BBC4 Top of the Pops Repeats

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y3potential
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Re: BBC4 Top of the Pops Repeats

#136 Post by y3potential »

tottenhammattspurs wrote: Sat 27 Jul 2019, 11:42 am Am I correct In thinking that from June 87 to June 88, they had an unbroken run of 52 weeks in the top 75?
I'm not 100% sure but you could well be right. This is why I believe Domino Dancing didn't do much better chart wise as Neil had hoped for and the Imperial era was now ending. In hindsight, Domino Dancing (and Introspective) were released too soon after the Heart and Actually period. An album and 5 singles in a year is fine, but when you then release another albeit new single and album soon after, it can be seen as saturating the market. I've always felt that had they waited a few more months to build some anticipation and held back the release of Domino until Christmas '88 or early '89 and Introspective in conjunction with the '89 tour, it may well have been another number 1 single and the 'Imperial' stage could have had further life..! We'll never know of course...
Last edited by y3potential on Sun 28 Jul 2019, 1:23 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: BBC4 Top of the Pops Repeats

#137 Post by Patrick Bateman »

y3potential wrote: Sat 27 Jul 2019, 2:13 pm I'm not 100% sure but you could well be right. This is why I believe Domino Dancing didn't do much better chart wise as Neil had hoped for and the Imperial era was now ending. In hindsight, Domino Dancing (and Introspective) were released too soon after the Heart and Actually period. An album and 5 singles in a year is fine, but when you then release another albeit it new single and album soon after, it can be seen as saturating the market. I've always felt that had they waited a few months to build some anticipation and held back the release of Domino until Christmas '88 or early '89 and Introspective in conjunction with the '89 tour, it may well have been another number 1 single and the 'Imperial' stage could have had further life..! We'll never know of course...
Introspective is a very different album to Actually though. To release an album of six 12" mixes is daring the commercial audience to challenge their expectations in a way that Rattle and Hum wasn't. Plus pop was far more transient back then; pop groups didn't hang around the upper echelons of the chart for ever like they do now. Here's the top ten in full:

Kylie - I Should Be So Lucky - 1st of 34 (THIRTY-FOUR) top ten singles (the last in 2007)

Eighth Wonder - I'm not Scared - only top ten single

A-Ha - Stay on these Roads - remarkably their last top ten single until Analogue (the 9th and final one) in 2006

Climie Fisher - Love Changes Everything - 2nd of 2 top ten singles

Sinitta - Cross My Broken Heart - 3rd of 4 top ten singles (the last in 1989)

Iron Maiden - Can I Play with Madness? - 2nd of 17 top ten singles :shock: (the last in 2006)

Tiffany - Could've Been - 2nd of 3 top ten singles (the last was later that year)

Aswad - Don't Turn Around - 1st of 2 top ten singles (Shine in 1994)

Bros - Drop the Boy - 2nd of 8 top ten singles in just over a year (the last in 1989) N.B. transience personified, followed by postmodern, ironic acclaim 30 years later

Pet Shop Boys - Heart - 7th of 22 top ten singles (the last in 2006)

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Re: BBC4 Top of the Pops Repeats

#138 Post by Undertaker »

y3potential wrote: Sat 27 Jul 2019, 2:13 pm
tottenhammattspurs wrote: Sat 27 Jul 2019, 11:42 am Am I correct In thinking that from June 87 to June 88, they had an unbroken run of 52 weeks in the top 75?
I'm not 100% sure but you could well be right. This is why I believe Domino Dancing didn't do much better chart wise as Neil had hoped for and the Imperial era was now ending. In hindsight, Domino Dancing (and Introspective) were released too soon after the Heart and Actually period. An album and 5 singles in a year is fine, but when you then release another albeit new single and album soon after, it can be seen as saturating the market. I've always felt that had they waited a few more months to build some anticipation and held back the release of Domino until Christmas '88 or early '89 and Introspective in conjunction with the '89 tour, it may well have been another number 1 single and the 'Imperial' stage could have had further life..! We'll never know of course...
Ive always thought they made the wrong choice.

Im Not Scared should have been the first single. Imo, one of their biggest mistakes with singles. The other being Integral (the album version) not being first up off Fundamental.

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Re: BBC4 Top of the Pops Repeats

#139 Post by tottenhammattspurs »

I just checked. 49 weeks. Heart dropped pretty swiftly after it’s summit.

To this day I think Left to my own devices should have been the lead single for Introspective.
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Re: BBC4 Top of the Pops Repeats

#140 Post by PopKid78 »

tottenhammattspurs wrote: To this day I think Left to my own devices should have been the lead single for Introspective.
I agree, and should’ve waited till early 89 to release it.



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Re: BBC4 Top of the Pops Repeats

#141 Post by y3potential »

PopKid78 wrote: Sun 28 Jul 2019, 10:09 pm
tottenhammattspurs wrote: To this day I think Left to my own devices should have been the lead single for Introspective.
I agree, and should’ve waited till early 89 to release it.



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Yes. On reflection, start '89 with Devices and then the Introspective album in the spring before releasing It's Alright to coincide with the '89 tour and then Domino Dancing/I'm Not Scared as a double A side late Summer/Autumn single. That, in hindsight for me at least, seems a stronger campaign and would have given a sense of space after the Heart and Actually era..
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Re: BBC4 Top of the Pops Repeats

#142 Post by eastendboy »

Maybe Parlophone wanted to release introspective as soon as possible as they were on a crest of a wave and they wanted to cash in on the boys success. I do think that domino dancing was a good lead single.

When Neil releases his memoirs in the future we may find out what happened.

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Re: BBC4 Top of the Pops Repeats

#143 Post by Drico One »

Domino dancing is a brilliant single - but they were overexposed by late summer 1988. In practical terms, it was their sixth single in 15 months, not a comeback single after an appetite-whetting interregnum. Left to my own devices would have met much the same fate. The timing was all wrong.

That said, it's hard to blame the record company. If you want to blame anything, blame Heart. When you've just had three number ones and a number two from your last six releases - and pushed a post-album release single about male prostitutes into the top ten - you are on the crest of a commercial wave. Pet Shop Boys weren't just pop stars in 1988. They were pop! When Heart, the fourth single from Actually, reached number 1, Parlophone must have imagined, with some justification, that a brand new single would go top three at least.

Pushing Introspective to 1989 might have extended the imperial phase, but I doubt it. They had peaked commercially, and an album of 12" cuts was hardly the way to neatly package their brand in its most accessible form anyway.

Nah, their hot streak was over. It's as simple as that. That they ever had the hot streak at all is arguably more interesting than its inevitable end.

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Re: BBC4 Top of the Pops Repeats

#144 Post by rabagast »

Introspective became the best selling PSB album ever. Arguing that it flopped, and a 1989 release would have solved it becomes a bit silly, doesn’t it?

And despite not going #1 in UK, Domino Dancing was a massive hit, and a much loved live favourite

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Re: BBC4 Top of the Pops Repeats

#145 Post by domino »

Drico One wrote: Mon 29 Jul 2019, 9:12 am When Heart, the fourth single from Actually, reached number 1, Parlophone must have imagined, with some justification, that a brand new single would go top three at least.
Well, that have kind of worked in Germany.

#1 It's A Sin
#4 What Have I Done To Deserve This?
#10 Rent
#1 Always On My Mind
#1 Heart
#3 Domino Dancing
#9 Left To My Own Devices
#3 It's Alright
#3 So hard

Only Being Boring charted at #13. After that they only had two top 10 singles: Streets (#7) and Go West (#1).
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Re: BBC4 Top of the Pops Repeats

#146 Post by Patrick Bateman »

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m ... s-14041988

"I'm tired of the boy thing, I've got other things to do
I'd like to be in politics, can't take another visit to the zoo"

The day after this #TOTP aired, Kenneth Williams died, of an overdose of barbiturates (most likely accidental). :(

https://twitter.com/TOTPFacts/status/11 ... 3883979776

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Re: BBC4 Top of the Pops Repeats

#147 Post by tottenhammattspurs »

I wonder why this TOTP appearance for Heart wasn’t on the Ultimate DVD?
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Re: BBC4 Top of the Pops Repeats

#148 Post by y3potential »

tottenhammattspurs wrote: Mon 05 Aug 2019, 7:13 pm I wonder why this TOTP appearance for Heart wasn’t on the Ultimate DVD?
Good question. My guess is they had to choose one performance of each song from the BBC archive and went with the Wogan appearance for Heart. I suppose it was the same with other songs that had more than one BBC appearance. So Hard for example was performed on Wogan and TOTPs and they included the Wogan one again.. West End girls, It's A Sin, Always On My Mind had several TOTPs performances and only one of each were chosen for Ultimate.
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Re: BBC4 Top of the Pops Repeats

#149 Post by onzio »

Am I the only one to think that Introspective was originally intended as a sort of Disco 2 for Actually?
I see some elements in common with the Please/Disco release.
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