Given that the Story Of 1982, only has limited time, i thought the show, for the hour it was on, really couldn't have been any better. Personally, perhaps, i would have liked to see Musical Youth feature, but i feel the general tone, and the acts that were included seemed pretty spot on. It was good to see the members of Pigbag, and Shakatak, coming from a slightly different angle with their views on the Top Of The Pops party atmosphere, and i thought that Foster and Allen were a nice touch too. The vibrancy of the Top Of The Pops studio definitely suited some acts more than others. It was good for the show to address that, and it diminishes my thought with the last two Story Of's.....that the documentaries were pro Hurll, at the expense of the Nash era. This show redressed the balanced somewhat.

Also, to a large degree with these Story Of.... documentaries, many of the years have heralded major breakthroughs, whether it be punk/new wave, the use of video and MTV etc. Possibly 1982 is the first year where there seemed little of any large significance of change to report. The Story Of.... still managed to produce a show, though, that was of interest from start to finish. Of course, there were some memorable individual new acts like Yazoo, Wham and Culture Club, who all definitely made their mark.

Pop in 81, with the New Romantics, threatened at times to become rather too arty and pretentious for me. 1982, shows a relaxing of the need to push so far in that direction, which in a way i liked. True, in many ways compared with the previous two years the music did become more pure pop, and less deep, but it hadn't quite reached the stage of becoming over produced, or disposable yet. Also with the likes of Soft Cell's ''Say Hello, Wave Goodbye'', and The Associates ''Party Fears Two'', as well as Japan's ''Ghosts'' who's sound did seem a little more innovative and original, there were still more than the odd act who were prepared to buck the trend. I also thought Culture Club's No 1 was really bright and refreshing. I really don't think they ever quite matched the greatness of ''Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?'' in the years that followed. Boy George at the outset of his career, visually and musically, was full of charm. His group's take on the gentle reggae rhythms was a real highlight of the year, for me.

Jeffrey Daniels dancing, and especially the part that would later be known as the moonwalk, by Michael Jackson, did impress me, more than Michael's own interpretation the following year. It was great to see the performance of Patrice Rushen's ''Forget Me Nots'' too, in the hits compilation. Many of my favourite tracks from 82, come from the soul/funk/dance genre. Despite that, i think i may find it difficult to stomach all that Michael Hurll decides to throw at these performances, which seems a completely unneccessary distraction.

I really enjoyed the story of 1982 and Big Hits of 1982 Some superb songs to come during this year.

Yup, the story of 1982 was excellent, perhaps the best "Story Of" so far on these TOTP reruns. I've yet to watch the big hits of 1982 so that will give me something to watch this afternoon, in between the football!

Watching the Wham song in Big Hits i'd say NO!!!

Ok, right. Thanks for the clarification. That means we should be seeing the beret and Mac performance fairly soon then. Great!

Do we wonder to save time and costs they made the Stories of 1983 and 1984 at the same time, BC4 likes making series of 3 episodes after all.

Because it was a big hit?

There will be some 'Big Hits' that are affected by Yewtree that we won't see. As 'Lion Sleeps Tonight' will feature 5 times, it might have been better to have left that one out and showed a Yewtree performance instead.
I would forget the 'Big Hits' label and concentrate on any Yewtree performances and if there's room in the hour add random hits from the year.

Suggest it to the BBC for the 1983 version and see if they do that, of course there aren't quite so many banned eps in 1983 so it might not matter as much.

Yep, that's the beauty of that era. There will be far less Savile/DLT editions.

Yes - well said!


We already have - it's been flagged up to them since the 1977 shows & DLT's arrest, so you would've thought by 1981 - we would've seen some Human League performances on Big Hits other than DYWM!!


I've yet to see last night's shows all the way through - but I see The Associates are featured - so that's good enough for me!

Just been watching the 'Story of'...So the 'This is Me' world of selfies & vanity all stems from 1982 TOTP does it?

Just been browsing through 1982 and seen this:


25-3-82: Presenters: Peter Powell & Garth Crooks

Really??

Yeah, he argues that the track at No.8 should've gone in at No.2 while going through a detailed description of its chart run up to that point and then scowls at Peter Powell for disagreeing with him.

BIB 1 - Hate it with a passion. In fact I don't know anyone who likes that version. I ran a Marc message board for many years and as a result have lots of friends who are Marc fans. I can't recall anyone every saying that they think he'd improved on the original with that new version, in fact quite the opposite. The album he re-recorded that one for, 1991's 'Memorabilia - The Singles' was full of his old hits with re-recorded vocals. None in my or most peoples opinion a patch on the originals. By the late 80's/early '90's prior to that album's release he'd had extensive singing lessons and I believe he felt he could create better versions of some of his old songs. He didn't. Ironically though, post Soft Cell that 'Memorabilia' album is by far and away his most successful, reached No. 8 and sold I believe around 200,000 copies.

BIB 2 - They made 3 appearances in all for 'Torch'. Two during the singles chart run and one on the year end 'best of '82' show. That one you link too is great, love it. But, there is another from when it originally charted and it's really rare and hard to find for reasons I don't quite understand actually. I've never seen it on you tube. I have it on video, but have never transferred it (along with many, many other things!) onto DVD or whatever. One day I really must.

It's definitely Cindy singing on 'Torch' Andy. Her main contributions to Soft Cell were that and, as you say her 'rap' on the new version of Memorabilia from the 'Ecstatic Dancing' album. She also sang backing vocals on Marc's first solo venture as Marc & The Mambas the 'Untitled' album, most notably perhaps on a cover of Syd Barrett's 'Terrapin'.

After her association with SC Cindy then formed her own group, a duo called Six Sed Red. They released a couple of singles but had no success. She's currently residing in the 'where are they now?' file, and indeed no one seems to know! There's an interesting little piece about her here https://witchesbrewpress.wordpress.c...cidental-muse/ for anyone interested.

And you're so right, Torch really did deserve to hit number 1, even if only for a week.

Very good.

Thanks for the detailed reply Torch. By the way, is this song where you get your name from?

Your very welcome. Re: the BIB - Abso-totally-lutely! It's one of my favourite songs ever, possibly my personal No. 1. Certainly top 3 along with Guns N' Roses 'Estranged' and probably The Manic Street Preachers 'Faster'. In common with many I've got pretty eclectic taste. I've told this story on here before but rather embarrassingly I got the year wrong though when I first registered an account on here.

Loved The Story of 1982 and Big Hits. Both really whetted the appetite for the 1982 shows.

There were no real duds in Big Hits, I thought it was a good selection although I was hoping to see Mad World and John Wayne is Big Leggy. Thankfully we'll see these during the weekly shows.

The Story of 81, and 82, have been the best for me, although in many ways, for information, 79 and 80, were just as good, but with the last two episodes, the more cynical narration, and the need for the BBC to appear to side with what they consider trendy, has been dropped a little. Overall, though, i have enjoyed them all, and they have all managed to set the scene pretty well for the year ahead. Especially for those who were too young to remember the period, or weren't born yet, those shows have been vital in giving them an insight and understanding into the changing musical times, and how with some, the sounds tied in what was happening more generally on a more social level. Yes, of course politics do come into these changes too, and it has all been fascinating stuff.

It still strikes me as strange, mind, how the BBC quite meticulously, and effectively research these shows to give us a very good understanding of what was happening. They have gone to a lot of trouble of getting together some of the high profile faces from the time to be interviewed, which is greatly appreciated, yet they still can't string some of those Yewtreed banned performances together, which would seem very much a breeze by comparison.

The story of 1982 documentary wasn't as good as the ones for 1980 and 1981, poorly researched (dexys were not banned from top of the pops as they appeared in studio for the follow up single to Jackie Wilson said ) and unlike previous years not many mentions of events outside the music world (no mention at all about the falklands war or the world cup, even though there was a episode of top of the pops in 1982 in which the england team and the Scotland team appeared along with the spurs cup final team ) perhaps it was a rushed job due to BBC fours decision to run 2 episodes a week instead of one

watching the recent 1982 shows it strikes me just how gay our pop stars were then but without being publicly out: Marc Almond, George Michael, Joan Jett, Billy Mackenzie, the guy from Tight Fit, Mike Nolan of Bucks Fizz, Boy George... But it was 1983 when the dam burst and we had the first 'out' gay pop stars, with Bronski Beat and Frankie Goes to Hollywood leading the charge.

Woh, Steve Jolley is a sex offender.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/1596296.stm

Should the BBC remove performances by Imagination, Spandau Ballet and Bananarama?

This has probably been answered somewhere else on the thread, but, has any indication been given by the Beeb, when they are going to show subsequent years, ie 83, 84, 85, of The Story of... series?