There was a lot going on in mid May 1994. Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as South Africa’s first black president. Labour leader John Smith died of a heart attack. The British romantic comedy Four Weddings and a Funeral opened in UK cinemas. However, the one event that was dominating my thoughts occurred two days after this TOTP aired. The 1994 FA Cup final was not the best of games and it will probably only be remembered for Man Utd completing their first league and cup double and becoming only the fourth team in the 20th century to do so. For me though, it will always be a painful memory.

Growing up as a Chelsea fan in the late 70s and early 80s was horrible. We were mainly useless and spent five consecutive seasons in the old Second Division and we were hopeless in the cups. The closest we got to cup glory were wins in the Full Members Cup in 1986 and the Zenith Data Systems in 1990. Most people reading this will never have heard of them. Suddenly though, in 1994, we were in the FA Cup final. The actual FA Cup final! Our first time since 1970! I couldn’t have been more excited. I was working in the Our Price in Market Street, Manchester at the time so obviously there were a couple of United fans in amongst my colleagues. I’m pretty sure we all managed to get the Saturday off to watch the game though. I got a couple of friends round to watch the game at our little flat and, with beers at the ready, settled in for the kick off. I should have known that the day was set for disaster when the heavens opened and the rain came down. Where was the glorious sunshine that had always made an appearance during those cup final days of my youth?

Despite the portents of doom provided by the weather, we actually started well and were the better team in the first half. Our talismanic midfielder Gavin Peacock hit the bar. 0-0 at half time. We more than had a chance. The second half remains one of the worst of my life. Three goals conceded in nine minutes (one an awful penalty decision by public schoolteacher David Elleray) destroyed Chelsea and indeed me. We couldn’t even get a consolation goal despite numerous chances. At 4-0 down, I was willing Elleray to blow the full time whistle to put me out of my misery.

In an extraordinary act of self inflicted pain, I was in Manchester city centre the next day seeing off my friends at Piccadilly train station just as the United team were arriving back from London with a huge crowd assembled to welcome their heroes home. I should have run a mile in the opposite direction but somehow I loitered and was spotted by a bunch of Ryan Giggs obsessed young girls who decided I didn’t look like I was enjoying myself enough and asked who I supported. Loyalty to my club took over and I replied “Chelsea” at which point they hurled merciless abuse at me. My disastrous weekend was complete. To add insult to injury, that hateful United record “Come On You Reds” was ubiquitous and went to No 1 the following week and with me working in a record shop, my misery continued for quite some time.

Anyway, that’s enough football talk. This is a music blog isn’t it? Here comes the music then but just before that, I need to acknowledge the host who this week is Jack Dee. This use of celebrity hosts was known as the ‘golden mic’ feature where presenting duties were performed by pop stars, comedians and…well…Chris Eubank. We’d already had Robbie and Mark from Take That and Meatloaf step into the breach and now it was the turn of Dee, making him the first non-music related host. Jack had been a name for a couple of years by this point with his own show having first aired in 1992. That, allied to his starring in the ‘No nonsense’ John Smith’s beer adverts, had helped cement his dour personality and sardonic humour in the minds of the public. As such, the TOTP audience had a decent idea of what to expect from Dee who could almost have been a natural successor to John Peel.

So, to the music, if you can call it that as tonight’s opening act are American R&B chancers EYC. How this lot ever amounted to anything more than one hit single is beyond me. What’s this one called? “Number One”? Ha! Fat chance! Or should I say flat chance as their vocals here are like the proverbial pancake. They also sound completely breathless (in their defence, I suppose they are jumping around like loons for the entirety of the performance). The track is basically a backbeat with some suggestive lyrics over the top of it. Just awful. Next!

We’ll come to the next act in just a sec but for the moment, I want to talk about Jack Dee again and give him some deserved credit for him calling out the inane displays of the Radio 1 DJs who have hosted the show (yes, I mean you Simon Mayo).

“Yes, I am presenting Top of the Pops because I’m a comedian and if you think that’s a bad idea, then what about all the DJs who keep trying to tell jokes” Dee deadpans. You nailed it Jack.

Back to the music and it’s that Joe Roberts bloke again. Just who was this guy and why was he on TOTP so much? Well, his Wikipedia entry, like the size of his hits, is pretty small. As the TOTP caption says, he’s from Manchester and he had three Top 40 hits, one of which was this song “Back In My Life”. This was a rerelease – it made No 59 first time around – and despite this exposure on the show, couldn’t get any higher than its peak this week of No 39. Not surprising really as it’s the musical equivalent of narcolepsy. Totally soporific. Joe himself is like a combination of Curtis Stigers and Vic Reeves’s club singer. Dear oh dear. Next!

Now, here’s a band about to enjoy arguably the biggest year of their career. In 1994, East 17 would release a double platinum album and three hit singles the last of which would become the Christmas No 1 and become a nice little pension pot for its songwriter Tony Mortimer. The first of those singles though was “All Around The World”, the lead single from second album “Steam” and absolutely nothing to do with the Oasis song of the same name. For me, East 17 had hit the ground running with their debut single, the frenetic “House Of Love” but then stumbled with the lacklustre follow up “Gold” before regaining their balance with the super slick “Deep”. However, the subsequent two singles “Slow It Down” and the misguided cover of Pet Shop Boys’ “West End Girls” were more potholes in the road before they really got into their stride with the sublime “It’s Alright”.

This new single harked backed to the sound of “Deep” though it wasn’t as good and felt like it had been written specifically to be a Top 5 hit. Nothing wrong with that I guess and the plan worked when it got to No 3 but there was something a little bit cynical about it, as if their record label had really taken control of these pop urchins and wanted to push them up a bit. The video for the track also gives the impression that the boys have had their urban wrinkles ironed out. It’s all a bit too…sophisticated? Is that the right word?

Parent album “Steam” was released in the October and the Our Price chain had a preview CD of it to be played instore but it had Radio 1 DJ Mark Goodier talking in between the tracks. Bah! Despite this, I took the freebie promo home when the actual album came out for my wife who’d bought the first album. We had it for ages without ever playing it I think but I’m guessing it got lost/disposed of following a couple of flat and house moves. In short, it didn’t follow us ‘all around the world’. It’s OK, my coat is already in my hand.

Meanwhile, back in the studio, we find Gloworm with the second (and biggest) of their two chart hits “Carry Me Home”. It had been nearly two years since this lot combined house and gospel music to create a dancefloor banger in “I Lift My Cup (To The Spirit Divine)” but now they were back with a tune that sounded…exactly the same. Well, it does to my ears but then they’re not bpm refined so I probably don’t know what I’m talking about.

As it’s got a gospel bent to it, obviously the staging for the performance has singer Sedric Johnson in a pulpit and the backing singers all have those full length community choir smocks on. I suppose a Kenny Everett Brother Lee Love big hands get up would have been a bit too over the top? “Carry Me Home” peaked at No 9.

Bollers is back! Yes, Michael Bolton is on the show again for no discernible reason. Well, yes obviously he’s on to plug his latest single, his cover of the Bill Withers tune “Lean On Me” but is his appearance justified? Well, he is a new entry at No 15 having been an exclusive performance two weeks earlier so what do you think? Is that reason enough? You’re right of course. There’s never any justification nor need for Michael Bolton on our TV screens and I say that as someone who saw him in concert by mistake! No, I’m not going into that particular story again! It’s in the archives if you must read about it.

I have a good friend who I met when I first worked for Our Price back in 1990. Steve’s from Bolton and everyone in the shop referred to him as Steve Bolton or just Bolton on account of his accent. When I first started working with him I assumed his surname was actually Bolton as I never heard anyone refer to his actual surname which is Wilson. Well, you know. If there could be a Michael Bolton then why not a Steve Bolton? One day, someone rang the shop asking for Steve Wilson. I answered the phone and confidently replied that there was nobody of that name that worked there but that there was a Steve Bolton. After much talking at cross purposes, confusion and to the hilarity of my colleagues, Steve was eventually put on the phone. Actually, Michael Bolton isn’t even Michael Bolton’s real name which is Michael Bolotin. Probably not enough difference between that and his stage name to cause Steve Wilson levels of perplexity though.

Two people now who also go by monikers that aren’t actually their real names. We all know that Elton John was originally named Reg Dwight but I’m not sure I knew that Marcella Detroit is actually Marcella Levy and that she’s from Detroit. They’ve come together to cover the classic Motown duet originally performed by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell “Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing”. Their take on it was obviously on Elton’s “Duets” album as were his last two single releases with Kiki Dee and RuPaul. It also ended up on Marcella’s “Jewel” album and I have to say I don’t recall it at all. Hardly surprising since it only spent three weeks inside the Top 40 and didn’t get any higher than No 24. It doesn’t seem to add much to the original I have to say.

Elton and Marcella appear to be having an earring-off in the TOTP studio with the former sporting a single cross-shaped one up against the latter’s Bet Lynch style massive ring. I make Marcella the winner in this particular battle. She’s also got a much superior voice to Elton (and this was before he turned into Foghorn Leghorn).

Marcella would return to the Top 40 one more time as a solo artist before going on to appear in ITV’s Pop Star To Opera Star and reforming Shakespear’s Sister in 2019 with Siobhan Fahey. Elton, meanwhile, would score two further hits in 1994 with “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” and “Circle Of Life” both from The Lion King soundtrack.

When I started reviewing these TOTP repeats, I began with the year 1983 and back then many a show was not rebroadcast due to problematic presenters in the wake of Operation Yewtree. Others were pulled due to the late Radio 1 DJ Mike Smith not signing the licence extension to allow the BBC to air any shows that he presented. At the time, many in the TOTP fanbase questioned why the BBC didn’t just edit the presenters out rather than just not broadcast the show at all. Well, they’ve done some retrospective editing for this one but it’s nothing to do with the host, the marvellous Jack Dee. In the light of R Kelly’s conviction for racketeering, child pornography and enticing a minor, his performance of “Your Body’s Callin’” has been removed.

This weeks ‘exclusive’ performance comes from a cultural icon whose career just goes to show that not everything can be measured in sales and commercial success. Iggy Pop is surely one of the most recognisable and memorable rock stars of all time and yet, despite having recorded some classic songs during his career of over 50 (!) years, has hardly any chart hits to his name. His only appearance in the UK Top 40 by the time of this TOTP appearance had been seven years prior when his version of “Real Wild Child (Wild One)” had made No 10. I know – it seems unbelievable. What about all those other iconic songs like “Lust For Life” and “The Passenger”? Surely they were hits? Well, yes they were but not when they were originally released. The former was a hit in 1996 after featuring prominently in Trainspotting whilst the latter made the Top 40 after being used in a Toyota car advert in 1998. “China Girl”? Nope, although obviously co-writer David Bowie had a huge hit with it in 1983. His work with The Stooges? Afraid not. Despite all of the above, Iggy’s stature as the ‘Godfather of Punk’ remained undimmed and TOTP producer Ric Blaxill wasn’t going to let the chance of an in person appearance pass him by.

“Beside You” was taken from Iggy’s “American Caesar” album which came with the parental warning sticker ‘This is an Iggy Pop record’. It’s a nice enough slice of melodic rock but according to reviews, the track isn’t really representative of the rest of the album which I have to own up to having never heard. It was co-written by ex-Sex Pistol Steve Jones in 1985 for Iggy’s “Blah-Blah-Blah” album but never made the cut. When record label Virgin heard “American Caesar”, they gave Iggy the classic “we can’t hear a single” line and so “Beside You” was retrieved from the demo archive. Iggy is joined onstage here by multi-instrumentalist Lisa Germano who’s worked with everyone from John Mellencamp to David Bowie to Neil Finn. So, did this TOTP exposure propel Iggy to a rare UK hit? No, of course not. It peaked at No 47.

Oh, one final thing. When I first started working at the Our Price store in Market Street, Manchester, the walls in the gents loo were covered in graffiti where employees past and present had come up with toilet humour based around music artists. There was Deacon Poo, Kenny Log-gins, Ruthless Crap Assassins but my favourite by far was Iggy Plop.

There’s a new No 1 and it’s from Stiltskin courtesy of that Levi’s ad. And that means…it’s time for my Stiltskin story. Sometime in 1994, we had some some friends to stay at our flat in Manchester. It may have been around October time as we moved flat from No 47 to No 43 on our road around that time and we may have roped in our friends to help with the move (you still have to put everything in boxes and move them you know!).

Anyway, my wife had a works do to go to on that weekend so I was left to entertain our friends with a night out in Manchester. We were all in our mid 20s at this point so we could just about get away with going to a nightclub – so we did. Me, Robin, Susan and the aforementioned Steve ended up at an indie night in Fifth Avenue nightclub. We’d had enough drink to embolden us to strut our stuff on the dancefloor to some banging indie tunes for the whole night. As we got to the wee small hours and the club was winding down, me and Robin were still at it. The place was full of dry ice and obviously dark so we weren’t overly aware of our surroundings. As it happened, Stiltskin’s “Inside” was played as the last song of the night and as the lights came up and the dry ice cleared, Robin and I were faced with the horrifying truth that we were the only people left on the dancefloor…and we were dancing to Stiltskin – a made up band who’s were only briefly famous because of a jeans advert and whose singer would end up in Genesis for a while. We try not to talk about it but we both know it happened.

The play out tune is another dance anthem by someone called Maxx. I have zero memory of “Get-A-Way” despite it getting to No 4 in the charts. If only my memory was as discerning when it came to forgetting things like your team getting stuffed 4-0 in the FA Cup final or dancing to Stiltskin.

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/m001k2r1/top-of-the-pops-12051994