Tucked away on BBC4 on Friday night was a curiosity that appealed to old music anoraks like me. The channel had an evening dedicated to the history of Top of the Pops, with a special emphasis and programming on how the show fared in 1976 ( “Top of the Pops – the story of 1976” ). BBC4’s focus on this particular year chimed with me because I have long thought that 1976 was the worst year of the seventies when it came to music. And so it was conclusively proven on the night!!

How the long hot summer of 1976 cried out for a memorable, classy  soundtrack, and what we got instead were a succession of horrendous Number Ones : JJ Barrie – “No Charge”, Wurzels – “Combine Harvester”, Elton & Kiki – “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” and Demis Roussos – “Forever and Ever”. Indeed the musical nightmare seemed to go on forever and ever, much like the soaring temperatures…….an eternity, as bland cheese oozed out of every musical pore during the heatwave of that summer. The sweltering temperatures finally gave way to cooler climes in early September, when my Mum recalls going outside to do a rain dance, ironically at the point that “Dancing Queen” acceded to the top of the charts, courtesy of Abba.

The truth is that the drought of Summer 1976 was reflected in the music throughout the whole year, not just the summer, with other obscene and monstrous No1s being Brotherhood of Man – “Save all your kisses for me”, Tina Charles – “I love to love”, Pussycat – “Mississippi”, Chicago – “If you leave me now”, Showaddywaddy – “Under the moon of love”………and so the depressing list continued. And there was no respite at Christmas, a time traditionally for a tongue in cheek, catchy ditty at No1!! No, instead we were subjected to the positively soporific Johnny Mathis’ “When a child is born”!! Infact the only highlight of the year was Abba cementing their place in history with three chart toppers – “Mamma Mia”, “Fernando” and “Dancing Queen”, which although commercial songs, fell on the acceptable side of the cheese grater!!

The reasons for this vacuum of decent, high quality chart music in 1976 are hard to explain, but I suspect that it was simply a no man’s land between the decline and fall of Glam Rock and the advent of Punk and New Wave. 1975 had seen the likes of Slade, Sweet, Mud, Gary Glitter and Marc Bolan bow out as major chart topping acts, but there was nothing in the least bit credible or charismatic to fill the void left behind by their departure. Punk was still an underground movement, that wasn’t to break into the charts until 1977 when the Sex Pistols, Stranglers and the Jam became regular visitors to the charts and the studios at Top of the Pops. And how they were to shake the foundations of the bland pop world, although they were unable to prevent Brotherhood of Man having another No1 with Angelo in August of 1977. This felony was further compounded when the “Brotherhood of Banal and Bland” was then succeeded at the summit of the charts by the equally appalling Floaters single, “Float On”!!

But for all these aberrations, the die was cast and the floodgates opened for a golden age of New Wave and Ska for the next three or four years!! And the musical crimes of 1976 were quickly forgotten…….well at least until last Friday night when BBC4 launched it’s new series of Top of the Pops 1976. Yes, the bad news is that the channel will be showing the remainder of the Top of the Pops episodes from that year, every week in the show’s original Thursday night slot of 7-30 to 8-10pm!! The good news is that from January 2012, BBC4 will have reached the 1977 episodes!!

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