
See, again, it’s the ‘soft-rock’ that died thanks to Punk, the “prog” bands carried on regardless to smaller crowds maybe..
Re Mr Big. Thought it was “I am the red rag and you are the bull”, but apparently not.
Thanks for the info, Mark. Christmas With Dicken below… gor blimey guv, you’re not wrong. Sounds oddly Euro in spite of extreme Essex-isms. The spoken part sounds a lot like Dan Treacy, too.
A long way from here to Romeo’s bed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIso-toiUDo
The ‘glers (©ilx’s AlexInNYC) played Tiffanys in Shrewsbury, a genuine “Saturday night among the plastic palm trees” type nightclub up above the Riverside Shopping Centre, many many years closed and gone. My friend Phil — well under-age for licensed premises, indeed actually slightly younger than me but tall for his age — went to see them, and threw an empty cigarette packet at them as his contribution to urban yoof ultraviolence. I was very in love with of Phil — he had the most gorgeous smile of anyone I’ve ever met — but deplored his taste in rock and pop, and STRONGLY DISAPPROVED of the Stranglers, for Not Being Proper Punk. Phil drank himself to death in his 20s, so I was obviously correct here, though I’m not happy about it.
The Beeb’s website promises G— G—— on tonight’s show – we shall see …
Edit: just noticed, not updated from last week yet. He wasn’t on, obviously.
He was on – just not on the 7:30 edit. Will be watching the long-form rerun tonight so Twitter comments will be late.
He is on now
Might as well have called it “I’m a big perv” but hey, the times were different.
Heard G— G—— on the radio (a local independent station, based quite near to his home town – not that it boasts of its parentage, quite understandably) for the first time in donkey’s years a few weeks before Christmas – his Xmas number, obviously.
It doesn’t seem that long ago when he had his very own ‘themed’ snack bar in Leicester Square.
Obviously, it is.
What was the ‘themed’ snack bar called? I remember Shampoo going there and saying it was crap. They didn’t think any of the snacks had GG-related names.
The staff had to petition himself so that they could play music ‘other than’ his! (he aquiesced)
Even Presley’s (tottctrd) had a jukebox with ‘only’ 50% Elvis.
Kid Jensen was the MC this week.
Thin Lizzy – Great stuff, natch. What will TOTP follow that with, do you think?
By God, it’s Gadd!! At last we see him after weeks of North Korean-style airbrusing out of the show. But the Swede smells a rat. The performance we are presented with is pure sleaze and even without hindsight, this is grim. A tragic middle-aged old lad prancing up and down trying to be sexy. Just wrong. I think TOTP put this out for that very reason and I commend them for it. A nauseating spectacle. Let’s move on to something far more decent and wholesome…
It’s the Gals! And, glory-be, they’re back in their true orbit after last week’s reticent nonsense. They look breath-taking in silver ball gowns with splits down the left leg. Mucky Sue has never looked better. They do a routine to Harold Melvin’s “Don’t Leave Me This Way”. And this prefaces an odd little moment at the end of the show, more of which later.
Boz Scaggs – And what can I say? No, what CAN I say? Despite bad hair, Boz smoothly rocks to a backing girly trio and a very visible brass section. Nothing to fault here apart, perhaps, for the snatches of the two drummers, the nearest of whom is clearly deranged. But what can we dooo?
The Real Thing – And Kid makes the same irritating error that Edmonds always made by referring to the groups’ “two chart-toppers”. And now they look like numpites. An end of the pier act, if you will. And since the Swede has spent far too much time at the end of a pier, I should bloody well know. Not good.
Silver Convention – Neither fish nor fowl really. But the lead girl, a product of a US Serviceman father and a German mother, is more than a little yummy.
The Rubettes – An unspriring piece of folk from a mob well past their sell-by date. The Kid assures us that this is heading for number one. Well, of course it is!
David Soul – I thought he was off the top this week, but no…
And then Jensen introduces his special guest. It is Thelma Houston, who is in the UK to promote her new single. Alas, it is her own version of the same song given the full Legs treatment earlier. I only hope Thelma was in the Green Room when Harold was clocking up the sales earlier on. The very charming Miss Houston then introduces Heatwave’s “Boogie Nights” to fade.
An enjoyable show.
Kid Jensen was always a bit good to be presenting TOTP at this stage hence I think the slight air of embarrassment detectable from his shows now.
Gary Glitter was only aged 32 when he made this appearance(!)
Although the Real Thing were never really anything more than pop-soul/funk (and so not part of the Britfunk continuum and never really accepted by the underground funkers) the nearest they did get to such acceptance ie the 12 inch of “Can You Feel The Force?” , “Children Of The Ghetto” , “Boogie Down (Get Funky Now)” were still well in the future at this point
Rubettes – surely more a country-ish song with a touch of Mark Knopfler guitar on this at exactly the time Dire Straits were forming although obviously not connected
I believe they were somewhat keen to get out of their contracts by this point, and making singles that weren’t meant to be hits (Under one roof for example, about a gay couple, radio couldn’t touch it..)
Hard to believe that lineup of blokes old before their time were sold to the teenies a couple years ago.
If they’d have hung on a bit, they could have been the english Eagles. And so many did (I remember Rameo from the Shcwads being a fan)
They did hang on a bit – some became The Firm, and then part of the KLF (see The Manual for full details), and even unto Xenomania. Not that you’d have known from looking at that lot.
Kid Jensen’s sheepish expression when topping and tailing the Real Thing as if to say “Hey, I didn’t buy this” – priceless.
Thin Lizzy – a rerun, but still the most “1977″-looking thing here.
The Double G – Jesus H Corbett, this would still have been creepy had I known nothing else about him. As Lena so rightly said, this didn’t even sound like Glitter – a cheap ride on the disco wagon (at points the song threatens to turn into “I Love To Love”) revealing nothing but a Bizarro World Lionel Blair, with his unbecoming teeth and positively repulsive camera leers. The sort who’d be hanging around the Hippodrome asking ladies if they were English and wanting to go to the boogie bop disco, if we didn’t know they were probably hanging around school playgrounds instead. Yeeeeuck.
All respect to JtS for the continuing Mucky Sue updates but I continue to find Legs & Co’s appeal baffling (“Don’t Leave Me This Way” – surely it should have been three of them in prefect blazers and the other three dressed as weather balloons?). Then again Hot Gossip (who were marketed as everything Legs & Co weren’t) didn’t get me going either.
Boz Scaggs – on Soul Train I think, and simply splendid, down to the double drumming. Did you know that Toto formed out of the rhythm section on Silk Degrees? I noticed that I hadn’t given the album a CD upgrade, and rectified that the next day (a fiver in Fopp). Terrific record, plays like a greatest hits, etc.
The Real Thing – putting on a big hat doesn’t make you Sly Stone, Mr Amoo, and nor does this nondescript ballad, with the rest of the group petrified and apparently in school uniform. The stench of prize-giving day was very redolent.
Silver Convention – NEXT!
The Rubettes – the sort of thing the BBC wanted to be big in ’77, business as usual; somebody’s been listening to the Eagles, eh?
DAVIDSOULHORSENIGHTMARE – thankfully the final week for Mr Soul’s eye-rolling, nearly-dropped-off-there performance.
Thelma Houston – inexplicable and a bit mean of the BBC to put her in there. But her version went to #1 in the USA so what did she care?
Heatwave – strange they haven’t actually been ON the show yet. Did Rod Temperton draw the short straw for getting in the pies and peas?