{"id":44,"date":"2006-06-28T13:14:47","date_gmt":"2006-06-28T12:14:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/?p=44"},"modified":"2024-07-04T09:32:50","modified_gmt":"2024-07-04T15:32:50","slug":"top-of-the-pops-bottom-of-the-ratings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/top-of-the-pops-bottom-of-the-ratings\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Of The Pops, Bottom Of The Ratings"},"content":{"rendered":"

The BBC have announced that Top Of The Pops<\/em> is to be axed.\u00c2\u00a0 For the non-Brits, Top Of the Pops<\/em> is (or at least was) the flagship ‘music’ programme produced by the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation).\u00c2\u00a0 It has been airing weekly since 1964, and was for many of those years the only<\/span> ‘youth-oriented’ programme produced by the BBC.\u00c2\u00a0 That the programme is being cancelled is a crime.\u00c2\u00a0 Top Of The Pops <\/em>(TOTP)<\/em> is one of the staples of the BBC output – along with the Queen’s Speech at Christmas and the Nine O’Clock News – and as such should be considered sacrosanct.<\/p>\n

The BBC has cited declining viewing figures as the reason for their decision,\u00c2\u00a0but whilst the viewing figures have indeed dropped (from a peak of 15 million to around 3 million now), this is entirely the BBC’s own fault for messing around with it.\u00c2\u00a0 TOTP<\/em> always used to\u00c2\u00a0air on\u00c2\u00a0BBC1 on a Thursday night at 7:25pm, and the fare was pretty predictable – half a dozen songs from the current singles Top 40 performed ‘live’ (though in practice nearly always mimed) or represented by a\u00c2\u00a0 music video, plus a run-down of the full chart.\u00c2\u00a0 Over the years, the BBC has moved TOTP<\/em>‘s slot from Thursday to Friday and finally to Sunday, and moved it to the lower-profile BBC2 channel.\u00c2\u00a0 Over the years, the BBC has fiddled with the formula, too.\u00c2\u00a0 The show now often features non-Top 40 songs,\u00c2\u00a0includes ‘classic’ (i.e. old\/repeat) videos, and panders to high-profile ‘stars’ at the expense of lesser, more worthy acts.\u00c2\u00a0 Even the type of presenters has changed.\u00c2\u00a0 Even though individual presenters always used to vary by the week, they were always pulled from the ranks of the BBC’s radio DJs (the sight of alternative music champion John Peel looking extremely uncomfortable as he introduced pop songs he clearly loathed was always worth the license fee on its own). Now, the presenters are B-list childrens’ TV ‘personalities’, often augmented by C-list ‘celebrities’ with a new programme of their own to plug.\u00c2\u00a0 And despite the decline in figures closely shadowing the all-too-frequent format changes, the BBC has not managed to correlate the two.<\/p>\n

This week’s\u00c2\u00a0show was pretty illustrative of the problem.\u00c2\u00a0 It was presented by the occasionally-attractive Fearne Cotton who this week looked like an over-stuffed\u00c2\u00a0Chipotle burrito, in a shiny silver skirt that was\u00c2\u00a0stretched way too tight across her ample stomach.\u00c2\u00a0 From the charts, we had the Pussycat Dolls who were on a bhangra tip with their latest single Buttons<\/em>, proving that there’s no style of music that can’t be ‘improved’ by performing it dressed in a black leather bikini top and\u00c2\u00a0loincloth\u00c2\u00a0(Asian modesty apparently\u00c2\u00a0getting lost in the translation).\u00c2\u00a0 We also had\u00c2\u00a0 (relative) newcomers Lostprophets whose only notable feature was a keyboard player whose haircut was taken straight from the Small Faces Haircut Crimes of the ’60s Scrapbook<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 We were subjected to ‘classic’ videos from Madonna (Holiday<\/em>, from 1983) and Captain Sensible (Happy Talk<\/em>, from 1982).<\/em> We also had to witness Jamie Foxx (who doesn’t have a single anywhere near<\/em> the Top 40 at the moment) singing his latest tune (and I use the word ‘tune’ very loosely), proving that he may be able to act, but he sure as hell can’t sing.\u00c2\u00a0 When he called out to the audience “Put your hands up!” my wife quipped “Yeah,\u00c2\u00a0over your ears!”, which summed it all up rather succinctly.\u00c2\u00a0 It was just dreadful<\/em>!\u00c2\u00a0 Australian band Wolfmother (not in the Top 40) were introduced as ‘the new Led Zeppelin’ and then proceeded to sound exactly<\/span> like Led Zeppelin, whilst Rooster (also not in the Top 40) did a reasonable Reef\u00c2\u00a0impression.\u00c2\u00a0 Busta Rhymes was live in the studio, coming over all sentimental and misogynystic at the same time, with I Love My<\/em> Bitch <\/em>(cunningly renamed\u00c2\u00a0to I Love My <\/em>Chick for the BBC).\u00c2\u00a0 At least\u00c2\u00a0Busta (not his real name)\u00c2\u00a0is in the Top 40 – albeit not\u00c2\u00a0with this <\/em>song but the the (predictably) suggestively-titled Touch It<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 The only redeeming segment of the whole show was the Zutons’ Valerie<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0But to give the BBC credit, they have at least retained one part of the show’s original\u00c2\u00a0formula: closing with the current Number One.\u00c2\u00a0 Which this week was Maneater<\/em> by Nelly Furtado (who’s all grown up now, but about as convincingly-sexy in her video as Pan’s People (or Legs & Co, or Hot Gossip) were on TOTP <\/em>in the pre-video days).<\/p>\n

Given that I’ve done nothing but moan about TOTP<\/em>, why do I care so much about its demise?\u00c2\u00a0 Because it’s a part of our national tapestry! It’s one of those things that should always be there, like HP sauce,\u00c2\u00a0and Heinz Baked Beans.\u00c2\u00a0 When I was growing up, the one program I would religiously watch was Top Of The Pops<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d even sit through my dad’s non-stop barrage of predictable epithets such as “But there’s no tune<\/span>!”, “You can’t hear a damn word they’re singing!”, “Is that a man or a woman?”, and “Does it have to be that loud?”\u00c2\u00a0(sadly, I now find myself making the same comments myself) in\u00c2\u00a0 the vain hope that\u00c2\u00a0this week TOTP <\/em>would feature a band I actually liked<\/span> (I was a big Heavy Metal fan at the time, so this didn’t happen too often).\u00c2\u00a0 Even in my declining years (I’m now in my [very]\u00c2\u00a0late ’30s…) I still watch it to gauge the British musical zeitgeist.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0A future without TOTP is a bleak prospect indeed.<\/p>\n

But there is a further cause for concern.\u00c2\u00a0 In the U.S., bands know that they have ‘made it’ when they appear on the cover of the Rolling Stone<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 In the U.K., it is when they appear on Top Of The Pops<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 Now that this particular litmus test is disappearing, how will\u00c2\u00a0we elitist indie kids\u00c2\u00a0know when the bands we previously championed have finally become mainstream and need to be disowned in favour of the next obscure underground band??<\/p>\n

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The BBC have announced that Top Of The Pops is to be axed.\u00c2\u00a0 For the non-Brits, Top Of the Pops is (or at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,2],"tags":[27],"class_list":["post-44","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-music","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1745,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions\/1745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}