Sometimes these TOTP repeats throw up some names that I haven’t thought about for ages but that are lodged in the recesses of my brain somewhere. On other occasions though, there’s a person on screen in front of my eyes that I literally have no idea who they are. This is the case with tonight’s show. Who the hell was / is Wendy Lloyd?! Well, it turns out that she was briefly a Radio 1 DJ who joined from Virgin Radio but who moved on to Talk Radio within a year or so. She now works as a voice over artist and podcast host. Mind you, just about every other person in the country is a podcaster these days. OK, well let’s see how I go on with remembering the names of the actual acts on the show tonight…

Well, I’m one for one as I certainly recall Diana King and her No 2 single “Shy Guy” as we sold shed loads of it in the Our Price store in Stockport where I was working at the time. Not quite a one hit wonder in the UK – she had two further medium sized chart entries with covers of “Ain’t Nobody” and “I Say A Little Prayer” – but this was certainly her crowning glory outside of her home country of Jamaica. Fusing dancehall reggae with swingbeat to produce an ultra commercial sound, this song was also aided by being included on the soundtrack to the successful film Bad Boys. I’ve never seen the movie or either of its sequels but my wife caught the first one and said that it was one of the loudest films she’s ever watched in a cinema. I think there were lots of scenes featuring explosions and stuff being blown up. Despite the soundtrack predominantly featuring hip-hop and R&B artists and despite the film starring Will Smith, the Fresh Prince himself didn’t contribute a track to the album. He was in a fallow phase following the end of him being part of a duo with DJ Jazzy Jeff and the start of him recording under his own name in 1997. If these TOTP repeats make it that far, we’ll be seeing a lot more of Mr. Smith.

For now though, let’s concern ourselves with Diana King. I’m guessing that “Shy Guy” must have had a lot of airplay pre-release as it crashed straight into our charts at No 4 and would spend seven consecutive weeks inside the Top 10. Like I said, we sold shed loads of it. It sounded to me like it was a close relative of “Here Comes The Hotstepper” by Ini Kamoze from the year before, an association which was never going to make me a fan I’m afraid but it certainly rode the zeitgeist back then. It would go on to sell 400,000 copies in the UK alone and become our 25th best selling song of the year. “Shy Guy” it may have been called but it was no shrinking violet when it came to racking up those sales.

Who couldn’t remember Shaggy eh? Certainly not me but I wish I could forget him. After achieving a UK No 1 in 1993 with “Oh Carolina”, we hadn’t seen or heard much from the Shagster since. The follow up to that huge hit had failed to make the Top 40 and for a while it seemed like he would be that classic version of a one hit wonder – one chart topper from out of nowhere and then nothing ever again. Sadly, this wasn’t the case. OK, there’s a lot to unpack here so let’s start with the song. Shaggy needed another hit to avoid the aforementioned one hit wonder status and the best way to do that is…all together…”DO A COVER VERSION!”. Yes, of course he came back with a cover and chose “In The Summertime”, originally a huge hit back in 1970 for Mungo Jerry. This being Shaggy though, it was never going to be a straight remake and before long we get the inevitable patois rapping and him banging on about ‘sexy little women’ or something. Seeing as Shaggy can’t carry a tune, he’s brought a pal with him to do the heavy lifting singing wise. So first things first, Rayvon is not this guy…

Ah, if only it was. No, Shaggy’s mate Rayvon is a Barbadian singer whose real name is Bruce Brewster – no, really that was his name. He should have just stuck with that; much better than his stage name. Talking of names, you know what Shaggy’s true moniker is? Orville Burrell. And you know what the real name of the Shaggy character in Scooby Doo is? Norville Rogers! Norville and Orville?! That can’t be a coincidence can it? Is that why Shaggy is called Shaggy? Because his real name sounded like that of Scooby Doo’s best pal? Anyway, aside from Shaggy’s toasting interventions, the lyric “Have a drink have a drive” has been altered to “I’m gonna drive and ride” presumably after the Mungo Jerry original had been used in a public information film series about the dangers of drink-driving in 1992.

The cover version strategy worked and took Shaggy (and Rayvon) to No 5 paving the way for the second of his four UK No 1s later in the year with “Boombastic”. Looking at the track listing of the CD single there’s a remix of it called the Sting vs Shaggy remix. That’s not Mr Sumner is it who Shaggy would make an album with years later?

*checks Discogs website*

No it isn’t. It’s someone called Shaun Pizzonia who went by the name of Sting International. Sting, Shaggy, Norville, Orville…it’s all very confusing.

Now of course I remember the artist in the next video. Bobby Brown had a notorious profile especially in 1995 when he was charged with the assault of a nightclub patron, accused of urinating in a police car and cited for kicking a hotel security guard. Even Wendy Lloyd refers to his misdemeanours in her intro by saying he was giving his wife Whitney (Houston) a few headaches. However, when it comes to his discography, it’s me that suffers from a Bobby Brown migraine. I think it’s to do with all these K-Klass remixes that cause my perplexed state.

Look at “Humpin’ Around” for example. This had already been released once in 1992 when it made it to No 19. Fast forward three years and in its remixed form it peaked at No 8. This followed a similar rerelease strategy applied to “Two Can Play That Game” when it was a minor No 38 hit in 1994 but a Top 3 smash the following April. I don’t know whether I’m coming or going or indeed Humpin’around or playing a game. The fact that “Humpin’ Around” sounds like “Two Can Play That Game” and vice versa just adds to the confusion. Brown would have two more hits with remixes of his previous singles before the chart entries dried up for good. Just as well. My poor brain can’t stand much more.

There was no way I wasn’t going to remember any of the people involved in this next one. With that said, in the last couple of days, I rejected the chance to reacquaint myself with one lot of them. Over the weekend, I met up with my friends Steve and Robin whom I hadn’t seen since before COVID struck. Meeting at Steve’s gaff, a good catch up fuelled by many, many beers was had. Robin had done a cull of his CD collection and brought the unwanted titles with him to see if Steve or I wanted any of them before they were deposited at his local charity shop. I refused them all as my wife and I have been having our own declutter exercise recently. One of the titles I turned down was “Epsom Mad Funkers: The Best Of EMF”. My reasoning was that I already have a CD of their “Afro King” single which acted as a mini Best Of with the extra tracks being their first three hits. It seemed like good logic but was I right to refuse a double album including a whole CD of remixes? You know what? I think I can live with my decision.

Obviously “I’m A Believer” – the band’s collaboration with Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer – is included on said Best Of but the chance to own that track wasn’t going to make me change my mind on Robin’s offer. I’m not sure of the back story surrounding how this pairing came about or why (other than EMF needing a career revitalising hit perhaps) but it would prove to be their final UK Top 40 entry. They released the aforementioned “Afro King” as the follow up but it stalled at No 51. And it’s not even on that Best Of album. I was definitely right to turn it down! The band are not all about the past though. They have a new album coming out called “The Beauty And The Chaos” but if I can’t be arsed to accept a free copy of their Greatest Hits, I’m not sure I’m ready for any new material from them.

Now here we have a case of not remembering the song rather than the artist. Nobody could ever forget about Michael Jackson but this song, “Childhood”? I’m not sure I’ve ever heard it before. Wikipedia tells me that it was the other song on the double A-side single “Scream” but I don’t remember it at all. So why are TOTP showing the video for it when “Scream” is already going down the charts? Clearly, it was an attempt by Jackson’s record label Epic to drum up some sales for his “HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book 1” album which, despite all the promotion they’d thrown at it, had been toppled from the top of the charts after just one week by Bon Jovi.

And so we get, billed as an album exclusive, the video to “Childhood” and for the love of God, it’s the most puke-inducing, vomit-rendering bucket full of sick you could possibly imagine. Clearly based around Jacko’s obsession with Peter Pan, there’s flying galleons transporting baseball playing kids while Michael himself sits at the base of a tree lamenting his lost childhood – it really is nauseating. Now, if I was a more fair-minded individual, I could maybe make a case in defence of Jackson given his own relationship with an abusive father that he would record a song like this but the whole package is just so overwhelmingly mawkish that I can’t get past it. He would top even this level of self indulgence at the 1996 BRIT awards show and his Christ-like performance of”Earth Song”. I think it’s time to move on…

…to what Wendy Lloyd describes as another exclusive performance but it’s not really is it? D:Ream were in the TOTP studio just the other week performing their new single “Shoot Me With Your Love” before it was in the Top 40. That was the ‘exclusive’ performance. This is just them being on the show again because they have entered the charts at No 7. Surely an ‘exclusive’ relates to something nobody else has so unless D:Ream had signed some sort of contract with the BBC that had an exclusivity clause in it not to perform on any other pop music show than TOTP, could poor old Wendy Lloyd be done under the Trades Description Act?

Anyway, Peter Cunnah does his best to get the studio audience over excited and sells the song like his life depends on it but the writing was on the wall for D:Ream. They would only have two further UK hits (and one of those peaked at No 40) before Cunnah descended into a cocaine addiction and rehab. From then on, all the band had to look forward to was a life of perpetual rereleases of “Things Can Only Get Better” and the perception (wrongly) that it was the only hit they ever had.

I guess you could be forgiven for forgetting about Amy Grant as she only ever had three UK hits, the last of which was this, her version of Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi”. Now, if ever a single had a chart life span in the 90s that experienced cautious traction, this was it. Bucking the dominant trend of records going straight in and straight out of the charts, its Top 40 run was:

29 – 27 – 27 – 26 – 20 – 21 – 29 – 39

Slower than a taxi ride in the London rush hour. Or displaying remarkable tenacity and durability you could argue. Grant continues to records and release new material though they mostly seem to be either Christmas or Christian music albums.

Although I’ve never really made the time to listen to this next artist, I certainly haven’t forgotten her. For years, I lumped PJ Harvey into the same basket as Björk; not musically but as an artist who I believed I could never get into. As such, I studiously avoided her and her work. She was too weird and dark for my pop sensibilities and, as with the EMF Best Of album earlier, I was happy with my choice. Fast forward nearly 30 years and, just as with Björk, I wonder if I was maybe mistaken. I’ve quite enjoyed some of the Icelandic singer’s appearances in these TOTP repeats and watching PJ Harvey here on her debut on the show, I actually don’t mind “C’mon Billy”. Taken from her third album “To Bring You My Love”, it creeps about menacingly but with a hook that resounds in your head long after the song has finished. Maybe I should investigate some of her back catalogue. Maybe.

I wasn’t the only person who felt like I used to about PJ Harvey MBE back in the day. My aforementioned friend Robin saw her on an episode of Later…with Jools Holland when he was in the studio audience and disliked her performance so much, he gave her the rods at the end of it as the camera panned round. I’m not sure which appearance it was though and haven’t managed to spot him fingers aloft on the ones I’ve found on YouTube yet.

*checks again*

Still nothing. Ah well. As with investigating PJ Harvey’s back catalogue, I’ll keep on checking.

Robson & Jerome have been toppled (for now)! Hurray! Oh shite! They’ve been replaced by The Outhere Brothers! BOO! BOO! Yes, for the second time in 1995, this pair of dolts have secured themselves a UK No 1 record with “Boom Boom Boom”. How?! Why?! Was it anything to do with the track being taken up by other fanbases. For example, Newcastle United fans adopted it as a terrace chant by changing the words to “Toon, Toon, Toon”*. No, surely not.

*Toon is how they refer to themselves and being a reflection of the way the word ‘town’ is pronounced in a Geordie accent despite Newcastle being a city and not a town. Yeah, that’s just mad isn’t it?

Apparently, the duo were the first act to have their first two singles go to No 1 in the UK since New Kids On The Block in 1990. If I remember them correctly, their hits, like The Outhere Brothers, also relied upon nonsensical, shout-a-long choruses, in their case mainly revolving around the word “oh”.

Here’s something we’ve not had for a while on the show. – a single that never made the UK Top 40. That may be the reason why I don’t recall Heavy Stereo. Wikipedia tells me that they never actually had a single that got past No 45 in the charts despite four attempts of which this one, “Sleep Freak”, was the first. Listening to it now, it sounds very derivative with a definite glam rock beat to it. Hang on! There is something familiar about them! Yes, the lead singer is Gem Archer who would later join Oasis and go on to play in both Liam Gallagher’s Beady Eye and his brother’s Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. Maybe some things are definitely best left forgotten.

https://youtu.be/5cVJ9qBeHFg?si=ugbAbC1NusK4mi2z

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Diana King	Shy Guy	No
2	Shaggy featuring Rayvon	In The Summertime	As if
3	Bobby Brown	Humpin’ Around	Nope
4	EMF / Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer	I’m A Believer	Nah
5	Michael Jackson	Childhood	God no!
6	D:Ream	Shoot Me With Your Love	I did not
7	Amy Grant	Big Yellow Taxi	Negative
8	PJ Harvey	C’mon Billy	No but maybe I was wrong
9	The Outhere Brothers	Boom Boom Boom	Away with you!
10	Heavy Stereo	Sleep Freak	It’s a 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/m001sx1m/top-of-the-pops-06071995