The power of TOTP

Mark L · Loudmouth

The power of TOTP

noelindublin · Loudmouth

I thought Tonight was a great single- totally Boomtown Rats, totally Bob Geldof in sound, lyrics, dynamics.

Drag Me Down again is a brilliant song and should have been a bigger hit- same with Dave- Sorry for the rushed posts as these questions are worthy of a more considered response.

ArrGee · Back To Boomtown

Mark L wrote:
If Drag me Down had been shown when at 50, what might have been? I've always felt of all their non-top 40 singles, this and Dave truly were 'ones that got away'.

The Long Grass singles all deserved a better fate. All four were decent enough and worthy of a top twenty place, but people had moved on. The marketing for Dave was inspired (The free ticket single, the free copy of Mondays), but it still didn't work. I believe it backfired as many of the sales were disqualified due to the free ticket.

Drag Me Down making #50 may have had more to do with Garrick's Easy Rider tribute. Shame he crashed, it may have made the top forty.

Mark L · Loudmouth

It's true. I was regarded at school as highly unfashionable for still being 'into the Rats' in '84. There were plenty of tv appearances for DMD and a fair bit of radio play, but not to much avail. The song has plenty of hooks and is quickly picked up (check out the Live Aid audience who have got the hang of it after a couple of minutes!) and I think one of their best. I drove my girlfriend up to Scotland in '85 and we played the cassette two or three times over and as someone generally totally indifferent to the Rats, she thought DMD was outstanding, although she thought it came with shades of Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run in it.

Not sure if it's the same crash but I recall Record Mirror mentioning Garry breaking his leg coming off his motorbike saying that 'the bad news is the Rats are still going and recording new material'. Nice.

noelindublin · Loudmouth

Something tells me that if that Record Mirror journalist was to sit down and listen to In The Long Grass today he would say it was a masterpiece. Sometimes a bit of distance is needed.....

NME is famous for slating XTC's Skylarking saying the band, back in 1986, was 'as relevant as Cardinal Wolsley'.

I think the audience figures for Top Of The Pops back in the seventies and eighties was around 5- 8 million viewers per show and for all its faults it was generally captivating viewing, with some much interesting and diverse music about.

Re Drag Me Down it has shades of the old Beach Boys song Sloop John esp the de de de de bit!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0_Hl6rCEgI

-- Edited by noelindublin on Sunday 4th of December 2011 01:29:57 PM

-- Edited by noelindublin on Sunday 4th of December 2011 01:33:22 PM

Mark L · Loudmouth

I think they were less than complimentary about XTC's Mayor Of Simpleton too, yet I think (opinions again!) it was one of the best singles of 1989.

I'm struggling to remember if Elephant's Graveyard ever had a TOTP airing. I tend to think not, unless when it was at 40, which helped it rise to 26 the next week. If it was shown when at 26, it would have been one of those rare events when a song went down a week later (to 27).

I felt so sure this song would be comfortably in the top 20 that I didn't tune into the new chart that week until the countdown had reached 21 or so. By the time the DJ (Blackburn as I recall) had reached 10, I feared the worst, as it was unusual for a record to go up by more places than it had the week before, which in this case was 14 (from 40 to 26).

Not sure of the reason, but the failure to put out a 3rd single from Mondo Bongo in 1981 was also bewildering.

ArrGee · Back To Boomtown

Mark L wrote:
Not sure of the reason, but the failure to put out a 3rd single from Mondo Bongo in 1981 was also bewildering.

They should have released Fall Down as the second single. Even if it failed it could have been written off. Go Man Go and Up All Night, particularly as the latter was not on the UK version could have been good third singles.

The thinking probably was if Guilty couldn't break the top 20, then nothing else would and it'd be best to wait until the next album and have a brand new single that would be a chart topper. Trouble was it was never gonna happen. Not in a million years. smile

Mark L · Loudmouth

Go man go would have made an excellent 3rd single, not so sure about Fall Down. I'm afraid it and APOR are often skipped round this way from Mondo Bongo! Real Different was way too brilliant to have been a B side to Graveyard and ought to have been a single in it's own right.

Never did understand why the first and fourth albums spawned 2 singles each. Singles used to help keep an album afloat and keep groups fresh in peoples minds and the disappointing and undeserved stalling of Graveyard at 26 seems a possible reason I suppose, in the hope a new song from a new album would be better received, but LANO and MOTFF were much bigger hits, yet Joey was not allowed to see the light of day single-wise which I believe would have given them their first number one....

ArrGee · Back To Boomtown

Mark L wrote:
..., but LANO and MOTFF were much bigger hits, yet Joey was not allowed to see the light of day single-wise which I believe would have given them their first number one.

One of the reasons for no third single off the first album was that they were making A Tonic for the Troops, and by the time Mary had departed the charts in January 1978, She's So Modern was cued to go (released in April).

Joey was considered as a single after Rat Trap. It was re-recorded with Gus Dudgeon, but as they had an embyronic Mondays as well, it was probably decided to not release Joey as it was very similar to Rat Trap and they'd rather release something very different.

I also believe there were other songs considered as follow up singles off A Tonic for the Troops (Howard Hughes, Don't Believe What You Read and Living In an Island all performed on TV or had videos), but once Mondays was written, the band concentrated on that.

-- Edited by ArrGee on Monday 5th of December 2011 09:50:45 AM

noelindublin · Loudmouth

I agree with Mark that Go Man Go would have made a great single, or maybe Up All Night.

You've got to remember that the band was on a constant threadmill of recording and touring for about 5 years when Mondo Bongo came out and Geldof is on record as saying that he was feeling the affects. Go Man Go hints at this-'I'd stay at home today, but the world said go man go'

I don't believe that was any great masterplan to have x amounts of hits in a very calculated way- a lot of the decisions about singles were taken on an instinctive level and Geldof rightly realised that overexposure on tv or radio was not necessarily a good thing.They had also changed record labels at this time.

Mondo Bongo was a hit album so lots of those who did not buy the singles boughtthe album and got to hear all the songs from that period, less the b sides of course.

ArrGee · Back To Boomtown

noelindublin wrote:
I don't believe that was any great masterplan to have x amounts of hits in a very calculated way- a lot of the decisions about singles were taken on an instinctive level and Geldof rightly realised that overexposure on tv or radio was not necessarily a good thing.They had also changed record labels at this time.
Mondo Bongo was a hit album so lots of those who did not buy the singles bought the album and got to hear all the songs from that period, less the b sides of course.

I'm not so sure. The lead singles off the first five albums were all carefully considered, and bar Million Years, all were very successful in their own ways.

Also Mondo Bongo wasn't much of a hit. It had the highest chart position in the UK and went gold immediately, but it disappeared very quickly, having just 7 weeks in the chart. Judging by the number of copies that hit the bargain bins towards the summer of 1981 from I nabbed an extra copy of the poster, the actual sales may have not made the album gold.

noelindublin · Loudmouth

I meant to say the second or third singles, from Mondo Bongo and all the singles from V Deep even though I thought Never In A Million Years a brilliant song, and still do btw.

Not sure if there was a faster 'turnaround' for chart albums back in 1981. Nowadays albums tend to stay in the charts for months on end. That Florence and the Machiene first album continued to sell for well over a year-you would imagine that anybody going to buy it would have done so in a few months rather than continually keeping it in the charts for so long- unless the record company had a guitarist and a motorbike and a list in his pocket!

-- Edited by noelindublin on Monday 5th of December 2011 02:58:10 PM

ArrGee · Back To Boomtown

noelindublin wrote:
Not sure if there was a faster 'turnaround' for chart albums back in 1981. Nowadays albums tend to stay in the charts for months on end.

They tended to back then as well. Surfacing was in the charts for six months, and A Tonic for the Troops for a year. Simon & Garfunkel had over 5 years worth of chart action. Having an album constantly in the charts was more difficult as the compilations and greatest hits shared the same chart.

At its peak A Tonic for the Troops had some big hitters to contend with. Dylan, The Stones and Abba shifted units like nothing else ,and the Saturday Night Fever OST was ubiquitous.

http://www.ukmix.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=35628&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=325

Week Ending 15 July 1978

   1 (  1  ) Saturday Night Fever (OST) 19 Wks
   2 (  3  ) Live And Dangerous (By Thin Lizzy) 5 Wks
   3 (  2  ) Street Legal (By Bob Dylan) 3 Wks
   4 (  4  ) Some Girls (By Rolling Stones) 4 Wks
   5 (  8  ) The Kick Inside (By Kate Bush) 19 Wks
   6 (  7  ) The Album (By Abba) 24 Wks
   7 (  6  ) Octave (By Moody Blues) 4 Wks
   8 (  21) Tonic For The Troops (By Boomtown Rats) 2 Wks
   9 (  5  ) You Light Up My Life (By Johnny Mathis) 12 Wks
  10 (  15) War Of The Worlds (By Jeff Wayne) 3 Wks
...

56 ( RE) Greatest Hits - Simon And Garfunkel (By Simon And Garfunkel) 256 Wks

Returning to the top ten in the wake of Rat Trap, and the crucial Christmas sales period, probably sent the album platinum. By then Grease had taken over from Saturday Night Fever...

Week Ending 2 December 1978

   1 (  1  ) Grease (OST) 22 Wks
   2 (  28) Jazz (By Queen) 2 Wks
   3 (  7  ) 20 Golden Greats - Neil Diamond (By Neil Diamond) 2 Wks
   4 (  3  ) Emotions (By Various) 5 Wks
   5 (  2  ) Give 'Em Enough Rope (By Clash) 2 Wks
   6 (  36) Lionheart (By Kate Bush) 2 Wks
   7 (  22) Midnight Hustle (By Various) 2 Wks
   8 (  4  ) Live (By Manhattan Transfer) 4 Wks
   9 (  12) Tonic For The Troops (By Boomtown Rats) 21 Wks
  10 (  5  ) 25Th Anniversary Album (By Shirley Bassey) 5 Wks

ArrGee · Back To Boomtown

Arguably, had John Lennon not been shot, Mondo Bongo would have made #4. And if greatest hits were disallowed, it would have been #2.

Week Ending 7 February 1981

   1 (  2  ) Double Fantasy (By John Lennon) 12 Wks
   2 (  1  ) Kings Of The Wild Frontier (By Adam And The Ants) 13 Wks
   3 (  3  ) Very Best Of David Bowie (By David Bowie) 5 Wks
   4 (  4  ) Manilow Magic (By Barry Manilow) 91 Wks
   5 (  6  ) Imagine (By John Lennon) 90 Wks
   6 (  11) Mondo Bongo (By Boomtown Rats) 3 Wks

Manilow Magic - an oxymoron if ever I saw one.

noelindublin · Loudmouth

Interesting stats. Maybe the album charts should have only included original songs rather than the constant clogging up of the charts by greatest hits compilatins, sometimes for no obvious rhyme or reason.

Even if Mondo Bongo had a short chart life getting into the top ten was still an achievement. Who's to know how many people bought the album way down the line, years later?

OK- probably not too many, but I'm tired arguing that it is pretty decent with only a few unworthy songs. Heads and brick walls are the words that come to mind!

ArrGee · Back To Boomtown

noelindublin wrote:
....but I'm tired arguing that it is pretty decent with only a few unworthy songs. Heads and brick walls are the words that come to mind!

Mondo Bongo and V Deep are good albums, just not as great as the other four. There are moments which are the Rats at their best; He Watches It All, Banana Republic, Fall Down, and House on Fire. I would add a number of other tracks that are more than acceptable; Guilty, Go Man Go, This is My Room, Hurt Hurts, Straight Up, A Storm Breaks, The Bitter End, and Up All Night. However, there are some pretty dire moments; Another Piece of Red and Charmed Lives especially, but there are a few others I care little for.

After Surfacing, something new was needed, and these Mondo Bongo redefined the sound of the band well. I prefer the sound of Mondo Bongo to Surfacing, however, I think many of the songs were weak and the quality control lacking. I doubt Mutt Lange would have entertained Another Piece of Red, Whitehall 1212 nor Under Their Thumb which were all lazy compositions. Mood Mambo would have been tighter and Please Don't Go left with the B-sides. Had Geldof written 30 songs rather than half a dozen before arriving in Ibiza, it's likely the weak tracks would have been discarded long before arriving and never seen the light of day.

There is plenty of good in both albums, and with the aid of a playlist, I can exclude the less satisfactory tracks and come up with another great album.

Mark L · Loudmouth

noelindublin wrote:
Something tells me that if that Record Mirror journalist was to sit down and listen to In The Long Grass today he would say it was a masterpiece. Sometimes a bit of distance is needed.....
NME is famous for slating XTC's Skylarking saying the band, back in 1986, was 'as relevant as Cardinal Wolsley'.
I think the audience figures for Top Of The Pops back in the seventies and eighties was around 5- 8 million viewers per show and for all its faults it was generally captivating viewing, with some much interesting and diverse music about.
Re Drag Me Down it has shades of the old Beach Boys song Sloop John esp the de de de de bit!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0_Hl6rCEgI

-- Edited by noelindublin on Sunday 4th of December 2011 01:29:57 PM

-- Edited by noelindublin on Sunday 4th of December 2011 01:33:22 PM

I think the figures were more 12 to 16 million by '79 for TOTP. Mostly, an appearance on TOTP would boost sales considerably. In last week's TOTP from '79, there were 5 songs featured between 40 and 50 and they all went up the following week. The exception was Sparks' Tryouts for the Human Race which stalled at 45.

It may not have been the most natural match in music history, but the marriage of Sparks' focus on leftfield pop songs to the driving disco-trance of Giorgio Moroder produced the duo's best album in years, from which this single was lifted. From the chart hits "Number One Song in Heaven" and "Beat the Clock" to solid album tracks like "La Dolce Vita," the album No.1 in Heaven surprises by succeeding on an artistic and commercial level despite the fact that neither the Mael brothers nor Moroder tempered their personalities for the project. Moroder's production is just as sparkling, chunky, and completely rhythm-driven as on his best work with Donna Summer, and the Mael brothers prove on "Tryouts" and "Academy Award Performance" that their eccentric but genius songwriting wasn't compromised.

Mark L · Loudmouth

ArrGee wrote:
noelindublin wrote:
....but I'm tired arguing that it is pretty decent with only a few unworthy songs. Heads and brick walls are the words that come to mind!
Mondo Bongo and V Deep are good albums, just not as great as the other four. There are moments which are the Rats at their best; He Watches It All, Banana Republic, Fall Down, and House on Fire. I would add a number of other tracks that are more than acceptable; Guilty, Go Man Go, This is My Room, Hurt Hurts, Straight Up, A Storm Breaks, The Bitter End, and Up All Night. However, there are some pretty dire moments; Another Piece of Red and Charmed Lives especially, but there are a few others I care little for.
After Surfacing, something new was needed, and these Mondo Bongo redefined the sound of the band well. I prefer the sound of Mondo Bongo to Surfacing, however, I think many of the songs were weak and the quality control lacking. I doubt Mutt Lange would have entertained Another Piece of Red, Whitehall 1212 nor Under Their Thumb which were all lazy compositions. Mood Mambo would have been tighter and Please Don't Go left with the B-sides. Had Geldof written 30 songs rather than half a dozen before arriving in Ibiza, it's likely the weak tracks would have been discarded long before arriving and never seen the light of day.

Wonder how SLAY would have fared without TOTP exposure when at position 44 which it was last night on TOTP rerun? Graveyard managed to propel itself from 40 to 26 with no TOTP assistance but then slipped one place to 27 and that was that. I still feel it is one of the Rats' finest singles and definitely up there with Banana Republic and superior to House on Fire. They should have run with the full album version as a single and perhaps allowed a bit more breathing space between the end of Banana Republic and the release of Mondo Bongo and Graveyard.

ArrGee · Back To Boomtown

Mark L wrote:
They should have run with the full album version as a single ...

In general, the singles are abridged to ensure radio play. The shorter the better as they can fit it in just before the news/traffic etc. Also the shorter single can be slotted into TOTP with no problem, even if it is just for the end credits. She's So Modern was the perfect three minute single with the la la la opening for DJs to introduce it and abrupt end to stop DJs talking over it. Someone's Looking and Clockwork were slightly abridged. However, it is a puzzle why Mondays and Banana Republic were needlessly extended for the LPs.

noelindublin · Loudmouth

ArrGee wrote:
Mark L wrote:
They should have run with the full album version as a single ...
In general, the singles are abridged to ensure radio play. The shorter the better as they can fit it in just before the news/traffic etc. Also the shorter single can be slotted into TOTP with no problem, even if it is just for the end credits. She's So Modern was the perfect three minute single with the la la la opening for DJs to introduce it and abrupt end to stop DJs talking over it. Someone's Looking and Clockwork were slightly abridged. However, it is a puzzle why Mondays and Banana Republic were needlessly extended for the LPs.

You have to remember as well that a lot of dj's just can't shut up, and are not that interested in music, only projecting their 'so funny' and 'zany' personalities.

I remember back when I used to tape songs off the radio, you would always get some inane dj talking over the end of the song. Some commercial stations also had lots of ad breaks so the bands often had a hard time getting their music across.

Obviously John Peel, and Dave Fanning in Ireland were totally different and late night radio was generally more album orientated with decent dj's.

-- Edited by noelindublin on Friday 6th of February 2015 01:45:09 PM

daggerrat · Never In A Million Years

Hi Noel,

Interesting comments, i dont get to listen to an awful lot of radio nowdays , is there an up and coming version of JP or DF ?

Perhaps we need this to get some decent new bands in

Jules · The biggest Geldof fan in the world, bar none!

Some of the inane chatter at the beginning and end of records, I always assumed was to deter us from taping songs. It never did, but it did spoil the song.

Mark L · Loudmouth

Rat Trap was a risk then at 5 mins long.

I read somewhere the 1964 hit, Youve Lost That Loving Feeling, by the Righteous Brothers was 3:45 minutes long but was falsely stamped at 3:05 minutes to get DJs to play it.

The Orb's 1992 hit "Blue Room" had a duration of 39 minutes and 58 seconds, two seconds shorter than the maximum permitted for a single under chart rules. There was, however, a second CD available which featured shorter mixes.

ArrGee1991 · Dave

Mark L wrote:
The Orb's 1992 hit "Blue Room" had a duration of 39 minutes and 58 seconds, two seconds shorter than the maximum permitted for a single under chart rules. There was, however, a second CD available which featured shorter mixes.

There were some odd rules about what did and didn't qualify.

At one point, it was permitted to have three different formats with up to four tracks on each, but then it was changed so you could only have four different tracks across the three formats unless it was a remix of the lead track.

Hence you ended up with a single CD with six different mixes of the same song classified as a single, yet some CDs with three different songs were disqualified. But they didn't qualify as albums either so in effect the sales didn't count towards charts. confuse

Still it doesn't matter anymore in the world of the download.

ArrGee1991 · Dave

Mark L wrote:
Rat Trap was a risk then at 5 mins long.

A calculated risk. There is a longish lead in and a longish fade out which was and is beloved by talk jockeys. The real length would be closer to 4 minutes. Hey Jude at seven minutes is possibly the longest 7" number one (with the interminable la la la la la la las); O Superman was longer at 8 minutes, but only made #2. There were plenty of 12"/CD singles that were longer.

Mark L · Loudmouth

Longest Top 40 song not to have a shortened version on sale is also the Number 1 with the longest running time; Oasis - All Around The World (1998). It lasts 9 minutes and 38 seconds.

ArrGee · Back To Boomtown

Mark L wrote:

Longest Top 40 song not to have a shortened version on sale is also the Number 1 with the longest running time; Oasis - All Around The World (1998). It lasts 9 minutes and 38 seconds.

Sure, but it ain't on vinyl.

Mark L · Loudmouth

Appreciated, just thought it was an interesting snippet. At the other end of the scale, Adam Faith has the record for the shortest number one song at just under 1 min 40 seconds with 'What do you want?'

Answer: twice as long and a bit of value for money, thank you very much Adam smile

Really like the ad lib type fade to Rat Trap, Neon Heart, Up or Down etc. Or was it just a bit of laziness, the band unable to come up with an ending?! Live of course, Rat Trap, Diamond Smiles etc have had to have cold endings created and the Rat Trap one is particularly impressive.

ArrGee · Back To Boomtown

Mark L wrote:
Live of course, Rat Trap, Diamond Smiles etc have had to have cold endings created and the Rat Trap one is particularly impressive.

Initially Rat Trap never ended. It just turned into Kicks. Only when Kicks was dropped, did the plinky plonky end get tacked on.

ArrGee · Back To Boomtown

Mark L wrote:
Appreciated, just thought it was an interesting snippet. At the other end of the scale, Adam Faith has the record for the shortest number one song at just under 1 min 40 seconds with 'What do you want?'.

I bet record shop owners had so much fun selling that...

What do you want?

no, what do you want?

what do you want?

etc.