Dance 2 Trance

TOTP 22 JUL 1993

Posted on by 80stastic

Look, I know that TOTP producer Stanley Appel couldn’t possibly have known that twenty-nine years on from deciding the running orders for these shows that I would be writing a review of each one and that the more acts that he shoehorned into thirty minutes, the more words I would have to write but damn! These TOTP repeats are killing me. This edition has thirteen acts on it. Thirteen! Bastards! Right then. No time for an intro about what else was happening in the world to form a theme for the post. As Duckie said in Pretty In Pink, “Let’s plow”…

The voice and co-writer of “Unfinished Sympathy” begins the show as Shara Nelson starts “Down That Road” of being a solo artist. She looked fair set to become a huge star as well. With her fly Massive Attack credentials and being signed to Cooltempo Records (home of Carleen Anderson, Arrested Development, The Brand New Heavies and…erm…Kenny Thomas), she had credibility as well as a decent debut tune. She also had a Mercury Music Prize nominated album in “What Silence Knows” which would furnish her with four Top 40 hits. Yet somehow that huge career that seemed inevitable got away from her. Second album “Friendly Fire” performed poorly and then she rather disappeared for a bit before resurfacing to collaborate with the likes of producer and DJ Charles ‘Presence’ Webster.

“Down That Road” managed to combine some cool vibes with a crossover appeal that would see it gain plenty of daytime airplay. It was also one of those records that had a tiny but crucial instrumental hook that lodged itself in your brain – that little sax parp after Shara sings the word ‘road’ in the chorus (see also the final strum of Billy Duffy’s guitar in the riff to “She Sells Sanctuary”).

Something I wasn’t aware of though was that DJ Pete Tong obtained a restraining order against Shara in 2011 following her 12 month community order and community service sentence for harassment of Tong and his wife! Blimey! She really shouldn’t have gone down that road.

“Down That Road” peaked at No 19.

Roxette are next with their highest ever chart entry as “Almost Unreal” crashes into the Top 10 at No 7. It’s their first time back there since “Joyride” made No 4 two years previously but they shouldn’t have got carried away with themselves as it will also be their very last time there in the UK and the song itself was almost universally panned by critics. Even the band themselves didn’t like it stating in the liner notes to their 1995 Greatest Hits album “Don’t Bore Us, Get to the Chorus!” that “if you wanted to make a parody of Roxette, it would probably sound something like this”. Erm, no. This is how a parody of Roxette sounds..

Anyway, “Almost Unreal” was from the film Super Mario Bros which I’ve never seen but I’m led to believe stank out every cinema it played in around the world. Just like Roxette not liking their song from it, the film’s star Bob Hoskins was even more scathing about the actual movie.

“The worst thing I ever did? Super Mario Brothers. It was a fuckin’ nightmare. The whole experience was a nightmare. It had a husband-and-wife team directing, whose arrogance had been mistaken for talent. After so many weeks their own agent told them to get off the set! Fuckin’ nightmare. Fuckin’ idiots.”

Hattenstone, Simon (August 3, 2007). “The Method? Living it out? Cobblers!”. The Guardian.

The song was originally intended for the film Hocus Pocus hence the lyric “I love when you do that hocus pocus to me” but was pulled at the last minute and transferred to the Super Mario Bros project. The soundtrack featured an eclectic collection of artists from Megadeth to Charles and Eddie to Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch via Us3 (more of whom later).

Host Mark Franklin gives what must be one of the most underwhelming introductions in TOTP history. “Here’s a song that’s done well gradually” he tells us. Gradually?! You couldn’t have gone with “Here’s a song that’s climbing the charts” or “Here’s a song that’s finally getting the recognition it deserves” Mark? Anyway, the record is “The Key The Secret” by Urban Cookie Collective.

Now to be fair to Franklin, the single did take a while to climb the charts and had quite the gestation period. It was released in its original format on the tiny Unheard Records label but when a remix of it sent clubbers rushing to their nearest dance floor, it was given a bigger push on Pulse 8. Even then, radio was resistant to its crossover appeal but when it finally entered the Top 40, they couldn’t cock a deaf ‘un (as my Dad might say) any longer. It would go on to rise as high as No 2 and become one of the biggest dance tunes of the decade.

The hanging gold key in the background to this performance has a nativity play scenery feel to it but then apparently the song was written about taking magic mushrooms so maybe it looked better if you were under the influence.

For my money, OMD have one of the best back catalogue’s of Top 40 hits out there. By 1993 though, I’d lost sight of them completely to the extent that this single – “Dream Of Me (Based On Love’s Theme)” passed me by completely. The second of three singles released from the patchy “Liberator” album, it was structured around the 1974 US No 1 “Love’s Theme” by Barry White’s The Love Unlimited Orchestra. I was only five when the original was a hit but didn’t Gary Davies use it to soundtrack ‘The Sloppy Bit’ of his Radio 1 show? I think he did.

Anyway, back to OMD and whilst I can appreciate the idea of what Andy McCluskey was trying to do with the track, I’m not entirely sure he pulls it off. Supposedly the single version is different from its album counterpart with the Barry White samples stripped out but I’m not sure that I can tell the difference having listened to both. Whichever version it is on TOTP, at least the slower bpm of the track has toned down McCluskey’s legendary wiggy dancing.

OMD would only return to the UK Top 40 one more time in 1996 with the rather lovely “Walking On The Milky Way”.

The Breakers are the reason that there’s thirteen songs on tonight’s show as there’s five of them! The first three are all dance tunes starting with “Take A Free Fall” by Dance 2 Trance.

This was the follow up to “Power Of American Natives” but I couldn’t really care less about that. What’s intriguing me about this track is the guy in the video zooming about on some sort of flying Minecraft piece. The look of it reminded me of something and I finally remembered what it was…

Go to 2:33

It’s all about the record labels tonight. After name checking Cooltempo earlier here comes an act that you can’t talk about without mentioning the legendary record label that they were on. Us3 were all about Blue Note Records the American jazz label which released recordings by everybody from Miles Davis to Art Blakey to Horace Silver (and yes I only know those names from the jazz section of every Our Price store I ever worked in). Not only were they signed to the label but their debut album “Hand On The Torch” only featured samples from tracks that were released by Blue Note. Even their name came from an album produced by Alfred Lion, the founder of Blue Note Records. They were totally committed.

“Tukka Yoot’s Riddim” was the jazz-rappers’ first chart hit when it peaked at No 34 (btw another song that Mark Franklin described using the word ‘gradually’ – “this song’s getting there gradually” he says) but I reckon most people know them for their hit “Cantaloop” which was their biggest chart placing when it was rereleased after this single and made No 23. I must admit to sometimse confusing them with the similarly named Oui 3 who were their chart peers.

And another dance tune! This one is from techno ravers N–Joi and their “The Drumstruck EP”. This was their belated follow up to “Live In Manchester EP” that was a No 12 hit in February of 1992. It all sounds like a load of bleeps to me. Much more interesting is that one of the guys in N-Joi was called Mark Franklin! How did TOTP host Mark Franklin not comment on this in his intro?!

“The Drumstruck EP” peaked at No 33.

Around 1992/93 was the time in REM’s career when they did the whole Michael Jackson thing. I don’t mean they bought a chimpanzee and called it Bubbles though. No. They were releasing loads of tracks from their latest album as singles. “Nightswimming” was the fifth of six singles to come off the “Automatic For The People” album and like its immediate predecessor “Everybody Hurts”, it was quite the melancholic number. Based around Mike Mills’s memorable piano melody and not much else, it remains a beautiful piece of music. It was recorded at the same studio where Derek And The Dominos laid down “Layla” with Mills playing the same piano that was used in its famous coda.

In my head, this was only released as a limited edition 10” but I can’t find anything to substantiate that online and in any case, that would have severely limited its chart potential so maybe I just imagined it.

“Nightswimming” peaked at No 27.

Just what we all needed. A retread of a Grease song by an ex-Neighbours soap star. We’d been in similar territory just two years before when Jason Donovan took “Any Dream Will Do” to No 1 when the single was released to promote the soundtrack to the West End version of Joseph And The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat he was starring in. In 1993, it was the turn of Jason’s Neighbours pal Craig McLachlan to advertise the West End show he was in which was Grease via the track “You’re The One That I Want” with 80s popster Debbie Gibson.

Look, one of my abiding childhood memories is that of the Summer of 1978 when the film version of Grease was everywhere and you couldn’t escape from John Travolta and Olivia Newton John so I have a great affection for the songs from it but if you were going to buy any of its music then surely you’d go for the film soundtrack and not the 1993 London Cast Recording album? From Craig and Debbie’s perspectives, it was probably a good career move as both of their time as a pop star was coming to an end and I’m sure they were great in the show but this all seemed a tad unnecessary.

After that little Grease interlude, we’re back onto the dance music as Utah Saints graduate from being a Breaker last week to appearing in the studio this with “I Want You”.

I’d liked their other singles up to this point but this one was rather lost on me possibly because it didn’t employ a vocal sample like its predecessors with the band’s Jez Willis provided the vocals instead. I can think of at least two other songs called “I Want You” I’d rather listen to. Firstly there’s the Inspiral Carpets / Mark E Smith collaboration from 1994:

Then there this wonderfully atmospheric track from Elvis Costello’s 1986 album called “Blood And Chocolate”…

OK, so this show has been dominated by dance singles of various hues but I do think that Stanley Appel’s stewardship of TOTP did try and reflect other musical genres. The other week they had The Levellers on and now here’s another band who would have been considered outside of the mainstream. So much so that this was the band’s first (and I’m guessing last) ever appearance in the TOTP studio. The Waterboys though were on a roll (for them) with a second consecutive Top 40 hit in “Glastonbury Song”.

The follow up to “The Return Of Pan”, it was the second single from their “Dream Harder” album which was seen as possessing a much harder rock sound than previously heard form them but it came at a cost causing those old musical differences to splinter the existing line up. Mike Scott was left as the only true member of the band and the album was completed with session musicians. The next logical step was for Scott to go full solo and he did do with the next two releases put out under his own name.

He certainly looks like a solo act in this performance as everything centres around him and his floppy, red hat. In fact, the headgear, the long hair and being sat permanently at his keyboards, he reminds me a bit of Gilbert O’Sullivan in his 70s heyday. The song’s not bad actually and possibly the most radio friendly since “The Whole Of The Moon”. Oh and apparently, The Waterboys have had more members than the aforementioned Mark E. Smith’s The Fall. No really.

Talking of ‘aforementioned’ people, here’s Jason Donovan. I know, I can’t believe he had another TOTP appearance in him but this really was the last knockings of his pop career. In fact, this must be his final time on the show. How do I know? Because this single “All Around The World” didn’t even make the Top 40 and he didn’t release another single until 2007 and the show finished in 2006. The song really is a stinker, just awful. Talk about going out on a low. Jason has found gainful employment though and is now fronting an advertising campaign for the People’s Postcode Lottery.

Take That still hold the No 1 spot with “Pray”. We get the video this week and it’s basically just the lads getting their pecs out with chests being bared roughly every five seconds. It was pure titillation for their army of teenage girl fans. At least they didn’t get the jelly out like they did for their very first single “Do What U Like”. Small mercies and all that.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Shara NelsonDown That RoadNo but my wife had the album
2RoxetteAlmost UnrealNo
3Urban Cookie CollectiveThe Key The SecretNope
4OMD Dream Of Me (Based On Love’s Theme)Not but I have its on a Greatest Hits album I think
5Dance 2 TranceTake A Free FallNegative
6Us3Tukka Yoot’s RiddimNah
7N-JoiThe Drumstuck EPNever happening
8REMNightswimmingNo but I had their album
9Craig McLachlan and Debbie GibsonYou’re The One That I WantAs if
10Utah SaintsI Want YouBut I didn’t want you
11The WaterboysGlastonbury SongI did not
12Jason DonovanAll Around The WorldHa! Of course not
13Take ThatPrayAnd 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/m001c1qs/top-of-the-pops-22071993

TOTP 29 APR 1993

Posted on by 80stastic

What happens to pop stars when the fame slides away and, as that infamous Bros documentary put it, when the screaming stops? Well, some stay in the world of entertainment but reinvent themselves as actors or DJs. Statistically there must be some I guess who can’t handle it and slide into a world of drink and drugs. There must also be a large number who just get ‘ordinary’ jobs like the rest of us. There can’t be many though that became even more famous as a professor of particle physics and the public face of anything scientific. I talk, of course, of Professor Brian Cox who famously was also, in his youth, the keyboards player in D:Ream. And yes, D:Ream are on the show tonight. And yes, I didn’t mention Brian Cox in the last post when his band were in the Breakers section knowing I could leave that discussion for this week. Seen by many as the natural successor to the likes of David Attenborough (even though their fields aren’t remotely the same), he’s certainly more famous now for making science hip than making hit singles. I wonder if they’ll be any more pop stars on tonight’s show who became famous for something other than pop music?

So we start with Prof Cox and D:Ream who are having a mini career before they go massive next year. It’s a curious chart history. 1993 brought them four hit singles yet none got any higher than No 19. The following year, they also had four hit singles but two of them were included in those hits from 1993. This time those repeated singles went to No 1 and No 4. In total there were nine single releases from their “D:Ream On Vol 1” album but across just six tracks with “Things Can Only Get Better” being released twice (once for the Labour General Election campaign of 1997) and this song “U R The Best Thing” three times! I guess their record label must have had unshakable faith that they really were going to be big.

Cox looks unrecognisable here with a mane of long hair which he keeps swishing from side to side and a sleeveless tartan suit (God in heaven! What was he thinking?!). Mind you, wasn’t lead singer Peter Cunnah partial to a tartan suit as well? Maybe we’ll see that it a future TOTP. I used to work with someone who had a drinking mug with Brian Cox’s face on it as she was a fan. The slogan emblazoned all around the mug? Me Love Cox. When I pointed out the obvious double entendre, it had genuinely never occurred to her!

It’s that REM single next that even if you weren’t a fan of the band or even pop music in general had to admit was a pretty good song. “Everybody Hurts” had that elusive quality to be able to cut through all different strata of society and be affecting. With its themes of dealing with depression and suicidal thoughts and its melancholy sound, it was an obvious choice for it to soundtrack a 1995 awareness campaign by The Samaritans.

Fifteen years on, it was covered to raise money for victims of the Haiti earthquake. Multiple artists were involved in the project including Mariah Carey, Rod Stewart, Take That, Kylie Minogue and Westlife and, with a nice link to D:Ream, was the idea of then Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown who contacted Simon Cowell to put it together. It became the fastest selling charity record of the 21st century in Britain. Somehow I can’t imagine Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak (whichever one ends up in No 10) initiating something similar. Raising money for suffering people that don’t even live in the UK? That wouldn’t go down well with the Tory membership at all. “Ooh bit of politics!” as Ben Elton would have said back in the day.

I don’t think you could make a case that any of the members of REM eclipsed their fame as rock stars after the band dissolved but Michael Stipe has branched out into film production acting as executive producer on movies such as Being John Malkovich and Velvet Goldmine.

SWV were in the charts in 1993 with a song that wasn’t “Right Here”? Really? The Michael Jackson sampling hit is my only memory of the trio from that year but here they are with a different hit called “I’m So Into You” which would make No 17 on our charts. After En Vogue and latterly Jade, here were the Sisters With Voices as the latest US R&B import seeking to replicate their success at home across the pond.

Listening back to this track hasn’t stirred my grey cells into action – zero recall of it – but then I was distracted by their decision to turn up for the show dressed as Shaky in double denim. Quite extraordinary. One of the trio, Tamara ‘Taj’ George, became a model after the band split and then found fame as a reality TV star on Survivor in 2009.

Anyone fancy some panpipe techno? Nah, me neither but there is some on the show courtesy of Dance 2 Trance and their hit “Power Of American Natives”. In later life, the backing dancer on the right found fame as bad boy Darren Osbourne in Channel 4 soap Hollyoaks. OK, I’m made that shit up but he does look a bit like him doesn’t he?

https://youtu.be/7EnEcgLO99o

I’ve talked long and hard before about the three ‘S’s of shite that blighted the charts in 1993 – Shabba, Shaggy and Snow. There was though another artist that I could have shoehorned in to make this unholy trio a frightful foursome of crud if I’d allowed songs instead of artists beginning with ‘s’ to be included. The song I speak of is “Sweat” or rather “Sweat (A La La La La Long)”. This heinous piece of cod reggae by Inner Circle could rot your brain when exposed to it for just a few minutes with its infuriatingly catchy drone-a-long chorus. The good people of the UK had resisted its dark arts when originally released six months earlier but a rerelease due to it being No 1 all over Europe proved overwhelming and it duly went to No 6 in our charts.

The band themselves had been around in various incarnations since 1968 (!) but had only grazed the UK Top 40 once in 1979 with something called “Everything Is Great”. Talk about a misnomer. They came up with a song with a much more apt name in “Bad Boys” (where bad means crap and not good as per Michael Jackson) which became a big hit when it was used as the theme song to US TV series Cops and later to soundtrack the Will Smith / Martin Lawrence Bad Boys film franchise.

It’s three Breakers this week starting with Big Country. No if we thought D:Ream were into recycling with their multiple rereleases of tracks as singles, then what do we make of the bagpipe guitar rockers? Where D:Ream simply got the in demand remix team of Paul Oakenfold and Steve Osborne aka Perfecto to come up with a new version of “U R The Best Thing”, Big Country did the spade work themselves and totally re-recorded a song that had already been on a previous album.

“Ships (Where Were You)” was originally a track on poorly received and underselling 1991 album “No Place Like Home” but Stuart Adamson and co weren’t happy with the piano led, string quartet enhanced version that they had laid down and so went back into the studio to add those guitars. Now sounding more like a recognisable Big Country track, it became the band’s second consecutive Top 40 hit when released as the second single from “Buffalo Skinners”, the first time they had achieved that feat since 1986.

The video is a pretty pedestrian affair with the fans looking like they’ve caught the MTV Unplugged bug with all of them sat down for the entire performance. Surely that would have worked better with the string quartet 1991 version?

Next a band at a careers crossroads. It seems strange to recall now but in 1993 Blur we’re not in a good place. The glory of their 1991 breakthrough single “There’s No Other Way” had long since dimmed to be replaced by a press backlash. The band themselves were miserable after an unhappy experience touring the US to apathetic audiences. The possibility of being dropped by record label Food was real. A decision was taken to take a new direction that channeled the spirit of English 60s bands like the Small Faces and The Kinks as a reaction to the grunge era that they’d witnessed on their American tour. The result was the album “Modern Life Is Rubbish”, a collection of songs that didn’t generate massive sales but which have retrospectively been bestowed with love and respect and a sense of importance in configuring the rise of Britpop.

“For Tomorrow” was the lead track and was written with the intention of being a hit single as it was felt by Food that the album didn’t have any. Written about Primrose Hill the top of which affords a view of the whole of central London, it peaked at No 28, the band’s third lowest charting single until 2012. However, it is a fan favourite being voted the fifth best Blur song ever in a fanbase vote.

Whilst the album underperformed commercially, it was an essential and necessary step on the way to their most celebrated album “Parklife”. Oh and Inner Circle? That’s how you write a song with a ‘La La La La’ chorus!

Now here’s an artist I never really got…at all. However, she was very much seen as the darling of the indie world around this time and her career has been littered with accolades. Her trophy cabinet (presuming she has one) houses three Rolling Stone Magazine awards, two Mercury Music Prizes – she remains the only artist to have won it twice – an NME Outstanding Contribution to Music award and an MBE for services to music. Who am I taking about? PJ Harvey of course.

Back in 1993, she’d already made a name for herself with her debut album “Dry” which had made No 11 in the charts and would end up selling 60,000 copies. It was also extremely well received in the ‘serious’ music press. Maybe that’s what put me off her. I never really felt a part of that scene. While I was coming to the conclusion that she wasn’t really for me, PJ (Polly Jean) was already onto her next album. Sophomore release “Rid Of Me” came out the week after this TOTP aired and was trailed by the single “50ft Queenie”. This sounded like a racket to me back then and the intervening thirty years have done nothing to change my mind. I wasn’t the only person who wasn’t a fan. My mate Robin who worked at the BBC had got himself into the audience for a Later…with Jools Holland when one of the guests was PJ Harvey. So unimpressed was he by what he saw that as the camera panned round the studio audience during her performance, he gave his verdict with a double middle finger gesture (or ‘the rods’ as Robin described it). I’ve looked through a number of Later…shows featuring ol’ PJ but have not been able to spot Robin’s rods. He has a particularly bad track record of being at BBC music shows. He once found himself stranded at a recording of TOTP – he’d thought that Morrissey was on but it turned out to be Kenny Thomas instead.

“50ft Queenie” peaked at No 27.

A genuine rock god next. Robert Plant needs no introduction from me mainly because I’m not qualified as I never really got the boat to Led Zeppelin island but just to give this some factual context, this was Robert’s third solo Top 40 single over a ten year period. His first had come in 1983 with the paean to toilet humour “Big Log” whilst his second was 1988’s “Heaven Knows” which I don’t remember at all. “29 Palms” though I do recall as the album it was taken from – “Fate Of Nations” – we had a CD promo copy of at the Our Price store where I was working at the time. I wouldn’t normally have been interested in a Robert Plant album but I took this one as me and my wife had just purchased our very first stereo that had a CD drive! Yes, just a mere eight years (!) after Dire Straits’ “Brothers In Arms” was single-handedly driving the adoption of the CD as the format of choice for music buyers, we finally joined the digital recording revolution. The problem was we didn’t have any actual CDs to play on our newly acquired stereo. All our music was either on vinyl and then latterly cassette. Given this, I figured I’d claim the Plant promo CD to test out the CD player. To be fair, I don’t think anybody else I worked with was likely to want it.

And so it came to pass that one of the first CDs I ever had was a Robert Plant solo album. I had it for years and maybe played one track on it once (the single obviously) and in the end I gave it away to a friend who liked, yep, that one song. So about “29 Palms” – did I like it? I wouldn’t have changed station if it came on the radio but I certainly wouldn’t have bought it either (remember, the CD I had was a free promo – no monetary transaction was necessary). I think I preferred “Big Log” though from my school days. There’s a bit in it that’s been bugging me because it reminded me of another song but I couldn’t place it but I’ve got it now – it’s “Heaven” by Bryan Adams. That’s probably heresy to Led Zep fans but that’s what I’m hearing. It’s rumoured to be about Canadian singer Alannah Myles of “Black Velvet” fame whom Plant toured with. Alternatively, it’s about the town of Twentynine Palms in the Mojave desert or more specifically its radio station. Either way, at least Robert ensured there was no room for any “Big Log” style faeces innuendo with this one…unless you can think of any.

“29 Palms” peaked at No 21.

The 1993 Eurovision Song Contest is only two weeks away so it’s about time we got another glimpse of our entry for this year who is of course Sonia. The UK was in a run of runner up finishes with three of the previous five contests seeing us finish in second place. Sonia would make it four out of six with “Better The Devil You Know” but we would come nowhere near winning again until 1997 when Katrina And The Waves brought the crown back to the UK despite Katrina herself being American.

Back in 1993 though, Sonia found herself unlucky enough to be competing in an era where the contest was dominated by Ireland who were in the middle of a trio of wins between 1992 and 1994. A bit like Andy Murray playing elite tennis when Nadal and Federer were in their pomp. Well, sort of if you can get on board with the idea of music being competitive. Then again, what was the Top 40 singles chart if not a competition?

Not only did Sonia miss out on Eurovision glory but “Better The Devil You Know” was also her final ever Top 40 hit. She had eleven in all but I’m betting most of us would struggle if she was the ‘Three In Ten’ artist on Ken Bruce’s Popmaster. After the hits stopped, Sonia starred as Sandy in the West End revival of Grease and also as Lily Savage’s wayward daughter Bunty in The Lily Savage Show. I don’t think any of those projects outdid her fame as Sonia the pop star though. Certainly appearing in Channel 5’s Celebrity 5 Go Caravanning was unlikely to be people’s abiding memory of her.

P.S. Did Sonia and SWV plan their Shaky style outfits beforehand?

There’s a new No 1 as The Bluebells are no more and are replaced by George Michael and Queen with the “Five Live” EP. A charity record in support of The Mercury Phoenix Trust that fights HIV/AIDS around the world, the five tracks were:

  1. “Somebody To Love” – George Michael and Queen
  2. “Killer” – George Michael
  3. “These Are The Days Of Our Lives” – Queen, George Michael and Lisa Stansfield
  4. “Calling You” – George Michael
  5. “Dear Friends” – Queen

Tracks 1 and 3 were recordings of the live performances from the 1992 Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert with the first being the one that received all the airplay. The EP went straight in at No 1 making it the eighth charity record to do so at the time since Band Aid in 1984. It was also George Michael’s third No 1 single as a duet after “I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)” with Aretha Franklin in 1987 and “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me” with Elton John in 1991. It would become the 11th best selling single of 1993. It also was top of the charts for three weeks so I’ll leave it there for now. Oh, one more thing. We’re all agreed that George’s fame post Wham! outstripped his pre Wham! fame yeah?

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1D:ReamU R The Best ThingNo
2REMEverybody HurtsNo but I had the Automatic For The People album
3SWVI’m So Into YouNah
4Dance 2 TrancePower Of American NativesAs if
5Inner CircleSweat (A La La La La Long)God no!
6Big CountryShips (Where Were You)I did not
7BlurFor TomorrowNo but I had the Modern Life Is Rubbish album
8PJ Harvey50ft QueenieNever happening
9Robert Plant29 PalmsNo but I had that promo copy of the album
10SoniaBetter The Devil You KnowNope
11George Michael and QueenFive Live EPDon’t think I 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/m0019tp0/top-of-the-pops-29041993

TOTP 22 APR 1993

Posted on by 80stastic

Ever broken an arm or a leg? I once had a hairline fracture of my forearm when somebody pushed me down the stairs at school. I had a plaster cast on it and everything. My injury however was nothing compared to what happened to Arsenal footballer Steve Morrow four days before this TOTP aired. The unfortunate Belfast born utility man managed to break his arm after a game had finished! He’d just scored the winning goal in the League Cup final versus Sheffield Wednesday and in the jubilant celebrations afterwards his captain Tony Adams tried to carry him on his shoulders. Adams slipped, Morrow fell and fractured his arm so badly he needed oxygen and was rushed to hospital. He missed the rest of the season.

That got me thinking of accidents that had befallen pop stars. There’s been a few. For a start, there’s the nicest man in rock Dave Grohl who fell off stage during a Foo Fighters gig in Sweden. He famously finished the gig after the medics patched him up and played the rest of the tour sat down in a chair. Or how about Jessie J who fell off stage whilst rehearsing in 2011, broke her foot and required a bone transplant. Then there’s the youngest Hanson brother who broke his collarbone and cracked three ribs and his scapula when he came off his motorcycle in 2019. Possibly most famously, Ed Sheeran broke his right wrist and left elbow after coming off his bike in 2017. Ed was hardcore though and went to the pub after the accident before giving into the pain in the early hours and undertaking a trip to A&E. I wonder if any of the acts on tonight’s TOTP have any broken limbs stories…

We start with something that I not only don’t remember but that I couldn’t really conceive of happening. Voice Of The Beehive and Jimmy Somerville anyone? So what was this all about? Well, it was a project by the record label Food Records to support the charity Shelter’s ‘Putting Our House In Order’ homeless initiative. Not only did they get Jimmy and VOTB together, they got various other artists (many as duets) to perform versions of “Gimme Shelter” by The Rolling Stones. The recordings were put on four separate singles sorted by musical genre – pop, rock, alternative and dance. I’m not going to list them all here but there’s a few intriguing ones like New Model Army and Tom Jones…

How about Cud and Sandie Shaw…

Surely the oddest though must be Hawkwind and Samantha Fox….

Bizarre doesn’t quite cover it. Anyway, there were some more obvious takes on the song mainly on the rock CD with the likes of Thunder and Little Angels doing their bit for charity but it was Voice Of The Beehive and Jimmy Somerville that were chosen to promote the project on TOTP and there’s a bit to unpack here:

  1. I quite like it
  2. Why does Jimmy sing his opening verses in such a low register?
  3. Jimmy’s T-shirt is right. Shabba Ranks is a bigot
  4. Why was Woody not on the drums?
  5. I have no information on whether any of the people on stage have ever broken any bones

All formats of the single included a live version of “Gimme Shelter” by The Stones to keep on the right side of chart eligibility rules enabling it to get to No 23. It was officially credited to Various Artists and each format had the same catalogue number meaning it counted as one record sale whichever version you bought.

The Bodyguard cash cow was still going strong in April 1993. Not only had the film being doing the business at the box office but the soundtrack album was No 1 around the world and there seemed to be a single lifted from it permanently in the charts. “I Have Nothing” was the fourth such single and the third by Whitney Houston (the other coming courtesy of Lisa Stansfield). In truth, it could have come from any of Whitney’s albums up to this point as it was a classic power ballad the type of which she had made a number of times previously. I’m thinking “All The Man That I Need”, “One Moment In Time”, “Where Do Broken Hearts Go” etc. I mean she did it very well and could knock these out in her sleep but it was all a bit Whitney by numbers for me. She also seemed to have a penchant for songs with ‘I’ in the title. There was “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)”, “I Will Always Love You” (obvs), “I’m Your Baby Tonight” – she even did a version of “I Know Him So Well”. All those ‘I’s put me in mind of when Dr Who regenerated from Peter Davison to Colin Baker…

The single went to No 3 in the UK and No 4 in the US where, due to the stagnant nature of their chart, her previous two singles were still selling and it meant she became the first artist since 1991 when their chart compiling software changed to have three songs in the Top 11 chart positions.

The video follows the format of “I Will Always Love You” and is basically a trailer for the film with lots of clips of it all thrown together around Whitney performing to camera. Not content with this power ballad, the next release was also one (and also from the soundtrack album) with “Run To You” being released in June.

It’s a third consecutive appearance on the show for New Order with “Regret” next. After the Baywatch incident then the official promo video, they are finally in the TOTP studio. Despite the live vocal policy in place on the show at this time, this isn’t a shambles of a performance as with “Blue Monday” ten years earlier. It all feels pretty slick although Hooky’s unique bass playing technique and stance never looked slick. It’s as if it weighs a ton and he stretching every sinew to keep it off the ground. He might not have broken it in an accident but as @TOTPFacts says:

Talking of guitars, it feels quite odd to see Bernard Sumner with one in his hands. Now I’m no Eric Clapton and am just a bit of a chord strummer but it looks like his fingers never change from that one chord shape (‘C’ if I’m not mistaken or derivatives of it). Was there really just one chord in the song? And they used to take the piss out of Status Quo!

https://youtu.be/AwiNFgjljv4

We swoop over to America next for a live satellite performance of the country’s No 1 record. You’ll probably know the song but not the group. How come? Well, “Freak Me” is the track in question and it will go to No 1 here as well but not for another five years and it won’t be sung by the people we see here but by some chancers called Another Level. Yep, them. Dane Bowers and his mob. Anyway, that’s way down the line. For the moment it’s all about Silk… or rather it’s not as their version of this Keith Sweat written and produced song never even made the Top 40 over here despite this performance.

Slik were from Atlanta, Georgia and had given themselves some truly terrible nicknames. There was Tim ‘Timzo’ Cameron, Gary ‘Big G’ Glenn, Gary ‘Lil G’ Jenkins and my favourite Jonathan ‘John-John’ Rasboro. The lyrics to their big hit are…well kind of explicit and leave the listener in no doubt as to what they are singing about. For example:

Let me lick you up and down till you say stop, let me play with your body baby, make you real hot

Then there’s:

I love the taste of whipped cream, spread it on, don’t be mean

Blimey!

Meanwhile back in the TOTP studio we find Sub Sub featuring Melanie Williams and their big hit tune “Ain’t No Love (Ain’t No Use)”. Melanie’s come with a big, zebra print floppy hat that she didn’t wear last time. Maybe it was meant to be in keeping with the tune’s retro disco feel?

It’s suddenly struck me that Sub Sub were a bit like Deee-Lite. One huge, crossover dance anthem then pretty much nothing in terms of further chart success. I know that’s not strictly true in that Deee-Lite had one minor hit single after “Groove Is In The Heart” before all you chart enthusiasts get on to me but you get my drift.

Mick Jones (he of the Man Utd score update story the other week) has informed me that when Melanie Williams was in her previous band called Temper Temper, she did a PA at the Our Price store in Piccadilly, Manchester and was absolutely lovely with all the male members of staff under her spell. Thought I’d pass that on. By the way, I have no info on whether she’s ever broken her arm or leg but there is a Melanie Williams serious injury solicitor based in Fitzrovia, London but that’s probably not the same person is it?

There’s four Breakers again this week starting with a band who I genuinely never realised had more than one hit in this country. Aussie rockers Midnight Oil had a huge global hit in the late 80s with “Beds Are Burning” and although they continued to have success back home, they did zip in the UK until this track – “Truganini” -made our Top 30. As with “Beds Are Burning” which was about the territorial rights of native Australians, the song carried a political message (a debate over the future of the Australian monarchy) whilst name checking Truganini who was an Aboriginal Tasmanian woman and one of the last native speakers of the Tasmanian language.

The track came from their album “Earth And Sun and Moon” which is nearly exactly the same title of an album my very own country music loving Dad made a few years back. He included ‘the stars’ in his title though.

You wouldn’t have believed that I worked in a busy record shop at this time as here’s yet another song I don’t remember. What was I doing whilst I was there? Listening to football on the radio if the Mick Jones story is anything to go by.

Anyway, this is a bit weird as after Midnight Oil, we get another song about indigenous people. “Power Of American Natives” was by Dance 2 Trance and was a big club hit that broke through to the mainstream chart. It’s all a bit techno (don’t tell The Bluebells!) and frenetic for me but incredibly there’s another (tenuous) link with Midnight Oil as the album this was taken from also has the word ‘moon’ in its title (“Moon Spirits”). OK, you got me. I’m filling desperately here.

“Power Of American Natives” peaked at No 25.

https://youtu.be/WrPb3tfmt40

Despite some considerable album sales, Sting (the solo artist) had never really made many inroads on the singles chart. In the early 90s though, he was finally doing something about that. After just three Top 40 hits in the entire previous decade, by April 1993 he was already up to five. “Seven Days” was the third on the spin if you include “”It’s Probably Me”, his collaboration with Eric Clapton from the Lethal Weapon 3 soundtrack.

This was the second single from his well received “Ten Summoner’s Tales” album and would peak at No 25. It’s quite a nice tune but the lyrics seemed very familiar. And then it struck me. He’s rewritten “Can’t Stand Losing You”. I mean not exactly but there’s a theme of violence arising from a failed relationship in both. In The Police tune the threat comes from a brother who’s gonna kill the protagonist and “he’s six feet ten”. In “Seven Days” it’s from a love rival who’s…yep…”over six feet ten”. I see you Sting! To try and throw us off the scent he’s added in a breakdown of the week Craig David style and then actually goes off into “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” at the end with the exact lyrics included. Didn’t he do that on another of his solo songs as well?

*thinks for a bit*

Yes he did! Right at the end of “Love Is The Seventh Wave” he slips in a line from “Every Breath You Take” and then…and I love it when the artists on the show are in sync with the theme of the post…he changes the lyrics and sings “every cake you bake, every leg you break”. Excellent! Nice one Sting!

“Seven Days” peaked at No 25.

Now when I think of D:Ream (which isn’t often) I think of 1994 not 1993. 1994 was the year they had a No 1 with “Things Can Only Get Better” or perhaps even 1997 when that song was used as the official anthem for Labour’s successful General Election campaign. But 1993? I had nothing down for that. I’m completely wrong though as here is Peter Cunnah in the charts with “U R The Best Thing”. I thought that came out after “Things Can Only Get Better”. It turns out it did but that was a re-release. Hang on, a rerelease when it had already been a hit earlier? How did that work? Well, simple really. The 1993 single only made it to No 19. After their No 1 in early 1994, a Perfecto remix was put out and it went to No 4. Seems sometimes they did know what they were doing these record labels.

It turns out that D:Ream we’re all about rereleases. This was already the second time “U R The Best Thing” had been out as it was initially released in 1992 when it limped to No 72 in the charts. The ‘94 version made it a trio of releases for the track. Not to be outdone, “Things Can Only Get Better” racked up four goes at the chart. It had already been a hit earlier in ‘93 (it can’t have made it into the show) when it peaked at No 24. Then came that No 1 a year later, a No 19 placing in ‘97 due to the election and then a final release in 2014 (not sure why) when it peaked at No 66. Phew!

Oh and in an interview in the Belfast Telegraph last year, Cunnah said that he’d broken his foot once but that was it and he’d been injury free for most of his life. The things you can find out online!

I’m kind of surprised that the next artist got granted a full performance slot on the show rather than a place in the Breakers. Not because I don’t think they were any good (I always liked them) but because they seemed to be going through a difficult, experimental phase that wasn’t bringing in the big hits. Deacon Blue’s last six singles had resulted in just one Top 10 hit with all but one of the rest not cracking the Top 20. Now you could argue in their defence that they were more of an album band than a singles one but even their album sales were in decline. Their current album at this time (“Whatever You Say, Say Nothing”) wasn’t a disaster commercially but it certainly sold less than all its predecessors.

“Only Tender Love” was the latest single taken from it to try and boost its fortunes but I don’t think it was ever up to the task. It’s a bit overwrought and laboured and the band’s performance here doesn’t help as they seem to be taking it all far too seriously. Where had the band that had whooped it up on “Real Gone Kid” gone?

“Only Tender Love” made it to No 22 whilst one final single from the album peaked one place higher. A Greatest Hits album appeared the following year and actually went to No 1 which made the relative failures of their singles even less fathomable.

https://youtu.be/Hxw_Ft9Mu1o

Tony Dortie is giving it the big ‘un in the intro to the penultimate act on tonight’s show and why not? After all she had recently signed a recording contract with Virgin worth between $32 and $50 million. It made her the world’s highest paid recording artist at the time. I talk of Janet Jackson of course who had fulfilled her obligations to A&M which left her free to sign to Virgin. I recall there being a big fuss about all of this at the time which only heightened the expectations of her first material with her new record company. “That’s The Way Love Goes” didn’t disappoint Virgin as it went to No 1 in the US for eight weeks. Not a bad initial return on their investment. To date it holds the record for the most weeks at the top of the charts for any single released by a member of the Jackson family. It fell one place short of repeating that chart position in the UK.

The track had a much smoother R&B feel to it than some of the harder sounds from her last album “Rhythm Nation 1814” like “Miss You Much”, “Black Cat” and the title track. The lead single reflected the more sensual nature of parent album “Janet”. Just in case anybody was still in any doubt of Janet’s new direction, then the picture on the back cover of her naked from the waist up with her breasts cupped from an unseen man’s hands from behind her surely made it clear.

As with much of Janet’s work, the track was produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and featured that sample from “Impeach The President” by The Honey Drippers that I mentioned in the last post. As for injuries resulting in broken limbs, I’m not aware of anything in particular relating to Janet but there was of course that Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction incident in 2004 otherwise known as ‘nipplegate’.

It’s the last of four weeks at No 1 for The Bluebells with “Young At Heart”. It’s as if the band knew the game was up and have decided to go out with a bang as they’re all dressed in white top hats and tails. The set is like a scene from a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film complete with cane wielding dancers.

Although a Singles Collection album was released to cash in on the renewed interest in the band, nothing else from their back catalogue was rereleased which I think demonstrates the band’s relaxed attitude to their unexpected second go at pop success. As much as I would have loved to see “I’m Falling” and “Cath” back in the charts, I think it was the right decision to literally make it a one off exercise.

The band still perform sporadically at specific events including supporting Edwyn Collins at a 2009 Glasgow gig.

https://youtu.be/5dXGU_51-kY

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Voice Of The Beehive and Jimmy SomervilleGimme ShelterI didn’t
2Whitney HoustonI Have NothingNope
3New OrderRegretI regret that I did not
4SilkFreak MeNever happening
5Sub Sub featuring Melanie WilliamsAin’t No Love (Ain’t No Use)See 3 above
6Midnight OilTruganiniNo
7Dance 2 TrancePower Of American NativesNot my bag at all
8StingSeven DaysNah
9D:ReamU R The Best ThingNegative
10Deacon BlueOnly Tender LoveNo but I have that ’94 Greatest Hits album with it on
11Janet JacksonThat’s The Way Love GoesDidn’t do much for me
12The BluebellsYoung At HeartAnd 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/m0019mbq/top-of-the-pops-22041993