And that's despite featuring it in the introductory documentary. I SIGNED THAT PETITION AND THIS IS WHAT THEY DO? What did they consider appropriate?
Noel Edmonds going meta, for starters. Rattling his watch, bemoaning how he might miss Top Of The Pops if we don't get on with it, this is but the start of one of those weeks where his idea of presentation runs to nobody else's wise idea.
Rude reggae man of yore Judge Dread is at 30 with Y Viva Suspenders. We will not be seeing this at any point.
Manfred Mann's Earth Band – Blinded By The Light
No, he doesn't say "revved up like a douche" (it's "duece", as in the common name for the 1932 Ford coupe the Beach Boys popularised. Well, it's a Springsteen song, he'd be nothing without an ostentatious blue collar car to rev) A future radio friendly mini-classic to begin with, and a curious array of men to perform it. Firstly we see Manfred himself, looking about as Dutch as a man can in a half undone sailor top, but that's as nothing compared to singer Chris Thompson. Not only is he sporting long hair in curls and a purple hat with his glasses, but he's accessorised his T-shirt with a multicoloured Colgate stripe across with rainbow coloured braces. It's as if Rod, Jane and Freddy had lost a member to commercial prog. With the drummer stranded right across the far side of the stage from Mann's keyboard set-up about as far as he can go there's never a comfortable all-in camera shot of the whole band, let alone their massive banner which covers the mirror backdrop. Perhaps it was rustled up in a hurry after some of them fell off. The really long vocal fade halfway through seems to briefly confuse the director, pulling back about as far as he can. Noel calls it "accessibly sensible". Rock and roll!
The Bee Gees – You Should Be Dancing
Ruby Flipper, of course, the first of many appearances tonight. It seems someone is trying to make a go of them at the death, especially the whole controversial mixed gender thing, as here we have three of the girls on podiums behind, up front on his own, an attempt by Floyd to assert his own credentials. Obviously having women gyrating bits in turn, Patti especially judging by the regularity of the close-ups of her hot pants, behind him means he's going to be playing second fiddle no matter where he stands, which might explain why his head bobbing, limb flailing turn is so manic, at least three times the speed of the females. Surely nobody choreographed this as much as just wound him up, possibly literally with reference to his tightly wound hair, and let him go. In a couple of weeks he'll be back... no, that would spoil things. The audience repay his energy by sitting down swaying while clapping to a much slower rhythm.
Robin Sarstedt – Let’s Fall In Love
The difficult second single, eh? For this sap beyond reproach Sarstedt has elected to wear the highest waisted trousers known to man and a lothario's slightly opened white shirt. However, he's still Robin Sarstedt, and as such it always seems he's making up in hair volume what he lacks in appeal. The Ladybirds taking off in a different key isn't helping either.
Acker Bilk – Aria
"What a beautiful song, what lovely words" Noel enthuses. Actually, he said it about a song that was edited out, but we doubt he'd have truly meant it in either case as it's just a device for him to go "if you really like lyrics... if you like to see someone singing words and really making them meaningful" and link into an instrumental. Yes, Mr Acker Bilk in the teeth of 1976's family pop roundelay is a very odd thing, especially as it's at funereal pace until joined by the sort of studio strings and drumbeat buskers these days have on a tape playing behind them. Noel is at pains to point out that Acker is "the one with the bowler hat, the one with the white dress was Sydney from Ruby Flipper". Patti, actually, Noel. Unless that was a joke, and if it was that was obscure even by your standards tonight.
The Chi-Lites – You Don’t Have To Go
Making an impromptu video out of 1930s cartoons used to be done quite a bit on the BBC and the Chi-Lites aren't exempt, their storming groove given this one, a Tex Avery no less, in a really ropey print. "Some delightful creatures on that film" Noel marvels.
James & Bobby Purify – Morning Glory
So engrossed is Noel in his concept intro about autumn fashion ("note the see-through jodphurs" he specifies, even though nobody is wearing them) that he forgets to name the song or artist. Finally Ruby Flipper are back to full strength, but Cherry's clearly in the doghouse after her leave of absence as she's pushed out to the side for most of the performance and covered in scarves and sashes even though her costume is as flimsy as those of her female colleagues. One of them manages to land over her face in closeup. Being Cherry, of course there's A Look To Camera, a boggle-eyed one at that. Although clearly enthusiastic to be back under the Colby yoke for a bit she also seems to be a little out of step with the choreographed moments for a lot of the time, and this is Top Of The Pops so they were hardly difficult. The men get shirts and plus-fours of a slightly glittery hue and Philip gets to work his Camp Walking Man schtick with a little bit of Bruce Forsyth Thinker thrown in. He keeps cutting into shot as if he knows the future of mixed sex TOTP dancing is under threat and after Floyd's spectacular affair earlier has to keep his face in the frame.
Cliff Richard – I Can’t Ask For Anything More Than You
Cliff Richard doing falsetto. Once heard, never to be forgotten. He seems to be on a stage of a new design being watched by nobody, which suggests nobody else wanted a part of it either. There's an odd moment towards the end when someone claps five times in quick succession and then stops, and not at a point where it could obviously have been finishing. Flick coaching her charges in the background in the art of simultaneous movement?
Gallagher & Lyle – Breakaway
I'm not going to attempt to transcribe Noel's entire intro here, in which he claims the duo are "more unpleasant than you could ever imagine human being being", because not only does it come from nowhere and have no punchline but he has to go on around the same subject for ages, growing progressively more tiresome than he already was. The restrained adult drivetime duo are the only ones lit at first, apart from a bassist caught in the reflected light, making it look as if they've turned up with a drumkit but no drummer. The secondary keyboard player has a triple decker of boards for no audible reason. Lots of slow pans from a high rostrum camera angle fill things out. Noel pretends to receive a wad of cash a little late in the sentence, and frankly the wrong side of the song, to 'change his mind'. Someone giggles.
Elton John & Kiki Dee – Don’t Go Breaking My Heart
The last time we'll get this (bar Christmas), thank goodness. It's at this point that Noel finds out what command he has over his audience. With Ruby Flipper warming up in front of him, he suggests they can't show the video again only to get shouted down before he's completed his sentence. That's how popular all that fake studio business was back then. Noel extricates himself from that cul-de-sac, just about, with "we want to dance!" Still in their Morning Glory gear Ruby Flipper oblige, paired off into two girls for every man before forming a big kicking chorus line, throughout which Floyd and Philip mime all the lyrics, the latter even when not clearly on camera. The girls meanwhile keep up their fixed rictus grins, except Cherry who appears to be on the verge of collapsing in helpless giggles. The manly men in the crowd have no reaction to the girls in their bras and tight pants right in front of them. In the background Noel is at first awkwardly shape shifting with the best of those around him and later when clearer in shot, though he can't surely have known, attempts to put two seperate girls off their jigging stroke through chat for which Noel still seems to be proffering his dead mike, and he has an arm around the second victim. What business could he be plotting? Whatever it's not immediately obvious as Noel throws from performance to credits by describing a room packed tight with people giving it the full kick-to-the-left-kick-to-the-right as "the retreat from Moscow set to music". The battle of Stalingrad, more like.
EDIT NEWS: Well, Can, as I just said. Editor permitting it should be on again in three shows' time, but you won't then get to see Noel calling them "an absolute wow" or specifying how they've come "a very, very long way indeed" as if they've never had Americans in the studio. Also a Stylistics video in which nobody is sitting down, and which looks like this. Oh, Noel. Noel, Noel, Noel.
Showing posts with label robin sarstedt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label robin sarstedt. Show all posts
Thursday, 15 September 2011
Friday, 27 May 2011
TOTP 20/5/76 (tx 26/5/11): disco stew
And in our weekly series of 'what are they playing at?', having skipped a Saville episode next week TOTP isn't on at all on 6th June, though it does definitely return the following week when of course it'll be back up to date, as it were. Why they couldn't have had a break next week for that purpose is their pregorative.
"This is one programme I can introduce standing on my head" quoth the Diddy. The picture flips. "See what I mean?" No, David, not technically.
Marmalade – Walking A Tightrope
And it's a jolt of anti-nostalgia immediately as Marmalade have a golliwog on their dual drum heads, shown in obliging close-up right at the start. No, Marmalade, that's Robinson's Jam there. (Obvious reasons, of course, but there's a huge character brand that hasn't made the collective memory leap despite being among the most famous there was in its day - I was watching Bob Godfrey's Oscar winning Brunel cartoon Great not long ago and he makes a cameo in that) Otherwise it's four grinning men of indeterminate hair volume, and in the case of the singer a luxurious full moustache, who'd had their big hit eight years previously, reformed in 1975 after that lineup fell apart, had scored a surprise top ten single in February and thought they could follow it with a slight concoction heavy on Radio 2 (as in what it was like back then) strings. They didn't. Plus point: the drummer looks like Noel Edmonds would had he been accidentally swapped at birth with a Bee Gee. "The only thing to offer Marmalade is a toast" says David, in a joke that looks far more workable written down than the way he delivers it. Then he tells a joke about a tightrope walker. He's on it tonight, ladies and gentlemen.
Tina Charles – Love Me Like A Lover
In blowsy frilly top and huge red skirt Charles comes across as less disco diva, more minor character in Little House On The Prairie.
Robin Sarstedt – My Resistance Is Low
David obligingly quotes the lyrics in introduction. With a costume and set borrowed from the Havana bureau, pot plants breaking out all over, and without dancing backup Sarstedt looks a little lost for staging, trying to exude international man of travel and mystery loucheness through being seated on wicker next to a table bearing a decent bottle and glass of rose. He just looks like he's waiting for inspiration to strike but this'll do for the rehearsal. Trying to add something to it a woman's face, presumably a Flipperite but we're no good at recognition, appears in overlay but all that does is make the director miss the appearance on screen of a camera. Then he takes a sip during the middle eight, after which he looks simultaneously sated, smug and distracted. Never a good look. As a last ditch effort, he looks to the side and grins to camera. By now he's clearly regretting not putting out the shorter single option. We get a brief look at him in the background once Hamilton starts again, and he's clearly broken down in laughter. He was a one hit wonder. You don't seem shocked.
Showaddywaddy – Trocadero
As a 'waddy guide we're well past Three Steps To Heaven but still six months short of kettle drum frenzy Under The Moon Of Love. Dual vocalists, one of whom sounds exactly like the R Whites Lemonade singer, but with just two guitars, one bass and one drummer, and it's one of their own so you'd think they'd have planned for that, two of the famously overmanned band are reduced to dancing duties, most of which the camera fails to pick up. Despite being a song about dancing with girls down the palais nobody would slash their cinema seat to something this thin. At this point in real life actual teddy boys were busy beating up punks. Showaddywaddy are still going with three original members, albeit two being a bassist and drummer. They're playing Summer Sundae festival in August on the same day as Wilko Johnson plays a smaller stage. It's like this very year all over again.
Wings - Silly Love Songs
Ruby Flipper's only appearance this week, and Diddy obligingly points out that it's just Cherry, Patti and Lulu. The whole male angle of the new team being sidelined three weeks in, then. That said, the girls are wearing bikini bottoms they might well have been shoehorned into and tops that pretty much do their intended job and use up no extra material. A group of candles is what passes for a backdrop. Before long the curse of Flick Colby Short Lead-In Time Choreography kicks in, quizzical looking around for "I look around me" a particular highlight amid the flailing and shaking. Meanwhile Ms Gillespie is confirmed as the queen of the cutaway close-up facial expression.
Mud – Shake It Down
David has two Mud fans with him, insomuch as they're wearing tinsel encrusted stovepipe hats and rosettes with Les Gray's face on. Somehow, and I'm fully aware of Rob Davis' subsequent CV (he's co-credited for this song), Mud doing funk disco is even more ludicrous a concept this week. This clip is from their Noel-fronted first appearance, but let the record show what was going on here.
IT'S JUST LIKE STUDIO 54. No green trousers this week, but the bassist still has that glove on and the guitar solo and breakdown are overlaid with that girl Cherry in some sort of Spanish influenced dress shaking that thing of hers again. The band look no younger or less cab driver-like either. They bow at the end, which is nice of them. "Have you ever shaken it down? You wanna try it some time, you could get to like it" David says, propositioning a much younger girl.
The Four Seasons – Silver Star
Same performance as last time. Check the tags for that.
Cliff Richard – Devil Woman
Not the same performance. Just before two of the girls surrounding him nearly contrive to throw themselves in front of a marauding camera David seems to think said woman is Cliff's confidante, even though the song clearly states that's really not what he wants. Worth noting Cliff's 'I'M NEARLY FAMOUS' T-shirt (over a wide lapelled blue shirt) promoting his album, which he distributed around his most famous friends so they could be seen wearing it at social functions, and indeed David is wearing a badge with the same slogan on. Now that's a level of viral marketing the likes of which that agency group Lost In Showbiz and Caitlin Moran are always going on about need to look into. Cliff's jeans are still far too tight for someone of his age and experience. "I think we've made 64 entries" he boasts afterwards. Neither host nor performer has anything else to say.
ABBA – Fernando
Again with that bloody fire. Still, won't be up there by the time we catch up with the series again. Diddy signs off with as many people as he can find from the show surrounding him. Les Gray is clearly eyeing up Tina Charles. Tina Charles, while maybe not having spotted him, is clearly terrified. I need someone from our fantastic commenting community to look at this and confirm what Hamilton says to Charles immediately before introducing the O'Jays playout, because it sounds spectacularly rude to me.
EDIT NEWS: Sutherland Brothers again, the Stones again and, with the re-run's third talkbox, a promo for Peter Frampton coming alive with Show Me The Way with his name in huge lights over the stage.
"This is one programme I can introduce standing on my head" quoth the Diddy. The picture flips. "See what I mean?" No, David, not technically.
Marmalade – Walking A Tightrope
And it's a jolt of anti-nostalgia immediately as Marmalade have a golliwog on their dual drum heads, shown in obliging close-up right at the start. No, Marmalade, that's Robinson's Jam there. (Obvious reasons, of course, but there's a huge character brand that hasn't made the collective memory leap despite being among the most famous there was in its day - I was watching Bob Godfrey's Oscar winning Brunel cartoon Great not long ago and he makes a cameo in that) Otherwise it's four grinning men of indeterminate hair volume, and in the case of the singer a luxurious full moustache, who'd had their big hit eight years previously, reformed in 1975 after that lineup fell apart, had scored a surprise top ten single in February and thought they could follow it with a slight concoction heavy on Radio 2 (as in what it was like back then) strings. They didn't. Plus point: the drummer looks like Noel Edmonds would had he been accidentally swapped at birth with a Bee Gee. "The only thing to offer Marmalade is a toast" says David, in a joke that looks far more workable written down than the way he delivers it. Then he tells a joke about a tightrope walker. He's on it tonight, ladies and gentlemen.
Tina Charles – Love Me Like A Lover
In blowsy frilly top and huge red skirt Charles comes across as less disco diva, more minor character in Little House On The Prairie.
Robin Sarstedt – My Resistance Is Low
David obligingly quotes the lyrics in introduction. With a costume and set borrowed from the Havana bureau, pot plants breaking out all over, and without dancing backup Sarstedt looks a little lost for staging, trying to exude international man of travel and mystery loucheness through being seated on wicker next to a table bearing a decent bottle and glass of rose. He just looks like he's waiting for inspiration to strike but this'll do for the rehearsal. Trying to add something to it a woman's face, presumably a Flipperite but we're no good at recognition, appears in overlay but all that does is make the director miss the appearance on screen of a camera. Then he takes a sip during the middle eight, after which he looks simultaneously sated, smug and distracted. Never a good look. As a last ditch effort, he looks to the side and grins to camera. By now he's clearly regretting not putting out the shorter single option. We get a brief look at him in the background once Hamilton starts again, and he's clearly broken down in laughter. He was a one hit wonder. You don't seem shocked.
Showaddywaddy – Trocadero
As a 'waddy guide we're well past Three Steps To Heaven but still six months short of kettle drum frenzy Under The Moon Of Love. Dual vocalists, one of whom sounds exactly like the R Whites Lemonade singer, but with just two guitars, one bass and one drummer, and it's one of their own so you'd think they'd have planned for that, two of the famously overmanned band are reduced to dancing duties, most of which the camera fails to pick up. Despite being a song about dancing with girls down the palais nobody would slash their cinema seat to something this thin. At this point in real life actual teddy boys were busy beating up punks. Showaddywaddy are still going with three original members, albeit two being a bassist and drummer. They're playing Summer Sundae festival in August on the same day as Wilko Johnson plays a smaller stage. It's like this very year all over again.
Wings - Silly Love Songs
Ruby Flipper's only appearance this week, and Diddy obligingly points out that it's just Cherry, Patti and Lulu. The whole male angle of the new team being sidelined three weeks in, then. That said, the girls are wearing bikini bottoms they might well have been shoehorned into and tops that pretty much do their intended job and use up no extra material. A group of candles is what passes for a backdrop. Before long the curse of Flick Colby Short Lead-In Time Choreography kicks in, quizzical looking around for "I look around me" a particular highlight amid the flailing and shaking. Meanwhile Ms Gillespie is confirmed as the queen of the cutaway close-up facial expression.
Mud – Shake It Down
David has two Mud fans with him, insomuch as they're wearing tinsel encrusted stovepipe hats and rosettes with Les Gray's face on. Somehow, and I'm fully aware of Rob Davis' subsequent CV (he's co-credited for this song), Mud doing funk disco is even more ludicrous a concept this week. This clip is from their Noel-fronted first appearance, but let the record show what was going on here.
IT'S JUST LIKE STUDIO 54. No green trousers this week, but the bassist still has that glove on and the guitar solo and breakdown are overlaid with that girl Cherry in some sort of Spanish influenced dress shaking that thing of hers again. The band look no younger or less cab driver-like either. They bow at the end, which is nice of them. "Have you ever shaken it down? You wanna try it some time, you could get to like it" David says, propositioning a much younger girl.
The Four Seasons – Silver Star
Same performance as last time. Check the tags for that.
Cliff Richard – Devil Woman
Not the same performance. Just before two of the girls surrounding him nearly contrive to throw themselves in front of a marauding camera David seems to think said woman is Cliff's confidante, even though the song clearly states that's really not what he wants. Worth noting Cliff's 'I'M NEARLY FAMOUS' T-shirt (over a wide lapelled blue shirt) promoting his album, which he distributed around his most famous friends so they could be seen wearing it at social functions, and indeed David is wearing a badge with the same slogan on. Now that's a level of viral marketing the likes of which that agency group Lost In Showbiz and Caitlin Moran are always going on about need to look into. Cliff's jeans are still far too tight for someone of his age and experience. "I think we've made 64 entries" he boasts afterwards. Neither host nor performer has anything else to say.
ABBA – Fernando
Again with that bloody fire. Still, won't be up there by the time we catch up with the series again. Diddy signs off with as many people as he can find from the show surrounding him. Les Gray is clearly eyeing up Tina Charles. Tina Charles, while maybe not having spotted him, is clearly terrified. I need someone from our fantastic commenting community to look at this and confirm what Hamilton says to Charles immediately before introducing the O'Jays playout, because it sounds spectacularly rude to me.
EDIT NEWS: Sutherland Brothers again, the Stones again and, with the re-run's third talkbox, a promo for Peter Frampton coming alive with Show Me The Way with his name in huge lights over the stage.
Friday, 13 May 2011
TOTP 6/5/76 (tx 12/5/11): No Charge, some change
This is the first week we've had an uncut version very late on Thursdays and Saturdays (11.35pm if you're quick), but for the time being we'll stick with the prime-time showing if that's alright with you. Noel's on, and his pidgin-Russian accent is what people on TV message boards would call "delightfully un-PC". Silver Convention are still going up the chart, making them the soul harmony Trotskies of the BBC cuts. And bloody hell, look who's not number one!
Mud - Shake It Down
Truth be told, looking at the tracklisting we thought we'd struggle to get anything out of this. But no, it's Mud gone disco! Obviously they haven't smartened up much for all the Diana Ross-style glissandos, heroic trumpets and falsetto backing vocals and gang shouts, having gone for the obviously none more Studio 54 combination of green shirts and vests, green trousers and white jackets. Les Gray still looks the same as he did when doing Tiger Feet, that is to say suspicious. Bassist Ray Stiles is giving it a go with Michael Jackson-presaging black glittery gloves and some extravagant swaying, and on the breakdown Dave Mount leaps from his kit to batter a pair of tom-toms while leaping about like a cartoon villain sneaking after the girl. No matter, it still looks like the teachers doing an end of term revue.
Frankie Valli - Fallen Angel
Robin Nash gets a mention from Noel, it being the already veteran LE producer's last show with only directing Bread, Goodnight Sweetheart and Harry Hill's Channel 4 series in his future. What he gets for his trouble is the soppiest of emotional grandstanding ballads, Johnny Pearson's orchestra on syrupy overtime. "What a sad story - tripped over her harp and over she went" Noel interjects, still working to his own agenda.
The Stylistics – Can’t Help Falling In Love
And a big hello to Ruby Flipper! Sadly none of them are sitting down. Wisely they start with just the two Pan's emigres before introducing the multi-gender collective to almost do as they please in a line. Here's Noel's full explanation: "Top Of The Pops have made a little move on the dancing front, Pan's People have sort of moved slightly stage left, stage right we've got Ruby Flipper, and you might recognise two of the faces there but five new faces and they're going to be doing various dance routines throughout the Top Of The Pops series". And that's it. Eight years of the People cast aside with no aforethought. That was, in fairness, pretty much what levity Flick Colby and Ruth Pearson gave the change too, just deciding to change the concept without even telling Bill Cotton according to Pearson. But, as we will discover over the coming months, you just weren't ready for men dancing on TOTP.
Barry Manilow – Trying To Get The Feeling
His stool is far too high, that's the first thing to note. The angle of his mike must be adjustable. It's... well, it's a Barry Manilow song, one that didn't chart at that - in fact he didn't have a top 50 single between Mandy in 1975 and Can't Smile Without You three years later. Even the album of the same title did nothing. He's really putting his all into it by the end too, slapping his hands against the keys, the arms of his white suit jacket trembling.
Robin Sarstedt - My Resistance Is Low
Nobody anywhere is giving it their all to this. With the female four-sevenths of Ruby Flipper in ballgowns behind him, one of whom is idly miming to half the female vocals, Peter's kid brother smarms for his country. The Bernard Cribbens version might be better.
Sutherland Brothers & Quiver - Arms Of Mary
"From one of my records of the week to one of my artists of the week" says Noel, neatly linking into his breakfast show. Funny, he never made a thing about his musical spotting worth usually. Iain Sutherland looks like Jack Black trying to deny his fashionable long hair is fast receding, a look the drummer has taken to its natural next stage. You can tell this is earnest folk-rock from his scrunched up facial expressions on the meaningful words. Lots of white suit jackets this week. Oh, and on bass looking exactly like the young Chris Langham that's Bruce Thomas, later to produce rather more complex lead basslines for Elvis Costello and the Attractions.
JJ Barrie - No Charge
Or, as the chart caption calls him, JJ Barry. The edit here is extraordinarily good, comparing the lyrical content of this to that of a song we haven't heard but could equally have been the one we just saw. Anyhow, this is one of the worst songs ever made and you'd better get used to it, from a man who somehow looks exactly as you'd think he would, right down to the massive collars in a pattern more often seen on grandparents' curtains. Noel overly pretends to wipe his tears away with the mike, commenting "quite amazing" as he does so. Difficult to tell if he's being sarcastic. "On his way to a monster success" he predicts, not inaccurately.
Cliff Richard - Devil Woman
And apparently Barrie's wife wrote this. Cliff actually hadn't had a top 40 single for two years until Miss You Nights in February, so this was his attempt to reconnect with AOR. It's not actually about the devil or loose women, by the way, it's about a voodoo cat or something. All that gets pushed to one side by first a shot from beneath which uncomfortably reveals which way Cliff dresses and then a glimpse of the bass player, who is sporting magnificent mutton chops and huge glasses giving him the air of a friendly tobacconist. Noel seems to take it literally and personally.
ABBA - Fernando
Number one. Thank christ! It's the one with everyone sitting around the fire again. Then Noel promises "an awful lot of good sounds" in the morning and we're out with Johnny Taylor. Someone on Twitter pointed out that for the last two links the huge flower in Noel's lapel changes colour from white to red. He's playing with us, the tinker.
EDIT NEWS: Fox! The big success story, as we always say... but it's just the week one performance again, as memorable as it was. Noel's introductory comment is worth considering: "I suppose if you call a number Single Bed then you're bound to have to get up and make it at some point". Tina Charles' Love Me Like A Lover seems to have Mr Punch on backing vocals and, to push home how much more integrated Ruby Flipper are going to be, features one of them dancing in inset while wearing yellow tartan trousers. Charles for her own part is wearing a daffodil and several plants in her lapel, which just makes it look like she got caught in a hedge just outside the green room. Noel claims two girls in the audience brought the carnation in his own suit. After a live Rolling Stones performance of much pouting and little stickability Noel commends how the charts are "full of variety and records of many different sorts of appeal making it" before being drowned out by Mac & Katie Kissoon's blaring horns. As if to deliberately disprove his point it turns out to be Studio 54 disco of a sort we've already seen a lot. Then Noel refers to a "relationship of a very different sort", and cue JJ...
Mud - Shake It Down
Truth be told, looking at the tracklisting we thought we'd struggle to get anything out of this. But no, it's Mud gone disco! Obviously they haven't smartened up much for all the Diana Ross-style glissandos, heroic trumpets and falsetto backing vocals and gang shouts, having gone for the obviously none more Studio 54 combination of green shirts and vests, green trousers and white jackets. Les Gray still looks the same as he did when doing Tiger Feet, that is to say suspicious. Bassist Ray Stiles is giving it a go with Michael Jackson-presaging black glittery gloves and some extravagant swaying, and on the breakdown Dave Mount leaps from his kit to batter a pair of tom-toms while leaping about like a cartoon villain sneaking after the girl. No matter, it still looks like the teachers doing an end of term revue.
Frankie Valli - Fallen Angel
Robin Nash gets a mention from Noel, it being the already veteran LE producer's last show with only directing Bread, Goodnight Sweetheart and Harry Hill's Channel 4 series in his future. What he gets for his trouble is the soppiest of emotional grandstanding ballads, Johnny Pearson's orchestra on syrupy overtime. "What a sad story - tripped over her harp and over she went" Noel interjects, still working to his own agenda.
The Stylistics – Can’t Help Falling In Love
And a big hello to Ruby Flipper! Sadly none of them are sitting down. Wisely they start with just the two Pan's emigres before introducing the multi-gender collective to almost do as they please in a line. Here's Noel's full explanation: "Top Of The Pops have made a little move on the dancing front, Pan's People have sort of moved slightly stage left, stage right we've got Ruby Flipper, and you might recognise two of the faces there but five new faces and they're going to be doing various dance routines throughout the Top Of The Pops series". And that's it. Eight years of the People cast aside with no aforethought. That was, in fairness, pretty much what levity Flick Colby and Ruth Pearson gave the change too, just deciding to change the concept without even telling Bill Cotton according to Pearson. But, as we will discover over the coming months, you just weren't ready for men dancing on TOTP.
Barry Manilow – Trying To Get The Feeling
His stool is far too high, that's the first thing to note. The angle of his mike must be adjustable. It's... well, it's a Barry Manilow song, one that didn't chart at that - in fact he didn't have a top 50 single between Mandy in 1975 and Can't Smile Without You three years later. Even the album of the same title did nothing. He's really putting his all into it by the end too, slapping his hands against the keys, the arms of his white suit jacket trembling.
Robin Sarstedt - My Resistance Is Low
Nobody anywhere is giving it their all to this. With the female four-sevenths of Ruby Flipper in ballgowns behind him, one of whom is idly miming to half the female vocals, Peter's kid brother smarms for his country. The Bernard Cribbens version might be better.
Sutherland Brothers & Quiver - Arms Of Mary
"From one of my records of the week to one of my artists of the week" says Noel, neatly linking into his breakfast show. Funny, he never made a thing about his musical spotting worth usually. Iain Sutherland looks like Jack Black trying to deny his fashionable long hair is fast receding, a look the drummer has taken to its natural next stage. You can tell this is earnest folk-rock from his scrunched up facial expressions on the meaningful words. Lots of white suit jackets this week. Oh, and on bass looking exactly like the young Chris Langham that's Bruce Thomas, later to produce rather more complex lead basslines for Elvis Costello and the Attractions.
JJ Barrie - No Charge
Or, as the chart caption calls him, JJ Barry. The edit here is extraordinarily good, comparing the lyrical content of this to that of a song we haven't heard but could equally have been the one we just saw. Anyhow, this is one of the worst songs ever made and you'd better get used to it, from a man who somehow looks exactly as you'd think he would, right down to the massive collars in a pattern more often seen on grandparents' curtains. Noel overly pretends to wipe his tears away with the mike, commenting "quite amazing" as he does so. Difficult to tell if he's being sarcastic. "On his way to a monster success" he predicts, not inaccurately.
Cliff Richard - Devil Woman
And apparently Barrie's wife wrote this. Cliff actually hadn't had a top 40 single for two years until Miss You Nights in February, so this was his attempt to reconnect with AOR. It's not actually about the devil or loose women, by the way, it's about a voodoo cat or something. All that gets pushed to one side by first a shot from beneath which uncomfortably reveals which way Cliff dresses and then a glimpse of the bass player, who is sporting magnificent mutton chops and huge glasses giving him the air of a friendly tobacconist. Noel seems to take it literally and personally.
ABBA - Fernando
Number one. Thank christ! It's the one with everyone sitting around the fire again. Then Noel promises "an awful lot of good sounds" in the morning and we're out with Johnny Taylor. Someone on Twitter pointed out that for the last two links the huge flower in Noel's lapel changes colour from white to red. He's playing with us, the tinker.
EDIT NEWS: Fox! The big success story, as we always say... but it's just the week one performance again, as memorable as it was. Noel's introductory comment is worth considering: "I suppose if you call a number Single Bed then you're bound to have to get up and make it at some point". Tina Charles' Love Me Like A Lover seems to have Mr Punch on backing vocals and, to push home how much more integrated Ruby Flipper are going to be, features one of them dancing in inset while wearing yellow tartan trousers. Charles for her own part is wearing a daffodil and several plants in her lapel, which just makes it look like she got caught in a hedge just outside the green room. Noel claims two girls in the audience brought the carnation in his own suit. After a live Rolling Stones performance of much pouting and little stickability Noel commends how the charts are "full of variety and records of many different sorts of appeal making it" before being drowned out by Mac & Katie Kissoon's blaring horns. As if to deliberately disprove his point it turns out to be Studio 54 disco of a sort we've already seen a lot. Then Noel refers to a "relationship of a very different sort", and cue JJ...
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