Topside

Ladies and gentlemen, Topside are going to be signing beefburgers all round the country this week, so do look out for them.

The 1990s. What a time to be alive. And for once, that isn’t sarcasm. In my formative years I was a typical idiotic, Kevin the teenager type, hating anything and everyone and particularly music I considered lame. Being a staunch rock / metal / alternative kid, the concept of the boy band disgusted me. I could never get my head round how these lads weren’t all deeply embarrassed to be jumping around like twats and doing eye-watering dance routines. Nowadays I’m old as fuck and with that comes life experiences that have taught me that it’s not worth worrying about. I was never the target audience, then or now. Not only that – the elitism is gone. If it’s good, it’s good. Just don’t look at them while you’re listening.

Why am I going on about all of this? Well, also back in the 90s, there was Saturday (and sometimes Friday) Night Armistice. An Iannucci / Baynham / Schneider show that discussed the topics of the now with an irreverant twist. It was kind of like a more surreal, prop-driven Have I Got News for You without a competitive element. Sort of. Anyone who remembers the show might recall Armando Iannucci stalking OJ Simpson, getting his autograph, later revealing that the top half of the paper he used had the phrase ‘I DID IT’ on it. A bit that cements its place in time succinctly.

Anyway, the programme featured the boy band Topside, who replace the Ministry of Agriculture to promote sales of British beef in light of the very recent BSE crisis. Their debut single is a cover of the Smokey Robinson classic ‘Being With You‘ and the promo video features the four band members frollicking with cows, pouring milk over their own faces and devouring pies.

The design is a rough approximation of the Five logo. Or 5ive, as they were sometimes inexplicably known as. Not my favourites by any stretch, but the ones with the most workable logo by far. I only just now realised that said logo contains a star as the dot for the ‘i’ (the most conventional variant of which has five points). Here I’ve got it as bull horns for obvious reasons.