After Bruno Brookes’ valedictory TOTP appearance last week, we’re back to the ‘golden mic’ slot and this time it’s given to Phill Jupitus. Now quite how big a name Phill was at the time I’m not sure. Wikipedia tells me that he didn’t start his stint as a team captain on Never Mind The Buzzcocks until 1996 but that he had his own radio show on BBC GLR. In the pre-digital world, I’m not sure that the latter post would have cut through that much but I’m wondering if I would have been aware of him thanks to my Weller super fan elder brother and the fact that Phill had been involved with the Red Wedge movement of the mid 80s. Possibly. Anyway, Phill would go onto have a very successful career as a stand up, actor, radio host, performance poet and podcaster. However, Wikipedia informs me that Phill has now retired and is studying art at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Dundee.
Back to 1995 though and Phill is doing his best to look excited at the thought of introducing this year’s Eurovision entry which, though the artist didn’t do the business on the night of the contest finishing 10th, is one of the more memorable acts to have represented the UK. Now it may not seem like a big deal to our sophisticated 2023 ears with the hindsight of twenty-nine contests informing our perspective but having a rap / hip-hop group as the Eurovision entry was almost revolutionary. Love City Groove were that group and, as I remember, much was expected of them if not to actually win it then to at least shake the whole competition up a bit. Their 10th place finish wasn’t very glorious but was in line with recent UK form in the competition. Frances Ruffelle had also finished 10th the previous year as had Samantha Janus in 1991. Sure, only Coco in 1978 and Rikki in 1987 had secured a poorer position in the years since the competition’s inception, but given the horrors that were to come for the UK, 10th place would certainly come to be seen as not bad at all. However, Eurovision stalwart Terry Wogan wasn’t that impressed. As the voting played out on the big night and it became apparent that the losing streak that we’d been on since Bucks Fizz were the last UK winners in 1981 was going to continue, Terry grimly stated that “the experiment has failed”.
They may not have brought the bacon home for the UK but “Love City Groove” the single was more successful in winning over the UK record buying public. Its peak of No 7 meant that it was the highest charting UK Eurovision song since Bardo made No 2 in 1982. Indeed, no Eurovision song (UK or otherwise) had made our Top 10 since Johnny Logan’s “Hold Me Now” in 1987.
Watching their performance here, it all looks rather unconvincing like it’s actually a present day parody, sending up mid 90s sounds and styles; even their name sounds like a spoof. I guess that opinion can only exist with 28 years of hindsight though. I’m predicting this won’t be the last time we see Love City Groove on TOTP as Eurovision night was still a month away at this point.
Next an artist who is pretty much known as a one hit wonder over here (although that’s not statistically correct) but is a huge deal in her own country. Tina Arena (not quite her real name but close enough – Filippina Arena isn’t quite as snappy I guess) is an Australian singer-songwriter, musical theatre actress and producer who has sold 10 million records worldwide but how many people in the UK know her just for “Chains”?
A slow building, brooding power ballad with a memorable chorus performed by a strong vocalist with a soprano range, it was always going to do well commercially. And so it did. Going double platinum in Australia, it also crossed over in the UK selling 200,000 copies but then, we’d always been suckers for power ballads. Meatloaf had the biggest selling single of 1993 with “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” and more recently Celine Dion’s “Think Twice” had been our No 1 single for seven weeks. “Chains” didn’t quite match the feats of those two records but a No 6 hit was highly respectable.
Tina did have four more UK chart entries but none made the Top 20. Her final hit was called “Whistle Down The Wind” from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical of the same name based on the Hayley Mills film. I thought at the time she must have covered the greatest living Englishman Nick Heyward’s debut solo hit but thankfully she hadn’t. A quick thought on the staging of the performance here. What was the deal with having the backing singers positioned on a separate stage away from Tina? There was plenty of space behind her which Phill Jupitus occupies when he walks on behind her to do the next intro. Odd.
I saw a post on Twitter (I refuse to call it X) on a #TOTP thread the other day saying that everyone had lost interest in REM by 1995. I’m not sure that’s true as most of their post ‘95 albums went to No 1 both here and in the US but I have to admit personally to not following their output as closely from “Monster” onwards. I think a case could be made that those four albums “Green”, “Out Of Time”, “Automatic For The People” and the aforementioned “Monster” represented their imperial phase. “Strange Currencies” was the third single to be lifted from that album but it could easily have been called “Everybody Hurts 2.0” so close is its sound to that previous 1993 hit. It doesn’t mean it isn’t a good song (it is) but I guess maybe I expected more from a band like REM than song recycling.
The video features Norman Reedus who would go on to play Daryl Dixon in The Walking Dead franchise but it’s another US TV show that has a more current link to “Strange Currencies”. If you haven’t caught FX’s The Bear (you can watch it on Disney Plus in the UK), you’ve missed out. A comedy drama about an award winning chef who returns to his hometown of Chicago to run his dead brother’s sandwich shop…yeah, I know that description isn’t really selling it but trust me, it’s great. Anyway, the show has a fine soundtrack featuring the likes of Wilco, Radiohead, The Breeders, Van Morrison and “Strange Currencies”. Such was the show’s impact that a second video for the song was released in June of this year featuring footage of REM’s documentary Road Movie and clips from The Bear.
It’s another outing for the latest incarnation of Snap! now with their hit “The First The Last Eternity (Till The End)”. I haven’t got much else on this one seeing as this is its second studio appearance recently other than to say the staging of it looks very simplistic with just vocalist Summer and two backing dancers for company. I know there was always an issue with presenting dance acts on the show effectively but this does seem overly sparse.
Also looking on the scant side were the band’s album sales. Generating big numbers from a dance act’s albums as opposed to their singles was always a difficult trick to pull off but Snap! had been one of the more successful proponents of the art. Debut album “World Power” went Top 10 and achieved gold status as did the 1992 follow up “The Madman’s Return” but their third effort “Welcome To Tomorrow” bombed out at No 69. To be fair, it didn’t feature a No 1 single like its predecessors did (“The Power” and “Rhythm Is A Dancer” respectively). That kind of makes sense but then how do you explain how 1996’s Greatest Hits collection “Snap! Attack: The Best Of Snap!” could only make a high of No 47? Ah, the vagaries of public approval.
Next, it’s another of those previous ‘exclusive’ performances being wheeled out again once said single has entered the charts. This time it’s for “Doll Parts” by Hole. Did I tell my Hole / Nirvana T-shirt story last time? I think I did meaning I’m struggling for content yet again. Erm…well there’s the influence that Courtney Love has had on inspiring subsequent female performers to embark on a career in rock music but there’s plenty been written about that much better than I could do in my irreverent blog. Instead, here’s an insight to that TOTP appearance from the other week courtesy of @TOTPFacts when Ant & Dec were the hosts:
Wait. What? Another Bruce Springsteen track from his “Greatest Hits” album?! We had “Murder Incorporated” the other week and now we get the second of four new tracks on the collection “Secret Garden”. His label Columbia must have been hitting the phones hard to get him exposure like this. Or maybe The Boss was such a big name that he told TOTP when he would be on the show.
“Murder Incorporated” was never released as a single in the UK but “Secret Garden” was. However, despite the strength of the track, it only made No 44 originally. What do I mean by originally? Well, it was reactivated two years later by its inclusion on the soundtrack to Jerry Maguire which is possibly why it sounds so familiar to me. Either that or the fact that it could be mistaken for “The Big Ones Get Away” by Buffy Sainte-Marie. The 1997 release of “Secret Garden” would make No 17 whilst the “Greatest Hits” album topped the charts just about everywhere on the planet.
And another dance tune that’s back for another TOTP appearance that I’m not sure I have the stamina to comment on. Strike are up to No 4 with “U Sure Do” which is where they will peak. Will that do? No? OK, how about the contrast in performance between them and Snap! earlier? A vocalist and two backing singers on a bare looking stage was all Snap! had but Strike have two keyboard players, two twirling dancers and two backing singers on their own podiums. I get that there’s a difference in tempo between the respective tracks which may have influenced the set ups but it hardly seems fair does it?
The exclusive performance this week features two controversial and irrepressible characters and a song that has a back story that has a connection to one of tonight’s artists that was on earlier. Shane MacGowan (and the Popes) and Sinéad O’Connor were an unlikely duet or were they? In terms of their voices maybe. Sinéad with her pure, angelic vocal and Shane with his drunken growl but in terms of their background and profiles, perhaps their collaboration was inevitable. The track they chose to record together was an old Pogues song called “Haunted” that had originally been on the soundtrack to the Sid Vicious biopic Sid And Nancy which is where the connection with another act on tonight’s show comes in. Courtney Love had a bit part in that film as a friend of Nancy Spungen. “Haunted” failed to make the Top 40 on its original release in 1986 but its re-recording in 1995 and inclusion on the soundtrack to another film (Two If By Sea / Stolen Hearts) propelled it to a high of No 30.
I quite like it I have to say even if the contrast in Shane and Sinéad’s voices is a bit jarring to say the least. The latter, of course, died in July this year at the tragically young age of 56. Back in 1995, I don’t think any of us would have predicted that MacGowan would live longer out of the two of them.
Take That are still secure in top spot with “Back For Good” for a second week. It would eventually sell over a million copies and is the biggest selling single by a boyband ever in the UK.
Such is its influence that it has been used in The Office as the love theme between Tim and Dawn but I think even that is eclipsed by its use in Channel 4 sit com Spaced which also managed to reference the rather wonderful John Cusack film Say Anything.
| Order of appearance | Artist | Title | Did I buy it? |
| 1 | Love City Groove | Love City Groove | Not likely |
| 2 | Tina Arena | Chains | Not for me |
| 3 | REM | Strange Currencies | Neative |
| 4 | Snap! | The First The Last Eternity (Till The End) | I did not |
| 5 | Hiole | Doll Parts | No thanks |
| 6 | Bruce Springsteen | Secret Garden | Nah |
| 7 | Strike | U Sure Do | Nope |
| 8 | Shane MacGowan and the Popes / Sinéad O’Connor | Haunted | No |
| 9 | Take That | Back For Good | No but my wife did |
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/m001rk7c/top-of-the-pops-13041995
TOTP Rewind - the 90s 