All Saints

TOTP 18 SEP 1998

There was something going on with the scheduling and timing of shows at this point in TOTP history. The programmes were less than 30 minutes long it seems because the BBC had embarked upon a programme of repeating episodes of Fawlty Towers straight after our weekly dose of chart songs. As they were 35 minutes long, TOTP was truncated to allow them to fit. The Fawlty Towers episode being shown following this particular show was ‘Waldorf Salad’ which is one of my favourites. The scene where the American guest tells Basil to lay it on the line to his chef (who Basil has let go home early) that he’ll “bust his ass” if he hasn’t got the ingredients to make a Waldorf salad is just brilliant.

The other thing happening was that TOTP was being repeated in a late night slot, after midnight on Sunday morning, similar, I guess, to how these BBC4 repeats get shown again in the early hours. There’s something odd about the late night repeat of this show but we’ll get to that in time. Kate Thornton is our host and guess what? The first song of the night is last week’s No 1 which is no longer No 1 but which is being shown anyway. This was a standard and established Chris Cowey tactic by now as he fought to battle the constant flow of changing chart toppers. I get it (sort of) – why only show a big selling record just once especially if it hangs around the Top 10 for a while after debuting at No 1? However, the optics of this practice are odd – ending one show and beginning the next with the same song (and in some cases the same performance). Maybe that’s exaggerated though in these BBC4 repeats with two shows aired back to back. Was it not so noticeable at the time of original broadcast when seven days of viewers’ lives had passed since the last time they’d seen a performance of that song?

This week’s last week No 1 (if you get my drift) is “Booty Call” by All Saints who have dropped from the summit to No 7 in just one week which doesn’t bode well for a long lasting hit. Hang on, let me check the official charts database…

…no, it didn’t hang around the charts long at all. Just five weeks in the Top 40 in total and only two of those inside the Top 10. In fairness, it was the fourth single lifted from their album which had been out for about 10 months by this point so the fact that they’d got to No 1 at all was an achievement (or clever first week of release price discounting you might argue). The group (or record label London) weren’t done with that album just yet though and an improbable fifth single was released from it in late November and it made it to No 7. Presumably, this was to give the album a sales boost just before Christmas and also allowed them to add a promotional sticker to saying something along the lines of ‘includes the No 1s Never Ever, Under The Bridge/Lady Marmalade and Booty Call plus the Top 10 hits I Know Where It’s At and War Of Nerves’. I seem to recall that reorders of the album at this point did actually have such a sticker applied to them and it was green in colour to match the cover artwork. The things you remember. Now, where did I put my house keys?

Next up an American band whom I’m guessing, traditionally wouldn’t have had the ingredients for a Waldorf salad at the top of their rider list for their gigs. Anyway, Kate Thornton is suggesting to us that Aerosmith have put on a concert just for TOTP which can’t be right can it? She seems pretty convinced though; in fact she’s “full on” sure about it as she’s says the phrase twice in the space of a few seconds in her intro to “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing”. Come on Kate – I thought you were a safe pair of hands.

As with All Saints, this was only on the show just last week as well. Now, after double checking the chart stats in this one, I can confirm that despite all the success this single had globally, in the UK it actually went down the charts from No 12 to No 14 this week in 1998. Despite that fall, Chris Cowey had it back on the show and this extra exposure would catapult it into the Top 10 where it would spend the next two months, peaking at No 4. So, the question is, would the worldwide success the song received have been replicated in the UK without Cowey’s decision to ignore them descending the charts and have them on the show again for a second consecutive week? And what was the reasoning behind that decision? Here’s a third question though – am I overestimating the influence and pull that TOTP wielded at this point? I fear I may be. Back in the 80s, the show could make or break a hit but in 1998 was that still the case? I’m not sure. Probably the fact that the film it was taken from – Armageddon – had been released in UK cinemas by this point maybe had something to do with the song’s success. Still, it’s best to consider all angles with these things. I wouldn’t want you to miss a thing after all.

Returning to Fawlty Towers, a writer in The Guardian once described Jarvis Cocker as having “long Basil Fawlty legs” and you can see where they were coming from as the two do share a similar physicality. Said physicality is centre stage in this performance which would prove to be a valedictory one for Pulp for the 90s. Yes, “Party Hard” was their last hit of the decade and also the final single to be released from their “This Is Hardcore” album. Following “Different Class” was always going to be a big ask but I’m not sure anybody would have predicted the disparity in sales that would unfold. “Different Class” went four times platinum selling over a million copies whilst “This Is Hardcore” would sell a tenth of that. This was reflected in the chart positions of the latter’s four singles which achieve the following peak positions:

8 – 12 – 22 – 29

In the case of “Party Hard”, its chances were hamstrung by the second CD single including remixes of the track that were too long to count as sales according to recently introduced chart eligibility regulations. Talk about an own goal. Written about clubbers having to come to terms with ageing out of the nightlife scene, it’s a decent song but hardly one of their most memorable. All the reviews I’ve read about it point to Jarvis’s vocal sounded (deliberately?) like David Bowie but if I hadn’t read that beforehand, I’m not sure I would have picked up on it. Maybe I’m just not a big enough Bowie aficionado. I did pick up on the strange look this performance has with the cheerleading-type dancers and the studio audience holding helium filled balloons behind the band which lends the balloons an unnatural look as if they were lollipops or something. I’m not completely convinced that it all hangs together cohesively to be honest. And talking of honesty, when was the last time I was in a nightclub? I think it was in Manchester in 1999 when I would have been 31 which does seem to be too old for that type of thing on reflection.

There are plenty of examples of music stars whose offspring have followed their parents into the charts. Off the top of my head there’s Billy Ray Cyrus/Miles Cyrus, Bob Marley/Ziggy Marley, Frank Sinatra/Nancy Sinatra and John Lennon/Julian Lennon. There’s a sub genre though that isn’t so easy to name examples from. Parents who were in a pop group whose children also went on to be in bands with their own siblings. How many are there out there? There’s Wilson Phillips, 3T and…erm…The Osmond Boys? Well, add to that list Alisha’s Attic who were sisters Shelley and Karen Poole, the daughters of Brian Poole of Brian Poole and The Tremeloes fame. Having established themselves as a bona fide chart artist in 1996/97 with four hit singles and a Top 20 album, the time had come to progress that success with a second album and they had a very consistent yardstick to live up to. Look at these chart peaks for those first four singles:

14 – 12 – 12 – 12

As it turned out, the lead single from that sophomore album would continue the streak admirably by going to No 13. “The Incidentals” was its title and it was more, thoughtful, tuneful, well constructed pop on which they had made their name. However, it didn’t really push any musical boundaries and was reliant on their fanbase wanting more of the same. Initially they did with parent album “Ilumnia” also going Top 20 but by the time of third album “The House We Built” in 2001, times and tastes had changed and it disappointed commercially with the duo splitting soon after.

Both sisters went on to be very successful songwriters for other artists including Kylie Minogue, Lily Allen, Rita Ora, Sugababes, Boyzone and Westlife. Shelley is also a member of alt-country band Red Sky July with her husband Ally McErlaine (ex of Texas) who my wife caught recently as support for Eddie Reader at the Cottingham Folk Festival. Very good they were too apparently.

Whilst looking into the career history of the Honeyz, I discovered that they had appeared on ITV’s The Big Reunion show in 2013. The premise of the show was to get seven acts who were big in the 90s to reform and rehearse for a comeback show at the Hammersmith Apollo. Basically, it was a steal of MTV’s Bands Reunited from a decade earlier. Anyway, some of The Big Reunion episodes are on YouTube so I checked the Honeyz one out and one of the revelations that came out was that one of the members of the band couldn’t really sing, used to have her microphone turned off when performing and was only recruited for her looks! I’ll leave you to guess who that was but it got me thinking about members of bands throughout musical history who didn’t really do anything. Now, I’m not saying I agree that the people on the list below contributed nothing at all but that in some people’s/the media’s perception, they didn’t:

Sid Vicious (Sex Pistols)
Andrew Ridgeley (Wham!)
Bez (Happy Mondays)
Paul Rutherford (Frankie Goes To Hollywood)
Craig ‘Ken’ Logan (Bros)
Anyone in Boyzone who wasn’t Ronan Keating or Stephen Gately

OK, the last one is a bit facetious but you get my point. As for the Honeyz, OK it was Naima Belkhiati who had her microphone turned off (allegedly), the one on the left in this performance. There, she’s been “Finally Found” out.

No! Surely not?! It can’t be?! The aforementioned Boyzone are on the show AGAIN?! WHY?! That’s five out of the last six weeks they’ve featured. Yes, OK “No Matter What” was No 1 for three of those appearances and it stayed at No 3 for three consecutive weeks after that but even so!

Look, I’ve nothing else to say about this one. Instead, here’s Basil Fawlty to describe my frustration at its reappearance with actions saying much more than my words ever could.

Right, this is the point where this episode gets a bit complicated as previously mentioned. The version of the show that I watched and that exists currently on iPlayer featured T–Spoon and a track called “Sex On The Beach” which was at No 2 in the charts. However, back in 1998, the version that aired in the show’s usual early evening slot had Steps “One For Sorrow” on in place of T-Spoon. When the late night repeat aired in the early hours of Sunday morning, it was T-Spoon and not Steps who featured. So what gives? Well, apparently the BBC had received complaints from listeners to the Radio 1 Chart Show the previous Sunday when “Sex On The Beach” was played having debuted at No 2. Apparently, the lyrics “I wanna have sex on the beach, come on move your body” which are repeated throughout were the cause of the offence and so the BBC took the decision to not show it in the pre-watershed show at 7.30 as originally intended. However, presumably to pacify all those involved in the T-Spoon hit, a performance was recorded and it was shown (instead of Steps) in the late night rerun. Was the BBC right to take such action? On reflection, it seems a peculiar hill to die on. There have been far more controversial records to have charted and appear on the show than this one surely?! Just recently, a 1998 TOTP repeat included “Horny” by Mousse T – was that not cut from a similar cloth? Or was it the use of the word ‘sex’ that rattled the BBC powers that be? If so, how come “Generation Sex” by The Divine Comedy was on the very next week? I’ve checked out the rest of the lyrics and I’m not convinced they were a danger to the moral well being of the nation’s youth to be honest. Most of it I can’t understand anyway but there’s a reference to ‘ding-a-ling’, a term which didn’t stop Chuck Berry having a No 1 hit in 1972 based on the double entendre. Anyway, what’s surely more offensive is the way the thing sounded which was atrocious. I think I spotted the following influences in its composition:

The naffness of Peter Andre
The ‘toasting’ style of Chaka Demus and Pliers
The hollow production of Ace Of Base
The inane sing-along chanting of Inner Circle’s “Sweat (A La La La La Long)”

It’s hardly a ringing endorsement. As for T-Spoon, they defended themselves by stating that “Sex On The Beach” referred to the name of the infamous cocktail but nobody was really buying that. The whole thing was a sorry episode from start to finish.

Robbie Williams has bagged his first No 1 single with ”Millennium” and to celebrate that he’s performing the song in a dress and not just any dress but a sheer, floor length gown through which you could see his undergarments. I guess the obvious question is ‘why?’. So I asked AI. It had an answer for me which I could have guessed if I’d thought about it a bit more. According to AI it was a “provocative and attention-grabbing choice…designed to be memorable and push boundaries”. Yes, probably. Or was he just copying David Beckham wearing a sarong skirt just a few months earlier which caused a tabloid frenzy? In any case, he wasn’t the first nor the last music star to don a dress. David Bowie was famously photographed in a cream and blue satin dress whilst reclining on a chaise lounge for the cover of the UK release of his “The Man Who Sold The World” album. In 2020, Harry Styles was the first male to feature on the cover of Vogue magazine and he did so wearing a Gucci dress and just to come full circle on this post, although I don’t think Basil Fawlty ever wore a dress, I’m pretty sure John Cleese has at some point in his career.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	All Saints	Booty Call	It’s a no from me
2	Aerosmith	I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing	Negative
3	Pulp	Party Hard	I did not
4	Alisha’s Attic	The Incidentals	Nope
5	Honeyz	Finally Found	Nah
6	Boyzone	No Matter What	Big NO
7	T-Spoon	Sex On The Beach	As if
8	Robbie Williams	Millennium	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/m002lvjr/top-of-the-pops-18091998

TOTP 11 SEP 1998

Posted on November 12 by 80stastic

In the 1997 ‘epilogue’post, I hinted that my mental health had taken a dip that year and that in 1998 it would turn into a full blown crisis. I think the BBC4 TOTP repeats schedule has arrived at the beginning of that time. I was working as the Assistant Manager of the Stockport branch of Our Price where I had been for three and a half years but our manager, whom I’d had a good working relationship with, had recently been transferred to another branch. I think she requested a move as she’d had enough of Stockport after a year – it was a big unit and took a lot of managing and could be quite stressful at times. We also had a HMV down the road so we had a lot of pressure on us to generate decent sales under stiff competition. I didn’t blame her for having had enough and she duly transferred to a smaller store with a staff of just four and get this, their names were Lisa, Lisa, Lisa and Elisa!

Anyway, that meant my store needed a new manager and, having done that role temporarily the year before, I wasn’t about to put my hat in the ring again. The new manager appointed was somebody I’d worked with before much earlier in my time at Our Price so I felt reassured that it was someone I already knew and had got on with OK. It turned out that he had changed quite a bit in the intervening years and was much more hard nosed and ruthless in his dealings with people. I won’t give his name as that would be unfair but some ex-colleagues who may be reading this can probably guess his identity. Suffice to say things went badly wrong very quickly and never recovered. Our relationship was a train wreck. We had totally opposite views on how to treat people and his approach to me was “you go home when the job is done” rather than by what time the clock says. Going to work became a daunting task progressing to being something to actually be worried about. In a couple of months, I’d reached breaking point and one morning I just couldn’t get out of our flat to go to work and kept pacing around it, over breathing and basically having a panic attack. It led to me being off work for five weeks and being transferred to a smaller store I had worked at previously. I didn’t go back to Stockport for 18 years after that morning, long after I’d left record retail behind. I’m not saying that the manger was solely the reason for my mental health issues; it was probably an accumulation of a lot of things but he was certainly a catalyst. Given all that, I’m guessing I might not like too many of the songs in the charts at this time as they could have negative associations linked to them? Let’s see…

How wrong could I be as we start with a banger from a perhaps unexpected source. “Everybody Get Up” is, for me, easily the best thing Five ever did (even if the pickings are slim). Famously based around samples from “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll”, that track was originally released by The Arrows in the 70s but is better known for the version by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts from 1982. Whoever in the Five camp came up with the idea to plunder that song was a genius with the boy band’s track brimming with bravado and swagger and making use of the rapping skills of J and Abz to full effect. I’m not entirely sure what the lyrics are all about but there’s a definite nod to a number of film titles including Lost Boys, Armageddon, The Fifth Element and Hound of the Baskervilles. There also some rather left field name checks for Fujian wrestler Jimmy ‘Superfly’ Snuka and American mafioso and crime boss John Gotti. Actually, scrap the left field description of Gotti as Wikipedia tells me that he has a whole host of cultural references both pre and post the Five single including in tracks by House Of Pain, Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z and the hit single “King Of New York” by Fun Lovin’ Criminals. Who knew? Clearly not me. Something else I didn’t know until now is that Abz doesn’t rap the line “I’m lyrically black” which I’d always misheard and thought was a strange thing to say but “I’m lyrically blessed” which does make more sense.

A proper one hit wonder next (in the UK at least) but in the case of Jennifer Paige, her song was enduring enough to still be played on daytime radio to this day. “Crush” was a huge international hit – check out its numbers:

No 1 in three countries – Australia, Canada and New Zealand
Four weeks at No 3 in the US selling 700,000 copies
No 4 in the UK and France going gold in both territories

You could hear why it had all that success. A very accessible sound with broad mainstream appeal, confident vocal delivery and that winning hook of the little breathy sigh that punctuates the chorus. All very well constructed and yet…I didn’t like it much. I possibly should have but it didn’t grab me – competent but not commanding. Jennifer couldn’t build on the success of “Crush” much like those who had come before her including Alannah Myles, Paula Cole, Meredith Brooks, Billie Myers and Donna Lewis. After losing both her parents within two weeks of each other, Paige retreated into herself and lost her love of performing, choosing instead to write for others but she did release a crowd funded album in 2016. Incidentally, her full name is Jennifer Paige Scoggins and her surname was presumably considered an obstacle to promotion by her record company and so dropped from her stage name. Fast forward three decades and we seem a little more forgiving off such monikers…

Sometimes I forget when reviewing these TOTP repeats that they were different times when they were recorded and broadcast and things that would raise an eyebrow if not outrage today, were seen as perfectly acceptable back then. For example, I don’t think I would have been staring at the TV, mouth gaping at tonight’s host Jamie Theakston saying “More top transatlantic totty now” in his segue between Jennifer Paige and the next artist Sheryl Crow but I can’t imagine someone on the BBC saying the phrase ‘top totty’ nowadays – bias issues and ‘errors of judgement’ when it comes to editing yes but people saying “top totty”? I doubt it…unless it was Boris Johnson of course.

Anyway, Sheryl Crow. She’s on the show for a second time to promote her latest single “My Favourite Mistake” which has entered the charts at No 9 after her pre-release TOTP performance the other week. Heavily rumoured to be about her ex-Eric Clapton (which Crow denies), in an interview on the Songfacts website with her writing partner Jeff Trott, he speculated that marriage between the two had been on the cards but that their relationship didn’t last as Clapton would have wanted a very traditional marriage with Sheryl in a housewife role which she was clearly never going to agree to. Clapton is well known for holding some dodgy views. In 1976 during a concert in Birmingham, he voiced vile, racist comments, endorsing politician Enoch Powell and using the National Front slogan ‘Keep Britain White’. Using the phrase ‘top totty’ seems pretty small fry compared to that.

Just as with Boyzone on the previous show, last week’s No 1 is getting a repeat despite dropping down the charts and for similar reasons – they had an album coming out on the Monday after this TOTP aired. I’m not convinced that’s a valid reason but then I guess that’s down to record company marketing and promotion strategies. The lucky recipients of this additional exposure are Manic Street Preachers and their single “If You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be Next” which was the lead single from that aforementioned album “This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours”. My main memory of that album wasn’t that it was the band’s first chart topper nor that it produced four hit singles but that it had a part in getting me chucked out of a record shop. Let me explain. It wasn’t the store I worked in but a rival one. Remember I said we had an HMV just down the road from us? Well, it wasn’t them either. No, it was another retailer who I believe were called Music Zone. I think that the chain had began in Stockport as a one shop operation but had expanded with stores in other town centres. Indeed, they bought all of MVC’s failing stores in 2005 to become a 104 unit empire. I’m not sure if the Music Zone in Stockport in 1998 was the original shop or not (somebody reading this might be able to confirm) but I recall that you had to climb a set of stairs to get into the shop and that they also sold a load of miscellaneous items like badges as well.

Anyway, original shop or not, this store had relaunched in Stockport around 1998 and it had come to our attention at Our Price that they were knocking out some chart CDs for around £9.99 and severely undercutting us in the process. During an Area Manager visit, the topic was discussed and a visit to Music Zone was proposed to see what was going on. Myself, the Area Manager and the store manager (yes, that one) donned our coats and went for a snoop, trying not to look too conspicuous. It turned out that Music Zone had somehow got their hands on some cheap imports of certain chart titles of which the newly released Manics album was one. The Area Manager and our store manager took a copy of it to the counter and demanded to know who was supplying them with this stock at which point the Music Zone manager told us to leave his store and called for security to make sure we left the premises. And that’s the story of how the Manic Street Preachers helped to get me thrown out of a record shop.

Up to this point, if the average punter in the street had been asked what was Aerosmith’s biggest hit, I’m guessing they might have gone for “Dude (Looks Like A Lady)” or their collaboration with Run-D.M.C. on “Walk This Way” or perhaps their debut 1973 hit “Dream On” but all three of those hits were about to be blown out of the water by a song that they didn’t write themselves. Penned by the prolific and legendary songwriter Diane Warren, “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing” was the theme song to the sci-fi film Armageddon starring Bruce Willis, Liv Tyler and Ben Affleck. Warren originally envisioned it being sung by someone like Celine Dion who had, of course, already one huge ballad from a movie to her name. Another artist in the frame was U2 who again had their own track record when it came to soundtrack songs having contributed “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me” to the Batman Forever movie. However, once Steven Tyler’s daughter Liv was cast in the film, attention turned towards Aerosmith.

Although, their late 80s/early 90s comeback had re-established them as a rock super power, by 1998, their fortunes, if not waning, were stalled rather by Tyler’s ACL injury which forced the band off the road in the April. With momentum lost, they needed a commercial boost once Tyler returned and boy did they get it with “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing”. No 1 around the world including America where it topped the charts for four weeks, it is easily their biggest selling hit ever. A huge, strings drenched ballad, it even had what sounded like an overture at its beginning just to up the ante and leave the listener in no doubt about the scale of what was coming. I think they pull it off admirably too. Would U2 have done it better? No, I think it would have been different but not better. As for Celine Dion, I’m guessing it would have been unlistenable (for me) in her hands/voice. As for the film, I didn’t catch it at the cinema and I don’t think I’ve seen it all the way through from start to finish but have seen the ending so I’m unlikely to seek it out for a full viewing though anything with Steve Buscemi in it is usually with doing so.

Here’s a hit the lyrics of which include some pretty high brow literary references and yet there seems to be a disparity between them and the name of the band performing the song. Shakespeare, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and…erm…Hole. Just me? OK then. How about the title of the song itself and those heavyweight literary names? “Celebrity Skin” was also the name of a pornographic magazine specialising in celebrity nudity. Still me that finds it a bit jarring? The lead single and title track from their third studio album, this was seen as a definitive move towards a more commercial sound. It’s still blistering, in your face indie rock but perhaps the contribution of Smashing Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan (including the guitar riffs) had an effect. It would give the band their second biggest hit in the UK. Right, my last attempt to highlight the incongruity of those literary references and the song – it soundtracks the ‘tongue twizzler’ scene in American Pie. Gulp!

That last bit got a bit unintentionally overly sexual but I’m afraid that the theme continues with the new No 1 which is “Booty Call” by All Saints. A third consecutive chart topper for the group, we all know what that the title refers to. Then there’s the fact that Melanie Blatt is clearly pregnant and unless it was an immaculate conception then she’d clearly had the birds and the bees chat. I didn’t like this one much and thought it easily the weakest hit they’d had so far. It was just a groove rather than a song and they seemed to be trying too hard to be En Vogue rather than All Saints. I did appreciate the jerky, slow motion dance moves the group were doing in this performance – was this for the benefit of Melanie whose movements were understandably restricted?

A few years ago, I went on a work colleague’s stag do in Leeds. I didn’t know that many people there but it was a good night anyway. Why am I telling you this? Because it transpired the next morning that one of the party had actually made a booty call in the early hours of the morning. It was quite the revelation not the least because it made me realise that a booty call was actually a thing that real people do and not a culturally concocted myth. I’m so naive.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Five	Everybody Get Up	Like it as I did, I couldn’t bring myself to buy a single by Five. I’m a music snob as well as naive
2	Jennifer Paige	Crush	I did not
3	Sheryl Crow	My Favourite Mistake	Nah
4	Manic Street Preachers	If You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be Next	No
5	Aerosmith	I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing	Like Armageddon, I gave it a miss
6	Hole	Celebrity Skin	Nope
7	All Saints	Booty Call	No but I think my wife and the 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/m002lj3r/top-of-the-pops-11091998

TOTP 22 MAY 1998

Posted on September 12 by 80stastic

It might just be because I’m getting fed up of having to write something different about the same songs that keep appearing in these TOTP repeats every week but I’m starting to really dislike the Chris Cowey era of the show. Take this episode for example. It features nine songs of which only three haven’t been on before and this new practice of having the host list the names of the artists appearing on each show in their introduction isn’t convincing me. Was the landslide of names meant to distract the watching TV audience hoping they wouldn’t notice it was the same acts each week? It’s clever in a way – dazzling us with a cavalcade of names but which were blatantly the same ones each week. Talk about hiding in plain sight. Tonight’s list-reader (literally – the placard is shown on camera at one point) is the increasingly prevalent Jamie Theakston and we start with The Mavericks and their hit “Dance The Night Away”. Judging by the cutaway shots, this seems to be a reshowing of their previous performance on the show which got me thinking about just how many artists were actually in the studio with an audience on a weekly basis under Cowey? Was the show under budgetary restrictions meaning performances had to be recycled whatever their respective chart positions may be? Anyway, I think The Mavericks had a genuine case for being back on the show having risen to No 8after falling to No 10 the week before. It would rise to a peak of No 4 when the next chart was published and you know what that means…yes, they’ll be featuring in the next repeat as well. Here’s a thing though, whilst “Dance The Night Away” is undoubtedly their best known song over here, in America it seems it might be one of their least known if chart positions have any sway. Of their 15 entries on the US Country chart, only two have placed lower than “Dance The Night Away”. What does this mean? Does it, in fact, mean anything? I think I’m past caring.

OK so this next performance isn’t just a rerun of a previous one. You can tell by the camera shot that travels from Jamie Theakston positioned high up on a gantry down to the studio floor where we find Steps. Again. I think this is the third time they’ve been on performing “Last Thing On My Mind” but, as with The Mavericks before them, have a legitimate spot on the show having risen from No 9 to No 7 in the charts after falling two weeks prior. You can tell also that it’s a new performance as the group have changed their outfits to be dressed in all white. Was this to project an image of virtue and wholesomeness? To be fair, I can’t recall many Steps controversies in the press. Have there been any?

*checks internet*

Hmm. Well, there was the time Lee Latchford-Evans made some comments in an interview in 2000 that were perceived as racist that required an apology from the group’s representatives. Then there’s the upset caused by the announcement of their split on Boxing Day 2001 that some of their fan base felt was a betrayal. However, my favourite controversy is the disclosure by Lisa Scott-Lee that on the group’s 1999 US tour, Ian ‘H’ Watkins upset the other members by travelling for three months on the private jet of one Britney Spears whilst the rest of them slummed it on a tour bus. Ha!

It’s the third hit on tonight’s show in a row that we have already seen now as Imaani gets to enjoy the last few seconds of her 15 minutes of fame. She was, of course, the UK’s 1998 Eurovision entry but with the contest having been and gone nearly two weeks ago, interest in her and her song “Where Are You?” was starting to wane. That being said, she had moved up 17 places in this week’s chart which was the biggest leap of the year to that point but her position of No 15 would be where her trajectory stopped. Had she won instead of losing by a mere six points would things have turned out differently for Imaani? I’m not so sure. I just don’t think her song was that memorable. Gina G didn’t come anywhere near to winning two years before yet “Ooh Aah…Just A Little Bit” was a huge seller going all way to No 1 precisely because it was memorable whether you liked it or not. Instead, Imaani became the first UK Eurovision artist not to make the Top 10 since Frances Rufelle in 1994.

A new song! Finally! Yeah, but it’s that remake of “Kung Fu Fighting” so careful what you wish for…Officially credited to Bus Stop featuring Carl Douglas as it featured samples of the latter’s original No 1 from 1974, this was another example of that heinous trend for taking songs from the past and ‘updating’ them with the addition of a nasty Eurodance backbeat and a rap, the lyrics of which, read as if they were literally being made up freeform, on the hoof (see also Clock). Daz Sampson was the main guy behind Bus Stop who would go on to represent the UK at Eurovision in 2006 coming 19th out of 24 acts.

The original 1974 hit capitalised on the popularity of the martial arts films of Bruce Lee in the early to mid 70s and the TV series Kung Fu starring David Carradine and included prominently the ‘Oriental Riff’*, a Western trope to represent the setting of East or Southeast Asia. It’s also used in Aneka’s “Japanese Boy” and “Turning Japanese” by The Vapors. Is it in Iggy Pop’s “China Girl” as covered by David Bowie as well? Not sure.

*I believe the use of the word ‘oriental’ is not considered racist as long as it isn’t referring to a person.

It’s sometimes concluded by the sound of a gong. Off the top of my head, I can think of two songs that utilise that – “Big In Japan” by Alphaville and “Burning Sky” by The Jam but there must be more. Anyway, back to “Kung Fu Fighting” and it has twice been voted the No 1 One Hit Wonder in Channel 4 polls even though Carl Douglas had two other minor hits and despite the fact that the 1998 remake made it a hit all over again when it reached No 8. As for Bus Stop, they forged themselves a small pop career with two further remakes of songs that were hits way back when from Bachman-Turner Overdrive and Van Halen before doing us all a favour and knocking it on the head. I did quite enjoy the high kicking by the backing singer in this performance though, plus I noticed her doing that arm roll move that the Steps routine was based around. Was that a thing back then? Bizarrely, this was the second Kung Fu themed hit in this month after 187 Lockdown’s No 9 hit “Kung Fu”. However, my favourite song featuring “Kung Fu” in the title would be this…

It’s taken a while but Lutricia McNeal has finally released her follow up to “Ain’t That Just The Way” that debuted on the chart back in November 1997. I’m guessing that the reason for the delay was the chart longevity of that single which stayed inside the Top 40 for nigh on four months. Her management had to wait for the sales to subside so as not to affect those of any follow up. “Stranded” was said follow up and it was more of the same, radio friendly R&B/pop hybrid that was beloved of daytime radio controllers. I mean, it’s pleasant enough chugging away on a radio in the background but it was never going to grab my ears and make me want to turn the volume up LOUD! What’s more interesting to me than her song is the lighting on this performance. It seems to be in black and white except for some pools of spotlight of a blue-ish/purple hue. Was that Cowey trying to be all arty? Or is my TV on the blink?

It’s a third time on the show for The Tamperer featuring Maya with “Feel It” which, like the Bus Stop hit before it, was heavily based around a hit from a previous era – “Can You Feel It” by The Jacksons. Didn’t anyone have any original ideas in 1998? OK, that’s not really a fair comment. The notion of combining The Jacksons with a little known track by a little known outfit in Urban Discharge and creating one of the most unlikely but memorable hooks of the decade with the line “What’s she gonna look like with a chimney on her?” was creative inspiration in action. After two more hits though, Maya went missing in action and left the project. Well, she wasn’t exactly missing in action. She actually went to join the cast of Rent on Broadway and when her contract with her record label was up, it wasn’t renewed. Mystery solved. Maya Days would continue her acting career with roles in Jesus Christ Superstar and Elton John and Tim Rice’s Aida. As far as I can tell, she has yet to play a character that involved wearing a chimney.

Now I thought my knowledge of Shed Seven hits was pretty good – not infallible but not bad at all. However, I find myself undone by this one – “The Heroes”. Nothing to do with Bowie’s classic track – the addition of a definite article in the title makes that clear and in any case, if they were tempted to do a cover version then Oasis had already beaten them to it – this was actually the third single taken from their third studio album “Let It Ride”. In my defence, it lasted only two weeks on the Top 40 suggesting that it was just the completists in their fan base buying it. It doesn’t sound strong enough to be a single to me – much more of an album track. It’s… well… a bit downbeat and glum. Maybe they should have released a cover of “Heroes” after all.

Eh? All Saints have gone back to No 1 after being deposed by Aqua last week? Looking at the rest of the Top 10, I’m thinking it wasn’t the biggest week for new releases with the highest being Lutricia McNeal at No 5 which might have accounted for this. To mark the occasion, we get both songs of their double A-Side single “Under The Bridge / Lady Marmalade”. Who did All Saints think they were? Oasis? The Jam? It’s just the previous appearances on the show spliced together though rather than a new exclusive performance.

In a couple of weeks, another all girl group will be at No 1 and it’s not the Spice Girls. Que Será Será or should that be C’est La Vie?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Mavericks	Dance The Night Away	I did not
2	Steps	Last Thing On My Mind	Never happening
3	Imaani	Where Are You?	Negative
4	Bus Stop featuring Carl Douglas	Kung Fu Fighting	Nope
5	Lutricia McNeal	Stranded	Not for me thanks
6	The Tamperer featuring May	Feel It	Nah
7	Shed Seven	The Heroes	No
8	All Saints	Under The Bridge / Lady Marmalade	No but my wife had the album I 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/m002j0xt/top-of-the-pops-22051998?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 15 MAY 1998

Posted on September 11 by 80stastic

It’s mid May 1998 and my beloved Chelsea FC have just won another cup! Having won a major trophy for the first time in 26 years the previous season when they lifted the FA Cup, they followed it up with two more in 1998. The League Cup was secured in March and now a European trophy as the Cup Winners’ Cup came back to Stamford Bridge after we beat Stuttgart in the final 1-0 two days before this TOTP aired. I couldn’t believe it! Three trophies in two seasons! My whole youth had had seen us in just one semi-final (which we lost) and then, as I was approaching 30, we were suddenly good! I wonder if any of the artists in this show were experiencing a renaissance period after a significant amount of time being shit?

Tonight’s host is Jo Whiley whom I thought for years was a bit shit but I’ve begrudgingly come round to in later years. The opening act are All Saints who I don’t think went through a crap phase, not commercially anyway, at least in their first incarnation. After two performances of “Under The Bridge”, their third consecutive appearance on the show sees them get to grips with the other A-side of their hit – Labelle’s “Lady Marmalade”. Now, if you judge this by just the chorus, and let’s face it that’s how we judge most songs, it’s a pretty faithful interpretation. However, the lyrics in the verses have been completely rewritten with Shaznay Lewis performing them as a rap. It works OK I’d say – better than their cover of “Under The Bridge” anyway. The girls are still wedded to their cargo pants look which has served them well to be fair in terms of their band image. I will comment though that executive producer Chris Cowey clearly had a great affection for them – All Saints I mean not their cargo pants. After their multiple appearances on the show for the seemingly never ending chart run of “Never Ever”, here they were top and tailing two shows having been the final artist on last week’s show as the No 1 and the first on this week’s despite having dropped a place. And there’s more…next week they return to the top spot and perform both tracks of the single on TOTP!

As Jo Whiley says, we have two songs from the 70s starting the show off as, after “Lady Marmalade” (a UK No 17 hit in 1975), we have Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams”. One of the many standout tracks from the legendary “Rumours” album, it made No 24 in 1977. However, that one statistic doesn’t tell the whole tale of its chart history as it has been more successful in the digital age via streaming platforms generating weeks and weeks back in the UK charts. Indeed, it is at No 52 in this week’s chart as I write this post in September 2025! It wasn’t the Fleetwood Mac version that saw it in the charts of 1998 though – we have arrived at the era of The Corrs. Now just as Chelsea weren’t pulling up any trees in the early 80s trundling along in the old Division 2, this family band from Dundalk, Ireland also struggled to make an impression early on in their career, in the UK charts at least.

Beginning their career playing in their Auntie’s bar, they quickly gained recognition via their cameo appearances in The Commitments movie and then via performances on a global stage at the 1994 World Cup, 1996 Summer Olympics and a support slot on the Celine Dion tour. Their debut album “Forgiven, Not Forgotten” sold well in their native Ireland plus Canada, Australia and Japan. However, success in the US and UK remained slight. Follow up album “Talk On Corners” would change all that and then some but not until it was rereleased with the track “Dreams” added to it which the group had recorded for a Fleetwood Mac tribute album and performed live at the Royal Albert Hall alongside Mick Fleetwood. The reaction to that performance convinced the band and their label to release it as a single but with a Tin Tin Out remix to make it more palatable for the dance market. “Dreams” easily became their biggest hit to that point when it peaked at No 6 – none of their previous seven singles had got any higher than No 43. The “Talk On Corners” album would go nine times platinum in the UK alone and become the best selling album of 1998 aided by the release of a ‘special edition’ that included five extra tracks.

Much was made of the group’s image with special attention being given to lead singer Andrea. Now a band’s front person receiving the most press was not unheard of – indeed it was an inevitable occurrence, almost natural especially when you looked like Andrea Corr. However, with her two sisters Sharon and Caroline hardly looking like “a bag of spanners” (as Terry Wogan ironically used to refer to them), it meant that brother Jim would somehow be seen as the weak link, letting the side down as it were which was patently ridiculous but took such a hold in the nation’s collective mind that it led to sketches like the one below. We’ll be seeing lots more of The Corrs in future TOTP repeats. Beautiful!

Ah now, if you ask my mate Robin whether there have been times when Simply Red suffered from, let’s say… ‘not being at the top of their game’, he would probably reply “Yes, of course. Everything they’ve ever released is absolute shit” and many would agree with him. From a purely commercial perspective though, come the end of the 90s, though they were hardly battling relegation to Division 3 as Chelsea did in 1983, they weren’t the title favourites that they used to be either. Gone were the 12 times platinum days of “Stars”. Their 1998 album “Blue” only sold 600,000 copies compared to even previous album “Life”’s 1.5 million and by the time of decade closer “Love And The Russian Winter”, sales were halved again. Now when I used the word ‘only’, it’s relative. Those are still big numbers but Hucknall clearly couldn’t command the sales that he used to. When it comes to singles, Simply Red were never been a big hitter. Out of 26 singles released up to this point, only six had made the Top 10 (although that did include one No 1). Seven didn’t even make the Top 40 at all. Set against those figures, “Say You Love Me” making No 7 was akin to Chelsea having a cup run in the bad old days of my teenage years. Their lead single from the aforementioned “Blue” album, it was hardly anything groundbreaking but it was a perfect daytime playlist track that Hucknall could sell in his sleep. However, he would follow it up with a horrible cover of the old Hollies hit “The Air That I Breathe” and for that alone he should never be forgiven regardless of all his other musical misdemeanours that Robin could list.

It’s LeAnn Rimes next…again. I think this the third time she’s been on the show already with “How Do I Live?”. What else can I say about this one? Well, have I already talked about the fact that two different versions of the song were released on the same day – one by Rimes and another by Trisha Yearwood and that both versions were nominated for Best Female Country Vocal Performance at the Grammy Awards which was the first time such an occurrence had ever happened? Only one version could be performed at the event and LeAnn was chosen. She belted out the song in a career best turn apparently. As soon as she left the stage though, the award in her category was made and they gave it to Trisha Yearwood! Talk about awkward! It’s the football equivalent of Bayern Munich completely outplaying Chelsea in the 2012 Champions League final played at the German team’s own ground and being beaten on penalties. Get In!

P.S. What extremely tenuous connection is there between “How Do I Live?” to this week’s No 1? All will be revealed later.

The links are writing themselves for Jo Whiley tonight. Firstly, she can highlight the connection between two 70s songs opening the show in “Lady Marmalade” and “Dreams” and now she can segue from one teenage singer in LeAnn Rimes to a whole group of them in Cleopatra. Having made No 4 with their debut hit “Cleopatra’s Theme”, they repeated the trick with follow up “Life Ain’t Easy”. It’s a bit smoother on the ear than its predecessor, less jarring somehow though the vocals do have a tendency to grate and why does one of them have a rucksack on their back 3T style? To highlight that they were still school age? Was that good idea? Surely not. Jo Whiley’s comment about “Madonna’s Mancunian mavericks” was a reference to the fact that the group were signed to her label Maverick in America. Just two singles into their career and they had Madonna as a mentor? Maybe life was easy after all…

Next a song I always confuse with “C U When U Get There” by Coolio for no other reason than that they’re both by rappers and the song titles suggest journeys conducted over a period of time. I’m easily confused is my only excuse. “Gone Till November” was the third and joint biggest solo hit by ex-Fugee Wyclef Jean. It starts off all calm and melodic but then when the rapping starts, chaos ensues and it becomes almost unlistenable especially in this performance in which Wyclef’s vocals aren’t the strongest. Maybe the recorded version is better though this single edit is the ‘pop’ version so presumably more mainstream than the album track? Like “The Show” by Doug E. Fresh and the Get Fresh Crew over a decade earlier, it features an awful interpolation of “Michelle” by The Beatles. Compared to his Fugees output, I would say his solo stuff is the equivalent of Chelsea’s 1978/79 team which finished bottom of the league with just five wins out of 42 games. I really suffered for my team in my childhood!

I still haven’t provided the answer to my previous teaser (it’s really not worth waiting for either) but here’s another one. What links Wyclef Jean with the next act on the show who is Adam Garcia? The Bee Gees of course. Wyclef’s debut solo single was “We Trying To Stay Alive” which sampled the disco classic “Stayin’ Alive” whilst Adam Garcia is on the show to perform “Night Fever” from the soundtrack of the jukebox musical Saturday Night Fever based on the 1977 film of the same name. Garcia was starring as Tony Manero, the character played by John Travolta in the movie during the musical’s run at the London Palladium. He’s clearly got those iconic dance moves down pat judging by this performance but as ever with these jukebox musicals, the question remains of why would you want the soundtrack to the show when you could just have the original tracks in their full glory? That’s especially true with Saturday Night Fever with the show following the film’s plot (albeit with the darker elements removed) as opposed to a completely new story that features the songs of a particular artist.

Ooh, here’s another connections teaser – what’s the link between Adam Garcia and LeAnn Rimes? The 2000 film Coyote Ugly which starred Garcia and the soundtrack of which featured four songs by Rimes including the UK No 1 “Can’t Fight The Moonlight”. I love it when a post comes together!

We have yet another new No 1 and I’m not saying anything perceptive nor insightful by stating that nobody saw this song coming from this artist. Yes, Aqua are back at the head of the pack with their third consecutive chart topper “Turn Back Time”. Now, achieving that feat might well have been seen as completely beyond the Danish group based on the cartoon pop of their first (and admittedly) mega hit “Barbie Girl”. Even when copycat follow up “Dr Jones” replicated that position, many must have believed that a third No 1 was surely beyond them? Well, had they stuck to the formula of those first two hits, maybe the UK record buying public wouldn’t have fallen for it a third time but the truth is that Aqua released a song I certainly didn’t know they were capable of. “Turn Back Time” was nothing like its predecessors. A proper ballad with proper singing from vocalist Lene Nystrøm rather than those squeaky noises we’d come to expect. True, there is a weird, incongruous breakdown near the end but I think we can overlook that. Also (thankfully) overlooked was that bald bloke who’d supplied the unsettling “Come on Barbie, let’s go party” line in “Barbie Girl”. Is he even on stage in this performance? Oh, is that him sat on a stool holding a tambourine with a hoodie and glasses disguising his striking look? Might be. A fourth No 1 was a step too far and Aqua would only return to the Top 10 twice more after this and one of those was a remake of “Barbie Girl” in light of the success of the 2023 Barbie film. Still, “Turn Back Time” allowed Aqua to always be able to say that there was more to them than just that song.

Oh, the link between LeAnn Rimes and Aqua? “How Do I Live?” was written by songwriting legend Dianne Warren who also penned “If I Could Turn Back Time” for Cher and if I really could turn back time, I wouldn’t have tried to make such a tenuous link in the first place.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	All Saints	Under The Bridge / Lady Marmalade	No but I think my wife had the album
2	The Corrs	Dreams	It’s a no
3	Simply Red	Say You Love Me	Never happening
4	LeAnn Rimes	How Do I Live?	Negative
5	Cleopatra	Life Ain’t Easy	Nah
6	Wyclef Jean	Gone Till November	I did not
7	Adam Garcia	Night Fever	Nope
8	Aqua	Turn Back Time	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.

TOTP 08 MAY 1998

Posted on September 9 by 80stastic

It’s that time of the year again in 1998 when, as a nation, we outwardly cringed in embarrassment at the very idea of it but, on the night itself, found ourselves at home watching it on our TVs anyway. Yes, it can only be the Eurovision Song Contest and in 1998, the UK was the host nation having won the thing the year before courtesy of Katrina And The Waves. The National Indoor Centre in Birmingham was the chosen venue and our hosts for the evening were Sir Terry Wogan (of course) and Ulrika Jonsson who was very familiar with the location for the contest as it was where she filmed the ITV show Gladiators. She was also one of the resident captains on surreal panel show Shooting Stars with Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer so her profile was suitably in the ascendancy to be the go to co-host for such an event. Sadly, just one month later, she was in the headlines again having been assaulted by her then boyfriend, footballer Stan Collymore in a Paris bar during the 1998 World Cup. Let’s concentrate on much lighter events though and some would argue none is more lightweight than Eurovision. However, one person taking it seriously was my record shop colleague Stephen who was so confident in the UK entry that he bet me a fiver that it would win. I didn’t share his faith and took the bet. Who won Eurovision and therefore the bet as well? That’s all to come but for now let’s get back to the charts and TOTP where we find Jamie Theakston on presenting duties for a second consecutive week. Presumably executive producer Chris Cowey must have liked what he saw from Theakston though he didn’t seem to bring anything extra to the show for me.

Talking of not bringing anything extra to the show, despite the new theme tune and titles, Cowey has only brought us three new tunes for this week with five of the eight hits having already been on before including opener “Feel It” by The Tamperer featuring Maya. This one was featured on the show before last and will be on a further two times subsequently. As such, I don’t know what to write about it as I pretty much said it all previously. However, as it’s very heavily based on the 1981 hit “Can You Feel It” by The Jacksons, I did look up whether there were any cover versions of it out there and there are including one by a group I’ve never heard of before. V anyone? I guess I wasn’t really their target audience seeing as they were a boy band and I was 36 years old when this hit was in 2004. Plus, it was four years after I’d left my time in record shops behind me. Anyway, it’s a fairly routine cover that adds literally nothing to the original but got to No 5 as a double A-side with a track called “Hip To Hip”.

Easily beating V in the entertainment stakes though is this version of The Tamperer track by the aforementioned Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer as their Mulligan and O’Hare characters:

Eurovision credentials: None but the Bosnia and Herzegovina entry in 2012 was by an artist called Maya Sar. She finished 18th.

Now for that performance by Boyzone that the band were unable to do last week due to the death of Ronan Keating’s mother. In the intervening seven days, the lads have dropped from No 1 to No 4 but an exclusive performance is an exclusive performance so here they are with “All That I Need”. This must be one of the most forgettable chart toppers of the decade but then, let’s be fair, most of their well known songs are cover versions anyway. I’m thinking “Love Me For A Reason” (The Osmonds), “Father And Son” (Cat Stevens), “Words” (Bee Gees) and “When The Going Gets Tough” (Billy Ocean). Oh, and perhaps their best known song was written by Andrew Lloyd Webber. I think that says a lot if not everything. Nothing else to see here.

Eurovision credentials: Just 12 months prior to this, Ronan Keating had been the co-host for the contest which took place in Dublin. Boyzone were the interval act performing a song called “Let The Message Run Free”.

Now this next one is interesting on a number of fronts. Firstly, hands up who remembered/knew that Freak Power had more than one hit? Not me for sure but here it is – a No 29 hit called “No Way”. Thankfully nothing to do with that awful novelty hit “No Way, No Way” by Vanilla from earlier in the year, on initial hearing I thought it sounded very similar to their huge hit “Turn On, Tune In, Cop Out” but by the end of the track I’d decided it sounded like something else – this from the multi-talented and much missed Kirsty MacColl…

Of further interest is the staging for this one which shows a sudden burst of creativity that had been missing for a while from the show. The setting of a house party with vocalist Ashley Slater positioned next door and banging against the partition wall as Norman Cook and a host of party goers live it up was…well… interesting as I say. Given that Freak Power seemed to have run their course after the aforementioned “Turn On, Tune In, Cop Out” had been a hit three years prior to “No Way” and that the material they released in between hadn’t generated any hits and that he’d had more commercial success with another vehicle Pizzaman, I wonder why he returned to the Freak Power moniker for this one? Whatever the reason, this would be the last we would hear from Freak Power which is a shame.

Eurovision credentials: Ashley Slater provided the original vocals for the 2015 UK entry “Still In Love With You”. He didn’t want to be involved in promoting it though so he withdrew from the project and duo Electro Velvet fronted the song. It placed 24th out of 27 with just five points.

Next come an act that many would consider perfect for Eurovision. In May 1998, Steps were only at the beginning of a career whose longevity very few of us would have predicted with “Last Thing On My Mind” being just their second single release. After the almost novelty debut single ”5,6,7,8” which had jumped on the bandwagon of the line dancing craze that was sweeping the country, the follow up couldn’t have sounded more like Eurovision giants ABBA if it tried. Actually, it was written to try to sound like the Swedish megastars as part of Pete Waterman’s plan to revive Bananarama’s career by pursuing project ‘ABBA-Banana’. Anyway, listening back to it now, if it had been our Eurovision entry in 1998, it would have been a shoo-in to triumph at the contest and I would not have taken that bet with my work colleague Stephen. They even had a Bucks Fizz style gimmmick with that arm roll move. In fact, given the tacky nature of the contest, it wouldn’t have been beyond the realms of possibility for “5,6,7,8” to have gone close to winning the thing. Apparently, there have been discussions within the group about participating but, although Ian ‘H’ Watkins would do it in a heartbeat, some of the other members aren’t as keen or convinced. I’m sure though that if they could be persuaded, the UK would have its best chance of winning in years.

Eurovision credentials: Apart from everything already mentioned, they won the OGAE Song Contest – Organisation Générale des Amateurs de l’Eurovision or General Organisation of Eurovision Fans – in 2018 with their single “Scared Of The Dark”.

Some hip-hop now courtesy of the Jungle Brothers. You know me, I’m a pop kid at heart so my knowledge of this lot is the equivalent of what Nigel Farage knows about being a decent human being – nothing. Thankfully Wikipedia is there to tell me all about them. They’re from New York and are acknowledged as pioneers of the fusion of the hip-hop, house and jazz genres (oh, so they’re not just hip-hop then – told you I knew nothing about them). They paved the way for A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul and founded the Native Tongues collective of hip-hop artists that included Monie Love, Queen Latifah and Busta Rhymes in its membership. Their biggest UK hit up to this point had been 1988’s “I’ll House You” but that was superseded by “Jungle Brother (Urban Takeover Mix)” which made No 18. I have to say it sounds like a lot of shouting to me but the breakdancers supporting them were impressive. They didn’t fall over or go Boom Bang a Bang once.

Eurovision credentials: Absolutely none whatsoever.

“How Do I Live” by LeAnn Rimes was yet another of those songs that lingered on the charts for literally months around this time. I wrote in a recent post how the aforementioned “5,6,7,8” by Steps was, at the time, the biggest selling single in the UK never to make the Top 10. Well, “How Do I Live” has a similar accolade – despite never getting any higher than No 7, its solid 30 (THIRTY!) weeks inside the Top 40 meant that it was the 6th best selling single of 1998 in the UK. It’s quite hard to get your head around – it ranked higher in the end of year chart than at any point during its Top 40 life. I think we must have got caught out by its longevity in the Our Price where I worked a few times thinking its chart run would have to be over soon and therefore running down stock only for it to reverse its sales and go back up the charts which it did on NINE occasions! It seems that the record buying public weren’t any good at making their collective mind up about whether they could live without that particular track.

Eurovision connection: None but LeAnn has appeared on a singing contest – both the Australian and UK versions of The Voice.

So we arrive at the act with genuine Eurovision credentials given that she was the UK’s actual entry this year but who was Imaani? Well, she hailed from Nottingham, her birth name was Melonie Crosdale and she got into the music industry via a chance encounter with a record producer on a train journey. After contributing some vocals to an album by acid jazzers Incognito, she became the UK’s Eurovision entry after a protracted selection process that started in early February and involved a semi final broadcast on Radio 2, appearances by the finalists on The National Lottery Draw and a tele-vote on The Great British Song Contest* broadcast on BBC1 in March.

*Ooh, now here’s a nice little tie-in. The song that came third in that final was by a group called Sapphire (who’d changed their name from Kitt halfway through the process). The singer in Sapphire was one Kate Cameron who worked with Norman Cook under his Pizzaman name and is a backing singer with Freak Power. This really should have gone in the Eurovision credentials section for Freak Power as well.

Imaani’s winning song was “Where Are You?” and she duly embarked on the usual circus of promotional duties including appearances on Blue Peter, Live & Kicking and Fully Booked. In fact, the release of her song as a single came as early as the 21st of March but it spent six weeks bouncing around the very bottom end of the charts between Nos 99 and 76 before the exposure it gained as the contest itself loomed ever closer pushed it into the Top 40 where it would peak at No 15. So, about the song itself. Well, I couldn’t remember how it went but listening to it back, Imaani does a decent impression of Toni Braxton. However, and this is why I didn’t share my colleague Stephen’s faith in it and took his bet, it didn’t sound very Eurovision. Now, I have no idea what the Eurovision sound is anymore with the contest having transcended its legacy definitions and morphed out into all sorts of musical directions but back in 1998, it just didn’t seem to fit the bill to me.

So how did Imaani do on the big night and did I win the bet? Yes I did but only just with “Where Are You?” coming in second to the winner by just six points. By today’s standards, that was a stellar performance but after winning it the year before, was it possibly seen as a disappointment? Surely not. And the winner? Well, this caused many headlines and not all positive as Israel’s Dana International took the crown with the track “Diva” and, in the process, became the first transgender participant in the contest and its first LGBTQ+ winning artist. Twenty-seven years later and the world is still tying itself up in knots over everything transgender. As for Imaani, she returned to working with Incognito and supplied lead vocals on a garage cover of Adina Howard’s “Freak Like Me” by Tru Faith and Dub Conspiracy which made No 12 in 2000. She released her first and so far only solo album in 2014 (some 16 years after her Eurovision moment) and as recently as 2023, was part of the Revival Collective that recorded a version of “Best Of My Love” by The Emotions.

Eurovision credentials: I think we’ve covered these in sufficient detail above.

As predicted by Jamie Theakston last week, All Saints are No 1 with “Under The Bridge” / “Lady Marmalade”. We get the former track again this week but it’s a different performance as the group aren’t high up in a gantry like last time but back on Terra Firma. I must say, although I’m not the biggest fan of their treatment of the Red Hot Chili Peppers classic, I am quite taken with how they managed to get maximum impact out of minimal movement in the dance routine they put together for it. Minor hip shakes and small scale footsteps show that sometimes less really is more.

Eurovision credentials: None but the phrase ‘never ever’ is a key lyric in the track “No No Never” by German entry Texas Lightning which came 14th in the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Tamperer featuring Maya	Feel It	I did not
2	Boyzone	All That I Need	No Way
3	Freak Power	No Way	Good song but no
4	Steps	Last Thing On My Mind	Nope
5	Jungle Brothers	Jungle Brother (Urban Takeover Mix)	No
6	LeAnn Rimes	How Do I Live?	Nah
7	Imaani	Where Are You?	No but thanks for the fiver
8	All Saints	Under The Bridge / Lady Marmalade	No but my wife had the album I 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/m002hqxx/top-of-the-pops-08051998?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 01 MAY 1998

Posted on September 5 by 80stastic

We’ve reached a TOTP milestone – no, nothing to do with my blog (though my 400th post for the 90s shows happened recently). This was all about executive producer Chris Cowey who has taken the decision to change the show’s theme tune and titles. Graphics wise, gone are the flaming torsos and gold medal style logo to be replaced by a more back to basics flurry of primary colours, stripes, circles and lines that morphed into a 60s themed, almost pop art styled motif with bold font. The theme tune was even more retro bring a drum ‘n’ bass-ified take on “Whole Lotta Love” by Led Zeppelin, an instrumental version of which by CCS was used on the show from 1970 to 1977. The new opening music was the work of Bad Man Bad (aka Ben Chapman) and I’m guessing was meant to be an obvious homage to the show’s past but with a current vibe to ensure it remained contemporary and relevant. Cowey had taken nearly a year to bring in these changes, taking his time and experimenting with not having a theme tune at all (Vince Clarke’s “Red Hot Pop” had been phased out during 1997/98 having been in place since 1995). I think I prefer the changes as opposed to nothing at all which had led to a lack of show identity.

The first presenter in this new era was Jamie Theakston and the first artist was All Saints who, having spent months (literally) in the charts with their second single and first No 1 “Never Ever”, are back with…a cover version?! Yes, just three singles into their career and they’ve already hit the cover version button by recording “Under The Bridge” by Red Hot Chili Peppers. Now, as we have seen many, many times over the course of these TOTP repeats, the recording of a cover version can be a break-in-case-of-emergency strategy to save a dwindling pop career but this can’t have been the case with All Saints as they were riding the crest of a commercial wave. So what gives? Were some of the other tracks on their eponymous debut album not considered strong enough to maintain their momentum? That particular theory might have held more sway if the single after this one – “Bootie Call” – had bombed but it didn’t. In fact, it was a third, consecutive No 1 for the group. As such, I am at a loss as to why they went with a cover version so early on in their career but they were so sold on the idea that they doubled down on it by releasing two covers when they made the single a double A-side with the other track being their take on Labelle’s “Lady Marmalade”. Gitchie, gitchie ya-ya, da-da!

Whilst I quite like the staging of this performance with the group positioned on a gantry above the studio audience, I wasn’t that keen on their rendition of “Under The Bridge”. They changed the intonation of both the verse and chorus thereby affecting the melody which made it quite jarring to my ears. Yes, they at least attempted to do something different with it and yes, a change of phrasing can prove a winning tweak (see Paul Young’s take on “Every Time You Go Away” by Hall & Oates) but it just didn’t work for me. Maybe I was too familiar with the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ original. All Saints do a good job of selling it though (even if I wasn’t buying) with a nice little shimmy movement worked out for the distinctive guitar opening which was actually sampled from the original. They’ve also gone heavy again on the cargo pants with all four members sporting them. Their fashion influence has even spread to our host Theakston who’s wearing a camouflage design example of them.

The next song would spend two whole months inside the Top 10 peaking at No 4 and thereby providing another example that disproves my memory that all hits around this time were in and out of the charts within a fortnight. Admitting to liking “Dance The Night Away” by The Mavericks was never going to win you any credibility points but some people must have had a real thing for this rock/pop/country/Latin influenced tune though I can honestly say I was not one of them (my Dad has a fondness for it however). I could never really hear the appeal of what, for me, was a very sleight composition – even the guy who wrote it, lead singer Raul Malo, admits that it came together as a “happy accident” and that it just about wrote itself. So why was it such a big success? Well, my guess is that it was a crossover hit at just the right time. Whilst the UK had been a receptacle for country hits before from the old guard of the like of Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers and Don Williams, when it came to the 90s and the emergence of ‘new country’, we hadn’t exactly welcomed the movement with open arms. Its biggest exponent Garth Brooks was a superstar in the States but he’d had solid but not widespread success over here. Fast forward five years and we were ready to embrace country music again so long as it had a pop flavour to it. 1998 saw both LeAnne Rimes and especially Shania Twain hit huge numbers sales wise and so the door was open for a track like “Dance The Night Away” to walk through and into our charts. I’m guessing it got a lot of play in Radio 2 back then when it wasn’t the catch-all station for the middle-aged as it is now. It was one of those record that people who wouldn’t be seen anyway near a record shop except with a present list at Christmas would venture into their local emporium to buy. Parent album “Trampoline” also sold well making the UK Top 10 but they would not sustain their commercial appeal. They are still together and touring with Raul Malo on vocals. I wonder if they ever get fed up of having to play their biggest hit though?

Now, as follow ups to a No 1 single go, Usher only making No 24 with “Nice & Slow” after previous hit “You Make Me Wanna…” topped the chart isn’t the worse example of how to consolidate on that success*. However, it can’t have been what the R&B superstar would have been expecting or hoping for. After all, the song gave him another Billboard chart topper across the pond.

*Bee Gees followed up No 1 “You Win Again” with “E.S.P.” which peaked at No 51 whilst Nena’s next single after “99 Red Balloons” was “Just A Dream” which struggled to a high of No 70.

However, its inability to achieve the same level of success as its predecessor certainly wasn’t anything to do with a lack of confidence on Usher’s part to sell the song. Look at him in this performance – he has the studio audience of young girls literally trying to paw him. The man in the hat is actively encouraging the near fever pitch crowd though – what is that finger movement near his crotch area when he sings “I got plans to put my hands in places…”? Well, I think we all know what it is but before the watershed BBC? He follows this up by making thrusting motions with his groin after he’s thrown the hat off Michael Jackson style. In case the audience can’t contain themselves, in what must be a first in TOTP history, Usher has a bodyguard stood at the side of the stage. Surely this must have been for effect? Another Chris Cowey innovation maybe? Or was he an actual bodyguard primed for action? What was going on?!

Was there a more intriguing artist in the 90s than Tori Amos? Now don’t all come at me at once with your own, much more deserving (in your opinion) nominations for such a question – I had to start the paragraph with something to introduce her and, in any case, she is intriguing I think, both musically and culturally. Sure, there were the inevitable Kate Bush comparisons early in her career but to dismiss her as some sort of tribute act was pure folly. Sonically, her compositions could make your senses tingle or alternatively make you think “what on earth is this?” so genre-fluid is her work. At once eerie and haunting but also aggressive and deeply emotional with lyrics that address subjects such as sexual assault, religion and gender politics. This track – “Spark” – dealt with her own experience of suffering a miscarriage. It’s hardly ‘I love you, you love me’ stuff.

In her personal life, Tori is a spokesperson for Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN) and has a deep connection with Native American culture due to her ancestors on her Mother’s side being of Cherokee descent. Some of the artists she is reported to have influenced include Alanis Morissette, Olivia Rodrigo and Olly Alexander of Years & Years. Her songs have appeared in multiple TV series including Dawson’s Creek, Yellowjackets, Charmed and Beavis and Butt–Head. She’s undoubtedly a complex and multi-layered character which, as I say, makes her an intriguing artist. As a performer, she’s visually arresting too. Look at this TOTP appearance in which she employs both keyboards and a piano. I also admire the way she looks like she’s come to the studio straight from having a shower with wet hair. It’s an unconventional approach. Having said all of this, “Spark” would prove to be her final Top 40 hit of her career so did her idiosyncratic ways prove ultimately to be to impenetrable for mainstream success? I think probably it was just a case of shifting tastes and anyway, Tori retains a loyal and sizeable fan base to this day.

Is this a case of the sublime to the ridiculous? I think it might be. Having created an unusual piece of pop history for themselves with their first single “5,6,7,8” which, at the time, became the biggest selling single never to make the Top 10, Steps were back to prove that they were never destined to be a one-hit wonder and a novelty one at that. Now, if I said some of the Kate Bush comparisons with Tori Amos were inevitable (and unjustified) then the parallels being drawn between “Last Thing On My Mind” and ABBA were inescapable and totally justified. The back story of this track is that it was originally recorded and released by Bananarama in 1992 as Keren and Sara began the second phase of their career as a duo with Mike Stock and Pete Waterman as producers. It was the latter whose idea for working with the Nanas on the album “Please Yourself” was encapsulated by the phrase ‘ABBA-Banana’. In the end, only the singles released from it stuck to the plan of which “Last Thing On My Mind” was the second. It turned out that the world wasn’t ready to accept this hybrid in the early 90s and the single bombed.

Waterman must have ruefully filed the idea in a drawer marked ‘Do not open until 1998’ as it was recycled for his latest project Steps. Spending a fortnight at No 6 not only justified Waterman’s faith but also ensured that Steps would carry on (and on and on) beyond one hit. It’s as sugary as golden syrup and as substantial as a politician’s promise but at least they didn’t just do a remake of their line dancing debut. Watching this performance, it strikes me that Ian ‘H’ Watkins and Lee Latchford-Evans, though I’m sure that they’re lovely people, are also two of the luckiest pop stars going based on their contribution to this which consists of some tightly rehearsed but limited dance moves. Maybe they’ll come into their own the bigger the hits become.

Out of the way! Here come Catatonia and they’re mad with “Road Rage”! Yes, confirming their status as one of the hottest bands of 1998, Cerys and co follow up “Mulder And Scully” with an absolute banger. Some songs are defined by a singular detail – that ringing guitar chord in “She Sells Sanctuary” by The Cult comes immediately to mind – and so it is with this one but said detail in this case is Cerys’ ability to roll her Rs in the chorus which became the USP of the track. Despite its rather gruesome inspiration being the real life event of the murder of Lee Harvey by his girlfriend Tracie Andrews in 1996 (Andrews falsely claimed to the police Harvey was killed by a man during a road rage confrontation), the track has a glorious, singalong chorus that helped it peak at No 5 in the charts. That position, following the No 3 hit that was its predecessor, meant Catatonia were finally big news after a few early releases that failed to land.

However, was it the band that were building their profile or Cerys Matthews who was generating the headlines? It seemed to me to be the latter and that they were following in the footsteps of Blondie, No Doubt and Sleeper. Press coverage of Cerys reportedly storming out of the Ivor Novello Awards after “Road Rage” was beaten to the Best Contemporary Song gong by Tin Tin Out only fuelled the perception. In her defence, at least her band wrote their song whilst Tin Tin Out’s was a cover of a track by The Sundays. Maybe her rage was justified?

Nearly two years on from their breakthrough hit “Tattva”, Kula Shaker were still experiencing huge commercial success but this single – “Sound Of Drums” – would mark the beginning of the end of their time as chart stars. Whilst it’s true that it went straight in at No 3, it would be their last ever visit to the Top 10. So what went wrong? Well, a lot of factors contributed to their decline I think not least the bad press lead singer Crispian Mills had generated with some decidedly dodgy comments he made to the NME about the symbolism behind the swastika for which he later apologised. In today’s world, he’d have probably been cancelled immediately but back in the late 90s, the slump was more gradual. The press also applied that well worn convention of building up our heroes only to knock them down which played a part in their downfall with Mills’ acting dynasty background that once marked him out as unusual now saw him as part of some elite to be criticised. Then there’s the band’s own inertia when it came to releasing new material. Between “Govinda” in November 1996 and “Mystical Machine Gun” in the March of 1999, the only Kula Shaker tracks made available in the shops were the singles “Hush” and “Sound Of Drums” and one of those was a cover version! The latter was officially the lead single from their second album “Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts” but said album didn’t arrive until ten months later. All these gaps between releases meant that the band’s momentum inevitably waned and their place amongst the rock/pop A-list was destabilised.

What about the music though? Well, despite having a title that sounded like an Audie Murphy Western, it was talked up in the music press as being an attempt to sonically resemble The Doors though I’m not sure I can hear it. They were still definitely playing that mystical, psychedelic rock card in their image though. Check out the trippy backdrop in this performance and The Beatles referencing helter skelter prop. I have to say that having liked their debut album “K” enormously, they were starting to lose me at this point but then maybe I was just paying too much attention to the dissenting voices.

We finally have a new No 1 but be careful what you wish for as replacing Run-D.M.C. versus Jason Nevins are Boyzone. Now despite this being a chart topper, I have zero recall of it. An actual No 1 that I can’t remember at all despite working in record shop at the time! It doesn’t say much for the song in question which is “All That I Need”. A ‘mature’ ballad is no doubt how the band would have described it whereas I would have gone with a dreary non-entity of nothingness. For the record, the thing that Ronan Keating was struggling with that meant the band didn’t perform in the studio was that his mother had recently passed away. The interview with three of the other four band members means we get less than a minute of the promo but it maybe demonstrates as well that executive producer Chris Cowey really couldn’t stand featuring videos on the show but don’t panic as they are in the studio the following week despite having dropped down the charts from No 1 to No 4. Also, why was Stephen Gately the only one to speak during the interview? What was the point of the other two being there?

It’s taken me the whole post but I’ve finally realised what the new opening title graphics remind me of and it features one of the greatest drum fills of all time…

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it ?
1	All Saints	Under The Bridge / Lady Marmalade	Nope
2	The Mavericks	Dance The Night Away	Nah
3	Usher	Nice & Slow	Negative
4	Tori Amos	Spark	Intriguing as she was, it’s a no
5	Steps	Last Thing On My Mind	Never
6	Catatonia	Road Rage	Great track but no
7	Kula Shaker	Sound Of Drums	No
8	Boyzone	All That I Need	Whatever I needed, it wasn’t this

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/m002hqxv/top-of-the-pops-01051998?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 20 FEB 1998

Posted on July 31 by 80stastic

There seems to have been a clear decision by Executive Producer Chris Cowey to big up the recent BRIT Awards for this show, presumably to promote a connection between TOTP and what was then a huge brand. Indeed, the BRITS was enjoying a massive media presence in the mid to late 90s with controversy after controversy occurring. 1996 saw the Jarvis Cocker/Michael Jackson incident whilst 1997 gave us Geri Halliwell’s iconic Union Jack dress and her wardrobe malfunction. 1998 delivered another huge moment when Chumbawamba’s Danbert Nobacon poured a jug of water over Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott who was in the audience. Cowey didn’t seem to what to distance himself from such behaviour though and so the first three acts on tonight’s show are all BRIT winners. Our host is Jo Whiley and we start with the person named the best British Female Solo Artist gong Shola Ama. In all honesty and with the greatest respect to those nominated, it wasn’t packed with stellar names that year (I’m possibly doing Lisa Stansfield a disservice here) but you can only beat who’s in front of you as the saying goes. I never really understood all the fuss about Shola who undoubtedly could sing pretty well but was that enough? The fact that her most famous hit was a cover version which was pretty faithful to the original also undermined her credibility for me. Still, here she was with the title track of her debut album which was her fourth hit on the trot. “Much Love” was a competent R&B/soul number but I would have thought that you might need somebody who had a little more to them than that to be declared ‘The Best’. Sorry Shola. Much love and all that.

Our next BRIT winner are Stereophonics who collected the award for Best British Breakthrough Act beating the likes of All Saints (themselves two times winners on the night) and my personal faves Embrace. The award was presented by Jo Whiley (and actor Max Beesley) so there’s a nice sense of continuity with her introducing them on this TOTP. After three Top 40 hits in 1997, a rerelease of their debut single to cash in on their BRIT award success was always likely and so “Local Boy In The Photograph” would become the band’s then highest charting song when it peaked at No 14 having initially stalled at No 51. A fan favourite to this day, you can hear why as this is a mighty tune. Perfectly showcasing Kelly Jones’s knack for creating vignettes of small town life – this one with a tragic twist chronicling the suicide of a teenager from his youth – it’s powerful guitar sound supplies a driving intensity that is the perfect complement to its lyrics. Jones’s capacity for storytelling shouldn’t have been a surprise as he had pursued a parallel career as a scriptwriter, even sending off some of his creations to the BBC who recognised his potential by paying him enough to purchase his first computer. However, music was always Jones’s first love and when the band were signed there was no turning back. Word had got around about the Stereophonics.

Oh this is just silly now and clearly a case of opportunism. Having won BRIT Awards for British Single and British Video of the year for “Never Ever”, Chris Cowey couldn’t resist sneaking in one final appearance of All Saints performing the ubiquitous track to further that link between TOTP and the BRITS. What number was this now? Nine? I’ve lost count and have certainly lost my words to say anything more about this one other than it’s so shoehorned into the running order here that it doesn’t get an intro from Whiley (and just the briefest of mentions in the outro) and it’s just a re-showing of one of those other eight or so previous performances. What a swizz!

That’s the BRITS winners done with and so we move onto another new(ish) guitar band that appeared in the post-Britpop era. Hurricane #1 had their origins in shoegaze outfit Ride whose Andy Bell (yes, that Andy Bell, the latterly Oasis bass player) was the driving force behind them. Similar to Stereophonics, they’d also had a trio of minor hits the previous year but would begin 1998 with their biggest hit to date. “Only The Strongest Will Survive” was the title track of their second album and is a nifty little tune that puts me in mind of another lost 90s band The Lemon Trees. It’s actually a softer sound than I remembered them as having – maybe their band name was playing tricks with my mind. As I recall, they were tipped for great things but it never quite happened for them (despite being signed to Creation) after said second album failed to sell in any meaningful way and the band split up. They did reform in 2014 without Bell and have been prolific in releasing new material with four albums made in just eight years. As for Bell, after being in Oasis for ten years he followed Liam Gallagher into Beady Eye before concentrating on a solo career and doing soundtrack work. Then came that announcement on 24 August 2024…

There seemed to be something going on with TOTP and male guitar bands this week. After Stereophonics and Hurricane # 1 earlier, here comes another one and it doesn’t stop with The Lilys either but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Yes, you read that right – The Lilys and no, I don’t remember them either. Despite having been around since 1988 and having a list of past band members to rival The Fall and The Waterboys, this No 16 hit “A Nanny In Manhattan” seems to be their only 15 minutes of fame in nigh on 40 years.

Within the show’s predilection for guitar bands this week, there appears to be a sub genre which is ‘guitar bands who had a song used in an advert’. What am I talking about? Well, Hurricane # 1 had “Only The Strongest Will Survive” used in an ad campaign for The Sun newspaper and The Lilys were the 1998 recipients of the Levi’s Jeans advert golden chalice although it proved to be more of the poisoned variety. The Washington DC band must have thought that the good times had arrived when their song was chosen to soundtrack the latest Levi’s advert directed by Roman Coppola but they couldn’t replicate the success of the likes of Stiltskin, Babylon Zoo and Freak Power*.

*Did you notice Jo Whiley pull a face when she name checked those bands in her intro? This from the woman who would present a show on the musical significance of The Teletubbies if it kept her on TV!

Listening to “A Nanny In Manhattan”, I’m not surprised. What a racket! I know I’m a very middle aged man now but even 27 years ago I would have hated this if I’d been aware of it. Their Wikipedia page says that they earned a reputation for copying the styles of other artists down the years but I’m not sure who they were trying to sound like here. A shite version of The Strokes three years before they were a thing? Frontman Kurt Heasley seems to think he’s in The Byrds whilst the bass player has cultivated the type of facial hair that was last seen on Mr. Claypole in Rentaghost. I think I’d rather watch Dobbin the pantomime horse curl one out on stage. Gadzooks!

French electronic music was a bit of a thing around this time. First we had Daft Punk and before the end of the decade Cassius arrived. In between them came Air. The duo of Jean-Benoît Dunckel and Nicolas Godin delivered their ‘Best Albums of the 90s’ list featuring “Moon Safari” collection three weeks before they’d even released a single from it which was surely the wrong way round in terms of promotion. Or maybe it wasn’t as “Sexy Boy” gave them a No 13 hit straight off the bat and what a classy track it was. All slinky rhythms and vocoder vocals, it brought sensual dance music to the charts. The problem here though was how to promote it as Dunckel and Godin, by their own admissions, weren’t classic pin up material (see box out below) but, in a bold move, they resisted the temptation to get some male models in to be the titular “sexy boys” and just fronted it out themselves with a pair of keyboards and a band of slacker dudes behind them. Bravo chaps!

“The song was about who we wanted to be; we weren’t handsome when we were younger; our friends always had more success with girls.” #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) July 25, 2025

“Moon Safari” would be a huge hit in the UK going double platinum with 600,000 sales (one of which was to my wife) whilst Air would enjoy a career of success, critical acclaim and longevity. How though, did I manage to think they were singing “sexy body” for years?

It’s time for that final male guitar band on the show and is it just me or is Jo Whiley’s intro to them a bit odd? She refers to The Bluetones as “one of our brightest hopes for ‘98”. What’s wrong with that you might ask? Well, on the one hand…nothing. Having been one of the breakout stars of 1996 with platinum selling, No 1 album “Expecting To Fly”, much would have been anticipated of their sophomore album “Return To The Last Chance Saloon”. And yet…the phrase “brightest hopes for…” suggests a brand new artist doesn’t it? Not one that is pretty well established already no? Well, semantics aside, sadly for the band, Jo’s hopes were dashed and their album title proved to be prophetic as it underperformed significantly compared to its predecessor and although lead single “Solomon Bites The Worm” would debut at No 10, it would be the last of their four consecutive Top 10 hits and indeed last ever. Although on first hearing it advances at you all robust and angular with that twangy guitar rift, it seems to be all posturing and no substance to me. There’s not much to it although Wikipedia informs me it is based upon the English nursery rhyme “Solomon Grundy” which reads:

Solomon Grundy,
Born on a Monday,
Christened on Tuesday,
Married on Wednesday,
Took ill on Thursday,
Worse on Friday,
Died on Saturday,
Buried on Sunday.
This is the end
Of Solomon Grundy

James Orchard Halliwell, 1842

“Solomon Bites The Worm” apes those words and structure about the cradle to the grave concept but to be honest, there’s another song that does that much better…

The Bluetones would release two more singles from the album to diminishing returns but would return in 2000 with perhaps their best song “Keep The Home Fires Burning” and are still a touring entity to this day.

Right, what on earth was going on here. Why was a song that had been in the charts solidly for three months including seven weeks in the Top 20 only just appearing on TOTP when it had peaked and was going down the charts? Seriously, what happened here? Was this actually the first time that Lutricia McNeal had been on the show? Why was she not on in late November/early December ‘97 when “Ain’t That Just The Way” debuted inside the Top 10? Even if Lutricia wasn’t available in person (it was a hit all over Europe so she may have been on promotional duties) why wasn’t the video shown? Explain yourself Chris Cowey!*

*I’m not counting the fact that it was used to soundtrack the Top 20 countdown for a minute or so one week

Anyway, “Ain’t That Just The Way” was originally a 1975 B-side to Barbi Benton’s single “The Reverend Bob” (and featured in an episode of TV series McCloud!) but it was reactivated by Lutricia two decades later to launch her solo career after being the singer with Swedish rap duo Rob’n’Raz. It transcends both the dance and pop markets with its beats and singalong chorus which might explain its wide appeal and ability to hang around the charts for so long. Or maybe I’m just talking crap. Lutricia will be back in the charts again in a few weeks with another hit “Stranded” which, like its predecessor, would also hang around for months. Wonder if Chris Cowey will allow that one on the show?

We have arrived at one of the biggest selling hits of the decade – “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion which, of course, was from the film Titanic. What to say about this monster hit? Well, it was a No 1 in just about every country in every territory and sold 18 million copies worldwide. It’s racked up 728 million streams in the US. It won an Oscar, a Golden Globe, four Grammys…like the song itself, it goes on and on. However, the comment I’d most like to make about it is that it’s dreadful. Awful. Horrible. The only saving grace in all these facts about its commercial success is that it wasn’t actually the best selling single of 1998 in the UK. That was…well, we’ll come to that in a future post. That and the fact that somehow it was only No 1 over here for two non-consecutive weeks although it did spend nine weeks on the trot inside the Top 3. And that’s all I’m saying about it at this time. Unlike Celine’s heart, I won’t go on.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Shola Ama	Much Love	Negative
2	Stereophonics	Local Boy In The Photograph	No but I had the album
3	All Saints	Never Ever	No
4	Hurricane #1	Only The Strongest Will Survive	Nah
5	The Lilys	A Nanny In Manhattan	Hell no
6	Air	Sexy Boy	No but my wife had the album
7	The Bluetones	Solomon Bites The Worm	I did not
8	Lutricia McNeal	Ain’t That Just The Way	Nope
9	Celine Dion	My Heart Will Go On	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/m002g805/top-of-the-pops-20021998?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 30 JAN 1998

Posted on July 15 by 80stastic

It’s late January 1998 and Bill Clinton, the President of the United States of America, isn’t having a good week. Four days before this TOTP aired, he’d made his infamous “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” denial on TV to the world in the hope of quelling rumours of a sex scandal involving himself and White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

It would turn out that Bill’s definition of ‘sexual relations’ was different to the rest of the planet’s when he was impeached by the House of Representatives on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. Despite admitting months later that he had engaged in an “improper physical relationship” with Lewinsky, Clinton’s insisted that he had not given misleading evidence because he understood the definition of ‘sexual relations’ as given by the Independent Counsel’s Office to include giving oral sex but not receiving oral sex and therefore he had not engaged in sexual relations. Talk about splitting (pubic) hairs!* Somehow he got off the charges of impeachment and stayed in office but he did receive a fine for giving misleading testimony.

*Sorry!

Given that there is now a convicted felon in the White House (for the second time) who seems to be intent on declaring himself ‘King of America’, Clinton-Lewinsky-gate may have loss some of its scandalous reputation when seen through 2025 eyes but I guess that just shows how far the acceptable behaviour bar has been lowered by Trump. None of this has anything to do with good old, wholesome TOTP of course…or does it? I wonder if I can find some incredibly tenuous links…

Our host is Jayne Middlemiss and we start with…oh my God…not again! It can’t be “Never Ever” by All Saints again surely?! This is their eighth appearance on the show (including the Christmas Day episode) and they still have one more to go! Their first performance of “Never Ever” came on the 21 November 1997 and the last will be on 20 February 1998. That’s a time span of almost exactly three months. Three months! If that sounds ludicrous then there does seem to be an explanation which is that their hit spent 15 weeks inside the Top 10 of which only six were occasions when the record went down the chart. It was, in short, an absolute monster! Did it never occur to their record label London to delete the single so as to clear the way for their next release à la Dinah Carroll’s “Don’t Be A Stranger” or just so we could all move on with the rest of our lives as happened with Wet Wet Wet’s “Love Is All Around”? As it turned out, London and All Saints had their cake and ate it as follow up single “Under The Bridge/ Lady Marmalade” went to No 1 (on two separate occasions) anyway.

Clinton-Lewinsky connection: He “never, ever” had sexual relations with that woman (except he did)

Talking of follow ups to huge hit singles that hung around the charts for ages, here’s Chumbawamba trying to consolidate on the unexpected runaway success of “Tubthumping” with their next release “Amnesia”. I couldn’t have told you how this one went before re-hearing it but as soon as that “Do you suffer from long term memory loss?” line appeared in the hook, the sinker dropped and it all came flooding back. No amnesia for me! Although featuring another catchy chorus (delivered this time by Alice Nutter), it didn’t have the same immediate impact as its predecessor. It just didn’t have the same explosive energy – in fact, the verses were quite pedestrian. It was still commercial enough though to score the band a No 10 hit which was still quite remarkable for an anarcho-punk band formed in 1982.

“Amnesia” was written in response to the disparity between the promises of politicians and their actions once voted into power and the repeated lack of discernment of the electorate who put them there with particular inspiration coming from the band’s reaction to Tony Blair’s New Labour. Ten days after this TOTP was broadcast, there was a very visible and infamous rejection of New Labour when the band’s Danbert Nobacon poured a bucket of iced water over then Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott at the BRIT Awards show. Ah, 1998 when the BRITS were still worth watching.

Clinton-Lewinsky connection: Oh brilliant! Check this out from the band’s Boff Whalley about “Amnesia”:

“People forget that what Bill Clinton before he gets elected is not what Bill Clinton will do when he’s in office and that’s not just about Bill Clinton, that’s about all politicians”

“Chumbawamba Talks About Political “Amnesia””. MTV. Viacom.

Still with those hits that had legs comes “Angels” by Robbie Williams which was in its eight week inside the Top 10 four of which had been spent at No 7 where it found itself again this week. Despite all that time in the chart and subsequent TOTP appearances, I don’t think I’ve yet addressed the issue of authorship surrounding this one. Now, we all know that Robbie’s early material was co-written with Guy Chambers who was originally in the criminally underrated and overlooked band The Lemon Trees before meeting Williams and, indeed, “Angels” is one of the songs that they wrote together – theirs are the names that are listed in the credits on the single and parent album. However, enter Irish singer-songwriter Ray Heffernan whom Robbie met in a short visit to Dublin in 1996 before the launch of his solo career. At the time, both men were heavy drinkers and, after a session in a bar, recorded a rough and incomplete version of a song Heffernan had played to Williams called “Angels Instead”.

On returning home, Robbie would take up with Guy Chambers and presented what he had of the early version of “Angels” and they worked it up into the song we know today. Heffernan took legal representation out to protect his claims on the track (whatever they actually were) and in the end settled for a one off payment of £7,500 to basically go away. Forever. “Angels” would become a modern day standard and earn millions in royalties and an Ivor Novello award. You may think this would have destroyed Heffernan and he was certainly angry for a while but on reflection is glad not to have earned all those royalties as he believes it would have only enabled his destructive drug use of the time. All he really wants is proper recognition of his input into the song from Williams. Having watched the video below chronicling the story as to whether Robbie is right or wrong, I think I’m believing Ray instead.

Clinton-Lewinsky connection: I did not have musical relations with that man

Right, it’s all songs we haven’t seen before in these BBC4 repeats from here on in starting with the first appearance on the show for Catatonia. For a while back in the late 90s, this lot were big news. Arriving as part of the ‘cool Cymru’ movement alongside Manic Street Preachers, Super Furry Animals, Stereophonics and Feeder – “Mulder And Scully” was the track to catapult them to superstardom. Obviously influenced by the main characters from hit sci-fi TV show The X–Files, it also allowed singer Cerys Matthews a platform for her distinctive voice or as host Jayne Middlemiss commented, her regional accent. Such vocal stylings were not unique – The Proclaimers were infamous for singing in their Scottish brogue and Chas & Dave made a career out of recording using their cockney dialect – but it wasn’t as simple as that with Cerys. There was also the over pronunciation of words such as “Scull-eee” and the rolling ‘R’s in follow up hit “Road Rage”. Even this wasn’t entirely new though – Liam Gallagher’s extraordinary extended articulation of the word “shine” as “she-iiiiiiine” for example. And yet, you couldn’t ignore Matthews. She was a force of nature with many a tale of legendary drinking escapades to her name. Because of her presence in the line up, it would be easy to lump them in with all those other bands of the period who were fronted by a charismatic female singer like Elastica, Sleeper, Echobelly and Skunk Anansie but all those bands had their own sound and that included Catatonia.

I think I’d first come across them when their single “I Am The Mob” lightly scraped the Top 40 in the Autumn of 1997 though they’d been around for a lot longer than that. Having formed in 1992 and been though various line up changes and independent releases, they’d finally came to market via a major label with 1996’s “Way Beyond Blue” album which I somehow managed to miss completely despite working in a record shop. When “Mulder And Scully” debuted at No 3 though, we all had to take notice. Had it been a deliberate ploy to write a song that referenced an incredibly successful current TV show or was it just that Cerys was plugging into the popular culture zeitgeist? I choose to believe the latter as it’s not really a song about The X–Files as such but rather a metaphor. Having said that, I did find the use of the show’s protagonists’ names in the chorus slightly jarring. Reading all that back, I seem to be rather conflicted about Catatonia don’t I? What I am sure about is that they continued to have hits to the end of the 90s and into the new millennium. Sophomore album “International Velvet” went three times platinum but by the time of their fourth, the band seemed to be an anachronism and they split in 2001.

Cerys Matthews would go on to be an award winning author and broadcaster with shows on BBC Radios 2 and 4 and 6 Music and founded The Good Life Experience festival. In 2007, she appeared on I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here causing a stir in the tabloids when she began a relationship with fellow camp mate and EastEnders actor Marc Bannerman. What I remember most about her post Catatonia career though is that she used to write a column in The Guardian under the pseudonym of Dr Crotchety who was an agony aunt for music fans giving people who wrote in suggestions to liven up their listening habits which I found patronising in the extreme. She gave the impression of loving every single type of musical genre which I just couldn’t get on board with.

Clinton-Lewinsky connection: Well, this is fortunate. Cerys Matthews serenaded Bill Clinton at the Haye-On-Wye Literature Festival in 2001 even laying her head on his chest!

After something so memorable comes a totally forgettable hit which guess what?…I’d forgotten about it. “So Good” by Juliet Roberts anyone? She’d had a medium sized hit in 1994 with a remix of “Caught In The Middle” but sure enough, I don’t recall that either despite the fact that I must have reviewed it in this blog. This one was a double A-side with another remix of a previous hit “Free Love”. She was big on rereleases and remixes was Juliet. She also was fond of a collaboration. As far back as 1983, she was the vocalist for the Funk Masters on their Top 10 hit “It’s Over” and in 2001 had a US Dance chart No 1 with big shot DJ, producer and remixer David Morales on the track “Needin U II”.

Clinton-Lewinsky connection: Nothing for Juliet Roberts. Julia Roberts on the other hand appeared on the final week of The David Letterman Show alongside Bill Clinton and also appeared in a Broadway fund raiser in support of Hilary Clinton in 2016.

A case now of when one of a band’s most well known songs divides their fan base*. Green Day had made their name playing fast, power chord-heavy pop-punk tunes but here they were in reflective mood with an acoustic ballad. The track “Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)” had actually been around for years before it was recorded for the band’s “Nimrod” album, having been considered unsuitable for inclusion on their previous two major label releases.

*See also “More Than Words” by Extreme

It’s a deceptive song – on the one hand very simple – even a basic strummer like me can manage the chord sequence – and yet it has a depth to it. Just look at its title for a start; it’s almost paradoxical but allows the listener to take their preferred meaning away from it. For example, it has become a staple of DJ set lists at US Prom dances as a symbol of celebration for surviving High School. Conversely, when a senior manager left one of my previous workplaces and the staff were asked to contribute a song to a playlist they created for him, I chose “Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)” for the first two words of the title. Ah but what were those two words? Well, ‘good’ and ‘riddance’ obviously except…in some territories it was released as “Time Of Your (Good Riddance)”! What was that all about? To make it more easily identifiable to the casual listener as opposed to a Green Day devotee? Maybe it’s an American thing – the exact same scenario happened with the Icicle Works single “Birds Fly (Whisper To A Scream)” which was released in the US as “Whisper To A Scream (Birds Fly)”.

Anyway, this new direction for Green Day seemed to confuse some of their fanbase and even in some cases left them feeling betrayed. This wasn’t the band they’d grown up loving. They couldn’t…gulp…be looking for a more mainstream audience could they? Thankfully, the band hadn’t sold their soul for a hit and would release perhaps their defining album in 2004 – the punk concept album “American Idiot”. As for “Good Riddance”, it has become accepted as a Green Day standard and is usually played as the last song by the band at their gigs.

Clinton-Lewinsky connection: The band’s song “Holiday” from the aforementioned “American Idiot” album includes the lyrics “I declare I don’t care about the president” and “I don’t care about the latest scandal” which are reportedly about Clinton-Lewinsky-gate.

There are some songs that just won’t be left alone. “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” is one of them. Originally a hit for Sylvester in 1978, it was reactivated in 1990 by Jimmy Somerville who took it into the Top 5. Just eight years later, here was Byron Stingily making it a hat trick of chart appearances for the track. Having first experienced success as part of Ten City in 1989 with “That’s The Way Love Is”, Byron’s solo career finally kicked off in 1997 with the US Dance Chart No 1 hit “Get Up (Everybody)” which also made No 14 in the UK. He followed that up with this curiously hollow and empty sounding version of a disco classic. It really adds nothing to the original and is inferior to the Jimmy Somerville cover to my ears. Stingily would only have one more hit which saw him return to past glories with his solo treatment of that Ten City single. As for “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)”, it’s also been covered by Adam Lambert, Lewis Taylor and Sandra Bernhard.

Clinton-Lewinsky connection: This is unbelievable! Stingily’s version of Sylvester’s best known song was featured on a Spanish dance compilation album called “Ahora ‘98” the front cover of which was a parody of Bill and Hilary Clinton with actors pretending to be them at a desk in the Oval Office with a pair of legs protruding underneath it meant to be Monica Lewinsky who is…well…in a compromising position to say the least!

There’s a new No 1 from someone who would become a global superstar though the only connection he would make with me is that his name is my current job title. Usher has gone on to be known as the ‘King of R&B’ with a multi platinum selling back catalogue including nine No 1 US singles. Curiously though, this track – “You Make Me Wanna…” wasn’t one of them despite topping our charts when it peaked at No 2 over the pond. With its acoustic guitar hook, it crossed over into the mainstream big time winning a host of awards as it went and yet I hardly remember it at all. I guess I’m just not an R&B kinda guy.

Clinton-Lewinsky connection: This post has written itself! In 2010, Usher hosted a Senate fundraiser for candidate Michelle Nunn with Bill Clinton as the guest of honour. A year later, Usher performed at the ‘Decade of Difference’ concert celebrating the 10 year anniversary of the William J. Clinton foundation and also Bill Clinton’s 65th birthday. During Usher’s performance, this happened…

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	All Saints	Never Ever	Nope
2	Chumbawamba	Amnesia	I did not
3	Robbie Williams	Angels	No but I had a promo of his album
4	Catatonia	Mulder And Scully	It’s a no from me
5	Juliet Roberts	So Good	No, it wasn’t
6	Green Day	Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)	Great song but it seems I didn’t
7	Byron Stingily	You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)	Nah
8	Usher	You Make Me Wanna…	Not my bag

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/m002dt20/top-of-the-pops-30011998?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 16 JAN 1998

Posted on June 20 by 80stastic

It’s the middle of January 1998 and two days before this TOTP aired on the BBC, Channel 4 broadcast the 2000th edition of their soap opera Brookside. I don’t think I was still watching it by this point but, in a cards on the table moment, I can reveal that I have been watching the repeats being shown on STV. From the very start in 1982. We’re up to 1988 now (that’s nearly 650 episodes) and yes, like you, I am asking myself “What am I doing with my life?”. Still, there’s worse things you could do than watch some episodes of a now defunct soap. Or indeed, spend years watching repeats of old pop music shows and then even longer writing up reviews of each one. Oh God – what am I doing with my life?! Oh well, it is what it is and what this TOTP is (or was) we need to find out…

Jayne ‘The Smirk’ Middlemiss is our host and we start with a band who were meant to lead us out of the Britpop years and into…well, a post-Britpop era I guess. Rialto were formed from the ashes of indie rockers Kinky Machine. Retaining their record label (EastWest Records) but not their name and adding some new members, the new look band courted the favour and patronage of the music press and were predicted a hugely successful future by Melody Maker for their epic, soundscape songs that were dripping with atmosphere. Somehow it didn’t quite turn out like that though. Being dropped by their record label shortly before their much anticipated debut album was about to be released can’t have been good for confidence in the band either internally or externally. According to vocalist Louis Eliot, it was just a case of being in the wrong place at the time. EastWest had a change of personnel and sacked their A&R man which led to the band being let go. Their album was released by China Records (home of Art Of Noise, Morcheeba and The Levellers) but in an extraordinary stroke of bad luck, China were bought out by EastWest and Rialto were dropped again.

I’m getting ahead of myself though. Reactions to the album were generally positive but in that ‘build ‘em up, knock ‘em down’ attitude so prevalent in the UK press, some reviewers decided to bury the hatchet right between the band’s collective shoulder blades. It made a reasonable stab at the charts though peaking at No 21 no doubt helped by the respectable performance of this single “Untouchable” (No 20). A sweeping, cinematic track that had echoes of a John Barry TV or movie theme (The Persuaders comes to mind), this was a favourite of mine and my wife’s and a purchase was duly made. We were so taken with the band that we had tickets to see them at The Manchester Academy but I was ill on the night of the gig and we missed them. Their success in the UK was dwarfed by that in South Korea where they even outsold Celine Dion and their album went to No 1 but a trip to South East Asia to catch them live seemed a bit over the top (and I’d been to China for just seven days the year before!). A second album arrived in 2001 but by then the writing was in the wall and Rialto split. Eliot pursued a brief solo career but is currently a permanent member of Grace Jones’s touring band. And then, out of the blue, Rialto were back in 2023 playing festivals and with a new album released on the legendary indie label Fierce Panda in April this year. Maybe I’ll get to see them play live after all.

Next is Robbie Williams whose song “Angels” is continuing its undulating chart journey and is back up to No 6 this week. It would alternate between rising and falling for ten of the twelve weeks it remained inside the Top 10. Quite extraordinary. Perhaps in order to build Robbie some credibility and for him to be seen as a serious artist, this time he’s doing the song live and acoustic (or ‘unplugged’ as we said in the 90s). Whether this gave him that credibility is not for me to surmise but it certainly imbued him with some confidence – you can see it all over his face. It could be his famous bravado of course.

P.S. Why was Louis Theroux playing guitar in this performance?

In many ways, KC And The Sunshine Band’s UK legacy is in complete contrast to its US counterpart. In America, they racked up five No 1s and two No 2s whereas over here, their only chart topper was the sickeningly upbeat “Give It Up” which curiously only made No 18 over the water. Of those American No 1s, only two translated into massive hits over here. “Please Don’t Go” was a No 3 in the UK whilst “That’s The Way (I Like It)” made it to No 4. Of those other massive US hits, none got higher than No 21 over here. There must have been something about those two transatlantic hits as both would become huge all over again in the 80s and 90s. KWS took “Please Don’t Go” all the way to No 1 in 1992 whilst Dead Or Alive’s first hit wasn’t “You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)” but their Hi-NRG version of “That’s The Way (I Like It)” from 1984. And then there’s this cover of it by Clock. Just…just…WHY?! Well, for the money obviously as it can’t have been for reasons of artistic integrity can it?! I think this lot were possibly the most shameful and shameless of all those 90s dance acts, stealing a living by pinching other people’s songs and putting a nasty dance backing track to them. The Four Seasons, Hot Chocolate, Tag Team and even Harold Faltermeyer had received the Clock treatment and now even KC And The Sunshine Band weren’t safe from Clock’s hands. This one though didn’t even seem to have that nasty 90s sheen to it as it was a fairly straight run through of the original.

The only good news is that time was ticking on Clock. They would only have two more UK chart hits before their spring was sprung one of which was yet another cover – this time of The Jacksons’ “Blame It On The Boogie” which itself had already been covered by heinous boy band Big Fun in 1989. None of this nonsense was the way I liked it.

It’s the Lighthouse Family up next with another performance of their hit “High”. I can’t think of a single thing to say about this one having only just commented on it in the previous post. However…having watched their appearance back, there’s something odd going on with the studio audience or more specifically one member of it. If you go to 3:20 in on the clip YouTube clip below, look at the young girl in a patterned top in the forefront of the screen. She seems to be distracted by something or someone out of shot and the look on her face is one of bewilderment with perhaps a hint of disgust. What was going on there? It wasn’t a reaction I’d have expected whilst watching the blandly inoffensive Lighthouse Family!

Early 1998 saw an Oasis milestone occur that was actually more like a line drawn in the sand in terms of the band’s history. “All Around The World” wasn’t just the third single released from the “Be Here Now” album nor the fourth of eight No 1s that they clocked up. No, it was their last release on Creation Records and the last to feature founding members Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs and Paul ‘Guigsy’ McGuigan. It was the end of an era and some might say that things were never the same again. Bonehead and Guigsy would both leave the band within two weeks of each other in the Summer of 1999 after completing preliminary recording sessions for fourth album “Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants”. Said album would appear in 2000 on the band’s own label Big Brother after the dissolution of Creation by Alan McGee in December of 1999.

As for “All Around The World”, this was a track written by Noel Gallagher in the band’s very early pre-record deal days which he infamously said he would leave recording until the third Oasis album. He was true to his word and it was the tenth track on “Be Here Now” clocking in at a mighty 9:20 in length making it the longest track the band had ever recorded. I was always bemused that given its size and stature, it wasn’t the last track in the album with it being trailed by “It’s Gettin’ Better (Man!!)” but there is a two minute instrumental reprise of “All Around The World” to close the album in fairness. It also marks the point at which the band were most open about vaunting their Beatles influences. Not content to try and rewrite “Hey Jude”, the video that went with it was an obvious steal from the Fab Four’s Yellow Submarine film. We don’t get to see that here though and nor do we get a studio performance but, as the personal VT message from the band says, a clip of them playing it live at the old GMEX venue in Manchester as part of the Be Here Now tour which had taken the band to America for its next leg hence their absence tonight. The live version sounds more powerful than the single release and, of course, there’s Liam’s obligatory over pronunciation of the word ‘shine’ as ‘she-iiiiine’. It got me wondering how many of their song has lyrics which feature that word. A quick search of the internet found this lot:

Rock N Roll Star – “I live my life for the stars that shine”

Cigarettes’ and Alcohol – “You could wait for a lifetime to spend your days in the sunshine”

Slide Away – “Let me be the one who shines with you”

Up in the Sky – “I heard that the shine’s gone out of your life.”

Some Might Say – “Some might say that sunshine follows thunder” / “Go and tell it to the man who cannot shine”

Hello – “Cos the sun don’t shine”

All Around the World – “These are crazy days but they make me shine”

Acquiesce – “I only wanna see the light that shines behind your eyes”

Magic Pie – “My star will shine”

Who Feels Love – “Thank you for the sun, the one that shines on every one who feels love”

The Hindu Times – “You’re my sunshine you’re my rain” / “There’s a light that shines on, shines on me”

Stop Crying Your Heart Out – “May your smile shine on”

She is Love – “When the sunshine beckons to ya”

Born on a Different Cloud – “You’re my sun and you’re gonna shine”

The Importance of Being Idle – “As long as there’s a bed beneath the stars that shine”

A Bell Will Ring – “The sun will shine on you again”

Bag It Up – “Gold and silver and sunshine is rising up”

Soldier On – “Shine a light for me tonight”

Boy with the Blues – “Remember to shine”

Cloudburst – “Downtown the moon is shining”

One Way Road – “And are we gonna see the heavens shine”

Round Are Way – “Round are way the sun shines bright”

Flashbax – “There shines a light, like dynamite”

Idler’s Dream – “The light that’s shining through your eyes of gold”

Shout It Out Loud – “I hope the light shines on we as one”

“Shiiiiiine on”!

They’ve finally done it! It’s taken nine weeks of which two saw them going down the charts and three as a non-mover but All Saints are at No 1 with “Never Ever”. They’re in the studio to celebrate their achievement which includes a fairly inane chat with Jayne Middlemiss before they deliver what seems to be a live vocal performance judging by the a cappella bit at the end.

Listening to those spoken word lyrics, some of them don’t seem to make any sense. For example:

“A few questions that I need to know”

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Shaznay Lewis / Robert Jazayeri / Sean Prescott Mather
Never Ever lyrics © Mca Music Ltd., Stl Songs Limited, Rickidy Raw Prod., Inc.

Surely that should be answers not ‘questions’? Then there’s this:

“I need to know what I’ve done wrong and how long it’s been going on”

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Shaznay Lewis / Robert Jazayeri / Sean Prescott Mather
Never Ever lyrics © Mca Music Ltd., Stl Songs Limited, Rickidy Raw Prod., Inc.

That doesn’t quite ring true. Shouldn’t it be “I need to know what you’ve done wrong”?

Then there’s the whole confusion over how to pronounce the letter ‘Z’ – is it ‘zee’ or ‘zed’ as both are used here. All very bewildering. Also bewildering is how many times the band have been on the show to perform “Never Ever”. If you think this must be the last as this was the song’s only week at No 1, you’re wrong. They’re on again in a couple of repeats!

After weeks of finishing the show with the No 1 record, suddenly we’ve reverted to having a play out hit. Was this a temporary thing or will it be here to stay? Anyway, there was clearly a KC And The Sunshine Band mini revival going on in January 1998 as after Clock earlier, here’s another hit based on one of their tunes. For “That’s The Way (I Like It)” read “Get Down Tonight” but with a 90s house beat applied to it and a new title – “Bamboogie”. Who was responsible for this crud? A producer called Andrew Livingstone who created the vehicle Bamboo to peddle this crap. I’m guessing it’s high chart entry at No 2 was taking advantage of the post Christmas sales slump. Thank God for those people who bought the 557 extra copies of “Never Ever” to keep “Bamboogie” from being No 1! A slender but important victory. You just knew this was going to be awful by its vintage cartoon video which stank of “this’ll do”. See also Jive Bunny And The Mastermixers and the Outhere Brothers.

I’m guessing that KC And The Sunshine Band’s record label will have taken advantage of this renewed interest in their artist and released a Best Of album?

*checks KC’s discography*

Yes they did and it sold enough copies to be granted silver status. I should think so too. In any case, if I wanted a song with “Bamboogie” in the title then I would certainly choose this one over that Bamboo shite.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Rialto	Untouchable	YES!!!
2	Robbie Williams	Angels	No but I had a promo copy of the album
3	Clock	That’s The Way ( I Like It)”	Of course not
4	Lighthouse Family	High	Nah
5	Oasis	All AroundThe World	No, I’d stopped buying their singles by this point
6	All Saints	Never Ever	I didn’t
7	Bamboo	Bamboogie	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/m002dfcd/top-of-the-pops-16011998?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 09 JAN 1998

Posted on June 18 by 80stastic

Here we go then with another year of BBC4’s TOTP repeats. Do I have high hopes for 1998? Not really but I am willing and hopeful to be proved wrong. The first show since the Christmas Day broadcast has a mixture of hits we’ve seen before and some brand new ones plus something of a chart rarity concerning the No 1 record. Our host is regular presenter Jo Whiley and we kick off with the Lighthouse Family and their latest single “High” which is an apt title as the band were at the highest point of their popularity and success. Sensibly held back from the December release schedules to avoid being lost in the rush, it would peak at No 4 becoming their joint biggest single alongside “Lifted”. Taken from their four times platinum, sophomore album “Postcards From Heaven”, it couldn’t have been more easy listening playlist if it had been fiendishly crafted by Dr. Easy Listening in the laboratory for producing Easy Listening songs. And yet…if I had to, at gunpoint, take one Lighthouse Family song with me throughout my life, it would be this one as it’s so life-affirmingly positive.

Having said that, it’s a good job it wasn’t recorded in the 60s. The lyric “one day we’re gonna get so high” wouldn’t have got past the network censors on the Ed Sullivan Show and somehow I can’t imagine singer Tunde Baiyewu pulling a Jim Morrison. That reminds me – I was at a wedding recently and at the sit down meal at the reception found myself talking to a perfectly pleasant young man to my right who was planning a holiday to Paris. When asked by him if I’d ever been, I replied in the affirmative and started listing the attractions he might want to visit including the Père Lachaise cemetery but I gave warning of all the drugs paraphernalia directing people to the grave of Jim Morrison. The young man’s reply? “Who?”! He didn’t know Morrison or The Doors though he thought he might have heard the song “Riders On The Storm”. I’m so old.

“Jiggle your bits to this!” says Jo Whiley. Jiggle your bits? Were you allowed to say that back in the day before the watershed? In the age of lad culture you probably were sadly. Anyway, although this was our first glimpse of Steps on TOTP, their debut hit “5,6,7,8” had actually been around for weeks by this point. Eight of them in fact having ricocheted between the Nos 23 to 17 before finally peaking at No 14 prompting this appearance. It would then spend a further four consecutive weeks inside the Top 20 before finally bowing out of the Top 40 in its 15th week since release. Although one of the group’s lowest charting singles, it’s their third biggest hit thanks to subsequent streams of over nearly 38 million by 2021.

I think it’s fair to say that this track is not typical* of the rest of their back catalogue and I’m guessing that maybe they were only put together on a one single deal written to take advantage of the line dancing phenomenon that was sweeping the nation at the time. Responding to an advertisement in trade publication The Stage, the quintet surely didn’t expect the success and longevity that they have enjoyed.

*Of course, they’re not alone in having their debut hit sound nothing like subsequent releases. Some of the biggest names in pop music history could tell a similar tale. Look at the difference between “Love Me Do” and, say, “Strawberry Fields Forever” or between those early Beach Boys surfing hits and “God Only Knows”. Not that I’m putting Steps in the same bracket as Brian Wilson (RIP) nor Lennon & McCartney obviously.

Look at some of these numbers:

22 million records sold worldwide
5 million album sales in the UK
4.8 million singles sales in the UK
13 consecutive Top 5 singles in the UK including two No 1s

Not bad for an act that was put together to sell a one-off, line dancing hit. Ah yes, that hit. It really is atrocious. As if we hadn’t been tormented enough with “Cotton Eye Joe” by Rednex a few years before. Nobody should have been surprised to discover that Pete Waterman was involved in this mess with the group signed to his EBUL label in partnership with Jive Records and the man himself acting as co-producer. I think it’s fair to say that he ultimately saw Steps as a second chance to launch the British ABBA after his initial attempt with Bananarama in the early 90s had failed to ignite the charts. Sure, “5,6,7,8” sounded nothing like the Swedish pop superstars but their follow up “Last Thing On My Mind”* certainly did as did their third single “One For Sorrow”. Steps would ultimately transcend that idea (if not ABBA’s sales) to establish themselves in the premier league of late 90s pop groups.

*That track was released as a single by Bananarama in 1992 but failed to chart.

Despite having two separate periods of hiatus that amounted to the group being inactive for a total of 15 years, their story is still not fully told as the jukebox musical Here & Now featuring the hits of Steps opened last year and is set to tour the UK from August this year until May next.

P.S. As I was writing this, I turned on the TV and on BBC1 was Ian ‘H’ Watkins giving an interview about his small music festival in the town of Cowbridge where he lives that had been forced by the US Coachella festival to change its name from Cowchella to Moo-La-La. Rather than be disappointed, H was delighted with the publicity the story had generated for his festival. Boot scootin’ indeed.

It’s a re-showing of a previous Janet Jackson appearance next as we see that dress-down Friday performance of “Together Again”…erm…again. Supposedly, Janet’s inspiration to write the track came from the 1996 Nuyorican Soul hit “Runaway” which had been huge in the US clubs. However, it wasn’t contemporary clubs that had been at the forefront of Janet’s mind in writing the song but perhaps the most famous club of all time – New York’s Studio 54. Apparently, “Runaway” reminded her of being in there as a child. What the hell was she doing in Studio 54 as a child?! The club was notorious for its open drug use and sexual activity by its patrons. There’s a famous photo of Canadian First Lady Margaret Trudeau at Studio 54 without any underwear on! And Janet was in there as a minor! I think I’ll leave that story there.

After becoming bona fide pop stars in 1996 with some quirky hits straight out of left field like “Female Of The Species” and “Neighbourhood”, Space weren’t about to rest on their laurels and released sophomore album “Tin Planet” just 18 months after debut “Spiders”. The lead single from it was “Avenging Angels” which seemed to me to pursue a more mainstream sound than some of its predecessors. I mean, it still wasn’t your standard rock/pop song – it still had that spooky, twangy guitar sound in the mix – but the chorus was more conventionally melodic it seemed to me. They did retain that retro sound though – in fact, listening back to it now it could be the theme tune to a 60s sci-fi show or maybe I’m just fixating on the ‘angels’ part of the song and conjuring up images of the female fighter pilots from Captain Scarlet And The Mysterons. There’s two other parts of the song that needs some discussion. Firstly, I could never get along with the “kick ass angels” lyric of the chorus – it always really jarred with me for some reason. Secondly, that megaphone sung middle eight part. Apparently, Radio 1 said they wouldn’t play the single unless its length was cut in half. It duly was and “Avenging Angels” became a No 6 hit, the band’s biggest ever to that point.

It’s yet another appearance by All Saints again next as their uber-hit “Never Ever” continues its lengthy yet inevitable rise to the top of the chart. After witnessing the dance extravaganza that was Steps earlier in the show, I have to say that despite all the bells and whistles of that Steps performance, I find the All Saints…erm…steps more effective. Yes, all the thumbs down the waistbands, the twirling, the handclaps, the sidestepping, the lassoing and gun toting moves I found less memorable than All Saints stepping around in a circle shrugging their shoulders. Less really is more sometimes.

Now here’s a genuinely intriguing collaboration and yet I have zero recall of it. Absolutely nothing at all so listening to it now was quite illuminating. We’d already seen the worlds of rock and pop and classical collide on hits such as The Farm’s “All Together Now” and rap and a classical come together on Coolio’s “C U When U Get There” both of which were heavily based on Johann Pachelbel’s “Cannon”. However, had we seen rap and opera combined before? The people to thank for this (if ‘thank’ is indeed the right word) were West Coast rapper Warren G and Norwegian soprano Sissel Kyrkjebø who together went by the name of The Rapsody (see what they did there?) and gave us the track “Prince Igor”. Inspired by the “Polovtsian Dances” of Alexander Borodin’s opera “Prince Igor”, it topped the charts in Norway and Iceland and was a respectable No 15 hit in the UK. It was the lead single from a whole album of opera/hip hop mash ups entitled “The Rapsody Overture: Hip Hop Meets Classic” and I thought I would unreservedly hate it but it has something to it that engaged me. I think it’s the aria part sung by Sissel rather than Warren G’s rapping to be fair. Oh and remember my Captain Scarlet reference earlier when commenting on Space? What was one of the Angels pilots call signs? Yep, Rhapsody (spelt correctly this time). The others were Symphony, Harmony, Destiny and Melody if you were wondering.

Now if you thought “5,6,7,8” was a novelty hit, get a load of this! What on earth was going on here?! Just like All Saints, there were four members of Vanilla and two of them were sisters but that is undoubtedly where the comparisons end. Quite what this said about the contempt that EMI who released this tripe had for the record buying public can’t be articulated. The whole sorry episode also spoke volumes of those poor gullible fools that bought what is surely one of the worst singles of the decade. LBC Radio presenter James O’Brien has a phrase he uses in respect to the Brexit debate which is ‘Compassion for the conned, contempt for the conmen’ but I would struggle with the first part of it when it came to anyone who spent their money on “No Way, No Way”. Based on “Mah Nà Mah Nà” by Italian composer Piero Umiliani which became internationally recognised for its usage on The Muppets and The Benny Hill Show, it almost registers zero brain activity in its conception and execution. Apparently, when they were offered the chance to record it, the group weren’t sure as they wanted to pursue an R&B style but were convinced by the argument that “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls was as essentially a novelty hit so ‘what the hell’. Yes, it brought them instant yet brief fame of sorts but did they really think they could build a career off the back of it?!

Of course, they couldn’t. After getting to No 14 with “No Way, No Way”, the follow up single “True To Us” only made No 36 despite conducting a number of appearances at schools and being on the Disney Channel UK 1998 tour. In 2011 the inevitable happened when one of the group appeared in the Identity Parade section of Never Mind The Buzzcocks…

Despite the ridicule the group received, they seemed like good sports appearing multiple times on The Big Breakfast in a feature called ‘Vanilla’s Thrillers’.

Thankfully, if I think of The Muppets, the association in my head isn’t Vanilla but this from Alan Partridge’s Mid Morning Matters series…

So to that rare chart event surrounding the No 1 record as “Perfect Day” by Various Artists returns to the top some five weeks after it initially wore the crown. Now it wasn’t a unique occurrence for a single to return to No 1 after being temporarily deposed by another hit but it was the length of the gap between being the best selling song of the week that was surprising. Having been released at the end of November and being at No 1 for two weeks, it the spent a fortnight at No 3 over Christmas. Traditionally, the first No 1s of the New Year around this time could be snatched by a less mainstream hit with careful/cynical release timing when singles sales slumped dramatically after Christmas. Think Iron Maiden in 1991 and Tori Amos in 1997. However, for a single to regain the top spot after it seemed to have peaked was unusual though as I said earlier not unique. The Lightning Seeds achieved a return to No 1 in the Summer of 1996 after a four week gap but that phenomenon was fuelled by the Euros ‘96 football tournament. What was propelling sales of “Perfect Day” all over again? It would hang around the Top 40 for another six weeks before finally going home when it got dark.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it ?
1	Lighthouse Family	High	Only with a gun held to my head
2	Steps	5,6,7,8	Never
3	Janet Jackson	Together Again	No
4	Space	Avenging Angels	Nah
5	All Saints	Never Ever	Nope
6	Warren G and Sissel Kyrkjebø	Prince Igor	I did not
7	Vanilla	No Way, No Way	Hell No!
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/m002dfcb/top-of-the-pops-09011998?seriesId=unsliced

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