Top Of The Pops Horrors

It seems unfeasible in these times of unlimited free downloads (legal or otherwise) that back in the day, music was a precious commodity. Those of us whose pocket money didn't stretch that far (kids these days don't know how lucky they are, moan, playstations, yabber, ipods, spoilt jabber, Scratchy grew up on black and white TV and sawdust sandwiches, grumble groan etc) had to make do with buying budget albums in order to be able to listen to the most popular beat combos of the day. These shiny platters were the predecessors of the ‘Now That's What I Call Music' series but with one vital difference, the songs were covered by session musos and more often than not only had a passing resemblance to the originals. The marketing bods did get one thing right though and that was sticking, what is known in the biz as a dolly bird, on the front cover. The series went under the moniker of ‘Top Of The Pops’ and sold by the bucket load in the 1970’s.
In the shadowy world of vinyl collecting there are many sub cultures that concentrate on their own particular favoured genre. A fringe group of these concentrate on collecting the whole run of the ‘TOTP’ series. Some even collect the ‘Now’ series, presumably because it is easily numbered and so this must be the runt of the vinylophile litter, however I digress. When I'm pawing through the Des O’Connor’s and the James Last's of the chazzer crate, I often stop to admire the scantily dressed lady attired in little more than a sparkly bikini and a winning smile, however I'm not tempted to covet this object. Recently though, I did a double take and pulled out the two beauties you see before you, for lo behold, it is the nations favourite page 3 girls Linda Lusardi and Sam Fox posing beneath a truly awful revamped ‘TOTP’ logo. I had no idea they were still releasing these albums into the mid eighties or that they had invested in famous models in order to bump up interest. Sadly, even their titular presence could not save this flagging genre, as the uber permed and blow dried yoof of that era had enough wonga to buy the real thing and so bad cover versions were consigned to a footnote of pop culture history (or at least until the rise of the boy band/pop idol TV)

http://retrotrash.org/topofpops.htm

http://www.easyontheeye.net/albums/totp/index.html