Yep - hate that song too!!

Maybe it depends what size screen you are watching on. I watch on a rather modest, by today's standards, 32 inch flat screen. I tend to watch in the way you describe. Well I must do because I often find that others on here mention crowd things that I seem to have overlooked. Remember the Easter one with Simon Bates when I made comment about there being no acknowledgement of it being Easter when Simon had a bunny girl next to him!

So then, who's got the BIGGEST.....screen that they're watching TOTP on? I bet there's someone here who can brag about having 50 inches! That would make LMSO very imposing. Back in 1982 I'm trying to think what the almost universal regulation TV screen size would have been in the UK across the diagonal in old style 4:3 format - maybe just 20 or 22 inches?

It does work but it's blocked on some devices, like mobiles.

And Germany. It's unavailable there. It's a copyright thing.

Not as bad as 'Bad Boys' but 'Wake me up... 'is probably their second worst single.

Just watched the 10th June episode and enjoyed it much more than I thought I would.

Great start with Kid Creole, Soft Cell (the whole of Torch even without Cindy on stage) and The Associates - Billy has such instant charisma on-stage.

The Diana Ross song is very much of its time in subject and presentation - intercut here between the (very cheap looking) video and Zoo/cheerleaders doing aerobics (how novel this must have seemed at the time!)

Liked the Stevie Wonder song although I don't remember it, and "Paperlate" continues to grow on me - I think the tone and structure of the verse marks it more as a Genesis track than a Phil Collins solo track.

What an awful lot of made-for-FM/soft-rock shlock at the top end of the US charts though!

As for the presenter, completely disconnected from proceedings as usual, every act (apart from Adam, bizarrely) is "the one and only...". Reads out the countdown as though it's a list of names he's never seen before in his life and doesn't even bother with song titles. A new spin on the pronunciation of "DEPPERshay Mode".

You're not seriously suggesting that the BCR had more talent than George Michael?

Not sure how true that is. For example, Motown's biggest ever male group, the Four Tops, had been around long before Motown.

I'm the complete opposite, loved Young Guns, Wham! Rap and Bad Boys, then went off them with Club Tropicana and Wake Me Up, then liked them again with their next singles (starting with George's solo and then Freedom). Being pedantic, Everything She Wants is a 1984 single, but I guess it could count as 1985 as it was flipped from Last Christmas at the start of that year.

I was early 20s and they appealed to me! (In a musical sense I hasten to add!) And I'm sure their first two singles were popular in clubs.

No - I never mentioned his talent. What I said was the BCR didn't dance around flashing their suntans - but instead concentrated on playing their instruments - what they were meant to be doing!!

As said above, I too wasn't a fan of Wake Me Up, but loved the follow up Freedom. I also think their second album was far superior to their first.

Worst! Bad Boys is excellent, especially the sultry female vocal, don't get all the hate for it. It was anticipated at the time as the first Wham! single with singing. Although to be fair, George himself wasn't that keen on it.

Yeah we've got a 50" plasma.

Many groups didn't play instruments on TOTP, e.g. Stylistics, etc.

The Bay City Rollers concentrating on playing their instruments like they were meant to in the days when music was proper music...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVIqAcwtnrY

Yes Boz, I knew ESW was a 1984 single but it got absolutely no airplay because of its co-A side in 1984. So I only picked up on ESW when it appeared in an early 1985 TOTP. When I made up my top hundred singles of 1984 ESW was nowhere to be found but 1 year on it was in my top 10 of 1985.

Ok - with the exception of ^ that performance then.

I'd still rather watch them, than Wham's cheesy performances though!

I think I mentioned a few pages back that a 20" or 21" TV would probably have been the norm back then. Hard to believe nowadays!!

Didn't someone on The Wright Stuff (I think) the other week say the size of your TV screen determines what status you are! They said apparently if your TV screen is bigger than your bookcase, it means you're working class!!

Jimmy Savile actually chose Wake Me Up Before You Go Go as one of his 8 Desert Island Discs back in 1985. That has always struck me as a curious one. The song was barely 9 months old at the time as well. He was one of Roy Plomley's last guests too, after 43 years, before he died a few weeks later. I've podcasted many editions and it annoys me that the BBC block anyone interested from choosing to and being able to listen to Savile's one. Rolf Harris is still available to hear, not once but twice, from 1967 and 1999.

I've had a view of a couple of those recent DLT editions that were made available, and downloaded them too, and I suddenly realised just what a fabulous TOTP presenter we are missing in Dave Lee Travis. In the recent 1982 edition he was really relaxed and natural, fun but authoritative. Just the right mix in many ways. It's taken his absence to appreciate his qualities. It really is a "Travisty" that he is unlikely to be featured again now that he has paid the price and served his sentence. With the wonderful news of Tony Blackburn's return to the BBC it's surely apparent that the BBC from the very top with the DG is run by some very silly people who lack common sense and fair play. Let's just remember (yes again!) that Gary Glitter was happily re-shown on BBC TV on the TOTP 1977 editions in 2012 with his 2 minor hits that year, and that is after he committed some very serious crimes and served prison in the UK and abroad. On that basis DLT should be a given for re-showing from this moment onwards.

I suppose it all depends on your sitting room as well, of course. - A 50" TV in a bedsit would seem enormous, yet in a stately home - it would probably seem like a portable!!

The best Wham single was the one they released after The Edge Of Heaven.

Thanks for that, "Left to my Own Devices" is my favourite PSB song. Used to play "Buffalo Stance" constantly back in the day. Found myself singing along to "Keeping the Dream Alive" by Freiheit as well!


BIB Totally agree. Think he's a fantastic songwriter.


Agree. "Everything She Wants" is an absolute classic imo. Think "Listen Without Prejudice" is my favourite album of his


God knows what they would think of me then. 40 inch tv and no bookcase, just a 6" kindle!

Wham always had a sophisticated, adult fanbase which made George Michael's transition to highly respected global superstar pretty seamless. They were never just a teenybopper boy band despite some people being unable to see past that image. The first radio one dj to play them was John Peel so some people got the irony, humour and musical expertise from the outset.

I remember liking 'Wham Rap' at the time It had a very catching chorus. I was not impressed by Young Guns as the style and instrumentation of the song just seemed to be a re-tread.
Careless Whisper was a very impressive achievement that screamed sophisticated and instant classic when you first heard it. The bubblegum pop of 'Wake Me Up' all bright sunshiny stuff was trying to a bit too self-consciously to be a hit record, and I absolutely hated 'Freedom' at the time. Felt too contrived and 60s apeing. I did prefer 'Club Tropicana' over these.
One of the last memorable songs of GMs that I recall was Shoot the Dog from the early 2000s and mainly for the video about Bush and Blair.

Gary Glitter's performances were always creepy on TOTP anyway, largely because of his pudding belly stuffed into tight trousers and his atrociously bad miming to the lyrics and his weird, accentuated dance moves.