It’s mid October 1999, I’m 31 years old and have been working for the same record shop retail chain (Our Price) for nine years. The impending Christmas trading period will be my tenth on the trot and the thought of that is exhausting. I’m also wondering if I might be ageing out of the job – was working in a record shop a young person’s game? Most of the songs in the Top 40 I was now not just failing to connect with but openly hating on some cases.

I’d also been living in Manchester for nearly the whole of the 90s and, as much as I loved the place, it could be a harsh city at times. My wife and I started to talk about the possibility of moving away and of doing something else altogether. To this end, I actually started applying for jobs outside of retail. I attended a recruitment exercise with the bank First Direct in Leeds but I didn’t perform very well on the day unfortunately. I then turned my attention to paediatric nursing and, around the time that this TOTP was broadcast, went to a careers day in Harrogate but realised whilst I was there that I didn’t really have the right level of enthusiasm to pursue it. Eventually, I would find a way out of both Manchester and record shops but that’s for a future post. For now, I was at least thinking seriously about starting a new chapter whilst still selling CDs and cassettes of music I mostly disliked to the Great British Public. They probably all ended up in landfill sites.

Our host for this one is Jayne Middlemiss and it’s the final leg of the Top Of The Pops On Tour project which is in the Time & Icon club in Swansea. Just like all other venues on the tour, it no longer exists and neither should it with a name like that. Not quite as bad as that which I frequented in my teenage years in Worcester – Images On Glass – but still very poor.

We start with Eurythmics who, not having been near a TOTP studio since 31st August 1989, are onto their second consecutive appearance with “I Saved The World Today”. What was the reason? Well, they were back, back, BACK (as Smash Hits used to say) with a new album called “Peace”, their first in ten years. This week Annie and Dave have a full band behind them as opposed to the acoustic set up they employed last time. It’s a testament to the quality of the song they both versions work equally as well. The album was toured with all profits going to Greenpeace and Amnesty International with a special promotional concert aboard the former charity’s Rainbow Warrior II. All of this seemed to indicate an agenda behind the duo’s decision to reunite (quite possibly most forcibly coming from Lennox) that if they were going to do it, then some definable good must come from it. Did they save the world? No. Did they achieve their objective? I think so.

In my last post, I rather unnecessarily banged on about who was the first Spice Girl to release a solo single. I’m not sure I came to a definitive answer. Thankfully, there doesn’t exist any such tangled mess about solo careers as far as I can tell when it comes to New Kids On The Block and let’s be fair, we needed five ex-NKOTB solo stars like Nigel Farage needs an enquiry into his receiving of a £5 million gift from a crypto billionaire. Not that none of the five members of that boy band decided to go it alone. Three of them released solo material but only one gathered any traction or success. Jordan Knight was the big heartthrob in NKOTB (well, he was my younger sister’s favourite anyway during her brief dalliance with them) and he is the only one to have a solo hit in the UK which he achieved with “Give It To You” when it went to No 5 in our charts. Now, I thought this was hopeless but it seemed to get mainly favourable reviews at the time. To me, it sounded like a Janet Jackson track that hadn’t been mixed properly or even played at the wrong speed. The fact that it sounded like Janet Jackson at all shouldn’t have been a surprise as it was put together by her erstwhile producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis but surely “Give It To You” doesn’t reside in the pile marked their greatest ever records. It’s that staccato rhythm that niggles rather than intrigues me.

Jordan does his best to sell it in this performance but when he does his little, twirling dance moves for the first time, the reaction of the studio audience feels almost patronising in a “ah, look at that old fella still trying to be down with the kids”. I could be wrong about that of course. Knight’s album failed to sell at all in most territories – presumably it wasn’t helped by the inclusion of a cover of Prince’s “I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man”. Who thought that was a good idea?! The other two of his band mates to release solo material were Danny Wood who has seven (SEVEN!) albums listed in his discography though tellingly none have any chart stats listed against them and Joey McIntyre who had one Top 10 hit in America and then a whole bucketful of nothing. So what happened to the rest of them? Do you really want to know? No, nor me.

From one McIntyre to another as we move seamlessly from Danny of NKOTB (or T’KNOB if you will) to Natalie Renée McIntyre aka Macy Gray who, like Eurythmics earlier, was also making her second consecutive TOTP appearance. Now apparently Macy hadn’t been keen on her record company releasing “I Try” as a single because she just couldn’t hear the song’s hit potential. That got me thinking about other cases of artists not appreciating which of their songs were the obvious single choice.

Off the top of my head, The Human League famously didn’t want Virgin to release “Don’t You Want Me” as they thought it would ruin their career – it was the best selling UK single of 1981 and that year’s Christmas No 1. Then there’s Radiohead who objected to the release of “Creep” from their debut album “Pablo Honey” after US College radio play forced Parlophone to rerelease it after it initially flopped. The band feared one-hit wonder status but they had a further 16 Top 40 hits and have been going for 40 years now. Finally, Deacon Blue’s Ricky Ross is notoriously poor at selecting singles and when asked for his choice of song to promote the band’s “When The World Knows Your Name” album went for the title track. Their record label Columbia overruled him and released “Real Gone Kid” – it is their highest charting single of original material.

Compared to Eurythmics, it felt like The Charlatans had only been away from the show for a couple of months but in truth it had been almost exactly two years since they’d last been on. Their last album “Tellin’ Stories” had been a huge success hitting the No 1 spot and going platinum to become the band’s biggest seller ever. All of this was achieved against the backdrop of keyboardist Rob Collins dying in a car crash part way through recording.

The album and the loss of their fellow band member drew a line in the sand. Firstly, the group’s contract with Beggar’s Banquet came to an end (it was actually fulfilled by the release of Best Of album “Melting Pot” in 1998) and they subsequently signed with Universal. Secondly, a new direction was pursued with follow up album “Us And Us Only” which had a country/folk/roots slant supposedly influenced by Tim Burgess’s love of Bob Dylan. Although it peaked at No 2 on the charts, it sold a third of both “Tellin’ Stories” and “Melting Pot”. I have to say that I’m not sure that I know “Us And Us Only” at all other than by its cover artwork. Is that because the singles taken from it weren’t big hits compared to those of its predecessor or was it just that we didn’t play it in the Our Price store I was working in? Probably a bit of both. So, 27 years later, what does lead single “Forever” sound like (to me)? My initial thoughts are that it’s good but it’s hardly an obvious single is it? Certainly the double length album version that I listened to makes more sense in all its psychedelic glory. In conclusion, it was a tad confusing. Still, compared to the next song on the show, it’s literally a colossal classic.

1999 had already given us some of the worst hits imaginable, many of which not only tried our patience but also challenged the status quo of whether they could even be defined as music so mind numbing were they. Then came the ultimate “Hold my beer” moment from Ann Lee who pulled off the seemingly impossible by giving us a record that was not just poor but actually a poor man’s Vengaboys. This was a new low on the shit-o-meter. “Two Times” is so infantile, so insubstantial, so inane that it seemed inconceivable that anyone would buy it and yet it was a huge hit all over Europe. Never mind hating yourself for liking it as suggested by Jayne Middlemiss in her intro, an intervention by all friends and family should have been immediately staged for anyone who was even caught just humming along to it. It can’t even make up its mind – is it two times or three times!

Who was this person who wrought havoc across the continent with this vile tune? Surprisingly, Ann Lee was a Sheffield lass born Annerley Emma Gordon (see what she did there?) who’d moved to Italy in the late 80s and released some solo singles to little recognition. Until “Two Times” hit, her biggest claim to fame had been being credited as one of the co-writers for Corona’s huge 1994 Eurodance smash “Rhythm Of The Night”. However, when I googled her, the first result I got was for Ann Lee the 18th century founding leader of the Shakers movement, later changed to the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing after her death. The Shakers worshiped by ecstatic dancing or “shaking” hence their name. They also composed thousands of songs consisting of syllables and words from unknown languages, the musical equivalent of glossolalia or speaking in tongues which were composed of a single melodic line with no harmonisation. Yeah, you can see where I’m going with this can’t you? As alien as all of that sounds, I think I’d rather listen to Ann Lee the Shaker’s music than “Two Times” by Ann Lee from Sheffield.

After his spectacular re-emergence with the six times platinum “Older” album in 1996, George Michael followed it up with the even more successful Best Of “Ladies & Gentlemen” which was the second biggest selling album of 1998. All of that success left one rather obvious question – what to do next? George’s answer wasn’t exactly out of left field. A covers album seemed like a bit of a fudge to me but in fairness to him, the choice of songs on it wasn’t hackneyed. Rather than instantly recognisable songs, George went mostly for old jazz standards for the album “Songs From The Last Century” with the odd, more contemporary track thrown in like “Roxanne” by The Police. The strategy worked well enough with good sales though not stratospheric. It was his only album release of any description not to get to No 1 and sold a quarter of the preceding Best Of. Its fortunes might not have been helped by the fact that the decision was taken not to release any singles from the album whatsoever.

So why were we seeing George perform “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” on this TOTP then? Well, it was all to do with the charity event NetAid which was an anti-poverty initiative with the aim of reducing third world debt. It seems largely forgotten now, wiped from the collective consciousness but it had some huge names behind it from the world of music and there were not many bigger than George Michael. This clip comes from the London NetAid concert at Wembley Stadium on October 9, 1999 where George performed a set including “Father Figure”. “Freedom! 90” and, obviously, “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?”. One of the most well known songs of the Great Depression of the 1930s , it is based on a Jewish lullaby and has also been recorded by Bing Crosby. As a vehicle to display the maturity and diversity of George’s voice it’s perfect. As a song to listen to over and over, to my ears, it is not. Maybe I’m just a victim of the era I grew up in but it’s very plodding and hard to get through.

What I did notice though is how far George’s image had changed since his Princess Di hair of his peak Wham! days and designer stubble, leather jacket and jeans look of his “Faith” persona. Dressed in slimming black, with sharp cut yet tousled hair, shades and facial hair (but definitely not the aforementioned designer stubble), this was George Michael as authentic artist and no mistake.

From Bing Crosby to Fred Astaire…just like with The Charlatans earlier, James were back with their first studio album for two years with the intervening time punctuated by the release of a Best Of. Also just like The Charlatans, the only thing I can recall about said album (“Millionaires”) is the cover artwork – to be fair, that huge pig was pretty memorable. There’s another Charlatans parallel in that the album was recorded against a backdrop of band uncertainty with infighting and tensions never far from the surface.

The second track released from it was “Just Like Fred Astaire” (lead single “I Know What I’m Here For” didn’t warrant a TOTP appearance) and although it’s not exactly laid back, it’s certainly a less frenetic song than some of their back catalogue. Not one of their best in my opinion but a good song without doubt that craps all over most of its chart peers. I like its lyrical idea that love is a disease though it’s not quite as good as Laurie Anderson’s idea that language is a virus from outer space. Meanwhile, when Tim Booth sings “I’m losing my hair”, he couldn’t have been more prophetic. Talking of prophetic and indeed Laurie Anderson, check out these lyrics from “Language Is A Virus” which foretell the coming of reality TV by well over a decade:

“Well, I dreamed there was an island
That rose up from the sea
And everybody on the island
Was somebody from TV
And there was a beautiful view
But nobody could see
‘Cause everybody on the island was saying:
Look at me!”

Songwriters: Laurie Anderson, 1986

Watching this performance back, I’m struck by the amount of guitarists up there on stage. I counted four which even allowing for a bass player and lead and rhythm guitarists, still leaves one extra. Still, I’m no musician (I can strum a few chords at best) so what do I know?

Eiffel Trifle (or whatever they were called) have been deposed from the top by the latest release from Britney Spears…ha! Well, you could have been forgiven for believing “Genie In A Bottle” was by Britney as you couldn’t talk about the actual artist behind it – Christina Aguilera – without mentioning her Mickey Mouse Club co-star alongside (Jayne Middlemiss certainly couldn’t). It was a fair comparison I think, not just for their shared showbiz backgrounds but also because of their out and out pop sound that was undercut with deliberate sexual overtones in the lyrics. Ah yes, those lyrics – they were certainly suggestive with lines like “My body’s sayin’, “Let’s go” and “You gotta rub me the right way”. Then there’s Christina’s look, all midriff and leather trousers. There seemed little doubt about the angle that was being persued here.

That’s not to say Christina’s success was all about image. Her debut hit was a quality pop song that cut through – its topping of the charts in 21 countries bears witness to that. From this beginning, she carved out a long career that has seen her described as a pop icon, gay icon, diva, sex symbol and “Voice of a Generation” (yeah, not sure about that one). All she was missing was to score a title winning goal that would generate a commentator cry for the ages…”Agulieraaaaaaa!”

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/m002w1qy/top-of-the-pops-15101999