80stastic

TOTP 24 SEP 1992

Posted on April 2, 2022 by 80stastic

OK, the relentless BBC4 schedule of two TOTP shows a week combined with 14 episodes that we missed due to Adrian Rose’s unwillingness to sign a repeats waiver has delivered us into late September back in 1992. On the day this particular show was broadcast, Conservative MP David Mellor resigned from government in the light of his adulterous affair with actress Antonia De Sancha. Remember that? Can that really be 30 years ago?! I actually find myself longing for the days when a sex scandal dominated the news rather than the utter existential misery that we have these days. What I found must upsetting and shocking about this little tale of sleaze wasn’t the revelation that the wretched Mellor claimed to be a fan of my beloved Chelsea (though the shame of association with this vile man was bad enough) but that he apparently made love in a Chelsea strip. Eeewww! The Sun mocked up a picture of Mellor in said kit with the tag line ‘Night he scored four times with actress’. The whole thing was repulsive! Now of course, those stories of existential misery I mentioned before also apply to Chelsea – life was so much simpler back then David Mellor and all.

We start tonight’s show with an act called Messiah who have covered Donna Summer’s shimmering Giorgio Moroder co-written and produced disco classic “I Feel Love” (one for David Mellor there – eeewww!). Yet again, despite the real possibility that I may have sold this record to an eager punter while working at Our Price in Rochdale, I have zero recall of this track. The Donna Summer original? Obviously. Bronski Beat and Marc Almond’s cover from 1985? Of course. This techno rave up? Not a flicker.

Apparently that’s Precious Wilson doing the vocals who was in Eruption of “I Can’t Stand The Rain” and “One Way Ticket” fame back in the 70s. Backing her up is a man playing a fiddle who seems to be doing an impression of Jerry Sadowitz’s “Ebeneezer Goode” character, a guy on keyboards at the back channelling his inner Chris Lowe of Pet Shop Boys (even down to the very tall hat) and, randomly, two people in Star Wars stormtrooper headgear. It looks a bit of a mess visually. The ‘Hail the Messiah!’ sample is from Life Of Brian.

Messiah’s version of “I Feel Love” peaked at No 19.

Reminder to self: Sade is the name of the band not the singer. Same as Toyah. Do not forget this when writing the next few paragraphs.

Sade is a bit of a mystery isn’t she? DOH!! I mean, Sade are an enigmatic band aren’t they? Making huge waves in 1984 with their BRIT award winning, four times platinum selling debut album “Diamond Life”, their sound seem to be completely fully formed immediately and created the cultural trope of the ‘coffee table album’. Two more albums followed in the next four years peaking at Nos 1 and 3. They played Live Aid. And yet…what do we really know about them and why, given their popularity, have they only ever had one Top 10 hit?

Well, aside from the fact that they are a band not a singer that I addressed before, three of them were from my home of the last 18 years Hull while the band’s singer Sade Adu was from Nigeria originally. They were like the Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars of sophisti-pop. Sade (the individual) had worked as a part-time model and fashion designer before settling on music as her career of choice. I think she was part of the Blitz scene at the start of the 80s hanging out with New Romantic heroes Spandau Ballet who didn’t realise she could sing. By 1983, the buzz about her and her band was enough to attract the attention of Epic Records and contracts were duly signed.

Then came that genre defining first album and the whole world seemed to know their name. Or rather Sade Adu’s name. Could anyone name any other member of the band without googling them? As for their lack of singles success, maybe they’re just an album artist but the truth is that apart from debut single “Your Love Is King” going to No 6, none of their singles got higher than No 14. Which brings us to 1992 and “No Ordinary Love”. As well as having a song title that could make a David Mellor/Antonia De Sancha playlist (eeewww!), this would prove to be their second biggest hit ever (yep that No 14 hit) and was from the band’s fourth album “Love Deluxe”.

The release of that album made it four in eight years giving a rate of one every two years which was pretty consistent. However, it would be eight years before the next long player (2000’s “Lovers Rock”) and a further ten years after that before their sixth and so far last album (2010’s “Soldier Of Love”). Back in 1992 though, the fanbase had little idea that this batch of new songs would have to sustain them throughout the rest of the decade.

Despite having been away for four years during which there had been a dance music explosion, the TOTP producers still believed in Sade’s blend of sophisti-pop / neo soul enough to give them an ‘exclusive’ slot on the show. To be honest though, they did rather dish them out as prolifically as fixed penalty notices to a Conservative government. Sade (the individual) gives her usual sultry performance and doesn’t seem to have aged at all in the eight years since she first burst into the charts.

“No Ordinary Love” was originally a No 26 hit but achieved that No 14 peak when rereleased eight months later in June of 1993. I have no idea why that was.

Right, there’s two ‘what’s going on here then?’ moments in one next. Firstly, there’s a change of format with an extended chart rundown now included which covers places 20 through to 11 – previously we’d had to make do with the Top 10. It’s just a rolling ticker tape display over the top of a video but still. It’s a nod towards the format of old I guess.

Secondly, said video this week is from Omar but it’s for a song that isn’t “There’s Nothing Like This”. Eh? What gives? Omar had more than one Top 40 hit?! Well, he did but one of them wasn’t this single “Music”, the title track from his second album which peaked at No 53! What was going on here?! Singles that weren’t actually hits being given airtime on the show? And then irony of ironies, they play it as the backdrop of a new Top 40 centric feature! To top it all off, the track is only given 40 seconds before it’s yanked off screen. I’m guessing that the producers negotiated with Omar’s label and came up with a way of getting him on the show but the payback was it was for a very small amount of airtime. It’s basically a Breaker slot but they couldn’t call it that as it wasn’t actually in the Top 40 and so technically couldn’t be said to have ‘broken’ into the charts. What a mess!

Ah, that’s unfortunate. It’s Boy George next with “The Crying Game”. Not unfortunate because I didn’t like the record – I didn’t mind it really – but because it was literally the second to last song reviewed in my last post so I’m completely spent when it comes to saying anything else about it. OK well, George’s version of this song that was originally a hit in the 60s for Dave Berry (not that bloke on Absolute Radio in a morning) was taken from the soundtrack to the film of the same name and and was produced by Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant.

I like the nod to George’s past with his twangy guitar player dressed like the Culture Club singer from ten years previous.

This is more like it *TOTP! This is what the kids wanted! In Autumn of 1992, you couldn’t be more achingly hip than Suede were. Lauded as many things including the antidote to grunge and the spearhead of a new wave of British rock music, they rode the zeitgeist hard with Melody Maker dubbing them “The Best New Band in Britain”. They appeared on the publication’s front cover before they even had a recording contract. They weren’t just big news, they were the news.

Inevitably given lead singer Brett Anderson’s androgynous image and the band’s glam rock influences, Bowie comparisons abounded. Impact wise, they were talked of in the same breath as The Smiths. Retrospectively, they have been allocated the status of the John the Baptist of Britpop, paving the way for the likes of Blur, Oasis, Pulp et al to dominate the mid 90s. It’s a role the band don’t sit comfortably with. Not everyone was sold on them initially though. My friend Robin who was living in London at the time caught an early gig of theirs and his three word review was “Suede – I wasn’t”. Clever sod.

“Metal Mickey” was the band’s first Top 40 hit though not their first single released. That’s honour went to “The Drowners” which had come out a few months before but failed to make the Top 40 despite being a great tune. By the time their debut eponymous album was released in March the following year, they had clocked up a Top 10 single in “Animal Nitrate” and the album duly went to No 1 becoming, at the time, the fastest selling debut album in UK history in a decade. It won the very first Mercury Music Prize and went on to sell 300,000 copies in the UK. I can remember playing it very loudly in the Our Price store in Rochdale where I was working before opening.

Four years later I saw the band live myself in Blackburn with my mate Steve on the tour for the “Coming Up” album. They were supported by Mansun. Both bands were good as I recall. We’ll no doubt be seeing lots more of Suede in these TOTP repeats.

“Metal Mickey” peaked at No 17.

*Interesting how in his intro host Mark Franklin actually says “TOTP” rather than “Top Of The Pops”. I just use the acronym to save on typing in my blog. What was Mark’s reason for using it?

Today may have been the end of the road for David Mellor’s political career but it was the start of a journey for one of the biggest selling singles of the year and indeed, one of the biggest selling of the decade in the US. “End Of The Road” by Boyz II Men was No 1 over there for 13 weeks straight and was certified platinum for shifting a million units and won two Grammy awards. It topped the charts in the UK for three weeks and was the sixth best selling single of the year here. In short, it was a monster.

As with Boy George’s hit earlier, it was from a film soundtrack but unlike George’s one I’ve never seen, at least not all the way through. Boomerang was the latest Eddie Murphy in which he plays a character who is an advertising executive, a womaniser and male chauvinist. Hmm. I think made the right choice.

Anyway, so popular was “End Of The Road” that Boyz II Men’s debut album “Cooleyhighharmony” – which didn’t include the song initially – was rereleased with it now on the track listing. Their sound has been described as ‘hip-hop doo wop’ and helped establish R’n’B as the dominant music genre into the new millennium. For me though, “End Of The Road” was quite a straight forward big ballad albeit that unusually it featured all four members taking the lead vocal at various points in the song.

The performance here was from New Orleans and the most striking thing about it was their wardrobe. What were they thinking?! Matching suits and ties is fine but with baseball caps and shirt trousers?! It just looks weird. I mean not disturbing like David Mellor in his Chelsea kit but weird all the same.

“End Of The Road” will be No 1 soon enough so I’ll keep the rest of my powder dry until then.

An artist who is remembered for one song next though she really wasn’t a one hit wonder. The rule of diminishing returns after soaring the highest highs with her debut single was the possibly unfair fate that befell Tasmin Archer. That single was of course “Sleeping Satellite” and I definitely remember the advertising strategy for the single included a bill poster campaign which asked the question ‘Who Is Tasmin Archer?’ with very little other information. Loads of these posters just started appearing overnight. Quite clever in terms of building anticipation I guess.

The single was perfect for daytime radio. A well crafted pop song built around a swirling piano riff and a swooping chorus, the record buying public’s resistance was futile. This was always going to be a hit and a big one. I’m not sure even the most committed of Archer’s record label team could have predicted a No 1 though. Surely Tasmin herself couldn’t have expected that outcome first time out despite her debut album being called “Great Expectations”. In a way, “Sleeping Satellite” flew decidedly in the face of its chart peers with the Top 40 being populated by dance track after dance track but then hadn’t Chesney Hawkes scored a huge No 1 with a decidedly pop record the year before? Was it just a case of history repeating itself?

My wife and I saw Tasmin live years later kind of by accident or at least it wasn’t planned. We were in Glasgow for a birthday weekend away and wandering around the city centre stumbled across the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall and saw that she was playing there that night. We decided on a whim to go and bought tickets. Tasmin’s star had fallen a fair way by this point though (1996 I think) and the Strathclyde Suite in the venue was half full. She did her best but the audience reaction to her set suggested that they were just there for one obvious song. She told us punters that she’d been watching Stars In Their Eyes in her hotel room before the gig and let it slip that “I’d just die if someone did me”. I’m pretty sure nobody ever has.

Three Breakers now beginning with Def Leppard and a third single from their “Adrenalize” album called “Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad”. I don’t recall any singles from this album after the first two, the execrable duo of “Let’s Get Rocked” and “Make Love Like A Man”. I probably couldn’t handle any more after those two and deliberately avoided them. The soul searching title of this one sounds like it should be a ballad. OK, just for you lot I’ll break the habit of 30 years and give it a listen…

Well, I was right it is a ballad but it’s hardly a thing of delicate beauty is it? It’s all very soft rock by numbers sounding with crunchy guitars and Joe Elliott’s strained vocals. It’s sort of like Nigel Tufnel’s “Lick My Love Pump” in reverse if you get my drift.

“Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad” peaked at No 16.

Some proper rockers now as we get the video for “Jeremy” by Pearl Jam. I didn’t know the back story to this one nor about the controversy surrounding the video until now. Written about 15 year old Texas high school kid Jeremy Delle who shot himself in front of his classmates in 1991, it was the third single to be released from the band’s all conquering “Ten” album and peaked at No 15 in the UK.

The video follows the source material pretty graphically and caused MTV to order that the scene showing ‘Jeremy’ with a gun in his mouth to be edited out. The network’s outrage didn’t stop the video from picking up four MTV Video Music Awards including video of the year though. The controversy surrounding the video caused the band to recoil from them and didn’t make another one for six whole years. MTV rarely broadcast the promo after the Columbine High School massacre of 1999 though the uncensored version was released on Pearl Jam’s YouTube channel in 2020 to mark National Gun Violence Awareness Day.

If you asked the average punter to name a tune by The Prodigy that had the word ‘fire’ in it, I’m betting the vast majority would respond with “Firestarter”. There is another possible answer though. “Fire/Jericho” was the band’s third single and paved the way for their debut album “Experience” which was released the Monday after this TOTP aired. A double A-side, it’s “Fire” that gets an airing on the show tonight. Sampling The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown’s “Fire” amongst others, it was written to reflect that not all ravers were off their heads on ecstasy but some were blazing up on weed as well. One in the eye for Mary Whitehouse there.

The band seemed to have disowned the track in that it does not feature on their Best Of album “Their Law: The Singles 1990-2005” and that they hated the video that was made to promote it. Apparently it was the quality of the computer graphics that really irked them. Viewed by 2022 standards then yes, they look prehistoric but we’re they really so bad in 1992? I suppose it depends what you are comparing them to. Alongside the video for “Money For Nothing” by Dire Straits then they hold up. Viewed against A-ha’s “Take On Me” or Michael Jackson’s face morphing “Black And White” then they do appear amateurish at best.

“Fire/Jericho” peaked at No 11.

From rave to…Mike Oldfield? Yes, you can criticise the show for many things but you have to admit that TOTP did its best to reflect all musical genres. Oldfield of course had just released “Tubular Bells II” but, inverting the release schedule, hadn’t trailed it with a lead single. This was rectified by the release of “Sentinel” a couple of weeks later.

Was I excited about “Tubular Bells II”? Hardly. Though I did have a dark Mike Oldfield secret – I’d bought his “Moonlight Shadow” single almost 10 years before – I’d never been inspired to seek out his back catalogue. Obviously I knew of the original “Tubular Bells” album from 1973 but my knowledge of it was limited to the introduction theme from it that was used in the film The Exorcist. That brings us nicely back to “Sentinel” which was a re-imagining of that piece. The performance in Edinburgh that Mark Franklin references in his intro was a live concert at Edinburgh castle on 4 September with 6,000 people in attendance. Oldfield’s performance here though really is that of the stereotypical muso even down to his carefully coiffured but meant to look carefree hair. He’s playing guitar and keyboards but still has two other keyboard players with him as well as a guy on piano. Alright we get it Mike! Your art is so elaborate and complex that you need all that entourage with you.

Researching Oldfield’s discography, I had no idea he’d made so many studio albums- 26 and counting! Mind you he does go in for big numbers. He’s been married four times and has seven children. I didn’t know that he wrote the score for The Killing Fields, a film that had a profound effect on me the first time I saw it. Presumably it wasn’t Oldfield’s choice to use John Lennon’s “Imagine” at the film’s denouement? Having said that, there were rumours that the aforementioned “Moonlight Shadow” was written about Lennon’s murder in 1980. Oldfield had arrived in New York on the same day and was staying just a few blocks from the Dakota building so…

“Sentinel” peaked at No 10.

We arrive at the No 1 and it’s still “Ebenezer Goode” by The Shamen. I wonder if there is/was a real person called Ebeneezer Goode? There must be surely? I know someone who has an uncle Ebeneezer but there surname isn’t Goode. When you Google the name, if you scroll down enough you get to a result that talks about a Methodist chapel in Suffolk that has been converted into a weekend retreat and it’s called Ebeneezer Goode! Either the owner used to be a raver in his youth or it’s named after a person who really did exist surely?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Messiah	I Feel Love	Nah
2	Sade	No Ordinary Love	No
3	Omar	Music	Never happening
4	Boy George	The Crying Game	Nope
5	Suede	Metal Mickey	No but I bought the album
6	Boyz II Men	End Of The Road	I did not
7	Tasmin Archer	Sleeping Satellite	Didn’t mind it, didn’t buy it
8	Def Leppard	Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad	Hell no!
9	Pearl Jam	Jeremy	It’s a no
10	The Prodigy	Fire / Jericho	Jeri-no
11	Mike Oldfield	Sentinel	Sent me to sleep more like – no
12	The Shamen	Ebeneezer Goode	He’s ever so good…but I didn’t buy it

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0015x8y/top-of-the-pops-24091992

TOTP 10 SEP 1992

Posted on March 30, 2022 by 80stastic

It’s a rare consecutive TOTP after weeks of skipping shows due to the Adrian Rose issue. I think we might be getting to the end of his 14 episodes that we are having to miss. We’re exactly a third of the way through September of 1992 and the biggest album release of the week is “The Best Of Belinda Volume 1” by, unsurprisingly, Belinda Carlisle. Singles wise, the two new releases doing the briskest trade are probably Bob Marley’s “Iron Lion Zion” and “Theme From M.A.S.H (Suicide Is Painless)” by Manic Street Preachers.

As for me, I’m pretty sure I’d have started my new post as Assistant Manager of the Our Price store in Rochdale by now. I got off the bus that first morning and went into the first newsagents I saw to ask where the shop actually was. Once I found it, I realised how much smaller it was than the two trading floor store I’d left behind in Manchester. So small in fact that they had sale stock on display in cardboard boxes shoved under the racking. Behind the scenes there was a small processing area and staff kitchen but quite a large, cavernous stock room that wasn’t really used other than as a dumping ground for various unsold stock that had accumulated over the years. Nobody spent much time in there. The staff consisted of Adrian the manager who was about to leave for Virgin, Emma and Rachel both of whom I’d worked with briefly at Manchester and Phil who was also about to leave the company for pastures new. And then there was newbie me. It was a time of significant change for the store.

I spent much of that first morning serving customers on my own whilst the regulars sorted out the new releases upstairs. However, as I didn’t know where anything was filed I kept having to buzz them to help me out. I probably didn’t make the best first impression. Presumably the product I sold that first morning would have included some of the songs on this TOTP. Let’s see if I remember…

Opening the show are a band who were very much billed as the anti-Take That and a rivalry was developed (or at least created by the press) between the two that brought back memories of Duran Duran vs Spandau Ballet from the 80s. East 17 were the brainchild of former Pet Shop Boys manager Tom Watkins who came up with the genius idea of launching this tougher, more street wise version of Take That after song writer Tony Mortimer was offered a recording contract on the condition that he form a band around himself as a vehicle to sell the songs. Taking their name from the postcode district of their hometown Walthamstow (after which they then named their debut album), they scored an immediate hit with first single “House Of Love”. Mortimer’s version of a rave anthem, I thought this sounded great. Think of the twee, cynically put together hits Take That started their career with and then listen to this. There’s no comparison. It put me in mind of the chart battle between Girls Aloud and One True Voice that same out of the Popstars: The Rivals TV show in 2002. The former’s single “Sound Of The Underground” was so superior to the latter’s…I can’t even remember what it was called it was so forgettable…it was almost embarrassing.

For a while these boys from Walthamstow traded blows with their nemesis and matched them punch for punch. They even bagged themselves a No 1 (a Xmas chart topper no less). Ultimately though they would lose the pop war and imploded after singer Brian Harvey encouraged drug taking on a late night radio interview. The ramifications included both Mortimer and Harvey leaving the group and returning multiple times and a change of band name. A number of tabloid headlines including the frankly bizarre incident of Harvey being run over by his own car after eating too many jacket potatoes damaged the band’s reputation beyond redemption. Currently they perform as a trio with only one original member (Terry Coldwell) in their ranks.

Back in 1992 though, they were fresh faced lads who looked like they could just as likely be working in McDonalds as performing on TOTP. Somehow though, instead of dying on their arses in this frankly ludicrous performance (what the hell was the washing line all about?) it all somehow just worked. Instead of being laughed off stage, we took them on face value as proper pop stars. Things were just starting to get interesting in the boy band stakes.

I’d totally forgotten that The Christians were still having chart hits this far into their career. It had been over five years since they burst onto the scene with their eponymous debut album (the biggest selling debut album in their label Island Records’ history) but here they were still in the Top 40 and still on TOTP in the Autumn of 1992. Listening to “What’s In A Word” it sounds vaguely familiar though I couldn’t have told you how it went before reacquainting myself with it. Didn’t their last chart hit feature ‘word’ in the title?

*checks The Christians discography *

I was right! “Words” made No 18 over Xmas/ New Year in 1989/90. They seemed to be as fixated on the subject of the lexicon as Martin Fry. I bet they were elated when that bloke invented Wordle.

Anyway, it’s a nice enough tune though hardly outstanding which may explain its lowly peak of No 33. Lead singer Garry Christian feels the needs to hold a drum stick throughout this performance that comes live from Paris for no obvious reason. Meanwhile, it seems Henry Priestman was still with the band at this point as I’m pretty sure that’s him on keyboards. I saw him as a solo artist live at Beverley Folk Festival in 2010. He was great. Barbara Dickson was also there and I stood next to her at one point watching the worst game of football I’ve ever seen on TV (England 0-0 Algeria in the World Cup). She was tiny.

The Christians, like East 17, still exist today (albeit not in their original form) and released a single in December 2021 called “Naz Don’t Cry” in support of the recently released Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe who had been detained in Israel since 2016.

Here’s a question. If you’ve made your name by covering other people’s songs, is the decision to call yourselves Undercover genius or incredibly lame? I’m going for the latter. The ‘drum and bass’ version of “Baker Street” as host Tony Dortie ridiculously describes it is up to No 3 so another trip to the TOTP studio is in order for the band. Vocalist John Matthews looks like he should be playing in midfield for Newcastle United (I think it’s the slight resemblance to Gazza) but he’s actually a massive Arsenal fan. Look at this interaction with a Spurs fan on Twitter when this TOTP repeat aired:

Not as bad as your trophy cabinet sunshine! #Spursy 😂👋👋👋
— John Matthews (@UNDERCOVER_JM) March 25, 2022

Ha! Talking of fans, someone who wasn’t a fan of Undercover at all was the man responsible for “Baker Street” Gerry Rafferty. According to Wikipedia, he had this to say about it:

“Dreadful- totally banal. A sad sign of the times”

Presumably he was happy to pick up the writer’s cheque their version brought in though that Tony Dortie refers to in his intro which was for £1.5 million! Like East 17 and The Christians before them, a version of Undercover featuring John Matthews are still a going concern today.

Freddie Jackson hadn’t been seen in the UK charts for six years before he turned up rather randomly with a cover of Billy Paul’s “Me And Mrs Jones”. Taken from his album “Time For Love”, this could be the most pointless cover version of all time. Firstly, he gives a completely straight take on it hardly deviating from the original at all. Secondly, he was never going to rival Billy Paul’s original. I’m putting this out there – I suspect some chart rigging was afoot getting this into the Top 40. Even if there was, it wasn’t that successful as it only made No 32 and the album bombed just about everywhere.

One of my favourite albums of 1992 was “Welcome To Wherever You Are” by INXS. The eighth album by the Aussie rockers was meant to be a rejection of the more polished studio sound that they had perfected on previous album “X” with an emphasis on a rawer sound. To my ears though it still had plenty of hooks to draw me in and includes one of the great album segues from opening track, the Eastern sounding “Questions”, into the album’s lead single “Heaven Sent”. We haven’t seen the latter on TOTP – I’m not sure why. It only made No 31 on the chart so it could be that it never made the cut at all or maybe it was in the Breakers on a show that we skipped because of the whole Adrian Rose debacle? Happily, second single “Baby Don’t Cry” has made it onto the show and it’s an unashamedly bold and out there stadium rock anthem with an exuberant, singalong chorus. Apparently it was recorded with the 60 piece Australian Concert Orchestra – so much for that raw sound the band was supposedly going for.

I thought this was going to be a massive hit but it stalled at No 20 and wasn’t even released in America. The album debuted at No 1 here making INXS the first Australian act to have a UK chart topper since AC/DC with “Back In Black” in 1980. However, that success was not repeated in the US and the album marked a decline in their commercial fortunes over there. The decision not to tour the album was probably not the correct one in hindsight.

Back in the studio we find Del Amitri who are in the midst of probably their most commercially successful period of their career. Their “Change Everything” album had been as high as No 2 in the charts and it would furnish them with four hit singles which all made the Top 30. “Just Like A Man” was the third of those and though I rather dismissed it as ‘just another Del Amitri song’ at the time, it’s actually a pretty decent tune. Do they get enough credit for their back catalogue? I’m not sure they do. My perception is that they’re somehow not seen as cutting-edge enough, not quite the real deal, perhaps even too…comfy? Also, for all that I said about the success they were having at this time, they never had one Top 10 single in this country. They’re not alone in that of course. Goth rockers The Mission clocked up 12 Top 40 singles without ever getting any higher than No 11. I guess they were more album than singles bands. “Just Like A Man” peaked at No 25.

Four Breakers now but we’ve seen three of them before as ‘exclusive’ performances/videos. To quote Ian Dury, “what a waste”. First up is Sinéad O’Connor with “Success Has Made A Failure Of Our Home”. This was the lead single from her covers album “Am I Not Your Girl?” which I don’t think I’ve ever heard properly. Looking at the track listing, there a few songs I know like “Secret Love” (Doris Day), “Love Letters” ( Ketty Lester/ Elvis /Alison Moyet) and of course “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” from Evita. The latter was released as the second single from the album and I would have thought it was a safe bet for another chart hit given that it is surely better known than its predecessor. After all, it had been a No 1 for Julie Covington in 1976. Sinéad’s version didn’t even make the Top 40. Four years later, Madonna did what Sinéad couldn’t and had a massive No 3 hit with it over Xmas 1996 but then she was starring as Eva Perón in Alan Parker’s film version of Evita so a hit was almost guaranteed. “Success Has Made A Failure Of Our Home” peaked at No 18.

Even the only Breaker we haven’t seen on the show before we actually have. What am I going on about? I mean it’s a rerelease of a song that was a hit back in 1985. “How Soon Is Now?” was the latest element of WEA’s release strategy for their newly acquired back catalogue of The Smiths. Possibly the greatest song in their canon, it’s certainly one of their most well known. Johnny Marr himself describes it as their “most enduring record”. It was originally released as the B-side to “William, It Was Really Nothing” alongside “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want” which surely must make it the best B-side of a record ever.

The 1992 rerelease peaked at No 26, eight places higher than its 1985 outing. Maybe it benefited from a younger audience knowing it from it being sampled in Soho’s hit “Hippychick” of just one year earlier. The band detested the promo video for the song which was made by their US label Sire and which Morrissey described as “degrading”. I wonder what he thought of this one made for Psychedelic Furs spin off project Love Spit Love’s cover of it for TV series Charmed and movie The Craft?

Oh come on now! How many times have I had to find something to write about yet another Michael Jackson video recently?! OK, well there is a school of thought that says the video for “Jam” was the inspiration for the 1996 film Space Jam starring Michael Jordan. Is that likely? Well, Jordan was in the “Jam” promo in which he teaches Jacko to play basketball while in Space Jam MJ teaches some Looney Tunes characters to shoot some hoops to win a b/ball match against invading aliens so there might be something in it I suppose.

The final Breaker is “Rest In Peace” by Extreme. The video for this one really should have been prefaced with a warning about flashing lights. If the stop motion sequence of two neighbours fighting over a TV set didn’t induce queasiness then the band performing against that flickering black and white backdrop would surely bring on a migraine. It’s a real sensory overload. It was also litigious as it copied rather too closely the 1952 anti-war film Neighbours by Norman McLaren and the band got sued but settled out of court. “Rest In Peace” peaked at No 13.

Time for another ‘exclusive’ now as we see yet another return of Boy George, this time with a cover of the sixties hit “Crying Game” So was this the third time George had been on the comeback trail? After Culture Club imploded in the mid 80s, George had fashioned himself a swift and initially very successful solo career with a No 1 single with his take on Ken Boothe’s “Everything I Own”. Three more smaller hits followed but the album “Sold” didn’t sell well and he disappeared from the charts for four years. He reappeared in 1991 under the pseudonym Jesus Loves You and the gloriously quirky “Bow Down Mister”. Again the parent album (“The Martyr Mantras”) failed to shift many units and another George revival had finished almost as quickly as it had started. You couldn’t keep a good Boy down and George was back on TOTP once more.

His rendition of “The Crying Game” was recorded for the soundtrack of the film of the same name, a thriller starring Stephen Rea set against the backdrop of of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The real pull of the film though was the plot twist which I won’t reveal for those who have never watched it but which was seen as very controversial at the time. Maybe it would be today but no way am I getting into that subject on here.

I didn’t mind George’s version – he seemed like a good choice to sing it to me (not that he was serenading me personally Romeo And Juliet style you understand). Was this the start of him always being seen in public with a hat on? He’s permanently got some design of chapeau on his bonce these days. Actually, he always wore a hat when he was with Culture Club didn’t he? Am I talking bollocks again?

That’s it! I knew there must be a reason. When I said earlier that Undercover vocalist John Matthews looks like he should be playing in midfield for Newcastle United because he looked a bit like Gazza, there was a memory lurking in my mind that was the trigger for my observation. I couldn’t put my finger on it before but I have it now. Do you remember The Comic Strip Presents… The Crying Game? It came out in 1992 like the Stephen Rea film but it was a football based tale of a young English player called Roy Brush (clearly a parody of Paul ‘daft as a brush’ Gascoigne aka Gazza) with the world literally at his feet after scoring an important goal for England. He is also gay and a tabloid paper tries to out him. Keith Allen stars as Brush and at one point in the story he records a single – yep you guessed it – a cover of “The Crying Game” (Gazza’s tears and all that). He even appears on TOTP and is introduced by Mark Franklin! Go to 11.45 in the YouTube video below:

After all that excitement, the No 1 brings us back to earth rather than takes us to a peak as it’s Snap! yet again with “Rhythm Is A Dancer”. I think this is the last week though. Don’t worry though! They’ll be back before the year is out with another big hit and another line up change. You lucky people you!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	East 17	House Of Love	No but my wife had the album Walthamstow.
2	The Christians	What’s In A Word	Nope
3	Undercover	Baker Street	Nah
4	Freddie Jackson	Me And Mrs Jones	Definitely not
5	INXS	Baby Don’t Cry	No but I bought their album Welcome To Wherever You Are
6	Del Amitri	Just Like A Man	No but I have their Best Of with it on
7	Sinéad O’Connor	Success Has Made A Failure Of Our Home	No
8	The Smiths	How Soon Is Now	No but I have Hatful Of Hollow with it on
9	Michael Jackson	Jam	I did not
10	Extreme	Rest In Peace	Nah
11	Boy George	The Crying Game	Didn’t mind it, didn’t buy it
12	Snap!	Rhythm Is A Dancer	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/m0015nq2/top-of-the-pops-10091992

TOTP 03 SEP 1992

Posted on March 26, 2022 by 80stastic

We’ve moved into September 1992 here at TOTP Rewind and Summer is officially over. We’ve had the last hurrah of the August Bank Holiday and the Olympics in Barcelona have been and gone. The new football season is well under way. The two biggest album releases of the week are “Tourism” by Roxette and, with quite some fanfare, Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells II”. None of this is what is occupying my mind though for I am about to embark upon a new stage in my work life. I mentioned the other week when discussing big football transfers of the day that I had my own transfer looming. Well, now it was here – I had a job promotion for the first time in my life! The last time I had been picked out for a role of higher responsibility was when I was made deputy head boy at my junior school. Fast forward 14 years and my time had come around once more as I was offered the job of Assistant Manager at the Our Price store in Rochdale.

I’d been working as a sales assistant in the store in Market Street, Manchester for nearly two years by this point and was quite happily ticking along not really thinking of moving up the ladder as it were. Then one day the Area Manager came into the shop and asked to speak to me in the manager’s office. With slight trepidation I entered the room and she told me of the vacancy and that she wanted me to fill it. Apparently the usual reaction to the offer of promotion was to say thank you very much and snatch the company’s hand off. I did something different – I asked for some time to think about it. I think the Area Manager was a bit wrong footed by my less than enthusiastic reaction but agreed to my request and I was given a few days grace. Why did I hesitate? The commute mainly but I think I’d been considering whether staying in retail was still my best option two years on. In the end, as I didn’t have any other choice on the table, I took the promotion. It would prove to be a pivotal decision that shaped my working life until the end of the decade.

I can’t remember the exact time I started in Rochdale but it was in September so a lot of the songs from around now really remind me of that time. I’m pretty sure I’d been back to my hometown of Worcester for a visit over the August Bank Holiday and caught Alien 3 at the cinema whilst there and that was just before the Rochdale era. It was hard leaving the shop in Manchester because it was all I had known and I’m not great with change but off I went on the 7.00 am bus from Piccadilly Gardens that first day not even knowing exactly where the shop in Rochdale was. I recall that I’d recently had a very severe, short haircut just before. I think I’d been influenced by the barnet of Roy Keane who was one of the hottest properties in English football at the time. It really was all change.

There was a huge change also in tonight’s opening act as we see the return of Bananarama but now they were a duo. After Siobhan Fahey left the group in 1988, she was replaced by Jacquie O’Sullivan. Three years later, with Jacquie still being referred to as ‘the new girl’ in the press and feeling like a paid employee rather than an equal member of the trio, she up and left. Instead of just recruiting another third person, Keren and Sara decided to continue with just the two of them. The first material in this new beginning was the single “Movin’ On”.

Renewing a rather tempestuous relationship with producers Mike Stock and Pete Waterman (deliberate omission of Matt Aitken who wasn’t involved), it was a calling card for the rest of the new album “Please Yourself”. Waterman’s vision for the album was ‘ABBA-Banana’ – a collection of songs in the style of the Swedish supergroup updated with a 90s sound. He didn’t get it right initially as the album bombed or at least he hadn’t hit upon the right vehicle for the songs. People didn’t seem ready to accept an ABBA’d up slimmed down Bananarama but by the end of the decade the record buying public were quite happy about some of the same songs being peddled by two guys and three gals boot scootin’ their way to glory. I talk, of course, of Steps who recorded “Movin’ On” for their second album whilst their cover of “Last Thing On My Mind” (the second Bananas single from “Please Yourself”) was a Top 10 hit for them.

So why did Steps succeed where the Nanas failed? After all, weren’t we in the throes of an ABBA revival in ‘92? Erasure had recently been at No 1 with their “Abba-esque EP” whilst only this month Polygram would release the “Abba Gold: Greatest Hits” compilation which would sell 5.61 million copies in the UK alone making it the second best selling album here of all time behind Queen’s “Greatest Hits”. We were Abba mad all over again yet the Bananarama Swedish reinvention failed to convince the record buying public. Maybe we couldn’t accept a duo version of the group after a decade of being used to three of them racking up the hits? Or could it just be that (whisper it) they’d come to the end of the road? It had been a great run that surely couldn’t have been predicted all those years ago when they first hit the charts alongside Fun Boy Three.

The performance here certainly bares no resemblance to those early, chaotic days. Where there was once home made, tomboy chic and DIY dance steps were sleek, evening dresses and synchronised arm movements. It didn’t look like that much fun to be honest.

“Movin’ On” peaked at No 24 whilst the album “Please Yourself” made a paltry No 46. It would be another 27 years before they would return to the album chart Top 40.

One of the biggest (and most notorious) tunes of the whole year next. “Ebeneezer Goode” may well be to The Shamen what “Merry Xmas Everybody” is to Slade – a cash cow but also an albatross around their neck. The infamy surrounding the track was so high profile that the question of whether the song itself was any good(e) seemed to get lost in the furore. The idea that a pop song was encouraging drug use was distinctly unpalatable back then and there were numerous calls for it to be banned (presumably Mary Whitehouse was at the front of the queue of those with objections to it). You don’t need me to recount the whole tale of ecstasy references contained within it though the band themselves, whilst not denying said references, also say it wasn’t quite as clear cut as just encouraging ravers to get off their tits. Here’s @TOTPFacts:

Colin Angus: "It was intended to be celebratory and cautionary, like holding up a distorting mirror to rave culture." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 25, 2022

For what it’s worth, I think the track works – though I wasn’t much of a fan back in the day – not least because the band understood it had the potential to be controversial and made it work for them by making it instantly memorable and most importantly quotable. Lyrics like “Naughty naughty, very naughty”, “Has anyone got any Vera’s?” and “Got any salmon? Sorted” must have been repeated up and down the country especially in school playgrounds which only increased its notoriety. For this TOTP performance Mr C changes that last line to “Got any underlay?”. Here’s the man himself on that, again, courtesy of @TOTPFacts:

Mr C: "When we went on Top Of The Pops, I changed the line "Got any salmon?" to "Got any underlay?" and people said, "That's not in the song! Drug reference!…" #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 25, 2022

"I was asked about it on Radio 1 by Mark Goodier, and said that salmon was rhyming slang for salmon and trout – snout, cigarettes – a legal drug that has killed thousands, so I'd changed it. He said, 'So what's 'underlay'?' I said it was a gratuitous rug reference." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 25, 2022

A fine example of the art of winding people up there. The performance starts with a small clip of the promo video which features Scottish comedian Jerry Sadowitz as the titular Ebeneezer who gives a maniacal turn that is only rivalled in my mind by Reece Shearmith’s Papa Lazarou in The League Of Gentlemen.

“Ebeneezer Goode” will be No 1 soon enough.

Despite it being September 1992, we now get a plug for the next Eurovision Song Contest which won’t take place until May 1993. The reason for this incredibly early heads up was that we’d already chosen the artist who would represent the UK and she was, by happy circumstance, on the show tonight. The career of Sonia, for she was the chosen one, had degenerated into a string of cover versions by the early 90s – three of her last four hits had been covers – but her record company Arista had seen the uplift of success that Eurovision could bring with that year’s contestant Michael Ball. He hadn’t even won the contest and yet his album released off the back of it had gone to No 1. Arista pinned their hopes on lightning striking twice when their charge was picked to take the baton from Ball. I say picked but I’m assuming that there were some negotiations between Arista and the Eurovision committee.

That was all months off yet though so in the meantime, to keep Sonia in the public’s thoughts, here was…yes, another cover version. This time it was Heatwave’s “Boogie Nights” which, in my humble opinion, has one of the best intros ever.

However, Sonia’s version does away with that completely and just goes into the track full pelt like a Nadine Dorries rant and does away with any of its subtlety. It doesn’t get any better after that; in fact the whole thing is just an exercise in how not to do a cover version. It’s got that horrible, genetic 90s house beat and then they’ve arsed about with the chorus so when Sonia gets to the line ‘always the best in town’ a “Ride On Time” vocal effect comes in on ‘always’. Awful, awful and indeed awful. Sonia does her best to sell it with an energetic performance as ever but it’s beyond redemption.

Nine months later, she would compete at Eurovision and emulate Michael Ball’s runner up position. It was a different story with her album though. Whilst Ball topped the charts Sonia dropped the ball when hers peaked at No 32.

Is there a doctor in the house? The good news is that there is, the bad news is that it’s Dr. Alban. Apparently this guy was a proper doctor (of dentistry) who passed his exams and opened a practice before turning to music full time. From what I can make out “It’s My Life” was one of those holiday hits that UK tourists had heard on the continent and made popular back in Blighty on their return. No wonder it was dreadful then. Wikipedia describes Dr. Alban’s music as “Eurodance/hip hop reggae in a dancehall style”. Hmm. Covering a few bases there. Maybe there was something in it though. Was Dr. Alban an early adopter of a musical movement that would hit a peak the following year when The Three S’s (Shaggy, Snow and Shanna Ranks) dominated the charts? Or am I just talking bollocks?

Of course, you can’t mention Dr. Alban without mentioning that Tampax advert. You know that one with the roller skating woman and the beach football scene that’s soundtracked by “It’s My Life”? You know, this one…

I have to say that the doctor delivers a completely lacklustre rapping performance here. Talk about half-hearted. I think I’ve only ever seen one less enthusiastic rapper in my life…

One last thing. What links Dr.Alban and Sonia? No, not that they’re on the same TOTP together. Not that, obviously. No, it’s the Eurovision Song Contest. Twenty-one years after Sonia did her bit for the UK, Dr. Alban teamed up with someone called Jessica Folcker (yes I had to check that spelling) to take part in the Swedish equivalent of A Song For Europe for the right to represent his native country in the 2014 competition. He came fifth.

The Breakers now starting with some American glam metal and you know what? I couldn’t give less of a toss about the seemingly endless conveyor belt of bands peddling this stuff like W.A.S.P. and Mötley Crüe and this lot – Skid Row. From what I can ascertain this was a double A-side featuring their debut single “Youth Gone Wild” with “Delivering The Goods”, their cover of a Judas Priest track. It all seems to have been in aid of promoting their album “B-Side Ourselves” (see what they did there?), an EP of covers the majority of which had all been on the B-side of previous singles. Erm…so what was the point of it all then? I suppose it’s only like Oasis’s “The Masterplan” compilation album which collected together their B-sides and additional tracks that had featured on their singles but had not appeared on any studio albums but still.

“Youth Gone Wild / Delivering The Goods” peaked at No 22 and was their last UK Top 40 hit. Hurray!

It seems ABBA really were inescapable in 1992! Here they are again with a re-release of “Dancing Queen” to promote that “Abba Gold: Greatest Hits” I mentioned earlier. Released by Polygram who had acquired the rights to the group’s back catalogue, it has become one of the biggest selling albums of all time. To heighten the impact of its release, all previous ABBA compilations were deleted which presumably included one that we had in my family home when I was growing up. You know the one with Björn and Agnetha sat on a park bench on the cover? Yeah, that one.

“ABBA Gold” was a phenomenon of marketing and sales. It has been certified 20 x platinum in the UK alone and has sold 30 million copies worldwide. It seemed to sell itself without the need of a single to promote it but I guess if you really wanted to pick one to do so then “Dancing Queen” was a logical choice. Perhaps their best known song – I say perhaps because there are so many that could take that accolade – it had been a No 1 on its original release in 1976. The 1992 rerelease made a respectable No 16.

The marketing strategy for “ABBA Gold” was so successful that Polygram (or it might have changed its name to Universal by then) attempted to repeat the trick when it set its sights on The Carpenters whose “Carpenters Gold: Greatest Hits” even had the same cover design as the Swedish superstars album.

Richard Marx had two hits in 1992? He had three actually but I only knew the big one “Hazard”. The follow up was “Take This Heart” which even after listening to it didn’t ring any bells with me. After the dark but bewitching story telling of its predecessor, Marx returned to his safe space of soft rock ballad with this one. It’s pretty unremarkable stuff to my ears but pleasant in a bland sort of way.

The video sees Marx getting to indulge in his sporting fantasy of scoring a home run in the World Series for his beloved baseball team the Chicago Cubs with the plot twist being it was all a dream. I wrote a story in English class when I was about 12 where the ending was that it had all been a dream and I got marks knocked off for that being a lame idea. My teacher would definitely have knocked marks off Marx for that video.

“Take This Heart” peaked at No 13.

The final Breaker is a song that reminds me very much of starting at the Rochdale shop. You know how some songs (whether you like or loathe them) just remind you of a time without actually being linked to a specific memory? Yeah, that.

It had been nearly a whole year since Brian May had been in the Top 10 with “Driven By You” but when he did finally get around to releasing a follow up it wasn’t with a new song but one that he’d had up his sleeves for a few years by that point.”Too Much Love Will Kill You” had been written by May for inclusion on Queen’s 1989 album “The Miracle” but a band decision that all songs for it must be group compositions and not individually written meant it didn’t make the cut for legal reasons. It was recorded though with Freddie Mercury on vocals and finally released on their 1995 album “Made In Heaven”.

Before all that though, Bri’s original ended up on his solo album “Back To The Light” and it gave him his second consecutive Top 10 hit when released as a single. It actually performed better than the Queen version which peaked at No 15 when given its own release in 1996. Which version did I prefer? Probably May’s if I really had to choose as it hasn’t got the powerful hysteria lurking in Freddie’s vocals which I don’t think this particular track benefits from.

The video with Brian looking straight down the camera lens at us with that curly mop of hair is giving me heavy David Essex Stardust vibes – the bit where he performs his rock opera “Dea Sancta”:

Another song that really reminds me of starting at Rochdale now, primarily because we sold loads of it. We first saw Lionel Richie perform “My Destiny” on the show back in June as an ‘exclusive’ to promote his “Back To Front” Best Of album. It was one of three new tracks released as singles. The first was “Do It To Me” which didn’t set the charts alight and peaked at No 33. “My Destiny” was a different story. Perfect daytime radio fodder, it received airplay by the bucketload and secured it a place in the Top 10. A third single “Love, Oh Love” failed to crack the Top 40 at all.

If you’ve been watching ITV’s Saturday night show Starstruck – a reinvention of Stars In Their Eyes for the 2020s – you will be familiar with the format that sees three music artist impersonators perform as their hero in a group before the winning group is whittled down to one overall winner. Last Saturday saw three guys take to the stage as Lionel Richie. Yes, that’s right they were ‘once, twice, three times a Lionel’. I’ll get my coat.

What the Hell is this? Well, clearly it’s a horrible noise but who was responsible for it? They were called U96 and their track “Das Boot” was a techno cover version of the theme tune to a German film/TV mini series of the same name about the crew of a U-boat. I got a bit confused when I saw the running order for this episode and noticed the name U96. I was expecting some British jazz-rap until I realised that was Us3 I was thinking of and their hit “Cantaloop” from 1993. This right load of techno bollocks was a huge hit all around Europe although the UK was notably a little less receptive with it just grazing the Top 20 at No 18.

The TOTP producers have gone all out with their graphics for this one with the initial part of the performance viewed as if through a periscope before ultimately resorting to some dry ice to try and hide the fact that it’s just some blokes in keyboards up there on stage.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Das Boot though I do have a memory of Iain Lee screaming “Das Boot” on early noughties Channel 4 breakfast show RI:SE because fellow presenter Kate Lawler was wearing some knee high boots one morning. I need to have a word with myself about my cultural references don’t I?

P.S. What links Sonia, Dr. Alban and U96? Yep, it’s Eurovision again! Here’s @TOTPFacts with the details:

U96 mainman Alex Christensen went on to represent Germany at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2009, as half of combo Alex Swings Oscar Sings! "Miss Kiss Kiss Bang" finished in 20th place. https://t.co/GfdFoLd7HY #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 25, 2022

Another live satellite link up now as we find Sinéad O’Connor in New York. The interview beforehand between her and host Mark Franklin is a hard watch as Sinéad is clearly not in the mood for a chat. Mark took to Twitter to defend himself against the not very pleasant criticism he received for his part in what went down explaining that the whole interview had lasted three minutes and had been edited down for transmission. If what we saw was the best bit it does make you wonder what was in the rest of it.

As for the music, Sinéad is performing “Success Has Made A Failure Of Our Home” from her third album “Am I Not Your Girl?”, a collection of cover versions including this single originally recorded by country singer Loretta Lynn. We’ve seen a few artists in recent shows backed by either a small string section (Vanessa Williams) or a few brass players (Jimmy Nail / KWS) but Sinéad blows them all out of the water with what looks like a whole orchestra with her. It makes quite an impressive sight and an even more impressive sound.

This is the standout track and performance for me on the show tonight. Whatever you say about Sinéad, she can deliver a song. People did have a lot to say about her exactly one month on from this TOTP when Sinéad appeared on Saturday Night Live to promote “Am I Not Your Girl”. She sang “Success Has Made A Failure Of Our Home” and was scheduled to also perform “Scarlet Ribbons” but changed it to “War” by Bob Marley on the live show which she intended as a protest against sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church. That wasn’t enough controversy for Sinéad though so she whipped out a photo of Pope John Paul II and, looking straight down the camera, tore it up whilst saying “Fight the real enemy”. Cue an explosion of outrage. The NBC network received 4,400 calls of complaint none of which stopped O’Connor’s accusations being proved ultimately true. NBC have never rebroadcast the show as it originally aired much in the same way that the infamous Sex Pistols/ Bill Grundy interview was banned for many years.

Snap! remain on top of the pile with “Rhythm Is A Dancer” and yet again it’s the promo video that we are served up. Why haven’t they been in the studio as yet? Could it be because Turbo B was in dispute with the act’s management and left before the next single “Exterminate!” was released? Also departing after “Rhythm Is A Dancer” was vocalist Thea Austin who’d only just joined the group. And I thought Sugababes held the monopoly on the revolving door approach to band membership.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Bananarama	Movin’ On	Nope
2	The Shamen	Ebeneezer Goode	I didn’t as it goes
3	Sonia	Boogie Nights	Never!
4	Dr. Alban	It’s My Life	As if
5	Skid Row	Youth Gone Wild / Delivering The Goods	Hell no!
6	ABBA	Dancing Queen	Not the single but we’ve all got Abba Gold haven’t we?
7	Richard Marx	Take This Heart	No thanks
8	Brian May	Too Much Love Will Kill You	I did not
9	Lionel Richie	My Destiny	Nah
10	U96	Das Boot	Das Boot!! No
11	Sinéad O’Connor	Success Has Made A Failure Of Our Home	No
12	Snap!	Rhythm Is A Dancer	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/m0015nq0/top-of-the-pops-03091992

TOTP 20 AUG 1992

Posted on March 23, 2022 by 80stastic

Right – a correction to start off with. I said in the last post that we’d missed the 6th August show due to the Adrian Rose consent issue. That was incorrect. It was because of the BBC’s coverage of the Olympics taking over the schedule. Presumably there was no slot left for even just 30 minutes of pop music. Thanks to those people who pointed this out to me.

So, on with the show (if that’s OK with you Mr BBC). This week’s ‘highlights’ include some British rockers, the return of a Mod hero and as it’s TOTP in 1992, a video exclusive from Michael Jackson (yawn).

We start though with some more of that horribly naff dance sound that added a lazy backbeat to an old classic tune and sold it to the masses by the bucket load. Was there a name for that sub genre of dance music? Who said ‘shite’?!

After pilfering KC And The Sunshine Band’s “Please Don’t Go” for their surprise No 1 a few weeks before, this time KWS have covered a song written by one Harry Wayne Casey – yes, Mr KC himself! This was starting to look like an unhealthy obsession! The chosen track was “Rock Your Baby” as made famous by George McRae who took it to the top of the charts here and in the US in 1974. I guess it made sense as a safe bet for another hit but they must have known there was a very short life span for this sort of thing and that they would be a fairly insignificant footnote in pop history. Surely they didn’t expect anybody to be talking about them and their hits in say 30 years time? Oh…which is exactly what I’m doing right now isn’t it? OK, how do I get out of this then. I need a Boris Johnson style dead cat on the table distraction. Ah, how about a realisation that I’ve remembered who KWS remind me of? Yes, that’ll do nicely. OK, well do you recall back in 1983 a guy called Forrest? He had two hits off the back of covers of old 70s soul hits “Rock The Boat” by The Hues Corporation and “Feel The Need In Me” by the Detroit Emeralds. And then promptly disappeared never to be heard of again. KWS were like a 90s version of him.

There seemed to be a trend around this time for overly energetic brass sections backing artists performing in the TOTP studio. The other week Jimmy Nail had some with him on stage and now KWS have four guys doing their own little dance routine mid song. They’re like a 90s version of The Shadows but with saxophones instead of guitars. One of them has a trumpet rather than a sax and he looks a bit like M People’s Mike Pickering. It couldn’t be could it?

KWS’s version of “Rock Your Baby” peaked at No 8.

It’s a live satellite link up now, this time from Boston where we find “Pornograffitti” artists Extreme. After the world wide success of “More Than Words” and a slot at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, the band’s profile had never been bigger but with a bigger profile came even bigger expectations. The pressure was on for their next album to rack up even more sales. So how do you follow up success with bigger success? What you don’t do is record a ‘concept’ album but that’s exactly what the band did. “III Sides To Every Story” contained 15 tracks split into three sections (the titular ‘sides’) each with their own name – ‘Yours’, ‘Mine’ and ‘The Truth’. The sides were differentiated from each other by their musical style and lyrical subjects – ‘Yours’ featured hard rock, ‘Mine’ displayed a more sensitive side with the band experimenting with different arrangements and instruments whilst ‘The Truth’ showcased their prog rock credentials and featured a track split into three parts (‘III Sides’ geddit?) entitled “Everything Under The Sun”. Not at all pretentious. The album sold poorly in comparison to predecessor “Pornograffitti” and the three singles released from it did not include anything like the huge mainstream crossover hit that “More Than Words” was.

The first of those three singles was “Rest In Peace”. Inspired by peace protests against the Gulf War, it offers up the rather unpalatable theory that sometimes war is necessary, or at least that war is complicated and can’t be reduced to such simple terms. Was it possible to convey such a subject effectively during the course of a rock song? This was no “Get The Funk Out”. Was it too much of a leap for fans of their previous work? Certainly in America it failed spectacularly to replicate the success of “More Than Words” for example which had been a No 1 record. “Rest In Peace” peaked at No 96 over there though it did top the Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart (whatever that was). We were more receptive to it in the UK where it reached a surprising high of No 13.

The performance here stands out due to the kid sitting in front of the drum kit for its entirety. Who was he and why was he there? Twitter offered up several opinions as to his identity ranging from a young Caleb Followill of Kings Of Leon to Eminem to the band’s manager’s son. It just looks odd.

As for the track itself, I thought it was OK and preferable to some of the crud in the Top 40 but that they were taking themselves way too seriously. I could have well done without the overindulgent Jimi Hendrix tribute riff towards the end. In any case, I’m really not convinced that the world needed an Extreme concept album at all.

It had to happen eventually. In the long, tortuous and indeed torturous search for how to stage a dance act on TOTP, the producers have finally turned to podium dancing. The lucky recipients of this innovation were Felix who are in the studio to perform their Top 10 hit “Don’t You Want Me”. It’s your basic, standard set up of the singer, the obligatory guy behind some turntables but now there’s added dancers positioned on towers of TV screens overlooking the stage. The banks of monitors are showing the promo video which intercuts with the performance whilst the studio audience are ‘avin’ it large like they’re at an actual rave. It sort of almost works until you notice the outlandish costumes of the dancers. There’s one that has an actual full face mask over their head! It reminds me of Cillian Murphy’s The Scarecrow from Batman Begins. The only time I’ve been in a nightclub with podium dancers was in Rochdale in the mid 90s, a place called Xanadu’s. Think it was a work colleague’s leaving do. Very scary but even there the posers on the podiums didn’t look like one of Worzel Gummidge’s mates.

“Don’t You Want Me” peaked at No 6.

After the dissolution of The Style Council in 1989, Paul Weller, without a record deal for the first time in his professional career, went on a two year hiatus from making records. As 1990 became 1991, he was back on the road under the title of ‘The Paul Weller Movement’ playing small venues with a set list derived from his Jam/Style Council back catalogue. There was also a spattering of new material like “Into Tomorrow” which was released as a single and returned Weller to the Top 40 but in a minimal way when it peaked at No 36. It was hardly the comeback of comebacks. However, he had more tunes up his sleeve and the small success of “Into Tomorrow” was enough to convince him and new label Go Discs to release more recordings. “Uh Huh, Oh Yeh” was the next single (released purely under his own name without the ‘movement’ suffix) and this time it really did fell like he was back. Previewing his first, eponymous solo album, it felt like a return to form and duly went Top 20.

Weller looks lean and dressed down in this performance and though his Steve Marriott influenced haircut probably drew a few guffaws back then, he looks the epitome of cool compared to the haggard, raggedy Iggy Pop impersonation he peddles today.

I’m not sure what my Weller-obsessed elder brother made of it but I’m guessing he bought it along with the rest of The Jam army who still couldn’t quite let go of their hero. The album made the Top 10 and paved the way for the reinvention of Weller as ‘The Modfather’ with the release of the “Wildwood” and “Stanley Road” albums (both of which I bought actually) as Britpop dawned.

By the way, check out the saxophone player who requires not one but two saxes for this performance one of which is the biggest I have ever seen! Uh huh, oh yeh. Nudge nudge, wink wink.

From Paul Weller to “Jam” (nice!) as it’s time for yet another Michael Jackson video exclusive! By my count that’s the fourth of this calendar year and the fifth in total from the “Dangerous” album. I’m not quite sure it really deserves that ‘exclusive’ label though on account of the fact that the single (and therefore the video) had already been released in the US back in July (the US and European release schedules weren’t in sync). Presumably millions of people globally had already seen this promo by the time it was shown over here. I suppose we didn’t have access to all the TV channels we do today not to mention YouTube so maybe people in the UK hadn’t been able to catch it before now? I don’t know- it was all a long time ago. What I do know is that this glut of what seems like monthly Jacko videos is starting to get on my wick. It’s like he was trying to outdo The Wedding Present’s 1992 singles release project.

I suppose I do have to talk about the video then. Well, this one is set in a run down neighbourhood in Chicago where Jacko teaches basketball superstar Michael Jordan to dance whilst, in return, he shows The King of Pop how to shoot some hoops – as you do. This sort of shit happens all the time obviously. Just the other week Adele was down our street teaching Mo Salah how to sing from his diaphragm whilst he showed her some keepy uppy tricks. Just preposterous nonsense. There’s some cameos from rappers du jour Heavy D and Kris Kross but the whole thing feels like the track was written to be a video rather than a song in its own right. It’s just a vehicle for Jacko’s dance moves – there’s not a proper song in there.

They’ll be one more Jackson single release before 1992 is up -the sickly ballad “Heal The World” whist “Jam” peaked at No 13.

In the light of Extreme’s new direction that we witnessed earlier, there is a vacancy in the acoustic rock troubadour circuit. Early applicants for the role are Thunder with their new single “Low Life In High Places”. This was the lead single from their second album “Laughing On Judgement Day” which would debut at No 2 when released (only kept off the top spot by Kylie Minogue’s first “Greatest Hits” album). Thunder had been churning out Top 40 hits since the turn of the decade (this was their sixth in eighteen months) and the release of “Laughing On Judgement Day” would be the crowning glory of their popularity.

“Low Life In High Places” – a social comment on homelessness in New York – is very much an acoustic number for the first two thirds of its running time but then bursts into more familiar heavy rock territory on the final lap. It’s as if the band are suffering from imposter guilt and don’t really believe they can pull this acoustic lark off and, losing their nerve, revert to type as full on electric heavy rockers. If that bloke who shouted “Judas!” at Bob Dylan at the Manchester Free Trade Hall in 1966 had been in the studio audience he would have spontaneously combusted. Talking of which, were the pyrotechnics when the track goes electric really necessary?

One last thing. What was it with performers having two instruments in this show? After Paul Walker’s sax player earlier, Thunder have a guitarist with an acoustic guitar and an electric one!

“Low Life In High Places” peaked at No 22.

Back to the usual three Breakers tonight after last week’s five song extravaganza starting with Bobby Brown. After flogging his 1988 “Don’t Be Cruel” album to death, Mr Whitney Houston’s only chart appearance had been his frankly bizarre collaboration with boy next door Glenn Medeiros on “She Ain’t Worth It” back in 1990. Now though he was back with a new single “Humpin’ Around” and new album “Bobby”.

I have to say I don’t recall this one though I do remember another single that was released from the album called “Two Can Play That Game” which was a hit a whole two years on from “Bobby” coming out when remixed by K-Klass. That one hung around the charts for ages being a hit twice. “Humpin’ Around” though – I’ve got nothing. It was a medium sized hit peaking at No 19 over here but going Top 3 in America. Apparently it was originally entitled “Fuckin’ Around”. Given Bobby Brown’s rap sheet, why am I not surprised.

It’s “Crying” by Roy Orbison and K.D. Lang next and my timeline for this song is a bit skewed so let’s start at the beginning. Originally a No 1 hit on the Cashbox chart in the US for Orbison on his own in 1961, it was taken to the top of the UK charts in 1980 by American Pie-ster Don McLean’s cover version. Fast forward seven years and The Big O re-recorded it with then little known country singer K.D.Lang for the soundtrack of the film Hiding Out starring Jon Cryer (Duckie from Pretty In Pink). The song was a middling No 28 hit in the US though it was much bigger in Lang’s native Canada where it reached No 2. It also won a Grammy award for Best County Collaboration with Vocals. In 1989, it was recycled as the B-side to Orbison’s single “She’s A Mystery To Me”.

OK, that’s all fine but why was it then released in the UK in 1992? Was it related to Lang’s breakthrough album “Ingénue” being released that year? Was K.D. a known name in the UK by this point? In my head, 1992 was the year that non country music fans became aware of her but apparently her best known song “Constant Craving” wasn’t a hit until the following year when it was rereleased. Again my memory is failing me. Whatever the truth of the matter, “Crying” the duet was a No 13 hit.

They’re still doing that thing with the Breakers where they feature a song that we have already seen in full as an ‘exclusive’ performance. I’m sure this was down to negotiations between the record pluggers and the producers with the major labels jostling for prime time TV slots but it seems like a missed opportunity to highlight Top 40 entries that we would otherwise miss. The latest artist to benefit from this policy is Annie Lennox who is in the charts with her “Walking On Broken Glass” single.

The video to this one is based on the 1988 film Dangerous Liaisons starring John Malkovich who has been roped into appearing in the promo alongside Hugh Laurie who is basically reprising his Prince Regent role from Blackadder III. The costumes alone must have made it quite expensive to film. Would major film stars like Malkovich have done a music video for free or would they charge a fee?

“Walking On Broken Glass” peaked at No 8.

Thunder’s nemesis now as Kylie Minogue has turned up to promote that Greatest Hits album of hers. The first of two new singles released to promote it, “What Kind Of Fool (Heard All That Before)” was her last original song to be released on PWL before she left for pastures new (her very last PWL release was a cover of Kool And The Gang’s “Celebration”). You could hardly describe it as going out on a high on account of the fact that it’s dreadful. It sounds like it should have been a Sonia B-side. Even Kylie herself can’t stand it apparently and she hardly ever performs it live. It peaked at No 14 – it was very lucky to make even that chart placing. A real backwards step after some of her recent work had been a lot more mature. What a waste of everybody’s time.

Snap! remain at No 1 with “Rhythm Is A Dancer”. In the comments about this song on the Songfacts website, someone called Sioraf said this about the infamous ‘serious as cancer’ line:

“Cancer is very serious though. Nobody calls Waterfalls tasteless for mentioning HIV.“

Sioraf mate. The TLC song ‘mentions’ HIV as part of a whole narrative about discouraging self destructive behaviour and raising the issue of AIDS and safe sex. They do so in an affecting, insightful and subtle way – in fact, the acronym HIV is never used but rather the line “three letters took him to his final resting place”. The Snap! track on the other hand just drops the word ‘cancer’ into a rap as it rhymes with ‘dancer’ – there is literally no comparison. Honestly.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	KWS	Rock Your Baby	Nope
2	Extreme	Rest In Peace	I did not
3	Felix	Don’t You Want Me	Nah
4	Paul Weller	Uh Huh, Oh Yeh	I think this might be in the singles box you know
5	Michael Jackson	Jam	Negative
6	Thunder	Low Life In High Places	No
7	Bobby Brown	Humpin’ Around	Buy it? I don’t even remember it
8	Roy Orbison and K.D. Lang	Crying	Didn’t happen
9	Annie Lennox	Walking On Broken Glass	No but my wife had her Diva album
10	Kylie Minogue	What Kind Of Fool (Heard All That Before)	No but my wife had that Greatest Hits album
11	Snap!	Rhythm Is A Dancer	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/m0015f91/top-of-the-pops-20081992

TOTP 13 AUG 1992

Posted on March 19, 2022 by 80stastic

The curse of Adrian Rose has struck again meaning we have missed another show and therefore gone straight to the middle of August 1992 and what an exciting time it was. Two days after this TOTP aired, the all new, singing and dancing (literally in the case of Sky Sports cheerleaders the Sky Strikers) FA Premier League started. My beloved Chelsea prepared for this new era by signing striker Robert Fleck from Norwich City for a club record £2.1 million just 24 hours previously. It would prove to be a disastrous waste of money as Fleck scored just 4 goals in 48 appearances for Chelsea and started a ongoing trend of the club buying big reputation forwards that would turn out to be flops.

Tonight’s opening act similarly came with a big reputation as pop’s next big thing and although they suffered a few flops initially, they would eventually find the form to bag themselves a shed load of massive chart hits and certainly more than the four times Fleck rippled the net.

Having scored their first chart hit with “It Only Takes A Minute” just a few weeks before, Take That weren’t hanging around when it came to a follow up. Now I always thought that like its predecessor, “I Found Heaven” was a cover version but it isn’t. It was written by producer Ian Levine and singer Billy Griffin, the guy who replaced Smokey Robinson as lead vocalist of The Miracles. It turns out that the band always hated the track with a passion. Gary Barlow described it in his autobiography as “truly fucking awful” and “the worst song of my and Take That’s career”. Ouch! It is the only song recorded by the group, aside from covers, that was not written by themselves. It features both Barlow and Robbie Williams on joint lead vocals hinting at the competition that was to define their relationship as the band’s fame grew. Poor old Jason Orange didn’t get to sing on it at all apparently as his vocals weren’t considered good enough. Bit like when Robert Fleck didn’t play for Chelsea for six months after being dropped as he was basically pants.

“I Found Heaven” peaked at No 15. Though not completely disastrous, given that “It Only Takes A Minute” had gone to No 7, this probably wasn’t the result that their management team and record label had hoped for. At the very least it must have increased the pressure on their next single release to outscore its predecessor. In the end, they turned to the Gary Barlow penned ballad “A Million Love Songs” to provide another winner and it duly did the business returning them to the Top 10 and securing their continued success. Their cover of Barry Manilow’s “Could It Be Magic” would give them a fourth consecutive hit when it went all the way to No 3 over Xmas. In comparison, it took Robert Fleck the best part of two years to put the ball in the net four times for Chelsea.

Fleck wasn’t the only striker involved in a high profile transfer around this time. On 7th August, Manchester United signed Dion Dublin from Cambridge United for £1 million. Like Fleck, the future Homes Under The Hammer presenter didn’t have a great time at his new club as a broken leg restricted him to just 12 appearances for them. He still scored more than double the goals Fleck did in those games but that’s not the point. The reason I mention him is because I was working in the Our Price store in Market Street, Manchester at the time of Dixon’s signing and one day he came into the shop! My colleague Justin was a big United fan and soon came onto the shop floor to ask him for his autograph. For some reason Justin decided to get him to sign a picture of Dublin’s team mate and England star Bryan Robson. Why Justin thought that was appropriate or why he had a picture of Robson with him at work I know not. Dion seemed to take it all in good humour though and duly signed.

Back to the music and we find one of the more curious hits of the year. A dance version of a Gerry Rafferty easy listening classic? Are you sure? It seemed an insane proposition but then I have personally witnessed in the flesh Robert Fleck score for Chelsea so anything is possible. Seen by some purists as the lowest form of dance music, the masses disagreed and sent “Baker Street” by Undercover spiralling up the charts to No 2.

So who were these chancers? Well, they were a London trio consisting of vocalist John Matthews plus Steve Mac and John Jules who rode a wave to short lived fame much in the same way that KWS did with their cheesy cover of KC and the Sunshine Band’s “Please Don’t Go” earlier in the year. What with those two and, as referenced by host Tony Dortie in his intro, East Side Beat’s danced up treatment of Christopher Cross’s “Ride Like The Wind” in ‘91, this was fast becoming a very lucrative craze.

The unlikely nature of these hits could not be explained by watching the acts performing them on TOTP. Look at this appearance by Undercover for example. Jon Matthews is hardly shimmering with star quality though he has turned up in his best grown up party clothes bless him. The whole thing reeks of the entertainment on a ferry crossing. Actually, I’m not that far off from the truth with that observation for Undercover were a part of the story of that inaugural Premier League season. Whilst watching the documentary Fever Pitch: The Rise Of The Premier League, I noticed that amongst the razzmatazz that Sky brought in to help launch their coverage which included cheerleaders and giant inflatable sumo wrestlers, they also had pop acts do a turn at half time. The idea was that they could do better than the traditional military band that was wheeled out for cup finals during the break. Guess who is clearly sighted as the entertainment in one of the clips? Yep, Undercover.

They would repeat the trick with their next release, their version of Andrew Gold’s “Never Let Her Slip Away” which would be a No 5 hit. One final chart entry (Gallagher and Lyle’s “I Wanna Stay With You”) followed before the game was well and truly up.

One final thing – when Tony Dortie describes it as the “drum ‘n’ bass version of Baker Street“ – what was he thinking?! Here’s Tony with the answer:

I think you'll find I have no idea what I'm talking about, so ignore anything I type x
— Tony Dortie (@TonyDortie) March 19, 2022

From football to the Olympics as the one chart hit that everyone could have predicted happening this year did indeed…erm…happen. I couldn’t stand “Barcelona” by Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé first time around in 1987 and its inevitable rerelease for the ‘92 Olympics in Barcelona didn’t change my opinion. What I had never realised was that the track had always been intended to soundtrack the games but had been recorded as early as it was as the selection process for the Olympic theme took place in 1988. As well as being the official song of the games, the BBC used it for the music to their coverage of the action. It was inescapable.

The video shown here has some inserted sporting footage highlighting Team GB successes including Linford Christie, Sally Gunnell, Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent and the Searle brothers Greg and Jonny and their very emotional cox Garry Herbert.

There is a football connection with “Barcelona” as it was performed by Caballé along side a video of the sadly departed Mercury before the 1999 Champions League final between Manchester United and Bayern Munich at the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona. I didn’t see that performance though as I was working in Our Price in Altrincham that day and was rushing from pub to pub to try and find one that wasn’t packed out already to watch the game.

And another Tony Dortie conundrum – why does he call it Basss–er–lona?

Breaking news! Check this out! More Dortie madness! Dion Dublin and Tony Dortie joined together by the power of #Laterz!

Wow this is madness can some1 please tweet her and ask coincidence or what… hey @GRB1 can you help our #totp Friday Hustlers get to the bottom of this..I've actually never ever heard any1 else ever say #Laterz on TV besides me B4 https://t.co/HmM9fd1SoC
— Tony Dortie (@TonyDortie) March 20, 2022

Stand by for another Twitter outpouring of swooning and lust as it’s time for Betty Boo again! “Let Me Take You There” is her latest single but little did we know it would be her last ever chart hit. I think I’ve commented on what happened to Betty (real name Alison Clarkson) before but in the light of her return to making music under her own name this year, The Guardian did an interview with her just days ago. They asked her about disappearing from the world of pop and the circumstances behind it. She’d lost her Mum, Dad and Aunty within a short space of time and so retreated into family life, looking after her Gran. As Alison described it:

“To be a pop star you have to be full-whack all the time and I just melted.”

The last time she was on the show, Betty had an all female backing band but this time the TOTP producers have got her completely solo and performing against some sort of Summer beach background complete with palm trees, a deck chair and sea shells. They’ve obviously decided it’s a Summery song and should be styled accordingly. Would you wear that check outfit Betty has on to the beach including high heels though?

“Let Me Take You There“ peaked at No 12.

We might all have been forgiven for thinking this would be the last we would see of 2 Unlimited. A run of three Top 5 singles all taken from their “Get Ready!” album was brought to an end when a fourth single release “The Magic Friend” didn’t make the Top 10. Had we finally got fed up of their brand of brainless Euro techno rave? This one was particularly banal with it seemingly just consisting of a collection of disparate synthetic noises held together by a headache inducing synth riff, some Jean Michel Jarre flourishes and Ray chanting “The magic friend is what I am”. To mix it up a bit Anita would chime in with “The magic friend is what he is”. Ah, I see what she did there. I for one did not predict them returning the following year with a No 1 album and single in “No Limits”. The year of TOTP repeats for 1993 is shaping up to be utterly dreadful.

There’s five Breakers this week – one more than Robert Fleck’s two year total goal tally for Chelsea! We start with Queensrÿche who I knew little of then and my knowledge hasn’t improved over the last 30 years. What I did know though was that they weren’t from Germany as Tony Dortie informs us – they’re from Bellevue, Washington in the US Tony!

Apart from sounding like a song title Muse might come up with, “Silent Lucidity” was a single from their “Empire” album which is the only album of theirs that I could name but I certainly don’t remember how it went. Let’s have a listen now…

…hmm. A lot more melodic sounding than I was expecting. I thought they were a heavy rock act. Must have been one of their more reflective moments. “Silent Lucidity” was the band’s biggest hit peaking at No 18.

For the first half of 1992, if you were browsing the racks in your record shop of choice, the chances were that when you got to the divider that said The Smiths on it you’d find an empty space. They was certainly the case in our shop anyway. After Rough Trade went bankrupt at the end of the 80s, the band’s back catalogue was purchased by WEA Records (later to become Warner Music). As they planned a whole re-issue strategy for the band’s music, once any existing copies were sold they could not be reordered. I guess the plan was to aggrandise The Smiths material thereby creating a whole new appetite for it.

The first release that WEA put together was a compilation called “Best…1”. At the time, one of my work colleagues was Our Price legend ‘Knoxy’ who’s brother worked for Warner and who was heavily involved in The Smiths re-issue project. He may have even been responsible for choosing which tracks would go on “Best…1”. It was a thankless task as the band’s fan base were/are very protective of and precious about their heroes’ material. These things mattered. The album was finally released the Monday after this TOTP aired and despite mostly unfavourable reaction from fans and press alike to the track listing which seemed a bit random and included B-sides and album cuts as well as singles, it went straight to No 1 on the album chart. A second volume followed in November but only managed a high of No 29.

“This Charming Man” had been decided upon as the single to promote the album – their first chart hit and one of their most recognisable songs. It made sense I guess. So much has been written about the track (including by me in my TOTP 80s blog) that I don’t intend to regurgitate its history again here. Suffice to say that the 1992 rerelease went to No 8 in the singles chart making it, at a stroke, the band’s biggest ever hit.

Who’s this? Felix? Felix da Housecat?

*checks Wikipedia*

No, that’s someone else apparently. This Felix was a guy from Chelmsford, Essex called Francis Wright and who was responsible for this dance anthem “Don’t You Want Me”. Unlike Betty Boo’s recent return to pop music with her “Love Action (I Believe In Love)” sampling new single, this was nothing to do with The Human League. As with many these dance tunes, I remember the riff but I couldn’t have told you the artist or track details. Maybe that was the whole point – if you were off on one in a club, just recognising the riff might be enough to trigger you into action on the dance floor? Did you need to know who was behind the tune or what it was called? I dunno. I wasn’t in any clubs at this time as I was skint.

“Don’t You Want Me” was a hit three times in the 90s in various remixes but none were bigger than this 1992 original which made it to No 6.

They’re doing that weird thing with the Breakers again in allocating one of the slots to an act we’ve already seen on the show in full due to an exclusive performance or in the case of Jon Secada, the US charts feature. “Just Another Day” is up to No 8 this week which surely makes it a bona fide big hit rather than a Breaker?

The video is Jon performing with his band mainly in black and white apart from when he’s cavorting about on a beach when the film turns a sepia tone. Apparently Gloria Estefan turns up at the end of the video but I can’t be arsed to watch the whole thing just to confirm or deny this on account of the whole thing being terminally dull.

The final Breaker is a duet from Luther Vandross and Janet Jackson taken from the soundtrack to a film I never got round to seeing – Mo’Money. People seemed to go crazy for “The Best Things In Life Are Free” as it soared up the charts to No 2 though it did very little for me. It was one of those songs that also hung around the charts for ages clocking up 13 weeks in total. Apparently this was a New Edition reunion of sorts with Bell Biv DeVoe and Ralph Tresvant appearing on the track (the latter’s involvement though was restricted to one spoken line).

The video doesn’t actually feature Luther or Janet (even though the lyrics do when they name check themselves) but instead has the leads from the film Damon Wayans and Stacey Dash lip synching to it set against the backdrop of a fairground.

The best things in life are free eh? Someone should have told Chelsea in 1992 – Robert Fleck wasn’t free at £2.1 million and he certainly wasn’t the best.

It’s another ‘exclusive’ performance again and a second one this year for Annie Lennox I believe. “Walking On Broken Glass” was the third single from her “Diva” album (we seem to have missed her second single from it “Precious”) and like lead single “Why”, it was a huge airplay hit. Radio ubiquity aside, there were no other similarities with its predecessor certainly not in musical terms. Sprightly where “Why” was downbeat, its spiky, jagged strings lay down an engaging foundation for Annie to layer her soulful vocals on.

The staging for this one with orchestral string backing and a shed load of candles works pretty well. The show did seem to throw some resource at these ‘exclusive’ slots I have to say. Annie herself looks great. She recently released a no filter/no makeup photo of herself at 67 years of age and she still looks amazing.

BBC4 had a mini Annie evening last Friday showing a gig of hers from 2009 at LSO St Luke’s and an interview from 1992 to promote her “Diva” album. In the interview she said that she wasn’t missing Dave Stewart after two years of not working with him but give it another seven years and the two would reconvene for one final Eurythmics album in 1999 called “Peace”.

“Walking On Broken Glass” would go Top 10 just as “Why” had and as I recall helped instigate another wave of sales for an album that had already been out four months.

There’s a Top 10 countdown in the proper place in the show finally as we segue in a timely fashion into the No 1 record which is Snap! with “Rhythm Is A Dancer”. Taken from the group’s “The Madman’s Return” album, I had always assumed it was the lead single from it but it wasn’t. There was a single before it called “Colour Of Love” which was a massive hit all around Europe…except here. In the UK it was a flop peaking at a lowly No 54.

Not even we could resist the follow up though which went to No 1 in a dozen or so countries. Apparently rapper Turbo B had insisted on “Colour Of Love” being the lead single as he hated the ‘serious as cancer’ lyric in “Rhythm Is A Dancer” but the group’s producers had disagreed. They won the battle for the follow up single though and the rest is history. Turbo B would leave the band before the third single “Exterminate!” was released.

Postscript: Robert Fleck left Chelsea in 1995 to return to Norwich City. He played four times for Scotland scoring zero goals (obvs). After a spell in football management , he now works as a Teaching Assistant at a school for children with special needs. He also funded trips for 18 months for a child with a terminal condition. Robert Fleck then. Terrible Chelsea striker but one of life’s good guys.

Laterz!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Take That	I Found Heaven	Of course not!
2	Undercover	Baker Street	No
3	Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé	Barcelona	Barce-no-na
4	Betty Boo	Let Me Take You There	No but I had a promo copy of the album
5	2 Unlimited	The Magic Friend	Hell no!
6	Queensrÿche	Silent Lucidity	Nah
7	The Smiths	This Charming Man	No but I have Hatful of Hollow with it on
8	Felix	Don’t You Want Me	No I didn’t
9	Jon Secada	Just Another Day	Nope
10	Luther Vandross and Janet Jackson	The Best Things In Life Are Free	Negative
11	Annie Lennox	Walking On Broken Glass	No but my wife has the album Diva
12	Snap!	Rhythm Is A Dancer	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/m0015f8z/top-of-the-pops-13081992

TOTP 30 JUL 1992

Posted on March 17, 2022 by 80stastic

The TOTP repeats are still coming thick and fast. We’re already at the end of July ‘92 whilst in real time of 2022, we’re only halfway through March. Keeping up with them is becoming increasingly difficult. I may not have a job currently but I have got other things to do you know like…erm…well, there’s the daily wordle and…look, never mind about that. I need to get on.

Thirty years ago Alan Shearer – the all time top Premier League goal scorer but as we found out in a recent post, an unknown in the US – has just broken the English transfer fee record by signing for Blackburn Rovers from Southampton for £3.5 million. Two days after that, another big transfer went down as Nottingham Forest’s Des Walker signed for Sampdoria for £1.5 million which must have upset Nottingham group KWS whose recent chart topper “Please Don’t Go” was released as a tribute to the defender (apparently). As for me, I was still trundling along working for Our Price in Manchester but a transfer of my own would soon be in the offing but that’s for a later post.

So here’s a question. How many Top 40 singles do you reckon The Shamen had? Three? Four? I think I would have gone with five. I’d have been miles out. It’s actually twelve! I know! To be fair to myself, four came well after their annus mirabilis of 1992 and were minor hits one of which was a remix of “Move Any Mountain” anyway. In my original guess, I’d miscalculated how many singles were released from their “Boss Drum” album (six if you’re counting) including this one “LSI Love Sex Intelligence”. Now I did include this in my guess of five as it was a pretty big hit (No 6 if you’re still counting) and therefore much more memorable. This really felt like the moment that the band consciously decided to pursue chart stardom with rapper Mr C pushed out front and centre as their public face. I say that but watching this performance, it’s vocalist Jhelisa Anderson that stands out with Mr C restricted to a few shouts of “Come On!” and of course his obligatory rap halfway through. I think the reason that it’s his face that comes to mind when I think of this era of The Shamen is because he looked off it most of the time. Apparently that’s because he was. Here’s @TOTPFacts:

Mr C: “We did Top Of The Pops about seven or eight times [It was eight]. Every single time I was on acid or E or both. I wasn’t on three pills, I was on one. So I remember it. It’s only when you bosh that third pill you start losing it." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 11, 2022

That’ll be it then.

Michael Jackson is next with a proper showing of his “Who Is It” video after last week’s insulting slot in the Breakers. Many in the music press made comparisons between this track and “Billie Jean” which got me thinking about some of the other tracks on “Dangerous”. The conclusion I came to was that “Who Is It” may not have been the only time he recycled some of his own source material. The sixth single from the album was the syrup drenched, sickly ballad “Heal The World” which was a direct rewrite of the Jackson penned USA for Africa charity single “We Are The World”. The one after that “Give In To Me” has more than a whiff of “Dirty Diana” about it. Hmm. “Who Is It” asked Jacko. The answer was clear. It’s you Michael. Endlessly you.

“Who Is It” peaked at No 10.

Just about teenagers Kris Kross are next but for some reason host Mark Franklin (back to the solo presenter this week) gives them no intro whatsoever and then at the end of their performance gives them a meagre three word mention (“There’s Kris Kross”). Had they upset the show in some way or was it yet another attempt to shake up the show’s format. It just looks incongruous like they aren’t really part of the show (is that even the TOTP studio they’re performing in?) and somebody has hacked the BBC broadcast and interrupted the running order to get the rapping duo on illegally.

On they were though with their new single “Warm It Up” which is another song I don’t remember from this period. Lacking the immediacy of “Jump”, it comes over like they’re trying to convince us all that they really are proper gangstas (yes, I meant to spell it like that) with lyrics that mention guns and knives but in the end the most threatening they manage is with the line “You can get the finger, the middle”.

A year or so later, the UK version of Kris Kross was unleashed on the world. They were a little bit older (18 years of age) and as with their US counterparts where we didn’t know which one was Mac Daddy and which was Daddy Mac, we also had trouble distinguishing between them but boy did they have some tunes!

The first of two exclusive performances tonight is next and it’s from someone who caused quite a reaction on Twitter when this TOTP repeat aired, most of it of a salacious nature (including the rhyming slang J. Arthur). Betty Boo (for it is she) went missing for the whole of 1991 after she had taken the UK by storm the previous year with hits like “Doin’ The Do” and “Where Are You Baby?” (note the use of a question mark Michael Jackson!). Presumably she was writing material for her second album.

The first glimpse of her labours came in the form of the single “Let Me Take You There” and what an underrated single it was. Like most of the work from her second album period, it’s largely forgotten despite its No 12 chart peak. A gloriously lilting track, it also had plenty of little hooks thrown in throughout for good measure. Betty is really selling it in this performance. She’s ditched the space cadet togs and bob haircut of the “Boomania” era and has returned with grown out locks and a revealing outfit (hence the Twitter reaction). She’s also ditched the Booettes but her all female backing band have followed her sartorial lead.

I’m pretty sure I had a promo copy of the second album entitled “GRRR! It’s Betty Boo” and it was pretty good especially follow up singles “I’m On My Way” (not The Proclaimers song) and “Hangover” but neither made the Top 40 despite being excellent pieces of pop confection. After the failure of the album, Betty withdrew from the music industry and was seemingly lost to the world of pop forever until she reappeared as a songwriter for the likes of Hear’Say, Girls Aloud and Dannii Minogue and lookee here…a brand new single released just this year that samples The Human League! Open your heart!

Something weird has happened to the Breakers section. Two of the four songs featured have already been on the show before. Enya had her own ‘exclusive’ slot just last week and Billy Ray Cyrus was shown recently as part of the US chart and yet they’re both designated as Breakers this week. I’m guessing the TOTP producers would argue that neither was actually in the UK Top 40 when first on the show and now they are classified as big movers within it and therefore Breakers? Surely this section was for singles we hadn’t seen before and had now just got into the charts? Seems a waste to show a short clip of artists we’ve already seen in full before.

Anyway, a song that we hadn’t seen before was “Jesus He Knows Me”, the fourth single from Genesis’s “We Can’t Dance” album. After the Genesis by numbers ballad “Hold On My Heart” and the indulgently epic “No Son Of Mine”, this was more like the well crafted pop of “Invisible Touch” but with the added bit of jeopardy of having the word ‘Jesus’ in the title. Would that have scared off some US radio stations? Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” was originally called “A Deal With God” but changed due to fears of being on an airplay black list. Well, it was a No 23 hit over the pond so it didn’t do too badly.

The video was similarly provocative sending up as it did the cult of the televangelists like Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker who as critic Christopher Thelen put it were “more concerned about fleecing their flocks than shepherding them”. Fair play to Phil, Mike and Tony for trying to do something challenging with the video rather than just have some in concert footage cobbled together for example.

What?! Sarah Brightman and José Carreras had a song in the charts in the 1992? I don’t remember this happening. Apparently “Amigos Para Siempre (Friends For Life)” was recorded for the Barcelona Olympics and was sung at the games closing ceremony. I can’t have watched it I guess. If it’s Sarah Brightman then it must have been written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and indeed it was.

The only song I associate with those Olympics was “Barcelona” by Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé but both tracks were included on a compilation album called “Barcelona Gold” which was released to coincide with them. I’d forgotten all about this and its utterly bizarre track listing. It’s bookended by the two aforementioned tracks but what comes in between is ludicrous. There’s DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, INXS, Rod Stewart, a couple of soul divas in Anita Baker and Natalie Cole, Marc Cohn, a live version of “Wonderful Tonight” by Eric Clapton and “This Used To Be My Playground” by Madonna which couldn’t be licensed for the soundtrack of the film it featured in (A League Of Their Own) but which was OK for this bonkers hotchpotch of an album. It also had one of the worst album covers ever. Madness.

Marc Cohn celebrates his inclusion on the “Barcelona Gold” album

And so to those hits by Enya and Billy Ray Cyrus starting with the former and her “Book Of Days” single. Haven’t got much else to say about this one except, in keeping with the sporting theme, it was used as background music during the medal ceremonies at the 2009 IAAF World Athletics Championships in Berlin.

As for “Achy Breaky Heart” by Billy Ray Cyrus, I literally have nothing else I want to say about it.

My use of the word Madness to describe that “Barcelona Gold” album was deliberate as here are the Nutty Boys themselves in the second ‘exclusive’ performance of the night with a re-release of “My Girl” to promote their “Divine Madness” Best Of album. Originally their third ever hit in 1980 when it went to No 3, the song is also a small but special footnote in the history of TOTP as it was the first to be performed on the show at the start of the 80s.

After officially splitting in ‘86, the band being back together on TOTP six years later was quite the throwback. I saw them years later at one of their pre-Xmas concerts in Hull. They were fabulous though I have to say I haven’t seen so many middle aged men trying to relive their youth under one roof before or since.

Back in the 90s though, 1992 really was the year of a Madness revival. Aside from the three times platinum selling “Divine Madness” retrospective, there was also the very first Madstock! festival as referred to by Mark Franklin. This two day jamboree at Finsbury Park in London was supposedly so loud that it caused nearby tower blocks to shake! The event was repeated in ‘94, ‘97, ‘98 and ‘09.

The reissued “My Girl” peaked at No 27.

Blimey they’re slamming them in tonight! Here’s the tenth artist on the show and we’re only two thirds of the way through. It’s Roxette who seemed to be on TOTP every other week around this time. They don’t seem to be friends of the show though as Mark Franklin doesn’t utter one word about them. No intro, no outro, no name check, nothing. Even worse than his treatment of Kris Kross.

With no plug from the programme, they’re going to have to promote their latest single “How Do You Do” by the sheer power of their performance but the song doesn’t lend itself to a cohesive turn at all. The lead single from their “Tourism” album, it’s a light, bright daytime radio friendly ditty but the vocal parts don’t work for me. Per Gessle takes the opening lines rather than powerhouse singer Marie Fredriksson and he seems to be doing his best Jimmy Nail impression as they are mostly spoken and not sung. Compare Per saying this line:

‘Well here we are crackin’ jokes in the corner of our mouths and I fell like I’m laughing in a dream’

With this from “Ain’t No Doubt”:

‘She says it’s like in the song remember? If you love somebody, set them free. Well that’s how it is for me.’

OK. The words are not the same but the intonation is similar I would argue. The similarities continue as Marie joins in for the chorus just as Jimmy has a female vocalist (who seems to change with each TOTP appearance) do the same for his song. Although Jimmy has grown his hair longer since his Auf Wiedersehen Pet days and I’m really not sure about it, compared to Per’s barnet he’s the epitome of stylish. What was he thinking?! Unbelievably, his isn’t even the worst on stage as up there with him is a bass player with an incongruous 80s cut (long at the back, short at the sides). It’s the 90s now mate!

“How Do You Do” provides another nice sporting tie in for this post as the video for it was played at half time in the recent Euros ‘92 final between Denmark and Germany. It doesn’t excuse that hair though. By the way, the track was recorded in a studio in Sweden called Tits & Ass Studio talking of which…

It’s one of those satellite link ups next as we cross live to Seattle for…nope not Nirvana despite the city being the home of grunge but for some fella called Sir Mix A Lot who has been No 1 in America for five weeks Mark Franklin informs us with his single “Baby Got Back”. As my friend Robin would say, this is like pissing off the top of a multi story car park – wrong on so many levels…or is it? Ostensibly a rap objectifying women with large buttocks, could it also be a challenge to the mainstream norms of female beauty? Sir Mix A Lot himself says of the track:

“The song doesn’t just say I like large butts you know? The song is talking about women who damn near kill themselves to try to look like these beanpole models that you see in Vogue magazine.”

I’ll be honest; I think I may have been more on board with this argument if he hadn’t performed the song against the towering backdrop of a pair of naked butt cheeks.

At one point the video for the song was banned by MTV and yet despite all the controversy it generated and its five week run at the top of the US charts, we never got it over here in dear old conservative Blighty and the song never made our Top 40 peaking at No 56. Maybe we got confused and bought the wrong thing as his album was called “Mack Daddy” as in those cheeky scamps we saw earlier Kris Kross.

Jimmy Nail still reigns at the top of the charts with “Ain’t No Doubt” which would shift enough copies to end up as the 8th best selling single in the UK in 1992. The parent album “Growing Up In Public” would achieve gold status yet curiously there were no other hit singles from it. The follow up to “Ain’t No Doubt” was called “Laura” and it didn’t even make the Top 40. Maybe it’s predecessor was do ubiquitous that nothing else Jimmy released could compete.

That ubiquity was taken to extraordinary lengths by a guy who drove his neighbours insane by playing the song at top volume for 24 hours solid after splitting with his girlfriend after she’d cheated on him (“she’s lying…”). At least I’m think that’s what I read in the paper at the time though I can’t find any mention of it online anywhere.

Despite his success being cut short, Nail would return in ‘94 with the soundtrack to his next TV series Crocodile Shoes the title track of which would score him a No 4 hit.

It’s that Madonna track from the “Barcelona Gold” album to close the show. “This Used To Be My Playground” was a short stopping off point before Madge unleashed her controversial “Erotica” album and “Sex” book on the world. For some it was a step too far. I recall seeing a local news item where a Madonna super fan who had slavishly bought everything she had ever done on every format drew the line at “Erotica” and turned his back on Madonna forever. Instead he directed his obsessive tendencies towards someone much more wholesome – Gloria Estefan. I have a mental image of him holding up the picture disc of “This Used To Be My Playground” and saying this was the last Madonna product he would ever buy. I’m not sure she was that bothered.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Shamen	LSI Love Sex Intelligence	Nope
2	Michael Jackson	Who Is It	I did not
3	Kris Kross	Warm It Up	No
4	Betty Boo	Let Me Take You There	No but I had that promo copy of the album with it on
5	Genesis	Jesus He Knows Me	Negative
6	Sarah Brightman and José Carreras	Amigos Para Siempre (Friends For Life)	Jesus no!
7	Enya	Book Of Days	Nah
8	Billy Ray Cyrus	Achy Breaky Heart	See 6 above
9	Madness	My Girl	No but I had the Divine Madness album
10	Roxette	How Do You Do	How do you don’t more like – no!
11	Sir Mix A Lot	Baby Got Back	I was far too mature for such nonsense
12	Jimmy Nail	Ain’t No Doubt	It’s a no
13	Madonna	This Used To Be My Playground	And a final no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00156d2/top-of-the-pops-30071992

TOTP 23 JUL 1992

Posted on March 14, 2022 by 80stastic

We’re in mid Summer ‘92 at TOTP Rewind. The Euros have been and gone (and with them Graham Taylor’s credibility as the England manager) and the Olympics in Barcelona are just about to start and we all know what that means…yes that bloody song by Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballe will be everywhere including the top end of the charts very soon. For now though, we have a TOTP which is, yet again, a right mix bag of music and artists. We’re back to a presenting duo rather than the solo host we have seen recently with Tony Dortie being paired with Claudia Simon. The producers are sticking with the small changes to the format they made recently meaning we get to see Claudia and Tony do an intro even before the titles roll and then do the Top 10 countdown before we see/hear any artists. I’m not convinced about any of it.

When we do get to the actual music, the first intro is very odd. As the camera alights on Claudia and Tony, the latter says “This record is massive on the dance floor” but the camera keeps moving down towards the stage. Claudia says out of shot “Making their debut on Top of the Pops…” and then…nothing. Surely Claudia was teeing up actually saying who the first act was?! What happened? Did her mike fail? Did she forget who she was introducing? Or did the producers say “Just forget it. Too late now anyway. They’ve started and the artist graphic is on screen already”?

That artist graphic told us that the band were Sunscreem with “Love U More”. So who were these lot? I remember the name but the only other thing I recall about them was that they were a Sony artist (the curse of opening all those deliveries while working for Our Price in the 90s strikes again!). Turns out that they weren’t just another anonymous dance act put together to front a hit single. They were a house band from Essex- no I don’t mean they were the resident band for the whole of the county but that they played ‘house’ music – and actually performed live concerts.

Having been tipped as the next big name in dance music during ‘91, they finally broke into the UK Top 40 with “Love U More”. Listening to it now, it does ring a few bells one of which reminded me of “Sunshine On A Rainy Day” by Zoë. If that bell was ringing though then there was an air horn going off in my head about their performance which is giving me heavy D:Ream vibes. It’s not just their sound, the lead singer even has a tartan suit on!

That singer is Lucia Holm who recorded a fine version of one of my favourite ever songs “Heaven” by The Psychedelic Furs in 2005.

Not only that, check out this fact from @TOTPFacts about her involvement in another of my favourite tunes:

Sunscreem singer Lucia Holm also played cello on "Life In A Northern Town" by The Dream Academy – from which her playing was later sampled by Dario G for his dance track "Sunchyme". https://t.co/s2CrslZ6jO #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 11, 2022

I had no idea! I was also in the dark that Steps covered “Love U More” on their debut album. Look!

Nice to see some actual, proper musical instruments on display in a dance outfit performance though I’m not sure about the two dancers throwing some shapes. Sunscreem would go on to have eight UK Top 40 hits though none would get any higher than No 13. “Love U More” itself would make No 23.

Snap! are up to No 2 with “Rhythm Is A Dancer” and it’s obvious now that it’s going to be a chart topper. I’m not sure I would have predicted it spending six weeks as the nation’s best seller though but then what did I know eh? Oh yeah, I was working in a record shop at the time so maybe I should have had my finger in the pulse a bit more.

The track routinely features in the ‘Best No 1s /dance anthems of the 90s’ polls but I bet nobody involved in the record could have foreseen its influence extend to this extent…

Thought Shakespear’s Sister only had one hit? You are sorely mistaken for they had six UK Top 40 hits in total though I’m guessing this one would have a decent chance at being a very low scorer on Pointless. “Goodbye Cruel World” was actually the lead single from their “Hormonally Yours” album and not the all conquering “Stay” but nobody noticed it when it was initially released in late September ‘91 and it struggled to a high of No 59. Maybe that would have been the end of the band had they not had that Dave Stewart penned No 1 song up their sleeves but up their sleeves it was and the rest is (you’re) history.

Essentially a straightforward rock/pop song, it had enough quirkiness about it to make it stand out from the crowd. However, it never made it above its chart position here of No 32 in spite of this TOTP exposure. To be fair, the whirling dervish routine of Siobhan Fahey was starting to irritate and they did seem to shoehorn in a platform for Marcella Detroit’s to display her operatic range every song. Siobahn seems to think it’s Xmas time judging by the white fur trim in her outfit but it’s their bass player that my eyes are more drawn to. She looks ever so familiar and judging by the #TOTP tweets for this show, a fair few people thought the same and wanted to identify her. General consensus was that its Claire Kenny who has worked with the likes of Orange Juice, Sinéad O’Connor and Brian Eno though I think it’s Amazulu that I recognise her from which probably says quite a lot about me.

The Breakers are in a much more sensible place in the show this week and we start with the poster boys of grunge Nirvana. To say how influential they were, their career was pretty short and their back catalogue fairly small. Three studio albums and six UK Top 40 hits in a seven year existence. Yes, you could argue that The Beatles only existed for a decade and look at their legacy but they released thirteen albums in that period. You could also make the case that Nirvana’s potential for longevity was truncated by Kurt Cobain’s death but I think that the band were never likely to pull a U2 and carve out a 40 year career. Cobain’s heroin addiction was always an issue and the group almost broke up after disagreements surrounding Kurt’s attempts to reorganise their royalties structure so that he got more to reflect his songwriting input. There’s also that theory that those who shine the brightest burn out the quickest and that the band were always destined to fulfil that particular narrative but is that just a lazy take on their story?

Anyway, one of those six hit singles was “Lithium” which was the third track to be released from “Nevermind”. It’s a good song and all that but it doesn’t stray far from the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” template in that the verses are subdued lulling us into a false sense of security before the violent eruption of the go apeshit chorus.

The video is a collage of gig footage. Cobain had originally had an idea for an animation to tell the story of a girl called Preggo who lives in a forest and takes some eggs she found in her closet to a king in a castle. This was shelved when it became apparent that it the video would take four months to make. They couldn’t think of anything else to do than just cobble some concert clips together?

“Lithium” peaked at No 11 in the UK singles chart.

Still bleeding the “Stars” album dry are Simply Red or more accurately their record label EastWest. I’m wondering about the wisdom of releasing a fifth single (“Your Mirror”) from an album that had been out for 10 months by this point and which had sold so many copies in the first three of those months that it became the biggest selling album of the whole year.

Were EastWest hoping that there were still some punters out there who hadn’t yet been persuaded into buying “Stars” by the first four singles off it but who might be convinced by the fifth? Surely not. Was it designed to appeal to completist super fans who couldn’t resist the lure of Simply Red product? Did such people exist? Were there exclusive extra tracks on the single? Or was it as I first thought just a case of milking the label’s elite cash cow as much as they could?

“Stars” was the band’s fourth album – would that have bought them to the end of their current record deal? Were EastWest concerned they might lose their lucrative charges? As it turned out they didn’t but it would be four years before the next Simply Red album. Had they thought that might be the case and so wanted to maximise sales of the current one by going all Michael Jackson on its singles release schedule? Were the band on tour and so the single was to promote that?

So many questions to which I’m not sure I actually care what the answers are. This is Simply Red and Mick Hucknall we’re talking about here after all! Suffice to say “Your Mirror” did nothing for me but it reached a respectable No 17 on the charts which presumably meant something to EastWest.

Talking of Jacko…after the first three singles from Michael Jackson’s “Dangerous” album had been given the ‘exclusive’ treatment by TOTP, the video for his latest single only warrants a slot in the Breakers! Possibly to prevent litigation from The King of Pop’s lawyers, it gets a full outing on the following week’s show.

The single in question is “Who Is It” and the critical reception it received at the time suggested that it was “Billie Jean” 2.0. I can certainly hear that in the bridge into the chorus but is there a bit of “Dirty Diana” in there as well?

It managed to get to No 10 in the UK despite it being the fourth single off the album but curiously wasn’t released simultaneously in the US where they went with “Jam” as the fourth single release. I didn’t really care for it at all. Oh, and never mind ‘who is it’, the question I wanted to ask was why doesn’t the song title have a question mark at the end of it? Answer me that.

So who did get the ‘Exclusive’ slot this week instead of Jackson? It’s gone to Enya? Really?! Are you sure?! Yes, for she was in the studio to promote her single “Book Of Days” from the album “Shepherd Moons”. As Tony Dortie says, it also featured in the Tom Cruise/Nicole Kidman film Far And Away. I think I went to the pictures to see that one. It was OK but far too long and the ending is one of the worst in cinematic history.

As for the performance here, there’s a few things to unpack. Firstly, is she singing live as per TOTP policy? She could be but with all those vocal effects on the record it’s hard to tell. Secondly, what was the deal with the platinum blonde wigs on the cello players? Was it a tribute to Gerry Anderson’s UFO and the purple wigs worn by the female staff at moon base? Finally, the flowers on the piano and studio floor – was that an influence on the cover to the Oasis single “Don’t Look Back In Anger”?

“Book Of Days” peaked at No 10.

Obviously “Sexy MF” by Prince was never going to get any airplay if the true word behind the acronym hadn’t been blanked but it’s not like the rest of the lyrics were squeaky clean. Some of them were filthy:

You seem perplexed I haven’t taken you yet

Can’t you see I’m harder than a man can get

I got wet dreams comin’ out of my ears

I get hard if the wind blows your cologne near me

Sheesh! Where was the censor? Presumably on the dance floor.

“Sexy MF” peaked at No 4.

Action from the US chart next as we get a first look at an artist who’s about to bring his success over here. I say first look but if we’d have been watching Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine carefully we’d have seen his guy before. I have to admit that as a teenager I was probably more interested in directing my gaze at Gloria rather than her band! Anyway, enough of that! The guy in question is Jon Secada and “Just Another Day” would be first and biggest hit.

I could never see the appeal of this song and found it quite laborious and dull. I seemed to be in the minority though as it went to No 5 both in the UK and the US. Now I’m not saying the guy can’t sing but, as someone commented on Twitter, he doesn’t half make a meal of this performance which is a flurry of gurning expressions, mike stand wielding and fist clenching. He makes Spandau’s Tony Hadley look like a wallflower. No doubt we’ll be seeing more of Mr Secada in future repeats.

You wait ages for one ‘Exclusive’ (that never comes if you’re Michael Jackson) and then two come along. The second one after Enya earlier is from Elton John and Eric Clapton who have collaborated on a little ditty called “Runaway Train”. The second single released from Elton’s “The One” album, I have to say that this is utter garbage. A right dirge and money for old rope for the pair of them. This did nothing for either protagonist’s reputation. Even the video effects are horrible and only serve to increase the strength of the headache listening to the song will give you.

Unfortunately Claudia Simon stumbles over her words in the intro to this one saying that the video was “shot at the Wembley during Elton’s worldwise tour’. Sadly, there was nothing wise about this train wreck of a release and it peaked at a lowly No 31.

Jimmy Nail is No 1 again with “Ain’t No Doubt” and he’s in the studio again doing his weird, shambling performance that he’s done every week so far in that same dark suit and T-shirt ensemble. He almost motionless and it’s left to his brass section to provide all the movement on stage. The dinner jackets, black bow ties and shades they’re all wearing remind me of the backing singers Nick Heyward had for his single “Warning Sign” back in 1984:

Jimmy was riding high on the back of the success of his Spender TV series which was huge back in the day and regularly pulled in audiences of 14 million. I’m pretty sure I was one of them though I can’t recall any of the episodes or stories now. In keeping with my own memory, it’s almost as though that it’s entirely forgotten now. Never repeated on TV and never even released on DVD or video and yet his first big hit series Auf Wiedersehen Pet is never off the likes of ITV 4 or the Drama channel.

We play out with “Shake Your Head” by Was (Not Was). Some of the things that the lyrics say you can’t do are palpably untrue. ‘You can’t win money at the horses” for example. I’ll wager some of the thousands attending this week’s Cheltenham festival would disagree. The biggest whopper though is “And you can’t influence the masses”. Vote Leave campaign anyone?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Sunscreem	Love U More	Nah
2	Snap!	Rhythm Is A Dancer	Nope
3	Shakespear’s Sister	Goodbye Cruel World	I did not
4	Nirvana	Lithium	No
5	Simply Red	Your Mirror	Certainly not
6	Michael Jackson	Who Is It	Negative
7	Enya	Book Of Days	It’s a no from me
8	Prince	Sexy MF	Not the single but I have it on a Best Of CD I’m sure
9	Jon Secada	Just Another Day	Never happening
10	Elton John and Eric Clapton	Runaway Train	I’d have rather bought Runaway Train by Soul Asylum and that’s shit as well
11	Jimmy Nail	Ain’t No Doubt	And no
12	Was (Not Was)	Shake Your Head	Not the single but I bought their Best Of album Hello Dad…I’m In Jail with it on

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/m00156d0/top-of-the-pops-23071992

TOTP 16 JUL 1992

Posted on March 11, 2022 by 80stastic

Right – before I get into this can I just say that the BBC4 schedule for these TOTP repeats has been relentless of late. It’s been two shows every Friday for weeks now meaning lots of content needing to be created by this blogger. Can’t the BBC slip in an impromptu Proms or something to give me a blow?! Having checked the forthcoming schedule I can see there is no abatement pending at least until the end of the month. Thanks very much BBC4.

In keeping with last week, there is only one presenter again this week; the fresh faced Mark Franklin. Unlike last week there’s been a tweak to the format which sees Franklin appear on our screens straight away rather than being a disembodied voice announcing the first act and he then proceeds to go straight into a rundown of the Top 10! It seems to be a nod back to how the show used to begin in the 70s and early 80s with a chart countdown soundtracked by “Whole Lotta Love” before we saw any of the acts.

After that we’re into the music and we start with Wet Wet Wet who, like many an artist this year, seem to be having an unexpected revival of fortunes. “Lip Service” is their third Top 40 hit in succession after chart topper “Goodnight Girl” and follow up “More Than Love”. It’s also the fifth and final track to be released as a single from their “High On The Happy Side” album. I always quite liked this – it sort of frothed and bubbled away until the hook of the chorus brought it to the boil. Marti Pellow has turned up for this performance dressed as a poker playing gunfighter from the Wild West (minus a ten gallon hat) or is it as a member of Showaddywaddy?

The band would not release another studio album for three years so they filled the gap with their first Best Of compilation (“End Of Part One: Their Greatest Hits”) and a live set (“Live At The Royal Albert Hall”). Then came that single in the Summer of ‘94 but that’s a while off yet.

“Lip Service” peaked at No 15.

Our first glimpse of Madonna in 1992 came via her single “This Used To Be My Playground” which was from the film she was currently starring in A League Of Their Own. I say ‘starring’ in but hers was actually quite a secondary role in this account of the US women’s baseball league that was founded in 1943 to keep the sport in the public eye during WWII. I really am rather fond of this film with some great performances from Tom Hanks, Geena Davis and Lori Petty as the three major protagonists. One of those guilty pleasure films that I’ll watch if I stumble across while channel flipping. Madonna’s name was all over the promotion campaign for the film but as I say, her character isn’t one of the principal leads.

As for the song itself, it’s a bit of an outlier coming as it did in between* the provocative “Justify My Love” and the outright society baiting “Erotica” project. Very much a stand-alone single – contractual issues meant it couldn’t even be included on the film’s soundtrack – it’s an accomplished ballad but one which I have to admit I always found to be quite dull.

*I’m not counting the “Immaculate Collection” inspired re-releases of “Holiday” and “Crazy For You” in ‘91.

The video concept of a man flicking through a photo album, the pages of which have Madonna singing in various different settings, was not as original as it was made out to be. Boy George’s video for his “To Be Reborn” single of five years earlier had a very similar look. Indeed, in his autobiography George said he was furious when he first saw Madonna’s promo and renamed it “This Used To Be My Video”. He had a point – Madonna’s video is a direct rip off…

‘Furious’ may not have been the exact word George used to express his anger at the steal. Here’s TOTP presenter Tony Dortie:

#totp Bumped into Boy George not long after that Playground @Madonna song came out he had some very choice words about it consisting (insert multiple 4 letter words of your own choice)
— Tony Dortie (@TonyDortie) March 4, 2022

“This Used To Be My Playground” peaked at No 3.

Next up are The Wedding Present though you’d be forgiven for thinking it was Altern-8 given the hazmat suits and masks that the band are wearing. What was all that about? Well, apparently the outfits were from the promo video for the single “Flying Saucer” but while watching it back, I discovered something else that interested me far more. There’s a bit where there a close up of David Gedge that just shows his eyes and nose and I swear that could be me back then. Hell, it could be me now! Well, maybe.

Anyway, this was the latest in their year long odyssey to release a new single every month in ‘92. “Flying Saucer” was the seventh of such singles and would peak at No 22, the fourth lowest performing of the twelve released. I quite liked this one. Some crunchy indie guitar licks and Gedge’s usual idiosyncratic vocals made for a winning combination. I’m not sure that the band achieved whatever it was they were trying to with this performance though unless it was actually meant to be a send up of Altern-8.

Fresh from his appearance on the last ever Wogan the other week, Jason Donovan was back in the Top 40 however implausible that may have seemed in the middle of 1992. A few things had changed since his last hit though. Firstly, he had successfully sued The Face magazine for libel after he argued that the publication had implied he was a hypocrite for lying about his sexuality after suggesting he may be gay. Secondly, he had left the Stock, Aitken and Waterman family and switched labels from PWL to Polydor.

His first album for his new masters was “All Around The World” (incidentally it shared its name with a single by one of Polydor’s most famous acts The Jam) with its lead single being “Mission Of Love”. This is a truly dreadful song. It would struggle not to come last at The Eurovision Song Contest. Actually, it would struggle not to come last in A Song For Europe. I’m amazed it got to even No 26 in our charts. Polydor we’re clearly not impressed and getting cold feet about the album. In an amazing lack of faith in their charge, they licensed some of his previous hits and shoved them on the album to beef up its sales potential. In total they added six old tracks, four from his previous albums and two from the Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat cast recording. Donovan was less than impressed and when the album stiffed, he and Polydor inevitably parted ways. The era of Jason Donovan the pop star was just about over.

Ah shit! It’s time for another wretched track. Why is it that the offensiveness of a song seems to work in direct correlation to how popular it is? “Achy Breaky Heart” by Billy Ray Cyrus became the first ever single to achieve triple platinum sales in Australia and spent five weeks at the top of the US Country charts before crossing over into the mainstream and peaking at No 4 in the Billboard Hot 100. It was a hit all across the world and yet was also voted No 2 in a VH1 poll of the 50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs. The same TV network voted it in at No 87 in their 100 Greatest Songs of the 90s poll. Has there ever been a more schizophrenic hit? There are people who despise it for popularising line dancing whilst there is also a faction who credit it with breathing life into a genre of music that was dying on its arse amongst younger audiences. It’s a basket case of song. Whatever you make of it though (and it’s almost a novelty song for me), it certainly made an impression on 1992.

Cyrus is of course the father of Miley Cyrus who rose to fame as Disney character Hannah Montana and then as a pop star under her own name. Her bio on Wikipedia is absolutely massive. I was literally scrolling for about thirty seconds just to get to the bottom and I didn’t read a word of it.

“Achy Breaky Heart” was a No 3 hit in the UK which probably means we haven’t seen the last of it yet.

If Jason Donovan’s time as a pop star was coming to an end then the next act were just getting into gear as a mainstream chart stars. The Shamen had turned tragedy into triumph when they managed to carry on despite the death of band member Will Sinnott and rack up a huge hit with a Beatmasters remix of “Pro>gen” as “Move Any Mountain” in the Summer of ‘91. Fast forward a year and they were ready to take it to the next level with an album full of hit singles. That album was “Boss Drum” and the first hit from it was “LSI Love Sex Intelligence”.

With rapper Mr. C now a full time member and the face of the band, an all out charge at the charts was ready to go. All they had to do now was get their tunes out there and they began with this No 6 hit. Another crucial addition was vocalist Jhelisa Anderson who’s contribution helped make the new sound of The Shamen.

The performance here is interesting in that that the staging of it is surely what The Wedding Present should have done instead of those hazmat suits. It’s got a goddam flying saucer prop! WTF? Did Gedge and co not see this in rehearsal and think ‘oh yeah, that’s what we should have done’. It’s sort of like the Madonna/Boy George thing but in reverse. Oh I give up trying to make sense of it all!

Just two Breakers again this week starting with that old rascal Morrissey. Surely one of his more memorable song titles, “You’re The One For Me, Fatty” was the second single from his “Your Arsenal” album although it hadn’t actually been released at this point. When it did arrive at the end of July, I was still working at the Our Price store in Market Street, Manchester and I asked our Assistant Manager Pete if he’d heard “Your Arsenal” yet to which he replied that he had no interest in listening to Morrissey’s arse! To be fair to Pete, Mozza was not his cup of tea at all. As for me, I quite liked it with its robust, glam inspired guitar (well it was produced by David Bowie’s mate Mick Ronson). “You’re The One For Me, Fatty” peaked at No 19.

The second Breaker hadn’t had a UK Top 40 hit for a couple of years and indeed only had four all told. Was (Not Was) really should have had more. If Jason Donovan could have sixteen chart hits than surely to goodness these Detroit musical boundary pushers deserved a bigger haul.

I’d first come across Was (Not Was) in 1983 when “Out Come The Freaks” narrowly missed the UK Top 40 but nearly 10 years later, despite some excellent tunes, they were still mostly known for 1987 hit “Walk The Dinosaur”. They were still deemed worthy of a Best Of chart compilation by record company Polygram and “Hello Dad…I’m In Jail” was released this year. To promote it, two tracks were released as singles. A cover of INXS’s “Listen Like Thieves” seemed like an overtly commercial decision not in keeping with the band’s previous back catalogue and it was ultimately proven to be misjudged as the single stalled at No 58.

The second single released to promote the album was a different case altogether. Now I never knew this until now but “Shake Your Head” was actually an early Was (Not Was) song from 1982 that had quite an interesting back story. It always featured the vocals of Ozzy Osbourne (who re-recorded them for the ‘92 remix by Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley) but a pre-fame Madonna had also laid down some vocals for the track that were ultimately not used by the band. As possibly the most famous woman on the planet ten years on, the band approached Madonna for permission to use her original contribution but she refused (surely she didn’t hold a grudge, not Madge) so they asked actress Kim Basinger to sing on it instead. They didn’t miss Madonna at all as “Shake Your Head” provided the band with the biggest UK hit of their career when it peaked at No 4.

Meanwhile back in the studio we find Sophie B. Hawkins though you wouldn’t know it as there is no introduction for her at all. We go straight from the end of the Breakers to a camera shot of her and her rather large backing band on stage. Not even a voiceover segue from Mark Franklin. Bit odd. “Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover” is up to No 16 by this point and Sophie gives a pretty good performance of it here. If she watched it back afterwards though, she may have been alarmed at her achingly stylish ripped jeans. As well as the tears around the knee area, she also seemed to have a big, gaping crotch hole which the TOTP cameraman managed to find in a rather salacious camera angle late on. I hope Bob Geldof wasn’t in the studio that night after his ‘I’m just going to look at you’ comment the other week!

Jimmy Nail has hit the proverbial on the head and is at No 1 within 2 weeks of “Ain’t No Doubt” being released. How did this happen? Since his days in Auf Wiedersehen Pet, Jimmy’s lost a lot of weight and grown his hair longer but he still isn’t what you would describe as your standard looking pop star.

Nail has crafted a career out of being a professional Geordie to the point where he was used as a tool in Anglo American relations. What am I talking about? Well, my friend Robin (the one who hates every Elton John song ever) is partial to golfing holidays in America. He usually goes with some mates who are proud Geordies and keen to promote the cultural significance of The Toon. When in a bar one holiday, the woman serving them was struggling with their accents and was curious as to where they were from in the UK. When their answer of Newcastle brought a shrug of non recognition, Robin’s mates tried to explain their home by mentioning famous people associated with the city. I think the list went like this:

Ant & Dec
Spender
Alan Shearer

When the Premier League’s all time top goal scorer failed to make her understand, it prompted howls of disbelief:

“Yer dinna nar Sheara? Clive man! She dinna nar Sheara!”

“DINNA NAR SHEARA?!” etc etc…

In the end it was Cheryl Cole who was the celebrity that the woman behind the bar knew, presumably from her stint on the US version of The X Factor. Quite why they thought throwing the name of Jimmy Nail’s TV series Spender in the mix would do the trick I do not know.

In another tweak to the show’s format, the closing song video has been reintroduced. Up until this point, the ‘year zero’ revamp shows had finished on the No 1 single. They’ve gone for a big name to relaunch this in Prince (and the New Power Generation) who are back with new single “Sexy MF”. I say back but a Prince was so prolific it seemed like he’d never been away as he always had new material out. “Sexy MF” was the first single from the album “Love Symbol” or to give it its true title ‘unpronounceable symbol’ as depicted on the cover art of the album.

Now we all know what the ‘MF’ in the title referred to (no Mark Franklin not your name) so the single had to be heavily edited to allow radio airplay. So concerned were record company Warners that they released it in the UK as a double A-side with the more palatable track “Strollin’” but nobody played that. Interestingly, though a big No 4 hit over here, it only made No 66 in the US. Maybe it was that airplay issue.

Of course, any mention of “Sexy MF” has to prompt another viewing of this:

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Wet Wet Wet	Lip Service	No but my wife had the album
2	Madonna	This Used To Be My Playground	Nah
3	The Wedding Present	Flying Saucer	No
4	Jason Donovan	Mission Of Love	Hell no!
5	Billy Ray Cyrus	Achy Breaky Heart	Double Hell no!
6	The Shamen	LSI Love Sex Intelligence	Nope
7	Morrissey	You’re The One For Me Fatty	Negative
8	Was (Not Was)	Shake Your Head	Not the single but I bought that Best Of album it wads promoting
9	Sophie B. Hawkins	Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover	It’s a no
10	Jimmy Nail	Ain’t No Doubt	That’s another no
11	Prince and the New Power Generation	Sexy MF	I did not

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0014zvq/top-of-the-pops-16071992

TOTP 02 JUL 1992

Posted on March 8, 2022 by 80stastic

We’re jumping about in two week increments at the moment at TOTP Rewind. We’ve only had two consecutive ‘92 shows in these repeats since BBC4 reached the end of April editions. This is of course due to ‘year zero’ presenter Adrian Rose who decided not to sign the waiver paperwork for the shows he featured in. Given the abuse he regularly gets from the online TOTP community, I wonder if he still stands by that decision. He probably doesn’t give a toss does he?

Talking of decisions, a huge one had been made at the BBC which resulted in an event that took place the day after this TOTP aired. Yes, Friday 3rd July 1992 saw the last ever episode of the Wogan talk show broadcast. Its ten year tenure was finally brought to an end and saw it replaced by new BBC soap Eldorado. Remember that? It was god awful and beset with problems not the least of which was that the producers had cast some totally inexperienced actors in the roles. It lasted just 12 months before being axed. Oh and it was nothing to do with this bunch of monstrously haired pop hopefuls who were big in the mid 80s in Italy but absolutely nowhere else on the planet…

Anyway, back to Wogan and that final show. His guests included Frank Bruno, Michael Crawford and Jason Donovan who provided one of the musical interludes. In a recent article in Classic Pop magazine, regular columnist Ian Peel made a case that the Wogan archives were a treasure trove of great pop performances. Unlike TOTP, artists promoting their latest singles didn’t necessarily have to have already cracked the Top 40 and in some cases never did. This led to some wonderful footage that otherwise might never have existed. I bet Drum Theatre were on the show at some point! Anyway, might be worth a look on YouTube for some lost performances if you have too much time on your hands like me.

With that context set, let’s get on with the show. There’s only one presenter tonight (Tony Dortie) and I think this tweak of the format comes to be the standard in the weeks to come. We begin with something from the US charts and it’s Arrested Development with “Tennessee”. With the gangsta rap genre on the rise, this hip hop ensemble took rap in a different direction with a more melodic approach. They combined that with lyrical themes that espoused spirituality and freedom rather than the misogyny and street gang culture of gangsta rap. It helped to create a winning formula that propelled their debut album “3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days In The Life Of…” to sales of over 6 million copies worldwide.

Initially though, they weren’t an immediate hit in the UK. This single “Tennessee” missed the Top 40 on its original release though it would become a hit here when rereleased the following year. It took next single, the Sly & The Family Stone copying “People Everyday”, to break the dam allowing success to flood in when it hit No 2 in the charts towards the end of the year. My wife was so taken with them that she bought the album.

More a collective than a band, the project spilt in 1996 after declining sales but reformed in 2000 and have since released twelve albums. They’re currently on tour and playing a gig in my neck of the woods in Cottingham in April. There’s even talk of us going.

I can’t find a clip of the TOTP performance online so the official promo video will have to suffice.

The sound of Staffordshire rave now as Altern–8 bring us their latest dance floor banger that has the figure 8 in its title, that being their trademark and all. Well, that and the face masks and hazmat suits. “Hypnotic St-8” is their latest offering but this performance isn’t about the track at all. No, the only thing to concern us here are the two fully adidas trackied up geezers throwing some shapes behind the singer. They look proper mental. Totally off their tits. Surely that couldn’t have been faked could it? There must have been some chemical substances involved. I wonder who these guys were? Mates of the band or just some random clubheads that they picked up off the streets? The latter looks more likely given the state of them. Wow!

“Hypnotic St-8” peaked at No 16.

Due to the missed Adrian Rose shows, this is the second post running that I have to find something to say about Def Leppard and their almost unspeakable single “Make Love Like A Man”. This week it’s the promo video but it might as well be the band in the studio again as it’s just a straight performance promo intercut with some old time movie footage possibly featuring stars like Harold Lloyd or Lillian Gish though I’m no cinephile of that era so I could be wrong on that score. The song is all tongue in cheek, knockabout fun according to the band so I don’t suppose we should read too much into the film clips.

Although “Make Love Like A Man” was a big hit on the US Rock chart, the band’s ability to cross over into the US mainstream Billboard Hot 100 – as they had done in the late 80s with the “Hysteria” album – had diminished by 1992 and it only made No 36 there. UK fans were more loyal taking it to No 12.

This is more like it! Electronic hadn’t been seen on the show since “Get The Message” made the Top 10 over a year earlier but now they were back but, as Tory Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Brandon Lewis might say, in a very specific and limited way. It took five years for Bernard Sumner and Johnny Marr to record a follow up album to 1991’s eponymous debut and in the meantime the only new material we got to hear was this one off single “Disappointed”. Taken from the soundtrack to absolutely rotten live action/animation hybrid film Cool World, it featured the vocals once again of Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant who sang on their debut hit “Getting Away With It” in 1989. It’s a perfect bit of pop confection that would prove to be their biggest hit when it peaked at No 6.

Given that it’ll be years before we see them once more, I might as well tell my Johnny Marr story again. It was November 1999 – I was working as Assistant Manager at the Our Price store in Altrincham and Sacha Baron Cohen’s Ali G character is taking UK TV audiences by storm. It’s Monday morning and the Ali G ‘Innit’ video has just been released. The demand for it is very high. Our store has sold out its initial allocation by lunchtime. My colleague Lisa takes a phone call from a member of the public who is enquiring if we have any of the video in stock. She tells the caller we do but crucially without checking our stock levels. Fast forward to late afternoon and who should walk into the shop but Johnny Marr! He comes straight up to me on the counter and asks for the Ali G video. I inform him that we have sold out unfortunately. This information gets Johnny very agitated. “I rang up earlier and was told you had it in. I left the recording studio early to come and buy it” he informs me. I’m not getting given down the banks by Johnny Marr for something that’s not my fault I quickly surmise and so ring upstairs to the stockroom to find out who had taken the phone call. Lisa comes on the line and admits it was her. I ask if she checked stock levels before telling Marr we had it in and she says no she didn’t. To my utter shame I tell Lisa that she has to come downstairs, apologise and explain to Johnny Marr no less exactly what happened and why he can’t buy the Ali G video. To Lisa’s eternal credit she does exactly that. I still feel bad to this day.

By the way, this wasn’t the only single called “Disappointed” from 1992 that I liked. I even bought this one…

Just two Breakers this week and yet again neither would end up being on the show in its full form. We start with The B52s and a track which was both their new single and title track of their next album. After achieving massive unexpected (and possibly unwanted?) commercial success with the “Cosmic Thing” long player, did the band feel the pressure to come up with an equally successful follow up? It seemed like it when they released “Good Stuff” with the track itself sounding like a rewrite of their biggest hit “Love Shack”. It wasn’t that it was awful just a bit uninspired and obvious. The big difference between “Cosmic Thing” and “Good Stuff” was the crucial missing ingredient of Cindy Wilson who had taken time out from the band to start a family. Now reduced to a trio, it just didn’t work as well despite the presence of uber producers Don Was and Nile Rodgers. The album did pick up an alternative Grammy nomination but lost out to “Bone Machine” by Tom Waits which incidentally includes one of my favourite ever Waits tunes in “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up”.

Despite steady sales the album didn’t do nearly as well as its predecessor and the band would not release any new material for 15 years. “Good Stuff” the single peaked at No 21 in the UK and No 28 in the US.

Incidentally, as there are only two Breakers tonight they’re getting what seems to be double the air time that artists on this section get when there are four. Both The B-52s and second Breaker Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine get at least a minute’s worth of exposure when 30 seconds has been the norm. So to CTUSM who are really making the most of their annus mirabilis. How many hits in ‘92 have they had now? They seem to be on every other week! It’s actually the third but if you count everything since the “Sheriff Fatman” re-release in June of ‘91 then it’s five Top 40 hits in just over a year. This one is “Do Re Me So Far So Good” and was another track from their “1992 – The Love Album” long player. It’s good and all that but their tunes were all starting to merge into one a bit for me by this point.

Now, this story about Jim Bob and Fruitbat not being able to perform live as planned due to being taken ill in rehearsals. Was that true? Here’s Tony Dortie with a different version of events to the one he gave in show 30 years ago plus a retort from Jim Bob himself:

Every week with the soap dodgers stuff. And none of what you’ve said is true.
— Jim Bob (@mrjimBob) March 4, 2022

And there’s more. Here’s Jim Bob again with his own version of what went down:

#totp pic.twitter.com/OVBRpDMcs0
— Jim Bob (@mrjimBob) March 4, 2022

So who do you believe? “Do Re Me Do Far So Good” peaked at No 22.

And so to the second biggest selling single of the year in the UK. Did anybody see a Snap! revival coming in ‘92? I’m pretty sure I didn’t. After four Top 10 hits (including a No 1) in ‘90 from their “World Power” album, I thought the (ahem) ‘Cult of Snap’ was over. How wrong could I have been? I mean it’s not as wrong as Priti Patel being Home Secretary but still. Suffice to say I hadn’t read the room (or pop landscape anyway).

“Rhythm Is A Dancer” was a huge tune spending six weeks atop the charts over here. It was also No 1 all over Europe and was Top 5 in America. Of course, you can’t mention this song without reference to that lyric about being serious as cancer but it’s origins may lie with Eric B. and Rakim. Here’s @TOTPFacts with the story:

Snap weren't the first to use the dire lyric "As serious as cancer". Eric B & Rakim got there first in their 1987 track "I Ain't No Joke" ("I got a question as serious as cancer/Who can keep the average dancer…?") #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 4, 2022

OK, well if it’s going to No 1 for six weeks, I think I’ll leave it there and keep my powder dry.

Blimey! The TOTP producers loved “Hazard” by Richard Marx didn’t they?! Is this the third time it’s been on? This time it’s one of those satellite live link up jobs. Coming direct from LA, Richard is joined by a band of five very serious looking musos whilst he’s decided to come dressed as if he’s got a stint presenting Play School to do after he’s finished singing. Again I’ve drawn a blank on YouTube as this satellite performance isn’t listed so the official promo video will have to do.

Marx would eke out two more Top 40 hits from the “Rush Street” album that Tony Dortie mentions (both with the word ‘heart’ in the title) but neither came close to replicating the success of “Hazard”. A bit like when Eden Hazard never came close to replicating the form of his time at Chelsea when he moved to Real Madrid.

Now if Snap!’s comeback was unforeseen then the return of the next act must have been a 1,000,000-1 bet down at Ladbrokes. Jimmy Nail had one brief stint as a pop star in ‘85 when his version of Rose Royce’s “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore” was a No 3 hit almost certainly off the back of his success as Oz in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. Presumably his second assault on the charts was initiated by his successful TV show Spender. That had just finished its second season in February so Jimmy’s profile was high. As such, maybe it was considered to be the optimum time to give that pop lark another whirl.

Nail’s pop career mark II was to be launched on a different record label. First time round he’d been signed to Virgin but this time he was with EastWest home of Simply Red. Well, they certainly knew about massive selling albums having ‘91’s best seller in “Stars” so maybe Jimmy and his management thought they could do a job for him too. Surely though nobody involved in the project could have predicted a No 1 single which is what “Ain’t No Doubt” delivered. So long had it been since his first pop incarnation that when “Ain’t No Doubt” first started receiving airplay, people didn’t know who the singer was. This was no more evident than on Simon Mayo’s Radio 1 breakfast show. Mayo decided to play the single to the rest of his Breakfast crew to see if they could recognise the singer. Nobody could although the late Dianne Oxberry made a decent guess at The Kane Gang. Dianne was from County Durham so at least would have recognised the North East accent.

“Ain’t No Doubt” would end up as the eighth best selling UK single of the year. Not bad for a glass factory worker who’d served time in prison and who had never acted professionally until his break in Auf Wiedersehen Pet when he was already nearly 30.

A triple helping of Erasure is served up to end the show. We’ve only seen their version of “Take A Chance On Me” from the “ABBA-esque EP” so far on the show but now we get to see videos for two of the other tracks on it in “Lay All Your Love On Me” and “Voulez Vous”. Not all of the videos you understand – all three are squeezed into just over two minutes Breakers style. This was no Oasis performing “Don’t Look Back In Anger” and “Cum On Feel The Noize” or The Jam doing both “Town Called Malice” and “Precious” on the show. Still, it was an attempt to do something different or as Tony Dortie tweeted:

#totp trolling The Chart show back in day !!! Erasure hat trick
— Tony Dortie (@TonyDortie) March 4, 2022

As for the videos themselves, “Lay All Your Love On Me” has a Little Red Riding Hood motif which then morphs into Vince and Andy riding motorcycles through a forest background which reminded me of Star Wars Return Of The Jedi. You know that bit on the planet with the ewoks where there’s a chase scene between stormtroopers and…whoever it is (Han Solo?) on hover bikes (or something) against a forest backdrop? That one. All a bit odd.

I commented on the video for “Take A Chance On Me” in the last post so…

…onto “Voulez Vous” which is a behind-the-scenes take on the making of a pop video with lots of footage showing the staging that goes into a basic promo of Andy and Vince performing on a revolving circular stage. It’s OK but not the best concept I’ve ever seen for a pop video.

In response to the “Abba-esque EP”, Abba tribute act Bjorn Again released their own single of cover versions…of Erasure songs. Genius! The “Erasure-ish” featured “A Little Respect” and “Stop” and reached No 25 in the charts.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Arrested Development	Tennessee	No but my wife had the album
2	Altern-8	Hypnotic St-8	Nah
3	Def Leppard	Make Love Like A Man	Never
4	Electronic	Disappointed	Nope
5	The B52s	Good Stuff	I did not
6	Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine	Do Re Me So Far So Good	Negative
7	Snap!	Rhythm Is A Dancer	Not for me thanks
8	Richard Marx	Hazard	No
9	Jimmy Nail	Ain’t No Doubt	Undoubtedly a decent enough tune but I couldn’t bring myself to buy it
10	Erasure	ABBA-esque EP	No but I thought my wife might have

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0014zvn/top-of-the-pops-02071992

TOTP 18 JUN 1992

Posted on March 4, 2022 by 80stastic

We’ve missed yet another show due to the Adrian Rose issue and so find ourselves well into June of 1992 here at TOTP Rewind. The Euros international football tournament is well under way but England are already out having lost 2-1 to hosts Sweden two days before this episode aired. After the excitement of Italia ‘90, it was a huge disappointment for the nation but in truth the team had massively underperformed not having won a single game and scoring just one goal. Graham Taylor was vilified in the press especially by The Sun and their infamous ‘turnip’ campaign. I would never endorse anything in that publication but Taylor was not, by any metric, a successful appointment.

I was still working at the Our Price store on Market Street, Manchester at this time. There was another store in Manchester at Piccadilly above which there was office space which was used by area and regional managers for admin work. I had my initial interview as a Xmas temp there. It was also used for company events where directors were invited to come and address store employees and take questions from them about company policy, initiatives etc. At one point it also housed some unsaleable stock that needed sending back to the central warehouse in Heston, Greater London and I recall spending a day up there packing up all sorts of crap albums. It was soul destroying. The person I spent the day doing this with was called Matt who went onto be a senior product manager at EMI and now runs a campaign management company for music artists. Meanwhile, I’m currently…unemployed. I seem to remember Matt was much more conscientious in his work that day boxing up loads more than I did. There’s a lesson in there somewhere.

Anyway, that’s enough of my personal stuff…on with the show! We start with Utah Saints and their Kate Bush sampling hit “Something Good”. Watching this back, it’s interesting to note how much the performance comes over like that of a conventional rock/pop band due to the fact that there’s some actual instruments on show. There’s the energetic bass player, someone on keyboards and the bloke with the megaphone thwacking some drums. The Kate Bush vocal is taken care of via a guy on the decks spinning a picture disc of her. As such, despite it undoubtedly being a dance anthem, the TOTP producers don’t feel the need for all that garishly coloured special effects wash to be deployed as it has been in the past for dance acts on the show. It makes for a much more enjoyable experience or maybe it’s that it just appeals to my more traditional tastes. As you know I was never a ravehead.

Tonight’s presenters are Mark Franklin and…WTF? Bob Geldof?! Why?! What was going on here?! It’s true that just a few weeks before they had Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse as Smashie and Nicey guest present but that was a tie in to promote Enfield’s comedy show that was returning to BBC2 later that evening. Was Geldof there to promote something? He released his third solo album in 1992 called “The Happy Club” but it can’t have been to do with that surely? It seems there were some other guest presenters during the ‘year zero’ era. In December, Tony Dortie was joined by Mr Blobby (I kid you not) whilst several EastEnders actors took a turn but here’s Tony Dortie to explain that connection:

One of the things that isn't mentioned much is how old School #Eastenders and #totp got on so well @westbrookdanni Sid Owen wld always come n hang out for rehearsals they were also good and fun guest hosts. @deangaffney1 ledge. Albert Sq used to always have Pop star set visits
— Tony Dortie (@TonyDortie) March 4, 2022

So what was the deal with Sir Bob? Perhaps the more pertinent question is what the hell did he think he was doing with some of the comments he proceeds to make on the show? He comes across as a creepy, bitter, old bellend. Witness his first segue which is into one of those satellite link performances from the US this time with Sophie B Hawkins. “I don’t want to ask you any questions I just want to look at you” Geldof pervs. Eeeewww! Sophie just laughs nervously. What was he thinking?! Sadly it won’t be the last inappropriate comment he makes during the show. Here’s Tony Dortie again with his take on what went down:

#totp 2Bob Geldof was thoroughly unpleasant about the artistes appearing as well, just the worse ….being rude has never been in style. At the time nobody said anything cz Sir Soap dodger got given his "I'm Privileged pass"
— Tony Dortie (@TonyDortie) February 25, 2022

There’s more…

#totp I'll say it you SEXIST PIG 2Bob Geldof..you are just the worst ….you were a grown man at the time as well …
— Tony Dortie (@TonyDortie) February 25, 2022

Tony telling it how it was there. Anyway, back to the music and Sophie B Hawkins. Who was she and where had she come from? Well, she was a bit of a cultural all rounder being a singer -songwriter, musician and painter and hailed from New York City(baby!). As well as being a song title Shania Twain would pay good money for, “Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover” was her debut single and was a worldwide smash. This was one of those songs that’s all about the hook of the chorus with the verses actually being quite pedestrian. It works though; there’s even a false ending in there just to mix things up a bit. I don’t think that I picked up on the fact that the object of her affections in the lyrics is actually a woman and that the whole song is written from the perspective of the singer observing said woman in an abusive relationship and wanting to rescue her from it. Sophie comes across as quite the bohemian her bio suggests she was/is in this performance which does a good job of engaging the audience. As Mark Franklin says (and in a much more appropriate way than Geldof would have I’m sure), she seemed like a lot of fun. Not quite a one hit wonder (she had three more UK Top 40 hits), this is probably the one she is best remembered for though. It peaked at No 14.

Now if we thought that Utah Saints were subversive earlier when it came to being a dance act on TOTP when acting more like an archetypal rock band…well, we hadn’t seen anything yet! This ‘performance’ from The Orb must be one if the most outlandish in the show’s history. These ambient house innovators had already made a splash with their debut album “The Orb’s Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld” but they would become a sensation with the release of “U.F.Orb” which would go to No 1. It was previewed by the single “Blue Room” which would make history as the longest track to ever enter the UK singles chart. Clocking in at a mammoth 39 minutes, it took advantage of a change in regulations when the chart compilers allowed a maxi single to run to 40 minutes (alongside the existing 25 minute limit) as long as only one title was listed amongst the single’s tracks. It duly entered the Top 40 at No 12 before climbing to a peak of No 8.

Enough of the statistics though, let’s get to what was going down on screen. No DJs nor ponytailed fellas jigging about behind keyboards here. No, the best way to promote the track in the eyes of The Orb’s Alex Paterson and Kris Weston was to have the pair sat playing a sci-fi version of chess whilst passing a cross bearing orb between the pair of them. To pad it out a bit there’s some kaleidoscopic imagery of dolphins and some strobe lights flickering about. How to describe this performance? Avant- garde? Leftfield? Eccentric? Or maybe just plain old weird. Apparently it had a cosmic effect on Robbie Williams. Here’s @TOTPFacts:

“He thought it was so radical. He’d never seen a band come in and just dictate and piss people off so much and get away with it.” A collaboration resulted: this 1997 cover of The Bee Gees' "I Started A Joke" https://t.co/tJ0jwGircR #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 25, 2022

“Blue Room” features the guitar playing of Gong and System 7 member Steve Hillage. When working at the Our Price store in Stockport in the mid 90s, Steve was the inspiration for a saying we used if someone had a mishap with a brew. If anyone spilt their drink a cry of ‘Steve Spillage!’ could be heard. Well it amused us.

Geldof is back now having a dig at Elton John whose latest video is up next. We all knew that Elton’s hair wasn’t real but to bring it up by going on about his new wig seemed unnecessary at best especially coming from a man who was criticised himself over his appearance at the time of Band Aid/Live Aid (he was too busy for a haircut if you remember). As Elton was on just the other week, I’ll return to Tony Dortie and his tweets to cover this one…err…”The One”:

We need to do more to celebrate Elton John he is truly one of the most talented Living Musicians in the history of music since time began @eltonofficial there is nobody who doesn't like Elton #totp
— Tony Dortie (@TonyDortie) February 25, 2022

Ah. You see the thing is Tony that’s not quite true. I refer you to my comments last week about my friend Robin who dismissed all of Elton’s back catalogue as unlistenable bollocks. I was wrong about him not having a favourite Lionel Richie song though. “Three Times A Lady” was his choice which is presumably three times the song that “The One” is.

Despite 1992 being awash with dance anthems, there was still space in the UK pop landscape for a boy band. Enter Take That. Actually, was the term ‘boy band’ in use back in 1992 or am I using it retrospectively? Certainly there were groups* that attracted a predominantly female teenage fan base before then. Bay City Rollers in the 70s, Duran Duran and Bros in the 80s but were they referred to as boy bands at the time? I’m not so sure. The 90s was a boy band boom time though. Off the top of my head and not counting US groups there were the big three of Take That, Boyzone and Westlife but there were also 5ive, 911, A1, Bad Boys Inc, Upside Down, East 17 and many more probably including a number in their moniker. All of these (with the exception possibly of East 17) followed a template of pretty boys singing catchy but lightweight tunes and doing some nifty dance steps while they were at it. Their catalogue of songs would almost certainly include some cover versions.

*I’m not counting The Beatles on the grounds that the connotations of what it meant to be a boy band certainly didn’t apply to them.

I guess New Kids On The Block had shown what that set up could achieve sales wise as the new decade dawned. It was probably inevitable that the UK would find its own version of them eventually. It was just that Take That got there first. Anyway, here they are in the studio again performing “It Only Takes A Minute” again and judging by the screams of the audience, they know they’re on to a good thing. Interesting to note that even at this early stage the only other band member to get a vocal line and their own personal camera close up is Robbie Williams. Hmm. “It Only Takes A Minute” peaked at No 7.

Four Breakers this week starting with U2 and “Even Better Than The Real Thing”. The fourth single from their “Achtung Baby” album of the previous year, its original version was later eclipsed by the Paul Oakenfold Perfecto dance remix both in terms of chart peak and, for many a music lover, its artistic merit. I always liked the version as it was originally intended though. It sounded angular and dynamic propelled by another great guitar riff from The Edge, the distinctive sound of which was created by a DigiTech Whammy pitch shifter pedal which created a double octave sweep (for all you tech enthusiasts out there). The video was a Godley & Creme production with the continuous rotating footage created by a 360 degree camera rig. They certainly liked to innovate those guys. Remember the face morphing “Cry” video from 1985? “Even Better Than The Real Thing” peaked at No 12 whilst the dance mixes did even better than the real thing by going to No 8.

One of my favourite albums of 1992 was “0898” by The Beautiful South which spawned four great singles yet we hadn’t seen any of them on TOTP until now. We may have missed some appearances due to the Adrian Rose scenario I guess. That situation was finally rectified when third single “Bell Bottomed Tear” made it into the Breakers. Despite it being the biggest hit of the four peaking at No 16, we would not see it again on the show. After two faster paced singles with Paul Heaton as the main vocalist, it was the turn of Dave Hemmingway to come centre stage what with it being a ballad and all which seemed to be his forte. I say ballad though it seems to be more of a lament for a one night stand that didn’t turn into a relationship.

The final single released from the album (“36D”) was the least successful missing the Top 40 completely though was possibly the most notorious. Supposedly it was a trigger for Briana Corrigan to leave the band as she objected to it reflecting negatively on glamour models when it should have been the media that gave them the platform that was criticised. There was probably more to it than that but that was the story I heard.

A first sighting now of the best selling US girl group of all time. Yes, before Destiny’s Child, SWV and the rest came TLC and they were bigger than them all with sales of 85 million copies. With four No 1 singles and a No 1 album in America alone, no wonder the group were inducted to the Black Music & Entertainment Hall Of Fame this year alongside the likes of such legendary names as Stevie Wonder, Otis Redding and Michael Jackson. It all started with debut single “Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg” though I have to admit to not being particularly aware of it at the time despite it making No 13 in our Top 40. By the time the likes of “Creep”, “Waterfalls” and the “CrazySexyCool” album came around you couldn’t fail to notice them and I didn’t. Apparently the group’s them manager Pebbles (yes she of “Girlfriend” fame in the late 80s) makes an appearance at the end of the video for “Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg”. Tragically Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopes died in a road traffic accident in 2002.

When I think about Diana Ross in the early 90s (not that I do very often you understand) the only song that comes to mind is her No 2 hit “When You Tell Me That You Love Me”. Taken from the album “The Force Behind The Power”, it was a huge hit over Xmas of ‘91. I was therefore taken aback to learn that the album actually generated five UK Top 40 singles. “One Shining Moment” was the third of those and even made No 10. It’s a smoother sound than WYTMTYLM which always seemed just ever so slightly hysterical in its yearning but it’s also fairly unremarkable and I’m surprised it was such a big hit.

Diana (or Ms Diana Ross to use her full title) would continue to have medium sized hits in the UK throughout the decade though interestingly not in her native US – none of the singles from “Force Behind The Power” were hits there. She even had a No 1 Best Of album in this country in 1993 when “One Woman: The Ultimate Collection” was a huge seller that Xmas.

Ah shit! Geldof’s back making more asinine comments although I can’t really quibble about his target here. When Def Leppard were on the show recently with their “Let’s Get Rocked” single, I derided it as one of the dumbest songs of the decade and I was right. However, they came pretty close to topping that ‘achievement’ with its follow up “Make Love Like A Man”. I can hardly bear to hear the lyrics on this but if I have to listen to them then you can read them. Look at this horseshit:

‘Make love like a man, I’m a man that’s what I am’

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Robert John Lange / Stephen Clark / Joseph Elliott / Philip Collen
Make Love Like a Man lyrics © Out-of-pocket-prod. Ltd., Bludgeon Riffola Limited, Bmg Rights Management (uk) Ltd (primary Wave), Bludgeon Riffola Ltd

Or:

‘I’m the one (I got it) I’m Mr. Fun, (you need it) I’m Captain Cool’

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Robert John Lange / Stephen Clark / Joseph Elliott / Philip Collen
Make Love Like a Man lyrics © Out-of-pocket-prod. Ltd., Bludgeon Riffola Limited, Bmg Rights Management (uk) Ltd (primary Wave), Bludgeon Riffola Ltd

And then there’s:

‘Don’t call me gigolo, don’t call me Casanova, just call me on the phone and baby come on over’

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Robert John Lange / Stephen Clark / Joseph Elliott / Philip Collen

Make Love Like a Man lyrics © Out-of-pocket-prod. Ltd., Bludgeon Riffola Limited, Bmg Rights Management (uk) Ltd (primary Wave), Bludgeon Riffola Ltd

What. The. Fuck?! Lead singer Joe Elliott has stated that they weren’t trying to be macho with this song but rather funny. Remind me never to invite Joe round to my house if I need cheering up with a laugh. Even Elliott seems to have seen the light though. In a 2014 interview he admitted he would rather not play this song live anymore as the lyrics are a nod too stupid. No shit. Despite all of the above, did Geldof really need to introduce it with the following words:

“Here’s their new single I’d quite like to give you one big girl otherwise known as Make Love Like A Big Girl’s Blouse”? No he didn’t. What’s that? He was trying to be funny too? Add him to the list of people never to be invited around to my gaff. “Make Love Like A Man” peaked at No 12.

Erasure are No 1 with their “ABBA-esque EP”. It’s the video this week for the “Take A Chance On Me” track with Vince and Andy dressed up as Agnetha and Anna-Frid in their 70s pomp. I wonder if they argued about who would be who? Vince looks quite convincing as Agnetha, Andy not so much as Anna-Frid. I seem to remember there being a lot of praise about how amusing the video was at the time but I’m not sure if it’s retained that humour.

Geldof and Mark Franklin are reunited for the show’s ending and we discover that unbelievably the former was there to promote his latest release – a single called “Room 19 (Sha La La La Lee)”. You’ll be glad to hear that it didn’t make the Top 100.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Utah Saints	Something Good	Liked it, didn’t buy it
2	Sophie B. Hawkins	Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover	Nope
3	The Orb	Blue Room	Not really my bag
4	Elton John	The One	Nah
5	Take That	It Only Takes A Minute	No
6	U2	Even Better Than The Real Thing	No but I had the album Achtung Baby
7	The Beautiful South	Bell Bottomed Tear	No but I had the album 0898
8	TLC	Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg	Negative
9	Diana Ross	One Shining Moment	It’s another no
10	Def Leppard	Make Love Like A Man	God no!
11	Erasure	Abba-esque EP	No but my wife did…maybe

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/m0014rlm/top-of-the-pops-18061992

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

Author: 80stastic

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