Top Of The Pops/TOTP2

[on:]

TOTP has been a British institution for over 30 years now.  The longest running Music Show on TV.

There have been some memorable performances down the years:

Madonna doing "Like A Virgin" in a bizarre pink wig. 

Oasis switching instruments to try and catch out the producers who couldn't tell the Gallagher's apart.

Nowadays, I think the show's lost it's groundbreaking appeal (in the era of MTV), but it's sister-show TOTP2 is still enjoyable.

Oh, sad fact: I was born during an episode of Top Of The Pops (No.1 that week: "Without You" by Nilsson).

So, TOTP, discuss:

[Reply #1 on:]

"It's Friday, it's 7.30, it can only mean one thing: Top Of The Pops!"

I haven't seen TOTP in quite a few years, but I do watch TOTP2 every week because I love the performances. I think recently the BBC have commissioned TOTP to BBC Three, but I don't know when it will be going over to that. I used to watch it when I was little.

One performance I remember was "If You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be Next" by the Manic Street Preachers, because they had a massive Welsh flag and stuff. I've just watched TOTP2 and it had The Shamen with "Ebeneezer Goode", which got to No.1 during the BBC's anti-drugs week, but they  thought they'd found a hidden meaning to the song as it said something like "E's are good, E's are good..."

No. 1 when I was born was "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" by Starship, although I haven't heard it yet. And a few days after I was born, Whitney Houston was No. 1 with "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)".

[Reply #2 on:]

I haven't watched TOTP for ages, but I used to watch it every now and then, mainly through the 90's. I've also seen some TOTP 2's as well, because although most of it isn't my thing, I think music history is pretty important and relivant in influence to music today.

But I've never really taken the program too seriously. When Prodigy released 'Firestarter' and it made Number 1, they refused to play on TOTP because they didn't like it, and wanted to keep underground. The fact they made number 1 without having to appear on TV to do it is an achievement of good strong and hard music that penatrates through the spoon feed of TOTP.

TOTP were left with no choice but to show the video for 'Firestarter', but they thought Keith Flint was too scary. So they asked Prodigy to re-make the video, but they refused. Then TOTP even offered to pay for them to re-make the video. Luckily Prodigy stuck to their grounds and refused to change for anyone else. But this is why I don't take TOTP seriously. I mean, how can you take a program seriously that trys to change something just, even though it popular, just to tailor to their injustified needs? The excuse of Kieth being too scary was rediculous. He was only scary to people who are too scared to express themselves. In which means TOTP, so they try to change it, and then feed that change to soceity. That's why I can't take it seriously.

But for the hell of it, sometimes it can be interesting. My fave performance on TOTP was Jamiroquai's 1996 performance of 'Virtual Insanity'. Adamski's 'Killer' from 1990 was also pretty clool 

[Reply #3 on:]

At its height in the '70s Top of the Pops didn't have that many actual performances from the singers, and even less videos... instead it had a dance troupe of usually rather scantily glad young ladies, I wonder why it was so popular 

[Reply #4 on:]

I think only we're old enough to remember Pan's People and Legs And Co.

Some of their "interpretations" of the songs were classic (meaning: classically bad.)

[Reply #5 on:]

Nirvana's 'goth' version of SLTS on TOTP was pretty awesome. Apart from that one exception (which was a piss-take, anyway), I can't say I like the concept of the show much at all.

[Reply #6 on:]

Speaking of piss-takes....

Then virtually unknown Faith No More's first appearance on TOTP is what got me into the band.  Performing "From Out Of Nowhere", mimed extremely badly, and involved Mike Patton randomly gurning at the camera instead of mouthing the lyrics.

[Reply #7 on:]

I stopped watching TOTP regularly when it switched from Thursdays to Fridays (a long time ago then!).

The majority of the music on it doesn't appeal to me anymore (too much manufactured stuff), but I still catch bits once in a while.

One memorable performance was about 1988, Sabrina singing "Boys, Boys, Boys."

[Reply #8 on:]

I never watch Top of the Pops since there's never anything in the charts that I listen to. I occasionally watch TOTP2 if only to catch some classic acts performing (Last time I watched Procol Harum were my highlight).

[Reply #9 on:]

TOTP is very crap now as it's full of rubbish like S Club 7 but I do like TOTP2, especially when they run their specials with just one band on. One of my friends introduced me to the Stone Roses and I didn't know who they were. A fortnight or so later the Roses were on with their very own TOTP2 special.

I knew who they were after by the way!

[Reply #10 on:]

I remember Eric Idle on the show singing "Always look on the bright side of life!" whistle whistle and in the background as he walked from the main stage to a cab outside there were several stuntpeople who threw themselves off gantries, walked into walls, and stuff like that. Pieces of the stage fell down, and there was the presenter-who's-name-eludes-me saying "Well, we think we'll be here next week..."

Apart from that, I also seem to remember "Everything I Do (I do it for you)" being at number 1 AGAIN.

Goes to show how regularily I've watched it since.

I did watch it a few months back and saw Junior Senior give a pretty impressive performance.
But most of the time I don't watch since I find a large part of music in the charts to be shite - not all of it, but enough of it.

[Reply #11 on:]

I loved Top Of The Pops when I was a kid. I was excited to see Kylie and Jason, Take That, Bros, and New Kids On The Block. now I don't watch the show much. I am more into music videos then live perfomance.

[Reply #12 on:]

Not quite the same, but on one of the morning kids programs Sum 41 were playing their first live performance in the UK, and mimed badly, including Deryk(?) picking up the microphone and aiming it at his crotch whilst singing still came out of the tape. Pretty damn funny.

Didn't The Clash do the same as The Prodigy in the 70's, ie. refuse to play or have their video played on TOTP just to see what happened?