Not a particularly original headline, but it fits to coincide with today’s recording of the final ever Top of the Pops. Fearne Cotton jets back from the Fiji-based Love Island (and if she has any sense she’ll stay) to cosy up with Sir Jimmy Saville who returns 42 years after helming the very first episode in 1964.
But to be honest, I’m a little underwhelmed by the whole thing. It’s not really been given the huge fanfare such an institution deserves as it heads off to the TV retirement home in the sky. Why aren’t we having an evening of programme’s devoted to Top of the Pops, rather than just an hour-long collection of archive footage and recollections? There is so much material there for the plundering, not to mention the cultural importance of a show that runs like a seam through the public concsiousness, despite its less than stellar reputation in recent years.
Even yours truly, not the biggest music fan in the world, has fond memories of watching TotP, holding my Liverpool scarf high over my head and singing along every time Queen appeared to sing We Are the Champions, along with my brother and dad. A rare moment of being united round a television set.
Dave Lee Travis, who also contributes to the final show, has been typically ebullient on the subject of TotP’s demise:
“If you look at your average kid who might be interested in Top of the Pops, they’ll have their iPod in one hand, a mobile phone in the other, they’ll be playing a computer with their feet and have a Wi-Fi aerial sticking on the top of their head.”
he has been quoted. And he’s not wrong. Did TotP simply grow old in the natural order of things, or did it just not try hard enough in keeping up with its target audience?
It lost its immediacy, and in this age of digital broadband downloading, that was crucial. Time was, the first time you saw a band peddling its wares on the TotP stage was the first time you’d heard the tune. Now, radio stations play tracks to death months before they’re available to buy. Who needs to tune in to TotP to see Rogue Traders when their latest record stepped into the arena of tedious ubiquity weeks ago? It’s no wonder the singles market is in such dire shape.
And so a telly legend passes into memory, and it saddens me that it won’t be leaving the cultural hole in my heart that it would have done 20 years ago.
But please, a request. Let’s not make Lily Allen the final ever number one that Top of the Pops has the honour of playing. The show deserves that at the very least…
I think Smile is rubbish compared to some of her tracks. Regardless of how I feel about her as a person (or offspring) I do think a lot of her songs are incredibly catchy in the good old-fashioned pop sense that they terrorise your brain until you wake up humming them in the morning and then wish you never have to hear the song ever again. That's good old pop for you - LDN, Alfie and Nan You're a Windowshopper are my favourites for brain-infection, personally. If they'd marketed her as more of a Divine Comedy humourist artist instead of this mockney brat I think she may have come off better from the publicity. But I suppose if it sells, who cares, right?
Anyway, the Pet Shop Boys made an interesting point in the Popjustice podcast (http://www.popjustice.com/) that TOTP ruined itself my trying to be credible and it should never have been - that's not the point of pop music. Pop music is pop music because it's bought in large numbers - ie popular music, not because it's cool. That means it WILL be rubbish and annoying most of the time, because that's what the general public are purchasing.
And I think it's a great idea for ITV to jump on it and rope in Ant and Dec to present it - there's a whole generation of us who utterly loved SMTV and CD:UK and who would clamber to the TV to watch them messing about and having trashy pop fun.
Bring back the performance to pop and make it prime time family viewing again. ITV are good at the variety/saturday evening, family-viewing stuff. And if anyone can save it it's the golden Geordie duo. Throw in Cat Deeley and they've probably got a winner to rival Doctor Who (spit).
Lily Allen the final ever number one that Top of the Pops has the honour of playing.
As a queen fan (or an ex one) you will be glad to know the show closes with McFly and the queen classic" Don't stop me now
Top Of The Pops will eventually become Tv heart string history like the Morcambe and Wise 1977 Xmas special.
Who can possibly forget in 1974 Noel edmonds dressing himself in gold tinsel to introduce Gary glitter.
Oh well, who the hell wants to remember anything that ever happened before 1986! Well I can remember LIVE AID in 1985, I was working in a furniture store. SORRY! DID I MENTION THE WAR! SORRY NURSE, PASS THE PAN... Zzzzz.