After propping up the trance scene in the 1990s, BT disappeared for a while to make weird, almost industrial music. Seems he’s returned to his roots now, with a new album called The Lost Art of Longing. Here’s No Warning Lights, with a vocal from Emma Hewitt:
By 1979, there was no longer a Daily Mirror Pop Club Reader Awards ceremony – just The British Rock & Pop Awards. The 1978 ceremony was held in early 1979 at the Café Royal, London, to celebrate the music of the preceding year. It was presented by Bob Wellings and David Jensen, and was broadcast by the BBC on 11th April 1979 (possibly live, although this isn’t definite) with a simulcast on BBC Radio 1.
Winner: Kate Bush
Winner: Ian Dury
Presented by Dusty Springfield, with a brilliant blooper when she announces the “best grope”.
Winner: Bee Gees, represented at the event by Robin Gibb
Winner: Leo Sayer
Winner: Electric Light Orchestra, for Out of the Blue
Winner: Gerry Rafferty, for Baker Street
Winner: Nick Lowe
Winner: Barron Knights
The end credits from the ceremony, including footage from the awards, can be viewed here:
Other presenters of awards included Dave Dee, Georgie Fame, Mary Hopkin, and Hank Marvin. The BBC TV series Nationwide covered the event on 15th February and 29th March.
Top of the Pops resident dancers Legs & Co performed a dance medley of Rod Stewart‘s D’Ya Think I’m Sexy, Bee Gees‘ Night Fever, Brian and Michael‘s Matchstalk Men and You’re the One That I Want from Grease. Ronnie Hazlehurst and His Orchestra performed the music.
I’ll confess that I haven’t really been following the career of Hurts, and that’s not really through any fault of their own. As a quick catch up, it seems one of them looks like the guy from Queer Eye now, they’re back now with their fifth album Faith, and they’re still pretty good. Here’s Suffer:
July was a quiet month for the chart for stowaways. Pet Shop Boys sat on top of both the Singles and Catalogue Singles charts for the whole month with their recent lockdown version of West End girls, while recent single I don’t wanna and the My beautiful laundrette soundtrack hovered near the top of the Singles. After a quiet start on the album charts, Sparks‘ latest A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip finally re-entered at number 2 at the start of the month, and jumped to the top spot the following week, while various of their older albums hovered around too.
Here’s the album chart for 18th July:
It’s a rare treat to be able to preview a new single from a group as legendary as New Order. They returned last week, completely out of the blue, with a new track called Be a Rebel, and… well… it isn’t amazing, to be honest. It feels as though they’re missing Peter Hook more than they did on the entirety of Music Complete, and just ends up sounding a bit like one of Electronic‘s weaker moments. That’s OK though – even New Order and Electronic‘s weaker moments seem to be good enough these days, so let’s chalk this one up as a lockdown special and enjoy it for what it is.
This week’s post will be shorter than normal, because when I researched these events previously, I concluded that there did not appear to have been a 1977 ceremony, but that no longer seems to have been entirely true.
It certainly seems to be true that there was no British Rock & Pop Awards held in 1978 (and anyway, due to the confusing dating of the ceremony, the 1978 event was held in 1979). However, there does appear to have been a second outing for the Daily Mirror Pop Club Reader Awards, or at the very least, one award was presented. Nothing was televised for 1977, but whatever happened happened on 31st May 1978.
Winners included The Stranglers, but no other information seems to be available at the time of writing.
I’m not sure this would have been my choice of a video to share with you, but who am I to argue with the random jukebox? From 2003’s Other People’s Songs, here are Erasure with a slightly questionable and unnecessary cover of Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me):
The entire history of the British Rock & Pop Awards is a little confusing, but its first couple of years are particularly difficult to unwrap. As far as I can make out, this awards series started out as the Daily Mirror Pop Club Reader Awards, or possibly the Daily Mirror Pop Club British Rock Awards. Anyway, the 1976 ceremony was held at Bingley Hall, Stafford, on 9th January 1977, to celebrate the music of the preceding year. It was compered by John Peel, and presented by NME founder Maurice Kinn.
The first time it came to be called The British Rock & Pop Awards appears to have been when it was televised by ATV on 27th January. The recording still exists to view at the BFI.
Winner: David Essex
Winner: Kiki Dee
Winner: Status Quo
Winner: Wings
Winner: Wings
Winner: David Essex
Winner: John Miles
Winner: Real Thing
Winner: Eric Faulkner (Bay City Rollers)
Winner: Noel Edmonds
Winner: Elton John & Kiki Dee, for Don’t Go Breaking My Heart
Winner: Bay City Rollers, for Dedication
This was an award which wasn’t reported in the programme, but The Beatles Diary says that it was won by Paul McCartney.
The Beatles Diary suggests The Rubettes also supposedly won something, but this is not confirmed by other sources.
A lengthy recording of Status Quo‘s performance is available to view here:
October of the same year saw the first British Record Industry Britannia Centenary Awards take place, which would later become the BRIT Awards. That first ceremony was very different, as it was held to celebrate the preceding 25 years of British music rather than just the preceding year.
Music for stowaways 