Top of the Pops: 18th August, 1977.

I can't find a decent Free-Use pic of any of tonight's acts,
so here's a lovely photo of Fingal's Cave in Staffa, Scotland.
By Velela (Public Domain).

Never  one to waste time, Dave Lee Travis flings us straight into it with the chart countdown and the Stranglers doing Something Better Change.

What with Jonathan Richman last week and the Stranglers this, the BBC have clearly decided the countdown is the best place to put the "challenging" songs.

But, for the serious music lover, nothing could be more challenging than the Dooleys - and they're up next, with something or other.

I must admit my memories of the Dooleys are vague. While I have strongish recall of the music, in terms of what they looked like I think I may have spent the last thirty-odd years mixing them up with Liquid Gold.

Upon re-acquaintance with them, they're not the most glamorous outfit I've ever seen.

Nor are they wearing the most glamorous outfits I've ever seen.

But the Dooleys depart and - hooray - it's the act some of us have been waiting all year for.

It's the Floaters - and Float On.

Has there ever been a band with a more unfortunate name? Has there ever been a band whose only hit was more lampoonable?

And, for that matter, how exactly does one, "Float on?"

Charles likes a woman who's quiet.

Paul's fussy. He likes all the women of the world.

While Larry - funny how he's the one who's lingered longest in the memory - likes a woman who loves everyone and everybody.

What a desperate bunch of men they turned out to be.

I wonder if Elkie Brooks would've been impressed by Larry? She's on now, doing Since You Went Away.

All respect to Elkie, who we established several months ago is a seething volcano of female sexuality but I'm already starting to get bored with her.

Now it's Mink DeVille. For some reason I always get them mixed up with the aforementioned Jonathan Richman.

I've never seen them before and they don't look like I expected. I always thought they'd look like the Cars.

Actually, this does sound more like My Best Friend's Girl than I ever noticed before. In fact, I think you can sing My Best Friend's Girl right over the top of it.

Meanwhile, the singer seems to be in a different group from the rest of the band.

Despite all their best efforts, I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion this is rubbish.

What's on next certainly isn't.

Why?

Because it's Carly Simon and my favouritest ever James Bond theme. Who can listen to this song without at once being transported back to a magical time of cars that turn into submarines, and giants with metal teeth? And how many songs can you say that about?

Not so hooray! Carly's being danced to by Legs and Co.

Those are interesting outfits they're wearing. They look like Dale Arden in full-on Mongo gear.

In fact, if Hela - the goddess of death from Thor - joined Legs and Co, that's exactly the look she'd go for.

As Hela's a bit of a role model of mine, that realisation quickly convinces me this is a good look.

I would say I really don't have a clue what the dance has to do with the song but I say that every week, so I won't. But I can say their aimless physical meanderings have managed the seemingly impossible and drained away all my enthusiasm for the song.

We're back to Dave Lee Travis and he's with a woman whose top proclaims the word, "Midge." Is she an Ultravox fan who's got to the studio too early or a Slik fan who's got there too late?

Danny Williams is back, with the Martini music.

He still looks like someone who'd sell you something dodgy on a street corner - although I'm sure he's not really.

The Rah Band are back for what seems like the millionth time, and still failing to convince me that balaclavas are a good look for a pop star.

I've lost reception again. Why does this happen every week at this time? It's like someone's trying to jam my signal in an effort to ruin my enjoyment.

I'm back in time for a woman singing the Bee Gees' Nights on Broadway. My finely tuned knowledge of popular music tells me she might be Candi Staton.

But I've lost my reception again...

...and suddenly I'm confronted by the Jam and All Around the World, leading me to conclude that Candi can't have been on for long.

I've come to the decision that this isn't one of the Jam's best, but they are at least doing their best to liven up what's been a somewhat moribund edition.

Someone you could never call moribund are the Brotherhood of Man. They even manage to make Mexican suicides sound like fun. Not only that but they're suddenly at Number 1, with Angelo.

But, hold on a moment. Hasn't this been out for months and months and months? They must've been on Top of the Pops at least a million times doing it already. Just how long did it take to reach the top spot?

No doubt lacking all interest in such conundra, Space play us out with Magic Fly. Or is it Magic Fly playing us out with Space? I was never sure which it was but, whatever it's called and whoever it's by, like Nobody Does it Better, this is one of the tracks I most strongly associate with 1977.

It was an oddly disjointed show, veering awkwardly between the likes of the Jam and the Stranglers and the likes of the Floaters and the Dooleys. If any show demonstrates that 1977 saw a nation musically divided then it has to have been this one.

It'd be nice to say the contrast was invigorating but it proved to be more frustrating, as the serious groups drained all fun from proceedings, as the sillier groups drained all gravitas from them. Could this be the fate of British music from now on? To be hopelessly fractured beyond consolidation?

Only time - and possibly 1978 - will be able to tell us.

Top of the Pops: 21st July, 1977.

In the absence of any decent Free-Use images of any of tonight's acts, here's
a lovely picture of Stonehenge, which has no doubt been the venue for
much rock music over the years.
By Guenter Wieschendahl  (own work--eigene Aufnahme)
[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

It's raining so hard outside I can barely hear my television.

Will this reduce my enjoyment of tonight's show?

Like heck it will. I like to think that even total deafness couldn't put a dent in my appreciation of what's about to transpire.

And I like to think that, were he here, Dave Lee Travis would agree with me too.

But he's not here.

He's too busy guiding us through the puddles of history.

Those puddles produce their first splash with John Miles bringing his tubetastic brand of groovetasm into our living rooms, for one more spin.

By the looks of him, he's still celebrating the release of Keith Lemon's new movie but I don't care about no dirty stinking movies. I don't need to, not when I have John Miles.

Now John's finished and, in a shock development, Dave tells us the chart rundown's been delayed.

It's just been delayed even more because, in an even shocker development, I've lost my signal.

Can our hero get it back before he misses the entire show?

Too right he can because it's back already.

But I've missed the entire rundown and am confronted by the Brotherhood of Man doing Angelo for what feels like the sixteenth week running.

Suddenly the Man are gone and the Jam are back and as angry as ever.

I don't think I've ever heard this song before but it seems, from what they're singing, that it might be called All Round The World.

Paul and Bruce are trading vocals. It's easy to forget how much more prominent Bruce was in the group's early days than he became later.

It might not have been one of the Jam's more played hits but it certainly livened things up a bit.

Alessi are back.

Seeing them follow the Jam is like watching one of those old public information films where they used to put out a chip pan fire by throwing a damp dishcloth over it.

It suddenly strikes me that they bear an unlikely resemblance to Henry Winkler.

The trouble is, with their tendency to keep glancing across at each other as they sing, it does give the impression they're singing a love song to each other, which is a very strange effect, especially when the main Alessi starts going on about making love together.

A group who never needed a second invitation to make love to each other are Fleetwood Mac who appear as if from nowhere with a song whose title I can't remember.

It's all very pleasant, and undoubtedly quality music, but I could never really get into Fleetwood Mac. I just always wanted them to shout a bit or smash their instruments or just do anything that'd suggest they were fully conscious while playing.

The Rah Band are back.

It's hard to believe that look never caught on.

But now it's Danny Williams with another look I won't be copying down the disco on Friday night.

His name seems to be a composite of ex-Barnsley Football Club manager Danny Wilson and ex-Barnsley comedian Charlie Williams. Clearly the force of Barnsley is strong in this one.

Not that you'd know it, as he seems to have acquired his outfit by mugging Huggy Bear and stealing his clothes.

My razor-sharp senses detect that this is the old Martini advert music.

Queen are back with Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy.

Much more excitingly than that, Donna Summer's powered her way to Number 1.

But she's not in the studio. Instead we get Legs and Co doing their best to capture the untrammelled eroticism that got I Feel Love banned from many a radio station.

To be honest, I'm not sure they're succeeding. There's a limit to how erotic you can seem by flapping a bit of your skirt around in a state of staccato chasteness.

Argh! No! It's tear-your-hair-out-time again, as for the zillionth occasion, Boney M are relegated to the play-out slot.

What was it with the producer never letting the M onto the show? Had Bobby run over his cat or something?

The BBC of 1977 have been warned, if the M aren't allowed on next week's show, quite frankly, I'm not sure I can be held accountable for my actions.

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.