Baby D

TOTP 11 JAN 1996

Posted on May 7, 2024 by 80stastic

As we move into mid January 1996, the Christmas bloat affecting the Top 40 has started to clear and we have seven new songs (of nine) in the show tonight. Nearly all of them, I cannot recall. Is this how it is for everyone else who religiously watches these BBC4 TOTP repeats? That you’ve forgotten the majority of songs that feature on them? Maybe it is and that might be excusable given how the frequency of songs going into and out of the charts exploded in the 90s and that we are 28 years removed (currently) from these events but I worked in record shops for almost the entire decade. How can’t I remember them? What’s my excuse?

Well, I’m going to confront my shame and jump right into this. The first artist on tonight is Judy Cheeks with “Reach” who…wait…what? Oh no…this is unforgivable! My research tells me that not only has this track been a hit before (No 17 in 1994) but that Judy appeared on TOTP to promote it…which means I’ll have reviewed it in this blog…and I still don’t remember it! Absolutely shameful! Hang on though, could I get away with just copying and pasting what I said about it first time round here? I mean, I’ve forgotten about it so maybe you would have too? No, I’m better than that surely? Actually, I’m not sure I am. Here you are, fill your boots…

TOTP 05 MAY 1994

NEXT!

Nope. No idea about this either. Not the artist Tori Amos obviously (I think my wife had her first album “Little Earthquakes”) but this single called “Caught A Lite Sneeze”. And herein lies the rub. The album it was from – “Boys For Pele” – I recognised instantly when I looked it up on Wikipedia but as to what it sounded like, I’m as clueless as Esther McVey. You see, my colleagues in the Our Price I worked in would not have been seen dead putting Tori Amos on the shop stereo and even if they had done, the chances of me being able to sit down and listen to it at work were almost nil. I think I’ve just answered my own question as to what my excuse is for not knowing some of these songs. As for this song, it’s typical Tori fare – vocals that are all at once kooky and tortured allied to a floating, haunting melody but it never seems to really go anywhere; it just sort of meanders along until Tori presumably feels she’s made her point. I do like her rotating harpsichord and piano moves though. The album sold well enough, perhaps belatedly propelled by an unexpected No 1 single being released from it in January 1997 when a dance remix of ‘Professional Widow” by Armand van Helden took Amos to the top of the UK charts. That’s all way in the future though…

Onto a third consecutive hit that I don’t remember. Baby D were also onto their third hit after ‘Let Me Be Your Fantasy” (a No 1 record no less) and their reworking of The Corgis hit as “(Everybody’s Got to Learn Sometime) I Need Your Loving”. “So Pure” was more of that pop-ified drum ‘n’ bass stye that had served them so well on those previous hits or as Russ Jones put it when reviewing the single for The Guardian:

“The fabulous third single from the squeaky-voiced diva and maker of jungle for people who hate jungle but love glamorous melodies, vaguely familiar piano breaks, and copping off under strobe lights.”

Jones, Ross (23 December 1995). “Reviews: Singles”. p. 27. The Guardian.

Obviously it did little for me and my purer pop sensibilities but I’m sure it went down a storm on the dance floor at Xanadu’s nightclub in Rochdale. The mostly black and white video features a bloke who looks like Eric Cantona’s younger, longer haired brother but I’m guessing he’s actually Claudio Galdez from the band.

Following my long standing tradition of not getting on board with bands that I really should have, here’s another that I missed out on. Yes, after The Smiths and the Stone Roses failed to light up my musical radar (at least initially, I subsequently discovered their charms), here come Gene. Unlike me though, my mate Robin LOVED Gene and indeed picks them as his favourite band ever eclipsing even his early heroes the aforementioned Smiths. Ah yes, The Smiths. Morrissey and co were never far from people’s lips when discussing Gene as the comparison between Mozza and lead singer Martin Rossiter were obvious though a little lazy. After three earlier middling sized hits (including title track of debut album “Olympian”), their very first single “For The Dead” was rereleased and scored the band their biggest ever hit when it peaked at No 14. As with the Tori Amos album earlier, I definitely knew the front cover of said album but I never seemed to actually hear it. I seem to blowing out of the water the myth about working in a record shop as the biggest doss and coolest job ever with every word I type! At Robin’s prompting, I am investigating the band’s back catalogue and liking what I hear. “Olympian” is a mighty track as is “Fighting Fit”. Sadly for me, the band are no longer a going concern having split in 2004. Martin Rossiter perfumed a career-spanning, one-off, farewell solo gig at the O2 Forum Kentish Town on 20 November 2021 and yes, my mate Robin was there.

Finally, a song I do remember but that could be due to it being used to soundtrack the opening titles of an ITV late night football highlights show called Football League Extra in the mid to late 90s. Dreadzone were an off shoot from Big Audio Dynamite and featured that combo’s previous members Greg Roberts and Leo Williams. Their band name was dreamt up by BAD co-founder and film director, DJ and musician Don Letts. Their so far only hit single was the No 20 peaking “Little Britain” which used the melody from “Tang” the sixth section of classical composer Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana” (the first section was famously used in that Old Spice advert) whilst it also features samples from the films If and Excalibur. Now, when BAD were having hits with “E=MC²” and “Medicine Show”, with songs featured samples from films such as Performance, The Good, The Bad And The Ugly and A Fistful Of Dollars Don Letts failed to get the relevant copyright clearance for them so I hope that he wasn’t in charge of Dreadzone’s sampling practices!

Almost an instrumental but not quite, “Little Britain ” is the very definition of a jaunty tune guaranteed to put a smile on your face. Indeed, even the ever curmudgeonly John Peel loved Dreadzone and nominated their album “Second Light” (from which “Little Britain” was taken) as one of his favourite albums ever whilst six of their tracks featured on his Festive Fifty show of 1995. The band are still a going concern though they haven’t released an album since 2017. Somehow it doesn’t seem fair that mention of the title Little Britain might these days conjure up images from the comedy sketch series of the same name starring David Williams and Matt Lucas rather than Dreadzone’s single.

It’s another of those singles now that hung around the Top 40 for weeks and weeks like “Missing” by Everything But The Girl, “Father And Son” by Boyzone and “It’s Oh So Quiet” by Björk. Add to that list “Wonderwall” by Oasis. Like all of their singles, the Our Price in Stockport where I was working at this time stocked this one all year round as the sales they achieved couldn’t be ignored. “Wonderwall” has so far racked up 89 weeks on the UK Top 100 including 30 consecutively between November 1995 and June 1996. Now, there are a couple of links between Oasis and the act on before them Dreadzone which I was not aware of until now. Firstly, both bands signed to Creation Records in 1993 (although Dreadzone subsequently signed to Virgin). Secondly, in this year of 1996, Oasis performed two nights at Knebworth for an audience of 125,000 each time, the largest outdoor concerts in UK history at the time. One of the support acts for them on those appearances? Yep, Dreadzone. I don’t know about a “Little Britain” but it’s certainly a small world.

After his first No 1 “Oh Carolina” in 1993, Shaggy struggled to consolidate on it with follow up single “Soon Be Done” failing to make the Top 40. He seemed to be making a better attempt in building on his second chart topper “Boombastic” with the track “Why You Treat Me So Bad”. To help him out with his endeavours, he’s roped in American rapper Grand Puba on this one though he isn’t in the TOTP studio for this performance (which I can’t find on YouTube by the way). To make up for his absence, Shaggy has doubled up by miming both his own vocals and Grand Puba’s which perhaps gives a false impression of the depths of his talents. The performance and track are both very underwhelming in my book.

When in Hull city centre recently, I witnessed perhaps the worst thing I’ve ever seen. A busker with a microphone and a speaker but instead of playing a backing track and singing along to it, he was playing the actual track and miming! His track of choice as I was walking past him? The Shaggy version of “In The Summertime” (featuring Rayvon of course which was quite apt as this guy was like an act from Phoenix Nights). As if the scene before me wasn’t bad enough, two young women came up to the busker and showed him their phone on which they were playing the Shaggy song and asked this bloke if he was, indeed, Shaggy! I mean, how did it come to this?

And so we arrive at perhaps the most infamous hit of 1996 already and we’re only two weeks into January! No chance of me not remembering this one! It’s time for “Spaceman” by Babylon Zoo! OK, so let’s get the reason why it was so infamous out of the way early doors. Yes, that moment that bound a nation together in collective dismay when we all realised that the brilliant dance tune from the latest Levi’s jeans advert wasn’t, in fact, a brilliant dance tune at all but a hoary old rock dirge with a load of synths slapped on it. It’s the way it starts with that speeded up, robot vocal over a pumping dance beat before literally grinding to a halt in front of our ears (if that is possible) and lurching into the main part of the track that dealt such a crushing blow.

So, who were Babylon Zoo and from whence did they come? They were essentially a vehicle for the ego of lead singer Jas Mann who ruffled a few feathers in press interviews with his claims of genius and being the future of music. Enjoying the patronage of record company executive Clive Black, the release of “Spaceman” was delayed when he took the band with him from Warners to EMI after being poached by the latter. However, promo copies of the single had been distributed to radio stations and when one in Manchester played it, a listening ad agency decided it would be perfect for the Levi’s contract. The futuristic sounding intro and outro were the work of legendary producer Arthur Baker and on his magic touch was a monster hit spawned. With 383,000 copies sold in its first week, it became the fastest selling single in the UK since “Can’t Buy Me Love” by The Beatles in 1964. It would sell 1.15 million copies in the UK overall and top charts around Europe including five weeks at No 1 here. As well be seeing a lot more of this track, I’ll leave it there for now.

It’s a sixth and final week at No 1 for “Earth Song” by Michael Jackson. I’m still waiting for the TOTP that will coincide with Jarvis Cocker’s protest against Jacko at the BRIT awards so I won’t be commenting on this single again until that show airs.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Judy Cheeks	Reach	No
2	Tori Amos	Caught A Lite Sneeze	It’s a no from me
3	Baby D	So Pure	Nah
4	Gene	For The Dead	Nope
5	Dreadzone	Little Britain	Negative
6	Oasis	Wonderwall	I didn’t
7	Shaggy	Why You Treat Me So Bad	Never
8	Babylon Zoo	Spaceman	I did but for a friend who was obsessed with it so she could use my staff discount – honest!
9	Michael Jackson	Earth Song	And no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001yty7/top-of-the-pops-11011996?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 22 JUN 1995

Posted on December 1, 2023 by 80stastic

These mid 90s TOTPs were all over the place musically. I’m looking for some sort of thread that links the acts on this particular show together and apart from an over arching theme of dance music, I can’t really detect one – it’s all a bit…not exactly eclectic but more…well…haphazard. There’s Britpop, soft rock, cover versions, a novelty record…and Mike And The Mechanics. If the running order is unpredictable one thing that is completely, absolutely unequivocally guaranteed is that host Simon ‘Smug’ Mayo will trot out a string of lame lines that he thinks are shit-your-pants funny. What a plank.

1995 really was in the midst of an identity crisis. Look at the opening act – the prince of Eurodance Haddaway had somehow managed to secure himself four consecutive Top 10 hits between 1993 and early 1994 but the wheels had pretty much come off by this point. His second album “The Drive” did nothing in the UK (I’m not sure we even stocked it in Our Price as I don’t know it’s cover art at all) but somehow its lead single “Fly Away” propelled him into our charts one more time despite everybody knowing (including himself surely) that he was living on borrowed time. Being a resourceful lad, he’s decided the best way to extend his shelf life was to do his best 2 Unlimited impression complete with bringing in a female vocalist to accompany him just to hammer home the Ray and Anita comparison. I guess it worked as “Fly Away” made it to No 20 but this track surely didn’t live long in anyone’s memory.

It’s the aforementioned Mike + The Mechanics next with the title track from their latest album “Beggar On A Beach Of Gold” though curiously they’ve added an ‘A’ to the title of the single. “A Beggar On A Beach Of Gold” was the follow up to “Over My Shoulder” which performed well reaching No 12 in the charts. Its successor couldn’t repeat that though peaking at No 33. Was there a reason for this? Well, this track has Paul Young (not that one) on lead vocals whereas “Over My Shoulder” saw Paul Carrack doing the heaving lifting when it came to the singing. Now, wasn’t their biggest hit “The Living Years” also sung by Carrack so is there a pattern emerging here?

*checks Mike + The Mechanics discography*

Hmm. Not really. Paul Young was the vocalist on “Word Of Mouth”, “Silent Running (On Dangerous Ground)” and “All I Need Is A Miracle” which were all UK Top 40 hits. I’m sure OMD went through a small phase in the mid 80s where their singles sung by Paul Humphreys were hits but those that had Andy McCluskey on the microphone didn’t though. The only other band that comes to mind where the vocals were shared is Tears For Fears but they had big hits with songs sung by both Curt Smith and Roland Orzabal. I seem to be looking at a theory that doesn’t hold water so I’ll move on.

The sadly departed Paul Young (still not that one) was also the singer in Sad Café best known for the hits “My Oh My” (not the Slade song!) and “Everyday Hurts” though I have to say that watching Paul here, I’m not reminded of those hits but taken aback by his resemblance to the actor, screenwriter and novelist Mark Gatiss or rather Mark Gatiss as a League Of Gentlemen character. Perhaps Les McQueen of Crème Brulée?

We’re back to the dance music now with another airing of the video for “(Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime) I Need Your Loving” by Baby D. A take on The Korgis’ hit of the same name (almost), it was at its chart peak of No 3 this week so not quite equalling the success of their chart topper “Let Me Be Your Fantasy”. Baby D herself was one Dee Fearon and if that surname sounds familiar then it could be due to this guy…

Yes, Dee is married to Phil Fearon of Galaxy fame. You may recall him having a clutch of jaunty pop hits in the mid 80s. A little known fact is that Phil also had a song with the word ‘fantasy’ in it that also got to the top of a chart – sadly for Phil it was the Best of the Rest chart as his single “Fantasy Real” peaked at that most unfortunate of chart positions No 41 in 1983. Yes, Phil’s fantasy of a No 1 record wasn’t real. He should have asked his wife about how to bag a chart topper. “What Do I Do?” indeed.

As predictable as a controversial VAR decision every weekend, here comes Simon Mayo with some inappropriate reference during his link to the next act. Introducing “Shoot Me With Your Love” by D:Ream, he makes some asinine comment about selling bullets to Iran which I’m assuming was his attempt at being topical as the US imposed oil and trade sanctions on Iran over their sponsorship of terrorism, pursuit of nuclear weapons and hostility to the Israeli – Palestinian peace process in this year. Yeah, nice one Mayo. Nothing was off limits to you was it in your pursuit of a cheap gag. What a prick! And look at what he’s wearing to present a music programme reflecting current trends – a shirt and tie! He was only three months away from his 37th birthday at the time of this broadcast – not exactly down with the kids was he?

As for D:Ream, this was the lead single from their second album “World” and the majority of the online reaction to it after this TOTP repeat aired on BBC4 recently went along the lines of “Bloody Hell! Robbie Williams nicked this tune for ‘Let Me Entertain You’!”. I have to say I concur. The chorus hook of both songs is interchangeable. I didn’t I notice this at the time, probably because:

Robbie’s song wasn’t released until nearly three years after D:Ream’s single
“Shoot Me With Your Love” was hardly that memorable a tune in the first place. Come on, D:Ream are remembered for one song and one song only by the vast majority of people!

Anyway, it did reach No 7 which isn’t to be sniffed at (“Let Me Entertain You” peaked at No 3) whilst parent album “World” also did pretty well with a chart high of No 5 though it sold five times less copies than its predecessor “D:Ream On Vol 1”.

More identity crisis stuff now. A big ballad from a dance act? Maybe it’s more of an anthem than a ballad but even so. Despite being one of M People’s best known songs, “Search For The Hero” is not one of the band’s biggest hits. The third single from their “Bizarre Fruit” album, it did stretch their run of consecutive Top 10 hits to eight but I would have thought it peaked much higher than No 9. Not so. Its status might be due to the fact that its profile was raised not once but twice by external factors. Firstly, a year after its release, it was used as the music for a Peugeot 406 car advert and then, on 29 June 1996, M People performed it at a celebratory concert at Old Trafford to mark the final match of the Euro 96 football tournament. Heather Small was so attached to the idea of the song that she basically rewrote it as her first solo single in 2000 and called it “Proud”. Again, it was latched upon for a sporting purpose becoming the official theme for the London 2012 Olympic bid and, of course, was used as a running gag throughout the BBC sit com Miranda.

It wasn’t just Heather Small who liked to recycle though (as she did by taking “Search For The Hero” and turning it into “Proud”). M People’s record label Deconstruction reused the whole “Bizarre Fruit” album by rereleasing it as “Bizarre Fruit II” just a year later with the radio edits of “Search For The Hero” and “Love Rendezvous” replacing the original album versions plus the band’s version of “Itchycoo Park” by Small Faces added to the track listing. Cheeky blighters.

And now, perhaps one of the most pointless cover versions of all time – Amy Grant’s take on Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi”. Why? Just…why? Well, to get a hit obviously but sheesh, this is totally without merit. A sanitised, horribly 90s version of a song when the original is so well known? No thanks. Amy doesn’t even do the infamous high/low vocal followed by the cringy laugh at the end. Maybe she thought that was a step too far? Maybe she thought that would be disrespectful to Joni? Maybe she thought she was being respectful by not doing it?

For whatever reason, enough punters bought this to send it to No 20 in the UK singles chart, Amy’s biggest hit since “Baby Baby” made No 2 in 1991. Surely it isn’t possible that people didn’t know the 1970 original? Or maybe they were reminded of it but in the pre-streaming days of 1995, the closest thing to having access to Joni’s song (unless you shelled out for the “Ladies Of The Canyon” album it was on) was to buy the Amy Grant version? Not everything was simpler back in the day I guess.

It’s the kings of the TOTP exclusive next as, for what seems like the umpteenth time, Bon Jovi are here with, yep, another ‘exclusive performance’. This time it’s to promote their new album “These Days” which was released the week after this show aired and which would knock Michael Jackson’s “HIStory” Best Of off the top of the charts. There’s no Niagara Falls or American Football stadium location tonight though as they are in the TOTP studio in person. The song they perform here is the album’s title track and, for what it’s worth, it’s pretty good I think. Now I have been known in the past to not be immune to the guilty pleasure that is the Jovi – I once refused to leave a nightclub in Sunderland until I’d danced to them despite being legless through drink – so I may be a little biased but still, I think the song holds up. More reflective and mature than some of their earlier, bombastic stadium rock.

Jon seems to have grown out that shorter haircut he was sporting for the “Always” single back in the Autumn of 1994 and there’s also a change in the band line up as original bass player Alex John Such has been replaced by Hugh McDonald. This track would eventually be released as the fourth single from the album in February 1996 so we may see it again when the BBC4 repeats get to that point in time.

Simon Mayo has another one of his ludicrous non sequiturs for us next as he states that Bon Jovi had recently picked up two Kerrang! awards and a Kerplunk award. For God’s sake man, please just stop!

Right, on with the music and what’s going on here then? Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer teaming up with EMF to do a cover of “I’m A Believer”? Well, it seems to me that in the case of Vic and Bob, they had a history both with this song (it was performed by Vic on the first ever TV show of Vic Reeves’ Big Night Out) and with teaming up with indie rock bands to do cover versions (they, of course, collaborated with The Wonderstuff to take Tommy Roe’s “Dizzy” to No 1 in 1991). As for EMF, it looks to me like a desperate attempt to restart their career which had exploded with UK No 3 and US No 1 “Unbelievable” in 1990. The success of that single and parent album “Schubert Dip” hadn’t sustained and their latest album “Cha Cha Cha” (released in March 1995) had peaked at No 30 and yielded just one minor hit single. By comparison, Vic and Bob were flying with a second series of The Smell Of Reeves And Mortimer having just finished airing. It made sense to associate yourself with a successful act when you’re trying to regain your own popularity and if the plan was to bag themselves a massive seller then it was a case of mission accomplished as “I’m A Believer” peaked at No 3. However, this would prove to be a temporary return to glories. One final throw of the dice in the form of the wonderful follow up single “Afro King” failed to make the Top 40. The band split not long after though have reformed at various points down the years and are currently a functioning entity.

I read Bob Mortimer’s autobiography recently and he comes across as a very humble, vulnerable and warm human being. He was actually very shy as a school kid which looks at odds with his exuberant performance here. One last thing, what was the deal with EMF and songs with the word ‘believe’ in them? “Unbelievable”, “I Believe”, “I’m A Believer”…I would liked to have heard them take on Bucks Fizz’s “Land Of Make Believe” – now that really would make for an interesting cover version!

Six weeks now for Robson & Jerome at No 1 with “Unchained Melody”. SIX WEEKS! I never watched Soldier Soldier, the TV series that spawned this duo so I dug out the infamous clip on YouTube. Here it is…

Hmm. I can’t really see why this scene would have ignited a clamour to be able to buy and own a copy of these two actors doing “Unchained Melody” if I’m honest. If only YouTube had been around back then, maybe all those people who bought the record would have been satiated by being able to watch this clip over and over again instead and we wouldn’t have had to endure Robson & Jerome at all!

The play out track is “Daydreamer” by Menswear but they will be in the studio on the next episode of the show so I’ll keep this short. This was the band’s second single release but their first to be made available extensively after debut “I’ll Manage Somehow” was only printed in very limited quantities meaning that it couldn’t sell enough copies to get in the charts. “Daydreamer” therefore became the band’s first Top 40 hit when it peaked at No 14, also its debut entry position.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Haddaway	Fly Away	Never happening
2	Mike + The Mechanics	A Beggar On A Beach Of Gold	Nope
3	Baby D	(Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime) I Need Your Loving	No thanks
4	D:Ream	Shoot Me With Your Love	Nah
5	M People	Search For The Hero	No
6	Amy Grant	Big Yellow Taxi	Negative
7	Bon Jovi	These Days	I did not
8	Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer / EMF	I’m A Believer	I wasn’t – no
9	Robson & Jerome	Unchained Melody	As if
10	Menswear	Daydreamer	And no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001snq6/top-of-the-pops-22061995

TOTP 01 JUN 1995

Posted on November 22, 2023 by 80stastic

It’s June 1995 and I’ll be 27 years old in five days time. Where does the time go? Well, I’ve been writing this blog for the last 8 years for a start! Seriously though, time and the passing of it can really bend your head if you think about it for too long. Do you reckon these BBC4 TOTP repeats have a similar effect on the acts who actually appeared on the show? Being reminded of your glory days that have now faded and of a time when you were young and beautiful as opposed to the person ravaged by middle age that they are now?

Take opening act Reef for example. I wonder if lead singer Gary Stringer still has all that hair?

*googles Gary Stringer*

Yes he does! It has gone grey though and he’s grown a huge beard but still. Not a bad effort. I tried convincing myself a few years back that I didn’t look much different from when I was in my 20s. It was complete tosh of course and I was clearly lying to myself.

Anyway, Reef. This lot were pretty big for a while in the mid 90s, somehow benefitting from the rise of Britpop even though they weren’t your archetypal Britpop band. Nothing of the sort really. I think it may have had something to do with them doing a jingle for TFI Friday. Remember “It’s your letters” based around their biggest hit “Place Your Hands”? Somehow Britpop, lad culture and Chris Evans all seemed to mesh with each other, in my mind anyway. I’m getting ahead of myself though. That’s all a year or so away. Back in 1995, “Naked” was the band’s second Top 40 hit from their debut album “Replenish”. It’s not bad either. Hardly revolutionary and highly derivative but a pretty good blues rock work out. I’m sure that descending guitar riff is nicked off something else but I can’t put my finger on what. Somebody else who was having trouble putting his fingers somewhere was Reef’s bass player – what was the deal with those loose strings flapping all over the place. Tighten your tuning heads man! One last thing about this performance – was the stage invasion by members of the studio audience pre-arranged or impulsive do you think? Can’t make my mind up.

Next a man who I was convinced only had two hits (both back in 1992) but here he is again three years later with another one. Curtis Stigers is said man and helpfully he has joined in with my ‘time’ intro by releasing a single called “This Time” from an album called “Time Was”. Nicely timed Curtis. And talking of the passing of time, in those intervening three years since his last hit, he’s lost his flowing locks that he had when he was in the charts with “You’re All That Matters To Me” and “I Wonder Why”. In fact, if you take Reef’s Gary Stringer with all his hair and stood him next to Curtis, it would be like a ‘before and after’ picture. As for the song itself, it’s a radio friendly little ditty but it doesn’t live long in the memory as was illustrated by its No 28 chart peak.

https://youtu.be/2dO_mDKnWlM?si=-eNSO_-8IAMYbhYq

Another song with the word ‘time’ in the title now. Baby D scored a No 1 in late 1994 with “Let Me Be Your Fantasy” but it took them six months to come up with a follow up and when they did it was just yet another dance version of a classic pop song. “(Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime) I Need Your Loving” was basically a straight cover version of The Korgis’ 1980 Top 5 hit but with a skittering jungle dance beat added to it. As if that wasn’t enough to differentiate it from the original, they messed around with the song title by adding a line from the lyrics and putting the original title in brackets. What was all that about? I couldn’t get onboard with this at all. It just seemed lazy and pointless to me. As ever, the record buying public disagreed with me and sent it to No 3. Ah, what did they know eh?

Next a band that I always find hard to write about; not because I don’t like them – it would be easy to crank out a few derogatory words accusing an act of being the shittiest of the shitty – but because I don’t actually have any feelings about them one way or the other. I think my state of mind concerning Therapy? is partly due to the fact that they mostly passed me by at the time. I mean, I knew of them – I worked in a record shop for heaven’s sake – it’s just that my knowledge of them pretty much ended with what their album covers looked like. Somehow I never really heard how they sounded. Or maybe I did hear them but it made no impression on me and so I didn’t retain them in my head? Either way, needless to say, I don’t remember this hit “Stories” at all. Listening to it now, it’s more of their brand of driving rock but this one has a sax thrown in for good measure. Singer Andy Cairns is a supporter of my beloved Chelsea and I’ve heard him interviewed on the Chelsea fancast that I listen to and he seems like a lovely guy but somehow his music just hasn’t cut through to me. Sorry Andy.

Two huge songs of this era coming up now starting with “Fake Plastic Trees” by Radiohead. What a tune this is!*

*Makes that awful T-shaped hand signal*

For me, this could be their best ever song though to be honest my knowledge of their material past “OK Computer” is nearly nonexistent so if you’re a Radiohead super fan reading this and snorting in derision at my suggestion then obviously you have more material to pick from than me. The third single to be released from “The Bends”, it’s a slowly building banger dripping with aura and imagery and Thom Yorke’s vocal that almost sounds like it was recorded under duress, it’s almost unignorable (if that’s a word). Maybe ‘striking’ would be a better one. I think it was probably this track that convinced me that I must own a copy of “The Bends”.

Others weren’t quite as convinced albeit the most famous example was a fictional character in a movie. Alicia Silverstone played Cher in Clueless who describes “Fake Plastic Trees” which features in the film as “crybaby music”. Asked if he was bothered about that line, Yorke said in an interview in Vox magazine that the character of Cher wasn’t the type of person he’d want to like Radiohead anyway as she was a two dimensional Beverly Hills kid and he was all about 3D people. Fair comment I think and it put me in mind of another music artist who felt the need to publicly distance himself from someone famous. In 2006, former Prime Minister and renowned dead pig f****r David Cameron appeared on Desert Island Discs and chose as one of his songs “This Charming Man” by The Smiths. When Johnny Marr became aware of this, he issued a statement that said Cameron was banned from liking The Smiths and rightly so. Also on Cameron’s list of songs? Yep, “Fake Plastic Trees”. Cameron also famously declared that one of his favourite songs ever was “Eton Rifles” by The Jam. In response, Paul Weller said “Which bit didn’t you get?”. David Cameron ladies and gentlemen…a complete bellend of the highest order.

That second huge song now and it’s another appearance by Pulp to perform “Common People”. This was a genuinely a career pivoting time for the band. After being together for sixteen years (most of them in obscurity) the stars were now aligning and fame and fortune beckoned. Not only had “Common People” crashed into the charts at No 2 (NO 2!) but this month they would also headline the aforementioned Reef’s hometown of Glastonbury after the Stone Roses pulled out following John Squires suffering a broken collarbone in a mountain biking accident. Success was now definitely coming at Pulp and fast.

Apparently the band learned of that chart position whilst appearing at a Radio 1 Roadshow in Birmingham. As the chart rundown was announced, the various acts at the event were paraded on the back of an articulated lorry as their chart position was called. By the end, there was only Pulp left to learn their fate and, by now, Jarvis Cocker was pissed. Taking to the stage, he slipped and fell leaving bass player Steve Mackey to observe the irony of finally getting to where you wanted to be after years of trying only to end up on your arse in the rain in Birmingham at the moment of triumph. Just perfect.

What’s this? A rugby song?! Yes, we’d only just suffered the trauma of two football songs in the chart thanks to FA Cup finalists Everton and Manchester United and now we had another sporting related hit. The 1995 Rugby Union World Cup was only the third time the competition had taken place since its inaugural event in 1987 but already we were starting to get used to it being commemorated / promoted by the medium of song. More specifically two songs in particular. The 1991 World Cup had brought us “World In Union” by Dame Kiri te Kanawa based on Holst’s “Jupiter” or “I Vow To Thee My Country” as it is more commonly known. That year also saw the England Rugby Squad release a version of the African-American spiritual song and subsequent Christian hymn “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” which had been sung by rugby crowds as early as the 60s though it was adopted as an anthem by the England team supporters around 1988. The song has been recorded on multiple occasions for the Rugby World Cup by the likes of Russel Watson, UB40 and Blake.

In 1995, it was the turn of the unlikely pairing of “Searching” hitmakers China Black and South African male choral group Ladysmith Black Mamboza. Quite how this pairing came about I’m not sure but I guess it was advantageous to both artists. China Black had failed to build on the success of “Searching” and so “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” provided them with another vehicle to the charts. Ladysmith Black Mamboza were prolific album makers but had never had a UK Top 40 single to this point. Their famous collaboration with Paul Simon on “Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes” from the celebrated “Graceland” album inexplicably peaked at No 77 though they would team up with B*Witched in 1999 for No 13 hit “I Shall Be There”. Ladysmith Black Mamboza were one of those artists that would get a regular airing when Our Price did their specialist music mornings where the shop would only play music from a particular genre that wasn’t rock/pop. Easy Listening morning meant you were guaranteed to hear The Carpenters Greatest Hits whilst Ladysmith Black Mamboza would get a spin on the store stereo when it was the turn of World Music.

This version of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” is not impressive I have to say. The addition of that ubiquitous, nasty dance beat pretty much ruins it for me. It was nice though to see some of England’s Rugby stars of yesteryear in the video like Rob Andrew, Will Carling, Rory Underwood and Jeremy Guscott. China Black would never return to the UK Top 40 singles chart whilst Ladysmith Black Mamboza would achieve a No 2 placing in our album chart for 1998’s Best Of collection.

I said earlier about there being two huge songs of this era being on the show tonight in “Fake Plastic Trees” and “Common People” but how could I have forgotten about this one?! They’re not everyone’s cup of tea but I loved Black Grape. Rising from the ashes of Happy Mondays and the Ruthless Rap Assassins, I remember there being a huge buzz about this second coming of Madchester. OK, it wasn’t really quite like that but I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to indulge in some Manchester related hyperbole. “Reverend Black Grape” was their debut single and calling card and what a fabulous shake up of the charts it was. Sample heavy and funky, big beats-tastic, this was Shaun Ryder back to his twisted genius best after the demise of the Happy Mondays and the nadir of their 1992 album “Yes Please!”. Ably aided by Kermit, it would crash straight into the Top 10 at No 9. What? Bez? Oh yeah, he was there as well doing his usual Bez schtick. The “Talking bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit” lyric is obviously edited out for this TOTP performance but like “Yes” by McAlmont & Butler, “Reverend Black Grape” would become one of my go to songs I would play on my way to work if I really didn’t fancy it that day.

The band’s debut album “It’s Great When You’re Straight…Yeah” would top the charts for two weeks and achieve platinum sales. Packed with great tunes like “Tramazi Parti”, “Shake Your Money” and “Kelly’s Heroes”, it became an essential purchase for me. Sadly, their success would fail off dramatically. Second album “Stupid Stupid Stupid” would underperform commercially and attract criticism in the US for its golliwog and google eyes cover art. It was one of those albums that the buying department at Our Price Head Office had invested heavily in but which failed to sell. We had massive overstocks of it. The band would dissolve in 1998 after Shaun fired the rest of its members. They reformed to release a third album in 2017 called “Pop Voodoo” which I quite liked but which received mixed reviews.

It’s a third week at the top for Robson & Jerome with their double A-side “Unchained Melody” / “(There’ll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs Of Dover”. My amazement at what happened here has not diluted in the 28 years since. What was going on? Why did these two actors appeal so much? It wasn’t just a one off either. They had three No 1 singles and two No 1 albums over a period of 18 months despite the fact that all they ever did was cover versions. I bet Simon Cowell who convinced the pair to record material couldn’t believe his luck. Ladies and gentlemen…Simon Cowell the David Cameron of the music world.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Reef	Naked	No
2	Curtis Stigers	This Time	Nah
3	Baby D	(Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime) I Need Your Loving	I did not
4	Therapy?	Stories	Nope
5	Radiohead	Fake Plastic Trees	No but I bought the album The Bends
6	Pulp	Common People	No but I had the album Different Class
7	China Black with Ladysmith Black Mamboza	Swing Low, Sweet Chariot	Negative
8	Black Grape	Reverend Black Grape	No but I had the album It’s Great When You’re Straight…Yeah
9	Robson & Jerome	Unchained Melody” / “(There’ll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs Of Dover	As if

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/m001sfvr/top-of-the-pops-01061995

TOTP 01 DEC 1994

Posted on June 26, 2023 by 80stastic

Christmas is coming but that hasn’t encouraged TOTP to go the full festive hog and have Santa Claus as a guest presenter in the ‘golden mic’ slot. They might not have the fella with the big white beard on the show but they have got someone with a huge blonde wig. Paul O’Grady’s drag queen character Lily Savage had been around the live circuits and doing residencies at various gay pubs in London since the early 80s but by 1994 was starting to break through into mainstream entertainment. The live tours took in bigger venues and would result in VHS releases. TV and film work was also starting to come through but a presenting slot on the BBC’s flagship music show before the watershed was maybe Lily’s biggest gig yet at the time. Chat shows and panel games would follow but as the new millennium dawned, O’Grady effectively retired the character and it is testament to the appeal of his own personality that in the second half of his career, before his untimely death earlier this year, that he managed to overshadow his drag queen alter ego. I’m sure head producer Ric Blaxill would have been chuffed with the coup of landing O’Grady/Savage. Just the sort of booking to shake up the old format.

We start with an artist who, if not exactly shaking things up, was quietly going about subverting some of the established norms of the traditional TOTP performance. Watching this Sophie B. Hawkins appearance back, the word that comes to mind is ‘kooky’ I think. If I’m remembering correctly, the last time she was on the show to perform her single “Right Beside You”, she had a bongo drum permanently attached to her and a bicycle positioned next to her on stage for no discernible reason. This time, for the follow up “Don’t Don’t Tell Me No”, she’s got a Wintery park bench scene set up and she starts her performance by striding around it purposefully in a circle. It looks a bit batty but I’m just hoping it was genuine and not staged.

As for the song, it’s a lot more poppy than I was expecting with a sweet, catchy hook but sadly for Sophie, it would get no further than No 36 despite this exposure. She would have one more UK Top 40 hit before leaving her record company Sony in a dispute about artistic integrity. She continued to release music on her own label Trumpet Swan Productions and in 2013 appeared in cult US sitcom Community as herself.

In the time I’ve been writing this TOTP blog, I must have covered a dozen or so singles by Roxette stretching back to 1989 but even by the fag end of 1994, they still weren’t quite done with releasing their brand of catchy, soft rock/pop. However, by this point, their spell over the UK record buying public, if not broken was seriously starting to lose its potency. “Run To You” (nothing to do with Bryan Adams) was the duo’s fourth single of that calendar year and yet none of them had hit higher than No 14. This track was never going to reverse that trend. It’s pleasant enough with a jaunty chorus but, at the risk of sounding like my Dad when I was 14 or 15, they pretty much all sounded the same by this point.

“RunTo You” was the fourth single released from their “Crash! Boom! Bang!” album and peaked at No 27. Rather hopefully a fifth was released in the new year and it failed to make the Top 40 at all which I think was the first time that had happened that decade. Maybe spying that the writing was on the wall, a Best Of album was released in 1995 – the magnificently titled “Don’t Bore Us, Get To The Chorus” – which made No 5 in the UK but which did nothing in America where they’d had a clutch of No 1s just a few years earlier. The hits didn’t quite end here – they had a couple more before the 90s were through but their imperial phase had, to paraphrase one of their songs, faded like a flower.

It’s sobering to reflect that two people in this clip died before their time. Paul O’Grady was only 67 whilst Marie Fredriksson was just 61 when they passed away.

And one of the most fiercely anticipated tracks in the history of music (or something) finally drops (except nobody would have said ‘dropped’ meaning ‘released’ back in 1994). After almost five years of pretty much nothing (the last new material had been the “One Love” single in the Summer of 1990), The Stone Roses were officially back. So long had they been away following a protracted legal case to free themselves from their contract with the label Silvertone that the band had taken on an almost mythical persona – would they ever make another album? If they did, would it be any good? Were they actually still even a band? “Love Spreads” gave us the answer and then some. Their first release for Geffen Records (home to rock heavyweights Guns N’ Roses and Aerosmith), this was a humdinger of a tune. A heavy, blues rock out, this was no jangly guitar piece like “Waterfall” or “She Bangs The Drums”. It was a huge sound that seemed to resonate even after the last note had played. That it would become the band’s highest charting single ever was never in doubt and it duly fulfilled its destiny when it crashed into the Top 3 at No 2.

However, I seem to recall that even that wasn’t seen as quite good enough. For a band that had generated such headlines and prose to be written about them and that were responsible for a debut album that had been lauded as almost perfect and untouchable, surely they should be No 1? That sense of nearly but not quite would haunt the release of the album as well. “Second Coming” was released on the Monday after this TOTP aired to much hype and razzmatazz. Just about every record retailer in the land opened early to deal with the expected rush with some even opting for a then rare midnight kick off. Even though we were a mainstream Our Price store, we were slap bang in the middle of Manchester city centre and so had to open early – I think we went for something like 7 as opposed to our usual 9. The album was on display everywhere in store and blasting out of the shop stereo. We only had one person come into the store before we would have opened anyway. She came to the counter oblivious of the Stone Roses vibe going on around her and asked for some gift vouchers! I had to rush upstairs and get her some as we hadn’t even reconciled them from the previous day’s takings yet. What a non-event! That seemed to set the tone for the album as a whole for me. Yes, it sold but not in the numbers that had been predicted (it made No 4 in the charts) and received mix reviews from the critics. Even with nearly 30 years of perspective and opportunities for revisiting, I’m not sure that it has lost that sense of disappointment. I quite liked it though and do own a copy. Me plus Shaun from Shaun Of The Dead made two people at least. I don’t think anything sums up the general reaction to “Second Coming” as succinctly as this scene from the film:

Now does Lily Savage go a bit too far in her intro for Erasure here? After confessing that they are her favourite band, as the music swells up and the cheering of the studio audience starts, does she shout “Andy, sit on me!”? Hmm. Sounds like it. Anyway, as I’ve said before, by 1994 I’d lost track of Erasure. Before then I could have had a good stab at naming all their singles (possibly in order) from their imperial phase but somehow I just fell off the Erasure wagon around this time. Consequently this third single from their album “I Say I Say I Say” – “ I Love Saturday” – must have passed me by completely as I don’t know it at all. Having finally listened to it, whilst it’s no banger along the lines of “Sometimes” or “A Little Respect”, it’s a well constructed, likeable pop song…but that’s it. No more no less. Maybe that’s the reason it didn’t strike a chord with me as it just didn’t stand out enough. That’s based on just one listen though so maybe it grows on you with repeated hearings?

I’m not sure what the deal is with the fruit machines set – something to do with Saturday nights in the pub? Still, it did make me smile which put me in mind of a staple of kids TV during my childhood Tiswas which, of course, stood for ‘This Is Saturday, Watch And Smile’. “I Love Saturday” peaked at No 20, the lowest chart position of any of their standard single releases since the first three singles from their debut album “Wonderland” failed to make the Top 40 between 1985 and 1986. That imperial phase really was coming to an end.

A future No 1 incoming now and one which would spend 7 weeks atop the charts. Not only that but it would stay on the Top 40 for a whopping 25 weeks, 17 of which were spent inside the Top 10. Its appearance on TOTP here already marked its fourth week inside the Top 40 and it had sat outside that exalted company for 3 weeks prior to that. Its run to the summit would take 13 weeks (16 if you count those 3 outside the Top 40) which was the slowest consecutive climb to No 1 in chart history at the time. Impressed? What about when I tell you the record in question was “Think Twice” by Celine Dion? Still impressed? Ah, musical snobbery strikes again. Or not if you are a fan of the artist or record I guess. Whatever your opinion of Celine or her song, its chart life was astonishing. Look at these positions:

30 – 28 – 22 – 20 – 9 – 8 – 5 – 6 – 4 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 3 – 4 – 12 – 17 – 22 – 34

Maybe it’s because Celine herself recorded a version of “The Power Of Love” by Jennifer Rush that it’s put me in mind of that 1985 chart topper. Although, its ascent to the top was much quicker than that of “Think Twice” once inside the Top 40, it took 17 weeks to get to No 1 including an amazing 13 outside the Top 40.

OK, that’s an awful lot of chart positions and stats so I’ll leave it at that for the moment considering we’ll be seeing this one in the near future and for weeks on end…except to say that must have been the most boring live by satellite performance of all time, if indeed that’s what it was. Just looks like a standard promo video to me.

From one diva to another now as we see the first of two songs on the same show that continue to be played every Christmas nearly 30 years later. A diva at Christmas? It can only be Mariah Carey and it is, of course, with “All I Want For Christmas Is You”. Despite its ubiquity every December, the single didn’t make it to the top of the charts on its first release having to make do with the No 2 position instead although it did become a No 1 record in 2020. Not sure that chart had as much gravitas to it as its 1994 counterpart though. By doing so though, it broke the record for the amount of weeks inside the Top 40 before getting to the top of the charts with a tally of 104 (non-consecutive) some 26 years after it was first released. Have that Celine Dion!

In my head, the race for the 1994 Christmas No 1 was between East 17 and Oasis with Mariah Carey a bit of an afterthought. At the denouement though, she ended up splitting the pair with the street urchins of Walthamstow taking the crown with the Burnage boys having to settle with the bronze medal.

Now if you’re thinking that this doesn’t look like the video for “All I Want For Christmas Is You” that you’re used to seeing every year then you’d be right. Where’s the scenes of Mariah messing about on a snowy mountainside? Where’s the Christmas tree she decorates and the rather creepy Santa Claus figure (actually her then husband and CEO of Sony Music Tommy Mottola)? Well, the video shown here on TOTP was an alternate promo shot in black and white with Mariah getting to cosplay at being a Ronette. Seems to me it pretty much rips off the plot of the video for “Chain Reaction” by Diana Ross. Anyway, was this really the live by satellite performance that TOTP make it out to be? Again, it just looks like they’re showing a video to me. This is the second time this show they’ve tried this on after Celine Dion earlier. “All I Want For Christmas Is You” has sold 12 million copies in the US alone and earned $80 million in royalties.

Oh what’s this drivel?! The bloody Power Rangers?! FFS! The 90s were blighted by shit records generated by extraordinarily popular (for a while) children’s TV series, films or cultural phenomenons. The start of the decade saw a chart topper based on the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles courtesy of Partners In Kryme whilst 1992 saw the WWF Superstars forearm smash their way into the Top 5 with “Slam Jam”. The following year the Christmas horrors of Mr. Blobby were visited on us with his pile of crap song and now…this! The Mighty Morph’n Power Rangers was a US children’s TV show that premiered in 1993 and made its way onto UK screens via GMTV and became a runaway success and spawned the must have toys for Christmas that year. As I wasn’t the target market for Power Rangers, the whole thing kind of passed me by. However, I had to endure it years later as my son watched it during a brief phase. It’s the one of the most bonkers things I’ve ever seen. Really tacky looking with cheap production values (presumably due to a low budget), it was a hotchpotch of stock footage from a Japanese show supplemented by additional scenes shot in America. The ‘monsters’ are just ludicrous looking whilst the ‘actors’ playing the Power Rangers were absolutely dire. How did this nonsense take off?

The single – “Power Rangers” – was suitably atrocious. Essentially just the show’s theme tune, if you compare it to some of its Gerry Anderson counterparts from the 60s like Thunderbirds or Stingray…well, there is no comparison. Just horrible and presumably was just bought by children. I think the whole thing was suitably lampooned on an episode of Friends:

And so to the second of those Christmas tunes and this one would be the festive No 1. As with the debate over whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie, “Stay Another Day” by East 17 also divides opinion as to whether it’s a true Christmas song or not. In 2017, a YouGov poll asked if respondents agreed that it was, indeed, a Christmas song. 29% agreed, 34% disagreed and 37% didn’t know. Hardly definitive then. For what it’s worth, I think it is. When the “Steam” album came out and we played it instore, “Stay Another Day” immediately stood out as a potential Christmas hit – it’s got bloody sleigh bells on it for Chrissakes! Obviously though, there is another side to the track. Written by Tony Mortimer about the suicide of his brother, it was based around the premise of what would you do if you had one more day with a loved one. However you view “Stay Another Day”, what can’t be disputed is that it was certainly a huge departure from their usual sound for the band. It was a risk worth taking though. It sold over a million copies in the UK and the repeat royalties on it must be enormous – it’s played to death every December. Somebody (Tony Mortimer?) has a nice little pension pot out of that 4 minute pop song. If you compare “Stay Another Day” to the first time their erstwhile rivals Take That changed tempo to a ballad in “A Million Love Songs”, I think East 17 are clear winners.

It wouldn’t get any better or bigger for Tony, Brian and…erm…the other two after this. Sure they carried on having hits until the end of the decade but none as huge as this and the original line up would not be intact come the new millennium with more comings and goings than The Sugababes. “Stay Another Day” though, having entered the canon of Christmas songs, has ensured that their name will not be forgotten even if they’re only remembered for that one song.

Baby D remain at No 1 with “Let Me Be Your Fantasy” as we enter December but surely nobody thought that they were realistic contenders to be the Christmas chart topper. Now that would have been a turn up for the books – an out and out dance tune as the festive No 1. The UK had experienced a fair few novelty records at the pinnacle of the charts come 25th December – Benny Hill, St Winifred’s School Choir, Renée And Renato, Mr. Blobby etc – but Baby D wasn’t a novelty act more an artist from a specific genre of music. In fact, the only dance records to be No 1 at Christmas that I can think of are “Rockabye” by Clean Bandit and, at a push, “Sound Of The Underground” by Girls Aloud. Given the domination of LadBaby in recent years, maybe it’ll be a long time before we see the like again.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Sophie B. Hawkins	Don’t Don’t Tell Me No	Erm..no. Sorry Sophie
2	Roxette	Run To You	Nope
3	The Stone Roses	Love Spreads	Not the single but I have the album
4	Erasure	I Love Saturday	Nah
5	Celine Dion	Think Twice	As if
6	Mariah Carey	All I Want For Christmas Is You	No
7	The Mighty Morph’n Power Rangers	Power Rangers	Ha! No
8	East 17	Stay Another Day	I did not
9	Baby D	Let Me Be Your Fantasy	And no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001mwfr/top-of-the-pops-01121994

TOTP 24 NOV 1994

Posted on June 22, 2023 by 80stastic

It’s a busy a show this one with eight of the nine songs on it making their debut. Only the No 1 record had we seen before. The effect of the machinations of the Christmas release schedules I guess. We’re back to the Radio 1 DJs as host after last week’s ‘golden mic’ slot was filled by Michelle Gayle and thank god it’s not Simon Mayo but the dull yet much less irritating Mark Goodier in the chair.

We start with a band who I had forgotten had so many hits and therefore so many TOTP appearances though sadly for them, this would be their final one in the studio. It was quite a run though. Ten consecutive Top 40 singles up to this point (they had a further two minor ones subsequently) between June 1991 and November 1994 though only one made the Top 10. Who am I talking about? Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine obviously though their success was anything but obvious. A pair of not especially attractive grebos playing a brand of indie power pop with clever clever lyrics? It doesn’t sound like the template for guaranteed commercial triumph and yet they were brilliant and a welcome breath of fresh air to some of the crud clogging up the charts during their own tenure there. “Let’s Get Tattoos” was the lead single from their fifth studio album “Worry Bomb” and would get to No 30 whilst the album would peak at No 9.

Apparently the semi naked male dancers that we see here are also in the promo video and their gyrations and thrusts illicit the desired response from the studio audience but I’m guessing their inclusion here is to make some sort of ironic comment about how pop music was being promoted? Or they were sending themselves up with the most unlikely backing they could think up? Whatever the reason, you would have thought that they would have found some guys with actual tattoos given the title of their song wouldn’t you? I can’t see any across those four torsos. Maybe they weren’t as ubiquitous back then as they are today? In fact when did the world become obsessed with tattoos? Maybe I should add the word ‘visionary’ to that earlier description of mine of Jim Bob and Fruitbat?

https://youtu.be/rPn3BucE7nQ

Whatever happened to Jimmy Nail? From 1984 to the end of the 90s, he was a colossus of the entertainment world. The star of ratings gobbling TV shows like Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and Spender whilst simultaneously having a career as a pop star with huge hits like “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore” and “Ain’t No Doubt”, the guy was everywhere. By the time 1994 was coming to an end, he was on to his next successful project which combined both worlds. Crocodile Shoes was a TV series that told the story of a Newcastle factory worker who becomes a county and western star with Nail not only in the starring role but also writing it. It ran for two series and thirteen episodes finishing in 1996.

Nail also wrote half the songs on the album that accompanied the series with Prefab Sprout’s Paddy McAloon also contributing three tracks. Off the back of the success of the show, the album was also a runaway sales monster becoming the Christmas No 2 album that year. That’s some units shifted right there. The title track was the lead single and the biggest hit (No 4) from the album as well as being the theme tune to the series. I have to say that I don’t mind Nail and his rather acquired taste voice but “Crocodile Shoes” never really appealed to me that much, being a bit too maudlin for my ears. The follow up, “Cowboy Dreams” written by the aforementioned McAloon, is a great tune though. Maybe if I’d actually watched the show (which I somehow managed to miss despite having liked his previous projects), I might have had more fondness for it.

After the second series finished (which gave rise to a second album of tunes from the show), Nail moved into films with a role in Evita (alongside Madonna) and then returned to more familiar territory with the movie Still Crazy about a fictional 70s rock band (clearly based on the Pink Floyd story) in which he played bassist Les Wickes. It’s not a bad little film although some of the performances by the likes of Bill Nighy and Timothy Spall are a bit hammy. In the meantime, Nail kept recording music with an album called “Big River” coming between the Crocodile Shoes soundtracks and an album called “Tadpoles In A Jar” in 1999 as well as a Best Of called “The Nail File” in 1997.

And then…well, if not nothing then very little. There was one final album in 2001 and that was it for the musical arm of his career and acting wise, he just seemed to stop working. He played a character called Clayface the Goblin (no seriously) in something called The 10th Kingdom in 2000 and then only resurfaced eight years later with a show I don’t know at all called Parents Of The Band which he co-created and starred in. The only trace of him since then was his stint in Sting’s musical The Last Ship on Broadway in 2014. I hope the guy’s OK these days. His Wikipedia entry under the section Personal Life just says he has two children, lives in London and supports Newcastle United but then doesn’t everyone from Newcastle?

https://youtu.be/7bcUrdMS9hk

We all know “We Have All The Time In The World” by Louis Armstrong from the 1969 James Bond film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (the one with George Lazenby as 007) but it didn’t actually become a hit until 25 years later when it was used in a Guinness advert. And yet I can’t recall this rerelease at all despite it going all the way to No 3 and being tipped for the Christmas No 1 spot at one point. To be honest, I barely remember the advert despite it being very stylish and classic looking. The ‘surfer’ ad with the horses bursting from waves? Absolutely – it’s iconic. That bloke doing weird dancing whilst waiting for his pint to settle? Of course and selling bucket loads of that “Guaglione” mambo tune? This one though that was named “Infinity” by the ad agency? Nope.

Obviously the record company couldn’t use the actual Guinness advert to promote the single so this hastily cobbled together looking promo had to do instead. Some of the imagery used where the film is in black and white with splashes of over exaggerated colour as a counterpoint seems to me to have echoes of the girl in the red coat sequence from the Schindler’s List film that came out this year which seems an odd choice given the subject matter of that movie. Maybe it was coincidence. The little girl in the video looks like Mara Wilson from the Matilda film though I don’t think it is. Talking of coincidence though, the woman who played Miss Honey in Matilda was also in Schindler’s List. I’m going off on a tangent now though. Back to Satchmo and predictably, a Greatest Hits album was released called “The Pure Genius Of Louis Armstrong: We Have All The Time In The World” after the success of the single. Never missed a trick did they these record companies?

Right who’s this? New Atlantic/U4EA featuring Berri? WHO?! My research tells me that there was a hit called “I Know” in 1992 by New Atlantic but I can’t recall it (and I probably reviewed it as well) but it seems this was the same people (a duo from Southport as it goes). So that’s the introductions done but this whole thing is completely confusing to me. Firstly, this dance version of “Sunshine After The Rain” (originally a hit for Elkie Brooks in 1977) probably isn’t the single that people remember as being a hit around the mid-90s. There was another release of the track the following year which was credited just to Berri and somehow that subtle change of marketing turned it from a No 26 hit in 1994 to a No 4 hit in 1995. The other reason that I find this hit troublesome is that I always conflate it with “Sunshine On A Rainy Day” from 1991 by Zoë. You know what? I’m going to give my poor brain a break and just leave this one at that until it does a Carly Simon and comes around again in the 1995 BBC4 TOTP repeats.

https://youtu.be/hAKEAIZ_Wf4

Here’s another hit I don’t remember and to be fair to the artist who is routinely accused of making music that all just sounds the same, this one is slightly different so you might have thought it would have stuck out in my memory cells but no. Sorry Jay Kay.

Yes, it’s Jamiroquai who are performing live by satellite from a rooftop somewhere in Paris. Now the main thing that I’m taking from this ‘exclusive’ is how badly executed it is. What’s the most famous landmark in Paris? The Eiffel Tower yeah? Has to be. So when they set up this location shoot, presumably somebody asked if the Eiffel Tower can be seen in the background? “Yes” would have come the reply. Surely the conversation should then have gone “Great! Position the cameras so that it’s in shot the whole time while Jay Kay is singing” shouldn’t it? That would have been a perfect example of head producer Ric Blaxill’s vision for this slot as demonstrated by Bon Jovi performing against a backdrop of Niagara Falls recently. Instead, one of the most instantly recognisable structures in the world spends most of the time tantalisingly just out of sight. What a wasted opportunity!

For the record, “Half The Man” was the second single from sophomore album “The Return Of The Space Cowboy” and peaked at No 15. However, if you want a record about not being the man you used to be, may I respectfully suggest this instead:

I seem to spend a lot of time writing the words “I don’t remember this” in my blog despite the fact I spent the time they were in the charts working in a mainstream record shop and here I go again but how the hell do I not remember this one. Or rather this video. When I think about the emergence of Kylie Minogue from the shackles of her Stock, Aitken and Waterman past as a serious dance artist, the two things that come to mind are her No 2 single “Confide In Me” and that she was signed to trendy dance label Deconstruction. I don’t recall any of the follow up singles of which “Put Yourself In My Place” was the first. I can only conclude that I can’t have caught this particular TOTP that showed Kylie’s video for the song in which she goes nude. Intentionally an homage to the famous scene in 1968 sci-fi film Barbarella starring Jane Fonda, it probably loses sight of its primary function which is to promote the song but instead it created more of a story about itself. Maybe the director was working on the adage any promotion is good promotion.

The song itself is pretty good, a slick piece of pop balladry that Kylie’s traditionally criticised vocals suit perfectly. It probably deserved better than a peak of No 11 and certainly deserved better than being overshadowed by its infamous video.

To say that Sinéad O’Connor is such a recognisable name in the world of music, her collection of Top 40 singles is rather small. This one, “Thank You For Hearing Me”, was only her fifth under her name alone since her debut hit “Mandinka” in 1988 and the only subsequent chart entries she had were as a featured artist on records by the likes of Ian Brown, Shane MacGowan and Massive Attack. Somehow though, she seems to have clocked up a fair few TOTP appearances in 1994. I think this might be the third. There was one for her song from the soundtrack to In The Name Of The Father which didn’t end up being a hit and then wasn’t she on the other week in the album chart slot doing “Fire On Babylon” from her “Universal Mother” album? I think she was. This one though was for a bona fide Top 40 song when “Thank You For Hearing Me” peaked at No 13 as the official lead single from the album. It was a deserved hit as well. A hypnotic, almost hymnal composition; this was the kind of material that suited her voice perfectly and was a good vehicle to get people talking about her talents again rather than her sometimes controversial antics.

Four days before this TOTP aired, ex The Byrds and Crosby, Stills And Nash member David Crosby was not having a good time. He’d been in hospital having a seven hour liver transplant operation. Happily, it was successful and he lived for just under another 30 years before his death earlier in 2023 aged 81. One of his co-members of that California supergroup, Stephen Stills, was presumably having a better time of it as his 1970 solo hit “Love The One You’re With” was having a bit of a revival courtesy of Luther Vandross who had recorded it for his covers album “Songs” and released it as a single. He’d recently been in the charts with a cover of Lionel Richie’s “Endless Love” as a duet with Mariah Carey of course. Having got used to not being on stage on his own, he’s recruited a huge choir to back him on his performance here. It all kind of sits together pretty well but it didn’t win over the UK record buying public and it peaked at a lowly No 31. Mind you that was six places higher than the Stephen Stills original (it was a much bigger hit in the US) and a whopping sixteen places higher than the cover by Bucks Fizz in 1986. The follow up to the surprise, career reviving “New Beginning (Mamba Seyra)”, its lack of success was seen as the final nail in the coffin of their time as chart stars and they never returned to the UK Top 40 again.

https://youtu.be/H4MBp7DZLXw

Pato Banton’s time at the top of the charts has come to an end as Baby D takes over for a two week stint with “Let Me Be Your Fantasy”. Now, a quick listen to the lyrics of this one should be enough to get a handle on what the song is about. Apparently nobody at the BBC was listening otherwise there would have surely have been a “We Call It Acieed” style furore. It’s essentially a musical exaltation of the effects of the drug ecstasy. Check these lyrics out:

Come take a trip to my wonderland
Let’s spread our wings and fly away
Lotions of love flow through your hands
See visions, colours everyday
Let me feel your warm embrace
Release the colours in your mind

Songwriters: Floyd Dyce
Let Me Be Your Fantasy lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Bucks Music Group, The Royalty Network Inc., Warner Chappell Music, Inc

The track uses words like ‘trip’, ‘higher’ and, in one line, even the word ‘ecstasy’. Good job Mike Read had long since left the BBC.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine	Let’s Get Tattoos	I didn’t…buy the record or get a tattoo
2	Jimmy Nail	Crocodile Shoes	Nah
3	Louis Armstrong	We Have All The Time In The World	No
4	New Atlantic/U4EA featuring Berri	Sunshine After The Rain	Negative
5	Jamiroquai	Half The Man	Nope
6	Kylie Minogue	Put Yourself In My Place	I did not
7	Sinéad O’Connor	Thank You For Hearing Me	It’s a no from me
8	Luther Vandross	Love The One You’re With	Not for me thanks
9	Baby D	Let Me Be Your Fantasy	And no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001mnym/top-of-the-pops-24111994

TOTP 17 NOV 1994

Posted on June 16, 2023 by 80stastic

Woah! Hold on a minute! What happened to November?! Yes, we’ve time jumped and missed the shows broadcast on the 3rd and 10th of that month. Why? Well, they feature R.Kelly and Gary Glitter who, given the charges brought against them and subsequent convictions in later years, have been removed from the schedules on the grounds of sensitivity. I’ve checked online archives to see what we missed and can report that they were presented by Kylie Minogue (dammit!) and Bruno Brookes (meh) and featured a fair few hits that we’d already seen so no loss there but also performances by the likes of Terrorvision (“Alice, What’s The Matter”), Eternal (“Oh Baby I”) and The Beautiful South (“One Last Love Song”). I guess we’ll all have our opinions on whether missing these is a shame or a relief.

There was certainly relief in my work life at this time. After spending five months working at the Our Price store in Piccadilly, Manchester where I’d pretty much hated every minute, I’d got a return move back down the road to the Market Street store from where I’d come. I think I’d made it clear to area management that I wasn’t happy a few times and they finally took pity on me and arranged a transfer for me. I can’t remember the exact details of the move in terms of who went where on the managerial merry-go-round but what I do recall is that the Sunday before I started back at Market Street on the Monday morning, me and my wife went to see an Elvis Costello gig at the Manchester Opera House which was a great distraction from my nerves of starting over again at Market Street. Yes, I’d pushed for a move and yes I knew the store as this would be my third time working there but I was moving right up against Christmas and I hadn’t done one there since I was a sales assistant in 1991. I needn’t have worried – it would turn out to be one of the smoothest Christmases I ever worked. However, I would be on my travels again in the new year as the store closed down and was sold.

In more nationwide news, on the Saturday after this TOTP aired, the UK’s first National Lottery draw took place. Years behind other countries who’d had such a scheme in place for years, it seems strange now to imagine that there was a time when the UK didn’t. These days, of course, there all sorts of different draws and games for us to pursue the dream of phenomenal wealth but in 1994, this was a huge deal. As I recall there was a deluge of advertising and promotion for the lottery and it seemed like everyone you knew was going to buy a ticket. It became a national obsession. I remember a work colleague being absolutely convinced that the number 1 would come up and so was definitely going to choose it as one of his six numbers (it didn’t come up). I’m pretty sure my wife and I bought a ticket and like everyone else – except the seven lucky winners who shared a jackpot of just under £6 million – won bugger all.

The fact that most of us are never going to win a substantial amount didn’t stop the notion of the lottery from becoming completely embedded in our culture. Workplace syndicates became commonplace. Certainly at one of the Our Prices that I worked in, someone was always allotted the task of doing the lottery for the whole shop. It was a horrible responsibility; there would always be a somebody who didn’t have the money to chip in their pound so then you were into the issue of whether another person would put in for them and keeping a tally of who had paid and who still owed. The real dilemma though was the idealogical one of what would happen if the syndicate won; should the person who hadn’t put in that week and technically hadn’t bought a ticket share in the spoils? One of my managers used to refer to putting into the lottery syndicate as ‘sanity money’ – what if you were the only member of staff who hadn’t bothered and then the syndicate won big and all gave up working at the shop and you were the only person there on Monday morning? It was a persuasive argument.

That’s quite a lengthy intro and I haven’t even started on the music yet! Tonight’s ‘golden mic’ host is Michelle Gayle who just the other week was performing her hit “Sweetness” on the show. That’s some clever diversifying right there. Opening tonight are M People who are still in their imperial phase with new single “Sight For Sore Eyes” being the sixth of eight consecutive Top 10 hits for the group. It was also the lead single from their third album “Bizarre Fruit” which had been released on the Monday before this TOTP aired. In fact, so confident were they in their success continuing that they would re-issue the album with a slight re-jigging of the tracks (their version of “Itchycoo Park by the Small Faces was added) and doubled it up with an extra CD of live versions and remixes, called it “Bizarre Fruit II” and sold it all over again! “Sight For Sore Eyes” was the opening track on both albums though and you can hear why. It’s a strong song even if it sticks to the successful M People template a tad too much – parts of it sound like they’d just rewritten “Moving On Up” – with Heather Small’s powerhouse vocals to the fore. Has there ever been a singer with such a misnomer as Heather who possesses one of the biggest voices around.

https://youtu.be/6ZsPHFP_0oU

Now I wasn’t the only one moving on around this time and like my transfer to Market Street, Suede’s was also born out of a period of unhappiness. After the breakdown of the working relationship between Brett Anderson and Bernard Butler had resulted in the latter’s departure earlier in the year, the band had moved quickly to recruit 17 year old Richard Oakes to help take the band forward. Their sophomore album “Dog Man Star” was released in the October and it’s perhaps no surprise that, given its difficult gestation (aside from the issues within the Anderson/Butler axis, Brett was also deep into a drug habit) that it was a heavy, dark record with themes of tragedy and self loathing. And yet, in amongst the gloom was the song that Brett regards as Suede’s best ever. “The Wild Ones” was the second single taken from the album and really should have been a bigger hit than its No 18 peak. Maybe it just got caught up in the busy pre-Christmas release schedules? An epic ballad recounting the tale of a withering romance, it was at turns dramatic yet not histrionic and full of passion and melody. Brett says he’d been listening to artists like Scott Walker and Jacques Brel at the time of writing it and was named after the Marlon Brando film The Wild One. Yet for all those stated influences, the very first line of the lyrics is straight out of the Roxy Music songbook:

There’s a song playing
On the radio
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Brett Anderson / Bernard Butler
The Wild Ones lyrics © Kobalt Music Services Ltd Kms

Change just one word and you’ve got the chorus of “Oh Yeah”. Later on, there seems a line that is almost pinched verbatim from the Pet Shop Boys:

Running with the dogs today
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Brett Anderson / Bernard Butler
The Wild Ones lyrics © Kobalt Music Services Ltd Kms

Again, change one word and it’s the hook from “Suburbia”. I’m not criticising – surely there’s an element of soaking up influences (either consciously or subconsciously) attached to every songwriter but those two lines did leap out at me.

Suede would release just one single in 1995 (a third from “Dog Man Star” called “New Generation”) and then they would retreat and regroup for 18 months before returning in 1996 with the massive selling and much more mainstream album “Trash”.

https://youtu.be/NEkBrts1Nqw

Ah, it’s another of those dance floor bangers (or something). We started 1994 with a rerelease of a dance track that would shoot to No 1 and we end the year (just about) with another one. “Let Me Be Your Fantasy” by Baby D was originally released in 1992 when it peaked at a lowly No 76. It remained popular in the clubs though and a rerelease saw it catapulted to the top of the charts for two weeks in November 1994. Now, I certainly had no idea about this at the time but my reaction had I known this bit of music trivia would have been the same as it is now that I do know and that is “No f*****g way!”. What am I talking about? The fact that Baby D was formed by Production House Records which itself was set up by one Phil Fearon who, if you know your 80s music, you will remember as fronting Galaxy who had hits with “Dancing Tight”, “What Do I Do”, “Everybody’s Laughing” and “I Can Prove It”. Yeah, that Phil Fearon! I know! Who would have thought the man behind those fairly lame pop hits would be responsible for what is widely regarded as one of biggest dance anthems ever. Indeed, one of the reasons “Let Me Be Your Fantasy” was even rereleased was because a poll of listeners to Kiss FM ranked it as their favourite tune of all time. Baby D herself (as in the vocalist) was Phil Fearon’s wife Dee Galdes-Fearon who had been one of the two women in Galaxy with him. Talk about keeping it in the family!

The track was presumably recorded with one eye on crossing over into the mainstream – that would explain the huge shout-a-long chorus that made it stand out from every other break beat house tune. I can imagine many a clubber hollering it at the top of their voices on the dance floor at the time (though not myself of course). One person who did give a rousing rendition of said chorus was a guy called Al who was the housemate of my friend Robin. They lived together for a while in Ruislip Manor in the London Borough of Hillingdon, West London. It’s towards the end of the Metropolitan line, zone 6 – miles from central London and a bugger to get back to from basically anywhere. One night, Al had been out on the lash and had managed to find his way home in the early hours of the morning. He crashed in through the front door waking Robin up in the process who came to the top of the stairs to see what was going on. The sight that met his eyes was Al, off his tits, shouting “Let Me Be Your Fantasy” before passing out and collapsing onto the hall floor. I think Robin’s comment was “Good work, sir” and indeed, it was a fine effort by Al, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Baby D will be at No 1 soon enough and for two weeks but, even with just a short amount of time to go until Christmas, it was never going to hold on to claim the position of festive chart topper.

Just as “The Wild Ones” is Brett Anderson’s favourite Suede song then “End Of A Century” has a shot at being one of my favourite tracks by Blur. I think they were really getting into their stride with this one. More melodic and subtle than the brashness of the in-yer-face “Parklife”, it was the fourth and final single from that album. Damon Albarn is on record as saying it was the wrong choice of track for a single and they should have opted for “This Is A Low” instead. However, as much as I like that song (and it is superior in nearly every way), in terms of radio play, I think “End Of A Century” is much more suited as a single. Just my opinion.

I think I was won over with this one from the opening two lines:

She says, “There’s ants in the carpet”
The dirty little monsters, eating all the morsels, just pickin’ up the rubbish
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Damon Albarn / Graham Leslie Coxon / Alexander Rowntree David / Alexander James Steven
End of a Century lyrics © Warner/chappell Music Ltd, Kobalt Music Services Ltd Kms, Sony Music Publishing (uk) Ltd

Excellent stuff. As far as I can work out, the rest of the song seems to be about how a relationship can fall into a malaise when routine and the mundane are allowed to dominate and that even an event like the then forthcoming new millennium won’t make any difference just because said relationship is now in a new century. I think.

https://youtu.be/N1G0ZwQeom8

I’m guessing the brass player dressed as a pearly king was a tongue in cheek addition by the band, playing up to their Britishness which the album (and its success) was perceived to be based upon. I think The Jam may have beaten them to it by a few years though:

Never mind that Four Weddings And A Funeral was the top grossing film in the UK in 1994, surely one of the most significant of the year (Schindler’s List aside) was Pulp Fiction. Quentin Tarantino’s highly stylised crime story set new standards for the use of the phrase ‘cultural phenomenon’. Its lines of dialogue have passed into common vernacular and its disruption of the convention of narrative showed that storytelling doesn’t have to be linear (it surely influenced the Christopher Nolan directed Memento from 2000).

Then there was its soundtrack which would go three times platinum in the UK. Breaking with tradition, the film didn’t have a conventional score but instead featured songs from genres such as rock ‘n’ roll, surf music, pop and soul. One of those tracks was a cover of Neil Diamond’s “Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon” by American alternative rockers Urge Overkill. Formed in Chicago in 1986, their contribution to Tarantino’s soundtrack was surely their defining moment. Did I know this was originally by Neil Diamond at the time? No but it sounded so familiar even after just the first listen that I was pretty sure it wasn’t an original composition. To appreciate Urge Overkill’s version though, I think you need to listen to Neil Diamond’s. Now, they’re not a million miles apart but there’s something eerie and haunting about Urge Overkill’s interpretation that’s actually quite affecting. However, despite this TOTP appearance, they never got any higher than this week’s peak of No 37.

Looking at their Wikipedia entry, their roll call of band members is quite astonishing; not just because of how many names there are on it but also the nature of said names. Admittedly, some look like nicknames but check out some of these nomenclatures:

Nash Kato
Nils St. Cyr
Chris Frantisak
Grumpy “Crabnar”
Carnitas
Watt
Jack ‘The Jaguar’
Kriss Bataille
Onassis Rowan
Chuck Treece
Burf ‘Sandbag’ Agnew (my favourite)

However, watching this performance, if the lead singer had shown his hippy hair to be a wig and revealed himself as Christopher Walken, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

As we near Christmas (in 1994), there’s the inevitable glut of Best Of / Greatest Hits albums being released. Look at this list of artists that had such a product out around this time:

INXS
Bon Jovi
Chris Rea
Sade
Aerosmith
Sting
The Beautiful South

You can add to that New Order whose Best Of album was perhaps the most obvious of the year. Why? Well, they’d only recorded one album for new label London Records (1993’s “Republic”) and yet there were already stories emanating from within the band’s camp that relations were faltering and that there was no sign of them recording together again any time soon. Given that, it’s understandable that London wanted to do something with their new charges back catalogue and so a compilation album was always likely. However, there already was such an album in existence. 1987 had seen the band release their retrospective “Substance”, spearheaded by a new track called “True Faith”. Both the album and single were big successes with the former going platinum and the latter becoming their then highest charting single at No 4. I don’t suppose that was going to dissuade London from maximising profit on their act though and so a second Best Of was released four days after this TOTP aired.

Curiously titled “(the best of)” – no brackets, no points- and with the band’s name styled as NewOrder (all one word), its chart peak of No 4 showed there was still lots of appetite for the band out there. Like “Substance”, it was promoted by “True Faith” (albeit a remix officially titled “True Faith -94”). Unlike “Substance”, its track listing had some omissions. Where was “Temptation” and “Confusion” and why had they gone with the 1988 remix of “Blue Monday” instead of the original? I’m guessing it was the band’s decision rather than the label’s as, owing to never having signed a formal contract with Factory Records, they owned the rights to their songs and not Factory so when the latter went bankrupt nothing really changed copyright wise? Oh, I don’t know I’m not a music industry lawyer. What I do know is that the ‘94 version of “True Faith” peaked at No 9, that I can’t really tell the difference between that and its 1987 counterpart and that the accompanying video still looked great seven years on. The following year, a collection of remixes was released called “The Rest Of New Order” that did include versions of “Temptation” and “Confusion” and that was pretty much it from the band until the new millennium dawned.

Here’s a first view of an artist that I must admit a fondness for and although she has sold 50 million albums worldwide, won nine Grammys and was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame just this year, I’m never quite sure that she gets the credit she deserves. I suppose she must be respected by the industry given the final accolade on that list.

I’m talking about Sheryl Crow who is really the musical equivalent of Jamie Vardy in that success came to her at a relatively late age in the same way that Vardy’s elite football career did (he didn’t play in the Premier League until he was 27). Crow was even older at 32 when this single – “All I Wanna Do” was a hit. She’d been at it for years before this breakthrough though. She’d sang on commercial jingles for McDonalds and then toured as a backing vocalist for Michael Jackson no less on his Bad tour as well as recording backing vocals for Stevie Wonder, Barbara Carlisle and Don Henley. An aborted attempt at laying down her debut album meant that she returned to the drawing board before joining a songwriting collective who would help write songs for her actual debut LP “Tuesday Night Music Club”.

“All I Wanna Do” was the fourth single released from the album but the first to break through on any meaningful level in both the UK and US. In the former it would peak at No 4 which in the pre-Xmas rush was quite the achievement for a new artist whilst it stayed at No 2 for six weeks in the latter. You can hear why I think. A rambling yet joyous tune with a hopeful message and a killer hook in the chorus well delivered by Sheryl. It was, rather lazily, compared to “Stuck In The Middle With You” by Stealers Wheel but that does make a rather nice link with an earlier act on tonight’s show as that 1973 hit featured heavily in the Quentin Tarantino film Reservoir Dogs.

As I recall, “All I Wanna Do” attracted masses of airplay but despite its success, subsequent singles failed to scale its heights and it wasn’t until “If It Makes You Happy” and “Everyday Is A Winding Road” from her eponymous sophomore album that she would become a chart regular on these shores. As for this performance, Sheryl sells the song well and I like the fact that a fake bar has been set up to reflect some of its lyrics. A good effort all round.

https://youtu.be/nF15En1ZSr8

From one solo female artist in the first flush of success to one who had been a household name since 1978. However, Kate Bush’s run of chart hits was coming to an end and it would take an American sci-fi drama series to reverse that trend in spectacular style 28 years on. Back in 1994 though, “And So Is Love” was, rather surprisingly, released as the fourth single from an album that had already been out for a year. Rather unsurprisingly then, it would peak at a lowly No 26 and would be Kate’s last single release for 11 years.

Apparently the guitar parts on “And So Is Love” were played by Eric Clapton (who dated Sheryl Crow for a while in the 90s) but it puts me in mind more of “Brothers In Arms” by Dire Straits. In truth though, the song is hardly there at all – it’s all trademark Bush breathy vocals and has an ethereal feel to it but it just sort of exists without really doing anything or going anywhere. I’m kind of surprised that it warranted an appearance on the show but I guess head producer Ric Blaxill was trying to restore the reputation of TOTP with huge, grandstanding gestures of having massive names appear and Kate Bush certainly fell into that category. As Michelle Gayle pointed out in her intro, it was Kate’s first time in the TOTP studio for nine years and would turn out to be her last. She would release two albums of new material since the turn of the Millennium and also a “Director’s Cut” album of remixes of tracks from “The Sensual World” and “The Red Shoes” projects before that rejuvenation of “Running Up That Hill (Deal With God)”. Who saw that coming? I suppose Stranger Things have happened.

Despite the two missed shows, Pato Banton is still No 1 with “Baby Come Back” though this would be its final week at the top. It’s the video again – did Pato ever get to perform his hit in the TOTP studio? I know he was there one week but he only got briefly interviewed by the presenter and gave the rather weak excuse that Ali and Robin Campbell of UB40 weren’t available and so he couldn’t do the song without them. Ah well.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	M People	Sight For Sore Eyes	No
2	Suede	The Wild Ones	Liked it, didn’t buy it
3	Baby D	Let Me Be Your Fantasy	Nope
4	Blur	End Of A Century	Not the single but I had the album
5	Urge Overkill	Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon	No but I had the Pulp Fiction soundtrack
6	New Order	True Faith – 94	No, nor the Best Of album but I had the Substance compilation
7	Sheryl Crow	All I Wanna Do	No but my wife did
8	Kate Bush	And So Is Love	No but my wife had The Red Shoes album it came from
9	Pato Banton	Baby Come Back	Nah

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001mnyk/top-of-the-pops-17111994

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 11 JAN 1996

Disclaimer

TOTP 22 JUN 1995

Disclaimer

TOTP 01 JUN 1995

Disclaimer

TOTP 01 DEC 1994

Disclaimer

TOTP 24 NOV 1994

Disclaimer

TOTP 17 NOV 1994

Disclaimer