80stastic

TOTP 31 JAN 1997

Posted on January 21, 2025 by 80stastic

I’ve referred back to my diary again for inspiration for this post. You may remember that I rediscovered my 1996 one a while back but it carries on into 1997 and up to the month of May when I finally got fed up of it. It turns out that the day after this TOTP aired, we had a stocktake at the Our Price in Stockport where I was working. When I first joined the record retailer back in 1990, stocktakes were events that were talked about in legendary terms as to how long they took with tales of them going on well into the early hours of the morning. I would come to realise that this was the more experienced members of staff winding us newbies up. That’s not to say that they didn’t go on and on sometimes. This particular one wasn’t finished until 9.00 on a Saturday night. However, Stockport was a big store over two floors – one of the smaller shops in the area wouldn’t have taken half as long. There was a rumour once that one store completed its stocktake before it had even closed its doors and stopped trading for the day which seemed to undermine the point of the exercise to me. There were two different types of stocktake as I recall – a financial one and a unit count one. By 1997, the stock inventory had been computerised and so we had little mobile scanners to read the barcode and tell us exactly what we had in the store rather than just a number of CDs for example. These then had to be uploaded to the system once an area of the shop had been counted before they could be recalibrated and put to counting again. Someone had to be nominated to do that stock controller job who was normally a member of management so it could well have been me as Assistant Manager on this occasion. My diary tells me that we all trooped off to the pub once the stocktake was done as was tradition. Presumably all of the songs on this episode of TOTP will have been counted in that stocktake.

Tonight’s guest host is Slade legend Noddy Holder who had left the band five years previously and started on a radio and TV career – within two years he would be starring in ITV comedy/drama series The Grimleys. I served Noddy once in my early Our Price days and I was delighted that his credit card has the name N Holder emblazoned on it thinking that the ‘N’ referred to Noddy when in fact it was the initial of his actual name Neville. Doh! I’m guessing that apart from maybe a Greatest Hits CD, we wouldn’t have had any Slade albums in store to count at the stocktake.

We start tonight with Placebo and their hit “Nancy Boy”. During the course of my research on this one (I do do research – I can’t rely on my fading memory to come up with anecdotes constantly), I came across a rather sad story about the boy who was on the cover of Placebo’s debut album. His name is David Fox and he was just 12 years old when his cousin took a photo of him pulling a face one day. The next thing he knew, said cousin had licensed the photos to Placebo’s record label Virgin and his picture adorned the cover of the album, billboards, the sides of buses etc. Cool eh? Well no, actually. David suffered from bullying at school as a result of his fame and ended up being ostracised by his former mates. He eventually went through a number of different schools, didn’t take his GCSEs and ended up being unemployed. In 2012, it was reported that he was intending to sue the band for ruining his life and unpaid royalties. I’m not sure what the outcome was but a year later, he did appear on the ‘Identity Parade’ section of Never Mind The Buzzcocks pulling that same face so I’m guessing he didn’t feel as litigious as he once had. I hope he got an appearance fee at least.

Next up is perhaps the laziest and most obvious choice of single of the decade. Now I’m not a particular fan of Gabrielle but I can admire her longevity and the career that she has built off the back of what could have been one hit wonder status. After her debut hit “Dreams” shot to No 1 in 1993, there was a school of thought that said the only way from that peak was down but Gabrielle refused to conform to that stereotype and followed it with a clutch of charting singles and a Top 10 album in “Find Your Way”. An eponymous, sophomore album followed in 1996 which was certified platinum in the UK and the end of that year saw her rise to No 2 with her duet with East 17 of the Shai track “If You Ever”. Big props to her.

However, the decision by her (or more likely her record label) to then release a cover version of “Walk On By” lacked any integrity or creativity but was surely financially driven. I’m not sure if Noddy was right in what he said in his intro – that the song had been covered over 200 times – but it is surely one of the best known tunes of all time and it is certainly true that it had already been a hit a number of times before Gabrielle got to it. The original version of the Bacharach and David classic was recorded by Dionne Warwick in 1963 but since then it had been covered by Gloria Gaynor, The Stranglers, Average White Band and D-Train. Then, as recently as 1990, it had been a No 6 hit for American singer Sybil. Given all of this, did we really need another version of it courtesy of Gabrielle? This was a cynical, money for old rope move. Supposedly, the idea for her to record it came about when she’d performed it in an episode of TFI Friday on which she was a guest and which Bacharach was in the audience for. His seal of approval of Gabrielle’s version convinced record label Go!Beat to milk the cash cow that had been presented before them and wallop! It was back in the Top 10 again. Such was their desire to fleece the record buying public that it was added as an extra track (along with “If You Ever”) to her album which was rereleased. Money grabbing swines! It’s such an ordinary version of the song as well which added nothing to it at all to my ears. At least The Stranglers did something different with it.

Despite the expense of the recent festive period, January 1997 must have been a busy time for the country’s nightclubs if the UK Top 40 was any sort of gauge. The upper end of the chart was jam packed with dance tunes. Tori Amos and White Town had both been at No 1 whilst Lisa Stansfield and remix team The Dirty Rotten Scoundrels had taken the old Coldcut hit “People Hold On” to No 4. And the there was this – “Remember Me” by Blue Boy otherwise known as the ‘Ging Ginner’ song. Blue Boy was British DJ Alexis ‘Lex’ Blackmore who took a sample of a track called “Woman Of The Ghetto” by American jazz, blues and soul singer Marlena Shaw and ‘funked’ it up for want of a better word to create a memorable dance floor filler. A scat version of that sample of the original track formed the distinctive ‘ging gi-gi-gi-gi-ging’ hook. In my head, this got as high as those other dance hits I mentioned earlier but Wikipedia tells me that it peaked at No 8. Told you I had to do research and not rely on my memory!

My rediscovery of Skunk Anansie continues at pace. “Hedonism (Just Because You Feel Good)” was their fifth hit single in a twelve month period and I’ve pretty much liked them all despite only recalling “Weak” before rewatching the TOTP repeats that featured them. If the band could be said to have a gentler side then this was it. A less abrasive sound than some of their other songs albeit that Skin’s powerful vocals are still to the forefront and there’s a bit of wah-wah guitar in the middle eight.

Inevitably when you have such a striking looking female lead singer, she was always going to attract the most attention, a scenario we have seen numerous times in music history with bands such as Blondie, Toyah and No Doubt. However, in an interview with Kerrang! magazine in 2020, Skin made it clear that the reason that Skunk Anansie split in 2001 wasn’t because of any jealousy directed towards her by other members or that she felt that she had outgrown or become bigger than the band. No, she felt it was because she believed that they were about to make a bad album and that it would be harder to come back from a bad album than a break up so they chose the latter. She was proved to be right as they reformed in 2008 and are still together to this day though they have only released a few singles since their last full album in 2016 but they are touring in March and April this year.

No Mercy are back in the studio and having reviewed them and their hit “Where Do You Go” once already, I genuinely can’t think of anything else to say about them. Erm…erm…No Mercy…didn’t The Stranglers (who I mentioned earlier) have a hit called “No Mercy”?

*checks their discography *

Yes they did in 1984 – it reached No 37. Will that do? No, it won’t will it. Erm…well, the lead singer is called Marty Cintron who sounds like a character from This Is Spinal Tap. Why was I talking about Spinal Tap the other day? Oh yes, here we go. This’ll do. I currently work as a front of house usher in a theatre and me and a colleague had to take some rubbish out after a show the other day but had to use a different route to the one we normally use to get to the bins as the foyer was unusually busy. Consequently, we had to get to them via the backstage area (you know where this is going don’t you?) and, not used to this part of the theatre, we got lost. We kept wandering around corridors that led us nowhere and at one point opened a door that had us on the pavement outside (but crucially with no access to the bin area). At this point, I said to my colleague (who is much, much younger than me – he’s just started University) “This is like that scene from Spinal Tap where they can’t find the stage at a gig and they wander backstage hopelessly lost. Obviously my colleague had no idea what I was talking about so I had to explain to him the concept of Spinal Tap. I’m so old! He probably doesn’t know who No Mercy are/were either but that’s understandable given that they were a bunch of no marks anyway.

The TOTP caption for the next video informs us that the artist concerned has not appeared live on the show for 11 years. Seeing as the artist is George Michael, and that this repeat is from 1997, does that mean that George hadn’t been on the show since his Wham! days? Possibly. Anyway, this promo is for the fourth single and the title track from his “Older” album. As the first two tracks lifted from it had both been No 1s and the third a No 2, was it conceivable that the No 3 peak of this one was seen as a disappointment? Surely not. The album had been out for eight months by this point and this was the fourth single to come from it so all in all, not a bad result I would have thought.

As for the song, it’s the sort of track that had become synonymous with George by this point in his career. The sort of track that could only be described by the word ‘mature’. George’s vocals are on point as ever, but for me, it’s all just a tad dull. Apparently the trumpet part in it was played by one Steve Sidwell – I’m assuming that isn’t the ex-Reading, Chelsea and Fulham midfielder. It was released as a double A-side with the Bonnie Raitt track ”I Can’t Make You Love Me” which I think I prefer as a song (especially Bonnie’s version). George didn’t stop at four singles being released from “Older” and a further two were put out with the final one – “You Have Been Loved” – hitting the shops a good 15 months after the album did. This matched the amount of singles released from his “Faith” album.

Rivalling George in the ‘not seen round these parts for a while’ stakes were Depeche Mode who Noddy Holder informs us hadn’t been live on TOTP since 1987! They were back now but a lot had happened in the intervening 10 years. Back then, the band had not long drawn a line under their synth pop era and gone all dark with the “Black Celebration” album and had continued in that vein with subsequent albums “Violator” and “Songs Of Faith And Devotion”. Both had been massively successful commercially with “Violator” in particular being seen as the band at the peak of their creative powers too. However, it was not all good news. The mammoth Devotional Tour had taken its toll on the whole group. Martin Gore had become a borderline alcoholic, Andy Fletcher (RIP) had a mental breakdown, Alan Wilder decided to leave the band after years of feeling unappreciated and then there was Dave Gahan. Battling a serious drug addiction and after a near fatal overdose when his heart stopped beating for two minutes, Gahan went into rehab. Struggling to get their lead singer to record any new material, Martin Gore had considered breaking up the band but relented and the resulting album “Ultra” would go to No 1 in the UK selling four million copies worldwide.

The lead single was “Barrel Of A Gun” which was another slab of industrial rock the likes of which they had forged the second part of their career on and conquered America with. It’s kind of odd seeing Martin Gore up there wielding a guitar rather than behind keyboards, a drummer on stage with them and, of course, no Alan Wilder anymore. I don’t remember this one though it would furnish the band with their highest chart position since “People Are People” in 1984 when it peaked at No 4.

Listening to it now, it puts me in mind of the soundtrack to late 90s Channel 4 comedy/drama series The Young Person’s Guide To Becoming A Rock Star. That might sound like heresy to the Depeche Mode faithful but have a listen to this…

Ok, the tempo’s much faster and the tune not as industrial sounding but the structure’s similar no? Just me then.

Blur are No 1 with “Beetlebum” but as was the way at this point in the decade, it would only be for one week until the next hyped, discounted single was released that would debut at the top of the charts. Although it was the only No 1 to come from their eponymous, fifth album, I’m willing to bet that it’s not the most well known track on the album. That would be the second single taken from it, the aptly named “Song 2” (it was given its name as a working title based on its position in the album’s running order and stuck). Its memorable “woo-hoo” refrain would strike a chord with the general public and lead to it being used in many a sports stadium and computer game soundtrack. We’ll no doubt be seeing “Song 2” on a future TOTP repeat in the not too distant future. And with that, the stocktake is complete – I’ve taken stock of everything.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Placebo	Nancy Boy	No but I had it on one of those Best Album Ever compilations
2	Gabrielle	Walk On By	No, I walked on by it
3	Blue Boy	Remember Me	Yes on 12″ for my wife
4	Skunk Anansie	Hedonism (Just Because You Feel Good)	No but it is good
5	No Mercy	Where Do You Go	Never
6	George Michael	Older / I Can’t Make You Love Me	Nope
7	Depeche Mode	Barrel Of A Gun	No
8	Blur	Beetlebum	No but I had the album it came from

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/m0026qwm/top-of-the-pops-31011997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 24 JAN 1997

Posted on January 18, 2025 by 80stastic

Two days before this TOTP aired, Billy Mackenzie committed suicide and the world lost one of its truly unique voices. Like most people I’m guessing, I first became aware of Billy in 1982 when the band he formed with Alan Rankine, The Associates, burst into the charts with “Party Fears Two”. I didn’t realise that they’d been going for three years before that. All I knew was that they made the most beguilingly wonderful sound. They followed it up with the similarly marvellous “Club Country” and “18 Carat Love Affair” but the runaway success train got derailed by Rankine’s decision to leave the band. There would be no more new music from The Associates until 1985 when the album “Perhaps” was released. Although none of the singles release from it made the Top 40, they were still quality tunes especially the stunning “Breakfast”. Billy continued to write and record under The Associates banner until 1990 when he struck out as a solo artist. However, any further chart success would prove elusive. A couple of years after his death, his biography, The Glamour Chase, was published which I read and it was a fascinating book. Billy really was an original – one of my favourite anecdotes was when he was let go by his record label, he hailed a cab in London and travelled back to his home city of Dundee charging the fare back to the label. He is truly missed. The Associates are stated to have influenced the likes of Björk, U2 and Ladytron. I wonder if any of the acts on tonight will have left such a legacy?

Before proceeding, I should acknowledge that the host tonight is Phil Daniels who’d had a few connections with music down the years. From fronting new wave band The Cross to his iconic role as Jimmy Cooper in Quadrophenia to his cameo in Blur’s “Parklife”, Daniels was an almost logical choice of TOTP guest presenter. So first on tonight are…you have to be kidding me?! The Outhere Brothers?!They were still having hits in 1997?! How and more importantly why?! You’ll remember this pointless duo from having consecutive No 1s in 1995 with “Don’t Stop (Wiggle Wiggle)” and “Boom Boom Boom” which were horrible, lowest common denominator, call and response chants. Their success was unexplainable to me but as we move into 1997 with these TOTP repeats, I was fairly sure that particular shameful episode in UK chart history was over. I was wrong, so sadly wrong. This final hit was called “Let Me Hear You Say ‘Ole ‘Ole” (of course it was) and it was garbage. It just sounds like a load of drunks at a football match. Who the hell bought this?! No, seriously who?!

Legacy rating: Zero. Nothing. Nada.

In January 1997, Suede were in the middle of the most commercial era of their career. Their third album “Coming Up” had been out for about five months and they were promoting it hard with a tour and five singles taken from it. “Saturday Night” was the third of those and its release conformed to that well worn path of two fast ones followed by a slow one. A ballad written to glorify the beauty to be found in the everyday, it continued the band’s run of Top 10 hits by debuting at a very respectable No 6. Not bad for a third single from an album. As it’s a ballad, Brett Anderson is sat down on a chair for this performance – perhaps he took inspiration from this lyric from the song:

Today she’s been sat there, sat there in a black chair

Office furniture

Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Brett Anderson / Richard Oakes
Saturday Night lyrics © BMG Rights Management

I caught Suede on that aforementioned tour a few weeks after this TOTP appearance in Blackburn when they were supported by Mansun. That was a good gig.

Legacy rating: For a band that could have buckled under the weight of expectation of that ‘The most important band in Britain’ headline early in their career, Suede have sustained remarkably well. A solid 7/10

You know me, I’m a pop kid. R&B isn’t my go to choice on Spotify but if I had to choose an artist of that genre then En Vogue would be up there. It might be the harmonies or the genre-bending tunes like “Free Your Mind” but they just seemed to have an edge to them that made them stand out. “Don’t Let Go (Love)” was another such track. The word seductive’ doesn’t really cover this one. It’s a great track that would end up being the lead single from the group’s third album “EV3” although it was originally recorded for the soundtrack of the heist drama Set It Off . It would also usher in a huge change in the group’s line up as lead vocalist on this track Dawn Robinson decided to leave En Vogue to pursue a solo career rather than record “EV3”. That would trigger a host of changes personnel-wise that would make the band’s members timeline more bitty than “It Keeps Rainin’” singer Mr McLean. Despite all the comings and goings, En Vogue are still together to this day although they are now a trio and haven’t released any new material since the “Electric Cafe” album in 2018.

Legacy rating: They’ve had more US R&B No 1s than any other female group other than The Supremes but the revolving door line up policy undermines their reputation rather. 6/10

In music history, there haven’t been many Byrons have there? In fact, there haven’t been many Byrons full stop. The most famous one is surely Romantic poet Lord Byron but there’s also this bloke – Byron Stingily who not only ticks the Byron box but also the music one too. I’d forgotten about this guy but reading up on him revealed that he wasn’t alone in Byron world. Let’s start with the facts though. Stingily (another unusual name to be honest) hails from Chicago and was a prominent figure in the rise of house music that emanated from that city. Working with another house music legend, Marshall Jefferson, as producer they formed Ten City who you may remember from having a hit in 1989 with “That’s The Way Love Is”. And get this – one of the members of the band was called Byron as well! What are the chances! And…Stingily’s son* is called Byron Jnr! Maybe I was wrong about the paucity of people called Byron!

*Byron Jnr would become an American football player for the New York Giants in the position of offensive tackle (make your own jokes up!).

Anyway, branching out solo, Stingily’s first UK hit was “Get Up (Everybody)” which sampled disco legend Sylvester’s “Dance (Disco Heat)”. Incidentally, Byron would do a full blown cover of Sylvester’s finest moment “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” the following year. I’m sure “Get Up (Everybody)” meant something in Chicago House circles but the only thing I could remember about it before watching this TOTP repeat was the generic Manifesto Records cover it came in. Byron’s final UK chart entry was his own cover of that Ten City hit in 1999 and although he is still involved in music he is also a part time principal at a school in…yep…Chicago.

Legacy rating: I’m sure he remains a big name in the history of house music but, if I’m being stingy about Stingily, he doesn’t mean much to me 5/10

And now for something truly stomach churning. I remember the name Ginuwine (I think Phil Daniels mispronounces it in his intro as ‘Genuine’) but thank god I couldn’t recall how any of his music went because it’s god awful. The lyrics to his debut hit “Pony” are clearly just a metaphor for his penis. That’s it. That’s his angle. It’s schoolboy humour tripe. There’s lots of mentions of ‘riding’ his pony and the things he would do to some poor woman, juices flowing down thighs and lurking all over and through her until he reaches her stream. Oh god, I feel dirty just typing those words. It’s just horrific. All of this machismo bullshit was set to an R&B, bump’n’ grind backbeat while Ginuwine smooches about the stage exhorting the studio audience to make some noise. It’s genuinely disturbing. It’s clear though why this berk created an alter ego for himself as his real name is Elgin Baylor Lumpkin which sounds like a character from The Hobbit. And we thought Byron Stingily was unusual! Begone foul, three-legged warg!

Legacy rating: Do me a favour! 0/10

New U2 material was a huge deal back in 1997 so they were always going to get the big build up exclusive treatment on the show. However, despite “Discothèque” going to No 1, history has not been kind to it and, for many, it ultimately disappointed. Since the beginning of the 90s, U2 had been on a mission of reinvention starting with “Achtung Baby” and progressing via “Zooropa” so that by the time they arrived in 1997 and the “Pop” album, was it possible that we’d all had enough of it? Certainly, it was one of the band’s poorest performing albums commercially and Bono himself has voiced his dissatisfaction with it, with the band going so far as to re-record or remix tracks from it for their second Best Of compilation released in 2002.

It all sounds pretty damning but was lead single “Discothèque” really that bad? I think that I overestimated its potential when ordering the single for the Our Price store I was working in and was left with egg on my face and a huge overstock on the shelves. That probably informed my negative view of it. However, listening back to it, I can appreciate the song and what the band were trying to do with it. Sure, it was pushing the boundaries of what we expected from a U2 track but we had been primed for that by all those previous experimentations. Accusations of jumping on the bandwagon of the dominant and ubiquitous dance genre abounded but, on reflection, I think “Discothèque” manages to pull together a track that dared to both innovate and yet be commercially viable. As for the ‘mirrorball’ video, I like to think it showed the band retained the ability to send themselves up – The Village People indeed! The single would go straight in at No 1 but, as was the increasing trend, only for a single week until it was knocked off by the next ‘big’ release.

Legacy rating: Hard to knock a band who will have been in existence for 50 years next year. As for the song, I think it’s due a reappraisal. 8/10 for the band, 6/10 for the song

Asked to name two songs by Reef, this one, “Come Back Brighter”, would be my second pick after “Place Your Hands”. Asked to name three songs by Reef…forget it. Still, this was the point when they were starting to look like serious contenders for the title of heavyweight rockers. This was a second Top 10 hit in a row, both tracks coming from No 1 sophomore album “Glow”. It would be their commercial peak though. By the time third album “Rides” was released in 1999, that flush of success had dissipated rather and sold only a fifth of its predecessor and furnished just one hit single. What happened? I don’t know do I? If I knew the secret of what makes music popular, I’d have spent the 90s writing hit songs rather than selling them in a record shop. For me, “Come Back Brighter” wasn’t as immediate as “Place Your Hands” but it was a grower and did a decent job consolidating the band’s profile.

Legacy rating: Early promise didn’t turn into megastardom 5/10

White Town are No 1! You may not remember their name but their one and only hit was unforgettable. I say ‘their’ but White Town was really just one person – Jyoti Prakash Mishra – a British-Indian singer, musician and producer who came up with the global smash “Your Woman” before disappearing again – a true one hit wonder but what a hit! This was one of those tracks that, the first time you heard it, you couldn’t ignore, that made you say “what’s this?!”. Sampling a 1932 (1932!) song by Lew Stone and his Monseigneur Band featuring a vocal from South African-British crooner Al Bowlly*, it sounded ‘other’, ‘alien’ even, like it had come from a different planet. This was no “Spaceman” though – it didn’t deceive like Babylon Zoo had a year earlier. No, this was all killer all the way through. It wasn’t just about the beats though. The song had a subverted narrative with Mishra’s distorted, low-fi vocal delivering a story of a relationship mismatch from the point of view of the woman. It was clever stuff or at least it felt like it at the time.

*My only other reference point for Al Bowlly came early in my Our Price career when my colleague Justin announced at the end of the day that he was meeting a girl after work and that he’d been getting in the mood for his assignation by listening to Al Bowlly’s “Got A Date With An Angel”

Mishra had started by releasing his material on his own, self financed record label but when “Your Town” started getting airplay courtesy of Radio 1’s Mark Radcliffe, EMI came calling with a record deal and the rest is history. It wasn’t a good history though in terms of Mishra’s relationship with EMI. A committed Marxist, he was very outspoken about music industry practices and it would ultimately lead to White Town being dropped before the end of 1997. Mishra returned to releasing music on his own record label and is still active to this day.

Legacy rating: 8/10 for the song, 4/10 for the band

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Outhere Brothers	Let Me Hear You Say ‘Ole ‘Ole	F**k off!
2	Suede	Saturday Night	No but I had the album Coming Up
3	En Vogue	Don’t Let Go (Love)	Liked it, didn’t buy it
4	Byron Stingily	Get Up (Everybody)	Negative
5	Ginuwine	Pony	Never
6	U2	Discothèque	Nope
7	Reef	Come Back Brighter	Nah
8	White Town	Your Woman	No but maybe I should have

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/m0026qwk/top-of-the-pops-24011997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 17 JAN 1997

Posted on January 16, 2025 by 80stastic

The day before this TOTP aired, Chris Evans resigned from Radio 1 leaving his former employer with a huge breakfast show sized hole in their schedule. The tipping point for Evans was station controller Matthew Bannister’s refusal to grant him Fridays off from hosting the show so he could prepare for his Channel 4 programme TFI Friday. Bannister had already turned a blind eye to multiple misdemeanours pulled by Evans during the course of his tenure including turning up late for work, going on a 17 hour bender that only ended two hours before he was due on air and broadcasting tasteless, innuendo-laden jokes. Bannister had already doubled Evans’ holiday entitlement but his star’s continued demands couldn’t be met indefinitely and he finally refused. Evans ego was so out of control at this point that he couldn’t handle someone saying ‘no’ to him and flounced off in a strop being replaced by Mark and Lard. I wonder if there are any huge egos on tonight’s show?

Tonight’s host is Scottish comedian Rhona Cameron whom I’m guessing won’t have had any ideas above her station as she was very early on in her career and was probably very grateful for the opportunity of prime time TV exposure. In fact, if I think of Rhona Cameron, I think of her ‘Sometimes’ speech in the first ever series of I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here which was in 2002. I’m surprised then that she was on our screens as early as 1997. Her first job is to introduce the Lightning Seeds who open the show with their latest single “Sugar Coated Icebergs”. Now, I do remember this one due to its peculiar title but I wasn’t sure how it went until I realised it was the same as all the other ones! Too harsh? Yes, of course it is and as I’ve said before in this blog, I don’t mind the Lightning Seeds at all but Ian Broudie (who always comes across as an unassuming guy and the polar opposite of Chris Evans) sure didn’t mind ploughing the same furrow over and over.

As the caption says, this one was written with Stephen Jones of Babybird and speculation was rife that it was about drugs. The lyrics about ‘sinking deep’ and ‘going under’ do kind of support that notion but the song’s bouncing, uplifting sound undermines that idea for me. One thing I did notice about it though was that its structure did seem to be changed to accommodate the lyrics rather. For example, in the first verse, the tempo is modified to allow the words ‘pointless’ and ‘coated’ to be worked in as the lines they are in don’t scan otherwise. Maybe that was Broudie’s way of trying to shake up the formula ever so slightly? “Sugar Coated Icebergs” would debut at its peak position of No 12 meaning that, excluding “Three Lions”, the Lightning Seeds still hadn’t ever had a Top 10 single despite having had double figures Top 40 hits. When it did come with their next single release which made No 8, it was with a cover version – “You Showed Me” by The Turtles. Still, “Three Lions” did go to No 1 three times in total and not many artists have that on their CV.

Now then, whether this was a case of egos out of control à la Chris Evans or not, what is true is that, just like the recently departed Radio 1 DJ, East 17 were attracting plenty of press that wasn’t positive. Let’s try and get the timeline of events correct here. This TOTP was broadcast on Friday 17 January but the shows were traditionally recorded on the Wednesday so that would have been the 15th. Lead singer Brian Harvey did a radio interview on the Thursday morning (16th) in which he advocated the use of recreational drugs and divulged details of his own intake. All hell broke loose as the media got hold of the story and Harvey was roundly criticised – it was even brought up at Prime Minister’s Questions on the lunchtime when John Major condemned Harvey’s words. By the end of Thursday, with the controversy still raging, the rest of the band distanced themselves from Harvey’s comments and he, himself, apologised for what he had said. Come Friday, the other three members of the group effectively sacked Harvey for unacceptable behaviour and threatened to sue him for loss of potential earnings.

All of this occurred just hours after this TOTP performance so I wonder if we can pick up on any tension between the four guys on stage. Remember that there had been doubts about Harvey’s commitment in the weeks before this incident – he’d actually quit the band before Christmas before quickly changing his mind. Rhona Cameron adds to the strained relations by pondering whether the group would split up in her intro. Watching the appearance back, I notice that Harvey is kept well away from Tony Mortimer with whom he had a difficult relationship – I don’t think they look at each other once. Harvey, for his part, looks uneasy with his hands in his pockets for some of the time. There’s also a lot going on in the background with a multitude of other people on the stage including a guy with a weird percussion contraption. It’s as if they were deliberately placed there to deflect attention from the group. Ultimately it would be Mortimer who would leave the band with Harvey reinstated as they attempted a comeback as a rebranded E-17.

What’s that? The song? Oh yeah, almost forgot about that. It was called “Hey Child” and was taken from their “Around The World: The Journey So Far” Best Of album. I don’t remember it at all and listening to it now, it seems like a slight, pure pop ballad that wasn’t very representative of their sound. I guess you could say the same thing about their most famous song “Stay Another Day” but “Hey Child” seems especially twee whereas their Christmas No 1 has a bit more gravitas. It would fall from its debut at No 3 to No 15 the following week. Was that drop off typical of the life cycle of singles back then or was it linked to the furore the band found themselves enveloped in? I’m not sure but I think this may well be the last TOTP appearance of the original line up of East 17.

Following quickly in the footsteps of this week’s No 1 comes another dance remix of an earlier track this time from Lisa Stansfield. Having first appeared in the charts back in 1989 as guest vocalist on the Coldcut hit “People Hold On”, Rochdale’s second most famous resident had gone on to bag herself a stellar career as a solo artist complete with multi platinum selling albums and a No 1 single. Despite all her success, Lisa always struck me as a down to earth sort – more Gracie Fields than airs and graces and certainly no Chris Evans character.

By 1997, she was about to release her fourth album so as a precursor to that, a remix of that first hit was released as “People Hold On (The Bootleg Mixes)”. Behind the remix were Dan Bewick and Matt Frost known as the Dirty Rotten Scoundrels whose treatment of the track took it to No 4 beating Coldcut’s chart peak by seven places. Unlike the Tori Amos remix though which totally restructured the original, this one just sounded like a poor man’s version of the 1989 hit to me. Even the video just features some recycled clips of promos for previous Stansfield hits rather than a brand new recording. It’s as if Lisa didn’t want anything to do with it. Whether she did or didn’t, her label Arista included it in that fourth album when it was released in the March as a bonus track. I guess it was just business at the end of the day and the music industry certainly had its share of dirty rotten scoundrels.

The 90s brought us some truly awful dance artists and tracks and this lot certainly fall into that category. Anybody remember No Mercy? They were a Latin American trio who were discovered by Frank Farian, the man who gave us 70s disco- cheesemakers Boney M and 80s pop blaggers Milli Vanilli. And now he was back with an act for the 90s, whether we wanted them or not. I was definitely of the latter opinion but enough people were of the former to send their hit “Where Do You Go” to No 2 in the UK. Yet again, the British record buying public had showed us that they could not be trusted with the nation’s reputation.

The song was built around the drumbeat from the Todd Terry remix of Everything But The Girl’s “Missing” (which they had already covered for their first single) but with some Spanish guitar flourishes, a line from that 60s hit by Peter Sarstedt and a shout-a-long chorus that wouldn’t have been out of place on an Outhere Brothers hit. What a remarkably talented bunch this lot were – and I thought Milli Vanilli were chancers! Like a floater that won’t flush away, the single lingered around the Top 40 for 14 weeks, 9 of them inside the Top 10 stinking the place out. No Mercy? NO! MERCY! FOR PITY’S SAKE MERCY!

Next to one of the most surprising comebacks of the decade. Hands up who had Texas down for scoring the fifth best selling album of the year?

*scans virtual room*

No you bloody didn’t! This was a band who’d only ever had one Top 10 hit eight years before and who last two albums had been, if not totally ignored, then studiously avoided. Nobody had them down for a Top 3 hit single at the start of 1997. So how did they do it? Well, they softened their sound it seemed to me. There was a big difference between the slide guitar licks and pounding backbeat of “I Don’t Want A Lover” and the smooth, radio friendly sound of “Say What You Want”. Their second biggest hit to this point had been a cover of Al Green’s “Tired Of Being Alone” so maybe they took inspiration from that when it came to writing songs for their fourth studio album “White On Blonde” although clearly its title was influenced by Bob Dylan’s “Blonde On Blonde”. Its lead single though was more Marvin Gaye than Zimmerman.

There was another factor in its chart success other than the way it sounded and it was to do with that man Chris Evans again. One of the last things he did before leaving Radio 1 was to champion “Say What You Want”. Given his reach at time via his breakfast show and TFI Friday, this was no small endorsement. However, I don’t think that lead singer and face of the band Sharleen Spiteri is similar to Evans in the ego stakes. Indeed, I once heard her say in an interview that she never has the lyrics to the band’s songs including in the sleeve notes as she encourages people to hear what they want to hear even if that means misinterpreting the actual words. That doesn’t sound like someone who has a ‘me, me, me‘ attitude. Texas would become one of the biggest selling artists of the late 90s and beyond. “White On Blonde” alone would shift 4 million units and generate five hit singles. Say what you want about the band but they had remarkable staying power and commitment to never give up.

Here’s someone with an ego that outdoes even Chris Evans. To be fair to Madonna, how could you not when you were* one of the most famous people on the planet? Was recording “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” on her bucket list do you think? I’m pretty sure playing the role of Eva Peron in Evita was a lifetime ambition. We’d all been waiting for this song to be released from the soundtrack to the 1996 film after a new composition written specifically for it (“You Must Love Me”) had been the lead single. Maybe it was held back for the Christmas market with her record company thinking it had a shot at being the festive chart topper? When it did finally arrive, it debuted at No 3 before slipping down the charts but it’s on this TOTP as it had gone back up the charts from No 10 to No 5 presumably due to the film being released to UK cinemas.

*the use of ‘were’ was deliberate

There was another reason though and that was the release of the dance remix of the track. A dance remix you say? Of “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina”? Who knew? Well, not me and I was working in a record shop at the time so either I never sold a copy of it or I’ve completely forgotten about it. Either is possible. Want to hear it? Yeah you do…

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I just didn’t get why the Backstreet Boys were so popular. I accept that I was in the minority in this opinion; their huge sales here and in America can’t be argued with and even the press had a lot of nice things to say about them but I thought they were tosh. Were they good looking (surely a pre-requisite for a boy band)? Not so you’d notice apart from maybe the blonde one. Were their songs any good? Look, I know the answer to that is going to be subjective but they sounded so pedestrian to me. Take “Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)” for example. It’s just a constant, one paced backbeat throughout that never goes anywhere. And why the need for the brackets in the title? Look, I know they didn’t write the song so they had no input into that particular decision but not writing your own material isn’t a tick in the plus column. Maybe they’ll liven up a bit when we get to their later hits. I won’t hold my breath though.

Now here’s a great song from a band who enjoyed massive success in the latter part of the decade but this track – “Nancy Boy” – is the only one of theirs that is permanently deposited in my brain bank. Placebo had already released four singles up to this point but their only Top 40 success thus far had been No 30 hit “Teenage Angst”. However, they had come to the attention of one David Bowie who invited the band to open for him on some live dates in 1996 and subsequently to perform at his 50th birthday celebration at New York’s Madison Square Garden. The endorsement of such a legendary figure couldn’t help but raise their profile and “Nancy Boy” duly became a No 4 smash when released in early 1997.

A jagged, brooding and bruising song, it was also very sexual in its nature and according to lead singer Brian Molko, had been written to “capture a kind of drug induced sexual rush”. Perhaps not the standard message behind a big hit when the charts were populated by the likes of Backstreet Boys, No Mercy and Madonna singing Andrew Lloyd Webber songs. I guess though that Placebo weren’t your average band. Molko’s androgynous image in particular (which was similar to Jas Mann’s from Babylon Zoo) attracted attention (not all of it welcome) as they sort to rebel against the laddishness of Britpop culture. Talking of which, I always assumed Placebo were a US band but they formed in London and Molko was born in Belgium though his father was American.

In an interesting parallel with the storm engulfing East 17 at the time, Molko would give an interview to Kerrang magazine in this year where he said the only drug on the planet he hadn’t tried was heroin before later admitting he’d had that too. I don’t recall nationwide outrage to that confession like Harvey’s interview generated but then maybe the two incidents aren’t comparable. East 17, for all their ‘street’ claims were still a boy band and boy bands weren’t meant to behave in the way Harvey had admitted to. Molko was openly bisexual and had a counter culture image. Was it a case of dismissing him as ‘other’ and therefore anything he did or said would be perceived within those preconceptions? Whatever the truth, we’ll be seeing much more of Placebo in future TOTP repeats.

Tori Amos is No 1 with “Professional Widow (It’s Got To Be Big)” although really all the plaudits should have gone to Armand van Helden as the remixer responsible for this creation. Interestingly, the other dance remix in the charts featured on this show earlier does give equal billing to the remix team and the original artist as “People Hold On” is credited to Lisa Stansfield versus the Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Was this a case of record label interference or that theme that we started the post with – artist ego?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Lightning Seeds	Sugar Coated Icebergs	Nope
2	East 17	Hey Child	I did not
3	Lisa Stansfield versus the Dirty Rotten Scoundrels	People Hold On	Nah
4	No Mercy	Where Do You Go	Hell no
5	Texas	Say What You Want	No but I had a promo copy of the album
6	Madonna	Don’t Cry For Me Argentina	Negative
7	Backstreet Boys	Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)	Never
8	Placebo	Nancy Boy	No but I think I had it on one of those Best Album Ever compilations
9	Tori Amos	Professional Widow (It’s Got To Be Big)	Liked it, didn’t buy it

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/p00fsvjy/top-of-the-pops-17011997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 10 JAN 1997

Posted on January 14, 2025 by 80stastic

And here we go again. I’m beginning my ninth year of blogging about TOTP and 1997 will be the fifteenth (!) year I’ve covered. I’ve committed to carrying on until I’ve completed 1999 so I reckon that’s another 18 months of blogging. The things I do for you people! So, new year, new songs as the majority of the hits in this show we haven’t seen performed before in these BBC4 repeats. However, the opening act I’ve only just talked about in my ‘1996 – the epilogue’ post when I discussed their song “Punka” so not great planning on my behalf. Anyway, this single – “In Your Car” – gave Kenickie their first Top 40 hit – no doubt some canny early January release scheduling helped it get there. It’s a decent track if a little basic – the slightly repetitive ‘yeah, yeah’ chorus being an obvious example. Lyrically, it comes over like an updated version of “Leader Of The Pack” but without the tragic ending with the narrative driven by the band shouting out questions to lead singer Lauren Laverne about how she got a lift off some bloke she knew. Yeah, it’s a bit slight but it had enough punk- pop chops to propel it along nicely. It would prove to be their biggest hit when it peaked at No 24. Why weren’t Kenickie bigger? Was it a case of the right stuff at the wrong time? Maybe they were intelligent enough to understand that the music industry was cutthroat and shallow and they ultimately wanted no part of it? Perhaps. What we do know is that they broke up in 1998 just two albums into their career.

As if Peter Andre wasn’t bad enough, here was the UK’s answer to the oiled up, walking six pack. After the demise of Take That the year before, pop puppet master Nigel Martyn-Smith looked to a solo act to get the teenage girls screaming and the cash registers ringing again. Anthony Gerard Kavanagh of Moston, Greater Manchester aka Kavana was the lucky (?) recipient of Martin-Smith’s focus whose backing garnered two minor UK hits in 1996 and a support slot on the Boyzone tour. However, to breakthrough the chart glass ceiling into the upper echelons of the Top 10 was going to require something else and, of course, that meant a cover version. The track chosen was “I Can Make You Feel Good” which was a No 7 hit in 1982 for Shalamar. It was a good choice, a super smooth R&B/pop number that was recent enough to not sound out of place in the 90s but also long enough ago for many a pop fan to potentially not realise that it was a cover and associate it purely with the new artist. Kavana delivers a pretty faithful version but then a radically different take on it wasn’t what was required here. It needed to be a bigger hit than he’d ever had and that was achieved when it missed equalling the original’s chart peak by just one place. Job done.

Having said all of that, I could never quite work out the appeal of Kavana. Yeah, he had pretty boy looks and that floppy, mid 90s hair but what else? I didn’t see enough star quality in him to think he would be anything more than a fleeting presence in the UK charts and yet he hung around for the rest of the decade racking up eight Top 40 hits including two Top 10s. I could see him as part of a five-piece boy band but out on his own? Not for me. In 2013, Kavana did become a member of a group when he joined forces with Dane Bowers of Another Level, Gareth Gates, Adam Rickitt and Kenzie from Blazin’ Squad to form 5th Story as part of the ITV show The Big Reunion. One of the songs they recorded? Yep, “I Can Make You Feel Good”.

Next to a track that would become one of the oddest No 1s of the decade. “Professional Widow” was a No 20 hit for Tori Amos in the Summer of 1996 when it was paired with “Hey Jupiter” as a double A-side. The third single from her “Boys For Pele” album, it was in and out of the UK Top 40 within three weeks so it was quite likely that, like me, you may have missed it at the time. However, it took a further six weeks to depart the Top 100 and then it reappeared in the November for another two months never getting higher than No 86. What was all that about? Well, the version released in the UK and Europe was a remix by American house DJ and producer Armand Van Helden and it was radically different to the original album version. I’m guessing that it was the 12” format that included the full 8 minutes long ‘Armand’s Star Trunk Funkin’ mix’ that was picking up those latterly sales as DJs played it in the clubs of the UK. Such was the continued buzz about the track that another release was planned by label EastWest but this time they went full on promoting the dance remix and not sharing the bill with another song. And so it came to pass that the track was reissued at the start of 1997 and retitled as “Professional Widow (It’s Got To Be Big)”. This time, released during the post Christmas sales lull, it would debut at No 2 before moving to the top of the charts for one week seven days later.

As I said, the remix didn’t sound anything like the original album version (it did get a release in America alongside the remix) which was typical Tori fare with a tortured vocal and a slow, shuffling tempo that bore no resemblance to the dance release at all. Having listened to the original, it has some appeal but then I have to admit to quite liking Tori’s quirky style anyway.

However, Armand Van Helden’s treatment does rather blow it out of the water. He basically cut it up and stuck it back together to produce something completely different yet standout; like a jigsaw puzzle with the pieces in all the wrong places but fitting together to create something wonderfully abstract and arresting. You certainly couldn’t ignore “Professional Widow (It’s Got To Be Big)” as it leapt out at you from the radio or your stereo. Undoubtedly Tori’s biggest UK hit though she’s hardly on it at at all. Like I said, all a bit odd really.

Right, who’s next? Runrig? Really?! I can’t think of anything to say about this lot! What? The song they’re doing – “The Greatest Flame” – has not only been a hit before but the band have performed on TOTP before?! What? When? May 1993? Right. That’s that sorted then. Here’s what I had to say about it back then. I’m sure my opinion won’t have changed. By the way, it was rereleased to promote the band’s Best Of compilation called “Long Distance” if you were wondering though I doubt you were.

TOTP 21 MAY 1993

Next up a hit that would have caused the TOTP producers a couple of staging problems I would have thought. Firstly, because it’s a dance act (surely nobody would quibble with me about my description of Orbital as such) and secondly because their hit was called “Satan”. Well, fortunately, an official video had been made for the single for the show to play but unfortunately it was no more than Phil and Paul Hartnoll (who were Orbital) stood miming behind some synths so basically what was effectively a studio performance with all the aforementioned incumbent visual issues on display. Yes, they were wearing some natty eyewear with lights on and there was a bit of black and white film footage thrown into the mix like a submarine and some snarling dogs but it was essentially two bald blokes banging away at some keyboards. The second issue would have been the track’s intro which went:

Daddy, yes, son
Wha-what does-what does regret mean?
Well, son, a funny thing about regret is
That it’s better to regret something you have done
Than regret something you haven’t done
By the way, if you see your mom this weekend
You shouldn’t tell her…

SATAN!

SATAN!

SATAN!….

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Paul Hartnoll / Phillip Hartnoll
Satan lyrics © Sm Publishing Uk Limited, Dlk Music Ltd, Sentric Music Publishing Ltd

The word ‘Satan’ was said almost demonically and repeated on a loop to make it especially disturbing. The fix for the show was relatively easy though – just edit out the intro which they duly did. As with Tori Amos before, I’m sure its chart placing of No 3 was at least partly enabled by its early January release date and also like “Professional Widow”, it had already been a small hit before. Originally released as a track on the “III” EP in 1991, it had peaked at No 31. Six years on, it was repackaged as “Satan Live” with two of the three versions released over three CD singles having been taken from live gigs in New York and the V96 festival in Chelmsford. 1997 would be Orbital’s most commercially successful year as the follow up – “The Saint” taken from the soundtrack to the film of the same name starring Val Kilmer – also peaked at No 3.

Tonight’s host by the way is Nicky Campbell who rather undoes the work of the producers who edited out the “Satan Live” intro by doing a passable impression of Ian Paisley shouting at the studio audience to “Repent! Repent your sins now!”. Hmm. Anyway, next up is a band who had become a model of consistency when it came to racking up chart hits. “Easy” was the tenth Top 40 single for Terrorvision in just over three years. Clearly the Bradford rockers had built up a sizeable, loyal fan base over this period who would buy anything the band put out – “Easy” was the fourth single taken from their album “Regular Urban Survivors” and yet it only just missed debuting inside the Top 10.

I have to say that this isn’t one of theirs that I’m familiar with and on first hearing it seems rather underwhelming and pedestrian. However, forget Orbital earlier as this is where there must have been some dark forces at work as after just one play, it was still in my head hours later. What black magic was this?! We’re still two years away from their chart peak though. All together now…”That’s the curse of Tequila, it makes me happy…”.

The aftermath of ‘The Battle of Britpop’ saw Blur in disarray despite having secured their first No 1 single as a result of it. Oasis did not accept the status of losers and their powers were certainly not vanquished in the skirmish. The sales of “(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?” went supernova with the band cast in the role of working class heroes whilst Blur were casually dismissed as spurious, middle class chancers. The band retreated not just to lick their wounds but also from each other. It would take a letter from guitarist Graham Coxon to Damon Albarn outlining the direction that he wanted the band to go in to get the disparate members to reconvene. Having rejected all things American after a disastrous US tour in ‘92 and an aversion to grunge rock that informed second and third albums “Modern Life Is Rubbish” and “Parklife”, the new direction championed by Coxon was exemplified by American artists like indie, lo-fi rock band Pavement and the genre straddling Beck. It may seem like quite the turnaround but Coxon is/was well known for his spare and brittle musical tendencies.

The first result of this new direction was the lead single from the band’s fifth and eponymous album – “Beetlebum”. It was about as far away from the likes of “Country House” as could be – if they were British sitcoms then the former would be Mrs Brown’s Boys and the latter The Office. The drastic change of style had their record label fearing the worst for the band’s commercial fortunes and I have to admit to not being sure about the track myself initially. It seemed slow and ponderous and lacking in structure – there was no bridge from the verse to the chorus; it was almost like it was two separate songs glued together. Like Terrorvision’s “Easy” earlier though, it was a grower, an insidious ear-worm burrowing its way into your brain. Their label should have had more faith in their charges as “Beetlebum” would go straight in at No 1 when finally released a whole ten days after this performance showing the size and loyalty of their fan base. It was also a prime example of the way the charts were heading. At the time, it set a then record for a No 1 single spending the least amount of time inside the Top 40 – just three weeks in total at positions 1, 7 and 29 then out. The writing was on the wall – for the charts not Blur.

For various reasons, this is the first time I’ve commented on the No 1 which wasn’t just any chart topper of course but the Christmas No 1. On reflection, the third single by the Spice Girls was always going to be the best selling hit of the festive period though I’m sure, at the time, the bookies would have had lots of runners and riders in the race. After two uptempo songs, the traditional route of the third being a ballad was followed and “2 Become 1” was certainly that. A lush, smooth production that could have made for a sound that was a tad too sugary, it managed to avoid that trap by working a safe sex message into the lyrics. The memorable video that’s set in Times Square, New York was actually recorded over three thousand miles away in a studio in Old Compton Street, London – it was all just green screen trickery. I always thought that the cover of the single looked a bit cheap and nasty I have to say. The image of the group used surely wasn’t the best that came out of that particular photo session?

Anyway, 1997 would see the Spice Girls juggernaut continue at a pace with a further three No 1 singles (including a second consecutive Christmas one) and another multi-platinum selling album. These TOTP repeats are nowhere near done with Ginger, Posh, Baby, Scary and Sporty yet.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Kenickie	In Your Car	Nope
2	Kavana	I Can Make You Feel Good	Never
3	Tori Amos	Professional Widow (It’s Got To Be Big)	Liked it, didn’t buy it
4	Runrig	The Greatest Flame	As if
5	Orbital	Satan Live	No
6	Terrorvision	Easy	Negative
7	Blur	Beetlebum	No but I had the album with it on
8	Spice Girls	2 Become 1	Nah

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.

TOTP 1997 – the prologue

Posted on January 9, 2025 by 80stastic

1997 was quite the year on reflection. Look at this lot:

We had a General Election which ushered in a new government after 18 years of Tory rule (that was a good day!).
We had a new terrestrial television channel (the first new one since the launch of Channel 4 in November 1982) unimaginatively named Channel 5.
The UK transferred sovereignty over Hong Kong, the largest remaining British colony, to the People’s Republic of China as the 99 years lease on the territory had formally ended (I was in China just weeks before the event).
The first Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, was published.

Overshadowing all of this though was the death of Diana, Princess of Wales which caused many of the UK (and indeed the worlds) population to temporarily lose their minds in grief over a person most had never met. That event would have consequences for the world of music with Elton John’s reworking of “Candle In The Wind” which was sung at Diane’s funeral becoming the biggest selling UK single ever and shifting 33 million copies worldwide when it was released. It continues to hold that record to this day.

There was another event that would impact the music industry though not in such a sombre way. This was the year that The Teletubbies first aired and would become a ratings sensation. The success of the show triggered multiple merchandising lines to be made available to cash in on its popularity one of which was the Teletubbies single “Teletubbies Say Eh-Oh!” much would become the fifth biggest selling hit of the year! Did we learn nothing for the Mr Blobby fiasco of 1993?!

Talking of singles, it was another bumper year for the sales of the format – from the 22nd of June right through to the end of the year, every single No 1 record sold at least 100,000 copies a week. As with the previous year, 24 singles topped the chart, double the amount we saw just five years prior in 1992. As for albums, there was stellar anticipation of the release of Oasis’s third album “Be Here Now”. Despite its initial sales and being the best selling album of the year in the UK, it would ultimately sell around a third of the units of “(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?” and its legacy and reputation is of a lumpen creation that killed the legend of Oasis. Yeah, that’s definitely it…maybe. If Noel and Liam were at a crossroads career wise, the Spice Girls were motoring on in top gear with two albums in the year end Top 5. One of the most critically revered albums of the decade (and perhaps of all time) was released this year as “OK Computer” by Radiohead came into our lives. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the year was the renaissance of Texas who would eclipse all their previous success with the album “White On Blonde”. Elsewhere in music, just one day after Labour’s General Election victory was confirmed, the UK won the Eurovision Song Contest for the first time since 1981. Yes, the winning artist was led by an American singer but that was no reason not to celebrate the achievement.

As for me, 1997 would also be a memorable year. My beloved Chelsea would finally win something capturing the FA Cup in the May which was also the month I went to China to see my mate Rob who was living out there. It was quite a time! It wasn’t all excitement though. Work-wise, there was an unsettling period of disruption at the Our Price store where I was employed when our manager Pete left and on a personal level, I started to experience some mental health issues that would see me ultimately leave the Stockport branch forever but that’s all to come in the future…erm…the past. Oh, you know what I mean!

TOTP 1996 – the epilogue

Posted on January 8, 2025 by 80stastic

That’s 1996 done and dusted. What were we to make of it and was it worth revisiting in quite the depth that both myself via this blog and BBC4 via their TOTP repeats schedule did? Possibly not but I’m nothing if not a completist! So, what was wrong (or right depending on your point of view) with 1996? Well, let’s use the admittedly blunt tool of sales to give us an overview of what was going on. Starting with the best selling albums of the year, on first inspection it would seem that it was a case of business as usual with established artists such as Simply Red, Celine Dion and the returning George Michael all in the Top 10. Then there was the decidedly mainstream like Robson & Jerome repeating their commercial phenomenon of the previous year. Talking of phenomenons, the biggest new artist of the year was surely the Spice Girls who were No 3 in the year end chart. Could a case be made to say that they were mainstream as well? Maybe though there was a world of difference between what they and the two Soldier Soldier actors were peddling. It’s an interesting question – what makes you a mainstream artist? Look at who had the best selling album of the year – Alanis Morissette. Was she mainstream just because loads and loads of people bought her album? I don’t think there’s anything mainstream about a track like “You Oughta Know”.

Just behind her at No 2 was an album that occupied that same position in 1995 – “(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?” by Oasis. It says much about their popularity that their album could sell so many copies in two consecutive years. Did this mean that Britpop was still in the ascendancy? Well, there is a theory that the movement ended when Oasis’s third album “Be Here Now” was released and that didn’t happen until 1997 so by that criteria it was certainly still a going concern in this year. However, there is no other artist that would be considered to be Britpop in the albums Top 10 (though Ocean Colour Scene made a splash by finishing in 11th). Further down the chart came Kula Shaker at a respectable No 16 and Pulp’s “Different Class” still going well at No 19 though despite their Lazarus style return, Manic Street Preachers’ most commercial album yet “Everything Must Go” was only No 20. For me, not enough evidence that Britpop was as strong a force as it was in 1995 when it peaked around the Blur v Oasis chart battle.

Indeed, many of the other artists in the list of bestsellers were either music royalty (Tina Turner, Bryan Adams, Michael Jackson, Rod Stewart) or very established artists (M People, Boyzone, Jamiroquai). There were a surprisingly high number of albums in the Top 50 that had actually been released in 1995 which suggests a certain amount of stagnation though there were some debut albums in there as well from the likes of Cast, Ash and Space. Unbelievably, there were two entries for The Smurfs (WTF?!) though pleasingly only seven albums on the end of year chart were Best Ofs. Finally mention must go to an act who carved out their own little niche for themselves this year as Fugees bagged the seventh best selling album of 1996 thanks in no small part to that single…

OK, so let’s talk singles. Fugees claimed the year’s biggest hit with “Killing Me Softly” – quite the feat for an R&B artist whose only other UK chart hit had been the No 21 single “Fu-Gee-La”. The rest of the Top 10 belonged to Scary, Baby, Ginger, Posh and Sporty whose first three singles occupied the Nos 2, 4 and 10 positions. Babylon Zoo were the latest beneficiaries of soundtracking a Levi’s advert as “Spaceman” landed at No 3 whilst Mark Morrison came in at a No 5 with the ubiquitous “Return Of The Mack”. Only two non No 1s made the Top 10 – the execrable Peter Andre and dream house poster boy Robert Miles. Gina G became the first Eurovision chart topper since Nicole in 1982 and Baddiel & Skinner with the Lightning Seeds saw Euro 96 fever put them at No 7 with the very first incarnation of “Three Lions”. Pick the bones out of that lot! Out of the whole year end Top 50, I bought precisely three and only one of them was actually for me with the other two being for other people. The majority of Nos 11 to 50 could be classified as mainstream (there’s that word again) or at the very least daytime radio friendly with honourable exceptions being both chart toppers from The Prodigy, Underworld’s “Born Slippy” and “Faithless” by Insomnia. What does all this mean? Possibly what we already knew. You can’t rely on sales numbers alone to work out musical trends.

Best-selling singles

No.	Title	Artist	Peak position
1	“Killing Me Softly“	Fugees	1
2	“Wannabe“	Spice Girls	1
3	“Spaceman“	Babylon Zoo	1
4	“Say You’ll Be There“	Spice Girls	1
5	“Return of the Mack“	Mark Morrison	1
6	“Ooh Aah… Just a Little Bit“	Gina G	1
7	“Three Lions“	Baddiel & Skinner & Lightning Seeds	1
8	“Children“	Robert Miles	2
9	“Mysterious Girl“	Peter Andre featuring Bubbler Ranx	2
10	“2 Become 1“	Spice Girls	1
11	“Don’t Look Back in Anger“	Oasis	1
12	“How Deep Is Your Love“	Take That	1
13	“Un-Break My Heart“	Toni Braxton	2
14	“Breathe“	The Prodigy	1
15	“Firestarter“	The Prodigy	1
16	“Words“	Boyzone	1
17	“Breakfast at Tiffany’s“	Deep Blue Something	1
18	“If You Ever“	East 17 featuring Gabrielle	2
19	“What Becomes of the Broken Hearted“/ “Saturday Night at the Movies“/”You’ll Never Walk Alone“	Robson & Jerome	1
20	“Anything“	3T	2
21	“Fastlove“	George Michael	1
22	“Macarena“	Los del Río	2
23	“Born Slippy .NUXX“	Underworld	2
24	“Ready or Not“	Fugees	1
25	“The X Files“	Mark Snow	2
26	“One & One“	Robert Miles featuring Maria Nayler	3
27	“Because You Loved Me“	Celine Dion	5
28	“Give Me a Little More Time“	Gabrielle	5
29	“Nobody Knows“	The Tony Rich Project	4
30	“You’re Gorgeous“	Babybird	3
31	“Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door“/”Throw These Guns Away”	Dunblane	1
32	“Cecilia“	Suggs featuring Louchie Lou & Michie One	4
33	“Flava“	Peter Andre	1
34	“Don’t Stop Movin’“	Livin’ Joy	5
35	“It’s All Coming Back to Me Now“	Celine Dion	3
36	“I Love You Always Forever“	Donna Lewis	5
37	“How Bizarre“	OMC	5
38	“Jesus to a Child“	George Michael	1
39	“Virtual Insanity“	Jamiroquai	3
40	“Forever Love“	Gary Barlow	1
41	“Hillbilly Rock Hillbilly Roll“	The Woolpackers	5
42	“I Wanna Be a Hippy“	Technohead	6
43	“There’s Nothing I Won’t Do“	JX	4
44	“Insomnia“	Faithless	3
45	“What’s Love Got to Do with It“	Warren G featuring Adina Howard	2
46	“Freedom“	Robbie Williams	2
47	“I Got 5 on It“	Luniz	3
48	“Earth Song“	Michael Jackson	1
49	“Spinning the Wheel“	George Michael	2
50	“A Design for Life“	Manic Street Preachers	2

And what of TOTP? 1996 saw changes that would herald the beginning of the end for the grand old show. The BBC’s coverage of the Euros football tournament saw its weekly music programme temporarily shifted from its traditional Thursday night slot to a Friday. However, somewhere along the line, someone high up took the decision to keep it there after Euro ‘96 had finished. It would prove to be a catastrophic choice for the show’s future. This was compounded by the subsequent shifting of its 7.00 start time to 7.30 meaning it was up against Coronation Street on ITV which aired at exactly the same time. Who thought that was a good idea?! It was as if there was a deliberate plan within the corridors of the Beeb to deliberately kill the show off. 1997 would see the end of Ric Blaxill’s tenure as executive producer who was replaced by Chris Cowey but that’s all for future posts. In 1996, TOTP was in a state of transition and the outlook was far from certain.

Hits That Never Were

Whipping Boy – “When We Were Young”

Released: Feb ’96

Chart Peak: No 46

When having a three way What’sApp chat with my mates Robin and Steve once, the subject of who was our favourite Irish band of all time came up. The usual names were chucked about by me and Steve like U2, The Boomtown Rats, The Undertones, The Pogues, Westlife (joking!) until Robin threw a name into the hat that I’d never heard of before – Whipping Boy. So I looked them up on Spotify and this track was their most streamed at the time so I checked it out and I’m glad I did. They were kind of like a prototype, early era Stereophonics both in terms of their storytelling lyrics and sonically. Their lead singer was one Fearghal McKee whose name sounds like the love child of the ex lead singer of The Undertones and the “Show Me Heaven” No 1 artist and ex-Lone Justice vocalist (who share their own real life connection actually but that’s a whole other story). McKee was prone to cutting himself onstage with broken glass so maybe they were more like Manic Street Preachers than the Stereophonics? Whipping Boy split in 1998 after second album “Heartroom” earned critical acclaim but few sales and they were dropped by record label Columbia.

Crush – “Jellyhead”

Released: Feb ’96

Chart Peak: No 50

PJ & Duncan (or Ant & Dec if you prefer) weren’t the only duo to emerge from Byker Grove. Oh no. There was also a female trio called Byker Grooove (no really!) who even had a minor hit with a single called “Love Your Sexy…!!” which reached No 48. That was enough success to convince label Telstar to give the girls another go but with a tweak. Byker Grooove wasn’t going to cut it as a name so the rather uninspired Crush was chosen. A bigger change though was that the trio became a duo after Vicky Taylor left the project. This left Jayni Hoy and subsequent actor and presenter Donna Air to carry the Geordie flag with the single “Jellyhead”. Now, it really should have been crap and maybe it is but it was also a stunningly catchy pop tune that I really thought was going to be a hit. Its lyrics were almost like an updated version of “I’d Rather Jack” by The Reynolds Girls name checking Bros and The Prodigy but unlike those Stock, Aitken and Waterman pop starlets, Crush couldn’t even achieve the status of one hit wonders. After “Jellyhead” peaked at No 50, follow up “Luv’d Up” could only make No 45 and that was it for the whole project. However, there was one female member of the Byker Grove cast who would secure themselves not one, not two, not three but four UK Top 40 hit singles – Emmy-Kate Montrose, the bassist with Sunderland pop-punk four piece Kenickie appeared in the series under her real name of Emma Jackson.

Kenickie – “Punka”

Released: Sep ’96

Chart Peak: No 43

Talking of whom…If you think of Sunderland what immediately comes to mind? The 1973 FA Cup winning team? Maybe. The River Wear? Possibly. What about music though? How many bands can you name that came out of Sunderland? The list isn’t long nor does it spring to mind easily. I’m not putting the place down by the way. I will always have a fondness for Sunderland having spent three years there as a student in the 80s and it’s also where I met my wife. I don’t remember much about the local music scene though. There must have been one I guess. Think man! Well, there’s the glorious Martin Stephenson (with and without The Daintees) who should be a national treasure but still doesn’t have widespread recognition. The Toy Dolls of “Nellie The Elephant” fame came from there as did that other novelty record outfit A Tribe Of Toffs. I’m not sure either are a winning endorsement of the place though. Dave Stewart is a Mackem but you don’t really associate Eurythmics with Sunderland do you? In later years there have been bands like Field Mice and The Futureheads but what about the 90s? The only act I can think of who flew the *city’s banner was Kenickie.

*Yes, Sunderland is a city

Named after their favourite character from Grease, this post-punk four piece (including a very young Lauren Laverne) turned down an offer of a deal from Alan McGee of Creation Records before signing to EMIDisc and releasing “Punka”. A scratchy, raw sounding track that thrashed around a nursery rhyme hook complete with a chorus of children shouting its title, it only missed the Top 40 by three places. However, that was enough to create a buzz about the band and despite follow up single “Millionaire Sweeper” also missing out, they finally broke through in January of 1997 with third release “In Your Car” making it to No 24 and earning them a slot on TOTP. “Punka” itself would earn itself another shot at it duly became a bona fide Top 40 hit (albeit a minor one when it peaked at No 38). After two albums, the band split but their Wikipedia entry says that they influenced end of the decade all girl groups like Hepburn and Thunderbugs. I’m not sure that’s really the legacy that they would have wanted. Lauren Laverne would leave the music industry behind switching careers to become a TV and radio presenter. She currently hosts Desert Island Discs on Radio 4 and The One Show on BBC1.

Billy Bragg – “Upfield”

Released: Aug ’96

Chart Peak: No 46

By 1996, it had been five years since Billy Bragg’s last album “Don’t Try This At Home” which had gone Top 10 and furnished him with the hit single “Sexuality”. Why the gap? Well, Billy became a father in 1993 and so took time out to concentrate on his family. He would return in this year with the album “William Bloke” (a pun on the name of 18th century poet William Blake). With songs written about how his life had changed and with an eye on his approaching 40s, it was perhaps a more reflective piece of work than his overtly political 1980s albums. However, the only single released from it was “Upfield” which was an uptempo, joyous number that passed me by at the time but which I discovered when I bought Billy’s 2003’s retrospective album “Must I Paint You A Picture?”. It deserved better than its No 46 chart peak. Billy would spend the rest of the 90s working with American alt-country rockers Wilco on the “Mermaid Avenue” project putting music to previously unheard lyrics by folk artist Woody Guthrie which I quite liked especially the tracks “Walt Whitman’s Niece” and “Way Over Yonder In The Minor Key”.

Hits We Missed

Nick Heyward – “Rollerblade”

Released: Jan ’97

Chart Peak: No 37

I said in my review of 1995 that I would no doubt talk about this single in the ‘TOTP 1996 – the epilogue’ post and I’m nothing if not a man of my word. To be honest, given my lifelong loyalty to Nick, it was never in doubt. A whole twelve years after his last Top 40 entry came “Rollerblade”, the second and final single from his marvellous “Tangled” album. A high-tempo, dash through a hook laden tune, it clocked in at under three minutes – I’m not sure if that aided or hindered its airplay chances. No doubt its early January release date in the traditional lull period after Christmas helped it to glide into the upper end of the Top 40 albeit just for one week. Whilst I was delighted to see Nick back in the charts, I couldn’t help thinking he’d missed a trick in not releasing “Believe In Me” from the album instead which I thought was a surefire winner for a hit given the era of Britpop that it had been recorded in. I guess we’ll never know if I was right.

Nick would return in 1998 with the similarly excellent album “The Apple Bed” on the Creation label (see…there’s that Britpop connection again). With the exception of two albums in collaboration with actors Greg Ellis and India Dupree, he wouldn’t have another album out until the wondrous “Woodland Echoes” in 2017. If you’ve never heard it, do yourself a favour and get on Spotify and give it a go. Nick has spent the last couple of years reactivating Haircut 100 who even released their first single for over 40 years – “The Unloving Plum” – which topped The Heritage Chart. I saw them live at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire and York Barbican in 2023 and to further prove my Nick credentials, pretty much the only CDs left in my possession after a clear out purge this year? Yep, you guessed it.

The Wannadies – “You & Me Song”

Released: Apr ’96

Chart Peak: No 18

One of just three Top 40 entries for Swedish indie rockers The Wannadies, “You And Me Song” is surely their best known. Originally released in August 1995, it barely limped into the Top 100. However, its inclusion on the soundtrack to Baz Luhrmann’s film Romeo + Juliet and the latter’s subsequent success (it grossed $147.6 million against a budget of $14.5 million) raised its profile and warranted it a second shot at the chart in 1996. This time it would break into the Top 20 peaking at No 18. Curiously, the rerelease changed the title of the song from “You And Me Song” to “You & Me Song” – not sure why. Maybe it was talking its lead from Baz Lurhmanm who renamed Shakespeare’s original tale of Romeo And Juliet as Romeo + Juliet?

My wife liked this at the time but wasn’t sure who it was by so tried to explain it to me so I could identify it. Not an unreasonable request what with me working in a record shop and all. Somehow though, I managed to be incredibly dumb that day and despite her describing it as that song that goes “you and me always and forever” I assured her that there was no such song only to come back to her a couple of minutes later after a lightbulb moment and say “Oh, do you mean “You and Me Song” by The Wannadies? She still brings it nearly 30 years later when I’m being particularly obtuse.

Gene – “Fighting Fit”

Released: Nov ’96

Chart Peak: No 22

I have to admit that there have been times during my life when I’ve been completely out of touch with what would have been described as “trendy” when I was growing up but which would come to be labelled the “zeitgeist”. The Smiths back in 1983 when I was 15 should have been a band that I fell in love with. I was absolutely ripe for their sound and Morrissey’s otherness should have appealed to my teenage angst and yet I ignored them for years before seeing the light (that never goes out). Fast forward to 1989 and along came the Stone Roses and I was a mere 21 year old with my whole life in front of me. Surely I would fall for their swagger and profile as the leaders of the ‘Madchester’ movement? Nope. I somehow got distracted by their songs always seeming to have the word ‘stone’ in them. I would later see the error of my ways and even ended up working alongside their original bass player, the much missed Pete Garner.

And then there was Gene. Why I dropped the ball with this lot when I was actually working in a record shop at the time beggars belief. Ten Top 40 singles and two Top 10 albums and I ignored the lot. My mate Robin certainly didn’t though. Not only was he a big Smiths fan when I wasn’t but he embraced Gene fully to the point that they would become his favourite band ever. To be fair, he might have had a head start on me as his interest in them was surely kindled by all the music press comparisons between them and his other heroes and indeed between lead singer Martin Rossiter and Morrissey. It still doesn’t answer the question though of how I failed to hear their music whilst working in a record shop. Can I blame my work colleagues who clearly weren’t interested in Gene either? I think that’s a stretch. Anyway, “Fighting Fit” was the fifth of those ten hits and the lead single from their second studio album “Drawn To The Deep End”. It’s a driving, indie rock stomper that lulls the listener in with a tinkling, gentle intro before the drums kick in and we’re off on a four minute, high octane, daredevil, wall of death ride before being deposited safely back to the ground with a false ending and a repeat of the intro as the outro. Genuinely thrilling stuff!

Mansun – “Stripper Vicar”

Released: Sep ’96

Chart Peak: No 19

As with The Boo Radleys, Mansun were a band that I only really got into for one album but that one album, their debut “Attack Of The Grey Lantern”, was a real winner. It took me a while to get into it via a promo CD that we had at the Our Price where I was working but the payoff when I got there was beautiful. Initially written as a concept album around the idea of a village of characters of dubious morals with The Grey Lantern as a superhero figure come to sort them all out, it would get to No 1 in the UK. Frontman Paul Draper admits that he ran out of steam when it came to finishing the album in the form of its original concept and so described it as “half a concept album – a ‘con’ album”. A similar thing happened to Paul Weller and The Jam’s “Setting Sons” album. “Stripper Vicar” was the lead track from an EP entitled “Three” and there’s a lot going on in it, like there’s three different songs in there all striving to be heard. It all comes together as a driving, indie tune that tells the tale of its titular character whose was a vicar by day but a stripper by night. The wordplay in the lyrics – rhyming “plastic scouser” with “plastic trousers” and “suspended” with “suspenders” – shouldn’t really work but somehow does magnificently.

I caught Mansun live in 1997 supporting Suede at a gig in Blackburn and they were great. Somebody I worked with once had been at university with some of the band and said they were always destined for success. Everyone around them knew it. Eventually I did too.

Super Furry Animals – “Something 4 The Weekend”

Released: Jul ’96

Chart Peak: No 18

The 90s was quite a time for Welsh bands. Sure the 80s gave us The Alarm and to a lesser extent The Darling Buds but the following decade saw a host of groups making their mark. Manic Street Preachers, Stereophonics, Catatonia, Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci and this lot – Super Furry Animals whose TOTP debut on the BBC4 repeats we missed due to (I think) one of the show’s ‘Meet a Pop Star’ competition winners going on to doing something unpalatable in their personal life in later years. That was unfortunate as their hit “Something 4 The Weekend” was quite the tune.

Unlike the first two names in that list above, SFA started their career singing Welsh language songs and unlike the aforementioned Kenickie, did sign with Creation records when offered a deal by Alan McGee and it was him who encouraged them to sing in English. In fact, the band had already made that decision for themselves but their strong Welsh accents bewildered McGee into believing they were still singing in their native tongue. The Welsh media gave the band some criticism for this but it turned them into chart stars when they hit the Top 40 with just their second single “God! Show Me Magic”. Its follow up “Something 4 The Weekend” did even better making the Top 20 becoming part of a curious footnote in pop history when it was in the charts at the same time as The Divine Comedy’s hit of the same name. Well, almost. The Furries replaced the word ‘for’ with the number ‘4’ for the single release of the track (the album version was called “Something For The Weekend”).

Ah yes, that debut album. It was called “Fuzzy Logic” but it wasn’t its title that intrigued us all at the Our Price store in Stockport where I was working. No, it wasn’t the cover art which was a montage of images of the same man in a number of different disguises and looks. Now none of us realised that they were all of Welsh drug dealer turned raconteur Howard Marks because we were all hung up on the notion that the image at the top in red and yellow was of our manager, the aforementioned late, great and much missed Pete Garner in his early years. Even Pete himself was convinced it was him! So why was Howard Marks on the cover of the album? Apparently the band’s lead vocalist Gruff Rhys had an association with Marks having invited him down to the recording sessions for “Fuzzy Logic” at the Rockfield Studios in Monmouthshire. The link goes further though. In the film of his life called Mr Nice, Marks was portrayed by actor Rhys Ifans who had once been a member of Super Furry Animals.

As for the band’s sound, it could claim to be hard to categorise though many a music journalist would try and shoehorn them into the Britpop movement or the Welsh equivalent Cool Cymru. My best attempt to describe it would be an eclectic mix of styles including 60s psychedelia, indie rock, glam rock and 90s dance that created a truly imaginative noise. “Something 4 The Weekend” was a prime example of this though I think my favourite of theirs might well be the marvellously titled “Juxtaposed With U”.

My Life Story – “12 Reasons Why I Love Her”

Released: Aug ’96

Chart Peak: No 32

Here’s another song that I didn’t cotton onto at the time but which I’ve since discovered in later life. Now, I thought My Life Story came along much later than this but according to their Wikipedia page they formed in 1984! They didn’t experience chart success though until the mid 90s when they got caught up with the coming of Britpop and they clocked up six Top 40 singles though none of them got any higher than No 27.

The first of those was “Twelve Reasons Why I Love Her” and it’s a quite extraordinary song. Essentially a list of things that the protagonist loves about the object of his affection, it’s kind of like the Britpop version of “Twelve Days Of Christmas”. I’m going on a lot about Britpop which is probably unfair to My Life Story who, if they were part of that scene, were in their own little corner of it. Yes, lead singer Jake Shillingford’s vocals wouldn’t have sounded out of place on a track by Menswear or maybe Rialto but My Life Story weren’t your identikit Britpop outfit. For a start, there were twelve members in their line up at one point and the sound that they made was often nearer to that of a chamber orchestra than a rock/pop band. Listen to those descending strings on “12 Reasons Why I Love Her”! It took me a few listens to place them but they sound very similar to “The Tunnel Of Love”, the 1983 No 10 single by Fun Boy Three. In a way, they had more in common with French chanson singer Jacques Brel than Britpop or maybe Marc Almond covering Jacques Brel at least. Or The Walker Brothers? OK, I’m reaching a bit now but you kind of get my drift. My Life Story disbanded in 2000 but there have been various reunions since and they released their fifth studio album in February 2024.

Their Season In The Sun

Fugees

Though they had been around since the turn of the decade, 1996 was undoubtedly the year when Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean and Pras Michel went stratospheric. Their album “The Score” would ultimately sell 22 million copies worldwide and provide them with huge hit singles in “Killing Me Softly”, “Ready Or Not” and “No Woman, No Cry”. At the height of their fame and success though, they split. Why? My research suggests that one of the reasons was that Lauryn and Wyclef had an affair with the former misleading the latter into believing he was the father of her child when in fact it was Bob Marley’s son Rohan. Well, it makes a change from musical differences I guess.

All three members would go on to have successful solo careers with the Fugees reforming for a reunion tour before splitting again. Another reunion was announced in 2021 to celebrate 25 years since “The Score” was released but the promised tour dates have been cancelled not one time, not two times but three times so far with the latest cancellation coming just three days before the tour was due to start in August 2024. Ready or not? It would seem not.

Upside Down

One of the most manufactured boy bands ever, these also rans even had a documentary made about their formation informing their publicity machine and they still couldn’t get any higher than No 11 in the charts. That said, they did manage four hit singles in the calendar year but it was a case of diminishing returns and even that well worn strategy of releasing a cover version (Chicago’s “If You Leave Me Now”) couldn’t save them. They weren’t helped by their record label (which had gambled everything on their act being successful) going bankrupt but the decision to relaunch with the worst band name ever in the history of band names – Orange Orange – was criminal.

Babylon Zoo

One massive hit then (almost) nothing. It’s a much told music industry story but perhaps what is best remembered about Jas Mann and his pop vehicle Babylon Zoo was the deception that his song “Spaceman” pulled on the record buying public. That Levi’s advert which only used the speeded up vocals of the intro and outro that created the impression that the whole track was like that led to many a punter being disappointed once they got home and played the single to discover it was essentially a hoary, old rock song. That didn’t stop it becoming the third biggest selling hit of the year in the UK mind. Following it up proved impossible and a couple of minor hits was never going to establish Babylon Zoo as long term contenders. At least their final chart foray had an element of self knowledge – “All The Money’s Gone”.

Alanis Morissette

Against the odds, the biggest selling album of 1996 in the UK was a huge slow burner having debuted on the chart at No 76 in the August of the previous year. The story of “Jagged Little Pill” which included eleven weeks at No 1 and 3 million sales in the UK alone is all the more remarkable because it came from a Canadian solo female artist that most of us had never heard of before. It took nearly six months for it to rise to the UK Top 10 and then spent nearly a year inside it once it got there. Inevitably, following it up was always going to be difficult and 1998’s “Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie” duly failed to match its predecessor’s heights only managing a tenth of “Jagged Little Pill”’s sales. Alanis has continued to record new material though with her most recent album being released in 2022.

Mark Morrison

With a gold selling album and No 1 single both titled “Return Of The Mack” in this year, Leicester’s Mark Morrison was never bigger than in 1996. Sure he had a few hits after then but it was those 12 months that saw him rise to fame as he clocked up three more Top 10 hits in the wake of his chart topper. It would seem though that he couldn’t handle his celebrity as his personal life spiralled with the R&B artist facing a number of criminal charges including bringing a firearm aboard an airliner, affray, kidnapping and paying a lookalike to complete his community service sentence. He still has some presence in the music world though it mainly seems to be due to adverts by McDonalds and Burger King featuring his most famous track for obvious reasons.

Last Words

So, 1996 – was it any good? Like most years it was a curate’s egg. Some good, a lot of bad and a fair sprinkling of utter tosh. Sadly, I don’t think the remaining years of the decade will prove to be any different. The charts were becoming increasingly manipulated by record company marketing strategies to maximise first week sales. This resulted in 24 different No 1 singles this year, the most since 1980 with an increasing trend for records debuting at No 1 and then falling away. This would only increase for here on in. As for me, I’d completed my second year at Our Price Stockport and things were pretty stable. 1997 would see changes to my work life and things start to unravel with my mental health. Some of the posts for that year might be difficult to write…

TOTP 13 DEC 1996

Posted on December 27, 2024 by 80stastic

We’ve skipped a week in these TOTP repeats due to the 6th December show being presented by Gary Glitter. Having checked the running order, I don’t think we missed much. In fact, on a personal level, I’m relieved to not have to review Peter Andre and 3T again. Talking of ‘again’, Toni Braxton was on again and there seemed to be a disconnect between executive producer Ric Blaxill’s perception of the pulling power of (Miss) Diana Ross and her ability to sell records at this time. Slap bang in the middle of the show were Oasis cover band No Way Sis with their version of “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing” which might have been of some curiosity value but, like Mike Flowers Pops before them, was hardly the stuff of legend. The only performance I would have liked to have watched was show opener Mansun doing “Wide Open Space”. I’ll have to pick that one up in my review of the year post.

Anyway, that’s what we missed but let’s get on with the show we did get to see. Our host is Ian Broudie of the Lightning Seeds who doesn’t strike me as the most charismatic of choices but let’s see how he does. It’s a very workmanlike start as he introduces Manic Street Preachers who are performing the fourth and last hit taken from their “Everything Must Go” album called “Australia”. “Everyone’s a classic” says Broudie and I guess he’s not wrong as every one of them went Top 10. To put that into context, up to 1996, the only time the band had scored a Top Tenner was with their cover of “Theme From M.A.S.H. (Suicide Is Painless)” from the NME compilation album “Ruby Trax”. In fact, of the next seven singles they released after that, the highest chart peak achieved was No 15. Is it fair to say that the Manics were better known as an albums band rather than a singles one prior to the disappearance of Richey Edwards? Probably but then who would have foreseen the level of sales the band would enjoy on their reemergence as a trio?

“Australia” pretty much followed the template of the album’s previous singles though that’s not to say they all sounded the same but there was definite evidence of a decision to go in a more commercial direction in these hits, albeit the band didn’t desert all their trademark angular pop/rock and intellectual lyrics origins. The “Everything Must Go” album changed everything for the band – they were back and more successful than ever. Their next single release was “If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next” which would give the their first No 1 single. They were bigger than they’d ever been but what did that mean for their fans who had been there since the beginning? I can certainly remember that sixth form phase of not wanting to like anything the masses were into? Was there a similar sentiment amongst the Manics faithful?

With Christmas fast approaching, it’s time to bring out the big ballads as artists jockey for the coveted festive No 1. It’s a trick as old as time but it would often bring about huge results and Damage weren’t immune to its appeal. Only their second hit in and they’d already rolled out the ballad barrel. Now, I don’t remember “Forever” at all but it was actually more than just another single by a boy band. How so? Well, it was co-written by one Steve Mac who had previously been behind dance hits such as “(I Wanna Give You) Devotion” by Nomad and “Hear The Drummer (Get Wicked)” by Chad Jackson. However, his career changed direction with “Forever” as it came to the attention of Simon Cowell who loved it and asked Mac to join his songwriting team for a new group he was putting together. The name of that group? IOYOU. Not familiar with them? You’ll know them by the name they finally settled on – Westlife. Yes, those fresh faced Irish lads with a penchant for singing sugary ballads on stools that dominated the charts in the late 90s. Mac would go on to work with artists of the calibre of Aaron Carter, JLS, The Saturdays, Shayne Ward, O-Town, Olly Murs and Susan Boyle. Yes, I am being facetious – Mac has also worked with artists such as Ed Sheeran Biffy Clyro, London Grammar and Kylie Minogue but there’s still an awful lot of garbage in there that he’s been at least partly responsible for and it all came about because of one song that he wrote called “Forever”. The damage (ahem) that song has done.

Next up is a real stinker which I had forgotten all about until this honking reminder. Elton John loves a collaboration from as far back as 1976 when he teamed up with Kiki Dee on “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” then on into the 80s with the likes of Millie Jackson, George Michael, Jennifer Rush and Cliff Richard. As the 90s dawned, he worked with George Michael (again) and did a whole album of collaborations called “Duets” with the likes of RuPaul, Marcella Detroit and Kiki Dee (again). And then came this – a duet with Luciano Pavarotti called “Live Like Horses”. Host Ian Broudie says it was to raise money for Bosnia and AIDS charities in his intro but then slyly gives his own verdict on the musical worth of the track by saying “Never mind the song, just buy the record”. He’s not wrong as it’s a steaming pile of shite. Basically just another of those plodding, pedestrian ballads that Elton churned out in the 90s, the plan seemed to be to just get Pavarotti to add his esteemed vocals to it so that it would be transformed into something approaching “Miss Sarajevo” by Passengers from the previous year which, of course, Pavarotti had featured on. That track though elicited a genuine emotional reaction whereas “Live Like Horses” provoked a shrug and a “meh”.

There’s a story that when it was performed on The National Lottery Show, host Bob Monkhouse spoke to both Elton and Luciano separately and it transpired that both thought the song was awful but believed that the other loved it and so promoted it together with gusto. If only they’d expressed those views to each other then we might have been spared all of this. The track appears on Elton’s 1997 album “The Big Picture” without Pavarotti’s vocals and no, I’m not going to inflict that on you. It is Christmas after all.

I’m quite liking Ian Broudie as host and the sly little digs that he’s getting in. After dissing “Live Like Horses” in the nicest possible way, he then turns his attention to Phil Collins, accusing him of “still banging on”. However, he’s not banging on his drums but…playing guitar? What was going on here then? Well, the facts were that “It’s In Your Eyes” was the second single taken from the “Dance Into The Light” album and I’m guessing it didn’t live long in anyone’s mind’s eye despite Phil’s turn on the guitar. Its chart peak of No 30 would seem to back me up. Stealing the melody from “Any Time At All” by The Beatles probably didn’t help. That track was from the soundtrack to A Hard Day’s Night in which a very young Phil had been in the audience for the concert sequence at the film’s end. However, the song which featured 13 year old Phil in the crowd – “You Can’t Do That” – was cut from the film meaning Phil wasn’t actually in it. So maybe it was a case of Phil’s revenge, him borrowing heavily from “Any Time At All”? As the TOTP caption hinted at, Phil would see out the 90s recording the soundtrack to the Walt Disney version of the Tarzan story. Please God let the promotion for it not have featured Phil in a loincloth.

After Elton John and Phil Collins before him, here’s a third musical heavyweight on the show in the diminutive form of Prince although he was officially known as symbol or The Artist Formerly Known As Prince or TAFKAP or The Artist or something (or nothing) by this point. For two of these artists, their long list of hits was coming to an end and sadly for His Purpleness, he was one of them. His offering to the record buying public this Christmas was a cover of “Betcha By Golly Wow” that was originally a hit for The Stylistics in 1972. It all seems a bit unnecessary in retrospect and I’m glad that his final hit in the UK wasn’t a cover version – that would have seemed a bit perverse given his huge vault of songs that he wrote himself. His final two hits in this country came courtesy of the same song when “1999” was rereleased in 1998 and also the following year to coincide with new year celebrations for both entering 1999 and leaving it for the new millennium. Yes, it was an obvious and possibly cynical move but at least he ended his UK chart story with a classic song.

It’s that song by The Beautiful South next. Yes, the one that Terry Wogan would often threaten to play the album version of (I’m guessing he never did) – it can only be “Don’t Marry Her”. The second single released from their “Blue Is The Colour” album, for me, this was even better than predecessor “Rotterdam” which itself had been made the Top 5 and been a massive radio hit. We all know the background story to this one with the lyrics having to be drastically revised for its release as a single. I like both versions though replacing “sweaty bollocks” with “Sandra Bullocks” was a bit of a stretch. In some ways, “Don’t Marry Her” is the definitive Beautiful South song – a jaunty, catchy melody allied to biting, bitter lyrics that speak of how life really is rather than some sanitised image that pop songs can sometimes present. It’s the first track on the album so it was a hard hitting introduction to their latest work; presumably that was deliberate on behalf of the band.

I was working in the Our Price store in Stockport this Christmas and I recall our Area Manager – the sadly passed away Lorcan Devine – sending a message to stores telling us all to go big on stocking up on “Blue Is The Colour” on the strength of the “Don’t Marry Her” single on account of it being, in his words, a belter and potential chart topper. I didn’t disagree with him but the expected sales of the album didn’t quite pan out as Lorcan had anticipated with the single peaking at No 8 (albeit that the album did go to No 1) and he had to admit to getting it wrong. Probably not being able to play the damned thing in the shop due to the opening track’s use of the “f” word didn’t help!

After a very memorable song comes one I’d forgotten all about. In fact, pressed to name any songs by Snoop Doggy Dogg, I wouldn’t be able to get beyond “What’s My Name?”. There were others though (loads of them actually including a No 1 with Katy Perry) and “Snoop’s Upside Ya Head” was his fourth. Obviously based around the Gap Band hit, it actually featured their vocalist Charlie Wilson as well. As with Prince earlier, it seems rather superfluous and indeed contrived (Snoops/Oops). In fact, of more interest to me is my discovery that “Oops Upside Ya Head” was originally titled “I Don’t Believe You Want To Get Up And Dance (Oops)”. Keep that bit of trivia and mark it ‘essential pop music quiz info’.

We have a case of premature chart action at No 1 as Boyzone have gone too early with their attempt at securing the festive chart topper. After narrowly missing out in the previous two years with cover versions of The Osmonds (“Love Me For A Reason”) and Cat Stevens (“Father And Son”), their third tilt at the Christmas bestseller was a song that they co-wrote themselves* in “A Different Beat”.

*Actually, it was all members of the band apart from Mikey Graham. Presumably he was off having his haircut on the day they wrote it judging by his shaved head in this performance.

By releasing the single on 2nd December, Boyzone created a situation where there were too many weeks and too many other big releases to come after it for them to be able to hang on to the top spot until the Christmas chart was announced. Or maybe they knew what was coming (the Dunblane song and the third single from the Spice Girls) and so went early with “A Different Beat” so they wouldn’t be up against either of those releases in week one thereby ensuring themselves another No 1. Perhaps they should have just reversed the order of the first two singles released from the album and put their cover of “Words” by the Bee Gees out as their Christmas hit. I’m thinking it was a stronger song than “A Different Beat” which sounded like it was trying too hard to be on the soundtrack to The Lion King with its “Ee Ay Oh” chorus and African chants.

I mentioned earlier that our Area Manager had misjudged the sales potential of “Don’t Marry Her” but he wasn’t the only one encouraged into ordering too many copies of a single that Christmas. I went over the top on “A Different Beat” having nearly sold out of “Words” before it. Not wanting to do the same with the follow up, I overstocked on it massively. Doh!

There’s no 20th December show as it was hosted by Shaun Ryder who spent the whole time doing Jimmy Saville impressions so obviously BBC4 weren’t going to show that. I’m not doing a post about the Christmas Day TOTP either as I’ve reviewed pretty much everything on there already in the regular shows. I will, however, be writing a review of the whole year before moving into the 1997 repeats.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Manic Street Preachers	Australia	No but I had the album
2	Damage	Forever	No
3	Elton John / Luciana Pavarotti	Live Like Horses	Absolutely not
4	Phil Collins	It’s In Your Eyes	But not in my ears Phil – NO
5	Prince	Betcha By Golly Wow	Nah
6	The Beautiful South	Don ‘t Marry Her	Liked it, didn’t buy it
7	Snoop Doggy Dogg	Snoops Upside Ya Head	Nope
8	Boyzone	A Different Beat	I ordered loads of it but buy it? 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/m0025pv8/top-of-the-pops-13121996?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 29 NOV 1996

Posted on December 20, 2024 by 80stastic

We’re getting close to Christmas both in present day 2024 and 28 years ago in 1996 here at TOTP Rewind where the BBC4 repeats are knocking on the advent calendar doors of December. Back then, I was about to work my seventh consecutive Christmas at Our Price and my second on the spin at the Stockport store. I can’t remember all the specifics of what went down that year – over time the details such as who my work colleagues were have become jumbled up as my memory has shifted and re-edited – but one thing I do recall is that Oasis were selling their fans empty boxes for Christmas. Yes, with no new album available until the following year and no single having been released by the band since “Don’t Look Back In Anger” in the February, their record label Creation needed something to flog to the legion of Oasis followers – it was Christmas after all. What they came up with was unbelievable and yet somehow they sold. To house all those CD singles the band had released, you could purchase two boxes designed to look like a packet of cigarettes – one for the tracks from “Definitely Maybe” and one for the songs from “”(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?”. The latter was gold and the former silver and both carried the warning ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Can Seriously Damage Your Health. I can’t remember exactly how much they cost but I’m guessing a fiver each. What a racket!

Anyway, tonight’s hosts are Ronan and Stephen from Boyzone – nice lads who would never attempt to fleece their fans by selling them some old tat I’m sure. Ahem. After an ill advised impression of The Prodigy’s Keith Flint from Ronan at the top of the show, we’re off with the first artist of the night who is Belinda Carlisle who was experiencing her penultimate UK Top 40 hit with “Love In The Key Of C”. Now, I’m no musician but I did take a few guitar classes over the years which did cover elements of music structure so I know the chord progression in the key of C major is C – G – A – F for example. What I don’t know though is what love in the key of C is. A quick google of the phrase ‘Key of C’ tells me that it’s one of the most common keys in music as it’s also one of the simplest with no sharps nor flats making it easier to play as its key signature is a blank staff. It’s also a neutral key that doesn’t evoke strong emotions making it versatile for various genres and moods. Hmm. A blank staff and doesn’t evoke strong emotions – why that’s a perfect way to describe “Love In The Key Of C” as it’s as dull as Tess Daly’s presenting skills. What’s worse is that one of the lyrics says:

Love in the key of C, you’re my life’s sweet harmony,

It’s the key of Amazing Grace

Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Rick Nowels
Love in the Key of C lyrics © Spirit Music Group

Well, I’m sorry Belinda but that’s just not true. “Amazing Grace” was written in the key of F Major. Not since Alanis Morissette came up with “Ironic” had a lyric been so wrong.

Next, it’s another artist whose poster would have adorned the wall of many a teenage lad’s bedroom back then. Following Belinda Carlisle comes Louise with her fifth hit single in a just over a year, all taken from her debut album “Naked”. This one was called “One Kiss From Heaven” and was…hang on a minute…didn’t her ex-band Eternal have a hit called that?!

*checks Eternal discography*

My bad. Their third single was called “Just A Step From Heaven” so I was close – just round the corner you might say. I thought Louise had been recycling a tune for a minute. Anyway, her song was all sultry and sensual but it sounds to me as if it was trying a little too hard to be those things. It was co-written by Simon Climie of Climie Fisher fame who knows his way around a decent pop tune but I’m not sure slinky seduction is his thing really. I guess it was the logical next step in the master plan to change our perception of Louise from wholesome, girl next door to sex goddess but it doesn’t quite convince for me although I’m sure it would have for all those aforementioned teenage boys.

It turns out that Louise did record her own version of that Eternal song for her 2023 Greatest Hits album and called it “Just A Step From Heaven (Reimagined)” and guess what? It sounds just like the Eternal version. Never has the word ‘reimagined’ been so misused since Tim Burton reimagined Planet Of The Apes.

Nice to see Roman Keating get in a name check for my beloved Chelsea in his intro to Robert Miles and Maria Nayler. How so? Well, they feature in his list of things you associate with Italy (Miles was Italian) as, at the time, their team included Gianluca Vialli, Roberto Di Matteo and Gianfranco Zola. Club legends every one of them. Sorry? What about the music? Oh, well “One And One” was holding for a third week at No 6 and so was deemed due another TOTP appearance. The showing of the video would move it up the charts in increments one place at a time until it peaked at No 3 before undertaking a descent down them that would take nearly two months. You’d think given the amount of time it spent inside the Top 40 that I would have strongly associated it with Christmas ‘96 but I don’t, I really don’t. To be fair, there aren’t many singles that do spring to mind when I think of that particular festive period. There’s the Spice Girls obviously and Madonna’s version of “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” but after that, nothing much. The Christmas chart had Toni Braxton at No 4 but it had already been in the Top 10 for nine weeks by that point so maybe it was inevitable with long running hits like that and Robert Miles’ that it would be hard to connect them to Christmas when they’d been with us for months. Or maybe, yet again, my memory has just failed me. Always a possibility.

1996 saw a number of artists put together consistent runs of multiple UK Top 40 hits. I’m thinking Shed Seven, Manic Street Preachers and indeed, from this very show, Louise. All of them had at least four singles make the charts and to that list can be added Skunk Anansie for whom “Twisted (Everyday Hurts)” was their fourth hit of the year. Unlike those other acts though, it also started a run of three consecutive songs that would not only chart but which had brackets in their titles. Following this, they had hits with “Hedonism (Just Because You Feel Good)” and “Brazen (Weep)” and it got me to thinking why people put brackets in their song titles. Well, let’s start with what brackets are used for grammatically which is to provide clarity or add extra information. Do we need either of those in a title of a song? Maybe but I would say not. Surely the art form of the musical composition should be about the emotional response that it illicits rather than its syntax? So why do any song titles feature brackets? To add an element of mystery or intellectual rigour to them? I’m not convinced that any song title should have brackets to be honest. And in any case, some of the songs that have employed brackets that I can think of haven’t made any sense at all. Take George Michael and Aretha Franklin’s 1987 duet “I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)” for example. What was the need for the brackets here? Or what about the near hit single by The Icicle Works called “Birds Fly (Whisper To A Scream)” that was retitled “Whisper To A Scream (Birds Fly)” for the American market? What was that all about?

As for Skunk Anansie’s foray into bracket world, were they trying to distinguish themselves from the Sad Cafe 1979 hit “Every Day Hurts”? Surely not including those words in the title would have done that? Enough of the linguistics though, what about their song? Well, as with previous single “All I Want”, I actually quite enjoyed it though I couldn’t have told you how it went before watching this TOTP repeat. And there was I thinking that all there was to them was “Weak”.

So what sort of banter or should I say craic did Ronan and Stephen have together as a presenting duo? Well, it was a little bit stilted but their winning Irish accents saw them through even the most cringey of exchanges such as the Bob Marley/ Bob Geldof one that happened in the segue to the Fugees. There’s one bit in it where Ronan sounds as if he’s saying a line from Father Ted. Anyway, “No Woman, No Cry” is straight in at No 2 but I like previous single “Ready Or Not” that also debuted in the same chart position, it wasn’t able to make that leap to the top of the charts the following week.

Was it sacrilege to cover a Bob Marley song? I think they probably just about pulled it off but did Bob himself ever indulge in the art of the cover version? Well, I did find this which is quite extraordinary in its unlikeliness…

Now, I like to think of this blog as irreverent in nature (though many who have read it might use the word ‘irrelevant’ instead) but that tone isn’t really going to cut it for this next song so I’m going to stick to the facts rather than pass any judgement on it.

On 13th March 1996, 43 year old Thomas Hamilton entered the gymnasium of Dunblane Primary School, Stirling and shot dead one teacher and 16 pupils aged between five and six and injured a further 15 people before turning the gun on himself. It remains the deadliest mass shooting in British history and led to the introduction of the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997 and the Firearms (Amendment) Act No 2 1997 that banned all cartridge ammunition handguns in England, Scotland and Wales. This legislation was the result of the official enquiry into the incident (Cullen Report) and a public campaign (Snowdrop Petition) to ban private ownership of all handguns.

On 9th December 1996, a version of Bob Dylan’s “Knocking On Heaven’s Door” was released accredited to Dunblane which was Scottish musician Ted Christopher with the help of Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler and featuring singing by children from the town of Dunblane itself (including the siblings of some of the children who were murdered). I can’t find anything online which connects the single explicitly to the Snowdrop Petition campaign but no doubt the two would have been linked in the minds of some parts of the public. The song was rewritten (with Dylan’s consent) to refer specifically to the events of Dunblane with the proceeds from its sales going to children’s charities. The release schedules were cleared by the record labels of all other major artists (including the Spice Girls) at the time so as to give the single a clear path to becoming No 1. Bookmakers agreed to not take bets on it being the Christmas No 1, not wanting to appear to be making profit out of such a tragedy, with a promise that bets on any other artist being honoured if they were at No 2 and Dunblane topped the charts in Christmas week. Although the single did indeed go to No 1, it would only stay there for only one week.

There appears to have been some thought given to the running order by TOTP executive producer Ric Blaxill as the Dunblane single is followed by the aptly named “Child” by Mark Owen. Not only that but there is no intro from the Boyzone lads just a respectful segue from performance to performance. And not only that but the first line Owen sings is “Sleep peacefully now, my child”. Definitely some consideration there of how to schedule the Dunblane song into the show. As for Mark, he gives a curious delivery of his single, hardly moving and when he does it’s in faint, jilted movements as if he’s the worlds worst escapologist, half-heartedly trying to work out how to get out of the straight jacket he’s in. It does make him look quite vulnerable which was maybe the image he was looking for to match the tone of his single but it’s slightly at odds with the four lads backing him who look like they want to be in a Britpop band – one of them even breaks rank to turn and give a little smile to the camera. Cheeky!

The last artist in the studio is Sheryl Crow who was really getting into her stride by this point. After “All I Wanna Do” had been her massive breakthrough hit two years earlier, her next four singles had underwhelmed in the UK but she bounced back with eponymous, sophomore album the lead single from which “If It Makes You Happy” had restored her to our Top 10. She followed that up with “Everyday Is A Winding Road” which sounded even better than its predecessor to me. Inspired by Crowded House drummer Paul Hester whose character and joie de vivre had a lasting impact on her when she toured with the band as support act, it fair stomps along with a slide guitar and tom tom drums to the forefront. Some critics lambasted it for stealing from “Sympathy For The Devil” by the Rolling Stones but I can’t hear it.

If the line “He’s got a daughter he calls Easter” is about Hester, then there’s a bit of creative licence going on as his daughters are called Olive and Sunday but to be fair if she’d used the latter name, it wouldn’t have scanned at all and might have prompted images of Olive Oyl or Olive from On The Buses (for me at least). Tragically, Hester struggled with depression and lost his battle with it in 2005 committing suicide at the age of 46.

I was in good company with those who liked the song – Prince was such a fan that he recorded a version of it for his “Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic” album and has even performed it live with Sheryl herself.

The Prodigy remain at No 1 with “Breathe” for a second week – a fine achievement for a dance act but there was no way that they would ever cling on to be the Christmas chart topper. Indeed, three other artists would occupy top spot before the actual festive No 1 was announced. That probably said much of how record company release scheduling and promotional campaigns had changed. I can’t imagine such activity could have happened just 10 years prior. To The Prodigy’s credit, “Breathe” would still be in the Top 10 in the Christmas week chart.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Belinda Carlisle	Love In The Key Of C	Nope
2	Louise	One Kiss From Heaven	Nah
3	Robert Miles and Maria Nayler	One And One	I did not
4	Skunk Anansie	Twisted (Everyday Hurts)	No but its not bad
5	Fugees	No Woman, No Cry	No but my wife had the album
6	Dunblane	Knocking On Heaven’s Door	No but please don’t judge
7	Mark Owen	Child	See 4 above
8	Sheryl Crow	Everyday Is A Winding Road	No but I had her Best Of with it on
9	The Prodigy	Breathe	No but I had it on one of those Best Album Ever compilations

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/m0025gmv/top-of-the-pops-29111996?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 22 NOV 1996

Posted on December 15, 2024 by 80stastic

As I write this, the latest series of I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! has just concluded with Danny Jones being crowned as the new King of the Jungle and it strikes me that there’s a couple of tie ins between that show and this episode of TOTP. No, nothing to do with McFly who wouldn’t be invented for another eight years nor The Communards whose Reverend Richard Coles came third this year. Neither is there a connection to contestant Tulisa formerly of hip-hop trio N-Dubz who wouldn’t start having hits for a further ten years. However, the first link is really obvious and it’s the show’s opening act who are Ant & Dec. Told you it was obvious! The ever present hosts of I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! since the first series in 2002 (apart from they one year when Ant was in rehab and was replaced by Holly Willougby), the diminutive duo were still very much pop stars at this point in their career though that was rapidly approaching its natural end.

“When I Fall In Love” was their eleventh consecutive UK Top 40 hit but there were only two more to come in their original incarnation. Although the title of this one suggests images of Nat King Cole or maybe even Rick Astley (!), thankfully it was nothing to do with that classic 50s hit though maybe it would have been better if it had been as this was absolute garbage. A totally nothing tune but even that chronic lack of substance was too much for Dec’s weedy voice. Meanwhile, Ant’s rap was clearly inserted to give him something to do whilst his pal tried and failed to do the vocal heavy lifting. On the CD single, you had the choice of playing the radio edit with or without the rap though that’s like choosing whether you’d rather eat your left or right arm. Talking of arms, Dec seems to be unsure what to do with his right one during this performance, slashing about wildly with it as if he’s swatting flies. And what was going on with his hair? That mullet bit…was that even real? It looks like a wig that might have been used in a really poor quality Beatles biopic. In short (unlike Dec’s hair), everything about this was a bit naff (exactly like Dec’s hair). I think they made the right decision to knock the pop star thing on the head not long after this.

There’s no Shed Seven connection to I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! that I’m aware of but in 1996, the York indie rockers were at the top of their game. Five UK chart hits in one calendar year was quite the achievement – they were literally at the apex of their career which was quite apt given that four of those hits came from an album called “Maximum High”. In fact, two of those singles continued the theme in “Getting Better” and “Going For Gold”. Sadly, “Bully Boy”can’t really be shoehorned in at all whilst “On Standby” and “Chasing Rainbows” not just end the metaphor but invert it.

It’s that last song that concerns us here though. This wasn’t from “A Maximum High” but the lead single from third studio album “Let It Ride” though it was released a good six months before it. So why was that? Well, Rick Witter is on record as having an issue with the release schedule but it’s nothing to do with the gap between the single and album coming out. He believes that if “Chasing Rainbows” had been released in a different week to its actual release date, it might have been a No 1. Does he have a point? On first glance, that seems a stretch for a single that peaked at No 17. However, was he meaning that they should have waited a few weeks until that sales lull after Christmas when traditionally it took much fewer sales to get a single to the top of the charts? I’m thinking Iron Maiden’s “Bring Your Daughter…To The Slaughter” for example. Well, a quick look at the first chart of 1997 shows the Christmas No 1 was still in pole position but the two highest new entries came at Nos 2 and 3 and from unlikely artists in Tori Amos with that dance remix of “Professional Widow (It’s Got To Be Big)” and Orbital with their dramatic track “Satan”. There’s no guarantee that Shed Seven would have gone to the top of the pile if they’d released “Chasing Rainbows” in that same week but I’m betting they would have got higher than No 17.

P.S. One of my favourite bands is Embrace and just this week I attended a very intimate Q&A session with lead singer Danny McNamara in which he divulged that when they were starting out, the feedback they got from labels and A&R men was that they didn’t sound enough like Shed Seven. Hmm.

I’m pretty sure that Tina Turner was never a camp mate in I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here nor Adina Howard or Warren G who remade her hit “What’s Love Got To Do With It”* in 1996. Despite its No 2 chart peak, this had totally disappeared from my poor, overworked memory. And thank f**k for that because it was a shoddy idea horribly executed. Warren G, of course, had scored a major hit two years prior to this with the track “Regulate” whilst Adina had bagged herself a minor UK hit the previous year with “Freak Like Me” which the Sugababes would take to No 1 seven years later as part of a mash up with Tubeway Army’s “Are Friends Electric?”.

*Breaking news: Before Tina Turner was offered the track, it was recorded by Bucks Fizz but shelved after Tina’s version was a hit. Is there a connection between the 1981 Eurovision winners and I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!? Surely Cheryl Baker has been on it, she’s been on everything else.

This version of Tina’s 1984 UK No 3 and US No 1 hit was nothing like as stunning as the Sugababes’ offering. It just seems like a cynically constructed vehicle for Warren G much as he had done with “Regulate” which was built around Michael McDonald’s yacht rock classic “I Keep Forgettin’ (Every Time You’re Near)”. This time though, it felt like a complete cut and paste exercise with Adina doing a passable Tina impression before Warren would come barging in with his rapping. It was part of the soundtrack to a film called Police Story 3: Supercop starring Jackie Chan hence his featuring in the video. Said soundtrack includes a version of Carl Douglas’s “Kung Fu Fighting” as covered by Tom Jones. If that sounds horrendous then I can assure you that it absolutely is…

If “Star” was Bryan Adams’ shot at securing a Christmas No 1, he was wildly off target. Maybe he thought having the word ‘star’ in the title would tip the seasonal scales in his direction. What he should have done was write a half decent song instead of this awful dirge. I think I used that word to describe his last single “Let’s Make A Night To Remember” as well. It was all a bit of a disappointment after his “The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You” track had spearheaded the campaign for his “18 Til I Die” album in fine form.

The single released after this was yet another love song, this time a duet with Barbara Streisand from the film The Mirror Has Two Faces called “I Finally Found Someone” which was equally as tedious. Following that, the title track from “18 Till I Die” was was released and was an uptempo rocker which was perfectly serviceable so it seemed to me that Bry was in a bit of a slump when it came to ballads around this time. If he wanted a Christmas hit, he could always have rereleased this which originally a single way back in 1985 before it got used in the 2022 film Violent Night.

Now, I’m confident that neither Bryan Adams nor Barbara Streisand have been on I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! (can you imagine the fee they’d have to pay Babs to appear!) but how about next year the programme makers take a left field punt on Crispian Mills from Kula Shaker? Not only is he the lead singer of a band (albeit one that stopped having hits a quarter of a century ago) but his family background is acting royalty being the son of Haley Mills (Whistle Down The Wind, The Parent Trap etc) and the grandson of Sir John Mills (Ice Cold In Alex, Ryan’s Daughter etc and indeed etc). OK, it might be a bit of a stretch to assume that the watching TV audience would know who he was these days but back in 1996, he and his band were one of the breakout stars of the year. Rivalling Shed Seven for the most hits in those 12 months, “Govinda” was Kula Shaker’s fourth single to chart and their third to make the Top 10 when it peaked at No 7.

As host Nicky Campbell says, mixing Eastern mysticism with Western pop had indeed proved to be a good idea for the band, providing the blueprint for their whole career pretty much. It was never more evident than on “Govinda” which was sung totally in Sanskrit with the text taken from a devotional chant entitled “Govinda Jaya Jaya” which had been recorded back in 1970 by the London Radha Krishna Temple and produced by George Harrison who was also responsible for the collective’s No 12 UK hit “Hare Krishna Chant”. Growing up as a child in Worcester in the 70s, my only experience of the Hare Krishna movement had been people laughing at them as a procession of them snaked down the High Street on a Saturday afternoon chanting their mantra and dressed in saffron orange. Probably like most people who knew nothing of their beliefs, I was left wondering who this bloke Harry Krishna was. Fast forward to the mid 90s and whilst I hadn’t converted to their faith, I was fully into Kula Shaker and especially this single. Sadly, the Krishna teachings of humility, selflessness and global oneness didn’t reach everyone out there. Whilst working in the Stockport branch of Our Price, a man came to the counter and asked me if we had “that Paki song”. He meant “Govinda” and the irony of the dichotomy he represented (a man using a racist term to ask for the Eastern influenced song he liked) wasn’t lost on me though it certainly was on him.

“Govinda” would draw a line under the band’s prolific output with only two singles being released over the next two years until their second album “Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts” finally appeared in 1999 by which time, the band’s momentum, if not lost, had certainly been misplaced. They are still a going concern today though having released their latest album “Natural Magick” just this year.

P.S. I quite often watch these TOTP repeats with subtitles on so that if I comment on a song’s lyrics or a presenter’s links, I’m not misquoting people. The subtitles for “Govinda” just say ‘He sings in Sanskrit’. Bit of a ‘can’t be arsed’ approach to the job isn’t it?

Did I say that Kula Shaker were one of the biggest breakout acts of 1996? Like a back-pedalling, dodgy politician I may have mis-spoke as the official Breakthrough Artist of 1996 were actually Garbage who even won an award as such at the MTV Europe Music Awards (Kula Shaker weren’t even nominated). How so? Well, their eponymous debut album would sell 4 million copies worldwide and that calendar year saw them in the Top 10 of the UK singles charts with “Stupid Girl” and this track “Milk”. The last track on that album, it wasn’t the album closing, big ballad that might have been assumed but, as described by lead singer Shirley Manson, a “siren song” about loss. It’s almost hypnotic but with a definite dark element to it. Presumably the band didn’t think it was dark enough though and so recruited trip-hop artist Tricky to lay down some sinister vocals onto the track. It’s the Tricky version (called The Wicked Mix) that was a hit in the UK but obviously we don’t see/hear that version in this TOTP appearance as it’s an exclusive performance from Atlanta where the band were presumably on tour. However, in other territories, the track was released without Tricky’s vocals (The Siren Mix) which didn’t go down well with the Bristolian rapper who complained to the press about the situation. As far as I can tell, the Tricky version did better chart wise than the pure Garbage release.

“Milk” was the last single to be taken from the album (the one with the pink cover) and that pedantic part of my brain is still impressed with how Shirley Manson has colour co-ordinated with it in her choice of outfit for this performance. I say ‘still’ as I liked it the first time she did it in an earlier TOTP appearance when there was a pink feather boa wrapped around her microphone stand. If I am being really pedantic though, does Shirley have some lipstick on her teeth in this performance?

I bet Jimmy Nail has been asked to be on I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! He’d have been a prime candidate wouldn’t he? I also bet he would have turned down flat any invitation as my perception is that he’s quite a private person and would have balked at the idea of laying himself bare in a reality TV show. Why do I think that? Well, in 2004, Nail successfully sued News Group Newspapers and Harper Collins Publishers over false allegations made in the News Of The World about him and Nailed, an unofficial biography which was the newspaper’s source of the claims. Jimmy described reading the article as one of the worst experiences of his life. Given all of that, I don’t think he would have been up for being filmed constantly in an artificial environment with people he didn’t know. Anyway, he’s on TOTP to promote his single “Country Boy”. The last time he was on the show, he and his band wore schoolboy outfits but this time, they are wearing black suits and ties which makes them look like they’ve just arrived from a funeral. This was possibly quite apt as this single would be his last ever hit in the UK so you could say this valedictory performance was almost a wake for his career as a pop star.

And so we arrive at the other link to I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! No, none of the members of the Fugees have ever been on the show – it’s far more tenuous than that but I’ll get to it in a minute. “No Woman, No Cry” was the fourth single taken from “The Score” album and it just missed out on giving the band a third consecutive No 1 after “Killing Me Softly” and “Ready Or Not” when it peaked one place lower – the Fugees really were a big deal in this year. Yet another classic song given the hip-hop treatment, Bob Marley’s original had peaked at No 22 in 1975 and at No 8 when rereleased in 1981 following his death. I say “given the hip hop treatment” but it’s actually a pretty straight version – host Nicky Campbell calls it “authentic” though I’m not sure that’s quite the right word.

Anyway, to that I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! connection. So this year’s runner up was Coleen Rooney. Now back in September 2010, Rooney’s then current club Manchester United were due to play his former team Everton at Goodison Park. Rooney’s switch from red to blue back in 2004 had never been forgiven by the fans who had once adored him and to whom he had sworn allegiance what with Everton being the team he grew up supporting. The abuse Rooney would receive every time he returned to Everton was horrific and unyielding. A month before this particular match, Rooney was the centre of claims that he’d paid two women for a threesome in a Manchester hotel whilst Colleen was five months pregnant with their first child Kai. The press was rife with stories that this would be the end of their marriage. If this was manna from heaven for the more salacious tabloids, it was also the stuff of inspiration for the Everton faithful who came up with a chant based around the story. Set to the tune of “No Woman, No Cry”, they would let rip with “No woman, no Kai”. Cruel absolutely but undeniably clever. In the end, United manager Sir Alex Ferguson didn’t select Rooney for the match day squad choosing instead to protect him from running the gauntlet of abuse he would inevitably have received. And that is my second and final connection between this episode of TOTP and I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! I thank you.

We have a new No 1 and thank heavens for that as the last incumbents were Robson & Jerome. Going straight to the top of the charts are The Prodigy and it’s their second No 1 of 1996 following “Firestarter” in the March. If anything, I liked “Breathe” even more than its predecessor even though it was cut from the same cloth pretty much. It was another barnstorming dance anthem that felt claustrophobic, dangerous and indeed dirty, a sensation only exaggerated by the downright grimy video. Cockroaches, centipedes and an alligator inhabit an apartment that made that house at the end of The Blair Witch Project look clean. Then there’s the performances of Keith Flint and Leeroy Thornhill who look absolutely crazed and depraved, almost daring the audience not to carry on listening. There’s also a slight nod to the Run DMC /Aerosmith video for “Walk This Way” with the two protagonists separated by a flimsy wall which is ultimately breached. This wasn’t doing anything to improve Flint’s public perception amongst the tabloids who were already on his case after his deranged appearance in the “Firestarter” promo.

“Breathe” would spend two weeks at No 1 whilst parent album “The Fat Of The Land” topped the charts for six and went five times platinum in the UK alone. The Prodigy were never bigger than in this year.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Ant & Dec	When I Fall In Love	As if
2	Shed Seven	Chasing Rainbows	Nah
3	Warren G and Adina Howard	What’s Love Got To Do With It	Never
4	Bryan Adams	Star	No thanks
5	Kula Shaker	Govinda	No but I had a promo copy of the album
6	Garbage	Milk	I did not
7	Jimmy Nail	Country Boy	Nope
8	Fugees	No Woman, No Cry	No but my wife had the album
9	The Prodigy	Breathe	No but I had it on one of those Best Album Ever compilations

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/m0025gms/top-of-the-pops-22111996?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 15 NOV 1996

Posted on December 5, 2024 by 80stastic

Why oh why didn’t we have more of this calibre of ‘golden mic’ presenter? Having four of The Fast Show cast in character was a genius move by TOTP executive producer Ric Blaxill. Or was it his decision? Did it come from higher up within the BBC to promote the first (and so far only) The Fast Show Christmas Special that was aired on 27 December of this year? Whatever the truth, the turn by Paul Whitehouse, Charlie Higson, Mark Williams and John Thomson was so much better than the usual standard we’ve seen from the majority of these celebrity hosts. It was certainly a vast improvement on the drivel many of the old Radio 1 DJs used to shovel at us (yes, obviously I’m pointing at you Simon Mayo). We start with the characters of Ted and Ralph who are straight into their uncomfortable relationship mode. I especially like the way Ted says he doesn’t know about Boyzone (sir) but then immediately informs Ralph that Take That have split up.

The first act they introduce is Robert Miles and Maria Nayler with a track called “One And One”. Miles, of course, was the poster boy of the dream house movement and had scored a massive hit earlier in the year with “Children”. Unlike that song and follow up “Fable” which were both instrumentals, this one had actual singing in it courtesy of Nayler who had started her music career with the band Ultraviolet who I’d heard of but had no idea what they sounded like. Someone who did though and who liked what he heard was DJ and producer Sasha who sought Nayler out to record the track “Be As One” which became a Top 20 UK hit earlier in 1996. This would peak the interest of Robert Miles who similarly made contact with Nayler to collaborate on the song “One And One” – clearly Maria had a thing about songs with the word ‘one’ in the title.

So what was this ‘new’ sound like? Well, it was like “Children” with vocals wasn’t it? If you liked that sort of thing then good luck to you but for me it was all fairly insubstantial. If I’ve said this once, I’ve said it hundreds of times but the record buying public didn’t agree with me and sent it to No 3 in the UK charts. However, the dream house phenomenon would peter out from this point on (although it probably morphed into something else). Miles would have just one further UK chart hit (bizarrely with a Sledge Sister) and he himself would pass away in 2017 from metastatic cancer aged just 47.

Next up are Mrs Ted’s favourites the Backstreet Boys. I’m sorry Mrs Ted but I could never understand the appeal of this lot. Awful name, useless songs and most of them were not even that good looking. Without wishing to sound too Little Englander about it, didn’t we have enough boy bands of our own without making space for New Kids In The Block 2.0? Take this song “I’ll Never Break Your Heart” for example. It’s just a sub par version of something Boyz II Men might have released. Somehow though, I still hear their songs played on the radio to this day. Maybe it’s me that’s got it all wrong? Nah, couldn’t be but even if liking the Backstreet Boys was being in the right, I’d rather be wrong. In fact, I want it that way (ahem).

Somebody put some thought into this running order (though clearly not “I’ll Get Me Coat” man who does the intro) as we segue from “I’ll Never Break Your Heart” to “Un-Break My Heart” by Toni Braxton. Just like Robert Miles’ “One And One” from earlier, this single had a remarkable chart life partly helped by the fact there was a ballad version and a dance version of the single available to buy. Look at these chart positions though:

4 – 5 – 5 – 4 – 5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 4 – 2 – 4

That’s eleven weeks inside the Top 5 with a climb down the chart being reversed on three separate occasions. Compare that to the chart record of “One And One”:

6 – 6 – 6 – 5 – 4 – 3 – 5 – 5 – 4 – 6

Incredible really that two records in the charts at the same time could display such consistency of sales. Working in Our Price at the time, that pattern of sales would also have been hard to order for with the question “surely it’s going to tail off next week?” always in the back of the singles buyer’s mind. Interesting that “One And One” spent three consecutive weeks at No 6. The devil’s music perhaps?

We were always going to see Jazz Club’s Louis Balfour weren’t we and John Thomson duly delivers. It’s the plausible detail of the script that makes this character funny for me – the names of the fictional artists and songs that Balfour introduces that are simultaneously ludicrous and believable. He’s on form in this link referencing Peter Python and The Bop and a track called “Beat My Feet Sweet”. Nice! Not nice though was the real act that he introduces – The Woolpackers with “Hillbilly Rock Hillbilly Roll”. Whose shameless and shameful idea was this to cash in on the line dancing phenomenon that was sweeping the country around this time?! Presumably some executive producer at Emmerdale from where this grotesque abomination originated. I’ve never watched the soap much – it was the one that I could never really get into – and this single wasn’t going to tempt me in.

Supposedly, the group that consisted of three cast members actually featured in a plot line of the show but I couldn’t tell you what the story was. All I knew was that this was a terrible record engineered to fleece fans of the soap or those people who would only come into a record shop once a year at Christmas. Somehow this pile of crap got to No 5 and spent ten weeks inside the Top 40. They repeated the grift the following Christmas with another line dancing song called “Line Dance Party” (the thought that must have gone into naming it!) and there were two whole albums released off the back of this initial nonsense. Here’s a thought, after you’ve done your cha cha slides, your brushes and your heel fans, here’s another move for all those involved in this record – it’s called the ‘hang your head in shame’ and that includes TOTP executive producer Ric Blaxill for having it on the show.

In 1995, Michael Jackson had the UK Christmas No 1. Twelve months on and his Yuletide offering was still being sourced from his “HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I” album but “Stranger In Moscow” was no “Earth Song”. In fact, despite its chart peak of No 4, I don’t remember this one at all. I think I can be forgiven as it’s the somnambulist’s anthem, sleepwalking its way from start to finish. Indeed, it’s 65bpm makes it one of Jackson’s slowest songs.

A ballad about loneliness, it apparently drew on Jackson’s personal experience of walking through the city at night alone looking for someone, anyone to talk to. The Russian angle was meant to highlight his feelings of fear and alienation though lyrics like “Armageddon of the brain”, “Stalin’s tomb won’t let me be” and “KGB was doggin’ me” all seem rather clunky and ham fisted. Supposedly the track’s origins came from a bizarre source – the credits theme for the computer game Sonic The Hedgehog 3. What this?

Oh my God! I think I can hear a similarity! And here’s another similarity – a cover of “Stranger In Moscow” by a band I’d never heard of before but whose version actually turns the track (for me) into a decent song. Maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to judge and dismiss.

Right, so I’ve now watched the first part of the Boybands Forever documentary on iPlayer and it dealt specifically with the rise of and rivalry between Take That and East 17. It starts with a clip of the latter’s Brian Harvey smashing up a disc for 1 million sales of East 17 records in a fit of rage. The clip was dated as being from 2015 and sees Harvey ranting about grief he’s getting from the police, the CPS, the court system before he finally says turns on the music industry. Now, you may have seen that Harvey has been posting a lot of videos of himself lately where he talks/shouts about conspiracies and cover ups and being censored. His ex-band mate John Hendy got involved by posting a reply video telling Harvey to shut up and move on. Brian, predictably, did neither. Reading between the lines, Harvey seems to be insinuating that events took place during the band’s career that should have warranted an Operation Yewtree style investigation and that they have consistently been covered up and he wants to get the truth out there whatever the cost may be to him personally. He even referenced the recent death of Liam Payne as part of his conspiracy theory. I don’t know where the truth lies in this – why would I? – but all I’m going to say is that, in retrospect, having Ken and Kenneth the “Ooh! Suit you sir!” twins introduce East 17 and Gabrielle perform “If You Ever” hasn’t aged that well.

Ken and Kenneth really push the envelope with their next link to Prince by referring to him as the “purple-headed one” – I think we all understand that double entendre. I say Prince but I think he was officially known as that squiggly symbol thing by this point. Apparently, he’d always wanted to record “Betcha By Golly Wow!” that had originally been a hit for The Stylistics in 1972 but his record company Warners hadn’t allowed it so he got his way once he was free from contractual obligations to them and recorded it for his “Emancipation” album. I have to say that although it seems a logical choice given the range of Prince’s falsetto voice, I’m not sure he does a great job with it. If it was a shout for a penalty in a football match, you’d say that he made a meal of it. It did make No 11 in the UK which suggests the record buying public once again disagreed with me. However, aside from a rerelease of “1999” as the new millennium dawned, he would never have as big a hit in this country again.

In amongst the headlines that were fashioned by the press in the Gary Barlow v Robbie Williams battle, there was another contender for solo artist supremacy who rather went under the radar and yet, for me, his first solo single was better than both his ex-band mates’ efforts combined. The perceived wisdom was that Barlow was the talent when it came to writing songs and was therefore the most likely to succeed out on his own. Williams had generated a lot of press for himself but when it came to it, his first release was a cover version – where were your songs Robbie?

Tiptoeing a path through both came Mark Owen – the ~~pretty~~ young one as described by Ralph in his intro – and therein lay the issue for Owen, that he could be dismissed as just that. Even the TOTP caption adds to the condescending narrative by stating “Wrote this track himself” with the underlying tone being “Who would have thought it?” and yet “Child” is actually very good. Coming on like a cross between Donovan and David Cassidy, Owen delivered a sparkling, shimmering pop song that perfectly suited him vocally. With all due respect, Mark doesn’t have the biggest voice but he didn’t need one for this string drenched ballad. The chart positions for the debut singles by Barlow, Williams and Owen seemed to solidify in the minds of the public some sort of natural order with Gary’s “Forever Love” going to No 1, Robbie’s George Michael cover spinning to No 2 and Mark’s “Child” finding a home at No 3. Those three chart peaks were replicated for all three’s follow up singles as well. It was like some preordained medal podium for ex-members of Take That. Time would show that it would be Williams who would ultimately ascend to the gold medal position in terms of record sales but for Mark Owen it would never get better than a bronze medal. His album “Green Man” didn’t sell in bucket loads (we had a massive overstock in the Our Price where I was working after Head Office buyers mistakenly bought in loads of it thinking it was a surefire winner) and he was dropped by his label within a year. Winning the second series of Celebrity Big Brother in 2002 raised his profile again to the point where he bagged a Top 5 hit with “Four Minute Warning” but it was a case of diminishing returns after that until the Take That reunion in 2006. Mark has continued his solo career in parallel with the band and last released an album in 2022.

In an inspired move, Bob Fleming does the voice over for the Top 10 countdown which obviously means we don’t actually hear much of the Top 10 countdown. In pole position are Robson & Jerome for a second week with their triple A-side single “What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted” / “Saturday Night At The Movies” / “You’ll Never Walk Alone”. Mercifully, this would be their last ever release (excluding a Best Of and a Love Songs collection that would follow in later years) which makes me wonder if that was the reason behind this triple track product. Going out with a bang and a third No 1 single out of three. Would they have risked doing a Frankie Goes To Hollywood if they’d have gone for a fourth single and missed the top of the charts? Or was it as simple as they’d had enough of this pop star lark and wanted to get back to their day jobs? Presumably they had a contract with their record label RCA so maybe they’d just fulfilled their contractual obligations? Whatever the reason, I think this might be their final TOTP appearance (bar Christmas specials) and I think we can all say “thank f**k for that!”. The madness was over. As for The Fast Show, it would go on for a further two series with the cast reuniting for a 30 anniversary tour this year. Nice.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Robert Miles and Maria Nayler	One And One	Nope
2	Backstreet Boys	I’ll Never Break Your Heart	Never
3	Toni Braxton	Un-Break My Heart	I did not
4	The Woolpackers	Hillbilly Rock Hillbilly Roll	As if
5	Michael Jackson	Stranger In Moscow	Nah
6	East 17 / Gabrielle	If You Ever	Sorry Brian – it’s a no
7	Prince	Betcha By Golly Wow!	No
8	Mark Owen	Child	Liked it, didn’t buy it
9	Robson & Jerome	What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted” / “Saturday Night At The Movies” / “You’ll Never Walk Alone	See 4 above

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/m00256xq/top-of-the-pops-15111996?seriesId=unsliced