The BBC4 TOTP repeats are back in full swing now with a double header each Friday night. As such, we have already reached the end of January and it’s another short show tonight with only 8 acts on and 5 minutes lopped off the running time. I’m guessing this is due to the ongoing Gulf War conflict. As a welcome distraction from the world’s ills, my beloved Chelsea have reached the semi-finals of the League Cup (now lumbering along in the guise of its sponsor as the Rumbelows Cup). This was the first time we had reached this stage of a cup competition for 6 years and only the second time in 20 years. It felt like a big deal but it would end in defeat and disappointment and I would have to wait another 6 years before we finally won something.
Work-wise, I had just clocked up my third month at Our Price and was now a fully fledged permanent member of staff. My employment didn’t stop us from being skint all the time as my wife wasn’t working but we became experts at sniffing out freebie events. Book signings at Waterstones were a massive boon as they often included free wine and snacks as were art gallery exhibition openings. In addition to these, my Our Price store had a an arrangement with the Odeon cinema in town that we would provide them with two free CDs a week to play as background music before the films started in return for a weekly free pass that would admit two people. Whenever it was my turn for the pass, it was a huge boost to our social life! Wonder if the CDs of any of the acts on this show ended up at the Odeon Manchester?
We start with EMF who are following up their Top 3 hit “Unbelievable” with a track called “I Believe”. I couldn’t decide at the time whether this was a clever play on song titles or just dumb. I’m still not sure now. I have to say I found “I Believe” a big disappointment. It’s got roughly the same ingredients as “Unbelievable” and yet it doesn’t seem to have come out of the oven in quite the same way. Yes, it’s all very urgent sounding and exhibits a pulsating, driving rhythm but it just didn’t match up to its predecessor at all for me,. It didn’t have that huge hooky chorus and sounded like it was trying just a bit too hard. The single edit doesn’t have the 8 second intro that the album version has where keyboard player Derry Brownson threatens to trash a flat much to the consternation of his band members….
Visually, they have all the right looks of the time with that overgrown floppy fringe and garishly coloured baggy T-shirts over the top of Bermuda shorts being sported by a fair few of the band. Also the drummer has a KLF T-shirt on – I’m assuming that’s deliberate as they are on the show later. or maybe he couldn’t spell his own band’s name? For all my reservations, “I Believe” did its job by securing the boys another Top 10 hit when it peaked at No 6. For now, things were still right on track for EMF.
I should point out that tonight’s host is Anthea Turner and that this show will not turn out to be her finest hour. She starts uncontroversially but just the second act in and she’s making a show of herself by introducing Ralph Tresvant as “Ralph ‘Show Us Your Chest’ Tresvant”. Now it might not seem like a major incident but if you reverse the introduction and had say Bruno Brookes introducing Belinda Carlisle as “Belinda ‘Show Us Your Chest’ Carlisle” surely all Hell would have broken loose?
Anyway, Ralph does indeed grant Anthea’s request and gets his pecs out in the video for “Sensitivity” (oh the irony of that song title) but nothing can distract from how completely dull the song is. Ralph’s only other UK chart hit of the decade would be as an afterthought on the Janet Jackson / Luther Vandross single “The Best Things In Life Are Free” on which he has a credit for being in the studio at the same time but you have to read the small print very carefully to find it.
Yet another dance smash next as Nomad become a part of our lives with their single “(I Wanna Give You) Devotion“. There was a rumour going around our store that our previous store manger Greg had been something to do with getting this track released but I don’t know if there was any truth in that at all and I certainly never asked him about it. There had also been a story circualting in the staff kitchen that he’d been instrumental in Deee-Lite’s “Groove Is In The Heart” becoming a hit. Thirty years on and I’m not convinced about either story. There’s very little connection between the records other than that they were both huge dance anthems – they weren’t even on the same label.
Anyway, despite it being well out of my comfort zone, I actually didn’t mind this one too much. Nomad were Damon Rochefort (Nomad is Damon spelled backwards), Steve McCutcheon and Sharon D. Clarke and the ever reliable @TOTPFacts found out loads of trivia about all three. Here’s a few tidbits:
then there’s this…
and finally…
Excellent! Content sorted! Makes my life so much easier! “(I Wanna Give You) Devotion” is actually credited to Nomad featuring MC Mikee Freedom but all @TOTPFacts had on him was that he’s from Bristol and his real name is Michael Field. Boo!
Anyone remember Praise and their spooky single “Only You”? If you do, it’s probably due to this advert…
Yes, this unlikely, ethereal song was originally used in a car advert for the Fiat Tempra but got its own release a few weeks later. Would it be cynical of me to suggest that the record company wanted to cash in on the Enigma phenomenon? In truth though, wasn’t it just Clannad set to a plodding dance back beat? There’s even a bit of pan pipes in there but let’s not go down that route. Oh, and a Marvin Gaye sample possibly?
I didn’t really get this one at all and it did very little for me. Apparently the single edit was remixed by producers Andreas Georgiou (cousin of George Michael) and Peter Lorrimer….surely not the Leeds United legend and possessor of the hardest shot in football at one time? Praise indeed.
“Only You” (also nothing to do with Yazoo) peaked at No 4.
For me, Kylie Minogue was on a complete roll at this point in her career. She’d shed the ‘Charlene from Neighbours makes a catchy pop tune’ comments some time ago and had moved into wanting to be seen as an artist in her own right. Yes, she was still working with SAW but there was definitely more depth to both her music and image.
“What Do I Have To Do” was the third single to be lifted from her “Rhythm Of Love” album (although it was originally scheduled to be the second) and it did a good job of consolidating this new direction. Very much in the same vein as its predecessors “Better the Devil You Know” and “Step Back In Time”, it sounded like an accomplished dance /pop track full off enough hooks to pull you in. However, it was also her first single release not to make the UK Top 5. Would that have been of concern to her at the time? Probably not and the chart placings of her subsequent singles throughout the 90s were certainly nothing to be sniffed at but…there was a general decline over the course of the decade (she would only have 3 more Top 10 hits before the new millennium). The success of her No 1 single “Spinning Around” in 2000 was definitely seen as unexpected and ushered in the most unlikely of comebacks.
Apparently her sister Danni is in the video for this one (though I haven’t spotted her). Within a short few weeks, she would be a chart star herself when her debut single “Love and Kisses” broke into the Top 10. You have been warned.
OK – it’s that Soho performance next – the one that always comes to mind when I think of Soho and their gloriously funky song “Hippychick” – yep it’s the one with those massive kipper ties! Apparently the slogan emblazoned on them is CENSORED after the run in they had with the TOTP producers who threatened to cut them from the show the last time they were on if they wore their dresses with CND logos on them. It doesn’t quite work as a stunt though because the producers did relent and let them wear their dresses meaning they weren’t, in fact, censored after all. Still, let’s not let the truth get in the way of a good gimmick. It is a great performance though with the Cuff twins full of energy and artistic endeavour. There was one member of the band who wasn’t on top of their game though – the bass player lollops around the stage looking like he couldn’t even spell rhythm let alone possess any.
This was as good as it got for Soho. “Hippychick” was their one and only chart hit although they continued to release albums until their split in 1999. They did also though provide a song for the soundtrack of the original Scream film in 1996. I remember sitting in the cinema as the credits rolled totally taken by surprise that an Icicle Works song would feature in a huge Hollywood film – so much so that I didn’t pay any attention as to who was actually covering “Whisper to a Scream (Birds Fly)” – for all you pedants out there, note the slight title change for the US market – and now finally I have the answer.
“Hippychick” peaked at No 8.
It’s time for the new No 1 and this felt like a big deal – a genuinely edgy and subversive act topping the charts. The time of the anti-popstar was upon us and their name was The KLF. The second of their Stadium House trilogy of singles, “3am Eternal” would prove to be their only UK No 1 (if you don’t count “Doctorin’ the Tardis” under their Timelords pseudonym).
For the whole of 1991 they ruled the music world with another three Top 5 hits making them one of the biggest selling singles artists of the year. They burned so brightly but then suddenly it was all over though unlike most huge acts that suddenly fall from grace as tastes move on, The KLF were sole architects of their own demise. I say demise but it was a retirement really albeit announced in the most controversial of circumstances at the 1992 BRITS show. They were at their most caustic operating outside of the record industry but once they had pierced it to expose its shallowness, they found themselves increasingly uncomfortable being inside of it and lauded by the very people they seemed to denigrate. For the moment though, they are playing out their strategy on a grand scale and they weren’t finished yet…
…somebody who should have been finished though (certainly their career anyway) was Anthea Turner. “Congratulations to KLF who are at No 1 ands looking like the Klu Klux Klan” she trills at the end of the band’s performance. What the Holy f**k did she just say?!! The Klu Klux Klan?! Anthea – TOTP was a mainstream pop show broadcast before the watershed and aimed at a predominantly youthful audience. What were you thinking referencing the white supremacy terrorist hate group?!! None of this makes any sense, not least the fact that nobody on screen did look they had a KKK costume on did they? I always thought it was a white robe with a pointed, wizard like hood obscuring the face. All I can see were some people in red robes without any terrifying hoods with eye holes cut out. Also, the majority of the people on stage were black – so unlikely members of a white supremacy group. And yet, Anthea was not alone in her thinking. Vocalist PP Arnold was of a similar opinion. Here’s @TOTPFacts again:
I’m really confused now. The whole thing’s a minefield. I’m surprised that BBC4 didn’t cut that bit out of its repeat broadcast to be honest. Adding to the confusion comes the play out video which is Vanilla Ice with “Play That Funky Music”. A cover of the 1976 Wild Cherry hit, that song was inspired by the band being heckled at a live gig at a disco club by a black audience member to “Play some funky music, white boy.” Ok, I’m leaving this subject well alone now.
Vanilla Ice’s version made no 10 in our charts thus proving categorically that he was not a one hit wonder. He might as well have been though. Who thinks of any song other than “Ice Ice Baby” when his name is mentioned?
For posterity’s sake, I include the chart run down below:
| Order of Appearance | Artist | Title | Did I Buy it? |
| 1 | EMF | I Believe | No but I have it as an extra track on one of their later singles |
| 2 | Ralph Tresvant | Sensitivity | Nope |
| 3 | Nomad | (I Wanna Give You) Devotion | Nah |
| 4 | Praise | Only You | No |
| 5 | Kylie Minogue | What Do I Have To Do? | It’s another no |
| 6 | Soho | Hippychick | Thought maybe I had but it seems I didn’t |
| 7 | The KLF | 3am Eternal | See 7 above |
| 8 | Vanilla Ice | Play That Funky Music | Actually, please don’t – no |
Disclaimer
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.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000wn3f/top-of-the-pops-31011991
TOTP Rewind - the 90s 