Chart Music #47: 25th December 1977 – The Last Supper Of Showaddywaddy

#47: 25/12/77 – The Last Supper Of Showaddywaddy

A sort-of-festive episode of the podcast which asks: Jesus, why do we always leave this to the last minute instead of doing it in August like everyone else?

It’s the arse-end of the year, and you know what that means, Pop-Crazed Youngsters: another ram of our hands into the Quality Street tin of a Xmas TOTP. This year, it’s 1977, which means that Noel Edmonds has taken one of his suits that all look the same out of the wardrobe – but this year he’s joined by Kid Jensen, in full Stylistics clobber. No trifle-related interplay this year, then, but it’s quadruple overtime for the Top Of The Pops Orchestra, who have stashed a dozen or so Party Sevens under their chairs to keep them going, and Team ATVland (combined age: 19) are sulking that they can’t hook their Binatone Pong to the telly, moaning that their Ricochet Racers isn’t much cop, and leafing through the 1978 Starsky and Hutch annual and dreaming of chocolate pancakes respectively. 

There were some astonishing singles that came out in ’77, but musicwise, and bar a couple of exceptions, this is your Nana’s Top Of The Pops. Showaddywaddy pretend to have a futuristic buffet. Some kids are bussed into White City to wave a tassel on a stick (or just the stick). David Soul’s head floats in space. Johnny Mathis pops up again. You can hear Kenny Rogers’ arse as he lowers it onto a wicker bar stool. And oh God, it’s Manhattan Transfer. But here come Abba, Space, Denice Williams, Hot Chocolate, and the return of Floyd Flipper as a fruity Santa! Oh, and there’s Paul McCartney’s Living Shortbread Tin and Bing Crosby. It’s a massive, sixteen-song evisceration, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, done with the care and attention you’ve come to expect from the little elves of Chart Music.

Neil Kulkarni and Taylor Parkes join Al Needham for a long, hard stare at the winners circle of 1977, complete with such tangents as the Showaddywaddy Hanky Code, Lobbing It Out on Channel 4, assuming French is just English you don’t know yet, the gang war between Brighouse and Rastrick, Space Crumpet, when it’s time to finally let go of the Radio Times Xmas issue, and a chance to see someone from Chart Music looking like a massive potato on telly very soon. Merry Swearing!

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