Q: Anybody feel like talking......really talking ?

[80rulez]

If Professor of Rock is too mainstream, you might want to check out some of the Trash Theory videos. They're not hitting the Rare Hits of the 80s / Gazebo Music level of obscure, but when they discuss popular songs, they often show links back to much lesser known songs, which is nice to see.

Thanks. Turns out that I've seen one of his episode on Cocteau Twins before. I am amazed at the research that the guy did for his Shoegaze episode. Good stuffs.

[xymox970]

Top Of The Pops has been my constant companion throughout these past few years, thanks to the BBC re-runs.

There is actually so much to talk about regarding Top Of The Pops during the 80s, starting from the actual performances -
the way there were filmed (BBC cameras famously shooting from down below the artists half of the time giving some of them
less than favorable viewing angles), the miming, the audience, the chart itself and naturally - the hosts.

But, unfortunately, for us fans, the biggest negative aspect of it all are the so-called banned episodes,
featuring the hosts Jimmy Saville, Dave Lee Travis, Mike Smith and some notorious artists like Gary Glitter.
Rarely seen in good quality, some of those are really the holy grail for Top Of The Pops fans.

Thankfully, there have been some youtube uploads during the last couple of years that have featured parts of those as well.
Unfortunately, the picture quality has not been very good in most cases.

But, as of recently, for the last couple of months there is an uploader giving us all those treasures in pristine quality.
Not the complete banned episodes as such, but the edited performances rarely seen by now (at least by me).

More over, this particular uploader has been putting up clips featuring what seems like unedited performances
from the BBC vaults that were never meant to be broadcast. In some cases you can actually see takes 1,2 & 3 of the same track.

If anyone if interested in those, send me a PM and I will let you know how to find them.