I don’t know if this is old news to Afterworders or Massive? (I’ve been away for awhile) but this podcast by ex-Melody Maker scribes I cannot recommend enough. I’m sure some of their attitudes and opinions will seriously wind up a few parishioners here no end but the show is absolutely hilarious, incisive, scabrous, affectionate, passionate, witty, but above all very knowledgeable about popular music of our mispent youth.
Each week Al Needham picks a random episode of Top Of The Pops and a duo of fellow MM ex-journos perform an autopsy on it. They had a minor audio problem in ep 1 and were finding their feet but stick with the series and you will be rewarded with podcast gold.
Old names you may recall from the inkies join in the fun like Simon Price, Taylor Parkes, David Stubbs, Neil Kulkarni, Sarah Bee and more…
It’s like the angrier, snottier younger sibling of the old Word podcast.
I am not in any way affiliated with it. BTW
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/640x480q90/923/szNIo9.jpg
https://chartmusiccouk.wordpress.com
I still don’t know how to post images here still. Almost reassuring.
https://chartmusiccouk.wordpress.com
Welcome home, Zanti, as the Peters & Lee used to say.
Cheers for posting. I’ve been addicted to 70s/80s TOTP since they started repeating them randomly late night back in the early 90s on UKGold.
Let’s give this podcast a try. First I’ve heard of it.
It’s been very many years since I last read the Melody Maker and I don’t know any of the names mentioned as participating in these podcasts. Were any of them any good in print?
It seems to me that now not many music journos can make a living from the printed word, they’re all turning to the pod.
I enjoyed the Bigmouth podcasts when they first started out, but now they seem to be all about smartarsery with a distinct touch of smugness. A shame, because the participants were all pretty good in print, most of the time. I have a growing batch of Bigmouth podcasts that I just have no appetite for any more. Maybe it’s time I unsubscribed.
Are these Chart Music podcasts any better?
Not heard the Bigmouth podcasts. Will check them out.
I suspect some folk here may find the Chart Music podcasts a bit sneery at times but they send up themselves something rotten and always point out that all the acts they discuss have been on TOTP and they haven’t.
Don’t think anyone is getting rich on Podcasts (I’m certainly not). I like Bigmouth, it very much reflects Andrew Harrison’s tastes …I’m not really a fan of “Box Set TV” and comic book movies but that music stuff is usually pretty good.
I’ve listened to the first one and it’s ok, if a bit long!
Thanks for the link. Also gave the first one a listen. Pretty good, marred for me by the main presenter doing his comedy routine, but I will try a few more.
Nice enough topic but I can’t cope with the constant gratuitous use of the f word.
I stopped listening after 15 minutes.
2nd one is much better….
Apart from sneering at Nik Kershaw. Is it just me or isn’t “Wouldn’t It Be Good” a brilliant pop record?
“Wouldn’t it be good if I was taller, even if it was for just one day”
I enjoy it a lot. Once you’ve set aside the fact that they’re going to slag off people you really like then it’s an amusing diversion. I worry for Taylor Parkes though – how is it possible for anyone to be so Eeyorish?
Al Needham does the occasional turn on our local iteration of Inside Out, they’re the only items to make that programme watchable. He’s recently done films on Vivian MacKerrell and the Virgin Records/Bollocks court case.
Thanks for the recommendation Zanti. I plumped for the one about the 1994 episode and am currently a bit of the way through – crikey it’s long – they’ve been talking for 75 minutes and have only just got onto the TOTP episode itself, with still another 100 minutes to go. Fascinating discussion about what it was like to work at the inkies through grunge, Britpop and Melody Maker’s eventual closure, although the journos still come across as up themselves even now (one of them gets quite misty eyed about a 500 word Neds Atomic Dustbin review “basically calling the readers a bunch of c***s”). An entertaining listen though, so will keep at it.
Make sure you get the hidden easter egg at the end of every episode.
Yeah, perhaps it is best to pick out a favourite TOTP year as an entry point. I quite like the fact they are long and they can bang on for fifteen minutes about a news item or reminisce about their youth or take the piss out of this outrageous Blue Peter item from 1981.
I love all the foul mothing but then I’m f**king common.
I remember watching that … what the biddy Baxter was all that about?
Swipe me – is this a piss take?? Wasn’t like that in my day…more’s the pity….and then he takes pictures for his personal album….good lord.
That was an uncomfortable watch.
#problematic
Just downloaded my first episode (podcast.) The latest I assume, April 29th 1976. But as mentioned, bloody hell, how long is each podcast? Do they not do any editing? There was me bemoaning the old Word podcast being too short sometimes, always wanted a bit more but now whenever I see a podcast over an hour (Marc Maron or suchline,) I tend to shy away. But 2 hours 46 mins for an episode which is around 45 mins long.
Definitely going to give this a go but hope its not all slagging everyone off. I like the old guilty pleasures stuff, the mid 70s and beyond. Considered naff but to do a podcast like this there has to be a compromise, give acts a shoeing where deserved but give love too. We shall see.
Havent even listened yet and already I’m complaining, would suggest an hour max might be more sensible? Or do they play all the songs too? Perhaps time for me to listen THEN comeback and praise or complain.
I don’t understand why people complain about the length of a podcast. Nobody worries about listening to a three-hour radio show all the way through or not reading a whole book in one sitting, One can just dip into the podcast for half an hour or so and return to it later. I listen to it when I go for a walk or on the train. I get weird looks when I suddenly guffaw loudly in Sainsburys.
I liken it to sitting in the pub with your mates from early evening to closing time when the booze and badinage keeps flowing until closing time.
There is a lot of slagging off but its fairly tongue in cheek and there is love too.
Yes, my local pub has two closing times.
Just finished listening to the April 1976 podcast and really enjoyed it. Yes, its long but actually worked. Mainly as I like the subject, perfect era for me. Although didn’t agree with their comments on the Four Seasons Silver Star, love that track.
Just downloaded November 1978 as my 2nd podcast listen, its even longer but looking forward to it.
Thanks for letting us know about this. Subscribe button has been pressed. Will look back and cherry pick the best pods to listen too. Likely 70’s and early 80’s for my tastes.
Given the number of pairs of cordless earphones/bluetooth headsets in use, I’m surprised people “get funny looks” anymore.
Bursting out laughing or starting to talk/hold a one-sided argument, when you’re seemingly on your own, are perfectly normal behaviour these days.
Just ask poor old Bri….
Cheers for turning us on to this Zanti, listening starting with the most recent one and laughing out loud – right up my street.
Yes it’s long, but the beauty of Podcasts is there’s no Producer trying to chivvy things along or get to the next Ad break or hand over to News. This means there is time to really get under the skin of ‘Reggae Like it Used to Be’ by Paul Nicholas- a record which raises so many unanswered questions – and they actually answer some. These are seasoned rock hacks, which – while a much maligned profession – means they know music inside out and I’m learning and laughing at the same time.
“No producer trying to chivvy things along” – chance would be a fine thing!
I rely on the “flogging a horse til it’s dead and then do a hard edit” technique which has stood me in good mental breakdowns
Reggae Like It Used to be is godawful. All of his 70’s mini hits with his silly dance and hat and cane. Jeeesus!!
When I get round to doing the next episode of CBVD I’ll be opening with a Paul Nicholas song that’ll knock your socks off. And possibly even remove the polish from your toenails too.
Well, I can think of no-one who more deserves to be greeted with the smell of my feet.
It improves as you get a few in. Bit laddish though. And much as I hated Margaret Thatcher, that was about policy and not because I was a sexist, misogynist pig, so when they use the language of a sexist, misogynist pig it makes me profoundly uncomfortable. Thankfully it appears to have been a one off.
As someone once wrote “It’s so easy to laugh, it’s so easy to hate, it takes strength to be gentle and kind”, wonder what happened to him?
He decided he wanted an easy life.
After his third bludgeoning.
I am now getting a bit addicted – they definitely improve….but could do without the fucking swearing as I fear it might infect my fucking language fucking skills.
A couple of things about TOTP that are coming back to me with full force (bearing in mind I haven’t watched it since the late 80s) is a) how much crap you had to wait through to get to one or two nuggets of joy, and b) how unremittingly, butt clenchingly, embarrassingly awful the attempted humour and audience interaction was, even without the Yewtree crowd. No wonder my parents hated it.
Thanks for the recommendation,@Zanti Misfit ! Just listened to the first one and didn’t find it long at all – enjoyed it immensely, even though I was never a regular TOTP viewer.
I really don’t understand why anyone ever thought Top Of The Pops was any good. Children would probably enjoy it as a first taste of pop music, but it was always a bit rubbish. I am old enough to remember it starting on New Years Day 1964 and it was obviously a visual version of Pick Of The Pops and maybe a response to Ready Steady Go (for Keith Fordyce and Cathy McGowan read Jimmy Saville and Samantha Juste). I always thought the format was too restricting – RSG was always ahead of the curve (unsigned acts, decent interviews, cool lighting and staging), whereas TOTP was, by definition, old news and was always very BBC – the charts had been published the previous weekend and broadcast on POTP anyway. You would occasionally get a look at a decent band or singer, but there was always so much dross to wait through.
BTW – just read this on Wikipaedia…On January 10, 2018, BMG Rights Management announced that it had acquired the ancillary rights to Ready, Steady, Go. Anyone know what this will mean??
Money in Dave Clark’s pocket, and hopefully some DVD releases.
Ready Steady Go as it was broadcast in the 60s or the Stalinist revised versions from the 80s?
They only have access to what Dave Clark had the rights to so nothing that has been discovered since or is in private hands. So hopefully some complete shows unedited
Agreed@NigelT.
TOTP was always a bit shite but we endured it in the hope of seeing our “faves of the week” from the chart we’d already heard at the weekend. Gradually the shite quotient increased year by year and ultimately swamped it.
Cheesy. And not even good cheese. Mild Cheddar.
Well, by definition it just reflected what was in the charts. If we agree that between 50 and 100% of the chart is crap that particular week then the show would not be brilliant from start to finish. The joy of TOTP was seeing The Jam or Teardrop Explodes or The Smiths etc for the first time and the occasional great edition.
I randomly picked a chart from 1979 (November). Top 10 contained Queen (Crazy Little Thing Called Love), The Jam (Eton Rifles), Abba (Gimme Gimme Gimme), Selector (On My Radio), Fleetwood Mac (Tusk) and The Specials (A message to You). Also in the top 40, XTC, Earth Wind and Fire, Madness, Chic, Michael Jackson, Boomtown Rats, Sex Pistols. Not too shabby!
http://www.officialcharts.com/charts/singles-chart/19791111/7501/
The two TOTP Christmas specials from that year were the point at which music went from being something that happened in the background of my life… to something central to my life. From that point on I couldn’t help but talk about… pop music…. pop…pop…. pop music.
I wasn’t commenting on the music that was played, particularly, but on the way that it was presented. Even when the BBC’s few half-decent DJs were the presenters, it was pretty dire stuff.
Yeah that’s true
Unfair! TOTP was all there was as a youngster and an admirable vehicle it was. Of course there was shite, for the reason of it representing the charts, and having to appeal to all, being primetime mid thursday (usually) evening. So the ballads all got their due, the disapproving dads could, um, admire the “choreography” and the nascent afterworder could see Jethro Tull, Fleetwood Mac (the blues Green version), the Who on the telly and be enthralled for life. OK, music had it’s doldrums but into the mid-70s, old enough then to also be watching Whistle Test, the charts were alive again, The Jam, Elvis, Joe Jackson. Then the Human League, OMITD, Script Politti. Loved it right until dance music ruled the charts with anodyne lacklustre pop style versions of what I still call techno.
I miss it.
Ahh, those cheeky jumper-wearing synth-popsters famously known as OMITD!
Whether it was any good or not, TOTP did give the whole family a glimpse of what was going on…the kids got to see acts they would never see anywhere else, the teens hopefully got to see a favourite, and the mums and dads got to see what their kids were into (and also have the ritual generational moan), and even grandparents got to see the Rolling Stones. It was true family entertainment, and meant EVERYONE knew what Bowie looked like, how Boy George dressed, what intruments the bands were ‘playing’, what clothes to copy etc. I do miss that – the inclusiveness of pop in those days. Listening to these podcasts though reinforces my view that it was mostly dire, and that a lot of memories are selective… we all remember a few highlights, but forget the dross!
Glad people have persevered with the podcast.
Recent Taylors Parkes quip
“Flawlessly generic, like a denim egg”.
Very much enjoying this. Halfway through my second podcast. I’m addicted, liked on facebook and twitter too.
If anyone has reached the Bucks Fizz/David Van Day stuff yet – this is the documentary – saw it when it went out. Jaw dropping TV.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2dAMA3R4pA
And that Bucks Fizz go S&M fetish video with uncomfortable lad and his mum at the front (NSFW!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTQBMz3w_nM
It’s epic that Buck’s Fizz doc.
The thing I loved about those documentaries – the Walking With DJs being my favourite – is the use of Jim Carter as voiceover. His deep sonorous tones make even a broken fingernail sound like the outbreak of nuclear war.
Jim Carter is one of the great underrated figures of the modern British screen. Dennis Potter loved him.
I always picture him standing on that platform in The Singing Detective
Jim Carter…from The Bill?? I loved the Bill.
It all turned out ok in the end?
Apparently a new podcast will be up later today.
Was sat watching a bit of ITV4 at the weekend, saw back to back episodes of The Professionals. Made me think back to a Sky channel back in the day – 15-20 years where they were repeating old episodes of Supersonic. I know, that was far from stunning but did have some very good appearances, quite a few by Thin Lizzy and Sensational Alex Harvey Band. Don’t know why they’re not getting another outing nowadays. Preferable for yet more Bodie Doyle or Sweeney. That channel seems as good a place as any.
The third one looking at an edition from Nov 73 was much better than the first two. It is growing on me …
I’ve gone in a different order. Started with 76, the 78 then the Roger Daltrey 1980 episode. Just downloaded 1975. I thought the early ones might be just finding their feet. Will get around to all eventually.
The Roger Daltrey 1980 episode is superb. Daltrey comes over as a right berk even then.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpExmd1T5TI
Their observations about the TOTP hosts never fail to make me convulse with laughter. Even John Peel isn’t safe.
I just sought out this thread again after a year of thoroughly enjoying the Chart Music podcast. I’ve even started bunging them $3 a month through Patreon. I wasn’t really expecting anything in return, it just seemed too good not to pay for, but this does apparently entitle you to the odd bonus episode – they’ve done one so far, an excellent q&a with Simon Price and Taylor Parkes.
Up there, having just listened to my first episode, I commented that the podcast seemed overlong but now it can’t be long enough as far as I’m concerned, particularly if Taylor is on it. Well worth checking out if you haven’t already.
Aye, its superb. Subscriber here too. Spent the past few months finally going back through all the old episodes I missed at the start. For a while i was longing for more of the late 70’s episodes but they’ve overdone them recently, expecting a late 90’s up next hopefully by next week. Usually takes me a good week to listen to a podcast but its always rewarding, looking forward to the next episode already.
They’ve moved to Great Big Owl podcasts guv’nors!
Just started listening to these and there’s the double-nostalgia bonus of people talking in 2017; about the past. None of us knew what was coming and the world from 2020 onwards became a very different place. I know that’s the least profound observation anyone’s made on the Afterword, but it makes listening to it that bit more interesting.
It is a little bit Spangles-and-white-dog-shit but there are plenty of laughs to be had and an entertaining focus on stupid, irrelevant detail as if it’s incredibly important. Some of these exceed 4 hours but it sails by. I am really enjoying them and I probably won’t catch up until 2024.
Only four hours! Those were the days..
P.S. You will be becoming aware of Al’s two tier system for band biogs i.e. “Blancmange were formed in 19xx when x and y met at z college and bonded over a mutual love of blah blah” versus “The Rolling Stones are the f**king Rolling Stones”.
Now you have the added excitement of finding out whether the mighty Mode achieve the coveted status of being declared “f**king Depeche Mode”.
There’s only been one reference so far – Just Can’t Get Enough. I was expecting ridicule but instead it received universal acclaim, so that was nice.