This show used to be an event! My sister recorded songs onto a cassette player with a microphone in the 70s. Also, for a short while in the early 80s, it went out on radio one at the same time so you could watch it and blast it out of the sound system too!
Yeah I preferred 80s TOTP as a kid rather than a teenager in the 90s which was odd because you'd expect it to be the other way round! I was never keen on the 1991 revamp with the new theme and presenters, but I guess the BBC felt the change was needed to bring it into the 90s and make it cooler to the then youth.
The wizard theme is the best top of the pops intro and yellow pearl is in second place then 1990st intro the first one and then a hole lot of love into in Fourth place
I also like the one that starts at 2:54! They''ve STUCK WITH THAT theme tune since they changed it and they also use the REMIXED VERSION of that particular theme tune for the Christmas Special in 2016
I don't think the people who came up with the titles get enough credit for their sheer creativity. Of course the 80s-90s theme is still the one I love the most, that was my era.
Up until the "re-vamp" in Summer 1980, there wasn't any titles whatsoever. The host said something like "Welcome to ToTP and here are the charts with (Insert hit song here", and proceded to show the Top 30. In summer, everything changed: There wasn't the chart countdown at the beginning, but in different parts during the show.
+Andy Hayes That's because in the late 70s and early 80s (until July 1981), TOTP didn't have a "title sequence" as such, just a caption and the presenter introducing the first act.
Although I'm just about old enough to remember the theme before it, the favourite one for me here is definitely The Wizard. The whole vid is a good chronology though, showing the rise of a once great institution, all the way to its peak and then sad decline. For what it's worth, my opinion is that I believe the downfall started back in the 90s when the permanent shift to Fridays was made. If you're of a certain age, you just know that Thursdays at 7pm will always be regarded as its true and rightful spot.
The best one is the colourful discs falling from the sky like ufos along with the smashing drumbeat. It’s very dramatic and the one most connected to my childhood.
Normally I'm very definate about things I like and dislike but I honestly like them all, it's one of the few shows that have been rebranded many times, and been successfully done. All the theme tunes are ace, catchy, and the graphics capture the zeitgeist of the times. I'm most fond of the 1986 one as that's the first I remember hearing weekly, for nostalgia reasons.
I believe it's:1966 - Unknown1969 - Unknown1970 - 'Whole Lotta Love' by Led Zeppelin1981 - 'Yellow Pearl' by Phil Lynott1986 (x2) - 'The Wizard' by Paul Hardcastle1991 - 'Now Get Out of That' by Tony Glibber1995 - 'Red Hot Pop' by Vince Clarke1998 - 'Whole Lotta Love' by Led Zeppelin2003 - 'Now Get Out of That' (remix) by Tony Glibber
My guess is that Dolphin Productions had a hand in producing the third TOTP open. (Dolphin Productions and Image West did TONS of pre-CGI electronic animation ("Scanimate") from the '70s to early '80s.)
The title sequence seemed to change a lot in the early seventies. Then some time in 1974 they got rid of it and we just had the chart rundown with the 'Whole Lotta Love' theme tune. Then some time in 1977 they got rid of the theme tune and we were left with just the chart rundown and a track from that weeks chart. It stayed that way until 1981...
Basically, as far I have seen; in 1973 there was another font for the opening titles, instead of the one seen during the countdown, then in October, coinciding with the 500 edition, TOTP showed the new titles with the 30 to 1 style. The pictures before that, changed in 1974. This style was kept until strike action stopped the programme in June '74. In August '74, the "Whole Lotta Love" theme sounded in the chart rundown at the beginning (so no title sequence as such) but to show the Top 30, they used not picture stills, but moving pictures of the artists (in case they didn't have one, they used a still photo). In October '74 the picture stills were present until 1980!
The 1970-73 titles sequence is missing, with the double-lined logo. Maybe it was Ep. 497 where the neon titles were introduced, I am not certain, but the ''Moonbase 3'' style graphics designed by Marc Ortmans were definitely around then. Ortmans also did the ''flying disc'' sequence accompanying Yellow Pearl in the 80's.
The ToTP I grew up with was in the late 90s and early 2000s with the remixed Whole Lotta Love theme tune. I remember watching it with Steps, S Club 7, Sugababes, Robbie Williams and even Britney Spears (bleh) on it in those days but now I understand that was when the show was in decline and even I had stopped watching it by about 2003 when I would watch music channels such as The Hits (now 4Music) and TMF (now VIVA) instead. I remember they had a few ToTP award shows back in those days, sort of like the BRIT Awards, but on a much smaller scale. My dad taped the 2002 ToTP awards for me and I remember the Sugababes performing Round Round on there with my first ever crush, Heidi Range, in camo cargo trousers. I have now broadened my horizons music wise and wished I could have been around back in the days of old school Top of the Pops.
@gnu_andrew The charts were out of touch with what young adults liked. Boybands were great for 14 year old girls, but the majority of young adults were listening to rave, house and indie music which wasn't in the charts. Clubbing and raving every weekend were bigger than S CLub 7, Steps and Westlife.
@@thejacal2704 Me too, there were two versions of the TOTP titles though with Yellow Pearl before we got Paul Hardcastle's theme " The Wizard "in 1986.
I dont remember 1 & 2 (i was not even born then) 6 & 7 is when I stopped watching... Hardcastle is cool... but Thin Lizzy is my Fave.... Got a whole lotta love is a very very close second... (I'm biased cuz I live in Dublin :-) hence I choose Phillo. (Thin Lizzy)
The 2nd theme here by Johnny Pearson, does anybody know its true title and which KPM library album its from, or was it wrote specially for the show?? Help!!
@Gio Gvn: Its called "Now Get Out of That" composed by Tony Gibber and was from 1995, it was remixed later on in some of the very last TOTP shows before it was axed because of the digital download era.
The 90s charts couldn't be more out of touch. Sounds like music from a Sega Megadrive video game, while in reality the cool 90's was about raving in fields to music not in the charts, the club scene with music not in the charts and indie scenes with barely charting music, until Oasis, Blur made it big to the masses. If you were an adult in a nightclub dancing to chart music in the 90's you were out of touch. Who cares what boy bands 14 year old girls were into. 14-year-old girls don't dictate what's cool or not
Ha, only just realised the most recent 'regular' theme was a remake of an earlier one, from the early 90's (?) It can't have made much of an impression on me, first time round (!) My favourites are the Led Zep based ones, original then remake.
Led Zepplin's Whole lotta love, Phil Lynott's Yellow Peril and Paul Hardcastle's The Wizard were quite frankly the best and to this day still stand the test of time quite well. The rest were just crap and just when they managed to revamp the Zep classic they change it back to that crap some 8 year old came up with using their shitey ipad. lol
can all the themes be named and also who wrote the one's that did not chart, cos it's obvious i know 7% of them, from whole lotta love to the wizard.....
I seem to remember one was called 'Popsy Wopsy' (seriously!!), and I think it came immediately before Whole Lotta Love, which you are right is by CCS, who also provided the theme for Tom Browne's Sunday chart rundown on Radios 1 & 2 simulcast. It was called Brother. Great band CCS, sort of a British Blood Sweat & Tears, with Alexis Korner of all people!! The later Whole lotta Love is a remixed Led Zep version, not CCS.
baldbollocks You know what? You can usually tell who are trolls on RU-vid. They usually have silly, childish usernames, along with silly, childish profile pictures. And they go about spreading controversial shit just to provoke a reaction. They sometimes, like what you're *trying* to do, show a certain level of subversion and/or anarchy. They also are seemingly permanently angry and/or arrogant. Sorry, I was just under the impression that I was speaking to a calm, reasonable, charming and intelligent human being. But I'm clearly speaking to an ugly thing that causes trouble and lives under bridges in children's fairytales. So, looking at the above description of trolls and comparing them to how you seem to be behaving, I realise that *you* are one. A "classic" troll, i.e. one with no imagination or verve to your trolling style - a boring fart who sits at a computer all day typing crap to get off on the trouble he/she causes. 0/100. Must try harder.
TOTP couldn't have predicted just how bad music would become by 2020. It also couldn't have predicted that Radio 1 would essentially become 'black crap music FM'.
No doubt 1981 is the worst. It contains no music at all it's just a hissing noise. 1971-7 Whole Lotta Love is the classic that should have stood for ever as it does in memory. It should never have been lost, with the classic Animal Magic and Nationwide themes too, in the BBC's pointless Great Theme Tunes Vandalism of 1977 that will for ever show why the era of "watch what's put in front of you" TV was dispiriting crap, never to go back to now that we have the freer era of retro video on the web.
