De La Soul

TOTP 08 AUG 1991

Posted on September 19, 2021 by 80stastic

Whilst we are into Autumn in the real world in 2021, back in TOTP Rewind and 1991 it’s still the Summer and this particular show reinforces just how bizarre the charts were back then. We have a couple of metal bands (albeit one is singing an acoustic ballad), a pair of electronic dance acts, some acid jazz, some hip hop, some singer songwriter types, an indie rock band who would become Britpop legends, yet another soap star chancing their arm as a singer, a joke rapper, Michael bloody Bolton and with it being 1991, we also have Bryan Adams of course. Pick the bones out of that lot.

As for me, the worry of the Our Price store I was working in being sold and what that meant for my job security had been resolved by this point I think as the decision to sell the unit was reversed. Phew! My wife had set herself up working as a freelance dressmaker so the work she was doing meant that we had two incomes for the first time in a while. I’m guessing we still didn’t have too much spare cash for record buying though. I wonder if any of the songs on tonight’s show would have been on my shopping list?

Nicky Campbell is tonight’s host and he’s employing his usual ‘I’m cleverer than you with my flourishes of vocabulary’ schtick. The first act he introduces are De La Soul and their “A Roller Skating Jam Named “Saturday”” single.

This pretty much marked the end of the trio as chart entities in the UK with only one more minor Top 40 hit during the 90s and none in the last 20 years. The reach of their music has not been helped of course by being hamstrung in terms of digital platforms like Spotify due to the sample heavy nature of their early back catalogue. Said samples were only cleared for physical music distribution and the wording of the contracts negotiated didn’t take into account the impact of unforeseen technologies. Disputes with the owners of their catalogue Tommy Boy Records further complicated matters and negotiations to bring those early hip hop classics to online listeners are ongoing with new owners Reservoir Media. For now though, type De La Soul into Spotify and you won’t find anything earlier than 2004 on there.

I mentioned in a post that me and my wife still often quote the ‘Saturday, it’s a Saturday’ lyric to this day when the weekend rolls around but there’s another reason this song still reverberates which is the Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah reference which of course is in Disney’s Song Of The South film. For years I was convinced that the lyrics were ‘plenty of sunshine, plenty of rain’ when they are actually ‘plenty of sunshine coming my way’. Why I was under this impression I have no idea but I argued my corner for years with my wife in the pre-internet days. Not for the first time, she was right and I was completely and utterly wrong.

“A Roller Skating Jam Named “Saturday” peaked at No 22.

Campbell starts blathering about ‘funked up fairytales’ when introducing Extreme. I’m not quite sure what the point is that he’s trying to make. I think he just lost his way trying to say that their single “More Than Words” is a rather delicate ballad as opposed to their usual funk metal style but gets bogged down in his own nonsense. Bloody pseud.

As for Extreme themselves, they’re up to No 2 but are the latest in what will become a long line of acts to hit the Bryan Adams bottleneck and never get to No 1. Incidentally, that list includes 2 Unlimited, Right Said Fred, Heavy D And The Boyz and The Scorpions. Given that extremely low bar, I’d say Extreme perhaps had the most plausible case to take before the court of pop injustice although I’d have also been OK with “Let’s Talk About Sex” by Salt ‘N’ Pepa making it to the top which was the final No 2 single to be Adams’d.

Apparently Extreme’s management didn’t see “More Than Words” as a hit record and only released it as a single after guitarist Nuno Bettencourt badgered the label leading them to testing it in several markets and territories to check out audience reaction. They’d wanted a more traditional sounding power ballad with crashing drums and kitchen sink production values. Bettencourt won out though AMA the rest is history with it making up for just missing out in the UK by going to No 1 in the US.

Campbell tells us how he’s all about ‘real’ music next referring to the next act as a songsmith in a techno-led age crafting songs like an ornament rather than a computer print out. He really was a pretentious, verbose wanker back then. So who could he have been waxing lyrical over? Why Beverley Craven of course who’s back in the charts with “Holding On”, her follow up to No 3 hit Promise Me”. Unfortunately for Beverley, she couldn’t turn her lyrics into reality as she failed to hold onto her previous success when the single peaked at No 32 despite the TOTP exposure.

Beverley wrote a song for her then baby daughter Mollie on her second album “Love Scenes” called…erm…”Mollie’s Song” and her daughter repaid her years later by appearing on ITV dating show Take Me Out causing her Mum to have to endure the embarrassment of performing on Take Me Out: The Gossip. Ungrateful kids eh?

If Extreme weren’t going to do this hard rock thing properly then stand aside as the real deal is here. “Enter Sandman” by Metallica is just huge whether you’re a devotee of that genre or just a music fan. Absolutely massive. I would certainly put myself in the latter category and my knowledge of Metallica at this point was limited at best. I knew they had released a few albums as we stocked them in the Our Price store I was working in but they were never played on the shop stereo. Not really seen as suitable playlist material for a mainstream record shop chain. I still held this view two years later when I was Assistant Manager at the Altrincham store as Xmas approached.

Whilst I was upstairs with the manager having a no doubt very important meeting planning something or other, the staff downstairs on the counter thought this was a perfect time to test my stress levels by playing some inappropriate music in the shop. After a couple of tracks had led me to ringing down to the counter and telling them to play something more shop friendly, they decided to really push my buttons by playing “Enter Sandman”. I was verging on apoplectic by this point but I could see the funny dude once I had calmed down.

“Enter Sandman” was the lead single from their self titled fifth album otherwise known as ‘The Black Album’ on account if it’s all black cover. Surely they must have taken inspiration from Spinal Tap’s “Smell The Glove”?

“Enter Sandman” peaked at No 5 on the UK chart.

The Shamen are back in the studio next to perform their hit “Move Any Mountain: Progen 91”. A retitled re-release of their 1990 “Pro>Gen” single, it was taken from their “En-Tact” album which had made a high of No 31 on the charts at the back end of the previous year but somehow, the success of “Move Any Mountain” didn’t trigger a renaissance period for the album and it struggled to a second peak of No 45 despite re-entering the charts for a seven week run.

I’m guessing it was the curse of the record label practice of temporarily withdrawing an album that had been out for a while before releasing it off the back of an unexpected hit single. That was happening all the time in 1991. The band needn’t have worried as the following year’s “Boss Drum” would go to No 3 and be certified platinum.

The second of those two singer songwriters on the show now as Amy Grant proves she was not a one hit wonder after all. “Every Heartbeat” was her follow up to No 2 hit “Baby Baby” and was also taken from her “Heart In Motion” album. It’s pretty twee stuff though I have to say, one of those airhead, superficial songs that would be on an album called ‘The Best Songs To Convince Yourself That Life Isn’t Shit After All Whilst You Do The Ironing…Ever!’. Or something.

Any would have one further UK hit single in 1995 when she covered Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” and took it to No20, five places higher than the peak of “Every Heartbeat”.

I’d completely forgotten that Blur had a second Top 40 hit in 1991. I’d been labouring under the misapprehension that there was a sizeable gap between “There’s No Other Way” and their “Modern Life Is Rubbish” sophomore album but here’s “Bang” to show that there was a second hit single from debut long player “Leisure” after all.

I must have not watched this TOTP as surely I would have remembered “Bang” as the one with the chicken placard. What the hell was that about?! Cue lots of comments about Damon Albarn waving his big cock about on Twitter. There were also lots of tweets about Graham Coxon’s Oxford That University t- shirt (he didn’t actually go there) but I was more impressed by drummer Fave Rowntree’s Teenage Fanclub t-shirt.

As for the song itself, it’s just a poor man’s “There’s No Other Way” isn’t it? Even the band themselves weren’t keen:. Here’s TOTPFacts with the story:

"Bang" was apparently bashed out in 15 minutes in response to Blur's label's demands for another hit. The band are not fans (it's not on their Best Of LP). "'Bang' was just shit", Damon Albarn later said. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) September 17, 2021

“Bang” peaked at No 24.

Some more wise ass word play next from Nicky Campbell as he introduces Young Disciples and their one and only hit “Apparently Nothin’”. This lot were essentially a springboard for the solo career of well connected soul singer Carleen Anderson (Bobby Byrd was her stepfather and James ‘The Godfather Of Soul’ Brown was her actual godfather).

Talking of being well connected, isn’t that Mick Talbot of The Style Council up there on keyboards? Yes it is but why? How? Well, their album was recorded at Solid Bond Studios (Paul ‘The Modfather’ Weller’s personal studio) and both he and Talbot featured on it. Simples.

The album was shortlisted for the inaugural Mercury Music Prize but lost out to Primal Scream’s “Screamadelica”. Being in such exalted company makes you wonder why the band weren’t bigger than they were or at least why they didn’t last longer. Maybe it really was all about Carleen Anderson as the band split after she left in 1992.

“Apparently Nothin’” peaked at No 13.

I hate the way they’ve started putting the Breakers just before the No 1 song. It keeps killing me into a false sense of security that I’m nearly done. Also nearly done (thank f**k) are Technotronic whose appearance here in the Breakers will be their last on the show possibly ever. I think the only other UK chart entries they had were remixes of “Pump Up The Jam” years down the line so with a fair wind at our backs we might just be about to steer a Technotronic free course through the rest of the decade.

For the record, this one was called simply “Work” and featured someone just called Reggie. Who was Reggie? She’s the singer on this one I believe and also collaborated with “Last Night A DJ Saved My Life” hitmakers Indeep though to be honest she might as well have been Reggie Perrins for all I care. Just as the founder of Grot walked off into the sea never to be seen again (sort of), Technotronic are finally doing the decent thing and disappearing.

Ah shit. It’s Michael Bolton again, this time with the title track from his “Time Love And Tenderness” album which would produce five hit singles for him in this country! My Michael Bolton story has been well documented in previous posts so I don’t propose to wheel it out again here. Despite his sanitised image as a shaggy dog haired singer of bland soft rock ballads, Bolton did mix it up a bit with some of his song titles. “Said I Loved You…But I Lied” is not your archetypal love song message but my favourite is “Can I Touch You…There?”. WTF?!

Now if we thought that the whole soap star to pop star thing that dominated the end fo the 80s would disappear come the new decade, we were wrong. In 1990 we had Neighbours and Home And Away Aussie actor Craig McLachlan chancing his arm with an attempt at being a serious musician and now here was the UK’s very own Sophie Lawrence giving it a whirl with a version of Donna Summer’s disco classic “Love’s Unkind”. Sophie, of course, played Diane Butcher in EastEnders from 1988 until 1991 (her last few appearances in the soap coincided with her attempt at pop stardom in fact).

I remember wondering at the time whether Sophie’s character was popular enough to be able to attract an audience of pop fans. I mean no offence but she was hardly Kylie Minogue / Charlene Robinson was she? I mean she wasn’t even the most well known of the Butcher family I would wager being outshone by her Dad Frank (played by Mike Read) and her dopey brother Ricky (Sid Owen). Maybe I wasn’t a big enough EastEnders fan to truly understand her draw. To be fair to her, she looks like a pop star in the video; like a cross between Olivia Newton John and Debbie Gibson. Sadly for Sophie, her pop career didn’t\’t extend beyond this one single and she returned to acting after her moment in the charts.

Bryan Adams is still No 1 with “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” obviously. He hasn’t even got into his stride yet. I think by this point he was selling twice the number of copies of any other record in the Top 10. I recall a colleague called Pete in the Our Price I worked in struggling to keep up with demand. When asked by the manager if he had any more copies on order as we had sold out again, Pete turned to me and whispered “No, I thought I’d leave it” in his best sarcastic tone. I would encounter my own singles buying crisis a few years later when I found myself being in charge of orders in the week of the Blur v Oasis battle but that’s for a future post.

And so we come to the joke rapper. No not Honey G of the X factor. It can only be Vanilla Ice who is back in the charts with “Satisfaction“. This take on the Rolling Stones classic “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” was Ice’s fourth UK Top 40 hit. Fourth? Who’d have thought he’d had so many hits? Well, not the BBC who included him in their One Hit Wonders programme which aired on BBC4 just before this TOTP repeat. As if all the pro-government news reporting wasn’t enough, now the Beeb do this!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	De La Soul	A Roller Skating Jam Named “Saturday”	Nope
2	Extreme	More Than Words	I did not
3	Beverley Craven	Holding On	Nah
4	Metallica	Enter Sandman	No
5	The Shamen	Move Any Mountain: Progen 91	Liked it, didn’t buy it
6	Amy Grant	Every Heartbeat	Negative
7	Blur	Bang	Another no
8	Young Disciples	Apparently Nothin’	Yes it’s in the singles box but I think my wife actually made the purchase
9	Technotronic	Work	F**k off!
10	Michael Bolton	Time, Love And Tenderness	Never happening
11	Sophie Lawrence	Love’s Unkind	Ditto
12	Bryan Adams	(Everything I Do) I Do It For You	It’s a no
13	Vanilla Ice	Satisfaction	As if

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/m000znwm/top-of-the-pops-08081991

TOTP 01 AUG 1991

Posted on September 15, 2021 by 80stastic

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I f******g love The Proms! I’m not a classical music buff or anything (though I have been once and actually rather enjoyed it) but the real reason for my appreciation of this peculiarly British and currently devisive institution is that they completely hijack the BBC4 TV schedule and ride roughshod over all the usual programming. The consequence of this is that last week the TOTP repeats didn’t happen at all meaning I get a week off from this blog! Except that I’m always behind so I still have this one to do before it all starts again in earnest meaning if I want to kick back for a few days before this Friday’s resumption, I need to get a shift on with it.

Just before I get into the music though, a little context. Wikipedia tells me that the day after this TOTP aired, a little trumpeted and even less remembered comedy show premiered on Channel 4 that me and my wife used to love. Anybody else remember Packet Of Three? It was a very early vehicle for Frank Skinner and Jenny Eclair and also featured Henry Normal who would go on to write for the Mrs Merton Show and set up Baby Cow Productions which would give us such celebrated comedies as Alan Partridge, The Mighty Boosh and Gavin And Stacey.

Packet Of Three was a mixture of sit com and stand up set in the fictional Crumpsall Palladium showcasing real life stand up comedians whilst behind the scenes the three main protagonists played characters who ran the theatre. Normal was the theatre owner, Skinner the stage manager and Eclair the kiosk attendant. The opening titles festered the three of them as Gerry Anderson style puppets and had a pretty funky sounding theme tune. The whole thing had the feel of The Muppet Show I guess and it certainly helped to fill out many a Friday night when we were skint and had no money for going out. Here’s an episode featuring a very young Steve Coogan…

Anyway, back to the music and we start with one of the most infamous songs of the whole decade. “I’m Too Sexy” would go on to become ingrained in the nation’s collective mind over the course of the Summer – one of the most insanely catchy yet annoying ear worms of all time I would suggest. Remarkably however, the people behind the song would somehow manage to forge a career off the back of it and are still managing to achieve media coverage to this day though not perhaps for the best of reasons. Right Said Fred were of course named after the novelty single by Bernard Cribbins in 1962 and I have to admit that I could only see “I’m Too Sexy” in the same vein – a novelty hit like all those other intensely annoying examples of the genre from charts gone by. Yet what the Freds did to make their hit more durable was that they made it danceable. Now I’m certainly not admitting to ever having strutted my stuff on the catwalk or otherwise to its beats but I can imagine it was a hit at office parties and family dos the length and breadth of the country.

Consolidating its musical credibility (two words I never thought I would have typed about Right Said Fred) is the group’s musicianship that I was not aware of until now. It transpires that Richard and Fred Fairbrass had proficient enough chops to have played with some of the biggest names in the business. They don’t get much bigger than David Bowie who Richard played with as a session bassist in the mid 80s on tracks like “Blue Jean” and “Loving The Alien” whilst Fred appeared as a guitarist in the Bob Dylan drama Hearts Of Fire. No really. Look, here’s @TOTPFacts with the pictorial evidence:

Fred Fairbrass, meanwhile, played guitar for Bob Dylan in the 1987 film Hearts Of Fire. Dylan gave him the leather jacket he wore in the movie. #TOTP pic.twitter.com/Ur2jAf1Jla
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) September 3, 2021

I know. Bloody Hell!

“I’m Too Sexy” was written as a piss take of the narcissistic behaviour of preening body builders at the gym that the Fairbrass brothers ran in the early 90s and was originally recorded as an indie rock song before being turned into a dance track at the behest of radio plugger Guy Holmes. The lyrics supplied as many if not more hooks as the tune itself with suggestive lines like ‘No way I’m disco dancing’, ‘I shake my little tush on the catwalk’ and of course ‘I’m too sexy for my cat, too sexy for my cat, poor pussy, poor pussy cat’ pressing the big red double entendre button. It would spend a record six weeks at No 2 behind Bryan Adams (the jury is out on whether that was a good or bad thing) but made it to No 1 in the US.

A substantial career was to follow for the band but nowadays Richard Fairbrass is most well known for being a prominent anti-vaxxer. Presumably he is too sexy for Pfizer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD68Ln0d0m4

Now I don’t think the word ‘substantial’ probably does justice to Will Smith’s career. A massive TV and film star (he’s been in over 40 movies) he also, of course, has a long and successful music history with multiple hit records on both sides of the Atlantic. It all started though with his collaboration with DJ Jazzy Jeff with Smith assuming the moniker of The Fresh Prince that would make his name in the TV series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. I think that show was probably on UK TV screens at the time so I’m guessing Smith would already have been known on these shores in 1991. He had of course had a small hit in our charts back in 1986 with “Girls Ain’t Nothing But Trouble” but that seemed a million miles away from the cool vibes of “Summertime”. Even allowing for the obvious connection of its title, this track was just perfect for the Summer with its lilting beats drifting out from transistor radios.

The parent album “Homebase” didn’t make the necessary improvements and no further singles released from it were hits in the UK. However, the duo would return in 1993 with the No 1 single “Boom! Shake the Room” before Smith would release a plethora of hits under his own name throughout the rest of the decade racking up three No3s, three No2 s and another chart topper in “Men In Black”.

Voice Of The Beehive now with their “Monsters And Angels” single and wha a pleasant ditty it is too. There was much debate on Twitter after this repeat aired about Tracey Bryn’s guitar which appears to be the wrong way round. The answer to this strange behaviour though lies in the writing on it which the Twitterati’s consensus was that it was an autograph from Morrissey who is on the show later. I can understand Tracey wanting to show it off but why did he sign it on the back? Apparently the band were on tour following this TOTP appearance and Tracy mentioned the signed guitar at nearly every gig apparently. I have to admit that I missed this detail when I first watched this back as I was more struck by how Tracey had the look of Britney Spears. Is it just me or could she be Britney’s Aunt?

“Monsters And Angels” peaked at No 17.

Whilst a student during the late 80s, I’d developed quite the liking for Deacon Blue. Their debut album “Raintown” was an instant classic (in my opinion) and they became hugely successful pop stars on the back of follow up album “When The World Knows Your Name”. However, I’d begun to lose interest a bit by 1991 and, being employed by a Manchester record store (albeit a chain), I kept my liking of them down to a minimum when at work. However, I couldn’t deny that “Twist And Shout” was a great pop song, familiar yet nuanced, unconventional yet radio friendly, it just worked for me and also for the people who bought it in enough amounts to send it to No 10 in the charts.

As ever with any Deacon Blue performance, my eyes are drawn to Lorraine McKintosh and her energy and presence. And those eyes of course. Erm…anyway…err…the band would achieve a further seven Top 40 singles but never again returned to the Top 10.

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

If ever a band should have been a one hit wonder surely it was this next lot? Yes, unbelievable as it may seem, Color Me Badd had more than one hit and here they are with the other one “All 4 Love”. Given that there is an abrupt cut away from host Simon Mayo to this studio performance and we don’t actually see the band behind him at any stage, I’m willing to bet that this was recorded when they were in the TOTP studio in person for their No 1 “I Wanna Sex You Up”. Having checked out that clip on YouTube, although some of the band have changed their outfits for “All 4 Love”, I’m still of that opinion.

If “I Wanna Sex You Up” was all about New Jack Swing, then “All 4 Love” harked back to 60s soul and the performance the band gives here puts me in mind of some of the great groups of that era. There’s a reason for that. The song was pretty much a direct rip off of another song. Here’s @TOTPFacts once again:

"All For Love" has, er, similarities to "Patch My Heart", a 1966 track by '60s vocal group The Mad Lads – enough for its composers (one of whom was Isaac Hayes) to receive credit. https://t.co/glNmhvjuSy #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) September 3, 2021

The first time I saw that tweet I read it as The Macc Lads rather than The Mad Lads but that would have been a different type of song altogether!

“All 4 Love” would give the band a second US No 1 but it didn’t quite achieve that in the UK peaking at a still healthy (and totally undeserved) No 5.

Earlier in this year, my friend Robin had found himself marooned at a TOTP recording after mistakenly believing that Morrissey was going to be on the show. He wasn’t and instead found himself being forced by the studio floor team to clap along to the likes of Kenny Thomas instead. The show he should have been at was this one as Mozza is here and up next. After the video for “Pregnant For The Last Time” the other week, here he is in the flesh and if you look closely you can see his nipples through his sheer shirt!

The song has a rockabilly sound to it and that is backed up by the presence of a double bass player on stage with Morrissey. As with the guy on accordion witnessed earlier in the Deacon Blue performance, you didn’t get many of those on TOTP in the 90s.

Morrissey’s solo chart statistics were pretty predictable out turns out. Look at this tweet from Gareth Windibank:

This was one of only three of those 33 top 40 hits (after “Suedehead” and “Everyday Is Like Sunday”) to reach its chart peak in the second week rather than the first. #TOTP
— Gareth Windibank (@eightiespopkid) September 3, 2021

Very much a case of a loyal fanbase dutifully buying everything their hero released immediately but then the single falling down the charts as it failed to find a wider market methinks.

Of course, Morrissey’s stock is not that high these days thanks to some unpalatable views that he now holds. Very similar to Richard Fairbrass. I wonder who would win this particular fat-headed arse -off?

Despite being “a day out of date already” as Simon Mayo quips, Bomb The Bass is next with “Winter In July”. On vocals here is Loretta Heywood who also wrote the lyrics. Loretta is still recording material and she even laid down an acoustic version of this track on an album called “The Boy Across The Road” and I have to say I much prefer the sparser version…

After giving up making music, Tim Simenon relocated to Prague where he opened a bistro called Brixton Balls with a menu based around meatballs. I wonder if he was so into meatballs back in 1991? If so, I hope he didn’t let it slip to Morrissey in the BBC bar after this show.

“Winter In July” peaked at No 7.

Just when I was powering through this, they go and chuck in four Breakers in a two minute slot right at the death! Bastards! We start with Beverley Craven who, after the surprise success of “Promise Me” earlier in the year, looked like she could become a global superstar in the shape of perhaps Carly Simon or even Carole King. Her record label Epic went for a re-release of her first single “Holding On” as the follow up. Peaking at a very lowly No 95 at the start of 1991, it very much followed the “Promise Me” blueprint and I guess the strategy was to keep hold of the fan base that she had built so spectacularly. No point in putting out something from left field that would have confused and potentially lost her audience. It was a sensible move.

Somehow though, the single didn’t seem to take off in the same way that its predecessor had and it stalled at No 32. Maybe people had splashed out on the album instead which had been out for around two months by this point and spent every one of those weeks in the Top 10. A similar fate would await another single in October when “Woman To Woman” peaked at No 40 whilst the album was in the middle of a 50 week run on the charts. Even so, it seemed like a surprise when neither single could gain any traction in the Top 40.

Simon Mayo never missed an opportunity to plug himself and his Radio 1 Breakfast Show did he? He makes a point of telling us that Marillion‘s “No One Can” is the show’s Chart Beater that week. Not sure that choosing Marillion from this week’s Breakers was the smartest move in terms of credibility Simes. After the departure of Fish they seemed to be a completely different and less interesting entity. Replacement vocalist Steve Hogarth was a decent singer but the material the band were recording had lost the spark that differentiated them from other acts. Maybe it was just Fish’s ungainly and unlikely rock star persona that was missing or the element of the band being deeply unfashionable? Whatever it was, Marillion sounded more accomplished and radio friendly to my ears but ultimately more predictable and boring for all that.

“No One Can” peaked at No 33.

Whenever I think of Saturdays in 1991, my mind immediately fills with images of long days working the counter at the Our Price store in Market Street in Manchester whilst trying to find a reason to go up stairs to the stock area to try and find out the football scores from the radio up there. I also think of this song, “A Roller Skating Jam Named “Saturdays”” by De La Soul. This was another track from their “De La Soul Is Dead” album and was one of the lighter tracks on it, proclaiming, rather obviously, the joys of roller skating and the weekends. It includes a prominent sample from Chicago’s “Saturday in the Park” and you have to acknowledge De La Soul’s vision to be able to base a hip-hop song around such an unlikely source. Something about the track has stuck with me all these years and it’s this – me and my wife will still sometimes quote the song’s ‘Saturday, it’s a Saturday’ lyric to each other come the weekend.

“A Roller Skating Jam Named “Saturdays”” peaked at No 22.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqI5PTYmF3w

The final Breaker delivers us some Acid Jazz courtesy of Young Disciples. Is Acid Jazz still a thing? It certainly was in 1991 with acts such as Omar and Incognito having broken through into the mainstream with Top 40 hits already this year. Both of those artists as well as Young Disciples (like Eurythmics there is no ‘The”) were on the legendary Talkin’ Loud label and its latest chart busting act hit it big with “Apparently Nothin” which peaked at No 13.

Although it would prove to be the band’s only chart hit, it was important in launching the career of Carleen Anderson who would secure a solo deal off the back of it and would indeed release her own version of the song in 1999. alongside The Brand New Heavies (who did have a preceding definite article).

My wife really liked this one and I think she must have bought it as it’s in the singles box.

It’s still Bryan Adams at the top obviously with “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” – this is only week 4 of 16 – and according to Simon Mayo, the last five UK No 1 singles in this year were taken from movies. Is that right?

*checks Wikipedia*

Well, not quite true. The list is as follows:

Artist	Title	Film taken from
Chesney Hawkes	The One and Only	Buddy’s Song
Cher	The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s in His Kiss)	Mermaids
Color Me Badd	I Wanna Sex You Up	New Jack City
Jason Donovan	Any Dream Will Do	Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Bryan Adams	(Everything I Do) I Do It for You	Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

The problem is that Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat wasn’t a film was it Simon? It was a stage musical. Yes, they made some sort of film of the stage show years later in 1999 with Donny Osmond as Joseph but even that was a direct to video release. And yes, there was a soundtrack album to the stage show featuring Jason Donovan but again it wasn’t a movie soundtrack. OK, I’m being a pedant but when you’ve reviewed hundreds of these TOTP repeats covering a nine year period, presenters getting things wrong (or at least not quite right in this case) tend to get on your wick.

Seeing as I’ve got another 12 weeks worth of having to say something about this record, I’m leaving it at that for this one.

The play out video is “The Beginning” by Seal. Ever the wag, Simon Mayo doesn’t let the opportunity for a wry comment pass when he remarks that “The Beginning” coming at the end of the show is “kind of logical”. Yeah, whatever Mayo. The video has Seal messing around with a chain and a bird of prey while dressed in a pair of leather trousers. Did he ever wear a pair of kecks that weren’t leather?

“The Beginning” peaked at No 24.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Right Said Fred	I’m Too Sexy	Of course not
2	DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince	Summertime	I did not
3	Voice Of The Beehive	Monsters And Angels	Nope
4	Deacon Blue	Twist And Shout	No but I have it on a Best Of CD I think
5	Color Me Badd	All 4 Love	Hell no
6	Morrissey	Pregnant For The Last Time	Nope
7	Bomb The Bass	Winter In July	Nah
8	Beverley Craven	Holding On	No
9	Marillion	Not One Can	Never going to happen
10	De La Soul	A Roller Skating Jam Named “Saturdays”	Liked it, didn’t buy it
11	Young Disciples	Apparently Nothin	Yes but I think it was my wife actually
12	Bryan Adams	(Everything I Do) I Do It for You	Negative
13	Seal	The Beginning	Not the single but I had their album

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/m000z8dd/top-of-the-pops-01081991

TOTP 25 APR 1991

Posted on July 25, 2021 by 80stastic

The record company release schedules were very busy back in April 1991 as there are 10 songs new to the charts on this particular TOTP. Also having a busy old time of it was one David Icke who had resigned from the Green Party and then held a press conference to announce to the world that he was a son of the Godhead and that the world was going to end in 1997 after a period of tidal waves and earthquakes. Four days after this TOTP aired, he appeared on Wogan and gave an interview that was catastrophic to his career and credibility.

The following month, a crowd of youths gathered outside Icke’s home and went all Life Of Brian by chanting “We want the Messiah” and “Give us a sign, David”. Oh dear.

He resurfaced when the pandemic struck suggesting that there was a link between the COVID-19 and 5G mobile phone networks. To think he just used to be that fresh faced sports presenter on Grandstand when I was a kid. I remember the media storm surrounding Icke at this time and in particular the reptilian conspiracy theory he promoted that shapeshifting lizard like aliens control Earth by taking on human form and gaining political power to manipulate human societies. Didn’t he even say that the Queen was a reptile? Fast forward 30 years and we are overrun by conspiracy theories including QAnon and the anti vaccination protesters in London this weekend. Icke and his son were at the latter by the way. Have we / Icke learned nothing?

Hopefully there will be no trace of a conspiracy theory or any playing of records backwards to reveal satanic messages in any of tonight’s acts…

…we start with EMF and their latest single “Children”. The third track to be taken from their “Schubert Dip” album, it was very much still in the same vein as previous hits “Unbelievable” and ‘I Believe” and maybe that was the problem. They were starting to sound a bit samey. Certainly there was a downturn in commercial fortunes with this one as it failed to make the Top 10 as its predecessors had and indeed only just scraped into the Top 20 at No 19. I mean, there was nothing wrong with it per se but watching the performance back, was there a tiny bit of melancholy in lead singer James Atkin’s eyes indicating that maybe this pop star lark wasn’t all it was cracked up to be?

A second album “Stigma” was released in 1992 but did little to reverse their decline in popularity and indeed was only in the charts for two weeks (its predecessor had charted for 19 weeks). By the time of 1995’s third album “Cha Cha Cha”, they had resorted to teaming up with another of tonight’s acts Vic Reeves for a version of The Monkees “I’m A Believer” which although a big hit (No3), failed to revive their career. Follow up single “Afro King” (which was actually fantastic) missed the charts and they disappeared before resurfacing in the new millennium for a series of reunions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVR_3TMq1hI

Just when I thought we’d got away without any conspiracy theory stuff, host Nicky Campbell (who seems to be on one tonight) hooks us back in with the old ‘what does EMF stand for?’ conundrum. Many a theory had been posited about this including ‘Epsom Mad Funkers’ but it was generally believed to be ‘Ecstasy Mother F*****s’. In any case it certainly wasn’t ‘Exciting New Music’ as Campbell jokes. Just lame. To be fair to Campbell, he did tweet this when the repeat was shown on BBC4 thereby demonstrating a bit of self knowledge at least:

Daughter turned it on. Torture. Watching is like the most painful therapy session ever. #totp pic.twitter.com/jVNlUmZmR6
— Nicky Campbell (@NickyAACampbell) July 16, 2021

I don’t remember this one at all …except I do. What am I talking about? Well, the track is “Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey)” by De La Soul which I have no recall of but the chorus is nicked from “Name And Number” by Curiosity Killed The Cat which is still in my memory banks (some might say unfortunately). This was the lead single from their second studio album “De La Soul Is Dead” but the only single I remember from that was the next one called “A Roller Skating Jam Named “Saturdays”” and its ‘Saturday, it’s a Saturday’ chorus.

Wasn’t there some fuss about the album’s title and also its cover with its fallen over, broken flower pot and strewn flowers image? Did some critics read into it that it meant that the trio were splitting up? In actual fact, it was meant to refer to a change in musical direction and the dead imagery referred to the death (or at least a deliberate distancing from) the “D.A.I.S.Y.” (Da Inner Sound, Y’all) scene. Although the album sold pretty well (it went Top 10 in the UK), it seems to me that it is nowhere near as revered as their iconic debut “3 Feet High And Rising”.

“Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey)” peaked at No 10.

This is the single I was meant to buy for my wife the other week but somehow I bought her home “The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s In His Kiss)” instead! How could I get Vic Reeves and Cher mixed up?!

Me not buying my wife Vic Reeves single in 1991

For two years we had all been enamoured with Vic Reeves Big Night Out on Channel 4 (at least myself and my wife had been) and I think I’m right in saying that the second and final series had just aired the week before this single came out. That single was a cover of “Born Free”, the title song from the 1966 film of the same name sung by Matt Monro (hence Nicky Campbell’s name check at the end of the performance). However, it wasn’t that track that my wife wanted but the B side which was “Oh! Mr Songwriter” with which Vic always closed each episode of Big Night Out.

Coming off the back of the success of the TV series, the single was a huge success peaking at No 6 and was followed by an album called “I Will Cure You” later in the year which would make the Top 20 and include an actual No 1 record in Vic’s collaboration with The Wonder Stuff on a cover of Tommy Roe’s “Dizzy”.

Vic can’t resist subverting the norms of a TOTP performance here by having his backing singers indulge in a plate of sandwiches half way though whilst he shows the audience a flip chart of birds. Here’s Vic on that performance via @TOTPFacts:

Vic Reeves on his first #TOTP appearance: "I sang the song and they dropped a load of tinfoil down. They didn't tell me about it, and I swallowed half of it and started gagging halfway through the song."
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) July 16, 2021

By the way, I did ultimately correct my error and buy the Vic Reeves single for my wife so no conspiracy there.

One of the best singles of the whole decade next? Possibly. “Get The Message” by Johnny Marr and Bernard Sumner super group Electronic appeared some 18 months after their first single “Getting Away With It”. The intervening length of time and the fact that “Getting Away With It” was so dominated by the distinctive vocals of Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant made it feel like this single was almost by a new artist altogether. And what a song it was! It just sits together effortlessly, an almost perfect combination of Marr’s musicality, Sumner’s low register singing and Primal Scream vocalist Denise Johnson’s wonderful vocal talents at the song’s coda. Plus there was that incessantly catchy, swirling ‘wah-wa-wa wah’ sound effect at the end of the second chorus.

An eponymous album followed in May and I remember there being some disappointment amongst punters that the track listing didn’t include “Getting Away With It”. I think there was an import version of it that did include that track if you were prepared to pay around £18 for the CD though I’m not sure we sold many of those in the Our Price I was working in. Subsequent releases have rectified that omission. The album was a big success peaking at No 2 and selling over a million copies worldwide. “Get The Message” itself peaked at No 8.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyW6AGB_P3I

Some Breakers and the TOTP producers are sticking with the pile ’em high strategy of the previous week as they cram 4 songs into 1 minute and 30 seconds. We start with Roachford whom we haven’t seen for nigh on two years. “Get Ready!” was the new single and also the title of their second album. I had a bit of a soft spot for Roachford – “Cuddly Toy” had been a floor filler at the Sunderland nightclub of my choice when I had been a student up in the North East – and though this track wasn’t anywhere near as immediate as their biggest ever hit, it was a bit of a grower I thought. It grew on me so much that I bought it in the end although it was from the bargain bin of our Summer sale later in the year. The album sold steadily though it was hampered by a lack of any further hit singles from it

I once saw Roachford live – it must have been about 1994 – as I got on the guest list for their gig via the Sony rep who came to our store. They were pretty good I have to say. Andrew Roachford would later join Mike + The Mechanics as their some time vocalist and also released an album as recently as 2020 called “Twice In a Lifetime” which charted at No 31 on the UK album chart – the first Roachford album to make the Top 40 for 23 years.

“Get Ready!” the single peaked at No 22.

Yet another AC/DC single! There have been a plague of them since I’ve been writing my 80s and 90s TOTP blogs. “Are You Ready” is their ninth Top 40 hit in the period I have covered and guess what? It sounds the same as all the other ones! No I don’t care, it does! Plus, the video is exactly the same as well – the band live in concert with Angus Young in his schoolboy uniform and Brian Johnson in his flat cap. Give it a rest! “Are You Ready” peaked at No 34 and was from the band’s gold selling album “The Razors Edge”.

I think I remember this next one or am I thinking of a different record altogether? Frances Nero had recorded for Motown in the 60s but her only UK Top 40 hit was “Footsteps Following Me”. Apparently it was written by Ian Levine, the man behind the UK Hi-NRG scene and who worked with a load of artists in the 80s including Pet Shop Boys, Bucks Fizz, Erasure, Kim Wilde, Bronski Beat and Bananarama. “Footsteps Following Me” peaked at No 17 and was dubbed by British DJs as ‘the soul anthem of the nineties’ (it says on Wikipedia).

What is that other tune that “Footsteps Following Me” reminds me of? Oh yeah, it’s this…

Did someone mention Bananarama earlier? Here they are doing The Doobie Brothers. I really don’t remember this but the internet tells me that their version of “Long Train Running” was the third single to be released from their “Pop Life” album and was basically only recorded to fill up the album track listing. The TOTP graphics team were at it again with this one calling it “Long Train Coming” which is probably another record altogether!

The 1973 original wasn’t a hit in the UK at the time but it was remixed in 1993 and became a Top 10 smash whilst this rather weedy sounding version by the Nanas peaked at No 30.

A bit of pop history now as the get our first national view of Blur. Hands up those watching this performance who thought this lot would become a giant figure bestriding the UK musical landscape for years to come? Yeah, me neither. I quite liked “There’s No Other Way” though I have to say. Somehow though, at the time, I didn’t feel the need to explore their debut album “Leisure” which was released a few months later. Had I done so and developed a loyalty to Blur three years before Oasis appeared, I may have been on their side in the war versus the Manc lads of 1995.

This performance though did little to convince me that they weren’t just another of those floppy fringed, indie bands like Ride but put into drug induced overdrive. Drug induced? Looks at the state fo Damon Albarn’s wide eyed stare and Alex James’s clueless leaping about. Both clearly under the influence. Don’t take my word for it though. Here’s Damon himself courtesy of @TOTPFacts:

Before playing "There's No Other Way" at the Reading Festival in 1999, Damon Albarn recounted Blur's #TOTP debut, saying "[Alex and me] both took an E before we went on stage. Before us, Vic Reeves was signing that 'Born Free' song… and he had all this glitter…"
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) July 16, 2021

"… And it was really nice, probably the best time I ever had at Top Of The Pops. And our record company gave us those drugs! Isn't that fucked up?" #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) July 16, 2021

The single peaked at No 8 whilst the album also went Top 10. Even so, their elevation into the national consciousness was still a good few years off. There’s no other way of seeing it though, “There’s No Other Way” was a statement of intent.

I said the other week that I didn’t remember “Seal Our Fate” by Gloria Estefan when it was included in the Breakers section. I clearly can’t have caught this episode of the show either as who could forget Gloria performing the single in that PVC dress?! Blimey! She has a whole parade of people up there on stage backing her (The Miami Sound Machine?) but nobody is looking at them. Erm…anyway…unusually the single was a bigger hit in the UK than it was in the US peaking at No 24 over here but only No 53 across the pond.

It was used in a Pepsi advert also featuring Gloria herself which I also don’t remember but here it is:

He’s still there for a fifth week at the top and as Nicky Campbell advises us, nobody had achieved such a run at No 1 since Paul Hardcastle with “19” in 1985. Was there some sort of music industry conspiracy happening to keep Chesney Hawkes in pole position for all this time? How could such a dastardly deed be done and to what end? Had anybody thought to ask David Icke about “The One And Only”?

Despite that plea from Jakki Brambles last week, Chezza doesn’t seems have had his locks shorn at all. To be fair, his brother on the drums has an even worse haircut. Are all those shrieks from the TOTP audience genuine or were they result of the floor staff whipping them up into a false frenzy? If Chesney-mania was a thing, it was very short-lived. Just one Top 30 single was to follow and that was that. Only Sajid Javid’s time as Health Secretary before he caught COVID himself was shorter. Chesney seems at one with himself and his time as a pop star though. He now lives in Los Angeles with his American wife Kristina and their three children and occasionally performs on the nostalgia circuit.

The play out video is “Quadrophonia” by Quadrophonia and guess what? I have zero recall of this one. This seems to be happening a lot lately. Back in the 80s I seemed to know every song that made the Top 40 (and a fair few that didn’t) but the 90s is proving a horse of a different colour altogether. Maybe I was out having a life as opposed to spending all my hours sat in a room listening to Radio 1.

Apparently this lot were a Dutch/Belgian electronic music collective – like we didn’t have enough of them clogging up the charts back then – who thought it would be a clever trick to make a play on words of the title of The Who’s 1973 album and the 1979 film it inspired. The sound that they came up with was a horrible noise. The end. Cue someone riding a Vespa over a cliff top at Beachy Head.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_K4yn4IIRI

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	EMF	Children	No but I bought that Afro King single the extra tracks on which were basically a mini greatest hits including Children
2	De La Soul	“Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey)”	Nope
3	Vic Reeves	Born Free	Yes for my wife (eventually!)
4	Electronic	Get The Message	Not the single but I must have it on something surely?
5	Roachford	Get Ready!	Yes (albeit it from the bargain bin)
6	AC/DC	Are You Ready?	Not for this garbage no
7	Frances Nero	Footsteps Following Me	Nah
8	Bananarama	Long Train Running	No
9	Blur	There’s No Other Way	See Electronic above
10	Gloria Estefan	Seal Our Fate	Negative
11	Chesney Hawkes	The One And Only	I did not
12	Quadrophonia	Quadrophonia	Not likely

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/m000xw3q/top-of-the-pops-25041991

TOTP 05 APR 1990

Posted on November 26, 2020 by 80stastic

In the world of TOTP Rewind, it’s 1990 and the month of March is now behind us as we enter into April and unlike in the case of poor Julius Caesar, nobody had murder committed against them on the Ides of March…unless you count Jive Bunny committing musical murder of the charts by scoring yet another massive hit single in that month.

After weeks of such shite, this particular show starts off almost unbelievably with two of the biggest songs of the year and possibly the decade. Having seen the ‘Madchester’ movement emerge at the end of 1989, its annus mirabilis is now in full swing. After Inspiral Carpets the other week, here comes another of the baggy triumvirate with their biggest and most widely known hit – it can only be Happy Mondays and “Step On”. So much has already been written about and indeed so much is already known about this track that I don’t know where to begin really.

OK, so the basics. We now all know that “Step On” is a cover version (sort of) – the original version of the song was called “He’s Gonna Step On You Again” by South African singer and songwriter John Kongos and was retitled “Step On” by the Mondays who turned it into a baggy dance anthem. Did I know this at the time? No, of course not. What I also didn’t know until now is that the band only recorded it to keep their US label Elektra happy. They wanted their roster of artists to contribute a cover version for a compilation album called “Rubáiyát” to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the label*. The idea of the album was to have present-day Elektra artists cover songs from the label’s historical catalogue of recordings. Factory boss Tony Wilson had to convince the Mondays to do it as their initial reaction to the idea was ‘nah – fuck that!’ (probably) and so they bashed out “Step On”.

However, once they’d finished recording it, they liked the results so much they decided to keep “Step On’ for a UK single release and gave Elektra their version of another John Kongos song “Tokoloshe Man”. And the results of their efforts on “Step On” were remarkable. From the rush of that initial Italo House keyboard flourish to that relentless irresistible groove allied with Shaun Ryder’s idiosyncratic delivery of the lyrics, it was mesmerising. Ah yes, those lyrics. The Mondays version actually sticks pretty closely to the originals with two obvious exceptions / insertions. The phrase “You’re twistin’ my melon man, you know you talk so hip man, you’re twistin’ my melon man” was lifted by Shaun from a documentary called Steve McQueen: Man On The Edge that he had seen. Here’s @TOTPFacts with the inspiring clip:

The phrase "You're twisting my melon, man” came from Steve McQueen: Man On The Edge, a 1990 documentary that Shaun Ryder had seen: https://t.co/ShyjuITT8s #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) November 20, 2020

I had no idea about any of this until I caught the documentary when it was screened on TV years later and had a light bulb moment. I distinctly remember thinking “Hang on, did he just say ‘Your’e twisting my melon man’…but…but…that’s the lyric from ‘Step On’…Ohhhhhh”.

Then of course there is the now legendary “Call The Cops” line that Shaun added to the song’s opening. I’m not sure of the origin of this line but if we were in any doubt as to the longevity of it and indeed ‘Twistin’ My Melon’ in 2020, then check this out….

HAPPY MONDAYS FACE MASKS!!! 😷😷😷

‘Call the Cops’ & ‘You’re Twisting my Melon Man’ designs available now!!

Order yours from the online store: https://t.co/qGfdtJZzn6 #HappyMondays #FaceMask #Mask #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/MzDKGzD9ek
— Happy Mondays (@Happy_Mondays) July 28, 2020

Nothing says 2020 more than face mask. Back in 1990 though and this song seemed to be everywhere. I even recall it infiltrating into the world of Coronation Street when Steve and Andy MacDonald set up an illegal pirate radio station and play it as the first song on their show.

“Step On” peaked at No 5 and would be the forerunner of their iconic “Pills ‘n’ Thrills And Bellyaches” album.

* Ever wondered what else was on that Elektra 40th anniversary album? How about The Cure doing “Hello I Love You” by The Doors? No? OK, Tracy Chapman covering “House Of The Rising Sun” by The Animals? Still no? Right, here’s one you can’t resist surely? “Hotel California” by The Eagles as performed by The Gipsy Kings…come on!

After taking a sabbatical in 1988, Madonna retuned the following year to conquer the pop charts all over again with her mega successful “Like A Prayer” album. In 1990, she diversified with one foot in the pop world and the other in the movies. After the relative success of her role in Desperately Seeking Susan came the howling flops that were Shanghai Surprise and Who’s That Girl but that didn’t stop Madge securing the role of Breathless Mahoney in the Dick Tracy project starring Warren Beattie in the title role. I recall there was a similar buzz for this flick as there had been for Tim Burton’s Batman the year before and so dutifully trotted off to the cinema to see it when it hit these shores in July. I cannot recall one thing about it and have never seen it since. Indeed, has it ever being shown on terrestrial TV? I guess it must have been at some point? Anyway, Madonna and Beattie famously got it on off camera as well and were a Hollywood super couple for a while.

Meanwhile, Madonna was also plate spinning with her musical career and managed to, rather tenuously and in a ham-fisted manner I would suggest, merge Dick Tracy together with her latest album. “I’m Breathless: Music From And Inspired By The Film Dick Tracy” – see even the title of it reeks of shoe horning the two worlds into each other – included three songs written by Stephen Sondheim and sung by Madonna which were used in the film with the rest being made up of Madge originals that were ‘inspired by’ but not included in the film. Just to add to the confusion there were two other soundtrack albums released in conjunction with the film – one which included diverse artists from K.D.Lang and Erasure to Brenda Lee and Jerry Lee Lewis (but not Madonna) performing songs in the style of the music of the 1930s, the era in which the film is set. There was also Danny Elfman’s orchestral score.

The first single to be released from “I’m Breathless” was “Vogue” which had nothing whatsoever to do with the film. Nowt. Nada. Nothing. That said, it was also a brilliant pop/dance crossover track that had the added (and crucial) gimmick of the ‘vogue’ dance craze. With the promotion of Madonna behind it, suddenly the whole world was ‘vogue’ crazy it seemed. How had we all managed before we knew to throw our hands around our faces before framing them in a snapshot pose? Supposedly Madonna had first come across the craze at The Sound Factory nightclub in New York where it was popular amongst its gay clientele. A quick phone call to her producer Shep Pettibone later and plans were afoot for “Vogue” to be unleashed on the world.

The song would become the world’s best-selling single of 1990, selling over six million copies and will be at No 1 in the UK soon enough.

From all conquering pop to quirky, indie goofiness as we catch up with They Might Be Giants and their surprise hit single “Birdhouse In Your Soul”. The amount of online discussion about the meaning of this song is staggering. Reams of comments and posts from would be interpreters of the band’s intentions in writing it, spewing forth theories about Greek mythology (the Jason and the Argonauts reference), religious metaphors (it’s all about God really) and teenage geeks trying to establish their own identities. The band have refuted these theories saying it’s just a song about a night light – nothing else. My theory is that if so many people have been intrigued about the song and continue to be 30 years on then they must have been doing something right. Oh, and that it’s a great tune.

And guess what? By curious happenstance, They Might Be Giants were also on the aforementioned Elektra label and therefore also appeared on the “Rubáiyát” 40th anniversary compilation album. This track by US protest singer Phil Ochs is the cover they submitted for it…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLEe-XwkoMs

By my reckoning this is the third TOTP appearance for “Mama Gave Birth To The Soul Children” by Queen Latifah and De La Soul – not bad going for a single that peaked at No 14. And it’s third time lucky for Queen Latifah’s name not being fluffed by the TOTP presenter. After both Gary Davies and Nicky Campbell proved themselves not up to the job, it fell to Anthea Turner to prove that, whatever else you said about her, at least she could pronounce a three syllable name correctly. Well done Anthea!

As with Madonna earlier, Queen Latifah has successfully juggled a career in both music and film for three decades now and at one point was so famous that she even had her own chat show. I found this almost unbelievable clip from it….

Dolly may be the queen of country, have her own theme park, inspired countless children to read with her literacy programme and now, it transpires, has donated huge amounts of money to help fund the research that produced the Moderna’s vaccine to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there is one thing she cannot do and that is rap.

Eurovision Song Contest time again next and the 1990 UK entry came from Emma with a little ditty called “Give A Little Love Back To The World”. After consecutive second place finishes in the previous two contests, hopes must have been high that the UK could go one step further (ooh nice Bardo reference!) this time around and the responsibility for this fell onto the shoulders of Emma Booth who, at an Adrian Mole style 15 and a two thirds, was the youngest ever singer to have represented the UK in the contest. Emma was from Wales and sang a song written by one Paul Curtis. Well, Mr Curtis, hang your head in shame because it is an abomination. Look at these hackneyed, junior school lyrics with an environmental theme…

We’ve come so far on this great planet
We should be proud of all the great things we’ve achieved
But in our search for life’s great knowledge
We go on takin’ out and never plant new seeds

We’ve got to stop, think of tomorrow
One day our children may have nothing left to share
Let’s do it now, then in the future
They will look back at us with pride and know we cared

Holy ozone layer! Poor Emma didn’t stand a chance having to sing such limp words. Almost set up to fail. And fail she did trailing in 6th. Too harsh? OK, she did the best with what she had and managed a creditable 6th place finish. Quite why the UK entry organisers felt she needed a single name performer identity Madonna style though, I’m not sure.

I remember this year’s contest as my girlfriend was visiting me at my parents home and being skint we stayed in on the Saturday night and watched it with my Mum and sister. As the votes came in and it became obvious Emma wasn’t going to win, they became increasingly more patriotic (dare I say jingoistic even?) and it all made for a very uncomfortable night’s viewing.

As for Emma, at least she had the satisfaction that her single was the first UK Eurovision entry to make the Top 40 (peaking at No 33) since Belle and the Devotions with “Love Games” back in 1984. “Love Games” was also written by Paul Curtis who tried his luck again the following year when he wrote “A Message To Your Heart” for our entry, a pre-Eastenders Samantha Janus. It came in 10th. Welsh female singers continued to fly the UK Eurovision flag a couple of times more with Jessica Garlick (ex-Pop Idol) in 2002 and the gravelly voiced Bonnie Tyler in 2013.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZJpnlRJ7UI

UB40 are back in the charts and its with another cover version (of course it is). “Kingston Town” was originally by Trinidad and Tobago reggae star Lord Creator but the Brummie lads recorded their own version for their “Labour Of Love II” album. Despite the album going three times platinum in the UK, the singles released from it didn’t perform that well with the exception of lead single “Homely Girl” and this one, both of which went Top 10. The other four singles taken from the album did hardly anything at all.

“Kingston Town” did very little for me I’m afraid. It all sounded a bit twee to my reggae-layperson ears. My abiding memory of this song though is that of my future mother-in-law who remarked upon hearing it played on local radio, when I was visiting my girlfriend (now wife) in Hull, whether the man on the radio was singing about Hull. That would be Kingston-Upon-Hull to give the city its full title.

“Kingston Town” peaked at No 4.

Next, a solid gold Pointless answer if you find yourself on the quiz show and are asked to name any Jason Donovan Top 40 single. “Hang On to Your Love” anyone? No, me neither. This was the second single from his “Between The Lines” album and although it was another sizeable Top 10 hit peaking at No 8, it was clear that Jason’s sheen of invincibility was starting to wane. How so? The evidence m’lud:

His previous five singles had peaked at the following chart positions:

1 – 1 – 1 – 2 – 2

No 8 just wasn’t cutting it. Worse was to follow when his next four single releases peaked at:

18 – 9 – 22 – 17

There was one final hurrah when his version of “Any Dream Will Do” from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in which he was starring hit No 1 but it was pretty much gave over after that. So badly had his popularity dipped that his third album release was a Greatest Hits compilation. His third album! What happened to our Jase then? It may have been self inflicted. Apparently he felt that he was too over exposed and that his face was everywhere and that he wanted to dip out of the limelight for a while. Bit like that other SAW poster boy Rick Astley then? Yeah, maybe except that in a Smash Hits interview around the time of “Hang On to Your Love” he was asked:

“Do you fear failure? You were on 37 TV programmes over Christmas…”

His answer was:

“It’s called promoting your record!”

Hmm, can’t have it both ways Jase.

“Hang On to Your Love” was diabolically awful by the way, just so you know where I stand.

Snap! are still No 1 with “The Power”. The genesis of the track involved a New Jersey hip hop artist called Chill Rob G and a fair amount of skullduggery. In 1989, Mr G (or Chill if you prefer) released a track called “Let the Words Flow” an a cappella version of which was illegally sampled by Snap!’s producers for inclusion on “The Power”. Snap’s rapper Turbo B added a few lines of his own including “I will attack” and in an epic show of shithousery the “copywritten lyrics so they can’t be stolen” line. Not to be outdone, Chill Rob G released his own version of “The Power” in America but it got completely outperformed by Snap!’s version due to the much bigger promotional resources of their record company Arista compared to Mr G’s small label Wild Pitch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42wEfMhb6mE

Supposedly Chill Rob G never got paid for the use of his source material in Snap!’s huge worldwide hit although some online commentators suggest he got a handsome out of court settlement. Whatever the truth of the matter, here’s Chill Rob G’s version which I think I actually prefer…

The play out video is “Black Velvet” by Alannah Myles. This slinky country rock song would go to No 1 in the US where it has racked up over four million radio plays and No 2 in the UK. It sold over a million copies in Myles’ home country of Canada and her LP was the fastest ever selling debut album in Canadian history. Given all of that, you would think that Alannah was set up for life. You’d be wrong as, echoing Chill Rob G’s experience above, she got shafted by her record company who got her to sign a crappy contract which meant that she had to pay $7 million in expenditures for her first three albums and she didn’t get her first ever royalty check for “Black Velvet” until 2008!

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsZ549LT9qc

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Happy Mondays	Step On	Not the single but I have the album Pills ‘n’ Thrills and Bellyaches it comes from
2	Madonna	Vogue	Not the single but it’s on my Immaculate Collection CD
3	They Might Be Giants	Birdhouse In Your Soul	Not the single but it’s on a Q – The Album compilation LP that I bought
4	Queen Latifah and De La Soul	Mama Gave Birth To The Soul Children	No
5	Emma	Give A Little Love Back To The World	Of course not
6	UB40	Kingston Town	Nah
7	Jason Donovan	Hang On To Your Love	I’d rather hang on to my dignity – big no
8	Snap!	The Power	Not for me thanks
9	Alannah Myles	Black Velvet	Nope

Disclaimer

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000pjdq/top-of-the-pops-05041990

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.

Some bedtime reading?

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

TOTP 29 MAR 1990

Posted on November 24, 2020 by 80stastic

Welcome to Britain 1990. The furore about the hated Poll Tax is about to erupt when 393 people get arrested after violence broke out at a 200,000 strong protest in Trafalgar Square. These events happened two days after this TOTP aired and the day after that, the Strangeways Prison riot in Manchester began and would last 25 days as prisoners protested against conditions there. It’s pretty grim stuff. Meanwhile in TOTP land, the increasingly unlikeable Nicky Campbell is in the chair for this particular show and he seems to have gone to town on the hairspray to ensure his bouffant hair remains in place for the whole 30 minutes.

Guess what we open tonight with? Yep, another unremarkable dance tune. This one is by Bizz Nizz and is called “Don’t Miss The Partyline” which I barely remember at all. Turns out they were Belgian and this annoying track was their only UK hit. It’s based round an annoying keyboard riff that allied to some rudimentary rapping reeled in enough record buyers to send it all the way to No 7 for some reason. The keyboard riff is a double whammy of irritation for both sounding like an early ringtone and being mimed in this performance on a keytar! If we thought this was the pinnacle of annoying that these pillocks could create then look out as Bizz Nizz shout ‘hold my beer’ and return in a couple of years having put together that well known antidote to quality music known as 2 Unlimited. For shame!

From an infernal racket to some excruciating lyrics next as the video for Heart‘s “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You” gets an airing for a second consecutive week. I’ve already dissected said lyrics in a previous post so let’s have a look at the video this time. Surely it can’t be as bad as those song words? Well, it’s basically a literal retelling of the song’s plot interspersed with footage of the band miming in a studio setting with the obligatory power lighting and smoke. It was directed by Andy Morahan and Mike Southon. Here’s the latter from his own website on the making of the video :

“The record company were worried about Ann Wilson’s weight. They suggested she wore black, that I’d photograph her against black and just light her face with a spotlight. I said that that would look ridiculous and that such a powerful singer and performer did not need trickery to sell her image. In the end they relented and let Andy and I do it our way.”

As misogynistic as their stance was, it seems to me that the record company still managed to get their way in the end as the promo is very heavily edited so that singer Ann Wilson doesn’t actually get much screen time at all. She is only shown for the waist up and there seems to be much more focus on her sister Nancy. Even when she is on screen, the camera only stays on her for a couple of seconds at a time. Southon still seems pleased with how it turned out though:

“It’s a pretty classic vid of its genre. Rain, downtown LA cheap motel, smoke, beams of light, beautiful couple making love. What’s not to like?”

Hmm. Give me the much pilloried “Rio” video anytime over your effort Mr. Southon. “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You” peaked at No 8 in our charts and No 2 in the US.

Back in the studio, the increasingly snidey Nicky Campbell advises us “Here’s what we’re all going to be wearing this Summer – well you maybe – dig those flares…”. You can just tell that he desperately wanted to add the word ‘plebs’ after ‘you’ and before ‘maybe’ in his intro. And who were the flares wearing act up next? Candy Flip of course with their danced up version of “Strawberry Fields Forever”.

Apart from the obvious flares that Campbell was referring to, what else was this new strand of fashion that we would all be wearing? Well, look I’ve never been any sort of fashionista but even I know something of the baggy style that the ‘Madchester’ era ushered in. Alongside the flares there were brightly coloured or tie-dye casual tops (probably bought from Joe Bloggs) and possibly a bucket hat to top the look off as per The Stone Roses drummer Reni. Is this what those Candy Flip boys are wearing here? Sort of although it’s hard to see quite how wide their flares are because of all the dry ice. They do have their own version of Bez on maracas behind them though. We’ll get to see the real thing on these repeats soon enough.

As for the actual record, it seems remarkably dull and lifeless to me listening back to it now and I can’t quite see what all the fuss was about.

“Strawberry Fields Forever” peaked at No 3. and was the band’s only UK hit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w_FmC9IKkA

Ah now then. Here’s the real deal. After the faux bagginess of Candy Flip come a bona fide ‘Madchester’ band. Inspiral Carpets are back on TOTP for a second time with their hit single “This Is How It Feels” but…hang on a minute…. apart from singer Tom Hingley’s ridiculously oversized red duffle coat complete with toggles, the rest of them look pretty nondescript; not even one ‘Cool As F**k’ T-shirt on view anywhere!

Ah yes, those T-shirts. A few month on from this I relocated to Manchester and you could hardly move down Market Street for youths in Inspiral Carpets T-Shirts with the cow logo on them. In an innovative marketing campaign, their record label arranged for a quarter of a million milk bottles in the Manchester area to be emblazoned with an advertisement for their album “Life”. Despite those initial numbers, they’re pretty rare these days but you can still pick one up online for around £30 if you are so inclined. Moo!

The band revisited the milk bottle campaign
for the promotion of their 2003 Greatest Hits album

Now supposedly when the band travelled down to London on the train for this TOTP appearance, they sat opposite some girls from Manchester who were also going to the TOTP recording to be a part of the studio audience. Crushingly for the band, the girls didn’t recognise that their fellow travellers were Inspiral Carpets but did ask them what they thought of The Stone Roses though! You should have gone more heavy with the baggy togs lads!

“This Is How It Feels” peaked at No 14 making it the band’s second biggest hit ever behind 1992’s “Dragging Me Down”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJmsIRcd1iM

Next up is little Jimmy Somerville with his single “Read My Lips (Enough Is Enough)”. In this performance he’s wearing an ACT UP T-shirt to promote the direct action gay rights organisation he was a member of and whose causes the song’s lyrics espouse. In a Smash Hits interview later in the year Jimmy wondered if his being so outspoken on gay rights had stopped him from becoming more commercially successful. Apparently his record company commissioned a survey to find out who liked him and why. Here’s Jimmy taking up the rest of the story:

“They found that a lot of boys between 15 and 23 like the music but won’t go and buy the records because they think people will think they’re gay. So I’m sure if I kept my mouth shut I would have higher singles. But then again, it’s also a little victory because it means these people know what I’m about. The survey said that really young school girls like what I do – they know that I’m gay and they just wish I’d shut up!”

I’m not sure that I appreciated what “Read My Lips” was about at the time although I knew Jimmy was gay and a gay rights activist. With lines like…

‘Here we are and standing our ground, and we won’t be moved by what they say‘

and…

‘Finding cures is not the only solution, and it’s not a case of sinner absolution‘

…I probably should have cottoned on earlier.

Right, it’s all dance tunes from here until the end of the show (no Breakers this week) and we start with “Ghetto Heaven” by The Family Stand. Not to be confused with JT And The Big Family who were in the charts at the same time, this lot were a trio from Brooklyn although the singer Sandra St. Victor was from Dallas originally as Nicky Campbell states in his intro. If you asked me before this repeat aired what they sounded like I wouldn’t have had a clue but hearing “Ghetto Heaven” back it does ring a few bells. Like Bizz Nizz at the top of the show, the employed a keytar player (urgh!) but unlike Bizz Nizz (whose single must have seemed dated even back in 1990), The Family Stand’s sound just about still stands up today. This single was remixed by Soul II Soul’s Jazzie B and it certainly sounds like it with that familiar ‘thumpin’ bass’ and cool groove vibe.

After splitting in 1997 they reformed in 2007 and are still a going concern to this day although St.Victor has also had a parallel solo career and has toured with the likes of Freddie Jackson and Chaka Khan. She also once recorded a song called “I’ll Never Open My Legs Again”. Blimey! And I thought Heart song was risque!

Moving on to Jam Tronik now and their unspeakable version of “Another Day In Paradise”. This was just proper dog shit, real gruesome stuff. Who the hell was dancing to this in the clubs back in the day? Having said all that, back in 2013 I went on a friend from work’s stag weekend in Leeds and after a night of drinking we all ended up in a club called The Cockpit. It was a right dive. God knows what the DJ was playing but it sounded awful. To my utter amazement the next track he ‘dropped’ (that’s what you’re meant to say these days isn’t it?) was “Easy Lover” by Phil Collins and Philip Bailey! And there were people (young people I may add) dancing to it! WTF?! Apparently they were being ironic the youngest person in our group advised me. And again I say WTF?!

Back to Jam Tronic though and the singer up front is called Nikita Warren but apparently, according to Wikipedia, like so many before her, she wasn’t the actual singer on the track! Well I never! Incidentally, in later life she would go into artist management and one of her clients was Jimmy Somerville! How weird is that as they were on the same show together back in the day? Nikita was just the front for the act but the whole Jam Tronik project was put together by one Charlie Glass. No, not the goal scoring Carlisle United keeper. That was Jimmy Glass. Who you say? This is Jimmy Glass….

Literally a schoolboy error from Nicky Campbell next as we get to the new No 1 from Snap! with “The Power”. Name checking the members of the band he says the rapper is called Turbo D when it’s actually Turbo B. Come on Campbell – it’s as easy as ABC! The other person that he mentions – Jackie Harris – wasn’t the person who did the actual singing, she just appeared in the video. That was ex Chaka Khan backing singer (another one!) Penny Ford whose musical pedigree is pretty impressive – her father produced James Brown, her brother founded Kool & the Gang, and her sister was the singer Sharon Redd. So who was Jackie Harris then? A random woman the record’s producers found at the German army base where Turbo B had been stationed for his national service in the US army. Hmm. As a back story it’s not really up there with my father produced James Brown is it?!

The Big Brother / 1984 imagery at the start of the video helps to crank up the intensity of the track I think. And if you were in any doubt of…erm… the power of “The Power” check out this anecdote that I found on the Songfacts website:

On July 5, 2011, the top 19 stories of the 39-story building housing the Gangbyeon branch of the Techno Mart shopping mall in Seoul shook violently for 10 minutes, causing the building to be evacuated for two days. Instead of an earthquake, it was found that an exercise class on the 12th floor was playing “The Power,” which happened to match the building’s resonant frequency and caused it to violently shake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1BNcSBApOU

The play put video is “Mama Gave Birth To The Soul Children” by Queen Latifah and Del La Soul. In addition to his Turbo B error, Campbell also mispronounced Queen Latifah’s name as Queen La-fit-ah in the chart run down earlier. Didn’t Gary Davies make a similar mispronunciation the other week as well? How many times have I said this? “You had one job…”

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhjrSP9tCoU

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Bizz Nizz	Don’t Miss The Party Line	Miss it? I gave it a massive wide berth!
2	Heart	All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You	It’s a no from me
3	Candy Flip	Strawberry Fields Forever	Nope
4	Inspiral Carpets	This Is How It Feels	No but I’ve got their Greatest Hits I think
5	Jimmy Somerville	Read My Lips (Enough Is Enough)	No
6	The Family Stand	Ghetto Heaven	Nah
7	Jam Tronik	Another Day In Paradise	NOOOOOOO!!!
8	Snap!	The Power	Not for me thanks
9	Queen Latifah and De La Soul	Mama Gave Birth To The Soul Children	It’s another no

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000pjdn/top-of-the-pops-29031990

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.

Some bedtime reading?

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

TOTP 22 MAR 1990

Posted on November 19, 2020 by 80stastic

It’s two thirds of the way through March in 1990. The 21 year old me is still unemployed and has been since the start of the year. My girlfriend is miles away in Hull while I languish in poverty and hopelessness back in my parents’ house in Worcester. The only highlight of this particular week was my beloved Chelsea winning an actual trophy on the Sunday after this TOTP was broadcast. Back then, Chelsea were not the trophy winning machine they are now so any cup win was a big deal. The Zenith Data Systems trophy may seem like a joke to johnny come lately fans now but winning a final at Wembley was a huge deal for us diehards back then. Unfortunately, this was 1990 and very few games were being shown live on terrestrial TV so I couldn’t witness it live but my brother’s mate who has a Sky dish taped it for me and I watched the whole thing back on a VHS the following day. Apparently Moore’s Leisure Centre in Stockton was the place to go though. There was even a fellow Chelsea fan in there…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8f7G26wO4o

Enough football though. This is a music blog so play on sir and after last week’s ‘TOTP in decent tunes shocker’ episode, the question now is will that continue into this week’s show?

It’s a poor start. In fact, it’s a shocking start as the opening act are those three berks collectively known as Big Fun though why anybody would derive any fun (big or otherwise) from this turd fest, I have no idea. They’re in the studio after last week’s Breakers slot to perform their hit single “Handful Of Promises” and guess what? Absolutely everything about this is dreadful. The song, the bag of a fag packet dances moves …everything. Smash Hits ran a competition to win a copy of this single and I think the question they posed says it all about Big Fun:

Which of the following is an anagram of one of the Big Fun hunks’ name?

Is it :

BIG WOBBLY NETHER REGIONS
CHEST LIP WRICK
DIPSTICK OF THREE

Heh. “Handful Of Promises” peaked at No 21.

I sometimes wonder if Erasure get the credit they deserve. Their longevity alone should be recognised (2020 is the duo’s 35th year together) whilst their creativity and productivity has been prolific. Their stats alone are amazing:

35 x Top 40 singles
16 x Top 10 singles (including 1 x No 1)
18 x studio albums
4 x No 1 studio albums
1 x No 1 Greatest Hits album
1 x Ivor Novello award for Most Performed Work
1 x BRIT award for Best British Group
1 x Mercury Music prize nomination

Despite all of the above, I wonder if they are unfairly seen now as a retro act permanently tied to the 80s and early 90s of their imperial phase. I would also put Duran Duran in that category and yet a peer like U2, who although undoubtedly having their critics and detractors, are seen as somehow more ‘credible’? Is it just a rock v (electro) pop prejudice?

Anyway, that Ivor Novello award mentioned above was actually for this single “Blue Savannah” which had a limited edition 30th anniversary re-release this year as part of Record Store Day.

One of those pesky electronic dance acts next that caused the TOTP producers so many problems with what to do with them on the show. When dance music exploded at the end of the 80s, permeated the mainstream and produced bona fide chart hits, TOTP was left with the problem of how to put them on the show. The hypnotic beats as pop songs and faceless DJs as pop stars format was TV kryptonite for a popular music TV show and so it came to pass that Orbital (brothers Phil and Paul Hartnoll) served up one of the most lacklustre performances in the show’s history when they were on to promote their dance anthem “Chime”. The brothers give a wonderful interview in the TOTP – The Story of 1990 film about said performance. They pushed just about every TOTP producer button when they :

Refused to mime
Left plugs on their keyboards to show they weren’t playing live
Refused a dancer on stage with them and so when one was forced upon them, refused to acknowledge she was even there
Wore T-shirts with political slogans on them (‘No Poll Tax’) when they had been explicitly told such behaviour was outlawed

Excellent work all round lads!

I always get Orbital confused with The Orb (not being a dance head and all) which to an 80s pop fan must be the same as a clubber confusing Howard Jones with Nik Kershaw! Blasphemy!

“Chime” reached a high of No 12 and the duo would return with even bigger hits later in the decade with “Satan” and the theme tune to the The Saint film reboot.

Fed up of dance tunes yet? No? Good because here’s another from 49ers who are back in the charts with their second of two Top 20 hits in “Don’t You Love Me”. Please note that these Italo Housers from Brescia are just 49ers and not The 49ers (think Eurythmics and not The Eurythmics). This is important as there is another musical act called The 49ers who are a hip-hop duo from Newark, Delaware who consist of members Jas Mace and Marchitect (I’m not making this up).

Yeah…you got me. I’ve got nothing else to say about 49ers so I’m just filling time….

…until the Breakers! Thank God! We start with another tune that I don’t remember at all and it’s a collaboration between Queen Latifah and De La Soul with “Mama Gave Birth To The Soul Children”. Queen Latifah is one of those artists who seem to have been around forever but I’d be hard pressed to name any of her songs as demonstrated by me not knowing this one. I’d probably know her filmography better than her discography to be honest. She’s great as Motormouth Maybelle in the 2007 version of Hairspray for example.

Having listened to “Mama Gave Birth To The Soul Children” though, it’s definitely a tune and De La Soul provide that extra special ingredient to make it a potent dish. An embarrassing spoonerism from Gary Davies when he introduces the Queen as Queen La-feet-ah doesn’t take anything away from the track.

Now despite all this dance music bouncing around the charts back in 1990, somehow there was also room for some soft metal from a band that we hadn’t seen for a couple of years. Heart had staged a delayed assault on the UK charts back in 87-88 when they broke big with Top 3 hit “Alone” before belatedly finding an audience over here for their back catalogue which also made the charts when re-released off the back of that breakthrough hit. Fast forward to 1990 and here are the Wilson sisters again back with a new song in “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You” which turns out to have some of the most excruciatingly cringey lyrics ever committed to vinyl.

It’s basically one of those story songs but it’s completely ill advised. For a start there’s the plot about a woman who picks up a male hitch-hiker with the sole intent of taking him to a motel to have sex in an attempt to get pregnant. She then departs the next day leaving a note for the guy saying not to try and contact her. Inevitably they then run into each other years later with his child and she admits to him that she only did it because the man she is in love with is not able to father children. Look, I’m not making any judgements about the protagonist’s behaviour at all but is that really the best subject matter for a song? The band themselves hated it – they didn’t write it, rather it was penned by producer ‘Mutt’ Lange and they felt pressurised to record it. Here’s singer Ann Wilson from a 2017 ultimateclassicrock.com interview:

“I didn’t believe in the way the original lyrics were devaluing the man in the story. Just going, ‘Yeah, I can pick you up. We can have a night of love. We can never even know each other’s names. You can be so miraculous, and then I can just get up and leave you a note and walk out on you. Have a baby and sort of gloat about your surprise when you see the kid.’ To me, that was kind of an empty, weird, sort of hateful story.”

The song was actually banned in Ireland because the main character was a woman advocating random sex with a hitchhiker and the band didn’t play it live for years.

Then of course there are those lyrics. Here are a few of Lange’s (ahem) ‘beautiful’ words:

So we found this hotel
It was a place I knew well
We made magic that night
Oh, he did everything right

He brought the woman out of me
So many times, easily
And in the morning, when he woke
All I left him was a note

Eewww! And pray, what did the note say?

I told him I am the flower
You are the seed
We walked in the garden
We planted a tree

I mean really. It reminds me of another salacious story song – “Platinum Blonde” by Prelude.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcHUvZIVv6A

Enough muck! Something a little more edifying please? Oh come on! What fresh hell is this? A dance version of a Phil Collins song? Talk about a double whammy of crapness! As far as I can tell, Jam Tronik were a German dance project who specialised in making naff dance versions of well known songs. There only UK hit single (peaking at No 19) was “Another Day In Paradise” – like the world really needed such a thing! Some of the other artists whose work they bastardised included The Carpenters, Meatloaf and Ben E. King.

As hateful as this is, it’s not the worst Phil Collins incident I have been witness to this week. I was watching some TV quiz show about music presented by that bloke from JLS and his partner the other day and they had AJ Pritchard on it – you know, that Strictly Come Dancing professional dancer whose now on I’m A Celebrity...Well, played the intro to “Mad World” by Tears For Fears, he had to identify who the artist was. His answer? “Is it Phil Collins?”. I despair.

Back in the studio now and it’s one of the biggest songs of the year (the 10th best selling in fact). Snap! were a German Eurodance group formed in 1989 by producers Michael Münzing and Luca Anzilotti and “The Power” would become the first of two UK No 1 singles for them. As with Black Box before them (and Milli Vanilli almost simultaneously), there was a ‘who’s the real singer?’ scandal attached to Snap! I think the female vocalist up there on stage with rapper Turbo B is one Jackie Harris who didn’t actually lay down the vocals for the track. That was Chaka Khan backing singer Penny Ford. With the Milli Vanilli lip sync scandal about to break and with Snap! being on the same record label as those two charlatans, a second miming furore was not what was required and so Penny was found pretty quickly and officially restored to the Snap! line up.

As for the song itself, it wasn’t my cup of tea at all but you certainly couldn’t ignore the blistering force of it. It fair smacked you about the face the first time you heard it. It will be No 1 soon enough.

This again?! This is the third time the video for “Lily Was Here” by Candy Dulfer and David A. Stewart has been on the show and I’m out of things to say about it now. Erm…oh yeah! I’ve got Dave Stewart’s autobiography. I wonder what he had to say about this record?

*much flicking of pages and skip reading later*

Well, he said….precisely nothing about it. I couldn’t find one mention of “Lily Was Here” or Candy Dulfer. Bit rude. I mean, I know he’s worked with just about everyone in both the music and movie worlds so it might have been hard to fit every collaboration into one tome but even so. I wouldn’t expect a Christmas card from Dave anytime soon Candy. He’s well moved on…

“Lily Was Here” peaked at No 6.

In amongst this seemingly endless ocean of generic (and frankly mostly dreadful) dance tunes, there comes the odd life raft of relief….and ‘odd’ is certainly the word for this next act. Quite how US alternative art rockers They Might Be Giants came to score a UK Top 10 hit at this time is almost as big a mystery as the lyrics to “Birdhouse In Your Soul”. This curious and beguiling piece of pop still intrigues me 30 years on. Everything about it from its peculiar song structure to its oblique lyrics screams ‘this is not a hit record’ and yet it somehow works. Ah yes, those lyrics. Making references as disparate as Jason and the Argonauts and The Longines Symphonette whilst including phrases like ‘filibuster vigilantly’ which really should have no place in a pop song, the piece is supposedly written from the perspective of a a blue nightlight shaped like a canary. As you do.

The performance here is delightfully bonkers with front man John Linnell throwing some very David Byrne-esque shapes. I also liked the follow up to this which was called “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” but it failed to make the Top 40 but they returned there again one final time in 2001 with “Boss Of Me” which was the theme tune to the US TV sit com Malcolm In The Middle.

“Birdhouse In Your Soul” flew all the way up to No 6 in the UK.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FRiKeu70Go

A fourth and final week at No 1 then for Beats International with “Dub Be Good To Me”. I’m guessing that they might be on TOTP at least once more as their follow up single “Won’t Talk About It” hit the Top 10 but they never appeared in the Top 40 again after that. Why did they break up? Who knows? Maybe Norman Cook was disillusioned with the project after the commercial failure of the ska/reggae influenced second album “Excursion On The Version”? Maybe he wanted to pursue a different musical direction as he did with the acid jazz inspired Freak Power? Or maybe he just wanted to widen his palette of production skills by working with lots of other artists? Whatever the reason, thank God they made “Dub Be Good To Me” with its stretch at the top of the charts that thereby deprived Jive Bunny of a fourth consecutive No 1 single.

The play out track is “Read My Lips (Enough Is Enough)” by Jimmy Somerville. This was the title track of his debut solo album and came on the back of two other hit singles taken from it in “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” and “Comment Te Dire Adieu”. Unlike the previous two, this was a Somerville original and he wrote it to promote gay rights. Indeed, there was a definite association between the song and the ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) movement and that organisation’s ‘Read My Lips’ kiss-in events to demonstrate positive expressions of queer sexuality.

Aside from its political overtones though, it’s a bloody good disco record to boot. I like the way that Jimmy wove in the phrase ‘enough is enough’ into the song – I’m guessing it was a small homage to “No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)” the 1979 disco stomper by Donna Summer and Barbara Streisand.

“Read My Lips (Enough Is Enough)” peaked at No 26.

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

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

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Big Fun	Handful Of Promises	…and a pocketful of shite, NO!
2	Erasure	Blue Savannah	No but It must be on their Greatest Hits collection that I own.
3	Orbital	Chime	Nah
4	49ers	Don’t You Love Me	No I don’t
5	Queen Latifah and De La Soul	Mama Gave Birth To The Soul Children	Nope
6	Heart	All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You	It’s a no from me
7	Jam Tronik	Another Day In Paradise	NOOOOOOO!!!
8	Snap!	The Power	Not for me thanks
9	David A. Stewart and Candy Dulfer	Lily Was Here	Another no
10	They Might Be Giants	Birdhouse In Your Soul	Not the single but it’s on a Q – The Album compilation LP that I bought
11	Beats International	Dub Be Good To Me	No but my wife had their album
12	Jimmy Somerville	Read My Lips (Enough Is Enough)	No

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000p9v4/top-of-the-pops-22031990

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.

Some bedtime reading?

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

TOTP 04 JAN 1990

Posted on October 14, 2020 by 80stastic

YES! A brand new decade! Out with the old stuff and in with the groovy new tunes! 1990 is here at last in the world of TOTP Rewind and what fresh out of the box new acts, songs and musical directions await us? Well, it all looks very much the same as the show starts – same theme tune, same opening graphics and a very familiar presenter in Gary Davies. In an attempt to add some sparkle to the proceedings, Davies informs us that tonight’s show marks TOTP’s 26th birthday and also informs us that the show is live and that it will be “fast” and “frantic”. Ooh (Gary Davies)! The girl to Gary’s left in his intro has gone full on Lisa Stansfield in her choice of hat to top of her outfit that includes a Madonna style crucifix. All still a bit 80s sartorially then.

So who gets the honour of being the show’s first act on of the new decade? Oh, well…it’s The Quireboys. Hmm. Look, I didn’t mind their flavour of retro blues rock but maybe ‘retro’ wasn’t what was required when it came to the first act of a new decade. There was a lot of traffic on Twitter about this when BBC4 aired the repeat last week with many people comparing The Quireboys unfavourably to the opening act on the first TOTP of the 80s who were Madness apparently. The Nutty Boys were seen as much more deserving of the accolade. A bit unfair on The Quireboys maybe but I guess I can see where the Twitterati were coming from.

As for the song itself, “Hey You” would prove to be their biggest ever hit reaching No 14 paving the way for the parent album (“A Bit of What You Fancy”) to go all the way to No 2 in the charts. I didn’t buy the single but it did appear on a compilation called “Q The Album” (as in the magazine) that I purchased that had a very eclectic and not altogether coherent track listing. I think it was the first release in a long list that the publication lent its association to. To be fair most of the tracks were pretty decent but I couldn’t quite see the connection between, for example, Jesus Jones, Cowboy Junkies and erm..Elton John!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVhAJ1ZhT-w

Well, say what you liked about The Quireboys but at least they had a ‘new’ tune we hadn’t seen on the show before unlike the majority of the acts on tonight with them. Yes, despite my trumpeting of a new start with a new year, a new decade and indeed a new blog, the majority of the songs on this show I have reviewed before in my old 80s blog. Bah! Here’s one of the blighters now – Madonna with “Dear Jessie”…

The fourth and final single to be released from her “Like A Prayer” album (in the UK at least – it wasn’t issued as a single in the US), it always seemed very out of synch with the rest of the album. All strings and whimsical lyrics, its nursery rhyme quality was nothing like “Express Yourself” or indeed the album title track. It would prove to be a passing affectation as her Madgesty came storming back later in the year with one of her best known and funkiest grooves ever in “Vogue”.

The animated video doesn’t help to tone down the cute-o-meter but if you do keep watching until the end and the (love) parade of characters including teddy bears, clowns and erm…roller skating bananas (WTF!) you get a glimpse of what looks very suspiciously like Gabriel the Toad from Bagpuss.

“Dear Jessie” peaked at No 5.

Another act that’s been reviewed before I think next in Silver Bullet. Adding to the never ending list of rappers with ordinary real names, comes one Richard Brown aka Silver Bullet who with his DJ (Mo) forged this rap track “20 Seconds To Comply” around the infamous Robocop sample. Supposedly their record company EMI wanted to make them into a “rap version of Bros” – the phrase ‘the mind boggles’ hardly does justice to the ludicrousness of such an idea.

I hardly remember Silver Bullet at all (always confusing them with So Solid Crew and their similarly entitled hit “21 Seconds To Go”) but online opinion suggests that they were responsible for something called ‘Britcore’ which was a faster, harder version of hip-hop and for influencing the likes of Prodigy and initiating the rise of jungle music in the 90s. Meanwhile Bros’s legacy was some distinctly average pop tunes and that documentary. Hmm.

Oh man! It’s another song I’ve already reviewed and another dance tune to boot! Latino Rave weren’t even a proper act at all but just a promo tool to flog the newly conceived “Deep Heat” dance compilation album issued by Telstar that would flood the market in the late 80s and early 90s. The clue was in the single’s title “Deep Heat ’89” just to make it absolutely clear what was going on here. Mixing together recent dance hits from the likes of Technotronic, Starlight and A Guy Called Gerald, it did what it was supposed to do I guess by climbing all the way to No 12 in the charts and establishing the “Deep Heat” brand in the process. All very cynical and manipulative in my book but then I wasn’t a clubhead so maybe I wasn’t the target audience.

Another song we’ve seen before and that was reviewed in my 80s blog now courtesy of Sonia who implores us to “Listen To Your Heart”. The Scouse Kylie has been shorn of her usual back up dancers for this performance and is up there selling the song all on her own – bless. It’s OK though as she’s beefed up her look by clearly having a look in Ms Minogue’s wardrobe and has half inched one of her trademark hats. She should have just asked that Lisa Stansfield wannabe lass from the top of the show if she could have borrowed hers.

Later in the year, an entirely different song but with exactly the same title would become a No 6 hit via Swedish soft rock peddlers Roxette thereby eclipsing Sonia’s effort by a whole four chart places. Arr ay!

And another! Yes, we’ve seen / heard this tune on the show before as well! This version of “The Magic Number” by De La Soul doesn’t seem to be the radio edit though – not entirely sure why TOTP chose to go with this remix.

I’ve always been very partial to this version though….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RG_xCP3xMSw

This was the last single to be released from the seminal album “3 Feet High And Rising” and would be the last we would see of the trio for over a year before they would return with the rather unwieldly entitled single “A Roller Skating Jam Named Saturdays”.

A new song! Hallelujah! It is yet another Italian house tune though…49ers were co called, according to Gary Davies, because vocalist Dawn Mitchell (didn’t she used to be in Eastenders?) was the 49th vocalist to audition for them. Really? Surely the band’s name must have had something to do with American football team the San Francisco 49ers?! Surely?! Even if we believe Davies’s story, that must mean that there were 48 singers worse than Dawn Mitchell?! I’m not even sure she was the singer on the track as the original vocalist was someone called Ann-Marie Smith but Dawn Mitchell was brought in to ‘front the band’. Ah that old chestnut! Like the woman who fronted Black Box then. Talking of whom, “Touch Me” very much has the feel of “Ride On Time” to me with its statutory component parts of pounding beats and uplifting piano. No wonder it made No 3 in the charts.

49ers followed this up with a single called “Don’t You Love Me” which I don’t recall at all while DJ and producer Gianfranco Bortolotti would go onto have multiple hits with house act Capella in the mid 90s.

Yay! Another ‘new’ song! Oh, it’s by New Kids On The Block though. Yes, the NKOTB (or T’KNOB as I like to call them) phenomenon was just getting into full flow by this point. To follow up their No 1 success with “You Got It (The Right Stuff)”, they re-released “Hangin’ Tough” which had flopped outside the Top 40 in September of ’89 but which would become their second consecutive No 1 single in the UK this time around whilst also being the first ‘new’ No 1 of 1990.

After the American sports connection of previous act 49ers, we now get another one immediately as “Hangin’ Tough” was written to be a sports anthem, specifically a theme tune for basketball team Boston Celtics. Oh right – hangin’ as in hanging on the basketball hoop after a slam dunk? Is that what they meant all along? Anyway, it was meant to be their version of “We Will Rock You” by Queen but isn’t “We Are The Champions” Queen’s sports anthem? Whatever, as well as possibly their most well known song for its dumb ass “oh oh oh oh oh” chant- a- long refrain, “Hangin’ Tough” also sucked big time (seeing as we seem to have dived head first into American culture). Just awful.

OK, back to the previously seen hits and it’s yet another dance track, this time by Rob ‘n’ Raz featuring Leila K with “Got To Get”. Leila was a bit like a Swedish Betty Boo it strikes me watching this back – “Got To Get” isn’t a million miles away from the likes of “Doin’ The Do” is it?

Hang on, Swedish you say? Yes, all three of them hailed from Sweden which presumably is the prompt for Gary Davies to advise us to “Watch out for some good music coming out of Sweden this year” at the song’s end. Who could he have meant? Swedish music acts? Well obviously there’s Abba but he can’t have meant them. Who else? Ace Of Base wouldn’t appear for another three years and in any case , nobody would have described them as good surely? Far too early in the decade for The Cardigans. Hmm…Army Of Lovers of “Crucified” fame? Maybe. Oh, I’ve got it. The aforementioned Roxette – it must be them. Hardly a Swedish invasion was it? To be fair to Davies, as the decade progressed, the Swedes did make an impression on the UK charts with the likes of The Wannadies, Whale and erm…Rednex all having hits on our shores whilst The Hives continued that run into the new millennium. Maybe Gary was on to something after all.

“Got To Get” peaked at No 8.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmSKk4BVtZc

So to the No 1 which, as it’s only a week or so since Xmas, is still the festive chart topper which in 1989 was Band Aid II with “Do They Know It’s Christmas”. I’ve said everything I want to say about this in my 80s blog but serendipitously there is a timely tie in as one of the guest vocalist on the track was of course Sir Cliff Richard and it just so happens that as I write this post, I note that today (14th October) is his 80th birthday. I’ll type that again… His. 80th. Birthday! Unbelievable. So he was how old when he did Band Aid then?

* performs some basic mental arithmetic*

My God he was 49! That’s younger than I am now. I am as old as f**k!

The play out track is yet another dance track in “Going Back To My Roots” by F.P.I. Project feat. Sharon Dee Clarke. This was of course an Italian house version of the Odyssey 1981 hit and as with De La Soul earlier, this appears to not be the radio edit as it is an instrumental version. Just weird. Why bother having the act perform in the studio if it’s basically just two dancers up front going through some very perfunctory dance moves. Where was vocalist Sharon Dee Clarke? As result all we get basically 1 minute and 40 seconds of the TOTP studio audience constantly labouring through the ‘Woo! Yeah!’ chant that was de rigueur for any commercial house tune at this time. Ever wonder where that all originated from? Here’s @TOTPFacts with the answer…

That ubiquitous "Yeah! Woo!" loop comes from "Think (About It)", a 1972 track by Lyn Collins. The "Yeah!" is Bobby Byrd and the "Woo!" is James Brown: https://t.co/bK0VTyGnbf
#TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) October 9, 2020

I’m assuming that the three waist coated geezers in the background trying to gee up the crowd are Marco Fratty, Corrado Presti, and Roberto Intrallazz, whose surname initials spell out the act’s name (F.P.I. Project- geddit?). Yes, Gary Davies that’s F.P.I. Project and not “Rich In Paradise” which was the name of one of the songs that are sampled in the track, specifically by Honesty 69. I take it all back. Davies wasn’t onto something – he didn’t have a clue what he was on about.

For posterity’s sake, I include the chart rundown:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrmbPXZ1zhA

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	The Quireboys	Hey You	No but as I say, it was on that Q Album compilation that I bought
2	Madonna	Dear Jessie	No but my wife had the album
3	Silver Bullet	20 Seconds To Comply	No
4	Latino Rave	Deep Heat ‘89	I’d have rather covered my genitals in Deep Heat muscle rub than bought this
5	Sonia	Listen To Your Heart	As if
6	De La Soul	The Magic Number	No but my wife had their album
7	49ers	Touch Me	Nah
8	New Kids On The Block	Hangin’ Tough	No but I think my younger sister may have been into them and bough it
9	Ron ‘n’ Raz featuring Leila K	Got To Get	I really didn’t feel the need to get this at all
10	Band Aid II	Do They Know It’s Christmas	I bought the ’84 version but not even charity could make me part with my cash for this one
11	The FPI Project	Going Back To My Roots	Nope

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000n7g4/top-of-the-pops-04011990

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.

Some bedtime reading?

http://likepunkneverhappened.blogspot.com/2019/12/december-27-1989-january-9-1990.html

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 08 AUG 1991

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TOTP 01 AUG 1991

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TOTP 25 APR 1991

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TOTP 05 APR 1990

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Some bedtime reading?

TOTP 29 MAR 1990

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TOTP 22 MAR 1990

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TOTP 04 JAN 1990

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Some bedtime reading?