Jamiroquai

TOTP 24 JUL 1998

I’m starting to get behind with these TOTP reviews. All it takes is one busy week in my own life and suddenly I’ve got four shows to write up in seven days to keep pace with the BBC4 schedule. I’ve tried skimping on the word count when this scenario arises but the completist in me fights hard against this strategy. Besides, nobody wants to read a couple of dozen words on each song stating whether I liked it or not do they? Our host tonight is Jayne Middlemiss who hasn’t been on the show for a month (maybe she really had been ill when they did that skit to introduce Kate Thornton the other week).

We start with Pras Michel featuring Ol’ Dirty Bastard and introducing Mýa and their hit “Ghetto Superstar (That Is What You Are)” to quote the full title which I don’t think I did in the last post (no brackets, no points!). I also failed to mention that this came from a film called Bulworth which was written and directed by and starred Warren Beatty. I was a regular cinema goer around this time but I failed to catch this movie which was a political black comedy that was well received critically but failed to put bums on seats in the cineplexes (wasn’t just me then).

The soundtrack album was popular in the US selling a million copies but that success didn’t translate across the pond in the UK. In fact, I don’t recall it being released over here at all and certainly don’t recognise the art work of the cover. The album featured some of the biggest names in hip-hop and rap including Dr. Dre, LL Cool J, Method Man, Ice Cube and Public Enemy. As for Pras, he would have two more UK hits – “Blue Angels” which was the follow up to “Ghetto Superstar” and he also featured on “Another One Bites The Dust” which was a remix of the Queen track by Fugees band mate Wyclef Jean for the soundtrack to the film Small Soldiers. Ol’ Dirty Bastard sadly passed away in 2004 from a drugs overdose whilst since 2013, Mýa has been married to herself. No, really.

Next up is the singing medical student Ultra Naté. OK, she wasn’t really but she did seem to have an obsession with medically themed song titles. After her previous hit “Found A Cure”, she was back with the follow up “New Kind Of Medicine”. It strikes me that Ultra Naté was a bit of a musical chameleon. On her biggest hit “Free” she channeled her inner Rozalla and then looked to “No More Tears” (Enough Is Enough)” by Donna Summer and Barbra Streisand for the inspiration for “Found A Cure”. Chic were her muse for “New Kind Of Medicine” and it worked well for her albeit that the single couldn’t match the chart numbers of its two predecessors.

As for that unusual name, it turns out that was her actual real name and not a stage moniker. No, really. It’s Ultra Naté Wyche. Sticking with the name theme, I note that “New Kind Of Medicine” was co-written by one Ed Baden-Powell who surely must be a relative of Lord Baden-Powell, founder of the Scouts movement. It doesn’t stop there though – “Free” and “Found A Cure” were co-written by one Lem Springsteen though he doesn’t seem to be related to ‘The Boss’.

Still with Peter Andre?! Still?! In 1998?! Panic not though as I believe this is the last time we’ll see him on TOTP; at least the last time I’ll have to write about him anyway as he didn’t have another hit after this until 2004 with a rerelease of “Mysterious Girl” and I’m packing in this blog after the 1999 episodes have finished. I have zero recollection of “Kiss The Girl” but listening back to it, I thought it sounded like it could have been from the soundtrack to something like The Lion King. Well, blow me down but, on reading up on the song, I wasn’t a million miles away as it was from The Little Mermaid. Originally, the song was a calypso number but, as part of the film’s rerelease in 1998, the soundtrack was revisited with some of its songs being re-recorded by new artists. For some unfathomable and despicable reason, Peter Andre was one of those invited to the project and he turned it into a dismal, sappy ballad, the berk. How did this guy ever become and continue to be famous? Minuscule talent but massive pecs see seems to be the answer. I swear down, has there ever been a more useless celebrity?! Away with you sir and your overly gelled hair!

There’s quite a back story to this next hit. “Mas Que Nada” is a song written by Brazilian Jorge Ben who originally recorded it with bandleader Zé Maria in 1962 and it was subsequently covered by other Brazilian acts such as the Tamba Trio in 1963 and Louis Carlos Vinhas the following year. However, the most commonly known version came in 1966 when Sérgio Mendes covered it with his band Brazil ‘66. Thirty-one years later, its profile was raised again when it was famously used in a Nike commercial featuring Brazilian footballers such as Ronaldo and Roberto Carlos. In 1998, it resurfaced again, I’m guessing as part of the plethora of football related songs released due to the World Cup of that year (I could be wrong on that). Not just once though but twice as the aforementioned Tamba Trio version was a Top 20 hit the week before this danced-up version by Echobeatz just pipped it by making the Top 10. I’ve no idea who Echobeatz were/are but clearly whoever was behind this version had one eye on the clubs judging by the Italian House flavoured mix they gave it. “Mas que nada” is a Portuguese expression that can mean “more than anything else in Spanish” but in Brazilian Portuguese it has a more colloquial meaning of “whatever” or “no big deal”. I wonder if Ariel got Peter Crouch to record an advert for the Brazilian market with him saying “Mas que nada”?

Just as with B*Witched and Billie recently, last week’s No 1 gets another airing despite the fact that it’s been deposed from its chart crown. In her intro to “Freak Me” by Another Level, did Jayne Middlemiss say one of them was called Bobak? Sounds more like a Croatian footballer…

*checks Wikipedia*

Oh that was Zvonimir Boban who played most of his career with AC Milan. I’m sure there was a footballer called Bobak though…

*checks Wikipedia again*

There was a Peter Bodak who played for Coventry City in the 80s…

*checks Wikipedia one last time*

Found him! Roman Bobak! A Polish right back. I can’t mean him though. He’s hardly had any sort of career at all. Maybe I was thinking of Stjepan Bobek, a Yugoslavian player in the 40s and 50s and manager in the 70s. As dull as all this is for you to read and for me to write, it is more interesting than anything Another Level ever did.

P.S. Remember the last post when I said I always get Dane Bowers mixed up with Blue’s Anthony Costa? Well, when Another Level appeared at the RnB Nation festival in 2024. Only Bowers and Mark Baron from the original line up signed up for the gig so they got two new blokes in to make up the numbers and one of them was called Greg Costa. No wonder I’m confused!

I seem to have developed a theme to this post as I’ve gone along which is that of names. Joining the 15 year old Billie (Piper) in the charts this week was another Billie – Billie Myers. This Billie was 27 years old at the time and that older age meant that her hit was a little more…mature than Ms Piper’s. Well, a lot more if you watch the official video for “Tell Me”. Set in what see seems to be some sort of bondage club, Myers is a participant in some erotic scenes which look like they could have been in Bram Stoker’s Dracula film starring Keane Reeves and Winona Ryder.

The song itself sizzles with passion and even, dare I say it, menace and is a definite lost classic of the 90s. It really should have been a much bigger hit than its No 28 peak. After its appearance on this BBC4 TOTP repeat, there was a lot of love for it declared online. Sadly, in 1998, the record buying public was more enamoured with Billie Piper than Billie Myers and it slipped thoroughly the net. Shame.

Billie Piper and stuff like this. If I was surprised that Peter Andre was still having hits in 1998, then colour me shocked that Ace Of Base were as well. Their No 1 “All That She Wants” had been as long ago as 1993 whilst their last visit to the Top 10 had been in 1994. Somehow though, they convinced us that this life-affirming slice of pop fluff that was “Life Is A Flower” made them still relevant deep into the 90s.

Apparently the favourite Ace Of Base song by the band member who wrote it (Jonas Berggren), “Life Is A Flower” was radio friendly but brain cell hostile. It would rot your mind if you listened to it too much. Its lyrics included:

“Please Mr. Agony, release them for a while,

Learn them the consequences of living without life”

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Jonas Berggren
Life Is a Flower lyrics © Megasong Publishing

“Learn them”?! Surely you mean ‘teach’ them? In an act of redemption though, after Tina Arena the other week with the title song from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Whistle Down The Wind musical, here’s another use of those words in the opening two lines to remind us of not only a great film but a great pop song too…

It’s another new No 1 and the only one of Jamiroquai’s career. “Deeper Underground” was taken from the soundtrack to the Godzilla movie of this year starring Matthew Broderick. As with the aforementioned Bulworth, I’ve never seen this film and, judging by its reviews, I’m glad I haven’t. Rated mainly as a stinker, it also underperformed commercially. Even the director never wanted to make this film apparently. However, its soundtrack album did go some good business, debuting at No 2 on the charts and achieving platinum sales in America. It mainly featured what would be defined as ‘rock’ songs, including another huge hit called “Cone With Me” by Puff Daddy and Jimmy Page which sampled the legendary Led Zeppelin track “Kashmir” but we won’t be seeing that on any BBC4 repeat due to the Puff Daddy issue. Although definitely not a rock song, “Deeper Underground” did have a harder sound than we had come to expect from Jamiroquai it seemed to me.

Despite only having one week at the chart summit, it was a pretty hardy single spending three weeks inside the Top 10 and two months on the Top 40 in total. Is it Jamiroquai’s most famous song? I don’t know. They’re a funny act. For all their 26 hits, only nine of them went Top 10. And could you name them? I might be able to pull out two or three from the recesses of my mind and I’ve probably reviewed most of them. Have they all just morphed into one because, dare I say it, they all sound the same?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Pras Michel featuring Ol’ Dirty Bastard and introducing Mýa	Ghetto Superstar (That Is What You Are)	I did not
2	Ultra Naté	New Kind Of Medicine	Negative
3	Peter Andre	Kiss The Girl	As if
4	Echobeatz	Mas Que Nada	Nah
5	Another Level	Freak Me	Nope
6	Billie Myers	Tell Me	Great song but no
7	Ace Of Base	Life Is A Flower	Never
8	Jamiroquai	Deeper Underground	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/m002kkmx/top-of-the-pops-24071998

TOTP 09 MAY 1997

Posted on February 23 by 80stastic

It’s the 9th May 1997 and I’m in China! Yes, Beijing to be exact visiting my old school pal Rob who is living and studying out there. According to my diary, this date was our second day there (I’d travelled with Rob’s brother Chris) and we’d so far been to Tiananmen Square, Ritan Park and spent a mad night in a karaoke bar. However, one of my abiding memories is that on our plane there had been a French youth orchestra who were going to play some concerts in China and as we flew over rice fields on the approach to Beijing airport, one of their number looked out of the window and exclaimed “Ah, le chinois!”. With my location confirmed, I can categorically say that I would not have watched this episode of TOTP. I wonder what I missed…

…not much if the opening act is anything to go by as it’s the same one that closed the last episode! I guess it’s understandable as Katrina And The Waves had won Eurovision for the UK the weekend before for the first time in 16 years so they probably deserved their moment in the limelight. “Love Shine A Light” was the track that brought the trophy home and although it was a deserved winner on the night, it didn’t live long in the memory. Katrina (Leskanich) herself has explained that the reason the band had never recorded it before was due to the fact that it was “too cheesy, too ABBA, too Eurovision”. Even the guy who wrote it, guitarist Kimberley Rew, didn’t want anything to do with it and Eurovision and didn’t join his band mates for their performance of it on the big night. According to Katrina, the song (and subsequently the band) didn’t endure because they didn’t have a gimmick like Bucks Fizz. What it did have though was an anthemic quality and a feel good vibe that clearly won the voters over at least temporarily. In 2020, it created its own legacy of sorts as its title was used as the inspiration for a show called Eurovision: Europe Shine A Light which was a live, two hour show arranged to replace the full Eurovision Song Contest which was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “Love Shine A Light” was performed by the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra before also being reprised at the show’s finale by all the artists meant to have been in the official show with Katrina herself joining those on stage.

I should have said that Jo Whiley is tonight’s presenter and she’s positively effusive about the next artist who have a great track to be fair to them. There was always going to be in huge interest in what the members of the Stone Roses did next after the band was dissolved in October 1996. Mani* would join Primal Scream, Ian Brown embarked on a solo career to varying degrees of success and Reni went into hiatus hibernation.

*He came into the Our Price in Stockport where I worked one day and bought our entire stock of Primal Scream albums to learn the bass parts.

As for John Squire, he was first out of the traps with a new project in the form of The Seahorses. Unlike the Roses who couldn’t have been more Manc, Squire’s band were York-centric with lead singer Chris Helme having been infamously recruited after being spotted busking outside the city’s Woolworths store. Another feature of The Seahorses story that was being played out in the music press was that the band’s name was an anagram of ‘He Hates Roses’ or alternatively ‘The Rose Ashes’. Squire denied this as pure coincidence and speculation.

Anyway, their debut single was “Love Is The Law” and it was a banger. Recorded with Bowie and T-Rex producer Tony Visconti and naturally featuring Squire’s immense guitar work to the fore, it was an exuberant, indie rock song that had an immediacy that made it sound familiar from the get go. The lyrics though – well, they seemed to go under the censor radar…

“She was a rum old slapper and we always tried to get her pants off when she phoned…

Strap-on Sally chased us down the alley, we feared for our behinds”

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: John Squire
Love Is the Law lyrics © Polygram Music Publishing Ltd. Gb

Hmm. Anyway, in this performance, Squire has decided to come as a member of Mansun whilst Chris Helme looks like a cross between 60s era David Essex and Danny Macnamara from Embrace. The Seahorses would go on to have three further hit singles and a No 2 album in “Do It Yourself” but would split in 1999 after increasing tensions between Squire and Helme (who wished to pursue a solo career in tandem with the band) boiled over. Squire would eventually release two solo albums before the Stone Roses second coming in 2011 and just last year had a No 1 album with Liam Gallagher called…erm…”Liam Gallagher John Squire”. I don’t think that’s an anagram of anything but according to one user on Twitter, said album contains the track “Just Another Rainbow” which is an anagram of ‘Just to hear Ian Brown’!

Four days short of the one year anniversary of the release of his “Older” album, George Michael was still releasing tracks from it as singles. “Star People ‘97” was the fifth of those (and there would even be one more after that) and it kept up the remarkable record of them all peaking within the Top 3 chart positions when it debuted at No 2. And people talked about all the singles released from “Faith”!

This one was re-recorded (hence the ‘97 suffix) from the original album track to make it a bit more funked up and danceable. I’m guessing this performance was from the MTV Unplugged set that was recorded in 1996 where he also did a version of Wham!’s “Everything She Wants” which was released as an extra track on the “Star People ‘97” single. Want to hear it? Yeah you do…

In May ‘97, Mansun were still at the top of their game with “Taxloss” (or “Taxlo$$” as it’s stylised on the single’s cover) being their fourth consecutive Top 20 hit with all of them taken from debut No 1 album “Attack Of The Grey Lantern”. There was something different about this one though – not sonically as it was still that guitar-driven, epic soundscape that characterised the album. No, it was in its naming. All their other releases had been titled sequentially as EPs – hence “One EP”, “Two EP” etc with the last having been “Five EP” (though each was headlined by a lead track). However, for “Taxloss” it was just called…well…”Taxloss”. No reason has ever been forthcoming.

I said earlier that John Squire had turned up looking like a member of Mansun and blow me down, one song later here was the real thing and singer Paul Draper (bless him) confirms my observation by wearing his Army Surplus Store outfit front and centre. Something else about this TOTP performance was that, for a moment, I thought that The Seahorses drummer and the guy on the sticks for Mansun were the same person. I think though it’s just that they both had a goaty beard. I think. Oh and that video that Jo Whiley mentions, that really did happen. Not quite up there with The KLF burning a million quid but still…

As Jo Whiley says in her intro, it’s time to throw your pants at the screen as 911 get another outing for their single “Bodyshakin’” even though it’s dropped from No 3 to No 10 this week – I just can’t get along with these new TOTP appearance rules.

I’ve nothing else to say about this one except what was the deal with those tops they were wearing?! I’m no fashionista but they’re gross. As bad as they are though, nothing beats the legendary Carlisle United away kit from the mid 90s that was labelled ‘the deckchair’ due to its garishness. Why am I randomly talking about Carlisle United? Because it’s not random – 911 lead singer Lee Brennan was born in Carlisle and captained their football clubs under-14 and under-16 teams but was turned down for a professional contract on account of him being too short. A career as a pop star clothes horse awaited…

Jo Whiley goes all Blue Peter presenter in her next intro as she says that Jay Kay of Jamiroquai can’t be in the studio as his band are on tour “so here’s something they prepared earlier” as we get the video for “Alright”. That old cliche could also be applied to Jamiroquai as this track was almost an identikit replica of all their other hits it seemed to my uncultured ears. People who knew more about it (basically the music press so that might be a misnomer) reckoned it was the best track on parent album “Travelling Without Moving” with one Sam Taylor of The Observer commenting on its “effortless swank”. Yeah, he could have lost an ‘s’ there for me. “Alright” peaked at No 6.

Wait…Blackstreet had more hits than just “No Diggity”? Yes, yes they did including a further three Top 10 hits one of which was this – “Don’t Leave Me”. Now, if it sounds a bit like a 2Pac song that’s because it features the same sample used in the rap legend’s track “I Ain’t Mad Atcha” but said sample is from an unlikely source – DeBarge. The “Rhythm Of The Night” hitmakers from the mid 80s? The very same though the track in question is called “A Dream” from 1983. How do I know all this? I looked it up obviously. My R&B/rap knowledge doesn’t extend to those levels of detail. As such, it’s no surprise then that this song means very little to me and in fact, my apathy turned to displeasure when one of the group introduced it by saying “This song goes out to all the ladies in the house tonight”. Eeeww!

Gary Barlow has this week’s No 1 record with a song that wasn’t even his. “Love Won’t Wait” came out of the writing sessions for Madonna’s “Bedtime Stories” album and was a collaboration between Madge and prolific producer and songwriter Shep Pettibone. After all the flak I gave Robbie Williams initially for starting his solo career with a cover version (George Michael’s “Freedom’90”), blow me if Barlow’s second release under his own name wasn’t even one of his own compositions but a Madonna reject! You can hear why it didn’t make the cut – it’s a perfectly serviceable but oh so unremarkable dance/pop tune that isn’t as good as some of Take That’s best work which raises the question of why did Barlow record it? Was he having doubts about his ability to be a solo artist? After all, it had been over nine months since his debut single “Forever Love” which suggests that he didn’t have confidence in the songs he had already got together. Despite my questioning attitude, Gary still had a fanbase large enough to send him to No 1 for the second successive time in his solo career. As the performance starts you can clearly hear someone in the audience screaming “Gaaarrry!”. However, the writing was on the wall as follow up single “So Help Me Girl” would fail to make the Top 10 and within a year he wouldn’t be able to give his records away as Robbie Williams cemented his place as Barlow’s personal nemesis. Still, it all worked out pretty well for Gary in the end didn’t it?

The play out video is “Lovefool” by The Cardigans who spend a second week at No 4. Looking at the singles ahead of them at No 1 on those occasions – by Michael Jackson and Gary Barlow – it does seem somewhat of a travesty that “Lovefool” couldn’t quite get to the top (it peaked at No 2). Being up against new release singles that would have been heavily discounted when your’s had reverted to full price maybe had a part to play. Hits by the likes of No Doubt, R Kelly and Puff Daddy all had extended stays at the top of the charts which would seem to debunk that theory but what is true is that there had been five different hits at No 1 in five weeks earlier in 1997.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Katrina And The Waves	Love Shine A Light	Nope
2	The Seahorses	Love Is The Law	Thought I might have but its not in the singles box
3	George Michael	Star People ’97	Nah
4	Mansun	Taxloss	No but I had the album
5	911	Bodyshakin’	As if
6	Jamiroquai	Alright	All wrong – no
7	Blackstreet	Don’t Leave Me Now	No
8	Gary Barlow	Love Won’t Wait	Three guesses?
9	The Cardigans	Lovefool	No but my wife had the Romeo + Juliet soundtrack with it on

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/m0027xn2/top-of-the-pops-09051997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 13 SEP 1996

Posted on November 1, 2024 by 80stastic

I’ve been waiting for this one to come up. Anyone for Pennis? Yes, it’s the episode hosted by fictional character Dennis Pennis aka comedian and actor Paul Kaye. You must remember this guy. He came to prominence on BBC2’s The Sunday Show* in which his Pennis creation had a regular slot posing as a reporter and attending celebrity events such as film premieres and asking them baffling questions.

*Bizarrely, the show was also a launch pad for another comedian with a very similar name – Peter Kay. What were the chances?!

Armed with an image meant to make him stand out from the crowd – red hair, loud clothes, thick glasses and an American accent – he was a comedy anarchist, a construct presumably informed by Kaye’s own punk background. As the popularity of his character grew, he was afforded his own two part special called Very Important Pennis filmed on location at film festivals in Cannes, Hollywood and Venice which had aired only a month or so before this TOTP. Consequently, his profile was very high and presumably why he was booked for the gig of hosting the BBC’s flagship music show. I really liked him though he riled the other authentic showbiz reporters who were trying to do their job but it couldn’t last as he became too well known and his intended ‘victims’ too aware of him. The character was killed off in 1997 in a video only release called Dennis Pennis RIP: Too Rude To Live though Kaye did resurrect him to introduce The Prodigy on stage at Glastonbury the same year. I’m hoping for a lot from him in this TOTP. Let’s hope he doesn’t disappoint…

We start with a band and a song that I only finished writing about yesterday in my last post – it’s Rocket From The Crypt with rocket “On A Rope”. The first thing I’m noticing is that they’ve stuck with those horrible glittery shirts again for this second performance. Was it their trademark like ABC and gold lamé suits back in 1982? Not many can pull off such an item of clothing and pull them off they should have though I’m not sure I would have been prepared for what was underneath especially in the case of the sideburns wearing lead singer. Was their version of ‘Bez’ with them last time? His main purpose seems to be to jump about the stage like he’s sat on an ants nest. Get in the shower mate for some quick relief – don’t forget your soap…on a rope. Ahem.

Pennis Putdown: “This band came straight in this week at 12. Unfortunately the building didn’t open until 5 so they’ve been hanging around the car park for hours” – Not bad 6/10

If it’s the mid 90s, then you can’t get through an episode of TOTP without having to endure yet another dance tune by some faceless DJ types fronted by a female singer in a PVC outfit. This week was no exception so here comes Stretch & Vern present “Maddog” with “I’m Alive”. Wikipedia tells me that this lot were Stretch Silvester and Jules Vern (real names Stuart Collins and Julian Peake) who were on the FFRR label whose A&R was run by one Pete Tong. Quite who “Maddog” was I haven’t been able to ascertain. The sample their tune was based around didn’t need any research to identify though with it being instantly recognisable as “Boogie Wonderland” by Earth, Wind & Fire. It’s all very frenetic with the speeded up vocal adding to the intensity and that proved to be attractive to UK record buyers as it topped the dance chart and made No 6 in the national Top 40. It sounds very early 90s to me listening back to it now but then what do I know about dance music. Apparently, one of the PVC clad women is actress Jaime Murray who is best known for starring in BBC crime drama Hustle. I didn’t know that before either.

Pennis Putdown: “Coming up on the show we’ve got exclusives from Skunk Anansie and Deep Blue Something plus a brand new No 1 from Peter Andrex with a song that goes on and on and on” – Clever enough pun though clearly couldn’t come up with anything for Stretch & Vern Present “Maddog” 5/10

What is it with this post and people called Kay? After name checking Peter Kay and Paul Kaye we now have Jay Kay of Jamiroquai although Dennis Pennis just refers to him as if his name is Jamiroquai (that was the band of course) in his intro. Despite having already peaked at its debut chart position of No 3 and started descending the charts, they are granted another outing to the show as “Virtual Insanity” is holding for a second week at No 5 so not technically breaking any TOTP appearance rules. This exposure wouldn’t stop it slipping again in the following chart but did afford it one final week in the Top 10.

Pennis Putdown: “Jamiroquai? Love him or hate him, you gotta love him! Or HATE him! He takes environmental issues seriously. He makes music by recycling classic funk records. This song is no exception. Take it away. AWAY!” – Wickedly barbed 7/10

How do you follow up a hit that would prove to be the biggest selling of the year in the UK? Well, if you’re the Fugees then you come up with another No 1 record that was also a million seller* and would forge your reputation as the new creative light of East Coast rap.

*It couldn’t quite replicate the sales of “Killing Me Softly” which sold 1.8 million copies in the UK. “Ready Or Not” would shift 1.2 million units and be our 24th best selling single of 1996.

“Ready Or Not” has come to be regarded as a defining moment in hip-hop for its blending of rap with soulful singing and inspired use of samples (albeit said samples hadn’t been copyright cleared at the time leading to threatened litigation and an out of court settlement). The vision of Lauryn Hill to see how a song by ambient, new age superstar Enya could be used as the basis for a Fugees track was…well…visionary. She wasn’t finished there though using a song by 70s Philly soul group The Delfonics to create that hypnotic chorus. Even that wasn’t the end of the band displaying their influences. They also manage to sneak in a reference to the Nas hit “If I Ruled The World (Imagine That)” which Hill had featured on and which itself borrowed heavily from the Kurtis Blow tune of the same name AND a lyric from Bob Marley’s “Buffalo Soldier”. There’s a lot going on in this song!

And yet, there was even more going on in the video which cost a reputed $1.3 million to produce making it one of the most expensive promos ever filmed at the time with only the likes of those by Guns N’ Roses and Michael Jackson above it. Even 28 years later, it is still the 32nd most expensive video ever made. The reason for its high costs was presumably all the helicopters, explosions, sharks, chase scenes and a submarine that it features. It really was quite epic, especially given the period it was made in.

The purpose of the song was to be a shot across the bows at gangsta rap and its attendant culture helping to make “Ready Or Not” be named by The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of the Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll in 2018. Former US President Barack Obama has named it as his favourite song ever. Given all of this, I really thought it must have gone straight in at No 1 here but its inevitable ascent to the top was ludicrously delayed for a week by a jumped up, muscle man from Australia with a washboard stomach peddling some wishy washy R&B crud. Come on Pennis – give him both barrels when the time comes!

Pennis Putdown: “What a video, man. More like a Fugee film really” – Even Pennis couldn’t find fault with the Fugees 0/10

Skunk Anansie are one of those bands who I was aware of during the 90s and had a decent idea of the type of music they played but I can still to this day only name one of their songs – that being “Weak”. One of the reasons for this state of affairs might be that their albums seemed to always come with Parental Advisory stickers on them meaning we couldn’t play them in the Our Price I worked in. That was certainly the case with their second album “Stoosh” and I recall having to tell at least one member of staff to take it off the shop stereo. In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have worried so much and not been so draconian about it but as Assistant Manager, it was potentially me in the firing line if we got complaints.

The lead single from “Stoosh” was “All I Want” which sounds as if the band just rewrote “Weak” if I’m honest. That’s not a bad thing as I really liked “Weak” but just an observation. Lead singer Skin does her usual intimidating performance, looking threateningly down the camera and leaping about all over the stage including standing erect on the drum kit at one point. She really did have quite the striking image – a bit like Grace Jones in that you’re not sure that she isn’t really an alien descended to Earth in human form. “All I Want” would peak at No 14, the band’s then highest chart position and the third highest of their career in total.

Pennis Putdown: “Now, some bands are very appropriately named. Skunk Anansie are a classic example. They’re black, they’re white and their music really stinks” – Bit obvious but very well executed 7/10

It’s that dastardly ‘flashback’ feature now that has extended the show’s length by four minutes or so which presumably explains why it was now starting at 7.25pm rather than 7.30pm during this particular era of the show’s history. Having had its day and time of broadcast changed and its channel switched from BBC 1 to BBC2, the show was in a state of flux from which it would ultimately never recover. Being reminded of its past glories in the form of this ‘new’ slot maybe wasn’t the wisest idea on reflection. Tonight its spotlight shines on ABBA and perhaps their most famous song “Dancing Queen”. Indeed it is widely considered to be one of the best pop songs by anyone ever thanks to its catchy hooks and feelings of euphoria it promotes.

However, can you actually dance to “Dancing Queen”? I don’t mean the choreographed routine in the Mama Mia! film but rather just if it was played at a wedding disco or such like? Aren’t its bpm not quite right for cutting some rug? Look at Agnetha and Anni-Frid in the video – they’re just sort of swaying about or doing the nerd shuffle. Sacrilege? Possibly. Its accolades include being ranked No 2 in Billboard’s 2023 list of The 500 Best Pop Songs and was the inspiration* for Elvis Costello’s “Oliver’s Army” and Blondie’s “Dreaming” and similar to Barack Obama and “Ready Or Not”, is the favourite song ever of Republican Party party nominee for the 2008 US Presidential Election where he was beaten by…yep…Barack Obama.

*”SOS” was the inspiration behind “Pretty Vacant” by the Sex Pistols but that’s another story altogether.

Pennis Putdown: “Like most good Swedish video footage I’ve seen, the men have beards and the women are clean shaven” – Lowers the tone a bit but what did I expect from Dennis Pennis? 6/10

Way Out West – both a Laurel and Hardy film and a 90s purveyor of dance music – I know which one I prefer and it’s not option two. This lot were Jody Wisternoff and Nick Warren who met in a Bristol record shop and teamed up to do remixes for other people before signing to Deconstruction Records as an artist in their own right. “The Gift” was by far their biggest hit peaking at No 15 on the national chart and No 2 on the specialist dance chart. It featured the vocals of Joanna Law who’d had a minor hit in 1990 with a version of Roberta Flack’s most well known hit “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”. Said version was sampled for “The Gift” though I don’t personally think it’s that obvious. As with Stretch & Vern earlier, it all sounds a bit early 90s and fairly dull with the same lyric repeated over and over. It probably made more sense on a dance floor if you were under the influence of something rather than on TOTP. Probably.

Pennis Putdown: “Now Way Out West featuring Joanna Law – classic yuppie hangover music. It’s called “The Gift” – appropriate cos no-one’s likely to buy it” – First line is better than the second so 6/10

After her last appearance on the show, Donna Lewis seemed to divide opinion among those watching the BBC4 repeat. I wrote in my post reviewing that show that her hit “I Love You Always Forever” had a timeless quality and was light and joyful and seemed to bring hope to a world that so often seemed dark. On reflection that seems slightly over the top – I should maybe have gone with something along the lines of it being a fluffy, soothing punctuation mark in the long narrative of the day. However, other people went online to say how much they hated it and that it was a whole lot of nothing. It’s a game of opinions as they say and anyway, we’re all just pissing in the wind – as Frank Zappa once said, writing about music is like dancing about architecture.

Pennis Putdown: “They say Donna Lewis is gonna be a one hit wonder. Sounds optimistic to me.” – Cutting and personal; a solid insult 7/10

Here’s another song that split opinion but I think it may have been a case of musical snobbery causing the division as the music press hated it but the UK record buying public loved it enough to send it to No 1. Deep Blue Something were a bunch of good ol’ boys from Texas (well, they were pretty young actually) whose members included brothers Todd and Toby Pipes who sound like they should be a firm of plumbers in Trumpton. Their song “Breakfast At Tiffany’s” clearly stole its title from the Audrey Hepburn film of the same name though apparently the inspiration for it came from another of her films – Roman Holiday. It was the tale of a couple on the verge of breaking up due to no longer having anything in common only to realise that they both sort of liked the film Breakfast At Tiffany’s and so maybe they should stay together. As the foundation for a full blown romantic relationship, it’s pretty unstable you’d have to say. And random. Imagine you’re in the scenario of tying to salvage your relationship and when trying to think of a reason to stay together, you delve into the darkness and come up with the title of a film you both quite liked. Not that you share the same values, have a similar sense of humour, enjoy each other’s company…no, you both have a fondness for a specific Audrey Hepburn film. Never mind it being a flimsy foundation for a relationship, it’s a pretty ludicrous basis for a song.

And yet…and yet it was as catchy as hell with some nifty guitar work and a memorable chorus. It was also very daytime radio friendly which must have helped. Even so, its rise to the top did seem unlikely and I was surprised at its level of success. The band weren’t the prettiest of boys either. I recall a friend said at the time that their six year old daughter liked it but he mistakenly believed it was a new song by Lloyd Cole And The Commotions. I’m not sure that I can hear their sound in “Breakfast At Tiffany’s”. However, it does kind of make me think of “I’ll Be There For You” by The Rembrandts who’d been in the charts recently and I can imagine it being the theme tune for a Friends type show. Deep Blue Something would annoyingly have one further minor hit (“Josey” made No 27) thus spoiling their status as perfect one hit wonders – one chart topper and then nothing.

Pennis Putdown: “When most people think of the title “Breakfast At Tiffany’s”, they think of an Audrey Hepburn film. This song is unlikely to change that unfortunately” – Nice line but it’s his facial expression at the end that is the real kicker. So dismissive 8/10

This a joke right?! How the hell did we give Peter Andre a No 1 record and such a terrible one to boot. Any hopes that he might just disappear after his god awful hit “Mysterious Girl” disintegrated when he returned with “Flava”. This wasn’t so much a follow up as a follow through, a honking stinker of a song. Well, I say song but it was more of an identikit exercise in putting together all the bits of previously successful hits and seeing if you could just recycle them. It’s built around that awful parping riff used by the likes of Montell Jordan, MN8 and the Backstreet Boys and then proceeds to name check artists such as Dr. Dre and Bobby Brown who presumably would have thought Andre was a joke. And he was/is. Just to absolutely hammer home his lack of creativity, he even throws in a lyric about the Mack being back, like we hadn’t heard that line enough in 1996 already.

Despite all the fuss and promotion of Andre’s pecs and six pack, he keeps them hidden most of the time under a huge leather jacket which must have stank under those hot studio lights. The occasional glimpses of his body that he allowed the studio audience are met with predictable screams. Weren’t we better than this?

Pennis Putdown: “Peter Andrex is finding it virtually impossible these days to sell records in Europe due to the ban on British beef but in the UK, the kids are mad for it and its my pleasure to announce that Peter Andrex is top for the poops!” – It was topical (the EU had imposed a worldwide ban on exports of British beef in 1996) but the last line is weak 5/10

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Rocket From The Crypt	On A Rope	Never happened
2	Stretch & Vern present “Maddog”	I’m Alive	No
3	Jamiroquai	Virtual Insanity	It’s a no from me
4	Fugees	Ready Or Not	No but my wife had the album
5	Skunk Anansie	All I Want	Negative
6	ABBA	Dancing Queen	No but we all have a copy of ABBA Gold don’t we?
7	Way Out West	The Gift	I did not
8	Donna Lewis	I Love You Always Forever	Nah
9	Deep Blue Something	Breakfast At Tiffany’s	Nope
10	Peter Andre	Flava	NOOOOOOO!!!!

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/m002497x/top-of-the-pops-13091996?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 30 AUG 1996

Posted on October 25, 2024 by 80stastic

Oh dear God! I thought we were past this point! This is a real kick in the nuts! A real ball ache! Simon Mayo is back as host for this TOTP. If you’ve taken even a mild interest in this blog previously then you’ll be aware of my complete aversion to the smug git. I have even been advised to seek medical help over my hatred of him. Given this, the idea of having to review an episode that will feature him heavily is anathema to me. So what do I do here? Just blank this episode out and stop the post right here? The completist in me won’t allow that. Review the show without making any further references to Mayo? Nah, if I’m doing this then he’s getting both barrels! Let’s do this!

The first thing to note is that in the time he’s been away from our screens, Mayo has grown his hair into what I’m guessing would have been a popular style of the time. It’s all long and slicked back – all that’s missing is an Alice band. It looks ridiculous and, if I’m honest, a bit dirty. His first ‘gag’ comes immediately when he makes some fatuous remark about the show lasting as long as a royal marriage referencing Charles and Diana who had completed their divorce proceedings two days before this TOTP aired. They were married for 15 years Mayo. Where’s the similarity with a 30 minute pop music programme? Idiot.

The first act on tonight is Shed Seven whose Rick Witter is also having a bad hair day. Quite what look he was trying to achieve I’m not sure – it’s a kind of cross between Edmund from Blackadder I and US stand up comedian Emo Philips. Anyway, Rick and his band mates were on a roll in 1996 clocking up five chart hits including their first and only Top 10 hit. In fact, I would go as far as to say the York indie rockers were never bigger than they were this year. They were good value for their success as well with those hits being some of the strongest of their career by my reckoning. “On Standby” was the fourth of those peaking at No 12 and was the last to be taken from second album “A Maximum High”. In the November, they would release “Chasing Rainbows” as the lead single from third album “Let It Ride” and yet said album would not appear for over 18 months. A similar thing happened with Paul Weller who released “Peacock Suit” as the lead single from his “Heavy Soul” album ten months before said album came out. What was all that about?

For his next lame attempt at humour, Mayo tries to compare the outfits worn by MN8 in this performance to those in children’s TV show Fireman Sam. In truth, I don’t think there’s any sort of valid comparison to be seen here. They’re more like angling waders than firemen’s overalls but Mayo couldn’t make a joke about Mortimer & Whitehouse Gone Fishing as that was over 20 years away from coming to our TV screens. As with all of his links, I always find myself asking the question “Why?”. He was there to do a fairly basic job of introducing acts on a pop music show. We weren’t tuning in to watch him. Why couldn’t he understand that. He treated these appearances as if they were an extension of his Radio 1 show which I guess people were choosing to tune into partly due to him at least. TOTP though was a completely different story.

As for MN8, they were finding out that having an enormous debut hit was one thing but following it up, well that was another different story. After “I’ve Got A Little Something For You” made No 2 in early ‘95, subsequent singles never quite measured up to that standard. Sure, they’d had a couple of further Top 10 hits but could you name them without checking? I couldn’t and I must have reviewed them in this blog. In an act of self knowledge, their latest attempt to scale the chart heights again was called “Tuff Act To Follow” (note obligatory urban spelling of the word ‘tough’) and was basically a rip off of Bobby Brown. Seriously, close your eyes and listen and it could almost be him. The single reached No 15 but it was only prolonging the inevitable. They would have one more minor hit before second album “Freaky” vanished without trace along with MN8. By the way, I’m not sure that the guy who can’t keep his shirt on under his oversized waders is quite achieving the sexy image he thinks he is.

For his next LOL moment, Mayo returns to his go to subject matter of football. Smug Simon was always been keen on flashing his ‘beautiful game’ credentials, banging on about his love for Spurs etc (well this was the time of ‘lads’ culture when following football was suddenly not only allowed but embraced). With this in mind, he gets a reference in to the recent world record transfer of Alan Shearer from Blackburn Rovers to Newcastle United for £15 million comparing it to the £52 million record deal just signed by REM with Warner. I’m not sure what his point was (if indeed he had one) by equating it to three and a half Shearers but he obviously thought he was on the money with that line. Prat.

Anyway, it’s time for another showing of the video for “E-Bow The Letter” as, after last week’s exclusive screening, it’s debuted at No 4 in the UK Top 40. That chart position was the band’s then highest ever as despite their huge international success (especially since the turn of the decade), they weren’t big on huge charting singles. Prior to this, their highest peak had been No 6 with “Shiny Happy People” in 1991, one of only four Top 10 hits up till then. Was it that once they’d crossed over into mainstream success that punters tended to buy their albums and only invested in singles when they were a brand new/lead track from a new one? Maybe. All I know for sure is that of the nine studio albums released since (and including) “Out Of Time”, seven of them went to No 1 in the UK.

Oh Mayo’s very pleased with himself for the next link as he introduces dance act De’Lacy as having split up from De’Cagney. See what he did there? De’Cagney and De’Lacey? Cagney and Lacey? Yes, Simon we all get it- it’s just that it’s not very funny. Nor topical. Cop show Cagney & Lacey stopped being made in 1988. Sure, it may have been repeated during daytime schedules around the early 90s but it wasn’t a current hit show. Would the pop kids of 1996 have even got the reference? If you’re going to persist with these pathetic lines, at least know your audience Mayo!

So who were this De’Lacy anyway? Well, they were the act that had a hit with “Hideaway” in the Autumn of ‘95. Curiously, it took them a year to release a follow up and when it came in the shape of “That Look”, it sounded like a weaker version of its predecessor (to my uncultured ears at least). Lots of beats and lots of screeching vocals is all I can hear but then it’s all about the remixes or so I’m told and “That Look” came with some from Hani and Deep Dish which was a big deal apparently. To prove the point, De’Lacy’s only other hit was a remix of “Hideaway” in 1998. Remixes, it’s all about the remixes.

Mayo is running out of material already and we’re not even halfway through the show yet. In his intro to “Undivided Love” by Louise, he goes on about the royal divorce again insinuating that Charles and Diana clearly couldn’t appreciate the concept of a love that couldn’t be divided. To back up his line, he name checks the Gallagher brothers as another couple that fall into that category. How hilarious Simon! Stand well back, my sides may split! There really was no beginning to this guy’s talents!

As for Louise, this was a fairly unremarkable piece of pop fluff that was a bit of a disappointment after the change of direction both sound and image wise instigated by previous release “Naked” especially for teenage schoolboys I would imagine. Still, I’m sure “Undivided Love” came with a fold out poster of Louise. Did they have laminators back then? Sorry, sorry, SORRY!

So Mayo has found himself some new material which was topical at the time but which makes no sense that I can ascertain. Introducing “Spinning The Wheel”, he says that it was released so early that George Michael is thinking of changing his name to George Michael Howard. After some research on the internet, I finally found the news story that Mayo was referring to. In this year, then Home Secretary Michael Howard ordered the release of two career criminals from prison with royal pardons after just ten months of their eighteen years prison sentences for heroin smuggling after they provided information leading to the seizure of firearms. So what has that got to do with George Michael? It can’t just be that there’s a ‘Michael’ in both their names can it? Does the title of the single have any relevance? “Spinning The Wheel”? Gambling? I can’t really see a connection. So what about it being released early? Well, it was the third single taken from the album “Older” which had already been available in the shops for over three months by this point. Nothing there then. It really does seem like he squeezed that line into his segue just because of the name ‘Michael’! I hate the way he then leaves his ‘joke’ lingering while he deadpans the camera before the song starts as if he’s giving the watching audience at home the chance to catch up with his amazing wit. Prick. Offering some karma here is the fact that those two career criminals were re-arrested in 2008 and subsequently convicted of having set up the weapons finds themselves to earn their early release thus proving that Michael Howard’s decision making was as flawed as Mayo’s ‘humour’. As for “Spinning The Wheel”, this is the third time it’s been on the show and I still can’t remember how it goes.

Mayo has a job to do in his next link which is to inform us that TOTP will be on at 7.25 rather than 7.00 from next week. This messing around (it had already been shifted from its traditional Thursday night slot to Friday) would contribute to the beginning of the end for the show as it lost its identity struggling to remain relevant in an ever changing musical landscape. Mayo even messes this up though instructing us to write the new start time on our fridges. Quite how do you write on a fridge Simon? Surely you meant put a post-it note on the fridge no?

Anyway, it’s time now for another one of those straight out of left field appearances next that TOTP executive producer Ric Blaxill was fond of just to shake things up a bit. After Bis before them come another band without a hit to their name at the time in Fluffy. Remember this lot? No, nor me. Hardly surprising as they featured more in the pages of the music press than the Top 40. A punk rock band from London, they were signed to Virgin and supported many big names on tour including Marilyn Manson, Foo Fighters and punk legends the Sex Pistols before releasing their only album “Black Eye” in mid September. Despite some decent reviews and a promotional campaign that included the release of an EP of songs recorded live at New York’s legendary CBGB club, it didn’t sell.

The album’s opening track was “Nothing”, performed here to promote its release as a single. A TOTP appearance didn’t help as it peaked at No 52. Why didn’t Fluffy convince the record buying public? Was it that they were not offering anything new? Was their sound too raw compared to the slicker production of Britpop? Who knows? What I do know is that the band’s bassist Bridgette Jones went on to become the inspiration for Helen Fielding’s novel and subsequent film Bridget Jones’s Diary. OK, I made that last bit up. Well, if Mayo can do his lame lines…

Mayo shows his age (he was already just a few weeks off 38 years old at this point – 38 and pretending he was still down with the kids!) by referencing former Radio 1 DJ Alan “Fluff” Freeman in his next link. Fluff? Fluffy? Get it pop pickers? Oh do piss off mate. The penultimate act before the No 1 is Jamiroquai who were about to release their third studio album “Travelling Without Moving” and it would be this collection of songs that really propelled the band (or more specifically Jay Kay) into global superstardom. The previous two albums “Emergency On Planet Earth” and “Return Of The Space Cowboy” had both sold well each shifting over a million units worldwide but the traditionally ‘difficult third album’ was nothing of the sort selling four times the amount of both its predecessors combined.

Although not strictly the lead single due to his collaboration earlier in ‘96 with M-Beat that was tacked onto the end of the album as an extra track, “Virtual Insanity” certainly felt like it. Not really a change in direction – some might say it was the same as all their other hits – but it was silky smooth and very radio friendly with an infectious groove (man!). It would become one of the band’s best known tracks debuting at No 3 backed by its memorable, award winning sleight of hand video. The album would spawn five hits in total including three Top Tenners thereby making Jamiroquai not only a successful albums artist but singles act as well. Clearly the title “Virtual Insanity” was a play on the phrase ‘virtual reality’ which must have been a thing even 28 years ago. Although it could be viewed as a slightly lazy construct, it’s still infinitely better than Peter Andre’s similar wordplay when he combined the words ‘insane’ and ‘mania’ to come up with “Insania”.*

*Apparently the word actually has its origins in Ancient Greek but I’m not about to let that get in the way of a convenient way to finish a paragraph!

Mayo is struggling now we’re deep into the show and segues into the No 1 by asking us to remember the new time for TOTP (labouring on the word ‘new’) before introducing the “Old Spice Girls”. Old Spice? Geddit? Yeah, it’s shit isn’t it? It was a sixth week of seven at the top for Spice Girls with “Wannabe” though and through the prism of its success, it’s hard to recall now that it was actually a very odd song. A mash up of sugary pop, rap, and at just 2:40 in length, was it almost a novelty record? The super smooth follow up “Say You’ll Be There” made it even more of an outlier. There’s just one more week of it to come at the top of the charts and that’s probably for the best.

The play out track is another single that wasn’t a Top 40 hit in the UK – that’s two on the same show after Fluffy earlier. I’m no Nostradamus myself but it would seem that Ric Blaxill wasn’t that great at spotting hit potential. Apparently Big Soul were a funk-rock band from California whose single “Hippy Hippy Shake” was nothing to do with the hit that The Swinging Blue Jeans had in 1964 but it had been reasonably successful in France. In the UK however, they quickly found that one funk-rock band from California* was all we needed and promptly disappeared never to be heard of again,

*Waves at Red Hot Chili Peppers

Mayo can’t resist one last lame attempt at humour when saying that next week’s presenter Julia Carling was the only Carling recently not to be dropped – presumably something to do with Will Carling and rugby? He signs off by saying “See you soon” but guess what? We won’t be! This was the last of 56 TOTP shows that he presented! Hallelujah! The gods of pop music blogging smile on me at last! Bye bye Mayo – you won’t be missed!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Shed Seven	On Standby	Not this one
2	MN8	Tuff Act To Follow	Never
3	REM	E-Bow The Letter	It’s a no from me
4	De’Lacy	That Look	Negative
5	Louise	Undivided Love	Not even for a fold out poster
6	George Michael	Spinning The Wheel	Nope
7	Fluffy	Nothing	No – very few did
8	Jamiroquai	Virtual Insanity	Nah
9	Spice Girls	Wannabe	I did not
10	Big Soul	Hippy Hippy Shake	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/m00241br/top-of-the-pops-30081996?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 30 MAY 1996

Posted on September 4, 2024 by 80stastic

Those sneaky BBC4 schedulers have done me dirty by suddenly announcing with a day’s notice that the 1996 TOTP repeats are back. I thought I had at least another week to knock out this last remaining episode for review before they’d start again! Serves me right for dragging my feet I guess. Sadly, as well as being my favourite word, procrastination is also my middle name.

Before I crack on with this particular show, I should address the fact that we’ve missed one. The 23rd May episode was not repeated with the general consensus being that it was for reasons of sensitivity. One of the artists featured was the actor John Alford who is best known for his roles in Grange Hill and London’s Burning. Alford was giving this soap star turned pop star malarkey a go – well, it had worked for loads of others before him including another ex Grange Hill pupil in Sean Maguire who, by massive coincidence, was also on the same show. Alford managed three UK chart hits in 1996 (all cover versions obviously) but subsequently disappeared after his only album tanked when peaking at No 171. In later years he has had several run ins with the law and is currently awaiting trial for alleged sex offences involving a girl aged under 16 hence the decision not to air the show he featured on presumably. I’ve had a look at the rest of the running order for that particular episode and there is little chance of FOMO raising its head in my personal opinion. In addition to the aforementioned Alford and Maguire, most of the other hits on that week we’d already seen before including those by Robert Miles, Black Grape, Tony Rich Project, Gina G and, unbelievably, Mark Morrison (again!). We did miss out on SWV and Dodgy but I can live with that.

Tonight’s hosts are funny men Jack Dee and the late Jeremy Hardy who do the whole show as if they were BBC presenters from the 50s which is fairly amusing for most of the time. We open with, I read to my astonishment when researching them, the best-selling boy band of all time!! What?! The Backstreet Boys?! That’s what Wikipedia tells me, yes. It also says that they are the first group since Led Zeppelin to have their first ten albums reach the Top 10 on the US charts. OK, so there are a couple of things to unpack here before we go any further. Firstly, the Backstreet Boys have made ten albums?! Surely not! I’m checking their discography. Wait there…

…they have! Although, one of them is a Christmas album and didn’t make the Top 10 in America. Maybe that claim included Greatest Hits compilations? Secondly, the biggest selling boy band of all time? What about New Kids On The Block or Take That or One Direction? Or even one of those K-pop groups? And what criteria are we using to define boy band? Were The Beatles* a boy band or The Jackson 5? If they qualify the. Surely they outsold Backstreet Boys?

*Obviously they weren’t but I’m playing Devil’s Advocate here

Whatever the truth behind the claim, their sales certainly didn’t start out like that. Not in the UK anyway. Their first two singles releases failed to make the Top 40 over here (though both were subsequently rereleased and became hits). Somehow the UK were initially impervious to the five piece’s charms but we finally caved when third single “Get Down (You’re The One For Me)” made it to No 14. Quite why though remains a mystery to me as it’s awful, useless, just no good. Based around that annoying swing beat riff that was prevalent about a year before and used on hits by the likes of MN8 and Montell Jordan with hackneyed, pseudo sexual lyrics, it truly stank the place out. They weren’t even that good looking were they? Maybe the pretty boy one with blonde hair but the rest? What did I know though. Their next thirteen singles went Top 10 in the UK including a No 1, two No 2s and four No 3s. It seemed that we really were getting down with the Backstreet Boys and they were indeed the ones for us.

From a boy band to a collaboration that was rather more out of left field albeit that one of the collaborators was about to become so successful that a crossover into the mainstream would be inevitable. Jamiroquai were an established chart act by this point with two hit albums and a readily identifiable sound to their name. They also had Jay Kay as their frontman who was providing the gossip columns with material as he embraced the pop star lifestyle. In 1996, their third album “Travelling Without Moving” was released and would go on to sell eight million copies worldwide, four times more than the sales of their first two combined. It also generated their three highest charting singles to date in “Virtual Insanity” (No 3), “Cosmic Girl” (No 6) and “Alright” (No 6). Before all of those though came “Do U Know Where You’re Coming From”. This was a joint project with jungle pioneer M–Beat and you might be forgiven for thinking that this was a revamp of the similarly titled Diana Ross hit “Theme From Mahogany (Do You Know Where You’re Going To)” given that M-Beat’s last hit had been a cover of another female soul singer – Anita Baker’s “Sweet Love”. It wasn’t (thank God!). What it was though, to my ears, was a track that was trying to tick too many musical boxes but ended up being a confused, mess of a song. I think there might be a decent tune in there somewhere but all those shuffling, jungle breakbeats just kept fracturing any cohesiveness it might have had.

The single did get to No 12 and was included as an extra track on “Travelling Without Moving” (albeit with a very slight title change). M-Beat (aka Marlon Hart) would not have any further UK chart hits though he did produce remixes for Soul II Soul and Roy Davis Jr. who would have minor hits with them in the late 90s. Hart himself would become homeless not long after this TOTP appearance before taking IT consultancy positions for McLaren F1 and Lloyds Bank and finally returning to music in 2022. So he did know where he was coming from after all!

Well, this is shaping up to be a show of extremes. We move from a jungle/acid jazz-funk mash up to some hard rock courtesy of Metallica. A Top 10 hit pretty much everywhere, “Until It Sleeps” was the lead single from new album “Load”. It’ll come as no surprise to anyone who’s taken even a passing interest in my blog previously that I‘m not the biggest Metallica fan. I can acknowledge the power of “Enter Sandman” but that’s the extent of my appreciation. Consequently, this track didn’t and doesn’t make my musical radar bleep.

Its video is more interesting to me though. It looks like the set of a horror movie or perhaps the darker moments of Stranger Things most of the time but its imagery is apparently inspired by the work of 15th century Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch, specifically The Garden Of Earthly Delights, Haywain and Ecce Homo. I can’t say that I’m that familiar with Bosch’s work but here’s @TOTPFacts with the visual evidence:

The video for “Until It Sleeps” was inspired by the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. This bit has a basic similarity to “Ecce Homo”, for example. #TOTP pic.twitter.com/ySF60N1qPw
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) August 9, 2024

And this human-eating monster is a nod to “The Garden of Earthly Delights” #TOTP pic.twitter.com/gW5BapAz4t
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) August 9, 2024

From high art to a rancid fart of a song. That dreadful moment of the 90s is upon us – it’s time for Peter Andre and “Mysterious Girl”. Brace yourselves everyone, we’re going in! It seems an odd concept to grasp now but there was a time when Peter Andre wasn’t a part of our lives, always there in the cultural milieu, grifting away at his latest cash grab and attempting to give himself a sheen of relevance and currency. So embedded is he in our society that in the 2007 British comedy film Grow Your Own starring Eddie Marsan, at one point in its story about locals on an allotment reacting angrily when some refugees are given plots on it, one character announces “You know who I blame? Peter Andre!”.

Back in 1996 though, he was only known for one minor hit single in the UK called…erm… “Only One”. A concerted media campaign targeting teen magazines though raised his profile enough to put out a follow up. “Mysterious Girl” was actually a rerelease having peaked at No 53 in September 1995. We all dodged a bullet then but when the gun was reloaded for a second time we were hit right between the eyes with both barrels. This horrible, cod reggae, Inner Circle rip off would spend eleven consecutive weeks in the UK Top 10 mainly skittering between Nos 2 and 3. Thankfully it never made it to the top of the charts though even that silver lining would become a black cloud burst in 2004 when it got to No 1 after a concerted campaign by DJ Chris Moyles. Gee, thanks Chris. I was working in the Our Price store in Stockport in 1996 and we sold this single over and over and over again. When we’d finished doing that, we sold it some more and every time I did, the questions running around my head were “What am I doing with my life? How did it come to this?”. I’d had similar thoughts when I’d been the stand in Father Christmas in Debenhams seven years earlier whilst sat in Santa’s Grotto surrounded by soft toy reindeers and nodding penguins. Peter Andre – so much to blame him for.

It’s an Antipodean double whammy as we go from an Australian dope in Peter Andre to a song called “Australia” that’s pretty dope – I believe that can also mean ‘good’ in the modern vernacular*.

*God, I sound like the two stuffy characters Jeremy Hardy and Jack Dee are using to present the show!

Occupants of the revived ‘album’ slot are Manic Street Preachers and a track from their “Everything Must Go” album that would also turn out to be the fourth and final single released from it when it made No 7 in the charts in the December of 1996. The album had only been out for ten days at this point and with it going straight in at No 2, a place on the BBC’s flagship music show was not only deemed appropriate but also assured and deserved. Interestingly, the band shunned the chance to preview their next single, the album’s title track, that would hit the shops in July and instead opted for this song that was written as a metaphor for getting as far away from the UK and its tabloid press as possible in the wake of band member Richey Edwards’ disappearance the previous year. Also of note in this performance is the nerdy look of James Dean Bradfield including spectacles and a neat and tidy haircut. Quite the change from those early “Generation Terrorists” era TOTP appearances.

I’d seen the Manics support Oasis* at their Maine Road gigs a month before this show aired and would see them headline their own show about a year afterwards. I also had the album – I was becoming quite the fan though what I was not a fan of was the cardboard sleeves they insisted releasing their singles in at this time. Working in a record shop as I was, they were a pain to display.

*No, I didn’t get involved in the frankly shameful Oasis reunion gigs tickets fiasco. I saw them when they were at the top of their game and relevant – I have no desire to revisit the money grabbing so and so’s they seem to have become nearly thirty years later.

If it’s time for Celine Dion then it must also be time for a big, heart string pulling ballad and we do indeed get both these outcomes with “Because You Loved Me”. Released as the second single from her “Falling Into You” album, it was also included on the soundtrack to the film Up Close And Personal starring Robert Redford and Michelle Pfeiffer. I’ve never seen this film before but reading the plot synopsis on Wikipedia, I don’t think I’ll be seeking it out for a viewing anytime soon. A rather stodgy sounding news drama/romance that bore no resemblance to the book on which it was based? No, I’m alright thanks. Pfeiffer was making a habit though of starring in films that had a huge big hit single featured in them. Just a few months before, Coolio had conquered the globe with his Stevie Wonder channeling “Gangsta Paradise” from Dangerous Minds.

As for “Because You Loved Me”, it’s all pretty laboured and predictable to my ears but was clearly aural nectar for lots of other people’s lugholes as it went to No 1 in America and won a Grammy and was nominated for an Academy Award. And to think we’re still 18 months away from her even bigger film ballad “My Heart Will Go On” from Titanic. Gulp!

Having finally scored themselves a massive hit by rereleasing their debut single “Lifted”, the Lighthouse Family have shone their spotlight onto another earlier release to secure themselves a follow up. As well, as being the title track of their debut album, “Ocean Drive” was also their second ever single and their first ever Top 40 hit when it peaked at No 34 in October ‘95. Could the old rerelease strategy work for a second time? Of course it could and not even the fact that “Ocean Drive” was almost identical to “Lifted” would stop people buying it for a second time. Harsh? Possibly but almost certainly accurate. Yes, this was more of that radio friendly, lilting groove, smooth vocal, easy listening soul/pop that they made their name on. And why not? You didn’t have to buy or listen to it if it didn’t float your boat did you eh?

So where is Ocean Drive? Well, there’s a mile long road in the South Beach neighbourhood of Miami Beach, Florida which bears that name and is famous for its Art Deco hotels, restaurants and bars. So, that must be what inspired the song then? Well, according to Wikipedia, it wasn’t as it’s about a road in the UK. A quick search of the internet reveals that there is indeed an Ocean Drive and it’s not that far from me in Hull being located in a village in the East Riding of Yorkshire called Newport. There might not be any Art Deco buildings there but google maps shows me that there is a pub called the Crown & Anchor, one called The Jolly Sailor Inn and a fish and chip shop called Johnny Haddocks so Ocean Drive kind of fits the nautical theme. Mr and Mrs Lighthouse (as name checked by Dee and Hardy in their intro) would fit right in.

After being on the show as an ‘exclusive’ two weeks prior, Bryan Adams is back again as his single “The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You” has blasted into the charts at No 6. There’s something different about this second performance though that I can’t quite put my finger on…oh yeah, that’s it…Bry’s missing a member from his band. Where’s the guitarist that was standing on his left from the last time? In an attempt to fill the space, they’ve moved the keyboard player to the front of the stage but he’s no substitute for standing back to back with Bryan and rocking out like his guitarist did. Also, the drummer looks very different. On the first appearance the guy behind the kit had huge Afro hair but that’s all gone this time around. Is it the same guy? Was he just wearing a wig the first time? If it was the latter, he clearly decided to ignore the advice of the title of the track he was drumming on and ditched it.

Listening back to this, is it me or is there a slight whiff of U2 about some of the guitar work as it comes out of the chorus? No? Nothing like The Edge? How about Bry’s bass player then? If you squint your eyes does he look a bit like Adam Clayton? OK, you got me. All this talk of drummers, Adam Clayton and U2 is me trying to tee up the show’s play out tune but more of that later. First, we have a new No 1 to deal with…

And so after weeks of anticipation and a flurry of football songs in the charts that weren’t that football song, it’s finally here and it’s gone straight in at No 1. As with Peter Andre, it’s hard to recall now that there was a time when “Three Lions (It’s Coming Home)” wasn’t a part of the national psyche, wasn’t trotted out every time England played in a football tournament and wasn’t sung on the terraces. A time when the subject of a song about the England football team would instantly bring to mind New Order’s “World In Motion” or possibly “Back Home” from 1970. All of this was trampled into the turf by Baddiel, Skinner and the Lightning Seeds in 1996. Now bearing in mind that Euro 96 hadn’t even started by this point, the promotion surrounding the release of the single must have been pretty extensive to have propelled it straight to the top of the charts on week one. Despite working in a record shop at the time, I can’t recall if there was a massive buzz around the song before a ball had been kicked in anger but we must have sold loads of it in that first week. After debuting at the very top of the charts, the following month saw it mostly at No 2 with a solitary week at No 4 before returning to No 1, with sales no doubt fuelled by the England team progressing to the semi-finals. We all know what fate befell them there sadly. That month gap between the two occasions that “Three Lions” was the UK’s best selling single saw “Killing Me Softly” by Fugees at No 1. It dropped a place as Euro 96 came to its climax and then leapfrogged back to the top for another week after it had finished. This meant that these two singles spent seven weeks swapping the No 1 position between them. There’s another less talked about twist of trivia that bonded the two together acts together and it really is quite bizarre – the single that the Lightning Seeds released before “Three Lions” was a song called “Ready Or Not” whilst the single that the Fugees released after “Killing Me Softly” was a song called…yep…”Ready Or Not”. What are the chances eh?

Quite why the FA approached Ian Broudie of the Lightning Seeds to write a song for the tournament I’m not sure but Broudie’s decision to get Frank Skinner and David Baddiel involved made perfect sense (ooh, see what I did there? ‘Perfect’ and ‘Sense’? Oh never mind!) what with the duo having recently finished the third and final series of Fantasy Football League for the BBC. Both comedians were by now also synonymous with the beautiful game with Skinner professing his love of WBA and Baddiel a fellow fan of my beloved Chelsea.

Like everybody in the country it seemed, I got caught up with the feel good factor that the football was bringing and “Three Lions” seemed a perfectly good soundtrack to that period. However, its repeated appearance at every football tournament since has made it almost unlistenable now. They really did flog it to death. An updated version with changed lyrics went to No 1 two years later for the 1998 World Cup and it topped the charts again as England reached the semi final in 2018 in the same competition. As far as I can tell, the only tournaments that England qualified for since the song was originally released when “Three Lions” hasn’t featured in the charts were the 2000 and 2004 Euros. My research tells me that Fat Les’s “Jerusalem” and a version of “All Together Now” were the predominant England songs for those years respectively.

The play out track is “Theme From Mission: Impossible” by Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jnr. Yes, here’s the reason for my cack handed referencing of the two members of the aforementioned U2 earlier in the post. The very first movie of the Mission: Impossible franchise was released this year and nearly 30 years later it is still going, still with Tom Cruise as the star and with the most recent outing Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One (the seventh film so far) having been released in 2023. I caught the first film at the cinema in Stockport as the Our Price store there where I was working had an arrangement with the local cinema to supply them with CDs to play in the foyer. It might even have been a special preview screening that I attended as I seem to remember coming out with a press pack of still photos etc. I think I enjoyed it but I’m not sure that I’ve watched any of the sequels in their entirety. I recall watching the original 60s TV series as a small child and being confused by Leonard Nimoy being in it but not being dressed as Mr Spock!

I’m guessing that Adam and Larry were approached to record the movie’s theme tune off the back of U2’s wildly successful contribution to the previous year’s Batman Forever film. They don’t muck about with it too much though they’ve clearly danced it up a bit and explore that further with a number of remixes on the 12” and extra tracks on the CD single. At the end of the day though, it all pales in comparison to the iconic original which kind of negates the whole thing. Competing with its composer Lalo Schifrin really did prove to be an impossible mission.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Backstreet Boys	Get Down (You’re The One For Me)	As if
2	Jamiroquai / M-Beat	Do U Know Where You’re Coming From	No
3	Metallica	Until It Sleeps	I did not
4	Peter Andre	Mysterious Girl	Sir! You insult me with your impertinence!
5	Manic Street Preachers	Australia	No but I had the album
6	Celine Dion	Because You Loved Me	Never
7	Lighthouse Family	Ocean Drive	Nope
8	Bryan Adams	The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You	Negative
9	Baddiel, Skinner and the Lightning Seeds	Three Lions (It’s Coming Home)	Nah
10	Theme From Mission: Impossible”	Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jnr	Another 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/m0021s8z/top-of-the-pops-30051996?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 29 JUN 1995

Posted on December 5, 2023 by 80stastic

We arrived at an unusual episode of TOTP whereby the executive producer Ric Blaxill incorporated what might now be called a ‘heritage’ slot into the show but which I’m sure wouldn’t have been labelled as such at the time. Host Mark Goodier refers to it only using the generic, catch all term of ‘exclusive’ which is the description that was used for just about any non standard performance on the show around this time. The band featured in this slot are pretty special though and retain a huge legacy – it’s only the bloody Ramones!

All in good time though and we start with the antithesis of the legendary punk rockers with one of the worst examples of naff dance music that the 90s spewed forth. Clock (even their name was terrible) followed the classic Eurodance blueprint of a female singer and male rapper even though they were actually from Manchester as opposed to Holland or Germany like many of the acts of that genre. Where they did divert from the template was in their decision to pursue chart hits via that well trodden route of the cover version. After a couple of minor hits with their own compositions in 1994, they went Top 10 with a cover of Harold Faltermeyer’s “Axel F” and that success convinced them to carry on in that direction. Next up was their version of Tag Team’s 1994 No 34 hit “Whoomph! (There It Is)”. Now this track has quite the backstory which I’ve already discussed in the post covering the TOTP featuring Tag Team so I don’t propose to go over all that again. What I will say is that when Clock first started releasing singles and I wasn’t aware of who they were despite working in a record shop, when I was asked about them by a customer I presumed they were asking about Clock DVA, the experimental industrial pioneers from Sheffield who formed in 1978 and were contemporaries of Cabaret Voltaire. I might as well have been talking a different language trying to explain Clock DVA to the young punter who just wanted to buy his favourite Eurodance tune.

Depressingly, we’ll be seeing lots more of Clock in these TOTP repeats as they went on to (ahem) clock up a further nine UK Top 40 hits throughout the 90s including covers of “December, 1963 (Oh, What A Night)”* by the Four Seasons, “You Sexy Thing”* by Hot Chocolate and “Blame It On The Boogie” by The Jacksons. You lucky people!

*They truncated the titles to differentiate them from the originals though.

https://youtu.be/KFgx-LYmuyc?si=3ZT2klDM_SLD44YI

I think my patience with Jamiroquai wasn’t so much wearing thin by this point as had completely perished to reveal an embarrassing hole in its pants. To my ears, everything single they’d released by this point sounded the same as the one before. “Stillness In Time” was a case in point. It meanders along with the promise of breaking into this really cool groove but never actually goes anywhere. Do you think Jay Kay, when laying down these tracks, would say to himself “Yes! We really nailed it there!”? And yet, this single entered the chart at the highest position (No 9) the band had ever achieved so maybe it was me that was out of step with public opinion? The performance here is sooo muso – there’s even a man wearing an oversized poncho for Chrissakes! Nah, not for me thanks.

And now…a single that has gone down in the annals of time as one of the very worst ever laid down in a recording studio from an album that Q Magazine decreed as the worst of all time in a 2006 poll. It is now received knowledge that Duran Duran made the biggest career misstep ever by releasing their covers album “Thank You” as the follow up to 1993’s career reviving “The Wedding Album” but is that a fair take on the reviled collection of songs? I mean, Lou Reed said that their version of “Perfect Day” was the best cover ever of one of his songs. Indeed, “Thank You” wasn’t even the commercial catastrophe we might have expected from the worst album ever – it made No 12 in the UK album charts and sold half a million copies in the US. So what’s the deal with it?

I think the answer lies in the track listing and the songs the band chose to cover. Some of them were seen as sacrosanct and untouchable and certainly by some faded 80s pin up pop stars. How dare Duran Duran take on the back catalogues of Led Zeppelin, The Doors, Elvis Costello etc! The ultimate act of heresy though appears to be their decision to cover Public Enemy’s “911 Is A Joke” and Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel’s “White Lines (Don’t Don’t Do It)”. The latter was released as the second single from the album and like Clock earlier, they changed the title slightly to “White Lines (Don’t Do It)”.

So it’s cards on the table time – I don’t mind the Duran Duran version. I think it’s alright in the same way that I thought Gun’s rocked up cover of “Word Up” by Cameo was OK. Is it better than or even as good as the original? No, I don’t think so but that doesn’t make it utter shite by default. I even think the black and white video works and adds something to the track. What didn’t work though was the album’s standing both critically and within the band’s own oeuvre of work. In fact it derailed them. A follow up album (“Medazzaland”) wasn’t released in the UK and by the end of the decade, the band had lost both their record label Capitol / EMI and bass player and founding member John Taylor. They would not have another hit album until 2004 when the original line up reformed to record “Astronaut”. And yet…I wonder if it’s time for “Thank You” to be revisited and reappraised. There are surely worse albums out there. Surely?

Who remembers All–4–One? “I Swear” yeah? Sure. Great. Who remembers their other hit though? Not so many hands up now are there? Well, they did have one and it was called “I Can Love You Like That” and remarkably, just like “I Swear” before it, this was a song originally recorded by country singer John Michael Montgomery. I guess if it had worked once, why wouldn’t it work again? And it did, in America at least where it was a No 5 hit. Over here though, we decided that one huge song from All-4-One was quite enough thank you very much and it struggled to a high of No 33 despite this live TOTP performance (which I can’t find a clip of by the way). The group would never return to our charts though they are still together to this day and last released an album in 2016.

Heeeere’s Edwyn! Yes, the rather fabulous Edwyn Collins is back on the show to perform his brilliant but surprising hit “A Girl Like You”. Edwyn, of course, started his musical career as the lead singer of Orange Juice who criminally only had one UK Top 40 hit. However, alongside the likes of The Adventures, Icicle Works and It Bites, they really should have had more. “Flesh Of My Flesh”, “Lean Period” and “What Presence?!” were all great singles that were habitually ignored by the record buying public. Their back catalogue has been revisited retrospectively though including a six CD box set called “Coals To Newcastle” and a compilation called “The Glasgow School” the latter of which featured a cover of “I Don’t Care” by The Ramones. I’m guessing then that Edwyn would have been stoked to be on the same show as the Queens punk rockers. Except he wasn’t. The clip shown here was just a repeat of an earlier performance from a couple of weeks before. Bloody scheduling! Rip it up!

We now turn our attention to Menswear and I don’t mean that awful tank top that host Mark Goodier is wearing. It looks like an off cut of the rug in my dining room. No, I mean the poster boys of Britpop – they even had a Levi’s modelling contract – who are experiencing their first chart hit in “Daydreamer”.

More than perhaps any other artist of this era, Menswear’s is a cautionary tale of running before you can walk, going too far too soon and all those other advisory idioms. Being lauded by the press and courted by record labels whilst only having four songs inevitably led to egos bigger than their talent and it would all end in tales of drug abuse, mental health issues, a sacked drummer and a massively over budget sophomore album that only got a release in a Menswear obsessed Japan. Back in June 1995 though, the band looked like they had the world at their feet. A distinctive, Roxy Music infused single and a frontman in the modish, angular Johnny Dean who had perfected the art of looking right down the camera lens long before ex-Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg did it at the 2010 General Election live TV debates. God, even that is now 13 years ago! Oh to be young and watching Menswear on TOTP again!

Boo! Rubbish! Get off! It’s The Outhere Brothers again whom I referred to as “those two pricks” in a previous post. By way of contrast, Mark Goodier calls them “those naughty boys”. Yeah, I stand indubitably by my comment mate. Their single “Boom Boom Boom” is up to No 2 on its way to the top of the charts where it will stay for four weeks. It came from an album called “1 Polish, 2 Biscuits & A Fish Sandwich” which were not that subtle references to the penis, buttocks and vagina. They went on to release a Best Of album in 2002 called “The Fucking Hits”. It’s not big and it’s not clever is it? Like I said, pricks.

And so to the Ramones. Now I wouldn’t describe myself as a super fan but I certainly can appreciate the influence that the band had despite little in the way of commercial success. Their hi-speed, pop-punk sound would mobilise a generation of bands and shape their futures in a way that they surely couldn’t have predicted. That said, would the pop kids of 1995 have known or cared who the Ramones were? Maybe they did. Or maybe it was just that executive producer Ric Blaxill was a fan and wanted to get them on the show. I don’t know. On the show they were though and they were there to plug their fourteenth and final studio album “Adios Amigos” of which “I Don’t Want To Grow Up” was the lead single. Now, I already knew this Tom Waits song as my wife is a fan and had the “Bone Machine” album it’s taken from. It’s a great track, all raggedy, shuffling and shambolic but also captivating.

This version by the Ramones is pretty good too and the fact that the tempo of it can be ramped up so much shows the quality of the song. You could be forgiven for thinking it was a Ramones original.

Given the trademark brevity of the Ramones’ material, there’s time for another song from them so we get an album track called “Cretin Family” from them. Mark Goodier’s attempt at looking genuinely surprised that there was more doesn’t convince anyone. He must have known – there’s even a caption on screen that says ‘Yes more!’. It’s sobering to think that Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee and Tommy are now all no longer with us.

From the Ramones to Robson & Jerome. That’s quite a leap! The duo are still at No 1 with “Unchained Melody” for a seventh and final week. When the dust finally settled, it would have spent 14 weeks in the Top 40 and 25 inside the Top 100. That’s just under half a year! Just as it finally dropped out of the charts, their follow up “I Believe / Up On The Roof” went straight in at No 1. 1995 – what a time to be alive!

The play out track is “This Is A Call” by Foo Fighters. I have a history of missing out on bands that I really should have been into and Dave Grohl’s post Nirvana vehicle was another to add to the list. I think because I’d never really got Nirvana either (although clearly “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is a monster tune), my musical antenna weren’t pointing in the Foo Fighters direction in the first place. That said, “This Is A Call” is a banger so why it didn’t lead me to investigate more of their stuff at the time I don’t know. Still, it’s much easier these days to explore music unknown to you what with the likes of Spotify and all so I really have no excuse. I’ve got until their next appearance in these TOTP repeats to report back…

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Clock	Whoomph! (There It Is)	As if
2	Jamiroquai	Stillness In Time	No
3	Duran Duran	White Lines (Don’t Do It)	Didn’t mind it, didn’t buy it
4	All-4-One	I Can Love You Like That	Nope
5	Edwyn Collins	A Girl Like You	Liked it, didn’t buy it
6	Menswear	Daydreamer	I did not
7	The Outhere Brothers	Boom Boom Boom	Hell no!
8	Ramones	I Don’t Want To Grow Up / Cretin Family	Negative
9	Robson & Jerome	Unchained Melody	Of course not
10	Foo Fighters	This Is A Call	No but I had it on one of those Best Album Ever compilations

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/m001sx1h/top-of-the-pops-29061995

TOTP 24 NOV 1994

Posted on June 22, 2023 by 80stastic

It’s a busy a show this one with eight of the nine songs on it making their debut. Only the No 1 record had we seen before. The effect of the machinations of the Christmas release schedules I guess. We’re back to the Radio 1 DJs as host after last week’s ‘golden mic’ slot was filled by Michelle Gayle and thank god it’s not Simon Mayo but the dull yet much less irritating Mark Goodier in the chair.

We start with a band who I had forgotten had so many hits and therefore so many TOTP appearances though sadly for them, this would be their final one in the studio. It was quite a run though. Ten consecutive Top 40 singles up to this point (they had a further two minor ones subsequently) between June 1991 and November 1994 though only one made the Top 10. Who am I talking about? Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine obviously though their success was anything but obvious. A pair of not especially attractive grebos playing a brand of indie power pop with clever clever lyrics? It doesn’t sound like the template for guaranteed commercial triumph and yet they were brilliant and a welcome breath of fresh air to some of the crud clogging up the charts during their own tenure there. “Let’s Get Tattoos” was the lead single from their fifth studio album “Worry Bomb” and would get to No 30 whilst the album would peak at No 9.

Apparently the semi naked male dancers that we see here are also in the promo video and their gyrations and thrusts illicit the desired response from the studio audience but I’m guessing their inclusion here is to make some sort of ironic comment about how pop music was being promoted? Or they were sending themselves up with the most unlikely backing they could think up? Whatever the reason, you would have thought that they would have found some guys with actual tattoos given the title of their song wouldn’t you? I can’t see any across those four torsos. Maybe they weren’t as ubiquitous back then as they are today? In fact when did the world become obsessed with tattoos? Maybe I should add the word ‘visionary’ to that earlier description of mine of Jim Bob and Fruitbat?

https://youtu.be/rPn3BucE7nQ

Whatever happened to Jimmy Nail? From 1984 to the end of the 90s, he was a colossus of the entertainment world. The star of ratings gobbling TV shows like Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and Spender whilst simultaneously having a career as a pop star with huge hits like “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore” and “Ain’t No Doubt”, the guy was everywhere. By the time 1994 was coming to an end, he was on to his next successful project which combined both worlds. Crocodile Shoes was a TV series that told the story of a Newcastle factory worker who becomes a county and western star with Nail not only in the starring role but also writing it. It ran for two series and thirteen episodes finishing in 1996.

Nail also wrote half the songs on the album that accompanied the series with Prefab Sprout’s Paddy McAloon also contributing three tracks. Off the back of the success of the show, the album was also a runaway sales monster becoming the Christmas No 2 album that year. That’s some units shifted right there. The title track was the lead single and the biggest hit (No 4) from the album as well as being the theme tune to the series. I have to say that I don’t mind Nail and his rather acquired taste voice but “Crocodile Shoes” never really appealed to me that much, being a bit too maudlin for my ears. The follow up, “Cowboy Dreams” written by the aforementioned McAloon, is a great tune though. Maybe if I’d actually watched the show (which I somehow managed to miss despite having liked his previous projects), I might have had more fondness for it.

After the second series finished (which gave rise to a second album of tunes from the show), Nail moved into films with a role in Evita (alongside Madonna) and then returned to more familiar territory with the movie Still Crazy about a fictional 70s rock band (clearly based on the Pink Floyd story) in which he played bassist Les Wickes. It’s not a bad little film although some of the performances by the likes of Bill Nighy and Timothy Spall are a bit hammy. In the meantime, Nail kept recording music with an album called “Big River” coming between the Crocodile Shoes soundtracks and an album called “Tadpoles In A Jar” in 1999 as well as a Best Of called “The Nail File” in 1997.

And then…well, if not nothing then very little. There was one final album in 2001 and that was it for the musical arm of his career and acting wise, he just seemed to stop working. He played a character called Clayface the Goblin (no seriously) in something called The 10th Kingdom in 2000 and then only resurfaced eight years later with a show I don’t know at all called Parents Of The Band which he co-created and starred in. The only trace of him since then was his stint in Sting’s musical The Last Ship on Broadway in 2014. I hope the guy’s OK these days. His Wikipedia entry under the section Personal Life just says he has two children, lives in London and supports Newcastle United but then doesn’t everyone from Newcastle?

https://youtu.be/7bcUrdMS9hk

We all know “We Have All The Time In The World” by Louis Armstrong from the 1969 James Bond film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (the one with George Lazenby as 007) but it didn’t actually become a hit until 25 years later when it was used in a Guinness advert. And yet I can’t recall this rerelease at all despite it going all the way to No 3 and being tipped for the Christmas No 1 spot at one point. To be honest, I barely remember the advert despite it being very stylish and classic looking. The ‘surfer’ ad with the horses bursting from waves? Absolutely – it’s iconic. That bloke doing weird dancing whilst waiting for his pint to settle? Of course and selling bucket loads of that “Guaglione” mambo tune? This one though that was named “Infinity” by the ad agency? Nope.

Obviously the record company couldn’t use the actual Guinness advert to promote the single so this hastily cobbled together looking promo had to do instead. Some of the imagery used where the film is in black and white with splashes of over exaggerated colour as a counterpoint seems to me to have echoes of the girl in the red coat sequence from the Schindler’s List film that came out this year which seems an odd choice given the subject matter of that movie. Maybe it was coincidence. The little girl in the video looks like Mara Wilson from the Matilda film though I don’t think it is. Talking of coincidence though, the woman who played Miss Honey in Matilda was also in Schindler’s List. I’m going off on a tangent now though. Back to Satchmo and predictably, a Greatest Hits album was released called “The Pure Genius Of Louis Armstrong: We Have All The Time In The World” after the success of the single. Never missed a trick did they these record companies?

Right who’s this? New Atlantic/U4EA featuring Berri? WHO?! My research tells me that there was a hit called “I Know” in 1992 by New Atlantic but I can’t recall it (and I probably reviewed it as well) but it seems this was the same people (a duo from Southport as it goes). So that’s the introductions done but this whole thing is completely confusing to me. Firstly, this dance version of “Sunshine After The Rain” (originally a hit for Elkie Brooks in 1977) probably isn’t the single that people remember as being a hit around the mid-90s. There was another release of the track the following year which was credited just to Berri and somehow that subtle change of marketing turned it from a No 26 hit in 1994 to a No 4 hit in 1995. The other reason that I find this hit troublesome is that I always conflate it with “Sunshine On A Rainy Day” from 1991 by Zoë. You know what? I’m going to give my poor brain a break and just leave this one at that until it does a Carly Simon and comes around again in the 1995 BBC4 TOTP repeats.

https://youtu.be/hAKEAIZ_Wf4

Here’s another hit I don’t remember and to be fair to the artist who is routinely accused of making music that all just sounds the same, this one is slightly different so you might have thought it would have stuck out in my memory cells but no. Sorry Jay Kay.

Yes, it’s Jamiroquai who are performing live by satellite from a rooftop somewhere in Paris. Now the main thing that I’m taking from this ‘exclusive’ is how badly executed it is. What’s the most famous landmark in Paris? The Eiffel Tower yeah? Has to be. So when they set up this location shoot, presumably somebody asked if the Eiffel Tower can be seen in the background? “Yes” would have come the reply. Surely the conversation should then have gone “Great! Position the cameras so that it’s in shot the whole time while Jay Kay is singing” shouldn’t it? That would have been a perfect example of head producer Ric Blaxill’s vision for this slot as demonstrated by Bon Jovi performing against a backdrop of Niagara Falls recently. Instead, one of the most instantly recognisable structures in the world spends most of the time tantalisingly just out of sight. What a wasted opportunity!

For the record, “Half The Man” was the second single from sophomore album “The Return Of The Space Cowboy” and peaked at No 15. However, if you want a record about not being the man you used to be, may I respectfully suggest this instead:

I seem to spend a lot of time writing the words “I don’t remember this” in my blog despite the fact I spent the time they were in the charts working in a mainstream record shop and here I go again but how the hell do I not remember this one. Or rather this video. When I think about the emergence of Kylie Minogue from the shackles of her Stock, Aitken and Waterman past as a serious dance artist, the two things that come to mind are her No 2 single “Confide In Me” and that she was signed to trendy dance label Deconstruction. I don’t recall any of the follow up singles of which “Put Yourself In My Place” was the first. I can only conclude that I can’t have caught this particular TOTP that showed Kylie’s video for the song in which she goes nude. Intentionally an homage to the famous scene in 1968 sci-fi film Barbarella starring Jane Fonda, it probably loses sight of its primary function which is to promote the song but instead it created more of a story about itself. Maybe the director was working on the adage any promotion is good promotion.

The song itself is pretty good, a slick piece of pop balladry that Kylie’s traditionally criticised vocals suit perfectly. It probably deserved better than a peak of No 11 and certainly deserved better than being overshadowed by its infamous video.

To say that Sinéad O’Connor is such a recognisable name in the world of music, her collection of Top 40 singles is rather small. This one, “Thank You For Hearing Me”, was only her fifth under her name alone since her debut hit “Mandinka” in 1988 and the only subsequent chart entries she had were as a featured artist on records by the likes of Ian Brown, Shane MacGowan and Massive Attack. Somehow though, she seems to have clocked up a fair few TOTP appearances in 1994. I think this might be the third. There was one for her song from the soundtrack to In The Name Of The Father which didn’t end up being a hit and then wasn’t she on the other week in the album chart slot doing “Fire On Babylon” from her “Universal Mother” album? I think she was. This one though was for a bona fide Top 40 song when “Thank You For Hearing Me” peaked at No 13 as the official lead single from the album. It was a deserved hit as well. A hypnotic, almost hymnal composition; this was the kind of material that suited her voice perfectly and was a good vehicle to get people talking about her talents again rather than her sometimes controversial antics.

Four days before this TOTP aired, ex The Byrds and Crosby, Stills And Nash member David Crosby was not having a good time. He’d been in hospital having a seven hour liver transplant operation. Happily, it was successful and he lived for just under another 30 years before his death earlier in 2023 aged 81. One of his co-members of that California supergroup, Stephen Stills, was presumably having a better time of it as his 1970 solo hit “Love The One You’re With” was having a bit of a revival courtesy of Luther Vandross who had recorded it for his covers album “Songs” and released it as a single. He’d recently been in the charts with a cover of Lionel Richie’s “Endless Love” as a duet with Mariah Carey of course. Having got used to not being on stage on his own, he’s recruited a huge choir to back him on his performance here. It all kind of sits together pretty well but it didn’t win over the UK record buying public and it peaked at a lowly No 31. Mind you that was six places higher than the Stephen Stills original (it was a much bigger hit in the US) and a whopping sixteen places higher than the cover by Bucks Fizz in 1986. The follow up to the surprise, career reviving “New Beginning (Mamba Seyra)”, its lack of success was seen as the final nail in the coffin of their time as chart stars and they never returned to the UK Top 40 again.

https://youtu.be/H4MBp7DZLXw

Pato Banton’s time at the top of the charts has come to an end as Baby D takes over for a two week stint with “Let Me Be Your Fantasy”. Now, a quick listen to the lyrics of this one should be enough to get a handle on what the song is about. Apparently nobody at the BBC was listening otherwise there would have surely have been a “We Call It Acieed” style furore. It’s essentially a musical exaltation of the effects of the drug ecstasy. Check these lyrics out:

Come take a trip to my wonderland
Let’s spread our wings and fly away
Lotions of love flow through your hands
See visions, colours everyday
Let me feel your warm embrace
Release the colours in your mind

Songwriters: Floyd Dyce
Let Me Be Your Fantasy lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Bucks Music Group, The Royalty Network Inc., Warner Chappell Music, Inc

The track uses words like ‘trip’, ‘higher’ and, in one line, even the word ‘ecstasy’. Good job Mike Read had long since left the BBC.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine	Let’s Get Tattoos	I didn’t…buy the record or get a tattoo
2	Jimmy Nail	Crocodile Shoes	Nah
3	Louis Armstrong	We Have All The Time In The World	No
4	New Atlantic/U4EA featuring Berri	Sunshine After The Rain	Negative
5	Jamiroquai	Half The Man	Nope
6	Kylie Minogue	Put Yourself In My Place	I did not
7	Sinéad O’Connor	Thank You For Hearing Me	It’s a no from me
8	Luther Vandross	Love The One You’re With	Not for me thanks
9	Baby D	Let Me Be Your Fantasy	And no

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001mnym/top-of-the-pops-24111994

TOTP 12 AUG 1993

Posted on October 2, 2022 by 80stastic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“River Of Dreams” peaked at No 3.

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

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

https://youtu.be/W7P5fxYssG8

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001cjqv/top-of-the-pops-12081993

TOTP 03 JUN 1993

Posted on August 31, 2022 by 80stastic

In a recent post I made a reference to the ex-footballer Chris Waddle who had just been voted the 1993 sports writers’ Player of the Year. As this is a music blog, I obviously had to mention Waddle’s almost surreal attempt at pop superstardom in 1987. I even inserted a clip of him performing on TOTP. Unfortunately that seemed to cause the misapprehension amongst some that I was mixing up my TOTP years. As such, I need to be careful in this intro as I am going to talk about his partner in crime, Glenn Hoddle. You see, the day after this TOTP aired, Glenn was appointed as the new manager of my beloved Chelsea. Back in 1993, this was big news for Chelsea fans. Growing up, I’d seen my team managed by a succession of useless gaffers like Ken Shellito, Danny Blanchflower and Geoff Hurst. The latest incumbent Ian Porterfield had been similarly challenged. Hoddle, by contrast, was in demand after taking unfashionable Swindon Town into the Premier League. Plus, he brought some glamour with him. At 36 years of age, he was young for a manager and of course he had been a pop star (of sorts) in the 80s. Let’s see if there’s anyone in this show who can hold a light to Glenn in his “Diamond Lights” pomp…

…oh God no! Not him! I knew it must be coming as it’s one of the big hits of 1993 but I always, always hated it. I talk of Haddaway and his Eurodance song “What Is Love”. This guy was like a German Sydney Youngblood in that both served in the forces before deciding they’d give this pop star lark a go – Haddaway was in the Navy (you can sail the seven seas) and Youngblood the US Army. His debut single was pretty much No 1 in every country in Europe apart from the UK where he had to be satisfied with a No 2. Yes, it was catchy but all those Eurodance hits were catchy – it didn’t guarantee any measure of quality though. It’s not even that Haddaway couldn’t sing as the guy clearly had some pipes on him. It’s just that there seems to be a never ending conveyor belt of this sort of stuff this year and even by early June I was sick of it all. Yes, I guess it’s got a bit more soul to it than something like “No Limit” but that stabbing synth riff used to make my skin crawl.

The other reason I couldn’t take Haddaway seriously was that, having spent three years in Sunderland as a student, hearing his name immediately sent the synapses in my brain firing to arrive at the North East phrase of ‘hadaway n’ shite’ – a proclamation of negativity or disbelief to put it politely.

Look, if I want a song called “What Is Love” there’s one right here which is infinitely more preferable to me…

Isn’t this No 1 yet? Must surely be next week then. UB40’s version of “(I Can’t Help) Falling In Love With You” has exploded sales wise – we were shifting loads of it in the Our Price store in Rochdale where I was working – though I was never quite sure why. It just sounded so clunky and mechanical and…well…ham-fisted in its production. All the charm of the song seemed to have been sucked out of it. Nothing wrong with putting a completely different spin on a song of course but it felt like they put as much love into it as they would have writing a shopping list. Compare their laborious take on the song with this joyous version from 1986 by Lick The Tins…

I know the UB40 version was on the soundtrack to the film Sliver but surely that wasn’t responsible for its popularity was it? I’ve never seen the film but it was an erotic thriller so surely didn’t have that mainstream appeal of something like Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves and we all know what that film did for Bryan Adams. Surely the age rating it would have been given would have precluded some potential record buyers from even getting into the cinema? I’m guessing that the promo video for the single is based around CCTV scenes featured in the movie some of which clearly indicate that Sharon Stone’s character has gone further than just crossing her legs as per her Fatal Attraction character. I’m no prude but I’m surprised the BBC didn’t edit them out.

Right here comes Jamiroquai to “Blow Your Mind” except that this track was hardly going to do that. It’s just a watered down version of their first hit “Too Young To Die” isn’t it? A jam session that’s been told it’s a song and believed the messenger. Jay Kay just scats his way through it with a lot of Fast Show jazz club free-styling – the wearing of his trademark silly hat doesn’t convince. Neither does the staging of this performance. Why has the stage been made to look like someone’s living room? There’s two sofas with members of the band sat precariously on arms and a backrest (that’s the sort of thing I’d tell my child off about) plus a fruit bowl on a coffee table possibly featuring plastic fruit. Why? How is that a depiction of blowing your mind? Just nonsense.

“Blow Your Mind” peaked at No 12, a chart position so high that it is the only thing that is mind blowing about the whole release.

Now, host Tony Dortie informs us that the next artist should have been performing live in the studio but she’s unwell so we have to make do with the video for “Lords Of The New Church” by Tasmin Archer. On reflection, surely this track should have been the follow up to her No 1 smash “Sleeping Satellite” rather than the excellent but commercially challenged “In Your Care”? It’s much more up tempo and certainly more radio friendly and, according to Tasmin herself, was written about a new breed of politicians in the early 90s and definitely not the 80s post punk band of the same name.

All of the above theory though is debunked by the chart position the single attained – a lowly high of No 26, ten places lower even than its predecessor. Was Tasmin losing her audience already at this point? If so, could it have been halted if the release order of “In Your Care” and “Lords Of The New Church” had been reversed? We’ll never know but what is a fact is that she suffered from a case of diminished returns when it came to her five hit singles whose chart peaks were:

1 – 16 – 26 – 30 – 40

I’m not sure what’s going on in the video which seems to revolve around a man in a gold lame suit and a Stetson hat travelling through Nevada on his way to Las Vegas. Perhaps a studio performance from Tasmin might have sold the record more. When you consider that she was scheduled to do just that but couldn’t due to ill health, was that single event a sliding doors moment in her career? Yeah, I’m probably reading too much into that aren’t I?

Here come this week’s Breakers starting with Sade and their (Sade are a band not a singer remember) single “No Ordinary Love”. A little bit of a chart curio this one. I’d forgotten this but this was actually the second time it had been a Top 40 hit in under a year. How so? Well, originally released as the lead single to fourth album “Love Deluxe”, it had peaked at No 26. Sade had even performed it in the TOTP studio. However, subsequent singles from the album had failed to chart and sales of the album were less than its predecessor. In fact, much like Tasmin Archer, Sade had suffered from diminished returns as well but with their albums. “Love Deluxe” sold half of what third album “Stronger Than Pride” sold which in turn sold half of sophomore album “Promise”. All of them performed less well than the iconic debut “Diamond Life”.

As such, were Epic Records in a panic about their artist’s commercial value and that’s why they rereleased a single that had proven to be popular (albeit in a small way)? Maybe but it seems more of a case of opportunism as the rerelease* was surely due to the inclusion of the song in the film Indecent Proposal. Yes, if a song was in a film in 1993 it was more than likely to be an erotic thriller and probably this one. Strangely though, despite featuring in the actual film proper, it didn’t make it onto the official soundtrack. Maybe that’s why the promo video doesn’t include any clips from the film in it – probably some complicated licensing issues. Ah yes, the promo video that sees Sade Adu as a mermaid. Hmm. I wonder what angle the director was going for?

The rereleased “No Ordinary Love” peaked at No 14.

*When is a re-release actually a re-entry? Apparently the 1993 version had the same track listing and catalogue number as its 1992 counterpart.

And talking of Indecent Proposal…here’s a song that is on the official soundtrack to the film. We saw Lisa Stansfield on the show in person last week performing “In All The Right Places” and that exposure has helped propel it into the charts at No 13. As she’s in the Breakers section, it’s the video this time which does include scenes from the film. As I mentioned last week, rumours persisted at the time that Lisa had been offered the Demi Moore role in the film. Whether she was or not, what is true is that she did finally get to appear in a film some six years later when she starred in musical comedy Swing opposite Hugo Speer. I’ve never seen it but it gets decent reviews online so it might be worth a watch plus she recorded most of the music for it.

So who remembers this? “Three Little Pigs” by Green Jellÿ? Yeah, I know. You’ve tried to forget it. I really wasn’t excited by the concept of a comedy rock band from America I have to say but that’s what this lot were having been around since 1981. One of their early songs was called “I’ve Got Poo-Poo On My Shoe” so we shouldn’t have been surprised by this god awful retelling of the Three Little Pigs fairytale. They had form.

The musicianship is intentionally bad (that’s part of the joke you see) whilst much was made of the ‘hilarious’ stop motion clay animation video. It was hardly original though was it? We’d already seen this sort of parody single back in the 80s from the likes of Weird Al Yankovic and The Firm, the latter of which had also used the same video technique to great effect on their No 1 single “Star Trekkin’”. I didn’t get why this was so popular (the single went Top 5) unless it was kids buying it thinking they were being rebellious.

They followed this up with a cover of “Anarchy In The UK” that they interlaced with references to The Flintstones. Again, not original as The Screaming Blue Messiahs beat them to it by about five years with their “I Wanna Be A Flintstone” hit.

Ah, some proper music now or as host Tony Dortie describes it “some solid musical nourishment” courtesy of A–ha who are back with new single “Dark Is The Night”. Nothing to do with the Shakatak single of the same name, this was the trio’s first UK Top 40 hit since “Crying In The Rain” three years before and was the lead single from their fifth studio album “Memorial Beach”.

By 1993, A-ha’s days of being teen pin-ups were well behind them but then they’d never really pursued that anyway. It was kind of a byproduct of their Scandinavian good looks. However, they definitely seemed determined to shed that image with a song like “Dark Is The Night” which is such a more mature sound than something like “Touchy” or “Take On Me”. I liked it but not too many others seemed to. Its chart trajectory petered out at No 19 whilst the album got no higher than No 17 and produced no further hits. The commercial failure of the project convinced the band to take a seven year hiatus before returning with the “Minor Earth, Major Sky” album.

That means that this could well be the last time we see A-ha on TOTP which also means one final chance for me to indulge in an activity I had been doing since I was 17 and which I was still doing in 1993 despite it being my 25th birthday three days after this TOTP aired. I am, of course, referring to ‘Morton Harket hair watch’. My fascination with Morton’s barnet had been with me through A Levels, Polytechnic and even getting married. My aim – to get my hair to look like his. Here he seems to have grown it and let it flop with no product aided quiff to be seen. Surely I could achieve that?! Sadly, even if I could, my complete lack of cheekbones meant I would never pull off the Morten look convincingly.

https://youtu.be/Whk9qSC3D-Y

As the Tory party leadership contest draws to a close and we stand at the dawn of a new PM, what better act to mark the event than P.M. Dawn?! You think I’m done with the crappy puns? Hell no! It seems now that it is “More Than Likely” that Liz Truss will be the next UK Prime Minister. Heaven help us all. OK, now I’m done – back to the matter at hand. This was the very last of six UK Top 40 hits for both artists concerned here P.M. Dawn and Boy George though this one only just made it peaking at No 40 despite this TOTP appearance at Disneyworld no less. It’s not quite as bonkers as New Order on the set of Baywatch on Venice Beach but it’s up there. It’s a decidedly odd vista, the two of them togged up in completely inappropriate clothes for the weather, sat down metres apart for the whole performance with the Disney castle towering above them in the background. @TOTPFacts has the story behind the location:

This PM Dawn/Boy George performance in Disneyworld apparently took place during a layover on George's flight from London to Buenos Aires for his first South American tour. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) August 26, 2022

The song itself is another gorgeous P.M. Dawn melody which suits Boy George’s vocals perfectly. It really should have been a bigger hit. I had a promo copy of parent album “The Bliss Album…?” which includes a rather wonderful version of “Norwegian Wood” by The Beatles:

It all ended tragically for the original line up of the group. DJ Minitemix was accused of sexually assaulting a 14 year old relative and was subsequently fired from the band whilst Prince Be died of renal disease in 2016.

This is starting to feel like overkill now as we get the third song on the show from the film Indecent Proposal and a fourth from an erotic thriller if you include UB40’s from Sliver. A Breaker last week, Bryan Ferry is in the studio this week (with everyone’s trusty sidekick bass player alongside, the ubiquitous Gail Ann Dorsey) to perform “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow”. As with P.M. Dawn and Boy George earlier, this would be Bryan’s final UK chart single although he would continue to have big selling albums.

As usual, Bryan is effortlessly cool but it all looks a bit too comfy and predictable for me. The reaction he provoked with his debut TOTP appearance in 1972 with Roxy Music performing “Virginia Plain” is a million miles away from what he’s doing here. Maybe it’s unfair to compare them. Maybe.

https://youtu.be/qx9jD87obTA

I’m not sure that I ever knew until now that “All That She Wants” hitmakers Ace Of Base were a family group (well almost). Three of the four members were siblings – they’re basically the Swedish Corrs. It got me thinking about other famous family bands. There’s Oasis obviously plus the Campbell clan of UB40 (pre and post their splintering). The Beach Boys featured three brothers and a cousin and then of course there’s The Osmonds and The Jackson 5. How about Kings Of Leon or the Bee Gees? There’s been a few. Where do Ace Of Base rate in this list? For me, they’re below The Partridge Family* and they weren’t even a real family! I’d almost even have Glenn and Chris before them. Almost.

*Yes, I know Shirley Jones was David Cassidy’s stepmother.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Haddaway	What Is Love	Hadaway and shite!
2	UB40	(I Can’t Help) Falling In Love With You	Nah
3	Jamiroquai	Blow Your Mind	No but my wife had the album
4	Tasmin Archer	Lords Of The New Church	Nope
5	Sade	No Ordinary Love	Negative
6	Lisa Stansfield	In All The Right Places	No
7	Green Jellÿ	Three Little Pigs	Pigshit – no
8	A-ha	Dark Is The Night	No but I have it on a Best Of CD
9	P.M. Dawn / Boy George	More Than Likely	No but I had a promo copy of the album
10	Bryan Ferry	Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow	I did not
11	Ace Of Base	All That She Wants	And no

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001bdx1/top-of-the-pops-03061993

TOTP 11 MAR 1993

Posted on July 10, 2022 by 80stastic

1993 was not a year I was looking forward to reviewing and one of the main reasons for that has now arrived in this TOTP – the unholy trinity of the three S’s. I speak of Shaggy, Shabba Ranks and Snow. The first two are both on tonight’s show whilst the latter makes his debut entry into the Top 40 this week. Somehow these three crystallised for me everything they was wrong with the charts around this time. The fact that they all arrived together at the same time probably had something to do with it. Could I have been wrong in my initial assessment? Let’s see if a gap of twenty-nine years has changed my perspective.

Opening the show though are another act who were all about the S’s so much so they had two of them in their name – it can only be Sister Sledge. Well, it could also have been Sam Smith or Sandie Shaw or Shakespear’s Sister or (God forbid) Shakin’ Stevens but let’s not go there. Seriously.

After they’d scored a hit for the third time in fourteen years with yet another remix of “We Are Family” earlier in 1993, perhaps the most obvious rerelease of all time was unleashed upon us – yes it was time once more for “Lost In Music”. Why obvious? Well, every time one song was released as a single, the other came out shortly after. Look at this lot:

26 May 1979 – “We Are Family”
21 Aug 1979 – “Lost In Music
07 Sep 1984 – “Lost In Music”
17 Nov 1984 – “We Are Family”
24 Jan 1993 – “We Are Family”
13 Mar 1993 – “Lost In Music”

I mean they’re both disco standards but is that just a teeny bit of overkill? Couldn’t they have mixed it up a bit? How about a rerelease of “Thinking Of You” instead? What? They did do that as well! It was their third hit single of 1993 when it came out again in the June. Oh come on! Wait…

*blogger is gripped by sudden panic*

They didn’t rerelease “Frankie” as well did they?! Please God no!

*checks Sister Sledge discography*

Oh thank f**k for that. They didn’t. I couldn’t have hoped with a second helping if that on the show. I’d have barfed for sure.

The 1993 version of “Lost In Music” peaked at No 14.

What’s that you say Tony Dortie (in your daft hat)? Bruce Dickinson is leaving Iron Maiden? Did he? I have to say that this piece of blockbusting news must have passed me by at the time. Having read up on the story, it seems that Bruce had announced he was leaving the band before they headed out on a forty-six date world tour. It doesn’t sound like a good idea and indeed it wasn’t. Both his band mates and their fanbase were pissed off with Dickinson for putting the group’s future in doubt. Maybe keeping schtum about leaving to pursue your solo career until after the tour is done may have been the way to go Bruce?

Anyway, this live single “Fear Of The Dark” wasn’t from Dickinson’s final tour as it hadn’t yet happened. Instead it was, rather obviously, from the previous year’s Fear Of The Dark tour which was enshrined forever in the resultant album “A Real Live One”. Now, I wouldn’t need every finger of one hand to list the number of Iron Maiden songs that I like but this one starts off in a rather un-Maiden-esque style with Dickinson laying off on the over the top throaty vocals and with a low key intro but then they resort to type and it loses my interest immediately. It peaked at No 8 thanks to that newly pissed off but still sizeable fanbase.

And so we return to those pesky S’s now as we find Shaggy on his way to the top of the charts with “Oh Carolina”. Up to No 2 this week and with 2 Unlimited now in their fifth week at the pinnacle, Tony Dortie’s prediction of it being No 1 the following week was hardly the stuff of Nostradamus. Yet it was, at the same time, an unlikely chart topper. Apparently “Oh Carolina” would be the first ‘reggae’ No 1 since Aswad’s “Don’t Turn Around” in 1988 if you can classify that as a reggae track and if you ignore the dub reggae of “Dub Be Good To Me” by Beats International in 1990. The following week, Snow’s “Informer” would storm to No 8 meaning there would be three reggae influenced singles in the Top 10 simultaneously for the first time ever. It was a strange time in the UK charts but why and how had this shake up of the charts come to be? Maybe it was just the law of averages and probability – it had to happen some time.

I worked for Our Price throughout the 90s and we used to source the majority of our reggae stock from the supplier Jetstar. In my memory, they are who we ordered the Shaggy single from though I could be wrong about that. Whenever you used to ring their telesales team with an order, you were guaranteed to talk to someone effortlessly cool on the other end of the line. It always sounded like the atmosphere in the Jetstar office was just one long, chilled out sesh with the occasional bit of work done now and then if they felt like it. I’m sure they are all really hard working but that was the vibe that was projected. I was jealous. Also having a good time is Shaggy who is clearly enjoying himself in this performance probably riding on the confidence of knowing he’ll have a No 1 record soon enough.

And so we come to easily the most objectionable of the three S’s of 1993 – “Mr Loverman”, Shabba Ranks. I hated everything about this; the song, its success and of course Ranks himself not least of all because of this interview on The Word:

https://youtu.be/8WQ_xoCkSds

Let’s have it right, what a f*****g arsehole! Thankfully Mark Lamarr was on hand to call him out unlike Dani Behr who wanted to sweep it all under the carpet and move on. That took place in 1992 and by March 1993, Ranks had put out a public apology for his grotesque words. Funnily enough it coincided with the rerelease of the “Mr Loverman” single. Do you think his record company Sony put some pressure on him to retract what he had said so that their product wasn’t dead in the water before it started? Yes, I did say rerelease as the single had already been a hit once the previous August when it got to No 23. Presumably the rising profile of dancehall and the success of Shaggy convinced Sony to roll the dice again and so it became a No 3 hit second time around.

The track became infamous for the use of the ‘Shabba!’ shout out which became a catch all catchphrase for just about any situation. My favourite use of it though was by Ray Von from Phoenix Nights…

It’s a third time on the show for Bryan Ferry and his treatment of “I Put A Spell On You”. Now originally I had thought that this might be just a rebroadcast of the first time Ferry did a studio performance as the staging is almost exactly the same but it isn’t as the cut away to the next act reveals. This raises the question of quite why Ferry just gave an identikit performance again? I mean I think there’s less dancers this week but everything else including the performers outfits are the same. I guess I expected a bit more creativity from Bryan than that.

“I Put A Spell On You” peaked at No 18.

I find it hard to remember but there was a time when Jamiroquai’s sound was regarded as fresh and new and exciting. That sensation didn’t last long as petty soon everything they released sounded exactly the same as..well…everything else they’d ever released. Back in 1993 though Jay Kay was a hip, young groover bringing his brand of acid jazz, soul/funk vibes to the nation. I guess he’s always been a divisive figure though. Early on he suffered from accusations of plagiarising Stevie Wonder and of being a hypocrite for espousing environmental themes in his lyrics whilst having an obsession with the collection of fast, expensive cars. Subsequent misdemeanours like being charged with assaulting a photographer and waxing lyrical in concert about how great his then partner Denise Van Outen’s breasts were didn’t do his image any favours.

I always thought “Too Young To Die” was Jamiroquai’s first single but there’d been one before it called “When You Gonna Learn” in 1992 which had made No 28 on the charts but which had escaped my attention completely. It was their first single for Sony though which may account for my confusion. As for the performance here, you have to admit that Jay Kay (it’s all about him really in much the same way that Simply Red is all about Hucknall) makes quite the impression. His vocals are good (though the ‘de de de de do’ chorus is unmistakably Wonder-esque) but it’s his look which grabs the attention. Watching him now, the first thing that springs to mind is how hot he must have been under the studio lights in his oversized clobber. Ah yes, the clothes or more specifically that hat! It would become Kay’s signature look and inform the ‘buffalo man’ logo that would be the face of the band’s brand featuring on the art work for the covers of their first four albums. Some thought had clearly gone into this from a marketing point of view.

Did I like their sound? Yeah, initially. My wife liked it so much she bought that first album “Emergency On Planet Earth”. I think I got bored with it quite quickly though. “Too Young To Die” made it all the way to the Top 10 and the album was a platinum selling No 1. The time of Jamiroquai had begun.

Next a band who, like many before them, suffer from the misguided belief by many that they were a one hit wonder. PM Dawn really weren’t though their biggest and most memorable success did rather overshadow the rest of their back catalogue which is a shame. The Spandau Ballet sampling “Set Adrift On Memory Bliss” was that huge hit of course from the Summer of 1991 and we hadn’t heard that much from the duo since. The follow up single “Paper Doll” had been scrunched up and binned when it failed to make the Top 40 whilst two further singles had at least charted though neither got further than No 29. “Looking Through Patient Eyes” would correct that though when it peaked at No 11.

Turning from Spandau Ballet to George Michael for inspiration on this one – the track heavily samples “Father Figure” – it was another great example of their wordy rapping (hood) allied to a mellow yet catchy sound. It was taken from their second album the title of which confirmed their verbose credentials – “The Bliss Album…? (Vibrations Of Love And Anger And The Ponderance Of Life And Existence)”. They really did have a thing about word heavy album titles. Their debut was called “Of The Heart, Of The Soul And Of The Cross: The Utopian Experience” whilst their fourth carried the title of “Dearest Christian, I’m So Very Sorry For Bringing You Here. Love Dad”. Like the Ferry album “Taxi”, Our Price got a promo copy of the album which ended up in my possession. My wife even made a cover for it.

Sadly, Prince Be died in 2016 after suffering for years from diabetes related conditions including having one of his legs amputated at the knee due to gangrene.

If it’s…we’ll any year since 1958 actually…then there must be a Cliff Richard single out. 1993’s first offering of that particular year was a song called “Peace In Our Time”. This is yet another song I don’t recall at all. I wonder what it sounds like?

*watches Cliff’s performance back*

Oh this is just a glorious tune. So full of life and positivity and…nah, you got me. It’s just the same old Cliff shite that he’d been peddling for years. Apparently a hit for Eddie Money in the US in the late 80s, it’s just sanctimonious crap about having faith, putting songs in our hearts and building a heaven on earth. It even goes on about turning water into wine! Just horrible. If I want a song called “Peace In Our Time”, there’s always this…

Cliff’s got all his usual mates with him here backing him up – Janey Lee Grace, that bloke from Modern Romance – whilst the main man himself does his usual weird arm movements. At one point he’s only a flick of the wrist away from doing a Bruce Forsyth pose. Cliff, of course, was at Wimbledon last week doing his usual cringe fest crowd singalong. For the love of God Cliff, give it a rest and grant us some peace in our time! By the way, I can’t find the TOTP performance so here’s a clip from some German pop show:

It’s the final week at the top for 2 Unlimited with “No Limit”. After positing the theory the other week that dance acts couldn’t sell albums, Ray and Anita completely debunk this by having a No 1 with parent album “No Limits” (note the plural). Released on the PWL label in the UK, Pete Waterman made the decision to remove Ray’s raps from the tracks which only increased the ‘there’s no lyrics’ jibes in the press. The ribbing was continued in later weeks by some unlikely critics – the Scottish popsters The Bluebells who had some fun at 2 Unlimited’s expense by shouting out ‘Techno, techno, techno, techno’ during a TOTP performance of their rejuvenated hit “Young At Heart”. Those cheeky scamps!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I Buy It?
1	Sister Sledge	Lost In Music ’93	Nope
2	Iron Maiden	Fear Of The Dark (Live)	Never
3	Shaggy	Oh Carolina	Nah
4	Shabba Ranks	Mr Loverman	Hell no!
5	Bryan Ferry	I Put A Spell On You	No but I had a promo of the album
6	Jamiroquai	Too Young To Die	No but my wife had the album
7	PM Dawn	Looking Through Patient Eyes	See 5 above
8	Cliff Richard	Peace In Our Time	What do you think?!
9	2 Unlimited	No Limit	Negative

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/m0018zst/top-of-the-pops-11031993

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 24 JUL 1998

Disclaimer

TOTP 09 MAY 1997

Disclaimer

TOTP 13 SEP 1996

Disclaimer

TOTP 30 AUG 1996

Disclaimer

TOTP 30 MAY 1996

Disclaimer

TOTP 29 JUN 1995

Disclaimer

TOTP 24 NOV 1994

Disclaimer

TOTP 12 AUG 1993

Disclaimer

TOTP 03 JUN 1993

Disclaimer

TOTP 11 MAR 1993

Disclaimer