260 hours. Almost 11 whole days of my past 6 years have been spent watching repeats of a TV show must would baulk at the idea of watching one half hour edition of.
When BBC started repeating episodes of their former flagship music show Top of the Pops as they were originally broadcast (starting with 1976 in 2011), I decided I’d jump on when the eventually reached 1990.
9 years and a global pandemic outbreak later, I began with the Thursday 4th January 1990 edition in October 2020. Had we not been in a level of ‘lockdown’ (I can’t remember the exact restrictions at that time), I think the broadcast would have passed me by and I’d have overlooked my previous intention in favour of a whole manner of other stuff I’d have likely had going on in my life at that time.
I didn’t exist on that timeline though. As it happened, I had an abundance of spare time, with life paused in such a way that invited looking back, while the present was grim and the future uncertain. Gary Davis, Anthea Turner and Bruno Brooks it was then…
My God, looking back at that episode again now having just finished December 1999, it’s as if 30 years happened in one decade, not 10. Technology might have accelerated quicker in the 2000s, but something dramatic happened in the 1990s that altered our culture, vibe, mood.
The people in the audience in the early 1990 repeats were a mix of utterly bewildered and ecstatic beyond belief to be anywhere near the people inside the telly. Something about the way the sound mix had the audience’s clapping along to each song gave an eerie impression they were all in some of trance (not Trance the genre, but that was on the way), a batch of short circuiting drones set free from the 1980’s existential dread.
By contrast the audience in 1999 had lived through, grunge, club culture, Britpop. This wasn’t even Cool Britannia, they just seemed more cool in general. That said, the last episode of 1999 did feature Cliff Richards’ abomination The Millennium Prayer and a lesser known Vengaboys hit, to name just a couple. I didn’t get the sense anyone was about to faint at the site of the bargain bin messiah though or lose their minds to The Netherlands’ finest Eurodance outfit. They just took it in their stride then moseyed on over to watch Shania Twain on the next stage.
So why did I pick 1990 as my start point?
I was born in December 1987, let’s say my earliest memories, at an absolute stretch, are from the age of 2 onwards. That would mean the pop music and culture from around 1990 is intertwined with my developing brain. I was curious to untangle all of what I assumed to remember and see it as it actually played out. That’s the beauty of these unaltered (for the most part) episodes and seeing them in chronological broadcast order. I could map the other things I knew were happening in my life to each week’s BBC Four double bill.
It may have been better to have experienced just one episode a week, but that would place me as still being years off from the 1990s repeats beginning. In hindsight, I’m glad we moved at double speed (give or take a few weeks off for events like the Proms or snooker disrupting the BBC Four schedules), even if that meant some episodes syncing up perfectly with the current week in real time, or, in the case of the final episode, spending Christmas 1999 on the brink of another heatwave in summer 2026.
The first year or so’s worth were a drag at times, enough to put me off continuing if it wasn’t for the occasional gem or my commitment to the bit and want to get the later 90s years’ episodes that I actually watched when first broadcast. So much from 1990 / 91 was lame. I’m not saying 1997 – 1999 wasn’t without its clangers, but those mostly had the benefit of my own nostalgic fondness to overlook how manufactured, cynical or borderline problematic they were.
I fell behind on keeping up with the weekly double bills within the first year of the marathon rewatch. It wasn’t just because I wasn’t enjoying them all that much, the world was starting to open up again, with pandemic restrictions easing. Gradually I had more options and a want to leave the house again.
Unbeknown to me, an episode hadn’t recorded correctly on my Virgin TiVo box in summer 2021. By the time I got to it, the iPlayer catch up period for these episodes had also passed. It surprised me how desperate I was to check in with Mark Goodier, Jackie Brambles and crew the second they were taken away from me. I scoured the internet for a full upload somewhere, and while I only found the individual performances, scattered across YouTube in varying levels of resolution, I also stumbled upon a blog I’ve been reading each week since.
‘TOTP Rewind – The 90s‘ is a watch-along blog written by Richard Bayliss, who worked for the Our Price chain of record shops in and around Manchester during this decade. He actually started writing his blog, commenting on each episode, the acts, their songs and the performance during the screening of the 80s repeats in 2017. The earlier decade was more Richard’s era, but he kept going having enjoyed covering 1983 through to 1989.
As much as I’ve enjoyed reading Richard’s blog, I have also been witness to a clear decline in Richard’s enjoyment as each year’s offering drifted further from his own nostalgic fondness.
Though Richard may have given some of my own childhood favourites an absolute written battering, it didn’t hamper my experience of seeing the shows through his perspective each week. Some episodes I’d watch and laugh knowing that in a few days time I’d get to read Richard’s write-up on the more bizarre moments from this era.
Perhaps most importantly, this blog, even in its moments that leaned negative, reminded me of a previous age of the internet. Richard endeavoured to keep up with the schedule and deliver a review that was worthy of those who gave it their time to read. These weren’t your baseless X ‘hot takes’ void of any substance. Nor was it content written to appease an algorithm. I’m also confident there wasn’t any generative assistance at play. I imagine if you asked Chat GPT to write such a blog, it’s response would be “why?!”.
The answer is because to be a nerd is unfathomable. You can add all the hours I spent reading TOTP Rewind to the hours I clocked up watching the show (I dread to think how many hours Richard sunk into this project). I don’t have anything to show for the time, other than a bunch of music trivia that might help me in a pub quiz one day and some inspiration for the post of my own you’re reading now.
As Robbie Williams sang (much to Richard’s utter dismay) on the 20th November 1998 episode, “No Regrets…”
I watched most of the episodes on my sofa of an evening with my latest craft beer of choice. The latter combined with certain songs featured would lead to questionable further purchases, namely some classic albums on vinyl.
By classic, I should clarify that it is “classic” by own personal standards, leaning far into the same nostalgic fondness defined above. Perhaps those are a story for another time.
or now, I’m catching up on some of the new music I’ve neglected in recent weeks in favour of this time capsule comfort blanket, before I pick up again the 2000s repeats that start this Friday. While Richard is calling time on his blog with the conclusion of 1999, I will be sailing bravely on with the rewatch, perhaps to the show’s own cancellation in 2006. I predict a rocky road to the end (and perhaps “…a riot” around 2004).
I’ll also credit reading Richard’s blog with helping me to break a bit of my own writer’s block I was experiencing for a couple of years around the turn of the decade. Initially I was inspired to start writing up my various gig memories (browse the archive here), that got me back in the swing of blogging more regularly and led to the Collect Us All! project. Thanks Richard, I forgive you for all the things you said about Hanson and Steps.
I’m pleased to report that I’ve also not been living entirely under a musical rock for the past six years. Alongside my TOTP rewatch I’ve been listening to more new music and going to more gigs than I have for a long while. Each month you can find my mixtape playlist of 11 new and recent songs I’ve been enjoying on Apple Music, Spotify and YouTube.
I’ll even go so far as to attribute a positive shift in my modern music listening to this extensive rewatch.
Growing up in the 90s, pre-internet, my impressionable young brain could only be influenced by the music I had easy access to, and we didn’t even have music channels in our house. Top of the Pops, radio stations, Now! That’s What I Call Music compilations and Smash Hits! magazine were my education. The broad range of music represented in the 90s charts meant I gravitated to whatever I liked the sound of, without much prejudice or peer pressure from any friends who believed they knew better (we were all pre-teens and I was probably among the most knowledgeable about music for our age range at school).
That shifted with the dawn of MP3 downloads. Music fandom became more siloed as genres and subgenres began to be able to thrive and survive without the need for the support of traditional outlets like those listed above. The rabbit hole I went down was punk rock. I formed friendships and later, bands around this sound. It dominated the albums I was buying and gigs I was attending, albeit with a few exceptions along the way, for two decades
Taking a step back each week via the TOTP repeats over the past 6 years feels as if my music tastes have been reconditioned to the same broader range I started with. Interestingly, I’ve not been drawn to dig back through many discographies of artists I overlooked or misunderstood first time around. Instead I’ve found myself discovering new acts who take their cues from inspirations I didn’t quite share previously.
I have a new appreciation for what came before, but a determination to focus more on what’s happening now. It’s too late to save a fledgling indie band from 1994, perhaps someone else from their hometown is giving the music thing a go though.
Liam Toms 