I think I remember that! When you think about it, Wham didn't actually release that many singles in their time...10 if you don't count re-issues/re-releases.

There are 7 non movers on the new Top 40 that came out tonight, including the entire top five. Funny eh.

All this talk of Wham! reminded me of when George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley appeared on 'The Tube' in late 1983. The interview started off with a < 3 minute comedy video filmed at their parents homes with their real-life families to entertain audiences on the upcoming tour to promote their Fantastic! debut album (I assume they were both still living in suburbia with their mums and dads at the time). It's 33 years since I last saw it, but when I typed 'Wham - The Tube' into the YouTube search box it came up in the results.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEeQu44OBIU

No it was cut at the end of the early showing too. It was just a play out song, they normally cut them off.

I forgot TOTP is available on iplayer. Just watching Dollar now.

Nice Clit performance tonight.

Rich Tea will have been all over it

Oh dear lord.

I saw the earlier show as well, but they often have to cut that one down because of the 30 minute time slot. I may be wrong but I thought quite a lot of play-outs recently have featured most of the song, although that wasn't so much the case in previous months.

Not forgetting the sublime "All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit".

Get your tonsils around that, Mariah!

''Don't Go'' by Yazoo is the only song that possesses any real bite, in my opinion. The rest of the show seemed passive in the extreme, for much of the time.

Paul McCartney's ''Take It Away'' is ok, and is mildly infectious, but i think it really does pale alongside the best of his work. A peak position of No 15 seems about right. I notice alongside Ringo, George Martin, and John Hurt, Eric Stewart appearing in the video, of 10cc fame. I would imagine perhaps not the best collaborator in my opinion, for Paul, because both Paul and Eric tend to possess similar melodic musical attributes, that at their worst, can become quite bland - there perhaps doesn't exists the contrast in style for Paul to effectively bounce off, and produce great results.

Cliff's ''The Only Way Out'' seems a huge comedown to the likes of ''We Don't Talk Anymore'', ''Carrie'', and even ''Wired For Sound''. It is very glossy, for sure, but it also seems very much pop by numbers, and is fairly uninspiring. David Essex's ''Me And My Girl (Night-Clubbing)'' strikes me as being barely a shadow of the best of his previous work. 1980's ''Silver Dream Machine'' was certainly in a different class, and not forgetting his high profile earlier material. When i hear ''Me And My Girl (Night-Clubbing)'' i immediately think that the girl he is referring to is Sinitta, although i think it may have been a year or two after this track, that David started dating her. I could imagine her being up for a good time and letting her hair down, for sure. Leo Sayer tries his best to inject some life into The Bee Gees penned ''Heart (Stop Beating In Time)'', but i find myself asking whether it was worth all the effort. Still, i admire Leo in having a strong enough pair of lungs to be able to see it through.

Japan's ''I Second That Emotion'' was better - not great mind, but a decent cover of the old Smokey Robinson And The Miracles track. The group's old record label, Hansa, came up trumps re-releasing this 1980 track, and not for the first time they've experienced success with the group's old material, after the they had joined Virgin. It made No 9.

I'd certainly go along with the view that Hot Chocolate's ''It Started With A Kiss'' is better than their previous release, ''Girl Crazy'', but that also doesn't equate with me, to it being afforded high praise. It is certainly not up there with the best of the group's pre 1981 releases. Dexys ''Come On Eileen'' is infinitely perhaps as catchy as anything on the show, and although it is a memorable song, it has a tendency to irritate after only a few listens. It is amazing also that despite Visage's ''Night Train'' seeming quite impressive on the show a week or so back, for me, now the novelty has started to wear off, it is beginning to sound rather shallow and lightweight (but perhaps still ahead of its time, although i'm not sure that is altogether meant as a compliment!).

Overall a really poor episode 4.5/10

Good summary, I agree with most of it. The Japan song isn't really representative of their original work, but if it encouraged people to buy their Tin Drum album it can't have been a bad thing.

Off-topic: does anyone know anything about this website which I've stumbled across? It seems to be some sort of BBC site which has vintage episodes of Top of the Pops, such as this one from 29th November 1979:

https://archive.org/details/BBC_Top_...ops_1979_11_29

Glad I accidentally set my box to record the late night ones, seem the early's are cut to shreds it seems.

Well all the 1979 episodes which was shown on BBC Four back in 2014 are on there they haven't done 1980 onwards or before 1979 yet.

That edition was from a strike period, where no presenters appeared in vision.

I thought they just went on iPlayer and then after a few weeks disappeared, so it's a pleasant surprise for me to find some of them on this website.

Dexys seem to be still going today (or Kevin Rowland anyhow). Found this new song on YouTube:-

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=...&v=A-TN_hkVYG8

Can't believe a show as cool as The Tube had a group like Wham! on it!! That's like putting a French Fancy cake on a plate full of steak & chips!!

Great episode for me, kicked-off by a song that I loved but always made me so sad Hot Chocolate and ended with a great unique vid from Our Irene.

Cliff's song was the weakest link but it had a bit of a hook, and David Essex's song though ponderous had that nice chorus/verse overlap at the end.

Think the Leo Sayer song would have sounded better sung by a female soul singer, a Dionne Warwick or a Tina Turner perhaps, it has a subtle quality to it that one of those two might have enhanced.

Great to see how excited the audience were by the Dexy's appearance, I remember feeling the same the first time I saw it, great chorus and climax to the song and brilliant energy from the band.

As a synth-head I loved Japan and Visage, neither their finest efforts but just love those cool synth sounds, although as someone has alluded to already, Steve Strange should have been imprisoned for his dancing (or placed in a Zoo perhaps )

I can't believe I missed out Don't Go! One of the best tracks of the year for me, written by one of the very best, Mr Vince Clarke, former song-writer of my favourite band.

poor sad irrational me has developed something of a hatred for Japan and all their works

This thread was in a right bad mood last night heh

Watched the late episode as the first one clashes with Corrie on Fridays. Love the McCartney song Take It Away which was cut from the 7.30 showing, as well as Yazoo's Don't Go.

I must've missed that x-rated segment but then it is notoriously hard to find!

Barbara Streisand, perhaps, although i think it would prove a real challenge in attempting to overcome the ineffectiveness of the chorus, whoever the singer. The verses aren't too different to some of the material Barbara recorded with The Bee Gees, but the chorus falls flat. There is the feeling that perhaps the verses may actually be leading to something really interesting, but they never do. The whole song feels overwrought. I believe ultimately "Heart (Stop Beating In Time)" is just a very poor song.

Much as Cliff has been a magnificent artist and singer of fantastic top class hits through many decades, the idea that the new songs of let's face it, a man not far off 80 years old, are going to be played on the 'yoof' radio station specifically targeted at 16-30 year olds is totally appalling to me.
Regarding his old hits, surely radio 1 does not regularly play stuff from the 1960s/1970s/early 1980s and I'm fairly certain most of today's teenagers would find it as dated, strange and irrelevant as some of us used to find 1950s music in our youths.
It is quite laughable that any teenager/person in their twenties would want to hear Cliff's new material with his sadly shot to bits voice and whistling teeth, and it is completely incomprehensible to me why he would want to do something beneath his dignity to even want to be played on Radio 1! He seems to be living in a time warp and is somewhat deluded if he thinks his music can still have any relevance at all to young people. His natural listening demographic today is the 40 to 80 year olds. Also he doesn't seem to get that all the oldie singers and groups have been banned from it for years- The only time oldies have a cat in hell's is when they collaborate with Kanye West and Rhianna. Radio 2 is Cliff's natural home, unless he is open to a duet with Dizzie Rascal or Rizzle Kicks.
Of course, all this may have nothing at all to do with musical relevance and may just be Cliff wanting to rub the BBCs nose in it to get some satisfaction. If so, I am not impressed.