Chris Rea

TOTP 21 OCT 1993

Posted on November 5, 2022 by 80stastic

What’s up with the TOTP running order? The other week we just had eight acts on and now this show only has a paltry seven! It’s all to do with whether there’s any Breakers section of course where the producers could slam up to five artists into a two minute time period. However, they’ve really cleared the decks this week because of the running time of the new No 1 but we’re getting ahead of ourselves. We open with Cappella who seemed to be a cut price 2 Unlimited with a penchant for song titles that replace the word ‘you’ with ‘U’ and ‘to’ with the number 2. So much did they like to do it that they rivalled the master of the art Prince. However, if that match up was a game of football, the result would be as follows:

PRINCE 4 – 3 CAPPELLA

I Would Die 4 U

Take Me With U

U Got The Look

I Wish U Heaven

U Got 2 Know

U Got To Know (Revisited)

U Got 2 Let The Music

This latest single would be Cappella’s biggest hit, trumping the chart achievement of its predecessors by going all the way to No 2. Listening back to it though, it was just more nasty Eurodance excrement stinking out the charts. They would linger for another four Top 20 hits over the next couple of years. They are still an active entity but seem to have a list of previous band members to rival The Fall. Sadly one of them was Marcus Birks who died of Covid 19 after previously being an anti-vaxxer and Covid denier.

https://youtu.be/D55ECn_Uzj4

1993 saw the return of INXS though in truth they hadn’t been away long. There was never much of a gap between their albums up to this point. Their latest – “Full Moon, Dirty Hearts” – was already the ninth studio album of their career in thirteen years and the third of the 90s. Previous album “Welcome To Wherever You Are” (which I’d liked and bought) had only been released fifteen months prior but the band had decided not to tour it and go straight into recording the next one instead hence the small time period between them. That recording process though was a fraught one. Michael Hutchence had suffered a fractured skull after being attacked in an alley in Copenhagen and hitting his head on the kerb. He spent two weeks in hospital and the after effects of the attack caused him to behave erratically and aggressively. There were multiple studio bust ups whilst laying down tracks for “Full Moon, Dirty Hearts”. In amongst the upheaval though, the band managed two collaborations with other artists with Chrissie Hynde and Ray Charles contributing to a track each. Despite the album making it to No 3 in the UK, its sales were well down on the likes of “Kick” and “X”. I recall there being lots of unsold copies of it in the Our Price store I was working in.

The album’s lead single “The Gift” though seemed determined to create a bit of sales history of its own. Its debut in the Top 40 of No 11 was the biggest chart entry of the band’s career and when it also peaked at that position instantly became their joint second biggest hit ever after “Need You Tonight”. Listening back to it now it does seem rather one dimensional based around a looped and relentless riff but it was also a great ear worm. Talking of ears, check out host Tony Dortie’s memory of this show:

#totp I remember being informed by BBC complaints after this Episode the word #Eargasm' was not deemed popular suitable family language
— Tony Dortie (@TonyDortie) November 4, 2022

Lisa Stansfield was very busy in 1993 having scored two Top 10 singles from movie soundtracks in “Someday (I’m Coming Back)” from The Bodyguard and “In All The Right Places” from Indecent Proposal. She’d also featured on the “Five Live EP” from The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert which had gone to No 1. However, it had been two years since her last solo studio album and so she duly delivered her third one called “So Natural” in the November. Trailed by the title track as the lead single (though technically that was “In All The Right Places” I guess as it was added onto the album’s track listing) it was yet another soulful ballad which generated the usual clichés beginning with ‘s’ from the music press like ‘sensual’, ‘sophisticated’ and ‘seductive’. I think I would use a different ‘s’ word though. Sorry Lisa.

The album would go platinum but that figure only added to a sales decline that saw debut “Affection” go triple platinum and follow up “Real Love” double platinum. By the time of her fourth album in 1997, she was down to gold status. She’s still recording and releasing music though with her last album being as recent as 2018.

https://youtu.be/j6yedYRqCac

Now if Prince and Cappella had a thing for song titles featuring ‘U’ instead of ‘you’ and ‘2’ instead of ‘to’ then Chris Rea seemed to be developing a habit for songs featuring girls names beginning with ‘J’. After “Josephine” in 1985 came “Julia” in 1993. In answer to Tony Dortie’s question “Who’s Julia”, she was, of course, Rea’s then four years old daughter.

Whatever you say about Chris, you can’t deny his productivity. He’s prolific. In a career spanning 44 years, he’s released 25 studio albums (more than one every two years), 14 Best Ofs, a live album, a soundtrack and 72 singles! Of those 72 singles though, only 13 have made the UK Top 40 and only two the Top 10 (including that Christmas song). “Julia” was one of the lucky13 peaking at No 18. The lead single from his “Espresso Logic” album (his third in three years – told you he was prolific!), it sounds a bit like his 1987 hit “Let’s Dance” to me but a little less jaunty maybe.

https://youtu.be/uAqjqAmJim8

Chris always looked such an unlikely and possibly reluctant pop star when he appeared on TOTP with a look on his face as if to say “yeah, I’m not sure about all this but I’m going with the flow”. Nice bit of slide guitar from him in this one by the way though not as good as his work on this track…

OK here’s another reason perhaps why there’s only seven acts on the show tonight. Nowhere near the time given to the No 1 record but still clocking in at just under 4:30 comes Jean-Michel Jarre. Somehow I never really got the boat to Jarre island. Obviously I knew he had these songs and albums like “Équinoxe” and “Oxygène” (did they have various numbers after them?) and that he was renowned for huge light shows when performing his instrumental pieces live. I also knew guys at school who swore by him but but it mostly left me cold. There was a Best Of album in 1991 called “Images” which I possibly sold copies of in the Our Price in Market Street, Manchester but he really didn’t register much on my musical radar.

Come 1993 and showing Chris Rea style prolificacy, Jarre had just released his eleventh studio album called “Chronologie”. According to his discography, the single released from it was called “Chronologie 4” (there’s those numbers again) though whether this is that track shown here I don’t know – the TOTP graphic just calls it “Chronologie”. Here we get an intro from Jarre himself before he bounds on stage to give us a live performance. Again like Chris Rea, Jean-Michel cuts an unorthodox pop star figure, grinning away with his keytar. Here’s a question, can you rock a gig whilst wielding a keytar? Whether you can or not, there wasn’t any appetite for this track as a single in the UK where it missed the Top 40 altogether. The album was moderately successful peaking at No 11.

https://youtu.be/5VziKpeRwp0

WHOOO?! Well, according to Tony Dortie she was someone “destined for a big future” though he was proven to be wrong in that claim. For a while though, there was a big buzz about Lena Fiagbe. Her debut single “You Come From Earth” had even been included on the track listing for “Now That’s What I Call Music 25” and received massive radio airplay but somehow fell short of the Top 40. Undeterred, the follow up single “Gotta Get It Right” was released and its upbeat, soul-pop rhythms made it a No 20 hit. It kind of sounds like Macy Gray doing a Des’ree impersonation – not an unpleasant sound but maybe not one to build a career of longevity on. And so it proved as a clutch of subsequent singles all failed to breach the Top 40 and Lena’s album bombed. She recorded a cover of Barry Manilow’s “Can’t Smile Without You” for the Four Weddings And A Funeral soundtrack and provided vocals for Wasis Diop’s “African Dream” single in 1996 but then the trail went cold.

To the main event now. Weighing in at a colossal 7 minutes and 15 seconds it’s the full fat video for Meatloaf’s “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)”. OK so firstly, just to clarify the timings, the album version of the song clocks in at a whopping 12:01 but the radio edit was more than halved to 5:13. The absolute full video version is actually 7:52 but I’m guessing they shaved a few seconds off here to allow Tony Dortie to do an outro. The video was directed by Michael Bay who would later direct Transformers and Pearl Harbour (not a great CV I would suggest) and cost $750,000. It’s based on the Beauty and the Beast story which is clearly obvious but there’s also a definite hint of Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula which had been out less than a year. The scene where ‘beauty’ is being ravished by two lesbian vampire types is an almost shot for shot steal of a scene from it.

The single itself was the biggest selling of 1993 in the UK selling 761,000 copies and spent a total of sixteen weeks in the Top 40 of which fourteen were in the Top 10 and seven were at No 1. As we’ve got another six weeks of this, I’ll leave it there for the moment.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Cappella	U Got 2 Let The Music	Never
2	INXS	The Gift	Nah
3	Lisa Stansfield	So Natural	No
4	Chris Rea	Julia	Nope
5	Jean-Michel Jarre	Chronologie 4	Hell no!
6	Lena Fiagbe	Gotta Get It Right	I did not
7	Meatloaf	I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)	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/m001drbj/top-of-the-pops-21101993

TOTP 22 OCT 1992

Posted on April 16, 2022 by 80stastic

Growing up as a young child in the 70s was mad looking back on it now. I’m not talking about the things that today’s youth would find incomprehensible – only three TV channels, no mobile phones nor internet, people actually using public telephone boxes to make phone calls rather than piss in…No I’m talking about all the mad things that passed as entertainment that I would witness on TV on a regular basis. For example, Johnny Morris providing voiceovers to give the impression of talking animals in Animal Magic. Or televised pub games like bar billiards, arm wrestling and shove ha’penny in The Indoor League as hosted by dour Yorkshire cricketer Fred Trueman. Or The Golden Shot, a game show that centred around a TV camera attached to a crossbow guided by a contestant that fired bolts at targets.

Then there were the madcap TV personalities that came into our living rooms to supposedly liven up our often dull and drab lives in that decade. Mainstream entertainers came in the form of people like Dick ‘Ooh you are awful but I like you’ Emery and impressionist Mike ‘And this is me’ Yarwood who had a large roll call of celebrities that he could imitate but seemed to have very little personality of his own.

One of those celebrities that Yarwood mimicked was eccentric TV science presenter Magnus Pyke who had died three days before this TOTP was broadcast. Pyke was one of a number of scientific folk who came to TV fame in the 70s with his peers being the likes of astronomer Patrick Moore, botanist David Bellamy and the Tomorrow’s World presenters (Michael Rodd was my favourite). The Sky At Night host Moore was infamous for his monocle, rapid speech style and xylophone playing and Bellamy for his enthusiasm and speech impediment but none of them to my knowledge had ever appeared on a bona fide chart hit like Magnus Pyke. That came courtesy of Thomas Dolby and his 1982 track “She Blinded Me With Science” which was not only a No 5 hit in the US but also provides a neat link back to the blog which is, after all, supposed to be about pop music. Pyke appeared on the record and in the video with his shouts of “Science!” and the rather creepy exclamation “Good heavens Miss Sakamoto, you’re beautiful!”. I wonder if any of tonight’s acts can boast links to scientists? I don’t think I’ll need to consult Nostradamus’s book of prophecies to know the answer to that one.

We start with those little scallywags The Farm and their rendition of The Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me”. I say scallywags but I’m not sure that’s entirely the right word to describe what has gone on here. The Cambridge Dictionary definition of scallywag is someone who has behaved badly but who is still liked. Well, the first part is applicable in that the band behaved very badly indeed in recording this appalling cover version of an 80s classic. Were they still liked afterwards though? They shouldn’t have been after this frightful crime against music. They only managed three further chart hits after this (two of which were remixes of “All Together Now”) and their final album “Hullabaloo” sank without trace so I think it’s fair to say they weren’t universally liked after “Don’t You Want Me”.

https://youtu.be/Zqx3u1-Uxmk

The Farm originally recorded the track for NME compilation album “Ruby Trax” which was to commemorate 40 years of the publication. The concept behind it was to get contemporary acts to record covers of classic No 1 singles of the past. I remember it coming out but don’t think I heard much of it other than this and the Manic Street Preachers version of “Theme From M.A.S.H.” which was released as a single and made No 7 on the charts. We didn’t get to see it on TOTP though. Looking at the track listing, there are some covers I wouldn’t mind hearing so I may have to investigate further but for now, how about this…?

It’s time for the nostalgia section again which was a new initiative by the TOTP producers to help celebrate the show’s forthcoming 1,500th episode. This week it’s the famous clip of Roxy Music performing “Virginia Plain” but what’s that Tony? It’s from 1978 you say? Erm…no, it was their debut single from 1972 actually but hey, you were only six years out. Wow! 50 years old this year then and it still sounds as fresh, daring and exciting as ever. Supposedly it influenced Squeeze’s “Up The Junction” as Chris Difford wanted to write a song whose title only featured in the lyrics for the first time at the very end of the track.

“Virginia Plain” peaked at No 4 on its initial release in 1972 and at No 11 when rereleased in 1977. Ah, so even if Tony Dortie was referring to the single’s second chart foray he still got the year wrong.

In recent months the show has reverted to referencing the Top 40 singles chart more heavily than when it first relaunched in October’91. Back then we just had the Top 10 countdown but after a few bits of tinkering we finally have what constitutes a full chart rundown again as Nos 40 through 11 are displayed on screen as Roxy Music played. Tony Dortie refers to it as the bottom half of the charts in his intro which isn’t strictly correct as that would be Nos 40 to 21. Not sure you could say No 11 for example was the bottom half of the charts in all honesty.

One of those ‘bottom half of the charts’ acts is Chris Rea who’s at No 16 with “Nothing To Fear”. Now I don’t remember this single at all though I do recall the album it was taken from as it was called “God’s Great Banana Skin” and had a picture of a…yes…banana skin on the front cover. This track was the lead single from it and what an odd choice it was. The full version of it is 9:10 in length! For a single! And that was the version made available to radio initially. Rea’s manager explained that they wanted to trail the album with the full length version so as to get over the gravitas of the album. An edit of the song was later released but even that was 6:45.

The song’s length really doesn’t aid the performance here. For the first 2:45 it’s just Chris noodling away on slide guitar. Finally a drumbeat enters the fray but it’s another 30 seconds before Chris sings a word. So that’s 3:15 in and the song is only just warming up! There then follows 1:20 of Chris delivering his vocal in full on monotone style and that’s it! What were the producers thinking! The structure of the song just didn’t fit with the fast moving TOTP format.

The sentiments of the song though were laudable highlighting that there is nothing to fear from people who differ from us in terms of nationality, religious faith or skin colour. Unfortunately most listeners had fallen asleep before they got to that message.

“Nothing To Fear” peaked at No 16.

https://youtu.be/Ht1veKdu4EI

From soporific to ABBA-tastic now as 1992 continues its mission to rekindle the flame of popularity of the Swedish Super Troupers. After Erasure topped the singles chart earlier in the year with their “Abba-esque EP”, prominent ABBA tribute act Bjorn Again responded with an answer record called “Erasure-ish” which I thought was quite clever at the time but I’m not so sure of the erudition of its quippery now. I think I feel the same about the their treatment of the two Erasure songs that they cover which are “A Little Respect” and “Stop”. We get the former in this performance and I recall not minding it at the time but it now sounds insipid next to the originals.

To be fair to Bjorn Again, they’ve got the ABBA traits and mannerisms down pat. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a tribute act though some of them have some great names. Check these out:

Jamirrorquai
Proxy Music
Amy Housewine
Phoney M
Earth Wind For Hire

“Erasure-ish” peaked at No 25.

https://youtu.be/stjb4ffZGKg

This next record is peak 1992 or rather whenever I hear it, I am immediately transported back to that year and what I was doing…which included selling a lot of this single to the punters in Rochdale where I was working in the Our Price store there.

We’d seen Arrested Development on TOTP earlier in the year in one of those satellite link up exclusives (possibly in a US charts feature) performing “Tennessee”. That single had failed to chart in the UK (although it did when rereleased the following year) but we couldn’t resist “People Everyday”. Based on Sly &The Family Stone’s 1969 hit “Everyday People”, it retains the positive vibe and message of hope for equality between differing races of the original whilst adding their brand of hip hop styling and rhymes. It was one of those feel good songs that got you out of bed on a cold late Autumn morning especially if you had to be on the 7.00am bus to Rochdale from Piccadilly Gardens like I did. My wife loved this one and also it’s follow up Mr Wendal so much she eventually bought the album though I don’t think it’s been played in years. She wasn’t the only one as the single glided effortlessly to No 2 in the UK Top 40. By the way, I can’t find a clip of this satellite performance from New York (they seem to have an aversion to the TOTP studio) so the official video will have to do instead.

Actually in the studio are Take That who, as host Tony Dortie says, are dominating the front covers of the teen press who cannot get enough of these lads who are grinning from ear to ear as they can’t believe their luck. By the time they ended the first era of the band in 1996, they’d racked up eight No 1 singles and three No 1 albums. However, in that period they actually released seven DVD/video titles of either promo videos or live concerts more than double the amount of studio albums they recorded. I think that’s quite a telling statistic in terms of their musical output. They have released five studio albums since reforming in 2006 in their defence though.

“A Million Love Songs” is their current hit back in October 1992 and there’s a strong “Careless Whisper” vibe about the performance here what with the sax player having quite the spotlight at some points. Meanwhile Gary Barlow has turned up looking like he’s just finished taking a spitfire for a spin at Benson airfield.

“A Million Love Songs” peaked at No 7.

https://youtu.be/0AAIOqS7XXA

We’re sticking with a now fairly established running order – six songs, four Breakers, another act (possibly an ‘exclusive’) then the Top 10 rundown and finally the No 1. Seems a reasonable format to me actually. Anyway, the first Breaker tonight is “Miserere” by Zucchero and Luciano Pavarotti. Although a massive superstar in his native Italy, Zucchero was mainly known in the UK for “Senza Una Donna (Without A Woman)”, his duet with Paul Young from the year before. I’d quite liked that but I wasn’t on board for another opera/pop hybrid. We’d only just had “Barcelona” by Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé back in the charts for a second time and I’d hated that on both occasions. This was actually the title track from Zucchero’s latest album which included collaborations with Elvis Costello, Bono and Paul Buchanan from The Blue Nile which sounds kind of interesting (apart from the Bono bit) but frankly I’m not committing to exploring it any time soon.

“Miserere” the single peaked at No 15.

We must be due a nasty dance tune by now and sure enough, here comes one right on time. Their last single was called “Don’t You Want Me” but unlike The Farm, it wasn’t a cover of The Human League classic. No, Felix were not interested in cover versions, they were recording their own material and on one of the most prolific hit-making labels around in Deconstruction, home to recent hits by K-Klass and Bassheads. “It Will Make Me Crazy” was their follow up and was more of the same to my ears.

The video was made by Lindy Heymann who is a prolific and diverse promo director. In 1992 alone she made this Felix video plus productions for Suede, The Auteurs and Hull (my home of the last 18 years) chart stars Kingmaker. She has gone in to work with everyone from The Proclaimers to the aforementioned Take That.

“It Will Make Me Crazy” peaked at No 11.

Oh great! Some more thrash metal! According to Wikipedia Megadeth are one of the ‘big four’ US thrash metal bands with the others being Metallica, Anthrax and Slayer. When I was growing up in the early to mid 80s, the UK charts were also dominated by a ‘big four’ – Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Culture Club and Wham! Frankly, I think we got the better deal.

“Skin o’ My Teeth” was taken from Megadeth’s album “Countdown To Extinction”. Do you think it was their “Sweet Child ‘o Mine” m’oment?

The final Breaker comes from Bon Jovi who we only saw the other week but who are a mover and shaker in the Top 40 as the highest new entry at No 5 with “Keep The Faith”. Seen as a triumph of remodelling their sound in the wake of grunge but of also retaining their ‘Jovi-ness’ for want of a better word, it was a decent comeback from a band that had made their name with hair metal hits and wearing spandex. Some of the album didn’t seem that different to their past output though – I don’t hear that much difference between say “In These Arms” and something off “Slippery When Wet” but I’m happy to be told exactly why I’m wrong by the Jovi fanbase.

The video seems designed to show off Jon’s newly shorn locks and not much else but then that was also an important part of the strategy to show how the band had adapted and moved on.

How did it ever come to this? A male dance troupe specialising in striptease on the UK’s premier music show that hosted some of the most iconic performances in pop history like David Bowie’s “Starman”, “Wuthering Heights” by Kate Bush and “Relax” by Frankie Goes To Hollywood. This was just wrong. Wrong and preposterous.

I can only assume The Chippendales were at the height of their popularity and that their management felt confident enough to release a single under their name. “Give Me Your Body” was that single and there really isn’t any point in trying to critique it as a piece of music because it isn’t one. It’s just background noise to the preening and flexing of some over sculpted, baby oiled up posers who get off on being screamed at by an hysterical mob.

https://youtu.be/BPq2sKRK6EE

Hang on though, aren’t there some direct parallels to be made between this and the video for an early single by a band who were on earlier in the show and who were then being fawned over as the next big teen sensation? I refer, of course, to this…

At least The Chippendales didn’t resort to the use of jelly. “Give Me Your Body” peaked at No 28.

Tasmin Archer is No 1 for the second of two weeks with “Sleeping Satellite” and finally we have a song on the show that has some sort of scientific theme to it which, if you remember, was how this blog post started.

The titular ‘sleeping satellite’ was in fact the moon with the song chronicling humanity’s obsession with space exploration in the 60s and the idea of the human race populating a different planet. Or rather how that dream seemed to die after the space race had effectively been won. Here’s Tasmin herself courtesy of @TOTPFacts:

Tasmin Archer explains "Sleeping Satellite": "The line, 'I blame you for the moonlit sky/And the dream that died' [is about] the lack of further space exploration that might have led to a better understanding of ecological issues." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) April 15, 2022

Five years after Tasmin’s stellar success, her name was resurrected into the mainstream as part of The Badger Parade on Channel 4’s The Harry Hill Show:

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Farm	Don’t You Want me	No I didn’t want you
2	Roxy Music	Virginia Plain	Not the original in 1972 as I was four but I bought their Street Life Best Of 14 years later with it on
3	Chris Rea	Nothing To Fear	Nah
4	Bjorn Again	Erasure-ish	Nope
5	Arrested Development	People Everyday	No but my wife had the album
6	Take That	A Million Love Songs	No
7	Zucchero and Luciano Pavarotti	Miserere	Never happening
8	Felix	It Will Make Me Crazy	And no
9	Megadeth	Skin o’ My Teeth	I’d rather pull my own teeth out
10	Bon Jovi	Keep The Faith	Not the single but I had a promo copy of the album
11	The Chippendales	Give Me Your Body	For the love of God no!
12	Tasmin Archer	Sleeping Satellite	Good song but 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/m0016cdg/top-of-the-pops-22101992

TOTP 07 NOV 1991

Posted on November 15, 2021 by 80stastic

After last week’s Halloween themed show, the TOTP producers have passed on celebrating Bonfire night as well (it was two days before this programme aired to be fair) but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any fireworks on offer. Not literally of course (Health & Safety and all that) but metaphorically beginning with a performance kicking off the show that must be up there as one of the weirdest in TOTP history. The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu (aka The KLF aka The Timelords aka Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty) are ripping up the rule book here (year zero revamp or not). The performance is certainly inextricably linked to the nature of the track “It’s Grim Up North” it’s true. A Scotsman reading out a list of towns and cities in the North of England against a backdrop of a pulsating industrial techno beat was hardly your standard Top 40 material so you could argue that inevitably any promotional appearance to support it would end up being unconventional at the very least. I think Drummond and Cauty delivered in spades though with a pragmatic reading of the lyrics juxtaposed with that most bizarre yet intrinsically English of art forms Morris dancing. What f****d up psyche devised this?

After giving the new format down the banks almost relentlessly these past few weeks, credit where it’s due – this was challenging in both a sensory and aesthetic manner. I can’t imagine the old guard of the likes of Steve Wright introducing this. Actually, who is that doing the disembodied voice over? It turns out that it’s one Elayne Smith. Who? Well, like Mark Franklin before her with his BBC local radio background, Elayne was plucked from the relative obscurity of pirate radio where she presented the breakfast show on the station London Weekend Radio. The internet suggests that she only made one more TOTP appearance after this debut. She doesn’t seem to get a fair crack of the whip from the start. It takes three performances and 10 mins 30 seconds before we actually see Elayne on screen and she gets a name check.

Back to The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu though and that performance. The Morris dancing – what point were they trying to make here? In my own, ill informed mind, I think of Morris dancing as a very Southern thing so my initial analysis was that it was a juxtaposition of North vs South imagery but that’s actually incorrect. The North West of England has a long history of Morris Dancing so it can’t be that. Was it a nod to the May Day celebration in legendary folk horror film The Wicker Man? That was set on a remote Hebridean island called Summerisle and Drummond and Cauty did infamously burn £1 million on the Scottish island of Jura in 1994 (or did they?) Anyway, as a jarring spectacle it’s up there with the likes of Pete Wylie and those nuns in 1986 for his performance of “Sinful”. Talking of whom, “It’s Grim Up North” was originally released as a limited edition “Club Mix” in December 1990 with Wylie on vocals and it was planned to be a prominent track on the JAM’s album “The Black Room” (a parallel follow up to The KLF’s “The White Room”) but the album was never completed.

Nevertheless, this 1991 version was put out into the market place due to The KLF’s huge success (as Elayne said in her intro, nobody had sold more singles than them in 1991). As for the towns and cities that are referenced in its lyrics, it’s very North West based (there’s no mention of Newcastle, Sunderland, Middlesbrough etc) and Cumbria is only represented by Barrow-in-Furness. The city where I live Hull creeps in but the rest of North Yorkshire is poorly represented. In fact, the cities and towns read out by Drummond reads like a list of Our Price stores in the North West area (I worked in a couple of them) mentioning as it does places like Accrington, Bolton, Burnley, Nelson and Rochdale. If Drummond wanted to have really courted controversy he should have included my mate Robin’s Cumbrian hometown…Cockermouth. When we were at Poly together, Robin was asked by a lecturer during a linguistic seminar to tell him where he was from for an example of a word he could break down into its component parts. Cockermouth came Robin’s reply prompting the lecturer to write this on his board…

Cock – er – mouth

Hilarity ensued.

Anyway, “It’s Grim Up North” finishes with a fully orchestrated arrangement of William Blake’s Jerusalem which was set to music by Sir Hubert Parry in 1916. I’m guessing this was to make use of the famous ‘dark Satanic Mills’ line and it connection to the Industrial Revolution? Somehow it works when it really shouldn’t. “It’s Grim Up North” peaked at No 10 and The KLF would tie up 1991 with the release of their collaboration with Tammy Wynette on “Justified & Ancient” which prompted many a customer to come into the Our Price I was working in to ask for that song about ‘an ice cream van’.

Now, new producer Stanley Appel’s live vocal policy has been the undoing of many a turn on the revamped show so far but here we have an example of how it can actually give the TV audience a better viewing experience – the ad lib. Second act on tonight are Crowded House for whom a live vocal was as natural as breathing and Neil Finn does a great job here but he was also able to indulge in a slight bit of off script free styling when he announces into the microphone ahead of beginning to sing latest single “Fall At Your Feet”, “It’s grim down South”. Not the funniest ad lib ever but at least it gave expression to some of the character behind the performer.

At this point, Crowded House were a one hit wonder in the UK having announced themselves in 1987 with “Don’t Dream It’s Over” (coincidentally also in the charts at this time courtesy of Paul Young’s cover version) before failing to chart with any of their subsequent (and rather excellent) single releases. Even this track from third album “Woodface” had been preceded by a flop in lead single “Chocolate Cake” (chart peak No 69) but finally the UK saw sense and bought “Fall At Your Feet” in enough quantities to send it to No 17. “Woodface” would prove to be their commercial breakthrough peaking at No 6 in the UK album chart and providing a further three Top 40 hits including Top Tenner “Weather With You”. That song would prove to be their biggest ever hit over here and helped the album to a slew of sales in 1992. I always saw that period of the band as portraying them as that year’s REM who had broken through in a big way commercially themselves in ’91 with their “Out Of Time” album.

Just to clarify co-presenter Mark Franklin’s announcement that they were an Australian band – I had to check as I wasn’t sure that was strictly true. Weren’t they from New Zealand? Both myself and Franklin were right (and wrong). The band formed in Melbourne, Australia in 1985 but Neil Finn is actually a Kiwi and was of course in New Zealand art rockers Split Enz before Crowded House. Plus at this point, Neil’s brother Tim was also in the band making it an equal Antipodean split (drummer Paul Hester and bass player Nick Seymour were Aussies).

I saw Crowded House play live at The Manchester Academy around this time and it still ranks as one of my favourite gigs ever. They’d done a PA at the HMV megastore earlier in the day when I’d got my copy of “Woodface” signed by the band and then caught them live in the evening where Nick Seymour did his infamous chocolate cake party piece. I saw them later on at the much bigger Manchester Apollo but it wasn’t as good a gig as that more intimate one in the Academy.

Like Brothers In Rhythm who were on the show a few weeks earlier, I’d kind of forgotten that the next act were actual chart stars in their own right rather than the ace face of remixers that they came to be known for in the 90s. K-Klass would go onto work with acts as major as Bobby Brown, Janet Jackson & Luther Vandross, New Order, Rihanna, Whitney Houston…the list goes on. Moreover, their remix of “Baby Come On Over” by Samantha Mumba was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2002 in the Best Remix category. And yet they started off in 1991 as another of those dance acts on the seemingly endless conveyor belt of artists who stuck rigidly to the template of anonymous blokes stood in the background fiddling around on decks of keyboards whilst a female singer belted out some sub-soul vocals front of stage. It wasn’t my bag at all but I didn’t actually mind “Rhythm Is A Mystery”. I think it was that rolling Italian House piano riff that made it tolerable.

So who were K-Klass? Well, the singer was the exotically named Bobbi Depasois and the other four blokes were …well…were literally just some blokes with regular jobs that happened to have a hit record. Russell Morgan (I went to school with a kid called Russell Morgan but it’s not him!) was a postman, Paul Roberts worked for BT, Andy Williams was a lab technician and Carl Thomas delivered fish in a fish van. Basically K-Klass were the musical equivalent of a non-league football team that have somehow got to the 3rd round of the FA Cup and drawn Man Utd generating newspaper articles about how the players are all part -time and the their ‘real’ jobs are being a plumber, electrician etc. “Rhythm Is A Mystery” peaked at No 3 after only making it to No 61 on its initial release just six months earlier.

In the ‘exclusive’ slot this week is Belinda Carlisle who, having been in the studio for the very first show in the ‘year zero’ revamp era just a month prior with her “Live Your Life Be Free” single, is back with follow up “Do You Feel Like I Feel”. This was almost an exact duplicate of its predecessor only not as good. The Our Price where I was working at the time were sent a sampler cassette for the album to plug ahead of the official release and I think (cringe!) that I may have signed that promo out for myself. It had four tracks on it including this one plus a track called “I Plead Insanity” which should have been a single but never was. “Do You Feel Like I Feel” would prove to be Belinda’s last ever US Billboard Hot 100 hit though she would keep going strong in the UK for a fair few years after that.

Oh and that first ‘year zero’ performance for “Live Your Life Be Free” which had Mark Franklin pointlessly ‘interviewing’ Belinda afterwards for about 30 seconds? Here’s Mark himself on that:

Can I please add to this. During my first show, Live Your Life Be Free. I was quite ill with food positioning. Belinda thought she had food poisoning too. By the time we met again for this episode, turns out I was ill but she was actually pregnant with @JamesDukeMason
— Mark Franklin (@MarkFranklin123) November 5, 2021

No wonder he kept the chat so short – he had to nip off camera to find the crapper pronto!

It’s that INXS video for “Shining Star” next. This was a Breaker last week and I didn’t have much to say about it then so quite what I’m expected to say about it this time I’m not sure. Well, what actually happens in the video? It’s a basic band performance set in a private club venue alongside a sub plot of some grotesque male characters being disposed of or humiliated by their female consorts. So we get a guy leaving down a chute after a lever is pulled, another fella being sent skywards on a see-saw plank and a geezer being sprayed with a bottle of bubbly as if it were a fire extinguisher. It’s all pretty daft and uninspired fare. It was directed by music video go to guy David Mallet who is responsible for some of the most iconic music promos of the 80s including David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” and “China Girl”, “I Don’t Like Mondays” by The Boomtown Rats and “Radio Ga Ga” and “I Want To Break Free” by Queen. Not sure what happened here though as he really phoned it in. “Shining Star” peaked at No 27.

Not fair! They’ve only gone and done it to me again! Two on the trot! I could hardly muster 50 words about this lot when they were a Breaker last week and now here they are in the studio. What can I say about Control and “Dance With Me (I’m Your Ecstasy)”? I’ve pretty much got nishters. OK, I guess I have to try so yet again we have a dance act conforming to the tried and tested model of having some faceless blokes on assorted keyboards etc at the back of the stage fronted by a female singer (just like K-Klass earlier in the show) but… that poor woman doing the vocals! She looks and sounds like she just happened to be wandering past the TOTP studio on her way home on a cold November evening and was asked by the producers to literally come in off the street and perform this track. The singing is definitely ropey and why has she got a Winter coat on?! Supposedly, the original 12″ release of this had the lyrics “dance with me I’m on ecstasy” which was changed to “dance with me I’m your ecstasy” for the full release. Ah, the gnarly old head of potential media outrage is raised once more

“Dance With Me (I’m Your Ecstasy)” peaked at No 17 and was Control’s one and only Top 40 hit. That enough for you? Yeah, I think that’ll more than do.

Right, there’s a grand total of four Breakers tonight but none them would ever be played in full on the show. We start with Metallica and ‘The Unforgiven”. The follow up to their seminal single “Enter Sandman”, yet again this isn’t one that sparks any synapses of recognition in my brain but, having listened to it properly, it’s actually quite interesting. Having decided that they wanted to mess around with traditional song structures to see what happened, James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett and Lars Ulrich hit upon the idea of reversing the template of a standard verse leading into a huge, bellowing chorus and instead had strident verses and a softer sounding chorus. It doesn’t sound like it should work but it kind of does. So pleased with themselves were they that the band would record not one but two sequels in the form of “The Unforgiven II” from the album “Reload” and “The Unforgiven III” from the album “Death Magnetic” – heavy metal recycling; it might catch on. “The Unforgiven” peaked at No 15.

There’s more than one Chris Rea Christmas song?! There’s three actually but this one, “Winter Song”, doesn’t specifically make mention of the ‘c’ word in its title nor its lyrics. Even so, it was no doubt released at this time of year in the hope of being a hit at Christmas. Chris (or possibly his record label) had quite the cynical streak – his last single, released in June, had been called “Looking For The Summer”. Hmm.

“Winter Song” doesn’t sound a million miles way from the ubiquitous festive favourite “Driving Home For Christmas” especially the original 1986 version which is a bit more sombre than the sprightly re-recording that gets plated every Yuleltide. The lyrics seem to be about keeping his lover warm from the cold of Winter (he should have borrowed that woman from Control’s overcoat!) but then missed a Christmas trick with the video which seems to be based around rivalries between the various factions of Rea’s tour crew. So not Christmassy at all.

“Winter Song” made a respectable No 27 in a crammed Christmas singles market. Oh, that third Chris Rea festive song? He released something called “Joys of Christmas” in 1987 (“Driving Home For Christmas” was on the B-side). No, I’ve never heard of it before either.

Ooh – bit of a moment here. Is this the very first time that Manic Street Preachers appeared on TOTP? Although double A -side “Love’s Sweet Exile/Repeat” was already the band’s third single release of 1991, I must admit that I wasn’t really aware of these Welsh rockers until the following year when I couldn’t ignore “You Love Us” and “Motorcycle Emptiness”. I’ll rephrase that. I was aware of the name Manic Street Preachers at this time not least because of the Steve Lamacq / Richey Edwards incident in May when Edwards carved the words ‘4 REAL’ into his forearm with a razor blade when asked by the NME journalist how serious he was about the band, their music and ideals. However, I’m not really sure that I knew what they actually sounded like. Somehow I must have missed “Stay Beautiful” and this single despite the fact that they both made the Top 40 (their earlier non Columbia singles that were either self released or on indie label Heavenly hadn’t charted).

The band’s iconic debut album “Generation Terrorists” was released in early ’92 and would spawn six singles and achieve gold status for 100,000 sales. Its length (73 minutes and 18 tracks long) led to accusations of a lack of quality control and the band maybe regretted in retrospect their decision to make outlandish claims that it would sell 16 million copies and that they would split up after its release. However, its reputation remains intact nearly 30 years later and is celebrated and cherished by fans.

Oh and that video with Nicky Wire, Richey Edwards and James Dean Bradfield all supposedly naked and quite happy to be in close proximity to each other was probably deemed a bit too controversial for a before the watershed screening by the BBC hence it only belong on screen for less than 30 seconds. “Love’s Sweet Exile/Repeat” peaked at No 26.

We finish with yet another single that I managed to let pass me by despite my working five days a week in a record shop at the time. “Me. In Time” was a non album single for The Charlatans released between their debut LP “Some Friendly” (’90) and follow up “Between 10th And 11th” (’92) and was the third not to feature on an album in a row after “Over Rising” and a re-release of early single “Indian Rope”. Presumably this was a deliberate strategy on behalf of record label Situation Two to ensure their boys didn’t disappear from view and people’s minds as the Madchester phenomenon waned as 1991 came to an end.

Now I’ve listened to it properly 30 years after the event, I conclude that it’s not bad at all if a little lightweight. It seems to be a genuinely forgotten single of theirs as well with it not being on any of the band’s Best Of albums (as far as I can tell) and the only version on Spotify is from a live gig and not the studio single release. Also, what was with the errant punctuation in the song’s title? Weird(o).

And talking of weird….what the Hell was happening here?! Neil Sedaka on TOTP?! In 1991?! Look, I know he is a legendary singer, pianist, composer and record producer (I’m pretty sure my parents had one of his albums when I was growing up) but really?! He’s been squeezed in to the show courtesy of the album chart feature as he had a Greatest Hits album to promote called “Timeless – The Very Best Of Neil Sedaka”. Not sure why the world needed one as there must have been pushing about 20 Best Of / Greatest Hits / Collection Neil Sedaka albums by this point (and there have been many more since – check out his discography) but I do remember this one coming out. It was on the PolyGram TV label and therefore received its own TV ad campaign to promote it. Presumably the marketing team at Polygram TV had negotiated a spot for Neil on TOTP because how else do you explain Sedaka’s appearance here? It’s as confounding as a sudoko puzzle. Some of the acts on tonight only emphasise how incongruous he seemed – sadly Manic Street Preachers and Metallica were only on video but I would like to imagine that Sedaka met up with Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty in the BBC bar afterwards and spent a while shooting the breeze over a few beers. Maybe not.

However, I do know of one person who caught up with Sedaka in a bar once. It was at the Midland Hotel (I think) in Manchester city centre. Neil was staying there as he was playing a show (Sedaka ‘plays shows’ rather than ‘does gigs’ don’t you think?) and my Our Price manager Pete (the original bass player with the Stone Roses) happened to be in there having a few drinks on a night out. On spying the great man himself, Pete (emboldened by a few ales) lumbered over to Sedka and expressed his gratitude to him for writing “Solitaire” as if he hadn’t, Karen Carpenter would never have sang it and Pete would never have heard it. Apparently, Sedaka’s reaction to his approach suggested that Pete had scared the bejeezus out of him.

Anyway, back to his TOTP performance and did Elayne Smith really describe Neil as being ‘back in full effect’? Or was she referring to The Charlatans? He gives us “Miracle Song” which was actually released as a single despite being promoted here as an album track. It sank without trace. Surely he would have been better suited to a spot on Wogan or Des O’Connor than TOTP? For all I’ve derided him a bit here, I don’t mind a bit of Sedaka and he has written some great songs – just ask my old boss Pete.

After 16 weeks of the same song at No 1, we now have two different chart toppers in consecutive weeks. With U2 only lasting seven days in pole position, they give way to Vic Reeves and The Wonder Stuff with “Dizzy”. They’re not in the studio though (shame – I would love to have known what Neil Sedaka made of Vic and Bob) so it’s the promo video which is basically a carbon copy of what they did when they were in the studio last time (including Bob sliding through Vic’s legs at one point). Apparently this single was a huge favourite down at nightclubs on a student night. I can imagine. Had I been born just a couple of years later I’m sure I would have been throwing myself around the dance floor at Rascals, my club of choice in Sunderland where I was a student in the 80s. I was once stood near to Vic Reeves in a queue for the Eurostar at Paris Gare du Nord. He was with his wife Nancy Sorrell. That’s as interesting as the story gets I’m afraid.

As a follow up to ‘Dizzy’, Vic released a dance version of the hymn “Abide With Me” which is traditionally sung at the FA Cup Final before kick-off. It’s was a bizarre way to follow up a No 1 record and it duly flopped when it peaked at No 47. Maybe that was what Vic wanted all along – maybe it was some sort of satirical comment on pop music and manipulating the charts. He should have joined in with that fictional chat between Bill Drummond, Jimmy Cauty and Neil Sedaka as the former two knew a thing about how to send up the music industry.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu	It’s Grim Up North	It’s not actually and I didn’t
2	Crowded House	Fall At Your Feet	Not the single but I had the album (signed by the band!)
3	K-Klass	Rhythm Is A Mystery	I did not
4	Belinda Carlisle	Do You Feel Like I Feel	No but I had that promo album sampler thing with it on – for shame!
5	INXS	Shining Star	Not the single but I have it on a Best Of CD of theirs
6	Control	Dance With Me (I’m Your Ecstasy)	No
7	Metallica	The Unforgiven	Nope
8	Chris Rea	Winter Song	No thanks
9	Manic Street Preachers	Love’s Sweet Exile/Repeat	I’m ashamed to say I didn’t but I do own a couple of their albums and have seen them live twice
10	The Charlatans	Me. In Time	Negative
11	Neil Sedaka	Miracle Song	Of course not
12	Vic Reeves and The Wonder Stuff	Dizzy	I didn’t

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/m00116fn/top-of-the-pops-07111991

TOTP 21 FEB 1991

Posted on June 21, 2021 by 80stastic

As I write this, the England national football team have just turned in a turgid performance in the Euros against bitter rivals Scotland deflating pre -tournament talk of them finally ending the now 55 years of hurt since winning the World Cup in 1966 (and all that). It really was poor stuff from Gareth’s men and he will find the media turning on him very quickly if they don’t improve. Here’s a thought, if they don’t qualify and Gareth gets the blame, will the press have a ‘Southgate-gate’ on their hands? As for Scotland, they now have a chance of getting out for the group stages but will need to do something they haven’t done yet which is score a goal. They could do with Kenny Dalglish in his pomp in their side. Ah yes, King Kenny, Back in 1991, he shocked the football world by resigning as Liverpool manager the day after this TOTP was aired pretty much handing the title to Arsenal in the process. A tenuous link I know but while we’re here, let’s review the VAR and decide whether the charts of 30 years ago were any good or not.

Now, before we start, I should say that I was never a TOTP studio audience member but my mate Robin advised me this week that he was in attendance at this particular show – he worked for the BBC at the time – and described the whole experience as ‘f*****g tragic’. Him and a mate had gone along expecting to see Morrissey having read in the music press that he was due to appear and indeed Mozza was a new entry at No 26 that week so their hopes were high. However, having asked a cameraman which stage he would be on so that they could position themselves in anticipation, they received the reply “that miserable git isn’t on” and realised that they had made a terrible mistake and could not escape.

We’ve come to TOTP by mistake

They decided that their best plan of action, as the rest of the mainly teenage audience was herded around like cattle, was to hide from the cameras and stay well away from host Mark Goodier and his banana coloured flight jacket. Robin described the whole experience as ‘like being trapped in Willy Wonka’s factory clapping umpa lumpa everywhere’. Excellent!

So with no Mozza on the running order, who did Robin and his mate get to see instead. Well, we start with Chris Rea – or as Robin described him Chris diarRhea which is a beautiful put down which works on at least two levels possibly more. The man from Middlesbrough was on a roll at this point after 1989’s six times platinum selling album “Road To Hell” and he followed it up with another No 1 album in “Auberge”. The title track was released as the lead single and is pretty standard Rea fare finding a comfortable place to reside somewhere between the upbeat “Let’s Dance” and the more sombre “Road To Hell”. Chris himself never looked comfortable when on appearing on TOTP though. He looks as convincing a pop star as Gavin Williamson does as Secretary of State for Education. The cameraman (possibly the Mozza dissing one) doesn’t seem to know what to do with him and decides to focus on the rather unusual sight of a tuba being played on TOTP just when Chris starts some slide guitar action making it look like the sound is actually coming from the tuba. A case of umpa lumpa stick it up your tuba maybe?

“Auberge” the single peaked at No 16.

From Kenny Dalglish to another Kenny. In a recent post, I admitted to my totally irrational dislike at the time of the next artist and apologised to him. My aversion to Kenny Thomas though was nothing compared to Robin’s who described him as simply “Kenny F*****g Thomas”. Well, he was no Morrissey I suppose and with 30 years of hindsight, thank God he wasn’t. The world really doesn’t need two of him right now. As for Mr Thomas, despite having been a pop star for about two weeks at the time, he looks far more suited to the job than the more experienced show opener Chris Rea. Just give him a microphone, a backing singer, some bloke to play the bongos and a groove and let him at it. Actually, far from being ‘some bloke’, isn’t that M People’s Shovell on bongos duties? I think it is – the hair was making me doubt myself though.

“Outstanding” was actually a cover of an old single by The Gap Band and having checked, it seems that three of the four singles taken from Kenny’s debut album “Voices” were cover versions with “Best Of Me” being a Booker T. Jones song whilst “Tender Love” was the old Force MDs hit from 1986. It’s not occurred to me before but, given the above, Kenny Thomas was almost a 90s version of Paul Young in terms of being a soul singer who made it big with covers of fairly unknown songs from the past. I say a 90s version but Paul himself was still churning out cover versions into the new decade and indeed we’ll see him back in the charts in this year soon with another song that he didn’t write – albeit he does perform “Senza una donna (Without a Woman)” with its writer Zucchero.

I’ve no idea what Robin made of the next hit but I certainly don’t remember it. “Think About” by DJH featuring Stefy? I’ve got nothing. Let’s have a listen then…

…oh God it’s just some wanky Italian House track based very loosely around a sample from Aretha Franklin’s “Think”. Apart from gyrating around in not many clothes, Stefy’s input is limited at best with even the rap bits done by one of the two blokes on keyboards in the background. I mean, two bloke on keyboards to the rear of the stage was standard practice for Italian House outfits but they usually remained anonymous throughout, leaving the female singer to front the song. The woman from Black Box became a star on the back of miming vocals that weren’t hers – I think Stefy missed a trick here.

Watching this performance back, Robin must have wondered what sort of place he’d got himself into when Stefy appeared in that outfit.

“Think About” peaked at No 22.

The first video of the night is from Thunder who were onto their fifth consecutive Top 40 hit by this point. Like the previous four, “Love Walked In” was taken from their debut album “Backstreet Symphony” which proved to be reasonably enduring spending a combined total of 16 weeks on the album chart over five different periods between March 1990 and March 1991. Presumably every time a single was released from it, the album experienced another spike in sales. However, it never got any higher than its No 21 peak on its first week of release. The band’s singles chart stats followed a similar trend. Five hit singles but some pretty unremarkable peaks (see below):

32 – 25 – 36 – 34 – 21

Despite being the final single to be taken from “Backstreet Symphony”, “Love Walked In” was also the most successful which was a bit weird. Maybe it was something to do with being more of a ballad than all the other singles which were all fast paced rockers. I didn’t mind their sound – I had a soft spot for a bit of soft rock – but it was very similar to lots of other UK rock acts that were experiencing commercial success at the time. like The Quireboys and Little Angels. They would return with sophomore album “Laughing On Judgement Day” in 1992 that would be the apex of their success when it peaked at No 2.

Oh and when host Mark Goodier said they were a terrific live band? Guess how many live albums are listed in their discography? 32!

The Breakers are back this week and we start with a man who we hadn’t seen in the Top 40 in nigh on two and a half years. Julian Cope‘s solo career was…well….more interesting than commercially successful I think it’s fair to say. Apart from “Word Shut Your Mouth” back in 1986, all his other singles failed to make the Top 20. I’d always been intrigued by him though – his 1984 single “The Greatness And Perfection Of Love” remains one of the greatest non hit songs of the whole decade.

1991 saw him release *”Peggy Suicide” which was already his seventh solo album. Despite its heavy lyrical subject matter (the poll tax riots and anti police sentiments, organised religion, women’s rights, the occult, paganism, animal rights, and ecology), lead single “Beautiful Love” was a lovely, lilting piece of pop perfection. It really should have been a bigger hit than the No 32 peak it achieved. Subsequent singles released from the album failed to dent the Top 40 (including the brilliant “East Easy Rider” in which Julian does a passable Jim Morrison vocal) but undeterred, the following year would see two albums released under his name -studio album “Jehovahkill” and compilation album “Floored Genius: The Best Of Julian Cope And The Teardrop Explodes 1979–91” the latter of which I duly bought.

Cope has continued along his personal life journey of a rejection of the mainstream to pursue his interests in occultism and paganism. He is also a published author on the subject of British megalithic sites with specific reference to stone circles. His antiquarian researcher credentials stretched to him giving two talks at the British Museum about the norse divinity Odin although he did then rather undermine said credentials by wearing five-inch platform shoes and setting off the fire alarms with his hairspray forcing an evacuation of the building. A few years back, I read both volumes of his autobiography Head-On/Repossessed – it was a fascinating read about a true maverick and eccentric character.

* It took me ages to realise the title was a pun on Buddy Holly’s “Peggy Sue”. Doh!

Now, if like me, you remember Stevie B as a one hit wonder (if you remember him at all that is), then we are both wrong. Yes, he technically he only had the one hit in this country but he had this whole other career in his native US. Apparently he was a prime move in the ‘freestyle’ movement. This was a form of electro funk which (according to Wikipedia) was characterised by ‘a Latin American-based rhythm with a heavy syncopated drum sound’. Supposedly the first ever ‘freestyle’ hit was “Let The Music Play” by Shannon but I always thought that was a Hi-NRG track. Look, I’m not going to get bogged down in musical sub genres which I know little about – suffice to say Stevie B was a big deal and had already racked up a string of US dance chart hits before he crossed over into the mainstream with “Because I Love You (The Postman Song)” which was an American Billboard Hot 100 chart topper. This was nothing like “Let The Music Play” though. No, this was a big soul ballad. What was the deal? Well, apparently this was the route a lot of the ‘freestyle’ acts took around this time to achieve crossover success with the likes of Exposé and Sweet Sensation doing there same. I had no idea about any of this at the time of course. It was just a soppy love song with a daft title to me.

“Because I Love You (The Postman Song)” didn’t quite replicate its US success in the UK but it did go Top 10 spending three consecutive weeks at No 6 which was quite apt seeing as it was the Devil’s work.

If you think of the Rocky franchise, what springs to mind musically? “Eye Of The Tiger”? Yes, definitely. “Gonna Fly Now” (otherwise known as “Theme from Rocky”) when he’s running up those steps? Absolutely. “Burning Heart” from Rocky IV? Well, yeah maybe, just about. How about “Go For It (Heart and Fire)” by Joey B. Ellis AKA MC Breeze and Tynetta Hare? Pretty sure that’s a jackpot winning answer on Pointless.

This was actually from Rocky V, a film I’m not sure I even knew existed until I saw it in a hotel room in New York in 1994. For me, it’s easily the worst film of the whole franchise with a ludicrous plot peppered with holes and no actual boxing match featuring Rocky. Instead we get a crazy street fight. Originally planned to be the last of the Rocky films, it was a poor way to bow out. Thankfully, the much superior Rocky Balboa came out 16 years later to right this wrong. In keeping with Rocky V‘s lack of quality, its soundtrack was also a poor effort. For a start Bill Conti hardly features on it at all and it is subject to the dominant market forces of the music world of the time. For example, MC Hammer has two tracks on it, Snap! are on there and then there was “Go For It (Heart and Fire)”. This was a cynically calculated rap number that recycles the “Eye Of The Tiger” riff and adds a hackneyed ‘Go For It’ chorus over the top of it. It sounds like a C + C Music Factory cast off. Somehow it got to No 20 in our charts. And I thought that the Bond themes had gone off the boil once the 80s ended!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x36_GZgoAIc

Right, that’s the Breakers done with. What’s next then? “Move Your Body (Elevation)” by Xpansions? Doesn’t ring any bells yet. Let’s have listen to it…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFCLugWcZ_c

…oh yeah. I remember this. It was bloody awful. I’m pretty sure that this lot did nothing to improve the mood of my mate Robin. This was less a dance hit and more a work out routine. Who did the singer think she was? Mad Lizzie? It turns out she was actually called Sally Anne Marsh and had been in a girl group called Faith Hope & Charity with The Word presenter Dani Behr. She went on to work with Mike Stock from SAW and released a dance version of “Windmills Of Your Mind”. What that song from The Thomas Crown Affair by Noel Williams? Oh I quite like that but a dance version you say? I have to listen to this…

…oh what did I expect?! Seriously though. Why do I do shit like this to myself?! A total abomination.

“Move Your Body (Elevation)” peaked at No 7 whilst a new mix of it took it back into the charts in 1995 when it peaked at No 14.

Did somebody say MC Hammer before? Well, here is the main man back with a new single called “Here Comes The Hammer”. This was his fourth consecutive hit single (all taken from his “Please Hammer, Don’t Hurt ‘Em” album) and would peak at No 15 in the UK. Curiously, although it was released in the US and despite a trio of Top 10 hits over there prior to it, this stalled at No 54. Nevertheless, in spite of its poor chart placing, It was nominated for a 1991 Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance at the 34th Annual Grammy Awards. Spooky.

Talking of spooky things, the video for it was based a round a storyboard of Hammer and his dancers getting chased through a haunted house (a Hammer House of Horror if you will). It cost more than $1 million to produce and was one of the most expensive music videos ever made at the time. It was almost 15 minutes in length (MTV had a shortened 9 minute version) and was panned by the critics. It does sound like Hammer’s ego was maybe out of control at this point. “I want a horror video like “Thriller” and it has to be a long one. None of that 3 minute crap” you can imagine him saying.

Someone else who wasn’t impressed with “Here Comes The Hammer” was one Kevin Abdullah who sued Hammer claiming he had stolen the hooks from his own song “Oh Oh, You Got the Shing” for it. His story was that he had sent Hammer a demo tape of it which Hammer rejected. Hammer settled the lawsuit for $250,000. Hmm.

MC Hammer would release another single from “Please Hammer, Don’t Hurt ‘Em”, a remix single, a new album (plus two singles from it) before 1991 was done. “Here Comes The Hammer” indeed.

That nice song by Oleta Adams is next but Robin wouldn’t have got to see her perform “Get Here” as this is just a reshowing of her studio performance from a couple of weeks ago. He was probably relieved – I don’t think this was his bag at all. As with MC Hammer before her, Oleta’s version of “Get Here” (it was originally written and recorded by Brenda Russell) was nominated for a Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.

The song has been covered by loads of different artists apart from Oleta down the years including Will Downing, Sam Smith, Johnny Logan (ahem) and gloriously fictional singer Michelle Coffee from Phoenix Nights. Also there was a danced up version by Q featuring Tracy Ackerman in 1993. Right, remember what happened last time with Sally Anne Marsh. You don’t have to play it, you don’t have to play it…oh shit…

Ooh that was a bad one! Tracy Akerman’s Wikipedia page tells me that she is also a songwriter as well as a singer and has penned tracks for the likes of Cher, Tina Turner, Kylie, B*Witched, Darius of Popstars / Pop Idol fame…erm…Sonia….S Club Juniors…I’ll stop now.

To counteract Tracy’s nasty dance cover, here’s The Beautiful South’s song called ‘Get Here” which isn’t a cover but does make reference to Oleta’s song in lyrics like these:

You can get here by crossing sea or desert
I can barely make Blackpool Sands
Railroad, caravan, save it for the mad man
Lets see if love just stands

Excellent!

The Simpsons are still at No 1 with “Do The Bartman”. “You can see why it’s No 1” says Mark Goodier at the song’s end. Can we Goodier, can we?! Like Matt Hancock’s evidence to the Select Committees on the government’s response to the pandemic, I don’t think that remark stands up to any sort of scrutiny.

The play out video is “Love Rears Its Ugly Head” by Living Colour. I didn’t know anything much about this band at this time but I recall there being a lot of talk about how they had fused lots of different musical genres together to come up with their sound. They were broadly categorised as ‘funk metal’ alongside Red Hot Chili Peppers and Dan Reed Network and were expected to go onto massive things but although their album “Times Up” achieved Gold status sales in the US, they seemed to fall away after that. The band have only released six studio albums over the course of their career which began in 1984 (albeit with a five year hiatus between 1995 and 2000) with the last one being released in 2017.

In the UK, we had our own example of a band fusing musical styles together around this time in And Why Not? who fused pop with reggae on hits like “Restless Days (She Screams Out Loud)” and “The Face” but they withered away pretty quickly as well.

“Love Rears Its Ugly Head” peaked at No 12.

For posterity’s sake, I include the chart run down below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9PYBeBPNXE

Order of Appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Chris Rea	Auberge	Nah
2	Kenny Thomas	Outstanding	It’s a no – sorry Kenny
3	DJH featuring Stefy	Think About	No
4	Thunder	Love Walked In	And out again…no
5	Julian Cope	Beautiful Love	Not the single but I have that Floored Genius Best Of with it on
6	Steve B	Because I Love You (The Postman Song)	I’d have returned this one to sender – no
7	Go For It (Heart and Fire	Joey B. Ellis AKA MC Breeze and Tynetta Hare	Absolutely not
8	Xpansions	Move Your Body (Elevation)	Hell no
9	MC Hammer	Here Comes The Hammer	and that’s my cue to exit – no
10	Oleta Adams	Get Here	Nice enough but I never considered buying it
11	The Simpsons	Do The Bartman	Away with you!
12	Living Colour	Love Rears Its ugly Head	No but it was on that first Q magazine compilation album that I bought

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/m000wvlz/top-of-the-pops-21021991

TOTP 22 FEB 1990

Posted on November 6, 2020 by 80stastic

Welcome to TOTP Rewind where in February 1990, the charts seem to be a curious mixture of ~~old fogeys~~ established stars and fresh out of the box new acts (mainly peddling dance tunes). I have to say that despite its stuffy BBC image, TOTP does try and reflect this in its chosen turns for this particular show. Mark Goodier is our guide through this week’s wares and we start with Tina Turner and her single “Steamy Windows” which was also the single that closed the previous week’s broadcast. This seems to be have been an established practice at this point in the year with the likes of FPI Project and Halo James having done the same thing. Unlike last week though we get Tina in the flesh this time as opposed to the video.

I’m thinking Tina deigning the UK with her presence would still have been a big deal at this time – Goodier seems excited enough proclaiming her the “first lady of rock ‘n’ roll”. Certainly her commercial trajectory was in the ascendancy with her “Foreign Affair” album being a No 1 hit in this country and eventually going five times platinum whilst one year later her “Simply The Best” collection album would go eight times platinum! Given all that, the show’s producers do seem to have rather thrown her performance away right at the top of the show. Maybe they wanted a crash bang wallop beginning but I would have thought they might have built up to it a bit more and put it in the middle somewhere.

Here, Tina seemed to have toned down a notch the jerky strutting style she employed although she does get in a high kick or two. I would have expected her to have really gone for it considering the nature of the lyrics she was singing …and if we’re going to get a bit smutty, I am reliably informed by a friend that there is a clip of Tina and David Bowie performing on stage together where Bowie whispers to Ms Turner “You broke my cock”. I think it might be this clip below around 3.15 where Tina throws her head back in laughter…

Moving away from filth and innuendo to something much more wholesome…death. The back story to Chris Rea‘s song “Tell Me There’s A Heaven” includes some horrific details. Here’s @TOTPFacts:

Chris Rea was inspired to write "Tell Me There's a Heaven" after his six-year-old daughter saw news footage of a riot in South Africa, which showed "this horrible thing of throwing lighted tyres over people" and "one guy burning to death". #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) October 30, 2020

Rea’s daughter’s Grandfather (Rea’s father- in- law) didn’t know how to explain to the child what she had witnessed on screen so he just said ‘That man has gone to heaven’. When Rea checked on his sleeping daughter later he said to himself ‘Grandad told you there’s a heaven, I’d like someone to tell me there’s a heaven, too’.

The actual song itself is very affecting I think. The heavy strings backing gives it a cinematic quality – I could imagine it turning up as the soundtrack to a emotionally drenched scene in a Spielberg flick – while Rea’s gravelly voice imbues a solemn and reflective timbre.

Anyway, all of that didn’t cut that much mustard with the UK record buying public and the single peaked at No 24.

On their way to No1 we find Beats International with their mash up tune “Dub Be Good To Me”. Of course, nobody called it a ‘mash-up’ back then so what did they call it? From my admittedly limited research, it seemed to be referred to just as a cover version (of SOS Band’s “Just Be Good To Me”) that they renamed. Norman Cook revealed at the time that he thought that vocalist Lindy Layton was destined to be the ‘British Madonna’ – a prediction that proved to be wide of the mark. Lindy did ultimately go solo but despite a debut hit single with a cover of Janet Kaye’s “Silly Games”, it was a case of diminishing returns after that. Even a short spell signed to PWL didn’t restore her chart fortunes to any great extent. She continued to work in the music industry though with the likes of Hardknox and (with a certain amount of symmetry) Dub Pistols.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UWHBnLr2AI

Lindy already had a showbiz career before she found herself in Beats International of course. There were appearances in Grange Hill and Casualty and erm…this memorable advert:

Right, I have no recollection of this next song at all. Cliff Richard with “Stronger Than That” anyone? Well, according to Mark Goodier, it has some ‘brilliant choreography’ in the video! Yeah, never a good sign that is it when a single is introduced with more fanfare about the dancing than the actual song. The bad omens prove to be true as “Stronger Than That ” is a stinker, a total turd of a record. Yes, the dancing is very in sync (apart from when Cliff sneaks in his trademark swaying arms movement into the routine) but once you’ve said that, well….Goodier reckons that it will be a Top 5 record but it actually peaked at No 14 which is staggering for a song so antiseptically banal.

Incidentally, I’m pretty sure the long haired, blonde guy on Chapman stick in the background is ex-Kajagoogoo bassist Nick Beggs. Well, it was a paying gig I suppose.

Right, after three very established artists in Tina Turner, Chris Rea and (god help us) Cliff Richard, we get four Breakers that are all new acts, two of which I don’t remember at all. First up are Thunder who were a bunch of London hard rockers who carved out a decent career for themselves in the 90s with a run of fourteen consecutive Top 40 chart hits (though none of them got any higher than No 18).

“Dirty Love” was the first of those and always seemed to me to be very heavily modelled on T Rex’s “Get It On” (which itself was Marc Bolan’s attempt to re-write Chuck Berry’s Little Queenie”). I think it’s that guitar riff that ends every chorus. To be fair to Thunder, they’re not the only ones to have tried it on for size. By my reckoning, you’ve also got Oasis (on “Cigarettes And Alcohol” and “Some Might Say”), Robbie WIlliams (“Old Before I Die”) and Andy Taylor of Duran Duran (“Take It Easy”). Taylor seemed particularly obsessed with recreating “Get It On”. He recorded a cover version of it with Power Station and was also the producer on “Dirty Love”. Listen to “Take It Easy” below and you’ll clearly hear his influence on Thunder’s track. He may have even had an influence on the band’s name as his debut album in 1987 was called “Thunder” and the band chose that as the name for their new group after disbanding Terraplane in 1989 before recording some demos with Taylor later in the year.

I saw Andy Taylor live in 1990 (no really). I had just moved to Manchester and he was playing The International 2 venue just around from our flat. It was an odd gig. Andy was determined to come over as a rock god but the audience kept asking him to play “Hungry Like The Wolf”. He wasn’t amused.

Back to Thunder and for a while there they seemed on the cusp of massive commercial success. Their “Laughing on Judgement Day” album debuted at No 2 on the chart and was subsequently certified gold. They eventually called it a day in 1999 before reforming in 2002 and have been sporadically active ever since. Their latest album was released as recently as 2019.

Next up are Electribe 101 with “Talking With Myself” which was their very first single release when it came out independently in 1988. Having signed to major label Mercury, it was re-released as a follow up to “Tell Me When the Fever Ended” and peaked at No 23 thereby becoming their highest ever charting single. It was very much in the same vein as its predecessor I thought – not an unpleasant sound but I couldn’t get worked up about it either. When I first started work at Our Price later in 1990, just about everyone else on the staff seemed to adore Electribe 101. I was never in the ‘in crowd’!

When singer Billie Ray Martin was young she was obsessed with The Beatles and had four teddy bears called John, Paul, George and Ringo. Apparently Paul’s head fell off one day after Billie had been smooching with him excessively. Blimey! Don’t tell the ‘Paul is dead’ conspiracy theorists!

OK, this happens to me occasionally – that state of affairs of having zero recall of one of the artists featured on these TOTP repeats. Here’s another in Jamie J. Morgan. I read up about this guy and it seems he wasn’t your standard lame chancer, one hit wonder at all. He was a photographer shooting covers for The Face, advertising for Levi’s and album covers for Culture Club, Soul II Soul, Sade and Neneh Cherry for whom he helped write her hit ‘Buffalo Stance’. He also dabbled in video-directing producing the promo for “Swallowed” by Bush. He continues to work within the music and fashion industries and his work was showcased in a book and an exhibition at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum in 2000. Impressive stuff. However….

…his vile version of the Lou Reed classic “Walk On The Wild Side” is, well…just that, vile. Given a nasty, generic dance treatment it sounds like a parody and Morgan’s nasal vocals do nothing to dispel that image. It could be Sacha Baron Cohen up there doing one of his comedy characters. The Salt ‘N’ Pepa style rapping bits in the middle can’t rescue this complete mess of a track. Somehow it rose all the way to No 27. Sometimes it’s best to stick to what you’re good at – diversifying isn’t always the way to go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ0BWYaNwr4

The second of the Breakers that I can’t recall now. “Probably A Robbery” was the only Top 40 hit for electronic pioneers Renegade Soundwave but, having researched them, it seems that their legacy far outweighs their commercial achievements. Combining dance beats with samples and electro-industrial noise, they created a buzz in the clubs with tunes such as “The Phantom” and “Ozone Breakdown”. Both tracks featured samples with the former using a loop from The Clash’s “White Riot” and the latter taking from the film The Warriors. So they were kind of Big Audio Dynamite meets Beats International then? Not really as their influence would extend to artists such as The Prodigy, The Chemical Brothers and Grooverider. Actually, I quite like this having listened to it back.

“Probably A Robbery” peaked at No 38.

There then follows a very lame attempt at humour made by Mark Goodier when he introduces the next act. Comparing the name Guru Josh to a curry – presumably he was referring to a Rogan Josh? On a sliding curry scale of hilarity with a phaal being shit your pants funny it would be a korma. “Infinity (1990’s… Time for the Guru)” was their track and, even at the time, it seemed a poor choice of title to me. Why include a specific year allied with a defining clause that states this is your time? Surely this was counter productive to future sales / plays?

The performance here is pretty weird and showcases the issues that TOTP had with these non vocal dance tunes. How do you curtail a dance floor anthem into a visual, three minute studio performance for a time restricted main stream popular music show? The short answer is ‘not without difficulty’. The powers that be employed some dancers to mime playing violins before going full on dance mode in the background whilst Mr Josh (real name Paul Walden) did some crowd baiting egotistical nonsense upfront. It’s not a good or convincing look.

“Infinity (1990’s… Time for the Guru)” sounded like a piss weak version of an 808 State tune to me and I let it pass me by without the need for further investigation.

Sadly, Paul Walden took his own life on 28 December 2015 at the age of 51.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl9iL7pGfWg

Not content with his curry joke in his intro, Goodier has another crack at humour as the song finishes by making a quip about Guru Josh seemingly wearing their pyjamas in the performance we have just seen. Mark, mate – have you clocked the shirt you’re wearing?

The next act is…wait…what? Adam Ant? In the 90s? Yes indeed. Hardly seen since his ill advised Live Aid performance of his then new single “Viva La Rock” in ’85, Adam had actually been trying his luck at acting over the pond in the US since then. Adam the actor hadn’t really worked out for him though and he slipped into a period of depression. In his autobiography Stand And Deliver, he quotes a diary entry from 1989:

“I’m disgusted at my chronic jealousy of others less talented than myself on MTV or in films. So like some bitchy brat I cry + kick + scream for attention. ‘Love me – I’m great’ is my demand from everyone. It’s terrible, disgusting. But it drives me on…….I can’t accept defeat the way I suspect many feel I should after the decline of Vive Le Rock. I’m not an actor or a rock ‘n’ roll star. I’m Adam Ant. Whatever that may be.”

‘Whatever that may be’ turned out to actually be a damned good pop star and he made an unexpectedly successful return to the Top 40 with his single “Room At The Top”. The lead single from his “Manners & Physique” album and lending its title from the John Braine novel, listening back to it now, it sounds quite the anachronism against the rest of the charts back then but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. The track was produced by ex Prince bassist André Cymone and I think you can hear a little bit of the purple one’s influence on it though it doesn’t overshadow Adam’s trademark style.

Adam was 35 at the time of this appearance, he is now in his mid 60s which prompted this tweet when BBC4 repeated the TOTP broadcast….

Adam Ant will be 66 on Tuesday, which means he now qualifies for THIS year’s old age pension. #totp
— Mark Gillies (@5goalthriller) October 30, 2020

Gold standard stuff. I didn’t mind “Room At The Top” but actually preferred his follow up single “Can’t Set Rules About Love” which I came close to buying but I didn’t quite follow through on that particular commitment. It seems many others did the same as it stalled at No 47. Adam would return to the UK Top 40 for the final time in 1995 with his single “Wonderful”.

Back to Goodier who rounds off a pretty dismal presenting stint by fluffing his lines when announcing the name of Sinéad O’Connor ‘s new album. It’s the final week at No 1 for Sinéad with “Nothing Compares 2 U” and whilst I suggested in my last post that the BBC seemed to be getting bored with her reign at the top as they only showed two minutes of her in the previous show, I’ve had to revise my stance as they have got her back in the studio for another performance. They had been relying on re-showing the first one she’d done weeks before.

Say what you like about Sinéad (and many people certainly have done over the years) but “Nothing Compares 2 U” remains one of the stand out songs of the 90s.

The play out video is “Dude (Looks Like A Lady)” by Aerosmith. I already knew this song as it had been out before back in ’87 when it had got a fair amount of airplay but just missed the UK Top 40. Why was it re-released in 1990? I’m not sure. Was it to do with being used in that infamous scene in the Mrs Doubtfire film?

*checks internet*

Nope. That movie didn’t come out until 1993. I give up then. It was definitely written with the ubiquitous Desmond Child though (the man responsible for huge hits for Michael Bolton, Bon Jovi and Alice Cooper). Persistent accusations that the song is transphobic have always been refuted by Childs who describes the song as “accepting” because of the lyric ‘never judge a book by its cover, or who you’re going to love by your lover’. The band themselves had feared repercussions with Joe Perry saying ‘I don’t want to insult the gay community.’ Childs’ response was ‘Okay, I’m gay, and I’m not insulted. Let’s write this song.’

I don’t see it as transphobic I have to say but find it a fun (if slightly dumb) kick ass rock tune. The re-release of “Dude (Looks Like A Lady)” peaked at No 20.

For posterity’s sake I include the chart run down below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVs3nkhA8_Q

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Tina Turner	Steamy Windows	Nope
2	Chris Rea	Tell Me There’s A Heaven	No
3	Beats International	Dub Be Good To Me	No but my wife had their album
4	Cliff Richard	Stronger Than That	I’d have rather shat myself
5	Thunder	Dirty Love	Not at the time but I may have it on iTunes now
6	Electribe 101	Talking With Myself	I did not
7	Jamie J. Morgan	Walk On The Wild Side	Negative
8	Renegade Soundwave	Probably A Robbery	It’s a no
9	Guru Josh	Infinity (1990’s …Time For The Guru)	Nah
10	Adam Ant	Room At The Top	No but I nearly bought the follow up
11	Sinéad O’Connor	Nothing Compares 2 U	Don’t think so
12	Aerosmith	Dude (Looks Like A Lady)	No

Disclaimer

OK – here’s the thing – the TOTP episodes are only available on iPlayer for a limited amount of time so the link to the programme below only works for about another month so you’ll have to work fast if you want to catch the whole show.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000nwtf/top-of-the-pops-22021990

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.

Some bedtime reading?

https://michaelmouse1967.wixsite.com/smashhits-remembered/1990-issues

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 21 OCT 1993

PRINCE 4 – 3 CAPPELLA

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TOTP 22 OCT 1992

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TOTP 07 NOV 1991

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TOTP 21 FEB 1991

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TOTP 22 FEB 1990

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Some bedtime reading?