Eels

TOTP 25 SEP 1998

Posted on by 80stastic

I’ve long talked about the number of hits featured in these TOTP repeats that I can’t recall despite working in a record shop at the time. However, I sometimes think that the proliferation of new entries ushered in by first week of release price discounting worked against the show and my poor, overworked memory. Six of the eight hits on this TOTP are new entries (including an obligatory new No 1) and I don’t think any of them featured on the show again. This rapid turnover of songs is not conducive to prolonged residence in the brain.

Anyway, Jayne Middlemiss is our host and we start with one of the two non-new entries this week – “Crush” by Jennifer Paige. Now, I should probably give some thanks at this point to Jennifer as she didn’t give the world a load of minor hits as a follow up to her one big smash that I would have no doubt not been able to remember either. No, with her it was one huge song and then nothing. A classic one hit wonder. That hit though has proved to be remarkably hardy and must provide Jennifer with not insubstantial royalties. Aside from any airplay it continues to receive (of which there must be plenty), it has also featured in many a TV show and film soundtrack including Sabrina The Teenage Witch, Beverly Hills 90210, Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City (that’s what it says here!) and The Crush (natch). It’s also been covered in long running Fox comedy-drama series Glee but then hasn’t just about every song ever recorded? You might even say it was caught up in the crush. Ahem.

Now, if you looked at Lutricia McNeal’s UK chart stats (and I have), then you would understandably get the impression that she pretty much disappeared from public view after the end of the 90s. The latter part of that decade had given her four hits (including three Top 10s of which “Someone Loves You Honey” – which obviously I don’t remember – was the last) but then nothing. Correction, not nothing – nothing in the UK. In other territories, Lutricia continued to have success especially Sweden, Germany and Japan. Although she hasn’t recorded an album since 2004, she has released a number of non-album singles and continues to perform live at festivals across Europe. All of which proves that, even today, someone (still) loves her honey. As minimal as it is, that’s all I’ve got for this one. Sometimes, ain’t that just the way.

Now, this one I do remember but then, wouldn’t most people be able to recall a song with the word ‘sex’ (or derivative of) in the title? Through pop music history, any hit that dared to go there was almost guaranteed some form of notoriety and more often than not success. Look at this list of such songs:

  • “I Want Your Sex” – George Michael (No 2)
  • “Let’s Talk About Sex” – Salt-N-Peppa (No 2)
  • “I Wanna Sex You Up” – Color Me Badd (No 1)
  • “Sexual Healing” – Marvin Gaye (No 2)
  • “Sex On Fire” – Kings Of Leon (No 1)
  • “I’m Too Sexy” – Right Said Fred (No 2)
  • “You Sexy Thing” – Hot Chocolate (No 2)
  • “Do You Think I’m Sexy?”. – Rod Stewart (No 1)
  • “Sex On The Beach” – T-Spoon (No 2)

Add to that list “Generation Sex” by The Divine Comedy. The lead single from sixth studio album “Fin De Siècle”, it features a spoken word intro by TV presenter and newspaper columnist Katie Puckrik (who seemed to be everywhere in the 90s) before Neil Hannon’s distinctively theatrical vocals annunciate some typically satirical lyrics about millennial attitudes to sex, promiscuity and the hypocrisy of the media. Lines like “telephoto lenses that chase Mercedes-Benzes” and “a mourning nation weeps and wails” seem to reference the death of Princess Diana just over a year before. Then there’s “Generation Sex injects the sperm of worms into the eggs of field mice so you can look real nice for the boys” which must be one of the most out there lyrics of the decade and yet you understood the intended meaning. It’s all delivered with Hannon’s trademark impish, tongue-in-cheek style and deservedly returned a Top 20 hit. In early 1999, perhaps the band’s most famous tune “National Express” with perhaps Hannon’s most famous line (“It’s hard to get by when your arse is the size of a small country”) would give them their biggest ever hit. The Divine Comedy were on a roll.

It’s time for the second non-new entry on the show and it’s “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing” by Aerosmith. Again. It’s a third week on the trot for this one and you could be forgiven for thinking someone at TOTP (*cough* Chris Cowey) was determined to make this a big hit by giving it repeated exposure even when its chart status didn’t warrant it. The band even get their own, specially recorded intro for it this time though, ironically, given the name of their hit, it’s so blink-and-you-miss-it that it really wasn’t worth the effort. I said in a recent post that I hadn’t ever seen the film the song was taken from – Armageddon – all the way through but there was another rival film released in 1998 that had a very similar plot that I’ve never seen a second of. Deep Impact told the tale of humanity’s attempts to abort a comet on a collision course with Earth that could cause mass extinction. Although Deep Impact would be the sixth highest grossing film of the year, it ultimately lost out to Armageddon which topped that list. Crucially perhaps, although it had a soundtrack composed by James Horner, it didn’t have a huge hit single associated with it as its rival did so yes, Armageddon didn’t miss a thing whilst Deep Impact did miss a trick.

No, I’ve got nothing for this one either. Deetah and her song “Relax” anyone? Nothing to do with Frankie Goes To Hollywood, this rap hit was all based around a sample from the unlikely source of the Dire Straits track “Why Worry” from their blockbusting “Brothers In Arms” album. Eh? Dire Straits and rapping? I know. I did say it was unlikely. Or was it? Hadn’t we already seen a rap track in the charts in this year from Sweetbox that was based on “Air On The G String” by Johann Sebastian Bach? Well, yes we had (that was meant to be a rhetorical question) so if a German Baroque period composer who had been dead for nearly 250 years could be used for a contemporary rap hit, why not Dire Straits? What’s that? Because their sound was more dead than Bach? Ouch! For the record though, having listened to Deetah’s track, I don’t mind it. No idea what she’s going on about mind.

If asked, how many Eels songs could you name? I could do one without cheating I think which would be their first hit “Novocaine For The Soul”. There have been others though – follow up “Susan’s House” also went Top 10 whilst 2000’s “Mr. E’s Beautiful Blues” missed three-peating that feat by just one place. Then there’s this one – “Last Stop: This Town”. The lead single from what would prove to be a difficult second album in “Electro-Shock Blues”, it would spend just this solitary week in the Top 40 when it debuted at No 23. And yet it warranted a TOTP appearance and therein perhaps was the issue; it felt a bit like TOTP was chasing its tail rather, a perception that was magnified by the emergence of cd:uk and its more up to date chart format. With the case of an artist like Eels, despite having had two big-ish hits 18 months previously, there must have been doubts that such a streak would continue and the fact that their first new material since entered the chart much lower was maybe a good indicator of their trajectory. I guess what I’m saying is…actually, I’m not sure what I’m saying. I spend enough time slagging off Chris Cowey for platforming the same old hits week after week and here I am slagging him off for showcasing new entries!

Maybe I should just talk about the music because it’s a pretty good tune. Written by Mark ‘E’ Everett about the suicide of his sister (a subject which informed the content of much of the album), it’s an interesting yet tuneful* bit of alternative rock. Its chord structure reminds me of something else as well…is it “Closing Time” by Semisonic? Or is it (whisper it) “MMMBop” by Hanson? Surely not.

*I’m not too sure how tuneful the bass guitarist’s singing is though

OK, I’m still trying to organise my thoughts about what I’m trying to say about the show seemingly wanting to feature all these new chart entries and I’m still not sure what that is. Whatever it is though is amplified by following Eels with PJ Harvey. Maybe it’s that it appears that Chris Cowey was trying to hard to prove the show’s (and his?) eclectic music credentials? “Look, we’re not all about bands like Boyzone and Five. Here’s some more serious artists” Cowey seemed to be saying and I should be welcoming that but it’s confusing after all those boy band and pop fluff repeat performances. Maybe I’m just a natural moaner.

Anyway, the reasoning behind P J Harvey getting a look in this week according to Jayne Middlemiss is that “when you get a chance to get this turn on, you always say yes”. That clears that up then. Did PJ not like playing pop music shows? Or was it that she rarely had a Top 40 hit? “A Perfect Day Elise” was just Polly Harvey’s fifth in five years and it’s peak of No 25 made it her highest charting ever. What to say about this one? That it’s ’interesting’? I think that’s the kindest thing I can say. Alternatively, I could say it’s relentlessly miserable. I keep thinking I should explore her back catalogue more – she does have an MBE for services to music after all – and then I hear a track like “A Perfect Day Elise” and I think “No, I’m alright thanks”.

Was it inevitable that after Geri Halliwell splintered the Spice Girls by leaving the group earlier in 1998 that it would usher in solo careers for every member? All five would have hits in their own right but if I’d had to say who was the first, I’m not sure I would have gone with Mel B. I’d have maybe plumped for Geri (who has the most No 1s of them all totalling four) but I’d have been wrong. Maybe Mel B was first past the post because she had someone else doing the heavy lifting for her? Supposedly, rap artist Missy ‘Misdemeanor’ Elliott just rang her up while she was on tour with the Spice Girls and said that she had a song all ready for her and would she record it. Within a month it was all done including the memorable green hue video. Simples!

Sadly, the track – “I Want You Back” – wasn’t very memorable. In fact, I would say it was one of the weakest No 1s of the whole year. Elsewhere, it didn’t get anywhere near the top of the charts with No 6 in Holland being its second best chart position. Clearly in the UK we were still under a Spice spell. Either that or it’s that pesky first week discounting again creating an inflated demand for it. It certainly didn’t hang around too long. Just one further week in the Top 5, one inside the Top 20 and then three at the bottom end of the Top 40. Apparently, it was taken from the soundtrack to a film called Why Do Fools Fall In Love which was a biopic of 50s teenage pop sensation Frankie Lyon but I have zero recall of that. Having been first out of the traps as a solo artist, it would take Mel B nine months to release a follow up (her dreadful cover version of Cameo’s “Word Up”) by which point Mel C had released “When You’re Gone” with Bryan Adams and Geri Halliwell had announced herself on the solo stage with No 2 single “Look At Me” and suddenly it wasn’t just all about Mel B. Even a name change to Mel G following her marriage to Spice Girls dancer Jimmy Gulzar (as referenced by Jayne Middlemiss in this TOTP) couldn’t return her to the top of the charts with “Word Up” stalling at No 13. What I will say about her debut solo hit though is that it pulls together nicely a couple of this post’s themes by including the words “deep impact” and “sex” in its lyrics.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Jennifer PaigeCrushIt’s a no
2Lutricia McNealSomeone Loves You HoneyNegative
3The Divine ComedyGeneration SexNo but I had their Greatest Hits with it on
4AerosmithI Don’t Want To Miss A Thing”Nope
5DeetahRelaxNah
6EelsLast Stop: This TownGood song but no
7PJ HarveyA Perfect Day EliseI did not
8Mel B I Want You BackNo

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/m002lvjt/top-of-the-pops-25091998

TOTP 14 FEB 1997

Posted on by 80stastic

It’s Valentine’s Day in 1997 so no doubt the charts (and therefore the TOTP running order) will be full of romantic love songs. Erm…no. Of the nine songs on tonight’s show, I’d say only one is an out and out slushy ballad. The rest…well, some are almost anti-love songs but we’ll get to them soon enough. The host tonight is doubtless the target of many a young girl’s romantic intentions in Peter Andre who, the last time he was the presenter, did a pretty good job it pains me to say. As for me, what was my Valentine’s Day like? Well, according to my diary, I was stressed out at work and my wife was away for the weekend in London so I spent it on my own in front of the TV which seems apt for this most unromantic of shows.

So, kicking us off are Mansun with the lead track from their “Five EP” called “She Makes My Nose Bleed”. Yeah, it’s not the most loved up song title ever and neither is its sound and thank god for that. Taken from their brilliant No 1 album “Attack Of The Grey Lantern”, this was 90s indie rock at its very best. They always sounded like they had such sonic power but that they hadn’t even got out of second gear yet and there was so much more under the bonnet. The day after this TOTP aired, I saw them on that tour with Suede that Peter Andre mentioned in Blackburn with my mate Steve. Given that their single was in the Top 10 at the time, I’m surprised that they were the support act. Presumably the tour had been booked loads earlier when their profile wasn’t as big but they were now contractually bound to complete it in the support slot? Later in this year I convinced another mate called Pete to buy “Attack Of The Grey Lantern” even though he wasn’t familiar with it promising him that it might take a little while to get into but that the pay off when he did would be worth it. He never did tell me if he liked it or not.

Now here’s a nice heartthrob singer for Valentine’s Day but his song isn’t a big ballad either. Mark Owen was possibly actively trying to shed that teen pin up status he’d acquired as part of Take That and be seen as a serious artist – he had written all but two tracks on his debut album “Green Man” after all. “Clementine” was the second single taken from that album and would peak at No 3, just as his debut single “Child” (which had been a big ballad) had done.

I recall that we sold out of the single in the Our Price I was working in during that first week of release. I don’t think it had been our fault per se – I think the initial quantities (the so called ‘scale out’) ordered in for us by the buying department at Head Office hadn’t been big enough. Maybe they’d been deceived by the poor sales performance of “Green Man” which had struggled to a chart peak of No 33. Consequently, perhaps they’d not banked on a second single taken from it charting so high. In fairness to the company buyers, they’d would prove to be ultimately right as Owen’s third single “I Am What I Am” (not that one) would flop when it peaked at No 29 – they’d just gone one single too early. Mark would subsequently be dropped by his label RCA. He wouldn’t reappear as a solo artist until 2003 when the aptly titled sophomore album “In Your Own Time” was released. I’d liked “Child” but “Clementine” seems a bit one dimensional – it was just all about that elongated chorus with the rest of it a bit pedestrian. More ‘Oh my, disappointing’ than ‘oh my darling’ Clementine.

Definitely not a slushy love song for Valentine’s Day was “Remember Me” by Blue Boy. I’m wondering if punters referred to it as “That song that goes ‘ging, gi-gi-gi-gi-ging’” when asking for it in their local record shops. I can’t recall if I was asked for it like that in the Our Price in Stockport but it’s quite possible. Other songs that people asked for not by their title would be “Gypsy Woman” by Crystal Waters (“that one that goes ‘la da dee, la da da’”) and “Song 2” by Blur (“it has a bit in it that goes ‘woo hoo!’”).

Ah, here’s the one and only slushy ballad on the show despite it being broadcast on Valentine’s Day. This was just shameless! OTT (not to be confused with the early 80s late night version of Tiswas) were another Irish boyband who clearly were modelled on Boyzone so much so that their debut hit was an Osmonds cover just as their predecessors’ had been. Talk about obvious! Whilst Ronan et al had taken on “Love Me For A Reason” which had been a chart topper in 1974, OTT went with “Let Me In”, a No 2 hit in the UK in 1973. You can’t tell me this wasn’t just cynically following a boy band blueprint step by step, detail by detail! Oh and look, they’re kitted out in that boyband cliché of all white outfits! They weren’t even that good looking were they? There’s one who seems to have modelled his hairstyle to match that of tonight’s host Peter Andre with those horrible greasy strands hanging down. How did their record label Epic think anyone would fall for this but they did! “Let Me In” would go to No 12 in the UK charts after being a No 2 hit in Ireland. This was the first of four hits they would manage over the next 12 months before Epic lost faith and dropped them. There’s five of them in this performance but one of them left the band at some point as there’s a line up of four on their album cover. Two of them did have interesting names – Niall O’Neill and Alan Mates who really should have had the nickname ‘Billy No’ but was known as ‘Adam’ within the band. They couldn’t sent even get nicknames right!

Next up is a track that fuses a hard rock guitar riff (courtesy of Van Halen), drum ‘n’ bass breakbeats, some reggae dub flourishes and a sample from a 1971 sci-fi film (The Andromeda Strain) – yep, to quote Bon Jovi, this ain’t a love song either. Apollo Four Forty’s biggest hit to this point had been the No 23 placing “Krupa” but “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘bout Dub” would seem them crack the Top 10 for the first time. Now, this was never going to be my cup of tea but I can appreciate it for being experimental, pioneering and pushing the boundaries of dance music composition.

Unlike Orbital the other week, the track lent itself more to a ‘traditional’ performance if that’s the right word. I guess it is in that there a vocalist (of sorts) and a guitarist and a drummer (two drummers actually – very Adam and the Ants). Apparently, the guy on the mike is the frontman for 80s ‘grebo’ band Gaye Bikers On Acid but he’s giving me Alex Mann vibes in his Fluminense football shirt. Who’s Alex Mann? This guy of course…

We’ve seen three of the last four hits before on the show so I might have to skip through these without too much comment. What I will say is that two of the artists have amazing longevity. The first of those is Depeche Mode who when you consider had already been having hits for 16 years back in 1997 and are still going today in 2025…well, you don’t have to be a maths genius to work out how long they’ve been around for. Not bad for a band that started out as teen, synth pop stars in frilly shirts. However, if I hear the phrase “Barrel Of A Gun”, the song that comes to my mind isn’t from Depeche Mode but this…

I can’t help it, I’m a product of my era and the songs that we grew up with are the ones that stick in our heads. No, really. There’s been scientific studies conducted into it – it’s called the ‘reminiscence bump’ so it’s not my fault. Look it up if you don’t believe me. I’m not consciously choosing John Farnham over (this era of) Depeche Mode, it’s been psychologically engineered within me.

No! Mercy please! Not this lot again! Not a third time! What am I supposed to say about this Spanish guitar influenced Eurodance trash? No Mercy were the creation of Frank Farian who gave us Boney M and if you were a child growing up in the 70s then they were a huge presence in your fledgling years (it’s that ‘reminiscence bump’ again). However, he also gave us Milli Vanilli and their lip-syncing, deceiving ways and then this trio of berks and their single “Where Do You Go” so his strike rate wasn’t the best. What I wasn’t aware of before now was that a biopic of the Milli Vanilli story was made in 2023 called Girl You Know It’s True but I guess it’s quite the story to be told – success followed by scandal followed by tragedy. I can’t imagine a film about the No Mercy story being made anytime soon.

There’s a lot to unpack with this next hit starting with who does the lead singer remind me of? I refer to Mark Oliver Everett aka ‘E’ who’d released two albums as a solo artist under that pseudonym in the early 90s before putting together the band Eels. It’ll come to me. Anyway, “Novocaine For The Soul” was the lead single from the band’s debut album “Beautiful Freak” and made the Top 10 in the UK straight off the bat. A great, quirky alt-rock song in the vein of Beck or Presidents Of The USA, it was a perfect antidote to all that generic dance crap in the charts at the time. What should have been a time of great excitement due to this success was tempered though by personal tragedy in Everett’s life. Having already suffered the trauma of finding his father, a prominent quantum physicist, dead at home when he was just 19, he then lost his sister to suicide and his mother to cancer between 1996 and 1998. Three years later, his flight attendant cousin was killed during the terrorist attacks in the US in 2001 when on the plane that was flown at the Pentagon. Everett seemed to process all this tragedy by writing songs – to date the Eels have released 17 studio albums!

Although the band’s line up has fluctuated over the years, Everett has remained the one constant presence, much like Mike Scott in The Waterboys or Matt Johnson in The The. Some of the names (or rather nicknames) of those other band members deserve some recognition. Look at these:

  • The Chet
  • Koool G Murder
  • P-Boo
  • Knuckles
  • Big/Krazy/Tiny/Honest/Upright/Royal Al
  • Butch

Take note OTT. That’s how you do nicknames! As for this performance, what was all that with the toy instruments all about? Apparently, they hadn’t told anyone they were going to smash them up at the end – was it meant to be a send up of The Who or someone like that? It wasn’t really working for me until they all did the little bow at the end which turned it from childish to comic.

Got it! ‘E’ reminds me of this guy. It’s E for Epithemiou!

U2 are, along with Depeche Mode, that other band with amazing longevity and this week, rather predictably what with being the biggest band in the world and all, at No 1. “Discothèque” is the song they gave them their third chart topper after “Desire” in 1988 and “The Fly” in 1991. It may have been the band’s third hit to get to the pinnacle but for the record buying public it was the sixth different No 1 single in as many weeks. Was it devaluing that achievement? It felt like it to me but then I was working from inside the trend in a record shop so was looking at it from a business perspective. Kind of sums up this Valentine’s Day show – all very business like with little romance in the air.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1MansunShe Makes My Nose BleedNo but I had their album
2Mark OwenClementineNah
3Blue BoyRemember MeYes – I bought the 12″ for my wife
4OTTLet Me InNo chance
5Apollo Four FortyAin’t Talkin’ ‘bout DubNope
6Depeche ModeBarrel Of A GunI did not
7No MercyWhere Do You GoNever
8EelsNovocaine For The SoulNo but I had it on one of those Best Album Ever compilations
9U2DiscothèqueNo

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/m0026zt9/top-of-the-pops-14021997?seriesId=unsliced