Friday, July 30, 2004
Thoughts of the Pops: Alfresco
In what is possibly the most desperate bid to relaunch a tired and flagging concept since... well, since Westlife's Pop Idol rip-off, Top of the Pops decided to do an hour long special live from Gateshead. Not only did it come from somewhere other than London, thrilling though that is in itself, it was held outside. Please, try to contain your excitement. Quite why the BBC felt that the viewing public would tune in in their droves for the off-chance of seeing an audience of Geordie teenagers getting rained upon, we may never know, but never mind. Here's the nuggets of knowledge we did manage to glean from tonight's show:-
- Nicola from Girls Aloud seriously needs to be kept away from hair dye. She seems to be getting less ginger every time we see her.
- Will Young gave himself over to the whims of the viewing audience. Alas, for many of his fans, it was only the opportunity to choose what song he performed and not any of the other things they might like to see him do.
- Like sing about a boy.
- There was a pointless pre-recorded Avril Lavigne interview, but we'll forgive them because we still think she's quite cute.
- Lost Prophets have clearly given up any attempt at pretending to be '4 real'.
- Unless you count the bassist wearing a Metallica t-shirt.
- Which we don't.
- The role of Natasha Bedingfield was being played by Susanne from Pop Idol 2.
- The Sugababes followed Pop Rule #341 by having a string section made up entirely of girls.
- The role of Matt from Busted was being played by an ugly teenage goth girl.
- Estelle has not let fame go to her head, nor has she let a qualified hairdresser, for that matter
- Javine really needs to do better than Don't Walk Away if she wants to continue having a pop career.
- The audience chose Your Game for Will Young to perform, and couldn't give a toss about his latest single Friday's Child judging by the percentages.
- This was quite fortunate as otherwise all his dancers would have had to sit around twiddling their thumbs at the back of the stage.
- We still don't like The Streets' single.
- Shapeshifters closed the show with Lola's Theme, almost as if the BBC expected, or at least hoped, that it would still be number one this week.
