Why oh why didn’t we have more of this calibre of ‘golden mic’ presenter? Having four of The Fast Show cast in character was a genius move by TOTP executive producer Ric Blaxill. Or was it his decision? Did it come from higher up within the BBC to promote the first (and so far only) The Fast Show Christmas Special that was aired on 27 December of this year? Whatever the truth, the turn by Paul Whitehouse, Charlie Higson, Mark Williams and John Thomson was so much better than the usual standard we’ve seen from the majority of these celebrity hosts. It was certainly a vast improvement on the drivel many of the old Radio 1 DJs used to shovel at us (yes, obviously I’m pointing at you Simon Mayo). We start with the characters of Ted and Ralph who are straight into their uncomfortable relationship mode. I especially like the way Ted says he doesn’t know about Boyzone (sir) but then immediately informs Ralph that Take That have split up.

The first act they introduce is Robert Miles and Maria Nayler with a track called “One And One”. Miles, of course, was the poster boy of the dream house movement and had scored a massive hit earlier in the year with “Children”. Unlike that song and follow up “Fable” which were both instrumentals, this one had actual singing in it courtesy of Nayler who had started her music career with the band Ultraviolet who I’d heard of but had no idea what they sounded like. Someone who did though and who liked what he heard was DJ and producer Sasha who sought Nayler out to record the track “Be As One” which became a Top 20 UK hit earlier in 1996. This would peak the interest of Robert Miles who similarly made contact with Nayler to collaborate on the song “One And One” – clearly Maria had a thing about songs with the word ‘one’ in the title.

So what was this ‘new’ sound like? Well, it was like “Children” with vocals wasn’t it? If you liked that sort of thing then good luck to you but for me it was all fairly insubstantial. If I’ve said this once, I’ve said it hundreds of times but the record buying public didn’t agree with me and sent it to No 3 in the UK charts. However, the dream house phenomenon would peter out from this point on (although it probably morphed into something else). Miles would have just one further UK chart hit (bizarrely with a Sledge Sister) and he himself would pass away in 2017 from metastatic cancer aged just 47.

Next up are Mrs Ted’s favourites the Backstreet Boys. I’m sorry Mrs Ted but I could never understand the appeal of this lot. Awful name, useless songs and most of them were not even that good looking. Without wishing to sound too Little Englander about it, didn’t we have enough boy bands of our own without making space for New Kids In The Block 2.0? Take this song “I’ll Never Break Your Heart” for example. It’s just a sub par version of something Boyz II Men might have released. Somehow though, I still hear their songs played on the radio to this day. Maybe it’s me that’s got it all wrong? Nah, couldn’t be but even if liking the Backstreet Boys was being in the right, I’d rather be wrong. In fact, I want it that way (ahem).

Somebody put some thought into this running order (though clearly not “I’ll Get Me Coat” man who does the intro) as we segue from “I’ll Never Break Your Heart” to “Un-Break My Heart” by Toni Braxton. Just like Robert Miles’ “One And One” from earlier, this single had a remarkable chart life partly helped by the fact there was a ballad version and a dance version of the single available to buy. Look at these chart positions though:

4 – 5 – 5 – 4 – 5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 4 – 2 – 4

That’s eleven weeks inside the Top 5 with a climb down the chart being reversed on three separate occasions. Compare that to the chart record of “One And One”:

6 – 6 – 6 – 5 – 4 – 3 – 5 – 5 – 4 – 6

Incredible really that two records in the charts at the same time could display such consistency of sales. Working in Our Price at the time, that pattern of sales would also have been hard to order for with the question “surely it’s going to tail off next week?” always in the back of the singles buyer’s mind. Interesting that “One And One” spent three consecutive weeks at No 6. The devil’s music perhaps?

We were always going to see Jazz Club’s Louis Balfour weren’t we and John Thomson duly delivers. It’s the plausible detail of the script that makes this character funny for me – the names of the fictional artists and songs that Balfour introduces that are simultaneously ludicrous and believable. He’s on form in this link referencing Peter Python and The Bop and a track called “Beat My Feet Sweet”. Nice! Not nice though was the real act that he introduces – The Woolpackers with “Hillbilly Rock Hillbilly Roll”. Whose shameless and shameful idea was this to cash in on the line dancing phenomenon that was sweeping the country around this time?! Presumably some executive producer at Emmerdale from where this grotesque abomination originated. I’ve never watched the soap much – it was the one that I could never really get into – and this single wasn’t going to tempt me in.

Supposedly, the group that consisted of three cast members actually featured in a plot line of the show but I couldn’t tell you what the story was. All I knew was that this was a terrible record engineered to fleece fans of the soap or those people who would only come into a record shop once a year at Christmas. Somehow this pile of crap got to No 5 and spent ten weeks inside the Top 40. They repeated the grift the following Christmas with another line dancing song called “Line Dance Party” (the thought that must have gone into naming it!) and there were two whole albums released off the back of this initial nonsense. Here’s a thought, after you’ve done your cha cha slides, your brushes and your heel fans, here’s another move for all those involved in this record – it’s called the ‘hang your head in shame’ and that includes TOTP executive producer Ric Blaxill for having it on the show.

In 1995, Michael Jackson had the UK Christmas No 1. Twelve months on and his Yuletide offering was still being sourced from his “HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I” album but “Stranger In Moscow” was no “Earth Song”. In fact, despite its chart peak of No 4, I don’t remember this one at all. I think I can be forgiven as it’s the somnambulist’s anthem, sleepwalking its way from start to finish. Indeed, it’s 65bpm makes it one of Jackson’s slowest songs.

A ballad about loneliness, it apparently drew on Jackson’s personal experience of walking through the city at night alone looking for someone, anyone to talk to. The Russian angle was meant to highlight his feelings of fear and alienation though lyrics like “Armageddon of the brain”, “Stalin’s tomb won’t let me be” and “KGB was doggin’ me” all seem rather clunky and ham fisted. Supposedly the track’s origins came from a bizarre source – the credits theme for the computer game Sonic The Hedgehog 3. What this?

Oh my God! I think I can hear a similarity! And here’s another similarity – a cover of “Stranger In Moscow” by a band I’d never heard of before but whose version actually turns the track (for me) into a decent song. Maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to judge and dismiss.

Right, so I’ve now watched the first part of the Boybands Forever documentary on iPlayer and it dealt specifically with the rise of and rivalry between Take That and East 17. It starts with a clip of the latter’s Brian Harvey smashing up a disc for 1 million sales of East 17 records in a fit of rage. The clip was dated as being from 2015 and sees Harvey ranting about grief he’s getting from the police, the CPS, the court system before he finally says turns on the music industry. Now, you may have seen that Harvey has been posting a lot of videos of himself lately where he talks/shouts about conspiracies and cover ups and being censored. His ex-band mate John Hendy got involved by posting a reply video telling Harvey to shut up and move on. Brian, predictably, did neither. Reading between the lines, Harvey seems to be insinuating that events took place during the band’s career that should have warranted an Operation Yewtree style investigation and that they have consistently been covered up and he wants to get the truth out there whatever the cost may be to him personally. He even referenced the recent death of Liam Payne as part of his conspiracy theory. I don’t know where the truth lies in this – why would I? – but all I’m going to say is that, in retrospect, having Ken and Kenneth the “Ooh! Suit you sir!” twins introduce East 17 and Gabrielle perform “If You Ever” hasn’t aged that well.

Ken and Kenneth really push the envelope with their next link to Prince by referring to him as the “purple-headed one” – I think we all understand that double entendre. I say Prince but I think he was officially known as that squiggly symbol thing by this point. Apparently, he’d always wanted to record “Betcha By Golly Wow!” that had originally been a hit for The Stylistics in 1972 but his record company Warners hadn’t allowed it so he got his way once he was free from contractual obligations to them and recorded it for his “Emancipation” album. I have to say that although it seems a logical choice given the range of Prince’s falsetto voice, I’m not sure he does a great job with it. If it was a shout for a penalty in a football match, you’d say that he made a meal of it. It did make No 11 in the UK which suggests the record buying public once again disagreed with me. However, aside from a rerelease of “1999” as the new millennium dawned, he would never have as big a hit in this country again.

In amongst the headlines that were fashioned by the press in the Gary Barlow v Robbie Williams battle, there was another contender for solo artist supremacy who rather went under the radar and yet, for me, his first solo single was better than both his ex-band mates’ efforts combined. The perceived wisdom was that Barlow was the talent when it came to writing songs and was therefore the most likely to succeed out on his own. Williams had generated a lot of press for himself but when it came to it, his first release was a cover version – where were your songs Robbie?

Tiptoeing a path through both came Mark Owen – the pretty young one as described by Ralph in his intro – and therein lay the issue for Owen, that he could be dismissed as just that. Even the TOTP caption adds to the condescending narrative by stating “Wrote this track himself” with the underlying tone being “Who would have thought it?” and yet “Child” is actually very good. Coming on like a cross between Donovan and David Cassidy, Owen delivered a sparkling, shimmering pop song that perfectly suited him vocally. With all due respect, Mark doesn’t have the biggest voice but he didn’t need one for this string drenched ballad. The chart positions for the debut singles by Barlow, Williams and Owen seemed to solidify in the minds of the public some sort of natural order with Gary’s “Forever Love” going to No 1, Robbie’s George Michael cover spinning to No 2 and Mark’s “Child” finding a home at No 3. Those three chart peaks were replicated for all three’s follow up singles as well. It was like some preordained medal podium for ex-members of Take That. Time would show that it would be Williams who would ultimately ascend to the gold medal position in terms of record sales but for Mark Owen it would never get better than a bronze medal. His album “Green Man” didn’t sell in bucket loads (we had a massive overstock in the Our Price where I was working after Head Office buyers mistakenly bought in loads of it thinking it was a surefire winner) and he was dropped by his label within a year. Winning the second series of Celebrity Big Brother in 2002 raised his profile again to the point where he bagged a Top 5 hit with “Four Minute Warning” but it was a case of diminishing returns after that until the Take That reunion in 2006. Mark has continued his solo career in parallel with the band and last released an album in 2022.

In an inspired move, Bob Fleming does the voice over for the Top 10 countdown which obviously means we don’t actually hear much of the Top 10 countdown. In pole position are Robson & Jerome for a second week with their triple A-side single “What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted” / “Saturday Night At The Movies” / “You’ll Never Walk Alone”. Mercifully, this would be their last ever release (excluding a Best Of and a Love Songs collection that would follow in later years) which makes me wonder if that was the reason behind this triple track product. Going out with a bang and a third No 1 single out of three. Would they have risked doing a Frankie Goes To Hollywood if they’d have gone for a fourth single and missed the top of the charts? Or was it as simple as they’d had enough of this pop star lark and wanted to get back to their day jobs? Presumably they had a contract with their record label RCA so maybe they’d just fulfilled their contractual obligations? Whatever the reason, I think this might be their final TOTP appearance (bar Christmas specials) and I think we can all say “thank f**k for that!”. The madness was over. As for The Fast Show, it would go on for a further two series with the cast reuniting for a 30 anniversary tour this year. Nice.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Robert Miles and Maria Nayler	One And One	Nope
2	Backstreet Boys	I’ll Never Break Your Heart	Never
3	Toni Braxton	Un-Break My Heart	I did not
4	The Woolpackers	Hillbilly Rock Hillbilly Roll	As if
5	Michael Jackson	Stranger In Moscow	Nah
6	East 17 / Gabrielle	If You Ever	Sorry Brian – it’s a no
7	Prince	Betcha By Golly Wow!	No
8	Mark Owen	Child	Liked it, didn’t buy it
9	Robson & Jerome	What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted” / “Saturday Night At The Movies” / “You’ll Never Walk Alone	See 4 above

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/m00256xq/top-of-the-pops-15111996?seriesId=unsliced