Top of the Pops: 29th September, 1977.

Golden Earring in 1974 By AVRO
(Beeld En Geluid Wiki - Gallerie: Toppop 1974)
[CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

For  the most part, today's proven to be a battle with the madness of modern technology for me.

But will that deter me from tangling with yet more technology in order to sample the finest music the 1970s can offer?

Of course it won't.

And I'm not the only one, because Ed Stewart too is braving the latest hi-tech, in the form of a tiny spaceship that all my sci-fi geek instincts tell me has Mat Irvine's fingerprints all over it.

And it's not the only Space Age thing Ed brings with him, because, straight away, he launches us into Jean Michel Jarre, for the countdown.

And what do you know? Jean Michel works much better as countdown music than most records have lately.

But how futuristic the future sounded in the late 1970s.

I don't have a clue who the next act are but there's plenty of them and they've got the funk. Whoever they are, they're putting Honky in their place - and that's not a phrase I say every day.

Ed's back and he tells us it was Rose Royce, which gives some hint of the level of musical knowledge I have.

And this is David Soul.

Lots of meaningful looks from David.

I am really disappointed that, when the camera pulls back, it turns out the thing he's riding around on so moodily isn't a Raleigh Chopper. Just how great would that have been?

If he'd had any style, he'd have followed that up by whipping out a pair of Clackers.

But, now, not a Clacker in sight, he's out on the street, doing something that vaguely resembles the purchasement of druggage.

But David's cut off barely before he's begun, to make way for Legs and Co dancing to Bob Marley's I Don't Wanna Wait in Vain For Your love.

Needless to say, they've dressed appropriately for reggae by wrapping themselves in their local boarding house's net curtains.

Old Flick did like plenty of skirt waggling, didn't she?

You have to hand it to her, there's not many choreographers could come up with something quite this inane at such short notice.

But now Ed's back, and staying well away from females. After weeks of you-know-what, it is quite striking to be confronted by a presenter who shows no interest at all in the audience members around him. At the time, it must have seemed very stand-offish. No wonder he hardly ever got the gig.

And now it's the man who gave us the cover of Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.

That's right; it's Peter Blake.

He's changed a lot since then, hasn't he? In fact, he's practically unrecognisable.

Hold on a minute. Is that Kirk St Moritz?

Whether he is or not, it does seem like there was a union rule at the time that every edition had to include a Rock and Roll revivalist with what looked like roadkill on his head.

In fairness, it may be hokey old rubbish but he's giving it a go.

And now it's Ram Jam with Black Betty.

Quite frankly, I've never really known what to make of either Ram Jam or Black Betty. I don't like to judge people on appearances but they do look like very dodgy people and it does seem a somewhat mean-spirited song. On top of that, it has one of the most ludicrously out-of-place guitar solos in history...

...which we don't get to hear, as Top of the Pops fades it just as we're about to receive its full glory.

David Essex is back and he's still Cool Out Tonight, a phrase that has as much chance of catching on as Kid Jensen's, "Good Love."

"Bump bad a boo boo," declares David, clearly out to capture the eternal angst of the human spirit.

Orville's back! with I Plead Guilty.

I wonder if he looked that permanently surprised in real life.

I wonder why bright yellow suits never caught on.

I wonder why this one sounds exactly the same as their last one.

Their bolt well and truly shot, they make way for a woman about whom you could never make that accusation. It's Donna Summer with I Remember Yesterday. Let's be honest, it's not that great an achievement. Most people do. After all, it was only a few hours ago.

It's not the greatest video I've ever seen either. In fact, a far crueler man than I might label it, "terrible," as Donna prannies around dressed like a bad magician who's lost a fight with a bottle of bleach.

And her hat doesn't fit.

And it's a totally pointless song.

Now it's Golden Earring and Radar Love, one of those records I've heard mentioned plenty of times without ever having encountered.

If it's to win me over, the singer has to make an effort to bear less resemblance to Bono than he currently does.

This is getting worryingly close to heavy metal for my enjoyment.

Nope. I've decided I don't like it.

Someone who doesn't care what I like is Elvis. After five weeks, he's still dead and still at Number 1. Sadly, the latter of those two facts is likely to change sooner than the former.

Legs and Co are still dancing to him. They must be completely knackered by now.

Here's a turn-up. We've just had the Number 1 but, instead of the play-out that we'd normally get, Ed's joined by a man in the Steve Wright envelope. Ed introduces him as, "Giorgio," a no-doubt obscure personage from Italy.

Apparently, he's the man behind a song called, From Here to Eternity.

And then, it's dawned on me.

It's Giorgio Moroder!

That's right, Top of the Pops has sandwiched Giorgio Moroder in as some sort of afterthought and not even bothered telling us his surname.

To be honest, up until now it'd never occurred to me that Giorgio Moroder actually existed. I'd sort of had the notion he only existed in anecdotes, like Gloria Swanson. It's a bit of a shock to see there's actually a man behind the legend. In this sense I should probably thank Top of the Pops but, in another, I should probably curse them for destroying my fantasies.

Top of the Pops: 28th July, 1977.

Rita Coolidge, 2002
By Seattle Municipal Archives from Seattle,
WA; crop by Jmabel
(Rita Coolidge, 2002Uploaded by Jmabel)
[CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

It's that magical time of week again. And we leap straight into it with Noel Edmonds giving us the incredible Steve Gibbons Band.

No. I don't know who the incredible Steve Gibbons Band are either.

I do though recognise this song, even if it's one I don't know the title of.

Is the singer the eponymous Steve Gibbons? If so, Steve's wearing leather trousers. It takes a certain kind of man to get away with leather trousers. And, fair play to him, I think he might just be managing it.

The guitarist has leather trousers too. How many cows had to die to make this performance possible?

It quickly becomes clear that Steve - if Steve he is - is like a version of Shakin' Stevens from that Star Trek universe where everyone's the opposite of how they are in our universe. This means he's from a universe where Shakin' Stevens is cool.

Noel's back and it turns out the song was either called Too Late or Too Lame. I suspect it was the former.

Now we get the countdown accompanied by Feel the Need in Me.

Somehow, without Whole Lotta Love, the countdown's totally robbed of its power to excite.

Someone who'll never fail to excite are Boney M and, at last, after endless appearances on the play-out, they're finally allowed on the show itself.

My finely-honed senses tell me they're not actually in the Top of the Pops studio but are instead on one of those weird European shows you see clips of on Youtube, ones that usually feature David Bowie or Toyah performing to a totally baffled looking bunch of Bavarians.

This time, the audience don't look baffled but do look anomalously mature beyond their years and have their backs to the act. What kind of director thought having the audience facing away from the entertainment would be a good idea?

But no one with any sense cares about that. All that matters to the connoisseur is Bobby.

And, needless to say, Bobby's getting well and truly stuck into it. You can stuff your ABBA. This was the greatest band of the 1970s.

Not far behind them are Showaddywaddy, the next act on, with You Got What it Takes.

You have to say it, the forces of punk are being well and truly repulsed tonight.

Romeo seems to be nowhere in sight. Have they sacked him?

Oh. No. There he is, off to one side, hiding behind that blue drum kit.

Legs and Co are on next, dancing to Jonathan Richman and Roadrunner.

I'm not sure quite what kind of car that's supposed to be but I'm not sure the wheels are in the right place.

I used to really like this song.

Listening to it now, I'm not sure why.

Neither am I sure that what Legs are doing really constitutes dancing so much as randomly moving around. Was there actually any rehearsal involved in this "routine"?

Bob Marley's back with what feels like his millionth performance of Exxidass.

And a wooden stake is well and truly plunged into the heart of punk with the return of Dana

This is all very pleasant. I always thought she only had one hit. What a fool I was.

But who'd have thought that, within three years of this, Sheena Easton would have so totally doppelganged Dana as to have completely taken her place in our national consciousness?

Emerson Lake and Palmer are back with probably the worst Olympic opening ceremony ever.

And now Rita Coolidge returns, surviving possibly the worst joke even Noel Edmonds has ever cracked.

After all these decades, it's just dawned on me that I actually don't have a clue what this song's about.

I do at least know what Thin Lizzy are on about as they give us Dancing in the Moonlight. This is much better than the song they were doing on their last appearance - the one Noel Edmonds cheerfully admits he thought would reach Number 1.

There's half-hearted dancing going on on the stage - and for once it's not being done by Legs and Co.

For the second week running, I've lost reception during a vital part of the show.

I get it back in time to see a photo of Donna Summer on a giant screen as the Top of the Pops audience dance along to I Feel Love.

Legs and Co are still in their Jonathan Richman car and still looking totally unrehearsed. Despite the track and all the dancing that's going on, it's not exactly wild.

So, there we have it, the week when Boney M finally got the chance to prove themselves supreme, and Legs and Co got to prove themselves not supreme. It wasn't a vintage week but I enjoyed all the acts you're not supposed to and I discovered I didn't like one act you are supposed to. I suppose this counts as surprise - and surprise is a good thing. Therefore, despite its general lack of excitement, I give this week's edition a cautious thumbs up.

I do pray, though, for the return of CCS. It's simply not Top of the Pops without them.

Top of the Pops: 7th July, 1977.

Boney M by TROS
(Beeld en Geluidwiki - Gallery: Showbizzquiz)
[CC-BY-SA-3.0-nl
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses
/by-sa/3.0/nl/deed.en)],
via Wikimedia Commons

Last Friday night's Olympic opening ceremony magnificently proved to me the UK has a musical heritage to be proud of.

I have faith that this week's Top of the Pops 1977 will do its level best to prove we don't.

Not that Tony Blackburn cares about that. He's too busy introducing us to this week's chart.

What he doesn't introduce us to is the opening act.

Fortunately I don't need him to. With my vast knowledge of popular music, I know the act to be someone with a keyboard.

When the director shows us who's actually playing that keyboard, that's when I'm in trouble because, as always with the first act of each edition, I don't have a clue who it is.

It's all a bit glam rock.

It's all a bit Goldfrapp.

Whoever it is, they look like the world's worst-dressed terrorist organisation.

I take it the keyboard player's a producer pretending to be a group. And I'm not at all convinced that any of the others are really playing those instruments.

Tony finally comes to my rescue and tells me it's the Rah Band. Were they the people who did Clouds Across the Moon?

Olivia Newton-John's back.

Sadly for her, Sam's not. She's still sat there pining for him. “Sam, Sam, you know where I am,” she bemoans.

Of course he does, woman. You never move. You've been sat there for weeks. That's probably why he left you.

Smokie are on next with It's Your Life. I don't think I recognise this.

They've gone a bit reggae - in the Paul Nicholas sense of the word.

It might be reggae but it's the same song they always have hits with.

This is strange. For no noticeable reason, it's suddenly changed tempo and turned into Baby You're a Rich Man.

And suddenly it's turning back into reggae again. Frankly I don't have a clue what's going on. It's all a bit daring and experimental by Smokie standards.

All it needs is for Suzi Quatro to appear and it's had everything.

Sadly Suzi doesn't put in an appearance.

Happily, The Brotherhood of Man do.

Seeing the looks on their faces as they sing of suicide does remind me of when Westlife appeared on Top of the Pops and grinned their way through every moment of their cover of Seasons in the Sun.

But I like to think this is where Steve Nieve stole the piano sound for Oliver's Army from.

Bob Marley's back with Ecksidass. You really do think someone should've told him he was saying it wrong.

It doesn't matter how hard he tries, he'll never be able to do reggae like Smokie can.

It's the Alessi Brothers with Oh Lori. I assume they're no relation to the Alessi Sisters from Neighbours, even though they too were twins.

To be honest, it's not one of my favourite songs, being the musical equivalent of candy floss. And, for some reason it's giving me the urge to stand in a lift.

But forget the Alessi Brothers! We don't need them any more.

Why?

Because we've got the return of Barry Biggs!

God alone knows what he's dressed as. He seems to be auditioning for the part of Harry Secombe's stand-in in the worst-ever version of Oliver.

Showing the level of daring that even Smokie could only dream of, he's singing Life is a Three-Ringed Circus, clearly not at all sticking to the format that gave us Sideshow. Personally I've always found life to be a three-ringed lemur.

Does it say bad things about me that I'm quite enjoying this?

I think I'll be singing this in bed tonight.

And now Legs and Co are dancing to Boney M and Ma Baker.

This is driving me up the wall. When are we actually going to be allowed to see the band the world knows as The M? I want to see Bobby dance, not these bums.

I really don't understand what's going on. There's a granny dancing on the screen while the rest of them're sat rogering chairs. What does any of this have to do with a female Chicago gangster?

It's Andy Gibb.

This is very Bee Gees. Did they write it for him?

Hot Chocolate are still at Number 1 - which means they've won again.

Errol shows his class by managing to sing the last line with his mouth shut.

And we play out with Donna Summer and I Feel Love.

This pleases me because I do recall watching this play-out upon first broadcast all those years ago, making it one of the few moments since I started watching these repeats that I actually remember seeing at the time.

So, as predicted, Top of the Pops did indeed fail to play any of Britain's rich musical heritage. Instead it gave us a tale of the familiar with the odd surprise.

I'm not sure if it reflects worst on the show or on me that the act I missed most on tonight's show was Boney M and the one I enjoyed most was Barry Biggs. If only they'd let me choose the soundtrack to that opening ceremony, what a show it would've been.

Top of the Pops: 9th June, 1977.

The usual problems finding a decent free-use image of
any of tonight's acts, so here's Tomb Raider and
Alexander sex-bomb Angelia Jolie.
Almost uniquely, Angelina Jolie has no valid links to
Top of the Pops.
By Angelina-Jolie. jpg: www.promiflash.de
- Bitte bei Bildverwendung auch Link setzen derivative
work: Born Slippy (Angelina-Jolie.jpg) [CC-BY-SA-3.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons

The nation's greatest banks may currently be facing bankruptcy and desertion thanks to the revelation they've been fiddling  interest rates but, no matter what the interest level Top of the Pops generates, we return to it time and time again.

Who'll achieve chart solvency tonight and who'll merely drive us to solvent abuse?

Only Tony Blackburn can tell us. For it is he who is to guide us through the balance sheets of history.

We launch into the show with the continuity announcer telling us we're going to be treated to Bob Marley and the Wurzels. I don't know about you but Bob Marley and the Wurzels were my favourite group of the 1970s.

Not my favourite group of the 1970s are the first act on – mostly because I don't have a clue who they are.

That's because Top of the Pops is continuing its grand tradition of kicking off each show with an act and a track I don't recognise. Just how did the producers way back in 1977 know just what acts I'd have heard of in 2012?

Whoever they are, one of them has a cape. Capes are always impressive on a singer.

Is this Osibisa? I have no reason to think it is other than it might be.

Whatever it is, it's all very cheery and summery, though I suspect I won't remember it for more than thirty seconds after it's over.

It is Osibisa. Well done to me. Yet again my stunning knowledge of music pulls me through.

Now it's ELO and Telephone Line. It's the same video as the other week - and it's still one of my favourite ELO songs.

It's clearly not one of the producer's favourite ELO songs, as, three-quarters of the way through, it has a dirty great edit inflicted on it that's so devoid of subtlety you wonder if it was done with a lawn mower.

Now it's Gladys Knight and the Pips with Baby Don't Change Your Mind. It's on video and it's all very 1970s.

I think this may be the first time I've ever seen what Gladys Knight looks like. Somehow I always imagined her differently. The woman in the video seems far too young and small to be Gladys Knight.

Still, they all seem very happy people and that makes me pleased for them.

Gladys has gone and, for a moment, I get all excited thinking I can hear the strains of Billy Don't Be a Hero as Tony does his next link.

Tragically it's not Paper Lace at all. In fact it's turned out to be Neil Innes with a song I don't recognise.

Frankly, I don't want to recognise it. It's about the Queen and it's not exactly the Sex Pistols.

In fact it's positively puke-inducing. I'm listening hard to see if I can hear any signs of subversive irony in it all but it seems to be a straight tribute to the Her Maj. Frankly, in my eyes, this isn't doing Neil's standing a lot of good.

“Sailing on the yacht Britannia,” he sings. “Nowhere in the world would ban yer.” It's like he's desperately trying to undo all the good-will generated by his work with the Rutles.

That was genuinely appalling and makes you realise what some people'll do to try and get a knighthood.

In total contrast, you get the feeling the Stranglers'd just give a knighthood the good kicking it deserves...

...because they're back - and still in, “Evil Chas and Dave,” mode.

Thanks to Neil Innes, I'm enjoying this a lot more than I probably should be.

As though Greece hasn't suffered enough, Demis Roussos is back – this time with a strangely Scottish-sounding song.

It brings to mind the Goombay Dance Band - and I don't care what anyone says, that can't be a good thing.

He's hiding behind ferns, like a sniper who doesn't believe the war's over.

The way he's looking at the microphone you just know he's desperate to eat it.

Honky are with us.

Is this the song they did the other week or is it another one?

Whatever it is, the singer's still as unpleasant and disturbing as he was before. I really do feel he should have been banned from television.

Next, it's Legs and Company dancing to Show You The Way To Go by the Jacksons.

They've borrowed Demis Roussos's vegetation.

For some reason, the sun behind them's started flashing. Is Flick Colby sure the sun's meant to do things like that?

As promised before the show, it's Bob Marley.

Disgracefully, he's dumped the Wurzels and is hanging around with some other bunch called the Wailers.

I don't care who they are. They'll never have the magic of the Wurzels.

They're doing Exodus which I've never found to be one of his more interesting songs, mostly because it sounds like he's just making it up as he goes along and randomly throwing in the sort of words and phrases that'll make it sound like it's about something.

It's no I Am a Cider Drinker, that's for sure. Oh Bob, did you really not realise how much you needed Adge Cutler?

From someone who needs Adge to someone who needs a kick in the nadgers because Rod Stewart's still at Number 1! Is there to be no escape from that man's backside?

There is now because Rod's finally gone, and we're playing out with Emerson Lake and Palmer's Fanfare for the Common Man. This is more like it. It might all be a bit Prog but it's a cut above most of the acts on tonight.

I can't say it was a riveting show. The highlights were the Stranglers and ELO with performances we've already seen before. Lowlights have to have been the singer of Honky, Neil Innes' dismal bandwagon-jumping and the total absence of the Wurzels.

Still, we did get to see Bob Marley, even if it wasn't one my faves by him, we got to wave our little Union Jacks at something and I finally found out what Gladys Knight looks like.