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Chart Music: the TOTP Podcast

The podcast that takes one random episode of Top Of The Pops - the greatest TV Pop show ever - and breaks it down to its very last compound. Created by Sarah Bee, Neil Kulkarni, Taylor Parkes, Simon Price and David Stubbs (who all wrote for Melody Maker) and hosted by Al Needham (who didn't), it's an unflinching gaze into the open wound of pop culture and a celebration of Thursday evenings past.
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Chart Music: the TOTP Podcast
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Now displaying: June, 2017
Jun 30, 2017

This sixth episode of the podcast which asks: a Lego submarine full of maggots? Really?

This episode sees us throwing ourselves between two stools marked 'GLAM/FUNK' and 'PUNK/DISCO' and sprawling awkwardly in the space marked '1975', in order to check whether it really was one of the tawdrier years for Pop. Spoiler alert: yes, it rather is, actually.

Emperor Rosko (looking for all the world like a Transatlantic Stu Francis) empties out a massive lucky bag of Pop-rammel, which includes people in silhouette pretending to have oral sex with Telly Savalas, someone who wasn't brave enough to be Alvin Stardust hiding behind a dog, Chicken-In-A-Basket (but really decent chicken, not Findus) soul, And Pan's People are dressed like sexy, sexy Vileda SuperMops.

It's not all bad, however: The Sweet come back hard on their tottery platform heels one last time, the Goodies wear matching dungarees with a 'G' on them, like radical-feminist Crips, Susan Cadogan drops one of the greatest reggae tunes of the decade, and it's 1975 and Bohemian Rhapsody hasn't come out yet, so you already know what's No.1.

Al Needham is joined by Neil Kulkani and Simon Price for a proper snuffle around the bell-bottomed, tartan-fringed crotch of April '75, veering off to sing disgusting variations of Bay City Roller songs, discuss why pirate radio was a bit crap, actually, the thrill of Snuff Delivery Day in old peoples homes in Coventry, and being bequeathed platform shoes by your father. The longest episode yet, full to the brim with swearing.

Jun 16, 2017

The fifth episode of the podcast which asks: why is Richard Stilgoe going on about acne?

This episode finds Top Of The Pops smack in the middle of the Eighventies in a state of flux, after being off air for nine weeks due to a Musicians Union strike. The Kids are sat on the floor, the set is even more sparse than usual, and they're experimenting with guest co-hosts - a process which would start with Elton John and end with, er, Russ Abbot. This week, it's Tommy Vance and Roger Daltrey - The McVicar Himself - who takes crumpet-leering to heights that not even DLT would think possible, moans about The Clash not being on (when everyone else knows they don't do TOTP), and casts that aspersion upon the Village People.

Musicwise, we carom from Ultravox awkwardly dancing behind synths to Legs & Co channelling the spirit of the International Day episode of Peppa Pig to the Dad in Worzel Gummidge performing an old song which isn't a patch on I Got Those Can't Get Enough Of Those Blue Riband Blues to Grace Jones with a fag on to David Bowie's dead expensive new video to Abba putting a right downer on everything at the end with their adult relationship break-up palaver. And the drummer of Slade sits there with a shaker for no real reason at all.

Al Needham is joined by Taylor Parkes and David Stubbs for a through evisceration of 1980, veering off to talk about how Roger Daltrey put them off meat for life, what it's like to stop the night at Benny Out Of Abba's hotel, and how being dressed as a Pierrot on an orange beach and reacting to having your picture taken by a paparazzo as if you've been shot is a bit rubbish, really. And loads of swearing.

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