Top of the Pops (American TV program)

Top of the Pops (also known as Top of the Pops USA) was an American music chart television series, produced by and RKO Television Studios in association with, and based off of the British series of the same name. It ran on The Q from the network's launch day in September 1995 until August 2006.

Lip-syncing
Artists on Top of the Pops were given the option of lip-syncing, singing live over a backing track, or performing live. While many performers chose to lip-sync, other performers played live, examples in the 1990s and 2000s including the Barenaked Ladies, Oasis, Great Big Sea, Savage Garden, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Vanessa Carlton, Screaming Yellow Players, Reel Big Fish, Soul Coughing, Harvey Danger, and The Offspring. Many vocal groups and solo artists sung live over a backing track, though some vocal groups chose to lip-sync (some of them to simply goof around, such as *NSYNC's memorable performance of "It's Gonna Be Me" with Howard Stern appearing as a keytarist). Occasionally, solo artists would use a live band instead of a backing track, in those cases and/or a rotating group of New York-area session musicians would back the performers (notably, in Vanessa Carlton's performance of "A Thousand Miles"; host Ric Ocasek played rhythm guitar).

Send-ups
Like with the original British show, a number of performers sent up the format in various ways. This was often by performers who disliked the primarily lip-syncing format of the show, as a protest against this rather than simply refusing to appear.


 * When British boy band Five performed "When the Lights Go Out" in 1998, member J Brown wore an otherwise plain white T-shirt with the phrase "My headset's not plugged in" on it, likely a jab at their lip-syncing for the performance.
 * When t.A.T.u. performed "All the Things She Said", they stopped performing halfway through and began inviting audience members on stage to dance, despite the fact that the music could be still heard playing in the background.
 * When the Missionaries performed "Goodbye, Brat" in the debut season, drummer Scotti Eekhout played rhythm guitar while rhythm guitarist Mladen Cvetković played drums.
 * For their performance of "It's Gonna Be Me" on the show in 2000, *NSYNC were joined by miming on keytar. Chris Kirkpatrick also wore a "*NSUCK" hat while lip-syncing his parts very badly.
 * Gene and Dean Ween of Ween sat down and ate lunch while the audio for "Voodoo Lady" played.
 * In Limp Bizkit's performance of "Rollin' (Air Raid Vehicle)" in 2000, Fred Durst held a backscratcher instead of a microphone, while Wes Borland mimed his guitar parts out of sync and had his guitar's cable deliberately draped across his back, to show the equipment wasn't even plugged in.
 * When Daft Punk performed "Robot Rock" in 2005, the drumhead of the bass drum in Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo's drum kit had the word "LIPSYNCING" painted on it.
 * The Vengaboys' performance of "We Like to Party!" took place within the Port Authority Bus Terminal rather than the set at Lifetime Studios.