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.

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.
 * 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.
 * Michael and Sandra Cretu of Enigma played Chutes and Ladders while the audio for "Beyond the Invisible" played in the background.
 * 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 "MIMING" painted on it.