vya
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Post by vya on Mar 26, 2021 21:37:36 GMT 1
One Eleven Mayo in a patchwork quilt
Kim Appleby - Don't Worry Musically a more sophisticated relative of SAW, not unpleasant, not an unwelcome return after tragedy, but time has moved on, and the sound hasn't.
UB40 & Robert Palmer - I'll Be Your Baby Tonight Not Palmer's most misguided nod reggae-wards (see "Change His Ways"), and not UB40's weakest noodling. Less actively repulsive than I was expecting, with a certain mellow warmth, and they sound like they're enjoying themelves, so.
(charts: Northside! Parody Madchester....)
Black Box - Fantasy Take a piece by a near classic act, keep the tune, take the life out of it, make it mechanical and as close to soulless as you can get away with (and with an act who brought Salsoul to a new generation....), and put on some vocals that are frankly unsympathetic to the number....At least they resisted the temptation to throw in a "wooh yeah!" sample. Not quite terrible, but.
Whitney Houston - I'm Your Baby Tonight Tolerable background music, fast wallpaper from a talented singer who can do more
Roxette - Dressed For Success Sounds as sharp as it looks. The beat is a bit stilted/over-regulated though at times. Probably the best so far tonight, but.
Rita Macneil - Working Man Spine-tingingly classy, even.
Cure - Close To Me (remix) A new coat of paint has sharpened this up a bit without removing its essential sweetness and habitual Cure weirdness
Kylie Minogue - Step Back In Time MAGNIFICIENT. SAW in full effect. Kylie as a dancer now too. Rather more than just a 70s pastiche (and of course she does not remember the O'Jays). A career peak. More than makes up for all the rubbish SAW have inflicted elsewhere recently. Superb. Obviously too sophisticated to sell as well as some of her earlier lesser singles.
Righteous Brothers - Unchained Melody If it's not jeans ads it's films. Not sure what that says about the pop music cultural direction of the time, old ways disintegrating maybe above all. The performance is a cut above most of the rest here though, so it's unsurprising....
George Michael - Waiting For That Day Growing up in public, and how. Rather fabulous.
Well, the final three tracks on this edition were heads and shoulders above the others.
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Post by o on Mar 26, 2021 22:00:58 GMT 1
Glad you loved Kylie as much as I did vya absolute classic, and that dancing! And the episode after, EMF - Unbelievable, just brilliant! I remember a lass at uni was dating the drummer or keyboard player, soon got dumped when they got a hit!!! Just dont mention what EMF stands for
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vya
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Post by vya on Mar 27, 2021 0:01:42 GMT 1
8th Nov Davies, dressed a bit like a musical version of a sailor
Jason Donovan - I'm Doing Fine (Takes back comment on how "Step Back In Time" makes up for all of SAW's other recent cheap dross). Atrocious. And dressing up as a parody of Martin Fry when ABC were on top of the world. Retire now.
Paul Simon - The Obvious Child Somewhat glorious. I bet today's humourless and moronic neo-segregationist puritans would convict him of the "crime" of "cultural appropriation" (i.e. what used to be known as culture). The elements here blend and mix rather wonderfully.
Charts: an absolute killer AA side by Nightmares on Wax there. WARP so where it's at.
EMF - Unbelievable The last industrial (mining) bit of Glos to remain such, the Forest is a very particular place. Other bits of Glos (the Stroud Valleys, say) are kind of like bits of the North marooned down towards the South-West, but the Dean is probably more like the Lancashire towns whose style they are looking to here. Against my will I have to admit this track is pretty infectious and rather more brilliant and sharp than a lot of the lad/scally guitar-based stuff doing the rounds. They'll never better this...
Del Amitri - Spit In The Rain Good use of accordion. As usual with the Dels, a bit formulaic and grey and miserable, but less unappealling than its title. A bit more eclectically folky than the norm too. Way better than I remembered it being.
Top 5 Albums of October Charlatans - Then George Michael - Waiting For That Day Status Quo - Anniversary Waltz Part 1 Carreras/Domingo/Pavarotti - O Sole Mio Paul Simon - Born At The Right Time
The La's - There She Goes A much better "Beatles Tribute" than Jason Donovan's (obviously). And much more "authentically" 60s in sound that a lot of the revivalist tracks around. Well worth the re-re-release.
Great 808 State two-sided single there in the charts too
Gazza & Lindisfarne - Fog On The Tyne (Re-visited) This is New Order's fault. They seem to be enjoying themselves.
Jimmy Somerville - To Love Somebody Reggae or lovers rock beats applied where they don't really fit seems to be a theme of this season. Only mildly annoying.
Righteous Brothers - Unchained Melody The rawness and lack of excess production and use of real orchestration are what set this apart a bit from the 1990 sound. And they CAN sing. Well worth the re-release.
808 State - Cubik (not "Cubik Olympik", Gary) Innovative and occasionally headbanging. The dance-indie crossover from the opposite side to usual, really. As cutting edge as WARP but a bit more polished. Well worth the re-release.
If they'd put on "Aftermath" this would have been noteworthy. As it was a mix of decent, tolerable and intolerable
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Mar 28, 2021 23:22:44 GMT 1
|/||. Mayo with a reference to kinky boots. Kim Appleby in the charts with a great bit of discoish pop. She's looking stunning; classy and positive. She's not doing the video dance. Signs that she will be able to have more success as a solo. Poor Mel.
Palmer and UB40, with an outright cash-in; they've spent nothing on the video and it's a fairly basic and mundane cover. I like the girl though, she has moxie. Why am I surprised though that a cover version is a former record of the week?
Charts. The La's and Northside. Mayo has picked up on cover versions being a thing and as if to rub salt into the wound we get a Black Box cover version. I wonder who is singing this? Not the hottie, obviously. It is, of course, a pointless and useless piece of sh*t.
Houston. Oh, I can't be arsed with this either. God, what an anticlimax of a show so far.
Roxette. Cock rock. This is American wannabeism at its outright highest. Not for me, Clive.
Charts. There's nothing good making any serious moves. Other than Appleby. The Cure with what I think is a re-issue. Rita MacNeil is only up 1 place, it seems to have stalled, and comes up. It's poignant and moving and really should be top 10 but there's a shitberg in the way.
The Cure at 15 and it is a remix. Much worse than their urgent original, although nicely the video is a follow up. But, oh God, what a total lack of imagination in the mainstream charts. I've bemoaned it before and will do so again, but this is the third old track on the show.
Jesus. As if to prove things can always get worse, it's Monologue, and even by the SAWmill's own abyssal standards this is appalling. It's the kind of crap they'd normally throw at Fig Bun but I assume there was a gap in Curly's schedule so they thought they'd just sling it out knowing brain-dead cretins would still buy this.
Just think they could have had a breakers on this show to spin The La's and Northside - and they did not, so they could show Roxette and Houston, who have been on to death.
And the no. 1 is a cover. Whoopee. At least it's a good 'un. And a live performance. Let's see the toxic Australian midget try that.
Playout is...George Michael, who has openly and repeatedly stated he doesn't want the publicity. Great, waste a play on someone who doesn't want it rather than someone who needs it. Utter cretins. Fitting way to conclude a godawful episode.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Mar 28, 2021 23:43:09 GMT 1
8/11 is a joke. Davies dressed for a cruise. The La's, EMF, and Somerville, so the show is already looking better. But because he's at w**k in the charts we have to have the Donovan genocide inflicted on us.
Paul Simon gets a play even though he's gone up barely and will almost certainly not go up again. God almighty. The programme planner is refusing to use any imagination at all, just going down the charts and playing whatever is there, and then tweaking the format so he can play the major labels and ignore the indies; and it's not how the programme has been for most of its run. It's an abdication of responsibility and handing over public broadcasting to Big Corp. f*** it.
Charts and let's see who could have been played. NWA, Nightmares On Wax, Megabass, Prince, Northside, Blue Pearl. Heh, imagine NWA in the studio. That would have been fun.
The Meff. With a false start in the background as Davies does the rubric. They're like a boyband parody. But there's something engaging about them, the song is different, albeit sounds like there's been a bit of production work on it, trying to rein in a chaotic element.
Del Amitri. They've gone all French. Auld alliance? Clocks everywhere. This sounds like they're trying to write an alternative anthem but it's not really hitting the spot.
Right. Now look at that list of acts in the 30s that could have had a Breaker play. Now look at what happens in the show. No breakers. But a top 5 albums. Which means Michael is on in consecutive weeks, and Simon is on TWICE IN THE SAME SHOW. THE PEOPLE WHO CHOOSE THIS SHOW NEED TO BE EVISCERATED. THEY EVIDENTLY HATE MUSIC AND EVERYONE WHO LIKES MUSIC. UTTER sh*t-STAINED CORPO-WHORE b*st*rds.
Highest climber is on next. The La's. I bet the planners regretted having to put them on. Bet they regretted there wasn't another f***ing Fig Bun cover instead. This is perhaps the best song that's been on in months. It's so simple and yet has gorgeous hidden complexities.
Charts that end at 11 and the highest new entry. Oh dear sweet God. They will stick a dance beat behind ANYthing, won't they? And, Gazza mate, I'm not arguing with you, you can have the bloody fog if you want. And why would you suck on a sausage roll?
Talking of which, Jimi Somerville. Aaaaaaaaaaand it's a cover. Ergo it can foutre le camp.
Top 10, same no. 1, playout is 808 State with a song called "Cubik Olympic", no it isn't, it's a double a-side. Yay, more freaky dancing. Indeed do I hear freakbeat in this somewhere? There is an urgency in this, it's trying to bring the future here now, thank God. It's extremely appealing.
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mfr
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Post by mfr on Mar 29, 2021 19:22:22 GMT 1
The programme planner is refusing to use any imagination at all, just going down the charts and playing whatever is there.
That was the brief and it hasn't changed.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Mar 29, 2021 20:29:34 GMT 1
There are ways and means of doing it though. Note that when there were a load of new indie entries they didn't bother with breakers. Coincidence? Yet Donovan got two full plays outside the top 20. It's payola. They're hiding behind the charts as a crutch. They'll never play a Honey Bane again.
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Post by o on Mar 29, 2021 20:40:34 GMT 1
I'd complain about it! Oh it's ancient history and you're still blathering on about it to anyone that will listen...
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mfr
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Post by mfr on Mar 29, 2021 21:31:20 GMT 1
There are ways and means of doing it though. Note that when there were a load of new indie entries they didn't bother with breakers. Coincidence? Yet Donovan got two full plays outside the top 20. It's payola. They're hiding behind the charts as a crutch. They'll never play a Honey Bane again. They also had 40 minutes per show then. Allowing for no videos below position 30 what did they miss out that week? Breakers were a video slot and they had to have a certain number of studios performances averaged over a month.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Mar 29, 2021 22:21:13 GMT 1
Given that they lost 10 minutes there were ways to pinch some of it back. One is to count a breaker/playout play as a play, so some records don't get consecutive weeks where others get nothing at all. One is not to waste a minute with the top 5 albums, especially when they overlap with other acts on the show.
And an absolute easy win is to go back to what they did in the seventies - do the charts from 40-11 in one fell swoop, scrolling against the background of another record. That would get another song slot. Don't have the DJs wittering away, we can see the charts.
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Post by ManicKangaroo on Mar 29, 2021 22:39:52 GMT 1
Don't have the DJs wittering away, we can see the charts. Unless you're visually impaired
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mfr
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Post by mfr on Mar 29, 2021 23:22:50 GMT 1
Given that they lost 10 minutes there were ways to pinch some of it back. One is to count a breaker/playout play as a play, so some records don't get consecutive weeks where others get nothing at all. One is not to waste a minute with the top 5 albums, especially when they overlap with other acts on the show. And an absolute easy win is to go back to what they did in the seventies - do the charts from 40-11 in one fell swoop, scrolling against the background of another record. That would get another song slot. Don't have the DJs wittering away, we can see the charts. Well, there could have been a number of ways. Top 5 albums was a recent idea, occurring once a month. The playout track was often on again the next week because this track was usually cut a lot shorter than we see on BBC4, hence the credits start appearing quite soon over it, so it could faded straight after when required. But you don't seem to notice, they have managed to 'pinch' some time back. 9 or 10 featured acts, plus some breakers is consistent with the 1970s period. Compare it to 1985, in particular, when there were often only 6 featured acts amongst breakers and playing snippets of the top 10 every week. Yet, this isn't really your main beef, because you question the choices apparently made, despite these choices being dictated by the buying public. You make unsubstantiated suggestions of payola, when it is clear the show is based on the chart, with only the requirement to have a certain number of studio acts, averaged over a month or so, and availability of video otherwise limiting this. Who would be paying? Surely not PWL, who were classed as an independent, even eligible for the indie chart while Pinnacle was their distributor? Also, they were not BPI members and determinedly so.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Mar 29, 2021 23:44:48 GMT 1
Don't have the DJs wittering away, we can see the charts. Unless you're visually impaired True, in which case there's the radio rundown, or the songs that are actually played.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Mar 29, 2021 23:45:49 GMT 1
Who would be paying? Surely not PWL, who were classed as an independent, even eligible for the indie chart while Pinnacle was their distributor? Also, they were not BPI members and determinedly so. I've already said it's the in-kind thing - you want Minogue on Saturday Superstore, you have to have Big Fun on your music programme.
And all the time singles sales are dropping and nobody seems to know why.
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mfr
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Post by mfr on Mar 30, 2021 19:43:26 GMT 1
Nobody? I think there would have many in the industry who had a good idea.
1994 was a few years away at this point. By then singles sales were rising and Music Week had a summary of an expensive tome looking into the future of the music industry. Part of the sales pitch for that was a forecast for the singles market, not that it persuaded me to pay for the book. It said singles sales would continue to rise until 1997 then decline, getting back to 1994 levels in 2000. In the event the total sales forecast were an underestimate, but it was spot on with regard to the 1997 peak.
The main reason behind this prediction? The number of teenagers in the population was rising again, having fallen during the previous 10 years.
For 1990 you can add that a recession was underway and that singles were increasingly less value for money relative to albums, and were being deleted earlier to divert sales to albums.
Not that sales were down that much. There had been an increase in singles sold in 1989 relative to 1988. 1990 saw trade deliveries fall about 3.6% by volume and 2.5% by value according to the BPI. Over-the-counter sales were down only 1.4% according to Gallup. Quarters 2 and 4 showed an increase compared to 1989.
Album sales were up 1% year-on-year compared with 1989, but the recession was having its effect with them. In the first quarter sales had been up more than 15% compared with the same period in 1989.
The comment about artists appearing on other shows makes no sense. TOTP was based on the charts as we have seen week-in week-out since the chart went to a top 75. Who other shows booked was up to them. Kylie Minogue was, of course, signed to PWL at this time, while Big Fun were signed to Jive, an entirely separate record label.
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Post by ManicKangaroo on Mar 30, 2021 19:57:51 GMT 1
Don't go letting facts get in the way of Vastariner's distorted opinion
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mfr
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Post by mfr on Mar 30, 2021 21:27:15 GMT 1
I get that he doesn't like a lot of the songs that were on TOTP at that time. But I don't see any evidence of favouritism. The buying public put singles in the chart, the TOTP remit was to put what people had bought into a 30 minute show each week. It wasn't in their remit to judge the musical merits of any of it.
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TheThorne
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Post by TheThorne on Mar 31, 2021 8:30:40 GMT 1
I Dont know, there is reason to believe that something was going on. If you look at the release schedules indie and rock releases tried to land in the week they were most likely to get a Chart Show play, this gets even more apparent as we move into the 90s. So scheduling the top 5 albums in the week that indie songs are most likely to chart, maybe a coincidence or not, who knows. Thankfully the top 5 will be going soon.
But cmon it must be annoying that Sonia gets a play at #38 one week and Jesus Jones doesnt at #31. It maybe just how the entries fall but really.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Mar 31, 2021 9:51:36 GMT 1
Don't go letting facts get in the way of Vastariner's distorted opinion They seem to support it though...
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mfr
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Post by mfr on Mar 31, 2021 19:25:27 GMT 1
I Dont know, there is reason to believe that something was going on. If you look at the release schedules indie and rock releases tried to land in the week they were most likely to get a Chart Show play, this gets even more apparent as we move into the 90s. So scheduling the top 5 albums in the week that indie songs are most likely to chart, maybe a coincidence or not, who knows. Thankfully the top 5 will be going soon. But cmon it must be annoying that Sonia gets a play at #38 one week and Jesus Jones doesnt at #31. It maybe just how the entries fall but really. Indie and rock releases were occurring all the time, as their individual or label's resources allowed. For independent companies (PWL included) they almost certainly, unlike the majors, didn't have their own manufacturing plants and also had to fit into the schedules of their distributors. Therefore I can't see they would all be released the same week. They would be crazy to compete against each other so directly as well. How many charts did the Chart Show feature? I remember they did indie, rock and dance. Was there a fourth? Even so the monthly look at the album charts on TOTP wouldn't coincide with what the Chart Show was doing for long. It's probably not known by many that there actually was a monthly album chart, though TOTP's use of the feature didn't always coincide with the release of it, but delaying the October top 5 from the November 1st to November 8th shows would have enabled them to feature the official chart for October rather than commissioning one. What the chart position of the lowest single featured on TOTP would be would have been impossible to predict in advance, because there were too many variables, and of course that position went up and down. In an era when virtually every single had a promo video, knowing that TOTP had to have a proportion of studio performances meant that the smart thing to do was to make sure your act was available to appear in the studio whenever TOTP might call, just in case it mattered.
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