We’ve arrived in April of 1995 here at TOTP Rewind and back then, the day before this TOTP was broadcast, came some seismic music news. The NME published a statement announcing that Stone Roses drummer Reni had left the band. Now maybe a drummer leaving any band wouldn’t normally be such a big deal but I guess the Roses weren’t just any band and Reni wasn’t just any drummer. He cut a legendary figure as part of the four musketeers of the classic line up with his wicked talent and trademark bucket hat. His departure was the removal of the foundation stone that would see the band disintegrate by 1996. It would be another seventeen years before he played with them again.

By a strange quirk of fate, Reni wouldn’t be the only drummer to leave a huge Manchester band this month. On the last day of April, Tony McCarroll was sacked from Oasis thereby definitely making him the Pete Best of the 90s. Maybe. This TOTP doesn’t feature The Stone Roses, Oasis nor The Beatles though amazingly we only missed all three by a whisker. The Stone Roses had been in the Top 40 in March with “Ten Storey Love Song”, Oasis were a month away from their first No 1 “Some Might Say” and The Beatles were actually in the charts again with the track “Baby It’s You” from the “Live At The BBC” album. So if they’re some of the artists not on the show, who were the acts that were?

We start with a dance outfit (of course we do) but who was Grace? Well, she wasn’t the woman front and centre doing the vocals for “Not Over Yet” in this performance. Her name is Patti Low. Neither was it the singer who replaced her after this single – she’s Dominique Atkins. In fact, Grace wasn’t a woman at all. Grace was a group formed by superstar DJs Paul Oakenfold and Steve Osborne and originally named State Of Grace until they realised that an American band had nabbed the name first. Oakenfold had already been in the charts this year with a different vehicle for his material in the form of Perfecto Allstarz but presumably that moniker wasn’t deemed suitable to promote “Not Over Yet”. A different type of dance track required a different artist name right? Anyway, Grace would go onto have a total of six Top 40 hits but none were bigger than “Not Over Yet” which peaked at No 6.

I thought I didn’t know this one but as soon as that chorus kicked in, it all came flooding back. How could I have forgotten that driving hook that persistently hammers at your brain until it’s stuck in there. As dance tunes go, and you know I’m not a big fan, I’d have to say it’s one of the best examples of trance/disco out there. Indeed, so good was it that it was a hit all over again when re-released four years later under yet another pseudonym- this time Planet Perfecto – when it made No 16. That made it three releases in total for the track if you include its original 1993 outing when it failed to chart and four if you count the 2007 cover version by Klaxons. Who knows, it may even get a future release. It still might be not over yet for this particular tune. Ahem.

I should say that the host tonight is Bruno Brookes in his last ever appearance on the show. He’d had a good run though stretching all the way back to 1984. Obviously there was a three year break during the ‘year zero’ revamp but even so. After getting permanently annoyed by him as the years rolled by, I actually thought he did a decent job when he returned in 1994 but for some reason he’s started the last show in bizarre fashion. Dressed in clergyman garb and calling himself Reverend Rock ‘n’ Roll, it all seems to be just so he can get in a cheap quip about ‘saying grace’ as he introduces opening act…yep…Grace. Not exactly dis-grace-ful but certainly lame.

And talking of lame…here come Ultimate Kaos with a really wimpy ballad called “Show A Little Love”. I could never understand the appeal of this lot or indeed quite what the deal was with them at all. A bunch of barely teenage boys and a lead singer who was only nine when they started out eliciting screams from the young girls in the studio audience? I know I wasn’t the target demographic even back then but the whole thing was decidedly icky. I suppose Michael Jackson wasn’t much older when The Jackson 5 started having hits and although that’s an obvious comparison to make, surely that’s the template that Simon Cowell was following when he put Ultimate Kaos together. “Show A Little Love” was also of an identikit nature being a sickly, bubblegum-pop-by-numbers ballad aimed directly at the hearts of teenage girls. At least it wasn’t as inappropriate as their previous hit “Hoochie Booty” but its No 23 peak meant it wouldn’t last long in the memory and rightly so.

We’re back in the world of dance with the next hit which is “The Bomb! (These Sounds Fall Into My Mind)” by Bucketheads. It’s the video for this one again which was directed by Guy Ritchie and Alex De Rakoff, both at the very start of their careers. The former would go on to direct The Calcium Kid whilst the latter would find fame with Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels and by marrying Madonna.

There’s a scene in the video where the male protagonist walks into a record shop, picks a 12” from the racks (by Bucketheads obviously) and proceeds to nip behind the counter, put the record on the shop turntable and start dancing around with the guy working there. I can honestly say that scene never happened to me once and I worked in record shops for the whole of the 90s pretty much. The only punters who made it behind the counter were those who had been caught on the rob by the security guard and were waiting in the staff kitchen for the police to arrive. Their defence? “These sounds fell into my bag by accident. Honest.”

https://youtu.be/fWb2LJez4bc?si=9O7p2h-LFQ7r-sXJ

You’d think spending eight hours a day, five days a week working in a record shop that you’d hear just about every new album that was released wouldn’t you? Wrong! There’s loads of albums that I recognise the cover of but have no idea what it sounded like. Terence Trent D’Arby’s fourth album is a prime example. The cover was striking with TTD sporting a peroxide blonde short haircut and a pair of wings – quite the angelic image. Now I thought it was called “Vibrator” but according to Wikipedia its full title is “Terence Trent D’Arby’s Vibrator* (*Batteries Included)”. Ooerr.

The lead single from it was “Holding Onto You” and I have to say that I was expecting more from it. It’s a bluesy/soul number that sort of meanders along but never really convinces. I keep waiting for the song to get started but it never does. TTD’s distinctive voice is to the fore and seems to have got deeper over the years but even that can’t save it. I’m surprised it got as high as No 20. This would prove to be the last ever UK Top 40 hit for the man who now signs his name as Sananda Maitreya and wasn’t exactly going out on a high. A far cry from the dizzy heights and expectations that met his arrival on the music scene eight years before. Shame really.

What the chuff am I supposed to write about this one seeing as “Baby Baby” by Corona sounds exactly like their previous hit “Rhythm Of The Night”? I know this was common practice around this time but why didn’t the punters see through it and not buy it?! Was it all just about the bpm on the dance floors?

Vocalist Olga Maria de Souza has gone all Bladerunner for this performance with her sartorial choices; specifically the transparent mac that the replicant Zhora is wearing as she flees from Deckard. Thankfully she hasn’t got a snake like Zhora had too. There would have been letters sent to Points Of View, I’m telling you.

Just as the ‘exclusive’ performance from Prince and NPG was recycled the other week, so is this recent appearance by Simple Minds which was also labelled as ‘exclusive’. It’s all very well repeating these clips but where does that leave me eh? I’ve already written about this one in a previous post and they’re just in the studio not at a world famous landmark like the Eiffel Tower as they were when promoting previous single “She’s A River” on the show. Follow up single “Hypnotise” wasn’t anywhere near as strong to my ears so they probably should have reversed the songs and their settings. “Hypnotise” would have benefited from the distraction of the Eiffel Tower whereas “She’s A River” was probably muscular enough to stand up to a session in the TOTP studio as it were.

“Hypnotise” would end up being the band’s penultimate UK Top 40 hit. A lack of chart success didn’t deter them though and they are now in their 47th year of existence (albeit with only Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill remaining from the original lineup) and have released 21 studio albums with the most recent being 2022’s “Direction Of The Heart”.

Nope, no memory of this one at all. Pato Banton did a single with Ranking Roger of The Beat? Pato only had that one (albeit massive) hit didn’t he? His execrable version of “Baby Come Back”. Well no, actually. He had four (or five if you count his guest rap on Sting’s “This Cowboy Song” for which he received a credit) but none of his other hits got anywhere near the success of his chart topper. This one – “Bubbling Hot” -only managed a peak of No 15. He liked a collaboration though did old Pato. As well as Ranking Roger and Sting (with whom he also had a minor hit with a cover of The Police’s “Spirits In The Material World”), “Baby Come Back” also featured Ali and Robin Campbell of UB40. In fact, that means every one of his hits was with in conjunction with other artists.

“Bubbling Hot” kind of sounds like a reggae version of Arrow’s soca classic “Hot Hot Hot” to my untutored ears which is not necessarily a bad thing but overall there doesn’t seem to be much to the track really. Still, it’s nice to see the sadly departed Ranking Roger who died of cancer in 2019 again.

If it’s the 90s and Bryan Adams then it must be a big ballad and his latest release is…kind of. “Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman?” certainly was a ballad but it was not quite of the same flavour of some of his other love songs of the decade. Tracks like “Please Forgive Me”, “All For Love” (with Rod Stewart and that king of collaborations Sting), “Do I Have To Say The Words” and of course “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” were very much soft rock ballads but this one was slightly different. How? It had a flamenco guitar in it courtesy of Paco de Lucia as name checked by Bruno Brookes in his intro.

I have to admit to dismissing this song completely at the time, very possibly due to its inclusion of said guitar. Written for the soundtrack to the film Don Juan DeMarco, it peaked at No 4 showing the power that Bryan still wielded when it came to mainstream balladeering. The fact that (yet again) the song was part of a film soundtrack probably helped its success though I don’t think Don Juan De Marco cut through quite as much as something like Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves. I for one didn’t catch it at the time and have never watched it ever. One person who did was my friend Susan. Whilst waiting in the queue to buy her ticket, she heard the guy in front of her ask for his by putting an extraordinary emphasis on the word ‘Juan’. It went something like this: “Two for Don WHOOAHN De Marco please”. For the record, Susan didn’t believe that the guy was Spanish either.

Rejoice for The Outhere Brothers are Top of the Pops no more. They probably were still selling enough records to have stayed at No 1 for a few weeks yet but they were no match for the unit shifting phenomenon that took their place. We have arrived at the commercial and creative peak of Take That. In some ways it was, if not unexpected, then not guaranteed given that their last two singles hadn’t quite performed as expected. “Love Ain’t Here Anymore” had broken a run of four consecutive chart toppers by only making it to No 3 whilst “Sure”, though making it to No 1, only stayed there for one week despite Gary Barlow’s belief that it was the best thing the band had ever done. I (and millions of others) would beg to disagree Gary. It’s hard to see past “Back For Good” when it comes to that accolade. The song had been unveiled in a performance at the BRIT Awards in February creating a demand for it that saw it made available to the media six weeks before you could buy it in the shops and resulting in the single’s official release being brought forward. It would sell close on 400,000 copies in its first week meaning it had sold more in seven days than any single since Band Aid in 1984. It wasn’t hard to understand why. “Back For Good” was a shimmering pop masterpiece. It’s full of melody and nicely crafted lyrics about lipstick marks and coffee cups – this one though is excellent:

In the twist of separation, you excelled at being free

Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Gary Barlow
Back for Good lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

I think though it’s the harmonies of the backing vocals that seeks the deal. Such was the song’s quality that it even gave them a hit in America which had been impervious to their success at home before.

Not everything was rosy in the Take That garden though. Within three months Robbie Williams would be gone, asked to leave by at least two of his bandmates over his attitude and commitment. Are there signs of him feeling the stress here with his shaved hair which has been died a hue of red/purple? “Back For Good” will be No 1 for four weeks so the boys (including Robbie) will be back soon enough. Sadly for Bruno Brookes, well, he was gone for good.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Grace	Not Over Yet	No
2	Ultimate Kaos	Show A Little Love	Never
3	Bucketheads	The Bomb! (These Sounds Fall Into My Mind)	Negative
4	Terence Trent D’Arby	Holding Onto You	Nah
5	Corona	Baby Baby	I did not
6	Simple Minds	Hypnotise	Its a no from me
7	Pato Banton and Ranking Roger	Bubbling Hot	Not I
8	Bryan Adams	Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman?	Nope
9	Take That	Back For Good	No but my wife did – on 7″ no less

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/m001rk79/top-of-the-pops-06041995