Ant & Dec

TOTP 14 MAR 1997

Posted on by 80stastic

The era of Chris Cowey as TOTP executive producer may not have properly got underway yet but there have been some changes made already. Whether it’s down to this John L. Spencer guy who’s listed in the credits as the show’s director for some of this period or from higher above I’m not sure but what I do know is that the direct to camera piece at the start of the show by a featuring act has disappeared and the vintage clip advertising the TOTP2 brand at its end has also gone. I think I prefer it like this. The top and tail approach always seemed a bit clunky. Tonight’s host is Ian Broudie from the Lightning Seeds who’s got the gig for a second time in a short period – somebody on the show clearly really liked him but he’s not the most effervescent of presenters is he?

Anyway, we start with an absolute banger! I have a personal (albeit a bit tenuous) connection to this one – it’s “What Do You Want From Me” by Monaco. With New Order on hiatus following the release and promotion of the “Republic” album, the band members pursued side projects to give formation to their creativity. Whilst couple Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert worked together on their The Other Two material, Bernard Sumner always had the Electronic collective to fall back on. As for Peter Hook, thoughts that he might reactivate his late 80s/early 90s band Revenge were way off the mark as he came up with a new entity altogether in Monaco. I say new but his partner in this endeavour was David Potts who had been a part of Revenge but you get my drift. “What Do You Want From Me” was their first and biggest hit when it peaked at No 11. Accusations of being New Order-lite were as inevitable as they were obvious but none of that detracted from the general consensus that it was a great tune. Hooky’s distinctive bass playing style was allied to a catchy as hell ‘sha-la-la’ chorus that was both suitable for daytime radio and to maintain a lofty position in the credibility stakes.

So then. This personal connection story. Well, there was a lot of excitement about the release of this single at the Our Price in Stockport where I was working as David Potts had been one of us not so long before. Yes, the guy up there on our TV screens opening TOTP? We knew him! Now admittedly some of my colleagues knew ‘Pottsy’ better than me but I had worked with him for a brief period of a few months in the Manchester Piccadilly branch a couple of years before and his then girlfriend worked on a Saturday at the Stockport store at this time. As such, we were very aware of Monaco and were desperate for their single to be a big hit. I guess it was – No 11 was not to be sniffed at. Obviously we all bought “What Do You Want From Me” and aside from that track there’s also a fabulous song as the B-side called “Bicycle Thieves” presumably inspired by the 1948 Italian film of the same name. The CD single also featured an instrumental version of the title track and there’s a hidden bit that kicks in at the end after the track has finished which is basically a man laughing almost maniacally over a what sounds like a Wurlitzer organ. The guy doing the laughing was someone I’ve mentioned before in this blog, a larger than life character who was well known in Manchester as ‘Mirror Man’ on account of the way that he would talk to you through a hand held mirror. His real name was Ray and he used to wear a bus driver’s uniform despite the fact that he didn’t work on the buses and he would come into the shop where I worked and refer to all the staff by pop star names (I was Billy Idol for some reason). Anyway, Ray had this amazing, enormous, fill-the-room laugh and somehow he made it into the end of that Monaco track. RIP Ray.

As for Monaco, that initial success only sustained for one more single though their album “Music For Pleasure” matched the chart high of “What Do you Want From Me” and sold 500,000 copies worldwide. They split in 2000 but have come together again as part of Peter Hook and the Light playing New Order and Joy Division songs to live audiences. I caught them a few years back supporting Happy Mondays at an outdoor gig in Hull. I wasn’t anywhere near the front so there was no chance of Pottsy seeing me but even if he had I doubt he would have remembered me. It was all a long time ago after all.

We’re coming to the end of the era of Ant & Dec as pop stars but we’re not quite there yet. “Shout” was their twelfth consecutive Top 40 hit though only the third to make the Top 10. Sadly, it was not a cover of the Tears For Fears hit (though Wikipedia tells me that the lyrics of the chorus were influenced by it) but thankfully neither was it the duo’s take on that Lulu song. What it was though was quite a change of pace to those preceding hits. A slowed down number that verges on melancholy, one definite influence on it was the bass line from Lou Reed’s “Walk On The Wild Side”.

I recall being almost impressed by their ability to change direction but on reflection, just as with Eternal’s “Don’t You Love Me” in the last post, I think I may have exaggerated its quality. Firstly, there’s the sixth form ‘state of the nation’ lyrics and then there’s the image of Dec on the guitar. Really?! Can he actually play the instrument? I’m no virtuoso but I have had a few lessons down the years and having looked at the chord shapes his left hand is making, they might be correct but his strumming action is not convincing at all. With this change of pace and public face (Ant on solo lead vocals and Dec sat down with a guitar), what then didn’t make sense to me was the fact that they’d ditched the pop star career by the end of the year*. Why try out a new sound if you had no intention of carrying on? I’m sure, given the longevity of their TV careers, that they would argue it was clearly the correct decision and to be fair to them, they’d be right.

*I’m ignoring the 2002 World Cup song “We’re On The Ball”.

A bit of admin for Ian Broudie next as he explains why Kula Shaker weren’t on the show last week despite going straight into the charts at No 2 with their cover of “Hush”. Well, they were meant to be on but singer Crispian Mills had a sore throat and so was tucked up in bed with his actor Mum Hayley looking after him. OK, that makes sense except why have they just shown the video this time. Why wouldn’t they have just done that last week when it was at its chart peak rather than when it had slipped four places down the chart? The way the charts were back then, John L. Spencer or whoever must have known there was a chance the single would slip after its first week position. Ah well, the thing was that with Ric Blaxill gone some of the appearance rules with regard to chart positions seemed to be…well…disregarded. Songs would be featured on consecutive weeks which historically would only happen if it was the No 1 single. Also, those going down the charts would be featured, again in contravention of previous norms and conventions. To disguise this practice, the artist/title/chart position captions have been removed from the start of the performance and added in right at the end. Sneaky.

Anyway, Kula Shaker and “Hush”. I’m guessing this was the classic standalone single to bridge the gap between albums tactic. Debut “K” came out in September 1996 whilst follow up “Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts” didn’t arrive until March of 1999. So long was the wait that the lead single for the latter – “Mystical Machine Gun” – was released nearly twelve months before the parent album. Now, being a pop kid, Deep Purple who had recorded “Hush” in 1968 had never interested me so I’m not sure if I even knew the song before this but when I did finally hear it, I liked it. My research tells me that the Deep Purple version itself was a cover with the original song recorded by country singer Billy Joe Royal and was written by Joe South who also wrote “Rose Garden” that became a hit for Lynn Anderson which I think my parents had. So I’m guessing that “Hush” wasn’t an out and out heavy rock song which may explain why I was open to the charms of the Kula Shaker version? Hush my mouth!

Here’s another band whose name I remember but I couldn’t tell you how one of their songs went. 3 Colours Red (their name came from putting a pin in London listing magazine Time Out and landing on an advert for the final film of the Three Colours trilogy) would rack up six UK chart hits before the end of the 90s. This one – “Sixty Mile Smile” – courted some controversy when rumours circulated that it was about lead singer Pete Vučković’s hospitalisation after a bad ecstasy trip. This sort of thing did not go down well in the media back then – just ask Brian Harvey.

The majority of the band’s hits would peak between Nos 30 and 20 except 1999’s “Beautiful Day” which was their biggest reaching No 11. There seemed to be a few bands in this period like 3 Colours Red that had a big enough fanbase to ensure that every single they released would be a medium sized hit which would then fall away dramatically – I’m thinking Gene, Therapy? and Terrorvision (apart from that “Tequila” hit of course). Having listened to “Sixty Mile Smile” in the present day, my opinion would be that it’s a decent sound without being anywhere near exceptional. 6/10 is about right in my book.

Like “Hush” before it, here’s another hit that had already reached its peak position and was on its way down the charts though this one was at least holding in the same position for two weeks running. “Encore Une Fois” by Sash! would actually prove to be a very hardy and resilient track taking another month after this before it even departed the Top 10 and spending twelve weeks in the Top 40 altogether. Apparently this German DJ/production team hold the record for the most amount of No 2 hits (five in total) without ever having a chart topper. That’s a lot of No 2s! You can make your own jokes up…

Talking of artists who had a run of hits that peaked at the same chart position each time, check out Alisha’s Attic’s chart stats for their first five singles:

14 – 12 – 12 – 12 – 13

Now that’s consistency. “Indestructible” came bang in the middle of that run and was the third track to be released from the sister duo’s debut album “Alisha Rules The World”. I remember this as being better than it was listening back to it now. It’s all very pleasant and has a dreamy quality but ultimately it comes off as a bit insubstantial. Perhaps the CGI video that was probably cutting edge at the time isn’t helping by dating it rather so probably not indestructible after all.

Right, this messing around with the TOTP appearance rules has got out of hand now. Why the hell are No Mercy on again?! Their hit “Where Do You Go” has been on the show at least three times now and this is the fourth week in a row that it has gone down the charts! Make it make sense! I’ve also noticed that as well as shifting the artist/title/chart position graphic to the end of the performance, there’s no longer an arrow indicating that a song was climbing the charts. That used to be a thing didn’t it? Surely the chart countdown graphic had something like that which it doesn’t appear to anymore. It all stinks a bit of hoodwinking the TV audience to me.

Ian Broudie refers to the next artist as his showbiz mates and I don’t think he’s making it up as he did produce their debut album and one of them clearly says “Thanks Ian” as the camera pans from him to the band. Our host was talking about Dodgy whom he also refers to as “probably the best group in the country”. Hmm. It’s a bold claim. Whilst I did quite like them, I don’t think I’d have gone that far. They’re in the studio to perform their latest hit “Found You” which was the fourth and final track lifted from their “Free Peace Sweet” album. Looking at their discography, this could be the last time we see them on TOTP as they only had one more Top 40 hit in 1998 and that only made No 32. What is their legacy? As I said, I quite liked their jaunty, melodic brand of Britpop (if that’s what they were) but sadly if you type the word ‘dodgy’ into a search engine, you more likely to be prompted to look for ‘dodgy fire stick’ than the band.

The Spice Girls are No 1 (of course they are) with double A-side “Mama/Who Do You Think You Are”. We get the latter song this week and it really is a great pop track. An instant floor filler – contemporary sounding but with a retro disco style flavour (I think they called it nu-disco). Despite not having her own solo part on any of the verses, it’s Melanie C’s vocals that stand out and hold it all together with her counterpoint harmonies. In a glorious bit of symmetry, she would appear in 2024 in Series 21 of the genealogy show Who Do You Think You Are, the only Spice Girl to do so up to now.

As mentioned previously, the plug for TOTP2 has gone and is replaced by a play out video of a current song. This week we get “Rumble In The Jungle” by the Fugees featuring A Tribe Called Quest, Busta Rhymes and John Forté. Taken from the soundtrack to the documentary When We Were Kings about the Muhammad Ali /George Foreman boxing match that took place in the former Zaire in 1974, it famously features the bass line from ABBA’s “The Name Of The Game” and the melody from “Angel Of The Morning” made famous by Juice Newton. Now apparently, the Fugees’ record label Columbia had planned to rerelease “Fu-Gee-La” as the group’s next single and had even sent out promo copies to radio stations to plug the track. However, in America, Mercury Records released the When We Were Kings soundtrack and “Rumble In The Jungle” to promote it which led to canny record dealers in the UK getting hold of import copies of the single and selling them over here thus undermining any potential sales for “Fu-Gee-La”. In the end, Columbia relented and the planned rerelease never happened leaving the way clear for an official release for “Rumble In The Jungle” which made No 3. As with Dodgy, I think this might be our last glimpse of the Fugees on TOTP. For a group of such influence, the small size of their discography seems like a contradiction.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen the documentary all the way through which I should probably correct one day. I do know that Ali won the fight and was massively popular in Zaire where he won over the locals with his charm. Of course, the Fugees song wasn’t the first to use the Rumble In The Jungle as its subject matter. There is also this…

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1MonacoWhat Do You Want From MeYES!
2Ant & DecShoutNO!
3Kula ShakerHushNegative
43 Colours RedSixty Mile SmileNah
5Sash!Encore Une FoisNever
6Alisha’s AtticIndestructibleNope
7No MercyWhere Do You GoAs if
8DodgyFound YouNo but my wife had the album
9Spice GirlsMama/Who Do You Think You AreI did not
10FugeesRumble In The JungleAnd 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/m0027fvz/top-of-the-pops-14031997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 22 NOV 1996

Posted on by 80stastic

As I write this, the latest series of I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! has just concluded with Danny Jones being crowned as the new King of the Jungle and it strikes me that there’s a couple of tie ins between that show and this episode of TOTP. No, nothing to do with McFly who wouldn’t be invented for another eight years nor The Communards whose Reverend Richard Coles came third this year. Neither is there a connection to contestant Tulisa formerly of hip-hop trio N-Dubz who wouldn’t start having hits for a further ten years. However, the first link is really obvious and it’s the show’s opening act who are Ant & Dec. Told you it was obvious! The ever present hosts of I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! since the first series in 2002 (apart from they one year when Ant was in rehab and was replaced by Holly Willougby), the diminutive duo were still very much pop stars at this point in their career though that was rapidly approaching its natural end.

“When I Fall In Love” was their eleventh consecutive UK Top 40 hit but there were only two more to come in their original incarnation. Although the title of this one suggests images of Nat King Cole or maybe even Rick Astley (!), thankfully it was nothing to do with that classic 50s hit though maybe it would have been better if it had been as this was absolute garbage. A totally nothing tune but even that chronic lack of substance was too much for Dec’s weedy voice. Meanwhile, Ant’s rap was clearly inserted to give him something to do whilst his pal tried and failed to do the vocal heavy lifting. On the CD single, you had the choice of playing the radio edit with or without the rap though that’s like choosing whether you’d rather eat your left or right arm. Talking of arms, Dec seems to be unsure what to do with his right one during this performance, slashing about wildly with it as if he’s swatting flies. And what was going on with his hair? That mullet bit…was that even real? It looks like a wig that might have been used in a really poor quality Beatles biopic. In short (unlike Dec’s hair), everything about this was a bit naff (exactly like Dec’s hair). I think they made the right decision to knock the pop star thing on the head not long after this.

There’s no Shed Seven connection to I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! that I’m aware of but in 1996, the York indie rockers were at the top of their game. Five UK chart hits in one calendar year was quite the achievement – they were literally at the apex of their career which was quite apt given that four of those hits came from an album called “Maximum High”. In fact, two of those singles continued the theme in “Getting Better” and “Going For Gold”. Sadly, “Bully Boy”can’t really be shoehorned in at all whilst “On Standby” and “Chasing Rainbows” not just end the metaphor but invert it.

It’s that last song that concerns us here though. This wasn’t from “A Maximum High” but the lead single from third studio album “Let It Ride” though it was released a good six months before it. So why was that? Well, Rick Witter is on record as having an issue with the release schedule but it’s nothing to do with the gap between the single and album coming out. He believes that if “Chasing Rainbows” had been released in a different week to its actual release date, it might have been a No 1. Does he have a point? On first glance, that seems a stretch for a single that peaked at No 17. However, was he meaning that they should have waited a few weeks until that sales lull after Christmas when traditionally it took much fewer sales to get a single to the top of the charts? I’m thinking Iron Maiden’s “Bring Your Daughter…To The Slaughter” for example. Well, a quick look at the first chart of 1997 shows the Christmas No 1 was still in pole position but the two highest new entries came at Nos 2 and 3 and from unlikely artists in Tori Amos with that dance remix of “Professional Widow (It’s Got To Be Big)” and Orbital with their dramatic track “Satan”. There’s no guarantee that Shed Seven would have gone to the top of the pile if they’d released “Chasing Rainbows” in that same week but I’m betting they would have got higher than No 17.

P.S. One of my favourite bands is Embrace and just this week I attended a very intimate Q&A session with lead singer Danny McNamara in which he divulged that when they were starting out, the feedback they got from labels and A&R men was that they didn’t sound enough like Shed Seven. Hmm.

I’m pretty sure that Tina Turner was never a camp mate in I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here nor Adina Howard or Warren G who remade her hit “What’s Love Got To Do With It”* in 1996. Despite its No 2 chart peak, this had totally disappeared from my poor, overworked memory. And thank f**k for that because it was a shoddy idea horribly executed. Warren G, of course, had scored a major hit two years prior to this with the track “Regulate” whilst Adina had bagged herself a minor UK hit the previous year with “Freak Like Me” which the Sugababes would take to No 1 seven years later as part of a mash up with Tubeway Army’s “Are Friends Electric?”.

*Breaking news: Before Tina Turner was offered the track, it was recorded by Bucks Fizz but shelved after Tina’s version was a hit. Is there a connection between the 1981 Eurovision winners and I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!? Surely Cheryl Baker has been on it, she’s been on everything else.

This version of Tina’s 1984 UK No 3 and US No 1 hit was nothing like as stunning as the Sugababes’ offering. It just seems like a cynically constructed vehicle for Warren G much as he had done with “Regulate” which was built around Michael McDonald’s yacht rock classic “I Keep Forgettin’ (Every Time You’re Near)”. This time though, it felt like a complete cut and paste exercise with Adina doing a passable Tina impression before Warren would come barging in with his rapping. It was part of the soundtrack to a film called Police Story 3: Supercop starring Jackie Chan hence his featuring in the video. Said soundtrack includes a version of Carl Douglas’s “Kung Fu Fighting” as covered by Tom Jones. If that sounds horrendous then I can assure you that it absolutely is…

If “Star” was Bryan Adams’ shot at securing a Christmas No 1, he was wildly off target. Maybe he thought having the word ‘star’ in the title would tip the seasonal scales in his direction. What he should have done was write a half decent song instead of this awful dirge. I think I used that word to describe his last single “Let’s Make A Night To Remember” as well. It was all a bit of a disappointment after his “The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You” track had spearheaded the campaign for his “18 Til I Die” album in fine form.

The single released after this was yet another love song, this time a duet with Barbara Streisand from the film The Mirror Has Two Faces called “I Finally Found Someone” which was equally as tedious. Following that, the title track from “18 Till I Die” was was released and was an uptempo rocker which was perfectly serviceable so it seemed to me that Bry was in a bit of a slump when it came to ballads around this time. If he wanted a Christmas hit, he could always have rereleased this which originally a single way back in 1985 before it got used in the 2022 film Violent Night.

Now, I’m confident that neither Bryan Adams nor Barbara Streisand have been on I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! (can you imagine the fee they’d have to pay Babs to appear!) but how about next year the programme makers take a left field punt on Crispian Mills from Kula Shaker? Not only is he the lead singer of a band (albeit one that stopped having hits a quarter of a century ago) but his family background is acting royalty being the son of Haley Mills (Whistle Down The Wind, The Parent Trap etc) and the grandson of Sir John Mills (Ice Cold In Alex, Ryan’s Daughter etc and indeed etc). OK, it might be a bit of a stretch to assume that the watching TV audience would know who he was these days but back in 1996, he and his band were one of the breakout stars of the year. Rivalling Shed Seven for the most hits in those 12 months, “Govinda” was Kula Shaker’s fourth single to chart and their third to make the Top 10 when it peaked at No 7.

As host Nicky Campbell says, mixing Eastern mysticism with Western pop had indeed proved to be a good idea for the band, providing the blueprint for their whole career pretty much. It was never more evident than on “Govinda” which was sung totally in Sanskrit with the text taken from a devotional chant entitled “Govinda Jaya Jaya” which had been recorded back in 1970 by the London Radha Krishna Temple and produced by George Harrison who was also responsible for the collective’s No 12 UK hit “Hare Krishna Chant”. Growing up as a child in Worcester in the 70s, my only experience of the Hare Krishna movement had been people laughing at them as a procession of them snaked down the High Street on a Saturday afternoon chanting their mantra and dressed in saffron orange. Probably like most people who knew nothing of their beliefs, I was left wondering who this bloke Harry Krishna was. Fast forward to the mid 90s and whilst I hadn’t converted to their faith, I was fully into Kula Shaker and especially this single. Sadly, the Krishna teachings of humility, selflessness and global oneness didn’t reach everyone out there. Whilst working in the Stockport branch of Our Price, a man came to the counter and asked me if we had “that Paki song”. He meant “Govinda” and the irony of the dichotomy he represented (a man using a racist term to ask for the Eastern influenced song he liked) wasn’t lost on me though it certainly was on him.

“Govinda” would draw a line under the band’s prolific output with only two singles being released over the next two years until their second album “Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts” finally appeared in 1999 by which time, the band’s momentum, if not lost, had certainly been misplaced. They are still a going concern today though having released their latest album “Natural Magick” just this year.

P.S. I quite often watch these TOTP repeats with subtitles on so that if I comment on a song’s lyrics or a presenter’s links, I’m not misquoting people. The subtitles for “Govinda” just say ‘He sings in Sanskrit’. Bit of a ‘can’t be arsed’ approach to the job isn’t it?

Did I say that Kula Shaker were one of the biggest breakout acts of 1996? Like a back-pedalling, dodgy politician I may have mis-spoke as the official Breakthrough Artist of 1996 were actually Garbage who even won an award as such at the MTV Europe Music Awards (Kula Shaker weren’t even nominated). How so? Well, their eponymous debut album would sell 4 million copies worldwide and that calendar year saw them in the Top 10 of the UK singles charts with “Stupid Girl” and this track “Milk”. The last track on that album, it wasn’t the album closing, big ballad that might have been assumed but, as described by lead singer Shirley Manson, a “siren song” about loss. It’s almost hypnotic but with a definite dark element to it. Presumably the band didn’t think it was dark enough though and so recruited trip-hop artist Tricky to lay down some sinister vocals onto the track. It’s the Tricky version (called The Wicked Mix) that was a hit in the UK but obviously we don’t see/hear that version in this TOTP appearance as it’s an exclusive performance from Atlanta where the band were presumably on tour. However, in other territories, the track was released without Tricky’s vocals (The Siren Mix) which didn’t go down well with the Bristolian rapper who complained to the press about the situation. As far as I can tell, the Tricky version did better chart wise than the pure Garbage release.

“Milk” was the last single to be taken from the album (the one with the pink cover) and that pedantic part of my brain is still impressed with how Shirley Manson has colour co-ordinated with it in her choice of outfit for this performance. I say ‘still’ as I liked it the first time she did it in an earlier TOTP appearance when there was a pink feather boa wrapped around her microphone stand. If I am being really pedantic though, does Shirley have some lipstick on her teeth in this performance?

I bet Jimmy Nail has been asked to be on I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! He’d have been a prime candidate wouldn’t he? I also bet he would have turned down flat any invitation as my perception is that he’s quite a private person and would have balked at the idea of laying himself bare in a reality TV show. Why do I think that? Well, in 2004, Nail successfully sued News Group Newspapers and Harper Collins Publishers over false allegations made in the News Of The World about him and Nailed, an unofficial biography which was the newspaper’s source of the claims. Jimmy described reading the article as one of the worst experiences of his life. Given all of that, I don’t think he would have been up for being filmed constantly in an artificial environment with people he didn’t know. Anyway, he’s on TOTP to promote his single “Country Boy”. The last time he was on the show, he and his band wore schoolboy outfits but this time, they are wearing black suits and ties which makes them look like they’ve just arrived from a funeral. This was possibly quite apt as this single would be his last ever hit in the UK so you could say this valedictory performance was almost a wake for his career as a pop star.

And so we arrive at the other link to I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! No, none of the members of the Fugees have ever been on the show – it’s far more tenuous than that but I’ll get to it in a minute. “No Woman, No Cry” was the fourth single taken from “The Score” album and it just missed out on giving the band a third consecutive No 1 after “Killing Me Softly” and “Ready Or Not” when it peaked one place lower – the Fugees really were a big deal in this year. Yet another classic song given the hip-hop treatment, Bob Marley’s original had peaked at No 22 in 1975 and at No 8 when rereleased in 1981 following his death. I say “given the hip hop treatment” but it’s actually a pretty straight version – host Nicky Campbell calls it “authentic” though I’m not sure that’s quite the right word.

Anyway, to that I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! connection. So this year’s runner up was Coleen Rooney. Now back in September 2010, Rooney’s then current club Manchester United were due to play his former team Everton at Goodison Park. Rooney’s switch from red to blue back in 2004 had never been forgiven by the fans who had once adored him and to whom he had sworn allegiance what with Everton being the team he grew up supporting. The abuse Rooney would receive every time he returned to Everton was horrific and unyielding. A month before this particular match, Rooney was the centre of claims that he’d paid two women for a threesome in a Manchester hotel whilst Colleen was five months pregnant with their first child Kai. The press was rife with stories that this would be the end of their marriage. If this was manna from heaven for the more salacious tabloids, it was also the stuff of inspiration for the Everton faithful who came up with a chant based around the story. Set to the tune of “No Woman, No Cry”, they would let rip with “No woman, no Kai”. Cruel absolutely but undeniably clever. In the end, United manager Sir Alex Ferguson didn’t select Rooney for the match day squad choosing instead to protect him from running the gauntlet of abuse he would inevitably have received. And that is my second and final connection between this episode of TOTP and I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! I thank you.

We have a new No 1 and thank heavens for that as the last incumbents were Robson & Jerome. Going straight to the top of the charts are The Prodigy and it’s their second No 1 of 1996 following “Firestarter” in the March. If anything, I liked “Breathe” even more than its predecessor even though it was cut from the same cloth pretty much. It was another barnstorming dance anthem that felt claustrophobic, dangerous and indeed dirty, a sensation only exaggerated by the downright grimy video. Cockroaches, centipedes and an alligator inhabit an apartment that made that house at the end of The Blair Witch Project look clean. Then there’s the performances of Keith Flint and Leeroy Thornhill who look absolutely crazed and depraved, almost daring the audience not to carry on listening. There’s also a slight nod to the Run DMC /Aerosmith video for “Walk This Way” with the two protagonists separated by a flimsy wall which is ultimately breached. This wasn’t doing anything to improve Flint’s public perception amongst the tabloids who were already on his case after his deranged appearance in the “Firestarter” promo.

“Breathe” would spend two weeks at No 1 whilst parent album “The Fat Of The Land” topped the charts for six and went five times platinum in the UK alone. The Prodigy were never bigger than in this year.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Ant & DecWhen I Fall In LoveAs if
2Shed SevenChasing RainbowsNah
3 Warren G and Adina HowardWhat’s Love Got To Do With ItNever
4Bryan AdamsStarNo thanks
5Kula ShakerGovindaNo but I had a promo copy of the album
6GarbageMilkI did not
7Jimmy NailCountry BoyNope
8FugeesNo Woman, No CryNo but my wife had the album
9The ProdigyBreatheNo but I had it on one of those Best Album Ever compilations

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/m0025gms/top-of-the-pops-22111996?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 23 AUG 1996

Posted on by 80stastic

According to my 1996 diary, around this time I received a reward cheque for £50. What for? Well, back in the day, if a retail worker took a customer’s credit card out of circulation at the request of the card issuer, they would send you a cheque for that amount as a thank you. The way it would work is that the customer with the overspent card would try and buy something on it and when it was put through the PDQ machine, the display would show the message ‘contacting card issuer’ and you’d have to pick up the phone that was part of the machine and talk to the customer’s bank. They’d ask a couple of questions about the transaction and possibly ask to speak to them in person as well. The chances were that ultimately you would get asked to retain the card and cut it up in front of them before sending it back to the bank. The experience was both exciting (at the thought of the £50 reward) and unnerving (as to how the customer would react) at the same time. Mostly they would be sheepish and let you do what you had to do but not always. One in particular I remember went ballistic whilst talking to the bank shouting at the top of his voice “Don’t you know who I am?! I’m a knight of the f*****g realm!”. I don’t know what the person on the other end of the line said but it must have been withering as the customer gave me the phone back, said sorry and sloped off. Anyway, eventually the company I was working for (Our Price) changed their policy so that the reward cheques didn’t go to the individual but the shop (supposedly into a fund for a Xmas do or some such) but this reward must have predated that as it came directly to me. So, in honour of that and in view of the recent furore over concert ticket prices, I thought I’d play a game of £50 quid or gig with the artists on this episode of TOTP. Would I rather have pocketed the money or paid to see the artist live?*

*For the purposes of the game, I’m assuming gig prices from 1996 not nowadays.

We start with an easy one – there is no way on earth I would have preferred to see Ant & Dec doing their thing (whatever it was) live over 50 quid in my pocket. Did they even do proper gigs on an official tour? They might have supported Take That back in the day or maybe that was just a plot line in an episode of Derry Girls? This was their first single to be released under the moniker we all now know (i.e. their real names) as opposed to that of the fictional characters from Byker Grove PJ & Duncan. Quite why they persisted with calling themselves that long after they had ceased to appear in the show I’m not sure. It seems a like an oversight. The track itself – “Better Watch Out” – is an absolute stinker! Some cobblers about Ant (who gets to sing the verses) being beaten up by the brothers of a girl he’s trying it on with. The lyrics suggest he might be deserving of said punishment as he then pursues the girl’s sister before indicating he might set his sights on their mother. What a cad! It’s a nasty sentiment matched by a terrible song – I can imagine it being used to soundtrack some chase scene in 70s children’s show Here Come The Double Deckers!

£50 or gig? Cash every time

Ah, now this one is tricky because I have actually seen the artist live previously. Don’t take the piss! I know we’re talking about Bryan Adams here but this was years ago, years before this TOTP performance even. Back in 1987, whilst a student at Sunderland Poly, myself and a friend who was also a housemate, took ourselves off to the big smoke of Newcastle and caught Bryan live at the City Hall where he was supported by T’Pau (I mean it! Stop sniggering!). It was a top gig, it really was! He was promoting his “Into The Fire” album that had failed to shift many units in the UK but which I’d liked anyway. This was years before that Robin Hood song and his slow decline into a world of ever more dreary ballads and he rocked the joint. Fast forward nine years and guess what? He’s just released a dreary ballad! “Let’s Make A Night To Remember” was the second single from his “18 Til I Die” album and was a massive disappointment after its lead single, the fun-filled “The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You” which I had enjoyed. It’s so one paced and trudges along with Bry singing some lines that sound like he’d pinched them directly from the Ladybird Book of Hackneyed Lyrics. In short it was a duffer though somehow got him all the way to No 10 in our charts.

£50 or gig? If the gig was that one from 1987, I’d definitely go back in time to relive it. A 2024 concert? I’ll take the Benjamins thanks.

Another difficult one as I have seen Pet Shop Boys live and not that long ago; as recently as May 2022 in fact. It was a COVID delayed concert that should have taken place in 2020 and it was bloody marvellous! A date on the Dreamworld – The Greatest Hits Live tour, it did exactly what it said on the tin meaning that yes, they did play this track “Se a vida é (That’s The Way Life Is)”. The setlist.fm website tells me it was the ninth song of the night as part of a mini medley with “Single Bilingual”.

The second single released from the “Bilingual” album, it’s a joyously upbeat track which was well received by the music press and given a lot of radio support – it’s Summer release date (presumably planned to exploit its seasonal sound) certainly aided its playlist potential. The promo video being shot at a water theme park in Florida almost certainly had one eye on that Summer vibe as well though I can’t help thinking it would have been better if it was in colour and the single itself should possibly have been released earlier in the season.

Linguistically, the title isn’t quite correct. The English translation from the Portuguese of “Se a vida é” is “If life is…” and not “That’s the way life is…” which would be “A vida é assim”. Ah, you say tom-ay-to, I say tom-a-to. The single peaked at No 8 (it perhaps should have been higher) – they would never have a higher placing single throughout the 90s up until this day.

£50 or gig? I’m going gig every time on this one. It’s a sin not to.

This one’s going to be an easy decision as well. After the breakthrough of their first UK hit single earlier in 1996 with “Get Down (You’re The One For Me)”, the Backstreet Boys staked their claim as the next big teen sensation with follow up “We’ve Got It Goin’ On” which would debut at No 3. What a load of old toss this was. Recycling that horrible ‘ner ner ner na ner ner ner ner ner’ hook used previously by the likes of Montell Jordan and MN8 (and which Peter Andre would also adopt in a TOTP repeat coming very soon), this also made no sense grammatically. “We’ve got it goin’ on for years” the band sing but surely that should be “we’ve had it goin’ on for years”. Even if they’d got the grammar spot on it still wouldn’t have made sense as their first release came in 1995 so one year before this. That’s ‘year’ – singular. Maybe they were projecting into the future and meant “We’ll have it goin’ on for years” which would have been statistically accurate as, sadly, they continued to have hits for the rest of the 90s and into the new millennium. Clearly temporal clauses were not what they had going on.

This lot really were just New Kids On The Block revisited. An all male American group with five members making music for the female teenage market. They even had the same type of characters in the band. There’s the cute, young looking one, the taller, older one with facial hair, the street wise one etc etc. In the case of the last type, Backstreet Boy Brian Littrell literally looks like his NKOTB counterpart Donnie Wahlberg. He’s also responsible for some horrible wailing when he goes all Mariah Carey early on in the song where he over annunciates the word “go” as “go-ooh-aoow”. Deeply unnecessary and unpleasant. Horribly, we’ll be seeing lots more of these berks in future repeats.

£50 or gig? Show me the money!

After Bryan Adams earlier, we now have another dreary ballad although this one is also nonsensical. I criticised the lyrics to “Why?” by 3T and Michael Jackson the other week as being hopeless for lines like this:

Why does Monday come before Tuesday? Why do Summers start in June?

“Why Lyrics.” Lyrics.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 23 Oct. 2024.

A reader of the blog got in touch to point out that not only were the song words abysmal but also inaccurate as only half the planet has its summers start in June – the Southern Hemisphere has its summers start in December. Thank you to Essor for pointing that out.

Watching the video for this one (another one all in black and white just like the Pet Shop Boys earlier – it must have been a thing back then), I noticed that the guy from 3T with his rucksack has bought it back for the promo and he walks along a corridor with it dangling by his side. What was the point of this accessory? Did he gave a product placement deal with a rucksack manufacturer in place? Or was it just his trademark gimmick like Shades and his sunglasses in the film That Thing You Do! ?

£50 or gig? Despite a Michael Jackson concert being quite the event, I’d still take the cash especially if the support were 3T.

This is the third time in the show for OMC and “How Bizarre” and they’ll manage another brief appearance as the play out song before they’re done. It’s not surprising given how long the record spent on our charts (fourteen weeks on the Top 40 of which six were inside the Top 10). This week it was at its peak of No 5 but would spend a further three consecutive weeks holding at No 8.

As host Beerjte Van Beers says, OMC stood for Otara Millionaires Club however if you google OMC the top result is not the “How Bizarre” hitmakers but a fishing tackle and outdoor products manufacturer called One More Cast. They have a range called Terminal Tackle which includes such items as ‘Tweakers Touch Me Up’, ‘Revibed Blood Worm Tippers’ and ‘Vitabitz Ring Swivels Size 11’ which all sound like double entendres to my uneducated angling brain. As for seeing them live, surely it would descend into the sketch from The Big Train below:

£50 or gig? Cash please!

My interest in REM had started to wane by the mid 90s to the point that I had very little anticipation for the new single from their tenth studio album “New Adventures In Hi-Fi” called “E-Bow The Letter” (with Patti Smith no less on backing vocals). In fact, it just about passed me by but then that was possibly a lot of people’s experience as their first new song for a couple of years was not radio friendly. In fact, it was almost anti-playlist. That doesn’t make it a poor song though of course but by the band’s own admission, it wasn’t an obvious nor easy choice of lead single which their record company struggled with just as they had with “Drive” being the first track released from “Automatic For The People”. In fact, “E-Bow The Letter” actually sounds quite similar to “Drive” so there’s sonic as well as thematic similarities. On first listen, it does seem to be a bit all over the place and, whisper it, miserable. However, there’s beauty in misery and the overall effect is…well…quite affecting. The ‘E-Bow’ of the title is a device to induce sustained vibration in an electric guitar string whilst the ‘letter’ refers to a communication never sent by Stipe to his friend River Phoenix who had died of a drug overdose at the Viper Club in Los Angeles three years earlier whilst the band inside played a song called “Michael Stipe”. The track would become the band’s then highest charting single when it debuted at No 4 and its parent album would get to No 1 but a decline in sales for the band was clearly happening as the latter sold significantly less than either “Monster” or “Automatic For The People”.

£50 or gig? Now supposedly I passed up the chance to see REM live in 1988 on their tour in support of the “Green” album. What my enthralling other option was I could not tell you but I regret it, especially now the band have broken up so I’m going ‘gig’ on this one.

Next a song that was the first ever to achieve over one million airplays in America and yet it hardly ever seems to get played in this country… or so I thought until I heard it all the time on Magic Radio* recently. Donna Lewis is a classic one hit wonder – almost. A huge, enormous hit then nothing ever again. “I Love You Always Forever” would spend nine weeks (!) at No 2 in America behind Los Del Rio’s “Macarena” and go to No 5 here in the UK as part of a five week stay inside the Top 10.

*Yes, I know – Magic Radio – but in this scary world I sometimes need to hear something soothing.

That US success led me to believe that Donna was American but she’s actually Welsh, hailing from Cardiff with the success of her hit bringing her a BRIT award nomination in 1997 for Best British Female Artist. More success seemed inevitable but her album, though selling a million copies in the US, performed averagely everywhere else including over here where it peaked at No 52. She would have one more UK chart entry (denying her that classic one hit wonder status) with follow up single “Without Love” spending a week at No 39. She did perform a duet with Richard Marx for the 20th Century Fox animated film Anastasia in 1997 that was a hit on the Adult Contemporary Billboard chart but that really was it for chart success although Donna still records to this day with her latest album having been released this year.

So what was it about “I Love You Always Forever” that struck a chord with audiences and gold for Donna? Well, it strikes me that it has a timeless quality – it could have been a hit in the 80s as easily as it was in the 90s and Donna’s girlish voice (often compared to Cyndi Lauper) suited the almost nursery rhyme chant of the chorus perfectly. Ultimately though, it was a light, joyful song that almost seemed to bring hope to a world that so often seemed dark. One reviewer described listening to it as “catharsis” and that, presumably, is why I suddenly started hearing it on Magic radio in 2024.

£50 or gig? It’s the same scenario as the OMC gig. Sorry Donna, it’s got to be the money.

It’s a fifth week at the top for the Spice Girls and “Wannabe” so it’s probably time to talk about some of the lyrics of their debut single. First off is the elephant in the room – what the hell was “zigazig ah” all about?! Well, Marie Claire magazine reckoned they had the answer in a 2023 article:

One of Wannabe’s co-writers revealed that it was inspired by a saying on set: ‘Shit and cigars.’ Apparently, the Spice Girls shared a recording studio in Shoreditch with a famous musician and decided to give said celebrity this nickname. Why? Well the anonymous co-writer told The Sun: “There was this one eighties pop dude who hated us for encroaching on what he considered ‘his turf’ which was boy bands and girl bands. This guy had this nasty habit of taking a dump in the shared khazi while smoking a cigar, so we took to referring to him as ‘Shit and Cigars’.”

By Jamie Troy-Pride, published 20 April 2023 in News


Wonder who Mr Shit and Cigars was then? Cigars conjures up images of someone whom I don’t want to reference so let’s move on to the bit in the song where the group all get a name check. Marie Claire has the inside story on that too:

‘We’ve got Em in the place’ is likely a reference to Emma/Baby Spice who, apparently, ‘likes it in your face’. Pretty self explanatory. Then ‘we got G like MC’ (Geri and Mel C) who ‘like it on an e’ – this one really caught us off guard. Who knew that we’ve been unknowingly singing that for over twenty years? ‘Easy V’ actually gets it very easy because she doesn’t come for free – ‘she’s a real lady’, so congrats Posh. And Mel B’s is steeped in mystery as we’ll just have to see what she’s all about.

By Jamie Troy-Pride, published 1 August 2023 in Features

Not sure I needed to know that but it’s too late now. A final word about the people that the girls get up on stage with them for this TOTP performance. Do you think that was planned or spontaneous? The woman on the end in the hot pants next to Mel B looked like a bit of a ‘wannabe’ to me.

£50 or gig? Say you’ll be there? Sorry but I’ll be at home counting my 50 notes.

The play out track is “You’ll Be Mine (Party Time)” by Gloria Estefan. I don’t remember this one and have very little to say about it as a consequence so I’m going to rely on a tale I’ve told before about a friend from Poly who once asked if Emilio was Gloria’s brother having conflated the name Estevez with Estefan. In my friend’s defence, Gloria’s husband is called Emilio.

£50 or gig? Miami Sound Machine or Fifty Pound PDQ Machine? I’ll take the latter thanks.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Ant & DecBetter Watch OutI did and I swerved when I saw you coming – NO!
2Bryan AdamsLet’s Make A Night To RememberNah
3Pet Shop BoysSe a vida é (That’s The Way Life Is)No but I had it on their Pop Art compilation
4Backstreet BoysWe’ve Got It Goin’ OnNever
53T / Michael JacksonWhy?As if
6OMCHow BizarreNo but my wife did
7REME-Bow The LetterNegative
8Donna LewisI Love You Always ForeverNope
9Spice GirlsWannabeI did not
10Gloria EstefanYou’ll Be Mine (Party 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.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0023sy0/top-of-the-pops-23081996?seriesId=unsliced