Sunday, August 26, 2012

Top of the Pops - BBC takes notice!

Below are a couple of pages from the BBC book, "Top of the Pops - Mishaps, Miming and Music" (2007), all about the celebrated TV show. It's surprising that they gave over a double-page spread to these cover version LPs which, of course, had nothing to do with the programme!

We'll forgive a few dodgy factoids - it's worth it for the numerous short quotes, from the likes of Ron Mael of Sparks and Glenn Tilbrook of Squeeze - the BBC of course had easy access to such respected figures from the world of pop - and I've not seen most of these quotes before...

(Click to enlarge)



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6 comments:

  1. darnall 42August 27, 2012 at 1:25 PM

    good stuff on the blog,i picked up that totp book from poundland a few years back :)

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    1. PopperAugust 27, 2012 at 9:51 PM

      Nice one. Mine was from a charity shop, but still set me back more than a pound! To be honest I only bought it for the LP feature.

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  2. DeclanAugust 28, 2012 at 9:29 PM

    I can't see beyond the errors galore, unfortunately! It's not an article about covers LPs per se, it's about "Top of the Pops" LPs, so how much research would it have taken for someone to find out that The Strawbs' "Lay Down" wasn't actually on a "TOTP" album, and nor was "Cool For Cats"? And Elton John is attributed to covers released on rival LPs to "TOTP", as his Hallmark contribution was a paltry one song!
    Nonetheless, always pleased to see these albums get a shout, even if the praise is grudging, as on here!!

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    1. PopperAugust 28, 2012 at 10:04 PM

      Agreed. It's nice to see the LPs get some recogntion, but if they are going to say that TOTP stopped appearing in 1979 then how can they blame its demise on the "Now!" albums - which didn't start up until 1983? (For the record, TOTP ended in 1982, with one more to follow in 1985.)

      I think dodgy facts like that may originate in the celebrated Mojo article of several years back (which I may post on here, in case anyone hasn't seen it), so a partial excuse perhaps.

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  3. DeclanAugust 29, 2012 at 9:17 PM

    Also, I thought today: if they really believed the series folded in 1979, how on earth would Bucks Fizz ever have been covered anyway?!

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  4. bro19August 30, 2012 at 10:55 PM

    I've come across the opinion before about TOTP stopping in 1979 - not true as we all know. The only thing that changed in that period was when Bruce Baxter left the project at the end of 1978, after which Pickwick began buying their recordings from an external production company called Coombe Music & increased the track listing to 16 tracks. Other than that, it was business as usual for the next few years.

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