It’s the 1,500th edition of TOTP and you know what, it feels like I’ve reviewed most of them in this blog! OK, obviously I haven’t but I have done every BBC4 repeat from 1983 to 1992 and counting. That’s a whole 10 years, about 400 shows and over 1 million words written! I must be mad!

Anyway, I’m carrying on for now so its time to clear my head and free my mind…with opening act En Vogue! They’re in the studio after being on video as a Breaker last week and deliver a pumped up, provocative performance in keeping with the importance of the message in their song “Free Your Mind”. Written in response to the Rodney King riots in LA, it borrows lyrically from Funkadelic’s “Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow”. The energy that the group bring to their performance here is matched by their collective spirit that sees each of the four members taking centre stage in turn. That’s how you open a show!

Sadly, that group unity wasn’t to last and in subsequent years the band’s line up went through so many comings and goings they made Sugababes look like U2. Then there were the lawsuits and legal challenges to the use of the name En Vogue that rivalled the ridiculous Bucks Fizz name saga. Seriously, just check out the History section of their Wikipedia entry. It’s exhausting!

“Free Your Mind” peaked at No 16.

So given this is a huge anniversary for TOTP, surely this edition will be a massive celebration of the show. Well, maybe but so far there’s a very forlorn looking balloon with 1500 on it behind presenter Mark Franklin who’s opening gambit to put us in a party mood is to give us some fairly basic TOTP trivia (who needed to know or was wowed by there having been 57 presenters up to this point?!). It reminds me of those The Apprentice candidates during the task where they have to put on a corporate away day event at Silverstone or at a brewery and act as tour guides.

Anyway, Franklin has some music to get us partying in the form of the nostalgia section and for the big day the producers have chosen “Baby Love” by The Supremes. As iconic songs go, this one is right up there with it being a concurrent UK and US No 1 and therefore making The Supremes the first Motown group to achieve a chart topping record in the former territory. It’s surely one of the most well known songs in the Motown catalogue.

The group were on tour in the UK at the time of this TOTP recording therefore allowing them to appear. The black and white film somehow lends it more credence as an historic tune. The towering beehive hairdos on display are quite something. Indeed, Diana Ross’s slight frame looks hardly capable of withstanding the weight of it. Although Ross was the one who would end up as the biggest star out of the group, the lives of other founding members Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard are also major stories in themselves. Indeed, they were paid tribute to in the play and film adaptation Dreamgirls with the characters of Effie White and Lorrell Robinson being based on Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson respectively.

Bringing the party mood down a few notches is Michael Bolton who is performing his version of “To Love Somebody” to promote his “Timeless: The Classics” album. I know it’s an obvious comment but the Bollers hair really was monstrous wasn’t it? If you’re going to have long hair, at least keep it in good condition. His has the texture of straw and looks like it’s been dragged through a hedge backwards.

Michael is up there on his lonesome with just the dry ice machine for company. There’s some sort of pool structure in the middle of the stage that makes the dry ice look like it’s flooding over. It’s like that scene with the three witches from Macbeth and a cauldron. Maybe Bolton was trying to cook up a spell for some hair conditioner.

“To Love Somebody” peaked at No 16.

The camera swings and we leave Michael Bolton and his bubbling cauldron to focus on Vanessa Paradis who is back in the studio to perform “Be My Baby”. After her lacklustre showing the other week, will she be able to give a more lively turn this time? It is a party after all. Well, Vanessa has clearly tried to jazz up her outfit for the occasion but it looks like Martin Fry caught her raiding his wardrobe halfway through and she’s only managed to snaffle his trousers. She does try to move about a bit more this time but she’s still left looking like she’s only just learned the song lyrics that afternoon and therefore hadn’t had time to work out any dance moves to go with the singing.

Despite continuing to record and release music until as recently as 2019, she never had another UK Top 40 hit. I wonder if her stage presence ever got any better?

Now here’s a band to light up a party! Admittedly not any party I’d want to attend but at least they’re in the right ball park. After converting Gerry Rafferty’s soft rock classic “Baker Street” into a dance anthem for those whose only dance steps were the nerd shuffle, Undercover have turned their attention to another daytime radio staple in Andrew Gold’s “Never Let Her Slip Away”. Now I have to admit to having quite the soft spot for Andrew. “Lonely Boy” is a fab song and “Thank You For Being A Friend” reminds me of watching Golden Girls in our tiny first flat in Manchester. Plus, he was in Wax with 10cc’s Graham Gouldman who had a couple of nifty pop tunes that I liked.

As for “Never Let Her Slip Away”, it had originally been a No 5 hit for Gold in 1978 and had been described by Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters no less as “the most beautiful piece of music ever written”. Wow! As for Undercover’s version, it’s in exactly the same style as their treatment of “Baker Street” which had found a level of popularity back then so I can’t really call them out for sticking to the formula but it was as lifeless as a Vanessa Paradis gig. That didn’t stop it equalling Gold’s chart peak of No 5 though.

Of course, if you are looking for a cover version of “Never Let Her Slip Away” then there’s always this:

Ah come on! A joke’s a joke but nobody’s laughing anymore. Is this the third time on the show for Ambassadors Of Funk and “Supermarioland”? This made Undercover look like Muse. How could the producers have put this on the 1,500th show?! Away with you!

We’ve finally got there. It felt at times like a journey with no end and it’s taken four years worth of TOTP repeats but we’ve reached Jason Donovan’s final UK Top 40 hit. It’s not quite his final appearance on the show as he’s on again in a couple of weeks but “As Time Goes By” was his last chart entry. Yes, it’s that “As Time Goes By” from the classic film Casablanca. A couple of things to say about this one straight off the bat. Firstly, why was Jason Donovan covering this iconic tune? Secondly, how on earth was this a suitable tune for such a milestone show?

Well, it came from Jason’s difficult third album “All Around The World” which was his first since leaving Stock, Aitken and Waterman and came out on Polydor. So little faith did the label have in their new charge that they licensed six of his old hits to add to the track listing to drum up some interest. Donovan was not impressed supposedly but then the public weren’t impressed by the album which was a commercial failure and would be his last studio album for 15 years. OK but why cover “As Time Goes By”? There’s a theory that it could be a shameless case of opportunism as there was a successful TV series of the same name on our screens at the time starring Dame Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer that used the song as its theme tune but that could just be coincidence.

As for it being an odd choice for the 1,500th TOTP, well, as host Mark Franklin says, he was about to tour at the time so maybe there was some negotiation between Polydor and the producers to get him on the show to promote that. Also, he had been a very regular artist on the show over the past four years so maybe he was seen as a deserving choice as one of TOTP’s most prolific guests.

Clearly his new label were trying to restyle him away from his SAW puppet past and mould him into a modern day crooner. Their dastardly plan failed but perhaps watching on was a certain Simon Cowell who may just have thought that their was mileage in this idea. Two years later he would persuade actors Robson Green and Jerome Flynn to cash in in their successful roles in ITV drama Soldier Soldier and record a version of “Unchained Melody” on his S Records label via BMG. It would become the biggest selling UK single of 1995. If only Jason Donovan had remained in Neighbours and not left in 1989 he might have pulled the crooner trick off. Oh hang on. Aren’t he and Kylie making an appearance in the forthcoming last ever episode of the Aussie soap? I don’t think I could stomach a second Jason Donovan pop career.

“As Time Goes By” peaked at No 26.

The camera pans once more this time ensuring that there’s a shot of a chandelier suspended from the studio ceiling in view. Has that been there every week or had it been rapidly erected especially for the 1,500th show? Anyway, as we move away from the chandelier the focus falls on the other stage where Charles And Eddie await their cue to perform “Would I Lie To You?”. As part of his introduction, Mark Franklin gives us some rudimentary maths to work out that over the years, TOTP has delivered over 900 hours of music from acts in the studio. Hmm. The script writers not doing Mark any favours there. He’s coming across like one of those office party bores you desperately don’t want to get stuck talking to.

Meanwhile, Charles And Eddie have gone from being a Breaker last week straight to No 2. A chart topping record now seemed inevitable. Although often referred to as one hit wonders, the duo did actually have a further three UK Top 40 chart entries though none got any higher than No 29 so that misconception is understandable. I have to admit that, probably like many other people, I was confused as to which one was which. Whichever one it was with the long hair had a very distinctive look; sort of like Lou Diamond Phillips in Young Guns as Chavez y Chavez the Mexican-American outlaw. Or possibly “I Got You Babe” era Cher.

Are Charles And Eddie still with us?

*checks Wikipedia*

Well, sadly Charles Pettigrew (who was the black guy) died of cancer in 2001 aged just 37. Eddie Chacon is still alive though and after working as a photographer after the duo split, returned to making music in 2020 with the ridiculously titled song “My Mind Is Out Of Its Mind”.

Now if you’re going to have a celebration to mark the 1,500th show and have been building up to the moment for weeks with nostalgia clips from the archive, then nothing screams “PAAARTY!” like Neil Diamond singing “Morning Has Broken” I always say! God almighty what were they thinking?! Look, I don’t mind a bit of Diamond. I own his Best Of that came out in 1992. Hell, I’ve even seen him live at the KC Stadium in Hull a few years back but this?! This is excruciating! It’s brutal. It’s…just vile.

I didn’t think the producers could have made a worse choice to celebrate their anniversary than Jason Donovan but somehow they managed it. The whole thing is just wrong in every possible way. Why “Morning Has Broken”? It was taken from his “The Christmas Album” so let’s just look at that a moment. That was the best title he could come up with for a Christmas album? “The Christmas Album”?! Come on! And is “Morning Has Broken” even a Christmas song?! It’s a Christian hymn that is often sung at funeral services! What else was on this Christmas album? “Angels” by Robbie Williams? OK, having checked the rest of the tracks were Christmas songs but I stand by my point.

Then there’s Neil himself. He’s wearing an orange open neck shirt with brown slacks! For the love of God! When the camera pans over the studio audience it alights on some faces that don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Some look genuinely distressed at what is unfolding in front of their eyes.

The track was eventually released as a single and somehow made the charts peaking at No 36. It was Neil’s only UK Top 40 hit of the whole decade. It should never, ever have been allowed to happen. Ever.

In a completely underwhelming 1,500th edition of the show, it’s somehow befitting that it ends with “End Of The Road” by Boyz II Men. Where were all the party tunes?

This was the last week at No 1 for the group but by the time the record finally disappeared it would have spent 26 weeks (exactly half a year) on the charts. I had to check that figure three times to be sure. It ended 1992 as the 6th best selling single in the UK.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	En Vogue	Free Your Mind	No, liked it though
2	The Supremes	Baby Love	Sure I have it on a Motown collection somewhere
3	Michael Bolton	To Love Somebody	Not you though Bollers – no
4	Vanessa Paradis	Be My Baby	Yes this is in the singles box though I think my wife actually bought it
5	Undercover	Never Let Her Slip Away	Nah
6	Ambassadors Of Funk	Supermarioland	Hell no!
7	Jason Donovan	As Time Goes By	And pigs might fly – Never!
8	Charles And Eddie	Would I Lie To You?	Nope
9	Neil Diamond	Morning Has Broken	Of course not
10	Boyz II Men	End Of The Road	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/m0016spn/top-of-the-pops-12111992