Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - Chart Music #75 (Pt 2): 15.8.74 – Could YOU Be Donny’s Bride?

Episode Date: December 11, 2024

Sarah Bee, Taylor Parkes and Al Needham begin their quest through the dungeons of Castle Osmond. It’s August, it’s 1974, and the BBC have given an entire week over to Ken, Ken, Ken, Ken, Donny, Marie and Little Jimmy for six nights of Mormonised Borscht Belt Wisecracks, karate demonstrations and Barbershop Raga, live from the BBC Television Theatre. And tonight they’ve taken over our Thursday Evening Fizzy Pop Treat...Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Bluesky | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon 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 Chart Music number 75. I'm Al Needham, she's Sarah B.

Hello hello. He's Taylor Parks. Taylor Park, and chaps we're back fucking hell but we're not gonna lie to you I could have picked a far easier episode of Top of the Pops to tuck into them this fucking thing we're gonna talk about because oh man there is so much rabbit hole-ery going on in this isn't there no lie Pop Craig Young says I am massively intimidated by the size of the task which is set before us today and I guess what I'm trying to say panel is someone help me, help me, help me please. All right then, Pop Craze Youngsters, it is time to go all the way back to August of 1974. Always remember, we may coat down your favourite band or artist, but we never forget,

they've been on Top of the Pops more than we have. Hi, we're the Osmonds. Tonight we're presenting Top of the Pops live from London. It's half past seven on Thursday, August the 15th, 1974, and Top of the Pops, now under new stewardship under Robin Nash, has just crawled out from under the wreckage of Strike Action that took it off the air for over two months and is very keen to keep its golden age going for as long as possible. Chaps, we haven't really drilled into the career of Robin Nash yet, have we?

Let's remedy that right now. Born in Norwich in 1927, Robert Drain began his entertainment career as the assistant stage manager of the Norwich Theatre Royal. He spent the Second World War as a member of ENSA, where he worked for a time with David Croft, who co-wrote Dad's Army and attained Half- half of mum and practically everything else. After the war he relocated to London, adopted the stage name Robin Nash and put himself about in the West End as an actor and director. In 1960 he joined the BBC and directed the Katie Ball adventure series Golden Girl and the Richard Bries and Prunella scale sitcom Marriage Lines. In the late 60s he became a producer working on the likes of Meet the Wife, Beryl Reed

Says Good Evening and Dickson of Doc Green. By 1973 while he was producer of The Basil Brush Show and Cracker Jack he fell into the orbit of Top of the Pops filling in from time to time as producer and at the orbit of Top of the Pops, filling in from time to time as producer, and at the beginning of 1974 he was officially installed as executive producer. As the new Broom, he was very keen to exploit the booming teeny-bopper air and planned to put together a special episode to commemorate David Cassidy's farewell tour in the spring, but in May of this year the National Association of Theatrical, Television and Kinney Employees demanded that the BBC's scene-shifters, props workers and outside broadcast rigors be given an extra

£1.50 in allowances, and when the BBC offered a mere 60p a week in return in mid-June, there was an immediate technician walkout, meaning no top of the pops for seven weeks. Luckily, the strike ended last week, and what's more, there's a certain family from Utah who are riding to his rescue because yes, the Osmonds are back in the country after their tumultuous tour of 1973 when the young maidens of the island threw themselves through plate glass windows and turned up outside their hotel with sledgehammers. Apparently a tour was planned but after the death of a girl at a David Cassidy

concert in May they got very antsy about it. But on the other hand their popularity is on the wane in America, particularly after they released the plan, their big advert for Mormonism and they have the same relationship with the UK in 1974 as Norman Wisdom had with Albania. So what to do? Well, in order to make themselves available to their fans over here, they've cut a deal with the BBC, who have pushed the boat right out for them. Article in the Daily Mirror of Fortnite ago, Shhh, here come the Osman. The Osman brothers are all set to tiptoe back into Britain, quietly, secretly, furtively, and they hope well away from their

weenie-teenie fans. This time, if everything goes to plan, there won't be a single worshipping weenie bopper in sight. The Osmonds are making their return a cloak and dagger affair for security reasons. They fear that their visit could spark mass hysteria. The same kind of hysteria that led to a teenage girl losing her life during a concert tour by David Casadere two months ago. The Osmonds, who will be arriving next month to do a series of live shows for BBC TV, are determined to play it cool.

So are the BBC. They plan to show the brothers six half-hour shows due to go out on consecutive nights from August 12 in front of an invited audience. In this way, the Osmonds' whereabouts can be kept secret. A BBC executive said last night, we can't afford to take any chances. After the Cassidy visit, we must insist on very tight security no one at the BBC would ever forgive himself if these shows resulted in the death of another pop fan. I mean for the Osmonds in the BBC this is absolute 100%

win-win-win-win-win isn't it? The BBC's documentary about the Osmonds last UK tour pulled down a very impressive 11 million and a half viewers in January and by doing this they've effectively taken full ownership on one of the biggest bands in the world haven't they? It's a no-brainer really. The Osmonds were going to be good for ratings and confirmed, culturally important but on the down slope, you know, just like the Beeb likes it, you know, pop open that wine just after it's best, you know, and importantly wholesome, guaranteed wholesomeness. Family entertainment.

Of course. Quite a large family. The first live show aired last Monday, just three days ago at 6.m. in the nationwide slot and we've all seen that haven't we? Yes. The best bit is before it starts because it's one of those files we get after it ends. It's one of those files where it's like been stolen from the BBC so there's a little bit before what was broadcast and a bit after what was broadcast on the tape. So at the beginning, before it starts, we see the conductor of the orchestra

in a white flat cap and white overalls. Like the ghost of the Super Mario brother who got tied in a burlap sack and thrown into the Hudson River. So this show is just a transplant of American light entertainment into British television. And British television was not going to reject that transplant because we had countless shit here,

American shows playing here all the time. In prime time, unlike now. Yeah, including the Andy Williams show, which is where we would have first seen the Osmonds, of course. Right, exactly. But what you get here is a mismatch between their oily slickness and our rough-arsed crapness, which manages to highlight the worst of both in the Osmonds' obvious slimy over-rehearsed insincerity looks even more absurd in the overlit and unsympathetic gloss-free context of British television production. But also on the other hand our sloppy vision mixing and studio direction can't keep up with the visitor's energy and professionalism. So it's all a bit of a

mess. So it starts off there's a corny intro and it's got a clip of the four elder osmonds as little kids like maybe about seven years old at which the live audience starts screaming hysterically. It's the same frustrated lust they use on the fully grown osmonds. At which point you realize that not only is this hysteria fundamentally non-sexual, it doesn't make any sense on its own terms, right? The fact that the Osmonds are not good looking, apart from possibly Donny, not sexy, and they don't seem to have anything to offer in any other sense either. All that they're screaming at really is America.

It's just you know American stuff. It's some kind of way out if you're stuck in a British new town somewhere you know going to a low-rise rectangular school at a low-rise rectangular shopping precinct and anything with a big blue sky over it seems like an escape right? Essentially there's like a cinema screen comes down and they put out the intro that they used in the last UK tour and probably used it in Las Vegas as well. Oh yeah this definitely feels like just a transplant of the Las Vegas show. Deconstructing the screaming as we will we will be doing at length there is no breaking it down because fundamentally

what it is is just a release of tension in the same way that people laugh at stand-up comedy when it's not that funny. It's just they're relaxed enough and the stand-up is not too needy. Like, please love me. And it's like, oh, thank God. Oh, I needed the laugh. And it's like, what did you actually laugh at? It wasn't that funny. But at base, that's what it is. They're screaming at everything. photos cheesy tap dancing crew cuts And then there's even bigger screaming when a very young Donny Osmond joins them Yeah, there's one bit where they all kind of like March out and then there's this toddler Runs after them and that's Donnie and the camera zooms in and they scream like fuck at that

Then we get the grown-up Osmonds doing a bit of a Beatles jump and then we get footage of girls hammering on the doors of Heathrow Airport which is a bit odd because you know that's the audience that are watching this and they put it in in their Vegas show to say oh look how massive we are in England. Well, you know when you're in England you're gonna be like, oh yeah look it's us look that's me, that's the back of my head. Oh my god. when you're in England, you're gonna be like, oh yeah, look, it's us, look, that's me, that's the back of my head. Oh my God.

It's like, yeah, we love that people love the Osmonds and we love that the love is recorded and forever after or even 50 years later, people will be going, wow, look how much they love the Osmonds. It's like it builds out and out and out until it's just the screams are for the screams and then the screams are for the other screams for the Osmonds. And you know, so all of it, all of it is

so exciting that the excitement is exciting, you know, it's all levels. For the entirety of this, this Osmonds show and the Top of the Pops that we're gonna get to eventually, all of the reference points that my brain threw up were horror basically. It fades off a bit towards the end I think. The first one of eventually. All of the reference points that my brain threw up were horror, basically. It fades off a bit towards the end, I think. The first one of these being Late Night with the Devil, which is a film from quite recently which is set on a 70s. It's meant to be found footage of a lost 70s talk show and it is not bad. It takes a pretty decent stab at evoking the

uniquely disturbing sensibility of the 70s and it has an opening montage just like this but that does not come close to how disquieting overall this opening montage is in and of itself I would say that the terrifying singing children in the way that they are arranged and the way that they sound is actually more unsettling than the screaming. And then they go into their first medley which is we're having a party the girl I love and I can't get next to you yes that one all of those songs are not out there they're due on their next LP but the girls are still going mental The Osmonds clearly don't have to say hope you like our new direction or any of that bollocks According to the papers there are three thousand girls in that audience right surely not

I've not been to this theatre, so I can't make a judgment on it Have I now known as Shepherd's Bush Empire, yeah You've been to that Sarah. I've been to Shepherd's Bush Empire. Yes. You've been to that Sarah? I've been to Shepherd's Bush Empire, yeah. Did he still smell of piss 50 years later? Yes, absolutely. I don't know who's pissed but yeah. What, you're going to see Shed 7? Hey! Yeah, it's a shame. It's a beautiful theatre but not a very good venue.

Right. But my bar for venues now is so high that I basically don't go to any of them. But yeah, it's a lovely theatre. You can fit 3,000 people in there. Why is that? Well, I'm talking about the acoustics and the sound and everything. I think 3,000 girls will make more noise than that, surely. Yeah, but a lot of them are the exact same pitch. So it just sounds like there's a hundred really, really loud girls. Or the screaming so high pitch that only dogs can hear it. No, but you can't. This is the thing. I did watch the entirety of this very special Osmond's

episode. That does not mean that I also listened to the entirety of it because the sound of the screaming is a misophonia nightmare and I had to actually mute it because it was like kebab skewers in my brain. It's not just the screaming it's the 50 years compression of screaming you know like like somebody has been standing on it for 50 years and it's just been exhumed. There's something very sinister and uncomfortable about it, physically uncomfortable. I just couldn't listen to it anymore. So BBC Osmond's week show one is now underway and the Kens do a little comedy routine based

around their Kenniness. One of them says, there's nobody out there who knows who I am, which is true. I had no idea who he was and I've been watching nothing but fucking Osmonds for the past three weeks. I'm sorry mate. And then another one of the Ken's does a sort of butlins gag about my wife keeps me well organized well fed well dressed and totally broke and not a single member of the audience reacts to it at all. I know, Mormonized borscht belt wisecracks make no landings here. It's just not going to work. Did Kelly Montee slip in that one? This'll slay them in the UK. But the Cairns still do their rehearsed Vegas bit of making a face at each other and pausing for laughter even though there isn't any laughter like when you watch a silent comedy and

Leave gaps but it goes on the whole joke is that Donnie is the only member of their family That anyone gives a fraction of a shit about nowadays Yeah, the whole routine is a kind of ritual of of comical eyes jealousy So yeah, Alan Osmond the one with a slight look of the late Alan Lake about him, he says, I'm Alan, the oldest brother, and I used to be the spokesman for this band. And he glares at Donny, but then he cracks into a big smile. But because it's part of the routine, and it's been rehearsed, the smile looks as fake as the glare So it's not actually that reassuring and you come out of this as confused as the audience who sound like they're locked in an

Apatois on mushrooms And it starts to feel like the story of Joseph and his brothers. Do you know what I mean? It's like imagine Donnie go well, know fellas I had a dream last night we were all binding sheaves of wheat and your sheaves bowed down on my sheaf and this goes off about ten minutes before Donnie finally gets to sing a medley of his own. They do a bit of barbie shop raga though don't they? That's true yeah. Which gets fucking gales of screams. But it would wouldn't it? Yeah, true. But then when Donnie gets the spotlight to himself,

a couple of girls come out of the audience to give him a kiss, right? Presumably stage managed. And it's a little bit awkward because these girls are not small children, but they're also not adults. No. And they're not wearing very much,

and the camera accidentally gets a big close-up of one girl's chest Which is not deliberate but because it's 1974 you remember that it could have been it basically does a medley where he sings to Lusting girls telling him not to lust after him and then he receives his audience And one of them is holding up a cutout and I swear down It has to be a cutout of Fred the flower grader from the Home Pride advert. Just this little man with a bowl of hat and he's like well who else would that be in 1974 unless it was Clockwork Orange of course. No, no, Home Pride is very appropriate in so many ways.

Grader grains do make finer flour. But then a minute later singing puppy love Donnie goes into the audience to touch hands and accept the adulation and he goes straight to the same girl again even as everyone around her is spilling over the top and sides like grabbing his arms trying to haul him into the vortex like beyond the event horizon of self-generating hysteria you'd never see him again. The two things I noticed about that was number one no one tries to grab his arse when he's being dragged into the audience because this is not 1991 and he is not Fred Fairbrass Sarah. But also I don't know if this has got anything to do

with my far future woke snowflake brain, but there's an Asian girl right on the front row and he goes either side of her. Yes. As if she's not there. I noticed that too. Well she's got no soul has she according to him? Well true. Maybe he didn't want to sort of like deal with the devil, you know what I mean?

Yeah I mean he does a medley, go away little girl sweet and innocent and puppy love I mean go away little girl is basically young girl get out of my mind Yeah, but he was 13 when he sang that how old was this fucking little girl mind you if she's 12 That's a year, which is a fucking world of difference at that stage of life Yeah, he obviously doesn't want to be referred to by his brothers as Donny Fairclough for the rest of his career. I was going to say, who is keeping them in control? There are like two very grouchy looking sort of patrician men in the audience. One of these men looks exactly like Mr. Mackay from Porrid.

Yes! The terrifying warden with the sort of moustache and scowl. He won't tolerate any insubordination. There's not that many of them, but I guess it's just their presence, it's just this kind of headmasterly, strict presence. And at the end, you know you were saying about how there's a sort of overrun, you get the proper backstage perspective at the start and the end because the cameras are still running and right at the end one of them I'm assuming Mackay in this very irritable tone while all these girls are

screaming and now exhausted as well from all the screaming but still screaming really committed to the screaming just goes be calm! Be calm! Yes! Yes! but I strongly believe that that is Robin Nash himself oh really yes it's like conform the whole history of girls and screaming that when has that ever worked come on that reminds me of I'm sure I've said this before but it bears repeating we had a dinner lady who in the hustle and bustle of the dinner hall would shout, frame yourselves. And then when she got really mad, when we did not frame ourselves, she would just go, frame. Frame. Frame. This is a West Yorkshire dialect thing. Maybe it was just her maybe it was really localized to you to break house But it meant fix yourselves sort yourselves out. Shut the fuck up fix up look sharp indeed

That's me. So there we go frame a bad skit. Oh, we're learning so much about Yorkshire through this podcast More than I'd like to know really. Yeah more than I'd like to know Taylor. More than I'd like to know really. Yeah more than I'd like to know too. So Donnie fights his way out of the girls and returns to the stage and then Noel Edmonds walks on dressed from head to toe in three shades of brown. The colour brown is all around. It really is and as he begins to talk Donnie leaves the stage and as he goes, he waves to the crowd and says, see ya. The ensuing upsurge of screams drowns out part of Noel's link, to which Noel goes, stop it.

Absolutely authentic jealous anger masquerading as comic self-deprecation in stark contrast to the Osmonds mock jealous anger with no awareness in Noel's head of how funny this looks to those of us who've been trying to read the past ten minutes of television. How ironic that it is the Americans who are showing a grasp of irony and the Brits who are not. Yeah, but it is Noel. Well. showing a grasp of irony and the Brits who are not. Yeah, but it is Noel. He's only British by birth. He really belongs sort of mid-Atlantic, you know.

I would say somewhere in the Mariana Trench. I was going to say actually that it is interesting how when they do their whole rather cringey Vegas bit, but they are kind of playing about with being self-deprecating and self-awareness and the concept of their interchangeability. You know, this is a postmodern boy band here. And I was thinking, has any boy band since been allowed to do anything postmodern until Take That covered How Deep Is Your Love in 1996 and made a video in which they were all killed? I don't know, please write in. Oh and then we get the big finale for this evening which is a rock and roll medley which is non more 1974. Osmondi Mondi if you will. Rock and roll is here to stay, jailhouse rock,

let's go to the hop, rock around the clock, blueberry Hill, Blue Moon, Lucille, Blue Suede Shoes and Hound Dog. Something for the oldens here and a drum solo for the heads in the middle of it. Yeah, placating Ted Dads nationwide. Yes. And I've said more than I actually have to say about the never-ending slow motion rock and roll revival of 1971 to 1985, but this is a more than usually dismal take on that familiar thing. And if you think Donny Osmond

in a newly made biker jacket singing Blueberry Hill while his brothers mug at the camera and stick their asses out is worthy of any more attention than this, you're welcome to give it. It's like an episode of Happy Days but everyone in it is pot-sitting. But then enter little Jimmy Osmond. Yes! Now it's already past his bedtime, some would say already past his grave time,

but there he is like full of tartrazine vigor little bastard oh god just strutting up and down the stage in a niagara of screams like this homunculus emitting weird piggy grunting sounds from the back of his throat that it turns out are meant to be rock singing yes anyway he murders blue suede shoes and hound dog. Oh, he does. You feel pisses all over that blue suede shoes. Yeah. And you can feel yourself morphing into a Ted dad thinking, fucking hell, it's less

than 20 years since Elvis was cut off at the waist for American television. So we couldn't see his subversive leg movements and now we're practically being ordered to watch the full though inconsiderable length of we Jimmy Osmond as he does a chicken dance he's only just learned less than 20 years has passed and this has already happened but it's okay yeah it's fine it's all God's plan it's not however God's plan that you have to miss Coronation Street for this so switch over and it will just be like it never existed right and now 50 more years have passed and hey what did I tell you it's just like the Osmonds never existed it's brilliant yeah and And then yeah, at the end, after the

credits, you get the post-broadcast bit where yeah, it's the girls are still screaming and you get intonation of be calm, which I'm thinking of taking that clip and using it as my morning alarm on my phone. I want to hear it every day before the hell begins. And that's episode one. Oh, we got another five of these. As a piece of light entertainment, this is perfect for the BBC in 1974, particularly as round about this time it's non-stop repeats. But not everyone is impressed, I'm afraid to say. Article in yesterday's Wolverhampton Express and Star by Mike Gordon Smith. Whatever happened to Nationwide, the lovely Sue Loyler and the acrimonious Michael Barrett? How much more of the Osmonds must we suffer? Tea time

viewing used to be a pleasure, but a week of these cavorting, permanently smirking all American juveniles is a little too much to swallow. Even a fourth repeat of Star Trek would be preferable and far easier to stomach. Calm down mate, it's only a week. Obviously the letters pages of the Express and Star were ablaze with rights to reply. I think that your attack on the Osmonds performances was very selfish wrote LA Duke age 13 of Selzden. I myself would like to thank the BBC for the wonderful showing of the Osmonds. I was disgusted when I read your description of the Osmonds said Christine Lewis, age 12

of Stalbridge. The Osmonds are talented, handsome and very clean when you compare them to other singers and groups namely Boway, Cockney Rebel, etc. I really do feel sorry for people like you, sir, noted Davina Lloyd, aged 15 and a half of Walsall. How dare you mock one of the most talented groups around with such disgusting and unnecessary language. I am sure I am speaking on behalf of many Osmonds fans. Do not worry sir, nationwide we'll soon be back for uncivilised people who do not recognise

talent. However, there soon came a front lash to the back lash. Congratulations to Mike Gordon-Smith for speaking your mind on the Osmonds," wrote H Ward of Sedgley. Musically, the programmes were just a noise mingled with screams. These youngsters are being exploited for commercial reasons, the attraction being the Osmonds' toothy good looks only. It should have been put on during the children's hour and as far as I know

that argument is still raging on in the Wolverhampton Express and stuff fucking out that was the paper that ran a photo of that Wella dad in that Indian restaurant recently I thought it was actual real poor Wella. It's also the paper that published a book that I've got scans of readers tribute to Diana Princess of Wales. Oh God yes. Beautiful poems written by you know people from Canock and stuff about how they once met the wonderful Princess Diana. A lot of anger towards Prince Charles and Camilla in some of these. Really? Yeah, it's a little bit disturbing, you know, about how they should burn at Hell's Steak and things like that.

You see, in Walthamstow we're much more civilised than that. We've got a local Chinese restaurant called Peking Chef, which has on the front of its leaflets, or at least it did last time I looked, a really bad picture of Princess Di visiting Peking Chef in Walthamstow. They're really proud of it. The Princess of Pork Balls. We are immediately assailed by a barrage of screams and the sight of six pimps in white sports coats with a sort of matching coloured hats, pocket handkerchiefs and massive sacks and accompanied by a young woman. Hi, we're the Osmonds, say the Osmonds.

Tonight we'll be presenting Top of the Pops live from London. Woo, says Donny Osmond, and we're thrown into a very special intro sequence. Fucking hell, we start off with a green eye, and then we're immediately thrown into the top 30 rundown as was the style for most of the 70s. But this time they've used extremely quick video clips whenever possible, which was a new conceit introduced by Nash, which is standard practice in 1974. And I've got to say that would have thrilled me at the time because it would have reminded

me of Wibbly Wobblies. Do you remember them? No. You know them little cards that you used to get in packets of bubblegum that had a two That would have thrilled me at the time, because it would have reminded me of Wibbly Wobblies. Do you remember them? You know them little cards that you used to get in packets of bubblegum, that had a two frame animation, that you tilted them from side to side, and they moved?

Wibbly Wobblies, mate. Massively popular in the playground. The non-fungible tokens of their day, they were. But worth more. This really sets the tone for the first extremely non neurodivergent friendly minutes of this show. It's too fast I think for the human brain to register. I actually wanted to be able to take in the really lovely individual artworks for all

the numbers. But you don't get that do you? No. They're really beautiful hand-drawn numbers, but you can't really take them in. And they put me in mind, obviously, of Sesame Street. But also, here's my first horror reference in my head for this episode, is an early American public information film from the 60s called One Got Fat. Right. Are you aware of this? No. It's horrifying. Basically, I found it because somebody cut

it to everything you do is a balloon by Boards of Canada. And I get to mention Boards of Canada possibly the least chart music act ever. And that's going in the playlist now. I'm so happy. I actually, I stunned Dan recently. Dan from the excellent Cacophony Sessions podcast in the pub. Oh, hey up Dan. Hey up. Cause he said, what is your favorite band? And I said, Boards of Cannes. And he said, what? Well, I mean, technically, okay, I should clarify A that he was also stunned by the fact I was drinking Guinness zero. So perhaps he's quite easily stunned, but

I should also, I should clarify by saying my favorite band is, is suede. Yeah, of course. But when I get off my own free wheel into the padded space age surround sound enabled suicide pod, what I'm going to request is boards of Canada. Anyway, one got fat is, um, yeah, it's, it's basically, it's basically a bicycle safety film. And it illustrates this by putting a bunch of kids in monkey masks and putting monkey tails on them, sending them off on bikes into hazardous situations. So anyway, it reminded me of that. And I went, okay, I see where this episode is going to take my brain. Yeah.

Dark places, very dark places. They're obviously using clips from previous episodes or promo videos, stuff they've got in the can. But this is disturbing the natural order of things. And as a six year old, it would have absolutely fucked with my head. And what makes it even worse is when they're running to a patch of still images and you get used to that again,

you think, oh, everything's all right again. And then mud pop up and start jumping about and you're like, ah! You feel like them people in France seeing the train coming towards them. The pictures, it's fucking terrifying. It is a best city runner. So we get Sylvia with her hand on her side of her face

looking like she's about to take off a Pierrot Sylvia with her hand on her side of her face looking like she's about to take off a Pierrot Sylvia mask. Charles Asnavour appears to be wearing a jungle playmat that's been fashioned into a jacket, looking absolutely bemused at what they've done to the chart rundown. There's a photo of Gary Pockett, whose young girl is back in the charts at number 22, but he looks massively 1974 with a bit of a Stooges hairdo. We get a very slight scream from the girls for a video clip of David Cassadet but a massive scream for Donnie and Marie, a meaty thumbs up

from Paul McCartney who's obviously delighted that his new band are finally massive and he doesn't have to deal with that Beakle shit anymore and finishes off with a nice colossal eye roll from Ron Mail who speaks for all of us I believe. That's so often. Now if you've been avoiding the daily blast of Osmond that has denied the country its rightful dose of Richard Stilgo and beer drinking snails this week. You may have already detected that there's something slightly different about this episode and you'd be right. For the first time in five years the show is being broadcast away from Television Centre and comes at us live from

the BBC Television Theatre at Shepherd's Bush Green. Built in 1903 for the Australian impresario Oswood Stoll, the Shepherd's Bush Empire opened with a performance by the Fred Carnot troupe, which at the time featured a young Charlie Chaplin and became one of the main staging posts of Music Hall in West London. In 1953, with Music Hall firmly on the wane, the premises were bought up by the BBC for £120,000 and was used throughout the 50s and 60s for a barrage of light entertainment shows such as Variety Parade with Max Bygraves, What's My Line, The Billy Cotton Band Show, This Is Your Life and

Silla to name but a few. At this point in time it's being used for The Generation Game, The Basil Brush Show, Cracker Jack, A Song for Europe and from time to time the Old Grey Whistle Test but this week it's Castle Osmond, occupied by specially invited members of the Osmonds and Donny Osmond fan clubs and besieged by thousands of girls unable to get in. According to an article on the building in tvstudiohistory.co.uk, quote, those who were there talk about it in hushed tones like the survivors of a terrible accident or natural disaster.

Obviously, this changes everything, doesn't it, in this episode and I contend that it's a glimpse into a world that could have easily happened. A world where Top of the Pops follows the pattern of shows like Oh Boy and Thank You Lucky Stars rather than the studio based 6-5 special and Ready Steady Go. So panel what difference having it in a theatre does it make? Yeah it sounds worse. It's more echoey. But you do get that bit of extra atmosphere.

It's like you know any time you get that shot on a BBC program from behind the presenter or performer looking out at steep tiers of seats with stalls in a circle, it is generally the BBC TV theatre. And here it's filled with these like overheated weenie boppers and their chaperones, never quite threatening to spill over the rails and downwards in a polyester waterfall. But nearly but those are the best bits of the episode. Whenever you get a good shot of this writhing mass of child material up in the circle, clearly having a good but not a great time. They're a total mess, but it's less depressing

than Cracker Jack's rows of identically dressed Cub Scouts fake laughing whenever the sign saying laugh is held up by the floor manager. But the thing is, if Top of the Pops had always come from the BBC Television Theatre, it wouldn't always have been as controlled as this. No. Because this audience seemed restrained

by the underlying straightness of this event. And I think it's very different from what you'd have got a couple of years earlier if this had been like T-Rex for instance, right? They move around and they've got some visible agency but they're not going really crazy, right? Because it's the fucking Osmonds. And the really odd thing is that most of these people will still be alive today,

probably only in their early 60s, still capable of sex and cycling, which seems wrong somehow, right? Because the essential bleakness and the air of great tragedy that's all over 1974 is choking here you can almost smell it like the the undeodorized armpits and mothball shirts and embassy mild and somehow that makes it feel like they should all be long gone like veterans of the first world war you know what I mean? Yeah. See, I didn't even recognise it as the Shepherds Bush Empire. It just looked very odd. It looked like it could have been anywhere. And because there's a kind of barrier at the front, the sort

of amphitheatre seats, put me in mind of those kind of immersive cinema things you would get in the 80s at a theme park or whatever, where you'd sit in your seats when they would sort of move around and the whole of the ceiling would be the screen and the block of seats would rotate like a very gentle ride. It just reminded me of that. I mean this is hallowed ground to people of my generation. You know I was watching this and just thinking oh wonder where Cyril Fletcher's chair would have been or where Basil Brush sits. I say it kind of helps the band because they've been plonked into their natural environment and to them it's just like a gig despite the fact that no one in the audience is there

for them but I feel the duo and solo acts that we're going to see, they've got a bit of a tougher time because they don't get the chance for lingering looks down the barrel of the camera and in many instances they have to perform their adulterated material to children who neither understand or care what they're trying to put over but it has to be said that every act bar one has got a difficult away fixture tonight rather like man united at galatasaray yeah there's a couple of acts that we see tonight that are just you know they might as well be playing a care home Whole lot of love by the top of the Pops Orchestra fades and the camera dollies in on a huge curtain of red and silver strips which rises to reveal the opening act, the Glitter Band and Just For You.

We last chanced upon the courtiers of Bad King Gary in Chant Music No 69 when they did some very Red Army like gestures towards the leader during a performance of Always Yours in December of this year but have also countenance them in their own right in Chant Music No 9 when they took their debut single Angel Face all the way up to number 4 in April of this year. This is the follow up, the second cut from their forthcoming debut LP, Hey! which will be coming out at the end of the month. It entered the charts at number 42 of Fortnite ago and then soared 20 places to number 22. And this week, helped by an appearance on Top of the Pops it's jumped seven places

to number 15 and here they are again in the BBC theatre launching a necessary rear guard action against the Utahn invasion. And yeah this is well out of character for Top of the Pops in the 70s having the same band on two weeks running when they're not number one. But then again, I'm guessing that due to the nature of this episode, they need warm bodies in the vicinity, and the Glitter Band were in reception. And oh, what a welcome sight they are,

because I believe this is the 1974 that we all want. Yeah. I'll say it again, hey! Most of the rest of this episode, even when it's not terrible, does illustrate the curdling of hard transistor radio pop and the gelding of popular art for commercial or marketing purposes, which is the big change from the early seventies to the mid 70s, as we've seen before. And what's so great about this is that it resists that.

And so even being two years out of date as it is, it seems more futuristic than anything else on the programme. Because it's clinging to that old recipe of heavy percussion plus pile driver bubble gum riffs, plus Neanderthal chanting, plus severely unpleasant looking men of a certain age dressed up like Martian toffees. Camp, but not camp. And still, this is a proper multi-story car park of a record, right?

It's like, it's like brutalist county council offices towering over a market town and that hard minimalist approach is old hat by 1974 most the records on air which seem to follow on from glam rock are toned down really alarmingly and weirdly even the supposedly serious rock bands on this episode are also pushing hollowed out forms of glam rock and everything else there is slush and schlager apart from the Philly stuff which only gets in because it's liquid enough to slide under the door yeah but what you hear here musically rather than culturally is punk bubbling up or rather the basic

building blocks of punk like the amino acids sloshing around in a rock pool, waiting for the lightning to strike. Because what is this, if not a slowed down Ramones in better clothes, right? It's not a forward looking record, but the point is it holds to the basic 50s derived primitivism of glam, but with the sparkle replaced by ennui and vague menace.

And that's really what punk was musically, because it was teenagers who'd grown up on stuff like Bolan, got to 18 or 19, got bored and formed bands in a now decidedly non glittery environment. And without those last rays of 60s optimism that were in T-Rex. And so you got stuff that was like this, like basic, hypnotic, and sort of dead eyed

with that heavy analog feel. And I love it in almost all circumstances. And don't they look fucking mint? Yes. They are actually dressed as Quality Street. I recognise them all from the big pink tin that we used to get at Christmas. As satin goes, that seems quite high quality. Also, I thought it's really great that the Teletubbies got on a Zempik

and managed to transition to an adult career, which obviously many child stars struggle to do. Or if only they'd have named themselves after quality street toughies. Lead singer Green Triangle said today. Well yeah, Purple Guy seemed to be having the most fun. That's because he is the praline with the whole nut in the middle, so you know of course he is. The stagecraft is pretty good, although they are acting out the song just for you very literally. I mean they would win so often at charades or pictionary, it would just suck all the fun out of it. I'm not sure what lineup this is of the glitter band by the way. Do you know how many people have been in the glitter band over the

years? God no. 18. Wow. Fuck! Somewhat ironic when you think about it. There are bands who've had more members but that's quite a lot. It would make a good one of those t-shirts, you know, those band t-shirts. It would have to be extra long and you'd still have to go onto the back for Anne Trevor Horne. Has anyone done a full t-shirt like that? That's the point actually. That would be funny. The performing in front of two giant cutouts of Knickerbocker glory. It's under a wavy gray and cream backdrop

in all their glam finery. I mean, color coded all in ones. They're flared up to fuck and they've got those Cyberman Bacarkey hairdos all flexed up with glitter atop massive platform boots. They look fucking skilled. I mean, I've already mentioned in in chart music's passing that a year earlier

I couldn't understand why my mom and dad and all their mates were doing jobs Driving lorries and calling bingo when they could have been pop stars, but by this point I'd worked out Thanks to top of the pops there could only be 30 different clusters of pop stars at any one time there could only be 30 different clusters of pop stars at any one time. But I know for a fact that I would have looked at this and other episodes and thought, hang on, why isn't my dad wearing a spangly jumpsuit to work? Why do none of my teachers come to school looking like Gary Glitter? And more importantly, why am I being made to wear fucking shorts and tank tops and not stuff like this? I'd have loved to have gone to school tank tops and not stuff like this? Yeah.

I'd have loved to have gone to school dressed up as a glitter band, man. It's not too late. They would have picked your sequins off, come on, and pinged them at you. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It wouldn't have been safe. I know that there wasn't any health and safety in the 70s. No.

Also, there wasn't any epilepsy either, as evinced by the extremely overproduced. Gotcha. They're flicking that switch, aren't they? Big style. What are they doing? I had to look away. I had to look away. either as evinced by the extremely overproduced. They're flicking that switch aren't they Big Sto? What are they doing? I had to look away. This whole project has been quite an eye and ear and brain strain for me almost, didn't it? You just get the strobing editing and complete with strobe lighting within that editing and this cultish repetition of the Top of the Pops logo in different colours. Yeah, and then at a certain point you've got to pour on your silver shamrock mask of Dave Lee Travis.

Well, I say God bless the Glitter Band. They're clean, they've all been checked out, it's just an unfortunate association, but they were really great. And this is an authentically strange record as well in an understated way. It's not psychedelic, it's not musically adventurous, but when you stop and consider what you're actually seeing and hearing here, this bizarre tarmac sound and these glimmering freaks from the planet Uranus, it's strange. It's not nothing, you know. It's really alarming. I realise that he is declaring himself to be one of those deadbeat boyfriends in rock that we have noted before. Oh yes. He's got no money, got no place to live, but whatever

I have to you I'll give kind of thing. It's like yeah. Everything he does he does it for you. Well this would have been romantic at the time. Yes. Obviously it's extremely catchy and as you said Taylor it is like a little mudskipper that is trying to sprout legs and climb onto the dirty shores of punk. But it is to me more evidence that to the dirty shores of punk. But it is to me more evidence that, you know, we need something new at this point because it's like rock and roll needs to move on, but it's just kind of covering itself in glitter

and kind of complacency and smugness and sort of dining out on its first course of past glories. The first generation to experience rock and roll are now having kids. And those kids are gonna need something other than the music their parents were into. and I realize that's daunting for the culture but there's a feeling of like come on you've got to get going yeah but them Ted dads would have fucking hated this yeah look at them big puffs Ben cunts not fucking real they are however flammable

yes very much so I mean at the, I would have been delighted by the tune and the clobber, but disappointed that the leader's not in attendance. I mean, he's still very much an ongoing concern after all his last single got to number one in June and he'll return at the end of the year with Oh Yes You're Beautiful, but the former glitter men clearly branching out on their own, even though Shepard the lead singer with the fucking skill star-shaped guitar he's not the strutting peacock of the walk usually associated with glam bands. I mean do you think this band would be going around and having this much success without the glitter association? It's hard to say in 1974. It is quite strong branding. Yes. Which worked before

people realized what it was you know before, before it was codified. Although I'm sure along with a lot of bands with very specific names, I'm sure they they regretted it at a certain point. I'm pretty certain they did. Yeah. No, I just meant purely from a costuming perspective. Right. You know, they will have been like, oh Christ do we, you know, I just want to wear a flat shoe, like my hamstrings are fucked. What if I have to walk downhill? I heard an interview with Jerry Sheppard of the Glitter Band recently. He said that Gad, as we have to call him nowadays, he was well dischuffed about the success of the Glitter

Band to the point that Shepard was claiming that the announcement of his first retirement was actually a big flounce out because the Glitter Band were doing so well. So yeah, there you go. Good. As part of my research, I listened to Hey! the other day and gotta say, they're a singles band. Because not only is the album completely wadded out with rock and roll covers like sea cruising sealed with a fucking kiss for God's sake I went through it and I only counted 21 Hayes which is very

disappointing yeah still the best cover but apart from the fact that there isn't an effeminate one in the glitter band, this is how you want your top of the pulse to start. And as far as glitter band singles go, more of this please. I mean, I don't know, I found it pretty joyless myself. Maybe it's just me. Maybe it is I who is pretty joyless, but I don't know. It doesn't go. No, come on, Sarah.

We know you're waiting for the odds to come back. It doesn't really go anywhere, but nor does it go round and round in a pleasurable way. You know what actually I think the main difference between this record and a lot of glam rock is this seems to be more aimed at boys than girls right as born out here on this panel yeah because they're not pretty they're not trying to look pretty, and the record is very hard and direct. There's no thrills to it. It's just like a sort of a gun metal color record. Very sort of male identified,

which is extremely unusual with glam rock. Yeah, it's the kind of thing you'd hear over the tannoy at Mollinoo before they put the liquidator on again. Yeah, in its way, it's a record that you wouldn't expect women to like any more than you'd expect them to like brain salad surgery you know what I mean. This is the first of two very very footbally records to my lady ear in this episode. I always bugged me I've got to say it does bug me when people are gender entertainment or art they expect women not to be able to see anything in Goodfellas.

I understand, I see where you're coming from. And yeah, maybe that's why, maybe that's why, maybe I just don't have the right chromosomes. I mean, they are making the shapes of, you know, they are, you know, making chromosomic shapes on the stage, but maybe not the ones that I have. I'm not saying what people should like. I'm just saying what people tend to like. I know, it is tender. I know, I know. Just thought I'd seize the opportunity to make you feel uncomfortable. I've never felt more comfortable in my life.

Well that's your male privilege, Tolkien Tale. I love it. It's all I've got. The Glitter Band, they're the first wave that have been sent out into this sea of girly indifference and they do, you know, make a game attempt to get the kids clapping when they should do, but to little of though because the audience are not here for this and you know the usual rush of canned applause at the end is replaced by the sound of a few kids cheering, like they used to do when the scores were read out on We Are The Champions. So yeah, I think a mood's already been set, hasn't it?

So the following week, just for you, Hayd five places to number ten, its highest position. Three weeks later, Hayd thudded into the LP chart at number 18 and would eventually get to number 13 and the follow up single, Let's Get Together Again would round off their year with a number 8 placing in November. They went on to outdo their mentor in 1975 when Goodbye My Love went all the way to number two in february held off the summit of mount pop by january by pilot followed by the tears i cried number eight in april and loving the sun number 15 in september but when glam finally died they only had one more hit in them, People Like You, People Like Me, which got to number five in March of 1976 and sadly the star guitar was dropped at the Bournemouth

Center in 1985, breaking its head and was never seen again. You, you, you, just for you, you, you, just for you, you, you, just for you, you, you, just for you. Can trees help us grow more resilient to climate change? At the University of British Columbia, we believe that they can. Dr. Suzanne Simard and her team are connecting our future to nature. Their mother tree project could transform how we manage forests, capturing more carbon and safeguarding biodiversity for generations to come. At UBC, our researchers are answering today's most pressing questions.

To learn how we're moving the world forward, visit ubc.ca slash forward happens here. Oh yes, the unmistakable sound of this week's number 15 that comes from the glitter band and just for you. Excuse me, Noel. Oh, good heavens. But I'd like to introduce two friends of mine on the show tonight. Oh, got a problem there, Jimmy, because everyone who appears on the program has to have a hit record. Well, they have.

It's number 14 this week. 14? Donnie and Louie, of course. And the newest single, I'm livin' it all up to you. As the chairs die down, we crossfade to tonight's co-host, Noelmonds who is by now the undisputed Don Gorgon of Radio 1 having held down the throne of the breakfast show for the past 14 months and been a part of the top of the pop talent pool since July of 1972. A pool which currently contains Tony Blackburn, Paul Burnett, Dave Lee Travis and Jingle Nonce OBE. This is his 27th appearance on Top of the Pops and oh, it's a very busy month for the

man that David Stubbs and his dad thought was God. As well as holding down the breakfast show, he's been officially opening the WKP bathroom, kitchen, bedroom and heating discount centre in Strewd. He's going to be the special guest of the Northern Group of Motoring Writers annual test day where he'll be demonstrating the new Ford Cortina. He's on his way round the coast next week for the Radio 1 Roadshow, where he'll be taking in Westcliff On Sea, Clacton, Great Yarmouth, Hunstanton and Skegness. But this week he's landed the biggest plum of the lot, co-presenting the Osmond shows, which involves nipping out during costume changes to calm the girls down and interview

the band, their mum and dad and their new wives. And that makes sense to me because, you know, being the breakfast show host, he's the one going to be listened to by the youth, along with David Hamilton who's doing the late afternoon slot. But I can't help chaps but think that there's a jingling fist being shaken and a pubie beard being rent asunder and even a gormless smile being down to because this really shows us who the golden boy of Radio 1 really is in 1974. God, honestly he is just one of the, I try to keep an open mind and stuff but he's just

one of the top worst ego creeps that Top of the Pops brought us over the years. Yeah, you haven't had a chance to have a go in Noel Evans yet, have you, Sarah? Come on, tuck in, go. I'll out your coat. That's the fact. He's not as obviously repellent and oily as some of them,

but you can really see that much as this is a plum job, it may also be a poison chalice, because as you said, the actual Osmond show, you could see that he was regretting his life choices in real time. Why am I not on the other side of the scream barrier? Yeah. And I mean, he has to do a little intro here with little Jimmy. The sheer indignity of little Jimmy having to pretend that he knows or cares who Noel Edmonds is, much less treat him like a showbiz equal, right?

I just wanted little Jimmy to take that hat off and frisbee it through the air so that it flies all the way up into the auditorium, curls back like a boomerang and slices Noel's head clean off with razor sharp brim but instead we get a long exposure of Jimmy's milk teeth and milk gums milk everything and then a very very quick cut to the audience which is slightly disturbing because this time you see that the composition of the audience is not quite what you'd expect there's some strained looking girls in homemade Osmond's merch, but beyond that there's a couple of geezers with muscles in their faces and necks wearing large reflective sunglasses

indoors. Oh God yes. They were probably just estate dads, but who looked like the British secret police would have looked had the Wilson secret police would have looked had the Wilson plot come to fruition. What are they doing there? They're not members of the Osmonds or Donny Osmond fan club our wager. How many posters of the Osmonds have you got on your Garry's dad? Tell me now. There's also a number of older looking smartly dressed young women who seem a bit old to be a bit worldly to be little Jimmy

devotees. Yeah. But here they are shuddering with excitement. I mean they're definitely not anybody's mum at this point and they don't look like big sisters brought along as guardians so it's a bit of a mystery and then in the murky distance it's mostly lads who you would think maybe here because they just applied for top of the pops And this was the one they got tickets for FML poor song except that the overload of Osmond's fans in the crowd suggests this was not ticketed like normal shows So those lads are doing there is something they will just have to explain to their mates in the playground tomorrow morning Yeah, good luck with that.

So Noel is just there to be elbowed aside by little Jimmy Osmond. He's got even less time to do his comedy routines now. Yeah, but also it really shows again the sort of chasm between the British and American styles in this way, because like it's a bit of acting, right? Jimmy is scheduled to turn up and interrupt Noel and Noel has been prepped And is prepared for that to happen, but he still can't act you know and Jimmy Osmond is Fully engaged in the role of interrupting Noel Edmonds and Noel Edmonds He actually looks a bit startled in spite of himself, and then you can just see the kind of simmering rage

Yes of himself and then you can just see the kind of simmering rage. Oh little Jimmy, we should say the hat is a very shiny, very, very large red fedora, I think. When he first bursts in like this, he looks like the Artful Dodger if he was little orphan Annie. Or the kid from the Poseidon adventure. He's like every American kid in everything in thing in this very heightened, absurd way. I mean, he could actually have been one of the uncanny boy gangsters in Bugsy Malone, which is probably being filmed about now. It came out in 1976.

Yeah. Although, I mean, you can tell that he would have insisted on singing in his own weird voice when everyone else got overdubbed with adult singing. And he just really pulled focus with all his mugging. Hey, hey, look who it is, it's Jimmy the Grin. Say Jimmy, if I punch your lights out, will you still be able to see your way home by your teeth? We must also at this point speak of what Noel is wearing. Oh God.

Yes. Which I didn't notice at first and then I went, is that? Oh, oh, blind me. Yes. What is it? Come on. Well the print is quite small. It's a repeat print of some of the little golly characters, much popularised by a certain

jam company. Two golly wogs on his shirt, ladies and gentlemen. Jimmy Crowe still gleaming. I'm surprised the BBC allowed this, given that it's, you know, sneaky advertising for a film. Well, yes. I mean, it's multiple repeated gollywogs, a male and a female. Yeah. Embracing. Yes. In a chaste fashion.

Which is nice. Well, I mean, you know, people did not think of it as a bad thing at the time, so, you know. Repellent and individual is no lad, which is, I can't really pin this one on him. So this shirt, this fucking shirt I ended up looking up and looking into, I believe that that shirt was made by Brutus. Oh, really? Which was an East London company which was set up in the late 60s by a couple of teenagers. Right. They were mostly known for those tight check shirts that were much beloved and much worn by all the mods and all the skins. But they also did a few of this kind of

dagger collar printed shirt. I put my racist shirt on, I put my racist shirt on, jeans on David Dundas. That was a Brutus jeans jingle wasn't it? So I found not this shirt but one almost exactly like the one Noel Evans is wearing. The difference is it's the same colour and it has a very similar print but in place of the two Goleys embracing it has a single one playing guitar and I reckon that either Noel himself or Wardrobe went to get that one and it was sold out or what have you because I'm sure he would have preferred that one because it's more top of the box isn't it? Or maybe not. There was a weird perception filter on Goleys at the time wasn't it because as a kid you saw them at night when you went to bed and you saw them in the morning on the jam jar.

And the truth is most of us white kids never even made the connection, which was camouflaged by familiarity. And when we finally realized what they were actually meant to be, we all went fucking out. But that mostly happened at some point in the 80s rather than in 1974 Do you know when Robertson's actually dropped them as a logo and a mascot? Have a guess. I think it's the 90s, isn't it? Oh my god. Yeah, I thought it was the late 90s Jesus Christ Yeah, it's I mean at this point. We're still living in in the era where there's a total lack of any sense that you have to check or scan anything you say or do in case it's unintentionally, grotesquely inappropriate.

And it's that freedom that our elderly generation is still mourning because the memory of that blissful disregard is more real and precious to them than the feelings of any minority group they don't personally know. But yeah, I guess in 1974 the collective voices of everyone who wasn't white and oblivious were not yet loud enough to say, actually, as well as objecting to people saying we should all be sent home, we also to a lesser extent object to Noel Edmonds' shirt shirt it was like that that had to wait in a queue you know for another day yes as did another issue we

will get a taste of later but hey no spoilers. I ended up getting into the history of the gollywog as well there was a children's book by Florence Kate Upton who don't know what race she was but you know you can you can make a guess in 1895 which featured a rag doll and she apparently made up that name it's a weird portmanteau so golly is a minced oath from as a blasphemy work around to avoid using God as an exclamation right you know like crikey or blimey or gee whiz and that was made into a portmanteau with polywog which is a tadpole and that had been deployed as a maritime insult referring to people

who have not crossed the equator. That's where all the way from the late 19th century to Noel Edmonds shirt, once you start looking into the stuff obviously it's really unpleasant there's a few holdouts. I was surprised actually not to find more of these because there are obviously people who still collect these things and they do it in a spirit of high-dudge and an outrage. I mean it was only earlier this year that that pub in Essex was raided by the police and and it's bare stop for displaying Noel Edmonds in his gollywog shirt behind the bar. Oh the arguments on Facebook over that. Yeah

it's an unpleasant shirt but we are all victims of chronology and without one sound like one of the people from the future looking back at very right on people of today and say I don't know how you can listen to anything that black said he drank cow's milk which will happen he doesn't know what he's doing right and there are worse things that you can criticize Noel Edmonds for. When we met up earlier this summer Al did hand me a copy of this slim hardback volume called the multi-colored Noel Edmonds. A cash-in annual from 1978. Really just a vessel for many many soft focus colour photographs of Noel with his legs crossed in fawn colored flares in a leather armchair next to a decanter of

scotch and Noel in rally drivers gear standing next to a high powered motor car and Noel doing that this is madness kind of face whilst surrounded by perfectly ordinary people and mundane objects and most terrifyingly some pictures of Noel in younger days without a beard which does at least help you understand why the fuck he grew it. Yeah, it's wrong isn't it? Yeah, he looks so much worse without it. And obviously the text is notable for that tone common to all cash in autobiographies of this type. When Noel, or Noel's voice, is incapable of telling us anything, however un without sounding like deranged ego maniac

now this book appears to have been ghost written by someone called Michael cable a one-time daily mail showbiz correspondent and also ghostwriter of the autobiographies daily Thompson and the explorer Colonel John Blashford Snell whose Wikipedia picture makes him look like he's daring you to mispronounce his name. And just in case you were thinking of doing that, yes he does have a private army billeted in the annex. So I don't know the extent to which we can blame Noel for the self aggrandizing

tone, but on the first page of this book, our hero tells us that he almost studied human relations at Surrey University and says, I was proud of the fact that I was one of 28 people to be accepted for the course out of 3,500 applicants. Then he does a humble brag about how many O levels he got. And then at the bottom of what is still the first page, he lets in more light than he realises on the murky workings of his brain, if I may quote briefly. What I liked most about the idea of being a disc jockey was that it seemed like the perfect escape from a life of

mediocrity now aside from that being amusingly ironic in itself think about what he's actually saying that he's not escaped from a life of boredom or stultifying convention or creative frustration. No, escape from a life of mediocrity, you know, like yours. Mediocre fuck. And he goes on, it offered the possibility of fame and glamor without apparently the need for formal qualifications.

The word qualifications there, a clear euphemism for the word talent. But there you've got an admission of his only motivations for being a disc jockey right and that alone you could almost stomach because they're also the initial motivations of most rock stars but the difference is those people also like and create something, music, as opposed to zero. But the most telling line to me, Noel says, what was more, it was one branch of showbiz where you didn't have to get up on stage in front of people. This was very important to me.

I'm not an extrovert. In fact, I'm basically very shy. Now, Gene Wilder once said, whenever you meet a shy person, that's just a mask for their aggression. I'm not sure if that works as an axiom, but I think there's some truth in it here. When the self-proclaimed shy person

also freely admits that their life choices are entirely focused on achieving fame and glamour without having to actually earn either of them and without any byproduct of any worth or value to the rest of the human race. It is so weird. Niall Edmonds is so familiar to us now we almost don't notice how insane the whole phenomenon is, like religion. You know what I mean? Or the royal family. It's just there. You don't think about it. It's incredibly strange. And how I loathe his baffling ease and carefree air as an older man. This is something I've been thinking about. Sometimes I think the only people

who don't start to look completely mad as they get older are the completely mad. I've started to notice lately after a lifetime of piled up stress and trauma and regret, I'm beginning to get that old man look. And I don't mean going grey or the weird eyebrow issues or developing the gammon skin tone. I'm talking about that face, right? That fixed facial expression that emanates from the soul that you see on most men over 50. It's like the look that says, what the fuck just happened? And you just you walk around with it all the time. Just this shell shocked, horrified expression that just hardens and deepens as you get older

and the only old men you don't see it on are the internally peaceful and self-assured most of whom are psychopaths and you don't see it on noel edmund however harrowing his struggles with loyd's bank he's fine he's just sat there all beatific with just the sound of helicopter blades whirring in his damaged brain. That horrible lucky bastard. Yeah. He's a, he's always been somewhat of an iconoclast, hasn't he? You know, what he's up to these days is pissing off the Kiwis.

Yes. He's decamped to a tiny Island. to a tiny island, one of New Zealand's little islands. He's got a wine estate with a restaurant on it now and a pub called The Bugger Inn. But yeah, he's set about annoying all of his neighbours. He refused to allow a cycle trail across his land, even though they pointed out to him that it would be good for his business. The latest accusation is that he's been sacking his staff with no notice. It doesn't sound like they're Noel Edmonds I know. It is very funny that as the Guardian pointed out, somewhat waspishly, he is famously a proponent of the benefits of positive energy, in

quotes, to fight cancer, soothe plants and comfort pets, and has published a book called Positively Happy Cosmic Ways to Change Your Life, has claimed that he is visited by two orbs the size of melons that he believes are his dead parents. And he says he is busy making a difference in this place, which I'm not going to attempt to pronounce out of respect. Meanwhile, Alinda Crisp, a contractor to the local council, visited River Haven with a colleague to discuss the possibility of Edmonds allowing a cycle trail backed by the council and central government to pass through his land rather than alongside a

highway. Crisp said she told Edmonds the cycle trail would bring thousands of cyclists to his business every year, but Edmonds objected. He started saying how dangerous it was, there had been no consultation with the community, everyone was up in arms, he accused us of wasting rate payer money when businesses in Matuaika are going under. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. He stood up and pointed at us both, you two need your heads cut off and your brains replaced. All hell's gonna break loose, right? It's the right there that really makes me... And while you still have this attitude, you are not welcome here.

Don't even think about having a coffee, having a slice. You are our enemies. Good Lord. The viewers of Noel's HQ will remember this tone very well. Yeah. Is he a sovereign citizen now as well? In his helicopter? I'm not flying it, I'm travelling. Apparently Edmunds was given a right to reply and he said,

My quote for publication borrowed from hundreds of visitors to River Haven last weekend. Utter bollocks. Have a great day. Not the only retired millionaire to be regularly visited by two orbs the size of melons. But usually their dead parents will be the last thing they're thinking of at the time. Edmund, in his It's Not At All Racist It's Just A Happy Memory From Childhood shirt, outreduces the glitter band before being interrupted by Utah's smallest pimp, Jimmy Osmond, who wants to stick on two of his friends. Edmund patiently explains the regulations of the show, which were set down by Johnny

Stewart ten years ago, but the little homunculus shuts him down by pointing out that it's none other than Donny and Marie Osmond, with I'm leaving it all up to you. Formed in George Osmond's bollocks in Ogden, Utah between 1957 and 1959, Donny and Marie Osmond have already had solo success in the UK, the former scoring three number one hits in the UK with Puppy Love in 1972 and the 12th of Never and Young Love in 1973 and the latter getting to number two in December of 1973 held off number one by I Love You Love Me Love by Gad. Earlier this year Donny was drafted in to record this tune as his next single but disaster after disaster struck. Firstly, his brain started sending

messages to his testicles to produce more hormones. The Osmond testes started to swell and dark, coarse, curly hair started to form around them. Even worse, his voice broke and he couldn't hit the high notes that this song, a cover of the 1957 Doo Wop single recorded by Don Harris and Dewey Terry that was taken to number one in America by Dale and Grace in 1963, required. Luckily, Little Jimmy wasn't in the studio, but Marie was, and she filled in on harmony and lo, Donnie and Marie became a thing. It entered the charts of Fortnite ago at number 33, jumped 12 places to number 21 and this

week it's jumped another 7 places to number 14 and here they are on the stage. But chaps, before we go any further, we need to point out that the BB so-called C has once again lied to the sheep-like people of Britain. This episode and the other Osmond shows, they're supposed to be live, right? Well, wrong actually. Front page headline Daily Mirror two days ago,anned! While the rest of the family put on a TV show. Little Jimmy Osmond settles down in front of a TV set to sing along with himself. The

Weenie Boppers idol became the stay at home Osmond last night while the rest of his famous family had all the fun. 11-year-old Jimmy should have appeared live on BBC television with his five brothers, but a BBC spokesman explained, children aged 12 and under are not allowed to appear live after 4.30pm, so Jimmy's contribution was recorded. The BBC are screening a live half hour show each night this week and they will have to record Jimmy separately each afternoon. So the number of fans invited to the concerts have been doubled from 3,000 to 6,000.

The extra 3,000 fans weren't that difficult to come by, said the BBC. And that, Pop Craze youngsters, is why you never saw Lena Zavaroni on Question Time. Yeah, that's mad, isn't it? What we're seeing now is not live. It's been pre-recorded in the afternoon and they've got 3, 3000 more fans in for this one performance. Oh my god television deploying fakery and to create a certain picture that couldn't have existed in real time. It's actually telling me that when you get fly on the wall footage of someone in an office having a phone conversation they're not really talking to somebody on the other end of the

phone. Yeah and it's not really a fly either. I heard also that sometimes when people are being interviewed and the interviewer is nodding, listening to them, they're not even nodding at that. It's something completely different. Oh no, I'm not listening to this. But anyway, little Jimmy. How old is little Jimmy at this point? Well, according to the Daily Mirror, Jimmy Osmond goes all the way up to 11.

That little data point has made me feel strangely sad and I don't really know why. Well, when we've discussed Jimmy Osmond before, Taylor and David were just horrible to him, man. When we did Long Haired Love from Liverpool, he was kind of like left, kicked to death and dumped into a fire plate. There me and David were all to him in that segment which you introduced with the words this cunt. True. Very true. I know. But I'm going to turn that around now because seeing Jimmy Osmond absolutely desecrating

the sacred artifacts of rock and roll reminded me that I fucking love seeing kids pretending to be pop stars. Not in a mini pops way, you understand, but when they just bellow it out and throw themselves about and just basically expose the stupidity of rock. Yeah. I believe that performance is on a par with the young lad in the Kelly family. Yes. Have you ever seen him performing a song called, I ain't going to pee pee my bed tonight? Yes. It's fucking great isn't it? Video playlist. That's all I'm

gonna say about Jimmy Osmond. Good on you lad. It does wring your head out a little bit to see him go. I think he does exemplify that eeriness of child stars. Yes. Like innocence being commodified in real time and just going straight into the golden goose oven of it. Like you can't, this is the point, it's a paradox as soon as you commodify and codify innocence, you have destroyed it. And he seems to be kind of busting through that quite happily for the time being, but I guess there's a certain tension about it where it's like, oh, what what's gonna happen? Oh, fuck it all. If you were that age and your older brothers and sisters were in abandon and said oh come on

do you want to go on and have a go? You fucking yeah! Give me that Mike, give me that fucking Elvis costume I'll show you how it's done. Yeah. Anyway it's Donny and Marie in matching jackets and enormous fucking am tabs on a big plinth which makes them look well limited edition from the Franklin Mint doesn't it I definitely have that on the top of my telly if it wasn't a flat screen yeah singing I'm leaving it all up to you which is a cover but I was very disappointed that it's not a cover of the John Cale song of almost the same name which is absolutely crying out for a Donnie and Marie cover.

If you don't know it, listener, go and play it and imagine how brilliant that would be, crooning it into each other's faces. I would pay to hear that even more than I would pay to not hear this. Apparently it also sounds like Canyons of Your Mind by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band but I cannot speak to that myself. It does actually, yeah. But very strangely, the single of this, let me get into this, the single of this appears to have brackets around the word all in I'm leaving it all up to you. The one word which doesn't appear in the John Cale title. And even more strangely, the Donnie and Marie album, which includes this song, is also called I'm Leaving It All Up To You,

but it's just written normally. Whereas the single is I'm Leaving, apostrophe, it, open brackets, all, closed brackets, up to you. Which is not neat. But I kind of like it because it shows that in those days, even if you were the most commercial and cautious artist imaginable, there was still nobody there to step in and say,

no, that title's too cumbersome, too confusing, cut it down. And also, because it's always a sick thrill to see a title featuring words in parentheses in the middle of the title, right? We all know songs with words in parentheses at the end of the title or even at the start of the title. I'm talking about brackets in the middle of the title. And after wasting an hour Googling, I could only come up with two other songs which had parentheses in the middle of the song title.

Stevie Ray Vaughan had a song called The Things that I used to do which is so monumentally pointless. It reads like a suggestion from one of those AI grammar programs that tells you to cut out unnecessary words. And the other is by One True Voice, the strangely named winners of IEV's 2002 series pop stars, The Rivals, who put out a single called Shakespeare's brackets, way with words.

Now can that have been a joke? It's an open question. A band who exists as a marketing exercise created by committee, putting out a single with a title so confusing, you couldn't walk into a record shop and ask for it. Right? I'm gonna go, co-written by Rick Astley as well, that song,

who had explicitly stated that he was never gonna let us down Fucking liar. Yeah, I listened to that record too But I can't comment on it because it had no distinguishing features now panel as people of the future We know that this week is pretty much the last hurrah of the Osmonds over here for many reasons. I mean, Donny's just turned 16 and has been allowed to date, but hasn't dated any British girls like he promised in all their magazines. The Cairns are starting to get married off, the pieces on the board of pop are moving about, and someone in a potato shed in Scotland has started to brew a bootleg Osmonds, but I contend here's another additional factor. Donny is now cavorting with a girl, even if it's his own sister.

So as I always do, I check the Wikipedia page for the Osmonds and I read the whole thing at least once. And I feel like there's such an enigma that it's nice to have it just kind of laid out for you straight you know so I'll just this is what it says the Osmonds were a family singing group out of Utah, 11 brothers and one quarter sister Meryl, Wayne, Donny, Jimmy, Johnny, Howell, Beryl, Duane, Don'twayne, Earl, Timmy, Rorschach, Ramel, Manon, Negan, Manimal, Rothko, Colonel, Captain, Marlon, Harlan, Hartnell, Hamill, Hubbell, and Grumpy Cat. Together, they had a range of 29 octaves, were 608 years old and made a total of $11 billion

in record sales, although nobody knows if that's in today's money or what. They were a successful synthesis of the Waltons, the Strokes and Hanna Barbera's Scooby's All-Star Laugh Olympics and created an influential sound that evoked Grammar's famous Thanksgiving ambrosia salad, even for those outside of American culture who don't know what that is. They continue to tour to this day in various combinations under different names including those Osmonds, some Osmonds, Hey Hey It's the Osmonds, Them Osmonds, The Walking Osmonds, The Book of Carol and Jay and Nathan. The youngest brother Jimmy enjoys modest success as sound-clowned rapper Little Little Jim having had an epiphany after accidentally drinking a

whole quart of extra strong strawberry cough syrup. That's literally the whole Wikipedia page for the Osmonds. There is an actual section on their actual Wikipedia page called 21st century obscurity, which is a decimal phrase, but probably a blessing. It has to be restated chaps. At this point in time, Marie Osmond is still 14 years old. Yeah. What the fuck.

And has been described in Melody Maker this month as the nicest slice of jailbait seen in years. Oh, different times. But, oh, man, she must be working a very glamorous paper round at the moment. The thing is, this is a creepy disgrace because if you ask me to guess how old she was, I wouldn't have said 14, but I also wouldn't have said 16 or 18 or 20 or 25. I would have said an Elfin 32. There's something really wrong about that. Like, it's not as disturbing as a 14 year old girl being ultra sexualized.

But the sight of a 14 year old girl being ultra adultized is a bit strange, too. Because she's not done up as a granny or Mrs. Mop. She's done up as a kind of sophisticated, glamorous 30-year-old woman. You might meet her to party on a yacht or in a high-powered public relations firm in the city. Do you know what I mean? Which is weirder than a sort of dodgy thing like Vanessa Paradis doing Jola Taxi Which is a great record but a dubious presentation

Because at least that looks like a child Because this is like being introduced to a grown-up lady like a professional woman and so you can't help you So you go oh and how do you do and then someone says yeah, that's my daughter. She's 14. Yeah how do you do? And then someone says, yeah, that's my daughter. She's 14. Well, it's partly because she's got that very assured professionalism, which you don't expect in a 14 year old. You expect a 14 year old to be more like little Jimmy, you know, still capering about really, and just looking a bit more sullen about it, I suppose. But yeah, it's also, I mean, people did used to age differently. And it does kind of remind you of that. And it's a very extreme example of, you know, like, I mean, you get that

now it's kind of come full circle where you'll get young women layering on the makeup in the way that they do and looking like an older woman trying to look younger. Yeah. And you know, it's like, older woman trying to look younger. Yeah. And you know, it's like, well, what are you doing? But yeah, it's one of the many unsettling things about this episode and about the Osmond.

It's suspicious too, because why would you dress a child up like that in the first place? Like in that white suit, like Mick Jagger in 1969, or Nico in the Exploding Plastic Inevitable. Yeah. No wonder she ended up making

creepy human dolls Hmm who she reminds me of is Priscilla Presley Yeah, yeah, who looked like that at that age when she was 14 as well as boys I think Priscilla's the template for this but fucking up She gets massive respect from me for being able to keep a straight face while Thousands of girls our own fucking age are absolutely pissing their knickers in front of her over a gormless older brother. Yeah. I mean she's been cleverly slotted into the country mold and she's turned this song towards

the audience that lapped up paper roses. Every time he grandpa took me into the pubs that he went to round about this time you know both this and paper roses were in constant rotation on the jukebox So whenever I hear either of those songs I immediately start thinking of rows of optics and thick crystal ashtrays and all those brilliant Adulterated things a child isn't supposed to say unless they're on holiday and in the children's room of a pub. So yeah this gets a bit of a pass from me but only a little bit. Yeah it's a country-inflected doo-wop which is in itself quite interesting but the whole performance is not especially interesting because it's so neat and forgettable I guess. Well it just goes round and round in a circle, doesn't it? Yeah. It's like your first Hornby set

Just here's a circle and just watch the thing go round and round around and that's it And and just sway to and fro in a in a soothing rhythmic way, but it is like it's very slight Isn't it's very slight It's a song without any sidings or little models of men digging up by the tracks. No, and also it doesn't have an interlude or anything in the middle, which is what you want in a karaoke song. Yes. And also it's funny how they have to cram the words into the lines, like packets of

drugs into the secret compartment of a suitcase. And also, obviously, it's weird. It's a brother and sister singing to each other about a relationship that they're in. But you have to assume, for the sake of argument and sanity, that it's two separate relationships going wrong in the same way simultaneously and they're just sympathising. Yeah. Maybe if you can get it in your head that they're arguing about who's gonna have the top bunk bed, maybe you can work around that but yeah it's an odd choice of a song isn't it for a brother and sister? I feel like with the Osmonds everything about them is odd and so it's normal that it's odd. The

Osmonds if you will? Quite so, I'm not sure that I shall actually. Okay. Points. I'll leave it all up to you Sarah. No. You decide what you're gonna do. According to Wikipedia though that is one of the names that they go by these days to right and that's their death metal incarnation and nobody knows who they are. The odd ones. How enigmatic. I've got to say the very shiny Morsatin ofin, of course, and the very, very blindingly white suit that we have already had a glimpse of and now we're seeing it on Marie as well, and she looks great in it. She's got a giant kind of fake corsage, like a clown flower, to correspond to Donny's massive, abundant square and this really the sight of them gave me and the sound of the screams throughout really reminded me of the prom scene in Carrie.

Yeah. That's exactly what Tommy Ross wears on his fateful final night. And if you go back and watch that and the screams just as she's kind of heading out into the night, the whole school is on fire and you just see her heading out into the night and the doors banging behind her and yeah that's what the screams are and I went oh that's where I've heard this before it's a vengeful inferno happening all over again considering the theater stuff with members of the Osmond fan club and the Donny Osmond fan club they're remarkably restrained throughout this performance, don't you think?

I mean, there's only one big scream throughout the whole performance near the end, and we're going to work out why in a bit. Do you think it's because Marie's there casting a stern gaze over what you're screaming over my brother for? Or do you think that they've been told beforehand by Robin Nash, you know, don't let yourself down, don't let your let yourself down don't let your family down don't let your school down be calm anything else to say i wanted to say more about the song but yes you can't because it makes itself almost undetectable it's like steam it's like it's there but it's somehow not quite there and then it's not there at all and it might as well never have

existed almost like the song Shakespeare's brackets way with words by one true voice have you ever heard that I mean neither I mean really looking at this you've got to say that Marie Osmond is the coolest one out of the whole family oh yeah yeah me she just ghosts in every now and then and just, you know, I know what's going on. I'm a proper woman of the seventies. She was the original Sandy in Greece, wasn't she? She was gonna be cast as Sandy

in the movie version of Greece, but she didn't want to dress up like a slag at the end for want of a better word. Yeah. And smoke a fag. She's too busy doing da da sound poetry. Yes. I don't mind Marie Osmond, I've got to say.

So the following week, I'm living it all up to you, sword! Nine places to number five and two weeks later it got to number two, held off the summit of Mount Pop by a single we're going to hear later. Emboldened by its success, they put out the follow-up, Morning Side of the Mountain, which got to number five in January of 1975, and they'd have two more hits with Make the World Go Away and Deep Purple, by which time they were drafted in as co-hosts for a week on ABC's daytime talk show The Mike Douglas Show, which so impressed the station that they were offered a Friday evening variety show which ran for three series called Donnie and Marie, with the rest of the Osmonds

relegated to the Web Twins and Chris Andrews role. That's my first TV memory by the way the Donnie and Marie show. Really? Yeah I've got a really clear memory of seeing it on TV in the first house I ever lived in and saying to my mum you know what is this why is it you screaming it's getting on me tits. And on that note, Popcraze youngsters, we're going to load a couple of neurofens into a shotgun and discharge them directly into our mouths and then come back tomorrow for the next part of this episode atop of the Pops. And if you think what you've heard so far is a bit mental. Just you fucking wait. So on behalf of

Sarah B and Taylor Parks this is Al Needham advising you to stay pop crazed. Chart music.