SW
The thing that totally baffled me about the Star Bar is that it was an actual real bar, and every time they did anything from it they had to awkwardly pass microphones around and the acoustics were dreadful. It was if they'd built it and then forgotten it was supposed to be on television.
The guest presenters were an interesting idea and there were some memorable moments, although towards the end it started to feel like they were scraping the barrel a bit. In the early part of this era you would have the Radio 1 DJs most weeks and then a guest presenter if they were really special, like Take That or Reeves and Mortimer. But when you had guest presenters every week it felt like they were just getting them on for the sake of it and some of them were no more interesting than the DJs. Sometimes it felt like there was a bit too much going on as well - so you'd have an exclusive which was a big deal, but it would often be introduced by a comedian in character, so it seemed a bit like they were throwing it away because they couldn't give it the introduction it might have deserved.
But yes, there certainly seemed to be more happening in the Blaxill era and the show seemed more of an event - to the extent, as mentioned, that even though the show was almost always pre-recorded they would still do it all as live, including the perfomance "live" via satellite. Whereas under Cowey, you never got that idea that an individual show was an event. I think in previous eras there had always been an excitement when there was a big name in the studio, or that the number one was live in the studio, but you never got that in this era. One of the most famous episodes from the eighties was the one from 1989 when the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays were on the same show, but under Cowey it wouldn't have been a big deal because they'd probably both have been recorded separately weeks apart.
The 200th show under Cowey was a bit of a damp squib, because it felt too much like a normal show, partly of course because most of the performances had been recorded earlier, but also the performances that were live in the studio couldn't be very special because they all had to look the same so they could be recycled on later shows and abroad.
It was always easy to spot when a performance came from the German version, partly because they were usually a nu-metal act because they were always massive in Germany, but also because, as European telly doesn't use the "counting the beats" way of directing music, the cameras were usually right up the bands' noses throughout.
You could argue that Cowey didn't really have much choice because at that time 99% of records in the charts would go straight in at their highest position and go straight down the next week, so the definition of a big hit went from one that climbed the highest to one that went down the chart the slowest. Certainly without showing some records going down you would have ended up showing songs in their first week of release and then never again, so this way you had some more familar records in the mix. And it was under Ric Blaxill that they started playing records going down.
I think it's certainly fair to say, though, that regardless of the merits of that idea, showing the previous week's number one always looked a bit weird.
I agree - I think that was a big problem with the Cowey era - it all felt a bit samey, especially towards the end. I think what made it worse was that we'd come from a period of having guest hosts every week: some good, some not so good, but always entertaining, IMO. I said this earlier in the thread but Dennis Pennis remains my favourite guest host, treating the acts with utter contempt.
Another takeaway from that period, to me at least, was that at times it very much felt pieced together, almost like a clip show, because as you said, a lot of the perfomances were pre-recorded (often at one of the European TOTP studios) and slotted in. And I do think the StarBar was awful - it added nothing to the show, IMO, and ate into valuable music time. That being said, I do think Cowey had some great ideas, especially taking the show international, and expanding the TOTP brand massively - and in any case, even the worst shows of his era were miles ahead of Andi Peters' reign....
Another takeaway from that period, to me at least, was that at times it very much felt pieced together, almost like a clip show, because as you said, a lot of the perfomances were pre-recorded (often at one of the European TOTP studios) and slotted in. And I do think the StarBar was awful - it added nothing to the show, IMO, and ate into valuable music time. That being said, I do think Cowey had some great ideas, especially taking the show international, and expanding the TOTP brand massively - and in any case, even the worst shows of his era were miles ahead of Andi Peters' reign....
The thing that totally baffled me about the Star Bar is that it was an actual real bar, and every time they did anything from it they had to awkwardly pass microphones around and the acoustics were dreadful. It was if they'd built it and then forgotten it was supposed to be on television.
The guest presenters were an interesting idea and there were some memorable moments, although towards the end it started to feel like they were scraping the barrel a bit. In the early part of this era you would have the Radio 1 DJs most weeks and then a guest presenter if they were really special, like Take That or Reeves and Mortimer. But when you had guest presenters every week it felt like they were just getting them on for the sake of it and some of them were no more interesting than the DJs. Sometimes it felt like there was a bit too much going on as well - so you'd have an exclusive which was a big deal, but it would often be introduced by a comedian in character, so it seemed a bit like they were throwing it away because they couldn't give it the introduction it might have deserved.
But yes, there certainly seemed to be more happening in the Blaxill era and the show seemed more of an event - to the extent, as mentioned, that even though the show was almost always pre-recorded they would still do it all as live, including the perfomance "live" via satellite. Whereas under Cowey, you never got that idea that an individual show was an event. I think in previous eras there had always been an excitement when there was a big name in the studio, or that the number one was live in the studio, but you never got that in this era. One of the most famous episodes from the eighties was the one from 1989 when the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays were on the same show, but under Cowey it wouldn't have been a big deal because they'd probably both have been recorded separately weeks apart.
The 200th show under Cowey was a bit of a damp squib, because it felt too much like a normal show, partly of course because most of the performances had been recorded earlier, but also the performances that were live in the studio couldn't be very special because they all had to look the same so they could be recycled on later shows and abroad.
It was always easy to spot when a performance came from the German version, partly because they were usually a nu-metal act because they were always massive in Germany, but also because, as European telly doesn't use the "counting the beats" way of directing music, the cameras were usually right up the bands' noses throughout.
The face that showing the same song on consecutive weeks and when they were dropping (sometimes quite heavily- featuring last week's number one which has now dropped to Number 9 really is pretty stupid) were regular occurances in the Cowey era when both of those things were big no-nos for pretty much all of the show's run was not a good thing either. As I already said, clearly a consequence of Cowey's refusal to show videos but clearly not being able to get enough acts to perform to not have to repeat songs or show fallers as a result.
You could argue that Cowey didn't really have much choice because at that time 99% of records in the charts would go straight in at their highest position and go straight down the next week, so the definition of a big hit went from one that climbed the highest to one that went down the chart the slowest. Certainly without showing some records going down you would have ended up showing songs in their first week of release and then never again, so this way you had some more familar records in the mix. And it was under Ric Blaxill that they started playing records going down.
I think it's certainly fair to say, though, that regardless of the merits of that idea, showing the previous week's number one always looked a bit weird.
