1980: Crouching Powell, hidden dragging on. Peter's arm movements of expressive dancing joy for Judas Priest are worth the visit, but stop for the director giving the guitar solo everything he can on the effects board. The Jam are number one, the studio call catching Weller out midway through making lunch. Hoi, no advertising!
1986: The Art Of Noise were conceived as a faceless studio group, so when they did show up for Pops there was always a distraction in the way. Duane Eddy's presence supplies that, bar the long period in the middle where there's none of his guitar on the track so he just has to stand around looking mildly bemused, but just in case there's some concept dancers/backing 'singers' whom Flick couldn't have choregprahed more intently. I think that's meant to be a joke at the end. I think. Smitty also treats Tippa Irie with respect due. Irie for his part is dressed as Bing Crosby.
1998: ALRIGHT, WYCLEF, IT'S THE FUCKING REMIX, UNDERSTOOD. The first sighting of Beyonce over here, not that we knew the full extent of her powers yet as this was the first incarnation of Destiny's Child. Still, no question in whose vocal and stage hands the power lies, she can even get small groups to scream on implied command. There's a little bit of revisionism going on with Robbie Williams in Pops folklore, as there's a clip captioned from March 1998 of a huge production number version of Let Me Entertain You, but that was from a much later special when his career was secure enough to command everything being thrown at it. When it actually charted he was still in possession of ill-conceived blonde hair, tinted glasses likewise and natural fibres, his backing singers were referencing Sympathy For The Devil and one person in the audience was clearly getting a rugby lineout-style lift up. Still, it's not as if Robbie Williams ever needs a second invitation. As surprisingly well as the subtleties of Pulp's This Is Hardcore translate even to a 1998 Pops audience, the lighting director helps it along by gradually working through the colour palette. As for Jarvis' future collaborative partners The All Seeing I, the lack of a tangible frontperson or session representative thereof clearly need not have been a drawback.
1 comment:
I think that All Seeing I clip might be my favourite ever Pops performance, I loved it at the time, it's brilliantly done.
In fact, early 1998 is one of my favourite Pops periods because I was a student at the time and did nothing but watch telly, mooch around Birmingham and embark on ill-advised hair experiments, and our whole flat would get together for Pops, there'd be loads of us in front of the telly to see it. Although I remember watching this one on my own because everyone else had gone home for Easter.
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