Yes, Ursula, i very much agree!

''Billie Jean'' isn't merely a great song because i think it most resembles those songs on 'Off The Wall' (which i don't think it does by the way), which i suspect may be the reason starry is linking them up. ''Billie Jean'' is a great song on its own terms which has little to do with the direction of Jackson's music on his previous album. Yes, MTV played a massive part in the success of the 'Thriller'' album!

Some interesting editions out there on You Tube, apologies if any already discussed:

22/11/73: JS introducing GG plus a tip for the top that was right for once with the New Seekers. Arguably their guest appearance on the Morecambe and Wise Christmas show was even more important and, unlike this edition, still has a chance of frequent airings.

Christmas Day 1984: The no presenter edition, which means we should get to see it. No George Michael / Wham but a memorable performance of Do They Know Its Christmas with the odd substitute coming off the bench. It really was the year of the A-listers.

Dec 89 80s Review: The last of Paul Gambaccini's occasional appearances, almost 4 years after he left Radio 1. He was on the 1000th edition in 1983 which won't be aired. Lots of short clips. Fantastic performance from Kim Wilde.

Thriller and Off The Wall both great, far superior to anything he did afterwards.

It's slightly embarrassing IMO that Bad is MJ's biggest selling album in the UK. In fact I think it's one of the top 10 best selling albums of all time in the UK. I'm not saying there aren't some decent tunes on Bad, but the idea it's a classic album is a bit silly.

Maybe because Stock Aitken & Waterman were the main alternative choice in the UK charts the year Bad came out? I believe America was spared the worst of their musical atrocities

I think something had seriously gone wrong with the musical tastes of us Brits back in the late 80s - when you consider some of the biggest selling singles & albums at the time compared to a few years prior to that. Even nowadays with streaming & downloads you can still get decent songs & bands back in the charts.

I would say that 'Bad' is perhaps the album i find least interesting out of Michael's 1979/91 output, when he was selling extraordinary amounts of albums. Many of the tracks from 'Bad' haven't especially stood up well over time, and strike me as rather dull (and the title track also gimmicky and rather shallow) despite the lengthy wait since his previous record breaking 'Thriller' album. I remember reading somewhere that Michael felt in retrospect he had played it a little too safe, and for the next album, 'Dangerous' he found a new collaborator, Teddy Riley, instead of Quincy Jones, in which to give his music a more contemporary edge on a number of tracks. I can recall back at the time considering 'Dangerous' actually a poorer album than 'Bad', but listening back again in more recent times, i do think a number of the tracks work rather well, and have some interesting dance rhythms, even though Jackson by this time was following trends, instead of setting them. Songs like "Remember The Time", "Why You Wanna Trip On Me" and "Who Is It" in retrospect work much better than i would have cared to admit at the time, although they are a very long way from the soulful charm of the 'Off The Wall' album.

Bad outsold Thriller in the UK? Or anywhere? Hard to believe, that. But if this is analysis is anything to go by then it's true - Bad at almost 4.1m sales and Thriller at 3.3m.

https://www.ukmix.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=63110

Still, Bad is a fantastic album to iron to. Just grab the mountain of freshly-washed clothes, say to the wife 'Leave Me Alone' and iron out those creases like a 'Smooth' criminal.

Perhaps in retrospect "Smooth Criminal" was the most successful song on the 'Bad' album, at least as far as the dance tracks go.

I love "Leave Me Alone" but I may be right in saying that it was not originally on the UK edition?

I know this has been posted before but if anyone can be kind enough to save me searching through the thread and post the TOTP broadcast dates over Xmas and New Year that would be great. I've got the TV guide but don't trust myself not to overlook an edition. I was expecting it to be on tonight, but it isn't

Wasnt on the vinyl, but it was on the Cd version.

Mate had the vinyl, Sister had the Cd.

Friday 23rd at 7.00 (18/11/82) and 7.30 (2/12/82) - repeated from 12.30 Saturday morning and 12.15 Sunday morning.

Friday 30th at 7.00 (9/12/82) and 7.30 (23/12/82) - repeated from 1.35 Saturday morning and 11 PM on New Year's Day.

Thanks for that. I'll get the ones over this weekend all set to record.

Are there any Men Without Hats fans on here? I've been one since about 1997. This is one of my favourites, a 1982 single release called "Antarctica" which sums up their stark electronic style quite well IMO:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho2tFueTgE8

If anyone's interested, you can listen to the Top 40 with Tommy Vance from 25th July 1982 here:

https://www.mixcloud.com/eugene-se/t...-july-25-1982/

Links for 25/11/82

Thank you! Looks like tomorrow night will be a 3 x TOTP evening then.

After all of the MJ discussion on here, and how great Off The Wall is, it's odd that none of the singles from it topped the UK charts, and it was the Motown cash-in after that which led to his first #1 with the wonderful 'One Day In Your Life'... and then Thriller and Bad only contributed one chart topper each.

I don't know if it's the old memory playing tricks, but for the Thriller and Bad singles, I seem to remember these being almost like must-see events, and were like a special premiere in the UK at the time? Certainly seemed that way with the first viewing of the full length Thriller video at least, and the talk of school the next day...

Do we ever get to see MJ in the TOTP studio after 1982? I think on one of the recent TOTP2, he was in with his family doing Rockin' Robin, but I don't recall seeing him on their solo...

This one is pretty good too:
Men without hats
Where do the boys go?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T3N6a24A9I

I suppose it was ''One Day In Your Life'' alone that proved so popular, and not the rest of the older songs off the compilation, which held less appeal. Obviously the material contained in 'Thriller' and 'Bad' etc. seemed fresh and contemporary, and promoted heavily by Jackson himself, where there existed a greater incentive to just buy the albums, than perhaps the individual songs once the public had had a taste of a few of the tracks, although it wouldn't surprise me if a fair few did both. Taking those videos out of the equation, especially designed for the MTV audience, it would have been interesting to see just how well the 'Thriller' album would have sold. ''Thriller'', the title track, wasn't released as a single until January 1984, which was a little over a year after the album had been out, and no doubt the American Werewolf style video, would have garnered some fresh publicity, to maintain the album sales for some time yet. I don't believe ''Wanna Be Starting Something'' and ''PYT'' had videos to promote them. I suppose ''Thriller'' being a bigger song, and its more elaborate promotion was more a final push to squeeze the potential of the album that extra bit (you can certainly hear the familiar Rod Temperton style funky bass line which is a reminder of ''Boogie Nights'' by his group, Heatwave). ''PYT'' came after in the UK, but i always considered it perhaps the weakest of the single releases from the album. It seemed a bit of an afterthought, in my opinion.

Wasn't Michael Jackson's final Top Of The Pops studio appearance, ''Destiny'', with his brothers from early 79? I believe that may also have been around the time he made his appearance on the Multi Coloured Swap Shop, talking to his fans by phone.

I'm pretty sure MJ's last TOTP appearance was in 1979, when the Jacksons appeared promoting 'Destiny'. Who would have guessed how his career would have developed …

[I see Jedikiah has beat me to it!]

Vintage TV are showing 'Toyah's Vintage Xmas', and aired 'Mel & Kim's 'Rockin' Around The Xmas Tree'. They forgot to edit out the Rolf Harris mention. I was so disgusted I put my foot through the TV screen and I am sending Toyah the bill.

Many thanks Scott

Had a bit of a sneak peak at tonight's line-ups and it confirms the disadvantage of showing a double bill with one show missing in between, namely that we will see some songs consecutively in both shows.

Thanks Scott. Interesting that the video for Hymn by Ultravox which features on the show doesn't seem to be available anywhere on the internet, or at least I haven't been able to find it. Did the band decide they didn't like it later on and make efforts to make it difficult to get hold of? It reminds me a bit of Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart video with the demon eyes theme although they're green in the Ultravox video rather than white. I quite like it: it's one of those slightly weird early/mid 80s videos.

As already pointed out, "Leave Me Alone" was a CD-only track, intended to encourage sales of the then-new format...

Originally the big plan in the UK was to release every single track from "Bad" as a single, including "Leave Me Alone", which would have been 11 tracks from a 10-track album As it happened, "only" 9 were released, the last (Liberian Girl) coming almost 2 years after the first (I Just Can't Stop Loving You). Only Just Good Friends and Speed Demon weren't released, and weren't performed on tour either (except one solitary performance of Just Good Friends with Stevie Wonder as guest in Sydney).

Interestingly, Speed Demon was one of the standout parts of the Moonwalker movie - the claymation video (with the dancing rabbit) would have made a perfect promo clip...