Despite attempts during the ‘year zero’ revamp to fiddle with the format, TOTP was pretty much always* centred around hit songs and the Top 40 singles chart. During those early 90s years, the show dipped its toes into albums with an album chart slot but it never really worked and like everything and everyone associated with that period, was ultimately rejected.

*I stopped watching around 2000 after I left my job in record shops that I’d had for 10 years so maybe they revisited the album idea after that? I’ve no interest in finding out.

However, just to freshen things up a bit, I’m going to dip my own toes into the corresponding album chart for this show’s post and beyond to see what was happening back in 1998. Here’s hoping I don’t regret this…

OK, so Jamie Theakston is our host and we begin with…Celine Dion? Again?! Yes, she was only on the show (justifiably) two weeks ago when, for the second non-consecutive time, she was No 1 with “My Heart Will Go On” but she’s back as, having slipped to No 3 the following week, she’s actually gone back up the charts to No 2. OK so, whilst her single was yo-yo-ing around the very top of the charts, her album “Let’s Talk About Love” was also shifting units-a-plenty by being this week’s best selling title. I suppose that’s not too much of a surprise given that “My Heart Will Go On” was included on it* though clearly its sales had been boosted by the success of both the Titanic film and single. After spending four of its first five weeks on the chart at No 1 at the end of 1997, this was the first time it had been back to the top spot in three months.

*Was it always on it or was it added to it after its global success?

What perhaps is more surprising is that the Titanic soundtrack album’s chart stats up to this point read as follows:

29 – 5 – 1 – 2 – 1 – 1 – 2 – 2 – 2

For an album of nearly entirely orchestral pieces (Celine’s single was on there as well), this was phenomenal. Indeed, Wikipedia tells me that it is the highest selling primarily orchestral soundtrack ever! I probably shouldn’t be taken aback at the sales of the Titanic soundtrack given…

a) the record busting-success of the film

b) the fact that presumably I must have sold a few copies over the counter myself seeing as I was working for Our Price at the time

…and yet I am. The only other similar title I can think of that was a consistent seller during my time working in record shops is The Mission OST. Maybe this post’s albums angle might be enlightening.

Here’s an unconventional hit. – “This Is Hardcore” by Pulp. The title track from their sixth studio album, it was quite obviously about porn. Or was it? Jarvis Cocker has explained that it was actually about the entertainment industry and how people get burned out and used up in the same way that he perceived those making porn films did. Yeah, maybe though he also admitted to watching a lot of porn in hotels on tour and the song’s lyrics, while not explicitly graphic, were certainly risqué – “you make me hard”, “teenage wet dream”, me on top of you” and “what men in stained raincoats pay for” were just some of Cocker’s chosen words. I wonder if the BBC censors has anything to say about them?

If the lyrics were an unlikely component of a hit single then so was its sound. Online comments have compared it to a Bond theme due to its cinematic strings though it puts me more in mind of a 60s film noir soundtrack. Ultimately, the track is imbued with a sense of the seedier side of life. On the one hand, Jarvis is the perfect person to deliver such a song but on the other, it reeks of that tedious trap that artists fall into after a period of initial success of writing about that success as a follow up. Which brings me onto “This Is Hardcore” the album. On a purely commercial level, it was almost disastrous when compared to the achievements of its predecessor. Whilst it did debut at No 1, it spent just two weeks inside the Top 10. In contrast, “Different Class” spent six months there and has sold 1.3 million copies in the UK. The sales of “This Is Hardcore” are a tenth of that. What I remember most about it though is the final track “The Day After The Revolution” which has the longest fade out of all time and clocks in at a shade under 15 minutes in length.

I wonder how many people in this episode’s studio audience realised that they were in the presence of a future superstar. Yes, it’s our first viewing of Beyoncé Knowles before she was a solo artist and was so famous she no longer needed a surname. Now, when I think of Destiny’s Child, my mind turns to all those hits around the very end of the 90s and start of the new millennium like “Bills, Bills, Bills”, “Say My Name”, “Independent Women”, “Survivor” and “Bootylicious”. It certainly didn’t go to March 1998 and a song called “No, No, No”. I have not even the most fleeting recall of this song. It seems a fairly average R&B track to me with a very repetitive and basic chorus and nothing like a track that would mark the group out for the success they would go on to experience. What do I know though? It was a No 3 hit in the US and No 5 over here. Now, if it wasn’t completely obvious from the interjections by Wyclef Jean of Fugees fame that you can hear, this was the REMIX version that he produced. Yes, Wyclef – we got it the first time you said it! How different it is from the original version I know not and care less but both versions are on their eponymous debut album if you wish to investigate.

Said album wouldn’t make a huge impression on the UK charts peaking at No 45 but by 2001, the “Survivor” album would spend four weeks at No 1 and sixteen inside the Top 10. Then came the Beyoncé solo career and the dropping of her surname. Now, of course, there was a song about another Knowles which referred to him just by his first name. This is Cockerel Chorus and their tribute to 1970s Spurs left back Cyril Knowles…

We’re getting ever closer to the end of M People in these TOTP repeats. “Angel Street” was the final single lifted from their final studio album “Fresco”. All that’s left now is a Best Of album and the two new tracks that were released as singles from it. To date, there has been no new M People album since 1997 and no new single since 1999 though they have toured sporadically. That remaining touring element to their story belied the idea that they’d ‘split up’ and promoted the theory that they were, in fact, on an elongated hiatus with no stories of the band falling out but rather coming to a natural break in activities. Incidentally, M People was originally conceived by Mike Pickering as a fluid collective arrangement rather than a traditional group with floating singers (though once Heather Small and her powerhouse vocals was discovered, that plan was dropped) so maybe an official break up was never on the cards? That said, was the writing on the wall that an extended break was on the cards? Small had recently given birth to her first child and the Deconstruction label which had been the band’s home since the beginning had closed necessitating them to release “Fresco” on their own record label. The album had sold well, debuting at No 2 and spending twenty weeks inside the Top 20. And yet, it couldn’t match the success of predecessor “Bizarre Fruit” achieving roughly half of its sales. The three singles taken from it weren’t the massive hits that those of “Bizarre Fruit” or Mercury Prize winning “Elegant Slumming” had been with middle release “Fantasy Island” peaking at a worrying No 33. “Angel Street” looked to have reversed that trend by peaking at No 8 but one week inside the Top 10 wasn’t the stuff of mega-hits. In truth, it wasn’t one of their strongest songs being almost as if generated by AI as a typical M People track (had AI existed back then).

I was intrigued to read though that the sax player here is one Snake Davis, an unofficial band member, who has played with just about every one you can think of. His website says he has recorded more than 400 tracks with over 60 artists and toured with the likes of Lisa Stansfield and Eurythmics. I mention him for three reasons. One is that he played a gig recently at the theatre where I work which was a sell out of dedicated fans. The second is that, if you watch him here, he doesn’t play his sax at all and just stands there trying to blend in with what is happening on stage. What was that all about? I’m guessing that they must have edited him out as the performance looks pre-recorded and seems to finish before the song should do. Finally, how tall did he look here? Snake certainly didn’t need a ladder with him. Yeah, you’re right – I shoehorned that last one in and it’s not even that funny is it?

Right, who’s this? The All Seeing I? Didn’t they have a hit with Tony Christie? Something about a panther? I’m sure they did but before that came this one – “Beat Goes On” which samples a Buddy Rich take on the Sonny & Cher hit from 1967. As Jamie Theakston alludes to in his intro, this lot were an electronic outfit from Sheffield and seemed very tied to their home city working with the likes of the aforementioned Tony Christie, Jarvis Cocker, Phil Oakey and Babybird. Again, I thought I couldn’t remember this one but the track was immediately familiar as soon as it started.

I liked the staging on display in this performance with the vocal parts being undertaken by a monitor on a plinth showing a close up of an eyeball and a big pair of Rocky Horror Picture Show style red lips. In the early 90s when I was first working for Our Price, the VHS of that film was released to retail and to promote it, we had lots of in store posters of the infamous, disembodied smackers that open the movie. I took one home and put it in the wall of our small flat in Manchester. It was an odd move on my behalf but it seemed to make perfect sense at the time. Anyway, back to The All Seeing I and this performance is reminding me of two other songs from the early 80s. The first is “Da Da Da” by Trio. I’m not sure why – maybe it’s the fact both featured a creepy looking drummer. The second song is “Kissing With Confidence” by Will Powers for the obvious tie in with the lips motif. The lyrics to this one included the line “Do you have spinach on your teeth?”. In the case of The All Seeing I lips, there’s no spinach but there’s definitely some stray lipstick marks. Less a case of ‘the beat goes on’ and more of ‘the lippie goes on…and on…’

What’s that? What about an album story? Well, they did have one which had one of the worst titles in pop music history – “Pickled Eggs And Sherbet” – which failed to do any serious business at the shops peaking at No 45 on the album chart. And that’s where that particular story ends. Talking of which…

Now, I always get confused about this one as it is all rather confusing. The name of this hit is “Here’s Where The Story Ends” and it’s by Tin Tin Out (who, confusingly, are nothing to do with Hergé’s comic book character) but the story behind this one needs telling from the beginning. The duo of Darren Stokes and Lindsay Edwards were known as remixers working with the likes of Erasure, Pet Shop Boys, Olive and TLC. However, they also released records in their own right and had accrued a small collection of minor hits to this point. However, this one, which would become their second biggest hit ever, wasn’t actually their song but was originally recorded by dream pop outfit The Sundays though it was never released as a single due to the collapse of the band’s then record label. However, it was at No 36 in John Peel’s Festive Fifty for 1990. Still with me? Good.

Tin Tin Out got hold of it, gave it a dance vibe and recruited one S. Nelson to sing it. It wasn’t Shara Nelson of Massive Attack fame though. No, this was Shelley Nelson (not to be confused with one time Bucks Fizz member Shelley Preston). The masses liked this version so much that it went Top 10, something The Sundays never achieved with any single they ever released. To rub salt in the wound, the Tin Tin Out version won the Ivor Novello Award for Best Contemporary Song in 1999! How does that work?! Well, it worked so well that they repeated the formula of working with a female vocalist and covering someone else’s song later that very year when they teamed up with Spice Girl Emma Bunton on a version of 1988 hit “What I Am” by Eddie Brickell & The New Bohemians. The song placed at No 2 being pipped to the top spot by Geri Halliwell’s “Lift Me Up” in what was termed ‘The Battle of the Spice Girls’ (actually I may have made that up).

There’s a lot to unpack there (though not an album worth talking about) so I’m just going to finish off by saying that I add to my own confusion by mixing up “Here’s Where The Story Ends” with this late 80s dance hit by Electribe 101…

And just like that, the downward trajectory of the career of Robbie Williams was reversed and the rest is history. Yes, we all know that it was “Angels” that saved him from the dumper but in a way, it was what he did immediately afterwards that was just as important. Had he failed to consolidate on that success, thus making “Angels” be regarded as a one-off fluke, might things have panned out differently?

“Let Me Entertain You” was an almost perfect choice for a follow up. Bounding out of the traps, it said “I’m here and you’re all coming with me” and off we all jolly well popped. Infamously, it had been scheduled for release as the third single from the “Life Thru A Lens” album but Robbie supposedly got cold feet about releasing a song which such a bold and confrontational title and so “South Of The Border” replaced it ushering in claims that Williams was all washed up. Emboldened by the success of “Angels” though, the ex-Take That man felt comfortable enough to promote “Let Me Entertain You” and instead of being a pleading offer, it was now a cast-iron guarantee. For me, it is a great pop song, probably one of his best ever tunes with its sliding guitar riffs and explosive chorus backed with jangly keyboards and brass play out. It took Robbie to the next level and put him clearly ahead of his ex-band mates’ solo careers. In short, this was the moment he won.

Despite the renewal of his pop star worth, Robbie doesn’t seem reassured in this performance though. He’s very over exuberant, jumping up and down constantly and draping himself around his bass player David Bowie/Mick Ronson/Starman style for support. His sharp, buzz cut that he modelled for the promotion of “Angels” has been replaced by a backward step to the peroxide blonde/tracksuit look that he adopted in his darkest moments immediately post-Take That at Glastonbury ‘95. It wasn’t a good sign. Twenty-seven years later though and he’s completely come to terms with that period of his life as he prepares to release the thirteenth studio album of his career titled “Britpop” with a picture of him from Glastonbury as the album cover. Thirteen! Many of us doubters could never have imagined such a career of longevity back in 1996/97. Theakston lets Robbie know just before the start of his performance that his debut album had gone double platinum. A look at the its chart stats reveal the evidence of what we all knew anyway. Released it the October of ‘97, it debuted at No 11 before sliding out of the Top 40 within three weeks. It then spent over a month absolutely nowhere before the “Angels” effect kicked in. Look at these numbers:

63 – 32 – 21 – 18 – 12 – 3 – 3 – 3 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 4 – 6 – 5 – 4 – 4 – 4 – 3 – 1 – 1 – 2 – 3 – 3

It would spend a total of 44 weeks inside the Top 10 and has been certified a further six times platinum since Jamie Theakston’s announcement in this show to total 2.4 million copies sold in the UK alone.

Run–D.M.C. vs Jason Nevins remain at the top with “It’s Like That”. Despite the fact that rap and hip-hop were well established music genres by this point and hits with rapping in them were not uncommon events, the size of this hit was unexpected I would argue. After all, despite their reputation and profile as hip-hop legends, Run-D.M.C. weren’t renowned for massive hit singles in the UK. Indeed, they’d only visited our Top 40 three times before this – the marvellous collaboration with Aerosmith on “Walk This Way” in 1986 (No 8), follow up “It’s Tricky” in 1987 (No 16) and “Run’s House” in 1988 (No 37). They would have only one more UK hit after “It’s Like That” – a remix of the aforementioned “It’s Tricky” in 2003 which peaked at No 20. The story isn’t very different when it comes to albums. By far their highest charting album was 1988’s “Tougher Than Leather” which made No 13. In a move Dick Dastardly would have baulked at, their Best Of album “Together Forever: Greatest Hits 83-91” was rereleased with the Jason Nevins remix of “It’s Like That” added to it and renamed “Greatest Hits 83-98”. It peaked at No 31.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Celine Dion	My Heart Will Go On	Never
2	Pulp	This Is Hardcore	I did not
3	Destiny’s Child	No, No, No	Erm…No
4	M People	Angel Street	No thanks
5	The All Seeing I	Beat Goes On	Nah
6	Tin Tin Out	Here’s Where The Story Ends	Nope
7	Robbie Williams	Let Me Entertain You	No but I had a promo copy of the album
8	Run-D.M.C. vs Jason Nevins	It’s Like That	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/m002gv59/top-of-the-pops-27031998?seriesId=unsliced