Clock

TOTP 16 JAN 1998

It’s the middle of January 1998 and two days before this TOTP aired on the BBC, Channel 4 broadcast the 2000th edition of their soap opera Brookside. I don’t think I was still watching it by this point but, in a cards on the table moment, I can reveal that I have been watching the repeats being shown on STV. From the very start in 1982. We’re up to 1988 now (that’s nearly 650 episodes) and yes, like you, I am asking myself “What am I doing with my life?”. Still, there’s worse things you could do than watch some episodes of a now defunct soap. Or indeed, spend years watching repeats of old pop music shows and then even longer writing up reviews of each one. Oh God – what am I doing with my life?! Oh well, it is what it is and what this TOTP is (or was) we need to find out…

Jayne ‘The Smirk’ Middlemiss is our host and we start with a band who were meant to lead us out of the Britpop years and into…well, a post-Britpop era I guess. Rialto were formed from the ashes of indie rockers Kinky Machine. Retaining their record label (EastWest Records) but not their name and adding some new members, the new look band courted the favour and patronage of the music press and were predicted a hugely successful future by Melody Maker for their epic, soundscape songs that were dripping with atmosphere. Somehow it didn’t quite turn out like that though. Being dropped by their record label shortly before their much anticipated debut album was about to be released can’t have been good for confidence in the band either internally or externally. According to vocalist Louis Eliot, it was just a case of being in the wrong place at the time. EastWest had a change of personnel and sacked their A&R man which led to the band being let go. Their album was released by China Records (home of Art Of Noise, Morcheeba and The Levellers) but in an extraordinary stroke of bad luck, China were bought out by EastWest and Rialto were dropped again.

I’m getting ahead of myself though. Reactions to the album were generally positive but in that ‘build ‘em up, knock ‘em down’ attitude so prevalent in the UK press, some reviewers decided to bury the hatchet right between the band’s collective shoulder blades. It made a reasonable stab at the charts though peaking at No 21 no doubt helped by the respectable performance of this single “Untouchable” (No 20). A sweeping, cinematic track that had echoes of a John Barry TV or movie theme (The Persuaders comes to mind), this was a favourite of mine and my wife’s and a purchase was duly made. We were so taken with the band that we had tickets to see them at The Manchester Academy but I was ill on the night of the gig and we missed them. Their success in the UK was dwarfed by that in South Korea where they even outsold Celine Dion and their album went to No 1 but a trip to South East Asia to catch them live seemed a bit over the top (and I’d been to China for just seven days the year before!). A second album arrived in 2001 but by then the writing was in the wall and Rialto split. Eliot pursued a brief solo career but is currently a permanent member of Grace Jones’s touring band. And then, out of the blue, Rialto were back in 2023 playing festivals and with a new album released on the legendary indie label Fierce Panda in April this year. Maybe I’ll get to see them play live after all.

Next is Robbie Williams whose song “Angels” is continuing its undulating chart journey and is back up to No 6 this week. It would alternate between rising and falling for ten of the twelve weeks it remained inside the Top 10. Quite extraordinary. Perhaps in order to build Robbie some credibility and for him to be seen as a serious artist, this time he’s doing the song live and acoustic (or ‘unplugged’ as we said in the 90s). Whether this gave him that credibility is not for me to surmise but it certainly imbued him with some confidence – you can see it all over his face. It could be his famous bravado of course.

P.S. Why was Louis Theroux playing guitar in this performance?

In many ways, KC And The Sunshine Band’s UK legacy is in complete contrast to its US counterpart. In America, they racked up five No 1s and two No 2s whereas over here, their only chart topper was the sickeningly upbeat “Give It Up” which curiously only made No 18 over the water. Of those American No 1s, only two translated into massive hits over here. “Please Don’t Go” was a No 3 in the UK whilst “That’s The Way (I Like It)” made it to No 4. Of those other massive US hits, none got higher than No 21 over here. There must have been something about those two transatlantic hits as both would become huge all over again in the 80s and 90s. KWS took “Please Don’t Go” all the way to No 1 in 1992 whilst Dead Or Alive’s first hit wasn’t “You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)” but their Hi-NRG version of “That’s The Way (I Like It)” from 1984. And then there’s this cover of it by Clock. Just…just…WHY?! Well, for the money obviously as it can’t have been for reasons of artistic integrity can it?! I think this lot were possibly the most shameful and shameless of all those 90s dance acts, stealing a living by pinching other people’s songs and putting a nasty dance backing track to them. The Four Seasons, Hot Chocolate, Tag Team and even Harold Faltermeyer had received the Clock treatment and now even KC And The Sunshine Band weren’t safe from Clock’s hands. This one though didn’t even seem to have that nasty 90s sheen to it as it was a fairly straight run through of the original.

The only good news is that time was ticking on Clock. They would only have two more UK chart hits before their spring was sprung one of which was yet another cover – this time of The Jacksons’ “Blame It On The Boogie” which itself had already been covered by heinous boy band Big Fun in 1989. None of this nonsense was the way I liked it.

It’s the Lighthouse Family up next with another performance of their hit “High”. I can’t think of a single thing to say about this one having only just commented on it in the previous post. However…having watched their appearance back, there’s something odd going on with the studio audience or more specifically one member of it. If you go to 3:20 in on the clip YouTube clip below, look at the young girl in a patterned top in the forefront of the screen. She seems to be distracted by something or someone out of shot and the look on her face is one of bewilderment with perhaps a hint of disgust. What was going on there? It wasn’t a reaction I’d have expected whilst watching the blandly inoffensive Lighthouse Family!

Early 1998 saw an Oasis milestone occur that was actually more like a line drawn in the sand in terms of the band’s history. “All Around The World” wasn’t just the third single released from the “Be Here Now” album nor the fourth of eight No 1s that they clocked up. No, it was their last release on Creation Records and the last to feature founding members Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs and Paul ‘Guigsy’ McGuigan. It was the end of an era and some might say that things were never the same again. Bonehead and Guigsy would both leave the band within two weeks of each other in the Summer of 1999 after completing preliminary recording sessions for fourth album “Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants”. Said album would appear in 2000 on the band’s own label Big Brother after the dissolution of Creation by Alan McGee in December of 1999.

As for “All Around The World”, this was a track written by Noel Gallagher in the band’s very early pre-record deal days which he infamously said he would leave recording until the third Oasis album. He was true to his word and it was the tenth track on “Be Here Now” clocking in at a mighty 9:20 in length making it the longest track the band had ever recorded. I was always bemused that given its size and stature, it wasn’t the last track in the album with it being trailed by “It’s Gettin’ Better (Man!!)” but there is a two minute instrumental reprise of “All Around The World” to close the album in fairness. It also marks the point at which the band were most open about vaunting their Beatles influences. Not content to try and rewrite “Hey Jude”, the video that went with it was an obvious steal from the Fab Four’s Yellow Submarine film. We don’t get to see that here though and nor do we get a studio performance but, as the personal VT message from the band says, a clip of them playing it live at the old GMEX venue in Manchester as part of the Be Here Now tour which had taken the band to America for its next leg hence their absence tonight. The live version sounds more powerful than the single release and, of course, there’s Liam’s obligatory over pronunciation of the word ‘shine’ as ‘she-iiiiine’. It got me wondering how many of their song has lyrics which feature that word. A quick search of the internet found this lot:

Rock N Roll Star – “I live my life for the stars that shine”

Cigarettes’ and Alcohol – “You could wait for a lifetime to spend your days in the sunshine”

Slide Away – “Let me be the one who shines with you”

Up in the Sky – “I heard that the shine’s gone out of your life.”

Some Might Say – “Some might say that sunshine follows thunder” / “Go and tell it to the man who cannot shine”

Hello – “Cos the sun don’t shine”

All Around the World – “These are crazy days but they make me shine”

Acquiesce – “I only wanna see the light that shines behind your eyes”

Magic Pie – “My star will shine”

Who Feels Love – “Thank you for the sun, the one that shines on every one who feels love”

The Hindu Times – “You’re my sunshine you’re my rain” / “There’s a light that shines on, shines on me”

Stop Crying Your Heart Out – “May your smile shine on”

She is Love – “When the sunshine beckons to ya”

Born on a Different Cloud – “You’re my sun and you’re gonna shine”

The Importance of Being Idle – “As long as there’s a bed beneath the stars that shine”

A Bell Will Ring – “The sun will shine on you again”

Bag It Up – “Gold and silver and sunshine is rising up”

Soldier On – “Shine a light for me tonight”

Boy with the Blues – “Remember to shine”

Cloudburst – “Downtown the moon is shining”

One Way Road – “And are we gonna see the heavens shine”

Round Are Way – “Round are way the sun shines bright”

Flashbax – “There shines a light, like dynamite”

Idler’s Dream – “The light that’s shining through your eyes of gold”

Shout It Out Loud – “I hope the light shines on we as one”

“Shiiiiiine on”!

They’ve finally done it! It’s taken nine weeks of which two saw them going down the charts and three as a non-mover but All Saints are at No 1 with “Never Ever”. They’re in the studio to celebrate their achievement which includes a fairly inane chat with Jayne Middlemiss before they deliver what seems to be a live vocal performance judging by the a cappella bit at the end.

Listening to those spoken word lyrics, some of them don’t seem to make any sense. For example:

“A few questions that I need to know”

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Shaznay Lewis / Robert Jazayeri / Sean Prescott Mather
Never Ever lyrics © Mca Music Ltd., Stl Songs Limited, Rickidy Raw Prod., Inc.

Surely that should be answers not ‘questions’? Then there’s this:

“I need to know what I’ve done wrong and how long it’s been going on”

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Shaznay Lewis / Robert Jazayeri / Sean Prescott Mather
Never Ever lyrics © Mca Music Ltd., Stl Songs Limited, Rickidy Raw Prod., Inc.

That doesn’t quite ring true. Shouldn’t it be “I need to know what you’ve done wrong”?

Then there’s the whole confusion over how to pronounce the letter ‘Z’ – is it ‘zee’ or ‘zed’ as both are used here. All very bewildering. Also bewildering is how many times the band have been on the show to perform “Never Ever”. If you think this must be the last as this was the song’s only week at No 1, you’re wrong. They’re on again in a couple of repeats!

After weeks of finishing the show with the No 1 record, suddenly we’ve reverted to having a play out hit. Was this a temporary thing or will it be here to stay? Anyway, there was clearly a KC And The Sunshine Band mini revival going on in January 1998 as after Clock earlier, here’s another hit based on one of their tunes. For “That’s The Way (I Like It)” read “Get Down Tonight” but with a 90s house beat applied to it and a new title – “Bamboogie”. Who was responsible for this crud? A producer called Andrew Livingstone who created the vehicle Bamboo to peddle this crap. I’m guessing it’s high chart entry at No 2 was taking advantage of the post Christmas sales slump. Thank God for those people who bought the 557 extra copies of “Never Ever” to keep “Bamboogie” from being No 1! A slender but important victory. You just knew this was going to be awful by its vintage cartoon video which stank of “this’ll do”. See also Jive Bunny And The Mastermixers and the Outhere Brothers.

I’m guessing that KC And The Sunshine Band’s record label will have taken advantage of this renewed interest in their artist and released a Best Of album?

*checks KC’s discography*

Yes they did and it sold enough copies to be granted silver status. I should think so too. In any case, if I wanted a song with “Bamboogie” in the title then I would certainly choose this one over that Bamboo shite.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Rialto	Untouchable	YES!!!
2	Robbie Williams	Angels	No but I had a promo copy of the album
3	Clock	That’s The Way ( I Like It)”	Of course not
4	Lighthouse Family	High	Nah
5	Oasis	All AroundThe World	No, I’d stopped buying their singles by this point
6	All Saints	Never Ever	I didn’t
7	Bamboo	Bamboogie	Never

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/m002dfcd/top-of-the-pops-16011998?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 24 OCT 1997

Posted on May 2 by 80stastic

This particular TOTP was broadcast a day after one of the most bizarre football matches ever was played and it involved my beloved Chelsea. Having won the FA Cup for the first time in 27 years the previous season, the blues were in the European Cup Winners Cup competition in the 1997/98 campaign. In the second round they were drawn against Norwegian side Tromsø with the first leg away at the home of the most northerly top-flight team in the world, deep within the Artic Circle. As the game started, the pitch looked atrocious and Tromsø soon raced into a 2-0 lead. Worse was to come though as a snowstorm hit at halftime bringing with it massive flurries and causing the match to be stopped twice in the second half so ground staff could clear snow off the pitch to allow line markings to remain visible. Chelsea manager Ruud Gullit spent the entire second half arguing with UEFA officials beseeching them to abandon the game. However, it transpired that they were under pressure to get the match completed at all costs due to scheduling issues and play continued. In the end, the game finished 3-2 to Tromsø with Gianluca Vialli scoring two late goals for the blues as he skated through the home defence displaying a sureness of foot that Robin Cousins would have struggled to pull off. In the return leg, Chelsea put Tromsø to the sword to progress in the competition which they ultimately would win the following May. That away game in Tromsø though is still talked about as one of the most farcical games of professional football ever to have taken place. There surely couldn’t be any musical equivalent on this TOTP to rival its preposterous nature could there?

Well, the very first image that hits our screens is, if not entirely ludicrous, then random at best. The Spice Girls rather than the presenter do the “it’s still No 1” intro and they are joined by a camel for the clip. Yep, a camel. Perfectly normal staging. It turns out that the girls are in New Delhi, India for the Channel V Awards where they won gongs for best international song and best international album (hence the camel) and we’ll be seeing them later in the show as *SPOILER ALERT* they have this week’s new No 1. With the intro delivered we’re straight into the tunes and…well, this is really quite perverse. We open the show with Tina Moore and her hit “Never Gonna Let You Go”. This is the fourth time she’s been on the show! The fourth! Her first appearance was way back on the 29th August – that’s nearly two whole months previous! How is this possible?! Let’s have a look at her hit’s chart performance during that time to see if we can make any sense of it. Here are its chart numbers up to this point:

7 – 11 – 9 – 12 – 9 – 11 – 11 – 17 – 15

That seems an awful lot of exposure for a hit that never got any higher than No 7. Sure, it was durable, selling consistently though not spectacularly but this last appearance was presumably justified because it had moved up two places to No 15, even though that was its second lowest chart position to that point. And more than that, they’ve used the same performance every single time – the double denim, transparent stage, minimal dancing shot from underneath performance! It seemed executive producer Chris Cowey really couldn’t let Tina Moore go!

Continuing the Scandinavian theme, we travel from Norway to Denmark and arrive at one of the most annoying and yes, preposterous hits of the decade – it can only be “Barbie Girl” by Aqua. So what was all this about? Was it just a silly pop song that poked some fun at the best selling toy in history or was it a social comment on negative body image issues raised by the unrealistic figures the Barbie dolls were designed with? Well, here’s a small film with the story behind the song supposedly:

Why does the narrator insist on calling them ‘Arkwa’? Anyway, make your own minds up. What isn’t in doubt is the song’s success. A global No 1 with worldwide sales of eight million, it went four times platinum in the UK alone being the second best selling single of 1997 here behind “Candle In The Wind ‘97”. It will be our chart topper for four weeks so I’ll leave it there for now except to say do you think the young guy in the studio audience has recovered yet from his close encounter with singer Lene Nystrøm when she playfully grabs his face. I bet he’s dined out on that story for years. Conversely, I’m willing to wager that the young lady who had a similar experience with male vocalist René Dif across the other side of the studio has never spoken about it since.

By the way, tonight’s host is Jo Whiley and the fact that she’s had to introduce Aqua I do find amusing given her serious music pretensions. She dismisses “Barbie Girl” as music for those who find “The Teletubbies an intellectual challenge”. A bit unnecessary that. Anyway, the next band is much more her thing as we get Ash with “A Life Less Ordinary”. Established as mega-successful chart stars by this point after a two year period that saw them rack up four hit singles and a No 1 platinum selling album, a song on a movie soundtrack probably seemed like the next logical step for the band. Not only that but the film that soundtrack came from (also called A Life Less Ordinary) was directed by Danny Boyle who had just had enormous success with Trainspotting the year before and Shallow Grave in 1994. The former movie had spawned a massive selling soundtrack so Ash must have thought they’d hit the jackpot by being so obviously associated with Boyle’s next project. It didn’t quite work out as maybe they’d envisioned though. Whilst their title track to the film would secure them a third consecutive Top 10 hit, the film itself was a huge disappointment after its two predecessors both commercially and critically. Starring Ewan McGregor (completing a hat-trick of Boyle films) and Cameron Diaz, the plot about angels on earth helping a kidnapper and his hostage fall in love just didn’t strike the right chord with audiences. Neither did the soundtrack which didn’t sell in anywhere near the same quantities as Trainspotting despite including contributions from artists like The Cardigans, Beck, REM and Faithless. I’m sure we had a massive overstock of it in the Our Price where I was working. I thought I’d watched the film at the cinema but if I did, I’ve blanked it from my memory as nothing about its plot sounds familiar.

As for Ash’s song, it was OK I thought though it always gave me the impression that a “that’ll do” approach from the band had been applied – certainly not one of their best. I think it’s significant though as it’s the first release to feature Charlotte Hatherley as a full time band member who, in this performance, looked like one of those pale and interesting girls that wouldn’t have looked twice at the very ordinary me during my youth.

Jo Whiley adopts a pretentious, pseudo- religious angle in her intro to the next artist. “Welcome to the church of rare groove and the priest of high fashion. Pray silence for the gospel according to the Brand New Heavies” she witters on. WTF are you talking about Jo?! Despite attempts to make it look like the band are in the studio, the fade up cut away reveals that it’s just a repeat airing of their first performance of “You’ve Got A Friend” from the other week. Executive producer Chris Cowey was very keen on recycling studio performances – indeed, it was something of a trend with him. Quite why he needed to try and disguise what it was though I’m not sure. I don’t think the watching TV audience would have been offended if Jo had just said “Here’s a clip from a previous show of the Brand New Heavies” instead of banging on about churches, high priests and the gospel. Less of the heavy stuff and remember that you’ve got a friend in the British public Jo*

*Actually, I couldn’t stand her at the time.

Jo continues to make herself look silly in her next segue as she calls the guy on stage the future of rock ‘n’ roll or something. He would, in fact, turn out to be a one hit wonder. Welcome to the curious case of Jimmy Ray. You’d be excused for not remembering this guy – I barely do and I was working in a record shop selling his single. On initial examination, this seems to be a simple story of the over promotion of a flawed record company idea – let’s reinvent rock ‘n’ roll by going back to its roots and having our face of the campaign look like a 50s throwback (© Vic Reeves, Shooting Stars, 1997). However, there might have been more to this whole saga than meets the eye. For a start, Jimmy Ray (actually his real name for once) had started out as part of techno-pop outfit AV alongside one Graham Drinnan who’d had a minor chart entry as Gypsy in 1996 with “I Trance You (Remixes)”. After AV split without releasing any material, he was somehow picked up by Simon Fuller who put the Spice Girls together (how random is that?) and then linked up with a guy called Conall Fitzpatrick who’d written Shampoo’s hit “Trouble”. Together they came up with the song “Are You Jimmy Ray?”. In truth, there’s not a lot to it – a 50s style guitar riff reminiscent of Bo Diddley’s “Mona” (though many might have known it from Craig McLachlan’s 1990 cover) allied to lyrics that name check various random people just because they are phonetically similar to the surname ‘Ray’. Ah yes, names. This track was all about names and most importantly that of Jimmy Ray himself – a clever bit of self promotion really, taking the ‘Who is Tasmin Archer?’ poster campaign to its logical next step. Indeed, Ray himself has wondered if Fitzpatrick was influenced by some London graffiti that had appeared around this time asking the question “Who is Christian Goldman?’*

*Supposedly Christian Goldman was a US producer and the graffiti part of a campaign for his “Happy Days” single.

Aside from referencing King Kong actress Fay Wray, American 50s singer Johnnie Ray (already immortalised in 80s pop culture by “Come On Eileen”) and fictional French detective Maigret, there also a lyric which is both juvenile and unnecessary…

“I’ve gotta let it out, there’s somethin’ in my jeans“

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Conall Ronan Fitzpatrick / James Ray
Are You Jimmy Ray? lyrics © Island Music Ltd., Mca Music Ltd., Sony Music Publishing (uk) Ltd, Wixen Music Uk Ltd, Wixen Music (uk) Ltd

Hmm. I’ve seen it spelt online as ‘genes’ in which case it’s just clever wordplay rather than obvious innuendo or I’ve completely misunderstood what was going on there.

The single was a hit going to No 13 in both the UK and the US but Jimmy would have no further success despite him looking the part – he was more Charlie Sexton crossed with Gene Vincent than Shakin’ Stevens. Subsequent singles all missed the Top 40 and his album remained unreleased in this country. Apparently, Jimmy is still in the music business of sorts and last released new material in 2017. I wonder how many people have actually asked him “Are you Jimmy Ray?” recently though?

From the 50s to the 70s now (yes, I kind of nicked that link from Jo Whiley) as we find Clock doing their hateful update of the Hot Chocolate classic “You Sexy Thing” retitled as “U Sexy Thing”. Again, this was just a reshowing of a previous performance and was justified by this ghastly record going up one place from No 12 to No 11, a move assisted I’m guessing by only a small number of entries into the Top 10 in this week (Brand New Heavies were similarly aided by moving from No 11 to No 9 this week resulting in their second appearance on the show).

In 2004, vocalist Lorna Saunders appeared in the ‘identity parade’ section of Never Mind The Buzzcocks when it was revealed that she had left the music industry and was working as a legal secretary (she subsequently went on to become a lawyer). The other guest in the ‘identity parade’ that episode? Benny Anderwear from ABBA tribute Björn Again which was apt. No, not as it maintains this post’s Scandinavian theme but because Clock were pants.

Once again, I’m not quite sure what Jo Whiley is on about in her next intro when she describes US band Smash Mouth as being “from San Jose, California via the casinos of Wigan. It’s Northern Soul with an American accent”. Now, I’m no Northern Soul aficionado (in fact I know bugger all about the movement really) but I would never have described this lot as Northern Soul. A touch of ska yes, power pop maybe but Northern Soul? Never occurred to me. Wikipedia tells me that the band have a penchant for cover versions but looking at the list of other people’s songs they’ve attempted, none of them appear to be by Northern Soul artists. Is it possible then that Jo has just got this one wrong?

The band have only had two hits in this country of which “Walkin’ On The Sun” was the first peaking at No 19. Written as a reaction to the Rodney King beatings and the 1992 LA riots following the acquittal of three of the police officers involved, it chugs along in a pleasing fashion propelled by that organ sound that drew comparisons with “She’s Not There” by The Zombies. Parallels were also drawn with another band which I somehow must have failed to notice at the time but listening back to Smash Mouth now is completely obvious – The Doors. That Hammond organ that Ray Manzarek played so distinctively but updated for the 90s? How did I miss that?

It would take two years for a follow up hit to arrive in the form of “All Star” which sounded even better than its predecessor to me and which I duly bought. Handily, it had “Walkin’ On The Sun” as an extra track on the CD single. The band then seemed to carve out a niche career supplying songs for the original Shrek movie with both “All Star” and the band’s version of “I’m A Believer” made famous by The Monkees featuring on its soundtrack. Smash Mouth are still together though only bass player Paul De Lisle remains from the original line up. Singer Steve Harwell died in 2021 from liver failure following years of struggling with alcoholism.

The time of “ Candle In The Wind ‘97” is over! We have a new No 1! Hallelujah! Oh, it’s by the Spice Girls though. Never mind. Going against the performance of their previous four chart toppers, “Spice Up Your Life” will only be No 1 for one week! Sadly, then it’ll be deposed by “Barbie Girl”. Oh.

So, with this release, the Spice Girls made history by dint of their first five singles going to the top of the charts. I’m guessing its shortest of tenures at No 1 may have ruffled a few feathers at Spice World HQ though. Ah yes, Spice World. Apparently, the single was recorded in between shooting their movie which may account for it sounding a bit rushed. I mean, you can’t deny its energy but it’s all a bit muddled and has a throw-the-kitchen-sink feel to it. Supposedly written as a global rally cry for all of humanity, its lyrics instead manage to just name check a load of dance styles including flamenco, lambada, the foxtrot, polka and salsa. Then there’s the potentially racist “yellow man in Timbuktu” line which received criticism even back then. As for its title, as with Jimmy Ray earlier, there’s a huge dose of self promotion going on (as if they needed any more!). Finally, it’s actually not that far from “Wannabe” with its exhortations to “slam it to the left” and “shake it to the right” echoing “slam your body down and wind it all around”. Musically, it jumps on the Latin pop bandwagon that Ricky Martin and No Mercy had already had success with in this year. The single received mixed reviews in the press and I for one wasn’t impressed.

After ultimately losing out to Aqua, the link between Barbie and “Spice Up Your Life” was renewed some 26 years later when it featured in the hit movie of the same name starring Margot Robbie although it didn’t actually make it onto the soundtrack album.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Tina Moore	Never Gonna Let You Go	Nope
2	Aqua	Barbie Girl	Definitely no
3	Ash	A Life Less Ordinary	Negative
4	Brand New Heavies	You’ve Got A Friend	No
5	Jimmy Ray	Are You Jimmy Ray?	Nah
6	Clock	U Sexy Thing	As if
7	Smash Mouth	Walkin’ On The Sun	No but it was an extra track on ‘Allstar” which I did buy
8	Spice Girls	Spice Up Your Life	I 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/m002b252/top-of-the-pops-24101997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 17 OCT 1997

Posted on April 29 by 80stastic

The volatility of the Top 40 around this time – the advent of first week discounting meaning high chart debuts followed by a sharp decline in sales – must have been an issue for the Beeb’s grand old pop music show. Except for a few anomalies, the days of hits taking weeks to slowly climb the charts allowing for multiple TOTP appearances on the way were a thing of the past. In my teenage years, No 1s would stay at the top for at least three weeks but by 1997 we were at the stage where we were experiencing six different chart toppers in the same amount of weeks. Executive producer Chris Cowey tried to address this by allowing repeat performances of hits that had peaked and were either descending the charts slowly or remaining in the Top 10 as a non-mover. This resulted in creating a platform for songs that were still popular to feature on the show but also meant that singles entering the lower parts of the Top 40 didn’t get a look in. Another strategy was to have an ‘exclusive’ performance of a song the week before its release and then a second appearance when it actually entered the charts the following week. Neither of these measures were ever going to restore the show to its past glories and the peak viewing figures it experienced in the 70s and 80s but at least Cowey was trying.

Having said all of that, we start with a song that didn’t fall into either category I have just outlined above. “U Sexy Thing” by Clock was on the show’s running order as a new entry at No 12 and would feature again the following week after climbing one place to No 11. Morrissey once said in Smash Hits when reviewing the week’s singles releases “There are indeed worse groups than Modern Romance but can anyone seriously think of one?”. Lord knows what Mozza must have made of Clock then who make Modern Romance sound like peak REM.

I don’t remember this but apparently they started out as a typical Eurodance outfit with a sound similar to Cappella according to Wikipedia. However, around the middle of the decade, they took the decision to go overtly commercial with an out and out pop sound by doing hideously trashy cover versions. Tracks by Harold Faltermeyer and Tag Team were followed by more mainstream songs like “December 1963 (Oh What A Night)” and this – “You Sexy Thing”. Irritatingly, they would slightly rename the song titles giving the impression that they weren’t just cover versions but brand new tracks so the Four Seasons classic became simply “Oh What A Night” whilst Hot Chocolate’s well loved hit was “U Sexy Thing”. Just nasty. Actually, not just nasty but cynical too in the case of the latter. The choice to cover that particular track was surely influenced by its resurgence in popularity thanks to its use in the box office smash The Full Monty. In their defence, they weren’t the only people to have that idea – another tacky version was released at the same time by a duo called T-Shirt but it lost out to Clock when it failed to make the UK Top 40. In the end, the Hot Chocolate original was rereleased and beat both the updated takes on it by riding to No 6 in the charts. This made it the third time it had been a hit – it was a No 2 in 1975 and made it to No 10 when rereleased for the first time in 1987. As for Clock, they would continue to mine the rich seam of cover versions by having hits with KC And The Sunshine Band’s “That’s The Way (I Like It)” and “Blame it On The Boogie” by The Jacksons before having the decency to pack it all in by the end of the decade.

Next up is another hit that doesn’t conform to the appearance policy I described in the intro to this post – I’m beginning to think I might have got this all wrong! Anyway, the hit concerned is “Closed For Business” by Mansun and it’s on the show as it’s gone straight into the charts at No 10 which clearly justifies its place in tonight’s running order. However, a band like Mansun presented a different sort of consideration for Chris Cowey. A large and devoted fanbase meant large sales in week one but a quick drop off thereafter. “Closed For Business” (the lead track from the “Seven EP”) spent just a fortnight inside the Top 40 dropping a whopping 27 places in its second week. I guess Cowey’s dilemma here was balancing reflecting what was popular in that particular week without pandering to a specific section of the record buying public. Was there also an issue of scheduling in terms of being able to get the band in the TOTP studio at that exact point of optimum popularity of their single? Remember, Cowey didn’t seem keen on showing videos unless he really had to.

Enough of that though, what about the music? Well, this was one of those bridging-the-gap releases between albums that we’ve seen many times before. Debut album “Attack Of The Grey Lantern” had come out in the February of 1997 and follow up “Six” would not appear until 18 months later so some interim material was required to maintain Mansun’s profile presumably. As with their earlier work, “Closed For Business” had that wide screen feel to it that overwhelmed your senses without suffocating them. It was gloriously epic. I’d really liked that first album and yet, somehow, I’d lost interest by the time their sophomore effort arrived. As with Garbage, Roachford and Skunk Anansie before them, I really should check out their later work. However, I don’t think I’ll be venturing as far as their other release called “Closed For Business” – a 25 disc box set retrospective. Twenty-five!

P.S. The sleeves to the CD singles of “Closed For Business” featured paintings by artist and early Beatle Stuart Sutcliffe whose story I’m always fascinated by. In fact, the whole narrative of those involved in the history of The Beatles but who didn’t end up as who we know as the ‘Fab Four’ does. Sutcliffe, Pete Best, Jimmie Nicol…all people whose lives could have been so so different.

Wait…Siedah Garrett was in the Brand New Heavies? When did that happen? Well, 1997 obviously but how did it happen and where’s N’Dea Davenport? Well, apparently she’d been gone a couple of years by this point having left the band due to that old chestnut ‘irreconcilable differences’ (I have no info on whether there were of the musical variety) with Garrett replacing her. She’s an interesting character Siedah – I think I only knew her as duetting with Michael Jackson on “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You” but there’s so much more to her than that. As Jayne Middlemiss hints at in her intro, she had a hit in 1984 with Dennis Edwards with “Don’t Look Any Further” (which was later covered by the Kane Gang and M People) and she also co-wrote Jackson’s hit “Man In The Mirror”. She toured with both Jacko and Madonna and wrote a Grammy award winning single for the Dreamgirls film. She co-wrote a number of tracks on Quincy Jones’ seven Grammy Awards winning album “Back On The Block” and has even presented America’s Top 10 deputising for the legend that was Casey Kasem (the original voice of Shaggy from Scooby Doo!).

Back to the Brand New Heavies though and despite them having the reputation of being pioneers of the acid jazz movement built upon two platinum selling albums, when it came to huge hit singles, there weren’t that many. Of their fifteen releases that made the Top 40, only one went Top 10 and that was this one – a cover version of Carol King’s “You’ve Got A Friend”. It seems kind of odd that a cover would be their biggest hit, as if it somehow invalidates their other work though, of course, they had already gone down that route when their version of Maria Muldaur’s “Midnight At The Oasis” went to No 13 in 1994. For what it’s worth, I don’t think they added anything much to the original – indeed, I would argue that it stripped it of its lush, warm feel. It’s not a terrible version just…unnecessary. Not even the (rather over the top) twenty strong gospel choir employed here could make it into something special.

Given that it was the fourth and final single from their “In It For The Money” album, perhaps not surprisingly, “Late In The Day” failed to maintain a run of five previous Top 10 hits for Supergrass when it peaked at No 18. For me, it’s not one of their best though it was probably better than many of its contemporary chart peers. Am I alone in thinking Gaz Coombes looked pretty cool despite his mutton chop sideburns?

Finally we have a hit that conforms to one of the appearance policies I described at the start of this post. Eternal were on the show last week with their single “Angel Of Mine” which had debuted on the chart at No 4. Despite falling a place to No 5 seven days later, it was still deemed popular enough to warrant a repeat of that performance on this show. When it comes to conversations about UK girl groups, I’m not sure that Eternal would be the first name on everyone’s lips. Girls Aloud, the Spice Girls, Little Mix and even Bananarama are more likely to be mentioned before them it seems to me and yet they had 15 consecutive hit singles and three platinum selling studio albums and one Best Of compilation. Was it that they didn’t crack America* that has lessened their legacy? Certainly the Spice Girls crossed over the Atlantic though I’m not sure if any of those other names above did although Bananarama had sporadic yet spectacular success including a US No 1 in “Venus”. Was it that they kept haemorrhaging group members that has dinted their reputation? Presumably not as pretty much all those aforementioned artists similarly shed original members from their line ups along the way. Does it just come down to the memorability of their tunes then? Despite the number of hits, how many could the average person name do you reckon? I’m guessing it would be less than almost every other name in that list depending on who you asked obviously. One last thing, is any of the above fair to Eternal? Don’t ask me, I’m just filling here for a lack of anything else to say which itself possibly does say a lot.

*Monica did have a US No 1 with her version of “Angel Of Mine”

It’s time for Sash! again (or should I say ‘encore une fois’?) who are back with their third consecutive No 2 hit called “Stay”. Now apparently this lot hold some sort of record for having the most No 2 hits (five in total) without ever having a chart topper or something. All those No 2s…insert your own (obvious) joke here *———-*. All three hits so far featured another artist – Sabine Ohmes, Rodriguez and now someone called La Trec as vocalist. To me, it was much the same as its predecessors albeit with more added vocals than usual. I’m sure it all made sense if you were frugging out on the dance floor but I could never understand anybody wanting to listen to it in their bedroom at home. How wrong was I though as not only did Sash! sell lots of singles but, unusually for a dance act, they shifted lots of units of their album as well. Their debut offering “It’s My Life” went platinum in the UK selling 300,000 copies and making it to No 6 in the charts.

It’s that weirdly over the top performance by Janet Jackson of “Got Till It’s Gone” again now which is being repeated as the single has gone back up the charts from No 9 to No 8 having peaked at No 6 in its debut week on the charts. Now, what links the aforementioned Supergrass to Janet Jackson (apart from being on the same show)? Well, apparently the former’s hit “Late In The Day” was inspired by a track from Graham Nash’s “Songs For Beginners” album. Nash, of course, was a founding member of The Hollies but left in 1968 to form the folk rock group Crosby, Stills and Nash (CSN) and subsequently Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (CSNY). He would write one of their best known songs “Our House” about a simple domestic event that occurred when he was living with his then partner in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles. The name of that partner? Joni Mitchell. I don’t need to join the dots on this one any further do I?

It’s the fifth and final week at the top for “Candle In The Wind ‘97” / “Something About The Way You Look Tonight” by Elton John but clearly a decision was taken weeks ago to play the latter track as this is the third week on the spin we have got the promo for that one and not the cobbled together video for the former. Was it a decision based on taste? Was a fortnight of “Candle In The Wind ‘97” deemed a respectable amount of time for national mourning? Would any more have been seen as shoving it down the throats of the public? I don’t know the answer but what I am sure about is that these BBC4 TOTP repeats will have almost certainly been the first time we will have heard “Candle In the Wind ‘97” since they were originally broadcast. You never hear it on the radio. Like Ever.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Clock	U Sexy Thing	Never
2	Mansun	Closed For Business	No – missed this one
3	Brand New Heavies	You’ve Got A Friend	No – give me the original every time
4	Supergrass	Late In The Day	Negative
5	Eternal	Angel Of Mine	Nope
6	Sash!	Stay	No
7	Janet Jackson	Got Till It’s Gone	Nah
8	Elton John	Candle In The Wind’97 / Something About The Way You Look Tonight	I 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/m002b250/top-of-the-pops-17101997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 20 SEP 1996

Posted on November 6, 2024 by 80stastic

We’re nearly three quarters of the way through these BBC4 TOTP repeats from 1996 and I have to say this is one of the most mainstream episodes yet. When I say ‘mainstream’, I am of course, referring to the music. Despite its pre-watershed time slot, the show hadn’t shied away from showcasing some of the more niche hits of the day even when the staging of said hits (take your pick from the many dance sub-genres of the day) was problematic. Hell, they’d even had the Sex Pistols on the other week, the very scourge of the mainstream back in the day. However, whether by fault or design, this week saw a more conventional roster of acts on the show. I’ll leave it to you to decide if this week’s host – Tony Mortimer of East 17 – was mainstream or not.

We kick off with Belinda Carlisle – a mainstream stalwart if ever there was. The success of “Heaven Is A Place On Earth” that catapulted her to solo stardom was already eight years in the past by this point and the hits had long since dried up for her in the US. Over here though, she retained a loyal following and had continued to maintain a chart presence throughout those years even if her numbers weren’t always as high as in those early days. Indeed, before 1996, she hadn’t had a Top 10 hit in this country since 1990 when “(We Want) The Same Thing” made No 6. Since then, it had generally been a case of diminishing returns for both her singles and albums. Only 1992’s Best Of collection had really produced massive sales.

However, the release of the “A Woman & A Man” album had generated two consecutive Top 10 hits for her. Following “In Too Deep” in July of this year came “Always Breaking My Heart” which peaked at No 8. The album didn’t sell significantly more copies than any of her other 90s studio albums so maybe the success of its singles was just down to a change in the way singles were being released and promoted by record companies by this point in the decade. I’m pretty sure first week of release discounting was a standard practice by now which would account for why singles were debuting in the charts at their peak position before sliding away. This was true of many a hit, not just Belinda’s. The fact that “Always Breaking My Heart” was a bit of a duffer only adds substance to this theory. Despite being written by Per Gessle of Roxette (was there a more mainstream band ever?) who certainly knew his way around a catchy pop hit, it’s a pretty weak effort. Is it just me or does Belinda’s outfit here make her look like a high powered business person rather than a pop/rock star?

Mainstream or Indie Theme? Definitely the former

Next is surely one of the most mainstream songs of this or any year and as is the way with many a mainstream hit, loads of people bought it at the time but its legacy is one of disownment. “Breakfast At Tiffany’s” by Deep Blue Something will be at No 1 soon enough but try finding someone who admits to having bought it. Talking of disowning, there seems to be a concerted belief by some people online that the song was originally recorded by US indie rockers Gin Blossoms and that the Deep Blue Something version is, in fact, a cover. Quite where or why this rumour started I don’t know but there doesn’t seem to be any truth in it whatsoever. So widespread is its reach though that the band put on their Myspace page back in the day for readers not to request “Breakfast At Tiffany’s” as it’s not their song.

The film of the same title was, of course, based on a book by Truman Capote who once featured on the cover of a single by The Smiths – “The Boy With A Thorn In His Side” – which, incidentally, could be how Deep Blue Something feel about their hit. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I might be allowing myself to believe that they were behind the rumour trying to rid themselves of the albatross around their necks such is the bad rap their hit gets.

Mainstream or Indie Theme? Despite the Gin Blossoms fake connection, it’s undeniably mainstream

If I thought the first two artists on this show were mainstream, I might need to create a whole new category for the Lighthouse Family – ‘super mainstream’ or ‘mainstream extreme’ maybe? “Goodbye Heartbreak” was the duo’s third consecutive hit after the reactivated tracks “Lifted” and “Ocean Drive” finally did the business for them and it was very much in the same mould as its predecessors. Some might even say “exactly the same as…”. I’ve not given this lot much grief in previous posts for fear of accusations of musical snobbery but was their whole album like this? I’ve never heard it in its entirety – I might as well have asked my Our Price colleagues of the day to play the audiobook of Hitler’s Mein Kampf as the Lighthouse Family on the shop stereo – so I’m not really qualified to judge. However, if it is, I’m not sure I would have made it through to the end. Change the record! No, literally change the record.

Mainstream or Indie Theme? Mainstream extreme

Unlike Belinda Carlisle earlier, the next artist looks every inch the pop/rock star in this satellite performance. Sheryl Crow’s future career as such though was by no means guaranteed at this point. Sure, she’d had a massive hit in 1994 on both sides of the ocean with “All I Wanna Do” and her debut album “Tuesday Night Music Club” had won three Grammys in 1995 but it had been written with a collective of other musicians (the titular Tuesday Music Club) prompting accusations that Crow was just the attractive face of the group, the image but not the talent. As such, she was desperate to prove her musical credentials with her follow up, eponymous album. Lead single “If It Makes You Happy” was a huge step in that direction straight off the bat. I’ve said before that the mark of a good song is if it can be performed in a variety of different styles and still sound convincing in each of them. Well, apparently Sheryl tried a number of different genres for this track including country, punk, funk and even as a David Lynch style soundtrack piece. However, it worked best as the growling, prowling, rasping rock track it turned out to be. It would go Top 10 in both the US and the UK but interestingly, the only country it topped the charts was Canada which may explain why this performance came from Vancouver. Perhaps, Sheryl was on promotional duties over there at the time? Its chart success was Crow’s biggest since the aforementioned “All I Wanna Do” and would provide the platform for her career to carry on its upward trajectory, paving the way for her sophomore album to go three times platinum in the UK alone.

Mainstream or Indie Theme? Hmm. Difficult one this. If huge sales make you mainstream then Sheryl Crow undoubtedly was. However, she always seemed a little more gritty than that to me

A quick word on Tony Mortimer before we proceed – he seems more lacking in energy and charm than I would have imagined. Quite dull actually. Liven up a bit Tony! Maybe the only straight up dance tune on the show tonight will get him going? Ah, not this one though. Apparently, “Oh What A Night” by Clock attracted a fair amount of derision even back in 1996 presumably for being an atrocious take on The Four Seasons mid 70s classic. Singer Lorna Saunders is now a legal secretary and was once on Never Mind The Buzzcocks as part of the identity parade feature. I don’t know if either team managed to spot her but she was once mistaken by Jamiroquai’s Jay Kay for 2 Unlimited’s Anita Doth! Doh!

Mainstream or Indie Theme? The most horrible and tacky form of mainstream

The ‘flashback’ feature is still with us and this week we are treated to “Prince Charming” by Adam And The Ants. I’m not sure that Adam is given the credit and respect that he deserves sometimes. He managed to combine originality (yes, I know there was a definite Malcolm McLaren influence at some point but still) with massive sales and a memorable image – that’s quite some plate spinning going on there. I think even his most commercial numbers like this one still stand up. The second and final No 1 for Adam And The Ants before the main man went solo, it retains the power to take me right back to the early 80s over 40 years hence every time I hear it. The natural successor to the dandy highwayman of “Stand And Deliver”, it’s actually quite basic in its nature with a few lyrics repeated over and over but the style and panache of the visuals of the video make it into something quite outlandishly striking. Ah yes, that video with the cameo of Diana Dors as the fairy godmother is a once seen never forgotten experience.

In the last blog post, I asked the question of whether you could actually dance to ABBA’s “Dancing Queen”. In the case of “Prince Charming”, Adam’s right hand man Marco Pirroni actually admits that it was a track that was difficult to dance to and so the arm-crossing choreography featured in the video was devised in order that it would be able to be played in clubs and discos. The whole package remains quite stunning. Adam And The Ants were almost untouchable for two years at the start of the decade but it couldn’t last and despite a No 1 straight out of the traps as a solo artist with “Goody Two Shoes”, by the end of 1982, Adam was already starting to show signs of decline when his third solo single “Desperate But Not Serious” stalled at No 33. “Puss ‘n Boots” saw a brief rally the following year but his time as the country’s No 1 pop star was almost at an end. Despite turning 70 literally the other day, Adam is still touring though he had to cancel his Autumn 2024 dates due to ill health.

Mainstream or Indie Theme? Huge popularity aside, Adam was always outside of the mainstream for me from his punk roots to his unique and enduring style

After a very subdued intro from Tony Mortimer we get The Bluetones and “Marblehead Johnson”. This was their third hit of 1996 and was a standalone single that presumably was intended to keep the band’s momentum going following the success of their No 1 album “Expecting To Fly” and No 2 single “Slight Return”. I’ve got to be honest, it’s not as good as I remembered it. In fact, it’s a bit dull. It sounds like it’s always on the cusp of kicking into life and then just meanders off somewhere for a bit of noodling.

Its title reminds me of the Warren Zevon song “Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner” which I once played by mistake in the Our Price I was working in as it came on after “Werewolves Of London” which was the track I’d originally chosen. It was quickly taken off by the manager as its subject matter of a Norwegian mercenary fighting in the Nigerian Civil War and having his head blown off was deemed inappropriate. Mine’s not a great story I admit but then listening to “Marblehead Johnson” is hardly a scintillating experience.

Mainstream or Indie Theme? My initial reaction is the latter but then in 1996, had Britpop become the mainstream?

And so we arrive at the ultimate in mainstream music, the arch purveyor of prosaic pop, patron saint of the unremarkable, Mr Middle of the Road himself…it’s Phil Collins.

Poor old Phil. We really have had it in for him for quite some time. Does he deserve it? Depends which side of the fence you stand I guess. Some people must like his music given the amount of records he’s sold and yet he’s become a byword for naff. It’s not just his music that can offend though, it’s also…well…him. Accusations of smugness, ubiquity, tax avoidance and of ending his marriage by fax (the last one has always been strenuously denied by Collins and it is generally accepted to not be true) abounded. Maybe it all affected him as his 90s output was nowhere near as commercially successful as that of his 80s heyday. That’s not to say they didn’t sell at all – 1993’s “Both Sides” went double platinum but that didn’t match any of his 80s albums sales and indeed was nowhere near the twelve times platinum status of 1989’s “…But Seriously”. By 1996, the malaise seemed to have set in permanently. “Dance Into The Light” the album would only sell 100,000 copies (gold status) in the UK with its title track lead single peaking at No 9. Let’s be honest, even if you were a mega Phil fan, this comeback track must have been a disappointment. Some cod-reggae groove, Caribbean horn section and some truly shonky lyrics about South Africa coming out of apartheid (?). It’s a bit of a stinker and surely one of his least remembered hits.

Phil embarked on a phase of writing for Disney soundtracks after the “Dance Into The Light” project before returning in 2002 with seventh studio album “Testify” which only reached No 15 in the charts. The last album to do anywhere near the numbers of his glory years was, of course, a Best Of collection in 1998, – the first official one of his career – called “…Hits” which topped the charts and went six times platinum in the UK alone.

Mainstream or Indie Theme? Do you really have to ask?

The Fugees are the UK No 1 with “Ready Or Not”, their second song to top our charts in 1996 following “Killing Me Softly”. I don’t think you could really label the trio as mainstream despite those huge sales figures evidencing their commercial crossover, not when you consider their legacy which lasted much longer than their career. Sure, there are many accolades that talk about them bringing hip-hop into the mainstream but that didn’t make them mainstream artists – I don’t think that’s what they wanted to be either. They were innovators whose creativity struck a commercial seam of gold. Sometimes the right people get lucky I guess.

Mainstream or Indie Theme? Indie definitely

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Belinda Carlisle	Always Breaking My Heart	Nah
2	Deep Blue Something	Breakfast At Tiffany’s	Nope
3	Lighthouse Family	Goodbye Heartbreak	Negative
4	Sheryl Crow	If It Make You Happy	No but I had her Best Of with it on
5	Clock	Oh What A Night	Never
6	Adam And The Ants	Prince Charming	No but I think my younger sister had the album
7	The Bluetones	Marblehead Johnson	I did not
8	Phil Collins	Dance Into The Light	What do you think?
9	Fugees	Ready Or Not	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/m002497z/top-of-the-pops-20091996?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 06 SEP 1996

Posted on October 30, 2024 by 80stastic

It’s early September of 1996 and I’m on holiday in Barcelona. I loved it though I did get a case of Montezuma’s revenge the day before we were due to go back which made for a very uncomfortable flight home I can tell you. Sticking with that theme, although I really enjoyed Barcelona, a friend who visited there after me hated it saying that he’d rather go on holiday in his own toilet bowl. What has any of this to do with TOTP? Nothing really though I wonder how many shit songs we might get in this particular show?

Our host for tonight is Julia Carling (remember her?) and we start with a group that my mate Robin once described as a ‘joke band’ so I presume he thought they were a big pile of poo though I think that’s a harsh description. Space were certainly idiosyncratic and they may not have been to your taste but I don’t think they can be dismissed out of hand as complete shite. After securing themselves a bona fide hit in “Female Of The Species”, the scouse band were back with a follow up in “Me And You Versus The World”. As with its predecessor, it wasn’t your conventional pop song with Tommy Scott’s grainy vocals telling a Bonnie and Clyde type story in which the protagonist admits he’s “just a joke” (maybe Robin was right after all!) before a rather grizzly end is revealed. Scott channels his inner Victoria Wood when he gets the line “a tin of baked beans and a Woman’s Weekly” into the lyrics. The single would debut at No 9 providing the band with their first Top 10 hit. Space were in full launch mode. Who was laughing now?

Hit or Shit? I’m going hit with this one

Now this, this is a complete scandal. How on earth were Clock allowed to do this?! Well, presumably they got copyright clearance from the original artist but it’s still a disgrace. Having decided the only way to score major hits with their yucky brand of Eurodance was to cover previous hit records and polish them into turds, they’d already sprinkled flecks of shit onto “Axel F” and “Whoomph! (There It Is)”. Harold Faltermeyer and Tag Team were one thing but Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons were sacrosanct! How dare they take their 1976 UK and US No 1 “December, 1963 (Oh, What A Night)” and give it the shitty stick treatment! They even had the temerity to rename their version as “Oh What A Night” (unless that was a stipulation of being granted permission to cover it – maybe they couldn’t use the song’s original title?). I mean, you just can’t improve upon the original, you can only make it worse so why try? Were they hoping to appeal to young record buyers who may not know The Four Seasons original? It’s just wrong on every level and yet somehow it was a hit spending four non consecutive weeks at No 13 unluckily for us.

I have to admit to being a bit biased in my denigration of Clock here as I do love Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. I’ve seen Jersey Boys and, in my current job working in a theatre, have seen a couple of tribute acts all of which I’ve enjoyed. As such, this Clock nonsense really offends. They weren’t finished here though going on to cover the likes of Hot Chocolate, KC and the Sunshine Band and The Jacksons.

Hit or Shit? A massive, steaming turd

Next up are Kula Shaker with their No 2 hit “Hey Dude”. I discussed this one in quite some depth in a previous post so I don’t propose to say an awful lot more this time around. However, what I did discover in my research for it is that the band’s keyboard player Jay Darlington was a touring member of Oasis from 2002 until their 2009 break up. So, will he have had the call from Noel and Liam for the 2025 reunion tour and if he has, will he be allowed to go as he is currently back with Kula Shaker? When he was with Oasis, due to his long hair and beard, he was often introduced by Noel as “The Shroud”, “Gandalf” or even “Jesus Christ” leaving to the crowd chanting “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus…”. Never mind Noel and Liam giving him a call, maybe Donald Trump* might reach out to Darlington. What an endorsement that would be!

*For any avoidance of doubt, I despise Trump.

Hit or Shit? Definite tune this one!

What on God’s green earth…? If I thought we’d reached a nadir with Clock, I hadn’t bargained on the sodding Smurfs making a comeback. People of a certain age (i.e. me) will have strong childhood memories of The Smurfs not least because of the ridiculous single “The Smurf Song” spending six consecutive weeks at No 2 in the UK charts during the long, hot Summer of 1978. That bloke with the long flowing beard? No, not Jay Darlington! Yep – Father Abraham (no, not the biblical patriarch but Dutch singer-songwriter Pierre Kartner). He had a bowler hat as well I seem to remember. Anyway, we finally came to our senses as a nation about The Smurfs (though there were two minor follow up hits as well) and left it all behind us after 1978 but across the rest of Europe they never went away and so, in 1996, EMI deemed it was time for their return to our shores (and ears) courtesy of “The Smurfs Go Pop” album which spent 12 consecutive weeks inside the Top 10 of our charts over the Summer and Autumn of that year. Similar to the Clock concept earlier, The Smurfs (or whoever had the licensing rights to them) took modern day hit tracks and smurfed them up with high octane vocals that were enough to give you a migraine. And we thought Pinky and Perky* were bad enough!

*In fairness, I recall there being a Pinky and Perky record in our house when I was a tiny child and presumably the infant version of me loved it.

Brilliantly, they tried to get permission to do covers of some Oasis songs but Noel Gallagher wasn’t having any of it. In the end, the songs covered were fairly awful including “Mr Blobby”, “Cotton Eye Joe”, “Saturday Night” and “No Limit”. However, the single chosen for release was their take on Technohead’s recent gabber hit “I Wanna Be A Hippy”. Clearly, a brand aimed at young children couldn’t feature any references to drugs as the original did so they were all stripped out and replaced with the tale of a small dog and retitled as “I’ve Got A Little Puppy”. A happy hardcore version of The Smurfs sounds appalling and yet the single, as with the album, was a huge hit peaking at No 4. Who the f**k was buying it?! Working in Our Price, I must have sold it to punters many times over but I can’t actually recall doing it. Perfectly for the theme of this post, the lyrics included the refrain “pooper, pooper scooper!”.

Hit or Shit? A huge pile of dog poo

Here’s a curious thing – when an artist’s biggest hit is also one of their least known. I speak of Dina Carroll and her comeback single “Escaping”. I use the word ‘comeback’ as we hadn’t seen her for nigh on three years since her annus mirabilis in 1993 saw her become one of the breakout stars of that year. Four hit singles and a four times platinum selling debut album in “So Close” saw her named Best Female Artist at the following year’s BRIT awards. She was set for superstardom and then just seemed to vanish. Health issues and record label contractual problems caused a lengthy delay to her releasing any new material and so it was not until 1996 that she returned to the charts with “Escaping”. Despite this debuting at No 3 making it her joint highest charting single alongside “Don’t Be A Stranger”, I had real trouble recalling how this one went. That may be a common experience – when was the last time you heard it on the radio? Once I’d re- listened to it, it did sound faintly familiar but I do recall being surprised at how high it had gone into the charts back in 1996 given her low profile for the previous three years. The album it was taken from “Human Nature” also did well going to No 2 and achieving platinum sales status though its predecessor sold four times as many copies.

A mixture of an hereditary bone condition that affected her ears, bad luck (a cover of Dusty Springfield’s “Son Of A Preacher Man” was aborted due to Dusty’s untimely death) and more record label and management wrangling meant that Dina never did release a third album and drifted away from the music industry come the new millennium. She seems an almost forgotten figure somehow which strikes me as unfair I have to say.

Hit or Shit? Hmm. Difficult one this. “Escaping” is pleasant but not exactly memorable but then it was her joint biggest hit. Is this an “all fart, no shit” scenario?

What the heck?! What’s going on here? Why is “Tainted Love” by Soft Cell, a No 1 record in 1981, on TOTP in 1996? Well, this show was the first of ten that had a start time of 7.25pm. So? Here’s @TOTPFacts to take up the story…

For these 10 weeks, producer Ric Blaxill introduced a "Flashback" feature halfway through the show, the idea being that viewers channel-hopping during the commercial break for Coronation Street might stick with #TOTP if they saw a familiar archive performance.
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) October 18, 2024

Hmm. I think Blaxill was hoping against hope with that idea. In reality, it was probably just to further plug the return of TOTP2 that Julia Carling mentions at the song’s end. As my TOTP blog only dates back to the 1983 repeats, I’ve never properly discussed “Tainted Love” before but do I really need to go into the backstory on this one? Actually, there is a little bit of its origin that ties in nicely with this post. After becoming aware of the song due to its Northern Soul profile, Soft Cell decided to insert it into their live set. The song it replaced? “The Night” by the aforementioned Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. For years it was known as the biggest selling single of 1981 in the UK until the Official Charts Company recalculated the data in 2021 and gave that title to “Don’t You Want Me” by The Human League. “And I’ve lost my light” indeed.

Hit or Shit? For years it was one of those unlistenable tracks for me that you can’t hear anymore because it’s been so overplayed. However, it has recently become more acceptable to my ears again and is definitely a hit!

This next one comes charged with emotion for the band performing it. Less than two months before this appearance, Rob Collins, keyboard player for The Charlatans, died in a car crash aged just 33 on his way back to the studios where the band were recording their fifth album “Tellin’ Stories”. Despite the devastating loss, the band decided to carry on and completed the album with Primal Scream’s Martin Duffy drafted in to cover the keyboard parts. “One To Another” was its lead single coming out a good eight months before the album. I remarked in a recent post about how there seemed to be a trend around this time for huge time gaps between lead singles and its parent album being released quoting the examples of Paul Weller and Shed Seven. In the case of The Charlatans though, the loss of Collins more than explains the delay. The band had supported Oasis at their giant Knebworth gigs in the August and just weeks after Collins had died so maybe “One To Another” was released when it was as a tribute to their departed band mate? Perhaps there was also one eye on capitalising on the huge media profile those Oasis dates had generated?

Either way, the single was a banger, a huge, barrelling sound with groovy riffs aplenty. As Julia Carling said in her intro, it was their highest charting single ever when it crashed in at No 3. Interesting to note that there’s not much camera time given to Martin Duffy* on keyboards here. Could that have been at the request of the band who would have wanted to be respectful to Collins’s memory and not make it look like he’d just been effortlessly replaced?

*Tragically Duffy would also die young aged just 55 in 2022.

Hit or Shit? Huge tune this. Definite hit.

From the sublime to the ridiculous – it’s time for Los Del Rio again. Is it time to talk about the dance that went with the “Macarena”? I guess we have to at some point. I don’t propose to give a breakdown of the various moves – go online and find them yourselves if you want a refresher. However, what’s more interesting is the psychology behind why people would want to do it. In 2015, Oxford University published research into collective, synchronised dancing and found that the practice raised tolerance levels, fostered connectedness and friendship and broke down barriers promoting a feeling of togetherness. So there was some benefit to this ludicrous song. It’s still musical excrement though.

Hit or Shit? Definitely shit

And so to Rockets From The Crypt – a one hit wonder but one which I do actually remember. American punk rockers hailing from San Diego, their singular chart entry was “On A Rope” which would peak at No 12 in the UK charts. What stands out most in my memory about this one was that it was released as three different CD singles in cardboard slip covers. As I was working for Our Price, and, as we were not yet displaying stock live on the shop floor, you had to be really careful to get the correct disc from the filing behind the counter. Some of my more rock leaning colleagues were quite into this one but it didn’t do much for me I have to say. It was all a bit repetitive and certainly these days, aged 56, I would say it was too loud. It’s crap getting old isn’t it?

Hit or Shit? Is there a category for the non committed as I really couldn’t give a shit

It’s the last week at the top for the Spice Girls and “Wannabe”. Its success must have exceeded everything that record label Virgin could possibly have imagined for the debut release from a brand new act. It’s interesting to note that although the UK remained enamoured by them for the duration of their career (the first part of it at least) with nine of their first ten singles topping our charts, “Wannabe” was the only one to go to No 1 across the board in every territory globally.

The early copies of the single had a cover which doesn’t actually say Spice Girls on it but rather just ‘Spice’ with images of the individual members depicted within the lettering of the word. I think some of my colleagues were confused by this and actually just wrote ‘Spice’ as the artist name on the master bag for the filing system we used. It’s hard now to imagine a world where we didn’t know the name Spice Girls.

Hit or Shit? Sales phenomenon not withstanding, it was still a bit shit

The play out video is “How Bizarre” by OMC. By my reckoning, this is its fourth appearance on the show and therefore I have nothing left to say about it. Literally nothing. OK, OK…I’ll think of something. How about this? In 2002, “How Bizarre” was ranked at No 71 on the 100 Greatest One Hit Wonders show hosted by William Shatner. That’s William Shatner. Shatner. Shat-ner. The theme of this post? Oh forget it.

Hit or Shit? My wife bought this so I fell duty bound to say ‘hit’

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Space	Me And You Versus The World	No but my wife had their album
2	Clock	Oh What A Night	NO!
3	Kula Shaker	Hey Dude	No but I had a promo copy of their album
4	The Smurfs	I’ve Got A Little Puppy	Are you mad?
5	Dina Carroll	Escaping	Nah
6	Soft Cell	Tainted Love	I did not
7	The Charlatans	One To Another	No but I had it on their Best Of album Melting Pot
8	Los Del Rio	Macarena	Never
9	Rockets From The Crypt	On A Rope	Nope
10	Spice Girls	Wannabe	Negative
11	OMC	How Bizarre	No but my wife did

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/m00241bt/top-of-the-pops-06091996?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 24 AUG 1995

Posted on February 12, 2024 by 80stastic

And the winner is…The Battle of Britpop has been fought and the outcome declared. On the Sunday before this TOTP aired, Mark Goodier announced the Top 40 chart on Radio 1 and that Blur had come out on top of this epic tussle that had captured the attention of the media and the public alike. As I recall, he did the usual rundown one place early so that he could make a big deal of who was No 2 and, by extension, reveal the No 1 at the same time.

Whether by accident or design, the host of the TOTP that reflected this particular chart was Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker in a ‘golden mic’ guest slot. Whatever the circumstances behind it, there seemed to be something satisfying and fitting about his presence on the show; his dry sense of humour somehow deflating the media constructed frenzy around the Oasis / Blur rivalry.

Before we‘re given a glimpse of Jarvis though, we get perhaps the most well remembered (by me at least) of the top of the show direct-to-camera pieces – Blur riding a milk float into camera shot and bassist Alex James declaring that they were No 1 and would be camping it up on Top of the Pops later on before doing an exaggerated “ooh matron” gesture. I wonder who’s idea that was? There was a milk float in the video for the single so I guess there was a valid connection there but you couldn’t imagine Oasis pulling such a stunt. Maybe that was the point though – to differentiate themselves from their Northern rivals. “We’re nothing like them you know!”.

To start the show though we have…yep…a dance track. Of course we do. It is 1995 after all. This one comes courtesy of Clock who had hit upon the cheesy but successful formula of recording Eurodance flavoured versions of old hits. They’d already taken versions of Harold Faltermeyer’s “Axel F” and Tag Team’s “Whoomph! (There It Is)” into the Top 10 and would accelerate their output throughout the decade with covers from the catalogue of artists such as The Four Seasons, The Jacksons, KC and the Sunshine Band and Hot Chocolate. However, this one – “Everybody” – they wrote themselves…sort of. There’s a sample of “Let’s Start The Dance” by disco artist Bohannon in there as well as a vocal sound from Norman Cook’s sample library collection “Skip To My Loops”. However, the lyrics (if you can call them that) were the work of Clock members Stu Allan and Pete Pritchard.

It sounds like a poor man’s 2 Unlimited to me but the one thing that did stand out was that elongated cry of “Everybody!”. Surely that was influenced by this…

Someone noted on social media after this TOTP repeat aired that the winner of The Battle of Britpop should have been neither Blur nor Oasis but The Charlatans. They had a point. “Just When You’re Thinkin’ Things Over” is better than either “Country House” or “Roll With It” to my ears. Indeed, it was the NME’s Single of the Week over either of those two more celebrated releases.

I’d not really been into Tim Burgess and co when they first broke through as part of the whole “baggie” scene at the start of the 90s but they were really getting into their stride by this point and I was swayed. From “Can’t Get Out Of Bed” to the end of the decade was their imperial phase in my book. I wasn’t the only person of this opinion. The eponymous album this single came from topped the chart as did their next “Tellin’ Stories”. Just typing that has made me realise how many of the band’s songs and albums have a ‘g’ missing from their titles. Aside from the two above, there’s also “Crashin’ In” and “Just Lookin’”. Not that it’s a big deal. Just sayin’.

Tim Burgess is on record as saying that “Just When You’re Thinkin’ Things Over” was the band trying to sound like “Ramble On” by Led Zeppelin. Well, I never got the boat going to Led Zepp island (I know, sacrilege and all that) so I couldn’t comment on that but there is another song that I’ve become aware of fairly recently that it has a resemblance to. At the start of 2022, I made a New Year resolution to try and listen to a song that I didn’t know every day for 12 months. It didn’t have to be a ‘new’ song per se, just ‘new to me’. I didn’t quite hit my target but I still managed to amass a playlist with over 10 hours of songs on it. One of them was this 1973 John Lennon track from the album “Mind Games”:

If you go online and search for “Human Nature” by Madonna, you’ll find lots of articles about the meaning behind the song and of course plenty about that video. I myself added a few words on the subject in a previous post the first time the promo was shown on TOTP. There’s lots of opinion about the song being a retort to those who criticised her for being overtly sexual in her Sex book and “Erotica” album and agreeing with Madge for rightly pointing out that she wouldn’t have got such a hard time for exploring sexuality if she were a man. However, I quite like Jarvis Cocker’s succinct summing up of it all in his intro as he whispers:

“Express yourself, don’t repress yourself”

Then in his down to earth Sheffield drawl he says:

“According to Madonna’s new video that involves kind of perving around in a giant ice cube tray. Anyway, have a look for yourselves while we count down numbers 40 to 11 inclusive.”

He pretty much nails it I think. I love the way he adds the word ‘inclusive’ at the end. There’s no need for him to do that and most presenters wouldn’t have but it’s a good example of Jarvis’s idiosyncrasy.

There’s more wonderful celebrity piercing wit from Cocker next as we get the rather obtrusive and unnecessary video piece from Diana Ross. In a flat, monotone and off screen voice we hear Jarvis say simply “There now follows an important message” before we cut to Ross sat on the bonnet of a car who informs us that she’s in Detroit at the Motown Sound Exhibition and will be performing on TOTP tonight. And that’s it. Did we really need that clip shoe horning into the show? “Cheers Di” lampoons Jarvis before his next intro. “Wow. What can I tell you about this next act. Not a lot really as I don’t know anything about them” he advises. Genius comic delivery!

In truth though, Jarvis should have had better knowledge of “Move Your Body” by Xpansions 95 not least because it had already been a substantial hit previously. Yes, it’s time for another reactivated dance hit, a practice that dominated the charts in 1995. Just like hits from JX, Felix and The Original which had all been on the show in recent weeks, this was yet another dance track getting a second chart life. Initially a No 7 hit in 1991 as “Elevation (Move Your Body)”, it would peak at No 14 four years later. Xpansions was a vehicle for producer Phil Drummond whose real name, unbelievably was Phillip Phillips – no wonder he changed it. Together with actress and singer Sally Anne Marsh – wait, didn’t she play Truly Scrumptious in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?!

*checks internet*

My bad. That was Sally Ann Howes. I thought the person on stage looked remarkably young in 1995 to have starred in a film that came out in 1968! Anyway Phil and Sally Anne Marsh proved a prosperous partnership. The latter had pop music form having been in the early 90s girl group Faith Hope & Charity alongside The Word presenter Dani Behr and she would add her vocals to Deconstruction label dance act Ariel as well as carving out a successful acting and voice over artist. The track itself followed a formula of the title lyric being repeated continuously over a piano house riff and did nothing for me but, as Jarvis said, went down a storm in the clubs. Is it just me or does Sally Anne have a look of “Immaculate Collection” era Madonna about her? Incidentally, Phil Drummond also went under the pseudonym of Marradonna.

With the cat out of the bag four days earlier, there seemed little point in TOTP trying to eek out any morsel of tension surrounding who was No 1 (hence the Blur piece at the top of the show) so we get Oasis slap bang in the middle of the show at No 2 with “Roll With It”. Diplomatically, Jarvis doesn’t take any sides declaring the record buying public the winner having access to so much great music. Obviously the Manc lads weren’t going to drag themselves into the studio for another performance after they’d lost out to Blur who were there in person so we get a replay of their turn from last week.

“Roll With It” would hold at No 2 for a second week and spend a further two within the Top 10. Like all the band’s other singles, it would have a protracted chart life spending 49 weeks within the Top 100. Not bad for a song who the person who wrote it once described as “shit”.

Taking the show in another direction completely now is Björk who is the first of three consecutive female solo artists on the show though that’s about all they have in common with each other. To be fair, is anybody else similar to Björk? Take this single “Isobel” for example. It’s been described by critics as a modern fairy tale, a fable and by Simon Williams in the NME as:

“Where tribal rhythms spiral into enormous swathes of galloping pop fluffiness”
Williams, Simon (10 June 1995) “Long Play” NME .p.46.

Well, quite. I haven’t got the words to rival Mr Williams so I’ll just say that this one was too divorced from the mainstream for me and that I’m surprised that Björk was given a slot on the show two weeks running, especially as it only made No 23 in the UK charts.

Think of the BRITS 1996 and inevitably the Jarvis Cocker / Michael Jackson incident comes to mind. Jarvis protesting at Jackson’s Christ mimicking performance of “Earth Song” by running across the stage and wafting his fully clothed bottom in Jacko’s direction followed by a complete overreaction from his security team and Cocker being questioned by police before being released. What I hadn’t clocked before rewatching this TOTP was the jibe that Jarvis makes about the King of Pop before introducing a satellite exclusive performance by Diana Ross saying that she’d influenced a lot of people including “Michael Jackson’s plastic surgeon for one”. Ooh! Is it possible that Jacko was aware of this remark and took revenge via his security detail on Cocker at the BRITS six months later? Nah. Surely not.

Jarvis does accord Ross some respect by referring to her as Miss Diana Ross (the Miss is obligatory). Her song though deserves zero acclaim as it’s a right old stinker. Ross’s back catalogue features some stone cold classics but “Take Me Higher” is certainly not one of them. It sounds like such a desperate attempt to stay relevant in the dance obsessed 90s, as if her management had shown her a video of Lisa Stansfield and told her to do her best impersonation of her. She does her best to sell the song in this performance with her engaging, face wide smile but it doesn’t win me over. She should have stuck to the big ballads that brought her success in the early 90s like “When You Tell Me That You Love Me” and “One Shining Moment”. “Take Me Higher” peaked at No 32.

OK so when I said earlier they there was nothing in common between Björk and the two female solo artists that followed her, I forgot about the acting. The Icelandic singer has featured in a number of movies perhaps most famously Lars Bon Trier’s Dancer In The Dark whilst (Miss) Diana Ross won a Golden Globe for her portrayal of Billie Holiday in Lady Sings The Blues as well as starring in Mahogany and The Wiz. Then there’s Michelle Gayle who’s on the show with her fifth consecutive Top 40 hit “Happy Just To Be With You”. Michelle, of course, was in Grange Hill (as part of rap duo Fresh ‘n’ Fly no less) and as Hattie Tavernier in EastEnders. Her later career included stage roles in Beauty and the Beast, the Dusty Springfield musical Son of a Preacher Man and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Back in 1995 though, music was Michelle’s priority and she was pretty successful at it too. Six of her seven UK chart entries went Top 20 including two Top Tenners.

“Happy Just To Be With You” borrows heavily from the bassline of “Good Times” by Chic but it’s not on its own – the whosampled.com website says that it’s been sampled in 227 songs although Michelle’s single interpolates rather than samples it. It’s a pretty competent R&B / pop song I have to say and Michelle does a good job of promoting it.

In the end it wasn’t even that close. Blur won ‘The Battle of Britpop’ with their “Country House” single with room to spare selling 274,000 copies to the 216,000 units shifted by “Roll With It”. However, it’s generally perceived that Oasis may have lost the battle but won the war. The numbers back up that view. “(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?” would go 17 x platinum in the UK whilst Blur’s “The Great Escape” would achieve 3 x platinum sales. In February 1996, there was almost a repeat of The Battle of Britpop when the two bands released singles from their albums within a week of each other (presumably both camps were wise enough not to put themselves through it all again). Oasis’s track was the iconic “Don’t Look Back In Anger” whilst Blur released “Stereotypes”. At the Our Price in Stockport where I was working we sold 279 copies of Oasis in week one. And Blur? We sold 13. That’s thirteen. Rumour has it that Damon Albarn fled to Iceland to get away from the onslaught of Oasis’s album which he heard everywhere he went.

But how are their legacies viewed now? Both bands would achieve further No 1 singles and albums (although I believe Oasis had more). For me, and I was more Oasis than Blur, the former went on longer than they should have and possibly made an anachronism of themselves. Despite all predictions to the contrary, if anything Liam’s post Oasis output has been more interesting than Noel’s (I’ve never really been into his High Flying Birds). Indeed, Liam’s recent collaboration with ex-Stone Roses guitarist John Squire is meant to be excellent. As for Blur, Damon’s virtual band project Gorillaz has produced some brilliant material and shows much more imagination than cranking out rock songs for an ageing audience à la Noel. Meanwhile, Blur guitarist Graham Coxon’s solo career has produced some really interesting albums leading Noel Gallagher no less to describe him as

“One of the most talented guitarists of his generation”
Live Forever: The Rise and Fall of Britpop. Bonus interviews

Oh and Alex James wearing an Oasis t-shirt in this performance – was that an olive branch extended towards their rivals or a dig at them?

The play out video is “Warped” by Red Hot Chili Peppers and guess what? I don’t remember this one either! For the record, this was the lead single from the band’s “One Hot Minute” album and made No 31 on the UK Top 40.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Clock	Everybody	Never!
2	The Charlatans	Just When You’re Thinkin’ Things Over	No but I have their Melting Pot Best Of
3	Madonna	Human Nature	Nah
4	Xpansions 95	Move Your Body	Nope
5	Oasis	Roll With It	YES!
6	Björk	Isobel	I did not
7	Diana Ross	Take Me Higher	As if
8	Michelle Gayle	Happy Just To Be With You	No
9	Blur	Country House	No but I had the Great Escape album
10	Red Hot Chilli Peppers	Warped	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/m001w2m3/top-of-the-pops-24081995

TOTP 29 JUN 1995

Posted on December 5, 2023 by 80stastic

We arrived at an unusual episode of TOTP whereby the executive producer Ric Blaxill incorporated what might now be called a ‘heritage’ slot into the show but which I’m sure wouldn’t have been labelled as such at the time. Host Mark Goodier refers to it only using the generic, catch all term of ‘exclusive’ which is the description that was used for just about any non standard performance on the show around this time. The band featured in this slot are pretty special though and retain a huge legacy – it’s only the bloody Ramones!

All in good time though and we start with the antithesis of the legendary punk rockers with one of the worst examples of naff dance music that the 90s spewed forth. Clock (even their name was terrible) followed the classic Eurodance blueprint of a female singer and male rapper even though they were actually from Manchester as opposed to Holland or Germany like many of the acts of that genre. Where they did divert from the template was in their decision to pursue chart hits via that well trodden route of the cover version. After a couple of minor hits with their own compositions in 1994, they went Top 10 with a cover of Harold Faltermeyer’s “Axel F” and that success convinced them to carry on in that direction. Next up was their version of Tag Team’s 1994 No 34 hit “Whoomph! (There It Is)”. Now this track has quite the backstory which I’ve already discussed in the post covering the TOTP featuring Tag Team so I don’t propose to go over all that again. What I will say is that when Clock first started releasing singles and I wasn’t aware of who they were despite working in a record shop, when I was asked about them by a customer I presumed they were asking about Clock DVA, the experimental industrial pioneers from Sheffield who formed in 1978 and were contemporaries of Cabaret Voltaire. I might as well have been talking a different language trying to explain Clock DVA to the young punter who just wanted to buy his favourite Eurodance tune.

Depressingly, we’ll be seeing lots more of Clock in these TOTP repeats as they went on to (ahem) clock up a further nine UK Top 40 hits throughout the 90s including covers of “December, 1963 (Oh, What A Night)”* by the Four Seasons, “You Sexy Thing”* by Hot Chocolate and “Blame It On The Boogie” by The Jacksons. You lucky people!

*They truncated the titles to differentiate them from the originals though.

https://youtu.be/KFgx-LYmuyc?si=3ZT2klDM_SLD44YI

I think my patience with Jamiroquai wasn’t so much wearing thin by this point as had completely perished to reveal an embarrassing hole in its pants. To my ears, everything single they’d released by this point sounded the same as the one before. “Stillness In Time” was a case in point. It meanders along with the promise of breaking into this really cool groove but never actually goes anywhere. Do you think Jay Kay, when laying down these tracks, would say to himself “Yes! We really nailed it there!”? And yet, this single entered the chart at the highest position (No 9) the band had ever achieved so maybe it was me that was out of step with public opinion? The performance here is sooo muso – there’s even a man wearing an oversized poncho for Chrissakes! Nah, not for me thanks.

And now…a single that has gone down in the annals of time as one of the very worst ever laid down in a recording studio from an album that Q Magazine decreed as the worst of all time in a 2006 poll. It is now received knowledge that Duran Duran made the biggest career misstep ever by releasing their covers album “Thank You” as the follow up to 1993’s career reviving “The Wedding Album” but is that a fair take on the reviled collection of songs? I mean, Lou Reed said that their version of “Perfect Day” was the best cover ever of one of his songs. Indeed, “Thank You” wasn’t even the commercial catastrophe we might have expected from the worst album ever – it made No 12 in the UK album charts and sold half a million copies in the US. So what’s the deal with it?

I think the answer lies in the track listing and the songs the band chose to cover. Some of them were seen as sacrosanct and untouchable and certainly by some faded 80s pin up pop stars. How dare Duran Duran take on the back catalogues of Led Zeppelin, The Doors, Elvis Costello etc! The ultimate act of heresy though appears to be their decision to cover Public Enemy’s “911 Is A Joke” and Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel’s “White Lines (Don’t Don’t Do It)”. The latter was released as the second single from the album and like Clock earlier, they changed the title slightly to “White Lines (Don’t Do It)”.

So it’s cards on the table time – I don’t mind the Duran Duran version. I think it’s alright in the same way that I thought Gun’s rocked up cover of “Word Up” by Cameo was OK. Is it better than or even as good as the original? No, I don’t think so but that doesn’t make it utter shite by default. I even think the black and white video works and adds something to the track. What didn’t work though was the album’s standing both critically and within the band’s own oeuvre of work. In fact it derailed them. A follow up album (“Medazzaland”) wasn’t released in the UK and by the end of the decade, the band had lost both their record label Capitol / EMI and bass player and founding member John Taylor. They would not have another hit album until 2004 when the original line up reformed to record “Astronaut”. And yet…I wonder if it’s time for “Thank You” to be revisited and reappraised. There are surely worse albums out there. Surely?

Who remembers All–4–One? “I Swear” yeah? Sure. Great. Who remembers their other hit though? Not so many hands up now are there? Well, they did have one and it was called “I Can Love You Like That” and remarkably, just like “I Swear” before it, this was a song originally recorded by country singer John Michael Montgomery. I guess if it had worked once, why wouldn’t it work again? And it did, in America at least where it was a No 5 hit. Over here though, we decided that one huge song from All-4-One was quite enough thank you very much and it struggled to a high of No 33 despite this live TOTP performance (which I can’t find a clip of by the way). The group would never return to our charts though they are still together to this day and last released an album in 2016.

Heeeere’s Edwyn! Yes, the rather fabulous Edwyn Collins is back on the show to perform his brilliant but surprising hit “A Girl Like You”. Edwyn, of course, started his musical career as the lead singer of Orange Juice who criminally only had one UK Top 40 hit. However, alongside the likes of The Adventures, Icicle Works and It Bites, they really should have had more. “Flesh Of My Flesh”, “Lean Period” and “What Presence?!” were all great singles that were habitually ignored by the record buying public. Their back catalogue has been revisited retrospectively though including a six CD box set called “Coals To Newcastle” and a compilation called “The Glasgow School” the latter of which featured a cover of “I Don’t Care” by The Ramones. I’m guessing then that Edwyn would have been stoked to be on the same show as the Queens punk rockers. Except he wasn’t. The clip shown here was just a repeat of an earlier performance from a couple of weeks before. Bloody scheduling! Rip it up!

We now turn our attention to Menswear and I don’t mean that awful tank top that host Mark Goodier is wearing. It looks like an off cut of the rug in my dining room. No, I mean the poster boys of Britpop – they even had a Levi’s modelling contract – who are experiencing their first chart hit in “Daydreamer”.

More than perhaps any other artist of this era, Menswear’s is a cautionary tale of running before you can walk, going too far too soon and all those other advisory idioms. Being lauded by the press and courted by record labels whilst only having four songs inevitably led to egos bigger than their talent and it would all end in tales of drug abuse, mental health issues, a sacked drummer and a massively over budget sophomore album that only got a release in a Menswear obsessed Japan. Back in June 1995 though, the band looked like they had the world at their feet. A distinctive, Roxy Music infused single and a frontman in the modish, angular Johnny Dean who had perfected the art of looking right down the camera lens long before ex-Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg did it at the 2010 General Election live TV debates. God, even that is now 13 years ago! Oh to be young and watching Menswear on TOTP again!

Boo! Rubbish! Get off! It’s The Outhere Brothers again whom I referred to as “those two pricks” in a previous post. By way of contrast, Mark Goodier calls them “those naughty boys”. Yeah, I stand indubitably by my comment mate. Their single “Boom Boom Boom” is up to No 2 on its way to the top of the charts where it will stay for four weeks. It came from an album called “1 Polish, 2 Biscuits & A Fish Sandwich” which were not that subtle references to the penis, buttocks and vagina. They went on to release a Best Of album in 2002 called “The Fucking Hits”. It’s not big and it’s not clever is it? Like I said, pricks.

And so to the Ramones. Now I wouldn’t describe myself as a super fan but I certainly can appreciate the influence that the band had despite little in the way of commercial success. Their hi-speed, pop-punk sound would mobilise a generation of bands and shape their futures in a way that they surely couldn’t have predicted. That said, would the pop kids of 1995 have known or cared who the Ramones were? Maybe they did. Or maybe it was just that executive producer Ric Blaxill was a fan and wanted to get them on the show. I don’t know. On the show they were though and they were there to plug their fourteenth and final studio album “Adios Amigos” of which “I Don’t Want To Grow Up” was the lead single. Now, I already knew this Tom Waits song as my wife is a fan and had the “Bone Machine” album it’s taken from. It’s a great track, all raggedy, shuffling and shambolic but also captivating.

This version by the Ramones is pretty good too and the fact that the tempo of it can be ramped up so much shows the quality of the song. You could be forgiven for thinking it was a Ramones original.

Given the trademark brevity of the Ramones’ material, there’s time for another song from them so we get an album track called “Cretin Family” from them. Mark Goodier’s attempt at looking genuinely surprised that there was more doesn’t convince anyone. He must have known – there’s even a caption on screen that says ‘Yes more!’. It’s sobering to think that Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee and Tommy are now all no longer with us.

From the Ramones to Robson & Jerome. That’s quite a leap! The duo are still at No 1 with “Unchained Melody” for a seventh and final week. When the dust finally settled, it would have spent 14 weeks in the Top 40 and 25 inside the Top 100. That’s just under half a year! Just as it finally dropped out of the charts, their follow up “I Believe / Up On The Roof” went straight in at No 1. 1995 – what a time to be alive!

The play out track is “This Is A Call” by Foo Fighters. I have a history of missing out on bands that I really should have been into and Dave Grohl’s post Nirvana vehicle was another to add to the list. I think because I’d never really got Nirvana either (although clearly “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is a monster tune), my musical antenna weren’t pointing in the Foo Fighters direction in the first place. That said, “This Is A Call” is a banger so why it didn’t lead me to investigate more of their stuff at the time I don’t know. Still, it’s much easier these days to explore music unknown to you what with the likes of Spotify and all so I really have no excuse. I’ve got until their next appearance in these TOTP repeats to report back…

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Clock	Whoomph! (There It Is)	As if
2	Jamiroquai	Stillness In Time	No
3	Duran Duran	White Lines (Don’t Do It)	Didn’t mind it, didn’t buy it
4	All-4-One	I Can Love You Like That	Nope
5	Edwyn Collins	A Girl Like You	Liked it, didn’t buy it
6	Menswear	Daydreamer	I did not
7	The Outhere Brothers	Boom Boom Boom	Hell no!
8	Ramones	I Don’t Want To Grow Up / Cretin Family	Negative
9	Robson & Jerome	Unchained Melody	Of course not
10	Foo Fighters	This Is A Call	No but I had it on one of those Best Album Ever compilations

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/m001sx1h/top-of-the-pops-29061995

TOTP 09 MAR 1995

Posted on October 11, 2023 by 80stastic

We’re well into March 1995 with these TOTP repeats and I’m pretty sure that work wise back then, I was firmly ensconced back at the Our Price store in Stockport following the closure of the shop in Market Street, Manchester. I say ‘back’ as I’d spent a couple of months there in the Autumn of 1993. It hadn’t gone well and I’d been glad to get out of there but now I was on my way back after spending the whole of 1994 in Manchester. I would spend the next four years there. It had its ups and downs but on the whole it would turn out to be a much better experience.

Right at the start of my time there, an album by the first artist on tonight’s show was released which would stay with me until the present day. Its lead single would provide the band with their biggest commercial success but it would also prove to be completely divisive in terms of its appeal. Some may even argue that it did them more harm than good in terms of credibility. The Boo Radleys had been in existence since 1988 but were largely unknown to the great British public despite their 1993 album “Giant Steps” being voted album of the year by NME readers. All that was to change in 1995 with the release of their fourth album “Wake Up!” and its lead single “Wake Up Boo!”. Beloved of breakfast DJs up and down the land (especially Radio 1’s Chris Evans who had a jingle made for his show based on it), it’s an almost perfect example of the bright, bouncy, exuberant pop song. It was impossible to ignore so in your face was it as it dragged you kicking and screaming from your bed and demanded that you face the new day in front of you. It was everywhere and yet that ubiquity worked against it. Some people couldn’t (and still to this day can’t) stand it. Perhaps for the existing fanbase it felt like a betrayal and that the band had sold out and for the wider general public, was it that the track was just a bit too much for the innate misery of the national identity?

For my part, I liked the way it raced along and combined some lush harmonising with perky brass parts. However, it wasn’t that No 9 hit which made me invest in the album. I much preferred the follow up single “Find The Answer Within” which, having been the catalyst for me to purchase “Wake Up!”, led me to other gems within its twelve tracks like “Twinside” and “Wilder”. I stand by the album and still listen to it nearly 30 years later. For once, I was in sync with the rest of the record buying public as it went to No 1 and briefly The Boo Radleys were the bomb.

Inevitably though, they got shoved in the box labelled Britpop despite rejecting such associations (did anybody ever admit to being a Britpop band?) and as the movement floundered so did their commercial fortunes. Subsequent album “C’mon Kids” was perceived as a deliberate attempt to dismantle their pop star / hitmaker status (an accusation the band deny) but it is certainly true that the sound of it was less commercial than its predecessor. The writing was on the wall by the release of their sixth studio album “Kingsize” in 1998 which peaked at No 62 in the charts and they disbanded not long after. Almost miraculously, they resurfaced in 2022 with new material though without chief songwriter Martin Carr within their ranks.

And back to the crap. I really am sick of these brainless Eurodance hits. I mean 2 Unlimited pushed me to my limits (ahem) but at least their songs were originals. Applying the Eurodance formula to existing songs was really taking the piss. Presumably the perpetrators of this musical crime did it to extend the shelf life of the genre in case the punters were tiring of it? We had already strayed into this area with the likes of Rage covering Bryan Adams in 1992 and more recently the Hi-NRG treatment of “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” by Nicki French but this next act would take it to another level. Clock would…erm…clock up thirteen UK Top 40 hits in total of which at least half were cover versions starting with this – Harold Faltermeyer’s “Axel F”. The original made No 2 in 1985 and was, of course, from the soundtrack to the film Beverly Hills Cop and was an instrumental track. The 1995 version though had a rapper and female vocalist tacked onto it in the way of that established Eurodance model. Now I was never much of a fan of the original – in fact I found it quite annoying – but this…THIS! Well, it was every shade of shit. Why did anybody need this in their life?! Apparently lots of people did as it went Top 10 in the UK. To be fair, I could also have lived without the original having ever existed either. Its appearance in the chart meant there were two 90s danced up cover versions of 80s instrumental hits in the Top 10 concurrently alongside Perfecto Allstarz and “Reach Up (Papa’s Got A Brand New Pigbag)”.

As for the performance here, presumably the dancers in police uniforms and the CHiPs style motorcycle that tonight’s host Mark Goodier rather ludicrously sits astride in his intro are to tie in with the Eddie Murphy film but it’s all rather unnecessary and silly. And why was the rapper dressed as a circus ringmaster? If we thought this was bad though, it was literally a musical masterpiece compared to what Crazy Frog inflicted on us ten years later.

It’s another dance tune next (of course it is) but this one’s a definite upgrade on Clock. Bucketheads was a side project by Kenny “Dope” Gonzalez, one half of the classic house music Masters at Work production team. Taking Chicago’s “Streetplayer” as his source material Kenny came up with “The Bomb! (These Sounds Fall into My Mind)”, a fusion of house, disco and funk that had been causing a stir in nightclubs for six months before it got a proper release on the Positiva label. That buzz would translate into sales sending it to No 5 in the UK charts.

You know, I’ve always dismissed Chicago as that band who produced all those sickly ballads like “If You Leave Me Now,” “You’re the Inspiration,” “Hard To Say I’m Sorry” and “Hard Habit To Break” which were, to my ears, all essentially the same song. However, there is so much more to them than I ever realised. They’ve been going for 55 years, have released 26 studio albums, sold 100 million records, have been inducted into The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame and have a list of band members past and present that would rival The Fall. Then there’s the music. They’ve tried everything from jazz-rock to funk to soul to those adult contemporary hits. There’s even a documentary about them called The Last Band On Stage – apparently they were pretty much the last artist to play a live gig on the planet as Covid shut the world down in March 2020.

Anyway, back to Bucketheads and the video shown here was directed by one Guy Ritchie three years before he became famous for Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels. As for the name Bucketheads, was it anything to do with the satirical political candidate Lord Buckethead who stood in the 1987 and 1992 General Elections? The film maker Todd Durham created the character in 1984 for the sci-fi comedy film Hyperspace and when he claimed ownership of Buckethead following the 2017 General Election, the character was renamed as Count Binface by the comedian Jonathan Harvey who was the current incumbent. I guess the idea just fell into his mind.

Enough with the dance tunes! Give us something else! Well, you couldn’t get more of a contrast from Clock and Bucketheads than the moment Radiohead transformed from shoe-gazing one hit wonders into colossal, stadium-filling art rockers. After the indie disco favourite “Creep” had gone Top 10 in 1983, Radiohead had come under pressure from EMI to repeat the trick. What they did instead was so much more than just another isolated crossover hit. Sophomore album “The Bends” would come to be seen as a game-changer, redefining the parameters of rock music and it wasn’t hard to understand why. Compared to the likes of Oasis (whose lad rock charms I had been easily swayed by), it was a much more layered, complex and involved record. The first time I heard it played on the shop stereo, I knew I was listening to something special, something that demanded more exploration, something…well…just more. It was one of the few albums that I’ve ever bought that I felt I had little choice in. It had to be purchased. As with The Boo Radleys earlier, “The Bends” is an album that has stayed with me ever since and which has not diminished over the years.

There’s another reason for linking Radiohead and The Boo Radleys (I do love a bit of synchronicity) and that’s in the Charles Bukowski T-shirt Thom Yorke is wearing. The American writer and poet had died exactly one year ago to the day that this TOTP was broadcast which presumably was why Thom was wearing the T-shirt. So what’s this got to do with The Boo Radleys? Well, their album “Wake Up” has a track on it called “Charles Bukowski Is Dead”. Sometimes this shit just writes itself.

Anyway, “High And Dry” was the second single from “The Bends” (after “My Iron Lung” in the Autumn of 1994) and was a double A-side with “Planet Telex” (the opening song on the album) and its almost achingly beautiful. Originally recorded as a demo in 1993 and almost incredulously dismissed as being too Rod Stewart (!), it has been described as being responsible for the careers of the likes of Coldplay and Travis. I’ll leave you to decide if that’s a good thing or not.

One more thing, they say a song’s quality can be judged by its ability to be covered in a style that is completely different to its original form. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Radiohead as done by ABC. Who needs AI?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Having an artist do an ‘exclusive’ performance of a single yet to be released only to have them back on the show the following week once it’s entered the charts isn’t working for me. Take Faith No More for example. They were on just last week performing “Digging The Grave” and I struggled to find anything to say about it then. Now I’ve got to go through exactly the same torment again this week? They could have at least shown the video to give me something different to go at.

Look, I’ve got nothing so not for the first time I’m going to leave it to Beavis and Butthead…”They just look and sound like everyone else”.

Genuine music icon time now as the venerable Stevie Wonder is on the show. Now while I can totally appreciate why TOTP Executive Producer Ric Blaxill would have jumped at the chance to get such a legendary name on the show, it really does feel like a case of shoehorning going on here. Yes, Stevie had an album due out (“Conversation Peace”) but it wasn’t actually available in the shops for another two weeks. The lead single from it (“For Your Love”) had peaked and was going down the charts so he couldn’t really perform that. The solution was to get Stevie to sing a track from the album called “Tomorrow Robins Will Sing” (it would eventually be released as the second single).

Now I love Stevie’s 60s, 70s and early 80s stuff as much as the next person but most of his material from “I Just Called To Say I Love You” onwards was of variable quality at best. I have to say that the song performed here really wasn’t up to much. A reggae flavoured number that saw Stevie unwisely indulge in some sort of faux rapping in the verses. And here’s my point. Yes, he is a legendary name and yes it was an exclusive to have him in the studio in person (his last performance appearance was in 1974 promoting “Living For The City”) but was there really that much buzz and anticipation about a new Stevie Wonder album in 1995? I’m not sure. “Conversation Peace” did go Top 10 in the UK but it’s hardly regarded as a classic is it?

In amongst the proliferation of R&B artists that the 90s gave us, I always feel that Des’ree gets overlooked somewhat. I’m not sure why as she has the sales/streams and awards to not be but perhaps it has something to do with the fact that of her six UK Top 40 hits, three of them were courtesy of the same song. “You Gotta Be” was first released in April 1994 peaking at No 20. So why the rerelease nearly a whole year later? It was down to its stellar performance in America where it made No 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. And why was it a hit over there? Well, because it was used to soundtrack an advertising campaign for the ABC network magazine programme Good Morning America thereby raising its profile significantly. The UK rerelease saw the single peak at No 14 but it was its third outing in 1999 when it gained its biggest success with it finally made the Top 10. That final release was again due to its use in an advert, this time to promote the Ford Focus car. “You Gotta Be” also won an Ivor Novello for Best Contemporary Song whilst Des’ree herself won a BRIT Award for Best Female Solo Artist. Outperforming all three of those releases though was her 1998 single “Life” which got to No 8 despite it including a lyric that was voted the worst ever in a pop song in a 2007 BBC poll. You know the one – where Des’ree sings that she doesn’t want to see a ghost and would rather have a piece of toast? Yeah, that one. She also duetted with Terence Trent D’Arby on his 1993 hit single “Delicate”.

So why do I think she’s over looked? Well, she never had a massive selling album, at least not in the UK though her 1994 collection “I Ain’t Movin'” sold a million copies in the US. I also think the two years between that release and her debut “Mind Adventures” and its attendant hit single “Feel So High” in 1992 meant she lost a bit of momentum. In that time, the likes of Gabrielle, Dina Carroll appeared on the scene to step into her vacant shoes. Hell, even EastEnders actress Michelle Gayle got in on the act. Did Des’ree just get crowded out of that particular musical genre? Actually, listening back to “You Gotta Be”, it does have more than a hint of Gabrielle’s “Dreams” to it. Did Des’ree see which way the wind was blowing and decide to follow suit?

One person who didn’t overlook Des’ree was my wife who is a primary school teacher. When she was teaching a music unit one year, she decided that there wasn’t enough R&B / soul music represented on the module and so added “You Gotta Be” to it. Apparently her class loved the song and would sing along to it when she found a video on YouTube with the lyrics included. I’m not sure how many pupils my wife had in her class but I’m guessing it wasn’t as many as Des’ree had in a world record breaking event for charity in 2008 when she led 600,000 children in singing the same song simultaneously at the O2 Arena. The song was, of course, “You Gotta Be”.

Now, was it too soon for the return of Wet Wet Wet after their fifteen week stint at No 1 with “Love Is All Around” the previous year? In fact, how do you follow up a hit that big? Is it even possible to achieve such sales with consecutive releases? Erm, no is the short answer though “Julia Says” was no flop either peaking at No 3. Trailing the band’s fourth studio album “Picture This” (though “Love Is All Around” was tacked onto it as the last track), it seemed a rather safe choice by Marti and the gang to be honest. Despite being melodic and tuneful, it was hardly breaking any new ground. The exact opposite in fact as I’m sure I can detect traces of “Strawberry Fields Forever” era Beatles in there at one point. Still Pellow sells it well to the delight of the screaming studio audience (as Mark Goodier says, the band always got a good reaction whenever they were on TOTP).

Ah yes, those fans. I have a memory of Wet Wet Wet fans being a bit of a pain when “Julia Says” came out, a bit precious about when exactly would it be available in the shop to buy. Not Numanoid levels of annoying – Gary Numan’s fans were always ringing up and arguing the toss about release dates – but still the wrong side of polite I would say. They, at least, far from having had enough of Wet Wet Wet, couldn’t get enough of them.

Celine Dion is not finished with the No 1 spot yet as she clocks up a sixth week there with “Think Twice”. In desperation of having to say something about this song yet again, I decided to have a gander at the lyrics. Written by Andy Hill and ex-King Crimson lyricist Pete Sinfield (who also wrote “The Land Of Make Believe” for Bucks Fizz), the words are really not very good. Like, at all. Rhyming ‘dice’ with ‘twice’? I took a guitar class a few years back and we were tasked with writing a song of our own to perform in front of everyone else. I came up with some crap based around life as a board game which included a lyric about rolling the dice. I was almost embarrassed to sing it. Celine clearly had no such qualms.

“Think Twice” also includes these lines:

Babe, I know it ain’t easy when your soul cries out for higher ground
‘Cause when you’re halfway up, you’re always halfway down
Writer/s: Andrew Gerard Hill, Peter John Sinfield
Publisher: Songtrust Ave, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

What was the inspiration for that? The Grand Old Duke of York nursery rhyme?! Thankfully, we’ve only one more week of this crud to go.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Boo Radleys	Wake Up Boo!	No the single but I bought the album
2	Clock	Axel F	NO!
3	Bucketheads	The Bomb! (These Sounds Fall into My Mind)	Nope
4	Radiohead	High And Dry / Planet Telex	See 1 above
5	Faith No More	Digging The Grave	I did not
6	Stevie Wonder	Tomorrow Robins Will Sing	Negative
7	Des’ree	You Gotta Be	Nah
8	Wet Wet Wet	Julia Says	No
9	Celine Dion	Think Twice	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/m001r3g6/top-of-the-pops-09031995

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 16 JAN 1998

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TOTP 24 OCT 1997

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TOTP 17 OCT 1997

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TOTP 20 SEP 1996

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TOTP 06 SEP 1996

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TOTP 24 AUG 1995

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TOTP 29 JUN 1995

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TOTP 09 MAR 1995

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