Old TOTP (BBC4) (8 Viewers)

VoR said:
This really was the peak of Beyonce's megalomania era. I assume she relaxed a bit about letting the other girls get any screen/vocal time once her solo stardom was assured. This is 100% shot and blocked like a solo performance and I can't imagine that's a coincidence.

If you squint, you can just about make out Kelly, Michelle and the pub quiz bonus point shimmying in the background.
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Just watching this now. Utterly ridiculous how LITERALLY in the background the other girls are. They even have them jumping around like maniacs almost proving their bit is pure playback. Sad :(
 
There's something rather wholesome about seeing Beyonce on a programme in 2026 on the same credit roll as Liz Mclarnon. One reason I love TOTP2 :disco:
 
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“Say My Name” was always essentially a Beyoncé solo song. Sure, it sounds like the other girls, whoever they were at the time, added some ad libs here and there, but the verses, chorus, and middle eight are basically all Beyoncé, with a lot of vocal layering.
So it bugs me so much every time they "performed it" live.
 
Sardonicus said:
Who exactly were the 2 pretenders singing it - neither of them were Rob Thomas! Regardless, I bought Smooth & I still have the single. It was odd that Santana came back from nowhere as he was seen as a 70s relic at the time, but Smooth was a deserving smash. I've never tired of it, it's the sound of a sun drenched July day in the city.
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The Latino guy sounded like the singer on Maria Maria but further research dubunked that.

The other guy looks like Jerry Duplessis, he's a record producer who worked on the Santana album and Whitney Houston's 'My Love is Your Love' album.
 
Amazed by Lonestar aka a shite rip off of Please Forgive Me by Bryan Adams in the verses & I Don't Want To Miss A Bastard Thing by Aerosmith in the chorus.
 
I don't mind Go Let It Out so much. It put Primal Scream out of business and that's way more important than questions like "is it any good?".
 
The Facts Of Life might be my favourite track of that whole year. We really should have had more MISERABLE SCOLDING in the charts.

Not even getting a "featuring" credit this time must have signalled to poor Tina Cousins that it was DONE :(
 
The use of the Casualty theme sample in Bound 2 Da Reload by Oxide & Neutrino is WORRYINGLY genius. This has held up better than the vast majority of hits from the garage explosion that year!
 
Toni Braxton giving Janet Jackson a run for her money in the INDECIPHERABLE MUMBLING stakes with He Wasn't Man Enough. Astonishing it was her last major hit.
 
Shame that Dirty Water by Made In London got a bit lost in the mad rush of the 2000 chart year because it still sounds good now. It reminds me strongly of doing work experience.
 
Sardonicus said:
I'd forgotten about Heart Of Asia by Watergate. It's all looking a bit CULTURAL APPROPRIATION here in late '26.
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I was obsessed with the shameless appropriation with the white girls with manga hairstyles dancing up front, while the one actual asian lady was sat on a plinth at the back with a face like she was chewing a wasp. :D
 
Just catching up on a few episodes and Lolly was such an anomaly, she'd have been perfect Eurovision fodder with Per Sempre Amore.
 
The absolute pileup of half-baked girlbands during 2000 was quite something in retrospect. Madasun, Made in London, Thunderbugs, I feel like there’s a new one every episode. Little wonder none of them stuck
 
That Madasun performance was somehow t.A.T.u., 100% te ljubam and THIS NONSENSE all at once - WHAT was it trying to be?! A lost 18th placer from the Netherlands around the turn of the century.

 
Also, I have to say, it feels like there's been a very clear shift in producer policy for the episodes of the last few weeks - a lot fewer repeats, far more random niche #32 hits (I really ought to listen to that Kevin and Perry Movie soundtrack album going by half the cuts they've aired from it).

It's certainly made for a much more interesting little grab bag of a programme - I'd have loved to have seen 1997-99 with this kind of approach. Coupled with the absolutely sensational run of #1s we're in at the moment, I have a horrible feeling this patch is probably going to turn out to be the last golden age TOTP managed in its run.
 
I’m currently watching an episode from 99 and Vengaboys doing We Like To Party is about the saddest little performance I’ve seen
 
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