After last week’s car crash of a show and Anthea Turner’s Klu Klux Klan / WTF?! moment, the BBC have got Bruno Brookes on hosting responsibilities this time around. Now Bruno wasn’t immune from the odd gaff himself but he plays it pretty safe for the whole 30 minutes (yes we are back to the full running time again). I wonder if the need for a no controversy show had been impressed upon him by the TOTP producers?
We start with Kim Appleby who is on the follow up trail as she seeks to consolidate on the rather unexpected success of her No 2 hit “Don’t Worry”. Unexpected? Is that fair? Well, when Kim launched her solo career she hadn’t been in the UK charts since the last Mel & Kim hit “That’s The Way It Is” back in early ’88 – an eternity in the world of pop music. Would she have retained her original fan base? In addition, she’d achieved success as part of a duo with her sister, a brand and image that, backed by the dominance of SAW, had won over audiences pretty easily. That combination was now gone after the tragic early death of Mel Appleby – would music fans accept a solo Kim? Indeed, did they want a solo Kim? “Don’t Worry” had succeeded on the strength of it being a quality pop tune delivered by an endearingly enthusiastic yet self doubting Kim. Now the heat was on to prove she could do it again.
The route she and her record label took to replicate that success was to replicate “Don’t Worry” – second single “G.L.A.D” is very similar with one difference – the addition of a rap courtesy of Aswad’s Brinsley Forde. That’s not him top there on stage with Kim though, that’s…actually who is that? Opinion on Twitter is divided. Red Dwarf actor Danny John-Jules maybe? Or Manchester author and poet Lemn Sissay perhaps? Neither seems likely. If I had to guess, I would say Austin Howard from Ellis, Beggs and Howard of “Big Bubbles, No Troubles” fame – at least there’s a music connection there and the timing would be about right.
I thought “G.L.A.D” was pleasant but not as good as its predecessor but its No 10 final chart position was very…erm…respectable. Subsequent single releases though suffered from that dirty trick of diminishing returns and Kim would never return to the Top 10. Perhaps the success of “Don’t Worry” was too much too soon. Would she have been better off with “G.L.A.D” and its attendant level of success as her debut single and “Don’t Worry” as the follow up? We’ll never know I guess. What we do know is what “G.L.A.D” stood for – Good Lovin And Devotion – innit?
Another new song as we see the return of a singer who became a massive star in the second half of the 80s but who had herself been on the brink of tragedy. On 20 March 1990, Gloria Estefan‘s tour bus was rear ended by an 18 wheeler truck causing Gloria to break a vertebra in her back and leaving her close to death. “Coming Out Of The Dark” was the first song she released to the public after the accident and was inspired by that event. As such, it’s hard to be critical of it – how can you deny someone writing a song about their own horrible experience? Not only was it presumably cathartic to Gloria but no doubt it has also been taken to the hearts of many a person struggling to overcome whatever curveballs life had thrown at them. And it sounds so uplifting with that gospel choir raising the spirits. And yet, I have to say that it does sound very similar to all her previous huge ballads doesn’t it? “Can’t Stay Away From You”, “Anything For You”, “Don’t Wanna Lose You”, “Here We Are”…they all conform to a formula. OK, “Coming Out Of The Dark” is differentiated a bit by that gospel element – I’ll give it that. The single was yet another No 1 for Gloria in the US but it struggled to a peak of No 25 over here but parent album “Into The Light” was a platinum seller in the UK.
Bruno Brookes does reference Gloria’s accident in his segue but straining under the responsibility of not saying anything controversial he goes too far the other way and says this:
“Of course Gloria’s back now to perfect health… which is nice”
Which is nice?! Bruno channeling his inner Fast Show there…
An interesting choice of words in Bruno’s next intro as he references one Nigel Wright and describes him as the man responsiblefor the likes of Bombalurina and Yell. ‘Responsible for’ implies an element of blame here it seems to me and for once Bruno is right – Bombalurina and Yell were certainly not acts to be celebrated. Brookes goes on to say that this Wright bloke is also responsible for the next act which is The UK Mixmasters and a track called “NightFeverMegamix”. I don’t need to explain this one do I? It pretty much did what it said on the tin. Yes, having just had a Grease mega mix in the Top 5, what was the obvious move to cash in on this trend? A Saturday Night Fever medley of course! Was this John Travolta month or something? The single contained five Bee Gees disco anthems all featured in the film plus “Disco Inferno” by The Trammps. The whole thing was a…ahem…tragedy, just a horrible Jive Bunny style desperate cash grab. The video follows that template as well just being a montage of some vintage Harold Lloyd style clips and very early cartoon animations. Hell, even the act’s name is a direct rip off – surely they could have put some more imagination into it than just calling themselves The UK Mixmasters?
If you wanted to hear the Bee Gees at their disco-tastic. best, then you would just buy the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack no? Even the usually gullible UK record buying public rumbled this one and it would go no further in the charts than No 23.
What have they done to the chart run down?! They’re only name checking this records in the Top 40 that are going up or are new entries?! Why?! How much time can that have saved them to ignore singles going down the charts? Surely not enough to squeeze in another whole song? The completists on Twitter were in uproar about this change and whilst I’m hardly apoplectic with rage myself, I do think they have a point unlike this change which does seem to be pointless. Anyway, on we go and one of the lucky artists to be going up the charts is Oleta Adams with “Get Here”. We had, of course, been introduced to Oleta via her work with Tears For Fears on their “The Seeds Of Love” album and more specifically the “Woman In Chains” single. Roland Orzabal kept up the connection by producing third album “Circle Of One” from which “Get Here” came. I’m not sure how I became aware of this but I soon found out that the song was actually originally written and performed by Brenda Russell of “Piano in the Dark” fame. I dug out Brenda’s version at work one day and guess what, Oleta’s version sounds almost exactly the same!
OK, Oleta’s version has a less laid back feel to it and she’s gone a bit Whitney Houston on the vocals to make it sound more dramatic but even so.
After discussing some of the improbable songs blacklisted by the BBC in the wake of the Gulf War crisis, it turns out that “Get Here” would also become associated with the conflict but in a positive way as it was adopted as an anthem for US troops missing their families. There’s even a lyric in it which says “You can reach me by caravan Cross the desert like an Arab man”. I have to say that it does seem ludicrous that the BBC deemed “Boom Bang-a-Bang” by Lulu as unpalatable and banned it but “Get Here”, with its Gulf war links, was not seen as a problem.
Anyway, I can’t deny that it’s a sincerely nice song and I liked it enough at the time. It went Top 5 in both the US and the UK while Oleta’s “Circle Of One” album would soar to No 1 over here. For a time she looked like being the next big soul/pop singer but subsequent releases would never get her here again.
It’s The Simpsons next with “Do The Bartman”. This is the second time it’s been on the show already and it hasn’t even got to No 1 yet and it’ll spend 3 weeks at the top of the charts so we haven’t finished with this nonsense by a long chalk.
The parent album “The Simpsons Sing The Blues” understandably didn’t get much airplay on the shop stereo of the Our Price store I was working in so I’ve never understood until now that it featured The Simpsons voice actors actually doing versions of proper blues songs originally recorded by blues legends like Albert King and Billie Holiday! The album went Top 10 in the UK and Top 3 in the US. It would soon became the fastest-selling album to emerge from a TV show since the Miami Vice soundtrack in 1985. If it wasn’t mutant ninja turtles clogging up the charts it was this lot! Doh!
Next a man who I developed an irrational hatred of back in 1991 for no discernible reason and of which I am now perplexed and indeed embarrassed by. Quite why the amiable Kenny Thomas and his inoffensive mainstream soul singles promoted such indignation and contempt within the 22 year old me, I do not know. Let me watch his performance of his single “Outstanding” back and see if it rekindles anything. See you in 3 minutes or so….
…no, no idea why I was so outraged at his commercial success. I mean, he has a decent enough voice and his lack of an image (plain dark suit over a black shirt) suggested that he wasn’t interested in being a pop star and was more about getting his music out there. Ah yes, the music. Well, “Outstanding” wasn’t actually his song although (as with The Simpsons earlier) I didn’t realise that until now. It was actually an old Gap Band song that had missed the charts back in ’82. Was it his sound that I objected so vehemently to? I can’t lie that I did find it fairly bland but it was hardly Jive Bunny grade crimes against music.
1991 would turn out to be Kenny’s annus mirabilis – “Outstanding” was a No 12 hit, his album “Voices” went Top 3 and follow up single “Thinking About Your Love” would make it to No 4. He continued to score smaller chart hits into the 90s but it had all pretty much run its course by the time Britpop came along. It turns out that Kenny is actually a completely stand up guy who has had to deal with his young daughter having a brain tumour (he has raised thousands of pounds for her ongoing treatment). He is currently the singer with 80s band Living In A Box replacing original vocalist Richard Derbyshire as the group continues to perform on the nostalgia circuit. In the unlikely event that Kenny is reading this, I apologise for my completely unwarranted dislike of you back in 1991…although I still think “Outstanding” is dull.
The TOTP producers are still committed to this best selling albums of the month feature so here’s the list for Jan 1991:
Madonna – The Immaculate Collection
2. Elton John – The Very Best Of Elton John
3. Enigma – MCMXC A.D.
4. Whitney Houston – I’m Your Baby Tonight
5. Phil Collins – Serious Hits Live
Alongside the changes to the singles chart run own, there is a small tweak to this section as well as curiously there is no voice over from the host. I don’t really see why this change was made apart from for the obvious benefit of shutting Bruno Brookes up for a couple of minutes.
Next up are New Kids On The Block who, contrary to my recall, were still having hits after 1990. I thought that the spell they had held over the world’s female teenagers had ended Cinderella-esque as soon as the clock struck 12 to usher in a new year but no. Here they were back in our charts with a single called “Games”. This was taken from their “No More Games: The Remix Album” which, fairly obviously, was a collection of remixes of their previous hits. It wasn’t just an exercise in squeezing as much out of the cash cow as possible though. The band were sensing that their popularity may be on the wane and saw this album as a chance to beef up their sound and update their image. To this end, they promoted it under the ‘NKOTB’ acronym, thereby dispensing with the word ‘kids’ from their name. Alongside the image change came the for new sound which was meant to demonstrate a harder edge to them and realign them with a more mature fanbase. “Games” was a rap heavy funk work out with the lyrics written to prove the the boys were the real deal…
‘Cause we’re five bad brothers from the bean town land No sell out So get the hell out We do it our way Who gives a damn about what critics say?
Well, quite. They go on to say that they’re kicking ass and calling non-believers out there suckers! Ooh! Get them! I think they believed that this made them sound hard like Public Enemy but they were more Vanilla Ice than LL Cool J. The single did OK peaking at No 14 over here but it was also their first to miss the Top 10 in the UK. By Xmas they would be releasing a proper Best Of album called “H.I.T.S.” that would stall at No 50 in the charts. Roll on the end of the year.
From rap (sort of) to crap. There really is very little to commend “Wiggle It” by 2 In A Room for. A terrible, repetitive record promoted by a video which is basically some gratuitous arse shots of various women ‘wiggling it’ on a beach. Its legacy, if you can describe the following as such, was that it was covered by Alvin and the Chipmunks for their album “The Chipmunks Rock The House” and that it has featured on various compilation albums including one entitled “Strip Jointz: Hot Songs For Sexy Dancers” and one called simply “Monster Booty”. Their Mums must have been very proud.
“Wiggle It” peaked at No 3.
The last week at the top for The KLF with “3 a.m. Eternal”. After the infamous Anthea incident of last week, the clip the TOTP producers have chosen to show is from an earlier appearance and not the KKK / KLF one. Should we read anything into that? Did the BBC receive complaints? Or were they just trying to convince us all that it had never really happened in the first place by expunging it from the show’s history?
Whatever the truth, the BBC were definitely going to tread carefully in future. When the band released a limited edition mail order only single in January ’92 containing a new version of the song featuring heavy metal hardcore punk band Extreme Noise Terror called the “Christmas Top of the Pops 1991” version as they had hoped to perform it on the festive year retrospective, the Beeb declined. Undeterred, the band would create huge controversy when they performed it at the BRIT Awards ceremony in February 1992. Yep, it’s this one with the machine guns…
Quite extraordinary and quite the WTF?! moment. Although the declaration at the end of the performance by the band’s promoter Scott Piering that “The KLF have now left the music business”, it was treated as a prank at the time but 4 months later Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty confirmed that they had indeed retired from the music business and that their back catalogue would be deleted with immediate effect. Nearly 30 years would pass before the band would make versions of their music available to streaming services. Talk about courage of your convictions.
The play out video is a huge dance tune, one so big in fact that it has been a chart hit (in different mixes and for various artists) four separate times over the years. The Source were a songwriting team comprising Anthony B. Stephens, Arnecia Michelle Harris and John Bellamy and they collaborated with soul / disco legend Candi Staton to produce “You Got The Love” which floundered to a high of No 95 on its original release way back in 1986. Five years later and with a legendary house DJ and producer Frankie Knuckles adding some magic into the mix, it catapulted up the charts before resting at No 4. Six years later it went one better when a New Voyager mix brought it to a new generation of clubbers but it didn’t stop there as it even pulled in the sales into the new millennium when a Shapeshifters mix returned it to the Top 10. Got all that? Good because the story didn’t even end there as in 2009 it was covered by Florence and the Machine who scored a Top 5 hit with it. Phew!
It’s this 1991 version though that remains definitive for me. I remember covering downstairs on the singles floor one lunchtime and couldn’t believe the amount of 12″s of it that we were selling. Was it even released in a 7″ format? I can’t recall now. I was definitely not a dance head but even I could appreciate that this was a tune and it routinely appears in those Best Dance Singles of all time polls. How could it not?
For posterity’s sake, I include the chart run down below:
Order of appearance
Artist
Title
Did I Buy it?
1
Kim Appleby
G.L.A.D.
I did not
2
Gloria Estefan
Coming Out Of the Dark
Nope
3
The UK Mixmasters
Night Fever Megamix
Certainly not
4
Oleta Adams
Get Here
Liked it but not enough to buy it
5
The Simpsons
Do The Bartman
Excuse me? NO!
6
Kenny Thomas
Outstanding
I thought it was anything but back then – sorry Kenny!
7
NKOTB
Games
I would have been ashamed
8
2 In A Room
Wiggle It
Hell no!
9
The KLF
3 am Eternal
Thought I might have but it seems I didn’t
10
The Source featuring Candi Staton
You Got The Love
See 9 above
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.
The BBC4 TOTP repeats are back in full swing now with a double header each Friday night. As such, we have already reached the end of January and it’s another short show tonight with only 8 acts on and 5 minutes lopped off the running time. I’m guessing this is due to the ongoing Gulf War conflict. As a welcome distraction from the world’s ills, my beloved Chelsea have reached the semi-finals of the League Cup (now lumbering along in the guise of its sponsor as the Rumbelows Cup). This was the first time we had reached this stage of a cup competition for 6 years and only the second time in 20 years. It felt like a big deal but it would end in defeat and disappointment and I would have to wait another 6 years before we finally won something.
Work-wise, I had just clocked up my third month at Our Price and was now a fully fledged permanent member of staff. My employment didn’t stop us from being skint all the time as my wife wasn’t working but we became experts at sniffing out freebie events. Book signings at Waterstones were a massive boon as they often included free wine and snacks as were art gallery exhibition openings. In addition to these, my Our Price store had a an arrangement with the Odeon cinema in town that we would provide them with two free CDs a week to play as background music before the films started in return for a weekly free pass that would admit two people. Whenever it was my turn for the pass, it was a huge boost to our social life! Wonder if the CDs of any of the acts on this show ended up at the Odeon Manchester?
We start with EMF who are following up their Top 3 hit “Unbelievable” with a track called “I Believe”. I couldn’t decide at the time whether this was a clever play on song titles or just dumb. I’m still not sure now. I have to say I found “I Believe” a big disappointment. It’s got roughly the same ingredients as “Unbelievable” and yet it doesn’t seem to have come out of the oven in quite the same way. Yes, it’s all very urgent sounding and exhibits a pulsating, driving rhythm but it just didn’t match up to its predecessor at all for me,. It didn’t have that huge hooky chorus and sounded like it was trying just a bit too hard. The single edit doesn’t have the 8 second intro that the album version has where keyboard player Derry Brownson threatens to trash a flat much to the consternation of his band members….
Visually, they have all the right looks of the time with that overgrown floppy fringe and garishly coloured baggy T-shirts over the top of Bermuda shorts being sported by a fair few of the band. Also the drummer has a KLF T-shirt on – I’m assuming that’s deliberate as they are on the show later. or maybe he couldn’t spell his own band’s name? For all my reservations, “I Believe” did its job by securing the boys another Top 10 hit when it peaked at No 6. For now, things were still right on track for EMF.
I should point out that tonight’s host is Anthea Turner and that this show will not turn out to be her finest hour. She starts uncontroversially but just the second act in and she’s making a show of herself by introducing Ralph Tresvant as “Ralph ‘Show Us Your Chest’ Tresvant”. Now it might not seem like a major incident but if you reverse the introduction and had say Bruno Brookes introducing Belinda Carlisle as “Belinda ‘Show Us Your Chest’ Carlisle” surely all Hell would have broken loose?
Anyway, Ralph does indeed grant Anthea’s request and gets his pecs out in the video for “Sensitivity” (oh the irony of that song title) but nothing can distract from how completely dull the song is. Ralph’s only other UK chart hit of the decade would be as an afterthought on the Janet Jackson / Luther Vandross single “The Best Things In Life Are Free” on which he has a credit for being in the studio at the same time but you have to read the small print very carefully to find it.
Yet another dance smash next as Nomad become a part of our lives with their single “(I Wanna Give You) Devotion“. There was a rumour going around our store that our previous store manger Greg had been something to do with getting this track released but I don’t know if there was any truth in that at all and I certainly never asked him about it. There had also been a story circualting in the staff kitchen that he’d been instrumental in Deee-Lite’s “Groove Is In The Heart” becoming a hit. Thirty years on and I’m not convinced about either story. There’s very little connection between the records other than that they were both huge dance anthems – they weren’t even on the same label.
Anyway, despite it being well out of my comfort zone, I actually didn’t mind this one too much. Nomad were Damon Rochefort (Nomad is Damon spelled backwards), Steve McCutcheon and Sharon D. Clarke and the ever reliable @TOTPFacts found out loads of trivia about all three. Here’s a few tidbits:
Nomad's singer is Sharon Dee Clarke, whom Doctor Who fans will recognise from her role as Grace, Graham's late wife. We've seen her on #TOTP before – she was also the vocalist on FPI Project's "Going Back To My Roots".
Nomad's Steve Mac (Steve McCutcheon – absent here) went on to have three top 40 hits as part of dance group Undercover (the biggest being their version of "Baker Street", a no 2 in 1992). #TOTP
Nomad's Damon Rochefort (with the keyboard) later went to attend a script-writing course led by Birds Of A Feather creators Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran. They "took him under their wing", and he ended up writing for the series. #TOTP
Excellent! Content sorted! Makes my life so much easier! “(I Wanna Give You) Devotion” is actually credited to Nomad featuring MC Mikee Freedom but all @TOTPFacts had on him was that he’s from Bristol and his real name is Michael Field. Boo!
Anyone remember Praise and their spooky single “Only You”? If you do, it’s probably due to this advert…
Yes, this unlikely, ethereal song was originally used in a car advert for the Fiat Tempra but got its own release a few weeks later. Would it be cynical of me to suggest that the record company wanted to cash in on the Enigma phenomenon? In truth though, wasn’t it just Clannad set to a plodding dance back beat? There’s even a bit of pan pipes in there but let’s not go down that route. Oh, and a Marvin Gaye sample possibly?
I didn’t really get this one at all and it did very little for me. Apparently the single edit was remixed by producers Andreas Georgiou (cousin of George Michael) and Peter Lorrimer….surely not the Leeds United legend and possessor of the hardest shot in football at one time? Praise indeed.
“Only You” (also nothing to do with Yazoo) peaked at No 4.
For me, Kylie Minogue wason a complete roll at this point in her career. She’d shed the ‘Charlene from Neighbours makes a catchy pop tune’ comments some time ago and had moved into wanting to be seen as an artist in her own right. Yes, she was still working with SAW but there was definitely more depth to both her music and image.
“What Do I Have To Do” was the third single to be lifted from her “Rhythm Of Love” album (although it was originally scheduled to be the second) and it did a good job of consolidating this new direction. Very much in the same vein as its predecessors “Better the Devil You Know” and “Step Back In Time”, it sounded like an accomplished dance /pop track full off enough hooks to pull you in. However, it was also her first single release not to make the UK Top 5. Would that have been of concern to her at the time? Probably not and the chart placings of her subsequent singles throughout the 90s were certainly nothing to be sniffed at but…there was a general decline over the course of the decade (she would only have 3 more Top 10 hits before the new millennium). The success of her No 1 single “Spinning Around” in 2000 was definitely seen as unexpected and ushered in the most unlikely of comebacks.
Apparently her sister Danni is in the video for this one (though I haven’t spotted her). Within a short few weeks, she would be a chart star herself when her debut single “Love and Kisses” broke into the Top 10. You have been warned.
OK – it’s thatSoho performance next – the one that always comes to mind when I think of Soho and their gloriously funky song “Hippychick” – yep it’s the one with those massive kipper ties! Apparently the slogan emblazoned on them is CENSORED after the run in they had with the TOTP producers who threatened to cut them from the show the last time they were on if they wore their dresses with CND logos on them. It doesn’t quite work as a stunt though because the producers did relent and let them wear their dresses meaning they weren’t, in fact, censored after all. Still, let’s not let the truth get in the way of a good gimmick. It is a great performance though with the Cuff twins full of energy and artistic endeavour. There was one member of the band who wasn’t on top of their game though – the bass player lollops around the stage looking like he couldn’t even spell rhythm let alone possess any.
This was as good as it got for Soho. “Hippychick” was their one and only chart hit although they continued to release albums until their split in 1999. They did also though provide a song for the soundtrack of the original Scream film in 1996. I remember sitting in the cinema as the credits rolled totally taken by surprise that an Icicle Works song would feature in a huge Hollywood film – so much so that I didn’t pay any attention as to who was actually covering “Whisper to a Scream (Birds Fly)” – for all you pedants out there, note the slight title change for the US market – and now finally I have the answer.
“Hippychick” peaked at No 8.
It’s time for the new No 1 and this felt like a big deal – a genuinely edgy and subversive act topping the charts. The time of the anti-popstar was upon us and their name was The KLF.The second of their Stadium House trilogy of singles, “3am Eternal” would prove to be their only UK No 1 (if you don’t count “Doctorin’ the Tardis” under their Timelords pseudonym).
For the whole of 1991 they ruled the music world with another three Top 5 hits making them one of the biggest selling singles artists of the year. They burned so brightly but then suddenly it was all over though unlike most huge acts that suddenly fall from grace as tastes move on, The KLF were sole architects of their own demise. I say demise but it was a retirement really albeit announced in the most controversial of circumstances at the 1992 BRITS show. They were at their most caustic operating outside of the record industry but once they had pierced it to expose its shallowness, they found themselves increasingly uncomfortable being inside of it and lauded by the very people they seemed to denigrate. For the moment though, they are playing out their strategy on a grand scale and they weren’t finished yet…
…somebody who should have been finished though (certainly their career anyway) was Anthea Turner. “Congratulations to KLF who are at No 1 ands looking like the Klu Klux Klan” she trills at the end of the band’s performance. What the Holy f**k did she just say?!! The Klu Klux Klan?! Anthea – TOTP was a mainstream pop show broadcast before the watershed and aimed at a predominantly youthful audience. What were you thinking referencing the white supremacy terrorist hate group?!! None of this makes any sense, not least the fact that nobody on screen did look they had a KKK costume on did they? I always thought it was a white robe with a pointed, wizard like hood obscuring the face. All I can see were some people in red robes without any terrifying hoods with eye holes cut out. Also, the majority of the people on stage were black – so unlikely members of a white supremacy group. And yet, Anthea was not alone in her thinking. Vocalist PP Arnold was of a similar opinion. Here’s @TOTPFacts again:
PP Arnold: "I didn't wanna wear those suits – to me they were a little bit too Kurt Klux Klan… that's why you only see me at the beginning of the video and somewhere at the end." #TOTP
I’m really confused now. The whole thing’s a minefield. I’m surprised that BBC4 didn’t cut that bit out of its repeat broadcast to be honest. Adding to the confusion comes the play out video which is Vanilla Ice with “Play That Funky Music”. A cover of the 1976 Wild Cherry hit, that song was inspired by the band being heckled at a live gig at a disco club by a black audience member to “Play some funky music, white boy.” Ok, I’m leaving this subject well alone now.
Vanilla Ice’s version made no 10 in our charts thus proving categorically that he was not a one hit wonder. He might as well have been though. Who thinks of any song other than “Ice Ice Baby” when his name is mentioned?
For posterity’s sake, I include the chart run down below:
Order of Appearance
Artist
Title
Did I Buy it?
1
EMF
I Believe
No but I have it as an extra track on one of their later singles
2
Ralph Tresvant
Sensitivity
Nope
3
Nomad
(I Wanna Give You) Devotion
Nah
4
Praise
Only You
No
5
Kylie Minogue
What Do I Have To Do?
It’s another no
6
Soho
Hippychick
Thought maybe I had but it seems I didn’t
7
The KLF
3am Eternal
See 7 above
8
Vanilla Ice
Play That Funky Music
Actually, please don’t – no
Disclaimer
I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).
All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.
A truncated edition of the show this week – the BBC seemed to have lopped 5 minutes off it which means no play out video after the No 1 single and no Breakers. I’m guessing this is to do with additional news coverage of the continuing Gulf War. It is, however, back in its usual Thursday time slot. The host tonight is Simon Mayo who I am beginning to find increasingly smug and annoying – whether I felt like this at the time or not, I don’t know.
There’s a definite theme of recycling in this TOTP as we start with a song that was originally a Top 10 hit for Patrice Rushen back in 1982. “Forget Me Nots” was given the UK electro dance treatment 9 years later by Tongue ‘N’ Cheek to very little effect and with very little just cause to my ears. This seemed to be a desperate attempt to grind out another Top 40 hit after their last single “Nobody” had failed to consolidate on their breakthrough hit “Tomorrow”. It doesn’t seem to add that much to the original but would be part of a brief movement of old songs given the dance treatment around this time (see also Quartz doing Carole King’s “It’s Too Late”). Although it secured them a No 26 hit, it would be the last time Tongue ‘N’ Cheek appeared in the Top 40 and they would split soon after. However, “Forget Me Nots” would go onto have a life way beyond its dalliance with Tongue ‘N’ Cheek. It was sampled by George Michael for his 1996 No 1 single “Fastlove” and also by Will Smith the following year for his chart topper “Men In Black”.
After the recycling of “Forget Me Nots” a few times over comes Robert Palmer doubling down on his green credentials by regenerating not one but two Marvin Gaye numbers into a whole new song of its own. “Mercy Mercy Me / “I Want You” would be Palmer’s last ever Top 10 hit in the UK and whilst his back catalogue includes some wonderful songs , I’m not sure if that ever translated into the chart success they deserved. Looking at his discography, he had 12 Top 40 Uk hits (if you include his work with The Power Station) of which 5 were Top 10. It’s not a bad haul but when you consider his music career spanned nearly 40 years and took in 14 studio albums until his death in 2003, it maybe doesn’t seem that much either. Throw in the possibility that, for many people, he’s just the “Addicted To Love” guy and it seems an outright injustice.
There always seemed to be more attention on his sartorial style than his music it seemed to me. For example, in 1989 he received two Brit Awards nominations but won neither yet he did top a Rolling Stone magazine poll for the best-dressed rock star of 1990. This is reinforced by Simon Mayo’s description of him in his intro as ‘Mr Suit’ and ‘Mr Smooth’ and even ‘a singing version of Robert Kilroy -Silk'(remember him?!). “Mercy Mercy Me / “I Want You” peaked at No 9 and I’m guessing this Robert’s final TOTP appearance. Thanks for the memories Bob.
Next a song that must have been the bane of many a young woman’s life back in 1991. How many of the nation’s female population had to endure having ‘wiggle it, just a little bit’ shouted at them as they went about their business by lairy neanderthal men around this time? I know of at least one who had this happen to them. 2 In A Room were the architects of this nonsense and “Wiggle It” would become a No 3 hit in the UK. Only in Australia did it chart so high on the national chart. Hmm.
Inevitably, the video features lots of bikini clad ladies…erm…wiggling it on the beach whilst a male counterpart (who looks very much like Jerry Seinfeld) gets the exact opposite treatment of being fully covered up by being buried in the sand. Once again, hmm. I genuinely thought until this moment that the lyrics were ‘wiggle it just a little bit, I wanna see you wiggle it just a little bit ACID GROOVE!’ but it turns out that they’re singing ‘as it grooves’ and not ‘acid groove’. I’m not sure which makes more sense to be honest but then how do you make any sense of this piece of garbage?
It may be a new decade but we haven’t left novelty records back in the 80s. After the ghastly Bombalurina last year comes The Simpsons with “Do The Bartman”. I’m pretty sure I didn’t know much about The Simpsons back in 1991. For a start it had only been on UK television for less than 6 months by this point and even then it was only on Sky which hardly any of us had. We certainly didn’t in our little rented flat. It would take another 6 years before the show became available on terrestrial TV. It seems unimaginable now, so much a part of our cultural lives have Homer, Bart, Maggie and the rest become but this was genuinely the case back then.
My first introduction to them being this record didn’t bode well. It didn’t even seem that funny to me but then I had never seen the show nor know its characters. And why were they all yellow? A bigger question was how on earth did it get to No1 in the UK? It wasn’t just a matter of taste – genuinely, how did a novelty record from an American TV show that most of the population almost certainly didn’t have access to top the charts? There was no internet or streaming services back then either remember. Most novelty records that have been successful have not been imports – “Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West)”, Orville The Duck, Grange Hill (a UK TV show of course)….I’m sure there must be loads of others. “Do The Bartman” seemed to be a different beast. It was taken from an album called “The Simpsons Sing The Blues” which would spawn another Top 10 hit in “Deep Deep Trouble” later in the year. Oh deep, deep joy.
I’ve still got very little to say about Off-Shore and “I Can’t Take The Power” not least because I hardly remember it. I did post the theory last time it was on about whether it was meant to be some sort of repost to Snap!’s ‘The Power” and that’s given a bit more credence by this tweet from @TOTPfacts:
You've probably noticed that the vocal "the power!" rather resembles the one in Snap!'s "The Power", sampled from "Love's Gonna Get You" by Jocelyn Brown: https://t.co/kQhz8kUAV1… #TOTP
It's believed that's been cut together with an "I can't take" from "Weekend" by Class Action (1983), to make the new phrase. https://t.co/ZcbtsT7JLg#TOTP
Listening to this back, it really is very repetitive. It’s just that cut and paste sample over and over again to an Italian House piano riff backing. It’s like they hardly put any effort into it at all and it doesn’t lend to self to a studio performance. No wonder TOTP had to intercut it with bits of the official promo video to make it even slightly watchable. Off-Shore – they couldn’t take the power but they did take the piss.
Simon Mayo seems to slip in an unofficial plug for a non BBC product at the song’s end when he says you can find the lyrics to the Off-Shore song in No 1 magazine. That wasn’t in the rules surely? He then follows it up with some cryptic clue about a vocal performance from a Radio 1 DJ on the next song which is “Can I Kick It?” by A Tribe Called Quest. According to Mayo, it’s Pete Tong who says A Tribe Called Quest towards the end of the song. Is that right?
*checks internet*
Huh – seems it is according to Wikipedia anyway:
In the official Boilerhouse mix of the song, the name of the band “A Tribe Called Quest”, is spoken by the British radio DJ Pete Tong
If you want a story about spoken word samples on “Can I Kick It?” though, this takes some beating:
The voice saying "Er, you can?" & "Then do so, at once" appears to be Jon Pertwee. But the source is unclear – the leading theory is SuperTed, but we don't believe something just cause it's on Wikipedia. A record seems more likely. If anyone has hard evidence, let me know #TOTP
Apparently it’s from the kids cartoon SuperTed in which Jon Pertwee voiced a character called Spotty although the twitteratti can’t agree for sure. Also, the comment about not believing Wikipedia puts some doubt on the Pete Tong claim for me. Anyway, all of this shouldn’t distract from how good the track is. Another example of recycling with its heavy use of Lou Reed’s “Walk On The Wild Side” it also, inevitably due to its title, led to it being used in many a footballing montage and indeed advertising campaign beginning with this one from Nike in 1992:
The success of “Can I Kick It?” led to a previous single from their album being re-released in “I Left My Wallet in El Segundo” which was pretty cool too but it failed to get anywhere near the Top 40 peaking at No 86. A Tribe Called Quest would not have another UK Top 40 single for five long years.
I’m not sure what was more shocking about Rick Astley‘s 1991 comeback – his new sound exemplified by the gospel tinged ballad “Cry For Help” or his long hair! I mean, just look at it! Where had that boy next door, preppy look gone?! Apparently he hadn’t had a haircut for over a year by this point – always ahead of the game Rick, modelling lockdown hair 30 years before it was a thing.
What about his song though? Sure it was different but was it any good? Well, I thought so and so did my wife who bought it. It was also a wise move in my book – if you’re the biggest pop star in the country and you just walk away from it for a whole two years without so much as a by your leave, then when you come back, you better have come up with something new in the intervening time. For my money, he would have looked ridiculous making a comeback with “Never Gonna Give You Up Part II”. “Cry For Help” was written by Astley with Rob Fisher (one half of both Naked Eyes and Climie Fisher) whilst all but three of the parent album album’s tracks were either written or co-written by him. That album was called “Free” and seeing as he had totally ditched his association with Stock, Aitken and Waterman for the project, you don’t need many guesses to work out what the title was referring to. The single and album would go Top 10 but it was a short lived revival. Subsequent singles failed to chart and although the album reached gold status, it was a far cry (for help) from his multi platinum SAW heydays.
I think I’ve worked out what has been annoying me retrospectively about Simon Mayo – it’s his continuous banging on about how any breaking chart hit had been the Breakfast Show ‘Record of the Week’. He makes that claim for Rick Astley in this show but has also done it loads of times previously. ‘Ooh look at me – I’m in it for the music really and not the fame and profile’ seems to be his message. Yeah, whatever mate.
Right, as its a shortened show, the final song of the evening is the No 1 and it’s not only new to the top spot but it’s gone straight in on its first week of sales. This had happened just a handful of times in the 80s and it still was hardly a regular occurrence by the early 90s. By the end of the decade however it would be a weekly occurrence due to heavy record company discounting. “Innuendo” was the title track of Queen‘s final album to be released in Freddie Mercury’s lifetime and it was pretty much…bonkers. I mean seriously, it sounded all over the place to me. Can you imagine the conversations in the jam session which led to its creation?
“I’ve got a great idea for a Boléro themed opening”
“Oh well, if we’re going down that route, I vote for a flamenco guitar breakdown but it has to be performed by Steve Howe from Yes”
“Look, you can have what you want in it but it must be 6 and a half minutes long”
Just your typical song composition really! Did I like it? Not much. Its complex structure brought inevitable comparisons with “Bohemian Rhapsody” but I’ve never been a fan of that either. Before the end of the year, Freddie would be gone and “Bohemian Rhapsody” would be at No 1 all over again. Oh and if I thought “Innuendo” was bonkers, then the point was really hammered home with the title of their next single -“I’m Going Slightly Mad”.
Order of appearance
Artist
Title
Did I buy it?
1
Tongue ‘N’ Cheek
Forget Me Nots
Nope
2
Robert Palmer
Mercy Mercy Me / I Want You
No but it’s on My Best of CD of his
3
2 In A Room
Wiggle It
A massive no
4
The Simpsons
Do The Bartman
Give over
5
Off-Shore
I Can’t Take The Power
Nope
6
A Tribe Called Quest
Can I Kick It?
Though I maybe did but apparently not
7
Rick Astley
Cry For Help
No but my wife did
8
Queen
Innuendo
Nah
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.
Less than three weeks into 1991 and the hopes for a good year to one and all are already in tatters as the Gulf War has escalated with the commencement of Operation Desert Storm two days prior to this TOTP being broadcast. I knew it was serious as the night before, the League Cup quarter final highlights were bumped from the TV schedules to make way for the extra news coverage of the unfolding events. Nothing got in the way of the football. I got the same feeling in 2020 when the pandemic struck – if the football is gone then we are in trouble. Indeed, TOTP itself was shunted to the Saturday night from its regular Thursday slot to allow for extended BBC news coverage.
I remember turning up for work on the Thursday morning and making an enormous faux pas. I was on the counter (as usual) and decided to put some Warren Zevon on the shop stereo as I fancied hearing “Werewolves Of London”. As if that song with its ‘Little old lady got mutilated late last night’ lyric wasn’t unsuitable enough, it all went horribly wrong when we got to track 4 of the album which was “Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner”. If you don’t know this song (and I didn’t at the time), here’s what Wikipedia says about it:
The fictional character Roland is a Norwegian who becomes embroiled in the aftermath of the Nigerian Civil War and Congo Crisis of the 1960s—the lyrics mention a “Congo war” and the years 1966 and 1967, which correspond to the mercenary-led Kisangani Mutinies after the Congo Crisis. He earns a reputation as the greatest Thompson gunner, a reputation that attracts the attention of the CIA. Roland is betrayed and murdered by a fellow mercenary, Van Owen, who blows off his head. Roland becomes the phantom “headless Thompson gunner” and eventually has his revenge, when he catches Van Owen in a Mombasa bar and guns him down. Afterward, he continues “wandering through the night”. Other violent conflicts of the succeeding decade are said to be haunted by Roland, including Ireland, Lebanon, Palestine, and Berkeley, California…
Oh.
Thankfully a colleague did know what the song was about and whipped it off the CD player sharpish and averted any customer complaints about insensitivity. Phew! Incredibly, “Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner” was not on the blacklist of songs that were banned by the BBC that were deemed inappropriate whilst the conflict raged. Want to know some that were? Here’s just a few choice examples from a list of over 60…
“(I Just) Died in Your Arms” – Cutting Crew : OK, it has the word ‘died’ in it but even so…
“I Don’t Want to Be a Hero” – Johnny Hates Jazz : One of the least offensive groups in history surely?!
“I’ll Fly for You” – Spandau Ballet : What?!
“A Little Peace” – Nicole : A Eurovision winning cry for world peace sung by a 17 year old?
“When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going” – Billy Ocean : Just a little tenuous don’t you think?
“Boom Bang-a-Bang” – Lulu : Oh f**k off! Another Eurovision winner whose ‘offensive’ lyrics include “my heart goes boom bang-a-bang boom bang-a-bang when you are near”!
They were all banned but not “Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner” and not the show’s opening song which is “Hippychick” by Soho. This is a great one hit wonder but its lyrical subject matter was hardly non political. Here’s @TOTPFacts:
Tim London: "'Hippychick' was written from the perspective of a young woman arrested by her boyfriend (who is a policeman) on a demonstration. She is basically telling him it's over, because, as a cop, he supports an establishment she wants to get rid of." #TOTP
Not only that but the band were threatened by TOTP producers with not being allowed to perform unless they lost the anti war sticker on founding member Tim London’s guitar and the CND emblazoned dresses worn by identical twin singers Jacqui and Pauline Cuff. Somehow, they convinced the producers to let the offending articles stay and “Hippychick” would go on to be a Top 10 hit. It hadn’t started out life quite as successfully though. It had missed the Top 40 altogether when first released in 1990 but it had crucially been a dance floor success in the US where it had sold the best part of a million outselling Deee-Lite’s “Groove Is in the Heart” which was No 1 (the US charts were collated based on radio-play and not just sales). It was this that convinced their label Savage Records to give it another shot over here.
Of course you can’t talk about “Hippychick” without mentioning that Smiths sample in the intro. The start of “How Soon Is Now” must be one of the most distinctive openings to a song ever and yet it it seemed to fit perfectly into this quirky, shuffling dance track. Genius! Johnny Marr supposedly received 25% of the track’s royalties as payment for the use of the sample.
I really liked this one an had already been introduced to it by its inclusion of the near legendary “Happy Daze” compilation album that got hammered in our store over Xmas. Sadly for the band, they were unable to recreate the success of “Hippychick” despite having sone great tunes on their album “Goddess” (including follow up single “Love Generation” which sounded like the B52s crossed with Lone Justice).
So we’ve established that neither Soho’s anti war messaging nor Warren Zevon’s “Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner” warranted being banned by the BBC in the light of the Gulf War and now we have a video from Belinda Carlisle that clearly depicts a soldier leaving his partner to go off to fight in a war! The lyrics even include the lines ‘I can hear the whistle, military train’! The BBC censors clearly hadn’t learned their lesson from the ‘chicks’ll cream’ “Grease Megamix” debacle the other week.
“Summer Rain” was the sixth and final single to be lifted from Belinda’s “Runaway Horses” album. The chart performance of said singles were the most inconsistent and frankly bizarre since those taken from Fleetwood Mac’s “Tango In the Night ” album. Look at this:
“Leave A Light On” – No 4
“La Luna” – No 38
“Runaway Horses” – No 40
“Vision Of You” – No 41
“(We Want) The Same Thing” – No 6
“Summer Rain” – No 23
Just weird. Looking at her discography overall, I hadn’t quite realised before that although Belinda would carry on having hit albums and singles here in the UK for the duration of the 90s, “Summer Rain” (and the “Runaway Horses” album) which was pretty much where her success ended in her native US. Check this out:
US Top 40 singles 1991 – 1999: 0
UK Top 40 singles 1991 – 1999: 11
US Top 40 albums 1991 – 1999: 0
UK Top 40 albums 1991 – 1999: 3
Not sure why that would have been. I would have thought her brand of radio friendly soft rock would have been perfect for the genre formatted US airwaves. She would return in the Autumn of 1991 with the “Live Your Life Be Free” album and single and is in October of this year bringing her The Decades Tour to the UK to celebrate 35 years as a solo artist.
Someone who’s an “All True Man” next (whatever that is). Alexander O’Neal seemed to have been trading off his past glories for the past few years before finally returning with some brand new material in 1991. Some of his releases since his massive selling “Hearsay” album of 1987 included the singles “Fake ’88”, “Hearsay ’89” and a medley of his old hits called “Hit Mix (Official Bootleg Mega-Mix)”. His only album releases had been a Xmas album and “Hearsay – All Mixed Up” which was, unsurprisingly, a remix album of “Hearsay” tracks. I guess it would have been his record label squeezing every last drop out of his recent back catalogue rather than Alexander himself but even so. He finally got around to recording some songs for his new album (also called “All True Man”) and released the title track as the lead single. It was written by the go to R’n’B songwriters/ producers of the day in Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and sure enough they supplied O’Neal with what would be his last ever Top 20 hit.
I have to say that Alexander O’Neal’s music has never really done anything for me. I could just about stand “Criticize” but the rest of it? Nah, I’m good thanks and “All True Man” wasn’t going to sway me otherwise. He clearly had a sizeable fab base in this country though as the album peaked at No 2 in the charts and achieved gold status sales although those paled in comparison to “Hearsay”. I did like the way he always dressed in a suit and tie for TOTP though. Standards and all that.
Now here’s a clam from host Nicky Campbell. That Dirty Dancing is the most popular film soundtrack of all time – is that right? Would it have been right in 1991? And what does he meant by popular anyway? The best selling is surely a more quantifiable criteria? In his intro he dismisses the advances of South Pacific, The Sound Of Music and Saturday Night Fever before introducing the re-released “(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life” by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes. According to Wikipedia, the best selling soundtrack album of all time is The Bodyguard but that didn’t come out until 1992 so that can be dismissed in terms of Campbell’s claim. The second biggest selling on Wikipedia’s list though is Saturday Night Fever with Dirty Dancing third. Given that Saturday Night Fever had 10 whole years in existence and therefore years worth of sales before Dirty Dancing was even released, I’m backing it to have been in the lead sales wise back in 1991. It’s all academic anyway as presumably Campbell just needed a link into the song and could have made up anything as long as it segued neatly into the video clip.
“(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life” was back in the charts having been re-released to cash in on a second wave of the film’s popularity after it had received its terrestrial TV premier over Xmas 1990. That sort of occurrence couldn’t happen today because of streaming services. Want to hear that song from the film you’ve just watched over and over again? I’m sure it’ll be on Spotify. Back in 1991 though, once releases were out of the charts, they were deleted very quickly and you could only buy an old single from second hand shops or if it was on the Old Gold series via Pickwick Records and the like. This could also be true of albums that weren’t seen as being classics or perennial best sellers. Nowadays just about everything has received the deluxe box set re-issue treatment. Want a double CD expanded edition of ex-Dollar singer Thereza Bazar’s only solo album with 19 bonus tracks even though nobody bought it first time around? Sure – no problem. Your’s for just £11! The mind boggles.
“(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life” peaked at No 8 second time around.
OK, 1991 just got a bit more interesting. The time of The KLF is upon us. Although they’d already become chart stars the previous year with “What Time Is Love?”, for me, “3 a.m. Eternal” was when I really started to think that something of great importance was happening. It just sounded sound otherworldly – who the Hell were the Ancients of Mu Mu and what did they want? In reality it was, of course, just Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond playing with the music industry again as they had done before with The Timelords and “Doctorin’ the Tardis” but what a game they played. In the light of “3 a.m. Eternal”, demand for their album “The White Room” rocketed and it hit No 3 in the album chart (well according to Wikipedia – I could have sworn it was a No 1 but maybe that was just in the in-house Our Price chart).
A year later they would perform a version of the track with punk band Extreme Noise Terror at The BRIT awards – yes that one with the machine guns – before announcing their retirement from the music industry but that’s for another post.
Oh and what did it mean, “3 a.m. Eternal”? According to the songfacts.com website, it referred to chucking out time at the Spectrum Acid House club in London.
It will be No 1 soon enough…
Now that the post Xmas slump is over and the record company release schedules have awoken from their slumbers, the Breakers are back starting with The High and “Box Set Go”. I seem to recall a lot of buzz around this lot at the time (well they were in the Breakers section, home of the ‘happening’ records in the charts!). I’m sure their album “Somewhere Soon”, with its distinctive diamond symbol against a mostly black cover, was a Recommended Release at Our Price. The other thing I remember about them was that they had an ex-Stone Roses member in their ranks – one Andy Couzens. For all that though, The High sounded more like The La’s or even The Byrds to me.
Infamously signed to London Records after only one gig, the album was critically well received but could only make it to a..ahem…high of No 59. They’d already had three Top 40 near misses before “Box Set Go” was remixed by the legendary producer Martin Hannet and re-released to give them their only chart hit when it peaked at No 28. Hannet had worked with Couzens before during his Roses days. I worked with another ex-Stone Roses member, the original bass player called Pete later on in my Our Price career and he once told me that Hannet had spent ages trying to get a particular sound on one of their early tracks and when it was finished, Pete said “but I can’t hear it in the mix Martin”. Hannett’s reply was “Ah yes Pete but you know that it’s there”. Marvellous.
Now here’s a great track. A Tribe Called Quest had been around since 1985 but their debut album “People’s Instinctive Travels And The Paths Of Rhythm” wasn’t released until 1990 from which “Can I Kick It?” was the third single released. Heavily sampling Lou Reed’s “Walk On The Wild Side” amongst other tracks, it sounded fresh and innovative to me although you could argue that it wasn’t a million miles away from De La Soul’s D.A.I.S.Y. Age sound (indeed, De LA Soul feature in the video). The previous year we had suffered a terrible, terrible cover version of “Walk On The Wild Side” courtesy of Jamie J. Morgan but this was a different flavour altogether.
At the time of its release, I had been given the weighty role of being the Best Sellers CD buyer in the Our Price store I was in, responsible for making sure all those classic albums were always in stock. However, we’d just had a new manager installed after previous manager Greg had left and he wanted to shake things up a bit. To that end, he asked me to order in some extra copies of the “People’s Instinctive Travels And The Paths Of Rhythm” album for the Best Sellers section on the back of the single’s success as it wasn’t in the chart and therefore would only be stocked in limited numbers. Wikipedia tells me that the album peaked at No 54 so that punt probably didn’t pay off.
Bizarrely, we would get another “Walk On The Wild Side” influenced single later on in the year via Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch which was the follow up to their “Good Vibrations” single but it only made it to No 42 in the charts whereas “Can I Kick It?” would get all the way to No 15 in the UK.
What do you do if you run out of toilet tissue? There’s “Always The Sun” quips Nicky Campbell about the final Breaker from The Stranglers. Ooh, bit of politics as Ben Elton used to day on Friday Night Live (or was it Saturday Night Live?). I wonder if Campbell got into hot water with the BBC bosses for that? So what was this 1986 hit doing back in the charts? It was to promote a Best Of album of course (“Greatest Hits 1977–1990”) which sold surprisingly well going platinum and reaching No 4 in the charts. I think it got a TV Ad campaign behind it which caught a lot of retailers out (I remember our shop selling out of it one Saturday afternoon).
Supposedly the 1990 version is a remix but it sounds pretty similar to me apart from some extra guitar noodling. Hugh Cornwell (who had left the band by this point) had originally though that “Always The Sun” could have been another “Golden Brown” in terms of sales but it peaked at No 30. According to his his book The Stranglers Song By Song he’d been amazed by its poor chart position stating “We’d given CBS something great to work with and I could see in this guy’s face that he knew he hadn’t delivered”. Maybe CBS felt bad about that and tried to repay the debt five years on with that promotional campaign for “Greatest Hits 1977–1990”? Maybe not.
The1991 version peaked one place higher than its 1986 counterpart at No 29.
Sting again next and after last week’s play out video position in the show’s running order, he’s been promoted to a place in the main body of the programme as befitting his rock star status (ahem). Not that it did him much good as “All This Time” would actually go down form its peak here of No 22 the following week.
I’m sure I’ve told this story before but it’s worth another outing. My friend Robin has a friend who is a professional musician and he has toured with some major names including Sting and erm…Westlife. Anyway, he found himself at a dinner party at Sting’s gaff through this work connection and in the middle of the meal, all the guests were asked to relocate to another room and where a TV was. Sting then proceeded to get them to all watch a documentary…about Sting! I did say last week that he could be a right knacker.
Something out of the ordinary now. No, not the fact that this is the third different studio appearance for Seal and his “Crazy” single (although that does seem like unusual overkill). Rather, it’s that the Top 10 countdown stops at No 3? Why? So that Nicky Campbell can introduce Seal at No 2. Why not just have Seal on before the countdown. Unless there was some sort of race to be that week’s No 1 that had gripped the nation Oasis v Blur style, I can’t understand why they would do that.
Anyway, the heightened exposure didn’t work for Seal as his hopes of climbing to the top of the charts were torpedoed by *SPOILER* the returning Queen and their chaotically mad “Innuendo” single which went straight in at No 1 the following week. He can’t have been too disappointed though as his debut album would similarly go to No 1 when released in May achieving double platinum sales (including one bought by me).
So it’s definitely not Seal at No 1 meaning it must be Enigma and “Sadness (Part I)”. It’s taken 6 weeks for the record to make it to the top (including 4 in the Top 10) yet it would only get 1 week at the pinnacle. It would stay in the Top 40 for another 5 weeks though demonstrating the longevity of its appeal. Curiously though, it would only be the 37th best selling single of the year. That 6 week long run up to becoming No 1 would become an almost extinct practice by the end of the decade as discounted pricing by the record companies in a single’s first week of release to drive sales would mean records going in at No 1 immediately before falling away dramatically. I have to say I wasn’t a fan of discounting new releases. It created a false sales history and, if you worked in a record shop like I did, it was a bloody nightmare to ensure you never sold out of anything.
I started this post talking about my potential incident of insensitivity when I played “Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner” on the shop stereo the day after the commencement of Operation Desert Storm in the Gulf War. By way of contrast, here’s a man full of “Sensitivity” – it’s Ralph Tresvant! This guy was the latest former member of Jackson 5 rip off merchants New Edition to try and further his musical career following the success of Bobby Brown and Ronnie DeVoe, Michael Bivins and Ricky Bell (Bell Biv DeVoe collectively).
As with Alexander O’Neal earlier on, this track was produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and can’t you just tell by the song’s intro. Those tumbling, percussive drum beats are the exact same ones they used when producing “Human” for The Human League back in 1986. Waste not want not I guess. The rest of it is pretty unremarkable 90s R’n’B to my ears but then I’m no expert.
“Sensitivity” was the lead single from Ralph’s eponymous debut album which featured his old pal Bobby Brown on one track. It also includes a track called “She’s My Love Thang” – of course it does. “Sensitivity” peaked at No 18 in the UK but was a Top 5 hit in the US and also an R’n’B No 1 single over there.
For posterity’s sake, I include the chart run down below:
Order of appearance
Artist
Song
Did I Buy it?
1
Soho
Hippychick
Liked it, didn’t buy it
2
Belinda Carlisle
Summer Rain
Nope
3
Alexander O’Neal
All True Man
I didn’t buy this – tru dat
4
Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes
(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life
Nah
5
The KLF
3am Eternal
Don’t think I did
6
The High
Box Set Go
Box Set No
7
A Tribe Called Quest
Can I Kick It?
Though I might have but it’s not in the singles box
8
The Stranglers
Always The Sun ‘91
No but I bought that Greatest Hits 1977-1990 CD
9
Sting
All This Time
I did not
10
Seal
Crazy
No but I bought the album
11
Enigma
Sadness (Part 1)
No
12
Ralph Tresvant
Sensitivity
Definitely not
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.
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.
Already 10 days into the new year of 1991 here at TOTP Rewind and yet tonight’s host Jakki Brambles still takes the opportunity to wish us a Happy New Year. Keep up Jakki! This show mainly features songs that were ‘new’ to us back then and we start with one from Bananarama and “Preacher Man”. Not to be confused with Dusty Springfield’s “Son Of A Preacher Man”, this was the second single to be released from the nanas fifth album “Pop Life” but actually came out a whole six months after lead single “Only Your Love” due to Sara Dallin contracting meningitis which delayed its release. Despite its difficult birth, it would end up being the most successful of the four singles released from the album when it peaked at No 20.
The single was well received critically as being a strong, hooky pop song but for me it doesn’t stand out as being one of their most memorable tunes. I think it’s the reedy sounding vocals that let it down. The “Karma Chameleon” style harmonica solo in the middle doesn’t help either. As ever with Bananarama TOTP performances, Keren and Sara mark themselves out as the power couple of the trio by wearing the same outfit while Jacquie is still very presented as the new girl and odd one out three years on with her alternative togs. This sartorial separation was also evident even when Siobhan Fahey was still in the group and the signs had been there for some time that she was not on the same page as the other two – it wasn’t the biggest shock ever when she departed.
Bananarama would not return to the Top 20 for another 14 years.
Here’s Whitney Houston next with one of her trademark power ballads. After the uptempo “I’m Your Baby Tonight”, it wasn’t a surprise that she reverted to this genre and indeed, “All The Man That I Need” didn’t seem that different to the likes of “Didn’t We Almost Have It All” and “Where Do Broken Hearts Go”. Oh, check this out – on the The Bodyguard World Tour of 1993–94, she performed the song as part of a love song medley that included …yep…”Didn’t We Almost Have It All,” and “Where Do Broken Hearts Go”. Well there you go – identikit Whitney. You have to admit though that she had the pipes to be able to pull it off.
In the US, it gave her a 9th No 1 single from 11 releases but it stalled at No 13 over here. Maybe we didn’t like the video which is as dull as a night down the pub with George Eustace. It’s just Whitney mooching around various rooms in a big house (one of which includes a John Lennon “Imagine” type white piano) before she is joined by a gospel choir for the climax.
The song had already been recorded by Sister Sledge and someone called Linda Clifford before Whitney got her mitts on it and then, in 1994, Luther Vandross preformed a gender swap on it by recording at as “All The Woman That I Need”. There can’t be that many songs where that has occurred can there? Top of my head I can think of “I Saw Him Standing There” which was Tiffany’s version of The Beatles “I Saw Her Standing There” and sticking with the Fab Four, there’s The Carpenters take on their “Ticket To Ride” when Karen Carpenter changes the lyrics from ‘the girl that’s driving me mad’ to ‘the boy that’s driving me mad’. Oh and Tracey Ullman converting “My Girl” by Madness to “My Guy’s Mad at Me”.
This is more like it! This is what the kids wanted! Some grebo rock! Or were they a hip-hop/dance/rock sample heavy hybrid? Whatever, “X, Y & Zee” became Pop Will Eat Itself’s biggest ever hit up to his point when it peaked at No 15. It was also their fourth Top 40 hit as well after “Can U Dig It?”, “Touched by the Hand of Cicciolina” and the delightfully entitled “Dance Of The Mad Bastards”. Oh and I make it their 10th single Jakki, not their 13th as you suggest in your intro.
Part of the extraordinary story of how the West Midlands market town of Stourbridge became the epicentre for…whatever we’re calling this genre…when it spawned not one, not two but three bands in The Wonderstuff, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin and Pop WIll Eat Itself. How did this happen? I’m not sure but there’s surely a film to be made out of this phenomenon (if there hasn’t been one made already). There is definitely a book on the subject in existence – the rather wonderfully titled of The Eight Legged Atomic Dustbin Will Eat Itself.
Back to “X, Y & Zee” and I always quite liked this wistful track with a twist and its brilliantly quirky lyrics like:
Mother Nature and Father Time Used to be good friends of mine But now we’ve put them in a home Filed them under “uses unknown”
Apparently, lead singer Clint Mansell went onto become a Hollywood film score composer creating soundtracks for the likes of Requiem For A Dream and Black Swan. I haven’t been that surprised since a lovely lad I used to work with at Our Price called Scott ended up being a bank manager. Scott was a right laugh and the most unlikely future bank manager I could ever imagine.
We’re back with that “Grease Megamix” by John Travolta and Olivia Newton John next. Presumably its sales had been helped by Xmas and New Year’s Eve parties across the nation. The last time this was on TOTP, they only played the “Summer Nights” section of the mix but this time they feature the other two tracks in “You’re The One That I Want” and “Greased Lightnin'”. Now of course, the latter song has some lyrics that probably wouldn’t be suitable before the watershed and indeed the following line has been edited out.
You know that it ain’t shit, we’ll be gettin’ lots of tit, greased lightnin’
However, the censors clearly didn’t know what they were doing as they left in:
You are supreme, the chicks’ll cream, for greased lightnin’
and
You know that I ain’t braggin’, she’s a real pussy wagon
What did they think Travolta was singing about FFS?!
“Grease Megamix” peaked at No 3.
Right, don’t remember this one at all. “I Can’t Take The Power” by Off-Shore anyone? Even the ever reliable @TOTPFacts could only come up with this info about it.
Off Shore was the project of German DJs/producers Jens Lissat and Peter Harder. A couple of other DJs/producers were involved in this single release: Eric Kupper provided some keyboards, and Justin Strauss remixed it. #TOTP
Oh and apparently the titular sample is from “Love’s Gonna Get You” by Jocelyn Brown. Was it supposed to be some sort of response record to Snap!’s “The Power”?
Whatever. “I Can’t Take The Power” peaked at No 7.
Yes! TOTP on it tonight with what the kids like! After Pop Will Eat Itself comes Jesus Jones and although not from Stourbridge, they were definitely in the same musical universe. “International Bright Young Thing” ushered in an era of a band at the peak of the powers.
No doubt about it – Jesus Jones were big…for a time
Taken from their forthcoming second album “Doubt”, it would become their biggest ever hit whilst said album would go to No 1. It had, without… erm…doubt…been one of the most enquired about albums over Xmas (along with “Spartacus” by The Farm) in terms of when it was coming out. The world really did seem to be at their feet. Sadly, the band suffered a press backlash (maybe the ‘International Bright Young Thing’ tag was too much for some publications) and they would wind up being seen as very irrelevant very quickly especially after grunge happened.
For the moment though, they are leading the gang of dance/rock groups who are in the charts with their long, flicky hair and wayward keyboard players – look at the state of the Jesus Jones ivories tinkler here; a total dereliction of playing duties and clearly under the influence of something.They’d have been banned from the show back in the early 80s for much less (Pigbag were for a very similar offence).
“International Bright Young Thing” peaked at No 7.
A couple of videos we’ve seen before next starting with MC Hammer and “Pray”. I’m sure this has been on a couple of times already but it’s a climber of two places within the Top 10 to a peak of No 8 so I guess its presence again could be justified by the TOTP producers.
There were numerous remixes of this track including:
Slam The Hammer Mix
Slam The Hammer Piano Dub
Jam The Hammer Mix
Hit ‘Em Hard Mix
Nail ‘Em Down Chant
The titles of the remixes sound like they more belong to an Iron Maiden track than the pious Mr Hammer. Check out this from @TOTPFacts again:
Speaking of praying: MC Hammer was previously in a Christian rap group called The Holy Ghost Boys. He became a preacher in the late '90s, with a Christian ministry programme on Trinity Broadcasting Network. #TOTP
The second previously seen video is for “Sadness (Part 1)” by Enigma. This is up to No 2 and will be top of the heap soon enough. Watching the video back, it’s all a bit Wicker Man. For a start, the scribe encounters Auguste Rodin’s The Gates of Hell (depicting a scene from Dante’s Inferno) which kind of relates to Police Sergeant Howie’s discovery of all the pagan Celtic imagery on Summerisle. Even more of a parallel though is the fact that the scribe seems to be being tempted by the undressed woman on the other side of the gate who whispers all that ‘Sade, donnes moi’ (‘Sade, give it to me’) Marquis de Sade malarkey to him. Remember that scene in Wicker Man when the Britt Ekland character tries to seduce Edward Woodward through the walls of his room in the pub? Come on! It’s the same thing! Well, almost.
The ever suave Robert Palmer is up next with his Marvin Gaye mash up single “Mercy Mercy Me / “I Want You”. It was a brave move to cover not one but two Marvin Gaye tracks (Palmer himself admitted to being very nervous when he debuted the song on US Television during an appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show) but I think he gets away with it.
Palmer was becoming quite the regular hit-maker by this point. This would be his second consecutive Top 10 hit following his UB40 collaboration on “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” at the back end of 1990 and would help propel parent album “Don’t Explain” into the Top 10 as well. It would be the last time he would have either a single or album in such upper echelons of the charts though.
Oh, and is that Boon Gould from Level 42 on bass up there with Robert? Could be.
The aforementioned Iron Maiden are still at No 1 with their sneakily released “Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter” single. I’ve commented before on that book that Jakki Brambles mentions at the end of the song written by Bruce Dickinson (Lord Iffy Boatrace) – it’s complete bawdy filth including a character who invents the ultimate sex machine. Didn’t mention that did you Jakki?
A musical heavyweight is the play out video. For all his success with The Police, Sting‘s solo career had not resulted in anywhere near the size of hits that his band had generated. By the 90s, he had yet to achieve a Top 10 hit and in fact, of the 10 solo singles he released in the 80s, only 3 of them made the Top 40. However, he had begun the new decade in better shape when a Ben Liebrand remix of “Englishman in New York” made the Top 20 in 1990 to be followed by this, “All This Time”, the lead single from his new album “The Soul Cages”.
I remember the release of the album being seen as a big deal and the Our Price store I was working in certainly had lots if stock of it. Big sales were expected but although it went to No 1, I don’t recall selling many. It would achieve gold status for 100,000 copies sold but was far less than his previous solo albums “…Nothing Like the Sun” (platinum – 300,000 sales) and “The Dream Of The Blue Turtles” (double platinum – 600,000 sales).
For all that talk of disappointing sales figures, I quite liked “All This Time”. Despite its dark lyrics referencing the recent death of his father, it had an uplifting melody and although he can be a complete knacker at times, I’ve always quite liked Sting’s voice. Interesting that he’s only the play out video though, not deemed worthy enough of kicking off the show or having his own little premiere moment in the middle of it. Sting would regroup and return in 1993 with the much more successful “Ten Summoner’s Tales” album when he would also finally get that Top 10 hit when “All For Love” from The Three Musketeers soundtrack went to No 2 in the charts…but it was with Rod Stewart and Bryan Adams so I’m not sure if that actually counts.
“All This Time” peaked at No 22.
For posterity’s sake, I include the chart run down below:
Order of appearance
Artist
Song
Did I Buy it?
1
Bananrama
Preacher Man
Nah
2
Whitney Houston
All The Man That I Need
Nope
3
Pop Will Eat Itself
X Y & Zee
Liked it, didn’t buy it
4
John Travolta and Olivia Newton John
Grease Megamix
Negative
5
Off-Shore
I Can’t Take The Power
Buy it? I don’t even remember it!
6
Jesus Jones
International Bright Young Thing
No but it was on that first Q magazine album that I did buy
7
MC Hammer
Pray
It’s a no
8
Enigma
Sadness (Part 1)
No
9
Robert Palmer
Mercy, Mercy Me / I Want You
No but it’s on my Robert Palmer Best Of CD I think
10
Iron Maiden
Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter
Definitely not
11
Sting
All This Time
I did not
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.
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.
After being stuck in the world of TOTP 1990 for what felt like much longer than 52 weeks, we have finally arrived in 1991! I approach it with a great deal of caution – too many times during these repeats have I been tricked by my memory into thinking that *insert year here* was pretty good only to be utterly let down by the paucity of tunes on offer each week. C’mon 1991 – don’t let me down!
I would have just come through my first Our Price Xmas around now. After working some long hours and serving queue after queue of customers, both Xmas and Boxing Day were days off. Back then Boxing Day still saw just about every store closed unlike today when it is one of the biggest trading days of the year. We had been briefed by the store management that it was the 27th Dec that was the busiest (and most horrible day) of the year in retail as that was the day everybody bought back those unwanted gifts. Back then, the company had a no cash refund policy for items that were not faulty. Swapsies or vouchers were the only things on offer which could lead to many a confrontation with a disgruntled customer. I wonder how many of the acts on tonight’s show would have had their wares brought back that day?
The year starts with someone who surely nobody would have been disappointed to find in their Xmas stocking (obviously I mean her album!). Betty Boo had been one of the biggest stars of 1990 and her single “24 Hours” was her fourth consecutive hit to be plucked from her debut album “Boomania”. So the first thing to note about her performance here is that Betty has lost her Booettes since her last TOTP appearance. Where were the two ladies with the matching black bob hairstyles? Had they all fallen out? According to Betty in a Guardian interview in 2006, those girls liked a good night out and were always pissed when they were touring the world with Betty back in the day so maybe they both had hangovers? With all due respect to Ms Boo, she looks a bit isolated and lost up there on her own. Secondly, what’s with the zebra style plastic mac look? It doesn’t fit her at all does it? As for the song, in truth, it was easily the weakest thing she had released up to this point so it was no surprise that, unlike her other hits, it got nowhere near the Top 10 peaking at No 25. We would not see Betty in the charts again for nigh on two years by which point her time had passed.
OK, so second song into the brand new year and what are we served up? Something that had already been a massive hit as recently as 1987 that was somehow back in the Top 40 again! What a swizz! So why was “(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life” by Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes back in the charts four years on? Well, we have to remember that this was 30 years ago before the digital age of streaming and catch up services – we still only had four TV channels! They hadn’t even invented DVDs! So when a ‘big’ film was finally screened on terrestrial TV, it was a huge deal. Just a few weeks before, the premiere of Top Gun on UK TV had seen “Take My Breath Away” by Berlin become a hit all over gain and so it was also the case with this song from the film Dirty Dancing which had premiered on ITV on Boxing Day pulling in 12.2 million viewers. This was appointment TV – not quite The Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show but it was up there. According to the song’s co-writer Franke Previte, it only just made the cut for the film as it was “…the last song on the last tape submitted on the last day for the movie’s final scene”. A bit like Will Young who sneaked onto Pop Idol after being the very last person the judges had seen in the preliminary auditions.
Bill Medley, of course, had already made an unlikely chart comeback of his own a few weeks prior to this as part of The Righteous Brothers whose “Unchained Melody’ was the biggest selling single in the UK in 1990 off the back of its inclusion in the film Ghost. Jennifer Warnes also had her own film soundtrack history having scored a huge hit back in 1983 as part of another duet, this time with Joe Cocker with the song with “Up Where We Belong” which featured prominently in An Officer And A Gentleman. Her only other UK chart entry had been with a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “First We Take Manhattan” which peaked at No 74 also in 1987 which I’d quite liked.
“(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life” peaked at No 8 second time around just two places lower than its 1987 original release.
Not a brilliant start to the new year – so what’s next? Are you f*****g kidding me?! Gazza?! Yes, contrary to popular belief, Paul Gascoigne managed not one but two chart hits in the wake of ‘Gazzamania’ following Italia ’90. After “Fog On The Tyne” came “Geordie Boys (Gazza Rap)” which played up to the Newcastle stereotype with its lyrics such as :
Newcastle Town,There’s Geordie Brown Cheers to the lads who sup it down They’re Geordie boys, Tough and proud They take their music strong and loud North and South, it’s all the same Gazza’s here to play the game. Move your body,Tap your cap Keep on going to the Gazza Rap
Dear oh dear. Had record company BMG really had plans to turn Gazza into a proper pop star? As well as his two singles, he also released an album (albeit one that was universally panned and which failed to make the Top 100 in the charts). And after all, Kevin Keegan had scored a hit back in the late 70s with “Head OVer Heels” and Glenn and Chris (Hoddle and Waddle) had nearly got into the Top 10 with “Diamond Lights” back in 1987 so why not Gazza? The truth was though that Gazza the celebrity was already in decline by this point – his business advisers, on the advice of Spurs manager Terry Venables, had already begun winding down his non-football activities when they cancelled six PAs back in Sep 1990 and there would be no further appearances. The constant limelight was also beginning to take its toll on his performances on the pitch. Even TOTP host Gary Davies has a dig at him with his “He’s doing better in charts than he is on the football pitch” quip. He wasn’t wrong. Spurs had just lost all three games over the Xmas period and had only won three times since October.
However, just two days after this TOTP was broadcast, they would win 1-0 away to Blackpool in the FA Cup to start a run to the final that was powered almost single handedly by Gazza. He scored six times on the way to Wembley but the final itself (despite a Spurs win) would end in personal devastation. Over pumped and high on adrenaline, Gazza charged around the pitch with no self control until injuring himself in a terrible challenge on *Nottingham Forest’s Gary Charles. If he hadn’t have been stretchered off he would surely have been sent off. For me, he was never quite the same player again.
“Geordie Boys (Gazza Rap)” peaked at No 31.
*Talking of Nottingham Forest, if you really want the story of a footballer becoming a rock star, look no further than Paul McGregor. Not only was he a striker for Forest in the 90s scoring this winning goal in the UEFA cup in 1996…
…he was also the lead singer of a Britpop band called Merc who attracted the attention of Creation’s Alan McGee and went onto form post-punk band Ulterior and performs under the stage name of Honey.
Oh not this again?! Despite what host Gary Davies says in his intro, this record was Black Box‘s first four (not three Gary) hit singles all mashed together into one track which they called “The Total Mix”. I think there is an official video for this single but I can’t find it online and in any case, TOTP don’t show it here – instead just playing the track over the video for previous single “Everybody, Everybody”.
I’m guessing this must have been popular in the clubs to have generated enough sales to take it to No 12 in the singles charts. You’d think that releasing a megamix of your previous four hits all taken from the same album (“Dreamland”) would have been the final act of milking said album dry but no! They released another three singles after “The Total Mix” although only one of them (“Strike It Up”) made the Top 40. So that’s a charge sheet of fleecing the record buying public, a lip synching scandal and a lawsuit brought against them for unauthorised sampling. How did this lot sleep at night?
Finally a decent record courtesy of Seal and his hit “Crazy”. In an unlikely turn of events, this would not be the only song featured on the same show to have this title. His first truly solo single after the collaboration with Adamski on “Killer”, this track would cement him in the public’s collective mind as a proper pop star to be taken seriously. Seal always seemed to have a gravitas to him to me, that he wasn’t just another throwaway singer that would be here today and forgotten by Xmas. He delivered on this perception with a No 1 album (which, by the way, was not called “Deep Water” as Gary Davies advised but just “Seal”). Admittedly there is a track called “Deep Water” on it – maybe there had been plans for that to be the title track at some point in fairness to Davies.
Seal was perfect for TOTP studio performances, setting many a young girl’s pulse racing with his rippling muscles, cool dread hairstyle and those intriguing facial scars. He was born to do this shit. Not sure about his little man bag stuck down the front of his leather trousers though.
“Crazy” would just miss the top spot peaking at No 2.
A new act now as we get a first look at C+C Music Factory and their single “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)“. This lot were essentially songwriting and record producing duo David Cole and Robert Clivillés (C + C geddit?) who stormed the international charts with this relentless dance thumper. That block busting back beat was like a hammer to your head and once imprinted on your brain, it could not be forgotten or ignored. The vocals were supplied, yet again, by ex -Weather Girl Martha Wash and yet again she was not credited for her contribution on the track. That’s not her in the video but one Zelma Davis. Martha defo needed a better lawyer back then. She finally got a settlement in 1994 when Sony requested that MTV add a disclaimer to the video that credited Wash for vocals and Zelma Davis for ‘visualization’ of the track. Visualization? God, you wouldn’t want that credit would you?! All of this means that essentially, C+C Music Factory were just a US version of Black Box. Still, you can’t argue with their success. I hadn’t realised quite what a big deal this record was at the time. It peaked at No 3 over here but it was No 1 in Austria, Germany, Holland, Switzerland and biggest of all, in their native US. In 2000, it was voted by VH1 into position No 9 in their 100 Greatest Dance Songs poll.
It has been used in countless films and TV shows including the live-action/animated basketball comedy Space Jam whose soundtrack coincidentally also features the aforementioned Seal whose version of Steve Miller Band’s “Fly Like An Eagle” incorporates some lyrics from “Crazy” into it (‘In a sky full of people, Only some want to fly, Isn’t that crazy?’). I’m pretty sure the phrase ‘Everybody Dance now’ also became the title for a series of dance compilation albums around this time.
I wasn’t a massive fan of “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)” though. I much preferred the poppier “Things That Make You Go Hmmm…” which was a No 4 hit in the Summer.
Still with this Best selling albums of the month feature? Give it a rest lads. OK so, the Top 5 albums of Dec 1990 in the UK were:
1. Madonna – “The Immaculate Collection”
2. Elton John – “The Very Best Of Elton John”
3. Phil Collins – ‘Serious Hits Live”
4. Carreras, Domingo and Pavarotti – “The Three Tenors In Concert”
5. Cliff Richard – “The Event”
This lot were hardly cutting edge were they?! Things That Make You Go Hmmm indeed…
Righto, who’s next? Anthrax?! For the love of God! Why?! These US thrash metal arses had not been higher than No 26 in the UK Top 40 before but somehow got to No 16 with “Got The Time”. I’m guessing it was a case of careful release scheduling (much less sales were required to register a hit in the week immediately following the Xmas rush when everyone is skint but more of that later).
I don’t recall this at all so I was amazed to discover it’s actually a cover of a Joe Jackson song! Yeah, that Joe Jackson of “Steppin’ Out” and “Is She Really Going Out with Him?” fame. It was a track from his debut album “Look Sharp” and should sound like this…
Ah, that’s much better than that racket Anthrax were making.
Now to that second sing of the night called “Crazy” but this time it’s by Patsy Cline. Country music legend Patsy has a legacy that completely outstrips her chart statistics. She only ever had one Top 10 hit (the original release of “Crazy” in the US back in 1961) and yet she is known and revered throughout the world. A bit like the musical reverse of my beloved Chelsea’s German striker Timo Werner – his stats say he’s had a decent season (12 goals and 15 assists in all competitions) but I am never confident that he is going to score. Please prove me wrong on Saturday in the Champions League final Timo!
I have to admit I couldn’t tell you any other Patsy Cline songs apart from this one and yet, despite only recording four studio albums before her untimely death in a plane crash in 1963, I counted 42 Greatest Hits compilation albums in her discography page on Wikipedia. I’m guessing the reason for this re-release was to promote one such Best Of package or was it used in yet another film soundtrack maybe? I’m not sure. Anyway, it peaked at No 14 this time around.
Attention Anthrax! This is how you play release schedules against sales patterns to your ultimate chart advantage. I remember the idea that Iron Maiden had some how pulled off some sort of chart-based sleight of hand being a big deal at the time. Presumably releasing a single at the optimum time when the least amount of sales were required for a No 1 record whilst also knowing you had a loyal (and crucially big enough) fan base must have been a deliberate act and wasn’t happy circumstance. The band and their record label must have known what they were doing for them to knock Cliff Richard off the Xmas No 1 spot after just one week. Have their ever been two such polar opposite records to be consecutive No 1s? The juxtaposition of saintly Sir Cliff giving thanks to God followed by a heavy rock band instructing their followers to bring their female offspring to a horrible death was frankly bizarre! Or was “Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter” about something else entirely? Originally written for the film A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child, Bruce Dickinson had this to say about it on the songfacts.com website:
‘Here I tried to sum up what I thought Nightmare On Elm Street movies are really about, and it’s all about adolescent fear of period pains. That’s what I think it is – deep down.’
How lovely of you Bruce to write a song about the subject in such a sensitive way! Jeez!
Despite it being banned from BBC radio playlists, it spent two weeks at No 1 and in 2005, it was voted the second best No1 single of all time behind Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” by…yes you’ve guessed it…BBC Radio 1 listeners.
From “Bohemian Rhapsody” to “Turtle Rhapsody” by some…thing called Orchestra On The Half Shell. As you may have guessed, this was yet another association with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles phenomenon. It was actually the third hit single to be released from the soundtrack to the film following “Turtle Power” by Partners in Kryme and “Spin That Wheel” by Hi Tek 3 (aka Technotronic). Yet again, I have zero recall of this and am actually surprised the whole franchise was still having hits into 1991. “Turtle Power” was a No1 in the previous Summer wasn’t it? When did the film come out in the UK then?
*checks internet*
Huh. Not until Friday 23rd November 1990 so I guess it was still doing the rounds at the cinemas? It’s utter hogwash of course and would peak at a lowly No 36.
For the sake of posterity, I include the chart run down below:
Order of appearance
Artist
Song
Did I Buy it?
1
Betty Boo
24 Hours
Nope
2
Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes
(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life
Nah
3
Gazza
Geordie Boys (Gazza Rap)
Great footballer, terrible pop star – no
4
Black Box
The Total Mix
Total shit – no
5
Seal
Crazy
No but I bought the album
6
C+C Music Factory
Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)
No
7
Anthrax
Got The Time
I really haven’t – not for this shite
8
Patsy Cline
Crazy
Negative
9
Iron Maiden
Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter
Definitely not
10
Orchestra On The Half Shell
Turtle Rhapsody
As if
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.
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.
It’s 1991 and my life has already changed seismically even this early into the decade. Just a few short weeks ago I married my girlfriend of four years and we moved to Manchester to start our life together. Despite only knowing one person each that lived there at the time, we have settled in pretty well. Crucially, I have secured permanent employment at Our Price (after a Xmas there as a temp) and I like the job and the people I work with. Although we don’t have much money, Manchester, and indeed life, feels exciting.
In tandem with my life change, TOTP will undergo its own far reaching overhaul of its format later in 1991 which would come to be known as the ‘Year Zero’ revamp. Fearing that the show was no longer seen as ‘cool’, its incoming, new producer Stanley Appel decided to sever all ties with Radio 1 which had been closely associated with the show since the station’s birth in 1967. In a dramatic cull, the established Radio 1 DJs who hosted TOTP were replaced by …well, who were these people in fact? Names such as Claudia Simon,Tony Dortie and Mark Franklin meant nothing to me but crucially they were young (Franklin was just 17 when recruited from local radio) and that seemed to be good enough reason to employ them for Appel. Quite why a man whose previous credits included Blankety Blank, Marti Caine, Leo Sayer, The Paul Daniels Magic Show and 70s impressionist Mike Yarwood and who was 58 at the time, was seen as the person who knew about what was ‘cool’ or not, I’m not sure. Aside from a new presenting team, Appel brought in a rule meaning acts had to sing live, a Top 10 countdown without any voiceover and acts being introduced off camera History has shown that Appel’s changes were not popular and they were reversed later in the decade.
Musically, there seemed to be little change in terms of what dominated the charts. We had No 1s from established stars like Queen, Cher and Michael Jackson. There was the obligatory charity record at the top of the charts in the appalling “The Stonk” for Comic Relief, a novelty single achieving the same feat in “Do The Bartman” by The Simpsons and yet another Levis advert inspired No 1 single, albeit the song was pretty good (“Should I Stay Or Should I Go” by The Clash). And of course film soundtrack No 1s were still prevalent courtesy of “The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s In His Kiss)” from Mermaids and indeed the biggest selling single of the year with 16 consecutive weeks at the top for Bryan Adams with “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” from the film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. So much to look forward to!
It wasn’t all bad news though – The KLF stormed to to the top of the singles chart with “3 a.m. Eternal” whilst there were also No 1 albums for ‘new’ acts like Jesus Jones and The Farm. James finally got the success they deserved via a re-release of “Sit Down” and there was some stone cold classic dance records released this year from The Source featuring Candi Staton, Massive Attack and The Young Disciples. Then of course there was grunge, Nirvana and all that.
There was tragedy as well as the world of music lost both Freddie Mercury and Steve Marriott before their time. And perhaps the biggest blow to music was dealt on 17 Feb when Ed Sheeran was born this year. No seriously though, I do hate Ed Sheeran.
Plenty to see and listen to then. Let’s get to it….
Disclaimer
All opinions are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.
I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC.
And there you have it – 1990 all done and dusted. As with many of these years that I have reviewed retrospectively, it was quite the disappointment. Very much touted as the year of ‘Madchester’ in the press at the time, if you actually examine the artists that were successful and the songs that were hits in this year, it was very mainstream and very old guard. It reminds me of the year 1977 – the year that punk was everywhere – and yet one of the biggest selling artists of the year was one half of Starsky And Hutch in David Soul. The Top 10 selling albums list was filled by the likes of ABBA, The Shadows, Fleetwood Mac and The Eagles. Fast forward 13 years and we see a similar story – the Top 10 albums are represented by Phil Collins (twice!), Elton John (twice!), The Carpenters, Pavarotti (twice!) and bloody Michael Bolton!
As for singles, these were the No 1 records of the year:
18 songs had travelled to the summit of the charts. Of them, I would say they broke down like this:
4 x established stars (Kylie, Madonna, New Order and Beautiful South)
3 x brand new artists we had not seen before (Snap!, Adamski and Vanilla Ice)
3 x artists having their breakthrough moment in the sun (Beats International, Sinéad O’Connor and Maria McKee)
3 x film / TV Advert tie ins (Partners In Kryme, The Righteous Brothers and Steve Miller Band)
2 x old fogeys (Elton John and Cliff Richard)
1 x charity record (Band Aid II)
1 x latest teeny bop sensation (NKOTB)
1 x novelty record shite (Bombalurina)
I bought exactly zero of them. How many of them were halfway decent songs? 6 or 7? The run from July through to October was particularly bad. Where were The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and the Inspiral Carpets? These were the bands the kids wanted weren’t they? Although all these acts had chart hits this year, none of them got higher than No 4 in the charts. Maybe ‘Madchester’ wasn’t about chart positions though – it was a statement of rejecting the old and embracing the new indie-dance hybrid, of fashion, of belonging. Or maybe it wasn’t. I don’t know.
The charts were certainly influenced by film and TV this year. Levis continued its campaign of resurrecting old pop hits to sell some jeans and scored a No 1 with “The Joker”, Pretty Woman spawned numerous hits for the likes of Roxette and Go West, Days Of Thunder produced an unlikely No 1 for Maria Mckee and the best selling single of the year was from the film Ghost courtesy of The Righteous Brothers. Hell, even film hits from previous years were massive all over again (“Take My Breath Away” by Berlin). We were all so easily manipulated it seemed.
Euro dance hits were all the rage this year as well. The charts were full of hits from the likes of 49ers, Rob ‘n’ Raz featuring Leila K, Technotronic, Twenty Four Seven featuring Captain Hollywood, Ya Kid K and of course Snap! who bagged themselves a No 1 record with “The Power”. None of it did anything for me really. It all seemed like a very nasty, homogenised form of dance music and couldn’t hold a light to authentic dance anthems by Deee-Lite, 808 State and The KLF. Were punters really dancing to this cheesy nonsense in the clubs? I wouldn’t have known as my clubbing days declined steeply this year after its high point of the last three years of being a student; mainly because I was skint for most of the year.
Talking of myself, as with previous years, most of my purchases (of singles) seemed to come from outside of the Top 40 (see Hits That Never Were further on in the post). Was I trying to prove some sort of point that I couldn’t be bought or swayed by the forces of film / TV and media promotion? Or was it just that non hits could be found much cheaper in the record shop bargain bins than their Top 40 counterparts? As I said, I did spent most of the year financially embarrassed. I bought the occasional chart hit (The Beloved, Gun, The Soup Dragons, World Party) but they weren’t many, not even when I ended the year working in an actual record shop. Despite being a very memorable 12 months for me personally in which I got married, moved to Manchester and began a 10 year career in record retail, it wasn’t a vintage year musically.
Hits We Missed
During these reviews of the year in my other blog TOTP Rewind – the 80s, a lot of the entries in this section were songs and artists that had made it onto the show but those shows were not repeated by the BBC for reasons of taste surrounding hosts that were totally unpalatable today or in the case of Mike Smith because of legal restrictions. This was not the case in 1990. Every TOTP of that year has been re-shown on BBC4 so any chart hits we missed seeing was because they never actually featured on any episode. Exhibit A m’lud…
James – “How Was It For You?” / “Come Home” / “Lose Control”
James must have seriously offended the TOTP producers in some way in 1990. How else do you explain them having three Top 40 hits and still not getting to appear on the show? OK, they weren’t massive hits (that wouldn’t happen until the following year when a re-release of “Sit Down” hit No 2 and the TOTP bosses could no longer ignore the band) but still.
I have to admit to not really being aware of James before this point despite them being in existence since 1982. Early albums like “Stutter” and “Strip-mine” hadn’t registered at all and neither had they with the majority of the UK record buying public. Sure, they were big hitters in the indie charts but mainstream success eluded them. When 1989 singles “Sit Down” (the original version) and “Come Home” peaked at Nos 77 and 84 respectively, the band made the decision to shift labels from legendary independents Rough Trade to Phonogram sub-label Fontana Records.
That move brought immediate dividends with the band’s first Top 40 hit in “How Was It For You?” released in May of 1990. Backed up by some heavy promotion in the press from their new label and a tour in June which included festival dates at WOMAD and Glastonbury, it entered the charts at No 35 before peaking at No 32 the following week. Some sharp (some may say manipulative) record company tactics saw the band release the single in five different formats with new and live tracks split across them all meaning that completist fans would have to shell out multiple times to acquire every bit of the band’s previously unavailable material.
It turns out that the band did manage to shoot themselves in the foot rather when it came to appearing on TOTP. The promo video that they shot featured Tim Booth singing underwater but also some overly suggestive fruit eating and snogging action that was deemed unsuitable for primetime TV and whoops… there went the crucial TOTP exposure that could have made “How Was It For You?” a major rather than minor hit. Had the video been shown in the show’s Breakers section maybe that would have led to a studio performance and then….ah well. On reflection maybe it was the song’s lyrics that did for it. There was that title for a start and then lines like ‘I’m so possessed by sex I could destroy my health’ surely didn’t help?
Released: 12 May 1990
Peak Chart Position: 32
Weeks On Top 40: 2
Still, a hit was a hit and “How Was It For You?” provided a solid base for the release of parent album “Gold Mother” in June. The album sold well peaking at No 16 (in its original format) and a follow up single was required. It was decided that a re-release of “Come Home” was in order and Flood (who had produced Erasure’s “The Circus” album) was called in to do a remix. To be fair, it doesn’t sound that different to the original to me although it was reduced in length presumably to make it more radio-friendly. The original release of the song had been plagued with issues – pluggers weren’t sent copies and record shops were left without any or with insufficient copies of the single. There was even an error in the charts at Music Week that meant it wasn’t listed in its second week of release. All of these problems led to a stand off between Rough Trade and the band which would ultimately lead to them decamping to Fontana.
A second Top 40 hit was good consolidation for the band but it still didn’t tempt the TOTP bosses to invite them onto the show. Maybe it was all those naked chests and pant daubing antics in the video that put them off. Despite a second consecutive Top 40 entry, I was still somehow managing to avoid James altogether. Maybe it was the distraction of the World Cup. I didn’t really become aware of “Come Home” until later in the year and after I had started working at Our Price. The track was included on a compilation called “Happy Daze” which got hammered on the shop stereo. Compiled by Gary Crowley, it showcased the year’s breakout indie artists with a heavy (though not exclusive) slant on the dance rock crossover sound from artists like Primal Scream, Jesus Jones and The Shamen. Riding on the ‘Madchester’ zeitgeist (although by no means were all the artists from Manchester or even part of that movement), it had assumed legendary status amongst music fans of that genre and time. Having just moved to Manchester myself, it felt the perfect soundtrack to those days and “Come Home” by James was certainly a part of that.
Released: Jun 1990
Peak Chart Position: 32
Weeks On Top 40: 2
And so to the last of this trio of TOTP ignored hits. “Lose Control” was originally released as a stand alone single between albums to coincide with and help promote the band’s short UK tour. Not included on the original release of “Gold Mother”, it would appear on the 1991 re-release alongside “Sit Down” with the tracks “Hang On” and “Crescendo” jettisoned to make way for them. Our Price did a promotion whereby fans that had bought the original album could effectively trade it in for the updated version no questions asked – a “Gold Mother” amnesty if you like. I remember one day a colleague called Paul taking back a customer’s vinyl format of the album and swapping it for the new as per the offer but when he looked at the traded in copy it was in a terrible condition. Showing it to the store manager in a ‘check this out’ type of way, poor Paul received short shrift from the boss for agreeing to swap it. It seemed harsh on Paul at best.
I must admit to “Lose Control” passing me by back then – released close to Xmas and only appearing in the bottom reaches of the Top 40 for one week though are I think mitigating circumstances for which I can be forgiven.
And so there it is, the curious tale of the chart career of James during 1990. Finally a Top 40 hit and not one but three (waiting for a bus and all that) and yet zero TOTP appearances. However, they now had a much enlarged national platform from which they would leap the following year via the “Sit Down” re-release to spawn a flurry of hit albums and singles throughout the decade, not to mention creating that T-shirt phenomenon that no self respecting, teenage indie kid would leave the house without.
Released: 08 Dec 1990
Peak Chart Position: 38
Weeks On Top 40: 1
The Stone Roses – “Made Of Stone” / “Elephant Stone”
James were not the only Manchester band in 1990 experiencing multiple hits after years of being ignored by the record buying public and mainstream media. As the new decade unfolded, The Stone Roses star went super nova as they blazed a trail as the de facto leaders of the ‘Madchester’ movement. Having gatecrashed the Top 40 back in 1989 with “She Bangs The Drums” in the Summer of ’89 and then residing in the actual Top 10 with “Fool’s Gold / What The World Is Waiting For” as the 80s gave way to the 90s, there was a sudden rush on to get more Roses product out there to satiate demand. First to try and cash in on the band’s popularity were previous label Revolver (they of the infamous paint incident) who re-released early single “Sally Cinnamon” against the band’s wishes. Although it stalled at No 46, it remained on the Top 100 for 7 weeks. Not bad for a single originally released in 1987 that failed to chart at all.
Current label Silvertone weren’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth and so they took the step of re-releasing two singles within the same month. “Made Of Stone” was taken from their iconic debut album and had originally been released in March of ’89 peaking at No 90. Exactly 12 months later wit the world at their feet, it was made available again and went straight in at No 20 where it would peak. Many more worthy of commenting on this song than I have already waxed lyrical of its power but it’s my blog so…
…as I’ve said before I didn’t get The Stone Roses initially. My elder brother was in a full on Manchester United match going obsession by this point and so he was more into them than I was as their songs were the soundtrack to many a coach journey up to Old Trafford. I just wasn’t sure though. I didn’t think the lead singer could actually, you know, sing and I wasn’t into the fashion that they were popularising – I’d had my fill of flares growing up in the 70s. And why did all their dongs have to include the word ‘stone’ in the title? On reflection I was wrong. Massively so. “Made Of Stone” is great, a hugely evocative track whose lyrics paint some very full on images (‘When the streets are cold and lonely and the cars, they burn below me’). It should have been a much bigger hit than it was either time.
Released: Mar 1990
Peak Chart Position: 20
Weeks On Top 40: 2
Released exactly the same month as “Made Of Stone” came “Elephant Stone” (seriously though, what was it with the word ‘stone’?). They’d call it doubling down now. This one had originally been released in 1988 but had failed to register on the national chart. Come 1990, it was prime for a second outing. Debuting inside the Top 10 was a demonstration of the band’s pull and profile and it’s another great track with that searing, scythe of a guitar refrain opening leading into an irresistible, propelling rhythm. The original doesn’t have the same intro but rather has a much less explosive cymbal entrance segueing into a rather laboured drum and bass. The 1990 version is definitive I think.
And what was an Elephant Stone? Wikipedia suggests it was a reference to one William George Keith Elphinstone, an officer of the British Army during the 19th century. His legacy is one of incompetence as his entire command was massacred during the British retreat from Kabul in January 1842 during the First Anglo-Afghan War. Not your average source of inspiration for a song then. There’s an alternative rock band from Canada who go by the name of Elephant Stone who formed in 2009. Surely not a coincidence – they must be massive Roses fans.
So why were neither of these singles shown on TOTP? What was more important to feature on the show at this time? Well, according to my research the producers felt that Bros (by now in steep decline) were more relevant to the UK audience and they featured on the show around now alongside Guru Josh and Gloria Estefan. Hmm. The following week’s broadcast featured both Primal Scream and Inspiral Carpets. Surely Ian Brown and co would have been perfect for that particular episode? Had they been banned alongside Happy Mondays in that legendary TOTP back in late ’89?
Not on the original 1989 track listing of their debut album, “Elephant Stone” has been included on subsequent pressings.
Released: Mar 1990
Peak Chart Position: 8
Weeks On Top 40: 4
World Party – “Put The Message In The Box”
Released: 09 Jun 1990
Peak Chart Position: 39
Weeks On Top 40: 1
In that parallel pop universe where acts that deserved commercial success actually got it, World Party would have racked up multiple chart hits. Instead, back in the reality that exists, they amounted to just four Top 40 entries of which only one actually made the Top 20. One of those chart interlopers was “Put The Message In The Box” which was the lead single from their critically acclaimed (Q Magazine‘s album of the year) but criminally under bought “Goodbye Jumbo” album.
Released at the start of the Summer when the UK record buying public were in thrall to “Nessun Dorma” and unfeasibly Elton John’s most turgid of tunes, “Put The Message In The Box” sounded somehow both fresh and completely retro. The guitar work was undeniably Beatles-esque (“Rubber Soul” era maybe?) while Karl Wallinger’s vocals could have qualified him as a member of The Travelling Wilburys. The false ending when the final guitar ring explodes out of the ether is also rather marvellous. I thought this was great and duly bought the cassette single, the B-side of which was a lovely 50s style ballad called “Nature Girl”.
That parallel universe finally materialised three years on from this when their third album “Bang!” unexpectedly went all the way to No 2 but the momentum of that release wasn’t realised and it remains a commercial high point and anomaly in the band’s fortunes. A fourth album “Egyptology” returned the band to the land of disappointing record sales although it did include the ballad “She’s The One” later recorded and taken to No 1 by Robbie Williams. I’m pretty sure that none of Robbie’s adoring fans knew nor cared that the song with that ice skating video was actually written by Karl Wallinger though. Indeed, Williams himself would introduce the song when performing it live as one of the best songs he’s ever written prompting much ire and fury within Wallinger who was not reticent in declaring his opinion of Williams (the ‘c’ bomb was used!). Justice finally prevailed in this 2019 advert for Williams’ album “The Christmas Present”.
And yes that is Chris Sharrock on drums in the video formerly of the Icicle Works and later drummer for, yes, Robbie Williams.
House Of Love – “The Beatles And The Stones”
Released: 07 Apr 1990
Peak Chart Position: 36
Weeks On Top 40: 14
Having finally secured a bona fide Top 40 hit in a re-recording of debut single “Shine On” a few weeks earlier, House Of Love were getting the hang of this pop star business by claiming another one immediately with follow up single “The Beatles And The Stones”. Essentially their version of a ballad, it’s a gentle, melodic sound and much more laid back than its frenetic and urgent predecessor. There’s even some “A Day In The Life” strings shoved in the mix. What was it about? Going by the lyrics, I’m guessing it was something to do with The Beatles relationship with the press which turned sour after John Lennon’s ‘more popular than Jesus’ quote and how they were then pursued for their political views on subjects such as Vietnam.
It probably should have been a much bigger hit than its No 36 peak but this being 1990, that was probably never going to happen. Sadly for the band, it would prove to be their last ever chart hit.
Hits That Never Were
The Blue Aeroplanes – “…And Stones”
Release date: 26 may 1990
Peak Chart Position: 63
Weeks On Chart: 2
From “The Beatles And The Stones” to “…And Stones”. I always thought that I should have really been into The Blue Aeroplanes in a big way but somehow it never really happened for me although I did like this single. These Bristolian art rockers had been around for nearly a decade by this point albeit with a revolving door policy on band line ups (Wikipedia lists 88* names as either a primary or supporting member over the years) but the mainstays were Gerard Langley, brother John Langley, and dancer Wojtek Dmochowski – yes, a dancer was one of the group members who stayed for thew whole duration. To put it in context, that would be like mime artist Jed ‘Mental Chains’ Hoyle having been on every single Howard Jones performance from 1983 onwards. Or just being Bez I suppose.
By 1990, the band had reached a critical peak with the release of their album “Swagger” from which “…And Stones” was taken. The single had a…erm…swagger to it with a driving, rocking beat that also would have appealed to dance heads and Gerard Langley spoken word style vocals setting it apart. Was it not quite radio friendly enough for day time audiences? Their loss. Ultimately they had to settle for being influential rather than commercially successful (that old chestnut) – you can hear their style in bands like Flowered Up and A House I think – but they could have been as big as Happy Mondays in another world.
The band are still together and released an album as recently as 2017.
*Is that more than The Fall?!
Power Of Dreams – “100 Ways To Kill A Love”
Release date: 02 Jun 1990
Peak Chart Position: 94
Weeks On Chart: 1
I bought this! I have no recollection of how I came to know about it but presumably I must have heard it on Radio 1 – I’m guessing Mark Goodier’s drive time show as this would have been the sort of stuff he liked to champion. I’m also guessing I picked it up cheap in the bargain bin of whichever record store I got it in but we shouldn’t judge it purely on its historical monetary value. It’s quite an urgent, rock sound that has a hint of The Wedding Present about it in terms of its incessant, jangly guitar back bone.
Not sure that I knew much about Power Of Dreams at the time but thankfully the internet was invented in the intervening 30 years and I can now rest easy in the knowledge that they were from Dublin and were nominated by the NME no less as one of the ‘stars of tomorrow’ in late ’89 alongside Cater USM and The Charlatans. Unlike their peers though, Power Of Dreams never managed to achieve a UK Top 40 hit despite releasing numerous singles and five albums before they spilt in 1995. The band reformed in 2009 and have gigged sporadically since.
The Shamen – “Make It Mine”
Release date: 22 Sep 1990
Peak Chart Position: 42 * 3 straight weeks at No 42
Weeks On Chart: 5
Do The Shamen get the credit they deserve? Indeed, do they deserve any credit at all? Whatever your answer to those questions, nobody can deny that theirs is an engaging story featuring tragedy, critical acclaim and ultimately accusations of being a sell out as commercial success came their way. I first became aware of the band in 1990 (although they had been around since 1985) when I heard “Pro-Gen”. I wasn’t a massive dance music fan and yet despite undeniably being a dance anthem, the track also had a great pop tune lurking under the layers of production and endless remixes which appealed to me. The single would miss the Top 40 but, as it was re-released the following year as “Move Any Mountain” and became a Top 5 hit, I’ve chosen another single from their “En-Tact” album that should have been a hit in 1990.
“Make It Mine” was the follow up to “Pro-Gen” and was of a similar flavour combining an industrial strength guitar riff hook with an infectious rhythm to great effect. It missed out on being the band’s first bona fide chart hit by the tiniest of margins. Indeed, you could make a case that it was the unluckiest record ever to not make the Top 40 when it remained at its peak of No 42 for three consecutive weeks! That close encounter was followed by definite chart contact when “Hyperreal” (the fourth single from the album) made No 29 in early 1991 and then a full on visitation with “Move Any Mountain”.
That moment of chart success though was engulfed by the tragedy of the death of the band’s bass player/keyboardist and songwriter Will Sinnott when he drowned off the coast of La Gomera, in the Canary Islands, while the band were shooting the video for “Move Any Mountain”. Deciding to carry on the band in tribute to his former band mate, Colin Angus recruited rapper Mr C as a permanent full time member and in 1992 they would achieve a platinum selling album in “Boss Drum” and a controversial No 1 single in “Ebeneezer Goode”…and that’s where it all went a bit naughty, naughty, very naughty…
Billy Joel – “I Go To Extremes”
Release date: 03 Mar 1990
Peak Chart Position: 70
Weeks On Chart: 4
While the whole country seemed to be going rave mad in 1990, I, perpetually behind the zeitgeist, found myself increasingly embroiled in Billy Joel’s singles release schedule. What on earth was I thinking? After Joel had returned to our Top 10 for the first time in five years with the often ridiculed “We Didn’t Start the Fire” from his “Storm Front” album, it seemed he may be about to embark upon a run of hit singles akin to his “An Innocent Man” period.
However, despite releasing a further four singles from the album, none of them pierced the Top 40 even. I didn’t own “Storm Front” but seemed to afford the singles released from it an inordinate amount of attention. “Leningrad” was the follow up to “We Didn’t Start the Fire” written about a clown whom he met while touring the Soviet Union in 1987 (there’s surely joke in that sentence somewhere) while “The Downeaster ‘Alexa'” depicted the plight of an impoverished fisherman off Long Island struggling to make ends meet against the depletion of fish stocks and restricting environmental regulations. Fast forward 31 years and it could be an allegorical tale of the woes of Brex-shit. The final single to be released was “That’s Not Her Style” which was sort of a sequel to “Uptown Girl” in that it again it was written about/for Christie Brinkley although it was infinitely better than that piece of crud widely recognised as Joel’s worst ever song.
The one I have highlighted here though is “I Go To Extremes” which was the third single from “Storm Front”. There was something about the way the rolling piano drove the song forward that appealed. Apparently written from the point of view of a manic depression sufferer, it certainly made an impression on troubled actress Linday Lohan who allegedly has its lyrics ‘clear as a crystal, sharp as a knife I feel like I’m in the prime of my life’ from this song tattooed on her rib cage. I wasn’t that affected by the song though I did buy it (yes I actually bought it!) and I stand by my actions. It’s a good song. Bloody music snobs!
Age Of Chance – “Higher Than Heaven”
Release date: 03 Mar 1990
Peak Chart Position: 53
Weeks On Chart: 8
Another peculiar pop tale now. It’s that weird story of how a band starts out as one thing and morphs into something almost unrecognisable from their origins later in their career. I can think of a few examples where the artists has almost completely changed musical genre as it were – the Roxy Music of “Virginia Plain” is a million miles away from their slick “Avalon” era, whilst those early Simple Minds albums bear little resemblance to the bombastic, stadium rock hits of their commercial peak. Similarly, when the Beastie Boys advised us that “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)” in 1987, few would have imagined that they would come up with such a musically diverse album as “Ill Communication” a few short years later. And who could have foreseen the almost teen bop version of Depeche Mode with hits like “Just Can’t Get Enough” building a career of huge longevity making brooding and dark electro-rock songs? And tht’s befpre we’ve even mentioned Talk Talk…
Back to Age Of Chance though and this lot started out as a Leeds based industrial rock/ dance hybrid and like most people, I only first knew of them via their striking cover of Prince’s “Kiss” in 1986. Favourites of John Peel, they even contributed a track of the now legendary NME C86 cassette compilation (described by writer and broadcaster Andrew Collins as “the most indie thing to have ever existed”). They played a gig at Sunderland Poly whilst I was studying there but I failed to attend for some reason. A move to major label Virgin followed but, almost inevitably, that seemed to be the point where things started to change. Debut album “One Thousand Years Of Trouble” was a critical success but failed to deliver the required commercial sales.
By the time that second album “Mecca” was being recorded, founding member and vocalist Steven Elvidge had had enough and jumped ship leading the rest of the band to recruit a replacement – gospel voiced soul singer Charles Hutchinson was chosen. The result meant that “Mecca” was much more of a polished effort but crucially wildly different from the band’s previous sound. Being the pop kid that I am/was though, I liked this incarnation better and thought lead single “Higher Than Heaven” was almost the perfect pop song and felt compelled to buy the single. Hutchinson could have been a star as big as Seal (but he was beaten to it by…erm..Seal) and their sound was reminiscent of the similarly criminally overlooked Ellis, Beggs And Howard from a couple of years before. Despite being voted Record of the week by BBC Radio 1’s breakfast show listeners, the single failed to make the Top 40 and the band would ultimately spilt in 1991. Shame really.
The Icicle Works – “Motorcycle Rider”
Release date: 17 Mar 1990
Peak Chart Position: 73
Weeks On Chart: 3
You can’t do a Hits That Never Were section without an entry from Icicle Works. They’ve been in multiple reviews of the year that I’ve done. 1990’s representative was “Motorcycle RIder” – however, this was a very different Icicle Works to the outfit who had gone so close to chart glory before.
After 1988’s “Blind” album had taken the band’s commercial fortunes backwards and nullified the small gains made by preceding long player “If You Want to Defeat Your Enemy Sing His Song” and with tensions within the band on the rise, the original line up disintegrated. Drummer Chris Sharrock decamped initially to The La’s before embarking on a career as an in demand musician working with the likes of The Lightning Seeds, Robbie Williams, Del Amitri, Oasis and Beady Eye. He is currently the drummer for Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. In addition, bassist Chris Layhe also departed finding an alternative career as events organiser in Liverpool and teaching guitar at the Manchester Adult Education Service. No disrespect to the guitar teacher I had in Hull when I finally tried to master the instrument who was great but I would have loved to have been taught by Mr Layhe! I believe he still does some live gig work – somebody I used to work with in Our Price knows him and by all accounts he is a top bloke.
In the light of these departures, the band’s were dropped by their label Beggars Banquet and their future looked uncertain to say the least. Remaining founder member, Ian McNabb kept the name going though and recruited a new line up (including Zak Starkey for a period) and released their final album “Permanent Damage” on Epic. “Motorcycle RIder” was the lead single and though I liked it (it was a bit like “Evangeline” part II), I’d kind of lost track of the band by this point and took little interest in discovering the rest of the album’s material. When the single stumbled its way to No 73 and the album failed to chart at all, the game was up and the band broke up officially in 1991.
McNabb would continue to write, record and perform his solo material to this day and even achieved a Mercury Music Prize nomination for 1994 solo album “Head Like A Rock”. He has reactivated the Icicle Works name a few times in the intervening years without Sharrock and Layhe – I caught them/him live in Manchester around 2006/7 but it wasn’t the same. Sometimes you really can’t go back but a part of me will always have real affection for the original Icicle Works.
The Lilac Time – “All For Love And Love For All”
Release date: 28 Apr 1990
Peak Chart Position: 77
Weeks On Chart: 2
My allegiance to Stephen Duffy would have been five years old by this point dating back to “Kiss Me”, “Icing On The Cake” and the vastly underrated “The Ups And Downs” album. However, much like with Icicle Works, I was starting to lose track of him as an artist. Having ditched both his ‘Tin Tin’* and ‘A.J.’ affectations and with his commercial fortunes waning to the point of being dropped by his label, he switched his attention to new, folk-rock project the The Lilac Time. I’d liked their debut single, the very hummable “Return To Yesterday” but they’d disappeared from my view by the end of the decade – they’d recorded and released two whole albums by this point but I hadn’t invested in purchasing them and radio didn’t seem that interested in playing them so I had little clue what their sound was.
Come the new decade though, come two new producers in XTX’s Andy Partridge and the man at the helm of The Stone Roses’ mixing desk John Leckie. The result was a more beefed up, polished production on third album “& Love for All”. Almost title track “All for Love And Love for All” was the lead single and it seemed to be a definite attempt to court that missing airplay that could give them a chart hit. Unusually it begins with its catchy chorus, hammering its hooks into your brain from the off. Deriving its title from a word play on the Three Musketeers motto, it undoubtedly borrows its sound a little from “Magical Mystery Tour” but at least Duffy acknowledges his influences with a lyrical reference to early Beatles incarnations The Quarrymen and Johnny & the Moondogs whilst sonically there’s the inclusion of the harmonica riff from “I Should Have Known Better”. As ever with Duffy compositions, this was well crafted, perfect pop and yet also as ever with Duffy compositions, nobody seemed interested. The single failed to make the Top 75 and the album bombed completely.
*’Blistering barnacles!’ indeed!
The Trash Can Sinatras – “Obscurity Knocks EP”
Release date: 24 Feb 1990
Peak Chart Position: 86
Weeks On Chart: 4
A bit like The Lilac Time, this lot seemed to be peddling a genre of music that was an anomaly in 1990. Drawing comparisons from the music press with The Smiths and Aztec Camera, their brand of melodic, jangly guitar driven pop tunes seemed out of kilter with the Eurodance dominated Top 40 charts of the year. Hell, even Aztec Camera didn’t sound like Aztec Camera in 1990! As I recall though, their was a definite buzz around them. Hailing from Irvine, Scotland, they were signed to the Go! Discs label whose other artists like Billy Bragg and The Beautiful South gave them some credibility by association.
Also like The Lilac Time, their single carried a title that was nice word play on an established phrase which was continued in the lyrics with lines like ‘Looking at my watch and I’m half-past caring’. On reflection, their sound was derivative but they definitely had musical ability and knew their way around a decent tune. Parent album “Cake” only made No 74 in the charts and despite having some success stateside (especially on the Billboard Modern Rock chart) the band never managed to hit it big in the UK. They are still a going concern to this day last releasing an album in 2018.
Del Amitri – “Kiss This Thing Goodbye”
Release date: 24 Mar 1990 *
Peak Chart Position: 43
Weeks On Chart: 4
*Originally released 12 Aug 1989 and peaked at No 59
You would be forgiven for thinking that this one didn’t belong in a section called Hits That Never Were at all. This wasn’t a hit?! What even with all that radio play it got?! Yes, taking its place alongside the likes of “Summer Of ’69” by Bryan Adams and “I Would Die 4 U” by Prince, “Kiss This Thing Goodbye” was not a Top 40 hit for Del Amitri despite being released twice! It originally chanced its arm in the singles market in 1989 to no avail but was shoved back out again in the wake of breakthrough hit “Nothing Ever Happens” but still the UK record buying public said ‘nothing doing’. Bizarrely, it was though the first song by the band to break the US Top 40, reaching No 35.
Quite why it failed to chart in the UK is not easily explained. Perfect for daytime radio with its rousing chorus, it seemed much better placed than the much more unusual sounding “Nothing Ever Happens” which would have been an outside bet at best. Maybe it was the banjo picking that put people off? It didn’t matter too much in the end as, far from kissing goodbye to chart stardom, the band would notch up 11 consecutive Top 40 entries after the failure of “Kiss This Thing Goodbye” between 1990 and 1997. Sometimes UK music fans had to be given a bit of a run up before taking an artist to their hearts it seems.
The Blow Monkeys -“Springtime For The World”
Release date: 26 May 1990
Peak Chart Position: 69
Weeks On Chart: 2
And what were The Blow Monkeys up to in 1990? I’m glad you asked because not many were enquiring after their health back then. Having finally achieved proper mainstream success with 1987’s Top 5 hit “It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way”, they’d seemed to reject the sophisti-pop sound that had made them pop stars by pursuing a distinctly dance-orientated direction with the release of their next album “Whoops! There Goes The Neighbourhood”. Dr. Robert had doubled down on that decision when he collaborated with ‘The First Lady of House Music’ Kym Mazelle on Top 10 single “Wait”. That success apart, their new sound wasn’t as popular with the fans (me included) and the album peaked at a lowly No 46. Record label RCA panicked and released a Best Of album entitled “Choices – The Singles Collection” which was a big seller peaking at No 5 and becoming the band’s highest-charting record. But if that Best Of album was meant to be a reminder to the band of the formula for more chart success, they didn’t heed it. Standing at a cross roads as the new decade dawned, they chose to follow the signpost pointing to dance world.
Their first (and it turned out only) album of the 90s saw them continue with their dalliance with that genre when they released “Springtime For The World”. The lead single was the title track and though I hadn’t been expecting much, I honestly thought it was OK. There was more of a tune in it than on the material I’d heard from “Whoops! There Goes The Neighbourhood” like “This Is Your Life” and it had some interesting elements to it like the jagged sounding strings and the repeated crash of the Rank Organisation style gong. Dr Robert (with his new smart mod haircut) sounded in good voice backed by some lush gospel backing vocals and the while thing had a nice vibe to it. ‘Yeah, this could work and be a hit’ I thought at the time. I was wrong, crushingly so. The single stalled at No 69 and the album failed to chart at all. The band would split shortly after its release and would not reconvene for another 17 years. Since reforming though, they have been very active recording five studio albums and performing live gigs. You can’t keep the good doctor down it seems.
Energy Orchard – “Belfast”
Release date: 27 Jan 1990
Peak Chart Position: 52
Weeks On Chart: 4
Following a rock band from Dublin in Power Of Dreams, we return to Ireland but the northern part of it. Energy Orchard hailed from Belfast and were led by singer-songwriter Bap Kennedy who would go on to work with such musical heavyweights as Steve Earle, Van Morrison, Shane MacGowan and Mark Knopfler. Their debut single “Belfast” was also their highest charting just missing out on the Top 40.
Their sound was more folk-rock in nature than their indie inclined, post -punk peers Power Of Dreams, more U2 than Undertones. They maybe suffered from coming across as too earnest at a time when the UK was still under the influence of dance music, club culture and having a good time. It did however feature on Eastenders apparently. I’m guessing it was on the Queen Vic’s juke box? Sting’s “Love Is The Seventh Wave” was similarly featured back in ’85.
Energy Orchard carried on until 1996 with Kennedy forging a successful solo career until his death in 2016.
Their Season In The Sun
Bombalurina– Why oh why oh why oh why oh why…?
Deee-Lite – They came, they brought us a gigantic and wonderful dance hit that should have been No 1, they left.
Guru Josh – 1990 was indeed time for the guru but it was definitely a time limited offer.
Halo James – “Right, first item on the music genre agenda. Can I just confirm that we are all done with the sophisto-pop movement? Any objections? What’s that Halo James? You haven’t had your turn yet? Oh alright but just one hit and that’s it. Agreed? Motion passed.”
New Kids On The Block – Filling the gap between Bros and Take That, this bunch of pretty boys had some terrible tunes. Thankfully, the collective insanity that gripped the nations teenage girls only lasted 12 months.
The Soup Dragons – It looked for a while like these Scottish groovers would become major stars. They had the right sound at the right time. “I’m Free” and “Mother Universe” were great singles. And then, one minor hit and the inevitable band break up. What a waste.
Vanilla Ice – To quote the character of Porter Lee Austin played by Larry Hagman in one of my favourite ever films Stardust: “He was a monster, I’m telling you, a monster! We couldn’t ship enough of that mother’s records he was so big. You know, at one time, both Capitol and Columbia had plants over in Detroit and Cleveland pressing for us. He was that big, that big. Like King Kong, he was, for a time. And then the branch broke. After that…no kind of hype in the world was going to get him back up on his perch. Ooh! You couldn’t give that mother away!”
Last Words
In many ways,1990 has been one of the most disappointing of these TOTP years that I have reviewed. So much excitement and anticipation for a new decade but the charts were a massive let down, full of generic Euro dance, pop and rock ‘royalty’ that refused to abdicate and a stack of movie and TV generated hits. It was different outside of the Top 40 and TOTP though wasn’t it? ‘Madchester’ had become a vibrant movement, uniting the youth who wanted something other than Mutant Ninja Turtles and Elton John. Yet it would quickly dissipate as its two prime movers The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays struggled to create new material leaving a gap that would be filled by…well…we’ll have to wait for those 1991 BBC4 repeats won’t we…
Xmas 1990 is upon us meaning that we are just days away from finding out that year’s festive No 1 record. This also means that there is precious little time for record companies to stimulate enough sales to get their particular act to the coveted top spot. Activity is frenzied and to paraphrase David Bowie, you can almost see the record pluggers sliding down chimneys.
As for me, I’m working my first Xmas at Our Price and am just longing for some time off after day after day of huge queues of customers all needing serving. Back then, Our Price still had what must now been seen as an archaic ‘masterbag’ system where the contents of a CD, tape, VHS etc were kept filed behind the counter with just the empty case on the racks. This meant serving someone could be quite labour intensive as you had to go and find what they wanted behind the scenes first. If you were on the counter all day, it felt like a long shift.
Added to this was the impending pressure that all the temps felt which was who (if any of us) would be kept on after Xmas was over. As it stood, I had nothing lined up work wise if I wasn’t kept on and we had the rent on our flat to make. My wife was also in temporary employment at a toy shop but we knew that was definitely ending as the store was to close after Xmas. This was proper adult stuff. It came to pass that I did end up being offered a permanent job by the store manager whist I was out for a drink one night in the achingly trendy Dry bar with my wife one evening. I think it was the first time we’d been in there as we were skint most of the time. The manager (Greg) happened to be there as well and he just sidled up to me and said did I want to stay on after Xmas. I immediately accepted and that was that. The biggest phew of all time (or at least it felt like it)! Was it just a case of serendipity that secured my employment (and our rent)? That I just happened to be in the right bar at the right time? I guess I’ll never know now but I will always be grateful to Greg. It turned out that only a couple of us got permanent jobs so the relief was even bigger once this became apparent.
Back to the music though and we start with “Mary Had A Little Boy” by Snap! The fourth and final single to be lifted from their “World Power” album, it extended their run of Top 10 singles by peaking at No 8. Although superficially based around the Mary Had A Little Lamb nursery rhyme, there’s not actually much of the source material on display save for the chorus the lyrics of which paraphrase its opening couple of stanzas. The rest of it seems to be about Turbo B working up the courage to chat up the titular Mary. It’s all pretty nasty stuff as well with him rapping about Mary’s ‘fantasy body’ and describing himself as a ‘ruthless chiller’ and a ‘ladies killer’. Was there a more objectionable pop star this year than this guy? Oh yeah, there was Timmy Mallett of course but even he wasn’t sure about this track, describing it in Smash Hits (as the guest singles reviewer) as sounding “as though they’re scraping the barrel by doing what is basically a nursery rhyme.” Having your music dissed by Timmy Mallett? Ouch!
Three songs now that were all Breakers on the previous show starting with The Carpenters and (They Long To Be) Close To You”. Although their songs are instantly recognisable to us, I hadn’t checked out their chart history before nor realised quite how many of their songs had actually been hits over here. I was thinking it would resemble Barry Manilow who, for all his fame, only ever had one Top 10 record in the UK. Not so Richard and Karen. Although not as successful as in the US where they had three No 1 singles, a haul of seven Top Tenners (of which two were No 2 hits) in this country is pretty impressive.
Oscar Wilde famously said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and that is true of many a music artist. Perhaps the biggest indication of your standing is if you are so well respected that you have your own tribute album. The Carpenters achieved this in 1994 when “If I Were A Carpenter” appeared featuring covers of their songs by artists including Sheryl Crow, The Cranberries and Sonic Youth. This one was my favourite though…
Some INXS now as “Disappear” does the very opposite by climbing three places to No 21. This was peak INXS in many ways, consolidating on the staggering commercial success of “Kick” by pretty much repeating the formula and thereby keeping the record company and fans alike happy. This was pre-grunge and before the mainstream emergence of Nirvana that overnight seemed to make every other contemporary rock band irrelevant. Things were pretty sweet in the band’s world. Michael Hutchence even had a nice, steady girlfriend in Kylie Minogue.
In a review of “Disappear” on the songmeanings.com site, there is a comment by a user that says the song sounds like the theme tune to a kids TV show called Super WHY!. OK then, lets’s see if there’s anything in this….
…no, that claim is just utter nonsense.
Enigma now and there’s no disputing it that “Sadness (Part 1)” is going to be massive as it rises from No 27 to No 6 in one week prompting ideas of it even being No 1 for Xmas. It didn’t quite achieve that but it did rise to the top spot eventually in the New Year for one week whilst spending an impressive seven whole weeks in the Top 10. I have to admit that I thought it was at No 1 for much longer than that. This Gregorian chant inspired piece of ambient, new age pop (if there is such a genre) was soon seen as a massive cash cow by Virgin records who proceeded to flood the market with a series of ‘mood’ music compilations, the most successful of which was “Pure Moods” featuring artists like Vangelis, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Enya and, of course, Enigma. Included in the comments on YouTube for the video to “Sadness (Part 1)” was this lovely little observation:
If you’re here because you remember this from the Pure Moods CD as a kid – I regret to inform you your parents definitely were banging to this song
Dear me! Thankfully this statement does not apply to me. I must stop reading these user comments!
Oh, I neglected to mention that the host for this one is Bruno Brookes who displays some shocking musical ignorance by declaring “The 80s return and remember this film…” before introducing the “Grease Megamix”.The 80s Bruno? The pissing 80s?! Are you out of your mind?! Grease came out in 1978 you cretin! It was based on a musical that opened in 1971 depicting life in a US High School in the 50s – what on earth is 80s about Grease?! What’s that?! Bruno also says it was mixed by Pete Waterman so maybe he was referring to him? No, not having that. Let me listen to his intro again…
…no he’s clearly referring to the film Grease. Just unforgivable. Oh and on checking , it wasn’t remixed by Pete Waterman but by Phil Harding and Ian Curnow of PWL.
Enough of Brookes and his inaccuracies though. Why were John Travolta and Olivia Newton John back in the charts in 1990? It was to celebrate / promote the release of the film on home video. OK, that makes sense but why, if it’s a megamix, does it only feature one song? The actual record featured three songs from the soundtrack ( “Summer Nights” / “You’re The One That I Want” / “Greased Lightnin'”) but TOTP just showed “Summer Nights”. I’m guessing it was a timing issue as the full megamix is 4:46 in length so maybe they just showed the end of it which happened to be solely “Summer Nights”? It does look odd I have to admit.
“Grease Megamix” peaked at No 3. Xmas party anyone?
Back to the songs we’ve already seen now as MC Hammer brings us “Pray”. Taken from his album “Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em” which went diamond (note, not platinum but diamond) in the US. Now either I didn’t know or I had erased from my memory but in conjunction with the album, there was a film imaginatively entitled Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em: The Movie. Ye Gods! I looked it up on IMDB and the storyline is listed as:
MC Hammer returns to his hometown and, with the help of some funky tunes, defeats a druglord who is using kids to traffic his stuff.
WTF?! That sounds…no, I’ve got no words. And of course, you know what’s coming next…user reviews! Yes, I had to go there again didn’t I? Now these reviews were either deeply ironic or deeply insane. I’m not sure which. Here’s one…
“This movie is clearly about the epic, nay, cosmic struggle of good and evil, that films like Full Metal Jacket or Apocalypse Now can’t even begin to address. Even though Hammer is a rapper, and generally that would be a bad thing, this film depicts him as the sword of justice fighting the evil drug dealers of Oakland with his “posse”. Hammer plays dual roles in this film: one as himself (i.e. MC Hammer) and another as the Reverend Pressure who is known for his jaw dropping performances. This leitmotif is similar to the star turns of Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall in films like “Coming to America” where they play multiple characters except that Hammer is clearly better. This film also has a really important message: say yes to Jesus and Hammer, no to drugs and violence. I cannot imagine a film that does a better job of capturing the essence of the nineties, except perhaps Cool As Ice. Sadly, however, this film was overlooked by the Academy.”
Wow! A lot to unpack there but basically Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em: The Movie is better than Full Metal Jacket and Apocalypse Now according to somebody called cindi0724. Not only that but it can only be eclipsed by the film Cool As Ice which of course was Vanilla Ice’s acting debut. Starting to see a theme in cindi0724’s thinking yet? I like the way she notes that the film was ‘overlooked by the Academy’. Overlooked?! Completely disregarded and ignored and with good reason more like.
Want to hear another review? Here’s someone called Pilgurn’s take on MC Hammer’s film:
“Without a doubt sending out an inspiring message to the youth of all our great cities around the globe. Just to free your legs and to dance and rap your way through disputes and even into a girls heart. Absolutely fantastic bombastic, watch it any time you wanna get jiggy.”
As a mantra for life, it’s hard to argue against freeing your legs and dancing and rapping your way through disputes isn’t it?
“Pray” peaked at No 8.
After the “Grease Megamix”, we now get another 50s inspired medley, this time courtesy of Status Quo. Unlike Enigma who took 26 years to record “Sadeness (Part II)”, the Quo only took 80 days to release “The Anniversary Waltz (Part II)” as the follow up to Part I. To put this in context, Michael Palin managed to circumnavigate the world in 80 days back in 1989 whilst it took Rick, Francis and co the same amount of time to come up with some money for old rope, Jive Bunny style medley bullshit. Quite the achievement.
Following Part 1’s formula to the letter, this was some rock ‘n’ roll standards from the likes of Buddy Holly, The Everly Brothers and Chuck Berry all cobbled together but unlike Jive Bunny – and this was the band’s crucial differential – they were all recorded live. There was even a a small sketch of a rabbit on the record sleeve to make the point. You weren’t fooling anybody boys – this was unmitigated shite. Even so, their army of fans still bought enough of it to send it to No 16 in the charts proving you can actually fool all of the people all of the time if they are Quo fans.
OK so this was the last TOTP to be broadcast before the Xmas Day show (which I won’t be reviewing as there’s nothing in there that I haven’t already passed comment on) but when did we actually find out the Xmas No 1 for 1990? Well, it was officially announced on Sunday 23rd December 1990 meaning the chart run down featured in this programme did NOT tell us who it was. All of which was just as well for Cliff Richard as he was only at No 2 by this point with “Saviour’s Day”. Was it this this TOTP performance that ensured he got enough last minute sales to get over the line? Possibly. We know that he also did The Des O’Connor Show in the run up to Xmas which Andy, the singles buyer at the Our Price store where I was working, put great stock in and predicted it would win Cliff the race.
Aside from being his 13th No 1 record, “Saviour’s Day” was also the single that meant that he was the first recording artist to achieve a chart topper in five different decades – a fact that was much trumpeted at the time I recall. He would only last one week at the top due to some dastardly, cunning ploy by Iron Maiden to manipulate the singles sales in the slowest week of the year after the Xmas rush but that’s all for a future post.
Close but no cigar time for Vanilla Ice as “Ice Ice Baby” will fall just short of becoming the Xmas No 1 by one week despite it spending its fourth week at the top here. He would follow up that single’s success by releasing a cover of Wild Cherry’s “Play That Funky Music” in the new year which would make the Top 10 but it was all down hill from then on in with no subsequent releases even making the Top 20 over here….until that Jedward mash up thing in 2010 but let’s not go there again.
Inevitably after two megamix singles already on the show, we end with the most famous medley transgressors of them all. “The Crazy Party Mixes” was the seventh (!) hit for Jive Bunny And The Mastermixers who couldn’t resist the lure of Xmas and just had to release a festive party single to delight us all. It was taken from an album called “It’s Party Time” (of course it was) and, like all their releases, it was hateful.
For posterity’s sake, I include the chart run down below:
Order of appearance
Artist
Song
Did I Buy it?
1
Snap!
Mary Had A Little Boy
Nope
2
The Carpenters
They Long To Be (Close To You)
No but we all have a Carpenters Greatest Hits CD don’t we?
3
INXS
Disappear
Not the single but I have it on something somewhere I think
4
Enigma
Sadness (Part 1)
No
5
John Travolta and Olivia Newton John
Grease Megamix
Negative
6
MC Hammer
Pray
Nah
7
Status Quo
The Anniversary Waltz (Part II)
Are you joking me?
8
Cliff Richard
Saviour’s Day
Hell no!
9
Vanilla Ice
Ice Ice baby
No No baby
10
Jive Bunny And The Mastermixers
The Crazy Party Mixes
And once again Hell no!
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.
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.
And we’re back! After a two week hiatus due to BBC4’s coverage of the snooker, TOTP Rewind is back in the groove as we hoover up the last couple of shows from the year 1990. This episode picks up the story of the year with just 12 days to go until Xmas and I am working my very first Our Price yuletide retail season. Despite being frenziedly busy, I’m enjoying it.
I was working in the Market Street store in Manchester which was a three floor unit (two of them trading) so the number of staff employed there was pretty sizeable – although this was certainly not the case in future years – meaning there was always somebody to chat to. This was especially true if you got yourself to work early. An early arrival you see meant that you could grab yourself a place at the processing table upstairs, set yourself up with a brew and a fag (yes in 1990 you could still smoke in work premises kids!) if so inclined, a stash of stock for processing and settle in for a comfortable day off the counter chatting to your processing neighbour. Hell, if you were really organised, you could commandeer the staff cassette player and relax with some tunes of your choice as well. The store seemed to run itself to a point (or that’s how it seemed to me). There was very little delegation of tasks. If you were a temp (like me) then you were counter fodder whilst the permanent members of staff would only come down if buzzed due to a customer queue build up. Ah yes, the buzzer system. I’m pretty sure it went like this:
1 buzz = it’s busy, help serving required
2 buzzes = management required (refund, swap etc)
3 buzzes = a very attractive woman has entered the shop. Cue a stampede of male staff members rushing down the stairs for a look.
It sounds horrendous to me now but that sort of thing seemed to be much more prevalent and tolerated back in the un PC early 90s. I can honestly say that I never used the three buzzes signal!
Right that’s enough record shop reminiscences for now, back to TOTP and if it’s Xmas it must be Shakin’ Stevens right? Sadly, this was the case as despite it being five years since his Xmas No 1 record “Merry Christmas Everyone”, Shaky still thought it was worth a go bunging a festive ditty out there again. Somebody would buy it wouldn’t they? Apparently so as here is the Welsh Elvis with “The Best Christmas Of Them All”.
This really was bottom of the barrel stuff. Shaky’s chart career had been in decline for a while by this point. This was only his second hit of the calendar year and also only the second time he had made the Top 20 in three years. There would be only a further three Top 40 singles after this one – yet another Xmas effort in 1991, a collaboration with Queen’s Roger Taylor in 1992 and a cover of Pink’s “Trouble” in 2005 which I think was linked to him winning ITV’s entertainment show Hit Me, Baby, One More Time.
“The Best Christmas Of Them All” was utter crud with Shaky phoning it in over a formulaic 50s honky tonk rhythm and some banal festive lyrics about Santa Claus, Rudolph, presents and peace in the world. Just horrible. He’s backed in this performance by some bizarre looking characters. There’s two fellas dressed as waiters one whom looks like Jason Donovan (if you squint) and the other who seems to have modelled his hairstyle on Francis Rossi of Status Quo. The rest look like they should be down the Queen Vic pub for a right old cockney Xmas knees up except for the drummer – isn’t that Boabby the landlord of The Clansman from Still Game?
“The Best Christmas Of Them All” peaked at No 19.
The most predictable re-release of the year up next as following the phenomenal success of The Righteous Brothers‘ “Unchained Melody” due to its use in Ghost, “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin'” was hastily put out into the market place as a follow up. One of the most recognisable songs of all time (in 1999 it was ranked by performing rights organisation the BMI as the most-played song of the 20th century), this was always going to be a surefire hit all over again and it duly sped up the charts all the way to No 3.
I had no idea until now that this track was at the centre of one of the most bizarre chart battles ever back in 1965 when it was first a hit for The Righteous Brothers. Apparently Cilla Black had recorded her take on the song as well and both versions were released in the same week. Cilla hit the front early and maintained a lead over Bobby and Bill until peaking at No 2. with The Righteous Brothers right behind her at No 3. In the heat of the battle for No 1, the US boys were flown into the UK to spend a week promoting their version and it tipped the balance in their favour as they won the battle for top spot with Cilla falling away to No 5. Forget your Oasis V Blur, this was the mother of all chart battles.
As with “Unchained Melody”, “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin'” was also heavily featured in a hit film (albeit a few years previously)…
It’s been covered by just about everybody – aside from Cilla, it’s also been recorded by Dionne Warwick, Elvis and Hall & Oates to name a few. Oh and this lot…
Yazoo? In 1990? What was this all about? I really don’t know and despite searching the internet I can’t find a reason why “Situation” was released in 1990. There was no Best Of compilation to promote (the first Yazoo Greatest Hits album didn’t arrive until 1999) and it wasn’t featured in a film Righteous Brothers style. Originally hurriedly recorded as the B-side to their debut hit “Only You” (the only other song they had was “Don’t Go” which was deemed to good to throw away as a B-side) it was actually released as the duo’s first single in the US and although only a minor hit, on the Billboard Hot 100, it topped the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart there. This 1990 incarnation was named the Deadline Mix and was produced by French DJ, producer, remixer and label owner Francois Kevorkian and it was he that also produced that original 1982 12″ mix for the US market back in the day.
My abiding memory of the 1990 version is watching a work colleague called Scott getting ribbed mercilessly by the rest of the staff for dancing to it while listening on headphones on the shop stereo after the store had shut for the day. He was really going for it (in silence to the rest of us) before he eventually realised that he had attracted a crowd. Scott’s reaction? “Fuck you, it’s a great track”. Well said Scott.
“Situation ’90” peaked at No 14.
Right, who’s this then? Malandra Burrows? Oh yeah, I remember this. In an attempt to prove that it wasn’t just Aussie soap stars that could have chart hits in our country, a star of one of our own soaps was pushed into the world of pop. Malandra played a character called Kathy Glover in Emmerdale (or Emmerdale Farm as it was when she first appeared in it) and by 1990 had been on our screens for about 5 years (her character was called Kathy Merrick by this point). With that established profile, perhaps she was seen as a safe bet for popularity and appeal with UK pop fans?
“Just This Side Of Love” was the song with which she debuted as a pop star and incidentally is also very nearly the same title as the aforementioned Yazoo’s third single release. Apparently the song was actually featured in an Emmerdale plot line as it was sung by Malandra’s character at a village concert. In that respect, it was more Letitia Dean and Paul Medford than Kylie and Jason. Malandra gives a confident performance here and she would go onto release three more singles before the decade was out but none of them made the Top 40.
My abiding memory of this song was that when copies of the 7″ single arrived in store and we opened up the box, they were all damaged in a rather peculiar way as the silver bit in the middle with all the song credits on seemed to have spilt over onto the actual grooves of the record. It was like a thermometer had exploded and there was mercury everywhere.
Oh and that was a terrible pun Simon Mayo on Emmerdale Farm and The Farm. Idiot.
Blimey, these next four songs were leaving it late for a title at the Xmas No1 spot. Breakers they may have been but time was against them if they wanted to get anywhere near the summit of the charts. We start with INXS and “Disappear”. The second single from the band’s “X” album, I always preferred it to the more organic (yes I do sound like a knacker!), frantic “Suicide Blonde”. It was a more polished production and the track had room to breathe – a good , sold, proper record. The difference between the two reminded me of my feelings towards the U2 singles “Desire” and “All I Want” from “Rattle And Hum”. I guess it was the pop kid in me coming out again.
In the US, “Disappear” was a much bigger hit where it went Top 10 but it was left stranded at No 21 over here. I think it just got lost in the Xmas rush. The fact that it was released a whole three months on from “Suicide Blonde” (and indeed the album) seems like an error of judgement by the record company in hindsight.
The mostly black and white video showcases Michael Hutchence at his lithe, rock god peak. There would be terrible tragedy to come but for the moment, INXS were maintaining their status as one of the world’s top rock acts just nicely than you very much and it would lead to perhaps the band’s ultimate high of performing at Wembley Stadium in July of the following year to a sold-out audience of 74,000 fans.
Oh God! Remember this? The Gregorian chant phenomenon? This was truly strange wasn’t it? The Enigma project was the brainchild of producer Michael Cretu who wanted to create a new form of music that didn’t follow the traditional blueprints and that had an added element of mysticism. He found the ingredient he was after in Gregorian chant which he combined with an almost hypnotic, downbeat rhythm and some whispered vocal parts in both French and Latin on the hit “Sadness (Part I)”. Who would have though that those disparate parts would make a huge No 1 record? In the wake of Enigma’s success, a plethora of Gregorian chant albums were suddenly released and became massive sellers. The one I remember the most was called “Canto Gregoriano” by Coro De Monjes Del Monasterio Benedictino de Santo Domingo de Silos. It was a double album but the cassette version came in individual cases which was a bugger to display on the shelves. Cue the sellotape!
Having been a No1 hit all over Europe, it was inevitable that “Sadness (Part I)” would make its way to these shores and indeed it did but with one small difference – for the UK release the title was changed from its original spelling of ‘Sadeness’ to ‘Sadness (Part I)’ dropping an ‘e’ like a late 80s raver. I recall this being pointed out to me by an Our Price colleague called Sarah though I had no idea that it was all to do with the sexual desires of Marquis de Sade! This makes more sense when you realise that the French bits roughly translate to ‘Sade tell me’ (‘Sade dis moi’) and ‘Sade give it to me’ (‘Sade donne moi’). It’s kind of like a Gregorian chant version of “Je t’aime… moi non plus” by Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin. Pure filth in other words!
The parent album “MCMXC a.D.” was also a No 1 and a 3 x platinum seller in the UK seller despite neither of the subsequent singles issued from it making the Top 40. Enigma returned in early 1994 with a Top 3 hit in “Return to Innocence” which had a more world music flavour to it and another No 1 album in “The Cross Of Changes” before a dose of diminishing returns set in. Oh and by the way, any idea how long it took before “Sadeness (Part 2)” was released? 26 years! Yes, it wasn’t until their 2016 album “The Fall Of A Rebel Angel” was released that part II came into existence as its lead single. Truly an enigma.
Despite its near iconic status these days, George Michael‘s “Freedom ’90” only achieved a chart high of No 28 in the UK (No 8 in the US). Was it third single from the album syndrome? The Xmas rush? We’ll never know for sure but it does seem a very meagre peak for a song that has had so much written about it over the years. My contribution to the word count (for what its worth) is that clearly George was in turmoil at this point. Legally trying to disentangle himself from record company Sony and artistically trying to free himself of the “Faith” era image, “Freedom ’90” was a statement in more ways than one. Intensely autobiographical charting his career from Wham!…
Heaven knows we sure had some fun, boy What a kick just a buddy and me (what a kick just a buddy and me) We had every big-shot good time band on the run, boy We were living in a fantasy (we were living in a fantasy)
via “Faith”…
I went back home, got a brand new face For the boys on MTV
and onto a declaration of intent to move away from all that into his next phase as an artist…
But today the way I play the game is not the same, no way Think I’m gonna get myself happy
The lyrics were backed up by the hard hitting video. After not doing one at all for “Praying For Time” and with something cobbled together off a South Bank Show documentary for second single “Waiting For That Day”, a video was produced for “Freedom ’90” but George refused to appear in it. Instead a quintet of super models (Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Tatjana Patitz, Christy Turlington and Cindy Crawford) were the stars of the show lip synching the lyrics while the storyline literally dismantled George’s “Faith” persona image by image.The iconic jukebox was usurped by a CD player before being blown up whilst the leather jacket was set on fire. Powerful stuff. Michael would use the promo video format to make an even more explosive point when his “Outside” video depicted him dressed as a police officer kissing another male officer in retaliation to his arrest by an undercover police officer for ‘engaging in a lewd act’ in a public toilet in Beverly Hills.
The comments about the “Freedom ’90” video on the songfacts.com website include one which states
‘I have heard that Michael added “90” to the title so that it would not be confused with the song by Wham! with the same title. Yeah, like that would ever happen!’
Well, I can confirm that this did actually happen. How do I know? Because it was me that made that error. Sitting in the staff room at the Our Price store I was working in I was checking out the official chart rundown in Music Week (the go to trade paper for the UK record industry). Seeing the title “Freedom” against the name George Michael, I had a senior moment (despite being aged just 22 at the time) and exclaimed to my assembled work colleagues ‘Why is “Freedom” by Wham! back in the charts?’. After much guffawing and comments from the assembled throng such as ‘Oh shit, have Wham! broken up?’, I finally realised my mistake. What a schmuck.
The song was covered in 1996 by Robbie Williams to celebrate his emancipation from boy band Take That. I remember looking at the single’s track listing and thinking ‘So there of the four tracks on here, one is a remix, one is an instrumental and one is an interview?! Where are your songs Robbie?’. He would confound me a year later with his mega successful “Life Thru A Lens” album with its five hit singles. Who knew? Well, Guy Chambers probably.
I have no recollection whatsoever of The Carpenters being in the charts again in 1990. I an only assume that the re-release of “(They Long to Be) Close to You” was part of the promotion campaign for greatest hits compilation “Only Yesterday” which was released in 1990. Or was it a cynical Xmas cash in by label A& M as it seems to have been a double A-side with “Merry Christmas, Darling”. Whatever the reason, it was statistically their first UK Top 4 hit since 1978’s “Sweet, Sweet Smile”.
You have to love The Carpenters don’t you? C’mon. This track has been covered by many an artist including Stevie Wonder, Dian Ross and Gwen Guthrie but I also want to give a shout out to Rick Moranis who gamefully took the song on in the film Parenthood…
The 1990 release of “(They Long to Be) Close to You” peaked at No 25.
Now then, here comes Seal throwing off his Adamski / “Killer” cocoon to emerge beating his wings as a fully fledged pop star in his own right. “Crazy” sounded like a hit instantly, from the very first time I heard it. Boasting a tight yet atmospheric production courtesy of Trevor Horn, it was packed full of hooks, a propulsive beat and Seal’s soulful vocals tying it all together. It seemed like a great deal of thought had gone into its composition but not in a cynical, let’s just pour all the currently popular ingredients into the pot and see what concoction brews way; it was more organic (there’s that word again!) than that.
It was also the first single from his debut album that appeared 6 months later and which would become a No 1, double platinum seller. Indeed, I bought it myself and I even caught him in concert where he was as confident as he was in this performance. He’s definitely giving off a vibe that says ‘look, being a pop star is the only thing I could possibly do – I have no choice’. Adamski who?
“Crazy” peaked at No 2 , the highest charting single of his career.
Oh come on! This is really taking the piss! After Technotronic had released a megamix of their previous hits called…erm…”Megamix” just a few weeks earlier, now Italian house outfit Black Box were jumping on the bandwagon! Ah, but they weren’t totally stealing the idea. Yes, it was a mash up of their previous chart hits just like Technotronic but there’s was called “The Total Mix” – different eh? See? Bloody snake oil salesmen the lot of them. Oh and you can add Snap! to the list of shysters who released “Mega Mix” the following year.
“The Total Mix” peaked at No 12.
Right, home stretch now as after ten hits that were new to the show, we end with three that we had seen before. We start with Chris Isaak who is up to No 10 this week with “Wicked Game” (it will rise no further however). I have to say that I’ve always admired Chris’s hair – always immaculate. Only potentially bettered by Mark Ronson.
What? The music? Oh, well, yes…I liked “Wicked Game” and I think my wife bought the album. So atmospheric was its sound that it was always destined to be used as the soundtrack to a car commercial and director Jeffrey Darling duly delivered in 2001 with this advert for the Jaguar X-Type.
It’s still Vanilla Ice at No 1 with “Ice Ice Baby” and it’s become one of those songs that’s taken on a life of its own way beyond the parameters of its original release. Not convinced? OK, here it is being ‘officially paroled’ on US TV show Glee in 2010…
and here’s the song coming full circle with Jedward and Vanilla Ice! Yikes!
Back to 1990 though and could Mr Ice keep all opposition at arm’s length in the battle for the Xmas No 1?*
*SPOILER ALERT!
No he couldn’t – Cliff toppled him at the death obviously
The play out video is Dimples D with “Sucker DJ”. Who was Dimples D? Well, she was only the first female hip hop artist to achieve a No 1 record in Australia. That’s who. As for the phrase ‘Sucker DJ’, well it was used by Cameo in their “Word Up” single. Witness:
Now all you sucker DJ’s Who think you’re fly There’s got to be a reason And we know the reason why
but were Run DMC the true originators with their “Sucker M.C.’s” track back in 1983?
You try to bite lines but rhymes are mine You’s a sucker M.C. in a pair of Calvin Klein Comin from the wackiest, part of town Tryin’ to rap up but you can’t get down
Or was it in fact Dimples D all along…
"Sucker DJ" was first recorded in 1983, when Dimples D was still in school. Here's the original version: https://t.co/G87HCd7Ghs#TOTP
For posterity’s sake, I include the chart run down below:
Order of appearance
Artist
Song
Did I Buy it?
1
Shakin’ Stevens
The Best Christmas Of Them All
The word ‘Best’ and Shaky don’t really belong together do they? Of course not!
2
The Righteous Brothers
You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’
Nope
3
Yazoo
Situation ‘90
I did not
4
Malandra Burrows
Just This Side Of Love
The wrong side though Malandra – no
5
INXS
Disappear
Not the single but I have it on something somewhere I think
6
Enigma
Sadness (Part 1)
No
7
George Michael
Freedom ‘90
No but I have the Listen Without Prejudice Vol 1 album
8
The Carpenters
They Long To Be (Close To You)
No but we all have a Carpenters Greatest Hits CD don’t we?
9
Seal
Crazy
No but I bought the album
10
Black Box
The Total Mix
Total shit more like – no
11
Chris Isaak
Wicked Game
I think my wife had the tape of the “Wicked Game” compilation album once upon a time but no idea where it would be now
12
Vanilla Ice
Ice Ice baby
No No baby
13
Dimples D
Sucker DJ
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.
I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).
All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.
TOTP Rewind - the 90s 