80stastic

TOTP 12 DEC 1997

I’ve said before in this blog that I’m not and have never been a massive James Bond fan. The character is just too slick and confident – two things that I’ve never been. I just can’t relate to him. Having said that, I did quite enjoy the films from the Daniel Craig era. As for the rest of the actors who have taken on the role, obviously I have seen some of the Sean Connery and Roger Moore movies but I don’t think I’ve caught any of the Timothy Dalton nor Pierce Brosnan stories and that includes Tomorrow Never Dies which opened in the UK on the day this TOTP aired. Although it grossed $339.5 million worldwide, it was ultimately eclipsed by the juggernaut that was Titanic which was in cinemas at the same time. Also eclipsed by Titanic was the theme song for Tomorrow Never Dies which couldn’t complete with that gargantuan hit by Celine Dion but more of that later.

Our host tonight is Jo Whiley whom I’m increasingly beginning to suspect wasn’t totally enjoying introducing songs by the likes of Aqua and the Teletubbies. Anyway, we start with a superstar (I think that’s a fair description of the artist concerned) in Janet Jackson who is at No 4 with “Together Again”, the second single taken from her album “The Velvet Rope”. You may remember her last trip to the TOTP studio to promote her Joni Mitchell sampling “Got ‘Til It’s Gone” single was a very pompous performance involving Ms Jackson on a throne and a stage full of would be courtiers. Thankfully, this time around, she’s gone for a much more informal and much less po-faced vibe. Apart from her heavily stylised corkscrew hairstyle, it’s all very relaxed with a ‘dress-down-Friday’ feel to what everyone on stage is wearing. As for the song itself, it’s a light, pleasant, upbeat track that actually had a more sombre source material being written about a close friend of Janet’s who died from AIDS. It’s very listenable but for me, her most interesting material came in her “Rhythm Nation 1814” era.

One up her nose and two up her jumper is how Janet rolls according to Jo Whiley (she talking about rings and therefore Ms Jackson’s rack I would assume which is a bit risqué for before the watershed) before our host tells us firmly where she stands musically which is with the next artist The Seahorses apparently. “Next a band who don’t need fancy dances – they have damned great tunes…” she trills except I’m not convinced that “You Can Talk To Me” is that great. After coming out of the traps fast with glorious debut hit “Love Is The Law”, the quality of their output had diminished in consistent increments it seemed to me before plateauing with this standalone single. Presumably released to bridge the gap between debut and follow up albums, it was rendered redundant somewhat as that sophomore collection of songs would never actually appear as the band broke up in 1999. In James Bond terms, The Seahorses were George Lazenby. Maybe it was just as well if this was an example of the direction in which they were going. “You Can Talk To Me” feels like it should be a tremendous track but for me, it’s all surface and no depth, like it was knocked out in about half an hour one afternoon. Or to put it in modern parlance, it’s as if AI had been asked to produce a song by The Seahorses if “You Can Talk To Me” had never existed.

As with Janet Jackson earlier, this appearance was vastly different to their last visit to the TOTP studio when they delivered a bizarre performance that involved all but lead singer Chris Helme seated alongside some random people also on stage looking bored and presenter Mark Lamarr rubbing John Squire’s knee. This time they’ve gone for a much more conventional set up which with their rather conventional song makes me yearn for some of those arbitrary strangers up there with the band again. Finally, if I want to hear a song with a ‘you can talk to me’ chorus, I think I’d rather listen to this:

Sometimes during these TOTP repeats you come across a song that it’s hard to remember that there was a time when you didn’t know it, that is, before it was released and before it became part of our cultural fabric. “Angels” by Robbie Williams is one of those songs. The story of how it single-handedly saved the ex-Take That star’s career and propelled him into superstardom is so well documented that even that narrative is taken for granted but it is an astonishing tale of a truly remarkable comeback. With his debut album “Life Thru A Lens” stalling and the singles from it achieving diminishing chart peaks, the word from the wise was that Williams was all washed up and unwanted by the record buying public. Although I had a promo copy of the album and had therefore heard “Angels” before its release as a single, I can’t lay claim to any great insight that if only Williams would release it, all his problems would be solved. I did think it was a decent song though and, as Jo Whiley says in her intro, the standout track from the album.

So, had “Angels” not been released what would have happened? Would Williams have been dropped by his label Chrysalis? Would pop music history have played out differently? Was this a sliding doors moment? I guess we’ll never know. What we do know is that “Angels” was a sales phenomenon. Twelve consecutive weeks inside the Top 10, sixty-eight on the Top 100 over ten separate occasions spanning seventeen years. Somehow though, it never got higher than No 4 despite shifting 1.16 million copies by 2014. The song’s legacy wasn’t just about its sales though. Its ubiquity was widespread and deep. In 2022, Alex Petridis wrote in The Guardian:

“Throughout the late 90s and 00s, it wasn’t so much a song as an unavoidable fact of daily life”

Petridis, Alexis (25 August 2022). “Robbie Williams’ 20 greatest songs – ranked!”. The Guardian.

In 2005, a Music Choice survey of 45,000 Britons chose “Angels” as the song that they would most like played at their funeral. In that same year’s BRIT Awards, the public voted it the best song of the last 25 years whilst a 2004 VH1 survey saw it voted as the best single never to have got to No 1. Say what you like about Williams but “Angels” certainly left its mark and for many remains his defining moment despite everything that followed including a No 1 less than 12 months later that interpolated the Nancy Sinatra song to the Bond movie You Only Live Twice. I love a post with a theme…

…and it’s the theme that keeps on giving as we arrive at the official track to the 1997 James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies courtesy of Sheryl Crow. Jo Whiley effuses about a new Bond theme being a “big deal” and that “this time they’ve got it right” which implies that they haven’t in the past. Which song could she be talking about? “Goldeneye” by Tina Turner? Yeah, that one was definitely underwhelming. Surely not Duran Duran, A-ha nor Gladys Knight the latter of which is the last great 007 theme to my ears. By its very nature, that last sentence therefore excludes “Tomorrow Never Dies” which I have to admit I don’t remember at all. Having listened to it back, I stand by my earlier statement. My reaction to it reminded me of a Daily Mirror article from when I was young that would be seen as sexist by today’s standards but was presumably acceptable back then. It was a piece where they tried to build a composite image of the ‘perfect’ woman by taking various elements of the most beautiful women in the world (hair, smile, legs etc). The result was less than flattering. Similarly, Sheryl’s song seems to have all the best parts of previous Bond themes but they don’t quite all sit together comfortably. There’s the cinematic orchestral strings, iconic kettle drum, dramatic pauses and twangy guitar refrain in the chorus whilst Sheryl does her best Shirley Bassey impression but it never quite gets there for me. It was nominated for a Golden Globe and a Grammy but lost out on both to the aforementioned “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion.

There were other songs in the running to be the official theme tune that were invited to be considered including this from Pulp which someone has helpfully put over the top of the opening titles. It would end up being a B-side for the band and retitled “Tomorrow Never Lies”…

Hmm. Not sure that they quite nailed it. Not sure at all. There’s this from Saint Etienne…

That’s more like it but then the band’s Bob Stanley does have a second career producing film soundtracks and films themselves as well as curating film seasons for various art institutions. If I had to be critical, I’m not sure that Sarah Cracknell’s vocals are quite big enough for a Bond theme.

We have a winner! Check this out from k.d. Lang! This is perfect! It was used over the end credits in the movie but surely it should have outranked Sheryl Crow’s track?

Before she introduces the next act, Jo Whiley dashes on stage to give Sheryl an award commemorating her album going three times platinum. Fair enough but why do we not get to hear Sheryl speak? What was all that about? The effect is just odd and talking of odd, here comes a most bizarre Beatles cover version from Blackstreet. Now, music history is littered with terrible takes of the Fab Four’s material and this is certainly not the worst but I’m still left asking the question why did they do it? Did the world really need a slowed down R&B version of their 1964 No 1 “Can’t Buy Me Love”? I know there is a school of thought that says there is only any point in a doing a cover if it’s substantially different from the original and I subscribe to that view. However, although Blackstreet clearly also did, I just don’t think that “Can’t Buy Me Love” in its original form lends itself to such a drastically different treatment. Those early Beatles hits were high octane, thrill inducing pop romps. It wasn’t in their DNA to be slowed down like that. Maybe it’s my fault for having a closed mind but I just can’t reconcile myself to Blackstreet’s version and why was it retitled as “(Money Can’t) Buy Me Love”? Was it something to do with the licensing of the track?

I said in the last post that Boyzone wouldn’t be having it all their own way in the boy band stakes as Westlife would be appearing on the horizon soon. However, even before those lovely lads from Sligo and Dublin turned up, there was Five. Or was it 5ive? Anyway, whereas Take That and East 17 had been depicted by the press as polar opposites, Five seems to combine elements of both. Pretty boys that were also ‘street’. It seemed like a plan.

Put together by the same father and son duo who had the idea for the Spice Girls, Bob and Chris Herbert thought the same could be achieved with an all male group. An audition process attended by 3,000 hopefuls resulted in a line up of Abz Love (real name Richard Breen), Jason ‘J’ Brown, Sean Conlon, Ritchie Neville and Scott Robinson (not to be confused with the Neighbours character played by Jason Donovan). Signed by Simin Cowell (him again) to BMG/RCA, the group embarked on months of rehearsals and promotional work before they’d even released a note of music so that their name was already well known by the time debut single “Slam Dunk (Da Funk)” was available in the shops. The hard work paid off when it landed at No 10 in the charts in its first week of release. I have to say as boy bands go, I didn’t mind them. “Slam Dunk (Da Funk)” was daft but it was fun and their Joan Jett sampling hit “Everybody Get Up” was great. Some of their stuff was routine boy band guff though as well. Someone who really did like them though was a person that my wife used to work with in a past job who was a difficult character who took offence at the unlikeliest of things. One such thing he hated was work colleagues who had pictures of their loved ones on their desks. Being a gay man, he staged his own protest by bringing a framed picture to work of J from Five which took pride of place on his own desk.

Five shone brightly for a three year period which included a trio of No 1 singles before splitting up in 2001. A planned reunion in 2006 came to nothing but they did get together again in 2013 via the ITV show The Big Reunion which resulted in a tour although J Brown declined to be part of it. Abz Love left the band after the tour meaning that a second reunion in 2019 featured just three members despite the fact that they retained the name of Five. However, a UK arena tour has been scheduled for October this year featuring all five members.

During late 1997 and early 1998, it was never, ever not time for All Saints – this was their third TOTP appearance out of nine (NINE!) promoting their second single. This must be some sort of record for a song that spent just a solitary week at No 1. How did Executive Producer Chris Cowey justify all these slots in the running order? Well, I guess if you look at these chart positions over nearly four (FOUR!) months inside the Top 10, you could make a case for at least half a dozen by my reckoning if your criteria is a hit going (back) up the charts or holding firm in the same place:

3 – 5 – 6 – 5 – 4 – 4 – 4 – 2 – 1 – 2 – 2 – 4 – 5 – 3 -7

They are spectacular numbers you have to say. Well, I’ve got another six appearances featuring “Never Ever” to write about so I’m going to leave it there for this one for this week.

The Teletubbies are at No 1 with “Teletubbies Say ‘Eh-Oh’”. Of course they are – this was the UK record buying public at work after all (never the most reliable arbiter of taste) and they were especially wayward in their shopping habits at Christmas. For a kids TV show aimed at a pre-school audience, Teletubbies seemed to attract an awful lot of controversy with perhaps the biggest of the lot centred around the character of Tinky Winky. The biggest and oldest (supposedly) of the Teletubbies, he caught the attention of US televangelist Jerry Falwell who proclaimed that Tinky Winky was promoting homosexuality due to his red handbag, his purple colour (purple being the gay pride colour) and his antenna being shaped like a triangle (a gay pride symbol). The BBC released an official response saying Tinky Winky was simply a “sweet technological baby with a magic bag”. Then there was the controversy over the sacking of actor Dave Thompson who originally played Tinky Winky but was fired after receiving a letter from production company Ragdoll saying his “interpretation of the role was not accepted”. Ha!

I’m sure there was also a media furore when a photo of Tinky Winky was circulated without his costume head on. My friend Bev was something to do with the publicity for the show at the time and had to field loads of press enquiries about what the BBC were going to do about allowing the shattering of the illusion of the Teletubbies for its millions of viewers. The truth is that those costumes were incredibly hot and the actors would sweat bucket loads and stink after their 11 hour filming stints in them. No wonder Tinky Winky took his head off! They may have been shot at, chased, punched or had the threat of a laser going up their jacksy but no James Bond actor had to deal with the inferno that was a Teletubbies costume.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Janet Jackson	Together Again	I did not
2	The Seahorses	You Can Talk To Me	Negative
3	Robbie Williams	Angels	No but I had a promo copy of the album
4	Sheryl Crow	Tomorrow Never Dies	No
5	Blackstreet	(Money Can’t) Buy Me Love	Nope
6	Five	Slam Dunk (Da Funk)	Nah
7	All Saints	Never Ever	Liked it, didn’t buy it
8	Teletubbies	Teletubbies Say ‘Eh-Oh’	What do you think?!

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002chnn/top-of-the-pops-12121997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 05 DEC 1997

Posted on May 28 by 80stastic

We’ve entered December of 1997 with these TOTP repeats which can only mean one thing – Christmas is coming! By this point, with me working in the Our Price store in Stockport, I would have been in full-on hectic work mode with Christmas temps, queues of customers and long days of trading the norm. And what were the great British public buying their loved ones for Christmas? Well, the record companies had long since shuffled their pack of cards and got their dominoes in order (not sure where I’m going with this metaphor) to finalise their release schedules for optimum festive sales. A quick scan of the December album charts shows that, unsurprisingly, the Spice Girls were at No 1 with their sophomore album “Spiceworld” with Celine Dion showing strong sales of her “Let’s Talk About Love” album just behind. So far, so mainstream. The rest of the Top 10 is made up of four Best Ofs from Eternal, Enya, Lightning Seeds and, in a blast from the past, Wham! All Saints were on the climb with their recently released eponymous debut album whilst one of the year’s consistent big sellers – “White On Blonde” by Texas – was still shifting major numbers despite 44 weeks on the chart already. Grimly, the Backstreet Boys were in there but perhaps the biggest surprise and certainly the least mainstream artist inside the Top 10 were The Verve whose “Urban Hymns” album would ultimately go eleven times platinum in the UK but more of them later.

Jayne ‘pouty mouth’ Middlemiss is our host for tonight and we start with M People and their single “Fantasy Island”. Nothing to do with the TV series starring Ricardo Montalban and Hervé Villechaize (“De plane! De plane!”) nor (thankfully) the 1982 Top 5 hit for Tight Fit, this was the second track take from the band’s “Fresco” album. I don’t recall this one at all but that’s probably because it only spent one week on the Top 40 peaking at a lowly No 33 making it quite the outlier in the band’s discography. Not since “Someday” five years earlier had they experienced such a low charting single.

So what happened here? The other two singles from the album both peaked at No 8 either side of “Fantasy Island” so what was it about that track that should have caused such a fluctuation. I don’t believe it was a sudden drop in the band’s popularity. Although they weren’t quite hitting the heights of their commercial heyday when “Elegant Slumming” and “Bizarre Fruit” sold 2.5 million copies between them in the UK alone, “Fresco” was still a platinum selling album. So was there a dip in quality for this particular song? Well, musical taste is subjective of course so I can’t really make any definitive judgement on that score but “Fantasy Island” seemed to hark back to the template of those earlier hits so was the formula becoming a bit tired. It couldn’t have been the Samson-effect surely that saw Heather Small’s vocal power reduced by the removal of her usual towering hairdo? No, of course not. Possibly it was just that it got caught up in the Christmas rush (15 of the Top 40 songs that week were new releases) – that seems the most plausible explanation. What was sure was that the time of M People was coming to an end. The only albums released since “Fresco” have been Best Of compilations and box set retrospectives as Heather Small launched her solo career and Mike Pickering pursued a career in A&R.

Also experiencing some commercial difficulties around this time was Kylie Minogue. Her first single in nearly two years – “Some Kind Of Bliss” – had been her first ever release not to make the UK Top 20 (all of her previous 23 singles up to that point had achieved this). Presumably spooked by this, her record label Deconstruction delayed the release of its parent album. Originally scheduled to be called “Impossible Princess”, it had already been postponed once and when Princess Diana died at the end of August, the reason given for its second shelving was issues of sensitivity surrounding its title. On reflection, that seems quite a convenient smoke screen. A second single was lined up to test the waters further in an attempt to divine public opinion about Kylie’s new direction. “Did It Again” was heavily promoted (including a CD-Rom of the promo video on some versions of the single) and it duly improved upon its predecessors chart position by peaking at No 14.

However, it was a temporary and not altogether substantial reprieve. When the album did finally come out, it underperformed. A third single from it could only replicate the chart high of “Did It Again” creating a hat-trick of singles that didn’t make the Top 10. Additionally, the British press seemed to have fallen out of love with Kylie around this time. Accusations of anorexia and a belittling of her ‘IndieKylie’ persona (that itself was a creation by the media and not something encouraged by Kylie herself) dogged her whilst the three year gap between albums and a perceived lack of promotion from Deconstruction were seen as contributing factors to a downturn in her popularity. By the time the 90s had ended, Kylie seemed like she was a chart dinosaur but somehow survived pop music extinction to capture the hearts of the public and a No 1 record with “Spinning Around” in 2000. She’s not really looked back since.

As for “Did It Again”, her vocals here are a bit ropey and I’m not sure that the drag queens on stage with her really add anything to the performance ( yes, I get that they are recreations of the various Kylie personas from the video) but it’s OK. Also, is it in my imagination or does it sound a bit like Garbage (the band!) at the start? After that though, there is no complication as it displays a definite eastern vibe before there is no hesitation as it propels headlong into a catchy chorus. Maybe Kylie should consider herself so unlucky that it wasn’t a bigger hit. Ahem.

Next up, a song that may not be the most well known or highest charting of this particular band’s career but has been singled out by the man behind it as the favourite of his that he’s ever written (so far). That man is Richard Ashcroft, the band is The Verve and the song is “Lucky Man”. The third single released from their aforementioned classic “Urban Hymns” album, it’s a widescreen, epic sonic soundscape of a track though it’s actually got a very basic chord structure that even a lazy strummer like me could handle. Maybe that’s the secret to its power and allure – its simplicity. Of course, the recorded version that we all know is multi layered so that it sounds almost sprawling but as with its chords, it has a simple and pure message in its lyrics – that of the “raw nature of yourselves”, as Ashcroft himself puts it, that is allowed to be displayed between a couple in a committed relationship and the beauty within that ease of being. Yes, it’s anthemic but there’s no bombast to it. I think it’s probably my favourite song by The Verve as well Mr. Ashcroft.

As Jayne Middlemiss says in her intro, this performance was taken from the band’s appearance on Later…with Jools Holland which was broadcast on 10th November 1997 and the orchestral string backing really elevates it to a higher plane sonically. The other artists on that particular show were Rickie Lee Jones, UB40, Roni Size and Jewel. With respect to those names, I consider myself to be a lucky man not to be reviewing that show as well.

Sometimes I really cannot dredge up anything from the recesses of my poor, overworked brain to comment on about a past hit relived on these TOTP repeats. It may be because I can’t recall it at all or that it’s from a genre of music that didn’t speak to me and therefore I have nothing to say about it. In the case of “It’s Over Love” by Todd Terry it’s both. Obviously I do know the name Todd Terry and that he’s a house music legend but apart from that I couldn’t tell you much about his canon of work other than his involvement in the remix of Everything But The Girl’s “Missing”. His discography lists two other UK Top 10 hits that he had with Martha Wash and Jocelyn Brown in 1996 and 1997 and I can’t even remember them! Did I review them for this blog?!

My blushes are spared though by the featured vocalist in this track who is Shannon whom I definitely do recall. Back in 1984 she had three bona fide chart hits in “Sweet Somebody”, “Give Me Tonight” and the biggest of the lot “Let The Music Play”. Thirteen years later and she was back in the TOTP studio and she doesn’t look that much older to me. Am I misremembering? Make your own minds up…

By 1997, I’d started to lose sight of Paul Weller’s solo career. After he’d re-emerged from the wilderness with his 1992 eponymous album, he cemented his position as a respected elder statesman of British guitar rock (even though he was only 35 at the time) with the following year’s “Wild Wood”. By the time that 1995’s “Stanley Road” had gone four times platinum, Weller was the ‘The Modfather’, or even ‘The Godfather of Britpop’ (along with a few other candidates for the title). However, just as Britpop couldn’t and didn’t sustain, neither did Weller’s solo career sales. His fourth solo album ”Heavy Soul” arrived two years on from “Stanley Road” and though a healthy seller, it didn’t come anywhere near the numbers of its predecessor. It felt like he was appealing to his (admittedly large) fanbase still but that crossover into a larger audience that we saw with “Stanley Road” was no longer there.

I think I must have been one of those that fell by the wayside. Both “Wild Wood” and “Stanley Road” CDs were to be found in our flat in Manchester but “Heavy Soul” was noticeably absent. Its lead single “Peacock Suit” was OK but beyond that, I hadn’t felt the need to investigate further. As such, I don’t really remember the fourth and final single lifted from the album called “Mermaids”. Having watched this performance back, it’s a decent tune though a bit Weller-by-numbers. The “sha-la-la-la” hook has me wondering if Mr Weller had been listening to “Sha-La-La-La-Lee” by the Small Faces or even “Brown Eyed Girl” by Van Morrison. Whatever the truth, there seemed to be a trend for records using that lyrical refrain in 1997. Remember “What Do You Want From Me?” by Monaco?

P.S. That tank top Paul! Dearie me!

Somebody who was never going to be found in the Top 10 of the album chart I talked about at the start of the post is Gala. Not in the UK at least. In the rest of Europe she shifted a fair few copies of her album “Cone Into My Life” (nothing to do with the Joyce Sims hit of the same name) but over here she was a singles artist. In fact, she was known for one single in particular and it wasn’t this one. Whilst “Freed From Desire” continues to have a life of its own thanks to its adoption as a football chant, does anybody remember “Let A Boy Cry”? Well, you might if you’re Italian, Belgian, Spanish or French as it went to No 1 in all those countries but one week at No 11 was all it could muster in the UK. To my ears, it sounds very similar to its predecessor but…well…just not as good. Its subject matter about encouraging male sensitivity and emotional intelligence is laudable but it’s just not that memorable. Gala’s shaky vocals in this performance didn’t help its chances. A third UK Top 40 hit would arrive in the form of the album’s title track the following August but a high of No 38 was hardly likely to add longevity of her pop career. The longevity of “Freed From Desire” on the other hand…

With Take That now out of the way and despite the increasing claims of the Backstreet Boys, Boyzone continued to be the premier boy band of this era of the 90s. Their cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Baby Can I Hold You” was the group’s tenth consecutive UK hit of which only one didn’t at least make the Top 3. Of those though, a whopping 40% were cover versions. Hmm. Is that cynical or clever song selection at work? As with their other covers, this was another ballad but unlike its predecessors, it was brutally ignored despite the high profile it enjoys to this day when originally released in 1988 when it made No 94 on the UK chart. No 94! It’s not the only example of this phenomenon. Off the top of my head there’s “Summer Of ‘69” by Bryan Adams (No 42 in the UK) and “Rhiannon” by Fleetwood Mac (a UK No 46). They’ll be many more I’m sure. There would also be many more actual hits for Boyzone (another 10 to be precise including four No 1s) but beware lads as you won’t have it all your own way in the boy band stakes for too much longer – Westlife will be racking up the chart toppers as well before the decade is out.

It’s another cover version still riding high at the top of the charts as “Perfect Day” by Various Artists resists the challenge of *Boyzone to remain at No 1.

*Ronan and co do, of course, feature on “Perfect Day” as does M People’s Heather Small who opened the show thus top and tailing it nicely.

Watching the video back, I’m struck by how many of the contributing artists are no longer with us. Look at this list…

David Bowie
Stephen Gately (Boyzone)
Tammy Wynette
Shane MacGowan
Dr. John
Andrew Davis (conductor)
And, of course, Lou Reed himself

I suppose it’s to be expected that not every artist would still be alive 28 years later but still.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it ?
1	M People	Fantasy Island	No
2	Kylie Minogue	Did It Again	Negative
3	The Verve	Lucky Man	No but I had the Urban Hymns album
4	Todd Terry featuring Shannon	It’s Over Love	Not my bag at all
5	Paul Weller	Mermaids	Nope
6	Gala	Let A Boy Cry	Nah
7	Boyzone	Baby Can I Hold You	I did not
8	Various Artists	Perfect Day	And no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002c5fq/top-of-the-pops-05121997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 28 NOV 1997

Posted on May 22 by 80stastic

The end is approaching for these 1997 TOTP repeats as we arrive at the last show of November. It was also the last show for Mark Lamarr who was presenting the final of his four episodes. This left a roster of four regular hosts – Jayne Middlemiss, Zoe Ball, Jamie Theakston and Jo Whiley – a line up that would stay unchanged until July 1998. I can’t say I’m too upset about Lamarr’s departure – I liked him on The Word and Never Mind The Buzzcocks but his comic approach didn’t quite fit with TOTP – something about it I found jarring like he was trying too hard to take the piss out of everything and everyone. He starts this show with an eyepatch and claiming he’s Snake Plissken who is the fictional character from the films Escape From New York and Escape From L.A. as portrayed by Kurt Russell. The reason behind this ‘escapes’ me but then I’ve never watched either film so maybe there’s some weird connection between them and the BBC’s premier pop music programme. If anyone reading this is in the know, please leave a comment.

We begin with Louise who, after leaving Eternal, has fashioned a very respectable pop career for herself. I use the word ‘pop’ deliberately as her previous band mates were pursuing a much more R&B direction. Maybe a parting of the ways would have been inevitable regardless. Anyway, “Let’s Go Round Again” was Louise’s sixth Top 10 hit out of seven single releases – like I said, not too shabby. However, was the fact that she’d got to the cover version stage so early a sign that her time as a solo artist was already going stale?

Originally a No 12 hit for the Average White Band in 1980, on the one hand it was a sensible choice of cover in line with her positioning as a mainstream dance/pop act. It was light and catchy and a shoo-in for Radio 1’s daytime playlists. On the other hand, it was just too safe and a definite step away from her rebranding as a sex symbol and sultry performer of songs like “Naked”. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle of these two views but ultimately it just seemed all a little pointless to me. Mind you, not as pointless as this No 78 hit from 1990 by Yell!…

After the rather surprising collaboration of hard rock heroes Metallica and English singer and actress Marianne Faithfull in the previous show, this week we get another unusual combination – ‘dream house’ pin up boy Robert Miles and one quarter of disco legends Sister Sledge, Kathy Sledge. I’m not sure how this came about and I care less but presumably Miles wanted a female vocalist for his tune “Freedom” much as he had done with Maria Nayler on his previous hit “One And One”. Kathy’s last appearance on the show would have been nearly five years before as part of Sister Sledge to promote yet another rerelease of “Lost In Music” and in the meantime she’s changed her hairstyle to what I can only describe as a Deirdre Barlow perm! She seems to be up there on her own with no sign of Robert Miles. Maybe he was washing his hair that night? Actually, Kathy’s not quite alone. Check out the studio audience member in the grey shirt who’s ‘’avin’ it large’ with his flailing arm movements. Despite most of the rest of the audience not being in the spotlight, he’s managed to keep finding a position where the studio lights keep picking him up. Not sure if that’s deliberate or lucky. As for the song, it’s fairly standard Miles fare – a twinkling piano intro and dream house beats but doesn’t really go anywhere for me. Put it like this – I wasn’t lost in the music.

Now, she may be the ‘Queen of Hip-Hop Soul’ but this single by Mary J. Blige sounds common and ignoble to my, admittedly soul-less, ears. “Missing You” is a right old dirge. Once more, it was written by legendary producer Babyface (it felt like half the Top 40 was down to him around this time) and he seems to have re-written 10cc’s “I’m Not In Love”. Certainly the opening lines have clear parallels with the 1975 chart topper. Witness:

I’m not in love, it’s just some kind of thing I’m goin’ through

Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Kenneth Edmonds
Missing You lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

And…

I’m not in love, so don’t forget it, it’s just a silly phase I’m going through

Writer/s: Eric Michael Stewart, Graham Keith Gouldman
Publisher: MUSIC SALES CORPORATION
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Busted! Apparently, Shanice is on backing vocals. Remember her? “I Love Your Smile”? You couldn’t get a song so diametrically opposed to “Missing You” as that sunny, breezy, upbeat track.

Oh brilliant! Another TV actor trying his arm at a career in music. Back in the late 80s and early 90s, that seemed to be the preserve of soap stars but by 1997, one man had opened the door for anyone in a drama series to become a resident of the charts. That man was, of course, Simon Cowell. The charge sheet of this guy’s crimes against music is huge! Not happy with inflicting Robson & Jerome on us he also paved the way for Steven Houghton to play at being a pop star but this time, for Soldier Soldier read London’s Burning. The show about the lives of Blue Watch of the London Fire Brigade had already spawned one wannabe pop singer in John Alford who had three hit singles in 1996 (all cover versions* obviously) all of which were so bad he was given the nickname Jon Awful in the Our Price where I was working.

*Including “If” that had been a No 1 in the UK for yet another actor in 1975 – Telly Savalas. Talk about the phenomenon eating itself!

I’m not sure if Cowell had anything to do with that abomination (I wouldn’t be surprised if he did though) but he definitely had his mucky fingers over Steven Houghton’s cover of “Wind Beneath My Wings” as he knew the actor’s agent and encouraged him to secure a commercial release of the song. Why did the public keep falling for this practice? The set up for the single was a carbon copy of that of the aforementioned Robson & Jerome. Houghton’s character performs the song as part of the plot of one episode and…well, that was all that was required for the general public to hot foot it down to their local record store to ask for that record by the TV fireman. Look, I get that it’s a heady cocktail of promotion – a song on your favourite TV show beamed directly into your living room would be worth more than a thousand adverts in the music press and yes, I know it wasn’t an original concept. EastEnders had given us Nick Berry in 1986 singing a song that had initially been featured on the soap but this was all getting a bit much. Thankfully both Alford and Houghton’s pop careers were mercifully short lived but we aren’t out of the woods yet. We’ve still got Adam Rickitt, Martine McCutcheon and Will Mellor to come before these 90s TOTP repeats are done with us. At least we didn’t have to suffer the Bill Tarmey version of “Wind Beneath My Wings” as mentioned by Mark Lamarr. Small mercies and all that.

You know Simon Cowell’s charge sheet of crimes against music I mentioned before? Add this nonsense to it! Yes, Mr High-Waisted-Trousers also brought us this massive hutch full of rabbit shit that was “Teletubbies Say ‘Eh-Oh’ “ by the Teletubbies. Good Lord! Was there no end to this sadist’s desire to fling musical excrement at the general public. Ah, the general public. Perhaps they/we should be taking a lot of the blame for this? After all, Cowell didn’t buy all 1.3 million copies it sold himself did he? I wouldn’t put it past him to have engaged in some chart manipulation though.

Teletubbies was a TV phenomenon. A BBC children’s show aimed at a pre-school audience that first aired in March of this year, its characters Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po would become household names. The secret of the show’s success was that the Teletubbies were designed to resemble toddlers and that the way they communicated was via a language that was pure gibberish. Of course, when I was a child, our supply of gibberish came courtesy of The Flowerpot Men but they weren’t half as cute as the Teletubbies.

Cuteness wasn’t the only thing that The Flowerpot Men didn’t have – there was also the marketing strategies that existed in the 90s. Given the success of the show, the Teletubbies were always going to generate commercial spin offs and consequently Teletubbies dolls were the biggest selling toy of Christmas 1997. There was also a game released for Microsoft Windows and then there was the dreaded single. Basically just the theme tune to the show with some added bits, it would storm to the top of the charts and be the bookies favourite for the Christmas No 1. Well, if Mr. Blobby could bag the festive top seller why couldn’t the Teletubbies? In all fairness, if Simon Cowell hadn’t released the single, someone else would have. Indeed, when he got news that another label wanted to sign the Teletubbies, he got the BBC in his office and offered them £500,000 in advance to do a deal so sure was he of the single’s ability to sell. But who was buying it? I can only assume parents for their toddlers. Surely it wasn’t pop music fans?! In the end, it would be another act with young child appeal that would grab the Christmas No 1 at the last to deny the Teletubbies but that’s for a future post. In the meantime, we will be seeing Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po again in these TOTP repeats I’m afraid. At least they were a one hit wonder and were spared a follow up single.

After two stinkers comes a sweet smelling quality tune in “Never Ever” by All Saints. It certainly provides some fragrant relief from the nasty stench of Steven Houghton and the Teletubbies. However, I’ve a feeling even its bouquet might start to go stale as – get this – it’s on TOTP nine times over a thirteen week period! NINE! This was the second of those nine appearances and already the group’s shoulder shrugging dance move is becoming firmly established. A couple of things leapt to my attention. Firstly, that the only person not to get a solo part in the song is Natalie Appleton. Is this significant? She was originally going to be the group’s manager but became a performing member once she’d sorted child care arrangements for her daughter. Secondly, in the lyrics, the phrase ‘A to Z’ is used twice but the first time ‘Z’ is sung using the American pronunciation of ‘zee’ but the second time it’s the English version of ‘zed’. Make your minds up girls!

In the last post, I noted upon the identity crisis surrounding the rerelease of “You Sexy Thing” in the wake of the success of the film The Full Monty. All of the online evidence I could find points to it being under the name of Hot Chocolate which is how it should be given that the group had already had a hit with it twice. However, TOTP billed it as being by the singer Errol Brown and they’ve done so again this week. What was going on here? Errol did have a brief solo career in the late 80s but it only gave him one UK Top 40 hit in 1987 called “Personal Touch”. Or was it two as the officialcharts.com archive says that the follow up to the 1997 rerelease of “You Sexy Thing” was “It Started With A Kiss” which was under the name of Hot Chocolate featuring Errol Brown. It was all very confusing. Even Errol himself needed clarification when he sang in that follow up “you don’t remember me do you?”…

And so to the new No 1. Although this was a charity record for this year’s Children In Need appeal, it didn’t start out with that intention. 1997 was the 75th anniversary of the BBC which prompted the Beeb to undertake a corporate redesign and a series of promotional campaigns to highlight the services it offered the public. One such campaign was a trailer put together over an 18 month period to promote the wide range of music offered by the BBC. It took the form of various music artists from all genres singing a line of “Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day”. I’m not going to list all the participants but some of the names appearing included heavyweights like Bono, David Bowie and Elton John but also some left field people like Sky from Morcheeba, Laurie Anderson and Robert Cray. Country music was represented by Emmylou Harris and Tammy Wynette whilst opera was championed by Lesley Garrett and Thomas Allen. Indie had Brett Anderson and Evan Dando but perhaps the one person who everyone remembers but whose name many didn’t know was Dr. John for his pronunciation of ‘perfect’ as “poi-fect”.

The trailer proved hugely popular with the public and demand to be able to buy this version led to a single release that was tied in with the Children In Need appeal. A couple of points of interest to note here. Firstly, there can’t have been too many UK chart hits under the name of Various Artists. Off the top of my head, there was a dance medley single released to tie in with the BRIT Awards in 1990 which made No 2 I think but surely this was the first ‘Various Artists’ chart topper. Secondly, “Perfect Day” had an unusual chart journey. Having debuted at No 1 and staying there for a further week, it then spent two weeks at No 2 and two weeks at No 3 before leaping back to the top of the charts a whole month after its initial spell there. You just keep me hangin’ on indeed.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Louise	Let’s Go Round Again	Nope
2	Robert Miles featuring Kathy Sledge	Freedom	Nah
3	Mary J. Blige	Missing You	No
4	Steven Houghton	Wind Beneath My Wings	Never
5	Teletubbies	Teletubbies Say ‘Eh-Oh’	What do you think?!
6	All Saints	Never Ever	Liked it, didn’t buy it
7	Hot Chocolate	You Sexy Thing	I did not
8	Various Artists	Perfect Day	No but I had Lou Reed’s Transformer album

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002c5fm/top-of-the-pops-28111997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 21 NOV 1997

Posted on May 20 by 80stastic

The day after this TOTP aired, news broke of the death of INXS lead singer Michael Hutchence. It was a shocking moment. He was a huge international name and had been for a decade or so. He was only 37 years old which was maybe getting on a bit for a rock star but, in terms of life expectancy, it was no age at all. As details of his demise emerged, the dreadful realisation that he had taken his own life took hold. He had been devastated by the news that legal action taken by Bob Geldof would prevent his partner (and Geldof’s ex-wife) Paula Yates from visiting him on tour with INXS and bringing their daughter Tiger and her three children with Geldof. In the time that followed, it was suggested by Yates that Hutchence may have died from autoerotic asphyxiation though the coroner’s report said the official reason was suicide whilst depressed and under the influence of alcohol and other drugs. When faced with processing such hugely tragic news, the brain can often short circuit and lead you down neural pathways that are not really appropriate to the event. Such an experience happened to me with my first thought on hearing the news being that the radio could never play “Suicide Blonde” again. I was wrong about that too. With that sombre and sobering start to this post, let’s see if this show had anything on it to bring the mood up. Our host is Jo Whiley whose reference to the show being on BBC2 was because BBC1 was hosting Children In Need on this particular evening.

We start with a very well known song that had already been a hit twice for the artist concerned but who was that artist as there seemed to be some confusion about their identity. Quite why there is though I’m not sure – ask any person with even a passing interest in music who had a hit with “You Sexy Thing” and they’d come back immediately with Hot Chocolate and they’d be right of course. And not just once. It was a No 2 in 1975 and No 10 when rereleased in 1987 to promote a Best Of album that topped the UK charts.

So where’s the confusion with this? Well, because of the TOTP caption which tells us that this version is not by Hot Chocolate but by Errol Brown, their lead singer. To be fair, he is up there on his own without a band behind him and just some dancers but would we have noticed the rest of the band on screen with him anyway? Being a member of Hot Chocolate that wasn’t Errol must have felt like you were invisible anyway. That doesn’t change the facts though which are, as far as I can establish them, that this was not an Errol Brown solo release so why did TOTP try and bill it as if it was? The single’s cover definitely says ‘Hot Chocolate’ (with an additional reference to the film The Full Monty which was the reason for its rerelease). I think there’s no doubt about it (ahem), there’s been a cock up here. The story didn’t end there though. A rerelease of “It Started With A Kiss” followed in 1998 and that was billed as being by Hot Chocolate featuring Errol Brown. I’ve also found a reference to a Greatest Hits collection called “Platinum, The Very Best Of Hot Chocolate featuring Errol Brown”. Why was Errol separated out from the band? Somebody ought to put them together again (once more, ahem).

When it comes to Ocean Colour Scene, for me, they’re one of those bands where I actually know more of their songs than I thought. Before they appeared in these TOTP repeats, I would have said I knew a couple of their hits but it turns out that’s not true. This track, “Better Day”, is a case in point. I definitely remember it once heard. Maybe it’s because I saw them live last year that it’s familiar. Or maybe it’s just that it’s deceptively catchy with a brooding intensity.

Either way, it would become the band’s sixth consecutive Top 10 hit when it made it to No 9. This really was the peak of their commercial powers. However, that peak also meant that the next logical step was going down the other side of the hill – “Better Day” would prove to be the band’s last ever Top 10 single. It wasn’t like falling off a cliff though – more like a slow amble down a winding path down to the beach. The No 4, gold selling album “One From The Modern” followed in 1999 but it was definitely a case of diminishing returns. “Marchin’ Already” and “Moseley Shoals” had both been platinum selling collections but their first two albums of the new millennium were certified silver. After that it seemed like they were only really appealing to their existing hardcore fanbase. At some point I’m guessing that the band made the decision to become a touring only entity as they seem to be constantly playing live gigs and haven’t released a studio album since 2013.

Clearly Hanson (or their record label) had been reading the pop music manual called ‘How to promote a new group’ as they are following the blueprint to the letter by making their third single a ballad after their first two hits had been fast ones. It’s a well used strategy – score a debut hit with a catchy pop track, consolidate with a follow up that conforms to the same format then show the depth of your talent and sensitivity with a slow paced love song. Said love song for the brothers Hanson was “I Will Come To You” and it wasn’t bad actually. No, really. After “MMMBop”, how many of us would have believed that they were capable of such maturity. Again, I say “no really”. Admittedly, they were helped to write it by the established husband and wife songwriting team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil and Taylor Hanson’s vocals are maybe slightly too young sounding but it stands up OK. It really reminds me of something that I can’t quite put my finger on. Oh well. Maybe, paraphrasing the song’s title, it will come to me…*

*It still hasn’t yet

Jo Whiley goes all ageist in her intro to the next artist who are Pulp with their single “Help The Aged”. After informing us that they would shortly be sitting in for John Peel on Radio 1, she then says “This week they have a different cause – rattling tins for wrinklies on TOTP”. Wrinklies Jo? Really? She was only 32 when this show was broadcast. She’ll be 60 in a few weeks. I wonder how she feels about that intro now? As for Pulp, like Ocean Colour Scene before them, this would prove to be their final Top 10 hit. Unlike the Birmingham rockers who have been a constant since their formation in 1989, Jarvis and co split in 2002 before a reunion in 2011 that lasted two years. Another nine would pass before they came together again and a new album, their first since 2001 is due later this year.

Some blue-eyed soul next from a geezer (as Jo Whiley refers to him) for whom great things were predicted but which never quite panned out. Conner Reeves (whose name conjures up images of a Premier League midfielder) was a double threat – he had a smooth soul voice and the songwriting chops to go with it (I’m not sure about his dance moves hence double and not triple threat) but somehow the record buying public never quite took to him enough to give him the commercial success to sustain a chart career. Correction – a chart career as a performer under his own name. He would go on write hits for the likes of Westlife and X Factor winner Matt Cardle. However, this single – “Earthbound” – was actually written by Graham Lyle of Gallagher and Lyle fame despite the fact that, ironically, it has a whiff of Westlife about it. Why did his own career never take off in the way it was expected to? I blame his choice of hat here. Did we really need a Gilbert O’Sullivan for the 90s?

Some proper hard rock now courtesy of Metallica and rather unexpectedly Marianne Faithfull. Yes, you read that right but we’ll get to her in a bit. The LA rockers were in prolific form around this time. Having not released an album for five years, they then came out with two in 18 months! However, in reality, it was actually a double album that had a staggered release. “Load” had hit the shops in June 1996 and the band had amassed enough for it to have been twice its size but had decided not to go the double album route as they hadn’t wanted to be in the studio recording for such a prolonged period. They’d also feared a deluge of new material would lead to some of the tracks being lost in the rush. It sounds like sensible logic but Guns N’ Roses had achieved incredible sales when they released “Use Your Illusion I” and “Use Your Illusion II” simultaneously in 1991. Maybe Metallica hadn’t wanted to be accused of being copycats?

Come 1997 “Reload” was released and its lead single was “The Memory Remains”. Now, that collaboration with Marianne Faithfull – how did that come about? Apparently the bit in the song with the “La, La, La” bit was just because vocalist James Hetfield didn’t have any lyrics but the band’s engineer liked it how it was. Hetfield eventually agreed but thought it needed an older woman’s voice to sing that part. Said engineer recommended Marianne whom Hetfield was not familiar with but, having listened to one of her albums, agreed and the band sought her out. She recorded her parts for the track in Dublin whilst resisting Metallica’s pleas for stories of the Rolling Stones’ early days and the rest is history. It was the first time that Metallica had a guest artist feature on any of their songs. Marianne’s presence didn’t turn me on to Metallica though. Not my bag really this though I was quite intrigued by its subject matter of a faded artist who goes insane from losing her fame. Are there echoes of the fate of Michael Hutchence in there? Not the losing their fame bit but being tormented to the point of suicide? Look at some of the lyrics and see what you think…

While the Hollywood sun sets behind your back

And can’t the band play on

Just listen, they play my song

Ash to ash, dust to dust, fade to black

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: James Alan Hetfield / Lars Ulrich
The Memory Remains lyrics © Creeping Death Music

Huge selling single incoming! “Never Ever” was a less of a marker in the sand and more of a beach long billboard that All Saints were no short term Spice Girls wannabes (sorry!). The group’s first No 1 (of five) and their biggest selling single with sales of 1.6 million in the UK. It is the third best selling single by a girl group in the UK ever behind “Wannabe” and “Shout Out To My Ex” by Little Mix and holds the record for the most sales ever (770,000 units shifted) before actually going to the top of the charts which it did on its ninth week. It spent 15 consecutive weeks inside the Top 10 and 20 on the Top 40. It was a monster. I think we’ll be seeing this one again and again and again in these TOTP repeats so I’ll think I’ll leave it there for now.

It’s the final week at No 1 for Aqua with “Barbie Girl” but don’t think they’re going away anytime soon. No, not only did we in the UK fall for the charms of their must famous song but we found ourselves unable to resist giving them a further two chart toppers. Two! Remember “Doctor Jones” and “Turn Back Time”? Yep, they’ll be along shortly. As for “Barbie Girl”, it would spend the following four weeks inside the Top 3 and a further three on top of that on the Top 10. It would be the third biggest selling single of the year in the UK. Life in plastic really was fantastic for Aqua.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Hot Chocolate	You Sexy Thing	I did not
2	Ocean Colour Scene	Better Day	No
3	Hanson	I Will Come To You	Another no
4	Pulp	Help The Aged	Negative
5	Conner Reeves	Earthbound	Nah
6	Metallica	The Memory Remains	Not my bag at all
7	All Saints	Never Ever	Nope
8	Aqua	Barbie Girl	Never

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002bx6d/top-of-the-pops-21111997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 14 NOV 1997

Posted on May 14 by 80stastic

With a couple of notable exceptions, this episode of TOTP has a definite mainstream flavour to it. Nothing wrong with that necessarily – it’s just an observation. Our host is Jayne ‘knowing smirk’ Middlemiss and we begin with a second consecutive appearance from Natalie Imbruglia performing her hit “Torn”. This would definitely fall into the category of ‘mainstream’ in my book as well as being a very decent tune. However, the version we all know wasn’t how it sounded in earlier incarnations. Check out its back story – it has more chapters to it than War And Peace. This is the Danish language version by Lis Sørensen which went under the title of “Brændt” (“Burnt” in English)…

Then there’s this – the ‘grunge’ version by US rock band Ednaswap that featured two of the song’s writers in its line up – Scott Cutler and Anne Preven. Discussing “Torn” in an interview with theringer.com, Sophie B. Hawkins said that she would like to have Will Smith or Tommy Lee Jones administer her with the Men In Black memory eraser treatment so that she didn’t know the Natalie Imbruglia version allowing her to see if she could spot the potential of the Ednaswap version to be such huge pop smash.

Would she have? Would any of us? Who knows? What I do know is that after Ednaswap and Lis Sørensen and before we got to Natalie there was a stop off in Norway where singer Trine Rein had a hit with it there…

Finally, the definitive version came about when third co-writer Phil Thornalley was put together with Natalie Imbruglia by his manager and new music publisher and one time Haircut 100 member Marc Fox. It was Fox who convinced them that they should give “Torn” another shot and so they worked the track up between them for days on end until they had what they believed was the perfect pop take on it. It was a heaven sent pairing – Thornalley’s reputation for working with some of the 80s biggest names was now so far in the rear mirror as to be imperceptible to the naked eye and he was desperate to relive his past glories whilst Imbruglia wanted to throw everything she had at pursuing a pop career. They were both prepared to do the hard yards and it paid off handsomely. “Torn” tore up the charts globally going Top 5 just about everywhere whilst her album “Left Of The Middle” went multi platinum. What I remember about that album is that they changed the artwork on it. Initially, it had a rather arty four column design with different images of Natalie in each. However, subsequent reorders were fulfilled by a new design that was just a portrait of her face that accentuated her striking eyes. I always assumed that was a deliberate and blatant marketing strategy on behalf of her label. I could be wrong.

Now, these reviews take some time to put together (I’ve spent literally weeks of my life doing this for the past nine years) so when a chance for a shortcut comes along, I’m going to take it. And here is one such opportunity. “Open Road” by Gary Barlow was on the 6th June edition of the show when Gazza performed it to celebrate the release of his debut solo album of the same name. Back then, I commented on how many people he’d brought to the studio with him that day. I don’t think it’s quite as many this time though it’s a pretty large band of musicians up there with him. Also different this time is that he’s plonked behind some keyboards for this performance whereas he was wandering up and down a walkway (the titular “Open Road” maybe?) before. Anyway, to see what else I wrote about this one, just click on the link to my previous post below:

TOTP 06 JUN 1997

Now, I said earlier there were a couple of exceptions to the wall to wall mainstream running order and this next artist is one of those I was thinking of. However, did Moby sit outside of that mainstream world? Within two years, he would have a UK No 1 and a worldwide 12 million selling album that spawned eight singles so could he be considered ‘alternative’ for want of a better word? I think he’d certainly begun his career out in the left field with his techno rave hit “Go” sampling the theme from cult, surrealist horror drama Twin Peaks but here he was in 1997 doing a dance version of perhaps one of the most recognisable theme tunes in movie history. It’s a conundrum for sure.

So quite why was he turning his hand to the “James Bond Theme”? Well, it was all to do with the new Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies which was released in the UK in December. The second movie starring Pierce Brosnan as 007, it followed 1995’s Goldeneye. I’ve never been a huge Bond fan I have to say. He’s just too slick and cool a character for me to get on board with – to quote Morrissey, he “says nothing to me about my life”. Anyway, back to Moby and his ‘re-version’ (as it was officially titled) of that famous tune. It was part of the soundtrack album to Tomorrow Never Dies the theme tune of which was recorded by Sheryl Crow. I have to say that his version doesn’t do much for me and is certainly no improvement on or indeed interesting take on the original to my ears. Even Moby himself rather distances himself from his recording by apparently saying that the original is miles better than the version he did. Whilst the go to image in our minds eye of Moby might be of him behind a keyboard and not wielding a guitar, here’s @TOTPFacts to add some context to what we saw here on our TV screens:

It's not THAT strange that Moby's playing a guitar – he previously played with 4AD indie rock band Ultra Vivid Scene. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) May 9, 2025

Oh blimey! Here’s a duet that, depending on your tastes, was either made in Heaven or came directly from the bowels of Hell. The backstory to this pairing of Barbra Streisand (note spelling of first name!) and Celine Dion is that at the 1997 Oscars show, Celine became the first artist ever to perform twice on the same show. One of the songs she sang was “I Finally Found Someone” from The Mirror Has Two Faces movie (that had been a hit for Streisand and Bryan Adams) after Babs declined to perform it. Originally, Natalie Cole was scheduled to replace Streisand but when she pulled out at short notice, Celine was asked to step into the breach. So pleased was Barbra with Dion’s treatment of her song that she suggested they record a duet together. The result was “Tell Him” which I assumed was also from a film soundtrack but wasn’t. Listening to it, I could more imagine it being used in a stage musical – a bad one mind you. “Tell Him” is less a song and more an emoting contest with Céline and Babs dukin’ it out for top billing. Apparently, Barbra (watch that spelling again!) is one of Celine’s idols so maybe it was subconscious on the latter’s part but Streisand is so lost in the business of show that it must have been instinctive. With those two names involved, it couldn’t help but be a hit and it was peaking at No 3 in the UK. That made two consecutive Top 10 hits for Barbra in the UK for the first time since the late 70s/early 80s whilst Celine would go down the soundtrack route to devastating effect (and I used that world deliberately) before 1997 was out with “My Heart Will Go On”.

I was talking to someone at work the other day who is 30 years younger than me and it transpired that she’d never seen Trainspotting. Not only that but she’d never heard of it and thought it would be a film about nerdy people with an obsession about trains. It’s moments like these that make me realise how old I really am. Anyway, that rather clunky reference is my segue into the next artist who are PF Project featuring Ewan McGregor and their hit “Choose Life” based on a speech given by McGregor’s character Mark ‘Rentboy’ Renton. This would be the second of my non-mainstream hits on the show this evening but again, given the popularity of Trainspotting and the reach of the film, did it actually reside in the left field? Well, sonically I think so as it reminds me of that dance track which used to give me the fear – “Higher State Of Consciousness” by Josh Wink.

As for the that speech it was based around, well, clearly that had to be and was sanitised for commercial consumption with the offending swear words removed so a case could be made that the track had been modified for mainstream acceptability and tastes. As for the performance here, it was the usual dance hit set up with anonymous blokes behind keyboards but with McGregor’s part shown on a big screen behind them. However, as with Moby earlier, there was a guitarist on stage which must have been some sort of record for two dance track studio performances to feature that instrument on the same show.

Some acoustic action now from Jon Bon Jovi with his third solo hit of 1997 all taken from his album “Destination Anywhere”. Host Jayne Middlemiss tells us that it was written about a row with his wife in Amsterdam though he’s applied some creative licence as his wife’s name is Dorothea not Janie as in “Janie, Don’t Take Your Love To Town”. Someone commented on Twitter that Mr Jovi had clearly written this with the help of an Oasis chord book and you can kind of hear what they meant. It has that ‘busker’ quality to it that so many Noel Gallagher songs have. It’s not an unpleasant sound though and in any case, Jon must also have taken some inspiration from Kenny Rogers who, of course, had a massive hit with “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town” with his group First Edition in 1969. As of 2025 though, Jon Bon Jovi is yet to resume his solo career.

What a time 1997 had been for Texas. After eight years of trying to follow up on the success of debut album “Southside” (spearheaded by the slide guitar propelled hit “I Don’t Want A Lover”), they finally cracked it big time with their fourth studio album “White On Blonde”. A chart topping, multi-platinum selling monster, it furnished the band with four hit singles all of which went Top 10. The final one of these was “Put Your Arms Around Me” and I have to say it was by far the weakest. For me, it’s just not substantial enough and I’m surprised that it was chosen for single release. Sharleen Spiteri’s vocals are as poignant as ever but there’s just not enough to it to make it truly memorable. It’s an album filler and no more and certainly not single material.

What’s even more bemusing is that they had a glorious track closing the album called “Breathless” that would have made a fine choice as the final single release. What do I know though?

Aqua remain at No 1 for a third week of four. Although often derided and despite appearing regularly in ‘The Worst Songs Of All Time’ lists, “Barbie Girl” has quite the cultural reach, impact and legacy. Fancy hearing a South Park version? Here you go…

Or a Family Guy version? No problem…

What? You want the original? Surely not? Oh well…

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Natalie Imbruglia	Torn	Liked it, didn’t buy it
2	Gary Barlow	Open Road	Never happening
3	Moby	James Bond Theme	I did not
4	Barbra Streisand and Celine Dion	Tell Him	Never
5	PF Project featuring Ewan McGregor	Choose Life	Nah
6	Jon Bon Jovi	Janie, Don’t Take Your Love To Town	Nope
7	Texas	Put Your Arms Around Me	No but I had a promo copy of the album
8	Aqua	Barbie Girl	No

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002bx6b/top-of-the-pops-14111997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 07 NOV 1997

Posted on May 12 by 80stastic

With the release schedules geared up for the Christmas rush, 75% of the tunes in this TOTP are hits we are yet to have seen in these BBC4 repeats. Only the opener and the No 1 which top and tail the show have previously featured. Sound good? Yeah well, a third of those new songs are by Peter Andre and Michael Bolton – not so keen now are we? Fear not though as there are some quality tunes as well. Our host is Zoë Ball who begins the show in a bed but it’s not a Big Breakfast / Paula Yates flirting with Michael Hutchence affair. No, this is the BBC after all. No, it’s a lame sketch about Zoë being the new co-host of the Radio 1 Breakfast Show and how she’s working so many hours she doesn’t know what time of day it is. Very poor.

After that we’re straight to the music and we begin with repeat airing of “As Long As You Love Me” by the Backstreet Boys. What was it about boy bands that you had to have five members? This lot did, so did New Kids On The Block, Take That, Boyzone, Westlife and, of course…erm…Five. Now admittedly, many of the above groups lost members along the way but the basic template seems to be five. There were exceptions obviously like Bros who started out as a trio (before slimming down to a duo) and East 17 only had four but even back in the 80s with the likes of Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet (whom I wouldn’t describe as boy bands at all but whom certainly attracted a teenage girl fanbase), the classic line up was five. Was it to broaden their appeal so there was a member to cater for all the tastes of the fans? Said tastes would always include the obligatory small, cute one (Mark Owen, Stephen Gately etc). Who was the cute one in the Backstreet Boys? The blonde one? Must be as the rest of them you wouldn’t look twice at if you passed them in the street if they weren’t famous. I guess they didn’t care though as long as you loved them.

Soap star in decent song shocker! That was essentially the reaction to the news that Natalie Imbruglia had joined the ranks of ex-Neighbours stars to try their hand at this pop star lark. Natalie’s debut offering was no early era, SAW produced Kylie hit though nor indeed anything from Jason Donovan’s career (and don’t get me started on Stefan Dennis’s mercifully short foray into pop music). No, “Torn” was a good, solid, proper song that was perfect for radio playlists and discerning pop music fans alike (myself included). Now, I don’t think I knew this at the time, but the song had a lengthy backstory. Originally co-written by Scott Cutler, Anne Preven and Phil Thornalley (who had previously worked with the likes of The Cure, The Psychedelic Furs, Thompson Twins and Duran Duran and was briefly a member of Johnny Hates Jazz), it laid unreleased for a couple of years until Danish singer Lis Sørensen released it as “Brændt” meaning “Burnt”. Cutler and Preven then formed alt-rock band Ednaswap who released the first English language version of the song which was then superseded by American-Norwegian Trinne Rein’s cover which was a hit in Norway but nowhere else. This low profile gestation period meant that most of us didn’t know the track and accepted it as Natalie’s song – the whole kit and caboodle which possibly helped to give her some extra and unexpected if undeserved credibility.

Of course, not only was the song a winner but Natalie Imbruglia was a great choice to sell it. I’d long since stopped watching Neighbours on a regular basis but I knew who Natalie’s character in the Aussie soap was and she hadn’t looked like the woman on TOTP. She had long hair and played a girl-next-door type but the woman on our TV screens that night had a short, messy-looking haircut that you know was actually very expensive and those amazing, Disney Princess eyes giving her that pop star sheen. “Torn” was such a big hit – Top 5 just about everywhere (No 2 over here) including No 1 in six countries and shifting 2.4 million copies in the UK alone – that it was a double edged sword. It got her career off to a stunning start but everything she released from that point on ran the risk of being overshadowed by that debut. For a while though, the hits did follow – three more singles were released from her “Left Of The Middle” album (itself triple platinum selling) which peaked at Nos 2, 5 and 19. Natalie Imbruglia was a pop sensation even earning herself two BRIT awards. A four year delay before her second album meant momentum was lost though and sales suffered accordingly. However, she continues to record and release music with her last album arriving in 2021. She also won the third season of The Masked Singer as ‘Panda’ in 2022. However, that profile wasn’t enough to save her from this fate when she was a guest judge on The X Factor…

Yes! Yes! YES! Finally, one of my favourite bands makes their TOTP debut. I love Embrace and they are possibly the band I have seen live the most (probably five or six times). There’s something about their particular brand of indie rock that speaks to me – it might be my weakness for the anthemic which they are very good at. Back in 1997 though, I’m not sure that I was on board from the first pick up point. I certainly wasn’t aware of their initial release of “All You Good Good People” on the independent label Fierce Panda but then only 1,300 copies were made so I can be excused for that. The reaction to that limited run release was enough to give the band national recognition and create a buzz around them that would prompt a move to major label Hut Records (a subsidiary of Virgin and an early home for The Verve and The Smashing Pumpkins). Early releases for Hut (the “Fireworks” and “One Big Family” EPs) were respectable but not huge hits but then came this – a rerelease of “All You Good Good People” in EP format – which took them into the Top 10 for the first time. A gigantic song of epic sonic proportions, it slowly builds to a euphoric chorus that just can’t be ignored. And yet…I don’t think it was this song that drew me in. I believe that I only got the boat to Embrace island once “Come Back To What You Know” was released the following year but having arrived, I was more than happy to be marooned there. Their debut album “The Good Will Out” would become one of my favourite albums whilst going to No 1 and going gold on the day of release. Comparisons with Oasis were as inevitable as they were widespread but for me at least, not valid. Sure, on a surface level, you can join the dots but I think there’s more depth to Embrace’s sound whereas their Manc counterparts ploughed a defined seam that they were reluctant to deviate from.

Embrace would experience highs and lows throughout their career from being dropped by Hut after third album “If You’ve Never Been” underperformed commercially followed by a No 1 comeback album in 2004 with “Out Of Nothing”. A poor decision to record the England World Cup song (“World At Your Feet”) in 2006 which rather tarnished their reputation was followed by a seven year hiatus after lead singer Danny McNamara suffered health problems. However, a return to recording in 2013 has led to the release of three further studio albums and a very active touring schedule.

From the sublime to the ridiculous now as Peter Andre fills our screens and he’s in serious mode. Gone is the two-curtains hairstyle and the infamous abs are covered up for Peter is trying to reinvent himself as some sort of 50s teen idol balladeer! Check out his slicked back hairstyle with the exaggerated kiss curl locks at the front and witness how he stares meaningfully down the lens of the camera as if to say “Don’t you get it? I’m a serious artist!”. Then there’s his song – “Lonely” – which starts off sounding a bit like George Benson’s “Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love For You” made famous by Glenn Medeiros but turns into a right old dirge. Although it made No 6, its parent album “Time” was a right old duffer when it came to sales and it looked as if the pop star career of Peter Andre was mercifully coming to an end. Somehow though, this berk is still a name in 2025 and has so far released eleven studio albums! Eleven! That’s three more than Embrace! Make it make sense someone. Please!

Now, from a dirge of a ballad to a…dirge of a ballad. Oh Lordy! Toni Braxton made her name on sad love songs (I mean like literally – one of her hits is called “Another Sad Love Song”!) so we shouldn’t have been surprised to see her back on TOTP with another one but “How Could An Angel Break My Heart” was a real stinker. Everything is wrong with this one from its awful title (Toni had a real thing about songs with the word ‘heart’ in the title – “Un-break My Heart”, of course but then “Make My Heart” and “I Heart You” in the 2010s) to its dreadful lyrics (“I wish I didn’t wish so hard, maybe I wished our love apart”) to its lumbering, mournful sound. Oh and don’t get me started on Kenny G’s sax parts. No, seriously please don’t. I can’t do my Kenny “The G Man” G story again*. Then there’s Toni’s performance here. At one point she sings “oooh, mmmm” (according to the subtitles) where she moves her lips into a Shirley Bassey style tremble. Talk about over emoting! Next!

*Actually, it seems I can. Read on.

Oh no! How can this be?! It’s a hat-trick of dirge-like ballads as we follow Peter Andre and Toni Braxton with Michael Bolton and his single “The Best Of Love”. What dreadful running order scheduling! The saving grace here was that it was Boller’s final UK chart hit – the last of 17 (SEVENTEEN!). This one was part of a double A-Side with “Go The Distance”, a track taken from the soundtrack to the Disney film Hercules. What a terrible way for Bolton to bow out on such a poor song. “The Best Of Love” was written by US songwriter and producer Babyface as was the preceding track performed by Toni Braxton. Right that’s him off my Christmas card list then.

In an attempt to distract us from how awful the song he’s peddling is, Michael has had his famous long locks shorn off. I can’t even make a joke along the lines of Samson losing his strength and power after his hair was cut because Bollers was useless when he was overly hirsute. I probably shouldn’t be making any jokes about Michael full stop as he is recovering from surgery for a brain tumour. Instead, I’ll simply say farewell Mr Bolton. We’ll always have Sheffield in 1993…

TOTP 16 JUL 1987

Read the above post for my Michael Bolton / Kenny G story

How do you follow up an era defining album like “Different Class” that housed such classics of its time as “Common People” and “Disco 2000”? Well, Pulp decided to go with a song about thinking more about our old folks. It wasn’t the obvious direction to go in but it was a reflection by Jarvis Cocker on the ageing process and how he himself was not getting any younger. That he was only 34 when this song was released kind of undermines his musings but then age is relative I guess. He probably did feel older than some of his chart contemporaries having started Pulp in 1978. He’ll be 62 this birthday – I wonder how he feels about his song “Help The Aged” these days?

There were definitely some who weren’t keen on the track, namely the charity Help The Aged (now AGE UK) who objected to their name being used on the single and who were only assuaged by having some of the single’s royalties donated to their cause. Was I one of those who weren’t convinced by this new direction? I honestly can’t recall what I thought of it but listening back to it now, I quite like it. It has that idiosyncratic Pulp feel but it also has a quiet intensity. In fact, is it just me or does its backing sound a bit like “Creep” by Radiohead? OK, just me then. Anyway, its No 8 chart peak was a relief to Cocker at least who was pleased to have got a song about growing old and dying so far up the charts. However, the parent album it came from – “This Is Hardcore” – failed to match the sales of its predecessor shifting a tenth of the units that “Different Class” did. What I remember most about the album is they hugely long final track “The Day After The Revolution” which clocked in at a mammoth 14 minutes 56 seconds the majority of which was what felt like a never ending fade out. We nearly got caught out by that a few times when playing the album in the Our Price where I worked in Stockport.

Aqua remains at No 1 with “Barbie Girl” and for this performance singer Lene Nystrøm is channeling her inner Mike Nesmith as she’s donned a woolly hat. Ironically, their bubblegum hit was just the sort of saccharine, sweet pop that Nesmith rallied against when he was in The Monkees as he strove for creative control of the band. Legend has it that the straw that broke the camel’s back was that they were told they had to record “Sugar, Sugar” and Nesmith refused whilst putting his fist through the wall of a hotel in anger at the idea. The song would be a hit for fictional cartoon band The Archies becoming a No 1 hit in both the UK and the US in 1969. In some ways, “Barbie Girl” mirrored “Sugar, Sugar” both in terms of its chart performance and pure pop sound. However, I don’t think there was any deeper meaning going on in lyrics like “Oh sugar, oh honey honey, you are my candy girl and you got me wanting you” unlike “Barbie Girl” which sought to make a subversive social comment on the inherent misogyny of the values attached to the Barbie doll. Apparently. However, “Sugar Sugar” was bestowed with the honour of soundtracking the Apollo 12 space mission when it was one of the songs astronaut Alan Bean chose to play during the journey to the moon. Not to be outdone, a Barbie doll based upon the first female commander of the International Space Station Samantha Cristoforetti spent six months orbiting the Earth with her in 2022.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Backstreet Boys	As Long As You Love Me	Nope
2	Natalie Imbruglia	Torn	Liked it, didn’t buy it
3	Embrace	All You Good Good People	No but I had the album
4	Peter Andre	Lonely	Of course not
5	Toni Braxton	How Could An Angel Break My Heart	Negative
6	Michael Bolton	The Best Of Love	Never
7	Pulp	Help The Aged	I did not
8	Aqua	Barbie Girl	No

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0026dt5/top-of-the-pops-review-of-the-year-2024

TOTP 31 OCT 1997

Posted on May 7 by 80stastic

Although I know the name Mary Anne Hobbs, I couldn’t tell you much about her other than she’s a DJ. Well, she’s also the presenter on this particular episode of TOTP (the second of only two she hosted but we missed the first one due to the Puff Daddy issue) so a little research on her seems in order. It turns out that she’s had a career as a radio presenter, music journalist and a DJ but that doesn’t really tell her whole backstory. She left a chaotic family home in the small Lancashire village of Garstang to work for and live with a rock band from London on a bus in a coach park in Hayes, Middlesex before securing employment with Sounds and then the NME. Following that, she moved into radio broadcasting with XFM before a confrontational interview with the BBC’s Trevor Dann* brought her to the attention of Radio 1.

*Dann was head of Radio 1 Production known as ‘Dann Dann the Hatchetman’ for his role in overseeing the culling of the station’s old guard of DJs.

Having joined in January 1996, she presented a movie review show alongside Mark Kermode and the station’s rock show but perhaps she is best known for her show The Breezeblock that showcased experimental electronic music and was particularly influential in promoting music from the then little known grime and dubstep movements (Mary Anne even has the show’s name written across her stomach here). She would leave Radio 1 in 2010 before returning to the Beeb two years later via Radio 6. She has also run parallel careers as a touring DJ, a presenter of the World Superbikes series for British Eurosport and as a documentary maker producing a series about biker culture for BBC Choice. Phew! With all that in mind, it strikes me that she wasn’t the obvious choice to present such a mainstream music show as TOTP, what with her passion for experimental and leftfield genres. I wonder what she made of some of the acts she was introducing here?

Exhibit A m’lud. “Party People…Friday Night” by 911. I can’t believe that this would have been the sort of thing that Mary Anne played either publicly on the radio or in private for her personal listening pleasure. This piece of dance/pop fluff was the band’s fourth Top 5 hit of 1997 and the lead single from their sophomore album “Moving On”. Remarkably given the lack of depth of their talents, this lot were building themselves quite the pop career. Watching this performance back, I’m struck by a number of images. Firstly, the surfeit of balloons being held aloft and waved about by the studio audience. It’s as if we’ve been transported back to 1983. Maybe that was deliberate on the part of executive producer Chris Cowey? Secondly, why is lead singer Lee Brennan wearing a jacket with sleeves that don’t fit him? Look at the length of them! Wardrobe clearly didn’t think his outfit through as it made him far more vulnerable to the grabbing hands of the teenage girls in the studio audience. Finally, they seem to have given up completely on any pretence that they weren’t miming when dancer Jimmy strides forward to take over lead vocal duties. Surely that’s still Lee’s voice we can hear? What was all that about? Was there some dissent in the ranks about Lee always being the centre of attention? I’m probably overthinking it – something I never imagined myself doing given that the subject of my thoughts are 911!

Exhibit B m’lud. Surely this horrid 90s work over of Rod Stewart’s 1978 No 1 “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?” can’t have been Mary Anne’s cup of tea can it? The trend for nasty dance covers of hits from yesteryear was unfathomably popular around this time. The other week we had Clock getting their hands all over Hot Chocolate’s “You Sexy Thing” and pulling it to pieces in the most disrespectful way and now here was N–Trance following a similar path. As with the aforementioned Clock, this lot had taken a clear decision to pursue a cheesy pop route after more credible dance beginnings. It’s hard to believe this is the same people who brought us “Set You Free” two years before. Since then though, they’d already released covers of oldies by the Bee Gees and Ottawan and now we had this monstrosity completing a most ignoble hat-trick. Apparently, Rod himself gave his blessing to this version to the point where he is credited as appearing on it. He must have smelt a potential big hit rather than the rancid stench of desperation that filled my nostrils. I never much liked his original to be fair though. Written as a response to the disco movement of the late 70s, it was a clever move by Stewart I guess but oh so cynical. Unbelievably, N-Trance would do a version of the Guns N’ Roses classic “Paradise City” for their next single before returning to their former glories in 2001 when they rereleased “Set You Free”.

With Mary Anne Hobbs referring to the Spice Girls as The Teletubbies in her intro, I think we can infer from that she wasn’t a fan. Talking of fans, were they beginning to lose a few what with them only being No 1 for a single week with “Spice Up Your Life”? Even if that were true, it doesn’t stop them being on the show again seven days later – this was the ‘repeat appearances’ era of executive producer Chris Cowey after all and he wasn’t going to miss out on recycling that ‘exclusive’ performance from New Delhi, India. However, that decision means we don’t get to see the Bladerunner inspired official promo video that accompanied the single. Obviously, the promo will have been used by other pop programmes throughout the world (I’m sure the UK’s own Chart Show would have shown it) but it does seem a waste somewhat that the BBC’s premier and historic music show chose not to feature it. I suppose Cowey was trying to rebuild the TOTP brand which didn’t include showing very many videos it seems. The Spice Girls would recover from the knock of their short-lived chart topper to bag the 1997 Christmas No 1 with follow up single “Too Much”. We aren’t nearly done with them yet in these BBC4 repeats.

Now this might have been more to Mary Anne’s taste – the latest offering from Dannii Minogue…erm…sorry…it was just Dannii by this point wasn’t it? Having made a successful comeback with her last single “All I Wanna Do” going to No 4, the youngest Minogue sister was rivalling Kylie in the popularity stakes who was struggling to get the public to buy into her ‘indie Kylie’ phase. Dannii’s follow up single was “Everything I Wanted” and it rather cleverly combined a pop melody with a shuffling drum & bass style backbeat – at least that’s what it sounds like to my unsophisticated ears. Was she going for a sound similar to the likes of Baby D or Dubstar that had garnered commercial sales as well as critical acclaim? If I’m being super critical I would say that I’m not sure about the quality of her vocals but she sells the track pretty well with a more restrained, dressed down image than previously. A tour and a role in Grease: The Arena Spectacular as the character of Rizzo would follow before she returned to music with perhaps her best received album “Neon Lights” in 2003.

Surely Mary Anne Hobbs would have approved of this one? A ‘speed garage’ anthem which was emblematic of a scene that was big in London at the time – this was just the sort of thing she’d have plugged on her The Breezeblock radio show. I’m guessing here as I never actually listened to said show obviously and that seems like a good decision if indeed “Ripgroove” by Double 99 was the sort of thing that got played on it. What a racket! Is this what speed garage sounded like? Lordy! Double 99 were duo Tim Deluxe and Omar Adimora who also recorded under the pseudonyms R.I.P Productions and 10° Below but they are best known for this track which was released twice in 1997 peaking at No 31 initially but 17 places higher the second time around. The rerelease featured the vocals of MC Top Cat though what he is actually banging on about I’m not entirely sure. Something about “bruk whine”?

*googles “bruk whine”*

Well, AI Overview tells me that it’s Jamaican patois meaning a dance move that is a twist on the traditional ‘whine’ or circular hip movements/gyrations with ‘bruk’ meaning ‘broken’ or ‘out of order’. That’s that solved then. It doesn’t change my opinion about the track though. It reminds me of that hit “Incredible” by M-Beat but Wikipedia tells me that was ragga jungle rather than speed garage. Despite working in record shops throughout the 90s and despite all these years of blogging about TOTP and all the dance tunes I’ve listened to, my knowledge of dance and all its genres and sub genres hardly seems to have improved at all. I guess that’s why ‘Dance Collections’ was always the scariest section of those record shops for me. I’m not sure me and Mary Anne Hobbs would have much to talk about in terms of music were we ever to meet.

Now, apparently we’re missing a performance from this repeat – Puff Daddy and his hit “Been Around The World” which has been edited out for obvious reasons. So why couldn’t that approach have been applied to all those shows featuring his chart topper “I’ll Be Missing You”? My guess would be that it was precisely because his hit was a No 1 and to have removed it would have wrecked the natural flow of the show as it worked its way up to the best selling hit of the week. Its place in the running order would have made editing it out look odd and incongruous.

With the offending Puff Daddy removed, we find ourselves in the company of The Charlatans. I’d forgotten that they released the title track of their album “Tellin’ Stories” but release it they did as the fourth and final single to be taken from it. It doesn’t veer too far from the style of its predecessors but there’s a definite tinge of soul in there. However, it does have a bit of a stop-start feel to it, as if it’s really going to swing into something anthemic but then it pulls itself back. Probably just me. We didn’t have to wait an age for another Charlatans album which would appear in 1999 with the intermediate gap plugged by the Best Of album “Melting Pot” which I duly bought.

As for this performance, are my eyes deceiving me or did the TOTP cameras briefly catch an attempted stage invasion that was thwarted by studio floor staff? Could be as Tim Burgess seems momentarily distracted by something going on to his left. After Oasis and Stereophonics both experienced members of the studio audience breaching the consecrated safety of the stage this year, at least BBC security seemed to have got themselves organised finally.

And so to the song that deposed the Spice Girls at the top of the charts after just one week – it’s “Barbie Girl” by Aqua. So, let’s address the controversy attached to this hit which was the litigation brought by toy manufacturer Mattel against Aqua and their record label MCA for impinging upon their trademark and copyrights for the Barbie doll. In a counter move, MCA sued Mattel for defamation. In the end, both cases were thrown out by the courts with a ruling advising both parties to ‘“chill”.

Heh. Sounds like the judge in the case was John Cusack’s character Lloyd Dobler in Say Anything. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Just watch this…

As for Mary Anne Hobbs, this would be her last time as a TOTP presenter which is probably just as well as she didn’t really look comfortable in the role. A mainstream platform in a peak viewing time slot was really taking her out of her late night comfort zone.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	911	Party People…Friday Night	Negative
2	N-Trance / Rod Stewart	Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?	As if
3	Spice Girls	Spice Up Your Life	Nope
4	Dannii Minogue	Everything I Wanted	Nah
5	Double 99	Ripgroove	No
6	The Charlatans	Tellin’ Stories	I did not
7	Aqua	Barbie Girl	Never

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002blmk/top-of-the-pops-31101997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 24 OCT 1997

Posted on May 2 by 80stastic

This particular TOTP was broadcast a day after one of the most bizarre football matches ever was played and it involved my beloved Chelsea. Having won the FA Cup for the first time in 27 years the previous season, the blues were in the European Cup Winners Cup competition in the 1997/98 campaign. In the second round they were drawn against Norwegian side Tromsø with the first leg away at the home of the most northerly top-flight team in the world, deep within the Artic Circle. As the game started, the pitch looked atrocious and Tromsø soon raced into a 2-0 lead. Worse was to come though as a snowstorm hit at halftime bringing with it massive flurries and causing the match to be stopped twice in the second half so ground staff could clear snow off the pitch to allow line markings to remain visible. Chelsea manager Ruud Gullit spent the entire second half arguing with UEFA officials beseeching them to abandon the game. However, it transpired that they were under pressure to get the match completed at all costs due to scheduling issues and play continued. In the end, the game finished 3-2 to Tromsø with Gianluca Vialli scoring two late goals for the blues as he skated through the home defence displaying a sureness of foot that Robin Cousins would have struggled to pull off. In the return leg, Chelsea put Tromsø to the sword to progress in the competition which they ultimately would win the following May. That away game in Tromsø though is still talked about as one of the most farcical games of professional football ever to have taken place. There surely couldn’t be any musical equivalent on this TOTP to rival its preposterous nature could there?

Well, the very first image that hits our screens is, if not entirely ludicrous, then random at best. The Spice Girls rather than the presenter do the “it’s still No 1” intro and they are joined by a camel for the clip. Yep, a camel. Perfectly normal staging. It turns out that the girls are in New Delhi, India for the Channel V Awards where they won gongs for best international song and best international album (hence the camel) and we’ll be seeing them later in the show as *SPOILER ALERT* they have this week’s new No 1. With the intro delivered we’re straight into the tunes and…well, this is really quite perverse. We open the show with Tina Moore and her hit “Never Gonna Let You Go”. This is the fourth time she’s been on the show! The fourth! Her first appearance was way back on the 29th August – that’s nearly two whole months previous! How is this possible?! Let’s have a look at her hit’s chart performance during that time to see if we can make any sense of it. Here are its chart numbers up to this point:

7 – 11 – 9 – 12 – 9 – 11 – 11 – 17 – 15

That seems an awful lot of exposure for a hit that never got any higher than No 7. Sure, it was durable, selling consistently though not spectacularly but this last appearance was presumably justified because it had moved up two places to No 15, even though that was its second lowest chart position to that point. And more than that, they’ve used the same performance every single time – the double denim, transparent stage, minimal dancing shot from underneath performance! It seemed executive producer Chris Cowey really couldn’t let Tina Moore go!

Continuing the Scandinavian theme, we travel from Norway to Denmark and arrive at one of the most annoying and yes, preposterous hits of the decade – it can only be “Barbie Girl” by Aqua. So what was all this about? Was it just a silly pop song that poked some fun at the best selling toy in history or was it a social comment on negative body image issues raised by the unrealistic figures the Barbie dolls were designed with? Well, here’s a small film with the story behind the song supposedly:

Why does the narrator insist on calling them ‘Arkwa’? Anyway, make your own minds up. What isn’t in doubt is the song’s success. A global No 1 with worldwide sales of eight million, it went four times platinum in the UK alone being the second best selling single of 1997 here behind “Candle In The Wind ‘97”. It will be our chart topper for four weeks so I’ll leave it there for now except to say do you think the young guy in the studio audience has recovered yet from his close encounter with singer Lene Nystrøm when she playfully grabs his face. I bet he’s dined out on that story for years. Conversely, I’m willing to wager that the young lady who had a similar experience with male vocalist René Dif across the other side of the studio has never spoken about it since.

By the way, tonight’s host is Jo Whiley and the fact that she’s had to introduce Aqua I do find amusing given her serious music pretensions. She dismisses “Barbie Girl” as music for those who find “The Teletubbies an intellectual challenge”. A bit unnecessary that. Anyway, the next band is much more her thing as we get Ash with “A Life Less Ordinary”. Established as mega-successful chart stars by this point after a two year period that saw them rack up four hit singles and a No 1 platinum selling album, a song on a movie soundtrack probably seemed like the next logical step for the band. Not only that but the film that soundtrack came from (also called A Life Less Ordinary) was directed by Danny Boyle who had just had enormous success with Trainspotting the year before and Shallow Grave in 1994. The former movie had spawned a massive selling soundtrack so Ash must have thought they’d hit the jackpot by being so obviously associated with Boyle’s next project. It didn’t quite work out as maybe they’d envisioned though. Whilst their title track to the film would secure them a third consecutive Top 10 hit, the film itself was a huge disappointment after its two predecessors both commercially and critically. Starring Ewan McGregor (completing a hat-trick of Boyle films) and Cameron Diaz, the plot about angels on earth helping a kidnapper and his hostage fall in love just didn’t strike the right chord with audiences. Neither did the soundtrack which didn’t sell in anywhere near the same quantities as Trainspotting despite including contributions from artists like The Cardigans, Beck, REM and Faithless. I’m sure we had a massive overstock of it in the Our Price where I was working. I thought I’d watched the film at the cinema but if I did, I’ve blanked it from my memory as nothing about its plot sounds familiar.

As for Ash’s song, it was OK I thought though it always gave me the impression that a “that’ll do” approach from the band had been applied – certainly not one of their best. I think it’s significant though as it’s the first release to feature Charlotte Hatherley as a full time band member who, in this performance, looked like one of those pale and interesting girls that wouldn’t have looked twice at the very ordinary me during my youth.

Jo Whiley adopts a pretentious, pseudo- religious angle in her intro to the next artist. “Welcome to the church of rare groove and the priest of high fashion. Pray silence for the gospel according to the Brand New Heavies” she witters on. WTF are you talking about Jo?! Despite attempts to make it look like the band are in the studio, the fade up cut away reveals that it’s just a repeat airing of their first performance of “You’ve Got A Friend” from the other week. Executive producer Chris Cowey was very keen on recycling studio performances – indeed, it was something of a trend with him. Quite why he needed to try and disguise what it was though I’m not sure. I don’t think the watching TV audience would have been offended if Jo had just said “Here’s a clip from a previous show of the Brand New Heavies” instead of banging on about churches, high priests and the gospel. Less of the heavy stuff and remember that you’ve got a friend in the British public Jo*

*Actually, I couldn’t stand her at the time.

Jo continues to make herself look silly in her next segue as she calls the guy on stage the future of rock ‘n’ roll or something. He would, in fact, turn out to be a one hit wonder. Welcome to the curious case of Jimmy Ray. You’d be excused for not remembering this guy – I barely do and I was working in a record shop selling his single. On initial examination, this seems to be a simple story of the over promotion of a flawed record company idea – let’s reinvent rock ‘n’ roll by going back to its roots and having our face of the campaign look like a 50s throwback (© Vic Reeves, Shooting Stars, 1997). However, there might have been more to this whole saga than meets the eye. For a start, Jimmy Ray (actually his real name for once) had started out as part of techno-pop outfit AV alongside one Graham Drinnan who’d had a minor chart entry as Gypsy in 1996 with “I Trance You (Remixes)”. After AV split without releasing any material, he was somehow picked up by Simon Fuller who put the Spice Girls together (how random is that?) and then linked up with a guy called Conall Fitzpatrick who’d written Shampoo’s hit “Trouble”. Together they came up with the song “Are You Jimmy Ray?”. In truth, there’s not a lot to it – a 50s style guitar riff reminiscent of Bo Diddley’s “Mona” (though many might have known it from Craig McLachlan’s 1990 cover) allied to lyrics that name check various random people just because they are phonetically similar to the surname ‘Ray’. Ah yes, names. This track was all about names and most importantly that of Jimmy Ray himself – a clever bit of self promotion really, taking the ‘Who is Tasmin Archer?’ poster campaign to its logical next step. Indeed, Ray himself has wondered if Fitzpatrick was influenced by some London graffiti that had appeared around this time asking the question “Who is Christian Goldman?’*

*Supposedly Christian Goldman was a US producer and the graffiti part of a campaign for his “Happy Days” single.

Aside from referencing King Kong actress Fay Wray, American 50s singer Johnnie Ray (already immortalised in 80s pop culture by “Come On Eileen”) and fictional French detective Maigret, there also a lyric which is both juvenile and unnecessary…

“I’ve gotta let it out, there’s somethin’ in my jeans“

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Conall Ronan Fitzpatrick / James Ray
Are You Jimmy Ray? lyrics © Island Music Ltd., Mca Music Ltd., Sony Music Publishing (uk) Ltd, Wixen Music Uk Ltd, Wixen Music (uk) Ltd

Hmm. I’ve seen it spelt online as ‘genes’ in which case it’s just clever wordplay rather than obvious innuendo or I’ve completely misunderstood what was going on there.

The single was a hit going to No 13 in both the UK and the US but Jimmy would have no further success despite him looking the part – he was more Charlie Sexton crossed with Gene Vincent than Shakin’ Stevens. Subsequent singles all missed the Top 40 and his album remained unreleased in this country. Apparently, Jimmy is still in the music business of sorts and last released new material in 2017. I wonder how many people have actually asked him “Are you Jimmy Ray?” recently though?

From the 50s to the 70s now (yes, I kind of nicked that link from Jo Whiley) as we find Clock doing their hateful update of the Hot Chocolate classic “You Sexy Thing” retitled as “U Sexy Thing”. Again, this was just a reshowing of a previous performance and was justified by this ghastly record going up one place from No 12 to No 11, a move assisted I’m guessing by only a small number of entries into the Top 10 in this week (Brand New Heavies were similarly aided by moving from No 11 to No 9 this week resulting in their second appearance on the show).

In 2004, vocalist Lorna Saunders appeared in the ‘identity parade’ section of Never Mind The Buzzcocks when it was revealed that she had left the music industry and was working as a legal secretary (she subsequently went on to become a lawyer). The other guest in the ‘identity parade’ that episode? Benny Anderwear from ABBA tribute Björn Again which was apt. No, not as it maintains this post’s Scandinavian theme but because Clock were pants.

Once again, I’m not quite sure what Jo Whiley is on about in her next intro when she describes US band Smash Mouth as being “from San Jose, California via the casinos of Wigan. It’s Northern Soul with an American accent”. Now, I’m no Northern Soul aficionado (in fact I know bugger all about the movement really) but I would never have described this lot as Northern Soul. A touch of ska yes, power pop maybe but Northern Soul? Never occurred to me. Wikipedia tells me that the band have a penchant for cover versions but looking at the list of other people’s songs they’ve attempted, none of them appear to be by Northern Soul artists. Is it possible then that Jo has just got this one wrong?

The band have only had two hits in this country of which “Walkin’ On The Sun” was the first peaking at No 19. Written as a reaction to the Rodney King beatings and the 1992 LA riots following the acquittal of three of the police officers involved, it chugs along in a pleasing fashion propelled by that organ sound that drew comparisons with “She’s Not There” by The Zombies. Parallels were also drawn with another band which I somehow must have failed to notice at the time but listening back to Smash Mouth now is completely obvious – The Doors. That Hammond organ that Ray Manzarek played so distinctively but updated for the 90s? How did I miss that?

It would take two years for a follow up hit to arrive in the form of “All Star” which sounded even better than its predecessor to me and which I duly bought. Handily, it had “Walkin’ On The Sun” as an extra track on the CD single. The band then seemed to carve out a niche career supplying songs for the original Shrek movie with both “All Star” and the band’s version of “I’m A Believer” made famous by The Monkees featuring on its soundtrack. Smash Mouth are still together though only bass player Paul De Lisle remains from the original line up. Singer Steve Harwell died in 2021 from liver failure following years of struggling with alcoholism.

The time of “ Candle In The Wind ‘97” is over! We have a new No 1! Hallelujah! Oh, it’s by the Spice Girls though. Never mind. Going against the performance of their previous four chart toppers, “Spice Up Your Life” will only be No 1 for one week! Sadly, then it’ll be deposed by “Barbie Girl”. Oh.

So, with this release, the Spice Girls made history by dint of their first five singles going to the top of the charts. I’m guessing its shortest of tenures at No 1 may have ruffled a few feathers at Spice World HQ though. Ah yes, Spice World. Apparently, the single was recorded in between shooting their movie which may account for it sounding a bit rushed. I mean, you can’t deny its energy but it’s all a bit muddled and has a throw-the-kitchen-sink feel to it. Supposedly written as a global rally cry for all of humanity, its lyrics instead manage to just name check a load of dance styles including flamenco, lambada, the foxtrot, polka and salsa. Then there’s the potentially racist “yellow man in Timbuktu” line which received criticism even back then. As for its title, as with Jimmy Ray earlier, there’s a huge dose of self promotion going on (as if they needed any more!). Finally, it’s actually not that far from “Wannabe” with its exhortations to “slam it to the left” and “shake it to the right” echoing “slam your body down and wind it all around”. Musically, it jumps on the Latin pop bandwagon that Ricky Martin and No Mercy had already had success with in this year. The single received mixed reviews in the press and I for one wasn’t impressed.

After ultimately losing out to Aqua, the link between Barbie and “Spice Up Your Life” was renewed some 26 years later when it featured in the hit movie of the same name starring Margot Robbie although it didn’t actually make it onto the soundtrack album.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Tina Moore	Never Gonna Let You Go	Nope
2	Aqua	Barbie Girl	Definitely no
3	Ash	A Life Less Ordinary	Negative
4	Brand New Heavies	You’ve Got A Friend	No
5	Jimmy Ray	Are You Jimmy Ray?	Nah
6	Clock	U Sexy Thing	As if
7	Smash Mouth	Walkin’ On The Sun	No but it was an extra track on ‘Allstar” which I did buy
8	Spice Girls	Spice Up Your Life	I did not

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002b252/top-of-the-pops-24101997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 17 OCT 1997

Posted on April 29 by 80stastic

The volatility of the Top 40 around this time – the advent of first week discounting meaning high chart debuts followed by a sharp decline in sales – must have been an issue for the Beeb’s grand old pop music show. Except for a few anomalies, the days of hits taking weeks to slowly climb the charts allowing for multiple TOTP appearances on the way were a thing of the past. In my teenage years, No 1s would stay at the top for at least three weeks but by 1997 we were at the stage where we were experiencing six different chart toppers in the same amount of weeks. Executive producer Chris Cowey tried to address this by allowing repeat performances of hits that had peaked and were either descending the charts slowly or remaining in the Top 10 as a non-mover. This resulted in creating a platform for songs that were still popular to feature on the show but also meant that singles entering the lower parts of the Top 40 didn’t get a look in. Another strategy was to have an ‘exclusive’ performance of a song the week before its release and then a second appearance when it actually entered the charts the following week. Neither of these measures were ever going to restore the show to its past glories and the peak viewing figures it experienced in the 70s and 80s but at least Cowey was trying.

Having said all of that, we start with a song that didn’t fall into either category I have just outlined above. “U Sexy Thing” by Clock was on the show’s running order as a new entry at No 12 and would feature again the following week after climbing one place to No 11. Morrissey once said in Smash Hits when reviewing the week’s singles releases “There are indeed worse groups than Modern Romance but can anyone seriously think of one?”. Lord knows what Mozza must have made of Clock then who make Modern Romance sound like peak REM.

I don’t remember this but apparently they started out as a typical Eurodance outfit with a sound similar to Cappella according to Wikipedia. However, around the middle of the decade, they took the decision to go overtly commercial with an out and out pop sound by doing hideously trashy cover versions. Tracks by Harold Faltermeyer and Tag Team were followed by more mainstream songs like “December 1963 (Oh What A Night)” and this – “You Sexy Thing”. Irritatingly, they would slightly rename the song titles giving the impression that they weren’t just cover versions but brand new tracks so the Four Seasons classic became simply “Oh What A Night” whilst Hot Chocolate’s well loved hit was “U Sexy Thing”. Just nasty. Actually, not just nasty but cynical too in the case of the latter. The choice to cover that particular track was surely influenced by its resurgence in popularity thanks to its use in the box office smash The Full Monty. In their defence, they weren’t the only people to have that idea – another tacky version was released at the same time by a duo called T-Shirt but it lost out to Clock when it failed to make the UK Top 40. In the end, the Hot Chocolate original was rereleased and beat both the updated takes on it by riding to No 6 in the charts. This made it the third time it had been a hit – it was a No 2 in 1975 and made it to No 10 when rereleased for the first time in 1987. As for Clock, they would continue to mine the rich seam of cover versions by having hits with KC And The Sunshine Band’s “That’s The Way (I Like It)” and “Blame it On The Boogie” by The Jacksons before having the decency to pack it all in by the end of the decade.

Next up is another hit that doesn’t conform to the appearance policy I described in the intro to this post – I’m beginning to think I might have got this all wrong! Anyway, the hit concerned is “Closed For Business” by Mansun and it’s on the show as it’s gone straight into the charts at No 10 which clearly justifies its place in tonight’s running order. However, a band like Mansun presented a different sort of consideration for Chris Cowey. A large and devoted fanbase meant large sales in week one but a quick drop off thereafter. “Closed For Business” (the lead track from the “Seven EP”) spent just a fortnight inside the Top 40 dropping a whopping 27 places in its second week. I guess Cowey’s dilemma here was balancing reflecting what was popular in that particular week without pandering to a specific section of the record buying public. Was there also an issue of scheduling in terms of being able to get the band in the TOTP studio at that exact point of optimum popularity of their single? Remember, Cowey didn’t seem keen on showing videos unless he really had to.

Enough of that though, what about the music? Well, this was one of those bridging-the-gap releases between albums that we’ve seen many times before. Debut album “Attack Of The Grey Lantern” had come out in the February of 1997 and follow up “Six” would not appear until 18 months later so some interim material was required to maintain Mansun’s profile presumably. As with their earlier work, “Closed For Business” had that wide screen feel to it that overwhelmed your senses without suffocating them. It was gloriously epic. I’d really liked that first album and yet, somehow, I’d lost interest by the time their sophomore effort arrived. As with Garbage, Roachford and Skunk Anansie before them, I really should check out their later work. However, I don’t think I’ll be venturing as far as their other release called “Closed For Business” – a 25 disc box set retrospective. Twenty-five!

P.S. The sleeves to the CD singles of “Closed For Business” featured paintings by artist and early Beatle Stuart Sutcliffe whose story I’m always fascinated by. In fact, the whole narrative of those involved in the history of The Beatles but who didn’t end up as who we know as the ‘Fab Four’ does. Sutcliffe, Pete Best, Jimmie Nicol…all people whose lives could have been so so different.

Wait…Siedah Garrett was in the Brand New Heavies? When did that happen? Well, 1997 obviously but how did it happen and where’s N’Dea Davenport? Well, apparently she’d been gone a couple of years by this point having left the band due to that old chestnut ‘irreconcilable differences’ (I have no info on whether there were of the musical variety) with Garrett replacing her. She’s an interesting character Siedah – I think I only knew her as duetting with Michael Jackson on “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You” but there’s so much more to her than that. As Jayne Middlemiss hints at in her intro, she had a hit in 1984 with Dennis Edwards with “Don’t Look Any Further” (which was later covered by the Kane Gang and M People) and she also co-wrote Jackson’s hit “Man In The Mirror”. She toured with both Jacko and Madonna and wrote a Grammy award winning single for the Dreamgirls film. She co-wrote a number of tracks on Quincy Jones’ seven Grammy Awards winning album “Back On The Block” and has even presented America’s Top 10 deputising for the legend that was Casey Kasem (the original voice of Shaggy from Scooby Doo!).

Back to the Brand New Heavies though and despite them having the reputation of being pioneers of the acid jazz movement built upon two platinum selling albums, when it came to huge hit singles, there weren’t that many. Of their fifteen releases that made the Top 40, only one went Top 10 and that was this one – a cover version of Carol King’s “You’ve Got A Friend”. It seems kind of odd that a cover would be their biggest hit, as if it somehow invalidates their other work though, of course, they had already gone down that route when their version of Maria Muldaur’s “Midnight At The Oasis” went to No 13 in 1994. For what it’s worth, I don’t think they added anything much to the original – indeed, I would argue that it stripped it of its lush, warm feel. It’s not a terrible version just…unnecessary. Not even the (rather over the top) twenty strong gospel choir employed here could make it into something special.

Given that it was the fourth and final single from their “In It For The Money” album, perhaps not surprisingly, “Late In The Day” failed to maintain a run of five previous Top 10 hits for Supergrass when it peaked at No 18. For me, it’s not one of their best though it was probably better than many of its contemporary chart peers. Am I alone in thinking Gaz Coombes looked pretty cool despite his mutton chop sideburns?

Finally we have a hit that conforms to one of the appearance policies I described at the start of this post. Eternal were on the show last week with their single “Angel Of Mine” which had debuted on the chart at No 4. Despite falling a place to No 5 seven days later, it was still deemed popular enough to warrant a repeat of that performance on this show. When it comes to conversations about UK girl groups, I’m not sure that Eternal would be the first name on everyone’s lips. Girls Aloud, the Spice Girls, Little Mix and even Bananarama are more likely to be mentioned before them it seems to me and yet they had 15 consecutive hit singles and three platinum selling studio albums and one Best Of compilation. Was it that they didn’t crack America* that has lessened their legacy? Certainly the Spice Girls crossed over the Atlantic though I’m not sure if any of those other names above did although Bananarama had sporadic yet spectacular success including a US No 1 in “Venus”. Was it that they kept haemorrhaging group members that has dinted their reputation? Presumably not as pretty much all those aforementioned artists similarly shed original members from their line ups along the way. Does it just come down to the memorability of their tunes then? Despite the number of hits, how many could the average person name do you reckon? I’m guessing it would be less than almost every other name in that list depending on who you asked obviously. One last thing, is any of the above fair to Eternal? Don’t ask me, I’m just filling here for a lack of anything else to say which itself possibly does say a lot.

*Monica did have a US No 1 with her version of “Angel Of Mine”

It’s time for Sash! again (or should I say ‘encore une fois’?) who are back with their third consecutive No 2 hit called “Stay”. Now apparently this lot hold some sort of record for having the most No 2 hits (five in total) without ever having a chart topper or something. All those No 2s…insert your own (obvious) joke here *———-*. All three hits so far featured another artist – Sabine Ohmes, Rodriguez and now someone called La Trec as vocalist. To me, it was much the same as its predecessors albeit with more added vocals than usual. I’m sure it all made sense if you were frugging out on the dance floor but I could never understand anybody wanting to listen to it in their bedroom at home. How wrong was I though as not only did Sash! sell lots of singles but, unusually for a dance act, they shifted lots of units of their album as well. Their debut offering “It’s My Life” went platinum in the UK selling 300,000 copies and making it to No 6 in the charts.

It’s that weirdly over the top performance by Janet Jackson of “Got Till It’s Gone” again now which is being repeated as the single has gone back up the charts from No 9 to No 8 having peaked at No 6 in its debut week on the charts. Now, what links the aforementioned Supergrass to Janet Jackson (apart from being on the same show)? Well, apparently the former’s hit “Late In The Day” was inspired by a track from Graham Nash’s “Songs For Beginners” album. Nash, of course, was a founding member of The Hollies but left in 1968 to form the folk rock group Crosby, Stills and Nash (CSN) and subsequently Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (CSNY). He would write one of their best known songs “Our House” about a simple domestic event that occurred when he was living with his then partner in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles. The name of that partner? Joni Mitchell. I don’t need to join the dots on this one any further do I?

It’s the fifth and final week at the top for “Candle In The Wind ‘97” / “Something About The Way You Look Tonight” by Elton John but clearly a decision was taken weeks ago to play the latter track as this is the third week on the spin we have got the promo for that one and not the cobbled together video for the former. Was it a decision based on taste? Was a fortnight of “Candle In The Wind ‘97” deemed a respectable amount of time for national mourning? Would any more have been seen as shoving it down the throats of the public? I don’t know the answer but what I am sure about is that these BBC4 TOTP repeats will have almost certainly been the first time we will have heard “Candle In the Wind ‘97” since they were originally broadcast. You never hear it on the radio. Like Ever.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Clock	U Sexy Thing	Never
2	Mansun	Closed For Business	No – missed this one
3	Brand New Heavies	You’ve Got A Friend	No – give me the original every time
4	Supergrass	Late In The Day	Negative
5	Eternal	Angel Of Mine	Nope
6	Sash!	Stay	No
7	Janet Jackson	Got Till It’s Gone	Nah
8	Elton John	Candle In The Wind’97 / Something About The Way You Look Tonight	I did not

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002b250/top-of-the-pops-17101997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 10 OCT 1997

Posted on April 23 by 80stastic

Three days after this TOTP broadcast, Zoe Ball and Kevin Greening hosted their first Radio 1 breakfast show having replaced Mark and Lard who were shifted to an afternoon slot. On the same day, Chris Evans, who Mark and Lard replaced, started his own breakfast show on Virgin Radio. I was never quite sure why it didn’t work out for Radcliffe and Riley in that morning slot because I used to love their afternoon show which I always used to have on in the back room of the record shop I worked in if I was in there on my own. Maybe their brand of humour didn’t sit well with people on the move in a morning? That their show wasn’t pitched at the right pace? I never used to listen to Ball and Greening so I have no opinion on whether they were any better and I can’t be bothered to look up RAJAR listener figures to compare but I’m guessing that they weren’t as big a draw as Chris Evans?

Anyway, the presenter for this TOTP also had a history of replacing Mark Radcliffe but only on a temporary basis. Mark Lamarr had sat in for Radcliffe’s late night Radio 1 show as guest presenter occasionally. Ah, so maybe that’s why he was being considered as part of the TOTP host roster at this time – he had some BBC radio credentials as well as his roles as team captain on Shooting Stars and host of Never Mind The Buzzcocks. I was wondering about that in a previous post. This was the third of fourth time that he’d hosted the show and he gets this one off to a very odd start. Having done away with any theme tune, new executive producer Chris Cowey brings it back for this one show after Lamarr seemingly takes too long learning his opening intro. A reader of this blog did alert me recently that this was coming but I wasn’t prepared for the bizarre optics we actually got – Lamarr’s face on a big bank of screens checking with someone off camera what the top of the show intro is before he then gets cut off abruptly and we get the titles and the old theme tune and then straight into the opening act. It just looks odd though I’m guessing it was meant to be an attempt at humour.

Anyway, said opening act are…a bunch of 12 year olds by the look of them. Who on earth were Catch? I know I say this all the time and it’s made worse by the fact that I was working in a record shop back then but I can’t remember this lot at all. The band’s backstory is that they emerged from a previous incarnation of a group headed by singer Toby Slater called Brattish who never actually gigged nor released anything. Slater was involved in the short lived ‘Romo’ movement…hang on. The what? I have no memory of that either which apparently was based around two club nights (Club Skinny in Camden and the West End’s Arcadia). Its sound was characterised by being either art glam, Hi-NRG/Handbag House or a cross between Adam Ant, Roxy Music, Pulp and Blur depending on who you talked to. There were specific bands allied to the movement of whom I’ve never heard of any (Plastic Fantastic or DexDex Ter anyone?) but it generally seemed to be a rejection of the back-to-basics approach of Britpop. It sounds to me like it was just a re-invention of the New Romantics. According to those in the know though, Catch were more indie-pop than Romo and I guess you could describe their only UK Top 40 hit “Bingo” as that. However, it’s not your standard indie fare. It has an intriguing quality to it. The verses have a tinny sounding rhythm track that reminds me almost of something that Frank Sidebottom would have warbled along to. Slater’s vocal gives a nod to Jilted John of “Gordon is a moron” fame (aka John Shuttleworth aka Graham Fellows) before the chorus explodes into life. I can’t deny that I quite like it in a juvenile kind of way. The lyrics describe a rites-of-passage, journey of discovery by the song’s protagonist who admits he’s 17 (Slater was actually 18 at the time of this TOTP performance) and knows nothing of the world with his carnal knowledge especially weak so he goes to a red light district to…erm…enlighten himself. Slater’s youthful appearance helps to deliver the message.

“Bingo” would peak at No 23 but a follow up single just missed the Top 40. An album remained unreleased in this country and was only made available in Indonesia. In a bizarre and unwanted pop history footnote, “Bingo” was the song being played on a repeat of The Chart Show in the early hours of 31 August 1997 when the programme was interrupted by ITV to announce the death of Princess Diana. They never stood a chance did they? After splitting in 1999, Slater formed a couple more bands without commercial success and would tragically die aged just 42 in 2021.

From edgy teenagers to what many would call the definition of musical blandness. Is that discrediting of the Lighthouse Family fair? Or is it just an inevitable consequence of gaining popularity by playing a fusion of easy listening and soul music that appealed to the masses? I’m sure that back then, I would have balked at the idea of admitting even the slightest liking of them to my way cooler record shop work colleagues but was I actually at the other extreme of the spectrum holding onto a hatred of them? No, I don’t think so. I saw somebody online describe them as “offensively inoffensive” which I guess equates to someone being described as ‘nice’ (though I wouldn’t knock that description given the character of the people currently running the world).

“Raincloud” was the lead single from their second album “Postcards From Heaven” but they didn’t suffer from ‘difficult second album syndrome’ like some have in the annals of pop history (Stone Roses, ABC, The Jam) – it sailed to No 2 in the charts and went four times platinum in the UK. It seemed that there were more believers in than dissenters of their mainstream sound. Listening back to “Raincloud” though, those accusations of the band’s style lacking substance and being lightweight may not have been that wide of the mark – it’s fairly unremarkable fare. The next single was “High” which is widely regarded as their best tune (maybe). I guess we’ll be seeing that one in a BBC4 repeat soon enough. For now, I’ll leave the final word to Peep Show’s Super Hans…

The next performance is just weird. Ironically, the song being performed is completely mundane and ordinary. It’s the staging that I’m taken aback by. So, some details first. The artist is The Seahorses who are in the studio to perform their third hit single “Love Me And Leave Me”. The track was co-written by John Squire and one Liam Gallagher, a fact which Mark Lamarr has taken to run with for a cheap gag in setting up his intro as he suggests Liam’s only contribution to the song was coming up with the word “and” in its title. It’s not a very funny line and I’ve heard it done better in a self deprecating way by Andrew Ridgeley of Wham! When interviewed by Simon Bates on Radio 1 which words did he contribute to the writing of “Careless Whisper” he replied “the…and…”. Anyway, Lamarr proceeds to stroke Squire’s knee for some unfathomable reason and then hangs around on stage while the band performs for about half of the song. What was all that about? Was he channeling the spirit of that 1971 TOTP performance by the Faces when they invited John Peel on stage with them to mime playing the mandolin? If that wasn’t weird enough, why are there nearly a dozen random people dotted about the stage looking bored? Why are the band (except singer Chris Helme) all seated? Why…well, just why?

As for the song, it’s no “Love Is The Law”. In fact, it’s pretty dull which, on reflection, was a disappointing state of affairs just three singles into the band’s career. It starts off like a companion piece to John Lennon’s “God” with its lyrics about not believing in Jesus nor Jah but then just sort of drifts off into a cosmic trance with Helme singing about ‘astral bars’ and ‘heaven here on earth’. It’s all very unsatisfying which pretty much sums up The Seahorses. They would only release one more single before splitting up. John Squire would return to that writing partnership with Liam Gallagher 27 years later when they recorded an album together that would top the UK charts.

Did someone mention the Faces earlier? Yes me, obviously. Well, I’m going to mention them again because the next hit shares the same name as one of their songs (and albums). The 1997 “Ooh La La” by Coolio wasn’t anything to do with the English rockers though but rather it owed a lot to Grace Jones and her classic track “Pull Up To The Bumper” which it samples. So much of a debt did it owe to the esteemed Ms Jones that she was repaid with a writing credit on Coolio’s hit for a hit indeed it was peaking at No 14 though it would be his last in the UK. Just as well if this was an example of the direction he was going in. The lyrics to this one are just a load of sexual innuendo. “Deep in the pink”, “Stalk through the bush” and “keep it all wet all weekend” are just some of his double entendres that Viz’s Finbarr Saunders character would have found juvenile. At some points, he can’t even be bothered to disguise his filth and so we get lyrics like:

“Pull up your skirt and we can do it on the pool table…Your nipples look so tender, can I twirl ‘em in my mouth like a blender”

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Sly Dunbar / Robbie Shakespeare / Dana Manno / Artis L. Jr. Ivey
Ooh La La lyrics © Warner-tamerlane Publishing Corp., Boo Daddy Publishing, Oji Music, Chenana Music, Songs Of Polygram Int., Inc., Polygram Int. Publishing, Inc., Ixat Music, Inc.

Gulp! That last line can’t have got through the BBC censors surely? Let me watch the performance back with subtitles on…

Well, I can’t hear exactly what Coolio is rapping as it’s muffled (presumably on purpose) but the subtitles have replaced ‘nipples’ with ‘knees’ because that makes sense! I know “Pull Up To The Bumper” was also accused of having sexual innuendo hidden in its lyrics but it was surely more subtle than this twaddle?! Aside from all the nastiness, I think there’s a case for another writer credit in addition to Grace Jones as the chorus is filled with the phrase “doo-wa-diddy” as in “Do Wah Diddy Diddy” as made famous by Manfred Mann but actually written by Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich. Well, Coolio’s first album was called “It Takes A Thief”.

Andrew Roachford has had a lengthy and remarkable career in music – he’s been at it for nigh on 40 years, released twelve studio albums with his band, been in Mike + The Mechanics and, in 2019, was awarded an MBE for services to music. However, if success was judged purely on the number and size of his hit singles, it wouldn’t look so impressive. I make it eight Top 40 entries over a 36 year period and look at the peak positions for those eight:

4 – 25 – 22 – 21 – 36 – 38 – 20 – 34

The obvious ‘biggie’ is that first one which was “Cuddly Toy” from 1989. Do you think when an artist has one big hit early in their career that it becomes a millstone around their necks or are they just glad and proud to have had at least one? Anyway, the seventh of those hits was this one – “The Way I Feel” – which was the lead single from Roachford’s fourth studio album “Feel” and, against the odds, it would become his second biggest hit ever eight years after his first. It’s a pretty good tune but one I missed completely at the time. I’m pretty sure I saw him live at the Manchester Academy around 1994 but that was because the Sony rep who used to sell into the Our Price store I was working in put me on the guest list as we were both Chelsea fans!

As with Garbage and Skunk Anansie, Roachford is another artist whose back catalogue I should be better acquainted with. This scene from Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa shouldn’t be his only legacy…

After four years of constant hits including a No 1 no less with their last single release, bizarrely, the time of Eternal was almost at an end (not so eternal after all then). Maybe they (or their label or management) knew their sell by date was fast approaching as, in a not necessarily obvious move, instead of mining their “Before The Rain” album (which had only been out for six months) for more hits, they went straight to a Greatest Hits project. Now you’d usually expect that type of release if a group had formally announced that they were splitting up (as per Take That) not at the point of a commercial high. And yet, the Greatest Hits album was a success – No 2 in the charts, three times platinum selling, the highest selling hits package of the year and in 2013 was confirmed as the biggest selling best-of album by an all girl group in the UK.

To promote the Greatest Hits, a new song “Angel Of Mine” was released as a single. To my ears, it’s a serviceable R&B ballad but not much more and yet in America, where it was released by Monica, it went to No 1 and was the third best selling single of the year over there. Eternal’s version peaked at No 4 and would be their final Top 10 hit – of their fourteen singles released up to that point, only two had not made the Top 10. It was also the group’s last single as a trio as Kéllé Bryan left the group after being sacked by fax by Vernie and Easther Bennett’s solicitor with the sisters citing “a breakdown in professional relations”. The UK record buying public had little desire for an Eternal duo though and they would achieve just one more Top 20 single before bowing out of the music business. Numerous reunions have taken place over the years though never with all four original members. That holy grail line up for the fans was nearly green lit in 2023 but was nipped in the bud after Louise and Kéllé withdrew following the Bennett sisters apparent refusal to play LGBTQ Pride events.

I’ve said it before but I’m saying it again – I don’t/didn’t get the Backstreet Boys. I know I wasn’t their target audience (I was 29 at this point) but I just couldn’t see their appeal. Yes, they had some very slickly produced pop songs but they were just a poor man’s New Kids On The Block weren’t they? They weren’t even that good looking! “As Long As You Love Me” was a textbook example of their output. A mid-tempo ballad that was perfect for daytime radio playlists (I still hear it played on stations like Magic to this day) but oh so dull. No, not dull…cynical. A song concocted by an evil, mad pop scientist in the laboratory of dark and terrible music.

As with Mark Lamarr at the opening of the show, there’s something disconcerting about the set up of these performances with the artist having a backdrop of giant TV screens behind with their huge fizzogs plastered all over them whilst they run through the song on stage. It’s all a bit overbearing and, in the case of Eternal who had the same arrangement for their appearance immediately before the Backstreet Boys, disorientating as the order of the group on the screens wasn’t the same as where the girls were standing on stage (even though Kéllé and Vernie swapped positions halfway through).

Elton John remains at No 1 with “Candle In The Wind ‘97” / “Something About The Way You Look Tonight”. Despite it being the best selling single in UK chart history, it didn’t guarantee Elton’s next release being a huge hit. “Recover Your Soul”, taken from “The Big Picture” album would only manage a chart high of No 16 which, proportionally, must be one of the biggest drops in popularity between releases ever. Off the top of my head, I can think of the Bee Gees following up their chart topper “You Win Again” with the single “E.S.P.” which stalled at No 51 but the Elton scenario is next level I think.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Catch	Bingo	Nope
2	Lighthouse Family	Raincloud	I did not
3	The Seahorses	Love Me And Leave Me	Negative
4	Coolio	Ooh La La	Never
5	Roachford	The Way I Feel	It’s another no
6	Eternal	Angel Of Mine	Nah
7	Backstreet Boys	As Long As You Love Me	As if
8	Elton John	Candle In The Wind ‘97 / Something About The Way You Look Tonight	No

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0029vc0/top-of-the-pops-10101997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

Author: 80stastic

TOTP 12 DEC 1997

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TOTP 05 DEC 1997

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TOTP 28 NOV 1997

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TOTP 21 NOV 1997

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TOTP 14 NOV 1997

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TOTP 07 NOV 1997

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TOTP 31 OCT 1997

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TOTP 24 OCT 1997

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TOTP 17 OCT 1997

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TOTP 10 OCT 1997

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