With one notable exception, the line up for this TOTP is one of the most underwhelming and uninspiring I’ve seen for a while. An horrendous No 1 and a load of dance tunes I don’t remember and probably wouldn’t like if I did. At least it’s a ‘golden mic’ presenter slot with an interesting choice of host(s) this week. Stewart Lee and Richard Herring were a comedy duo who met at Oxford University and were contemporaries of the likes of Emma Kennedy. After writing for Chris Morris’ Radio 4 comedy vehicle On The Hour, they switched to Radio 1 writing and starring in Fist Of Fun which would eventually transfer to TV via BBC2. The first series had only just finished by the time of this TOTP so Lee and Herring’s profile was presumably pretty high and bestowed upon them a shot at presenting the network’s flagship music show. I’m not sure that the pair were on my comedy radar at this time though I have seen Stewart Lee live subsequently and he was very funny. The double act seems to be based on Lee being sarcastic and cutting and Herring being frivolous and silly. He strays into something a bit more uncomfortable though at the top of the show by asking if he might be in heaven as he’s surrounded by sweaty, teenage girls. Such a remark possibly wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow back then but in these post Operation Yewtree times, it doesn’t sit well.
Anyway, we start with Incognito who I had forgotten were still having hits as late as 1995. To be fair to myself, my knowledge of them only extends to “Always There” from 1991 and their cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing” in 1992. However, there is much more to them than that starting with the fact that they had been in existence since 1979 and have a roster of members past and present (they are still a going concern) they could rival The Fall and The Waterboys. Talking of Incognito members, I had to do a double take but my suspicions were confirmed by @TOTPFacts that the guy on bongos would go on to be pretty famous for something else…
Well there you go. Professor Brian Cox wasn’t the only celebrity to play in a 90s band before becoming famous in a different profession. As for Incognito’s tune, “Everyday” is actually quite pleasant as far as it goes but it does smack of being a rewrite of “Always There” which wasn’t even their song in the first place.
After Lee and Herring have a discussion about Jon Bon Jovi’s unusual pronunciation of Milan as ‘Milarn’ from his to camera piece at the top of the show, we move onto a dance tune I certainly wouldn’t have liked back in 1995 (I don’t actually remember it) and definitely don’t like 28 years later. Nightcrawlers were coming off the back of a huge hit in “Push The Feeling On” – you might know it as the “Just Sold My Car” song for the We Buy Any Car ad – and “Surrender Your Love” was more of the same though a bit watered down and (clearly in my case) not as memorable.
Despite or maybe because of his rather extreme look of long blond hair and shades which ages him terribly – he was 31 at the time of this broadcast – the TOTP cameras seem to deliberately avoid having vocalist John Reid on screen for longer than a couple of seconds at a time preferring to focus on the multitude of dancers on stage. It really is quite noticeable. Maybe the show’s producers were trying to recreate the feel of a nightclub where this track would have no doubt gone down well with mid 90s house music fiends. “Surrender Your Love” peaked at No 7.
Next an exclusive live by satellite performance of “This Is How We Do It” by Montell Jordan but, as with many of these ‘exclusives’, it fails to live up to its title. Coming in direct from Los Angeles, you might have thought the location would be the Hollywood Walk Of Fame, the TCL Chinese Theatre, Venice or Santa Monica beach or at least somewhere with the Hollywood sign in the background wouldn’t you? What we get is an outdoor basketball court that could be anywhere. Montell doesn’t even have a cordless microphone so he can’t move around much and it’s left to his three backing dancers to try and liven things up a bit – they don’t. Honestly not sure what executive producer Ric Blaxill was thinking here.
Some more comments from Lee and Herring that have not aged well next. Describing Scatman John as “an old, stuttering man” (Herring) who “didn’t let age or his inability to speak get in the way of having a No 3 hit” (Lee) before introducing him with a stutter (Herring again) might get you cancelled these days or as Lee might say in his stand up shows, “you can get put in jail these days just for presenting Top Of The Pops”. Or something. “Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)” was indeed up to No 3 but it would go no further. Nonsensical novelty hit or genre bending innovation? You decide.
Lee and Herring indulge in a bit of sexual innuendo now reminding the watching audience that if it hurts, you’re not doing it right before introducing “Hurts So Good” by Jimmy Somerville. As with Incognito earlier, I’d totally forgotten that Jimmy was still having hits as late as this. In my head, his chart bothering days pretty much ended with his very successful singles collection album over Christmas 1990. I wasn’t too far off to be fair but I’d forgotten about “Dare To Love” which became his first album released since then when it appeared in 1995. “Hurts So Good” was the second single from it and was a cover of a song made famous by Susan Cadogan who had a No 4 hit with it in 1975. I don’t know Susan’s version and I don’t remember Jimmy’s but I have to say I don’t feel like I missed out on much. Somerville had form for doing reggae-fied covers. He did one of the Bee Gees song “To Love Somebody” to promote that singles collection and “Hurts So Good” falls into the sane category for me. I just don’t think Jimmy’s high falsetto voice suits reggae. For me, he’s always been better on a barnstorming Hi-NRG type track. This would prove to be his final UK Top 40 entry with his first coming back in 1984 with “Smalltown Boy” as part of Bronski Beat.
It’s time for the second live by satellite exclusive performance on the show tonight as Bon Jovi perform “This Ain’t A Love Song” live from Milan (or is it Milarn?). Lee and Herring cue it up for us by the former declaring that he hates Bon Jovi and I, for one, believe him. A simple search of ‘What music does Stewart Lee like’ on Google gives loads of results including a list of his favourite 13 albums. Some of them, I’ve never even heard of the artist let alone the album but the ones I did know include REM (despite him saying how much they’ve disappointed him and are awful), Miles Davis, Madness and The Byrds. He’s also a lifelong fan of The Fall but can no longer listen to Morrissey despite his attachment to The Smiths. I don’t see any room in there at all for Bon Jovi’s brand of rock.
As for said brand, the band were at a bit of a crossroads as to what direction to take after the mega selling “Keep The Faith” album that they’d toured and promoted for two years. That album had seen them develop a more mature sound and lay off the hair metal histrionics of “Slippery When Wet” and “New Jersey”. The change hadn’t affected their commercial appeal with sales of 8 million worldwide so which direction should they go in now? Some early demos were trashed by Jon Bon Jovi as not being up to scratch and the gap where a new album should have been was filled by a Best Of called “Crossroads” (oh I get that title now) and a couple of new songs. A rethink was required which led the band to a darker album entitled “These Days”. Yet again, a new sound didn’t result in a downturn in sales with the album selling even more than “Keep The Faith” worldwide. It also achieved critical acclaim being ranked No 2 by Q Magazine in their “Top 50 albums of 1995” list. Lead single “This Ain’t A Love Song” would be the first of four consecutive Top 10 singles in the UK taken from the album when it peaked at No 6. It’s an accomplished rock ballad though its verses remind me of their 1987 forgotten hit “Never Say Goodbye”. A word on this TOTP appearance. What’s so exclusive about performing to an empty venue regardless of it being in Milan/Milarn?
Ah, some more dodgy rhetoric from Lee and Herring about following Michelle Gayle around and restraining orders. It sounds awful now but again, was it deemed acceptable back then? Maybe these TOTP repeats should come with those sensitivity warnings that say ‘this programme is from *insert the year* and features themes and attitudes from the time”.
Anyway, Michelle is back with her fourth chart hit “Freedom” though I don’t recall this one either. Nothing to do with George Michael (though Robbie Williams was just a year or so away from a cover version of that particular song), it’s a pleasant if insubstantial pop ditty which Michelle sells enthusiastically even impressively high kicking her way through it at one point. Her all woman set up of two keyboard players and two backing dancers could almost have been designed to flick the V’s at the hosts and their misogyny. I was rather distracted though by the singalong ‘Okay’ bit towards the end which put me in mind of Lenny Henry’s unfortunate early ‘comedy’ character Algernon Razmatazz and his ‘Ooookaaaay’ catchphrase. My god, reviewing these TOTP repeats is a culturally sensitive minefield.
Yes! The notable exception to tonight’s underwhelming running order is here. After being an ‘exclusive’ last week, McAlmont & Butler have crashed into the charts at No 10 with…ahem…”Yes”. There was some debate online about whether Richard Herring calls his co-host a ‘wanker’ or a ‘wassock’ in the intro to this one after this repeat aired but he clearly says the latter. The man himself took to Twitter/X to confirm:
This brilliant song has helped me through some difficult times at work in the past and remains a permanent in my life. I was meant to see Bernard Butler live in Manchester around 1998 when he was touring his fine debut solo album “People Move On” but he cancelled at the last minute. Years later though I did catch David McAlmont live in Hull when he did a show of Prince songs. An engaging storyteller, he did a fab version of “Raspberry Beret” restyled as “Guyanan Beret“ – his mother was from Guyana. Sadly I can’t find any clips of it online.
Aargh! I’d forgotten that Robson & Jerome’s No 1 was a double A-side! Not content with hacking their way through “Unchained Melody” they’ve also taken the musical equivalent of a dull spoon to “(There’ll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs Of Dover”. The song recorded by ‘Forces’ Sweetheart’ Dame Vera Lynn in 1942 and one of the songs most associated with WWII has also been covered by the likes of Connie Francis, Bing Crosby, Jim Reeves, Acker Bilk and Steeleye Span. It was also recorded by The Righteous Brothers and was a hit for them in the UK in 1966. Was that the reason why Robson & Jerome laid down a version of it? Because it dovetailed neatly with “Unchained Melody” which Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield also famously recorded? Or is that just me trying to add some synchronicity that isn’t there? It’s just that it seems an odd choice of song – or was it? Was this just more cynical positioning from Simon Cowell. Did he look at the Soldier Soldier audience and work out that an album and single by two of its characters might be most likely to be purchased by an older demographic who maybe wouldn’t normally buy anything that was in the charts and so a version of “(There’ll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs Of Dover” would be the perfect track to reel them in?
We end with one of the weirdest song titles of the year, no any year. “The Far-Out Son Of Lung And The Ramblings Of A Madman” was the latest of EP by The Future Sound Of London. As a pop kid, none of their stuff ever made any sense to me. This one is no different. It sounds like the incidental music to Blakes 7 put through a high spin washing cycle. Thankfully we only get a few seconds of this as the credits kick in.
| Order of appearance | Artist | Title | Did I buy it? |
| 1 | Incognito | Everyday | I did not |
| 2 | Nightcrawlers | Surrender Your Love | No |
| 3 | Montell Jordan | This Is How We Do It | Nope |
| 4 | Scatman John | Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop) | Never happening |
| 5 | Jimmy Somerville | Hurts So Good | Nah |
| 6 | Bon Jovi | This Ain’t A Love Song | Negative |
| 7 | Michelle Gayle | Freedom | It’s another no |
| 8 | McAlmont & Butler | Yes | YES! |
| 9 | Robson & Jerome | Unchained Melody / (There’ll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs Of Dover | What do you think?! |
| 10 | The Future Sound Of London | The Far-Out Son Of Lung And The Ramblings Of A Madman | 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/m001s8tj/top-of-the-pops-25051995
TOTP Rewind - the 90s 
It was around the time of the 50th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day , so (There’ll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs Of Dover would have tied in with the anniversary.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ah, that makes sense. Thanks for keeping me straight Penny
LikeLike