Freddie Mercury

TOTP 19 AUG 1993

Posted on October 5, 2022 by 80stastic

After weeks of cramming twelve or even thirteen acts into the show’s running order, the TOTP producers have taken pity on my sorry ass and given me just ten to review for this episode and four of those have been on before. This is music to my ears as I’m running behind schedule in banging these posts out.

We start with a band not seen on the show since the 80s I’m guessing whose appearance here would be a valedictory one as far as TOTP was concerned. The Pogues had been in a state of flux for most of the decade before 1993 turned up a hit for them out of the blue. After Shane MacGowan was fired in 1991 for finally breaking the patience of the rest of the band after one too many binge drinking sessions, Joe Strummer stepped in to take over on vocals before founding member Spider Stacy took on the job full time. They released a cover of “Honky Tonk Wonen” by the Rolling Stones the following year but it failed to make the Top 40. I recall my huge Pogues fan Our Price manager at the time playing the single as soon as it came out of the delivery box on the morning of release and then being very disappointed approximately three and a half minutes later.

Spider Stacy was still in post as the band reconvened to record the “Waiting For Herb” album from which “Tuesday Morning” was the lead single. It’s a decent tune and knocks spots off most of its chart contemporaries but with the greatest will in the world, it’s no “Sally MacLennane” and Spider is no Shane.

The Pogues split in 1996 before reuniting j 2001 and disbanding for the final time in 2014.

As with one of the shows the other week, TOTP is suddenly taken over by UB40 and associates as first we get the video for their latest single “Higher Ground” which accompanies the 40-11 chart rundown and then we get their mate Bitty McLean in the studio. I’m not sure if I’m surprised or not by the chart statistic that “Higher Ground” is their first Top 10 hit written by themselves since the appropriately entitled “Sing Our Own Song” in 1986. Well, they did do a lot of cover versions you know.

The video is pretty dull stuff with the band performing against some sort of industrial wasteland intercut with clips of amongst other things a trapeze artist (higher ground?). As with most UB40 promos, the whole thing seems to be carried by Ali Campbell’s cheeky grin.

On with the nitty gritty and that little ditty from Bitty. Now I thought that Bitty Mclean‘s “It Keeps Rainin’ (Tears From My Eyes)” was a bit shitty (OK I’ll stop now!) but plenty disagreed with me as he was up to No 3 on his way to a peak of No 2. It was also a massive hit globally going to No 1 in the Netherlands and New Zealand where it topped the charts for seven weeks. Bitty’s dance moves were something to behold. He swayed and staggered about waving his arms as if drunk and looking like he might topple backwards at any moment. Very Shane MacGowan.

Despite his seven UK Top 40 hits, I wonder if anyone really remembers Bitty these days or has his nickname been usurped by this recurring sketch from Little Britain?

What do you get if you combine London Boys’ dance moves and Peter Andre’s sense of style? This confident looking bloke apparently who is fronting an act called Aftershock and their single “Slave To The Vibe”. I have zero recollection of either Mr. Aftershock (whoever he was) or his track but then he’s not helped in his quest for immortality by the work of the TOTP cameraman. He makes a right hash of filming his dance moves that surely would have sealed his place in musical posterity had he actually managed to capture them. Sadly, he manages to focus on everything but the front man and even when he does turn the camera on him, a studio audience member’s head totally obscures the shot! I can’t find a clip of the performance so you’ll have to take my word for it.

Apparently it was on the soundtrack to erotic thriller Sliver alongside the aforementioned UB40’s “(I Can’t Help) Falling In Love With You” but I’ve never seen that so there’s another reason I don’t remember it.

https://youtu.be/rSSzRv3lBvQ

Just the two Breakers this week (which explains the reduced amount of acts in the show). I’m guessing there was just a lack of new entries / high climbing records this week? Anyway, the first Breaker is basically a mini- episode of Rock Family Trees. The Breeders began life as an outlet for the writings of Pixies bassist Kim Deal who was unsatisfied with the direction of the band. Whilst touring with Throwing Muses, she got their guitarist Tanya Donnelly on board with the project and they produced a demo which got them a deal with 4AD Records to whom both their current bands were already signed.

Debut album “Pod” was not commercially successful but did receive the kudos of being named by Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain as one of his favourite records ever. An EP called “Safari” was then recorded before Donelly departed the project to form Belly who were also signed to 4AD and who would hit with their single “Feed The Tree”. Deal recruited her sister Kelley to replace Donelly even though she couldn’t actually play guitar at that point and they recorded the album “Last Splash” from which “Cannonball” was the lead single.

A staple of every indie nightclub DJ’s record box, I myself even cut some rug to it at Fifth Avenue in Manchester occasionally. Its blistering, staccato rhythms and distorted vocals imbued it with a full-force power that felt like it could peel the skin off your face. A truly breathtaking record in every sense. The best ever record to only achieve a peak of No 40? Quite possibly.

One of the biggest selling singles of the year in America next. Mariah Carey had always been a sales phenomenon in the US with her first five singles all going to No 1 over there. This side of the pond, we were a bit more lukewarm in our reception. The highest position achieved by any of those singles in the UK was No 9. History was to repeat itself with the release of “Dreamlover”, the lead single from her third studio album “Music Box”. Yet another No 1 in America, it would top out at No 9 over here.

It was perfect for daytime radio – light but not lightweight, bouncy but not bumpy, it also saw Mariah ease off on that (in)famous vocal range. It also allowed her to pursue her interest in hip-hop via the employment of producer Dave Hall who had worked on Mary J. Bilge’s “What’s The 411?” album. The fluffy, feel-good video was a perfect visual vehicle for the track and I always picture Mariah in her checked shirt cavorting about in a field of hay when I hear the track but that’s enough of that!

Could this be the final time we see Tasmin Archer on TOTP? Quite possibly. A superstar in the making with her No 1 “Sleeping Satellite” less than a year before, she had already been relegated to an also ran come August 1993. “Arienne” was the fourth hit from her debut album “Great Expectations” but was also the worst performing as each release peaked lower down the charts than its predecessor. I always thought this was a more obvious follow up to “Sleeping Satellite” than actual second single “In Your Care” and had record company EMI gone that route then surely it would have landed higher than its No 30 peak here.

I quite liked it but maybe that was due to its similarities to “Carrie Anne” by the marvellous Hollies – Tasmin totally nicks their phrasing for her song. Taking of that name, have you ever met anyone called Arienne before? You’re doing well if you have. Between 1880 and 2020, only 428 babies were named Arienne in the US making it the 18,714th most popular name of all time. As for Tasmin, she would return to the UK Top 40 one more time when her “Shipbuilding” EP of Elvis Costello covers just sneaked in during 1994.

To Miami Beach now for a satellite link up with the Bee Gees who are in the charts with their “Paying The Price Of Love” single. The more I listen to this one, the more excruciating it sounds. Unlike Mariah Carey who toned down her high pitched vocals for “Dreamlover”, Barry Gibb has turned the falsetto-meter up to a spine tingling, Spinal Tap-esque 11. I’m sure there were bits of it that only our dog could hear. And those outfits they were wearing! The Bee Gees made very little sense sartorially or sonically outside of the disco era.

WHO?! You may well ask. Their/his (?) name was Sinclair and the song was “Ain’t No Casanova” and that’s about all their is to know about this whole minuscule footnote of chart history. There’s very little else out there online. As with Tasmin Archer borrowing heavily from The Hollies for her hit “Arienne”, so Sinclair seemed to have revisited a previous chart hit for inspiration. Remember “Casanova” by Levert from 1987? The very first line of that song is ‘I ain’t much on Casanova’. I mean come on!

Sinclair’s record plugger must have either done a hell of a job or just got lucky to get a slot on TOTP when the record had only entered the chart at No 37. In any other week it surely would have been a Breaker? The appearance helped it to a peak of No 28 and then…nothing. Probably for the best.

Another week at the top for Freddie Mercury and “Living On My Own” and yet another artist on the show that had a remarkable vocal after Mariah Carey and Barry Gibb. Who had the biggest vocal range though? Well, Classic FM published an article this year where they compared the voices of artists from Prince to Pavarotti and Bowie to Bocelli. Freddie Mercury comes in with an impressive 4 octave F2 to E6 range with Barry Gibb just behind him on 3.4 but Mariah Carey topped them all being able to go from F2 to G7, a span of 5 octaves. Ouch! Cease is the word!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Pogues	Tuesday Morning	Nope
2	UB40	Higher Ground	No
3	Bitty McLean	“It Keeps Rainin’ (Tears From My Eyes)”	Never
4	Aftershock	Slave To The Vibe	Not my vibe at all
5	The Breeders	Cannonball	I must have it on something surely
6	Mariah Carey	Dreamlover	Nah
7	Tasmin Archer	Arienne	I did not
8	Bee Gees	Paying The Price Of Love	Wasn’t ever happening
9	Sinclair	Ain’t No Casanova	Negative
10	Freddie Mercury	Living On My Own	And 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/m001cjqx/top-of-the-pops-19081993

TOTP 12 AUG 1993

Posted on October 2, 2022 by 80stastic

If it’s mid August then it must be the start of the new football season and 1993 was no different. I didn’t have high hopes for my beloved Chelsea for the 1993/94 season after the previous year’s bucketload of mid table mediocrity but on the day this TOTP aired, we signed Gavin Peacock for 1.2 million from Newcastle United which I was excited about. Gavin would prove to be an instant hit by scoring on his debut two days later. However, Chelsea lost the game and it would prove to be another season of highs and lows characterised by our getting to the FA Cup final for the first time in 24 years and then losing it 0-4. Crushing. I wonder how many highs and lows there’ll be in this TOTP?

We start with a massive low. What the Barney Rubble was going on here?! I thought we might have managed to get away with just a short glimpse of Green Jellÿ when they appeared in the Breakers with their first and biggest hit “Three Little Pigs”. No such luck as they have made themselves available to open this show with their new single “Anarchy In The UK”. Their take on the Sex Pistols’ punk classic is, as my friend Robin would say, like pissing from the roof of a multi story car park – wrong on so many levels.

First of all, don’t arse about with “Anarchy In The UK”. Whatever you may think of the Pistols’ debut single, you can’t deny its place in (punk) rock history. Secondly, if you are going to mess with it, at least retain Johnny Rotten’s iconic (albeit phonically incorrect) phrasing. It’s “I am an anti-Christ, I am an anar-kaist”. Who are you Mr Green Jellÿ to correct Johnny Rotten? Thirdly, this whole Flintstones thing had already been done before by The Screaming Blue Messiahs with their 1988 Top 30 hit “I Wanna Be A Flintstone”. Hardly original. Fourthly, the costumes. Obviously that’s meant to be Fred and Barney but who’s the third one meant to be? Bam-Bam? Just crap. Oh and was it really wise to accessorise Barney’s costume with a skinhead look and ‘Oi’ on the side of his head given some of the links to white nationalist groups like the National Front the movement was perceived to have. Finally, it had zero musical value but worse than that even, it wasn’t funny. At all.

Rather predictably the song would make it onto the soundtrack to the 1994 live action movie The Flintstones alongside that Screaming Blue Messiahs track and “(Meet) The Flintstones” by The B-52s who renamed themselves The BC-52s for the release. How we laughed.

Another low now as we return to that horrible sub genre of dance music, the reworking of pop songs as dance floor fillers. There was a lot of this sort of nonsense around this time from the likes of Undercover and Rage and now here was Sarah Washington with a danced up version of “I Will Always Love You”. What a nasty thing this was and totally unnecessary. Whitney Houston’s version of the Dolly Parton classic had been No 1 for ten weeks between Dec ‘92 and Feb ‘93. Did we really need to hear another version of it so soon?

Apparently we did as Sarah Washington’s version made No 12. She attempted to repeat the trick with her follow up, a dance version of George Michael’s “Careless Whisper” but fortunately that didn’t make the Top 40. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of this movement as 1995 saw Nicki French go Top 5 with a danced up version of Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse Of The Heart”. Oh the horror.

It’s a hat-trick of lows as we get “River Of Dreams” by Billy Joel. I said last time this was on the show that it’s one of Billy’s worst ever compositions and I haven’t changed my mind in the meanwhile. Of course, that’s just my humble opinion and others may have a different take. Someone who definitely did was Peter from Spearfish, South Dakota who had this to say on the songfacts.com website:

I think God was really speaking to Billy Joel but Billy Joel decided to ignore God and it’s his own fault if he ends up in hell but you never know
https://www.songfacts.com/facts/billy-joel/the-river-of-dreams

Gulp! Well, Billy does include some biblical references in the song and he does consider himself an atheist so maybe those sorts of comments were always going to happen.

“River Of Dreams” peaked at No 3.

Dear God! I think we’ve hit the lowest of the lows as we encounter Bad Boys Inc. Inevitably, given the rise to the top of Take That, boy bands were springing up left, right and centre in the 90s. Bad Boys Inc were one of the first of these pretenders to cling onto their coat tails hitting immediately with debut single “Don’t Talk About Love”. The work of evil pop mastermind Ian Levine, who himself had produced Take That’s first three singles, they went down the same promotion route as Gary Barlow and co doing nightclub PAs to get their name out there. They also seemed to have adopted their dance moves and stage set up with the lead singer doing all the vocal lifting and the other three just…well…dancing. The song is the usual teeny bop by numbers fare but really they didn’t have anything to make them stand out and certainly nothing to rival Take That. They had one hit wonder written all over them and yet they notched up six chart hits in total including one Top 10! Even their name was terrible. Was it meant to channel some of that other boy band that were the actual rivals to Take That at the time East 17? Bad Boys Inc? Bad Boys Stink more like.

As Kevin Rowland once sang, “Let’s Get This Straight From The Start”. Yes, “Mr Vain” by Culture Beat does sound like Snap!’s “Rhythm Is A Dancer”. There are more similarities though. Both songs went to No 1 in the UK and both were made by German Eurodance acts. There always been a couple of things I never understood about “Mr. Vain” though. Who was ‘Mr. Raider’ as referenced in the lyrics and why does female vocalist Tania Evans insist on being called ‘Mr. Vain’?

https://youtu.be/W7P5fxYssG8

Some Breakers now and we start with Ice Cube (an ice breaker?) and “Check Yo Self”. The man behind many of the lyrics on legendary NWA album “Straight Outta Compton”, Ice Cube had left the band acrimoniously in 1989 and was already onto his third solo album by this point. “The Predator” was a No 1 record in America selling 193,000 copies in its first week. This track was the third single to be released from it and gave Ice Cube his second consecutive UK Top 40 hit after “It Was A Good Day” when it peaked at No 36.

As host Tony Dortie says in his intro, the track heavily borrows from the mother of all rap tunes “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel. Widely recognised as the song that took rap into the mainstream, its influence can also be found in work by artists like Genesis (the laugh in “Mama”) and Robbie Williams (the “it’s like a jungle” line in “Millennium”).

This next one literally only exists for me on this 30 seconds clip. I can’t recall it at all from 1993 and I can’t find anything much about the act online in 2022. To be fair, their name doesn’t aid an internet search – what did I expect to find if I put Ali And Frazier into Google? Whoever they were/are, their song was a cover of the Althea And Donna 1978 classic “Uptown Top Ranking”. Not a straight cover though you understand. This was 1993 so they ragga-fied it with a rap and tried to update the sound by including that horrible sax parp from recent No 1 “All That She Wants” by Ace Of Base. There’s also a hint of “That’s The Way (I Like It)” by KC And The Sunshine Band. Just…why?

Like Althea and Donna, “Uptown Top Ranking” was Ali and Frazier’s only hit when it peaked at No 33. Unlike Althea and Donna, nobody remembers the musical version of Ali and Frazier.

Whatever you may think of Jay Kay, he was ahead of his time when it came to green issues. He was the funk version of Julian “Salt Water” Lennon. “Emergency On Planet Earth” was the title track of Jamiroquai’s debut album and also the third track to be released from it as a single. Sonically, it was very much in the same vein as it’s two predecessors but somehow I think I liked it better than those other tracks. The sci-fi themed video stands up pretty well although it’s dated by the inclusion of a public pay phone.

This would be the last time we’d see Jamiroquai for a whole year bar a re-release of debut flop single “When You Gonna Learn”. When they did return, it was with “Space Cowboy” which sounded the same as everything else they’d released.

Talking of debut singles being re-released, here’s “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” by Spin Doctors. Originally out in October of 1992, it made No 17 on the US charts but it wasn’t released over here until “Two Princes” had been a hit. I’d forgotten what a nifty tune this is. Some great slap bass playing and a searing guitar riff make for a great groove (man!). It should have been a bigger hit than its No 23 peak.

Songwriter and lead vocalist Chris Barron was initially subjected to accusations of misogyny due to the song’s lyrics (the opening line is “It’s been a whole lot easier since the bitch left town”) with many assuming it was written about an ex-girlfriend but it was actually about a toxic relationship with his stepmother. “The song is really about life being short so we should all be nice to one other” he told Sky magazine in an interview.

The track would turn up on Sesame Street in 1995 as “Little Miss Count Along”. There’s no bigger accolade.

Finally! A song on a ragga tip in 1993 that I didn’t mind! I refer to Apache Indian and his song “Boom Shack-A-Lak” which was a track from his “Nuff Vibes EP”. Inevitably, people made comparisons with it and Shaggy’s “Oh Carolina” and Apache Indian (real name Steven Kapur) himself references this in the BBC documentary Top Of The Pops – The Story Of 1993. He admits that he was influenced by the likes of the Shaggy, Chaka Demus and Pliers etc who were releasing reggae style songs with a 60s pop twist to them and so thought he’d have a brash at that himself. His breakthrough hit from earlier in the year “Arranged Marriage” had been nothing like “Boom Shack-A-Lak” (a made up word with a similar meaning to ‘Wagwan’ Kapur says in the documentary) with its Bhangra rhythms and instrumentation but he could see where the money trail was going and duly followed.

Cautious not to appear to be treading on his buddy Shaggy’s toes, he played him the track and just about asked his permission to release it. Being the magnanimous fellow he is, Shaggy wasn’t at all bothered that Kapur appeared to be “nicking his shit” (to quote Shaggy) and the rest was history. Easily Apache Indian’s biggest hit, it went to No 5 in the UK and has been used extensively in film such as the Dumb And Dumber movies and Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (surely they should have used a song by Shaggy?!). It sounds like it should have been included in one of the Austin Powers movies but as far as I can tell it wasn’t used.

I’m guessing hopes were high in the offices of Aswad and Yazz’s record labels for the rejuvenating powers of this cover version of Ace’s “How Long”. With both artists’ careers in need of a shot in the arm, surely a reggaed-up take on an airplay classic would do the trick? ‘No!’ was the resounding answer from the record buying public as despite this TOTP appearance, it got no higher than its peak this week of No 31. Yazz looks pretty different to her “The Only Way Is Up” heyday with her short peroxide blonde cut replaced by a longer hairdo tied up at the back. When she went to get that short crop, her hairdresser looked at her cascading tresses and said ‘How long?’. I’ll get me coat.

Take That are dethroned at the top of the charts as Freddie Mercury takes over with “Living On My Own”. I just didn’t get this. To me, it’s a nothing song that probably deserved no more than its chart high of No 50 when originally released in 1985. OK, you could make a case for a surge in record sales when an artist dies but in Freddie’s case that was back in 1991, one year and 263 days before this song made it to No 1. There had already been two Freddie solo singles released posthumously and neither got anywhere near the top of the charts so why this one? Was it to do with the No More Brothers remix? Well, whatever the record had, it would turn out to be the last ever entry for Freddie as a solo artist in the UK Top 40 singles chart.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Green Jellÿ	Anarchy In The UK	Never!
2	Sarah Washington	I Will Always Love You	No chance
3	Billy Joel	River Of Dreams	Not likely
4	Bad Boys Inc	Don’t Talk About Love	NO!
5	Culture Beat	Mr. Vain	I did not
6	Ice Cube	Check Yo Self	No
7	Ali And Frazier	Uptown Top Ranking	I’d rather get punched in the face
8	Jamiroquai	Emergency On Planet Earth	No but my wife had the album
9	Spin Doctors	Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong	No but maybe I should have
10	Apache Indian	Boom Shack-A-Lak	It was fun but no
11	Aswad / Yazz	How Long	Too long – no
12	Freddie Mercury	Living On My Own	And 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/m001cjqv/top-of-the-pops-12081993

TOTP 29 JUL 1993

Posted on September 24, 2022 by 80stastic

It’s late July 1993 and the BBC’s musical output has gone stale. The seismic changes of the TOTP ‘year zero’ revamp happened twenty-two months ago and many are no longer with us most obviously the majority of the slew of new presenters that were introduced. In fact, the only two remaining are Mark Franklin and Tony Dortie who have been presenting solo on alternate weeks since October 1992. The show’s audience has plateaued at a level of 6.5 million which was less than it was attracting pre the revamp.

Meanwhile, over at Radio 1, whilst it seems like the ‘Smashie And Nicey’ image propagated by the likes of Simon Bates, Dave Lee Travis and Gary Davies will carry on forever, change is a-comin’. The era of Matthew Bannister as controller of Radio 1 is nearly upon us and he will action a root and branch transformation that will strip away the old, rotting wood. The culture of change would prove to be contagious. Within months, TOTP would also change head producer and the incoming Ric Blaxill would reverse most of the ‘year zero’ changes. For now though, it was the calm before the storm. Let’s see who was afloat before the sea of change appeared over the horizon…

We start with an act that was having some success under the current regime but who would flourish under the new. “Unforgiven” was D:Ream’s third of four consecutive Top 40 hits in 1993 though none would get any higher than No 19. Solid but not spectacular. Come early 1994 though they would go off like a rocket with the re-release of “Things Can Only Get Better” soaring to No 1.

Like most people I’m guessing, I don’t remember “Unforgiven” but on listening back to it, I was pleasantly surprised. It’s OK. A bit more grit to it than their most famous tune, the most impressive part of it is the bridge into the chorus which Peter Cunnah almost growls – quite the feat in a dance record. Linda Perry from 4 Non Blondes seems to have started a trend for tall hat wearing given the millinery of one of the backing singers. Where will it all end? Well, I’ll tell you where it won’t end – with me making the almost obligatory reference to Professor Brian Cox on keyboards…oh shit.

“Unforgiven” peaked at No 29.

“Show Me Love” by Robin S was not just one of the biggest dance tunes of 1993 but of the whole decade and beyond. How do you follow a hit line that? Easy! Just release virtually the same song again but change its title. “Luv 4 Luv” is “Show Me Love”, not just sonically but linguistically with the same three syllable title and chorus but with a slight change of spelling. Money for old rope? This was, to reference the film maker Stanley Kubrick, money for pieces of string too short to be useful*. Even Tony Dortie can’t resist a jibe by stating tongue-in-cheek that it’s “nothing like her first single”.

*Kubrick was a massive hoarder and when his family were sorting through his estate after his death, they found a box labelled ‘pieces of string too short to be useful’. His archives now reside at the London College of Communication .

Amazingly, enough people bought the single to send it to No 11 in the UK charts. I don’t get this. Presumably if a punter liked it enough to buy “Luv 4 Luv” then said punter must have felt the same about “Show Me Love” and also bought that so essentially you have the same record twice. Surely there can’t have been people who only bought “Luv 4 Luv”?! “I wasn’t bothered about “Show Me Love” but this new one by Robin S is great and I must have it”…said no-one ever.

When Freddie Mercury died in November 1991, Queen’s most iconic song “Bohemian Rhapsody” was rereleased and almost inevitably became that year’s Xmas No 1. Four months later, The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert for AIDS Awareness took place at Wembley Stadium with the remaining members of Queen all involved. Such was Freddie’s popularity though, there was still a clamour for his recordings and so the band’s label raided his back catalogue as a solo artist. For a name as big as Freddie’s, there wasn’t actually that much solo work to raid. He only recorded two studio albums (and one of those was the “Barcelona” collaboration with Montserrat Caballé) plus the standalone single “The Great Pretender”, a couple of tracks for the Dave Clark musical Time and “Love Kills” from Giorgio Moroder’s restoration of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. That didn’t stop Parlophone coming up with the unimaginatively titled “The Freddie Mercury Album” compilation in 1992 which included elements of all those recording projects. That album had already seen the release of “In My Defence” from Time and a rerelease for the aforementioned “The Great Pretender” which had both charted.

What came next though, nearly two years after Freddie’s death, was a surprise. A posthumous No1 record with a single that had stumbled to a peak of No 50 when originally released eight years prior? How did that happen? Well, it was all down to a team of remixers called The No More Brothers who took the track “Living On My Own” which had been on Freddie’s 1985 solo debut album “Mr Bad Guy” and that 1992 compilation and turned it into a dance hit. A chart topper all over Europe including the UK, it was a sales sensation. Me though, I didn’t get it. I hadn’t been aware of the 1985 original but this 1993 version didn’t make me want to seek it out. It just sounded so bland and I hated the lines ‘Dee do de de, Dee do de de, I don’t have no time for no monkey business”. What?! Written down, the first part looks like a script for a Harry Enfield’s The Scousers sketch whilst the monkey business bit was just hackneyed. How was this a No 1 record? The video is the same one used for the 1985 release and uses footage of Freddie’s 39th birthday party in Munich where he recorded the “Mr Bad Guy” album.

The general perception amongst the fanbase of Manic Street Preachers is that their second album “Gold Against The Soul” is also their worst. There is also an agreed opinion that the one stand out track on it is “La Tristesse Durera” which was released as its second single. I disagree on both counts. I love this album and though “La Tristesse Durera” is a fabulous track, it’s not my favourite from it. That honour switches between “Roses In The Hospital” and “Life Becoming A Landslide” on a regular basis.

Actually, I need to correct myself here and give the song its full title which is “La Tristesse Durera (Scream To A Sigh)”. No brackets, no points. I make this clarification not just for the sake of accuracy nor to be a pedant but to highlight a peculiar oddity about the track that has a tie in with another song I love that has brackets in the title. For some reason, when released in the US, the the song’s title was changed to “Scream To Sigh (La Tristesse Durera)”. Why? I have no idea but nearly a decade earlier, The Icicle Works’ single “Birds Fly (Whisper To A Scream)” had its title changed to “Whisper To A Scream (Birds Fly)” for the US market. What was it about US record labels and brackets and the word ‘scream’?

As for the performance here, would there have been outrage at Nicky Wire wearing a dress? There shouldn’t have been. It’s not as if we hadn’t seen it before. There was Bowie on the cover of his “The Man Who Sold The World” album and that bloke from Mud who wore one on the actual show.

“La Tristesse Durera (Whisper To A Scream)” peaked at No 22.

“Live from the Dominion Theatre in London’s West End…” Don’t get too excited it’s just Craig McLachlan in a revival of Grease the Musical and I have to say that, based on this short clip of “You’re The One That I Want” he doesn’t seem too convincing as Danny Zuko. Maybe it’s his curly hair, or his average singing voice or maybe it’s just that he’s not John Travolta which is not his fault of course. Debbie Gibson on the other hand belts it out and wears that iconic leather outfit well.

As Tony Dortie says, the cast included Shane Richie who played the role of Kenickie but as for him being “very funny” – if he performed anything like he did when on 3–2–1 in 1987…Perhaps he should have changed his name to Shame Richie…

Five Breakers again this week (bastards!) starting with Juliet Roberts and “Caught In The Middle”. I had no idea at the time but this wasn’t Juliet’s first Top 40 record – she was the vocalist on “It’s Over” by Funk Masters way back in 1983. She then joined smooth jazzers Working Week whose single “I Thought I’d Never See You Again” I quite liked though nobody else seemed to much when it peaked at No 80. Fast forward eight years and Juliet finally had a hit in her own right.

There’s a couple of parallels between Juliet and Shara Nelson who was on the show the other week. Both were having success under their own names after supplying the vocals for other artists (Shara sang on Massive Attack’s “Unfinished Sympathy”) and both were on the Cooltempo label. Also like Shara, Juliet’s solo career seemed to peter out rather. “Caught In The Middle” made No 24 though a David Morales remix the following year peaked ten places higher. A couple more Top 20 singles followed before the decade was out but that didn’t translate into album sales with her debut long player “Natural Thing” only making No 65. She continues to be in demand as a backing singer though.

The first of two huge stars now who are experiencing a drop off in singles sales as their latest offerings fail to tempt UK record buyers. After her last single “That’s The Way Love Goes” went to No 2 over here, Janet Jackson might have expected the follow up to perform similarly. It didn’t. “If” was the second single from her “Janet” album which I thought was meant to be a more smooth, sensual sounding soul record but this single could have been on the more strident previous album “Rhythm Nation 1814” with its hard beats and rock guitar riff. Yes, the lyrics aligned with the album’s sexual theme touching on fantasy and voyeurism but sonically it was nothing like the previous single.

The video plays on the voyeurism subject with scenes involving touch screen monitors and web cams, seemingly jumping on the bandwagon of Sliver, the erotic thriller starring Sharon Stone that was popular at the time. Maybe the racy video worked against the single’s commercial potential – was it too racy for anything other than a short Breaker spot on TOTP? Whatever the reason, “If” only made it to No 14 in the UK.

Oh crap! It’s “River Of Dreams” by Billy Joel. Now I like Billy and some of his back catalogue (especially the earlier stuff) is great. Even his last album prior to this (“Storm Front”) had some good singles on it. This track though rivalled “Uptown Girl” for sheer, undiluted awfulness. The title track off his only studio album of the 90s and the last to be comprised of pop songs*, it was and remains shockingly bad.

*His 2001 set “Fantasies & Delusions” contained only classical compositions.

Not everyone agreed with my assessment though. It was a huge global hit and was nominated for the Grammy Award for Record of the Year for 1994 losing out to, by coincidence, the next artist to feature on the Breakers. Why couldn’t I stand it? It was just so twee and I hated that harmonised intro that goes “In the middle of the…I go walking in the…”. I think ultimately though it reminds me of a time when I wasn’t that happy at work but that’s for a post in the near future.

Long after I’d finished working in record shops and stopped listening to Radio 1, I found myself at the radio home for the newly middle aged and listening to Terry Wogan’s breakfast show and he used to play this constantly. It nearly broke me.

“River Of Dreams” peaked at No 3.

Now to that second artist (alongside Janet Jackson) suffering an unexpected downturn in sales of their latest single and also the winner of that 1994 Grammy for Record of the Year. “Run To You” was the fourth single released by Whitney Houston from The Bodyguard soundtrack and was basically a retread of the third single “I Have Nothing” in that they were both towering ballads executed with precision by Whitney over a shiny production. So similar were they that Natalie Cole performed a medley of them at the 1993 Academy Awards (I’m guessing Whitney was indisposed).

Presumably due to the fact that the so many people already had the song due to buying the soundtrack album, “Run To You” failed to work itself into a sprint up the charts peaking at No 15 in the UK and No 31 in the US.

The video looks a bit crap by today’s high CGI standards with Whitney running against a backdrop of clouds although maybe it was a homage to the film of the aforementioned Grease when Danny and Sandy’s car takes off into the sky and they fly off into the clouds?

Neither “Run To You” nor Janet Jackson’s “If” were shown in full on TOTP which you maybe wouldn’t have expected for two such huge names.

Another huge name who had already had her video shown in full on the show is the final Breaker this week. Madonna is up to No 7 with “Rain” from her “Erotica” album. The tickets Tony Dortie refers to are for the two concert dates in September that Madonna played at Wembley Stadium as part of her The Girlie Show world tour.

“Rain” ended the first act of the show and was interspersed with “Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)” by The Temptations and “Singin’ In The Rain”. Want to hear it? Here you go but having sat through the whole thing myself, I must warn you that you won’t get these 9 minutes and 48 seconds of your life back…

Back in the studio we find Dannii Minogue performing her rendition of Melba Moore’s “This Is It”. You know I said earlier about Juliet Roberts being an in demand backing singer after her solo career ended? Well, she must have been moonlighting back in 1993 as she provided backing vocals on Dannii’s previous single to “This Is It” which was called “Love’s On Every Corner”.

Twenty years after she had a hit with “This Is It”, the track supplied the title for a Best Of Dannii album which included a duet with sister Kylie of the ABBA standard “The Winner Takes It All” – I wonder which of the two of them that was then?

“This Is It” peaked at No 10.

https://youtu.be/2BkYJ5g8kE4

There’s only one Bee Gees song I remember from 1993 and it ain’t this one. “For Whom The Bell Tolls” was a surprise Top 5 hit over Xmas that year that just seemed to keep on selling even when you thought it must have run out of steam. “Paying The Price Of Love” though? Nah, I’ve got nothing. Their previous hit to this had been the shameless rewrite of “Chain Reaction” that was “Secret Love” in 1991. Did this one sound like any of their other songs? A slight hint of “You Win Again” maybe? Maybe not.

Barry Gibbs’ falsetto here is quite remarkable. That’s not a compliment though – a better descriptor would be ridiculous. I know it works somehow on most of their back catalogue especially their disco era peak but taken in isolation it’s quite mad. If he turned up on a talent show like The Voice for example and did that, would the judges turn around or would they look at each other and break out into a fit of uncontrollable giggling? What if they did turn around and then saw his mane of hair?! I can only really think of Barry Gibb and Queen’s Brian May that have always maintained the same hairstyle throughout their careers. Honourable mentions should also go to Rod Stewart and Paul Weller for sustaining comedy haircuts but they have tweaked them down the years.

“Paying The Price Of Love” peaked at No 23.

You can’t really argue with Tony Dortie’s assessment that Take That were “simply the biggest pop band in the UK” at this time as “Pray” notches up a third week at No 1. The boys are back in the studio this week and what I’m noticing from this performance is the clear division of hairstyles between them (and yes, I know I seem to be obsessed with pop star barnets yet again this week). Mark, Howard and Robbie all have that classic mid 90s long at the the sides curtains style while Jason and Gary have a more classic crew cut. I think I know which has aged the better.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	D:Ream	Unforgiven	Nope
2	Robin S	Luv 4 Luv	Never
3	Freddie Mercury	Living On My Own	I did not
4	Manic Street Preachers	La Tristesse Durera (Scream To A Sigh)	Not the single but I had the album
5	Craig McLachlan and Debbie Gibson	You’re The One That I Want	No
6	Juliet Roberts	Caught In the Middle	Negative
7	Janet Jackson	If	Nah
8	Billy Joel	River Of Dreams	Hell no!
9	Whitney Houston	Run To You	No thanks
10	Madonna	Rain	It’s a no
11	Dannii Minogue	This Is It	No it isn’t
12	Bee Gees	Paying The Price Of Love	I didn’t pay the price
13	Take That	Pray	And 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/m001c948/top-of-the-pops-29071993

TOTP 10 DEC 1992

Posted on May 23, 2022 by 80stastic

When I was a lad (can’t believe I’ve started a post with that phrase!) things seemed straightforward, linear even. Timelines of events were uncomplicated. Things happened then finished. Then something else happened. What on earth am I talking about? Well, I’m thinking about musical movements.

When I was growing up in the 70s, it seemed to me that flavours of music would rise to popularity, burn brightly and then fizzle out whereupon something else would take over. So glam rock was prevalent from 1971 to 1975 approximately before punk rock pressed the reset button in a whirlwind of filth and fury. By 1978 with The Sex Pistols in disarray, punk had served its purpose and was superseded by New Wave and a Mod revival. When that bit the dust the New Romantics took centre stage with swagger and outrageous outfits. With the pin up boys of that movement aspiring to be more than cult status, New Pop was born with Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet and Culture Club dominating the charts. See what I mean? Yes, that’s a very simplistic view that could easily be debunked I’m sure (where was disco in all this for example?) but I’m going with it to enable my point. Talking of which, what is my point exactly? It’s this. By the time we got to late 1992, what musical movement were we in because I have no idea going by the running order on this edition of TOTP. Yes, obviously we had seen a dance explosion happen from at least 1988 onwards (some may even date it as early as 1986) but by this point it was the movement was so refracted that there was a kaleidoscope of sub genres. I remember whilst working for Our Price in the 90s a memo coming out from head office entitled ‘scary areas of your shop and how to deal with them’. First on the list was how to classify the dance collections section of the racks, so unwieldy had that section become.

Anyway, back to TOTP and this show featured a boy band, a Motown superstar, a part of the establishment that was into his fifth decade of hit records, the Queen of Latino pop, a posthumous release from one of the biggest and most flamboyant rock stars ever, some US R’n’B a cappella style, some indie rock, a collaboration between some Manc electronic dance pioneers and the kings of Brummie reggae and…descending from a parallel universe a troupe of wrestlers! Pick the bones out of that! What the Hell was going on?! Let’s find out..,

We start with that boy band – Take That. After having lived with the next big thing tag for a year or so without delivering on it, these lads had finally started turning potential and promotion into sales. Their cover of Barry Manilow’s “Could It Be Magic” was their fourth chart hit of the year and this one was the biggest of the lot, ascending ultimately to a high of No 3. Now Take That weren’t the first teen sensation to do a cover version – I’m thinking The Bay City Rollers doing “Bye Bye Baby” by The Four Seasons for example – but this did seem to set a template for the conveyor belt of acts that followed in their wake. Look at this lot:

911 – “More Than A Woman” by the Bee Gees
A1 – “Take On Me” by A-ha
Boyzone – “Father And Son” by Cat Stevens
Five – “We Will Rock You” by Queen
Let Loose – “Make It With You” by Bread
OTT – “Let Me In” by The Osmonds
Upside Down – “If You Leave Me Now” by Chicago
Westlife – “Mandy” by Barry Manilow

All fine versions I’m sure you’ll agree! To be fair though, Take That’s cover of “Could It Be Magic” was pretty good I think although their reworking of it had more to do with Donna Summer’s 1976 disco rendition than the Manilow version. I seem to recall it being received pretty well as an unexpectedly strong version which wrong footed most people’s expectations of what they would do next. Sure it was a cover but of a different flavour to their take on “It Only Takes A Minute” by Tavares that gave them their first big chart hit. Should they have reversed their release schedule and put “Could It Be Magic” out earlier and then gone big time on ballad “A Million Love Songs” for the Xmas No 1? For what it’s worth I think they got it the right way round.

This was the first time that Robbie Williams took on the vocals on his own. Little did we know what was to come in just a few short years. Gary Barlow is demoted to rank and file status – he’s on backing dancer/ vocals duties with the rest of the group. You can almost see him counting the dance steps in his head. I’d watch your back Gary if I was you.

Despite having passed away in late 1991, Freddie Mercury still retained a massive presence into 1992. In April, The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert was held at Wembley stadium and in November came “The Freddie Mercury Album”, a collection of his solo work released to commemorate the anniversary of his death. It was a nice idea for the fanbase and no doubt record label Parlophone always had it in mind to ring every drop of revenue they could out of his existing catalogue. What I didn’t quite get though was how they were going to put together a Best Of out of such scant source material. Freddie only released one, pure solo album in his lifetime which was 1985’s “Mr Bad Guy”. Yes, there was that “Barcelona” album with Montserrat Caballé but who, apart from superfans, really knows anything from that but the title track? What else is there? Well, he had a hit single in 1984 called “Love Kills” from Giorgio Moroder’s restoration of Fritz Lang’s 1927 classic silent film Metropolis. Then there’s his No 4 hit from 1987 which was his cover of The Platters oldie “The Great Pretender”. And…erm…oh yes! There’s “I was Born To Love You”, the only single to chart from that “Mr Bad Guy” album. Erm…except that isn’t on “The Freddie Mercury Album”! I presume it was a licensing issue as “Mr Bad Guy” was released by CBS rather than Queen’s EMI label. There are other tracks from it on “The Freddie Mercury Album” but maybe CBS/Sony didn’t want to give away the rights to its (then) best known tune.

Given all the above, Parlophone chose to promote the album with “In My Defence”. This was a track from the Dave Clark musical Time. This was the production that had already given us Top 40 singles by Cliff Richard (“She’s So Beautiful”), Julian Lennon (“Because”) and indeed Freddie himself who took “Time” to No 32 in 1986. I guess Parlophone could have rereleased “The Great Pretender” (which they ultimately did after “In My Defence”) but not “Barcelona” which had already been re-issued for the 1992 Olympics. “In My Defence” it was though and it’s a perfect vehicle for Freddie’s voice, all overblown drama and huge notes but it works pretty well. It could easily have been a Queen composition really. The single went Top 10 but there was an even bigger hit to come from the album the following year that had been hiding in plain sight but that’s for a future post…

https://youtu.be/44eEOAEC5z8

Something from the US chart now as we see a song that would end up being a big hit in the UK four years down the line but not for the original artist. I don’t recall the Shai version of “If I Ever Fall In Love” but then, despite this TOTP appearance, it only made it to No 36 in our charts. In the US however, it was a huge hit staying at No 2 for eight weeks!

Was the version they perform here the version on the record? A cappella I mean?

*checks Spotify*

I found two versions. One is the TOTP version and the other has a bit of instrumentation on it but not much. I’m not mad on a cappella I have to say and Shai haven’t made me change my mind. What was the deal with the guy with his coat half on and half off?!

Oh that version that was a hit in 1996? That was by East 17 and Gabrielle of course. They changed the title to “If I Ever”, dropped the a cappella style and took it all the way to No 2. Don’t think it stayed there for eight weeks though. I didn’t like that version either.

Right it’s time for those wrestlers! Despite the charts having been infiltrated in recent weeks by novelty tripe like computer games tunes “Tetris” and “Supermarioland” and a ‘song’ by stripper troupe The Chippendales, it seemed 1992 hadn’t done with us yet in the utter shite stakes. You may not be surprised that WWF Superstars was the idea of Simon Cowell. Here’s @TOTPFacts:

"Slam Jam" was Simon Cowell's idea: "I read in one of our newspapers that [The WWF] sold out 82,000 seats in 27 minutes. Hang on, there's not a rock band in the world that can do that. I also found out that they were selling about two and a half million videos a year…" #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) May 13, 2022

"… It didn't take a lot of time to realise that if they were selling that many seats and that many videos, there would be a lot of kids who would want to buy an album from the wrestlers as well." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) May 13, 2022

Hmm. It reminds me of a scene from one of my favourite ever films Stardust starring David Essex which tells the story of the rise of fictional rock star Jim MacLaine. After he has split from his band and gone solo, MacLaine’s manager Mike (played by Adam Faith) plans a worldwide TV and cinema simultaneous broadcast of a concert to promote MacLaine’s latest album. A conversation between Mike and Jim’s American manager Porter Lee Austin (played by Larry Hagman) plays out like this:

Mike: See, what we do is this. We get the cinemas and TV companies all over the world to put up a big enough advance to cover the cost of the album and the show. Well, I mean that way we can’t lose. I mean…If they can pick up money putting on boxing shows, just think what we can pick up putting Jim MacLaine on satellite. For every one boxing fan there must be at least 5,000 pop fans. I mean, to coincide with the concert what we can do is put the album out worldwide. Well, just think of all that promotion Porter Lee. It’s all or nothing this one Porter…

Porter Lee: What kind of concert Mike?

Mike: Don’t worry about the concert eh? Just leave that to me. I tell you one thing, it be like something you’ve ever seen before

Porter Lee: That’s a pretty good idea Mike. Maybe I can do something.

Mike: He’ll be bigger than Aldof Hitler after this lot.

OK, we probably didn’t need the Hitler reference but you get my drift. The WWF Superstars single was called “Slam Jam” (presumably after a wrestling move?) and it was, of course, dreadful. Produced by Mike Stock and Pete Waterman (it just gets worse doesn’t it?), the vinyl came in a poster sleeve bag as I recall (Cowell never misses a marketing trick) and it would reach No 4 in the charts. I’m guessing it was bought by 10 year old boys because if not, I have no idea how to explain what occurred here.

“Connecticut, we have a problem”. Host Mark Franklin advises us that there was meant to be an exclusive satellite performance by Diana Ross of her latest single “If We Hold On Together” from Connecticut but technical problems have put paid to that so we have to make do with the official video instead. To be honest, I’m not too fussed either way.

Now this was taken from the soundtrack to the Universal Pictures animated film The Land Before Time but I’m confused because it came out in 1988 so why was a song from it a hit in the UK four years later? I can only assume it had a terrestrial TV premiere around this time. Another thing that’s confusing me is what this video is that TOTP are showing? I can’t find it on YouTube. The only one I came across featured wall to wall scenes from the film whereas the TOTP version also includes footage of Diana herself. To add to the mystery, Wikipedia says there was no official video for the song. Maybe there wasn’t in 1988 but there was in 1992? I refer you to my earlier comment. I’m not really fussed either way.

As for the song, it sounded exactly as you expected it would. Basically “Somewhere Out There” from An American Tail. “If We Hold On Together” peaked at No 11.

One of the surprise breakout stars of 1992 were KWS who bagged an unlikely No 1 with their cover of KC And The Sunshine Band’s “Please Don’t Go”. A Top 10 follow up (another cover of George McRae’s “Rock Me Baby”) consolidated their success. On reflection, KWS were like the soul version of Undercover. However, by the end of the year their shtick was starting to wear thin. Yet another cover version was chosen as their third single release of the year – “Hold Back The Night” by The Trammps – but to spice it up a bit, they (or more likely their management) decided to team up with the original hitmakers on the track.

Now it’s easy in this performance to see who are The Trammps as they’re the older fellas who have taken their tuxedos and bow ties out of the back of the wardrobe. I’m assuming the KWS guys are the two on keyboards at either end of The Trammps but are they ‘K’, ‘W’ or ‘S’? Remember that their band name came from the initials of the band’s surnames – King / Williams / St. Joseph. And where was the one that wasn’t there?

“Hold Back The Night” peaked at No 30.

Ah the Breakers. Marvellous! After the Boney M “Megamix” single last week, there’s another one tonight courtesy of Gloria Estefan. Known as “Miami Hit Mix” in the UK, this was to promote Gloria’s first “Greatest Hits” album which was a huge seller over Xmas reaching No 2 and eventually going triple platinum in the UK. I recall that by opening time on Xmas Eve, the only chart stock line that we had ran out of in the Our Price in Rochdale where I was working was the cassette version of the album. We knew we had some on order that were due to come in on the day but the record company were out of stock when the delivery came in. Ian the store manager wasn’t too arsed saying “nobody will find it anywhere else in Rochdale today”. He was probably right. There wasn’t much competition record shop wise in Rochdale. There was somewhere in the Exchange shopping centre but it was very hit and miss and the manager of the place was obsessed with our shop and used to buy his records from us!

Anyway, back to Gloria and the “Miami Hit Mix”. There were five tracks in the medley from various stages of Gloria’s career. You can tell that as they were released under three different Gloria monikers:

Song	Gloria Moniker
Dr Beat	Miami Sound Machine
Conga	Miami Sound Machine
Rhythm Is Gonna Get You	Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine
1-2-3	Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine
Get On Your Feet	Gloria Estefan

As with Boney M, the Xmas party market meant that sales of the single were brisk enough to send it into the Top 10. Also like Boney M, it was the last time Gloria ventured so high in the UK charts.

Fed up of all the cover versions in the charts? Tough because here comes another one courtesy of The Lemonheads. I had no idea who this lot were at the time but their cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Mrs Robinson” sounded pretty cool to me back then. According to some of the online reviews I have found, I was in the minority. Ultimateclassicrock.com describe it as ‘terrible’ and ‘meh’. Even Evan Dando himself can’t like it that much as he is on record as hating the original and indeed Paul Simon. So why was their cover even recorded then?

Apparently it was to celebrate the 25th anniversary home video release of The Graduate, the film it features in. The Lemonheads cover brought the band more coverage and success than they’d ever had up to that point. The band had already released four albums to little fanfare since their formation in 1986. The first three had been on indie label Taang! before they were picked up by major Atlantic for their fourth “Lovey”. However, it was fifth album “It’s A Shame About Ray” that would see them gain much wider recognition. Initial pressings of the album didn’t include the “Mrs Robinson” cover but its success meant that the album was re-released with its omission now corrected. It would achieve gold status sales in the UK and a rerelease of the title track brought the band a second Top 40 single the following year.

The pinnacle of the band’s success came with the release of the “Come On Feel The Lemonheads” album in October of 1993 which made the Top 5 in the UK charts. I had transferred from the Our Price in Rochdale to the much bigger store in Stockport by that time. The manager there when I started was a guy called Paul who looked a bit like Evan Dando and certainly the image of Dando on the cover of the album bore that out. Paul moved on to HMV (or was it Virgin?) not long after I got to Stockport. On my first day I asked him what lunch he wanted to go on. He replied “lunch is for wimps”. I visibly gulped.

“Mrs Robinson” peaked at No 19.

Right, what’s this then? 808 State vs UB40? What the Hell? Electronic dance music meets reggae pop? Who’s idea was this? OK, that’s enough questions. Time for some answers. Well, I haven’t got many to be fair. This remix of the Brummies 1981 Top 10 single “One In Ten” came from the Mancs’ fourth studio album “Gorgeous” which featured other guest artists like Ian McCulloch. Why they chose to tackle UB40’s unemployment referencing classic I’m not sure. Judging by some of the comments on YouTube against the single’s video, people are very divided on whether the remix was genius or a crime. For me, I’m always going to favour the original.

The remix of “One In Ten” peaked at No 17. 808 State would not return to the Top 20 for another five years when they did so with another collaboration, this time with James Dean Bradfield of Manic Street Preachers on “Lopez”.

After all the cover versions and medleys, here’s a proper, original song courtesy of Madonna. I say original but “Deeper And Deeper” does delve into one of her most iconic hits when it morphs into “Vogue” in the coda. Oh, and there’s a “La Isla Bonita” borrowing bridge that features flamenco guitar and castanets. And…it does pinch some lyrics from “Do-Re-Mi” from The Sound Of Music. Apart from that though, totally original.

“Deeper And Deeper” peaked at No 6.

There’s only two weeks to Xmas so Cliff Richard is making his move for the festive No 1 with “I Still Believe In You”. He resorts to his usual over emoting performance tricks that he’s been peddling for years. I’m sure it’s just a case of slowing down with age but he could mix it up a bit. The other thing that doesn’t seem to have changed for years is Cliff’s hair. It seems to have been the same since the mid 80s at least. Cliff mate, it’s 1992 and you’re still sporting a mullet! Now granted I myself cultivated one during the period ‘84-‘86. Not a Chris Waddle but it was definitely long at the back. It was fashionable back then. By 1987 though, mine was gone forever. Cliff on the other hand was determined to keep the style going single handedly…erm headedly.

Cliff never did make the Xmas No 1 this year because of this next record…

A second week at No 1 for Whitney Houston with “I Will Always Love You” and I think it was becoming obvious by this point that this was no ordinary record. I don’t have actual sales figures to hand but in the Our Price in Rochdale, it felt like it was outselling everything else in the Top 5 combined. With just a couple of weeks to go to Xmas, the idea of there being a race to be the festive chart topper felt like delusion. It was never in doubt.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Take That	Could It Be Magic	Good cover but I wasn’t buying Take That thank you very much!
2	Freddie Mercury	In My Defence	I did not
3	Shai	If I Ever Fall In Love	Nah
4	WWF Superstars	Slam Jam	As if
5	Diana Ross	If We Hold On Together	Never happening
6	KWS / The Trammps	Hold Back The Night	Nope
7	Gloria Estefan	Miami Hit Mix	No
8	The Lemonheads	Mrs Robinson	Liked it, didn’t buy it
9	808 State vs UB40	One In Ten	Not for me
10	Madonna	Deeper And Deeper	Negative
11	Cliff Richard	I Still Believe In You	The feeling is not reciprocated Cliff
12	Whitney Houston	I Will Always Love You	And 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/m0017731/top-of-the-pops-10121992

TOTP 13 AUG 1992

Posted on March 19, 2022 by 80stastic

The curse of Adrian Rose has struck again meaning we have missed another show and therefore gone straight to the middle of August 1992 and what an exciting time it was. Two days after this TOTP aired, the all new, singing and dancing (literally in the case of Sky Sports cheerleaders the Sky Strikers) FA Premier League started. My beloved Chelsea prepared for this new era by signing striker Robert Fleck from Norwich City for a club record £2.1 million just 24 hours previously. It would prove to be a disastrous waste of money as Fleck scored just 4 goals in 48 appearances for Chelsea and started a ongoing trend of the club buying big reputation forwards that would turn out to be flops.

Tonight’s opening act similarly came with a big reputation as pop’s next big thing and although they suffered a few flops initially, they would eventually find the form to bag themselves a shed load of massive chart hits and certainly more than the four times Fleck rippled the net.

Having scored their first chart hit with “It Only Takes A Minute” just a few weeks before, Take That weren’t hanging around when it came to a follow up. Now I always thought that like its predecessor, “I Found Heaven” was a cover version but it isn’t. It was written by producer Ian Levine and singer Billy Griffin, the guy who replaced Smokey Robinson as lead vocalist of The Miracles. It turns out that the band always hated the track with a passion. Gary Barlow described it in his autobiography as “truly fucking awful” and “the worst song of my and Take That’s career”. Ouch! It is the only song recorded by the group, aside from covers, that was not written by themselves. It features both Barlow and Robbie Williams on joint lead vocals hinting at the competition that was to define their relationship as the band’s fame grew. Poor old Jason Orange didn’t get to sing on it at all apparently as his vocals weren’t considered good enough. Bit like when Robert Fleck didn’t play for Chelsea for six months after being dropped as he was basically pants.

“I Found Heaven” peaked at No 15. Though not completely disastrous, given that “It Only Takes A Minute” had gone to No 7, this probably wasn’t the result that their management team and record label had hoped for. At the very least it must have increased the pressure on their next single release to outscore its predecessor. In the end, they turned to the Gary Barlow penned ballad “A Million Love Songs” to provide another winner and it duly did the business returning them to the Top 10 and securing their continued success. Their cover of Barry Manilow’s “Could It Be Magic” would give them a fourth consecutive hit when it went all the way to No 3 over Xmas. In comparison, it took Robert Fleck the best part of two years to put the ball in the net four times for Chelsea.

Fleck wasn’t the only striker involved in a high profile transfer around this time. On 7th August, Manchester United signed Dion Dublin from Cambridge United for £1 million. Like Fleck, the future Homes Under The Hammer presenter didn’t have a great time at his new club as a broken leg restricted him to just 12 appearances for them. He still scored more than double the goals Fleck did in those games but that’s not the point. The reason I mention him is because I was working in the Our Price store in Market Street, Manchester at the time of Dixon’s signing and one day he came into the shop! My colleague Justin was a big United fan and soon came onto the shop floor to ask him for his autograph. For some reason Justin decided to get him to sign a picture of Dublin’s team mate and England star Bryan Robson. Why Justin thought that was appropriate or why he had a picture of Robson with him at work I know not. Dion seemed to take it all in good humour though and duly signed.

Back to the music and we find one of the more curious hits of the year. A dance version of a Gerry Rafferty easy listening classic? Are you sure? It seemed an insane proposition but then I have personally witnessed in the flesh Robert Fleck score for Chelsea so anything is possible. Seen by some purists as the lowest form of dance music, the masses disagreed and sent “Baker Street” by Undercover spiralling up the charts to No 2.

So who were these chancers? Well, they were a London trio consisting of vocalist John Matthews plus Steve Mac and John Jules who rode a wave to short lived fame much in the same way that KWS did with their cheesy cover of KC and the Sunshine Band’s “Please Don’t Go” earlier in the year. What with those two and, as referenced by host Tony Dortie in his intro, East Side Beat’s danced up treatment of Christopher Cross’s “Ride Like The Wind” in ‘91, this was fast becoming a very lucrative craze.

The unlikely nature of these hits could not be explained by watching the acts performing them on TOTP. Look at this appearance by Undercover for example. Jon Matthews is hardly shimmering with star quality though he has turned up in his best grown up party clothes bless him. The whole thing reeks of the entertainment on a ferry crossing. Actually, I’m not that far off from the truth with that observation for Undercover were a part of the story of that inaugural Premier League season. Whilst watching the documentary Fever Pitch: The Rise Of The Premier League, I noticed that amongst the razzmatazz that Sky brought in to help launch their coverage which included cheerleaders and giant inflatable sumo wrestlers, they also had pop acts do a turn at half time. The idea was that they could do better than the traditional military band that was wheeled out for cup finals during the break. Guess who is clearly sighted as the entertainment in one of the clips? Yep, Undercover.

They would repeat the trick with their next release, their version of Andrew Gold’s “Never Let Her Slip Away” which would be a No 5 hit. One final chart entry (Gallagher and Lyle’s “I Wanna Stay With You”) followed before the game was well and truly up.

One final thing – when Tony Dortie describes it as the “drum ‘n’ bass version of Baker Street“ – what was he thinking?! Here’s Tony with the answer:

I think you'll find I have no idea what I'm talking about, so ignore anything I type x
— Tony Dortie (@TonyDortie) March 19, 2022

From football to the Olympics as the one chart hit that everyone could have predicted happening this year did indeed…erm…happen. I couldn’t stand “Barcelona” by Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé first time around in 1987 and its inevitable rerelease for the ‘92 Olympics in Barcelona didn’t change my opinion. What I had never realised was that the track had always been intended to soundtrack the games but had been recorded as early as it was as the selection process for the Olympic theme took place in 1988. As well as being the official song of the games, the BBC used it for the music to their coverage of the action. It was inescapable.

The video shown here has some inserted sporting footage highlighting Team GB successes including Linford Christie, Sally Gunnell, Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent and the Searle brothers Greg and Jonny and their very emotional cox Garry Herbert.

There is a football connection with “Barcelona” as it was performed by Caballé along side a video of the sadly departed Mercury before the 1999 Champions League final between Manchester United and Bayern Munich at the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona. I didn’t see that performance though as I was working in Our Price in Altrincham that day and was rushing from pub to pub to try and find one that wasn’t packed out already to watch the game.

And another Tony Dortie conundrum – why does he call it Basss–er–lona?

Breaking news! Check this out! More Dortie madness! Dion Dublin and Tony Dortie joined together by the power of #Laterz!

Wow this is madness can some1 please tweet her and ask coincidence or what… hey @GRB1 can you help our #totp Friday Hustlers get to the bottom of this..I've actually never ever heard any1 else ever say #Laterz on TV besides me B4 https://t.co/HmM9fd1SoC
— Tony Dortie (@TonyDortie) March 20, 2022

Stand by for another Twitter outpouring of swooning and lust as it’s time for Betty Boo again! “Let Me Take You There” is her latest single but little did we know it would be her last ever chart hit. I think I’ve commented on what happened to Betty (real name Alison Clarkson) before but in the light of her return to making music under her own name this year, The Guardian did an interview with her just days ago. They asked her about disappearing from the world of pop and the circumstances behind it. She’d lost her Mum, Dad and Aunty within a short space of time and so retreated into family life, looking after her Gran. As Alison described it:

“To be a pop star you have to be full-whack all the time and I just melted.”

The last time she was on the show, Betty had an all female backing band but this time the TOTP producers have got her completely solo and performing against some sort of Summer beach background complete with palm trees, a deck chair and sea shells. They’ve obviously decided it’s a Summery song and should be styled accordingly. Would you wear that check outfit Betty has on to the beach including high heels though?

“Let Me Take You There“ peaked at No 12.

We might all have been forgiven for thinking this would be the last we would see of 2 Unlimited. A run of three Top 5 singles all taken from their “Get Ready!” album was brought to an end when a fourth single release “The Magic Friend” didn’t make the Top 10. Had we finally got fed up of their brand of brainless Euro techno rave? This one was particularly banal with it seemingly just consisting of a collection of disparate synthetic noises held together by a headache inducing synth riff, some Jean Michel Jarre flourishes and Ray chanting “The magic friend is what I am”. To mix it up a bit Anita would chime in with “The magic friend is what he is”. Ah, I see what she did there. I for one did not predict them returning the following year with a No 1 album and single in “No Limits”. The year of TOTP repeats for 1993 is shaping up to be utterly dreadful.

There’s five Breakers this week – one more than Robert Fleck’s two year total goal tally for Chelsea! We start with Queensrÿche who I knew little of then and my knowledge hasn’t improved over the last 30 years. What I did know though was that they weren’t from Germany as Tony Dortie informs us – they’re from Bellevue, Washington in the US Tony!

Apart from sounding like a song title Muse might come up with, “Silent Lucidity” was a single from their “Empire” album which is the only album of theirs that I could name but I certainly don’t remember how it went. Let’s have a listen now…

…hmm. A lot more melodic sounding than I was expecting. I thought they were a heavy rock act. Must have been one of their more reflective moments. “Silent Lucidity” was the band’s biggest hit peaking at No 18.

For the first half of 1992, if you were browsing the racks in your record shop of choice, the chances were that when you got to the divider that said The Smiths on it you’d find an empty space. They was certainly the case in our shop anyway. After Rough Trade went bankrupt at the end of the 80s, the band’s back catalogue was purchased by WEA Records (later to become Warner Music). As they planned a whole re-issue strategy for the band’s music, once any existing copies were sold they could not be reordered. I guess the plan was to aggrandise The Smiths material thereby creating a whole new appetite for it.

The first release that WEA put together was a compilation called “Best…1”. At the time, one of my work colleagues was Our Price legend ‘Knoxy’ who’s brother worked for Warner and who was heavily involved in The Smiths re-issue project. He may have even been responsible for choosing which tracks would go on “Best…1”. It was a thankless task as the band’s fan base were/are very protective of and precious about their heroes’ material. These things mattered. The album was finally released the Monday after this TOTP aired and despite mostly unfavourable reaction from fans and press alike to the track listing which seemed a bit random and included B-sides and album cuts as well as singles, it went straight to No 1 on the album chart. A second volume followed in November but only managed a high of No 29.

“This Charming Man” had been decided upon as the single to promote the album – their first chart hit and one of their most recognisable songs. It made sense I guess. So much has been written about the track (including by me in my TOTP 80s blog) that I don’t intend to regurgitate its history again here. Suffice to say that the 1992 rerelease went to No 8 in the singles chart making it, at a stroke, the band’s biggest ever hit.

Who’s this? Felix? Felix da Housecat?

*checks Wikipedia*

No, that’s someone else apparently. This Felix was a guy from Chelmsford, Essex called Francis Wright and who was responsible for this dance anthem “Don’t You Want Me”. Unlike Betty Boo’s recent return to pop music with her “Love Action (I Believe In Love)” sampling new single, this was nothing to do with The Human League. As with many these dance tunes, I remember the riff but I couldn’t have told you the artist or track details. Maybe that was the whole point – if you were off on one in a club, just recognising the riff might be enough to trigger you into action on the dance floor? Did you need to know who was behind the tune or what it was called? I dunno. I wasn’t in any clubs at this time as I was skint.

“Don’t You Want Me” was a hit three times in the 90s in various remixes but none were bigger than this 1992 original which made it to No 6.

They’re doing that weird thing with the Breakers again in allocating one of the slots to an act we’ve already seen on the show in full due to an exclusive performance or in the case of Jon Secada, the US charts feature. “Just Another Day” is up to No 8 this week which surely makes it a bona fide big hit rather than a Breaker?

The video is Jon performing with his band mainly in black and white apart from when he’s cavorting about on a beach when the film turns a sepia tone. Apparently Gloria Estefan turns up at the end of the video but I can’t be arsed to watch the whole thing just to confirm or deny this on account of the whole thing being terminally dull.

The final Breaker is a duet from Luther Vandross and Janet Jackson taken from the soundtrack to a film I never got round to seeing – Mo’Money. People seemed to go crazy for “The Best Things In Life Are Free” as it soared up the charts to No 2 though it did very little for me. It was one of those songs that also hung around the charts for ages clocking up 13 weeks in total. Apparently this was a New Edition reunion of sorts with Bell Biv DeVoe and Ralph Tresvant appearing on the track (the latter’s involvement though was restricted to one spoken line).

The video doesn’t actually feature Luther or Janet (even though the lyrics do when they name check themselves) but instead has the leads from the film Damon Wayans and Stacey Dash lip synching to it set against the backdrop of a fairground.

The best things in life are free eh? Someone should have told Chelsea in 1992 – Robert Fleck wasn’t free at £2.1 million and he certainly wasn’t the best.

It’s another ‘exclusive’ performance again and a second one this year for Annie Lennox I believe. “Walking On Broken Glass” was the third single from her “Diva” album (we seem to have missed her second single from it “Precious”) and like lead single “Why”, it was a huge airplay hit. Radio ubiquity aside, there were no other similarities with its predecessor certainly not in musical terms. Sprightly where “Why” was downbeat, its spiky, jagged strings lay down an engaging foundation for Annie to layer her soulful vocals on.

The staging for this one with orchestral string backing and a shed load of candles works pretty well. The show did seem to throw some resource at these ‘exclusive’ slots I have to say. Annie herself looks great. She recently released a no filter/no makeup photo of herself at 67 years of age and she still looks amazing.

BBC4 had a mini Annie evening last Friday showing a gig of hers from 2009 at LSO St Luke’s and an interview from 1992 to promote her “Diva” album. In the interview she said that she wasn’t missing Dave Stewart after two years of not working with him but give it another seven years and the two would reconvene for one final Eurythmics album in 1999 called “Peace”.

“Walking On Broken Glass” would go Top 10 just as “Why” had and as I recall helped instigate another wave of sales for an album that had already been out four months.

There’s a Top 10 countdown in the proper place in the show finally as we segue in a timely fashion into the No 1 record which is Snap! with “Rhythm Is A Dancer”. Taken from the group’s “The Madman’s Return” album, I had always assumed it was the lead single from it but it wasn’t. There was a single before it called “Colour Of Love” which was a massive hit all around Europe…except here. In the UK it was a flop peaking at a lowly No 54.

Not even we could resist the follow up though which went to No 1 in a dozen or so countries. Apparently rapper Turbo B had insisted on “Colour Of Love” being the lead single as he hated the ‘serious as cancer’ lyric in “Rhythm Is A Dancer” but the group’s producers had disagreed. They won the battle for the follow up single though and the rest is history. Turbo B would leave the band before the third single “Exterminate!” was released.

Postscript: Robert Fleck left Chelsea in 1995 to return to Norwich City. He played four times for Scotland scoring zero goals (obvs). After a spell in football management , he now works as a Teaching Assistant at a school for children with special needs. He also funded trips for 18 months for a child with a terminal condition. Robert Fleck then. Terrible Chelsea striker but one of life’s good guys.

Laterz!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Take That	I Found Heaven	Of course not!
2	Undercover	Baker Street	No
3	Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé	Barcelona	Barce-no-na
4	Betty Boo	Let Me Take You There	No but I had a promo copy of the album
5	2 Unlimited	The Magic Friend	Hell no!
6	Queensrÿche	Silent Lucidity	Nah
7	The Smiths	This Charming Man	No but I have Hatful of Hollow with it on
8	Felix	Don’t You Want Me	No I didn’t
9	Jon Secada	Just Another Day	Nope
10	Luther Vandross and Janet Jackson	The Best Things In Life Are Free	Negative
11	Annie Lennox	Walking On Broken Glass	No but my wife has the album Diva
12	Snap!	Rhythm Is A Dancer	And 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/m0015f8z/top-of-the-pops-13081992

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 19 AUG 1993

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TOTP 12 AUG 1993

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TOTP 29 JUL 1993

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TOTP 10 DEC 1992

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TOTP 13 AUG 1992

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