After Justine Frischmann the other week, now we get the other of the two biggest female names of the Britpop movement in the TOTP ‘golden mic’ slot. Louise Werner was/is, of course, the lead singer of Sleeper and as such the connection to and similarities with her Elastica counterpart were always going to be highlighted by a lazy music press. In March 1996, Sleeper were just about to reach the peak of their popularity with the release of sophomore album “The It Girl” just two months away. Said album would go platinum in the UK and harbour four hit singles. I caught Sleeper around this time at the Manchester Academy and they were pretty good as I remember. I always preferred Louise to Justine as she seemed the less intimidating of the two and, if I’m brutally honest, I fancied her more. There, I said it. Neither though seemed particularly at ease with the role of TOTP host and both came across as a bit awkward. Well, you can’t be good at everything I suppose (says the man who isn’t good at anything). As well as being singers in successful bands, both Justine and Louise had subsequent creative careers as an artist and author respectively.

Anyway, ready or not, it’s time for the music and we begin with a song called…erm…”Ready Or Not” by The Lightning Seeds. This was the lead single from their fourth album “Dizzy Heights” and was very much in the same vein as pretty much everything else they’d ever done – a jaunty, catchy, uplifting pop tune high on hooks but low on substance. Don’t get me wrong, I’m quite partial to the odd Lightning Seeds tune but even Ian Broudie would surely admit that his band were hardly Radiohead. This one though is perhaps a bit more lightweight than usual with lots of “La la la la’s” thrown into the mix including the whole of the outro. That’s maybe appropriate though given that the band’s drummer Chris Sharrock once played with The La’s as well as The Icicle Works and later Robbie Williams, Beady Eye and Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds.

The song would share its title with a No 1 hit by The Fugees from later in the year but that’s not the only link between the two. As Euro 96 fever took hold of the country and “Three Lions” topped the charts, it traded places at No 1 that Summer with The Fugees’ cover of “Killing Me Softly” with both songs reaching the top of the charts on two separate occasions. Oh yes…”Three Lions”. I’m afraid it’s coming soon to these TOTP repeats. Oh, and the lyric in “Ready Or Not” that goes “It’s like the tipper most topper most high”? It was surely inspired by this John Lennon line:

Who are these people and what on earth are they doing? Well, the artist was Sasha & Maria but they’re not the two berks making tits of themselves messing around with what looks like a bedsheet. I think this tweet sums up my thoughts on the matter:

I was expecting Derek Smalls to come out of it tbh pic.twitter.com/b9ICqmeUwp

— George McIntosh (@georgemcintosh) May 31, 2024

Sasha was the Welsh DJ and record producer of Sasha and John Digweed fame whilst Maria was Maria Nayler who was a member of Ultraviolet in the early 90s and who would go on to guest on the Robert Miles hit “One And One” later in 1996. Here though, she was supplying the vocals for this, the similarly titled “Be As One”. Apparently, the track had been flooded into record shops via unlicensed white labels which led to Deconstruction Records contacting the BPI anti-piracy unit and taking out full page ads in the trade press to warn people off the illegal copies. Obviously, the track did/does nothing for me and watching it now it’s giving off strong Eurovision vibes but was clearly big in the clubs and made No 17 on the UK singles chart.

Louise Werner tries to loosen up a bit with an amusing reference in her next intro about Sleeper producer Stephen Street being called Jon Bum Bogey on account of his once big hair. OK, amusing might be pushing it but at least she’s trying. I’ve said it before but Bon Jovi were on a commercial role in this country in the mid 90s. Between 1993 and 1996 they racked up thirteen Top 40 hits including nine Top 10 entries. “These Days” was the penultimate of these and the title track of their 1995 album. A long way from the bluster of their poodle rock era, this was definitely showcasing their melancholy side – more “Save A Prayer” than “Livin’ On A Prayer” you might say. After one more hit, the band would take a pre-agreed four year hiatus before returning in 2000 with the “Crush” album. Whilst still a big name, I wonder though if the youth will know Jon as the father-in-law of Millie Bobby Brown rather than being the singer of one of the most successful rock bands of all time?

Next, we have one of those pointless hits. I don’t mean ‘pointless’ as in “what was the point of releasing that?” but rather Pointless as in the TV show. Asked to name an obscure Eternal single, an answer of “Good Thing” would definitely impress Alexander Armstrong. The third single from second album “Power Of A Woman”, it maybe wasn’t what we’d come to expect from the group. This was more of an – dare I use the word? – urban style rather than the slick, R&B/pop hybrid they’d been so successful with. Was it conceivable that the members of All Saints were set at home watching this performance and thought “Aye aye, we could do that but in cargo pants and crop tops”?

An interesting side plot to this hit is that the following week, ex-member Louise would release her second solo single “In Walked Love” which would peak at No 17 whereas “Good Thing” got to No 8. Chalk one up to Eternal but who was the ultimate winner in this battle do you reckon?

I’m getting really bogged down in all these dance tunes that have been on the show of late. Here’s another one. Gat Decor were, according to Wikipedia, one of the earliest exponents of ‘progressive house’ music. I’ve neither the time nor inclination to investigate what that particular strand of dance music was all about but having watched this performance of “Passion”, my uneducated view is that it’s yet another tune that resembles “Show Me Love” by Robin S. As for the track’s personal history, as Louise Werner says, it was originally a minor hit in 1992 as an instrumental but it was mashed up with “Do You Want It Right Now “ by Degrees Of Motion by an East London DJ who put out some DJ only copies of it turning it into an underground club sensation. Properly licensed and with vocals sung by Beverley Skeete, this 1996 version would peak at No 6.

After the bedsheet debacle of Sasha & Maria earlier, the now ubiquitous staging distraction for this dance hit was a guy behind Beverley giving off some strong Live And Let Die vibes.

Our host really tries to liven things up in her next intro which would no doubt be seen as inappropriate at the very least and possibly as racist now. Teeing up Boyzone who are live by satellite link from Korea, Louise says “I hope they’re not eating puppies or anything”. Gulp! Well, the lads definitely aren’t doing that as they’re too busy performing an especially lame song called “Coming Home Now”. This was their only single to be written solely by the five of them without any input from outside co-writers and it shows. There’s nothing really to this wisp of pop fluff that drifts aimlessly along to destination nowhere. It would be their only hit not to make the UK Top 3 in the first part of their career before their initial split in 2000. Interesting to note that Shane Lynch and Keith Duffy are only allowed to do the short, spoken word parts rather than a spotlight vocal like Ronan Keating and Stephen Gately get to do. As for poor old Mikey Graham, he’s not allowed to do anything except be in the background which was pretty much his only contribution to Boyzone ever. Talking of splits, they must have been thinking “we’re in here” when the news of Take That’s forthcoming break up hit the headlines. Indeed they were as their next two singles of 1996 would both go to No 1. The King is dead, long live The King!

The Women of Britpop theme continues now with Louise Werner introducing Camden drinking buddies Lush who are in the studio to perform their single “Ladykillers”. Probably the band’s most well known song, it was deliberately written by lead singer Miki Berenyi to be a hit with her admitting it was her attempt to give the press what they wanted, an affirmation of the band’s Britpop credentials. This may explain why it sounds like “Waking Up” by Elastica which itself lent heavily from “No More Heroes” by The Stranglers. The song has been taken up as a feminist statement due to its lyrics that lampoon the sexual bravado of men towards women. A few months later the Spice Girls would take up the baton and go global with their ‘Girl Power’ slogan. I suspect that Lush would have preferred another drink down the Good Mixer, Camden Town than all that world domination business though.

It’s Britpop overload as the next act on are Supergrass with their “Going Out” hit. When they performed this as an ‘exclusive’ the other week, did they have the brass trio with them? I’m sure I would have remembered three guys who looked like Tom Petty, Bill Bailey and Mike Barson from Madness (it isn’t him is it?). I saw Supergrass live in York in the early 2000s and they refused to play “Alright”. That’s the last time I spend an evening ‘going out’ with them.

Take That have predictably gone straight in at No 1 with their ‘final’ single “How Deep Is Your Love”. Their run of success was quite remarkable with eight of their last nine singles topping the chart. In my head, they absolutely were a singles band with their albums not as successful but a quick check of their discography shows that the three albums of the first part of their career all sold well with the biggest being “Everything Changes” which shifted 1.3 million copies in the UK alone. I think it was the fact that they’d released more videos than albums (six to three) by this point that made me undervalue them. A few years later I was living in York and hosted a pub quiz as the regular guy was on holiday. I included a question about Take That and made the mistake of making a derisive comment about them (this was before their wildly successful comeback in 2006) and was perhaps rightfully rounded on by the assembled throng of quizzers. Take that indeed!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Lightning Seeds	Ready Or Not	Not
2	Sasha & Maria	Be As One	No chance
3	Bon Jovi	These Days	Nah
4	Eternal	Good Thing	No
5	Gat Decor	Passion	As if
6	Boyzone	Coming Home Now	Never
7	Lush	Ladykillers	Nope
8	Supergrass	Going Out	I did not
9	Take That	How Deep Is Your Love	No but my wife had their Greatest Hits CD

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/m001zqtv/top-of-the-pops-07031996?seriesId=unsliced