They came from 1977

Let's start with the things I know about 1977:

• It was two years before I was born
• Star Wars: A New Hope was released
• The Clash and Never Mind the B*llocks Here's the Sex Pistols were released
  
• Elvis died and Fleetwood Mac released Rumours (events unrelated)
• BA started to fly concorde between London and New York.
• The Ash album 1977 is very good.
  

So, I didn't know much. I knew things were different but also, sort of, the same. To be honest most of what I knew came from a cache of old family photos and I Heart the '70s.

But on BBC4 it's still 1977. Or at least it is once a week as they continue their trawl through the Top of the Pops archives.

As I tuned into the launch night (with Old Gray Whistle Test afterwards too!) and got my hit of cultural history, I noticed two things.

1. Showing old episodes in full is heavier on the lolz but also fairer to history than TOTP2 or Big Hits are.
2. Everyone looked like an alien, because they looked so *normal* (yes, even Lindesfarne on OGWT).

Passing fripperies of the mind, which at the time were quickly forgotten as I rushed to mute the telly before being subjected to Mull of Kintyre for the second time in an hour. But the thought has walked alongside me all week, tugging at my sleeve and looking up at me with doleful eyes, willing me to consider it further.

And so, with weak discipline over my own mind, I now do as it demands and at least think further about how these pop stars of the past looked. Not fashion-wise, which you would rightly expect to change, become questionable or coveted, because by it's nature fashion should fleeting, a wheel rolling along the dirt track of time.

No, what sent a little static shiver of surprise through me was how alien everyone looked to me because they looked so normal. A little bile rose in the back of the throat as I realised I've become conditioned to seeing perfect-looking popstars on my idiot lantern. This half-hour snapshot of what was hot that week made me suspect that backstage Freddie had ironed his own balloon-sleeved blouson; Rod had shared bronze shimmer eye shadow with Baccara; there was one can of Elnett to be shared by all artists; and the mustached middle-aged man from Brotherhood of Man had been giving a housewife a quote for crazy paving before reporting for duty with his (terrifying to me) band.

Yes, 1977 showed me off-colour snaggle-tooths and wonky, squinting eyes, muffin tops and bad hair (not style, just you know, bad hair). It showed fingers stained with nicotine and that you didn't have to be under 21 to be considered suitable for the stage.

The only band I saw who looked like they had thought about how they looked was The Jacksons, everyone else was just up there doing their job and their job didn't rely on them looking a certain way.

Once the weirdness of the realisation had subsided it was actually quite refreshing. The look ceased to be a distraction and the music really began to shine through, even things which had this been TOTP2 I have no doubt would have been consigned to pop's dumpster.

But now I have been nudged awake to this phenomenon, the creeping hand of stylists quietly airbrushing, veneering and infantalising performers making each a clone and anything outside of societies norm being ridiculed or oppressed.

And as I open my eyes I re-acclimatise to the wonderful variety of people. Yes, we're all different and THAT DOESN'T MATTER, it shouldn't matter, it's what we *do* that matters. Celebrate the differences, stop the assimilation to the beauty Borg and just get on with whatever it is you do to entertain me and do it well. Until you do, I'm sticking with the normality of the aliens from 1977.

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