Aqua

TOTP 15 MAY 1998

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 13 FEB 1998

Posted on July 30 by 80stastic

It’s mid February 1998 and my beloved Chelsea have just sacked our manager Ruud Gullit! What?! The guy that just took us to our first major trophy win in 26 years and he’s been got rid of just nine months later?! What the hell was going on?! Well, much was speculated back then and since but my take is that Ruud wanted two contracts – one as a player and one as a manager which chairman Ken Bates balked at. When discussing how much said contracts would be worth, Gullit talked in net figures as opposed to gross (“I always talk netto” he famously quipped) which further put Uncle Ken’s nose out of joint. Add to these issues the idea that Bates just thought Ruud was too flash and disliked him and the legendary Dutchman was out on his ear. It was a huge story when it broke which although it shocked and saddened me, also made me realise that Chelsea were a big deal again after years in the shadows. Indeed, they were second in the league and in the quarter finals of two cup competitions at the point that Gullit got the bullet. My anguish was assuaged by the appointment of another footballing legend as his replacement – Gianluca Vialli -who would ironically become player-manager and deliver four trophies in his two and a half year tenure. I wonder if any of the acts on this episode of TOTP deserved the boot because it just wasn’t working out?

Nobody would want to get rid of the guy opening the show would they? Errol Brown, the front man of Hot Chocolate and the singer of all those classic hits? He always seemed so…well…nice. Nice he may have been but he’d also left Hot Chocolate over a decade before and whilst his former band members carried on without him (I know – without Errol, what was the point?), Brown was fronting his own version of Hot Chocolate for the nostalgia circuit. Maybe there was some tension there which might explain the confusion over the latest of the band’s revivals. After racking up their final UK Top 40 hit fourteen years prior (they were the only band to have a hit in every year between 1970 and 1984), there had been a relaunch of the band and a Greatest Hits package in 1987, 1993 and 1997. They’d been based around their hits “You Sexy Thing” and “It Started With A Kiss” and it’s that song which got another rerelease in 1998.

That last revival had seen the aforementioned “You Sexy Thing” become a No 6 hit in the November of 1997 and TOTP mysteriously billed it as being a solo single by Errol Brown when he appeared on the show even though it was officially (and correctly) by Hot Chocolate. However, the 1998 release of “It Started With A Kiss” was credited to Hot Chocolate featuring Errol Brown so what was going on there? Some contractual/naming rights shenanigans? Who knows? What is clear is that this performance saw Errol give a stripped back, almost acoustic version of the song which loses that lush, smooth production of the original for me. Also, the studio audience sat round him in a semi circle clapping along is giving me Blue Peter vibes which can’t be right on TOTP surely? My lasting memory of “It Started With A Kiss” though is of hearing it played on Radio 1 back in 1982 when it was first a hit and when Errol sang “You don’t remember me do you?”, Steve Wright chiming in with “Yeah, Errol, bald head, does a bit of singing now and again. I remember you” or words to that effect. How I laughed.

Hire or Fire? It has to be hire for Errol

Look out! It’s Cleopatra comin’ atcha! Yes, we have arrived at the time when three teenage sisters from Manchester were going to be the next big thing. However, a flurry of initial success lasted less time than the milk in the their Egyptian namesake’s bath before going sour. Hailing from the infamous Moss Side area, Cleo, Yonah and Zainam Higgins burst into our lives with that catchphrase and a No 3 debut single in “Cleopatra’s Theme”. Early labelling in the press as a UK, female Hanson was as lazy as it was obvious but three Top 5 hits in 1998 earned them BRIT and MOBO Awards nominations. Not only that but they were signed to Madonna’s Maverick label in the US where exposure on the Nickelodeon and Disney channels gave them a sizeable hit single and an album that sold 300,000 copies. They even toured with the Spice Girls and performed at the Vatican Christmas Carol Concert at the request of the Pope! What?! They had their own sitcom TV series on CITV! Maybe they were a big deal. Somehow though, none of this could sustain the group. A record company restructure resulted in a lack of promotion for their first single of the new millennium and a second album went unreleased in the UK. The group’s death knell came not by the bite of an asp but by Warner wanting to promote Cleo as a solo star and Cleopatra were no more. They did appear in ITV’s 2005 Hit Me, Baby, One More Time TV series but they couldn’t best Chesney Hawkes and didn’t make the final. Similarly, Cleo appeared on the second series of The Voice UK but bowed out in the semi-finals.

So why didn’t Cleopatra become global superstars with some longevity? Over exposure maybe? The appeal of their act had a built in time limit? Or perhaps their songs weren’t good enough? Watching them perform on this TOTP, I was expecting their hit to be…well…better but it doesn’t really go anywhere for me. The hooks don’t quite bite – not compared to the aforementioned Hanson’s “MMMBop” certainly – and all that spelling out their name letter by letter I found tedious. Another person who found Cleopatra tedious was the mother at the centre of a tale an ex-work colleague once told me. On a Saturday afternoon in Hull on the infamous Hessle Road, she overheard said mother say to her daughter who was unbelievably called Cleopatra, “Oi Cleopatra! Pack it in or I’ll twat ya!”. Only in Hull.

Hire or Fire? Sorry girls – it’s P45 time.

OK – just what is going on with presenter Jayne Middlemiss’s hair? It started off fairly coiffured and styled but just two songs in, it’s become loose and out of place as if she’s been head-banging down the front of the stage to…who? Cleopatra? Errol Brown? Can’t be surely? If that sounds a bit sexist, commenting on a woman’s look, I didn’t intend that obviously. It’s just that it had noticeably changed in a short space of time and piqued my attention.

Erm…on with the music I think. Who remembers Headswim? No, not me though looking at the cover of their second album “Despite Yourself”, that rang a few bells but I couldn’t have told you what they sounded like. Well, what they did sound like was Radiohead wannabes it transpires if their only hit “Tourniquet” was anything to go by. Radiohead but just not as good. Radiotails maybe. It’s all very angsty and doom laden with searing guitars and tortured vocals but it doesn’t really take me with it somehow.

That second album was recorded after the death of the brother of the band’s Daniel and Tom Glendining so maybe its sound is understandable but it still doesn’t make it any more listenable. The album failed to sell in any significant way and the band were dropped by label Epic. The members of Headswim pursued new musical ambitions with various other projects and even played a one off gig in 2022 to promote the rerelease of debut album “Flood” but there has been nothing from the band since.

Hire or Fire? I think Epic had the right idea

P.S. If I wanted a song that mentioned tourniquets in it, then I’d go for this:

Remember in the late 80s and early 90s when there was a trend for classic hits from the 70s to be reactivated by inserting a nasty, clunky backbeat into the mix and making them palatable to the club generation? I’m thinking of Quartz covering Carole King’s “It’s Too Late”, Black Box taking on Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Fantasy”, Snap!’s revisiting of the Gap Band with “Oops Up” and Fresh 4 (featuring Liz E) hijacking Rose Royce’s “Wishing On A Star”. Well, that final track was raided again in 1998 by rising-star-soon-to-be-legend Jay–Z. Admittedly, he didn’t come up with a horrible dance version but rather he remade it with a hip-hop/ rap twist AND, in a boost of credibility, he persuaded original vocalist Gwen Dickey to do the singing on it for him. However, despite being named in the intro by Jayne Middlemiss, when she declares “here’s Jay-Z…” and the camera pans to Gwen with no sign of the rapper, it looks odd. Eventually, we get a glimpse of him via the three giant screens behind Gwen which feature him rapping his sections thus reuniting the two but it doesn’t quite pull it off visually for me.

As for the track it’s basically Gwen doing a retread through the chorus of her old hit with Jay-Z rapping the verses when he references missing his homies, getting his shit together and, in an unexpected twist, about being interrupted by a chicken he used to cluck with. I presume he means a female acquaintance he used to hang out with? It would peak at No 13 but “Wishing On A Star” would continue to be covered by the likes of Jay-Z’s partner Beyoncé, Seal, Paul Weller and even The X Factor 2011 finalists featuring One Direction and JLS.

Hire or Fire? The original is great but I can live without a hip-hop version thanks

I know I say this all the time in this blog but this next hit I genuinely do not remember. No, it’s not just that I can’t recall it from the dusty recesses of my mind but rather that there is just nothing there at all – as if it never existed. Seriously, it’s like watching it for the very first time but 27 years after the event. Wes was Wes Madiko, a Cameroonian musician who’d worked with French ambient artists Deep Forest and who toured the globe with his brand of world music whilst also highlighting the plight of suffering children. He was a stand-up guy basically. His hit “Alane” was an exuberant and joyful blast of African chants in the Duala language of Cameroon set to an infectious dance beat which puts me in mind of The Lion King. And guess what, Wes contributed a track to the soundtrack of The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride. “Alane” would be his only UK hit and he would sadly die in 2021 aged just 57.

Hire or Fire? I’m saying hire on this one. I might not have know it before but it was a pleasant surprise

After Headswim earlier, here was another band who were hardly your cheesy, TOTP charts stars of yore. I was pretty slow on the uptake when it came to Spiritualized. Although my groovy record shop colleagues were definitely into this lot, all I knew about them was that they had an album out that came in really annoying and impractical packaging that was a nightmare to display in the store. Initial copies of the band’s third album “Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space” came in a box designed to resemble prescription medicine with a booklet containing dosage advice and the CD housed in foil blister packaging! I don’t think I could get past that literally nor metaphorically to get to the actual music. As such, I missed out on the NME’s album of 1997 (as referenced by Jayne Middlemiss in her intro) and its attendant singles the second of which was “I Think I’m In Love”. This earthy, organic, almost hypnotic track wasn’t your standard late 90s chart hit and thank heavens for that. Despite it essentially being just a list of clever word play, it had an authenticity to it that I couldn’t detect in Headswim which sounds mad given that they were writing about personal experience of death. Ah the vagaries of subjectivity when it comes to musical choice.

Anyway, I finally cottoned onto Spiritualized when they released the marvellous “Stop Your Crying” in 2001 after I’d left record shops behind me and become a civil servant*. Parent album “Let It Come Down” was purchased off the back of it as were tickets to see them live in York where I was then living and they made a huge sound as I recall. The band are still together (though I think front man Jason Pierce is the only constant member) and they released their ninth studio album in 2022.

*That was a culture shock and I clearly won’t be writing a blog about that!

Hire or Fire? Definitely a job offer being made to this lot

Ah shite. It’s the Backstreet Boys again with their piss weak ballad “All I Have To Give”. We saw this a few weeks back as a pre-release exclusive I think and it’s gone into the charts at No 2 this week and so is back on again. It’s just a reshowing of that first performance which means they’re all sat down on directors chairs. Presumably Louis Walsh was watching at home and used this appearance as a blueprint for every performance by Westlife. Ever.

Hire or Fire? I’m firing all five of their asses!

The Middlemiss bonce has lurched from sleek to slack during the show but it’s back under control again as she introduces the No 1 song this week – “Doctor Jones” by Aqua. Not a lot else to say about this one other than that the contrast in voices between singer Lene Nystrøm and her bald male counterpart René Dif is the most striking on the show since Marcella Detroit and Siobhan Fahey took to the stage as Shakespears Sister. Also, the name Jones does seem to turn up in a fair few songs. Apart from “Doctor Jones”, there’s this lot for starters off the top of my head:

“Mr. Jones” – Counting Crows
“Me and Mrs. Jones” – Billy Paul
“Jones Vs. Jones” – Kool And The Gang
“Janie Jones” – The Clash

Any others?

Hire or Fire? It’s the old tin tack for Aqua

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Hot Chocolate featuring Errol Brown	It Started With A Kiss	Didn’t happen
2	Cleopatra	Cleopatra’s Theme	Not for me
3	Headswim	Tourniquet	Nah
4	Jay-Z / Gwen Dickey	Wishing On A Star	Negative
5	Wes	Alane	Nope
6	Spiritualized	I Think I’m In Love	I did not
7	Backstreet Boys	All I Have To Give	As if
8	Aqua	Doctor Jones	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/m002fzcb/top-of-the-pops-13021998?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 06 FEB 1998

Posted on July 24 by 80stastic

After a few weeks hiatus due to the BBC’s coverage of Glastonbury and Wimbledon, we’re back with the 1998 TOTP repeats again. I can’t say I missed them which might sound a perverse thing to say from someone who has devoted over eight years of their life to blogging about them but hear me out. Firstly, after publishing over 700 posts in that time, I welcome any break from the relentless writing. Secondly, I have the feeling that 1998 wasn’t a vintage year for the UK charts and that we might be about to endure some hits of dubious quality at best (i.e. some right old shite). Let’s see if my fears are realised in this episode…

Tonight’s host is Zoe Ball who I’m not the biggest fan of but she seems like a safe pair of hands here. Someone who wasn’t exhibiting safe hands was Executive Producer Chris Cowey who has brought back that crap idea again of featuring the song that was last week’s No 1 as the first song of tonight’s show meaning that effectively the same hit is played back to back seven days apart. I might have fallen for what Cowey no doubt thought was a clever ruse back then but watching these repeats nearly 30 years on it seems plain daft. The fortunate recipient of this additional exposure this time is Usher whose “You Make Me Wanna” track lasted just a solitary week at No 1 before being deposed by…well, we’ll get to that in due time.

As for Usher, he’s determined to take off as many clothes as the BBC censors will allow pre-watershed although he maybe should have practiced a bit more first as he struggles to remove his silver padded jacket which he then flings to the floor. What happened to said jacket as it’s nowhere to be seen as the performance progresses – presumably it was snaffled away by a studio audience member. Did they get to keep it or did security make them return it to Usher. I mean, they didn’t even ask for it nicely with one of those annoying ‘Can I have your shirt?’ placards that are ubiquitous at elite football matches these days. By the end of the performance, Usher is naked from the waist up although, as Joe Cocker and, indeed, Tom Jones nearly sang, he did keep his hat on. That’s alright then.

Some proper music from a proper singer next. Much was made back in the day of Carleen Anderson’s musical family heritage* (Zoe Ball even makes a reference to it here) but Carleen’s own personal musical career took in many a familiar name. She’s worked with Omar, on Guru’s “Jazzmatazz: Volume 1” album, Incognito, Brand New Heavies, Jocelyn Brown and yes Zoe, Paul Weller. Of course, she came to prominence with acid jazz pioneers Young Disciples in 1991 with their Mercury Prize nominated album “Road To Freedom” before striking out in her own with solo album “True Spirit” which sold 60,000 copies in the UK and supplied her with four Top 40 singles.

*Carleen’s family tree included:

Her Mum was Vicky Anderson, a singer with the James Brown Revue.
Her stepfather was Bobby Byrd, the R&B, soul/ funk legend and James Brown band mate.
The ‘Godfather of Soul’ himself was Carleen’s actual godfather

Leading the way for her second album was a cover of Paul McCartney’s “Maybe I’m Amazed” which I hadn’t realised until now had never been released as a Macca single (though a live version by Wings was a minor hit in 1977). This is a fantastic track, perhaps one of McCartney’s best, and Carleen does it justice with her version complete with soaring vocal (is it live in this performance?). However, on reflection, it doesn’t have the feel of a single in 1998 somehow. A highlight of Later with…Jools Holland yes, or even his New Year’s Hootenanny show but just not a Top 40 single. The trippy graphics behind Carleen give it the feel of a performance on Channel 4’s notorious late night show The Word but surely Carleen was too classy to have appeared on that (I haven’t checked by the way).

This would prove to be Carleen’s final UK hit and she now has followed a different direction pioneering a new cultural form called “Opus Griot”, a blend of singing, poetry, storytelling and the use of MI.MU Gloves, a new gesture-controlled digital instrument developed by Imogen Heap. As for “Maybe I’m Amazed”, it continues to be covered by artists such as Marc Cohn, Thomas Lang and Billy Joel. Oh and if you play it backwards, you’ll hear a recipe for a really ripping lentil soup…

How does one describe Saint Etienne? It’s a legitimate question I feel as they certainly embraced the eclectic ethic more than most. It’s also a question that will be revisited this year I’m guessing as the band have announced that their forthcoming album “International” will be their last. No doubt this will usher (no, not him!) in retrospective articles in the music press reassessing their career. Indeed, there is one in the latest edition of the excellent Classic Pop magazine which has an interview with the trio at its heart.

My own personal experience of the band started…well, at the start I guess with their dance version of Neil Young’s “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” which was perfect for coming-down play lists with its aching sorrowfulness. It wasn’t a massive hit (No 39) but many of my hipper Our Price colleagues at the time loved it and it was heavily played on the shop stereo. Indeed, my wife liked it so much she bought the band’s debut album “Foxbase Alpha”. The natural progression from this was to see them live which we did in Manchester Academy but it wasn’t a fulfilling experience. Heavily reliant on backing tapes, they played for just 43 minutes and left the stage with Sarah Cracknell delivering the line “We’re not a rock band. We don’t do encores” and they were, indeed, gone. It wasn’t all bad though – the support band were Pulp who were excellent.

As the 90s progressed, Saint Etienne were almost prolific in their output which the stat of four albums in seven years attests to. They’d even accrued enough material for a Best Of album by the midpoint of the decade. Although some of their best known songs seem to be infused with an overt pop sensibility (“You’re In A Bad Way”, “He’s On The Phone”), they truly did span the musical genres. 1994’s “Tiger Bay” explored folk electronica whilst last year’s “The Night” was all about the understated and ambient. Then there’s their actual soundtrack albums. It really is wide ranging stuff. By 1998, they were back in that pop groove with the album “Good Humor” albeit of a more acoustic variety. Lead single “Sylvie” returned them to that classic Saint Etienne sound though – a stylish and catchy tale of sibling love rivalry. Some of its lyrics were a bit trite though rhyming ‘September’ with ‘remember’ and ‘person’ with ‘flirtin’. It would peak at No 12 thus maintaining their record of never having had a Top 10 hit. That run would remain unbroken*, something that Sarah Cracknell admits in that Classic Pop magazine interview remains a regret.

*I’m not counting 1991 No 8 hit “7 Ways To Love” under the guise of Cola Boy nor 2000’a collaboration with Paul van Dyk on “Tell Me Why (The Riddle)”

That last album should arrive in September this year and features guest appearances from the likes of Vince Clarke and the Greatest Living Englishman Nick Heyward so it should be well worth checking out.

By the end of the 90s, it felt like Will Smith was permanently in the charts with a succession of catchy, dance/rap numbers that were based on samples of classic hits from back in the day. Starting with “Men In Black” in 1997 (and omitting the outlier minor hit “Just Cruisin’”), he had a run of six singles that peaked at either No 1, No 2 or No 3. “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It” was the second in that run and was primarily based around Sister Sledge’s 70s disco classic “He’s The Greatest Dancer”. The lyrics, which, incidentally, some people believe were written by rapper Nas and not Smith, include the line:

“Met Ali he told me I’m the greatest”

Written by: Bernard Edwards / Joe Robinson / Nile Rodgers / Samuel Barnes / Will Smith.

How prescient. Smith would play the boxing legend in the 2001 biopic Ali. Anyway, “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It” was a perfect example of the successful formula that Smith had hit upon and he would run with it for all it was worth. However, what did it actually mean to ‘get jiggy with it’? I presumed it was a euphemism for the sexual act but according to Wikipedia, the term was originally a description of sexy fashion or style that was expanded to include dancing skills. As for Smith himself, he saw the use of ‘jiggy’ in the lyrics as an opportunity for racial empowerment as he associated it with the ethnic slur ‘jigaboo’ which popularised the folk-myth of an innate sense of rhythm in people of colour. In essence, it was claiming the phrase back.

The video was suitably grandiose being filmed at various Las Vegas hotels with scenes including Ancient Egypt imagery, volcanoes and ultimately a Statue of Liberty replica. The money and effort put into the promo was rewarded with an MTV award for Best Rap video. We’ll be seeing a lot more of Mr. Smith before these 90s TOTP repeats are through.

I’m totally out of my comfort zone on this next one as TOTP goes freestyle…literally. Freestylers are a British electronic group whose sound is so eclectic it makes Saint Etienne seem like fuddy duddy, dyed-in-the-wool traditionalists. Encompassing elements of breakbeat, big beat, trip hop, acid house and electro house, they are the trio Matt Cantor, Aston Harvey and MC SirReal. Looking at that list of sub genres of dance music, you may understand my comment about being out of my pop/rock comfort zone. I wasn’t the only one though. Zoe Ball was as well although she tries to convince us that she knows what she’s talking about in her intro where she refers to them as the “freesty-laaas”. That faux patois is undermined though by her pronunciation of the word “dancing” as “darncing”. And I thought you were a safe pair of hands Zoe!

Anyway, back to the Freestylers who are joined on this their debut hit “B-Boy Stance” by Tenor Fly who brings some ragga stylings to the mic (or something). It’s all very frenetic with the three breakdancers on stage twirling around on their arses adding to the spectacle/ looking ridiculous (delete as appropriate). To me, it seems very retro even in 1998 with the scratching of records and those “Brrrrrrrrrr” noises from Mr T. Fly. I love the fact though that the pasty, ginger haired bass player looks as un-hip-hop as it’s possible to be.

As with Will Smith’s earlier hit, the track’s title raised the question of what it actually meant (for me anyway). Apparently, it’s that arms-crossed, feet apart pose employed by breakdancers at the end of a routine which represents strength, defiance and the legacy of hip-hop (according to AI Overview anyway). “B-Boy Stance” would peak at No 23 but did it pave the way for an enormous hit later in the year that would become the UK’s third biggest selling single of 1998? I refer, of course, to “It’s Like That” by Run-D.M.C. vs Jason Nevins.

From out of my comfort zone to totally confused now as we get The Rolling Stones and their hit “Saint Of Me”. Before we get to my confusion though, a couple of points of order. What’s the deal with the little message to camera from Mick Jagger apologising for not being in the TOTP studio in person? Did anyone really expect them to be? Seems a bit unnecessary. Maybe it was part of the ‘Still No 1’ campaign whose tagline the hosts were made to trot out each week – “see, we can get names like Mick Jagger to do stuff for us because we’re still, you know, No 1”. Secondly, what was with the shot of the studio audience watching the promo video on a big screen? How did that help the watching millions at home have a better experience or indeed the song’s chances of increasing its sales?

Anyway, to my confused state of mind. I don’t recall this single though I remember the album it came from “Bridges To Babylon” – its cover at least. Consequently, I’ve had to rely on the internet for some info about it and everything I’ve found seems to suggest that this track was remixed by dance remix duo Deep Dish. This seems possible as the first single from the album – “Anybody Seen My Baby” – had been given the remix treatment by Armand Van Helden. Listening to it though, it doesn’t sound very dance influenced at all. Presumably there was a remix of it as an extra track on a CD single or the 12” format? This can’t be it surely? As for the song itself, it’s pleasant enough blues rock, the kind of which the Stones made their legend on with lots of religious imagery in the lyrics – a companion piece to “Sympathy For The Devil” maybe? To be honest though, it sounds like they were doing their best “Give Out But Don’t Give Up” era Primal Scream impression. Or was it the other way round? Ahem.

Wait…what?! Why are OTT back in the show?! I thought we’d done with this lot for the final time the other week? What? They’ve climbed one place from No 20 to No 19 with “The Story Of Love” after debuting at No 11 in its first week? That was enough to warrant another appearance? Damn you Chris Cowey!

Hands up who thought Aqua would be a one hit wonder?

*Blogger sheepishly raises his hand*

It was a fair assumption though. “Barbie Girl” was just about a novelty song so how could a career be carved out from that beginning? How wrong we all were. Not only did they have more hits but they completed a hat-trick of consecutive No1s. The second of those was “Doctor Jones”, another insanely catchy bubblegum pop track. The whole boy/girl cutesy thing was starting to get really annoying second time around and the “Ah-yippie-yi-ooh, ah-yippie-yi -yeah” lyric was brain rotting. Sadly, we would fall for it hook, line and sinker just as we had done for its predecessor. The UK record buying public was sick. Somebody should have called the doctor. Wake up now!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Usher	You Make Me Wanna	I did not
2	Carleen Anderson	Maybe I’m Amazed	Negative
3	Saint Etienne	Sylvie	No
4	Will Smith	Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It	Nope
5	Freestylers	B-Boy Stance	Not my bag at all
6	The Rolling Stones	Saint Of Me	Nah
7	OTT	The Story Of Love	Of course not
8	Aqua	Doctor Jones	Away with you!

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/m002fzc7/top-of-the-pops-06021998?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 21 NOV 1997

Posted on May 20 by 80stastic

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

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

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

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

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

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

*It still hasn’t yet

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

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

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

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

While the Hollywood sun sets behind your back

And can’t the band play on

Just listen, they play my song

Ash to ash, dust to dust, fade to black

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

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

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

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

Disclaimer

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

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

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

TOTP 14 NOV 1997

Posted on May 14 by 80stastic

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

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

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

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

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

TOTP 06 JUN 1997

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Or a Family Guy version? No problem…

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

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

Disclaimer

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

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

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

TOTP 07 NOV 1997

Posted on May 12 by 80stastic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*Actually, it seems I can. Read on.

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

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

TOTP 16 JUL 1987

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

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

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

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

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

Disclaimer

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

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

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

TOTP 31 OCT 1997

Posted on May 7 by 80stastic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*googles “bruk whine”*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Disclaimer

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

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

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

TOTP 24 OCT 1997

Posted on May 2 by 80stastic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Disclaimer

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

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

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

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My memories of 90s chart music

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