Past Blast: Bonnie Tyler, Kelis, STP & More Take Over Our Top of the Pops Jukebox

Past Blast: Top of the Pops Keeps the Jukebox Glowing

Past Blast: Get your century’s worth of specially curated UK Top of the Pops.

Stick some sweet money in the jukebox or pay a streaming subscription service. But if you’re feeling nostalgic for some 1970s, 1990s or turn-of-the-millennium throwback performances, we have you musically covered to make your eyes and ears sing.

From thee famed Brit TV music show broadcast by the BBC from 1964 to 2006, Top of the Pops became a weekly pop-history machine: chart hits, left-field bookings, awkward miming, genuinely live performances and artists caught right in the middle of whatever era they were helping define. The BBC itself dates the show’s launch to January 1, 1964, and its annual report marked the goodbye after 42 years in 2006.

Hear our heartbeats: a handpicked run of rhythmic tracks from the INYIM music world, hopping from Welsh rock-pop and country crossover to R&B, Eurodance, grunge and one of the most deliciously furious screams ever put on daytime British television.

Bonnie Tyler — “The World Is Full of Married Men” — June 28, 1979

First up: Miss Bonnie Tyler (RIP), tearing into “The World Is Full of Married Men.” The June 28, 1979 episode confirms Tyler performed the then-new single while it sat at No. 36 in the UK chart. The track was written for the film of the same name, and even at this stage the rasp that would later become one of pop-rock’s most recognizable voices was already fully switched on.

Tyler died on July 8, 2026, making this particular Past Blast hit a little differently now. Here she is 47 years earlier, right in the middle of the original TOTP machine — sequins, drama and that voice already cutting through the room.

LeAnn Rimes — “Crazy” — December 1999

Next, LeAnn Rimes takes on “Crazy,” the Willie Nelson-penned standard forever associated with Patsy Cline. Rimes released her version as a UK single in December 1999, where it reached No. 36, and the Top of the Pops performance catches that very specific late-’90s crossover moment when the teenage country phenomenon was increasingly living in the international pop lane too.

Donell Jones — “U Know What’s Up” — January 21, 2000

Donell Jones walks into January 2000 with one of thee smoothest R&B records of that whole turn-of-the-century stretch. The archive lists his January 21 appearance as a live performance, with “U Know What’s Up” sitting at No. 2 in the UK chart. He returned with the song again the following week.

The record came from Jones’ Where I Wanna Be era and became one of those perfect bridges between late-’90s R&B cool and the cleaner, radio-dominating sound the early 2000s were about to run with.

Vengaboys — “Kiss (When the Sun Don’t Shine)” — December 17, 1999

Then the Vengabus swerves directly into December 1999. Vengaboys performed “Kiss (When the Sun Don’t Shine)” on the December 17 show while the single sat at No. 3 — its eventual UK peak. The TOTP archive classifies this one as mimed, which is exactly the kind of period detail that makes these old broadcasts so fun to revisit.

It is pure late-’90s Eurodance confection: giant hooks, choreography built for television and the feeling that somewhere just off-camera a metallic inflatable object is probably waiting to enter frame.

Stone Temple Pilots performing “Plush” on Top of the Pops. Images: Top of the Pops.

Stone Temple Pilots — “Plush” — September 9, 1993

Shift the whole room. Stone Temple Pilots landed on Top of the Pops with “Plush” on September 9, 1993, and unlike plenty of performances in the show’s history, the archive marks this one live. The track sat at No. 23 in the UK chart that week.

Seeing Scott Weiland and company dropped into this very British chart-show framework remains one of those great TOTP collisions: American alternative rock grit meeting a television institution usually engineered to move from Björk to Culture Beat in under half an hour.

And because this Past Blast refuses to stay in one lane, we close with a record that sounded like somebody kicking the door off pop radio.

Kelis bringing “Caught Out There” to Top of the Pops. Images: Top of the Pops.

Kelis — “Caught Out There” — March 10, 2000

Kelis closes us out with “Caught Out There” on March 10, 2000 — the same gloriously unhinged Neptunes-produced kiss-off that introduced so many people to that unmistakable scream. The TOTP archive records this appearance as her live studio debut on the show, with the single at No. 11 after previously peaking at No. 4 in the UK.

And that is exactly where we want to leave this jukebox: with Kelis sounding furious, futuristic and completely unlike anybody else around her. Eyes and ears singing, mission accomplished.