Genesis

TOTP 19 NOV 1992

Posted on May 8, 2022 by 80stastic

As Springtime approaches its end for another year, back in 1992 and the world of TOTP repeats, Xmas is coming into view. Bonfire night has been and gone and for all of us working in retail back then, the days were getting busier. I was working as Assistant Manager in the Our Price store in Rochdale having been promoted for the first time in my working life a couple of months previously. Despite the lengthy commute from our rented flat in Manchester, I was enjoying the job immensely. After previous manager Adrian had departed for pastures new (the Manchester Virgin megastore as I recall), a new boss arrived in the form of Ian from the Burnley store. Ian had worked at Rochdale before so knew the score which was helpful for the wet behind the ears me. Ian turned out to be a top bloke and one of the best people to work alongside. Around this time we recruited two Xmas temps called Chris and Lee who fitted in perfectly with the rest of the team. We were known as the ‘good time’ store by the Area Manager as every time he rang us, he could hear laughter in the background. It couldn’t have gone much better for a first time managerial role for me. Sadly, it also lulled me into a false sense of security that all shops were like this. There were darker times ahead in other stores.

That’s enough about my personal circumstances for now though. You’re not here for that. On with the show! One of the breakout stars of 1991 had been Cathy Dennis who had stepped out of D-Mob’s shadows into a solo spotlight to notch up four Top 20 singles and a Top 3 album in the UK and a pair of Top 10 hits in the US. Once you’ve ridden so high of course, the challenge is to stay there. Her initial success had been based on out and out dance tunes like “Touch Me (All Night Long)” and “Just Another Dream” but in the fast moving world of early 90s dance music, was it wise to just repeat that formula or should she go in another direction? After all, she had dabbled with balladry on hit single “Too Many Walls”. If it’s not broken, why fix it though? In the end she kind of fudged it with the single “Irresistible”. Both uptempo but with a definite pop touch it kind of fell between two stools. Taken from sophomore album “Into The Skyline”, it ended up sounding like Amy Grant’s “Baby Baby”. Pleasant enough but so, so lightweight as to be almost ephemeral, disappearing from your memory banks as soon as the last beat had sounded.

Chart wise it did OK returning Cathy to the Top 40 over here though it stalled at No 61 in the US. However its No 24 peak made it the biggest hit of four singles taken from the album. Despite the absence of any monster hits to promote it, “Into The Skyline” managed to go Top 10 which surprised me as I thought it had disappeared without trace. Talking of disappearing, what was the score with Cathy’s jumper in this performance? Its threadbare, tatty appearance suggests she may have had a case of moths in her wardrobe.

Now when I saw this next track on the show’s running list, I assumed they were carrying on with the nostalgia section which had been used in recent weeks to promote the 1,500th show even though that particular milestone had been passed last week. However I was wrong in my assumption as the retro clip of “I Got You Babe” by Sonny & Cher was actually in the album chart slot to promote Cher’s “Greatest Hits: 1965-1992” which was at No 1. Though there had been Cher Best Of albums in the past, there hadn’t been one since 1974 and so this one that had grouped together all her soft rock hits of the late 80s to ‘92 was justified I guess though maybe not ancient. Only four tracks predated the 80s although she had done brand new recordings of some covers from before then. The majority of the album though was made up of hits from her later successful albums like “Heart Of Stone” and “Love Hurts”.

And yet…TOTP chose her most well known song with one time partner Sonny Bono to broadcast. Maybe the producers felt that there hadn’t been enough distance of time since her most recent hits or perhaps they’d had good feedback on the nostalgia section? Either way, “I Got You Babe” was not given an official re-release at this time so the choice presumably was the producers?

I never liked this song much probably because of UB40 and Chrissie Hynde’s lame cover in 1985 or possibly because of its explainable but irritating overuse in Groundhog Day.

Another oldie next as we welcome back Heaven 17 to the show for the first time in eight years. Yes, incredibly we hadn’t seen these Sheffield electro pioneers on TOTP since they performed “This Is Mine” in 1984. To be fair, that was the last time they’d had a Top 40 hit in this country so I guess it’s not that surprising.

After the “How Men Are” album from which that single came had run its course, the group had gone into a commercial collapse. Mid and late 80s albums “Pleasure One” and the spookily entitled “Teddy Bear, Duke & Psycho” had missed the charts completely but suddenly they were back! Why? Well, I’d like to be able to say it was due to the public rediscovering them due to some brilliant new material they’d released but sadly it was, like Cher, due to a Greatest Hits album. “Higher And Higher: The Best Of Heaven 17” didn’t do nearly as well as Cher’s peaking at a lowly No 31 despite it being a reasonable retrospective covering all their singles plus a few album tracks and the inclusion of a Brothers In Rhythm remix of their biggest hit “Temptation”. Well, it was 1992 after all.

That remix nearly matched the success of the original peaking just two places shy of the 1983 version’s No 2 position. I know it’s a great track and I love “The Luxury Gap” album but I still found it surprising and confusing that it could be a hit all over again nine years on. 1983 felt like forever ago. I’d been a 15 year old who’d never had a girlfriend back then. I was now 24 and had been married for two years. I guess it must have been the Brothers In Rhythm association that sold it to the masses. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy to see it back in the charts it’s just that those 1983 memories of it were so strong and definitive that this new version almost felt wrong somehow.

Another dance remix of “(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang” returned Heaven 17 to the Top 40 (just!) the following year but that would prove to be their final chart entry though they are now ironically a big live draw – they never toured at all during their glory years.

Something that you very rarely used to see on TOTP but which seemed to creep in more and more during this era of the show was a single that wasn’t a hit. We have another example here as Madness release a live version of the old Jimmy Cliff song “The Harder They Come”. Taken from their live album “Madstock!” which captured their legendary live shows at Finsbury Park in August of this year, it failed to make the Top 40 peaking at No 44. After managing to squeeze three more hits out of their back catalogue already in 1992 with rereleased singles to promote their “Divine Madness” Best Of album, maybe they thought another hit just before Xmas was a shoo-in?

Quite why this performance comes from Red Square, Moscow seems to be lost in the mists of time. It doesn’t add much to proceedings apart from some obligatory Russian Ushanka hats being worn by the band and some half hearted attempts at traditional Russian dancing which almost allows Suggs and Chas Smash to fulfil the prophecy of the song title. I guess Saint Basil’s Cathedral in the background must make for one of the most impressive TOTP backdrops ever though.

Wait, what? I’m sure I’ve already announced at least twice before in this blog that this must be the final TOTP appearance for The Pasadenas but here they are yet again! This time though is the last time and I think that they knew the game was up. Why? Well, they’d resorted to a cover version to reverse the downturn in their commercial fortunes, that well known and used trick for dredging up a hit when your career depends on it. What makes it even more desperate is that they’d already released a whole album of cover versions earlier in the year called “Yours Sincerely”. They pulled it off once- “I’m Doing Fine Now” was a Top 5 hit for them – but subsequent single releases from it had bought diminishing returns. So when the cover version technique ran out of steam, surely you don’t try and rectify it by doing another cover version do you? You do if you’re The Pasadenas as their version of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” did make the charts (unlike Madness and “The Harder They Come”) but it was only delaying the inevitable. A No 22 hit wasn’t enough to stop them being dropped by Columbia/Sony Music and they ignored the advice of their last ever hit single and disbanded a couple of years later.

In a frankly bizarre coincidence, their last time on the show was to perform a song that had a link to a band making their first appearance in eight years. Heaven 17’s Martyn Ware and Glenn Gregory both performed on Tina Turner’s career resurrecting version of “Let’s Stay Together” in 1983. Indeed Ware also helped produce it.

Some Breakers next starting with INXS and “Taste It” who were on the show two weeks ago in their first ever in person appearance. This time it’s just the promo video though.

I haven’t got that much else to say about this one other than I really like the fact that the band used the same font for the parent album “Welcome To Wherever You Are” and all the singles from it. A simple yet effective band of white across the cover with the title of the album/single in black and the band’s name in red. It reminds me of those label printers you got in the 70s where you pushed the sticky backed tape through the device, selected the letter you wanted (normally via a wheel) and then literally punched the impression onto the tape.

The Prodigy are next with “Out Of Space” and I was surprised to discover that this short clip in the Breakers was its only time in the show given the success the last fifteen months had brought them. In that time they’d had No 2 and No 3 hits plus a further Top 20 entry and their debut album “Experience” had been released to great acclaim. “Out Of Space” would add another Top 5 single to that haul.

Featuring samples from Max Romeo and Ultramagnetic MCs, the track cemented the band’s status as premier league electronic rave pioneers. That was maybe something that had appeared unlikely when they first appeared with the public information film sampling single “Charly” which saw them cast initially as novelty record merchants. They were still four years away though from being the heavy techno behemoths of “Firestarter” and “Breathe”. Did anyone see that coming? Or the ostriches?

The other week I noted how Metallica were still releasing singles from an album that had been out for well over a year. This week we have another example of a hard rock band doing exactly the same thing – step forward Guns N’ Roses. Their two “Use Your Illusion” albums had been released on the same day back in September 1991 yet five single releases across both albums later, here they were with another one. “Yesterdays” was taken from the second “Illusion” album and I always felt like it stood alone from the rest of the singles from the project in that it eased back from all the heavy rock bluster, especially in that almost sprightly opening guitar riff. You could make a case that it harks back to the opening of “Paradise City” even I guess. Of course it reverts to type eventually in the middle eight when Slash goes back to his usual ways but even so.

Every single from the “Illusions” albums made the UK Top 10 bar the final one “Civil War” and that only missed it by one place. Pretty impressive stuff. There would be a monumental gap of 17 years between the “Illusion” double pack and the next album of new material when “Chinese Democracy” came out in 2008. That album gained almost mythical status during the wait for it. It was forever listed in the new release info we used to get weekly in Our Price as date ‘To Be Confirmed’. Those 17 years were punctuated just once by 1993’s covers album “The Spaghetti Incident?” but it didn’t really satisfy the fan base selling only a third of both “Illusion” albums.

The final Breaker is by Simply Red with their “The Montreux EP”. The track played is called “Drowning In My Own Tears”. Ah, make your own jokes up!

A genuine titan of a tune next. No seriously, it was enormous, a monster, a leviathan. It came, it saw, it conquered and then it shat over everything else in the charts combined. A gargantuan hit. OK, I’ve run out of words now. I can only be talking about “I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston. I already knew this song as my wife had a Dolly Parton Best Of CD with it on before Whitney got her mits on it and I much prefer her version but you can’t deny the reach of Whitney’s take on it which is now the definitive recording for many. This is going to be No 1 for ages so I’m not going to say loads about it straight away. For now though, here’s some facts and stats about it:

It topped the US charts for 14 weeks and the UK for 10
It was the biggest selling single of 1992 and the 10th best selling single of the 90s in the UK
By 2013, it had sold 20 million copies making it the best selling single by a female artist ever
It won the 1994 Grammies for Record Of The Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance
For a time it was the second biggest selling single of all time after “We Are The World” by USA For Africa but was bumped into third place in 1997 by Elton John’s new version of “Candle In The Wind”
It is taken from The Bodyguard soundtrack which is the biggest selling soundtrack of all time

Phew!

From Houston to Houston we have a problem as Genesis are inflicting a live single on us. Yes, after Madness earlier and their live single came “Invisible Touch (Live)” which was taken from the accompanying live album “The Way We Walk Volume One: The Shorts” which documented the band’s 1992 We Can’t Dance tour. The track listing was basically the singles released from their last three studio albums so all the radio friendly pop hits hence ‘shorts’. There was also a ‘longs’ live album featuring songs from their prog rock days but the less said about that the better. Live versions of the poppier end of their catalogue was concern enough.

I guess it made sense to choose a track that had been a US No 1 as the single to promote the album if a little obvious. “Invisible Touch” must surely have been and remain one of their most played songs on radio. One question though, is this the version heard on the single or just Phil Collins doing a live vocal as per TOTP policy? I’m guessing the latter as wouldn’t we be able to detect noise from the concert crowd otherwise? It follows then that when Phil does his audience response bit with the studio audience that is actually the latter repeating “yeah-uh” back to him and not them miming along to the original gig goers as that would just be too weird. Yeah, you’re right – I’m overthinking it. Who cares?

https://youtu.be/YdRfr75bcMw

Boyz II Men have come to the end of the road at No 1 (come on, it’s an open goal!) and been replaced by Charles And Eddie with “Would I Lie To You”. At the time I couldn’t believe that this had happened as I hated this pair and what I perceived as their insipid, stupid tune. Thirty years on and I can’t quite understand what I was so enraged about. I still don’t like the song but I don’t have any hatred for it either. If anything it’s bland and inoffensive but then I guess that might be the biggest crime of all for some.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Cathy Dennis	Irresistible	Nah
2	Sonny & Cher	I Got You Babe	Wasn’t released as a single
3	Heaven 17	Temptation	Not the 1992 remix but my wife has The Luxury Gap on vinyl
4	Madness	The Harder They Come	Nope
5	The Pasadenas	Let’s Stay Together	Definitely not
6	INXS	Taste It	Not the single but I bought the album
7	The Prodigy	Out Of Space	No
8	Guns N’ Roses	Yesterdays	No but I have it on there Best Of album
9	Simply Red	The Montreux EP	Never!
10	Whitney Houston	I Will Always Love You	No but my wife had the Dolly Parton original
11	Genesis	Invisible Touch (Live)	As if
12	Charles And Eddie	Would I Lie To You?	Never happening

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/m00170d6/top-of-the-pops-19111992

TOTP 30 JUL 1992

Posted on March 17, 2022 by 80stastic

The TOTP repeats are still coming thick and fast. We’re already at the end of July ‘92 whilst in real time of 2022, we’re only halfway through March. Keeping up with them is becoming increasingly difficult. I may not have a job currently but I have got other things to do you know like…erm…well, there’s the daily wordle and…look, never mind about that. I need to get on.

Thirty years ago Alan Shearer – the all time top Premier League goal scorer but as we found out in a recent post, an unknown in the US – has just broken the English transfer fee record by signing for Blackburn Rovers from Southampton for £3.5 million. Two days after that, another big transfer went down as Nottingham Forest’s Des Walker signed for Sampdoria for £1.5 million which must have upset Nottingham group KWS whose recent chart topper “Please Don’t Go” was released as a tribute to the defender (apparently). As for me, I was still trundling along working for Our Price in Manchester but a transfer of my own would soon be in the offing but that’s for a later post.

So here’s a question. How many Top 40 singles do you reckon The Shamen had? Three? Four? I think I would have gone with five. I’d have been miles out. It’s actually twelve! I know! To be fair to myself, four came well after their annus mirabilis of 1992 and were minor hits one of which was a remix of “Move Any Mountain” anyway. In my original guess, I’d miscalculated how many singles were released from their “Boss Drum” album (six if you’re counting) including this one “LSI Love Sex Intelligence”. Now I did include this in my guess of five as it was a pretty big hit (No 6 if you’re still counting) and therefore much more memorable. This really felt like the moment that the band consciously decided to pursue chart stardom with rapper Mr C pushed out front and centre as their public face. I say that but watching this performance, it’s vocalist Jhelisa Anderson that stands out with Mr C restricted to a few shouts of “Come On!” and of course his obligatory rap halfway through. I think the reason that it’s his face that comes to mind when I think of this era of The Shamen is because he looked off it most of the time. Apparently that’s because he was. Here’s @TOTPFacts:

Mr C: “We did Top Of The Pops about seven or eight times [It was eight]. Every single time I was on acid or E or both. I wasn’t on three pills, I was on one. So I remember it. It’s only when you bosh that third pill you start losing it." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 11, 2022

That’ll be it then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHrSxpx0vQM

Michael Jackson is next with a proper showing of his “Who Is It” video after last week’s insulting slot in the Breakers. Many in the music press made comparisons between this track and “Billie Jean” which got me thinking about some of the other tracks on “Dangerous”. The conclusion I came to was that “Who Is It” may not have been the only time he recycled some of his own source material. The sixth single from the album was the syrup drenched, sickly ballad “Heal The World” which was a direct rewrite of the Jackson penned USA for Africa charity single “We Are The World”. The one after that “Give In To Me” has more than a whiff of “Dirty Diana” about it. Hmm. “Who Is It” asked Jacko. The answer was clear. It’s you Michael. Endlessly you.

“Who Is It” peaked at No 10.

Just about teenagers Kris Kross are next but for some reason host Mark Franklin (back to the solo presenter this week) gives them no intro whatsoever and then at the end of their performance gives them a meagre three word mention (“There’s Kris Kross”). Had they upset the show in some way or was it yet another attempt to shake up the show’s format. It just looks incongruous like they aren’t really part of the show (is that even the TOTP studio they’re performing in?) and somebody has hacked the BBC broadcast and interrupted the running order to get the rapping duo on illegally.

On they were though with their new single “Warm It Up” which is another song I don’t remember from this period. Lacking the immediacy of “Jump”, it comes over like they’re trying to convince us all that they really are proper gangstas (yes, I meant to spell it like that) with lyrics that mention guns and knives but in the end the most threatening they manage is with the line “You can get the finger, the middle”.

A year or so later, the UK version of Kris Kross was unleashed on the world. They were a little bit older (18 years of age) and as with their US counterparts where we didn’t know which one was Mac Daddy and which was Daddy Mac, we also had trouble distinguishing between them but boy did they have some tunes!

The first of two exclusive performances tonight is next and it’s from someone who caused quite a reaction on Twitter when this TOTP repeat aired, most of it of a salacious nature (including the rhyming slang J. Arthur). Betty Boo (for it is she) went missing for the whole of 1991 after she had taken the UK by storm the previous year with hits like “Doin’ The Do” and “Where Are You Baby?” (note the use of a question mark Michael Jackson!). Presumably she was writing material for her second album.

The first glimpse of her labours came in the form of the single “Let Me Take You There” and what an underrated single it was. Like most of the work from her second album period, it’s largely forgotten despite its No 12 chart peak. A gloriously lilting track, it also had plenty of little hooks thrown in throughout for good measure. Betty is really selling it in this performance. She’s ditched the space cadet togs and bob haircut of the “Boomania” era and has returned with grown out locks and a revealing outfit (hence the Twitter reaction). She’s also ditched the Booettes but her all female backing band have followed her sartorial lead.

I’m pretty sure I had a promo copy of the second album entitled “GRRR! It’s Betty Boo” and it was pretty good especially follow up singles “I’m On My Way” (not The Proclaimers song) and “Hangover” but neither made the Top 40 despite being excellent pieces of pop confection. After the failure of the album, Betty withdrew from the music industry and was seemingly lost to the world of pop forever until she reappeared as a songwriter for the likes of Hear’Say, Girls Aloud and Dannii Minogue and lookee here…a brand new single released just this year that samples The Human League! Open your heart!

Something weird has happened to the Breakers section. Two of the four songs featured have already been on the show before. Enya had her own ‘exclusive’ slot just last week and Billy Ray Cyrus was shown recently as part of the US chart and yet they’re both designated as Breakers this week. I’m guessing the TOTP producers would argue that neither was actually in the UK Top 40 when first on the show and now they are classified as big movers within it and therefore Breakers? Surely this section was for singles we hadn’t seen before and had now just got into the charts? Seems a waste to show a short clip of artists we’ve already seen in full before.

Anyway, a song that we hadn’t seen before was “Jesus He Knows Me”, the fourth single from Genesis’s “We Can’t Dance” album. After the Genesis by numbers ballad “Hold On My Heart” and the indulgently epic “No Son Of Mine”, this was more like the well crafted pop of “Invisible Touch” but with the added bit of jeopardy of having the word ‘Jesus’ in the title. Would that have scared off some US radio stations? Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” was originally called “A Deal With God” but changed due to fears of being on an airplay black list. Well, it was a No 23 hit over the pond so it didn’t do too badly.

The video was similarly provocative sending up as it did the cult of the televangelists like Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker who as critic Christopher Thelen put it were “more concerned about fleecing their flocks than shepherding them”. Fair play to Phil, Mike and Tony for trying to do something challenging with the video rather than just have some in concert footage cobbled together for example.

What?! Sarah Brightman and José Carreras had a song in the charts in the 1992? I don’t remember this happening. Apparently “Amigos Para Siempre (Friends For Life)” was recorded for the Barcelona Olympics and was sung at the games closing ceremony. I can’t have watched it I guess. If it’s Sarah Brightman then it must have been written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and indeed it was.

The only song I associate with those Olympics was “Barcelona” by Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé but both tracks were included on a compilation album called “Barcelona Gold” which was released to coincide with them. I’d forgotten all about this and its utterly bizarre track listing. It’s bookended by the two aforementioned tracks but what comes in between is ludicrous. There’s DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, INXS, Rod Stewart, a couple of soul divas in Anita Baker and Natalie Cole, Marc Cohn, a live version of “Wonderful Tonight” by Eric Clapton and “This Used To Be My Playground” by Madonna which couldn’t be licensed for the soundtrack of the film it featured in (A League Of Their Own) but which was OK for this bonkers hotchpotch of an album. It also had one of the worst album covers ever. Madness.

Marc Cohn celebrates his inclusion on the “Barcelona Gold” album

And so to those hits by Enya and Billy Ray Cyrus starting with the former and her “Book Of Days” single. Haven’t got much else to say about this one except, in keeping with the sporting theme, it was used as background music during the medal ceremonies at the 2009 IAAF World Athletics Championships in Berlin.

As for “Achy Breaky Heart” by Billy Ray Cyrus, I literally have nothing else I want to say about it.

My use of the word Madness to describe that “Barcelona Gold” album was deliberate as here are the Nutty Boys themselves in the second ‘exclusive’ performance of the night with a re-release of “My Girl” to promote their “Divine Madness” Best Of album. Originally their third ever hit in 1980 when it went to No 3, the song is also a small but special footnote in the history of TOTP as it was the first to be performed on the show at the start of the 80s.

After officially splitting in ‘86, the band being back together on TOTP six years later was quite the throwback. I saw them years later at one of their pre-Xmas concerts in Hull. They were fabulous though I have to say I haven’t seen so many middle aged men trying to relive their youth under one roof before or since.

Back in the 90s though, 1992 really was the year of a Madness revival. Aside from the three times platinum selling “Divine Madness” retrospective, there was also the very first Madstock! festival as referred to by Mark Franklin. This two day jamboree at Finsbury Park in London was supposedly so loud that it caused nearby tower blocks to shake! The event was repeated in ‘94, ‘97, ‘98 and ‘09.

The reissued “My Girl” peaked at No 27.

https://youtu.be/N4p6cu628hQ

Blimey they’re slamming them in tonight! Here’s the tenth artist on the show and we’re only two thirds of the way through. It’s Roxette who seemed to be on TOTP every other week around this time. They don’t seem to be friends of the show though as Mark Franklin doesn’t utter one word about them. No intro, no outro, no name check, nothing. Even worse than his treatment of Kris Kross.

With no plug from the programme, they’re going to have to promote their latest single “How Do You Do” by the sheer power of their performance but the song doesn’t lend itself to a cohesive turn at all. The lead single from their “Tourism” album, it’s a light, bright daytime radio friendly ditty but the vocal parts don’t work for me. Per Gessle takes the opening lines rather than powerhouse singer Marie Fredriksson and he seems to be doing his best Jimmy Nail impression as they are mostly spoken and not sung. Compare Per saying this line:

‘Well here we are crackin’ jokes in the corner of our mouths and I fell like I’m laughing in a dream’

With this from “Ain’t No Doubt”:

‘She says it’s like in the song remember? If you love somebody, set them free. Well that’s how it is for me.’

OK. The words are not the same but the intonation is similar I would argue. The similarities continue as Marie joins in for the chorus just as Jimmy has a female vocalist (who seems to change with each TOTP appearance) do the same for his song. Although Jimmy has grown his hair longer since his Auf Wiedersehen Pet days and I’m really not sure about it, compared to Per’s barnet he’s the epitome of stylish. What was he thinking?! Unbelievably, his isn’t even the worst on stage as up there with him is a bass player with an incongruous 80s cut (long at the back, short at the sides). It’s the 90s now mate!

“How Do You Do” provides another nice sporting tie in for this post as the video for it was played at half time in the recent Euros ‘92 final between Denmark and Germany. It doesn’t excuse that hair though. By the way, the track was recorded in a studio in Sweden called Tits & Ass Studio talking of which…

https://youtu.be/m5MQ1ERb_D0

It’s one of those satellite link ups next as we cross live to Seattle for…nope not Nirvana despite the city being the home of grunge but for some fella called Sir Mix A Lot who has been No 1 in America for five weeks Mark Franklin informs us with his single “Baby Got Back”. As my friend Robin would say, this is like pissing off the top of a multi story car park – wrong on so many levels…or is it? Ostensibly a rap objectifying women with large buttocks, could it also be a challenge to the mainstream norms of female beauty? Sir Mix A Lot himself says of the track:

“The song doesn’t just say I like large butts you know? The song is talking about women who damn near kill themselves to try to look like these beanpole models that you see in Vogue magazine.”

I’ll be honest; I think I may have been more on board with this argument if he hadn’t performed the song against the towering backdrop of a pair of naked butt cheeks.

At one point the video for the song was banned by MTV and yet despite all the controversy it generated and its five week run at the top of the US charts, we never got it over here in dear old conservative Blighty and the song never made our Top 40 peaking at No 56. Maybe we got confused and bought the wrong thing as his album was called “Mack Daddy” as in those cheeky scamps we saw earlier Kris Kross.

Jimmy Nail still reigns at the top of the charts with “Ain’t No Doubt” which would shift enough copies to end up as the 8th best selling single in the UK in 1992. The parent album “Growing Up In Public” would achieve gold status yet curiously there were no other hit singles from it. The follow up to “Ain’t No Doubt” was called “Laura” and it didn’t even make the Top 40. Maybe it’s predecessor was do ubiquitous that nothing else Jimmy released could compete.

That ubiquity was taken to extraordinary lengths by a guy who drove his neighbours insane by playing the song at top volume for 24 hours solid after splitting with his girlfriend after she’d cheated on him (“she’s lying…”). At least I’m think that’s what I read in the paper at the time though I can’t find any mention of it online anywhere.

Despite his success being cut short, Nail would return in ‘94 with the soundtrack to his next TV series Crocodile Shoes the title track of which would score him a No 4 hit.

It’s that Madonna track from the “Barcelona Gold” album to close the show. “This Used To Be My Playground” was a short stopping off point before Madge unleashed her controversial “Erotica” album and “Sex” book on the world. For some it was a step too far. I recall seeing a local news item where a Madonna super fan who had slavishly bought everything she had ever done on every format drew the line at “Erotica” and turned his back on Madonna forever. Instead he directed his obsessive tendencies towards someone much more wholesome – Gloria Estefan. I have a mental image of him holding up the picture disc of “This Used To Be My Playground” and saying this was the last Madonna product he would ever buy. I’m not sure she was that bothered.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Shamen	LSI Love Sex Intelligence	Nope
2	Michael Jackson	Who Is It	I did not
3	Kris Kross	Warm It Up	No
4	Betty Boo	Let Me Take You There	No but I had that promo copy of the album with it on
5	Genesis	Jesus He Knows Me	Negative
6	Sarah Brightman and José Carreras	Amigos Para Siempre (Friends For Life)	Jesus no!
7	Enya	Book Of Days	Nah
8	Billy Ray Cyrus	Achy Breaky Heart	See 6 above
9	Madness	My Girl	No but I had the Divine Madness album
10	Roxette	How Do You Do	How do you don’t more like – no!
11	Sir Mix A Lot	Baby Got Back	I was far too mature for such nonsense
12	Jimmy Nail	Ain’t No Doubt	It’s a no
13	Madonna	This Used To Be My Playground	And a final 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/m00156d2/top-of-the-pops-30071992

TOTP 09 APR 1992

Posted on February 12, 2022 by 80stastic

As Arcadia almost* once sang, “It’s Election Day” in 1992 and the polls are predicting either a hung parliament or a Labour win. That proved to be as accurate as Jacob Rees-Mogg’s Brexit promises for UK prosperity as the Conservative party triumphed albeit with a reduced majority. ‘It’s The Sun Wot Won It’ screamed The Sun’s front page two days later. Thirty years on and the right wing press is no less influential.

*They actually sang “it’s re-election day”

OK well, after that sombre opening let’s get to the music on tonight’s show which is presented by Tony Dortie and Femi Oke. The latter made her debut on the show the other week but I think she only made a handful of appearances all told. Shame, she seemed like a safe pair of hands. As you’d expect, there’s going to be an overwhelming majority of election references in the links and Tony is first in line getting in the words ‘party’, ‘polls’ and ‘vote’ as he introduces the opening act Praga Khan featuring Jade 4 U. Who?! Yeah, I’m lost on this one too. As Tony mentions in his intro, this lot were Belgian techno heads – I bet leave campaigner Jacob hated them – and this single “Injected With A Poison” was their biggest hit. As you know, I was no raver back in the day so this made little impression on me and listening to it now as a 53 year old it sounds like one big horrible noise to my middle aged ears. Apparently this was a remix of their earlier single “Free Your Body/ Injected With A Poison” and according to online popular culture publication Freaky Trigger, featured “an underwater electric whisk” and “one of those duck calling kazoo things”. Yeah, I don’t know about you but neither of those things would be high on my list of essentials in a tune.

Main man Maurice Engelen was also the guy behind recent hit makers Digital Orgasm (or just ‘Digital’ as the controversy avoiding TOTP referred to them). I think that’s him shouting “We don’t need that anymore” and “Are you listening to me?” and looking like he’s been lost in Glastonbury for a decade. He also recorded material under the name Lords Of Acid whose canon of work included tracks called “Rough Sex” and “I Must Increase My Bust”. The latter must surely have been inspired by that 1980 Sunblest bread advert featuring light entertainment star Marti Caine who says “I wonder if it’ll do anything for my bust” as she ponders her chest whilst cramming a slice of bread in her mouth.

“Injected With A Poison” peaked at No 16.

After the Top 10 rundown which, for all those chart curiosity enthusiasts out there, includes two acts whose name both begin with Mr. B…, Femi gets in a name check of the leaders of all three main political parties before introducing the man who ‘gets her vote’ Curtis Stigers who is in the studio to perform his latest hit “You’re All That Matters To Me”. There seems to be a rule for the male members of his backing band that they have to have a mop of long hair or be wearing a waistcoat to be allowed on the stage. Or both. In fact, you have to follow the Stigers style or you’re out.

One time when Curtis himself would have wanted to be out occurred years later when he appeared on Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast. One of their features was some sort of super fan quiz where they got an infatuated member of the public on the show with their idol and asked them questions about them. If they got them right they won a holiday or something. Anyway, a Curtis devotee was on and was asked by host Johnny Vaughan what Stigers’ date of birth was. She got it wrong and so missed out on the competition prize. Curtis thought this was very harsh and called Johnny, as I recall, ”you cruel bastard” or something like that. As a punishment they locked Curtis in a cupboard and promptly forgot all about him. After the show had finished and his PR people turned up asking where he was, they suddenly remembered and had to let him out. When appearing on live daytime TV Curtis, do not swear. That’s all that matters.

Another bangin’ tune next as Altern 8 are here with their second Top 10 hit “Evapor 8”. This performance is mental. Obviously there’s the Altern 8 guys in their hazmat suits and masks for a start. In these pandemic weary days where we’re all used to the notion of mask wearing, back in 1992 this seemed really sinister (well it did to me anyway) and helped create a whiff of danger about the duo. On top of that though, there’s three sports wear clad ‘casuals’ who look like they’re off their tits throwing some shapes, legendary singer P. P. Arnold centre stage wearing a pair of marigolds and a massive dancing robot on stilts!

Given that Tony and Femi were throwing General Election references around like confetti, how did they miss this open goal?

Altern-8's Chris Peat was an independent candidate for the Stafford constituency (then Bill Cash's seat) in the 1992 General Election. He received 158 votes, just beating the Natural Law Party. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 4, 2022

Chris represented the Hardcore Altern8-ive party. I’m guessing their manifesto would have included something about removing government legislation that made raves illegal.

“Evapor 8” by Alter 8 peaked at No 6. Boo! Where’s the symmetry in that!

After the Monster Raving Looniness of Altern 8, we were back to the safe seat of Vanessa Williams next with her ballad “Save The Best For Last”. Has there ever been such a contrast of styles in consecutive performances on the show? From raving robots and face masks to a seated, dinner suited orchestra backing a singer in a sequinned dress. I’m guessing Vanessa didn’t return to America with the opinion that our pop stars were quaint.

From raving mad techno to sophisticated balladry and finally onto tongue in cheek silliness as Right Said Fred are in the studio to perform their future No 1 “Deeply Dippy”. Whilst not an orchestra like Vanessa’s, the Freds do have their own brass packing backing section up there with them and it’s their contribution that really makes this song I think.

Richard Fairbrass camps it up as you would expect dressed in an unbuttoned, garishly coloured frilly shirt and he curiously changes the song’s last line from “I’m takin’ a hot tahiti” to “I’m goin’ to hitchhike to Walthamstow”. Not sure what that was about. An in joke presumably.

Given their current anti vaxxer stance, we can expect their new single, a cover of Praga Khan’s “Free Your Body / Injected With A Poison” any day now.

https://youtu.be/TNnOSmTtPmQ

As announced by the lady herself at the end of the previous TOTP, Cher is tonight’s ‘Exclusive’ performance. Crikey! After Chris De Burgh last week and now Cher, this slot really is down with the kids ain’t it?!

“Could’ve Been You” was the fourth single released from her “Love Hurts” album and like “Save Up All Your Tears” and the title track, this was also a cover version. Bob Halligan’s original came out a year before and sank without trace but was deemed perfect fodder for Cher’s brand of soft rock. It’s a right old plodder if truth be known but Cher can sell anything given an enormous wig and a leather bra and so it dutifully made No 31 over here, no doubt aided by this TOTP performance and her slot on Aspel And Company two days later. Let’s hope she’d learned the song’s words by then as she’s clearly reading them off that monitor at her feet.

Hang about! There’s another ‘Exclusive’ performance straight after Cher’s?! How come Genesis have also got this slot and more importantly who the f**k is Daryl as name checked by Femi in her intro?! When I think of Genesis, I’m thinking Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks. At a push I’d include Peter Gabriel although I really don’t know that much about the band’s early career. I’m never thinking of some bloke called Daryl! Who was this geezer? Well if you’re a Genesis super fan then you should have got yourself on The Big Breakfast because you’ll know that Daryl is Daryl Stuermer who’s association with the band goes as far back as 1978. He was their touring lead guitarist and bass player from ‘78 to ‘92 and then again in 2007 for the Turn It In Again Tour and most recently last year for The Last Domino? Tour. He’s on stage with the lads here to perform the band’s latest single “Hold On My Heart”.

This was the third single taken from their “We Can’t Dance” album and was the obligatory ballad after the first two were more rock fare. Honestly, it could be any of the slow songs from their previous album “Invisible Touch” like “In Too Deep” or “Throwing It All Away” or indeed a Phil Collins solo effort like “One More Night” or… well anything from 50% of his back catalogue as he only has two types of song – love lorn ballad or mid temp pop.

You’ll remember that Genesis secured an ‘Exclusive’ slot on the show for the first single off the album called “No Son Of Mine” which went on for about six and a half minutes! Thankfully this performance is restricted to just over four but I really think that six months in to this new format that the producers haven’t got a clue how to make TOTP seem more relevant to the younger element of their audience. Genesis, Cher and Chris De Burgh?! Nadine Dorries looks on top of her interview game by comparison.

“Hold On My Heart” peaked at No 16.

There’s no Breakers this week so there’s only eight acts in the show in total tonight. Not sure why that maybe. It can’t be anything to do with the election as the show is still the same running time and hadn’t been cut short to make way for coverage of the event. I can only assume it’s because of the two ‘exclusive’ performances in the same show from Cher and Genesis taking up the time that would usually be allotted to the Breakers.

As such we’re onto the No 1 already and it’s an eighth and final week at the top for Shakespear’s Sister. I know it’s only half the time that Bryan Adams was at the top and we’ve missed at least one week due to the Adrian Rose issue but it hasn’t felt anywhere near as onerous an experience as the era of the Groover from Vancouver.

Though they would never be as big again, Marcella and Siobahn didn’t disappear immediately after “Stay” had finally departed the charts. A follow up single called “I Don’t Care” would return them to the Top 10 and their album “Hormonally Yours” went double platinum in the UK. However, the relationship between the two was volatile and after being hospitalised for depression, Fahey decided to end their partnership by announcing it in absentia via her publisher at the 1993 Ivor Novello Awards ceremony, an event that Detroit was present at. However there was a happy ending as the two reunited in 2019 having resolved their differences to tour and record new material.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Praga Khan featuring Jade 4 U	Injected with a poison	Hell no
2	Curtis Stigers	You’re All That Matters To Me	Not for me thanks
3	Altern 8	Evapor 8	I wasn’t a raver -no
4	Vanessa Williams	Save The Best For Last	Nope
5	Right Said Fred	Deeply Dippy	Nah
6	Cher	Could’ve Been You	No
7	Genesis	Hold On My Heart	Never happening
8	Shakespear’s Sister	Stay	I did 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/m00142cn/top-of-the-pops-09041992

TOTP 23 JAN 1992

Posted on January 17, 2022 by 80stastic

We’ve missed another show that’s been pricked by the thorn of Adrian’s Rose and so find ourselves deep into January 1992. There’s only 8 acts on tonight presumably because the Breakers section has gone missing but they are all newbies that haven’t been reviewed previously. Tonight’s presenters are Mark Franklin and Steve Anderson and there’s a slight tweak to the format immediately in that the opening camera shot is on those two and not the opening act supplemented by a voice over intro. Not sure why that may be but it’s certainly a return to a more traditional opening. It does give us more time to gaze in wonder at the peak of sartorial design that were Mark Franklin’s shirts. He’s got one of those ones with the wide vertical block down one side of his midriff. He had a similar one recently that was in red and white but this one is in black and cream. Maybe he had a sponsorship deal with whoever made them. Steve Anderson on the other hand has come dressed as…well, I have no idea what or who he has come dressed as but it looks terrible.

Anyways, on with the show and the first act tonight are 2 Unlimited with their second consecutive hit “Twilight Zone”. Their debut hit at the back end of ’91 was of course “Get Ready For This” which was predominantly just a keyboard riff with some added ‘yeahs’ and ‘y’all ready for this’ shout outs courtesy of Ray Slijngaard – I think there may be other mixes out there which featured him rapping also. My point though is that his female band mate Anita Doth was very much in the background when they performed on TOTP (despite her wearing some very revealing outfits). This time though she is front and centre as there are some actual lyrics to be sung – I’m guessing singing wasn’t really Ray’s thing. Mind you, judging by Anita’s live vocal here, I’m not too sure it was her’s either. It’s not the strongest demonstration of the art of singing it has to be said. Ray’s obviously insisted though that the inclusion of some ‘yeahs’ is obligatory so that he has something else to do other than leap around behind a keyboard.

There’s also a hell of a lot less of them than their were for “Get Ready For This” when there were at least 8 people on stage. This time it’s just 4. Who were all these other people. Obviously there’s Ray and Anita but the rest of them? Hired dancers? Their mates on a jolly? If it was the latter, it raises the very topical question of whether TOTP appearances were a party or a work event. Ahem.

“Twilight Zone” matched the success of “Get Ready For This” by peaking at No 2. They would reach the chart pinnacle the following year though with “No Limits”.

After a quick rundown of the Top 10 we’re into another studio performance from an act we’ll be seeing a lot of in the weeks to come. For now though, this was the first airing on the show for Shakespears Sister with “Stay”. Not exactly a new band as they’d first come to public attention way back in 1989 with their Top 10 hit “You’re History” but subsequent singles had failed to make the Top 40. We could have all been forgiven for thinking that was that for Siobhan Fahey and Marcella Detroit especially when the first taste of their new material, a single called “Goodbye Cruel World”, peaked at No 59 in the Autumn of 1991. We were all wrong. Monumentally wrong. They had an ace up their sleeve which was the track “Stay” written by Siobhan’s then partner Dave Stewart of Eurythmics. It would top the the UK Singles Chart for 8 consecutive weeks and was the 4th biggest selling single of 1992.

As that stretch at the top will entail me having to dig up something to write about it for weeks to come, I’m going to keep my powder dry for a while but you can’t mention this song without reference to this infamous sketch and I’m not about to break that rule…

No sign of Franklin or Anderson in the next link (maybe the producers had second thoughts about their outfits) as we go straight into a third studio performance on the bounce. This one is definitely a new artist and he goes by the name of Curtis Stigers. I like the way the young girl in the audience rushes to the front of the age but then retreats as she realises she’s wondered into a spotlight. Maybe she was being shouted at by some unseen member of the studio floor staff. Back to Curtis though and this guy seemed to come out of nowhere but he’d been kicking around the jazz clubs of New York with his sax for years before he was plucked from obscurity by Arista Records to become a mainstream pop star. And mainstream he certainly was. No jazz noodling on display in this, his debut hit “I Wonder Why”. This was a prime cut of middle of the road balladry that was as much at home on Radio 2 as it was Radio 1 back in the day. Its lowest common denominator inoffensiveness did the trick though sending him rocketing up the charts to a resting place of No 5.

He managed another Top 10 hit in the follow up “You’re All That Matters to Me” whilst his debut eponymous album also achieved that feat. It couldn’t last though and he would only have two more minor chart hits over here before returning to his roots and embarking upon a career of recording jazz albums for the Concorde Jazz label. He did manage to get a song on the all conquering The Bodyguard soundtrack album the royalties of which should have set him up for life but he did a cover instead of one of his own songs (Nick Lowe’s “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding”). Doh!

I seem to recall at the time that a lot was made of the length of his locks in a point and stare type of way but like the poodle haired Michael Bolton before him, he has since shorn them all off and looks much the better for it. He’s quite a prominent figure on social media these days and comes across as a pretty decent sort of chap which is… erm..all that matters to me.

https://youtu.be/GCIJnKwBxnE

Oh Lord! It’s that Genesis video now. You know the one I mean. When the “We Can’t Dance” album was released in late ’91, it seemed like there was an inevitability that the fourth track on it, “I Can’t Dance”, would end up being released as a single. Maybe it was just that it was (almost) the title track but I seem to recall that it stood out when we had to play the album in the Our Price store I was working in (‘had’ to being the operative word). I guess it was the most radio friendly song on there? It was catchy with a goofy hook and mercifully shorter than the previous single, the 6:41 in length “No Son Of Mine” (the album version was that long anyway and didn’t TOTP allow them to perform it in full?).

Supposedly it was written as a joke in a lighthearted moment in the studio (did Genesis have light hearted studio moments?) to satirise guys who look good but can’t string two sentences together using the motif of jeans advert models. Really though, it’s all about the video. I mean hats off to the the band for sending themselves up but once you’ve seen the ‘I Can’t Dance dance’ with those stiff moves and a walking motion leading with the same arm and leg, no amount of brain bleach is going to remove it. If The Monkees TV show hadn’t been cancelled in 1968 and they’d carried on making it into the 90s, it would have looked like this. And we haven’t even mentioned the send up of Michael Jackson’s “Black And White” video by Phil Collins at the end yet! What the hell was that?! I really don’t think that the overly long set up of the joke that was Phil doing a tap dance routine was worth it.

“I Can’t Dance” peaked at No 7 in both the UK and US charts.

Now as Mark Franklin confirms in his intro, Kylie Minogue had been having hits for 4 years by this point since bursting onto the UK charts with “I Should Be So Lucky” off the back of her Neighbours profile and of those 15 hits since, 5 of them had peaked at No 2. How…erm…unlucky was that? Well, her luck wasn’t to change with “Give Me Just A Little More Time” as that would miss the top spot by one place as well. This single was the third to be released from her now almost forgotten “Let’s Get To It” album and was a cover version of the old Chairmen Of The Board 1970 hit and was, as far as I can tell, only the third cover version she had released up to that point after “The Loco-Motion” and “Tears On My Pillow”.

Now there didn’t seem to be much love on Twitter for Kylie’s vocals here after this TOTP was reshown on BBC4 the other week but I have to say that I thought 2 Unlimited’s Anita’s were worse and in any case, you could forgive her a few duff notes just for that rolling ‘R’ sound she does halfway through (if indeed that was her).

https://youtu.be/g9EyObt8ujg

“Give Me Just A Little More Time” should not be confused (as if it could be) with the 1984 Whitesnake single which has the same words in its chorus but which has a slightly different title in “Give Me More Time”. I recall listening to Mike Read on the Radio 1 Breakfast Show play this and make a comment afterwards that the song title sounded like it could be something shouted by an under fire company chairman facing demands for payment by creditors and screaming in his defence ‘Give Me More Time’. Was that Read trying to make an uncharacteristically clever pun on Chairmen Of The Board? Clever? Mike Read? Surely not.

From Kylie to Public Enemy?! That’s some leap but here are Flavor Flav, Chuck D and co in the TOTP studio with “Shut ‘Em Down”. Now there’s something rather unsettling about this performance and it’s nothing to do with it being Public Enemy who thrived on unsettling people. No, it’s the staging of it as it’s recorded as one long, continual single camera shot with no cuts whatsoever. Who’s idea was that do you suppose? The band’s? A TOTP producer trying to be creative? Judging by the way that Chuck D looks at the camera, it seems like it was suspended and sliding around the front of the stage, a bit like the spidercams that they use to cover the football on Sky Sports that are suspended from four wires – one in each corner of the ground – and which can pan 360 degrees while remaining level. Well, those Sky cameras are a bit more state-of-the-art I’m sure but you get my drift.

Anyway, “Shut ‘Em Down” was a track from the band’s fourth album “Apocalypse 91… The Enemy Strikes Black” and, according to Chuck D, was “about major corporations like Nike taking profits from the black community, but not giving anything back, never opening businesses in black areas. And it’s saying that the best way to boycott a business is to start your own.”

Almost 6 months to the day after this performance, Flavor Flav walked into he Our Price shop in Manchester that I was working in as Public Enemy were in town playing a Stop Sellafield concert alongside Kraftwerk and U2 for Greenpeace to protest the nuclear factory. He looked exactly the same as he does on this TOTP and didn’t have a clue where he was or what he was doing.

“Shut ‘Em Down” peaked at No 21.

https://youtu.be/vrgd8I1L8BY

Ooh a bit of TOTP history next! As Mark Franklin says it was the first time that the show had linked up live by satellite with an artist in America for a real time performance. OK, so a few things to say about this. Firstly, the artist. Was Mariah Carey a massive deal in early 1992? She was in the US I grant you where every single she’d ever released to that point had topped the charts over there. That was five and counting as it stood. Over here though, she’d just had the one Top 10 hit. Couldn’t they have got someone who was a bigger name over here for this?

Secondly, I know this was her current single but “Can’t Let Go” hasn’t really stood the test of time as one of her best known songs has it? It sounds like an Eternal B-side. It holds the ignominy of being the song that halted her run of US No 1s when it peaked at No 2. I mean a No 2 is not to be sniffed at (erm…if you know what I mean) but it’s not what it’s remembered for (see also “Welcome To ThePleasuredome” by Frankie Goes To Hollywood”).

Thirdly, it’s a pretty dull performance. Where are all the bells and whistles? It’s just Mariah and some uniformly dressed backing singers, some drapes, some candles and a backdrop of a bank of TVs (all switched off). Was it worth all the time and effort?

Fourthly, presumably then this TOTP was broadcast live otherwise what was all the fuss about? Mark Franklin must have been bricking it in case the technology failed and he had to fill (his pants).

Finally, has Mariah’s fame come full circle in this country now. Sure, she went one to sells bucket loads of records over here eventually but did the scenario below play out across the nation with parents watching this TOTP repeat on BBC4 the other week?

Across the nation, parents are telling their kids 'she sings All I Want For Christmas Is You'. The kids say 'oh i know her'
— Sharon Hanley (@sharonlhanley) January 7, 2022

“Can’t Let Go” peaked at No 20. See? Not a big deal in the UK in January ’92!

We have a new No 1! Queen have been dethroned after 5 weeks of looking down on their chart subjects and there is a new monarch at the head of the Top 40. Who predicted that Wet Wet Wet would have a chart topper around this time in their career? You’re a liar if you answered that question with “I did” as the Wets hadn’t been anywhere near pop’s summit for ages by the time 1992 rolled around.

Having burst into the scene in 1987 with their debut album “Popped In Souled Out” and its attendant 4 hit singles, the Clydebank boys had consolidated that success with their first No 1 single in 1988, a cover of “With A Little Help From My Friends” for the ChildLine charity. And then, the dreaded second album syndrome (I’m not counting “Memphis Sessions” as a proper album). 1989’s “Holding Back The River” was not a commercial disaster by any means but it didn’t sell nearly as well as its predecessor either. The singles from it peaked at 6, 19, 31 and 30. By any metric, they weren’t ripping up the trees that they had been.

The band regrouped and we got some new material in September of 1991 but the single “Make It Tonight” only just scraped into the Top 40 at No 37. Oh. Another new track “Put The Light On” was rush released the next month but it only compounded the issue when it peaked at No 56! Oh oh. A third single was shoved out 2 days before Xmas presumably timed to miss the festive rush but hopes can’t have been high for a return to former glories. Somehow though, “Goodnight Girl” exceeded all expectations and became the first and only No 1 of the band’s career that they actually wrote themselves. As a feat of redemption it’s almost unparalleled. *The only other example that comes to mind is when Robbie Williams, his solo career hanging in the balance after his single “South Of The Border” stalled at No 14 and with record label Chrysalis wobbling, released “Angels”. The rest is history. So it was with the Wets. A No 1 single led to a No 1 album (“High On The Happy Side”) and two more Top 20 hits from it.

My wife really liked this one and asked me to get her the album using my work discount. Not the standard version though, oh no. There was a limited edition that included a whole second album of cover versions called “Cloak And Dagger” that the band had recorded under the pseudonym Maggie Pie And The Imposters. It featured their take on songs by artists like Elvis Costello, Carole King and Tom Waits, all of whom my wife loves. Unusually, the Monday the album was released was my day off that week so I had to ring work to get them to put a copy aside for me (thanks Julie!). I don’t think my wife has played it for years.

Wet Wet Wet may have not been in the show for a while but their performance here made it look like they’d only been away for a couple of weeks. A live vocal policy was no problem for Marti Pellow who also finds the camera every single time to do that smile into. They were clearly in a long hair phase though. It’s like the early 70s up there in stage. Two years on from this, they would pull a Bryan Adams with their version of “Love Is All Around” but let’s not get into that business right now.

*Oh yeah, and Shakespear Sister that were on just a few minutes earlier. That’s another good comeback example isn’t it? Doh!

https://youtu.be/h1oo0K8LBkc

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	2 Unlimited	Twilight Zone	Definitely not
2	Shakespears Sister	Stay	I didn’t
3	Curtis Stigers	I Wonder Why	Nah
4	Genesis	I Can’t Dance	Nope
5	Kylie Minogue	Give Me Just A Little More Time	No but I think my wife has it on a Best Of album
6	Public Enemy	Shut ‘Em Down	No
7	Mariah Carey	Can’t Let Go	Negative
8	Wet Wet Wet	Goodnight Girl	No but my wife had 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/m001349p/top-of-the-pops-23011992

TOTP 31 OCT 1991

Posted on November 10, 2021 by 80stastic

When did Halloween become such a big event in the UK? My take on it would be that this is a fairly recent change within say the last 5-10 years when it has overtaken Bonfire night in the cultural calendar. Certainly when I was a kid, there was no suggestion that we would be dressing up and going around the local streets expecting residents to be handing out sweets willy nilly. We might have done a spot of apple bobbing on occasion but that was it. Bonfire night was always the much bigger deal. Back in 1991, I was 23 and living in Manchester and we certainly didn’t have any trick or treating going on in the street where we lived. Fireworks being lobbed at you as you went about your business by the local youth possibly (you had to keep your wits about you at all times) but no kids dressed up as ghouls or werewolves etc although…we did once see a man down our street who from a distance looked like Freddie Kruger doing something suspicious with a rake – never did get the bottom of what that was all about. Anyway, the TOTP producers have decided that since they have a show falling exactly on the witching date of 31st October that they were going to play up to Halloween theme. To that end, we have a carved pumpkin graphic following the titles sequence and presenter Mark Franklin describes this edition of the show as being ‘spooky’!

I don’t know about spooky but the opening act is certainly shocking. Shockingly bad that is. SL2 were, as Mark Franklin advises, DJs Slipmatt and Lime (the S and L of SL2) while the rapper is Jason ‘Jay-J’ James (see what the did there?!) and “DJs Take Control” was the first of four hits for them. I don ‘t remember this at all though. What was the big one that they had?

*checks wikipedia*

“On A Ragga Tip”! That was it. No 2 in 1992 apparently. That one sounded a bit like The Prodigy and I could just about stomach it. “DJs Take Control” is just garbage though. I mean, I’ve never been a massive dance head but there’s literally nothing to it. The rapping is so pedestrian and repetitive whilst the track itself is just some basic breakbeats and shuffled drum machine patterns slung together. The energetic windmilling actions of the two dancers up front seem to be a bit at odds with the track to me. It’s just …I don’t get it (then or now).

As an act to open the show it seems an odd choice as well. I guess the producers were still courting the rave market that they didn’t seem to really understand and which the format of the show (despite its revamp) couldn’t really accommodate. It just looks …well…jarring. Not going too well this new era of the show so far is it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpzQ7vhno3A

Oh this is just ridiculous now. From hardcore rave to…Don McLean?! How? Why? The juxtaposition is made even more striking by the fact that, like SL2, Don is actually in the TOTP studio! He’s literally on the other stage next to SL2 patiently awaiting his cue to begin. Said cue comes from presenter Tony Dortie moving through the assembled audience who look like they’re just realising that they’ve come to the shittest rave ever and literally have no idea who this old duffer on the other stage is. Even when Dortie introduces him, I bet they’re none the wiser. I’m not criticising them rather pointing out the utter absurdity of the show’s run-in order. It’s barking mad! If this had been the 70s, it would have been like the Sex Pistols segueing to Val Doonican or Des O’Connor.

Obviously, McLean is here to sing “American Pie” to promote his Greatest Hits album but even more obviously it’s a truncated version clocking in at just 3 minutes in length (the original album version is 8 and half minutes long!). Don himself seems in a hurry to sing it as if there was a TOTP producer stood in the wings pointing to a big stopwatch. Sartorially, he looks like a Tory MP in his casual gear for a Sunday stroll. It’s just all too much to take in. Interestingly, on the subject of song timings, another act later in the show are given far more screen time to perform a full length version of their latest hit which actually cuts down the amount of acts on tonight’s show to just 10. More of that later but I wonder what Don thought about that?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofwqiMALPyg

After the latest egregious Top 10 rundown complete with a witch’s hat graphic at the end (Halloween and all that), we go straight into…well…what fresh hell is this?! It seems to be a woman with a giant treble clef on her head singing very, very badly. This is in fact Congress featuring Lucinda Sieger (Mrs Treble Clef herself) with “40 Miles”. As with SL2 at the top of the show, these were basically two nerdy DJ types (both called Danny coincidentally) plus vocalist -used in the loosest definition of the word- Lucinda. Right, the immediate problem here (apart from the ludicrous treble clef adornment) is that Lucinda was not a very good singer. In fact, her live vocal (as per TOTP ‘year zero’ policy) is diabolically bad. There’s just no getting around that and her performance certainly provoked the ire of many a viewer on Twitter. I think my favourite was courtesy of this gentleman…

This is dogshit on every level
— Marcus Aurelius (@Aurelius) November 5, 2021

Apparently the track uses a fair few samples taken from songs which I don’t know so I’m going straight onto the business of that treble clef. Just….why?!! To distract us from her terrible singing is the only thing I can think of. A dead cat on the table in musical form (literally) if you will. If she was a politician, Lucinda would surely be Boris Johnson. Oh hang on, my research tells me that Lucinda is a former Alternative Miss World runner-up. The Alternative Miss World? I didn’t know there was such a thing. Come to that, is the regular Miss World still a thing even? Anyway, apparently Alternative Miss World has been going (irregularly) since 1972 and was last held in 2018. According to the official website, it was established by the artist Andrew Logan and anyone can enter and everyone is judged on the same criteria as the dogs at Crufts: poise, personality and originality. Past guests, hosts and competitors including everyone from Derek Jarman, David Hockney and Zandra Rhodes to Grayson Perry, Divine, Leigh Bowery and the stars of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Now I can’t find conformation of when Lucinda took part or an image of what she wore but just google Alternative Miss World, click on images and you’ll see that actually, Lucinda (like Don McLean earlier) had dressed quite casually by comparison for her TOTP appearance.

From one horrifically bad vocal performance to…well…another. Sorry Zoë but there are definitely some bum notes in your performance of “Lightning”. To be honest, this is the third (of four) songs that I don’t remember from this show already (and I was working in a record shop for a living at the time!). In my defence, “Lightning” isn’t that memorable. Very much in the same vein as “Sunshine On A Rainy Day” but without the same hooky chorus, it didn’t get anywhere near the same success as its predecessor whose No 4 chart high was 33 paces higher than that which “Lightning” achieved. Wikipedia’s description of it as ‘another moderately popular song’ seems very generous. As for her album “Scarlet Red And Blue” that Tony Dortie bigs up here, well that only got as high as No 67 in the charts. Has a pop star ever projected their future in a song quite as clearly as Zoë does here?

“Lightning never strikes twice, maybe take some advice…”

A couple of Breakers next starting with yet another dance act that I don’t recall at all in Control with “Dance With Me (I’m Your Ecstasy)”. It’s hardly surprising as so forgettable was the whole shebang that there is very little trace of Control and their hit on the internet. I did find something on puredjs.com the said that this track (and I quote) “had the whole world buzzing”. Really?! It didn’t even make the Top 10 in the UK (peaking at No 17). Maybe it was a club thing – I wouldn’t have known as I was skint at the time and certainly had no extra cash for cutting any rug at Manchester’s hottest nightspots. Apparently it was remixed and re-released in 2006 and Control are still a going concern and appear at (again I’m quoting) “festivals, clubs, raves, parties, etc…”. And that’s your lot. God, I hope they’re not on any future TOTP repeats – I’ve nothing else to say about this at all.

*checks BBC4 TOTP repeat schedule*

Oh great, they’re on the next show. Marvellous.

One of those Pointless songs next. Not that there wasn’t any point to it you understand, just that it would possibly score you zero points if you were ever a contestant on that game show starring Richard Osman and Alexander Armstrong. “Shining Star” by INXS anyone? We’d all be forgiven for forgetting this one. A stand alone single to promote their concert album “Live Baby Live” despite the fact that it was a studio recording and not a live cut. Never quite got my head around that concept.

The track itself is very much INXS by numbers and derivative of a lot of their other material from around this period. Accordingly, it only made it to No 27 in the UK charts. The band would return the following year with possibly my favourite album of theirs, “Welcome To Wherever You Are”. For now though, they very much seemed to be treading water,

Meanwhile back in the studio, it’s that funny little bald American bloke Moby whom most of us had never actually seen before…except, he wasn’t actually bald back then and instead has what passes for (almost) a full head of hair. Yes, hard as it is to imagine, there was a time when Moby wasn’t just a cranium. Like most of us probably, the mental image that come to my mind when I think of him is of that “Play” era Moby with him shaven headed on the album’s front cover jumping about with his hairy (oh the cruel irony) chest exposed through his oversized white shirt. Maybe the emergence of comedian Harry Hill has conflated (to quote the word being used by just about every Tory MP in defence of Owen Paterson at the moment) the two. Here he is though with his first ever chart hit “Go” not looking follicly challenged.

None of this hirsute business is helping the TOTP production team manage to showcase a dance act any more effectively than they were ever able to though. For Moby, they’ve dispensed with any backing dancers and instead are reliant on the man himself just jumping around on his keyboard and shouting …erm…’Go!’ to meet the new live vocal criteria. There’s the usual deployment of the Dr Who ‘Green Death’ story visual effect as well of course (well it is a dance track) and not much else apart from the ‘Yeaaaah’ vocal sample which is courtesy of the ubiquitous Jocelyn Brown. Studio performances of dance tracks on TOTP in 1991 are still not working for me.

“Go” peaked at No 10.

As we have a humongously long song coming up soon, the schedule will only allow for about 90 seconds of the next video which is Kylie Minogue and Keith Washington with “If You Were With Me Now”. This was a curious thing, a song written by Mike Stock and Pete Waterman for their PWL label that sounded like a genuine soul standard. Not only that, it was a duet but this was no “Especially For You” (Keith could actually sing unlike Jason for one thing). I should add that Kylie herself gets a writing credit on this as well – it was her first hit single to feature her as a co-writer.

The single would reach a very respectable high of No 4 (much higher than I remembered) despite being from her “Let’s Get To It” album which is surely one of her least memorable and underperformed commercially. Apparently the vocals were recorded separately (see also Michael McDonald and Patti LaBelle’s “On My Own”) and although they were on the set together for the recording of the video, you wouldn’t actually know it as the director chose to not include any scenes of them together. It must have been an artistic licence thing. Or an oversight maybe.

Finally we arrive at this week’s ‘Exclusive’ performance and it’s that song that is massive… in length rather than stature though. Genesis are back everyone!

*everyone groans*

Phil and co hadn’t realised an album since 1986’s “Invisible Touch” before they returned in 1991 with the “We Can’t Dance” LP. That’s not to say we’d all been given five years off from Mr Collins who had been ~~torturing~~ ‘entertaining’ us in the meantime with his mahoosively successful 1989 album “…But Seriously”.

“No Son Of Mine” was the lead single from “We Can’t Dance” and it weighs in at length of 6:41 on the album version. For some reason, presumably to big it up as an exclusive, the TOTP producers allowed them just about all of that time for this performance. Was it worth it? Well, it was for the band with both the single and the album selling exceptionally well, with the former going Top 10 (No 6) – the first Genesis single to do so in the UK since 1983’s “Mama” – and the latter going to No 1 and achieving platinum sales five times over. For the credibility of TOTP though, was this really what the rave crazy kids wanted? Unbelievably Phil Collins was only 40 here (13 years younger than I am now) but he looks ancient. As for Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks…they always looked middle aged didn’t they?

Performance wise, it seems odd to have a drummer up there who isn’t Collins but apparently that’s what crowds will see when they see Genesis play live on their current tour – Phil is doing the vocals sat down out front as he is no longer able to play the drums due to nerve problems for which he underwent an operation on his spine in 2016.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEVSwlIBteg

Some awful intro work finally from hosts Dortie and Franklin as they segue into the No 1 song. U2 have finally brought the 16 weeks reign of Bryan Adams to an end with “The Fly” but they get introduced as ‘The posse from Dublin’ and ‘The U2 boys‘. Dearie me. Given the enormous chart feat that they executed by toppling the groover from Vancouver, the reaction on Twitter to this significant moment was quite surprising with many a viewer tweeting their displeasure at Bono and co including some who wanted to see Adams back! Surely that was tongue in cheek? As well as knocking Adams off his perch, “The Fly” also prevented Right Said Fred getting to No 1 in Australia with “I’m Too Sexy” so double bubble and all that.

Whilst not their best tune by a long way in my book, it was a statement I guess of their intent coming into the new decade. They weren’t going to be churning out “The Joshua Tree” parts II, III and IV into the 90s – they were leaving U2 of the 80s firmly in their past.

U2 would only last for one week at the top as the single was deleted after three weeks to ensure the schedules weren’t clogged up Adams style thereby hindering the release of subsequent singles from the album “Achtung Baby”. Quite the different approach from their label Island as opposed to Adams’s label A&M despite them both being part of the same parent company Universal Music.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	SL2	DJs Take Control	No chance
2	Don McLean	American Pie	Nope
3	Congress featuring Lucinda Sieger	40 Miles	40 piles of shite more like
4	Zoë	Lightning	Nah
5	Control	Dance With Me (I’m Your Ecstasy)	Negative
6	INXS	Shining Star	Not the single but I have it on their Definitive INXS Best Of CD
7	Moby	Go	No
8	Kylie Minogue and Keith Washington	If You Were With Me Now	But I wasn’t – no
9	Genesis	No Son Of Mine	No purchase of mine either
10	U2	The Fly	Singles box says yes though I don’t remember doing so

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/m00116fl/top-of-the-pops-31101991

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My memories of 90s chart music

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TOTP 31 OCT 1991

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