Finley Quaye

TOTP 06 MAR 1998

Posted on by 80stastic

We’ve entered March in these 1998 TOTP repeats and on the day this show was broadcast, Liam Gallagher was charged with assault after allegedly breaking a fan’s nose in Brisbane, Australia. He followed this up by getting himself banned from Cathay-Pacific airline for allegedly abusing passengers and staff on the flight home to the UK. Oh dear. He wasn’t the only pop star in this year to get themselves in bother as Mark Morrison, Mark E. Smith and Ian Brown all fell foul of the law. I wonder if any of the acts on this show have some misdemeanours in their pasts…

Our host is Jamie Theakston who certainly does have some proverbial skeletons in his closet, namely his visit to a Mayfair brothel in 2002 which was leaked in the press despite Theakston’s attempt to prevent publication of the story via an injunction. Back in 1998 though he was the squeaky clean host of kids Saturday morning TV show Live & Kicking as well as being part of the roster of presenters for TOTP and his first job on tonight’s show is to do the outro for the opening act who are Cornershop. Wait…what?! But they were the final act we saw in the last TOTP as they were at No 1! Yes, but this meant nothing in the era of the show’s executive producer Chris Cowey where chart positions and downward movement within the Top 40 were insignificant. For example, “Brimful Of Asha” was down from No 1 to No 3 this week but as a hit that was still selling lots of copies, it warranted a slot in the running order. Maybe Cowey was right – in a world of first week of release discounted prices, was this how TOTP countered that practice manipulating the charts? After all, otherwise you had the prospect of a big hit only being featured once on the show* because of it peaking high and then constantly dropping as the full price point kicked in. Even so, this particular segue across two shows and seven days does jar.

*We’ll come back to this at the end of the show

Anyway, as I indicated in my last post, I bought “Brimful Of Asha” and actually enjoyed both versions of the track on the single so much so that I caught them live at Manchester Academy. However, it wasn’t the best gig I ever attended. They didn’t say a word to the audience all night which always irks me. A live gig should be just that – a live experience not just recreating the sound of the records however accurate that might be. Cornershop would have a couple more minor Top 40 hits but are still a together having last released an album in 2020.

Controversial moment: There was that time in 1992 when they burnt posters of Morrissey outside the offices of EMI to protest about his perceived overtly racist behaviour having draped a Union Jack flag around him during a set at the Madstock festival in Finsbury Park.

Finley Quaye was still riding high at this point in his career. His debut album “Maverick A Strike” had gone gold in just three weeks and he’d recently won the Best British Male award at the 1998 BRITS. He was also a regular on TOTP with “Your Love Gets Sweeter” his fourth consecutive Top 40 hit. It’s another reggae-tinged, soulful, melodic number but there’s something in its tune that reminds me of this…

Just me then. Anyway, where did it all go wrong for Finley? From what I have read, there seems to have been a certain element of self-destruction surrounding Quayle’s erratic behaviour and unreliability. He also had a reputation for uncooperativeness and not playing the music industry’s games. You can perhaps see an example of this in his appearance here with a less than energetic performance and his decision to turn up in attire as if it was dress down Friday. I’ve never heard any of his material since “Maverick A Strike” so I can’t comment on its quality but maybe it was just a case of musical tastes moving on? Certainly his private life was problematic involving assault charges, unpaid debts and being declared bankrupt in 2012. Attempts at a comeback were undermined by Quaye not turning up for gigs and, in one desperate case, being physically manhandled off stage by the venue owner for a shambolic performance. All of this led to a lack of trust in him within whatever was left of his dwindling fanbase. Whether he’ll be able to overcome his demons and return to a successful music career, who knows?

Controversial moment: Despite all the issues detailed above, perhaps Finley’s most stand out incident was when Prince Harry (himself no stranger to controversy) admitted in an interview in 2023 with Stephen Colbert (another controversial figure!) that if he could only listen to one song for the rest of his life then he would choose “Your Love Gets Sweeter”.

Like “Brimful Of Asha”, here was another song that had already peaked at No 1 and dropped down from the top spot but which was still an incredibly strong seller and so is featured on the show again. “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion was in its second week at No 2 and it would rise back to the chart summit the following week. It is, however, a chart curiosity that despite being the second best selling single in the UK for 1998, it spent only two weeks at No 1. That shouldn’t diminish its sales reputation though. Look at these chart positions:

1 – 2 – 2 – 1 – 3 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 3 – 4

Not too shabby and definite evidence that even in the fast moving chart currents of 1998, certain singles could swim against the tide or at least tread water. Of course, “My Heart Will Go On” had an enormous advantage of most of its chart competitors in that it was from a massive, massive film – Titanic was the highest grossing film of all time, a record it held for twelve years – and that can’t be ignored in the final totting up but it remains an iconic song and yes, I hate it.

Controversial moment: Celine? Surely not though there is a comical claim by an American priest that her stereotype-free children’s clothing line was promoting satanism!

WHO?! Hinda Hicks anyone? Success wise she was the solo artist equivalent of N-Tyce who were on last week’s show. Four middling sized Top 40 singles (of which “If You Want Me” was the first) and an album that peaked at No 20. Her music was an R&B infused pop/soul sound (yawn – wasn’t it always?) and in Hinda’s defence she did get three MOBO Award nominations (plus two BRIT Awards ones). So why don’t I remember her given that I had the added advantage of working in a record shop at the time? Maybe the market for that genre was over flooded? Possibly. She did also suffer from record company machinations when Island Records and Universal Records merged causing the promotion for her second album to be non existent and that was that for her career as a chart artist. Her Wikipedia page doesn’t list any further activity by Hinda post 2008. However, her name resurfaced in 2011…

Controversial moment: Not really controversial but her name was appropriated by Lilly Allen in the tweet ‘Toni Braxton Hinda Hicks’ which was a reference to the phrase ‘Braxton Hicks’ which is a nickname for false labour pains during pregnancy.

It strikes me that it would be easy to dismiss this next artist as yet another forgotten hitmaker of the 90s whose hits were synth-heavy but gravitas-lite songs and she was just the pop puppet fronting them. However, having done some background reading on her, there’s more than meets the eye to Robyn. Firstly, she writes her own stuff so that preconceived notion of mine of her being all image and no substance is immediately dispelled. Secondly, the reaction to her songs has created quite the fan base, especially amongst the LGBTQ+ community. In an interview with vice.com, she posited the theory that this is because she is a Swedish woman and that feminist debate is very mainstream there and has been for years so there is an easier connection between the gay community and her because of her upbringing.

Robyn’s career could have gone a very different way. She declined to sign with Jive Records who then turned their attention to another young female artist called Britney Spears who Jive called “An American Robyn” and who, as it panned out, would prove to be much more easier to control than Robyn would have been. Despite not having the same levels of fame as Britney, Robyn’s influence on pop music has been widely acknowledged by the likes of Lorde, Charli XCX, Taylor Swift, Carly Rae Jepsen and Andy McCluskey (the writing force behind Atomic Kitten). Her work is seen as contributing to the ideological school of thought that is ‘poptimism’ which argues that pop music is as worthy of professional critique and interest as rock music. Blimey! Having said all of this, “Show Me Love” didn’t hold my interest for long, pleasant enough a pop tune as it is though. Plus, did she not think when she wrote it that a track called “Show Me Love” by an artist called Robyn might cause confusion with the dance anthem of the same name by Robin S?

Controversial moment: Her 1999 album “My Truth” included songs about abortion. Her US label RCA asked her to re-record or edit out these tracks deeming them too controversial for American markets. Robyn refused and the album was not released in the US.

I’m pretty sure that I dismissed this next song as being almost a novelty hit at the time. Have I changed my tune since? Maybe. We have arrived at the moment in the career of Space when those scouse scamps were never bigger. “The Ballad Of Tom Jones” would be their highest charting single ever when it peaked at No 4. Essentially a duet between Tommy Scott and Cerys Matthews of Catatonia, it tells the story of two warring partners in a chaotic relationship who are saved from inflicting physical damage to each other by stumbling across the songs of Tom Jones on the radio as their row reached boiling point. So why didn’t I think much of it at the time? I think it was that the chorus was underwhelming and the lines about knickers and not coming from Wales grated. Also, the counterpoint repeating of ‘Tom Jones, Tom Jones’ didn’t work for me. And yet…it is creepily endearing. A curiosity sure but with some musicality to it that perhaps I’d previously ignored. Whilst Space were at their pinnacle, Cerys and her band were only just beginning their run of hits having recently pierced the Top 3 with “Mulder And Scully”. They would have a further seven Top 40 hits including two Top 10 entries. Both Space and Cerys would end up contributing to tracks on an album by the actual Tom Jones in 1999 when he released his covers project “Reloaded”.

P.S. Unlike with the aforementioned Dexys performance of 16 years prior, there were no shenanigans with the picture on the backdrop screen here which features Sir Tom himself. How I would have loved it to have been Howard.

Controversial moment: Nothing much for Space but in 2020 Cerys played a song that included a racial slur in its lyrics on her radio show which BBC Radio 6 Music had to apologise for. She also engaged in a relationship with EastEnders actor Marc Bannerman whilst taking part in I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here in 2011 making the front pages of the tabloids as Bannerman had a partner back home.

From Space to Spice next as we reach a line in the sand moment in the Spice Girls story by encountering both their first hit not to go to No 1 and their last single release whilst Geri Halliwell was still officially a member of the group (the first time around anyway). For the record, “Stop” was their seventh single out of eleven in total and one of only two not to top the charts. Is there any reasonable theory that explains this? Yes, parent album “Spiceworld” had been out for four months by this point so maybe punters didn’t feel the need to own the single and the album? Maybe but then how do you explain the fourth single lifted from it – “Viva Forever”- going to No 1 after “Stop”? Perhaps it was just a slow decline in their popularity 21 months into a career that had constantly been in our faces? Or was it the strength of the song that kept it off the top spot which was…

*checks the online chart archives*

…”It’s Like That” by Run-D.M.C. versus Jason Nevins. Possibly. It was the UK’s third best selling single of 1998. Or maybe “Stop” was just a weak track? It’s a jolly enough, upbeat, Motown-aping song but certainly not as strong as something like “Say You’ll Be There” or as explosive and attention demanding as “Wannabe”. I guess we’ll never know the true reason. What we do know is that Geri would be gone within three months of this performance and things would never quite be the same again in Spiceworld.

Controversial moment: Are you kidding? Far too many to list here.

There a new No 1 and it signalled the comeback of Madonna. Hang on, had she actually been away? Not really though she had been busy becoming a mother and filming the Evita film meaning she hadn’t released a studio album of new material since 1994’s “Bedtime Stories”. Although singles wise, she’d maintained a presence in our charts throughout that period, “Frozen” was her first single release in a year since “Another Suitcase In Another Hall” from the aforementioned Evita soundtrack. The lead track from her “Ray Of Light” album, it would debut at No 1 giving Madge a UK chart topper for the first time since “Vogue” in 1990. Despite this feat, this solitary week at the top was the only time it featured on TOTP. Now, as discussed earlier, a song dropping down the charts wasn’t a barrier to repeat appearances under executive producer Chris Cowey (even from No 1 – I give you Cornershop) so what happened here? Something to do with broadcasting restrictions imposed by Madonna herself?

Anyway, critical reaction to both the single and album were overwhelmingly positive and seen as a real return to form. Me personally? I wasn’t that enamoured – it just didn’t grab me and I wasn’t swayed by the whole Eastern mysticism angle nor the slightly odd video with Madonna as a shape-shifting witch figure prowling across a desert. However, I did quite like the rest of the album which my wife bought especially the title track. A collaboration with legendary producer William Orbit, it incorporated electronica, trip-hop and new age styles. Nearly 30 years in and it has become a touchstone album for creativity with it being credited as a huge influence for the likes of FKA Twigs, Addison Rae and Erika de Casier (I’ve no idea!) making “Ray Of Light” 2025’s hottest album according to some headlines. Ex-Little Mix member Jade Thirwell has even recorded her own version of “Frozen” whilst Madonna herself is revisiting the album with a remix version entitled “Veronica Electronica”.

Controversial moment: I’d be here all day listing them but how about this for a “Frozen” specific one? In 2005, a Belgian judge ruled that the track plagiarised the song “Ma Vie Fout Le Camp” by Fabrice Prevost and for eight years it could not be played nor sold in Belgium.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1CornershopBrimful Of AshaYES!
2Finley QuayeYour Love Gets SweeterNo but my wife had his album
3Celine Dion My Heart Will Go OnNever
4Hinda HicksIf You Want MeNope
5RobynShow Me LoveNah
6Space / Cerys MatthewsThe Ballad Of Tom JonesNo
7Spice GirlsStopI did not
8MadonnaFrozenSee 2 above

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/m002gk6l/top-of-the-pops-06031998?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 12 SEP 1997

Posted on by 80stastic

I’ve decided that this post will be a Diana’s death free zone on account of it having dominated the last two and that we still have weeks of the Elton John single to come. Right then, let’s get to it starting with tonight’s presenter. Now, I thought that, under executive producer Chris Cowey, the ‘golden mic’ feature where a celebrity would host the show had been done away with and replaced with a roster of young BBC presenters sourced from their existing youth TV output. So why is comedian Mark Lamarr on hosting duty this week? Well, maybe he was considered as a member of the extended BBC family or an associate member if you like seeing as he was a regular on two of the corporation’s popular panel games Shooting Stars and Never Mind The Buzzcocks at the time. Anyway, our host he is and he will lead us through tonight’s acts in a similarly dismissive manner to his Buzzcocks demeanour. Well, did we expect anything else?

We start with Hanson who were only on last week but are back again as they have shot into the charts at No 4 with “Where’s The Love”. I recently met up with a friend with whom I discussed my blog and admitted that after nearly nine years of writing it that occasionally the creative juices can run dry. I summed this position up by saying “Sometimes I ask myself ‘what more can I say about Hanson?’”. And so here I am facing that very question. OK, how about this? Somebody on Twitter described Hanson as ‘Kula Shaker meets The Osmonds’ which I thought was pretty clever but he followed it up with ‘Tuneless meets unlistenable’ which I thought wasn’t. What was unlistenable were some of the comments that drummer Zac made on his Pinterest account in 2020 which were described by Ashley Spencer of Vice Media as “a trove of pro-gun memes many of which were racist, transphobic, homophobic and sexist”. Three years later, Zac Hanson was appointed as a deacon in the Georgian Orthodox Church under the name Father Mercurios. Form your own opinions. I had to.

In the last post, I posited the theory that Ocean Colour Scene had become serial chart stars by 1997 based on the peaks of their last half a dozen or so singles. The same logic could also be applied to Cast. Check out the placings of their last six hits below:

8 – 9 – 4 – 7 – 9 – 7

The last of those was “Live The Dream”, the third single released from their sophomore album “Mother Nature Calls”. It’s a fairly laid back, strolling type number that’s quite pleasant though, on reflection, I’m kind of surprised was considered suitable for release as a single. Its chart high would suggest I don’t know what I’m taking about*. However, I’m pretty sure all of those peaks were achieved in their first week of sales when they would have been discounted as new releases so was it more a reflection of their growing fanbase than the hit potential of the song?

*Actually, I did my dissertation at polytechnic on what makes a hit record a hit record – I think I called it something one the lines of ‘The Mechanics of the Music Industry’. Something wanky like that. Does that mean I did know what I was talking about? Of course not as I came to no valid conclusions. Obviously.

For the aforementioned question “What more can I say about Hanson?”, repeat for Tina Moore. Well, The Guardian no less ranked her hit “Never Gonna Let You Go” at No 11 in their list of ‘The best UK garage tracks – ranked!’ in 2019 which I guess shouldn’t be disregarded assuming that sort of thing means something to you (it doesn’t to me). As for this performance, this is just a repeat of her previous appearance from the other week which Mark Lamarr had clearly watched before his stint as host as he takes the piss out of a part of it that I hadn’t picked up on before. “In the middle of this next track, Tina Moore does some of the snappiest footwork I’ve ever seen since Bambi learned to walk but watch very carefully as it might be too fast for the human eye” he warns. What follows, via a camera situated underneath the glass podium Tina is performing on, are some of the slowest, most plodding shoe shuffle moves ever witnessed on prime time TV!

Next up is Finley Quaye with his second hit single “Even After All”. The follow up to “Sunday Shining”, it would be his biggest ever peaking at No 10. It was again more of that soul/reggae fusion sound on which he made his name with a meandering groove that was perfect for whiling away whatever was left of the weekend after a big night out on the Saturday. Finley’s affectation here for singing with one arm behind his back confused me at first glance and left me asking the question “Finley Quaye didn’t have just one arm did he?”. Of course he didn’t so with that issue resolved my next query was “What is he wearing?”. The 60s went that way *points behind him* Finley!

My final question to myself was “How did I not know at the time that his nephew was trip-hop artist Tricky?”. The clue was right there in the title of Tricky’s album “Maxinquaye” which was literally the name of his Mum (minus an ‘e’) – Maxine Quaye who is Finley’s half-sister. Apparently the family ties are quite distant though – Finley and Tricky didn’t actually meet until 1996.

Here comes the next instalment of the curious tale of Kavana the pop star. I find his story* peculiar because on the one hand, he could have been extraordinarily successful with his classic teen heart-throb looks and catchy pop tunes and on the other, on another day, you look at him and think “How did this bloke become a pop star?” so insubstantial was he.

*Apparently he has an ‘explosive’ autobiography coming out later this year. I’m not so intrigued by his story that I would shell out good money for that though!

For the record, come 1997, Kavana was at the peak of his fame with two Top 10 hits under his belt and a Smash Hits award for Best Male Artist on his mantelpiece. Given all of this, the decision was taken to maintain his career momentum by rereleasing his debut single “Crazy Chance” which had been a minor hit in 1996. Given a remix and retitled as “Crazy Chance ‘97”, it would do the job efficiently enough by returning a No 16 chart peak. It was co-written by Take That’s Howard Donald but I don’t think I’d own up to that if I was Howard as it sounds like an Eternal B-side at best.

Now, what was going on with the staging of this performance? All that hazy camera focus and wobbly, garishly coloured ‘green screen’ effect behind Kavana? Many of the TOTP online community came up with the theory that it must have been a nod to or in joke with Mark Lamarr referencing his time on The Word the look of which Chris Cowey seems to be trying to recreate. Had he taken inspiration for the controversial Channel 4 show or was he just trying out something new?

Maybe Cowey was indeed trying to be inventive as we stick with the ‘green screen’ effect for the next act who are N–Tyce. That’s N-Tyce, not ‘N Sync nor N-Joi but N-Tyce…yeah, I’ve got no idea either. Apparently they had four UK Top 20 hits though of which this one, “We Come To Party” was their second and biggest. I’m sure it’s not as clear cut a divide as this but it did superficially seem like the first part of the 90s were all about boybands whilst the second part was the turn of all girl groups. Eternal, All Saints and of course the Spice Girls are names that trip easily off the tongue but N-Tyce? They would surely have been a perfect choice for the ‘identity parade’ round in the aforementioned Never Mind The Buzzcocks. As if that wasn’t enough indignity, there were those tours supporting Boyzone and Peter Andre that Mark Lamarr mentions in his link – “so it is true there’s always someone worse off than you” he closes his segue with. He’s not wrong though is he?

Just as with Tina Moore earlier, the next performance is just a re-showing of an earlier appearance on the show as we get Mariah Carey and “her wobbly legged sailors” again as Lamarr puts it. I like the way he plays along with the all too easily seen through deception that Mariah is actually there in the studio by craning his neck as if to get a better view. His shout of “Go on love!” is the icing on the cake. I have nothing else to say about her song “Honey” except that it was her 13th of 19 US No 1 singles! *Nineteen!

*You’ve got that Paul Hardcastle song in your head now haven’t you?

Even Lamarr has to stop his cynic act to prostrate himself at the altar of this week’s No 1. After crossing over into the mainstream with “Bitter Sweet Symphony”, The Verve really hit the big time with follow up “The Drugs Don’t Work”. A ballad that redefined melancholy, it was either written about Richard Ashcroft’s father-in-law who passed away after having cancer or his own Dad who died of a blood clot when Ashcroft was just 11 years old – depends which story you believe. One which I’m not sure that I believe is that its success was somehow fuelled by the mood of the nation which was in mourning over the death of Diana, Princess of Wales…Damn! I said I wasn’t going to mention it! Oh well, I nearly made it through the whole post. The theory goes that with the single having been released the day after Diana died, the public were more open to “The Drugs Don’t Work” than they perhaps might have been, that they connected with it more if you like, and bought it in enough copies to send it to No 1 for a week. Just a week mind as then “Candle In The Wind ‘97” would have been in the shops and all bets were off. It was, in effect, a makeshift chart topper until the real mania could take place courtesy of Elton John. I’m just not having that. I just don’t think that those people that were literally buying armfuls of the Elton single at a time would have also bought a song by an indie band, no matter how melancholy it was.

Now I can’t find any reference to it online anywhere but wasn’t there someone within the Irish media at the time, a TV presenter or a radio DJ perhaps, who totally misunderstood the song and called for it to be banned? Apparently, he thought that the story behind “The Drugs Don’t Work” was that of a drug user moaning that their recreational drugs weren’t giving them the required high. I haven’t made that up have I?

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1HansonWhere’s The LoveDidn’t happen
2CastLive The DreamI did not
3Tina MooreNever Gonna Let You GoNegative
4Finley QuayeEven After AllNo but my wife had his album
5KavanaCrazy Chance ’97Nope
6N-TyceWe Come To PartyNo
7Mariah CareyHoneyNah
8The VerveThe Drugs Don’t WorkNo but I had the Urban Hymns 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/m0029cfk/top-of-the-pops-12091997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 20 JUN 1997

Posted on by 80stastic

We’re still in the early weeks of the Chris Cowey tenure of TOTP and this would seem to be the experimental stage where he’s trying things out to see what sticks. For example, we’ve gone from just seven featured songs from a couple of weeks ago to a whopping ten on this show. TEN! I better get my skates on then…Tonight’s host is Jayne Middlemiss for the second time in three weeks and hopefully she’ll have conquered those nerves which she displayed on her debut appearance. She gets an early opportunity to demonstrate that she has because, as with Jo Whiley last week, our host does a direct to camera piece before the credits have even rolled. There’s no prop for Jayne to kick over though like Jo had. Instead, there’s a shot of a studio clock and an ‘On Air’ sign and Jayne telling us it’s time to dance in front of the telly before doing that head nod thing she does – that might start to get annoying very quickly. It’s probably the nerves again.

We start though with an artist who never seems anything less than serenely confident in her own abilities. Lisa Stansfield had been having hits since the late 80s with the biggest and most well known of those arriving early on with “All Around The World”. Inspired by ‘The Walrus of Love’ Barry White, the track contained a tribute to him in its spoken word intro that was based on the album version of White’s “Let The Music Play”. Eight years on, Lisa would go into full on honour mode by recording a cover of White’s 1974 hit “Never, Never Gonna Give You Up”. In terms of topping and tailing Lisa’s chart career, it couldn’t have been more perfect as it would prove to be her final UK Top 40 hit when released as the second single from her eponymously titled 1997 album. The radio edit is a pretty faithful version but numerous remixes of it by the likes of Hani and Frankie Knuckles would propel it to the top of the US Dance Club Songs chart. The latter would receive a Grammy for the Best Remixed Recording, Non Classical category. Lisa would ultimately satisfy her Barry White fixation by duetting with him in 1999 on “The Longer We Make Love”.

I talked in the past post about not being sure that the presenter links were filmed at the same time and in the same studio as the actual performances due to the cutaway and cutback shots between the two. Well, I’m still thinking that way for this show. Curiously, last week, the only time the two were in sync was when Jo Whiley interacted with Wet Wet Wet who were the second act on and the same pattern is repeated in this show as Jayne Middlemiss is definitely in the same geographical and temporal space as this week’s artist who are second in the running order. Was something going on or am I reading too much into it? For the record, said second artist is Supergrass with their single “Sun Hits The Sky”. Similar to Skunk Anansie, I sometimes think this lot don’t get the credit they deserve. Certainly I’d forgotten or not known in the first place how many great tunes Skin and co had released and although I was more aware of the Supergrass output (I had two of their albums), it’s an easy trap to fall into to immediately think of “Alright” when you hear their name. However, they had so many more great (and better) tunes than that like “Moving”, “Pumping On Your Stereo”, “Caught By The Fuzz” and this one. “Sun Hits The Sky” is a tight, nifty indie rock tune that powers along with some force.

It was the third single taken from the album “In It For The Money” the title of which tied in quite nicely with an event that took place in April of 1996 when lead singer Gaz Coombes met the train robber Ronnie Biggs in Rio. Biggs had his own footnote in music history of course, having recorded with the Sex Pistols on two songs for The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle plus The Great Train Robbery of 1963 was the basis of the 1985 Paul Hardcastle hit “Just For Money”. “In It For The Money”? “Just For Money”? It’s close enough for a tenuous link isn’t it?

And so to the fourth and final appearance on the show by Eternal on the back of their hit with Bebe Winans, a previous chart topper, “I Wanna Be The Only One”. Fourth?! Yes, four weeks on the bounce they’ve featured but in defence of whoever’s decision it was, the single entered the charts at No 1 and then spent three consecutive weeks at No 2 so it was a very consistent seller. It’s taken until this fourth performance though to find a different way of promoting the single which they do here by doing a ‘live acoustic’ version of the track. Fair play as I think it works pretty well. Were the pure white outfits the girls are wearing a deliberate choice to project the gospel flavour this version has? If so, it’s kind of undermined by the stage they’re performing on which seems to have a leopard print design on it. Bit odd.

Despite its high sales and being the UK’s sixteenth best selling single of the year, it was towards the back of the queue in that list when compared to all the year’s other No 1 records. Only four chart toppers appeared below Eternal in the Top 40 of 1997 – the 1996 Christmas No 1 from the Spice Girls which is understandable but then also their 1997 festive hit which isn’t. The other two below Eternal were the dance hit “You’re Not Alone” by Olive and the Verve’s only No 1 “The Drugs Don’t Work”.

From current “I Wanna Be The Only One” hitmakers to a band whose first single to make the charts was “The Only One I Know” which peaked at No 9 in 1990. In the seven years since that breakthrough hit for The Charlatans, it hadn’t been a string of subsequent huge chart successes* since then. Of the twelve singles the band released between 1990 and 1995, none had got higher than No 12, five hadn’t cracked the Top 20 and three hadn’t even made the Top 40. Of course, high chart positions are no guarantee of song quality and the public cruelly ignored some cracking tunes. The nation finally got with it in 1996 with the release of “One To Another” which went Top 3 whilst follow up “North Country Boy” made No 4. Then came “How High” which peaked at No 6 giving the band three consecutive Top 10 hits for the first time ever. It was an impressive run of chart numbers but more importantly, they were all quality tracks and not a cover version in sight.

*It was a different story when it came to their albums with three of the five released up to this point having topped the charts.

“How High” is not only a quality tune but surely unique in referencing this TV show from my youth which made a huge impression on me and had kids up and down the country saying “Ah, grasshopper”. Not even “Kung Fu” by Ash mentions it in its lyrics.

We’ve finally arrived at the last Michael Jackson release that I’ll ever have to discuss in this blog, if not quite his final TOTP appearance. As I will be stopping at the end of the 1999 repeats, “HIStory/Ghosts” will be the last Jacko single I have to write about as he would not release another one until 2001’s “You Rock My World”. And there have been oh so many that I have had to comment on. My blogging started way back with the 1983 repeats and “Billie Jean”. Since then, the self styled ‘King of Pop’ had…

*checks Wikipedia*

32(!) UK Top 40 singles! My God! I haven’t gone back through all my posts to see if I reviewed every single one but it must be a pretty high number. So, 32 singles over 15 years (‘83-‘97) is almost exactly two a year, every year except it didn’t work like that of course. Jacko’s singles would come in gluts with the timing of them obviously based around when he had an album out which was pretty consistently every four to five years. And when an album came out, so did a bucket load of tracks released as singles from them. Seven from “Thriller”, nine from “Bad”, nine again from “Dangerous” and then five from “HIStory”. The final two of those 32 were taken from the “Blood On The Dance Floor: HIStory In The Mix” album with the very final one being this double A-side. There will be one final TOTP appearance in the 90s for Jacko with this single so I’ll devote this post to the “HIStory” track and the final one to “Ghosts”. So what can I say about “HIStory” the song? Not much apart from it’s hideous. I get that it’s a remix but seriously, Michael Jackson meets what? Italian house is that? I don’t care to find out any more. Even Chris Cowey can’t have been convinced as we get less than two minutes of the promo. There were periods in the early 90s when whole shows were structured around the screening of a video exclusive for his latest release which would command a good seven minutes of screen time.

Right then, what’s going on here? Two artists squeezed into just over a minute and a half of screen time? We’re not going back to having a ‘Breakers’ section are we? Well, no we’re not – it makes less sense than that. It seems to be essentially a plug for upcoming performances by artists on the show but here’s the thing – the clip used is just that; a minute long clip sourced from the actual performance that would be shown in full the following week. Why didn’t they just show the whole thing now? In the case of the first artist featured Blur, their single “On Your Own” had been released on the Monday before this TOTP aired as far as I can tell so why not just have played the song in full? They could have labelled it as an ‘exclusive’ if need be seeing as it hadn’t charted yet. Oh well, maybe it’s for the best given that we won’t see the full performance episode due to the Puff Daddy/P Diddy issue – a minute and a half is better than nothing at all as it’s a great track.

The third single from their eponymously titled fifth studio album, it tends to get overlooked when lined up against the No 1 that was “Beetlebum” and the memorable ‘woo-hoo’ of “Song 2” but it’s a good track in its own right. Damon Albarn has described it as the first ever Gorillaz track and you can understand where he’s coming from. It might not have the whiplash energy of “Song 2” but it has its own irresistible momentum and a huge hook in the singalong chorus. I have a distinct memory of being in a Birmingham nightclub six months later (I was visiting my younger sister) and being slammed around the dance floor along with the rest of the ravers when the DJ played “Song 2” and “On Your Own” one after the other. I was approaching 30 at the time so I don’t know what I thought I was doing but my sister is five years younger than me so I guess she would have still been in her club going years?

“On Your Own” would debut and peak at No 5 maintaining a fine run of hit singles for the band. Check these numbers out:

1 – 5 – 7 – 5 – 1 – 2 – 5

Their album sales weren’t too shabby either. Blur would return in 1999 with a fourth consecutive No 1 album called “13”.

We encounter the same curious plugging strategy that was reserved for Blur also applied to the Pet Shop Boys whose version of “Somewhere” from West Side Story is given a 30 seconds slot to big up the fact that the full performance will be on the show not next week even but in two weeks time! Just play the whole thing now for chrissakes! The single was released three days after this TOTP so surely it would have helped build anticipation for its release?

Anyway, why were Neil and Chris putting their stamp on this Bernstein and Sondheim classic? Well, it was to promote their mini residency at the Savoy Theatre in London called Pet Shop Boys Somewhere (Ok, we get it guys). The single would also be added to a rerelease of their latest album “Bilingual”. Of course, the duo had some history with cover versions stretching back to their 1987 Christmas No 1 “Always On My Mind”. They followed that with a mash up of U2’s “Where The Streets Have No Name” and Frankie Valli’s “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” to glorious, extravagant effect in 1991 before taking on a one of the campiest of camp disco classics in “Go West” two years later. All of these had worked out pretty well to my ears (especially “Always On My Mind”) but I don’t think they quite pulled it off with “Somewhere”. Maybe, Neil doesn’t gave the vocal chops for such a towering song and attempting to turn it into a club anthem by adding a techno beat just to suit his voice isn’t the answer. Maybe the answer would have been to leave well alone. My wife loves West Side Story but can’t stand Tennant’s singing so I’m pretty sure she was not a fan of this one. Pet Shop Boys had twenty UK hit singles in the 90s of various sizes of which “Somewhere” was the eighteenth. There’s not much further to go now my wife will be pleased to hear.

They’re not hip, they’re not cool but, as Jayne Middlemiss says in her intro, “they’re top turns” and I’ve always got room for a bit of Del Amitri when the chance arises. Often criminally overlooked and undervalued, the Scottish pop rockers have a very decent back catalogue albeit that their chart positions weren’t always a standout. The band had notched up 11 UK Top 40 hits to this point in their career but none had got any higher than No 11. And yet…in an unlikely turn of events, they had managed to go Top 10 just two years earlier in the US with the surprise hit “Roll To Me”. Did it make them happy? Not likely. In true dour Scot style, they weren’t big fans of the song (despite having written and recorded it) and considered it rather a throwaway tune. No pleasing some people.

Anyway, they were back in 1997 with a new single (which hopefully they did like as it was the lead track off new album “Some Other Sucker’s Parade”) called “Not Where It’s At”. Was it a musical demonstration of self knowledge about their image? Probably not but listening back to it now, it does prick something in my mind about identity. Is it me or is there a smidgen of a whiff of XTC about this one? I may be committing an act of musical heresy but it just came to me all of a sudden. Maybe it’s the jangly guitars, I don’t know. I was so taken with the idea though that I asked ChatGPT what “Not Where It’s At” would sound like done by XTC. The answer I received was almost instantaneous but it also showed how AI is based on assumptions that don’t always hold water. In its final reckoning it seemed to me to be saying if XTC had come up with the track, it would have been…well…better which I’m not sure is fair. Maybe my question wasn’t fair so I asked ChatGPT a control question – “Who was I?” It’s answer? That I was a former TOTP presenter! AI – it’s not where it at.

Next up is a guy you don’t hear much about these days but whom, for a while back there, was going to be the next new music superstar after winning a MOBO and a BRIT. Finley Quaye came from a musical family – his Dad was jazz and blues pianist Cab Quaye whilst his Mum would take him to see sets at Ronnie Scott’s legendary jazz club in his childhood. Almost inevitably, he moved into a career in music in his early 20s and appeared, fully formed, in 1997 with his double platinum selling album “Maverick A Strike” and a clutch of hit singles the first of which was “Sunday Shining”, a Bob Marley track from his 1978 album “Kaya”. It’s a radically different version though blending the reggae of the original with an accessible 90s soul sound that carried itself with an air of knowing conviction – or maybe that was the super confident Finley himself?

Talking of which, as with Beck, the Beastie Boys and Sonic Youth to name a few, just about all the cool kids that I worked with at Our Price loved this guy. Given this statement, it is of no surprise that my eternally ever cooler than me wife had his album and I think she caught him live as well. Can’t remember what she thought of him but at least he turned up which he failed to do whilst playing Hull (where I now live) in 2022 and, as I understand it, failed to rock up at the venue with paying customers already inside. Mind you, he has form in that area. He was booted off stage in 2015 after just 30 minutes of a gig by the promoter of a venue in Gloucestershire for being shambolically awful. Bloody mavericks! I’d strike them off.

New show director Chris Cowey is still tinkering with the format and this week has turned his attention to the chart rundown. Having already dispensed with a full run through of the Top 40 in favour of just the 20 best selling singles that week, he’s now tacked it on to the Top 10 countdown and it’s voiced by host Jayne Middlemiss. There’s no run up to this – we’re just straight into it after Finley Quaye’s performance. It’s all a bit jarring. Anyway, Hanson are still at No 1 with “MMMBop” but it’s the last of their three weeks at the top. It’s an unusual title for a song so what’s it all about? According to band member Zac Hanson in an interview with the Songfacts website in 2004, it’s about holding on to the things in life that matter and that MMMBop represents “a frame of time or the futility of life”. Mmm…(Bop). Whatever. I do recall a lady coming into the Our Price where I worked at the time to buy the single for her granddaughter and she was pretty sure that she had asked for the right thing at the counter but wanted to double check and so asked again what it was called. My colleague Jim who was serving her said, rather understandably, “It’s called MMMBop” and we both looked at each other and couldn’t help but laugh at the oddness of him saying those words out loud*.

*I should probably be absolutely clear that we were laughing at the song title not the lady buying it!

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Lisa StansfieldNever, Never Gonna Give You UpNope
2SupergrassSun Hits The SkyNegative
3Eternal featuring Bebe WinansI Wanna Be The Only OneYes but for my wife
4The CharlatansHow HighNo but I had a Best Of with it on
5Michael JacksonHIStory/GhostsNah
6BlurOn Your OwnNo but I had the album
7Pet Shop BoysSomewhereNo
8Del AmitriNot Where It’s AtSee 4 above
9Finley QuayeSunday ShiningNo but my wife had the album
10HansonMMMBopYes but for my six year old goddaughter

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/m0028nyj/top-of-the-pops-20061997?seriesId=unsliced