1978: Punk killed prog, did it? Not so fast, Emerson Lake & Palmer were still TOTP-worthy a year after that sea change was supposed to have occurred, if in reduced kit circumstances. Pisstaking RAK/Chinnichap-led glam was back around too in the form of Racey. Richard Gower starts by ostentatiously taking a drink while paying no attention to his organ, and I somehow doubt that was his first of the evening. Meanwhile, though not currently online, a direct challenge to Flick hegemony as Hot Gossip invade TOTP's patch under Sarah Brightman's auspices. Questions would have to be asked.
1989: The two people around Roland Gift weren't actually members of Fine Young Cannibals but they seem to have garnered more focus than two thirds of the actual band. Gift gives up joining in very early on. This has become a landmark TOTP... well, in some ways it was seen as a landmark TOTP at the time as the cult movement of the day broke through onto prime-time telly, and back to back too. First The Stone Roses, Ian Brown getting halfway through before realising he probably doesn't need the mike itself, then Jenny Powell clumsily introduces, in the singular, Happy Mondays with Kirsty Maccoll looking quite clearly not a permanent member.
1995: Bjork gets the big production number the song demands, and that they're all in animal costumes seems only right. The director is so keen to pull back he nearly misses the big ending. On the other end of the choreography scale, Whale let loose and rip up with the bit part help of at least one joke shop wig. Watch for the guitarist leaping into the audience and the audience pushing him straight back onto the stage.
2 comments:
That Bjork performance for me was one of the highlights of TOTP in 1995. It was a ridiculous record that warranted a ridiculous treatment and in this performance... it got it big time. Bjork was clearly having great fun knowing she was providing a major WTF moment. The Blaxill era was the last golden era for the show.
I like the whip pan from Peter Powell to Racey performing the theme from Kick Start, that's incredibly exciting.
I always say this but when Hobo Humpin' Slobo Babe came out I was ineptly trying to impress a cool indie chick at college and our first conversations were over a shared love of that song. Imagine if it had gone any further, that would have forever been our song.
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