It’s the middle of the Summer 1994 and the UK singles chart is stagnating. Of the ten songs on tonight’s TOTP, we’ve already seen seven of them on a previous show. I’m pretty sure that was nothing out of the usual though as record companies kept huge releases back for the Autumn schedules and the Christmas sales period. They probably also figured that the public was spending its money on holidays rather than CDs and cassettes. The only beneficiaries of this would be those annoying hits that the travelling hordes had heard whilst holidaying in Europe that would inevitably end up being huge sellers in the UK. 1994 was not immune to this phenomenon but we won’t get to that particular record for a while yet.

In the meantime, we start the show with a single that I think had only featured so far as the play out song a couple of shows back but was now residing in the Top 10 and so qualified for a studio appearance. I mentioned Gun in my last post when discussing my peculiar superpower for missing the zeitgeist completely and lumping my affections on the wrong horse. The Stone Roses or Gun? Well, I quite like the sound of those Scottish rockers and I’m not sure about all this ‘Madchester’ stuff…dear oh dear. Anyway, whilst King Monkey and co would release one of the most iconic debut albums of all time, Gun did have a few hits the biggest of which was their cover of Cameo’s “Word Up”. Pretty much just a straight up rock treatment of the original stone cold 1986 classic track, it still worked pretty well I thought. Nothing fancy, just a load of squealing guitar riffs where the funky Cameo bass was, a standard rock vocal instead of Larry Blackmon’s idiosyncratic voice and a Genesis “Mama” style cackle when the “W.O.R.D. UP” bit comes along. The lead singer had undergone quite the image change since the last time we saw him. Gone are his long, pony tail locks and in their place a short, spiky peroxide blonde hairdo. He also seems to have taken up the singing with your arms behind your back style which would become Liam Gallagher’s trademark. In fact, I don’t recall Liam striking that pose when Oasis made their TOTP debut on the last show. He couldn’t have copied it off the bloke from Gun surely? Maybe I was ahead of the zeitgeist for once!

One of the few new tracks on the show next and I’m guessing this was one of those dreadful holiday hits imported from Europe that I was talking about before. “Everybody Gonfi-Gon” by Italian dance outfit 2 Cowboys is just an abomination but sadly would prove not to be a one off as there was a flurry of these…how would you describe them? A techno-hoedown? A Eurodance square dance? How about pure, unadulterated shite? Where did all this start? Was it with the line dancing phenomenon driven by Billy Ray Cyrus and his “Achy Breaky Heart”? We certainly seemed to stock a load of cheap line dancing CDs on budget labels in the Our Price store where I was working (we even had to create their own section in the racks). Surely you couldn’t line dance to “Everybody Gonfi-Gon” though? Not without breaking your neck anyway. So, was it with Doop and their Charleston gimmick No 1 from earlier in the year? How about The Grid and their banjo fuelled dance sensation “Swamp Thing” that was riding high in the charts at the time? Or even Bravado and their “Harmonica Man” single? Whoever was responsible for it needed a kick in the Gonfi-Gons. This abhorrent nonsense would lead to one of the worst No 1s of the decade in 1995 when Rednex took “Cotton Eye Joe” to the top of the charts. Shocking stuff. And one final thing, what does ‘Gonfi-Gon’ even mean? I assumed it was Italian for ‘do-si-do’ but according to Google Translate it means ‘swollen swollen’. Nobs.

It’s The B–52’s next (or The B.C. 52’s if you’re being pedantic) with “(Meet) The Flintstones” from the live action film version of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon. The post-punk art rockers from Athens, Georgia are finally calling it a day this year when they play a residency in Las Vegas starting in May with their final ever show in September bringing the curtain down on nigh on half a century of adventures in American kitsch culture and bubblegum punk beats. And no I’m not sure if those are the right words to describe what they did but how would you describe their career and legacy?

To be honest, I don’t come at that question from a position of much authority nor knowledge. I was hardly aware of anything much about The B-52’s until 1986 when a re-release of “Rock Lobster” made No 12 in the UK charts and the track was played at my nightclub of choice Images On Glass (wanky name) in downtown Worcester. My ever more hip wife already had a copy of “Planet Claire” I think. Then “Love Shack” made them mainstream pop stars in 1990 (though I always hated that song) and then this…let’s face it…truly awful Flinstones single that really didn’t do their legacy justice. Apparently. they were an influence in convincing John Lennon to return to making music with the “Double Fantasy” album. That should be how they are remembered. If you really need a Hanna-Barbera cartoon theme sung by a band in your life then there’s always The Dickies…

Aswad are back in the TOTP studio again performing “Shine”. This was one of those records that refused to conform to the growing trend that would come to dominate the mid to late 90s that saw singles in and out of the charts within two to three weeks. “Shine” completely bucked this trajectory by spending twelve weeks in total on the Top 40, six of which were consecutive within the Top 10 where it made steady progress to a peak of No 5, even going back up the charts when it had fallen the week before. Maybe it was the seasonal thing I mentioned earlier because there were a few singles that hung around the charts for what seemed like the whole of this Summer – “Crazy” by Let Loose, “Swamp Thing” by The Grid and “I Swear” by All 4 One spring to mind. Or maybe the public just really liked these records?

“Shine” would be Aswad’s second biggest hit after “Don’t Turn Around” and they would only grace the UK Top 40 twice more with two minor hits one of which was a cover version of “You’re No Good” which was a big hit for The Swinging Blue Jeans amongst others. Aswad were pretty keen on cover versions in their later career. The aforementioned “Don’t Turn Around” was a cover of a Tina Turner B-side and they also did a version of Ace’s “How Long” with Yazz. They also took part in a reggae tribute album to The Police recording their take on “Roxanne” which Sting must have liked as he subsequently teamed up with them for a version of “Invisible Sun”. I’ve listened to it so you don’t have to and it doesn’t do anything for either artist’s credibility or legacy. It certainly doesn’t ‘shine’ but then what do you expect from an ‘invisible sun’?

Here’s yet another song we’ve already seen courtesy of Elton John with “Can You Feel The Love Tonight”. Apparently, this was the most played song on radio and TV in the US in 1994. Want to take a guess at who held that position in the UK? Yes, Wet Wet Wet’s version of “Love Is All Around” of course. DJs just couldn’t resist sticking it to us despite the fact that it bored everybody to death by being at No 1 for 15 weeks. Interestingly, the rest of the Top 5 airplay hits of this year included three that were all in the charts around this time – Let Loose, Big Mountain and the afore discussed Aswad. Presumably all that exposure goes some way to explaining their chart longevity. The only one that really surprised me was the second most played record which was “Seven Seconds” by Neneh Cherry and Youssou N’Dour but then it was a huge hit around Europe including here where it peaked at No 3 spending four and a half months on the Top 40 and six weeks inside the Top 10.

I sometimes wonder if The Pretenders get the credit they deserve. Their back catalogue is full of good tunes and in Chrissie Hynde, they have a charismatic lead singer with a unique voice. Their chart stats stand up to scrutiny – 13 UK Top 40 singles of which 5 made the Top 10 plus, of course, a chart topper in “Brass In Pocket” (the first new No 1 single of the 80s). It strikes me though that they never really get talked about as one of the great rock/pop bands. Yes, their eponymous debut album regularly appears in Best Of polls and Hynde was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005 but do you hear their music much on the radio these days? Sure, “2000 Miles” gets airplay every Christmas and “I’ll Stand By You” gets a spin every now and again. I guess you’ll hear “Brass In Pocket” on one of those 80s themed radio stations. It doesn’t seem like much though. Clearly, I haven’t done any statistical breakdown of this theory (it’s all just based on my own perception) so I’m at risk of being shot down in flames but I’m pretty damn sure that this hit – “Night In My Veins” – you will not hear on any station any time soon. And that’s a shame as it’s a good song. The almost forgotten follow up to the aforementioned “I’ll Stand By You”, it’s a nice slice of melodic rock that should have got higher than No 25.

Chrissie looks cool as in leather trousers and high heels in this performance but sadly I fear this might be their last ever appearance on the show as they only had one subsequent Top 40 hit when “Human” got to a lowly No 33 in 1999. They have continued to release new material though with their last album “Hate For Sale” released as recently as 2020.

And yet another song that was huge over the Summer of 1994. I’m pretty sure this is the third time for All 4 One with “I Swear” on the show so to shake things up, they’ve gone for a live by satellite set up from Malibu as opposed to the two previous TOTP studio performances.

This optics in this with the four members of the group walking along the beach with microphones in hand looks completely mad. They’re fooling nobody. Was it to try and keep in line with the show’s live vocal policy? They’re surely miming?! I’ve not seen anything so unconvincing since Jason Donovan wandered along that mountain range strumming his unpowered electric guitar in the video for “Too Many Broken Hearts”! They should have just embraced the completely ludicrous nature of this and gone full New Order on Venice Beach, California performing “Regret” in the company of the cast of Baywatch, David Hasselhoff and all.

Hold the front page! Take That release a single that doesn’t go straight to No 1! Yes, after four consecutive chart toppers, the lads have to settle for the relative failure of a No 3 hit in “Love Ain’t Here Anymore”. Now you could make a reasonable case for this outcome as being down to the song being the sixth single released from their “Everything Changes” album (who did they think they were, Michael Jackson?). However, it is my firm belief that it missed the top spot on account of it not being very good. A big, sloppy ballad deliberately written to make their teenage female fans swoon, it’s basically a rewrite of “A Million Love Songs” but with some awful lyrical rhymes. I mean “It’s gone away to a town called yesterday”? Please.

Two questions about this performance occur to me. What the hell are they wearing and what on earth was that squeal that Gary Barlow let out at the song’s…erm…climax?! Might be a poor choice of word that on reflection.

Wet Wet Wet clearly disagree with Take That’s assertion that “Love Ain’t Here Anymore” as they are still No 1 with “Love Is All Around”. As with All 4 One earlier, the TOTP producers have tried to alleviate the monotony of a persistent chart botherer by getting in a guest presenter just to introduce this one song. Consequently, alongside regular host Mark Goodier, appears Reg Presley on his shoulder. Reg, of course, was the guy who wrote “Love Is All Around” back in 1967 for The Troggs. He does a nice little turn as well, not fluffing his lines and seemingly well chuffed to be back on TOTP. If you listen carefully, as the camera cuts away to Wet Wet Wet, you can hear Goodier call Presley a star to which Reg replies “Thanks”. Obviously, he’s also on the show to plug a Troggs Greatest Hits album that has been released in the wake of the success of the Wets’ cover version but let’s ignore that.

Marti Pellow, alongside his two guitarists, look like they belong in 1967 and its Summer of Love that Reg references in his intro with their hippy length hair. I recall a headline on the front cover of Smash Hits when they first started growing their hair that said “Och aye Jock McKay, look at the state of the Wets!”. Not sure that would be allowed these days. Sadly, Reg Presley died from lung cancer in 2013 aged 71.

The play out song is another cover version but an unlikely and rather heinous one – “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Abigail anyone? What? Sorry…who?! Well, her full name is Abigail Zsiga who, despite the exotic name, hailed from Warrington and she supplied the vocals for a minor hit called “I Feel You” by Love Decade in 1992 (no me neither). After that, she carved out a rather niche career of recording Hi-NRG versions of popular songs including k.d. lang’s “Constant Craving”, REM’s “Losing My Religion” and this Nirvana classic. It’s all rather nasty but at least you can hear far more clearly what the actual lyrics were as opposed to the original. It’s not much of an endorsement though is it?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Gun	Word Up	Liked it, didn’t buy it
2	2 Cowboys	Everybody Gonfi-Gon	As if
3	The B-52s	(Meet) The Flintstones	Nope
4	Aswad	Shine	No
5	Elton John	Can You Feel The Love Tonight	I did not
6	The Pretenders	Night In My Veins	It’s a no from me
7	All 4 One	I Swear	No chance
8	Take That	Love Ain’t Here Anymore	Nah
9	Wet Wet Wet	Love Is All Around	And no
10	Abigail	Smells Like Teen Spirit	Certainly not

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All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001kyvr/top-of-the-pops-07071994