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40th Anniversary: Top of The Pops - November 13th, 1980 by Steve Dagger

Sat, November 14, 2020

In the UK in 1980, the campaign to turn your precious single into a bonafide hit was divided into 2 distinct parts: Before Top of the Pops and after Top of the Pops.

Or alternatively with Top of the Pops or without it.

‘To Cut a Long Story Short’ entered the charts at No.89 in week 1, which was considered OK for a new band’s first release. In those days unless you were a very big star, it was normal to enter the charts in the low or mid-top 100 and build, propelled by airplay, press, club play, ads, hype, marketing, bribery, more hype, ANYTHING, to get you high enough for that giant muscular arm to reach out to you and pull you up to the higher reaches of the charts. That was an appearance on Top of the Pops.

Once you appeared on that progamme in front of 11 million viewers, your record flew up the charts like magic. How high it flew was down to you; how good your performance was, how good you looked, how charismatic you were, and of course, how good the record was.

During the course of the second week of release, our momentum built and we had most of the aforementioned factors working for us, we were, after all, ‘The Next Big Thing’. But, it was nerve-racking, would our momentum sweep us high enough to catch the Top of the Pops wave?

Your selection for TOTPs was based on a strict application of certain rules to the new weekly chart. First, the No.1 was on. They then moved down the chart eliminating the records going down, the unavailable artists, and the ones that had been on last week until the show was full. This meant sometimes you could be on the show at No.65 and other times you could miss out at No.31.

The new chart was published on a notice board, complete with the chosen acts for TOTPs, outside the show producer’s office at BBC Centre, White City on a Tuesday morning at 8am.

The record pluggers and TV promo people would gather there in a hugely tense, competitive knot, and once they had absorbed all the information regarding their acts, would run to the pay-phones to relay the good or bad news to the record companies.

So, on Tuesday morning, 11th November 1980, I and the band were all sitting by our phones. I thought the record would go up, we could tell by the re-orders from the record stores, but I didn’t know by how much and if it would be enough to get on the show that week. We may have to keep pushing for another week…

My phone rang at about 8.15am. It was Phil Long, the head of promotions at Chrysalis Records.

“Morning Steve, you are at No.43, so that’s OK…AND you are on Top Of The Pops.”. Just like that.

I phoned the band. It was unreal, after all those teenage years of watching all those stars on the show, they were now on it. It was a very odd feeling; excitement, relief, anticipation all mixed together.

In anticipation of this eventuality, the band already knew what they were going to wear on the show. The Blitz Culture of heightened, hyper glamorous street fashion was in full swing. It was a culture of very rapid changes and experimentation in looks and feels driven by the participants, with the aid of vintage shops and a tiny group of young designers many of whom were still at art and fashion college.

As “To Cut” rose up the charts there was an infestation of Tartan with a heroic highland feel. Willie Brown, Simon Withers, Steven Linnards made some great clothes specifically for the band along these lines. It really was a very striking post-modern / Battle of Culloden look. They looked like they were going into battle for a place in the Top 10.

Despite everything, we were all nervous when we arrived at BBC Television Centre on Thursday 13th November 1980. It was all very new and so important for the success of the single and the band. The show was to become a comfy second home in the years to come. But not that day. So much turned on that show, which went out live at that time. The success of the single AND the immediate success of Spandau Ballet.

We had a fantastic introduction from top Radio 1 DJ Simon Bates, it also like an introduction of the band to the whole country, for everyone who had not heard of them yet. He was already a big supporter who had played our session and the single a lot. There were a lot of nerves, but it was a decent performance and they looked brilliant.

After the show, you could immediately feel the difference. It felt like EVERYONE had seen it, everywhere we went. And the very next day we were to meet, for the first time, a band who had not only seen it but were about to become our biggest rivals for years to come.

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‘To Cut A Long Story Short’ - Order 12” vinyl and stream @ https://lnk.to/ToCutALongStoryShort

Pre-order the new album ‘40 Years - The Greatest Hits’ now: https://lnk.to/SpandauBallet-GH40

(Photo: Neil Mackenzie Matthews / www.instagram.com/nellymacmat/)