80stastic

TOTP 20 OCT 1994

Posted on June 9, 2023 by 80stastic

Ah, now this one should write itself. The ‘golden mic’ host this week is the idiosyncratic Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker. He’ll give me plenty of material to comment on surely? Thinking back now though, just how big a name was Jarvis in the Autumn of 1994 and therefore how big a coup was it for TOTP to have lured him on to present the show? Well, I would suggest this was before Jarvis and his band went into the stratosphere off the back of the “Different Class” album and the “Common People” single which both appeared the following year and indeed it was 14 months before his bum wafting protest in the direction of Michael Jackson at the 1996 BRIT Awards but Pulp were certainly more famous than they had ever been in their career which was already into its 16th year by then. They’d finally gotten themselves two Top 40 hits and their 1994 album “His ‘n’ Hers” had gone Top 10 and been nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. So maybe not a household name but certainly well known enough to music fans and seeing as TOTP was the BBC’s flagship music show then it was an understandable if a bit of a leftfield choice.

P.S. After all of my musings above about how Jarvis came to be tonight’s host, here’s the ever reliable @TOTPFacts with the true story that I’ve just found. Why do I bother?!

This was the first of two #TOTP editions presented by Jarvis Cocker – his other being the "big Britpop battle" showdown between Blur and Oasis on 24 Aug 1995. Producer Ric Blaxill had been impressed by Jarvis' performance on Pop Quiz, broadcast on 2 July. https://t.co/41IsqnCBL4
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) June 2, 2023

Jarvis does seem ever so slightly nervous as he introduces himself (for the uninitiated) describing himself as lead singer of The Pulp. The Pulp Jarvis? You may have finally proved yourself to be the real deal but you didn’t need a definite article to do so. He also seems to be a little scared of timings and leaving any dead air lingering as he introduces the first act tonight Michelle Gayle and slips in an unnecessary “Here we go” at the last second. Nerves I guess. Anyway, Michelle’s record “Sweetness” is inside the Top 10 on its way to a peak of No 4 and she’s selling it well in this energetic performance. Michelle was married to footballer Mark Bright for 12 years making her one of a long line of pop stars who had relationships with players of the beautiful game. Going back as far as the 1950s you had England captain Billy Wright who was married to Joy Beverley of The Beverley Sisters pop group. Fast forward to the 90s and we saw Louise marry Liverpool midfielder Jamie Redknapp though their love proved not to be eternal with the couple divorcing in 2017. Perhaps though there is no bigger pop/football fusion than the ultimate 90s power couple David and Victoria Beckham. A Manchester United pin up and a Spice Girl? The papers and the magazines couldn’t get enough of them and despite rumours of an affair by Becks, they are still together four children and over 20 years later. Into the new millennium there was Shakira and Gerard Piqué, Ashley and Cheryl Cole and Perrie Edwards and Alex Oxlade- Chamberlain. Sadly only one of those couples are still together. Less sweetness, more sweet…well…less then.

Jarvis gets himself into a bit of a muddle with his next intro for Let Loose and their single “Seventeen”. The follow up to the surprisingly enduring “Crazy For You”, it didn’t have the same pop credentials of its predecessor and, on reflection, is quite an unremarkable pop song despite being written by Nik Kershaw who knew his way around a decent tune. Never mind all that though, what was Jarvis banging on about? Firstly, he introduces the watching audience to the show – wouldn’t he have been better doing that at the very top of the show rather than one song in? Then he tries to illicit some humour from the fact that Let Loose have gone straight into the charts at No 15 despite their song being called “Seventeen” before feigning confusion and then saying “Who’s Let Loose? Them!”. Sorry, where was the punchline in all that or have I missed something? For the record, “Seventeen” peaked at No 11 and was a rerelease having originally peaked at No 44 when first out earlier in the year.

Reacting to the title of the next song in the show, Jarvis starts on a “Don’t do drugs kids” warning with his tongue firmly inserted in his cheek. Within a year Pulp would release the single “Sorted For E’s & Wizz” which would cause all sorts of undeserved outrage in the tabloids. For now though, it was all about the booze and fags. “Cigarettes And Alcohol” was the fourth hit of 1994 for Oasis and their biggest so far peaking at No 7.

I once watched this interview below with Liam and Noel where the latter talked about how he’d not been sure initially about releasing a fourth single from debut album “Definitely Maybe” but when it placed higher in the charts than any of the others, he knew that the band were on to something big. It’s worth a watch. Noel talks about the accusations thrown at him about pinching the song’s guitar riff from “Get It On” by T-Rex (he didn’t give a shit unsurprisingly) and there’s also a nice insight into the way the band interacted with each other behind the scenes with Noel’s ‘Bonehead was a tutter’ tale. There was a time when I could have listened to Noel talk for ages but he seems to have turned into a reactionary, right-wing leaning arse of late. Who’d have thought it would be Liam that would turn out to be the more likeable one? By the way, Liam’s “Where’s the monkey?” comment was a reference to Michael Jackson’s chimp Bubbles. The talk of a fourth single off the album sounded too much to them like Jacko territory and his nine singles off “Thriller” or whatever it was and if they were going down that route then maybe they deserved a chimpanzee as a pet.

As for my opinion of “Cigarettes And Alcohol” as a song, yeah of course there’s the T-Rex similarity but I couldn’t ignore its power and I was in deep by then anyway. This seemed to be the point when the famous Liam Gallagher pronunciation of lyrics really kicked in with emphasis on words like ‘shine’ as ‘she-iiine’ and ‘aggravation’ as “aggra-vay -sheon’ which would lead to many a parody and impression

By the way, it strikes me that Noel wasn’t the first to borrow that guitar riff anyway (although he did recycle it again for the “Some Might Say” single). Nevertheless, Marc Bolan himself seemed to have been listening to “Little Queenie” by Chuck Berry when he wrote “Get It On”. Then there’s the likes of Thunder with “Dirty Love”, Robbie Williams with “Old Before I Die” and this by ex-Duran Duran guitarist Andy Taylor:

We had a support band on TOTP the other week who found fame (albeit it fleetingly) under their own steam in the shape of 2wo Third3 who had toured with East 17. Well, there’s another one tonight as it’s a case of anything East 17 can do, Take That can do better. Ultimate KAOS (as with 2wo Third3, another awful, awful name) had toured with the Manc boyband superstars and lo and behold found themselves in the charts themselves with their single “Some Girls” riding to No 9. This lot germinated in the mind of the ultimate arbiter on shit music Simon Cowell or rather he saw the seed of an idea that could be grown. You see, Ultimate KAOS started life as Chaos and they released a cover of Michael Jackson’s “Farewell My Summer Love” in 1992. When it flopped they were dropped by their record label but came to the attention of Cowell who picked them up, dusted them down, gave them a horrible new name and shoved them on tour with Take That.

Their debut single as Ultimate KAOS was “Some Girls” and it would prove to be their biggest of six UK Top 40 hits. It was clearly meant to sound like a 90s version of The Jackson 5 but it’s really not very good. Their song isn’t the biggest problem I have with them though. It’s the fact that their average age at the time of this TOTP performance was 14 with lead singer Haydon Eshun being just 9 and seeing them being screamed at by the studio audience which made for uncomfortable viewing. It wasn’t helped by Jarvis’s comment about them playing doctors and nurses in his intro. Eeeuuwww. Eshun would go onto appear on the West End in the Michael Jackson musical Thriller–Live and was also in Reborn In The USA as I mentioned in a recent post when discussing the aforementioned Michelle Gayle.

Now apparently the next act’s lead singer was greatly offended by Jarvis Cocker and his intro to his band, so much so that the latter had to reshoot it. In his first take he referred to INXS as ‘Inks’ – cheeky boy – but the version that went out still included him talking to a young lady in the studio audience and saying “Oh, so you prefer older men do you? Well, you might like the singer of this next group we’ve got coming on then…”. Ouch! At the time of the broadcast, Michael Hutchence was 34 whilst Jarvis himself was 31 so the latter’s comment about older men seem a bit barbed and uncalled for. He then compounds it by listing his most recent relationships in public – “he’s snogged Kylie and he’s now going out with the woman from the Brut advert” (Helena Christensen). All a bit intrusive no?

Anyway, it’s a second appearance by the Aussie rockers to perform “The Strangest Party (These Are The Times)”, a track to promote their first Best Of album. So what was the deal with the two people on four stilts that looked like human flies? Very odd especially the tongue action. A strange party indeed.

There’s only eight acts on tonight’s repeat as the BBC have edited out R. Kelly with his “She’s Got That Vibe” single (which would have followed INXS) after his conviction in 2022 for child pornography charges and three counts of enticing a minor. Needless to say, I won’t be discussing him any further than that.

If there was a female equivalent of the Oasis / Blur battle of Britpop, would it have been between Elastica and Sleeper? That’s probably a completely unfair, uninformed and oversimplified comparison (and there was probably no beef between them anyway) that I’ve drawn just because both bands had a high profile female lead singer but it’s out there now so I’m going with it. In my made up battle, I would have been in Sleeper’s corner I think. They appealed more to my pop sensibilities (I even saw them live) and, if I’m completely honest, I fancied Louise Werner more than Justine Frischmann. I know, I know; that doesn’t sound great but there it is. Not that I didn’t like Elastica at all – this song “Connection” (surely their best known is a tune alright) – but they always seemed a bit too…what? Intellectual? Intimidating? Something else beginning with ‘I’? Maybe it was as arbitrary a thing as me not happening to hear their album that much (despite me working in a record shop I should say so that’s a poor excuse really). Who knows? Clearly not me. Maybe I should revise my loyalties as they give a pretty good performance here and aren’t even put off by the fact that you can clearly see the stage set up for tonight’s headline act in one shot – a big blue neon sign spelling out his name seems slightly disrespectful to everyone else.

And so to that headline act. After all the success and fame in the 60s and early 70s, the hits dried up for Tom Jones. Not that he wasn’t busy. He played Las Vegas, had his own TV show This Is Tom Jones and toured extensively but maybe all that diversifying meant he took his eye off the ball when it came to chart success. He tried his luck with country music but the truth is that from 1972 to 1987, he only had three UK Top 40 hits which peaked at Nos 31, 36 and 40. And then from out of nowhere came…ahem…”The Boy From Nowhere”. Recorded for a concept album called “Matador” that would become a musical, it placed at No 2 on the charts and led to a revival of interest in Jones which culminated in a rerelease of “It’s Not Unusual” and a collaboration with the Art Of Noise on a version of Prince’s “Kiss”. Tom was suddenly hip. The spike in his commercial fortunes petered out though as the 80s ended. The first few years of the new decade saw just a couple of charity single cover versions as his only visits to the Top 40. By the end of the 90s though, another resurgence in popularity saw him top the album charts with his “Reload” project, a collection of cover versions recorded in collaboration with contemporary artists including Robbie Williams, The Cardigans and Stereophonics.

But before all that came a rather overlooked period in his career I feel which was “The Lead And How To Swing It” album and its hit single “If I Only Knew”. Although the former failed to shift huge units, the single was quite the banger but I never knew until now that it’s yet another cover. Originally recorded by experimental US rap group Rise Robots Rise, Sir Tom’s version was produced by the legend that is Trevor Horn and includes a melody that Jones came up with himself.

My wife loved Tom’s version and duly bought it and helped send it rather unexpectedly to No 11 though you rarely hear it on the radio these days. Clearly it was a precursor to the aforementioned “Reload” album and a definite indication that Tom wanted to try and remain current and valid rather than be known just for all those 60s hits. For that alone, he should be admired. Jones retains a huge presence and profile to this day. A coach on TV show The Voice UK, he released his last album “Surrounded By Time” in 2021 which topped the charts.

As for Jarvis’s input to Tom’s appearance here, I could have done without the staged handing back of a pair of knickers to a female member of the studio audience if I’m honest.

So who got the loudest screams? Tom Jones or Take That? What a show to have been in the audience for! The latter are there to perform their chart topper “Sure” and they do what is expected of them, whipping the crowd up into a frenzy by prancing and hopping around the stage. For some reason, Jason and Howard seem to be wearing their jackets inside out with the lining exposed whilst Gary is marked out as the leader of the gang with a leather jacket. This was the second of two weeks at No 1 so I’m guessing this will be the last we’ll see of them in these 1994 repeats. Not quite the stellar year for the band that 1993 was. They only released three singles and one of them somehow didn’t get to No 1. Still though, nice work if you could get it.

So how did Jarvis Cocker do on his debut as a presenter? I think I was a little disappointed on balance although I probably thought he was brilliant back in 1994. Yes, I’d rather him than Goodier or Mayo but I was expecting a little bit more. I’m probably very unfairly bringing 30 years perspective to my opinion that didn’t exist back then but if I had to grade him it would be could do better – C+.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Michelle Gayle	Sweetness	Nope
2	Let Loose	Seventeen	I did not
3	Oasis	Cigarettes And Alcohol	Not the single but I had the album. Didn’t we all?
4	Ultimate KAOS	Some Girls	Never happening
5	INXS	The Strangest Party (These Are The Times)	No
6	Elastica	Connection	Nah
7	Tom Jones	If I Only Knew	No but my wife did
8	Take That	Sure	And no

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001mffj/top-of-the-pops-20101994

TOTP 13 OCT 1994

Posted on June 6, 2023 by 80stastic

Dearie me. The running order for this TOTP looks especially uninspiring. What am I going to say about this lot? Even Simon ‘Smug’ Mayo isn’t the presenter for me to throw the word equivalent of rotten apples at as it’s Mr Nice himself instead, the completely inoffensive Mark Goodier.

*Starts watching the show*

Woah! Stop right there! What am I looking at?! It’s as if Mark Goodier himself had just read my comments about him being incapable of being abused because he’s just too nice and said “Hold my beer!” because he’s had an image change and turned up as a dead ringer for Jazz Club host Louis ‘Nice’ Balfour from The Fast Show. What was he thinking?! This can’t have been deliberate on Goodier’s part to look like John Thomson’s character surely? Or is it just coincidence? Is it possible that Goodier may not have even seen the BBC’s new comedy series? It first aired on 27 September so maybe three episodes had gone out by the time this TOTP aired? Is it feasible that he missed them all and so had never laid eyes on the fictional Mr Balfour? Whatever the truth, there’s no denying the similarities.

Anyway, we start with Ant & Dec when they were still known as PJ & Duncan who I’m sure we’re on the show just the other week with “Let’s Get Ready To Rhumble” but are already back with a follow up called “If I Give You My Number”. This was their third consecutive UK Top 40 hit peaking at No 15. Their run of charting singles would extend to 13 in total if you only count those whilst they were an ongoing, active concern as a pop act (i.e. between 1993 and 1997). It’s 15 though if you count their 2002 World Cup song and a 2013 rerelease of the aforementioned “Let’s Get Ready To Rhumble”. That’s a lot of hits but how many could you name off the top of your head? Just “Rhumble” right? Don’t sweat it. I worked in record shops selling the damn things for the entirety of their pop career and I could only come up with two more than that – “Shout” and a cover of “Stepping Stone” made famous by The Monkees.

So what was “If I Give You My Number” like? Well it was somewhere on the spectrum of poor to shite clearly. It didn’t have the playground chant appeal of “Rhumble” but instead, in places, seemed like a poor attempt to rewrite “Jump” by Kris Kross. Given the what I always thought of as a manufactured confusion about which one was Ant and which one was Dec early in their TV career, were there signs of this being a genuine problem during their PJ & Duncan incarnation? Ant/PJ seemed to be cast as the one in a hat whilst Dec/Duncan was the one with the oh so mid 90s pair of curtains haircut. As Louis Balfour would say, “NICE”.

What better way to follow up two ex-Byker Grove stars rapping than with some bland Eurodance? As well as having a penchant for song titles which included the letter ‘U’ substituting for the word ‘you’ and the number ‘2’ for the word ‘to’ (“U Got 2 Know”, “U Got 2 Let The Music” and “U & Me”), Cappella now seemed to be branching out to corner the market in dance tracks with the word ‘Move’ in their title. “Move It Up” was their second hit of 1994 to follow this trend after “Move On Baby” earlier in the year. Look, I’m sorry but I really have had enough of Eurodance and I’m not sure I’ve got anything to say about Cappella…except…what’s the deal with the rapper guy sitting on a throne in this performance? The optics on it are rather jarring. A man sits in an elevated position on a symbol of power overlooking five women who seem to be cavorting about for his pleasure and entertainment whilst he appears displeased by their efforts. Who thought that was a good idea?

I’m wondering whether, by the mid 90s, Gloria Estefan was running out of ideas artistically speaking. I mean you could argue (if you were being extremely harsh) that she only ever had two anyway – the Latin flavoured, uptempo dance numbers (“Get On Your Feet”, “1-2-3”, “Rhythm Is Gonna Get You”) and the huge, schmaltzy ballads (“Anything For You”, “Don’t Wanna Lose You”, “Coming Out Of The Dark”). As I say, if you were being really harsh. However, by 1994 her last three albums had been a Greatest Hits, a Spanish language collection and a Christmas album. To complete the set, Gloria chose to record an album of cover versions, the ultimate sign that the creative well has run dry.

However, “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me” would prove to be a wise move by Gloria peaking at No 5 in the UK and selling 300,000 copies over here and 2 million in the US. Featuring covers of songs by the likes of Neil Sedaka, Elton John and Carole King. And Vicki Sue Robinson. Who? Well, she was an American actress and singer who’s biggest hit was the disco staple “Turn The Beat Around”. A Top 10 hit Stateside and on the track listing for many a disco compilation, it was never actually a hit in the UK. Gloria’s version would correct that when it peaked at No 21.

Before the next act, and in anticipation off the new No 1, we get a message from Take That from Belfast where they are on tour. It’s fairly inane stuff only made even noticeable by the fact that Robbie Williams sits with his back to camera for most of it presumably to make him look interesting…oh and to show off the fact that he’s had the figure ‘1’ shaved into the back of his head. How little did we know of the trauma to come for many a young teenage girl in just nine months time when Robbie would leave the band.

Right, this is all very odd. A record by Snap! that I don’t actually mind. “Welcome To Tomorrow (Are You Ready?)” wasn’t an in your face, bass pumping, klaxon blaring dance anthem like “The Power” but a lilting, whimsical tune that was actually melodic and almost charming. How had this happened? Well, yeah, obviously they’d gotten rid of rapper Turbo B. That seemed to be the crucial factor in the transformation. Like Cappella before them, Snap! seemed to be in the midst of a song title fetish that dictated that every single they released had to include some brackets somewhere. The single before this was called “Do You See The Light (Looking For)” and the one after it “The First The Last Eternity (Till The End)”. What was the point of them? Was it the Robbie Williams effect, trying to make them seem more exotic? There have been many an example of this practice down the years but perhaps two of the most irritating are “I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)” by George Michael and Aretha Franklin and “(Don’t You) Forget About Me” by Simple Minds. Just WHY?

Oh come on now! I believe this is the fourth appearance on the show by Lisa Loeb And Nine Stories with “Stay (I Missed You)” – BRACKETS! – which seems a bit over the top for a song that peaked at No 6. I mean it was in the Top 20 for six weeks, the Top 20 for nine and the Top 40 as a whole for thirteen so it had some legs I guess but four times on the show?! One was a live by satellite performance, one was the video and the other two were in the studio of which this one is just a repeat of the first time. Curiously, Goodier introduces it as “still a Top 10 record” which suggests it’s falling down the chart maybe? There’s no caption for it detailing its chart position so just what number was it at?

* Checks chart rundown*

So it was at No 8. Now given that the record stayed at No 8 for three weeks, it could be a non mover. I’ll check. Wait there…

*Checks chart for this week*

Yep. This was its second week of those three so definitely a non-mover. Historically, TOTP had a policy of only featuring records going up the chart plus the No 1. I can’t recall what the rule was about non-movers but clearly they were deemed still valid in 1994 by head producer Ric Blaxill. Surely this must be the last time on the show for this one though. Lisa, Go (I won’t miss you). BRACKETS!

A future No 1 incoming now as we get the video for Pato Banton and his cover of “Baby Come Back”. I should say Pato Banton featuring Ali and Robin Campbell of UB40 of course. As this will be No 1 soon enough, I think I’ll just leave these chart stats here for this post:

Topped UK singles chart for 4 weeks
Finished the year as the fourth best selling single of 1994 in the UK
Spent 10 weeks inside the Top 10
Spent 4 months on the Top 40
Actually started going back up the charts in week 15 of its chart life

Despite working in record shops for virtually the whole of the 90s, I quite often get tripped up in these reviews by songs or acts I’ve either erased from my memory banks or who had completely passed me by at the time. The next artist is an example of the latter circumstance but watching them back now, how on earth did I miss this uneven paving stone?

Apparently, 2wo Third3 (terrible, terrible name) were the brainchild of pop impresario/manager Tom Watkins whose artist roster also includes Pet Shop Boys and Bros in the 80s and East 17 in the 90s. His new creation were an openly gay four piece pop group – sort of like Bronski Beat but without the credibility and with a much cheesier sound. You’ll notice only three members on stage here though as the fourth member was the non-performing songwriter Richard Stannard who was nicknamed Biff and is represented by the cartoon character displayed behind the band. Well, East 17 had that dog logo – it must have been a thing with Watkins. Also a thing with him was style over content. 2wo Third3 was all about image and promotion – London design firm Form were employed to produce the group’s record sleeves and promotional material which included yellow rubber gloves (check the single glove the lead singer is wearing) and Biff plasters being sent out to fans and promoters. To help get their name (terrible as it was) out there, they supported East 17 on their 1994 world tour (of course they did).

All this promotion finally worked when, after their first two singles failed to crack the Top 40, they finally crowbarred their way in with “I Want The World”. I mean, it’s catchy and all and I’m guessing it went down a storm in gay clubs but it was never going to be anything more than a disposable, here today gone tomorrow pop tune. There is something captivating about their TOTP performance though. I’m not sure if it’s the Biff logo or the way the two keyboard players double up as dancers by deserting their instruments and coming to the front of the stage to bust some moves. Or is it the lead singer’s customised stool that allows him to tower above the studio audience? How very Julian Cope of him!

“I Want The World” peaked at No 20 whilst a follow up “I Want To Be Alone” (make your mind up!) made it to No 29 and that was it. An album was recorded but never released. Biff went on to write mega-hits for Spice Girls and 5ive (another terrible name) whilst the lead singer reappeared in 2007 as 4th Child (what was it with numbers in their names!). As for the other two, one went into music publishing and the other went back to being a plumber. Well, pop songs are all very well but who are you going to call when your toilet won’t flush eh?

The biggest name of the night makes an appearance now. Despite his huge success as part of The Police and a solo career that had delivered four massive selling albums (including two No 1s), when it came to singles, Sting was an underperformer – less sting, more minor skin irritation. Up to this point he’d never had a single even make the Top 10 let alone top the charts but “When We Dance” would finally provide him with one by peaking at No 9.

This was one of two new songs written to help promote a Greatest Hits album. “Fields Of Gold: The Best Of Sting 1984-1994” collected the singles from those four solo albums into a handy one stop shop and it was a big seller too. Triple platinum over here, double platinum in the US; it was official – Sting could shift albums. Those pesky singles though. Until “When We Dance”, his highest charting song was “Russians” which made No 12 in 1985 (I’m not counting his part in that trio with Bryan Adams and Rod Stewart on “All For Love” which made No 2). Even singles that still get played on the radio today and which you immediately associate with him like “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” only made No 26.

Anyway, he finally got his Top 10 solo hit with “When We Dance” but I can think of loads of other Sting songs that are more deserving than this soporific, generic ballad. “Fortress Around Your Heart”, “Love Is The Seventh Wave”, “We’ll Be Together”…all more better tracks in my opinion. Mr Sumner had already done a very slow paced song with the word ‘dance’ in the title back in 1988 on his “…Nothing Like The Sun” album called “They Dance Alone”. Seems Sting liked a slow dance number.

Coincidentally, he collaborated the following year with the aforementioned Pato Banton on a cover of “Spirits In The Material World” for the Ace Ventura soundtrack. Inevitably with such a bad idea, it was awful. Sting obviously liked that sort of reggae hook up though as he would infamously make an album with Shaggy in 2018. He got away with it too – it went to No 9 in the charts.

And so to the new No 1 courtesy of Take That and we get an exclusive live performance of “Sure” from what I presume is their concert in Belfast from where they did their live message earlier in the show. Curiously though, it sounds and feels like a dress rehearsal – although we can see an audience there, we can’t hear them much. Maybe they were turned down in the mix by the sound people.

P.S. To say I was worried I wouldn’t have much to write about a fairly uninspiring line up, I seem to have written quite a bit. Go me!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	PJ & Duncan	If I Give You My Number	Of course not
2	Cappella	Move It up	Never happening
3	Gloria Estefan	Turn The Beat Around	Nope
4	Snap!	Welcome To Tomorrow (Are You Ready?)	Pleasant tune but no
5	Lisa Loeb And Nine Stories	Stay (I Missed You)	I did not
6	Pato Banton	Baby Come Back	Nah
7	2wo Third3	I Want The World	No
8	Sting	When We Dance	Another no
9	Take That	Sure	And no

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001m6qq/top-of-the-pops-13101994

TOTP 06 OCT 1994

Posted on June 3, 2023 by 80stastic

We’ve got another ‘golden mic’ show as we enter October 1994 with guest presenters Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis. Having been ‘the other two’ in The Mary Whitehouse Experience alongside the first rock stars of comedy David Baddiel and Rob Newman, Punt and Dennis did go on to hugely successful careers in their own rights. Hugh Dennis is a regular on comedy panel shows and starred in long running BBC sitcom Outnumbered. Punt, who as I recall had to fend off multiple questions in interviews as to whether he was actually the son of Eric Idle of Monty Python fame due to their facial similarities, would pursue a career off camera as a script editor and screenwriter. In 1994, the first series of their own sketch show – The Imaginatively Titled Punt & Dennis Show – had just finished being broadcast so their public profile was possibly at its highest point, certainly as a double act anyway. As such, they were probably a good choice as guest hosts and TOTP head producer Ric Blaxill couldn’t have booked Baddiel and Newman instead as they weren’t speaking to each other by then (they wouldn’t be in each other’s company for another 24 years).

Anyway, that’s enough about the presenters, what about the music? Well, I’d talk about it if we had some but I’m not sure that the opening act meets the criteria to be defined as music. By Autumn 1994, the trend for reggaefied versions of old pop hits was so popular that just about every week the chart seemed to have a representative of the genre. In this Top 40 for example there’s Pato Banton and this guy, C.J. Lewis who’d already carved out two hits for himself with ragga covers of songs by The Searchers and Stevie Wonder. However, C.J. was after a third and turned to the 70s smash “Best Of My Love” by The Emotions to complete the hat-trick. Sticking to the formula, this was again a case of C.J. toasting his way through the verses with the chorus performed faithfully by vocalist Samantha Depasois. It really was a load of old tosh but C.J. got his wish and “Best Of My Love” became his third consecutive hit peaking at No 13.

When it came to original material though, the hits reduced in size dramatically before disappearing altogether. Subsequent singles “Dollars” and “R To The A” both peaked at No 34 and C.J. never returned to the Top 40 again. To paraphrase his namesake from the wonderful BBC comedy The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin, C.J. didn’t get where he is today without pinching other people’s songs and then bastardising them.

Is this a third studio appearance for Cyndi Lauper to perform her track “Hey Now (Girls Just Want To Have Fun)”? I think it is. As such, the TOTP producers have tried to shake things up a bit by having Cyndi arrive on stage by cadging a lift from one of the moveable studio cameras – you know, those huge ones that glide around on tracks to get smooth panoramic vistas? Yeah, those. It’s not a bad bit of staging actually. Cyndi then indulges in some hand shaking with the studio audience though I’m sure I detect some slight panic in her a couple of times as she struggles to free herself from an over enthusiastic audience member. They’re an appreciative crowd though who generate some large cheers for both Cyndi’s guitarist’s slide guitar work and for the star herself when she belts out a protracted long note. Talking of long, Cyndi’s career certainly has some length. She’s been at it for over 40 years now and just this year was announced as a nominee for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame though she didn’t make the cut, losing out to Kate Bush, Sheryl Crow and Missy Elliott.

By 1994, Madonna had been having hits for 10 years. So many of them in fact that this one – “Secret” – was her 35th consecutive Top 10 hit. As they’ve all come in the years that I’ve been blogging about TOTP repeats, that means I’ve probably had to write something about all of them. That’s a lot of words about Madonna. Do I have anything else left to say about her? Yeah, probably.

After the outrage and backlash she suffered from her “Erotica” album and Sex book project in 1992, it was time for Madonna to soften her image a bit and that meant a change of image. The Mistress Dita persona of “Erotica” gave way to a more classic ‘blonde bombshell’ look inspired by Hollywood actress Jean Harlow (whom had been one of those name checked on Madge’s “Vogue” single). Then there was her new album of which “Secret” was the lead single. Lyrically, “Bedtime Stories” explored themes of love as opposed to sex and musically it ventured into R&B and hip-hop to generally positive reviews. I must admit though to getting a bit lost (and dare I say it even bored) by Madonna at this point. I get that she wanted to keep evolving creatively as an artist but it all seemed a bit too knowing and contrived. “Secret” is very accomplished and well crafted but it just didn’t cut through with me.

Interesting to note though as a timepiece of the era, Madonna discussed the song on the internet (I had no idea what that even was in 1994) leaving an audio message for her fans and a snippet of the track online. It’s hard to comprehend in these times of 24hr online access to music platforms how exciting this must have been. To hear a song back then, you either had to catch it on the radio or a TV music show or actually go and buy your own copy. I guess you could tape it off the radio but that involved a certain amount of planning and commitment that you kids today wouldn’t understand. My god I’m an old fart.

OK, enough of my old man rants s here comes Michelle Gayle who’s just entered the Top 10 at No 9 on her way to a high of No 4 with “Sweetness”. In total, Michelle would rack up seven UK chart hits of which all bar one would make the Top 20.

However, it seems that Michelle wasn’t bothered about chart positions. During my research for this post (yeah, I do some!) I came across this clip of her during her stint on the 2003 ITV show Reborn In The USA. This was basically a travelling version of the X Factor but for fading pop stars who would compete with each other for audience votes in a different US city each week with the act getting the least being booted off. This video is of the four finalists Peter Cox (Go West), Tony Hadley (Spandau Ballet), Hayden Eshun (Ultimate Kaos) and Michelle discussing whether musical artists have a competitive streak. Tony was a definite ‘yes’ whilst Michelle just didn’t see it that way at all…

Go to 5:40

In direct contrast to Michelle’s view, in the early weeks of the show the competition between two of the participants became so acute that it spilled over into something else all together. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you one of the great TV spats. Give it up for Dollar Vs Sonia!

The live by satellite slot where artists performed against the backdrop of a well known landmark had given us perhaps its most memorable moment just the other week when Bon Jovi played “Always” with the stunning visual of the Niagara Falls behind them. Head producer Ric Blaxill wasn’t going to waste that bit of footage and so it gets another airing on this show.

Now I’ve had a (well documented) weakness for a bit of the Jovi in the past but I have to say that John’s lyrics are sometimes a bit obvious and cliched. In this one he sings about loving his baby forever and a day until the heavens burst but there are a couple of lines that made me think of something else completely. First there’s this…

It’s nothing but some feelings that this old dog kicked up
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Jon Bon Jovi
Always lyrics © Bon Jovi Publishing

And then this…

I’ve made mistakes, I’m just a man
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Jon Bon Jovi
Always lyrics © Bon Jovi Publishing

Dogs? Just a man? You know where I’m going don’t you?

Sometimes when writing this blog my synapses are firing and the words come easily. Sometimes they really don’t. This is one of those latter moments. I haven’t really got anything else to say about “Circle Of Life” by Elton John. Think man! Anything will do! Nobody’ll read it anyway let alone care. I’m writing this sat in a Costa Coffee shop listening to Arab Strap and inspiration is not striking.

*Looks at Elton’s discography in forlorn hope of sparking a kernel of an idea*

OK. Got something. How many soundtrack albums do you think Elton has written? Well, according to his discography it’s ten. TEN! How many could you name though? Yes, The Lion King obviously and it’s 2019 remake. How about Rocketman Elton’s biographical musical drama? Wikipedia counted it so that’s good enough for me. Billy Elliot: The Musical is on there of course. How about Gnomeo & Juliet though? Or Sherlock Gnomes? I’m afraid that they’re his as well (Why Elton? Why?). There’s also the musical based on Verdi’s Aida known rather pompously as “Elton John And Tim Rice’s Aida”, The Muse which was a late 90s comedy which I don’t recall at all and a DreamWorks Animation called The Road To El Dorado. Perhaps the most intriguing was his first which came out in 1971 for a film called Friends (nothing to do with the US sit com TV series). I have never heard of this film until now but apparently it received a Golden Globe nomination for Best English Language Foreign Film. Not knowing the film, I obviously wasn’t aware of Elton’s soundtrack album either but then it has never been released as a standalone CD since its initial vinyl release although its tracks are on the “Rare Masters” compilation album that was released in 1992. I’ve gone from nothing to say to far too much Elton John information haven’t I?

However, I’ve not said too much about tonight’s hosts Punt & Dennis since the top of the post so how are they doing? Well, I have to say I’m a bit disappointed but maybe it’s like looking back at the technology of the time; it seems underwhelming by today’s standards but was actually cutting edge at the time. Anyway, they’ve bought out the big guns for this next link as Hugh Dennis gets his own backstage set up to showcase perhaps the duo’s best known comedy character Mr Strange and his catchphrase “Milky milky”. Known for his love of milk (that had usually gone off) and with the manner of a Peeping Tom, he was a weird but memorable creation. Dennis had actually brought him out for the Elton John intro but I wanted to save commenting on that until he got his own little slot when introducing the next act who are Take That. Before he does that though, we get the revelation that Mr Strange doesn’t wash his pants. Of course he doesn’t. Anyway, onto the biggest teen sensation since the last one and Gary Barlow gives us his own little intro telling us how the band are on a 31 date tour before joining the rest of them for a run through of new single “Sure” whilst presumably on a break from rehearsals.

After previous single “Love Ain’t Here Anymore” had broken the group’s run of four consecutive No 1s by peaking at No 3, I’m guessing there was just a tiny bit of pressure on follow up “Sure” to ensure normal service had been resumed, especially as it was a brand new track. As it turned out, this super slick slice of pop-R&B would return the band to the top of the charts (a position they maintained for two weeks) but it seems to me that “Sure” is an almost forgotten No 1. The first taster of their third album “Nobody Else” which was released the following year, it got completely overshadowed by the other two singles released from it – “Back For Good” was so perfect a pop song that many refused to believe Barlow had written it and was actually the work of Bee Gee Barry Gibb whilst “Never Forget” got elevated to another level when it was released just as the news of the departure of Robbie Williams from the band broke.

I’m sure I read at the time that Gary Barlow believed that “Sure” was the best thing that the band had ever released and was disappointed that it only lasted for two weeks at the top of the charts. I think the gist of his gripe was that he thought that the song was good enough to have transcended the teen fan base and cut through to more adult record buyers. The irony is that those two subsequent singles probably did do that on some level. In a 2021 article in The Guardian, writer Alex Petridis ranked the best 20 Take That tracks. “Sure” came in at No 12 whilst “Never Forget” and “Back For Good” were put at No 3 and No 1 respectively. I think that’s probably about right.

As for the performance here, there’s been a couple of image changes since the last time the group were on TOTP. Robbie Williams has had all his hair shaved off and Howard Donald has started his metamorphosis into pop music’s equivalent of Chewbacca. Meanwhile their outfits seem to have been inspired by the Gerry Anderson show UFO and specifically the uniforms worn by the crew of the Skydiver craft. Blimey!

For all their massive profile and popularity, when it came to huge hit singles, INXS were no Take That. They only ever had one UK Top 10 hit despite having 18 Top 40 entries. I guess they were more of an albums band? Despite the lack of mega-selling singles, as was often the case with such bands, if you put all their medium sized hits together on one Best Of album it would sell like hotcakes. I’m thinking the likes of The Beautiful South and Crowded House who both had Greatest Hits albums that sold and sold despite not having a stack of high charting tracks to put on them. So it was with INXS as well whose first compilation album went platinum in the UK.

To help promote it came this new track “The Strangest Party (These Are The Times)” which was actually an old song left over from the “Full Moon, Dirty Hearts” sessions that didn’t make the cut for that album. It’s pretty standard INXS fare which is no bad thing but it’s certainly not one of their best. Whatever the calibre of the song though, any performance that features Michael Hutchence was always going to be billed as an ‘exclusive’ by the TOTP producers such was his star quality. “The Strangest Party (These Are The Times)” peaked at No 15 continuing that run of Top 10 avoiding hits.

Hugh Dennis brings out another character to introduce Whigfield who is in her fourth and final week at No 1. This time it’s Embarrassing Dad who threatens to do the “Saturday Night” dance. As I said before, I was a little underwhelmed by their whole shtick. As for Whiggy, as Dennis referred to her, “Saturday Night” would be the 2nd best selling single in the UK in 1994 only behind Wet Wet Wet. It was replaced at the top by *SPOILER ALERT* Take That’s “Sure” which for purposes of context was the 37th biggest seller of the year. Make of that what you will.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	C.J. Lewis	Best Of My Love	As if
2	Cyndi Lauper	Hey Now (Girls Just Want To Have Fun)	Not this nor the 1984 original
3	Madonna	Secret	Nah
4	Michelle Gayle	Sweetness	Nope
5	Bon Jovi	Always	Negative
6	Elton John	Circle Of Life	No
7	Take That	Sure	Sure didn’t
8	INXS	The Strangest Party (These Are The Times)	I did not
9	Whigfield	Saturday Night	And no

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001m6qn/top-of-the-pops-06101994

TOTP 29 SEP 1994

Posted on May 31, 2023 by 80stastic

I haven’t revisited what was going on with me personally back then in these posts for a while so (and I know this is of minuscule interest to anybody but me) let’s correct that. Two days after this TOTP aired we moved flat. Me and my wife had been in our tiny South Manchester flat for nearly four years and had been happy there. So why move? Well, our landlord let it be known that he had a bigger flat becoming available and we thought we could do with a bit more space and best of all, it was only two doors down! Yes, we were moving from Flat 4, No 47 to Flat 2, No 43 on the same street! This was great as it meant there was no need to incur removal van costs. However, it didn’t eliminate the need to put everything in boxes the same as any other move and that’s a job nobody looks forward to. We asked some friends from out of town to come to stay in the new place meaning that they could also help with carrying the boxes. My mate Robin’s taxi turned up just as the last box went in. Brilliant timing! We weren’t the only ones moving on around this time. On the same day this TOTP went out, Chris Evans presented The Big Breakfast for the very last time after two years. The times they were a-changin’…

…unless you were 2 Unlimited of course. Three years on from their debut hit, they were still clogging up the charts with their brand of repetitive Eurodance beats. The standard criticism of the Dutch duo was that all their material sounded the same and that you would feel like you’d heard it all before. Well, in the case of “No One” that was literally true. It had already been on TOTP back in the Summer on the show that was broadcast on 16th June. Back then it was featured within the album chart slot as their album “Real Things” had just been released and gone to No 1. So what did I say about it in my review of that show?

*checks TOTP Rewind archive*

Well, I referred to the frightening prospect of it being on the show again as I mentioned that it would be released as a single eventually and lo and behold, my prediction came true. I also said that, despite all my earlier talk of their sound never deviating from their original concept, this one did sound slightly different, not quite having the usual 2 Unlimited ‘bpm urgency’. Which it doesn’t. Was that an improvement then? Not really. I stand by my earlier review. Every word of it.

Huge tune incoming though not necessarily a big seller in the UK. After the lilting melodies of “Linger” and the perfectly crafted, jangly pop of “Dreams”, I was completely wrong footed by The Cranberries’ next release “Zombie”. A densely heavy slice of grunge rock that wasn’t a million miles away from “Creep” by Radiohead, it included an almost pained vocal from Dolores O’Riordan. ‘Pained’ is probably an apt word as the song was written as a visceral outpouring from Dolores in reaction to the tragic events of the IRA bombings in Warrington in 1993. The band’s record label Island got cold feet about releasing the track as a single fearing a song about The Troubles would be too controversial and that would affect airplay and its chances of commercial success. However, it had gone down well with audiences when played live in its early form as “In Your Head” and Dolores would not be deterred. She was right too. Although it would only make No 14 over here, it was huge around the rest of the world going to No 1 in seven countries. The album it came from – “No Need To Argue” – was huge too racking up 17 million sales worldwide. The Cranberries were officially a big deal.

A future chart topper now as the trend for reggae-fied versions of classic oldies continues apace. “Baby Come Back” was originally a No 1 hit in 1968 for the ethnically diverse group The Equals who included a young Eddy Grant in their ranks. A cover version of it 26 years later came courtesy of Pato Banton who I’d never heard of but who’d worked with The Beat in the early 80s and had guested on the 1985 UB40 album “Baggariddim”. Oh yes, there was a connection with UB40 just as there had been for Bitty McLean and his chart career. That connection became even more apparent when Ali and Robin Campbell performed on “Baby Come Back” alongside Banton. They even had a credit on the single’s cover.

By the way, Pato was nothing to do with another, much more objectionable Banton – the Jamaican Dancehall artist Buju – who held some vile homophobic views in the 90s that he aired in his song “Boom Bye Bye”. It turns out that the name ‘Banton’ is a Jamaican slang term for someone who is a respected storyteller.

Anyway returning to “Baby Come Back”, the combination of the Campbell brothers vocals on the chorus and Pato’s toasted verses proved irresistible to record buyers and the single would go to No 1 for 4 weeks ending the year as the UK’s fourth best selling single of the year. As we’ll be seeing it plenty more in future episodes I’ll leave it there for now.

After the real thing earlier, here come an act whom I saw recently online described as the ‘2 Unlimited of ragga’ which seemed pretty on the money. Reel 2 Real featuring The Mad Stuntman (they even had a figure 2 in their name like Ray and Anita!) were onto their third hit of a very thin source material in “Can You Feel It?”. This wasn’t just money for old rope but money for pieces of string too short to be useful. Basically a man (The Mad Stuntman presumably) toasting while a woman occasionally sings “Can you feel it baby?”. Just awful. Total crud. Somehow it managed to scramble up the charts to No 13. What was wrong with people back in 1994?!

Now here’s a curious thing. A performance on TOTP that on the face of it seems to be not instigated by the need to promote something. “You Really Got Me” was The Kinks’ first hit and first No 1 in 1964. So why were the band performing the song on TOTP in 1994? Well, the official line was to commemorate the song’s 30th anniversary and that was it. How often though had this sort of event happened though? Never that I can recall. The Kinks (well, Ray and Dave Davies essentially) just appear slap bang in the middle of the show – there isn’t even any caption allocated to them about career sales or anything. Ray did do the message to camera bit at the top of the show but he just told us how TOTP was going to rock us to the bone. Checking their discography, they’d had a Greatest Hits album out in 1993 (“The Definitive Collection”) which was rereleased in 1996 with a TV ad campaign but this TOTP appearance falls between these two releases so it can’t be that can it?

*checks discography again*

Oh hang on. They released a live album four days after this TOTP aired and it was called “To The Bone”. That’s what Ray was referring to in his rather cryptic message at the start of the show! And…published two weeks before this appearance was Ray’s autobiography called X–Ray which explains his off script lines during the performance about having “seen the X-Ray”. And….hadn’t the BBC just launched TOTP2 featuring clips from the archive so maybe this performance was to (indirectly) push that show? All makes a bit more sense now.

The performance is half in black and white presumably to try and create a feeling of 1964 before it reverts to colour during Dave’s guitar solo. Not sure it works really to be honest. However, I do like the way that Ray treats it as a proper live gig by encouraging some audience participation with his goading question “Are you listening to me?”.

Right, what’s this? Well, it’s Eurodance behemoth Snap! but you’d be forgiven for not recognising them. Firstly, they’ve got a new singer called Summer (real name Paula Brown) but then they had previous in that department having already been through vocalists Penny Ford, Thea Austin and Niki Haris by this point. Rapper Turbo B was long gone by this stage. Secondly, and perhaps more to the point, their new single “Welcome To Tomorrow (Are You Ready?)” didn’t sound like them. It’s a much poppier almost lilting sound than something like “The Power” or “Rhythm Is A Dancer” which made their names on the club dancefloors before crossing over massively into the mainstream charts. This felt like they had purposely made a record that could just go straight to daytime radio.

The space age sci-fi video that we see here apparently took three months to make. Some of the spacecraft in it look a bit Blake’s 7 to me but then that’s probably unfair as I’m looking at it through 2023 eyes. Back in 1994, this probably looked, if not mind blowing, then very impressive. “Welcome To Tomorrow (Are You Ready?)” would peak at No 6 but they would only have one more UK Top 40 hit subsequently.

East 17 were never as big as they were in 1994. A double platinum album and four hit singles including the Christmas No 1? Nice work if you can get it! “Steam”, despite being the title track of said album, was the smallest of those hits but the fact that it peaked at No 7 shows how big the others were. After the lighter sound of previous single “Around The World”, this was a return to the sound that made their name – pop/rap with a bit of streetwise savvy heavy in the mix. Watching this performance back though, it all seems faintly ludicrous. They’ve all had skinhead haircuts (presumably to big up those street credentials) but the outfits they’ve got on kind of work against that. What exactly are they wearing? A leather hoody with leather baggy trousers and boots? Sorry lads, you just look silly. At least the staging of the performance was easy. A song called “Steam”? Just have a few jets of the stuff going off behind them occasionally. My old history teacher Mr Cooper who used to overly emphasise the word ‘steam’ when talking about steam power would have approved. STEAM power lads!

Now to a man who is surely only behind Keith Richards in the ‘How is he not dead yet?’ stakes. I remember the Shane MacGowan And The Popes era of the ex-Pogues frontman’s career but I couldn’t tell you about any of their material. And I certainly don’t recall the Johnny Depp connection! Listening to “This Woman’s Got Me Drinking” though, it’s as if Shane was attempting his version of Motörhead’s “Ace Of Spades”. It’s all snarled vocals aside a strident, propelling one chord riff but doesn’t quite pull it off for me. Would it have been a coup to get Johnny Depp in the studio at this time? Well, he’d been in films like Cry–Baby, Edward Scissorhands and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape by this point in his career so he was certainly a name but surely wasn’t as notorious and divisive a figure as he is today. I must admit to not really thinking of him as a musician but he’s contributed to works by the likes of Oasis, Iggy Pop, Aerosmith and Jeff Beck as well as Shane MacGowan.

It’s another week at the top for Whigfield, Now would you categorise “Saturday Night” as a novelty record? I think I could almost be persuaded. It’s the dance that went with it that’s tipping me over. Like “Macarena” by Los Del Río or “Gangnam Style” by PSY. Or maybe I’m being too harsh. After all, Whigfield did have more hits than just this one hit – five in all including a further couple of Top 10s so they were more of a pop act than just a song. Their final hit was an almost unforgivable cover of Wham!’s “Last Christmas” though so I think any credit they may have had is completely wiped out.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	2 Unlimited	No One	Never
2	The Cranberries	Zombie	No
3	Pat Banton with Ali and Robin Campbell	Baby Come Back	Negative
4	Reel 2 Real featuring The Mad Stuntman	Can You Feel It?	As if
5	The Kinks	You Really Got Me	Not released as a single in 1994 but I must have it on something
6	Snap!	Welcome To Tomorrow (Are You Ready?)	Nah
7	East 17	Steam	No but I had t a promo copy of the album from work. Sadly it had talky bits in between the tracks from Mark Goodier
8	Shane MacGowan And The Popes	This Woman’s Got Me Drinking	I did not
9	Whigfield	Saturday Night	And no

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001m15z/top-of-the-pops-29091994

TOTP 22 SEP 1994

Posted on May 28, 2023 by 80stastic

There’s only three ‘new’ songs in this episode of TOTP so I’m going to have to try hard not to repeat myself in this post. Definitely not repeating himself is Gary Lineker who announced his retirement from playing football the day before this show aired. You never hear much about him these days do you? Ahem. Right, let’s get to it…

…and we start with what looks like a dance aerobics class. It’s actually a performance of “Rhythm Of The Night” by Corona but it involves an awful lot of kicks, knee lifts and lunges. I’m guessing the neon lights backdrop was to create a sense of night time/nightlife though I’m intrigued by the choice of the ‘Jazz Club’ one. Hardly seems in keeping with this Eurodance anthem does it? Louis Balfour would no doubt approve though.

Corona would have five more UK Top 40 hits including two inside the Top 10 but can anybody remember how any of them went? I’m willing to bet they sounded a lot like “Rhythm Of The Night” though.

With ex-EastEnder Sean Maguire having only just departed the charts after his recent hit single “Someone To Love” had turned him into a bona fide pop star, Michelle Gayle wasn’t waiting for a respectful amount of time to have passed before gatecrashing the charts herself faster than you can hum “doof, doof, de doof, doof, doof, doof”. Like Maguire, Michelle had left the soap from her role as Hattie Tavernier the previous Christmas but unlike Maguire, she’d already had a Top 40 hit a year earlier with debut single “Looking Up”. I’m not sure why her follow up “Sweetness” took so long to come out (EastEnders recording commitments maybe?) but it would prove worth the wait when it became her biggest hit peaking at No 4.

You could understand why. A breezy piece of R&B pop with a chorus that screamed ear worm, this was the peak of her music career. That’s not to say that she didn’t continue to have chart hits because she had another five though only one made the Top 10. “Sweetness” is surely her most well known track though. And let’s be fair, for an ex-EastEnder, its quality was maybe more than was expected – this was no “Anyone Can Fall In Love” or “Something Outa Nothing”. And yet Michelle, it seemed to me, never quite managed to shed her soap star past to the extent that people forgot about it and thought of her as a pop star first. Maybe the three years gap between albums didn’t help establish her credentials in the public consciousness? For whatever reason though, I have a soft spot for “Sweetness”, maybe because my wife liked it and that’s good enough for me.

Another ‘new’ song next though it has taken on a life of its own due to its origins. As with “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” before it, “Circle Of Life” was an Elton John composition for The Lion King film project and for me, was actually the better song. Maybe I’m biased as I’ve seen my son perform it as part of his musical theatre group live on stage but I think I’ve always had that opinion. So has Elton supposedly as he rarely plays “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” in concert but “Circle Of Life” has become a staple of his live set. The Oscars committee didn’t agree with me and Elton though and awarded the gong for Best Original Song to “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” in 1994 over “Circle Of Life”. I think the striking opening sung in Zulu helps to set it apart from its predecessor. If we’re talking about repeating ourselves though, surely there’s no more effective way of doing that than life within a circle?

So we’re back to the songs that have been on the show before with “We Are The Pigs” by Suede. However, somebody who hadn’t been on the show before was the band’s new guitarist Richard Oakes. With Bernard Butler having jumped ship a few weeks before, Oakes was drafted in as his replacement despite being only 17 at the time (he wasn’t 18 until 9 days after this TOTP aired) and that he’d been up against approximately 500 candidates for the job.

Now I think I might have a little personal insight into this story. I knew someone who was seeing Suede’s manager around this time and apparently Richard Oakes’ Mum was wanting quite a lot of input into her son’s career and this was becoming quite wearisome for said manager. To be fair to her, she was looking at the prospect of her 17 year old son plunging into the lifestyle of a famous indie rock band and all that entails so she was entitled to have some misgivings but apparently she was very forceful in getting her voice heard. Just to make us all feel ancient, I can reveal that Richard Oakes is now 46.

Incidentally, you don’t hear the word ‘swine’ used as an insult anymore do you? It was commonplace when my Dad was younger then I am now back in the 60s and 70s. Look at this for example:

It’s the last of the ‘new’ songs now and it’s by…Naomi Campbell?! The supermodel Naomi Campbell? I don’t remember this! When did this happen?! Well, September 1994 obviously but seriously, who remembers “Love And Tears”? You’re forgiven if you don’t as it only reached No 40 in the UK singles chart and the album it was taken from – “Baby Woman” – completely bombed over here. However, it was a huge success in Japan selling over one million copies there. The album was mocked and derided by our music press with its only legacy being the inspiration for the Naomi Awards, a parody of The Brit Awards; a musical equivalent of the Rotten Tomatoes employed by the film industry I guess. Run by music TV channel Music Choice, it named its award ceremony after Campbell whose contribution to the world of music were judged to be the gold standard for wretchedness. Seems a bit harsh. How bad was “Love And Tears” then?

*Watches TOTP performance*

Hmm. Well, my judgement would be that it’s as if AI had been around then and was asked to construct a soul/pop song and also to create one of the world’s most beautiful women to front it. There’s a bit of Kylie’s “Confide In Me” Eastern influences in the mix and is the melody reminiscent of “Proud” by Heather Small? It also kind of reminds me of the sound that would make All Saints famous a few years later but ultimately it’s a bit bland and without emotion. Coincidentally, the winner of the 2006 Worst British Solo Male Artist Naom Award was Lee Ryan of Blue who I’m pretty sure once recorded a track created by some song writing software as opposed to crafted by a person.

Campbell herself would cut a controversial figure in subsequent years with drug addiction problems, four convictions for assault and alleged contacts with deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

It’s all repeated songs from here on in starting with “Hey Now (Girls Just Want To Have Fun)” by Cyndi Lauper.

Obviously a reworking of her debut hit from 1984, that original recording was actually inspired by another song. Here’s @TOTPFacts with the details:

Initially, Lauper struggled to find the right style in which to record the song. Then, after she and her team talked about "Come On Eileen" by Dexys Midnight Runners, she suggested emulating that. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) May 19, 2023

Bassist Eric Bazilian: "I turned down the tempo knob on the drum machine, programmed in the same kick drum pattern as 'Come On Eileen', clicked on my guitar, and played that guitar riff. She started singing, and that was it." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) May 19, 2023

Interesting. Not as interesting as this though. The sound that “Come On Eileen” was based around (and indeed the whole style of the “Too-Rye-Aye” era of Dexys) was pinched from the group that Kevin Rowland’s former band mate Kevin ‘Al’ Archer founded called Blue Ox Babes and this track “What Does Anybody Ever Think About” in particular:

It’s that Niagara Falls performance next by Bon Jovi. This was the definitive take on head producer Ric Blaxill’s vision for the live by satellite slot of taking artists out of empty concert halls and have them perform against landmark backdrops. As dramatic panoramas go, the crashing waters of Niagara Falls was hard to top. The darkness of the night time setting only added to the event. Big tick for Ric. “Always” was the single promoting the band’s first Best Of album “Cross Road” which would prove to be the biggest selling album of the year in the UK.

It’s not just a repeat but a three-peat for Lisa Loeb And Nine Stories and their hit “Stay (I Missed You)”. After being in a satellite segue the first time and then the official promo video second time around, Lisa has finally made it into the studio in person to complete a TOTP hat-trick. She always seemed to be in the same attire when on screen, that being black top, skirt and woolly tights. It put me in mind of Tanita Tikaram who wore similar outfits when making TV appearances early in her career. Maybe it was a thing with female singers with alliteration in their names – you might even say it was a “Good Tradition”. Ahem.

Whigfield remains at No 1 with “Saturday Night”. There was, of course, no chance of Wet Wet Wet mounting a fight back to reclaim the top spot as they had deleted “Love Is All Around” meaning no more copies were being pressed so there was no product to meet demand (even if it still existed). Unlike some dance tunes of the era, the person we saw performing the song did actually sing on the recording although Sannie Carlson admitted to not being that much of a singer and that they had to do over 20 takes at getting her vocals right and in the end had to splice the best bits together. Now that really is repeating yourself.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Corona	Rhythm Of The Night	No
2	Michelle Gayle	Sweetness	I did not
3	Elton John	Circle Of Life	Nah
4	Suede	We Are The Pigs	Negative
5	Naomi Campbell	Love And Tears	Never
6	Cyndi Lauper	Hey Now (Girls Just Want To Have Fun)	Nope
7	Bon Jovi	Always	Didn’t happen
8	Lisa Loeb And Nine Stories	Stay (I Missed You)	It’s a no from me
9	Whigfield	Saturday Night	And no

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001m15w/top-of-the-pops-22091994

TOTP 15 SEP 1994

Posted on May 25, 2023 by 80stastic

After a ‘golden mic’ guest presenter spot from East 17’s Tony and Brian last week, we’re back to the roster of Radio 1 DJs and guess who we’ve got again this week? Yes, it’s Simon ‘Smug’ Mayo! I know I bang on about him on a regular basis but he really is/was insufferable! I think it’s the way he seems to think that the audience had tuned in to see him and what he had to say rather than the artists and the music on the show that really irks me. You weren’t the main attraction Mayo, you really weren’t. I know I’ve accused fellow presenter Mark Goodier of being a bit dull in the past but at least he realised why he was there and got on with the job in an unassuming way. Somehow, Mayo’s ego wouldn’t allow him to follow suit. Right well, let’s see how many times he can piss me off in this particular show. Rant mode engaged…

Mayo kicks off his demonstration of his witty repartee with this pathetically weak intro:

“Franklin D. Roosevelt…John F. Kennedy…and Sophie B. Hawkins…”

That’s it. No welcome. No promotion of the show. Just an incredibly tenuous exercise in name association. Assuming that he came up with his lines himself, did he really think that was good enough? It’s not a start that bodes well.

As for Sophie herself, it’s quite a memorable performance of her hit “Right Bedside You” with her strapped to a bongo drum throughout. I can’t work out what the parked bicycle on stage was all about though other than it was…well…right beside Sophie. Going back to her name though, I wonder why she used the affectation of a middle initial? Was there another Sophie Hawkins whom she wanted to avoid being confused with? I’ve looked online and the only other Sophie Hawkins I can find is someone who designs jumpsuits for a living. Damn! I wish I wore a jumpsuit? Nah, it doesn’t quite work does it?

More buffoonery from Mayo next but this time he tries to illicit some humour from the song title rather than the artist’s name. The former is “Rollercoaster” and the latter is The Grid so Mayo sees it as a perfect opportunity for some physical comedy by asking the TV audience to put their arms in the air as if they are on an actual rollercoaster. With his own arms aloft, he gestures to some off camera minion to put a microphone to his mouth so he can continue to speak as he says “Here we goooo…”. It’s about as funny as whiplash.

As for The Grid, their huge surprise hit “Swamp Thing” had only just dropped out of the charts after a marathon run but they were back in immediately with this follow up. I’m sure people who know about these things would say that it was a ‘banger’ or something but all I know is that it didn’t have that distinctive banjo hook that its predecessor had and therefore didn’t cut through to a mainstream audience in the same way. “Rollercoaster” peaked at No 19 whilst “Swamp Thing” went to No 3.

After trying some physical comedy, Simon Mayo attempts a play on words in his next intro. “Lend your ears to Lisa Loeb” he delights in telling us. Careful your sides don’t split everyone!

After being part of the satellite segue the last time she was on, this time we get the official video for “Stay (I Missed You)”. Directed by her friend Ethan Hawke who was also the reason that the song ended up in the film Reality Bites after he made it available to director Ben Stiller, it’s simple to the point of boring but yet somehow effective. Lisa just singing direct to camera as she wanders around a sparse New York apartment in an almost confessional way with just a cat for company (that belonged to Hawke by the way) shouldn’t really work but kind of does. It was even chosen by Spin magazine as their video of the year.

Ever wondered what was the reason behind the naming of her band? The single is officially credited to Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories after all. Well, apparently Nine Stories was taken from the collection of short stories by J.D.Salinger one of which was called The Laughing Man. Hmm. No doubt Simon Mayo would have taken that as a nickname. Psst. Simon. We’re laughing at you not with you.

Wicked! Wicked! Junglist Massive! Oh God. The era of ‘jungle’ is upon us. As a pop kid, I was never going to get on board with this and listening to it now, I feel the same as when I first heard it – what a racket! It fell upon M–Beat featuring General Levy to bring jungle to the masses via their twice released track “Incredible” (it was originally out earlier in the year when it made No 39 before this rerelease took it into the Top 10). Now I always thought that the General was shouting “Jungle Ist Massive” rather than “Junglist massive” though neither really make much sense but apparently ‘Junglist’ originally referred to a person living in an area of West Kingston, Jamaica called Jungle but which was later hijacked to mean a dedicated enthusiast of jungle music with the ‘Massive’ part being the community.

Another element to this that I found confusing was the difference between jungle and drum ‘n’ bass. I’m still not sure what it is or if it even exists. At some point as the movement gathered pace, they seemed to become interchangeable. Despite my perplexity and reticence, I was convinced by my fellow Our Price colleagues to explore the jungle by going to an appearance at the legendary Hacienda club by drum ‘n’ bass heavyweight LTJ Bukem. And you know what? I had a good night. I could hear and feel how the music made sense in that setting. Did I want to listen to drum ‘n’ bass on my stereo at home? No chance.

Apparently, the success of “Incredible” went to General Levy’s head and he made a statement in an interview in The Face magazine that he was “runnin’ jungle” which led to a backlash from the rest of the scene and a campaign against the song with some pirate radio stations refusing to play it. Eight years later it would feature in the film Ali G Indahouse which gave the world Ali G and Shaggy’s track “Me Julie”. Hmm.

What’s that? Simon Mayo’s intro? Oh it was some bollocks about Roy Wood’s beard being a jungle. Tosser.

Having already tried physical comedy and word play, Mayo now attempts what Ben Elton used to call “a bit of politics” when introducing REM. With their new single being called “What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?”, Mayo makes reference to the then Chancellor of the Exchequer Kenneth Clarke saying the real question should be “what’s the interest rate going to be Kenneth?”. Hysterical I’m sure you’ll agree.

The lead track from hotly anticipated new album “Monster”, “What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?” didn’t disappoint. Built around a huge, reverberating guitar sound, it was, to quote Madness, a “heavy, heavy monster sound”. I recall that we sold out of the CD single on the day of release in the Our Price I was working in though we had plenty of the cassette version left. This seemed to me more evidence (if any were needed) that they were now a long way from their early beginnings as indie darlings and had transitioned into rock behemoths, selling CDs Dire Straits style as quickly as they could be pressed. The album was another huge unit shifter selling 9 million copies worldwide but that was only around half of what its predecessor “Automatic For The People” sold.

Ever wondered what the song title was all about? Well, it’s not the most pleasant story. Here’s @TOTPFacts:

The title of "What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?" refers to an incident in New York City on 4 October 1986, when two people attacked news anchor Dan Rather, while repeating the phrase "Kenneth, what is the frequency?" #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) May 12, 2023

The incident remained a mystery until 1997, when the main assailant was confirmed to be William Tager, a man convicted of killing an NBC stagehand outside The Today Show studio in 1994. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) May 12, 2023

Tager believed that television networks were beaming signals into his brain – hence his desire to find out what frequency they were using, so he could block the signals. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) May 12, 2023

At least Mayo didn’t try to make a joke out of that.

An exclusive performance from Sinéad O’Connor next to plug her latest album “Universal Mother”. After 1992’s covers album “Am I Not Your Girl?” received a lukewarm reception from critics and a controversy courting promotional appearance on Saturday Night Live in which she tore up a photo of the Pope, I’m guessing her record company needed a solid outing for her next collection of songs. However, what they got was an album that once again divided opinion. Featuring songs that dealt with family trauma, it wasn’t an easy listen. Here’s Sinéad herself commenting on it:

“That album was the first attempt to try to expose what was really underneath a lot of the anger of the other records. George Michael told me he loved that record, but could only listen to it once because it was so painful. He had to hide it.”
Doyle, Tom (October 2005). “The Mojo interview”. Mojo. No. 143. p. 43.

The track performed here – “Fire On Babylon” was released as the second single from the album but didn’t chart in the UK though lead single “Thank You For Hearing Me” made No 13. Sinéad unleashes her usual transcendental vocal on top of a mesmerising backbeat but it’s a bit too intense for my ears. By the way, Simon Mayo makes no attempt at any humour whilst introducing Sinéad – probably scared of her.

Something from the album chart now. Elvis Presley had been dead for 17 years by this point (as Mayo delights in telling us in his intro) but that didn’t stop his vast back catalogue from being raided and repackaged. “Elvis -The Essential Collection” was a 28 track compilation album released by RCA that featured just about everything the casual fan would want to hear in one handy album. Not that there hadn’t been such Best Of packages before. I’m pretty sure there was a double album released in 1987 that had been a big seller and according to his discography on Wikipedia, there exists 115 posthumous compilations.

The track chosen by TOTP for an outing is “Return To Sender” which was the UK’s Christmas No 1 of 1962. It featured in the film Girls! Girls! Girls! which was one of those mostly dreadful Elvis musical comedies that he did (a lot). The plot (such as it is) according to Wikipedia is that Elvis plays a Hawaiian based fisherman who dreams of owning the boat he built with his father. Oh, and he’s caught up in a love triangle and has to choose between two women (obviously). I just wish we could have returned Simon Mayo to sender.

My wish is granted! Well, in a staged hijacking kind of way but I’ll take it. Just as Mayo begins his intro for Mariah Carey and Luther Vandross, last week’s presenters Tony and Brian from East 17 gatecrash proceedings and bundle the Radio 1 DJ off screen so that they can do it instead. Nice one lads! Whatever Mayo would have said, it wouldn’t have been as amusing as hearing Brian pronounce Luther’s surname as ‘Van – de – Ross’. Mind you, that’s better than a late night North East local radio DJ doing a love songs show that my mate Robin once heard introduce in a seductive manner as “Luther…V…D”. Erm…

Mariah and Luther are in the studio to perform their cover of the Lionel Richie / Diana Ross (sorry – Miss Diana Ross) sing “Endless Love”. There’s a curious bit right at the start where the producers seem to cock up who the camera should be on. As Mariah draws breath between her first and second lines, the camera suddenly reverts to Luther for a nano second for no reason. Maybe Tony and Brian hijacker’s the TV gantry as well.

After 15 long (some may say torturous) weeks, we finally have a new No 1. Whigfield is her name or rather it wasn’t. Her actual name is Sannie Carlson and the name of the act was Whigfield (see Blondie and Toyah also). To add to the confusion, the act originated from Italy via producer Larry Pignagnoli but Sannie herself was / is Danish. Anyway, “Saturday Night” was another of those Summer time hits imported from Europe that always charted just as we entered Autumn as the holiday making herd returned home and wanted a copy of that record they kept dancing to in the clubs of the continent. Ah yes, the dance. “Saturday Night” came with its own dance just as “Superman” and “Agadoo” by Black Lace had back in the mid 80s and like “Macarena” by Los Del Rio would have a few years later. I can’t recall exactly how it went but I think there was some laying of hands on shoulders and hips and jumping forward with your feet together. Apparently, Sannie never did the dance herself and wasn’t keen on promoting it. Nobody is sure who came up with it but the best guess is a gym instructor used the song to soundtrack a fitness class and the moves were taken from there and repeated in the clubs. Or something. Whigfield will be at No 1 for 4 weeks in total. Oh dear.

There’s a change of format at the death as the play out song over a montage of clips from the show we’d just watched is ditched. Let’s be fair, it was a crap idea that never worked. In its place is a plug for the brand new retro show TOTP2. A retread of the show’s archives narrated initially by Johnnie Walker, the programme would be trailed at the end of the regular show by showing a clip of a song that would be featured that week. I’m not going to start reviewing those as part of the blog as it kind of disrupts the timeline and makes an outlier of the track chosen. In any case, if it’s something from 1983 onwards, I’ll have reviewed it anyway.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Sophie B. Hawkins	Right Beside You	Nope
2	The Grid	Rollercoaster	I did not
3	Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories	Stay (I Missed You)	No
4	M-Beat featuring General Levy	Incredible	Never happening
5	REM	What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?	Liked it, didn’t buy it
6	Sinéad O’Connor	Fire On Babylon	Nah
7	Elvis Presley	Return To Sender	My Mum is a huge fan but no
8	Mariah Carey and Luther Vandross	Endless Love	Negative
9	Whigfield	Saturday Night	And no

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001lst6/top-of-the-pops-15091994

TOTP 08 SEP 1994

Posted on May 22, 2023 by 80stastic

Well, this is a curious thing. Tonight’s ‘golden mic’ presenters are from a band that couldn’t be more 90s but a lot of the acts they introduce are from or have associations with the 80s. Yes, following Take That’s Mark and Robbie earlier in the year, East 17 are in the hot seat tonight and as with their arch rivals, the two members of the group chosen for the gig are probably the two most popular. I’m talking about Brian Harvey and Tony Mortimer but then can you imagine the other two geezers in the band doing it?!

Opening the show tonight are Blondie who you could argue went back to the 70s but they did have three consecutive No 1 singles in 1980 so they certainly count as a name from the 80s. Now there’s a few questions to be answered here. For a start, what were they doing in the charts in 1994? I thought Blondie’s 90s resurrection was much later in the decade.

*checks their discography*

Yeah, I was right. “Maria” wasn’t No 1 until 1999. So what gives here then? Well, it was to do with yet another compilation album. Despite there being two Blondie Best Ofs and a remix album in existence already by 1994 with “The Complete Picture” being as recently as 1991, Chrysalis/EMI decided what the world needed was another remix collection. “Beautiful: The Remix Album” was the what we got and it was trailed by a number of remixed, rereleased tracks that all made the UK Top 20 but as I say, I don’t remember any of this. The first one was “Atomic (Remix)” which made it to No 19.

OK, so the second question is “where we’re the rest of the band?” because there’s only Debbie Harry up there on stage all on her lonesome. Well, they were nowhere to be seen because they’d split in 1982 and Debbie had embarked on a subsequent solo career. So it seems that the band weren’t reforming then it was just a marketing stunt to promote the album. I wonder whether Debbie was already contractually obliged or if Chrysalis had to pay her a decent wedge for this promotional work? I hope it was the latter as the performance here does nothing but tarnish her fine legacy. Why is she dressed like it’s a come as Shirley Bassey themed party? Then there’s her vocal (which is the third question that needs answering) as there’s something screwy going on with it. Is she miming or at least singing along with a vocal backing track because it really doesn’t seem like she’s singing live? The whole thing is a mess and an undignified one at that.

Now it would appear that my theme of 80s acts on a 1994 TOTP show has fallen at the second hurdle with Corona, a most typical example of the Eurodance genre that dominated the charts in the early to mid 90s. I’m nothing if not tenuous though and so I make the connection to the 80s via the name of their debut and surely best remembered hit “Rhythm Of The Night”. Anyone else recall DeBarge? They were like an American version of Five Star (who themselves were a Tupperware take on The Jacksons) being a group made up of family members who had one (and just one) hit in the UK in 1985 with a calypso flavoured dance track called…yep…”Rhythm Of The Night”. A sickeningly upbeat number it made it to No 4 over here and No 3 in the US.

With the 80s theme dealt with, what about Corona then. Well, their song “Rhythm Of The Night” was considered by many to be an absolute banger and almost definitive example of Eurodance and it was certainly popular peaking at No 2 in the UK. As was an almost obligatory turn of events with Eurodance artists, the woman we see here fronting the act (one Olga Souza) wasn’t the person who supplied the vocals on the record. That was Giovanna Bersola who suffered from stage fright and so could only sing within the confines of the recording studio. Talking of confined spaces, when the world went into lockdown in 2020 due to the pandemic, the group received an unexpected profile boost on account of sharing their name with the group of viruses that caused COVID-19. Various memes arose from this association leading Olga to comment on it thus:

“I have seen a lot of memes. We are all alarmed right now. This kind of news surely brings us a lot of anxiety, because we don’t know how to deal with [the virus] yet. It would be a lot better if the world was infected by the song instead of that dangerous virus.”
“Cantora Corona desabafa após ser associada ao Coronavírus” [Singer Corona speaks out after being associated with Coronavirus]. RD1 (in Portuguese). 8 February 2020. Archived from the original on 27 March 2020. Retrieved 14 March 2020.

I’m guessing Olga would rather be remembered as per US American internet news and entertainment company Buzzfeed who ranked “Rhythm Of The Night” as No 2 in their ‘101 Greatest Dance Songs Of The 90s’ list.

Next a band who may have had their most successful period commercially in the 90s but they definitely started in the 80s and that’s a good enough link to my theme for this post for me. By September 1994 though, The Wonderstuff were actually no more having announced a split in June in a fan club newsletter. They’d even performed live for the final time in July so what were they doing in the charts again? Well, their label Polydor had decided to cash in one last time on their recently liquidated asset by releasing a Best Of album – the wonderfully titled “If The Beatles Had Read Hunter…The Singles” – and a single was required to promote it. With a decision that would unintentionally help out this post 29 years later, Polydor chose 1987 track “Unbearable”. Bingo! Another 80s connection! Originally released as their debut single, it failed to chart back then but would make No 16 seven years later and deservedly so as it’s a quality tune with its distinctive, rat-a-tat chorus “Ididn’tlikeyouverymuchwhenImetyou” spewed out by Miles Hunt a real winner.

The Wonderstuff’s story didn’t end in 1994 though as they reformed in 2000 and have played live and released new material since then amidst various line up changes with Hunt the only constant.

N.B. In a curious pop footnote, in their final foray into the Top 40, the Stuffies were joined in the chart this week by fellow Stourbridge grebos Pop Will Eat Itself who were having their own final hit with “Everything’s Cool”. Nice.

You can’t get more 80s than “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” by Cyndi Lauper can you? This wasn’t quite the same song though. Re-recorded with a reggae lilt (as was the overriding style of the time) and retitled “Hey Now (Girls Just Want To Have Fun)”, it was released to promote her Best Of “Twelve Deadly Cyns…And Then Some” (another great title like The Wonderstuff before her). The album was a big hit rather surprisingly peaking at No 2 and going double platinum in the UK. I say surprisingly because I wouldn’t have thought that there would have been that much appetite for Cyndi in 1994 but what did/do I know? The single also prospered peaking at No 4 just two places lower than the 1984 original.

Now whatever you think about Cyndi’s voice (and I don’t mind it), you’d have to admit it’s distinctive (some may even say unique). Sometimes it can grate – her vocals on “We Are The World” by USA For Africa are the musical equivalent of tearing polystyrene – but she does a good enough job here. We should probably give her credit for reworking an old hit as well – it would have been easy to have just rereleased the original. I think she has the look of Columbia from The Rocky Horror Picture Show here and talking of Columbia…

Making just their third appearance on TOTP but already celebrating going straight in at No 1 on the chart with debut album “Definitely Maybe” are Oasis. At the time it was the fastest selling debut in UK chart history and, of course, featured a track called “Columbia”. To commemorate this achievement, they’ve been invited on the show to play a song from the album and they’ve gone for its opener “Rock ‘N’ Roll Star”. And what an opener! More of a statement than a song, it bristles with energy and drive. It was never released as a single (except as a radio single to American stations) but it easily could have been and it is so recognisable that maybe some people would be surprised to learn that it wasn’t.

The fact that the album went straight to No 1 and was selling so quickly was irrefutable confirmation that something special was occurring – a phenomenon no less. It all seemed to happen so effortlessly and at such speed that it couldn’t be anything less. After just three singles of which only one made the Top 10 to suddenly this…it was extraordinary. Or was it? I’m sure Noel Gallagher is quoted somewhere as saying that they wanted to be the biggest band in the country and they just went out and did it and it was easy; words to that effect anyway. Oasis we’re here to stay and for the rest of the decade (and beyond).

OK, so I can’t make any viable links from Oasis to the 80s but we’re back on theme with the next band whose imperial phase was definitely in that decade. Not that Pet Shop Boys didn’t continue to have consistent and significant commercial success into the 90s as they certainly did but they didn’t have any No 1 singles throughout the whole decade whereas they achieved four in the 80s including three within five releases. Fast forward to 1994 and Neil and Chris were just coming to the end of the “Very” project with “Yesterday When I Was Mad” being the fifth and final single released from the album. Now I do like Pet Shop Boys and went to see them live almost 12 months ago exactly but this track is not one of my favourites of theirs. It’s almost as if they forgot to put a tune in there. Also, I’d had enough of the Howard Greenhalgh CGI videos by now (he’d directed every one for all five singles released from “Very”) although this one at least has a bit more of a human participation to it even if it is Neil Tennant in a straight jacket (the Chris Lowe lampshades are really too creepy though). We wouldn’t get any new material from the duo for 18 months though another remix album (“Disco 2”) appeared in the interim.

Kylie Minogue has had many incarnations but she started out in the 80s as a Stock, Aitken and Waterman pop princess so there’s my post theme ticked off. 1994 though was an important year for her as it saw her release her first material since leaving PWL and enter her ‘Dance Kylie’ phase. Signed to trendy label Deconstruction, home of M People and responsible for some huge house anthems by K-Klass and Bassheads, “Confide In Me” was chosen as her first post Hit Factory single. It was a good choice. Combining dance beats with a string section hook and a flavour of Eastern culture, it couldn’t have been further removed from what she had done before. When you consider her last single before this had been a cover of Kool & The Gang’s “Celebration” to promote her Greatest Hits collection, well…the contrast couldn’t be starker. “Confide In Me” oozed class and proposed Kylie as a serious artist not just a hit-making pop puppet. Credit should be given to the producers and song writers of the track Brothers In Rhythm for their vision of what a fusing of dance and pop could sound like. Critics adored it with gushing reviews whilst the record buying public embraced it by sending it to No 2. For Kylie though, it was proof that she would not just survive life after Stock, Aitken and Waterman but thrive within it.

Here’s another act who achieved huge success in the 80s though the hits certainly didn’t stop once 1989 tipped over into 1990. Bon Jovi began the decade with a huge album in “Keep The Faith” which sold 8 million copies worldwide and generated six hit singles. The promotion of the album via said singles and a world tour stretched from the album’s release in 1992 into 1994 and there would be a new album (“These Days”) in 1995. Despite that hectic schedule, record company Polygram decided that there couldn’t be any let up in the release of Bon Jovi product and so a Best Of album called “Crossroads” was put together. The performance of it would prove that Polygram knew a thing or two about sales – it went six times platinum in the UK and has sold 21 million copies globally. It was the best selling album in the UK in 1994.

To help promote “Crossroads”, the track “Always” was released. A huge, dramatic, swooping rock ballad, it would give the band their biggest ever UK hit when it peaked at No 2. Now it’s not like Bon Jovi had never done a slow song before – I’m thinking “Never Say Goodbye”, “I’ll Be There For You” and “Bed Of Roses” but “Always” seemed different somehow. Grander, more epic but probably most of all (to me anyway) more cynical – a definite move to capture a specific market. I may be wrong of course and they did do it well. Just my own opinion as ever.

We’re finally here. Week 15. The very last week of Wet Wet Wet’s reign at the top of the charts with “Love Is All Around”. The story behind its demise is well known. The band themselves insisted that the single be deleted as they were not enjoying the backlash they were getting from people completely fed up with the song (some radio stations reportedly banned it from their playlists). It was a bold move. Given its slow descent down the charts, it could perhaps have outlasted Bryan Adams who spent 16 weeks at the top with “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You”. A rumour that copies would actually be recalled from record stores proved incorrect but it was no longer being pressed. There must have been significant amounts of it still in the shops though as it would spend weeks travelling down the charts rather than dropping stone like straight away. At the time, the only record to be deleted whilst at No 1 previously was “The Fly” by U2 but they had always been upfront beforehand about the limited time it would be available for. With “Love Is All Around” not being on any Wet Wet Wet album at the time of its deletion, some cynics took the view that it was a calculated attempt to force punters into buying the soundtrack album to Four Weddings And A Funeral which the Wets record company Phonogram also had the licence to but I’m not convinced by that theory.

And so the story of the second long running No 1 in a matter of three years comes to an end. Did it help or hinder Wet Wet Wet’s career ultimately? Did people actually like it or not? Can you bear to hear it on the radio again today, some 29 years after the event or is even that too soon? I guess what I’m asking is this…”Is your mind made up by the way that you feel?”

And so to the record that knocked the Wets off their perch. Incorrectly but understandably remembered as a one hit wonder, Whigfield was quite the sales phenomenon herself. The week after this TOTP aired, her single “Saturday Night” would crash into the UK charts at No 1 making her the first unknown artist to do so with their debut single (Gabrielle’s “Dreams” entered the chart at No 2 before going to No 1 in 1993). She followed that up by selling 220,000 copies in one week giving it the highest selling figures for a single in the UK since Band Aid and Wham!’s “Last Christmas” a decade earlier. It would spend four weeks as our No 1 and end the year as the UK’s second biggest selling single of 1994 behind “Love Is All Around”. The buzz around the song was huge and it was totally expected to top the chart eventually. Tiny and Brian even predict that Wet Wet Wet wouldn’t last another week because of Whigfield. They were right. And that will do for this post. Dee dee na na na…

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Blondie	Atomic (Remix)	No
2	Corona	Rhythm Of The Night	I did not
3	The Wonderstuff	Unbearable	Good tune but no
4	Cyndi Lauper	Hey Now (Girls Just Want To Have Fun)	Negative
5	Oasis	Rock ‘N’ Roll Star	I bought the album
6	Pet Shop Boys	Yesterday When I Was Mad	Nah
7	Kylie Minogue	Confide In Me	No but my wife did
8	Bon Jovi	Always	Nope
9	Wet Wet Wet	Love Is All Around	It’s another no
10	Whigfield	Saturday Night	And finally… no

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001lst4/top-of-the-pops-08091994

TOTP 01 SEP 1994

Posted on May 18, 2023 by 80stastic

OK, before we get into the music, there’s a bit of housekeeping to take care of. Firstly, we’ve missed a whole episode which hasn’t happened for quite some time. Nothing to do with Operation Yewtree nor presenters who hadn’t signed the waiver for BBC4 to broadcast the repeats they featured in – no this was a matter of a technical nature. The tapes for the TOTP shown on 25 August 1994 held in the BBC archive were deemed to be not of broadcast quality and so we miss out on what was surely one of the more interesting guest presenters in Malcolm MacLaren. Despite being a bit of an arse I’m sure, I’ve always had a soft spot for Malcolm and could listen to his drivel for hours. At least he led an interesting life. I’ve checked the running order for that show and I don’t think we missed much. Many acts we’d already seen before including Red Dragon, Shampoo and unbelievably Let Loose again! We did however miss Dinosaur Jnr which might have been distracting at least plus the return of Kylie Minogue with her first new material since leaving PWL as she entered her ‘Dance Kylie’ phase. Oh well.

The other bit of housekeeping is regarding tonight’s host who we haven’t seen before. So who was / is Claire Sturgess? Well, she’s a voice over artist and DJ currently working on Absolute Radio where she’s been since 2015. Back in 1994 though, she was a Radio 1 DJ presenting the rock show on Sunday evenings. She would stay at the BBC until 1997 but only hosted TOTP one more time before being replaced by Lisa I’Anson.

Right, on with the tunes and we start with one that perhaps more than any other (with the possible exception of “Common People” by Pulp) has come to be associated (rightly or wrongly) with the Britpop movement. Think of “Parklife” (the song) by Blur and what comes to mind? Phil Daniels? Of course. The “vorsprung durch technik’ line? Yep. The iconic video with Damon in that tracksuit top camping it up whilst an ice cream van drives by. Without doubt. They’re all woven into the fabric of the time but sometimes I think we forget what a strange song “Parklife” really is. A track where all the verses are spoken in a cockney accent, a chorus that you could imagine Dick Van Dyke singing in one of those musicals he starred in and lyrics about brewer’s droop, dirty pigeons and habitual voyeurs. And yet it all hangs together perfectly to the point that we didn’t bat an eyelid when it was released but instead accepted it as another example of Blur’s pursuit to celebrate ‘Englishness’. Except it wasn’t. Here’s Graham Coxon courtesy of @TOTPFacts:

Graham Coxon on "Parklife": "A lot of people thought it was a celebration of Englishness, but it was actually very sarcastic. [It] wasn't about the working class, it was about the park class: dustbin men, pigeons, joggers – things we saw every day on the way to the studio." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) May 5, 2023

In this performance, Daniels is word perfect and Damon, relieved of the stress of doing all the heavy lifting vocals wise, seems to be enjoying his freedom to ham it up on stage more than usual. My personal memory of this song though would come three months later at Christmas. I was asked to co-coordinate the works Christmas do for all the Our Price shops in the area. I found a venue and we got one of the staff at the Piccadilly, Manchester store to do the DJ-ing (if you worked in a record shop there was always someone who was either in a band or a DJ on the staff). The manager I organised the shindig with (Rick) was a bit nervous on the actual night about whether people were having a good time or not and especially about the music being played. Our DJ put on “Girls & Boys” which seemed a safe choice but which only served to agitate Rick into shouting at him “Give ‘em Parklife Will, give ‘em Parklife!”. Such was the influence of Blur and that song in particular in 1994.

P.S. I think Will did indeed give ‘em “Parklife” at some point in the evening.

Oh great! Another soap star turned pop star. This time the actor is from EastEnders reviving bad memories of Nick ‘Wicksy’ Berry and Anita ‘Angie’ Dobson. Sean Maguire’s stay in the soap had been short (January to December 1993) but he had been a big hit with the audience (especially the teenage female section of it). It was almost inevitable then that he’d give the old pop star lark a go and here he was, eight months after leaving EastEnders, back on our screens on the BBC’s premier music show. Unbelievably, despite not being able to shift any meaningful amount of units of either of his two albums, he would rack up eight Top 40 singles over a three year period. The first of those was “Someone To Love” and it’s a decent slice of late summer pop which seems to have pinched a bit from Kool And The Gang’s “Celebration”. Maguire sells it well enough and there’s been less likely pop stars (Stefan Dennis anyone?) but I’m guessing that his record label couldn’t have envisaged another six hits after this one. They were all pretty consistent as well. Look at these chart positions:

14 – 27 – 18 – 22 – 16 – 12 – 14 – 27

They’re not too shabby for a soap actor turned pop star. Maguire played Irish wannabe footballer Aidan Brosnan in EastEnders. Hmm. A footballer called Maguire who went onto have a career as a singer. Man Utd’s Harry Maguire as a pop star anyone?

I referenced this record the other week but it wasn’t really pre-planned – it just sort of played out that way. I’m talking about “Endless Love” by Mariah Carey and Luther Vandross. I mentioned their version as the record that knocked Boyz II Men off the No 1 spot in New Zealand but I’d already referred to the Lionel Richie / Diana Ross 1981 original when stating that I hadn’t heard a song basically regurgitated as a different track as I believed Boyz II Men had done with “End Of The Road” and “I’ll Make Love To You” since Lionel Richie rewrote “Endless Love” as “Truly”. I’d actually forgotten that this duet existed until these TOTP repeats aired but exist it does so I’ll have to discuss it.

It came from a whole album of covers recorded by Luther called, rather blandly, “Songs” which already had a Lionel Richie song on the track listing in “Hello” but Sony president Tommy Mottola and his then wife Mariah decided that they could boost the album’s chances of success by having her appear on it and so the cover of “Endless Love” came to be. It was a sound business strategy – Mariah was perhaps at the very peak of her popularity with her latest album “Music Box” achieving huge global sales and indeed her contribution helped “Songs” to platinum sales and a No 1 chart position in the UK alone. The single also performed well going to No 2 in America and No 3 here. For me though, it’s a very faithful reproduction and rather pointless and anodyne. I suppose there was a gap of 13 years between the release of the original and the cover so maybe it’s possible there were people out there who didn’t know the Richie / Ross version and so came to it as a brand new song? Or perhaps people did know it and were reminded how much they’d liked the original but in those days before streaming and Spotify, they couldn’t just get access to the song and so bought what was available, the Vandross / Carey remake? I don’t know. I’ve given up trying to work out how some of these songs managed to be hits – and I wrote a dissertation about it whilst a student at Poly!

Next we find Terrorvision having a very steady year of consolidating their success and building their fanbase as they are back on TOTP performing their fourth Top 40 hit of the year “Pretend Best Friend”. And when I say steady, I mean incredibly consistent. Look at these chart peaks for those four singles:

29 – 21 – 25 – 25

A fifth single was released before 1994 was out and it made it to No 24. Their first single of the following year peaked at No 22. Like I say, incredibly consistent. As for the song itself, I don’t recall it but it kind of sounds how I expected it to with Tony Wright launching into a high speed rap that is vaguely reminiscent of “Ant Rap” before the almost shouted chorus. There’s also a bit where it all slows down and Tony wields a megaphone which is all rather incongruous. Good song title though.

After the exclusive of a double live by satellite section in the show last week, head producer Ric Blaxill has gone in hard on the idea by repeating the ‘satellite segue’ (as they’ve named it) for this week. We start off in Philadelphia with a curiously dull performance by the aforementioned Boyz II Men of “I’ll Make Love To You”. Now, my knowledge of the geography of Philadelphia is mostly limited to the scene in Rocky where Sylvester Stallone runs up the 72 steps leading to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the iconic training scene. Luckily for me, I think that’s near to where this performance takes place with the mini stage erected in the Benjamin Franklin Parkway right in front of the Washington Monument. The whole set up seems to be adhering to Blaxill’s stated desire to get the live by satellite slots to feature well known landmarks that have nothing to do with the music per se but which are a step up from the performances in empty theatre halls we have seen previously. It’s all a bit odd though. The parkway has people wandering through it minding their own business or joggers doing their own version of the Rocky training regime whilst four guys are singing “I’ll Make Love To You” whilst they pass by. Shouldn’t be allowed really.

The second part of the satellite segue stays in America but transports us to New York and specifically to The Bottom Line club in Greenwich Village where we find Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories. Now, it might not be recognisable as a landmark like the Washington Monument before it but this venue was legendary in its own right. Owners Allan Pepper and Stanley Snadowsky put on a huge amount of musical talent in the 30 years the club was open including the likes of Prince, The Police, Pat Benatar, Daryl Hall & John Oates, Miles Davis, Dolly Parton….and in the fall of 1994 Lisa Loeb. But who was she?

Well, for someone who is a one hit wonder in the UK (she managed a few more hits in the US), Lisa has quite the biography and discography – her Wikipedia entry is sizeable to say the least. She had been recording music and performing live since the late 80s but it was a friendship with neighbour and actor Ethan Hawke that gave Lisa her lucky break. Having met through the NYC theatre community, Hawke gave Loeb’s song “Stay (I Missed You)” to Ben Stiller who was directing the film Reality Bites that Hawke was starring in and he made the decision to use it over the end credits. The rest really is history. The track’s pretty, folk-infused pop melody proved irresistible to the American public who sent it to No 1 making Lisa and her band the first ever artist to top the chart there without being signed to a label.

Lisa looked a bit like Nana Mouskouri’s hipper younger sister but there was more to her than her trademark glasses. As well as being a musician, she also runs a number of businesses including one for fair trade coffee and, making use of that glasses association, the Lisa Loeb Eyewear Collection with each frame being named after one of her song titles. She’s also written children’s books and done some acting though one of her credits is for one of the worst films of all time – Hot Tub Time Machine 2. If you haven’t seen it and stumble across it whilst channel flipping then heed my advice – Don’t stay (you’ll be glad you missed it).

One of last week’s satellite segue acts are in the TOTP studio this week as Youssou N’Dour and Neneh Cherry move up to No 3 with “7 Seconds”. The staging of this one starts out simple yet effective with a single spotlight centred on first Youssou and then Neneh as each takes the vocal lead in turn. However, the production team can’t have been totally won over by the idea as by the time the first chorus comes around, they’re both floodlit and there’s a multi screen video installation behind them showing the official promo film that accompanied the single. Shame. I thought a more paired back, minimalist setting would work best for this particular track but the show disagreed and went for Youssou N’More.

It would take a braver man than me to start a political rant about this government’s despicable deportation to Rwanda scheme in a pop music blog but I am inevitably put in mind of it by the next song which is “Love Can Build A Bridge” by Children For Rwanda which was a charity single to raise money for Save The Children. If this all sounds familiar but not quite how you remember it then it’s quite possible you’re thinking of the version by Cher, Chrissie Hynde and the aforementioned Neneh Cherry that was released for Comic Relief just 6 months on from this and which went to No 1 for a week. Sadly for the Children For Rwanda single, it failed to sell nearly as well and peaked outside the Top 40.

We’ve reached week 14 of 15 (we missed week 13 due to the broadcast quality issue discussed earlier) for Wet Wet Wet’s reign at No 1 with “Love Is All Around” and whilst I’m really struggling to say anything of interest about it after so many appearances on the show, it seems like Ric Blaxill might be finding it difficult to keep us all interested as well. To shake things up a bit, he’s doubled down on the live by satellite feature and has the band beaming in from LA. This definitely falls into the category of performing in front of a world famous landmark with the Hollywood sign prominent in the background. The end is coming though. There’s only one more week and the story behind it’s demise will be discussed in the next post.

The play out song is “We Are The Pigs” by Suede. 1994 was a year of massive upheaval for the band most notably due to the departure of guitarist Bernard Butler who formally left their ranks on 8th July following tensions whilst recording sophomore album “Dog Man Star”. As if that wasn’t enough, difficult second album syndrome raised its ugly head. Not that the band didn’t make the album they wanted to; they did, but the direction they took confused critics and some of the fans after their electrifying eponymous debut. Many saw its grandiose soundscapes as pretentious and although it sold well enough, it was seen as a bit of a step backwards commercially in comparison to its predecessor. History has been kind to the album though and revisionism has it hailed as an under appreciated and misunderstood at the time classic. When the band played five nights at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in 2003 with each night dedicated to one of their studio albums, it was the tickets for the Dog Man Star show that sold the quickest.

As for its lead single, “We Are The Pigs” is certainly dark in nature and tone but it’s still a huge tune. There’s even a bit in it which sounds like that reverb sound in “Peter Gunn” by Diane Eddy and subsequently The Art Of Noise. Do you think that’s totally innocent or knowingly inserted?

The almost post apocalyptic video with burning crosses, cars afire and masked gangs roaming the streets puts me in mind of the climax of The Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes, the ending of which had to be reshot as audience reaction at test screenings deemed it to violent and pessimistic. Similarly, the promo for Suede’s single got little airplay due to it being banned for being too violent. This may have contributed to the track only making it to No 18 in the UK Top 40.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Blur	Parklife	Not the single but I had the album obviously
2	Sean Maguire	Someone To Love	No
3	Mariah Carey and Luther Vandross	Endless Love	Never happening
4	Terrorvision	Pretend Best Friend	Nope
5	Boyz II Men	I’ll Make Love To You	Nah
6	Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories	Stay (I Missed You)	Nice song but no
7	Youssou N’Dour and Neneh Cherry	7 Seconds	I did not
8	Children For Rwanda	Love Can Build A Bridge	Negative
9	Wet Wet Wet	Love Is All Around	Another no
10	Suede	We Are The Pigs	Could have done but no

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree

TOTP 18 AUG 1994

Posted on May 16, 2023 by 80stastic

We’re still in the long, hot Summer of 1994 and despite the singles chart feeling like it’s been stagnating for a while with a number of records hanging around for weeks on end, this particular TOTP only features three songs that have been on previously. It also has not one but two live by satellite performances. Well, there’s only so many times you can have Let Loose in the studio before you have to shake things up a bit! Having said all of that, we start with a tune that has definitely been on the show a couple of times before. China Black were at their chart peak this week with the rerelease of “Searching” finding its natural high of No 4.

Seeing as this was their biggest ever hit, I guess you could say that they were at the apex of their career arc. Or were they? Maybe a bigger achievement was being nominated for a Brit Award for Best British Single in 1995? Or being invited by Princess Diana to perform at one of her Aids Trust concerts at Wembley Stadium? It surely wasn’t losing to Hue and Cry in their heat of the ITV entertainment show Hit Me Baby One More Time in 2005? You remember that show which brought back former pop stars from the 70s, 80s and 90s to compete in essentially a talent contest? Sure you do. China Black performed “Searching” (obviously) and their cover version (each act had to do a cover version in addition to their own track) was “I Believe In A Thing Called Love” by The Darkness. They were up against the aforementioned Kane brothers, Sinitta, The Real Thing and Hazel O’Connor with Hue and Cry progressing to the final which was won by Shakin’ Stevens. I’m not selling it to you am I?

And this was the point when I relented and gave in to the inevitable. When it came to Oasis, I was officially ‘avin’ it. I’d dillied, dallied and wavered over their first two singles, unsure about whether to get on board or not but the first time I heard “Live Forever”, I knew any further resistance was futile. History would show that not everything they did was of the same standard and that their best by date had probably expired long before they did but in 1994 and in every year since, “Live Forever” was a tune. There was just something joyous and joyful about its melody whilst the lyrics, though minimal and basically just repeated throughout, sounded so positive. Maybe (perhaps even definitely) it was just what I needed to hear as I was having a difficult time at work, still struggling to adapt to the culture and clientele of the Our Price store in Piccadilly, Manchester. On reflection, it was the sound of a band showing what they were really capable of, what their one time nemesis and later pal Robbie Williams would sing as letting their wings unfold. Famously written by Noel as a f**k that retort to Nirvana’s song “I Hate Myself And Want To Die”, the line ‘we see things they’ll never see’ has almost become a part of the national lexicon though it was actually intended as a very personal lyric about laughing at an in joke with a friend.

I only recently discovered that Noel Gallagher based the song’s structure around the chord progression in “Shine A Light” by The Rolling Stones whilst listening to their “Exile On Main Street” album and yeah, I guess I can hear the similarities though the two tunes are hardly identical.

As for the performance here, some things have changed and some things have remained the same since the last time they were on the show. The presenter scheduling gods have allowed for them to be introduced by Bruno Brookes again (hopefully they got on better than the last time when he insisted on calling them an indie band) but this time drummer Tony McCarroll has been shifted to the much more traditional position at the back of the stage with Liam Gallagher replacing him up front and centre. Talking of McCarroll, the symbolic removing of him from the front of the stage wasn’t the only clue to his future fate associated with “Live Forever”. The UK promo video includes a scene where the rest of the band are burying him alive. Within eight months of this TOTP appearance he would be sacked from the band and replaced by Alan White. He was still in the band though when next single “Cigarettes And Alcohol” was released in the October. The fourth single from the “Definitely Maybe” album, it would be their biggest hit to date when it made No 7 eclipsing “Live Forever” which peaked at No 10. And it was at that point that there was no looking back for the band nor the rest of us. Strap in, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Next a song that I don’t remember at all but which is very familiar on listening to it now. How is that possible? Well, the basis of this No 9 hit dance track “Eighteen Strings” is clearly the riff from “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana (a second song on the show inspired by the Seattle rockers following Oasis directly before them). However, it’s not an actual sample but more a very close approximation presumably because the artist – Tinman – didn’t have copyright clearance. This was the second dance track in a matter of weeks to be based on the grunge classic following Abigail’s take on it. I think I prefer the Tinman interpretation though I’m not a fan of either really. It turns out that the guy behind the project – one Paul Dakeyne – is from Hull where I have been living these last 20 years. As with his hit single from nearly 30 ago though, I’m not familiar with him.

Eternal are next who are still churning out the hits one year into their pop career. “So Good” was their fourth chart single on the spin but unlike its three predecessors, it failed to make the Top 10 peaking at No 13. There’s a reason for that I believe which is that, despite its title, it’s actually not that good. A distinctly average R&B pop song, it’s got an annoying sound effect squeak like air being pushed out of a small space that runs throughout it which tips it into the bracket of annoying for me. I’ve got a pair of shoes that make a similar noise every time I wear them. Curiously, Boyzone also released a single called “So Good” at a similar stage of their career and it was also a low point. Fortunately for both camps, both songs are largely forgotten with the perspective of nearly 30 years distance.

Louise Nurding would famously leave the group in 1995 bringing back memories of when Siobhan Fahey left Bananarama in 1988. In previous posts on my 80s TOTP blog, I’ve posited a theory that you could see signs of a split between Siobhan and Sarah/Keren in terms of the outfits she wore and her willingness to deviate from the group’s dance routines (loose as they were). However, I can’t see any such clues from Louise. They’re all on message with identical outfits and the dance steps are synchronised to the hilt. I’ll keep a watching brief on future performances though.

Time for that live by satellite segue now starting in the University of New Orleans where we find Soundgarden performing the only song of theirs that I could have named before, “Black Hole Sun”. Taken from their multi platinum album “Superunknown”, this would prove to be the band’s biggest ever UK hit when it peaked at No 13. I’m struck watching this in concert performance by the crowd surfing going on in the audience. I’ve never quite understood the appeal of this practice – it looks likely to cause personal injury and the thought of being upside down in a big crowd seems as scary as hell. Reading up on it though, it seems it can be used as the fastest way to transport gig goers in need of medical attention through the throng. My only experience of the phenomenon came in 1996 when I went to one of the Oasis concerts at Maine Road. Not that there were people crowd surfing but passing plastic glasses backwards over people’s heads was the best way of getting the crowd’s dinks to them from the bar.

Clearly wanting to make the most of having two satellite link up performances on the same show, Bruno Brookes does a voiceover segue in the style of an astronaut communicating with Mission Control. I’m not sure it works that well to be honest. Anyway, it leads us to New York where we join Youssou N’Dour and Neneh Cherry for a performance of their single “7 Seconds”. The single is finally into the Top 10 after being on the charts for 9 weeks on its way to a high of No 3. In total, it would spend a whopping 27 weeks inside the Top 75.

Youssou and Neneh perform against a set backdrop which has been made up to look like a New York street and it is giving me a mix of vibes including Singin’ In The Rain, the Skid Row neighbourhood from Little Shop of Horrors and Hoagy’s Alley from the Top Cat cartoon. As the caption says, the song is sung in three different languages – English, French and Wolof which is a language of Senegal, Mauritania and the Gambia though, to maintain the Hanna-Barbera cartoon link, sounds like how Penelope Pitstop used to pronounce “wolf”.

Just to hammer home the space satellite link up theme, Bruno Brookes appears in a spaceman outfit before introducing the next artist. Overkill much? Anyway, I (along with many others I would expect) had Sophie B. Hawkins down at the time as a one hit wonder. A damned catchy pop single in “Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover” in 1992 and then nothing Top 40 wise. Two years on and she was one of the last people I expected to see back in our charts but here she was with “Right Beside You”, the lead single from her second album “Whaler”. Neither that album nor her previous one “Tongues And Tails” pulled up any trees sales wise over here (both peaked at No 46) but her singles were a bit more durable. DIWIWYL looks like a mid table football team’s form guide when written like that but it stayed on our charts for 9 weeks peaking at No 14 whilst RBY did even better staying for 12 weeks and peaking at No 13.

Many a critic drew parallels with Madonna on hearing “Right Beside You” and whilst I can see similarities with the beach set black and white promo and Madge’s “Cherish” video, it sounds more like Belinda Carlisle to me – maybe a combination of “Mad About You” and “Circle In The Sand”? Sophie would only have two more minor hit singles though she is still a live draw and released her most recent album this year.

What are the chances? One R&B harmony group is in the charts all Summer and just as they appear to be running out of steam, the group that many compared them to in the first place return with a song that not only sounds similar to their chart peers but also the own massive No 1 from two years prior. I refer to Boyz II Men whose “End Of The Road” single spent 13 weeks at the top of the US charts in 1992 (and was also a No 1 here) and All 4 One whose “I Swear” also topped the US Billboard Hot 100 for 11 weeks (and spent 7 weeks at No 2 in the UK). With that single just starting to drop down our charts, Boyz II Men decide to reintroduce themselves with “I’ll Make Love To You”. I’d not heard an artist just decide to make the same record all over again quite so obviously since Lionel Richie rewrote “Endless Love” as “Truly”. Not only did it sound the same as “End Of The Road” but it replicated its chart success by going to No 1 in America for 14 weeks* (it topped out at No 5 over here).

*They would break their own record when their collaboration with Mariah Carey “One Sweet Day” was atop the US charts for 16 weeks! Talking of Mariah, it was another of her collaborations (this time with Luther Vandross) that knocked “I’ll Make Love To You” off the No 1 position in the New Zealand charts with their cover of…yep…the aforementioned “Endless Love”. Oh what a tangled web we weave.

This concept of a new artist making a genre of music that was popularised by another act shortly before them before the original protagonist returned to the charts puts me in mind if that time that sophisti-pop was represented in the Top 40 by Curiosity Killed The Cat with “Down To Earth” before The Blow Monkeys – who had hit 12 months before with “Digging Your Scene” – returned to the charts alongside Curiosity with “It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way”. And there endeth the lesson on recurring musical genres.

And talking of records being at the top of the charts for months, here’s our very own version Wet Wet Wet who have now been at No 1 for 12 weeks. I mean, what else can I say about “Love Is All Around”? It’s too early in its run to talk about how its demise came about so where does that leave me? How about what the band themselves made of the record’s success? Here’s Marti Pellow from an interview in The Guardian in 2021:

“I was in a cinema and the trailer came up for Four Weddings and a Funeral, and they played a bit of the song and a guy behind me went: ‘Ah, not that song again,’ and I turned round to him and said: ‘Imagine how I feel!’”

Simon Hattenstone: The G2 Interview Music, The Guardian, 29 March 2021

After not being one for a couple of weeks, we have the return of the play out song in the form of “Warriors” by Aswad. The follow up to Top 5 hit “Shine”, it would be their penultimate Top 40 entry when it peaked at No 33. Sadly, founding member Drummie Zeb died aged 62 in September 2022. Also in the obituaries is Stanley Appel who died this week and who was the producer responsible for the ‘Year Zero’ revamp of TOTP in 1991. RIP.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	China Black	Searching	No
2	Oasis	Live Forever	Not the single but I bought Definitely Maybe – didn’t we all?
3	Tinman	Eighteen Strings	Nah
4	Eternal	So Good	Nope
5	Soundgarden	Black Hole Sun	Negative
6	Youssou N’Dour and Neneh Cherry	7 Seconds	I did not
7	Sophie B. Hawkins	Right Beside You	Not for me
8	Boyz II Men	I’ll Make Love To You	Ooh no!
9	Wet Wet Wet	Love Is All Around	Another no
10	Aswad	Warriors	And no

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001ln6k/top-of-the-pops-18081994

TOTP 10 AUG 1994

Posted on May 12, 2023 by 80stastic

This TOTP aired on a Wednesday rather than the normal Thursday due to the BBC’s coverage of the European Athletics Championships taking place in Helsinki. A couple of years later, the show was permanently shifted from a Thursday to a Friday night initially in a 7pm time slot before some idiot made the decision to move it to a 7.30 start time thereby putting it up against Coronation Street. What on earth was the thinking behind that decision? It’s as if someone was deliberately trying to kill the show off. Hmm. This was also a ‘live’ episode so be on alert because, as Commander Shore said on Stingray, “Anything can happen in the next half hour…”

Simon ‘Smug’ Mayo is tonight’s host and the first act he introduces are Red Dragon featuring Brian and Tony Gold with their hit single “Compliments On Your Kiss”. I went into the back story of this one the last time it was on the show so I don’t propose to go onto that all over again. Instead, I’d quite like to talk about this performance and more specifically the staging of it.

I can understand the naff, cardboard cut out palm trees as it’s a lilting, summery tune that conjures up images of sunny beaches and obviously the neon lips do tie in with the song title but is that meant to be a smouldering volcano in the background? What’s that all about? Oh, is it meant to be a dragon as in Red Dragon? It’s hard to see because of the dry ice pouring out of it but I really can’t detect much of a dragon shape in there. They really should have blown the props budget on something like this from Star Trek…

Now, here’s an immediate chance for the TOTP producers to redeem themselves props wise as The Brand New Heavies perform “Midnight At The Oasis”. So the clue is in the song title guys. What image comes to mind when you think of an oasis (that’s an oasis not Oasis as in the Gallagher brothers whose band were hardly household names at this point anyway)? Palm trees? A natural water source like a spring or well? That’s the classic take on it when people see mirages in the desert no? Easy. So we do have some palm trees or at least some vegetation (whether it’s fake or not) which is an upgrade on the cardboard version that Red Dragon got. There’s no water to be seen though but I guess Health & Safety would have put a stop to any of that with all those electrics about. However, what is not understandable is the pyramid towering large at the stage at the back. Why is that there? The pyramids have nothing to do with an oasis do they? That’s just really lazy.

As for the song, I would suggest that this is the band’s most well known (though not biggest) hit what with it being a cover of a song that had already been a hit in the UK. The original was by Maria Muldaur and peaked at No 21 in the UK in 1974. The Brand New Heavies’ version is a pretty faithful to its predecessor and was perfect daytime radio playlist fodder for that long, hot summer of 1994.

If it’s Simon Mayo in the presenter seat then we are bound to get an awful attempt at comedy from him at some point and it comes in his intro for Future Sound Of London – “which is almost certainly coughing, gasping and wheezing” he quips – what a card! Anyway, I remember there being a certain amount of fuss about these electronic dance pioneers and I definitely remember the rather striking artwork on the cover of their “Lifeforms” album though I couldn’t have told you what it sounded like at all. Listening back to the title track that was released as a single, there’s an awful lot going on in there; some trip-hop beats, some ambient stylings and an otherworldly vocal from Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins. All a bit too overwhelming for my pop ear* though with the whole thing not helped by the visually overstimulating computer graphics video that seemed to be all the rage in this year (didn’t we see a similar type of thing from Pet Shop Boys for their “Liberation” single recently?). “Lifeforms” (the single) peaked at No 14 whilst its album counterpart made it to No 6.

*Sounds like Popeye’s long, lost cousin

Now I did attempt some humour in a recent post about the name of the next act but that doesn’t excuse Simon Mayo from doing the same here with his reference to Head & Shoulders. Away with you! Shampoo (for it is they) are on the show again to promote their single “Trouble” and I’m drawn to the fact that for the second time, their performance hardly involves any movement by the duo at all. They just sort of stand there, slightly crouched leaning into other for the duration. Were they not confident dancers or can’t you actually dance to their track? Judging by the efforts of the studio audience, it might be the latter.

The last time they were on, I talked about how they somehow carved out a little footnote for themselves in pop history despite only having a smattering of hit singles (of which this was the biggest). What I didn’t mention was that they invented ‘Girl Power’ before the Spice Girls took all the credit for it. Well, invented is probably a stretch but their final hit was called “Girl Power” and it charted one week before Sporty, Baby, Scary, Posh and Ginger’s debut “Wannabe”. To be fair though, although Geri Halliwell admitted in a 2016 interview that she pinched the phrase from Shampoo, Jacqui and Carrie themselves probably weren’t the original originators as Martin Fry once sang. Here’s @TOTPFacts with the details:

"Girl Power" was previously the title of a 1991 zine by US riot grrrl band Bikini Kill, which is presumably where Shampoo saw the phrase. Mel C: "It was very much in existence already. It was then Geri who shouted it during an early television interview and it stuck." #TOTP pic.twitter.com/MGeGawG3pU
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) April 21, 2023

“Trouble” was covered by Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine as the B-side to their 1995 single “The Young Offender’s Mum”.

Of the many sub genres of dance music that did the rounds in the 90s, surely one of the nastiest was Eurodance covers of rock and pop songs. We’d already had the likes of East Side Beat desecrating Christopher Cross’s “Ride Like The Wind” and Rage do a similar hatchet job on “Run To You” by Bryan Adams but by 1994 the timeline between the original track and the naff dance treatment was shortening. In the case of DJ Miko, the time elapsed was just one year from 4 Non Blondes taking “What’s Up” to No 2 and them releasing their vile version. What a truly awful record this was. A tacky, happy hardcore backing applied to an unconvincing rock vocal and…well, that was it really. DJ Miko wasn’t really a DJ nor in fact an actual person but an umbrella term for an Italian dance collective fronted by keyboardist Monier Quartararo Gagliardo featuring a number of studio vocalists with the whole thing going managed by Milan based record company Dig It International. The latter had quite an appropriate name as the whole sorry enterprise should have been buried at the conception stage with a clear instruction for the soil never to be disturbed.

Right, what’s Mayo on about now? Woodstock 2? When did that happen? Well, turns out he was right as this follow up festival to its legendary predecessor took place in Saugerties, New York (70 miles from the site of the 1969 original) on the weekend following this TOTP. I suppose he had to get that right as he was plugging Radio 1’s coverage of it. Anyway, billed as 2 More Days of Peace and Music, it was, by all accounts, poorly managed with the size of the crowd (estimates had it at 350,000) meaning security rules and policies surrounding alcohol etc were unenforceable. Tragically, three people died whilst attending the festival. As it was a three day event, the number of artists appearing was colossal including Metallica, Aerosmith, Green Day, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Bob Dylan, Peter Gabriel…I could go on but won’t. Look it all up for yourself on Wikipedia like I had to.

For a festival promoted as being about peace, there were certainly a lot of incidents that didn’t fit the vibe. The lead singer of Jackyl, under the influence of alcohol and drugs, took a chainsaw to a stool and fired a rifle in the air. Meanwhile, the large volume of rainfall created a huge mud bath on the site that resulted in the break out of mud fights between both Green Day and Primus and their audiences. Nine Inch Nails admitted to playing the festival purely for the appearance fee to offset the cost of their current tour – so much for peace and music then. A number of artists that had performed at the original Woodstock reappeared for the 1994 version including The Band, Santana, Crosby, Stills & Nash and the next artist on this TOTP – Joe Cocker.

Now my knowledge of Joe is limited to say the least. I know he was from Sheffield, that he had a very gravelly voice, that he had a No 1 with a cover of The Beatles’ “With A Little Help From My Friends” that was used as the theme tune to The Wonder Years, that he duetted with Jennifer Warnes on that song from An Officer And A Gentleman and…well, that he’s dead I suppose. I certainly don’t know about this song – “The Simple Things” – without looking it up online. It was taken from an album called “Have A Little Faith” and would reach No 17 but it seems very lacklustre to me and entirely forgettable. Sadly, Joe would die of lung cancer in 2014 having smoked 40 cigarettes a day until he quit in 1991.

The early to mid 90s saw a host of female soul singers* come to the fore. Juliet Roberts, Shara Nelson, Dina Carroll, N’Dea Davenport who we saw with The Brand New Heavies earlier…add to that list Carleen Anderson who, having found initial success with Young Disciples, carved out a solo career for herself. “True Spirit” was not only the title track from her album but the third hit single on the spin for her in 1994. It doesn’t do a lot for me though. Clearly she has a great voice but the track itself seems so sluggish and a bit to caught up in trying to display its soul credentials. I think that for each of those singles, Carleen has appeared on TOTP and every time, the show’s caption person has noted that she is the goddaughter of James Brown. Give it a rest! Despite what I said about all those female soul singers, anybody would think it’s a man’s man’s man’s world.

* Is that Caron Wheeler of Soul II Soul fame up there with Carleen on stage doing backing vocals? Yet another soul singer that came to prominence in the 90s!

No! It can’t be! Not again! Is this the fourth time Let Loose have been on the show performing “Crazy For You”?! What more am I supposed to say about this lot and their song? Look, here’s some stats for you OK? 16 weeks on the Top 40, 9 consecutive weeks inside the Top 10 and the 8th best selling single of the year. Enough? No? Well, despite all that success, they never really consolidated on it to become the next big teen group did they? Sure, six hit singles followed it including two further Top Tenners but could you name any of them? Well, I looked them up and I do recall the follow up “Seventeen” but of the rest of them, the only title I recognise is a cover of Bread’s “Make It With You”, a blatant attempt at career-reviving if ever I saw one. Still, to be remembered for one massive hit song is no mean achievement. How many of us out there can boast the same?

Well, if I was struggling for words for Let Loose, what more is there to be said about Wet Wet Wet and “Love Is All Around” after an 11th week at the top of the charts? Well, I’m not going to say anything but instead refer back to Simon Mayo’s intro for it in which he says that when it first went to No 1 “Jürgen Klinsmann was just a cheating German”. I knew it! I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist making a comment about how the striker had signed for his beloved Spurs! I said so in the last post when I made mention that he’d signed for them on the day that TOTP aired and that it was a good job it was Mark Goodier as that week’s host and not Mayo as the latter would definitely have gone on about it and here he is a week later doing just that. Not just smug but predictable as well then.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Red Dragon featuring Brian and Tony Gold	Compliments On Your Kiss	No
2	The Brand New Heavies	Midnight At The Oasis	No. but my wife had the album
3	Future Sound Of London	Lifeforms	Not for me thanks
4	Shampoo	Trouble	Nope
5	DJ Miko	What’s Up	Hell no!
6	Joe Cocker	The Simple Things	Nah
7	Carleen Anderson	True Spirit	Negative
8	Let Loose	Crazy For You	No but my wife did
9	Wet Wet Wet	Love Is All Around	I did not

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/m001ldp8/top-of-the-pops-10081994

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

Author: 80stastic

TOTP 20 OCT 1994

Disclaimer

TOTP 13 OCT 1994

Disclaimer

TOTP 06 OCT 1994

Disclaimer

TOTP 29 SEP 1994

Disclaimer

TOTP 22 SEP 1994

Disclaimer

TOTP 15 SEP 1994

Disclaimer

TOTP 08 SEP 1994

Disclaimer

TOTP 01 SEP 1994

Disclaimer

TOTP 18 AUG 1994

Disclaimer

TOTP 10 AUG 1994

Disclaimer