Top of the Pops (BBC) performances/recordings (video)

MusicBrainz
1

OK to use ‘Recorded at: BBC Studios, London, England’ for Top of the Pops video recordings?
https://musicbrainz.org/edit/40908125

‘Top of the Pops Studios’ would have been even better perhaps…

2

If you know it was recorded there!

says:

…where it stayed until 1991, when it moved to Elstree Studios Studio C.[

Or is BBC Studios a catch-all for these places?
Maybe someone else knows more.

3

Thanks for your support.
I think “BBC Studios” would be good for all even though I’d hazard even ‘Top of the Pops studios / London, UK’ as a new place. I don’t think TOTP has ever been recorded at or broadcast from any other city.

4

To me, It’s very unusual to use a virtual place like this.
I have always used real places or nothing.
We obviously already can imagine it’s in a BBC studio in England, thanks to the name of the release and/or the tracks.
IMO it would be better not to have a relationship to just Some BBC studio(s) inside or near London vague kind of place like this. :wink:
There is no problem leaving the recordings without place.

And btw a place linked to a Top of the Pops recording is not that important if we care mostly about the sound track, iirc, those are just lip sync.

5

Yes you’re right about the “recording” although it used to be said that bands had to submit special recordings for TOTP performances, and weren’t allowed to use the original recordings (ie. the singles they were promoting). Not sure if that’s true.

But anyway what I was trying to do was find way to bring together TOTP (video) recordings from various bands at various times. I figured the only way was via ‘Recording/Place’ …no?

EDIT: TOTP performances were sometimes ‘live’, not always mimed, especially the vocals - whether they get released or not is another matter.

6

The problem is that a lot of these seem to actually have been recorded in physically different places, which is what the location field is meant to represent, so it would be misleading/wrong to put them all into the same ‘studio’.
Even if it sounds about right, MB is a bit more OCD than that :wink:

A tag or a collection would be a good way to display them all together if that’s what you’re after.

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