Top of the Pops: 6th October, 1977.

Yes in concert, in 1977 by Rick Dikeman (Own work)
[GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Those who follow me on Twitter know that, over the last few days, I've become increasingly obsessed with the back-catalogue of David Essex.

So, it's clear my musical taste's in fine fettle for the task ahead.

Also no doubt in fine fettle is Noel Edmonds who kicks it all off by making a baffling comment about things being black.

At first I assume its because the first few artists pictured on the chart rundown are all black. Why Noel should seek to draw attention to this, I don't know.

But then it then becomes apparent that Noel hasn't joined the Ku Klux Klan since we last saw him. He was merely referring to the track that's playing over the rundown.

Sadly, so bad is my memory as I enter old age that I can't remember who it's by even though they were only on last week.

But even my crumbling memory can't forget Smokie - mostly because they seem to be on every edition.

And so it is that they return, with Needles and Pins which Noel declares to be a classic.

Next it's the Emotions with Best of My Love.

Is that the Soul Train set I detect?

It is. Which means there's going to be plenty of dancing, not least from the Emotions who have a peculiarly jerky dance style that's somewhat shown up by the much cooler groovings of the audience.

As always, each member of the audience only has one actual dance move, which he/she repeats endlessly as though powered by clockwork.

Now it's Danny Mirror.

At first I make the fool's mistake of thinking I've never heard of him...

...but then he opens his mouth and I realise at once that I have heard of him.

For it is he who inflicted the song I Remember Elvis Presley on us.

As Elvis Presley was Number 1 only last week, it's not that great a feat of recall on Danny's part - but then I can't remember the names of acts who were on last week, so maybe I should cut him some slack.

But it does show how the mind plays tricks on one. I always remembered this as having been done by Les Gray of Mud.

"He's just a golden mammary," sings Danny. And, with his attempts to replicate The King's voice and random chunks of his hits, Danny's clearly determined to milk that mammary for all it's worth.

I hated this song at the time and I hate it now.

And now it's Legs and Co dancing to something.

It sounds suspiciously like the hirsute man the world in 1977 knows only as Giorgio.

And it is, with From Here to Eternity. It might be a million years old now but it's still a stunningly cool record.

Legs are waving lots of tin foil around. No doubt in the hopes of thwarting the radar of any World War Two bombers that might still be around.

Thwarting none but the forces of punk are Yes who are on with Wonderous Stories.

This song is the first I ever heard of Yes and it's one of those tracks I most strongly associate with 1977.

As we quickly see, Yes meet the challenge of punk head-on by completely ignoring it.

Someone else paying no lip service at all to punk is Deniece Williams, back with a song which seems to be called Baby Baby My Love's All For You, with which I've been previously unfamiliar. That's a shame as it seems quite pleasant but possibly no more than workwomanlike.

The Stranglers are back with No More Heroes.

And now Baccara are Bacc. They're as breathy as ever and they're still what can only be labelled, "Vocally challenged."

And now Steve Gibbons is back with a song in the same vein as his last hit.

As always, he's got his tightest leather trousers on but, frankly, this is a bit rubbish. Despite Steve's best efforts, it has no oomph to it at all.

Not that David Soul cares about oomph. Although displaying a total lack of that quality, he's at Number 1 with you-know-what song. He's still in that video and he's still not cheered up.

But now Noel's with a woman and doing a link that's got me totally baffled. It seems her name's Kim and she has a record out but he doesn't say what it is or let her speak. It seems to be some sort of in-joke but I'm oblivious to its in-ness.

We play out with Leo Sayer who's still got thunder in his heart.

In retrospect, I can't help feeling this week's show struggled to get going. I appreciated the Stranglers of course, as I always do, but it was a performance we've already seen before and I can't think of anything else that grabbed me. Even Smokie failed to work the magic they so often have.

In the end, the totally Zeitgeist deficient Yes were probably my highlight, which says it all about the strange failure of the edition to fully grip the handles of my nostalgia.

Top of the Pops: 1st September, 1977.

Yvonne Elliman in 1975; by Matt Gibbons
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/ultomatt/120599196/)
 [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Last week brought something of a conceptual break-through into our musical lives. Will this week see the trend continue or will it be back to the mould we all hoped had been broken for good?

Like a herald of the new age, Tony Blackburn welcomes us through the airwaves.

And we leap straight into it with Meri Wilson and her legendary track Telephone Man playing over the chart countdown.

I may be a dirty old man but I think I spotted a momentary moment of subtle innuendo in the lyrics there.

Sadly, the innuendo doesn't last long, as we very quickly launch into... ...erm, someone.

Whoever they are, they sound lively.

This is all very funky. I approve of this.

It has a hint of John Miles, the Bee Gees and ELO about it.

Despite the seeming banality of its lyrics, this is threatening to be my favourite track ever by an opening act I've never heard of.

Apparently it was by Hudson Ford. I don't even know if Hudson Ford's the singer or the band.

According to Tony, it's Noel Edmonds' record of the week. No wonder I've never heard of it.

But now it's someone whose career even Noel Edmonds wouldn't be able to sink because it's Yvonne Elliman with a song that's not by the Bee Gees.

Admittedly, when I say it's not by the Bee Gees, I don't have a clue if it is or not but I'm assuming it isn't as it lacks their usual drama.

Also lacking drama is the video, which isn't the most imaginative I've ever seen, even by the standards of its day. It's basically Yvonne motionless as the camera points at her upper half.

It would seem the song's called I Can't Get You Out Of My Mind and I'm trying to work out if you can sing Tommy Steele's Little White Bull over it.

I decide I'm not sure if you can.

But a man who could rarely be confused with Tommy Steele is Elvis Costello who's singing (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes on what I believe to be his first Top of the Pops appearance.

This makes me happy, as I was a very big fan of Elvis at the time and had been ever since I'd first seen him on TV one afternoon being interviewed by Mavis Nicholson.

It's Legs and Co dancing to Silver Lady - my favourite David Soul track.

It took me many years to realise it but this is about the Virgin Mary, isn't it?

Admittedly he does call her, "Baby," at one point but David's a big star and big stars do things differently from the rest of us. He probably calls Jesus, "Dude," as well.

This is exactly the sort of track Legs and Co should be dancing to. It's hard for even them to mess it up.

We've got to the chorus. I'm singing along with it. The neighbourhood cats are no doubt suitably impressed. They accept me as one of their own.

The acceptance of cats means more to me than life itself.

Just as I say that, I lose reception again. Those dagnabbit cats. It's them. It must be. They're trying to cut me off in my prime. But, damn their vertically pupiled eyes, they won't succeed.

I defeat the local cats in time for the Steve Gibbons Band to return. Is this the third time they've been on?

Now it's the Jacksons and a track with which I'm unfamiliar. This is strange, as I would've thought all Jacksons singles from this era would be famous enough to grant instant recognition. It seems to be called Dreamer and bears some lyrical resemblances to the Supertramp song of the same name.

But didn't there used to be more of the Jacksons?

To be honest, this is rubbish. It's in the same league as the Floaters - and Michael's moving around too much for such a mellow song. He's starting to get on my nerves.

Mink DeVille are back. After all these years, I still don't know what the Spanish bit of this song means.

According to Tony; on Tuesday, David Essex starts the first of his new series. I shall be watching.

Actually, I really shall. In our house, we used to watch the David Essex show and all those other programmes hosted by pop stars like Leo Sayer, Lulu and Cilla Black. I wonder if we'll ever see those days return, with the likes of Adele and Jessie J hosting middle-of-the-road TV for an audience of a certain age?

The track he's doing right now seems to be called Cool Out Tonight.

To be honest I'm not a David Essex fan. Even I can spot his twinkly eyed-charm but his records always seem so wooden to me. Rock On was of course the exception. A genuine classic.

This presumably isn't a classic, as I've never heard it played on the radio ever.

Tempo change. It's all gone a bit Beatles.

And now it's all gone a bit David Essex again.

That guitar solo's very Pilot.

But what does this song remind me of? It's driving me up the wall.

It's time to pass me my Union Jack parachute because we now get Carly Simon and Legs and Co.

To the surprise of no one, Elvis Presley's Number 1 with Way Down.

Legs and Co are getting a good work-out tonight, because they're back, doing a continuation of their earlier David Soul routine. Their sheer energy gives me great pleasure although too many of their moves seem to have been taught them by a chicken.

Some less than flattering photos of Elvis appear on the giant screen, one or two of which give the impression he was inflated with a bicycle pump before the photographer showed up.

But enough of Elvis because we play out with Magic Fly.

Well, apart from Elvis Costello making his debut, it was definitely a return to type for Top of the Pops but I did feel that, despite the anonymous nature of many of its songs, it did get away with it.

And how ironic that Elvis Costello should make his first appearance just as the other Elvis was checking out.

A better man than me would be able to find symbolism in that.

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.