Tuesday 17 January 2012

17th January

1980: Dartist amusement far in the future, Dexys Midnight Runners make their debut in their Mean Streets clobber. Bigger stages would come with the hits, as the briefly successful New Musik were finding out. I think the theme is supposed to be pitching them as pop scientists, and certainly we're finding out together that you can play an acoustic guitar with power chord strokes. Meanwhile Legs & Co, given Booker T and the MGs, attempted borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered Sixties.

1985: Lots of business for Powell and Davies to get through, firstly announcing the Brit award for Best British Video (Wild Boys won - fair to say Howard Jones didn't stand a chance), then a countdown, then the Strawberry Switchblade video over bits of Yellow Pearl you've never heard, then a couple of video clips, and finally Grandmaster Melle Mel and the Furious Five - three of them may have overslept - in the sort of outfits Lenny Henry was already making a punchline out of.

1997: Sensitive East 17 worked once and once only, and this wasn't it. Three superfluous backing singers and a man playing percussion on a spare bit of the lighting rig add flavour.

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