TopPop

Last updated

TopPop
Earth & Fire.png
Earth and Fire on the TopPop stage
Created byRien van Wijk
Based on Top of the Pops by Johnnie Stewart
Country of origin Netherlands
Original release
Network AVRO
Release22 September 1970 (1970-09-22) 
27 June 1988 (1988-06-27)
Related
Top of the Pops

TopPop was a Dutch television programme. It was the first regular dedicated pop music television series in the Dutch language area. The Netherlands broadcaster AVRO aired the programme weekly from 22 September 1970 to 27 June 1988. [1] Presenter Ad Visser hosted for its first fifteen years. The creator and original director of TopPop was Rien van Wijk. Many other directors followed: Egbert van Hees, Geert Popma, Henk Renou, Chris Berger, Jessy Winkelman, Wim van der Linden, Bert van der Veer and Charly Noise. Although TopPop was inspired by British music programme Top of the Pops , it had its own character.

Contents

Description

Show presenter Ad Visser and dance troupe leader Penney de Jager Penney de Jager & Ad Visser.png
Show presenter Ad Visser and dance troupe leader Penney de Jager

The main approach was to let music artists mime to their latest hit record in the TopPop studio. However, most music acts in the Dutch pop charts were foreign to the Netherlands, and frequently not available for a performance in the studio. If this was the case, it was sometimes possible for the TopPop camera crew to meet the artist at another location. Consequently, artists were filmed around the world, including Tom Browne in a studio in New York City, David Cassidy at the airport in Schiphol, and Barry White at his home in Los Angeles. If there was no way to feature the artists on TopPop, their promo video would be played - if one existed, since prior to the 1980s these were not routinely created. If all else failed, there was a fourth option that the programme frequently had to resort to: hit songs were played to a dance routine by dancer and choreographer Penney de Jager and her troupe. When music videos became more common on television, the popularity of TopPop decreased and the programme was stopped in 1988. TopPop was chosen as the programme of the century in a poll in 2000 by Televizier.

For many Dutch and Flemish viewers, TopPop was the primary source of information about pop music. TopPop compiled its own hit chart, based on viewers' top-ten lists, sent in on postcards, from 1970 to 1974, from 1978 to 1982 and from 23 February 1986 to 10 July 1988. However, it used the Dutch National Hitparade, a sales-based list, from 1974 to 1978 and from 1982 to 1986.

In the last programme of each year, the annual complete Top 10 was broadcast. There were performances by studio guests, and there were polls among viewers on the most popular artist, group and DJ. Looking back on the year 1976, Ad Visser and Krijn Torringa were sitting behind a desk in an office which made it a parody of Van Oekel's Discohoek . This absurd programme was itself a parody of TopPop.[ citation needed ]

Notable performances include one in 1977, by Iggy Pop, who refused to leave his dressing room and then, during a rehearsal, stormed dramatically and unexpectedly onto the studio floor. He spent most of the song writhing on the floor without a shirt on, miming his hit single and destroying some plants that had been put on the floor as decoration. For many young viewers in the Netherlands, this was their first encounter with punk rock. [2]

Some TopPop-made videos were of such quality, the performing artist chose to use it as their promotional video. Examples are the 1974 sequence of an eye-patched David Bowie miming to "Rebel Rebel", and Nena walking through a wood-cuttery at Crailoo near Hilversum, imagining a post-war devastated area fit for the Cold War atmosphere of her 1983 hit "99 Red Balloons". [3]

The famous archive of performances can be viewed online. [4]

Selected list of performers

Related Research Articles

Glam rock is a style of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s and was primarily defined by the flamboyant clothing, makeup, and hairstyles of its musicians, particularly platform shoes and glitter. Glam artists drew on diverse sources, ranging from bubblegum pop and 1950s rock and roll to cabaret, science fiction, and complex art rock. The flamboyant clothing and visual styles of performers were often camp or androgynous, and have been described as playing with other gender roles. Glitter rock was a more extreme version of glam rock.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Golden Earring</span> Dutch rock band

Golden Earring were a Dutch rock band, founded in 1961 in The Hague as The Tornados. They achieved worldwide fame with their international hit songs "Radar Love" in 1973, which went to number one on the Dutch chart, reached the top ten in the United Kingdom, and went to number thirteen on the United States chart, "Twilight Zone" in 1982, and "When the Lady Smiles" in 1984. During their career they had nearly 30 top-ten singles on the Dutch charts and released 25 studio albums.

<i>Top of the Pops</i> British music chart television series

Top of the Pops (TOTP) is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and broadcast weekly between 1 January 1964 and 30 July 2006. The programme was the world's longest-running weekly music show. For most of its history, it was broadcast on Thursday evenings on BBC One. Each show consisted of performances of some of the week's best-selling popular music records, usually excluding any tracks moving down the chart, including a rundown of that week's singles chart. This was originally the Top 20, though this varied throughout the show's history. The Top 30 was used from 1969, and the Top 40 from 1984.

The Netherlands has multiple musical traditions. Contemporary Dutch popular music is heavily influenced by music styles that emerged in the 1950s, in the United Kingdom and United States. The style is sung in both Dutch and English. Some of the latter exponents, such as Golden Earring and Shocking Blue, have attained worldwide fame.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Jean Genie</span> 1972 single by David Bowie

"The Jean Genie" is a song by the English singer-songwriter David Bowie, originally released in November 1972 as the lead single to his 1973 album Aladdin Sane. Co-produced by Ken Scott, Bowie recorded it with his backing band the Spiders from Mars − comprising Mick Ronson, Trevor Bolder and Mick Woodmansey. According to Bowie, it was "a smorgasbord of imagined Americana", with a protagonist inspired by Iggy Pop, and the title being an allusion to author Jean Genet. One of Bowie's most famous tracks, it was promoted with a film clip featuring Andy Warhol associate Cyrinda Foxe and peaked at No. 2 on the UK Singles Chart.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">99 Luftballons</span> 1983 single by Nena

"99 Luftballons" is a song by the West German band Nena from their 1983 self-titled album. An English-language version titled "99 Red Balloons", with lyrics by Kevin McAlea, was also released by Nena on the album 99 Luftballons in 1984 after widespread success of the original in Europe and Japan. The English version is not a direct translation of the German original and contains lyrics with a somewhat different meaning. In the US, the English-language version did not chart, while the German-language recording became Nena's only US hit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rebel Rebel</span> 1974 song by David Bowie

"Rebel Rebel" is a song by the English singer-songwriter David Bowie. It was released in the UK on 15 February 1974 by RCA Records as the lead single from the album Diamond Dogs. Written and produced by Bowie, the song is based around a distinctive guitar riff reminiscent of the Rolling Stones. Cited as his most-covered track, "Rebel Rebel" has been described as Bowie's farewell to the glam rock movement that he had helped initiate, as well as being a proto-punk track. Two versions of the song were recorded: the well-known UK single release and the shorter US single release, which featured added background vocals, extra percussion and a new arrangement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cesar Zuiderwijk</span> Dutch drummer

Cornelis Johannes "Cesar" Zuiderwijk, is a Dutch drummer. He is best known as the drummer of the Dutch rock band Golden Earring from 1970 until their retirement in 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Golden Years (David Bowie song)</span> 1975 song by David Bowie

"Golden Years" is a song by the English musician David Bowie, released by RCA Records on 21 November 1975 as the lead single from his tenth studio album Station to Station (1976). Partially written before Bowie began shooting for the film The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), the song was mostly compiled in the studio and was the first track completed for the album. Co-produced by Bowie and Harry Maslin, recording took place at Cherokee Studios in Los Angeles during September 1975. Due to Bowie's heavy cocaine use, he later recalled remembering almost nothing of Station to Station's production.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barry Hay</span> Indian-born Dutch musician (born 1948)

Barry Andrew Hay is an Indian-born Dutch musician; he was the lead vocalist and frontman of Dutch rock band Golden Earring from 1967 until their disbandment in 2021. He has also released three solo albums.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">China Girl (song)</span> Song by David Bowie and Iggy Pop

"China Girl" is a song written by Iggy Pop and David Bowie in 1976, and first released by Pop on his debut solo album, The Idiot (1977). Inspired by an affair Pop had with a Vietnamese woman, the lyrics tell a story of unrequited love for the protagonist's Asian girlfriend, realizing by the end that his Western influences are corrupting her. Like the rest of The Idiot, Bowie wrote the music and Pop improvised the lyrics while standing at the microphone. The song was released as a single in May 1977 and failed to chart.

"Tonight" is a song written by David Bowie and Iggy Pop for the latter's second solo studio album, Lust for Life (1977). The song was later made into the title-track for Bowie's own album Tonight (1984).

<i>A Reality Tour</i> (film) 2004 video by David Bowie

A Reality Tour is a DVD released in 2004 of David Bowie's performance at Point Theatre in Dublin, Ireland in 2003 during the A Reality Tour.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lust for Life (Iggy Pop song)</span> 1977 single by Iggy Pop

"Lust for Life" is a 1977 song performed by American singer Iggy Pop and co-written by David Bowie, featured on the album of the same name. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked it at No. 149 on their list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time", re-ranking it at No. 325 in their 2021 updated list.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AVRO</span> Former Dutch public broadcasting association

AVRO, short for Algemene Vereniging Radio Omroep, was a Dutch public broadcasting association operating within the framework of the Nederlandse Publieke Omroep system. It was the first public broadcaster in the Netherlands. In 2014 AVRO merged with fellow broadcaster TROS to form AVROTROS.

Dutch rock is a form of rock music produced in the Netherlands, primarily in the English language as well as in Dutch.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ad Visser</span> Dutch VJ, presenter, writer and music artist

Ad Visser is a Dutch VJ, presenter, writer, and music artist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Penney de Jager</span> Dutch dancer and choreographer (born 1948)

Wilhelmina Maria (Penney) de Jager is a Dutch dancer and choreographer.

<i>Nichts versäumt</i> Live album by Nena

Nichts versäumt is the seventh live album by the German pop singer Nena. It is her second consecutive live album since her last studio album. The album, which was released on 9 November 2018, entered the German charts a week later at its peak position, number 27, the highest attained by a Nena live album. It reached the top 10 of music DVD charts in four countries.

References

  1. "Entry at wilde-life.com".
  2. Roos, Mark (3 August 2015). "Iggy Pop shockeert Toppop". Algemeen Dagblad (in Dutch). Retrieved 15 January 2016.
  3. In the Netherlands the original German-language version of the song, "99 Luftballons", was Nena's debut hit, charting at number one in March/April 1983.
  4. "TopPop". YouTube.