mumu03 post_id=41462 time= user_id=2102 Wrote:What is largely perceived to be a pretty poor era of TOTP doesn't exactly mean the same for pop music - which a few people unfortunately seem to associate and confuse - but you'd be forgiven for thinking the late 1991-1993 era was a dire time, considering Stanley Appel's favour of flop hits/album tracks by Neil Sedaka, Cilla Black, David Essex, etc over stuff that people cared about actually in the charts. Even the likes of David Hasselhoff and The Chippendales got on under him as exclusives (!).
That era of Pops does coincide with the period I was less interested in pop music, I can't remember buying many records at all in 1992 and 1993, but I don't know if it was because Pops was in a bit of a state, because I still saw plenty of pop music on Going Live and The Big Breakfast, and was still reading Smash Hits.
I never stopped watching it, but there was certainly a period circa 1993 when I started to just "have it on" rather than avidly watch it as I had done, and in fact I started watching it properly again before the end of the Appel era when I realised it now had subtitles, which made it all quite entertaining. I do think it is a bit of a low point for pop music, though, it probably also doesn't help it coincides with the last knockings of the pre-Bannister era of Radio 1 so you still had Travis and Bates knocking around, who by that point had nothing to do with pop music.
I am quite interested to see this era again, though. You could argue that it's not really that much different to the late seventies when you had loads of light entertainment acts - including Cilla, of course, in 1977, long after she'd stopped having hits. We happily sat through that era, though of course the programmes were longer in those days so there was plenty else of interest.
InsideUlster post_id=41493 time= user_id=1927 Wrote:I feel that the current TOTP repeats on BBC4 is really starting to wane very badly. By the time 2022 arrives, I think shows like the Old Grey Whistle Test and Sight and Sound in Concert should be rerun to appease some hardcore classic music fans of the 70s and 80s.
Well, you may think that, but I am very much enjoying the summer of 1991, it's exactly the time I was watching it avidly every week and I remember so many of the tracks featured. I've enjoyed every era of the repeats in their own way but this is probably the one that has most personal resonance. I don't think I'm alone either - the viewing figures and engagement on Twitter seem as strong as ever, and nineties nostalgia is very big these days, what with Sounds of the 90s on Radio 2 (a terrible programme, but still). Alright, my parents have stopped watching it, but my sister has started watching it.
I really am enjoying this current period, actually, it's perhaps not an era that is that well-remembered, but I think it's quite a likeable format, certainly fast-moving and fuss-free, and with loads of studio performances and no pointless features, even running the chart over a video makes it seem like it's getting more of a shift on.
James2001 post_id=41465 time= user_id=956 Wrote:When you see that the first revamp edition has a Status Quo album track and a Stevie Wonder video that didn't even reach the top 60, it makes you wonder what the hell Stan Appel was thinking.
Well, I can sort of understand the Status Quo performance, they were still quite a popular act - The Anniversary Waltz had been a big hit less than a year ago and the following year they'd headline Radio 1's 25th anniversary concert (I know when they sued Radio 1 for not playing their records, they cited the fact they were chosen for that apparently by popular demand as justification for why they should be on there). Stevie Wonder maybe less so, but he was still a big name, and I can see why, if you wanted to make a splash for your first show, especially to the wider audience, you'd go for acts like that who everyone had heard of.
James2001 post_id=41918 time= user_id=956 Wrote:The Chris Cowie era was actually worse than the Blaxill era in my opinion. Due to things such as re-using the same performances over and over (like when Believe was Number 1- in the pre-Cowie eras you'd have got the video for a long running number 1 some weeks to mix things up) and all but refusing to show videos- which partly led to said re-using of performances and many songs not appearing on the show that really should have because the artist couldn't or wouldn't appear in the studio, and so much of it was pre-recorded that the show often felt pieced together rather than a continuous flow.
I would agree with that, probably. The one thing that you would say in favour of the Appel, Blaxill and indeed Peters eras is that they realised that every show had to have a bit of a USP, hence the exclusive performances, but under Cowey, so many episodes were so similar to the previous week.
It's funny that this era was the one where they probably did it the way that everyone says they should do it, in that it was almost entirely records in the charts, but it's also I think one of the dullest eras. What was particularly strange about this period is that it was also the era when records would always peak in their first week and go straight down, and it was almost a week from the chart being announced, so when a record finally appeared on Top of the Pops, it would have been on all the other TV shows for weeks on end, and it was already at its peak, with the industry already looking forward to next week's chart (which was of course on CDUK less than 24 hours later) so it always seemed really out of date. I always wondered how it managed to maintain such support from the record industry when it was pretty much useless as a promotional tool.
I know a couple of people mentioned that because it was at Elstree at this point, away from all the other shows, it had become its own little empire and Cowey had total control over everything (Richard Marson writes about doing a Blue Peter film on it and absolutely everyone kept saying "I'll check that with Chris"), so all his rather idiosyncratic ideas went and if you watched it regularly, as I did, you got to notice his turns of phrase in the script and his production techniques.
mumu03 post_id=42082 time= user_id=2102 Wrote:Blaxill had it too - see his pushing of the likes of These Animal Men, S*M*A*S*H, and Bis as exclusives when they weren't in the charts or signed to a major label - although the more fast-paced nature of his shows meant that more genres did get on. Often heavily truncated, mind; on one of the weeks Firestarter was #1 they just ran it under the credits for less than one minute.
Just to be a terrible pedant, but that week when Firestarter was number one was when Ric Blaxill was on holiday and Kevin Bishop was producing the show. I know there'd been a load of complaints about the video in previous weeks so I'm not surprised that Bishop, who usually worked on rather more traditional light entertainment shows, had a slightly more conservative view than Blaxill.
mumu03 post_id=42095 time= user_id=2102 Wrote:Ironically out of the four acts mentioned here I would say Menswear are indeed the most notable - they had a few hits, and the events surrounding their rise and fall are of course regarded by many as the prime examples of Britpop hubris/hype in the music industry. Not really fondly remembered either, but they probably had more going for them than the other indie acts targeted by Blaxill.
I'm looking forward to seeing all these acts. At the time it all seemed very exciting, I remember they had Blur on doing an album track in the week they won a load of Brits and I liked that kind of thing, it felt like it was properly the centre of the pop universe.
I always remember Pip Schofield giving Sleeping In by Menswear a rave review when he was on Trev and SImon's Video Goldmine on Live and Kicking, he absolutely loved it. Sadly he didn't pick it when he was the guest on Sounds of the 90s the other week.