Here we are again for another whizz through the sights and sounds to be found in the charts of Autumn of 1999. We’re still in the TOTP On Tour phase of the programme with this particular show coming from Isis nightclub in Nottingham. Neither exist anymore – Isis nor TOTP – but then we are talking 27 years ago so I’d be more surprised if they did to be honest. Gail Porter is our host for a third week running. In fact, she’s done all of these touring shows so far – I wonder if anyone else got a look in?

*checks the TOTP Archive website*

Yes they do. This was her last time on the road with the programme though she would return to present a further 27 episodes up to 2003. OK, with that admin done, it’s on with the show…

Now, if you’re an actor who has given up the regular gig of being in a soap opera to pursue a pop career and you are faced with the task of following up your debut single which was a No 1 hit, what do you do? Well, if you’re Martine McCutcheon then you change tack completely by ditching that classic, sophisticated ballad sound and release a jaunty, upbeat, acoustic backed pop song that would comfortably reside in daytime radio playlists and hope for the best. Under those terms, “I’ve Got You” is a perfectly serviceable track and by securing Martine a Top 10 hit, it did what it was meant to in terms of consolidation. Or did it? After going straight to the top at her first attempt with “Perfect Moment”, was a solitary week at No 6 substantial enough a success? I’m not sure. Ultimately, I don’t think “I’ve Got You” was…well…substantial enough. Certainly the lyrics were lightweight, going on about having the moon, the stars and the sun and flowers not blooming. I guess if she’d done another big ballad she’d have been accused of being a one trick pony so maybe she couldn’t win?

Not only did Martine change her sound but also her look. Just as the sophisticated sonics of her debut hit were dropped, so was her sleek image that she adopted to promote it. “I’ve Got You” required something different and so her dark, lacquered hair was replaced by blonde, flyaway locks that Gail Porter describes as “loverly” thereby foreshadowing Martine’s role as Eliza Doolittle in the 2001 West End revival of My Fair Lady.

Gail goes on to say that mambo fever is still sweeping the nation in the intro to the next act and she’s not wrong as the No 3 and No 1 records this week are both of that persuasion. “(Mucho Mambo) Sway” by Shaft was the record in bronze medal position and like Fatboy Slim and Phats & Small before them, this duo were also from Brighton. What was it with electronic dance music acts in the 90s that so many of them had connections to that seaside resort? It was a relationship that would only be rivalled by my beloved Chelsea FC who, under their current useless owners, became unhealthy obsessed with Brighton and Hove Albion’s modus operandi. Erm…anyway…football rant over. Shaft would shamelessly try to repeat this mambo nonsense in early 2000 by releasing their version of “Mambo Italiano” but the world had moved on and it only made it to No 12. They then turned their attention to the “Wassuup!” Budweiser advertising campaign by setting the overused phrase to a sample of MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This”. What a pair of absolute grifters!

Of course, it wasn’t just the specific sub genre called mambo that was casting a huge influence over the UK charts in 1999 – the whole parent, umbrella term of Latin music was making itself known not just here but on a global stage. We’d already seen massive hits for artists like Ricky Martin and Jennifer Lopez crossover into the mainstream and now, here was our first glimpse of the latest Latin superstar and this one had a family pedigree to back up his claims. Enrique Iglesias is, of course, the son of legendary crooner Julio Iglesias and had already recorded three Spanish language albums before “Bailamos”  – his contribution to the soundtrack of the Will Smith movie Wild Wild West – brought him to our attention. I have to admit to not remembering how this one went – in fact, I think the only one of his that I know is “Hero” – but on watching this TOTP performance, I probably could have given it a good guess as to how it sounded. All the ingredients are there – the mixture of Spanish and English lyrics, that overused dance backbeat, lots of ‘whoah-oahing’, some whispered vocals from Enrique, and, most obviously, the obligatory Spanish guitar flourishes especially in the middle eight. In the then clamour for Latin flavoured tunes, it was a heady mix and was always going to deliver a breakthrough hit. Enrique’s looks weren’t exactly going to hold him back either.

“Bailamos” would secure a deal with a multi national record company and the chance to record whole albums in English and a career in the global mainstream inevitably followed. In a parallel world, it would be his elder brother Julio Iglesias Jr. (eh? His elder brother is called ‘Jr’?) who would have that career but his own musical offerings that were released before “Bailamos” did very little commercially and he was left with the fate of living not just in his father’s shadow but his younger brother’s as well. He should have recorded a song about a dance. His Dad’s biggest hit – “Begin The Beguine” – translates as “Start The Dance” whilst his brother’s breakthrough song means “We Dance” in English. A Latin pop version of Ultravox’s “We Came To Dance” was probably too much to hope for!

Oh dear. We have arrived at another horrible low point. I am very challenged by Shania Twain’s success in the respect that I just didn’t/don’t get it. Sure, she’s good looking and can no doubt sing but the hits that she’s most known for, I just couldn’t…well…I just couldn’t. Let’s leave it at that. Actually, no I won’t because “Man! I Feel Like A Woman!” deserves a proper slaughtering. From its dumb title to its honking, parping synth hook, everything about this song winds me up. It’s just so lowest common denominator. In short, it’s stinky as my teenage son would have it. That’s not a view that was shared at the time though. Look at this review in Rolling Stone magazine:

“ “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” and other high-gloss songs “open with a bubblegum glam cheerleader shout, then blasts into radio-ready rapture with offhand vocal interjections – doot-doot-doot scatting, do-si-do rapping, sexy squeaks, sarcastic Alanis Morissette asides.”

Eddy, Chuck (December 9, 1997)

That all sounds hideous! Who wants to”doot -doot-doot scatting” and “do-si-do rapping” in their songs?! And yes, I know the lyrics are all about female empowerment and that’s not to be discouraged and that its success could be down to its appeal to women record buyers…but I still don’t understand why its sound sucked so many people in. I was clearly in the minority though as it went to No 3 in the UK charts, matching the peak of its equally dreadful predecessor “That Don’t Impress Me Much” and would, as Gail Porter informs us, help propel parent album “Come On Over” to No 1 after being out for 18 months. It would spend 11 weeks accumulatively at the top of the charts becoming the UK’s best selling album of 1999. Bah!

There’s no upturn in quality following Shania as we get the latest boyband teen sensation A1 (awful, awful name) with their second single “Summertime Of Our Lives”. Predictably, this tune was so lightweight, if it had been a bloke on a pub crawl, it would have had its head down the toilet after a half of lager. I’ve read some reviews of it online suggesting its frivolity and throwaway nature should be embraced as, after all, it was the Summer and released to soundtrack the most relaxed of all the seasons. Except it wasn’t the Summer was it? September is surely the start of Autumn so A1 and/or their record label got their release schedule timings all wrong. In a way, that perfectly complimented its awfulness as did its lyrics. Look at these:

“Baby get ready get down
Are you up for it get down with it”

Songwriters: Adams / Cunnah / Ingebrigtsen / Marazzi / Read

Summertime of Our Lives lyrics © Reservoir Media Management, Inc, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

They just stole that from Five’s “Everybody Get Up” and put the words in a slightly different order. I use the word ‘they’ correctly here as the four lads all have their names up there in the writing credits alongside Peter Cunnah who was clearly looking for something to do after the demise of D:Ream. The single’s debut at No 5 and subsequent rapid tumble down the charts indicated that they had, indeed, developed a big enough devoted fan base to create an initial demand for whatever they released but that they were nowhere near crossing over into the mainstream of record buyers. Spring, Summer, Autumn or Winter, A1 were crap all year round.

Just before we get to the next act, a quick word about the BBC Music Live 2000 event that Gail Porter trailed and for which there were details scrolling across our screens. Said details included a website address – were we all internet savvy in September 1999 in terms of having access to it at home? I think we may have had some sort of dial up connection but I certainly don’t recall being able to get on the worldwide web easily back then.

There was a third hit from The Offspring’s “Americana” album?! Yes there was and it was called “The Kids Aren’t Alright” but it wasn’t as big a seller as it’s two preceding singles “Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)” or “Why Don’t You Get A Job?” so maybe that’s why I don’t remember it. Clearly there’s a reference to The Who’s classic song in its title but it was actually a more unlikely track that caused plagiarism claims to be made which are undeniable once you’ve heard it. “Electricity” by OMD might not seem like an obvious influence for an American pop-punk band but its melody is unmistakably there in “The Kids Aren’t Alright”. Apparently there’s a version of “Electricity “ by LA punk rockers NOFX which adds substance to the accusation. Let’s have a listen…

Yep, that seals it for me. Does that mean “The Kids Aren’t Alright” isn’t any good then? No, of course not. In fact, it was seen as a return to form by their fanbase who had been with the band before those two aforementioned chart busting hits came along and you can understand why. It just has a much rawer edge to it. As with Shania Twain earlier, the lyrics had a deeper message than might have been expected from a song with such a contrived title being about the fates of the people who lead singer Dexter Holland had grown up around in his home town of Garden Grove, California including unwanted pregnancy, drug addiction, unemployment and suicide.

Just a word about the studio audience for this one which seems to include some very committed moshers and a least one crowd surfer. This wasn’t standard for a TOTP crowd was it? Were they specially invited members of The Offspring fan club or had they been given specific instructions by the floor managers to behave like that?

Oh. My. God. Is this really what passed for music in the Autumn of 1999? I speak of “The Launch” by DJ Jean which thankfully I seem to have blanked from my memory banks. This ‘track’ was huge in Ibiza apparently (Gail Porter says so anyway) where its trance-infused house beats (I’ve clearly pinched that from something online as I have no idea what I’m talking about) hit big time, hooked around a NASA themed rocket launch countdown. It’s utter garbage. Clearly the staging of this nonsense was going to require some thought as the three dancers on stage couldn’t carry it by themselves and to be fair to the TOTP producers, they do try something different with swirling camera angles and tacked on filters but it doesn’t overly impress. I’m struck by two thoughts:

1. Why didn’t the dancers have space themed costumes on? DJ Jean seems to have some sort of astronaut outfit on.
2. Shouldn’t there have been a voice saying “We have lift off!” after the countdown and “Ignition” parts?

“The Launch” topped the Dutch charts (DJ Jean was from Holland) but fell one place short of that peak in the UK. According to his Wikipedia biography, Jean used to DJ in a club called iT in Amsterdam in the early 90s but as with the Isis club in Nottingham, it doesn’t exist anymore after burning down. There’s got to be a line in there somewhere about burning down the house surely?

Before we get to the No 1, a quick word about the acts that are actually on the show in person in these tour locations as I’m not convinced the quality of them makes admission to these shows the hot ticket that the BBC would have had us believe. If you were in Nottingham this particular week, you would have witnessed Martine McCutcheon, Shaft, A1 and DJ Jean. (Enrique Iglesias, Shania Twain, and The Offspring were presumably recorded in a different studio somewhere or at Elstree weeks prior before the studio renovations started). The previous week in Brighton, it was Shaft (again), Moloko, A-Teens, Ocean Colour Scene and Stereophonics. I’d say maybe two of those eight acts would have piqued my interest at the time.

So, Lou Bega is still at No 1 with “Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of…)”. Again, he’s not in Nottingham but it’s not the video either so it must have been recorded in a BBC studio…somewhere.

In 2000, Bega recorded a version of the track for Disney which was much more sanitised and replaced the girls names in the lyrics with those of Disney characters. The line “A little bit of Donald is all I need” has perhaps more resonance in the present day than could ever have been imagined back then…

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/m002v4qm/top-of-the-pops-10091999