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: 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: 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.