Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #76 (Pt 2): 12.8.82 – Humpty Dumpty Is Big Eggy

Episode Date: July 28, 2025

David Stubbs, Taylor Parkes and Al Needham gleefully ram their fists into a TOTP from the late summer of ‘82. John Peel oversees the well-supervised fun, unaware that a year from now Noel Edmonds is going to try to get him decapitated on live TV, and he introduces us to some Cannibal-Eating Sensuality. Then Yazoo – who look like the right-on young couple next door who would always be up for lending you a cup of Sosmix – continue their astonishing rise. And the Boys Town Gang take a night off from their urban perambulations to go their thing in a Dutch TV studio...Video Playlist| Facebook | Twitter| Bluesky | The Chart Music Wiki | PatreonGet your tickets for Chart Music at the London Podcast Festival HERE Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This will certainly have an adult theme and might well contain strong scenes of sex or violence, which could be quite graphic. It may also contain some very explicit language, which will frequently mean sexual swear words. What do you like listening to? Erm... Chart music. Chart music. Hey up, you pop craze youngsters and welcome to part two of episode 76 of Chart Music. Here I am, I'll need them, Standing by my side, Taylor Parks and David

Stubbs. I'll do. And here we are again chaps, in 1982. Do you know, I've just consulted our Charm Music Wicca, put together by our good friend Chris Oakley. And you'll not be surprised to learn that 1982 is the year that we've gone back to the most times. This will be the eighth time we've done 1982 chaps. Two more than the second most popular year which is 1980 followed by 1977 and 1984. Why would you say that is apart from the fact that we're old cunts? Well I think 1982 was a great year for all the ex-punks to new pop.

You know there's people that have grown up with the top of the pops you know so they Well, I think 1982 was a great year for all the ex-punks to new pop. You know, there's people that have grown up with top of the pops, you know, so they didn't disdain it like Howard Devoto in magazine, they didn't boycott it like the Clash. You know, they wanted to be part of it, not just out of commercial opportunism, but just to make a better life for people. This is a music that sort of reflects the eclecticism of post-punk, you know, it's multicultural spirit, it's post-modern spirit, as well as it's futurist spirit. So you've got funk, afrobeat, reggae, ska, jazz, synthpop, all feeding in.

I suppose the only spoiler effect really was the frenetic gaudiness of top of the pops, the sense of compulsory enthusiasm. But you had so many groups, Simple Minds, Scrutipalitti, some of whom will hear in this episode, reaching towards a zenith, before it all came tumbling down the year afterwards with chances like Howard Jones and Nick Kershaw. Yeah, the clash with the last of that generation that thought Top of the Pups was some kind of threat to the proletariat. This is the beginning of the generation who saw Bowie doing Starman and in fact Top of the P pop is the most wonderful open door to the world So yeah, and at this point quite a lot of them are still good

I'd also like to chuck in the fact that we have a generation of pop craze youngsters Who not only crave something new and interesting but also expect it I mean, they don't care whether it's going to be any good or not but they just want to see something new and interesting and they're prepared to give it a chance. And also we've got a music industry that hasn't got a fucking clue what people actually want and they haven't since punk happened and so they're throwing anything at the wall to see what sticks because as we know the less the music industry know what's going to sell the better the music is. Yeah, supplying ridiculous is always that good combination yeah as you say it shows

that people don't have a clue and the less they have a clue the less likely to have that kind of sort of I don't know sort of mid-level efficiency that you get later on when in marketing people get a little bit too sus. So consequently, it's a perfect storm. And we're gonna see a lot of acts reaching for the big brass ring tonight. And also consequently, oh, the music must be fucking amazing on this episode.

I can't wait, man. I'm cupping myself right now, let me tell you. All right then, Pop Craze youngsters, it is now time to go all the way back to August of 1982. Always remember, we may coat down your favourite band or artist, but we never forget, they've been on top of the P pops more than we have. It's 25 minutes to 8 on Thursday August 12th 1982 and top of the pops now almost two years to the day into the reign of Michael Hurl appears to be in the rudest of health and

is reaping the benefits of a pop renaissance. In an era where ITV is clobbering the BBC in the ratings and factoring in the annual drop in the summertime. It pulled down just over 7.5 million viewers last week but that made it the fifth BBC show that week. One above Summertime Special, one below Task Force South. And Chaps, it's fair to say that we are now in the Silver Age atop of the Pops, don't you think? Assuming the Golden Age at top of the pops don't you think? Assuming the golden age of top of the pops is the glam rock yet

Then it was being made with a certain level of professionalism Like when you watch it the the graphics like somebody spent some time on it the studio direction is very professional Stuff's actually a range like it's a show Whereas by this point it really has become convey about television to the point where as we'll see in this episode some quite important details get completely missed by the studio camera. The only important thing is get the program out, get the program out. But we're also reaching the end of that glorious period where Top of the Pops has complete ownership of pop on television

because no Channel 4 is yet, no video recorders in every home, no satellite music channels, and virtually no competition from ITV bar fucking Rasmutas. And with new acts popping up on a regular basis, I contend that it's never been more essential for the pop craze youngsters to be tuning in if they want anyone to talk to them in the playground tomorrow morning. But unbelievably even in this glorious period people are still moaning about Top of the

Pops because they don't know they're fucking born. Earlier this summer Smashits decided to hold an essay writing competition and one of the Pops because they don't know they're fucking born. Earlier this summer, Smash It's decided to hold an essay writing competition. And one of the subjects was the question, what is wrong with Top of the Pops? The winner turned out to be a 16 year old from Cheshire called Susanna Walker, whose interests at the time included computers, Brian Ferrer, Japan and ABC. And if you'll allow me me chaps, I'd like to quote from it, would you mind? Go ahead.

On the face of it, this appears to be a positively stupid question. Everyone agrees that Top of the Pops should be rearranged, preferably with a sledgehammer. But pause and consider. Top of the Pops is the most popular programme on the BBC. And how many mornings does the conversation begin? Did you see Top of the Pops? Unfortunately the format, or the glaring lack of it, needs improvement. The attempts at getting a party atmosphere going are a joke because of the way the groups are performing. Instead of the current uneasy compromise, they ought to decide whether they want an authentic

live performance or a video style show. Certainly the videos are entertaining, but there would be cries of protest if groups were removed totally. The problem here begs a video programme to prevent needless wastage because so many good videos are missed on top of the pops because they aren't for a chart song. Then we have the campaigners for live warts and all music because of the resulting atmosphere. The major foul up with this argument is the decided lack of any atmosphere when watching it on a 10-inch black and white portable with lousy reception. Television is a totally different medium. Music presentation must realise this and stop aping stage shows. Annihilation of the current mutation of Flick Colby's dancers should be a high priority. Hear hear!

The cluttering up of groups with fairly pathetic dancers is annoying and a taut with the give the people what they buy policy. Modernising the currently unflattering and unoriginal appearance of the show would also help. High tech sets and bright lighting perhaps? Keep the audience, certainly, but make them a feature rather than the current faceless grey mass. A bit more innovation, modernity and aesthetic appeal would not go amiss, but everything

could be a lot worse. People really should stop carping about Top of the Pops. No other show has so many good bands, particularly in the current chart climate, and it pleases over 12 million people, so it can't be all awful. When you consider its problems, the varied audience and some of the garbage that crawls into the charts, they really are doing rather well. A little tidying up and it might be brilliant. And once again chaps, I do believe that the voice of youth speaks the truth as it always does.

Got a little bit conciliatory towards the end there, didn't it? Yeah, it's a bit strange, it's a sort of sudden shift, you know, she spends about ten minutes carping about Top of the Pops and then says, people should stop carping about Top of the Pops. Yeah, no, fair enough, that's how I'd be. All these little Top of the Pops is shit and I'm going to watch it next week. The thing is, if you brought in all of these innovations and modernity and aesthetic improvement, well we'd be out of the job for a start.

Yeah, I mean, you should have seen Top of the pops is essay what's wrong with Susanna Walker from Chechen. They did not pull any punches in that. She won a typewriter for that and I do believe she went on to knock out a career as a writer. If she's the Susanna Walker my online stalking abilities have told me is Susanna Walker. Yeah she knocked out a load of books about clearing up clutter and design and all that kind of stuff. So, yay, good for you, Doug. Yeah, fair enough, yeah. The last chapter of the book was actually about how clutter was all right, really.

And... People just stopped carking about it. Meow! Hello and welcome to Double the Books. Who's sold out then? Your host for this evening is John Peel, who is holding down the John Peel slot as he has since 1975 and is now in his 15th year at Radio 1. At this point he, Tony Blackburn and Jingle Nonce OBE are the only original Radio 1 DJ still at the station. Not bad going since he was only booked in for 7 episodes of Top Gear and the suits upstairs wanted him gone as soon as the 7th episode was done. This week he's had Tears for Fears, Cherry Boys, Short Commercial Break and Christians

in search of Filth in session. His relationship with Top of the Pops has been a very chequered one. Starting in 1968 when he was given a go on the February 1st episode with Jingle Nons, when he opened the show by moaning about the lack of Captain Beefheart and Tyrannosaurus Rex and then forgot Amen Corner's name and he wasn't asked back, with his only Top of the Pops adjacent performance in the 70s being an impersonation of Jingle Nons in the superstar episode of The Goodies in 1973. However, he made an appearance on the 1981 Christmas Day episode of Top of the Pops, along

with all the other Radio 1 DJs on the roster, and something about his demeanour tickled Michael Hurl. And on February 4th of this year, the pop craze youngsters were astonished to see him in a suit and a Liverpool scarf, saying, in case you're thinking to yourself, who is that twerp, I'm the bloke who comes on radio late at night and plays records by lots of sulky Belgians. These people are not Belgian. Theatre of hate. This is his sixth appearance hosting our favourite Thursday evening pop treat, his fifth this year. And Chaps, it's been quite a 15 year journey from the perfume garden of Radio London to

the neon jungle of top of the pops. David, I'm guessing you've been listening to John Peel of an evening roundabout this time yet? No, actually. I probably just have stopped because I was getting into this kind of whole new pop thing and I think that's something that Paul Morley observed at the time that kind of passed John Peel by. I mean he normally didn't really miss much but I think he kind of missed this development and so I suppose to me at this point John Peel was kind of, the actual show was sliding into irrelevancy and I'd be more likely to see him presenting

top of the pops than actually listening to him on the radio at this time. And if Paul Morley told you to put your hand in the fire. Taylor what would you have known of John Peel at the time? With a free children's zoo ticket. I didn't start listening to John Peel until 1985 which was fairly precocious considering I was only 13 at the time. which was fairly precocious considering I was only 13. But yeah, in 1982, he was just this guy, like off Top of the Pops and the Late Late Breakfast Show. Yeah, because we don't know this yet,

but Top of the Pops is gonna be the beginning of Peel tentatively dipping a nose into the trough of the television bucket and following the path of Wogan, Edmonds and Reed. I mean the trio advert voiceovers are not far off and what a magical thing they were. And the Giger's narrator of A Life of Grime is very far off in the distance but the journey will start in a month's time when yes he becomes part of our Saturday tea times popping up as a roving reporter and Cheggers substitute on the late

late breakfast show with Noel ends but it ends badly doesn't it Taylor? Yeah for anyone who doesn't remember this or who was resigned to watching game for a laugh instead the late late breakfast show was a Saturday tea time magazine show presented by the bearded disc jockey Noel Edmonds and it blended the deliberate sofa and knitwear blandness of breakfast television with the sour tiny man overcompensation vibe of his old radio show where he'd do prank phone calls and try to embarrass people. Always the joke on somebody else with Noel the faux jolly prankster tipping the bucket over their head and sniggering to camera. But this time with the added element of danger because it was a live

show. So a big part of the supposed thrill of it was going to be people doing stunts and putting themselves in actual mortal danger. People who were not Noel Edmonds, obviously. Preferably his usual whipping boys, the general public, who he'd always used as props, but was now also going to use as special effects. And that ended badly. Not just a bit. But before it ended really badly it ended quite badly for John Peel This is a quite a notorious episode of the Late Late Breakfast show, but for anyone who hasn't seen it, right? Let me set this scene. Late Late Breakfast show begins with one of those 80s theme tunes that has got notes in it rather than a melody

Yeah that has got notes in it rather than a melody. Exciting split-screen images of people doing dangerous things. Intercut with Noel in tinted specs driving a speedboat and Noel in a wind cheetah on the phone in a phone box like something important's happening and Noel driving a red sports car with the registration number Noel1 because yes of course he's that kind of pretty all shot on videotape in the good old bleak and dim British winter the actual show in among the celebrity interviews preferably done via transatlantic satellite link for the early eighties tech thrill of it and frig the six-. Yes. And lots of ritual public humiliation of worthless nobodies.

Yeah. And sort of sub candid camera style, cunted camera. Yes. The centerpiece of the show is always a stunt. And this week, John Peel, who has incredibly agreed to be second banana to Edmonds on this program and he was actually quite witty and charming in his appearances. Yes qualities which die like

starved dogs in the dead-eyed St Michael clad ambience of this particular program. This week he's at Santa Pod Raceway watching people drive old cars up a ramp, fly into the air and leap over a row of other cars, which younger listeners, if any, will be startled to hear was once a popular spectator sport. And there are quite a lot of people in padded anoraks here to watch this in the autumn drizzle but the row of cars is very long and the sign which signals the world record distance jumped is about two-thirds of the way down the line. Yeah they're not attempting to jump over all the cars they're just trying to jump as far as possible. Yeah see how many cars you can

jump over before you hit them. Yes. There's no ramp on the other side to land on and no no no. You're just crashing down onto the cars underneath when your hang time reaches its inescapable conclusion. So John Peel in New Wave turned up jeans and kickers in this perfectly English damp late afternoon Merc gives us a running commentary of these jumps with Noel cackling along in the studio until with crushing inevitability, a car going much too fast, nosedives into the row of old bangers,

spins over and is catapulted into the crowd at high speed. So after the screen goes blank for a second, because the flying car destroyed the camera that was filming, they cut to a different camera so we get a shot of the ambulance and fire engines speeding to the accident site, and medics and technicians sprinting towards it. And John Peel, evidently blessed with the gift

of clairvoyance says, the car went into the crowd, but nobody's hurt. Pause, nobody's hurt. Yes. Instant cut back to the studio where a visibly nervous Noel makes a joke about the fact that peel just said nobody was hurt because human suffering means literally nothing and links into the next item it's George Benson live isn't it by satellite but yeah later transpires

that this was true nobody was hurt yeah except the driver who apparently has I quote got his knees hurt yes but emboldened by the lack of carnage they decide to bring the show to a climax by going back to the, for more jumps. This time, they watch someone drive an old Jensen, a famously heavy car, even faster up the wet ramp, and this time, smash nose down into the car, turn several somersaults before smacking down onto the tarmac. It's absolutely flattened, isn't it?

You hear old ladies in the studio audience giggling at the slapstick and people who actually know anything about cars or Physics or the human body gasping audibly in horror And then we actually get a close-up of what's left of this car. Yes! Which now looks like a coke can that's been stamped on surrounded by blokes in overalls trying to haul whatever's left of the driver out of the wreckage and this time very noticeably Peel keeps his gob shut. Yeah presumably because he nearly had his fucking head took off by it. Precisely yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. Fucking Noel Edmonds could have killed the alternative music scene at a fucking stroke,

man. So, we cut straight back to a frowning Noel in the studio who, with the edgy smoothness of a narcissistic psychopath worried about losing his job, says, well, we'll keep you posted on what happened there. I know. And then he trails the following week's program yeah albeit with a huge and very noticeable dry mouthed gulp in the middle of a sentence possibly the only time that ever happened to him in his entire broadcasting career and then the chintzy theme tune plays

the studio audience applauds, the lights flash, and the credits roll over a shot of Noel staring intently at the TV he used as a monitor for the outside broadcast, which is showing a smoking pile of tangled metal. Faces of death on BBC One on Saturday tea time, everyone. It really was. Fuck me. And the absolutely incredible thing is that the bloke actually survived, which is why

we're having a good old fucking chuckle about it now. With injuries, but only moderate injuries, which was really good news for Noel and the team. Perhaps instilling a sense of invincibility for divine protection, which soon led to the breaking a woman's shoulder after firing her out of a cannon. A quote she gave to the press, the BBC don't give a damn, they just want the viewers. And then ultimately killing audience member Michael Lush by setting up his very dangerous bungee jump out of an exploding box hundreds of feet over concrete with exactly the same care and attention that

was on display at Santa Pod Raceway. And much to Noel's relief that didn't actually happen live on the programme. I realise I'm talking to a generation here that are not listening to us. Everybody knows about this. But it happened in rehearsals. But when you read the findings of the inquest, which you can find on the Late Late Breakfast Show Wikipedia page, it's genuinely miraculous that nothing like this had happened beforehand.

Because this was health and safety the way Richard Littlejohn would want it. And John Peel was long gone by this yeah, because apparently John Peele was basically fired from the show After the incident with the crashing Jensen as though it was somehow his fault Yeah, yeah, it's just yeah anyway for anyone who wants now this story ends no suitably chastened by the fact that his irresponsible fucking shit show had actually taken an innocent human life, cancelled the program, took the opportunity to appear on Wogan in a suit looking solemn, centre of attention, suggested he may retire from television, disappeared for a very short time, then returned with Noel Edmonds Saturday Roadshow, a programme that was basically identical to the Late Late Breakfast show except they had a different title and no longer extended the public humiliation

of audience members to the point of actually killing them. It is depressing to watch this show. It's depressing to see John Peel having to play a subordinate jester to that literally twat-faced twat Noel Edmonds. And let's remember, Charlie, it's not just John Peel there. Who else is he with? Sandra fucking Dickinson. Yeah, Sandra Dickinson. I know, yeah. Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah. Put the dinner in and I'll be home in 20 minutes

if this car doesn't decapitate me. She interviewed the drivers earlier on in the show and congratulates one of them on having the longest jump so far. And he says, well there wasn't any Russian MIG fighters about to shoot us down so we went a little bit further than we thought this is just over a week since that Korean airliner got shot down over Soviet airspace nearly causing World War three yeah well done the BBC another winner I remember being out on my bike after that riding up and down the estate going I'm gonna die and I've not even had sex yet. No. Actually, I was reading Margrave of the Marshes, you know, his autobiography. Well, it was his autobiography, but then he died after two or three chapters.

And the strange thing is that his wife Sheila probably gives a more in-deck account of his life than he might have done if it had just been left to him. I think he would have just sort of created this kind of carapace of sort of dry wit or whatever and not actually said anything that was very kind of emotional revealing. So after watching this, you know, in 1983 at home and the incident occurs and she says, you know, for some bizarre reason, John seemed to get the blame for the incident and was suddenly dropped from the show. Possibly he was thought to be a jinx.

And she writes, it was a terrifying experience for the children and me, all huddled around the television at home. The last thing we heard was John shouting, Oh my God, oh my God. Suddenly the screen went white and the camera cut to a rather disturbed looking Noll in the studio. It quickly covered his composure. The thought of a colleague being dead didn't throw him in front of the camera. I tried to calm the children and put them to bed. Though inside I was in turmoil. I tucked them all in and

promised them that their daddy would be home very soon. To which Thomas replied, No he won't, he's dead. Oh Jesus. And he missed Liverpool beating Arsenal as well just for this shit. Poor sod. I don't blame him for doing this kind of thing. I don't blame him for doing the voiceover or anything like that. It's kind of a journey from the perfume garden. But he's all concurrent you know doing all of these things. You know the new Montego with you know his actual show. I interviewed Andy Kershaw in 1986 and he confided in me that John Peel was getting £100 per show.

For? I mean a hundred pounds per show, no wonder he's got us all like, you know, bringing a bit of supplementary I did a few DJs, I did it with an item called Talking Heads on the first County Melody Maker, so if you've added Kershaw, Gianni Slong, Mark Ellen and John Peel and yeah one or two bits make sort of ironic reading. I think it was a little bit put out, but I thought that he was superior to some of the music that he played. Right.

You know, I said something like, ordinary John is a celebrity himself. It's a truism that a great many people listen to the show for his draw rather than his music, whose hopeful hopelessness generally suffers next to the Chinese wall of irony. He says, good heavens, really? I wouldn't want that to be true. Oh come on, you mean you actually like everything you play? Well I never play records which I really think are doff, but well it's a bit like sizing eggs, you're bound to get a few wrong now and again. I must admit there have been times, a couple of hours before a show where I've been on the phone to the pig, which he

called his wife, in floods of tears saying if I'm meant to be such a fucking superstar how do the only people who have contacted me all day have been saying when are you going to play our bloody single then? It makes me feel like a you rhino. But perhaps the most I wrote that is actually the beginning at which I introduce this is says John Peel has just turned 47 in spite of periodical suggestions to the contrary I Suggest he'll continue in broadcasting until he's 65 a John Peel died in 2004 age 65 Didn't write in that make you the prime suspect. Yeah Yeah, yeah instantly yeah, that's a perfect impression of John Walters

Yeah, that's a perfect impression of John Walters. Thank you. Yeah, but the idea of John Peele being on top of the pops, I mean, to me, who didn't listen to the John Peele show, it's like, oh, here's this bloke. He's not as much as a cunt as the other ones. So good show to that. I didn't mind the fact that he slightly coated down a sort of axe because I was in agreement with him most of the time and

Looking back now, you know This this top of the pops is studded with people who would have been played on the John Peel show And if they can sell out and go on top of the pops, why can't he? Yeah, absolutely I didn't have a problem at all. You know, it was the same principle really, you know It was introduced in a kind of a sort of side long element really, you know Yeah, it's interesting just to briefly address the elephant in the room or the calf in the room The way that peel has been slightly desanctified since his death because people now find it hard to reconcile national treasure with

one-time liking for girls whose BCG scar was still bright red. But what's really peculiar though is how with that old-school sex creepiness so long as you weren't a savile like a conscious predator if you were one of those many geezers in the old world who just didn't stop to consider that in these circumstances Consent is not always a simple on-off switch You can still sort of get a pass so long as you were upfront and dickish about it And made it a part of your brand like the stones and Led Zeppelin and those people's reputations Survived more or

less as they were because that stuff was always built into their reputations whereas Peele gets struck off precisely because he spent most of his life doing positive stuff and having a positive effect on the world rather than just feeding his own impulses which which apparently makes it worse. And it is strange because as we've been saying, people remember him as this late night underground guy, but he was always the acceptable public face of the underground, even when he was a hippie, right? It's how he ended up risking his neck in a hail of airborne Vauxhall Vivas on the orders of Noel Edmonds. Millions of voiceovers for adverts at the cozy radio force. They put him on This Is Your Life for fuck's sake,

which was like the ultimate anointing for a cuddly mainstream. Exactly. If we went back and imposed modern standards on John Peel, then if you ever saw a bloke holding a binder of papers step out of the shadows with a camera crew and surprise him, it wouldn't have been Eamonn Andrews, it would have been Chris Hanson. You remember this program, To Catch a Predator? Oh yes. Just goes to show, some people would do anything

to get on television. Ha ha ha ha. He was a great broadcaster, he was a great selector, he was a great DJ and obviously he brought so much great music to the fore that nobody else might have done. But he wasn't really a deep thinker about music necessarily in the music journalism sense and in fact he didn't really like the music journalism of enemy people like Ian Penmans and people like that in the early 80s. Apparently he didn't at all like people

like Simon Reynolds and the kind of writing that he was doing at Melodemaker in the late 80s. Yeah a lot of those people are like that though. That generation and especially like the sort of public school or rich kid ones because to them their first experience of rock music was an escape from academia. Yeah. An escape from that stuff. So to them it's almost like a betrayal of the spirit of rock music to intellectualize. Yeah Hello and welcome to Double The Books. Who's sold out then? To start the program, yet another one of those ensembles with a funny foreign name. The syndromes pound, the TV screen soars through the ionosphere and the pink vinyl shatters a thousand fold to reveal the neon top of the Pops logo. The camera pans left to reveal Peel sporting a black bin liner over his shirt, adorned

with red sticky tape spelling out the initials JP. He welcomes us to the show, makes a reference to criticism from his radio audience that he's selling out, and introduces another act with a funny foreign name. It's i.e. Cannibals by Toto Coelho. Funny foreign name. Coelho is the Latin root of the Italian Cielo and the Spanish Cielo and the French Ciel, meaning sky. Who wouldn't know that? Formed in London in 1981, Toto Coelho were a collective of dancers and actors consisting

of Sheen Duran, who appeared in assorted late period St Trinian's films, was in the original cast of the West End run of The Sound of Music and toured as a dancer with Abba, Lacey Bond, who appeared on Opportunity Knocks at the age of 14, Lindsay Danvers, who'd been in Panto since the age of five months, Anita Mahadurvan, who had just had a bit part in the Joan Collins film Nutcracker, and Ross Holness, who yes, is the daughter of Bob, who is currently the early morning DJ on LBC. After playing their first gig at a Royal Wedding Garda for the Welsh Guards, they fell into the orbit of Barry Blue, the Do You Wanna Dance hitmaker who

had moved into production in the late 70s working with Heatwave, Donna and the Dead End Kids, who got them a deal with Radial Choice, the label that had just hit big with Tony Basil. For their first single, Blue had lined up a tune written but discarded by the Buggles called Videotech, but when Trevor Horn decided to give it to Dollar, it was shelved. So Blue teamed up with Paul Greedis, who had dabbled in Schlager in the 70s before branching into the UK, writing Bitch's Love for Marty Kane, Jukebox Saturday Night, The B-side of Heidi High, open brackets Holiday Rock, closed brackets for Paul Shane in the Yellow Coats, and was about to be responsible for the English lyrics for a little piece,

Nicole's winning entry in this year's Eurovision Song Contest, to write this, their debut single. With very little radio play, the single was going nowhere, but then in early July, they landed a slot on David Essex's Showcase, a Saturday teatime talent show featuring signed acts and semi-established turns at the Harrogate Centre, which also featured Talk Talk with the winners selected by the audience. They didn't win, a Covent Garden Street entertainer called JJ Waller did, but it got them on the radar.

A week ago, i.e. Cannibals entered the chart at number 70 and this week it soared 36 places to number 34 and here they are bursting onto the studio floor saying we're Toto Koelo's son and we haven't had any dinner. And once again I feel like I'm reading out my essay to sir knowing full well that I'm in the presence of the leader of the Toto Koelo Ultras. Taylor, did I do him justice? Yeah, I am the top boy in the Toto Koelo. I'm also the bloke with the megaphone facing the crowd with his back to the performance. But you missed one interesting fact. Oh no.

Which is that Anita was a member of the last ever lineup of legs and cut. Of course she was, fucking hell. She was. Oh man. So she was! Fucking hell! Oh man! So she was. I'm ashamed. So you should be. But anyway chaps, dancers wanting to be singers, there's been a lot of it about in the 80s and Hot Gossip's I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper being the obvious template. The current incarnation of Hot G gossip have teamed up with the British Electric Foundation for the LP Geisha Boys and Temple Girls. Pans people had a go in the late 70s and as we all know a couple of zoo wankers would go on to

have hits as solo artists. This lot aren't technically a dance troupe but it's clear that they're putting themselves over as one and when you watch this performance you're basically watching the missing link between Hills Angels and the Spice Girls, aren't you? If only one of them had gone out with Paul Mariner and they put it about that Margaret Thatcher was the original Coelho, they could have been absolutely massive.

I was watching this, I just think, you know, did Toyah die for this? I mean, it's robotism, colorization, primitism, all these like weird elements flung together, which are sort of in the air, in the kind of part of the aesthetic of the early 80s, but put together by people of absolutely zero sense of like, you know, the dialectics and aesthetics of pop music, with predictably calamitous consequences. And I guess, you know, Bob Olmels, he's watching this, he can't really tell the difference, you know, it's all pop, it's all undifferentiated.

This, Kate Bush, Kid Creole, you know, but there is this critical mass of difference. They look like they're here to train dancers, you know, but they're just like five fountains of pure multicoloured zoo wank. If you dance that well, it's like Civvish has never happened. You were never punk. I mean, look at Banana Rama, you're not supposed to be able to dance. It's crass areas like that, which means that they're not doing the Toto Koelo reunion tour in 2025. I mean, who is this aimed at though? Because, I mean, obviously the Spice Girls hit big,

because they were actually aimed at teenage girls, young teenage girls and even pre-teenage girls. And the fact that Loads of Blokes fancied them was a byproduct. Who are they aimed at? I just think they've been kind of flung out more in hope and expectation really. I suspect young girls because they look crazy rather than sultry and in those days that was like nowadays if somebody concocted an equivalent of this record and this group, they'd have to be painfully gorgeous and dressed like lingerie models. And the lyrics would be about how they like

giving blow jobs or something, which is brilliant if that's what you wanna do. If you're like Sabrina Carpenter or something, great. But it doesn't feel so great to live in a time when pop singing women are pretty much obliged to do that, whether they feel like it or not. And also, it's a bit of a relief not to have that because nowadays that tends to be just another intrusion into your day. Like this modern cash in sex music, right? It's not an actual expression of anything sexual. It's just, oh, here comes another

reminder that forms of paradise exist which they want you to know about but never to experience because for as long as you're madly chasing the carrot on the stick that sellotape to the top of your own head or on to the end of your own dick someone somewhere is profiting from your desperation because as everyone knows Hardcock's pockets open. Toto Coelho, whatever their provenance, aren't like that. They give off the air of a dress up sleepover where boys are never even mentioned except that it's a dress up sleepover for women about 30 which makes it a bit weirder and therefore more interesting

Possibly the reason that John peels dressed in a bin liner is because that was the USP of Toto Koala at the time the dressed up in bin liners, but different color bin liners They definitely want to put over the fact that these are five individual women who've come together So we have sheen Duran who's in black and I dub her posh Coelho. Ross Holness is in green, obviously Ginger Coelho. Anita Mahadevan, red, scary Coelho. Lacey Bond, blue, baby Coelho. And Lindsay Danvers in yellow and she has to be sporty Coelho because that's the only one that's left

So there's my spice girls and Toto Coelho comparison completely gone for a toss And it wasn't across anyone's mind the idea that young girls would be interested in anything other than nice young lads He just didn't occur to the music biz at the time did it? Yeah, this is this partly what's so great about and they they are great. Look, I'm aware that there have been better records made, yes, whatever your criteria, but I would agree with that. I do wonder why anyone would take against this considering it makes so few demands of you while making your world a little bit stranger. If I were being uncharitable I would say... Oh, Taylor Park's been uncharitable, perish the thought. It's not going to happen. But if it did, I would say, well, I suppose the professionals

had stopped filming by this point, so these ladies needed some work. But they fell on their feet and their faces simultaneously. But that's the point, because this is possibly the all time, ultimate good, bad record. Right, yes. That's not so bad, it's good, which is something totally different, or indeed so good, it's bad, like those people who are so handsome,

they come out the other side and are ugly, like Ted Danson or Declan Rice. It's not that, it's good, bad, which is a separate category. You could think of this as a musical equivalent to one of those old time low budget films, the type I like, right? Which are not always wholly artistic endeavors. They're exploitation films.

They're designed to rake in cash by pushing obvious buttons on the audience. But the concomitant looseness and lack of pomposity coupled with the obvious need for impact and cheap sensation frees everyone up to make outrageous creative choices. And they're almost forced to do stupid but fascinating things and that wouldn't work if you were making Barry Linden or Dark Side of the Moon but in the context of a beer and pizza horror

film or a shameless quasi novelty pop record It can be brilliant because it's often the shortest and most reliable pathway to whatever you have to give that might actually be of any use whatsoever to anyone else. It can prize something out of not very talented people, the lowest of low art, because its only requirement and its only ambition is to not be boring. But that instantly puts it 50 feet above most of the bilge pumped out the pipe at the back of the entertainment industry.

It's totes a quote though isn't it though. But there's one little bequest from it and doesn't Kate Bush, I think she rips off that fist hammering to the left, fist hammering to the right dance bit in the video to running up that hill. As far as Michael Hurle's concerned, he must be bouncing up and down in the control booth right about now shouting, yes, this, more! Because he must see this as the absolute perfect start to an episode of Top Of The Pops. I mean, if you just got back from the sort of holiday the lower middle class likes of you must

have had with, I don't know, two weeks of woodcraft and pony trekking and no radio or anything, and you weren't aware of Toto Coelho, you'd turn this on and see what appears to be zoo wankers who have come from the back and onto the stage, you've been looking around to see where the band are and it turns out to be them. But the song chaps, I mean it's obviously sodden with the ethnic maelstrom that was the Burundi beat which was so fashionable a year ago and plastered with lyrics that pay homage to cannibal holocaust. What I'm gonna do? W Wah! Make a meal of you. Wah! We are what we eat.

You're my kind of meat. And obviously as a 14 year old scrote, me and my peers automatically assumed it was about giving someone a gobble. And I've dug about on the internet and discovered an opinion or two that believes that I eat cannibals means I'll give a nosh to someone who gives me one first

But I see this performance I refuse to believe that it's about anything other than innocent wholesome flesh eating Yeah, Bob Holder says daughter doing that sort of thing. No, mate not in 1982 Yeah, I think so. Not sure it's a lyric that was designed to be analyzed it's like lit crit is not really appropriate but the thing is just generally speaking when music critics talk about trashy stuff which this in jupitably is more in jupitably than ever thought possible they very rarely appreciate it for what it is. This is something that's always kind of slightly bugged me. What you get is either,

ah ha ha, it's ripping fun, shortling at these ladies, or else it's the classically pretentious bit where people pretend to place things like, I eat cannibals above revolver or a love supreme, which is like equating those stretched perspective goal side adverts for bet 365, which looked like their 3d pop ups when you point the TV camera at them from the right angle with the slanted skull in the portrait of the ambassadors by Holbein. It's just the same thing, right?

Oh, get you. Yeah, they say you can't win with high-brow cultural references, but I say give the audience a chance. The thing is, I've never understood why people can't just accept that stuff like this has got its own thing going on, it's got its own rules, and there sort of are gradations of semi objective quality within that in as much as there ever are in pop music so you can critique this stuff in a way just

not the same way you'd critique a 98 CD box set of Joni Mitchell right but most people who write about music don't have the right tools in their brain to do it the same way a 47 year old jazz critic in 1963 didn't have the right tools in their brain to do it. The same way a 47-year-old jazz critic in 1963 didn't have the right tools to differentiate between She Loves You and I Like It by Jerry and the Pacemakers. So it's like a failure of understanding, well not a failure but an absence of understanding and imagination. Because there have been hundreds of records,

not unlike this in spirit, and sort of objectively comparable in terms of artistic achievement. But most of them are completely worthless and nobody remembers them, right? But Toto Koelo ate cannibals. Yes. And it was incredible.

And they've never been forgotten And no must be a reason for that real rubbish doesn't lodge in the memory and the imagination It just passes through like when you get those lists of the worst records ever made, of course They're not the worst records ever made because you fucking remembered them. Well, obviously I mean at the time I hated this song while leering at the people who made it, of course, but it's burrowed into my brain over the past month. You know, if I was out and this got played

at a club for people of a certain age, well, I do believe that some fists would have to be pumped. Because this is like if a computer programmer had tried to program the Spice Girls and got one line of code wrong And it has gone haywire, right? But it's worth its own weight It may not be worth its own weight in gold, but it's worth its own weight within the universe, right? It's a permissible Indulgence which doesn't do anything except make life a little bit less dull. If you want proof, have you heard their other stuff? Jesus fucking Christ. It's not as good. No. It didn't really have

durability in long-everted ways. I don't know, Banarama did for instance. I guess the thing is about it, I'm wondering why I've taken so badly to this, I think it kind of raised ancient hackles really because I would have been watching Top of the Pops. To me this would just have represented a kind of a mass like artistic pop areas good dancing being one of them And I'd have just have been screaming stop getting the 80s wrong for anyone who's interested by the way Quelo's other stuff included Dracula's tango For your love

Which was an attempt to repeat the formula without just replicating the sound. So instead of sounding mock tribal. Sucking's not as good as eating. Speak for yourself. It's set to the tune of whatever that's called in the German nick where they hang you by your prick, whatever that song is right. Streets of Cairo, that is Taylor, otherwise known as the Arabian Rift. Our version in junior school went, in old Baghdad, there's a woman wants a shag, she's the daughter of the barber Sweeney Todd,

dirty sod, and he sings to put your fanny next to mine, dirty swine. There's a bit of a patchwork there, isn't there? Mm, yeah. And they also did one called Milk From the Coconut, which is, again, a slightly saucy title, but it's a sort of a lift of rapper's delight via Rapture by Blondie.

While the actual sound of the record is not quite as 10th rate as you would expect from that description, only about 4th rate. Early hip hop is a style where quite a lot of responsibility is placed on the vocals and it's fair to say their vocals rise to the challenge about as effectively as Bon accord in their big game against our bros. I mean clearly they can do their thing on top of the pops but what of Toto Koala was a live act you may be wondering well they'll be going on tour a month from now but obviously controversy is going to dog them all the way. Article in the St. Andrew's Citizen, pop group boycott

urged. Musicians in Fife are beating the war drums over a top 20 group making a live appearance in a Kokodi nightclub tonight. In an appeal for the public not to turn up for the appearance of Toto Koelo, whose I eat cannibals and shot them into the charts, Musicians Union Secretary Mr Gordon Hughes said, we want to see a total boycott of Toto. They operate without live musicians and use backing tapes for their stage appearances. They are killing off our business and the 120 members of the 5MU feel very strongly about it. Mr. Hughes added that at a national level both the MU and Equity were investigating the 5 Girl Group who made their first appearance on a David Essex television show and they didn't even eat any human flesh on stage.

Keep cannibalism live. But John Norden, who was sent to Gillingham by the stage to review their gig, was decidedly impressed. Headline, cannibal eating sensuality. But Toto Koelo read total experience the sensual leather and sex world of the cannibal eating girls

served up with a heavy helping of lights missed a professionalism despite a Disappointingly small audience. Well, no wonder they fucking eat people disappointingly small audience well no wonder they fucking eat people where hot gossip may be singing dancers toto are dancing singers despite a tape background they also project a certain personality on stage both as a unit and as individuals they sizzle in the strobes like chips in a pan of oil. Whatever their future may hold, the girls proved at Gillingham that they could handle adversity with style. Not only did people stay away in droves, probably because of Star Wars being on the tell-air,

but two of the radio mics went on the blink and had to be replaced by the more cumbersome cable variety. Remarkably, the girls only became tangled once and survived to tell the tale. Anything else to say about Toto Koelo? I really hate the fact that Katy Perry got to go into space for 40 seconds and Toto Coelho never did. How is that fair? Right? Don't you think they should have sent Toto Coelho to the moon? Because like the only people who've ever walked on the moon have been straight white Republican

voting American men and so what do they do when they were on the moon? They drove a car and they hit a golf ball. Yeah. They're fucking up. I'm surprised they didn't shoot an abortionist while they were up there. How much more exciting would it have been to send Toto Koila?

Yes. And the best thing is, it wouldn't even matter whether they came back. No. It's just enough to see them stomping around a crater in formation, doing mad faces behind the visor. Yeah. It would have humiliated the Russians. God yes. Maybe it's not too late. Oh by the way Taylor, that fucking beer mat someone sent you on Facebook the other day with Cannibal Holocaust. Forking out! Oh yeah, friend of the show, Barry. Yeah, hey old Barry! Yeah, Cannibal Holocaust

Beer Mat with the Entrail munching savage from the the pre-cert video cover of Cannibal Holocaust on it. Just says Cannibal Holocaust, put your pint on that. If anyone wants some nuts. Just this cannibal on the course. Yeah. Put your pint on that. Anyone want some nuts? Yes. So the following week, I eat cannibals sawed 22 places to number 12 and a fortnight later it got to number eight, its

highest position. Emboldened by their success in the UK, Australia, South Africa and Sweden, they attempted to cash in on the American market, having to change their name to Tocl Coelho to avoid thick yanks confusing them with the Africa hitmakers. It only got to number 66 over there, but in 1983 they appeared in the concert scenes for the film Grizzly 2 Revenge, which was only finished and released in 2020 when there was not much else going on in the film world and someone realised it was George Clooney's first appearance on Celluloid.

Meanwhile, the follow-up, the double A side Dracula's Tango, open brackets, sucker for your love, close brackets, mucho macho, only got to number 54 in November and would be their last bite of the charty throat. After putting out the LP Man of War in 1983 which failed to chart, Anita and Sheen left the group, the former to form the Cherry Bombs with the surviving members of Hanoi Rocks, the latter to join always in reception of the BBC2 Lite Entertainment department Wall Street Crash and the remaining three struggled on until 1985 when they decided to become Bruce Foxton's backing singers instead. I wonder who the real cannibals are.

That's Totokweelo. It sounds like some kind of exotic skin disease. They did tell me what it meant, but they're perfectly honest with you. I forgot. Up next, the people, a duo, who have made two of the best singles of the year so far. Yuzu. Peel, surrounded by an absolute shower of city farm wankers and members of the public who have come dressed as city farm wankers, including one lad wearing a straw boater, a white string vest over a blue t-shirt and white shorts which makes him look like Eddie Yates on Blackpool Beach, and a woman with a massive Frito bandito hat introduces us to, in his words, a duo who have made two of the best singles of the year so far. It's Yazoo with Don't Go. Born in South Walford in 1960 Vincent Martin developed an early interest in music playing the

violin and piano. After moving to Basildon he formed a band called No Romance in China as frontman and guitarist with his fellow Boys Brigade member Andy Fletcher. After they split up in 1978 he joined a band called The Plan and played guitar but his head had been turned by John Fox and Ultravox and a year later he started a new group with Fletcher called Composition of Sound. Initially as lead singer but when they drafted in Martin Gore and Dave Gahan he stepped back behind the synth the band changed its name to Depeche Mode and he changed his name

to Vince Clark. After making a contribution to the Some Bizarre album, they were picked up by Mute Records and their debut single Dreaming of Me got to number 57 in April of 1981. The follow up, New Life, went all the way to number 11 in August and they finished off the year with Just Can't Get Enough getting to number 8 in October. But already Clark was getting pissed off with the non stop interviews and photo sessions and touring and people asking him what his preferred colour of sock was and after one argument in the van too many he

announced his departure from Depeche Mode in November of 1981. A month later he was flicking through that week's Melody Maker when his eyes are lighted upon a classified ad which began, female singer looking for a rootsy blues band. Noting how local the address was and having a new song in his pocket which he'd already offered to Depeche Mode as an inverse golden handshake that they knocked back, he was the only person to respond to the ad as he was looking for someone at short notice to demo it. That singer turned out to be Alison Moyet, who was born in Basildon in 1961, had been

in the same sixth form as Andrew Fletcher and Martin Gore, had been in the local punk band The Vandals and was currently working as a piano tuner. After realising they'd both been in the same folk singing class at a Saturday morning music school back in the day, they worked up a demo of the song – Only You – and offered it to Daniel Miller of Mute Records. He initially didn't reckon it at all, but then changed his mind when some business associates raved about it and got back to Clark offering a deal on the condition that he kept the singer and formed a duo. After scrabbling around for a name, which was lifted from the 60s blues label Yazoo Records, Only You was put out in April of this

year and got all the way up to number two, held off the summit of Mount Pop by a little piece by Nicole. This is the follow-up, which was originally slated as the B-side of only you but yanked at the last minute when they realised it was much too good to be wasted, and the second cut from the forthcoming LP Upstairs at Eric's, which comes out next week. It entered the chart at number 24, that week's highest new entry a month ago that saw 19 places to number five and this week it's spending its third week at number three and here they are in the studio and somewhere in Basildon chaps you have to wonder if they're three lads in little bow ties watching the telly and whining softly to

themselves wondering if they've made the right decision because fucking hell you zoo have come roaring out of the gate haven't they yeah absolutely it's strange really because Alice and Morrie was quite hostile to the idea of like having a sort of synth accompaniment to a blues vocal style like hers but obviously was fairly quickly turned around and he persuaded. Even Simon Price had arguments about whether Suicide or Sparks were really the kind of prototype for all these quickly turned around and he persuaded. Even Simon Price had arguments about whether suicide or sparks were really the kind of prototype for all these 80s synth duos or whether it was concurrent or whether sparks were influenced by suicide which is an idea that Simon can't

countenance so he doesn't want to you know and he might well be right you know but I guess with all of his suicide you've got Alan Vega and got Martin Reb and he've always got this kind of yin-yang thing going on you know or soft sell similar sort of thing you know later I suppose it really raise you really or the exception is Pet Shop Boys who were more like yin-yin really but there you go and I guess it's an example of that but normally I think with these groups is that there might be kind of you know, there might be kind of opposites or whatever, but they form a very very strong bond And I don't think that that was really the case perhaps with Vince Clark and Alison Boyd

I think that's why ultimately you know the group didn't quite last as long as it should really and maybe that's to do with the character of Vince Clark. I interviewed him last year actually just for some press notes with this very good album indeed It was a sort of ambient John Fox type thing. Oh. Yeah, he's quite a sort of wry, inscrutable bloke really. Um, sort of already very, very clever on the choir, but you know, probably not great necessarily. It's sort of, I don't know, kind of strong emotional human connections perhaps. But you know, I guess that sort of temperamental difference is a benefit, you know, to a single like this.

Going back to the Vince Depeche split, it kind of worked out pretty well for everyone, didn't it? One of the rare examples where a key band member leaves and both parties go on to thrive because Mode have lost their songwriter, but it forced Martin Gore to dust off a song he wrote back in the day, See You, that became their biggest hit thus far. And I've got to say, it's my favorite Depeche Mode single

by a country mile. And they'd go to say, it's my favorite Depeche Mode single by Country Mile. And they'd go on to have a very good 80s, but it's Yuzu we're talking about here. And yeah, at this moment in time, they're shitting out gold, man. This is a tune. Yeah. Oh, absolutely, yeah.

Yeah. Absolute bang I would have stopped around to this at Leeds Warehouse back in the day. Most definitely. Although I've seen some scary things on these badly upscaled top of the pops episodes like disturbing artifacts of horribly confused AI but apart from the fragmentation and dissolution of the faces of shaky's cataloged model friends as they skip down the path towards the old house where he lay in

wait with an axe and a baseball. This might be the scariest because Vince Clark's fringe, like his haircut, that is just a fringe and nothing else. The rest of his head is shown to a grizzle and he's got that curtain of hair hanging down in front of his face as he bends over his keyboard. And this inspires the baffled computer in ways which would have chilled Hieronymus Bosch. It manufactures this swirling digital mess where his features should be.

It's like Magritte's apple-faced cunt, you know, or the smooth-headed bloke in the bowler hat from Sapphire and Steel. It's harrowing. I mean they're being depicted in the media as the odd couple of 1982 and that's mainly because they're a synth duo but a synth duo with an actual woman involved which really didn't happen in the early... and kind of wouldn't again. Women in synths, man, they just didn't go at the time. Yeah, absolutely. And that unlikely, not marriage, but yeah, that unlikely coupling is a very significant factor in success. But yeah, just absolutely cracking songs.

I mean, this is the great thing about people like Yuzo and Dipesh Mode is their durability. I mean, I think they were just considered, you know, like flimsies or doilies at the time, you know, who would just be blown away by the gust of next year's shifting trends or whatever. But they were absolutely endured. Now, and I'm sure that at the time it was people like Tigers of Pantang who thought they were making the kind of music that was going to last the ages. But of course, it's the other way around. It's been made clear in interviews that there is a culture clash between

the two. You know, Alf clearly defines herself as a blues and jazz singer, but she also says, I prefer to be a pop singer than a non-working jazz blues singer. And meanwhile Vince is totally happy being the backroom boy, you know, he has the ear of the bloke who's quite happy to set up and road egg for his partner or his mate and let her or him have all the attention while he just fills in on keyboards. There's one bit where he actually smiles at the camera, which is probably the first time he's ever smiled ever. Yeah, no, that kind of catches his character really. I know was doing this interview with him on zoom last year. That was his expression pretty much throughout actually. He's an unassuming fella. You can tell from you can tell from his introverts haircut Okay, well, yeah, but also perhaps like a curtain across his face. Yeah

And like alice and moiré I feel really bad saying this because I really like alice and moiré She's always seemed like pretty cool to me. But I'm not the biggest fan of her voice. We talked about one of her mid-80s solo records on here before when she was doing a more obvious soul pop sound. And by then she'd developed her voice a bit. And the eventual effect was that it all came out a little bit bland and mid-80s. But the good thing about this, her voice is still a little bit reedy, a

little bit untrained and it goes with the whistly sound of the synths which sound like there's air blowing through them, like they're being worked with bellows. But that distant hint of sort of jazz club seriousness in her voice was very noticeable at the time. And it was seen as a very distinctive contrast with the electronic backing. But you know, now we're looking back through a history where we've seen her doing straight versions

of that old devil world love and things like that. She seems a bit amateurish here, but I quite like that. The only problem is she spends the whole time singing in this low register because it was her trademark, but it sounds almost like the notes aren't quite there, like her voice isn't actually that deep and everything needs to be transposed up a couple of steps to let it ring out. Because being able to generate low frequencies with your voice is not the same as being able to sing low notes convincingly with full resonance yeah and when she

goes up in pitch a little bit there's quite a dramatic improvement and you realize she'd be a much better singer if she didn't lean so hard on her own style which is a tough thing to come to terms with especially in this pop climate where you have to stand out and everyone needs a novelty if not a gimmick but the end result is that it just sounds like the husk of a good voice but it doesn't ruin it because it's such a good song, it's just not as good as nobody's diary that's all. I mean the one thing we're pretty sure about and what the media is pretty sure about is that they're not in a

relationship and the last time anyone assumed that about a male female duo is when Donnie and Marie knocking about wasn't even quite certain then Maybe it's down to the fact that everyone's still assuming that anyone who operates a synth is automatically a homosexual But they come offers the slightly weird but essentially nice modern young couple who are actually mates who just happen to live together and they've moved in next door and your dad's got a bit of a weird feeling about them but they turn out to be really nice you know, they go to CND rallies at the weekends and all that kind of stuff. Yeah it would have seemed so weird when you're a kid, that idea that a bloke and a woman can just be mates. Yeah.

Do you remember that? When you're a child, it's really strange. And it's this clash between Vince's synthiness and Alf's, as she was called at the time and didn't like, bluesiness, that throws up a brilliant contrast and it works. It does work. I don't dislike her voice, but I really do essentially like the for the electronic, the backbeat really. Her vocal is just really good so I didn't have any interest at all when she went solo. But could you imagine Dave Gayon singing this? No, no, absolutely.

Yeah. Ultimately, I can listen to pretty much any record that's got those synthesizers on it that sound like they were built at a time when people believed that man will never be able to travel faster than 25 miles per hour Surely perished It's just it was a basically the introduction of the DX7 was a big step down for 80s synth music So the following week don't Go dropped one place to number four, but upstairs at Eric's smashed into the LP chart at number two and would stay there for three weeks, held off

number one by the Kids From Fame. The follow up, The Other Side Of Love got to number 13 in early December, but once again Clock was feeling trapped on the giddy carousel of Pop and being prodded by Mute to rush out another LP when he considered Yizhou as a one album project. At the same time, Moye was getting the right ass about being pushed to the front and handling all the promotional work. So a week after the next single, Nobody's Diary was released, they announced that they were splitting up, leaving us with the LP You and Me Both,

which got to number one in July of 1983. MUSIC PLAYS CHEERING AND APPLAUSE That's the Yazoo. And the last time Top Of The Pops did a European chart rundown, one of the records they showed you then, an infuriating thing by Trio. This one was number one in Holland, the Boys Town Gang. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

We cut back to Peel who is surrounded by a surprising amount of East Asian people. You never see that on top of the pops, do you? No. I mean it's always shocking when you see a load of black people on the top of the pops of the 70s and an Asian person, Christ, of all the chart muses we've done I think I've counted three at most but yeah here they are. Yeah and it's not even been contrived for an intro to like Japanese boy by Tanaka or something early 80s and horrific like that. It just appears to be they're just there. This touching tableau of oriental-occidental harmony is completely ruined by the appearance of my new most hated zoo wanker, a stretch Armstrong lookalike in white vest and shorts who puts his hands to his face and shakes it about like a King's Cross toddler who's just found a spent condom on the floor

while looking at the camera like an absolute cunt while Peele introduces Can't Take My Eyes Off You by the Boys Town Gang. Formed in San Francisco, obviously, in 1980 by the club DJ Bill Motley, who was looking for a Village People cashing group to record a single for his new label Moby Dick Records, the Boys Town Gang was a result of a cattle call audition, which consisted of local cabaret singer Cynthia Manlair and some blokes. That single, an extended medley of the Ashford and Simpson songs Remember Me and Ain't No Mountain High Enough, not only got to number 5 on the US Dance Chart, but also spent two

weeks at number 46 on our chart, which encouraged Motley to keep it going. By this point they've slimmed down to a three piece, with Jackson Moore taking over on vocals and Tom Morley and Bruce Colton providing the beefiness. This is their second release, a cover of the Frankie Valli single which got to number 2 in America, which was best known over here for the Andy Williams version which got to number 5 in May of 1968 and it's the lead offoff track from their next LP, Disc Charge. Think about it man. Before it was even released over here, it made an appearance on Top of the Pops eight

weeks ago when Jonathan King went to Madrid in advance of the World Cup and broke down the number one singles in Europe as his had reached the summit of Pop and Hoival in the Netherlands. It entered the charts of Fortnite to go at number 66 and then soared 27 places to number 39. This week it soared 18 places to number 21 and here's another chance to see the video which as the captions tell us has been sort from the Dutch TV show Toppop and where the fuck do we begin on this boys for kid? Oh, it's strange the way she does it number one in Holland

You know, it's that some sort of nudge nudge thing, you know Holland the land of dairy and homosexuals Yeah, when they tell you it's from the Dutch show Top Pop it's not so much a credit as a blame. It really feels like the BBC trying to wash their hands of this despite the fact that if you tune in at this time on Tuesday you'll get an episode of looking good feeling fit with Sarah Kennedy and Christopher Lilly crap offered without apology compared to which this is the Decameron. At least it didn't say it's been sourced from the Dutch advert for top poppers. I mean there's so many clues here you know the Boys Town gang and you just look at them

and you know as far future people can instantly clock what's going on, but it's worth remembering that in 1982 Gay Dars came with an optional 16k ramp You know as I said earlier this was around the time I'd be watching Top of the Pops while my dad was getting ready to go out so half the fun was keeping one eye on the screen and another eye on me dad as he wound himself up into a frenzy at the Ben Cunt's who weren't fucking real. And I know this is going to sound completely on the nose, but I swear this happened. When they turned up on that Euro episode of Entertainment USA, my dad got his keys, put them in his pocket, looked at the screen and said,

fucking hell, at last, some real men. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Incredibly. Seriously. Oh totally yeah. Gay men don't have moustaches. Gay men don't knock around with women. No they can't be gay they've got moustaches. Puffs can't grow moustaches they're too limp-wristed. Who has moustaches? Policemen. Yeah. Construction workers. Freddie Mercury. You're saying Freddie Mercury's gay? I mean this is it you know there's all those angry Queen fans who are you fucking said Freddie Mercury's a poof like look at him look at him incredibly I just looked at my notes here and the first thing I've scribbled

down says at last some music for real men yeah I'm not joking right here yeah it's always fascinating when you see the old-school response to high camp though right like nowadays you get more excessive camp than this in the when you see the old school response to high camp though, right? Like nowadays you get more excessive camp than this in the mainstream of the mainstream. Yeah. And the response is either, hey, jolly good, or it's enough of you woke corn flakes.

But back then the response was usually uncomprehending laughter, which could be nasty but wasn't necessarily. John Peel mocks this in his introduction of course but while John Peel was a man of his time in this respect I don't think he was homophobic to any significant degree unlike some of the hippies like the semi-committed lad hippies and the prototypes of the modern-day hippie fascist anti-vaxxers and all that you know yeah fetishizing their idea of what was and wasn't natural. Roger Daltrey. Yeah like so hooray for armpit hair and a smell of damp you know

which spilt over in a quite a prescriptive approach to sexual diversity but whatever the laughter that greeted stuff like this was derisive and that which spill over in a quite prescriptive approach to sexual diversity. But whatever, the laughter that greeted stuff like this was derisive and that derision wasn't just aimed at the deliberate lowness of the artistic choices. It seemed to be rooted in an assumption that these people just didn't know any better, that they were 100% serious. Yeah, look at this disco rubbish that we've already had who needs this again yeah it's like the cover of

singing in the rain isn't it it's just like what what's the point of this an old song with a disco beat been done mate yeah it was like you weren't meant to be amused right is there was no understanding that the key feature of camp of all kinds is the inversion of seriousness, the unintentional camp being all about a failed seriousness and self-conscious camp being a kind of game with signifiers of seriousness, like undermining macho tropes and the fragile architecture of hetero normativity and all that stuff. I remember Noel Edmonds on the much discussed, vapid and ultimately lethal late, late breakfast show. I remember him repeating this clip on that program.

Right. Oh, really? Several times, I think. Playing it, this exact clip, while doing that kind of mock confused Tucker Carlson face and no shattering along with the audience as if these fellas in the Boys Town Gang believed that they looked hard as fuck and were God's gift to women right but I honestly can't say to what extent that was homophobic to what extent people like Noel Edmonds knew that this was a gay club thing and were contemptuous of that and To what extent it was just cultural incomprehension. Yeah, because as you say 1982 the straight world was only just Beginning to grasp this stuff. That's right

Yeah, I think it's either cultural comprehension on his part or an assumption of cultural incomprehension on the sort of mainstream audience You know and making out of these with with these idiotic disco dupes, you know, playing very ultra-lowest common denominator. I mean, the thing is, if my granddad, you know, seven days jankers, I mean, he'd have watched this. His only complaint would have been that they're not wearing shirts, which is obviously among multiple breaches of the RAF rule book. My mum and dad would have had no idea that anything remotely untoward was going on here. What I actually wonder is, next time I see Alicia I'll have

to play her this and see what she makes of it, because obviously this kind of signifier, you know, it's kind of a very 80s thing, you know, 90s, noughties, it's all, you know, I don't think it really obtains any more, does know, I guess queerness is more sublimated nowadays Gay coded dress is like straight men, but better. I don't know tashes are coming back with the gay lads I think oh really sort of like a retro thing. Yeah Yeah, you are yeah Jackson Moore's got a nice white dress and heels on and Tom and Bruce are wearing leather West cuts and black jeans and looking quite muscular by 1982 standards. In other words they're not fat fuckers and

they've got a hint of peck about them haven't they? And the fact that one of them happens to look like a chuckle brother just adds to the entertainment value doesn't it? I have a very sweet tooth for performances by female singers where the dancers providers look as gay as a trumpet and this is obviously up here but the gold standard for me is Cheetah Rivera doing pretty for me on American television in 1968.

Oh yeah. And yeah Cheetah they are pretty alright but just not for you. It's so weird though, this strange watershed. Like half a decade before this the village people were doing their thing and obviously hip people understood what they were doing but people like Donald Trump thought that they were authentic machos or that in the Navy was a sincere militaristic propaganda. With the famous and probably apocryphal story being that the US Navy inquired about using it as a recruitment song. Oh, they allowed them to shoot a video on a ship.

So they gave permission to do that. Yeah. But then eventually somebody who somehow knew, advised them that this was not a good idea and that we want you as a new recruit did not mean what they thought it meant. But then half a decade after this your post-Frankie and post-Bronski beat and everything was understood in this country. It happened quite fast. So when Sunita sang about how a man had to be so macho over a high NRGB,

I think most adults by that point could grasp that this was not an unironic celebration of unreconstructed cis-het male power. But yeah, we're sort of in the no man's land here, aren't we? I mean, I don't know how many people would have thought Boys Town Gang was straight. There's a bit of a clue in the name isn't there though? Yeah but again it's something that's going to go over a lot of people's heads. I think a lot of people kind of knew that they were gay but they didn't know what they were doing. Like people thought that when it came to pop music and projecting an image this was just the best that gay people could do. Right. And they didn't understand that it looks silly because they were too gay.

As if gay people in the music world who had done quite a lot of the heavy lifting over the previous decades were genuinely operating on this sort of Luxembourg Eurovision entry level. Those poor, unsophisticated fools. So it's basically the same attitude that ultra straight society had towards gay men for about half a century. It's the same dilemma. Should we feel contempt or pity? It's our decision. Yeah. I think that's what happened to us. We mentioned high energy. It's when high energy dropped, you know, manpower and things like that, when that kind of flooded into the charts that

the game was up as it were. I just wonder if Boys Town Gang, did they have to sort of, you know, was the subject broached in interviews or did they do what the village people did, you know, which is like issue stout denial that there are anything other than staunchly heterosexual. And even to this day, Vincent, what's it now, the lead singer of Village People, he's actually issued something recently where he's threatened that anybody that casts aspersions on any of those Village People songs that he co-wrote and implies that there's anything sort of remotely gay about them, that he was going to sue them, or actually get his wife to sue them for some reason. Bring it on, Vinc. Come on. Let's see it stand up in court.

This very month, chaps, in Record Mirror, James Hamilton's disco page has revealed its first ever gay chart, and you won't be surprised to learn that this is at number one. Talking of which, if you want to dig deeper into this sort of thing, I direct you to the podcast Record Mirror Disco Charts put together by friend of the show and friend of me, Mike Atkinson. Hey up Mike, your podcast is fucking skill. Him and his mates used to come round and piss on the face of my pub quiz on a weekly basis and the last time I saw him, he was

running a gay disco at the very pub that Sue Pollard used to drink in. So I nipped over to say hello and discovered I was the only person there because the rival gay pub down the road had run a massive spoiler event. So yes, I had a gay club night all to myself. And it goes without saying that I got him to play male stripper Which I had a bit of a sensual cavort to and yes, there is video footage And yes, I need to locate and burn it immediately Anyway record mirror disco charts wherever you get your podcasts but this song is obviously gonna go down a treat at your local gay club because it's essentially the gay version of hi-ho

Silver lining or free bird or new york new york, you know something that gets played at the end of the night and Everyone piles on the dance floor. It's like a joke that everyone's in on you know, I mean, yeah What was number two in the gay chart sax? Yes on you know what I mean? Yeah. What was number two in the gay charts? Saxon. Yes. So boys I believe we've established that we are living in a golden age of pop but if you're a cheeky young scamp working at a record shop in 1982 it's also a golden age of conning the oldens into buying some absolute filth. They've already had a glorious summer of foisting Damnedale peas onto non-Aws who like Captain Sensible and they're gonna have a lovely time next month recommending that they go and see Brimstone and Treacle at

the pictures while the Floggingham Coppies have spread a little happiness but right now the goal in every record shop across the land must surely be to get shot of as many copies of the Boys Town Gang's previous single of the unsuspecting old days who have come in asking for that lovely record by the nice young lads and the coloured girls. The A side, the Ashford and Simpson medley, that's safe enough, but On the B-side is Cruisin' the Street. A 13-minute song where the original Boys Town gang explain to the lads how to get some lovely cock of an evening.

Sample lyric. You can find anything that you're looking for. You might find a big ol' boy, nine inches or more. It's all true, I promise you. It might make you sore. Absolutely guaranteed, it won't be a bore. And it ends with a radio play of sorts, which involves a couple of very camp men talking about someone else's massive knob, then two more blokes discussing what can only be scat, then two men actually doing it while a prostitute looks on and does some upside down DJ scratching to herself, if you know what I mean and I

think you do. And that's interrupted by two coppers who put them up against the wall and join in on all the sexy fun Yes, and it ends with the words Stuff that big sausage in there And if anybody says there's anything gay about all this we'll sue you Oh boys what a fucking song you must have heard that No. You haven't heard it? Fucking hell. I suspect I will have heard this song in about an hour's time. I wanted us to do a recreation of this at the end of the episode, but sadly, Sarah's voice isn't up to it at the minute, so get well soon, Duckhead. Please hurry back. Just listen to the fucking shit we talk when there's not a woman looking over us. Anything else to say? Yeah, just, I mean, within its own genre, this is a fairly ordinary record, really.

But it's memorable and it's catchy and the bit where it freaks out and goes all hands in the air, amyl nitrate vapours billowing across the dance floor, it is authentically light-headed. Like who could possibly have a problem with a Boys Town gang? Yeah. keepers billowing across the dance floor. It is authentically lightheaded. Who could possibly have a problem with a Boys Town game? So, the following week, can't take my eyes off you, soared 15 places to number 6 and a week later it got to number 4, its highest position, but it would get to number 1 in Belgium, Spain and Japan. Fucking hell, what did the Japanese make of it? The follow-up, a cover of Signed Seal Delivered I'm Yours,

would only get to number 50 in October, and after their cover of I Just Can't Help Believing got to number 82 in July of 1983, they sprayed their musk upon the UK charts no longer, carrying on until 1989. And on that note, only a quarter of the way in, we're going to have to step back and catch our breaths before we plunge deeper into this episode of Top Of The Pops.

But if you can't wait another day for the next bit, you can get your arse over to patreon.com slash chart music right now and not be fucked about in such a manner ever again. Remember the five dollar subscribers get the latest episode in full without adverts as soon as it comes out the oven, the $3 subscribers get it the day before part 1 goes out to the general public and everyone else gets access to all the bonus content we do, including that 4 hour special on the first episode of Tube, which you really need to wrap your tabs round. And don't forget, we're throwing it down live at the London Podcast Festival on Saturday,

September 13th and as these words come out of my lovely mouth, it's already about 75% booked up so do not miss out, Popcraze youngsters. Get your arse over to kingsplace.co.uk right now! Anyway, until the next time, this is Al Needham, on behalf of David Stubbs and Taylor Parks, imploring you to stay Popcraze!