80stastic

TOTP 30 AUG 1990

Posted on February 26, 2021 by 80stastic

Right, I’m against the clock a bit for this post so it’s going to have to be a speedy run through and a low word count. Helpfully, six of the nine acts have already been on the show and therefore already commented on. So who’s up first? Aswad? No! They weren’t still having hits by this point were they? It feels like I am literally listening to “Next To You” for the very first time as I have zero memory of the track. Wikipedia tells me this was the lead single from an album called “Too Wicked” (terrible, terrible title) and its seems to be their usual bouncy, reggae infused summery tune (well they are ‘always the sound of sunshine’ according to host Mark Goodier) until there’s some sort of break down near the song’s end when they attempt a rap – it all sounds very incongruous. And talking of incongruous, three keytars?! Really?!

Last week I mentioned that Cliff Richard was in the charts with a live track recorded at his 1989 The Event concert held at Wembley Stadium. Now apparently, Aswad were part of the concert’s supporting cast (not sure why) and Cliff joined them on stage for a song called “Share A Dream”. Nothing especially interesting about this (unless you are a massive Aswad or Cliff fan I guess) except…what is Cliff wearing for his stage costume in this clip of them performing together? It looks like something his Mum might have crocheted for him. Just bizarre.

“Next To You” peaked at No 24 but they would return to the Top 5 four years later with surprise hit “Shine”.

“There’s a lady over there who always smiles when she’s performing. I’ve never ever seen her doing anything but smile…” says Mark Goodier in his intro for the next act. “… and she has a new hit called “End Of The World” he continues. Talk about an incongruous (it’s that word again) juxtaposition of themes! Still smiling even though it’s the end of the word is she Mark? The lady in question is of course Sonia who’s in the studio this week after being a Breaker video on the last show. She gives a very un-Sonia like performance though. I guess jumping around and doing those shoulder roll dance moves of hers wasn’t going to cut it for a song which is the musical equivalent of W.H. Auden’s ‘Funeral Blues’ poem (‘Stop all the clocks etc). Despite the attempts at solemn looks and moody pouts she does look like she is constantly struggling to suppress that beaming smile that Goodier talked of before declaring “Hiya chuck. It’s me Sonia! I’m dead made up to be in the charts again!”.

Sonia’s version of “End Of The World” peaked at No 18.

Goodier goes into full on cringe mode next. “Well, we’ve had some bright pop from Aswad and what a lovely ballad from Sonia, now let”s rave it up with The KLF, this is a massive record, it’s called “What Time Is Love”. Rave it up?! Dearie me. He compounds the embarrassment by referring to the track as “a seriously happening record” at the end of the performance. Am I being harsh on Goodier? Were we all saying things like ‘rave it up’ back then? Were records ‘happening’? It sounds so dated to me now but maybe it was perfectly acceptable in 1990 and nobody would have batted an eyelid?

What was hard to ignore was the power of The KLF’s sound – now that doesn’t sound dated to me even today. The performance is an oddity though. They appear to have half inched a couple of keytars from Aswad whilst there appears to be an Ood from Doctor Who on the mixing desk at the back in the It’s Grim Up North T-shirt. Meanwhile all the air punching for the ‘Mu Mu’ chanting reminds me of their performance of “Doctorin’ The Tardis” by their previous incarnation The Timelords.

About a year prior to “What Time Is Love” being a chart hit, a compilation album called “The “What Time Is Love?” Story” featuring six different mixes of the track was released, all supposedly by different artists. However, rumours abound that it was all the work, in fact, of The KLF themselves. You wouldn’t put it past them, would you?

“Now It doesn’t matter why this record is back in the charts, it’s good that it is…” announces Goodier in his next link. He is of course referring to “The Joker” by the Steve Miller Band. Sounds like Goodier’s protesting a bit too much to me. Anyway, we all know why it was back in the charts, it was because of this advert…

…yes it was all down to jeans again. Levi’s had been making golden oldie songs hits all over again via their clever advertising campaigns since the mid 80s, revitalising the chart careers for the likes of Marvin Gaye, Percy Sledge, Ben E.King, Eddie Cochran and now Steve Miller. Unlike his posthumous predecessors, Steve was still alive (as he is to this day) to experience his resurgence in popularity.

“The Joker’ would be a No 1 record (just!) but Levi’s weren’t prepared to quit at the top. The 90s would see their adverts send multiple songs to the top spot including The Clash, Stiltskin and (god forbid) Babylon Zoo!

Goodier boldly announces that the next act is about to be a big star in America. I have to admit I don’t know if she ever was.

*checks internet*

Well, I’m not sure that Betty Boo did fulfil Goodier’s prediction. As far as I can see, none of her albums did anything across the pond and the only Billboard Hot 100 hit she had (“Doin’ The Do”) peaked at No 90. Maybe Goodier was basing his forecast on the fact that she did score a US Dance chart No1 (“Doin’ The Do” again) or maybe he was just told to say that by Betty’s record label?

In fairness to Goodier, Betty was never as big commercially as she was at this very point. “Where Are You Baby” was her biggest ever hit whilst her debut album (“Boomania”) released eleven days after this broadcast went to No 4. Betty succumbed to second album syndrome after that though and her follow up “Grrr! It’s Betty Boo” stalled at No 62 despite including some insanely catchy singles.

Special mention must go to Betty’s backing band here – were they called The Boosters? – for some stirling ‘arm dancing’ that Jo and Susan Ann of The Human League would have been proud of.

Still with New Kids On The Block?! Look, I know 1990 was their annus mirabilis but even so! It feels like they’ve been on the show every week since January. “Tonight” is up to No 3 now with its Beatles sounding steals but it’s not the the Liverpool legends that I’m noticing as their influences this week. Did the previously seen Steve Miller Band also have an impact on the writing of “Tonight”. How so? Well, in “The Joker”, Miller references a few songs that he has recorded himself like “Space Cowboy” from his “Brave New World” album and “Enter Maurice” from “Recall The Beginning…A Journey From Eden”. So? OK, in “Tonight”, past NKOTB hits are name checked:

Remember when we said “Girl, please don’t go”
And how I’d be loving you forever
Taught you ’bout hanging tough
As long as you’ve got the right stuff

See? Oh suit yourselves.

I actually paid some attention to the video this time around and by far the most close ups went to Jordan Knight and Joey McIntyre. Presumably they sold the most T-shirts at their concerts. The rest of them didn’t get much of a look in. In fact, I’m not sure I even spotted Donnie Wahlberg at all! It reminded me of Duran Duran videos back in the day when it was easier to pinpoint Wally in the Where’s Wally series of puzzle books than to spot guitarist Andy Taylor.

After two acts at the peak of their popularity in Betty Boo and New Kids On The Block, we move to someone who is definitely on the slide. I don’t care what Mark Goodier says about his UK tour being sold out nor do I attach much significance to the screams coming from the TOTP studio audience (no doubt teased out of them by over enthusiastic floor staff), Jason Donovan‘s pop career had hit the skids. Only one of the singles released from his second album “Between The Lines” had gone Top 5; indeed his last hit had only just made the Top 20. Given his changing fortunes, a plan was needed to halt the downward trend. And that plan was….release a cover version of course. When in need of a hit, release a cover is something that is as irrefutable as death and taxes being the only sure things in life. “Rhythm Of The Rain” was originally a hit for The Cascades in 1963 and to be fair to Donovan’s record label PWL, it did arrest his plummeting chart fortunes by returning him to the Top 10 but it was a plaster to heal a gaping wound in truth.

Jase’s version is sugary and sickly sweet – really nasty actually but to be fair to him, the chords he mimes on the guitar in this performance appear to be legitimate. His bob haircut however is completely bogus.

As with Donovan’s 60s cover version, this week’s No 1 is also a cover of a song from that decade. “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini” was originally a hit for Brian Hyland in 1960. Thirty years later it was fiendishly brought back to life by the monstrous Timmy Mallett and Bombalurina although the real culprit was Andrew Lloyd Webber who had the original idea to re-record it.

The almost identical looking peroxide blonde dancers behind Mallett made the whole thing look like a comedy sketch parodying 1982 “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” hitmakers Tight Fit but unfortunately this wasn’t a joke but a genuine chart record. Those two dancers incidentally included Dawn Andrews who would go on to marry Take That’s Gary Barlow.

The play out video is “Now You’re Gone” by Whitesnake and as with Aswad at the top of the show, I don’t remember this at all. We hadn’t seen much of David Coverdale and co in the Top 40 since they peaked with “Is This Love” and “Here I Go Again” both going Top 10 back in 1987. In fact, they would only make the Top 40 once more after this when a re-issue of “Is This Love” to promote a Best Of album made No 25 in 1994. Can’t say I have missed them much.

For posterity’s sake, I include the chart run down below:

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Aswad	Next To You	There was next to no chance of me buying this
2	Sonia	End Of The World	If this was the last record in the world, I wouldn’t have bought it
3	The KLF	What Time Is Love (Live At Trancentral”	Nope
4	Steve Miller Band	The Joker	It’s a no
5	Betty Boo	Where Are You Baby	No
6	New Kids On The Block	Tonight	No but I think my friend Rachel did
7	Jason Donovan	Rhythm Of The Rain	Certainly not
8	Bombalurina	Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini	How does f**k off sound as an answer?
9	Whitesnake	Now You’re Gone	Nah

Disclaimer

OK – here’s the thing – the TOTP episodes are only available on iPlayer for a limited amount of time so the link to the programme below only works for about another month so you’ll have to work fast if you want to catch the whole show.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000scg0/top-of-the-pops-30081990

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.

Some bedtime reading?

https://michaelmouse1967.wixsite.com/smashhits-remembered/1990-issues

TOTP 23 AUG 1990

Posted on February 25, 2021 by 80stastic

It’s late August in 1990 and the new football season is to kick off two days after this TOTP was broadcast. After a rousing performance by the England team at Italia ’90, the country seems to have fallen back in the love with the national game which is experiencing a surge in popularity as it rises phoenix like from the ashes of its nadir in the mid 80s. The same description could be applied to tonight’s opening act who are The Human League. After massive commercial success at the start of the previous decade with the “Dare” album, Phil, Suzanne, Jo and co struggled to replicate that commercial peak and 1984 follow up “Hysteria” was a big disappointment. Licking their wounds, they decamped to the US and hooked up with legendary R’n’B producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis for the 1986 “Human” single which was an American No 1 and retuned the band to the Top 10 in the UK. However, their resurrection proved to be a false dawn and by the end of the 80s, they were in massive decline. The dawn of the 90s saw the band regroup with a new line up and intentions to re-establish themselves in the pop hierarchy. “Heart Like A Wheel” was the lead single from new album “Romantic?” and whilst it did gain them entry back into the Top 40, it was hardly a glorious return to form. The single peaked at No 29 whilst the album struggled to a high of No 24. Its perceived failure led to their long time record label Virgin unceremoniously cancelling their recording contract and the band were out in the wilderness for five years before being picked up by EastWest Records and launching the most unlikely of comebacks just as Britpop was taking hold with the hit single “Tell Me When” and parent album “Octopus”.

Watching this performance back, the band do seem to be in the midst of an identity crisis. Apart from the fact that there were two new band members on view, the core trio of Oakey, Catherall and Sulley appear to be on very different pages image wise. Phil, in the days when he still had hair, has resorted to his early 80s shoulder length cut albeit without the lopsided bit on one side whilst Susan Ann has gone all rock chic with her golden, cascading tresses. Joanne has her hair up but part from that looks pretty much like she always did. Not a lot of cohesion going on there I would argue.

What? Oh the song? Well, to me it doesn’t sound that different to “Tell Me When” which would return them to the Top 10 in 1995. Clearly the 1990 record buying public wasn’t quite ready to embrace The Human League back into their lives at that point in history but give it five years guys. Nowadays of course, the group are stalwarts of the live circuit and indeed, I caught them in concert back in 2019 at an open air gig in Hull where they performed “Heart Like A Wheel” plus just about every other song you could have wished for from their back catalogue. The band were on good form but the crowd were seemingly more interested in getting annihilated on booze and other substances which kind of made for a bad atmosphere. It did strike me though that Joanne and Susan Ann had made a career from basically ‘arm-dancing’ for nearly 40 years – you know, all that rhythmic arm waving they do. It’s a living I suppose.

Move over Whitney Houston – you’ve got competition! Yes, there was a new kid on the block (not not them!) in the huge, pop/soul ballad stakes come 1990 when Mariah Carey appeared seemingly from nowhere with her debut single “Vision Of Love”. Little did we know then that this 20 year old would become one of the biggest selling artists of the whole decade. Not only did this track become her breakthrough commercial moment but it also provided Mariah with her first husband in Tommy Mottola, the then head of Columbia Records who signed her after he had heard the demo of “Vision Of Love” at a record company bash. Has anybody ever punched above their weight in the relationship/looks stakes more than Tommy Mottola?

Anyway, “Vision Of Love” was a huge hit (No 1 in the US and No 9 over here) and introduced us to Mariah’s legendary five-octave vocal range. Ah yes, that voice. The technical terms for her vocal stylings are ‘whistle register’ and ‘melisma’ otherwise known to some of us as screeching. Too harsh?! Ok, how about ‘warbling’? Look you know what I’m referring to – the Mariah Carey effect that influenced a generation of would be singing stars to over emphasise notes and prolong them just that bit too long. I’m not saying she can’t sing – clearly she can – but I always found that element to her vocals to be the wrong side of grating.

Despite the success of “Vision Of Love”, it took Mariah a while to establish herself in the UK. Follow up singles “Love Takes Time” and “Someday” barely made the Top 40 here whilst they were No 1 records in the US. Yes, the album sold well in the UK (300,000 units) but nowhere near what it did in the US where 9 million copies were sold. It wasn’t really until her 1993 album “Music Box” did she really start shifting massive numbers over here when the album went to No 1, went five times platinum and included the No 1 single “Without You”. Incidentally, if there was any fierce rivalry between Mariah and Whitney, there was a show of unity in 1998 when the pair duetted on the single “When You Believe” from the animated feature The Prince of Egypt.

OK, I’ve got nothing in the memory banks for this one. “Look Me In The Heart” by Tina Turner anyone? Apparently this was the fourth single to be released from her “Foreign Affair” album which was pushing it a bit considering the album was initially released just under 12 months previously. Unsurprisingly it didn’t do anywhere near as well as its predecessor singles peaking at No 31. Incredibly, record label Capitol didn’t think even that was enough fleecing of the public for one album and released a fifth single (“Be Tender with Me Baby”) in October.

As for “Look Me In The Heart” itself, apart from being completely banal it also has an embarrassingly awful title. Can you imagine two people being in the midst of an emotional discussion about the state of their relationship and one of them saying ‘Look me in the heart and say that’? I can’t – nobody would come out with that would they? They’d say ‘Look me in the eye…’ surely? Oh well, artistic licence and all that – maybe I’m missing the point. Sadly, Tina was not finished in the cringe stakes for 1990. By the end of the year she was back in the Top 5 duetting with Rod Stewart (!) on a version of “It Takes Two”. Come on Tina. You’re better than that. Look me in the heart* and tell me that wasn’t just money for old rope?

*Oh

My God! I’ve just realised that this particular TOTP includes two of the most heinous crimes against popular music on the same show! Not only do we have a complete git at No 1 (Timmy Mallett /Bombalurina) but incredibly, some 12 months after their first musical misdemeanour, it seemed that the UK record buying public still hadn’t had enough of Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers! You could possibly excuse one novelty record becoming a hit by blaming it on some sort fever that induced a national loss of taste but this was their fifth hit on the trot! What was happening to us? I can only assume that the success of “Can Can You Party” was the result of some illegal chart tactics that involved a massive buying in operation by unscrupulous record company reps.

The monsters behind Jive Bunny didn’t even see the need to tinker with the formula at all. It’s still just a load of hits of yesteryear cut and pasted together and then supported by a video featuring nonsensical and unrelated black and white footage with that f*****g horribly animated rabbit superimposed over the top. And talking of “It Takes Two” as we were before re: Tina Turner and Rod Stewart, if I thought that was bad, Jive Bunny declared ‘hold my beer’ and were involved in a version that featured Radio 1 DJs Liz Kershaw and Bruno Brookes! Thankfully that one didn’t make the charts unlike “Can Can You Party” which peaked at No 8.

Some Breakers now and we start with the Steve Miller Band. The only thing I knew about Mr Miller (and indeed his band) at the time was that song “Abracadabra” from 1982 which I hadn’t even liked that much. So what was this “The Joker” song and why was it in our charts? Well, it had been a No 1 record for the band in the US in 1974 but had never been a hit over here. Cue its strategically well placed use in a Levis advert and…I don’t ned to write anything else do I?

Much was made of the song’s lyrics and in particular the phrase ‘the pompatus of love’. What was that when it was home? Here’s @TOTPFacts with the answer…

What the hell is "the pompatus of love"? Miller heard this nonsense word in "The Letter" by doo-wop band The Medallions, which includes the lyric, "Let me whisper sweet words of dismortality and discuss the pompatus of love". https://t.co/FfdpU92eoX #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 19, 2021

Oh, OK – thanks. Anyway, some of the other lyrics, referenced songs including Miller’s own “Space Cowboy” (nothing to do with Jamiroquai then) and The Clovers’ 1954 song “Lovey Dovey” whilst I’m guessing we all knew what he meant by being a ‘midnight toker’.

“The Joker” would go onto become involved in one of the most controversial chart battles ever when it went up against Deee-Lite (more of whom later) and their “Groove Is In The Heart” single for the No 1 spot. Supposedly sales for each single were so tight that a dead heat was called and using a rule that had never been instigated previously, “The Joker” was instilled a the No 1 song that week on account of its sales having increased most from the previous week. This ruling was disputed by Deee-Lite’s record company WEA and it was subsequently scrapped. Chart compilers Gallup later released data that showed that the Steve Miller Band had sold a mere 8 (EIGHT) copies more than Deee-Lite and so were the rightfully crowned chart toppers. All seemed a bit of a rum do to me. Jive Bunny probably had something to do with it as well!

Right, after all that controversy, we need something relaxing to calm us down and here’s a track that fits that particular bill well. “Release Me” by Wilson Phillips was their follow up to smash hit “Hold On” and it sounded like it. It was almost exactly the same song! OK, its got a slightly slower bpm to it and they all seem to sing the whole song in harmony unlike its predecessor which I think had separate vocal parts but its pretty damn similar. For once the record buying public were too aware than to fall for the ‘buying the same song twice’ trick again and it only made No 36 on the UK Top 40. Our American counterparts however had no such discernment and sent it to No 1 for the second consecutive chart topper after “Hold On”.

Look out! It’s “The End of the World”! Not literally of course but this version of the old Skeeter Davis song by Sonia did signify the end of something – this was her last ever single with Stock, Aitken and Waterman. It was also the last single released from her “Everybody Knows” album and after four high tempo, poppy hits before this point, a slowie was well overdue. Sonia had dipped her toe in the ballad market recently with her collaboration with Big Fun on the Childline charity single “You’ve Got a Friend” but this was her first time in that territory on her own. It’s a decent choice of song but Sonia’s version is hardly dripping with the emotion of the original and sounds more mechanical than melancholic in comparison.

I could have sworn that Cilla Black did a version of this (which would have made even more sense of the decision to get scouser Sonia to record it) but she didn’t. I think I was getting confused with “You’re My World”. My abiding memory of Sonia’s version is hearing it piped over the instore sound system in Debenhams in Hull some weeks later. I was back working there as a Xmas temp (after my legendary stint as stand in Father Christmas the year before!) but I knew I had a job at Our Price waiting for me to start in October so I wasn’t there long this time. And no I didn’t let on to Debenhams that I would be leaving as I needed a few weeks work before I could start at my record shop ‘career’ and deliberately misled them. If, by any remote chance, any management from Debenhams in Hull from circa 1990 are reading this, I am so sorry but let’s face it, it wasn’t the end of the world.

That time worn pop tradition of a singer leaving a band to court solo fame was still in evidence as the 90s began. After Nick Heyward leaving Haircut 100, Limahl departing Kajagoogoo and George Michael leaving Wham! behind in the 80s, here comes Lindy Layton ditching Beats International to pursue independence. To be fair, she wasn’t kicked out of the band like Heyward and Limahl were – it was much more amicable by all accounts (Norman Cook even helped produce her debut solo album “Pressure”) but jump ship she did after Cook et al had given her an initial pop platform. It seemed to be the right move when she scored an immediate hit with a cover of Janet Kay’s “Silly Games” teaming up with …erm…Janet Kay to do so. However, subsequent single releases from “Pressure” all failed to dent the Top 40 and by 1993 she did what many others previously had done to revive a career – came calling at Stock, Aitken and Waterman’s door (well, they did have a Sonia sized vacancy on their artists’ roster to fill). Two SAW singles failed to do much business chart-wise and Lindy had all but disappeared from the pop world by the mid 90s.

You can tell from this TOTP performance that this was meant to be a new start for Lindy – she’s got a new short hairstyle and changed her wardrobe dramatically from her Beats International appearance. Her version of “Silly Games” was pretty slick as well. She looked a good bet for a prolonged solo career at this point. Ah, the fickle nature of pop – silly old game innit?

In 1990, Cliff Richard was celebrating the 30th anniversary of his recording career and to commemorate this milestone, he released a live album called “From A Distance: The Event” which was recorded in June 1989 at his The Event concert, held at Wembley Stadium over two nights. Cliff’s version of “Silhouettes“, a No 3 hit for Herman’s Hermits in 1965, was plucked from said album to promote it. It reached No 10 in the UK Top 40. It is also, undeniably, horrible. Not content with inflicting this upon us, the album also contained his next Xmas No 1 in “Saviour’s Day”. Have you ever seen such cruelty?!

I’m guessing that the next tune was intended by the band’s record company as a stop gap release between albums to maintain their profile. It ended up becoming their biggest ever hit. Deacon Blue‘s only release this calendar year so far had been their New Year anthem “Queen Of The New Year” back in …erm…January as the fifth and final single from their “When The World Knows Your Name” album. With the rich seams of tunes having been exhausted from that album and the new one not to be released until June 1991, something was needed to ensure fickle pop fans didn’t forget about them in the meantime. The answer of course was a cover version (the answer is always a cover version) but Deacon Blue took things further by releasing an EP of four Burt Bacharach and Hal David songs called… well….the “Four Bacharach & David Songs” EP.

The track that got all the airplay though was “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again”. There was something about the crystal clean production and the vocals of Ricky Ross and Lorraine McIntosh that bewitched UK pop fans to purchase it in enough quantities to send it all the way to No 2. I was one of them. This EP of cover versions idea obviously resonated with Everything But The Girl who released their own EP in 1992 featuring “Love Is Strange”, Bruce Springsteen’s “Tougher Than The Rest”, Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time” and Elvis Costello’s “Alison”. I bought that as well.

As for Deacon Blue, although it would be harsh to say this was the pinnacle of their popularity, they would only have one more Top 10 single in their career although they continue to tour and record new material to this very day with their last album “Riding On The Tide Of Love” being released *performs some basic maths calculation* 20 days ago!

If Jive Bunny was the bread in this show’s shit sandwich, here comes the filling and it really reeks! Timmy Mallett / Bombalurina have leapt to No 1 with “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini” and consequently he’s been invited back on the show for another studio performance. What makes it all the worse is that Mallett seems to take it seriously in that he mimes the lines correctly and has learnt his little dance moves. If he’s done it all a bit more free form and tongue-in-cheek ,would it have been less odious? Nah, you’re right. Nothing could save this turd from stinking the place out.

The play out video is a huge tune. Sorry, that should be HUUUUGE TUUUUNE! Appearing fully formed from out of nowhere came Deee-Lite with the barnstorming dance floor legend that was and remains “Groove Is In The Heart”. I know this will make me sound like a knacker but the groove on this tune is immense! These self proclaimed ‘groovniks’ hailed from New York City and were composed of Lady Miss Kier, Supa DJ Dmitry and Jungle DJ Towa Tei and had an image as wild as their hit song. Dayglo colours, psychedelic patterns and huge 70s style platform shoes somehow seemed totally appropriate despite being at least two decades out of fashion.

That track though! Listed in in Gary Mulholland’s marvellous book This Is Uncool: The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk And Disco as one of the tracks of the year, I think I’ll let Gary do the talking for me:

“If I was ever asked to play some crazy DJ version of Russian roulette, where you had one chance and one chance only to make a roomful of disparate people dance or you die – I would play ‘Groove Is In The Heart’ and book my cab home”.

Well said Gary.

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	The Human League	Heart Like A Wheel	Nah
2	Mariah Carey	Vision Of Love	Nope
3	Tina Turner	Look Me In The Heart	As if
4	Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers	Can Can You Party	Can can you piss off please?
5	Steve Miller Band	The Joker	It’s a no
6	Wilson Phillips	Release Me	After “Hold On” you now want releasing? Make your mind up! No
7	Sonia	End Of The World	No
8	Lindy Layton and Janet Kay	Silly Games	Negative
9	Cliff Richard	Silhouettes	Silhouettes? It was enough to give me Tourettes! No
10	Deacon Blue	Four Bacharach And David Songs	Yes, yes I did
11	Bombalurina	Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini	How does f**k off sound as an answer?
12	Deee-Lite	Groove Is In The Heart	Where’s my copy of this?! I must have bought this surely?!

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.

Some bedtime reading?

https://michaelmouse1967.wixsite.com/smashhits-remembered/1990-issues

TOTP 16 AUG 1990

Posted on February 18, 2021 by 80stastic

Here we are once more at TOTP Rewind, still back in the hot Summer of 1990, with a load of UK Top 40 hits to review. Before we get to those though, a bit of context about what else was happening outside of the charts at this time. Four days after this TOTP aired, the final ever episode of Miami Vice was shown on BBC1. Yes, the cop show that popularised the now iconic 80s fashion of no socks, rolled up sleeves, Ray-Ban sunglasses and of course designer stubble was finally put out to pasture after a run of five years, five seasons and 112 episodes. I hadn’t watched the show in years but I do recall tuning in for this final episode (well the last 10 minutes or so anyway).

Back in 1985, it had been a complete phenomenon making stars of its two leads Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas but it was its cultural impact that was the show’s legacy. The Miami Vice ‘look’ of pastel coloured T-shirt under jacket, white linen trousers, slip-on sockless loafers accessorised with shades and stubble may be rolled out these days as a fancy dress costume for an 80s themed party but back in the mid 80s it was genuinely influential. Sales of Ray Bans sunglasses soared and Macy’s even opened a Miami Vice section in its young men’s department. Designers such as Gianni Versace and Hugo Boss were consulted on the show’s fashion choices.

Then of course there was the music used in the series. Not for this show was the usual made for TV incidental music; oh no, the rights to actual, original pop and rock songs were purchased so that bona fide artists were featured. The range of artists employed was diverse; from Devo to Dire Straits and from U2 to Underworld. In the case of some acts, their involvement in the show was not restricted to just the inclusion of their musical output; stars from James Brown to Phil Collins via Sheena Easton also had acting parts. The series spawned two hit singles for Jan Hammer and three volumes of soundtrack albums. However, by the end of the 80s, it was starting to look tired and ratings had dropped. It was time to bow out as the 90s dawned.

And talking of pop songs that have been used in TV and film, tonight’s opening act are best known in the US for just that practice. Go West had not been seen anywhere in the vicinity of the UK Top 40 in nigh on five years since their last visit there with “Don’t Look Down – The Sequel” in their breakthrough year of 1985. Their second album had come out in 1987 to a less than enthusiastic reaction from the record buying public (none of the singles taken from it were hits) and despite touring with Tina Turner, they had been officially listed as missing in action since. An elongated and legally messy changing of record label in the US hadn’t helped matters.

And then, out of nowhere and looking every inch the 80s throwback anachronism, they were back! “King Of Wishful Thinking” was taken from the Pretty Woman soundtrack which was proving to be a goldmine for any artist lucky enough to have found their way onto it. Go West joined Natalie Cole, David Bowie and of course Roxette as acts that had benefited from its all reaching pulling power. How a past their sell by date UK pop act came to be on that record seemed to be a case of luck of the label. EMI released it and as the band’s US label, their executives got to hear the song’s demo and asked for it to be included. It’s actually used quite prominently in the film in the opening scene and titles. Of course, it wasn’t the first time their music had been included on a hit film soundtrack. Back in late ’85 they had contributed a song called “One Way Street” to the Rocky IV soundtrack but it never got an official single release on account of it being as dull as a daily briefing hosted by George Eustace.

“King Of Wishful Thinking” though was a horse of a different colour altogether. With its jaunty rhythm bouncing along pleasantly and its upbeat chorus, it was perfect for daytime airplay. Added to this were Peter Cox’s soulful vocals (for all they were very much seen as disposable pop, Cox’s voice always stood out) and they are to the fore in this live performance. Not to be outdone, his band partner Richard Drummie has turned up not just with their trademark singlet on but also in a pair of cycling shorts! Cox looks a bit nervous to be back in the spotlight but Drummie whoops it up with handclaps (and armpits!) a plenty.

The single’s popularity (No 8 in the US and No 18 over here) would lead to a successful comeback album two years later with the appropriately entitled “Indian Summer”.

Right, it’s that Ben Liebrand remix of “Englishman In New York” by Sting next. Still not sure quite how this remix came about but it remains one of Mr Sumner’s most well known songs I’m guessing. Now, sticking with the pop music in film / TV theme, this track was actually used in a film but it must be one of the most obvious uses of a song in cinematic history. It features in the 2009 film An Englishman In New York which is chronicles the years gay English writer Quentin Crisp spent in New York City. Crisp of course, was the subject matter of the song in the first place. Sting has had a few songs that featured in movies that have become chart hits. Back in 1982 he scored with “Spread a Little Happiness” from Brimstone & Treacle before repeating the trick 10 years later with “It’s Probably Me” from Lethal Weapon 3. By this point he was getting a taste for the movie soundtrack hit and just 12 months later he went to No 2 with “All for Love” (alongside Bryan Adams and Rod Stewart) from The Three Musketeers.

Now I wasn’t aware of this until now but Sting wasn’t the first artist to come up with a song with this title. Godley & Creme recorded “An Englishman In New York” back in 1979 and if you thought Sting’s video was intriguing, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet….

Now then, 1990 just got a little bit more interesting. I haven’t got the space in this one post to do justice to the whole story of The KLF or to be more precise, Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty and there is loads more to their back story that predates this moment but for many (including me) “What Time Is Love? (Live at Trancentral)” was our starting point. I was aware that they were the guys behind The Timelords and their No 1 hit “Doctorin’ the Tardis” back in 1988 but my knowledge of their The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (The JAMs) pseudonym was sketchy at best.

As presenter Anthea Turner notes in her intro, “What Time Is Love?” had been a dance floor hit previous Summer but it was a very different beast to the one we were about to hear in 1990. The original release even had a different name (sort of) – “What Time Is Love? (Pure Trance Original)” with the bracketed part of the title giving a clue to the very different sound that it had. Part of the Drummond and Cauty long term strategy though was the model of reworking tracks into different genres and so “What Time Is Love?” was re-shaped from a trance anthem to a more mainstream version that allowed the duo to the enter the nation’s consciousness. Vocal samples and a new bassline were added alongside a rap and house rhythm and the track became the first entry in the ‘Stadium House Trilogy’ that Drummond and Cauty had envisaged. “What Time Is Love? (Live at Trancentral)” would peak at No 5 and by the end of the year, The KLF were on their way to becoming a phenomenon, the like of which the UK charts hadn’t seen since Frankie Goes To Hollywood (probably).

You can be sure that we’ll be seeing plenty more of The KLF in these TOTP repeats over the next few months.

“Wow! They were raving!” exclaims Anthea at the end of The KLF’s performance which is possibly the most excruciating thing any one has ever said whilst presenting a popular music show. The next act on could be described as ‘excruciating’ for many a viewer back then but they were certainly ‘popular’. “Tonight” was the sixth of eight Top 10 hits that New Kids On The Block would have in 1990 alone. Such was their fame and appeal in this year that the likes of Smash Hits magazine could guarantee huge sales by merely planting them on the front cover whilst the story inside could be so insubstantial as to hardly warrant the title ‘feature’. The whole NKOTB phenomenon must have been manna from heaven for the pop press. Huge sales for very little journalistic effort.

As for their ‘music’, well… most of it was absolutely dire but then I wasn’t a teenage girl so I was not the target audience. Most you say? You mean some of it wasn’t utter crud? Surely not?! Look, at least “Tonight” had something a little bit different about it to their usual candy floss, lowest common denominator pop shit that they peddled. I mean, I hated it at the time but if I had to (like life depended on it scenario) pick one of their songs it would be this one. Please don’t judge me. “Tonight” peaked at No 3.

Right, what’s Anthea on about now? The Blackburn rave organisation? Who? What’s that to do with “Hardcore Uproar” by Together? Well, it appears that she was on the money with this one. Here’s @TOTPFacts:

Suddi Raval: "'Hardcore Uproar' was named after the Blackburn raves and features the sound of the crowds at the rave…" "Just after we finished recording, police raided it and started beating people." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 12, 2021

Yes, it seems Anthea was well prepped for this link. According to Suddi Raval in an interview with http://www.theransomnote.com, he was against “Hardcore Uproar” as a title and was pushing for it to be called “Can You Feel The Beat” which sounds so lame in comparison. The track got its biggest promotion when Paul Oakenfold agreed to play it as part of his set as the warm up at the legendary Stone Roses Spike Island gig when a crowd of 30,000 people (including my elder brother) got to hear it.

As for me, it sounds like “Ebeneezer Goode” by The Shamen performed by Utah Saints. Maybe it had some influence on those two acts? Maybe. Raval’s partner in the band Jon Donaghy was tragically killed a year after “Hardcore Uproar” was a hit in a road accident in Ibiza on the way to perform at a festival.

One of 1990’s breakout stars is back on the show with her biggest ever hit -it can only be Betty Boo and “Where Are You Baby”. There was lots of love for Betty on display on Twitter when this TOTP repeat aired last week. In stark contrast, there was a massive negative backlash on social media against Anthea Turner after her ill-advised Twitter rant that was accused of fat-shaming and ableism. Silly cow. Anyway, back to Betty and this is peak period Boo (peak-a-boo if you will) when she really did seem to have the pop world at her feet. “Where Are You Baby” was her third Top 10 hit on the spin (if you include her 1989 collaboration with The Beatmasters) and would eventually rise to No 3. Although very similar to previous hit “Doin’ The Do”, this one had a bit more musicality about it to my ears with the chorus sounding much more melodic. Above everything else though, it was damn catchy. Betty really channels her inner Emma Peel in this performance whilst the promo video with its sci-fi space imagery sees her cast herself as a cartoon-like of version of Barbarella. I was fine with either look to be fair!

Right, what’s the name of the next act Anthea? Unfortunately for Anthea, two one syllable words that are phonically similar proved too much for her presenting abilities and she cocks up introducing Jon Bon Jovi when she gets ‘Jon’ and ‘Bon’ the wrong way round! Come on! This is basic stuff for a presenter surely?

“Blaze Of Glory” was a Breaker last week and is up to No 13 this week and for those of us with even a passing familiarity with the Bon Jovi canon of work (and yes I was one), it seemed to be a wholly predictable culmination of a good few years obsession with cowboys on Jon’s behalf. Starting with “Wanted Dead Or Alive” from the “Slippery When Wet” album (originally the song that Emilio Estevz requested to be used in Young Guns II), Jon couldn’t let go of his Cowboys and Westerns theme and carried it forward to the band’s next album “New Jersey”. That album included songs with titles like “Stick To Your Guns” (opening line ‘So you want to be a cowboy’) and this one…

…give it a rest Jon!

Anyway, I read recently that there are plans afoot for a third instalment of the Young Guns franchise with screenwriter of the first two films John Fusco plus their stars Emilio Estevz and Lou Diamond Phillips on board. I’m not quite sure which direction the plot could plausibly go in given that just about all the characters for the first two films were killed off and Estevez and Diamond Phillips are now well into their 50s. Not so much ‘young guns’ then as ‘antique firearms’.

Another of last week’s Breakers now as we get a studio performance from Roxette of “Listen To Your Heart”. Last year, the BMI confirmed that this song has now been played on US radio more than 60 million times! If those 60 million plays were back to back, it would have been played non-stop for 62 years!

As with Go West earlier, whatever you might think of their musical output, it cannot be denied that they had a great singer. Marie Fredriksson belts this one out and then some. After the re-release success of “Listen To Your Heart”, EMI repeated the trick for the duo’s next single when they shoved “Dressed For Success” back out into the market where it peaked at No 18, some 30 places higher than its initial release.

The final week of four at the top for Partners In Kryme and “Turtle Power”. Now before we all start jumping around, throwing our arms in the air and offering thanks to the gods of the pop charts, know this….*SPOILER ALERT*…next week’s No 1 is Bombalurina!

1990 really was the height of Turtlemania so much so that the four dudes even made an appearance (alongside Partners In Kryme) at the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party that year. As far as I can tell, they didn’t actually win anything per se although they did come 5th in the Best Single category and 3rd in the Worst Single category. Go figure.

The comments about the clip above on YouTube are scary. Here’s someone called Blue Jones:

“Dude! I am one of the biggest TMNT fans on earth. I’ve spent thousands of dollars on original art, comics & toys & I even have the fearsome foursome tattooed on my arm. And yet, I’ve never seen this video before! Yowza! Thanks for uploading this gem!”

WTF?! He even gets a reply from someone called Zwoob Zwoob:

“Same here bruh. except that tattoo part. but i did actually buy this replica of one of the original masks from the 1990 movie. (raph’s head). And even though I was only 2 when this movie came out, it’s my favorite, lol, i can literally recited the whole movie line for line.”

OK, I’m proper getting the fear now. Let’s dial it down with a comment from this poor, uniformed gentleman called MagicalPuddinPops:

“It’s weird I always thought mc hammer performed this.”

Farewell Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles…it’s been…awful actually.

Whilst 1990 hasn’t proved to be the antidote to the late 80s that I thought I remembered, bizarrely the play out song is the third single on this show to be featured in Gary Mulholland’s great book This Is Uncool: The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk and Disco. Split into years, the section for 1990 features “Come Together” by Primal Scream along with The KLF and Betty Boo! The follow up to their breakthrough chart hit “Loaded”, this was very much cut from the same cloth albeit with a more conventional song structure than its predecessor. However….the album version on “Screamadelica” remixed by Andrew Weatherall was nothing like the Terry Farley 7″ mix. Clocking in at over 10 mins with Bobby Gillespie’ vocals completely omitted and replaced with samples of a speech by the Rev Jesse Jackson, it’s that version that was a huge hit in the clubs in Ibiza.

I actually own the CD single of this but I can’t claim that I bought it at the time. I got it as one of those import cut out titles from legendary Manchester record store Power Cuts. It’s got two versions of “Come Together” and three of “Loaded” on it plus “I’m Losing More Than I’ll Ever Have” which was the original track that was remixed into “Loaded”. Not a bad little purchase.

In a Smash Hits feature that took a snoop around Bobby’s flat at the time, his record collection was spread across the floor and featured artists you could well have anticipated like The Rolling Stones, The Ramones, Sly and the Family Stone and Funkadelic. However, it also features “Hippychick” by Soho which wasn’t a hit in the UK until its re-release some six months after this article was published. Bobby Gillespie – a man all over trends before they’ve even happened. And his critics said he was just re-hashing The Rolling Stones. “Come Together” peaked at No 26.

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Go West	King Of Wishful Thinking	I did not
2	Sting	Englishman In New York (Ben Liebrand remix)	Nah
3	The KLF	What Time Is Love (Live At Trancentral”	Nope
4	New Kids On The Block	Tonight	No but I think my friend Rachel did
5	Together	Hardcore Uproar	Harcore! You know the score! Erm…no
6	Betty Boo	Where Are You Baby	No
7	Jon Bon Jovi	Blaze Of Glory	No but it’s probably on my Bon Jovi collection CD
8	Roxette	Listen To Your Heart	I did and it said don’t buy this record
9	Partners In Kryme	Turtle Power	This as a crime…against music. No
10	Primal Scream	Come Together	Yes on CD single (but not at the time)

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000s4ql/top-of-the-pops-16081990

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.

Some bedtime reading?

https://michaelmouse1967.wixsite.com/smashhits-remembered/1990-issues

TOTP 09 AUG 1990

Posted on February 15, 2021 by 80stastic

It’s the height of Summer in 1990 here at TOTP Rewind so that can only mean one thing – nasty, tacky novelty records! Previous years had seen the charts flooded with some of the most brainless musical ditties ever committed to vinyl from the likes of Black Lace (“Agadoo”), The Tweets (“The Birdie Song”) and Spitting Image (“The Chicken Song”). Surely this sort of thing wouldn’t continue into the new decade? Oh yes it would (sorry went a bit pantomime there although that might actually be appropriate). I’ve been dreading this moment ever since I started posting about 1990. I knew it was there, waiting in the wings ready to ambush the nation – a heinous, wicked entity. Shield your eyes as we have arrived at the time of Bombalurina and “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini“!

In 1990, was there a more annoying choice to front a horrible novelty record than the guy who actually did? Timmy Mallett was known to most of us as that berk with the giant, pink foam mallet from children’s morning TV programme Wacaday and he was the most irritating twat that TV had seen for years. Everything about him was vexatious from his ‘bleugh!’ catchphrase to his boundless energy for leaping about on screen. And now here he was with stinking out the pop charts! Whose f*****g idea was this? Well, it was Andrew Lloyd Webber’s actually. Here’s @TOTPFacts:

Timmy Mallett: "[Andrew Lloyd Webber] invited me round to his house for tea although I'd never met him before, ever. He said, 'I've got this idea for doing a record – would you like to do it?' I said, 'Yeah, you bet!'" #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 5, 2021

Unbelievably, the Bombalurina project (named after a character from his musical Cats) wasn’t even the biggest crime on Lloyd Webber’s charge sheet. Twenty five years later he would outdo himself by flying into the country from abroad on his personal plane to vote in the House of Lords over proposed cuts to tax credits – he voted with the Government in favour of the plan. Wanker.

Back to Mallett though who was clearly having the time of his life playing at this pop star lark. In a Rick from The Young Ones moment he declared to Smash Hits magazine that:

“I’m going to be the most utterly, utterly famous pop star ever”

And yet, unimaginable as it may seem, Mallett did have a more credible music background than the utter embarrassment that Bombalurina was. I clearly recall him as a presenter on the Oxford Road Show pop music magazine show back in the mid 80s. Here he is trying to interview the ever evasive Terry Hall…

OK, he was fairly useless and unconvincing but still. Fast forward five years and all credibility has been flushed down the khazi – the performance here is like the pantomime from Hell. Excruciating doesn’t come anywhere near describing the horror on view. It sounded horrendous back in 1990 and yet, in an occurrence that seems to be against all auditory science, it sounds even worse today. I wonder if any of the ‘proper’ pop stars that he interviewed on Oxford Road Show caught this performance and thought to themselves “Yeah, not surprised. I always knew he was an arsehole”.

Mallett will be at No 1 soon enough. FFS!

Some proper music next…or is it? “Tom’s Diner” by DNA and Suzanne Vega sounded otherworldly to me back then and still unsettles me now. The lolloping Soul II Soul backbeat that Bath duo DNA added to the original a cappella song that Vega recorded for her 1997 album “Solitude Standing” sparked a mass of covers and re-interpretations of the song. So many were there that Vega’s record label compiled some on an album simply called “Tom’s Album” including a live version from Michael Stipe with Billy Bragg beatboxing and incorprating Madness’s “Baggy Trousers” and EMF’s “Unbelievable” into the mix…

More recently, Giorgio Moroder recorded a version of it for his 2015 album “Déjà Vu” featuring Britney Spears on vocal duties…

Back in 1990 though and DNA’s treatment of the track struck a massive chord with music fans who sent it to No 2 in the UK and No 5 in the US. The single’s B-side was Vega’s a cappella original – I wonder how many people who bought it actually listened to that version though? Someone who really did listen to it was one Karlheinz Brandenburg, a German electrical engineer, who developed the widespread MP3 method for audio data compression. Brandenburg used “Tom’s Diner” (the a cappella version) as a template for refining the sound quality of MP3 audio, a tale which has earned Vega the informal title “The Mother of the MP3”.

Not “Naked In The Rain” again? Is this the third time Blue Pearl have been on the show? I’ve covered all the Pink Floyd connections, the fact that legendary producer Youth was behind the project and the implausibility of singer Durga McBroom’s name – what else is there left to say? Well, apparently Durga’s favourite ever album is “Court And Spark” by Joni Mitchell. There – that’s it. That’s the comment. I’ve got nothing else.

Craig McLachlan And Check 1-2 were still in the Top 40 with “Mona” when their next single “Amanda” followed it into the charts. They were on a roll! I always thought this was a passable attempt at a soft rock ballad although you could argue that the world already had quite enough of that sort of thing courtesy of American rockers Boston. So who was the titular Amanda? Why, it was a girl called Rachel of course! Eh? Well, Rachel was actress Rachel Friend who McLachlan had met on the set of Aussie soap Neighbours when she played a character called Bronwyn Davies. Rachel? Bronwyn? Where the Hell does Amanda fit into all this?! Easy really – Amanda is Rachel Friend’s middle name and her and Craig were married in 1993. They were divorced in 1994. Ah. The break up shouldn’t have been that much of a surprise to the two of them though – they wrote a song together for the debut Craig McLachlan And Check 1-2 album called “Can’t Take It Any Longer”. Ahem.

By the way, Check 1-2 is a terrible name for a band isn’t it? Well, originally they were called The Y Frontz so I guess it was an upgrade on that. In 1996, in another act of predicting the future via song title, Craig released an album called “Craig McLachlan & The Culprits”. This was unfortunate as in 2018, he faced sexual harassment allegations from several actresses during his performing career. Craig was however acquitted of all charges in 2020.

Three Breakers next and for once, they are all from some very established artists. Roxette were riding the crest of their commercial wave having just scored a huge global hit with “It Must Have Been Love”. As that single had come from the soundtrack to Pretty Woman and the band were in between albums, EMI needed to revisit their back catalogue to unearth a follow up. “Listen To Your Heart” had been originally released back in October of 1989 from the”Look Sharp” album and although it had been a No 1 song in the US, it had failed to dent the Top 40 over here. Indeed, both it and “Dressed For Success” had failed to capitalise on the success of their UK breakthrough hit “The Look”. With Pretty Woman pulling in the crowds at the box office though and “It Must Have Been Love” receiving massive airplay, “Listen To Your Heart” couldn’t fail this time.

Much more of a traditional soft rock ballad than their previous more poppy output, the change of direction was entirely deliberate. In the liner notes of their 1995 greatest hits compilation “Don’t Bore Us, Get to the Chorus!”, Per Gessle described the song as:

“This is us trying to recreate that overblown American FM-rock sound to the point where it almost becomes absurd. We really wanted to see how far we could take it.”

They absolutely nailed that sound (absurd or not) – you could easily imagine that when listening to “Listen To Your Heart” you were actually listening to…erm…Heart. Following Elton John’s “Sacrifice / Healing Hands” lead, the single was actually a double A-side with the other track being something called ‘”Dangerous”. I have no idea how that one went though as daytime radio hammered the crap out of “Listen To Your Heart” and totally ignored ‘”Dangerous”.

The re-release of “Listen To Your Heart” peaked at No 6 in the UK.

Now then, I said these Breakers were all from established artists and they are but this second one is actually the debut single from the act in question. How so? Well, it’s a Jon Bon Jovi solo single of course. “Blaze Of Glory” was the title of both the lead single and parent album that included songs from and inspired by the movie Young Guns II. With Bon Jovi (the band) on hiatus after touring the world twice to promote the “Slippery When Wet” and “New Jersey” albums and with no firm plans for further recordings at that time, Jon was open to other projects. Star of Young Guns II Emilio Estevez had approached him about using Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead Or Alive” song for the film’s soundtrack. You can see why – its cowboys theme title a seemingly perfect fit for the second instalment of the Young Guns story that was breathing new life into the Western film genre. However, Jon didn’t think the track’s lyrics were fit for that type of usage – the cowboy stuff was all a metaphor to describe the life on the road of a touring rock band (‘steel horse’ = tour bus, geddit?). Instead he wrote Estevez and the film’s screenwriter John Fusco a brand new song. I say ‘brand new’ but I actually mean ripped off / just re-wrote “Wanted Dead Or Alive”. It’s basically the same song for heaven’s sake! And that was fine by me. Bon Jovi had been a guilty pleasure of mine for a few years by this point and “Blaze Of Glory” fitted in perfectly with their previous catalogue.

The video is absolutely epic with Bon Jovi strutting around atop thousand-foot cliffs outside Moab, Utah. I always liked the way he threw his guitar around when he was really going for it in the chorus. See Jason Donovan, if you’re going to wander about of cliff tops with a guitar, this is how you do it and not as you did with your shallow attempt in the “Too Many Broken Hearts” promo.

As for the film itself, Young Guns II never really lived up to the appeal of its predecessor for me. The new characters just weren’t that likeable whilst Alan Ruck’s Hendry William French seemed completely pointless. Without that same sense of camaraderie that was a feature of Young Guns, it just didn’t work for me. Whilst watching the first film as a student in Sunderland, somebody in the audience actually stood up and shouted “Charlie!” when Charlie Sheen’s character got shot.

“Blaze Of Glory” peaked at No 13 in the UK and was a No 1 in the US.

Definitely an established artist was Sting although he hadn’t had a Top 40 single since “Russians” in late 1985. His second solo album, 1987’s “…Nothing Like the Sun”, had though been a platinum selling No 1 record but none of the singles from it had been hits. One of those was “Englishman in New York” which had stalled at No 51 on its original release. Fast forward to 1990 and for some reason, Sting’s record label A&M allowed Dutch DJ and producer Ben Liebrand to remix the track and it finally became a chart hit peaking at No 15. I’m not sure what the reasoning behind this decision was other than to raise Sting’s profile ahead of the release of his third solo album, “The Soul Cages”, which hit the shops six months on from this.

I’m not entirely convinced that the 1990 remix is that different from the 1987 original to be honest but its an intriguing tune all the same. Famously written about eccentric and gay icon Quentin Crisp who features in the video, it’s possibly one of Sting’s most well known solo efforts I would suggest and even inspired this 1993 version by reggae singer Shinehead.

Enough with all these old fogeys though, what the kids wanted back in the Summer of 1990 was….a load of bleeps set to a heavy bass sound? WTF? Yes, for all 1990 is remembered for ‘Madchester’ and the baggy movement, there was also a significant invasion of the Top 40 by a genre called ‘Bleep ‘n’ Bass’ – or was it ‘Electro Bleep’? Look, I don’t know; it wasn’t my bag at all but I do know that there was a dance compilation series called ‘Breaks, Bass & Bleeps’ that showcased this sort of thing. And just as ‘Madchester’ had its holy trinity of The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and Inspiral Carpets so ‘Bleep ‘n’ Bass’ had its trio of chart stars in LFO, Together (more of whom later) and this lot, Tricky Disco. Behind the name were husband and wife duo Michael Wells and Lee Newman who used a plethora of aliases to release their music the idea behind which was that the press would not write about so much material all coming from the same act but they would review releases by supposedly distinct artists with completely different names. Some of their other identities included GTO, John + Julie, Church of Extacy, Signs of Chaos, Salami Brothers, Killout Squad and Technohead the last of whom gave them their biggest ever hit with 1996’s “I Wanna Be a Hippy”.

To me though, the bleeps in “Tricky Disco” sounded like my Binatone video game from when I was about 11 and I couldn’t be doing with it. What? Binatone? It was a huge clunky piece of hardware that, when plugged into your TV, allowed you a choice of 10 game including football, hockey, tennis and something infuriating called gridball.

This was what passed for hi spec computer game graphics in the 70s kids

However, they were all based around very limited graphic capability so pretty much all you got on screen was a paddle and a dot for a ball…and I loved it…for a while but eventually all the fuss around setting it up on the TV (there were no separate monitors back in the 70s) kind of squeezed all the excitement out of it.

Anyway, the sound of the paddles continually hitting the dot ball back and forth was just like the bleep noises on “Tricky Disco” and the like and that wasn’t music to me. Sorry.

This was though! By my reckoning, this is the third time that “I’m Free” by The Soup Dragons featuring Junior Reid has been on the show but the first time we have seen the video. The promo is basically a straight band performance but set against spiralling, fluorescent psychedelic colours and was directed by someone called Matthew Amos who went onto work with artists as diverse as Blur, Elton John and erm…Slipknot.

It reminds me of the old 60s sci-fi series Time Tunnel or when late night Channel 4 magazine show The Word had live bands on. Look, like Stereo MC’s here…

So after Blue Pearl and The Soup Dragons earlier in the show, here’s yet another track which has been on TOTP multiple times now. I think this might be the fourth occasion for MC Hammer and “U Can’t Touch This” but to enable these repeat performances to be squeezed onto the show, their air time has been vastly reduced. The Soup Dragons got about 1minute 20 seconds on screen whilst MC Hammer came in at 1:10!

Such is the legacy of “U Can’t Touch This” that it has been parodied time and time again. The obvious suspects like lampooner-in-chief Weird Al Yankovic have gone there but it has also been sent up by NFL American football team the Miami Dolphins, in an episode of Family Guy and to promote social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Oh and this one as well…

We’ll be seeing more of MC Hammer before 1990 is done with I’m sure.

Finally a song we haven’t seen/heard before! Well, sort of. “I Can See Clearly Now” was well known to music fans from the Johnny Nash original which hit No 5 in 1972 but it was reactivated here by Irish rockers Hothouse Flowers. The second (and most successful) single to be taken from their album “Home”, was its release just and open and shut case of needing a cover version to secure them a hit? Possibly. Lead single from the album “Give It Up” had peaked at a lowly No 30 so it could have just been a cynical record company move. I have to say that they did a nice job of it, injecting some gospel vibes and before letting it rock out in the song’s finale. However, if they were hoping to break the Top 10 with it, they were to be disappointed as it struggled to No 23. A third and final single taken from the album called “Movies'” didn’t even make the Top 40 and we would not see the band for another three years when they returned with the “Songs From The Rain” album.

In November 2016, their version of the song was featured in the premiere episode of the Amazon Prime Video motoring show The Grand Tour which was the new (ahem) vehicle for massive bell end Jeremy Clarkson after he had been sacked by the BBC from his previous show Top Gear. The exposure for the song sent it to No 1 on the iTunes’s Top 40 UK Rock Song chart in late 2016.

It’s the third of four weeks at the top for Partners In Kryme with “Turtle Power“. So popular were the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that they actually went on tour! A proper concert tour playing live gigs! The Coming Out of Their Shells tour premiered at Radio City Music Hall in August of 1990 and featured live-action turtles playing music as a band. In case you were wondering, this was the line up:

Michelangelo – guitar
Leonardo – bass guitar
Donatello – keyboards
Raphael – drums and saxophone

Like I said, a proper band! Never mind the story of The Monkees starting out as a fictional band and becoming real pop stars, this was next level stuff! To be fair, The Banana Splits had kind of beaten them to it with the performing as a band schtick by a good 20 years but I’m not sure if they ever went on tour! What I am sure about is that their tune was infinitely more funky than the one those turtles were playing…

That’s all my turtle trivia for another week. Spare a thought for me though as I’ve got another week of this nonsense to have to comment on!

So back to that bleeping ‘Bleep ‘n’ Bass’ stuff for the play out video which is the aforementioned Together with “Hardcore Uproar”. I have no recollection of this at all, so much so that I assumed that the name of the act was Hardcore Uproar and the song was called “Together” when I came to review it. I think I was getting confused with Stockport based indie imps Northern Uproar on reflection. Together on the other hand were a pair of Hacienda regulars whose white label recording of “Hardcore Uproar” was so popular that hit qualified for an official release and climbed to No 12 in the charts. Supposedly the tracks title was the inspiration for a series of compilations featuring house, techno and rave tunes released on the Dino Entertainment label. I do remember that compilation series from my time in Our Price if not the band Together.

For posterity’s sake, I include the chart run down below:

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Bombalurina	Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini	How does f**k off sound as an answer?
2	Suzanne Vega featuring DNA	Tom’s Diner	No but my wife had the original version of the song on Suzanne’s Solitude Standing album
3	Blue Pearl	Naked In The Rain	It’s a no
4	Craig McLachlan and Check 1-2	Amanda	Nope
5	Roxette	Listen To Your Heart	I did and it said don’t buy this record
6	Jon Bon Jovi	Blaze Of Glory	No but it’s probably on my Bon Jovi collection CD
7	Sting	Englishman In New York	No
8	Tricky Disco	Tricky Disco	Tricky Disc-NO
9	The Soup Dragons featuring Junior Reid	I’m Free	Thought I did but singles box says no. I did however by the follow up single Mother Universe
10	MC Hammer	U Can’t Touch This	And I didn’t – no
11	Hothouse Flowers	I Can See Clearly Now	But I couldn’t see my way clear to buying this – no
12	Partners In Kryme	Turtle Power	This as a crime…against music. No
13	Together	Hardcore Uproar	Harcore! You know the score! Erm…no

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000rxpk/top-of-the-pops-09081990

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.

Some bedtime reading?

https://michaelmouse1967.wixsite.com/smashhits-remembered/1990-issues

TOTP 02 AUG 1990

Posted on February 10, 2021 by 80stastic

Like a former Brosette dumping the Goss brothers and transferring her affections onto New Kids On The Block, we have left behind July 1990 and moved into August…and it’s sweltering! The day after this TOTP aired, the UK Summer heat wave peaked with a temperature of 37.1 °C! Apparently immune to the heat though is tonight’s presenter Bruno Brookes who felt the need for a shirt and jacket combo – madman. He does, however, promise us some ‘hot hits’ so let’s see what the little fella has got in store for us…

…well, never mind the heatwave, it’s the UK rock wave of 1990 that’s in full flow. After Thunder were on the show the other week, now we get their doppelgängers Little Angels with their new hit “She’s A Little Angel”. As far as I can ascertain, this seemed to be a stand alone single released between their albums “Don’t Prey For Me” and “Young Gods” although I think it has turned up on the latter album in subsequent re-releases. It was definitely the band’s second chart hit after “Radical Your Lover” made it to No 34 back in May.

Lead singer Toby Jepson does seem to be trying out his best Robert Plant impression in this performance. Drummer Michael Lee would go one better though by actually touring and performing with Plant after Little Angels split in 1994. As well as the aforementioned Thunder, we also had Gun on the show recently who seemed to me to also be a part of this early 90s UK rock movement and it was Jepson who would link all three bands by supporting Thunder in 2006 as a solo artist and then becoming Gun’s lead singer from 2008 to 2010. They should have just gone the Busted/McFly route who joined forces in 2013 as McBusted. What would that have made them? ‘Little Gunder’ maybe? Or ‘Gunder Angels’ even?

Little Angels would have their own season in the sun when their 1993 “Jam” album went to No 1 on the charts. I was working in Our Price Rochdale when that album came out and I bagged the promo copy of it that their record company had sent out to all stores to promote. Somehow it got lost in transit over the years whilst moving cities. I also caught the band doing a PA in HMV Manchester at this time; that makes it sound like I apprehended them doing an illegal set – they were meant to be there doing a PA! They were pretty good as I recall.

“She’s A Little Angel” peaked at No 21.

Did somebody mention New Kids On The Block? Here are the pesky little blighters with their single “Tonight”. I’m not sure if the video below is the one that TOTP show which, as Bruno advises, seems to be clips of the group’s recent tour, but it is the official video. I know at least two people who like this song (my wife is one of them!) whilst I completely dismissed it as pop cack at the time. On listening to it 31 years later, I can at least hear what they were trying to do which is come up with a more mature sound than their previous efforts like “Hangin’ Tough” and “You Got It (The Right Stuff)”. They even reference their past chart life in the lyrics hoping to distance themselves from it by admitting its existence. Check these out:

Remember when we said “Girl, please don’t go”
And how I’d be loving you forever
Taught you ’bout hanging tough
As long as you’ve got the right stuff

And then they attempt to break with their past with the line:

Well I guess it’s a brand new day after all

Quite clever really – bit like breaking through a musical fourth wall. Well, sort of.

It wasn’t just the lyrics though, they were obviously trying out a new sound as well. I say ‘new’ sound but they were clearly borrowing heavily from a number of artists. The intro is pure “California Dreamin'” by The Mamas And The Papas, whilst there is more than a whiff of The Beatles circa “Magical Mystery Tour” and The Beach Boys “Pet Sounds” era. Too much? How dare I compare The Beatles and The Beach Boys with T’KNOB? OK – it’s pushing it but you see where I’m coming from? No? OK – you win.

“Tonight” peaked at No 3.

A run of three hits we’ve seen previously on the show next beginning with LFO and “LFO”. OK, this is just weird. Not the track (although it is a bit too out there for my tastes) but this bit of trivia that I found online. Despite the existence of LFO who were from Leeds, from 1995 there was also an American band called LFO. They must have got away with the duplicate name as it stands for ‘Lyte Funkie Ones’ whilst their UK counterparts acronym stood for ‘Low Frequency Oscillation’ apparently. That’s not the weird bit though. This is…the US LFO released a version of “Step By Step” by New Kids On The Block! Yes, that lot that were just on! In fact, “Step By Step” was the single before “Tonight” that we’ve just seen. Here it is….

Despite being released seven years apart, the sprites of pop trivia have discharged their unknown powers to create a tenuous but valid link between acts on this 1990 TOTP. Saves me having to come up with something about LFO anyway.

“LFO” by LFO (the UK one) peaked at No 12.

After being a Breaker in last week’s show, Bell Biv Devoe are in the studio tonight to perform “Poison”. Also known as BBD (enough with the acronyms! – grammar editor), I would have said that this was by far the trio’s biggest hit in the UK but I was wrong. Apparently (and I must have missed this completely at the time despite working in record shops by then), they also appeared on the single “The Best Things in Life Are Free” by Janet Jackson and Luther Vandross. And I don’t mean they were in the studio that day and happened to join in on the backing vocals, they get a proper credit. The single cover includes the legend ‘with special guest BBD and Ralph Tresvant’. Hang on…Ralph Tresvant? Wasn’t he in New Edition alongside Mr Bell, Mr Biv and Mr DeVoe? Indeed he was. And I thought Gun, Little Angels and Thunder were a tight little friendship group!

Anyway, “The Best Things in Life Are Free” was a hit twice for Janet/Luther/BBD/Mr Tresvant – a No 2 in 1992 and a No 7 in 1995 when it was remixed thereby easily outperforming “Poison” which peaked at No 19.

More weirdness now as it’s that incongruous best selling albums of the month feature again. For the record, these were the top sellers in July 1990:

1. Elton John – “Sleeping With The Past”

2. Luciano Pavarotti – “The Essential Pavarotti”

3. Rollings Stones – “Hot Rocks 1964–1971”

4. The Beach Boys – “Summer Dreams”

5. Madonna – “I’m Breathless”

Interesting that two of the Top 5 are essentially Best Ofs from legendary acts plus another one from a classical artist and that the other two albums are the latest offerings by established superstars. Where were all the new groups/bands/artists? Also, I note that TOTP finally play “Healing Hands” for the Elton clip after weeks of persisting with ‘Sacrifice”

And it’s one of those ‘established superstars’ that we stick with as we return to the singles chart as “Hanky Panky” by Madonna gets another spin. 1990 was not only the year that she starred in the Dick Tracy flick which this single was written for but she also embarked upon her Blonde Ambition World Tour. Said tour featured a Dick Tracy segment which, according to a Smash Hits review of the show, was the point at which most of the audience chose to nip out to the toilet. I’m kind of not surprised.

Despite its obvious and calculated attempt at outrage, “Hanky Panky” came across as too knowing and cartoon-ish to be truly pushing the barriers of decency for me. However, it did signpost the direction in which she would take her career from this point in. Her next single was “Justify My Love” with its sexually explicit promo video whilst her next studio album was the controversy courting “Erotica” and that coffee table book of adult content.

The first new single release of the decade from Prince next (well in the UK anyway) and it’s “Thieves In The Temple”. After his last project, the below par (it was to me at least) Batman soundtrack, Prince stays within the world of cinema with his next endeavour, the “Graffiti Bridge” project. Essentially a follow up to 1984’s Purple Rain, the film has been widely dissed since its release. I have to admit I’ve never seen it but given that it was nominated for five Golden Raspberry Awards including Worst Picture, Worst Actor (Prince), Worst Director (Prince), Worst Screenplay (Prince), and Worst New Star (Ingrid Chavez), I not in any hurry to seek it out. As for the film’s soundtrack album, it was critically well received but didn’t shift the units that he had in the past. It was often a title that would crop up in the Special Purchase section during my Our Price days – titles that there were massive overstocks of that specialist companies bought up cheap and then flogged back to record stores to sell at a discounted price. Actually, Prince’s last studio album “Lovesexy” was also a perennial Special Purchase title now I come to think of it.

“Thieves In The Temple” though was a pretty decent tune to my ears and was actually the final song recorded for the album and only added to the track listing at the last minute. I thought the metaphor of the title was clever and the chorus was catchy as opposed to “Batdance” which didn’t appear to have any sort of chorus at all. Although I didn’t buy the single, it was on the first Q Magazine album that I did purchase.

“Thieves In The Temple” peaked at No 7.

“It’s so hot” exclaims Bruno Brookes next as he insists on wearing his heavy looking jacket under studio lights. He subsequently describes the next act as “definitely the No 1 novelty record of the Summer so far”. Novelty record? Not sure about that to be honest. Was “Wash Your Face In My Sink” by Dream Warriors a novelty record? My friend Robin told me recently that when this was a hit, somebody he worked with down in that there London thought it was hysterical that there was a record in the charts whose title was innuendo for a specific sexual act! Robin was new in his job so didn’t know his colleague well and understandably didn’t want to explore the conversation any further so I have no idea which sexual act was being referred to. Every time I have since tried to imagine what it could be I have felt dirty and indeed in need of a wash in a sink.

In a Smash Hits article , King Lou of the band explained the song’s meaning as this:

“We took something as primitive as a washroom and we used the toilet being the dirty and the negative and the sink being the cleansed, the positive. Basically just picture the sink as being a rap book and the lyrics being the flow coming from the tap. It’s basically trying to say you can’t wash your negativity in my positivity. It goes really deep. It was originally to be called ‘Tablecloths and Napkins’.

I hope that clears it all up.

Well, well well. It’s the return of one of the biggest bands of the 80s next. Duran Duran had a hit in the 90s with a song that wasn’t “Ordinary World”? Yes they did. Their first hit of the new decade was something called “Violence Of Summer (Love’s Taking Over)” whatever that meant and was the lead single from their new album “Liberty”. The band had drawn a line under their first era by releasing Best Of album “Decade” at the end of ’89. If they’d envisioned that as a new start for the 90s, it didn’t begin well. They had a new line up for a start with guitarist Warren Cuccurullo and drummer Sterling Campbell having made the transition from session guys to fully blown band members. What would this change of dynamic do to the band? Secondly, did they still have any juice left in the creative tank to rebuild their career and do it all over again? Did they still have a market to appeal to? In short, were they still relevant?

Well, if I was any sort of measure, then the answer was no. Despite owning Duran Duran records in my days of early youth, “Violence Of Summer (Love’s Taking Over)” passed me by completely. A complete non-event. Could this have been because it didn’t actually receive that much airplay at the time? Not a good sign for a band on the comeback trail. Parent album “Liberty” debuted healthily enough inside the Top 10 but dropped out of the charts calamitously within a few short weeks. American magazine Trouser Press gave it this stinging review:

“The album is idiotic with lyrics that set new standards for pretensions gone out of bounds…”

Ouch! When I started at Our Price a few months later in 1990, I worked with a guy called Mark who had been a big Duran fan in his youth (well, he was a fellow Brummie) and he said that he’d bought “Liberty” out of band loyalty but never would do again so bad was it. He was done with them. Double ouch!

Retrospectively, even the band themselves slagged it off. Here’s Nick Rhodes in 2005 (from Steve Malins) Duran biography on “Violence Of Summer (Love’s Taking Over)”:

“It wasn’t right, I didn’t really like it as a single”

Triple ouch!

In subsequent years, the band have mellowed to the album and there has been talk of them revisiting some of the songs and demos that never made the track listing cut but that period of the band’s career will never be more than a depressing footnote.

Listening to “Violence Of Summer (Love’s Taking Over)” today, it sounds very poppy and pretty flimsy. There’s really not much to it at all. Follow up single “Serious” (once described by singer Simon Le Bon as the band’s finest moment) didn’t even make the Top 40. It would be three long years before they would return to the charts again.

Those turtles are still at No 1 this week, or rather Partners In Kryme are with their single “Turtle Power”. Whilst this TOTP repeat aired last Friday evening a debate broke out online about the identity of the first hip hop track to make it to No 1 in the UK. Unbelievably, the following claim was made:

The only UK top 40 hit for Partners In Kryme, “Turtle Power” was also the UK's first hip hop number one. (Thanks to @JonnyWelly for pointing this out!) #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 5, 2021

WTF?! That can’t be right can it?! I wasn’t the only one to dispute this statement as various contenders were nominated including Snap!, Bowie’s “Let’s Dance”, Chaka Khan’s “I Feel For You” and even a shout for “Under Pressure”. However, one track rang truer than all these with the watching public and after a quick poll, this was the official result:

Okay, let's sort this out democratically. First UK hip hop number one? VOTE NOW #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 5, 2021

Glad that’s sorted out then!

You wait all year for a dance act with an eponymously titled Top 40 hit to appear and then two turn up in the same show! After “LFO” by LFO earlier, here comes “Tricky Disco” by Tricky Disco. And as with LFO, Tricky Disco were also on the Sheffield record label Warp.

As you might have easily predicted, I wasn’t into this at all. Load of breaks, bass and bleeps nonsense. They added to their charge sheet with this piece of crap in 1995….

“Tricky Disco” by Tricky Disco peaked at No 14.

For posterity’s sake, I include the chart run down below:

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Little Angels	She’s A Little Angel	Nope
2	New Kids On The Block	Tonight	No but I think my friend Rachel did
3	LFO	LFO	LF…NO
4	Bell, Biv Devoe	Poison	Negative
5	Madonna	Hanky Panky	Nah
6	Prince	Thieves In The Temple	No but it was on that Q Magazine compilation I bought
7	Dream Warriors	Wash Your Face In My Sink	Liked it but not enough to buy it
8	Duran Duran	Violence Of Summer (Love’s Taking Over)	Nah – I’d given up on them by this point
9	Partners In Kryme	Turtle Power	This is a crime…against music. No
10	Tricky Disco	Tricky Disco	Tricky Disc-NO

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000rxph/top-of-the-pops-02081990

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.

Some bedtime reading?

https://michaelmouse1967.wixsite.com/smashhits-remembered/1990-issues

TOTP 26 JUL 1990

Posted on February 5, 2021 by 80stastic

We are still in the middle of Summer here at TOTP Rewind, Summer 1990 that is. I haven’t dropped in on the 22 year old version of myself for a few posts so let me give him a bell and see if he’s there….oh yeah, affordable mobile phones are yet to flood the market so I didn’t have one in 1990 – indeed I spent most of the decade without one. Never mind, I know where he’ll be – working at Kingston Communications on that temporary VDU input contract. What’s that? The contract finished a couple of weeks ago? So where is he now then? Try Queen’s Gardens? OK, thanks. Not having any work again, the 1990 me used to often spend my time idling the hours away wandering around Queen’s Gardens in Hull, usually with my trusty Sony Walkman for company.

Queen’s Gardens, Hull – yes they do look nice don’t they?

I’m guessing my girlfriend / wife must have had a job at this time as I have no recollection of spending anytime with her shooting the breeze in the gardens in the sun. I think my period of free time didn’t last that long as Kingston Communications asked me to come back for a further couple of weeks work later on in the Summer so impressed were they by me as the master of VDU input. For now though, I’m busy doing nothing and listening to? What was I listening to on that Walkman? The only thing I can recall is that I had purchased the cassette single of the latest World Party single called “Put The Message In The Box” so I was probably playing that on repeat.

Enough of me though and back to TOTP. Tonight’s host is Jakki Brambles who appears to have undergone a dramatic image restyle with her hair now up but with some cascading ringlets framing her face. From cascading ringlets to cascading rain as we join opening act Blue Pearl who are still “Naked In The Rain”. As well as the unlikely named Durga McBroom on vocals, the band also featured Youth, the well known record producer and musician. His is an interesting story with notable career moments including being founding member and bass player in gothic rockers Killing Joke and going on to produce pretty much everyone from Art Of Noise to The Verve via Crowded House, James, Erasure and Bananarama (more of whom later). One of his less heralded projects but one which I always quite liked were funk pop-rockers Brilliant who included future KLF masterminds Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond as their keyboardist/guitarist and A&R manager respectively. Drummond didn’t share my like of the band though stating in an interview on Norwegian radio station NRK P2 that:

“I signed a band called Brilliant, who I worked with, we worked together, and it was complete failure. Artistically bankrupt project. And financially deaf. We spent £300,000 on making an album that was useless. Useless artistically, useless… commercially.”

Ouch! Well, I disagree Bill. What say you reader?

Back to Blue Pearl though and after “Naked In The Rain” peaked at No 4, the house duo seemed to be set to ride the dance wave into the early 90s and beyond but follow up track “Little Brother ” only made it to No 31 whilst the album “Naked” was caught with its pants down at a lowly No 58. The project was disbanded in 1993 but “Naked In The Rain” returned to the Top 40 in 1998 as…erm… “Naked In The Rain 98”.

Oh knackers! It’s going to be one of those dance dominated shows isn’t it? The second act tonight are Technotronic featuring Ya Kid K with “Rockin’ Over The Beat”. I really can’t think of anything else I want to say about this lot. C’mon man think! Ok, how about a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles connection? They’re all the rage aren’t they? Brilliant (no not them)! Here goes…Technotronic contributed the song “Spin That Wheel” to the soundtrack album of the film under the pseudonym of Hi Tek 3 and Ya Kid K ‘featured’ on that as well. n some territories it was released as “Spin That Wheel (Turtles Get Real)”. The track was released as a single twice in the UK, peaking at No 69 in January 1990 but making No 15 when re-released nine months later. That do you? No? Well, Ya Kid K seemingly couldn’t get enough of those turtles so she released her own solo single called “Awesome (You Are My Hero)” from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II soundtrack in 1991. Cow and indeed abunga!

OK, so the next one is another dance track but an interesting one for all that. I already knew of the song “Tom’s Diner” by Suzanne Vega as it had been the opening track on Suzanne’s 1987 album “Solitude Standing” which my girlfriend/wife had bought. Being an a cappella song, it was quite striking on first hearing (and pretty much every one after that too). It had been released as a single but it was too out there for our tastes back in 1987 and it stalled at No 58.

The idea though that it could be converted into a dance track? Well, I for one never saw it coming. And DNA, who were they? They were a production duo from Bath who added a Soul II Soul backbeat to the original and released it as a bootleg. None of this was done with either Vega or her record label A&M ‘s approval and the former wasn’t initially keen on the idea. However, on hearing the DNA remix, artist and label decided not to sue but to get on board with the idea and give it an official release. The rest is history. Its rise to No 2 in the UK charts was still a surprise though, to me anyway. Could you actually dance to it in a club? It put me in mind more of Laurie Anderson’s “O Superman” more than a dance floor banger.

Seven years later, DJ and producer Armand van Helden pulled off a similar trick when he remixed American singer-songwriter and pianist Tori Amos’ “Professional Widow” track as “Professional Widow (It’s Got to Be Big)” and scored a No 1.

Oh good. Here come The Soup Dragons featuring Junior Reid with “I’m Free”. This still sounds good to me. Unfairly labelled as the polythene Primal Scream in some quarters – both bands had seemingly moved away from their jangly guitar roots to make indie-dance records come the new decade – somehow the moment for The Soup Dragons to become massive stars slipped through their grasp. Despite a marvellous follow up single in the re-issued “Mother Universe” and a critically well received Top 10 album in “Lovegod”, momentum was lost and by 1995 they had disbanded. Maybe chart success was never really the plan though. Singer Sean Dickson stated in a Smash Hits article that:

“I could bloody write a record to get in the charts tomorrow – I’m not that dumb. But it doesn’t appeal to me at all – that’s for nerds and assholes and idiots who want to ruin their lives.”

Well quite.

“I’m Free” peaked at No 5.

The Breakers are back! We start with Bell Biv DeVoe who were of course previously all members of “Candy Girl” hit makers New Edition. Once Bobby Brown left the band and embarked on a successful solo career, the other vocalists in the group wanted in – Ralph Tresvant will turn up in our charts again with his “Sensitivity” single soon enough whilst Johnny Gill scored big with his eponymous 1990 solo album before forming R’n’B supergroup Levert.Sweat.Gill. That left the other three guys (Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins and Ronnie DeVoe) who had pretty much always been the backing vocalists and weren’t sure what to do once New Edition splintered. Encouraged by producer Jimmy Jam, they joined forces and gained immediate success with their “Poison” single and album. The title track in particular, though only just scraping into the Top 20 over here, was huge in the US and has taken on a life of its own in the subsequent years being used extensively in film, TV and computer games soundtracks.

Unsurprisingly, it did sound very Bobby Brown to me which was like kryptonite to Superman for my pop sensibilities although I always thought that the elongated ‘poison’ hook was effective. At the song’s end, they give name checks to their ex New Editions band mates with these lyrics:

“Yo’, wassup to Ralph T and Johnny G
And I can’t forget about my boy, B. Brown
And the whole NE crew“

New Edition – the most amicable band break up ever.

Now is this the biggest ever gap between the release of a huge No 1 single and its follow up? Sinéad O’Connor‘s all conquering “Nothing Compares 2 U” was initially released on January 8th in 1990 before hitting the top of the charts in early February but its follow up, “The Emperor’s New Clothes“, wasn’t released until six months later! Why the big wait in between releases? No idea. Could it be that her record company hadn’t banked on the extraordinary success of “Nothing Compares 2 U” and the weight of expectation for more chart glory that it ushered in? Maybe they’d an original single release schedule but it was totally skewed by her rise to superstardom? Whatever the reason there certainly seemed to be some indecision before “The Emperor’s New Clothes” was plucked for single release. I don’t know parent album “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got” well enough to know if this was a wise choice of track or not but it was always going to suffer in comparison to its predecessor. It’s much more “Mandinka” than “Nothing Compares 2 U” and is a pretty solid effort but it was doomed from the start to fall short commercially. It duly peaked at No 31.

As the 80s ended, Bananarama could reflect on a decade that included 18 Top 40 hits (including 10 Top Tenners) and the status of being the UK’s most successful all girl group. As the 90s dawned though, the future looked less certain than their glorious past. Their fanbase was still coming to terms with the leaving of Siobhan Fahey and her replacement by Jacquie O’Sullivan whilst original and now principal group members Keren Woodward and Sara Dallin were contemplating which direction to go in next. Their fifth studio album “Pop Life” saw them lose faith with the Stock, Aitken and Waterman formula, go back to their beginnings with producers Steve Jolley and Tony Swain before finally settling on Sara’a ex-boyfriend Youth (him again!) to produce the album.

“Only Your Love” was the lead single and despite pinching ‘woo woo’ vocals from “Sympathy For The Devil” by The Rolling Stones, didn’t really tear up the charts and after gathering some moss along the way, came to a standstill at No 27. The video featured the usual rabble of half dressed male hunks for the girls to cavort around and the whole thing looked and sounded a bit half arsed to me. Bit ironic considering that they left SAW behind because they said that the tracks they offered to them showed a complete lack of progression with accusations from the Nanas that the production trio had stagnated and were spending all their time working on tunes for Kylie and Jason Donovan.

The album fared even worse peaking at No 42 but then the group were never really an album act were they? The harsh truth is that there are more Bananarama compilation albums in existence (16) than studio albums (11). Pretty telling I think.

At the end of the promotion for the album, Jacquie O’Sullivan jumped ship and swapped a ‘Pop Life’ for a career as a yoga teacher leaving Keren and Sara to carry on as a duo.

Back in the studio we find Paula Abdul and her latest single “Knocked Out”. In a totally predictable turn of events, Paula has taken to the TOTP stage backed by four dancers dressed as boxers. I’m guessing Ms Abdul came up with the routine herself – I thought she was meant to be an award winning choreographer? The boxing theme was surely too lame and obvious though? She must have been so preoccupied by the routine though that she forgot to include any sort of tune in her single which really is nothing more than some beats to soundtrack her dance moves rather than a piece of music in its own right.

“Knocked Out” peaked at No 21.

Jakki Brambles fluffs her lines in the intro to MC Hammer‘s “U Can’t Touch This” by announcing that his album is called “Please Hammer Hurt ‘Em” when in fact it was entitled “Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em”. Come on Jakki – this is easy stuff surely? Pretty sure I would have been docked points for that answer when asked the name of MC Hammer’s album in my Our Price interview a few months on from this broadcast.

Famously sampling “Super Freak” by Rick James, unlike the aforementioned Suzanne Vega and DNA, Rick routinely turned down requests from rappers to sample his music but his lawyers authorised the “Super Freak” sample without his permission. Despite the royalties it brought in, James claimed he wouldn’t have done the deal had he been asked.

The video to “U Can’t Touch This” became the most-played of 1990 on MTV as well as winning a clutch of awards. It has been viewed 601 million times on YouTube which is mind blowing when you consider that it’s basically Hammer in some comedy oversized pants doing some cheesy dance steps. Somehow the single only made it to No 8 in the US Billboard Top 100 which seems rather implausible given its profile.

Hammer’s run of hit singles continued for a couple of years before his star started to wane. A relaunch with a harder, gangster rapper image was unsuccessful and by the late ’90s, he became a TV preacher.

A second studio performance for River City People next with their cover of “California Dreamin'”. This lot seemed such an anachronism in the charts of 1990 though not necessarily an unpleasant one. So did their hit spark a revival of The Mamas & the Papas music? It seems not. I was expecting their to have been a quickly put together, TV advertised Best Of album rushed out on the back of the River City People’s chart success but their discography doesn’t show one. There had been one in 1977 but there wasn’t another released until 1995. Do I own one? Not exactly though my wife bought the soundtrack to the film Beautiful Thing which was basically the same thing. If you’ve not seen the film, it’s worth a watch about two young lads coming to terms with their homosexuality and slowly building relationship. Kind of like an It’s A Sin for the 90s. Kind of.

“California Dreamin’ / Carry The Blame” peaked at No 13.

King Elton of John has been deposed and we have a new No 1. Unfortunately it’s “Turtle Power” by ~~Technotronic~~, ~~Hi Tek 3,~~ ~~Ya Kid K~~….Partners In Kryme. In my mind, this was only at the top of the heap for one solitary week but in actual fact it was there for four whole weeks! Oh joy!

Not wanting to miss any opportunities, the promotions team behind the phenomenon get two guys dressed in Turtle outfits to stand beside Jakki but I’m not sure starting to touch her inappropriately was in their brief. By the time we return to Jakki at the song’s end, she’s got them back under control and the whole show is rounded off with a resounding cry of ‘Cowabunga!’ although I think Jakki cocks that up too and says ‘Carrabunga!’ which sounds like some sort of bribery attempt involving Jamie Carragher.

There is still the ‘any other business moment’ of the play out video which is “LFO” by LFO. I was not frequenting any nightclubs at this time and so this passed me by completely. I do recall their ‘Frequencies” album coming out on the achingly hip Warp label about a year later as I was working in Our Price by that time and some of the dance heads at the shop got very excited about it.

“LFO” peaked at No 12.

For posterity’s sake, I include the chart run down below:

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Blue Pearl	Naked In The Rain	It’s a no
2	Technotronic featuring Ya Kid K	Rockin’ Over The Beat	This beat is…shit. No
3	Suzanne Vega featuring DNA	Tom’s Diner	No but my wife had the original version of the song on Suzanne’s Solitude Standing album
4	The Soup Dragons featuring Junior Reid	I’m Free	Thought I did but singles box says no. I did however by the follow up single Mother Universe
5	Bell Biv Devoe	Poison	Nope
6	Sinead O’Connor	The Emperor’s New Clothes	Nah
7	Bananarama	Only Your Love	No
8	Paula Abdul	Knocked Out	Negative
9	MC Hammer	U Can’t Touch This	And I didn’t – no
10	River City People	California Dreamin’ / Carry The Blame	Nope
11	Partners In Kryme	Turtle Power	This as a crime…against music. No
12	LFO	LFO	LF…NO

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000rpmq/top-of-the-pops-26071990

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.

Some bedtime reading?

https://michaelmouse1967.wixsite.com/smashhits-remembered/1990-issues

TOTP 19 JUL 1990

Posted on February 3, 2021 by 80stastic

Well, Italia ’90 may have come to a painful end a couple of weeks prior but the England football team were still in the news as three days before this TOTP aired, Graham Taylor was appointed full time manager of the national team following the pre-planned resignation of Bobby Robson. It wasn’t a universally welcome appointment and within three years and after a dismal Euro ’92 performance and failure to qualify for the ’94 World Cup, Taylor also resigned. The now infamous Channel 4 fly on the wall documentary film surrounding the doomed ’94 qualifying campaign originally broadcast as Graham Taylor: An Impossible Job is now, sadly for Taylor, the best remembered part of his legacy including the immortal line “Do I Not Like That”.

What’s all this got to do with TOTP? Very little although Taylor does, of course, have some legendary ties to music. Firstly, there is his relationship with Elton John (more of whom later) as Watford FC manager to Elton’s club chairman. Secondly, Taylor once admitted that his favourite ever singer was Forces’ Sweetheart Dame Vera Lynn, an odd choice for a man who was only a one year old child when the war ended but then he was very much seen as an old fashioned type of gentleman. Funny then that he always seemed to be swearing his head off in that documentary…

Finally, and most bizarrely, I found this musical connection on YouTube. Apologies in advance…

My own personal Graham Taylor moment of 1990 came when I walked past his office door when he was still manager of Aston Villa (prior to his taking the England job). I’d contacted the football club as I was unemployed and desperate for some sort of career direction at the time. I had a chat with their commercial manager about possible career opportunities within football and his office was a couple of doors down from Graham’s.

If you clicked on this post hoping for some 1990 music memories and are wondering why you have been reading about football for the past 450 odd words, stick with me. I’m going there right now. OK, tonight’s host is Mark Goodier who has come dressed as a zebra and the first act on are Craig McLachlan And Check 1-2 with “Mona”. They are up to the No 2 position and are eyeing a possible No 1 – they couldn’t could they? Well, *spoiler alert* no they didn’t but fair play, it was a gallant effort. He even got on the front cover of Smash Hits!

Craig and co are in the actual studio for the first time and he gets to show off his guitar playing credentials (or at least mime them) and they seem pretty convincing. In that Smash Hits article, he showed off his collection of guitars including the one he has with him on stage here. It’s not his most precious axe in his collection though which is an original series Ibanez Iceman made famous by KISS guitarist Paul Stanley who had a signature Iceman.

For all his rock credentials though, Craig was unable to forge a lasting music career despite a Top 10 album and halfway decent follow up single in “Amanda”. And whatever you may say about his cover of “Mona”, you have to admit it’s quite the ear worm.

Next up, the reason that poor old Craig failed to get that No 1 spot as it was stolen from under his nose by Partners In Kryme and their awful single “Turtle Power”. This was of course to promote the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise entry into the world of film. This tale of four turtles turned into crime fighting, pizza eating heroes after being exposed to radioactive sewer ooze had been around for a couple of years via the animated cartoon (retitled Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles for the more delicately natured UK audience). With turtle related merchandising also coming on line, the step into the big screen was inevitable. The film didn’t hit UK cinemas until late November but as it was already out in the US, the soundtrack was available well in advance. According to Wikipedia:

‘The collection is made up mostly of hip-hop and new jack swing styled tracks with several film score cues at the end.’

The film score bits were courtesy of John Du Prez who was the bald trumpet player in Modern Romance (no really) whilst the hip -hop was supplied by flavour of the month MC Hammer and some acts I’ve never heard of including Riff and the unedifyingly named Spunkadelic. And of course Partners In Kryme. This American duo from New York City seem to have existed solely to make music for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles phenomenon. According to their discography, they have only ever released three singles – “Turtle Power” and “Undercover” in 1990 and a track called “Rock The Halfshell” on the official Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles YouTube channel in 2015. They never released a full length album and the only other recorded material I can find accredited to them is a version of Donna Summer’s “Love to Love You Baby” retitled “Love 2 Love U” which appeared on another soundtrack album, this time for the Vanilla Ice vehicle Cool As Ice. This film was so bad that it was nominated for eleven Golden Raspberry awards and was disowned by director David Kellogg. Sadly for us all, the time of Vanilla Ice is nearly upon us.

For the moment though, we only have Partners In Kryme to negotiate. This always seemed like a novelty record to me; I felt much the same about “Ghostbusters” by Ray Parker Jnr. The lyrics do make some very specific references to the film and its characters which suggests a close connection to its source material (unlike say “World In Motion” whose football links are pretty loose). However, if you go down that route, make sure you get it right. Exhibit A m’lud:

“Splinter’s the teacher so they are the students.
Leonardo, Michelangelo and Donatello make up the team
with one other fellow, Raphael.
He’s the leader of the group, transformed from the norm by the nuclear goop”

Now I’m no turtles expert (pretty sure I’ve never seen any of the films or cartoon) but Wikipedia assures me that it’s Leonardo who is the leader of the group, not Raphael. Sometimes you do have to sweat the small stuff.

A recurring feature of these 1990 TOTP repeats is that they’re throwing up lots of hits that I have no recollection of at all. Here’s another one – the DJ Phil Chill remix of “I’m Still Waiting” by Diana Ross. As to why this was released or indeed why Motown thought we needed a nasty, dull, plodding dance remix of this song, I have zero clue. It really is one of the worst remixes I’ve heard for a long time.

Fast forward three years to 1993 and I am working as Assistant Manager for Our Price in the Altrincham branch in Cheshire. EMI have issued a Diana Ross Best of for the Xmas market called “One Woman: The Ultimate Collection” which is selling pretty well (it went 4 x platinum in the UK). There is a problem though. All the other musical outlets in Altrincham are selling the CD format of the album at £9.99 whilst our price point is holding at £11.99. Myself and the store manager, fearing we would never sell our considerable stocks of the album, therefore hatched a plan that we should price match our competitors which was completely against company policy and an action that was not within our remit at all. The plan worked and the CD was flying off the shelves and into our ringing tills …until the Area Manager descended upon the store for his Xmas ‘mince pie’ visit when he would come and ‘help’ out the staff by serving some customers. We all hated the ‘mince pie’ visits as inevitably the Area Manager would be more of an hinderance than a help as he didn’t know where anything was. Worse than that though, he might discover our unofficial Diana Ross price slash. As he began to serve in the shop, myself and the store manager desperately joined him to try and spot any customers in the queue that had the Diana Ross CD in their hands so as to head them off at the pass as it were before the Area Manager got a chance to serve them and discover our little plot. We must have looked completely hyper and preoccupied as we whittled down the queue of customers, all the while jumping in front of him should anybody approach the counter to purchase Ms Ross. Our efforts were rewarded though and he left without sussing anything untoward was occurring.

For the record, the original and vastly superior version of “I’m Still Waiting” was a No 1 record in 1970 whilst Phil Chill’s unwanted 1990 remix stalled at No 21 and it certainly was not on that Diana Ross Best Of that caused me so much anxiety.

A second appearance now for a song that only made it to No 27! Seems like a lot of exposure for such underwhelming sales. I’m pretty sure that this is just the original performance of “She Comes In The Fall” by Inspiral Carpets that was originally broadcast a couple of weeks previous. My suspicions are confirmed by @TOTPFacts:

This Inspiral Carpets performance (a repeat) was recorded the night England played West Germany in the World Cup semi-finals. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) January 29, 2021

There’s more to this story though:

Guitarist Graham Lambert: "We watched the game in the BBC bar. We saw Jimmy Hill after the game, and with him we re-enacted the penalty shoot-out in the Blue Peter garden." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) January 29, 2021

The Blue Peter garden! A fixture of the show since 1974, it was infamously trashed in 1983 supposedly by a gang that included teenage future footballers Dennis Wise and Les Ferdinand! I’ve never heard any stories about Jimmy and the Carpet boys damaging the garden thereby debunking the rock stars trashing hotel rooms template. I bet the band also tidied their hotel rooms before checking out on time whenever on tour. My friend Robin,who worked for the BBC for many years, told me recently that the Blue Peter garden is actually much smaller than it seems on screen which is very nearly a metaphor for the chart fortunes of “She Comes In The Fall”.

Host Mark Goodier goes into a weird segue next when he bangs on about how ‘trendy’ the show is! Remember when ‘trendy’ was a word we all used? Nowadays it’s all ‘on point’ or ‘cutting edge’ and the only reference to the word trend is when something trends on Twitter. Surely Goodier can’t be referring to himself in that two tone outfit of his? To be fair though, the girl in the James T-shirt would definitely have been ‘on point’ back then.

And he surely can’t mean the next act who is Paul Young. I’d almost forgotten this period of Paul’s career. He’d seemed consigned to history back in 1986 when his third album “Between Two Fires” and its attendant singles didn’t pull up the expected trees commercially. Somehow though, even in the dance obsessed charts of the early 90s, he pulled off a comeback of sorts. His “Other Voices” album spawned two hit singles in “Softly Whispering I Love You” and this one, a cover (well it is Paul Young!) of the old Chi-Lites number “Oh Girl”.

Paul does seem every inch the chart anomaly here, a position emphasised by his lime green shirt and jacket and his white trousers. At least he seems to have sorted his hair out a bit since his last appearance on the show when frankly his barnet was a right mess. As for the song, it’s all very pleasant and that but even Goodier seems to damn him with faint praise at the end when he sums it all up by pronouncing “It’s a good song well sung”

“Oh Girl” peaked at No 25.

Some pop puppets next. No, not New Kids On The Block but F.A.B. featuring MC Parker and “Thunderbirds Are Go!”. What a curious hit this was. I’m not quite sure what demographic it was appealing to but enough punters bought it to send it rocketing all the way to No 5. The framing of the Parker character as a DJ is its selling point I think. Certainly the video would not have been half as effective without the MC Parker bits inserted strategically.

Ever wondered what F.A.B. stands for though? Here’s head of the Thunderbirds operation Geoff Tracy…

…so nothing essentially. Just a clipping of the word ‘fabulous’. Other theories abound of course including ‘For Always Brothers’ as in the Tracy brothers presumably and also ‘Fully Acknowledged Broadcast’. Given that it doesn’t actually stand for anything, it was sure used a lot in the series…

Cripes! It’s that Madonna song! Yes, it’s time for some “Hanky Panky” people! An ode to sadomasochistic tendencies or just a bit of a laugh? Well, what’s for certain is that it was the follow up to her No 1 “Vogue” and it nearly repeated the trick by peaking at No 2 in the UK (though it only made No 10 in the US). This performance of it is from Madonna’s Blond Ambition World Tour and clearly gets in a bit of promotion for the Dick Tracy film in which she starred with the inclusion of a male dancer dressed as Dick towards the end of the routine.

Inevitably, the song attracted its fair share of controversy especially in Ireland where two women’s organisations accused Madonna of glorifying violence against women, specifically on the line “I’ll settle for the back of your hand”. Madonna played down the accusations stating that of course it wasn’t her saying that she liked to be spanked but rather her character in the movie Breathless Mahoney. And if you think that’s enough controversy for one year, think again. The next 1990 Madonna single is “Justify My Love” – hold onto your crotches!

Now here’s an interesting tune. DreamWarriors were a Canadian hip hop duo who briefly found success and fame with a couple of hit singles the first of which was “Wash Your Face In My Sink”. Can it really have been a complaint about someone using their sink and leaving a ring around the basin?! Online commentaries suggest it is about setting boundaries around behaviour in relationships although we must have all have shared houses/ flats with people who don’t seem to share the same standards of hygiene that we pride ourselves as having surely?

As I’ve made clear many times before, I’m not a massive hip-hop fan, but this little eccentricity always appealed to me. “Wash Your Face In My Sink” peaked at No 16.

It’s the final week of five at the top for Elton John and, to quote Captain Sensible, ain’t I glad?! I think I’m right in saying that not once in all that time did TOTP play the other song of the double A-side that was “Sacrifice / Healing Hands” so here it is…

…hmm…well, I prefer it to the gigantic turd that is “Sacrifice” but it’s hardly up there in Elton’s canon of work as anywhere near approaching his best. I’m pretty sure it didn’t get that much airplay (certainly not on the radio stations I was listening to) back then either with “Sacrifice” taking the lion’s share making it altogether quite the forgotten No 1 song – a ghost No 1 if you will, standing there in plain sight but never seen. Not a phenomenon with a large members list I would suspect – I can only think of Billy Bragg’s version of The Beatles ‘She’s Leaving Home’ which was the almost completely ignored other A-side to Wet Wet Wet’s Childline No 1 “With A little Help From My Friends”.

I was aware that Paula Abdul had a song called “Knocked Out” but I could not have told you what on earth it sounded like. I would also have said that it never made the Top 40. I was both right and wrong. It was released three times in the UK before becoming a hit. It was actually Paula’s debut single back in September 1988 but bombed completely at No 98. However, following the success of “Straight Up” and “Forever Your Girl”, it was reissued and peaked at No 41 in August 1989. It finally made the Top 40 on its third release albeit that it required a Shep Pettibone remix to do the trick. They say trouble comes in threes and this single certainly wasn’t worth all that trouble to be honest.

The Shep Pettibone remix of “Knocked Out” peaked at No 21.

For posterity’s sake, I include the chart run down below:

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Craig McLachlan Check 1-2	Mona	I did not
2	Partners In Kryme	Turtle Power	This was a crime…against music. No
3	Diana Ross	I’m Still Waiting Phil Chill 1990 remix	And I’m still waiting for an explanation for this dire record’s existence
4	Inspiral Carpets	She Comes In The Fall	Nope
5	Paul Young	Oh Girl	Oh no
6	F.A.B featuring MC Parker	Thunderbirds Are Go	Loved Thunderbirds, didn’t love this – no
7	Madonna	Hanky Panky	Nah
8	Dream Warriors	Wash Your Face In My Sink	Liked it but not enough to buy it
9	Elton John	Sacrifice /Healing Hands	Not knowingly but I’ve since discovered that Healing Hands is on a Q Magazine compilation LP that I bought. That doesn’t count does it?!
10	Paula Abdul	Knocked Out	No

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000rpmn/top-of-the-pops-19071990

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.

Some bedtime reading?

https://michaelmouse1967.wixsite.com/smashhits-remembered/1990-issues

TOTP 12 JUL 1990

Posted on January 29, 2021 by 80stastic

So Italia ’90 is finally over, English pride in their football team has been restored and Gazzamania is upon us. Thankfully we have a few weeks yet before Mr Gascoigne enters the world of pop music. In the meantime, we have seven ‘new’ tunes to feast on at the top table of TOTP. If music be the food of love, play on…

…and we start with with Scottish rockers Gun (terrible name*) and their single “Shame On You”. When the band appeared in the Breakers section of TOTP with their debut hit “Better Days” back in the Summer of ’89, another band featured in that section that same show were The Stone Roses. In an unlikely turn of events, the Roses are again on TOTP alongside Gun tonight. In the blog post of that ’89 programme, I revealed that I should have been absolutely ripe to be swept away by the baggy movement spearheaded by Ian Brown and co and yet somehow I managed to nail my colours to the Gun mast! Fast forward a year and let’s see how that choice worked out. The Stone Roses are the coolest band in Britain and their debut album can be heard coming out of the bedroom window of just about every music fan who knows their stuff. And Gun? Well, they followed up “Better Days” with three further single releases none of which made the Top 40. Still, as presenter Anthea Turner (dressed like a tube of Opal Fruits tonight) says, they have been on tour with none other than The Rolling Stones (more of whom later).

It seems though that Gun’s luck is beginning to turn as they are back in the charts with “Shame On You” (the fifth single from their debut album “Taking On The World”). And guess what? I was still sticking to my guns (ahem) and that original choice of band as I bought this single! Yes, after months of never having bought any of the singles featured on the show, two songs come along at once that I purchased with this one and Bob Geldof’s “The Great Song Of Indifference” from the other week. I bought it on cassette single (cassettes were still my format of choice back then) and it was backed with a live version of “Better Days” on the B-side as it were. I loved the driving back beat that builds gradually and that twangy guitar riff. Unfortunately for me and for the band, it would stall at No 33 (the exact same peak as “Better Days”). Sophomore album “Gallus” released two years later was a moderate success but it was only when they released a cover of Cameo’s ‘Word Up” in ’94 that they would finally achieve a Top 10 hit.

Gun split in ’97 but reformed in 2008 and are still a going concern today…and you can’t say that about The Stone Roses can you?

*Previous incarnations of the band went by the monikers of Blind Allez and Phobia – not sure they are any improvement on Gun to be fair!

Who’s next on? Oh, yes River City People – I’d almost (but not quite) forgotten this lot. Wasn’t there a bit of fuss about them being the next big thing at this time or am I making that up? Why is Anthea Turner so enthused about the band? Well, she used to work with lead singer Siobhan Maher as presenters on Children’s BBC’s summer holiday morning programme But First This! apparently ( I’ve no recall of it at all). Maher was also an actress and appeared in Brookside spin off Damon And Debbie which I do absolutely remember (especially its tragic ending – heartbreaking it was).

Anyway, in addition to presenting and acting ambitions, Maher was also a singer and formed River City People in ’86. After a couple of false starts, they hit it big with a cover of The Mamas and the Papas’ “California Dreamin‘”. I’m guessing that after those initial mis-steps, their record label reverted to that tried and trusted career saving trick of a cover version. Cleverly they doubled it up with a River City People original in “Carry The Blame” as the other A -side though how much radio play it got, I’m not sure.

Siobhan certainly had a smooth voice and despite all the retro hippy trappings on display in this performance, it stands up pretty well I think.

The single rose to No 13 but despite its placing, it wasn’t the spring board for success that the band (and record label) must have hoped for. A re-release of debut single “(What’s Wrong With) Dreaming?” (they had a thing about dreams seemingly) only scraped into the charts at No 40 which was a shame as it sounds a bit like Lone Justice which is no bad thing in my book.

As Anthea announced, their debut album called “Say Something Good” was released later in ’90 and a second album followed in ’91 but the band split not long after that. Shame really.

OK, after some 60s folk pop, we get back to some dance music (well it is 1990) with “Naked In The Rain” by Blue Pearl and indeed this record does scream 1990 to me. I always though they were a one hit wonder but a glance at their discography tells me otherwise albeit that two of their four chart entries were with this track.

Fronted by the distinctively named Durga McBroom, this dance floor smash would make it all the way to No 4 in the UK charts. As with Siobhan Maher before her, Durga was also a multi-skiller being an actress as well. She appeared in the film Flashdance as a character called Heels and was also in music videos for the likes of Eurythmics, Janet Jackson and David Bowie no less. As Anthea mentioned in her intro (get her dropping her Knebworth references), Durga was very closely associated with Pink Floyd touring with them between 1987 to 1994. That might explain why they covered Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” for their debut album “Naked” as Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour helped produce the 16 year old Kate’s initial demo tape.

When asked in a Smash Hits interview what “Naked In The Rain” was about, Durga replied :

“It’s not a literal naked that I’m talking of. It’s not about running to Trafalgar Square and ripping all your clothes off and jumping into the fountain. It’s more an emotional naked; stripping oneself of frustrations and the things that hold us back from being really calm and really cool.”

Hmm. Not sure anybody explained that to the video director…

Not Glenn Medeiros again?! This is the third time “She Ain’t Worth It” with Bobby Brown has been on. This track was meant to represent a change of image and sound for the boy from Hawaii and looking at the titles of his albums, he did seem to suffer an identity crisis during his career. Starting with his debut album (the one with “Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love for You” on it) which was rather uninspiringly entitled “Glenn Medeiros” he then released an album called “Not Me” before a third album came out in 1990 (that included “She Ain’t Worth It”) which was called “Glenn Medeiros” again! So that’s:

Glenn Medeiros
Not Me
Glenn Medeiros

Wow! I bet his therapy bills were big!

Although, “She Ain’t Worth It” was a US No 1, Glenn only managed one more chart hit over there (another duet, this time with Ray Parker Jnr of all people) and his chart career did not sustain beyond that.

A band who have flown in all the way from LA to be on the show next (according to Anthea) but I’m not sure it was worth the bother to be fair. Thunder had entered the chart with their version of the old Spencer Davis Group hit “Gimme Some Lovin'” at No 38 but following this TOTP performance it only went up two places to a peak of No 36 before crashing out of the Top 40 altogether. This was however their third chart hit of the year and indeed the third of five singles to be released from their “Backstreet Symphony” album in total. The album was produced by ex-Duran Duran guitarist Andy Taylor who also produced “Shame On You” by the show’s opening act tonight Gun. Andy had clearly moved well beyond his new romantic pop star beginnings by this point and had fully thrown in his lot with his true love, heavy rock.

Unlike producer mates Gun who were looking to re-start their chart lives after a drop in commercial fortunes when they covered Cameo’s “Word Up”, I’m not quite sure why Thunder (or possibly their record label) felt the need to release a cover version over their own material at this very early point in their career but there you go. It didn’t seem to add anything much to the original to me.

Tune! A great song up next from The Soup Dragons featuring Junior Reid with “I’m Free”. Looking a bit like a hybrid of Primal Scream and Happy Mondays, it was easy to labour under the misconception that this lot were part of the ‘Madchester’ movement (pretty sure I did). The Soup Dragons were in fact from Scotland (Bellshill* near Motherwell specifically). A few months later when I was a wet behind the ears sales assistant at Our Price in Manchester, a distributor rep called in to the store with some product on his van he was trying to sell in. I can’t recall which distributor he worked for but it was one of the small ones so a lot of his stuff was quite niche. One of the artists he had on the van were BMX Bandits whom he triumphantly announced went onto be chart stars The Soup Dragons hoping this would influence the store manager to take a punt on their stock. I believed that story for ages but it wasn’t strictly true. BMX Bandits existed alongside The Soup Dragons although they did often share band members including lead singer Sean Dickson.

The group’s origins weren’t the only thing I wasn’t aware of at the time – I also was oblivious to the fact that “I’m Free” was a Rolling Stones song. It’s not a strict cover of it though. The lyrics were changed slightly, necessitated by the fact that they didn’t have them (this was pre the internet remember) so Dickson sang what he could remember and made up the rest.

Can I say that I loved the groove on this record or will I sound like a middle aged man (which is what I am)? OK, sod it – I loved the groove on this record and the toasting from Junior Reid made the song their own (as Louis Walsh would say). By the way, Reid doesn’t rap ‘Free from the Loch Ness Monster, free from the deep’ but ‘Free like a butterfly, free like a bee’ just in case you had been wondering all these years.

The song is featured brilliantly in the Simon Pegg comedy The World’s End where main character Gary King is still living in 1990 in his head.

“I’m Free” would be the band’s biggest ever hit peaking at No 5.

*The little town of Bellshill was also home to Teenage Fanclub, Mogwai and erm…Sheena Easton. Quite a roll call.

If The Soup Dragons weren’t part of ‘Madchester’ then the next act certainly were. The time of The Stone Roses was now. Everyone was talking about them and ‘Madchester’ and the legendary Manc nightclub The Hacienda. I recall reading earlier in the year in the Daily Mirror (my parents’ choice of newspaper) about coach trips being organised throughout the country to take hordes of ravers up to Manchester to visit The Hacienda like it was some sort of spiritual pilgrimage.

“One Love” was a non -album single that should have been released to coincide with the band’s infamous Spike Island gig (that my elder brother went to) but it took so long to mix, its release was delayed. Having naively chosen Gun over the Roses the year before, I was ready to be bowled over this time and to get fully on board with the whole sound. “One Love”, yeah, too right! This is going to be mega I thought. And then I heard the song. I was completely underwhelmed. It seemed very laboured and didn’t really go anywhere and the chorus was lame. Even Ian Brown agreed with me on that in time…

Ian Brown on "One Love": "We tried in vain to cover all bases – we wanted to appeal to everyone in clubs and indie kids and whoever, but it was a poor chorus." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) January 22, 2021

There was no way I was wasting my money on this and so for the second time, I chose Gun over The Stone Roses when I bought their current single instead. The band’s fan base was big enough by this point to take the single to No 4 in the charts but it was a false dawn. It would be the last original material released by the band until “Love Spreads” some four and a half years later!

Ah bollocks! Elton John is still at No 1 with “Sacrifice / Healing Hands”. Three months on from this, Elton would release a career retrospective double album called “The Very Best Of Elton John” spanning 1970’s “Your Song” through to “Sacrifice” (though not curiously “Healing Hands”). The album was hugely successful going to No 1 and nine times platinum in the UK alone. It was also the very first item I ever sold to a customer when I joined Our Price in October of 1990 – and I needed some help from the Assistant Manager to do so!

The play out video is “Rockin’ Over The Beat” by Technotronic. This lot of Belgian Eurodancers were becoming chart regulars by this point as this was their fourth consecutive Top 40 hit and the second to feature Ya Kid K. As with all their other stuff, I couldn’t stand it. To rub my face further in their shit, the next single they released called “Megamix” was just as it said on the tin – a mash up of all four of those previous singles! And guess what? The British public lapped it up all over again sending it to No 8. “Rockin’ Over The Beat” by contrast only made it to No 16. I guess the four in one option seemed better value.

For posterity’s sake, I include the chart run down below:

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Gun	Shame On You	I did! No shame on me though – great song!
2	River City People	California Dreamin’ / Carry The Blame	Nope
3	Blue Pearl	Naked In The Rain	It’s a no
4	Glenn Medeiros and Bobby Brown	She Ain’t Worth It	And neither was this song
5	Thunder	Gimme Some Lovin’	Nah
6	The Soup Dragons featuring Junior Reid	I’m Free	Thought I did but singles box says no. I did however by the follow up single Mother Universe
7	The Stone Roses	One Love	No love from me for this one
8	Elton John	Sacrifice /Healing Hands	Not knowingly but I’ve since discovered that Healing Hands is on a Q Magazine compilation LP that I bought. That doesn’t count does it?!
9	Technotronic featuring Ya Kid K	Rockin’ Over The Beat	This beat is…shit. No

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000rgm6/top-of-the-pops-12071990

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.

Some bedtime reading?

https://michaelmouse1967.wixsite.com/smashhits-remembered/1990-issues

TOTP 05 JUL 1990

Posted on January 27, 2021 by 80stastic

It is Thursday the 5th of July 1990 and it is less than 24 hours since the England international football team bowed out of Italia ’90 in the cruelest of circumstances. Just four days earlier, a 3-2 quarter final win over unexpectedly tricky opponents in Cameroon had unleashed emotions and hopes not witnessed since 1966 (and all that). But football is a cruel business – just this week my beloved Chelsea have sacked our greatest ever player – and by the time of the usual TOTP broadcast on the following Thursday, England were out, denied at the last by a penalty shoot-out defeat to West Germany. It hurt, so close but yet so far. Buoyed by the feel good factor that the team’s progress (if nor performances ) had instilled, we allowed ourselves to believe we were back and there would be many more tilts at the big prize to come. Little could we have imagined that it would be another 28 years and 7 tournaments before we would get to the World Cup semi final again.

Two days after this TOTP, England would lose again in the pointless third place play off match to hosts Italy whilst the final itself a day later was one of the worst games of football I have ever had to endure. After Gazza’s tears in the semi-final, we had Maradona’s as his Argentina team, who barely deserved to be there, lost a bad tempered match 1-0. The England team were hailed as heroes on their return (despite Gazza’s ‘hilarious’ fake breasts outfit) and a country’s appetite for football was rekindled after the dark days of the mid to late 80s.

Just in case you haven’t seen this enough times in the intervening 30 years…and who the hell is ‘Christopher’ Waddle?

Enough of the football though, this is supposed to be a music blog isn’t it? Yes, you’re right – it is. Let’s get to it then and tonight’s host is the ever snarky Nicky Campbell and the first act on tonight are Inspiral Carpets with “She Comes In The Fall”. This was their follow up to breakthrough hit “This Is How It Feels” and for me, it wasn’t anywhere near as captivating as its predecessor. I mean, compared to some of the utter dross inhabiting the Top 40 at the time it was like musical ambrosia but it seemed a bit…I don’t know….conventional? No, not conventional… erm…unexceptional? I think maybe they peaked too early with “This Is How It Feels” for me. “She Comes In The Fall” has all the right ingredients – Clint Boon’s swirling organ sound, driving back beat and Tom Hingley’s no frills vocal stylings but it just didn’t grab me in the same way.

Talking of Clint Boon, I saw him live a couple of years ago when I caught the Happy Mondays play at Hull. It was an open air gig and the support were Peter Hook and The Light so a very Manc based line up. Boon, with his DJ hat on, provided the tunes in between acts and it seemed like money for old rope to me as he rolled out the most obvious of Manchester tunes. It was almost like a musical version buzz word bingo. Still, the crowd seemed to lap it up. Having said that, they were mainly middle aged men reliving their hedonistic youth by being of their tits on coke so they weren’t the most demanding of audiences.

“She Comes In The Fall” peaked at No 27.

What? Another Janet Jackson single? As with a lot of Ms Jackson’s output, it’s also another single I don’t recall at all. “Alright” was one of seven singles lifted from her “Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814” album and although the video shown here won a Soul Train Music Award for Best Music Video, I don’t remember that either. It starts off looking like Bugsy Malone before the inevitable big production dance routines kick in. The plot, for what its worth, resolves with it all having been a dream which is fitting as “Alright” is one big snooze*. It peaked at No 20 over here and No 4 in the US.

*Yes, I know the video was the inspiration behind Bill Bailey’s “Rapper’s Delight” routine on Strictly last year. I wasn’t arsed about that either.

Seven of the eleven songs on tonight’s show have already been seen before and here’s a run of three on the trot beginning with Poison and “Unskinny Bop”. Supposedly the title doesn’t refer to anything at all and was just a guide vocal that fitted phonetically into the song’s structure but having read the lyrics back, it’s pretty clear that it was all about having ‘A bit of How’s Your Father’. Check out these lyrics:

Like gasoline you wanna pump me, And leave me when you get your fill yeah

Still need convincing? How about these then:

You’re sayin’ my love won’t do ya
But that ain’t love written on your face
Well, honey I can see right through ya
Yeah, who ridin’ who at the end of the race?

I don’t think you need to be a cunning linguist to understand what was being sung about.

“Unskinny Bop” peaked at No 15.

As he introduces the next act who are Double Trouble with “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore”, Nicky Campbell appears spooked by the studio audience member stood next to him. To be fair to him, her look does require a double take. She looks like she’s turned up for the Halloween show about four months too early. Dressed head to toe in black and white with a massive floppy hat and two tone hair, she’s not your regular TOTP attendee. Judging by her outfit, I din’t think Double Trouble would have been her musical act of choice. In all honesty, they’re not mine either. Their shiny R’n’B cover version of the old Rose Royce classic is functional at best.

After name checking Madonna and Jimmy Nails’s versions of the song in last week’s post, it got me thinking about just how many times it had been covered. It’s loads. The recently spied Yazz did a version for her 1997 album “The Natural Life” then there’s Seal who recorded it for his second album of Soul covers (“Soul 2”) in 2011. Of course , there are also the usual easy listening treatments of it by the likes of Michael Ball and Bill Tarmey (aka Jack Duckworth) but I think the one that really caught my eye was by “Pompeii” hit makers Bastille. Let’s have a listen then…

Hmm…I’ll stick with Jimmy Nail thanks. Double Trouble’s 1990 version peaked at No 21.

A third outing for Nicky Lockett now otherwise known as MC Tunes and his mates 808 State with “The Only Rhyme That Bites”. Fair play to the TOTP producer Paul Ciani I guess for really promoting an out and out rap sound so heavily. However, we only get 1 min and 20 seconds of the track which was again due to Mr Ciani who, in an attempt to shoehorn in more songs into the show’s half hour slot, restricted the duration of studio performances to three minutes and videos to two minutes. Not sure what MC Tunes, who looked like he could handle himself, would have made of his massively edited screen time.

“The Only Rhyme That Bites” would get no higher than its No 10 peak here.

I’m guessing that Paul Ciani was also responsible for this new segment of the show – the Best selling albums of the month. Why the new format? TOTP had always been based around the template of the Top 40 singles chart. This new feature seemed incongruous to say the least. And where was the sales info coming from? Gallup presumably. I have to admit to not recalling this bit of the show’s history so I have no idea how long it lasted. No doubt future TOTP repeats will have the answer. For the record, the Top 5 albums for June 1990 were:

1. Luciano Pavarotti – The Essential Pavarotti

2. Soull II Soul – Volume II 1990: A New Decade

3. Jason Donovan – Between The Lines

4. Talk Talk – The Very Best Of Talk Talk

5. New Kids On The Block – “Step By Step”

Back to that Top 40 singles chart though and we find an unusual new entry at No 12 in F.A.B. featuring MC Parker and “Thunderbirds Are Go”. Yes, after MC Tunes we got MC Parker, that bloke that drove Lady Penelope around in Gerry Anderson’s wonderful puppet adventures series Thunderbirds. I loved the Gerry Anderson creations when I was a small boy (Captain Scarlet And The Mysterons was my favourite) and, in retrospect, I’m not sure that he gets the credit that he deserved for what he achieved. I’m also not sure that this mash up of theme tunes from his shows given a then contemporary house dance sheen was a suitable tribute either.

The single was part of a bigger project that culminated in the “Power Themes 90” album that contained 12 tracks based around British TV show theme tunes – six were Anderson vehicles with the others made up from the likes of The Prisoner, The Saint and The Avengers. I remember the album from my first few weeks in employment at Our Price later in the year but apart from the Thunderbirds single I’m not sure I heard any of the rest of the tracks. I wonder what the Captain Scarlet one was like….

…well, that was horrible! Bloody Hell! OK, back to MC Parker and according to my Supermarionation book (yes I am that sad), Parker’s character was initially conceived as a simple dramatic support to Lady Penelope but his comedy value meant that he was often the star of the show. His incorrect use of the letter ‘h’ which would preface all vowels became his trademark. As such, I guess it made sense to promote the “Thunderbirds Are Go” single around him.

Two years after this single, The Thunderbirds TV series was rebroadcast on BBC and picked up a whole new generation of fans leading to a relaunch of a range of Thunderbirds branded toys, the biggest seller of which was the model for Tracy Island. So hard to get was the item that Blue Peter famously showed desperate parents how to make their own version out of cereal packets, pipe cleaners and washing up liquid bottles etc as demonstrated by one time TOTP presenter Anthea Turner:

In hindsight, was “Thunderbirds Are Go” a novelty record? I’m saying yes but then, we’d already had a dance record featuring samples of dialogue from Thunderbirds two years earlier when “Beat Dis” by Bomb The Bass was a huge hit and I don’t recall anyone saying that was a novelty record. Fine margins and all that.

“From plastic puppets to Australian soap operas” says Campbell as he gleefully puts the boot into the next act who are Craig McLachlan And Check 1-2 with “Mona”. Craig won’t care though as he is up to No 4 in the charts and if anyone is getting a kick in the knackers it’s his ex Neighbours co-star Jason Donovan whose chart career is showing definite signs of starting to peter out. When asked about how he felt about having a bigger hit than Donovan in Smash Hits magazine, McLachlan replied:

“Ah look we’re over the moon. It’s fantastic…The music’s pretty Australian and we didn’t know how it would go down over there in a fairly techno chart. Our music is back to cranking the amp up and sweating a lot…“

Cranking and sweating? He sounds like my 11 year old when he’s playing Fortnite. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, being ‘sweaty’ in Fortnite means you’re a top player and ‘cranking’ refers to ‘cranking 90s’ which is a technique of building that is considered the fastest way to get high ground on a player. I feel so old.

Back to Craig though and although his music career fell away after the success of “Mona”, he remained inextricably (and some might say bizarrely) linked to Jason Donovan as they both played the role of Dr Frank-N-Furter in Rocky Horror Picture Show and also Caractacus Pott in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (I saw Donovan in the latter show – his performance was limited to say the least).

What was it with the 1990 and soul dance re-workings of classic old tunes? After Double Trouble’s version of the Rose Royce song “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore” earlier in this very show, we get some act called Massivo featuring Tracy and their interpretation of the Minnie Riperton hit “Loving You”. The other week we had Maureen doing Sister Sledge’s “Thinking Of You” and earlier in the year we had The Chimes giving an R ‘n’ B rendition of U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” – now this. I’m not sure I recall this at all. Who was Tracy? Well she was nothing to do with the Tracys from Thunderbirds nor was she Tracy Tracy from The Primitives (despite her peroxide blonde hair). Who was she then?

Here’s @TOTPFacts with the answer:

Tracy Ackerman previously appeared on #TOTP as long ago as 1981, when she fronted This Year’s Blonde's mash-up of Blondie hits, “Platinum Pop”. (That only peaked at 46, though.) https://t.co/razsNRMGrq
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) January 22, 2021

OK – still none the wiser to be honest. What? There’s more?

Tracy Ackerman went on to write or co-write tracks for the likes of Hear'Say, Geri Halliwell, B*Witched, S Club 7, Dannii Minogue and Will Young. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) January 22, 2021

So a bit like Betty Boo in that respect then. Watching this back, Tracy doesn’t quite nail the famous descending F sharp note for me – bit screechy (like I could do it).

Massivo peaked at No 25 but the seemingly endless conveyor belt of this type of thing (what was this genre called?) carried on into the 90s with Quartz featuring Dina Carroll (yes that one) giving us a danced up version of Carole King’s “It’s Too Late” in 1991 and The Fugees adding some beats to Roberta Flacks’ “Killing Me Softly” in 1996.

Stop! Hammer time! Shouldn’t that be MC Hammer time though? It’s the third ‘MC’ of the show and I’m sure at some point MC Hammer did actually drop the MC bit from his stage name (was it when he released “Too Legit* To Quit” in 1991?). Anyway, for now he’s got the MC prefix and he’s tearing up the charts with “U Can’t Touch This”. The single was taken from his Diamond (not platinum but diamond) selling US album “Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em”. I’m glad I took notice of the title at the time as a few months later when I went for an interview for a sales assistant position with Our Price, one of the questions on the music quiz applicants had to take was ‘What is the name of MC Hammer’s current album?’. Boom! Back of the net!

Given that his commercial peak lasted only from 1990-92, Hammer’s name does still seem to resonate all these years later. Was it all about the trousers or did he actually have some good tunes in there as well? One thing is for sure, he never got so big that if you google the word hammer the first results that come up are not this:

* ‘Legit’ is another word that my 11 year old uses on a regular basis. I’m not sure what he would make of Hammer’s oversized pants though. On that theme, I once showed a younger colleague at work a video of the Bay City Rollers and she could not get her head round their tartan ~~trousers~~ troosers.

England’s World Cup may be over but Elton John‘s reign at the top of the charts carries on. What was it about this song that the nation couldn’t get enough of? Truly baffling. Well, here’s the aforementioned MC Tunes giving his verdict from a Smash Hits article on “Sacrifice”:

“I’ve always admired Elton John. He’s not my kind of groove if you get what I mean but I’ve always admired him because he’s a good writer. ‘Candle In The Wind’ is a fabulous song and the lyrics in his new one are really good so I’m into the Elton record, yer.“

Oh, it was the lyrics then. Let’s have a look at them again. This is the chorus:

And it’s no sacrifice
Just a simple word
It’s two hearts living
In two separate worlds
But it’s no sacrifice
No sacrifice
It’s no sacrifice at all

Hmm. Doesn’t seem to be a lot going on there except the repeated use of the word ‘sacrifice’. I’m not having it Mr Tunes – don’t tell him I said that though.

The play out video is “She Ain’t Worth It” by Glenn Medeiros and Bobby Brown. After his music career ended, Medeiros took up teaching and is now the president of St. Louis School, an all boys Catholic school in Honolulu. Sounds impressive doesn’t it…until you realise that he has a son called Chord and a daughter called Lyric. No, really.

For posterity’s sake, I include the chart run down below:

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Inspiral Carpets	She Comes In The Fall	Nope
2	Janet Jackson	Alright	All wrong – no
3	Poison	Unskinny Bop	No
4	Double Trouble	Love Don’t Live Here Anymore	No love for this one at my house
5	MC Tunes versus 808 State	The Only Rhyme That Bites	Liked it, didn’t buy it
6	F.A.B featuring MC Parker	Thunderbirds Are Go	Loved Thunderbirds, didn’t love this – no
7	Craig McLachlan Check 1-2	Mona	I did not
8	Massivo featuring Tracy	Loving You	Nah
9	MC Hammer	U Can’t Touch This	And I didn’t – no
10	Elton John	Sacrifice /Healing Hands	Not knowingly but I’ve since discovered that Healing Hands is on a Q Magazine compilation LP that I bought. That doesn’t count does it?!
11	Glenn Medeiros and Bobby Brown	She Ain’t Worth It	And neither was this song

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000rgm4/top-of-the-pops-05071990

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.

Some bedtime reading?

https://michaelmouse1967.wixsite.com/smashhits-remembered/1990-issues

TOTP 28 JUN 1990

Posted on January 23, 2021 by 80stastic

It’s Summer 1990 and World Cup fever is on the rise. The England national team have just secured a place in the quarter finals of the competition two days prior to this TOTP broadcast when David Platt produced a swivelling volley moments before the end of extra time against Belgium to win the game 1-0 for England. Platty’s memorable intervention saved the nation from a penalty shoot out, something we had no experience of back then but which, by the end of the tournament, we would know the heartache and darkness of only too well.

But for now, the nation rejoiced and, labouring under the misapprehension that we had a bye into the semi finals as we faced Cameroon next, were starting to believe something truly special might be afoot. So were there any ‘special’ tunes in the chart to match the nation’s mood? Let’s see…

…well we start with “Oops Up” by Snap! and a bizarre performance that includes a rubber duck (supplied by presenter Gary Davies from the side of the stage via a throw of admirable accuracy) that appears to get squeaked throughout the song. I hadn’t noticed that sound effect on the original recording but, having checked, it is there.

If the rubber duck was meant to soften the image and reputation of rapper Turbo B, it had a lot of work to do. Around this time, he was involved in a very unsavoury incident at a benefit show. The group had been asked by a promoter to do a PA at a nightclub for a benefit event but what Turbo hadn’t realised was that it was for an AIDS charity and the event took place in a gay nightclub. When the lights went up, Turbo found himself in a room full of drag queens and freaked out. Demanding to see the club owner, he allegedly proclaimed “If you ever book me in a place like this again, I’ll kill you”. The owner replied, with hands on his hips, “This is a gay club seven nights a week” at which point Turbo got him by his throat and began throttling him and then all hell broke loose. In a Smash Hits interview when quizzed about the incident, Turbo B’s version was a bit different:

“…if a man gets his ass grabbed by another man he tends to be upset. I tried to talk to this guy and tell him this is not supposed to be like this. His justification of my ass getting grabbed was that it was cool. It wasn’t, so he got choked.”

Despite his protestations that he wasn’t anti-gay later in the interview, it seems pretty clear that Turbo B was not exactly well informed nor accepting of anything that wasn’t strictly heterosexual. As a result of the incident, an organisation called Zap Snap! formed who would protest at Snap! gigs and this would inform singer Penny Ford’s decision to leave the group. In a songfacts website interview she stated:

“And that was another reason why I decided to leave Snap! Because my sister was a serious, staunch gay advocate, and it was like a blow to my family to have me out there being represented with a gay basher. So that’s what started Turbo’s decline“.

Sadly, I think we will be seeing more of Turbo B and his prejudiced views before 1990 is through.

Onto much safer and non-threatening ground next (or is it?*) as we get Jason Donovan and his latest single “Another Night”. From late ’88 to the end of ’89, Jase’s run of hit singles looked like this in terms of their chart peaks:

5 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 2 – 2

However, as the new decade dawned, the spell appeared to be broken. His first single release of 1990 (“Hang On to Your Love”) peaked at No 8 whilst “Another Night” would really set alarm bells ringing when it failed to even make the Top 10 (topping out at No 18)! When asked about the charts and his position within them in Smash Hits at this time, Donovan had this to say:

“Do I worry about where my records get to in the charts? Oh yeah, of course I do. It wasn’t so great that “Hang On to Your Love” didn’t do as great as some of my other singles have done but looking back on it, I think I would have to put the blame on the strength of that particular song….I think it was a bit of a grower and not nearly as catchy as say “When You Come Back to Me”.

So how did you explain the chart performance of “Another Night” then Jason? It didn’t shift the required amount of units because it was a basically proper dog shit? It is actually dreadful. It sounds like a failed Song For Europe entrant, not good enough even for the Eurovision Song Contest.

*Donovan of course had his own homophobic incident in 1992 when he sued The Face magazine for publishing allegations that he was homosexual. The lawsuit led to a backlash in which he was accused of being homophobic. In his 2007 autobiography, Jason stated that suing The Face was the biggest mistake of his life.

Pretty sure we are on safe ground finally with Maureen and her version of “Thinking Of You”. I’m very doubtful that there are any scandals surrounding Ms Walsh. As Gary Davies mentioned, she was the vocalist on Bomb The Bass’ “Say A Little Prayer” back in ’88 and…what? She lied to Tim Simenon about what she did for a living when she met him in a nightclub by telling him she was a singer when she wasn’t? So there is a skeleton in her cupboard (albeit a small one). So what was her job at the time? Well, it was either (depending on the date of that nightclub meeting) working in Miss Selfridge or working in an admin position in the police force. Lying whist she was employed by the rozzers? Shameful.

Back to the music though and that guy who comes on and raps in the middle? What was with the cane?

Three Breakers next and we start with Double Trouble and “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore”. Were these the guys who had a hit with “Street Tuff” along with that Rebel MC bloke? A quick search of Wikipedia says they are and that their cover of the Rose Royce classic was actually on their album “As One” which features ‘Street Tuff”. Coincidentally, they also did a remix of tonight’s opening song “Oops Up” by Snap!.

I don’t recall them doing this track though and on hearing it back, I’m not sure why they bothered. Jimmy Nail’s version back in ’85 was far more interesting and I’m not joking.

Hell, I’d even choose Madonna’s version over Double Trouble’s and her take on it was rubbish.

“Love Don’t Live Here Anymore” (the Double Trouble version) peaked at No 21.

Right, what’s this? Bobby Brown and Glenn Medeiros? WTF?! Really?! How? Why? So many questions. This seems an even more unwanted pairing than last week’s Sonia and Big Fun coupling. So, apparently this collaboration came about through Medeiros’s friend Rick James who …wait a minute! Rick James?! Funk legend Rick James?! He was a friend of wimpy Glenn Medeiros of “Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love for You” fame?! That requires more explanation than the Bobby Brown connection even. Anyway, it was Rick who put Glenn in touch with Bobby Brown who was looking for someone to produce while he had some free time on his hands and so they worked on a song called “Love Me Little Lady” *pause while blogger vomits* which went on Glenn’s latest album. After Brown called him up to say how much he liked said album, Medeiros asked him to put a rap on the track “She Ain’t Worth It”. And the rest is…

“She Ain’t Worth It” was a No 1 record in the US and a no 12 hit in the UK. This was Glenn’s attempt to beef up his image (he even got a new haircut!) and sound but it’s like something New Kids On The Block would have rejected as trying too hard. In short, it wasn’t worth it Glenn.

Oh OK. I hadn’t realised that Del Amitri had another Top 40 hit in 1990 after “Nothing Ever Happens” at the start of the year but here they are on TOTP again. I knew that they had re-released “Kiss This Thing Goodbye” as a follow up to “Nothing …” but it had failed to be a hit for a second time despite some heavy radio play. I mistakenly believed that the same fate befell “Move Away Jimmy Blue” but it crawled to a high of No 36. Not as intriguing as “Nothing …” nor as immediate as “Kiss This Thing…”, it’s still a pretty good tune I think although not one of my favourites of theirs.

Now then, here was a chart anomaly and a half! A Irish jig complete with accordian, fiddle and a double bass? What the Hell was this?! It was, quite simply, magnificent in my book. The perfect antidote to all this homogenised house music, when asked about the sound of “The Great Song Of Indifference” in a Smash Hits interview, Bob Geldof admitted that it wasn’t a modern sound:

“Nope, it’s not a current record but then I’m hardly a major force in modern music. I’m frankly tired of hip hop and house and that. I know nothing about it except that I hear it a lot but it just sounds old hat”

Well said Sir Bob! This was only the second chart hit of Geldof’s solo career and it remains his last. His first had been the rather worthy sounding “This Is The World Calling” back in ’86 but “The Great Song Of Indifference” was a different beast altogether. Made with his band The Vegetarians Of Love (which was also the name of the accompanying album), its subject matter of world apathy in the face of humanitarian disasters and horror was in stark contrast to its knock about, almost joyful sound. Witness:

I don’t care if the Third World fries
It’s hotter there I’m not surprised
Baby I can watch whole nations die
And I don’t care at all

Supposedly Bob had wanted to infuse it with a cajun feel and had spent some time in Louisiana soaking up the cajun vibe before recording the album. The Irish dancing element of the performance here from the wee guy in the shirt and dickie bow at the front pre-dates Riverdance by four years! Marvellous stuff all round.

A couple of personal tie -ins to Bob and this record before I move on. At some point either myself or my wife must have bought this single as we used to dance around our one room flat to it when we first married. We used to really fling ourselves around. We were skint at the time and this would be what passed for a Friday night’s entertainment. Skint or not, they were happy, simpler times. Right at the end of the record there’s a bit when the musicians fall about laughing before Geldof’s distinctive tones clearly cut in with “Let’s listen…”. One of the guys laughing really sounds like Nick Heyward but I’m guessing it’s not.

And that second Geldof story? I once had a friend who did some freelance PR work and one of the people she worked for was the sadly departed Peaches Geldof. My friend found it all a bit demanding and was ready to jack it in. The final straw that broke the camel’s back? It was when Bob got involved and began calling her to to sort stuff out for Peaches. Not known for his tact and diplomacy, Bob’s phone calls prompted her to throw her work phone into the Thames whilst mid conversation with Geldof!

“The Great Song Of Indifference” peaked at No 15.

Damn. I thought for a moment when Gary Davies said “Still with the charts here’s Bruce…” in his intro to the next artist his next word would be Springsteen. Unfortunately for me, it was Dickinson. Yes, the Iron Maiden front man’s video for “All The Young Dudes” gets another airing for some reason. What? He went up 9 places to No 23 that week? I don’t care! His version of the Mott The Hoople* classic was awful! To be fair to Bruce Dickinson, he does seem to be a man of many talents. He’s a fully trained pilot and worked for a commercial airline for a while. He’s also a published author, he’s been a champion fencer (once rated the 7th best fencer in England), he’s presented his own radio show on BBC Radio 6 Music from 2002 to 2010 and he’s even created a successful beer called ‘Trooper’ with Robinsons brewery in Stockport. If only he’d left the singing alone.

*When I first started working in Our Price there was guy who used to come in who was obsessed with Mott The Hoople. He would come in regularly to check what albums we had of the band in stock (not many!) and would hang around for ages hoping to strike up a conversation with an unsuspecting member of staff about his faves. Takes all sorts I suppose.

Nest it’s a re-run of Maxi Priest‘s performance of “Close To You” from the other week next although Gary Davies tries to make out that Maxi is actually in the studio again.

Maxi never really did it for me and I got nothing else to say about this one. Do me a solid @TOTPFacts and help me out will you?

Maxi Priest was named after Max Bygraves. "He's my mum's favourite singer." He changed his surname from Elliott to Priest after discovering Rastafarianism. "It comes from the Priest Levi, a figurehead of the 12 tribes of Israel."#TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) January 15, 2021

Sorted!

Still at No 1 we find Elton John with “Sacrifice / Healing Hands”. Infamously, both songs on this double A-side had been flops when initially released individually at the end of ’89 but parent album “Sleeping With The Past” also had a truncated route to the top of the charts. Although it debuted at No 6 when released in Sep ’89, it departed the Top 10 the following week and fell out of the Top 40 completely after a month. Inevitably, once the success of the re-activated single kicked in, so the album was also revitalised. After knocking around the lower reaches of the Top 100, it climbed from No 54 to No 2 in one week! After three consecutive weeks in that position it embarked on a five week run at No 1 eventually going three time platinum in the UK alone. Yet for all that, it’s hardly regarded as one of his best albums I would speculate. Apart from “Sacrifice” and “Healing Hands”, are any of the other tracks on the album well known? Follow up single “Club at the End of the Street” didn’t even get into the Top 40. Elton in the Summer of 1990 was a very curious phenomenon indeed.

The play out video is “Unskinny Bop” by Poison. Having checked out their discography, I was amazed to discover that Poison had eight UK Top 40 hits. I could have named …let me think…four absolute tops. “Unskinny Bop” would have been one of the four. The timeline of their hits would have been beyond me though, not helped by a re-release of “Nothin’ But a Good Time” with nearly 18 months in between releases. I could not have told you when “Unskinny Bop” had been a hit for example but I can tell you that it did very little for me. It was a bit like “Your Mama Don’t Dance” (i.e not that good). And what the Hell was an “Unskinny Bop” anyway? Is ‘unskinny’ even a legitimate word? Supposedly it was just a guide lyric according to guitarist C.C. DeVille, a phonetic place holder until the proper lyrics had been written but it stuck (see also the lyrics to “The Riddle” by Nik Kershaw).

“Unskinny Bop” peaked at No 15.

For posterity’s sake, I include the chart run down below:

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Snap!	Ooops Up	Nope
2	Jason Donovan	Another Night	Another shite more like – no
3	Maureen	Thinking Of You	Not for me thanks
4	Double Trouble	Love Don’t Live Here Anymore	No love for this one at my house
5	Glenn Medeiros and Bobby Brown	She Ain’t Worth It	And neither was this song
6	Del Amitri	Move Away Jimmy Blue	No but it’s on my Best Of CD of theirs
7	Bob Geldof	The Great Song Of Indifference	Yes – present and correct in the singles box!
8	Bruce Dickinson	All The Young Dudes	As if
9	Maxi Priest	Close To You	Not my bag
10	Elton John	Sacrifice /Healing Hands	Not knowingly but I’ve since discovered that Healing Hands is on a Q Magazine compilation LP that I bought. That doesn’t count does it?!
11	Poison	Unskinny Bop	No

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000r6j0/top-of-the-pops-28061990

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.

Some bedtime reading?

https://michaelmouse1967.wixsite.com/smashhits-remembered/1990-issues

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

Author: 80stastic

TOTP 30 AUG 1990

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Some bedtime reading?

TOTP 23 AUG 1990

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Some bedtime reading?

TOTP 16 AUG 1990

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Some bedtime reading?

TOTP 09 AUG 1990

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Some bedtime reading?

TOTP 02 AUG 1990

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Some bedtime reading?

TOTP 26 JUL 1990

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Some bedtime reading?

TOTP 19 JUL 1990

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Some bedtime reading?

TOTP 12 JUL 1990

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Some bedtime reading?

TOTP 05 JUL 1990

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Some bedtime reading?

TOTP 28 JUN 1990

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Some bedtime reading?