When I was a kid, the big pop programme to watch was "Top of the pops". Thursday evening, my sisters and I never missed it. They'd have a selection of top 30 artists playing their current single. And the longer a song was in the charts, especially at NO.1, the more weeks you'd hear it. They had a really weird way of doing it though, because of the Musicians union. The band/artist would turn up at the BBC studios, rehearse, then record the song. Then when it came to the actual programme, they'd mime to the already that day recorded version of the single that was in the charts. Bizarre. You'd get the audience prancing about and they looked so funny. I know someone that used to dance on it, she gets quite embarrassed when I mention it. I think she wishes she'd never told me. Anyway, every week, at least one of the bands wouldn't actually be there {touring, rehab, etc} so these 5 sexy ladies called "
Pan's people" would dance to the song. Many a young lad salivated longingly over Cherry, Babs and the other ladies.
Then as singles got more complex or bands wanted to be taken more seriously or hated the idea of being on TOTP or a particular artist wouldn't fly in from America or wherever for a one off, artists would just send videos in that would be shown while the
actual single played. They were usually just a 3 minute 'movie' that somehow encapsulated the song and they were largely forgettable. They weren't called videos then. They just called them 'promo films'. They were kind of an afterthought. They weren't new though, they'd been doing them since the mid 60s. Mickey Dolenz says the Monkees used to call them "romps".
I think that the real turning point in the UK though nobody realized it at the time, was Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody". There was no way they could perform it and as they were determined to release it as a single, they made an arty farty film to go with it. Even back when I was 12, it was impressive. The song was top of the charts for 9 weeks, so we saw it alot. Then ABBA came and knocked it off the top and I didn't see it again for 25 years or more.
And now the video is so much part of popular music, in some ways, to certain ages, more important and impact scoring than the song itself. With my kids now, though 6 and 9, they often comment that such and such a singer "isn't really singing there, are they Dad ?"
I thought it was a bit lucky, the raven appearing just when it did !
