Despite my recent outrage at the omnipresence of Eurodance in the UK charts in the mid 90s (and therefore also on TOTP), I’m sure if I did some proper statistical analysis of the musical genres represented on the show, it would tell me that the mix of categories was eclectic. No, not eclectic but mad, bonkers, all over the place. Tonight’s show is a prime example. Yes, there are plenty of dance tunes (of varying quality) but there’s also some out and out pop, an exponent of the New Wave of New Wave (whatever that was), the debut of a rock ‘n’ roll band (definitely not indie…erm…maybe) who would dominate the 90s, a mega selling cover of an old 60s tune and hell, even a memorable No 1 from 1979! What a basket case of a show! The host is Bruno Brookes who I have to say I have warmed to since his return to the programme after the ‘year zero’ revamp era. I couldn’t be doing with him during his 80s pomp but compared to Simon ‘Smug’ Mayo, I’m finding his matey presenting style a bit more acceptable.
First up is a tune that I reviewed as part of the TOTP that was broadcast on 29 July 1993. Back then, “Caught In The Middle” by Juliet Roberts was a Breaker but as that section doesn’t exist anymore, she’s opening this show with a performance in the studio. In that first review, I drew some comparisons with Shara Nelson who was also on that day but there’s no Shara this time round so I’ll have to think of something else to say. Well, back in 1993, the single made No 24 and was produced by Danny D (of D-Mob fame) and remixed by Roger Sanchez. However, a David Morales remix that lit up the dance floors of clubs in 1994 demanded a release of its own and so it was that it was put out again, this time peaking at No 14. What are the differences between the two versions? I’m afraid my lack of dance music knowledge embarrasses me here but the Morales remix does seem to have a faster bpm which requires some controlled breathing and singing techniques from Juliet to get through it. This would prove to be Juliet’s biggest ever hit and she has not released any material since 2002 though she remains in demand as a backing singer.
That pure pop record next as Let Loose are finally given free rein to showcase themselves to the UK at large. I say ‘finally’ as they’d actually been around Take That style for over a year before this appearance and their single – “Crazy” – had originally been released back in April of 1993. It had just missed the Top 40 then but their record label Mercury obviously believed in the song and so it was re-released with a big promotional push and a chart entry at No 24 was achieved. There then followed a climb that was becoming most atypical within the UK Top 40 around this time whereby the single rose in small increments five weeks on the trot to get a foothold on the No 4 position. The story didn’t end there though. It stayed within the Top 10 for a further six weeks including two at No 2 when only the extraordinary sales of Wet Wet Wet kept it off the top spot. In total, it spent sixteen weeks inside the Top 40 and nine inside the Top 10. Perhaps most remarkable of all was that it would become the UK’s eighth best selling single of 1994, shifting more copies than D:Ream’s “Things Can Only Get Better” which spent four weeks at No 1 at the start of the year.
How can all this be explained? Well, it was supremely radio friendly becoming a staple of daytime playlists to the point that the band’s lead singer himself – Richie Wermerling – had this to say of the song (courtesy of @TOTPFacts):
The single’s success led to the re-release of another early single (“Seventeen”) which though nowhere near the sales phenomenon of its predecessor made a respectable No 11. Despite being pin up material and playing catchy pop music, Let Loose were never going to seriously worry Take That as the nation’s favourite boy band. The position of contender for that role would be filled by Boyzone come the end of the year. However, they did notch up seven Top 40 hits over two years before disbanding.
And here it is. The inevitable appearance of some nasty dance music in the form of Reel 2 Real featuring The Mad Stuntman. After the gravity defying chart run of “I Like To Move It” that remained aloft in the Top 40 for seventeen weeks, there were no surprises for guessing how main man Erick Morillo would follow it up. Just chuck out something that sounds exactly the same! What to call it? Something with the word ‘move’ in the title will do again. No need to overthink it. Just shameless. The ‘lyrics’ to “Go On Move” bang on about women shaking their bodies and then there’s some nonsensical scatting at the start. Look at this:
Bibidy, bom bi bom, mek, house go mad
Source: LyricFind
Bibidy, bom bi bom, mek, jazz go mad
Bibidy, bom bi bom, mek, house go mad
Bibidy, bom bi bom, mek, jazz go mad
Songwriters: Erick A. Morillo / Mark H. Quashie / Peter Tulloch
Go on Move lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Warner Chappell Music, Inc
The use of the word ‘Bibidy’ isn’t inspired by the “Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo” song from Disney’s Cinderella animation but, according to my research, a Jamaican term for men’s underwear. Nice. In trade publication Music Week, reviewer James Hamilton described it as:
“Gruff ragga ‘g’wan move’ shouting and ‘blippily bebop’ scatting drily percussive ‘I Like To Move It’ type bogie shuffler”
Hamilton, James (June 25, 1994). “Dj directory” (PDF). Music Week, in Record Mirror (Dance Update Supplemental Insert). p. 5. Retrieved April 18, 2021.
That just about sums up this whole shoddy affair. Somehow, the good old British public bought enough copies to send it to No 7. Thanks for that.
It’s that No 1 from 1979 next. Surely one of the most memorable chart toppers ever, “I Don’t Like Mondays” was the second consecutive No 1 single for The Boomtown Rats after “Rat Trap” the year before. They were the biggest band in the UK. I was only 11 at the time and not exactly in tune with current chart trends but even I knew this song and The Boomtown Rats. The elder brother of a kid I knew up the street was a big fan. Not that I knew it at the time but so was my wife who asked her parents for their “Tonic For The Troops” album for Christmas ‘78 (they bought her “Nightflight To Venus” by Boney M instead).
By 1981 though, the hits had started to dry up. The New Romantics movement was in ascendancy with blousy young heroes like Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran capturing the nation’s imagination and The Rats were seen as old hat. By 1984 they were completely washed up. And then came that news report from Ethiopia that Bob Geldof couldn’t ignore leading to the Band Aid record and the Live Aid concert and that moment when he sings the line “And the lesson today is how to die”…
The origins of the lyrics of the whole song are well documented of course. The school shooting in San Diego by 16 year old Brenda Spencer who fired at children in a school playground because, by her own words, “I don’t like Mondays. This livens the day up” is pretty bleak source material. Geldof couldn’t have known that just a few years later it would provide an iconic moment in rock history as part of an effort to use the power of music for the good of humanity.
* For my full review of Live Aid, follow the link below:
https://80spop.wordpress.com/2018/04/04/live-aid-13-jul-1985/(opens in a new tab)
None of the above explains why “I Don’t Like Mondays” was back in the charts in 1994 though. It was a pretty obvious reason in truth. A Boomtown Rats / Bob Geldof retrospective Best Of album entitled “Loudmouth” had been released and the track was re-released to promote it. The album made the Top 10 though the single only made No 38 so I’m a little surprised that it warranted a whole slot to itself. It would have been a Breaker under the old regime no doubt.
The moment has finally arrived. It wouldn’t be 1994 – the year Britpop took off according to many – without them. Stand by (me) for the time has arrived for the TOTP debut of Oasis! Working in a record shop in the centre of Manchester at the time, it was kind of hard to avoid Liam, Noel and co but I have to say I’d not got on board immediately. Whilst some of my work colleagues were all over debut single “Supersonic”, I was picking fault in their rhyming of Elsa with Alka-Seltzer in the lyrics. Second single “Shakermaker” didn’t quite do it for me either but by the time third release “Live Forever” came along, I could resist no longer and was all in. I’m pretty sure that I could tell that something big was brewing and I didn’t want to miss out. Record breaking debut album “Definitely Maybe” was duly purchased and eighteen months later I was at the second of their first outdoor headline gigs at Maine Road.
Back in the Summer of 1994 though, why wasn’t I immediately swept up in the Oasis tsunami? Admittedly, I had some previous when it came to ignoring huge Manchester bands just as they were breaking. The Smiths? No thanks, not poppy enough for me. The Stone Roses? Erm no. I rather like the look of Scottish rockers Gun instead. And so to Oasis. Why didn’t I watch this TOTP performance and think “Sign me up. I’m totally here for this”? Was I put off by the Genesis apeing practice of having drummer Tony McCarroll centre stage? It’s interesting to note that the focal point of the group Liam and Noel are furthest away from the stage here. Presumably that was deliberate but it seems out of character. Rather more predictably, poor old Bonehead and Guigsy hardly get a look in.
“Shakermaker” would peak at No 11, considerably higher than “Supersonic” (No 31) so we should have all been on alert at this point to the rise of the band. Although it would continue to sell throughout the next few years along with the band’s other singles (we were still regularly ordering copies of all of them for years), it remains the band’s only single released from their first two albums not to be certified gold.
Another dance tune now but I didn’t expect this one to sound like it does. Crystal Waters burst into the charts in 1991 with the hypnotic house sound of “Gypsy Woman” (“La da dee, la dee da”) but this single “Ghetto Day” (a double A- side with “What I Need”) sounds like something off Betty Boo’s second album. Seriously, it sounds like “Let Me Take You There” doesn’t it? She even seems to have changed her hair to a Boo style bob. It turned out though that the record buying public weren’t too keen on the Betty Boo version of Crystal Waters and, despite this appearance, the single got no higher than this week’s chart position of No 40. To be fair, the record buying public hadn’t been too keen on this Betty Boo version of Betty Boo so Crystal had no chance.
The New Wave of New Wave was a terrible name for a musical movement but then so was Britpop I guess. Unlike the latter, it didn’t live long in the memory either. So what was it and who was in it? Well, it pretty much did what it said on the tin. Bands that played guitar driven rock music that had post punk and new wave influences. And its exponents? Well, one of the main bands of the movement were These Animal Men whose name I remember but whose sound I do not. I’m guessing though that it was similar to S*M*A*S*H who were the first band of that sub genre to appear on TOTP the other week. Initially, there were other names associated with the New Wave of New Wave but as that scene petered out and Britpop became the dominant force, it was the latter that they became known for. I’m talking about Sleeper, Echobellly, Shed Seven and Elastica amongst others.
The only thing I can recall of These Animal Men was that they released an EP called “Taxi For These Animal Men”. So was a taxi required? Let’s have a listen to “Speeed King” then…
As I thought, they sound like S*M*A*S*H with maybe a bit of Menswear thrown in though I think they had a bit more to them than this These Animal Men who seemed to peddle a very specific (dare I say one trick pony) style of music. Host Bruno Brookes introduces them as being the ‘TOTP showcase’ which seems to have been another way of saying “this lot don’t have any hits but we’ve shoved them on the show to prove how hip we are”. “Speeed King” got no higher than No 95 and These Animal Men were done and dusted by 1998 when they split.
The Grid again? Is this the third outing for “Swamp Thing”? Despite this being a brand new performance, it’s basically exactly the same as they did the last time they were on including the rather odd set up for the banjo player. This single was one of a number that just sold and sold that Summer alongside Let Loose, Aswad and of course Wet Wet Wet. I must have sold hundreds of copies of those titles to the punters in the Manchester Piccadilly Our Price store where I was working at the time. One day I served a guy who asked if he could have discount on what he was buying. As there was no valid reason for his request I replied in the negative. He then came back with “I’m asking you politely for discount” to which I again replied “No”. My customer then advised me that he knew people who would come and kneecap me if I didn’t do as he wanted. It was that kind of place. A swamp thing? More like a cesspit of humanity. For the record, I still didn’t give him any discount and nobody did turn up to kneecap me.
Wet Wet Wet remain steadfastly secure in the No 1 spot with “Love Is All Around”. To try and mix things up a bit, TOTP have got hold of a piece of footage from a concert the band did at Wembley that week and show that instead of another studio performance or the video.
In the clip, Marti Pellow has a curious affectation where he twirls around making a welcoming gesture which put me in mind of Stephen Rea’s turn in Interview With A Vampire:
I’d have to say that Marti has a better smile than a vampire though.
The play out song is “Living In The Sunshine” by Clubhouse. The follow up to “Light My Fire”, ah…really though…who cares? Certainly not me.
| Order of appearance | Artist | Title | Did I buy it? |
| 1 | Juliet Roberts | Caught In The Middle | Nope |
| 2 | Let Loose | Crazy | No but I think my wife succumbed to its charms |
| 3 | Reel 2 Real featuring The Mad Stuntman | Go On Move | Never! |
| 4 | The Boomtown Rats | I Don’t Like Mondays | No but I must have it on something surely? |
| 5 | Oasis | Shakermaker | Not the single but I bought there album. Didn’t we all? |
| 6 | Crystal Waters | Ghetto Day / What I Need | Nah |
| 7 | These Animal Men | Speeed King | No |
| 8 | The Grid | Swamp Thing | I did not |
| 9 | Wet Wet Wet | Love Is All Around | And no |
| 10 | Clubhouse | Living In The Sunshine | As if |
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/m001krcc/top-of-the-pops-30061994
TOTP Rewind - the 90s 