JT And The Big Family

TOTP 08 MAR 1990

Posted on by 80stastic

Right then, here we are…again. It’s yet another TOTP review. For the record, if you combine all of the posts from my TOTP 80s blog – https://.80spop.wordpress.com – with this 90s version then this particular post is No 301! Three hundred and one!!! I have written three hundred posts up until now on this nonsense! God only knows how many hours of my life that adds up to?! Is it nonsense though? Well, yes clearly it is but it’s also something else I hope. During these dark times music can provide a glimmer of light I believe, something to briefly lift our mood. Maybe these tunes from long ago can provide some blissful retreat from the harsh realities we are all facing. Having said all that, it is 1990 so don’t hold your breath…

Tonight’s host is Bruno Brookes whose real name, apparently is Trevor. You don’t get many Trevors to the pound these days do you. In fact, how many famous Trevors can you think of period? Trevor Francis… Trevor Brooking…’Clever Trevor’….but these are all 70s references. Oooh…Trevor Bayliss (no relation) who invented the wind up radio. And there’s an ex-Aussie cricketer called Trevor Bayliss. OK, my point is though that there have never been that many. Maybe that’s why Brookes decided to change his name. Trevor wasn’t deemed ‘trendy’ enough (to quote the vernacular of the time). Nobody says ‘trendy’ any more do they? It’s all ‘on trend’ or ‘trending’. Sorry, I’m babbling…which leads me neatly into drawing a line under this courtesy of one David Paul Booth:

The first act tonight is Guru Josh with his dance anthem “Infinity (1990’s… Time for the Guru)“. Apparently this nearly wasn’t a hit at all. The legend goes that Mr Josh (real name Paul Walden) came up with the tune when a friend asked him to create a track for a club night of the same name. 500 white label copies were pressed of which 480 were thrown in the bin according to Walden because you couldn’t have a saxophone in a dance anthem. One of the 20 who didn’t was Hacienda DJ Mike Pickering who played it regularly at the venue and the rest is history.

The performance of the track here looks thoroughly bonkers. However, Bruno Brookes seemed to like it as he says at the song’s conclusion “Lots of energy, lots of theatre, that’s good”. Hmm. The music journalist Max Bell once described him as:

“He looked like a chap who didn’t go to bed very often, dragged himself through hedges backwards, and nibbled rare species of fungi not usually sold in Sainsbury’s” which seems fair comment to me.

Sadly Walden committed suicide in 2015.

Right then, here we are (woah – massive deja vu rush!) with the first video of the night from Gloria Estefan and her latest single …erm…“Here We Are”. I’ve written about this many times in previous posts but it’s as much of a constant in life as death and taxes and that is Gloria’s rigid single release schedule. It’s pretty easy to get your head around as it’s basically this:

  • Release a ballad
  • Release an uptempo number (preferably with a Latin beat)
  • Release a ballad
  • Release an uptempo number (preferably with a Latin beat)
  • Repeat ad finitum

With her last single being the dance song number “Get On Your Feet”, this next one had to be a ballad and indeed it is. Here we are (again) indeed.

The third single from her “Cuts Both Ways” album, it’s pretty much standard fare from Gloria if a little more laid back and less excitable than some of her other big love songs. It peaked at No 23 in the UK but went Top 10 in the US.

Here come one hit wonders JT And The Big Family next with their sample heavy track “Moments In Soul”. Having seen their video in last week’s show, we get the ‘in the flesh’ experience this week and what a visually odd bunch they were. The Jerry Sadowitz lookalike on keyboards is Mauro Ferrucci while the lanky haired guitarist doing the ‘Ah Yeah’s is Christian Hornbostel. The vocalist was known simply as Chicca while the Bez wannabe throwing some unconvincing shapes at the back is Jumbo (as in jumbo-sized twat).

In a Smash Hits interview, Ferrucci stated:

“It’s not really the words that are important, they didn’t take too long to write. They don’t mean much, there is no story“.

No shit mate! These are the lyrics (if you can call them that):

Life, life, life
Come on and
Life, life, life

Life, life, life
Come on and

One
What you’re doing back?
Two
I really mean that much to you?
Three
What’s going on? (What’s going on?)

One
What you’re doing back?
Two
I really mean that much to you?
Three
What’s going on? (What’s going on?)

Oh yeah

But then the song does sample The Art Of Noise’s “Moments In Love”. That’s The Art Of Noise who wrote these memorable lyrics:

That’s The Art Of Noise there making JT And The Family look like Bob Dylan. “Moments In Soul” peaked at No 7.

Three of the next four songs were all featured in last week’s show as Breakers so I may struggle to find anything else to say about them. First up are Innocence with “Natural Thing”.

These jazz funk / quiet storm / ambient chill out dudes (delete as appropriate) should not be confused with the band Innosense who were an American girl group formed in 1997 whose main claim to fame was that a young Britney Spears was one of their original members. They were managed by the mother of Justin Timberlake and listed bands such as NSYNC and Backstreet Boys as their inspirations. Wanna hear them? Nah, me neither.

Excellent! 75 words or so without really talking about Innocence at all.

Right, I wasn’t really expecting to see Marc Almond again either to be honest. How many places did he go up in the Top 40 that week?

*checks chart rundown video*

Three. Well, I guess it adheres to the TOTP rules of having to go up the charts to get on the show but even so. Maybe I’m being harsh. I read an article online recently by Paul Laird (@mildmanneredmax on Twitter) where he reviewed all the pivotal albums of 1990 as he saw them picking one for each month of the year. Marc’s “Enchanted” album, from which “A Lover Spurned” came, was chosen with Paul writing of it:

“More of the usual unusual from Almond. “Enchanted” is violently modern and defiantly retro at the same time and, often, at exactly the same moments. With an orchestra of traditional musicians and Almond’s show stopping, showtime, show me the money vocals it is a deeply layered album filled with treats and tricks“.

Well, that’s me told. I do like Marc Almond. I’ve even read his autobiography and have at least one Soft Cell CD but this one doesn’t really do it for me. Still, you can’t fault the drama in both the song and Marc’s performance here. See Brookes. That’s how you do theatre – not all that arm waving nonsense from Guru Josh earlier that you enthused over!

“A Lover Spurned” got no higher than this peak of No 29.

Oh hello – a new song. One of only three on this week’s show and it’s “Blue Savannah” by Erasure. This was the third track to be lifted from the duo’s “Wild” album and was also the biggest hit of the four singles that were ultimately released from it. Bearing in mind the album had already been out five months (including over the crucial Xmas period) by the time of “Blue Savannah”s release, its No 3 chart position is pretty impressive. It’s far more lilting and understated than the other “Wild” singles I think. Maybe that was the key to its success. Or maybe it was just a decent song in amongst a chart full of shit.

The video for it is a bit weird though. Slightly disturbing actually with that disembodied blue hand floating about before it takes a brush to Vince and Andy. It’s like that Peter Lorre horror film The Beast With Five Fingers meets the promo for The Human League’s “(Keep Feeling) Fascination” with its completely painted red ‘You are Here’ house. Odd.

Back to the name game now and following on from my musings about the popularity of the name Trevor, here we have Trevor Bruno Brookes pondering whether there will be a glut of baby girls being called Lily in the wake of Candy Dulfer and David A. Stewart’s hit single “Lily Was Here”. So was Bruno right? Did Lily become a really popular name for newborn girls around this time? As far as I can tell the answer is no. The most popular name back then seemed to be Jessica but certainly the rise of Lilly has been quite the phenomenon since the turn of the century. As high as No 2 around 2012, it is still in the Top 10 for 2020.

Say again? What about the song? Oh, erm…I was hoping all that name talk would have distracted you. Well, I kind of liked the oddness of it all but I was never going to buy it. As for Candy Dulfer, despite a career that spans 30 years and 12 albums, she never returned to our charts after “Lily Was Here” peaked at No 6. I’m pretty sure that there weren’t loads of newborn baby girls named ‘Candy’ in the early 90s either.

A couple of posts ago I commented on the incongruity of seeing Adam Ant in the charts in the 90s, so tied to the 80s are his glory days. I could make the same observation about Bros. I’d almost completely consigned them to the pop bin by this point but here they are, three months into 1990 with a genuine, bona fide Top 40 hit. “Madly In Love” was the fourth single lifted from their album “The Time” and, on reflection, it seems an unwise choice. Firstly, a fourth single from any album is pushing it but when it is from the second album of a teen sensation on the wane, it seems positively deluded. Secondly, for the life of me, I cannot hear a discernible tune in “Madly In Love”. It’s like some sort of jam session that got ideas above its station and all those extra bodies up there on stage with Matt and Luke just seemed to over egg the pudding. Oh, and what the heck was Matt wearing?! A jacket and tie combo topped off with a baseball cap? A fan wrote into Smash Hits to ask if Matt was going bald after seeing the video for “Madly In Love” – maybe the cap was strategically placed?

“Madly In Love” peaked at No 14, the duo’s first single to fail to reach the Top 10.

A second week at No 1 for Beats International with “Dub Be Good To Me” and this week (for the first time I think) we get the promo video instead of a studio performance. They might as well not have bothered as it’s a straight run through of the song with a sepia tint added over the top. Where did all the fun of those Housemartins videos disappear to Norman?

The play out video is “Love Shack” by The B-52s. I said last week that I found this one to be a marmite tune and judging by the online reaction to its recent airing on BBC4, I stand by that. Personally, I can’t really be doing with it – to my ears it’s the sound of a band trying too hard. I especially find the breakdown near the end of the song when the music stops and Fred Schneider asks ‘You’re what?’ especially excruciating. Ever wondered what it is that Cindy Wilson replies with? Apparently it’s ‘Tin Roof, Rusted’ and not ‘Hennnnn-ry, busted’ as I have always believed.

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

Order of appearanceArtistSongDid I Buy it?
1Guru JoshInfinity (1990’s …Time For The Guru)Nah
2Gloria EstefanHere We AreNegative
3JT And The FamilyMoments In SoulI’d rather have to watch John Terry miss that penalty on an endless loop – that’s a no by the way
4InnocenceNatural ThingNo
5Marc AlmondA Lover SpurnedNot for me
6ErasureBlue SavannahNo but It must be on their Greatest Hits collection that I own.
7David A. Stewart and Candy DulferLily Was HereNope
8BrosMadly In LoveHuge no
9Beats InternationalDub Be Good To MeNo but my wife had their album
10B-52sLove ShackCouldn’t be doing with it – no

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/m000p3bp/top-of-the-pops-08031990

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 01 MAR 1990

Posted on by 80stastic

It’s the very start of March in 1990 and apparently the UK is windswept. Well, that’s according to TOTP host Jakki Brambles anyway and I really can’t remember the weather from over 30 years ago I’m afraid so we’ll have to take her word for it. Jakki (still spelt with two ‘K’s at this point) gives credence to her claim by wearing a ginormous duffle coat while she presents the show from the BBC studio. Her choice of outfit prompted many a ‘she won’t feel the benefit’ type comments on Twitter as this repeat aired on BBC4 last Friday.

Not only was she prone to feeling the cold but Brambles was also prone to exaggeration as she declares that tonight’s first act is “a man whose had more hits than I’ve been on diets; we’re into the thousands here”. What?! Who the hell can she mean?! It is of course Shakin’ Stevens who despite Jakki’s claims was actually on his 29th of 33 Top 40 hits with this one called “I Might”. Yes, unbelievable and indeed unbearable as it may seem, Shaky was still a visitor to the charts in the 90s exactly 10 years on from his first appearance. Unlike the 80s though, this decade was not kind to the Welsh hit maker and he was reduced to farting out Xmas hits in order to maintain his status as a chart act after this single.

“I Might” was the usual toe -tapping, rock ‘n’ roll revivalist number that Shaky had made his name on. Do you think he genuinely thought at the time that he could just carry on serving up this tripe forever more? Or was he secretly terrified that the game might actually be up considering that the UK was on a massive rave tip that made Shaky look even more like the anachronism than he already (and always) was? “This Ole House” seemed like forever ago and now house music was going to put Shaky on the dole. At least he didn’t try to jump on the bandwagon – “This Ole Italo House” anyone?

“I Might” peaked at No 18.

Oh God! It’s Rod Stewart! Don’t look! He might not see us! Too late. Brambles has given the game away and here he is in full on Rod mode with his awful version of the Tom Waits song “Downtown Train”.

Look, I can’t be arsed to write anything else about this one. It doesn’t deserve any more attention. Seek out Tom’s original instead or even Everything But The Girl’s take on it from their 1992 “Acoustic” album. Infinitely superior. Apparently Ben and Tracey’s version plays over the end of the final scene in the long running US sitcom How I Met Your Mother. I’ve never seen the show but I’m guessing that the ending is much more effective with EBTG’s soothing sounds than croaky Rod honking away in the background.

More exaggeration from Jakki Brambles next as, during the chart run down, she refers to the “cast of thousands” in the lyrics of “Hello” by The Beloved. I make it 38 actually Jakki. Right, up next is a complete howler of a song. Like “Downtown Train” before it, it’s another cover version but this one makes Rod Stewart’s seem heavenly in comparison. Jamie J. Morgan is the perpetrator of this crime against music and he should be eternally ashamed for the obscenity that he inflicted upon Lou Reed’s “Walk On The Wild Side”.

When we saw the video for this in last week’s show as one of the Breakers, I made the comment that this track was almost a parody and that it could be Sacha Baron Cohen performing it. It seems I wasn’t alone in my thinking for when the Twitterati got a load of this studio performance, they made the same connection. Here’s @TOTPFacts:

Oh and the two versions of “Walk On The Wild Side” that were out at the same time that Jakki references? Well, I tracked the other one down and it was this by Beat System. Still nowhere near as good as the original but infinitely preferable to Jamie J. Morgan for me. It spent three weeks in chart peaking at No 63.

To put the final nail in the coffin of this sad state of affairs, Brambles reckons that “Lou Reed should be a very proud man”! Ye gods woman! Nobody could be proud of that, not even Jamie J. Morgan’s mother!

Some Breakers next starting with Innocence and “Natural Thing”. Anybody remember this lot? They were kind of like a chilled out Soul II Soul and were briefly the height of sophistication as I recall. They racked up six Top 40 singles over their short career (1990–1992) with “Natural Thing” being their biggest hit at No 16. They also released two albums in that time with the first one (“Belief”) making it to No 24 in the charts.

It all sounded a little bit insubstantial to me although I did quite like their “A Matter of Fact” single from later on in 1990.

After his surprise return to the top of the charts with his duet with Gene Pitney on “Something’s Gotten Hold of My Heart” as the 80s came to an end, Marc Almond returned to his day job of cultish solo artist as the 90s began. “A Lover Spurned” was his first release of the new decade taken from his album “Enchanted” which was already his sixth solo album in six years. Excluding the aforementioned No 1, the single was his fourteenth of his solo career but only the fourth to make the Top 40 after. Cultish indeed.

I have zero recall of this one but it seems quite brooding and foreboding and spiky of intent. Marc’s solo output always mined this dark seam to my ears and some of his song titles support this opinion. Here are just a few of them:

  • “Melancholy Rose”
  • “Tenderness Is A Weakness”
  • “Tears Run Rings”
  • “Bitter Sweet”
  • “The House Is Haunted By The Echo Of Your Last Goodbye”

Wow! That last title! Cheery soul Marc isn’t he? “A Lover Spurned” peaked at No 29.

The next Breaker seems to be a marmite song and certainly split the opinion of the Twitterati the other day. Where do you stand on “Love Shack” by the B-52s? Me? I can’t really be doing with it. It’s just so….joyful and upbeat that it comes across as insincere. Lots of people both agree and disagree it seems. Taken from their “Cosmic Thing” album, it is easily their most well known and commercially successful song but I always preferred the follow up single “Roam” which was much more classy I thought.

“Love Shack” brought the band to a mainstream audience, many of whom had never heard of them before. I have to say I had only limited knowledge pretty much only knowing “Rock Lobster” and “Planet Claire” at that point from the double A-side re-release in 1986. My way cooler wife had one of their early albums I think.

In a nice bit of serendipity, it turns out that the horns on “Love Shack” were provided by The Uptown Horns, a New York-based section that played on Tom Waits’ Rain Dogs album which includes the track “Downtown Train” that we saw Rod Stewart murder earlier in the show.

“Love Shack” peaked at No 2 in the UK and No 3 in the US.

Something sultry and atmospheric now as the charts welcomes that rarest of commodities into its arms; an instrumental. I have to admit I’d never heard of Candy Dulfer before “Lily Was Here” but she had already performed as the support act for live shows by Madonna and been on stage with the likes of Prince and Pink Floyd by this point. The daughter of a Dutch jazz saxophonist, she hadn’t actually released any of her music commercially until this collaboration with Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart or David A. Stewart as he is credited here. The song was included on the soundtrack for a Dutch crime thriller flick of the same name and shot Dulfer to stardom off the back of it . The single was No 1 in the Netherlands for five straight weeks and a No 6 hit over here. It even broke the American market peaking at No 11.

I seem to recall there was a lot of fuss about Candy’s looks as much as her musical ability at the time (see also British violinist Vanessa-Mae) perhaps not helped by the fact that her debut album was called “Saxuality”. Incidentally, the single didn’t feature on that album in some territories including I think the UK. Cue lots of disgruntled customers returning it for a refund because they didn’t read the track listing.

Meanwhile back in the studio, we find Electribe 101 performing “Talking With Myself”. Is it just me or do singer Billie Ray Martin’s dance moves not seem to fit the song? It’s quite a downbeat, low key smooth sound and Billie’s all rotating arms, gyrating hips and 70s disco finger pointing. It’s like she ‘s got a Jane Fonda workout video playing in her mind’s eye. There’s even a bit of twerking going on.

Maybe she took her inspiration from the dance moves of another famous Billie…

Later in the decade another Billie appeared who also seemed to have been similarly inspired…

OK, enough of the Billies as we move onto…something called The Brits 1990 Dance Medley which took some of the biggest dance hits of recent times and slung them all together into one continuous mix. The video shown on TOTP includes footage from the actual performance of this heap of shit from the 1990 BRIT awards show which took place at the Dominion Theatre in London the previous month.

That video is bad enough but if you watch the live performance from the actual awards show it looks even worse…

Maybe we all just have choreographed dance routine fatigue now after having had our eyeballs blasted in the intervening years with every type of production imaginable. Maybe we’re all tuned in to the slickness of Strictly Come Dancing? Whatever it is, that just looked shit. And what was the point of having The Cookie Crew come on for 10 seconds right at the end?

If you were counting, then the tracks featured are:

  • Double Trouble & Rebel MC – “Street Tuff”
  • A Guy Called Gerald – “Voodoo Ray”
  • S’Express – “Theme From S’Express”
  • Beatmasters – “Hey DJ I Can’t Dance”
  • Jeff Wayne – “Eve Of The War (Ben Liebrand Mix)”
  • 808 State – ” Pacific State”
  • D Mob – “We Call It Acieed”
  • Cookie Crew – “Got To Keep On”

At least two of the tracks featured were hits in 1988! How is that anything to do with The Brits 1990?! As for the show itself, if I tell you that Phil Collins won Best British Single of the Year and Best Male Solo Artist then I think that tells you all you need to know.

The Brits 1990 Dance Medley single (because let’s not forget that’s what it was, something you could actually buy and not just a performance on TV) peaked at No 2. No 2!

After all that frantic dancing, here comes Michael Bolton to calm us down with his soporific ballad “How Am I Supposed To Live Without You?”. I’ve already spilled my shaming Michael Bolton story the other week so I have no intention of going there again so what else to say about old Bollers? The hair! Of course the hair! I mean, just look at it! If you google ‘Michael Bolton’s hair’, there are so many articles, posts and interviews about his monstrous locks that it’s almost as if they had a life of their own. Well, maybe they do because there is a Michael Bolton’s Hair twitter account. It only has 36 followers and hasn’t posted since 2017 but it’s there. Here are some example tweets:

How about?

And inevitably…

Yes they’re painful but so is watching Michael perform here on TOTP and I had to do that for this blog so think yourselves lucky.

There’s a new No 1 as Beats International topple Sinéad  O’Connor after four weeks with “Dub Be Good To Me”. Do Beats International get the retrospective credit they deserve? OK, sure the whole project was overshadowed by the reach and success of another Cook alter ego Fatboy Slim later in the decade and yes they are mainly only remembered for this one song but for me, it was a glimmer of light in a sea of hopeless No1 records in 1990.

*Spoiler alert*

Elton John? Awful song. Cliff Richard? More Xmas ghastliness. A song about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? WTF?! Bombalurina aka Timmy Mallett? Aagghhhh!

Come on, given that cesspit of shite for company, “Dub Be Good To Me” was solid gold and I for one will always think fondly of it.

Right, what’s this we’ve got to close the show? JT And The Big Family? Who? There’s only one JT in my book and that’s Chelsea legend John Terry! Well, it turns out this JT were Italian house DJs Mauro Ferrucci and Christian Hornbostel and they were the JT part of the equation as JT stood for ‘Jockers Team’ – at that time, DJs in Italy were referred to as ‘jockers’. Hmm. ‘The Family’ were a female singer called Chicca and a dancer called Jumbo. Look , I’m not making any of this up! The whole thing was meant to be a ‘fluid concept’, a collective if you like. Basically they were the Italian Beats International if that makes things easier! Their only hit was “Moments In Soul” which sampled amongst many other things the melody from Art Of Noise’s “Moments In Love” and the drums from “Back To Life” by Soul II Soul.

I don’t really remember this one at all. I don’t think I missed much.

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

Order of appearanceArtistSongDid I Buy it?
1Shakin’ StevensI MightThere was no might about it – a big NO
2Rod StewartDowntown TrainGod no
3Jamie J. MorganWalk On The Wild SideNegative
4InnocenceNatural ThingNah
5Marc AlmondA Lover SpurnedNot for me
6B-52sLove ShackCouldn’t be doing with it – no
7David A. Stewart and Candy DulferLily Was HereNope
8Electribe 101Talking With MyselfI did not
9Various ArtistsThe Brits 1990 Dance MedleyDefinitely not
10Michael BoltonHow Am I Supposed To Live Without YouQuite easily Michael…oh except I saw you in concert. Oh God the shame!
11Beats InternationalDub Be Good To MeNo but my wife had their album
12JT And The FamilyMoments In SoulI’d rather have to watch John Terry miss that penalty on an endless loop – that’s a no by the way

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/m000p3bl/top-of-the-pops-01031990

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?

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is imgres-2.jpg

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