This TOTP was broadcast two days before my 31st birthday in 1999 and as I recall, on the big day, I got rip-roaring drunk with various friends and work colleagues at my flat. I think I ended up prostrate on the floor unable to stir myself to even say goodbye to people. Bit embarrassing really especially as I would have been at work the next day with some of the people who would have seen me in that state. Not professional at all. Judging by the date stamp on the photo below and by my smiling face, I’d recovered by the following Thursday though. Why was that photo taken? I have no idea 27 years on (this would have been before smartphones with cameras remember) but I’m guessing we might have been going to the pub after work (probably the same Bricklayers Arms as referenced in my last post) which, if true, demonstrates an unhealthy commitment to alcohol consumption on my behalf! Anyway, drinking habits aside, what else was happening in my world back then and which hits might I have been selling over the counter?*

*Apart from Madonna’s “Beautiful Stranger” single and Geri Halliwell’s “Schizophonic” album judging by the posters in the shop window. And is that an advert for the Gay Dad album? Blimey! The bods at Head Office got that one wrong!

Jamie Theakston is our host and we start with Sixpence None The Richer who are riding high in the charts with “Kiss Me” at No 5. This one understandably got a lot of daytime radio airplay including from Mark and Lard on their Radio 1 afternoon show who would refer to the band as Sixpence None The Wiser. I used to enjoy listening to them if I found myself upstairs in the shop off the counter doing something. Featuring characters like Fat Harry White, spoof phone-in quizzes like Bird Or Bloke and surreal segments such as One Man And His Frog (“Come-bye yer bitch”), it was almost appointment listening. Sadly, the BBC, in their predictably short-sighted way, called time on Mark and Lard in 2004 with their final Radio 1 show being broadcast on 26 March. Lard’s catchphrase of “Stop!…Carry on” was heartbreakingly truncated to a final “Stop!” and some of the most entertaining daytime radio ever broadcast was gone forever.

Look at this! A No 2 hit no less which I have zero recall of! Maybe I didn’t have the constitution of an ox and I was just drunk at work as well as at the flat (I wasn’t, honest). The fact remains though that listening to “Ooh La La” by The Wiseguys now is like hearing it for the first time. No, not the first time as it sounds like one of those late 80s/early 90s sample heavy, house tunes such as “Hear the Drummer (Get Wicked)” or some such like.

Apparently, its success was down to the Budweiser advert below which again I don’t remember. Not this particular one with the crocodile anyway – anyone around at that time is familiar with the croaking frogs Bud, Weis, and Er, a forerunner of the whole “Whassup?” campaign.

“Ooh La La” was just dreadful shout-and-response nonsense and who were those berks in collars and ties up there on stage sticking it to us? One looks a bit like a young Louis Theroux and the other like Keith from The Office. Did they think they were some sort of turn of the millennium Blues Brothers? Thankfully they only had this one hit before the record buying public got wise to these guys and ignored them. Oh, and if I wanted someone to shout “Ho!” then I would choose this guy every time…

From a hit for the feeble-minded to something much more engaging. “You Look So Fine” was the fifth and final single released in the UK from Garbage’s sophomore album “Version 2.0” which was already one year old by this point so it’s not really surprising that it secured the lowest chart position of those five hits when it debuted at its peak of No 19. However, far from being a Michael Jackson fan-fleecing style release, the band had seemingly put some thought into it when they initiated a remix trading arrangement with Fun Lovin’ Criminals. You may recall that the New York hip-hoppers had recently been on the show with their hit “Korean Bodega”. That single included a remix by Garbage (which was specifically advertised on the cover artwork) and Fun Lovin’ Criminals reciprocated by producing a version of “You Look So Fine” as a slowed down, lounge standard which I think I actually prefer.

That’s not to say the original album version isn’t any good. The last track on “Version 2.0”, it shows a softer side to the band whilst retaining their alternative rock profile. The band’s drummer and co-producer Butch Vig is on record as describing it as his favourite track on the album due to its “Carpenters covers Sonic Youth quality”. Hang on. Shouldn’t that be the other way round…

Apparently the strings outro was added after the song had been initially recorded when Shirley Manson came into the studio after watching the Titanic film. She’d hated it but did draw inspiration from its soundtrack to give “You Look So Fine” a more cinematic style. The band would take that filmic theme and go stratospheric with it with their next single – the James Bond song “The World Is Not Enough” – a release which would catapult Garbage into another universe altogether.

After teaming up with the groover from Vancouver that is Bryan Adams for their hit “Cloud #9”, Chicane continued to work with other artists for next release “Saltwater” by joining forces with Máire Brennan of Clannad. It was quite the contrast in collaborations. However, it wasn’t the first time that Máire had made a record with someone else. Back in 1986, the shimmering “In A Lifetime” featuring Bono was a No 20 hit for Clannad (and a No 17 when rereleased to promote their Best Of album “Pastpresent”). “Saltwater” was something completely different. Nothing to do with Julian Lennon’s 1991 song – actually, I’d quite have liked it if it was – in fact, it was based upon another Clannad song and perhaps there most famous one. “Theme From Harry’s Game” had gone Top 5 in 1982 off the back of the success of the ITV drama Harry’s Game about the Troubles in Northern Ireland. It remains the only British hit single ever to have been sung entirely in Irish. Máire Brennan would re-record those lyrics (along with some new ones) in 1999 for Chicane to use to create “Saltwater”. A UK dance chart No 1 (it also made a healthy No 6 on the Top 40), its trance beats melded miraculously well with Brennan’s haunting, melancholic vocals creating an unusual dance classic. The celestial-type choir in virginal white backing Máire here adds to the ethereal vibe. I wonder if her younger sister Enya was watching at home thinking “I could have done that”.

The return of Supergrass next whom we had not seen nor heard for nigh on 20 months since their last chart appearance. After their first two albums had gone to No 1 and No 2 in the charts respectively, expectations were high for their eponymously titled third album. It didn’t disappoint when it went to No 3 and furnished the band with two of their most well known hits. The first of those was “Pumping On Your Stereo”, a rousing, stomper of a song that more than a little fed into the band’s glam rock influences. Like breakthrough hit “Alright” (though also nothing like it at all), it was immediately memorable with that chant-a-long chorus and just a little risqué with the double entendre of replacing “pumping” with “humping” in the repeated stanza. It deserved a higher placing than its No 11 peak.

Whilst the performance here is adequately enjoyable, it would be remiss of me not to mention the official video for the single. Perhaps one of the most fun promos of the decade, the Jim Henson designed puppet costumes created an entrancing illusion with no trace of CGI. Essentially using the puppeteer/black backdrop effect employed in 70s children’s TV show Paper Play presented by Susan Stranks, the elongated puppet bodies also lent the video the faintest whiff of the sinister akin to 1986’s Labyrinth starring David Bowie as Jareth, King of the Goblins.

I particularly like drummer Danny Goffey’s telescopic legs which make him look almost arachnid-like. It made for a much better image than just modelling Goffey as The Muppets drummer Animal from fictional group Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem. That goes for the rest of the band as well. I’m not sure that Gaz Coombes as Dr Teeth and Mick Quinn as Floyd would have worked at all well either.

Three albums into their career and Shed Seven were already at the Greatest Hits stage with the release of the album “Going For Gold”. Could that position be justified?

*checks Shed Seven discography*

Well, they had clocked up twelve Top 40 hits by this point which would certainly be enough to comprise a Greatest Hits album. However, of those twelve, only one made the Top 10 and just five peaked between the positions 20 and 11. Having checked the track listing for “Going For Gold”, I can confirm that all twelve of those chart hits were included within a 15 song set which was completed by debut single “Mark” which failed to make the Top 40 and two new songs. The first of those was “Disco Down” which was released to promote the collection. This was a great little song with a choppy intro that drew you in from the very start, a sweeping, string-laden bridge leading into a gloriously uplifting chorus with the pay off of a killer final line. Absolutely one of the band’s best ever recordings and absolutely worthy of spearheading a Best Of campaign.

“Going For Gold: The Greatest Hits” would go Top 10 and achieve (very appropriately) gold status. However, it would also be the harbinger of a break up between the band and their label Polydor. Shed Seven themselves had questioned the validity of releasing a Best Of album so early in their career but had agreed after securing consent from Polydor that they could release two new singles from it. “Disco Down” had been the first and was supposed to be followed by “High Hopes” but Polydor reneged on the agreement, wanting to re-release “Going For Gold” instead. The band saw this as short changing their fanbase and this would ultimately lead to them parting ways with their label. In the intervening years, they have released four more albums including 2024’s No 1 “A Matter Of Time” and also that year, “Liquid Gold”, an album consisting of re-imagined/re-recorded versions of their songs. This would follow “A Matter Of Time” to the top of the charts giving them two No 1 albums in the same calendar year, a feat achieved by very few artists.

After having reached critical mass commercially when their third album “Travelling Without Moving” went quadruple platinum, Jamiroquai kept that momentum going by scoring their first ever No 1 single with “Deeper Underground” from the Godzilla soundtrack. By 1999, the pressure to maintain that run must have been on and Jay Kay responded to it with fourth album “Synkronized” and it did well. Really well. It topped the UK charts going platinum in the process. However, success is relative and ultimately it sold less than half the amount of copies of its predecessor worldwide. You couldn’t fault the expansive exuberance of lead single “Canned Heat” though with its retro 70s disco feel and strong Saturday Night Fever symptoms. The album itself was generally well received but with a few dissenting voices. The critic Tom Moon said of it:

“Canned Heat” and several other tracks are thinly veiled rewrites of “Virtual Insanity” and the other radio songs from “Travelling Without Moving”

Moon, Tom (9 July 1999). “Jamiroquai expands on its ‘70s influences: [Final Edition]”. Las Vegas Review-Journal.

And that was my problem with Jamiroquai. It really was all starting to sound the same. Retread after retread of what had gone before. It was fine in short bursts but the idea of listening to a whole album of it? I’d rather turn up for work with a stinking hangover (and I knew all too well what that felt like as we have already discussed earlier).

Shanks & Bigfoot remain at No 1 for a second week with “Sweet Like Chocolate”. Again we get the animated video rather than a studio performance. Did the duo not like the limelight? Had they had a heavy weekend on the lash like I had and weren’t up to an in person appearance? If so, they had my sympathies.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Sixpence None The Richer	Kiss Me	I did not
2	The Wiseguys	Ooh La La	Heavens no!
3	Garbage	You Look So Fine	Negative
4	Chicane / Máire Brennan	Saltwater	Nope
5	Supergrass	Pumping On Your Stereo	No but I had the parent album
6	Shed Seven	Disco Down	No but I think I had that Greatest Hits album it came from
7	Jamiroquai	Canned Heat	Nah
8	Shanks & Bigfoot	Sweet Like Chocolate	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/m002sjbl/top-of-the-pops-04061999