TOTP 02 JUL 1992
We’re jumping about in two week increments at the moment at TOTP Rewind. We’ve only had two consecutive ‘92 shows in these repeats since BBC4 reached the end of April editions. This is of course due to ‘year zero’ presenter Adrian Rose who decided not to sign the waiver paperwork for the shows he featured in. Given the abuse he regularly gets from the online TOTP community, I wonder if he still stands by that decision. He probably doesn’t give a toss does he?
Talking of decisions, a huge one had been made at the BBC which resulted in an event that took place the day after this TOTP aired. Yes, Friday 3rd July 1992 saw the last ever episode of the Wogan talk show broadcast. Its ten year tenure was finally brought to an end and saw it replaced by new BBC soap Eldorado. Remember that? It was god awful and beset with problems not the least of which was that the producers had cast some totally inexperienced actors in the roles. It lasted just 12 months before being axed. Oh and it was nothing to do with this bunch of monstrously haired pop hopefuls who were big in the mid 80s in Italy but absolutely nowhere else on the planet…
Anyway, back to Wogan and that final show. His guests included Frank Bruno, Michael Crawford and Jason Donovan who provided one of the musical interludes. In a recent article in Classic Pop magazine, regular columnist Ian Peel made a case that the Wogan archives were a treasure trove of great pop performances. Unlike TOTP, artists promoting their latest singles didn’t necessarily have to have already cracked the Top 40 and in some cases never did. This led to some wonderful footage that otherwise might never have existed. I bet Drum Theatre were on the show at some point! Anyway, might be worth a look on YouTube for some lost performances if you have too much time on your hands like me.
With that context set, let’s get on with the show. There’s only one presenter tonight (Tony Dortie) and I think this tweak of the format comes to be the standard in the weeks to come. We begin with something from the US charts and it’s Arrested Development with “Tennessee”. With the gangsta rap genre on the rise, this hip hop ensemble took rap in a different direction with a more melodic approach. They combined that with lyrical themes that espoused spirituality and freedom rather than the misogyny and street gang culture of gangsta rap. It helped to create a winning formula that propelled their debut album “3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days In The Life Of…” to sales of over 6 million copies worldwide.
Initially though, they weren’t an immediate hit in the UK. This single “Tennessee” missed the Top 40 on its original release though it would become a hit here when rereleased the following year. It took next single, the Sly & The Family Stone copying “People Everyday”, to break the dam allowing success to flood in when it hit No 2 in the charts towards the end of the year. My wife was so taken with them that she bought the album.
More a collective than a band, the project spilt in 1996 after declining sales but reformed in 2000 and have since released twelve albums. They’re currently on tour and playing a gig in my neck of the woods in Cottingham in April. There’s even talk of us going.
I can’t find a clip of the TOTP performance online so the official promo video will have to suffice.
The sound of Staffordshire rave now as Altern–8 bring us their latest dance floor banger that has the figure 8 in its title, that being their trademark and all. Well, that and the face masks and hazmat suits. “Hypnotic St-8” is their latest offering but this performance isn’t about the track at all. No, the only thing to concern us here are the two fully adidas trackied up geezers throwing some shapes behind the singer. They look proper mental. Totally off their tits. Surely that couldn’t have been faked could it? There must have been some chemical substances involved. I wonder who these guys were? Mates of the band or just some random clubheads that they picked up off the streets? The latter looks more likely given the state of them. Wow!
“Hypnotic St-8” peaked at No 16.
Due to the missed Adrian Rose shows, this is the second post running that I have to find something to say about Def Leppard and their almost unspeakable single “Make Love Like A Man”. This week it’s the promo video but it might as well be the band in the studio again as it’s just a straight performance promo intercut with some old time movie footage possibly featuring stars like Harold Lloyd or Lillian Gish though I’m no cinephile of that era so I could be wrong on that score. The song is all tongue in cheek, knockabout fun according to the band so I don’t suppose we should read too much into the film clips.
Although “Make Love Like A Man” was a big hit on the US Rock chart, the band’s ability to cross over into the US mainstream Billboard Hot 100 – as they had done in the late 80s with the “Hysteria” album – had diminished by 1992 and it only made No 36 there. UK fans were more loyal taking it to No 12.
This is more like it! Electronic hadn’t been seen on the show since “Get The Message” made the Top 10 over a year earlier but now they were back but, as Tory Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Brandon Lewis might say, in a very specific and limited way. It took five years for Bernard Sumner and Johnny Marr to record a follow up album to 1991’s eponymous debut and in the meantime the only new material we got to hear was this one off single “Disappointed”. Taken from the soundtrack to absolutely rotten live action/animation hybrid film Cool World, it featured the vocals once again of Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant who sang on their debut hit “Getting Away With It” in 1989. It’s a perfect bit of pop confection that would prove to be their biggest hit when it peaked at No 6.
Given that it’ll be years before we see them once more, I might as well tell my Johnny Marr story again. It was November 1999 – I was working as Assistant Manager at the Our Price store in Altrincham and Sacha Baron Cohen’s Ali G character is taking UK TV audiences by storm. It’s Monday morning and the Ali G ‘Innit’ video has just been released. The demand for it is very high. Our store has sold out its initial allocation by lunchtime. My colleague Lisa takes a phone call from a member of the public who is enquiring if we have any of the video in stock. She tells the caller we do but crucially without checking our stock levels. Fast forward to late afternoon and who should walk into the shop but Johnny Marr! He comes straight up to me on the counter and asks for the Ali G video. I inform him that we have sold out unfortunately. This information gets Johnny very agitated. “I rang up earlier and was told you had it in. I left the recording studio early to come and buy it” he informs me. I’m not getting given down the banks by Johnny Marr for something that’s not my fault I quickly surmise and so ring upstairs to the stockroom to find out who had taken the phone call. Lisa comes on the line and admits it was her. I ask if she checked stock levels before telling Marr we had it in and she says no she didn’t. To my utter shame I tell Lisa that she has to come downstairs, apologise and explain to Johnny Marr no less exactly what happened and why he can’t buy the Ali G video. To Lisa’s eternal credit she does exactly that. I still feel bad to this day.
By the way, this wasn’t the only single called “Disappointed” from 1992 that I liked. I even bought this one…
Just two Breakers this week and yet again neither would end up being on the show in its full form. We start with The B52s and a track which was both their new single and title track of their next album. After achieving massive unexpected (and possibly unwanted?) commercial success with the “Cosmic Thing” long player, did the band feel the pressure to come up with an equally successful follow up? It seemed like it when they released “Good Stuff” with the track itself sounding like a rewrite of their biggest hit “Love Shack”. It wasn’t that it was awful just a bit uninspired and obvious. The big difference between “Cosmic Thing” and “Good Stuff” was the crucial missing ingredient of Cindy Wilson who had taken time out from the band to start a family. Now reduced to a trio, it just didn’t work as well despite the presence of uber producers Don Was and Nile Rodgers. The album did pick up an alternative Grammy nomination but lost out to “Bone Machine” by Tom Waits which incidentally includes one of my favourite ever Waits tunes in “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up”.
Despite steady sales the album didn’t do nearly as well as its predecessor and the band would not release any new material for 15 years. “Good Stuff” the single peaked at No 21 in the UK and No 28 in the US.
Incidentally, as there are only two Breakers tonight they’re getting what seems to be double the air time that artists on this section get when there are four. Both The B-52s and second Breaker Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine get at least a minute’s worth of exposure when 30 seconds has been the norm. So to CTUSM who are really making the most of their annus mirabilis. How many hits in ‘92 have they had now? They seem to be on every other week! It’s actually the third but if you count everything since the “Sheriff Fatman” re-release in June of ‘91 then it’s five Top 40 hits in just over a year. This one is “Do Re Me So Far So Good” and was another track from their “1992 – The Love Album” long player. It’s good and all that but their tunes were all starting to merge into one a bit for me by this point.
Now, this story about Jim Bob and Fruitbat not being able to perform live as planned due to being taken ill in rehearsals. Was that true? Here’s Tony Dortie with a different version of events to the one he gave in show 30 years ago plus a retort from Jim Bob himself:
And there’s more. Here’s Jim Bob again with his own version of what went down:
So who do you believe? “Do Re Me Do Far So Good” peaked at No 22.
And so to the second biggest selling single of the year in the UK. Did anybody see a Snap! revival coming in ‘92? I’m pretty sure I didn’t. After four Top 10 hits (including a No 1) in ‘90 from their “World Power” album, I thought the (ahem) ‘Cult of Snap’ was over. How wrong could I have been? I mean it’s not as wrong as Priti Patel being Home Secretary but still. Suffice to say I hadn’t read the room (or pop landscape anyway).
“Rhythm Is A Dancer” was a huge tune spending six weeks atop the charts over here. It was also No 1 all over Europe and was Top 5 in America. Of course, you can’t mention this song without reference to that lyric about being serious as cancer but it’s origins may lie with Eric B. and Rakim. Here’s @TOTPFacts with the story:
OK, well if it’s going to No 1 for six weeks, I think I’ll leave it there and keep my powder dry.
Blimey! The TOTP producers loved “Hazard” by Richard Marx didn’t they?! Is this the third time it’s been on? This time it’s one of those satellite live link up jobs. Coming direct from LA, Richard is joined by a band of five very serious looking musos whilst he’s decided to come dressed as if he’s got a stint presenting Play School to do after he’s finished singing. Again I’ve drawn a blank on YouTube as this satellite performance isn’t listed so the official promo video will have to do.
Marx would eke out two more Top 40 hits from the “Rush Street” album that Tony Dortie mentions (both with the word ‘heart’ in the title) but neither came close to replicating the success of “Hazard”. A bit like when Eden Hazard never came close to replicating the form of his time at Chelsea when he moved to Real Madrid.
Now if Snap!’s comeback was unforeseen then the return of the next act must have been a 1,000,000-1 bet down at Ladbrokes. Jimmy Nail had one brief stint as a pop star in ‘85 when his version of Rose Royce’s “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore” was a No 3 hit almost certainly off the back of his success as Oz in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. Presumably his second assault on the charts was initiated by his successful TV show Spender. That had just finished its second season in February so Jimmy’s profile was high. As such, maybe it was considered to be the optimum time to give that pop lark another whirl.
Nail’s pop career mark II was to be launched on a different record label. First time round he’d been signed to Virgin but this time he was with EastWest home of Simply Red. Well, they certainly knew about massive selling albums having ‘91’s best seller in “Stars” so maybe Jimmy and his management thought they could do a job for him too. Surely though nobody involved in the project could have predicted a No 1 single which is what “Ain’t No Doubt” delivered. So long had it been since his first pop incarnation that when “Ain’t No Doubt” first started receiving airplay, people didn’t know who the singer was. This was no more evident than on Simon Mayo’s Radio 1 breakfast show. Mayo decided to play the single to the rest of his Breakfast crew to see if they could recognise the singer. Nobody could although the late Dianne Oxberry made a decent guess at The Kane Gang. Dianne was from County Durham so at least would have recognised the North East accent.
“Ain’t No Doubt” would end up as the eighth best selling UK single of the year. Not bad for a glass factory worker who’d served time in prison and who had never acted professionally until his break in Auf Wiedersehen Pet when he was already nearly 30.
A triple helping of Erasure is served up to end the show. We’ve only seen their version of “Take A Chance On Me” from the “ABBA-esque EP” so far on the show but now we get to see videos for two of the other tracks on it in “Lay All Your Love On Me” and “Voulez Vous”. Not all of the videos you understand – all three are squeezed into just over two minutes Breakers style. This was no Oasis performing “Don’t Look Back In Anger” and “Cum On Feel The Noize” or The Jam doing both “Town Called Malice” and “Precious” on the show. Still, it was an attempt to do something different or as Tony Dortie tweeted:
As for the videos themselves, “Lay All Your Love On Me” has a Little Red Riding Hood motif which then morphs into Vince and Andy riding motorcycles through a forest background which reminded me of Star Wars Return Of The Jedi. You know that bit on the planet with the ewoks where there’s a chase scene between stormtroopers and…whoever it is (Han Solo?) on hover bikes (or something) against a forest backdrop? That one. All a bit odd.
I commented on the video for “Take A Chance On Me” in the last post so…
…onto “Voulez Vous” which is a behind-the-scenes take on the making of a pop video with lots of footage showing the staging that goes into a basic promo of Andy and Vince performing on a revolving circular stage. It’s OK but not the best concept I’ve ever seen for a pop video.
In response to the “Abba-esque EP”, Abba tribute act Bjorn Again released their own single of cover versions…of Erasure songs. Genius! The “Erasure-ish” featured “A Little Respect” and “Stop” and reached No 25 in the charts.
| Order of appearance | Artist | Title | Did I buy it? |
| 1 | Arrested Development | Tennessee | No but my wife had the album |
| 2 | Altern-8 | Hypnotic St-8 | Nah |
| 3 | Def Leppard | Make Love Like A Man | Never |
| 4 | Electronic | Disappointed | Nope |
| 5 | The B52s | Good Stuff | I did not |
| 6 | Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine | Do Re Me So Far So Good | Negative |
| 7 | Snap! | Rhythm Is A Dancer | Not for me thanks |
| 8 | Richard Marx | Hazard | No |
| 9 | Jimmy Nail | Ain’t No Doubt | Undoubtedly a decent enough tune but I couldn’t bring myself to buy it |
| 10 | Erasure | ABBA-esque EP | No but I thought my wife might have |
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/m0014zvn/top-of-the-pops-02071992
TOTP Rewind - the 90s 