I loved Shaky and still enjoy listening to his 80's hits. Agree that Shirley wasn't as strong as many of his others though.

Yes Peter 'Warning Sign' is great too. He also had the song 'On a Sunday' which failed to make the Top 40 - but it was another gem.

I'd go and see Shaky tomorrow! His new album was only No.17 in the last mids on Wednesday.

Mr Sheff - I'm not one to be too over critical - but there is so much wrong with your above comments! :-

1 - You didn't like Ph D much!!!
2 - Ebony & Ivory was the standout!!
3 - Didn't think too much of Kim Wilde!!

I'll say no more & just let you ponder & reflect on them for a while...

Meanwhile - regarding Bananarama - I remember them saying in an interview once, that they were quite nervous & self conscious in the beginning - as they weren't used to performing in front of TV cameras - hence all the smiling & coy looks!

I thought that, he grabbed at least 3 women this episode.

I thought this week's show stood up rather well, and just may be one of the best episodes of 1982 so far. There was a good mix of the more retro sounds with some contemporary pop, which i thought complimented each other rather well.

I notice during the Gary Osbourne years (1978-82), Elton John largely abandoned wearing his trademark glasses (although there were exceptions). I have always put that down to him wanting a change of image, although it may just be that he was experimenting with contact lenses, before going back to his glasses, which he did in 1983, which also coincided with the period he went back to writing exclusively with Bernie Taupin. ''Blue Eyes'' is a good track, but i thought this live version, lacked a little of the smooth flow of the recorded version. Kim Wilde's ''View From A Bridge'' actually sounded much more impressive here than i remember thinking back at the time. In those early days of her career, the mixture of rock and electro pop really worked rather well, for her, and ''View From A Bridge'', like ''Cambodia'', has a darker theme than many may expect from her. PHD were another group with a more contemporary sound that worked really well. Jim Diamond had a number one in 1984, with ''I Should Have Known Better'', but really this song was in a completely different class than that, and was more deserving of a number one status.

Haircut 100's ''Fantastic Day'' is a bright and breezy song, but i don't think it stands up as well as their previous single, ''Love Plus One'', and certainly not ''Favourite Shirts''. It possibly lacked the edge of those previous two hits, although it wasn't bad, all the same. Maybe it suffers that little too much from being bright and breezy. It may have benefitted from a little more funk being thrown into the mix, if that proved compatible. Possibly my least favourite song from this week, but still not a bad one.

Shakin' Stevens was on a bit of a downwards spiral with ''Shirley'', which is something i also felt with ''Oh Julie'', despite that song making No 1. ''Oh Julie'' seemed rather slight, and it was also Shaky's first self penned hit, but ''Shirley'' seemed to suffer from similar problems, despite being another cover, this time round. Shaky's songs begin to lose some of their edge, around this period, when compared to his 1980/81 output, but he's still delivering enjoyable material. He also doesn't seem to lack any kind of confidence in front of the camera!

David Bowie's ''Cat People'' is far from his better songs, although it does possess a dark aura about it, which works effectively. I am not really sure why it falls a little flat - could it be because it is Giorgio Moroder who is supplying the musical arrangement, and David hasn't this time got full control over the track? However his re-recorded version on 1983's ''Let's Dance'', worked even less successfully.

Good show, though, throughout this week (including the England World Cup song).

7.5/10

I didn't understand why Zoo were playing on climbing frames like 7 year olds.

3 Weeks so with the 2 eps next week you can be rid of them the week after heh

Paul appears to have been hilariously badly added in heh.

You can

Blatant bum pinching of Keren Nana, Powell's wandering hands and his need to grow a few inches just after PhD, we were in danger of the Yewtree police here.

England World Cup Squad, awful song, GLORIOUS video!

Pete G, yes Nick Heyward's Love All Day is a fantastic song, should have been a massive summer hit in 84.

Off-topic, but the mention of BT was just too much for me to let pass …!

Yes, it was pretty rubbish in the 80s, but their service now is beyond atrocious. I've had to wait over a fortnight for them to effect repairs, the hold they have over internet provision in this country is appalling and their customer service is the absolutely diabolical.

Thank goodness for Virgin (so far - hope I'm not tempting fate saying that!) …

We may share an affection for Marc Almond, but I have to disagree with you here - for me, the version of 'Cat People' on Let's Dance is nowhere near as good as this Moroder-produced one, there recording of which I think dates from the same time as 'Under Pressure'.

I'd take that with a pinch of salt, TBH …

Japan did have a commercial single (re-)released in 1982 - 'I Second That Emotion', originally a non-album single from 1980 on their old label, Hansa - but it wasn't a number one.

I think the problem for the group is that, by then, the personal friction between David Sylvian and Mick Karn had reached rock bottom, and Japan were well on the way to splitting up - ironically, just as they were breaking through big. They don't look a particularly happy bunch on the TOTP performance of 'Cantonese Boy' that we'll hopefully see in the next couple of months. So although Virgin would doubtless have been clamouring for new material, there was no creative impetus for the group to come up with any … hence Virgin resorting to Hansa's MO by the autumn of 1982 and pulling 'Nightporter' off 1980's Gentlemen Take Polaroids album as a single.

Japan's curse is that they were ahead of their time - rather like the original line-up of Ultravox …

Yes Ironically, when there is friction & break ups between band members, it can be when they become even more successful:- Fleetwood Mac, Genesis & Abba, to name just three, for example.

Caught up with last night's edition on iPlayer (I was out watching The Threepenny Opera, so still music but just of a different variety). A so-so show. Fantastic Day by Haircut 100 turned out to be the standout track from this edition for me. Very familar with it, though, as it was on a cassette that came free with promotional packs of Weetabix back in the mid-80s and it got played in the flat a fair bit at the time.

Did Powell just simply forget what Elton's single was called? It was like, "It's great that he's here to perform live, a really big star actually in the studio. It's the mega successful Elton John with...his hit." Although, he can be forgiven as Blue Eyes isn't exactly memorable.

The climbing frame Zoo were lolloping over...I'm sure we had something very similar in our school playground. Ended up being removed after too many kids were falling off and smacking themselves on the concrete below.

That pH.D track was weird. It's like they were going for an anthem but had chosen the wrong setting for the keyboard, used a terrible drummer and a vocalist obviously trying but not really able to punch through convincingly. If only they'd had Trevor Horn's number.

A couple of people have mentioned the Ph D performance & although it's a great song - probably one of the best from 1982 - I don't think that performance did them any good. It looked quite wooden & very dated (even for 1982). It's a shame they were on the same week as Kim Wilde, Shakey & PigBag for had they been on a couple of weeks back with the bland Julio & Foster & Allen etc... it would've been a lot more memorable.

Such a shame for a great song.

Yes Ursula, I Won't Let You Down is an awesome song. When heard on a good system those high notes send shivers down my spine. However this performance didn't.

Powell introduced it in an odd way too saying Jim (Diamond) is a Scot and Tony is a Brit!

I thought that was a young Anthea Turner he was trying to be the same height as!

If you like your footy as much as your name suggests, you're gonna love the Simon Bates show next Friday!

Yes - She looked just like her - we certainly know Peter's type!!

Yes definitely.

It also struck me how many class ''Scottish'' acts there were around in 1982 - Jim Diamond (Ph D), Simple Minds, The Associates, Altered Images - to name just four. For a small population - Scotland came out with some great bands.

Yes, I like Star Maker as well.

The same thought crossed my mind. Anthea did appear stood next to Simon Bates on a 1981 edition.

First time i'd ever heard Ph D - as others have said, it may be much better through a decent music system, but the setting didn't help. I had no idea that was Jim Diamond - I think I had Neil Diamond in my head... Appears they were one hit wonders in the UK?

I'd take Ebony & Ivory, and two of the great singers of all time, over Ph D every day of the week - different tastes of course Yes it's slushy, but has a positive sentiment, and the cheesy video is fun to watch.

I like Kim Wilde, but it just felt like a lower standard than her very best songs - again, it was a song of hers I don't think i've heard before (or not in 30 odd years anyway!).


Regarding Bananarama and FB3 - I thought they might have given Terry Hall a bit more to do in the song, ideally.