Is it still around? i have watched so many old video from ''top of the pops'' they make EVERYONE lip synch. I saw artists who have never lip synced live have to do it! why did they have the format like that?

Imagine paying money to go see an artist on TOTP. And you paid money to see them lip sync... did they even do interviews or anything? i just don't see the point in making every artist lip synch. I saw some bands that don't even match up! the drummer plays drums in a part that doesn't have drumming

What was up with that? and why did every artist have to do it?

Gunsnhalen said:

Is it still around? i have watched so many old video from ''top of the pops'' they make EVERYONE lip synch. I saw artists who have never lip synced live have to do it! why did they have the format like that?

Imagine paying money to go see an artist on TOTP. And you paid money to see them lip sync... did they even do interviews or anything? i just don't see the point in making every artist lip synch. I saw some bands that don't even match up! the drummer plays drums in a part that doesn't have drumming

What was up with that? and why did every artist have to do it?

Dear old TOTP finished in 2006. It was a national institution here, where for a long time it was the only place to see chart acts 'perform' on TV. But once we got dozens of satellite TV music channels, ratings for TOTP plummeted, and that was the end of it. Overall it's remembered fondly here in the UK, despite it's obvious naffness (just reflecting the times) and subsequent sordid revelations' about one of it's long time presenters.

As for miming, I guess it may have had something to do with the difficulty of setting up decent live sound for so many acts in a smallish TV studio in a short space of time. And many of the wallybrains that they had on wouldn't have sounded too good live anyhow.

Not sure that you had to pay to be in a TOTP audiences. I think most of the teenybopper in the crowd would have been glad enough to be in the presence of their idols to care about the miming.

The Brits and their daft love affair with electronic noise.

Not every TOTP performance was lipsynced.

But maybe they should have been. NO SHADE.

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Gotta love good ol' Sisqó, though.

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His worst song, his greatest hit, and he's getting the most mileage out of it he could. Absolutely Bobby-Browning it on that stage.

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I was looking for his TOTP performance of 'Dance For Me', but couldn't find it anywhere. I remember when he came on TOTP with that song when I was 14, and it kinda blew my mind. I thought he really put his all into the performance, and on top of that, when the final chorus kicks in, he had this light effect going where it was as if the background exploded and you had these sparks... I watched TOTP every week, and pretty much no other artist or band did this as far as I knew back then.

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Every musician in the UK grew up dreaming of being on TOTP, myself included. Sadly never got the chance, although I did get to perform on another primetime BBC music show.

With regards to the miming, that's just how they operated. The vocalists were usually given the opportunity to sing, though.

My favorite one was when Nirvana were on. They were upset that they had to mime the instruments, so as a protest, Kurt sang the whole of "Teen Spirit" in a stupid voice, changed the words randomly, and they barely even pretended to play their instruments. It cracks me up every time.