Top 10 WTF Top Of The Pops Performances kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ibhzmZOeuJyrh6M.html

1. Jimmy Saville

The Nirvana one was definitely not a disaster! I can remember being a teenager in the UK at the time, and we all loved them for what they did; taking the absolute piss and just being defiant. That was part of the whole grunge shtick. It added to how much we loved them

Oasis swapping over, absolutely brilliant. Nirvana was funny AF too. In the time when musicians actually had opinions snd personalities.

Top 10 Top of the Pops Disasters 1. Jimmy Savile 2. Jimmy Savile 3. Jimmy Savile 4. Gary Glitter 5. Gary Glitter 6. Gary Glitter 7. Rolf Harris 8. Rolf Harris 9. Rolf Harris 10. Dave Lee Travis

If you think *these* were TOTP disasters, just wait until you hear about the bloke who used to present it...

So glad to see the Manics on here, especially with Richey but the singer is James Dean Bradfield, not Bradford.

My favourite moment was when Chris Eubank (a man with a lisp) was invited to present and was given the line “a special song for a special singer, it’s Suggs singing Cecilia”.

The best line ever about the Dexty's performance was on Never Mind The Buzzcocks where Phil Jupitus said 'lucky they weren't singing Come On Eileen'

Holding the record for most complaints is the ultimate punk rock achievement. SO glad you included Manic Street Preachers on the list!!!

All About Eve to their credit came back the following week and absolutely nailed it with the live version. Julianne Regan has a beautiful voice.

RIP Kirsty still missed.

I'll never forget the infamous cacophony that was New Order trying and failing to perform "Blue Monday live. That's PRECISELY why you should mime along to a Pre recorded backing track.

As several people have already said, Dexy's Midnight Runners have themselves explained the Jocky Wilson situation many times but, of course, "To this day, nobody knows why this happened" and "They've never explained". Who researches this? Anyone?

Lennon was definitely NOT singing live in that performance. Kevin Rowland was behind the 'Jocky Wilson' pic. He wanted it done 'for a laugh'. Shane McGowan was always drunk, or smacked out his skull. Nirvana's performance was legendary. Showing their contempt for the show in fantastic style.

To be fair tho, Nirvana hit out of the park with that performance, ridiculous tho it may be to most. But damnit, Kurt Cobain's impression of Morrissey was the icing on the cake! ✌🏾

Someone's missed the point(s) Nirvana and Oasis were being typically and subversively obnoxious in protest at being expected to mime. Shane MacGowan was never anything but plastered. These aren't disasters. These are classic moments where alt rock gave the finger to commercialism.

Well, I can tell Nirvana definitely made it clear THEY were not happy with being forced to use a pre-recorded backing track.

The BBC “Apolitical “ that’s the funniest thing I think I’ve ever heard !!!

As for the New Order performance of Blue Monday, keyboardist Gillian Gilbert had also made a slight error in programming the synths, so that the rhythm was out of sync with the rest of the band playing. :)

Surely looking back the biggest mistake top of the pops ever made was jimmy saville.

Nirvana were absolutely hilarious here. Kurt was so eccentric lol / love him still - and his bandmates lol 😂 love them - glad I saw them in 93 in Montreal ❤️

Such a shame that arguably the greatest Top of the Pops cock up of all time no longer exists in the BBC archives. 30th March 1967, Jimi Hendrix was to perform Purple Haze with a backing track, however the backing track was to Alan Price's Simon Smith and his Amazing Bear, Hendrix stopped and said ''Man he has a great voice''. He then had to do a second take of the song.

Maybe the number 1 disaster should have been Jimmy Saville being given access to victims for years.

Happy holidays Watchmojo UK

Can’t believe they didn’t include the clip of Cobain eating the microphone 😢😢

The Manics performance was iconic (also his name is James Bradfield not Bradford)

A foodfight on stage. xD Excellent. Maybe not the best idea ever had, but it looks like everyone's having a ton of fun!

My favorite is Iron Maiden messing around and swapping instruments over and over during the song

Should've mentioned Faith No More in 1990. Mike refusing the play along and making it a point to show he was lip syncing is both an underrated and iconic moment.

Part of the Blue Monday intro riff is actually a timing/sequencing error and became _better_ as a result. And glad to see someone made the correct distinction between the original Blue Monday (1983) vs Blue Monday '88 which is a totally different track. They're not the same but people think they are.

I appreciate that there must be little turnaround time between producing these videos so research cannot be 'tooth and comb', but Kevin Rowland (Dexy's) has confirmed it was a prank to display Jocky Wilson's picture. And as a huge fan of old TOTP, I can probably add another 100 disasters to this list ahaha. You're not kidding when you say it was difficult to reproduce decent live vocals.

Poor Dexys Midnight Runners ! The same thing happened to Spinal Tap with their Stonehenge piece. 🤪

My favourite was when Don Powell of Slade fell and disappeared backwards off the drum riser, but they carried on without him. The look on his face as he was disappearing was very funny 😁

Nirvana on TOTP was not a disaster. It was legendary!

The Faith No More performance of "From Out Of Nowhere" is worth a mention where Mike Patton makes it totally obvious he was asked to mime. He doesn't even attempt to sing the lyrics at times and just goofs about with his mouth. 😂

Saw Nirvana that night at the hummingbird in Birmingham they were an hour late coming back to the gig from top studio...great gig

Amazing how a 30 minute music show was on tv each week. You'd be hard pushed to make one episode each year these days.

Not into Nirvana but their TOTP performance was not a disaster, it was pure genius!

Lol, Jockey Wilson had me spilling 😂😂😂😂

You missed Status Quo falling all over the drum kit and not having any strings on guitars

What about the legendary Status Quo performance in the 80s when Rick Parfitt was so drunk he fell into the drums while the cameras were rolling?

Those of us who have been watching the recent '91 repeats will have noted that some of the live vocals on some of the rave tracks are... I cannot sing a note myself, so will be mindful throwing the stones from my glass house, but, woah. Speaking of rave/dance, that Orbital song is such a classic! Almost 32 years old and it still sounds as fresh as can be.

Theres another good Oasis one when they performed Lyla. Liam went for a stroll while the vocal was still being played.

The KLF were always good fun/ bonkers. My fave ToTP performance is them (as the JAMMS) doing 'It's grim up north'

Jocky Wilson. Has to be a great moment on television 🤣

Also during the New Order performance, the the male keyboard player loaded the wrong sound into Emulator II during the percussion break so instead of playing a crashing sound it played the Mellotron sample.

Don't forget "The Wedding Present, Flying Saucer" where they were obviously miming in crime scene tec gear before just stopping midway through the song, and "Faith No More, From out of nowhere" is hilarious

Mud singing tiger feet - choreography at its very best

I remember after about a year’s absence from TOTP, Bucks Fizz’s performance of their Talking in your sleep single was rudely interrupted to show footage of a train arriving at its destination, some record attempt I think, like we all tuned in for that! They were invited back the following week. John Peel introduced them, explaining what happened and rudely telling Janice Long to shut up before she cut him off and simply said to cut a long story short…Bucks Fizz. Owen Paul and his band had a similar experience to All About Eve on Pebble Mill performing My favourite waste of time! 🤦‍♂️ This might have already been commented on, but they left in the scumbag line when Fairytale made its debut, then the line was changed to you’re cheap and you’re haggard during a live performance when I think it was reissued a few years later 🙄 The Travis Sing performance was just silly Tiswas style fun, not exactly a disaster lol.

Kevin Rowlands did an interview on the radio a couple of years ago and said the photo was planned as a joke by the band. When people said how stupid it was the band just kept quiet about it.

That one of those gypsies singing about the darts player was the funniest.

Did anyone expect MacGowan not to be drunk?

It would be a matter of time if this music show gets brought back for BBC Three, when it returns as a linear TV channel in February, and a perfect fit.

Manics were not a disaster! They were pure genius!

I loved it when the Damned played Love Song on TOTP Rat Scabies spinning his cymbals around Captain Sensible over acting (as usual) fantastic 👍 😆 🤣

David Bowie was on in early 2000's and during the song started playing their guitars with sandwich rolls🤣🤣

No mystery about Dexys - Kevin Rowland has long since admitted that they requested the picture of Jocky Wilson as the band used to refer to the song as Jocky Wilson Said in rehearsals. They then kept quiet about it for years afterwards and let people think t was a cock up by the TOTP crew. What a wag.

Never missed a TOTP show growing up, all we had so made the most of it. Miming or no miming I still enjoyed seeing the bands I love in person, not just on radio or record.

One of your best lists

That was definitely deliberate by Maic Street Preachers, love them even more now!

I can confirm that the photo of Jockey Wilson behind the DMR performance of "Jackie Wilson Said" was a prank by the band.

My favorite top of the pops episodes were live performances of Abba who usually lip-synched on television but from 74 to 76 performed completely live most of the time

BBC had no idea what “Frankie goes to Hollywood “ we’re singing about, even the B job signs. Very surprising as they knew about savile

The best ever TOTP moment was Marillion when Fish had a sore throat and help up cards with the lyrics on - including a very obvious jibe when he held up one reading "I'm miming...." !

Oasis swapping around was nothing new, The Stranglers did this in 1977 and the BBC didn't spot it then.

All the rave acts that were told they had to sing live in the early nineties and sounded absolutely awful as they couldn't perform their studio generated songs live. I can remember some act called Capella where the woman singer, who probably didn't even sing on the record, struggling to remember the song and looking confused.

Top Of The Pops. My very favourite show in the late 60s as a kid the throughout the 70s in my teens & into my 20s. After which it was "downhill all the way". They had brilliant performers such as Deep Purple (Black Night), Free (Wishing Well), Badfinger (No Matter What), Steely Dan (Reeling In The Years), Boston (More Than A Feeling), etc, etc!

The “Jocky Wilson” bit with Dexys Midnight Runners, it was explained that the band did it for a joke and that it was Kevin Rowland’s (lead vocalist of the band) idea. Edit: Some people ask why they did this. Well, for years people have said that Dexys never had a sense of humor and that they were seen as a serious band only. So before they went on, Kevin went up to someone at Top Of The Pops (I’m assuming someone who worked offscreen) and asked that person to put up a picture of the Scottish darts player, Jocky Wilson, instead of the 60s singer, Jackie Wilson (who is known for a few hits. The only Jackie Wilson song I actually know is “Lonely Teardrops”). The person then replied “But, Kevin. Someone will think we made a mistake!” Rowland then responded with “Only an idiot will think that.” Some people say that Dexys got banned from TOTP because of this joke, but that’s not the case since Dexys went on TOTP five more times. They performed “Let’s Get This Straight From The Start” in December 1982, along with “Come On Eileen” during the Christmas special. Then they went on again in April 1983 with “The Celtic Soul Brothers”, then they went on in December 1986 with “Because Of You” and then one last time in September 2003 with “Manhood”.

James's Tim Booth claimed, around the time of the TotP show, that the problem was that Kurt was so nervous about performing that his voice was constricted. He was playing on the same show and had offered him some sort of vocal massage but Kurt had declined politely... that said, it was around the same time that Nirvana also played that incendiary version of Territorial Pissings on The Last Resort, so it could be that Nirvana were just looking to carve their mark on telly. Great stuff, no matter what.

The jockie wilson gag was deliberate it was the bands idea

When Oasis did Whatever on TOTP they swapped one of the cellists for Bonehead the rhythm guitarist. Slightly more subtle than Roll With It!

I remember Fiat Lux playing keyboards upside down and the bass guitar with the back of the bass showing for a laugh.

Was the Manics usual lead singer not available so they brought in James Bradford for this one off appearance? I guess that explains the balaclava.

Um. Yoko was imitating the very very famous Bob Dylan “protesting” with a series of signs film footage - it is a reference to that plus it was deliberate so how was it a “disaster” exactly?

I thought Blur's performance of There's no other way might have been there, where Damon and Alex (I think) claimed they'd taken Ecstacy before going on, and the lead singer of Cameo's shiny red cod codpiece 😂

Band Aid performed Do They Know It's Christmas only once on TOTP and Paul Weller mimed Bono's famous "tonight thank god it's them instead of you" Like we didn't notice! Bet people were like "....... you're not Bono,?"

bad acoustics is the shittiest excuse i've ever heard for a tv show that is known for featuring music "performances" from popular artists. i mean like c'mon, it's not rocket science to get a sound-engineer to setup a live stage properly, plus if the studio's design is at fault, then the solution is simple, if the show is popular enough, get a new studio or renovate the current one. considering that Top of The Pops has been going since 1964, i'd say it's popular enough to warrant a new studio with better acoustics for live sets. like for Pete's sake, if they can manage to get the likes of Queen, Nirvanna and The Beatles (three of the biggest rock bands of all time) to appear on the show, then it's safe to say they should be able to afford a new studio.

Best I've heard Yoko sing

You missed the little fact that all the plugs on Orbital’s equipment were intentionally plugged off and neatly put on top of the equipment 😄

That's why I love Freddie Starr's Vincent routine at the '93 Royal Variety Performance, I fall about the floor everytime I view it!

Martha's Harbour only reached no. 10 on the singles charts in mid-August '88 - it's parent album "All About Eve"' debuted and peaked no. 7 on the album charts in February '88

You missed out Hilda Baker & Arthur Mullard singing 'You're the One that I Want' Top of the Pops 1979. It was the worst performance ever. They fumbled their way through the rendition with no prior rehearsal. Check it out

The day they stopped broadcasting TOTP was the end of childhoods forever ! Shame ! Great vid 😎

Cappella - Move On Baby. It couldn't be more painfully obvious that their 'singer' was not the same one that recorded the vocals in the studio. Legend has it that it was this performance that lead to TOTP lifting the obligation for vocals to be performed live.

I think just having Gary glitter or jimmy Saville there is a disaster every time

Ought to mention the lead singer of Shamen getting escorted off the stage whilst doing Ebenezer Goode, and Arthur Mullard & Hylda Baker's cover of You're The One That I Want where they sang out of time with the music.

You missed the one where the camera scoots along the floor and discovers a female crown member is going commando also Sabrino's waps falling out. Iron Maiden did a great performance on a european show where they swapped instruments mid song and the roadies came on and dismantled the drum kit and took it off stage while the song was still going.

The Dexy’s thing was the band themselves trolling the audience and the viewing audience. It was not accidental it was a joke the band played on the people watching

Shane McGowan being drunk wasn't a disaster at all. In fact nobody thought anything of it at the time and if anything it added to the performance and the authenticity of the song. The irony is that people might have thought something was wrong if he was completely sober. Everyone loves that TOTP performance of Fairytale of New York and it's the version of the song that's been shown more than any other over the years. No one has ever said it was a disaster up until this video.

My favourite was the performance of Dexys Midnight Runners doing Jackie Wilson said and the programme had a photo of the darts player Jockie Wilson displayed.

Barney has always been known not to have the greatest voice but New Order have performed some great concerts plus highlighted festivals like Glastonbury with top tunes & they played live every time they went on TOTP but probably did the Sound check themselves after that

It's not a blindfold on Yoko. It's a sanitary towel

Did he say the BBC is "apolitical" ?!! 😂🤣

as a nirvana fan “smells like teen spirit” was not a disaster it was hilarious 🤣🤣🤣

I asked Kevin Rowland yesterday, he said the Jockey Wilson picture was done as a joke by the band! They referred to song as Jockey Wilson said regularly and carried on the joke for Top Of The Pops

The deal with Nirvana was because they didn't want to hear Kurt's band members. It made Kurt mad, so yeah, it was intentional. I read about that not to long ago.

I see no issues with either of the top 2. The Nirvana one is hilarious, and Travis was a genius

Iron Maiden performed their song "Running Free' live on TotP in the very early 1980s. Probably around 1981. I seem to remember reading that The Stranglers performed one of their songs without any strings on the guitars as a protest about miming!

bahahahahahahaha!....laughed until i soiled myself!!!!!!......best one....Mark Bolan