Jon Bon Jovi

TOTP 14 NOV 1997

With a couple of notable exceptions, this episode of TOTP has a definite mainstream flavour to it. Nothing wrong with that necessarily – it’s just an observation. Our host is Jayne ‘knowing smirk’ Middlemiss and we begin with a second consecutive appearance from Natalie Imbruglia performing her hit “Torn”. This would definitely fall into the category of ‘mainstream’ in my book as well as being a very decent tune. However, the version we all know wasn’t how it sounded in earlier incarnations. Check out its back story – it has more chapters to it than War And Peace. This is the Danish language version by Lis Sørensen which went under the title of “Brændt” (“Burnt” in English)…

Then there’s this – the ‘grunge’ version by US rock band Ednaswap that featured two of the song’s writers in its line up – Scott Cutler and Anne Preven. Discussing “Torn” in an interview with theringer.com, Sophie B. Hawkins said that she would like to have Will Smith or Tommy Lee Jones administer her with the Men In Black memory eraser treatment so that she didn’t know the Natalie Imbruglia version allowing her to see if she could spot the potential of the Ednaswap version to be such huge pop smash.

Would she have? Would any of us? Who knows? What I do know is that after Ednaswap and Lis Sørensen and before we got to Natalie there was a stop off in Norway where singer Trine Rein had a hit with it there…

Finally, the definitive version came about when third co-writer Phil Thornalley was put together with Natalie Imbruglia by his manager and new music publisher and one time Haircut 100 member Marc Fox. It was Fox who convinced them that they should give “Torn” another shot and so they worked the track up between them for days on end until they had what they believed was the perfect pop take on it. It was a heaven sent pairing – Thornalley’s reputation for working with some of the 80s biggest names was now so far in the rear mirror as to be imperceptible to the naked eye and he was desperate to relive his past glories whilst Imbruglia wanted to throw everything she had at pursuing a pop career. They were both prepared to do the hard yards and it paid off handsomely. “Torn” tore up the charts globally going Top 5 just about everywhere whilst her album “Left Of The Middle” went multi platinum. What I remember about that album is that they changed the artwork on it. Initially, it had a rather arty four column design with different images of Natalie in each. However, subsequent reorders were fulfilled by a new design that was just a portrait of her face that accentuated her striking eyes. I always assumed that was a deliberate and blatant marketing strategy on behalf of her label. I could be wrong.

Now, these reviews take some time to put together (I’ve spent literally weeks of my life doing this for the past nine years) so when a chance for a shortcut comes along, I’m going to take it. And here is one such opportunity. “Open Road” by Gary Barlow was on the 6th June edition of the show when Gazza performed it to celebrate the release of his debut solo album of the same name. Back then, I commented on how many people he’d brought to the studio with him that day. I don’t think it’s quite as many this time though it’s a pretty large band of musicians up there with him. Also different this time is that he’s plonked behind some keyboards for this performance whereas he was wandering up and down a walkway (the titular “Open Road” maybe?) before. Anyway, to see what else I wrote about this one, just click on the link to my previous post below:

TOTP 06 JUN 1997

Now, I said earlier there were a couple of exceptions to the wall to wall mainstream running order and this next artist is one of those I was thinking of. However, did Moby sit outside of that mainstream world? Within two years, he would have a UK No 1 and a worldwide 12 million selling album that spawned eight singles so could he be considered ‘alternative’ for want of a better word? I think he’d certainly begun his career out in the left field with his techno rave hit “Go” sampling the theme from cult, surrealist horror drama Twin Peaks but here he was in 1997 doing a dance version of perhaps one of the most recognisable theme tunes in movie history. It’s a conundrum for sure.

So quite why was he turning his hand to the “James Bond Theme”? Well, it was all to do with the new Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies which was released in the UK in December. The second movie starring Pierce Brosnan as 007, it followed 1995’s Goldeneye. I’ve never been a huge Bond fan I have to say. He’s just too slick and cool a character for me to get on board with – to quote Morrissey, he “says nothing to me about my life”. Anyway, back to Moby and his ‘re-version’ (as it was officially titled) of that famous tune. It was part of the soundtrack album to Tomorrow Never Dies the theme tune of which was recorded by Sheryl Crow. I have to say that his version doesn’t do much for me and is certainly no improvement on or indeed interesting take on the original to my ears. Even Moby himself rather distances himself from his recording by apparently saying that the original is miles better than the version he did. Whilst the go to image in our minds eye of Moby might be of him behind a keyboard and not wielding a guitar, here’s @TOTPFacts to add some context to what we saw here on our TV screens:

It's not THAT strange that Moby's playing a guitar – he previously played with 4AD indie rock band Ultra Vivid Scene. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) May 9, 2025

Oh blimey! Here’s a duet that, depending on your tastes, was either made in Heaven or came directly from the bowels of Hell. The backstory to this pairing of Barbra Streisand (note spelling of first name!) and Celine Dion is that at the 1997 Oscars show, Celine became the first artist ever to perform twice on the same show. One of the songs she sang was “I Finally Found Someone” from The Mirror Has Two Faces movie (that had been a hit for Streisand and Bryan Adams) after Babs declined to perform it. Originally, Natalie Cole was scheduled to replace Streisand but when she pulled out at short notice, Celine was asked to step into the breach. So pleased was Barbra with Dion’s treatment of her song that she suggested they record a duet together. The result was “Tell Him” which I assumed was also from a film soundtrack but wasn’t. Listening to it, I could more imagine it being used in a stage musical – a bad one mind you. “Tell Him” is less a song and more an emoting contest with Céline and Babs dukin’ it out for top billing. Apparently, Barbra (watch that spelling again!) is one of Celine’s idols so maybe it was subconscious on the latter’s part but Streisand is so lost in the business of show that it must have been instinctive. With those two names involved, it couldn’t help but be a hit and it was peaking at No 3 in the UK. That made two consecutive Top 10 hits for Barbra in the UK for the first time since the late 70s/early 80s whilst Celine would go down the soundtrack route to devastating effect (and I used that world deliberately) before 1997 was out with “My Heart Will Go On”.

I was talking to someone at work the other day who is 30 years younger than me and it transpired that she’d never seen Trainspotting. Not only that but she’d never heard of it and thought it would be a film about nerdy people with an obsession about trains. It’s moments like these that make me realise how old I really am. Anyway, that rather clunky reference is my segue into the next artist who are PF Project featuring Ewan McGregor and their hit “Choose Life” based on a speech given by McGregor’s character Mark ‘Rentboy’ Renton. This would be the second of my non-mainstream hits on the show this evening but again, given the popularity of Trainspotting and the reach of the film, did it actually reside in the left field? Well, sonically I think so as it reminds me of that dance track which used to give me the fear – “Higher State Of Consciousness” by Josh Wink.

As for the that speech it was based around, well, clearly that had to be and was sanitised for commercial consumption with the offending swear words removed so a case could be made that the track had been modified for mainstream acceptability and tastes. As for the performance here, it was the usual dance hit set up with anonymous blokes behind keyboards but with McGregor’s part shown on a big screen behind them. However, as with Moby earlier, there was a guitarist on stage which must have been some sort of record for two dance track studio performances to feature that instrument on the same show.

Some acoustic action now from Jon Bon Jovi with his third solo hit of 1997 all taken from his album “Destination Anywhere”. Host Jayne Middlemiss tells us that it was written about a row with his wife in Amsterdam though he’s applied some creative licence as his wife’s name is Dorothea not Janie as in “Janie, Don’t Take Your Love To Town”. Someone commented on Twitter that Mr Jovi had clearly written this with the help of an Oasis chord book and you can kind of hear what they meant. It has that ‘busker’ quality to it that so many Noel Gallagher songs have. It’s not an unpleasant sound though and in any case, Jon must also have taken some inspiration from Kenny Rogers who, of course, had a massive hit with “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town” with his group First Edition in 1969. As of 2025 though, Jon Bon Jovi is yet to resume his solo career.

What a time 1997 had been for Texas. After eight years of trying to follow up on the success of debut album “Southside” (spearheaded by the slide guitar propelled hit “I Don’t Want A Lover”), they finally cracked it big time with their fourth studio album “White On Blonde”. A chart topping, multi-platinum selling monster, it furnished the band with four hit singles all of which went Top 10. The final one of these was “Put Your Arms Around Me” and I have to say it was by far the weakest. For me, it’s just not substantial enough and I’m surprised that it was chosen for single release. Sharleen Spiteri’s vocals are as poignant as ever but there’s just not enough to it to make it truly memorable. It’s an album filler and no more and certainly not single material.

What’s even more bemusing is that they had a glorious track closing the album called “Breathless” that would have made a fine choice as the final single release. What do I know though?

Aqua remain at No 1 for a third week of four. Although often derided and despite appearing regularly in ‘The Worst Songs Of All Time’ lists, “Barbie Girl” has quite the cultural reach, impact and legacy. Fancy hearing a South Park version? Here you go…

Or a Family Guy version? No problem…

What? You want the original? Surely not? Oh well…

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Natalie Imbruglia	Torn	Liked it, didn’t buy it
2	Gary Barlow	Open Road	Never happening
3	Moby	James Bond Theme	I did not
4	Barbra Streisand and Celine Dion	Tell Him	Never
5	PF Project featuring Ewan McGregor	Choose Life	Nah
6	Jon Bon Jovi	Janie, Don’t Take Your Love To Town	Nope
7	Texas	Put Your Arms Around Me	No but I had a promo copy of the album
8	Aqua	Barbie Girl	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/m002bx6b/top-of-the-pops-14111997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 29 AUG 1997

Posted on March 31 by 80stastic

We’ve nearly got to that point in the 90s when one the decade’s most historic events took place – the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Two days after this TOTP aired, reports started to emerge that she had been involved in a car crash in Paris before her death, aged just 36, was confirmed. It really is one of those seismic incidents which anchors you in time. I’m guessing we can all remember where we were when the story broke. I myself was in my flat in Manchester doing not very much at all (well it was a Sunday) but from the moment news came in of what had happened, the coverage was wall-to-wall. Normal life seemed to be put on hold. Now, I should say straight out that I’m not a fan of the monarchy and don’t believe in the institution but I could appreciate that this was a tragedy especially for her two young children. What I couldn’t understand though was the reaction of the general public which seemed to be frenzied hysteria – vast swathes of the population seemed to lose all sense of proportion. There were stories of people missing funerals of family and friends to go to London to watch the funeral procession on its way to Westminster Abbey. Coverage of the funeral showed people wailing uncontrollably and hurling bunches of flowers at the coffin. I just didn’t understand nor agree with, what seemed to me, to be these disproportionate displays.

The day of the funeral on 6th September saw everything close in the morning as a mark of respect and so that the nation could watch the funeral. The Our Price store where I worked dutifully complied. We opened in the afternoon and the very first bloke who came in walked straight up to the counter and said “Have you got that song that Elton John sang at the funeral?”. In today’s digital world, that wouldn’t have seemed like an unreasonable request but back in 1997, it was a ludicrous question. I was flabbergasted. How did he think we would have copies of a single in stock of a song that had just been performed for the first time ever about an hour before. At this point, it hadn’t even been decided that it would be made available to the general public via a single release. I should be clear that the guy was asking for that version of the song specifically performed at the funeral and not just the original “Candle In The Wind” recording. Even if he’d have been happy with the original, we might have had it on a Greatest Hits but that would have been it. In 2025, a song from an event of such public interest could be made available on a streaming platform instantly but in 1997, the world just didn’t work like that. Ultimately, the song was released as a single about a week later but that’s a discussion for a future post. Right now, let’s sit back and watch TOTP as if in a more innocent time before Diana’s death.

Jayne Middlemiss is our host again and executive producer Chris Cowey is still wedded to the idea of incorporating a model of the figure 1 into the show’s opening to enforce the idea that it is still the No 1 music show on TV. This week, a glammed up Jayne in full evening dress walks on as the model No 1 drops to the floor behind her. No, you’re right it doesn’t really work does it? The opening artist is Jon Bon Jovi who continues the royal theme to this post with his single “Queen Of New Orleans”. The second track released from his “Destination Anywhere” album, like its predecessor “Midnight In Chelsea”, it was co-written with Dave Stewart of Eurythmics. A solo album by the man behind Bon Jovi was never going to be a huge departure from the sound that made him and his band global stars but “Queen Of New Orleans” is no “Livin’ On A Prayer”. It’s got a laid back feel to it with Jon growling his way through the lyrics whilst some rock guitars squall and squeal away in the background. Ah yes, those lyrics. It’s hard to believe that two men with the amount of hits to their names as Bon Jovi and Stewart could have come up with such useless words. For example:

“Me and Leigh met Summer of ‘95, in a burgundy dress looking finer than a French wine“

Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: David Allan Stewart / Jon Bon Jovi
Queen Of New Orleans lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

Really? Burgundy and French wine in a line together? Talk about cheesy (thank God they didn’t!). Then there’s this:

“That night I made a move, man I felt hard, when I put my hands in her cookie jar”

Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: David Allan Stewart / Jon Bon Jovi
Queen Of New Orleans lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

Oh please! Viz’s Finbarr Saunders would have baulked at that. And finally, in a blinding piece of self knowledge, we have this:

“She said baby our love’s just like your songs, the beat ain’t bad but the words are all wrong”

Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: David Allan Stewart / Jon Bon Jovi
Queen Of New Orleans lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

Ha! Apart from appearing on a few charity singles, Jon Bon Jovi has yet to return to his solo career.

Shola Ama had nine UK Top 40 hits in total but apart from her cover of Randy Crawford’s “You Might Need Somebody”, I couldn’t have told you the names of any of them without checking her discography first. It turns out that this one – “You’re The One I Love” – would be her highest charting when it peaked at No 3. This was actually a rerelease of her debut single which stalled at No 85 in 1996. Her album “Much Love” came out on the Monday after this TOTP and would go to No 6 eventually selling 100,000 copies. Shola was big news and never bigger than when she won a BRIT award for Beat British Female and two MOBOs for Best Newcomer and Best R&B act. And then…well, it all went a bit flat. A follow up album appeared in 1999 but it was a commercial failure peaking at No 92. Shola would remain within the music business even featuring on a Top 10 hit in 2004 for The Pirates. However, it maybe wasn’t the career she might have imagined she would have after her success filled start.

As for “You’re The One I Love”, it’s a very serviceable R&B/soul hit the type of which was very prominent at this time but does it linger long in the memory? Not mine I’m afraid. Apparently, Shola’s son is a big name music producer called Mekhi or prollymac or something – he’s one of those ‘Nepo Babies’ which is what the kids are saying these days but I wouldn’t know about that or Mekhi/prollymac. In fact, I struggled to find anything to say about his Mum.

Who’s this? Conner Reeves? Do I know this guy? Let me think….Reeves…Reeves….I know Hollywood actor Keanu Reeves obviously and Country legend Jim Reeves. Hell, I even remember 80s footballer Kevin Reeves but Conner (with an ‘e’ not an ‘o’) Reeves? Nope, I’ve got nothing. What’s his hit called? “My Father’s Son”? That kind of sounds familiar but am I getting confused with that song by Mike + The Mechanics about a son’s regret over an unresolved conflict with their now deceased father – “The Living Years”. Actually, didn’t the bloke who had a hit with that song called “Jessie” do one called “My Father’s Son”?

*checks internet and cross references*

That’s him. Joshua Kadison and yes he did but that’s not this song. It’s all very confusing.

Anyway, Conner Reeves’ song was his debut hit of five (five!) in total and apparently big things were predicted for him but I’m not sure why on the strength of “My Father’s Son” as it’s a bit of a plodder. How would I describe his sound? Well, Wikipedia categorises it as blue-eyed soul which is as good a description as any I guess. As for his image, he’s giving me serious Gilbert O’Sullivan vibes with that cap. Did he always wear it? Was it his USP? He looks like a bit of a knacker to be honest. In short, I’m not sold. In fact, I’d go as far as to say I’d rather have “Son Of My Father” than “My Father’s Son”…

Hmm. The running order for this particular show isn’t turning out to be the best. Now we’ve got UB40 but it’s not the UB40 of their classic early 80s hits. No, the 1997 version of the band had certainly seen better days and was probably past its sell by date. They hadn’t released a new studio album for four years and had filled that gap with a Best Of Volume 2. “Tell Me Is It True” was their first release of any nature for two years and was initially from the soundtrack to the movie Speed 2: Cruise Control though it would later turn up on their album “Guns In The Ghetto”. As Jayne Middlemiss hints at in her intro, the band actually had a cameo appearance in the film but I didn’t know that until now as I’ve never seen it. I loved the original Speed starring the aforementioned Keanu Reeves (I love it when a post comes together) but he wasn’t in the sequel and it got bad reviews so I gave it a miss. There were a few supposed blockbuster movies out that Summer that didn’t really land – Event Horizon and The Fifth Element were two others. I actually fell asleep in the latter though I was talking to someone at work the other day who loves it.

Anyway, that’s all besides the point. What is the point? The music of course so was “Tell Me Is It True” any good? Well, having listened back to it, it was actually better than I expected. The verses echoed back to those glory days of their prime although the chorus was a bit of a letdown. Also a letdown was the reaction to the “Guns In The Ghetto” album so the band returned to that reliable sales generator the “Labour Of Love” project with Volume III released in 1998. The new millennium would see the band splinter acrimoniously but that’s a whole other story/film/documentary…

And yet another artist who I don’t know at all despite having been in full time employment in a record shop at the time of her biggest hit. The name Tina Moore does resonate with me but only because that’s the name of the wife of the 1966 World Cup winning England captain Bobby Moore. Tina Moore the singer? My memory bank is as empty as a MAGA supporter’s head. For the record, she had two UK chart hits with “Never Gonna Let You Go” the first and biggest of them. Now if it sounds a bit like Rosie Gaines that’s possibly because it was on the flip side of white label copies of “Closer Than Close” but it wasn’t picked up for an official release like its partner. When it finally was, it was this ‘Bump-N-Go’ remix by Kelly G (an associate of Chicago house legend Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley no less) that did the trick sending the track to No 7. I assume the “chicka-boom” comment by Middlemiss in her intro was a reference to the noise of the track’s two-step backing track was it? Look, I don’t know what I’m talking about do I? I’m clearly winging it here!

And so to a band whose name I do recall but I would struggle to tell you any of their songs let alone how they sounded. Symposium were ‘the best live band in Britain’ according to the Melody Maker’s front page in late March 1997. I obviously never saw them live but judging by this TOTP appearance, I’ve got a fair idea of what one of their gigs would have been like. “They’re noisy, they’re wild, they’re anarchic” Jayne Middlemiss tells us in her intro which I’m sure fitted perfectly with how the band’s label would have wanted them to be described but were they? Certainly their song “Fairweather Friend” had lots of pop punk energy but was it anything we hadn’t heard before? Green Day springs to mind. Maybe if I’d have been the same age as the band (18 or so) I’d have found them as entertaining as the even younger studio audience clearly did. Once again, I have to question the lack of security here – there’s a semi-mosh pit going on down the front and then, breaking a longstanding taboo, one of the band stage dives into the audience! Naturally, after such antics, there’s then a stage invasion just as we’ve seen recently with Oasis and to a lesser extent Stereophonics recently. What was going on here?!

“Fairweather Friend” would be Symposium’s biggest hit of three peaking at No 25. By 2000, the perennial problem of ‘musical differences’ would do for the band though they reformed for occasional gigs in 2022. By the way, they surely have two of the most tongue-twister type named members in their line up since Big Country drummer Mark ‘Unpronounceable Name’ Brzezicki – try saying Wojtek Godzisz and Hagop Tchaparian three times in a row.

What was executive producer Chris Cowey thinking of with this running order? After stage-diving and stage invasions with Symposium, the next act in the studio is Chumbawamba! All those youngsters in the studio audience needed calming down not given another track to get their adrenaline pumping! “Tubthumping” was definitely the latter! Thankfully, the first couple of rows of the audience seem to have settled into a rather nerdy ‘dance’ of bending over when singer Dunstan Bruce sings “I get knocked down” and raising their arms when he sings “but I get up again” before shaking their fist rather limply to “You’re never gonna keep me down”. Ah to be young again – actually, they’ll all be in their mid-40s now! Oh, and talking of unusual band member names, Chumbawamba had Danbert Nobacon and Alice Nutter in their ranks but obviously they were made up.

It’s a third week at the top for “Men In Black” and once again we have a superimposed Will Smith introducing the video. I think it worked OK once but I fear overexposure had caused the magic dust to disperse too far by this point. The same couldn’t be said for the single itself which continued to see off all opposition to remain at No 1 for this chart and the following week’s. However, we would all be saturated by the news of a car crash in Paris in the days to come after this TOTP was broadcast.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Jon Bon Jovi	Queen Of New Orleans	No
2	Shola Ama	You’re The One I Love	Negative
3	Conner Reeves	My Father’s Son	I did not
4	UB40	Tell Me Is It True	No and that’s the truth
5	Tina Moore	Never Gonna Let You Go	Nope
6	Symposium	Fairweather Friend	Nah
7	Chumbawamba	Tubthumping	YES!
8	Will Smith	Men In Black	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/m00293qd/top-of-the-pops-29081997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 13 JUN 1997

Posted on March 12 by 80stastic

There seems to be some uncertainty about quite when Chris Cowey’s tenure in charge of TOTP started. I thought it was from last week’s show (I took that info from the TOTP Archive website) but a reader of my blog has informed me that it was officially from this week. In my defence, I’ve never suggested that I’m some sort of authority on the show, curating its history as it were – just someone who used to watch it and who’s writing about it and the songs it featured but for what it’s worth, apologies if I get some dates wrong. Anyway, Cowey is playing around with the format a bit already, trying a few new tweaks out to see if they might have some legs to them. That’s ‘legs’ literally in the case of the first tweak which comes right at the start of this show as he has presenter Jo Whiley, the ‘Queen of Cool herself’ according to last weeks host Jayne Middlemiss (yeah, I’m really not sure about that either), dramatically kick over a huge No 1 figure and proclaim that TOTP is still Number One. I get that it’s a gesture, a statement of intent maybe to reassure us all that there’s still life in the old show yet and had it been one of the Spice Girls then it might have been spectacular but a high kicking Jo Whiley? Hmm. I’m not convinced but sadly there’s more ‘action’ to come from Jo later in the show…

We start with Rosie Gaines who is onto her third consecutive appearance on the show promoting her hit “Closer Than Close”. To try and shake up the format, this is a live performance and I have to say that Rosie gives one of the most memorable live vocals I’ve ever witnessed on TOTP. However, it lives in the memory for all the wrong reasons as it’s completely horrible. I mean ‘why didn’t someone stop her’ horrible as she is goes way over the top. There’s some Cleo Laine style jazz scatting to start with before she encourages the studio audience to chant the song back to her. After that she settles down a bit and does some actual singing before she suddenly breaks out into an impression of Shaggy (the (the Jamaican-American singer not Scooby Doo’s mate) in a deep register. She follows this with some more free styling again giving the subtitles guy a hell of a task to decipher what she’s banging on about before delivering the dubious lyric “funk it off on me”. And then….and then she just starts screaming mid-song; literally wailing like a banshee. It’s an horrific noise. We’re then back to scatting before inviting the studio audience to get in on this nonsense again by shouting the word ‘close’ over and over. Finally, she indulges in what appears to be primal scream therapy and mercifully brings the performance’ to an end with some grunting sounds. It’s unspeakably bad. Jo Whiley describes Rosie as “hugely talented” afterwards. You’re not even (closer than) close to the truth there Jo.

Sticking with Jo, she follows up her high kicking action with something a bit more sedate though she warns us to brace ourselves for it anyway. Quite why hitting a symbol with a drumstick of the drum kit of Wet Wet Wet’s Tommy Cunningham was deemed worthy of a warning I don’t know. It’s all very underwhelming, not unlike “Strange”, the latest hit by Clydebank’s favourite sons. This one was only on a couple of weeks back as an ‘exclusive’ and it’s back on the show again as it has entered the charts, only at No 13 though which would be its peak. As I said about it previously, I think their sound was getting a bit tired by this point and they were starting to run out of steam. To be fair to them, they had long since outlasted some of the other bands that had made their chart debuts in 1987 alongside them like Johnny Hates Jazz, Curiosity Killed The Cat and Living In A Box.

Marti Pellow still has his peroxide blonde hair which I suggested previously might be a cry for help similar to when Robbie Williams infamously went into meltdown mode when attending Glastonbury after leaving Take That. The Wets vocalist would leave the band within two years to deal with his own alcohol and drug addictions and he does seem to be sweating a lot in this performance. It could be the heat of the studio lights of course but it is quite noticeable…

I’m starting to think a lot of these performances weren’t all filmed at the same time with Jo Whiley in the studio. Clearly the Wet Wet Wet one was because of her interaction with their drummer but the others are prefaced by abrupt cutaways and post faced by cutbacks to Jo rather than a long, corridor shot back to our host. Was this new or had it been happening for a while? We see it in operation for the next artist who is En Vogue and their single “Whatever”. Jo says in her intro that “it’s the return after maternity leave of the ‘funky divas’ themselves” so presumably one of the group had just given birth but what’s noticeable isn’t an addition to the group family but the fact they’d lost a member since their last hit “Don’t Let Go (Love)” as Dawn Robinson had left the band in the April. The remaining trio re-recorded some of the tracks from parent album “EV3” but Robinson’s backing vocals remained on “Whatever”.

I’ve said many times that R&B isn’t really my bag but that when it comes down to it, En Vogue would be my group of choice for that genre. “Whatever” wouldn’t be my go to song from them but it’s still a strong track with a “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)” vibe. The hits would dry up eventually as the new millennium arrived but En Vogue are still an ongoing entity, currently back up to the full complement of four members though Dawn Robinson, despite rejoining a couple of times over the years, is not back in the fold.

Next to a song that was previously on the show as an exclusive three weeks prior but was now back on the show having finally been released and having entered the charts at No 11. Yet again though, the artist in question – Skunk Anansie – are not in the studio with Jo Whiley as we just get a rerun of that initial appearance. It’s worth another look though as “Brazen (Weep)” is a great rock track that has contains enough idiosyncrasies of the band’s sound to make my description of it as merely ‘rock’ look inadequate. It would become Skunk Anansie’s highest peaking chart hit when it debuted at No 11.

Whiley name checks the band individually at the end of the clip including, of course, vocalist Skin (real name Deborah Dyer). Despite being an unusual nickname (given to her on account of her skinny frame), it’s not unique as there is another singer from a band called Skin though the reason why he’s called that is rather obvious. Does the name Grahame Skinner ring any bells? No? Maybe watch this then…

Chris Cowey is trying his best to pull the wool over our eyes about what is actually going on here. In the next link, he has our host positioned in the middle of a studio audience who have been instructed to face one way as if towards an off camera stage awaiting the next artist whilst Whiley looks directly into an overhead camera to introduce said artist. Guess what though? The next act aren’t in the studio and it’s just another recycled clip from a previous performance. What a swizz! Doubling down on the swizz is the fact that it’s Eternal and Bebe Winans with “I Wanna Be The Only One” again for the third consecutive week! The ex-chart topper was holding at No 2 to justify another appearance and *spoiler alert* it would get a fourth and final outing in the following week’s show! As such, I’m leaving it there for this one.

Now, whilst I know there was a second Jon Bon Jovi solo album following his soundtrack to the film Young Guns II, I could not have told you when it was released nor what it sounded like. The answer to both my queries is supplied on this TOTP as Millie Bobby Brown’s father-in-law (as I believe he’s known these days) is here with the lead single from said sophomore album. “Midnight In Chelsea” was co-written by Dave Stewart of Eurythmics who accompanies Jon on stage here and was taken from “Destination Anywhere” both of which were sizeable hits in the UK peaking at Nos 4 and 2 in our charts respectively. Conversely, although he was busy writing big hits for other artists like Shakespears Sister, Texas and Jon Bon Jovi post Eurythmics, Stewart’s own projects like The Spiritual Cowboys and his solo album “Greetings From The Gutter” failed to light up the charts.

Having read up on “Midnight In Chelsea” before re-listening to it, I’m a little bit underwhelmed as I was expecting something quite different to the sound he and his band made their name on (literally). Some critics described it as being funk/rock and having shuffling, hip-hop drum loops in it. However, it doesn’t sound like he’d strayed too far from the tree sonically to me. I think I can hear said drum loops but in the end I don’t think he would have been converting any fans of Roni Size or someone of that ilk with it. That’s not to say it wasn’t without merit. It’s got a nice ‘sha-la-la-la’ hook ( maybe Jon or Dave had been listening to Monaco’s “What Do You Want From Me” when writing it) but of more interest to me is the lyric “Ah, maybe it was just a dream, Manchester nil, Chelsea three, football fans and players scream”. What?! I’ve checked and can’t find those lines in the official lyrics anywhere online so was Jon ad-libbing about my beloved Chelsea? We had just won the FA Cup the month before but we didn’t beat either City or United in the final and this was the a close season so no other games would have been played at this time. I wonder what prompted him to sing those lines?

I find that infinitely more intriguing than wondering why Jo Whiley was banging on about Jon having waxed his chest in her intro. Was that a story in the news back then? ‘Hairy rock star waxes chest’? Maybe men waxing and shaving every bit of body hair wasn’t so ubiquitous as it seems to be today when you can now buy specific shavers for very specific body areas if you know what I mean. Body hair sculpting I believe it’s called. Erm…anyway, I reckon that was another performance that could have been recorded separately as it’s yet more cutaway and cutback shots to and from the presenter. Maybe the artists were all there and it was Jo who was absent and recorded her segues in isolation? But then there’s the Wet Wet Wet interaction…oh I don’t know!

Now this is a funk rock act! The first and only video of the show now (which allows for a rolling chart rundown of the Nos 20 – 11) comes from Red Hot Chili Peppers and their version of “Love Rollercoaster” by Ohio Players. A US No 1 in 1976, it was covered by The Peppers to be included on the soundtrack to the film Beavis And Butt–Head Do America. You may recall that this animated pair had a hit with Cher a couple of years previous to this when “I Got You Babe” was released from their comedy album “The Beavis And Butt-Head Experience”. I’ve never seen their film and, if I’m honest, could only take their TV series in very small doses viewing it as vastly inferior to the likes of The Simpsons or Family Guy.

The video depicts the band as cartoon characters on, yep, a rollercoaster alongside clips from the film. I don’t find that or the track very engaging I have to say though it would end up being their second biggest UK hit after “By The Way” and “Dani California”.

Cowey’s ‘Operation Hoodwink’ is still going on and, indeed, is upping its game as the false shot gets even tighter as he tries to create the impression that Hanson are really in the studio when in fact it’s just another previous performance recycled. By my reckoning, Jo Whiley was only in the same studio at the same time with one band. Was this a scheduling issue or a budget cut or what? Anyway, this week’s (and last week’s) chart topper…

One of my abiding memories of this song was that our then six year old goddaughter loved “MMMBop” and so we bought it for her along with a Barbie Walkman for her to play it on that she’s been wanting for ages. Plugged in with the brothers Hanson in her ears, she would wander round her house shouting “PARDON?” every time anyone tried to talk to her. Although six was possibly the average age of people who bought the record and I couldn’t stand it aged 29 back then, in retrospect, it is a marvellously constructed pop song in that traditional way that say “The One And Only” by Chesney Hawkes is. Don’t tell anyone I said that though. Oh.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Rosie Gaines	Closer Than Close	No
2	Wet Wet Wet	Strange	Nah
3	En Vogue	Whatever	Nope
4	Skunk Anansie	Brazen (Weep)	No but it’s good
5	Eternal and Bebe Winan	I Wanna Be The Only One	Yes for my wife
6	Jon Bon Jovi	Midnight In Chelsea	I did not
7	Red Hot Chili Peppers	Love Rollercoaster	Negative
8	Hanson	MMMBop	Yes for my goddaughter

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/m0028nyg/top-of-the-pops-13061997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 15 NOV 1990

Posted on April 7, 2021 by 80stastic

It’s the exact mid-point of November 1990. I’m coming up to my one month wedding anniversary and have been employed in a temporary sales assistant position with Our Price for about two weeks. Xmas is fast approaching but for Maggie Thatcher, there are more issues afoot than the impending festive celebrations.1990 has not been a good year for Thatcher’s government; the introduction of the deeply unpopular Poll Tax had led to a riot in Trafalgar Square, inflation was pushing 10% meaning by late 1990 the economy was in the first stages of recession and at one point The Conservatives trailed Labour by 20 points in the polls. Dissatisfaction with Thatcher within her own party led to a challenge to her leadership from Michael Heseltine announced the day before this TOTP aired. Her time as Prime Minister was nearly over…hurray!

Away from politics, another type of of contest was being eagerly awaited. Boxing fans had been clamouring for a bout between Nigel Benn and Chris Eubank on the back of a very public rivalry between the two pugilists. That fight finally came to fruition on 18 November 1990 and was described by referee Richard Steele as “The most dramatic fight I’ve ever refereed”. It went the way of Eubank in round 9. I’m not a big boxing fan I have to say so why do I mention this fight here? Well, in 1990 Nigel Benn decided to cash in on his fame and release a single – rather predictably it was called “Stand And Fight” and was credited to The Pack featuring Nigel Benn. OK, so what? Well, ‘The Dark Destroyer’ as he was nicknamed came to the Our Price store I was working in to do a PA to promote it! I can’t recall if this was pre or post the big fight. There was a photo taken of Benn with the shop staff (including me) that appeared in a WH Smith news letter (Our Price was part of the WH Smith chain at that point). I had a copy for many years but I don’t know where it is now. I got Nigel’s autograph for my elder brother who was a fan. What? The song? Oh it was utter garbage….

Anyway, on with the show and the proper music although I’m not sure that Black Box‘s version of “Fantasy” strictly counts as ‘proper’ music. There seems to be some copyright issue with their TOTP studio performance so the official video will have to suffice for the purposes of this blog. To be fair, that performance doesn’t have a lot going on in it. Katrin Quinol is still fronting the whole sham, lip syncing away to vocals we all knew weren’t hers while the two guys at the back bang away on their keyboards with their heads down. One of them has that 90s long hair look that requires an alice band while the other guy has a top on with ‘Boys Wander In’ emblazoned across it. What’s that supposed to mean? So dull is the whole thing that during the instrumental break the cameras revert to crossing to the gantry to show some very unenthusiastic hand clapping from the studio audience. They looks so lifeless and flat that you would believe that, given the choice, they would rather eat their own arms than us them to clap along with. “Fantasy” peaked at No 5.

OK, I know that Inspiral Carpets released something called “Island Head EP” but I couldn’t have told you any of the songs on it or how they went. As far as I can see none of the four tracks on it featured on their debut album “Life” (at least not the UK version). “Biggest Mountain” performed here sounds pretty mournful to me. I’m not entirely sure why it was released to be honest. Their album had only been out six months and they’d not long been in the charts with “She Comes In The Fall”. Maybe they just had some new songs they wanted the fans to hear? Or maybe they were just jumping on an indie bandwagon – let’s not forget that EPs seemed to be a thing in 1990 with The Wedding Present and Ride both having released their own recently. And yes, mention must be made of those haircuts. Tom Hingley looks like a lockdown version of Mr Spock whilst Clint Boon…well just …Clint Boon! The “Island Head EP” peaked at No 21.

Next up are Robert Palmer and UB40 with their rendition of Bob Dylan’s “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight”. It strikes me that those cheeky Brummies have done rather a lot of collaborations during their career. Of course there are those two recordings with Chrissie Hynde in “I Got You Babe” and “Breakfast In Bed” neither of which I liked but there’s also “Reckless” with Afrika Bambaataa and an 808 Sate remix of “One In Ten”. There’s even two whole albums of collaborations in “UB40 Present The Dancehall Album” and “UB40 Present The Fathers Of Reggae” which featured some of their musical heroes like Toots Hibbert, John Holt, Alton Ellis and the Mighty Diamonds. And lest we forget Ali and Robin Campbell being credited on Pato Banton’s No 1 single “Baby Come Back”? Hmm…maybe we should all try and forget that one.

I wondered in a previous post how Bob Palmer and UB40 came to be working together and it was down to an individual called Dave Harper who managed both artists. Now I had no idea but this guy was steeped in rock history. He’d been Jim Morrison’s roadie and looked after Bob Marley and the Wailers even mixing their “Live at the Rainbow” album before moving onto manage Robert Palmer and UB40. As I said, I had no idea of any of this so when I googled Dave Harper I found a result for:

Dave Harper Bagpipes | Wedding Music | Easy Weddings

That couldn’t be him surely I found myself asking. No, no it wasn’t. That Dave Harper has been playing the bagpipes for 45 years and offers professional, expert bagpiping services across Norfolk, Norwich and the East Anglia for a wide range of events (according to his website). Still, UB40 and bagpipes! There’s a collaboration made in Hell. “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” peaked at No 6 and that new UB40 single that host Bruno Brookes mentions? It was actually called “Impossible Love” not “It’s Impossible” as Brookes claimed and it peaked at No 47.

An unusual event next. I’m guessing that not many singles that made it onto TOTP had a chart track record of just 1 week in the Top 40 at No 40 but that’s exactly what happened with Caron Wheeler‘s “UK Blak” single. The title track from her debut album, dropping out of the Top 40 completely after securing a studio performance (so not even just a Breaker slot) must have been a shock to the system for both Caron and her record label.

“UK Blak” would be Caron’s final appearance in the UK singles charts but the following year she recorded a song called “Don’t Quit” for a film called Career Opportunities and taking her own advice and perhaps inspired by the movie’s title has continued her musical career up to this day including on/off spells with Soul II Soul.

Three Breakers next and these are “all good records” according to Bruno Brookes so let’s see if he is right…

…we start with The Mission who have turned out to be one of the most consistent chart entry makers of this whole TOTP blog thing. “Hands Across The Ocean” (nothing to do with Paul McCartney’s “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey”) was their 9th consecutive Top 40 hit (and their fourth of 1990 alone) and yet none of them even made the Top 10. The only other artist that I can think of with such a discography would be Siouxsie and the Banshees.

I have to admit to not knowing this one at all although on listening to it now, it does sound very reminiscent of something else that I can’t quite put my finger on*.

Bruno Brookes ‘all good records’ clapometer score: Not bad

*Got it – the verses are like U2’s “Where The Streets Have No Name” whilst the chorus sounds like Scottish popsters The Big Dish.

There was a second single from Jon Bon Jovi‘s Young Guns II project? Yes, his “Blaze Of Glory” album furnished us with “Miracle” which very much sounds like Jon doing his best Bruce Springsteen impression to me. It didn’t have the same dramatic appeal of the title track single and was accordingly a much smaller hit – “Blaze Of Glory ” was a US No 1 record and a No 13 hit over here whilst “Miracle” peaked at No 12 in the States and a lowly No 29 in the UK.

The accompanying video has very little connection to the Young Guns II film. There are no clips from it as the promo is set in the present day with Jon riding his big motorbike around what looks like Mexico setting. And yes that is a pre-Friends Matt LeBlanc catching the señorita’s eye (How you doin’?) and Jeff Beck playing guitar in the cantina.

Bruno Brookes ‘all good records’ clapometer score: Boring

Ooh now here’s something interesting. Twin Peaks appeared out of some dark hole of David Lynch’s imagination and was like nothing we had ever seen before – one of the biggest TV phenomenons of not just the 90s but of any decade. Mixing horror, mystery and the supernatural into one dramatic entity, it was almost like the most bizarre soap opera ever. Its slogan of ‘Who Killed Laura Palmer?’ was the hook that caught all of us who dared to engage in it. Its run on BBC2 started just as my wife and I had moved to Manchester and was all everybody at the Our Price store I was working in was talking about so we took the plunge. Sheesh it was weird! The final scene of series two (and the denouement of the whole story at that point) remains one of the most disturbing things I have seen on TV.

Part of the show’s creepy appeal was its soundtrack composed by Angelo Badalamenti who had worked previously with Lynch on the frankly disturbing Blue Velvet and it was to him that Lynch returned for Twin Peaks. Theme tune “Falling” would also bring back into the fold someone else who had been involved in Blue Velvet project but the name Julee Cruise will forever be associated with Twin Peaks. The song was eerie, chilling (especially for viewers of the series) and yet delightful in its delicate beauty. It (and Cruise herself) featured prominently in the series and the show’s popularity would propel it to No 7 in the UK singles chart.

Bruno Brookes ‘all good records’ clapometer score: Fantastic

What?! How was Jive Bunny still a thing in late 1990?! Wikipedia tells me “Let’s Swing Again” was their sixth hit single out of eight. What! There’s still two more to come after this?! No, sorry but f**k this! I am not wasting any more of my time or words on reviewing any more f*****g Jive Bunny singles. No. I mean it.

Right. With that declaration of intent made, who’s next? What’s that Bruno? The guys behind Jive Bunny are also behind this next act called Megabass?! You have got to be f*****g kidding me?! WTF?! Ok, well I will have to retract my previous statement. It turns out that “Time To Make The Floor Burn” was one of those medley singles like Latino Rave and The Brits 1990 that were basically an advertising campaign for a compilation album. I do recall the Telstar ‘Megabass’ series from my early Our Price days but I do wonder who the intended market for them were. Some of these tunes were ancient in terms of chart lives – “Ride On Time”, Pump Up The Jam”, Big Fun” – these were all well over 12 months old. Ah to Hell with them! Next!

Nice. It’s the Kim Appleby performance of her debut solo single “Don’t Worry” from the other week. However, like Black Box earlier, that clip has infringed somebody’s copyright and is no longer available so here she is on some European music TV show instead. Although Kim would go on to have a couple more Top 20 hits, her solo career never really progressed from this point on. I get the impression that recording the album of songs she and her late sister Mel had been working on was what had kept her going in the months after the tragedy and once that task had been completed, then Kim’s desire for the music business went cold.

A third of four weeks at the top for The Righteous Brothers with “Unchained Melody” which inevitably led to a clamour to get more of the duo’s product out there (and just in time for Xmas too!). So which song got re-released to follow “Unchained Melody” in to the charts? Yes of course it was probably their best known song “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin'” which had been heavily featured in the Top Gun film which had only recently received its UK terrestrial TV premiere and which had led to the re-release of Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away”. What a tangled web of re-issues we weaved.

I recall hearing disgraced TV and radio personality Jonathan king stating that the record label should have switched the release to the B-side which was a song called “Ebb Tide”. Wanna hear it? OK…

Hmm…I’m not sure. “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin'” did well enough anyway thanks Jonathan peaking at No 3.

The play out video is “New Power Generation” by Prince. This was where it all started getting very confusing for me with Prince. New Power Generation was also the name of Prince’s new backing band who would continue in that role until 2013. The phrase “Welcome to the New Power Generation” was first mentioned in a track on the “Lovesexy” album whilst New Power Generation was used for the first time as a band name in the 1990 film Graffiti Bridge. Then there was the single “New Power Generation” and whilst Prince was in dispute with Warners and he became ‘symbol’ in 1993, he use the NPG as a way to release music outside of his contract. However, up to that point, any new Prince music was credited to Prince and The New Power Generation but between 1994 and 1997, the NPG had three Top 40 UK hits in their own right plus two whole albums. Still with me? I think I’ve confused myself actually.

Disclaimer

OK – here’s the thing – the TOTP episodes are only available on iPlayer for a limited amount of time so the link to the programme below only works for about another month so you’ll have to work fast if you want to catch the whole show.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000tpzf/top-of-the-pops-15111990

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.

Some bedtime reading?

TOTP 16 AUG 1990

Posted on February 18, 2021 by 80stastic

Here we are once more at TOTP Rewind, still back in the hot Summer of 1990, with a load of UK Top 40 hits to review. Before we get to those though, a bit of context about what else was happening outside of the charts at this time. Four days after this TOTP aired, the final ever episode of Miami Vice was shown on BBC1. Yes, the cop show that popularised the now iconic 80s fashion of no socks, rolled up sleeves, Ray-Ban sunglasses and of course designer stubble was finally put out to pasture after a run of five years, five seasons and 112 episodes. I hadn’t watched the show in years but I do recall tuning in for this final episode (well the last 10 minutes or so anyway).

Back in 1985, it had been a complete phenomenon making stars of its two leads Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas but it was its cultural impact that was the show’s legacy. The Miami Vice ‘look’ of pastel coloured T-shirt under jacket, white linen trousers, slip-on sockless loafers accessorised with shades and stubble may be rolled out these days as a fancy dress costume for an 80s themed party but back in the mid 80s it was genuinely influential. Sales of Ray Bans sunglasses soared and Macy’s even opened a Miami Vice section in its young men’s department. Designers such as Gianni Versace and Hugo Boss were consulted on the show’s fashion choices.

Then of course there was the music used in the series. Not for this show was the usual made for TV incidental music; oh no, the rights to actual, original pop and rock songs were purchased so that bona fide artists were featured. The range of artists employed was diverse; from Devo to Dire Straits and from U2 to Underworld. In the case of some acts, their involvement in the show was not restricted to just the inclusion of their musical output; stars from James Brown to Phil Collins via Sheena Easton also had acting parts. The series spawned two hit singles for Jan Hammer and three volumes of soundtrack albums. However, by the end of the 80s, it was starting to look tired and ratings had dropped. It was time to bow out as the 90s dawned.

And talking of pop songs that have been used in TV and film, tonight’s opening act are best known in the US for just that practice. Go West had not been seen anywhere in the vicinity of the UK Top 40 in nigh on five years since their last visit there with “Don’t Look Down – The Sequel” in their breakthrough year of 1985. Their second album had come out in 1987 to a less than enthusiastic reaction from the record buying public (none of the singles taken from it were hits) and despite touring with Tina Turner, they had been officially listed as missing in action since. An elongated and legally messy changing of record label in the US hadn’t helped matters.

And then, out of nowhere and looking every inch the 80s throwback anachronism, they were back! “King Of Wishful Thinking” was taken from the Pretty Woman soundtrack which was proving to be a goldmine for any artist lucky enough to have found their way onto it. Go West joined Natalie Cole, David Bowie and of course Roxette as acts that had benefited from its all reaching pulling power. How a past their sell by date UK pop act came to be on that record seemed to be a case of luck of the label. EMI released it and as the band’s US label, their executives got to hear the song’s demo and asked for it to be included. It’s actually used quite prominently in the film in the opening scene and titles. Of course, it wasn’t the first time their music had been included on a hit film soundtrack. Back in late ’85 they had contributed a song called “One Way Street” to the Rocky IV soundtrack but it never got an official single release on account of it being as dull as a daily briefing hosted by George Eustace.

“King Of Wishful Thinking” though was a horse of a different colour altogether. With its jaunty rhythm bouncing along pleasantly and its upbeat chorus, it was perfect for daytime airplay. Added to this were Peter Cox’s soulful vocals (for all they were very much seen as disposable pop, Cox’s voice always stood out) and they are to the fore in this live performance. Not to be outdone, his band partner Richard Drummie has turned up not just with their trademark singlet on but also in a pair of cycling shorts! Cox looks a bit nervous to be back in the spotlight but Drummie whoops it up with handclaps (and armpits!) a plenty.

The single’s popularity (No 8 in the US and No 18 over here) would lead to a successful comeback album two years later with the appropriately entitled “Indian Summer”.

Right, it’s that Ben Liebrand remix of “Englishman In New York” by Sting next. Still not sure quite how this remix came about but it remains one of Mr Sumner’s most well known songs I’m guessing. Now, sticking with the pop music in film / TV theme, this track was actually used in a film but it must be one of the most obvious uses of a song in cinematic history. It features in the 2009 film An Englishman In New York which is chronicles the years gay English writer Quentin Crisp spent in New York City. Crisp of course, was the subject matter of the song in the first place. Sting has had a few songs that featured in movies that have become chart hits. Back in 1982 he scored with “Spread a Little Happiness” from Brimstone & Treacle before repeating the trick 10 years later with “It’s Probably Me” from Lethal Weapon 3. By this point he was getting a taste for the movie soundtrack hit and just 12 months later he went to No 2 with “All for Love” (alongside Bryan Adams and Rod Stewart) from The Three Musketeers.

Now I wasn’t aware of this until now but Sting wasn’t the first artist to come up with a song with this title. Godley & Creme recorded “An Englishman In New York” back in 1979 and if you thought Sting’s video was intriguing, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet….

Now then, 1990 just got a little bit more interesting. I haven’t got the space in this one post to do justice to the whole story of The KLF or to be more precise, Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty and there is loads more to their back story that predates this moment but for many (including me) “What Time Is Love? (Live at Trancentral)” was our starting point. I was aware that they were the guys behind The Timelords and their No 1 hit “Doctorin’ the Tardis” back in 1988 but my knowledge of their The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (The JAMs) pseudonym was sketchy at best.

As presenter Anthea Turner notes in her intro, “What Time Is Love?” had been a dance floor hit previous Summer but it was a very different beast to the one we were about to hear in 1990. The original release even had a different name (sort of) – “What Time Is Love? (Pure Trance Original)” with the bracketed part of the title giving a clue to the very different sound that it had. Part of the Drummond and Cauty long term strategy though was the model of reworking tracks into different genres and so “What Time Is Love?” was re-shaped from a trance anthem to a more mainstream version that allowed the duo to the enter the nation’s consciousness. Vocal samples and a new bassline were added alongside a rap and house rhythm and the track became the first entry in the ‘Stadium House Trilogy’ that Drummond and Cauty had envisaged. “What Time Is Love? (Live at Trancentral)” would peak at No 5 and by the end of the year, The KLF were on their way to becoming a phenomenon, the like of which the UK charts hadn’t seen since Frankie Goes To Hollywood (probably).

You can be sure that we’ll be seeing plenty more of The KLF in these TOTP repeats over the next few months.

https://youtu.be/P_ws7Whr-vM?si=NfGJhIQoZ9XuX_4j

“Wow! They were raving!” exclaims Anthea at the end of The KLF’s performance which is possibly the most excruciating thing any one has ever said whilst presenting a popular music show. The next act on could be described as ‘excruciating’ for many a viewer back then but they were certainly ‘popular’. “Tonight” was the sixth of eight Top 10 hits that New Kids On The Block would have in 1990 alone. Such was their fame and appeal in this year that the likes of Smash Hits magazine could guarantee huge sales by merely planting them on the front cover whilst the story inside could be so insubstantial as to hardly warrant the title ‘feature’. The whole NKOTB phenomenon must have been manna from heaven for the pop press. Huge sales for very little journalistic effort.

As for their ‘music’, well… most of it was absolutely dire but then I wasn’t a teenage girl so I was not the target audience. Most you say? You mean some of it wasn’t utter crud? Surely not?! Look, at least “Tonight” had something a little bit different about it to their usual candy floss, lowest common denominator pop shit that they peddled. I mean, I hated it at the time but if I had to (like life depended on it scenario) pick one of their songs it would be this one. Please don’t judge me. “Tonight” peaked at No 3.

Right, what’s Anthea on about now? The Blackburn rave organisation? Who? What’s that to do with “Hardcore Uproar” by Together? Well, it appears that she was on the money with this one. Here’s @TOTPFacts:

Suddi Raval: "'Hardcore Uproar' was named after the Blackburn raves and features the sound of the crowds at the rave…" "Just after we finished recording, police raided it and started beating people." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 12, 2021

Yes, it seems Anthea was well prepped for this link. According to Suddi Raval in an interview with http://www.theransomnote.com, he was against “Hardcore Uproar” as a title and was pushing for it to be called “Can You Feel The Beat” which sounds so lame in comparison. The track got its biggest promotion when Paul Oakenfold agreed to play it as part of his set as the warm up at the legendary Stone Roses Spike Island gig when a crowd of 30,000 people (including my elder brother) got to hear it.

As for me, it sounds like “Ebeneezer Goode” by The Shamen performed by Utah Saints. Maybe it had some influence on those two acts? Maybe. Raval’s partner in the band Jon Donaghy was tragically killed a year after “Hardcore Uproar” was a hit in a road accident in Ibiza on the way to perform at a festival.

One of 1990’s breakout stars is back on the show with her biggest ever hit -it can only be Betty Boo and “Where Are You Baby”. There was lots of love for Betty on display on Twitter when this TOTP repeat aired last week. In stark contrast, there was a massive negative backlash on social media against Anthea Turner after her ill-advised Twitter rant that was accused of fat-shaming and ableism. Silly cow. Anyway, back to Betty and this is peak period Boo (peak-a-boo if you will) when she really did seem to have the pop world at her feet. “Where Are You Baby” was her third Top 10 hit on the spin (if you include her 1989 collaboration with The Beatmasters) and would eventually rise to No 3. Although very similar to previous hit “Doin’ The Do”, this one had a bit more musicality about it to my ears with the chorus sounding much more melodic. Above everything else though, it was damn catchy. Betty really channels her inner Emma Peel in this performance whilst the promo video with its sci-fi space imagery sees her cast herself as a cartoon-like of version of Barbarella. I was fine with either look to be fair!

https://youtu.be/0g2w4EC-Ax8?si=rYJaIDdjkPCf3LN0

Right, what’s the name of the next act Anthea? Unfortunately for Anthea, two one syllable words that are phonically similar proved too much for her presenting abilities and she cocks up introducing Jon Bon Jovi when she gets ‘Jon’ and ‘Bon’ the wrong way round! Come on! This is basic stuff for a presenter surely?

“Blaze Of Glory” was a Breaker last week and is up to No 13 this week and for those of us with even a passing familiarity with the Bon Jovi canon of work (and yes I was one), it seemed to be a wholly predictable culmination of a good few years obsession with cowboys on Jon’s behalf. Starting with “Wanted Dead Or Alive” from the “Slippery When Wet” album (originally the song that Emilio Estevz requested to be used in Young Guns II), Jon couldn’t let go of his Cowboys and Westerns theme and carried it forward to the band’s next album “New Jersey”. That album included songs with titles like “Stick To Your Guns” (opening line ‘So you want to be a cowboy’) and this one…

…give it a rest Jon!

Anyway, I read recently that there are plans afoot for a third instalment of the Young Guns franchise with screenwriter of the first two films John Fusco plus their stars Emilio Estevz and Lou Diamond Phillips on board. I’m not quite sure which direction the plot could plausibly go in given that just about all the characters for the first two films were killed off and Estevez and Diamond Phillips are now well into their 50s. Not so much ‘young guns’ then as ‘antique firearms’.

Another of last week’s Breakers now as we get a studio performance from Roxette of “Listen To Your Heart”. Last year, the BMI confirmed that this song has now been played on US radio more than 60 million times! If those 60 million plays were back to back, it would have been played non-stop for 62 years!

As with Go West earlier, whatever you might think of their musical output, it cannot be denied that they had a great singer. Marie Fredriksson belts this one out and then some. After the re-release success of “Listen To Your Heart”, EMI repeated the trick for the duo’s next single when they shoved “Dressed For Success” back out into the market where it peaked at No 18, some 30 places higher than its initial release.

The final week of four at the top for Partners In Kryme and “Turtle Power”. Now before we all start jumping around, throwing our arms in the air and offering thanks to the gods of the pop charts, know this….*SPOILER ALERT*…next week’s No 1 is Bombalurina!

1990 really was the height of Turtlemania so much so that the four dudes even made an appearance (alongside Partners In Kryme) at the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party that year. As far as I can tell, they didn’t actually win anything per se although they did come 5th in the Best Single category and 3rd in the Worst Single category. Go figure.

The comments about the clip above on YouTube are scary. Here’s someone called Blue Jones:

“Dude! I am one of the biggest TMNT fans on earth. I’ve spent thousands of dollars on original art, comics & toys & I even have the fearsome foursome tattooed on my arm. And yet, I’ve never seen this video before! Yowza! Thanks for uploading this gem!”

WTF?! He even gets a reply from someone called Zwoob Zwoob:

“Same here bruh. except that tattoo part. but i did actually buy this replica of one of the original masks from the 1990 movie. (raph’s head). And even though I was only 2 when this movie came out, it’s my favorite, lol, i can literally recited the whole movie line for line.”

OK, I’m proper getting the fear now. Let’s dial it down with a comment from this poor, uniformed gentleman called MagicalPuddinPops:

“It’s weird I always thought mc hammer performed this.”

Farewell Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles…it’s been…awful actually.

Whilst 1990 hasn’t proved to be the antidote to the late 80s that I thought I remembered, bizarrely the play out song is the third single on this show to be featured in Gary Mulholland’s great book This Is Uncool: The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk and Disco. Split into years, the section for 1990 features “Come Together” by Primal Scream along with The KLF and Betty Boo! The follow up to their breakthrough chart hit “Loaded”, this was very much cut from the same cloth albeit with a more conventional song structure than its predecessor. However….the album version on “Screamadelica” remixed by Andrew Weatherall was nothing like the Terry Farley 7″ mix. Clocking in at over 10 mins with Bobby Gillespie’ vocals completely omitted and replaced with samples of a speech by the Rev Jesse Jackson, it’s that version that was a huge hit in the clubs in Ibiza.

I actually own the CD single of this but I can’t claim that I bought it at the time. I got it as one of those import cut out titles from legendary Manchester record store Power Cuts. It’s got two versions of “Come Together” and three of “Loaded” on it plus “I’m Losing More Than I’ll Ever Have” which was the original track that was remixed into “Loaded”. Not a bad little purchase.

In a Smash Hits feature that took a snoop around Bobby’s flat at the time, his record collection was spread across the floor and featured artists you could well have anticipated like The Rolling Stones, The Ramones, Sly and the Family Stone and Funkadelic. However, it also features “Hippychick” by Soho which wasn’t a hit in the UK until its re-release some six months after this article was published. Bobby Gillespie – a man all over trends before they’ve even happened. And his critics said he was just re-hashing The Rolling Stones. “Come Together” peaked at No 26.

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Go West	King Of Wishful Thinking	I did not
2	Sting	Englishman In New York (Ben Liebrand remix)	Nah
3	The KLF	What Time Is Love (Live At Trancentral”	Nope
4	New Kids On The Block	Tonight	No but I think my friend Rachel did
5	Together	Hardcore Uproar	Harcore! You know the score! Erm…no
6	Betty Boo	Where Are You Baby	No
7	Jon Bon Jovi	Blaze Of Glory	No but it’s probably on my Bon Jovi collection CD
8	Roxette	Listen To Your Heart	I did and it said don’t buy this record
9	Partners In Kryme	Turtle Power	This as a crime…against music. No
10	Primal Scream	Come Together	Yes on CD single (but not at the time)

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000s4ql/top-of-the-pops-16081990

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.

Some bedtime reading?

https://michaelmouse1967.wixsite.com/smashhits-remembered/1990-issues

TOTP 09 AUG 1990

Posted on February 15, 2021 by 80stastic

It’s the height of Summer in 1990 here at TOTP Rewind so that can only mean one thing – nasty, tacky novelty records! Previous years had seen the charts flooded with some of the most brainless musical ditties ever committed to vinyl from the likes of Black Lace (“Agadoo”), The Tweets (“The Birdie Song”) and Spitting Image (“The Chicken Song”). Surely this sort of thing wouldn’t continue into the new decade? Oh yes it would (sorry went a bit pantomime there although that might actually be appropriate). I’ve been dreading this moment ever since I started posting about 1990. I knew it was there, waiting in the wings ready to ambush the nation – a heinous, wicked entity. Shield your eyes as we have arrived at the time of Bombalurina and “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini“!

In 1990, was there a more annoying choice to front a horrible novelty record than the guy who actually did? Timmy Mallett was known to most of us as that berk with the giant, pink foam mallet from children’s morning TV programme Wacaday and he was the most irritating twat that TV had seen for years. Everything about him was vexatious from his ‘bleugh!’ catchphrase to his boundless energy for leaping about on screen. And now here he was with stinking out the pop charts! Whose f*****g idea was this? Well, it was Andrew Lloyd Webber’s actually. Here’s @TOTPFacts:

Timmy Mallett: "[Andrew Lloyd Webber] invited me round to his house for tea although I'd never met him before, ever. He said, 'I've got this idea for doing a record – would you like to do it?' I said, 'Yeah, you bet!'" #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 5, 2021

Unbelievably, the Bombalurina project (named after a character from his musical Cats) wasn’t even the biggest crime on Lloyd Webber’s charge sheet. Twenty five years later he would outdo himself by flying into the country from abroad on his personal plane to vote in the House of Lords over proposed cuts to tax credits – he voted with the Government in favour of the plan. Wanker.

Back to Mallett though who was clearly having the time of his life playing at this pop star lark. In a Rick from The Young Ones moment he declared to Smash Hits magazine that:

“I’m going to be the most utterly, utterly famous pop star ever”

And yet, unimaginable as it may seem, Mallett did have a more credible music background than the utter embarrassment that Bombalurina was. I clearly recall him as a presenter on the Oxford Road Show pop music magazine show back in the mid 80s. Here he is trying to interview the ever evasive Terry Hall…

OK, he was fairly useless and unconvincing but still. Fast forward five years and all credibility has been flushed down the khazi – the performance here is like the pantomime from Hell. Excruciating doesn’t come anywhere near describing the horror on view. It sounded horrendous back in 1990 and yet, in an occurrence that seems to be against all auditory science, it sounds even worse today. I wonder if any of the ‘proper’ pop stars that he interviewed on Oxford Road Show caught this performance and thought to themselves “Yeah, not surprised. I always knew he was an arsehole”.

Mallett will be at No 1 soon enough. FFS!

Some proper music next…or is it? “Tom’s Diner” by DNA and Suzanne Vega sounded otherworldly to me back then and still unsettles me now. The lolloping Soul II Soul backbeat that Bath duo DNA added to the original a cappella song that Vega recorded for her 1997 album “Solitude Standing” sparked a mass of covers and re-interpretations of the song. So many were there that Vega’s record label compiled some on an album simply called “Tom’s Album” including a live version from Michael Stipe with Billy Bragg beatboxing and incorprating Madness’s “Baggy Trousers” and EMF’s “Unbelievable” into the mix…

More recently, Giorgio Moroder recorded a version of it for his 2015 album “Déjà Vu” featuring Britney Spears on vocal duties…

Back in 1990 though and DNA’s treatment of the track struck a massive chord with music fans who sent it to No 2 in the UK and No 5 in the US. The single’s B-side was Vega’s a cappella original – I wonder how many people who bought it actually listened to that version though? Someone who really did listen to it was one Karlheinz Brandenburg, a German electrical engineer, who developed the widespread MP3 method for audio data compression. Brandenburg used “Tom’s Diner” (the a cappella version) as a template for refining the sound quality of MP3 audio, a tale which has earned Vega the informal title “The Mother of the MP3”.

Not “Naked In The Rain” again? Is this the third time Blue Pearl have been on the show? I’ve covered all the Pink Floyd connections, the fact that legendary producer Youth was behind the project and the implausibility of singer Durga McBroom’s name – what else is there left to say? Well, apparently Durga’s favourite ever album is “Court And Spark” by Joni Mitchell. There – that’s it. That’s the comment. I’ve got nothing else.

Craig McLachlan And Check 1-2 were still in the Top 40 with “Mona” when their next single “Amanda” followed it into the charts. They were on a roll! I always thought this was a passable attempt at a soft rock ballad although you could argue that the world already had quite enough of that sort of thing courtesy of American rockers Boston. So who was the titular Amanda? Why, it was a girl called Rachel of course! Eh? Well, Rachel was actress Rachel Friend who McLachlan had met on the set of Aussie soap Neighbours when she played a character called Bronwyn Davies. Rachel? Bronwyn? Where the Hell does Amanda fit into all this?! Easy really – Amanda is Rachel Friend’s middle name and her and Craig were married in 1993. They were divorced in 1994. Ah. The break up shouldn’t have been that much of a surprise to the two of them though – they wrote a song together for the debut Craig McLachlan And Check 1-2 album called “Can’t Take It Any Longer”. Ahem.

By the way, Check 1-2 is a terrible name for a band isn’t it? Well, originally they were called The Y Frontz so I guess it was an upgrade on that. In 1996, in another act of predicting the future via song title, Craig released an album called “Craig McLachlan & The Culprits”. This was unfortunate as in 2018, he faced sexual harassment allegations from several actresses during his performing career. Craig was however acquitted of all charges in 2020.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIBxLHMBuwE

Three Breakers next and for once, they are all from some very established artists. Roxette were riding the crest of their commercial wave having just scored a huge global hit with “It Must Have Been Love”. As that single had come from the soundtrack to Pretty Woman and the band were in between albums, EMI needed to revisit their back catalogue to unearth a follow up. “Listen To Your Heart” had been originally released back in October of 1989 from the”Look Sharp” album and although it had been a No 1 song in the US, it had failed to dent the Top 40 over here. Indeed, both it and “Dressed For Success” had failed to capitalise on the success of their UK breakthrough hit “The Look”. With Pretty Woman pulling in the crowds at the box office though and “It Must Have Been Love” receiving massive airplay, “Listen To Your Heart” couldn’t fail this time.

Much more of a traditional soft rock ballad than their previous more poppy output, the change of direction was entirely deliberate. In the liner notes of their 1995 greatest hits compilation “Don’t Bore Us, Get to the Chorus!”, Per Gessle described the song as:

“This is us trying to recreate that overblown American FM-rock sound to the point where it almost becomes absurd. We really wanted to see how far we could take it.”

They absolutely nailed that sound (absurd or not) – you could easily imagine that when listening to “Listen To Your Heart” you were actually listening to…erm…Heart. Following Elton John’s “Sacrifice / Healing Hands” lead, the single was actually a double A-side with the other track being something called ‘”Dangerous”. I have no idea how that one went though as daytime radio hammered the crap out of “Listen To Your Heart” and totally ignored ‘”Dangerous”.

The re-release of “Listen To Your Heart” peaked at No 6 in the UK.

Now then, I said these Breakers were all from established artists and they are but this second one is actually the debut single from the act in question. How so? Well, it’s a Jon Bon Jovi solo single of course. “Blaze Of Glory” was the title of both the lead single and parent album that included songs from and inspired by the movie Young Guns II. With Bon Jovi (the band) on hiatus after touring the world twice to promote the “Slippery When Wet” and “New Jersey” albums and with no firm plans for further recordings at that time, Jon was open to other projects. Star of Young Guns II Emilio Estevez had approached him about using Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead Or Alive” song for the film’s soundtrack. You can see why – its cowboys theme title a seemingly perfect fit for the second instalment of the Young Guns story that was breathing new life into the Western film genre. However, Jon didn’t think the track’s lyrics were fit for that type of usage – the cowboy stuff was all a metaphor to describe the life on the road of a touring rock band (‘steel horse’ = tour bus, geddit?). Instead he wrote Estevez and the film’s screenwriter John Fusco a brand new song. I say ‘brand new’ but I actually mean ripped off / just re-wrote “Wanted Dead Or Alive”. It’s basically the same song for heaven’s sake! And that was fine by me. Bon Jovi had been a guilty pleasure of mine for a few years by this point and “Blaze Of Glory” fitted in perfectly with their previous catalogue.

The video is absolutely epic with Bon Jovi strutting around atop thousand-foot cliffs outside Moab, Utah. I always liked the way he threw his guitar around when he was really going for it in the chorus. See Jason Donovan, if you’re going to wander about of cliff tops with a guitar, this is how you do it and not as you did with your shallow attempt in the “Too Many Broken Hearts” promo.

As for the film itself, Young Guns II never really lived up to the appeal of its predecessor for me. The new characters just weren’t that likeable whilst Alan Ruck’s Hendry William French seemed completely pointless. Without that same sense of camaraderie that was a feature of Young Guns, it just didn’t work for me. Whilst watching the first film as a student in Sunderland, somebody in the audience actually stood up and shouted “Charlie!” when Charlie Sheen’s character got shot.

“Blaze Of Glory” peaked at No 13 in the UK and was a No 1 in the US.

Definitely an established artist was Sting although he hadn’t had a Top 40 single since “Russians” in late 1985. His second solo album, 1987’s “…Nothing Like the Sun”, had though been a platinum selling No 1 record but none of the singles from it had been hits. One of those was “Englishman in New York” which had stalled at No 51 on its original release. Fast forward to 1990 and for some reason, Sting’s record label A&M allowed Dutch DJ and producer Ben Liebrand to remix the track and it finally became a chart hit peaking at No 15. I’m not sure what the reasoning behind this decision was other than to raise Sting’s profile ahead of the release of his third solo album, “The Soul Cages”, which hit the shops six months on from this.

I’m not entirely convinced that the 1990 remix is that different from the 1987 original to be honest but its an intriguing tune all the same. Famously written about eccentric and gay icon Quentin Crisp who features in the video, it’s possibly one of Sting’s most well known solo efforts I would suggest and even inspired this 1993 version by reggae singer Shinehead.

Enough with all these old fogeys though, what the kids wanted back in the Summer of 1990 was….a load of bleeps set to a heavy bass sound? WTF? Yes, for all 1990 is remembered for ‘Madchester’ and the baggy movement, there was also a significant invasion of the Top 40 by a genre called ‘Bleep ‘n’ Bass’ – or was it ‘Electro Bleep’? Look, I don’t know; it wasn’t my bag at all but I do know that there was a dance compilation series called ‘Breaks, Bass & Bleeps’ that showcased this sort of thing. And just as ‘Madchester’ had its holy trinity of The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and Inspiral Carpets so ‘Bleep ‘n’ Bass’ had its trio of chart stars in LFO, Together (more of whom later) and this lot, Tricky Disco. Behind the name were husband and wife duo Michael Wells and Lee Newman who used a plethora of aliases to release their music the idea behind which was that the press would not write about so much material all coming from the same act but they would review releases by supposedly distinct artists with completely different names. Some of their other identities included GTO, John + Julie, Church of Extacy, Signs of Chaos, Salami Brothers, Killout Squad and Technohead the last of whom gave them their biggest ever hit with 1996’s “I Wanna Be a Hippy”.

To me though, the bleeps in “Tricky Disco” sounded like my Binatone video game from when I was about 11 and I couldn’t be doing with it. What? Binatone? It was a huge clunky piece of hardware that, when plugged into your TV, allowed you a choice of 10 game including football, hockey, tennis and something infuriating called gridball.

This was what passed for hi spec computer game graphics in the 70s kids

However, they were all based around very limited graphic capability so pretty much all you got on screen was a paddle and a dot for a ball…and I loved it…for a while but eventually all the fuss around setting it up on the TV (there were no separate monitors back in the 70s) kind of squeezed all the excitement out of it.

Anyway, the sound of the paddles continually hitting the dot ball back and forth was just like the bleep noises on “Tricky Disco” and the like and that wasn’t music to me. Sorry.

This was though! By my reckoning, this is the third time that “I’m Free” by The Soup Dragons featuring Junior Reid has been on the show but the first time we have seen the video. The promo is basically a straight band performance but set against spiralling, fluorescent psychedelic colours and was directed by someone called Matthew Amos who went onto work with artists as diverse as Blur, Elton John and erm…Slipknot.

It reminds me of the old 60s sci-fi series Time Tunnel or when late night Channel 4 magazine show The Word had live bands on. Look, like Stereo MC’s here…

So after Blue Pearl and The Soup Dragons earlier in the show, here’s yet another track which has been on TOTP multiple times now. I think this might be the fourth occasion for MC Hammer and “U Can’t Touch This” but to enable these repeat performances to be squeezed onto the show, their air time has been vastly reduced. The Soup Dragons got about 1minute 20 seconds on screen whilst MC Hammer came in at 1:10!

Such is the legacy of “U Can’t Touch This” that it has been parodied time and time again. The obvious suspects like lampooner-in-chief Weird Al Yankovic have gone there but it has also been sent up by NFL American football team the Miami Dolphins, in an episode of Family Guy and to promote social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Oh and this one as well…

We’ll be seeing more of MC Hammer before 1990 is done with I’m sure.

Finally a song we haven’t seen/heard before! Well, sort of. “I Can See Clearly Now” was well known to music fans from the Johnny Nash original which hit No 5 in 1972 but it was reactivated here by Irish rockers Hothouse Flowers. The second (and most successful) single to be taken from their album “Home”, was its release just and open and shut case of needing a cover version to secure them a hit? Possibly. Lead single from the album “Give It Up” had peaked at a lowly No 30 so it could have just been a cynical record company move. I have to say that they did a nice job of it, injecting some gospel vibes and before letting it rock out in the song’s finale. However, if they were hoping to break the Top 10 with it, they were to be disappointed as it struggled to No 23. A third and final single taken from the album called “Movies'” didn’t even make the Top 40 and we would not see the band for another three years when they returned with the “Songs From The Rain” album.

In November 2016, their version of the song was featured in the premiere episode of the Amazon Prime Video motoring show The Grand Tour which was the new (ahem) vehicle for massive bell end Jeremy Clarkson after he had been sacked by the BBC from his previous show Top Gear. The exposure for the song sent it to No 1 on the iTunes’s Top 40 UK Rock Song chart in late 2016.

It’s the third of four weeks at the top for Partners In Kryme with “Turtle Power“. So popular were the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that they actually went on tour! A proper concert tour playing live gigs! The Coming Out of Their Shells tour premiered at Radio City Music Hall in August of 1990 and featured live-action turtles playing music as a band. In case you were wondering, this was the line up:

Michelangelo – guitar
Leonardo – bass guitar
Donatello – keyboards
Raphael – drums and saxophone

Like I said, a proper band! Never mind the story of The Monkees starting out as a fictional band and becoming real pop stars, this was next level stuff! To be fair, The Banana Splits had kind of beaten them to it with the performing as a band schtick by a good 20 years but I’m not sure if they ever went on tour! What I am sure about is that their tune was infinitely more funky than the one those turtles were playing…

That’s all my turtle trivia for another week. Spare a thought for me though as I’ve got another week of this nonsense to have to comment on!

So back to that bleeping ‘Bleep ‘n’ Bass’ stuff for the play out video which is the aforementioned Together with “Hardcore Uproar”. I have no recollection of this at all, so much so that I assumed that the name of the act was Hardcore Uproar and the song was called “Together” when I came to review it. I think I was getting confused with Stockport based indie imps Northern Uproar on reflection. Together on the other hand were a pair of Hacienda regulars whose white label recording of “Hardcore Uproar” was so popular that hit qualified for an official release and climbed to No 12 in the charts. Supposedly the tracks title was the inspiration for a series of compilations featuring house, techno and rave tunes released on the Dino Entertainment label. I do remember that compilation series from my time in Our Price if not the band Together.

For posterity’s sake, I include the chart run down below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8GhXrT2qPE

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Bombalurina	Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini	How does f**k off sound as an answer?
2	Suzanne Vega featuring DNA	Tom’s Diner	No but my wife had the original version of the song on Suzanne’s Solitude Standing album
3	Blue Pearl	Naked In The Rain	It’s a no
4	Craig McLachlan and Check 1-2	Amanda	Nope
5	Roxette	Listen To Your Heart	I did and it said don’t buy this record
6	Jon Bon Jovi	Blaze Of Glory	No but it’s probably on my Bon Jovi collection CD
7	Sting	Englishman In New York	No
8	Tricky Disco	Tricky Disco	Tricky Disc-NO
9	The Soup Dragons featuring Junior Reid	I’m Free	Thought I did but singles box says no. I did however by the follow up single Mother Universe
10	MC Hammer	U Can’t Touch This	And I didn’t – no
11	Hothouse Flowers	I Can See Clearly Now	But I couldn’t see my way clear to buying this – no
12	Partners In Kryme	Turtle Power	This as a crime…against music. No
13	Together	Hardcore Uproar	Harcore! You know the score! Erm…no

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000rxpk/top-of-the-pops-09081990

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.

Some bedtime reading?

https://michaelmouse1967.wixsite.com/smashhits-remembered/1990-issues

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 14 NOV 1997

Disclaimer

TOTP 29 AUG 1997

Disclaimer

TOTP 13 JUN 1997

Disclaimer

TOTP 15 NOV 1990

Disclaimer

Some bedtime reading?

TOTP 16 AUG 1990

Disclaimer

Some bedtime reading?

TOTP 09 AUG 1990

Disclaimer

Some bedtime reading?