What was the first song performed on ‘Top of the Pops’?
In this modern musical landscape, beset with MP3 downloads and the ever-growing landscape of music streaming, the singles charts are more accessible than they have ever been.
Yet, simultaneously, the Top 40 is far less relevant to the lives of music fans than it has ever been before. It is easy to forget that, at one time, the lives of Britain’s youth were inexplicably linked to the singles charts, and tuning into BBC One on a Thursday evening was the only way to get your fix.
Bursting onto the screens for the first time at the beginning of 1964, Top of the Pops was one of the only places audiences could actually see their favourite musicians, putting faces to the sounds they heard emanating from revolving black vinyl discs.
Each instalment of the weekly programme revolved around that week’s singles chart, beginning with the top 20 but later screeching to include the top 40 during the 1980s. As well as a run-down of the charts, typically presented by the cheesy voices of various Radio One presenters, the show’s bread and butter was a selection of live (lip-synced) performances by various chart successes backed by cheap lighting.
As the programme increased in popularity, it proved to be a colossal force within the music industry. If an artist could secure a spot on Top of the Pops, their music would usually skyrocket up the charts as a result of the publicity. Over the years, everybody from David Bowie to Nirvana took to the BBC stage at one point or another; it became a coveted part of the industry, and a key part of virtually every musical success story. For multiple generations, a TV programme was the predominant way they discovered new music.
Originally, the show was only expected to last a few months, if that. In the end, though, it became the longest-running weekly music show in the world, with 2,272 editions airing between 1964 and 2023. Admittedly, the weekly episodes ceased in 2006, and the show now only exists as end-of-year specials, its place in the cultural fabric of British music remains.
In contrast to the sparkly celebrity glamour and eye-watering budgets of the show during its heyday, the earliest episodes of the programme were distinctly more lo-fi. Devised and presented by the since disgraced DJ and paedophile Jimmy Savile, the very first edition of Top of the Pops was aired on January 1st, 1964, from Dickenson Road Studios in Manchester.
Given that the show was loosely based on Savile’s chart radio show on Radio Luxembourg, he presented the majority of the episode, although there was a brief segment by Alan Freeman, too.
There were six performances featured on that initial episode, with The Rolling Stones, The Hollies, and The Dave Clark Five all making an appearance, already re-affirming the show’s reputation as being rather cutting-edge and youth-orientated. The Beatles closed out the first show with their number one single, ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’.
The very first artist to make their mark on Top of the Pops, however, was the infallible blue-eyed soul master, Dusty Springfield, whose debut solo single ‘I Only Want To Be With You’ marked the beginning of the show. At the time of broadcast, the single was at number five in the singles chart, though it would rise to number four in the weeks following – perhaps with thanks to the promotion provided by her appearance on the programme.
Springfield returned to the Top of the Pops studio on various occasions in the decades that followed, totalling 48 total appearances – though, to be fair, that number does include repeated appearances and music videos.
Tragically, though, the historic moment in which she performed ‘I Only Want To Be With You’ back in 1964, effectively launching the biggest music programme in television history, has since been lost to the clutches of time. The vast majority of early Top of the Pops episodes, in fact, have been lost thanks to the BBC’s bizarre practice of wiping video tape to curb costs; over 500 early episodes of the show were lost to that practice, along with countless hours of television history.
What was the last song performed on ‘Top of the Pops’?
In its current form, Top of the Pops hangs on to consciousness in the form of Christmas specials and weekly re-runs of old episodes on BBC Four – many of which are a few minutes shorter than their original broadcast, thanks to a necessity to cut out appearances by since disgraced presenters or DJs. The show’s spiritual death, however, occurred back in 2006, when the weekly editions came to an end.
July 26th, 2006, marked the final weekly episode of the show, and featured pre-recorded appearances by the likes of The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Wham, Spice Girls and many more. The final song to be played on the show was Shakira’s ‘Hips Don’t Lie’, as it topped the charts that week. Disappointingly, though, there were no in-studio performances on that final episode.
Technically, then, the last group to actually perform in the Top of the Pops studio was Dundee’s finest, Snow Patrol, whose defining single ‘Chasing Cars’ featured towards the end of that penultimate edition in 2006. And to some extent, the notion of mainstream cultural consensus disappeared along with it. Does anyone know what is at the top of the charts today?
