Five

TOTP 27 NOV 1998

Posted on by 80stastic

After featuring nine songs in the last TOTP, we’re down to seven this time though six of them are new to charts (sort of). Our host is Jayne Middlemiss and we start with that ‘start of’ hit which is from Steps. The reason for it’s unclear categorisation is that whilst “Heartbeat” hasn’t been on the show previously, it wasn’t actually a new chart hit being the other track to their double A-side single alongside their cover of “Tragedy” which we saw on the previous programme. Now, I said in the last post that I didn’t think that I’d ever heard “Heartbeat” before such was the ubiquity of “Tragedy” and I stand by that statement having listened to it today. There’s no bells ringing (even though it’s Christmas time) and I’m rather glad there aren’t as it’s a sickly, saccharine pop ballad that cloys but leaves no cultural nor sonic sustenance whatsoever. It’s literally like a musical form of candy floss. Surely punters weren’t buying the single for this track but purely for “Tragedy”?

“Cor! It’s the Corrs!” or so Jayne Middlemiss in her intro would have us believe that’s what the male population would be saying at this point. Bit sexist that isn’t it Jayne? Well, it was the time of lad culture and Jayne herself had spent time as a glamour model early in her career so maybe all that informed her comments. Or maybe she was just reading the lines written in a script (presumably by a man). Let’s not tie ourselves up in knots about all that. On with the music and “So Young” was the third hit on the trot for The Corrs this year. Written by violinist Sharon about her parents and the notion that no matter how old they got, they seemed to her to be forever young in spirit and outlook. All this talk of ageing and youth got me thinking about who are the eldest and youngest Corrs and the order of the ages in the middle. So how about a festive game of ‘Guess the age of the Corrs’? I’ll start. I’m going:

  • Jim – eldest
  • Sharon
  • Andrea
  • Caroline – youngest

How did I do?

*checks Wikipedia*

Ooh! Almost! These are their actual ages:

  • Jim – 61
  • Sharon – 55
  • Caroline – 52
  • Andrea – 51

This, of course, means that even “the beautiful Corrs” (© Ant and Dec) are all now in their 50s.* Time waits for no man…or woman.

*Before you all accuse me of ageism and misogyny, I’m sure they are all still beautiful and absolutely agree that age should have no bearing on perceptions of attractiveness. I was trying to make a point about the passing of youth and how time marches on but I’m regretting saying any of it now. Let’s move on quickly…

…to the Vengaboys! NOOO!!! We can’t have reached that time already. 1998 you really have been a pile of steaming shite and this is the little twist on the turd after it’s been curled out. Too graphic? I care not a jot when it comes to this lot. Which despicable people were responsible for this utter crapola? I’ll tell you who – a couple of Dutch producers who went by the aliases Danski (real name Dennis van den Driesschen) and Delmundo (Wessel Dietrich van Diepen) who threw (according to the official Vengaboys website) impromptu and illegal beach parties from their worn out school bus in the early 90s. Deciding to grow their operation, they recruited some singers and dancers to spice up their DJ sets and then took it a massive step further by deciding to form a record label and produce records. With that concept established, the task of fronting said records would fall to those dancers and singers they had already recruited. After a couple of minor hits in their own country, they went truly international with the release of “Up & Down” which was a Top 10 hit all around Europe and topped the US Dance Club Play chart.

This whole thing has given me some strong 2 Unlimited vibes. The Dutch duo began their run of hits with the track “Get Ready For This”, the single edit of which was essentially an instrumental with the occasional shout out thrown in which many (me included) thought would make them one hit wonders. They made mugs of us though by proceeding to have a run of 14 Top 40 singles including that No 1. Similarly, the Vengaboys, for all the world, looked like being a one-off, almost novelty act with “Up & Down” the lyrics of which consisted of the words ‘up’, ‘and’, ‘down’, and ‘woo!’. Just like 2 Unlimited though, they would follow it with a string of hit singles (including two No 1s) between 1998 and 2001. All of which means we’ve only just scratched the surface of the crust of the Vengaboys planet of which we will all become inhabitants (willing or not) until the end of the 90s.

Ah that explains it! Here’s @TOTPFacts with the reason why there’s only seven songs on this repeat:

Moving on very quickly we find Sash! with yet another hit in “Move Mania”. This was the trio’s* sixth consecutive UK hit but the first not to debut at either No 2 or No 3 when it made its chart entry at No 8.

*Yes, Jayne Middlemiss, Sash was a three man production team not a single person and certainly not an “international man of mystery” as you describe them in your intro.

In their continual conveyer belt of guest vocalists, for this release they have teamed up with Shannon who had a couple of hits in the mid 80s notably with “Let The Music Play” though she also featured on Todd Terry’s 1997 Top 20 hit “It’s Over Love”. Maybe it’s the Shannon effect but “Move Mania” sounds very retro to me by which I mean retro even in 1998. It’s all very frantic, frenetic and furious – dare I say like an 80s Hi-NRG track? Maybe I’m reaching a bit there but it didn’t have the same feel as some of the other Sash! hits to this point. Although the hits certainly didn’t dry up after this slight downturn in chart fortunes for “Move Mania”, they didn’t sustain at that previous high level either with only one of their subsequent six UK entries making it to No 2, the mention of which allows me to trot out this well worn fact about Sash! – they remain the act with the most No 2 hits (five) without ever having a No 1. In the dark times that we currently live in, this bit of pop trivia somehow gives me the slightest slither of hope for the world.

And that slither of hope is extinguished immediately by this next hit. Not another Latin flavoured dance track! How many times have we seen this sort of thing during these late 90s TOTP repeats? Here’s just a few I can think of:

  • Dario G – “Carnaval De Paris”
  • Echobeatz – “Mas Que Nada”
  • Ricky Martin – “(Un Dos Tres) Maria”
  • Bellini – “Samba De Janeiro”

That’s was surely more than enough of that kind of thing no? No, it wasn’t apparently as here were Ruff Driverz and their flamenco inspired track “Dreaming”. Officially, this was credited as being ‘Ruff Driverz Presents Arrola’ who was the vocalist who has worked with loads of dance acts (sometimes under her real name of Katherine Ellis) including 4-2 The Floor, Eruption and Utah Saints amongst many others. Similar to Sash! and the Vengaboys earlier, the people behind the hit were a DJ/Production team who in this case consisted of Brad Carter and Chris Brown whom for some reason thought that it what the charts needed, as Christmas approached mind, was a flamenco themed hit that surely would have been more suited to a Summer release. As ever though, what did I know as it debuted at No 10 becoming, in the process, the seventh new hit to chart inside the Top 10 that week. What a time to be alive!

After coming up with a true banger with their last single “Everybody Get Up”, Five have resorted to the usual marketing trick of releasing a slushy ballad just in time for Christmas. “Until The Time Is Through” is almost mechanical in its construction, adhering to the accepted boy band blueprint at every turn. Perhaps in an attempt to mix things up a bit, they’ve settled on a rather odd performance for this TOTP appearance. As Jayne Middlemiss says in her intro, the vocals on this one are handled by Richie and Scott presumably because it was their turn with Abz and J having taken the lead on rapping duties on “Everybody Get Up” – poor old Sean never seems to get a go in the spotlight.

Anyway, with those two situated at the front of the stage, the other three are sat right at the back on chairs. I’m sure it sounded like a good idea on paper but the optics of it look a bit odd. They never move once from their seated position which created the impression that they’re rather disinterested in what was happening in front of them. There’s something a bit ‘three wise monkeys’ about them with Abz sat with his chair back to front, J with it the right way around and Sean with his angled to one side. Was that deliberate? You know what would have livened things up? If they’d played a game of musical chairs whilst performing. That would have been a first and created a talking point! As it is, the only talking that happens is right at the very end when J turns to Sean and appears to say something to him. I wonder what he said? “Thank God that’s over”? “I could have sung that better than those two”? “Last one to the BBC bar gets the drinks in”?

It’s a fifth week at the top for Cher and “Believe”. What else is there to say about this one? I’ve covered its chart and sales data, the auto tuned vocals, its awards…what else is there? OK, how about who wrote it? Originally it was a demo worked up by Brian Higgins in 1990 who would gain fame via his Xenomania production team who wrote hits for Sugababes, S Club 7, Girls Aloud and The Saturdays. Higgins couldn’t get any interest in the track (apparently Saint Etienne were one of the artists offered it who turned it down) but he submitted it to Warners chairman Rob Dickins after a chance meeting. Dickins thought it was terrible but had a great chorus and so he employed two more songwriters (Steve Torch and Paul Barry) to work on it. Cher herself added some lyrics but did not get a writing credit though three other names did alongside Higgins, Torch and Barry. Cher admitted in 2023 that she regretted not asking for a songwriter’s credit. With worldwide sales of 11 million, I’m not surprised.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1StepsHeartbeat / TragedyNo
2The CorrsSo YoungNope
3VengaboysUp & DownNOOOO!
4Sash! / ShannonMove ManiaI did not
5Ruff DriverzDreamingNah
6Five Until The Time Is ThroughNever
7Cher BelieveNegative

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/m002nd35/top-of-the-pops-27111998

TOTP 11 SEP 1998

Posted on by 80stastic

In the 1997 ‘epilogue’post, I hinted that my mental health had taken a dip that year and that in 1998 it would turn into a full blown crisis. I think the BBC4 TOTP repeats schedule has arrived at the beginning of that time. I was working as the Assistant Manager of the Stockport branch of Our Price where I had been for three and a half years but our manager, whom I’d had a good working relationship with, had recently been transferred to another branch. I think she requested a move as she’d had enough of Stockport after a year – it was a big unit and took a lot of managing and could be quite stressful at times. We also had a HMV down the road so we had a lot of pressure on us to generate decent sales under stiff competition. I didn’t blame her for having had enough and she duly transferred to a smaller store with a staff of just four and get this, their names were Lisa, Lisa, Lisa and Elisa!

Anyway, that meant my store needed a new manager and, having done that role temporarily the year before, I wasn’t about to put my hat in the ring again. The new manager appointed was somebody I’d worked with before much earlier in my time at Our Price so I felt reassured that it was someone I already knew and had got on with OK. It turned out that he had changed quite a bit in the intervening years and was much more hard nosed and ruthless in his dealings with people. I won’t give his name as that would be unfair but some ex-colleagues who may be reading this can probably guess his identity. Suffice to say things went badly wrong very quickly and never recovered. Our relationship was a train wreck. We had totally opposite views on how to treat people and his approach to me was “you go home when the job is done” rather than by what time the clock says. Going to work became a daunting task progressing to being something to actually be worried about. In a couple of months, I’d reached breaking point and one morning I just couldn’t get out of our flat to go to work and kept pacing around it, over breathing and basically having a panic attack. It led to me being off work for five weeks and being transferred to a smaller store I had worked at previously. I didn’t go back to Stockport for 18 years after that morning, long after I’d left record retail behind. I’m not saying that the manger was solely the reason for my mental health issues; it was probably an accumulation of a lot of things but he was certainly a catalyst. Given all that, I’m guessing I might not like too many of the songs in the charts at this time as they could have negative associations linked to them? Let’s see…

How wrong could I be as we start with a banger from a perhaps unexpected source. “Everybody Get Up” is, for me, easily the best thing Five ever did (even if the pickings are slim). Famously based around samples from “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll”, that track was originally released by The Arrows in the 70s but is better known for the version by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts from 1982. Whoever in the Five camp came up with the idea to plunder that song was a genius with the boy band’s track brimming with bravado and swagger and making use of the rapping skills of J and Abz to full effect. I’m not entirely sure what the lyrics are all about but there’s a definite nod to a number of film titles including Lost Boys, Armageddon, The Fifth Element and Hound of the Baskervilles. There also some rather left field name checks for Fujian wrestler Jimmy ‘Superfly’ Snuka and American mafioso and crime boss John Gotti. Actually, scrap the left field description of Gotti as Wikipedia tells me that he has a whole host of cultural references both pre and post the Five single including in tracks by House Of Pain, Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z and the hit single “King Of New York” by Fun Lovin’ Criminals. Who knew? Clearly not me. Something else I didn’t know until now is that Abz doesn’t rap the line “I’m lyrically black” which I’d always misheard and thought was a strange thing to say but “I’m lyrically blessed” which does make more sense.

A proper one hit wonder next (in the UK at least) but in the case of Jennifer Paige, her song was enduring enough to still be played on daytime radio to this day. “Crush” was a huge international hit – check out its numbers:

  • No 1 in three countries – Australia, Canada and New Zealand
  • Four weeks at No 3 in the US selling 700,000 copies
  • No 4 in the UK and France going gold in both territories

You could hear why it had all that success. A very accessible sound with broad mainstream appeal, confident vocal delivery and that winning hook of the little breathy sigh that punctuates the chorus. All very well constructed and yet…I didn’t like it much. I possibly should have but it didn’t grab me – competent but not commanding. Jennifer couldn’t build on the success of “Crush” much like those who had come before her including Alannah Myles, Paula Cole, Meredith Brooks, Billie Myers and Donna Lewis. After losing both her parents within two weeks of each other, Paige retreated into herself and lost her love of performing, choosing instead to write for others but she did release a crowd funded album in 2016. Incidentally, her full name is Jennifer Paige Scoggins and her surname was presumably considered an obstacle to promotion by her record company and so dropped from her stage name. Fast forward three decades and we seem a little more forgiving off such monikers…

Sometimes I forget when reviewing these TOTP repeats that they were different times when they were recorded and broadcast and things that would raise an eyebrow if not outrage today, were seen as perfectly acceptable back then. For example, I don’t think I would have been staring at the TV, mouth gaping at tonight’s host Jamie Theakston saying “More top transatlantic totty now” in his segue between Jennifer Paige and the next artist Sheryl Crow but I can’t imagine someone on the BBC saying the phrase ‘top totty’ nowadays – bias issues and ‘errors of judgement’ when it comes to editing yes but people saying “top totty”? I doubt it…unless it was Boris Johnson of course.

Anyway, Sheryl Crow. She’s on the show for a second time to promote her latest single “My Favourite Mistake” which has entered the charts at No 9 after her pre-release TOTP performance the other week. Heavily rumoured to be about her ex-Eric Clapton (which Crow denies), in an interview on the Songfacts website with her writing partner Jeff Trott, he speculated that marriage between the two had been on the cards but that their relationship didn’t last as Clapton would have wanted a very traditional marriage with Sheryl in a housewife role which she was clearly never going to agree to. Clapton is well known for holding some dodgy views. In 1976 during a concert in Birmingham, he voiced vile, racist comments, endorsing politician Enoch Powell and using the National Front slogan ‘Keep Britain White’. Using the phrase ‘top totty’ seems pretty small fry compared to that.

Just as with Boyzone on the previous show, last week’s No 1 is getting a repeat despite dropping down the charts and for similar reasons – they had an album coming out on the Monday after this TOTP aired. I’m not convinced that’s a valid reason but then I guess that’s down to record company marketing and promotion strategies. The lucky recipients of this additional exposure are Manic Street Preachers and their single “If You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be Next” which was the lead single from that aforementioned album “This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours”. My main memory of that album wasn’t that it was the band’s first chart topper nor that it produced four hit singles but that it had a part in getting me chucked out of a record shop. Let me explain. It wasn’t the store I worked in but a rival one. Remember I said we had an HMV just down the road from us? Well, it wasn’t them either. No, it was another retailer who I believe were called Music Zone. I think that the chain had began in Stockport as a one shop operation but had expanded with stores in other town centres. Indeed, they bought all of MVC’s failing stores in 2005 to become a 104 unit empire. I’m not sure if the Music Zone in Stockport in 1998 was the original shop or not (somebody reading this might be able to confirm) but I recall that you had to climb a set of stairs to get into the shop and that they also sold a load of miscellaneous items like badges as well.

Anyway, original shop or not, this store had relaunched in Stockport around 1998 and it had come to our attention at Our Price that they were knocking out some chart CDs for around £9.99 and severely undercutting us in the process. During an Area Manager visit, the topic was discussed and a visit to Music Zone was proposed to see what was going on. Myself, the Area Manager and the store manager (yes, that one) donned our coats and went for a snoop, trying not to look too conspicuous. It turned out that Music Zone had somehow got their hands on some cheap imports of certain chart titles of which the newly released Manics album was one. The Area Manager and our store manager took a copy of it to the counter and demanded to know who was supplying them with this stock at which point the Music Zone manager told us to leave his store and called for security to make sure we left the premises. And that’s the story of how the Manic Street Preachers helped to get me thrown out of a record shop.

Up to this point, if the average punter in the street had been asked what was Aerosmith’s biggest hit, I’m guessing they might have gone for “Dude (Looks Like A Lady)” or their collaboration with Run-D.M.C. on “Walk This Way” or perhaps their debut 1973 hit “Dream On” but all three of those hits were about to be blown out of the water by a song that they didn’t write themselves. Penned by the prolific and legendary songwriter Diane Warren, “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing” was the theme song to the sci-fi film Armageddon starring Bruce Willis, Liv Tyler and Ben Affleck. Warren originally envisioned it being sung by someone like Celine Dion who had, of course, already one huge ballad from a movie to her name. Another artist in the frame was U2 who again had their own track record when it came to soundtrack songs having contributed “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me” to the Batman Forever movie. However, once Steven Tyler’s daughter Liv was cast in the film, attention turned towards Aerosmith.

Although, their late 80s/early 90s comeback had re-established them as a rock super power, by 1998, their fortunes, if not waning, were stalled rather by Tyler’s ACL injury which forced the band off the road in the April. With momentum lost, they needed a commercial boost once Tyler returned and boy did they get it with “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing”. No 1 around the world including America where it topped the charts for four weeks, it is easily their biggest selling hit ever. A huge, strings drenched ballad, it even had what sounded like an overture at its beginning just to up the ante and leave the listener in no doubt about the scale of what was coming. I think they pull it off admirably too. Would U2 have done it better? No, I think it would have been different but not better. As for Celine Dion, I’m guessing it would have been unlistenable (for me) in her hands/voice. As for the film, I didn’t catch it at the cinema and I don’t think I’ve seen it all the way through from start to finish but have seen the ending so I’m unlikely to seek it out for a full viewing though anything with Steve Buscemi in it is usually with doing so.

Here’s a hit the lyrics of which include some pretty high brow literary references and yet there seems to be a disparity between them and the name of the band performing the song. Shakespeare, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and…erm…Hole. Just me? OK then. How about the title of the song itself and those heavyweight literary names? “Celebrity Skin” was also the name of a pornographic magazine specialising in celebrity nudity. Still me that finds it a bit jarring? The lead single and title track from their third studio album, this was seen as a definitive move towards a more commercial sound. It’s still blistering, in your face indie rock but perhaps the contribution of Smashing Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan (including the guitar riffs) had an effect. It would give the band their second biggest hit in the UK. Right, my last attempt to highlight the incongruity of those literary references and the song – it soundtracks the ‘tongue twizzler’ scene in American Pie. Gulp!

That last bit got a bit unintentionally overly sexual but I’m afraid that the theme continues with the new No 1 which is “Booty Call” by All Saints. A third consecutive chart topper for the group, we all know what that the title refers to. Then there’s the fact that Melanie Blatt is clearly pregnant and unless it was an immaculate conception then she’d clearly had the birds and the bees chat. I didn’t like this one much and thought it easily the weakest hit they’d had so far. It was just a groove rather than a song and they seemed to be trying too hard to be En Vogue rather than All Saints. I did appreciate the jerky, slow motion dance moves the group were doing in this performance – was this for the benefit of Melanie whose movements were understandably restricted?

A few years ago, I went on a work colleague’s stag do in Leeds. I didn’t know that many people there but it was a good night anyway. Why am I telling you this? Because it transpired the next morning that one of the party had actually made a booty call in the early hours of the morning. It was quite the revelation not the least because it made me realise that a booty call was actually a thing that real people do and not a culturally concocted myth. I’m so naive.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1FiveEverybody Get UpLike it as I did, I couldn’t bring myself to buy a single by Five. I’m a music snob as well as naive
2Jennifer PaigeCrushI did not
3Sheryl CrowMy Favourite MistakeNah
4Manic Street PreachersIf You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be NextNo
5AerosmithI Don’t Want To Miss A ThingLike Armageddon, I gave it a miss
6Hole Celebrity SkinNope
7All SaintsBooty CallNo but I think my wife and the 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/m002lj3r/top-of-the-pops-11091998

TOTP 31 JUL 1998

Posted on by 80stastic

We’re still stuck in the Summer of 1998 here at TOTP Rewind but we’re not the only ones who are stuck as TOTP executive producer Chris Cowey is stuck in a rut of accommodating hits that have been on at least twice before within the show’s running order. I know I keep banging on about this but it seems so extreme and unnecessary. Look at the opening act in this episode for example. This was the seventh week on the chart for “Got The Feelin’” by Five and after debuting at No 3, most had seen the single descending the chart. However, in its fifth week, it had arrested that trend by climbing one place from No 14 to No 13 and they were immediately back on the show! Its next chart position saw it fall to No 20 but a two place climb to No 18 seven days later and slam dunk! – back on the show again! Patently ridiculous. We don’t even get to see a different studio performance nor the official video as it’s always just that very first appearance with the football shirts re-shown. A regular reader to this blog sent me a message asking me if I thought that, in the scenario of TOTP still being on TV in October 2025 and Cowey still being executive producer, would he still be showing “Got The Feelin’”? That’s certainly the feelin’ I’ve got.

Here’s another hit that we’ve seen twice before already but at least this one is still selling well, holding at No 3 and having spent its entire chart life inside the Top 5 to this point. We did only see it on the previous show though and again, it’s just a repeat of the last appearance for “Ghetto Superstar (That Is What You Are)” by Pras Michel featuring Ol’ Dirty Bastard and introducing Mýa. By the way, our host is Jayne Middlemiss again who is making up for lost time by making consecutive appearances after having gone missing for a month. They’re doing that super imposing thing again that they did recently with Jamie Theakston by attempting to make Jayne look like she’s in the studio with Pras et al but which just makes the whole thing look cheap and nasty. Now, is it fair to describe “Ghetto Superstar” with those same words? Is it a bit lowest common denominator? A bit dumb-downed? A bit lowbrow? Or am I being a musical snob? I can’t decide so I suppose it’s unfair to expect anyone else to know. What I do know is that it was the 9th best selling single in the UK in 1998 which must mean something mustn’t it?

Right, who’s this? Lovestation? Don’t remember them at all. Nothing to do with the high numbers on the TV guide on your remote (a direction which I won’t be pursuing further), they are a UK garage outfit who had a couple of hits most notably with this cover of “Teardrops” by Womack And Womack. Despite its almost universally rapturous legacy, I was never that fond of the 1988 original and always found it quite dull so a housed-up version for the late 90s was never going to win me over. However, I have to say this is exceptionally drab. It sounds so tinny next to the original, almost as if it’s the demo version that was released by mistake. And what is with the two over enthusiastic dancers in this performance who movements and steps seem wildly incongruous to the actual song? Lovestation seemed to only have about three songs that they kept on releasing and re-releasing according to their discography. “Teardrops” appears three times, a track called “Love Come Rescue Me” was released thrice and “Shine On Me” had a hat-trick of releases as well. Funnily enough, they did have three Top 40 hits though two were courtesy of “Teardrops” and another wasn’t either of the other songs mentioned.

The Supernaturals are back with the lead single from their second album “A Tune A Day” called “I Wasn’t Built To Get Up”. It was also their last Top 40 entry when it peaked at No 25 meaning that all five of their hits registered between Nos 38 and 23. That sounds fairly modest but a numbers approach maybe doesn’t tell the whole story as The Supernaturals were once the darlings of the music press with their debut album “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore” receiving very positive reviews whilst their song “Smile” was nominated for an Ivor Novello Award. As is the way of the press though, it wasn’t long before they were tearing the band down describing them as ‘ordinary’, ‘unambitious’ and generally lambasting them for not realising that the Britpop sound was dead in the water. One review noted of their “A Tune A Day” album that if you:

“crossed a hint of Blur’s mid 90s upbeat output with a Scottish-flavoured twist of The Beach Boys and their sunny melodies, you’d probably end up with something a bit like The Supernaturals”

“REWIND: Revisiting the Best of July 1998 + Playlist | XS Noize | Online Music Magazine”

Hmm. Then there’s @TOTPFacts who said on X rather harshly of this TOTP performance:

Ouch. Both of these got me thinking about my own comparisons and I came up with The Supernaturals being the missing link between Ash and Scouting For Girls and that this song title was like a mix of “Can’t Get Out Of Bed” by The Charlatans and “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times” by Brian Wilson. Yeah, I’m not sure any of the above is helpful. Writing about music never really does anyone justice. As Frank Zappa famously said, “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture”.

Wh-wh-what?! Who was Charli Baltimore and why was she in our charts and on our TV screens? Well, she was actually Tiffany Lane, a name which sounds like one of Charlie’s Angels but was deemed not exciting enough for launching a music career so Tiffany stole the name of the character played by Geena Davis in The Long Kiss Goodnight, a film that was a big VHS rental hit back in the day as I recall. Charli was also the partner of legendary rapper the Notorious B.I.G. at the time of his death and it was he that had encouraged Charli in her rap music ambitions. I have to be honest and say I wish he hadn’t bothered because her debut single “Money” was just a horrible noise, a monotonous and relentless horrible noise. Look, I’m no rap expert so maybe her ‘flow’ was magnificent but that doesn’t make it any more enjoyable or even listenable. And why did so many rap records back in the day all feature lines about ‘waving your arms in the air like you just don’t care’ or variations of it?! Oh I can’t be arsed to linger any longer on this one. I’d rather listen to Charli XCX and I have no idea what she sounds like at all.

One of the bands of 1998 now as Catatonia release a fourth single from their No 1 album “International Velvet”. I’m not sure I remember “Strange Glue” – it certainly didn’t leave the same impression that “Mulder And Scully” or “Road Rage” did which have lasted nigh on three decades inside my brain. Not that it’s not a good song now that I’ve re-listened to it. It’s got a strong melody and ambitions to be epic sounding but it just doesn’t seem like an obvious choice for a single. It sounds like an album closing track (which it nearly was save for the solo piano accompanied and 2:22 long “My Selfish Gene”) rather than the surefire airplay hit that its predecessors were. Maybe it would have been wiser to go with a rerelease of nearly-flop single (it reached No 40) “I Am The Mob”? There was a fifth and final single taken from “International Velvet” in “Game On” but that really was stretching it as a peak chart position of No 33 demonstrated. Maybe I was on to something with that “I Am The Mob” idea?

In a very rap heavy show, we’re not done with the genre yet as here comes a special performance by Will Smith with a track inspired by the Grover Washington Jr. / Bill Withers song “Just The Two Of Us”. Instead of treating it as a love song between a couple though, Smith subverts the traditional narrative and makes it about the love between a father and his young son. It’s an intriguing idea and well executed with Will adding layers to the father character by informing us that things didn’t work out between him and the child’s mother and that they are separated. There’s some nice touches in the lyrics with lines such as :

“It’s a full-time job to get a good Dad, you got so much more stuff than I had”

Writers: William Salter, Will Smith, Ralph MacDonald & Bill Withers

However, it’s also dated by cultural references and practices with mentions of CD-ROMs, putting CDs in PCs and hitting your kids (“but I will test that butt when you cut outta line”). There’s also a lot of unnecessary grunting for want of a better word in this performance from Smith with multiple “Ha-ha”, “uh-uh-uh” and “whoo” noises forthcoming. Overall though, it’s a decent attempt to do something different within a rap context with the father trying to be a good role model for his young son. Coincidentally or perhaps intentionally, the single’s release was in sync with the fact that Smith had become a father for the first time in real life following the birth of his son Jaden.

It’s yet another new No 1 with the Spice Girls at the summit with “Viva Forever”. Given everything that had transpired within the group over the last two months, I have to say I was surprised that they’d managed to pull this latest chart topper off. There was a school of thought that said that after the departure of Geri Halliwell from the line up, the group might implode from the fracture and the end might be nigh but it seemed that the public were happy to accept a four piece Spice Girls just as they had accepted a Robbie Williams-less Take That. It was an especially impressive return given that their last single “Stop” had been their first in eight releases not to go to No 1 so the doom merchants would have jumped on “Viva Forever” falling similarly short.

We first saw the group performing the track on TOTP way back on the 5th June edition in the aftermath of Halliwell’s statement that she had left when executive producer Chris Cowey realised what he had on his hands with the footage including all five members. This performance saw the now slimmed down group on tour in America meaning that there was a definite decision by someone (be it Cowey, the label, management or the Spice Girls themselves) not to show the stop motion promo video featuring the group (including Geri) as fairies. Presumably the five months that it took to put it together weren’t wasted though as no doubt it featured on programmes like The Chart Show and other pop music platforms around the world.

Around this time, whilst I was working at the Our Price store in Stockport, a young man who I would now recognise as being neurodivergent, attached himself to me after I’d served him one day. His name was David and he was obsessed with the Spice Girls. He was a nice lad but took quite a lot of time serving when he came in as he would want to talk about the Spice Girls continuously. He would always ask for me which took me away from whatever I was doing which wasn’t necessarily convenient but I would always try and make the time for him if I could. When I transferred to the Altrincham branch in 1999, he followed me over there even though it was out of his way and involved multiple trips on public transport. The day that “Viva Forever” was released, we were playing it in the store just as David came in and he wondered around the shop in a sort of dream, lost in his own little world. I often think of that moment and wonder what happened to David and whether his Spice Girls obsession ever burnt itself out.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1FiveGot The Feelin’I did not
2Pras Michel featuring Ol’ Dirty Bastard and introducing MýaGhetto Superstar (That Is What You Are)Negative
3LovestationTeardropsNever
4The SupernaturalsI Wasn’t Built To Get UpNo
5Charli BaltimoreMoneyNot if you paid me
6CatatoniaStrange GlueNope
7Will SmithJust The Two Of UsNah
8Spice Girls Viva ForeverAnd no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002kkmz/top-of-the-pops-31071998

TOTP 17 JUL 1998

Posted on by 80stastic

It’s mid July 1998 and there’s two trends in evidence within the TOTP running order etiquette, one of which is possibly informing the other. The first is that, after a few records that have bucked the trend of seven days chart toppers by staying at No 1 for more than one week, we are back in a run of weekly changes to the pole position. From now until the end of the year, only four singles will manage more than one week at the top. This sequence seemed to inform the TOTP appearance policy because, as demonstrated in this show, we would get the previous week’s No 1 given another slot despite no longer being the country’s most bought single.

I’ve commented on this before making a case for both sides of the argument and my take on it remains confused. On the one hand, it was jarring that a show whose format historically was to showcase the records making the most strides in the Top 40 would be featuring singles whose sales had, if not dropped, been overtaken by other new releases. On the other, you could argue that none of this was the fault of executive producer Chris Cowey who possibly felt that he couldn’t just toss away a big hit record after just one showing because the record companies were manipulating the charts with their first week of release discount pricing. However, Cowey didn’t help himself by putting last week’s No 1 as the first act on the show the following week making a consecutive appearance segue albeit seven days apart as was the case here with Billie and her hit “Because We Want To”. Now, in my head this one stayed around the charts for ages which I suppose it did – a month inside the Top 10, two on the Top 40 altogether and yet it was constantly going down the charts. Not once did it reverse that descent as we had seen many a sustaining hit do this year. Still, a No 1 with your debut single aged just 15 was still quite the achievement. Ah yes, Billie’s age. In her first TOTP appearance, there was a lot of flesh on display what with her wearing a black singlet top. For this performance, she’s completely covered up. Do you think there had been complaints to the BBC about such a young girl wearing a top that revealed her midriff and bare shoulders? Or was it a decision made by Billie herself or her management team? Whatever the reason, it was a noticeable change of style.

And talking of changes of style…from pop song to schlock song as we get the infernal combination of Celine Dion and the Bee Gees duetting on “Immortality”. Whose idea was this?! Well, it was those dastardly Gibb brothers obviously who wrote the song for the stage musical of Saturday Night Fever and decided that Celine’s vocals were needed to complete the track. It was a terrible idea and an even worse sound though one that could easily have been predicted given the two artists involved. Don’t get me wrong, some of the Bee Gees classic catalogue is…well…classic but the 90s saw them record some desperately overwrought and whiny ballads and “Immortality” was no exception. The lyrics were vapid, rhyming ‘immortality’ with ‘eternity’ and banging on about fulfilling your destiny with the overall effect that, in keeping with its title, it seemed to go on forever. The whole thing was truly reprehensible.

Now there’s some jiggery pokery, some sleight of hand going on here as host Jamie Theakston was clearly superimposed over the Celine Dion/Bee Gees performance for his intro, as if Chris Cowey was trying to convince the watching TV audience that he was actually there but he obviously wasn’t. What was all that about? Couldn’t they have just done a voiceover or was there a clause in Theakston’s contract guaranteeing an agreed amount of screen time? Surely not.

Anyway, he’s definitely in the studio with the next artist (s) who is/are Pras Michel featuring Ol’ Dirty Bastard and introducing Mýa. Now there’s a lot to unpack here starting with who were all these people? Well, Pras Michel was, of course, a member of the Fugees who were on hiatus following the mega international success of their album “The Score” allowing its three members to pursue solo careers. Pras was the second of the three to have a hit under their own name when “Ghetto Superstar” made No 2 in the UK. Ol’ Dirty Bastard (or ODB as he was styled for pre-watershed audiences) was part of the Wu-Tang Clan whilst I had to double check who Mýa was as I mistakenly believed her initially to be the woman who had that hit with The Tamperer – I was wrong as that was someone called Maya not Mýa; Maya Days to be precise. No, Mýa, if her discography is anything to go by, is a recording artist with quite the track record – eight studio albums and sixty-three singles. So, how do I neither remember nor know of her? What I do know about her is that she was in a battle with Billie as to who had the most winning smile in pop. Wow!

Erm…anyway, as we all know (even Jamie Theakston did), “Ghetto Superstar” interpolates the 1983 hit “Islands In The Stream” by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers that was written by the aforementioned Bee Gees. In my 80s TOTP blog, when reviewing that hit, I said it might as well have been called “Islands In The Mainstream” so middle-of-the-road was it. Turns out I was wrong about that as well as it was identified as the template for a hit by a member of one of the coolest acts of the decade and a man whose chosen professional name included an actual swear word. It shouldn’t work really but it did becoming the ninth best selling single of 1998 in the UK. Mind, we did have a track record for being susceptible to this sort of thing – “Gangsta’s Paradise” by Coolio springs to mind.

My abiding memory of this song though involves a bus driver. Stay with me. I was living in Manchester when it was a hit and one Sunday, my wife and I were heading into town to do something (can’t remember what) so we hopped on a bus to save our legs. Once onboard, we quickly realised that this wasn’t your standard bus. The driver wasn’t wearing a uniform and he didn’t have a machine to issue passengers with any kind of ticket. He also didn’t seem to know what prices he should be charging but rather was making it up as he went/drove along. Who was this guy and how had he got hold of a bus? Had he hired one for the day? Had he stolen it? The clincher though that this wasn’t a regular bus service was that he had music blaring out which he was singing along to. The song that was playing when we boarded? Yep, “Ghetto Superstar”.

It’s Eagle-Eye Cherry again but his third consecutive appearance on the show can be justified I guess as it’s three weeks on the spin at No 6 for “Save Tonight”. This was a remarkably hardy hit spending six weeks inside the Top 10 and just under three months on the Top 40. That’s the power of a very radio friendly single, I guess.

In an attempt to distinguish this performance from his previous two, Eagle-Eye does an acoustic version of the track alongside two other guitarists and two blokes on either end of the line, one adding backing vocals and the other playing the most vigorous and energetic tambourine I think I’ve ever seen. It all hangs together pretty well though and makes for a memorable performance. Maybe Chris Cowey should have looked into doing more of these kind of slots but then not every single on the show would have lent itself to such a version so well. An acoustic “Ghetto Superstar” anyone? I think this guy proves my point..

Another two songs we’ve seen on the show before already now beginning with “Got The Feelin’” by Five. Whilst I could make a case for Eagle-Eye Cherry’s repeated appearances, this was preposterous. After debuting at No 3, this single had slipped every week since to No 5 then No 8 and eventually No 14. However, a rise of a solitary place to No 13 in week five on the charts was enough reason for Chris Cowey to show their initial performance (the one with the football shirts) again. However, according to official charts.com, “Got The Feelin’” is Five’s second biggest selling single ever, shifting half a million copies and clocking up 12 million streams and counting in the UK so does that add some credibility to Cowey’s decision? Oh I don’t know anymore!

Hell’s teeth! Cowey’s done it again with the very next song only this one is worse! I know I’m banging on about this but why are we watching Mousse T featuring Hot N’ Juicy when they are at No 11 in the charts with “Horny” having dropped a place from last week’s No 10? And what on earth is going on with those face-to-face graphics on either side of the screen?! It’s the same technology used to impose Jamie Theakston’s fizzog against a backdrop of the previously shown performance clip but this time features the women from Hot N’ Juicy. Why? Why do that? It looks cheap and nasty and adds very little in terms of impact. Make it make sense somebody. Please!!

No confusion as to why this next hit is on the show – crashing into the charts at No 9 are Garbage with the second single from their sophomore album “Version 2.0” called “I Think I’m Paranoid”. Now this is a tune! A deceptively sparse intro and simplistic verse leads immediately into a crunching power chord and Shirley Manson snarling the song title before coming back with an unexpected second part to the chorus with the “bend me, break me” refrain which would get them into trouble copyright wise with music publisher Helios Music Corporation. They claimed it infringed upon significant elements of the Scott English and Larry Weiss composition “Bend Me, Shape Me” which had been a hit for The American Breed in the US and Amen Corner in the UK. Yes, the words in that phrase are the same but there’s not much else to link the two songs to my ears. As for the performance here, you can’t take your eyes off Shirley who looks fantastic throughout in that polka dot dress. Erm…(again)… time to move on I think…

It’s another new No 1 that will only spend a solitary week at the top. Another Level would never return to the chart summit but they scaled it with “Freak Me”, a cover of an American No 1 by Silk from 1993 which never even cracked the UK Top 40 so it was possible to pass it off as their own song. Maybe. Anyway, it’s pure filth with lyrics about whipped cream and licking their baby up and down! Seriously though, I’m surprised the ‘whipped cream’ line got past the BBC sensors especially as there was a toned down version that the band performed on the promo video and for TV appearances though clearly not this one. I could never see (or hear) the appeal of this lot but judging by the screams from the studio audience, they were hot property for a while. I always get Dane Bowers from the band confused with Anthony Costa from similarly unremarkable outfit Blue. Anybody else have that problem?

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1BillieBecause We Want ToNo
2Celine Dion / Bee Gees ImmortalityHeavens no!
3Pras Michel featuring Ol’ Dirty Bastard and introducing MýaGhetto SuperstarNope
4Eagle-Eye CherrySave TonightNo but my wife had his album
5FiveGot The Feelin’Nah
6Mousse T featuring Hot N’ JuicyHornyI did not
7GarbageI Think I’m ParanoidGreat track but no
8Another LevelFreak MeNO!

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/m002k7yz/top-of-the-pops-17071998?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 19 JUN 1998

Posted on by 80stastic

We’re still in World Cup mode here at TOTP Rewind. England have started their campaign off with a straightforward 2-0 win against Tunisia but its host nation France who look like the team to beat after winning their opening two games 3-0 and 4-0. In the singles chart, there was a much tighter duel with two football songs squaring up to duke it out for the No 1 slot but we’ll get to that.

Jayne Middlemiss is our host and we begin with Five who were fast establishing themselves as not just another here-today-gone-tomorrow boy band by notching up their third hit and biggest to this point with “Got The Feelin’”. However, after attempting to bend the perceived notion of what a 90s boy band should sound like on their first two singles which displayed their confident swagger and a funky backbone, their third effort seemed to resort to a more accepted pop sound as if they’d dumb themselves down. Yes, there’s some pretty slick rapping on it courtesy of J and Abz (I know there names because they’re on the back of the football shirts they’ve donned for this performance – topical lads) but the chanted “Nah na na na ner na na” chorus is especially weak and lowest common denominator. You could wave your hands in the air to it though (presumably like you just didn’t care) so maybe that was the whole point? As much as I thought this single was not up too much, their next release – the Joan Jett sampling “Everybody Wants Get Up” – was truly magnificent.

Jayne Middlemiss makes a reference to Glastonbury in her intro to the next act as they would be appearing at the upcoming festival that year. Twenty-seven years later they would be at Glastonbury again in the surprise special guest slot. We can only be talking of Pulp. In their 1998 Glastonbury appearance, they did play the song they are performing on this TOTP which was their latest single “A Little Soul”. Sadly, it didn’t make the cut in 2025. I say ‘sadly’ as I think it was a shame they didn’t perform this almost forgotten and pcertainly overlooked Pulp song. Now you could argue that this mid-paced, unspectacular tune was symptomatic of the commercial lull the band were experiencing that had been ushered in by the underperforming “This Is Hardcore” album. It sure was no “Common People” nor “Disco 2000” but why should it have been? In theory, any artist is entitled to write and record whatever style of song they wish to. Moreover, if Pulp had spent three years recording a follow up to “Different Class” that sounded exactly the same as its illustrious predecessor, surely they’d have been criticised for that as well?

“A Little Soul” is actually a beautifully crafted, wistful and considered song. Confirmation of its quality came in the form of an Ivor Novello nomination in the category of Best Song Musically and Lyrically. Written about growing up without his father who abandoned the Cocker family for Sydney when Jarvis was seven, the singer had nothing to do with him until he reached his thirties. I like the word play of the song’s title – a ‘little’ soul as in a small sized soul not a small amount of soul in its first usage but then the reverse at the song’s climax. It deserved better than its peak of No 22. Almost unbelievably, Pulp’s chart positions would be even smaller from here on in.

A truly infamous song next and I have statistical evidence to validate that claim. Des’ree would have the biggest hit of her life with the song…erm… “Life” but it was truly a double edged sword. Continuing the run of one sizeable hit from each of her studio albums – “Feel So High” from “Mind Adventures” in 1992 and “You Gotta Be” from 1994’s “I Ain’t Movin’” – “Life” was the most high profile track from 1998’s “Supernatural” album. A jaunty, upbeat track that was perfect for daytime radio and wisely released as the Summer was underway, it would debut at No 8 but then spend the next 10 weeks knocking around the Top 40 with some steadily consistent sales figures.

However, any commercial success or sonic merits are completely overshadowed by its lyrics and in particular this one:

“I don’t want to see a ghost, it’s a sight that I fear most

I’d rather have a piece of toast and watch the evening news”

Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Des’ree Weekes / Prince Sampson
Life lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

Utterly ludicrous. What was she thinking?! Written by Des’ree alongside one Prince Sampson, did they not look at each other after writing those lines down and say “Are we sure about this?”. Maybe they did but then how did they come up with the answer “yes”? And this isn’t just my opinion. In the 2007, BBC 6 Music Taxing Lyrical poll, those lines were voted the worst pop lyrics ever. Ever. “Life” had some stiff competition as well. Second in the poll was Snap!’s “serious as cancer” line from “Rhythm Is A Dancer” whilst Duran Duran’s “you’re about as easy as a nuclear war” from “Is There Something I Should Know?” was also in the running. Despite such awful rivals, I don’t think you can look past the ‘ghost-toast’ rhyming couplet. Sheesh!

Now here’s a band whose name I recall but whose back catalogue I’m not sure I’ve ever heard. How is this possible when I worked in a record shop for pretty much the whole of the 90s? I was busy working! That’s my story and I’m sticking to it! It turns out though that I quite like Silver Sun. OK, this is based on listening to just one song and a song that isn’t even theirs but you have to start somewhere I guess. “Too Much, Too Little, Too Late” was originally a hit for Johnny Mathis and Deniece Williams in 1978 which had never made much of an impression on me but this indie rock version is much more arresting. Recorded initially as a B-side as a bit of a laugh, it became the lead song on a four track EP made up entirely of cover versions. I must have missed it back in 1998 (I was working remember!) as I am bit of a sucker for this sort of thing (see also The Carpenters’ “Yesterday Once More” as covered by Redd Kross). Sadly for Silver Sun, it would prove to be their biggest ever hit despite only just squeezing into the Top 20. That lack of chart success led to them being dropped by Polydor in 1999 though they would release a further five studio albums either on independent label Invisible Hands Music or by themselves so there’s plenty of back catalogue for me to dive into if I want to hear more of the band having now discovered them. Sadly though, Silver Sun called it quits permanently in 2020 after the death from cancer of lead singer James Broad.

Dearie me. I’m glad I’d forgotten about this one. Does anybody remember a third single from Ian Brown’s debut solo album “Unfinished Monkey Business”? Well, there was and it was called “Can’t See Me” but I wish that it had been a case of “I can’t hear you” as this was a right racket. What a miserable sound and miserable performance to match. I guess Brown had a lot in his mind what with an impending court case* over an accusation of air rage and all.

*Brown was found guilty in October 1998 of threatening behaviour towards an air stewardess and sentenced to four months in prison serving two.

Supposedly, the track was written about Brown seeing John Squire in the village of Hale, Greater Manchester and waving at him but not being acknowledged by his old Stone Roses band mate who hid behind a newspaper. A couple of things here. When I first moved to Manchester in 1990, I knew one other person who lived there – a guy called Ian who I’d been at Sunderland Polytechnic with. Ian told me a story of how he’d been for a night out in Hale and had gone into a wine bar and asked for a pint. The barman beckoned Ian to him and whispered in his ear so as not to embarrass him “Sir, we don’t sell pints here”. That’s how posh Hale is/was.

Secondly, the track’s origin story reminded me of another tale that the late, great Pete Garner once told me. Pete was the bass player for the Stone Roses from 1983 to 1987 whom I worked with at Our Price in the 90s and he relayed to me how in the band’s early days, they unexpectedly found themselves on the bill for a gig as a replacement for Adam Ant who pulled out at the last minute. It was seen as a big deal and opportunity for the band but there was one problem. They couldn’t find guitarist John Squire anywhere. Despite efforts by his band mates to locate him, he couldn’t be found and the Roses missed out on their slot for the gig. It turns out that Squire had taken himself off to sit in a field for a bit of self contemplation. Remember, this was well before the ubiquity of mobile phones and tracking devices. So when Squire avoided talking to Brown in Hale, it wasn’t the first time he hadn’t wanted to be found by his old school pal and fellow Roses member.

And so the football songs begin as we get three on the trot that all feature in the Top 5 starting with Dario G and “Carnaval De Paris”. Having appropriated the chant hook from the marvellous “Life In A Northern Town” by Dream Academy for debut hit “Sunchyme”, the dance group (yes, they were a group not an individual) turned their attention this time to a football terraces chant that originated in Holland, was adopted by Sheffield Wednesday fans and ended up as an international hit when released as a tie-in with the 1998 World Cup. And when I say ‘international’, I mean truly global as supposedly it features instruments associated with every one of the competing 32 nations in the tournament including bagpipes, accordion and steel drum. Despite that mix of influences, the track has a definite samba feel to my ears despite it being based around the old American folk ballad “Oh, My Darling Clementine”. It must have been used by broadcasters to soundtrack their football coverage at some point as well surely? The performance here with a cast of what feels like dozens but is probably no more than ten people is perhaps more suited to a stage musical than TOTP and what was the deal with the bagpipe player who’s been made up to look like a rejected extra from a Mad Max movie?

After the undercard of Dario G come the two football song heavyweights battling to be No 1 on the chart starting with Fat Les and “Vindaloo”. This was just bonkers or was it, in fact, genius? You’ll have your own opinion but the truth of the matter is that this completely unofficial single was bigger both commercially and culturally than the FA sanctioned release by England United. The product of a drinking session at the Groucho Club by Blur’s Alex James and actor, comedian and broadcaster Keith Allen, it was written to parody football chants but became, if not one sung on the terraces, a mantra for the watching millions in the pubs and bars of England. In parts absurd (“Me and me Mum and me Dad and me Gran, we’re off to Waterloo”), in parts social commentary on our national identity (“We all love vindaloo”), it’s a riot of noise, nonsense and nah nah nahs. ‘Riot’ sound like the right word to describe this performance as well which takes the “Bitter Sweet Symphony” parodying video and transports it to the set of EastEnders before winding its way into the TOTP studio with a cast of characters that seemingly redefine the meaning of the word ‘random’. What was with the Max Wall lookalike, the sumo wrestlers and the French maid? Am I missing something? Was this surreptitious irony at play? One thing I do have an answer to is that censored caption. Here’s @TOTPFacts with the explanation:

OK then. I think the sumo wrestlers might have caused more offence. Apparently, Keith Allen earns at least £20,000 a year from his football related hits (he co-wrote the New Order 1990 No 1 “World In Motion” remember) which is not to be sniffed at and is another marker as to the impact of “Vindaloo”. I can’t imagine “(How Does It Feel To Be) On Top Of The World” turns over such a healthy return.

Emerging triumphant from the clash of the football song titans was “3 Lions ‘98” by Baddiel, Skinner and the Lightning Seeds. An update of the song from two years prior, there are a number of differences between the two versions. In its first incarnation, it had been the official song of the England football team for the Euro ‘96 tournament as endorsed by the FA. When the 1998 World Cup came round, David Baddiel and Frank Skinner suggested they be the official song again but the FA went with the England United track instead. Yeah, that decision looks ridiculous in retrospect with the FA’s choice being hammered sales wise by not just one but two unofficial songs. Secondly, as this was an update of and not just a rerelease of the original 1996 No 1, “3 Lions ‘98” included brand new lyrics which mainly focused on that Euros ‘96 tournament and England’s semi-final defeat heartache and the team’s subsequent qualification for the ‘98 World Cup. Baddiel and Skinner were clearly as caught off guard as the rest of us by the omission of Paul Gascoigne from the squad as Gazza is mentioned in the lyrics that were written before Glenn Hoddle announced his selections for the tournament. (see also Stuart ‘Psycho’ Pearce). Finally, and this is pedantic but jarring, why did they rename it “3 Lions ‘98” and not “Three Lions ‘98”?

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1FiveGot The Feelin’I did not
2PulpA Little SoulGood song but no
3Des’reeLifeNegative
4Silver SunToo Much, Too Little, Too LateNo but I like it having discovered it
5Ian BrownCan’t See MeNor do I want to hear you Ian
6Dario GCarnaval De ParisNo
7Fat LesVindalooNah…nah ner nah
8Baddiel, Skinner and the Lightning Seeds3 Lions ’98Nope

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/m002jmlp/top-of-the-pops-19061998?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 13 MAR 1998

Posted on by 80stastic

We’re in mid March 1998 and on the same day this TOTP was broadcast, there was a lunar eclipse which was visible over much of Western Europe. There may well have been a load of stars on this show but were any of them bathed in moonlight? Let’s find out…

Our host is Jayne Middlemiss who has no obvious lunar connections other than when she spent the Summer of 2005 mooning after ex-footballer Lee Sharpe after appearing with him on Celebrity Love Island. Anyway, we’re under way with Natalie Imbruglia who has the unenviable task of coming up with a follow up to her massive debut hit single “Torn”. It’s a familiar quandary faced by many before her and since. Do you play it safe and stick to the winning formula with something so similar to its predecessor that you get accused of being a one trick pony or…do you take a chance and change direction hoping your newly found fan base will go with you?

In the case of Natalie, I would argue she came up with a hybrid of the two strategies – “Big Mistake” is nothing like “Torn” but it did ape the sound of another successful artist of the time Alanis Morissette. By its nature a much harder sound than the ultimate example of a radio friendly song that was its predecessor, it couldn’t hope to emulate its popularity and sales. And it didn’t – whilst it matched the chart high of “Torn” when it debuted at No 2, its commercial longevity just wasn’t there. Look at this stat – “Torn” was the 8th best selling song of 1997 in the UK. “Big Mistake” was the 91st in 1998. Still, she did co-write it which was probably brought a much needed dash of credibility after the discovery that “Torn” was actually a cover. It would take seven years before Natalie would fashion another hit that could even resemble the reach of “Torn” – 2005’s “Shiver” from No 1 album “Counting Down The Days” was the most played song of that year in the UK.

Moon moment: Natalie recorded a song called “Stuck On the Moon” for 2007’s Best Of album “Glorious”.

By 1998, the fortunes of Simple Minds were on a definite downwards trend. Though the decade had started well enough with the platinum selling, No 2 album “Real Life”, there followed a hiatus of four years punctuated only by the release of Best Of album “Glittering Prize 81/92” and which saw the band officially become a duo of Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill. 1995 album “Good News From The Next World”, whilst by no means a commercial disaster, would sell a third of the amount of copies of its predecessor. It was also their last release on Virgin Records who dropped the band having been their label since 1981.

Picked up by Chrysalis, work began on eleventh studio album “Néapolis”. Such a change ignited a need within Kerr and Burchill to reinvent themselves and they did this by…erm…getting the old band back together! Well, sort of. They recruited original bassist Derek Forbes and drummer Brian McGee on a rehearsal only basis (though Forbes would eventually rejoin the line up on a permanent basis) and sought out a sound that moved away from their stadium rock and that was more aligned with their early electronic material. The result was underwhelming. Lead single “Glitterball” is Simple Minds by numbers, meandering along with no direction, a track in search of a tune, or a glitter ball in search of a disco if you prefer (which I do). The album pretty much tanked and Chrysalis refused to release it in the US citing the ultimate insult – a lack of interest. Having lost faith in the album, the label also lost faith in their charges and the band were dropped by Chrysalis in 1999 after just one album. I don’t think we’ll be seeing them again in these 90s TOTP repeats. It’s a sorry way to bow out but fret not – Jim and Charlie are still together, still touring and receding new music with the last studio album arriving in 2022.

Moon moment: Does the title “Glitterball” count? How about “‘C’ Moon Cry Like A Baby” from their “Sparkle In The Rain” album then?

Another act attempting to follow up on their debut hit are Five but unlike Natalie Imbruglia, they haven’t deviated too much from the original plan. Having gone Top 10 (just) with their first single “Slam Dunk (Da Funk)”, the lads double downed on the formula by releasing another slice of uptempo, hip-hop pop (I think I just made that up) in “When The Lights Go Out”. Like a rocket launch, the band’s trajectory was straight up as this track eclipsed their debut effort by landing on the charts at No 4 and get this, even made the Top 10 in the US. Who knew? Not me for sure. So successful was “When The Lights Go Out” that, in some territories, it was considered to actually be the band’s first single. I have to say though that it sounded a weaker effort to my ears than the punchy “Slam Dunk (Da Funk)”. Five’s third single would be the distinctly poppy “Got The Feelin’” which again passed me by. However, fourth single “Everybody Get Up” was an absolute banger. I’m getting ahead of myself though. For the time being, Five were doing just fine without my approval.

Moon moment: Lunar eclipse? When the lights go out? Come on! This shizzle writes itself!

Some bump ‘n’ grind R&B now from someone that Jayne Middlemiss describes in her intro as a “real man”. Hmm. She’s talking about Ginuwine who is onto his fourth consecutive hit with a track called “Holler”. Not surprisingly, this guy did nothing for me but then I’m pretty sure he wasn’t meant to with lyrics like this…

“You make me wanna holler Ginuwine like the leather tickling my fancy tryna get my kitty wetter…And when you’re through puffin’ you can butter up my muffin“

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Timothy Mosley / Elgin B. Lumpkin / Lushone Nikcole Feliet Siplin
Holler lyrics © Wb Music C

Pure filth! All that horrible male posturing was presumably to over compensate for the fact that his real name is Elgin Baylor Lumpkin meaning that Ginuwine was not genuine about his real name.

Moon moment: His song “Gin And Wine” does mention the moon and the tide but then again, he also mentions something about his baby being his bitch or something so, you know, Wordsworth he isn’t.

So it seems that the British public had learned nothing from the 1995/96 Robson & Jerome fiasco when two actors became the biggest pop stars in the land with some ropey old cover versions just because they’d been on the TV in a series whose characters were required to sing a song for a plot line. In their wake came John Alford and Steven Houghton from London’s Burning and in 1998 came a whole troupe of people in the form of the Cast From Casualty with a cover of the old Love Affair hit “Everlasting Love”.

Now, I’ve never been an ardent watcher of Casualty so looking at this lot on stage, I couldn’t really tell you who were the actors and who were the jobbing session musicians (though one was Steve Ellis from Love Affair as Jayne Middlemiss helpfully informs us) so I had to google it. The woman doing the singing is Rebecca Wheatley who played receptionist Amy and I think one of the backing singers is Julia Watson who was Barbara ‘Baz’ Wilder. Her character was one of the principal protagonists of the two part episode ‘Everlasting Love’ which revolved around her impending marriage to regular character Charlie Fairhead. I’m guessing that there was some emergency/ accident/incident that delayed the wedding somehow? I can’t even be bothered to find out to be honest. Anyway, one look at that episode title should reveal why this particular track was chosen for covering but it should also be noted that it was the Children In Need record. Having said that, charity or not, this was hopeless stuff. Was this TV actor to pop star business a purely British phenomenon? I don’t recall the cast of Dallas for example releasing records – or maybe they did and no, I’m really not going to look that up.

Moon moment: Apparently there was an episode in 2005 entitled ‘Paper Moon’. That’ll have to do.

OK- I’m calling it early but this next tune is the best of this show’s crop in my humble opinion. We hadn’t seen Shed Seven at all in 1997 as they spent the year recording their third album “Let It Ride” which was released in the June of 1998. Bizarrely though, the lead single for the album – “Chasing Rainbows” – had come a good 18 months ahead of the album. So long was the gap that it made it seem like second single – “She Left Me On Friday” – was actually the first from it. Perhaps not as classy sounding as its predecessor, it still did what it was meant to do which was make some noise in announcing the re-emergence of the band courtesy of a shouty but memorable chorus. The wah-wah guitar middle eight sounds slightly incongruous but not so much as to cause any lasting damage to the song’s merits. There was some debate amongst the TOTP online community about Shed Seven being better than Oasis. I’m not sure about that but it’s interesting to note how Rick Witter doesn’t over pronounce the word ‘shine’ in the lyrics as Liam Gallagher undoubtedly would have.

Moon moment: The word ‘moon’ is used twice in the lyrics to “Going For Gold” which is another song in which Witter doesn’t pronounce ‘shine’ as ‘she-iiiiiine’.

Yet again I am undone in my musical knowledge as I have got nothing on Lionrock so have had to rely on the internet again for this one. Apparently, they were record producer Justin Robertson, MC Buzz B and recording engineer Roger Lyons whilst their biggest hit “Rude Boy Rock” heavily sampled “Nimrod” by The Skatelites.

So, the guy with the megaphone in this performance got me wondering. What other examples of megaphone usage are there in the rock/pop world? I couldn’t really think of any. I had a vague image of Bill Drummond of The KLF using one in a performance but I could be making that up. So, once again, I had to resort to the World Wide Web for some help (where has my own creativity gone?!). It gave me the following examples:

  • “Orange Crush” by REM
  • “Mr Brightside” by The Killers
  • “Crackerman” by Stone Tempe Pilots
  • “Winchester Cathedral” by New Vaudeville Band
  • 1930s crooner Rudy Vallée

Any more?

Moon moment: Erm…there’s a quite famous picture of the moon rising over a prominent rock formation in Japan called Shishi-Iwa which is shaped like a lion’s head and literally means Lion Rock. Tenuous link but it’s all I’ve got.

After waiting patiently at No 2 for a fortnight, Celine Dion is back on the top of the charts with “My Heart Will Go On”. Presumably sales were buoyed by the success of the Titanic film but clearly there was also something about the song that connected with the public. Was it the Celtic flute motif that permeated the film as well? Or perhaps the gigantic key change at the song’s climax? Was it the purity of Celine’s vocals (she did it in one take apparently)? Whatever it was, the song has become indelibly embedded into popular culture and for many is the standard against which all power ballads should be measured. And yes, as ever, I still hate it.

Moon moment: Celine recorded a song called “Water From The Moon” but there are two better connections. Firstly, in the film, the depiction of the night sky in terms of the position of the moon and stars was inaccurate. Director James Cameron acknowledged the error and corrected it for the 3D rerelease of the movie. Secondly, there is a documentary featuring Cameron and astronaut Buzz Aldrin which deals with their perspectives on exploration in the deep ocean and space using footage of the Titanic and rare NASA footage from Apollo 11.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Natalie ImbrugliaBig MistakeI did not
2Simple MindsGlitterballNah
3FiveWhen The Lights Go OutNope
4GinuwineHollerNegative
5Cast From CasualtyEverlasting LoveAre you kidding?
6Shed SevenShe Left Me On FridayNo but I had it on a Best Of album I think
7LionrockRude Boy RockNo
8Celine DionMy Heart Will Go OnOf course not

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/m002gk6n/top-of-the-pops-13031998?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 12 DEC 1997

Posted on by 80stastic

I’ve said before in this blog that I’m not and have never been a massive James Bond fan. The character is just too slick and confident – two things that I’ve never been. I just can’t relate to him. Having said that, I did quite enjoy the films from the Daniel Craig era. As for the rest of the actors who have taken on the role, obviously I have seen some of the Sean Connery and Roger Moore movies but I don’t think I’ve caught any of the Timothy Dalton nor Pierce Brosnan stories and that includes Tomorrow Never Dies which opened in the UK on the day this TOTP aired. Although it grossed $339.5 million worldwide, it was ultimately eclipsed by the juggernaut that was Titanic which was in cinemas at the same time. Also eclipsed by Titanic was the theme song for Tomorrow Never Dies which couldn’t complete with that gargantuan hit by Celine Dion but more of that later.

Our host tonight is Jo Whiley whom I’m increasingly beginning to suspect wasn’t totally enjoying introducing songs by the likes of Aqua and the Teletubbies. Anyway, we start with a superstar (I think that’s a fair description of the artist concerned) in Janet Jackson who is at No 4 with “Together Again”, the second single taken from her album “The Velvet Rope”. You may remember her last trip to the TOTP studio to promote her Joni Mitchell sampling “Got ‘Til It’s Gone” single was a very pompous performance involving Ms Jackson on a throne and a stage full of would be courtiers. Thankfully, this time around, she’s gone for a much more informal and much less po-faced vibe. Apart from her heavily stylised corkscrew hairstyle, it’s all very relaxed with a ‘dress-down-Friday’ feel to what everyone on stage is wearing. As for the song itself, it’s a light, pleasant, upbeat track that actually had a more sombre source material being written about a close friend of Janet’s who died from AIDS. It’s very listenable but for me, her most interesting material came in her “Rhythm Nation 1814” era.

One up her nose and two up her jumper is how Janet rolls according to Jo Whiley (she talking about rings and therefore Ms Jackson’s rack I would assume which is a bit risqué for before the watershed) before our host tells us firmly where she stands musically which is with the next artist The Seahorses apparently. “Next a band who don’t need fancy dances – they have damned great tunes…” she trills except I’m not convinced that “You Can Talk To Me” is that great. After coming out of the traps fast with glorious debut hit “Love Is The Law”, the quality of their output had diminished in consistent increments it seemed to me before plateauing with this standalone single. Presumably released to bridge the gap between debut and follow up albums, it was rendered redundant somewhat as that sophomore collection of songs would never actually appear as the band broke up in 1999. In James Bond terms, The Seahorses were George Lazenby. Maybe it was just as well if this was an example of the direction in which they were going. “You Can Talk To Me” feels like it should be a tremendous track but for me, it’s all surface and no depth, like it was knocked out in about half an hour one afternoon. Or to put it in modern parlance, it’s as if AI had been asked to produce a song by The Seahorses if “You Can Talk To Me” had never existed.

As with Janet Jackson earlier, this appearance was vastly different to their last visit to the TOTP studio when they delivered a bizarre performance that involved all but lead singer Chris Helme seated alongside some random people also on stage looking bored and presenter Mark Lamarr rubbing John Squire’s knee. This time they’ve gone for a much more conventional set up which with their rather conventional song makes me yearn for some of those arbitrary strangers up there with the band again. Finally, if I want to hear a song with a ‘you can talk to me’ chorus, I think I’d rather listen to this:

Sometimes during these TOTP repeats you come across a song that it’s hard to remember that there was a time when you didn’t know it, that is, before it was released and before it became part of our cultural fabric. “Angels” by Robbie Williams is one of those songs. The story of how it single-handedly saved the ex-Take That star’s career and propelled him into superstardom is so well documented that even that narrative is taken for granted but it is an astonishing tale of a truly remarkable comeback. With his debut album “Life Thru A Lens” stalling and the singles from it achieving diminishing chart peaks, the word from the wise was that Williams was all washed up and unwanted by the record buying public. Although I had a promo copy of the album and had therefore heard “Angels” before its release as a single, I can’t lay claim to any great insight that if only Williams would release it, all his problems would be solved. I did think it was a decent song though and, as Jo Whiley says in her intro, the standout track from the album.

So, had “Angels” not been released what would have happened? Would Williams have been dropped by his label Chrysalis? Would pop music history have played out differently? Was this a sliding doors moment? I guess we’ll never know. What we do know is that “Angels” was a sales phenomenon. Twelve consecutive weeks inside the Top 10, sixty-eight on the Top 100 over ten separate occasions spanning seventeen years. Somehow though, it never got higher than No 4 despite shifting 1.16 million copies by 2014. The song’s legacy wasn’t just about its sales though. Its ubiquity was widespread and deep. In 2022, Alex Petridis wrote in The Guardian:

“Throughout the late 90s and 00s, it wasn’t so much a song as an unavoidable fact of daily life”

Petridis, Alexis (25 August 2022). “Robbie Williams’ 20 greatest songs – ranked!”. The Guardian.

In 2005, a Music Choice survey of 45,000 Britons chose “Angels” as the song that they would most like played at their funeral. In that same year’s BRIT Awards, the public voted it the best song of the last 25 years whilst a 2004 VH1 survey saw it voted as the best single never to have got to No 1. Say what you like about Williams but “Angels” certainly left its mark and for many remains his defining moment despite everything that followed including a No 1 less than 12 months later that interpolated the Nancy Sinatra song to the Bond movie You Only Live Twice. I love a post with a theme…

…and it’s the theme that keeps on giving as we arrive at the official track to the 1997 James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies courtesy of Sheryl Crow. Jo Whiley effuses about a new Bond theme being a “big deal” and that “this time they’ve got it right” which implies that they haven’t in the past. Which song could she be talking about? “Goldeneye” by Tina Turner? Yeah, that one was definitely underwhelming. Surely not Duran Duran, A-ha nor Gladys Knight the latter of which is the last great 007 theme to my ears. By its very nature, that last sentence therefore excludes “Tomorrow Never Dies” which I have to admit I don’t remember at all. Having listened to it back, I stand by my earlier statement. My reaction to it reminded me of a Daily Mirror article from when I was young that would be seen as sexist by today’s standards but was presumably acceptable back then. It was a piece where they tried to build a composite image of the ‘perfect’ woman by taking various elements of the most beautiful women in the world (hair, smile, legs etc). The result was less than flattering. Similarly, Sheryl’s song seems to have all the best parts of previous Bond themes but they don’t quite all sit together comfortably. There’s the cinematic orchestral strings, iconic kettle drum, dramatic pauses and twangy guitar refrain in the chorus whilst Sheryl does her best Shirley Bassey impression but it never quite gets there for me. It was nominated for a Golden Globe and a Grammy but lost out on both to the aforementioned “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion.

There were other songs in the running to be the official theme tune that were invited to be considered including this from Pulp which someone has helpfully put over the top of the opening titles. It would end up being a B-side for the band and retitled “Tomorrow Never Lies”…

Hmm. Not sure that they quite nailed it. Not sure at all. There’s this from Saint Etienne…

That’s more like it but then the band’s Bob Stanley does have a second career producing film soundtracks and films themselves as well as curating film seasons for various art institutions. If I had to be critical, I’m not sure that Sarah Cracknell’s vocals are quite big enough for a Bond theme.

We have a winner! Check this out from k.d. Lang! This is perfect! It was used over the end credits in the movie but surely it should have outranked Sheryl Crow’s track?

Before she introduces the next act, Jo Whiley dashes on stage to give Sheryl an award commemorating her album going three times platinum. Fair enough but why do we not get to hear Sheryl speak? What was all that about? The effect is just odd and talking of odd, here comes a most bizarre Beatles cover version from Blackstreet. Now, music history is littered with terrible takes of the Fab Four’s material and this is certainly not the worst but I’m still left asking the question why did they do it? Did the world really need a slowed down R&B version of their 1964 No 1 “Can’t Buy Me Love”? I know there is a school of thought that says there is only any point in a doing a cover if it’s substantially different from the original and I subscribe to that view. However, although Blackstreet clearly also did, I just don’t think that “Can’t Buy Me Love” in its original form lends itself to such a drastically different treatment. Those early Beatles hits were high octane, thrill inducing pop romps. It wasn’t in their DNA to be slowed down like that. Maybe it’s my fault for having a closed mind but I just can’t reconcile myself to Blackstreet’s version and why was it retitled as “(Money Can’t) Buy Me Love”? Was it something to do with the licensing of the track?

I said in the last post that Boyzone wouldn’t be having it all their own way in the boy band stakes as Westlife would be appearing on the horizon soon. However, even before those lovely lads from Sligo and Dublin turned up, there was Five. Or was it 5ive? Anyway, whereas Take That and East 17 had been depicted by the press as polar opposites, Five seems to combine elements of both. Pretty boys that were also ‘street’. It seemed like a plan.

Put together by the same father and son duo who had the idea for the Spice Girls, Bob and Chris Herbert thought the same could be achieved with an all male group. An audition process attended by 3,000 hopefuls resulted in a line up of Abz Love (real name Richard Breen), Jason ‘J’ Brown, Sean Conlon, Ritchie Neville and Scott Robinson (not to be confused with the Neighbours character played by Jason Donovan). Signed by Simin Cowell (him again) to BMG/RCA, the group embarked on months of rehearsals and promotional work before they’d even released a note of music so that their name was already well known by the time debut single “Slam Dunk (Da Funk)” was available in the shops. The hard work paid off when it landed at No 10 in the charts in its first week of release. I have to say as boy bands go, I didn’t mind them. “Slam Dunk (Da Funk)” was daft but it was fun and their Joan Jett sampling hit “Everybody Get Up” was great. Some of their stuff was routine boy band guff though as well. Someone who really did like them though was a person that my wife used to work with in a past job who was a difficult character who took offence at the unlikeliest of things. One such thing he hated was work colleagues who had pictures of their loved ones on their desks. Being a gay man, he staged his own protest by bringing a framed picture to work of J from Five which took pride of place on his own desk.

Five shone brightly for a three year period which included a trio of No 1 singles before splitting up in 2001. A planned reunion in 2006 came to nothing but they did get together again in 2013 via the ITV show The Big Reunion which resulted in a tour although J Brown declined to be part of it. Abz Love left the band after the tour meaning that a second reunion in 2019 featured just three members despite the fact that they retained the name of Five. However, a UK arena tour has been scheduled for October this year featuring all five members.

During late 1997 and early 1998, it was never, ever not time for All Saints – this was their third TOTP appearance out of nine (NINE!) promoting their second single. This must be some sort of record for a song that spent just a solitary week at No 1. How did Executive Producer Chris Cowey justify all these slots in the running order? Well, I guess if you look at these chart positions over nearly four (FOUR!) months inside the Top 10, you could make a case for at least half a dozen by my reckoning if your criteria is a hit going (back) up the charts or holding firm in the same place:

3 – 5 – 6 – 5 – 4 – 4 – 4 – 2 – 1 – 2 – 2 – 4 – 5 – 3 -7

They are spectacular numbers you have to say. Well, I’ve got another six appearances featuring “Never Ever” to write about so I’m going to leave it there for this one for this week.

The Teletubbies are at No 1 with “Teletubbies Say ‘Eh-Oh’”. Of course they are – this was the UK record buying public at work after all (never the most reliable arbiter of taste) and they were especially wayward in their shopping habits at Christmas. For a kids TV show aimed at a pre-school audience, Teletubbies seemed to attract an awful lot of controversy with perhaps the biggest of the lot centred around the character of Tinky Winky. The biggest and oldest (supposedly) of the Teletubbies, he caught the attention of US televangelist Jerry Falwell who proclaimed that Tinky Winky was promoting homosexuality due to his red handbag, his purple colour (purple being the gay pride colour) and his antenna being shaped like a triangle (a gay pride symbol). The BBC released an official response saying Tinky Winky was simply a “sweet technological baby with a magic bag”. Then there was the controversy over the sacking of actor Dave Thompson who originally played Tinky Winky but was fired after receiving a letter from production company Ragdoll saying his “interpretation of the role was not accepted”. Ha!

I’m sure there was also a media furore when a photo of Tinky Winky was circulated without his costume head on. My friend Bev was something to do with the publicity for the show at the time and had to field loads of press enquiries about what the BBC were going to do about allowing the shattering of the illusion of the Teletubbies for its millions of viewers. The truth is that those costumes were incredibly hot and the actors would sweat bucket loads and stink after their 11 hour filming stints in them. No wonder Tinky Winky took his head off! They may have been shot at, chased, punched or had the threat of a laser going up their jacksy but no James Bond actor had to deal with the inferno that was a Teletubbies costume.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Janet JacksonTogether AgainI did not
2The SeahorsesYou Can Talk To MeNegative
3Robbie WilliamsAngelsNo but I had a promo copy of the album
4Sheryl CrowTomorrow Never DiesNo
5Blackstreet(Money Can’t) Buy Me LoveNope
6FiveSlam Dunk (Da Funk)Nah
7All SaintsNever EverLiked it, didn’t buy it
8TeletubbiesTeletubbies Say ‘Eh-Oh’What do you think?!

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/m002chnn/top-of-the-pops-12121997?seriesId=unsliced