Dearie me! This doesn’t look like the strongest TOTP line up I have to say. In fact it looks completely uninspiring to be frank. As such, my motivation is not at the levels it should be. The 1998 repeats have always been a bit of a slog so far to be honest and running orders like this are not helping. Well, I guess I’ve got to just get through it. Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more…

Our host is Jo Whiley who would hail someone farting “The Birdie Song” as a musical genius if it kept her on TV. Thankfully the acts tonight aren’t quite that bad. We start with Billie Myers who was only just on last week (of course she was in the Chris Cowey era) performing her hit “Kiss The Rain”. I mentioned last time how she was sort of ‘the other’ Billie of 1998 next to Billie Piper and it got me thinking about how many famous Billies there were/had been. Here’s what I came up with:

• Billie Eilish
• Billie Holiday
• Billie Jo Spears
• Billie Joe Armstrong
• Billie Whitelaw
• Billie Jean King
• Billie from Here Come the Double Deckers!

OK, the last ones a bit of a cheat but the first four are all singers so if you add Billie Piper and Billie Myers to that list that’s six which seems a fair few music artists especially when you consider I haven’t included those whose name is spelt Billy. As for Billie Myers, where does she rank in that list for you?

Sticking with the name game theme, the next artist has quite the moniker. Ultra Naté whose real name is…erm…Ultra Naté – no really, that’s her actual name – Ultra Naté Wyche – is back with a follow up to her massive hit single “Free”. It’s taken almost a year for it to be released but to be fair to her record label AM:PM, “Free” was such a monster spending three and a half months inside the Top 40 that I guess they had to let the momentum of that single finally run out of steam so as not to deflect sales from any new material. Plus, AM:PM released a “Free (The Mixes)” single in the January just to make sure they completely squeezed any remaining sales potential out of the track. With all that saturation, it probably made sense to wait a while before releasing a follow-up and, resisting the temptation to rinse and repeat, it wasn’t just a carbon copy of its predecessor. Sure, it’s still a dance track but, as we have discovered in this long, long journey through 90s music, dance music could be many different things and come in many different colours. Whilst not as immediate as “Free” nor as big a hit, “Found A Cure” still found a market spending two consecutive weeks at No 6.

Next in this unappealing running order is/are Mase (or is it Ma$e?) featuring Total with a rap track called “What You Want”. I can’t say I know much about Mase nor his music but even I, unaccustomed as I am to the rap genre, can tell that the start of this performance is hackneyed and lazy. Did he really just run on stage and shout “Everybody throw your hands in the air and wave ‘em like you just don’t care”?! This is followed up by encouraging the studio audience to chant “Oh yeah” and then, focussing on “all the ladies”, gets them to “scream!”. Really?! There’s then a lot of rapping about Mase’s girl and his money and…shopping? I’m not really sure though he mentions enchiladas and giving her carats until she feels a rabbit. Is that a reference to buying a fur stole? I’m so confused and so as Mase ultimately as he couldn’t decide between a career as a rapper or dedicating his life to God as he retired from the music industry to become a pastor before returning in 2004 with an album called “Welcome Back”. It’s an unusual though not unique choice of career paths (didn’t MC Hammer also become an ordained minister?). It reminded me of my mate Robin who once took a carers advice exercise the result of which was that his optimum careers were either being a social worker or a comedian.

What are the chances?! Two acts on the same show with the name Ultra?! That’s where the similarities end though. I must have deliberately obliterated this lot from my memory banks as there is nothing familiar about them at all apart from them appearing to be a prototype version of Busted. No, wait – Busted playing the music of S Club 7. Their hit “Say You Do” is so annoyingly catchy that it’s…well…annoying. The usual route of support slots on tours by major artists (Boyzone and Louise in this case) helped establish a fan base (they were huge in South East Asia and Italy apparently) but that old music industry banana skin of record company restructuring saw the A&R team who signed them leave and they were released from their contract. Three of the four members continued as Rider who released a football record for the 2002 World Cup featuring Terry ‘El Tel’ Venables but it failed to chart. Conversely, they might have been better off keeping their original band name or at least adapting it to ‘The Ultras’. If you know, you know.

Right, who are these two? K–Ci & JoJo? Sounds like a TV show on the Disney Channel in the 90s. Apparently, they were half of the US R&B group Jodeci who were on a hiatus meaning that the group members could pursue other projects. K-Ci & JoJo were brothers Cedric and Joel Hailey who took the ball and ran with it all the way to No 1 in America with this single “All My Life”. For three weeks it reigned atop the Billboard Hot 100 but over here it had to make do with one week at No 8. It did, however, spend ten weeks inside the Top 40 descending gradually but consistently in an unusual chart journey. Clearly, there were some live vocals going on in this performance but they did seem to lack a bit of control – there was definitely some very elongated ‘ooh ooh-ing’ going on which I have to say caused my dog to howl uncontrollably when I watched this TOTP episode (no really – he did!).

The ‘all my life’ chorus sounded familiar but I couldn’t place what it reminded me of for ages until it finally clicked. Now, they’re nothing like each other in every other respect but the phrasing and intonation on those three words are almost exactly the same.

After some very unstimulating turns so far, we finally get to a song that inspires a tiny bit of excitement (for me anyway). If Ultra were an early version of Busted, then could a case be made that Ben Folds Five were the blueprint for Keane? I know, I know. Putting music into neatly labelled boxes probably isn’t the smartest nor fairest practice (and I’ve no doubt been guilty of it many, many times during the course of this blog). What I will say is that the “Battle Of Who Could Care Less” hitmakers were at the very least out of the ordinary with their acidic, piano driven, power pop tunes.

However, they risked alienating their fan base with this, their biggest hit “Brick” which was a much more subdued and earnest sound telling the story, as it did, of the abortion that Folds and his high school girlfriend went through. There is a beautiful intensity to the track though which can’t be denied. What wasn’t especially beautiful though was its title and it got me thinking of other songs that have titles that don’t seem to match their sound and I came up with this which is surely the ultimate example of the phenomenon…

The rebirth, rejuvenation and resurrection of Robbie Williams is complete! After looking down and out as the end of 1997 came into sight, he was now back at the very top as his debut album “Life Thru A Lens” has finally made it to the top of the charts six months after it was initially released. To celebrate the achievement, he’s been invited onto the show to perform a track from it. “Killing Me” was the one chosen for the appearance. It’s a brave choice in a way what with the dark song title but presumably Robbie wanted something that he believed would show people his depth as an artist. Certainly, “Killing Me” is a world away from his cover of George Michael’s “Freedom” which seemed a lazy and uninspired decision to launch his solo career with. I guess he could have gone with the more uptempo title track but on reflection, I think he made the right choice.

Run-D.M.C. vs Jason Nevins remain at No 1 for a fifth straight week with “It’s Like That”.

Despite all its sales and all its plaudits, is there any better way of demonstrating the legacy of this track than it being used to soundtrack an Australian McDonalds advert in 2025?!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Billie Myers	Kiss The Rain	No
2	Ultra Naté	Found A Cure	Nope
3	Mase featuring Total	What You Want	Never happening
4	Ultra	Say You Do	Of course not
5	K-Ci & JoJo	All My Life	Nah
6	Ben Folds Five	Brick	Liked it, didn’t buy it
7	Robbie Williams	Killing Me	Not available to purchase as a single
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/m002hf77/top-of-the-pops-17041998?seriesId=unsliced