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 April, 1977.

10CC By AVRO (Beeld En Geluid Wiki - Gallerie: Toppop 1974)
[CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons.

Britain's greatest music show's clearly determined to work me into a frazzle by broadcasting two editions in one night.

Needless to say I shall rise like a lion to this challenge by running away from it and saving my account of the second of tonight's shows for a couple of days' time when the internet has had chance to recover from the strain of this posting.

It's Steve Does Top of the Pops' first ever cliff-hanger. I feel just like an episode of Dr Who.

But first it's Dave Lee Travis doing the honours.

And, with no introduction from him, we launch straight into a song by...

...someone.

The first few bars in and I still don't know what it is yet. So far it all sounds a bit Cockney Rebel but the singer seems to be Mr Benn – and I don't mean Anthony Wedgwood.

We're well into the thing and I still don't have a clue who it is. Is it someone from a musical? They sound like Queen but don't look like them.

Is that Mika on guitar?

Frankly I'm baffled. Is that the bloke from The Band on the drums?

Whoever they are, they do seem fixated with money.

Dave Lee's back-announced them but I didn't hear what he said. So I still don't have a clue who they were or what they were on about.

Not only that but, while I was typing, I missed the intro to the next act.

It's a woman being danced to by a totally different woman who I assume to be from Legs and Co.

Actually I'm not sure it is a woman singing. It might be a high-pitched man.

Wait. It seems to be I Wanna Get Next To You. If only I could remember who did that.

Was it Gladys Knight?

Oh. No. It seems it is a man singing.

It turns out it was Rose Royce, danced to by Pauline, which leaves me no closer to knowing if it was a man or a woman singing.

Now for a bunch of people whose gender is never in doubt. It's the Detroit Spinners with Could It Be I'm Falling In Love?

Blimey they're getting stuck in. They're moving around like their backsides are on fire. You have to hand it to them; they're not very coordinated but they certainly are frisky.

Now it's 10cc and Good Morning, Judge.

I liked this when I was younger but will I like it now? I must confess that, in adulthood, the appeal of 10cc has paled somewhat. I can't help feeling they sacrificed emotional integrity for the sake of futile cleverness.

Now that it's almost over, I've come to the conclusion that Good Morning, Judge is still acceptable to my adult ears, although I'm really not that bothered if I never hear it again.

From them, we launch into Joe Tex, with Ain't Gonna Bump No More (With No Big Fat Woman) in another clip from Soul Train.

I do like what I've seen of Soul Train. Everyone on it seems to be enjoying themselves so much more than the audience on TOTP ever do - although you do start to realise after a while that each of the the dancers has just one move that they keep repeating endlessly like they're a living animated gif. It's an effect that reminds me of the dancing scenes they sometimes used to have in old Charlie Brown cartoons.

Someone's got up on stage to dance with Joe! If it were TOTP instead of Soul Train, that person would've been Dave Lee Travis. Bearing in mind the title of the song, he'd probably have been in drag and blacked up. I'm sure that would've gone down well on Soul Train.

Next it's Kiki Dee. Until I started watching these repeats, I never realised how many hits she'd had. Or what an attractive woman she was. For some reason, until I was reintroduced to her by these shows, I'd always remembered her as having a face like a slapped haddock. What a fool I was.

Billy Ocean's back for what seems like his 99th consecutive week. I don't mind, as it's a great song and he always gives it his all but he does seem to be hogging the show somewhat.

At least this time he's got company, as he now has a pair of dancers with him.

I assume they're also from Legs and Co, clearly determined not to be outdone by Pauline's earlier bid for solo glory.

I once bought some wrapping paper like Billy Ocean's jacket. It was actually quite expensive.

When I say expensive, I mean I didn't get it from Poundland. I might have got it from WH Smiths.

Barbra Streisand is on now with Evergreen.

This is all a bit creepy. Some bloke with his back to us keeps doing stuff to her.

Is it Kris Kristofferson? We can't see his face and I always get him mixed up with Kurt Russell anyway.

Either way, it's a terrible video. Objects and backs of heads keep getting in the way, and now Babs is trying to strangle herself.

Barry Biggs is back with a thing called You're My Life.

What the hell is he wearing?

He's somehow managing to make Billy Ocean look conservatively dressed.

Frankly, I don't fancy his chances of reaching the top of those stairs.

I never realised before that Barry Biggs looks remarkably like Hans Holbein's portrait of Henry VIII, with the huge body, the beard and the tiny head.

Not that ABBA need worry about that - or anything else. With the staying power that saw them become Sweden's biggest export apart from Volvo, they're still Number 1.

This week's victim of the play-out curse is Rod Stewart with First Cut is the Deepest, which, going on previous experience, presumably means we'll never get to see it on the show proper.

All in all, it was an odd edition. In terms of quality it was probably the most consistent since I started watching. Off the top of my head, I can't remember a single bad song - even the first act were too weird and disorienting to actually be described as bad - but, then again, it seemed an oddly unfocused show that never quite got into its stride. The breaking up of Legs and Co into splinter groups was a noteworthy innovation and it'll be interesting to see if it's a policy that's maintained in coming weeks.