The BBC have announced that Top Of The Pops is to be axed. For the non-Brits, Top Of the Pops is (or at least was) the flagship ‘music’ programme produced by the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation). It has been airing weekly since 1964, and was for many of those years the only ‘youth-oriented’ programme produced by the BBC. That the programme is being cancelled is a crime. Top Of The Pops (TOTP) is one of the staples of the BBC output – along with the Queen’s Speech at Christmas and the Nine O’Clock News – and as such should be considered sacrosanct.
The BBC has cited declining viewing figures as the reason for their decision, but whilst the viewing figures have indeed dropped (from a peak of 15 million to around 3 million now), this is entirely the BBC’s own fault for messing around with it. TOTP always used to air on BBC1 on a Thursday night at 7:25pm, and the fare was pretty predictable – half a dozen songs from the current singles Top 40 performed ‘live’ (though in practice nearly always mimed) or represented by a music video, plus a run-down of the full chart. Over the years, the BBC has moved TOTP‘s slot from Thursday to Friday and finally to Sunday, and moved it to the lower-profile BBC2 channel. Over the years, the BBC has fiddled with the formula, too. The show now often features non-Top 40 songs, includes ‘classic’ (i.e. old/repeat) videos, and panders to high-profile ‘stars’ at the expense of lesser, more worthy acts. Even the type of presenters has changed. Even though individual presenters always used to vary by the week, they were always pulled from the ranks of the BBC’s radio DJs (the sight of alternative music champion John Peel looking extremely uncomfortable as he introduced pop songs he clearly loathed was always worth the license fee on its own). Now, the presenters are B-list childrens’ TV ‘personalities’, often augmented by C-list ‘celebrities’ with a new programme of their own to plug. And despite the decline in figures closely shadowing the all-too-frequent format changes, the BBC has not managed to correlate the two.
This week’s show was pretty illustrative of the problem. It was presented by the occasionally-attractive Fearne Cotton who this week looked like an over-stuffed Chipotle burrito, in a shiny silver skirt that was stretched way too tight across her ample stomach. From the charts, we had the Pussycat Dolls who were on a bhangra tip with their latest single Buttons, proving that there’s no style of music that can’t be ‘improved’ by performing it dressed in a black leather bikini top and loincloth (Asian modesty apparently getting lost in the translation). We also had (relative) newcomers Lostprophets whose only notable feature was a keyboard player whose haircut was taken straight from the Small Faces Haircut Crimes of the ’60s Scrapbook. We were subjected to ‘classic’ videos from Madonna (Holiday, from 1983) and Captain Sensible (Happy Talk, from 1982). We also had to witness Jamie Foxx (who doesn’t have a single anywhere near the Top 40 at the moment) singing his latest tune (and I use the word ‘tune’ very loosely), proving that he may be able to act, but he sure as hell can’t sing. When he called out to the audience “Put your hands up!” my wife quipped “Yeah, over your ears!”, which summed it all up rather succinctly. It was just dreadful! Australian band Wolfmother (not in the Top 40) were introduced as ‘the new Led Zeppelin’ and then proceeded to sound exactly like Led Zeppelin, whilst Rooster (also not in the Top 40) did a reasonable Reef impression. Busta Rhymes was live in the studio, coming over all sentimental and misogynystic at the same time, with I Love My Bitch (cunningly renamed to I Love My Chick for the BBC). At least Busta (not his real name) is in the Top 40 – albeit not with this song but the the (predictably) suggestively-titled Touch It. The only redeeming segment of the whole show was the Zutons’ Valerie.   But to give the BBC credit, they have at least retained one part of the show’s original formula: closing with the current Number One. Which this week was Maneater by Nelly Furtado (who’s all grown up now, but about as convincingly-sexy in her video as Pan’s People (or Legs & Co, or Hot Gossip) were on TOTP in the pre-video days).
Given that I’ve done nothing but moan about TOTP, why do I care so much about its demise? Because it’s a part of our national tapestry! It’s one of those things that should always be there, like HP sauce, and Heinz Baked Beans. When I was growing up, the one program I would religiously watch was Top Of The Pops. I’d even sit through my dad’s non-stop barrage of predictable epithets such as “But there’s no tune!”, “You can’t hear a damn word they’re singing!”, “Is that a man or a woman?”, and “Does it have to be that loud?” (sadly, I now find myself making the same comments myself) in the vain hope that this week TOTP would feature a band I actually liked (I was a big Heavy Metal fan at the time, so this didn’t happen too often). Even in my declining years (I’m now in my [very] late ’30s…) I still watch it to gauge the British musical zeitgeist.  A future without TOTP is a bleak prospect indeed.
But there is a further cause for concern. In the U.S., bands know that they have ‘made it’ when they appear on the cover of the Rolling Stone. In the U.K., it is when they appear on Top Of The Pops. Now that this particular litmus test is disappearing, how will we elitist indie kids know when the bands we previously championed have finally become mainstream and need to be disowned in favour of the next obscure underground band??
Leave a Reply