Top of the Pops: 5th May, 1977.

By Musphot (Own work)
[CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons.

Well, I've girded my loins. I've strapped on my armour. Now to see what challenges the second of this week's instalments of the world's greatest music show has in store for us.

What it first has in store is Noel Edmonds, as always looking as unlike the presenter of a popular music show as it's possible to be. You did always feel Noel would've been far more at home working in banking than in the entertainment business.

And, for once, we kick off with an act I actually recognise.

It's the Bay City Rollers...

...and a song I don't recognise.

Remembering they're meant to be objects of lust for girls too young to feel lust, they're showing off a lot of chest, which is a good thing, as I'm sure it's the sort of behaviour that gets us all a little excited back here in 1977.

The song seems OK but lacks the overwhelming sense of optimistic pop unstoppability of their earlier hits. Even at the time it must have seemed clear the sun was slowly setting on the Rollers' days of supremacy.

Someone whose sun was still hovering somewhere around noon, was Rod Stewart who's on next with First Cut is the Deepest.

It's a pleasant enough track but not one of my Rod favourites.

And this is where we get a reminder of the problem with Rod. He's doing a sensitive ballad then suddenly turns round and starts waving his arse at us all.

This is why I believe people are wrong when they say he sold out by going disco. For a man with a determination to wave his bum in everyone's faces at every opportunity, when disco came along he must have felt like at last he'd found his true calling in life.

Delegation are back, and looking older than ever. I don't like to be narrow-minded but I can't help feeling that men of that age really shouldn't be wearing such figure-hugging, chest-revealing outfits.

Mac and Katie Kissoon are up next.

Noel introduces them like they're old friends of the show, though I must admit I've never heard of them.

Nor have I ever heard of the song but they seem to continue that Marilyn McCoo/Billy Davis Jr tradition of an attractive woman paired with a man who looks like talent scouts found him lurking in the cellar beneath Paris Opera House.

As for Katie, she has some strange sort of creature attached to her chest. It seems to be one of Molly Sugden's old hats from the Liver Birds.

The audience are suddenly heading for them just as they're fading out. Bearing in mind the audience were presumably there to see some pop acts, just where have they been all the way through the song?

Noel cracks a joke I don't understand at all, about something doing you good.

What I do understand is Leo Sayer who's back with his video of multi-layered Leos and still showing us his “fun” side.

Next, on to Joy Sarney - yet another act I've never heard of before.

It soon becomes obvious why, as she quickly plummets into what must be the worst performance in TOTP history. Actually managing to make Rick Dees look like a latter-day Beethoven, she launches into a truly bizarre duet with Mr Punch.

At this juncture I should point out she looks like Steve Does Top of the Pops favourite Jolene Blalock.

I like to think that, if Jolene Blalock ever launched a pop career, this is what it'd be like.

I suspect that Jolene Blalock, on the other hand, likes to think otherwise.

But it has to be quite the cheeriest song about domestic violence I've ever heard. "He's been in trouble with the law for grievous bodily harm," she gushes, prompting the thought that Joy Sarney should've been in trouble with the law for grievous bodily harm to music.

Now it's Frankie Valli, and yet another song I've never heard before. It really is turning out to be a night of discovery for me.

Seeing as it's Frankie Valli, I keep expecting him to go all high-pitched but he resolutely refuses to do so. In places, the track vaguely brings to mind the work of Harry Chapin. In others it doesn't.

Now, proving he really would have been more comfortable in banking, Noel tells us it's, “Legs and Company.”

It's that weirdly happy dance they did the other week to Andrew Gold's Lonely Boy.

ABBA have finally been kicked off the Number 1 slot and replaced by Deniece Williams with Free.

I'm pleased to report that, after finding it boring the last time it was on, I'm starting to get into it again after all these years. It can't be denied it's a classy track and she has a decent set of pipes on her, even if she does blow too hard on them from time to time.

She's doing the waggly thing with her fingers again, which still impresses me far more than it ought to.

It's Stevie Wonder's turn to get the fuzzy end of the lollipop this week by receiving the honour of playing us out.

So, what can you say? The night's earlier edition was completely dominated in the memory by one strange and inexplicable act in Contempt, and this show was likewise dominated by the bizarre horror of Joy Sarney - whereas perfectly tasteful acts like Frankie Valli and Delegation are already slipping from the mind. It just goes to show that, in the magical world of showbusiness, being memorable and being worthy of remembrance aren't necessarily the same thing.

Top of the Pops: 14th April, 1977

The same old troubles finding a Free-Use Image of any of tonight's acts, so
here's a shot of ex-Star Trek sexpot Jolene Blalock in Cairo.
Jolene was in  Star Trek Enterprise. Popular music is a form of private
enterprise. Therefore Jolene has many valid links with Top of the Pops.
Photo by Jolene Blalock (Canon Eos)
[GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0], via Wikimedia Commons

A wise man once demanded we, "Clunk click every trip."

That man was Jimmy Savile.

That man is our host tonight.

And that's good news, because we're on a trip to the past and, on previous TOTP form, the odd clunk can be practically guaranteed.

As always, I have no idea who the first act is, as they and I haven't been formally introduced. By the looks of things, they come with no shortage of frills but will they be equally well-stocked with thrills?

Seemingly not.

It is the first time I've ever heard this, so I may be being premature in my judgement but, so far, it sounds terrible. I would say they have a singing drummer but, to be honest, I'm not sure that, whatever it is those strange noises are that're emanating from his mouth, that they qualify as singing - or any other form of communication known to man. The last time I experienced such sounds coming from a human being, I was reading an HP Lovecraft novel, and a giant space octopus was involved.

I do know though that someone's beautiful.

I know that because the main singer – the one who's not the drummer - keeps saying it, over and over and over again. I think he's after the world record for the most number of times anyone's ever said the word, "beautiful," in one lifetime.

Thankfully Sir Jimmy's back to tell us they were The Brothers, who I seem to remember having been on a few weeks ago, although I'm sure they seemed like a totally different group of people back then.

Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr are back with You Don't Have to be a Star.

It's the same vid as before.

As we've already seen it, I think I can gloss over it all, other than to say the spinning Dalek's still with them and that the pair of them still remind me of the Chanter Sisters, with their moves.

Good grief! It's Brendon again! Who'd have thought he'd get to appear on Top of the Pops quite so many times?

He's playing a guitar! This is what I like about him. He introduces a new element every time he appears. Last time, it was smiling. This time, it's playing an instrument. Who knows what wonders he might unleash on us if allowed a fourth visit?

He does have a look of Stan Boardman about him.

It's a terrible admission for one of my intense musical credibility to make but it's actually starting to grow on me. This is mostly because - God bless him - Brendon's doing everything he can to sell it to us.

David Soul's still at Number 2. And this time we actually get to see him.

He still looks like the kid in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. But, then, he probably feels like the kid in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, with all the records he's selling lately.

Now Jimmy's with a strange looking man in dark glasses. It's not Roy Orbison and it's not the bloke from the Rubettes.

The Stylistics are back and, right from the off, the singer looks startled.

I really have never seen a man look so permanently surprised.

They seem to be dancing a bit faster than they were last time.

I'm starting to realise why. Is it my imagination or is the track accelerating as they go along? Like the tape deck's out of control?

It literally seems to be getting too fast for them to keep up with comfortably. No wonder the main man looks startled. The way it keeps velocitising, it must be all he can do to keep from bursting into flames.

From that oddly frenetic thing, to something far more sedate, as John Williams and Cleo Laine give us Feelings.

Sadly it's not the Star Wars John Williams. It would've been great seeing Cleo Laine trying to sciddly diddly daddly doodlie her way through Darth Vader's march of menace.

To be honest, I think this must've been the part of the show when everyone was expected to go and put the kettle on.

My dad was always a big fan of Cleo Laine but, on her performance here, she seems completely mental. Frankly, she's scaring me - especially when she look straight at the camera. It's like she can see right through the screen and at me. I'm starting to worry she's going to climb out of the TV, crawl across the floor and get me, like that woman in The Ring.

"I wish I'd never met you, boy," she's singing. Personally, I'm glad she's never met me.

This is rotten. I mean, seriously, why's she singing like that? It's like she's some weird form of human theremin.

This is more like it. It's Andrew Gold with Lonely Boy. He may never have been fashionable but Goldy knew how to bang out a catchy tune. Of course, he is currently suffering the handicap of being danced to by Legs and Co.

I really don't see what this cheery routine has to do with a song about loneliness.

Now it's all gone a bit, "At the Hop."

It's like, in their heads, they're dancing to a totally different track from the one we're hearing.

Billy Ocean's back. It's the performance from a couple of weeks ago, which means there's no new developments on the collars-and-cuffs front. But it's a great song and a great performance. If only all acts on TOTP had Billy's gusto.

ABBA are still Number 1. It's still that video. You'd think they'd have got cold by now and decided to go somewhere warm.

I've just realised, the bloke in ABBA who doesn't have a beard reminds me of Bill Mumy who had a sort of hit with the magnificently bizarre Fish Heads and played an alien in Babylon-5. I think he was also Will Robinson in Lost in Space but don't quote me on that.

I wonder if anyone else in ABBA reminds me of anyone?

No.

They don't.

That game didn't last long. :(

They're playing out with Boney M and Sunny. I love Boney M. I love Sunny. This means that, as far as I'm concerned, the show's going out on a high.

Regardless of whatever musical highs and lows it may have had, the thing that most sticks in my mind about tonight's show is a feeling of dread.

Dread at the disturbing tour de force of madness that was Cleo Laine. But also at the audience members Sir Jimmy was hanging around with throughout the show, who seemed to get more and more menacing as it went along. If the past really is a foreign land, it seems it's a foreign land we must sometimes mark with just three words.

"Here be dragons."