Hang on? TOTP on a Friday? What gives? Yes, this particular episode of the show aired on a Friday due to having been bumped off its regular and time enshrined Thursday night slot because of the FA Cup final replay being shown on that day. Having not been a final replay in the competition for seven years, 1990 saw it return after a draw on the Saturday before between Man Utd and Crystal Palace. The whole of that year’s FA Cup had been one to cherish – not for my beloved Chelsea who had gone out in the 4th round to Third Division Bristol City (bah!) – but Semi Final day had seen both games televised live on the BBC one after the other on a glorious Sunday afternoon for football fans who gorged on 13 goals between the the two games. The Final saw the goal fest continue in a thrilling 3-3 contest…
…the thrills couldn’t last though and the replay was a dour affair with Man Utd triumphing 1-0 in a game which saw Crystal Palace in one of the worst kits to ever feature in an FA Cup final.
I watched all of these games in the sitting room of my parents’ house as I was unemployed (still), depressed and skint. My brother on the other hand, an ardent Man Utd fan, had attended all the games (including both at Wembley) as this was his peak period for going to see the red scum (sorry bruv!). Fortunately, it wouldn’t be long before my luck would change and I would find employment in Hull where my girlfriend lived and would spend the Summer there before getting married and I was never to live in the family home again.
So what were the tunes that would see me into this happier period of my life? Well, they seemed to be supplied by acts that had made their name in the previous decade who were letting us know they were still around by returning to the Top 40 in 1990. Let’s see who we’re talking about…
...Hothouse Flowers had not been visitors to the UK Top 40 since their only previous trip in 1988 with their No 11 hit “Don’t Go”. I’d really liked that song and my wife had even gone as far as to buy their album “People” which was also packed full of good songs. However, I must admit that I wasn’t sure there was still a market for their brand of soul infused rock when the new decade rolled around. I was wrong though as they made it back into the charts with “Give It Up”, the lead single from their second album “Home”. The new track didn’t really show much musical progression but it was still a decent tune I thought even if the piano riff in the chorus seems to have been nicked off “Love Is In The Air” by John Paul Young. Furthermore, lead singer Liam Ó Maonlaí displayed that he still had the ability to sing songs that sounded like they had too many lyrics in them to work properly but somehow did. In the two years since I’d seen them live at Sunderland Poly, the band’s guitarist Fiachna Ó Braonáin had grown sprouted some dreadlocks by the look of him which was a bold move that I’m not completely sure worked.
“Give It Up” peaked at No 30 and they followed it up with a cover of Johnny Nash’s ” I Can See Clearly Now’ which did better by going to No 23 but a third single from the album “Movies” didn’t chart at all despite it being the best of the three in my opinion. Hothouse Flowers spilt in 1994 only to reunite in 1998 and sporadically release material and do gigs to this day.
Another 80s band resurfacing at the start of the 90s were The Pasadenas. I have no recall of this single – “Love Thing” – at all. I knew they’d had a big hit in 1992 with a cover of “I’m Doin’ Fine Now” by New York City but I was clueless to the fact that there was also an intervening hit between that and their 1988 heyday when they raced up the charts with the likes of “Tribute (Right On)” and “Riding on a Train”.
I think the reason I can’t recall this song is that the band forgot to include a tune in the damn thing! This is just a backing track to their admittedly very co-ordinated dance moves which seem to take more prominence than the actual music. There’s a definite James Brown sample at the beginning which, given my detest of The Godfather Of Soul, lost me within the first 10 seconds. Not my bag at all.
One final thing, why were this lot obsessed with letter writing when it came to naming their albums? Their debut was called “To Whom It May Concern” whilst their second was called “Yours Sincerely”. What would their next one have been called? “Dear Sir or Madam”?
Ah – a brand new act now albeit one performing a song straight out of the 80s. The Chimes were actually from Edinburgh although I’d assumed at the time that they were American and they found fleeting fame with their cover of U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”. I seem to recall their version received a lot of plaudits from the music press but in my mind it was more a rejection of Bono and U2 than applause for them – almost as if they were saying this is how the song should really sound now that it’s been done properly. My memory may be playing tricks on me though.
It was certainly a very classy sounding treatment of the song that had originally been a No 6 hit back in 1987 for Bono and the lads. I hadn’t realised until now that the singer was Pauline Henry who went on to have a number of solo hits later in the decade including another cover version – this time of Bad Company’s “Feel Like Makin’ Love”. The bass player went and ruined any critical praise and credibility that his former band ever achieved though by going on to produce the first two albums by The Lighthouse Family.
The Chimes’ version of “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” matched the chart fortunes of U2’s original by also peaking at No 6.
Back with the 80s bands now as Eurythmics remind us that they had more than one song with the word ‘angel’ in the title. Yes, no doubt often overshadowed by their only No 1 “There Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart)”, the duo also recorded this track called simply “Angel”. As host Nicky Campbell advises, this was the forth single to be lifted from their “We Too Are One” album and, although none of us knew at the time, it would be Annie and Dave’s last release of ‘new’ material for nine years. I thought this was exceptional at the time and even went as far as to buy it on cassette single. The chorus was just so uplifting even if the subject matter of death (inspired by the death of Annie’s aunt) was hardly joyful.
I also found the video very affecting though the version shown here on TOTP is the one edited for US audiences as MTV refused to play the original promo with its scenes of a seance proving to be a step too near to the dark side for American audiences. To be fair though, I once had a mate who went out with a girl who went to a seance and came out of it believing she was Marie Antoinette reincarnated. Don’t mess with the spirits was the message I took from that incident.
Back to Annie and Dave though and after releasing eight studio albums in eight years and endless touring, it was time for a hiatus. Apparently there were tensions between the two by this point but despite all of that, they still had the abilty to create their magic. In his autobiography Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This, Dave Stewart recalls one such moment even as they were about to go their separate ways…
“When The Day Goes Down”, another of the album’s tracks, slowly became one of my favourites to play with just me on acoustic guitar and Annie singing. We played it on Wogan…while being interviewed by writer / comedian Ben Elton. It was nearing the end of the show when Annie and I just started performing it, right there on the sofa. Ben was visibly moved to tears and the whole audience was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. In the control room the producers knew we were out of time and were getting calls to go to end credits – this was live TV- but the director and cameramen were so into the performance that after they pulled all the way out for the ending, the cameras started to move back in. We continued to play and sing two or three more songs just for the studio audience and the whole place went crazy afterward. There’s something very magical when the two of us play together...”
This is the clip Stewart was referring to:
Eurythmics would not release any new material for nigh on the rest of the decade before returning in late 1999 with the album “Peace”. There was a Greatest Hits package released in 1991 which looked likely to be the biggest selling album of the year for ages until Simply Red beat it at the last moment with “Stars”. Yet another reason to despise Mick Hucknall.
And yet another 80s act back in the 1990 Top 40. To be fair to Sam Brown, she’d only just achieved pop stardom some 12 months before so she was hardly an established 80s act although technically my opening statement is true. Having found fame with the smash hit single and album “Stop!”, Sam moved into the new decade with the task of having to follow up that success. It’s probably not well remembered that she did manage to do that albeit with much smaller commercial returns. “Kissing Gate” was the second single from that follow up album (“April Moon”) and was certainly melodic even if it didn’t have the drama of “Stop!”. It sounded like quite an old -fashioned type of song (for want of a better phrase) to me, especially set against a backdrop of a Top 40 bursting with dance anthems.
I’d actually preferred the first single from the “April Moon” album though which was called “With A Little Love” and which I’m sure I’d had in my hand as a potential purchase at one point but which never made it to the till.
“Kissing Gate” peaked at No 23 and was Sam’s last ever Top 40 single.
Now this next guy definitely qualifies as an established 80s act making a return to the charts in the 90s. Having referred to John Paul Young earlier in the post, we now come to Paul Young who had last been seen in the vicinity of the Top 40 back in 1986 when his single “Wonderland” made it to No 24. Subsequent singles had failed to chart and he hadn’t released a note of music for three years by the time he popped up again with “Softly Whispering I Love You”. This was a cover version (of course it was, this is Paul Young we’re talking about!) but I didn’t know the original which was by The Congregation in 1971. Despite having purchased his previous two albums, this one didn’t appeal to me that much. It sounded a bit lame and insubstantial if I’m honest. Its lack of appeal wasn’t aided by this performance. What the hell had Paul done to his hair?! It’s the 90s Paul, not the mid 70s! Also, the affectation of the guitar prop didn’t work for me at all. Totally unconvincing. I don’t think I’d ever seen him perform with one before so why now? There’s no way that what he’s miming is how you play the middle eight guitar solo.
Still, as a means of getting him back into the charts, “Softly Whispering I Love You” did the trick. He even managed another Top 40 hit later in the year with yet another cover – this time of “Oh Girl” by The Chi-Lites. Both were taken from his “Other Voices” album which despite selling steadily, was nowhere near the units shifted in his 80s heyday.
As with Eurythmics, Paul would release a Greatest Hits compilation in 1991 (“From Time to Time – The Singles Collection”) which would return him to the very top of the album charts and he would also bag an unlikely Top 5 single with Italian singer-songwriter Zucchero but that’s for another year and another post.
“Killer” by Adamski (featuring Seal lest we forget) is still No 1. In the last post, all I talked about was Seal so to redress the balance, let’s have some Adamski chat. Erm…well… his real name is Adam Tinley (supposedly his stage name was inspired by controversial ufologist George Adamski) although he now records under the alter ego of Sonny Eriksson which I’m guessing is a play on the Sony Ericsson Walkman brand name. He’s also released records under the pseudonym of Fleas On Skis and has producer credits for Adam Sky. Blimey! This guy gives Norman Cook a run for his money when it comes to aliases!
The play out video is “Policy Of Truth” by Depeche Mode. This was the third of four singles to be released from their “Violator” album and is the one I least remember. Not sure why that should be as it’s a perfectly good track. Maybe it didn’t get that much airplay? Or maybe I wasn’t listening to the right radio stations back then? It is unique though in the band’s singles discography as it is the only Depeche Mode single to chart higher on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart (No 15) than on the UK Singles Chart (No16).
For posterity’s sake, I include the chart run down below:
| Order of appearance | Artist | Song | Did I Buy it? |
| 1 | Hothouse Flowers | Give It Up | I did not |
| 2 | The Pasadenas | Love Thing | A definite no |
| 3 | The Chimes | I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For | Whatever it was, it wasn’t this though. No |
| 4 | Eurythmics | Angel | YES! Finally a single I bought! |
| 5 | Sam Brown | Kissing Gate | That euphoria didn’t last long. It’s back to a no |
| 6 | Paul Young | Softly Whispering I Love You | Not the single but I did buy that Greatest Hits album with it on |
| 7 | Adamski | Killer | No but I had the Seal album with his version of it on |
| 8 | Depeche Mode | Policy Of Truth | To be honest, no |
Disclaimer
OK – here’s the thing – the TOTP episodes are only available on iPlayer for a limited amount of time so the link to the programme below only works for about another month so you’ll have to work fast if you want to catch the whole show.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000q5l9/top-of-the-pops-18051990
I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).
All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.
Some bedtime reading?
https://michaelmouse1967.wixsite.com/smashhits-remembered/1990-issues
TOTP Rewind - the 90s 