Author: 80stastic

TOTP 21 JAN 1993

Posted on by 80stastic

There’s a new president in the White House as the day before this TOTP aired, Bill Clinton was sworn in as the 42nd POTUS. I can’t really think about Clinton without this coming to mind…

And then this of course…

Politicians lying. Fast forward thirty odd years and literally nothing has changed. If anything, it’s got worse. And that’ll do for the intro this time. I’ve done a few lengthy ones lately so I’m due a more succinct start to a post.

We start the show with yet another 70s disco revival. After Boney M and their recent megamix single and Greatest Hits album returned them to the charts for the first time in well over a decade, now strode Sister Sledge straight into the Top 10. What was going on?

The last time we saw the sisters in the UK charts was eight years previous with a No 1 hit that was, for me, one of the worst hits of…well…ever. I refer of course to the execrable “Frankie”, a song so bad that it didn’t just stink the place out but dissolved its foundations with its foul stench. After that inexplicable chart topper, nothing, zip, nada. And then this comeback with a remix of 1979 hit and their signature tune “We Are Family”. Entitled the ‘Sure Is Pure Remix’, this is was to promote, like the aforementioned Boney M, a Greatest Hits compilation simply called “The Very Best Of Sister Sledge 1973-93”. Well, I guess you couldn’t blame their record label for wanting a piece of the retro action but this wasn’t the first time that there’d been a Sister Sledge revival. Back in 1984, Chic remixes of “Lost In Music” and “We Are Family” had graced the Top 40 to the tune of Nos 4 and 33 respectively yet here they were back again for another go. It seems you really can’t keep a good tune down and “We Are Family” is a good tune no doubt. The 1993 version peaked at No 5 and inevitably led to a follow up which was a re-release of, yes of course, “Lost In Music”. A bit less obviously there was a final rerelease of their 1984 hit “Thinking Of You” which would give the group their third hit single of the year.

As for the performance here, the first thing that I noticed is that there’s only three of the group on stage immediately rendering untrue the lyrics “I got all my sisters with me”. I’ve tried to work out who is there and who is missing. Kathy is definitely doing the lead vocals and I think that’s Kim and Debbie up there with her meaning it’s Joni who was missing (I think). Was it Joni who did most of the singing on “Frankie”? Sadly Joni passed away in 2017 but the group is still going via the family’s next generation as the sisters’ kids are now involved. Their website welcomes visitors with the intro:

Welcome ”FAM”, to the official Sister Sledge website! Keep it real, keep it “SLEDGENDARY®​”!

They’ve copyrighted the word ‘sledgendary’. Excellent!

It’s the 40-11 chart rundown next over the top of the video for Faith No More’s cover of “Easy” by the Commodores or “I’m Easy” as they have inexplicably taken it upon themselves to retitle it. The band are on record as saying that even though their version is very faithful, the video featuring some transvestites shows that they were ‘up to something’ in their decision to record it and that it was all very tongue in cheek. Was it the case then that they were trying to subvert and expose the mechanisms of the music industry by releasing the song and were in fact some sort of US version of The KLF?! I’m not sure I get nor am buying this.

“I’m Easy” peaked at No 3 in the UK but was only a minor hit in the US where it stuck at No 58. Cultural differences and all that.

Here’s a thing. I would never have thought that there was a connection between UK blue eyed soul merchants Go West and US West Coast rapper 2Pac but there is and it’s this song called “What You Won’t Do For Love”. Nothing to do with Meatloaf and his similar sounding single that would be the year’s best seller, this was actually a cover version (another one) of a 1978 track written by US singer-song writer Bobby Caldwell.

The 2Pac connection is courtesy of it being sampled for posthumous single “Do For Love” whist Go West recorded it for their “Indian Summer” album.

Peter Cox and Richard Drummie were on a bit of a roll come 1993. This was their third Top 20 hit on the bounce after “King Of Wishful Thinking” and “Faithful”. Who could have predicted that when the hits had dried up in the late 80s? I’m surprised it was a hit though as the duo’s version is a real plodder and sounds lumpen next to the original. To be honest I’m more drawn to their backing band than the song. There’s a sax player who looks like Eric Catchpole from Lovejoy and a guy on keyboards who resembles Just Good Friends actor and “Dancing With The Captain” hitmaker Paul Nicholas.

Go West saw out 1993 with two more UK hits both taken from their Best Of collection “Aces And Kings”. Their cover (another one!) of “The Tracks Of My Tears” by The Miracles reached No 16 whilst a re-release of debut hit “We Close Our Eyes” just scraped in at No 40. The band gave never returned to the UK charts since.

Snap! are waiting on the next stage to perform their hit “Exterminate!”. They were really keen on the use of exclamation marks weren’t they? I say ‘they’ but this seems to be mostly being promoted as a Niki Haris single if the on screen graphics and host Mark Franklin’s intro are anything to go by. She has had quite the career though. As well as her time with Snap!, she’s toured extensively with Madonna and collaborated with the likes of Anita Baker, Prince, Ray Charles, Tom Jones and Luther Vandross to name but a few. That Billie Holiday tribute thing that Franklin mentions though, well I struggled to find much online about that at all. Was it a film, TV special, album, concert? I found a listing on the BFI database but only scant details about it. Did it ever happen? Maybe it was exterminated? I’ll get me coat.

Yay the Breakers! This is where I have to comment on a load of songs some of which we may only ever get to see/hear for 30 seconds or so. Seems like a good deal. We start with a song for Bill Clinton – “Dogs Of Lust” by The The. Just as I have previously posted about XTC and Prefab Sprout, The The really don’t get the commercial success their catalogue deserves. Not in terms of the charts anyway and with TOTP being a show predominantly based around the Top 40, we rarely got to see them on our screens. I say ‘them’ but I mean Matt Johnson as the band really are basically a vehicle for his creativity.

This single was his first chart hit since 1989’s “The Beat(en) Generation” and only his third ever at the time. It feels wrong to say that “Dogs Of Lust” was typical The The fare as if the word ‘typical’ could ever be applied to Matt Johnson but it was in the respect that it was as uncompromising, startling and in your face a track as everything he does always is. The opening harmonica riff which becomes a repeating refrain is reminiscent of the theme tune from The Old Grey Whistle Test and came courtesy of everyone’s favourite in demand collaborator Johnny Marr.

The track was the lead single from the album “Dusk” which, in a chart statistic that seeks to undermine my earlier claims about lack of commercial success, peaked at No 2. It produced three hit singles in all though none were bigger than “Dogs Of Lust” and its No 25 chart high.

Matt’s next two albums achieved very modest sales and he busied himself with creating film soundtracks as the new millennium dawned though he has recently released a No live album of his comeback gig at the Royal Albert Hall.

I’d totally forgotten that there was a fourth single release from Del Amitri’s “Change Everything” album despite it being the second biggest of the lot with a chart peak of No 20. The title of this one is almost a single by The Jam (“When You’re Young”) and very nearly a Bucks Fizz hit (“When We Were Young”) but “When You Were Young” it was and a pleasant little ditty it was too if a little formulaic.

There had been a gap of five months or so since their last single “Just Like A Man” but that was a marketing strategy decision apparently as “When You Were Young” was kept back to avoid the Xmas rush. I think the plan worked.

Alice In Chains? To quote Roy Chubby Brown, “Who The F**k Is Alice?”. Well, they were one of those grunge bands of course that were meant to flood the UK music scene in the wake of Nirvana but which never really materialised. “Would?” was actually from the soundtrack to the film Singles which I loved but which my friend Robin who I saw it with hated. In essence, it was your basic romantic comedy/ drama but set in Seattle against the backdrop of the grunge movement. Following the love lives of two couples and one single person, its soundtrack featured big grunge hitters like Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and of course Alice In Chains as well as alternative rockers like Paul Westerberg and The Smashing Pumpkins. I’m pretty sure I even gave it a play on the shop stereo of the Rochdale Our Price I was working in. “Would?” is a heavy sound that wouldn’t normally have floated my boat but then I had liked “Alive” by Pearl Jam so maybe my tastes were changing back then.

Alice In Chains would rack up a string of minor hits in the UK during the 90s though none as big as “Would?” which peaked at No 19. They also had songs feature on two other films, Arnie’s Last Action Hero and slacker comedy Clerks. Oh, and the reason Robin hated Singles? There’s a character called Steve in it who is a town planner but who used to be a DJ. In a scene in his flat with new girlfriend Linda, they’re perusing his record collection and the vinyl is in PVC sleeves. Even his punk records. This disgusted Robin so much he barely paid any attention to the rest of the film.

A lot of the dance anthems that have featured on these TOTP repeats have failed to ring any bells with me but I do recall “Open Your Mind” by U.S.U.R.A. This piece of Italian techno sampled “New Gold Dream (81–82–83–84)” by Simple Minds and was a dance smash around Europe including over here where it peaked at No 7. I even recall that it was on the very hip Deconstruction Records label because it had that generic red and yellow single cover with a band looping a ‘d’ and ‘c’ together.

The face morphing video caused a bit of a stir not for its effects – it was no “Black And White” – but because of the faces chosen which included Joe McCarthy, Benito Mussolini, Richard Nixon, Ian Paisley, Ronald Reagan, Josef Stalin, Margaret Thatcher and Mary Whitehouse. Interestingly no Bill Clinton though.

Now to a very underrated band with a song that’s actually a bit of a banger in a very understated way. The Beloved had come to popular attention in late ‘89/early ‘90 with the hit singles “The Sun Rising” and “Hello” and an album “Happiness” which gained positive reviews for its fusion of house and pop music. Fast forward three years and the band had been through a seismic shift with founding member Steve Waddington having left the fold. Remaining original member Jon Marsh replaced him with his wife Helena. Nothing like keeping it in the family eh?

This new line up returned in 1993 with “Sweet Harmony” the lead single from new album “Conscience”. It was still that combination of dance beats and a pop structure on which they’d made their name but this time that sound had been refined right down to the most precise of details. This was so slick that it worked as a club anthem and as a great pop song as substantiated by its Top 10 chart placing. Clearly the TOTP producers didn’t quite know what to do with this genre bending hit as exemplified by that classic default strategy of flooding the stage with dry ice.

However, it wasn’t their appearance on the show that everyone was talking about but rather the single’s accompanying promo video. You know, the nudity one. Yes, the staging of a naked Jon Marsh surrounded by similarly nude women (infamously including then unknown but future TV presenter Tess Daly) was meant to promote the idea of human unity but instead got the likes of the aforementioned Mary Whitehouse outraged at the indecency.

There were at least two people who did like it though…

What was it this week with acts who felt the need to turn their names into faux acronyms. After U.S.U.R.A. earlier, we now have T.H.E. S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. Didn’t these people realise I’d be writing a blog thirty years later and have to type this nonsense out?!

After being a Breaker last week, this Clivillés and Cole project were in the studio seven days on to perform “It’s Gonna Be A Lovely Day”. Yes, that’s TV’s Michelle Visage up there with the Nosferatu talons and she’s giving me some heavy PM Dawn / “Set Adrift On Memory Bliss” vibes with her rapping style.

Taken from the soundtrack to The Bodyguard, it was already at its No 17 peak which was 13 places lower than the chart high achieved by a Ben Liebrand remix of the Bill Withers original back in 1988.

Now I knew there were at least two singles taken from Def Leppard’s “Adrenalize” album in the odious “Let’s Get Rocked” and “Make Love Like A Man” but I had no idea that it had gifted the world six! “Heaven Is” was the fourth of those and lead singer Joe Elliott is on record as saying the song was ‘more Queen than Queen’ and that the backing vocals sounded like The Beach Boys. Hmm. Let’s have another listen then…

*3 minutes 37 seconds later*

…nah, that’s just the same old Def Leppard shite.

“Heaven Is” peaked at No 13.

Is this week eight at the top for Whitney Houston and “I Will Always Love You”? I’m losing count now. I’m also running out of things to say about it so instead, here’s Dolly Parton’s original…

…and Whitney’s version for comparison…

*So which is best?

*It’s Dolly. Obviously.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Sister SledgeWe Are Family (Sure Is Pure Remix)Nope
2Faith No MoreI’m EasyNo
3Go WestWhat You Won’t Do For LoveI did not
4Snap!Exterminate!Nah
5The TheDogs Of LustNo but I maybe should have
6Del AmitriWhen You Were Young
Not the single but it’s on my Best Of of theirs that I have
7Alice In ChainsWould?Negative
8U.S.U.R.A.Open Your MindRemembered it, didn’t buy it
9The BelovedSweet HarmonySee 5 above
10T.H.E. S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M.It’s Gonna Be A Lovely DayAnd no
11Def LeppardHeaven IsNot this – no!
12Whitney HoustonI Will Always Love YouShe’ll never beat Dolly for me

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/m00183ds/top-of-the-pops-21011993

TOTP 14 JAN 1993

Posted on by 80stastic

It’s mid January 1993 and I’m pissed off. The night before this TOTP aired, my beloved Chelsea had lost 2-1 to Middlesbrough in the 3rd round of the FA Cup. That result combined with losing to Crystal Palace in the League Cup the week before effectively ended our season at the halfway stage. Bloody Hell! This was in the days before rolling coverage and every game being on TV. I tuned into Sportsnight to find out the result and it just came up on the screen. No highlights, no post match interviews, no report from the ground just the presenter reading out the result. Brutal. Anyway, as such, I was in a bad mood at work in the Our Price store in Rochdale the next day. I wonder if I sold any of the singles on this TOTP that day?

Well I certainly remember this tune as shifting a fair few copies. West End featuring Sybil and “The Love I Lost” seemed to strike a chord with record buyers that maybe few of us saw coming. Or perhaps we really should have. Let’s examine the evidence…

Firstly, Sybil was a known singer with a small but healthy track record of recent hits. In 1989 she’d bagged herself two chart entries with cover versions of Bacharach and David songs “Don’t Make Me Over” and “Walk On By” which peaked at No 19 and No 6 respectively. Ah yes, that’s the next piece of evidence- cover versions. The charts were full of cover versions around this time so why not jump on the bandwagon? Thirdly, this wasn’t just any cover version. The original was by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes and what usually happened to Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes cover versions historically? Yep, they were massive hits. The Communards take on “Don’t Leave Me This Way” was the biggest selling single of 1986 whilst Simply Red’s 1989 cover of “If You Don’t Know Me By Now” went to No 2. Fourthly, it was produced by Mike Stock and Pete Waterman who knew a thing or two about hit records. Or was it? Here’s @TOTPFacts:

There’s more…

And finally…

Wow! What a tangled web we weave! Sybil didn’t care though and used the success of “The Love I Lost” (it made No 3) to give her career a shot in the arm and bagged herself a Top 5 follow up single in “When I’m Good And Ready” and a Top 20 album in “Good ‘N’ Ready”. Two more singles were released from it but in a remarkable case of bad luck, both peaked at that most unfortunate of chart positions No 41.

Oh, here we go. A sure sign that Take That were now officially a big deal is the fact that they’ve done a little to camera piece from Germany explaining why they can’t be in the TOTP studio to perform “Could It Be Magic”. They were now that established! Although it only lasts a few seconds, it’s interesting to note that the only band member not to speak is Robbie Williams who I would have guessed would have been all over this especially as it’s him on lead vocals on the single. Maybe he wasn’t very well, poor thing.

As I recall there was a lot of praise for Take That’s treatment of this Barry Manilow track at the time in terms of turning it from the original ballad into an up tempo disco stomper. What I didn’t know then was that Donna Summer had already performed that transformation in 1976 and had a huge hit on the US dance chart with it (in the UK it barely grazed the Top 40).

Donna’s version isn’t quite as frenetic as Take That’s and takes a good minute or so to warm up but once it gets going, you can hear that the teen sensations couldn’t claim to have come up with the original concept. I mean, what they did with it was pretty good and all and even won them a BRIT for Best British Single but original? No.

“Could It Be Magic” peaked at No 3 for Take That.

Shanice?! She never had another hit other than “I Love Your Smile”. I know because I checked for my review of 1992 so why is she back on TOTP in 1993? Oh, it’s the US charts feature and she’s having a big hit with “Saving Forever For You” over there. I see. The single ultimately peaked at No 4 across the pond but we were harder to please here in the UK and it stalled outside the Top 40 despite this TOTP appearance.

As host Tony Dortie says, the song is from the soundtrack to hit 90s US teen drama Beverly Hills 90210. My wife used to watch this on a Saturday morning after I had hauled my sorry ass onto the early morning bus to Rochdale for work. Despite saying nothing to us about our lives, it was popular in the UK as well making the lead actors like Jason Priestley and Luke Perry major stars. It ran for ten years and was reactivated in 2018.

I have no recall of the music featured in the show though and a glance at the track listing of the soundtrack album released in 1992 doesn’t help – I don’t know any of the songs on it. “Saving Forever For You” was however written by prolific songwriter Diane Warren who has been responsible for some of the biggest US hits over the last 30 years or so including nine No 1s so it had pedigree though that clearly cut no ice with the UK record buying public. It sounds a bit like “Miss You Like Crazy” by Natalie Cole which Warren didn’t write but which she probably could have.

Shanice’s performance here throws up a few questions. Why has she turned up wearing multi coloured dungarees like a Play School presenter, why was she sat down for the majority of the song and what was the deal with the lone floral arrangement behind her?

The next studio performance looks and sounds chaotic but not in a good way. Pop Will Eat Itself had, possibly against the odds, racked up a steady flow of Top 40 hits since the late 80s with their brand of sample driven indie rock that the music press decided should be called ‘grebo’. I say it was unlikely not because they weren’t any good – “Def. Con. One” and “X Y and Zee” are great records – but they always seemed to be swimming against the tide of what was chart popular. They were outliers in their sound and image. Yes, the other members of that Stourbridge triumvirate had also managed to achieve chart hits but certainly in the case of The Wonder Stuff, that seemed to have come about because of a deliberate decision to go for a more commercial sound (“Size Of Cow” etc).

PWEI still seemed really out there to me and this is ably demonstrated in their performance for “Get The Girl! Kill The Baddies!”. This was all over the place and, let’s be fair, the vocals were hardly on point. One of the band has turned up with hair like Johnny Depp’s portrayal of the Mad Hatter whilst the other fella looks like Wee Willy Winkie but with dreadlocks instead of a hat. I suppose what I’m saying is that I just wasn’t feeling this one. Other punters did though sending it to No 9 (NINE!) in the charts making it their biggest ever hit though I’m putting that down to a slack sales period following Xmas and a loyal fanbase.

After playing Arrested Development’s “Revolution” in the Breakers the other week, TOTP have flipped to the other song in the double A-side single this week as we get “Mr. Wendal” this time around in a live by satellite performance from Atlanta, Georgia. I always liked this and actually preferred it to “People Everyday”. An insightful piece on the status of being homeless, it had a vibrancy to it and an undoubted groove as well.

This performance reflects the record with a high stepping, high kicking, star jumping backing singer, a guy spinning some tunes whilst…erm…constantly sitting down and an old fella (Mr. Wendal?) sat in a rocking chair cleaning a pair of shoes! OK, maybe it didn’t reflect the energy of the track completely but if you’re going to listen to a pop song about homelessness, wouldn’t you prefer it to be this over “Another Day In Paradise”?

“Mr. Wendal” peaked at No 4.

I didn’t know the source material for this next song until I checked it out the other week and I have to say listening to the Marianne Faithfull original was hardly a road to Damascus moment. I guess Sunscreem should be given credit for attempting to turn “Broken English” into a dance anthem but for me it never quite gets going and then all of a sudden it’s over. The repeated lyric ‘What are you fighting for?’ lent itself to the repetitive beat of a house banger but all the jumping around by singer Lucia Holm and the addition of two podium dancers and a key change can’t sell it to me.

Sunscreem’s version of “Broken English” peaked at No 13.

Here come this week’s Breakers starting with those funky divas En Vogue and their latest single “Give It Up, Turn It Loose”. Now, if I was on Popmaster on Radio 2 and got through to the 3 in 10 challenge, I reckon I could do it if Ken Bruce asked me for three hit singles by En Vogue. However, this wouldn’t have been one. This must have totally passed me by back in the day. Listening to it now, the first word that comes to mind is ‘smooth’. These girls knew how to put a soul vibe together.

Being the fourth single from the album hampered its chart chances but “Give It Up, Turn It Loose” still managed a respectable peak of No 22. Oh, I would have gone for “Hold On”, “My Lovin’ ( You’re Never Gonna Get It)” and “Free Your Mind” on 3 in 10 by the way.

Now I was pretty sure that of the singles released from the soundtrack to The Bodyguard, all but one of them were by Whitney Houston with the anomaly being Lisa Stansfield. If I’m right in this assumption (which according to Wikipedia I am), how do you explain T.H.E. S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. and their Bill Withers’ inspired hit “It’s Gonna Be A Lovely Day”? Well, I’m reliant on Wikipedia again here which tells me that this lot were a Clivillés and Cole (of C+C Music Factory) project featuring one Michelle Visage on lead vocals. Yes, that Michelle Visage of Strictly Come Dancing, Celebrity Big Brother and Ru Paul’s Drag Race fame. Also part of the ensemble was a singer called Octavia, a name which, if you’re reading this and are my age, should be giving you some heavy Pipkins vibes right now.

Anyway, this track was definitely on The Bodyguard soundtrack, though I don’t remember it as being at all. All I think of when I think of that album is Whitney Houston and power ballads. I certainly don’t think of T.H.E. S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. whom I’ve learned to dislike immensely on account of what a pain in the arse it is to type out their name.

“It’s Gonna Be A Lovely Day” peaked at No 17.

Now I do remember this next one. In 1986, you couldn’t escape Peter Gabriel. His “So” album was a No 1 around the world propelled to success by the single “Sledgehammer” and that video. It would be another six years before the follow up album “Us” appeared. In the intervening years, there’d been just a film soundtrack album (“Passion: Music For The Last Temptation Of Christ”) and a Best Of compilation “Shaking The Tree”. What would his new material sound like? Well, if “Steam” was anything to go by, it was exactly the same as the old material.

The second single from the album, this was “Sledgehammer Pt II”. Not that this was a bad thing, it was just that I think we were expecting something more from a creative like Gabriel. Not only did “Steam” sound like “Sledgehammer”, it looked like it too as the accompanying video was directed by Stephen R Johnson who had made the promos for “Sledgehammer” and “Big Time”. It would win a Grammy for Best Music video, the second consecutive triumph for a Peter Gabriel video after “Digging The Dirt” the previous year. The motion capture technology for the water sequences was used again in the video for TLC’s “Waterfalls” video a couple of years later which again generated awards a plenty. As engaging as the “Steam” promo is, it does make Gabriel come across as a creepy sex pest in places.

Despite a chart high of No 10, we never got to see any more of the video on TOTP other than this glimpse in the Breakers which seems kind of odd and must have pissed off Gabriel and Johnson. So successful was the single in Canada that it knocked Whitney Houston off the No 1 spot which must have taken some doing. Just one more thing on this song, if you mash up “Steam” and “Sledgehammer” you just about get the title of a great single of the 80s which should have been huge but which missed the charts altogether…

Of the twelve songs featured in tonight’s show, half of them are cover versions. Here’s another one now and this one might just be the strangest of the lot. The reason given by Faith No More as to why they covered “Easy” by the Commodores was that they wanted to wrong foot some of the traditional rock crowd coming to see their gigs. Originally recorded to be a B-side to their “Be Aggressive” single, their label decided to make the release a double A-side instead. It was a good decision as the cover got all the airplay and made the single a No 3 hit. So far so straightforward. Where’s the strangeness in that then? OK well, firstly the track was retitled as “I’m Easy” but…only in Europe. What was that all about? Secondly, they did it absolutely straight, almost a carbon copy of the original even down to the Lionel Richie “oooh!” sound after the middle eight. Why bother? Whet was the point of that? Finally, given its similarity to the original, why were punters buying in their droves? Did they not know the original at all? Did they think it was a Faith Mo More song? I just didn’t get it.

The single went all the way to No 3 in the UK at a stroke easily becoming their biggest hit. It wasn’t on the initial pressings of the band’s “Angel Dust” album but given the single’s success it was rereleased with the track included. Obviously.

Now here was a song that certainly wasn’t a cover. By 1993, popular opinion decreed that Duran Duran were dead in the water. A pop group from the 80s that had elicited far more screams from their adoring fans than favourable reviews from the music press at their peak daring to think they could still be relevant in the 90s? On yer bikes lads! They had started the new decade with an underperforming album in “Liberty” that seemed to be the final nail in the coffin. ‘Look guys, you had a good run now do one will you’ seemed to be the perceived wisdom. Maybe another band would have indeed done one but Duran Duran weren’t any other band. Like U2, whatever you think of them, their longevity deserves some credit.

And so it came to pass that “Ordinary World” would be the catalyst for a revival of fortunes that was a pivotal moment, a turning point in their career. Widely recognised as their best ever tune, it was such a mature sound that record buyers seemed to forget any prejudice they may have been holding against the band and bought it in huge quantities. Written about the death of a friend, Simon Le Bon’s notoriously (ooh see what I did there?) oblique lyrics were never stronger than on display here. It was a masterpiece of composition. It went to No 6, the band’s highest chart peak since “A View To A Kill” eight years before.

The band had lost two core members back in 1985/86 in the Taylors Andy and Roger but the three remaining originals were now joined by guitarist Warren Cuccurullo on a permanent basis and his guitar sound on the record would prove to be instrumental in its success. The album sold well – 100,000 units shifted in the UK and 1 million in the US. Two more singles were released and charted with “Come Undone” an especially good follow up. Their positive reviews was short lived though as their next album “Thank You”, their covers project, was panned and has been described by dissenting music press columnists as one of the worst albums of all time.

Back in 1993 though, I recall that the album “Duran Duran” (aka “The Wedding album”) came out in the February and we had a customer in the Our Price store in Rochdale where I was working come in and ask to reserve the vinyl version for her super fan husband (along with the cassette and CD formats). We were a small store and didn’t stock vinyl so to ensure we had a copy in stock on the day of release, we had to order it one week in advance. The customer was adamant that it was imperative that her hubby got his hands on all available formats on the big day so I promised I would sort it for her/him. And I did. The vinyl came in on time but unfortunately neither the woman nor her husband did…ever. We were left with a vinyl copy we couldn’t display. Bloody Durannies! The song itself though was a beauty and I’m surprised it didn’t hit Top 3 at least.

As for their performance on TOTP, Simon Le Bon’s notoriously (ooh I did it again!) shonky vocals just about stand up in that there’s no flat note incident as per their Live Aid appearance but he seems to be struggling a bit in the fade out. Still, as Tony Dortie says, it was nice to see them back and in such good form.

It’s seven weeks at No 1 for Whitney Houston and “I Will Always Love You” with the single achieving enough sales to be confirmed as the biggest selling single by a female solo artist ever at the time. She was toppled in the UK of that title by Cher whose 1998 single “Believe” sold 1.79 million copies. I’m not sure if that record still stands. I don’t understand the charts now which seem to allow anything to be a chart entry if it gets enough streams. I think Kate Bush might be No 1 this week with “Running Up That Hill” due to its use in the finale of Netflix horror drama series Stranger Things. It’s a crazy world we live in these days.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1West End featuring Sybil The Love I LostNope
2Take ThatCould It Be MagicNah
3ShaniceSaving Forever For YouDid anybody?
4Pop Will Eat ItselfGet The Girl! Kill The Baddies!I did not
5Arrested DevelopmentMr. WendalNo but my wife had the album
6SunscreemBroken EnglishDid nothing for me
7En VogueGive It Up, Turn It LooseNo
8T.H.E. S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M.It’s Gonna Be A Lovely DayNegative
9Peter GabrielSteamIt was OK but I was never going to buy it
10Faith No MoreI’m EasyNo – didn’t get this at all
11Duran DuranOrdinary WorldNot the single but I have it on something I’m sure
12Whitney HoustonI Will Always Love YouAnd 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/m0017wty/top-of-the-pops-14011993

TOTP 07 JAN 1993

Posted on by 80stastic

1992 has bitten the dust and to celebrate the dawning of 1993, there are a glut of new songs on the first TOTP of the new year. Traditionally a time when singles don’t have to sell that many copies in the post Xmas sales slump to bag a Top 40 placing, let’s see if we can spot any examples of that here….

Could this be a contender? Now admittedly there was a time when Jesus Jones were one of the hottest properties on planet pop but that was back in 1991 and we all know that the old adage about a week being a long time in politics can also apply to the music industry. Would they still have an audience nearly two years on? Well possibly but one big and committed enough to send their new single “The Devil You Know” straight into the Top 20?

This was the lead single from third album “Perverse” which was one of the first albums ever to be recorded entirely on computer and the concept behind it according to rock journalist Stephen Thomas Erlewine was “to make techno palatable for the pop masses”. A worthy ambition or a pointless pursuit? The music press of the time couldn’t make their minds up and reviews were mixed. The album has been revisited more positively retrospectively so maybe Mike Edwards and co were just ahead of their time?

As for the single itself, I think I can hear the sound they were trying to meld but I’m not sure that it was any good. There’s an Eastern influence to it at the beginning (an Iranian instrument apparently) and a bit of a panel beating techno riff where the chorus should be. All a bit of a mess really. The single went to No 10 and I’m stating for the record that chart peak would not have been achieved at any other time of the year.

Having just been pipped to the best selling single of the year title late doors by Whitney Houston, Snap! have followed up “Rhythm Is A Dancer” with their ode to the daleks “Exterminate!”. Not as gigantic sounding a tune as its predecessor, it was hardly understated either though. There some Enigma “Sadeness” vibes thrown in the mix but the biggest change is the omission of rapper Turbo B from proceedings. I’m not sure of the exact timeline but he left the Snap! family around this time and so it was left to ex-Madonna backing singer Niki Haris to do the vocals and be the public face of the whole project. Given “Exterminate!” achieved an ultimate chart peak of No 2, you’d have to say she did a pretty decent job. And yet, asked to name a song by Snap!, how many of us would opt for it? “Exterminate!” you say? By Snap!? Like Kajagoogoo having hits without Limahl, it just doesn’t compute.

Something else that didn’t compute was this next performance by a band making their TOTP debut. More specifically it was their look that didn’t make any sense.

The Frank And Walters (not Frank And The Walters Tony Dortie!) hailed from Cork, Ireland and “After All” would turn out to be their only UK Top 40 hit when it peaked at No 11. A couple of EPs got them noticed by the Go! Discs label who released their debut album “Trains, Boats And Planes” from which “After All” was taken.

I liked “After All”. It was quirky, catchy and blazed its own little trail for unlikely pop stars. Listening back to it now, it seems to have a sliver of “Sit Down” by James about it. However, it did seem to divide opinion. I once worked with someone who absolutely detested it though I could never quite work out why.

So getting back to their image, my use of the word ‘unlikely’ doesn’t rally cover what was happening in front of our eyes with this performance. Bright orange roll necks and hideously patterned trousers?! Really?! Here’s singer Paul Linehan (courtesy of @TOTPFacts) with some more detail:

And the hair? Here’s Paul again:

None of the above explains why though? Were they influenced by the Trevor and Simon ‘Singing Corner’ characters from Going Live? Or were they the influencers? Was Mike Flowers watching this show and taking hairstyle notes for launching his tilt at the charts with that bizarre cover of “Wonderwall” in 1995?

The Franks came close to a second hit when follow up single, the wonderfully titled “Fashion Crisis Hits New York” stalled at No 42. A gap of five years until their next album was never going to be good for maintaining momentum and the charts would never make their acquaintance again though they have continued to release material with their last album coming in 2016.

After that portal into a possible parallel world where the charts weren’t full of nasty, homogeneous dance hits, that wormhole is firmly shut by the arrival of next act Slipstreem and their hateful single “We Are Raving”. A rave version of “Sailing”?! What in the name of Rod’s beard? Who were these people and just what the f**k was going on here? Actually, I couldn’t care less who they were and I know what was going on. This was cashing in pure and simple. Jumping on a bandwagon and then bastardising it for a shit hit and a quick buck.

And what a dog’s dinner of a performance to promote it. There’s the obligatory two guys on keyboards because hey! This is a dance hit you know. Then there’s two dancers in wet suits (obviously) and the ‘singer’ in a de rigueur puffa jacket. And then there’s the other two. A Captain Birdseye lookalike is behind a ship’s wheel bedecked with a tartan scarf but for any viewers who hadn’t quite cottoned onto the Rod Stewart connection there was the shittest Rod lookalike you’ve ever seen stumbling about the stage ramming the point home. He’s definitely not wearing it well.

“We Are Raving” peaked at No 18.

After that unedifying spectacle, it’s time to chill out, with some come down music and that must be the first time rockers Little Angels have been described as such. Let’s face it, they’re hardly Röyksopp are they? We do, however, find them in reflective mood at least with new single “Womankind” which would prove to be their biggest ever hit when it peaked at No 12.

Taken from their No 1 album “Jam”, it’s a decent rock ballad and singer Toby Jepson has some pipes on him for sure. I could imagine it being used to soundtrack some dramatic scene in a big Hollywood blockbuster. They’ve even got some orchestra strings thrown into the mix to give it a big, epic feel. Plus, I always quite liked the phrase “desperate proclaimer” in the lyrics. Yeah, not a bad effort all round.

Are you kidding me? FIVE Breakers?! This better not be how it’s going to be for the whole of 1993! There had better be some decent tunes amongst them then. We start with…ah…a decent tune from Prefab Sprout. How can anyone not love Paddy McAloon? As the 2018 song he wrote for the aforementioned Rod Stewart “Who Designed The Snowflake” says in its lyrics, he’s a genius work. So many great songs and yet, like XTC who I referenced in my review of 1992, so little commercial success.

“Life Of Surprises” was a new track taken from the previous year’s Best Of album of almost the same name and its peak of No 24 meant it became only the band’s fifth ever Top 40 hit. Indeed, in their whole career they only had six all told. Compare that to, oh I don’t know, Snap! who were on earlier who had fourteen UK Top 40 entries. More than double! Where’s the justice?

That Best Of album actually supplied three of their six hits as new tracks “Sound Of Crying” and “If You Don’t Love Me” had earlier achieved chart highs of Nos 23 and 33 respectively. “Life Of Surprises” was actually an older track from fourth studio album “Protest Songs” from 1989 and had already been released once as the B -side to “From Langley Park To Memphis” single “Nightingales”. It’s typical McAloon fare with a fine melody allied with Paddy’s almost whispered vocals. Lovely stuff.

Paddy is still writing and recording with his most recent release being 2019’s “I Trawl The Megahertz”. He suffers from tinnitus which makes his output even more remarkable and has grown a massive Gandalf like beard in later life, far removed from his clean cut image in this video.

Hasn’t this one been out before? I’m sure “Love See No Colour” by The Farm has already been a hit once hasn’t it?

*checks internet*

OK, so not a hit (it peaked at No 58) but it had been released 12 months previously. Why was it given another promotional push? Well, I’m guessing that sales of their second album of the same name had been a massive disappointment after their debut “Spartacus” had been a No 1. After they’d finally got a hit single out of it by resorting to a cover of The Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me”, record company Sony must have wanted to consolidate on that bit of success.

Their solution was to get the band to re-record “Love See No Colour” with an emphasis on a synth sound and gospel feel. They even commissioned a new video to help promote it. None of their strategies really worked though as the single got no higher than No 35. Sales of the album didn’t improve and the band were dropped. Quite a fall from their “All Together Now” peak, a 2.0 version of which they were presumably trying to recreate by re-recording “Love See No Colour”.

You wait for ages for one band from Cork to have a hit and then two turn up at once! Yes, unbelievable as it seems, The Sultans Of Ping FC, like The Frank And Walters earlier in the show, were also from Cork. It’s not quite up there with that bizarre phenomenon of The Wonder Stuff, Pop Will Eat Itself and Ned’s Atomic Dustbin all hailing from Stourbridge in the West Midlands as Cork is three times the size population wise but it’s still quite a thing. There was a third Cork band around at this time called Stump who achieved a minor chart placing with the gloriously eccentric single “Charlton Heston” but for now it was all about The Ping.

Having released a trio of singles on independent label Divine Records during 1992 (including the marvellous “Where’s Me Jumper”), the band had been picked up by Epic through which their debut album “Casual Sex In The Cineplex” was released. Trailing it was the single “You Talk Too Much” which had much more of a punk vibe than their fellow Corkonians The Franks and their simultaneous hit single.

Around this time I was visiting my mate Robin in London and wandering around Piccadilly Circus we arrived at the Virgin Records store just in time to catch a p.a. and set by the band. Robin has reminded me that there were some hecklers in the audience and the lead singer came back with “we’re No 27 in the charts. Have you ever been in the charts?”. Excellent.

The album included the track “Give Him A Ball (And A Yard Of Grass)” which was inspired by a remark from his Brian Clough when talking about brilliant Nottingham Forest winger John Robertson. Here’s his quote in full:

John Robertson was a very unattractive young man. If one day I was feeling a bit off colour, I would sit next to him. I was bloody Errol Flynn compared to him. But give him a yard of grass and he was an artist. The Picasso of our game.

The legendary Brian Clough there. Still sadly missed. As for The Sultans Of Ping FC, they went through a few name alterations dropping the FC, then removing the Ping part before finally restoring it to Sultans Of Ping in 2005.

Another cover version now but an unlikely one. The decision process behind Sunscreem‘s choosing of a 1980 Marianne Faithful single that flopped takes some fathoming. “Broken English” was the title track from her comeback album after years of health and addiction problems. It is widely regarded as her ‘definitive recording’ and Faithfull herself described it as her “masterpiece”. I was surprised to find out then that it bombed in the charts peaking at No 57. The title track from it sank without trace. I have to admit to not knowing it at all so I gave it a whirl…

Hmm. It doesn’t (Sun)scream techno anthem to me I have to say. The Essex groovers version adds a few interesting squiggles in the background but I can’t imagine it being that easy to dance to but then I wasn’t spending much time in the clubs around then. It would become the band’s highest charting hit when it settled at No 13 and they would follow it up with a rerelease of early single “Pressure.

The final Breaker is a bit confusing. In my head, Arrested Development followed their huge hit “People Everyday” with another big seller called “Mr. Wendal” so what was this track “Revolution” all about? Well, both tracks were released as a double A-side. “Mr. Wendal” was from their “3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life Of…” album whilst “Revolution” was from the soundtrack to the Spike Lee directed biopic Malcolm X starring Denzel Washington. In the US they were released as separate singles but in Europe they were doubled up. I have zero recall of “Revolution” but “Mr. Wendal” was a tune. Hope we get to see that in future TOTP repeats.

A real taster next of the direction the charts would be going in this year although in truth, Apache Indian was actually ploughing his own furrow. Real name Steven Kapur, this guy grew up in the multicultural metropolis that was Birmingham in the early 80s listening to reggae and dancehall music. Creating a stage name for himself, Steven set about fusing those influences with the cultural sounds of his own Indian background. That fusion of ragga and Bhangra drew positive reactions from audiences of both genres and so bhangra ragamuffin was born or bhangramuffin as it became known.

Picked up by the legendary Island Records, Apache Indian recorded his debut album “No Reservations” in Jamaica’s Tuff Gong studios and from it came the single “Arranged Marriage”. The controversial track dared to take on the normally taboo subject of its title and provoked negative criticism from some of the Indian community. This guy was no ordinary pop star and was determined to do things his own way.

The performance here is great and nothing like we’d really seen before. There were no sitars à la Monsoon and “Ever So Lonely” from the early 80s. “Arranged Marriage” would make No 16 and was nominated for an Ivor Novello award for Best Contemporary Song. However, Apache Indian will surely be best remembered for his later single “Boom Shack -A- Lak” which took him to the Top 5.

In the Story Of 1993 BBC documentary, Kapur opened up about his experiences of this year and he explained that he was good buddies with Shaggy, one of the year’s other big reggae fusion/dancehall movers alongside Shabba Ranks and Snow. The charts they were a-changin’..,

From someone brand new to one of the biggest artists in the world. Paul McCartney hadn’t released any new material in the 90s so far but delivered on his fanbase’s hopes of a new song with “Hope Of Deliverance”. Taken from his ninth solo studio album “Off The Ground”, it was hardly the stuff of legend. Yes it was bright, breezy and positive but it was also the wrong side of predictable and ever so slightly annoying.

The album achieved gold status but didn’t furnish any further hit singles (“Hope Of Deliverance” peaked at No 18) and surely can’t be any Macca fan’s favourite album of his? This phase of his career very much reminds me of his mid 80s era when his “Press To Play” album was commercially and critically received in much the same way and the singles from it were only minor hits. He would return four years later with “Flaming Pie” which got his best reviews since 1982’s “Tug Of War”.

If we were thinking that Whitney Houston’s reign at the top would be over when the Xmas decorations were put away for another year then we were completely and utterly mistaken. Any of us under that illusion hadn’t factored in that the film “I Will Always Love You” was taken from, The Bodyguard, wasn’t released in the UK until Boxing Day therefore instantly giving the single another impetus of sales. Whitney’s run at No 1 still had plenty of legs left yet.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Jesus JonesThe Devil You KnowNah
2Snap!Exterminate!Nope
3The Frank And WaltersAfter AllLiked it, didn’t buy it
4SlipstreemWe Are Raving NO!!!
5Little AngelsWomankindNo but I had a promo copy of their album
6Prefab SproutLife Of SurprisesNo but I had the Best Of album it was taken from
7The FarmLove See No ColourNope, neither time it was released
8The Sultans Of Ping FCYou Talk Too MuchSee 3 above
9Sunscreem Broken EnglishNo
10Arrested DevelopmentRevolutionNo my wife had the album though
11Apache Indian Arranged MarriageInteresting though it was, no
12Paul McCartneyHope Of DeliveranceVery weak – no
13Whitney HoustonI Will Always Love YouI did not

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0017wtw/top-of-the-pops-07011993

TOTP 1993 – the prologue

Posted on by 80stastic

Aah, 1993…or should that be ‘aargh’ 1993? I don’t know why but numbers ending in a ‘3’ always jar in my mind. Whether it’s because it’s an odd number or a prime number I’m not sure but I’ve never trusted them. The same can apply to years ending in ‘3’. 1983, for example, was the year my beloved Chelsea finished in their lowest ever league position and nearly got relegated to the old third division. And 1993? Well, Chelsea had another terrible season flirting with relegation before finally securing a mid table finish. On a national level, the England team had a year to forget managing to lose to the USA (a result that was seen as a disgrace in the press) before following it up by failing to qualify for the 1994 World Cup. Manager Graham Taylor resigned as a consequence. Sticking with sport, disaster befell the Grand National and caused heartache for bookmakers as it was cancelled after a false start!

In the world of entertainment, Carry On film stalwarts Bernard Bresslaw and Kenneth Connor shuffled off this mortal coil as did comedian Les Dawson. Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer had a busy year with two new BBC shows starting in The Smell Of Reeves And Mortimer and Shooting Stars. ITV had a ratings winner on their hands with crime drama Cracker starring Robbie Coltrane whilst Channel 4 hosted the debut of late night cult TV show Eurotrash. Shopping channel QVC appeared on our screens for the first time. In the literary world Irvine Welsh’s iconic novel Trainspotting was published whilst A Clockwork Orange author Anthony Burgess passed away.

But this is a music blog isn’t it so what was happening on the pop landscape? In my head, the charts of 1993 were populated by some tunes that stank them out but could I be mistaken? A quick glance at the Top 10 best selling singles of the year is as grim and lacking in sense as a Nadine Dorries interview. It’s mostly nasty Eurodance anthems punctuated by a couple of cover versions and a song by a blubbery, intensely irritating figure whose name began with ‘M’. No, not Meatloaf; I’m referring to Mr Blobby of course…or am I? Elsewhere, before the Blur vs Oasis chart battle of 1995 came East 17 and Take That duking it out for the title of top teen sensation whilst reggae fusion / dancehall briefly dominated the charts courtesy of the unholy ‘S’ trinity of Snow, Shaggy and Shabba Ranks. Oh God, I’m having flashbacks!

Work wise for me, 1993 was a year of much change. By the end of it, I would have worked in four different Our Price stores. Some of it I really enjoyed, some of it I really, really didn’t. So, I don’t think I’ve made myself feel any better about the prospects for 1993 in that little preamble. I’m going to go down that road in spite of myself though. Are you gonna go my way?

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/m00165cm/top-of-the-pops-the-story-of-1993

TOTP 17 DEC 1992

Posted on by 80stastic

It’s only a week until Xmas 30 (!) years ago and I’m working my arse off in Our Price, Rochdale doing long days and serving even longer queues of customers as the panic of not getting all your shopping done sets in. I’m enjoying it though as the team at the shop were great. Everyone was hard working and got on with each other. That bonhomie amongst the staff was needed though when it came to dealing with the public, especially on Xmas Eve when many of the punters who entered the store that day were manic and had no time for any basic manners or civility. In short, they slaughtered us. Many an exchange went like this:

Me: I’m sorry but we’ve sold out of Gloria Estefan’s Greatest Hits on cassette madam.

Customer: You f******g what?! You’ve ruined my daughter’s Xmas you have!

Something like that anyway. No doubt I would have sold some of the singles showcased on this final regular TOTP before Xmas…

N.B. I’m not reviewing the Xmas day episode. It’s too long and most of the acts on there have already featured in previous posts.

We start with The Shamen who are getting in the Xmas party spirit by dressing up as characters from Alice In Wonderland. Eh? Why? Where are the Santa hats and Xmas jumpers? If they really wanted to go down a literary route, surely Dickens’ A Christmas Carol would have been the way to go? Scrooge in his bedclothes, ghosts, Tiny Tim, Jacob Marley and his chains….hey, they could have even called themselves Jacob and the Marley Chain. OK, the last bit is a crap idea but surely no worse than what they actually came up with. Again I ask, why? Oh, hang on. The ever reliable @TOTPFacts might have the answer…

Ah well possibly I guess. An overindulgence of some illegal substances might explain why Mr C is dressed as the Knave of Clubs. Surely it’s the Knave of Hearts (who stole some tarts)? As for the song itself, “Phorever People” sounds like “Ebeneezer Goode” part II but then, why re-invent the wheel when the first one is spinning so well? The four singles taken from their “Boss Drum” album achieved the following chart peaks:

6 – 1 – 4 – 5

Pretty impressive stuff. That run of success helped earned the band the Smash Hits Best New Act award for 1992. Quite an achievement for a band that had been in existence since 1985.

A quick word on the presenters tonight. One is regular Tony Dortie but the other is rising BBC star Mr Blobby. This character achieved the seemingly impossible feat of being more annoying than Noel Edmonds despite the latter being responsible for Blobby’s rise to fame on Noel’s House Party. How on earth was the Blobby phenomenon allowed to happen?!

A third appearance on the show next for the video to “Deeper And Deeper” by Madonna. This became Madge’s first single to fail to make the Top 5 in this country since 1987’s “The Look Of Love”. None of the subsequent three singles released from the “Erotica” album managed to outdo “Deeper And Deeper” although they all went Top 10. It was a mixed bag of a time for Madonna. Her profile was as notorious as ever thanks to her X-rated coffee table book Sex and yet her album “Erotica” only sold half as many copies as its predecessor “Like A Prayer”. Nowhere was this dichotomy witnessed more succinctly than in the fact that Madonna’s managed to be simultaneously the most and least fanciable female at that Smash Hits poll winners party.

The people who started the early 90s trend for dance versions of pop standards have returned to the scene of the crime to remind us all that they were the original culprits. I speak of East Side Beat who kicked this ghastly movement off in 1991 with a cover of Christopher Cross’ “Ride Like The Wind”. In their wake came acts like Undercover, Rage and KWS but this Italian duo were back to remind us they were alive and kicking with their version of…erm…”Alive And Kicking” by Simple Minds. You’ll remember that this 1985 track had only recently been back in the Top 40 promoting the Scottish stadium rockers Best Of album. Was that in the thinking behind East Side Beat’s choice of song to cover? The fact that it had been reinforced in the minds of pop fans just a short time ago and had proved to retain its popularity? Could they jump on the bandwagon of its promotion and marketing campaign? Or was it all just one big happy coincidence?

Whatever the truth of the matter, their song choice worked. A Top 40 hit meant a TOTP appearance and there’s a lot to unpack about this particular performance. We start with the intro to it by Tony Dortie who, not for the first time I may add, uses the description drum ‘n’ bass erroneously. WTAF?! How is some naff Eurodance in any way, shape or form anything to do with drum ‘n’ bass?! By Goldie’s teeth!! I think Tony has retrospectively admitted he had no idea what he was talking about during some of his links but that just begs the the question why go there at all?!

Secondly, what was going on with the backing dancers? They appear to be wearing Italian club football shirts but were seemingly not allowed to wear any shorts with them. Hmm. All a bit dubious. Hang on. Is football the reason that East Side Beat chose “Alive And Kicking” to cover? Wasn’t that the song that soundtracked the advertising campaign for the launch of Sky’s coverage of the inaugural season of the Premier League? Yes it was…

Again I say hmm. Thirdly, and I’m really not wishing to get into racial stereotyping here but the lead singer must be the least stylish Italian ever!

East Side Beat’s cover of “Alive And Kicking” peaked at No 26.

Now I can’t find a clip of this live by satellite performance from Miami by Gloria Estefan so if you’re reading this after the episode has fallen off iPlayer, you’ll have to take my word for it but there’s something off about it. I couldn’t put my finger on it for ages but I think it’s the way the backing musicians have set up so they’re not actually facing the same way as Gloria as she performs. It’s quite off putting once you’ve noticed it, like they’re part of a different performance altogether but where somehow the two parallel worlds have collided like an episode of Star Trek. Talking of which, in what universe was it appropriate to add a bit of a 2 Unlimited keyboard riff to a Latino pop medley?

The “Miami Hit Mix” peaked at No 8.

The running order for this TOTP has now taken us from cover version to megamix and back to cover version in the space of three records. The second cover of the night comes from The Lemonheads whose version of Simon & Garfunkel ‘s “Mrs Robinson” was a Breaker last week. This week however, they’re in the studio and their performance has a definite Nirvana / Smells Like Teen Spirit vibe to it. Just looking at them, they look incongruous and like they don’t really belong on TOTP. Too counterculture, too anti-establishment, too slacker? Too tall in the case of Evan Dando. He looks enormous here. Apparently he’s 6ft 3” and he looks every bit of it bestriding the stage in his red duffle coat. Well, bestriding it until he attempts an abortive forward roll. Presumably that was supposed to put the watching audience on alert that something unexpected might happen and that there was an element of chaos at play as per that Nirvana performance. He even tells us audibly by singing “you don’t know what’s gonna happen next” at one point. What does happen is that he breaks into an impression of Morrissey. I mean it’s unmistakably Mozza – Dando has been known to boast about how great his impression of him is – but isn’t that just copying what Kurt Cobain did when he was on the show? I mean Cobain’s impression was terrible and Dando’s is clearly better but where’s the originality? Furthermore, isn’t Evan’s oversized coat derivative of the Nirvana lead singer’s fashion style? Too harsh? Maybe. Perhaps Evan should have stuck with his Beatles head wobble impression instead of branching out into Mozza territory.

One final thing. At the start of the performance, he shouts over to the bass player “louder man!”. Those instruments weren’t actually plugged in surely?

To the Breakers and guess what? We begin with the aforementioned Nirvana! Just like Guns N’ Roses before them the other week, here was a band still releasing tracks as singles from an album that was well over a year old. “In Bloom” was the fourth such single taken from “Nevermind” and there is a school of thought (championed by Courtney Love no less) that this should have been the lead single from the album on the basis that it’s a much better song than “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. For what it’s worth, I think she’s right. She also once said that “Hungry Like The Wolf” is the best song ever written so she knows her stuff. Ahem.

The Ed Sullivan Show pastiche video works pretty well as it remains faithful to the source material and it’s that element of realism that completes the humour of Nirvana as clean cut boys à la those lovable moptops.

“In Bloom” peaked at No 28.

OK. Just when you think the bottom of the barrel can’t be scraped any harder…We really did witness some truly ghastly acts in the UK charts during 1992. Wrestlers (WWF Superstars) strippers (The Chippendales), two acts peddling singles based on computer games (Tetris and Ambassadors Of Funk) and now this. After Shut Up And Dance delivered “Raving I’m Raving” based on “Walking In Memphis” by Marc Cohn earlier in the year, now came “We Are Raving – The Anthem” by Slipstreem. Using Rod Stewart’s “Sailing” as its blueprint, this load of arse juice was an abysmal idea that sounded even worse. Who were these berks and why didn’t Rod but an injunction out to stop this atrocity? After all, it’s what Marc Cohn did. I’ve got no words left for this type of garbage. Next!

As well as being remembered for some terrifyingly dreadful chart hits, 1992 will also rightly be recalled as the year of The Wedding Present “Hit Parade” project. Twelve singles in one calendar year and all made the Top 40 meaning that they equalled Elvis Presley’s 1957 record. Except their achievement was better as they wrote all their songs whereas Elvis’s were written for him. They did however do some cover versions for the B-sides including for the final release “No Christmas” which had Elton John’s “Step Into Christmas” on the flip and a fine version it is too.

The highest chart position attained by any of the “Hit Parade” singles was No 10 while the lowest was No 26. It still stands up as quite the achievement I think.

Now working in a shop in Rochdale at this time, I lived in hope that the next artist might pop in one day as she grew up there from the age of 11. Sadly, the day Lisa Stansfield glided into the store was my day off! FFS!

Anyway, there was much hope that her latest single “Someday (I’m Coming Back)” was going to be a huge seller coming as it did from the soundtrack to The Bodyguard. It was certainly a decent sized hit peaking as it did at No 10 but there was genuine belief that it could have been a Top 3 contender. I have to say it seemed a bit lacklustre to me. Maybe it was overshadowed by all those Whitney Houston power ballads that packed out the rest of the album. Lisa’s track was the only one to be released as a single from the soundtrack that wasn’t by Whitney so I guess she deserves some kudos for that.

Do you think that Lisa was having a bad hair day when this performance was recorded? How else do you explain her decision to wear a cat burglar’s hat otherwise?

Now I’m not sure why the TOTP producers chose to show this next video instead of the official promo for “Heal The World” by Michael Jackson. It’s a concert clip from the Dangerous World Tour. I’ve put in some footage from the Bucharest date below but I don’t know if that’s the one shown on the programme. It’s looks like Jacko’s wearing the same jacket in both so I’ll go with that. The five UK dates had already been and gone so it can’t have been to increase ticket sales and in any case, wouldn’t all the gigs have sold out almost immediately anyway?

I guess if anyone had the best shot of beating Whitney to the Xmas No 1 it was Michael Jackson. Possibly the most famous person on the planet and with a huge, goodwill to all ballad, it seemed like a decent shout. And yet I never felt like he would actually do it. Maybe that was purely based on what we were selling in the Rochdale store but I just never doubted it would be a Houston Xmas chart topper. For once, I was right.

It’s a second medley on the show tonight. After Gloria Estefan earlier, here come Boney M. Ever wondered why they were called Boney M? Here’s @TOTPFacts with the answer…

I remember Boney! It used to be on Sunday afternoons on ITV in the Midlands where I grew up. When it came on, me and my brother used to say (in a very un-PC way) “first he was fatty, then he was skinny, now he’s Boney”. We thought we were hilarious!

Their 1992 “Megamix” was the third such single released by the band – or whatever assembled line up passed for the band at that time – in the last four years. This was by far the biggest hit though peaking at No 7.

It’s still there, it will be the Xmas No 1 and it will continue to occupy top spot in the charts for weeks to come. Whitney Houston’s cover of “I Will Always Love You” was a sales phenomenon. It was on the way to being just the second single in the last six years to reach one million sales in the UK. It would end up selling over 1,550,000 copies. The Bodyguard film wasn’t even released in the UK until Boxing Day. Presumably that gave it a second wind sales wise (as if it needed it).

Mr Blobby is back to say goodbye just before the credits roll. One year later he would be on the show again, this time with the Xmas No 1 crown. What a time to be alive!

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1The ShamenPhorever PeopleNope
2Madonna Deeper And DeeperNo
3East Side BeatAlive And KickingNever!
4Gloria EstefanMiami Hit MixNope
5The LemonheadsMrs RobinsonLiked it, didn’t buy it
6NirvanaIn Bloom Ditto
7SlipstreemWe Are Raving – The AnthemNOOO!
8The Wedding PresentNo ChristmasNo but I have their version of Step Into Christmas on something
9Lisa StansfieldSomeday (I’m Coming Back)I did not
10Michael JacksonHeal The WorldNo but I had a promo copy of HIStory with it on
11Boney MMegamixNo but my wife’s first ever album purchase was Nightflight To Venus
12Whitney HoustonI Will Always Love YouNo but god knows how many I sold that Christmas

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/m0017ftn/top-of-the-pops-17121992

TOTP 10 DEC 1992

Posted on by 80stastic

When I was a lad (can’t believe I’ve started a post with that phrase!) things seemed straightforward, linear even. Timelines of events were uncomplicated. Things happened then finished. Then something else happened. What on earth am I talking about? Well, I’m thinking about musical movements.

When I was growing up in the 70s, it seemed to me that flavours of music would rise to popularity, burn brightly and then fizzle out whereupon something else would take over. So glam rock was prevalent from 1971 to 1975 approximately before punk rock pressed the reset button in a whirlwind of filth and fury. By 1978 with The Sex Pistols in disarray, punk had served its purpose and was superseded by New Wave and a Mod revival. When that bit the dust the New Romantics took centre stage with swagger and outrageous outfits. With the pin up boys of that movement aspiring to be more than cult status, New Pop was born with Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet and Culture Club dominating the charts. See what I mean? Yes, that’s a very simplistic view that could easily be debunked I’m sure (where was disco in all this for example?) but I’m going with it to enable my point. Talking of which, what is my point exactly? It’s this. By the time we got to late 1992, what musical movement were we in because I have no idea going by the running order on this edition of TOTP. Yes, obviously we had seen a dance explosion happen from at least 1988 onwards (some may even date it as early as 1986) but by this point it was the movement was so refracted that there was a kaleidoscope of sub genres. I remember whilst working for Our Price in the 90s a memo coming out from head office entitled ‘scary areas of your shop and how to deal with them’. First on the list was how to classify the dance collections section of the racks, so unwieldy had that section become.

Anyway, back to TOTP and this show featured a boy band, a Motown superstar, a part of the establishment that was into his fifth decade of hit records, the Queen of Latino pop, a posthumous release from one of the biggest and most flamboyant rock stars ever, some US R’n’B a cappella style, some indie rock, a collaboration between some Manc electronic dance pioneers and the kings of Brummie reggae and…descending from a parallel universe a troupe of wrestlers! Pick the bones out of that! What the Hell was going on?! Let’s find out..,

We start with that boy band – Take That. After having lived with the next big thing tag for a year or so without delivering on it, these lads had finally started turning potential and promotion into sales. Their cover of Barry Manilow’s “Could It Be Magic” was their fourth chart hit of the year and this one was the biggest of the lot, ascending ultimately to a high of No 3. Now Take That weren’t the first teen sensation to do a cover version – I’m thinking The Bay City Rollers doing “Bye Bye Baby” by The Four Seasons for example – but this did seem to set a template for the conveyor belt of acts that followed in their wake. Look at this lot:

  • 911 – “More Than A Woman” by the Bee Gees
  • A1 – “Take On Me” by A-ha
  • Boyzone – “Father And Son” by Cat Stevens
  • Five – “We Will Rock You” by Queen
  • Let Loose – “Make It With You” by Bread
  • OTT – “Let Me In” by The Osmonds
  • Upside Down – “If You Leave Me Now” by Chicago
  • Westlife – “Mandy” by Barry Manilow

All fine versions I’m sure you’ll agree! To be fair though, Take That’s cover of “Could It Be Magic” was pretty good I think although their reworking of it had more to do with Donna Summer’s 1976 disco rendition than the Manilow version. I seem to recall it being received pretty well as an unexpectedly strong version which wrong footed most people’s expectations of what they would do next. Sure it was a cover but of a different flavour to their take on “It Only Takes A Minute” by Tavares that gave them their first big chart hit. Should they have reversed their release schedule and put “Could It Be Magic” out earlier and then gone big time on ballad “A Million Love Songs” for the Xmas No 1? For what it’s worth I think they got it the right way round.

This was the first time that Robbie Williams took on the vocals on his own. Little did we know what was to come in just a few short years. Gary Barlow is demoted to rank and file status – he’s on backing dancer/ vocals duties with the rest of the group. You can almost see him counting the dance steps in his head. I’d watch your back Gary if I was you.

Despite having passed away in late 1991, Freddie Mercury still retained a massive presence into 1992. In April, The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert was held at Wembley stadium and in November came “The Freddie Mercury Album”, a collection of his solo work released to commemorate the anniversary of his death. It was a nice idea for the fanbase and no doubt record label Parlophone always had it in mind to ring every drop of revenue they could out of his existing catalogue. What I didn’t quite get though was how they were going to put together a Best Of out of such scant source material. Freddie only released one, pure solo album in his lifetime which was 1985’s “Mr Bad Guy”. Yes, there was that “Barcelona” album with Montserrat Caballé but who, apart from superfans, really knows anything from that but the title track? What else is there? Well, he had a hit single in 1984 called “Love Kills” from Giorgio Moroder’s restoration of Fritz Lang’s 1927 classic silent film Metropolis. Then there’s his No 4 hit from 1987 which was his cover of The Platters oldie “The Great Pretender”. And…erm…oh yes! There’s “I was Born To Love You”, the only single to chart from that “Mr Bad Guy” album. Erm…except that isn’t on “The Freddie Mercury Album”! I presume it was a licensing issue as “Mr Bad Guy” was released by CBS rather than Queen’s EMI label. There are other tracks from it on “The Freddie Mercury Album” but maybe CBS/Sony didn’t want to give away the rights to its (then) best known tune.

Given all the above, Parlophone chose to promote the album with “In My Defence”. This was a track from the Dave Clark musical Time. This was the production that had already given us Top 40 singles by Cliff Richard (“She’s So Beautiful”), Julian Lennon (“Because”) and indeed Freddie himself who took “Time” to No 32 in 1986. I guess Parlophone could have rereleased “The Great Pretender” (which they ultimately did after “In My Defence”) but not “Barcelona” which had already been re-issued for the 1992 Olympics. “In My Defence” it was though and it’s a perfect vehicle for Freddie’s voice, all overblown drama and huge notes but it works pretty well. It could easily have been a Queen composition really. The single went Top 10 but there was an even bigger hit to come from the album the following year that had been hiding in plain sight but that’s for a future post…

Something from the US chart now as we see a song that would end up being a big hit in the UK four years down the line but not for the original artist. I don’t recall the Shai version of “If I Ever Fall In Love” but then, despite this TOTP appearance, it only made it to No 36 in our charts. In the US however, it was a huge hit staying at No 2 for eight weeks!

Was the version they perform here the version on the record? A cappella I mean?

*checks Spotify*

I found two versions. One is the TOTP version and the other has a bit of instrumentation on it but not much. I’m not mad on a cappella I have to say and Shai haven’t made me change my mind. What was the deal with the guy with his coat half on and half off?!

Oh that version that was a hit in 1996? That was by East 17 and Gabrielle of course. They changed the title to “If I Ever”, dropped the a cappella style and took it all the way to No 2. Don’t think it stayed there for eight weeks though. I didn’t like that version either.

Right it’s time for those wrestlers! Despite the charts having been infiltrated in recent weeks by novelty tripe like computer games tunes “Tetris” and “Supermarioland” and a ‘song’ by stripper troupe The Chippendales, it seemed 1992 hadn’t done with us yet in the utter shite stakes. You may not be surprised that WWF Superstars was the idea of Simon Cowell. Here’s @TOTPFacts:

Hmm. It reminds me of a scene from one of my favourite ever films Stardust starring David Essex which tells the story of the rise of fictional rock star Jim MacLaine. After he has split from his band and gone solo, MacLaine’s manager Mike (played by Adam Faith) plans a worldwide TV and cinema simultaneous broadcast of a concert to promote MacLaine’s latest album. A conversation between Mike and Jim’s American manager Porter Lee Austin (played by Larry Hagman) plays out like this:

Mike: See, what we do is this. We get the cinemas and TV companies all over the world to put up a big enough advance to cover the cost of the album and the show. Well, I mean that way we can’t lose. I mean…If they can pick up money putting on boxing shows, just think what we can pick up putting Jim MacLaine on satellite. For every one boxing fan there must be at least 5,000 pop fans. I mean, to coincide with the concert what we can do is put the album out worldwide. Well, just think of all that promotion Porter Lee. It’s all or nothing this one Porter…

Porter Lee: What kind of concert Mike?

Mike: Don’t worry about the concert eh? Just leave that to me. I tell you one thing, it be like something you’ve ever seen before

Porter Lee: That’s a pretty good idea Mike. Maybe I can do something.

Mike: He’ll be bigger than Aldof Hitler after this lot.

OK, we probably didn’t need the Hitler reference but you get my drift. The WWF Superstars single was called “Slam Jam” (presumably after a wrestling move?) and it was, of course, dreadful. Produced by Mike Stock and Pete Waterman (it just gets worse doesn’t it?), the vinyl came in a poster sleeve bag as I recall (Cowell never misses a marketing trick) and it would reach No 4 in the charts. I’m guessing it was bought by 10 year old boys because if not, I have no idea how to explain what occurred here.

“Connecticut, we have a problem”. Host Mark Franklin advises us that there was meant to be an exclusive satellite performance by Diana Ross of her latest single “If We Hold On Together” from Connecticut but technical problems have put paid to that so we have to make do with the official video instead. To be honest, I’m not too fussed either way.

Now this was taken from the soundtrack to the Universal Pictures animated film The Land Before Time but I’m confused because it came out in 1988 so why was a song from it a hit in the UK four years later? I can only assume it had a terrestrial TV premiere around this time. Another thing that’s confusing me is what this video is that TOTP are showing? I can’t find it on YouTube. The only one I came across featured wall to wall scenes from the film whereas the TOTP version also includes footage of Diana herself. To add to the mystery, Wikipedia says there was no official video for the song. Maybe there wasn’t in 1988 but there was in 1992? I refer you to my earlier comment. I’m not really fussed either way.

As for the song, it sounded exactly as you expected it would. Basically “Somewhere Out There” from An American Tail. “If We Hold On Together” peaked at No 11.

One of the surprise breakout stars of 1992 were KWS who bagged an unlikely No 1 with their cover of KC And The Sunshine Band’s “Please Don’t Go”. A Top 10 follow up (another cover of George McRae’s “Rock Me Baby”) consolidated their success. On reflection, KWS were like the soul version of Undercover. However, by the end of the year their shtick was starting to wear thin. Yet another cover version was chosen as their third single release of the year – “Hold Back The Night” by The Trammps – but to spice it up a bit, they (or more likely their management) decided to team up with the original hitmakers on the track.

Now it’s easy in this performance to see who are The Trammps as they’re the older fellas who have taken their tuxedos and bow ties out of the back of the wardrobe. I’m assuming the KWS guys are the two on keyboards at either end of The Trammps but are they ‘K’, ‘W’ or ‘S’? Remember that their band name came from the initials of the band’s surnames – King / Williams / St. Joseph. And where was the one that wasn’t there?

“Hold Back The Night” peaked at No 30.

Ah the Breakers. Marvellous! After the Boney M “Megamix” single last week, there’s another one tonight courtesy of Gloria Estefan. Known as “Miami Hit Mix” in the UK, this was to promote Gloria’s first “Greatest Hits” album which was a huge seller over Xmas reaching No 2 and eventually going triple platinum in the UK. I recall that by opening time on Xmas Eve, the only chart stock line that we had ran out of in the Our Price in Rochdale where I was working was the cassette version of the album. We knew we had some on order that were due to come in on the day but the record company were out of stock when the delivery came in. Ian the store manager wasn’t too arsed saying “nobody will find it anywhere else in Rochdale today”. He was probably right. There wasn’t much competition record shop wise in Rochdale. There was somewhere in the Exchange shopping centre but it was very hit and miss and the manager of the place was obsessed with our shop and used to buy his records from us!

Anyway, back to Gloria and the “Miami Hit Mix”. There were five tracks in the medley from various stages of Gloria’s career. You can tell that as they were released under three different Gloria monikers:

SongGloria Moniker
Dr BeatMiami Sound Machine
CongaMiami Sound Machine
Rhythm Is Gonna Get YouGloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine
1-2-3Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine
Get On Your FeetGloria Estefan

As with Boney M, the Xmas party market meant that sales of the single were brisk enough to send it into the Top 10. Also like Boney M, it was the last time Gloria ventured so high in the UK charts.

Fed up of all the cover versions in the charts? Tough because here comes another one courtesy of The Lemonheads. I had no idea who this lot were at the time but their cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Mrs Robinson” sounded pretty cool to me back then. According to some of the online reviews I have found, I was in the minority. Ultimateclassicrock.com describe it as ‘terrible’ and ‘meh’. Even Evan Dando himself can’t like it that much as he is on record as hating the original and indeed Paul Simon. So why was their cover even recorded then?

Apparently it was to celebrate the 25th anniversary home video release of The Graduate, the film it features in. The Lemonheads cover brought the band more coverage and success than they’d ever had up to that point. The band had already released four albums to little fanfare since their formation in 1986. The first three had been on indie label Taang! before they were picked up by major Atlantic for their fourth “Lovey”. However, it was fifth album “It’s A Shame About Ray” that would see them gain much wider recognition. Initial pressings of the album didn’t include the “Mrs Robinson” cover but its success meant that the album was re-released with its omission now corrected. It would achieve gold status sales in the UK and a rerelease of the title track brought the band a second Top 40 single the following year.

The pinnacle of the band’s success came with the release of the “Come On Feel The Lemonheads” album in October of 1993 which made the Top 5 in the UK charts. I had transferred from the Our Price in Rochdale to the much bigger store in Stockport by that time. The manager there when I started was a guy called Paul who looked a bit like Evan Dando and certainly the image of Dando on the cover of the album bore that out. Paul moved on to HMV (or was it Virgin?) not long after I got to Stockport. On my first day I asked him what lunch he wanted to go on. He replied “lunch is for wimps”. I visibly gulped.

“Mrs Robinson” peaked at No 19.

Right, what’s this then? 808 State vs UB40? What the Hell? Electronic dance music meets reggae pop? Who’s idea was this? OK, that’s enough questions. Time for some answers. Well, I haven’t got many to be fair. This remix of the Brummies 1981 Top 10 single “One In Ten” came from the Mancs’ fourth studio album “Gorgeous” which featured other guest artists like Ian McCulloch. Why they chose to tackle UB40’s unemployment referencing classic I’m not sure. Judging by some of the comments on YouTube against the single’s video, people are very divided on whether the remix was genius or a crime. For me, I’m always going to favour the original.

The remix of “One In Ten” peaked at No 17. 808 State would not return to the Top 20 for another five years when they did so with another collaboration, this time with James Dean Bradfield of Manic Street Preachers on “Lopez”.

After all the cover versions and medleys, here’s a proper, original song courtesy of Madonna. I say original but “Deeper And Deeper” does delve into one of her most iconic hits when it morphs into “Vogue” in the coda. Oh, and there’s a “La Isla Bonita” borrowing bridge that features flamenco guitar and castanets. And…it does pinch some lyrics from “Do-Re-Mi” from The Sound Of Music. Apart from that though, totally original.

“Deeper And Deeper” peaked at No 6.

There’s only two weeks to Xmas so Cliff Richard is making his move for the festive No 1 with “I Still Believe In You”. He resorts to his usual over emoting performance tricks that he’s been peddling for years. I’m sure it’s just a case of slowing down with age but he could mix it up a bit. The other thing that doesn’t seem to have changed for years is Cliff’s hair. It seems to have been the same since the mid 80s at least. Cliff mate, it’s 1992 and you’re still sporting a mullet! Now granted I myself cultivated one during the period ‘84-‘86. Not a Chris Waddle but it was definitely long at the back. It was fashionable back then. By 1987 though, mine was gone forever. Cliff on the other hand was determined to keep the style going single handedly…erm headedly.

Cliff never did make the Xmas No 1 this year because of this next record…

A second week at No 1 for Whitney Houston with “I Will Always Love You” and I think it was becoming obvious by this point that this was no ordinary record. I don’t have actual sales figures to hand but in the Our Price in Rochdale, it felt like it was outselling everything else in the Top 5 combined. With just a couple of weeks to go to Xmas, the idea of there being a race to be the festive chart topper felt like delusion. It was never in doubt.

Order of appearance ArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Take ThatCould It Be MagicGood cover but I wasn’t buying Take That thank you very much!
2Freddie MercuryIn My DefenceI did not
3ShaiIf I Ever Fall In LoveNah
4WWF SuperstarsSlam JamAs if
5Diana RossIf We Hold On TogetherNever happening
6KWS / The TrammpsHold Back The NightNope
7Gloria EstefanMiami Hit MixNo
8The LemonheadsMrs RobinsonLiked it, didn’t buy it
9808 State vs UB40One In TenNot for me
10MadonnaDeeper And DeeperNegative
11Cliff RichardI Still Believe In YouThe feeling is not reciprocated Cliff
12Whitney HoustonI Will Always Love YouAnd 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/m0017731/top-of-the-pops-10121992

TOTP 03 DEC 1992

Posted on by 80stastic

We’ve clicked over into December 1992 here at TOTP Rewind which means that the population would officially have been starting to get into Xmas mode. Working at the Our Price store in Rochdale, my own days were getting busier and felt very long as sales got brisker. So what were some of the albums that were doing the business as Xmas loomed 30 years ago? The Top 10 albums were made up of eight Best Of / compilations from the likes of Cher, Erasure, Genesis, Gloria Estefan and Simple Minds. Only two were proper studio albums which were “Automatic For The People” by REM and “Stars” by Simply Red which was still in the Top 10 after being the best selling album of 1991! Now I’m all for a good Best Of album but 1992’s Xmas offerings did seem quite cynical on behalf of the record companies.

Whilst the record shops were getting prepared for a frenzy of activity, something else in the world of music was coming to a full stop. Cult TV programme The Hitman And Her broadcast its final show two days after this TOTP went out. It seems odd to recall now but there was a time when TV stations didn’t broadcast all night, when there weren’t any late night schedules and when if you suffered from insomnia then there were no old episodes of Come Dine With Me to keep you company during the wee small hours. So when Pete Waterman’s nightclub based show appeared in our screens in 1988, it felt truly transformative.

Filmed on a Saturday night in various clubs throughout the UK but with a definite North/Midlands bias, it would be televised in the early hours of Sunday morning. Performing hosting duties alongside Waterman and securing her cult status amongst the UK’s young male population was Michaela Strachan. Ever the businessman, Waterman ensured that the programme showcased a number of his PWL artists as well as some of the acid house tunes that he loved. The clubbers themselves were as much the stars of the show as the hosts, with many a punter, eager to get themselves on TV, happy to embarrass themselves by participating in some ‘hilarious’ games. Some of the regular dancers on the show included a pre-Take That Jason Orange and the two blokes who weren’t the singer in naff 90s boy band 911. I wonder if any of the tunes on tonight’s TOTP made the Hitman And Her playlist?

Well, possibly this one. If you’ve finally had a hit after years of trying, what’s your next move going to be? Yes, release a very similar sounding follow up of course! OK, “Step It Up” isn’t an exact replica of “Connected” – its got a faster bpm for one thing – but it didn’t fall far from the tree. Stereo MC’s were on a roll by this point. Their third album “Connected” missed the top of the charts by one place and would go on to sell 420,000 copies. “Step It Up” was their second consecutive Top 20 single after the album title track. They were the bomb (or something). This performance is surely the mental image that most people who were around at the time would conjure up when hearing the name Stereo MC’s. The main protagonist of course is the Catweazle-esque Rob Birch. With his oversize trousers and glimpse of a bare chest, he was a Frankenstein’s monster mash up of MC Hammer and Peter Andre. Then there were his moves. The knees bent, hip swivelling action that Birch brings to the party surely influenced Vic Reeves and his thigh rubbing antics on Shooting Stars. In fact, the whole thing reminds me of our Maltese puppy rolling on his back exposing his bits when being sniffed by some of the local neighbourhood dogs. Yeah, sorry about that mental image. Anyway, you have to give it to Rob; he certainly left it all out there as it were. Here’s his take on his performance courtesy of the ever excellent @TOTPFacts:

Letting it all hang out indeed. “Step It Up” peaked at No 12.

If it’s TOTP in 1992 then there must be a Michael Jackson video due and here comes the latest. “Heal The World” was Jacko’s fifth single released in the UK during the year and the sixth from his “Dangerous” album overall. I’m guessing this was always going to be the track released for the Xmas market given that it’s a huge, saccharine drenched ballad with oh so worthy lyrical subject matter. So about the song’s sound – you can’t ignore its similarity to “We Are The World” which Jackson co-wrote with Lionel Richie. I mean it’s essentially the same song. Supposedly though, it is the track that Jackson was most proud of. It even inspired him to create the Heal The World Foundation, a charity dedicated to improving conditions for children throughout the world. You can’t deny the philanthropy but it doesn’t make the song any more palatable.

I really remember the rather clunky and obvious design on the cover of the single of a plaster covering a crack across the globe which is held between the hands of a black child and a white child. It was one of those fold out sleeves that turns into a poster as I remember that were awful to refold once opened to its full extent.

Sensibly, the video for the song doesn’t include Jackson himself only children set against a backdrop of images depicting war, guns and even the Ku Klux Klan. The theme of healing is portrayed by the final scene of a candle lit vigil of children coming together as one. That restraint was not in evidence at the BRITS in 1996 when Jackson celebrated the receipt of his Artist Of A Generation award with a performance of “Earth Song” that depicted him as a Christ like figure surrounded by children. Thank God for Jarvis Cocker! In any other year, the mawkish song would surely have gone to No 1 but this was 1992 and it was up against the all conquering “I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston and had to make do with the runners up spot.

Next we have another studio performance of the reactivated “Temptation (Brothers In Rhythm remix)” by Heaven 17. There’s a couple of differences between this and the previous 19th November show turn. Firstly, Carol Kenyon has a proper name check in the title graphics this time and secondly, she’s up there belting it out alongside Glenn Gregory without the two blokes on keyboards (the titular brothers presumably) for company. Still conspicuous by his absence though is Martyn Ware. Carol and Glenn don’t really need anybody else though certainly not the former who gives a masterclass in doing a live vocal performance for TV.

The original recording of “Temptation” featured a 60 piece orchestra and I’ve heard the aforementioned Ware say in an interview how mad it was back in the early 80s that they would just say to their record label that they required the services of an orchestra to play on one track and the label didn’t bat an eyelid at the cost. The 80s really were a time of excess within the record industry it seems. The Brothers In Rhythm remix of “Temptation” peaked at No 4.

The curious case of Dina Carroll next. Curious? Well, just in the respect that her success seemed to come in stages rather than via the classic overnight sensation mode. Sort of the musical equivalent of that ref who went down in stages when pushed by Paolo Di Canio back in the 90s…

Anyway, Dina had first come to national attention as the vocalist on Quartz’s dance version of Carole King’s “It’s Too Late” in 1991. Despite that flush of success, the Quartz project fizzled out and Dina disappeared from view. Behind the scenes though, a decision by her management company to launch Dina as a solo artist led to her being signed to A&M and the following year she returned to the charts with “Ain’t No Man”. “Special Lind Of Love” replicated its predecessor’s success exactly by peaking at No 16 before this single “So Close” made it a hat trick of Top 20 hits in 1992. Pretty impressive stuff which led to host Tony Dortie describing in his intro that Dina had enjoyed “an amazing year” and that she was “definitely in contention for female vocalist of the year”.

Come January 1993 her album was released and debuted at No 2 staying in the Top 20 for six months. And yet, it seemed to me that the album only really went into hyperdrive sales wise when the sixth single “Don’t Be A Stranger” was released in the October. I’ll type that again. The sixth single which was by far the biggest of the lot taken from the album when it peaked at No 3. Now surely that is curious?! We sold loads of the album in the wake of that single. Did A&M have it up their sleeves all the time, holding it back until the optimum moment? The single was different from the album version in that it was re-recorded with added orchestra strings to give it a dramatic feel. When was that decision taken? Either they got lucky or they had a long term strategy all along. Her success in 1993 led to Dina being named Best Female Artist at the BRIT awards in 1994 – again a marker that her success came in stages with her becoming award winning a whole year after Tony Dortie’s prediction.

As for “So Close” the song, it’s pleasant enough but never had the capacity to rival the sales of “Don’t Be A Stranger”. Maybe it was meant to just keep Dina‘s profile ticking over until the album was released? Surely the clamour for the album would have increased if “Don’t Be A Stranger” had been the third single anyway? Oh I don’t know. The bottom line is that it all worked out pretty well for Dina in the end unlike Paolo Di Canio who received an eleven match ban for his shove on ref Paul Alcock.

We’re back to cramming in the Breakers again this week with four of the little blighters in total. We start with one of REM’s best known songs I’m guessing which makes me wonder why these few scant seconds are all that were ever shown of it on TOTP. “Man On The Moon” was the second single to be released from the “Automatic For The People” album and is one of those songs that just works. Beautifully.

It manages to combine genuinely eccentric lyrics with ear worm producing hooks. Nominally about surrealist performance artist Andy Kaufman with references to his Elvis impersonations and work with wrestler Fred Blassie, it also seemed to be asking the listener to open their mind to multiple different realities. What if the moon landings were fake? What if Elvis wasn’t dead? Ultimately it returns to Kaufman and the conspiracy theory that he faked his own death. It’s a heady concoction. The black and white video with the image of Michael Stipe wearing a cowboy hat walking nonchalantly down a desert road before hitching a ride with a truck is in turns memorable and befittingly random. The original demo without lyrics was known by the band as “C to D slide” due to the opening which includes that shift of chords. When I attended a guitar class a few years ago, this was one of the songs we learned including that slide. It’s actually OK to play but does have some quick chord changes. By the way, I’m really not much of a guitarist. Just a chord strummer really. “Man On The Moon” peaked at No 18.

Another huge band that we only got to see a glimpse of as a Breaker were U2. To be fair they were promoting a fifth single from “Achtung Baby”, an album that had been released almost exactly a year ago so maybe they were pushing it a bit. Did the TOTP producers think that a fifth single from a year old album wasn’t a big enough story? It hardly qualified as an ‘exclusive’. Indeed, perhaps the real reason that a fifth single was released was to complete the last piece of the jigsaw that formed a picture of the band driving a Trabant car when you put all five single covers together. A nice bit of marketing by record label Island there.

The single in question was “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses” which I always quite liked. Apparently the gestation of the song had been quite laboured and the band had several failed attempts before they laid down a version they could live with. I always presumed that the song’s title was inspired by The Rolling Stones track “Wild Horses” but I haven’t seen anything online that comes anywhere near confirming that.

The singles from “Achtung Baby” achieved the following chart positions:

1 – 13 – 7 – 8 – 14

It’s not a bad haul for an album that was seen as a gamble in many ways with it being a definite shift in musical direction from where their success had led the band. It remains their second biggest selling album after “The Joshua Tree”.

Think of Xmas and then think of Cliff Richard. What song is currently running around your head? “Mistletoe And Wine”? How about “Saviour’s Day”? Bet it isn’t this one. It tends to get forgotten given the success of those aforementioned festive chart toppers and their ubiquity in Xmas playlists but Cliff didn’t just do those two Chrimbo tunes. There was “Little Town” in 1982, “We Should Be Together” nine years later and this one – “I Still Believe In You”.

This completely passed me by despite me working in a record shop at the time and despite it going Top 10. That’s probably because it had about as much staying power as wrapping paper come mid morning on Xmas day. In fact, it hardly even qualifies as a Xmas song with the only reference to Yuletide in the lyrics being one mention of Santa Claus. Just terrible. Cliff didn’t give up on the concept of making festive records though. In 1999, he scored an unexpected No 1 with “The Millennium Prayer”, in 2003 went Top 5 with “Santa’s List” and in 2006 got to No 2 with “21st Century Christmas”. There have also been numerous chart re-entries for “Mistletoe And Wine”, “Saviour’s Day” and even “I Still Believe In You” down the years when December rolls around once more.

The final Breaker comes from Rod Stewart and his cover of “Tom Traubert’s Blues (Waltzing Matilda)” by Tom Waits. We saw this the other week as an ‘exclusive’ live by satellite performance and the video here looks very similar to that as it’s just Rod wandering around an empty stage with a solitary piano player for company. I defy anybody to watch the video in full and be able to look at anything other than Rod’s beard for the whole four and a half minutes.

What on earth was this all about?! Boney M on TOTP?! In the 90s?! Well, it’s a straightforward answer. It was clearly another case of money for old rope. Record label Arista released this “Megamix” single with an eye on the Xmas party scene figuring the UK’s work force, pissed up and ready to party, wouldn’t be able to resist these 70’s tunes all over again. And so it came to pass that the single – a medley of “Rivers Of Babylon”, “Sunny” and “Daddy Cool” – returned Boney M to the UK Top 10 for the first time since 1979. I say Boney M but was this really them? Where was the guy with the mad Afro (Bobby Farrell) who used to leap about all over the place like he’d sat on an ants nest? Yes, there was a guy in the line up doing his best impression of Farrell but it’s clearly not him. In fact, there’s only the lead singer up there on stage that looks vaguely familiar. A bit of research tells me that it’s original member Liz Mitchell doing the singing but the rest of the group were just some randoms that were drafted in to promote the single. In an act of utter shamelessness / good business practice depending on your point of view, a cash-in “Greatest Hits” album was released early the following year which made the Top 20.

Apparently there were a number of different touring line ups of Boney M after the original line up was finally disbanded in 1986. I know! Boney M were still a thing in 1986?! They were not alone in this of course. There are plenty of examples of concurrent versions of groups following the disintegration of the originals. Off the top of my head there’s been The Temptations, Bucks Fizz, The Bay City Rollers and more recently UB40. All three female members of the original line up are still with us though sadly Bobby Farrell died of heart failure in 2010 while on tour with his version of Boney M. Unbelievably, he died on the same date and in the same city (St Petersburg) as Rasputin who was of course the inspiration behind one of the band’s biggest hits and whom Farrell used to dress up as when performing the song.

1992 had been a busy old time for Madonna. She starred in a well received film in A League Of Their Own and wrote a hit single for its soundtrack. She founded her own entertainment company called Maverick with production arms in records, film, music publishing, book publishing and merchandising. Not content with that, she released her controversial coffee table book Sex and her fifth studio album in “Erotica”. She was only 34 at the time and yet still had been a global superstar for nearly a decade.

“Deeper And Deeper” was the second single taken from “Erotica” and seems to have undergone some retrospective critical revisionism. It seems to me at the time that it didn’t create much of a fuss – how could it compete with Sex and the “Erotica” single for fuss to be fair? It now though seems to be recognised as one of Madonna’s better tracks. Indeed some may even say a banger. Certainly it was a return to that more mainstream dance sound on which she made her name but also embracing the house music movement. I have to say it never did that much for me though. At least the Andy Warhol inspired video with Madonna playing an Edie Sedgwick style character isn’t laced with whips and dominatrix style imagery like those for her recent singles “Erotica” and “Justify My Love” though there is some very loaded and deliberate peeling of bananas. “Deeper And Deeper” peaked at No 6.

This seems like a bit of overkill on behalf of the TOTP producers. This is the second time Simply Red have been on the show with two different tracks from a live EP recorded at a jazz festival. Really? “The Montreux EP” had four songs on it and after “Drowning In My Own Tears” was on a couple of weeks ago, this time we get “Lady Godiva’s Room”. Apparently this song had originally been released as the B-side to the band’s 1987 single “Infidelity” which kind of makes sense as it really sounds like B-side material to me. Uninspiring and a bit of a dirge, I was surprised that the EP got as high as it did (No 11). Make the most of this appearance though as we won’t be seeing Hucknall and co again for nearly three years (hurray!) when they will return with 1995’s “Life” album including No 1 single “Fairground”.

Right, strap in for a ten week run at the top of the charts for “I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston. Not quite Bryan Adams but still ten weeks of having to find something to say about this song. I’m going to start off by not talking about the song but about the film it was taken from. The Bodyguard seems to get quite a bad rap from critics but I don’t mind it actually. My theory is that the negativity stems from perceptions of Kevin Costner or more specifically his lack of acting ability. OK, he’s done some turkeys like Waterworld and The Postman but he’s also been in some decent films. His run of four films in the late 80s of The Untouchables, No Way Out, Bull Durham and Field Of Dreams is impressive and then there was Dances With Wolves which won seven Oscars including Best Director for Costner. Not too shabby. I actually think he’s decent in The Bodyguard too.

Maybe a lot of the anti-Costner stuff comes from his lack of an English accent in Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves (which is ludicrous) and Madonna sticking her fingers down her throat in reaction to him describing her show as ‘neat’ in her documentary In Bed With Madonna. Seems a bit unfair.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Stereo MC’sStep It UpNo
2Michael JacksonHeal The WorldNah
3Heaven 17Temptation (Brothers In Rhythm remix)No but my wife has the Luxury Of Life album
4Dina CarrollSo Close …but no cigar. No
5REMMan On The MoonNo but I had the Automatic For The People album
6U2Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild HorsesNo but I had the Achtung Baby album
7Cliff RichardI Still Believe In You…but I don’t believe in you Cliff. No
8Rod StewartTom Traubert’s Blues (Waltzing Matilda)No but I think my wife has the Tom Waits album it’s from
9Boney MMegamixNo but one of the first albums my wife ever had was Night Flight To Venus
10MadonnaDeeper And DeeperNope
11Simply RedThe Montreux EPNever!
12Whitney Houston I Will Always Love YouI did not

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001772z/top-of-the-pops-03121992

TOTP 26 NOV 1992

Posted on by 80stastic

Late November in 1992 was a sad time. I’m not talking about the Queen who two days before this TOTP broadcast had described the year as her annus horribilis as the Royal Family was involved in various scandals plus there was a fire at Windsor castle. Compared to the brouhaha they find themselves enveloped in today, photos of Fergie topless don’t seem such a big deal it seems to me but maybe life was a tad more innocent 30 years ago? Viewed against the daily shitshow of the 2020s, so far it does seem so. Anyway, it wasn’t the Windsors I was referring to but the fact that a major presence of British cultural life would come to an end in four days time. I speak, of course, of The Sooty Show! Yes, the original long running programme bid farewell on 30 November 1992 after 37 years on our screens. It wasn’t away for long returning just a year later as the rebranded Sooty & Co and then Sooty Heights and even today exists courtesy of Richard Cadell who bought the rights to the Sooty brand in 2008. The ending of a 37 year old TV show seems like quite a big deal though. Neighbours is ending soon after an almost identical length of run and there seems to be quite a fuss in the media about that so if it’s good enough for Scott and Charlene there it’s good enough for Sooty and Sweep. So much did Sooty permeate society that he’s responsible for this memorable spoof from my childhood:

What has this to do with TOTP? Nothing really but you find different ways to introduce a review of early 90s chart music on a twice weekly basis without resorting to such tactics!

OK, so like Sooty, EMF we’re also having problems staying as popular as they once were. Having arrived on the charts in 1990 like a bowling ball, skittling their contemporaries down and out with their irresistible “Unbelievable” single and Top 3 album “Schubert Dip”, it had been a case of diminishing returns for the Epsom Mad Funkers since. Two years on and sophomore album “Stigmata” would peak at No 19 and worse still, spend just two weeks on the charts. Its singles also underperformed. Lead track “They’re Here” barely made the Top 30 whilst follow up “It’s You” fared little better peaking at No 23 despite this TOTP appearance.

I didn’t remember how this one went at all but having listened to it back, it’s pretty good. They’ve toned down the frenetic pace of their earlier catalogue for a more (dare I say it) mature sound. This new found maturity is undermined rather by the band’s ‘slacker’ wardrobe which they are still persisting with two years on from their debut on the scene. That and the way in which the song’s chorus sounds like singer James Atkin is sneezing but I still quite like it.

Talking of maturity, the band have recently released a new album called “Go Go Sapiens” and are featured in the latest issue of Classic Pop magazine. Man, the look like any old geezers now but then, don’t we all?

It’s the video for “Yesterdays” by Guns N’ Roses next which provides the musical backdrop for the chart rundown for Nos 40 to 11. The band were in total turmoil by this point, engulfed in a trail of controversy as they straddled the planet on their Use Your Illusion tour. They’d haemorrhaged two band members in Izzy Stradlin and Steven Adler during the course of it, caused riots in St Louis and Montreal and in September guitarist Slash actually died for eight minutes after a drug overdose before being revived by paramedics.

At the time of this particular TOTP they were in Caracas, Venezuela and got caught up in a military coup which found them stranded there as airbases were seized. They eventually made it out and flew into Bogota, Columbia as the tour of carnage continued. Remember when rock star transgressions were just about fast cars and women? Talking of which…

From (literally) death defying rock to a comfy as a pair of slippers cover version. Undercover are back with their tribute to Andrew Gold’s “Never Let Her Slip Away”. For some reason the producers have dressed the stage up as if it were the deck of a Titanic style ship complete with a SS Undercover lifeboat and lifebuoy. I have no idea why. Undercover would never be as successful again as they were at this moment. Two consecutive Top 5 hits, multiple TOTP appearances – not bad for what was quite a ropey old concept really. However, the iceberg of chart failure was lurking unseen in their path and when they hit it, the journey was over almost immediately. There was time for one final Top 40 hit when their version of Gallagher and Lyle’s “I Wanna Stay With You” made No 28 but really they were just rearranging the deckchairs while the good ship Undercover sank.

To be fair, they weren’t the first to dance up some old rock pop staples for a more youthful audience nor the last. East Side Beat scored a big hit the previous year with their Eurodance version of “Ride Like The Wind” by Christopher Cross and then in 1995 Nikki French took her Hi-NRG take on Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” into the Top 5. It just all seemed like lowest common denominator music to me. What’s the least we could get away with and still bag some chart success.

I think singer John Matthews still performs using the Undercover name on the nostalgia circuit. I really hope he does those slots on cruise liners that seem to be popular for retro artists now. He’s also a massive Arsenal fan whose Champions League qualification hopes sank recently as easily as the Titanic.

Whilst Sooty, Sweep and Sue were about to experience cancel culture nearly 30 years before it was invented, Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine were riding the zeitgeist in 1992. “The Impossible Dream (The Quest)” was their fourth Top 40 hit of the year whilst their “1992 – The Love Album” went to the top of the charts! It could be argued that all this success had gone to Fruitbat and Jim Bob’s heads as apparently they genuinely believed that they had a shot at the Xmas No 1 with this release. They even tried to start a fake war with the King of Xmas Cliff Richard via a poster campaign that said ‘Don’t Buy Cliff, Buy Carter’. In the end, they massively misjudged their chances and the single peaked at No 21.

The song itself has quite the history. Taken from the 1965 Broadway musical Man Of La Mancha, it has been recorded by some legendary names. Look at this list:

  • Frank Sinatra
  • Elvis Presley
  • Jack Jones
  • Jacques Brel
  • Shirley Bassey
  • Matt Monro
  • Andy Williams
  • Scott Walker
  • and erm…Susan Boyle

CUSM were an unlikely addition to that list for sure and I’m not entirely sure they did the song justice. Still, the staging of this performance with the windmill image in the background at least made sense unlike the SS Undercover.

If you really want a song based on a fictional character who picked fights with windmills then you could do worse than listen to this:

Just the two Breakers this week starting with…oh joy…Shabba Ranks and a little ditty he’s recorded with Johnny Gill called “Slow And Sexy”. Lovely stuff. Shabba (!) had already released a track this year called “Love Punanny Bad” which presumably influenced the comedy creation Ali G. You’d never get any of this smut with Sooty!

*checks YouTube to ensure there isn’t a blue, Rainbow style version of Sooty*

Phew! Anyway, this was just a precursor to the biggest era of Shabba’s popularity when “Mr Loverman” was rereleased in 1993 (it had been a No 23 hit earlier this year) and he became a part of that unholy ‘S’ trinity alongside Snow and Shaggy. Dear God!

Now I’ve heard of the concept of the difficult second album. It’s a well known idea that sees a band put their creative juices into writing their debut with all their life experiences so far contributing to the songs. Said debut garners huge commercial success which instigates pressure from the record company to immediately come up with a second hit album just 12 months later. I’m also familiar with ‘third album syndrome’ where a band struggles to define their musical identity after the whirlwind of recording, promoting and touring the first two albums. But ‘fourth album complex’? Not so much.

That was what appeared to be afflicting Deacon Blue in late ‘92 though. With their fourth album “Whatever You Say, Say Nothing” due for release early the following year, lead single “Your Town” was sent out into the busy Xmas market to plug it. Maybe not the best time to trail your new sound on reflection. For it was a new sound. I recall quite some coverage in the media about how this wasn’t the Deacon Blue that we had all come to know and love – well some of us anyway.

After the well crafted pop gems of the first three albums, the band seemed to decide that they needed to add a bit of a dance edge to their work to remain credible in the light of the continuing take over of the charts by that genre. Deacon Blue go dance?! Well, sort of. I mean they didn’t turn into 2 Unlimited overnight or anything like that but “Your Town” definitely sounded different. Beginning with a drawn out, repeated wail from Lorraine McKintosh, it built steadily via some shimmering blips and bleeeps until the driving backing track kicked in. Then came Ricky Ross’s vocals that sounded like they were being sung through a megaphone (or possibly a vocoder?). It was disarming but I presume deliberate. There was a song structure to it of sorts but they’d certainly played around with it. The coda for example was one, long play out with no vocals other than the return of Lorraine’s wail at the end. To be fair, it lent it a soundtrack style epic feel.

For all that, I dismissed it at the time as being experimental bollocks. The fact that the single came with various dance mixes including a Perfecto one didn’t impress me – in fact it depressed me. It was no “Dignity” that’s for sure. Listening to it now, I think that was a hasty judgement that could do with some heavy revision . The album made No 4 and achieved gold status sales. Nothing to be sniffed at but also way below the sales of their first three albums. It would prove to be their final one of the decade and their last for eight whole years.

A milestone next as after nearly five years, we have arrived at Kylie Minogue’s last ever single with PWL/ Stock, Aitken and Waterman. “Celebration” was the single in question, a cover of the Kool And The Gang hit from 1980 and the second single to be pulled from her very first Greatest Hits album. It was also her 19th UK chart hit. 19th! In five years. Just under four a year every year. Like her or loath her, she was prolific. Sadly, I don’t think her voice is really up to interpreting this disco classic. The staging for this studio performance is convincing enough though, giving off a real 70s disco vibe…despite erm…the song being sung dating from 1980. It all just makes the Undercover performance even more perplexing.

“Celebration” peaked at No 20.

From Kylie to Jason (nearly an early KLF song title there). This surely must have been a deliberate decision on the running order by the TOTP producers? It’s hard to tell if Kylie and Jason Donovan were in the studio together at the same time as there’s a weird, swirling, pixelated effect on the camera shot from the former to the latter but I don’t think it’s a retransmission of his performance from the other week as he’s wearing different clothes.

“As Time Goes By” was the single he was plugging and it stank of desperation for a big hit. The fact that it peaked at No 26 and was his last ever UK chart entry tells you everything you need to know about Jason’s decline in popularity by this point. It’s quite a moment in time. Kylie severs her ties with SAW and embarks on a career that is still going to this day and has brought her both sales and credibility. Jason meanwhile had also recently left SAW and can’t get arrested. Bye Jason. Thanks for…everything?!

Another week and another ‘exclusive’ performance which this time is live from Los Angeles and is Rod Stewart sporting a beard and continuing in his quest to convince the world that he is Tom Waits. Not content with murdering “Downtown Train”, he’s now having a hack at “Tom Traubert’s Blues”. The opening track of Tom’s 1976 album “Small Change”, it’s based on Australian folk tune and unofficial national anthem “Waltzing Matilda”. Just to make sure all us Neanderthals realised this, Rod has helpfully renamed his version “Tom Traubert’s Blues (Waltzing Matilda)”. Cheers for that Rod.

It’s an OK version I guess in that he doesn’t completely ruin it but you’d have to worry about someone who thought Rod’s was the definitive take on the song. It was clearly released with an eye on the Xmas No 1 and to be fair it gave a decent account of itself by rising to No 6. One final thing, that’s not Huey Lewis on the piano in this performance surely?

Charles And Eddie are still No 1 with “Would I Lie To You” but not for much longer. They bow out with the second live by satellite performance of the show, this time from Toronto, Canada. When these were first introduced at the start of the ‘year zero’ era, I guess they seemed different and were an attempt to shake up the old format but a year on I can’t really see the point of them. They tend to be in empty venues (possibly due to the time differences) and they generate very little in the way of excitement. There’s not even any interaction with the presenters anymore (as excruciating as that was!). I get that the artists featured are either on tour or doing promotional work and couldn’t be in the TOTP studio but just show the video instead. Really.

As for Charles And Eddie, unlike Sooty and friends, their appeal would not endure and despite winning three Ivor Novello awards for “Would I Lie To You”, they would achieve only three more minor UK hit singles before disbanding in 1995.

And finally some bonus content…

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1EMFIt’s YouNope
2Guns N’ RosesYesterdaysNot the single but I have it on a Greatest Hits CD
3UndercoverNever Let Her Slip AwayNever happening
4Carter The Unstoppable Sex MachineThe Impossible Dream (The Quest)I did not
5Shabba Ranks and Johnny GillSlow And SexyAs if
6Deacon BlueYour TownNah
7Kylie MinogueCelebrationNo but my wife had that Greatest Hits album of hers
8Jason DonovanAs Time Goes ByNo
9Rod StewartTom Traubert’s Blues (Waltzing Matilda)No but I think my wife has the Tom Waits album it’s from
10Charles And EddieWould I Lie To You?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/m00170d8/top-of-the-pops-26111992

TOTP 19 NOV 1992

Posted on by 80stastic

As Springtime approaches its end for another year, back in 1992 and the world of TOTP repeats, Xmas is coming into view. Bonfire night has been and gone and for all of us working in retail back then, the days were getting busier. I was working as Assistant Manager in the Our Price store in Rochdale having been promoted for the first time in my working life a couple of months previously. Despite the lengthy commute from our rented flat in Manchester, I was enjoying the job immensely. After previous manager Adrian had departed for pastures new (the Manchester Virgin megastore as I recall), a new boss arrived in the form of Ian from the Burnley store. Ian had worked at Rochdale before so knew the score which was helpful for the wet behind the ears me. Ian turned out to be a top bloke and one of the best people to work alongside. Around this time we recruited two Xmas temps called Chris and Lee who fitted in perfectly with the rest of the team. We were known as the ‘good time’ store by the Area Manager as every time he rang us, he could hear laughter in the background. It couldn’t have gone much better for a first time managerial role for me. Sadly, it also lulled me into a false sense of security that all shops were like this. There were darker times ahead in other stores.

That’s enough about my personal circumstances for now though. You’re not here for that. On with the show! One of the breakout stars of 1991 had been Cathy Dennis who had stepped out of D-Mob’s shadows into a solo spotlight to notch up four Top 20 singles and a Top 3 album in the UK and a pair of Top 10 hits in the US. Once you’ve ridden so high of course, the challenge is to stay there. Her initial success had been based on out and out dance tunes like “Touch Me (All Night Long)” and “Just Another Dream” but in the fast moving world of early 90s dance music, was it wise to just repeat that formula or should she go in another direction? After all, she had dabbled with balladry on hit single “Too Many Walls”. If it’s not broken, why fix it though? In the end she kind of fudged it with the single “Irresistible”. Both uptempo but with a definite pop touch it kind of fell between two stools. Taken from sophomore album “Into The Skyline”, it ended up sounding like Amy Grant’s “Baby Baby”. Pleasant enough but so, so lightweight as to be almost ephemeral, disappearing from your memory banks as soon as the last beat had sounded.

Chart wise it did OK returning Cathy to the Top 40 over here though it stalled at No 61 in the US. However its No 24 peak made it the biggest hit of four singles taken from the album. Despite the absence of any monster hits to promote it, “Into The Skyline” managed to go Top 10 which surprised me as I thought it had disappeared without trace. Talking of disappearing, what was the score with Cathy’s jumper in this performance? Its threadbare, tatty appearance suggests she may have had a case of moths in her wardrobe.

Now when I saw this next track on the show’s running list, I assumed they were carrying on with the nostalgia section which had been used in recent weeks to promote the 1,500th show even though that particular milestone had been passed last week. However I was wrong in my assumption as the retro clip of “I Got You Babe” by Sonny & Cher was actually in the album chart slot to promote Cher’s “Greatest Hits: 1965-1992” which was at No 1. Though there had been Cher Best Of albums in the past, there hadn’t been one since 1974 and so this one that had grouped together all her soft rock hits of the late 80s to ‘92 was justified I guess though maybe not ancient. Only four tracks predated the 80s although she had done brand new recordings of some covers from before then. The majority of the album though was made up of hits from her later successful albums like “Heart Of Stone” and “Love Hurts”.

And yet…TOTP chose her most well known song with one time partner Sonny Bono to broadcast. Maybe the producers felt that there hadn’t been enough distance of time since her most recent hits or perhaps they’d had good feedback on the nostalgia section? Either way, “I Got You Babe” was not given an official re-release at this time so the choice presumably was the producers?

I never liked this song much probably because of UB40 and Chrissie Hynde’s lame cover in 1985 or possibly because of its explainable but irritating overuse in Groundhog Day.

Another oldie next as we welcome back Heaven 17 to the show for the first time in eight years. Yes, incredibly we hadn’t seen these Sheffield electro pioneers on TOTP since they performed “This Is Mine” in 1984. To be fair, that was the last time they’d had a Top 40 hit in this country so I guess it’s not that surprising.

After the “How Men Are” album from which that single came had run its course, the group had gone into a commercial collapse. Mid and late 80s albums “Pleasure One” and the spookily entitled “Teddy Bear, Duke & Psycho” had missed the charts completely but suddenly they were back! Why? Well, I’d like to be able to say it was due to the public rediscovering them due to some brilliant new material they’d released but sadly it was, like Cher, due to a Greatest Hits album. “Higher And Higher: The Best Of Heaven 17” didn’t do nearly as well as Cher’s peaking at a lowly No 31 despite it being a reasonable retrospective covering all their singles plus a few album tracks and the inclusion of a Brothers In Rhythm remix of their biggest hit “Temptation”. Well, it was 1992 after all.

That remix nearly matched the success of the original peaking just two places shy of the 1983 version’s No 2 position. I know it’s a great track and I love “The Luxury Gap” album but I still found it surprising and confusing that it could be a hit all over again nine years on. 1983 felt like forever ago. I’d been a 15 year old who’d never had a girlfriend back then. I was now 24 and had been married for two years. I guess it must have been the Brothers In Rhythm association that sold it to the masses. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy to see it back in the charts it’s just that those 1983 memories of it were so strong and definitive that this new version almost felt wrong somehow.

Another dance remix of “(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang” returned Heaven 17 to the Top 40 (just!) the following year but that would prove to be their final chart entry though they are now ironically a big live draw – they never toured at all during their glory years.

Something that you very rarely used to see on TOTP but which seemed to creep in more and more during this era of the show was a single that wasn’t a hit. We have another example here as Madness release a live version of the old Jimmy Cliff song “The Harder They Come”. Taken from their live album “Madstock!” which captured their legendary live shows at Finsbury Park in August of this year, it failed to make the Top 40 peaking at No 44. After managing to squeeze three more hits out of their back catalogue already in 1992 with rereleased singles to promote their “Divine Madness” Best Of album, maybe they thought another hit just before Xmas was a shoo-in?

Quite why this performance comes from Red Square, Moscow seems to be lost in the mists of time. It doesn’t add much to proceedings apart from some obligatory Russian Ushanka hats being worn by the band and some half hearted attempts at traditional Russian dancing which almost allows Suggs and Chas Smash to fulfil the prophecy of the song title. I guess Saint Basil’s Cathedral in the background must make for one of the most impressive TOTP backdrops ever though.

Wait, what? I’m sure I’ve already announced at least twice before in this blog that this must be the final TOTP appearance for The Pasadenas but here they are yet again! This time though is the last time and I think that they knew the game was up. Why? Well, they’d resorted to a cover version to reverse the downturn in their commercial fortunes, that well known and used trick for dredging up a hit when your career depends on it. What makes it even more desperate is that they’d already released a whole album of cover versions earlier in the year called “Yours Sincerely”. They pulled it off once- “I’m Doing Fine Now” was a Top 5 hit for them – but subsequent single releases from it had bought diminishing returns. So when the cover version technique ran out of steam, surely you don’t try and rectify it by doing another cover version do you? You do if you’re The Pasadenas as their version of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” did make the charts (unlike Madness and “The Harder They Come”) but it was only delaying the inevitable. A No 22 hit wasn’t enough to stop them being dropped by Columbia/Sony Music and they ignored the advice of their last ever hit single and disbanded a couple of years later.

In a frankly bizarre coincidence, their last time on the show was to perform a song that had a link to a band making their first appearance in eight years. Heaven 17’s Martyn Ware and Glenn Gregory both performed on Tina Turner’s career resurrecting version of “Let’s Stay Together” in 1983. Indeed Ware also helped produce it.

Some Breakers next starting with INXS and “Taste It” who were on the show two weeks ago in their first ever in person appearance. This time it’s just the promo video though.

I haven’t got that much else to say about this one other than I really like the fact that the band used the same font for the parent album “Welcome To Wherever You Are” and all the singles from it. A simple yet effective band of white across the cover with the title of the album/single in black and the band’s name in red. It reminds me of those label printers you got in the 70s where you pushed the sticky backed tape through the device, selected the letter you wanted (normally via a wheel) and then literally punched the impression onto the tape.

The Prodigy are next with “Out Of Space” and I was surprised to discover that this short clip in the Breakers was its only time in the show given the success the last fifteen months had brought them. In that time they’d had No 2 and No 3 hits plus a further Top 20 entry and their debut album “Experience” had been released to great acclaim. “Out Of Space” would add another Top 5 single to that haul.

Featuring samples from Max Romeo and Ultramagnetic MCs, the track cemented the band’s status as premier league electronic rave pioneers. That was maybe something that had appeared unlikely when they first appeared with the public information film sampling single “Charly” which saw them cast initially as novelty record merchants. They were still four years away though from being the heavy techno behemoths of “Firestarter” and “Breathe”. Did anyone see that coming? Or the ostriches?

The other week I noted how Metallica were still releasing singles from an album that had been out for well over a year. This week we have another example of a hard rock band doing exactly the same thing – step forward Guns N’ Roses. Their two “Use Your Illusion” albums had been released on the same day back in September 1991 yet five single releases across both albums later, here they were with another one. “Yesterdays” was taken from the second “Illusion” album and I always felt like it stood alone from the rest of the singles from the project in that it eased back from all the heavy rock bluster, especially in that almost sprightly opening guitar riff. You could make a case that it harks back to the opening of “Paradise City” even I guess. Of course it reverts to type eventually in the middle eight when Slash goes back to his usual ways but even so.

Every single from the “Illusions” albums made the UK Top 10 bar the final one “Civil War” and that only missed it by one place. Pretty impressive stuff. There would be a monumental gap of 17 years between the “Illusion” double pack and the next album of new material when “Chinese Democracy” came out in 2008. That album gained almost mythical status during the wait for it. It was forever listed in the new release info we used to get weekly in Our Price as date ‘To Be Confirmed’. Those 17 years were punctuated just once by 1993’s covers album “The Spaghetti Incident?” but it didn’t really satisfy the fan base selling only a third of both “Illusion” albums.

The final Breaker is by Simply Red with their “The Montreux EP”. The track played is called “Drowning In My Own Tears”. Ah, make your own jokes up!

A genuine titan of a tune next. No seriously, it was enormous, a monster, a leviathan. It came, it saw, it conquered and then it shat over everything else in the charts combined. A gargantuan hit. OK, I’ve run out of words now. I can only be talking about “I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston. I already knew this song as my wife had a Dolly Parton Best Of CD with it on before Whitney got her mits on it and I much prefer her version but you can’t deny the reach of Whitney’s take on it which is now the definitive recording for many. This is going to be No 1 for ages so I’m not going to say loads about it straight away. For now though, here’s some facts and stats about it:

  • It topped the US charts for 14 weeks and the UK for 10
  • It was the biggest selling single of 1992 and the 10th best selling single of the 90s in the UK
  • By 2013, it had sold 20 million copies making it the best selling single by a female artist ever
  • It won the 1994 Grammies for Record Of The Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance
  • For a time it was the second biggest selling single of all time after “We Are The World” by USA For Africa but was bumped into third place in 1997 by Elton John’s new version of “Candle In The Wind”
  • It is taken from The Bodyguard soundtrack which is the biggest selling soundtrack of all time

Phew!

From Houston to Houston we have a problem as Genesis are inflicting a live single on us. Yes, after Madness earlier and their live single came “Invisible Touch (Live)” which was taken from the accompanying live album “The Way We Walk Volume One: The Shorts” which documented the band’s 1992 We Can’t Dance tour. The track listing was basically the singles released from their last three studio albums so all the radio friendly pop hits hence ‘shorts’. There was also a ‘longs’ live album featuring songs from their prog rock days but the less said about that the better. Live versions of the poppier end of their catalogue was concern enough.

I guess it made sense to choose a track that had been a US No 1 as the single to promote the album if a little obvious. “Invisible Touch” must surely have been and remain one of their most played songs on radio. One question though, is this the version heard on the single or just Phil Collins doing a live vocal as per TOTP policy? I’m guessing the latter as wouldn’t we be able to detect noise from the concert crowd otherwise? It follows then that when Phil does his audience response bit with the studio audience that is actually the latter repeating “yeah-uh” back to him and not them miming along to the original gig goers as that would just be too weird. Yeah, you’re right – I’m overthinking it. Who cares?

Boyz II Men have come to the end of the road at No 1 (come on, it’s an open goal!) and been replaced by Charles And Eddie with “Would I Lie To You”. At the time I couldn’t believe that this had happened as I hated this pair and what I perceived as their insipid, stupid tune. Thirty years on and I can’t quite understand what I was so enraged about. I still don’t like the song but I don’t have any hatred for it either. If anything it’s bland and inoffensive but then I guess that might be the biggest crime of all for some.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Cathy DennisIrresistibleNah
2Sonny & CherI Got You BabeWasn’t released as a single
3Heaven 17TemptationNot the 1992 remix but my wife has The Luxury Gap on vinyl
4MadnessThe Harder They ComeNope
5The PasadenasLet’s Stay TogetherDefinitely not
6INXSTaste ItNot the single but I bought the album
7The ProdigyOut Of SpaceNo
8Guns N’ RosesYesterdaysNo but I have it on there Best Of album
9Simply RedThe Montreux EPNever!
10Whitney Houston I Will Always Love YouNo but my wife had the Dolly Parton original
11GenesisInvisible Touch (Live)As if
12Charles And EddieWould I Lie To You?Never happening

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/m00170d6/top-of-the-pops-19111992

TOTP 12 NOV 1992

Posted on by 80stastic

It’s the 1,500th edition of TOTP and you know what, it feels like I’ve reviewed most of them in this blog! OK, obviously I haven’t but I have done every BBC4 repeat from 1983 to 1992 and counting. That’s a whole 10 years, about 400 shows and over 1 million words written! I must be mad!

Anyway, I’m carrying on for now so its time to clear my head and free my mind…with opening act En Vogue! They’re in the studio after being on video as a Breaker last week and deliver a pumped up, provocative performance in keeping with the importance of the message in their song “Free Your Mind”. Written in response to the Rodney King riots in LA, it borrows lyrically from Funkadelic’s “Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow”. The energy that the group bring to their performance here is matched by their collective spirit that sees each of the four members taking centre stage in turn. That’s how you open a show!

Sadly, that group unity wasn’t to last and in subsequent years the band’s line up went through so many comings and goings they made Sugababes look like U2. Then there were the lawsuits and legal challenges to the use of the name En Vogue that rivalled the ridiculous Bucks Fizz name saga. Seriously, just check out the History section of their Wikipedia entry. It’s exhausting!

“Free Your Mind” peaked at No 16.

So given this is a huge anniversary for TOTP, surely this edition will be a massive celebration of the show. Well, maybe but so far there’s a very forlorn looking balloon with 1500 on it behind presenter Mark Franklin who’s opening gambit to put us in a party mood is to give us some fairly basic TOTP trivia (who needed to know or was wowed by there having been 57 presenters up to this point?!). It reminds me of those The Apprentice candidates during the task where they have to put on a corporate away day event at Silverstone or at a brewery and act as tour guides.

Anyway, Franklin has some music to get us partying in the form of the nostalgia section and for the big day the producers have chosen “Baby Love” by The Supremes. As iconic songs go, this one is right up there with it being a concurrent UK and US No 1 and therefore making The Supremes the first Motown group to achieve a chart topping record in the former territory. It’s surely one of the most well known songs in the Motown catalogue.

The group were on tour in the UK at the time of this TOTP recording therefore allowing them to appear. The black and white film somehow lends it more credence as an historic tune. The towering beehive hairdos on display are quite something. Indeed, Diana Ross’s slight frame looks hardly capable of withstanding the weight of it. Although Ross was the one who would end up as the biggest star out of the group, the lives of other founding members Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard are also major stories in themselves. Indeed, they were paid tribute to in the play and film adaptation Dreamgirls with the characters of Effie White and Lorrell Robinson being based on Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson respectively.

Bringing the party mood down a few notches is Michael Bolton who is performing his version of “To Love Somebody” to promote his “Timeless: The Classics” album. I know it’s an obvious comment but the Bollers hair really was monstrous wasn’t it? If you’re going to have long hair, at least keep it in good condition. His has the texture of straw and looks like it’s been dragged through a hedge backwards.

Michael is up there on his lonesome with just the dry ice machine for company. There’s some sort of pool structure in the middle of the stage that makes the dry ice look like it’s flooding over. It’s like that scene with the three witches from Macbeth and a cauldron. Maybe Bolton was trying to cook up a spell for some hair conditioner.

“To Love Somebody” peaked at No 16.

The camera swings and we leave Michael Bolton and his bubbling cauldron to focus on Vanessa Paradis who is back in the studio to perform “Be My Baby”. After her lacklustre showing the other week, will she be able to give a more lively turn this time? It is a party after all. Well, Vanessa has clearly tried to jazz up her outfit for the occasion but it looks like Martin Fry caught her raiding his wardrobe halfway through and she’s only managed to snaffle his trousers. She does try to move about a bit more this time but she’s still left looking like she’s only just learned the song lyrics that afternoon and therefore hadn’t had time to work out any dance moves to go with the singing.

Despite continuing to record and release music until as recently as 2019, she never had another UK Top 40 hit. I wonder if her stage presence ever got any better?

Now here’s a band to light up a party! Admittedly not any party I’d want to attend but at least they’re in the right ball park. After converting Gerry Rafferty’s soft rock classic “Baker Street” into a dance anthem for those whose only dance steps were the nerd shuffle, Undercover have turned their attention to another daytime radio staple in Andrew Gold’s “Never Let Her Slip Away”. Now I have to admit to having quite the soft spot for Andrew. “Lonely Boy” is a fab song and “Thank You For Being A Friend” reminds me of watching Golden Girls in our tiny first flat in Manchester. Plus, he was in Wax with 10cc’s Graham Gouldman who had a couple of nifty pop tunes that I liked.

As for “Never Let Her Slip Away”, it had originally been a No 5 hit for Gold in 1978 and had been described by Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters no less as “the most beautiful piece of music ever written”. Wow! As for Undercover’s version, it’s in exactly the same style as their treatment of “Baker Street” which had found a level of popularity back then so I can’t really call them out for sticking to the formula but it was as lifeless as a Vanessa Paradis gig. That didn’t stop it equalling Gold’s chart peak of No 5 though.

Of course, if you are looking for a cover version of “Never Let Her Slip Away” then there’s always this:

Ah come on! A joke’s a joke but nobody’s laughing anymore. Is this the third time on the show for Ambassadors Of Funk and “Supermarioland”? This made Undercover look like Muse. How could the producers have put this on the 1,500th show?! Away with you!

We’ve finally got there. It felt at times like a journey with no end and it’s taken four years worth of TOTP repeats but we’ve reached Jason Donovan’s final UK Top 40 hit. It’s not quite his final appearance on the show as he’s on again in a couple of weeks but “As Time Goes By” was his last chart entry. Yes, it’s that “As Time Goes By” from the classic film Casablanca. A couple of things to say about this one straight off the bat. Firstly, why was Jason Donovan covering this iconic tune? Secondly, how on earth was this a suitable tune for such a milestone show?

Well, it came from Jason’s difficult third album “All Around The World” which was his first since leaving Stock, Aitken and Waterman and came out on Polydor. So little faith did the label have in their new charge that they licensed six of his old hits to add to the track listing to drum up some interest. Donovan was not impressed supposedly but then the public weren’t impressed by the album which was a commercial failure and would be his last studio album for 15 years. OK but why cover “As Time Goes By”? There’s a theory that it could be a shameless case of opportunism as there was a successful TV series of the same name on our screens at the time starring Dame Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer that used the song as its theme tune but that could just be coincidence.

As for it being an odd choice for the 1,500th TOTP, well, as host Mark Franklin says, he was about to tour at the time so maybe there was some negotiation between Polydor and the producers to get him on the show to promote that. Also, he had been a very regular artist on the show over the past four years so maybe he was seen as a deserving choice as one of TOTP’s most prolific guests.

Clearly his new label were trying to restyle him away from his SAW puppet past and mould him into a modern day crooner. Their dastardly plan failed but perhaps watching on was a certain Simon Cowell who may just have thought that their was mileage in this idea. Two years later he would persuade actors Robson Green and Jerome Flynn to cash in in their successful roles in ITV drama Soldier Soldier and record a version of “Unchained Melody” on his S Records label via BMG. It would become the biggest selling UK single of 1995. If only Jason Donovan had remained in Neighbours and not left in 1989 he might have pulled the crooner trick off. Oh hang on. Aren’t he and Kylie making an appearance in the forthcoming last ever episode of the Aussie soap? I don’t think I could stomach a second Jason Donovan pop career.

“As Time Goes By” peaked at No 26.

The camera pans once more this time ensuring that there’s a shot of a chandelier suspended from the studio ceiling in view. Has that been there every week or had it been rapidly erected especially for the 1,500th show? Anyway, as we move away from the chandelier the focus falls on the other stage where Charles And Eddie await their cue to perform “Would I Lie To You?”. As part of his introduction, Mark Franklin gives us some rudimentary maths to work out that over the years, TOTP has delivered over 900 hours of music from acts in the studio. Hmm. The script writers not doing Mark any favours there. He’s coming across like one of those office party bores you desperately don’t want to get stuck talking to.

Meanwhile, Charles And Eddie have gone from being a Breaker last week straight to No 2. A chart topping record now seemed inevitable. Although often referred to as one hit wonders, the duo did actually have a further three UK Top 40 chart entries though none got any higher than No 29 so that misconception is understandable. I have to admit that, probably like many other people, I was confused as to which one was which. Whichever one it was with the long hair had a very distinctive look; sort of like Lou Diamond Phillips in Young Guns as Chavez y Chavez the Mexican-American outlaw. Or possibly “I Got You Babe” era Cher.

Are Charles And Eddie still with us?

*checks Wikipedia*

Well, sadly Charles Pettigrew (who was the black guy) died of cancer in 2001 aged just 37. Eddie Chacon is still alive though and after working as a photographer after the duo split, returned to making music in 2020 with the ridiculously titled song “My Mind Is Out Of Its Mind”.

Now if you’re going to have a celebration to mark the 1,500th show and have been building up to the moment for weeks with nostalgia clips from the archive, then nothing screams “PAAARTY!” like Neil Diamond singing “Morning Has Broken” I always say! God almighty what were they thinking?! Look, I don’t mind a bit of Diamond. I own his Best Of that came out in 1992. Hell, I’ve even seen him live at the KC Stadium in Hull a few years back but this?! This is excruciating! It’s brutal. It’s…just vile.

I didn’t think the producers could have made a worse choice to celebrate their anniversary than Jason Donovan but somehow they managed it. The whole thing is just wrong in every possible way. Why “Morning Has Broken”? It was taken from his “The Christmas Album” so let’s just look at that a moment. That was the best title he could come up with for a Christmas album? “The Christmas Album”?! Come on! And is “Morning Has Broken” even a Christmas song?! It’s a Christian hymn that is often sung at funeral services! What else was on this Christmas album? “Angels” by Robbie Williams? OK, having checked the rest of the tracks were Christmas songs but I stand by my point.

Then there’s Neil himself. He’s wearing an orange open neck shirt with brown slacks! For the love of God! When the camera pans over the studio audience it alights on some faces that don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Some look genuinely distressed at what is unfolding in front of their eyes.

The track was eventually released as a single and somehow made the charts peaking at No 36. It was Neil’s only UK Top 40 hit of the whole decade. It should never, ever have been allowed to happen. Ever.

In a completely underwhelming 1,500th edition of the show, it’s somehow befitting that it ends with “End Of The Road” by Boyz II Men. Where were all the party tunes?

This was the last week at No 1 for the group but by the time the record finally disappeared it would have spent 26 weeks (exactly half a year) on the charts. I had to check that figure three times to be sure. It ended 1992 as the 6th best selling single in the UK.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1En VogueFree Your MindNo, liked it though
2The SupremesBaby LoveSure I have it on a Motown collection somewhere
3Michael BoltonTo Love SomebodyNot you though Bollers – no
4Vanessa ParadisBe My BabyYes this is in the singles box though I think my wife actually bought it
5UndercoverNever Let Her Slip AwayNah
6Ambassadors Of FunkSupermariolandHell no!
7Jason DonovanAs Time Goes ByAnd pigs might fly – Never!
8Charles And EddieWould I Lie To You?Nope
9Neil DiamondMorning Has BrokenOf course not
10Boyz II MenEnd Of The RoadNo

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/m0016spn/top-of-the-pops-12111992