Quote of the day

"Everyone remembers the flowers Morrissey took on to the show. I'd been very aware of how powerful Top of the Pops could be visually, from my childhood watching T. Rex. We'd first used gladioli onstage at the Hacienda about a year before, to counteract the all-encompassing austere aesthetic of Factory Records. People assumed it was an Oscar Wilde homage but that was a bonus. The flowers made the stage very treacherous if you were wearing moccasins, but they became emblematic, iconic. Morrissey was using those gladioli in a way that was far from fey, almost brandishing them. Morrissey provided flamboyance, the rest of us wore sweaters and provided a streetwise, gang aspect. We'd had a year of rejections, getting in the trenches; nothing had been handed to us on a plate and we were ready."

Johnny Marr on the Smiths' performance of 'This Charming Man' on Top Of The Pops, letting slip his ill-advised choice of footwear.

Marr was writing as part of the Guardian's excellent music timeline feature. Some of the entries are a bit pointlessly short and there are inevitably some contentious inclusions (the fact that the Grateful Dead were once put on by Jeremy Beadle might be a curious oddity, but really?), but by and large it's an enjoyable romp across the decades and features some fascinating weightier articles, including Jon Savage on Little Richard, Paul Morley on the Sex Pistols gig at the Manchester Lesser Free Hall in 1976 (you might not be surprised to learn he was actually there) and Peter Hook on Closer and Ian Curtis' suicide. Hooky comes across as still being genuinely upset by the loss of his former bandmate - shame he didn't show quite so much respect last summer...