Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - Chart Music #75 (Pt 4): 15.8.74 – Could YOU Be Donny’s Bride?

Episode Date: December 13, 2024

Sarah Bee, Taylor Parkes and Al Needham conclude their investigation into this episode of Top Of The Pops, and are left shaking their heads at the success of the Bay City Rollers. The Osmonds take their final stand against the Tartan Gimmicks, the grown-ups enter the room for a properly decent No.1, and then it gets all Sunday Night At The London Palladium. RUN IN THE SUN HAVING FUN, POP-CRAZED YOUNGSTERS!Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Bluesky | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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What do you like listening to? Erm... Chart music. LAUGHTER Chart music. MUSIC PLAYS It's Thursday night. It's about nine minutes to eight. It's August the 15th 1974 and the streets are filled with osment. They're sinking their fangs into our Thursday evening fizzy pop treat. They're making the maidens of the Isles pants all of a piss.

And they're having the nerve to get in the way of Noel Edmonds and his comedy introductions that usually sets the nation rolling in the aisles clutching its ribs. Hey up you pop craze youngsters and welcome to the thrilling denouement of episode 75 of Sharp Music. I'm your host Al Needham advising you to sit back and listen to me and my colleagues, Taylor Parks and Sarah B. As we take the final blasts of this astonishing episode, full in the face. Squeal! That's right. You know, that sweet dream's on Honey Honey.

As you can tell, we're working live. I love you too. As you can tell, we're working live every day this week at the BBC studios at Shepherd's Bush, and it's really amazing, it's amazing the effect that live television has Not only upon the audience, but you know upon the artists as well That's true, it's very true Like for example, the next group, Bay City Rollers, have broken with their holiday to be with us And two of them flew back from Jamaica yesterday And two arrived only this morning

And here they are with Summer Love Sensation! The screams go into overdrive as we're confronted with Meryl, Donny and Alan Osmond. And finally we get a long lingering sweep of the balcony and a sort of girls going off on one with an old bloke in a blazer half-heartedly raising a hand in an attempt to quell the lust. Sarah, is that your Mr. Mackay lookalike? Yes, actually looking at him again, he looks like a cross between Mackay and Mr. Baraclough.

He's like an evil Mr. Baraclough. As seen in the best surviving Ace of Wands story Peacock Pie. Taylor do you think that bloke could well be that poor commissioner who was set upon by Tommy Vance in the BBC car park a couple of years previously after he parked in a space reserve for FA compundits and was left according to news reports in a collapsed state. Yeah I don't think so I don't think they would let him inside the building. Thing is you can't tell how old he is either because obviously people age differently then partly because they were on a steady diet of lead fumes but and also because they didn't realise that you don't have to

be middle-aged if you don't want to be. But he could be anything between 40 and 80. And I believe, panel, that now is the time to discuss the most important and interesting component of the Osmonds, their fans. It goes without saying that this week's Radio Times is joined in on the Osmond splurge and yes Donny is on the cover but only on a rosette worn by the 15 year old Karen Stubbs of acne under the headline, She's Donny's Fan. Inside that magazine next to a massive photo of Karen in her bedroom which is absolutely osman's up to Ross with her mum and dad is the following article. Karen Stubbs who is just 15 screamed and screamed at her last Osmans concert. Her mother sitting beside her said pack it in or you'll burst

something in your throat and you'll have to go to hospital. The last time Karen counted, she had 2,362 pictures of her beloved Osmonds in her home in Hackney and there's a huge life-size poster of Donnie looking sadly down at her from the ceiling. I'm all in favour of the Osmonds, says Karen's mother, Mrs Rita Stubbs. She used to be really painfully shy. The teachers said they were worried about her because it was all building up inside her.

She never talked to any of the other kids. But since the Osmonds, she's got them to talk about, see, and she's got ever such a lot of friends. I'd rather give her a pound for a record than 50p to go down to the pub with. She's picked the right group. I wouldn't have been behind her if it was some of the things you see on television. Karen's parents had hoped to take her to Utah for a special holiday this year. Well, Dad's a cowboy fan. He always watches the Westerns of course on Thursdays

He has to come up here to watch the black and white Karen's got the color on downstairs for top of the pops fucking hell put your foot down dad Jesus I'd have to go to fucking Tony Bones's ass this girl gets the run of the color telly man not fair They've had to postpone going to Utah probably until next year because their other daughter is getting married this year I don't mind really said Karen. I Understand that comes first No, you don't Karen your older sister is a selfish cow and you're gonna hold it against her for the rest of your life. Karen said she's not a bit interested in boyfriends.

She doesn't even pretend that her favourite Osmond, Donny, is her boyfriend. I haven't got a brother really so I pretend that Donny is my brother. My perfect brother. So let's talk about the fact that what are they screaming at? It's hard to say in it. It's complicated. It must be. Well, like it's something that is a matter of serious study. All the psychologists and anthropologists who've got into this still can't completely pinpoint it because it's been a neglected area along with every other aspect of women's lives. But you know, it seems really simple, which is, you know, why it's been so what's so easily to dismiss. But yeah, there's more stuff going on and smarter people than us have not figured it out yet. So, you know,

it's obviously partly an expression of joy and excitement, but also it's a collective, it's a contagious experience. So I read this article called Why Fangirls Scream in the Atlantic by Caitlin Tiffany, who's also written a book about Fangirls. Why is Jay so kissable? There is a story in there about a girl who went to see Justin Bieber in his pump, if he had a pump, and was not into Justin Bieber at all, and she went along with her little sister or something, and found herself screaming because of the heady atmosphere or because she didn't know why, and nobody

can tell her. That article also opens with the story of a girl who slightly collapsed her own lungs from screaming. So it's a dangerous activity. And having sex with Brian Eno. Yeah. Isn't most of it just the life is shit and people are unfulfilled? This is the same reason why young lads fight all the time. It's just literally just something to do. I mean, it's yeah, we are not here for a long time. And why would you not run headlong into these peak experiences if you can, you know?

Yeah, reminds me the comedian Norm McDonald said that at one stage he had a bit of a gambling problem. And he spoke to a therapist about it. And he said, Yeah, I go out, I gamble, I do this, I do that. And the therapist came back the next week and said, I go out I gamble I do this I do that and the therapist came back the next week and said it seems to me that you're doing this gambling to blot out everything else in your life so that you don't have to think about it and he said but isn't that why everyone does everything and the therapist was stumped. At the kind of brain chemistry level you are talking about dopamine and serotonin aren't you, which are basically the things that make life worth living.

So you know, although you know there is going to be some cortisol in the mix with this sort of situation I think. When you look at the shots of the girls that are dotted throughout this incredibly endlessly weird episode. They don't look entirely happy. There's an element of stress, there's an element of sort of melancholy in the faces. It's really, I was having to look away, it's a little bit difficult to look at. Because they know that they can't have them. Yeah. And this is as close as it's gonna get. Yeah, it's upsetting. Like this is why they are studying the screaming of humans in a pleasurable context as opposed to most animals.

It means, oh shit, I'm about to get eaten. Everyone needs an excuse to go mental. You go fucking mental otherwise. And if you're a girl of that age and you're being told by your peers and the media and your own hormones that you're allowed to go mental over some lads on a stage, well, you're being told by your peers and the media and your own hormones that you're allowed to go mangle over some lads on a stage. Well, you're going to be all in on it, aren't you? I mean, to my mind, there is no difference between these girls here and them blokes in fan zones for England games who have bought two pints for the express purpose of chucking

them both up in the air when England score for the cameras. There goes 15 quid. Here's your moment your moment when this happens you can do that yeah Mckay Barrowclough you can see the irritation in him kind of wading through stop it stop it now just stop it these girls are sort of being allowed to express this animalistic behavior to a point but they're being very much reigned in with an attitude of you get to do this now and then you have to calm down and shut up for the rest of your life. Yeah that's another thing Sarah it's pretty much established now that things like this going to see boy bands is one of the few outlets that

girls have to just be a load of girls together and get rowdy Yeah, given that there's not that many spots on semi-scripted reality television and You have to put a lot of work in to get into them anyway like a lot of hours in the gym Yeah, but also it's people screaming for something that they don't have and like 10 years previously If you're screaming at the Beatles, that vision ahead of you was like a vision of how life could be and maybe would be. And I think that's kind of gone now. And it's just literally people screaming at a disappearing vision of deliverance and happiness

that's just kind of fading as it heads for the horizon. It's just purely like people have this idea, oh they're American, they're rich, it's nice, you know, it's just about dreams of deliverance and dissatisfaction because they're not fucking screaming at like Jay Osmond's gorgeousness, really are they, let's face it. I mean when I used to be a male stripper I used to get fucking absolutely screamed at like fuck and even then you know I kind of knew hang on they're not doing that because I'm so fucking gorgeous and they all want to shag me it's just they've been allowed to. Yeah that's another thing altogether isn't it that's a sort of predatory kind of this year

I've never been to a male strip show maybe I should um but um. You've never been to a mael strip show, maybe I should. You've never been to you either have you Sarah? I should get on that. I think it's partly the upending of the power dynamic. Yeah, definitely. I mean, most of my experience of this is from watching the full Monty, you know, the bit at the beginning where the men are hiding backstage and going, Jesus Christ, look at them all out there. Yeah, being on the receiving end of that must be quite a lot. Meryl, Donny and Alan tell us that the nature of this live episode is so irrepressible that two members of the next act have broken off their holiday in Jamaica

just to be here tonight. I can't believe they missed their chance there for the three of them to do a quick fire gag Yeah, surely two of them flew back from Jamaica this morning of their own accord No, the West Indies Kelly Monteith let them down Disgrace now all the could have said Jamaica. No their manager did I don't get it Stop that. It's the Bay City Rollers and Summer Love Sensation. We've covered the tot and terrors of Tams Tatty Shed many a time and oft on Chart Music and this single, their sixth, is the follow up to Shang-a-Lang which got to number two in May, held off the summit of Chart Nevis by Sugar Baby Love by

the Rubettes. It'll be the third cut from their debut LP, Rollin', which will come out in October, and has been written, as is the style at this point in their career, i.e. the successful bit by Phil Coulter and Bill Martin. It's also been recorded, as is also the style, by session musicians with Les McEwan slapping his vocals over the top. It entered the chart three weeks ago at number 40, then soared 23 places to number 17, and this week it's nipped up one place from number five to number four. And here they are performing to their natural audience, even though that audience is not there for them.

And it shows, doesn't it? Yeah, they see them rolling. They hate them. These poor bastards though. Even on the upswing, they're still not quite understanding that in a couple of years time, they're gonna be like Hawke-Trois girl in 2026. Except at least the self-advertisement for which she will be half remembered

might do some small measure of good in the future. Unlike being an ex-roller in the late 70s. Or it's all worse, still being in the rollers in the late 70s or early 80s. It's a very short hop from summer love sensation on top of the pops to staggering around a pebble dash housing estate under a gunmetal grey Glaswegian sky, swigging a half and half vodka and tango from an empty cottage cheese tub. You don't even have to change the haircut. Just roll on, roll off. But at the moment, fucking hell, we're watching the page of history turning before our eyes,

aren't we? It's like Paul von Hindenburg saying, now here's someone who's got a lot to say about where the world's heading. So let's sit back and listen to the sound of Adolf Hitler. It's just like... Yeah. The thing is, if you were to show the youth of today, the Osmonds and the Basity Rollers in this episode, and you told them that one band was going to drive the other one right into the sea. Would they know which one was which?

You know the slick obvious boy band or the traditional band who look like they've done a trolley dash through Oxfam. It's real kind of alternate timeline stuff isn't it? Except we're in this one, the one that doesn't make any sense. Yes, but yeah, Derek the drummer and Woody the gormless looking one, who was actually the most competent muso in the band, they were the lucky lads who got to spend time in Jamaica with their highly protective manager. And according to Les McEwen, something's definitely happened out there, which didn't involve having to tell the locals that they actually liked cricket. At the same time, Alan the Old One and Eric

the Lush one are staying at a health farm and Les has been in the south of France with his parents but when the call from Top of the Pops came, Tam cancelled everything and dragged them all to Shepherd's Bush, partly because they're not showing any film clips due to the nature of this episode but mainly because he was as desperate to meet the Osmonds' parents as Brian Epstein was to meet Colonel Tom Parker in 1964. I mean let's remember that Tam was never above leeching off the success of other acts, because earlier this year when Remember was about to come out, which was the make or break single for the Rollers, he managed to get hold of the mailing list of the UK David Cassidy fan club and he sent out 10,000 postcards of the Rollers himself and that essentially

got the single into the charts. But anyway, what has been said between these three managerial titans has clearly rubbed off on the rollers because from here on in they'll be playing up this straight edge image with no smoking, always being seen at press conferences drinking milk and keeping well away from the lasses as they consider their fans to be their mass collective girlfriends. But having said that, Tam was always keen to keep them away from the women he used to tell them that all women were smelly fish and they were much better off knocking around with the men who always seemed to circle the band

and Tam so yeah my nicker selling work colleague was completely right it's not a great record is it no it No, it's not. It's fucking Langer Shang, isn't it? Yeah, it's one of their best and it's not a great record. No. I quite like the almost Burundi drum sound. Yes. Foreshadowing a musical movement that would follow in an insanely small number of years in the grand scheme of things, considering they look like two different eras of Earth's development. Yes. And I also like that on the bass drum skin it

says bass city rollers and there's a picture of a square. Yes. Which is surely not a joke and yet so obviously self-insulting it's quite hard to fathom. As far as the sound goes it it is Boggs standard 1974. The drums that go... And the guitars that eventually go... I mean, essentially, the Basie T rollers are shaved wambles, aren't they? Shaved malnourished wambles. Yeah, this is another song in this episode that is very basic but not in a good way.

It's very safe and very inoffensive and it's sort of got a whiff of glam but it's very very watered down. It's like if glam were a family sized block of mild cheddar this would be a Dairy Lee triangle. It's like still retaining its form within the protective silver foil, but clearly having come off worse from an altercation with an apple in the lunchbox of pop. No, no, I don't know what the apple denotes here. Shut up.

This is so inoffensive that it offends me. It's just such a joyless contrivance. And also it's another faux Christmas song with the chimes, but also with the slady slide into the chorus that doesn't go anywhere. It's like so here it isn't. Because at the time they were saying that the introduction of the bells was a you know a great innovation that no one had done before and I immediately put the hand to the chin and went oh yeah Roy, Roy Wood. And yes, run, sun, fun, but no guns because we're not America. Yeah.

No. They're not going to be shooting a partridge. No. Or any of the fans in the forehead just yet. I don't get the appeal at all. And I have tried. Oh, Sarah, you were going to explain everything to me. No, no, go on. go on, you carry on. You're a girl though, they're lush aren't they? Who is the bassist?

Eric I believe. That's Eric, yes. The good looking one. He is clearly the most best lookingist, but also the worst at lip syncing. I was really enjoying how bad it is, it's like he's in church, and just mumbling along with a hymn that he doesn't know. Like John Redwood doing the Welsh national anthem. church, mumbling along with a hymn that he doesn't know. Like John Redwood doing the Welsh national anthem.

Believe me, I have tried to transform myself into the brain of a puberty ravaged girl of the 70s, who's probably forced to wear half a pillow in her already uncomfortable polyester pants when she's on her period, and obliged to sit in a special high chair at the back of class so that everyone knows. Oh what? They're all gonna laugh at you! They're all gonna laugh at you! Anyway, I can't get Carrie out of my head, can't help it.

Anyway, I have done my best. Sarah, Carrie doesn't live here anymore. That's what you want to say to your brain. Anyway, I remain bemused. Well, luckily for you, Sarah, you've got some men here. We'll sort it out for you. Oh, come on then. on then yeah please please do. Are they being seen as the bad boys? You know the Rolling Stones to the Osmonds Beatles, the E17 to the Osmonds take that. Yeah I mean

because that does seem like the sort of process. Man talking Sarah. Because while Jay Osmond's offering to take you home to sample mom's home cooking, you know, all you're going to get off Les McHughan is a bite of his battered sausage before he tries to finger you behind the chip shop. I would think that by contrast that is the appeal. They are, they're such a fucking shambles. They're not very sexy shambles. They just kind of look like they don't know what they're doing really.

And also that they have had to try to wash their own clothes and have put everything on, you know, boil. It's like cricket whites spitefully shrunk in a hot wash by, you know, the long-suffering girlfriend of someone who plays cricket. Do you know how long the cricket season is? It just goes on and on and on. It's like, you know, it's like April to like October. It's insane. Anyway, yeah. One word Sarah, biotechs. Okay, here's another theory, right? We've spoken before about the transatlantic appeal of the Osmonds and how they appeared to the girls of 1974 like

GIs must have appeared to their aunties during the war. But to my mind at this time as a six-year-old lad, Scotland was as much of a foreign country as America. You know, all I knew about the place was through the comics I read. So, as far as I knew, all Scottish people were either massively hairy blokes in vests and kilts throwing cabers at each other's heads, or they'd be sitting there in a tin bucket. Yeah.

The Scotification of the 1970s has truly begun this summer. You know, obviously we had the World Cup a few weeks ago and Rod Stewart has just put out the LP Smiler with a cover that is taunt and up to fuck with a big traditional broach with Rod's face on it. So yeah, the shock of the new spelt N-O-O, if you will. I don't know how Scottish people feel about the Bay City Rollers these days. They don't seem like they're really flying the flag in any meaningful way, do they?

No, it's not the first thing you hear from Scottish people when you're introduced to them. I'm sure that you get pretty short shrift if you brought them up. The same length of shrift that you get from me living as I do in East 17. Yes. As for the performance, well, it's a summer love shit show, isn't it? Because instead of being given the opportunity to take command of the stage in a naked display of the power of rock, the band have been plonked onto two platforms, a small black one for the drummer and a long thin white one for the band and Les McEwen is just tottering about in a horrible dirty cream pair of

Absolute blocker boots which causes him to nearly go over the edge a couple of times fucking now Blocker boots blocker boots block block blocker boots. They're in fashion today block block blocker boots they're in fashion today yeah not so much glam as glum yes and it's just it's so painful the the role of songs what they always remind me of is the songs by fictional groups in 70s films about the pop business where yes they're supposed to be the biggest band in the world but the records sound like outtakes from bang on a drum the play school even when you watch a film that's quite good like Stardust that's always the weak link right that is supposedly Beatles tier international rock sensation are singing these feeble written to order songs that some hired Johnny up to bang out in a month.

And so the most important aspect of the scenario is unconvincing. It's the same as whenever you see paintings in TV shows, right, like if the plot involves an old master or a valuable work of art. And of course the prop has to be painted by some BBC staffer in an afternoon so when you actually see it like you know the fall of Madonna with the big boobies or whatever it is

yeah this masterpiece it's like so in nobody would ever even put a frame around unless it was to hang up in a cafe with a sign saying local artist 15 pound, you know, but because it's not possible to create anything realistically good in the circumstances, right? In fact, what that is, it's the flip mirror image of how an old television drama and stuff, you see like local church hall amateur dramatics plays and pantomimes, and they're always decked out

in professional standard theatrical costumes and set dressed with authentic furniture and fittings because that's all that the TV program makers have access to. And at that time it was far easier for them to get hold of that stuff than the kind of patched together homemade crap that you would actually have got at the Coronation Street production of an inspector calls or whatever you know I mean that's what the role is always sound like and then you realize why it's because it's the same class of songwriter writing their songs as writing the songs for the band kipper yeah Yeah, so I was waiting for Kipper to turn up

and there they are. Yeah, well, bad accident in Pete Walker's Code Before Midnight, lead singer played by Ducky Desk. Explain Kipper to the pop craze youngsters who don't know. It's the band that Robin Asquith is drumming for. Yes. Hidden Confessions of a Pop Performer. Sounds sort of like early Oasis, you know what I mean?

Yes. And then when the rollers are not doing those songs they're doing covers of old songs which have been hand picked to still work when stripped to their bare minimum level of musical interest because that's all that was going to be left once the rollers had rolled over them all musically controlled by people who would nowadays be making that tinkly non-descript music that's available free with a subscription to use on your YouTube videos of that holiday in London. Do you know what I mean? Or your dog running around in the park. It's just, yeah, that's what's there now. This is what was there then. People screamed at it.

I know. Unbeknownst to us at the time culture and martin are already getting ready to fuck off because they've had enough of the band having the absolute nerve to want to write and perform their own songs and even play on them fucking hell some people they could but you watch this and you just think I can't imagine the BBC giving this lot six nights of television can you? Not really. That's a moot point really because ITV are gonna swoop right in and take ownership of the rollers very soon. I know that 1975 was the actual big bang year for the rollers but you look at this even

in its shambolicness and you just think fucking out this is as good as it's gonna get for you isn't it you know they've just come off a UK tour where they went from the likes of Samantha's disco in Sheffield and Bath rugby club at the beginning to playing a free gig in a parking hollow that attracted 20,000 kids they're gonna be playing the rainbow pretty soon. But more importantly, here we see them being allowed to roam about in their natural domain

without being ripped to fuck by the audience. I mean, there is the odd yelp, but none of the hysteria we're gonna see over the next year of the Osmonds fan club said, don't cheer at these. This audience is not there for them, I guess. It's just not the same crew and you know you are going to have loyalty. This is the thing about fandoms as well, it's more sort of diverse now people will have a sort of portfolio whereas I think it was always

more culty and you would have lifetime allegiance to one group. I don't know, I don't know but there is a scream as with every other act, there's a scream that goes up at such a wrong place that you know it isn't anything they're doing. Yeah, how must they have felt about that? Because they've already had the screams and they probably expect the screams. I bet it wears thin really quickly though being screamed at. I'm sure it does, but here they're being told, ah you're still not the daddies. It makes perfect sense that someone who would scream at the Osmonds would not want to scream at the Basity Rollers and vice versa because they are two very different propositions. But I think the main thing is, if you haven't been convinced that these are sexy lads, you're

not going to come to that conclusion by yourself, are you? You might need a little bit of a push in that direction. I mean the tot and gimmick not there either is it Taylor? Not really, not yet. Yeah there's the odd swatch of Totten here and there but that gimmick hasn't happened yet. They actually nicked that off a band called Bilbo Baggins which was another Edinburgh group that Tampayton was managing and yeah those platforms are going to be knobbed off very soon and they're all going to wear those Adidas baseball boots that I used to wear in the late 80s when I

was trying to be run DMC and then I found out that I was actually wearing Bay City Rollers trainers and yes I know the shame. Looking back on this now I think the main takeaway from the whole episode is that the Osmonds won didn didn't they, in the end? At the time of us recording this, all of them are still alive. The only tragedies that really befell them was the inevitable falling out of popularity that virtually every group has to go through, and the medical issues that everyone in their 70s has to deal with. You know, they got into debt, but they paid it off, they carried on with careers. They accepted they were never going to be anywhere near as massive as they were.

And they were probably fucking glad of it. I would love to sit down and chat with an Osmond, especially Donny, because you know, they stared right into the teeth of pop hysteria, but we're probably the only ones who did it with a clear mind. You know what I mean? Yeah. And if you look at the rollers, you know, well 40% of the people on that stage now are gone. Those who were left did not prosper at all and none of them seemed to have enjoyed any of it. Maybe it ought to be put into the contracts of all new bands that they have to join a

really strict religion. And you can say what you like about Tom Payton, the beast of Preston Pans, let's remember as Les McEwan called him in a statement after his death. But once again, I went back to that fucking brilliant book called When the Screaming Stops by Simon Spence. And I learned that in Tampatin's final years, he used to go to the local cash and carry and he'd buy star bars by the box 36 in each and he commenced his evening of whatever he got up to by chunking the entire contents up with a massive knife and he would just deck the fucking lot before going about

his nocturnal business which to my mind is winning at life in some sense because I fucking love star bars. Yeah he can't have been all bad then. Anything else to say? Ah, we get another miserable slumpy fade out here reminding us all of the grotesque artifice of television and the fleeting nature of pleasure youth in existence itself. Yeah. Fuck that. But after that we cut back to the audience and there were one or two girls there with

their hands over their mouths not knowing What to think about things it's like they've seen the future and it's the Bay City Rollers Do you know how many people were have been in the Bay City Rollers? Oh God knows 23 Oh, yeah, okay Now if you added up all of the people who've been in all of the bands in this episode you would be able to fill the BBC theater who've been in all of the bands in this episode, you would be able to fill the BBC theatre. So the following week Summer Love Sensation nudged up one more place to number three, but would get no higher. However, the LP Rowling would smash into the LP chart at number one and would battle with Smiler by Rod Stewart over the next couple of months, spending five

non-consecutive weeks at the top. Their next single, All of Me Loves All of You, had to make do with three weeks at number four at the end of the year, but with the Osmonds on the way they had a devastating 1975 with Bye Bye Baby and Give A Little Love getting to number one. Hi, I'm What's-His-Name. And they were the Bay City Rollers with their number four chart sound, Summer Love Sensation. And now for our Swedish viewers, Jatlik, välkommen, fantastiska Sylvia. And that was a real Swedish welcome to a really nice Swedish lady called Sylvia. And she's in at 28 this week with her new single, Y Viva España. And here she is, Sylvia! And here she is, Julia!

We're finally introduced to Wayne Osmond, who was very much the quiet one of the band. According to Tiger Beat, he was the moody one who didn't care much for touring as it gave him less time to meet girls. He was looking forward to getting his pilot licence and he wanted to live on a ranch. Tiger Beat was pretty full on compared to Music Star and the British Mags. One cover I found had the headline, Rape the Osmonds, Who's the Sex King? No. Which one is this one again? Wayne.

Okay. There's so many of them. It's a bit like, have you seen Too Many Cooks? The classic adult swim short that goes on forever and ever. It's going in the playlist now. Anyone who hasn't seen Too Many Cooks, you will be changed by it. Um, yeah, I don't know. This is so Osmond number five, you know. Okay. Little bit of Roscoe in my life, little bit of Hector on the side. Um, no, I like him because he is, uh, he introduced himself by saying, Hi, I'm What's-his-name, which is, which did endear me to, I must admit. That was his bit, wasn't it?

Right, yeah. So, you know, bless him. As to whether he's the king of sex or not, I must admit. Yes, that was his bit wasn't it? Oh yeah, so you know, bless him. As to whether he's the king of sex or not, I don't know. I could not speak to that. Are we including little Jimmy or is he ruled out? Yeah, of course we are. No, not at all. It's 1974.

Yeah, true. Fortunately, I tracked down the nation's foremost expert on Wayne Osmond, Angela Buskin of Holloway, whose thesis, entitled To Wayne, was published in the Music Star Letters page this month and reads as follows. There he stands with the rest, but to me he is the best. Dark brown hair and eyes to match. The girl that gets him, what a catch. A little shy to me he seems. In a world of his own with all his dreams. His eyes are gleaming, kind and bright. Isn't he a lovely sight? Sadly for Angela, Wayne will be getting married to a former Miss Utah in three months time, so, soz Angela, you're gonna have to pick out your favourite roller dog. Wayne

goes through his Hi I'm What's His Name bit once more before peeling off a bit of immaculate Swedish to these ears in any case as he introduces Eviva España by Sylvia. We cover this single and this actual performance in Chant Music number 69, the 1974 end of year special. Long story short, a Belgian bricklayer teams up with a local actor, writes a song about Spain in 1971, gets picked up by artists all over Europe and South America with their lyrics amended multiple times, eventually gets bought up by a Swedish jazz label who realises that no one has done an English version yet and offers it to Silvia Vrethammer with the original sentiment, Spain is warm and dead nice, change to, they're all massive slags in Spain, get

over there and dip your bread in mate. It entered the chart last week at number 46 and this week it soared 18 places to number 28, which means that Sylvia has hijacked that Costa Brava plane, instructed the pilot to turn round and head for Gatwick, Port-au-Vor and here she is in the BBC theatre. Olé! Sarah, me and Taylor, we've rolled deep on this before so the floor is yours, madam. Well, okay, so so where to start? I mean I love her, I love her, but I hate this song. Oh! Okay it's my favourite hymn to the least efficient

livestock slaughter method okay but I mean it sticks right in my head like a bandolier row into the neck muscle of a doomed bull. By the way, do you know, Spanish style bull fighting, do you know how many members there are? Seven! It's not just the Matador, he's got six other guys, two on horseback, one in the stupid hat, taking all the credit, getting all the fanny, so no t-shirt for them.

But she has got, okay, let us say the good points, she's got, she's brilliant, she's got these huge hazel eyes and this incredible, perfect 70s flick fringe. Like a perfect wave just crissing over her forehead and she actually emerges from behind it. She gives a head a little toss that I'm trying to do now but failing and looks straight down the camera. It's like, oh I don't care care what she's going to sing. And then soon after that, I regret this, but she carries it so well. It's such a great performance and she even gets the girls clapping along. You know, she actually kind of gets their attention.

Which is a first for this episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really funny, by the way, that one of the girls, I don't know if you noticed this, she's got an Oltzmann scarf and she looks at it as if to check what it says before waving it enthusiastically and if that was deliberate that would be such a great bit of shade. Who is this? Who is this we're looking at? Is it the Osmonds? I think not. Why didn't anybody have the nous to do a half and half Osmonds and basically roll a scarf and flog it outside in? Because people weren't cunts back then like they are now, that's why.

The thing with this is, so it's like a show tune, I kind of would like to hear her take a run at Hey Big Spender. The hair toss at the start makes me think she could pull it off. But it's a song about Spain, sung by a Swede, and yet it is one of the most English songs I know. It's like fucking Greensleeves or some shit. Because it's just become encrusted with decades worth of sea salt and vomit from Spanish vendors, you know, from English people specifically on Spanish vendors. And it sounds like a drinking song now. That's the only way that you can hear it. And as I've mentioned before, Sarah, it was pretty much that right from the off. I remember that year at our holiday in Chapel St. Leonard's and the Made

Marion Club every night and this song got sung twice and everybody's kind of like clapping meaty hands over their scampi and chips. Being stuck in a seaside resort in England singing about how they're going to Spain. Bitter irony. It's another one of those aspirational things about how life could be, isn't it? Maybe that's why it's got their attention now, you know, it's because it's hit that neuron of like, oh yeah, here is an unfulfillable fantasy, you know, except this one is just about going to Benidorm, you know. And with, yeah, with lines like, when they first arrive, the girls are pink and pasty, but oh so tasty as soon as they go brown not you as well Sylvia

her presence is amazing like I wish we'd seen more of her she looks like a news reader of the time who is about to give you a nice light item about the new holiday destination where you get to pick out your own steak while it's still breathing and even some working-class people can afford to fly there and then put on her more sombre face to tell us that this song will mark the point at which the fight against climate change was lost before it began. Oh gosh I did think that maybe Covid and Brexit together would shift things with regards to Spain but they haven't and Barcelona's really pissed off now and doesn't want any of us to go there. and doesn't want any of us to go there. I wonder if Sylvia was looking pointedly at Sweet Dreams when she sang that line. I doubt it. I think she was still trying to manage the hat, which is so like they could have got

her a better hat. It looks like it's a dressing up box hat. Like a school dressing up box hat. And you know, when you go in that, I don't know if you had like a dressing up box at school and you know occasionally You'd be allowed to have a dive in it and it was you'd always be disappointed Yeah, because it was all shit and it was all like grubby and and kind of full of holes and just depressing Yeah, I mean we mentioned before didn't we Taylor the the state of her heart, but fucking I don't think we did injustice It's like she's been got up by some stookers in the

Spanish Civil War watching her now Sylvia she seems like an inverted Nico do you know what I mean like sort of towering big-faced Nordic lady but approaching from entirely the opposite direction someone should dub this clip with Janitor of Lunacy or dub an old clip of Nico with this song. In fact she should have done a

version of this really on the harmonium. We're all off to sunny speed. The blue orchids in the background on the castanets. Smuggling all the smack through customs inside a stuffed donkey They're in a cardboard tube containing a rolled up bullfight poster saying your name here I mean they probably did actually do that when they played Spain But yeah, just would have given an extra kick to it if they'd done a version of this, but yes, you're right Sarah She does manage to get the kids involved in a bit of audience participation Which is a first for this episode for anyone not on Osmond.

But then we cut back to the audience and in the middle of the stalls, we see three blokes, two of whom are wearing German sex tourist sunglasses. And that set in and them sunglasses makes it look like a branch meeting of the paedophile information exchange, hiding in the plainest of sight. They're not members of the Osmond fan club. One of them appears to be with his very young daughter, so they're probably high ups at the BBC. And one of them appears to have brought his wife, but the one in the middle, he looks well day of the jackal, doesn't he? There's some plot to assassinate Jimmy Osmond and he's only found out that he's not there.

So the following week Aviva España soared another 13 places to number 15 and took another three weeks to scale the charty Pyrenees getting to number four in mid-September and would stay in the top 75 for seven months, eventually bowing out in March of 1975 a month later She put out the follow-up hasta la vista which got to number 38 in May of that year Which was a proper diminishing returns? But it did do better than Viva el Fulham by Tony Reese and the cottagers Which was recorded to commemorate the 1975 FA

Cup final squad which only got to number 46 Congratulations to you! And that is also an exercise in patience because it's been released for about eight months now, but anyway, she's finally made it Oh, I've thoroughly enjoyed my week working with the Osmonds I've managed to get to know the whole family. I hope you've enjoyed the little talks the little interviews we've been doing I've also learned another thing. I didn't know such charming young ladies could make such an amazing amount of noise I've also learned a bit of karate a bit of of the old chop chop, and I must say my wardrobe is that little bit much smaller for losing a suit. Tomorrow night on the Osmond's programs we'll be talking to Alan and also to Meryl, and hopefully we'll be getting their wives in as well.

On Saturday I hope to be speaking to Mr and Mrs Osmond and I'll be having a chat with Marie, just for the fellas, especially Marie. Don't forget, on Top of the Pops tonight we've got a brand new number one, but right now, Top of the Pops exclusive. You can now see it, you can now hear it for the first time, the new Osmond Singles! Finally, Edmunds reappears in his Brexit shirt, looking every inch of the spare cock at a wedding that he's been through out the evening to do some half-arsed leching of Sylvia as he tells us that song's been out for ages. He then lies about how much he's enjoyed being ignored by thousands of girls over the past week, shills the remaining episodes and introduces the world premiere of Love

Me For A Reason by The Osmonds. This their 10th single release in the UK is the follow up to I Can't Stop which only got to number 12 in May of this year. It's the cover of the Johnny Bristol song which appeared on his 1974 LP Hang On In There, Baby, and put out as a single in its own right, but it failed to chart. This version is going to be the title track from their next LP, which is due out in November, and isn't even going to be out as a single for another fortnight, but seeing as they're all in the building, you know it's going to be plugged.

Really, Noel should have introduced this as the Osmonds version. Yes he should. Yeah just to correct the record you know. Yeah before we move on to the song Edmonds, fucking hell we've seen very little of him tonight and that's been quite a good thing hasn't it? He must be really upset that he's had even less time to do his comedy routines, eh, Taylor? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, he says, my wardrobe is that little bit much smaller for losing the suit. I don't know what he means. I don't see he didn't lose the shirt. Yeah, I can help you there, Taylor, because two nights ago, Edmunds was interviewing Jay

and Wayne, and the subject of their immense karate skills came up and they did a demonstration on him which resulted in a gimmicked suit jacket being ripped off his back and we went on to learn that Edmunds has the hairless chest of a six year old. The worst bit is when he's talking about what's going to be on these upcoming Osmond shows that he says, just for the the fellas I'll be talking to Marie yes yes she's 14 I mean I know you can't tell that by looking but no you're supposed to know these things in 1974 who else is there to communicate this information but he can't be bothered too busy working out contracts to advertise

fish paste or getting planning permission for a self-themed portrait gallery in the home counties. Yeah, if she doesn't want to be treated like that she shouldn't dress like that in a trouser suit. Yeah, like she's running for president or something. My god, I wonder what's going on on the timeline where Marie Osmond is president. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Should be careful what I wish for, I suppose. But anyway, this song and this performance, I mean, the screaming just goes through the fucking roof at this point. And if those girls are being told not to go mental over the Bay City rollers, you get the feeling that they may have been told to go absolutely fucking berserk at this because this is one of the reasons that the Osmonds are here now because I do feel that they feel that this single needs to be a number one. Donny's had one, Jimmy's had one, it's time for the band to get theirs, don't you

think? There's something really horrible about watching this. It's like when they're actually you know they've stopped messing around, they've stopped doing their skits and their rock and roll medleys and it's like now this is what we really do. Yeah this is us. Yeah and I said earlier the best thing about the Osmonds looking back is that everything now is just as it would be if the Osmonds had never existed. And that's true in one sense, right? But in another, even if they themselves mean nothing, this, by which I mean of a finger wavy all round of this, this is what has now been revived culturally.

That's the thing. Yes, there's a level at which the present day is crawling back to being like this, right? Obviously this song was exhumed many years ago as a kind of advance guard, but I think the compulsion to revive it came from the exact same location in the human brain as every other impulse that's now leading us back into the darkness in this new century, right? With all the rights and freedoms that we fucking died for being rolled back. When did you die for them freedoms, Taylor?

I didn't tell you about it. And the new fascism, putting its arm around the shoulders of the people it chooses and them seeing nothing wrong with it. Just everything simplified and brutally flattened and sentimentality or over-emotionalism winning out over actual feelings. And that makes it hard to watch. It's not even a terrible song. I mean, it's really not it's probably their second best single and they have two crazy horses But it's just love me for a reason by the fucking Osmond's just crouched in the hollows of time waiting for boys own to exhumate it's

I didn't have a good time with this. Oh Taylor oh Oh Taylor, oh man. I mean it's alright, it's okay, you know, we're gonna, we'll get through it. We'll get through it. It's alright, hold it down. It's alright. I quite like this song. I found that, you see I found that I like this song and I like this performance. It's really after all the kerfuffle that has gone before, it's very soothing. It is very shallow and I'm okay with that. I'm okay with it. It's American professionalism doing its thing on top of the pops in the way that it does. And I am a sucker for it.

It's inoffensive in a way that I don't find offensive. And it is like watching a team of champion figure skaters literally and figuratively and the way that they are absolutely drilled is strangely reassuring to me like it just looks like order has been restored you know it starts with them all lined up in a flying wedge with Merrill at the front because he always handled the soft lad songs so they're forming a big letter V and it would have been fucking mint if they'd have all pulled guinea pigs

out of their inside pockets, detached their jaws and swallowed them. But nevermind, instead we get a lot of flick Colby in with them bending and folding on cue. But then they do this routine where they point outward and then, and I've tried to find an alternate explanation But I can only say what I see they mind pulling their pants up Not Mormon pants just a standard pair of drawers and yeah, that's your lot really

Thank God they weren't all sitting down because if they'd have stood up for a key change Shepherd's Bush would have been reduced to rubble Yeah, so while the Ottomans aren't doing all that much, we get a lot of long, lingering sweeps of the audience who are reacting as if Jesus has materialised on stage with all their dead pets come back to life. I mean, some of them are screaming their heads off, but others look absolutely poll-axed and it's as if the BBC is saying, look, we know that you don't understand why we've given up a week of airtime to some American lads

when you could be watching nationwide, but just look what they're doing to the maidens of the aisle. Look at them. Yeah, but it is like it's the other way around. It's like the impulse is there and people in bands and their managers just need to kind of be prepared to Summon it, you know, it's like they only exist because that impulse exists to go fucking mental at the site and sound of some guys Do you know what I mean? Yeah, that's like a current that exists in the universe and they just have to sort of plumb into it And so in a lot of ways, it doesn't matter who they are or what they do It's just that they have to be aware of that and they have to be prepared to get it right in the face

So the song it's another cover version and an extremely recent cover version But presumably one most of their fans would know and we've already mentioned the speculation that the Osmonds were looking to move into a more speculation that the Osmonds were looking to move into a more stylistic phase of their career, but that means they're going to have to grapple with the mores of modern black music, which is currently being recorded by men who've been round the track and are far more mature than they. Like so many of Donny's songs, it appears to be an older man addressing a younger woman, but unlike those songs, the tone here is look I'm massively in love with you but you're pissing me about and it's time for a

commitment but in the hands of the Osmonds particular in this time and place it sounds as if they're saying yeah girls you keep screaming at us and you've got our names on your scovs but we saw how you reacted to them Scottish boys so do you love us really? Are you going to be waiting for us when we come back next year? It's all a bit mad, isn't it? Even after everything, are you now surprised how this being weird? Come on. No, you've got a point.

You just got to roll with it, man. Like it is just deep weird. But this weirdness is going to be the absolute benchmark for a whole new generation of acts who have only just come into the world. I mean, Robbie Williams was born in February of this year. Brian Harvey is a week old today and Ronan Keaton isn't going to be born for another three years. I mean, we all know who covered this song in the early 90s and in 1993 the BBC documentary The Making of a Boy Band about the formation of the group Upside Down begins with their audition process which involved a load of ambitious twinks queuing up to sing this very song because by the early 90s this had become a touchstone for an entire genre of music.

We're seeing boy bands crawl from the Primordial Louz here aren't we and attempting to stand up for the key change. And unlike so many other acts tonight whose mimed songs just fade out and they end up standing there looking like bellends, the Osmonds have pre-recorded and re-recorded this song so it has a definitive ending. So the overall effect at the end is just this Vegas sized kick up the emotional arsehole. And they're standing there at the end receiving their triumph and you just think, fucking hell, this song is nailed on for number one and they're gonna be around for fucking ever who will rid us of these turbulent Osmonds yeah and in fairness they're energetic movers for a bunch of chubby

lads yes right like the Beach Boys you know I mean all that high fructose corn syrup good for a short- energy boost, at least. It's so all encompassing. There's like a whole world in here, a whole universe, kitchen cupboards stuffed with mayonnaise, smartly dressed people, fake smiling, magical Mormon underwear, the deeply held belief that black people have no souls.

Although that would explain the mystery of why people so rarely claim to see black ghosts. Because it's true, isn't it? The demographics of the spirit world are like a market town in the Fen, or a potholing society, Blackburn Rovers Squad 1994, 95 season. There must be a reason for that, but I guess it's just one of the great mysteries of the spectral realm, like how come ghosts wear ghost clothes?

And do they have more than one outfit? And if so, where do they keep them? And also, if they can supposedly walk through walls, how come they are supported by the floor? And also, if they're not made of earthly substance, how come they're affected by gravity? Shouldn't they be just floating off as the earth rotates and orbits the sun at high speed? Shouldn't the space around our planet be littered with drifting ghosts like Major Tom? A lot of questions there for the Osmonds to answer, I think, in their buster gonad shoes.

Yeah, but thank God Derek Acora didn't do a chalky white accent Taylor is the um is the mayonnaise in jars or like is it just literally in the cupboard? Yeah good point Well, maybe it's just spilling through the doors like the like the blood coming out the lift in the shine. Yeah All like insulation foam Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, all like insulation foam. Just, urgh, out the side, everywhere, going a little bit yellow. So, a month later, Love Me For A Reason entered the chart at number 19, and a week later it soared all the way to the summit of Mount Pop, pushing aside this week's number one

and staying there for three weeks. It would become the 12th biggest selling single of 1974, one below Devil Gate Drive by Suzy Quattro and one above Jealous Mind by Alvin Stardust. The follow up we'll discuss later. But in 1976 a cover by the Fabulous Five Incorporated, Johnny Nash's backing band was a big hit in Jamaica and in our reggae chart. And in 1995 it was smothered by Irish stand-up for the key change Clod's Boyzone as their debut UK single and got to number two in the first week of that year. Have you heard that reggae version, Taylor? Yeah. It's gorgeous, isn't it?

It's better than this. Yes. Then again, it's hard to think of anything where the reggae version is worse. Apart from, hello, mother, hello, father, here I am in Camp Granada. I know that there are reasons, there could be some reason behind Remember, you saw it first, you heard it first, right here on Top of the Pops. The Ozzmans with a sensational brand new single, Love Me For A Reason, and that is going to be a ginormous hit. Thank you, man. I hope so. Woo!

At least maybe, well maybe this bit. You know, Donnie mentioned earlier about all the artists that are flying in from all over to be on the show tonight and Right now I wish you don't help us to give a great big top of the pops Welcome to a group that has come all the way from Philadelphia, USA That's right all the way from Philadelphia. They hold the number one. Three, two, one. Three, two, one. Three, two, one. Three, two, one. Three, two, one.

Three, two, one. Three, two, one. Three, two, one. Three, two, one. Three, two, one. Three, two, one. Three, two, one. Three, two, one.

Three, two, one. Three, two, one. Threease Robert DeValley Network, is Robert de Valle network is gonna be a big fat big tittered hit but he's drowned out by more screams as he's joined by Donny and Alan. The three of them make dick-sized gestures for a bit to show off the anticipated largeness then Alan takes over to tell us that another group have ridden the Laker Express all the way from Philadelphia to be here and they're this week's number one. And through the spangly bingo curtains come the Three Degrees with When Will I See You Again. We've covered the Three Degrees, Laurie Cunningh

and Brendan Batson and Sarah Regis, a time or two on chart music, but this is their finest hour in the UK charts. It was offered to them by Kenny Gamble over a year ago, but when he played them the song on piano they outright rejected it, with Sheila Ferguson going mental at him for having the nerve to try and dump it off on them, vowing to never sing it and telling him it was ridiculously insulting of him to offer them such a simple song that took no talent whatsoever to sing. Although she obviously later relented. I think she did say even a nationwide presenter could sing this song. Terrible. It's been floating around as a track from the LP The Three Degrees, their debut on Philadelphia International, for nearly a year now, but the unexpected

success of their last single, Year of Decision, which was their first UK hit 11 years into their career getting to number 13 in May, has encouraged the label to rush it out. It entered the chart five weeks ago at number 33 and with no help whatsoever from Top of the Pops or Pans People, but with radio and club air play suddenly becoming massively important in the wake of the technician strike, it soared 16 places to number 17 and picked its way through the upper reaches of the chart. Last week when Top of the Pops finally returned, Pans people emoted to it in spangly black bits of cloth and the rush of repressed daddy's faction has put it over the top this week,

standing down rock, ya baby. And here they are on the stage of the BBC theatre to receive their triumph. Yeah, but first of all, we have to talk about teeny tiny Noel being out-presented. I mean, never mind that the Osmonds are slicker and more convincing talking to camera than Britain's premier professional broadcaster. Look how puny he is. It's fucking awful. He's standing there with the Osmonds and they look like the monster munch monsters next to him. This isn't Ted Nugent's band or something. This is the fucking Osmonds. And I mean, I've seen pictures of Noel in the 70s Working out like actually working out in the well-equipped home gym in his mansion Which I know he had because I've seen pictures of it in the multicolored Noel Edmonds

And yet Donnie Osmond could crush him like a bug It would have been really funny if he'd walked on and as soon as he started talking, one of the big lad Osmond's just turned around and said, Oi! Shut your cock washer! And waved a fist at him that was as big as his head and he just had to shut up. I would watch that. Edmunds clowned out by Osmond's. There's a certain alien versus predator energy to that,

but I would watch it. Little Jimmy tearing Noel's ass out of the frame. Oh, God, yes. You wouldn't miss it, would you? No. To be fair to him, yeah, he is the same height as Donnie, although I'm not sure what shoes they're each wearing. But yeah, that's not his fault. But he does start chortling in the manner of Steve Harley at how Trevor Osmond is just taking over his job and just rendering him completely obsolete in an instant. But you can't tell. Yes, to me, he doesn't actually look happy.

Maybe he's being a good sport, but possibly there's just rage there. It's just like, because he kind of like, he does a little kind of scamper away like, well I'm clearly not needed. And I can't tell if he is mad as hell or not. And we can picture his shoes, right? His shoes are going to look like a kid's slide in a park. Proper Mr. Men shoes. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, this performance, I believe the singing live, don't you? Yeah. I mean, they can withstand the top of the Pops Orchestra. Yes that big long-eared dog on the drums again Yes gracing himself would not have impressed Jay Osmond But yeah, they get the usual BBC engineers gift of little feedback shrieks on the nice to throw off life vocalists.

But I suspect the Three Degrees have navigated murkier technical waters than this over the years in some of the places they must have appeared. So they just keep smiling in those dresses that make them look like they're on the Galactic Council. Yes. And it all works out fine. That bit of feedback tells you that it's live so it's kind of helped them. Yeah. And you've got to say tell her this version of the top of the Pops Orchestra. They're keeping up with them. Yeah. It's

not uptown top ranking they've got to do. It's something a bit lush and a bit swooner. Yeah. And yeah this iteration of the top of the Pops Orchestra they can they can kind of piss that out of their arse. Yeah. And the girls can sit there and scream all they like because this lot are in their true comfort zone aren't they a big old theater with a full band at their back in their slinkiest rubbery gold halter neck dresses with massive chunks bitten off at the side and they're selling the fuck out of this single aren't they and and this episode has just got severely adulterated because that was the way Black American music was rolling by 1974. Yeah, this is like being transported into another galaxy altogether. It's amazing. They

look and sound so perfect. Yes. And all of it is so smooth and just kind of kind of slips down like an oyster and it lasts about 90 seconds. It's ridiculous. It's so short. It's just like, Oh, really? Oh, because I was just there going, precious moment. Hey, show some respect. This is the sliding doors Queen of England. Yes. Yes.

So after the 90 seconds of perfection marred only slightly by the the moment of feedback which is like the dropped stitch in the Persian rug you know it's got this amazing dramatic swirling ending like a sort of tornado of strings and sequins and they kind of go oh it's swirly well it's great it really put my head in the place I couldn't get into that place with pan's people and you make me feel. It really put my head in the place. I couldn't get into that place with Pan's people and you make me feel brand new. And I got there in the end.

They do a bit of toiling around like Anthea Redfern in the Generation game, and then they drop this perfect Kurtz set. It's immaculate. It's as if they've thought, oh, we're gonna be playing a theater in London. We've gotta be proper ladies. You could call the three degrees

the Supremes of the 70s, but there's no point, because we've got to be proper ladies. You could call the three degrees the Supremes of the 70s but there's no point because we've already got one. What they actually are are the Supremes of the 60s but a bit more worldly wise and not about to take any shit from some bloke. You know their last single that broke them in the UK they told the listeners to stop mourngin about exes and or being a custard gannet and live in the here and now and this one is essentially jimmy mack for older people isn't it you know lardered with the new sophisticated sound of smooth rich creamy philadelphia yeah yeah supremes of the 60s with the beatiness replaced by a kind of pleasant wooziness. And the strange thing about this kind of

music and the stylistics in a more intense way is that although it's associated with the mid-70s it doesn't feel like it's of the mid-70s. Yes. It feels like a giant crane or tractor beam that hovers over people's record players and lifts them out of the mid-70s for three minutes at a time. I mean, a couple of years later, you'd take a record like this, speed it up a bit, add the four on the floor beat, and you'd make it a disco record, which would then feel like it belonged in the late 70s. Whereas this seems more like it's drifting in no time. And I don't know how much of that is just me making connections in my own brain based

on what song I've seen dubbed over what news footage on the rock and roll years. But there seems to be something indefinable in the feel and spirit of records like this, which does not fit in with the cultural mood or the feel of what other musicians and writers and filmmakers and so on were doing. There's that heavenly ooze and a kind of sweet unworldliness to the Philly ballads. They got the melancholy that you often hear in music from this time, but it's not a jaded and cynical melancholy. It's a sort of limpid, sad puppy melancholy with all the little musical flourishes. And this sense that although you're sad and you may remain sad, there is no suggestion that all hope is lost. They don't have bleak mid seventies malaise, which you do hear in the sound of,

even in the sound of pampered dudes having the time of their lives like the Eagles. You know what I mean? That's coming from the times. This is coming from somewhere else outside time. Yeah, it's like ambient soul, because this is such a simple song, and this is almost like a nothing song, you know,

but the sound is the point and they really ride that cloud so gracefully that it totally works. You know, also melancholy is, you know, someone defined it as like the happiness of being sad, which I think this completely is. It is the sort of gazing out of the window and diving all the way down into it. And you know that there's some sausagey fingers being wiggled about at the TV screen in a back bedroom in Buckingham Palace right about now eh? Prince Philip won't go upstairs to watch his cowboy films of selfish cunt. So When Will I See You Again spent two weeks at number one, their only chart-topping UK single, giving way eventually

to Love Me For A Reason. It would finish the year as the fourth biggest-selling single of 1974, one above Rocky Baby by George McCray, one below Billy Don't Be A Hero by Paper Lace. The follow-up, Get Your Love Back, only got to number 34 in November, but they firmly bedded themselves into the charts throughout the rest of the 70s, particularly I see you again Come on, one, when will I see you again? Well, thank you for being with us. That's all the time we have for on the top of the fox tonight. We hope that you all enjoyed it as much as we have.

Fantastic. Be with us, the Osmonds that is, again, tomorrow night at 6.25 at the BBC One. We'll see you then. Until then, take care and God bless. Good night! We cut back to the five non-female, non-homunculus Osmonds who show their enjoyment of the three degrees before Alan takes over again to thank us for watching, in his words, the Top of the Pops, and tells us to come back tomorrow for more barbershop raga and screaming and pants pissing before the Top of the Pops Orchestra launches into We're Having a Party by The Osmonds.

We've covered this single in Chart Music number 51, Guys and Dolls Get Ready to Bomb Iraq, but that's in March of 1975 and for now this is lined up as a lead off track from the next Osmonds LP and their next single After Love Me For a Reason. It's currently being deployed as a sign-off music for their BBC shows, performed as an instrumental by the Top of the Pops Orchestra. We're having a Watney's Party 7 as a chaser, if you will. And here is everyone involved in tonight's production waving us goodbye and having a frog. And all of a sudden this episode has changed into Sunday night at the Palladium hasn't it? Fucking hell. Yeah it looks like the shittiest Sgt Pepper cover ever.

All these other idiots standing around behind the Osmars. Cockney Rebel noticeably a lot less enthusiastic than everyone else here. Yes. Like the Rolling Stones refusing to get on the caravan and wave except much, much shitter. Yes. It's the downside of the Osmond's slickness and professionalism, isn't it? It's just so natural for them to be shilling product and plugging further appearances on the BBC.

Everyone we've seen on this stage tonight, Bob Jimmair who's currently getting stuck into the toughies in the hotel minibar, and Marie for some reason, is back on stage, clustered in their own space at first, bidding us farewell and having a lovely dance. And chaps, like the centre spread team photo in Shoot, let's go back,-R, shall we? So we start with the Glitter Band, half of whom have actually changed into all black

spangly cat suits, their naughty nightwear as the sun would have it. Then in the middle at the back is Pan's people, stealing their flouncy rig out to mule-y clasping the hems of their gowns and swaying them about in time. The Bay City Rollers who are awkwardly clapping above their heads and generally sloaming about as if they're on the away terrace at Tannadise Park. Underneath the glitter band we get Cockney Rebel who are just chatting to each other with bemused disgust apart from their bassist who has brought his instrument with him and is twanging away and nobody's told him. Then next to them we get Edmunds

who is clapping away on his own and being generally completely ignored by everyone else. Cozy Pal who's doing a ballroom dance with one of his band while the others look like they're waiting for the last bus home. Drunk. Front left, Sweet Dreams, who are dancing together with Sarah Lyon turning her back on the 3 degrees, presumably out of fear of them noticing something a bit wrong about her. Yeah, like it's getting a bit hot under the studio lights and she's going a bit Rudy Giuliani. Yes. Oh dear.

Sylvia clapping with Sarah because you know she's Swedish, they're tolerant, before she starts dancing with Alan Osmond and the Osmonds themselves front and centre doing their chicken dance before breaking off to engage the three degrees in a spot of come on I lean in which was nice. A lovely tableau don't you think chaps? If you went on holiday to popland in August of 1974 this image here would be on the front of the souvenir shortbread tin that you brought home with you. I mean I look at this and I just think fucking up why didn't they do this every episode of Top of the Pops? That's exactly what I thought. Instead of wasting our time with zoo wankers and studio lights man and from

here on in every time I watch an episode of Top of the Pops I'm gonna look at the end credits and go oh man here's what you could have won. I mean for example I've taken an episode from 1978 at random and this is everyone who was in the studio at the time. Okay, so Peter Powell, Smoker, Darts, Legs and Co, Plastic Bertrand, Guy Marx, that loving you has made me bananas hit maker, Brotherhood of Man, The Stranglers, Elky Brooks, All Her Looks, X-Ray Specs and Boney M. Fuck it. Can you imagine the Stranglers waving next to the Brotherhood of Man? And Guy Marx dancing with Polly Starrion, how fucking brilliant would that have been?

Oh, I'm sad now that we can't have this. Yeah, and imagine the early 80s. Juran Juran happens to stand next to Frankie Goatswater after they've put out an advert saying their music makes Juran Juran want to lick the shit off their boots. That'd have been an interesting on stage conversation, don't you think? Yeah, especially if they acted it out. Pete Burns just sweeping in. just laying waste to the whole, in some absurd outfit with wings. I mean that all sounds better than what we see here, which is basically the curdling of the basic life-giving brutality of popular art happening in real time just off Shepard's Bush green

But that's what happens when you give the people what they want and none of what they've never thought of Hey, I forgot to say, you know how many members were in the three degrees don't say three 16 fucking hell So we're having a party was eventually released in February of 1975 but only got to number 28 in the same week that the Bay City Rollers got to number 1 with Bye Bye Baby. The follow up, the proud one, righted the ship somewhat when it got to number 5 in June of that year but they finished 1975 with I'm still gonna need you only getting to number 32 and after I Can't Leave a Dream did even

worse getting to number 37 in November they never troubled the charts again bar the odd re-release of One Bad Apple and Crazy horses. So the Osmonds spent another two nights on BBC One culminating on Saturday evening when they knocked the wonderful world of Disney off the schedule, finishing their show by inviting the orchestra, the floor managers, the engineers, the catering staff, the wardrobe department, the production team, their own security staff who were dressed up like city gents, the theatre management and staff, the St John's ambulance team, the police force and in the words of Alan Osmond, our good friend Noel Edmund. They do their last song in complete darkness so if you were just turning over to BBC One

a bit early to see the John Wayne film that was on after, you'd be greeted by the sight of the lights coming up at the end to reveal the Osmonds being completely surrounded by about 20 coppers and you'd just think, fucking hell, what have the Osmonds done? Yeah, it's always the ones you least expect. And that, Popcraze youngsters, closes the book on this episode of Top of the Pops. What's on telly afterwards? Well, BBC One kicks on with the undersea world of Jacques Cousteau, where the sub-aquatic Frenchman swings by the Galapagos Islands to follow some iguanas about as they sort their tea out and drops in on a German friend who has trained some of them to eat bits of fruit out of his hand.

I thought you said the Undeceived World of Jacques Cousteau. That would be lovely, wouldn't it? After the news it's the 1968 film The Night They Raided Minskyis, the roaring 20s film starring Jason Robards, Brit Eklund and Norman Wisdom. Then it's mid-week with Julian Pettyfer, the late night news, the weather and they close down at 5 to midnight. BBC2 has just finished the debate show Argument, chaired by Michael Dean. Then John Julius Norrish trolls around the Aegean coast in the gates of Asia

His series about Turkey in order to go on about the influence of Greek civilization on that nation After part four of the adaptation of HG Wells lover, Mr Lewisham it's the ten minutes short the world of Robinman, about a model plane that develops a life of its own, and then, it's Lulu, with special guests Adrian Poster, Paul Greenwood and Jimmy Wacko Edwards. Yes and his witness examines the murals created by two artists in the new forest village of wood green then it's news extra and they closed down at 5 to 11 5 to 11 fucking hell ITV finally gets around to the first episode of the

Inheritors the mini series based on the Wilfred greater X novel starring Peter Egan Philip Maddock and Bill Maynard then it's this week news at 10, the director Raoul Walsh is profiled by Brian Truman in cinema and they round off the night with Anglin Today, the highlights of the golf, what the papers say and they close down at a quarter past midnight. So me dears, what are we talking about in the playground tomorrow? Oh God, what to pick really? Everything is so much. Eviva España, because it contained you know the sort of promise of a better life which the imaginary school aged me of 1974 would probably have yearned for. Mr. Soft, because I can imagine that the playground would have rung to the sound of bom bom bom bom bom bom bom bom. Yeah, just, you know, the teachers would have

had to come and tell you to shut up. You can just tell. Fucking hell, Sarah, you are going to get so ostracised in the playground tomorrow. You know what it's going to be like? Oh my God, Sarah. Oh God, did you see them? Did you see them? Oh, rollers, Osmond, who? Who are you gonna pick? Who are you gonna pick? Pick now, pick now! Oh, you see, I was a crap, I was a crap teenager, you see, it just didn't, I was not on it at all. No, mate. Taylor!

I would probably be saying, seriously girls, what have the Osmonds got? The wee chubby cheek little twats with their freshly grown too big for our mouths, adult teeth haven't. Yeah, little Taylor Osmond. Is it just the backing of an obviously made up god as revealed to a convicted fraudster? Oh, fucking hell, the darkness runs very, very deep,

doesn't it, Taylor? It's in nothing yet. What are we buying on Saturday? The Glitter Band. Band. Plus those few performers tonight who might conceivably have been upset by Noel's shirt. Mr Soft, it's a bot. And what does this episode tell us about August of 1974? The Osmonds were shit. Yeah, it's a bit of a Mormon soak. Intention is towards pleasure, but there's just no movement.

And that, Popcraze youngsters, brings us to the end of this episode of Chart Music. Use your promotional flange Chart-Music.co.uk, Facebook.com slash chart music podcast, reach out to us on Twitter at chart music TOTP, but because Elon Musk is a massive cunt, also reach out to us on bluesky at chart music TOTP dot B sky dot social. You're a little bit country Sarah B. Hey You're a little bit rock, Sarah B. Hey. You're a little bit rock and roll, Taylor Parks. Well, yeah. My name's Al Needham.

Frim! LAUGHTER MUSIC Chart music. You know, first of all, before we leave, we'd like to say how fantastic and wonderful you've all been to us. We really appreciate it and you know, this week is going to be one that we're always going to remember. I think that the thing that is really impressive, so, is the enthusiasm of all our fans out We really appreciate it and you know this week is going to be one that we're always going to remember.

I think that the thing that is really impressive so is the enthusiasm of all our fans out there. Haven't they been great? You know you keep us happy and we hope that we can continue in the future to keep you all happy. We have a theory and that is that it's enthusiasm that keeps this world going and Great Britain sure has plenty of that, don't they? That's right. We have a great faith about the future. And we'd like to express this and these feelings the best way that we know how, and that is with a song that we've written. I'm gonna be my bed tonight

Be my bed tonight I'm gonna be my bed tonight I'm gonna be my bed tonight Ain't gonna be my bed tonight Ain't gonna be my bed tonight Ain't gonna be me I ain't gonna be me Ain't gonna be my bed tonight Osmonds have had another engagement and they have had to leave the theatre otherwise they couldn't make it.

They apologize and they ask me to say thank you very much and good night. But they had to go, we had to get them away on time. They have a very tight schedule so I'm afraid it's good night tonight. They'll be back here tomorrow, Friday and Saturday. I ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't gonna be the baby, ain't Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh It's a really dangerous KitKat It's a really dangerous Hey, don't ask me to call you guys a fowl Hi, I'm Leslie And I'm Derek And I'm Woody And I'm Eric We're the Bay City Roars

You and our chocolate Macintosh and KitKat BAYCOM!