Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast

The latest episode of the podcast which asks: Why didn't NASA do something for the old 'uns? It's the mid-point of our Critics Choice series, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, and this time Our Taylor has taken us back -  way  back - to the spring of 1969, when two-thirds of Team ATVland weren't even thought of and the third was imprisoned in a cage made out of pallets, with all nails sticking out....

The latest episode of the podcast which asks: What's more important, the Taint or the Love? Part Two of our Critics' Choice series, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, and Our Neil has dragged us back to the idyllic summer of 1981, where the panel were a) replaying the 1970 World Cup with Subbuteo, b) wearing burgundy and c) playing The Omen in our bedroom respectively. And good Lord, what an episode he's pick...

The latest episode of the podcast which asks: can  you  remember a wazz you had 43 years ago? This episode, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, is the beginning of a five-part mini-series where members of Team Chart Music run a finger along our TOTP collection and select one of their favourites - and Our David has kicked it off by pulling out an absolute plum from the very end of the Drought. Your panel were k...

The 40th episode of the podcast which asks: so how do  you get your pills out of a Kinder Surprise egg while wearing long opera gloves? This episode, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, takes us nearly ten years away from the glory of the last one and plunges us deep into the turquoise shell-suited heart of the Neighnties - and oh dear, our beloved programme is right up Arsehole Street. The ratings are droppin...

The latest episode of the podcast which asks: did Phil Oakey ever have it out with the Undertones for coating him down on  My Perfect Cousin? This episode, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, is the longest EVER, but don't blame us - because there is so much going on in this episode of The Pops, and we take a concentrated blast of 1981 full in the face. No lie, it's wave after wave of late-Eighventies pop bril...

The latest episode of the podcast which asks: Rod Stewart - a grower or a shower? This episode, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, involves one of the grimmer aspects of Top Of The Pops, as it comes in the wake of one of the regular audience members comitting suicide, the subsequent tabloid coverage when it was revealed that she'd left a diary behind, and the fallout from it - which continued right the way up...

The latest episode of the podcast which asks: how did we manage to go on about  7 Days  for 20 minutes without once adding the word 'Jankers' to it? Jesus in a jumpsuit, Pop-Crazed Youngsters - it's a Top Of Pops from THIS ACTUAL CENTURY, and your three contributors, who are by now frantially sucking at the bone-dry and chapped teats of traditional media, are still upset that there are no Massive...

The latest episode of the podcast which asks; how would Mike Read get on in the WWF? and how long would it take before someone took his guitar off him and stoved his head in with it? It's been too long, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, but we're back from our spell of R&R at Pontins Camber Sands and are going armpit-deep into the cavity of one of the landmark episodes of Top Of The Pops - the one with the b...

A special-ish episode of the podcast which asks: why do we always leave the Xmas episodes to the last minute? Another MASSIVE examination of Pop-telly nirvarna sees us tucking in to the annual Xmas day selection box - this time from the year of Nineteen and Seventy-Six. And lucky us: we've been invited to the head table of Radio One, dominated by the bearded gorgons of The Happy Sound themselves -...

The latest episode of the podcast which asks; who is more important - a dead Beatle, or your Nana? It's cold and dark, pop-crazed youngsters, so it's time once again to binge upon one of our favourite eras of Top Of The Pops. Your hosts are simultaneously deciding which 50 badges to wear for the school Xmas disco, still in hiding from the fake accusation that they had a good cry about someone dyin...

The latest episode of the podcast which asks; if God  were  one of us, who would he hate more out of M People and the Lighthouse Family? The longest episode of Chart Music EVER sees us pitched into the second half of the Nineties for the first time - and oh dear, our favourite Pop show is beginning to enter its slow decline and being pissed about with big style. The guest presenters are still in e...

The latest episode of the podcast which asks: why didn't Top Of The Pops do a Bonfire Night special instead, the traitorous, British-way-of-life-hating bastards? Yeah yeah, we know: another early Eighties one. But if you thought we were going to wait another year before we got stuck into this particular episode, you don't know Chart Music. The Pops is entombed in its rah-rah-rah flags-and-balloons...

The latest edition of the podcast which asks: that thing with the earlobes - the entire country didn't just imagine it, did they? It's the summer of '83, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, and your avuncular host is battling a series of crises: not only is he still recovering from a de-bagging on the school field and sulking over the re-election of the foul hag Thatcherax, he's fending off rumours about his s...

The latest episode of the podcast which asks: if Bummerdog was a band, what would they sound like? This episode, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, is one of the absolute landmark moments of the long and storied history of The Pops - the week where all the rubbish of the Laties is finally driven into the sea by streetwise lairy youths with a malevolent shuffle and a drug-induced attitude. And as well as Big F...

The latest episode of the podcast which asks: if Midge Ure had become lead singer of the Sex Pistols, would we all still be wearing flares?  This episode, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, was foraged from the very dustbin of History, being one from early 1976 which missed out on the BBC4 treatment. And, as we very quickly discover, huge chunks of it should have stayed there. Diddy Fucking David Hamilton wea...

The latest episode of the podcast which asks: is there such a thing as a trendy wank? This episode, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, drags us back to the dark  Civil War of the mid-90s, when brother fought against brother over whether Roll With It was slightly less rubbish than Country House, and Oasis-loving loving wives imposed a 'nookie strike' upon their Blur-supporting husbands. Yes, it's the aftermath...

The latest episode of the podcast which asks: has there ever been a Good Bates? The year is 1982, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, and the world is waiting for England. Actually, no - what the world is waiting for is for Tomorrow's World to piss off, because this episode of The Pops is a bit special. No less than three football teams have been hitting the BBC bar all afternoon and rubbing a manky-jumpered s...

The latest episode of the podcast which asks: that scrap between Reagan and Chernenko - whose coat would you be holding? This episode, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, sees us refraining from fretting about Armageddon for a bit and getting blasted full in the face by non-stop Rah-Rah-Rah American Olympic nonsense instead, revelling in the thrill of being able to watch BBC1 at four in the morning and indulgi...

The latest episode of the podcast which asks: Top Of The Pops? On a Friday ? Arseholes to that! This episode of The Pops has been hand-picked by the Pop-Crazed Youngsters on our Patreon account, and they did us proud with this one: a episode from the Most Seventies Year Ever hosted by none other than Kenny Everett. He only did six of these, and there's only one left in the BBC archives, but the on...

The latest episode of the podcast which asks: no, really - how  do  you soil a bra? This episode, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, sees us getting our hands down the back of the sofa on another random episode of Top Of The Pops - but as it's 1986 - a year we haven't done yet - we're half-expecting to touch a maggot-infested rat, or an open pot of hair gel with all mould on it. We needn't have worried, thoug...

The latest edition of the podcast which asks: so how do you actually soil a bra, then? This episode, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, takes us back, back, back  to the autumn of '77, and it's a proper Lucky Bag of Randomness - just how we like it. The wake for Elvis is still dragging on, Punk is everywhere (apart from on Top Of The Pops, or in the charts), and Noel Edmonds is very keen to tell you that he's...

The latest episode of the podcast which asks: have you got crabs? In this edition, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, we decided to give you the opportunity to watch our selected episode of Pops along with us (providing you keep a finger on the pause button, as we're over five times longer). It's just come out on BBC4 , giving you an invaluable opportunity to tut to yourself and say; "God, they didn't even me...

The latest episode of the podcast which asks: er,  can you spare us a few quid so we don't have to do these through shitty microphones any more? Please? This episode, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, couldn't be more Nineties if it started off thinking England were a lock for the 1994 World Cup, and finished having a bit of a roar about Lady Di. We're smack in the middle of 1995, two-thirds of the panel wer...

The latest episode of the podcast which asks: an emaciated John Lennon in a boxing match with the six months-dead Elvis Presley - who wins? This episode, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, is mental . Come with us as we set the Time Sofa all the way into the very heart of the Eighventies, to a Bizarro-world where people actually thought – yes, with their actual brains – that Mike Read was sort of cool. Yes, i...

The latest episode of the podcast which asks: what’s the difference between a Cartoon Time and a Cartoon Club? This episode, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, sees the world’s No.1 authority on old episodes of a long-gone pop show casting its eyes and ears toward the summer of ’89 - but if you're expecting to see some Acid House tomfoolery or a full-on Madchester takeover, you're going to be massively disapp...