80stastic

TOTP 26 MAY 1994

Posted on April 1, 2023 by 80stastic

For the first time in quite some time, I’ve looked at the running order of a TOTP and done this:

With the exception of The Prodigy, the rest of the line up is so uninspiring. Apologies if one of your favourite artists or songs is on this show but I really can’t get excited by it. I might treat myself to a fairly short review for once. It seems fitting that the show is presented by Mark ‘nice but dull’ Goodier.

We start with a ragga/Eurodance mashup from Maxx. A huge hit all around Europe, “Get-A-Way” would peak at No 4 in the UK. As was obligatory with just about every Eurodance outfit of the early to mid 90s (Snap!, Black Box, Technotronic etc) there’s a story behind who the female vocalist was. I think the Lisa Stansfield lookalike up there on stage is someone called Linda Meek but the vocals on the record were made by session singer Samira Besic who left the Maxx project before a video could be filmed so model Eliz Yavuz was drafted in for the visuals and promotional duties. British singer Meek was recruited for live shows and she also laid down the vocals for follow up single releases. What’s the significance of the US cop car picture behind the group on stage? Is it something to do with the single’s title (i.e. a getaway car)? Surely that wouldn’t be a police vehicle though would it? Do the track’s lyrics give us any clues?

*checks lyrics online*

Not really. They just bang on about being a ragga man, feeling irie and drinking champagne mainly. They also plagiarise Apache Indian by pinching his ‘Boom shakalak’ line. Is nothing sacred?!

Carleen Anderson is up next and I’m sure that the TOTP captions person told us she was James Brown’s goddaughter the last time she was on. I wonder if she minded that the show’s production team thought that the most interesting thing about her was a connection to someone else? Still, I suppose it’s better than just saying she was from Bolton or somewhere.

She seemed to be experiencing a case of diminishing returns in reverse as every hit she had from her debut album “True Spirit” managed a chart peak slightly higher than its predecessor. This track – “Mama Said” – made it to No 26, one place higher than her debut hit “Nervous Breakdown”. It was followed by “True Spirit” which peaked at No 24 and the final single from the album (“Let It Last”) stopped climbing the chart at No 16. Unusual chart stats I would suggest. “Mama Said” sounds like “Apparently Nothin’” by Young Disciples but then she did do the vocals on that when she was their singer so no surprise there really. The guy with the long, ginger ringlets on guitar looks like Glen Hansard aka Outspan from The Commitments who was schooled in the ways of James Brown…

OK, in amongst all the ‘meh’ on this show, it’s hard to dismiss The Prodigy with such a phrase. Their journey from purveyors of ‘toy town techno’ with debut hit “Charly” to Glastonbury headlining gods of dance was in its mid stage with the pending release of sophomore album “Music For The Jilted Generation”. Despite this track – “No Good (Start The Dance)” – being released just six weeks before the album, it wasn’t actually its lead single. That honour went to “One Love” that was released a whole eight months earlier. Whatever era of the band though, one thing was a constant – their ability to sell lots of records. The album would go to No 1 and go double platinum whilst the single would reach No 4 becoming their seventh consecutive hit of which four went Top 5.

Interestingly, and I’d never realised this until now, the band never appeared on TOTP in person, declining all offers to appear so that the producers were forced to show their videos instead. Kowtowing to the BBC wasn’t in the band’s manifesto which was all about making commercially successful yet uncompromising hard dance music. The album even starts with this spoken commitment from Liam Howlett:

“So I’ve decided to take my work back underground to stop it falling into the wrong hands”
Hamacher, Adriana (July 1994). “Prodigy: Guitar Hero”. Mix Mag. pp. 63–64.

Of “No Good (Start The Dance)” itself, Howlett said in an interview in Dazed magazine:

“‘No Good… was a response to all that shit Eurodance stuff”
The Prodigy select 10 inspirational Jilted jams – Dazed magazine 4 July 2014

Quite right too. Watching this video back, it’s sobering to remember that the sadly departed Keith Flint didn’t always look like an otherworldly punk character that seemed like he came from the imagination of horror legend Stephen King. That image was still two years away but it was coming. Be afraid etc…

Next up is another artist that meant nothing to me. I was never interested in Iron Maiden nor any of those bands that were part of that early 80s British Heavy Metal movement so the solo career of Bruce Dickinson was not top of my ‘must investigate further’ list. I do have to review his single here though so what do I make of “Tears Of The Dragon”? Well, apart from its pretentious title (something to do with chasing the dragon?), it sounds like Bruce is doing his best Led Zeppelin impression in the verses and is auditioning for a Bon Jovi tribute band in the chorus. Ah, what do I know though? “Tears Of The Dragon” peaked at No 28 whilst parent album “Balls To Picasso” (not such a pretentious title) got to No 21.

I really have nothing more to say about “Carry Me Home” by Gloworm. I can’t just leave it at that though can I? What about the performance here? Well, they’ve toned down on the gospel theme after using a pulpit in their last appearance and have replaced that with what look like three massively oversized replicas of the Jules Rimet Trophy (the original trophy awarded to the winners of the football World Cup from 1930 to 1970). Sadly, the TOTP producers seem to have chosen a motif for the wrong sport – ‘Carry me home’ are lyrics included in “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”, a Rugby Union anthem sung by fans of the England international team.

Time for a video exclusive now courtesy of “Absolutely Fabulous” by Pet Shop Boys. This was the Comic Relief record for 1994 and was obviously based around the BBC sit com of the same name. It was probably a good call from the charity as the show had just finished its second series run having moved from BBC2 to BBC1 and its popularity was blooming. I used to watch it and presumably enjoyed it enough but it’s not something I’d rewatch and I haven’t thought about it in years. On reflection, it was a bit shallow with everything revolving around the ludicrous actions of main characters Patsy and Edina. I don’t think it amounts to much more than that.

As for the song, I wasn’t a fan. Yes, it’s the Pet Shop Boys who I’d always liked but it’s very repetitive, essentially a beat based around Neil Tennant singing the song’s title with some catchphrases from Patsy and Edina thrown in randomly. Apparently it was meant to be a deliberate parody of the Eurodance genre as Neil and Chris thought that was the type of record Edina and Patsy would think was ‘trendy’. I don’t think I got the joke in that case. The video doesn’t really help either with the ‘comedy’ being the clash of styles of the antics of Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley in character against the static Chris and Neil. Watching it back now, it’s all a bit cringe (as the kids might say). “Absolutely Fabulous” peaked at No 6.

What three things come to my mind when I think of Galliano? Acid Jazz, Mick Talbot and Swampy. Am I right or is my memory playing tricks on me?

*checks Galliano Wikipedia page*

Well, two out of three ain’t bad as Meatloaf might say. They were definitely Acid Jazzers being the first act signed to Eddie Piller and Gilles Peterson’s Acid Jazz label and their debut single was the first release on it. Ex-Style Councillor Mick Talbot was also amongst the band’s ranks occasionally. And Swampy? I was nearly right. In case you’d forgotten, Swampy is an environmental activist who briefly came to fame for spending a week in a tunnel as part of the demonstrations to stop the expansion of the A30 in Fairmile, Devon in 1996. His notoriety even earned him a place in panel show Have I Got News For You. So what has he got to do with Galliano? Nothing but my confusion is explained by the fact that they released a single called “Twyford Down” which was inspired by the protests against the M3 expansion through the chalk downland near Winchester, Hampshire. However, I don’t know for sure if Swampy was involved.

“Long Time Gone” was, as Mark Goodier says, their first ever hit single after four near misses. A cover of a Crosby, Stills & Nash song from the 60s, it’s actually a pretty nifty version. Valerie Etienne’s vocals are good and it’s well produced. I’d forgotten they had a Bez type character in their ranks who went by the name of Uncle Big Man. Not sure why he has a Mick Hucknall style staff with him though. While researching Galliano, I was struck by the unusual names of those involved. There’s a Constantine, a Crispin plus surnames like Vandergucht and Ameedee but my favourite is the guy who replaced Mick Talbot on keyboards, one Ski Oakenfull! “Long Time Gone” peaked at No 15 and was taken from their third album “The Plot Thickens” which went Top 10.

The biggest chart story of 1994 was undoubtedly Wet Wet Wet’s 15 week reign in the No 1 spot but there was a sub plot to the main tale which concerned this next group. All 4 One had an elongated, chart topping stint of their own in 1994 in America when they spent 11 weeks at No 1 with drippy ballad “I Swear”. That isn’t the story I was referring to though. No, it’s the one about them spending seven (!) consecutive weeks at No 2 in the UK charts without managing to dislodge the Wets and the ubiquitous “Love Is All Around”. Remarkably, when Bryan Adams had his 16 weeks at No 1 in 1991, there was also a record that spent a long time in its shadow, unable to knock it off its perch. That was “I’m Too Sexy” by Right Said Fred and as awful as that song is/was, “I Swear” might be worse. Horribly cynical (how many couples walked down the aisle to this with lyrics like ‘For better or worse, ‘til death do us part’?) and with its blended, R&B harmonies, it was basically the natural successor to “End Of The Road”. Ironically, Boyz II Men would return themselves in a few weeks with their own copycat version of their biggest hit in “I’ll Make Love To You”. I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of All 4 One in these TOTP repeats soon. It’s enough to make you swear.

The Manchester United Football Squad are this week’s No 1 with their revolting single “Come On You Reds”. The only credit I will give it is that Status Quo managed to somehow work the names of all the team into the lyrics. There’s fourteen of them in there so I’m trying to work out if they missed anybody out.

*checks Manchester United 1993/94 squad*

No, they didn’t – nobody who played more than two games anyway. Quite a feat. United would release a further three singles during the 90s all of which were hits – the hilariously titled “We’re Gonna Do It Again” in 1995 (they won zero trophies), “Move Move Move (The Red Tribe)” in 1996 (they won the double) and “Lift It High (All About Belief)” in 1999 (they won the treble).

The play out song is really odd. Tim McGraw is a US country artist who was only just beginning to be noticed in America in 1994 so I’m pretty sure the UK was totally oblivious to who he was. This song – “Indian Outlaw” – was his first big hit on the US country chart but it did nothing over here. If that wasn’t enough to make it an odd choice to appear on TOTP, it was actually banned by some American radio stations for its patronising depiction of Native Americans. What was Ric Blaxill thinking?!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Maxx	Get-A-Way	Never
2	Carleen Anderson	Mama Said	No
3	The Prodigy	No Good (Start The Dance)	I did not
4	Bruce Dickinson	Tears Of The Dragon	Nah
5	Gloworm	Carry Me Home	Negative
6	Pet Shop Boys	Absolutely Fabulous	Not even for charity
7	Galliano	Long Time Gone	Nope
8	All 4 One	I Swear	I didn’t – I swear!
9	The Manchester United Football Squad	Come On You Reds	NO!
10	Tim McGraw	Indian Outlaw	As if

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/m001k9s9/top-of-the-pops-26051994

TOTP 19 MAY 1994

Posted on March 28, 2023 by 80stastic

Right, after banging on about football in what’s supposed to be a retro music blog last time out, I promise there’s nothing about the beautiful game in this post. It’s straight to the music and the direct to camera message at the top of the show this week comes from a snake. No really. An actual snake but it’s no ordinary snake. Not only does it talk but it’s owner is ‘The Godfather of Shock Rock’ himself Alice Cooper who is on the show as both performer and host tonight. Blimey! Iggy Pop last week and Alice Cooper the next. There’s two ways of looking at this. Either new producer Ric Blaxill was trying to restore some credibility to TOTP by demonstrating that the show was still a pull for some of the most iconic names in music or he was totally misreading the room and not giving the kids what they wanted at all. Alice Cooper was 46 at the time this show aired and his biggest hit “School’s Out” had been No 1 22 years prior. Or was their a third view? Was he trying to reel back in those disaffected viewers who thought that they had outgrown the show? All I know is that was two ‘Godfathers’ on the show in consecutive weeks after ‘The Godfather of Punk’ Iggy Pop seven days before. It surely wasn’t just coincidence was it?

To completely blow my theorising above out of the water, we start with an act that surely couldn’t have existed and been successful at any other time other than the early to mid 90s. 2 Unlimited must have been one of the most prolific artists to appear on the show in this period. “The Real Thing” was their 10th consecutive UK chart hit of which only two didn’t make the Top 10. Unlike most of their previous offerings, Ray actually gets to do some prolonged rapping in this one rather than having to settle for shouting out “Techno, techno techno techno” every now and then.

The track reminds me of another song that I can’t quite put my finger on…

If you're thinking that "The Real Thing" reminds you of something (apart from every other 2 Unlimited track), it's probably Johann Sebastian Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor: https://t.co/2eUw8dCmjV #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 17, 2023

No, @TOTPFacts, not that (although clearly, that as well). Got it! It’s this…

Just me then. Oh well. By my reckoning there’s at least a couple more occasions when Ray and Anita will be on TOTP so we’re not quite done yet but the end is coming.

While the end of 2 Unlimited is nigh, we’re just at the start of something very lengthy and for some interminable and intolerable. Yes, Wet Wet Wet are here for the first time with (gulp) “Love Is All Around”. Yes, just three years since Bryan Adams spent 16 weeks at the top of the charts, the UK was about to embark on another splurge of record buying that would create another long term resident at No 1, Chart Street. How could we have let this happen again so quickly?! Well, like “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You”, Wet Wet Wet’s single was also from a popular, mainstream film but for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves read Four Weddings and a Funeral. Richard Curtis’s rom-com was a runaway success topping the box office’s chart for 9 weeks and making it the second highest grossing film ever in the UK at the time. Although the song only features over the end credits (a version is sung by the hippy looking couple at the first wedding in the main body of the film), such exposure and promotion was always going to make it a big hit. Did any of us envision 15 weeks at No 1 though? I’ll need to keep something back for that lengthy a run on the show so for the moment, here’s some stats:

It was the best selling single in the UK for 1994 (obviously)
It went double platinum in the UK
It was No 1 in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Holland, New Zealand, Norway and Sweden
It has the joint third longest reign at the top of the UK chart only behind Bryan Adams and Frankie Laine
It spent 26 weeks in the UK Top 40 of which 20 were in the Top 10

In short, it was a monster with teeth. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Right, who’s this? Bad Boys Inc? They were still a thing in mid 1994? If that seems unbelievable, guess how many hits these stinkers had? Two? Three at a push? Uh-uh. Six. SIX! How? Why? What the hell was going on? “More To This World” was the fourth and biggest of them giving the group their only Top 10 hit. Filling the gap as an alternative to Take That for the teen market until Boyzone turned up a few months later, this lot were the template of how to be a second rate boy band. A frontman with a passable voice at best backed by some grinning no marks whose only contribution to the project was cheekbones, styled hair and dancing. Dreadful stuff from every body involved. We shall detain ourselves no longer with this shallow nonsense.

Proving just how bonkers the charts of 1994 were, we move from a lower league boy and to ambient world music in the blink of an eye. Well, not quite a blink but it’s a pretty short segue featuring occasional host Bruno Brookes and tonight’s superstar Alice Cooper. Oh, and that snake as well. It actually works quite well. Brookes keeps a straight face and Alice delivers his line effectively. And not a gold disc presentation on sight. Please take note Simon Mayo.

Back to that ambient world music though. Its two main protagonists, in the charts at least, were Enigma and Deep Forest and by happy chance they are next to each other in the Top 40 this week. The former is at No 21 with “The Eyes Of Truth” whilst the latter is in the No 20 position with their eponymous track “Deep Forest”. It doesn’t quite have the charm of its predecessor “Sweet Lullaby” but was still an exponent of the growth of World Music that had come to mainstream attention via Paul Simon’s “Graceland”, Peter Gabriel’s Real World label and experiments in the genre via Brian Eno and David Byrne. Deep Forest (and Enigma) seemed to me to create their own strand of it though by adding electronica sounds to the most unlikely of samples – Gregorian chants in the case of Enigma and field recordings of the indigenous peoples of Polynesia by Michel Sanchez and Eric Mouquet of Deep Forest. Nearly 30 years on, maybe the depth of the impression their material made upon the mainstream public has diminished but it really felt quite out there at the time. And mainstream it certainly was. Deep Forest’s debut album sold nearly four million copies worldwide and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Global Music in 1994 but lost out to Ry Cooder. It might not have been to everyone’s taste but when you consider that the UK No 1 in this particular chart was by a football team and was based on a horrible Status Quo track, maybe everyone’s taste wasn’t always the best barometer.

It’s the return of Seal next with his first new material since his massive selling debut album stormed the charts in 1991. His second album (also just called “Seal” or sometimes referred to as “Seal II”) is the album that “Kiss From A Rose” is from right?

*checks Seal’s discography

Thought so. That track was huge after featuring in the Batman Forever film but it wasn’t the album’s lead single. That honour went to “Prayer For The Dying” which has become a bit of a lost Seal track. Ask most people to name one of his songs and I’m betting the titles offered up would be either the aforementioned “Kiss From A Rose” or “Crazy” or “Killer”. “Prayer For The Dying” though? Not so much. I couldn’t have dragged it out of my memory banks unaided. It’s actually a very smooth and accomplished track though and did make No 14 in the charts but it lacks the edginess of something like “Killer” or “Crazy”. Trevor Horn was still at the mixing desk so of course it was well produced but it sounds like it’s been crafted to appeal to multiple US genre radio stations and spreads itself bit too thin. I mean, compared to 2 Unlimited or Bad Boys Inc, it’s a towering colossus of musical quality but somehow it’s not one of his best or indeed best remembered tunes.

The album sold well though, topping the chart as its predecessor had done and it went four times platinum in the US thanks to “Kiss From A Rose” being a No 1 record over there. I recall the initial scale out of it for the Our Price store I was working in not being that big (a poor decision by the buying dept it would seem) and the Area Manager telling us to hunt stem the advanced promo copy we had to add to stock. Funny the things you remember.

An occasional feature now with something from the album chart. Presumably these sections weren’t weekly because of the changing nature of artist availability? If the show could be populated by artists promoting a single did they take priority? The album chart slot started with Stanley Appel’s ‘year zero’ revamp but it seems subsequent show producer Ric Blaxill hasn’t ditched it yet. Maybe he does down the line – I can’t remember off the top off my head.

Anyway, the occupant of the slot this week is Julia Fordham who seems a rather obscure choice given that her album “Falling Forward” never hit any higher than No 21. In fact, as much as I quite like Julia Fordham, she’s never pulled many trees up chart wise. Two hit singles (Nos 19 and 27) and her best placing in the album chart was No 13 for sophomore collection “Porcelain”. She really should have had more hits given her talent. She remains a live draw and has toured with Beverley Craven and Judie Tzuke as part of the “Woman To Woman” project. This track, “I Can’t Help Myself”, was released as a single in the July making No 62.

Bruno Brookes is back to present the next act but he looks like he’s been smeared with shit since he’s been gone. The explanation for his appearance is that he’s been in an off screen fight with Alice Cooper’s snake. OK, the joke is wearing thin now and I think they’ve overcooked it. There’s no snakes anywhere near the next act who are East 17 though they did seem to shed band members as regularly as a snake sheds it skin after the hits dried up. Look at this timeline:

1997 Brian Harvey sacked (drugs comments)
1997 Tony Mortimer leaves (creative differences)
1998 Brian Harvey reinstated and group renamed as E17
1999 Band splits
2006 Original line up reforms for reunion gig
2006 Tony Mortimer leaves (after altercation with Brian Harvey)
2010 Tony Mortimer returns for a second time
2010 Brian Harvey leaves for second time (commitment to band questioned)
2011 Blair Dreelan joins band
2011 Blair Dreelan leaves band (contractual obligation)
2013 Tony Mortimer leaves band for third time
2014 Robbie Craig joins band
2018 Original member John Hendy leaves (personal reasons)
2018 Terry John joins band
2019 Terry John leaves band
2019 Jake Livermore joins band

Blimey! There’s so much coming and going in that lot that they should have been called E20 (the fictional postcode for EastEnders location Walford). “All Around The World” peaked at No 3.

It’s finally time for Alice Cooper to be onstage as a performer rather than to the side of it as a presenter. He’s here, of course, to promote his latest single which is “Lost In America” from his concept album “The Last Temptation” album. I’m not much of an Alice aficionado I have to say. I know his real name is Vince Furnier without looking it up and that he’s a golf fanatic. Musically, I’m familiar with “School’s Out” and “Elected” from his 70s era and “Poison” and “Hey Stoopid” from his late 80s early 90s revival but not a lot else and that includes this track.

Ah crap! I promised there’d be nothing about football in this post after last week’s was hijacked by my talking about the 1994 FA Cup final but the No 1 is “Come On You Reds” by The Manchester United Football Squad so what can I do? Five days on from their demolition of my beloved Chelsea in said final, they have moved to being the best selling single of the week in the UK. It would stay there for two weeks. This achievement was quite remarkable given the fact that it’s a football record. Sure, this niche genre has had big hits before – Liverpool FC got to No3 with “Anfield Rap” in 1988 and the England World Cup squad (in conjunction with New Order) also got to No 1 in 1990. Hell, my beloved Chelsea got to No 5 in 1972 with “Blue Is The Colour” – but No 1 for two weeks?! With that song?! As cup finalists, Chelsea also released their own single – “No One Can Stop Us Now” (oh the irony!) – which made No 23. I believe it was quite unusual for both teams to have cup final songs in the Top 40 simultaneously. Obviously it was dreadful as well but I bought it as a souvenir of the day thinking we might never get to the final again (how wrong I was).

The play out song is “Absolutely Fabulous” by Pet Shop Boys. Or is it? I think officially it’s credited to just Absolutely Fabulous and is produced by Pet Shop Boys but we all know it’s them really. This was the 1994 Comic Relief single and as much as I didn’t like the track, it was an upgrade on the likes of “The Stonk” by Hale & Pace and “Stick It Out” by Right Said Fred. There is, of course, a link to Alice Cooper here with the 1992 Comic Relief single being a cover of their (Alice Cooper was the band’s name at this point) 1972 hit, the aforementioned “Elected” by Mr Bean and Smear Campaign. “Absolutely Fabulous” made No 6 and was the second time that Jennifer Saunders had featured on a Comic Relief single after 1989’s “Help” as part of Lananeeneenoonoo alongside Bananarama.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I but it?
1	2 Unlimited	The Real Thing	No
2	Wet Wet Wet	Love Is All Around	I did not
3	Bad Boys Inc	More To This World	As if
4	Deep Forest	Deep Forest	Nah
5	Seal	Prayer For The Dying	Nope
6	Julia Fordham	I Can’t Help Myself	It’s a no
7	East 17	All Around The World	Another No
8	Alice Cooper	Lost In America	Sorry Alice – no
9	The Manchester United Football Squad	Come On You Reds	Are you kidding?!
10	Pet Shop Boys	Absolutely Fabulous	And a final 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 12 MAY 1994

Posted on March 24, 2023 by 80stastic

There was a lot going on in mid May 1994. Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as South Africa’s first black president. Labour leader John Smith died of a heart attack. The British romantic comedy Four Weddings and a Funeral opened in UK cinemas. However, the one event that was dominating my thoughts occurred two days after this TOTP aired. The 1994 FA Cup final was not the best of games and it will probably only be remembered for Man Utd completing their first league and cup double and becoming only the fourth team in the 20th century to do so. For me though, it will always be a painful memory.

Growing up as a Chelsea fan in the late 70s and early 80s was horrible. We were mainly useless and spent five consecutive seasons in the old Second Division and we were hopeless in the cups. The closest we got to cup glory were wins in the Full Members Cup in 1986 and the Zenith Data Systems in 1990. Most people reading this will never have heard of them. Suddenly though, in 1994, we were in the FA Cup final. The actual FA Cup final! Our first time since 1970! I couldn’t have been more excited. I was working in the Our Price in Market Street, Manchester at the time so obviously there were a couple of United fans in amongst my colleagues. I’m pretty sure we all managed to get the Saturday off to watch the game though. I got a couple of friends round to watch the game at our little flat and, with beers at the ready, settled in for the kick off. I should have known that the day was set for disaster when the heavens opened and the rain came down. Where was the glorious sunshine that had always made an appearance during those cup final days of my youth?

Despite the portents of doom provided by the weather, we actually started well and were the better team in the first half. Our talismanic midfielder Gavin Peacock hit the bar. 0-0 at half time. We more than had a chance. The second half remains one of the worst of my life. Three goals conceded in nine minutes (one an awful penalty decision by public schoolteacher David Elleray) destroyed Chelsea and indeed me. We couldn’t even get a consolation goal despite numerous chances. At 4-0 down, I was willing Elleray to blow the full time whistle to put me out of my misery.

In an extraordinary act of self inflicted pain, I was in Manchester city centre the next day seeing off my friends at Piccadilly train station just as the United team were arriving back from London with a huge crowd assembled to welcome their heroes home. I should have run a mile in the opposite direction but somehow I loitered and was spotted by a bunch of Ryan Giggs obsessed young girls who decided I didn’t look like I was enjoying myself enough and asked who I supported. Loyalty to my club took over and I replied “Chelsea” at which point they hurled merciless abuse at me. My disastrous weekend was complete. To add insult to injury, that hateful United record “Come On You Reds” was ubiquitous and went to No 1 the following week and with me working in a record shop, my misery continued for quite some time.

Anyway, that’s enough football talk. This is a music blog isn’t it? Here comes the music then but just before that, I need to acknowledge the host who this week is Jack Dee. This use of celebrity hosts was known as the ‘golden mic’ feature where presenting duties were performed by pop stars, comedians and…well…Chris Eubank. We’d already had Robbie and Mark from Take That and Meatloaf step into the breach and now it was the turn of Dee, making him the first non-music related host. Jack had been a name for a couple of years by this point with his own show having first aired in 1992. That, allied to his starring in the ‘No nonsense’ John Smith’s beer adverts, had helped cement his dour personality and sardonic humour in the minds of the public. As such, the TOTP audience had a decent idea of what to expect from Dee who could almost have been a natural successor to John Peel.

So, to the music, if you can call it that as tonight’s opening act are American R&B chancers EYC. How this lot ever amounted to anything more than one hit single is beyond me. What’s this one called? “Number One”? Ha! Fat chance! Or should I say flat chance as their vocals here are like the proverbial pancake. They also sound completely breathless (in their defence, I suppose they are jumping around like loons for the entirety of the performance). The track is basically a backbeat with some suggestive lyrics over the top of it. Just awful. Next!

We’ll come to the next act in just a sec but for the moment, I want to talk about Jack Dee again and give him some deserved credit for him calling out the inane displays of the Radio 1 DJs who have hosted the show (yes, I mean you Simon Mayo).

“Yes, I am presenting Top of the Pops because I’m a comedian and if you think that’s a bad idea, then what about all the DJs who keep trying to tell jokes” Dee deadpans. You nailed it Jack.

Back to the music and it’s that Joe Roberts bloke again. Just who was this guy and why was he on TOTP so much? Well, his Wikipedia entry, like the size of his hits, is pretty small. As the TOTP caption says, he’s from Manchester and he had three Top 40 hits, one of which was this song “Back In My Life”. This was a rerelease – it made No 59 first time around – and despite this exposure on the show, couldn’t get any higher than its peak this week of No 39. Not surprising really as it’s the musical equivalent of narcolepsy. Totally soporific. Joe himself is like a combination of Curtis Stigers and Vic Reeves’s club singer. Dear oh dear. Next!

Now, here’s a band about to enjoy arguably the biggest year of their career. In 1994, East 17 would release a double platinum album and three hit singles the last of which would become the Christmas No 1 and become a nice little pension pot for its songwriter Tony Mortimer. The first of those singles though was “All Around The World”, the lead single from second album “Steam” and absolutely nothing to do with the Oasis song of the same name. For me, East 17 had hit the ground running with their debut single, the frenetic “House Of Love” but then stumbled with the lacklustre follow up “Gold” before regaining their balance with the super slick “Deep”. However, the subsequent two singles “Slow It Down” and the misguided cover of Pet Shop Boys’ “West End Girls” were more potholes in the road before they really got into their stride with the sublime “It’s Alright”.

This new single harked backed to the sound of “Deep” though it wasn’t as good and felt like it had been written specifically to be a Top 5 hit. Nothing wrong with that I guess and the plan worked when it got to No 3 but there was something a little bit cynical about it, as if their record label had really taken control of these pop urchins and wanted to push them up a bit. The video for the track also gives the impression that the boys have had their urban wrinkles ironed out. It’s all a bit too…sophisticated? Is that the right word?

Parent album “Steam” was released in the October and the Our Price chain had a preview CD of it to be played instore but it had Radio 1 DJ Mark Goodier talking in between the tracks. Bah! Despite this, I took the freebie promo home when the actual album came out for my wife who’d bought the first album. We had it for ages without ever playing it I think but I’m guessing it got lost/disposed of following a couple of flat and house moves. In short, it didn’t follow us ‘all around the world’. It’s OK, my coat is already in my hand.

Meanwhile, back in the studio, we find Gloworm with the second (and biggest) of their two chart hits “Carry Me Home”. It had been nearly two years since this lot combined house and gospel music to create a dancefloor banger in “I Lift My Cup (To The Spirit Divine)” but now they were back with a tune that sounded…exactly the same. Well, it does to my ears but then they’re not bpm refined so I probably don’t know what I’m talking about.

As it’s got a gospel bent to it, obviously the staging for the performance has singer Sedric Johnson in a pulpit and the backing singers all have those full length community choir smocks on. I suppose a Kenny Everett Brother Lee Love big hands get up would have been a bit too over the top? “Carry Me Home” peaked at No 9.

Bollers is back! Yes, Michael Bolton is on the show again for no discernible reason. Well, yes obviously he’s on to plug his latest single, his cover of the Bill Withers tune “Lean On Me” but is his appearance justified? Well, he is a new entry at No 15 having been an exclusive performance two weeks earlier so what do you think? Is that reason enough? You’re right of course. There’s never any justification nor need for Michael Bolton on our TV screens and I say that as someone who saw him in concert by mistake! No, I’m not going into that particular story again! It’s in the archives if you must read about it.

I have a good friend who I met when I first worked for Our Price back in 1990. Steve’s from Bolton and everyone in the shop referred to him as Steve Bolton or just Bolton on account of his accent. When I first started working with him I assumed his surname was actually Bolton as I never heard anyone refer to his actual surname which is Wilson. Well, you know. If there could be a Michael Bolton then why not a Steve Bolton? One day, someone rang the shop asking for Steve Wilson. I answered the phone and confidently replied that there was nobody of that name that worked there but that there was a Steve Bolton. After much talking at cross purposes, confusion and to the hilarity of my colleagues, Steve was eventually put on the phone. Actually, Michael Bolton isn’t even Michael Bolton’s real name which is Michael Bolotin. Probably not enough difference between that and his stage name to cause Steve Wilson levels of perplexity though.

Two people now who also go by monikers that aren’t actually their real names. We all know that Elton John was originally named Reg Dwight but I’m not sure I knew that Marcella Detroit is actually Marcella Levy and that she’s from Detroit. They’ve come together to cover the classic Motown duet originally performed by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell “Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing”. Their take on it was obviously on Elton’s “Duets” album as were his last two single releases with Kiki Dee and RuPaul. It also ended up on Marcella’s “Jewel” album and I have to say I don’t recall it at all. Hardly surprising since it only spent three weeks inside the Top 40 and didn’t get any higher than No 24. It doesn’t seem to add much to the original I have to say.

Elton and Marcella appear to be having an earring-off in the TOTP studio with the former sporting a single cross-shaped one up against the latter’s Bet Lynch style massive ring. I make Marcella the winner in this particular battle. She’s also got a much superior voice to Elton (and this was before he turned into Foghorn Leghorn).

Marcella would return to the Top 40 one more time as a solo artist before going on to appear in ITV’s Pop Star To Opera Star and reforming Shakespear’s Sister in 2019 with Siobhan Fahey. Elton, meanwhile, would score two further hits in 1994 with “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” and “Circle Of Life” both from The Lion King soundtrack.

When I started reviewing these TOTP repeats, I began with the year 1983 and back then many a show was not rebroadcast due to problematic presenters in the wake of Operation Yewtree. Others were pulled due to the late Radio 1 DJ Mike Smith not signing the licence extension to allow the BBC to air any shows that he presented. At the time, many in the TOTP fanbase questioned why the BBC didn’t just edit the presenters out rather than just not broadcast the show at all. Well, they’ve done some retrospective editing for this one but it’s nothing to do with the host, the marvellous Jack Dee. In the light of R Kelly’s conviction for racketeering, child pornography and enticing a minor, his performance of “Your Body’s Callin’” has been removed.

This weeks ‘exclusive’ performance comes from a cultural icon whose career just goes to show that not everything can be measured in sales and commercial success. Iggy Pop is surely one of the most recognisable and memorable rock stars of all time and yet, despite having recorded some classic songs during his career of over 50 (!) years, has hardly any chart hits to his name. His only appearance in the UK Top 40 by the time of this TOTP appearance had been seven years prior when his version of “Real Wild Child (Wild One)” had made No 10. I know – it seems unbelievable. What about all those other iconic songs like “Lust For Life” and “The Passenger”? Surely they were hits? Well, yes they were but not when they were originally released. The former was a hit in 1996 after featuring prominently in Trainspotting whilst the latter made the Top 40 after being used in a Toyota car advert in 1998. “China Girl”? Nope, although obviously co-writer David Bowie had a huge hit with it in 1983. His work with The Stooges? Afraid not. Despite all of the above, Iggy’s stature as the ‘Godfather of Punk’ remained undimmed and TOTP producer Ric Blaxill wasn’t going to let the chance of an in person appearance pass him by.

“Beside You” was taken from Iggy’s “American Caesar” album which came with the parental warning sticker ‘This is an Iggy Pop record’. It’s a nice enough slice of melodic rock but according to reviews, the track isn’t really representative of the rest of the album which I have to own up to having never heard. It was co-written by ex-Sex Pistol Steve Jones in 1985 for Iggy’s “Blah-Blah-Blah” album but never made the cut. When record label Virgin heard “American Caesar”, they gave Iggy the classic “we can’t hear a single” line and so “Beside You” was retrieved from the demo archive. Iggy is joined onstage here by multi-instrumentalist Lisa Germano who’s worked with everyone from John Mellencamp to David Bowie to Neil Finn. So, did this TOTP exposure propel Iggy to a rare UK hit? No, of course not. It peaked at No 47.

Oh, one final thing. When I first started working at the Our Price store in Market Street, Manchester, the walls in the gents loo were covered in graffiti where employees past and present had come up with toilet humour based around music artists. There was Deacon Poo, Kenny Log-gins, Ruthless Crap Assassins but my favourite by far was Iggy Plop.

There’s a new No 1 and it’s from Stiltskin courtesy of that Levi’s ad. And that means…it’s time for my Stiltskin story. Sometime in 1994, we had some some friends to stay at our flat in Manchester. It may have been around October time as we moved flat from No 47 to No 43 on our road around that time and we may have roped in our friends to help with the move (you still have to put everything in boxes and move them you know!).

Anyway, my wife had a works do to go to on that weekend so I was left to entertain our friends with a night out in Manchester. We were all in our mid 20s at this point so we could just about get away with going to a nightclub – so we did. Me, Robin, Susan and the aforementioned Steve ended up at an indie night in Fifth Avenue nightclub. We’d had enough drink to embolden us to strut our stuff on the dancefloor to some banging indie tunes for the whole night. As we got to the wee small hours and the club was winding down, me and Robin were still at it. The place was full of dry ice and obviously dark so we weren’t overly aware of our surroundings. As it happened, Stiltskin’s “Inside” was played as the last song of the night and as the lights came up and the dry ice cleared, Robin and I were faced with the horrifying truth that we were the only people left on the dancefloor…and we were dancing to Stiltskin – a made up band who’s were only briefly famous because of a jeans advert and whose singer would end up in Genesis for a while. We try not to talk about it but we both know it happened.

The play out tune is another dance anthem by someone called Maxx. I have zero memory of “Get-A-Way” despite it getting to No 4 in the charts. If only my memory was as discerning when it came to forgetting things like your team getting stuffed 4-0 in the FA Cup final or dancing to Stiltskin.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	EYC	Number One	As if
2	Joe Roberts	Back In My Life	No
3	East 17	All Around The World	No but I had that promo CD of the album
4	Gloworm	Carry Me Home	Nah
5	Michael Bolton	Lean On Me	Never happening
6	Elton John / Marcella Detroit	Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing	I did not
7	Iggy Pop	Beside You	Nope
8	Stiltskin	Inside	Danced to it, never bought it
9	Maxx	Get-A-Way	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/m001k2r1/top-of-the-pops-12051994

TOTP 05 MAY 1994

Posted on March 22, 2023 by 80stastic

There have been some memorable chart battles for the No1 spot over the years. The Beatles in an unlikely fight with Engelbert Humperdinck in 1967, Rod Stewart in a right royal dust up with The Sex Pistols to see who would be the Silver Jubilee chart topper, and of course, the Oasis v Blur Battle of Britpop that we’ll see in these TOTP repeats of 1995. Then there’s those contests where the story wasn’t about the artists and the sides that they represented (establishment v anti-establishment, North v South) but were more about the sales and the tiny margins that determined who got to be No 1. I’m thinking 1990’s Deee-Lite v Steve Miller Band where there was a cigarette paper between them. Apparently, another battle of that nature took place in this week but you rarely hear it talked about with a handful of sales separating three artists one of which we start the show with.

In the final totting up, C.J. Lewis had to settle for the No 3 position with his execrable cover of “Sweets For My Sweet” by The Searchers. What a hideous thing this was. A desecration of a classic 60s pop song by the then popular trend of ragga-fying (for want of a better description) Shaggy style. I can’t understand what C.J. is banging on about during his rapping so I looked up the lyrics online and, having read them three times over, am still none the wiser. Rather bizarrely, the TOTP caption states that Lewis used to be a social worker. He really should have stuck to that much more useful profession than tormenting us all with this nonsense.

By the way, I should mention that Simon ‘Smug’ Mayo is back again as host and he’s at it already in his first intro. “Good evening. You’ve seen him in Shadowlands, now hear his single…C.J. Lewis!”. This pathetic quip concerns the film Shadowlands that had been in UK cinemas around this time and which details the relationship between The Chronicles of Narnia author C.S. Lewis and Jewish American poet Joy Davidman. What was the point of referencing this other than for Mayo to make himself feel superior to us plebs who couldn’t possibly understand his comment, not having his literary breadth of knowledge? Arse.

It’s The Cranberries next whose name is another opportunity for another pathetic Mayo line about ‘sauce’. The stupid thing is that the pun had already been done…by the band themselves. Here’s @TOTPFacts:

At the time "Dreams" was written, The Cranberries were called The Cranberry Saw Us. Sawus/Sauce. Geddit? #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 10, 2023

Anyway, they’re on the show to promote the re-release of their song “Dreams” (it had originally been their debut single when released in 1992). This was the most obvious choice of a follow up single since Spandau Ballet released “Gold” to consolidate on the success of “True”. A driving, uptempo number that was at odds with the more lilting “Linger”, it was nevertheless another perfectly crafted pop song. Also like “Linger”, it was ubiquitous. It seemed to get enormous amounts of airplay. Was it used on an advert as well?

*checks internet*

Well, it was certainly used by Tourism Ireland in 1996 and again in 2019 by P&O Cruises whilst a cover of it was used in a bed commercial called ‘What Dreams Are Made Of’. Anyway, why the hell did it not get any higher than No 27?! If Gabrielle could have a No 1 with a song called “Dreams”, why couldn’t The Cranberries?

Dolores O’Riordan pulls a Dave Grohl (or should that have been the other way round) for this performance by being sat down in an armchair covered in drapes due to knee ligament damage but, miraculously, she stands up unaided halfway through. She wasn’t having us on was she? Possibly because Dolores always was the main point of attention for the band. It wasn’t a new scenario of course. Look at Toyah and Blondie in the late 70s and early 80s and No Doubt also in the 90s. Were Nena of “99 Red Balloons” fame a band not a singer as well?

In an act of vicious irony, a bastardised version of the song would finally become the Top 10 hit the original deserved to be when Dario G’s “Dream To Me” went to No 9 in 2001.

Now Simon Mayo had some history when it came to football-related quips when hosting TOTP so giving him a song by an actual football team to introduce was too much of an open goal for him to miss. Keen to show off his credentials as a Spurs supporter, Mayo bangs on about there not being enough Chas ‘N’ Dave* in “Come On You Reds” by The Manchester United Football Squad.

* Chas ‘N’ Dave famously made three FA Cup final songs with Tottenham Hotspur.

I despise this song. Not because it’s dreadful (it is though), not because the original song it’s based on – “Burning Bridges (On And Off And On Again)” by Status Quo – is dreadful (it is though) but because it was recorded for the 1994 FA Cup final. So? Well, United’s opponents were my beloved Chelsea who had made the final for the first time in 24 years. I was so excited but it would all end in tears in the rain at Wembley nine days after this TOTP aired. I think I’ll leave the whole sorry saga until the following week’s repeat.

As for “Come On You Reds”, the popularity of the club and their historic double achievement of the league and FA Cup would see the single go to No 1 making it the only single released by a club* side to ever make it to the top of the charts.

* “Back Home” (1970) and “World In Motion” (1990) were by England World Cup squads.

It’s time to party like it’s 1985 now which is the last time this next band had a UK Top 40 hit. The first time I became aware of Killing Joke was is their excellent 1984 single “Eighties” but it’s their No 16 song “Love Like Blood” that they are best know for outside of their loyal fanbase. That single blew my 16 years old ears off; powerful and brooding, it somehow enticed me in despite my dominant pop sensibilities. However, I didn’t think my about them after that. To be fair, they didn’t release anything at all between 1990 and 1994 so my lack of engagement with them was hardly surprising. Suddenly though, they were not only back with a second Top 40 hit nine years after thejr first but also with an appearance on TOTP. This should be interesting…

…as expected, Jaz Coleman doesn’t disappoint with an intense, wild eyed performance complete with dirty boiler suit and face marks. Their single “Millennium” isn’t as immediate as “Love Like Blood” but it has a slowly building potency that you can’t ignore. However, a party tune it ain’t and, unlike Robbie Williams’ similarly named 1998 No 1, I bet it wasn’t in any New Year’s Eve party playlists in 1999. The single’s success prompted a handful of chart hits though none were bigger than No 25. The band are still touring to this day.

We’re firmly back in 1994 now with a dance tune from the Positiva label. A subsidiary of Universal Music Group, it was responsible for hits by Radoc, DJ Quicksilver, Barbara Tucker, Alice Deejay, and, rather lamentably, Vengaboys. Into the 2000s the label scored chart toppers with Frogma and Spiller featuring Sophie Ellis Bextor (another one of those famous battles for the No 1 spot with True Steppers featuring Dane Bowers and Victoria Beckham). Positiva was also home to Judy Cheeks who was having her second chart hit with “Reach”. A crossover club track, this was a Hi-NRG tune that was in the same vein as “Peace” by Sabrina Johnston from three years prior. Judy gives an energetic performance and I like the massive letters spelling out R-E-A-C-H on stage with her. Simple yet effective. The single (ahem) reached No 17 in the UK and No 22 when a remix was released in 1996.

It’s time for a satellite exclusive performance now, this week from Richard Marx who also did the message to camera at the top of the show. For a man who had a rather occasional relationship with the UK charts – he seems to have been on TOTP a lot. These are his chart peak numbers from 1987 – 1994:

78 – 50 – 50 – 60 – 52 – 2 – 45 – 38 – 54 – 55 – 3 -13 – 29 – 13 – 32 – 38

“Silent Scream” was the No 32 in this list and therefore his penultimate hit over here. Taken from his “Paid Vacation” album, it’s got a worthy message – the poor treatment of the older generation in the US compared to other countries where that demographic is recognised for their knowledge and wisdom – but the song itself is pretty average. Some may even say dull. Performing on the top of a skyscraper doesn’t change that. Sorry Richard.

The Levi’s advertising campaign strategy that began in 1985 with that commercial of Nick Kamen taking his kecks off in a launderette not only established the brand at the forefront of everyone’s minds when it came to jeans, it also altered the face of the UK charts. Nostalgia ruled as track after track from the 50s, 60s and 70s reappeared in the Top 40 after being the soundtrack to the latest Levi’s ad. In some cases, they would even sell enough to go to No 1 (Ben E King, The Clash and the aforementioned Steve Miller Band).

However by 1992/3, the hit formula seemed to be on the wane. Tracks by Dinah Washington and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins failed to make the charts and so, in 1994 a change of approach was required. Enter Peter Lawlor. Who? Well, I’d never heard of him either but he is a songwriter, producer and multi instrumentalist who single handedly came up with the song “Inside” which soundtracked this Levi’s ad:

The advert was a huge success and subsequently there was a curiosity about what the song was and who made it that led to a clamour to be able to buy it. The aforementioned Peter Lawlor played everything on the track but recruited singer Ray Wilson for the vocals. So who were the band Stiltskin that were credited with being the artist behind the song ? Well, I didn’t know this until now but they didn’t exist before the advert was made. They were formed by Lawlor just to promote the song. No wonder the TOTP caption just says ‘From Scotland – 1st single’. The track’s post-grunge sound struck a chord with the record buying public and it would go to No 1 for a week making it the first original song used in a Levi’s ad to do so. I have my own personal Stiltskin story but I’ll leave that for the next show’s post.

So what’s going on here then? Evan Dando doing a solo turn without the rest of The Lemonheads of a song that wasn’t even a hit? Did Evan just happen to be in the country and popped by as a favour to new TOTP producer Ric Blaxill? The caption just says ‘Evan Dando from The Lemonheads Big Gay Heart Acoustic Version’ which doesn’t explain much. “Big Gay Heart” was released as a single by the band so maybe a TOTP booking was just part of the promotional campaign for the track and the rest of the band were unavailable for some reason? I don’t know. It just looks a bit odd.

The new trend for using a gold disc as an intro is back with Mayo presenting one to Evan who looks like he’d rather be anywhere than on stage talking to him (can’t blame him for that). Dando’s had his hair lopped off since the last time we saw him which makes him look even taller than ever. And that T-shirt he’s wearing? Here’s @TOTPFacts with the details:

Kate Jackson (star of Charlie’s Angels and Scarecrow And Mrs King) on Evan Dando’s T-shirt there. #TOTP pic.twitter.com/DcQZ5fDSud
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 10, 2023

Despite the pre- performance cringe fest, Evan gives a nice turn giving off some heavy Chris Isaak vibes. I think I do prefer the full band version though. None of this promotion could prevent “Big Gay Heart” from stalling at No 55 which was a shame (about Ray).

And so to the climax of the battle for this week’s No 1 spot. In the end, it went to unlikely pop star Tony Di Bart and his “The Real Thing” single but apparently there was only a handful of sales between him, Prince and C.J. Lewis. Di Bart’s one week stay at the top of the charts followed by Stiltskin’s seven day reign would mean we had four different No 1s in just six weeks. That would all change dramatically very shortly though. Wet Wet Wet are coming…

The play out song is “The Real Thing” by 2 Unlimited. Wait. What? Two songs with the same title one after the other. Did Ric Blaxill do that deliberately? Is that the only reason the 2 Unlimited track is on the show? Because it completed some sort of producer in-joke? In actual fact, despite having released a fifth and final single from their “No Limits” album, this was the lead single from their next album “Real Things”. It would make No 6 but it would be Ray and Anita’s last visit to the UK Top 10. The era of 2 Unlimited was coming to an end.

Gun

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	C.J. Lewis	Sweets For My Sweet	Hell no
2	The Cranberries	Dreams	Should have but didn’t
3	The Manchester United Football Squad	Come On You Reds	Never, ever happening!
4	Killing Joke	Millennium	No
5	Judy Cheeks	Reach	Negative
6	Richard Marx	Silent Scream	Nope
7	Stiltskin	Inside	Nah
8	Evan Dando / The Lemonheads	Big Gay Heart	Liked it, didn’t buy it
9	Tony Di Bart	The Real Thing	I did not
10	2 Unlimited	The Real Thing	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/m001jvpx/top-of-the-pops-05051994

TOTP 28 APR 1994

Posted on March 17, 2023 by 80stastic

As ever it seems, this TOTP is a right mixed bag of huge, stellar names and those that perhaps haven’t lingered in the memory anywhere near as long. To illustrate that point, two of the artists on the show are from the furthermost extremes of the spectrum. One is an absolute legend of the world of music and show business and the other…well, let’s just say I’d be surprised if many people could recall them.

We start though with a band who I had forgotten all about but do recall their name now I’m presented with them in front of me. Skin (terrible name)* were part of that early 90s UK rock movement populated by the likes of Little Angels and Thunder (indeed they toured with both of them) and also had affiliations with Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson – Skin’s drummer Dicki Fliszar (not a stage name apparently) had played in Dickinson’s tour band. This led to them signing with Maiden’s management company and record label Parlophone. The link with Dickinson even got them a place on a hit single albeit under the pseudonym of Smear Campaign on the 1992 Comic Relief single “I Wanna Be Elected”. A debut EP (under their own name) called “The Skin Up” failed to crack the Top 40 but this follow up – “The Money EP” – hit pay dirt when it climbed to a peak of No 18. Watching this performance back, they clearly had pretensions to be the next Led Zeppelin with lead singer Neville MacDonald channeling his inner Robert Plant to full effect. Just because the band were called Skin, did we really have to see two of them displaying some here?

* When my mate Robin caught Spinal Tap live around 1992, he was in the front row and managed to touch the hand of one of the group or as he described it “I got skin off the band”. I don’t think Skin, the band, would have got the same reaction from him.

Skin would go on to collect a handful of UK Top 40 hits and a Top 10 eponymous debut album and a support slot at Gateshead Stadium for Bon Jovi. Sadly, what should have been a career high turned into a disaster when a voltage converter was put to US settings by a stage hand which resulted in their guitarist’s amplifier being blown as well as the keyboard player’s Hammond organ. When I was working in the Civil Service in the early 2000s (stick with me, I do have a point), one of my colleagues was a huge Dexys Midnight Runners fan who actually got to know some of the people from the band’s history and those of The Bureau who formed out of the ashes of the first Dexys incarnation. A man who had a foot in both camps was Mick Talbot (later of The Style Council) who told my colleague that shortly before Live Aid started (The Style Council were second on that day), Mick noticed the same issue with the sound equipment (i.e. it was configured to US settings) and so, knowing it would blow, quickly changed them thereby averting a technological disaster and a late start to The Global Jukebox. There you go – the inside track on one of the biggest musical events ever courtesy of TOTP Rewind!

Here’s a band in the process of making a name for themselves – Eternal with a third consecutive hit. “Just A Step From Heaven” would follow “Stay” and “Save Our Love” into the Top 10. I’ve noticed with all their TOTP performances that it always seems to be Easther Bennett on lead vocals with the other three group members acting effectively as backing dancers. Now you could have maybe levelled the same accusation at male peers Take That in their early days with Gary Barlow always out front doing the heavy lifting vocals wise and the rest of the boys popping some moves behind him. However, they did diversify with Robbie Williams, Mark Owen and even Howard Donald all getting a shot at being lead singer (I don’t think poor old Jason Orange ever did). Did Eternal ever swap roles about like that? Was their a vocals rota? I’m not sure.

During this performance though, they did have those ‘circles’ lighting effects gliding around the stage that look like those scenes from Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons when the latter used ‘retrometabolism’ to create facsimiles of people and objects that they could control. Easther as a Captain Black figure doing away with her band mates and replacing them with replicants under her power so they remain in her shadow? Nah, you’re right. It could never have happened because Louise left the band of her own accord in 1995.

As for the song, it sounded a bit bland to me lacking the star quality of their debut hit. I much prefer this similarly (but not quite the same) titled song from the criminally overlooked The Adventures…

Next a song that turned the band responsible for it from a hardcore funk metal outfit to mainstream rock stars. That journey for Red Hot Chili Peppers had begun with a stumble in the UK when the sublime “Under The Bridge” could only make No 26 in March of 1992 but in the US they travelled much further going all the way to No 2 becoming a huge airplay hit in the process. You can’t keep a good song down though and we finally caught up with our American counterparts in 1994 when, after an energy booster in the shape of Top 10 hit “Give It Away”, we went full throttle in our appreciation of the Chili Peppers making a re-release of “Under The Bridge” a runaway chart success. OK, runaway might be pushing it for a song that peaked at No 13 but it fits with my ‘journey’ metaphor and it was literally twice the hit it was before. I was one of those that succumbed to its charms second time around.

Starting out as a poem written by Anthony Kiedis about his struggles with heroin addiction, its hit potential was seen by producer Rick Rubin and after being worked up into song form by bassist Flea and guitarist John Frusciante it found its way onto the band’s “Blood Sugar Sex Magik” album. The titular bridge refers to a bridge in LA where Kiedis found himself hanging out with drug dealers trying to score his next hit so desperate had his addiction become. Los Angeles looms large in the song with these opening lines clearly referring to it:

Sometimes I feel like I don’t have a partner
Sometimes I feel like my only friend
Is the city I live in, the city of angels
Lonely as I am, together we cry
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Anthony Kiedis / Chad Gaylord Smith / John Anthony Frusciante / Michael Peter Balzary
Under the Bridge lyrics © MoeBeToBlame, Peermusic Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, Inc, Words & Music A Div Of Big Deal Music LL

Now it’s my turn to sneak a reference in but it’s not about LA but Captain Scarlet again. In the episode ‘Place Of Angels’, the good captain foils a Mysteron plot to release a deadly virus into the Los Angeles reservoir. And of course, the female pilots of the Spectrum fighter jets were known as The Angels. What’s that got to do with Red Hot Chili Peppers? Nothing but artistic license and all that. The video by director Gus Van Sant has a “Streets Of Philadelphia” feel to it with Kiedis walking through various LA locations to make the bond between song and city absolutely clear if it wasn’t enough already. Just like Springsteen, the Chili Peppers would also record material for soundtracks in the 90s when they supplied songs for The Coneheads, Pretty Woman and Beavis and Butt-head Do America movies.

Next that name that surely is lost to most in the mists of time. Except…Club House you say? Wasn’t that the name of the people who did that awful Steely Dan /Michael Jackson mash up “Do It Again” in 1983? I think it was but this can’t be the same lot returning in 1994 can it?

*checks Wikipedia*

Bloody hell it is! That’s a more unlikely comeback than Boris Johnson recovering from Partygate (please privileges committee, don’t make a fool of me by finding him innocent!). What had they been doing for a whole decade? Well, according to their bio, they’d done another medley record in 1987 mixing Mory Kanté’s “Yé ké Yé ké” with The Spencer Davis Group’s “I’m A Man” and had a US Dance No 1 with the Deee-Lite sampling “Deep In My Heart” in 1990. In addition to those two tracks, the vocalist here – one Carl Fanini – sang in that Eurodance hit by Eastside Beat “Ride Like The Wind”.

Suddenly though, like the nightmare of a returning Liz Truss, they were back with a track called “Light My Fire” which obtusely was nothing to do with The Doors song of the same name. It had failed to make the UK Top 40 when released in September of 1993 but a Cappella remix released on Pete Waterman’s PWL label sent it to the Top 10 the following year. God knows how though as it’s an abominable record, all pulsing Italian Hi-NRG beats and the phrase “Burn Baby Burn” (surely pinched from “Disco Inferno” by The Trammps) repeated over and over. If you require any more evidence that this was a steaming pool of piss, ask yourself why, if it’s such a great tune, is there the need for a man on stilts juggling, a woman fire eating and four dancers dressed as devil figures in bright red spandex suits up there on stage? Even all of the above can’t distract from the reality that this was just awful.

Of course, for all my previous talk of nobody remembering Club House or their single, the track did carve out its own little piece of pop history by being an infamous part of the origin of one of the biggest boy bands of the 90s. Ladies and gentlemen…Boyzone!

Level 42 on TOTP in 1994? The year widely acknowledged as being the lift off point for Britpop? It seems as wrong as tomato ketchup on a Sunday roast yet here they were with their second hit of that year. “All Over You” came from their “Forever Now” album and was the follow up to the title track and it sounds like it has the potential of being a decent tune akin to something like “Hot Water” from their past but it never really goes anywhere. Yes it’s got a chunky, funky rhythm courtesy of Mark King’s trademark slap bass but it meanders aimlessly with its sole intention seeming to be how many rhyming words it can get into the lyrics which end in ‘-ing’. And then. And then there’s that middle right when keyboardist Mike Lindup breaks into a solo bit that has very strong Spinal Tap “Stonehenge” vibes:

Through the heat-haze and the blue
I will shimmer and distort
And become what you always knew
But were never taught in this sad time
Take on board the things I say
Just be sure that you’ll be mine someday
Justify the things I do
Just believe that it’s all over you
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Mark King / Michael David Lindup / Philip Gould
All Over You lyrics © Peermusic (uk) Ltd.

All that was missing was some dwarves dancing around an 18” model. “All Over You” peaked at No 26 but Level 42’s chart years were nearly over. They would visit the Top 40 just one more time.

Time for that legend of music now as we get an exclusive performance from Miss Barbara Streisand (like ~~Diana Ross~~, Miss Diana Ross, you have to prefix her name with Miss). I’m not about to do a potted history of Barbara’s career here as it would take too long and I’m behind with these reviews but suffice too say, host Nicky Campbell just about sums it up in his intro. I was aware of Miss Barbara Streisand initially from her No 1 single “Woman In Love” from 1980 when I was 12 but I didn’t really regard her as a singer that much as she didn’t really have another major hit throughout the decade when I was consuming pop music avariciously. I regarded her more as a film star, that woman that was in Funny Girl, Hello Dolly!, A Star Is Born and Yentl, none of which were movies that particularly interested me at all growing up. I was aware that she was a huge name though, so much so that by the time she was touring in 1993/94 – the first time since 1966 – tickets were going for astronomical prices. A friend managed to get one for one of her four nights at Wembley Arena (from where this satellite performance came) and I think she might have paid around £200 even in 1994! It looks like a lot of the ticket price revenue went on paying for the very stylish stage set. The tour grossed $50 million playing to 400,000 people.

The song she performs here – “As If We Never Said Goodbye” – is from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Sunset Boulevard which made it the second chart hit from the show in recent months following Dina Carroll’s version of “The Perfect Year”. It also featured on Miss Barbara Streisand’s most recent album “Back To Broadway” which had been a huge success going double platinum in the US and gold over here. The single made it to No 20 and she would clock up another three chart hits in the UK during the 90s, all of them duets with Celine Dion, Bryan Adams and Vince Gill to add to those from the 80s (Don Johnson) and perhaps her most famous in the late 70s with Donna Summer (“No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)”) and Neil Diamond (“You Don’t Bring Me Flowers”).

Were Ride a big name? I guess the were amongst the ‘shoegaze’ community and the TOTP caption says their career record sales at that point was 500,000. It seems a bit unfair of the producers though who put up a similar caption for Miss Barbara Streisand detailing her 7 million album sales. Still, as Nicky Campbell says in his intro, she’d never headlined the Reading Festival. I quite liked a couple of their tunes like “Leave Them All Behind” and “Twisterella” from 1992’s Top 5 album “Going Blank Again”. This track, “Birdman” was from their third album “Carnival Of Light” which showcased a departure from the band’s usual songwriting style with Mark Gardner arriving at the studio with fully formed compositions rather than crafting tracks from jamming sessions. It also displayed a different sound with a deliberate move away from ‘shoegaze’ to a more classic rock sound. Another change was obvious in this performance as that’s not Gardner up there on vocals but guitarist Andy Bell (later of Hurricane #1, Oasis and Beady Eye). Bell had written half of the tracks on the album (including this single) so I guess he wanted to make like UB40 and sing his own song? Despite the album replicating the chart peak of its predecessor, it alienated some of their original fanbase and drew unfavourable reviews from the press whilst even the band themselves fell out of love with it referring it it as “Carnival Of Shite”. Hmm. Ride released another album (1996’s “Tarantula”) before disbanding only to reform in 2014.

The final three names tonight are all very much part of the rock/pop music establishment starting with the guy who did the personal message at the top of the show Michael Bolton. Interestingly, he did seem to plug Miss Barbara Streisand’s appearance more than his own. Even Mr Mullet Head had to bow before the ‘Queen of the Divas’. Bollers is on the show to plug his latest offering, a cover of the Bill Withers classic “Lean On Me”. This was literally money for old rope (or hair). Bolton had already done an album of cover verists in 1992 called “Timeless: The Classics” and yet he didn’t see any issue with recording yet another for his next album “The One Thing” and even less compunction about releasing it as a single when he was in need of a hit. After all, he’d done a similar thing in 1991 when, after the first two singles from his “Time. Love And Tenderness” album had failed to pull up any trees sales wise, he released a cover of Percy Sledge’s “When A Man Loves A Woman” to restore him to the Top 10. Just shameless really. Bolton gives his usual over emoting performance here which also features Michael J. Mullins on backing vocals. “Who?” you may ask. Well, he’s the guy who sang on all the later hits for Modern Romance and who was the perennial backing singer for Cliff Richard. Now if Bollers had done a cover version of “Ay Ay Ay Ay Moosey” I might have had a bit more respect for him. As it was his, version of “Lean On Me” peaked at No 14.

Prince is the next huge name on the show as he is still at No 1 with “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World”. As with many other artists, his highest charting single in the UK is certainly not his best – in my humble opinion at least. I could name a load of other tracks I prefer. Off the top of my head there’s “Purple Rain”, “Alphabet Street”, “Take Me with U”, “Raspberry Beret”…I could go on. Prince would only return to the our Top 10 twice more after “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World” and one of those was with a rather obvious release of “1999” as 1998 drew to a close.

The play out song is another single that didn’t actually make the Top 40 despite the artist being one of the biggest names in in music. “We Wait And We Wonder” was the third single from Phil Collins‘ “Both Sides” album and was written as a response to the Warrington bombings and the whole situation of the Irish Troubles peaking at No 45. Despite all his success as a solo artist, Phil has had his fair share of non charting releases as well, some of them coming immediately after a huge hit. “Don’t Let Him Steal Your Heart Away” only made No 45 despite being the follow up to the chart topping “You Can’t Hurry Love”. Then there’s “Do You Remember?” which failed to make the Top 40 despite coming from his multi platinum album “…But Seriously”. “Wear My Hat” from 1997’s “Dance Into The Light” would suffer a similar fate all of which just goes to show that no matter how big your name or reputation, you cannot take the vagaries of the charts nor the record buying public for granted.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Skin	The Money EP	Nah
2	Eternal	Just A Step From Heaven	No
3	Red Hot Chili Peppers	Under The Bridge	Yes, yes I did
4	Club House	Light My Fire	As if
5	Level 42	All Over You	Never happening
6	Barbara Streisand	As If We Never Said Goodbye	I did not
7	Ride	Birdman	Negative
8	Michael Bolton	Lean On Me	See 4 above
9	Prince	The Most Beautiful Girl in the World	Not for me thanks
10	Phil Collins	We Wait And We Wonder	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/m001jvps/top-of-the-pops-28041994

TOTP 21 APR 1994

Posted on March 14, 2023 by 80stastic

So I’m 500 not out in TOTP Rewind posts but there’s no time for patting myself on the back as I’m behind with the BBC4 repeats schedule so it’s on with No 501 and we start with Bitty McLean. I’ve genuinely run out of things to say about Bitty – mate of UB40? Tick. Penchant for reggae-fied versions of classic songs? Obvs. What he did post fame? Yep, been there done that. Little Britain joke? Yeah, yeah. He is the uncle of a retired professional footballer called Aaron McLean who spent his career in the lower leagues and played for the England C team (yeah, I didn’t know there was such a thing either) but is that really such an interesting fact especially in a music blog?

OK, how about the song he’s singing here? Well, “Dedicated To The One I Love” was originally recorded by an American R&B group called The “5” Royales in 1957 and then by girl group The Shirelles who took it to No 3 to in 1961. Surely the best known version though is that of The Mamas & The Papas who had a No 2 hit with it in 1967. The track features Michelle Phillips on lead vocals for the first time as opposed to Cass Elliot. Phillips would go on to have an acting career after the band broke up in 1970 and starred in the acclaimed crime biopic Dillinger earning a Golden Globe nomination for Most Promising Newcomer. Roles in TV films followed until she joined the cast of US soap Knots Landing in 1987 where the tale of “Dedicated To The One I Love” comes full circle. In a 1992 episode in which Phillips featured, the Mamas & The Papas’ version of the song plays in the background. The producers even called the episode Dedicated To The One I Love. Yeah, that’s it for this one – that’s all I’ve got.

Right, what’s next? Oh no. Not another ragga version of a pop standard?! Unlike Bitty McLean who specialised in putting an almost lovers’ rock sheen on his covers, C. J. Lewis fancied himself as the UK equivalent of Shaggy as he takes on classic 60s pop song “Sweets For My Sweet” by festooning it with loads of ‘toasting’ including the classic cliche shout out “Hear Me Now!”. Oh gawd. This was just a racket both sonically and artistically. Horrible stuff.

The version we all now by The Searchers from 1963 was a UK No 1 and is it immeasurably better than this load of nonsense. Whilst I prefer Manchester rivals The Hollies, it’s hard to resist the charms of this Merseybeat combo – “When You Walk In The Room”, “Don’t Throw Your Love Away”, “Needles And Pins”, “Sugar And Spice” and of course this one are all great 60s pop tunes…all of which makes C.J. Lewis’s dreadful cover even more heinous. Even the single’s artwork adds to the nastiness of the thing as it appears to depict a woman lifting up her skirt as Lewis looks on from his sofa. WTF? Everything about this guy was wrong including his stage name. Why did he go by the moniker of C. J. Lewis when his actual name was Steven James Lewis? He would stick with the formula of applying a ragga tip to established hits when he followed up “Sweets For My Sweet” with a cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Everything Is Uptight (Alright)” and The Emotions’ “Best Of My Love”. Heaven help us.

Yes! Finally a proper song made by a proper artist! Despite being a huge name, The Pretenders hadn’t had a UK Top 40 hit since “Hymn To Her” in 1986. In their defence, they’d not actually released much material in that time with their only album since “Get Close” (from which “Hymn To Her” came) being 1990’s underwhelming “Packed!”. There had also been a successful Best Of compilation in 1987 (“The Singles”) and Chrissie Hynde had renewed her relationship with UB40 to guest on 1988’s “Breakfast In Bed” single. Oh and not forgetting that Moodswings song “Spiritual High (State Of Independence) Pt.II” that featured Chrissie on vocals and samples Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech. It’s not a lot though in an eight year period. Having said all of that, it seemed a bit churlish of the TOTP caption person to just put ‘Back after 8 years’ as their comment. They couldn’t have put something about how many records they’d sold in their career or the fact that they had the first new No 1 record of the 80s with “Brass In Pocket”? 1994 though did see the band return in good form with Top 10 album “Last Of The Independents” and its storming lead single “I’ll Stand By You”. Supposedly, Chrissie wasn’t sure about the song initially. Written specifically to be a hit with songwriters Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg, she doubted her motivations about the song when it was finished. However, having played it to some friends outside of the music industry who were reduced to tears by the track, she relented and let it be released. It’s not a million miles away from “Hymn To Her” to my ears which is a compliment by the way. I like both songs. “I’ll Stand By You” has a power to it I think and Chrissie’s vocals are always right on it.

They say you can tell the quality of a song by how many times other artists have covered it. If so, “I’ll Stand By You” is a tune a few times over. It was done by Girls Aloud in 2004 as that year’s Children In Need single and three years later was also chosen as a charity record when American Idol artist Carrie Underwood recorded it for the Idol Gives Back campaign. Three years after that it was again recorded for a charitable concern when Shakira released it as a fundraiser for the Hope For Haiti Now effort after the earthquake there in 2010. I guess the track’s meaning had a major crossover quality which leant itself to supporting people in crisis as well as its original intention of describing being loyal and faithful to a person.

There’s something very appealing I think about this TOTP performance of the song; something to do with Chrissie’s dress down image and the fact that you can see her panic ever so slightly when she struggles to pick up her guitar halfway through. Nice to see founding member Martin Chambers up there on drums who had rejoined the band after leaving in 1986 after problems with his drumming after cutting his hand badly on tour and also struggling to deal with the deaths of band members James Honeyman-Scott and Pete Farndon in 1982 and 1983 respectively following issues with drug use. I guess that caption was pretty accurate in the case of Chambers then. “I’ll Stand By You” peaked at No 10 whilst the album went gold for selling 100,000 copies.

It’s the video for “Always” by Erasure next and it’s quite a thing. Set against an ancient China backdrop with Andy Bell dressed as some sort of mythical spirit, the plot revolves around the passing of the seasons as metaphors for good and evil with a battle ensuing between Bell’s character and a bad dragon type dude with the former trying to protect a Mother Nature type figure. Sheesh! The length of that sentence shows how much was going on in the video. It works pretty well though I think but then Vince and Andy always seemed to want to put some drama into their promos. Actually, I don’t think Vince is in this one at all unless he’s under that bad spirit costume which seems unlikely given Vince’s slight frame. “Always” would peak at No 4 and would also provide the title for their fourth Best Of compilation from 2015 celebrating the 30th anniversary of the formation of the band.

A new name appears from nowhere with a dance smash that gives them the highest ever UK chart entry for an unknown artist when it crashes in at No 3, enjoys a huge hit with the record and then pretty much disappears again bar a couple of minor follow ups. A footnote in musical history is created and that’s the end of the story. Right? Wrong. Who had money on a Crystal Waters comeback? No you didn’t! I’m sure even Crystal would have been surprised. Back though she was with “100% Pure Love”. Yes, the artist who brought us “Gypsy Woman (La Da Dee La Da Da)” had set her sat nav for the Top 40 once more and with a track that didn’t stray too far from the blueprint of her monster hit. As with Chrissie Hynde earlier, Crystal’s voice is distinctive to the point of being beyond replication but unlike with The Pretenders’ singer, that wasn’t a positive for me. I could never get on board with her vocals, catchy hook or not. Plenty of people disagreed with me though and the single was a sizeable hit in the US and around Europe (it went to No 15 in the UK).

I have to admit to not really remembering this one. If I think of the phrase ‘100%’ in the mid 90s, I think of the Telstar compilation series which started with the title “100% Dance Hits” and expanded out to cover musical genres such as Acid Jazz, Christmas, Blues & Soul, Reggae etc. There must have been one called “100% Pure Love” surely?

Now here’s a song that divides opinion. “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm” by Crash Test Dummies received a lot of positive reviews at the time for being original, melodic and taking on the difficult issue of the suffering and humiliation that children can experience if there was something in their life that marked them out as different. Retrospectively though, the track regularly appears in various ‘worst song ever’ type polls. For what it’s worth, I’d place myself in the former group. It seems to me that much of the criticism it receives is about its title and by extension chorus. What is it that people object to? That it’s lazy? Silly? That doesn’t really add up though. There have always been songs with nonsensical titles – some by major artists. Look at “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” by The Beatles or “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da Da” by The Police. Or is it vocalist Brad Roberts’ deep singing voice that offends listeners so? Again, there have always been singers with low registers whose work people love. Look at Johnny Cash for example.

Anyway, the song was a huge international success including the UK where it made No 2. Bizarrely though, it was probably least successful in their home country of Canada where they’d already had a huge hit with “Superman’s Song” in 1991. Subsequent releases from parent album “God Shuffled His Feet” were more successful there than “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm”. All very curious. One of those releases, “Afternoons & Coffeespoons” gave the band a No 23 hit in the UK whilst a cover of “The Ballad Of Peter Pumpkinhead” by their heroes XTC for the movie Dumb And Dumber supplied their final hit over here when it made No 30.

Talking of dividing opinion, this next band have always been rather good at that. Some see them as master crafters of intelligent pop music whilst for others, they are the antithesis of that, inauthentic chancers with an overblown sense of their own worth. I’m talking about Deacon Blue -and I’m firmly in the former camp. Some people really do hate them though. I found someone online who’s written a piece about how he’d been reminded about how much he hated them when he saw them live. Eh? Well, in his defence, they were the support band for Simple Minds so he hadn’t chosen to catch them in concert per se, he was there for the headline act. He despised them so much that when they were on stage, he took the opportunity to delete some emails off his phone rather than raise his head to look st them. Simple Minds though we’re great according to him. Hmm. Another who shared this view was my Our Price manager at the time who commented on the band’s TOTP appearance here that it was the most cliched, hackneyed performance they could possibly have come up with. Again, hmm. Show some dignity guys.

Ah yes, “Dignity”. Ricky Ross, Lorraine McIntosh (swoon) and…erm…the others were on the show to plug their first Greatest Hits album “Our Town” which would be a platinum selling No 1 (so there were quite a lot of us who liked them after all). The album featured all but two of their singles and three new tracks including “I Was Right And You Were Wrong” (another song title for the doubters) which had been released as a single and made No 32 but which didn’t generate a TOTP appearance. Instead, we get “Dignity” which was actually given a formal rerelease as a single (its third time in total) and it made No 20, its highest ever position on the UK charts. Deacon Blue would split up in this year only to return in the new millennium from which point they have released six further studio albums.

It’s that Tony Di Bart fella now, possibly the most unlikely and unconvincing pop star since…well, who? Chesney Hawkes? Glenn Medeiros? At least they had pin up appeal. Is it too harsh to suggest that you couldn’t say the same thing about Tony? Maybe it was all about the song in this case and not the guy who was delivering it? Time has been kind to “The Real Thing” with it being seen as a genuinely great pop record as opposed to part of the handbag house brigade that was all the rage in 1994. I can’t say that I share that opinion though. I found its success bewildering. Maybe I wasn’t going to the right type of clubs? Host Mark Goodier (who seems to have spent the whole show lurching about like he’s got a bad back) was wrong in his rather insensitive (given who was standing next to him) chart prediction – Di Bart wasn’t No 1 the next week though he was the week after.

Wait! What? Was that bloke stood next to Mark Goodier and who did the personal message to camera at the top of the show not Prince?! Was it just a very good lookalike?! I ask because at no point does Goodier actually refer to the guy nor acknowledge his presence and in that VT clip he does send himself up for the whole symbol moniker. If it was a lookalike, what was the point? Just to mess with our minds?

On the other hand, maybe it was the real thing as we don’t get the standard video promo but an exclusive pre-recorded performance. But then, if he was actually in the country and at the studio, why wouldn’t he have done a regular run through of “The Most Beautiful Girl In The World” like all the other artists on the show did with their songs? This was just weird as was the version that Prince recorded for the show. The slowed down, sexy take might have been the bedroom choice but it wasn’t the song that everyone was hearing on their radios and buying in the shops was it? Anyway, it was Prince’s first and only UK No 1 having missed out twice before when the 1985 reissue of “1999/Little Red Corvette” and 1999’s “Batdance” both peaked at No 2.

The play out song is “Back In My Life” by Joe Roberts but who was/is Joe Roberts? Well, he’s English and had a handful of minor hits in the mid 90s before disappearing whence he came. Ironically, the single that came out after this No 39 hit was a cover of Prince’s “Adore” so not only did he follow the Purple One on the TOTP running order but his singles release schedule also followed him. He sounds a bit like a poor man’s Curtis Stigers whilst one promo shot of him that I found sees him looking like Bo Selecta’s characterisation of David Blaine. Shazam!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Bitty McLean	Dedicated To The One I Love	No
2	C. J. Lewis	Sweets For My Sweet	God no!
3	The Pretenders	I’ll Stand By You	Liked it, didn’t buy it
4	Erasure	Always	Nope
5	Crystal Waters	100% Pure Love	Nah
6	Crash Test Dummies	Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm	See 3 above
7	Deacon Blue	Dignity	No but I had the original Raintown album with it on
8	Tony Di Bart	The Real Thing	Not my bag – no
9	Prince	The Most Beautiful Girl In The World	I did not
10	Joe Roberts	Back In My Life	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/m001jn48/top-of-the-pops-21041994

TOTP 14 APR 1994

Posted on March 10, 2023 by 80stastic

Well, it’s finally happened and it’s only taken just over six years. Yes, this post is my 500th if you combine both my 80s and 90s TOTP blogs. 500! I stopped looking at the word count after I passed the 1 million mark some time ago but it’s big. I started writing when the TOTP repeats got to 1983 which was the year my interest in pop music went into overdrive and the BBC’s flagship music show became unmissable viewing for me. After reviewing that year I really thought I might leave it at that as it was taking up a lot of my time but I persevered and somehow made it to the end of the decade. At that point I had another decision to make. Should I bother with the 90s repeats or leave it there? In the end I carried on mainly based upon the premise that as I’d spent most of that decade working in record shops, I’d surely be familiar with many of the tracks featured on the shows and they might trigger some memories for me. That theory hasn’t always worked out I have to say. Anyway, I seem to be stuck with this what…? Labour of love? Yeah, I guess so. I do love to write but sometimes the relentless schedule of the BBC4 repeats means I get behind and if I get too far behind, I fear I might give up. So I write and I write. Usually between five and six thousand words a week. The number of people reading my posts have grown to a amount I could never have imagined and I thank everyone of you who has ever taken the time to read any of my ramblings. Back in the early days I was getting as few as 17 views a month. I’m now averaging 1,500. From tiny acorns and all that.

Anyway, the TOTP gods have, by happy coincidence, got a rock star guest presenter in for the show that marks my milestone post. Meatloaf was enjoying a massive career rejuvenation following his mega hit album “Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell” and its single “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” so it made sense I guess for him to be asked to host the show. Plus, of course, he dominated the screen with his dramatic persona and physicality and knew how to deliver a line. His first job is to introduce opening act Terrorvision with their single “Oblivion”. Was this their debut TOTP appearance? I think it may have been. They were on as a Breaker for their previous hit “My House” earlier in the year I think. “Oblivion” was the lead single from their album “How To Make Friends And Influence People” which was a Top 20 hit and helped raise the band’s status from also rans to (perhaps unlikely) bona fide chart stars. They were always a curious beast though. What sort of band were they exactly? How would you describe the music they made? Yes, clearly they fall under the umbrella of rock music but that’s a broad church. Take “Oblivion” for example. It’s got an almost doo-wop chorus in it! It didn’t stop them winning the Kerrang! Award for Best Newcomer in 1994 though and you can’t get more rock than Kerrang! Then there’s the way they’re set up on stage with the drummer up front and vocalist Tony Wright on a raised platform at the rear. Sure Genesis had the same arrangement but it was hardly the classic band set up. Despite being at the back here, Wright would very much be the public face of the band even making appearances on the panel show Never Mind The Buzzcocks. With a twinkle in his eye and a cheeky grin, he was sort of like the rock version of Take That’s Mark Owen.

“How To Make Friends And Influence People” would generate five hit singles for the band, all peaking in the charts between Nos 25 and 21. I’m guessing we’ll be seeing more of Terrorvision in these TOTP repeats.

Next a record whose run on the charts feels comparable to the length of time I’ve been writing about these TOTP repeats for. Reel 2 Real (featuring The Mad Stuntman of course) spent a total of 17 weeks inside the UK Top 40 with “I Like To Move It”. Of those, 11 were inside The Top 10! Its presence in the charts started in Feb and carried on until June! Even in 1994, such longevity was becoming a rare event. By the end of the decade it was almost unheard of. You have to admire such durability even if you didn’t like the song (and I certainly didn’t). However, lots of people did and such was its popularity and accessibility that it was licensed for use in multiple adverts. Look at some of those brands that have made use of it:

Chewits – “I like to chew it, chew it”
McDonalds
Durex – “I like to do it, do it”
Toyota
United States Postal Service

Then there’s its presence in the cinematic world most obviously in the Madagascar franchise and of course it has also featured in many a dance themed video game plus it was adopted as a dance emote* in Fortnite in 2022.

* Clearly I only know about this because of my game playing son

Despite the song’s extensive run on the chart, I think this was Reel 2 Real’s first time in the TOTP studio. It’s a bit of a mess, all backing dancer arses and a ludicrous cane being wielded by I presume The Mad Stuntman. Apparently his stage name was inspired by the TV series The Fall Guy, the theme tune of which was a song called “The Unknown Stuntman” sung by its star Lee Majors. Wanna hear it again? Sure you do!

It’s time for another look at that groundbreaking video by Pet Shop Boys next. We saw a bit of the promo for “Liberation” last week when Neil and Chris performed in the TOTP studio with the video running in the background. It takes centre stage this time though and watching it through 2023 eyes it is rather underwhelming. I’m sure 29 years ago though it was quite the event but now it’s like the director was showing off with a new bit of software. That’s not his nor the available technology’s fault of course but inevitably we’ve grown accustomed to ever more mind blowing visuals both on the big screen and in the comfort of our own homes.

The director in question is Howard Greenhalgh who was responsible for loads of pop videos back in the 90s working with Spice Girls, Placebo, Ash, OMD, Elton John etc on multiple occasions. He especially seemed to love working with Pet Shop Boys having directed a dozen or so of their videos over the years. He would also end up directing the promos for the first two singles from Meatloaf’s 1995 album “Welcome To The Neighbourhood”. I wonder if our host tonight clocked the “Liberation” video and liked the idea of working with its director in the future?

It’s just over two weeks to the Eurovision Song Contest 1994 so there’s room in the TOTP schedule for another viewing of the UK’s entry “Lonely Symphony (We Will Be Free)” from Frances Ruffelle. She’s toned down the patriotism this time after she wore Union Jack underwear for her debut performance on the show. Maybe there’d been a lot of stern letters of complaint written to Anne Robinson at Points Of View? They’d probably be letters of congratulations in these current post-Brexit, flag shagging days.

Frances would come a lowly tenth in the contest (though that would have been seen as very respectable in recent years until our 2022 resurrection via Sam Ryder). The winners for a record third consecutive year were Ireland with an entry called “Rock ‘n’ Roll Kids” by Paul Harrington and Charlie McGettigan. However, they quickly became the lost Eurovision winners as the memory that stayed with the watching millions was the interval act. Ladies and gentlemen…Riverdance!

Yes, 1994 was the first time the world witnessed what would become a stage phenomenon that has been performed in 450 venues across the world to 25 million people and made a superstar of principal dancer Michael Flatley. It also, of course, got widely parodied by the likes of Michael Myers and Stavros Flatley but I think this one is my personal favourite:

One of those tracks that I have zero recall of now. “Let The Music (Lift You Up)” by Loveland vs Darlene Lewis anyone? Or is it Loveland featuring Rachel MacFarlane as the single’s cover proclaims? Certainly Meatloaf gives Rachel a name check in his intro. I was never a fan of all these acts that included a ‘vs’ in their title. All very confusing. There seemed to be a glut of them around the Millennium.

Anyway, as far as I can tell, Rachel released records as part of The Family Foundation, Loveland, as a solo artist and most famously LMC who took their Whitney Houston sampling hit “Take Me To The Clouds Above” to No 1 in 2004. As for Darlene Lewis, she was an American soul singer who performed the original version of “Let The Music (Lift You Up)”. Loveland (who were affiliated to the achingly trendy Manchester record shop/ label Eastern Bloc) released their own version of the track without copyright clearance and so, to avoid expensive litigation, both parties agreed to release a version together. Oh, so that’s where the ‘vs’ thing comes from! You live and learn. Despite all that back story though, the track does nothing for me now that I’ve listened to it. Oh well.

It’s not quite the aforementioned Riverdance but there’s quite a crowd up there on stage with the next artist and there is definitely some fiddle playing at one point. The ‘Garth Brooks into the UK’ marketing campaign was in full swing in 1994. After securing a first Top 20 hit earlier in the year with “The Red Strokes”, here he was actually in the country for a TOTP appearance promoting follow up single “Standing Outside The Fire”.

As with Terrorvision earlier, Brooks’s music was quite hard to pin down. Sure he was a country artist but he was no Din Williams. So what was he? Country rock? Country pop? New country? This song has an almost calypso style breakdown in the middle eight for chrissakes! Whatever he was, it was working slowly but surely in the UK. With “Standing Outside The Fire” securing a chart peak of No 28, this was two consecutive Top 40 hits for him. However, this would be the extent of his penetration of the UK Top 40 and he would never again return. His albums continued to sell throughout the 90s but they all suffered from a case of diminishing returns after the pinnacle of the gold selling “In Pieces”. The misjudged Chris Gaines alter ego project was the final nail in his commercial coffin over here. Still, he looked like he was enjoying himself up there on stage in his hideous half blue, half red shirt back in 1994. Maybe he should have stuck with that Chris Gaines moody rock star look after all.

It’s time for the live by satellite performance now and it comes this week from Toni Braxton who also did the direct to camera message at the top of the show this time around. In a continuing theme, there’s yet another gold disc presentation to an artist, this time for Toni’s eponymous debut album. We then get a performance of her new single “Another Sad Love Song”. I say new but it’s actually a rerelease of her first single which got no further than No 51 in 1993 in the UK but which has been shoved out again following the success of “Breathe Again”. It’s all very accomplished and sultry but it doesn’t have the ebb and flow appeal of its predecessor and only made No 15 second time around.

Yet again there seems little point to this satellite performance from LA given it’s just a stage in an empty theatre. Yes, there’s a bit that’s made up to look like a backstage dressing room but so what? I wondered if all the lights in the auditorium were an audience holding up lighters initially but I think they’re just strategically placed lights. The disembodied arms of a drummer in silhouette is mildly distracting (or do I mean disturbing?) but the whole thing is as dull as Toni’s song. Her choice of title for the track was unfortunate given that it left it open to ridicule if you interpreted ‘sad’ as meaning pathetically inadequate rather than unhappy or feeling sorrow. I know my rather indiscreet manager at the Our Price store I was working at favoured the former definition as he told me gleefully “this is truly sad” whilst serving a customer with the single. Oh dear.

Ooh! There’s some new Top 10 countdown graphics! There seem to be in the style of those old fashioned movie countdown images which makes sense but seems a little unimaginative. Anyway, the No 1 this week is “Everything Changes” by Take That which means we get to see the actual Mark Owen as opposed to the rock version supplied by Terrorvision’s Tony Wright at the top of the show. Is it me or does Robbie Williams have a look of Jim Carrey in this performance? Maybe, it’s just the camera angle or his pencil thin sideburns?

“Everything Changes” was the band’s fourth No 1 single on the bounce though that run would be ended by “Love Ain’t Here Anymore” which peaked at No 3. It restarted with “Sure” which beckoned in another succession of six chart toppers which stretched into their second era as a band with 2006’s “Patience” and 2007’s “Shine”.

There’s no play out music this week as inevitably our host gets to perform his latest single. Now, according to your musical reasoning, this is either one of the greatest power ballads of all time and Meatloaf clearly endorses that view with his intro in which he states that Jim Steinman believes it to be the best song he ever wrote; or…it’s an overblown, over long, ridiculously titled Bruce Springsteen wannabe song that should never be spoken of nor listened to again. Or maybe somewhere in the middle. For me, it’s certainly not one of Meatloaf’s best and it does go on rather clocking in at 10:16 on the album and 5:55 in the single edit. And, of course, there is that title. As of 2007, “Objects In The Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are” is the chart hit with the longest un-bracketed song title at 52 characters.

This sprawling epic supposedly outlines a middle aged man reminiscing about his lost youth via a three pronged narrative using the metaphors of the seasons of Spring, Summer and Winter. Not sure what happened to Autumn. Surely ‘the Autumn of My Life’ is an established phrase? It’s certainly a song by Bobby Goldsboro. Meatloaf would return in 1995 with the similarly ludicrously entitled song “I’d Lie For You (And That’s The Truth)”.

And that’s it! Post No 500 done and dusted. For the record Post No 1 from January 1983 included some panpipe music from Incantation, some utter drivel from Keith Harris and Orville, the theme tune from ET and Phil Collins. Maybe 1994 wasn’t so bad.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Terrorvision	Oblivion	No
2	Reel 2 Real featuring The Mad Stuntman	I Like To Move It	I didn’t
3	Pet Shop Boys	Liberation	No but I think I have it on their Pop Art Best Of
4	Frances Ruffelle	Lonely Symphony (We Will Be Free)	Nah
5	Loveland vs Darlene Lewis	Let The Music (Lift You Up)	Nope
6	Garth Brooks	Standing Outside The Fire	Negative
7	Toni Braxton	Another Sad Love Song	Another no
8	Take That	Everything Changes	Never happening
9	Meatloaf	Objects In The Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are	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/m001jn46/top-of-the-pops-14041994

TOTP 07 APR 1994

Posted on March 7, 2023 by 80stastic

We’re a week into April 1994 here at TOTP Rewind and the world of music is about to be rocked to its core by a tragic event. The day after this TOTP aired, the body of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain was found at his Seattle home after he had committed suicide. The coroner estimated the time of death to have been around three days earlier. He was 27 years old when he died, joining the bizarre list of musicians, artists actors and other celebrities who passed away at that age. The rock world’s ‘27 Club’ members included Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Brian Jones, Robert Johnson and Pete de Freitas before Cobain became its latest member. Amy Winehouse would add to its number in 2011 whilst Manic Street Preacher Richey Edwards was also 27 when he disappeared in February 1995 though legal process meant that he wasn’t declared dead for another seven years. I recall the tabloid front pages carrying that image of his corpse with just his protruding legs visible which seemed very invasive even back then. I’d never been a huge Nirvana fan but this was shocking news.

As the story didn’t break until the following day, TOTP makes no mention of it which is probably just as well as I’m not sure that chirpy host Andi Peters would have provided the right tone for any reference. Peters was a regular face on our TVs at the time. He’d graduated from Children’s BBC’s The Broom Cupboard to co-presenting the corporation’s Saturday morning kids show Live & Kicking. He was a face. However Andi, in the same way that Gary Lineker knew that he had to diversify to maintain a career after kicking a football for a living had to end, saw possibilities behind the camera rather than in front of it. He went on to be TV producer for shows such as The Noise, The O–Zone and Shipwrecked. He reached the pinnacle of that part of his career in 2003 when he returned from whence he came to be executive producer of a relaunched version of TOTP (rebranded as All New Top of the Pops). Failing to build the show’s falling audience, Peters resigned his position after two years following the show being moved to BBC2. Nowadays, you can catch him on Good Morning Britain promoting the show’s latest competitions. He’s still annoying, though in his defence, he doesn’t look a day older than he does here in 1994. My mate Robin knew him when he worked at the BBC. He got Robin to moonlight on the aforementioned The Noise show where he ended up being coerced into doing the conga with the Spice Girls. No, really.

No sign of the Spice Girls on this TOTP though (they wouldn’t arrive until 1996) but there are some big names on the show and some…well…not so big ones. We start with one of the latter. Black Machine anyone? This is quite unfair of course on your blogger as I struggled to say anything about this lot the last time they were on the show which was only last week and seeing as they were the play out song then, I’m having to comment on them twice in a row! Well, I’m nothing if not a trier so here goes. “How Gee” sounds very 1990 to me. What was that song by Chad Jackson? “Hear The Drummer Get Wicked”? Yeah, it sounds like that to me. Performance wise, they’ve clearly taken inspiration from The Blues Brothers with a robust back four of Jake and Elwood lookalikes while the front two rappers bust some moves. Sticking with the movie theme, “How Gee” was featured in the 2021 movie House Of Gucci starring such stellar names as Lady Gaga, Al Pacino, Adam Driver and Jared Leto. Sadly for Black Machine, they would not become a huge name in the world of music despite, as the TOTP caption says, “How Gee” selling a million copies worldwide.

It’s the ‘Battle of the Exclusives’ on tonight’s show according to Andi Peters starting with Erasure who are back after a year away with a track called “Always” from their sixth studio album “I Say I Say I Say”. I’d always liked Andy and Vince going right back to their debut single “Who Needs Love Like That” back in 1985 which used to get played at 17 years old me’s nightclub of choice The Barn in Worcester.

However, by 1994 I was starting to lose sight of them. Although “Always” is classic Erasure in many ways with its usual hooks and bitter sweet vocals from Andy Bell, I don’t recall it at all despite it being another huge hit for them (it was Top 10 all around Europe and No 4 in the UK). Why would I have suddenly become disinterested in a band that had soundtracked the whole of my student days? Had I decided that they weren’t 90s enough? I’m not sure but I do know that I never really rediscovered my enthusiasm for them after this point. Looking at their discography, I couldn’t tell you what any of their subsequent singles sounded like and the only album of theirs I own post the 80s is their 2013 Christmas one called “Snow Globe” that a friend bought me for…erm…Christmas.

A huge tune by a huge name incoming! I say name but I think Prince was actually, officially going by that squiggly symbol in 1994. Or was it The Artist Formerly Known As Prince? Or TAFKAP? Or just The Artist?Or even Love Symbol? Whatever it was, he was doing it to display his displeasure about the working relationship between him and his record company Warner Bros. Records. Annoyed that they wouldn’t release his new material at the speed at which he was delivering it to them, he started to appear in public with ‘slave’ written on his face (he was infamously lampooned by Blur drummer Dave Rowntree who appeared on TOTP with ‘Dave’ writ large on his cheek).

Prince felt that the poor sales of his 1992 “Love Symbol” album was down to Warners not marketing it sufficiently and so he asked to release his single “The Most Beautiful Girl In The World” on his own NPG label. In doing so, he demonstrated that there was nothing that he couldn’t do when he came up with a devilishly clever marketing campaign for the single. He essentially placed a lonely hearts ad in various magazines asking women to send in photos to his Paisley Park complex and from the fifty thousand who did, he selected seven finalists to be in the single’s video and thirty semi finalists to be on the artwork for its cover. The single was a huge global hit including No 3 in the US and No 1 over here, famously his first and only in the UK (not counting Chaka Khan and Sinéad O’Connor who took covers of his songs to the top of the charts).

I always viewed “The Most Beautiful Girl In The World” as a bit of an anomaly. Firstly, there was it being released on his own label which as I recall meant it be distributed by Pinnacle in the UK rather than Warners which was odd. Then it didn’t appear on an album until 18 months later when “The Gold Experience” finally came out. Lastly, it seemed overly commercial for a Prince song. Was he writing a big, radio friendly hit to order as Warners had asked him to or was it some kind of “F**k you” from him to them with him showing that he could do all of that but he was planning on leaving Warners and therefore this was a “Here’s what you could have had” moment? I’m tending towards the latter. The fact that a lawsuit for plagiarism was successfully brought against Prince makes me think even more that he was giving Warners the finger. The song the courts found that he stole from was by one Raynard J and was called “Takin’ Me To Paradise” and was published by Warners’ own publishing company. That Prince made his point using a song that was already part of their catalogue just adds more spite to their dispute. To be fair to Prince, I can’t hear too many similarities between the tracks.

I should have mentioned earlier that there was another artist message this week before the titles began. This time it was from Pet Shop Boys who are on the show later. This was becoming a regular feature! And then, after the Prince video, we get another one from Take That who are in Germany but are on the show later as *SPOILER ALERT* the chart toppers. It all seems a bit pointless but I guess it was producer Ric Blaxill demonstrating that TOTP was still the show that the stars wanted to be on.

A new artist now as we get a first look at Tony Di Bart. This guy was almost the classic case of a perfect One Hit Wonder. Almost. The perfect template is to come from literally out of nowhere, have a No 1 record and promptly disappear never to be heard of again. This would have been the fate of ex-bathroom salesman Tony if not for the fact that he had one other minor hit as the follow up to said No 1. Curses! The Di Bart chart topper was “The Real Thing” (that dastardly second hit was “Do It” which made No 21) and was what was presumably described at the time as a ‘dance floor filler’.

I have to admit to not getting any of this little footnote in pop history at all. I thought the record was awful – I couldn’t stand his nasal voice – and didn’t understand at all why it would be a No 1. OK, maybe it was big in the clubs but it didn’t seem to have the crossover appeal that something like Haddaway’s “What Is Love” had. Also, with the best will in the world, Tony was hardly the most charismatic performer when it came to delivering the song. I mean, whether you liked “The One And Only” or not, you could see that Chesney Hawkes was a good vehicle for it but Tony? So how did it happen? I don’t know is my honest answer. Right place, right time? We’ll be seeing Tony again so maybe I’ll become more informed as to how this all came about on repeated viewings.

As with Haddaway last week, the next act on is somebody that I associate with 1993 entirely yet here he is in 1994 still having major hits. Bitty McLean shot to fame with a Fats Domino cover in “It Keeps Rainin’ (Tears From My Eyes)” and I thoroughly expected him to have his 15 minutes and then disappear but he actually managed to keep himself in the charts to the tune of seven hit singles of which “Dedicated To The One I Love” was his fourth. A cover of a song made famous by The Mamas And The Papas, it gave him his third Top 10 hit. I did find all these reggae-fied cover versions of pop standards a bit tedious I have to say but then it worked wonders for his mates UB40 who had huge hits like “Red Red Wine”, “Breakfast In Bed”, “I Got You Babe” and “(I Can’t Help) Falling In Love With You” so why wouldn’t he have gone down the same route? Fair play to him but it just did nothing for me. Bitty would go on to work and tour with dub reggae legends Sly and Robbie and in 2017 he delivered lectures on Jamaican music production techniques to the Westphalia School of Music in Philadelphia which is consistently ranked as one of the top music programs in the US. Maybe Bitty had better reggae credentials than first met the eye.

Next to a band that were on the verge of calling it a day. Little Angels had been consistent hitmakers since the start of the 90s with nine chart entries though only one of them had managed to make it into the Top 20. They had, however, achieved a No 1 album with “Jam” in 1992. So why had they decided to break up the band just two years later? Had they fallen out with their record company Polydor? Had they fallen out with each other? I don’t have the answers but they did go out with their second biggest hit ever when “Ten Miles High” peaked at No 18. Looking at the lyrics to the song, it certainly seems like it’s a valedictory track with lines like “Ten miles high and the end is in sight” and there’s also a reference to their humble beginnings and their journey to fame with “Down by Scarborough beach to the Madison Square”. Talking of Scarborough, the TOTP captions, which disappeared halfway through on a recent show, are back with a bang but couldn’t they have found something more complimentary to say about the band other than that they were from the seaside town given that this would have been their final TOTP appearance?

Little Angels released a Best Of later in the year entitled “A Little Of The Past” and played a sold out six date tour culminating in a final gig at the Royal Albert Hall. Inevitably, they reformed in 2012 for some festival dates but have not done anything together since 2013.

It’s a second time on the show now for Roachford and “Only To Be With You” and I still can’t find a clip of either TOTP performance on YouTube. The last time they were on, the single was languishing outside the Top 40 at that unluckiest of chart positions No 41 but good fortune was on Roachford’s side as new producer Ric Blaxill gave them a prime slot anyway and the exposure propelled it up the charts. This time around they are twenty places higher at No 21 which perhaps shows that the show still had the power to make hits. Or maybe not. Despite this performance, the single went down the charts by one place the following week. It’s all very confusing.

Time for the second contender in ‘The Battle of the Exclusives’ now as Pet Shop Boys enter the ring to duke it out with Erasure. It seems somehow fitting that it’s these two artists as they always seem to go together in my mind. There’s some obvious reasons for this. Both are duos, both made synthesizer heavy pop music, both came to prominence around the same time (‘85-‘86) and both had a gay vocalist (Neil Tennant actually came out as gay in this year via an interview with Attitude magazine to the surprise of nobody). There’s one more thing though. As with Erasure, Pet Shop Boys had soundtracked my youth but by 1994 I was losing sight of them as well. Again, I’m not sure why but I didn’t seem to be interested in any of the albums they released during the rest of the decade. Maybe it was that dreadful Comic Relief song (“Absolutely Fabulous”) that finally put me off. Neil and Chris got along very well without me of course still making some fine tunes and indeed, all was not lost for me. 2002’s…ahem…”I Get Along” single was a great pop tune and just last year I finally got to see them live (the date had been postponed for two years due to the pandemic) and they were great. Back in 1994 though, I was struggling to care. This single – “Liberation” – is classic Pet Shop Boys ballad territory akin to “Being Boring” or “Jealousy” but it just seemed to pass me by.

There was a lot of fuss about the song’s video which was almost completely CGI and also had a 3D element to it which made it perfect for Cyberworld, an early 3D cinema demonstration which was shown on IMAX screens and touring roadshows throughout the UK. Given all that expense and hype, there was no way that Neil and Chris weren’t going to incorporate it into their performance here which, as Andi Peters points out, you can’t miss.

So who won ‘The Battle of the Exclusives’? Per Shop Boys edge it performance wise for me thanks to that video but Erasure got the biggest chart peak of No 4 whilst “Liberation” trailed in at No 14. However , it was the fourth of five singles taken from their “Very” album so maybe that was a factor.

The aforementioned Take That are No 1 (of course they are) with “Everything Changes”. Their fourth single to go straight in at No 1, not even Slade, The Jam, Queen nor Elvis could match that.

I said the other week that though I didn’t think much of this song, if it had been one of Wham!’s poppier moments, would we have been lauding yet another George Michael classic? I’ve worked out why I drew that comparison now; “Everything Changes” has a distinct flavour of this track from Wham!’s “Make It Big” album:

Now I find out though that this wasn’t a George Michael original after all but a cover of an Isley Brothers song! I hate it when a plan falls apart!

The play out track is yet another cover. I have to say that I have zero recall of A.M. City’s take on “Pull Up To The Bumper” by Grace Jones. The reason for that is probably because it only made No 83 in the charts and the reason for that was that it was dreadful. To say that Ric Blaxill made a big deal of predicting new entries in the Top 40 for the following week by means of a rolling script across the screen during the No 1 record, he was bloody awful at picking them for the play out music. How many duds is this now? Two? Three? Get your game together Ric!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Black Machine	How Gee	No
2	Erasure	Always	I think we’ve established that I was losing interest by this point
3	Prince	The Most Beautiful Girl In The World	I did not
4	Tony Di Bart	The Real Thing	No – I didn’t get it at all
5	Bitty McLean	Dedicated To The One I Love	Nope
6	Little Angels	Ten Miles High	Nah
7	Roachford	Only To Be With You	Negative
8	Pet Shop Boys	Liberation	See 2 above
9	Take That	Everything Changes	Never
10	A.M. City	Pull Up To The Bumper	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/m001jf1y/top-of-the-pops-07041994

TOTP 31 MAR 1994

Posted on March 3, 2023 by 80stastic

It’s the end of March 1994 and new TOTP producer Ric Blaxill is implementing his ideas for the show slowly but surely. Unlike the ‘year zero revamp ‘ of 1991 which seemed to want to change everything all at once, this was more of an organic approach. Yes, he’d brought back some of the Radio 1 DJs overnight and ditched Tony Dortie and Mark Franklin without flinching but some things remained the same. The logo, theme tune and titles were unchanged and so was the day of broadcast. All of these elements would be replaced or shifted in time but for now it was essentially the same show. However, Blaxill did take the decision to ditch the Breakers section meaning there were less Top 40 singles showcased but there seemed to be more emphasis on getting artists into the actual TOTP studio in person. Of the 10 acts on this show, seven were in studio performances. He’d also started putting a personal, direct to camera message from the ‘exclusive’ artist at the top of the show beforethe titles had even got underway. Last week it was Salt ‘N’ Pepa and this time around it was the Bee Gees. Little alterations but alterations nonetheless.

We start though with Haddaway and his fourth consecutive UK hit single “Rock My Heart”. I think I’ve said this before but it seems like a real anomaly to me that this guy was in the charts in 1994 despite the fact that we’d only first become aware of him less than a year before. He was definitive 1993 in my head. After, switching to a ballad for his previous hit “I Miss You”, he was squarely back with the Eurodance formula for this one and it’s all very repetitive stuff. Not even his overly energetic backing dancers can liven this up. Haddaway was just about done after this No 9 hit. He did manage two further minor UK hits but his second album released in 1995 – “The Drive” – stalled completely and tanked over here though he did retain some of his European fanbase.

I should mention that tonight’s host is Bruno Brookes and that his hair by this point was taking on a life of its own. He’d always had a bit of a mullet back in his 80s heyday but the dawn of a new decade hadn’t persuaded him to go for an into the 90s haircut. No, Bruno went the other way and doubled down on long hair to the point that it seemed to be trying to form an enclosure around his face. Never mind Haddaway being an anomaly, Brookes was an uber – outlier.

Anyway, back to the music and sometimes it’s easy to think you know a song but you really don’t. What am I talking about? Well, you can identify a song when it comes on the radio easily enough because you’ve heard it enough times to be buried in your memory banks but do we know how it came about, its origins, the motivations behind its composition, what are the lyrics actually about? Here’s an example…”Say Something” by James. Now, I might hear it and think “yes, that’s James. Unmistakably them from around the mid 90s I would imagine when they were having lots of hits”, tick myself as being correct and refile the song in my brain until the next time I hear it. Yet the hours and process that might have gone into bringing that song to the public maybe deserve more than that brief acknowledgment.

Why am I picking on James for this narrative? Well, after touring their fourth album “Seven” extensively it was time to return to the recording studio to begin work on their fifth “Laid”. Desperate to work with the legendary Brian Eno, their wish was granted and he duly agreed to act as producer. The band had historically always had song-storming sessions whilst jamming in their Manchester rehearsal rooms out of which the seeds of new tracks would be germinated. Eno observed this and thought that this organic (there’s that word again!) practice was just as valid for recording as the finished product and got the band to agree to letting him record said sessions as a second album, a companion piece to “Laid”. Originally meant to be released simultaneously or as a double album, reticence from their label meant it didn’t see the light of day until August 1994 when “Wah Wah” was released nearly a year after “Laid”. At 23 tracks and 68 minutes long, it divided opinion. To the casual fan who liked their big, anthemic hit singles, it wasn’t what was required but for the strong devoted it was a great insight into how the band worked and their motivations. Now, “Say Something” was actually track five on the “Laid” album but it was paired with a track called “Jam J” for release as a double A-side single which was track 3 on “Wah Wah”. There is a song on “Wah Wah” called “Say Say Something” but it bears no resemblance to its “Laid” counterpart. To further hammer home this point about song composition and not usually getting to know the full gestation period of a track, “Wah Wah” includes an early take of “Sometimes” which would become the second single released from 1997 album “Whiplash”.

As for the performance here, Tim Booth delivers a great vocal but it is combined with a strangely static stance with him only loosening up in the middle eight with some snake-hipped shimmying. The single would peak at No 24 and we won’t see/hear from them again for nearly three years when they would release “She’s A Star” as the first single from that “Whiplash” album.

A video now as we get to see the promo for “I’ll Remember” by Madonna again. Like The Beatles and The Clash before her, Madge didn’t really go in for personal appearances on the show. Off the top of my head there’s two from 1984 – her debut performing “Holiday” in the January, all armpits and bangles and then there’s the infamous pink wig appearance in December for “Like A Virgin”. A bit of digging in the internet tells me that over a decade later she was in the studio in November of 1995 to perform “You’ll See” from her ballads collection “Something To Remember” and 1998 saw her on the show twice for run throughs of “Frozen” and “The Power Of Goodbye”. I think that’s it for the 80s and 90s. Not many really when you consider her global reach and the amount of hits she had during that time. The new millennium brought a handful more of appearances before the show was axed in 2006.

Who said Eurodance acts all sound the same?! Well, I’m pretty sure I have at some point in this blog but just as Haddaway shook things up with a ballad for his third single, so Culture Beat lowered the bpm and mood for their fourth hit “World In Your Hands”. This was actually very different to all their previous stuff with an almost trip-hop backbeat and some very sombre raps courtesy of Jay Supreme. The whole track feels pretty dark watching it back. It’s almost Massive Attack-esque. Well, not quite but maybe ‘Medium Sized Rebuke’. Did we really need the very literal stage dressing of a massive spinning globe though? “World In Your Hands” peaked at No 20.

New producer or not, TOTP wasn’t going to turn its back on Eurovision and so here was the UK’s 1994 entrant – Frances Ruffelle with a song called “Lonely Symphony (We Will Be Free)”. Although the song was chosen two weeks earlier by a public telephone vote on A Song For Europe, Frances was already nailed on as the artist to sing it as she was pre-chosen for the gig. She actually performed all eight contending songs over four preview shows during a one week period in March. Although a new name to me, Frances actually came from a very showbiz background. Her Mum is Sylvia Young, founder of the legendary Sylvia Young Theatre School in London and Frances had already made a name for herself in her own right starring in West End productions Starlight Express and Les Misérables. She has furthered that showbiz legacy by being the mother of pop star Eliza Doolittle.

I have to say I don’t remember this song at all (can’t have bothered watching Eurovision that year) but it sounds like Culture Beat weren’t the only people who had been listening to Massive Attack. France’s song had a whiff of the trip hop collective – even the song title bears a resemblance to their most famous song! “Lonely Symphony” is nowhere near as memorable as “Unfinished Sympathy” though and that proved to be its undoing on Eurovision night as Frances trailed in a distant 10th place. It faired better on the UK singles chart where it peaked at a respectable No 25.

Twitter users watching this BBC4 repeat got themselves into a bit of a lather when they realised that Frances was wearing Union Jack underwear beneath her rather sheer dress. I wonder if a then 21 year old, pre-Spice Girls Geri Halliwell was watching back in 1994 and thinking “Hang on a minute. That’s interesting…”

Unlike the Breakers section , Ric Blaxill hadn’t jettisoned the ‘exclusive live by satellite’ slot and continued to keep perhaps misplaced faith with it in the same way that Todd Boehly still believes that Graham Potter is the best person to be my beloved Chelsea’s manager (for now). There’s no denying the size of the name who’s occupying that slot this week but yet again it seems to me to be a wholly uneventful…well…event.

As the onscreen caption states, Bruce Springsteen was enjoying his biggest ever hit with “Streets Of Philadelphia” which was up to No 2 by this point. Not only was the size of the hit impressive but also its longevity. It spent 7 weeks inside the Top 10 alone including a run of 4 where it placed no lower than No 3. Somehow though, The Boss couldn’t manage to topple some Dutch chancers who’d revived the Charleston from the top of the charts. The performance here might be interesting to Bruce aficionados (I know a few) but it’s a tad on the dull side isn’t it? OK, given the sombre mood of the track and the gravitas of the film it came from, you couldn’t expect Bruce to be jumping around stage as if he was singing “Dancing On The Dark” or something but it seems to disrupt the tempo of the show. The fact that it’s in black and white (mostly) doesn’t help. Maybe I’m missing the point. I probably am.

See, now Blaxill’s gone completely the other way mood wise. Talk about polar extremes! Some might say this was going from the sublime to the ridiculous. Get ready for S*M*A*S*H! Now, I spent the 90s working in record shops and so felt reasonably across what was happening in UK music but I have to admit that the ‘New wave of new wave’ was a scene that I don’t recall but it turns out that it was an actual thing and it wasn’t just some clever/nonsense line that Bruno Brookes came up with. Apparently some sort of Britpop forerunner, it was characterised by new bands who wore their original New Wave artists’ influences on their sleeves. All sounds a bit myopic to me. S*M*A*S*H were just one of the bands in the scene though the ones that I’m familiar with are surely more closely associated with Britpop – Sleeper, Echobelly, Shed Seven, Elastica…

So, S*M*A*S*H then. I’m assuming the name was a play on the title of Korean War based comedy drama M*A*S*H? They came from Welwyn Garden City, they made loud records with provocative, ban-inducing titles (“Lady Love Your C**t” anyone?) and somehow managed to get onto TOTP without having released a single (the first act ever to do so). Here’s @TOTPFacts on how they ended up on the show:

Although Pulp were hoping for a call that week ("Do You Remember The First Time?" had entered the top 40 at 33), #TOTP producer Ric Blaxill instead decided to take a punt on S*M*A*S*H, whose non-chart-eligible EP had charted in the album chart 28. "Shame" was the lead track.
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 24, 2023

S*M*A*S*H's Ed Borrie explains: "Our radio plugger… brought Ric Blaxill to see us in Luton at this sports hall… and then a couple of weeks later he had us on Top Of The Pops." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 24, 2023

Simples! OK, maybe not that simple. Their story does have a few more details. The song they performed here – “Shame” – was the lead track from an EP that chart regulations excluded from being eligible for the singles chart but which did qualify for the album chart where it reached No 26. They did finally get a proper hit single later in the year when “(I Want To) Kill Somebody” made No 26 but it’s controversial subject matter got it banned. Listening back to “Shame”, I have to say I don’t mind it. A bit derivative but then if you’re part of a scene whose name harks back to to another well established movement what do you expect? They seem like a prototype of the noisier moments of The Libertines. Just like their frontman Pete Doherty, I’m guessing S*M*A*S*H’s singer Ed Borrie had some issues with drug abuse given his wide-eyed, staring performance here. Surely he’d taken something beforehand? Sadly, I think I’m right. Here’s @TOTPFacts again:

S*M*A*S*H bassist Salvatore Alessi went on to join Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine, while drummer Rob Hague was in These Animal Men.
Singer Ed Borrie, meanwhile, disappeared into (in his words) "North London's drug scene". #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 24, 2023

Happily, Ed is on better form now and is still doing live gigs having supported the likes of My Life Story in 2019. One last thing, how did they get away with singing “You’re girlfriend’s a bitch” on pre-watershed, prime time TV?

We move from Ric Blaxill shaking things up with a cutting edge new band to yet another extreme of giving a part of the pop establishment a pat in the back. Bruno Brookes stands in front of a huge disc that he’s presenting to the Bee Gees to mark 30 years in the business and 100 million sales worldwide. This bit of staging was another small change – hadn’t Simon Mayo stood with a load of 2 Unlimited gold discs the other week as a prop to introduce them? The massive disc only serves to make Bruno look even smaller than he actually is and seems to have made him stumble over his words in his segue. “With me three members of the Bee Gees…” he begins. Aren’t you missing a ‘the’ there Bruno? How many more members of the Bee Gees did you think there were? In truth, it’s all just a big set up to promote their latest single “How To Fall In Love Part 1” and what a curious thing it is. It never seems to get going properly and is so lightweight that it’s hardly there at all. Nowhere near as accessible as previous Top 5 hit “For Whom The Bell Tolls”, it was also nowhere near as successful peaking at No 30. Another curious thing about this was why does Barry Gibb sing the whole song with his right hand in his pocket?

It’s the final week at the top for Doop with “Doop”. Can we just try to forget that this ever happened and never talk of it again? Great.

The play out music is “How Gee” by Black Machine. Yeah, I haven’t a clue either but it sounds very familiar presumably because it’s made up of a load of samples from other songs? Seems that was the case. Here’s @TOTPFacts again:

Sampled in Black Machine's "How Gee": some sax from "Soul Power 74" by Maceo & the Macks (1974) https://t.co/FgVufeq7J6, and a snippet of "Sho Yuh Right Sho Yuh Right" by Chuck Brown and The Soul Searchers (1985) https://t.co/ZvL0YvIFhN #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 24, 2023

… Plus vocals from "Rich Man" by St Paul (1987) https://t.co/V9gd5wYnQ7 and "Rock 'N Roll Dude" by Chubb Rock (1987) https://t.co/fwaJPsKxXM #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 24, 2023

Apparently they were an Italian electronic group that had a few hits in the 90s mainly in Austria and The Netherlands with “How Gee” being the biggest in the UK where it got to No 17. They’re the first act on the next show as well so heaven knows what I’ll find to write about them then!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Haddaway	Rock My Heart	Never happening
2	James	Say Something	Not the single but I have their Best Of album with it on
3	Madonna	I’ll Remember	Nope
4	Culture Beat	World In Your Hands	No
5	Frances Ruffelle	Lonely Symphony (We Will Be Free)	Not even patriotic duty made me buy this
6	Bruce Springsteen	Streets Of Philadelphia	Nah
7	SMASH	Shame	I did not
8	Bee Gees	How To Fall In Love Part 1	As if
9	Doop	Doop	See 1 above
10	Black Machine	How Gee	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/m001jf1w/top-of-the-pops-31031994

TOTP 24 MAR 1994

Posted on February 28, 2023 by 80stastic

This is the eighth show since new producer Ric Blaxill took over the TOTP reins and by my reckoning the breakdown of presenter appearances after bringing back the Radio 1 DJs is as follows:

Simon Mayo – 4
Mark Goodier – 2
Bruno Brookes – 1
Robbie Williams and Mark Owen from Take That (guest presenters) – 1

What was this blatant favouritism for Simon ‘Smug’ Mayo?! I’ve stated my dislike for him many times on this blog but he seems to be even more self satisfied (if that were possible) since returning to the show after the three year hiatus imposed by the Stanley Appel era. It’s as if he’s subliminally saying to the watching TV audience “See, told you the show would suffer if I wasn’t on it”. Tonight, he’s full of football related comments during his segues (Mayo is a Spurs supporter) to show…what exactly? That he was an original ‘lad’ before ‘lad culture’ when into hyperdrive in the mid 90s? Nob.

Before the opening titles of tonight’s show we get a message to camera from Salt ‘N’ Pepa advertising their upcoming appearance later on live by satellite from New York and then we’re straight into it. Opening the show are D:Ream with “U R The Best Thing” although Mayo seems to have confused them with “Groove Is In The Heart” hitmakers Deee-Lite judging by his intro. “OK. Deee-liteful, deee-lovely… err…D: Ream” he quips in his intro. Yes, I know he hasn’t really confused the two acts and that he’s trying out what he believes to be a humorous line but it just isn’t funny. At all. Or is he yet again trying to demonstrate his huge knowledge of pop music. Ooh look at me! I know about a record that was in the charts four years ago! I say again…nob.

It is D:Ream though who surely couldn’t believe their luck given the chart run they were on. Having managed to carve out a couple of medium sized hits the previous year with this track and “Things Can Only Get Better”, they must have thought that those needed to be consolidated on with some new hit material. The usual pop career strategy wasn’t for them though as they embarked upon an even more successful commercial run using the same songs. Talk about recycling; D:Ream were pop’s great environmentalists! In their defence, this was a Perfecto remix of the original track just as “Things Can Only Get Better” was remixed for re-release and they did then put out some different tracks from their album as their next two singles. Their had been speculation that they would move onto “Unforgiven” and “Star/ I Like It” which had also been Top 30 hits in 1993. There is no defence of Peter Cunnah’s chequed suits though. This version of “U R The Best Thing” peaked at No 4.

What’s this then? A track by Soul Asylum that isn’t “Runaway Train”? Yes it is and it’s title affords Simon Mayo the opportunity to air his first side-splitting football reference of the night. “And now it’s Soul Asylum playing Eric Cantona’s favourite record “Somebody To Shove” he tells us, so obviously pleased with himself. His comment needs putting in context 29 years on to make sense of it. Cantona had been sent off twice in four days for violent conduct in the week that this TOTP aired. Ok, we get it Mayo but it’s still not a genuinely entertaining line is it?

Anyway, enough of my disdain for the host, what about the music? It seems that Soul Asylum were doing a D:Ream in that they were in a cycle of re-releasing singles one after the other. Their most well known song “Runaway Train” was originally released in June of 1993 and came to a premature halt at No 37. “Somebody To Shove” was pushed out as the follow up in the September and peaked at No 34. Then “Runaway Train” was given the green light again and this time ran as far as No 7 over the Christmas period. And finally “Somebody To Shove” was put into motion as its follow up for a second time in March 1993. I think I need some asylum for my poor brain let alone my soul. Was it all with it? Well, “Somebody To Shove” peaked two places higher on the UK charts second time around at No 32 and it’s a decent rock tune in the vein of recent chart stars Gin Blossoms but it didn’t have the cut through pull of “Runaway Train” in the same way that casual punters never went for any of Extreme’s material other than “More Than Words”. As for Eric Cantona, there was much worse to come the following year in the shoving stakes.

It’s another outing for that live by satellite performance from New York of “Dry County” by Bon Jovi next which acts as the soundtrack to the chart countdown. I haven’t got much else to say about this one having already discussed it previously so I’ll instead talk about their single previous to this one. Why? Well, it was called “I Believe” which was also the title of two different hit singles in the chart around this time by Marcella Detroit and Sounds Of Blackness. It got me thinking about how many other songs there are called “I Believe”. Well, there’s EMF’s follow up to “Unbelievable”, Tears For Fears’ fifth single from their “Songs From The Big Chair” album and the song that both Frankie Laine and the execrable Robson & Jerome took to No 1. My personal favourite though, if we ignore the brackets, is Stevie Wonder’s “I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever)”. As Alan Partridge might say ‘lovely stuff’.

I’m guessing that if asked to come up with a list of boy bands from the 90s, Worlds Apart wouldn’t be one of the first names on it. Take That? Obviously. Boyzone? Of course. Westlife? Indubitably. East 17? Were they a boy band? Go on then. After that you might have to delve a bit deeper to come up with names like 5ive, 911, A1 and Another Level. Then there’s the American counterparts that made huge impacts both sides of the Atlantic. New Kids On The Block, Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, even Hanson maybe? Worlds Apart though? Well if you were asking the question in the rest of Europe, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Hong Kong etc then they might well be the first and immediate response. They were massive in those territories, immersing themselves in people’s consciousness to the extent that they had their own brand of orange juice and Haribo sweets in the shape of their heads! The reaction to them in the UK was lukewarm at best though. Their albums absolutely tanked over here and they only troubled the Top 40 singles chart compilers on four occasions with their best return being this No 15 hit, a cover of The Detroit Spinners’ “Could It Be I’m Falling In Love”.

Looking at them here, they have all the classic boy band ingredients:

There’s five of them
At least two of them have the 90s curtains haircut
One of them looks like John Barrowman
They’re all wearing oversized, unbuttoned shirts over T-shirts and one of them has the obligatory waistcoat on
Their doing a cover version

It’s all very predictable but also validates their boy band credentials so why weren’t they bigger over here. Perhaps we should just not worry about it and thank our lucky stars they weren’t. Where were David Grant and Jaki Graham when you needed them though?

Back with Simon Mayo and he’s in the groove now with his football-related segues. After having referenced French striker Jean-Pierre Papin in his intro to Worlds Apart – his beloved Spurs were reportedly interested in signing him from AC Milan but it never came to anything (could it be were falling in love with Jean -Pierre Papin? Geddit?) – he’s now resorted to taking the piss out of other teams. In his sights tonight were Swindon Town who were struggling at the bottom of the Premier League at the time. “OK, 9 – 10 – 12 – 12 – 10 – 9 – 7. No, not Swindon’s goal against tally, it’s the last eight chart positions for Reel 2 Real.” Right, I’ve fact-checked this statement and whilst the chart positions are correct, Simon appears to not be able to count as there the last seven chart positions not eight you arse! So far tonight we have established they Mayo is not funny, a football bully and his grasp of even the most basic of numbers is appalling. What a guy!

Anyway, about Reel 2 Real featuring Mad Stuntman (to quote their full artist title), that is quite the rollercoaster of a chart journey. Their single “I Like To Move It” certainly had legs. It would ultimately spend 11 weeks inside the Top 10 and 15 inside the Top 20. In total it spent 5 months on the Top 100. Given all of the above, why had TOTP ignored it until now? After all, it was one one hell of an ear worm although it wasn’t especially welcome in my auditory system. Wasn’t this just a 2 Unlimited / K7 hybrid? And why didn’t they call it “I Like To Move It (Move It)”?

Impressive as its 1994 chart life was, that was nothing to the legacy it has amassed since. It has been heavily used in the Madagascar film franchise and has also made its way into the gaming world via Singstar Dance and Fortnite. I’m pretty sure it was also the inspiration for this Top 5 hit later in the year…

Now, after a run of over nine years, we have to say goodbye to the Breakers section which was jettisoned by new producer Ric Blaxill after this show. It first appeared on TOTP in January 1985 and whilst I understand the concept behind it, the slot had become unwieldy and unworkable with often as many as five tracks crammed into a 2 minute time frame. Anyway, for what it’s worth, these were the last of them starting with The Brand New Heavies. Having garnered critical acclaim with their first two albums – the eponymous debut and “Heavy Rhyme Experience, Vol 1.”, the band would discover the secret to combining that with commercial popularity with the release of third album “Brother Sister”. A platinum selling, No 4 charting collection of songs, its appeal was no doubt helped by the inclusion of the band’s cover of Maria Muldaur’s “Midnight At The Oasis” which weirdly was omitted from the US version of the album. I’m getting ahead of myself though. The lead single was “Dream On Dreamer”. A radio friendly, acid jazz infused soul/pop track, it would peak at No 15 becoming their biggest hit at the time.

Here come Roxette next with the video for their single “Sleeping In My Car”. The promo is set in what seems to be an underground car park and reminds me of the video for Duran Duran’s “The Chauffeur” the final scenes of which are set in a similar location. The Duran video is filmed in black and white (as are parts of Roxette’s) and was inspired by Liliana Cavani’s erotic and disturbing cult film The Night Porter. Whilst “The Chauffeur” is all very stylised and has high artistic pretensions, the “Sleeping In My Car” promo seems a lot less aesthetic and if it was influenced by a film, it was probably Rita, Sue And Bob Too.

The final (ever) Breaker is one of those aforementioned “I Believe” songs from Sounds Of Blackness. The track was written and produced by the legendary Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis (who produced the rest of parent album “Africa To America: The Journey Of The Drum”). Apparently they were convinced to work with the 40 strong collective after taking their long time collaborator Janet Jackson to one of their shows and witnessed her enthusiastic response to them.

“I Believe” peaked at a very impressive No 17 and they followed it up with “Gloryland”, the official theme song of World Cup USA 94 which they recorded with Daryl Hall.

Time for that Salt ‘N’ Pepa live by satellite exclusive now. Simon Mayo is back with his spectacularly unfunny one liners, blathering on about Finsbury Park tube station but it doesn’t distract from the performance. It should be stated, of course, that “Whatta Man” was a collaboration with En Vogue. Up to this point, both artists had a chequered history when it came to UK hit singles. For En Vogue that meant a huge debut song in 1990 (“Hold On” – No 5) followed by three releases that all failed to chart. Then another massive song in 1992 (“My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It) – No 4) then a run of three middling hits and two chart flops before “Whatta Man”. As for Salt ‘N’ Pepa, it was a similar story with huge hits (“Push It”, “Twist And Shout”, “Let’s Talk About Sex”) punctuated by smaller ones (“Shake Your Thang”, “Shoop”, “You Showed Me”). It was probably mutually beneficial to both parties to join forces to seek out a huge record.

And whatta hit! A No 7 in the UK and No 3 in America, it sold 200,000 copies in the former and 1,000,000 in the latter. It’s not hard to hear why. The combination of En Vogue’s silky vocals with Salt ‘N’ Pepa’s sublime, chiming rhymes made for a killer track. The performance here is full of sass and swagger and a large cast but I’m not sure that En Vogue are any of them. That’s not them on vocals at the back of the set is it? So what happened next? For Salt ‘N’ Pepa, “Whatta Man” would prove to be the final time they made the UK Top 10 though they did return to the charts on four further occasions though none of those entries got any higher than No 19. En Vogue faired better. Their 1997 album “EV3” went platinum in the States and furnished them with one last huge hit in “Don’t Let Go (Love)” which went to No 5 in the UK and No 2 in the US.

The Take That juggernaut continues to play fast and loose with chart records. “Everything Changes” was the title track of their second album but it was also their fourth consecutive single to enter the charts at No 1 which it will do the week after next. Their first chart topper to feature Robbie Williams on lead vocals (he took on that role for the band’s cover of Barry Manilow’s “Could It Be Magic” but that peaked at No 3), it was also specifically written for him by Gary Barlow as a deliberate ploy. I have to say that I always found it quite weak and insubstantial but then again, if it had appeared on the second (much poppier) Wham! album “Make It Big”, would we have been talking about yet another George Michael classic?

The Top 10 countdown gives Simon Mayo another opportunity to showcase his amazing talent for delivering lines that only he thinks are funny. “Now the Dutch have a great tradition when it comes to the UK No 1. There’s Pussycat and “Mississippi”…and erm…well “Doop” by Doop that’s it as far as I can think…” he deadpans to camera. Once more, as well as being humourless he is factually incorrect. He’s missed out 2 Unlimited* and “No Limit” which was a UK chart topper just 12 months before! Surely he can’t have forgotten that or did he purposely omit them to try and make his ‘joke’ work? My God, I think I’d rather listen to this Charleston nonsense one more time than year any more from Mayo!

*There have been numerous Dutch DJ types post 1994 to ascend to the No 1 spot plus who could forget Vengaboys in 1999?!

The play out song is “Hi De Ho” by K7. The follow up to “Come Baby Come”, this was an example of something called the swing revival. Or was it retro swing? Or even neo-swing? Whatever its name, it was a movement that displayed a renewed interest in the swing genre of jazz. Yeah, must have passed me by as well. I mean, I remember there was a minor hit single in 1988 by the Reggae Philharmonic Orchestra that was a cover of Cab Calloway’s “Minnie The Moocher” but that surely doesn’t count as a whole movement? Yes, there was also the Doop phenomenon but did that count as swing music? A quick bit of research tells me that there was more to it than that but it mostly happened in America and was instigated by Los Angeles’ Royal Crown Revue band. These jump blues revivalists appeared in the Jim Carrey film The Mask whose soundtrack heavily featured swing music and indeed K7’s “Hi De Ho” track. The video for the song features a cameo from the aforementioned Cab Calloway himself and of course, he originally recorded “Hi De Ho Man’ upon which the K7 single is based. I’m pretty sure that I owned a copy of The Mask soundtrack (and therefore the K7 track) by default as there was a promo copy of it floating around the Our Price where I was working at the time so I took it home. Don’t think I ever played it and have no idea where it is now.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	D:Ream	U R The Best Thing	Nah
2	Soul Asylum	Somebody To Shove	No
3	Bon Jovi	Dry County	No but I had a promo copy of the album
4	Worlds Apart	Could It Be I’m Falling In Love	As if
5	Reel 2 Real featuring Mad Stuntman	I Like To Move It	Negative
6	The Brand New Heavies	Dream On Dreamer	No but I think my wife had the album
7	Roxette	Sleeping In My Car	It’s another no
8	Sounds Of Blackness	I Believe	I did not
9	Salt ‘N’ Pepa and En Vogue	Whatta Man	Liked it, didn’t buy it
10	Take That	Everything Changes	Of course not
11	Doop	Doop	Nope
12	K7	Hi De Ho	No but I had it on that promo copy of The Mask soundtrack

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/m001j65b/top-of-the-pops-24031994

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

Author: 80stastic

TOTP 26 MAY 1994

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TOTP 19 MAY 1994

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TOTP 12 MAY 1994

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TOTP 05 MAY 1994

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TOTP 28 APR 1994

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TOTP 21 APR 1994

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TOTP 14 APR 1994

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TOTP 07 APR 1994

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TOTP 31 MAR 1994

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TOTP 24 MAR 1994

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