Hi all. Welcome to my first blog of 2025. I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year. And if you made any New Year’s resolutions, I hope these haven’t fallen by the wayside already.
I’m not really a New Year’s resolution type guy myself. I just think that if you want to make changes in your life, you don’t need to wait for a specific time of year. Just do it. I get that New Year represents a fresh start and that there is a certain “New Year, new me” symbolism to this mindset. But, I actually think that’s partly why so many resolutions end up getting ditched. The further you get into the new year, the easier it probably becomes to give up and move on. Hence, why gyms are packed in January but empty again in February.
Anyway, I’ll jump off of my soapbox about that particular topic, as it has nothing to do with what I’m talking about today. For this one, I’m going to talk a bit about Top of the Pops, a one-time staple of British music and television. Enjoy:
Without wanting to make readers (or myself!) feel old, there must be a large number of people under the age of 30 who don’t even know what Top of the Pops (TOTP) is. I myself came to the game late, only being au fait with the 90s offerings. A quick Google search reveals that the show started in 1964! So, I’m probably not qualified to talk about it. But that’s never stopped me before!
For those who don’t know, TOTP was a weekly music show that aired on the BBC on a Friday evening. They would be live in a television studio, with a presenter (usually a different one every week) introducing music acts who would perform ‘live’ in the studio.
All of the music would either be what was currently in the music chart or sometimes a new release from a big artist. If George Michael released a single, you best believe that would feature on TOTP regardless of chart position.
There would be four to six performances in the studio, a couple of music videos, and sometimes a ‘live’ performance on location somewhere. From memory, these performances could be from anywhere in the world and would be beamed in live via satellite. I’m not saying this wasn’t true, but surely it would have made more sense to prerecord a performance, then simply slot the VT into the live TOTP show? So this is probably what they did.
Looking through a modern lens, the concept does seem a little quaint and old-fashioned. There’s probably a wider discussion that can be had about how celebrities have changed over the years, perhaps because of social media. In some ways, they feel more accessible than ever. But can you really imagine a weekly show in the UK with the likes of Adele and Ed Sheeran turning up every week to sing live? Or, you know, more up to date popular artists I’m unaware of?
But that’s what used to happen. The biggest stars on the planet would rock up to the TOTP studio week after week. Michael Jackson, Elton John, Celine Dion, the Spice Girls, Take That, the Backstreet Boys (all huge acts in the 90s), and many more all featured regularly.
You might look at the aforementioned artists and think that it was just pop stars who did TOPT. But ‘cooler’ acts would get involved as well. Blur, Oasis, Pulp, Radiohead, Busta Rhymes, Snoop Dogg, Metallica, to name but a few who appeared in the mid-90s. It was the place to be for virtually all music acts to come and sing live.
Speaking of singing live, I don’t know whether it was childhood naivety, a nostalgic look into the past, or just poor memory (or some combination thereof), but I seem to remember the majority of acts singing live. Apparently, these memories were mostly false.
On BBC Four, on Friday evenings, they air old episodes of TOTP. Between 7pm and 8pm, there are usually a couple of mid-90s episodes, then from 8pm, I think they do episodes from the 70s or 80s. My Friday routine has been getting the kids to bed, then having 90s TOTP on in the background while I make dinner. These recent Friday night viewings have disabused me of any notions that the majority of acts sang live.
If I were being generous, I’d say about 50% sang live. It was probably less than that. Don’t get me wrong, I totally understand it for certain acts. It would be difficult for Gina G to gyrate all over the stage and sing live at the same time. But certain artists were just sitting at a piano or something, and were there lip syncing. I’m looking at you, Gary Barlow. Here’s hoping he doesn’t send his son round to hurt me!
A shout-out to the artists who did sing live, though. Lauryn Hill was always amazing. I’ve got to commend Mike and the Mechanics as well. Not because Mike was the best singer ever, but if you know their most famous song, ‘Over My Shoulder’, you will know there is a whistle section in it (with the lips, not like a referee). He did that live, and it was excellent.
My final shout-out goes to the Outhere Brothers. They were a bit of a one-hit wonder, but what a hit Boom Boom Boom was! I would have thought they would lip sync that song because there are some fast-ish rap verses in it. Imagine my surprise and delight when I heard they were performing it live. Putting the Spice Girls to shame!
In all seriousness – and looking at the situation through my adult eyes – I’m sure there were plenty of times when it was more practical for artists to not sing live. Perhaps if they were about to go on an arena tour or something, it made sense to save their voice for when they really needed it. Who knows, it’s possible certain record labels forbade their acts from singing live on shows like TOTP. Whether that was to save their voices or save their reputations, you be the judge.
Whatever the reasons, even to this day, I deem artists that sing live to be ‘real musicians’, whereas lip-syncers are fakes and phoneys. Is that fair? Possibly not, but it’s, you know, how I feel, man!
I don’t really know how to end this blog, so I’ll leave you with my favourite performance from TOTP ever (skip to 1min 50 secs for the fun part):
Thank you for reading. Bit of a random subject, I know. But that’s enough nostalgia from me for a little while. Join me next time as I discuss the reasons why Fun House and Art Attack were the greatest kids shows of all time! Only joking. Take it easy.
Rob Recommends
Wicked – Film – 9/10
I was worried about this film for many reasons. Firstly, I’m a big Wizard of Oz fan. Even if you’ve never seen it, you will likely have heard quotes or homages to it in other media. “We’re not in Kansas anymore,” or “and your little dog, too,” or “I’m melting,” or “I had the strangest dream and you were there, and you were there.” It’s truly iconic.
I was also worried because I saw the West End show (over a decade ago, but still), and it is arguably the best live show I’ve ever seen. My final worry was with the two stars: Cynthia Erivo and Arianna Grande. Both incredible singers, of that I had no doubt, but could they act?
Could they act? What a stupid question! They’re both magnificent in this. I was literally crying at certain points. Such was the power of their performances. Visually, the film is stunning, and of course, the music is great. The choreography was epic as well, with some truly spectacular set-pieces.
If you’d like my popular (pop-uuuu-lar!) opinion, see this film as soon as you can. It’s wicked in every sense of the word.
A Rob Blog 