Top Of The Flops (Top of the Pops)

Name: stoffy

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Product:	Top of the Pops
Date:	29/11/03 (642 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: memories of Liz Kershaw's sassy earrings...

Disadvantages: outdated and irrelevant concept, very poor relaunch, complete rip-off of CD:UK

Every generation has its own memories of 'Top Of The Pops'. For some there's Jimmy Saville introducing Gary Glitter in a retrospectively sinister way. Imprinted on the memory of others is the be-maned Bruno Brookes and his chunky yellow microphone, reeling off statistics about Five Star and Wham! with the enthusiasm of a tartrazined-up toddler. And then of course there was that moment of organisational genius where the lisping Chris Eubank was the guest presenter when Suggs's was on the show performing his track 'Cecilia'...

However, the 1990's and early 2000's have seen TOTP rebranded time and time again in an effort to remain the flagship music television programme. Whilst it was still getting twice the number of ratings as ITV's nearest rival, 'CD:UK', youth TV guru Andi Peters was put in charge of rebranding the show in an attempt to gain back its declining audience.

Launching after a blaze of publicity this week, we were promised a new theme tune, new studio and an actual live show rather than the pre-recorded version that had been the norm for the past decade. It was also announced that the latest Michael Jackson video would be screened and that Victoria Beckham would be singing two songs (live!) that the viewers would have to vote on to see which one they preferred. There were to be backstage gossipy bits, celebrity interviews and on-location featurettes as well as all the biggest names in music performing (live!) in a spectacular hour-long special. Oh dear.

The new theme tune was, er, a remix of the old one from the 80's, replacing the remix of the 60's tune that had been its signature for the last 5 years. Fresh, huh? Also devoid of creativity was the studio, which looked just like that of SM:TV's with its metal minimalism - perhaps a retro refit with flammable looking curtains and health-and-safety rule-breaking open stairs a la circa 1985 would have been better...


The 'new' format of the program couldn't have been more carbon-copied from CD:UK if they'd have transplanted Cat Deeley into the studio and made her bark into the camera. Pretty much every new segment had been directly imported rather than any new ideas being presented.

There is also a new presenter. 22 year old Tim Kash seemed an oddly anonymous choice to front the show. Possibly installed a dangling carrot for pre-pubescent girls to tune, he's still one of the biggest character vacuums on the gogglebox since Twiggy's ill-fated attempt at presenting on 'This Morning'... Just as Cat Deeley still looks like a deer in the headlights without Ant & Dec, Kash's recruitment appears like a naïve attempt at seducing a youthful audience.

Getting all acts to sing live is a good concept - music video TV has become so omnipresent these days that yet more airtime devoted to the mostly bland music promos seems pretty pointless. However, whilst there was an absence of miming, the idea that acts would perform in real time was something of a fallacy. Elton John performed 'Your Song' (which obviously deserves its place on a contemporary chart based show seeing as it was released 30 years ago) 'live' from Atlanta. He even said so himself. However, bearing in mind it was shown at 7pm in the UK, would it not have been a bit odd for Elton to be playing to a packed concert audience at what was lunchtime in America? A little white lie told methinks...

The live acts shown too were an unusual choice. Mis-teeq opened what was supposed to be a legendary show with a medley of an old song and their current song which bombed at #13. Lisa Maffia, was also tossed a medley into the arena, although was surely a last-minute replacement considering that she is hanging onto her record contract by the skin of her teeth thanks to some poor sales.

Kylie played an album track, whilst Will Young proved
to be one of the few highlights of the night by giving a controlled performance of his soon-to-be-#1 track. However, considering it was a chart show there was a distinct lack of current chart music. Only two acts played a pure song that is actually in the Top 40 at the moment, and one of those, (Blazin' Squad's unintentionally homoerotically titled 'Flip Reverse') has been falling down the Hit Parade quicker than one of Zola Budd's rivals... Back in the day songs had to be climbing the charts or be at number one before they were even considered to be allowed to appear. Now it's just a free for all.

The planned spectaculars also failed to happen. Jacko's video wasn't shown as it was apparently 'incomplete', although it was more likely that the show didn't want the featuring of the scandal-ridden superstar to dominate the coverage of their relaunch. Vicky Beckham decided to put in an appearance, although she just sat on the sofa for 90 seconds of pointless chit-chat with Kash rather than singing two songs as we had been promised. Next week we get to see a couple of her videos apparently. Woo.

Another added feature was a viewers vote of 5 videos from upcoming releases. Yet another idea borrowed from CD:UK, the use of SMS text messaging in every programme under the sun is really getting tiresome now - what next, interactively choosing the colour of the end credits?

However, all that investment and hype obviously caused the show's makers to neglect some of the more simplistic aspects of a live TV show. When viewers were presented with the question of 'What was Robbie Williams' first UK #1 single?' to win the prize of a lifetime, the correct answer of 'Millennium' wasn't given as one of the multiple choice options. When the lucky winner came on air (sounding as though he'd won a cabbage on 'Crackerjack' rather than about to fly across the world to mee
t a superstar), the question was hastily reworded by the presenter with the '#1' omitted. Best be sacking the researcher then...

'Top Of The Pops' withered on the vine long ago, and the decreasing sales of singles and the rise of music TV has made it increasingly irrelevant. No relaunch is ever going to cover up the fact that it is a limited television format that won't ever appeal to the cross-section of the country that it used to simply because pop music now has a very limited cross-sectional appeal. Perhaps there is an irony in the first ever TOTP viewer's video vote being won by a song called 'Shut Up', and this week's chart-topper being entitled 'Leave Right Now'...

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