Top of the Pops: 21st April, 1977.

Because Jolene Blalock alone cannot keep Aggy satisfied,
here's ex-Star Trek Voyager sex-bomb Jeri Ryan.
Photo by Gary Burke  (Jeri Ryan)
[CC-BY-SA-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

It's been an exciting day today, as the nation's gone to the polls to decide just who's going to be ruling our towns and cities for the next few years.

But there's only one man rules our hearts.

And that's Tony Blackburn.

Why?

Because only he can guide us through the strongholds and marginals that are the pop charts of 1977.

And we kick off with someone or other.

Is it Eddie and the Hot Rods? I'm basing this assumption on the singer's bared chest and the fact he's moving around a fair bit. I don't have a clue what it's called but I do know it's not Do Anything You Wanna Do.

He's dangerously close to doing the splits. Some things I don't want to see even on TOTP. I can't help feeling he's what you'd have got if Iggy Pop and Get It Together's Roy North had produced a love-child. Then again, who's to say they didn't?

It WAS Eddie and the Hot Rods. No wonder they let me do a life-or-death blog about pop when I have musical knowledge like that.

On the other hand, here's OC Smith. Apart from him having a very well-known TV show named after him that featured the bloke who was Jim Robinson in Neighbours, I still don't have a clue who he is.

Is this the song he did the other week? Or is it another one?

He still looks like Phil Lynott's dad.

I'm still not gripped by it.

It's all gone scary as we suddenly get a weird lingering close-up of a woman's face.

But no. It's not just any weird woman's face. It's a Legs and Co weird woman's face.

They're dancing to Sir Duke by Stevie Wonder.

I must confess I've never been a Stevie Wonder fan. I always like his songs when they start but, after about a minute, I'm always starting to lose the will to live.

Legs and Co are very shiny and sparkly tonight. I don't know whose idea those outfits were but one thing's for sure, the chicken'll be going without bacofoil this week.

They've flashed their bums! It's shocking the things people'll get up to now it's 1977. I've got a good mind to ring Mary Whitehouse. Wherever will this Rock and Roll anarchy end? I predict, if it's not checked, it'll end with people wearing meat bikinis. And I'm making that prediction in 1977, so, if I'm proven right, it'll be an incredible act of foresight.

Now it's Tavares.

I remember this one. I remember liking it - mostly because it mentions Ellery Queen.

I remember seeing the pilot ep for the Ellery Queen show in the 1970s and concluding that Ellery Queen was the murderer. I didn't realise it was Part 1 of a series and he couldn't be the murderer because that would've made it a very short series. I'm still smarting over the humiliation.

Tavares, meanwhile, are giving an oddly winning performance. You wouldn't exactly call their dance routine twinkle-toed but you can't help liking them.

It's time to round-up the votes of the Steve jury as Mike Moran and Lynsey de Paul are back with Rock Bottom.

I don't care how pretty she is, I just can't warm to Lynsey. There's still something I don't trust about her.

Actually it's probably because she is pretty that I don't trust her. I don't mind beautiful people – I'm fairly scrumptious myself - but they who are pretty, I don't trust.

The audience look bored rigid.

I don't blame 'em.

It's no Scooch.

Leo Sayer's on now. I don't recognise the track yet and I thought I knew every hit Leo ever had.

I know it now he's finally started singing. It's How Much Love. I think this is one of his high-pitched ones.

What a strange video. There's millions of Leos leaping up and down, spinning around, floating about in mid-air, and mostly being silhouettes.

I'm trying to work out if it's heavily influenced by Elton John or if Elton John was heavily influenced by Leo Sayer. Either way, this track could easily have been on an Elton John album.

Now for Delegation and Where Is The Love?

Someone else had a hit with a song called Where Is The Love, didn't they? Was it Black Eyed Peas? Or was it Lisa Stansfield? Or was it both?

As for Delegation, I'm not familiar with them but their style's familiar.

It's very pleasant but very like the Real Thing. I suspect you could easily sing Can't Get By Without You right over the top of it.

Elkie Brooks is back – and backless. I hope she's not going to be sexy again. The trouble I got into last time over the whole issue of Elkie and sexiness. All I can say is I will never again question the untrammelled eroticism of Elkie Brooks.

Deniece Williams is back with Free. It's another one I always like for the first minute before completely losing all interest.

She's doing strange hand movements to try and keep us interested. She's succeeding. I'm still not interested in the song but I am at least strangely taken by her hand gestures.

Now she's starting to sound like a kettle boiling.

ABBA are still at Number 1.

This week's show seems to have flown by, which I suppose means I must've found it entertaining even though there was little on it you'd call either remarkable or memorable.

And, continuing the TOTP tradition of saving the best song till the play-out, we finish with Peter Gabriel and Solsbury Hill.

This is bad news. I think I'm starting to get how it works; which is that, once a track's been on the play-out, it's doomed to never be on the show proper. Which presumably means Peter's had it.

That's a shame, as Solsbury Hill's one of the few songs from 1977 that I'd call a classic.