Cleopatra

TOTP 21 AUG 1998

Posted on by 80stastic

Right, a small explanation as to why I’m so behind with my posts on this blog which has seen me fall of the pace of the BBC4 TOTP repeats schedule. I was on holiday last week and out of the country for a few days during which time I only intermittently managed to write anything and as such I have ended up with four shows to review this week if I’m to catch up. I hate being behind but a family holiday is more important than banging on about the Top 40 from 28 years ago so it is what it is. Right, a bit of housekeeping before we get into it fully. Jamie Theakston is our host and his intro about it being 6.55 and TOTP being on BBC2 was due to BBC1’s coverage of the European Athletics Championships as opposed to some deliberate move to sideline the show. It had, of course, been channel moved before during Euro 96 for example but it wouldn’t take up permanent residence on BBC2 until 2005, a year or so before its ultimate axing.

So to the music and we start with a great song. I used my words carefully there – ‘song’, not ‘single’ and definitely not ‘artist’. “The Air That I Breathe” was one of the first songs I ever knew as a small child as my Dad bought the hit version by The Hollies that made No 2 in 1974 and what a song with which to begin my musical life! A huge, epic track with that massive, soaring guitar and strings in the middle eight – it made a huge impression on the young me and ignited in me a love of The Hollies. This, however, is not that version of the Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood penned song. No, this was the Simply Red version (gulp).

Here’s the kicker though, it’s not as bad as I remembered it. I mean, it’s nowhere near the quality of what is surely the definitive version by The Hollies but Hucknall doesn’t completely butcher it either to my ears. So what gives? Well, apparently there were two versions recorded by Simply Red which is the root of my confusion. There’s this one and another one with the suffix “Reprise” added to it which is a different take on it, sung to a different tune and which, very unwisely and completely inexplicably, incorporates the riff from “Jack And Diane” by John Cougar. That must have been the one I was thinking of.

Both versions were unusually included on parent album “Blue” with the ‘non-reprise’ take also being used in an advert for Sky TV at the time (not sure why Roy Hattersley and his dog were in it!).

They say the mark of a good song is how many times it has been covered and in how many different styles. If that is true, then “Air That I Breathe” is up there in the greatness stakes with it having been recorded by the likes of Olivia Newton John, Julio Iglesias, Semisonic, k.d. lang, Phil Everly and The Mavericks. And that’s not even counting “Creep” by Radiohead the chord sequence of which was so similar that Hammond and Hazlewood had to be given writers credits. Proving its longevity, there’s even a version from as recently as this year by Belinda Carlisle from her “Once Upon A Time In California” album. “The Air That I Breathe”, a song with huge lungs.

From one ‘air’ song to another, sort of. Pop hits based around classical pieces of music were nothing new. Way back in 1967, Procul Harem had a worldwide smash with “A Whiter Shade Of Pale” which used Johann Sebastian Bach’s Air On A G String movement from his Orchestral Suite No 3 In D Major as its basis. In 1985, Sting gave us “Russians” based on Prokofiev’s Lieutenant Kijé and in 1990, The Farm’s “All Together Now” made unashamed use of Pachelbel’s Canon In D Major.

None of those though seemed quite as obvious as the Sweetbox hit “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright”. This German outfit who had plied their trade in the shallow waters of Eurodance previously, decided to switch to hitching their wagon to classical music with a topping of rap. It really was as simple a format as that. The aforementioned Air On A G String was the blueprint for the hit which the non classical music buffs among us would know from the long running series of Hamlet cigar adverts, my favourite of which would be this Columbus themed one featuring Blake 7 actor Paul Darrow…

According to their Wikipedia page, Sweetbox has burned through seven lead singers since forming which must be a record surely? The person on stage here is Tina Harris who was the third of the group’s vocalists (this is starting to get a bit Henry VIII!) and started her music career via her her cousin who is Snap!’s rapper Turbo B (there’s a stroke of luck). He chose Tina’s sister Jackie to mime on promotional activities for their hit “The Power” and that connection earned Tina a place as a dancer in Snap!’s tour and videos. After leaving the Snap! family and spending some time in a couple of Eurodance outfits, Harris was contacted by Sweetbox prime mover Roberto ‘Geo’ Rosan to become their singer and she lent her vocals to their debut eponymous album which became a huge success in Japan. However, in a contractual dispute that made George Michael v Sony look like a playground tiff, Tina tried to renegotiate her contract for the band’s second album with their record label. However, they decided to ditch Harris and replace her with another singer. Not only that but the contract she had signed prevented her from releasing music for eight years! In the end though, everything was alright as she did release her debut album “Sunshine” in 2007. As for Sweetbox, they are still an ongoing entity apparently though they haven’t released anything since 2020.

Two of the first three songs on this show are cover versions as we get Cleopatra comin’ at us with their take on “I Want You Back” by The Jackson 5. It turns out though that their take is almost identical to the original 1970 hit save for Cleo Higgins telling us that it’s 1998 just before the end. Like we didn’t know Cleo. This seemed like a pretty cynical choice of song to record to me and the fact that the girls hardly deviated from the original only convinces me more. Perhaps they were relying on an assumption that their fanbase (whom I’m guessing were very young) wouldn’t know the Jackson 5 original and believe it was the girls’ own work? Even allowing for the fact that it had also been a hit in 1988* as well as 1970, that was still 10 years before the Cleopatra version so maybe?

*A remix titled “I Want You Back ‘88” credited to Michael Jackson with The Jackson 5 peaked at No 8

If it was designed to keep the group’s success rolling, it worked with the single going to No 4. However, aside from their contribution to the ABBA tribute single “Thank ABBA For The Music” the following year, they would never return to the Top 10. Inevitably given the age of the group and their fanbase, the clock was ticking on Cleopatra’s salad days…

P.S. I’ve never seen moves like that on a Twister mat before

Next up are Savage Garden with a textbook display of an established music industry practice. No, not doing a cover version (we’ve had enough of those in this show already) but that of the rerelease. It’s a familiar tale – artist’s early single doesn’t chart but subsequent releases do so said early single is revisited, remixed (sometimes), repackaged and rereleased and becomes much bigger hit second time around. “To The Moon And Back” was originally released in 1997 but stalled at No 55 in the UK. Following the global success of “Truly Madly Deeply” though, it was ripe for another go and debuted at No 3 to become the band’s highest charting single in this country.

Still mining that 80s retro synth pop sound, it didn’t quite have the smooth flow of its predecessor and sounded a bit more laboured to my ears. No, not laboured but like it had spent too long fermenting in the pop song laboratory if that makes sense. Slightly overcooked. What I did like in this performance of the song though was the guy who played electric and Spanish guitar. I’ve seen double fretted guitars before but can’t recall someone playing one guitar whilst having a second one draped around his neck. It’s quite the look.

Now here’s a classic case of an artist being so known for just one hit that it overshadows everything else they ever did, regardless of the quality of those releases. “We’re a band not a song” said 4 Non Blondes singer Linda Perry when it happened to her band but you wouldn’t have blamed Stephen Jones for saying the same thing about Babybird. Back in 1996, “You’re Gorgeous” was everywhere, riding high in the charts and at saturation point on daytime radio. Two years on and despite three follow up, Top 40 charting singles, it felt like it was still the primary association with the band. Those other hits had only achieved relatively minor chart positions which was a shame as they deserved better. It was a similar story with “If You’ll Be Mine”. Spending just two weeks inside the Top 40 and peaking at No 28, no wonder it was quickly forgotten. This acoustic performance displaying its spare and brittle nature should have propelled it up the charts, but no, the record buying public were more interested in homogeneous dance music and so it promptly disappeared. Talking of this performance, I’m not sure why there needed to be the four of them up there on stage. Apart from Stephen Jones on vocals and the guy finger picking on the guitar (who some viewers remarked online that he looked like Eric Bristow) what are the other two blokes doing? The second guitarist hardly seems to play anything whilst the maracas man is surely surplus to requirements?

Sash! didn’t half like what the youth would now call a ‘collab’* didn’t they? Just about everything listed in their singles discography featured another artist ranging from Dr. Alban to Boy George to Boney M and even Sarah Brightman. This hit though – “Mysterious Times” – featured Tina Cousins whom the German DJ/production team would work with again in 2000 on Top 10 hit “Just Around The Hill”.

*Apparently collab is now listed in the Oxford English Dictionary. Is nothing sacred anymore?!

Like Cleopatra earlier, Cousins would feature on that ABBA tribute single and would also have a few hits of her own including “Pray” (No 20) and “Killin’ Time” (No 15). One that didn’t make the Top 40 was “Forever” which peaked at No 46 but, according to Wikipedia, in a chart recount it was shown that it should have been No 38. What?! Back in the day that could have been the difference between a successful career or not. A Top 40 position may have meant a TOTP appearance and in any case would certainly have raised the artist’s profile. Scandalous stuff!

Now when I referred to homogeneous dance music before, I surely wasn’t meaning this next track which would become one of the biggest hits of the year. Stardust was nothing to do with one of my favourite ever films starring David Essex but would turn out to be a one off project involving a member of Daft Punk, a directionless DJ and his mate from boarding school. Having dropped out of university and completed a year of military conscription, Alan Braxe decided to pursue a career in music and a chance meeting with Thomas Bangalter of Daft Punk in a nightclub led to Braxe giving his new acquaintance a demo of a track he had been working on called “Vertigo” which Bangalter released on his own record label. Whilst rehearsing for a performance in a Paris club with a line up completed by Braxe’s friend Benjamin Diamond on vocals, the trio worked up another track called “Music Sounds Better With You” using a looped sample of an old Chaka Khan track called “Fate”. Having recorded the track in Bangalter’s home studio in just six days, it was released (again on his own record label) with demand for it on the continent and especially Ibiza crossing over to the UK resulting in enough sales of the import to qualify for a chart placing of No 55. When eventually licensed to Virgin for an official release, it spent two weeks at No 2 and nearly four months inside the Top 40. After the single’s success, Virgin offered the trio $3 million to record an album but after producing some demos, they gave up on the idea and the Stardust project was at an end leaving a legacy of one track that has consistently polled as one of the greatest dance tunes of all time.

Well, that’s the history of the song but was it really that great? I thought so at the time but listening to it 27 years later, it does seem very repetitive. Very repetitive. Maybe that didn’t matter on the dance floor though. Indeed, was it those recurrent beats that made it such a club classic? The ‘performance’ here is very unusual. Theakston informs us that there was no artist nor video to show so they dressed somebody up in 70s disco garb and superimposed her over the top of what looks like some old footage of TOTP studio audiences from that decade. It’s an odd concoction but at least it was better than ignoring a huge hit. Subsequently, a video was produced by Michel Gondry who would go on to direct the rather excellent if confusing film Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind.

Boyzone remain at No 1 with “No Matter What” despite stiff competition from Stardust who had led the boyband in the midweeks. Significantly, this was the first of their chart toppers to spend more than one week at the pinnacle which many took as a sign of the quality of the song and that it was appealing to more than just their usual fanbase. Crossing over in other words. Yeah, you could perceive it like that or you could, like me, hold firm with the opinion that it was schmaltzy shite. I stand by that, no matter what.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Simply RedThe Air That I BreatheIt’s a no
2SweetboxEverything’s Gonna Be Alright”No thanks
3CleopatraI Want You BackDidn’t happen
4Savage GardenTo The Moon And BackNegative
5BabybirdIf You’ll Be MineNo
6Sash! featuring Tina CousinsMysterious TimesNah
7StardustMusic Sounds Better With YouNope
8BoyzoneNo Matter WhatI did not

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/m002l6rv/top-of-the-pops-21081998

TOTP 15 MAY 1998

Posted on by 80stastic

It’s mid May 1998 and my beloved Chelsea FC have just won another cup! Having won a major trophy for the first time in 26 years the previous season when they lifted the FA Cup, they followed it up with two more in 1998. The League Cup was secured in March and now a European trophy as the Cup Winners’ Cup came back to Stamford Bridge after we beat Stuttgart in the final 1-0 two days before this TOTP aired. I couldn’t believe it! Three trophies in two seasons! My whole youth had had seen us in just one semi-final (which we lost) and then, as I was approaching 30, we were suddenly good! I wonder if any of the artists in this show were experiencing a renaissance period after a significant amount of time being shit?

Tonight’s host is Jo Whiley whom I thought for years was a bit shit but I’ve begrudgingly come round to in later years. The opening act are All Saints who I don’t think went through a crap phase, not commercially anyway, at least in their first incarnation. After two performances of “Under The Bridge”, their third consecutive appearance on the show sees them get to grips with the other A-side of their hit – Labelle’s “Lady Marmalade”. Now, if you judge this by just the chorus, and let’s face it that’s how we judge most songs, it’s a pretty faithful interpretation. However, the lyrics in the verses have been completely rewritten with Shaznay Lewis performing them as a rap. It works OK I’d say – better than their cover of “Under The Bridge” anyway. The girls are still wedded to their cargo pants look which has served them well to be fair in terms of their band image. I will comment though that executive producer Chris Cowey clearly had a great affection for them – All Saints I mean not their cargo pants. After their multiple appearances on the show for the seemingly never ending chart run of “Never Ever”, here they were top and tailing two shows having been the final artist on last week’s show as the No 1 and the first on this week’s despite having dropped a place. And there’s more…next week they return to the top spot and perform both tracks of the single on TOTP!

As Jo Whiley says, we have two songs from the 70s starting the show off as, after “Lady Marmalade” (a UK No 17 hit in 1975), we have Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams”. One of the many standout tracks from the legendary “Rumours” album, it made No 24 in 1977. However, that one statistic doesn’t tell the whole tale of its chart history as it has been more successful in the digital age via streaming platforms generating weeks and weeks back in the UK charts. Indeed, it is at No 52 in this week’s chart as I write this post in September 2025! It wasn’t the Fleetwood Mac version that saw it in the charts of 1998 though – we have arrived at the era of The Corrs. Now just as Chelsea weren’t pulling up any trees in the early 80s trundling along in the old Division 2, this family band from Dundalk, Ireland also struggled to make an impression early on in their career, in the UK charts at least.

Beginning their career playing in their Auntie’s bar, they quickly gained recognition via their cameo appearances in The Commitments movie and then via performances on a global stage at the 1994 World Cup, 1996 Summer Olympics and a support slot on the Celine Dion tour. Their debut album “Forgiven, Not Forgotten” sold well in their native Ireland plus Canada, Australia and Japan. However, success in the US and UK remained slight. Follow up album “Talk On Corners” would change all that and then some but not until it was rereleased with the track “Dreams” added to it which the group had recorded for a Fleetwood Mac tribute album and performed live at the Royal Albert Hall alongside Mick Fleetwood. The reaction to that performance convinced the band and their label to release it as a single but with a Tin Tin Out remix to make it more palatable for the dance market. “Dreams” easily became their biggest hit to that point when it peaked at No 6 – none of their previous seven singles had got any higher than No 43. The “Talk On Corners” album would go nine times platinum in the UK alone and become the best selling album of 1998 aided by the release of a ‘special edition’ that included five extra tracks.

Much was made of the group’s image with special attention being given to lead singer Andrea. Now a band’s front person receiving the most press was not unheard of – indeed it was an inevitable occurrence, almost natural especially when you looked like Andrea Corr. However, with her two sisters Sharon and Caroline hardly looking like “a bag of spanners” (as Terry Wogan ironically used to refer to them), it meant that brother Jim would somehow be seen as the weak link, letting the side down as it were which was patently ridiculous but took such a hold in the nation’s collective mind that it led to sketches like the one below. We’ll be seeing lots more of The Corrs in future TOTP repeats. Beautiful!

Ah now, if you ask my mate Robin whether there have been times when Simply Red suffered from, let’s say… ‘not being at the top of their game’, he would probably reply “Yes, of course. Everything they’ve ever released is absolute shit” and many would agree with him. From a purely commercial perspective though, come the end of the 90s, though they were hardly battling relegation to Division 3 as Chelsea did in 1983, they weren’t the title favourites that they used to be either. Gone were the 12 times platinum days of “Stars”. Their 1998 album “Blue” only sold 600,000 copies compared to even previous album “Life”’s 1.5 million and by the time of decade closer “Love And The Russian Winter”, sales were halved again. Now when I used the word ‘only’, it’s relative. Those are still big numbers but Hucknall clearly couldn’t command the sales that he used to. When it comes to singles, Simply Red were never been a big hitter. Out of 26 singles released up to this point, only six had made the Top 10 (although that did include one No 1). Seven didn’t even make the Top 40 at all. Set against those figures, “Say You Love Me” making No 7 was akin to Chelsea having a cup run in the bad old days of my teenage years. Their lead single from the aforementioned “Blue” album, it was hardly anything groundbreaking but it was a perfect daytime playlist track that Hucknall could sell in his sleep. However, he would follow it up with a horrible cover of the old Hollies hit “The Air That I Breathe” and for that alone he should never be forgiven regardless of all his other musical misdemeanours that Robin could list.

It’s LeAnn Rimes next…again. I think this the third time she’s been on the show already with “How Do I Live?”. What else can I say about this one? Well, have I already talked about the fact that two different versions of the song were released on the same day – one by Rimes and another by Trisha Yearwood and that both versions were nominated for Best Female Country Vocal Performance at the Grammy Awards which was the first time such an occurrence had ever happened? Only one version could be performed at the event and LeAnn was chosen. She belted out the song in a career best turn apparently. As soon as she left the stage though, the award in her category was made and they gave it to Trisha Yearwood! Talk about awkward! It’s the football equivalent of Bayern Munich completely outplaying Chelsea in the 2012 Champions League final played at the German team’s own ground and being beaten on penalties. Get In!

P.S. What extremely tenuous connection is there between “How Do I Live?” to this week’s No 1? All will be revealed later.

The links are writing themselves for Jo Whiley tonight. Firstly, she can highlight the connection between two 70s songs opening the show in “Lady Marmalade” and “Dreams” and now she can segue from one teenage singer in LeAnn Rimes to a whole group of them in Cleopatra. Having made No 4 with their debut hit “Cleopatra’s Theme”, they repeated the trick with follow up “Life Ain’t Easy”. It’s a bit smoother on the ear than its predecessor, less jarring somehow though the vocals do have a tendency to grate and why does one of them have a rucksack on their back 3T style? To highlight that they were still school age? Was that good idea? Surely not. Jo Whiley’s comment about “Madonna’s Mancunian mavericks” was a reference to the fact that the group were signed to her label Maverick in America. Just two singles into their career and they had Madonna as a mentor? Maybe life was easy after all…

Next a song I always confuse with “C U When U Get There” by Coolio for no other reason than that they’re both by rappers and the song titles suggest journeys conducted over a period of time. I’m easily confused is my only excuse. “Gone Till November” was the third and joint biggest solo hit by ex-Fugee Wyclef Jean. It starts off all calm and melodic but then when the rapping starts, chaos ensues and it becomes almost unlistenable especially in this performance in which Wyclef’s vocals aren’t the strongest. Maybe the recorded version is better though this single edit is the ‘pop’ version so presumably more mainstream than the album track? Like “The Show” by Doug E. Fresh and the Get Fresh Crew over a decade earlier, it features an awful interpolation of “Michelle” by The Beatles. Compared to his Fugees output, I would say his solo stuff is the equivalent of Chelsea’s 1978/79 team which finished bottom of the league with just five wins out of 42 games. I really suffered for my team in my childhood!

I still haven’t provided the answer to my previous teaser (it’s really not worth waiting for either) but here’s another one. What links Wyclef Jean with the next act on the show who is Adam Garcia? The Bee Gees of course. Wyclef’s debut solo single was “We Trying To Stay Alive” which sampled the disco classic “Stayin’ Alive” whilst Adam Garcia is on the show to perform “Night Fever” from the soundtrack of the jukebox musical Saturday Night Fever based on the 1977 film of the same name. Garcia was starring as Tony Manero, the character played by John Travolta in the movie during the musical’s run at the London Palladium. He’s clearly got those iconic dance moves down pat judging by this performance but as ever with these jukebox musicals, the question remains of why would you want the soundtrack to the show when you could just have the original tracks in their full glory? That’s especially true with Saturday Night Fever with the show following the film’s plot (albeit with the darker elements removed) as opposed to a completely new story that features the songs of a particular artist.

Ooh, here’s another connections teaser – what’s the link between Adam Garcia and LeAnn Rimes? The 2000 film Coyote Ugly which starred Garcia and the soundtrack of which featured four songs by Rimes including the UK No 1 “Can’t Fight The Moonlight”. I love it when a post comes together!

We have yet another new No 1 and I’m not saying anything perceptive nor insightful by stating that nobody saw this song coming from this artist. Yes, Aqua are back at the head of the pack with their third consecutive chart topper “Turn Back Time”. Now, achieving that feat might well have been seen as completely beyond the Danish group based on the cartoon pop of their first (and admittedly) mega hit “Barbie Girl”. Even when copycat follow up “Dr Jones” replicated that position, many must have believed that a third No 1 was surely beyond them? Well, had they stuck to the formula of those first two hits, maybe the UK record buying public wouldn’t have fallen for it a third time but the truth is that Aqua released a song I certainly didn’t know they were capable of. “Turn Back Time” was nothing like its predecessors. A proper ballad with proper singing from vocalist Lene Nystrøm rather than those squeaky noises we’d come to expect. True, there is a weird, incongruous breakdown near the end but I think we can overlook that. Also (thankfully) overlooked was that bald bloke who’d supplied the unsettling “Come on Barbie, let’s go party” line in “Barbie Girl”. Is he even on stage in this performance? Oh, is that him sat on a stool holding a tambourine with a hoodie and glasses disguising his striking look? Might be. A fourth No 1 was a step too far and Aqua would only return to the Top 10 twice more after this and one of those was a remake of “Barbie Girl” in light of the success of the 2023 Barbie film. Still, “Turn Back Time” allowed Aqua to always be able to say that there was more to them than just that song.

Oh, the link between LeAnn Rimes and Aqua? “How Do I Live?” was written by songwriting legend Dianne Warren who also penned “If I Could Turn Back Time” for Cher and if I really could turn back time, I wouldn’t have tried to make such a tenuous link in the first place.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1All SaintsUnder The Bridge / Lady MarmaladeNo but I think my wife had the album
2The CorrsDreamsIt’s a no
3Simply RedSay You Love MeNever happening
4LeAnn RimesHow Do I Live?Negative
5CleopatraLife Ain’t EasyNah
6Wyclef Jean Gone Till NovemberI did not
7Adam GarciaNight FeverNope
8AquaTurn Back TimeNo

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.

TOTP 27 FEB 1998

Posted on by 80stastic

It’s late February 1998 and Sir Elton John has just become…well…Sir Elton John after he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to music and for raising money for AIDS charities. Apparently, when the Lord Chamberlain announced Elton, he called him “Sir John Elton”. He surely wasn’t having a little joke at Elton’s expense? Not in the presence of Her Majesty? What about etiquette and decorum and all those sort of things? Im being facetious of course. It would have been brilliant if it had been deliberate but I’m beyond doubt that it was a genuine mistake and not a constructed gag along lines of Dexys performing “Jackie Wilson Said” on TOTP beneath a huge backdrop of the Scottish darts player Jocky Wilson*

*In a recent Dexys at the BBC programme, Kevin Rowland admitted that was a deliberate prank on the band’s behalf and not the mistake of some musically miseducated BBC employee.

Still, what’s in a name anyway? Let’s see if any of this show’s acts have interesting nomenclature related stories…

Opening the show are a trio who are all about their name to the point that their debut single is named after them. Cleopatra had debuted on the charts with “Cleopatra’s Theme” two weeks prior to this appearance at No 3 but had descended to No 13 by the time they were awarded another go on the show prompting the obvious question of ‘why?’ Blame Chris Cowey again for his policy of showcasing songs they were going down the charts, and in this case, opening the show! It just didn’t seem right to me. I guess it must have been getting lots of airplay maybe but even so. After naming their first hit after themselves, conversely, Cleo Higgins would reject it totally in 2012 to take part in The Voice UK via the show’s blind audition process. She would end up getting through to the semi-finals before getting knocked out. Oh and one more thing about names, the opening lines of the first verse of “Cleopatra’s Theme” are:

“Get a pen and paper, write down our name”

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: David Paich / Kenny Hayes / Zainham Higgins / Yonah Lynvest / Cleopatra Lynvest / William Scaggs / Timothy Scrafton
Cleopatra’s Theme lyrics © Boz Scaggs Music, Hudmar Publ Co Inc, Hudmar Publishing Co Inc

That might have been good advice for the Lord Chamberlain!

Apparently Ocean Colour Scene struck upon their name by choosing random words they liked the sound of after looking through books in a library. Well, it’s as good a way as any I suppose. For their single “It’s A Beautiful Thing”, they were joined by legendary soul P. P. Arnold (real name Patricia Ann Cole – her stage name was suggested by photographer Gered Mankowitz) just as they had been for their single before last “Travellers Tune” but she was given a proper credit on this one seeing as her vocals are very much to the forefront. The fourth and final single taken from their album “Marchin’ Already”, it’s a mood heavy piece that full of depth and substance but in my final reckoning, it does seem to go on rather and there’s a fair bit of over-emoting from Simon Fowler and P. P. Maybe that’s the problem – the double vocalist model is overkill?

For the record, “It’s A Beautiful Thing” was the first single release in seven not to make the Top 10 for the band. They have not returned there since. Not that that means too much anymore. They’re just the facts (ma’am).

Oh blimey! We haven’t reached this lot already have we? Another Level – an R&B boy band – were never going to appeal to me but they did seem remarkably dull in spite of my in-built prejudices. Put together by Nick Raphael and Christian Tattersfield for their record label Northwestside Records, the groups name was a rather telegraphed reference to the ambition of the label and the desire to elevate the band’s music to new heights (yawn). The idea behind their signing was to plug into the urban music movement that was getting loads of traction in the UK. A label tie-in with Jay-Z’s Roc-A-Fella Records meant the emerging rap superstar would guest on Another Level’s debut single “Be Alone No More” presumably giving them the credibility that other urban artist hopefuls would have coveted.

As I said, they were never going to pique my interest and maybe my ears were pre-programmed to not hear any quality in their music but my god their song was boring. One paced and devoid of any attention grabbing hooks, its popularity bemused me. And yet they were really successful. Their next single went to No 1 and their eponymous debut album achieved platinum level sales in the UK. Another level indeed. Somehow though, defeat was grabbed from the jaws of victory as they were gone within two years having haemorrhaged half the band line up amid solo career ambitions.

Dane Bowers would somehow eke out a career that kept him on the fringes of the celebrity world via reality TV shows like The Big Reunion, Totally Boyband, Celebrity Big Brother and Celebrity Come Dine With Me. Well, it’s a living (sort of) I suppose. Music-wise, his biggest accomplishment post-Another Level was being the loser in the chart battle of August 2000 (‘The Battle of the Posh Girls’) when his involvement with True Steppers and Victoria Beckham’s record “Out Of Your Mind” couldn’t prevent Spiller and Sophie Ellis-Bextor claiming the No 1 with “Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love)”. Should have taken it to another level bruv.

Oh no! If I was concerned because we’d reached the time of Another Level, I’m in full blown panic that the era of the next artist is upon us. There’s a lot to talk about here and, sticking with this post’s nomenclature theme, we start with said artist’s name. Presenter Jayne Middlemiss takes a stab at explaining its origins to us in her intro by saying “Her father was a Native Indian hence the funny name – Shania Twain”. OK, so first off, that sounds a fairly un-PC statement Jayne. Interestingly, the show’s subtitles say “Native American” and not “Native Indian”. Secondly, it’s not strictly true. The name she was given at birth was Eilleen Regina Edwards – the Twain surname comes from her stepfather who adopted her and her two sisters. As for the Shania bit, at the request of her record company, she chose a name that supposedly she took from a biracial wardrobe mistress whose mother was Native American whilst her father was white because it had such a hopeful ring to it. It’s been rumoured that Shania is actually an Ojibwa word meaning ‘on my way’ though this has been disputed by one of her biographers.

Anyway, enough of that. Despite having been a recording artist for five years, none of her previously released material has made any impact on us in the UK until “You’re Still The One” took her into the Top 10. A country pop ballad written as an ‘up yours’ to those doubting the authenticity and validity of her marriage* to her producer ‘Mutt’ Lange (who also co-wrote it with her), it was a huge crossover moment not just for Shania but for country music itself. Previous attempts to blend the two worlds of country and pop by the likes of Garth Brooks had never really taken off in the UK (though he’d enjoyed tremendous success in America) but Shania would change all of that with her third album “Come On Over” from which “You’re Still The One” was taken. Bluntly put, it was a monster with teeth. Selling enough copies in the UK to go twelve times platinum, it also topped our album chart for eleven weeks and was our best selling album of 1999. Note the year of that last fact – 1999 not 1998. Yes, the breakout success of “You’re Still The One” looked like being an outlier for a while and I, for one, dismissed Twain’s bankability. The album sold steadily but not spectacularly for the whole of 1998, spending 13 weeks inside the Top 40 between No 36 and No 15. Two more singles were released from it that were both decent sized but not huge hits. Then, some 14 months after its release, came “That Don’t Impress Me Much” with its line about Brad Pitt and the UK record buying public went crazy for it. Ten consecutive weeks inside the Top 10 reignited sales of its parent album and when “Man! I Feel Like A Woman!” followed it into the Top 3, Shania’s superstar status was assured. I hate those songs with their horrible, clunky hooks but that’s for future posts.

*Shania and Lange would divorce in 2010 after he had an affair with her best friend. Six months after their divorce was finalised, Shania married the former husband of said best friend. Make of that what you will.

As for “You’re Still The One”, it’s a passable, inoffensive ballad which gave no glimpse of the musical horrors to come. I even learned its chords as it was one of the songs we had to play as part of a guitar class I joined around 2009. Some 15 years later and I’m working as a theatre usher. One of the shows I worked was a Shania Twain tribute act. Oh..My…God. It was the longest night of my life! Literally – she played well over her allotted time, mainly because she wouldn’t stop talking to the audience and getting them up on stage with her. Ah yes, the audience. I’ve never seen so many cowboy hats in a confined space in my life. Then there were the superfans who’d spent thousands on following their idol. One man had been to Las Vegas for a meet and greet with the real thing and then did it again three moths later. And he spent a small fortune buying one of Shania’s guitars that had her name emblazoned on it. That still wasn’t enough for him though and so he was following the Shania tribute around the country on her tour going to as many gigs as he could. Look, I get the appeal of tribute acts. It’s your chance to see a favourite artist that doesn’t tour anymore or band who have long since split up. Or it might just be that you can’t afford to see the real thing – look at the Oasis reunion ticket prices. Despite all this though, the audience for the Shania tribute was more like a cult. I was begging for the next song to be the last but they kept on coming. She was still on stage 45 minutes after the show was advertised to have finished. Now that, that didn’t impress me much. At all.

Now we have the next chapter in the strange and short story of N–Tyce. Strange and short? Well, yes. Undeniably short in that they were only around for about a year, four singles and one album. And strange ? Yes, in that, despite being around in a time when all female bands were in the ascendancy with the likes of Spice Girls, All Saints and Eternal all being mega successful, N-Tyce never had a bigger hit than No 12 and their one and only album flopped meaning they’ve become almost forgotten. Said No 12 hit was “We Come To Party” and the follow up was this – “Telefunkin” – which peaked at No 16. It seems to be extolling the delights of phoning an x-rated chat line even quoting a number – 0589 – which, according to AI, could be a postal code for Oslo, a specific product code for Anchor Freccia 6 yarn or the Armenian Full Stop Unicode character. Hmm. Guess they just made it up then. As for their band name, they kind of got undermined by Justin Timberlake featuring American boy band NSYNC who were around at the same time.

Next an exercise in cold, hard, cynical musical exploitation. I’ve no idea who Rest Assured were and I have no desire to find out but their only hit – “Treat Infamy” – was all about that string part in The Verve’s “Bitter Sweet Symphony” which is recycled here to create a very different type of track. Starting off with some rapid bpm it reaches a crescendo before there’s a breakdown halfway through and those familiar strings emerge into the mix. Jayne Middlemiss attempted to explain the history behind the strings part in her intro but to clarify, The Verve recreated (not sampled) the strings from an orchestral version of “The Last Time” by the Rolling Stones performed by their producer Andrew Loog Oldham’s orchestra on a 1965 LP. As the song’s publisher’s proved source of origin for The Verve track, a writing credit had to given to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and it also meant that the band didn’t own that part of their best known song meaning that it could be sampled by any old Tom, Dick or Harry like Rest Assured.

Now that’s out of the way, back to “Treat Infamy” and after the jolt of the mid-track breakdown came the shock and horror of one of the people on stage bursting into song. Well, speaking is a more accurate description. Speaking in time maybe? I certainly wouldn’t call it rapping. And what does he say? Nothing of any consequence. Something about his life being incomplete, a knowing reference to the Rolling Stones and then a weak play on words that he possibly stole from Carry On Cleo…patra comin’ atcha!

By the late 90s, the idea of soap opera actors becoming pop stars was nothing new. Indeed, it was almost expected. In 1998 though, we at least had someone try it from a soap that had yet to dip its toe in the warm waters of the charts. Chester-based show Hollyoaks was still relatively new by soap standards having only been around for two and a half years and I have to admit to having watched it on and off in that time. One of its original characters was Jambo played by Will Mellor. A mixture of Jack-the-lad and unconventional romantic, he’s gone down well with the show’s fledgling audience and, bolstered by that reaction, Mellor made the decision to quit Hollyoaks and make a bid for pop stardom. Inevitably, he (or his label) chose a cover version with which to launch him settling on Leo Sayer’s 1977 No 1 “When I Need You”. It was both a sensible and uninspiring choice.

Perhaps surprisingly, Mellor crashed into the charts at No 5 earning himself this TOTP appearance in the process. He gives it the whole pained, tortured artist turn with a vocal that’s maybe just the wrong side of nasally but he didn’t look totally out of place on the BBC’s flagship pop music show. Now, Will seems like a decent sort from what I’ve seen of him but back in 1998 he was definitely on my personal black list. Why? Because the weekend following the release of his single, he decided that, as a Stockport lad, he’d have a stroll into the town’s shopping centre Merseyway…where I worked at the Our Price store. And yes, he decided to pop in for a browse of the racks. Dressed every inch like the pop star he thought himself to be including shades on indoors, he proceeded to cause quite the stir as Stockport’s teenage female population realised who he was. I’m pretty damned sure this was all deliberate on Will’s part and frankly, I could have done without it on a busy Saturday afternoon. Didn’t he have proper promotional duties to perform? On reflection though, Will was only 21 at the time and who wouldn’t have been tempted to stroll out in your local town as a newly anointed pop star if you had the chance. His music career lasted just one more minor hit single before he returned to acting in hit series Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps and more recently as sub-postmaster Lee Castleton in Mr Bates vs The Post Office.

Celine Dion has been toppled after just one week at the head of the charts and her vanquisher was one of the most unlikely of all the decades No 1 artists. Cornershop were formed in Leicester in 1991 by Tjinder Singh and drew inspiration for their sound from Singh’s experience as a British-born Sikh, fusing Punjabi music with British indie rock. After two albums and a clutch of singles and EPs were released to critical acclaim but lame sales, third album “When I Was Born For The 7th Time” appeared headed by lead single “Brimful Of Asha”. Despite achieving their highest chart position yet of No 60 and topping John Peel’s Festive 50 chart when initially released in 1997, this was hardly the limousine life of global pop stars stuff. Enter Norman Cook aka Fatboy Slim whose Big Beat remix of the track made it an instant dance floor classic with its increased bpm and mix of samples (including one from The Monkees I’ve learned subsequently).

So what was “Brimful Of Asha” all about? We all know the answer to this one by now don’t we? OK, for those arriving late and cramming in at the back, the title refers to Asha Bhosle, the legendary playback singer of Indian film culture who would pre-record the vocals for song and dance numbers for the actors to lip sync to. She has recorded over 12,000 songs making her the most recorded artist in music history as acknowledged by the Guinness Book of World Records. Her title of ‘Sadi Rani’ (Punjabi for ‘Our Queen’) is also referenced in the lyrics alongside other playback singers, some record labels and the name of a T-Rex compilation album which presumably all had some significance for Tjinder Singh.

So, the other question that looms large is why were the band not performing the Norman Cook remix version of the track on this TOTP? After all, that’s the version that was being played in the clubs and on the radio that made it a hit second time around? Was it that they didn’t know what to do with themselves in the studio with a speeded up bpm? Whatever the reason, it seems odd to pass up the opportunity to promote the song on what was still a sizeable platform despite all the show’s then difficulties. Oh, and the band’s name? That came from the perceived stereotype of South Asians owning corner shops which puts me in mind of the classic Goodness Gracious Me sketch where they brilliantly subverted the ‘going for a curry’ stereotype…

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1CleopatraCleopatra’s ThemeNah
2Ocean Colour Scene / P.P. ArnoldIt’s A Beautiful ThingNope
3Another LevelBe Alone No MoreNever
4Shania TwainYou’re Still The OneDouble Never
5N-TyceTelefunkinNegative
6Rest AssuredTreat InfamyNot my thing at all
7Will MellorWhen I Need YouAs if
8CornershopBrimful Of AshaYES!

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/m002g807/top-of-the-pops-27021998?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 13 FEB 1998

Posted on by 80stastic

It’s mid February 1998 and my beloved Chelsea have just sacked our manager Ruud Gullit! What?! The guy that just took us to our first major trophy win in 26 years and he’s been got rid of just nine months later?! What the hell was going on?! Well, much was speculated back then and since but my take is that Ruud wanted two contracts – one as a player and one as a manager which chairman Ken Bates balked at. When discussing how much said contracts would be worth, Gullit talked in net figures as opposed to gross (“I always talk netto” he famously quipped) which further put Uncle Ken’s nose out of joint. Add to these issues the idea that Bates just thought Ruud was too flash and disliked him and the legendary Dutchman was out on his ear. It was a huge story when it broke which although it shocked and saddened me, also made me realise that Chelsea were a big deal again after years in the shadows. Indeed, they were second in the league and in the quarter finals of two cup competitions at the point that Gullit got the bullet. My anguish was assuaged by the appointment of another footballing legend as his replacement – Gianluca Vialli -who would ironically become player-manager and deliver four trophies in his two and a half year tenure. I wonder if any of the acts on this episode of TOTP deserved the boot because it just wasn’t working out?

Nobody would want to get rid of the guy opening the show would they? Errol Brown, the front man of Hot Chocolate and the singer of all those classic hits? He always seemed so…well…nice. Nice he may have been but he’d also left Hot Chocolate over a decade before and whilst his former band members carried on without him (I know – without Errol, what was the point?), Brown was fronting his own version of Hot Chocolate for the nostalgia circuit. Maybe there was some tension there which might explain the confusion over the latest of the band’s revivals. After racking up their final UK Top 40 hit fourteen years prior (they were the only band to have a hit in every year between 1970 and 1984), there had been a relaunch of the band and a Greatest Hits package in 1987, 1993 and 1997. They’d been based around their hits “You Sexy Thing” and “It Started With A Kiss” and it’s that song which got another rerelease in 1998.

That last revival had seen the aforementioned “You Sexy Thing” become a No 6 hit in the November of 1997 and TOTP mysteriously billed it as being a solo single by Errol Brown when he appeared on the show even though it was officially (and correctly) by Hot Chocolate. However, the 1998 release of “It Started With A Kiss” was credited to Hot Chocolate featuring Errol Brown so what was going on there? Some contractual/naming rights shenanigans? Who knows? What is clear is that this performance saw Errol give a stripped back, almost acoustic version of the song which loses that lush, smooth production of the original for me. Also, the studio audience sat round him in a semi circle clapping along is giving me Blue Peter vibes which can’t be right on TOTP surely? My lasting memory of “It Started With A Kiss” though is of hearing it played on Radio 1 back in 1982 when it was first a hit and when Errol sang “You don’t remember me do you?”, Steve Wright chiming in with “Yeah, Errol, bald head, does a bit of singing now and again. I remember you” or words to that effect. How I laughed.

Hire or Fire? It has to be hire for Errol

Look out! It’s Cleopatra comin’ atcha! Yes, we have arrived at the time when three teenage sisters from Manchester were going to be the next big thing. However, a flurry of initial success lasted less time than the milk in the their Egyptian namesake’s bath before going sour. Hailing from the infamous Moss Side area, Cleo, Yonah and Zainam Higgins burst into our lives with that catchphrase and a No 3 debut single in “Cleopatra’s Theme”. Early labelling in the press as a UK, female Hanson was as lazy as it was obvious but three Top 5 hits in 1998 earned them BRIT and MOBO Awards nominations. Not only that but they were signed to Madonna’s Maverick label in the US where exposure on the Nickelodeon and Disney channels gave them a sizeable hit single and an album that sold 300,000 copies. They even toured with the Spice Girls and performed at the Vatican Christmas Carol Concert at the request of the Pope! What?! They had their own sitcom TV series on CITV! Maybe they were a big deal. Somehow though, none of this could sustain the group. A record company restructure resulted in a lack of promotion for their first single of the new millennium and a second album went unreleased in the UK. The group’s death knell came not by the bite of an asp but by Warner wanting to promote Cleo as a solo star and Cleopatra were no more. They did appear in ITV’s 2005 Hit Me, Baby, One More Time TV series but they couldn’t best Chesney Hawkes and didn’t make the final. Similarly, Cleo appeared on the second series of The Voice UK but bowed out in the semi-finals.

So why didn’t Cleopatra become global superstars with some longevity? Over exposure maybe? The appeal of their act had a built in time limit? Or perhaps their songs weren’t good enough? Watching them perform on this TOTP, I was expecting their hit to be…well…better but it doesn’t really go anywhere for me. The hooks don’t quite bite – not compared to the aforementioned Hanson’s “MMMBop” certainly – and all that spelling out their name letter by letter I found tedious. Another person who found Cleopatra tedious was the mother at the centre of a tale an ex-work colleague once told me. On a Saturday afternoon in Hull on the infamous Hessle Road, she overheard said mother say to her daughter who was unbelievably called Cleopatra, “Oi Cleopatra! Pack it in or I’ll twat ya!”. Only in Hull.

Hire or Fire? Sorry girls – it’s P45 time.

OK – just what is going on with presenter Jayne Middlemiss’s hair? It started off fairly coiffured and styled but just two songs in, it’s become loose and out of place as if she’s been head-banging down the front of the stage to…who? Cleopatra? Errol Brown? Can’t be surely? If that sounds a bit sexist, commenting on a woman’s look, I didn’t intend that obviously. It’s just that it had noticeably changed in a short space of time and piqued my attention.

Erm…on with the music I think. Who remembers Headswim? No, not me though looking at the cover of their second album “Despite Yourself”, that rang a few bells but I couldn’t have told you what they sounded like. Well, what they did sound like was Radiohead wannabes it transpires if their only hit “Tourniquet” was anything to go by. Radiohead but just not as good. Radiotails maybe. It’s all very angsty and doom laden with searing guitars and tortured vocals but it doesn’t really take me with it somehow.

That second album was recorded after the death of the brother of the band’s Daniel and Tom Glendining so maybe its sound is understandable but it still doesn’t make it any more listenable. The album failed to sell in any significant way and the band were dropped by label Epic. The members of Headswim pursued new musical ambitions with various other projects and even played a one off gig in 2022 to promote the rerelease of debut album “Flood” but there has been nothing from the band since.

Hire or Fire? I think Epic had the right idea

P.S. If I wanted a song that mentioned tourniquets in it, then I’d go for this:

Remember in the late 80s and early 90s when there was a trend for classic hits from the 70s to be reactivated by inserting a nasty, clunky backbeat into the mix and making them palatable to the club generation? I’m thinking of Quartz covering Carole King’s “It’s Too Late”, Black Box taking on Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Fantasy”, Snap!’s revisiting of the Gap Band with “Oops Up” and Fresh 4 (featuring Liz E) hijacking Rose Royce’s “Wishing On A Star”. Well, that final track was raided again in 1998 by rising-star-soon-to-be-legend Jay–Z. Admittedly, he didn’t come up with a horrible dance version but rather he remade it with a hip-hop/ rap twist AND, in a boost of credibility, he persuaded original vocalist Gwen Dickey to do the singing on it for him. However, despite being named in the intro by Jayne Middlemiss, when she declares “here’s Jay-Z…” and the camera pans to Gwen with no sign of the rapper, it looks odd. Eventually, we get a glimpse of him via the three giant screens behind Gwen which feature him rapping his sections thus reuniting the two but it doesn’t quite pull it off visually for me.

As for the track it’s basically Gwen doing a retread through the chorus of her old hit with Jay-Z rapping the verses when he references missing his homies, getting his shit together and, in an unexpected twist, about being interrupted by a chicken he used to cluck with. I presume he means a female acquaintance he used to hang out with? It would peak at No 13 but “Wishing On A Star” would continue to be covered by the likes of Jay-Z’s partner Beyoncé, Seal, Paul Weller and even The X Factor 2011 finalists featuring One Direction and JLS.

Hire or Fire? The original is great but I can live without a hip-hop version thanks

I know I say this all the time in this blog but this next hit I genuinely do not remember. No, it’s not just that I can’t recall it from the dusty recesses of my mind but rather that there is just nothing there at all – as if it never existed. Seriously, it’s like watching it for the very first time but 27 years after the event. Wes was Wes Madiko, a Cameroonian musician who’d worked with French ambient artists Deep Forest and who toured the globe with his brand of world music whilst also highlighting the plight of suffering children. He was a stand-up guy basically. His hit “Alane” was an exuberant and joyful blast of African chants in the Duala language of Cameroon set to an infectious dance beat which puts me in mind of The Lion King. And guess what, Wes contributed a track to the soundtrack of The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride. “Alane” would be his only UK hit and he would sadly die in 2021 aged just 57.

Hire or Fire? I’m saying hire on this one. I might not have know it before but it was a pleasant surprise

After Headswim earlier, here was another band who were hardly your cheesy, TOTP charts stars of yore. I was pretty slow on the uptake when it came to Spiritualized. Although my groovy record shop colleagues were definitely into this lot, all I knew about them was that they had an album out that came in really annoying and impractical packaging that was a nightmare to display in the store. Initial copies of the band’s third album “Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space” came in a box designed to resemble prescription medicine with a booklet containing dosage advice and the CD housed in foil blister packaging! I don’t think I could get past that literally nor metaphorically to get to the actual music. As such, I missed out on the NME’s album of 1997 (as referenced by Jayne Middlemiss in her intro) and its attendant singles the second of which was “I Think I’m In Love”. This earthy, organic, almost hypnotic track wasn’t your standard late 90s chart hit and thank heavens for that. Despite it essentially being just a list of clever word play, it had an authenticity to it that I couldn’t detect in Headswim which sounds mad given that they were writing about personal experience of death. Ah the vagaries of subjectivity when it comes to musical choice.

Anyway, I finally cottoned onto Spiritualized when they released the marvellous “Stop Your Crying” in 2001 after I’d left record shops behind me and become a civil servant*. Parent album “Let It Come Down” was purchased off the back of it as were tickets to see them live in York where I was then living and they made a huge sound as I recall. The band are still together (though I think front man Jason Pierce is the only constant member) and they released their ninth studio album in 2022.

*That was a culture shock and I clearly won’t be writing a blog about that!

Hire or Fire? Definitely a job offer being made to this lot

Ah shite. It’s the Backstreet Boys again with their piss weak ballad “All I Have To Give”. We saw this a few weeks back as a pre-release exclusive I think and it’s gone into the charts at No 2 this week and so is back on again. It’s just a reshowing of that first performance which means they’re all sat down on directors chairs. Presumably Louis Walsh was watching at home and used this appearance as a blueprint for every performance by Westlife. Ever.

Hire or Fire? I’m firing all five of their asses!

The Middlemiss bonce has lurched from sleek to slack during the show but it’s back under control again as she introduces the No 1 song this week – “Doctor Jones” by Aqua. Not a lot else to say about this one other than that the contrast in voices between singer Lene Nystrøm and her bald male counterpart René Dif is the most striking on the show since Marcella Detroit and Siobhan Fahey took to the stage as Shakespears Sister. Also, the name Jones does seem to turn up in a fair few songs. Apart from “Doctor Jones”, there’s this lot for starters off the top of my head:

  • “Mr. Jones” – Counting Crows
  • “Me and Mrs. Jones” – Billy Paul
  • “Jones Vs. Jones” – Kool And The Gang
  • “Janie Jones” – The Clash

Any others?

Hire or Fire? It’s the old tin tack for Aqua

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Hot Chocolate featuring Errol BrownIt Started With A KissDidn’t happen
2CleopatraCleopatra’s ThemeNot for me
3HeadswimTourniquetNah
4Jay-Z / Gwen DickeyWishing On A StarNegative
5WesAlaneNope
6SpiritualizedI Think I’m In LoveI did not
7Backstreet Boys All I Have To GiveAs if
8AquaDoctor JonesNo

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/m002fzcb/top-of-the-pops-13021998?seriesId=unsliced