Top of the Pops: 24th November, 1977.

Mull of Kintyre lighthouse by Steve Partridge
[CC-BY-SA-2.0],  via Wikimedia Commons

This is it. I have my bagpipes plugged in, my sporran in my hand and I'm all revved up for what I believe is set to be a historic show.

It certainly is - because we kick off with Boney M single-handedly sorting out Northern Ireland for what seems to be the ninth week running. I do like to feel Bobby was hoping to dance the IRA into submission.

Sadly, we don't get to see him do so, as we only get to hear The M over the chart rundown.

That done with, it's some people who've been watching too much Bay City Rollers and listening to too much Beach Boys, trying to cash in what I assume was the skateboard craze.

Whoever they are, I do get the feeling the skateboard craze has arrived five years too late for their hopes of stardom. They look like they've been locked in a cupboard since 1974 and have only just escaped it.

Hold on a moment! That drummer's not the bloke who used to be in Flintlock and The Tomorrow People is it? Mike Holoway, was he called? If it is him, suddenly, whoever these people, are my feelings towards them have warmed instantly and I hope they have many chart hits for years to come. I can wish nothing but good to a Tomorrow Person.

From a Tomorrow Person to the Yesterday man. Because - hooray! - it's Wings. It's that song. It's that video. It's that farmhouse.

I don't care how uncool it is to say so, I'll admit it right here and now. I love this song. It's one of the greatest melodies ever written, it wipes the floor with 99% of punk records and I'm tempted to whip out my guitar and join in.

Linda's appeared from the farmhouse and Paul's suddenly doing a runner. Stop running away from Linda, Paul. She might have a veggie burger for you.

The pipe band have appeared. On the beach. Forget Bohemian Rhapsody. This is the greatest video in history.

"Sweep through the heather." Don't mention heather, Paul.

Disgracefully, Macca's faded-out long before we get to hear his shouty bit - and we're off from Scotland to Wales.

That's because it's Bonnie Tyler with It's A Hard Egg.

I'm getting a bit bored with it now. I want Wings back.

Instead I get Darts, with Daddy Cool. It's all very energetic but this is the millionth time they've been on doing it. I'm starting to want a new song from them.

Kid's back.

He's trying to strangle a female audience member.

Leo Sayer's on with a song I have no recollection of.

It seems to be called There Isn't Anything.

This is quite pleasant. It's exactly like you'd expect a Leo Sayer song to sound. And it's got exactly the video you'd expect a Leo Sayer song to have. Was this from his TV show? It has the air of something that would be.

Leo's gone and Legs and Co are with us, dancing to Jonathan Richman's Egyptian Reggae, which isn't actually reggae at all, is it?

However you classify it, it's giving Flick Colby the chance to hit new heights of choreographic literalism, with everyone dressed up Cleopatra style.

And now we get the full power of Flick's genius as, for no good reason, a panto camel appears.

What a mighty beast that is. No wonder it can survive for weeks in the desert.

Was this song the inspiration for Fleetwood Mac's Tusk? There are noticeable similarities between the two tracks.

Flick's flung herself fully into madness, as the camel launches into a tap-dance.

Having seen that performance, I do feel all women should be forced to dress like Cleopatra and all men should be forced to dress as a camel.

Hot Chocolate are back, with Put Your Love In Me.

This is another one I've not heard of.

I didn't think it was possible to not have heard of a 1970s Hot Chocolate single.

Interesting chord change.

Actually, it's turned out I have heard this before. I just didn't recognise it till it hit the chorus. This is all rather fabby and disco and vaguely Cerrone.

Speaking of fabby disco groovers, it's another helping of the Bee Gees and How Deep Is Your Love?

And next it's someone called Larry Gomez with Santa Esmeralda doing Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood. Fair play to him, he's doing his best, whoever he is but, sadly, I fear the total uselessness of both him and his dancers means his efforts will prove to be in vain.

ABBA are still Number 1 with Name of the Game.

And we play out with the Jacksons and Going Places. A Jacksons song I recognise. Will wonders never cease?

It's going on a bit. Were they running short this week?

So that's it. The edition when we first saw the future biggest-selling single in British history. I have to say I didn't feel the show as a whole caught light this week. There were two many tracks we've heard before, acts we'd never hear from again, and Mull of Kintyre was cut short. Still, we did at least get to see the moment when Flick Colby's brain finally sprung a leak and undiluted madness poured out. Let's be honest if you don't want to see that from Top of the Pops, what do you want to see?

Top of the Pops: 27th October, 1977.

David Bowie was supposed to be on tonight's show but,
thanks to the Dave Lee Travis thing, wasn't.
Poor David. He must be wondering if he'll ever get to appear
on Top of the Pops.
Meanwhile, here is is in 1974, by AVRO
(Beeld En Geluid Wiki - Gallerie: Toppop 1974)
[CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Well, it's all been a right old kerfuffle, with tonight's planned edition being pulled, thanks to the Dave Lee Travis arrest.

But, undeterred by such shocks and surprises, I'm here and raring to go.

Can David Kid Jensen pull off a coup and be the first Top of the Pops presenter not to get arrested at an inconvenient moment?

Only the next half hour can tell.

 And we kick off with Santana doing She's Not There.

Who's doing the singing on this? I assume it's not Carlos.

Is it Colin Blunstone? It sounds like him.

And this week's obligatory Rock and Roll revivalists are...

...Slade!

But not looking or sounding like Slade.

Noddy of course still sounds like Noddy. Even in these days of the much-lauded New Rock, some things don't change.

They seem to be doing My Baby Left Me. That's All Right.

They're doing it competently enough but is this really what we want to hear from our favourite Wolverhampton foot-stompers?

Dave's gone bald. Is this an attempt to jump on that New Music bandwagon that's sweeping the land?

Definitely not trying to jump on that bandwagon is Mary Mason who's here to treat us to her version of Any Way That You Want Me.

She doesn't look very happy.

Was this from a musical?

Whatever it's from, it's not grabbing me.

It's turned into Angel Of The Morning but I'm still not getting into it.

Massive eyelashes cast humongous shadows across her face, like the legs of giant, eyeball-eating spiders.

And now it's all gone Cilla Black.

Learning nothing from recent scandals, Kid's with a zillion young girls.

And now Darts are here with Daddy Cool.

I did always feel Darts should have been the cast of Blake's 7. Somehow you could see them pulling it off.

A man's playing a guitar solo on his saxophone, which takes some doing.

And now Den Heggarty's getting stuck in.

He still looks like Beaker from the Muppets.

But forget Muppets - because Ram Jam are back, and being danced to by Legs and Co.

Incited by such wild music, they're going for it, the brazen hussies.

Lots of hair flinging.

Fists in your face from one of them

And now Kid's back, with yet more young girls.

Possibly, I think, singing about the more mature woman, it's Rod Stewart and You're In My Heart.

What a lovely song this is - one of those tracks, like Nobody Does It Better, that you could only imagine coming out in 1977.

And he's, so far, resisted the urge to ruin it by waving his bum in our face.

But who was the big bosomed lady with the Dutch accent? It can't have been Britt Ekland. That wouldn't make any sense at all.

And just what are Celtic United?

You have to hand it to him, only Rod Stewart could do a tender love song that massed ranks could wave their scarves along to.

Now it's Boney M and Belfast.

I do always feel this track was somewhat of a mistake.

Leaving aside the fact it's got to be one of the dullest hits they ever had - and its optimism for the city proved hopelessly premature - does anyone really want to see Boney M tackling social politics of the day?

And, speaking of people who should be in Blake's 7, what on Earth are they wearing? Let's be honest, nothing says, "The Troubles," more than dressing up like something from Star Maidens From Outer Space.

The truth is, I'm getting bored listening to it, and I can't usually say that about Boney M.

No reason to be bored next - because it's Tom Robinson, making his debut with 2-4-6-8 Motorway.

Is it my imagination? The show's volume seems to have dropped noticeably for Tom.

I must admit, despite my liking for the record, this seems a workmanlike performance and he's coming across like an English teacher trying to convince his class he's a punk star.

People who didn't need to convince anyone of anything are on next, as ABBA give us The Name of The Game.

I love this song. I love this video. When it comes to ABBA, they're both the virtual definition of quintessential.

Is that Ludo they're playing? You don't get enough Ludo in modern pop.

And now it's Smokey Robinson with what Kid tells us is the theme from The Big Time.

He doesn't mean that Esther Rantzen show, does he? The one that discovered Sheena Easton?

It's not very interesting, whatever it is.

The audience looking riveted by Smokey's performance.

He's brought his band with him but he seems to have forgotten to bring a song with him.

Kid's back with more girls.

Kid's flirting with one of them.

And Baccara are somehow at Number 1.

It's that same terrible performance we seem to have had inflicted on us every week for months now.

Is it me or is the drummer not quite in time?

Then again I once read a thing in a newspaper, where a Classical musicologist said the secret of the Beatles' greatness was Ringo never quite drumming in time, so perhaps Baccara were shrewder than we might have thought.

Oh my God, it's Peter Powell, Radio 1's newest recruit!

Oh my God, it's the Sex Pistols and Holidays In The Sun!

Like the sneakiest of sneaky devils, the show leaves its two big dramatic reveals till right at the end!

What a mixed bag that all was, with probably the least memorable record Slade ever unleashed on the 1970s public, Tom Robinson's debut and the shock arrival of Peter Powell and the Sex Pistols. Overall, despite Mary Mason, Smokey Robinson and Baccara, I generally approved of it.

And no one got arrested. Which, let's face it, these days, is the most important thing on a music show.

Top of the Pops: 11th August, 1977.

Thin Lizzy's Phil Lynott; by Helge Øverås (Own work)
[CC-BY-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

As the nights start to draw in and we begin to say goodbye to the summer, we plunge straight into the sunset with Kid Jensen who introduces us to Jonathan Richman and his Modern Lovers.

Sadly, Jonathan's not able to be with us tonight and so we just get to hear him played over the countdown.

I don't care how time-saving such a move may be, it's still not right to hear anything that's not a theme tune performing such a function.

Not only that but its use as the intro music means we don't even get to hear the whole of the song, even though Kid tells us it's this week's highest climber.

I have no doubt we will however get to hear the whole of Showaddywaddy.

This is a good thing, as they might not be musical heavyweights but they do know how to do Top of the Pops. In fact, I'd go so far as to say they're the quintessential Top of the Pops group.

Are Dave's flies undone?

That's definitely not Quintessential Top of the Pops.

Neither are the Steve Gibbons Band. Assuming, as always, that the singer's the eponymous Steve, he looks to have been round the block a few times too many for that.

Kid clearly doesn't care. He's happily dancing along in the background.

I wonder if Status Quo ever did a cover of this? You could imagine they would have.

Barry Biggs is back, what seems like months since his last appearance, but still doing the same song as before.

But now hooray! It's Eddie and the Hot Rods with Do Anything You Wanna Do - even though Kid seems to think they're just called The Rods.

This has to be one of the greatest pop songs of the late 1970s; the closest Britain's ever produced to its own version of Born to Run. Quite frankly, anyone who doesn't like this has to have something wrong with them.

They're getting close to the spirit of punk, even if they have see-through drums.

Not getting anywhere near to punk are Legs and Co who're on next, dancing to Rita Coolidge.

They seem to be doing some sort of corrupted Gap Band type dance. I hope everyone at home's joining in with it. I know I am even though I'm on my own.

I really don't know what this dance has to do with the song, and I'm missing Rita's cactus.

A band who're so good they can get by even without the aid of a cactus are Thin Lizzy who're still dancing in the moonlight.

As always, halfway through the show, I've lost my reception.

When it comes back, as always I'm confronted by someone I don't recognise.

Whoever he is, he seems to be in the Labi Siffre envelope, though I say that as someone who doesn't have a clue what the Labi Siffre envelope is.

No problems of recognition with the next act. It's Fleetwood Mac doing Dreams.

This isn't good news, as the only Fleetwood Mac song I like is Tusk.

Don't get me wrong. It's not that I actively dislike any of their other tracks. It's just that, pleasant though they are, they just make me start to nod off after a minute or so.

On the plus side, Stevie Nicks is looking nice.

John McVie's looking like that impressionist, the one with the long nose who does all the sports people but never looks like any of them.

Lindsey Buckingham's looking like Jeff Lynne.

Between them they could start their own lookalikes agency. Admittedly Stevie Nicks would have to work as a Stevie Nicks lookalike but I like to feel she could pull it off.  She really does look remarkably like herself.

But I do wish they'd liven themselves up a bit. Does this song actually go anywhere? It just seems to meander endlessly, like someone doing the feather dusting.

Now it's another act I've never heard of - JALN.

The intro sounds like Diamonds On The Soles Of  Her Shoes. Could it be that Paul Simon wasn't being as original as we thought when he did Graceland?

My god, this is bad.

It sounds like something from a children's show.

Meanwhile, Donna Summer's photo's still Number 1.

Kid, give up on the whole, "Good Love," thing. I can say this as someone living thirty five years in the future, it's just never going to work.

More importantly, there's no play-out this week - and that means no Boney M. For a seasoned fan of The M, like me, that's almost enough grounds to throw my TV out the window.

So it's all over, and there's no doubt about it, Eddie and the Hot Rods bestrode the show like colossi. So much so that I'm straight off to Youtube to listen to them all over again.

The Jam didn't manage to make me do that, the Stranglers didn't manage to make me do that, Showaddywaddy didn't manage to make me do that but Eddie - and Eddie alone - has. If that doesn't prove the Hot Rods deserve a place in music history, I don't know what would.

Top of the Pops: 14th July, 1977.

Dave Edmunds by Canada Jack aka Jeremy Gilbert
(Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)
or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)],
via Wikimedia Commons

Like Usain Bolt on speed, the nation's favourite music show flings itself into action and we launch straight into it with Kid Jensen giving us an intro I didn't understand, before we get the first act of the evening.

Is it the Real Thing?

It doesn't seem to be.

There seems to be one too few of them.

No.

Hold on.

I think it is the Real Thing. I 'd recognise that nipple-bearing dress-sense anywhere.

Although now convinced it is indeed the Real Thing, I sadly don't recognise the song. My guess, from what they keep singing, is it's called Love's Such A Wonderful Thing.

Someone who'd no doubt concur is Rita Coolidge and what Kid tells us is the Boz Scaggs song We're All Alone.

It's weird that, up until now, I never even knew what this track was called but it's one of a handful of songs I automatically associate with 1977, along with Magic Fly and Nobody Does It Better.

Now it's the Saints, from Australia, and This Perfect Day. It's punk but from the wrong side of the world.

How weird that the first genuinely punky sounding thing to ever appear on Top of the Pops is by an unknown Australian band who don't even look like punks.

As if to celebrate this conceptual breakthrough, there's someone in the audience sort of pogoing.

Now it's Legs and Co dancing to Easy Like Sunday Morning by the Commodores. I always thought this came out a couple of years later.

Dave Edmunds is back with I Knew The Bride When She used To Rock And Roll. Nick Lowe looking vaguely like a Ramone.

“If you were wondering what happened to Jigsaw,” says Kid. I know I was. I've not been able to sleep at night for worrying about it.

In fact I wasn't. I've never heard of them but, whoever they are, they're back again.

It quickly becomes clear just what happened to them. They were busy visiting their singer in hospital after he got his nadgers destroyed by an industrial-strength vice. It's the only possible explanation for that singing voice. He manages to make the Bee Gees sound like Barry White.

On reflection, did Jigsaw do that song that goes, "You've blown it all sky high," or was that someone else?

Whatever the case, with their New Faces manner, they do seem strangely like a band out of time.

Then again, so did Supertramp and that didn't stop them having their greatest commercial successes at a time when they should have been at their least fashionable. This time they're on with Give A Little Bit which is one of my Supertramp favourites.

Roger Hodgson still looks like Jesus and still sounds like Roddy McDowall.

Argh! They didn't play the ending. I love the ending.

But now the unexpected's hit me between the eyes because it's Cilla Black.

Without having yet heard it I suspect that, like the Supertramp song, my favourite bit of this is going to be the end – though not necessarily for the same reasons.

But it is bizarre to see Cilla Black on Top of the Pops in the late 1970s, especially as the song sounds like it was recorded in the 1960s.

A band who could only have been from the 1970s are the Sex Pistols, making their debut with Pretty Vacant, the song they wrote for the Olympic opening ceremony. How angry will they be when they realise they were beaten onto Top of the Pops by the Saints? I bet John Lydon's still bitter to this very day.

It's weird that, after all this time, they seem strangely like a boy band.

So now Top of the Pops does the obvious segue from the Sex Pistols to Kenny Rogers, giving us one of the show's legendary blink-and-you'll-miss-it interviews. It's a noticeably longer interview than we're used to and tells us more about our hero than usual but not anything that's likely to change our lives.

Seemingly not having had their lives changed at all since last week, Hot Chocolate are still Number 1 with So You Win Again, and Errol's still wearing his amulet of power.

Kid gives us his, “Good Love,” sign-off and we play out with Emerson Lake and Palmer.

So, I think we learned two valuable lessons from tonight's show. 1, that Australia was the true heartland of punk and, 2, that Kid Jensen won't give up on it until the entire nation's saying, "Good Love," to each other.

Somehow I suspect he's going to have a very long wait.

Top of the Pops: 16th June, 1977.

Olivia Newton-John by Larry D. Moore
(Nv8200p on en.wikipedia) using a Minolta SRT-101
camera.
(© 1988 Larry D. Moore)
[GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

This week there's been much talk of Olympic lanes on the roads of London, wherein the VIPs of that event can drive around the streets of our capital, unhindered by the masses who actually pay for it all. But who'll be speeding along tonight's highway to glory? And who'll be driving straight up pop's cul-de-sac before hitting the bollards of obscurity?

Only David "Kid" Jensen can tell us. For it is he who is to be our guide around the spiritual spaghetti junction that is the music scene of 1977.

And of course, we kick off with the obligatory act I don't recognise.

I do vaguely know the tune though, even if I don't have a clue what it's called.

If it wasn't 35 years old, I could think it's being sung by Keith Lemon.

It sounds a bit like Disco Duck but my finely-honed Steve-Senses tell me it's probably not Rick Dees and his Cast of Idiots.

Whoever he is, he's stolen Peter Frampton's tube and is clearly determined to use it. It's all very funky but, to my untutored ears, he lacks the style of the man they don't know as Frampto.

Now it's all over, Kid tells us it was John Miles with Slow Down.

This is a total shock to me, as I never knew John Miles looked like that. For some reason, I always thought he was bald but I might be mixing him up with the then-popular snooker player Graham Miles.

Now it's someone I could never mix up with a snooker player.

It's Olivia Newton-John, with Sam.

It does strike me that she has a much stronger and more passionate voice than she's sometimes given credit for but, right now, I'm more concerned with what I'm seeing rather than hearing because, for some reason, the picture's square instead of rectangular. Is this how it was transmitted at the time? If so it's a strange artistic choice. It creates the impression we're seeing every act through a hole cut in a sheet of black cardboard. Either that or it's like I've just cut a hole in Olivia Newton-John's living room wall and am now perving at her.

And now I'm perving at Hot Chocolate with So You Win Again.

I do believe it's physically impossible to dislike Hot Chocolate.

If only I could say the same for Queen who're on next with Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy.

When I was a youth, a strange thing happened. After Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen completely disappeared off my radar until they released We Are The Champions - and, listening to this, I can see why. It's all very clever but, like 10cc at their worst, seems to be an adventure in futile and gratuitous creativity.

Now it's somebody whose name I didn't catch and a song that seems to be called Everybody Have a Good Time.

They seem to be OK but the truth is there's an act like this on every week and, after a few months, they all sort of blur into one.

Their dance moves are somewhat limited.

In fact they only seem to have one, which involves groinal thrusting. They somehow manage to make groinal thrusting seem less sexual than it should be. Not like that bloke from Honky who managed to make it far too sexual for comfort.

Towards the end, the singer mentions that they're on Soul Train, which seems rather undiplomatic of him.

Now Legs and Co are dancing to You're Gonna Get Next To Me by yet another act whose name I've missed.

Men seem to have appeared from nowhere to dance with Legs and Co but most of them don't seem to want to dance with Legs and Co, which is rather odd, as they look rather attractive this week.

That over and done with, it's the Foster Brothers.

Kid tells us we'll be hearing a lot more of them in the future. Maybe I've not been paying enough attention but I don't recall ever hearing anything of them ever.

If you've ever wondered what Kirsten Dunst would look like with a moustache, here's your chance to find out because the singer's resemblance to her really is quite striking – and distracting.

Then again it's not as distracting as his constant energetic bobbing around which has rapidly become annoying.

The song itself seems OK but not remarkable.

I still can't get over how much he looks like Kirsten Dunst. I genuinely think it'll haunt me for years.

Argh! It's Kermit's nephew!

In Germany, they have a well-publicised problem with exploding frogs. I wish Top of the Pops did.

Fair play to it, after 35 years it can still make me feel as nauseous as ever.

And I still don't think it's fair that that frog has nicer banisters than I do. I'm genuinely tempted to go out right now and start carving them into the same shape. Only technical incompetence and a fear that my banisters aren't made from real wood, stands between me and my ambition.

From out of the blue (as far as I'm concerned), it's Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. I'd always assumed they were one of those acts who'd never been on Top of the Pops.

So far it's sounding like Status Quo on sleeping pills.

It's not great.

In fact, some might say it's terrible.

Then again, maybe it's good. I'm having trouble making my mind up.

Kenny Rogers is Number 1 with Lucille. How could anyone not warm to Kenny Rogers?

That's not to say the song's succeeding in holding my attention in any way shape or form but there's something about Kenny Rogers I can't help but approve of, no matter how boring the song.

My expert knowledge of counting to three tells me it's a waltz. I wonder how many waltzes have made Number 1 on the UK charts?

If this was a proper website, I'd probably be able to tell you but that sort of competence, insight and expertise'd go against the spirit of the enterprise, so I'll just sit here adrift on a sea of ignorance and tell you that we play out with the Jacksons doing Show You The Way To Go.

Top of the Pops: 19th May, 1977.

Rod Stewart by Helge Øverås (Own work)
[GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html),
CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)
or
CC-BY-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)],
via Wikimedia Commons

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: 7th April, 1977.

Yet again I couldn't find a decent Free Use image of any
of tonight's acts, so here's a pic of Spider-Man sexpot
Emma Stone looking like an explosion in a Christmas
cracker factory.
As well as playing Gwen Stacy in the new movie, Emma
was a founding member of The Family Stone and is thus
massively relevant to Top of the Pops.
By Mark Kari (Emma Stone)
[CC-BY-SA-2.0
(www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons.

It's a case of, "Phasers on stunned,” as we once more beam down to the year that Mankind knows as 1977. What hideous nightmare creatures'll await us when we get there?

And what unlikely allies?

It's David “Kid” Jensen injecting a bit of energy into proceedings with his intro. It's a long way from the deliberate cheesiness of Tony Blackburn.

But who'll be the first band on - the one cursed to never be introduced, leaving the audience perpetually baffled as to who it is they've just seen?

It's the Dead End Kids, socking it to us with their own unique brand of anarchy, by reliving the glory days of proto-punk outfit the Bay City Rollers.

I don't want to harp on about it but that really is an epic quantity of hair the singer's got. I do swear that if he fell off a cliff and landed on his head he'd simply bounce on it for several yards before coming to a peaceful and serene halt.

He's banging his chimes.

And they still carry on playing after he turns his back on them. Being able to play chimes without touching them's a rare gift too few modern pop stars possess.

Now it's Deniece Williams and Free. Not that I didn't like the Dead End Kids, but this is more like it.

Actually it isn't. Despite my initial enthusiasm, I'm getting a bit bored with it now. Like They Shoot Horses Don't They? it's a song that sounds better in your memory than it does in reality. It's all very nice but it could do with livening up a bit.

If only Deniece had the Dead End Kids' chimes to fall back on.

Not literally, of course. Falling onto a set of chimes would make a terrible racket and be against the spirit of Disco.

Deniece has gone and it's Showaddywaddy. They're still wearing the multi-coloured outfits.

I do find it worrying that I always seem to like the naff acts more than the classy ones.

Is it just me or are there more of them than ever? As with Boz Scaggs' band, they seem to multiply like Tribbles every time you look away from the screen.

Kid's just told us he has a Saturday morning show. Does this mean Fearne “Kid” Cotton's been given the push to make way for him? If so I must make a note to tune in.

Now it's Elkie Brooks again. Not only is she doing the whole retro-thing like Manhattan Transfer but, like the singer of that combo, she's wearing a thin dress with no supporting garment beneath. She's not rampantly nipple-tastic like the singer of Manhattan Transfer but she is more jigglesome. This goes against all I've ever held dear, as I've never thought of Elkie Brooks as sexy before, seeing her as a sexless matriarchal figure like the mother in the OXO ads.

Cliff Richard's back, with My Kind of Life. He's giving it plenty of effort but neither he nor his faceless guitarist can disguise the fact it's not one of his classics.

No offence to Cliff but I've taken to looking out the window while I wait for him to finish. Despite us being in the middle of the worst drought since the year before this show was first broadcast, it's bucketing it down out there.

The Manhattans. My expert musical knowledge tells me they're no relation to the aforementioned Manhattan Transfer – though, by the way the record starts, they might be some relation to Barry White.

Suddenly they're all pointing. I don't know why.

They certainly have slicker and livelier moves than the Stylistics did last week.

More pointing!

They've got more pointing than my gables.

Now they're spinning!

You can tell they've been rehearsing. I don't know if the song's any good – there doesn't really seem to be one - but I like the choreography.,

The audience are shuffling around, clueless as ever. Wherever did they find so many young people with no sense of rhythm whatsoever?

Kid's surrounded by female boxers!

What am I on about? It's not just any female boxers. It's Legs and Co, done up as pulchritudinous pugilists in order to dance to Maxine Nightingale's Love Hit Me. At last, after weeks of sensible and restrained performances, Flick Colby's returned to her insanity of old.

This is so absurd it can only be labelled genius. Why isn't this as famous as her Disco Duck routine?

Spinning!

But, sadly, no pointing.

This is the first time I've ever thought of Legs and Co as sexy.

OC Smith and a track called Together. I could lie right now and say I have knowledge of OC Smith that'd intimidate even Wikipedia but the truth is I'm completely unfamiliar with both he and the song.

I do know he's another one with big hair.

Its not as big as the bloke from the Dead End Kids but he too need have no fear of mountain tops.

Was this filmed at the same time as the Deniece Williams video? It seems to have the same dancing members of the public in it.

Like Deniece Williams, it's struggling to hold my attention.

He looks like Phil Lynott's dad.

I wonder if he is?

After what seems like an aimless eternity, OC's finally finished, and now Elkie's with Kid.

Isn't she petite?

“A position I would like to see her in,” says Kid of Elkie. I just bet you would, you naughty boy.

ABBA are Number 1 and still trapped in that video.

I'm in trouble now. How can I possibly find anything new to say about it?

I can't.

So I might as well just watch it.

And we're playing out with Smokie. As we should. It wouldn't be TOTP without them.

The producer's giving them a good old play. None of that early fade-out stuff for them. Early fade-outs are reserved for lesser acts, like David Bowie and Elvis Presley.

I must say this week's edition did drag badly in places, especially whenever videos shot on one particular set reared their slow-tempo head, and there was little on it that we haven't seen before in recent weeks.

But I did learn much in this week's show. I learned that Deniece Williams is a thing best left to nostalgia and that, despite being named after a giant ungulate, Elkie Brooks is somehow daintier than I thought.

I also discovered the burgeoning sexuality of both Elkie Brooks and Legs and Co, meaning that, at last, at the age of 48, I'm going through a strange kind of surrogate puberty on their behalf. Well, that at least was certainly worth tuning in for.

Top of the Pops: 10th March, 1977.

I couldn't find a free-to-use image of any of tonight's
acts, so here's a photo of Scarlett Johansson instead
By Tony Shek (Scarlett Johansson_004)
[CC-BY-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)]
via Wikimedia Commons

Once more must I plummet through time, into a world so very like my own and yet so very unlike my own. What all-time classics will BBC4 have cut out of this week's show to make room for the likes of Mary MacGregor?

If anyone can tell us, David “Kid” Jensen can, for it is he who's presenting.

I'm still refusing to watch the chart countdown at the beginning, in case it ruins all the surprises for me.

And this is a surprise. They've started with Graham Parker. Graham was one of my favourite artists of the late 1970s. How could you not love a man who gave us lines like, “I've got mercury poisoning. It's fatal and it don't get better”?

Having said that, such an angry man seems not totally suited to a song like Hold Back the Night.

I never realised he was so short.

Or is everyone else in his band unbelievably tall? It's like he's being filmed in forced perspective like they were in Land of the Giants. Any second now I expect a giant domestic cat to get on stage and try to swat him with its paw, forcing him to take refuge in a hole in the skirting board.

To be honest he's acting like a bit of a pranny.

“What a good week it's been for Liverpool,” says Kid. Argh! No! Please don't let this mean it's going to be Liverpool Express again!

It's not. It's the Real Thing.

I suppose it's better than Liverpool Express but it's still not the most thrilling of songs. For some reason, one of them's got his arm in his dungarees, like Napoleon on Dress-Down Thursday.

The Brotherhood of Man are on, doing Oh Boy. They haven't quite gone into full-on ABBA mode at this stage of their career but they're heading that way.

It's not what you could call a rivetingly choreographed routine.

Now Kid meets some Norwegians.

And we meet Smokie.

I do have a strange fondness for Smokie. They were hardly cutting-edge, but listening to a Smokie song is like sinking into a comfy sofa; which is appropriate as the bassist's hair looks like an exploding settee.

Speaking of looking like an exploding settee, Barbara Dickson's back. It's Kid Jensen's favourite song from Evita and I agree with him even though I've only ever heard three songs from Evita and two of them have the same tune as each other.

Oh my god, it's that terrible Rubettes record again. Has there been some decree that it has to be on every single week? How can Kid possibly think it's going to be a Number 1?

Big hats totally jettisoned now. The fools! Don't they know that ditching extravagant head-wear's the sure-fire route to obscurity? I take the view that the only reason I never made it onto TOTP was my insane decision to not wear a neon bucket on my head at all opportunities. With such a policy, how could I ever have hoped to stalk the stage Nik Kershaw once made his own?

Like a pitiful dog with no will left to go on, the Rubettes are put out of their misery and cut short to make way for ELO and Rockaria. I'm starting to feel like I'm watching a repeat of last week's show.

Still, I don't care. ELO'll put me in better spirits.

Supposedly the woman warbling on this is the same one who sang, “This is the age of the train,” in those Jimmy Savile adverts. Everything on TOTP always comes back to Jimmy in the end.

Dangerous jumping around from the cellist. Just remember that thing's got a big spike on the end of it, mate.

Legs and Co dancing to Mary MacGregor. Another atypically non-literal interpretation. That's a shame. I'd have loved to see Flick Colby trying to literally interpret the phrase, “Torn between two lovers.” Poor Cherry'd never walk right again.

Now it's someone called Brendan. I've never heard of either this person or this song before in my life. And there was me thinking I had an encyclopaedic knowledge of all things late-1970s' pop.

Brendan's a major sex god.

At least he seems to think so.

I'm not sure his band do. They appear to be trying to keep as much of the stage between themselves and him as possible.

He seems quite annoying.

And seems to have a high opinion of his own buttocks, judging by his determination to make sure everyone gets a good view of them.

Leo Sayer's not Number 1 any more. It's Manhattan Transfer; rat a tat a tat.

Nipples!

I don't expect a woman in Manhattan Transfer to have nipples. It'd be like finding out Penelope Keith has them. Nipples are reserved for Felicity Kendal, not the likes of Mrs Manhattan.

I wonder if there're still groups like Manhattan Transfer out there these days. I like to think there are. I mean, I wouldn't want to actually hear them, but it'd be reassuring to know there are. And also that there're acts like Hinge and Bracket still out there.

It's all over and they're playing-out with Elton John and Crazy Water. Was this a single? Was it a hit? It's not one of his best known songs. In fact I don't know it at all.

So, I learned a lot from this week's episode of Top of the Pops. I learned there was a man called Brendan who I'd never heard of before and that Elton John had a single out in 1977 that I'd never heard of before.

Still no sign of Ken Morse. With the most iconic figure in TOTP's history still not having put in an appearance, I'm starting to feel like it's a conspiracy.