Blackstreet

TOTP 12 DEC 1997

Posted on by 80stastic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Janet JacksonTogether AgainI did not
2The SeahorsesYou Can Talk To MeNegative
3Robbie WilliamsAngelsNo but I had a promo copy of the album
4Sheryl CrowTomorrow Never DiesNo
5Blackstreet(Money Can’t) Buy Me LoveNope
6FiveSlam Dunk (Da Funk)Nah
7All SaintsNever EverLiked it, didn’t buy it
8TeletubbiesTeletubbies Say ‘Eh-Oh’What do you think?!

Disclaimer

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

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

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

TOTP 09 MAY 1997

Posted on by 80stastic

It’s the 9th May 1997 and I’m in China! Yes, Beijing to be exact visiting my old school pal Rob who is living and studying out there. According to my diary, this date was our second day there (I’d travelled with Rob’s brother Chris) and we’d so far been to Tiananmen Square, Ritan Park and spent a mad night in a karaoke bar. However, one of my abiding memories is that on our plane there had been a French youth orchestra who were going to play some concerts in China and as we flew over rice fields on the approach to Beijing airport, one of their number looked out of the window and exclaimed “Ah, le chinois!”. With my location confirmed, I can categorically say that I would not have watched this episode of TOTP. I wonder what I missed…

…not much if the opening act is anything to go by as it’s the same one that closed the last episode! I guess it’s understandable as Katrina And The Waves had won Eurovision for the UK the weekend before for the first time in 16 years so they probably deserved their moment in the limelight. “Love Shine A Light” was the track that brought the trophy home and although it was a deserved winner on the night, it didn’t live long in the memory. Katrina (Leskanich) herself has explained that the reason the band had never recorded it before was due to the fact that it was “too cheesy, too ABBA, too Eurovision”. Even the guy who wrote it, guitarist Kimberley Rew, didn’t want anything to do with it and Eurovision and didn’t join his band mates for their performance of it on the big night. According to Katrina, the song (and subsequently the band) didn’t endure because they didn’t have a gimmick like Bucks Fizz. What it did have though was an anthemic quality and a feel good vibe that clearly won the voters over at least temporarily. In 2020, it created its own legacy of sorts as its title was used as the inspiration for a show called Eurovision: Europe Shine A Light which was a live, two hour show arranged to replace the full Eurovision Song Contest which was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “Love Shine A Light” was performed by the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra before also being reprised at the show’s finale by all the artists meant to have been in the official show with Katrina herself joining those on stage.

I should have said that Jo Whiley is tonight’s presenter and she’s positively effusive about the next artist who have a great track to be fair to them. There was always going to be in huge interest in what the members of the Stone Roses did next after the band was dissolved in October 1996. Mani* would join Primal Scream, Ian Brown embarked on a solo career to varying degrees of success and Reni went into hiatus hibernation.

*He came into the Our Price in Stockport where I worked one day and bought our entire stock of Primal Scream albums to learn the bass parts.

As for John Squire, he was first out of the traps with a new project in the form of The Seahorses. Unlike the Roses who couldn’t have been more Manc, Squire’s band were York-centric with lead singer Chris Helme having been infamously recruited after being spotted busking outside the city’s Woolworths store. Another feature of The Seahorses story that was being played out in the music press was that the band’s name was an anagram of ‘He Hates Roses’ or alternatively ‘The Rose Ashes’. Squire denied this as pure coincidence and speculation.

Anyway, their debut single was “Love Is The Law” and it was a banger. Recorded with Bowie and T-Rex producer Tony Visconti and naturally featuring Squire’s immense guitar work to the fore, it was an exuberant, indie rock song that had an immediacy that made it sound familiar from the get go. The lyrics though – well, they seemed to go under the censor radar…

“She was a rum old slapper and we always tried to get her pants off when she phoned…

Strap-on Sally chased us down the alley, we feared for our behinds”

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: John Squire
Love Is the Law lyrics © Polygram Music Publishing Ltd. Gb

Hmm. Anyway, in this performance, Squire has decided to come as a member of Mansun whilst Chris Helme looks like a cross between 60s era David Essex and Danny Macnamara from Embrace. The Seahorses would go on to have three further hit singles and a No 2 album in “Do It Yourself” but would split in 1999 after increasing tensions between Squire and Helme (who wished to pursue a solo career in tandem with the band) boiled over. Squire would eventually release two solo albums before the Stone Roses second coming in 2011 and just last year had a No 1 album with Liam Gallagher called…erm…”Liam Gallagher John Squire”. I don’t think that’s an anagram of anything but according to one user on Twitter, said album contains the track “Just Another Rainbow” which is an anagram of ‘Just to hear Ian Brown’!

Four days short of the one year anniversary of the release of his “Older” album, George Michael was still releasing tracks from it as singles. “Star People ‘97” was the fifth of those (and there would even be one more after that) and it kept up the remarkable record of them all peaking within the Top 3 chart positions when it debuted at No 2. And people talked about all the singles released from “Faith”!

This one was re-recorded (hence the ‘97 suffix) from the original album track to make it a bit more funked up and danceable. I’m guessing this performance was from the MTV Unplugged set that was recorded in 1996 where he also did a version of Wham!’s “Everything She Wants” which was released as an extra track on the “Star People ‘97” single. Want to hear it? Yeah you do…

In May ‘97, Mansun were still at the top of their game with “Taxloss” (or “Taxlo$$” as it’s stylised on the single’s cover) being their fourth consecutive Top 20 hit with all of them taken from debut No 1 album “Attack Of The Grey Lantern”. There was something different about this one though – not sonically as it was still that guitar-driven, epic soundscape that characterised the album. No, it was in its naming. All their other releases had been titled sequentially as EPs – hence “One EP”, “Two EP” etc with the last having been “Five EP” (though each was headlined by a lead track). However, for “Taxloss” it was just called…well…”Taxloss”. No reason has ever been forthcoming.

I said earlier that John Squire had turned up looking like a member of Mansun and blow me down, one song later here was the real thing and singer Paul Draper (bless him) confirms my observation by wearing his Army Surplus Store outfit front and centre. Something else about this TOTP performance was that, for a moment, I thought that The Seahorses drummer and the guy on the sticks for Mansun were the same person. I think though it’s just that they both had a goaty beard. I think. Oh and that video that Jo Whiley mentions, that really did happen. Not quite up there with The KLF burning a million quid but still…

As Jo Whiley says in her intro, it’s time to throw your pants at the screen as 911 get another outing for their single “Bodyshakin’” even though it’s dropped from No 3 to No 10 this week – I just can’t get along with these new TOTP appearance rules.

I’ve nothing else to say about this one except what was the deal with those tops they were wearing?! I’m no fashionista but they’re gross. As bad as they are though, nothing beats the legendary Carlisle United away kit from the mid 90s that was labelled ‘the deckchair’ due to its garishness. Why am I randomly talking about Carlisle United? Because it’s not random – 911 lead singer Lee Brennan was born in Carlisle and captained their football clubs under-14 and under-16 teams but was turned down for a professional contract on account of him being too short. A career as a pop star clothes horse awaited…

Jo Whiley goes all Blue Peter presenter in her next intro as she says that Jay Kay of Jamiroquai can’t be in the studio as his band are on tour “so here’s something they prepared earlier” as we get the video for “Alright”. That old cliche could also be applied to Jamiroquai as this track was almost an identikit replica of all their other hits it seemed to my uncultured ears. People who knew more about it (basically the music press so that might be a misnomer) reckoned it was the best track on parent album “Travelling Without Moving” with one Sam Taylor of The Observer commenting on its “effortless swank”. Yeah, he could have lost an ‘s’ there for me. “Alright” peaked at No 6.

Wait…Blackstreet had more hits than just “No Diggity”? Yes, yes they did including a further three Top 10 hits one of which was this – “Don’t Leave Me”. Now, if it sounds a bit like a 2Pac song that’s because it features the same sample used in the rap legend’s track “I Ain’t Mad Atcha” but said sample is from an unlikely source – DeBarge. The “Rhythm Of The Night” hitmakers from the mid 80s? The very same though the track in question is called “A Dream” from 1983. How do I know all this? I looked it up obviously. My R&B/rap knowledge doesn’t extend to those levels of detail. As such, it’s no surprise then that this song means very little to me and in fact, my apathy turned to displeasure when one of the group introduced it by saying “This song goes out to all the ladies in the house tonight”. Eeeww!

Gary Barlow has this week’s No 1 record with a song that wasn’t even his. “Love Won’t Wait” came out of the writing sessions for Madonna’s “Bedtime Stories” album and was a collaboration between Madge and prolific producer and songwriter Shep Pettibone. After all the flak I gave Robbie Williams initially for starting his solo career with a cover version (George Michael’s “Freedom’90”), blow me if Barlow’s second release under his own name wasn’t even one of his own compositions but a Madonna reject! You can hear why it didn’t make the cut – it’s a perfectly serviceable but oh so unremarkable dance/pop tune that isn’t as good as some of Take That’s best work which raises the question of why did Barlow record it? Was he having doubts about his ability to be a solo artist? After all, it had been over nine months since his debut single “Forever Love” which suggests that he didn’t have confidence in the songs he had already got together. Despite my questioning attitude, Gary still had a fanbase large enough to send him to No 1 for the second successive time in his solo career. As the performance starts you can clearly hear someone in the audience screaming “Gaaarrry!”. However, the writing was on the wall as follow up single “So Help Me Girl” would fail to make the Top 10 and within a year he wouldn’t be able to give his records away as Robbie Williams cemented his place as Barlow’s personal nemesis. Still, it all worked out pretty well for Gary in the end didn’t it?

The play out video is “Lovefool” by The Cardigans who spend a second week at No 4. Looking at the singles ahead of them at No 1 on those occasions – by Michael Jackson and Gary Barlow – it does seem somewhat of a travesty that “Lovefool” couldn’t quite get to the top (it peaked at No 2). Being up against new release singles that would have been heavily discounted when your’s had reverted to full price maybe had a part to play. Hits by the likes of No Doubt, R Kelly and Puff Daddy all had extended stays at the top of the charts which would seem to debunk that theory but what is true is that there had been five different hits at No 1 in five weeks earlier in 1997.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Katrina And The WavesLove Shine A LightNope
2The SeahorsesLove Is The LawThought I might have but its not in the singles box
3George MichaelStar People ’97Nah
4MansunTaxlossNo but I had the album
5911Bodyshakin’As if
6JamiroquaiAlrightAll wrong – no
7BlackstreetDon’t Leave Me NowNo
8Gary BarlowLove Won’t WaitThree guesses?
9The CardigansLovefoolNo but my wife had the Romeo + Juliet soundtrack with it on

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/m0027xn2/top-of-the-pops-09051997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 18 OCT 1996

Posted on by 80stastic

You don’t hear much about him these days but for a while there as the 80s turned into the 90s, Nigel Kennedy was quite the big deal. Tearing up the classical music manual with his appearance, style and attitude, he challenged the predominant perception of what that art form was and who it was for and found himself catapulted into the mainstream by the success of his “Vivaldi: The Four Seasons” album which topped the classical music chart for over a year selling three million copies in the process. What with Kennedy and the extraordinary popularity of The Three Tenors off the back of Italia ‘90, classical music was suddenly accessible to the masses. Our Nige wasn’t to everyone’s taste though. In 1991, he was denounced by the then Controller of BBC Radio 3 John Drummond as being “a Liberace for the nineties”* who went on to criticise his “ludicrous”* clothes and mocked his accent as being “self invented”*. Kennedy responded calling Drummond “pompous”* and of “encouraging exclusivity”* within classical music.

*All quotes taken from Paul Kelso article: Kennedy hits back at arts elitism, The Guardian, Wed 30 August 2000

Whichever side of the argument you find yourself on, none of it explains what Kennedy was doing on our screens in 1996 presenting TOTP does it? Was his profile still so high a good five years on from his “Four Seasons” heyday? His Wikipedia page says that in 1992, he’d announced that he was leaving classical music and he made an album with the marvellous Stephen Duffy called “Music In Colours” which was interesting though I found Nigel’s bits fairly unlistenable. However, by the middle of the decade he’d returned to the work of international classical concerts and just a few months after this TOTP appearance, he received an award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music at the BRITS so maybe he was in the ascendancy again? Anyway, let’s see how he does in the role of presenter…

Straight off the bat, Kennedy (who just introduces himself as ‘Nigel’) weirds us all out with his hair. What. The. F**k.? He has an enormous, towering Mohican fin protruding from the top of his head! Is it real?! If it is, how much product did it take to get it to stand on end like that?! Back in my youth in the 80s, I had ‘big’ hair (didn’t we all?) and would get through cans of Cossack hairspray in the pursuit of trying to get my bonce to look like Morten Harket’s coiffured locks but this was next level stuff. Pure madness and that’s also a phrase that could describe what was happening with the opening act The Boo Radleys at this time. Having broken through to the mainstream with hit single “Wake Up Boo!” and No 1 album “Wake Up!”, the band allegedly decided that all this pop star stuff wasn’t really for them and so made a follow up album that would alienate all those Johnny-come-lately fans (of whom I was one) in the form of “C’mon Kids”. At least, that’s how the story goes but it’s been denied by lead singer Sice that the band deliberately recorded new material designed to kill their previous pop vibe.

I’d bought and been a big fan of the “Wake Up” album but somehow my interest in The Boo Radleys had waned by the time “C’mon Kids” came out and the only songs from it I know are the singles “What’s In The Box (See Whatcha Got)” and the title track. Those who had listened to it included the music press and they were mainly lukewarm in their reaction, with the main takeaway being that the band had committed commercial suicide. Certainly it didn’t sell any where near as much as its predecessor peaking at No 20 but I quite like the singles from it so maybe I should give it a chance nearly 30 years on from its release. After all, it does have some fans within the music industry – Nicky Wire of the Manic Street Preachers said he listened to little else for a year whilst Tom White of The Electric Soft Parade names it as his favourite album ever. Perhaps its greatest accolade though is that supposedly Radiohead went back to the drawing board after hearing it during the “OK Computer” sessions.

“C’mon Kids” the song is nothing like their most well known tune being much more of a harder sound with fuzzy, squalling guitars and an almost shouted vocal from Sice. Jangly, bouncing pop it wasn’t but then why should the band have been expected to come up with “Wale Up Boo! (Part II)”?! They would stay together for another album before the 90s were up before disbanding though some of the members reformed in 2020 and have released two albums of new material since.

I’ve got to comment on a Montell Jordan song that isn’t “This Is How We Do It”? Who knew he even had any other hits? Well, he did and this one is called “I Like” and was the third of five he had in the UK. Watching this back, I’m struck by how lacking in substance it is. There’s hardly anything to it at all which is not helping me in my struggle to find something to say about it. I guess I could mention the lyrics that are so hackneyed that Montell might as well have just called the song ‘Black Cab’ and be done with it. Hackneyed? Hackney? Hackney carriage? Oh please yourselves! Anyway, the lyrics are terrible – ‘lips’ are rhymed with ‘hips’ , ‘walk’ with ‘talk’ and Montell even says “You’re so sexy” at one point. Couldn’t he have just been happy with having the one hit that sustained? After all, “This Is How We Do It” has endured to the point that it’s currently being used to soundtrack a Deliveroo advert.

Kennedy fluffs his lines a bit next as he plugs TOTP2 by saying “By the way, you’ve got to check out this amazing unforeseen…unseen footage of the Stones on Top of the Pops 2”. Probably hard to check out something unforeseen but I’m being harsh on poor Nige, he was just nervous no doubt. And so he should have been, so we all should have been for Mark Morrison has returned with his third hit of the year “Trippin’” and if The Mack is back then that means only one thing – he’ll have his handcuffs with him! I could never understand the appeal of this guy – neither his music nor his image and judging by all his run ins with the law, he was hardly a stand up guy. In the lyrics to “Trippin’”, he starts referring to himself in the third person and there is no bigger indicator of being a massive prick than that! He would crank out another hit before the end of the calendar year called “Horny” and follow it up in 1997 with one called “Moan & Groan”. Delightful.

There follows a really strange segue where immediately after Mark Morrison finishes we just get the voice of Nigel Kennedy (he’s not seen at all) saying “And here is Celine…*big pause*…Dion” before the screen fades and the video for “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now” starts playing. Why wasn’t he in shot and why the large pause? Maybe the camera couldn’t accommodate his huge Mohican hairstyle. Anyway, it is Celine Dion and unlike the other week when we got six minutes worth of the promo, mercifully we only get half that amount this time around. In an interview with the director Nigel Dick, he effused about what a hard worker Celine is and mentioned that he made her run across gravel barefoot for a scene five times until he was happy with the shot. Celine didn’t complain but came to the shoot the next day with her feet in bandages. Fair play to her though I would do the same just to never have to watch this video again.

Nigel is back with us visually now and asking the question why we’ve never seen the next artist on TV before despite them having sold 20 million records. Who is he talking about? It’s Bally Sagoo who I must admit to not being aware of despite this hit “Dil Cheez (My Heart…)” and despite working in a record shop at the time it was in the charts. Having read up on him, my embarrassment of not knowing who he is has multiplied as he really is a big deal. In his early days he was a DJ in Birmingham but he wasn’t spinning the latest chart sounds. No, he was creating his own mixtapes fusing together elements of Western music and hip hop with Indian music. He signed with local record label Oriental Star Agencies as an in house producer collaborating with the likes of Qawwali superstar Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan before signing to Sony Records in his own right. His reworking of an Asha Bhosle song would be played on Radio 1 making him the first Indian artist to achieve national mainstream radio airplay. He then released the album “Rising From The East” which would spend a week in the UK album chart and furnish two Top 40 singles including “Dil Cheez (My Heart)”. Having broken through the glass ceiling, he went stratospheric in terms of exposure by supporting Michael Jackson on the HIStory World Tour. From there he launched his own record label showcasing both his material and other new artists and in 2003 was honoured at the UK Asian Awards with the inaugural trophy for outstanding achievement (presented to him by the Spice Girls no less). His music can be found in films like Bend It Like Beckham and Monsoon Wedding and he has diversified into areas such as film production, artist promotion and management, fashion and technology. Like I said, he’s quite the mover and shaker.

Back to Nigel’s original question about why we’d never seen Bally Sagoo on TV before, I guess it was because there had traditionally been so few UK hit singles that had an Asian influence and sound to them and if they weren’t chart hits the they wouldn’t have been on TOTP. There’s a few exceptions like “Ever So Lonely” by Monsoon in 1982 and are we counting “Im Nin’alu” by Israeli singer Ofra Haza from 1988? By the 90s things were starting to change with the likes of Apache Indian bringing Bhangramuffin to the Top 40 and in 1998, Cornershop took “Brimful Of Asha” to No 1. In these TOTP repeats, we’re not far off from Kula Shaker having a hit with a song sung entirely in Sanskrit in “Govinda”. More recently, there has been the rise of K-pop (which I know barely anything about) and of course the global phenomenon that was “Gangnam Style” by Psy. From the world of film, “Jai Ho” won an Oscar for Best Original Song after soundtracking that memorable dance sequence in Slumdog Millionaire. Finally, in 2023, Diljit Dosanjh became the first Punjabi artist to perform at the Coachella music festival. And I haven’t even mentioned Bollywood…

Nigel’s Mohican is starting to wilt under those studio lights and has flopped on one side. Also suffering a malfunction is the show’s running order as we don’t get to see the advertised ‘Flashback’ feature which was John Travolta and Olivia Newton John doing “Summer Nights” from Grease. Presumably it was cut for reasons of timing to fit in with BBC4’s Friday night schedule. So do I have to review this or not? Look, we all know this song and the film it comes from. I don’t need to make anymore comment on it do I? No I don’t.

Next up is a song that I definitely know but I may have struggled to name the artist behind it. Without looking it up or watching this TOTP repeat, I might have come up with Another Level but I think I would have been confusing “Freak Me” with this song which is “No Diggity” by Blackstreet. Oh, hang on. The album it was taken from was called “Another Level”? Ah well, then my mistake is perhaps forgivable. Perhaps not though as this track was an American No 1 and was the single that knocked “Macarena” off the top of the charts after it had been there for nine weeks. It’s yet another R&B number on this particular show following Montell Jordan and Mark Morrison earlier and also features Dr.Dre (nearly forgot about him) and Queen Pen. It’s come to be recognised as perhaps the definitive New Jack Swing song thanks to the creative input of Blackstreet founder member and lead vocalist Teddy Riley, the man credited with creating the genre. Did I like it? Not really though its title and hook have remained with me all these years. Apparently ‘no diggity’ means ‘no doubt’ but sadly for Nigel Kennedy, he fluffs his lines again and repeats the word ‘diggity’ for no reason and is left with ‘no dignity’.

After the huge success of “Three Lions” with Baddiel and Skinner over the Summer of football, it was back to the day job for Ian Broudie and the Lightning Seeds with another knockabout bit of pop fluff to promote. It may have seemed like an age ago but their last non-football related single had been “Ready Or Not” which had been released way back in February. It was the lead track from the “Dizzy Heights” album but that would not appear until the November after the recording of it was delayed to allow Broudie to concentrate on the “Three Lions” project so effectively “What If” became the lead single.

I have to say it’s not one of their strongest songs (despite being co-written by the wonderful and much missed Terry Hall) and the performance of it here demonstrates that Broudie is not the owner of the most powerful voice in pop. It actually reminds me of something else which I think is this by Sean Maguire and that’s not a good thing by the way…

By strange pop coincidence, there was actually a Lightning Seeds song in the Top 40 in this very week which went under the radar. The cover of “All I Want” from their first album by Susanna Hoffs is actually rather lovely and was at No 32 in the UK Top 40 at the time of this Lightning Seeds performance.

Having not heard it in ages, I’d forgotten what a good song “6 Underground” by Sneaker Pimps is. Pigeonholed in the music press as a cross between Portishead and Garbage, they looked to have the world at their feet but they never seems to be able to go beyond that first flush of success with their debut album “Becoming X”. Maybe it was all the remixes that the band had done of “6 Underground” that seemed to keep them anchored in those initial recordings (there was even an official remix album released called “Becoming Remixed” as a companion piece to their debut). Or maybe it was that the track “6 Underground” wouldn’t go away. After its 1996 chart run, it was rereleased the following year off the back of being included on the soundtrack to The Saint film and peaked at No 9, six places higher then its first foray into the Top 40. That second strata of success and that of follow up “Spin Spin Sugar” was enough evidence for a rerelease of the album which included new artwork and the inclusion of what many saw as the definitive version of “6 Underground” by Nellee Hooper. Then there was the two years of touring in support of the album when they opened for Blur and Neneh Cherry and played with Tricky and Lamb securing the perception of them as a trip hop band. All of this delayed the release of second album “Splinter” until 1999 when musical tastes had moved on and momentum was lost.

However, the biggest event that determined the band’s path was surely when lead singer Kelli Ali was told by fellow band members Chris Corner and Liam Howe that her vocals would not suit their new direction and she was fired from the line up before the recording of “Splinter”. This led to them being dropped by their label Virgin and they would never recapture the level of those early glories. They would go on a decade long hiatus before rebooting the band in 2016 and last released an album in 2021.

After the demise of Take That earlier in the year, the positioning of Boyzone as the UK’s next premier boyband was a foregone conclusion. They’d already spent two years coming up on the rails with a collection of hits that had peaked at Nos 2, 3 and 4 but their first chart topper had proved elusive. With those cheeky Manc scamps out of the way, there was no stopping them. Add to that the fact that they’d returned to the trusted strategy of releasing a cover version and the deal was not so much as sealed as cemented shut. “Words” by the Bee Gees was the song to do it for them and I recall it selling and selling and then selling some more in the Our Price store where I worked. We may have even come perilously close to selling out of it (an unspeakable crime for a record shop). When they released the follow up “A Different Beat”, I was determined not to be in that situation again so ordered in a load of the single. Despite also going to No 1, it failed to sell in anywhere near the quantities of “Words” and we were left with massive overstock. The fickle gods of pop music had farted in my face once again.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1The Boo RadleysC’Mon KidsNegative
2Montell JordanI LikeI disliked
3Mark MorrisonTrippin’Nah
4Celine DionIt’s All Coming Back To Me NowAs if
5Bally SagooDil Cheez (My Heart…)Nope
6John Travolta and Olivia Newton John Summer NightsNo
7BlackstreetNo DiggityI did not
8Lightning SeedsWhat IfNah
9Sneaker Pimps6 UndergroundLiked it, didn’t buy it
10BoyzoneWordsNever

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/m0024s0d/top-of-the-pops-18101996?seriesId=unsliced