We’ve missed another show due to Adrian Rose’s still unexplained refusal to sign the repeat waiver for the TOTP episodes on which he presented and so we arrive in the middle of February, 24 hours before Valentine’s Day. That means it’s been four whole months since the new, ‘year zero’ revamp of the show. How do we think it’s been going?
I have to say that I can’t think of anything that’s been introduced that’s improved the show. The live vocal policy has just found people out rather than given the performances an extra edge. The relegation of the chart rundown to just the Top 10 (with no voice over initially) seems to have been just for the sake of drawing a line under the old format and the studio set up with the audience visible running in between stages seems chaotic. The on stage interviews of the artists from the early weeks has been ditched thankfully (they were excruciating and pointless) but the new sections such as the ‘exclusive’ showing of new videos and the US charts seem shoehorned in for the sake of it.
And then there’s the presenters. It’s not that I think they were terrible – heaven knows that the old guard of Radio 1 DJs have prompted reams of ire from me during these TOTP posts – it’s just that they didn’t seem to add anything other than youthful over enthusiasm which in the case of some resulted in a lot of shouting of links (yes I’m looking specifically at you Claudia Simon). To be fair, Tony Dortie and his silly urban yoof slang has grown on me and he seems to be a decent fellow who tweets along to the repeats with good humour.
Tonight’s show has tinkered with the formula rather. There are only three studio performances and the three of the nine acts on tonight are just the Breakers which have been moved back to that incongruous position just before the No 1. It just doesn’t feel right.
The opening act tonight are…WTF?! It’s those talentless bozos Color Me Badd. Now if like me you thought this lot’s rise to fame and subsequent descent to the wilderness all happened within the calendar year 1991, then also like me, you’ll be wondering what the hell they are doing on TOTP in 1992.
Well, it’s all to do with what I was talking about earlier and those new sections. This time it’s the turn of the US charts which is why Color Me Badd are on the show except…as far as I can tell this track “Heartbreaker” wasn’t released as a single in the US. It seems to only feature in the lower regions of the chart in New Zealand, the Netherlands and this country. Yes, the lower regions, so low it didn’t actually make our Top 40 peeking at No 58. So it wasn’t in the American charts nor was it in ours? What’s that Claudia? It’s No 6 on the Top 100? What the hell does that mean? The US album chart? The graphic in the corner of the screen just had an American flag and the No 6. It must be the US chart mustn’t it? I think a bit of behind the scenes negotiating between the BBC and the band’s record company must have been afoot. I think the Beeb were out manoeuvred though as I can’t imagine that many TOTP viewers would have been excited at the prospect of this ‘exclusive’. They were literally last year’s news. That and the fact that “Heartbreaker” stinks the place out.
Do you think they had their eyes on New Kids In The Block’s crown? The track sounds a bit like them. Clearly the lead vocalist can’t do the dance moves his three band mates behind him are cranking out as he remains motionless when one of them steps forward to do a rap halfway through. No effort is made to to swap places with him and take up the slack in the dance steps. This must have been the boy band template that Take That followed early in their career. Didn’t Gary Barlow famously struggle with bustin’ his moves that the rest of them could do effortlessly?
At the end of their performance, co-host Steve Anderson says we may well be seeing “Heartbreaker” in the British charts next week. I’m guessing that line was definitely scripted in some forlorn attempt to justify it opening the show and pretty sure that nobody in the UK had heard “Heartbreaker”again in the 30 years between the original TOTP transmission and this repeat.
“Remember The Time” when the biggest scandal in the press about Michael Jackson surrounded the rumour that he bleached his skin? Sadly for everyone involved, there would be scandals of a much more serious, damaging and distinctly horrible nature to come in the years that followed.
Back in early 1992 though, Jackson was just getting started on another round of releasing every track from his latest album as a single. Seven singles were lifted from “Thriller”, nine from “Bad”. His 1991 album “Dangerous” would follow suit with another nine tracks making it into the UK singles chart. That’s twenty five singles generated from three albums. David Coleman would surely have described it as “quite extraordinary”.
Following up global No 1 “Black And White” was always going to be a hard act even for Jackson but he gave it a good go with “Remember The Time” which was a No 3 hit in both the US and the UK. Written and produced by Teddy Riley, the creator of the New Jack Swing sound that was sweeping the world, it was no surprise that the song was in the same vein. It was all a bit too slick for my liking and didn’t hold my attention anywhere near as much as “Black And White” had.
The video was a lavish affair (of course it was) but we missed the exclusive first showing of it on TOTP the previous week as it was one of those shows that was Adrian Rosed. We still get another whopping five minutes of it tonight though. Quite why it was set in ancient Egypt I’m not sure. The track has no Egyptian connection and indeed the only country specifically mentioned in the lyrics is Spain! There’s the by now routine roster of stars in the promo including Eddie Murphy and super model Iman who would marry David Bowie later in the year. Jackson plays a wizard brought to the palace to entertain the Pharoah’s bored wife but who angers him by flirting with her instead. Cue some laborious chase scene involving Jacko and the Pharoah’s royal guards. Apparently this is the first video when Jackson kisses his female co-star. However, I’m more interested in how this particular conversation may have played out.
The song won the 1993 Soul Train award for Best Male R&B single. Jackie performed it at the awards show sat in a chair having twisted his ankle earlier. I think I prefer him sat down instead of doing all those exhausting to watch dance moves.
Next we have one of two distinctly and defiantly indie bands both inside the Top 10 this week. The Jesus And Mary Chain are at No 10 and one place above them are a band that the Scottish feedback monsters gave a helping hand to at the start of their career. Apparently Jim Reid heard an early Ride demo via DJ Gary Crowley which led to interest from their former manager and founder of Creation Records Alan McGee. A recording contract followed and the band became one of the pin ups of the ‘shoegaze’ movement.
By early 1992, Ride we’re nearing their commercial peak which they would reach with their biggest hit single “Leave Them All Behind” and parent album “Going Blank Again”. Apparently the single was written about the second rate groups (in the band’s perception) that had trailed in their dust after their success came. Bit arrogant. They would be undone by a combination of touring fatigue and the advent of Britpop and they broke up in the mid 90s before reforming a couple of times in the new millennium.
Lead singer Mark Gardener would stay in the music business working with various artists and also recording as a solo artist whilst guitarist Andy Bell went onto form Hurricane #1 before famously joining Oasis and Beady Eye. However, I’m more interested in bassist Steve Queralt who was working as the singles buyer in the Banbury Our Price store when he joined Ride. Wow! There must be a few stories of pop stars working in record shops either before or after their fame. I’ve said a few times before about working with Pete the original bass player in The Stone Roses at the Stockport Our Price. I also worked with long time Peter Hook collaborater (Monaco, Peter Hook And The Light) David Potts in Manchester. Must be loads more though.
Time for one of those TOTP ‘Exclusive’ videos now but, as with Color Me Badd at the top of the show, I think the producers have seriously misjudged the demand for and excitement to be generated by the latest Bryan Adams promo. After his 16 week run at No 1 the previous year, I think we’d all had our fill of the Groover from Vancouver but that didn’t stop Steve Anderson trying his best to big up Bryan’s latest single “Thought I’d Died And Gone To Heaven” in his intro.
This was already the fourth single to be released from his “Waking Up The Neighbours” album that had only been out since September and it’s quite the plodder. There’s a definite Def Leppard vibe to it, not surprising though seeing as it was produced by the man responsible for all their big hits Mutt Lange.
As for the video, was it worth the build up and airtime? It’s a resounding no from me. It features Bry and his band in a sepia tinted hue, playing in a barley field (as you do) whilst some dolphins occasionally leap out over their heads. What?!
“Thought I’d Died And Gone To Heaven” peaked at No 8.
Almost exactly 12 months on from this TOTP, broadcast, the aforementioned Michael Jackson performed the half time show at Super Bowl XXVII. So? Well, the game took place in Pasadena, California and who are the final act in the studio tonight? Yep, The Pasadenas (I don’t just throw this stuff together you know) who are up to No 4 with “I’m Doing Fine Now”. In scenes not witnessed on TOTP since The Leyton Buzzards performed “Saturday Night (Beneath The Plastic Palm Trees)” in 1979, the band are singing their hit…yep…under some plastic palm trees.
Why? Who knows. Pretty sure there’s nothing in the lyrics about beaches or palm trees and the middle of February is hardly holiday season is it? To make the palm trees look even more ludicrous and indeed incongruous, the lead singer is wearing a full length leather coat and hat whilst the rest of the band all have warm looking jackets on. Just crazy.
The Pasadenas would have three more minor chart hits (all of them cover versions) so it’s possible we haven’t quite seen the last of them yet but the end is nigh.
The Breakers start this week with “For Your Babies” by Simply Red which had already been on the show before Xmas as an ‘exclusive’ performance basically to plug the “Stars” album for the festive market – as if it needed any more help in pushing sales. As such I haven’t got much else to say about it apart from if I was forced at gunpoint to pick a song from “Stars” that I could most tolerate then it would be this one.
“For Your Babies” peaked at No 9.
Macaulay Culkin appearing in TOTP was starting to become a regular occurrence. After his cameo in Michael Jackson’s “Black And White”, here he is again on the promo for a re-release of “My Girl”. His involvement here is of course because he was starring in a film that took its name from the title of The Temptations’ most well known song. I’ve never seen said film and have to admit I’d always assumed it was some cutesy, young love nonsense but having read the plot summary for it…well, without wanting to give away any spoilers, it does seem to be quite a bit darker than that.
Obviously “My Girl” the song is included both in the soundtrack and the film itself and given its success and Culkin’s then profile, it was given a re-release. I’d always assumed that it had been a massive hit in the 60s when originally recorded but although it was a US No 1, it didn’t even make the Top 40 in the UK. The 1992 re-release righted that wrong though when it went all the way to No 2.
It’s always sounded a bit like “The Tracks Of My Tears” by The Miracles to me but then it was written by Smokey Robinson so that’s hardly surprising. For the record, I think “The Tracks Of My Tears” is infinitely the better song. As for The Temptations, this was their first time in the UK Top 40 since 1984’s “Treat Her Like A Lady” and inevitably there was a Greatest Hits compilation album released off the back of it which duly went Top 10. They are still a recording entity with a new album due this very month but with a list of line ups changes that makes The Sugababes look like U2, you’d need a Tory minister to make the case that it was the same group.
And the grunge bandwagon keeps on moving….Were Pearl Jam actually a grunge band or was it just that they happened to come from Seattle? To me, debut single “Alive” sounded more like classic stadium rock than the punky, garage offerings of Nirvana but then I’m no expert on Eddie Vedder and co. I did like “Alive” though and the other singles from debut album “Ten” but I lost track of the band after that. Most rock fans didn’t though if their sales figures are anything to go by (which clearly they are). “Ten” went 13 x platinum whilst follow up “Vs.” sold 7 million copies in the US alone. Third album “Vitalogy” sold 877,000 copies in its first week making it the second fastest selling album in history only behind their own “Vs.”. Pearl Jam were and are a big deal. Somehow though, TOTP managed to avoid them and this Breaker appearance is the only time we got to see “Alive” on the show. Maybe the producers had got their fingers burned by that chaotic Nirvana studio performance of “Smells Like Teen Spirit”.
“Alive” peaked at No 16 on the UK Top 40.
The No 1 spot still belongs to Wet Wet Wet and “Goodnight Girl”. The band are still going to this day albeit without Marti Pellow in their ranks anymore. A split between the two parties back in 2017 now seems permanent, especially as there is a new lead singer installed in the form of ex Liberty X star Kevin Simm. The rift apparently surrounds Marti’s unwillingness to concentrate solely on the band and his determination to try new musical projects. A sad tale but definitely not unique. Spandau Ballet find themselves in a very similar situation with Tony Hadley.
Pellow’s real name is Mark McLachlan but he adopted his stage name which was based on his school nickname ‘Smarty’ and his mother’s maiden name. Funny that the surname McLachlan was good enough for Craig.
| Order of appearance | Artist | Title | Did I buy it? |
| 1 | Color Me Badd | Heartbreaker | Not a chance |
| 2 | Michael Jackson | Remember The Time | I did not |
| 3 | Ride | Leave Them All Behind | Nah |
| 4 | Bryan Adams | Thought I’d Died And Gone To Heaven | And no |
| 5 | The Pasadenas | I’m Doing Fine Now | Nope |
| 6 | Simply Red | For Your Babies | No |
| 7 | The Temptations | My Girl | Negative |
| 8 | Pearl Jam | Alive | Liked it, didn’t buy it |
| 9 | Wet Wet Wet | Goodnight Girl | No but my wife had the album |
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/m0013cfm/top-of-the-pops-13021992
TOTP Rewind - the 90s 