Chart Music

David Stubbs, Taylor Parkes and Al Needham prepare the ground for an intensive dissection of an episode of Top Of The Pops from 1980, a year which has very much established itself as the Ken of the Eighventies.There’s a flick through the NME from that week, fond reminiscences about the Good Old Days of the first lockdown, Robin Askwith’s overuse of sticky tape in the 1970s, and Mr Benn: timewasting get. TUCK IN, POP-CRAZED YOUNGSTERS!Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The latest episode of the podcast which asks: would you let your daughter marry this episode of Top Of The Pops?It’s the first episode of the year, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, so the ever-forward-looking Chart Music throws itself all the way back to the glorious year of ’73, where the hair grows wild and free, Bacofoil androgyny is at its peak, Look-In can operate as a dating service and no-one bats an eyelid, and – to quote Karen, aged 12 from Formby, The Colour Brown Is All Around.And yet! All is not well in Top Of The Popsland. They’ve just come off their 500th episode and suffered a double-shoeing from the so-called Mainstream Media for a) encouraging ten year-old girls to get pregnant and b) being full of rubbish songs where you can’t make out what they’re saying performed by men who look like women and God help us if there’s a war. So how do they react? By wringing the last droplets out of Kenny Everett before he defects to Capital Radio and bunging on something for the Old’Uns inbetween the g

Simon Price, Neil Kulkarni and Al Needham bring this Golden Age episode of the Pops home, as Slade finally – and fatally – learn to spell single titles correctly, Limmie and Family Cookin’ do something that isn’t You Can Do Magic, the Top Of The Pops Orchestra earn some beer money on the side, and we get treated to one of the greatest singles of the year – for 29 seconds or so, because they’ve overrun. Sigh.Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Simon Price, Neil Kulkarni and Al Needham watch Kenny Everett patronise a choirboy, thrill to the sight of Status Quo in their natural environment, watch Pans People caper about like five sexy Steve Austins – the half-robot, not the wrestler – and stare aghast at the voluminous head of Engelbert Humperdinck…Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Simon Price, Neil Kulkarni and Al Needham examine the case of Kenny Everett – the Problem Child of Radio One – as he embarks upon his final stint on The Pops, while David Cassidy arses around with a dog, Jeff Lynne carries a hundredweight of hair on his head, and Elton John is stalked through the streets of Hollywood as he nips out to buy some cowboy gear…Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Simon Price, Neil Kulkarni and Al Needham reunite for a new year of picking at the open wound of random episodes of TOTP, discuss being a news item on Twitter for saying Oasis were lumbering and ponderous, and prepare the ground for a vintage episode by perusing that week’s issue of Melody Maker, paying particular attention to Welsh Glam tours and the rancid t-shirt adverts in the back pages… Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The latest episode of the podcast which asks: why do we always leave the end-of-year episodes to the actual end of the year?Warning: if you listen to this episode, your ears will be breaking the Rule Of Six, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself, because Al has decided to throw a New Years party with all manner of special guests who will be dropping in, sitting by the fire, contemplating the meaning of the season, and – most importantly –picking at a Christmas Day episode of Top Of The Pops like a child picks at the scab on its knee.And what an episode it is! We’re at the tail-end of 1983, a year Chart Music has deemed the beginning of the decline of New Pop, but on further examination turns out to be much better than we’d realised. The accounts department of Radio One – Gripper Peebles, Twankey Smith, Pigwanker General and ‘All Night’ Long – are in full effect, the Zoo Wankers are kept on a leash, and we are assailed by wave after wave after wave after wave of the top rank of ’83.Musicwise,&

Into the final stretch of a whopping Xmas episode of TOTP, and some absolute beasts of 1983 hove into view. David Bowie plays a pub gig in NSW, Jahwaddywaddy invent Breggae, Billy Joel demonstrates that posh girls all want it off a petite mechanic, really, the Christmas #1 of ’83 pops up to rile Smash Hits readers, and Inky Peebles lies that the ‘party’ is going to continue into Boxing Day…  Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Finally, the Gang’s all here when the Rock Expert pitches up, and the journey into the heart of the 1983 Xmas Top Of The Pops goes on. Adam Ant’s crown begins to slip, The Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boys from Quality Street look upwards, Bucks Fizz get all hard-hitting and mature, an American police officer has a bit of a dance, and Carol Kenyon makes your dad drop his Satsuma… Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Chart Music works do – held after Christmas, because we’re proper mingebags – is kicking right off, and we’re only at the halfway mark of the ’83 Xmas extravaganza. Mike Smith has a wide-on for some Real Aussie Men, Our Sarah uncorks a stupendous slam poetry re-enactment of Bonnie Tyler’s finest five-and-a-bit minutes, Annie Lennox glares at us, Janice Long gets massively full-on, and there’s some rammel Thatcherite American dance-arse.  TUCK IN, POP-CRAZED YOUNGSTERS! Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Our New Year’s do has only just begun, with two very special guests – Price the Wolfchild and The Incredible Kulk – dropping in to lob their coats in the spare bedroom and pick at the sumptuous buffet that is the Top of The Pops 1983 Xmas episode. Revel in the joy of Inky Peebles refusing to join in the Panto atmosphere as Freeez caper about, the Bad King of Pop reveals a hitherto undiscovered love of Billy Britain and SWANT, and Taylor and Sarah discover that just when you think you’ve got the measure of Shakin’ Stevens, he reveals even more denimy depths…Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Al Needham’s hosting a late New Year’s party, and all the Pop-Crazed Youngsters are invited. And unsurprisingly, it involves you being made to sit in an armchair and watch an episode of Top Of The Pops while other people shout at you – and this time, it’s the Xmas Day one from 1983. But before that, him and Sarah Bee and Taylor Parkes leaf though that week’s Melody Maker, reminisce on Xmases past, and get you all ’83-compliant for our LONGEST EPISODE EVER… Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Chart Music #55: 23.12.1982 – Hygge PopThe latest episode of the podcast which asks: why hasn’t London got a Revels World?It’s getting to look a lot like Christmas, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, and you know what that means: the Nanas of the Kingdom start fiddling with their purses at the counter of HMV and encrust our beloved charts with the mung of novelty. We can’t lie: this episode of The Pops has been freshly squeezed from the very ringpiece of the cat, and no amount of live weather reports from Kid Jensen or the appearance of a little Mediterranean Santa can distract us from that.Musicwise, oof: Lol Mason fiddles about with the watch pocket of his slacks. David Bowie – the Death Angel of 1977 – has a fiddle on Bing Crosby’s posh English cousin’s piano for an awkward chat about kids, before flouncing off to EMI. Incantation perform the Andean puffalong Knees Up Madre Brown. The Double-Denimed Defender of Heterosexual Rock n’ Roll makes his balcony speech. The Seventies officially die as Abba

Al Needham, David Stubbs and Neil Kulkarni watch aghast as Pop Santa curls one off into their stockings, as we reach the appalling dénouement of this episode of The Pops. It’s a full-on Nana takeover, as we submit to the sickening one-two punch of Emo duckling whinge and the West Midlands version of the Red Shoe Diaries…        Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Neil Kulkarni, David Stubbs and Al Needham continue the death-march into the final TOTP of 1982, pausing to gaze upon Zoo having an ethnic knees-up, reflect upon the last stand of Abba, witness the slow afternoon of Imagination, and muse upon what Comrade Shaky’s version of the Fool’s Gold loaf would be…Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Flags! Balloons! Tinsel! Zoo Wankeridge! David Stubbs, Neil Kulkarni and Al Needham start to gum their critical teeth up on the manky, non-Cadbury selection box that is the last proper TOTP of ’82, and imagine a world where Bing Crosby and David Bowie cover Prince Buster…    Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Al Needham, Neil Kulkarni and Rock Expert David Stubbs come together to reveal the Christmas Chart Music Top Ten, leaf through a Melody Maker with balloons and a Jam flexidisc on the cover, talk about keeping the electricity on at their house by flogging off armfuls of review copies at the Record and Tape Exchange, and prepare for a grim death-march into a Top Of The Pops from the arse-end of 1982… Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The latest episode of the podcast which asks: would you go to see Panties at Canning Town Bridge House?Unbelievably, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, this appears to be only the second time we’ve chanced across 1978 – which is a shameful way for a podcast about Top Of The Pops to act, because this year is rammed with cultural behemoths dominating the landscape, with the musk of all the things that Chart Music cherishes hanging thick in the air. We're right on on the perineum ‘twixt Saturday Night Fever and Grease, Tony Blackburn has just slid into his Tony Manero outfit, and your panel are a) becoming massively disillusioned by school dinners, b) fancying Carol Chell, and c) drawing a picture of Hitler in a Mexico strip and getting ready to ice down his groin with some peas a week from now.Musicwise, practically everything good – and bad – about ’78 is here. The Real Thing help Legs & Co recreate one of the scenes in The Stud that didn’t involve grubby pre-Eighventies Percy Filth. Jimm

We’re into the final stretch for an outstanding episode of The Pops, and Al Needham, Taylor Parkes and Neil Kulkarni strain every sinew as they navigate Disco Cilla, avoid Jimmy Pursey as he tumbles to the floor, bow to the true bosses of 1978, and join Joe Jordan and Kenny Burns for a geographically incorrect carnival, just before they fall on their faces like Bobby Davro in front of Keith Chegwin and Jim Bowen…Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The twin cultural juggernauts of 1978 collide in this episode of Top Of The Pops, and Taylor Parkes and Neil Kulkarni beg Al Needham to slow down so they can have a good look at the splintered and mangled carnage. A second shift for Legs & Co appears to catch them with their pants down, the TOTP Orchestra lay off the Party Fours for a bit, and your Mam can’t take her eyes off Phil Lynott’s shiny trousers…   Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.