We’re at the fag end of Summer 1998 and with Autumn bringing with it new TV schedules, there’s a shake up happening in pop music programming. No, TOTP isn’t being axed (that doesn’t happen until 2006) but over on ITV, a new challenger to the grand old show is emerging. The day after this TOTP aired, cd:uk made its debut. Replacing The Chart Show which had run for nine years on ITV (it was on Channel 4 for three years prior to its move), it was the companion programme to SM:tv LIVE, the new Saturday morning kids show commissioned to rival BBC’s Live & Kicking and was presented by Ant & Dec with Cat Deeley. SM:tv LIVE proved to be a huge success and was the show that cemented Ant & Dec in the nation’s affections and also saw them successfully transform from pop stars to entertainment presenters. The branding of both shows was strong with their distinctively formatted titles (I always thought the ‘cd’ part of cd:uk stood for compact disc but it was actually count down – in my defence, I was working in a record shop at the time!), and the continuity of the presenters with all three just carrying on from one show to the other.

The BBC must have been concerned especially as cd:uk, rather controversially, introduced a ‘Saturday Chart’ which, although unofficial, gave a pretty fair assessment of the Millward Brown compiled chart that would be announced on Radio 1 the following day. The main consequence of this was that it made the chart countdown shown on TOTP on the Friday look out of date as it was, of course, last week’s chart in effect. Again, I wonder what the Beeb made of that? In fact at, lets take a closer look at the two charts for this week:

Wow! That’s quite the difference! Five new entries in the cd:uk Top 10 and eight overall. I think the Beeb might well have taken note!

OK, so with that all said and done, let’s get to the music. Our host is Jamie Theakston for the second week running and we start with an act that was only just on last week – Sweetbox with “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright”. This is just a reshowing of that performance but when I commented on it in the last post, I don’t think I mentioned the four backing violinists who have been dressed up in 18th century period costumes and wigs that look like they came from the wardrobe department of the film Dangerous Liaisons. I get that the idea behind it was to emphasise that the track was based around Johann Sebastian Bach’s Air on a G String but it looks so clunky, cack-handed and rather ridiculous, especially when positioned next to a DJ spinning turntables. And is it my imagination or have they made them up with white face powder to create that look that the French aristocracy favoured using, what AI tells me, was called ‘ceruse’? I would like to say that I blanche at the very idea for a nice quip but, in my early teens age years, I used to put talcum powder on my face and pat it off with a towel if my complexion was suffering from a spot outbreak. What was I thinking?!

Someone who definitely knew what he was thinking back in 1998 was Kavana and what was on his mind was his desire to transition from a pop pin-up to a mature, respected artist. Could he do it? Well, he gave it a try with the track “Special Kind Of Something”, the lead single from his second album “Instinct”. Having broken through in 1997 with two Top 10 singles and a Smash Hits Award for Best Solo Male Artist no less, Kavana succumbed to the notion that so many pop idols have considered, that of wanting to be taken seriously and not seen as just a pop puppet peddling catchy tunes and cover versions. Sadly for Kavana, as is so often the case, the record buying public weren’t overly keen on the pop star becoming an artist and “Instinct” bombed leading to the end of his pop music career.

Relocating to America, he had a brief acting career before resorting to the ultimate path of all ex-stars who can’t quite give up on fame, the world of reality TV. Stints in Grease Is The Word, The Voice UK, The Big Reunion and, of course, Celebrity Big Brother followed. After spending time in rehab for his alcoholism, Kavana has been sober for three years and has written a well received memoir called Pop Scars.

I know I say this a lot but how is it possible that at the time of these songs being in the charts when I was working in a mainstream record shop (presumably selling copies of them to customers) that there are some that I have zero recall of. Like nothing. At all. “Real Good Time” by Alda is yet another example. So who was/is Alda? Well, she was born in Iceland but was based in Sweden at the time of her pop career so she was kind of like a cross between Björk and Robyn and get this – her middle is, indeed, Björk!

Geography and nomenclatures she may have had in common with Björk but sonically they were continents apart. Her song was very chorus heavy, catchy yet ultimately insubstantial and say what you like about Björk (and I have in this blog many times) but insubstantial she is not. The other thing that they singularly did not share was hairstyles. Jamie Theakston can’t stop going on about Alda’s towering hair but I think I’ll leave the last word on that subject to @TOTPFacts and one Anna Cale:

I give up! Despite being on the show three times already (twice as the No 1 record and once as an exclusive performance before it was even released) and despite being at No 8 in the charts this week, here, for a fourth time, are the Spice Girls with “Viva Forever”. Why?! Why Chris Cowey?! Why?! And if you insist on including it in the running order unnecessarily, at least show the animated video that took months to create and not this exclusive performance yet again which wasn’t really ‘exclusive’ any more. Cowey could have given one of my faves Embrace a slot who had entered the charts one place lower than the Spice Girls with their single “My Weakness Is None Of Your Business” but, just as with their last hit “Come Back To What You Know”, it was cruelly ignored. Bah!

P.S. I’m assuming that Theakston’s lame intro about the band being all about Baby these days was a reference to the announcement that Victoria Beckham was pregnant with her and David’s first child Brooklyn.

From a song the chart position of which didn’t really justify an appearance on the show (in my humble opinion) to one which wasn’t even in the charts due to the fact that that it hadn’t yet been released. ‘New!’ said the caption for “My Favourite Mistake” by Sheryl Crow where its chart position should have been. When at last released, it would debut and peak at No 9 thus becoming Crow’s last ever UK Top 10 hit. The lead single from her third studio album “The Globe Sessions”, it ostensibly was more of the sound we’d become used to over the previous four years but was it? Apparently, Sheryl had agonised over the writing of the album to such an extent she thought about cancelling the release of it but in the end its release was deferred instead by six weeks. A change of narrative voice in her lyrics had been the issue with Crow struggling to come to terms to writing in the first person. “My Favourite Mistake” was a point in case with it being about an unfaithful ex-boyfriend (rumoured to be Eric Clapton) which created a whole “You’re So Vain” vibe to it. Crow dismissed the speculation saying she was very private about her relationships though, in 2003, she began dating cycling superstar Lance Armstrong in a very high profile and public romance.

As for “My Favourite Mistake”, it’s not my favourite single of Sheryl’s though it has an understated intensity to it but it is, apparently, Crow’s pick as her favourite song of hers and in 2023, The Guardian voted it their favourite Sheryl Crow track out of a list of 20 so maybe I should reconsider my opinion.

Next we find the Foo Fighters in a reflective mood with their hit “Walking After You”. Very much a melancholy tune, it was originally a track on the band’s “The Colour And The Shape” album but was subsequently re-recorded for inclusion on the soundtrack to the first X–Files film. I can’t say it does much for me; it’s very one paced and dare I say it, a bit dull. Maybe in the right setting or environment it might make more sense but performed in the TOTP studio it failed to make much of an impact on me but then I was rather distracted by Dave Grohl’s eyes. They must be coloured contact lenses that he’s deliberately wearing presumably to tie in with the X–Files connection as they do rather make him look alien-like. The TOTP cameramen seem to be in on the ruse given how much they focus on Grohl’s eyes in the lingering end shots.

The discography of The Corrs is a complicated thing, full of rereleases, remixes and special editions. Take this hit “What Can I Do” for example. Originally released in the January it struggled to a peak of No 53. However, after the subsequent success of the Todd Terry remixed Fleetwood Mac cover “Dreams”, it was given a second chance though not before it too was remixed, this time by Tin Tin Out. Replacing its original doo wop sound with dance beats and a guitar riff that was very reminiscent of Eddie Brickell’s “What I Am”* and lyrics half inched from Elton John’s “Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word”, it debuted at No 3 on the charts.

*Tin Tin Out clearly had a thing for that song as they released their own version of it with Emma Bunton the following year.

As Jamie Theakston said in his intro, all of this success has helped propel the group’s album “Talk On Corners” to No 1, one of 10 weeks at the top of the charts. It would spend two whole years (!) inside the Top 40, its presence presumably helped by the release of a special edition of it in the November which included those remixed singles including subsequent ones by K-Klass (“So Young”) and another by Tim Tin Out (“Runaway”) both of which were big hits. We’ll be seeing a lot more of The Corrs in forthcoming TOTP repeats.

Right, what’s going on here? Why are Jamie Theakston and Robbie Williams (dressed like James Bond) having a stilted, on screen conversation whilst seemingly being unaware that the cameras are rolling? Well, presumably this was a pre-planned skit (something about who’s got the best girlfriend?) as a way of introducing another new single that wasn’t even out yet – “Millennium”. I’ve made cases before in this blog that pinpoint sliding door moments in the career of Mr. Williams. “Angels” obviously but also “South Of The Border” and “Let Me Entertain You” but this, I think, is another one – Robbie’s first solo No 1. Interpolating the Nancy Sinatra Bond song “You Only Live Twice”, it sounded impressive right from the very first listen and if there had been any doubt that we were all in it for the long haul with Williams, this was surely the clincher. Yes, it was a bit cynical by being released in between two Bond films (Tomorrow Never Dies in 1997 and The World Is Not Enough in 1999) and also by naming it “Millennium” with one eye on the rapidly approaching end of the century but it just worked. Even the potentially annoying ‘come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough’ yobbish football chant seemed to fit. At this point Robbie Williams could do no wrong. Even the video for “Millennium” won the BRIT Award for British Video Of The Year.

But wait…now what? He’s doing another song? Theakston plays along by protesting that he’s not allowed to despite the running order clearly having been pre-agreed. For the second song, Williams performs “Man Machine” which was never released as a single but was an album track off “I’ve Been Expecting You” which seems an odd choice in retrospect. Surely he would have been better off doing a long tail preview of a future single like “Strong”? Had they not already chosen which songs were earmarked for release as a single by this point? “Man Machine” is OK I guess but it’s not particularly memorable with some lyrics that don’t make much sense but which seem to be a list of rhyming non-sequiturs. Are they vaguely about how the press perceived Williams at the time based around a space theme (“I’ve heard they’re not very well in the sun”)? Robbie throws in a quick arms-behind-the-back Liam Gallagher stance at one point but it all seems a bit too cocky. Maybe he should have left it as just a one song-performance? After all who did he think he was? The Jam? Oasis? Well, there was that Liam Gallagher moment…

It’s a third and final week at the top for Boyzone and “No Matter What” and it’s a third separate studio performance. Unlike week one, Andrew Lloyd Webber hasn’t flown in to be on the piano – presumably he was too busy unlike in 2015 when he flew into the UK on a private plane to vote in the House of Lords in favour of Tory proposed tax credit cuts, the bellend. A lifelong Conservative, in 2021 he said he would never vote for that party again no matter what due to their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and their treatment of the arts sector during that time.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Sweetbox	Everything’s Gonna Be Alright	Negative
2	Kavana	Special Kind Of Something	Nah
3	Alda	Real Good Time	Never happened
4	Spice Girls	Viva Forever	Not for me
5	Sheryl Crow	My Favourite Mistake	Nope
6	Foo Fighters	Walking After You	No thanks
7	The Corrs	What Can I Do	I did not
8	Robbie Williams	Millennium / Man Machine	No
9	Boyzone	No Matter What	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/m002l6rx/top-of-the-pops-28081998