The Story of 1984 Top of the Pops

OK, this programme's so good I want to eat it.

# Oooh

# Love you... #

1984, and Top Of The Pops is in its '80s pomp.

# Oooh and I love you... #

There's never been a more gay time in pop than 1984.

Hi-NRG, a new exultant sound from the gay club scene,

hit the charts.

They just said Searchin', Hazell Dean, I mean it was huge.

# Absolute on power drive... #

Advances in technology led to the rise of the one-man band.

I was always acutely aware

of the fact that I hadn't got a clue what I was doing.

# Make a dream come true... #

I think I got addicted to the fear.

And a new jazz age saw the show come over all horny.

I said that we were a bit like if Frank Sinatra was in The Clash.

Pop had never been so big, so bold and so brash...

She totally owned the stage.

It's amazing to see somebody with such confidence.

You've got to have a good time, cos it all could end tomorrow.

We've got to go down swinging.

..even briefly becoming Top of the Euro-Pops.

"Music from Germany?"

-"I don't know."

-"Doesn't exist."

# Oooh, love you... #

It's the year of big hair - and big statements.

# Love you... #

I thought Nelson would be so happy in his cell

to know that Top Of The Pops had provided balloons.

And the Class of '84 surprised us all

by setting aside their rivalries

and taking over the Christmas Top Of The Pops

like one big concerned, but happy, family.

This was a moment of celebration

that we'd kind of done this.

We'd pulled this off.

At the third stroke...

-..it will be 9:...

-..59...

..and 20 seconds.

As the Speaking Clock changed sex in 1984

after nearly 50 years as a woman,

it was clear that the old certainties were shifting.

Industrial Britain was struggling to come to terms

with the Thatcherite revolution.

-You're working...

-You get your 'un out and ours'll be out.

Get moving. Move.

Society was bitterly divided.

And the resulting clashes were ugly.

# 1984

# 1984... #

Top Of The Pops was also caught between the old and the new.

It began the year by honouring its past...

..but also embracing a brave new world.

APPLAUSE

Well, hello, fans. Now, you might think what we've got here

is some kind of tribute to Mike Read

but, actually, what we're celebrating

is the 20th anniversary of Top Of The Pops.

And I think we really look fab gear.

Yeah, there is that. This is very 1984, though, this -

-Frankie Goes To Hollywood.

-Take it away, boys.

With the Top 30 newly expanded to the Top 40,

Top Of The Pops producer Michael Hurll

took a punt on a new entry at number 35

by a band causing ripples with their debut single.

# Whoa-ho... #

To be on it, that would have done me.

That would have been the goal achieved,

that we got a single and it got into the charts

and we're on Top Of The Pops.

# Relax, don't do it

# When you wanna go to it

# Relax, don't do it

# When you wanna come... #

And on an historic anniversary show,

you wanted to look your best.

# Relax... #

So we all legged it down to Moss Bros, didn't we,

-and all hired suits.

-Yeah, Moss Bros in Covent Garden.

Fitted up, looking like absolute lemons.

Dickie bow, the lot.

I remember, Holly came with no clothes.

He wore a leather jacket that, sadly, was my leather jacket.

And, looking back, why I possibly would want to buy a jacket

with about 40 zips in,

I do not know.

But it suited him better than it suited me.

# Relax, don't do it... #

I remember watching it and thinking,

"They look great," you know?

They look so good and it works so well with the record.

# Come

# Whoo! #

Relax's sound was the work of the man said to have invented the '80s -

producer Trevor Horn.

I was channelling them, you know?

They told me very early on, we want to be

like a cross between Kiss meets Donna Summer.

-SYNTH

-# Come... #

It took many hours of experimenting

before hitting on the sound he wanted for the record.

So I had this piano going,

"Gink, gink, gink, gink, gink, gink, gink, gink,"

and then we got this device that locked the drum machine to it.

PULSING BEAT FROM "RELAX"

Switching to the chorus pattern, which went sort of....

# Dig dig, di-dig dig-dig

# Dig dig, di-dig dig dig-dig... #

..with a whole load of percussion.

I heard that change, it was like, this - we've got something here.

I remember hearing it and thinking that's a hit all day long.

Despite the song's orgasmic content

and the band's reputation for controversy -

or perhaps because of it -

when Relax finally crept into the charts, Michael Hurll was keen...

# Huh! #

..on one condition.

We got a pretty formal letter from Top Of The Pops

saying it was important that the Frankies behaved themselves.

So they couldn't have any chained-up women or anything like that.

-Um...

-HE CHUCKLES

I thought, "Great, that's so cool."

All they have to do now is turn and...

be like good boys, you know?

# But shoot it in the right direction

# Hey, hey, hey, yeah

# Make-Making it your intention

# Ooh, yeah Ooh, yeah

# Live those dreams

# Scheme those schemes

-# Gotta hit me

-Hit me

-# Hit me

-Hit me

# Hit me with those laser beams... #

Michael Hurll saw that the record was going to be huge.

He didn't have a problem with the lyrics at the time.

You used to have to submit lyrics

along with the records and everything else

for directors to use, etc, or whatever,

so they all had a copy of the lyrics,

so they knew exactly what they were getting themselves into.

CRESCENDO

# Come. #

CHEERING AND WHISTLING

I always remember the next morning,

Dave Robinson, who was running Island at the time,

phoned me up and said, "You're not going to believe it,

"we've just sold 55,000 units. It's gone mad."

And I knew - I thought, I know it's going to go even madder,

I can feel it.

Top Of The Pops had played its part in propelling Relax up the charts,

but less than a week later, this happened...

We used to repeat the chart on a Wednesday morning.

It was getting up to nine o'clock

and I was trying to squeeze everything in.

Adrian John was the only one in the studio with me,

but we just didn't have time to squeeze them all in.

And I remember Adrian saying,

"Have you seen the sleeve of this?"

And I said, "Well, if I'm going to drop something, I'll drop this."

Things quickly snowballed.

I was driving towards Radio 1, and ringing up ZTT and saying,

"Look, they banned it, they've actually banned it!"

We were in ZTT's offices when we found out it was banned,

and champagne corks were popped.

All it did was put it into turbo-drive.

As Relax stormed up the charts,

the BBC ban left Top Of The Pops with a Frankie-shaped hole.

And at number one, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Relax.

And that's it for this week. Hope you enjoyed the show.

The Rhythm Pals are going to make their way back to Radio 1.

FILLER MUSIC

It's all about who is number one.

It's kind of like A Game Of Thrones,

and we want to see who's going to be crowned.

And Frankie deserved to be crowned,

so it was an enormous let-down for everyone.

BALLOON POPS, PEOPLE TALK

To have a number one on Top Of The Pops,

you can't really complain

that you're not going to get the chance to perform it.

Because you know you're off and running now, we're off.

MUSIC INSIDE VENUE

DRUMS AND SYNTHS

-TV REPORTER:

-'This is Heaven,

'one of London's newest and smartest discos.'

The pumping beat of Relax

reflected a style of electronic dance music known as Hi-NRG

that had been popular in gay clubs, such as Heaven, for several years.

Now, in 1984,

Hi-NRG entered the mainstream.

# It's raining men

# Hallelujah, it's raining men

# Amen

# I'm gonna go out

# I'm gonna let myself get

# Absolutely soaking wet... #

People loved disco in the '70s,

it was a joyous, four-on-the-floor up-sound.

Hi-NRG was the next logical evolution.

# High energy

# Your love is lifting me

# Lifting me higher... #

It was disco but with an electronic beat.

It was disco for the '80s, not the '70s.

Ian Levine had been the resident DJ at Heaven

since it opened in 1979.

Now, five years on, he teamed up again with Evelyn Thomas,

an American singer he'd worked with in the '70s,

to capture the new club sound.

# It was only last week that we first met

# When I was walking down the street... #

I sat down with my co-producer and said,

"Right, we're going to write a song called High Energy

"as an anthem to the music which we're playing at Heaven."

So we wrote this song called High Energy, it took one hour to write,

took her one hour to sing it when she came in from America,

and I just knew there and then it was a hit.

# Oh, yeah

# High energy

# Your love is lifting me

# Whoo whoo-oo-ooh

# High energy... #

To Top Of The Pops viewers, something might have sounded

oddly familiar about the song.

# Lifting me high... #

-TREVOR HORN:

-I think it was a track called High Energy

that nicked "dink-dink, der-dink-dink-ding,

"dink-dink, der-der-dink-dink dee-dee" -

the gated keyboard part that I did.

KEYBOARD PART RESEMBLES "RELAX"

I must confess I'd heard Relax as a pre-release

and liked it so much it certainly influenced me

when I made High Energy.

But what you may never know, and no-one has realised,

is that the beat of High Energy is In The Navy.

It's "We want you, we want you,

"we want you for a new recruit."

# Ba ba bam, ba-da ba bam

# Ba ba ba-dam, ba-da ba bam. #

# High energy

# Yeah, yeah

# Your love is lifting me

# Lifting me high... #

Hi-NRG tunes were usually sung by a female diva -

but we had our own queen of Hi-NRG.

# If I should lose you now... #

Hazell Dean first appeared on the BBC

in A Song For Europe in 1976.

'I used to sing in bands.

'Ian Anthony Stevens, who wrote and produced Searchin',

'tracked me down,'

and he played the track.

And, of course, when I heard that track,

it was just so different from anything else that I'd heard.

MUSIC: "Searchin' (I Gotta Find a Man)"

Recorded in spring 1983,

Searchin' quickly became a huge club hit,

reaching number one in the Hi-NRG charts.

That track took me into the gay clubs,

but I didn't know that there were gay charts, I had no idea.

In 1984, a hit in the gay charts

stood a good chance of mainstream success.

And that spring, Searchin' went overground into the Top 40.

OK, her first time on Top Of The Pops, the record's been out a year,

it's about time it's a hit -

and now it is, for Hazell Dean, it's called Searchin'.

# Searchin'

# Looking for love

# All the time again

-# Searchin'

-Searchin'

# Looking for love

# I've got to find me a man... #

Top Of The Pops couldn't resist the urge to replicate the atmosphere

of a sweaty gay night spot in Television Centre.

Cue two cute male dancers and a bit of a light show.

# Looking for love... #

There was a breakdown in the middle of the song.

It was very sort of clubby, there were the little sim drums, you know,

"der-der-dut, der-der-dut dut-der-der,"

and the hand claps.

DRUMS

The old strobe lighting would come on,

and I did my little dance - with the boys.

It looked like a disco, I suppose.

# Searchin'

# Looking for love... #

Two weeks later, Hazell was back to continue her search.

# I've gotta find a man... #

It was shot live, and so the camera kind of came off of me...

DRUMS, CHEERING

..it went on the boy and he was twirling his little thing round

and he gets it all round his head.

There's nothing they can do about it, cos it's live.

# I don't need a guy who's been lonely one night... #

The pulsating beat of Hi-NRG was one of the sounds of the year.

And, for now, clubbers at Heaven

continued to party like it was...1984.

People wanted happy music in 1984.

I think Hi-NRG reflected this,

it gave people the chance to take off their shirts and dance

and just enjoy themselves

and dance till dawn, literally.

I think it was the last hurrah

of an era where people felt

they could be, sexually, as free as they were at that particular time.

This new freedom could still be celebrated in gay culture

in a largely pre-AIDS Britain -

but not by gay pop stars,

few of whom were out.

-NEWS REPORT:

-'Rock star Elton John

'was married in Australia this morning.

'His bride was a German recording studio engineer, Renate Blauel.'

There's never been a more gay time in pop than 1984,

although a lot of artists are being very ambiguous, very cagey,

about whether they're gay or not.

Many of the biggest names in pop that year

would later come out as gay,

but in '84 they feared this might mean commercial suicide.

There was huge pressure on artists

not to be open about their sexuality.

Let's call a spade a spade -

the record companies didn't want them to.

Here making their Top Of The Pops debut are Bronski Beat -

performing live, Smalltown Boy.

KEYBOARD INTRO

But there was one band in the charts -

and on Top Of The Pops in May -

who were unapologetically out, proud and singing live.

# To your soul

# To your soul

# Cry... #

Smalltown Boy was probably the first overtly gay piece of propaganda

ever on Top Of The Pops,

and I think that makes it a piece of history.

And it spoke to a generation of gay people

up and down the country.

# You leave in the morning with everything you own

# In a little black case... ;

Bronski Beat's frankness about their sexuality

was still the exception rather than the rule.

# And lonely face... #

Other artists were very, very wary of Jimmy -

and of each other, not just of Jimmy.

There was always this fear that, somehow or other,

it might infect them and infect their careers.

Bronski Beat themselves had no such qualms -

as the video for Smalltown Boy demonstrated.

# But the answers you seek will never be found

# At home... #

Bronski Beat came out as an in-your-face gay group -

like us or hate us, we're here and we're queer.

That's what it was. Bronski Beat suffered no fools.

# Run away, turn away Run away, turn away, run away... #

We sing about things

that emotionally sort of, like, move us emotionally,

stimulate us. Everybody's entitled to do that.

It just so happens that we're three gay men are doing that.

# Contempt in your eyes when I turn to kiss his lips

# Broken I lie All my feelings denied

# Blood on your fist

# Can you tell me why?

# Can you tell me why...? #

Top Of The Pops made Bronski Beat a pop group,

and Top Of The Pops made them available and accessible

and sold them to a whole generation -

gay, straight, whatever.

MUSIC: "Freedom" by Wham!

Top Of The Pops' selling power had previously established Duran Duran,

Culture Club, Spandau Ballet and Wham!

as the Big Four of British pop.

By 1984, they'd gone global and were in their pomp.

# I don't want your freedom

# I don't need to play around... #

The Big Four, still vying for position with each other -

but of all the bands, it's Wham!'s year.

They have a different sound, not so much being the lads

jumping around in little shorts as much as they used to.

George Michael was a big Motown fan and this is coming through here.

# Doo doo doo...

-# Wild boys

-Wild boys... #

Duran Duran have become a stadium band.

# Wild boys always... #

And Spandau Ballet have lost their way.

# I'm just an average boy... #

Songs they're recording now are not memorable.

# The shoo-be-doos you sing so well... #

Culture Club? Mmm...

They're losing their way a little too.

# It's a miracle

# It's a miracle... #

International success had taken its toll on the Big Four bands.

And advances in recording technology

now threatened bands themselves with obsolescence.

# It's a miracle... #

I started off doing the one-man electronic band

because I couldn't find any musicians around

to work with at the time.

MUSIC: "New Song" by Howard Jones

I thought, well, I want to use the technology of the time

and I want to write songs that are quite philosophically based.

In a sense, New Song was like my manifesto.

# Don't crack up

# Bend your brain

# See both sides

# Throw off your mental chains

# Ooh ooh ooh... #

For his Top Of The Pops debut the previous year,

one-man band Howard Jones brought along his friend Jed

to get his message across.

Jed was really fascinating to people,

but I was incredibly nervous,

and when I watch it back you don't really see that,

but underneath the surface, it was sheer terror going on.

# Don't crack up... #

And if you watch me, I'm, like, chewing gum,

and I didn't have any gum in my mouth - it was like a nervous tic

to try and calm myself down.

# Ooh, ooh, ooh... #

And then what happened was

I think I got addicted to the fear.

At number 12, Howard Jones, Hide And Seek.

CHEERING

In 1984, almost all acts on Top Of The Pops still mimed.

So Howard ramped up that fear factor

by playing and singing live.

I've always been looking for those challenges

that sort of push you a little bit further to take a risk,

so I was really, really up for doing that,

but I remember getting a bit lost in the dry ice a few times.

# Built her elaborate home With its ups and its downs

# Its rain and its sun

# She decided that her work, it was done

# Time to have fun... #

That was the most enjoyable Top Of The Pops for me

because of the sheer adrenaline going through me.

# Hope you find it

# Hope you find me in you... #

Howard Jones wasn't the only solo act out of their comfort zone

on Top Of The Pops in 1984.

It was utterly terrifying.

You know, I'm a guitar player

and I'd spent the last five years playing guitar

and I play guitar in the studio,

so obviously I'm going to go on television with a keyboard.

MUSIC: "Wouldn't It Be Good"

Exposed and alone on the Top Of The Pops stage,

with no mic and only a haircut for company,

what you choose to wear can make a lasting impression.

# I got it bad

# You don't know how bad I got it... #

Don't talk to me about that snood.

It kind of...took on a life of its own,

and it's literally been round my neck for my entire career.

# The cold is biting

# Through each and... #

I could easily blame my stylist but the buck stops with me, really,

because I did stand in front of that mirror and go,

"Yeah, I'm going to go on national television looking like that.

"That's... That's fine."

# Wouldn't it be good to be in your shoes

# Even if it was for just one day?

# Wouldn't it be good

# If we could wish ourselves away? #

Two weeks later, Nik was back -

and this time, the show had a trick up its sleeve.

# To be on your side... #

I think the second time I did it, the production people

kind of realised, actually, there was nothing going on here.

There's no great moves or anything.

# Without a care...? #

So they stuck the video of the song behind me

and kept cutting between them.

# You must be joking

# You don't know a thing about it

# You've got no problem... #

I can understand why they did that, yeah.

# The heat is stifling

# Burning me up from the inside... #

Nik Kershaw and Howard Jones were the perfect pop packages for 1984.

Big hair, fancy clothes

and a handful of catchy tunes.

But alongside Hi-NRG,

another underground club scene burst into the charts that year,

combining jazz-cool and old-fashioned authenticity.

With the Wag Club, it was a reaction

against all the kind of, the rather soulless synth pop of the time,

and I just wanted to do a club where people could dance,

where they could listen to music.

It was like a hybrid of Latin, funk and jazz.

# Klacto vee sedstein

# I wait and wonder what it means

# Klacto vee sedstein... #

Early pioneers of this sound and look

were Chris Sullivan's band Blue Rondo A La Turk.

And Top Of The Pops would inadvertently play a role

in this flourishing scene.

# And bruises all my dreams

# Klacto vee sed... #

In a queer kind of way,

without Top Of The Pops there wouldn't have been a Wag Club,

because we were going to go on Top Of The Pops one day

and we were the most played record on Radio 1 -

we got there, "Yeah, boys, you're on," do mic and all that stuff,

dance routines, the splits, the backdrops, got all ready.

The day before, they said, "Sorry, you've lost out to Ken Dodd."

# Hold my hand if you're yellow, black or white... #

They were so apologetic.

They said, "If you stay where you are, you're on next week,"

and we went down one place and that was it.

# Hold my hand if you're yellow, black or white... #

If I'd have gone on Top Of The Pops,

undoubtedly we would have gone on to bigger success

and, undoubtedly, I wouldn't have started the Wag Club,

because I did that because I was skint!

But out of that same scene

emerged a singer who became one of the voices and the faces of 1984.

# Pride, when you can't back down... #

Sade first caught the eye as a backing vocalist

with jazz-funk group Pride.

# Pride, when you can't back down... #

I used to hang out with Sade. She lived in this squat

and she had all these records and we used to listen to records

and used to think, "Oh, we should try and write our own songs."

Just little jazzy, souly things.

# Pushin' on, pushin' on... #

The rules for pop success in 1984 were the same, whatever your sound -

you needed a good image and a determination to succeed.

# Do you realise you're going nowhere...? #

We weren't accomplished songwriters or musicians.

I think if any of us had been 10% better, it would have been horrible.

She's making her debut with Your Love Is King - this is Sade.

When Sade and her new band

made their Top Of The Pops debut in March,

the Wag Club ethos of real instruments and understatement

sounded unlike much else in the charts at the time.

# Your love is king

# Crown you in my heart

# Your love is king

# Never need to part

# Your kisses ring

# Round and round and round my head

# Touching the very part of me

# That's making my soul sing

# I'm crying out for more

# Your love is king... #

The first time we were on Top Of The Pops,

I just remember looking at the audience

and them being slightly confused as to how to dance to us.

You know, cos it was kind of slow

and it was, like, in 6/8 kind of time signature,

and they weren't quite sure.

Even the Top Of The Pops team were put in a tizz by Sade.

The first time seeing our name on the countdown,

and it said, "Sade, Your Love Is King," and it said "Slade".

Sade, Your Love Is King, a chart entry at 37.

Wow.

Obviously, I love Slade, but it was a bit, you know...

Did you like the way we deliberately misspelled "Sade" there?

OK, let's get back to the charts.

MUSIC: "Get Out Of Your Lazy Bed" by Matt Bianco

# Get out of your lazy bed

# Get up... #

Suddenly, jazz was king.

Step forward Matt Bianco,

a more poppy offshoot of Blue Rondo A La Turk.

# Get out of your lazy bed

# Get up

# Get up... #

# Mr Solitaire

# Don't need your love Don't want your love... #

And Animal Nightlife added an air of sophistication.

# Mr Solitaire

# Don't need your love Don't want your love... #

I mean, it was kind of crazy, really,

when you think about how much success came out of that scene.

We were reflecting what we saw when we went out clubbing

and the friends that we had, really, in the real life, in the real world.

You know, with Sade, it just went stratospheric.

# No need to ask

# He's a smooth operator... #

By September, and their second single,

everyone knew who Sade was.

# Smooth operator...

Sade came at a time when a lot of people

were ready to embrace jazz music,

and she was the perfect person to introduce it.

# LA to Chicago, western male... #

I loved the fact that there was someone from our scene,

and it was a black woman being elevated.

And she did it all on her own terms.

# Smooth operator... #

There was no-one who sounded like her

and I think that's why, you know, she hit the ball out of the park.

Despite its hip beginnings,

the tasteful sound of jazz pop

would quickly come to be associated with '80s consumerism -

the cocktail years.

There was a lot of places, like cocktail bars,

that people used to go out.

We got criticised - oh, it's cocktail lounge music, or whatever.

But, you know, I'm not really going to apologise for that,

for being sophisticated.

# A licence to love

# Insurance to hold

# Melts all your memories and change... #

What made Top Of The Pops performances like Sade's

look more dynamic in 1984

was the show's increasing use of hand-held cameras for close-ups.

But, for the cameraman,

it was an operation that didn't always go smoothly.

# Smooth operator... #

Although these portable cameras

could get to all sorts of interesting places,

when they first came out, in those early days,

they tended to have very narrow-angle lenses on them.

And that means, when you move around with a narrow-angle lens,

every wobble, every shake really shows up.

You tend to see quite a lot of those kind of very close,

quite ugly shots, sometimes.

They're low-angle because someone's standing on the ground looking up.

It all becomes, then, about seeing the roof behind them.

And it's interesting, in the '80s,

you've got those big banks of lights starting to appear.

The lights were burning, burning hot.

I mean, the heat that came out of those lights,

if you stood on one of those stages with all those lights above you,

your head was being grilled, basically.

# Are you ready?

Are you ready to dance? #

The use of portable cameras allowed viewers to get up close and personal

with performers on the show.

If a performer like Cyndi Lauper came along

and wanted to be able to carry off

a slightly more flamboyant performance,

we just had to go with it.

# And girls, they wanna have fun... #

During the first set of rehearsals,

Michael spotted that she was going to be a great performer.

And, as a result, he gave her not only one stage but two stages

and the gantry to work with.

# My father yells "Watcha gonna do with your life?"

# Oh, Daddy dear, you know you're still number one

# But girls, they wanna have fun

# Oh, girls, just wanna have

# That's all they really want... #

Cyndi Lauper really goes for it with her performance.

She runs up and down the scaffolding,

she's playing drums on the scaffolding.

She is kooky.

She's grabbing people in the audience

and making them dance with her.

She's giving it all she's got.

# Girls, they wanna have fun

# Oh, girls just wanna have

# That's all they really want... #

In June 1984, Richard Branson's Virgin Atlantic

began a service between London and New York.

And if the Big Four were part of

the second British invasion of the States,

a new wave of US stars were coming the other way.

# Like a virgin... #

Including Madonna.

# Touched for the very first time

# Like a virgin

# When your heart beats... #

And her performance impressed the competition.

I do remember Madonna on that show,

because there'd been a lot of talk about her

and I think it was quite a big thing that she was actually over.

But she totally owned the stage.

She was all over the stage.

She was skipping around it and all sorts.

It's amazing to see somebody with such confidence.

# And you're mine... #

What you need to look for, really,

is she's wearing those provocative

rosaries and crucifixes around her neck

while she's singing Like A Virgin.

So this was a glimpse of things to come.

# With your heartbeat

# Next to mine... #

For young girls watching Top Of The Pops,

Madonna and Cyndi Lauper offered themselves as brash new role models.

Unconventional, a bit shocking, but plainly having a good time.

Unlike Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher,

who came under fire from the wives of striking miners.

-NEWS REPORT:

-'One egg hit Mrs Thatcher squarely on the chest.

'More eggs, and also tomatoes, ice cream and butter,

'rained down on her entourage.'

# It's a lot, it's a lot It's a lot like life... #

As the year wore one, the miners' strike, which began that spring,

saw communities torn apart amidst increasingly violent confrontations.

I think it totally and utterly false to cast a slur on the police

for the superb way in which they have handled this dispute.

One television series caught the spirit of these troubled times,

mixing up comedy, pop,

and anarchy...

I'm not into violence, Rick.

But I'm really going to smash your face in!

..and a hippie.

Neil, how are you keeping that flowerpot up?

Culturally, I think it was quite a shock, The Young Ones.

I don't think anything like that had ever been seen before.

Not sure if anything like that's been seen since, actually.

What are we going to do?

Only pop music can save us now.

We had the bands in The Young Ones.

It didn't seem that big a leap,

one of the characters from The Young Ones on Top Of The Pops.

Hello, shoes. I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to stand on you again.

Oh, no. Where am I?

Oh, no, I must be on Top Of The Pops. Heavy!

What, what now?

# I looked in the sky

# Where an elephant's eye

# Was looking at me

# From a bubble-gum tree... #

'The singing was mimed but there was talking in it,'

so I was partially miming, and partially not miming.

# Was letting in water

# Letting in water... #

'We made sure, in the speaking bits,'

that we referenced a lot of other acts

who were in the charts at the time.

Listen to the lyrics, Paul Weller.

'Which was funny at the time.'

It doesn't seem so funny now.

I think it's fascinating when you get someone like Nigel Planer

coming into the studio because, of course,

they're going to be interested, if it's a comedy song,

in making sure that you're on them when the line's being spoken

and that you're going to get the comedy.

Oh, no, what's happening?

There was a tradition, Top Of The Pops shot,

the person singing and the camera comes round,

dollying round, round, round like that -

then they cut to another one.

I AM on Top Of The Pops.

'But, of course, in a narrative sketch,

'you've got to set something up and pay it off.'

..in the bath with my shoes on, cos it won't make any difference.

'And so, we wrote a different camera script for them,

'so it was a little bit challenging to say,'

"No, you must be on my face

"when I hit myself in the head with the microphone.

"Don't be around the back here."

Hang on, hang on.

'It was fun breaking the fourth wall'

and talking to the audience and making them laugh.

It kind of ruined Top Of The Pops. We hope.

Back in the real world,

laughter was in short supply in the Cold War Britain of '84.

And, so, having courted controversy with sex on Relax,

Frankie Goes To Hollywood now turned their sights on war.

Frankies didn't have any obvious material for a second single.

They had Two Tribes, but their original version of Two Tribes

was quite random and quite sort of indie.

I knew the second single, when you've had a massive single,

if you don't get the second single away, you're dead meat.

This bit's good.

'I remember walking into Studio Two at Sarm, and Trevor said,'

"Well, I've had a play around with a few bits. Have a listen to this,

and put it on to the bigs, put it on to number 11, as they say,

and, you know...

blew us away.

When Two Tribes crashed straight in at number one

and remained there for much of the summer,

Michael Hurll was finally able

to welcome Frankie back to Top Of The Pops with open arms.

# When two tribes go to war

# Money's all that you can score

# Working on the black gas

# Cowboy number one

# A born-again poor man's son... #

Now, at last, it's their time to get crowned.

Nine times in a row, and Michael Hurll gives them this platform,

because he owes it to them, frankly.

With Two Tribes looking indomitable at number one,

its nearest challenger became their own song, Relax,

which had risen up the charts again to reach number two.

And Michael Hurll got more than he bargained for

when Frankie made their fifth live appearance on the show,

brandishing firearms.

# I'm working for the black gas... #

We'd done it a few times,

so we're a bit cheeky and a bit lairy now.

And it was a live show.

When we did the dress rehearsals, we were saying...

Don't pull the guns, cos they won't let us do it.

Don't pull the guns out.

# Follow me... #

But it was only when the thing was live that we pulled guns out.

We'd pulled out these replica guns.

# Follow me... #

And our manager was watching it in the gallery

with Michael Hurll, and he's gone...

"This is brilliant, because I didn't know they were gone do it."

He's in the clear. There's nothing he can do about it,

but he's just got a great bit of telly there, like.

These nutters have just pulled guns out.

The Frankie propaganda machine was now an unstoppable force,

and their secret weapon was the T-shirt.

I think it was actually Paul Rutherford's idea to go,

"Why can't we have some T-shirts made,

"like these Katharine Hamnett ones?"

The first one was the Pershing one, wasn't it?

REPORTER: 'And one young lady with a message.'

-THATCHER:

-Now, one moment.

AIR-RAID SIREN

But being the biggest band in Britain

brought intense tabloid scrutiny.

That was the performance where,

at the beginning, Holly is seen reading The Sun.

And The Sun were doorstepping his parents about his sexuality,

so he wasn't pleased.

To round it off,

Holly showed it wasn't only girls who wanted to have fun.

# Money's all that you can score... #

And now we have the hand-held cameras coming into their own,

and it's all a little bit wobbly but it's all a bit risque

and it's all a little bit fun.

# Working for the black gas... #

It was a nightmare for Michael Hurll.

I remember him being less than pleased.

But the end performance was

one of the classic Top Of The Pops performances.

# Listen to the voice sing and follow me... #

Holly's inspired Pied Piper walkabout led Top Of The Pops

in a new direction...

# Follow me... #

..of mildly chaotic spontaneity.

You've got to have a good time because it could all end tomorrow.

We're in the middle of a nuclear holocaust, maybe.

We've got to go down swinging.

-REPORTER:

-Russians are already modernising

their short-range nuclear weapons in Eastern Europe,

and the experts reckon they may speed this up

as soon as any new American missiles arrive.

The threat of nuclear war had intensified across Europe by 1984.

Nowhere was that felt more than in Berlin.

I think the feeling in Berlin at the time

was like dancing on the volcano.

But out of that volcano floated an idea for a song.

Carlo Karges, the guitar player,

showed me the lyrics.

99 Luftballons

# Hast du etwas Zeit fur mich

# Dann singe ich ein Lied fur dich

# Von 99 Luftballons

# Auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont... #

I read the lyrics and I was, like,

blown away in the same second

because it was so goose-bumping.

# 99 Luftballons... #

'And then Carlo played the riff.'

-SHE SINGS 99 LUFTBALLONS RIFF

-And I was,

like, "You're kidding me! What's going on here?"

And then when we came to the rehearsal studio, I said,

"I have this great new melody and I have this great new part

"but I don't know how should we put this together?"

And then our drummer, Wolff, he said, "I just do

"ta-da-da-da ta-da-da-da. Wam!"

And I said, "Yeah, actually, that works."

Suddenly, it became number one in Germany.

It then took off across Europe,

as a result of it being number one in Germany, but not in the UK.

Traditionally, foreign-language singles

were very, very difficult to promote.

Back in 1983, Top Of The Pops included the song

in one of their odd forays into the European charts.

At number two, 99 Luftballons, whatever they may be. That's Nena.

# Fliegerstaffel hinterher

# Alarm zu geben, wenn es so war... #

As it was so successful in Europe,

we asked the publishers to come up with an English-language version.

# 99 red balloons

# Floating in the summer sky

# Panic bells, it's red alert

# There's something here from somewhere else

# The war machine... #

And, as if by magic,

the English version rocketed up the charts to number one.

And that's when the controversy began.

# 99 red balloons go by.

We were three weeks number one and I think one of the newspapers

wrote, "Biggest attack on Britain since the V2."

And we had all this kind of press.

Which was related to my armpits.

That also, yeah.

Ah, those armpits.

The great British public was fixated, it seemed,

on Nena's unshaven armpits - as glimpsed in the song's video.

We had a live gig...

-Where was it?

-Royal Theatre, Drury Lane.

-Yeah.

But, actually, there was, set up in the audience,

they had a big banner that says,

"Nena, we love your armpits."

-Yeah!

-And we said, "Is it...?"

-And I was like, "What's going on?"

-I was asking everybody, "What does it mean?"

-What does it mean?

"What does it mean?"

This controversy wasn't lost on Michael Hurll,

but if he hoped Nena would flash her pits on Top Of The Pops

he was to be disappointed.

The band came in and, unfortunately for Michael Hurll

who was interested in a certain lady's armpits,

she was totally covered up.

Undeterred, for its third week at the top,

Michael Hurll chose to screen the original German language video,

hairy armpits and all.

Which is how Neunundneunzig Luftballons

became the first foreign-language song

to be played as a number one record on Top Of The Pops.

So, with the armpits,

we kind of brought the German version into English television.

-It was all meant to be.

-It was meant to be.

OK, Steve. Thanks, mate.

Right, where's it gone? And cue track.

Songs like 99 Red Balloons, with a message,

were proving popular in 1984.

And Michael Hurll had no problem

with featuring them on Top Of The Pops.

# And take your pride

# Innocent people walking by

# No time to smile before they die

# Don't call that justice... #

Whether it's Bananarama protesting the political situation

in Northern Ireland...

# War, war is stupid

# And people are stupid... #

..or culture club stating the obvious.

# In some strange quarters

# War, war is stupid

# And people are stupid

# And I heard them banging on hearts and fingers

# War! #

But one song in 1984 combined a direct political plea

with a ludicrously catchy tune and rhythm.

# Free

# Nelson Mandela... #

Like everyone else, I'd never heard of Nelson Mandela,

so I went up to this concert and, you know,

it was celebrating his birthday.

They had a lot of leaflets about him and, obviously, I read up about him

and found out a lot more about him,

and that's where I got the idea to put these lyrics to this tune

that I'd already been working on.

Jerry had an idea for the chorus...

# Free Nelson Mandela... #

That's what he came in with. And so we started working on it from there.

# Free... #

It had a very simple melody.

I mean, if I can sing it then just about anybody can sing it.

# 21 years in captivity

# Shoes too small to fit his feet

# Are you so blind that you cannot see?

# Are you so deaf that you cannot hear his plea?

# Free Nelson Mandela... #

For the recording session,

Jerry Dammers assembled a collective of like-minded musicians.

Elvis Costello was brought in, Dave Wakeling,

Lynval Golding from The Specials.

That idea of getting a lot of different people together

on one record, you know,

I don't think there'd been many examples, if any, of that.

# Free

# Nelson Mandela... #

In 1984, protesting against the injustices

of the South African apartheid system

was an increasingly popular cause in Britain.

CROWD CHANTS

But the BBC had to be seen to tread a careful line

when it came to overtly political sentiments.

The infectious groove of Free Nelson Mandela, however,

meant no radio station could resist it.

If more people had known who Nelson Mandela was

it might never have got played on BBC,

because I don't think people, at first, realised

what we were singing about.

So, it's like a sort of Trojan horse.

When the single charted, Top Of The Pops couldn't resist it either.

# Pleaded the causes of the ANC

# Only one man in a large army

# Are you so blind that you cannot see?

# Are you so deaf that you cannot hear his pleas?

# Free... #

When you go on Top Of The Pops, you give a big performance, you know,

you do the very best you can,

but it didn't mean that it was going to do really well.

But when we were on the second time, it was a bit more...triumphant.

# I'm begging you

# Free... #

I remember the balloons. I thought, "How wonderful,

"Nelson would be so happy in his cell

"to know that Top Of The Pops had provided balloons."

-# Free Nelson Mandela

-Free him, free him... #

,The success of Free Nelson Mandela and the momentum it added to

the anti-apartheid movement,

was proof that if musicians pulled together

they could make a difference.

In terms of spreading far and wide

the notion of who Nelson Mandela was,

and reminding people that apartheid was still happening

and that people were still suffering, I think, yes,

very much, it made a difference in that respect.

It actually achieved more than The Specials, dare I say it.

And, I think, probably, Bob Geldof was aware of the record.

I'll have one of those, please.

So I think it had a bit of a knock-on effect,

that idea of people coming together on one record for a cause, you know?

I was just watching that Ethiopian thing,

I think this is gross after coming out after seeing that.

-Oh, yeah.

-I'm serious.

-MICHAEL BUERK:

-'Dawn, and as the sun breaks through

'the piercing chill of night on the plane outside Korem,

'it lights up a biblical famine,

'now, in the 20th century.'

No-one who saw Michael Buerk's report from Ethiopia in October 1984

would ever forget it.

Here was a humanitarian cause

that would bring together the pop world on an unprecedented scale.

Bob wanted to do something

but didn't feel that he was in a position to do it,

and they asked if I would help out - we met up a couple of days later

and came up with the basic concept,

the idea of, you know, putting together a Christmas song.

# It's Christmastime

# There's no need to be afraid

# At Christmastime... #

I was told that Bob Geldof wants to speak to me,

and he filled me in, basically, on what he'd seen on TV,

And he asked me if I was up for doing it,

and we said, "We'll make time."

# There's a world outside your window... #

With no time for egos,

the class of '84 pulled out all the stops -

and one performance in particular stood out.

I'd been aware of U2, right, but I'd never really seen them.

And when he comes in with that line -

"Thank God..." -

the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

# Well, tonight thank God it's them

# Instead of you... #

Bono, of course, just decided at that split second

to just move it up a gear and jump up the octave,

which was just magnificent and it kind of made the record.

# The greatest gift they'll get this year is life... #

A little over a week after being recorded,

the Band Aid single was mixed, pressed and in the shops.

But even before its release,

Top Of The Pops was playing its part in supporting the cause.

# Blessings of Babylon... #

Bob Geldof's got a cardboard box with him

and it's full of T-shirts and he just says,

"Look, we're trying to get everybody

"to wear these Feed The World T-shirts. You up for it?"

I said, "Yeah, no problem at all."

Well, it looked better than the snood, Nick.

Bob Geldof had little trouble persuading the acts to wear them.

But not everything went so smoothly.

Under Top Of The Pops rules,

no record could be played on the show until it had charted,

not even a charity one.

So, BBC One controller Michael Grade

shifted the Thursday schedule by five minutes

to create a spot before Top Of The Pops

to show the Band Aid video for the very first time.

And it was introduced by our very own superstar.

It would be wonderful if you could all buy copies of this record

over the next period through Christmas.

If you can't afford them, club together with somebody else

to buy a copy, you know that the money will go to the Ethiopians.

Thank you.

# The power of love... #

With the power of love,

Frankie Goes To Hollywood became

the first band since Gerry And The Pacemakers

to see their first three singles go to number one.

But it didn't make it to Christmas.

# Last Christmas I gave you my heart... #

And, Wham!'s Last Christmas would, for many,

have made the ultimate festive number one

rather than becoming the highest selling single in UK history

not to reach the top spot.

# I give it to someone special... #

Three cheers for Britain's bestselling record this week,

and also the fastest selling record ever.

It's Band Aid and Do They Know It's Christmas? Until next week.

# Feed the world... #

Do They Know It's Christmas swept everyone else aside.

# Feed the world... #

And Michael Hurll had ambitious plans for the Christmas show.

APPLAUSE

For the finale of a momentous year in pop,

he brought together the greatest gathering of British pop stars

ever seen on Top Of The Pops

for the Christmas number one.

# It's Christmastime

# There's no need to be afraid... #

I think they wanted to make a concerted effort

to get as many people on as possible.

And it was great, because it was a big show anyway

so he'd got a lot of the people there.

# Put your arms around the world... #

He had this weird thing of the camera pointing at people

that weren't actually singing the line.

# But say a prayer

# Pray for the other ones

# At Christmastime it's hard

# But when you're having fun... #

My favourite was Paul Weller being Bono. That was a nice moment.

# Well, tonight thank God it's them

# Instead of you... #

For a few minutes that Christmas Day,

a divided Britain forgot its troubles

and the class of '84 set aside their rivalries

and came together.

And Top Of The Pops showed its continued importance

as a unifying force in British culture.

There was a sense that we could relax a little bit

now the record had been made

and we knew that it was doing its job.

And, I suppose, that it was Christmas by this point

and we had a chance to think, you know,

we've managed to do something great with what we have to offer.

-# Here's to you

-Raise a glass for everyone

-# Here's to them

-Underneath that burning sun

# Do they know it's Christmastime at all? #

It was kind of fun, you know?

Everything up until that point had been really quite po-faced,

it was quite serious, you know,

and this was a moment of celebration that we had kind of done this,

we had pulled this off somehow.

# Feed the world... #

Bob Geldof and Midge Ure originally hoped

to raise £72,000 for Famine Relief with the Band Aid single.

With over three million copies eventually sold,

the final figure was £8 million.

And 1985 saw the Band Aid project grow into Live Aid,

the biggest televised concert the world had seen.

Also in 1985, Top Of The Pops saw its first non-white presenter.

..Dixie Peach.

Thanks, Mike. I've been laying in the sun in anticipation.

And producers Stock, Aitken and Waterman commandeered Hi-NRG

to claim their first number one,

offering the sound of things to come.

# You spin me right round, baby Right round

# Like a record, baby Right round, round, round

# You spin me right round, baby Right round

# Like a record, baby

# Right round

# You spin me right round, baby Right round... #

Right, we are off the air - you may have gathered that.

I hope you have enjoyed yourselves, goodnight.