Might as well add my thoughts to the demise of TOTP as well as responding to some bollocks blog entry that TOTP was simply crap because it didn't feature live performances as well as reflecting popular music and chart tastes. The TOTP remit was always to focus on the best selling singles. It was NEVER about fringe/alternative bands. The reason that it has failed has come about in part because the BBC fucked with its format for the past 15 years, which is why it has not been relevant for a long time. Coincidently with the spate of manufactured groups, and the so called (don't laugh) 'punkification of society' this format was never going to work, and thus viewing figures suffered. As well as this single sales in general were also dimishing. These aspects were also in part due to the Music Industry's efforts and obssession to break the next big thing.
Going back to the punk thing though is fairly amusing. Perhaps one of the biggest and most relevant punk acts in the world, the Sex Pistols, were as we know, manfactured, as are many more today, featuring artists and bands who couldn't be any less corperate or rebellious, if they had something to rebel about. Surely the punk ethic was always 'screw establishment, be individual'. So I've never understood why they bother to sign up with money grabbing huge rec companies. Maybe Punk means something else. I don't know. But, although The Clash didn't like the idea of performing on the show The Stranglers certainly didn't mind (In fact they even purposely mimed badly such was the obvious tongue in cheek nature of this), and the indie New Order clearly didn't give a fuck about performing on TOTP, even insisting that they did it live, which they later admitted was a mistake as it sounded nothing like the record (Blue Monday). So it's laughable that it was ever sold as a serious 'live format'. It never was. And everyone knows it. Manic Street Preachers (back in the old days) even performed while dressed with terrorist balacalvas.
Of course TOTP is shite. It has been for a long time. New music is generally shite these days with NOTHING original to say. So what? But in its heyday, TOTP was essential television for good pop music, with many TOTP moments on it. It's highly likely that Lily Allen would miss TOTP. After all she is about as alternative and self-made as the Spice Girls. As is her 'oh so rebellious' attitude and music. She is not the product of her own get up and go attitude. Along with some of the music press, she is the product of the NME's school of hype. 'Let's see who we can hype this summer. Let's see who can be our new voice of the generation.' TOTP is sooo Lily Allen. She is so inoffensive and safe she makes Judy Finnigan seem like Courtney Love. And the NME may one day go the same way as TOTP, as that too, along with Kerrang has lost any relevance and credibility since the early 90s. Rock and Roll ethics these days seem to be incredibly forced, and harder to take when fronted by havily styled people whose social background was so perfect that they consequently have nothing new or interesting to say. (See my entry Pete Doherty: Genius or Dick)
Sadly the answer isn't with myspace these days. Sure it's a good idea but since Murdoch took over it's one of the most corperate anti-punk, anti-alternative, mainstream mediums for music out there. In this new age of perfectionsim, tokenism and the 'who you know' factor, I fear that Lily Allen wouldn't have got a second look if she looked like Shane McGowan. So I'd say that 'punkification of society' isn't a postive thing these days as it is just as aspirational as Simon Cowell and Max Clifford. The attitude and lifestyle is all fake, the music and style is actually so fashioned and concentrated, bordering on the bland, that it's all become to boring to take in. As for indivduality, well just pick a spot at the back of Urbis. There's a mass of indivduality out there, along with the fashioned and insincere problems. In fact Starbucks (which many punks frequent) has more punk ethics. The famous line by Johnny Rotten, 'Ever get the feeling that you've been cheated? ', still carries much weight today.
I'm not sad that TOTP is going. I haven't properly followed it for a long time. And what I've seen has been depressing. But I'll always remember the best bits, the bits that were associated with my youth before it really did go shit. The essential thing though is that the BBC fucked up the format. Consider that along with the general heap of shit that is the Top 40 and that the show which was a family show, which families can't be arsed to watch anymore because 1. It's crap and 2. There's all kinds of distractions these days, and that is why it's failed.
It's fuck all to do with society wisening up. If anything our Big Brotherised society and the media is far more mediorce than its ever been, and the sad thing is, all the freedom the internet has given us to learn, to create, to inform... all this power to improve ourselves as well as gain entertainment, and all we come up with is crappy youtube clips and questionable myspace attention seekers, and daft forums where txtspk is the new language, and pointless blogs about what a twat our boss is, then we know the future is fucked.
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