And the 1999 TOTP repeats disappoint yet again. The running order for this show looks uninspiring at best and downright dreadful at worst. Were there no other hits in this week’s chart that executive producer Chris Cowey could have slotted in instead?

*checks the official charts website*

Oh god. Not really. Of the seven acts on this episode, six were new entries between Nos 2 and 11 so Cowey could easily justify them all being featured. The only song going up was the song at No 1 which climbed one place to get there. Three hits were non-movers but they were all past chart toppers so they weren’t going to be on again (nor did I want them to be). There were another five new entries much further down the Top 40 but the only one I recognise is “Mary” by Supergrass which had already been on one of those TOTP on Tour episodes back in August. So, on this occasion, it’s not Cowey’s fault but the poor musical choices and taste of the record buying public. I suppose we’d better get on with it then…

Our host is Gail Porter and we start with the continuing story of the solo careers of the various members of the Spice Girls both past and present. This time it’s the turn of Melanie C who is onto her second solo single (not counting her collaboration with Bryan Adams on “When You’re Gone”) which is also the title track from her album “Northern Star”. Unlike her previous single “Goin’ Down” which saw her restyled as ‘Grunge Spice’, this track was much more pop. A thoughtful ballad that drew comparisons to Madonna’s “Frozen”, it’s actually another Frozen that I could imagine the song featuring in – the film of the same name. With its imagery about Northern and falling stars and lyrics like those below, that could be about Elsa couldn’t it?

“They tried to catch a falling star.
Thinking that she had gone too far.
She did but kept it hidden well.
Until she cracked and then she fell”

Writer(s): Rick Nowels, Melanie Chisholm

OK, it’s not “Let It Go” but then there the way that Mel C sings it as if she was auditioning for a role in a musical theatre show, over annunciating her words and ever so slightly over emoting her delivery. Nothing about either the song or the performance is terrible just on the wrong side of insincere. Melanie C would hit a rich vein of hits after entering the new millennium with two consecutive No 1 singles in 2000 helping her album to go three times platinum in the UK. She would never reach such commercial highs again though she remains a consistent recording artist and live performer.

It’s the highest of those aforementioned new entries now as Boyzone enter the charts at No 3 with “Everyday I Love You”. This was their 16th (!) UK Top 40 hit (including six No 1s) during the period 1994 to 1999 and their final one before the group’s nine year hiatus period that would see the various members pursue solo projects until a reunion tour in 2008. This final single release of the 90s seemed especially cynical. Nominally taken from their Best Of album “By Request”, it actually wasn’t or rather it wasn’t taken from the UK version – it was an extra track on the Asian Special Edition so presumably not available in this country? Was this a pure money grab to get the fanbase to part with even more of their pocket money? If so, they really shouldn’t have bothered as “Everyday I Love You” is a stinker of a song. So pedestrian and laboured, this was the very definition of money for old rope. Do you know, if you wanted a song about loving someone every day, I think this would, unbelievably, be a better choice…

By this point, the group’s profile was all about Ronan Keating and Stephen Gately with the other three literally reduced to the role of backing singers and barely that to be honest. You can kind of forgive them if their hearts weren’t really into performing that role. I don’t think Mikey Graham even gets one camera close up. Poor Mikey has been in the news this last couple of days following the Boyzone farewell concerts at London’s Emirates Stadium over the weekend. Billed as a full reunion of the four surviving members of the band (Stephen Gately died in 2009), Graham only featured in a handful of songs and remained seated for nearly all of them. Much has been made of his appearance with some horrible comments appearing on social media. The truth is that he’s struggled with alcoholism and his mental health which he discussed in the recent Boyzone documentary in which he also revealed he hadn’t spoken to his former band mates for five years. Given all of that, it would have been easier for him and understandable if he’d just declined to appear in the live shows at all so really he should have been praised and supported for the fact that he did instead of being on the receiving end of some vile abuse. Sadly, this is currently the way of the world we live in.

Time and time again in these TOTP repeats, we have encountered the ‘rinse and repeat’ approach to hit making – i.e. once you’ve stumbled on a winning formula, just do the exact same thing again for the follow up. Never mind that it shows a lack of creativity and an attitude of disdain towards the people who bought your first hit. Those mindless sheep will just accept any old rubbish if it’s packaged well enough. That might seem cynical in the extreme from me but what other stance can one take when comparing Alice Deejay’s first hit “Better Off Alone” with her second “Back In My Life”? There really isn’t much difference at all between the two to my non-dance culture ears. Maybe if you were a club DJ at the time you could split some hairs about bpm or something but that would have been dancing on a pinhead behaviour.

Anyway, Alice Deejay were back on the show and this time had lost Dutch producer DJ Jurgen who was credited on “Better Off Alone” (oh, is that the difference?). And yes, were is the correct word used above as Alice Deejay wasn’t just the woman on stage selling the song, they were a collective of Dutch Eurodance producers which raises the question of who was the woman out front? Well, she was Judith Anna Pronk (great name) who, after falling out of love with working within the music industry, pursued a career firstly in hair and make up and subsequently in photography with her website describing her as “A creative mind in the Netherlands”. A creative mind? Pity that the rest of the Alice Deejay people hadn’t shown the same creativity when coming up with a second hit.

There’s no upturn in quality with the next artist. In fact, it’s a definite low point not just in the show but within the whole of 1999. The success of Lolly takes some explaining and I’m not sure that I can. Three Top 10 singles in a six month period suggests she must have been doing something right but she was hopelessly in the wrong with all of them being intensely annoying bubblegum pop hits. The other day I managed to grate my index finger instead of the Red Leicester cheese I was holding – listening to a Lolly record elicited much the same painful reaction.

Her cover of the 1972 Michael Jackson hit “Rockin’ Robin”* was perhaps the worst of the lot. It’s a terrible song anyway but allied to Lolly’s pipsqueak vocals, it was downright diabolical. Who was buying this crap? I can only assume it was the weeny bopper market who probably also bought those records by Cartoons. Thankfully, just like Judith Anna Pronk, Lolly (real name Anna Shantha Kumble) had other career ambitions than being a pop star and would eventually move into the world of TV presenting and acting thus mercifully cutting short her time as a recording artist.

*”Rockin’ Robin” will always remind me of my Dad who was convinced that Michael Jackson was always older than he let on offering “Rockin’ Robin” as his evidence and stating that Jacko must have been at least 30 when it was in the charts. He was, in fact, 13 years old.

Oh God! Not another mindless, generic dance record! Yes, yes it is and it’s courtesy of “Turn Around” hitmakers Phats & Small. Unfortunately, they did have more than that one hit (four in total in fact) of which “Tonite” was the third. I can’t say I remember this one at all but, actually, having listened to it back, it’s not as bad as I would have expected. Despite the hackneyed start where the vocalist sings “Yeah, oo-oo, oo, oh yeah” and the awful descent into the “oo-oo” call and response routine with the studio audience, it’s got a very familiar, retro feel to it and reminds me of something I can’t quite put my finger on. There’s also something very comforting about the performance with all the people up on stage looking like they’re having the best time. Why did they use the American spelling of “Tonite” as the title of the track though? Was it just for conformity with the rhyming of “unite” and “white” in the lyrics?

Despite being for charity, the Children In Need single had never cut through in the same way that the Comic Relief song had. Looking at the list of titles that had been released on behalf of Children In Need, there’s many I don’t recognise at all probably because they didn’t even make the Top 40. 1987’s “Boy Eyed Jog” by Ray Moore anyone? Anyway, that trend changed dramatically in 1997 when the BBC pulled together a host of music names to record Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” for a video to promote the diversity of their music offering and proved so popular with viewers that it was given a full release for Children In Need, going to No 1, selling over a million copies and raising over £2 million for the charity. It remains the biggest selling Children In Need single to date.

1998 saw Johnny Vaughan and Denise Van Outen do their Kylie and Jason impression with a version of “Especially For You” which went to No 3. Come 1999, it was the turn of Martine McCutcheon. On the face of it, she was a good choice. She had been the darling of EastEnders and had become a successful pop star with a No 1 to her name in the form of a classy big ballad. The song chosen for the charity was “Talking In Your Sleep” which I thought I didn’t know but the chorus of which brought childhood memories rushing back. My first thought on seeing the song’s title in the running order was that it was that 1983 single by US band The Romantics that Bucks Fizz covered a year later and took to No 15 but no. It was actually Crystal Gayle’s 1978 hit which had topped the American Country chart. Whilst Martine does her best with it, the production on it is all wrong and sounds clunky and mechanical next to the smoothness of the original.

Not wanting to miss an opportunity to promote McCutcheon’s album “You Me & Us”, for the Christmas period, her record label made it a double A-side with another cover version from said album. This time it was a Bee Gees track called “Love Me” which had been a hit for Yvonne Elliman in 1976. Martine performed the song at the Children in Need telethon on 26 November 1999 where she was supported by a choir of 100 children.

It’s “Talking In Your Sleep” which we get in this TOTP performance though which sees a rather jarring intro from Gail Porter who seems to be about to interview Martine judging by her proximity to her but when she fails to do that, she just ends up looking like she was invading Martine’s personal space or like the strange person on the bus who sits next to you even though there are loads of spare empty double seats. Maybe Gail had wanted to ask her about the very severe fringe Martine was sporting but lost her nerve. By peaking at No 6, “Talking In Your Sleep”/“Love Me” became the 14th highest ever charting Children In Need single.

And so to a fitting ending to this piss poor episode as the new No 1 is “The Millennium Prayer” by Cliff Richard. The song credits eight songwriters as having contributed to its composition including, and this is a bit out there but there’s a logic to it, Jesus Christ himself. It is the only single that credits Jesus as a lyricist. I don’t think anything else I could say will top that fact.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Melanie C	Northern Star	No
2	Boyzone	Everyday I Love You	Of course not
3	Alice Deejay	Back In My Life	Negative
4	Lolly	Rockin’ Robin	As if
5	Phats & Small	Tonite	Nope
6	Martine McCutcheon	Talking In Your Sleep / Love Me	Nah
7	Cliff Richard	The Millennium Prayer	Never

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/m002x8m8/top-of-the-pops-03121999