In the age where information is easily accessible, on-screen text often seems irrelevant ... And, given the choice of having no text and no Steve Wright, I'd opt for that every time!
BBC4 need only to look back at Jimmy Savile's Old Record Club which was run on a rotation basis - so every third or fourth week you would get one particular year. 76, 81, 86 and 91 would have been a sensible four week TOTP rotation for this year, then 77, 82, 87, 92 etc.
As it is we now have the answer to the question 'Why did punk happen?' in the form of JJ Barrie and the Wurzels. The audience might recover after that as we get real summer of 76 nostalgia from the Real Thing and Elton and Kiki's classic.
I am still watching them religiously. Yes, they are becoming repetitive, but I'll keep watching them as long as they show them. Although switching dates and missing weeks doesn't help me to see them, I am yet to miss one.
For me Gladys Knight has been the highlight so far.
This is why Glitter gets cut. Broadscasters can't be bothered to deal with the complaints that would flood in if they played him, because his music isn't that good & there were better Glam Rock acts. We loose nothing by not playing Glitter. Same applies to Jonathon King.
The trouble with not showing Jonathan King is that for a whole 2 years he had a 10 minute "American Music" section in the show.
10 minutes per show is a lot to take out of a 35 minute show.
Chart positions are irrelevant & so is the fact that TOTP is a British show.
Berrys music is an important part of Rock & Roll history & has stood up to the test of time well. On that basis i would be prepared to defend the decision to broadcast Berry.
Glitters music was "of the time". His contribution to Rock & Roll history is not that important & his songs have not stood up to the test of time. On that basis i would cut Glitter because i couldn't be bothered wasting time defending playing him, it's just not worth it. Whether you agree or not, that is why Glitter gets cut.
Yes, it's double standards, but so what. Johnny B Goode for example is a much better song than anything Glitter ever did.
TOTP and British chart positions are not relevant when discussing TOTP,a show based on British chart positions - Hmmmm OK then.
So its ok to be a sex offender if you have credibility with the in crowd - Talk about musical snobbery !
As for Glitters musical influence - well I wouldn't be so sure it was quite as unimportant as people believe.
What was the 80's multi million selling USA hair metal if it was not updated glam rock!
Glitter's original UK media ban came after the hard drive pictures were found - and Pete Townsend gets caught with pictures on his hard drive and is "excused"
As for Chuck Berry and Bill Wyman - Does that mean "such behaviour" is perfectly acceptable as long as Mick Jagger thinks you are "cool",
Of course musical relevance is all about opinion,but the outrageous hypocrisy of Gary Glitter's situation compared to other sexual offenders in the music world is clearly a matter of fact.
There is no way anyone can say that relevance/influence should be taken into account when sexual offences involving children should even be considered.
TOTP and British chart positions are not relevant when discussing TOTP,a show based on British chart positions - Hmmmm OK then.
So its ok to be a sex offender if you have credibility with the in crowd - Talk about musical snobbery !
As for Glitters musical influence - well I wouldn't be so sure it was quite as unimportant as people believe.
What was the 80's multi million selling USA hair metal if it was not updated glam rock!
Glitter's original UK media ban came after the hard drive pictures were found - and Pete Townsend gets caught with pictures on his hard drive and is "excused"
As for Chuck Berry and Bill Wyman - Does that mean "such behaviour" is perfectly acceptable as long as Mick Jagger thinks you are "cool",
Of course musical relevance is all about opinion,but the outrageous hypocrisy of Gary Glitter's situation compared to other sexual offenders in the music world is clearly a matter of fact.
There is no way anyone can say that relevance/influence should be taken into account when sexual offences involving children should even be considered.
ALL of them,or NONE of them - seems fair to me
It's debatable that Gary Gliiter was much of an influence on 80s hair metal. What about Kiss?
And if he was, then he's to blame for the likes of Poison, Warrant and other tripe.
TOTP and British chart positions are not relevant when discussing TOTP,a show based on British chart positions - Hmmmm OK then.
So its ok to be a sex offender if you have credibility with the in crowd - Talk about musical snobbery !
As for Glitters musical influence - well I wouldn't be so sure it was quite as unimportant as people believe.
What was the 80's multi million selling USA hair metal if it was not updated glam rock!
Glitter's original UK media ban came after the hard drive pictures were found - and Pete Townsend gets caught with pictures on his hard drive and is "excused"
As for Chuck Berry and Bill Wyman - Does that mean "such behaviour" is perfectly acceptable as long as Mick Jagger thinks you are "cool",
Of course musical relevance is all about opinion,but the outrageous hypocrisy of Gary Glitter's situation compared to other sexual offenders in the music world is clearly a matter of fact.
There is no way anyone can say that relevance/influence should be taken into account when sexual offences involving children should even be considered.
ALL of them,or NONE of them - seems fair to me
In an ideal and fair world, that would happen. But there's fair, then there's realistic. Tell a radio station that they can't play the Stones any more, and they will tell you where to get off. Tell them that they can't play Gary Glitter, and they'll say "no loss".
I don't like Gary Glitter or his music, but I don't think he should be cut from the show. It would be like airbrushing history. I want to watch TOTP exactly as it was.
Glitter's original UK media ban came after the hard drive pictures were found - and Pete Townsend gets caught with pictures on his hard drive and is "excused"
Er, no. He had no pictures on his hard drive, nor was there any paedo stuff found at his home. That's why he was 'excused' as you put it. He got a caution for giving details of his credit card to a paedo site, but he never downloaded or viewed anything from there.
TOTP and British chart positions are not relevant when discussing TOTP,a show based on British chart positions - Hmmmm OK then.
So its ok to be a sex offender if you have credibility with the in crowd - Talk about musical snobbery !
As for Glitters musical influence - well I wouldn't be so sure it was quite as unimportant as people believe.
What was the 80's multi million selling USA hair metal if it was not updated glam rock!
Glitter's original UK media ban came after the hard drive pictures were found - and Pete Townsend gets caught with pictures on his hard drive and is "excused"
As for Chuck Berry and Bill Wyman - Does that mean "such behaviour" is perfectly acceptable as long as Mick Jagger thinks you are "cool",
Of course musical relevance is all about opinion,but the outrageous hypocrisy of Gary Glitter's situation compared to other sexual offenders in the music world is clearly a matter of fact.
There is no way anyone can say that relevance/influence should be taken into account when sexual offences involving children should even be considered.
ALL of them,or NONE of them - seems fair to me
It's all about what is worth fighting for & what isn't.
Put yourself in the shoes of the BBC 4 Controller for a moment.You play Glitter, you are going to have to defend that.
Is it worth it?
The answer that broadcasters will give you is no, because his music hasn't aged well.
I agree that it's a huge case of double standards to allow others who have committed similar crimes to be aired, but that is because the others were more talented than Glitter. Their music & songs are better & more importantant to the history of music.
It's all about what is worth fighting for & what isn't.
Put yourself in the shoes of the BBC 4 Controller for a moment.You play Glitter, you are going to have to defend that.
Defend that to who? If he was in the charts and on TOTP, he was. To pretend otherwise is to lie to people. The idiots will be watching EastEnders, or the crap on BBC3, ITV etc. They either choose to watch an old tv programme and accept someone who, 25 years later, was found to be a pervert was a pop star along with a bunch of lower-profile perverts or they can watch some mind-rotting crap on any of the other channels. BBC4 isn't for these people.
The answer that broadcasters will give you is no, because his music hasn't aged well.
His first 6 singles have aged as well as anything of that time if not more so, which is why they were still being played 20+ years later in the 90s. Anything after that, maybe not. Anything after 1980 - well, you might like to ask Kelvin MacKenzie & co who still deemed him worthy of high level coverage.
Glitter was always at the comedy end of pop anyway and his stuff certainly hasn't aged well,however I don't think he should be airbrushed out of pop history even if I can understand the reluctance of the media to playing his songs.
I agree that it's a huge case of double standards to allow others who have committed similar crimes to be aired, but that is because the others were more talented than Glitter. Their music & songs are better & more importantant to the history of music.
Sometimes life is about double standards
Everyone was more talented than Glitter. He spent eleven years in the wilderness between his first record in 1961 (as Paul Gadd) and his 1972 hit Rock and Roll Part 2.
His so called music made during the 1970's consisted of him shouting over a backing track. For this reason alone he should be ignored by radio stations. Let alone his crimes against vulnerable children. Everything he put into the charts was garbage. Goodness knows who bought this cr*p but they wasted their money. When you listen to Pick Of the pops on radio 2 they regularly miss out classic records that you would like to hear again. The same can't be said of any of Glitter's shite. Thank God he is gone.
I didn't exist in 1976 so these programmes aren't nostalgic enough for me to return to really.
Seeing the links between songs and the silly dance troupes is interesting but the music is so bad and stays so long in the charts that i've found it a bit dull.
One of the reasons why 1976 music was so bland was that Radio 1 was broadcast simultaneously on Radio 2 every afternoon during the mid seventies. Everything had to be very middle of the road to get on the playlist. That is why on gold type stations you hear very few songs from the period 1974-77. The ones you do hear are the classics and they were the minority during this period.
Everyone was more talented than Glitter. He spent eleven years in the wilderness between his first record in 1961 (as Paul Gadd) and his 1972 hit Rock and Roll Part 2.
His so called music made during the 1970's consisted of him shouting over a backing track. For this reason alone he should be ignored by radio stations. Let alone his crimes against vulnerable children. Everything he put into the charts was garbage. Goodness knows who bought this cr*p but they wasted their money. When you listen to Pick Of the pops on radio 2 they regularly miss out classic records that you would like to hear again. The same can't be said of any of Glitter's shite. Thank God he is gone.
All of this.
And my gran liked him. It's bad enough your parents liking something ("I reckon the Swedish entry is good this year, that Waterloo song is dead catchy") , but if a 1970s grandmother thought he was dead funny, he must have been crap.
Everyone was more talented than Glitter. He spent eleven years in the wilderness between his first record in 1961 (as Paul Gadd) and his 1972 hit Rock and Roll Part 2.
His so called music made during the 1970's consisted of him shouting over a backing track. For this reason alone he should be ignored by radio stations. Let alone his crimes against vulnerable children. Everything he put into the charts was garbage. Goodness knows who bought this cr*p but they wasted their money. When you listen to Pick Of the pops on radio 2 they regularly miss out classic records that you would like to hear again. The same can't be said of any of Glitter's shite. Thank God he is gone.
Musical snobbery at its best - - if it was that easy to sell millions of records,then surely everybody would be able to do it..pop = popular...
The trouble with not showing Jonathan King is that for a whole 2 years he had a 10 minute "American Music" section in the show.
10 minutes per show is a lot to take out of a 35 minute show.
As King was not edited from the German tv broadcasts and was shown as a co-presenter on the Xmas 85 show on C5 I doubt they will edit him .
The likelihood of BBC4 reaching those shows with his 10 minutes in is remote if they continue to show them in sequence
It's debatable that Gary Gliiter was much of an influence on 80s hair metal. What about Kiss?
And if he was, then he's to blame for the likes of Poison, Warrant and other tripe.
I think Slade were (perhaps) a significant US influence due to the popularity of the Quiet Riot cover version of Cum On Feel The Noize (1982 I think) so you can blame them for Crazy Crazy Nights (there were far worse records admittedly)
Plus if you did remove Jonathan King's 10 minutes from a 35 minute TOTP it would reduce the length to something that would easily fit a half hour slot (allowing for promos). However, despite my dislike of Jonathan King he is an essential part of early '80s Top of the Pops in terms of its content and to remove his slot would be akin to editing out Legs & Co. from the '70s editions.
All of this.
And my gran liked him. It's bad enough your parents liking something ("I reckon the Swedish entry is good this year, that Waterloo song is dead catchy") , but if a 1970s grandmother thought he was dead funny, he must have been crap.
Yes of course only granny bought his records :rolleyes:
Wasn't it a bit cheeky of J.J Barrie to give himself solo credit on that daft song, when there's a female vocalist who sings half the song and he doesn't even sing properly - he's just the narrator.
These days it would be JJ Barrie ft........whoever.
That really was one of my most hated songs at the time,
As it is we now have the answer to the question 'Why did punk happen?' in the form of JJ Barrie and the Wurzels. The audience might recover after that as we get real summer of 76 nostalgia from the Real Thing and Elton and Kiki's classic.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but just about every year in pop history has had appalling novelty records top the chart or outstay their welcome: try 'The Floral Dance', 'There's No-one Quite Like Grandma' or 'Shaddup You Face' for starters. 1976 doesn't hold any world record for them.
The seeds of punk were already sown well before The Sex Pistols shot to notoriety: Dr Feelgood had a number one album, and Eddie & The Hot Rods were having minor hit singles (and getting television appearances) ... in 1976. And while those groups may not have had the political edge Pistols, The Clash or The Jam did, they were as musically raw (if not more so) than many punk groups.
As ever, what TOTP of 1976 showed us is the musical world it featured differed somewhat from the bigger picture ... It became harder for it to do by 1979/1980 - but no amount of Blondie and The Jam could completely obliterate the likes of Lena Martell.
Comments
Well I hope you enjoyed the hundreds of editions of TOTP2 where you got what you wanted - these have been repeated too.
Uncut original versions have been a long time coming
Chuck Berry certainly seems to have influenced Bill Wyman
In the age where information is easily accessible, on-screen text often seems irrelevant ... And, given the choice of having no text and no Steve Wright, I'd opt for that every time!
As it is we now have the answer to the question 'Why did punk happen?' in the form of JJ Barrie and the Wurzels. The audience might recover after that as we get real summer of 76 nostalgia from the Real Thing and Elton and Kiki's classic.
For me Gladys Knight has been the highlight so far.
The trouble with not showing Jonathan King is that for a whole 2 years he had a 10 minute "American Music" section in the show.
10 minutes per show is a lot to take out of a 35 minute show.
TOTP and British chart positions are not relevant when discussing TOTP,a show based on British chart positions - Hmmmm OK then.
So its ok to be a sex offender if you have credibility with the in crowd - Talk about musical snobbery !
As for Glitters musical influence - well I wouldn't be so sure it was quite as unimportant as people believe.
What was the 80's multi million selling USA hair metal if it was not updated glam rock!
Glitter's original UK media ban came after the hard drive pictures were found - and Pete Townsend gets caught with pictures on his hard drive and is "excused"
As for Chuck Berry and Bill Wyman - Does that mean "such behaviour" is perfectly acceptable as long as Mick Jagger thinks you are "cool",
Of course musical relevance is all about opinion,but the outrageous hypocrisy of Gary Glitter's situation compared to other sexual offenders in the music world is clearly a matter of fact.
There is no way anyone can say that relevance/influence should be taken into account when sexual offences involving children should even be considered.
ALL of them,or NONE of them - seems fair to me
It's debatable that Gary Gliiter was much of an influence on 80s hair metal. What about Kiss?
And if he was, then he's to blame for the likes of Poison, Warrant and other tripe.
In an ideal and fair world, that would happen. But there's fair, then there's realistic. Tell a radio station that they can't play the Stones any more, and they will tell you where to get off. Tell them that they can't play Gary Glitter, and they'll say "no loss".
It's all about what is worth fighting for & what isn't.
Put yourself in the shoes of the BBC 4 Controller for a moment.You play Glitter, you are going to have to defend that.
Is it worth it?
The answer that broadcasters will give you is no, because his music hasn't aged well.
I agree that it's a huge case of double standards to allow others who have committed similar crimes to be aired, but that is because the others were more talented than Glitter. Their music & songs are better & more importantant to the history of music.
Sometimes life is about double standards
Defend that to who? If he was in the charts and on TOTP, he was. To pretend otherwise is to lie to people. The idiots will be watching EastEnders, or the crap on BBC3, ITV etc. They either choose to watch an old tv programme and accept someone who, 25 years later, was found to be a pervert was a pop star along with a bunch of lower-profile perverts or they can watch some mind-rotting crap on any of the other channels. BBC4 isn't for these people.
His first 6 singles have aged as well as anything of that time if not more so, which is why they were still being played 20+ years later in the 90s. Anything after that, maybe not. Anything after 1980 - well, you might like to ask Kelvin MacKenzie & co who still deemed him worthy of high level coverage.
Everyone was more talented than Glitter. He spent eleven years in the wilderness between his first record in 1961 (as Paul Gadd) and his 1972 hit Rock and Roll Part 2.
His so called music made during the 1970's consisted of him shouting over a backing track. For this reason alone he should be ignored by radio stations. Let alone his crimes against vulnerable children. Everything he put into the charts was garbage. Goodness knows who bought this cr*p but they wasted their money. When you listen to Pick Of the pops on radio 2 they regularly miss out classic records that you would like to hear again. The same can't be said of any of Glitter's shite. Thank God he is gone.
One of the reasons why 1976 music was so bland was that Radio 1 was broadcast simultaneously on Radio 2 every afternoon during the mid seventies. Everything had to be very middle of the road to get on the playlist. That is why on gold type stations you hear very few songs from the period 1974-77. The ones you do hear are the classics and they were the minority during this period.
All of this.
And my gran liked him. It's bad enough your parents liking something ("I reckon the Swedish entry is good this year, that Waterloo song is dead catchy") , but if a 1970s grandmother thought he was dead funny, he must have been crap.
Musical snobbery at its best - - if it was that easy to sell millions of records,then surely everybody would be able to do it..pop = popular...
As King was not edited from the German tv broadcasts and was shown as a co-presenter on the Xmas 85 show on C5 I doubt they will edit him .
The likelihood of BBC4 reaching those shows with his 10 minutes in is remote if they continue to show them in sequence
Yes its worth it and its very easy .
There are a multitude of comparisons that can easily excuse showing Glitter.
His music is fact as are his appearances on the show so any attempt to rewrite history just makes the BBC look as stupid as the complainers .
Plus if you did remove Jonathan King's 10 minutes from a 35 minute TOTP it would reduce the length to something that would easily fit a half hour slot (allowing for promos). However, despite my dislike of Jonathan King he is an essential part of early '80s Top of the Pops in terms of its content and to remove his slot would be akin to editing out Legs & Co. from the '70s editions.
Yes of course only granny bought his records :rolleyes:
These days it would be JJ Barrie ft........whoever.
That really was one of my most hated songs at the time,
Sorry to burst your bubble, but just about every year in pop history has had appalling novelty records top the chart or outstay their welcome: try 'The Floral Dance', 'There's No-one Quite Like Grandma' or 'Shaddup You Face' for starters. 1976 doesn't hold any world record for them.
The seeds of punk were already sown well before The Sex Pistols shot to notoriety: Dr Feelgood had a number one album, and Eddie & The Hot Rods were having minor hit singles (and getting television appearances) ... in 1976. And while those groups may not have had the political edge Pistols, The Clash or The Jam did, they were as musically raw (if not more so) than many punk groups.
As ever, what TOTP of 1976 showed us is the musical world it featured differed somewhat from the bigger picture ... It became harder for it to do by 1979/1980 - but no amount of Blondie and The Jam could completely obliterate the likes of Lena Martell.
The Teletubbies managed it.