Top of the Pops: 19th May, 1977.

Rod Stewart by Helge Øverås (Own work)
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The Olympic Torch may be wending its way through the streets of this land even as we speak but there's only one beacon to be seen lighting the boulevards of Nostalgia.

And that's this week's TOTP.

Will it burn bright - a symbol of hope for all mankind?

Or will it splutter and die like the dampest of squibs?

Only David “Kid” Jensen can tell us. For it is he who's to guide us through the flaming cul-de-sac that men call, “The Past.”

Straight away, we launch into Suzi Quatro and - inevitably for an opening song - a track that rings no bells with me whatsoever.

It's a performance that can only be labelled, "Relaxed."

But that seems inevitable. Like whatever that single was she was on doing a few weeks back, it's not the most grippingest of tracks. In fact, some might call it positively lukewarm. Suzi really did seem to be treading water at this stage of her career. Still, thanks to hindsight, we at least know better was to come.

The song seems to be called Roxy Roller and, as it finishes, Kid declares it to be, “exciting,” suggesting he's incredibly easily excited.

Now it's Heatwave and Too Hot to Handle.

It's the typical Heatwave performance, them in silly outfits doing a song that sounds like Heatwave.

Now it's time for The Moon And I, sung by Linda Lewis.

I always thought Linda Lewis was a porn star. Assuming she isn't, just who was I mixing her up with?

Three songs into the show, and this is the third track I've never heard of.

But what a sweet little thing she seems.

Was this really written by Gilbert and Sullivan? Why isn't it all short notes and silly words?

Whoever wrote it, in the hands of Linda it's all going a bit Minnie Riperton.

Still, whatever its unlikelihood, I find it strangely intriguing and have the desire to hear it again, if only to find out what I make of it second time round.

Now for the Bay City Rollers with It's a Game.

If this hadn't been on two weeks ago, it would've been tonight's fourth consecutive track I've never heard of.

One solitary audience member waves a scarf. I wonder if she was the only Bay City Rollers fan left in Britain at this stage?

Now it's Carole Bayer Sager and You're Moving Out.

At last, a track I recognise!

I may know the song but I'm not sure I've ever seen her before. On first viewing, it does strike me that she looks like Popeye's Olive Oyl.

Like Barbara Dickson all those weeks ago, while she's making a good go at it, she's somewhat hindered by the invisibility of her backing singers.

I remember seeing Lynda Carter doing a version of this somewhere. It wasn't a patch on Carole's version.

Then again, Carole Bayer Sager'd probably struggle with playing Wonder Woman – especially when it comes to finding her invisible plane.

Joe Tex is at it again.

And now Legs and Co are dancing to Disco Inferno.

You'd think this was a perfect track for them to dance to, as it gives them an excuse to just dance and not have to act out any kind of narrative.

The only problem is that, for no noticeable reason, Flick Colby's ordered hub caps be strapped to their every extremity, meaning that, instead of focusing on their dancing, all you can notice are flashing discs. Flick Colby, a woman who could be relied upon to achieve defeat no matter how much easier it'd be to achieve triumph.

“From the land of a thousand dancers,” declares Kid, it's the Jacksons.

Are there really only a thousand dancers in the United States?

That does seem an unlikely stat.

Actually in the studio, rather than on video, they're doing Let Me Show You. I must admit it's not one of my favourite Jackson tracks, feeling oddly leaden compared to others of that vintage.

Michael seems to be the tallest of the Jacksons, which can't be right, can it?

To be honest, Michael's starting to get on my nerves now, with his random exclamations.

But at last it's the moment we've all been waiting for. Entire musical epochs collapse before our eyes as punk finally hits TOTP, with the debut of the Jam. Admittedly, you could argue the Jam weren't really punk but it's as close as we've got thus far on the show.

Paul seems a little angry. Bruce seems a little angry. It's a contrast from the Jacksons, that's for sure.

And an even bigger contrast is with Rod Stewart who's hit the heady heights of Number 1 with The First Cut is the Deepest.

He's on the TOTP jumbotron. I thought it'd long-since been retired due to the audience's disheartening tendency to stand with their backs to it.

It's that performance from last week.

He's waving his bum again.

As the show draws to a close, Kid signs off by wishing us, “Good love.” Heaven alone knows where he got that one from.

We play out with Boz Scaggs' Lido Shuffle.

This is my favourite Boz Scaggs song, by a mile. It sounds like Rick Davies' efforts for Supertramp. Given that Davies was always overshadowed by Roger Hodgson, that might not seem a good thing but Boz clearly knew how to make that sound work.

So, it was a night when musical differences were stretched almost to breaking point. What other music show could ever have dared give us Gilbert and Sullivan and the Jam in the same broadcast?

But that was the greatness of TOTP. While the BBC's other great 1970s music show The Old Grey Whistle Test had to crunch gears furiously to adjust to the arrival of the "new" music, TOTP's great amoeboid mass simply absorbed and accommodated any sound the charts could throw at it, before rolling on unperturbed.

Top of the Pops: 5th May, 1977.

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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.