Top 10 Embarrassing Top of the Pops Performances

Top 10 Embarrassing Top of the Pops Performances

Welcome to WatchMojoUK, and today we’re looking at “Top of the Pops” moments that embarrassed either the artists, the BBC, or both.

#10: “Blue Monday”

New Order

As we’ll see more than once, synth-heavy, electronic music can be a difficult one for “Top of the Pops” – especially if, like New Order, you insist on playing live. If the band looked unanimated on stage, it’s because they were all focusing so much on getting the synths to work properly and come in when they were supposed to, which they didn’t. The timings were off and Sumner’s vocal performance, while hardly the centrepiece of “Blue Monday”, left much to be desired. Drummer Stephen Morris later described the performance as, quote, “awful”. The band hadn’t practised the complicated song enough before insisting on playing live, which just goes to show that sometimes miming IS the right decision.

#9: “Novocaine for the Soul”

Eels

Like many bands, Eels were furious to be told they had to mime during their “Top of the Pops” appearance. They protested in their own unique way by using cheap, toy instruments and bringing them up on stage instead, including tiny, little guitars and a children’s drumset. This isn’t embarrassing for Eels – though, they do look rather silly up there – but more for the BBC, which again had egg on its face over the absurdity of the “Top of the Pops’” miming mandate. But given what happened to New Order, perhaps it’s better to mime and have the single you’re flogging actually sound good, rather than play it in the awful “Top of the Pops” studio and mess up.

#8: “Pop Muzik”

M

Robin Scott had other, more energetic performances of 70s classic “Pop Muzik” on “Top of the Pops”, but this wasn’t one of them. He looks utterly bored to death, miming out of time with the backing track. To be fair, “Pop Muzik” itself is meant to lampoon the music industry – and the way people talked about it – so maybe his unenthused attitude is part of the experimental nature of M. His backing band looked just as bored, but Scott ends up leaning on the set and then discarding the microphone entirely to sing into a walkie-talkie. But he did have a habit of breaking out the walkie-talkie while on “Top of the Pops”, so viewers may have been expecting it.

#7: “Martha’s Harbour”

All About Eve

Oh, dear. We just talked about how sometimes miming can make a performance more like the recording, but what about when it goes horribly wrong? Due to no fault of the band, this is what happened to All About Eve when they turned up to promote “Martha’s Harbour”, which made THEM look silly despite doing nothing wrong. It made the BBC look pretty ridiculous too, though, since it was the corporation’s mistake that left us all watching Julianne Regan sit there without realising she was meant to be pretending to sing. Then again, Tim’s guitar miming wasn’t great, either. The week after they were allowed to perform live so that it didn’t happen again.

#6: “Jackie Wilson Said”

Dexys Midnight Runners

While Kevin Rowland mandating that everybody needed to dress like a farmer for the music video and performance of “Come on Eileen”, it wasn’t their only bizarre “Top of the Pops” appearance. While promoting their successful cover of Van Morrison’s “Jackie Wilson Said”, in reference to the iconic soul singer, Dexys turned up on the show and infamously played in front of a picture of Jocky Wilson, the darts player. We wonder if Jocky Wilson DID ever tell anyone that he was in heaven when they smiled. Today, Kevin Rowland claims that he asked for the picture of Jocky for a joke, but lying to fend off embarrassment over a gaffe is just the kind of thing we’d expect from him…

#5: “Take a Look Around”

Limp Bizkit

Once upon a time, Limp Bizkit were so wildly popular that mayhem took over in the “Top of the Pops” studio. This was in 2000, the height of their popularity, and as soon as the guitars began to pick up, so did the audience, invading the stage – which was perhaps lower and nearer to the crowd than it should have been. This was all the more baffling because it clearly wasn’t being encouraged by the band, with security having to walk on stage and boot the punters off. They surrounded Durst, who had to interrupt the song. Props to Durst, they did mostly listen to him, but this blunder made the BBC look bad because it wasn’t able to keep control.

#4: “Blue Room”

The Orb

If you thought “Blue Monday” having to be cut down was bad, wait until you hear about the original 39-minute length of “Blue Room” by the Orb. Unlike New Order, though, the Orb didn’t even attempt to actually play it, nor did they want to look like they were playing anything – other than an extremely surreal chess match. This was one of the issues “Top of the Pops” faced when trying to bring electronic music to TV screens: often, it was impossible to even pretend to recreate it on the show. They probably never thought they’d have to think about stuff like this when the show began in the sixties.

#3: “The Wicker Man”

Iron Maiden

In 1980, Iron Maiden became yet another group who refused to compromise their artistry for the needs of the BBC’s poorly equipped studio. They insisted on playing “Running Free” live. Though this went smoothly by BBC standards, they apparently changed their philosophy at some point. Two decades on and they returned to “Top of the Pops” to play “The Wicker Man”, only this time, they bought into the BBC’s miming agenda. How embarrassing for them that they didn’t stick to their guns and refuse to mime during every appearance. Bizarrely, this was also during the slow demise of the programme, when producers didn’t care if they mimed or played live.

#2: “Bankrobber”

The Clash

On and off during its lifespan, “Top of the Pops” had an in-house dance group there to make the performances more visually interesting – or sometimes to replace them entirely. The Clash refused to appear on “Top of the Pops” to promote “Bankrobber”, so performing the song was left to the resident dancers, Legs & Co. It wasn’t the girls’ fault that nobody wanted to see them perform a dance routine to a Clash song, but that doesn’t make this any less weird. Again, we see the massive inconsistencies in when the BBC let them play live and when they didn’t, and you have to wonder why this was preferable to just playing a music video. “Bankrobber” DID have one, after all.

#1: “Doctorin’ the TARDIS”

The Timelords

These days, you’ll get arrested and thrown in jail JUST for rocking up on “Top of the Pops” dressed like a Klansman with Gary Glitter waiting in the wings. The 80s truly were a different time, with this novelty “Doctor Who” band, the Timelords, getting a hit single. The absurd novelty song climbed all the way to #1 in the charts, so the Timelords were brought onto the Beeb to show off. But then the song reverted back to “Rock and Roll”, the Gary Glitter original, and Glitter himself appeared. Strangest of all was the revelation that the people under those black cloaks were electronic duo the KLF in disguise – although it was before they changed their name.

Let us know in the comments which embarrassing “Top of the Pops” moments you want us to put in the top 20.