What’s going on here then. Why have we missed two episodes? This hasn’t happened since the Summer of 1997 repeats and that whole Puff Daddy/ P Diddy business. The ever reliable @TOTPFacts has the answer:
Well, there you go. Some in the online TOTP community were disgruntled at the decision by the BBC with the usual “couldn’t they have blurred it out?” comments and I understand their opinion especially as the Gouryella track was only featured during the chart rundown and not as a standalone showing of the video. Looking at the running order for these two missed episodes though, I can’t say I’m that disappointed not to have watched (and reviewed) some of the hits we missed. Look at this line up from the 9th July episode:
I would say that there’s only Blur’s “Coffee & TV” and “Secret Smile” by Semisonic that piqued my interest and I certainly had no desire to review S Club 7 and Shania Twain again and I could live without Lolly as well. As for the 16th July episode…
Manic Street Preachers? I can’t see much else. Well, I haven’t got it in me to dig out those shows on YouTube and review them I’m afraid (especially after seeing the running orders) so it’s full steam ahead with the 23rd July episode which is hosted by Jayne Middlemiss and we start with a new one from Steps called “Love’s Got A Hold On My Heart”. After the almost novelty record debut of “5,6,7,8” and the faux ABBA schtick of their next two releases, their cover of “Tragedy” drew a line in the sand where the group had to taken seriously as a genuine chart entity when it finally made it to No 1 after an ascent that took weeks. The follow up “Better Best Forgotten” leapt to No 2 and so when “Love’s Got A Hold On My Heart” was released as the lead track from second album “Steptacular”, its peak of No 2 was maybe the least that was expected of it. However…talk about playing it safe. Co-produced and co-written by Pete Waterman, this was just a retread of his PWL pomp. You could imagine Sonia (definitely not Kylie though) having recorded this tripe. Everything from its title to its sound was telegraphed. There was nothing new nor original here but maybe it was expecting too much for it to have been anything else.
As for the performance we see here, there’s something curious going on. At the end of the 2nd July show, as Gail Porter introduces the No 1 surrounded by the studio audience, front and centre in the crowd are Steps in the yellow outfits they wore in this, the 23rd July episode. Claire even has the same cowboy hat on. Yet more evidence that there was clearly a time delay between when performances were recorded and when they were broadcast. I assume that the artists had busy schedules and so everything had to be carefully timetabled to accommodate a TOTP studio appearance rather than just show the single’s promo video which executive producer Chris Cowey was very determined not to if he could help it.
Look at this! Madness were back! Had they actually been away though? OK, some clarification is required here. After initially disbanding in 1986, there had already been a number of returns by the nutty boys before this point. In 1988, four members of the original band reunited as The Madness and released one album and two singles none of which troubled the chart compilers. Two years on and now down to two original members, The Nutty Boys were formed before changing their name to Crunch! but there really was no appetite for just the pips of the band and they were soon compost. Everything changed though in 1992 when all seven members came back together to promote the Best Of compilation “Divine Madness” and to play the Madstock! festival in Finsbury Park to 75,000 people over two days. Legend has it that some nearby tower blocks perceptibly shook so loud was the music. Madness were officially a smash again with “Divine Madness” going to No 1 and triple platinum in the UK. Four singles were released from it three of which charted Meanwhile, Madstock was repeated three times as a biannual event.
So, why would I say that Madness were suddenly back in 1999? Ah well, this was the first time that they had released new material since that break up in 1986 when “(Waiting For) The Ghost Train” made No 18. “Lovestruck” was the lead single from “Wonderful”, their first studio album since 1985’s “Mad Not Mad” and listening back to it now, it could easily have been released in the 80s. It was trademark Madness with Mike Barson’s tinkling keyboards back in the fold for the first time since his departure in 1984. Despite sticking out in a 1999 Top 40 like a pork pie hat at Royal Ascot, “Lovestruck” returned Madness to the Top 10 for the first time since “The Sun And The Rain” in 1983. There were a lot of ‘first since’ milestones going on in this comeback!
I’m (love) struck by the unique singing style of Suggs on this track. It’s verges on non-singing which I guess you would almost describe as ‘speaking’ and yet it has served him and his band well for nearly 50 years now. Is it heresy to say that secondary vocalist Chas Smash had the better voice? Certainly, I can hear his harmonies to good effect in this one. “Wonderful” sold reasonably rather than exceptionally well but enough for the band to remain a part of our lives ever since releasing a further five studio albums since and being an almost ever present touring outfit. Embrace the madness!
Some anti-London sentiment now according to Jayne Middlemiss who plays up to her North East roots in her intro to “Londinium” by Catatonia by saying “I dirrn’t knaa wot she’s on aboot like” – they could almost be the words in a speech bubble coming from the mouth of Viz’s Sid The Sexist. Anyway, it’s another regional accent that takes over proceedings next as Cerys Matthews leads us through the second single from “Equally Cursed And Blessed” and although it’s not as immediate as their biggest hits like “Mulder And Scully” and “Road Rage”, it does have some ear worm like qualities that are apparent after a couple of listens. It’s Cerys who you can’t take your eyes off in this performance though as she twists and turns both vocally and physically, bewitching us as she playfully rolls those ‘R’s’ again. Apparently, the band didn’t want “Londinium” released as it could be perceived as negative and wanted “Karaoke Queen” issues instead. That track would become the third single and peaked at No 36 whilst “Londinium” debuted at No 20. Bizarrely though “Karaoke Queen” was not included in the band’s five CD box set “Make Hay Not War – The Blanco Y Negro Years” which brought together their four studio albums when it was released in 2023. Strange glue indeed.
Right, what’s this nonsense? Well, it’s dance nonsense, of course it is and this time it’s delivered to us courtesy of Yolanda (aka DJ Paul Masterson) who took a sample from Liquid Gold’s disco hit “Dance Yourself Dizzy” and turned it into the horrendous mess called “Synths And Strings”. I mean, you can just about hear that No 5 hit from 1980 buried in the mix somewhere but the noise surrounding it is like being slapped across the face constantly. And what was with the staging of this performance with the dancers dressed as toy soldiers? It’s like Trumpton meets Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and to paraphrase Neil Tennant, literally set to a disco beat. Then there there’s a wobbly screen effect laid over the top of it all presumably to replicate the feeling of being off your head in a club. If I could paraphrase again, channelling my inner Queen of Hearts, “Off with their heads!”
There was a third single off the “Gran Turismo” album? That’s what Jayne Middlemiss says in her intro to The Cardigans and she’s right as they are in the studio to perform “Hanging Around”. I remember “My Favourite Game” and “Erase/Rewind” but this one has escaped my memory banks. As with Catatonia earlier, it wasn’t as striking as those two songs or indeed “Lovefool” but unlike Catatonia, it didn’t stay with me for that long after I’d listened to it. Possibly more of a serviceable album track than a single? I mean, next to Yolanda it was like ambrosia from the gods but compared to their own work, it was more semolina than a rich, rice pudding. Erm…not sure where I’m going with this…so I think I’ll move on. No hanging around for me.
Wait, Dina Carroll was still having hits in 1999? In my head she was all about 1992/93 but here she was at the end of the decade at No 13 with “Without Love”. I have written loads about Dina in past posts on account of all those hits back then so I’m not going to retread her entire career story now but suffice to say that at this point, she was undertaking something of a relaunch some three years after her second album “Only Human”. Dina had suffered health problems in the form of a hereditary bone disease that affected her ears – not good if you’re a singer – which had disrupted the recording of that sophomore collection and also the promotion of it. Despite only releasing two singles from it, her record label Mercury decided that work should begin on her third album. It would never be released and we were left with just two singles that would end up as stand alone tracks – mid tempo ballad “One, Two, Three” which never made it into TOTP despite its chart peak of No 16 and this one, “Without Love”.
A definite throwback to her early dance hits, it could have easily been released in 1993 although it came with lots of different mixes to appeal to the various dance markets. Despite its success, the confident performance by Dina here (her final TOTP appearance) and her new image, it would not be enough to convince Mercury to release that third album. One minor hit single would follow in 2001 (a cover of Van Morrison’s “Someone Like You”) and that was that for Dina’s discography and, unless something changes in the future, her whole musical career.
There was no denying it, Destiny’s Child were fulfilling what many had predicted was their (ahem) destiny by starting to rack up some seriously big hits by this point in their career. After “No, No, No” had been an American No 3 hit and gone Top 5 over here, “Bills, Bills, Bills” (they had a thing for repeated three word titles early on) would give them their first US chart topper and a consolidating No 6 hit in the UK. It wouldn’t be long before we were on exactly the same page as our American counterparts with consecutive No 1 singles in “Independent Women” and “Survivor”. I’m getting ahead of myself though. Back to “Bills, Bills, Bills” and many comparisons were made at the time between it and the recent TLC hit “No Scrubs” both lyrically and sonically. There was a solid reason for this which was that both tracks were co-written and produced by Kevin “She’kspere” Briggs and his then girlfriend and former Xscape singer Kandi Burruss. Both songs took the subject matter of denigrating men that were seen as wasters and ran with it and both even used the same slang insult of a ‘scrub’ in their lyrics. Whilst it’s true both employed a sort of skittering backbeat and distinctive synthesised intros, for me, “Bills, Bills, Bills” had more of an En Vogue feel to it than a TLC one. Still, what do I know? I’m hardly an authority on R&B, all female groups of the 90s. I’m a pop kid from the 80s at heart.
What I do know from watching this performance back though is that the TOTP studio audience didn’t seem to know how to dance to this one at all. There’s some collective shuffling about with one poor girl just stood there at the front of the throng, perhaps paralysed by the thought that any dance moves she attempted would be seen on national TV. Just a few people down the line however, one single girl took the exact opposite approach, seized the moment and went for it with arms and hips swaying in unison. Again, I didn’t know anything much about being a young woman in the late 90s but if I’d been in that audience, I’m pretty sure I’d have been the girl stood motionless.
Ah, who could forget “Livin’ La Vida Loca” by Ricky Martin? What’s that? You wish you could forget it? Ouch! Although this No 1 felt like it was a new pop sensation the type of which we hadn’t seen before, we actually had. Gloria Estefan (with and without the Miami Sound Machine) had been having upbeat, Latin flavoured pop hits since 1984. However, it is true that there was a whole legion of super successful Latin artists who had never broken through in the UK like Ricky Martin had managed to do. Sure, he’s had a couple of hits a few years earlier over here but a No 1 record took him to another level (no, not them!). What was it then about “Livin’ La Vida Loca” that enraptured the British record buying public so? Well, the track fair galloped along with a cracking pace which you couldn’t ignore and also had a bit of surf guitar thrown in there which always makes for an engaging sound. Then there was Ricky himself – with his smouldering good looks and gyrating hips he was the perfect vehicle to sell it. And sell it he did with over three quarter of a million physical copies sold in 1999 in the UK alone. It would be the sixth best selling single of the year here.
Ricky Martin’s success could be seen as paving the way for a wave of Latin artists as the new millennium dawned with the likes of Enriquez Iglesias, Shakira, and Christina Aguilera joining him in attaining mainstream chart success without forgetting Jennifer Lopez who was also riding high in the charts at this time*.
*Indeed, it was Lopez’s “If You Had My Love” that replaced “Livin’ La Vida Loca” at the top of the US Billboard chart.
One thing though, Ricky dancing on a podium is giving me strong vibes of Xanadu nightclub in Rochdale that I found myself in one memorable evening out (it’s a long story) which I’m not especially keen to recall.
| Order of appearance | Artist | Title | Did I buy it? |
| 1 | Steps | Love’s Got A Hold On My Heart | Certainly not |
| 2 | Madness | Lovestruck | Nope |
| 3 | Catatonia | Londinium | Decent tune but no |
| 4 | Yolanda | Synths And Strings | Never |
| 5 | The Cardigans | Hanging Around | Negative |
| 6 | Dina Carroll | Without Love | I did not |
| 7 | Destiny’s Child | Bills, Bills, Bills | Nah |
| 8 | Ricky Martin | Livin’ La Vida Loca | 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/m002tl5p/top-of-the-pops-23071999
TOTP Rewind - the 90s 