The music montage game
Published December 30, 2022
There was no Christmas Day edition of Top of the Pops this year, which was both completely understandable and also a real shock. The show has been drifting further and further from the TV schedules and therefore the public consciousness that it was inevitable it would one day drop off the festive TV guides. But it was still a shame to see it was missing.
However, BBC Four is still dedicated to showing old episodes of the music show and the 1998 Christmas Day special has been available for a while. It’s a great show, stacked with 90s pop hits and some surprises along the way, all capably helmed by Jamie Theakston, Kate Thornton and Jayne Middlemiss. SO NINETIES!
There’s a fun montage at the start of the show to relive what happened during the year, and oh, wow, this turned into the biggest guessing game ever. I wanted to see how many of these acts I could remember and the answer is - not enough. The obvious ones are fun but it’s those surprise gems that really make it a good game. How many can you get?