It’s all change in the charts in these TOTP repeats as all but the No 1 are songs that haven’t featured previously and even that No 1 is in its first (and only) week at the top. There’s also a new host who similarly would only get one go in the hot seat. Comedian Alan Davies had become a well known name both a a live stand up and radio personality by 1996 but he was still a year away from his big mainstream breakthrough role in mystery crime drama Jonathan Creek. Watching this TOTP back, Davies doesn’t seem a particularly good fit for the show. His sardonic humour and aloof manner were perhaps not the ideal skills set for presenting a fast moving, pop music show. He just doesn’t seem very engaged or indeed engaging.
We start tonight with Bucketheads whose last hit was the Top 5 stand out dance tune “The Bomb! (These Sounds Fall Into My Mind)” which combined disco funk with house beats to great effect in 1995. The follow up sort of stuck to that formula with a reworking of Brass Construction’s 1976 hit “Movin’” retitled as “Got Myself Together”. Whilst a very competent dance floor filler I’m sure, for me it didn’t have that something extra that made its predecessor that little bit more intriguing. They’ve wheeled out all the usual visual 70s funk tropes for this performance but I can’t help feeling that you’d be better off listening to the original if funk was your thang (sorry!).
Sunscreem were not a band that I paid that much attention to back in the day but that’s possibly my bad as I’ve quite enjoyed some of their songs when they’ve featured on these TOTP repeats. “Blue Skies” is another case in point. Enough of a good melody in the chorus to satisfy my pop sensibilities but also with the correct bpm to stay hip with the dance heads. If I’d only given them more of a chance in the 90s, I might have had a bit more musical credibility with my record shop colleagues.
As with the artist at No 1 this week, the band had issues with their record company Sony Music. They’d released tracks independently for inclusion on some dance compilations and therefore broke the terms of their contract with Sony. In return, Sony didn’t put much effort into promoting Sunscreem with their second album “Change Or Die” not released in major territories outside of the UK. The writing was on the wall and the band negotiated their release from their Sony contract. Sunscreem are still going though with their last album being released in 2018.
How do you follow one of the biggest selling singles in the world in 1995? Well, in the case of Coolio, and this didn’t seem like the most likely strategy, you release a cover version of an old Kool & The Gang track. “Too Hot” was a hit for Robert ‘Kool’ Bell and his mates in early 1980 but was reactivated by the “Gangsta’s Paradise” star sixteen years later as the follow up to that single. Obviously, it’s not a straight cover what with Coolio being a rapper and all but it does kind of hang together quite well. I can’t say that I remember this one from back then though. In fact, if pressed on Coolio’s cannon of work, I really could only name “Gangsta’s Paradise” and “C U When You Get There” (that inevitably the wags amongst us referred to as “C U Next Tuesday”). I’m sure most people would come up with the same tracks. Both the lyrics and video for “Too Hot” warn of the dangers of unsafe sex which set him apart from some of the other West Coast rappers. Maybe Coolio actually lived in a socially conscious world rather than a “Gangsta’s Paradise”.
Lush were another of those bands that I was on acquaintance terms with only by virtue of knowing what the covers of their albums looked like and who they were distributed by for ordering purposes in the record shops I worked in. As for their sound…well, I knew they were part of the ‘shoe gaze’ crowd but I’m not sure I’d ever actually heard any of their songs which is a shame in hindsight as “Single Girl” is quite the tune. The more I write about my time in record shops, the more it makes me feel like it was a whole list of missed listening opportunities. Anyway, back to Lush and supposedly this era of the band saw them leaving behind that ‘shoe gaze’ phase and moving towards the Britpop zeitgeist; not that Lush saw themselves in that bracket. That’s the thing about Britpop – no act associated with the movement seemed to want to admit to being associated with the movement.
Alan Davies’s intro here seems rather inappropriate in retrospect. His story about chatting up lead singer Miki Berenyi at a Pulp gig and asking for her number only to realise she’d given him that of a pizza delivery place might have seemed vaguely humorous at the time but then Miki posted this on Twitter when the BBC4 TOTP repeat went out recently…
So it was true?! Why did Davies think telling that story to an audience of millions watching at home was a good idea? Did he ask Miki’s permission beforehand to use the anecdote? Thankfully Miki seems like a good sort and went on to say it was 30 years ago and isn’t a big deal.
“Single Girl” was subsequently parodied by the Shirehorses (aka Mark and Lard) as “Single Bloke”. I used to love listening to their Radio 1 afternoon show when I was working in the Our Price store in Altrincham which I’d have on in the background if I happened to be away from the counter. Clearly another reason why I didn’t know how Lush sounded as I could have used that time to acquaint myself with their album. Ah, well.
I think I’ve said this before but what was it with Nightcrawlers (featuring John Reid -for the pedants!) and their song titles? They all seemed to feature the words ‘Push’, ‘Pushing’ or ‘Feeling’. So here we get “Let’s Push It” but they also had hits with “Don’t Let The Feeling Go”, “Keep Pushing Our Love” and “Push The Feeling On” (which was released six times!). Talk about sticking to a formula! Creativity? New ideas? Balls to all that! Just keep selling the masses the same song over and over again and when I say same song, I don’t just mean the titles but also the sound. Seriously, could you really distinguish any of their hits from another?
After starting the decade in spectacular style with the No 1 single “The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s In His Kiss)” and No 1 album “Greatest Hits 1965-1992”, there’d been a bit of a downturn for Cher commercially. After “Love And Understanding” made the UK Top 10 in the early Summer of 1991, of her next seven singles released, none got any higher than No 31 with the nadir being reached with the last of those being a version of “I Got You Babe” with Beavis and Butt-head. That was followed by an almighty reversal of fortunes when she featured on the 1995 Comic Relief single “Love Can Build A Bridge” alongside Neneh Cherry, Chrisse Hynde and Eric Clapton which topped the UK chart. I think these days we’d called it an ‘asterisk’ hit what with it being for charity and all. A No 1 is a No 1 though and it acted as a springboard for Cher who recorded her twenty-first studio album and first since 1991’s “Love Hurts” for new label Warners in 1995’s “It’s A Man’s World”. Featuring a number of cover versions of songs by the likes of James Brown, Marc Cohn and The Walker Brothers, it went gold in the UK which was not insignificant but was nowhere near the numbers of her Greatest Hits collection which sold 10 times that amount.
OK, that’s enough stats and chart positions, what about the actual music? “One By One” was the second single released from the album and it was, rather unbelievably, the debut single for Liverpool band The Real People (then known as JoJo And The Real People) in 1987. Who you ask? Well, they may not have had many hits (one minor Top 40 entry in 1992) but they did help none other than Noel Gallagher to record a demo to send out to record companies in the early days of Oasis featuring many songs that would end up on “Definitely Maybe”. So my question is how did “One By One” come to the attention of Cher/her management/Warners? I’m not sure there’s a straight line between the two. Anyway, here’s the original version of the song…
The Cher version released in the UK was quite different to that made available in America. The former was a trademark, chugging rock guitar number but the latter dropped all those traditional stylings (including backing vocals and sax solo) and turned it into an R&B tune. The Wikipedia entry for the song includes clips of both versions and the difference is quite startling. “One By One” made No 7 in the UK and paved the way for Cher to return in 1998 with the all conquering “Believe” album and single.
Talking of Liverpool bands, here’s one that, unlike The Real People, would have loads of hits. Cast were onto their third with “Sandstorm”. I liked this lot. I’d bought their debut single “Finetime” and also enjoyed its follow up “Alright”. Somehow though, I considered this one to be slightly inferior though listening to it now, I’ve no idea why as it’s a banger in very much the same vein as its predecessors. Supposedly a fave of the aforementioned Noel Gallagher, Cast seemed to have timed their arrival to perfection in terms of riding the Britpop zeitgeist. I’m sure they would deny their membership but they were definitely seen as a part of that movement.
On reflection, you could say that these early singles were quite conventional, rock/pop songs but if you’re a good songwriter (as I believe lead singer John Power to be) then your tunes will always stand up when heard through the lens of retrospect. Image wise, Power seems to be copying the Oasis sartorial look with that jacket (or maybe they copied him?) but the standout performer is always Keith O’Neill with his energetic, powerful drumming. At the time, we hadn’t witnessed anything like it on the show since Talk Talk’s Lee Harris a decade earlier.
I’ve given myself a hard time on this blog lately about not remembering certain songs or artists but I think I can give myself a free pass for not recalling this lot. Who on earth were Solo?! Well, apparently, they were an American a cappella R&B group who had one minor hit in the UK with this song “Heaven” which got to No 35. I don’t wish to be unkind but this sounds so dull. Clearly the guys can sing but I’m not sure why TOTP executive producer Ric Blaxill thought their performance here was any sort of ‘exclusive’ (“Heaven” wasn’t even a hit in the US) nor why he gave them the direct to camera message slot at the top of the show. And that band name! Is that solo as in with no instruments? Well, no instruments except a double bass it seems. So obvious was the name Solo that they had to go by the name Solo (US) here to avoid confusion with dance producer Stuart Crichton who had released records under that moniker. That’s before we even mention Han Solo (Star Wars), Napoleon Solo (The Man From U.N.C.L.E) and Skid Solo (Tiger comic).
Just as the UK was falling in love with George Michael all over again in 1996, the US seemed to be going a bit cold on him. George had ended Michael Jackson’s six week reign at the top of the charts with “Jesus To A Child” going straight in at No 1. The lead single from his album “Older”, it was followed by a further chart topper in “Fastlove” and three other singles that peaked at either No 2 or No 3. The album went six times platinum here and effortlessly leapt to No 1. However, across the pond, those two singles only made it to Nos 7 and 8 respectively and the album peaked at No 6 and was only the 99th best selling album of the year. By contrast, it was the UK’s 5th best selling of 1996. That’s not to say it didn’t sell at all in the US; one million sales is not to be disregarded lightly but “Faith” sold ten (!) times that amount in the late 80s. Why should this be? Well, maybe the songs weren’t as obviously commercial and radio friendly as those of “Faith” and George had been away for a while – it had been six years since “Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1” came out. Maybe, his audience had just moved on in his absence? It can’t have been a gay backlash as he didn’t come out until 1998. Sadly for George, his stay at the top will last just one week as he was unable to repel the march of “Spaceman” by Babylon Zoo. He should have maybe stuck with those “Faith” era Levi’s.
| Order of appearance | Artist | Title | Did I buy it? |
| 1 | Bucketheads | Got Myself Together | Never happening |
| 2 | Sunscreem | Blue Skies | No but maybe should have |
| 3 | Coolio | Too Hot | Nah |
| 4 | Lush | Single Girl | Nope |
| 5 | Nightcrawlers | Let’s Push It | I did not |
| 6 | Cher | One By One | Negative |
| 7 | Cast | Sandstorm | See 2 above |
| 8 | Solo | Heaven | Definitely not |
| 9 | George Michael | Jesus To A Child | And 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/m001z1vm/top-of-the-pops-18011996?seriesId=unsliced
TOTP Rewind - the 90s 