Geri Halliwell

TOTP 03 SEP 1999

Posted on by 80stastic

We’re into the second instalment of the peripatetic version of TOTP whilst the BBC’s Elstree Studios are being renovated. This episode was filmed in Event II, Brighton and to reflect the travelling nature of the show at this time, there’s an updated logo with the original one having the words “On Tour” superimposed in the middle of it where “Of The” would normally be. It’s a nice little touch. Gail Porter is our host again and she’s got a smart new angular haircut this week. Thankfully for this blogger, we’re back to the usual eight songs this week as opposed to last week’s bumper edition which had eleven. Only one of those eight have been on the show before though so I best get on with it…

In late Summer/ early Autumn of 1999, the UK went Latin pop music crazy with the likes of Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin riding high in our charts. Rather than peter out, the trend variegated and we saw a new strain of the genre dominating the Top 40. I say ‘new’ but it was actually very retro – mambo. No chart was more mambo-fied than this week’s with the top two positions both being of that musical persuasion. We start with the song in the runners up position from Shaft. Nothing to do with the 1971 blaxploitation crime thriller film starring Richard Roundtree nor even the people behind the 1992 Toytown techno hit “Roobarb And Custard”; no, this Shaft were the electronic production duo Alex Rizzo and Elliot Ireland who had done remixes for the likes of Björk and Alison Limerick under the moniker of Skeewiff before changing their name to Shaft and turning their attention to the 1954 hit “Sway” by Dean Martin or rather the Rosemary Clooney version of it. A remix of that recording was used to soundtrack a TV ad for London radio station Kiss FM which led to a demand for the track to be released. There was only one problem – the holders of the copyright to the Clooney version wouldn’t give permission for the release so Rizzo and Ireland drafted in a session singer to re-record it at the death and hey presto!…a massive hit was born.

“Mucho Mambo (Sway)” was a pretty nasty thing, tacky in the extreme that did nothing except destroy the legacy of “Sway”’s previous incarnations but the UK record buying public didn’t give a fig about any of that. As for the staging of this one, it was pretty straightforward I guess what with Mambo music being a high energy genre and involving distinctive dance steps. I’m not sure why they thought Richard Ayoade would be able to pull off those moves though…

The Latin vibe continues with another outing for “Mi Chico Latino” by Geri Halliwell which, despite being deposed from the top of the charts this week is, as Gail Porter points out in her intro, riding high in the charts at No 3. Sticking with the numbers game, I hadn’t picked up on this the first time this performance was broadcast but Geri had surrounded herself on stage with two drummers (Adam Ant style), three Spanish guitar players and five Sun-tanned backing dancers. That seems like a lot of people for such a slight tune – we’re all agreed that it was just a rip-off of Madonna’s “La Isla Bonita” aren’t we? – or maybe that was the point and a distraction was needed.

Geri’s next release would see her engaged in one of the more high profile chart battles of the 90s when her single “Lift Me Up” went head to head with former Spice Girl band mate Emma Bunton who duetted with Tin Tin Out on a cover of Eddie Brickell’s “What I Am” but that’s all for a future post.

One of the most prolific bands of the second half of the 90s next as Ocean Colour Scene clock up their ninth straight hit with “Profit In Peace”. Two thirds of those nine went Top 10 – I know, I was surprised as well. This track was the lead single released from fourth studio album “One From The Modern” and is an anthem for our times, no more so than literally the present day what with the state of the world and the people in charge.

I have two memories about this track neither of which relate to when it was actually in the charts at the time. Firstly, about a year after it had been released, I’m sure it turned up on a promotional CD given away free with a breakfast cereal (can’t remember which one) along with a few other recent past hits though the only one I can recall is “Disco Down” by Shed Seven. In the days before streaming platforms, I played that disc a few times on my portable CD player on my walk to work trying to convince myself that I was still on my way to spend my day in an Our Price store surrounded by music rather than the reality which was being on my way to life as a civil servant at the Land Registry surrounded by paperwork and file plans. The second recollection is seeing Ocean Colour Scene perform the song when I caught them live in an open air gig in Hull in August of 2024 when Embrace and Cast were also on the bill. It was a good gig and yes, I do feel very old.

Still with Another Level?! If I was surprised by the amount of Ocean Colour Scene hits there were, I’m flabbergasted by how many times this lot were in the charts. This was their seventh consecutive hit (including one No 1) in just over 18 months and for this one they’d teamed up with R&B artist TQ of ”Westside” fame. In truth, “Summertime” is a bit of a mess. Somehow it doesn’t seem to scan properly as if the beats can’t accommodate the lyrics. Ah yes, those lyrics – I have no idea what a lot of them mean so I had to google them. Here’s just a few of my findings which I’m not claiming are definitive and if I’ve got them wrong I apologise:

“Damn i think i gotta a hangover
Too much mo? the night before”

Songwriters: Douglas B. Rasheed / Terrance Quaites Summertime lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

‘mo’: In urban slang it stands for ‘modus operandi’ for example, to describe a person’s known style in dating, working, or socializing (e.g., “His MO is to ghost after two dates”)

“And everybody on the westside is real high off the la la (in the streets)
And we looking for the ta ta cause they pop out when it gets hot (everybody)”

Songwriters: Douglas B. Rasheed / Terrance Quaites Summertime lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

‘la la’: Urban slang for a fun-loving, carefree girl who lives in the moment and doesn’t take life too seriously. However, “Lala bop” is something different altogether.

‘ta ta’: Probably not surprising in the context of the lyrics above but apparently it means breasts (e.g. “She was wearing a low-cut top that showed off her ta-tas.”)

The staging of it doesn’t help with the initial shot of the group with four backing dancers all in a line shuffling about looks like a very loose rehearsal. Maybe that was the look they were going for to promote the vibe (hate that word!) of the song? Then there’s TQ himself bounding on stage halfway through, all over excited – if Tigger was a rapper….

Not every dance tune around this time was all about Mambo. Here’s Moloko with a huge club anthem but, as with many such hits, it took a remix and a rerelease to secure its high chart position and sales. When “Sing It Back” was originally out to buy in the shops, it was the version from the album “I Am Not A Doctor” which yielded a disappointing peak just outside the Top 40 (No 45 if you’re counting). A remix was sought out by the band and Todd Terry (the man behind Everything But The Girl’s monster anthem “Missing”) was their first choice but, unhappy with his treatment of the track, they turned to Boris Dlugosch and it was his version that became their biggest hit to date when it peaked at No 4. To paraphrase Mel Smith on his 1987 Christmas hit with Kim Wilde, it’s an almighty groove, with an almost Chic like guitar riff and Róisín Murphy’s distinctive, alluring vocals beckoning the listener/audience to join in. I always wondered why it wasn’t called “Bring It Back” as in the first line of the chorus but have since discovered that it was inspired by Róisín’s time spent frequenting the Body And Soul nightclub in New York where the resident DJ would play a lot of tracks with vocals in them and would fade down the volume so the assembled throng of clubbers could literally sing the words back to him. Fairly obvious really. “Sing It Back” would catapult Moloko into a different league of exposure (it was a UK and US Dance No 1) not least due to the track’s ubiquity – it reportedly featured on over 100 compilation albums.

Although Moloko were a duo, Róisín performs completely solo here with no sign of partner Mark Bryson but with all respect to him, nobody noticed due to Róisín’s choice of stage costume. A potentially unforgiving silver catsuit held no fear for her as she looked and sounded like a star with her image topped off with a retro yet stylish Purdey style haircut. If Joanna Lumley had been in Barbarella instead of Jane Fonda, she would surely have looked like the Moloko singer does in this performance. Failing that, if they ever remade Gerry Anderson sci-fi TV series UFO, all Róisín needed to add to her look was a purple wig.

Oh my dear God! What was this?! This was wrong on multiple levels! As well as Mambo fever, 1999 saw a resurgence in ABBA mania. As an appetiser, we’d already had the “Thank ABBA for the Music” medley by Steps, Tina Cousins, Cleopatra, B*Witched and Billie which originated from the BRIT Awards show that year and turned into a No 4 hit. This was quickly followed by the opening of the now legendary ABBA musical Mama Mia! which resulted in the seven year old compilation “ABBA Gold” returning to No 1 in the charts. Now, I have no problem with the Swedish superstars – they were part of my early childhood in our house – but that’s not what I’m referring to. No, what I have a problem with is A*Teens who were a group of Swedish 14-16 year olds put together to record late 90s versions of ABBA hits with the aim of fleecing the world with them. This was a scandalous practice it seemed to me to cash in on the renewed interest in ABBA. Why did anyone need newer versions of those classic pop hits and who thought having them sung by teenage kids was the way to go about it?! I mean, it’s not quite Minipops territory but it was distasteful and unedifying. Somehow though, this poorly thought out project was successful. Their debut single “Mamma Mia” was, rather predictably, the best selling single of 1999 in Sweden and a hit all round Europe (including in the UK where it peaked at No 12). Somewhere, Simon Fuller was sat at home thinking “Hmm. A junior version of S Club 7. That could sell…”

Their success would continue for a couple of years before petering out into the new millennium. In a case of history eating itself, A*Teens reformed this year to compete for the chance to represent Sweden at Eurovision but they finished 7th out of 12 entries in the Melodifestivalen 2026 final to find the ultimate entrant. Mamma Mia indeed! I have to admit that I didn’t get to the end of this one – it was making me feel a bit queasy.

Some proper music now courtesy of Stereophonics who are into their fourth single released from sophomore album “Performance And Cocktails”. “I Wouldn’t Believe Your Radio” was, as Gail Porter regales us in her intro, written by Kelly Jones after having had a dream in which George Harrison and Ringo Starr were singing that title in front of Jones’ parents’ house. So, a bit like John Lennon’s fabricated tale about the origin of the name The Beatles. He famously said that it came to him in a dream in which a man appeared on a flaming pie and said “From this day on you are Beatles with an ‘A’”. Could that story have been lurking around in Kelly Jones’ subconscious which triggered his dream?

Anyway, the song sounds a bit like something Noel Gallagher would have written in the latter period of Oasis and therefore lacks the punch of singles like “The Bartender And The Thief” and “Pick A Part That’s New”. Not a bad track just not one of their best. One final single from the album would follow before the band would return with their second No 1 album “Just Enough Education To Perform” in 2001.

P.S. Is it just me or does Kelly have a look of Robbie Williams about him in this performance?

We end as we began – in Mambo mood. The origins of “Mambo No.5 (A Little Bit Of…)” by Lou Bega stretched back longer than this particular chart. First of all, there’s the fact that it was based on the old Pérez Prado track originally recorded in 1949. Remarkably for an artist that had been dead for 10 years and was associated with one very distinct genre of music, this was the second time in four years that Prado’s presence had been felt in a huge hit after “Guaglione” was a No 2 record in 1995 following its use in a Guinness advert. Fast forward to 1999 and here he was again being used as the structure for Lou Bega’s worldwide No 1 but who was Lou Bega? Well, apart from being a definitive One Hit Wonder in the UK (one chart topper then nothing ever again), he was/is a German singer born to an Italian mother and Ugandan father who discovered Latin music whilst living in Miami. Returning to Munich, he would get involved with a manager and two producers, a collaboration which would lead to “Mambo No.5 (A Little Bit Of)”.

Secondly, there’s the fact that the track had been around for ages before its entry at the top of the chart. Indeed, it had been in the Top 40 for three weeks getting as high as No 31 prior to this point. How so? Well, it was the same story as we saw recently with ATB’s hit “9PM (Till I Come)” which charted on sales of import copies alone ahead of its official UK release. Once said release was made available, the import version was declared null and void for chart compilation purposes and disappeared from view altogether.

So that’s its origin story but was it any good? I don’t think you’ll be surprised to hear that I couldn’t stand it. I just found it hard to appreciate and seemed designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Was I being a music snob? Quite probably but I’ve always tried to be honest in my nearly 10 years of writing this blog so I’m not about to stop that with the end now only a handful of posts away. However, I did appreciate this rendition of it in the marvellous The Royle Family:

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1ShaftMucho Mambo (Sway)I did not
2Geri HalliwellMi Chico LatinoNah
3Ocean Colour SceneProfit In PeaceNo but I had that breakfast cereal promo CD…
4Another Level / TQSummertimeNope
5MolokoSing It BackNo bui I think my wife may have
6A*TeensMama MiaNEVER!
7StereophonicsI Wouldn’t Believe Your RadioNo but I had the album
8Lou BegaMambo No.5 (A Little Bit Of…)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/m002vdb6/top-of-the-pops-03091999

TOTP 26 AUG 1999

Posted on by 80stastic

Right, the BBC4 TOTP repeats schedule has gone tits up for the second time recently. After the Gouryella controversy a couple of weeks back causing us to miss two reruns of the grand old show, we’ve now just missed three in a row and suddenly find ourselves at the end of August 1999. This, of course, is just one of the consequences of the fall out of the sacking by the BBC of Scott Mills from his Radio 2 Breakfast Show job. It might seem quite minor compared to some of the other repercussions in the fallout from the whole saga but the online TOTP community picked up on it immediately, quickly predicting that any episodes hosted by Mills would now not see the light of day. That the final three shows he presented were consecutive has engineered this huge leap in broadcast dates. So what did we miss? Let’s have a look shall we?

My word that’s slim pickings! There’s at least three (I’m guessing dance acts) that I’ve no idea about at all. Then there’s repeat showings of Ricky Martin and D.J. Jurgen Presents Alice Deejay and that Ronan Keating No 1 from Notting Hill. I can live without all of those. The Groove Armada track is a bit of a classic and I’d have been interested in the Skunk Anansie single but that’s it. Two out of eight for me on that one. How about the following week?

Dear oh dear. It’s worse if that were possible! There’s Ronan again plus repeats of D.J. Jurgen Presents Alice Deejay and Five plus three dance tracks I have zero memory of. Travis? It’s OK but I don’t think it’s one of their better tracks. Basement Jaxx? So possibly two out of eight again. Possibly. The week after?

Well, that’s a bit better. I like that track by The Divine Comedy and Super Furry Animals were always interesting at least. I couldn’t be doing with Bran Van 3000 which I just found annoying (more on that later) and Westlife can do one as well. There a repeat of Travis and I have no interest in Puff Daddy or Mary J. Blige. That leaves Texas and Feeder who were OK I guess. How many’s that? Four out of nine? I’m almost starting to feel grateful to the BBC for their reaction to the whole Scott Mills thing.

All of this lands us at the back end of August 1999 and this episode also requires some explanation. For a start, it’s another of those TOTP on tour shows and once again it comes from Scotland and (once again) it’s presented by “the wee, local lass” (as she describes herself) Gail Porter. The last time the BBC did this was back in May when the show was filmed in Archaos nightclub in Glasgow as part of BBC Music Live 1999. So why were they doing it again? Here’s the ever excellent @TOTPFacts with the answer:

So there you go. To start the tour off, this show was extended to 45 minutes and includes 11 artists. Right, after all that preamble, let’s get to the music and we start with Apollo Four Forty and their ninth of ten hits “Stop The Rock”. Now this lot wouldn’t normally have been my bag and indeed weren’t a lot of the time but you (and I) had to admire their creativity. Having already had hits based around legendary drummer Gene Krupa, a Van Halen guitar riff and a John Williams composed TV theme, here they were turning to the masters of three chord chug-rock Status Quo for their latest smash. “Stop The Rock” takes inspiration from the Quo’s 1974 hit “Caroline” and is quite the noise but noise in a good way – it’s in your face certainly but with a sense of excitement rather than foreboding or discomfort. Apparently, the guy on vocals here is one Ian Hoxley aka Mary Byker of ‘grebo’ band Gaye Bikers On Acid who I do remember though I’m not as familiar with their catalogue as those of other members of that scene like Pop Will Eat Itself and the Wonder Stuff. Though undoubtedly a dance track, it is refreshing to see “Stop The Rock” actually performed by a band with guitars no less and thereby stopping the rot of the usual staged nonsense that accompanied hits of that genre on the show (i.e. female vocalist out front, two nerdy blokes on keyboards and some synchronised backing dancers to give it a whiff of visual appeal).

As mentioned earlier, the last time that TOTP was recorded outside of London it was also in Scotland and as such the BBC made sure that at least two of the bands performing live and in the venue were Scottish. To this end we had Travis play their newest chart offering “Driftwood” and Texas with their latest single “Summer Son”. Except the use of the word ‘latest” was rather disingenuous. Yes, it would become their latest single but not until it was released nearly three months later! I commented in the post for that TOTP in Glasgow from May 1999 that it felt like executive producer Chris Cowey was really trying to shoehorn Texas into the show just to maintain a theme. I’m sure it was all more complicated than that with various talks, meetings and commitments made by the BBC and the band’s’ management team but that’s what it looked like. As I knew there would he another Texas appearance coming for when the single was actually released, I didn’t say too much about “Summer Sun” the song in that first post. As it turned out, the first opportunity to review it was missed when that happened during a Scott Mills hosted show as mentioned earlier. However, they were back on our screens just a week later with the start of the TOTP on Tour series of programmes beginning in Edinburgh. Well, if Cowey could get them on three months before the single was released, he wasn’t going to miss the chance to get them on the show when “Summer Son” was legitimately in the charts was he?

So, the actual song…yeah, it’s OK. As with the rest of the “Hush” album, it didn’t deviate much from the formula that brought them so much success with “White On Blonde” but having waited their whole career for such huge sales, you couldn’t really expect them to throw the blueprint out overnight. The official video that accompanied it featuring Sharleen Spiteri cavorting about with a half dressed bloke in a bed and was considered too provocative for many broadcasters and was certainly never going to be shown on pre-watershed BBC. It’s on YouTube if you want to see what all the fuss was about but it seems very tame by today’s standards.

A quality tune up next and one of the best that the artist behind it ever recorded to my ears. Faced with the prospect of delivering the dreaded ‘difficult third* album’ hurdle, Supergrass made light of the fabled obstacle by trailing it with two quality singles. First came “Pumping On Your Stereo” in the May before following it up with “Moving” which was perhaps even better. The almost acoustic opening was a clever move to intrigue the listener by presenting them with a non-typical Supergrass sound before the funky meat of the track kicked in. I thought it was cleverly constructed though some reviewers criticised it for not being seamless enough in that you could see the joins of the two parts of the track as if it was two different songs superglued together. Personally, I don’t see an issue with that. One of the most lauded songs ever is exactly that. “A Day In The Life” has the Lennon penned “I read the news today” heavy style verses whilst McCartney supplied the more upbeat “Woke up fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head” middle part and that worked perfectly.

*Is the difficult album the third one or the second? I’m never quite sure.

Talking of working perfectly, “Moving” was used across the ending credits of the marvellously entertaining film East Is East and it was an inspired choice both sonically and visually. My mate Robin attended a premiere for East Is East as his sister is in the film – she played the part of Stella, the blonde girl on the film poster who had designs on Jimi Mistry’s character Tariq. Whilst at the event, Robin met the film’s director Damien O’Donnell and he congratulated him on the movie, especially the music featured in it, highlighting the choice to include “Moving”. Damien had to admit that he’d had very little to do with the music decisions and that’s me being a supergrass, outing a film director’s lack of input to his own film. Well, sort of, alright?

After the established practice of how TOTP staged a dance act in the late 90s was destabilised by Apollo 440 at the top of the show, by the fourth performance in, were already back to the status quo (see what I did there?). Who the deuce were Binary Finary?! Well, I could give you the names of the trio behind this project but frankly who cares? Look them up yourself on Wikipedia if you really must. Their hit was called “1999”…or was it? You see, this trance track had already been a No 24 hit the previous year when it was called…yes…”1998”! Remixed, rereleased and renamed it would go to No 11 the second time around. Binary Finary would pull off this trick of rehashing and retitling again in 2000 but we’d all got bored of it then and it peaked at No 84.

Obviously there was nothing down for me in “1999” but I did note that, in an unusual turn of events, although reverting to the normal staging for a dance act, there were more anonymous blokes behind keyboards on stage than there were female dancers for once (note dancers not vocalists as the track had no lyrics). Oh and that link by Gail Porter about getting tickets to see TOTP on tour? That was all a bit contrived wasn’t it? Nobody was calling the show ‘TOTP 1999’, tour or not – a very clunkily constructed segue and no mistake.

Staying with Gail, she now informs us that although “Bugs” is the second hit by Hepburn, they haven’t actually made it into the TOTP studio yet. She’s right you know as the all female group, just like Texas, also appeared on that BBC Music Live 1999 broadcast from Archaos nightclub in Glasgow back in May which was their debut on the show. They would eventually get to that hallowed ground of the studio of the Beeb’s legendary music show in 2000 to perform their third single “Deep Deep Down”.

Back to “Bugs” though and it was more of that uptempo, pop/rock sound that they gave us with first hit “I Quit”. Although a polished production, it was designed to sound a bit more kick ass than something like “Truly Madly Deeply” by Savage Garden hence the almost “Smells Like Teen Spirit” intro before it morphs into something you could imagine The Rembrandts releasing. In fact, just like “I’ll Be There For You” being the theme to Friends, Hepburn did appear on the soundtrack to an American TV series – not a comedy what with the “Don’t want to die like bugs on the windshield” line but Buffy The Vampire Slayer which made a bit more sense. Maybe.

As a little footnote, do you think their rivals in the all female guitar based band stakes – Thunderbugs – were pleased or pissed off at the title of this Hepburn hit? Pleased with the potential spin off publicity or pissed off for partly nicking their name?

Similar to Supergrass earlier, TLC were on to their third studio album as the end of the 90s beckoned and also like Supergrass, the first two singles released from it (“Fanmail”) would garner a reputation as some of their finest work for many people. Following long term chart dweller “No Scrubs” was never going to be easy but with “Unpretty”, they made a beautiful job of it. A second consecutive US No 1, it would also consolidate their success over here by peaking at No 6. To maintain the Supergrass comparison, “Unpretty” also had an almost acoustic feel to it which actually made for a much more mainstream sound and was an ocean away from the likes of hip hop debut hit “Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg”. This was almost an orthodox rock/pop song.

Based around a poem written by Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins about her incandescent reaction to men calling women “fat pigs” on an episode of Ricki Lake, it would go on to receive two Grammy nominations. As for this ‘exclusive’ performance, it was clearly recorded in an empty room judging by the fact that there’s no cutaway shots to any studio audience members. Well, I guess you can’t get any more exclusive than having nobody there.

When in Edinburgh…Chris Cowey doubles down (literally) on the Scottishness of this show by having Texas perform a second song for no other discernible reason other than than that they are, indeed, Scottish and…well…there. “Tell Me The Answer” is the second track from their fifth studio album “The Hush” and listening to it, you can kind of understand why it was never released as a single. It’s got a nice enough if unoriginal sound to it but it seems like it’s in the wrong key for Sharleen’s voice to me judging by her almost falsetto vocals in this acoustic (there’s that word again) version. It’s not just me is it? Is she struggling to make those notes? Normally her voice is pretty on point but not here.

“The Hush” became their second No 1 album of three (if you include their Greatest Hits collection from 2000) and would spend 12 non-consecutive weeks inside the Top 10 going three times platinum in the UK. It was at No 4 in the charts at the time of this TOTP.

So despite the Scott Mills induced skipping of three episodes which meant that I was spared two appearances of D.J. Jurgen Presents Deejay Alice, I’m not away scott free as here they are again for a fourth time on the show with “Better Off Alone”. Hell’s teeth! In fairness to Cowey on this one, it did spend nearly two months inside the Top 10 including three consecutive weeks at No 2. For this performance, they’ve dropped the…erm…more elderly lady on the keyboards who appeared on the 30th of July show so we left with the trio of vocalist and two backing dancers only.

Now, I have tried to go forensic on this one and I really think that one of the dancers is not the same person who performed in that previous show. In fact, it didn’t require that much detailed investigation as the singer and other dancer are both wearing the same clothes whereas the new woman has a totally different outfit to the girl in that 30th July episode. I’m not sure what any of this means other than to suggest such dance hits were all about the beats and not the visuals.

Just like Texas, Supergrass are allowed to perform two songs in this specially extended TOTP and they give us the track “Mary” which would become the next single released from their third, eponymous album. Unlike the other two singles, it would underperform significantly chart-wise peaking at No 36. There are reasons for this I think. Firstly, is the fact that the album had already been in the shops for two months by the time “Mary” was released so that could well have diluted potential sales. Secondly, its promo video, an homage to Hammer Horror movies, was considered too scary for broadcast (also like Texas) and had to be heavily edited with the offending scenes replaced with, bizarrely, pictures of onions. All those shenanigans can’t have helped the single’s promotion. Thirdly, and most significantly I feel, although it’s a great track, it was a strange choice as a single. Nowhere near as radio friendly as its two predecessors, it’s definitely more of an album track to my ears with its “Ah-ya-ya” shouted chorus and heavy guitars. “Mary” would be the last hit of the 90s for Supergrass, drawing a rather unsatisfactory line under that era of their career.

P.S. “Mary” would provide lyrics that seemed to be the reverse of the band’s biggest hit “Alright”. Look at these lines:

“I like to push you over into my stream
I like to point out that her teeth are green”

Songwriters: Michael Quinn / Gareth Coombes / Robert Coombes / Daniel Robert Goffey

Mary lyrics © Bmg Rights Management (uk) Ltd.

“Teeth are green”! I thought Supergrass kept their teeth nice and clean!

A classic one hit wonder next…or were they? The chart record of Bran Van 3000 (or “Bread Van 3000” as Mark and Lard used to call them) presents an unusual question – can you be a one hit wonder if you’ve had two hits but both said hits were with the same song? It’s a conundrum for sure. Anyway, here are the facts about “Drinking In L.A.”; make your own mind up:

  • Released June 1998 – peaked at No 34
  • Released August 1999 – peaked at No 3
  • No other UK Top 40 hits

What d’ya reckon then? One hit wonder or not? I guess there’s no right answer just as there’s no definitive opinion as to whether “Drinking In L.A.” was any good or not what with musical taste being subjective and all that. For what it’s worth, here’s my thoughts on both questions:

  • Yes, they are a one hit wonder because they only have one song that anybody (except superfans) know them for.
  • I really didn’t like “Drinking In L.A.” for quite a niche reason.

Ah, so what was that niche reason you ask? Well, it was one tiny element of the track that only lasted about two seconds and that was the spoken word intro that says “Hi, my name’s Stereo Mike”. For some reason, that little snippet used to annoy the hell out of me. There was plenty about chart music in 1999 to be offended by but those five words used to wind me up something rotten. When I made the mistake of letting my colleagues at the Our Price I was working in know this, they used to put “Drinking In L.A.” on the shop stereo and keep pressing the play button constantly so that “Hi, my name’s Stereo Mike” would sound on repeat. I still can’t get past that intro.

If I could, what would I say about the rest of the song? Probably that it was a bit of a slacker anthem similar to “Loser” by Beck which possibly contributed to its popularity but that the real reason for its ascent up the charts second time around was this advert:

Oh and that has there ever been another hit in UK chart history that features the word ‘bupkis’?

After all the hype and expectation and then anti-climax surrounding the release of Geri Halliwell’s debut solo single “Look At Me”, there presumably was some anxiety lurking in the offices of Geri’s management team and record company. The next single had to be bigger which meant topping the chart. Despite those aforementioned representatives of Halliwell wanting “Lift Me Up” or “Bag It Up” to be the next release, it was “Mi Chico Latino” that made the cut and, lo and behold, it flamenco-ed its way straight to No 1.

Now let’s address the two elephants in the room straightaway – was this just a rewrite of “La Isla Bonita” by Madonna from her 1986 album “True Blue” and was Geri just jumping on the Latin pop phenomenon of the time? ‘Yes’ and ‘possibly’ would be my answers to those questions. There’s no doubt about the first one but in Geri’s defence re: the second, she reckons she wrote it the previous year before the Latin pop trend really took off in 1999. Who am I to give a definitive verdict on that? What I can say is that her lyrics for this one seem to be a little confused. Whilst there is heavy usage of Spanish throughout like “Donde esta el hombre con fuego en la sangre” and “Donde esta mi chico latino” and a whole middle eight in that language (supposedly to pay homage to Geri’s Spanish mother), there is also the lyric “Find my love my dolce vita” which features four times. “Dolce Vita” is Italian not Spanish surely?

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Apollo Four FortyStop The RockI did not
2TexasSummer SonDidn’t happen
3SupergrassMovingNo but I had the album
4Binary Finary 1999 It was hardly Prince was it? No
5HepburnBugsNegative
6TLCUnprettyNope
7TexasTell Me The AnswerN/A
8D.J. Jurgen Presents Deejay AliceBetter Off AloneBig no
9SupergrassMarySee 3 above
10Bran Van 3000Drinking In L.A.Couldn’t get past that intro – no
11Geri HalliwellMi Chico LatinoNah

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/p00fsvhp/top-of-the-pops-26081999

TOTP 21 MAY 1999

Posted on by 80stastic

Looking at the running order for this TOTP, there’s only three songs in it that I remember how they sound and one of those I really wish I didn’t. And this from a man who was working in a mainstream record chain at the time (I even have photo evidence that I’ll share at some point). I mean, I must have sold some of these singles over the counter to customers – they might as well have been tins of beans it seems.

Our host is Scott Mills and we start with the one hit that I so wish I could delete from my memory banks. 1999 had already given us some resolutely dubious moments but we have arrived at the point in time when it offered up the Shania Twain crossover pivot. Up until now, the Canadian singer had been of a definite country flavour to those of us who were not members of her fan base, the casual listeners per se. She’d had a sizeable hit with an inoffensive ballad in “You’re Still The One” and a couple of minor charting follow ups but I’d thought that maybe that would be that for Shania and never the Twain would meet with the UK Top 40 again.

However, I hadn’t banked on “That Don’t Impress Me Much”. I can’t tell you him much this song annoys me. Actually, I can. I HATE IT! I DETEST IT! I DESPISE IT! Why? Because of its inane lyrics that name check Brad Pitt and the way she delivers them especially when the song pauses and she almost sarcastically speaks rather than sings the lines. Then there’s the hideous synth sound parping away in the background that makes it sound like an advertising jingle. Most of all though, I can’t stand that so many people not just bought into the song but actually bought it in enough copies to take it to No 3 for three consecutive weeks and for it to spend nearly five months inside the Top 40. “That Don’t Impress Me Much” was the crucial piece of the pie that transformed Shania from a country singer to a mainstream pop star peddling material that allowed the record buying public to convince themselves that their tastes hadn’t been hijacked by country & western music. It wasn’t even ‘new country’, it was…country-pop? Pop- country? Not very snappy is it? Perhaps if I shortened the word ‘country’? Oh. Well, that particular amalgamation results in an unfortunate (if accurate) description. Whatever it was, it didn’t impress me much. Ahem. Unbelievably, as soon as “That Don’t Impress Me Much” finally dropped out of the charts, Shania released an even more nauseating single in “Man! I Feel Like A Woman!”! but I can only deal with so much bad music from a single artist in one post.

So all that promotion, all that marketing, all that hype couldn’t actually deliver Geri Halliwell a No 1 with her debut solo single “Look At Me”. In the end, she couldn’t get past a Boyzone cover version of yet another ballad and had to be content with the runners up spot. It must have been a disappointment to her and her label but it would all turn out OK as her next four singles did top the charts. Three of them were from her album “Schizophonic” which went double platinum in the UK, selling two million copies worldwide. I guess commercial popularity didn’t come in spades for Robbie Williams initially so maybe team Geri didn’t panic.

However, despite a continuation of that success into the new millennium with her cover of “It’s Raining Men” going to No 1 in 2001, that old chestnut diminishing returns raised its head again. It left a calling card with sophomore album “Scream If You Wanna Go Faster” which made the Top 5 but sold a sixth of its predecessor. By the time of third album “Passion” in 2005, (who knew there was a third album!), diminishing returns was banging on Geri’s front door demanding to be let in. After 12 months of being on the shelves, it had only sold 10,000 copies. Very few people seemed to be looking at or, more crucially, listening to Geri at that time.

OK so here’s a potentially unpopular opinion – why were Space dismissed as a novelty group (including by my friend Robin who described them as a “joke band”) but Super Furry Animals were seen as credible, authentic and cool (Cymru)? Weren’t there a fair few similarities between the two bands? Both had a quirky sound that was hard to define with beguiling lyrics drawn from unconventional subject matter featuring unusual musical instruments. Both had lead singers with distinctive voices and an anti-pop image and both seemed to achieve commercial success by not bandwagon jumping nor riding the zeitgeist. And yet, it see seems to me, that it was the Welsh band that were taken more seriously than their Liverpool counterparts. I could be wrong of course. But then I listen to something like “Northern Lites” and I think there is something in my comparison. It’s typically Super Furry Animals in that it’s an untypical pop song featuring what sounds like a Mariachi band and a steel drum somewhere in the mix.

Isn’t there a Space song that features a Mariachi band? If not then something similar? After all, their musical mission statement was described thusly:

“Space is all about making songs with all the latest technology and throwing every genre of music into the mix to come up with something mad.”

Tommy Scott, summing up Space’s approach to Transatlantic Modern in 2020.

Anyway, I quite liked “Northern Lites” though it isn’t one of my absolute favourites of theirs. Also, what was with the costumes that some of the guys up there on stage were wearing? What were they meant to be? Super Furry Animals? They look like badly designed football club mascots but then, as we’re talking about comparisons, nothing will ever compare to Kingsley, the Patrick Thistle FC mascot…

I’ve said this many times in this blog but there was clearly lots more to Skunk Anansie than my initial recollection of them which was basically their hit single “Weak”. The band’s many TOTP appearances (they were on ten times in total performing eight different songs, itself an indication of the breadth of their back catalogue) has introduced me to much more about them than I remembered or imagined there might be.

This week in 1999 they showed us what they would have done with a song for a James Bond movie had they ever been commissioned to do so. “Secretly” (even the song title had a spy/secret agent vibe) had a string section backing to it that sparked 007 connections in my synapses. The verses are delicately delivered leading into a beautifully elongated chorus which showcased one of Skin’s more controlled vocals. Apparently the song did feature in a film but not of the James Bond variety – it plays over the credits of the 1999 teen romantic drama Cruel Intentions which was based on the 1782 novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses.

Duane Harden didn’t have much luck when it came to establishing his name as a singer did he? Despite being the vocalist on a No 1 record, most people knew it as an Armand Van Helden track (even the song’s title rubbed the salt in – “You Don’t Know Me”). Undeterred, for his next release, he teamed up with New York disco house DJ Lenny Fontana (a better pop star name than Duane Harden I would suggest – the latter sounds more like a porn than pop star) aka Powerhouse and they delivered No 13 hit and dance chart No 1 “What You Need”. Nothing to do with the early INXS single, it actually sampled a Thelma Houston tune but reminded me of 1986 Chicago house anthem “Love Can’t Turn Around” by Farley ‘Jackmaster’ Funk featuring Darryl Pandy. Not that I know what I’m talking about of course. What I do know is that Duane never did have another UK Top 40 hit. Seemingly Harden didn’t have what we needed ultimately.

Referring back to my statement at the start of this post, I think I may have reached the crossover point where there are more songs in the 1999 charts that I don’t know than there are that I do. Who the hell were 1000 Clowns and why did their lead singer and rapper Kevi look like such a big dork? “(Not the) Greatest Rapper” was their only UK hit and it’s another track that reminds me of something else. We’d heard a flute riff (do flutes have riffs?) on a dance/rap hit back in 1993 courtesy of Stakka Bo and their song “Here We Go”…

I have to say I prefer Stakka Bo to 1000 Clowns. Maybe it’s the slower bpm or the delivery from Kevi but it just sounds (and looks) so lame. Death by 1000 cuts or listen to 1000 Clowns? The answer is the latter of course but it really shouldn’t have been that close a call.

When Oasis announced that they were reforming for a world tour, many leapt to the conclusion that it was to pay for Noel Gallagher’s divorce. If it was, he wasn’t the first Mancunian rock star to pull such a stunt. Back in 1999, the Happy Mondays were suddenly back together allegedly to help pay off outstanding tax bills owed by Shaun Ryder to HMRC. Following the legendary disastrous gestation period and release of the band’s fourth studio album “Yes Please!” had brought about the end of Factory Records, the Mondays were no more and Ryder and Bez moved on to Black Grape. A comeback looked very unlikely but, as so often is the case, money is the root of all reunions and so an international and UK tour was undertaken including two nights at the Brixton Academy and a sell out of the 20,000 capacity Manchester Arena. They even supported the aforementioned Oasis on their ‘Standing On The Shoulders Of Giants’ tour.

Obviously, a Greatest Hits album was released to tie in with all this touring and to promote that, a single was released. A very loose cover version of Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back In Town” was selected for the job which is what we are ‘treated’ to in this TOTP appearance, their first for nearly seven years and only fifth in total. Still, that’s not a bad number for a group that were banned from the show following their first appearance after Ryder told a pompous BBC suit to “f**k off knobhead” backstage. The disparity from the attitude of that initial TOTP outing to the nonsense of this appearance is striking. If it looks like a shambles and sounds like a shambles, it is a shambles. Just awful to watch and I say that as someone who has seen the Happy Mondays live. The band have reformed and disbanded a few times since but are currently touring to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the release of “Pills ‘N’ Thrills And Bellyaches”. I’m betting that “The Boys Are Back In Town” doesn’t make the set list.

So here’s the song that beat that much promoted Geri Halliwell single to the top spot and it’s yet another crappy Boyzone cover version. Apparently their label Polydor gave them the option of delaying the release of “You Needed Me” by a week to avoid going head to head with Halliwell but they declined the option presumably because they were supremely confident in their own single’s ability to shift units or they’d got to the point where they didn’t care anymore. I think the latter might be the case. Whatever the truth is, it was surely one in the eye for Geri.

Originally an American No 1 for Anne Murray in 1978 (it only made No 22 over here), Boyzone’s take on “You Needed Me” meant that seven of their fifteen hits up to this point had been other people’s songs – nearly half of them. Cover versions also accounted for three of their total of six No 1s (of which this was the final one). Perhaps the most significant stat though was that the last three UK chart toppers in 1999 were by boybands – Westlife, Backstreet Boys and now Boyzone. Was girl power over?

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Shania TwainThat Don’t Impress Me MuchNOOOOOO!
2Geri HalliwellLook At MeNah
3Super Furry AnimalsNorthern LitesNope
4Skunk AnansieSecretlyNegative
5Powerhouse featuring Duane HardenWhat You NeedIt wasn’t
61000 Clowns(Not the) Greatest RapperNo
7Happy MondaysThe Boys Are Back In TownI did not
8BoyzoneYou Needed MeNever

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/m002s7dl/top-of-the-pops-21051999

TOTP 07 MAY 1999

Posted on by 80stastic

It’s early May 1999 here at TOTP Rewind and that can only mean one thing – the culmination of the football season! Despite only losing three games all season, my beloved Chelsea have blown the league by drawing too many matches and would finish third to a Man United team on their way to an historic treble. However, it was in League Division Three where all the drama was the day after this TOTP aired. Specifically, at Brunton Park, Carlisle where a near legendary game would play out. Carlisle United were fighting a dire relegation battle which, if lost, would condemn them to demotion to non-league football. It would be either them or Scarborough who would fall through the trap door. Carlisle needed a win but with time running out, the score in their game was locked at 1-1. Scarborough’s match had finished and they were safe as things stood but a Carlisle goal would reverse that situation and relegate Scarborough. With just 10 seconds left on the clock, the home team won a corner and Carlisle’s goalkeeper, one Jimmy Glass, was given the signal from his manager to go up the pitch to join in one last attack. Glass was only playing after being loaned from Swindon Town after a Carlisle goalkeeping emergency and this would be the last of three games he ever played for them. As the corner came in, this happened…

…pure, chaotic drama with a fairytale ending (for Carlisle at least). It’s the stuff of legend. However, for Glass, this wouldn’t be the fillip to his career that some might have assumed. There was no big money move to an elite club following his heroics; in fact, Carlisle United didn’t even sign him permanently and he only played a handful of professional games for a couple of clubs before drifting into non-league football and ultimately retiring from the game aged just 27. I wonder if any Glass related parallels can be drawn with the acts on this episode of TOTP?

Our host is Kate Thornton, and just as Jimmy Glass’s time at Carlisle United was coming to an end, this would be her final TOTP appearance. She only got to present ten shows which is a shame I think as she seemed a fairly safe pair of hands. Her first duty on her valedictory programme is to introduce Phats & Small on their fourth appearance on the show with “Turn Around”. There really can’t be anything else to say about this one can there? Well, it was back on TOTP as it had risen from No 8 to No 7 having already peaked at No 2. Yeah, that’s not exactly riveting reading material is it? I did notice that Phats & Small (the blokes on the decks as opposed to the singer) were wearing Skint Records T-shirts despite not being on that label – they were on Multiply, the people who brought us Sash! Skint was the home of Fatboy Slim and was based in Brighton which is where Phats & Small were from hence the connection I’m guessing? Russell Small is a big Brighton fan and they were in the same division as Carlisle United in 1998/99 finishing 17th out of 24, with only seven more points than bottom club Scarborough.

Jimmy Glass moment: You can’t get a bigger ‘turnaround’ moment than a last ditch winner to save your team from relegation can you?

It’s four consecutive appearances for Martine McCutcheon on the show but two of them were while “Perfect Moment” was at No 1 so I can’t argue with that. She was still in the Top 5 by the time of this final outing. Even so, it seems a little bit like overkill to me but then I wasn’t writing a TOTP blog back in 1999 and not watching two shows back to back as per the BBC4 schedule of repeats in 2026 so maybe I wouldn’t have noticed back then. As with Phats & Small, I’m struggling to find anything else to say about this one. Let me trawl the internet for a minute…

*blogger trawls internet*

Oh this is brilliant! No, really. Martine once went on a date with Mick Hucknall. She was very nervous, was drinking continually, hadn’t eaten anything and when she got in a car with him and the engine turned over she spewed all over him! Just fabulous work!

Jimmy Glass moment: Is there a more ‘perfect moment’ in football than Jimmy’s last minute winner?

If any of us thought that The Offspring’s chart topper “Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)” was destined to be a one-off, well we were right and wrong. The US pop-punk rockers never did have another UK No 1 but they came within a whisker of bagging another when follow up “Why Don’t You Get A Job?” debuted at No 2 meaning that they certainly weren’t one-hit wonders. However, avoiding that status didn’t come without criticism. Nobody with even a perfunctory knowledge of The Beatles could listen to “Why Don’t You Get A Job?” and not immediately think “Hang on, that’s “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”!”. And it was although the lyrics were very different to the Fab Four’s original, detailing two miserable sounding relationships from the point of view of both a man and a woman complaining about the laziness of their partners and their lack of any discernible income. The opening two lines include the word “bitch” which the BBC censors decided to muffle for this TOTP appearance. I don’t think they did that when Meredith Brooks was on the show but then I think the gender of the singer was pivotal there. Given the song that it was based on, “Why Don’t You Get A Job?” was always going to be a catchy tune which certainly didn’t harm its chart chances though Bryan ‘Dexter’ Holland’s strained live vocals in this performance might have adversely affected them. He really couldn’t hit those higher notes. It’s a very scratchy affair altogether.

Of course, Scottish band Marmalade beat The Offspring to it by over 30 years with an actual cover of “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”!” which went to No 1 in the UK though this little known pop song from the 80s always makes me think that Owen Paul had been listening to The Beatles’ original when he recorded it.

Jimmy Glass moment: When Jimmy’s football career ended, he needed to go and get a conventional job and worked as both an IT salesman and a taxi driver.

With another airing for “No Scrubs” by TLC, it means that three of the first four hits on this show were clocking up their fourth TOTP appearance. Come on Cowey! Sort it out! And no, I don’t care that TLC were up to No 3, their highest position in six weeks. However, the chart trajectory of this single is interesting. A debut at No 7 followed by an immediate drop out of the Top 10 to No 13. An expected descent down the Top 40 failed to materialise as “No Scrubs” lurched back into the Top 10 where it would remain for seven weeks. Even within that time period it moved up and down before finally reaching its peak of No 3 having fallen as low as No 9 the week before. How to explain this? It may be something to do with the delayed release of the its accompanying video. An MTV Award winning, sci-fi themed promo featuring the group in different coloured space suits, was its eventual delivery to video channels linked to its rise up the charts? If so, TOTP clearly didn’t get the memo/video as they stuck to showing that same satellite performance for every one of its four appearances on the show. Am I overstating the importance of this video? Maybe but there is some context to this situation, specifically that the group weren’t allowed into Europe for promotional duties possibly due to Lisa “Left Eye” Lopez’s criminal record following an incident in 1994 when she set fire to her boyfriend’s trainers which led to their mansion burning down.

One more thing, the intro to this one from Kate Thornton is a bit inappropriate. “Now going up the charts, those bad girls from Atlanta. No scrubs, no scrubbers – it’s TLC!”. No scrubbers Kate? And I thought she was a safe pair of hands!

Jimmy Glass moment: “No Scrubs” is from an album called “Fanmail” and I’m sure that Jimmy Glass got some fan mail after his last minute heroics in 1999.

Well, this is a damn shame. Of the three singles released from the sophomore album “100% Colombian” by Fun Lovin’ Criminals, the one which I bought – “Big Night Out” – is the only one that failed to warrant a TOTP appearance. Boo! Not that the two that did make it were worthless – they weren’t – but..you know. Anyway, the third of those releases was “Korean Bodega” which does sound pretty cool compared to most of its chart contemporaries but also very familiar. It’s something about that guitar riff that runs through it. I can’t place which song it reminds me of but it’s certainly recognisable.

Despite it happening in 2021, I’m not sure that I was aware that Huey Morgan had left the band. They are still an ongoing entity but it’s kind of hard to imagine them without their charismatic frontman. The band have released one album since Huey’s departure but continue to perform live.

Jimmy Glass moment: There is a track on the “100% Colombian” album called “All My Time Is Gone” which was so nearly true for Carlisle United that day in 1999 until Jimmy Glass strode forward into the box with ten seconds to go…

It’s the return of Cast next whom we had not seen in the Top 40 for 18 months. Indeed, it had been two years since their last album “Mother Nature Calls” which, though a commercial success, had divided critics. Third album “Magic Hour” therefore had a lot riding on it. The lead single from it was “Beat Mama”, a relentlessly upbeat track with a looped guitar riff and sparse, almost non-specific lyrics. Maybe the latter didn’t matter though as it was all about the feel. I liked it I have to say.

However, when I think about “Beat Mama”, its sound isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. Let me explain. The week that it came out, the shop stereo in the Our Price store I was working in suddenly stopped working one morning. That’s pretty much a disaster for a record shop. As a last resort, we brought down to the shop floor the only thing we had that could play music – a tiny, portable CD player/radio that was in the stock room that staff working in there could listen to. It sounded tinny and pathetic as we opened the doors to the public. The first CD that we put on to play through it? “Beat Mama”. We couldn’t spend the whole day with this as the output for our in-store music so I decided to try and fix the shop stereo’s misfiring speakers. Quite why I thought I had the knowledge to do this I don’t know. Somehow I did get them working again though – it must have been something simple like a loose connection. However, at one point I had the speakers wired up so that two different songs were playing out of them at the same time. How did I manage that? To this day I’m wary of doing anything technical in our house beyond changing a light bulb on account of this.

Jimmy Glass moment: Cast hail from Liverpool. In May 2021, Liverpool FC’s goalkeeper Alisson scored a 95th minute winning goal versus WBA with a header prompting immediate comparisons with Jimmy Glass.

Despite this being its second time on the show, you still couldn’t actually buy “Look At Me” by Geri Halliwell in the shops as it wasn’t released until the Monday after this TOTP aired. The promotion on this one was huge but then it was always going to be. The first official solo single by an (ex-) Spice Girl was big news. After being served up the official promo video on its last outing, we get an exclusive performance of the song this time, again introduced by Geri herself. It’s all very over the top with Halliwell backed by four male dancers on a set that includes an elaborate staircase and chaise longue as props. It all seems a bit forced to me, trying a bit too hard to make it look like Geri was this kooky, zany character that we hadn’t really been aware of before. In the end, all that promotion couldn’t quite deliver the expected and presumably desperately wanted No 1 with “Look At Me” debuting in second place.

*Mel B’s “I Want You Back” had featured Missy Elliott whilst Melanie C had duetted with Bryan Adams on “When You’re Gone” before “Look At Me”.

Jimmy Glass moment: After his legendary winning goal, the whole world was looking at Jimmy.

Westlife remains at No 1 with “Swear It Again” and if that wasn’t annoying enough, for this performance, they’ve ditched the stools I said they always sat on therefore making me look like a lier! Apart from one of them, they’re all dressed in white which was another affectation of theirs but no doubt the next time they’re on, they’ll be dressed as goths just to spite me again! I swear it!

Jimmy Glass moment: Westlife had a No 1 with a cover of ABBA’s “I Have A Dream” and there was no more dream like moment in football than Jimmy Glass’s last second winner.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Phats & SmallTurn AroundI did not
2Martine McCutcheonPerfect MomentNo
3The OffspringWhy Don’t You Get A Job?Nah
4TLCNo ScrubsNope
5Fun Lovin’ CriminalsKorean BodegaNot this one but the one before it
6CastBeat MamaGood song but no
7Geri HalliwellLook At MeNo thanks
8WestlifeSwear It AgainNever

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.

TOTP 16 APR 1999

Posted on by 80stastic

In the previous show, Jamie Theakston made a reference to Manchester United footballer Ryan Giggs in his intro to Catatonia as the Welsh international had scored an important equaliser for his club in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final versus Juventus. His goal scoring form continued into another huge game – the FA Cup semi-final replay against title rivals Arsenal two days before this TOTP aired. Whilst the goal itself was pretty special, it was his celebration of it that remains uppermost in the memory. Removing his shirt and twirling it around his head, the full extent of the hairiness of the Giggs chest was revealed. Many gagging reflexes were put into operation at the sight. I think it was the shock factor more than anything else. Fancy that lath-thin, whippet-like Ryan Giggs having a big, manly, hairy chest like that. I wonder if any of tonight’s acts had hairy chests or failing that a connection to hair (other than the obvious one on their heads)?

Our host is Jayne Middlemiss (pretty sure she didn’t have a hairy chest) and the first artist on tonight is Phats & Small with their dance anthem hit “Turn Around”. This was only just on the previous show so I’m struggling to find anything else to say about it. I’ve said about vocalist Ben Ofoedu being engaged to TV broadcaster Vanessa Feltz, I’ve referenced their amusingly named album “Now Phats What I Small Music”…what else is there? Oh, the track itself. Well, yeah there is that I suppose. Well, I can hear why it was a success. It was a very accessible tune which crossed over from the dance floor to daytime radio which presumably helped prolong its chart life which clocked in at seven consecutive weeks inside the Top 10. Its legacy includes being voted in at No 38 in MTV Dance’s 2011 list of ‘The 100 Biggest 90’s Dance Anthems of All Time’. That do?

Hairy connection: DHT (a byproduct of testosterone) causes body hair to grow and head hair to shrink sometimes leading to the paradox of hairy men being bald on their heads. Testosterone is sometimes nicknamed ‘phat’.

Meatloaf was still having hits in 1999?! I know the 90s had been a renaissance decade for him what with “Bat Out Of Hell II” being a humongous sales phenomenon but that had been back in 1993. What’s that? He also had a big seller with the follow up “Welcome To The Neighbourhood” two years later? Well, yes he did and yes it delivered him three hit singles including the No 2 hit “I’d Lie For You (And That’s The Truth)” but that was still years prior. By the end of the 90s, he (or his record company) had resorted to yet another Best Of album (the 13th of 20 according to his discography) which was released the previous November just in time for the Christmas sales rush. How convenient/cynical. Ah, so that’s where this song comes from. The practice of releasing a Greatest Hits album but trailing it with a new track was well established by this point and Meatloaf wasn’t going to buck the trend. “Is Nothing Sacred” had originally been recorded for the “Welcome To The Neighbourhood” album but hadn’t made the cut at the time. It was recycled though for “The Very Best Of Meatloaf” when it was re-recorded as a duet with his go to female singer Patti Russo. It was, in fact, not originally scheduled for that role though as there was another song on that Greatest Hits album that was earmarked for that job which was “A Kiss Is A Terrible Thing To Waste” which had been The Loaf’s contribution to the Jim Steinman penned Whistle Down The Wind soundtrack. Indeed, Meat had been rumoured to be locked in as the artist to record “No Matter What” but that particular golden egg landed up in Boyzone’s laps. Had it gone the other way, I wouldn’t have been asking the question I posed at the start of this paragraph.

As for “Is Nothing Sacred”, despite its place in that Greatest Hits album, it certainly wasn’t one of his very best, being a piss poor imitation of some of those classic hits. There would be a few more charting singles into the new millennium but Meatloaf’s death in 2022 aged 74 meant that 2016’s “Braver Than We Are” would be his last ever album and there would be no more and that’s the truth.

Hairy connection: Well, apart from the obvious long hair he sported in the “Bat Out Of Hell” era, Meatloaf also appeared in the musical Hair on and off Broadway.

It’s a repeat of that satellite performance by TLC of “No Scrubs” next. This was another of those remarkably hardy hits that enjoyed an extended chart life, spending two months inside the Top 10 eventually peaking at No 3. However, looking in more detail at its chart stats, there was a moment when things might have panned out differently. After debuting at No 7 it actually dropped to No 13 the following week and at that point you would have been forgiven for thinking that it would continue to spiral down the charts. Not so though as a third week reversal of fortunes saw it climb back into the Top 10 where it would remain for seven consecutive weeks. Even then, there were undulations within that period with the single moving to No 6 then dropping to No 9 before vaulting back to No 3 and spending two weeks at No 5. What was all that about? Well, it would be featured on TOTP twice more so maybe that exposure helped propel it up the charts? I’m not sure but what I do know is that I’m going to have to find something to write about it at least twice more in this blog for which my creativity might require some tender loving care.

Hairy connection: The follow up hit to “No Scrubs” was “Unpretty” which featured a lyric about hair extensions – “You can buy your hair if it won’t grow”.

In the three years since they’d last released an album, The Cranberries had found themselves rather usurped in the rock band fronted by a charismatic female lead singer with a strong, Celtic influenced accent stakes. Catatonia had ripped up the charts with hits like “Mulder And Scully” and “Road Rage” going Top 5, eclipsing the highest peaking singles of their Irish contemporaries who rather unbelievably and certainly unjustly would never have a Top 10 hit. Come 1999, after Dolores O’Riordan had given birth to her first child, The Cranberries were back with fourth album “Bury The Hatchet” preceded by lead single “Promises”. It was a strong, aggressive sounding comeback (though there was a lot of reliance on lyrics like “Oh-woah, oh, oh” and “Doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo”) but the truth was that five years on from their commercial heyday, the band’s sales were in decline. “Bury The Hatchet” sold a tenth of the copies which debut “Everybody Else Is Doing It, Why Can’t We?” did. The album’s cover artwork probably didn’t help. Whilst the first three featured standard but effective poses of the band, their fourth went in an altogether more arty direction. It was designed by Storm Thorgerson who was school mates with most of Pink Floyd and would go on to design the iconic cover for their legendary “The Dark Side Of The Moon” album. However, “Bury The Hatchet” would not garner such an illustrious reputation. You could see glimpses of Thorgerson’s work on, for example, “Wish You Were Here” in the concept but a naked man being observed by a suspended giant eye against a desert background looked outlandish rather than creative.

A fifth album followed within two years but its perceived lack of promotion by their record label pushed the band to split from MCA and ushered in an eight year hiatus. Three more albums would arrive (one posthumously) but the death of O’Riordan in 2018 brought a permanent end to the band’s story.

Hairy connection: Consuming dried cranberries is associated with promoting hair growth due to their vitamin C and antioxidant content. 

Now I remember the name Glamma Kid but can I tell you anything about the artist behind that name? No I can’t. Not without the aid of the internet anyway.

*checks internet*

OK, well that’s not his real name obviously. That would be Iyael Lyases Tafari Constable…yeah, not as snappy as Glamma Kid is it? Anyway, he was/is a toaster – of the musical kind obviously not a relative of the artificially intelligent electric bread toaster variety that was a recurring character in Red Dwarf with an obsession with making small talk exclusively about toast. Of course not. Hailing from Hackney, he initially made a name for himself by appearing on Tim Westwood’s Radio 1 rap show in 1996. By the following year, he was being awarded a MOBO Award for Best Reggae Act and by 1999 he had two Top 10 hits. The first of those was “Taboo” which interpolated the 1985 Sade hit “The Sweetest Taboo” and was a duet (of sorts) with Shola Ama.

I was never the biggest fan of the original but what they’ve done to it with this treatment is nothing short of criminal and when I say they I mean Glamma Kid. What is he doing here? Bent down on his haunches, stalking the stage in an all white suit? I think he was going for a Mark Morrison vibe but he actually looks like Vic Reeves during one of his rubbing his thighs, over excited by a female guest episodes of Shooting Stars. Then there’s the noise that he’s making. It’s just horrible caterwauling! It’s even worse than Shaggy! Who could possibly want to listen to it more than once or am I missing something?! You know what, I don’t think I am.

Hairy connection: Glamma is presumably short for ‘glamour’ which conjures up images of luxuriously coiffured hair plus Glamma Kid featured on a 1998 remix of David Bowie’s “Fashion” which again has connections with hairstyles.

Yay! It’s the New Radicals again! This was the third time in the show for Gregg Alexander’s band and their hit “You Get What You Give” but you won’t find me moaning about repeat performances in the Chris Cowey era as I have done for month after month, post after post as I’m a complete hypocrite and I liked this one so the more the merrier for me!

However, it does leave me with the problem of what else I’m going to say about it. Well, this appears to be a live vocal performance as Gregg does seem to be straining somewhat with his singing in places. Actually, there also appear to be some technical issues as well with echoing vocals and a definite bit of feedback towards the end of the song. We just about have time for the infamous “Fashion shoots with Beck and Hanson, Courtney Love and Marilyn Manson” line but not for the word “ass” right at the death though I think the BBC censors might have blanked it out. Hard to tell.

Hairy connection: Although Gregg Alexander wore his trademark hat to cover his face to hide the fact that he was not enjoying promoting a hit record via the rules of the music industry, it also concealed the fact that he was bald that was only revealed in the video that accompanied the song.

Talk about creating a buzz about a forthcoming release! There was always going to be great deal of interest in the debut solo single by ex-Spice Girl Geri Halliwell but the promotion around “Look At Me” really went into overdrive. Look at this TOTP exclusive showing of its promo video a whole month before it was actually released! And that was just part of the marketing story. Halliwell embarked on a short promotional tour in support of the single visiting cities such as Rio de Janeiro, New York, Tokyo, Sydney and Milan. Remember, she only had the one song at this point that you could actually buy (even the extra tracks on the CD single were just remixes of “Look At Me”) yet she was straddling the globe to sell it! Was it all worth it? Yes and no. A No 2 hit is nothing to be sneered at but surely after all that promotion a chart topping debut would have been expected. In the end, Geri was beaten by Boyzone doing yet another cover version. That must have stung a bit.

So what about her actual song – was it any good? Well, I give Geri credit for not doing an obvious big ballad (I’m not sure she had the vocal chops for that anyway) or indeed, going the Boyzone route and releasing a cover version. However, “Look At Me” was accused of sounding very similar to another late 90s hit – “History Repeating” by Propellerheads featuring Shirley Bassey and you can hear why though I’m not sure I made that connection myself at the time. The structure of “Look At Me” does work with as opposed to against Geri’s rather limited vocals enabling her to sing in snatches or phrases rather than seamlessly not that there’s anything wrong with that but then what the hell was that middle eight breakdown?! Were the Spice Girls fanbase ready for that or was Geri looking for a new, more mature audience?

I guess I should comment on the video. First off, the fact that it’s nearly all shot in black and white was a bold move from someone who once sang “Colours of the world, Spice up your life”. Again, was that designed to show she was now a serious artist in search of a new type of fan? If that wasn’t a clue then the funeral scene killing of her ‘Ginger Spice’ persona couldn’t be see as anything but a desire to leave behind her former group. This was backed up by the caption at the start of the promo asking “Who is…Geri Halliwell?” suggesting that we perhaps had not seen the real version of her yet. The rest of the video has Halliwell playing around with female stereotypes which she nominated as vamp, bitch, virgin and sister. I’m not quite sure if she succeeded in her observations of said stereotypes nor indeed what those observations might have been.

Whatever you thought of her debut single, and on reflection my judgement would be ‘could’ve been worse’ or even “not without merit”, it paved the way for a run of four consecutive No 1 hits three of which came from her debut album “Schizophonic” and that could in no way be seen as a disappointing return.

Hairy connection: You mean apart from the whole ‘Ginger Spice’ persona being based on her red hair colour and apart from Geri referring to her look as “hair power” and apart from her hair being considered to have altered the course of 1990s beauty history, with fans often emulating her look? Nah, nothing really.

You’d have thought that as the new millennium dawned, we’d have gotten a bit bored with the whole soap star to pop star schtick but here was Tiffany from EastEnders to prove that we still had room for more. I think it’s fair to say that Martine McCuthcheon has moved on from that role not in the least part because of her much loved turn in Love Actually but back then she was Tiffany so big and well liked had her character become. Only a few short months prior, Tiffany Mitchell was written out of the soap when she was killed off on New Year’s Eve after being knocked down by a car driven by Frank Butcher (hence Jayne Middlemiss’s quip about her not being very good at road safety). Twenty-two million people watched that episode and a book about the character of Tiffany was a bestseller!

Given all of that, it’s perhaps no surprise that McCutcheon’s debut single went to No 1. What people did seem to be surprised about though was shown in their reaction to “Perfect Moment” which went along the lines of “It’s quite good innit”. I guess it was a similar response to that which another soap star’s debut single had received not so long before – “Torn” by Natalie Imbruglia. However, whereas the ex-Neighbours star had gone for a shimmering piece of pop perfection, Martine gave us the full, dramatic big ballad treatment. Just as Geri Halliwell surprised us with her almost jazz-pop first solo song, perhaps we might have expected a bit of pop fluff from Martine or a cover version like previous EastEnders star Sophie Lawrence had and Sid Owen would go on to do. Not a bit of it…or rather a little bit of it as “Perfect Moment” was a cover but I’m pretty sure most people were completely unaware of the original. Recorded in 1997 by Polish singer Edyta Górniak, that version was little known outside of Poland and so, again as with Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn”, most of us thought it was, if not Martine’s song, then it had been written specifically for her. It starts off sounding a bit like “A Different Corner” by George Michael with a some serene strings being plucked before Martine delivers a perfectly adequate vocal. There’s no doubting that she could sing a bit but then she had been in little known, mid 90s girl group Milan who spent one week at No 82 with a single called “Lead Me On” – I did say they were little known! Anyway, “Perfect Moment” came over as quite a classy tune in the style of Barbra Streisand or at least Celine Dion and great things were predicted for Martine McCutcheon the pop star. A No 2 album duly followed and a pair of No 6 singles but by 2000, diminishing returns kicked in and her next two albums didn’t produce anywhere near the same numbers. Then came a return to acting and the role of Natalie in Love Actually though I have to say I can’t think of much else I e seen her in recently and Love Actually is now 23 years old.

*checks her filmography*

Martine’s most recent TV appearances have been as herself in shows like Loose Women, Celebrity Gogglebox and The Masked Singer in which she came 10th dressed as a swan. Probably not her perfect moment then.

Hairy connection: Martine has openly discussed her struggles with scalp sensitivity and dandruff endorsing Polytar medicinal shampoo to treat these issues and has become a scalp health advocate using her platform to discuss the impact of stress and health issues on her hair.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Phats & SmallTurn AroundNegative
2MeatloafIs Nothing SacredI did not
3TLCNo ScrubsNah
4The CranberriesPromisesNope
5Glamma Kid / Shola AmaTabooNo chance
6New RadicalsYou Get What You GiveYES!
7Geri HalliwellLook At MeI did not
8Martine McCuthcheonPerfect MomentAnd 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 agre

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002rlpd/top-of-the-pops-16041999