Jamiroquai

TOTP 12 AUG 1993

Posted on 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’?

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 appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Green JellÿAnarchy In The UKNever!
2Sarah WashingtonI Will Always Love YouNo chance
3Billy JoelRiver Of DreamsNot likely
4Bad Boys IncDon’t Talk About LoveNO!
5Culture BeatMr. VainI did not
6Ice CubeCheck Yo SelfNo
7Ali And FrazierUptown Top RankingI’d rather get punched in the face
8JamiroquaiEmergency On Planet EarthNo but my wife had the album
9Spin DoctorsLittle Miss Can’t Be WrongNo but maybe I should have
10Apache IndianBoom Shack-A-LakIt was fun but no
11Aswad / YazzHow LongToo long – no
12Freddie MercuryLiving On My OwnAnd 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 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.

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:

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.

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 appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1HaddawayWhat Is LoveHadaway and shite!
2UB40(I Can’t Help) Falling In Love With YouNah
3JamiroquaiBlow Your MindNo but my wife had the album
4Tasmin ArcherLords Of The New ChurchNope
5Sade No Ordinary LoveNegative
6Lisa StansfieldIn All The Right PlacesNo
7Green JellÿThree Little PigsPigshit – no
8A-haDark Is The NightNo but I have it on a Best Of CD
9P.M. Dawn / Boy GeorgeMore Than LikelyNo but I had a promo copy of the album
10Bryan Ferry Will You Still Love Me TomorrowI did not
11Ace Of BaseAll That She WantsAnd 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.

TOTP 11 MAR 1993

Posted on 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 that 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 coped with a second helping of 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:

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 appearanceArtistTitleDid I Buy It?
1Sister SledgeLost In Music ’93Nope
2Iron MaidenFear Of The Dark (Live)Never
3ShaggyOh CarolinaNah
4Shabba RanksMr LovermanHell no!
5Bryan Ferry I Put A Spell On YouNo but I had a promo of the album
6JamiroquaiToo Young To DieNo but my wife had the album
7PM DawnLooking Through Patient EyesSee 5 above
8Cliff RichardPeace In Our TimeWhat do you think?!
92 UnlimitedNo LimitNegative

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