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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: May, 2018
May 31, 2018

The latest episode of the podcast which asks: that scrap between Reagan and Chernenko - whose coat would you be holding?

This episode, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, sees us refraining from fretting about Armageddon for a bit and getting blasted full in the face by non-stop Rah-Rah-Rah American Olympic nonsense instead, revelling in the thrill of being able to watch BBC1 at four in the morning and indulging in golf ball-assisted masturbation while pretending to be Daley Thompson. But if the IOC think that Top Of The Pops is going to be moved from its rightful slot on a Thursday evening, Baron de Coubertain can fuck right off. And there's just been an episode of Monkey on BBC2. Skill.

Musicwise, it's full-on Eighties, but not in a necessarily bad way. John Peel and Dickie Skinner pull on some horrific shirts, Tracey Ullman does the Mashed Potato with the ghosts of the Atomic Age, overshadowed by a massive deckchair. Windjammer dance right out of the sportswear section of the Littlewoods catalogue. Hazel Dean pretends to forget about some bloke. Jeffrey Osbourne sweats his tits off in some awful 80 knitwear. Blancmange deliver the aural equivalent of a Vesta packet curry, without the grittiness. And because it's 1984, you know what's No.1.

Taylor Parkes and Neil Kulkarni construct a shelter out of back issues of Smash Hits while Al Needham prepares a bin for toilet waste and observe the mushroom cloud of 1984, picking through the fallout and veering off to discuss erotic art in chip shops, the decline of the V-sign, going to the same place every Saturday for six weeks without realising it was a gay bar, Great Crisps of the Eighties, and East Germany's most popular wank mag. We stare, we contrast and compare, and we swear, swear, swear.

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Subscribe to us on iTunes here. Support us on Patreon here.

 

May 21, 2018

The latest episode of the podcast which asks: Top Of The Pops? On a Friday? Arseholes to that!

This episode of The Pops has been hand-picked by the Pop-Crazed Youngsters on our Patreon account, and they did us proud with this one: a episode from the Most Seventies Year Ever hosted by none other than Kenny Everett. He only did six of these, and there's only one left in the BBC archives, but the one we're pulling apart is one that has been yanked from someone else's private collection. So how does the mad scientist of the twin Grundig reel-to-reel come off when he's not doing his own show and is being told what to do by an exasperated floor manager? Open your tabs to our sexy, sexy Pop-blather and find out for yourselves.

Musicwise, it's not the Glam-binge we were hoping for, but it's a very sugary Pic n' Mix of Pop confectionery. Brian Johnson - the Andy Capp of Metal - pitches up with Geordie. Barry White in full rut is coupled with Svankmajeresque stop-motion mentalness. Peters and Lee pop up again. Mr You-Can-Do-It-Right-Now-Please helps Roger Moore get his leg over Solitaire. Slade deliver the Great Missing #1 of the era, just before it all goes tragically wrong, Dave Edmunds lives the karaoke singer's worst nightmare, and some white herberts in Arthur Mullard flares burst out of the Trojan horse. And Pans People pull on stockings and suspenders and still manage to not be particularly sexy about it.

Al NeedhamDavid Stubbs and Simon Price huddle around the flickering candle of 1973, veering off on tangents such as saying the wrong thing at Dad funerals, Leeds United-hating, hearing about death while watching people shagging on a podium, accepting an award for a Pop star and not bothering to give it to them, and what Noel Edmond's super-power would be. Oh, and two words: Bummerdog Update.

As always, there's loads of swearing, but it's all done in the best paahsable taste.

 

Download  |  Video Playlist soon come |  Subscribe  |  Facebook  |  Twitter

Subscribe to us on iTunes here. Support us on Patreon here.

 

May 3, 2018

The latest episode of the podcast which asks: no, really - how do you soil a bra?

This episode, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, sees us getting our hands down the back of the sofa on another random episode of Top Of The Pops - but as it's 1986 - a year we haven't done yet - we're half-expecting to touch a maggot-infested rat, or an open pot of hair gel with all mould on it. We needn't have worried, though, this particular episode has real-life Indie bands that you only see in the music papers in it, and they've actually let an actual woman co-present the show, a mere 21 years after it first started. The downside being that she's stuck with Mike Read, looking like the third member of Black Lace.

Musicwise, it's the usual mid-80s bag of cat's arseholes. As Morrissey pointed out at the time, you weren't allowed on Top Of The Pops unless you were black, a fact borne out by there being no less than five non-Caucasian appearances - Doris out of Five Star, Stedman out of Five Star, and the other three people who were in Five Star. Spandau Ballet make their comeback. Paul McCartney gets in people's way on the Bakerloo Line. Stan Ridgeway has a flashback with a storeroom dummy. Chris de Burgh shits out what could be the worst No.1 of the decade. And Morrissey starts becoming a proper bell-end.

Al NeedhamSarah Bee and Taylor Parkes come together for a long, hard stare at the summer of '86, veering off to discuss the buttons that do nothing on the Tube, Melchester Rovers' turbulent 1985/86 season, how difficult it is to carve someone's name on a bullet, and the proper way of reacting to someone asking you why you're so fucking crap. We swear. A lot.

 

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