Top Of The Pops 1975 Episodes
Kipa Crawn
Top of the Pops (TOTP) is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and broadcast weekly between 1 January 1964 and 30 July 2006. The programme was the world's longest-running weekly music show. For most of its history, it was broadcast on Thursday evenings on BBC One. Each show consisted of performances of some of the week's best-selling popular music records, usually excluding any tracks moving down the chart, including a rundown of that week's singles chart. This was originally the Top 20, though this varied throughout the show's history. The Top 30 was used from 1969, and the Top 40 from 1984.
Dusty Springfield's "I Only Want to Be with You" was the first song featured on TOTP, while the Rolling Stones were the first band to perform, with "I Wanna Be Your Man".[4] Snow Patrol were the last act to play live on the weekly show when they performed their single "Chasing Cars".[5] Status Quo made more appearances than any other artist, with a total of 87 (the first was with "Pictures of Matchstick Men" in 1968 and last with "The Party Ain't Over Yet" in 2005).[6][7]
Special editions were broadcast on Christmas Day (and usually, until 1984, a second edition a few days after Christmas), featuring some of the best-selling singles of the year and the Christmas number one. Although the weekly show was cancelled in 2006,[8] the Christmas special continued annually. End-of-year round-up editions have also been broadcast on BBC1 on or around New Year's Eve, albeit largely featuring the same acts and tracks as the Christmas Day shows.[9][10][11] In a change of format, the festive specials did not return in 2022 or 2023 and were replaced by an end-of-year review show on BBC Two. It also survives as Top of the Pops 2, which began in 1994 and features vintage performances from the Top of the Pops archives. Though TOTP2 ceased producing new episodes since 2017, repeats of older episodes are still shown.
Bill Cotton devised the name Top of the Pops.[16] Cotton, Johnnie Stewart and Stanley Dorfman devised the rules which governed how the show would operate: the programme would always end with the number one record, which was the only record that could appear in consecutive weeks. The show would include the highest new entry and (if not featured in the previous week) the highest climber on the charts, and omit any song going down in the chart.[17][18][1] Tracks could be featured in consecutive weeks in different formats. For example, if a song was played over the chart countdown or the closing credits, then it was acceptable for the act to appear in the studio the following week.
These rules were sometimes interpreted flexibly. It was originally based on the Top 20. By the 1970s, the Top 30 was being used and the show was extended from thirty to forty-five minutes duration and songs that were featured outside the charts were chosen according to Dorfman and his fellow producer's Melvyn Cornish's personal taste and judgement.[19] The rules were more formally relaxed from 1997 when records descending the charts were featured more regularly, possibly as a response to the changing nature of the Top 40 (in the late 1990s and early 2000s climbers in the charts were a rarity, with almost all singles peaking at their debut position).
When the programme's format changed in November 2003, it concentrated increasingly on the top 10. Later, during the BBC Two era, the top 20 was regarded as the main cut-off point, with the exception made for up and coming bands below the top 20. Singles from below the top 40 (within the top 75) were shown if the band were up and coming or had a strong selling album. If a single being performed was below the top 40, just the words "New Entry" were shown and not the chart position.
The show was originally intended to run for only a few programmes but lasted over 42 years, reaching landmark episodes of 500, 1,000, 1,500 and 2,000 in the years 1973,[20] 1983,[21] 1992 and 2002[22] respectively.
The first show was presented by Jimmy Savile, with a brief link to Alan Freeman in London to preview the following week's programme. The producer Johnnie Stewart based the show's format on Savile's Teen and Twenty Disc Club on Radio Luxembourg.[25] The first show featured (in order) Dusty Springfield with "I Only Want to Be with You", the Rolling Stones with "I Wanna Be Your Man", the Dave Clark Five with "Glad All Over", the Hollies with "Stay", the Swinging Blue Jeans with "Hippy Hippy Shake" and the Beatles with "I Want to Hold Your Hand",[26] that week's number one. Throughout its history, the programme proper always (with very few exceptions) finished with the best-selling single of the week, although there often was a separate play-out track over the end credits.
Later in 1964, the broadcast time was moved to one hour later, at 7:35 pm, and the show moved from Wednesdays to what became its regular Thursday slot. Additionally its length was extended by 5 minutes to 30 minutes.[citation needed]
For the first three years Alan Freeman, David Jacobs, Pete Murray and Jimmy Savile rotated presenting duties, with the following week's presenter also appearing at the end of each show, although this practice ceased from October 1964 onwards.
The show was taped 52 weeks a year with no breaks.[27] The chart came out on Tuesday mornings and the show aired live on Thursday evenings. This led to a process of difficult weekly planning, rescheduling, booking, and rebooking, as well as pre-recording of acts, particularly of American artists who might be advancing up the chart the following weeks, to ensure that each weeks top 20 would be able to appear on the show.[17] At the BBC in the 1960s and early 1970s, producers and directors did both jobs simultaneously. From 1964 to 1969, Stewart and Dorfman took it in turns to produce and direct, but each spent five days a week getting the show together. At the end of 1969, Stewart left, and was replaced in early 1970 by Melvyn Cornish,[19][28] Stewart returned as an executive producer in 1971 until 1973. Dorfman directed and produced the series from 1964 until 1971, then continued for five years thereafter as an executive producer.
In the first few editions, Denise Sampey was the "disc girl", who would be seen to put the record on a turntable before the next act played their track.[29] However, a Mancunian model, Samantha Juste, became the regular disc girl after a few episodes, a role she performed until 1967.[30]
Initially acts performing on the show would mime (lip-sync) to the commercially released record, but in 1966 after discussions with the Musicians' Union, miming was banned.[31] After a few weeks during which some bands' attempts to play as well as on their records were somewhat lacking, a compromise was reached whereby a specially recorded backing track was permitted, as long as all the musicians on the track were present in the studio.[32][33] As a result, Stewart hired Johnny Pearson to conduct an in-studio orchestra to provide musical backing on select performances, beginning with the 4 August 1966 edition.[34][35][36] Later, vocal group The Ladybirds began providing vocal backing with the orchestra.[37]
After two years at the Manchester Dickenson Road Studios, the show moved to London (considered to be better located for bands to appear), initially for six months at BBC TV Centre Studio 2 and then to the larger Studio G at BBC Lime Grove Studios in mid-1966[41] to provide space for the Top of the Pops Orchestra, which was introduced at this time to provide live instrumentation on some performances (previously, acts had generally mimed to the records). In November 1969, with the introduction of colour, the show moved to BBC TV Centre, where it stayed until 1991, when it moved to Elstree Studios Studio C.[42]
For a while in the early 1970s, non-chart songs were played on a more regular basis, to reflect the perceived growing importance of album sales; there was an album slot featuring three songs from a new LP, as well as a New Release spot and a feature of a new act, dubbed Tip for the Top. These features were dropped after a while, although the programme continued to feature new releases on a regular basis for the rest of the decade.
A year-end Christmas show featuring a review of the year's biggest hits was inaugurated on 24 December 1964, and has continued every year since.[44] From 1965 until 2021, the special edition was broadcast on Christmas Day[45] (although not in 1966)[46] and from the same year, a second edition was broadcast in the days after Christmas, varying depending on the schedule, but initially regularly on 26 December. The first was shown on 26 December 1965.[47] In 2022, the Christmas show was moved to BBC Two and broadcast on 24 December, with no usual studio-based live performances included in the broadcast.[48][49] In 1973, there was just one show, airing on Christmas Day. In place of the traditional second show, Jimmy Savile hosted a look back at the first 10 years of TOTP, broadcast on 27 December.[50] In 1975, the first of the two shows was broadcast prior to Christmas Day, airing on 23 December, followed by the traditional Christmas Day show two days later.[51]
The 1978 Christmas Day show was disrupted due to industrial action at the BBC, requiring a change in format to the broadcast. The first show, due to be screened on 21 December, was not shown at all because BBC1 was off the air.[52] For Christmas Day, Noel Edmonds (presenting his last ever edition of TOTP) hosted the show from the 'TOTP Production Office' with clips taken from various editions of the show broadcast during the year and new studio footage performed without an audience. The format was slightly tweaked for the Christmas Day edition in 1981, with the Radio 1 DJs choosing their favourite tracks of the year[53] and the following edition on 31 December featuring the year's number 1 hits.[54]
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