On 30 July 2006, the BBC broadcast the final edition of Top Of The Pops. Thousands mourned but few were surprised. After the programme was shunned to Sunday nights on BBC2 barely a year earlier, its cancellation was clearly only a matter of time.
Still, it was a sad and undignified end to a show which, for successive generations, was the be-all and end-all of UK pop.
For the artists, it was the unequivocal definition of having “made it” into the exclusive pop pantheon. For the audience, it was a window into the country’s ever-changing musical tastes and trends, be it Rod Stewart or St Winifred’s School Choir . . .
Prior to MTV and multiple-telly households, TOTP was a Thursday night ritual in living rooms across Britain, effortlessly exposing the Generation Gap between gushing teenagers and their perplexed – often repulsed – elders.
Originally screened on Wednesdays, the show soon switched to Thursday evenings with Radio Luxembourg DJ Jimmy Savile – and his ever-present cigar – at the helm as the main presenter. Jimmy alternated with Alan Freeman, David Jacobs and Pete Murray.
Originally, TOTP had a set resembling a coffee bar disco and the DJ’s sat at turntables. Around 150 local youngsters were brought in each week to dance and mill around the stages.
Denise Sampey spun the records for the first few programmes before being replaced by model Samantha Juste. In 1967, at the age of 22, Samantha left for California to be near her husband, Micky Dolenz of The Monkees.
For a 13-week period in summer 1965, while the Manchester studio was being refurbished, the show switched to BBC Television Centre in London. The show relocated to London permanently in January 1966, first to Television Centre, then to Lime Grove.
The format of Top of the Pops was simple and changed little – A few coloured lights, some camera effects (not always state of the art), and an artist, usually lip-synching, but not always successfully. From the start, there was no pretence that the music was actually being played live on TOTP, and in 1967 Jimi Hendrix was seen attempting to mime to Purple Haze while an Alan Price record was being inadvertently played . . .
The Kinks performing ‘Ape Man’ on TOTP. 1971
Over the years, most every band and artist has appeared on this show, even The Beatles.
Status Quo and Cliff Richard both appeared on the show over four decades – the Sixties, Seventies, Eighties and Nineties, while the record for the longest gap between performances of the same song on the show is held by Tom Jones, who sang It’s Not Unusual on the show in February 1965, and then again in June 1987.
Throughout the late 60s and the 70s, the set and format changed, and the studio dance groups Pans People and Legs & Co were added. These were incredibly lust-inspiring women who danced to the record when the artist was not available to be on the show. The arrival of Pans People in 1967 outraged Mary Whitehouse, who objected to their scanty clothing.
An increasingly regular feature of the programme was the specially recorded film insert, designed to cover the absence of a performer who was in the chart. These were often made on demand in the USA, as there was little chance of getting an American artist on the show at short notice.
From August 1, 1966, TOTP was forced to rethink its miming policy when a Musicians’ Union rule came into force banning the practice. The solution was to get artists either to perform live – backed by the new house orchestra directed by Johnny Pearson and the Ladybirds vocal trio – or to re-record their music especially for the show. They could then mime to this re-recording on the programme itself.
During the 500th edition of Top Of The Pops in October 1973, Cliff Richard‘s performance was interrupted when the stage was showered by wigs. They were thrown on by The Who‘s roadies, who had become bored and raided the props department.
The show’s archives boast some of the most iconic moving images in British rock history, from Bowie and Ronson’s Starman embrace in 1972 to the flailing gladioli of Morrissey over a decade later. Indeed, The Smiths typified the attitude of leftfield who used TOTP as a means to infiltrate the mainstream and subvert the norm.
Ditto Dexys Midnight Runners and their notorious backdrop of darts player Jocky Wilson for Jackie Wilson Said, Kurt Cobain‘s uncharacteristic baritone delivery of Smells Like Teen Spirit (actually his attempt to mimic Morrissey apparently) and Wedding Present singer David Gedge’s stony-faced refusal to lip-synch during their performance of Brassneck.
Even occasional presenter, the late John Peel, was wont to take the piss with memorably impudent asides, such as “This is Bon Jovi with We Give Music A Bad Name“.
The Clash, though, famously vetoed the show altogether – in doing so instigating a toe-curling routine by in-house dance troupe Legs & Co when Bankrobber charted in 1980.
The show’s theme music changed in the 1980s with Phil Lynott’s Yellow Pearl now opening the show, and hand-held cameras were introduced to add more dynamism to the production.
Further changes were prompted by the rise of the music video industry, and video clips ousted the in-house dance troupes as the main alternative to in-studio performances.
Yet the show which attracted 15 million viewers as it catalogued the evolution from Merseybeat to psychedelia, glam, punk, new romantic and beyond was already in decline by the mid-90s.
The Beeb’s decision to reschedule it to Friday nights in 1996 failed to improve its long-term ratings (clashing with Coronation Street didn’t exactly help), exacerbated by the proliferation of satellite music channels and the loss of its telly pop crown to ITV’s Saturday morning CD:UK.
The show moved to BBC2 on Sundays in summer 2005 and was finally put out of its misery a year later.
Jimmy Savile 1964 – 1984, 1988 Tony Blackburn 1967 – 1983 Dave Lee Travis
Emperor Rosko 1975 – 1976 Noel Edmonds
1972 – 1978, 1983 Ed Stewart
Andy Peebles 1979 – 1983 David ‘Kid’ Jensen 1977 – 1984 Peter Powell 1977 – 1988 Mike Read 1978 -1989 John Peel 1968, 1981 – 1987 Alan ‘Fluff’ Freeman 1964 – 1970, 1981, 1988 Simon Bates 1979 – 1988 Paul Jordan 1985 – 1986 David Jacobs 1964 – 1970, 1988 Kenny Everett 1968 – 1973, 1988 Pete Murray 1964 – 1967 Mike Smith 1982 – 1988 Gary Davies 1982 – 1991 Simon Dee 1966 – 1969 Adrian Juste 1981 – 1982 Greg Edwards 1975 Dixie Peach 1985 – 1986 Paul Burnett 1979 – 1982 Pat Sharp 1982 – 1983 Paul Gambaccini 1981 – 1989 Samantha Justie 1964 – 1966 Anthea Turner 1988 – 1991 Sybil Ruscoe 1988 – 1989 Jenny Powell 1989 Anne Nightingale 1982 Susie Mathis 1988 – 1989 Janice Long 1982 – 1988 Liz Kershaw 1988 – 1989 ‘Diddy’ David Hamilton 1975 – 1977 Simon Mayo 1986 – 1991
1994 – 1995 Caron Keating 1988 Bruno Brookes 1984 – 1991
1994 – 1995 Andy Crane 1988 – 1989 Nicky Campbell 1988 – 1991
1994 – 1997 Mark Goodier
1988 – 1991
1994 – 1995 Richard Skinner 1980 – 1989 Jo Whiley
1995 – 1998 Mark Franklin 1991 – 1994 Tony Dortie 1991 – 1994 Claudia Simon 1991 – 1992
Pans People Flick Colby
Barbara “Babs” Lord
Dee Dee Wilde
Ruth Pearson
Louise Clarke
Andrea Rutherford
Cherry Gillespie
Sue Menhenick
Ruby Flipper Cherry Gillespie
Sue Menhenick
Patti Hammond
Lulu Cartwright
+ some blokes
Legs & Co Gill Clark
Lulu Cartwright
Patti Hammond
Pauline Peters
Rosemary Hetherington
Sue Menhenick
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The show’s theme music changed in the 1980s with Phil Lynott’s Yellow Pearl now opening the show, and hand-held cameras were introduced to add more dynamism to the production.
