Hits 21 - BONUS: Top of the Pops, March 1986

Episode Date: October 3, 2025

Hello, everyone! Welcome back to Hits 21, the show that's taking a look back at every single UK #1 hit..You can follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Hits21UKYou can email us: [e-mail] 21 DOES NOT OWN THE RIGHTS TO ANY MUSIC USED IN THE EPISODES. USAGE OF ALL MUSIC USED IN THIS PODCAST FALLS UNDER SECTION 30(1) OF THE COPYRIGHT ACT 1988.

I'm going to be. Hi there, everyone, and welcome to this little bonus episode of Hit's 21, where me, Rob, me, Lizzie, and me, Ed. Normally, obviously, with Andy, look back at every single UK number one of the 90s or the naughties, but Andy's away. And while Andy's away, the adult children play, we have decided to look back at the top of the popist episode that went out in the week that each of us were born. Born. The first of us to be born, who won that race into existence. Ed, March 1986. Oh, yes, I remember it well. Your birth month. And so we've picked the episode from the 6th of March, 1986, hosted by Gary Davis and Dixie Peach. We will give you the full running order in a second, but Ed, I just want to ask, in the womb, what are your memories of March 1986?

It wasn't bad. I remember it like being lost in the album Zite by Tangerine Dream all the time, so it was all right. So, yeah, we're going to go back to March 1986 for this episode of Top of the Pops. We're going to run through some, you know, general thoughts and general commentary, going to look through our worst and best favorite performances or least favorite performances. And, of course, we are going to finish by talking about the song that was number one on the 6th of March 1986, which doesn't exactly finish the episode, but is the last proper performance of the episode. So, I think we will start kind of a loosey-goosey episode this, I suppose. Yeah,

just by running down, the running order. So I'll take you in to the episode. We'll play the intro. Gary Davis and Dixie Peach can say hello. And then I will run down the 10 performances slash videos slash top 40 breakers of March the 6th, 19896, Top of the Pops. Well, hey, how you doing? Welcome to Top of the Pops.

We've got a brilliant show lined up for you and a slightly different show. than normal. In actual fact, more hits than ever before. And we're going to start up with some great music tonight. Mike Rutherford and the Mechanics of number 25, Silent Running. So we have Silent Running on Dangerous Ground by Mike and the Mechanics. Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel by Tavares. Hounds of Love by Kate Bush.

Theme from New York, New York by Frank Sinatra. Hi-ho Silver by Jim Diamond. Kirié by Mr. Mr. Kiss by Prince, nothing serious, just bugging by whistle, chain reaction by Diana Ross, which is the number one, and then Power of Love by Huey Lewis in the News, which plays us out. So, general overview, Lizzie, welcome back to the show, your first episode since we covered the Battle of Brit Pop. Yeah, yeah.

The first episode where it's just us three since the Halen Pace episode, which I'll never, ever forget. No. So March 1986, this top of the pops, what kind of

picture do you think it paints? A couple of things I picked up on I think like post-liveade seems to be like a strong period

for stadium rock. Like a lot of these older acts are kind of like Mike and the mechanics Jim Diamond these are both like acts in their

mid-thirties but I think now that new waves kind of taper off, this has kind of come back to the forefront and there's an embrace of like stadium music as I say. There's also kind of a general, I think, embrace of the past or maybe a rejection of the present. Like on this, on this episode alone, you've got Tavares from like mids late 70s, Frank Sinatra again mid late 70s-ish and then Diana Ross who, okay, it's a new song,

but she's an artist who's been around for a while and I think it's also just generally kind of an odd transition period like New Wave has gone but house music in the UK charts is still about a year away as are some of the big hip-hop acts like Public Enemy Eric B and Rakim and the Beastie Boys

feels like we're just, we're not in a holding pattern as such but there's no predominant force in pop music like there was just a couple of years ago yes it's weird i promise i haven't been reading your notes um the first thing i noticed after watching the whole episode is that this there is a lack of british new pop despite the explosion in the coming like two years before you know maybe they're all just between album cycles but there's not much here to suggest that frankie geran geran banana rama spandau ballet culture club men at work etc have had the massive impact that they did over the last sort of three or four years maybe

we've just caught this episode at the wrong time because i think culture club are on the one from the 13th of March the following week. I think they're back on it. But Bananorama and Spandau Ballet there later when they return, because obviously Bonanarama do Venus, I think later this year. It's like everyone's kind of nervously waiting for that crowd to come back. So we're sort of milling around and twiddling our thumbs. To put it in a more kind of contemporary setting

and sort of go back to where we left things with our naughty's era was kind of how like we did in the, In 2010, specifically, or like 2011, when Gargar had kind of gone away for a bit after the fame and the fame monster. So Adele jumped into the gap and took advantage. But at the same time, we had to pretend that, like, Olly Mears and Dappy and Retch 32 and Pixilot were pop stars worth giving a shit about. And then it turned out the singles from Born This Way weren't quite number one material.

So we had to keep on pretending that Olly Mears and Dapie were worth the time of day. And that maybe Jesse J could be the British response. to Katie Perry and then we just let Adele have it because Gargar never quite hit the heights promised by the fame monster again and in this episode from 86 I think we sort of get the

kind of Timo slash wish versions of stuff like the 80s is here and you can feel it but you can't really feel much that's going to define it the summer stuff but not a lot quite a lot of the episode is taken up by people who were bigger in the 70s or even in the 60s and are still hanging around

either with good stuff bad stuff or just plain re-releases you know mike and the mechanics tovarez frank sinatra diana ross there's a point where gary davis tells us it's diana's first chart topper in 15 years there seems to be this deference to the past as well almost there's that comment gary davis makes about sinatra where he says oh i hope that i hope that gets all the way to number one or wish i brought my bow tie sort of thing yeah i'm just like why like even jim diamonds trying to do a bit of a sultans of swing thing. Like, it all kind of reinforces this point

that the past is something that commands respect in a way that the present doesn't really deserve. That's the feeling I get from this episode. It's something that only gets much worse, I think, as time goes on. It's a bit of a raucous attitude that I'm a bit surprised to find on the top of the pop's episode

from, you know, four decades, five decades ago. There's only really Kate Bush and Prince here, I think, who we're pushing to the future, trying to forge new ground, trying to bring something fresh and original, or bringing hits that still endure to this day, you know, just sounding like they were kind of, instead of just sounding like they were shuffled out

at the start of 86 when the year still feels like it's, you know, hasn't defined itself, it's still clicking into gear. And as much as he is a face of the 60s and 70s who's still trucking away, I think Diana Ross brings a bit of class and sophistication to this episode, a bit of American class and sophistication. It's lacking of that in a lot of other places, I think.

A special mention has to go to whistle, though, which is a fresh and new thing for the British public but is trapped in that period for rap in the UK where it could only be comedy and it could only be slightly gimmicky. It had to lean on a comedy angle. It's a new American sound, but the UK public has no idea how to respond to it.

I don't know. I think the most recent chart music episode, that live episode from the London podcast festival, has them covering an episode from later in 86. And when it's revealed that 1986 is the year that they're going to be looking at, everyone in the audience groans and Al says the doors are locked

don't think you can leave and I get it so yeah and I think it's also worth mentioning that Top of the Pops itself this is the first episode after a bit of a revamp after a format change

and a redesign which I guess they're only kind of done in response to dwindling interest and downward signs and few figures or it was just we've had some we've had an established format for a bit let's fuck it up kind of thing

I don't know, Lizzie, you were going to say. I mean, they're sort of pathway through a revamp, I think. So they've changed around the actual chart format. More on that later. I will have a moan. Don't worry. But in a couple of weeks' time, they get rid of Yellow Pearl, and they replace it with Paul Hardcastle.

Like two, three weeks away from that. I'm glad we missed the cutoff there, to be honest, because I much prefer Yellow Pearl, to be honest. Well, we'll talk about that next week, shall we? But, yeah. So, yeah, Ed, what were your overall impressions of this March 86 episode? Well, yeah, not dissimilar from where you're both coming from. I will say it's interesting, though, that you say it's Kate Bush and Prince who are bringing the newer and more enduring flavors.

But, I mean, look at Prince. I mean, I love Kiss, but cut it down to its roots. It's basically just a rock and roll song from an album that was a soundtrack to his kind of like film noir passion. project that's very much based in kind of lounge jazz and older forms of music he's just giving it his kind of you know stripped back synthy 1980s wash um and it isn't i mean the whole thing though i mean nothing here feels very youthful ironically prince and diana ross seem a little bit more youthful than a lot of the younger english people on this show i mean even oddly and I think she's a commanding presence

and I really like the song. But just because of the whole power dressing thing, because of the style of the era, even Kate Bush looks about 20 years older than she is at this point. She was in her mid-20s at this point and she does not look it. Do you know what I mean?

I'm not saying, oh, look at her. She's past it. But I mean, just because of the general sort of polished muso aesthetic of the era, this, um, it, it does make people look rather older in retrospect. And unfortunately, it's not helped by the fact that a lot of the, the rest of the bands are simultaneously leaning into sort of pop, sort of soul flavors from the past while completely butchering them with modern production, uh, while looking like your dad's pub band.

There is like a pub band aesthetic to a lot of these, but they sound. completely without live life to them. And I keep just getting that flash of fucking Jim Diamond's manic slightly scary face pushing its way. Oddly, that's the image that stuck with me from this bloody episode, and we'll go on to it. But Jim Diamond, as a probably unintentionally quite frightening presence, he's like a particularly agitated bird of prey, if you get what I mean. He's like a diamond who is rough

Yes, exactly I just want to pull you up on something Which you were saying about how old everybody seems I've just had a thought I don't think Other than maybe whistle I don't think there's anybody on this episode Under the age of 25

No, Kate Bush is just past it Yeah, 27 I think 28 at this point Yeah Hughie Lewis is 38 or something Like Yeah well he fucking looks it I mean to me obviously he looks about 50

But in an acceptable way For the kind of music that's being made. But I mean, even with whistle, I mean, that sounds like a 40-something sketch show writer has done a deliberate piss take of rap music.

And that's what it would sound like. Yeah. I mean, I'm not, I'm just, I don't want to spoil too much, but that's fucking terrible. So anyway. Well, I think before we move on to the next section, which will be our least favorite song,

I think we'll play a little clip from the episode. Just because you've mentioned Jim Diamond there, will treat the audience to him and his Mark Knopfler worshipping guitarist who turns up towards the end and plays in the exact same tone as the solo on Sultons of Swing.

But yeah, we'll jump into least favourite song afterwards. Here's a clip of Jim. I'm still alive. He's come in Lord Ranger. He's riding on down. To rest to me. Ha ha, silver

You've come dear Lord Ranger He's riding home down To rest to me And I guess it took some time For me to decide If you were just my hero or my friend watching with my

sometimes your silver stallion ride across my room I listen as they cried I ho, silver you've come me Lord Ranger

he's riding on down name. Ha-ha-ha-Pilva. Ha-ha-Silba! So thank you Jim So least favourite song Ed I'll go to you first It sounds like your pick

It sounds like you've already kind of foreshadowed What your pick's going to be For least favourite song I don't know There was some other dog shit here I mean I'll be honest I thought Jim Diamond was just a bit of a train wreck Given how intensely he seemed to push himself

Into the frame at the beginning It's just it was a complete limp noodle For the rest of the fucking song It's like not quite anything but yeah it probably does have to go to whistle because it reminds me of a song that I like that was a bit of a throwaway novelty by respected hip-hop artists of the era

that was chucked away as a B-side has a lot of the elements of this but it's far more charming and gritty and lively and has a more authentic kind of party atmosphere to it Lardie Dardy by Dougie Fresh with Slick Rick It's basically the same principle With him just doing the bloody inspector gadget thing

In the background It's like fuck it It's just a B-side That ends up Well basically this ends up being The horrible McDonald's version of that If you get what I mean And it never ends

And it has the same idea Over and over again And it sounds wretched to begin with And it flatlines throughout It's already out of date In terms of the flow style they're using It's about to say, bloody hell. I mean, run DMC were on their third album by this point.

Yeah. And this sounds like some like 1982 garbage, really. But, oh God, they're such good dancers, though. That's what you want in all your rap stars. Good dancing. Yeah. That's about all I've got to say about that. It's just, I'm not surprised this has been cut out of people's memory

because it is nothing. And it is one of those songs that kinds of hell. up the public's expectations of what hip-hop could be in the UK, particularly for a long, long time. As you say, Rob, it's like, oh, it's a joke, it's a novelty, it's a bit of fun. We recognise these tunes, let's have a laugh. And this is one of the worst offenders I think I've ever seen. It's just trash, really, if you'll forgive me. I mean, that's the thing, like, Bart Simpson will have a rap number one in the UK before a serious rap artist will have a number one in the UK from this point.

It takes a long time for rap to shake off this idea that it's just kind of fun-loving party guys from New York and nothing else. They may rap about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They may get, you know, one of them may be John Barnes, but you won't get a serious, right? Like, John Barnes had a rap hit, number one, before anybody actually takes it seriously.

And it was better than this, I should have. Yes. Lizzie, your least favorite song of the episode, is it this or is it something different? Are you going to put forward a different, I guess the piehole of the episode? What's in yours? I mean, I was considering Jim Diamond, which is like Dyer Without the Straits, but yeah, it's got to be Whistle, or maybe I should put some respects on their names. They are jazzy jazz, cool doobie and DJ Silver Spinner. Silver spinner.

Silver spinner. It doesn't be on your bike, for fuck's sake. All I can say is, like, thank God we didn't get the full five-minute-long version of this. Considering, like, how half-baked the track already is and how half-baked the lyrics already are, it's a miracle that they were able to get three minutes out of it, even if it did mean them having to dress up like droogs and dance about, like, they're bursting for a piss. I completely agree with you both.

Like, you've covered it in. early 90s, it takes far longer than it should have done for both the British charts and top of the pops to take hip-hop seriously. Like even, you fast forward a few years, most

of the time, you'll get, like, public enemy on the breakers. Like, they won't bother to bring them in because, oh, it's just rap, who cares? Like, it's nonsense. But you get plenty of this stuff. Like you say, Rob, the sort of fun, party time, like guys that are a little bit goofy,

and they introduced their songs like, my name is someone and I'm here to say, I'm going to rap in a raffing way. Yeah, I'm also glad that Ed, you didn't mention it. I take it you've both seen Look Around You. Oh, yes. Rapping all day and rapping all night. Yeah, it's Anthony Carmichael.

I'm raffing, I'm raffing, I'm rapping, I'm rap, rap, rapping. Like, yeah, it's, I can't believe that they gave this so much time on the episode, but Prince only gets 30 fucking seconds. Yeah. That's the big sin of this episode, isn't it? And Kiss ends up higher in the charts than this, actually, as well. Yeah, God. Yeah, I guess the number six.

Whistle is, yeah, also my least favourite. So, like, there's a joke in Family Guy. I'm unsure how well it's aged, really, but bear with me for a second. As well, it's probably aged as well as any of the other crude, slightly close to the bone jokes in Family Guy, I guess. But anyway, so there is an episode in which Peter and, I forget the context, but Peter and Lois are in the front room of the house, the family guy house. And Peter says he's hired some, quote, 80s black guys to do a dance.

Their names are ozone and turbo, and they have jerry curls and sweatbands around their heads, and they smile a lot. But Peter then realizes that two, quote, 90s black guys have turned up instead, who've got bandanas, gold chains, baggy pants, and most importantly for the sketch, a pistol each. And they're there to rob the place. So Peter runs away and tries to get to the front door, only to be greeted by the actual ozone and turbo,

who say, hey Peter, we're just here to dance for the kids with big smiles on their faces. And Peter just says, run 80s black guys. You're no match for the 90s black guys. The 90s black guys then try to shoot Peter Ozone and Turb. and the stereotypes there are deliberately reductive and provocative, but I think Family Guy was kind of satirizing media representations of 80s and 90s American black guys more than anything else, or at least how black pop musicians and actors were designed for white America and

white Britain's consumption. And by sheer coincidence, here's whistle. This finds rap and white Britain's relationship with rap in a very strange place. Three days after this top of the pop's episode, Rundi MC, go into a studio with Aerosmith for Walk This Way. And boy, can you tell that this is a world and a Britain that hasn't fully experienced Rundi MC yet. This is out of date, but to the British public, there's not much of a concept that Rundi MC even exists. They've had a song get to like number 80 on the indie singles chart or something, but that's about it. You know, they're three albums in, and Britain has no concept of things like Rock Box, King of Rock. My Adidas, I don't even think, ever made it over here, you know, all these things.

But while it is a world that's not had Rundee MC yet, it's also not the same world that had the Sugar Hill Gang or Houdini. You know, it's not the world that they were dropped into. Rappers have got to be a little harder than that because, God, they can't be associated with disco anymore. We can't be associated with that. but they also can't be as hard as, say, Too Short, or School E.D. or L.L. Cool J. So you find them being designed by their labels as like between the 80s and 90s black guys from that family guy joke, where it's like, we're really hard and we're really scary, so don't you try and get too friendly, but we don't shoot guns and we don't take drugs, but don't dare to try and give us a

hug. That feels like every verse in this song where you can see both impulses clashing. They've got to be cool, but they can't be emotionless. They've got to have fun, but they can't look gay. Which is why you get them doing really aggressive rap deliveries, and then you get them docy-doing, like they're at a barn dance. And when you get them wearing those, and why you get them wearing these really flashy white track suits, but also get them wearing those really fluffy white raccoon hats.

It's just the kind of thing that new kids on the block thought was fresh and new about three or four years later than this and then there's that sample oh my god bear blah blah blah the kind of thing that gets blown out of rap and hip hop

instantly in like 1988 it's funny you mentioned Slick Rick before because I think even Slick Rick had left this stuff behind after his first album you get a couple of things like that where he does the comedy kind of thing but then by the time he's moving on to his second album. He kind of sounds more like

Della Sol or he's recently heard like the first or two, the first two gangstar records and he's trying to go that way. Yeah, but he had charisma and a character. He did. Yes. These do not have one between them, it would seem. No. They're playing characters that have been designed for them

essentially, which are then later I think, you know, parodied by crude sitcoms, you know, but I will say that Whistle are absolutely the kind of act that if your dad was watching this in 1986, born during World War II, he would sit there and go, how's this music? How can you call this music? Put a bit of bloody sonata back on. That's proper music,

not this nonsense. And for that, whistle get a point or two from me, even if your dad would be right about this not being any good. Exactly. The sad thing is that the kid would probably have to concede that without any other visible option. You know, it's like, oh, guess hip hop really is Shit. Yeah, let's listen to some Sinatra, Dad. Yeah. Yeah, the Sinatra clip is kind of weird. There's this, again, this kind of respect for the past or whatever. It just looks a bit bored or tired for most of it. Why is this in the charts? I've never been able to find this out. Yeah, just that it had a re-release, but yeah, that's about it. Yeah. Although, to be honest, you get less and less of them. I don't know if it's just a thing, but like, when we were starting to cover the 90s, on hits 21 we had a lot of re-releases of 70s and 80s songs that just had the you know the end of the year the abbreviation of the year tacked on to the title and so this

would be like theme from new york 86 it's kind of like with um the tavarez one that is also just like you know heaven must be missing an angel 86 and i don't know if he just got into the habit of that which kind of slips away as CDs come in but yeah i've never quite understood the why of it. Maybe it's performed on a TV show or put on an advert and they want to re-release it to capitalise on that, but yeah, I'm not sure. It must be something, but it was on like a bloody advert for Fiat or something that had a model on it or something. Lossed a time, maybe. Weirdly, and probably by accident, one of the best early rap tracks released in the UK that was a fair hit was

again, I don't even think it was trying, really, was by Ian Jewry. If you know, reasons to be cheerful, part three. I absolutely adore that song. It should suck our ass. It's a, you know, it's a sort of loungy end of New Wave kind of 1979 single by basically a bunch of session musicians and a charismatic frontman. It's six minutes long and it's him saying all the things he likes in the world and I love it to pieces and it's aged remarkably well.

I've never tried it again and that's probably for the best but that one time I think it worked pretty bloody well. Yeah, because I mean this is the thing that's slightly frustrating is that like I mean I know it wasn't very good but I feel like you know the sort of later clash albums like combat rock and cut the crap. And yeah, they're, you know, they're more influenced by rapping, you know, and hip hop in a sort of like, it's not in an obvious way, but, you know, there's dub in there and there's little bits of, like, and it just, it kind of feels like there was your, you know, there was your blueprint to introduce white Britain to, you know, the different styles of music. And it just kind of felt like, yeah, like you were saying, Lizzie, that New Wave kind of fizzled out. And so now we get novelty acts from America kind of having to come over and debase themselves a bit.

It's a real shame. I guess maybe that maybe if Sandinista was swallowable by most people. I actually really like that album, but it was a commercial disaster. But there are legitimately two or three long form rack tracks on it, like The Magnificent Seven. and they're pretty good considering they're by like an ex-punk band just, you know, who obviously, they weren't taking the piss. They obviously really dug the stuff like early Grandmaster Flash and stuff they were hearing in New York.

But I just think there weren't enough hits on that record. Maybe that's why they sort of retreated into a bit more of the soundscaping side of hip-hop rather than the actual rapping, but well, anyway. All right then, so should we flip the script and talk about something more positive for a change. Yeah, so we're going to play another clip of the episode and we'll lead you in to our favourite songs of the episode. Here's the highest new entry on the chart this week,

not content with just writing a hit record for the Bengals, he's written in one for himself as well. At number 27, it's Prince and Kiss. So, Lizzie So, Lizzie, favourite song, favourite performance, what are your nominations for your nominations for this one? Yeah, it was a close-run thing with House of Love by Ken? Bush, but I am going to give this to Prince with Kiss.

Even if, yeah, even if we don't get that much of it, criminally so. Yeah, well, 30 seconds of it. But that 30 seconds sounds fantastic, I'll tell you. I think it's a real achievement that a song as sparse as this can be as funky as it is. Like, for the most part,

it's Prince's falsetto combined with a crunchy drum machine, but he really sells it in a way that I don't think any other artists could. admittedly I think I prefer some of Prince's songs produced for other artists more on that next time but this is so unlike anything else on the episode

that you'd think it was from another planet or something it's fantastic yeah it's a shame we didn't get the episode the week after the 13th of March because that closes the episode on the 13th of March it's the one that the audience dances out to if you will so it might have uh yeah it's a bit of a shame

it didn't get more air time. I think it's probably the last time that Kiss is on Top of the Pops on the 13th March, 1986, which is again, another shame. I feel like because they didn't have a proper kind of performance of it,

you'd feel like when they did the last episode, which was basically like a, you know, a big photo album of various decades. I feel like Kiss would have been a nice little insert there if they've ever got him in the studio to do that. I'm not sure if he ever actually appeared. I think it was all music videos and top 40 breakers. He eventually got on in the 90s, it seems.

Holy River and Baby Nose, and then they did Baby Nose on the final countdown. So from 1999, but it was a repeat. Just on that point, it's interesting that Kate Bush is actually here because she was usually more of a video artist. That's true. Ed, what about you? What's your favourite song slash performance from this one? It's the same, really. I mean, Kiss, it's just, it's all, it's all attitude and confidence. And even in the, the video presentation with him taking his top off and revealing that, you know, that alien crop top thing he's got on. It's, it's great. It's just pure chutzper, as they say, or once did. That's a very foggish expression, but anyway. And yeah, it's a song that I don't think I thought much of it when I first heard it when I was a,

kid, but it's just, it's so insistent and just has such a primal groove. And it's, as you say, Liz, it's like, it gets away with being so Spartan that that almost becomes its strength, and it's like, I don't fucking need anything. Yeah. He was very much in an era where it's like, my songs don't need a bass. Look, I've got this, the world's shittiest sounding drum machine and an occasional synthriff, and then me going, ah, ah, and it's like, but if you can actually carry that off and find the music in that. It's like, hell, no one else is going to dare do that, and it fucking

worked, you know? I really hope your mic pick that up because it cuts out for me. Well, we'll find out, right? Sorry, listeners. I was rather reducing the musical capabilities of Prince. But, yeah, it is only 30 seconds, though, unfortunately. There is a close, as I say, I do really like Kate Bush, but that's not actually my second, but I might have to leave my second until later in the episode. Okay, yeah. So, Kiss isn't my favourite performance slash song of the episode, but it was my second favourite, so I did write some notes about it.

I don't like the way it's introduced by Gary Davis, because he introduces Prince as someone not content with writing a song for the bangles, he's written one for himself with that slightly mocking tone. Like he hasn't already had a run of pretty big UK hits in. recent memories had four top tens in the last two years in the UK. Again, this feeling that the present must not be respected, only the past must be respected. Everything from 86 is fair game, especially if it's a slightly effeminate, mysterious, freaky guy from over there in America, oh yeah, we can take a few pot shots at him. It's weird, very, very weird. Kate Bush,

hounds of love, is my favourite. Only 27, 28 here, but she does seem a bit older. I don't know if that comes down to this being part of a bit of a comeback for her, you know, because she doesn't achieve a top 10 hit for five years between Babushka and running up that hill. So maybe she seems older because she broke out so younger than went away for a while. But, you know, she's arguably come back to the charts anyway, at her creative peak. You know, she's generated a big second win for herself with the Dreaming and Hounds of Love and Hounds of Love has all the big singles on it. This only gets to number 18, but I guess that's because people have gone out and bought the album already.

after hearing running up that hill gets number three. Of course, until 2022, when everything changes there. But, you know, the album's been out for six months. So I'm not sure why this itself wasn't put out earlier. Maybe to drive up sales a few months down the line, maybe to avoid Christmas. Mother's Day. Yes.

So, you know, maybe this explains why it isn't her most committed performance, I think. She's more sassy than mysterious here. But what a song, you know? strong sense of intensity throughout the battle between live strings and synth strings is really amazing where you get those soft electronic pads meeting the quite staccato live delivering you get those double-tracked tribal drums at the back then you've got that steady back peat uh back beat to kind of go off which kate uses to kind of go off on one and then find a way back again and i think

the display on the stage captures that pretty much perfectly the way that everybody is arranged with the two drummers at the back the keyboardist the cellist and string play kind of to the side on the wings and then Kate Bush up front, you know, it's like they've really thought about how it sounds in relation to like the stereo field and the stereo image. And I think that rarely do you get that, you know, like kind of think of like that kind of combination of instruments where you get, you know, strings, drums and keys. Like it's a very, very unusual combination. But I think that's, you know, what has made pounds of love standard test of time. The crowd could be behaving differently, but it's hard to be hyperactive when this song is playing. You know, they think this song's always had a different vibe. It's not really one to get up and dance around to.

I think it has, you know, a solid rhythm. And if it was played in a club, I don't think you would necessarily go and sit on the side or stand on the wall. But, hey, you know, it's, yeah, it's really something. It stood out to me. I'm glad that we found an episode with her on it, because I think, you know,

her top of the pop's performances have always kind of gone down in history that obviously this isn't Wuthering Heights but it's something a bit calmer, it's a more measured, more matured Kate Bush, I suppose, is maybe what she was trying to put herself across actually, even with that kind of suit jacket that she's

wearing that's from the video, or at least inspired by her outfit in the video, which again is another very kind of like sophisticated little mini movie sort of thing which I sort of looked up afterwards. All right, so I'm going to play another clip but this time when we come back

we're going to be discussing maybe what should have been in the episode or what we wish had been in the episode so actually yeah the clip I'll play will be Gary Davis reading 40 to 11 over Tavares

he apologises to Tavares and then says the chart over sorry Tavares this is where we have a look at the new top 40 a new entry at number 40 for Susie and the Banshees and Candyman chart entry at 39

for ELO and calling America, and there's a new entry at 38, the Poges and Pogatry in motion. Chart entry at 36, Freddie Jackson, rock me tonight. And a chart entry at 35, Grace Jones, love is the drug. Chart entry at 32, the blow monkeys and digging your scene, superb, hip sway, chart entry at 31 with the honey feet. At 29 is Mr. Mistor and Kiri, that's a chart entry. And the highest new entry is at 27, Prince and the Revolution, and Keeffe. Kiss.

Up to 25, Mike and the Mechanics and Silent Running, up to 24. Colonel Abrams, I'm not going to let you. And then a few go down. Going up to number 20, Audrey Hall, one dance won't do. Up to number 18 this week, Kate Bush and Hounds of Love,

and up at 17 talking heads, and she was. Jim Diamond, the highest climber on the chart. Hi-ho Silver is at number 16, and up to 14, just bugging, from Whistle. Up to 13, if you were here tonight, Alexander O'Neill. This from Tavares is up to number 12, and number 11 is Huey Lewis in The News, and the power of love, do you believe in love?

Top 10 coming up a little bit later on. All right, so, Lizzie, what would you, you know, looking at that top 40 from the 6th of March 86, what were you sort of looking at and going, oh, that could have been on? Like, it was a climber, but they didn't feature it. You know, what did you want them to play? I've picked out two.

The obvious one is Seekzee-Expotnik with Love Missile F-1-11, which is an authentically weird cyber-surf song produced by Giorgio Moroda that almost got to number one. Sadly, it was on the episode before this one, so tough luck there. I would have also nominated Pogatory in motion by the Pogues, but Rob still has somehow not seen the wire, so I will keep my reasoning to myself for them. Yeah, Ed, what did you want

When you look at the charts You know, when Gary Davis is reeling them off You're like, oh, that's not in it Oh, that's not in it? Oh, they miss that one out? Like, you know, what do you think? I mean, it seems like Lizzie has more deep-cut knowledge Of my birth year in music than I do

Which, if you think about it doesn't really make any sense Why it wouldn't be that way. But, yeah, mine is literally the first one he reels off. Candyman by Susie in the Banshees. they were alarmingly consistent from about 1978 through to about 1992 and there were two great singles off this album this isn't my favourite

this was the album that's got cities in dust on it which is bloody great but Candyman really good single and they just kept pumping out great singles in varying styles changing it up through the decade but hey I can't even think off the top of my I had what Susie and the Vanjee's looked like in 1986.

So I'm like, well, you know, I would have liked to have seen that rather than fucking scary Jim Diamond or even, I have to say, Tavares, you know, not exactly one of my favorites of that era. It's more the kind of ha, ha, ha, ha, happy, clappy, you know, on a level sort of tinsely version of disco. Not as a bad song, but, but yeah, that would be my pick. I had a few that when I was kind of running through the charts that I was like oh you know a bit of a shame

I mean I know it's past their peak but rise by pill that that would have been nice to get something there you know never even just the video but you know getting John Leiden on this episode would have been a lot of fun and she was talking heads you know as a climber this week but doesn't get much of a looking even Grace Jones's version of Love is the drug is quite an interesting cover I find

although the music video would have been I don't know how sensitive they really were in 1986 to sort of like epileptic photosensitive epilepsy or anything like that but the video for that would have been a nightmare so I couldn't understand why maybe they might have skipped over that. Susie, Candyman

some really good post-punk and futuristic pop getting overlooked this week which is a little bit of a shame. I think that Ed if you've held on in your mum's womb for another few days who may have had a slightly yeah. Yeah slightly different, obviously would have had a slightly different experience.

But I think that this episode is a nice enough slice of 86, even if that slice, you know, not every slice can be tasty, but every slice is valuable in that way. You know, you can always learn something from just looking back at a random episode, I suppose. So are there any other thoughts about this episode before we discuss the number one episode, the number one record, which is obviously Diana Ross?

I really hate what they've done to the chart rundown format. Rant away. If you've seen Top of the Pops from earlier in the 80s, they would break up the chart rundown into chunks, which built anticipation through the show and often placed the songs in the context of their chart position quite nicely. But like you say, here they just break into the fucking Tavares video. They slap that ugly vertical scroll in the dead century,

of the screen it's like you know you used to get those compilations on telly adverts which is like 50 punk classics and it's just like to play a clip of a little bit and it'd be highlighted in yellow but it's like scrolling at the speed of sound so you can barely read it but yeah you've just got that with like gary davis bellowing out only the risers and the new entries and then later on for the top 10 instead of showing brief video snippets of each entry like the used to is just like a still image of the artist on a very jazzy background so much for the promise of more hits from Gary Davis at the start like there's only 10 songs on this episode and we're down to half an hour by this point it was only a few years earlier that it was running for like

40 45 minutes yeah yeah I did notice that this episode was very short yeah half an hour I wonder what I mean it went out at seven o'clock um on the night that it went out by wonder. Well, I think this is permanent now. I don't think they ever get back to like 40 minute episodes. Is it EastEnders? Is that what's causing the issue? Must be.

Yeah, Ed, I don't know if you want to chime in on that, on the, uh, the format change and the logo change and Gary Davis having to explain it to everybody as well. It's very difficult for me to hang on anything Gary Davis says. He's perfectly competent, but, you know, you mentioned that you felt that one of his comments about Prince was a bit sort of sneering in a way. I don't know if he's capable of that degree of emotional modulation. He's just not exciting.

He's totally non-threatening. There's not a creeper vibe. It's just he's kind of got this, you know, pleasant summer Christian camp counselor vibe. And, you know, as I say, look, Dixie Peach is trying his best, but underneath all of this kind of desperate gesticulating, like, I've got to bring some motion to the screen and pretend I'm excited, there is still the same lingering great hedium underneath it. You know, just down to, just when he says, oh, that's just bugging. And I'm like, oh, you're trying my patience. But it's like, oh, it's such a superficial attempt to be, you know, oh, I'm so wacky. And it's like, no, I bet you are so fucking dull.

I bet you just sit on the train and do the fucking crossword. I mean, I would, but... You don't present top of the pop said. Yeah, exactly. It's a good reason for that. Yeah. We haven't mentioned the jumper, have we? No.

You were saying about, like, the, like, cool youth pass device. The fact that we've got 40 minutes in and barely mentioned Dixie Peach, it is kind of like Gary Davis just brought his friend to do an episode. Poor guy. There's a bit of like, you know, as I say, they're probably absolutely fine, but there is a bit of a kind of Mormons following you on their bike vibe. Do you know what I mean to both of them? And it's like they're not, they're not predatory, but it's like, oh, come on guys, you know? And they don't manage to escape that Steve Wright or Noel Edmunds thing of introducing an act like, here are Mike and the mechanics, and they are silent running on dangerous ground. Like, no, don't introduce it like that. Say it normally.

And he says Mike Rutherford and the mechanics. Yes. Yes, I know it's that. Yes. That did immediately stand out to me. It's Dixie Pitchster says that, isn't it? He's introduced them as Mike. Maybe they were under direction there where it was like, well, we're.

We can't just introduce them as Mike and the Mechanics, because I think this is one of their earliest... It is. Yeah, this is their first album, actually. And so it's like, well, we have to kind of clue them in as to why we should care about this lot. And it's just because one of Genesis has found four new friends. And...

The fourth most recognizable member of Genesis. It was fucking massive in America, though, silent running. Got to number five, number six. They had some massive hits at the beginning. Took them a while from to break. threw over here in the same way over my shoulder and the living years and things like that

you know they're the two big ones I think that always come up oh god over my shoulder I like I like over my shoulder naff as it is I've got to say you know and it is as you say it's wogan it's wogan core yes it is but I was a fucking wogan core kid until I discovered

aero classic rock seriously about the dentist I hate it Oh, I like the dentist. It reminds me of clean tea. It's really weird, Lizzie. You were saying that, actually. Not much reminds me of being at the dentist because my dentist does listen to radio too,

but I've noticed that my appointments always seem to be in the middle of Popmaster. Don't know if it's because of my work schedule. You're like shouting out the answers with a hand in your mouth. Yeah. My goodness is my car. My wife.

I'm not going to be talking. I was going to say that I realised going from my notes I've written the same comment like three times which to people who've heard me speak before probably isn't too surprising I tend to fall back on some stock phrases

but aggressively loungy came up more than once for the vibe particularly of a lot of the UK artists because I think the music of this era the pop music is that kind of it's really odd because it's very aggressive

in terms of it has that unsubtle bludgeoning production. It's all very in your face. The drums are really kind of but the music it's supporting is really sort of waifish like the most muted ambient quote unquote sophistic pop you can imagine.

And so it's kind of like a combination of ambience and aggression. It's like a kind of like a rohypnol pop pop nol. Oh, God. Yeah, let's not do that. But do you know where I'm coming from? I was going to say, there's a specific moment in the Jim Diamond song where they kind of zoom in on the guitarist.

Oh, he's going to do a cell. And it's like, wham-wee-w-w-w-w-wow-wow-blown. He's really wobbling his guitar around. Hey, look at me. Look at me, Mom. It's the same with bloody, God, Mike Rutherford, of Mike Rutherford. and the mechanics at the beginning. He has a little guitar solo

that I think is just awkwardly playing along to a sample of like a sampled keyboard. He was never a lead guitarist either. I think they just needed to fucking fill space and he was the de facto guitarist. But it is interesting, Rob. And I fucking get it 100%. You assume that Mike was the lead singer.

Yes, initially I did, yeah. I mean, who would know what Mike Rutherford looked like unless you'd seen a load of old fucking Genesis pictures, to be honest. He's not the most, you know, standout guy. He never sang in Genesis either. But it's interesting that the lead chap is like a forgotten brother of Phil Collins, both in look and sound. I mean, he's a good singer, but it's eerily similar. And he had no connection to Genesis that I'm aware of. It's just like, oh, hey, this is Phil. I miss you, Phil. Please let me back, Phil.

Airsats, Phil. So we are going to go and finish the episode with Diana Ross's chain reaction. We're going to play you a little clip of that performance, I think, and then we're going to discuss it. But obviously, I won't give it the usual intro because we've not done the 80s yet. Find a pedestal and putting me on it You made me love you out of feeling of nothing Something that you do

And I was there not dancing with anyone You took a little then you took me over You set your phone on stealing my heart away Try it, trying, trying, ain't anything for you I'm in the middle of a chain reaction You give me all the after Midnight action I want to get you where

I can let you make all that love to me I'm all to turn it for the inspiration to anywhere and there ain't no salvation and I leave you to get me nearer to you so you can set me free

if you talk about love love love all right thank you diana for that so ed chain reaction number one when you were born i presume yes few uh because i i on the whole i have comments i have notes but i'm really i really like this song i always have um and i as much as i like red light spells danger i'm not the biggest fan of the Billy Ocean track that this replaced. I find it, you know,

globular and abrasive and annoying. And then it got covered by fucking boys, as I recall many moons later. For comic relief, which was basically the same except with less charisma. But yeah, I'll get the negatives out of the way.

It is... The sound of it is kind of dog shit. It's a bit like the song that the BGs also wrote for Dionne Warwick Heartbreaker it's the instrumental track

is deadeningly artificial and I'm you know I like synths and stuff but by this point a lot of the charm had gone had been replaced with a sort of competence which is not not charming unless it's used to do

something creative and so you both end up with these you know, instrumental, 15 seconds kind of introductions to these songs. Thankfully, you get both a really good singer in both occurrences and a really fucking solid song because they wrote a lot of great stuff for other artists after they, you know, were formally on hiatus as a group. And as much as I think this could have done with a bit more, a bit more, a bit more pep and life and thought given to its actual arrangement because it is obviously going for

a Motown thing but it kind of becomes leaden because it is just all programmed effectively but that doesn't take away from oh god they had a real knack for writing a a rhythmic uh melody that would be like an instant motif that you could hook on to and as a result they could take take you fucking anywhere harmonically. You can go all around the houses. They do on this. There's so many fucking modulations and this and that and the other. It's almost chaotic.

But their grasp of, you know, the songfulness of it, the core of the song that binds it all together. The melody that underpins it all is so strong that it never remotely feels out of control. And yeah, I can't help but just really like it as just a super solid bit of songwriting sung with great charm and capacity by sort of one of the sweetest voices in popular music, really. So I'm very pleased that this was number one on my birthday, really. Lizzie, what about you? Completely agree. I think the major downside,

as you say, Ed, is the sound of it. There's a real chintzy cheapness to it, particularly in like, yeah i've noticed it a lot in you know the intro bit where you get the chord changes and it sounds like i don't know if either of you ever had those like Yamaha keyboards where they'd have like a preset oh yeah and you just press the key and it go like do do do do do do do do do you just change the you can use it to change the tonic at the bottom of the keyboard it changes the key yeah yeah and i think the video as well adds to the feeling that when i listen to this i feel like i'm squinting to sort of imagine it with 60s production. Yeah.

Like, because I can hear it there. I can hear all the elements, but it's just been done in a way where it's got this horrible A.C.'s gloss on top of it. And it's a shame because it is obviously well-constructed. I think the actual, the chord changes in the melody are done so skillfully. And Diana Ross, her vocal, is brilliant like it always is.

She barely opens a mouth and just, the most beautiful thing comes out. Like, yeah, I'm really glad that she had another hit, but I just wish the production was better on this. It's a real shame, but there you go. Yeah, and perhaps more sympathetic to the PG's 80s stuff than most people. Like, ESP is not that bad. You win again as a nice single.

It did seem like they were saving their most commercially obvious and memorable 80s material for other people. You know, you mentioned Heartbreaker, but also like, you know, woman in love, islands in the stream, and then this, chain reaction,

you know, that's all within six years of each other. And I think what they were always good at, Ed, you've just kind of made reference to it there, throwing in little flourishes, theory-based flourishes.

They're clever, very, very clever songwriters. This has key changes in the most unexpected of places. Islands in the stream does as well, where it just goes up for Dolly's verse, and then that's it. to start the second verse, we're just going to go up, why not?

And I think chain reaction goes up twice or even three times at the end, and it goes up in the middle of the chorus, and then comes back down again. They're so, so clever at that kind of stuff. They were a good Trojan horse for sneaking little ideas and theory base flourishes, as I said, into chart pop. And I think Diana adjusts herself fairly well to this. She's in something of a hot streak, I think, in terms of quality, even if all of that hasn't quite surfaced all the way to the top of the charts during the 70s and the 80s. She's still in that main phase after leaving the Supremes.

You know, she's still producing pretty solid stuff. She is slipping slightly out of her imperial phase here, though, I think, as are the BGs themselves a little bit. I've always enjoyed the drama of this song, the Hollywood melodrama, all the stuff about explosions and death and nuclear reactions and all this stuff. but it's just a little maybe the 80s production has a part to, you know, partly to do with this just a bit stompy. Not in a fun, glam stump

kind of way, but in a more unsubtle 80s, AOR kind of way. You know, but like I said, there is a story here, there's drama, Diana's performance, he's classy and sophisticated, we're still very much in that era of pop where something that the Americans do, it feels like it's being bestowed upon us.

We couldn't get them in the, studio, but they've been very kind to give us a music video. Thank you so much to our American gods of pop. You even get some squirrely little BG's harmonies there in the background

from the Brothers Gibb. So you get value for money. You do get value for money with this. It isn't one of my favorite number ones of the 80s, but if it was number one when I was born, I would be pleased with that. I think of the three

number ones that we will cover in this little bonus run this is the best of them I think by a decent chalk I think I know Ed you have a slightly better you know a slightly more favourable opinion of love is all around than I do I'm probably the most positive on

everything I do I do for you I'll go back over it again I think when we come to the episode next week but yeah I think that this, like I was saying before, maybe the nicest tasting slice of 86, but every slice is valuable.

I've learned something this week, and that's always a good thing. So, Ed, what are your closing notes about this episode? Well, I was just going to respond, first of all, to what you were saying about the Diana Ross track, because it is always so odd to me, the trajectory of the B,

G's career, where they peaked twice, not because of some revival of interest in their quote-unquote kind of music, but because they entirely changed their sound and musical aesthetic and approach to writing music and basically hit it again as a completely different artist. It's baffling to go back to some of the early stuff and realize how simple, bordering on simplistic, some of it is. Now, they were very young. I do think that there is some great stuff on like BG's first and on horizontal. Some of it's a bit derivative. But we will be, in an odd piece of symmetry, on the main show, coming up to another very early BG's song, very soon, in cover form, I believe, which I believe was first release in.

1967 by the BGs, but was actually covered by another artist in the mid to late 90s, which is how I came about it. But you would not believe it was the same artist. I'll put it that way. And just to save some people some time, if you like Saturday Night Fever BGs, if you even like 80s BGs, you know, you win again. If you like later stuff, like alone even, which is another bit of, I really like that song.

You know, there's another sort of sea change. Do not even remotely expect to like their early stuff. And that's not to say it's bad, but my God, it's coming from a completely different part of the brain. Yes. I think. I tried and tried and tried and tried with Odessa, which is their double album from 1969, which some people think is a very ambitious concept. album, you know, it's very, it's very dense and very restrained and all these words that

indicate that it's kind of, you know, there's something wrong here, isn't it? Basically, what they mean is, it's very long, and it's possibly unfinished, and a lot of the songs don't go fucking anywhere. And those are the ones that don't just sound like very slow nursery rhymes. So, proceed with caution. I don't think they cared enough to finish the album. But anyway. So, Lizzie, your closing thoughts on this one. Yeah, I don't think it's a stellar episode, but in terms of just, if we're just talking number ones, I think looking at the rest of 1986,

we did pretty well here, considering we didn't get the likes of the chicken song by spitting image, or every loser wins by Nick Berry, or worst of all, The Lady in Red by Chris Deberg. I think 1986 is the only year that Christopher could have got famous

exactly you know like because he's not you know it obviously has you know a couple of other hits but when I say

a couple it is a couple and they're all kind of afterwards you know I think the Christmas song canon

would say to you that Space Man came travelling was oh it's a big hit when that was first release never even charted in the UK it did well

in Ireland, but Ireland isn't the UK. You know, it just never really did anything, but yeah, 86 is kind of I guess what happens when a load of new people come flooding into the charts and then all kind of vanish in between album cycles at exactly the same time.

Well, yeah, WAM break up this year, so they're just about to wrap up, that's kind of the big sea change of 1986. I don't know if you feel the same way, but in my mind, in terms of my cherry-picked retroactive history of music of the 80s that I, you know, I admire or I find interesting.

1986, I think, is a good year. It's not quite a watermark year unless you're looking at metal, I think. Very important year for metal. But outside that, it just doesn't, it's like you can go back to 1984, and I think even 84 is somewhat underrated in terms of what it gave us musically, quite a lot going on there. 1988, you know, on the other end, super, you know, forward-looking, quite revolutionary year full of some very interesting music. Again, not necessarily always in the pop charts.

But 1986, it kind of just sits in the middle a lot of the time. It's not a bad year for music, I don't think, but it's not one that's ever going to come up as like, ah, 86, fucking hell. It's up there with 66, you know what I mean? up there was 71 you know not aware we're 94 it's it's it's not it's no it's good it's not great there's some really good stuff it's just like you know it's either not here yet or it's like just never going to chart over here like you know master of puppets has only just come out

in america at this point the smiths obviously they're coming back later this year uh there's yeah some sort of like a big obviously it was never going to get you know commercial but of atomizer, big black, Skylarking, XTC, talk of abandoned synth pop that they're now

doing the color of spring. Sonic Youth get going, Peter Gabriel, but again, that's later in the year. Grace Land is later in the year, but again, I'm not sure how much of it is really capable

of getting on top of the pops. I feel like, you know, chameleons are still in their good phase as well in the eight I'll say they're good phase kind of their only phase really because they, when they came back three albums and then they came back many moons

later, but yeah, it's, but I guess you know, you could say that of any year where there's always fantastic stuff that's never going to get, you know, the commercial attention. Yeah. The more you look at a comment like mine, the more it kind of, it just would vaporise

because you could probably find a good argument for any year, really. Not any year for any genre. necessarily, but depending on you being wide-ranging enough, I think you can justify any year as being a great one probably if you're looking in a particular direction. Yeah, I think maybe what you've said there, though,

is that, you know, and even in sort of like with some of the number ones as well that are coming up later this year, I'm a bit like, I'm always kind of irritated a little bit by the makeup of the charts not really being four kids. There was a really big issue when we cover. in 2008, the second half of 2008 is just like, who is meant

to be buying this music? It's for, because I mean, I remember you're saying Lizzie, is it like, do you want this expensive ballad, or do you want this expensive ballad? Or do you want pink singing songs about divorce, something that you have not experienced yet,

child? Or here's Westlife and Dad's For Justice. Yes, it is a little bit like that. Whereas 2009 went way up in estimations because like, oh, the kids have taken over again. It might not all be my thing, but it's stuff that people under 25 want to buy. So Gary Davis says at the top of the episode that there are more hits than ever. There are 10 songs on this episode. On the next episode we're covering, there are 13. So much for that. Didn't last long. That record,

apparently. I would rather have five or so that they played in full, to be honest. If it was going to make half an hour. There's just little snatches here and there. Yeah, I get that. So to play us out, I think it should also be mentioned as well that about two months before this episode went out, Phil Liner actually died, age 36, composer of Yellow Pearl.

So we'll play out with Yellow Pearl, and we'll remember Phil Liner, I think. So yeah, thank you very much for this, for dealing with us on this bonus episode, this unscripted, this kind of loose bonus episode. And next time we're, will be jumping forward in time, what is it, to August 91, August 9091? Yeah.

So you all know what's coming for that one. But yeah, that'll be for Lizzie's birth date and I would say first birthday, but you were zero. Your first birthday is the one afterwards. It's for the literal birthday. It's your first birthday. It's not your first birthday, if you get whatever. You'll zero birthday. so yeah we will see you for that we'll see you next week

bye bye now see ya bye This is the foolish of the guise of love and liberty That we should capitalize You rob the plump, the poor for the socialistic Between we have a lot of attack Attack, attack, attack, attack, attack, attack that's what we like

Thank you.