Tag Archives: Tenpole Tudor

Off The Chart: 1 December 1981

Off The Chart: 1 December 1981

Hiding behind the first door of your Off The Chart Advent Calendar today: a trip back to 1981 for the usual two hours of forgotten and half-remembered hits, three of the week’s new albums, a look at the day’s other goings-on, a romp through the Swedish chart and home in time for the top five in full.

  • Whose last top 40 hit has a title that contradicts itself?
  • Who had a 1981 hit with a 1976 recording of a song from 1957?
  • And who made a promo video that’s still banned to this day?

Tune in and find out!


Listen to Off The Chart on Mad Wasp Radio at 9pm every Tuesday! You can stream Mad Wasp Radio via their website, their apps for iOS or Android, or through TuneIn and MyTuner, or ask your smart speaker to “play Mad Wasp Radio” – and don’t forget to tweet along using the hashtag #OffTheChart. If you’re not around, you can hear the show again on Mad Wasp Radio at 10am on Friday, or catch up on Mixcloud after that.

Get the Extended Mix!

If you enjoy Off The Chart but find it’s just not long enough, why not join us on Patreon or Mixcloud Select? For a small monthly subscription you get access to the exclusive Extended Mix of the show every week with bonus 12″ mixes, additional chatter and the week’s top ten singles in full!

Our subscribers also get access to exclusive shows including Further Off The Chart in which we play some of the records that come up in conversation on the regular shows. You can even download shows to listen offline in the Mixcloud app! Please consider backing us – we really appreciate it and your subscription allows us to keep producing a new episode every single week.

There’s a podcast too!

For those of you who enjoy the nonsense we talk but don’t have time to listen to the music, we’ve put the talky bits together with some exclusive extras to make a podcast! This week we go back to school with the Barron Knights, pogo with Pink Floyd and listen to one of Julian’s cassettes. It’ll all make sense if you listen.

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Spotify playlists

If you’ve missed a previous edition they’re all on our Mixcloud page, or for a taster of the music we play, listen to our Spotify playlist Way Off The Chart including one track from each show!

We also have a Spotify playlist for our #ICEOTWF feature, including all (well, most) of the international hits we’ve played since the feature began in March 2017. There are all sorts of oddities in here, all of which were hits somewhere in the world but not in the UK!

Off The Chart: 5 May 1981

Off The Chart: 5 May 1981

You thought the news was grim these days? Join us for this week’s Off The Chart and you’ll be elated to discover things were just as grim on this day in 1981, if not more so. But at least the … read more

Further Off The Chart 17

Further Off The Chart 17

As another dexy comes to a close it’s time for another Further Off The Chart, our regular round up of tracks we spoke about but couldn’t play in the past ten regular editions of Off The Chart. As a Mixcloud … read more

Off The Chart: 30 July 1981

Off The Chart: 30 July 1981

After last week’s outbreak of royal wedding fever, come back to this day in 1981 on Off The Chart where we’ve just missed another one! Never mind, there’s still the usual two hours of hits, headlines and hot takes including … read more

Off The Chart: 2 June 1981

Off The Chart: 2 June 1981

After last week’s excursion to the beach, Steve and Julian are back in the studio to bring you another two hours of hits, headlines and halibut on this week’s Off The Chart! They’re taking you back to this day in … read more

“A reminder of a world that doesn’t care” – Top of the Pops, 20 August 1981

U2

An unusual choice for Top of the Pops presenter this week as we find ourselves watching the first edition ever to be hosted by an actual scarecrow! Ah no, sorry, false alarm, it’s just Dave Lee Travis in a big … read more

“Don’t kid yourself you’ve seen it all before” – Top of the Pops, 6 August 1981

The Human League

“Ho-ho! Yes indeed! How about that!” Oops, look out, it’s Creepy Uncle Jimmy™ again, ruining another episode of TOTP with his continued unwelcome presence. This week he’s kitted out in a yellow satin top with “26.2” written on it – … read more

Off The Chart: 10 September 1981

Off The Chart: 10 September 1981

It’s 1981 on this week’s Off The Chart as Steve and Julian play some of the week’s forgotten hits, three tracks from a featured album and the top five in full. Just how many terrible medley singles are there in … read more

“You said it all, though not many had ears” – Top of the Pops, 28 May 1981

Hazel O'Connor

Hey everyone, let’s play “good news / bad news”! The good news is, after missing a huge chunk of musical history due to presenters’ off-screen activities and someone’s inability to record a live programme for the archive, BBC Four viewers … read more

“He is a song that’s not easy to write” – Top of the Pops, 14 May 1981

Thin Lizzy

That idea of showing two editions of TOTP a week on consecutive nights seemed great at the start of the year. Quickly, though, we ran into problems due to the, shall we say, unavailability of certain episodes. Miss out a … read more

“Stay in time with the rhythm and rhyme” – Top of the Pops, 30 April 1981

Tenpole Tudor

For all Michael Hurll’s efforts in dragging Top of the Pops kicking and screaming into the ’80s and turning it into a dazzling celebration of pop music instead of a dreary light entertainment show, he keeps coming up against one … read more