80stastic

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 04 JUN 1992

Posted on March 2, 2022 by 80stastic

It’s 4th June and I’ll be 24 in two days time or rather back in time as it’s 4th June 1992 I’m talking about as we head towards the mid point of that year at TOTP Rewind. I can’t specifically remember what I got up to on the big day but it would have been a Saturday so I’m hoping I booked the day off as I am still working in the Our Price shop on Market Street, Manchester.

Staying with the birthday theme, tonight’s opening act must gave thought all theirs had come at once as after spending the previous year desperately trying to crack the charts, Take That have finally got themselves a hit. I should qualify that last bit. They had visited the Top 40 before this moment at the back end of ‘91 when second single “Promises” made No 38 but it was hardly the splash they and record company RCA had been working towards. To compound the disappointment, third single “Once You’ve Tasted Love” returned them to the status of chart flops when it peaked at No 47.

Given this, there was a lot riding on fourth single release “It Only Takes A Minute”. In fact, they were probably lucky to get a fourth chance. Despite being regulars in the pages of Smash Hits and building up a fanbase by doing a constant stream of personal appearances at nightclubs and schools, the expected breakthrough as the UK’s answer to New Kids On The Block hadn’t transpired. One further chance it was though and as we have seen countless times, the go to strategy for an act that needs a hit is to record a cover version. A 90s update on the 70s disco sound was deemed the best way to go with the source material coming from Tavares. It worked a treat with the single going Top 10 and finally confirming Take That as bona fide chart pin ups. It all seemed very cynical to me but once that gate of having a substantial hit single and all the profile it brought had been opened; well, the bull of momentum rushed through and the inevitable happened – Take That were a thing.

Not that anyone could have known at the time but their story would last for 30 years and counting so I’m not about to try and retell it here. However, my memory of their rise to fame at this time was that the perception of the band was that they weren’t really a band but a singer and some backing dancers – to be fair, Gary Barlow is singled out by his red tunic with the rest in toned down garments. That criticism was also, conversely, flipped by some to take a swipe at Barlow for not being able to do all the dance moves that the others were cranking out. To be fair to Gary here, he was trying to do a live vocal which rather impedes his capacity to do back flips. By the way, I had no idea that he was called Gary Barlow and I referred to him just as ‘blondie from Take That’. By logical extension, if I didn’t know Barlow, I can’t have known the names of any of the others either. Within a year, the whole nation would know who they all were.

“It Only Takes A Minute” peaked at No 7.

Returning to the subject of birthdays and age, next is a song that could be the theme tune for this whole blog and what I am doing with it. “Midlife Crisis” was the lead single from Faith No More’s fourth studio album “Angel Dust”. Supposedly nothing to do with a crisis of identity and confidence in later life but more about dwelling on falsely created emotions, it delivered the band their second biggest UK single success ever by peaking at No 10. Their biggest was of course a cover version of a song which was coincidentally written by an artist on the very same show tonight but more of that later.

To say that the single went Top 10, I don’t have much memory of it but listening to it now it sounds like a watered down version of earlier single “Epic” though I’m no funk metal expert by any means. The album made it as far as No 2 in the UK charts but, according to the band, is considered by the record industry and the media to have been a commercial failure. That’s even with it including that cover version that would be their biggest hit. I say ‘including’ but the original release didn’t feature it in the track listing but I’m getting ahead of myself again…

…but I’ve caught up immediately. Yes, we arrive at the artist who provided the song for Faith No More’s biggest hit already (that song being “Easy” by The Commodores). It is, of course, Lionel Richie who like me was also celebrating his birthday in the month of June and who’s in the studio to promote his recently released Best Of album “Back To Front” courtesy of the TOTP producers featuring it in the album charts section. Said album was hugely successful in the UK reaching No 1 and going four times platinum. The album showcased three new tracks including the one Lionel performs here “My Destiny”. At the time of this broadcast the track hadn’t been released as a single as another new song called “Do It To Me” had received that honour but it had stalled at No 33. When eventually issued as a single in August, “My Destiny” made the Top 10.

This scenario with songs featured in the album chart section before being released as a single in their own right and subsequently getting a slot on the show again had happened before with Simply Red and “For Your Babies”. This feature could have been so much more interesting if less obvious album tracks had been given the TOTP exposure. The show had historically always been structured around the Top 40 singles chart but having made a decision to shake that up in the ‘year zero’ revamp why not try something really different? The whole thing was probably just a reaction to what The Chart Show was doing over on ITV.

Oh and that comment by presenter Tony Dortie in his intro that everyone has their favourite Lionel Richie song? Well my friend Robin once had a heated discussion with me when I said he couldn’t just dismiss every song ever recorded by Elton John as unlistenable bollocks and he said he absolutely could as music taste is subjective. I bet Robin doesn’t have a favourite Lionel Richie song.

Next to both Claudia Simon and Tony Dortie’s favourite hit in the show tonight (they both said that separately and independently of each other). “Hazard” by Richard Marx had now progressed to the Top 10 but he still wasn’t available to do a studio performance so it’s the video we see again so we might as well talk about it. As the track itself is one of those story songs, the video plot has to follow that narrative and it duly does thereby creating a mini film in effect. Marx takes the role of the misunderstood loner who has been treated with suspicion by the town folk all his life and does it pretty well. Granted the acting required is limited to looking lost and bereft apart from a line of dialogue that’s squeezed in towards the end but even so.

Just as the song never resolved the question of who killed Mary so the video leaves that open ended also. It does however expand on Marx’s character’s background with some imagery of him as a child. The suggestion is that he has feelings for Mary but she doesn’t feel romantic about him. He then sees Mary making out with some guy in a car which also reminds him of witnessing his mother’s infidelity as a child. Was all of this enough to tip him over the edge into the act of murder? The video is shot entirely in black and white which adds to its sense of foreboding. I’d sort of dismissed “Hazard” over the years but listening to it now combined with watching the video, I’m struck by its intensity.

In a nice bit of serendipity, Marx performed “Hazard” as a duet with Gary Barlow when the latter did his crooner sessions project during the first COVID lockdown. It’s actually not bad. No really.

“Hazard” peaked at No 3.

Meanwhile back in the studio it’s Utah Saints U-U-U Utah Saints! After the Eurythmics and Gwen Guthrie sampling hit “What Can You Do For Me”, the Harrogate rock and dance splicers were back with an even better tune in “Something Good”. This was a belter and let’s be fair, it takes a fair bit of vision to think a sample of Kate Bush’s “Cloudbusting” could form an infectious hook for a dance anthem. Stand back, genius at work! I’d always been intrigued and not a little beguiled by Kate’s 1985 No 20 hit so combining it in a dance tune was always going to work for me.

As for the performance here, I love the fact that they made the guy on percussion and kettle drum do a live vocal for the ‘Utah Saints U-U-U Utah Saints’ chant. Sadly they didn’t insist on Kate being on hand to do a live vocal for the “Cloudbusting” sample. That would have been great!

“Something Good” peaked at No 4.

My pal Robin’s favourite now as Elton John returns with a new song and album both called “The One”. The 90s had been a boom time for Elton so far with his first ever solo No 1 single in “Sacrifice/Healing Hands”, a chart topping parent album in “Sleeping With The Past” (a feat he repeated with a No 1 Very Best Of album) and another single that hit the top spot in his duet with George Michael on “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me”. Phew! One in the eye for Robin there.

“The One” the album didn’t quite scale those heights though it came close being kept at No 2 for three weeks by Lionel Richie’s aforementioned “Back To Front” collection. The title track always sounded very weak to me though. It starts off with some nice piano flourishes but then just descends into a right old bore-a-thon, chugging away relentlessly as Elton wails on about ‘the one’. Not for me this one Elton; I’ll give you that one (but not the one) this time Robin.

“The One” peaked at No 10 (this is all getting a bit confusing isn’t it?)

So here it is. No not Xmas but the absolute peak of Erasure’s commercial powers. After stalling at No 2 twice before, Andy and Vince will finally get themselves a No 1 single in a week with “Abba-esque” which was in fact a four track EP rather than a single of course. Apparently the original plan was to record a whole album of ABBA covers but in the end they ditched that idea. So, those four tracks then:

“Lay All Your Love On Me”
“SOS”
“Take A Chance On Me”
“Voulez -Vous”

Overwhelmingly it was track No 3 that got the airplay and which is performed on the show tonight. The duo had already recorded an ABBA cover previously- “Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight) featured in the 12” of early single “Oh L’Amour”.

The last time they were on the show, it didn’t look as though much thought had gone into the staging of the performance but they’ve defo got their heads together about this one. The backdrop of a church ruin is the scene for Andy to don top hat and tails whilst there’s even a pulpit for the backing singers. It takes some doing to upstage all of that whilst standing with your back to the audience the whole time but I think Vince just about does so in his wedding dress. I always felt that the ragga rap breakdown went on for too long and I haven’t changed my opinion 30 years on.

Aside from a chart topping single, Erasure were also at the peak of their live powers performing twelve consecutive nights at the Manchester Apollo around this time. Sadly I never got a ticket as they sold out sharpish despite the number of gigs.

It’s the last week in the top spot for KWS with “Please Don’t Go”. Now you may at be surprised to learn (I was) that this Nottingham band weren’t classic one hit wonders. No, they had five (!) Top 40 hits all told including one in the Top 10 so we may not have seen the last of them on the show just yet. Their rise to fame got me thinking about which other artists originate from Nottinghamshire and there are a few. For a start there’s the soft rock man in motion John Parr, indie-folkster Jake Bugg, two of my mate Robin’s faves Sleaford Mids and Tindersticks and the unforgettable (or possibly unforgivable) Paper Lace of “Billy Don’t Be A Hero” fame. Can’t believe KWS didn’t cover that one.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Take That	It Only Takes A Minute	Ooh no
2	Faith No More	Midlife Crisis	Nah
3	Lionel Richie	My Destiny	Nope
4	Richard Marx	Hazard	No
5	Utah Saints	Something Good	No but I maybe should have
6	Elton John	The One	I’m with Robin on this one – no
7	Erasure	Abba-esque EP	I thought my wife bought this but I can’t see it in the singles box
8	KWS	Please Don’t Go	Negative

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/m0014rlk/top-of-the-pops-04061992

TOTP 28 MAY 1992

Posted on February 25, 2022 by 80stastic

When dance music transitioned from the clubs to the mainstream / Top 40 in a major way towards the end of the 80s, it presented TOTP with a major challenge in terms of how to feature these acts that weren’t your traditional pop stars. Mostly they weren’t up to the challenge. Then came the ‘year zero’ revamp under the stewardship of Stanley Appel. Would the new format be better suited to these problematic hits? Well, after a fair few attempts during the first eight months of the new era, the true test had arrived. The first three acts in the studio tonight are all peddling dance tunes. Given the responsibility of landing this tricky manoeuvre safely are presenters Mark Franklin and Femi Oke.

It’s straight in at the deep end with the opening act Future Sound Of London and their track “Papua New Guinea”. It turns out that there wasn’t just one person called Cobain who was making a name for himself in the early 90s musical landscape. Gary Cobain (doesn’t quite have the same ring as Kurt does it?) and Brian Dougans met as students in Manchester in their 80s with the latter pointing heavily towards what might be to come when he wrote and produced the ground breaking “Stakker Humanoid” single which was described by The Guardian as “the first truly credible UK acid techno record to break into the mainstream”. With Cobain contributing to the resulting album project, it led to the duo releasing material under various aliases until following “Stakker Humanoid” into the charts as Future Sound Of London (often abbreviated OMD like to FSOL).

Despite the fawning in the music press inkies, there was nothing for me in “Papa New Guinea”. The just didn’t get it. Apparently ot samples both Aussie art rockers Dead Can Dance and industrial electronic knob twiddlers Meat Beat Manifesto so the source material didn’t speak to me either. I did work with someone who was into Meat Beat Manifesto but she was never going to convince me of their charms.

So how did TOTP deal with the vexatious issue of showcasing an unfamiliar dance act? With a load of strobe lights and that grainy coloured overlay effect again of course. As a staging technique I thought it was weak I have to say. Oh and that blue with the stupid hat- what was that all about. @TOTPFacts sums my feelings up perfectly:

Future Sound Of London's fashion guru. #TOTP pic.twitter.com/6qAfF1rryp
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 18, 2022

So, Future Sound Of London didn’t work for me on any level. “Papua New Guinea”? Give me “Aikea-Guinea” by Cocteau Twins any day. By the way, I can’t find a clip of the TOTP performance so the official promo video will have to do.

Next to “Friday I’m In Love” by The Cure which according to a Rolling Stone magazine article is a song that has caused Robert Smith many “Wild Mood Swings” it comes to his relationship with it. At times he has hated it for the level of fame and attention it attracted even disowning it and those who like it denouncing them as not being fans of The Cure. Conversely, he has also listed it as being one of his three favourite singles by the band ever.

It’s a well worn concept; the idea that the commercial success that the artist has craved is ultimately unsatisfying when it arrives and that what really matters is their ‘art’. There must be loads of examples of this throughout rock history. Off the top of my head, The Monkees famously rejected being chart puppets to fulfil their desire to make their own music on their own terms. When it comes to disowning your biggest hits, I saw Supergrass live around the early 2000s and they didn’t play “Alright” which seemed a bit childish. Oh and REM and “Shiny Happy People” for sure.

In the light of everything above, I was surprised to learn that “Friday I’m In Love” isn’t actually the band’s highest charting single. It peaked at No 6 but three years earlier “Lullaby” had made it to No 5.

We’re back on a dance tip now with the curious case of “Raving I’m Raving”. The Wedding Present spent 1992 entering the higher end of the Top 40 before crashing out immediately due to the limited amount of copies of each single that were pressed as part of their “Hit Parade” project. Shut Up And Dance had a similar chart arc but for a very different reason.

Formed in 1988, this electronic dance duo had released a series of idiosyncratically titled singles such as “Dance Before The Police Come” and “Autobiography Of A Crackhead” before hitting on the idea of basing their next release on Marc Cohn’s “Walking In Memphis”. Keeping the melody but replacing some of the original’s lyrics with the word raving (“put on my raving shoes” and of course the single’s title), it created a huge amount of interest and initial sales were enough to send it straight into the charts at No 2. Genius! Or was it?

Sadly for Shut Up And Dance founders PJ and Smiley (who heard Duncan when reading that last word?) they had failed to get copyright clearance from Cohn who soon got his lawyers on the case. Despite offers to give any royalties to charity, Cohn wasn’t having any of it and insisted that no further pressings of the single were made meaning that it was essentially deleted as soon as it came out. With no more copies available, the single dropped like a stone even to No 15 and then out of the chart altogether. The whole thing was over in three short but eventful weeks.

This TOTP performance was ultimately pointless in terms of increasing sales of the single as there were no more copies left to sell. That and the fact that Cohn wouldn’t even let them perform the track on TV hence we get a completely different song without the original melody or reworked Cohn lyrics. It’s just a different song altogether. Madness! For me, it wasn’t that the whole legal issue made the project a non starter – I didn’t get why it was seen as such a great idea in the first place. It almost seemed like a novelty song to my ears.

As for how TOTP dealt with the band’s appearance on the show, the smoke machines were put in full whack, there’s a lot of arm waving from both the studio audience and the artist (whose vocalist is doing his best Seal impression) and a computer graphic effect whereby the female singer has her head size reduced in ever decreasing frames. It’s all a bit rubbish really….like the song itself. Interestingly, they do try and address the fact that the ring featured isn’t the one that people went out and bought by having presenter Femi Oke describe it as the “TOTP remix”. That wasn’t fooling anybody though.

Yay! It’s Kriss Kross with “Jump” next! The heavy emphasis on the guys ;plus video extras) you know…jumping…with the associated jerky camera angle puts me in mind of “Jump Around” by House Of Pain but performed by Musical Youth perhaps.

What is it that they are actually rapping about? Apart from jumping obviously. Well the lyrics include lines like ‘bull crap is what I’m dumpin’ (ooer!) and ‘I love when a girl is like jockin’ which seems to mean a number of things from obsessing over someone with intense affection to copying the likeness of. I’m guessing it’s the latter here with Mack Daddy or indeed Daddy Mack liking it when girls copy their rapping… or dance moves…or even wearing their jeans back to front of course.

“Jump” peaked at No 2.

Meanwhile back in the studio we find…yes, another dance act. This time it’s Bassheads back again to follow up their Top 5 hit “Is There Anybody Out There?”. This time they’ve gone “Back To The Old School” but shouldn’t that be “Back To The Old Skool”? I found some reviews of the track online that describe it as having ‘massive old skool (yes spelt like that) break house beats’and being a ‘proper killer tune’. Like Ted on The Fast Show, I wouldn’t know anything about that sir – this sort of stuff really want my favourite subject at skool.

As for the staging of the performance, there’s loads more dry ice, a close up of a DJ type fella shouting “How’s everybody feelin’ out there?“ and at one the band are clearly asked to move about in slow motion so some visual effects can be added to make it look like they are leaving some kind of vapour trail behind each movement. It may have looked impressive in 1992 I guess but it looks plain dreadful today.

“Back To The Old School” peaked at No 12.

If I knew anything about the UK soul/ R’n’B scene of the early 90s then I would know all about this next artist. However, I didn’t and don’t and so have relied upon Wikipedia for this one. Don–E was actually Donald McLean (nothing to do with the “American Pie” hitmaker obvs) and he was quite the all rounder writing, producing and playing on his debut album “Unbreakable” from which this single “Love Makes The World Go Round” was taken.

One of the reasons I don’t know anything about this guy is because I don’t remember him at all. Nothing. Zip. Listening to him now, he’s got a definite Stevie Wonder flavour to him and puts me in mind a bit of Omar of “There’s Nothing Like This” fame. Ah now then. I’ve just got to the hit in his bio on Wikipedia that says he duetted with Omar on a track on his 2005 album “Try This”. I swear down I hadn’t read that before my earlier Omar reference.

That 2005 release was his first album for 10 years as his solo career had stalled after his initial success with “Love Makes The World Go Round” and he’d focussed instead on writing for and producing other artists. He seems to combine those duties and releasing his own material these days.

Three Breakers this week none of which would be seen in the show again. What a nonsense this feature has become. We start with Cud. I know at least one person who swears by these Leeds indie rockers but I only really know this single (“Rich And Strange”) I must admit. I did like it though. Just that right balance of leftfield yet tuneful with a driving guitar riff that reminds me of The Pixies.

It was taken from their third album “Asquarius” which was actually their first album for major label A&M having released their previous material on indie Imaginary Records. Wikipedia tells me that they referred to their sound as something called ‘Lion Pop’ which is a new genre on me. It seems to have been some sort of precursor to Britpop as far as I can make out though I don’t recall Cud being mentioned in that now much maligned bracket probably because they split in 1995. They reformed in 2006 and apparently Embrace (whom I love) keyboard player Mickey Dale is an occasional member of their line up. The things you learn from Wikipedia.

“Rich And Strange” peaked at No 24.

Mr. Big had more than one hit over here? I would have bet money on “To Be With You” being their only chart entry but here they are with something called “Just Take My Heart”. Obviously it’s terrible. In fact, is there a case to be made that at this very point in rock history that Mr. Big were the worst band in the world? Judging by this and their previous hit, they were certainly the most boring. Just look at some of the lyrics to this one:

‘I can’t imagine living my life after you’ve gone; wondering why so many questions have no answers’

My God! A love lorn teenager would be embarrassed by that and yet it was deemed good enough to be recorded as an actual song that would get played on the radio! Even their videos were terminally tedious. Just the band performing the song on black and white film. Mr.Big? Mr.Big Log more like.

“Just Take My Heart” peaked at Number No 26. They were never to be seen on the UK Top 40 again.

And now for something completely different…and far more interesting. For all the talk of the rise of grunge rock in the early 90s, we haven’t actually seen that much of it in TOTP. Look at this show for example – it’s like a bloody rave is going down in the studio! To rebalance that, here comes an all female band that were definitely and defiantly here to play some grimy, kick ass, heavy punk rock.

Although not actually from Seattle (they were from LA in fact) L7 seemed to be inextricably linked to grunge possibly because some of their early material was released on legendary label Subpop home of grunge protagonists Soundgarden, Mudhoney and of course Nirvana. That link was strengthened by the fact that their third album “Bricks Are Heavy” was produced by Bitch Vig, the man nicknamed ‘the never mind man’ for his work on Nirvana’s stellar second studio album.

From that album came this single “Everglade” a high speed riot of their brand of punk infused heavy metal. To think that within four years, the concept of all female band would have morphed into the template that allowed the Spice Girls to dominate planet pop.

Of course, along with their music there was an uncompromising attitude and approach that would lead to a number of unforgettable controversies. I was among the disbelieving TV audience that Friday night watching anarchic Channel 4 TV show The Word when lead vocalist Donita Sparks whipped down her jeans and knickers to finish performing “Pretend We’re Dead” nude from the waist down. This incident occurred on the same show that they had a secret camera in Oliver Reed’s dressing room which Donita thought was pretty shitty so she thought she’d add her own brand of f****d up anarchy to the chaos. Watching it back I felt sorry for the bass player who thinks she’s stealing the show by mounting the drum rider only to trim around and see Sparks with her fanny out! As one of the user comments in the clip below just so succinctly puts it – ‘Gash!’ How nice.

This week’s ‘exclusive’ performance comes from Lisa Stansfield who’s flown in from Berlin to be on the show according to presenter Mark Franklin. I’m not sure it was worth the flight. Lisa has a fine voice but this single (“Set Your Loving Free”) didn’t have a lot going for it to my ears. I’ve only just watched Lisa’s performance of it and already I’ve forgotten how it goes. Bland doesn’t cover it. No it really doesn’t- I’m going to have to find another word. Dreary? No. Lacklustre? Nope. Vapid? Yes, vapid is the word.

It was the fourth single taken from her “Real Love” album. If you’re going to release four tracks from an album, by the time you get to the fourth it needs to be a memorable tune I say. Unfortunately “Set Your Loving Free” wasn’t. The daft thing is that there was a great song on the album that went unreleased…

“Set Your Loving Free” only made it to No 28 but Lisa returned at the end of the year with a track that must have made her a fair wad over the years; not because it was a chart topper…ahem…all around the world (it peaked at No 10 in the UK) but due to the fact that it was included on the best selling soundtrack of all time. I refer to The Bodyguard of course with Lisa’s contribution being “Someday (I’m Coming Back)”. Nice work if you can get it.

And so to the No 1 which again is a dance tune of sorts though nothing to do with that mad ‘raving’ nonsense. KWS are into their fourth week at the top with their cover of KC And The Sunshine Band’s “Please Don’t Go”.

I said in a recent post that there was some legal controversy over this record and so there was. A very similar version had been recorded by German dance act Double You who had big hit with it all over Europe. Wanting to get a slice of the action, indie label Network Records sought distribution rights for the single in the UK but failed to secure them. Their solution was to get an act of their own to record it and put that out instead. Enter KWS. It proved to be a winning move with a UK No 1 disc and US Top Tenner. Pushing their luck, it was released in Germany and went to No 7 before legal action from Double You forced it to be withdrawn from sale. It fell out of the charts the following week making it the single with the highest position to drop out of the national charts ever. Does any of this sound familiar? For Double You read Marc Cohn and for KWS read Shut Up And Dance. 1992 was a good year to be a lawyer in the music industry.

Ghjj

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Future Sound Of London	Papua New Guinea	Certainly not
2	The Cure	Friday I’m In Love	Not the single but I have it on a Greatest Hits CD of theirs
3	Shut Up And Dance	Raving I’m Raving	Hell no
4	Kris Kross	Jump	It was fun but not a purchase
5	Bassheads	Back To The Old School	I literally rather would have gone back to school – no
6	Don-E	Love Makes The World Go Round	Nah
7	Cud	Rich And Strange	Liked it, didn’t ‘t buy it
8	Mr. Big	Just Take My Heart	No no no….
9	L7	Everglade	See 7 above
10	Lisa Stansfield	Set Your Loving Free	No chance
11	KWS	Please Don’t Go	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/m0014j5w/top-of-the-pops-28051992

TOTP 14 MAY 1992

Posted on February 22, 2022 by 80stastic

In the last post, as it featured Curiosity aka Curiosity Killed The Cat, I tried to fit in a few feline themed comments. Well, guess what? My research tells me that immediately after this TOTP was broadcast, we saw the last ever appearance on Eastenders of Ethel’s dog Willy on our screens before he retired. Sadly for Willy, his retirement was short lived as he passed away just two weeks into it. All of this means I can use dear old Willy as an excuse for a dog themed post. Be prepared for lots of ‘the dog’s bollocks’, ‘canine cahoonas’, ‘every dog has its day’ etc.

We start tonight with the follow up to one of the year’s biggest hits. “Stay” by Shakespear’s Sister spent eight weeks at No 1 and although the duo’s next single also went Top 10, you very rarely hear it on the radio these days such was the ubiquity of its predecessor. It’s not as if ”I Don’t Care” doesn’t have its merits either. A pop song that really bounces along yet is quirky enough to elevate it above the bog standard. I’m not wavered by accusations of sounding a bit too like “Don’t Get Me Wrong” by The Pretenders (it does) as it’s got enough of a bark (oh, here we go!) to make itself heard in its own right. In fact, it’s even got a highfalutin intellectual element to it. Here’s @TOTPFacts:

The spoken bit in "I Don't Care" is "Hornpipe", a poem by Dame Edith Sitwell. It's one of a series of studies in word-rhythms and onomatopoeia, designed to be read to musical accompaniment, and first performed in 1922: https://t.co/NbsjZbDuCz #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 18, 2022

The performance here continues with the theme of Detroit and Fahey being oppositional to each other. They couldn’t be more contrasting with Marcella all sharp, angular haircut and tight control of her guitar and Siobahn… well I’m not sure what look she was going for but I’m guessing it wasn’t the one in my head which was as Aunt Sally after a night on the grog with her pal Worzel Gummidge.

“I Don’t Care” peaked at No 7.

If it’s 1992 then it must be time for another chart hit by The Wedding Present. Of the twelve “Hit Parade” singles released by the band in this calendar year, “Come Play With Me” would be the highest charting when it made it to No 10. My memory of working in a record shop whilst this project played out was that there was huge punter demand initially but that fans got fed up of it eventually, trying to track down these limited release singles or pre-ordering them every month, sometimes having to put down a deposit. This is just about borne out by the arc of the chart peaks achieved by each release:

26-20-14-14-10-16-22-19-17-17-23-25

OK, it’s not a perfect parabola but I think there’s a definite peak about half way through followed by a tailing off as the year comes to a close.

There’s no studio appearance this time presumably because the band were on tour as host Claudia Simon references so it’s the video instead. It strikes me that both the promo and indeed the song are almost The Wedding Present doing their best Beautiful South impression. No? Just me then. This was my peak The Wedding Present era. Not because I was one of those hardy souls trying to purchase every one of those limited edition singles but because this was the time I most resembled David Gedge. I was just about to be 24, I was lean and my hair didn’t have a wisp of grey in it. I may have even had something approaching cheekbones. These days…well let’s just say I have not been unaffected by the travails of middle age! Even in dog years I’d now be considered a senior.

Next a band who had been absent for the whole of 1991. Del Amitri had presumably spent the previous year recording new material and “Always The Last To Know” was the first of it that we got to hear. The lead single from their third album “Everything Changes”, this sounded to me like a distinct attempt to write a hit single and they pulled it off perfectly. A Rolling Stones-esque opening riff led into a well executed pop song that was perfect for daytime radio about the realisation that your partner has been unfaithful. Supposedly it’s one of author Stephen King’s favourite ever songs – “It’s so goddamn sad” he told Rolling Stone magazine. I wouldn’t say I was in total agreement with King – it’s not one of my favourite ever songs – but I liked it enough to buy the single. I’d liked most of their stuff that I’d heard before without ever being compelled to purchase any of it but I caved on this one.

The album would prove to be the band’s most successful going all the way to No 2 and generating four Top 40 singles of which “Always The Last To Know” was the biggest peaking at No 13. And that huge, sheepskin jacket that Justin Currie is wearing under hot studio lights? Here’s @TOTPFacts again:

"In a desperate attempt to keep me fit, we got some nurse to come out and give me an injection in the arse – some vitamins which didn’t do any good whatsoever… So I ended up with that stupid sheepskin thing because I was really freezing and sweating." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 18, 2022

If I think of the year 1992 in terms of the Top 40 singles chart, this next song always comes to mind. It wasn’t always like that. The first time I ever heard the name Kris Kross was when some young lad came up to the counter and asked if we had anything by them in stock. I thought he meant “Sailing” and “Arthur’s Theme” hitmaker Christopher Cross. This lad must have been listening to the US charts where Kris Kross were tearing it up. Their debut single “Jump” would be No 1 there for eight weeks.

Of course, there are two things that have to be mentioned when discussing Kris Kross – their ages and their jeans. Chris ‘Mac Daddy’ Kelly and Chris ‘Daddy Mac’ Smith were only 13 years of age when they had their biggest success after being discovered by record producer Jermaine Dupri in a shopping mall. Dupri wrote “Jump” for the duo which would go on to be the fastest selling single in the US for 15 years. Inevitably it would crossover to the UK market where we were unable to resist its Jackson 5 bass line and high speed raps.

We also seemed unable to resist their penchant for wearing their jeans back to front. In some cases literally. The duo were scheduled to do a PA at the Our Price store in Piccadilly, Manchester just up the road from where I worked in the Market Street store and the manager there couldn’t stop the staff from wearing their jeans Kris Kross style. My recollection is that they never turned up to the PA for some reason but I could be wrong. They called their fashion style ‘totally krossed out’ which was also the name of their debut album that topped the US charts and went four times platinum. We were only focussed on the single here though which was bought in enough quantities to send it to No 2. The album by contrast peaked at No 31.

As is often the case with child stars who found fame and celebrity so early in their lives, the Kris Kross story ended in tragedy when Chris Kelly died in 2013 at the age of just 34 after an extensive history of drug abuse.

Just a slight pause before the next act to make an observation about the staging of the show tonight. The hosts for this one are Mark Franklin and Claudia Simon but you’d be forgiven for that fact having passed you by. After we see the pair on screen after the Shakespear’s Sister performance at the top of the programme introducing the Top 10 countdown, apart from a brief glimpse of Mark as he introduces the Breakers, we only see them again at the end of the show (and even then as images on TV screens). All their segues have been voice overs and as for the link between Del Amitri and Kris Kross…there wasn’t one! Nothing. Just the camera sliding over from one stage to the other. What was that all about?

They’re still not on screen as we head into the next song which is “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)” by En Vogue. The video for this won an MTV Video Music Award for best choreography. I’m not sure if that relates to the group’s moves or those of the featured dancers one of whom appears to be in full on gimp clobber but which Wikipedia informs me is actually a zentai suit and are often used for video special effects. Talking of which, I quite like the fact that at one point in the video the group are shown against just a blue background. I’m sure today that would be a green screen with all sorts of imagery going in behind them as they strutted their stuff.

“My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)” peaked at No 4 in the UK.

Some Disney schmaltz now and our very first sighting of a singer who would come to dominate / blight (delete as appropriate) the UK charts throughout the 90s. For their 30th animated film, Disney chose the 1756 fairy tale Beauty And The Beast by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont as its source material. To promote the film, they decided to release the title track from the soundtrack as a single. Not the actual track from the soundtrack featuring the vocals of Angela ‘Murder She Wrote’ Lansbury though. No, they wanted it re-recorded for a pop audience and so settled on Canadian balladeer Celine Dion. Unsure though that she was well known enough globally to promote the song, they roped in Peabo Bryson to record it as a duet. Peabo of course is the go to guy for male/female duets. You may recall his ghastly 1983 No 2 hit “Tonight I Celebrate My Love” with Roberta Flack but he’s also collaborated with Natalie Cole and Minnie Riperton amongst others.

As the performance begins, Celine walks on stage against a backdrop showing a motif of the film. It’s not the Celine that we would get used to seeing as the decade progressed and her hits stacked up though. That massive 80s style hair! Eventually Peabo ambles on to join in but the whole thing is so anodyne that the performance has to be propped up with some video clips from the film.

Within two years Celine would be at No 1 with some proper dog shit called “Think Twice” whilst Peabo would score another Disney hit later in 1992 with “A Whole New World” from Aladdin which was, yes you guessed it, a duet with Regina Belle.

“Beauty And The Beast” peaked at No 9 in the UK and won an Academy Award for Best Song.

Three Breakers this week starting with a song that seemed to receive praise and criticism in equal measure. For some, “Everything About You” by Ugly Kid Joe was the missing link between the dumb ass joy of hair metal and the nihilism of grunge rock. For others, it was just a joke record, an opinion reinforced by its inclusion in the goofball comedy Wayne’s World. And me? I just accepted it as the knockabout fun I perceived it to be and didn’t mind it.

These Californian rockers took their name from spoofing LA glam band Pretty Boy Floyd (see what they did there?) and the inspiration for “Everything About You” from their friend Farrell T. Smith’s cynical take on life – we all know someone like that don’t we? The single was a Top 10 hit in the US but an even bigger hit over here where it went Top 3. Often thought of as a one hit wonder, they actually had a second hit the following year when their cover of Harry Chapin’s “Cat’s In The Cradle” was a UK No 7. Hang on, “Cat’s In The Cradle”? How’s that helping with my dog theme for this post? What’s that? There’s a sheepdog in the video for “Everything About You”? Oh well, that’s OK then.

I have a memory that at the time, the only other Ugly Kid Joe product that you could buy in addition to the single was an EP called “As Ugly As They Wanna Be”. Now I seem to remember that “Everything About You” wasn’t included in its six tracks causing some disappointment to punters but Wikipedia tells me it was. Yet when I checked the EP out on Spotify it isn’t included. ‘Goofy’ or what?

Saint Etienne were achingly trendy back in 1992 it seemed to me, at least with a lot of the Our Price colleagues I worked with but being fashionable hadn’t yet translated into chart success. Even record label Heavenly weren’t overly convinced of their charges commercial potential; so much so that when the band argued for their track “People Get Real” to be their next single release, they refused without there being a much more commercial track to go with it as a double A-side.

Undaunted, the band came up with “Join Our Club”, a song written to highlight how commercially viable they could be. To that end they referenced contemporary hits in the lyrics like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and some classics like Stevie Wonder’s “Don’t You Worry ‘bout A Thing” (itself soon to be a current hit courtesy of Incognito). The result was a joyous anthem perfect for the forthcoming Summer.

The single rose to a high of No 21 in the charts becoming at a single stroke their biggest hit to date at that time.

The final Breaker is one of those ‘story’ songs’ from Richard Marx. I know at least one person for whom “Hazard” is a guilty pleasure not to be widely publicly acknowledged. Marx had a shit load of huge hits (or a huge load of shit hits if you prefer) in America but in the UK, he was barking up the wrong tree (nice). His only significant chart success over here came in 1989 with “Right Here Waiting”. The chances of him bagging a huge, chart munching hit single as the 90s we’re getting under way seemed remote at best. Factor in it being about the disappearance of a young woman with the main suspect being the singer of the song and well…Ladbrokes would have struggled to work out the odds. And yet…here he was back in our Top 40 and on TOTP.

There’s no denying it, “Hazard” is a weird song and even Marx himself wasn’t convinced – he only recorded it to disprove his wife’s conviction that it would be a hit. His wife (actress Cynthia Rhodes) was right and bizarrely, after years of ignoring his music that the US lapped up, it was a bigger hit here (No 3) than over the pond (No 9). In its wake came a trickle of middling to minor hits but nothing ever came close to replicating “Hazard”.

Marx does seem to be a decent sort though. In 2016, he helped Korean Air flight attendants pacify an unruly passenger and then took on Piers Morgan in a Twitter spat over his soft interviewing of then US President Donald Trump.

Back in the studio we find Ce Ce Peniston giving an ‘exclusive’ performance of her new single “Keep On Walkin’”. I really don’t have much to say about this one. I certainly don’t remember it – surely Ce Ce is pretty much just remembered for “Finally” – and it sounds like an unremarkable pop/dance/RnB number. Indeed, so unremarkable is it that the TOTP production team felt the need to intercut Ce Ce’s turn here with snatches of the official promo… which is just Ce Ce performing the song. Yes, the video mirrors what we are actually witnessing in the studio. What was the point of that? She’s even wearing a similar style jacket in both, only the colour is different.

“Keep On Walkin’” peaked at No 20 in the UK and was a No 1 on the US Dance chart.

We arrive at the current UK chart topper via another sound only presenter segue and a panoramic camera angle. Right Said Fred have been deposed to be replaced by…KWS? Who were these guys? Well, they were a dance act from Nottingham who got lucky with their cover of KC And The Sunshine Band’s 1979 hit “Please Don’t Go”. It was one of those hits that came from out of nowhere, a real club tune that went mainstream. They got into the Top 40 on limited airplay let alone any TV appearances before rising almost unnoticed to the top of the charts in just three weeks. At that point, we finally got to see them as TOTP had to give the No 1 act its rightful exposure. They have that feel of an act who have been performing at Butlins who suddenly find themselves plucked from obscurity and thrust into stardom. They can’t believe their luck.

“Please Don’t Go” is one of those songs that feels immediately familiar even if you don’t know who made the original. That’s how it felt to me anyway the first time I heard KWS’s version. Did I know that it was originally performed by KC at the time? Not sure I did. I definitely knew their unlikely 1983 No 1 “Give It Up” and “That’s The Way (I Like It)” from Dead Or Alive’s hi-energy cover from the following year but I must have also heard “Please Don’t Go” at some point without properly registering it as a KC tune. Apparently there were some legal issues surrounding a German act who had released their own version at the same time but we’ve got a few weeks of KWS at No 1 so that story can wait for another post.

And that’s that. All the dog poo has been scooped up and it’s time to put it in the bin. OK. That’s unfair. Not all the acts on tonight’s show were excrement – I bought at least one of them – but I need to bring this dog theme to an end somehow.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Shakespear’s Sister	I Don’t Care	Nope
2	The Wedding Present	Come Play With Me	No
3	Del Amitri	Always The Last To Know	Yes – this is in my singles box
4	Kriss Kross	Jump	Fun but not purchase worthy
5	En Vogue	My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)	Yes this is in the singles box and well though I think my wife actually bought it
6	Celine Dion and Peabo Bryson	Beauty And The Beast	Never happening
7	Ugly Kid Joe	Everything About You	See 4 above
8	Saint Etienne	Join Our Club	Negative
9	Richard Marx	Hazard	Nah
10	Ce Ce Pension	Keep On Walkin’	I’d rather take out dog for a walk in the pissing wind
11	KWS	Please Don’t Go	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/m0014j5t/top-of-the-pops-14051992

TOTP 30 APR 1992

Posted on February 17, 2022 by 80stastic

It’s the last day of April 1992 at TOTP Rewind and the UK charts are in the middle of a run of being topped by eleven different albums by eleven different artists in consecutive weeks. This was due partly to the release schedules being full of new albums being released by established artists including Bruce Springsteen, Def Leppard and The Cure. I’ll include Annie Lennox in that category as well despite “Diva” being her debut solo album. Right Said Fred’s “Up” made it to the top spot off the back of “Deeply Dippy” giving them a No 1 double whammy. There are two Greatest Hits albums in there courtesy of Madness and Lionel Richie, a loyal fan based generated chart topper from Iron Maiden, a Eurovision Song Contest driven album from the UK’s entry Michael Ball and of course the ubiquitous Simply Red. The only album in this sequence that was a real surprise came from Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine.

The singles chart was stagnant by comparison with only twelve different songs making it to No 1 all year, the lowest number since 1962. Were any of this week’s offerings on TOTP amongst them? Well, yes obviously there’s this week’s actual No 1 but apart from that is obviously what I meant!

We start with Marc Almond whose version of “The Days Of Pearly Spencer” is ripping up the charts and currently residing in the No 4 spot. Host Tony Dortie promotes it as a future No 1 later on. Was his prediction correct? Well, *SPOILER* no but No 4 was a damn fine effort by Marc. With the exception of his No 1 in 1989 with Gene Pitney, his biggest ever solo hit before this was his cover of Jacques Brel’s “Jacky” which peaked at No 17.

Like Vanessa Williams the other week, Marc is backed by a seated orchestra in full performance dress code. The effect is rather spoilt though as Marc is isolated away from the orchestra on a small circular stage and surrounded by the studio audience clapping along enthusiastically. The sound of the hand claps is rather incongruous drowning out as it does the strings of the orchestra. Marc gives a professional turn though, all serious mannerisms and intense staring at the camera.

Marc would only make the UK Top 40 would more time in 1995 with “Adored And Explored” but continues to release material both in his own right and as part of a rejuvenated Soft Cell.

It’s another one of those live satellite link ups next. I’m not sure they have quite been the success that new producer Stanley Appel must have hoped they would be. It all seems very clunky and the talky bits between the presenters and artist are excruciating. That’s if they can even hear each other. In the last such link up, either Roxette couldn’t hear guest hosts Smashie and Nicey due to a technical fault or they were ignoring them.

This week’s ‘satellite’ artist are En Vogue who are coming at us live from LA on the legendary Soul Train TV show. We hadn’t seen En Vogue for a whole two years since their debut hit single “Hold On”. I’d pretty much forgotten all about them but suddenly they were back with a track that would become another huge success in “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)”.

I remember not being sure about this track when I first heard it – I think it was all those ‘ooh bops’ and that a capella breakdown half way through. It was a bit too far removed from my pop sensibilities. However, my wife loved it and I can see why now. If you Google this song, the word that keeps coming up in all the online reviews is ‘sassy’ and it’s a spot on description. These ladies were all about sassy and female empowerment.

The lead single from their “Funky Divas” album, it was a hell of a way to announce that they were back. A No 2 hit in the US and No 4 in the UK, this wasn’t even the best single released from the album for me with that honour going to anti-prejudice anthem ”Free Your Mind”.

Their performance here is great but was it live? It almost sounds too perfect. Maybe you could get away with miming if you weren’t actually in the TOTP studio and therefore didn’t have to abide by the live vocal policy? I’m sure that’s the loophole that Boris Johnson’s legal team would be pursuing.

At the start of this post I commented on how the album charts were being dominated by established artists but was that true of the Top 40 singles? Well, in this show we’ve got some R’n’B, some goth rock, some metal, two 80s acts showing there was still life in them into the 90s and…erm… Right Said Fred. And this lot who presenter Claudia Simon described as when rave meets reggae whilst also claiming that TOTP brought us all kinds of music. Hard to dispute that given tonight’s running order. Fellow presenter Tony Dortie said it was his favourite current Top 40 hit. SL2 were the act that were the apple of Tony’s eye and their hit was “On A Ragga Tip”. This was the second consecutive hit for these London hardcore ravers after 1991’s “DJs Take Control /Way In My Brain” and would be the biggest of their career when it peaked at No 2.

Not being much of a rave nor reggae fan, this didn’t really do anything for me. Apparently it’s built around a sample from Jah Screechy called “Walk And Skank”. I’ve no idea who Jah Screechy is or was but I’m betting that you can’t see his song title for the first time without doing a double take after reading it as something else completely!

In this performance the dancer on the left clearly loses her place in her moves at one point and has to count herself back in. Don’t get me wrong, they’re impressively complicated steps but it was quite noticeable.

What’s the difference between The Beatles and The Sisters Of Mercy? Yes, obviously one were the lovable mop tops who’s sound ate the world and the others are some dour goths from Leeds but that’s not what I meant. No, I was after the answer that one gave up touring to concentrate on recording studio albums and the other gave up recording studio albums to concentrate on touring. Incredibly, Andrew Eldritch and co have not released any new material since 1993 due to a dispute with their record label EastWest. The band went on strike against the label in 1993. Why? It seems to be about accusations against the label of incompetence including a disastrously planned tour with Public Enemy. Unfortunately for the Sisters, they still owed the label two albums according to their contract and were forced to re-record 1983 single “Temple Of Love” as “Temple Of Love 92” for a compilation of their early back catalogue called “Some Girls Wander By Mistake”. To jazz it up a bit (can you jazz up goth rock?) they’ve got in Ofra Haza of “Im Nin’alu” fame on backing vocals.

This version went straight into the charts at No 3 which seemed slightly surprising to me back then and still does today. In my teenage years, going goth was a cool statement to make. I flirted with the fringes of it but never quite had the conviction to dye my hair black so I’m hardly a knowledgeable commentator on this but it still seems an unlikely chart high. Maybe I’m doing them a disservice. I’m sure they had/have a loyal fan base of hardcore devotees.

A second compilation album, “A Slight Case Of Overbombing”, released in 1993 covered the band’s back catalogue from 1984 onwards but their recording contract stipulated that they still owed EastWest two studio albums. In the end, the label accepted two albums under the moniker of SSV which were a project constructed by Eldritch just to fulfil their contractual obligations. The albums consisted of just some synths, no percussion and some mumbled, spoken word vocals by Eldritch on a loop. EastWest accepted the master tapes without listening to them first. The recordings were never released. This story reminds me of that scene in 24 Hour Party People where Shaun Ryder and Happy Mondays manager Nathan meet Tony Wilson in Dry bar in Manchester to deliver the master tapes for the band’s eagerly awaited “Yes Please” album. Listening to the tapes, Wilson starts getting into the first track until he realises there are no vocals on them with Ryder and manager giggling in the background as they’ve spent all the money Wilson fronted for the album to be recorded in Barbados on drugs.

Eldritch looks here like he’s been to a health spa since the last time we saw him on the show when he looked like a living waxwork. I guess even goth rock gods have to grow up eventually .

I guess there was no way that TOTP wasn’t going to show Michael Jackson’s video for “In The Closet” again given the chance. Although it’s only at No 8 in the charts, that’s good enough for a second outing for it. The track was actually credited to ‘Michael Jackson and Mystery Girl’ the latter of whom provides some whispered vocals in the middle. It turns out that was Princess Stéphanie of Monaco who had a brief career as a pop star in the 80s but who was completely washed up by 1992. Maybe she thought she could relaunch herself off the back of this Jackson track. If so, might have been BBC a good idea to get yourself a proper credit rather than a lame pseudonym. Hands up who else now has the execrable “Mysterious Girl” by Peter Andre in their head after reading the above paragraph? Many apologies.

Now this next link was unusual. The Cure were meant to be playing in the studio performing “Friday I’m In Love” according to Tony Dortie but there’s a problem. Singer Robert Smith is not available due to illness so they’re going to have to play the video instead. Nothing that out of the ordinary except…why are band members Simon Gallup and Perry Bamonte in the studio to deliver this news? Was Robert taken ill at the very last moment? What gives? Simon and Perry look they’d rather be bungee jumping into a live volcano than being interviewed on TOTP. They also don’t seem too convincing with their story. Were they not on the level? Here’s @TOTPFacts:

So… was Robert Smith really "not very well"? At The Cure's Nottingham Rock City gig on 27 April 1992 he asked the audience whether or not they should bother doing it. The majority of the audience said no… #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 11, 2022

Cheeky scamps! As for their song, this is surely one of the band’s most radio friendly and therefore well known singles. The chaotically simple video with its fast cuts, set pieces and ever changing backdrop curtains just adds to its charm and won an MTV Video Music Award. The Cure were never as big commercially again as they were in this moment but then Robert Smith probably wouldn’t have had it any other way.

They’ve moved the Breakers again back to that incongruous position just before the No 1. There’s also four of them which is deeply unhelpful to this blogger who is already behind schedule writing up all these TOTP repeats. The intro for this feature sees Tony Dortie and Claudia Simon as disembodied heads on multiple giant video screens which was presumably meant to be cutting edge at the time… or was it just a blatant Max Headroom rip off? The script for the intro sounds like it was written just 10 seconds before being spoken with Extreme described as having “one hot song” and Metallica being about to “rock in at 12”. Oh dear.

And it’s Metallica that we start with “Nothing Else Matters”, the third single from their eponymous ‘black’ album. Apparently this is one of the LA heavy metallers best known and most loved songs but I’m afraid it must have passed me by. I’m trying to remember who I was working with in the Market Street Our Price shop in Manchester at the time who was a big rock fan who might have played the album in store but I can’t think of any which may explain my unawareness of it. Hang on! Our Price legend Knoxy was there and he was a true rocker. He must have given the album a spin a few times surely? I loved working with Knoxy. King of the one liners (not all of them PC back then I have to say) and possessor of an epic quiff. He later grew a huge mane of rock god hair. Top bloke.

“Nothing Else Matters” peaked at No 6.

Now this was a chart (ahem) curiosity. Back in 1987, Curiosity Killed The Cat were the dog’s bollocks when it came to being the next happening chart stars. “Down To Earth” took them to No 3 and their debut album was a chart topper. The newspapers and glossy music mags were full of these four groovy hipsters (not that sort of hipster!) with their good looks and danceable pop tunes especially lead singer Ben Volpeliere- Pierrot and his ever present beret. By the end of the year though, they were pretty much done with just one further Top 40 hit arriving in 1989.

A 90s comeback was surely not on anybody’s cards but never underestimate the power of a cover version. Trimmed down to a three piece and with a truncated band name of just Curiosity, they recorded Johnny Bristol’s innuendo heavy 1974 No 3 hit “Hang On In There Baby”. They may not have had nine lives like the felines that inspired their original name but they must have used up at least three to be back in the charts five years after their first hit. This really was a last hurrah though despite the single equalling the chart peak of Bristol’s original. Two subsequent singles failed to scratch the Top 40 and a third album “Back To Front” went straight in the bin like so much cat litter.

While the rest of the band gave up on the idea of being pop stars after that, Ben Volpeliere- Pierrot clung on to the notion that he still was and carried on performing at retro festivals. I even saw him at one of those 80s Rewind concerts in Manchester around 2001. I think he was advertised as ‘Ben from Curiosity Killed The Cat’. He was first on a bill of about seven acts. Miaow!

It’s that “hot song” from Extreme next. “Song For Love” was the fifth and final single to be released from the band’s “Pornograffitti” album and *guilty pleasure alert* possibly my favourite. It’s completely prosaic and hackneyed but I kind of like it anyway. It sounds like the band had been listening to “God Gave Rock ‘n’ Roll To You” by Argent that was covered by Kiss for Bill And Ted’s Bogus Journey which I also had a soft spot for.

The band would return later in the year with their concept album “III Sides To Every Story” which despite receiving acclaim from their fan base sold poorly due to the absence of a genre bending, mainstream appealing hit single like “More Than Words” had been.

After opening the show last week, EMF find themselves with just a few seconds in the Breakers this week. Last week’s appearance was billed as an ‘Exclusive’ so I’m guessing their “Unexplained EP” hadn’t actually entered the charts at that point. It’s in at No 18 this week. Its spot in the Breakers didn’t do much for its chart prospects though as it didn’t get any higher.

I’m still not convinced about the legitimacy of the Breakers. In reality it was probably just the second tier of exposure that the show’s producers could offer to record labels wanting to promote their acts with the first tier obviously being a full in studio performance or playing of the promo video.

There’s a weird addendum at the end of the section when Claudia Simon bigs up the diversity of artists featured but reserves a special mention for one of them when she says “as for Extreme, they are just so good”. Odd.

Right Said Fred are at No 1 again with “Deeply Dippy” and the talk on Twitter was all about what Richard Fairbrass was wearing which seemed to be some sort of Lycra onesie. More accurately it was what his outfit highlighted that was the hot topic of conversation. It’s hard to unsee his package once you’ve noticed it. And how could you fail to notice it. Not since Stuart Adamson of Big County wore his tight white strides back in the 80s had such a lunchbox been spied. I think this tweet from Lee Roberts probably summed up most people’s reaction:

Ffs put it away mate
— Lee Roberts (@MrScoops76) February 11, 2022

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Marc Almond	The Days Of Pearly Spencer	I did not
2	En Vogue	My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)	Yes this is in the singles box but I think my wife bought it
3	SL2	On A Ragga Tip	Nah
4	Sisters Of Mercy	Temple Of Love 92	Nope
5	Michael Jackson	In the Closet	Negative
6	The Cure	Friday I’m In Love	Not the single but I have a Greatest Hits of theirs with it on
7	Metallica	Nothing Else Matters	But neither did this – no
8	Curiosity	Hang On In There Baby	No
9	Extreme	Song For Love	Liked it, didn’t buy it
10	EMF	The Unexplained EP	It’s a no
11	Right Said Fred	Deeply Dippy	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/m00149b0/top-of-the-pops-30041992

TOTP 23 APR 1992

Posted on February 15, 2022 by 80stastic

The curse of Adrian Rose has struck again meaning we have missed the 16 April show. As such we arrive in the week that the race for the last ever First Division title was decided before the juggernaut of the Premier League arrived the following season. The day before this TOTP aired. Manchester United had suffered an unexpected 1-0 loss at relegation threatened West Ham. This set up a scenario whereby title rivals Leeds could become champions at the weekend if they won and United lost again. Both teams were due to play on the Sunday with Leeds playing first away at Sheffield United and Man Utd facing the daunting task of a trip to their old enemy Liverpool.

As it turned out, at the same time that Leeds were playing their game, I was also involved in a match of high stakes when I played for an Our Price team against a team of record company reps on some playing field somewhere in the Greater Manchester area. I have very little recall of the game (certainly not the result) though I do remember thinking I could be watching Sunday morning TV rather than doing this shit for absolutely nobody’s benefit. As we left the field after somebody had decided enough was enough (there was no ref to call full time), Leeds were securing a 3-2 win courtesy of a ludicrous own goal.

Later that day I watched ITV’s coverage of Man Utd 0-2 loss at Liverpool which made Leeds the champions. They had a TV crew at Leeds striker Lee Chapman’s house who had some of his team mates with him including the talismanic Eric Cantona and dour Yorkshire man David Batty. As the final whistle sounded at Anfield, a live link to Chapman’s living room enabled an immediate reaction from the Leeds players. Asked how he felt at winning the title by the interviewer, Batty replied “well, it’s a bonus”. Now that’s what I call an exclusive scoop!

TOTP start the show this week with their own exclusive scoop – the return of EMF! Hmm. The underwhelmed David Batty or a new EMF single – which was the bigger scoop? I think we’ll call that one a draw. Don’t get me wrong, I loved “Unbelievable” it’s just that everything that came after that was all a bit samey but not quite as good. Some 18 months on from their moment of magnificence, were we all still on tenterhooks awaiting new material from the band.? Whether we were or not, new material was what we got and not just one song but four in the form of the “Unexplained EP”. I say four new songs but one of them was a cover of Iggy And The Stooges’ “Search And Destroy” but let’s not be pedantic.

The song performed here is “Getting Through” and it didn’t tinker with the EMF formula too much, basically being yet another rehash of everything they had gone before. The result wasn’t terrible just a bit…meh. Lead singer James still has his terrible trademark headgear on and nothing seems to have moved forward at all.

In September they released their second album “Stigma” (which included “Getting Through”) to a lukewarm reaction when it peaked at No 19 and spent just two weeks on the chart before dropping as fast as David Batty’s excitement levels.

The “Unexplained” EP peaked at No 18.

Not this fella again! I think this is the third time for Curtis Stigers and his second hit “You’re All That Matters To Me”. This performance is a carbon copy of the one he did the other week even down to the white shirt and waistcoat combo he’s wearing and has forced the members of his backing band to as well. He’s even in in the same spot in the running order just after the Top 10 countdown. He has changed his backing singers and has got them a bit more coordinated in their dance moves although it’s pretty much your basic nerd shuffle. Enough of this. Next!

Well, this is as far removed from Curtis Stigers as it gets. Here’s Iron Maiden! You have to hand it to these lads, they had a loyal fan base and knew how to utilise them. Since 1988, the chart peaks of their seven singles released in that period were:

3-5-6-6-3-1-2

The final number in that sequence relates to this track “Be Quick Or Be Dead”, the lead single from their ninth studio album “Fear Of The Dark”. Never mind EMF sticking to a formula, this lot had been churning out variations on the same theme for years. I know that opinion is heresy to their fans but, like I say, it’s just an opinion.

The CD single came with a hidden extra track called “Bayswater Ain’t A Bad Place To Be” which is basically Bruce Dickinson ripping the piss out of the band’s manager Rod Smallwood in an accent that sounds a bit like Bill Oddie. I managed about two and a half minutes of the eight minutes and eight seconds of it. Can you do any better?

They’ve moved the Breakers to a more sensible position in the show as opposed to just before the No 1 so here they are starting with Marc Almond and “The Days Of Pearly Spencer”. I had no idea initially that this wasn’t an Almond original but it is of course a cover version of a David McWilliams tune. Who? Well, he was a Belfast singer songwriter who scored a No 1 hit with his “Harlem Lady” single in France but remained largely unknown in the UK. “The Days Of Pearly Spencer” was on the B-side of “Harlem Lady” and gained a lot of attention due to a massive advertising campaign launched by his manager Phil Solomon but it failed in the UK as Radio 1 refused to play it due to Solomon’s close ties to pirate radio station Radio Caroline. Supposedly written about a homeless man in Ballymena, County Antrim, its heavily stylised chorus came about from recording McWilliams’ vocals using a telephone line from a phone box near the studio.

Marc’s version was taken from his “Tenement Symphony” album and was quirky enough to prick the curiosity of the record buying public who made it a huge No 4 hit. Considering the majority of his solo singles were minor hits at best and often chart flops (with the obviously huge exception of “Something’s Gotten Hold Of My Heart”) this was both a big deal and very surprising. Unfortunately the single’s success didn’t translate to the album which peaked at a low lowly No 39.

If Leeds United were having a stellar season in 1991/92 finishing as First Division champions, then Kylie Minogue was having a distinctly mid table time of it. Her album “Lets Get To It” had seriously underperformed with two of the four singles from it not making the UK Top 10, the first time this had ever happened to her.

The second of those singles was “Finer Feelings” which at the time the critics were talking up as indicating a more mature direction that she would surely be following once her much predicted uncoupling from Stock, Aitken and Waterman was complete. Maybe the press was just reacting to the fact that the lyrics referred to ‘sex’ and ‘sexual healing’. Like “Word Is Out” before it, “Finer Feelings” is very much a forgotten Kylie single although it was also a line in the sand as a demarcation between her eras. Her next studio album would be on dance label Deconstruction and would usher in a whole new phase of her career.

After I’ve moaned on about the Breakers section bring a waste of time recently with it featuring singles that would amount to very little chart wise and which would not be seen on TOTP again, it seems to have been repurposed to highlight those that have been on the show as recently as the previous week and are now moving up the charts. Two of this week’s Breakers fall into that category. Kylie was the first and now comes Michael Ball who was on the show just seven days before.

After a brief but very successful time in the charts during 1989 when “Love Changes Everything” was a No 2 hit, you could have been forgiven for thinking that was it for The Ballster as a pop star. However, never underestimate the influence of the Eurovision Sing Contest. Well, at least not in the early 90s.

After the failure of Samantha Janus the previous year, the BBC took the decision of who would represent the UK out of the public’s hands and pre chose Ball. They did though allow us to choose which song he would sing out of a choice of eight. Yes, that meant that A Song For Europe show this year featured a lot of Michael Ball! “One Step Out Of Time” was the track given the honour of representing the country and what a fluffy, little lightweight thing it was. I never felt like it really suited Ball’s voice but maybe that’s because all I’d ever heard him sing before that was “Love Changes Everything”. However, it very nearly did the business on the big night coming in second to Ireland (obviously).

The sliding sections video has a feel of Duran Duran’s “Rio” to it though Michael was hardly the Simon Le Bon type. An album was released off the back of the single’s success which included “Love Changes Everything” despite it having been released as a single a whole three years prior. And if you thought Michael Ball was bad, the following year’s entry was Sonia!

The second mention in this section for the Deconstruction label comes courtesy of K–Klass. These arch mixers had a massive hit in their own right at the back end of 1991 with “Rhythm Is A Mystery” so they thought they’d have a go at doing it all over again with follow up single “So Right”. I don’t remember this track so couldn’t tell you how this went at all but I’m guessing it sounds exactly the same as the first hit.

*listens to 30 seconds of the track*

Yep. I was right. Next!

Rivalling Leeds United in the annus mirabilis stakes in 1992 were Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine. They even named their No 1 album (No 1!) after the year -“1992 – The Love Album”. How did this happen? A fervently indie act with a defiantly anti-mainstream sound and subversive image as chart topping pop stars? Well, being signed to major label Chrysalis Records who picked up the band after the demise of Rough Trade probably helped but was it just that? Was there also a desire for something reactionary in an era of the conventional and the ordinary that CUSM were in the right place at the right time to take advantage of? Was it to do with their infamous Philip Schofield felling appearance at the Smash Hits Awards show a few months earlier? Or was it just a case of a talented duo with some great songs naturally rising to the top?

Whatever the reason, “Only Living Boy In New Cross” would become the band’s first and only Top 10 hit. A clear play on words of the Simon & Garfunkel song “The Only Living Boy In New York”, its performance here is reminiscent of some of those ‘party atmosphere’ shows of the mid 80s with balloons galore and a stage full of audience members. Didn’t The Smiths do something similar in terms of having a crowd up there with them? I’m pretty sure Wheatus did years later whilst performing “Teenage Dirtbag” on the show.

Inevitably with all peaks, their commercial zenith couldn’t last and it didn’t. Their descent came about just as they’d reached their high point. Headlining that year’s Glastonbury Festival was confirmation of their elevated status and yet it went sour after Fruitbat, infamous rugby tackler of Philip Schofield, insulted the legendary Michael Eavis after being annoyed that their set was cut short due to some bands who were on before them overrunning. It led to a lifetime ban from the festival.

“Only Living Boy In New Cross” peaked at No 7.

I hate it when the show has an ‘exclusive’ showing of a Michael Jackson video because there’s so much to read about them online whilst doing research for the blog. Anyway, here’s the next one for the third single from his “Dangerous” album “In The Closet”. If the internet had been around in 1992 like it is today then this song title would have been the ultimate click bait. Michael Jackson? In The Closet? Is he coming out of said closet? However the song didn’t reveal anything about Jacko’s sexual orientation but instead dealt with the story of a clandestine relationship. The lyrics were pretty suggestive though with lines like ‘Cause if it’s aching you have to rub it’ and ‘touch me there, make the move’ but then it was co-written with Teddy Riley who also penned such salacious tunes as “Rump Shaker” and “No Diggity”.

I have to say that although I knew there was a Michael Jackson song called “In The Closet”, I couldn’t remember at all how it went. Listening to it now I forgive myself as it’s entirely forgettable. Also suffering from amnesia was Jackson himself who forgot to put any tune into the track – it’s as if it was created purely just to construct a dance routine for the video. Ah yes , the ‘exclusive’ video – that’s crap as well. It’s just Jacko and Naomi Campbell cavorting about on a sepia tinted set. Compared to the mini epics that were his last two videos for “Black And White” and “Remember The Time”, it’s a huge let down.

“In The Closet” only made No 8 on the UK Top 40 and the next two singles did even worse before the trend was reversed with a perfectly timed Xmas release of saccharine ballad “Heal The World” – basically a rewrite of “We Are The World” – just missing the top spot when it peaked at No 2.

We have a new No 1 after eight weeks of Shakespear’s Sister sitting on the throne. Actually, Right Said Fred were No 1 the week before but we missed that show due to the Adrian Rose conundrum but they’re still there this week with “Deeply Dippy”. Now in an interview on the songfacts.com website, the Fairbrass brothers told the story that they nearly toured with Faith No More. Apparently both sides liked what the other did and there was a definite motivation to make it happen but management got cold feet. They were also rumoured to be offered a support slot with Michael Jackson but the band were put off by all the rules, regulations and restrictions surrounding Jackson and being in his presence. Both stories got me thinking about unlikely touring partners or support acts. Surely the most infamous one is Jimi Hendrix supporting The Monkees but there must be other outlandish examples surely?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	EMF	Unexplained EP	Nope
2	Curtis Stigers	You’re All That Matters To Me	Nah
3	Iron Maiden	Be Quick Or Be Dead	Certainly not
4	Marc Almond	The Days Of Pearly Spencer	Liked it, didn’t buy it
5	Kylie Minogue	Finer Feelings	No but I think my wife had it on a Greatest Hits album
6	Michael Ball	One Step Out Of Time	Did I bollocks!
7	K-Klass	So Right	So wrong – no
8	Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine	Only Living Boy In New Cross	Don’t think I did
9	Michael Jackson	In The Closet	In the bin more like – no
10	Right Said Fred	Deeply Dippy	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/m001499y/top-of-the-pops-23041992

TOTP 09 APR 1992

Posted on February 12, 2022 by 80stastic

As Arcadia almost* once sang, “It’s Election Day” in 1992 and the polls are predicting either a hung parliament or a Labour win. That proved to be as accurate as Jacob Rees-Mogg’s Brexit promises for UK prosperity as the Conservative party triumphed albeit with a reduced majority. ‘It’s The Sun Wot Won It’ screamed The Sun’s front page two days later. Thirty years on and the right wing press is no less influential.

*They actually sang “it’s re-election day”

OK well, after that sombre opening let’s get to the music on tonight’s show which is presented by Tony Dortie and Femi Oke. The latter made her debut on the show the other week but I think she only made a handful of appearances all told. Shame, she seemed like a safe pair of hands. As you’d expect, there’s going to be an overwhelming majority of election references in the links and Tony is first in line getting in the words ‘party’, ‘polls’ and ‘vote’ as he introduces the opening act Praga Khan featuring Jade 4 U. Who?! Yeah, I’m lost on this one too. As Tony mentions in his intro, this lot were Belgian techno heads – I bet leave campaigner Jacob hated them – and this single “Injected With A Poison” was their biggest hit. As you know, I was no raver back in the day so this made little impression on me and listening to it now as a 53 year old it sounds like one big horrible noise to my middle aged ears. Apparently this was a remix of their earlier single “Free Your Body/ Injected With A Poison” and according to online popular culture publication Freaky Trigger, featured “an underwater electric whisk” and “one of those duck calling kazoo things”. Yeah, I don’t know about you but neither of those things would be high on my list of essentials in a tune.

Main man Maurice Engelen was also the guy behind recent hit makers Digital Orgasm (or just ‘Digital’ as the controversy avoiding TOTP referred to them). I think that’s him shouting “We don’t need that anymore” and “Are you listening to me?” and looking like he’s been lost in Glastonbury for a decade. He also recorded material under the name Lords Of Acid whose canon of work included tracks called “Rough Sex” and “I Must Increase My Bust”. The latter must surely have been inspired by that 1980 Sunblest bread advert featuring light entertainment star Marti Caine who says “I wonder if it’ll do anything for my bust” as she ponders her chest whilst cramming a slice of bread in her mouth.

“Injected With A Poison” peaked at No 16.

After the Top 10 rundown which, for all those chart curiosity enthusiasts out there, includes two acts whose name both begin with Mr. B…, Femi gets in a name check of the leaders of all three main political parties before introducing the man who ‘gets her vote’ Curtis Stigers who is in the studio to perform his latest hit “You’re All That Matters To Me”. There seems to be a rule for the male members of his backing band that they have to have a mop of long hair or be wearing a waistcoat to be allowed on the stage. Or both. In fact, you have to follow the Stigers style or you’re out.

One time when Curtis himself would have wanted to be out occurred years later when he appeared on Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast. One of their features was some sort of super fan quiz where they got an infatuated member of the public on the show with their idol and asked them questions about them. If they got them right they won a holiday or something. Anyway, a Curtis devotee was on and was asked by host Johnny Vaughan what Stigers’ date of birth was. She got it wrong and so missed out on the competition prize. Curtis thought this was very harsh and called Johnny, as I recall, ”you cruel bastard” or something like that. As a punishment they locked Curtis in a cupboard and promptly forgot all about him. After the show had finished and his PR people turned up asking where he was, they suddenly remembered and had to let him out. When appearing on live daytime TV Curtis, do not swear. That’s all that matters.

Another bangin’ tune next as Altern 8 are here with their second Top 10 hit “Evapor 8”. This performance is mental. Obviously there’s the Altern 8 guys in their hazmat suits and masks for a start. In these pandemic weary days where we’re all used to the notion of mask wearing, back in 1992 this seemed really sinister (well it did to me anyway) and helped create a whiff of danger about the duo. On top of that though, there’s three sports wear clad ‘casuals’ who look like they’re off their tits throwing some shapes, legendary singer P. P. Arnold centre stage wearing a pair of marigolds and a massive dancing robot on stilts!

Given that Tony and Femi were throwing General Election references around like confetti, how did they miss this open goal?

Altern-8's Chris Peat was an independent candidate for the Stafford constituency (then Bill Cash's seat) in the 1992 General Election. He received 158 votes, just beating the Natural Law Party. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 4, 2022

Chris represented the Hardcore Altern8-ive party. I’m guessing their manifesto would have included something about removing government legislation that made raves illegal.

“Evapor 8” by Alter 8 peaked at No 6. Boo! Where’s the symmetry in that!

After the Monster Raving Looniness of Altern 8, we were back to the safe seat of Vanessa Williams next with her ballad “Save The Best For Last”. Has there ever been such a contrast of styles in consecutive performances on the show? From raving robots and face masks to a seated, dinner suited orchestra backing a singer in a sequinned dress. I’m guessing Vanessa didn’t return to America with the opinion that our pop stars were quaint.

From raving mad techno to sophisticated balladry and finally onto tongue in cheek silliness as Right Said Fred are in the studio to perform their future No 1 “Deeply Dippy”. Whilst not an orchestra like Vanessa’s, the Freds do have their own brass packing backing section up there with them and it’s their contribution that really makes this song I think.

Richard Fairbrass camps it up as you would expect dressed in an unbuttoned, garishly coloured frilly shirt and he curiously changes the song’s last line from “I’m takin’ a hot tahiti” to “I’m goin’ to hitchhike to Walthamstow”. Not sure what that was about. An in joke presumably.

Given their current anti vaxxer stance, we can expect their new single, a cover of Praga Khan’s “Free Your Body / Injected With A Poison” any day now.

As announced by the lady herself at the end of the previous TOTP, Cher is tonight’s ‘Exclusive’ performance. Crikey! After Chris De Burgh last week and now Cher, this slot really is down with the kids ain’t it?!

“Could’ve Been You” was the fourth single released from her “Love Hurts” album and like “Save Up All Your Tears” and the title track, this was also a cover version. Bob Halligan’s original came out a year before and sank without trace but was deemed perfect fodder for Cher’s brand of soft rock. It’s a right old plodder if truth be known but Cher can sell anything given an enormous wig and a leather bra and so it dutifully made No 31 over here, no doubt aided by this TOTP performance and her slot on Aspel And Company two days later. Let’s hope she’d learned the song’s words by then as she’s clearly reading them off that monitor at her feet.

Hang about! There’s another ‘Exclusive’ performance straight after Cher’s?! How come Genesis have also got this slot and more importantly who the f**k is Daryl as name checked by Femi in her intro?! When I think of Genesis, I’m thinking Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks. At a push I’d include Peter Gabriel although I really don’t know that much about the band’s early career. I’m never thinking of some bloke called Daryl! Who was this geezer? Well if you’re a Genesis super fan then you should have got yourself on The Big Breakfast because you’ll know that Daryl is Daryl Stuermer who’s association with the band goes as far back as 1978. He was their touring lead guitarist and bass player from ‘78 to ‘92 and then again in 2007 for the Turn It In Again Tour and most recently last year for The Last Domino? Tour. He’s on stage with the lads here to perform the band’s latest single “Hold On My Heart”.

This was the third single taken from their “We Can’t Dance” album and was the obligatory ballad after the first two were more rock fare. Honestly, it could be any of the slow songs from their previous album “Invisible Touch” like “In Too Deep” or “Throwing It All Away” or indeed a Phil Collins solo effort like “One More Night” or… well anything from 50% of his back catalogue as he only has two types of song – love lorn ballad or mid temp pop.

You’ll remember that Genesis secured an ‘Exclusive’ slot on the show for the first single off the album called “No Son Of Mine” which went on for about six and a half minutes! Thankfully this performance is restricted to just over four but I really think that six months in to this new format that the producers haven’t got a clue how to make TOTP seem more relevant to the younger element of their audience. Genesis, Cher and Chris De Burgh?! Nadine Dorries looks on top of her interview game by comparison.

“Hold On My Heart” peaked at No 16.

There’s no Breakers this week so there’s only eight acts in the show in total tonight. Not sure why that maybe. It can’t be anything to do with the election as the show is still the same running time and hadn’t been cut short to make way for coverage of the event. I can only assume it’s because of the two ‘exclusive’ performances in the same show from Cher and Genesis taking up the time that would usually be allotted to the Breakers.

As such we’re onto the No 1 already and it’s an eighth and final week at the top for Shakespear’s Sister. I know it’s only half the time that Bryan Adams was at the top and we’ve missed at least one week due to the Adrian Rose issue but it hasn’t felt anywhere near as onerous an experience as the era of the Groover from Vancouver.

Though they would never be as big again, Marcella and Siobahn didn’t disappear immediately after “Stay” had finally departed the charts. A follow up single called “I Don’t Care” would return them to the Top 10 and their album “Hormonally Yours” went double platinum in the UK. However, the relationship between the two was volatile and after being hospitalised for depression, Fahey decided to end their partnership by announcing it in absentia via her publisher at the 1993 Ivor Novello Awards ceremony, an event that Detroit was present at. However there was a happy ending as the two reunited in 2019 having resolved their differences to tour and record new material.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Praga Khan featuring Jade 4 U	Injected with a poison	Hell no
2	Curtis Stigers	You’re All That Matters To Me	Not for me thanks
3	Altern 8	Evapor 8	I wasn’t a raver -no
4	Vanessa Williams	Save The Best For Last	Nope
5	Right Said Fred	Deeply Dippy	Nah
6	Cher	Could’ve Been You	No
7	Genesis	Hold On My Heart	Never happening
8	Shakespear’s Sister	Stay	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/m00142cn/top-of-the-pops-09041992

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

Author: 80stastic

TOTP 23 JUL 1992

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TOTP 16 JUL 1992

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TOTP 02 JUL 1992

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TOTP 18 JUN 1992

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TOTP 04 JUN 1992

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TOTP 28 MAY 1992

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TOTP 14 MAY 1992

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TOTP 30 APR 1992

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TOTP 23 APR 1992

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TOTP 09 APR 1992

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