Thursday Nights its Top of the Pops

Today we have a plethora of music channels that play music promos 24-7 either on TV or online. Back in the 1980s we had no luxuries such as that. There was only one show that people tuned in and that was Thursday night for Top of the Pops.

There were other music shows such as Whistle Test on BBC2 the Roxy on ITV and The Tube on Channel 4 but Top of the Pops was the Grandaddy of them all. The viewing public would wait in anticipation to see which lucky artistes would appear on Top of the Pops. It was gripping stuff to see the Radio 1 dj's count down the chart and reveal who was number one. IT was often said an appearance on Top of the Pops would increase your sales and public awareness. Thus the show was able to attract the biggest stars in the world. Imagine one appearance on a show and boom your up and running!

The show merely responded to what was doing well in the charts, they would only feature acts that were going up the charts and did not stand on particular genre of music. If you moved up the charts you would feature. As it was a family show there were certain acts that fell foul of the TOTP hierarchy and in the 1980's Frankie Goes to Hollywood were banned following there single Relax being initially banned on BBC Radio 1 and this reflected in being banned on TOTP as the show was run by the BBC.

The popularity of the show reflected in the merchandise and you could purchase anything from TOTP annual books, Albums, T-Shirts, Logo's and the theme tunes were also released as singles. In the 1980's the two notable themes were Yellow Peril by Phil Lynott and The Wizard by Paul '19' Hardcastle.

Artistes mimed there records on the show although there were a few who did not want to do this notably Iron Maiden on the single Running Free were the first band to play live on TOTP in 8 years. Other acts had problems performing to a backing track such as All about Eve and REM where Michael Stipe had so many problems that he used a megaphone to disguise his mouth. Simon LeBon also famously mimed without a microphone as a dance move went horribly wrong and lost his microphone and being a true pro ended singing into the stand!

These days sadly the show does not exist but from a personal point of view you often heard a record on the radio and then you would see the face or faces that sung it a few weeks later. However, there some cries of disbelief when you see the acts such as the new romantic bands with men and make up and dressing like women. Very confusing! but the power of radio was that you could enjoy the record without any inbuilt prejudices and for that this will never happen again.

You can now enjoy some performances from the good old days of pop

Dexys midnight Runners

Human League

the Smiths

Stone roses

New Order

Housemartins

Madness

Soft Cell

Dead or Alive

Duran Duran

Wham

Kajagoogoo

To purchase the Top of the Pops definitive 80s album, click here