Kim Appleby

TOTP 18 JUL 1991

Posted on September 2, 2021 by 80stastic

It’s mid Summer in 1991 as July stretches out before us but it’s not the consistently warm weather that is setting UK temperatures rising. No, it’s our pre-occupation with all things Robin Hood. Not only is Bryan Adams at No 1 with that song from the latest celluloid take on the legend but said film is set to open in the UK the day after this TOTP aired. In all honesty, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves was just the latest in a long line of adaptations of the Robin Hood story in film and television which have engrossed us as a nation down the years. From the classic 1938 film starring Errol Flynn in the title role, through the 50s TV series starring Richard Greene with its ‘Robin Hood, Robin Hood, Riding through the glen‘ theme tune and onto the 1973 Walt Disney re-imagining of the tale with the lead characters as animals. It didn’t stop there though as we progressed into the 80s with the supernatural themed TV series starring not one but two different Robins and finally arriving in the 90s with the BBC sit com Maid Marian and her Merry Men with its role reversal re-writing of the story. Hell, even in 1991, the year of Robin, there was another film of the legend in addition to the Kevin Costner one starring Patrick Bergin which was a much more gritty retelling of the tale than its more commercial competitor. So, with a seemingly inexhaustible demand for tight-clad merry men and archery, I wonder if TOTP followed the trend?

Our host for tonight is Jakki Brambles who’s had her hair done like Debbie Gibson and the opening act is Cathy Dennis with her single “Just Another Dream”. This track was on its third attempt at being a hit by this point after getting no further than No 93 in 1989 and No 95 in 1990. However, as Jakki intimated in her intro, Cathy was doing the business over in the US where the song had gone Top 10 so that, allied with her recent Top 5 hit “Touch Me (All Night Long)”, meant that it was shoved out into the market place one more time where it would sell enough copies to reach No 13 in the UK. It’s pretty bland stuff though to my ears with one of those choruses that seems to have too many words in it.

There’s little evidence of a Robin Hood theme to Cathy’s outfit tonight which is more space cadet than Maid Marian, not unlike something Betty Boo would have been wearing at the time but her song is nowhere near as catchy as something that the Boo-ster would have come up with. A month after this, Cathy’s debut album “Move To This” was released and it was a huge success selling 100,000 copies in the UK and she would consolidate that success by following that well worn path of releasing a slowie after two fast tracks when sugary ballad “Too Many Walls” went Top 20.

It would be stretching it to try and make a connection between Robin Hood and the next act but I’ll give it a go. Well, for starters they both feature a gang with a leader at the head of it. Erm…that’s it. Yes for Robin Hood and his Merry Men read Heavy D And The Boyz. Their cover of “Now That We Found Love” was by far their biggest ever hit peaking at No 2 although Heavy himself did feature on hit singles by Janet Jackson (“Alright” a No 20 hit in 1990) and Michael Jackson (“Jam” a No 13 hit in 1992).

The album it was taken from (“Peaceful Journey”) has some song titles on it loaded with sexual innuendo such as “Do Me, Do Me”, “The Lover’s Got What U Need” and the C+C Music Factory soundalike “I Can Make You Go Oooh”. I’m pretty sure that Robin Hood woulds never have been so course in his wooing of Maid Marian.

Jakki Brambles goes a bit fattest in her commentary on Heavy D though when she says “Turning cellulite into success, that’s Heavy D” and then compounds the insult by saying “I like that” clearly giving away the fact that she was reading from a script. Let’s just hope she was cringing her face off if she was watching these BBC4 TOTP repeats back.

Next is an English rock band ploughing their own furrow in amongst all this dance music and doing quite nicely thank you very much. Little Angels had already racked up five Top 40 singles by this point (though none of them had progressed past No 21) and “I Ain’t Gonna Cry” kept the run going by peaking at No 26. This was the last single to be released from their third album entitled “Young Gods” and the band were just 18 months away from the pinnacle of their success when fourth album “Jam” would go to No 1. I had a freebie CD of that album (one of those advanced copies that the record companies sent out to record shops to promote ahead of its official release) and it was pretty good. Don’t know where it is now mind.

For me what set them apart from all those similar bands like Thunder, The Quireboys, The Dogs D’Amour that were around at the time was their brass section called The Big Bad Horns who would play live with the band as well as record with them. I saw Little Angels do an instore appearance at HMV in Manchester at the time of the “Jam” album and they also played a mini set and they could make a decent noise live. The band seemed to split right at the height of their success in 1994 and have only reformed briefly for a nine date UK tour in 2012 and an appearance at the download festival in 2013.

What’s this? Jakki Brambles advising that we can have a party for a group of friends at TOTP and she’ll tell us how later. What?! Really? How would that work? My friend Robin, who was in the TOTP audience by mistake earlier in this year (he thought Morrissey was appearing, he didn’t), said it was a awful experience and he was just part of a small group of people being herded around the studio and being asked to whoop and holler inanely by the floor staff now and again. Doesn’t sound like a top night out to me? Did your party get access to the legendary BBC bar as well? I think I would have wanted a full breakdown of what was included in the deal before booking!

I can’t actually work out what this next single is? “(Hammer Hammer) They Put Me in the Mix” by MC Hammer (obvs) sounds like one of those medley remix singles that the likes of Black Box, Technotronic and Snap! had released around this time but I can’t hear any of his previous hits in the mix (as it were). His discography says it was a non-album single (remix) not listed on either “Please Hammer, Don’t Hurt ‘Em” or the follow up “Too Legit to Quit” so what exactly was it? Well, I have the answer for you….it was absolute shit that’s what it was.

“(Hammer Hammer) They Put Me in the Mix” peaked at No 20.

Ah… I wasn’t expecting to see Kim Appleby on the show again as I’d pretty much written off her chart career the last time she appeared. Consequently, I’ve very little left to say about this one. Kim seems so nice and her song “Mama” is so inoffensive. OK, how about this. Whilst recording tracks with Stock, Aitken and Waterman at the Hit Factory studios, Mel & Kim were prone to staying the phrase “F*****g lovely mate”. So often did they say it in their strong London accents that it inspired Pete Waterman to come up with the song “FLM” which in the press for the single stated it was an acronym for ‘Fun, Love and Money’ although the truth was a lot more base. And the link to Robin Hood? Here’s Christian Slater as Will Scarlet swearing in a very non-English sounding accent in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves…

Tenuous? Me?

“Mama” peaked at No 19 and was Kim’s last ever Top 40 entry.

It’s that duet from Nat ‘King’ Cole and his daughter Natalie Cole now and their virtual version of “Unforgettable”. The track won four Grammys in 1992 – Record of the Year, Traditional Pop Vocal Performance, Song of the Year and Arrangement Accompanying Vocals whilst the parent album won Album of the Year and Best Engineered – Non-Classical. OK, some of those categories sound a bit confusing and possibly made up – what’s the difference between Record of the Year and Song of the Year (no, I can’t be bothered to look it up) for example? Anyway, I guess it was a very big deal in the US and indeed went seven times platinum over there.

Oh, and a Robin Hood tie in? “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” won Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or Television grammy that same year.

Just the two Breakers this week starting with Altern 8 and “Infiltrate 202”. If I hear the name Altern 8 I don’t hear any of their tunes (which all sounded a bit the same to my non raver ears) but I do get a mental image of face masks and hazmat suits. Yes, clearly ahead of the game by 30 years, I don’t think I saw a TV appearance by this Staffordshire duo when they weren’t wearing their distinctive outfits with the ‘A’ logo on the masks.

Although I didn’t get their appeal, they were a pretty big deal for a while in the early 90s and scored two Top 10 hits in “Activ 8 (Come with Me)” and “Evapor 8”. Apparently, as well as their face masks gimmick, they also employed the trick of ensuring that just about all their tracks had the figure 8 in their title. Other singles included “Hypnotic St-8” and “Brutal-8-E”. So why didn’t they call “Infiltrate 202” “Infiltr-8 202” then?

Another dance tune now from Shades Of Rhythm who, as Jakki Brambles said, hailed from Peterborough. I remember the name but that’s about it and have no recall of “Sounds Of Eden” at all. Apparently they were signed to legendary label ZTT Records (Frankie Goes To Hollywood and all that) and they were stalwarts of dance compilation albums of the day such as “Deep Heat” and “Hard Fax” but this was never going to be my bag at all.

“Sounds Of Eden” peaked at No 35.

“The world’s most pleasant pop stars” are up now, well at least according to Jakki Brambles they are. To be fair, the general consensus seemed to be that Londonbeat were indeed an extremely amiable bunch. Their single “A Better Love” had been originally released as the direct follow up to the band’s surprising No 2 smash “I’ve Been Thinking About You” at the end of 1990 but it had failed to get above No 52 then. A cover of Bob Marley’s “No Woman No Cry” was then sent out to restore chart fortunes in March of ’91 but failed abysmally spending just two weeks in the charts peaking at No 64. For some reason (maybe because it was a Top 20 hit in the US?), “A Better Love” was given another shot at redemption just a few months later and bingo! Another Top 40 hit and a slot on TOTP.

I’m not really sure why it didn’t take off first time around. It’s a very melodic tune with some lush vocals that wash over you making it perfect for daytime radio playlists. I have to say though that the lyrics were on the wrong side of jarring. “I’ll never find a better love not in a minute” they sang in the chorus. Well, yeah. Obviously. How would it even be possible? For a start you’d have to wake up to the fact that you weren’t happy in your relationship to begin with and that there was someone better for you out there. Then you’d have to break up with your current squeeze and got through all that. That’s before you’ve even thought about how you go about finding a new (better) love. At work? Down the pub? Online dating? All this stuff takes time and is certainly not achievable in 60 seconds!

As with many a single in 1991, its belated success caused a sudden surge of demand for the parent album (“In The Blood”) which had been released some 10 months prior meaning not many record shops had copies of it in. When more were ordered in our store, we found that the delivery note had those dreaded words ‘Temporarily Withdrawn’ against the album meaning it was going to be re-promoted but the record label wanted all the old copies still knocking around sold first before they would make it available again. I hated that practice.

As for Londonbeat, they were never as popular again and even resorted to that last chance saloon tactic of entering in the Song For Europe competition in 1995. Want to hear it? Tough, here it is…

Hmm. Not sure I have to say. Do you remember who they were beaten by to being the UK’s official entry in that year’s Eurovision Song Contest? How could you forget the year we went rap with Love City Groove? The song finished 10th leading Terry Wogan to famously comment that “the experiment has failed”.

What was it with 1991 and re-released singles?! After Cathy Dennis and Londonbeat before them came Jesus Jones with “Right Here, Right Now” a single that had not only been released once already but had actually also been a hit before! Back in October ’90, it went to No 31 in the UK charts paving the way for bigger successes in “International Bright Young Thing” and the album “Doubt” that made the band a huge deal briefly.

Their success was not restricted to just over here though. As Jakki says, they were also a doing the business in the US where “Right Here, Right Now” topped the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart and reached No 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. Presumably that was why it was re-released in the UK. The US success didn’t translate over here though as it peaked at, yes you guessed it, No 31 again. Reminds me of when I retook my Maths ‘O’ level in ’84 and got the same ‘C’ grade again. Still, there’s not many song’s that can boast that it was used in not one but two US presidential election campaigns which was what happened to “Right Here, Right Now” when it was appropriated by Bill Clinton in 1992 and then again by his wife Hillary Clinton in 2008.

And so we arrive at the main protagonist of all this Robin Hood mania. Bryan Adams is No 1 for just the second of 16 weeks with “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You”. As I said earlier, the film the song was taken from, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, was released in the UK the day after this TOTP went out but was it any good? I don’t think time has been kind to it. Let’s start with its star Kevin Costner. His box office pull was not in doubt after his run of hits like The Untouchables, No Way Out, Bull Durham and Field of Dreams and that’s before we mention the Oscar winning Dances With Wolves. However, the anomaly of his accent (why didn’t he even try to do one?!) and his dreadfully wooden performance as a whole should be enough on their own to condemn the film to eternal bad reviews.

Then there was Alan Rickman as the Sheriff of Nottingham. Don’t get me wrong. I love Alan Rickman’s body of work and even his monstrously over the top performance here is enjoyable but it detracted from the film. It almost made us want to root for him instead of stuffy old Robin despite the badly misjudged scene where he forces Marian’s legs apart after a coerced wedding ceremony. In fact, the whole tone of the film was incredibly dark and nothing like the Errol Flynn version of yore. It didn’t stop audiences rushing to see it though. It was the second highest grossing film of 1991 beaten only by Terminator 2: Judgment Day whilst Smash Hits magazine predictably called it “probably the best version of Robin Hood ever made”. The critics weren’t keen though and Costner won the Worst Actor Golden Raspberry Award whilst Christian Slater received a nomination for Worst Supporting Actor (that clip earlier in the post was surely enough ammunition for the nomination).

So, in answer to the question was it any good, I think my answer is a resounding no but I must have seen it multiple times as it always seems to be on the TV year in year out.

The play out video is “Monsters And Angels” by Voice Of The Beehive. Having taken a whole three years between the release of the debut album “Let It Bee” and the follow up “Honey Lingers” (yes, there was a deliberate double entendre style play on words in the title), there must have been some trepidation about whether the pop world remembered who they were and indeed if they were welcome back into it. Sisters Tracey Bryn and Melissa Brooke Belland needn’t have worried as lead single “Monsters And Angels” brought immediate chart dividends when it rose to No 17, their second highest ever Top 40 placing. The album also achieved the same chart position and their comeback was complete. However, a further five years until the next album “Sex & Misery” was a gap too far and it failed to chart at all and the band broke up soon after. Despite Tracey and Melissa now living lives outside of music, there have been a couple of reunions to play a handful of gigs in 2003 and 2017.

I took part in a recent music Twitter challenge called #PopInjustice where Twitter users posted songs that had failed to make the UK Top 40. By far the biggest reaction to any of my suggestions was for this Voice Of The Beehive track…

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Cathy Dennis	Just Another Dream	Nope
2	Heavy D And The Boyz	Now That We Found Love	No
3	Little Angels	I Ain’t Gonna Cry	Negative
4	MC Hammer	(Hammer Hammer) They Put Me in the Mix	Hell No!
5	Kim Appleby	Mama	Nah
6	Nat ‘King’ Cole / Natalie Cole	Unforgettable	Another no
7	Altern 8	Infiltrate 202	Nothing here for me
8	Shades Of Rhythm	Sounds Of Eden	See 6 above
9	Londonbeat	A Better Love	Pleasant but no
10	Jesus Jones	Right Here Right Now	No, on neither release
11	Bryan Adams	(Everything I Do) I Do It For You	I did not
12	Voice Of The Beehive	Monsters And Angels	See 9 above

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/m000z2j2/top-of-the-pops-18071991

TOTP 04 JUL 1991

Posted on August 24, 2021 by 80stastic

Well, that’s the first 6 months of 1991’s TOTP repeats viewed, reviewed and posted. Somehow it doesn’t seem to have been quite so much of a slog as 1990 but I’ve a feeling it’s going to get a whole lot denser to wade through from hereon in. As we enter July, Steffi Graff is about to claim her third Wimbledon singles title whilst Michael Stich (remember him?) will win his one and only by defeating Boris Becker. I recall it being very hot around this time and on the day of the men’s final, myself and my wife decided to go for a Sunday afternoon stroll around nearby Whitworth Park in Manchester. The temperature wasn’t the only thing that was hotting up that day as we stumbled across a young couple getting very enamoured with each other as they canoodled under the sun’s rays whilst stretched out in the park! Bloody hell! Get a room!

I wonder if there were any hot tunes in the charts back then? Let’s see…

The show kicks off with the week’s highest climber Incognito with “Always There”. After last week’s nonsense show opener Cubic 22, this made much more sense as being first on the running order. For a start, there’s a proper singer up there belting the tune out and when I say proper I mean proper as it’s soul legend Jocelyn Brown. Added to that, the track is a genuine breezy Summer anthem with some definite feel good vibes unlike that techno crap the week before.

Despite only having 5 Top 40 singles in the course of their career, Incognito have worked with some of the biggest names in the business (according to their very swish website) and are still a going concern with a cast of previous band members that would rival The Fall and The Waterboys.

One of those names listed is Duncan McKay which if you are a football / comic fan of a certain age like me can only bring one image to mind, that of the legendary Melchester Rovers left back, he of the ferocious tackle. Duncan appeared in the Roy Of The Rovers story for 15 years and not once did he change his image of full beard, and shaggy, shoulder length hair kept in place by a headband. Eat your heart out Mark Knopfler.

“Always There” peaked at No 6.

A “spooky little record’ as host Gary Davies describes it is up next as we get the father and daughter collaboration of Nat King Cole duetting from beyond the grave with his daughter Natalie Cole on one of his best known tunes in “Unforgettable”. This virtual duet was certainly a novel idea back then but there seems to be a distinct movement for this type of thing now. Maybe it was the inevitable advancement of technology coupled with the accelerated death rate of some of the music world’s biggest stars (remember 2016?) that brought this about but there is now a definite world of departed pop stars still giving concerts after they have shuffled off this mortal coil. Whitney Houston has definitely been brought back to life in hologram form whilst my own mother has been to see her beloved Elvis ‘live’ as it were with only The King’s original touring band actually being up there on stage. I think ABBA are due some sort of virtual reunion as well? OK, the Cole family reunion wasn’t quite up to those standards but it was pretty revolutionary in 1991.

Was it any good though? Well, despite his undoubtedly smooth crooner voice and the fact that he probably helped deny Rick Astley the Xmas No 1 spot in 1987 thanks to the re-release of his version of “When I Fall In Love” pinching sales for Astley’s version, Nat King Cole wasn’t somebody who I was ever going to explore beyond his most famous songs. The fact that his daughter had re-recorded them with his vocals as a duet therefore wasn’t going to bring about any lightbulb moments for me. Yes, them as there is a whole album of Natalie and her Dad together. Entitled “Unforgettable… With Love”, it sold steadily in the UK going gold but it went through the roof in the US racking up sales that achieved 7 x platinum status!

The ultimate sadness about the project is that Natalie herself would die before her time, passing away in 2015 aged 65. Her Dad died even younger in 1965 aged just 45. “Unforgettable” the duet peaked at No 19 on the UK Top 40.

A bizarre one hit wonder next from Cola Boy and their single “7 Ways To Love”. Bizarre how? Well, it was a dance tune that had a vocalist fronting it but the only words she sings are ‘7 Ways To Love’. If you were gong to do that why not just find a sample and not bother with a singer? Oh yes, the singer is television presenter and radio DJ Janey Lee Grace best known as being part of the posse on Steve Wright in the Afternoon. What I hadn’t realised is that she had also been as a backing singer with the likes of Kim Wilde and Boy George and also toured with Wham! including their ground breaking dates in China. In a bizarre coincidence given that last fact, the bloke in Cola Boy was called Andrew Midgeley. Weird.

Another part of the Cola Boy story that I had no idea about until now is that the people behind it were actually Saint Etienne who recorded it as a white label for dance specialist shops. In a Mojo magazine interview, the band’s Bob Stanley recalled: “It was a period when you could drive around to record shops in London, give them 20 and see what might happen. It worked. We went to a party and heard Andy Weatherall playing it”. They were singed to Arista Records off the back of the track’s success in the clubs but due to contractual issues couldn’t promote it themselves hence Janey Lee Grace and Andrew Midgeley being roped in.

The single rose to No 8 which is a higher peak than any Saint Etienne single managed* which must have been annoying for the band but maybe not as annoying as not being allowed into the TOTP studio to watch their charges on this show as, according to Stanley in that Mojo interview “They wouldn’t let us in. We got to the gates- your name’s not on the list”.

*This reminds nine of Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran producing Kajagoogoo’s “Too Shy” and it going to No 1 before the Duran boys themselves had achieved that feat. They rectified it weeks later when “Is There Something I Should Know” went straight into the charts at No 1.

Following on from the rather odd father and daughter virtual collaboration that was Nat King Cole and Natalie Cole, here’s another bizarre partnership as Anthrax and Public Enemy join forces for “Bring The Noise” (and not “Bring On The Noise” as Gary Davies mistakenly says twice). This, of course, was a Public Enemy track that had already been released as a single peaking at No 32 back in 1988. When thrash metallers Anthrax recorded a version and asked Chuck D to see if he would add his vocals on it, their request was refused by Def Jam label co-founder Rick Rubin so the band added Public Enemy’s vocals from the original master anyway. Once the track was finished, Rubin must have seen sense and the release was promoted by both bands leading to a joint tour.

I’ve told my Flavor Flav story before haven’t I? Oh well, it’s due another outing. A year on from this release, U2 were playing a gig at the G-Mex centre in Manchester entitled “Stop Sellafield” as part of the Greenpeace movement to protest the nuclear factory. On the bill with them were Kraftwerk and Public Enemy. On the afternoon of the gig, Flavor Flav wondered into the Our Price store on Market Street where I was working with an entourage of people with him and caused chaos as he meandered up and down the shop floor. He clearly had no idea where he was or what he was supposed to be doing. My colleague Justin who was a huge Kraftwerk fan and was going to the gig just to see them tried to establish contact with him in an ‘earth to Flav’ type of way but I don’t think he got very far. I think he might have been after an autograph as he was prone to that sort of thing. He once got Dion Dublin’s autograph when he came in the shop shortly after he had signed for Man Utd on the back of a picture of Bryan Robson.

“Bring The Noise” (the Anthrax/ Public Enemy mash up version) peaked at No 14.

Kim Appleby‘s time as a solo star was coming to an end in mid 1991. Having read some interviews with her, I think the allure of the whole thing was starting to wane anyway. She had worked up the songs for her debut eponymous album in tribute to her sister Mel with whom she had been writing and who had passed away at the beginning of 1990 as she wanted to create some sort of legacy for her. The success of the album and specifically the single “Don’t Worry” had achieved that. It sounds like she kind of lost her drive and purpose after that. “Mama” was the third single taken from that album and was the smallest fo the three hits off it peaking at No 19. It was also her last Top 40 hit. It was pleasant enough if a bit twee. The chorus had an endearing nursery rhyme quality to it but the verses were a bit slow. It was nowhere near as impressive as “Don’t Worry” which was nominated for an Ivor Novello in the best contemporary song category (it lost out to Adamski’s “Killer”). That nomination action though did lead to Kim being involved with the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers And Authors who co-ordinate the Ivor Novello awards and she chaired the judges panel for them for 15 years.

There was a second album in 1993 but it only received a limited release and the singles from it all failed to chart so it became a lost album. Kim has returned to live performing recently for the first time in over 20 years and was also seen co-presenting a three-part series on BBC Four called Smashing Hits! The 80s Pop Map of Britain and Ireland with Midge Ure.

This next song screams the summer of 1991. The dance /rap version of “Now That We Found Love” by Heavy D & the Boyz seemed inexplicably popular to me. I didn’t get it at all. It came across as so lazy, straight out of the ‘OK, let’s get an old tune that people will know, house it up a bit, write a rap for it and the masses will lap it up’ school of thought. Hadn’t we seen this all before from the likes of The Fat Boys when they covered “Wipeout” and “The Twist” in the late 80s?

I already knew the Third World version of “Now That We Found Love” though admittedly not from the original 1978 but its 1985 re-release. To say that I’m really not a big reggae fan, I’d always quite liked it. This take on it by Heavy D & the Boyz (obviously spelt with a ‘z’ as it was the early 90s!) sounded like a travesty to me. There was an album called “Peaceful Journey” that Our Price had made a Recommended Release meaning it was discounted by wasn’t actually in the charts but I don’t think it sold very well at all as people were only interested in the single which would go all the way to No 2.

Some Breakers now and we start with Queensrÿche who I knew back in 1991 were a heavy rock band but that’s about all I knew of them. Fast forward 30 years and that’s still pretty much the extent of my knowledge. I certainly couldn’t name you any of their songs but here they were back in the day with a bona fide chart hit called “Best I Can“. Checking them out on Spotify, that song isn’t even in their most listened to Top 10 tracks . However, the single released after it called “Silent Lucidity” has nearly 47 million plays. So I checked it out and it was pretty good actually and certainly not the hoary old formulaic rock I was expecting. The clip of “Best I Can’ that they play on TOTP though is exactly what I would have expected it to be and nothing that I would want to linger over.

Not that it’s a massively high bar really but “Things That Make You Go Hmmm…” is without doubt my favourite C+C Music Factory song. The third single from their “Gonna Make You Sweat” album, it fair fizzes along with an infectious rhythm and a driving rap all of which combine to propel the track into the furthest corners of your brain from which it can never be vacated. See Heavy D (and your Boyz), that’s how you do a rap pop crossover!

The lyrics concern honey traps and infidelity were not anything new per se – we’d already had “The Rain” by Oran ‘Juice’ Jones – but they would prove to be a popular subject with future songs like Shaggy’s 2000 No 1 single “It Wasn’t Me” creating a little sub genre of their own almost. The song’s title apparently came from a catchphrase used by US chat host Arsenio Hall:

The final Breaker is by a man who hadn’t had a hit in his own right since 1986. OK, if we’re being pedantic he did feature on a No 1 single no less (he contributed “She’s Leaving Home” to the Childline charity single in 1988 but everybody played the Wet Wet Wet cover of “With a Little Help from My Friends” instead). And yes, he featured on Beats International’s double A side “Won’t Talk About It” / “Blame It on the Bassline” which made the Top 40 in 1989 but I’m not counting either of those. I am of course talking of Billy Bragg who is back with “Sexuality” the lead single from his sixth studio album “Don’t Try This At Home”.

The track found Billy in a poppier vein than we might have expected but that was probably due to the influence of Johnny Marr who took Billy’s demo of the song and turned it into a brilliant pop song. As well as Marr’s undoubted talents, the song also featured Billy’s long time collaborator Kirsty MacColl on backing vocals. The lyrics are typically idiosyncratic Bragg, for example:

A nuclear submarine sinks off the coast of Sweden
Headlines give me headaches when I read them
I had an uncle who once played for Red Star Belgrade
He said some things are really best left unspoken
But I prefer it all to be out in the open

He’s not everybody’s cup of tea but I love Billy’s values and approach to life which is reflected in his music.

The video was made by yet another long time mate in Phil Jupitus who’s connection with Billy stretched back to the days of Red Wedge in the mid 80s and am I losing my mind but does The Bard of Barking have a look of Andrew Lincoln about him in it? OK, I am going mad but he looks more like The Walking Dead star than Robert De Niro as the lyrics would have us believe.

“Sexuality” peaked at No 27.

Now surely this next single was a prime contender for having been included in the Breakers section we have just seen but somehow the TOTP producers decided that it deserved a spot on it own in the running order despite only being at No 37 in the charts. “Generations Of Love” was the follow up to “Bow Down Mister” by Boy George’s side project Jesus Loves You. It had flopped on its initial release the previous year but had been given a second chance in the light of the chart performance of “Bow Down Mister”. Whilst you couldn’t call a Top 40 hit a flop, its peak of No 35 (even with is TOTP appearance) was hardly a resounding success either.

I didn’t mind it but it didn’t have the quirky, goofy appeal of its predecessor and would I call it a dance track as Gary Davies did? I don’t think so. I quite like the gallic accordion part in it and George’s vocals were as pure as ever but it didn’t really have any oomph to my ears. It would be the last chart entry for the band who broke up the following year.

Wait! Vanilla Ice had three hits?! Yes, yes he did. Well, actually he had four in total but “Rollin’ In My 5.0” was the third. This was just garbage and six months on from “Ice Ice Baby”, we all knew it as well (apart from those few, poor misguided souls that bought this in enough quantities to make it a No 27 hit of course). The titular 5.0 was Vanilla Ice’s 5.0 Liter Foxbody Mustang car and didn’t he also use that phrase in the lyrics to “Ice Ice Baby”? I think he did.

Supposedly Limp Bizkit’s 2000 chart topper “Rollin'” makes reference to “Rollin’ In My 5.0” but I’ve had a look at the lyrics to it and I can’t see any link unless it the line ‘And the people who don’t give a f**k’ as surely nobody did about Vanilla Ice at this point.

Jason Donovan is still at No 1 with “Any Dream Will Do”. Now I failed to mention this last week when taking about Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine but I was reminded of it by a friend on FaceBook. So after Donovan’s stint in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, he was replaced by Philip Schofield who seemed to be everywhere at that time. One place he had definitely been was the 1991 Smash Hits Poll Winners’ Party where he was the host. CUSM were only on the show as their new label Chrysalis (them again!) had pushed for it but things started to go wrong after the duo’s performance of “After The Watershed (Early Learning The Hard Way)” had been cut short when Fruitbat had kicked a microphone stand into the audience. In response to not being able to finish the song, Fruitbat started knocking over equipment on stage which led to Schofield’s sarcastic comment about smashing things up being original behaviour for a rock band. Then….a tremendous rugby tackle on Schofield by Fruitbat. I think at the time I believed it was all a bit of knockabout fun but Fruitbat really takes him out and his partner in the band Jim Bob was really pissed off with him and fearful for the band’s future after the incident. Yeah, but it was Philip Schofield after all Jim Bob so Fruitbat does deserve some credit.

As for Jason Donovan, this would be his second and final week at No 1.

The play out video is “My Name Is Not Susan” by Whitney Houston. This confusingly titled single was actually about Whitney confronting a lover who has mistakenly called her by his ex-girlfriend’s name Susan (according to Wikipedia). Relationship mis-steps seems to be all the rage for song subject matter in 1991 after the honey trap of “Things That Make You Go Hmmm…” and now this. Sadly for Whitney, the choice of this track as a single also proved to be a mis-step as it peaked at No 29 but she would be back the following year with her gargantuan selling version of “I Will Always Love You” from The Bodyguard.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Incognito	Always There	Nope
2	Nat King Cole / Natalie Cole	Unforgettable	No
3	Cola Boy	7 Ways To Love	Negative
4	Anthrax / Public Enemy	Bring The Noise	I did not
5	Kim Appleby	Mama	Nah
6	Heavy D & The Boyz	Now That We’ve Found Love	Definitely not
7	Queensrÿche	Best I Can	Another no
8	C+C Music Factory	Things That Make You Go Hmmm…	Liked it, didn’t buy it
9	Billy Bragg	Sexuality	No but I have it on his retrospective Must I Paint You A Picture
10	Jesus Loves You	Generations Of Love	Not for me
11	Vanilla Ice	Rollin’ In My 5.0	Hell no
12	Jason Donovan	Any Dream Will Do	See 11 above
13	Whitney Houston	My Name Is Not Susan	And a final 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/m000ypcb/top-of-the-pops-04071991

TOTP 07 FEB 1991

Posted on June 15, 2021 by 80stastic

After last week’s car crash of a show and Anthea Turner’s Klu Klux Klan / WTF?! moment, the BBC have got Bruno Brookes on hosting responsibilities this time around. Now Bruno wasn’t immune from the odd gaff himself but he plays it pretty safe for the whole 30 minutes (yes we are back to the full running time again). I wonder if the need for a no controversy show had been impressed upon him by the TOTP producers?

We start with Kim Appleby who is on the follow up trail as she seeks to consolidate on the rather unexpected success of her No 2 hit “Don’t Worry”. Unexpected? Is that fair? Well, when Kim launched her solo career she hadn’t been in the UK charts since the last Mel & Kim hit “That’s The Way It Is” back in early ’88 – an eternity in the world of pop music. Would she have retained her original fan base? In addition, she’d achieved success as part of a duo with her sister, a brand and image that, backed by the dominance of SAW, had won over audiences pretty easily. That combination was now gone after the tragic early death of Mel Appleby – would music fans accept a solo Kim? Indeed, did they want a solo Kim? “Don’t Worry” had succeeded on the strength of it being a quality pop tune delivered by an endearingly enthusiastic yet self doubting Kim. Now the heat was on to prove she could do it again.

The route she and her record label took to replicate that success was to replicate “Don’t Worry” – second single “G.L.A.D” is very similar with one difference – the addition of a rap courtesy of Aswad’s Brinsley Forde. That’s not him top there on stage with Kim though, that’s…actually who is that? Opinion on Twitter is divided. Red Dwarf actor Danny John-Jules maybe? Or Manchester author and poet Lemn Sissay perhaps? Neither seems likely. If I had to guess, I would say Austin Howard from Ellis, Beggs and Howard of “Big Bubbles, No Troubles” fame – at least there’s a music connection there and the timing would be about right.

I thought “G.L.A.D” was pleasant but not as good as its predecessor but its No 10 final chart position was very…erm…respectable. Subsequent single releases though suffered from that dirty trick of diminishing returns and Kim would never return to the Top 10. Perhaps the success of “Don’t Worry” was too much too soon. Would she have been better off with “G.L.A.D” and its attendant level of success as her debut single and “Don’t Worry” as the follow up? We’ll never know I guess. What we do know is what “G.L.A.D” stood for – Good Lovin And Devotion – innit?

Another new song as we see the return of a singer who became a massive star in the second half of the 80s but who had herself been on the brink of tragedy. On 20 March 1990, Gloria Estefan‘s tour bus was rear ended by an 18 wheeler truck causing Gloria to break a vertebra in her back and leaving her close to death. “Coming Out Of The Dark” was the first song she released to the public after the accident and was inspired by that event. As such, it’s hard to be critical of it – how can you deny someone writing a song about their own horrible experience? Not only was it presumably cathartic to Gloria but no doubt it has also been taken to the hearts of many a person struggling to overcome whatever curveballs life had thrown at them. And it sounds so uplifting with that gospel choir raising the spirits. And yet, I have to say that it does sound very similar to all her previous huge ballads doesn’t it? “Can’t Stay Away From You”, “Anything For You”, “Don’t Wanna Lose You”, “Here We Are”…they all conform to a formula. OK, “Coming Out Of The Dark” is differentiated a bit by that gospel element – I’ll give it that. The single was yet another No 1 for Gloria in the US but it struggled to a peak of No 25 over here but parent album “Into The Light” was a platinum seller in the UK.

Bruno Brookes does reference Gloria’s accident in his segue but straining under the responsibility of not saying anything controversial he goes too far the other way and says this:

“Of course Gloria’s back now to perfect health… which is nice”

Which is nice?! Bruno channeling his inner Fast Show there…

An interesting choice of words in Bruno’s next intro as he references one Nigel Wright and describes him as the man responsible for the likes of Bombalurina and Yell. ‘Responsible for’ implies an element of blame here it seems to me and for once Bruno is right – Bombalurina and Yell were certainly not acts to be celebrated. Brookes goes on to say that this Wright bloke is also responsible for the next act which is The UK Mixmasters and a track called “Night Fever Megamix”. I don’t need to explain this one do I? It pretty much did what it said on the tin. Yes, having just had a Grease mega mix in the Top 5, what was the obvious move to cash in on this trend? A Saturday Night Fever medley of course! Was this John Travolta month or something? The single contained five Bee Gees disco anthems all featured in the film plus “Disco Inferno” by The Trammps. The whole thing was a…ahem…tragedy, just a horrible Jive Bunny style desperate cash grab. The video follows that template as well just being a montage of some vintage Harold Lloyd style clips and very early cartoon animations. Hell, even the act’s name is a direct rip off – surely they could have put some more imagination into it than just calling themselves The UK Mixmasters?

If you wanted to hear the Bee Gees at their disco-tastic. best, then you would just buy the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack no? Even the usually gullible UK record buying public rumbled this one and it would go no further in the charts than No 23.

What have they done to the chart run down?! They’re only name checking this records in the Top 40 that are going up or are new entries?! Why?! How much time can that have saved them to ignore singles going down the charts? Surely not enough to squeeze in another whole song? The completists on Twitter were in uproar about this change and whilst I’m hardly apoplectic with rage myself, I do think they have a point unlike this change which does seem to be pointless. Anyway, on we go and one of the lucky artists to be going up the charts is Oleta Adams with “Get Here”. We had, of course, been introduced to Oleta via her work with Tears For Fears on their “The Seeds Of Love” album and more specifically the “Woman In Chains” single. Roland Orzabal kept up the connection by producing third album “Circle Of One” from which “Get Here” came. I’m not sure how I became aware of this but I soon found out that the song was actually originally written and performed by Brenda Russell of “Piano in the Dark” fame. I dug out Brenda’s version at work one day and guess what, Oleta’s version sounds almost exactly the same!

OK, Oleta’s version has a less laid back feel to it and she’s gone a bit Whitney Houston on the vocals to make it sound more dramatic but even so.

After discussing some of the improbable songs blacklisted by the BBC in the wake of the Gulf War crisis, it turns out that “Get Here” would also become associated with the conflict but in a positive way as it was adopted as an anthem for US troops missing their families. There’s even a lyric in it which says “You can reach me by caravan Cross the desert like an Arab man”. I have to say that it does seem ludicrous that the BBC deemed “Boom Bang-a-Bang” by Lulu as unpalatable and banned it but “Get Here”, with its Gulf war links, was not seen as a problem.

Anyway, I can’t deny that it’s a sincerely nice song and I liked it enough at the time. It went Top 5 in both the US and the UK while Oleta’s “Circle Of One” album would soar to No 1 over here. For a time she looked like being the next big soul/pop singer but subsequent releases would never get her here again.

It’s The Simpsons next with “Do The Bartman”. This is the second time it’s been on the show already and it hasn’t even got to No 1 yet and it’ll spend 3 weeks at the top of the charts so we haven’t finished with this nonsense by a long chalk.

The parent album “The Simpsons Sing The Blues” understandably didn’t get much airplay on the shop stereo of the Our Price store I was working in so I’ve never understood until now that it featured The Simpsons voice actors actually doing versions of proper blues songs originally recorded by blues legends like Albert King and Billie Holiday! The album went Top 10 in the UK and Top 3 in the US. It would soon became the fastest-selling album to emerge from a TV show since the Miami Vice soundtrack in 1985. If it wasn’t mutant ninja turtles clogging up the charts it was this lot! Doh!

Next a man who I developed an irrational hatred of back in 1991 for no discernible reason and of which I am now perplexed and indeed embarrassed by. Quite why the amiable Kenny Thomas and his inoffensive mainstream soul singles promoted such indignation and contempt within the 22 year old me, I do not know. Let me watch his performance of his single “Outstanding” back and see if it rekindles anything. See you in 3 minutes or so….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pitcqjdzko

…no, no idea why I was so outraged at his commercial success. I mean, he has a decent enough voice and his lack of an image (plain dark suit over a black shirt) suggested that he wasn’t interested in being a pop star and was more about getting his music out there. Ah yes, the music. Well, “Outstanding” wasn’t actually his song although (as with The Simpsons earlier) I didn’t realise that until now. It was actually an old Gap Band song that had missed the charts back in ’82. Was it his sound that I objected so vehemently to? I can’t lie that I did find it fairly bland but it was hardly Jive Bunny grade crimes against music.

1991 would turn out to be Kenny’s annus mirabilis – “Outstanding” was a No 12 hit, his album “Voices” went Top 3 and follow up single “Thinking About Your Love” would make it to No 4. He continued to score smaller chart hits into the 90s but it had all pretty much run its course by the time Britpop came along. It turns out that Kenny is actually a completely stand up guy who has had to deal with his young daughter having a brain tumour (he has raised thousands of pounds for her ongoing treatment). He is currently the singer with 80s band Living In A Box replacing original vocalist Richard Derbyshire as the group continues to perform on the nostalgia circuit. In the unlikely event that Kenny is reading this, I apologise for my completely unwarranted dislike of you back in 1991…although I still think “Outstanding” is dull.

The TOTP producers are still committed to this best selling albums of the month feature so here’s the list for Jan 1991:

Madonna – The Immaculate Collection

2. Elton John – The Very Best Of Elton John

3. Enigma – MCMXC A.D.

4. Whitney Houston – I’m Your Baby Tonight

5. Phil Collins – Serious Hits Live

Alongside the changes to the singles chart run own, there is a small tweak to this section as well as curiously there is no voice over from the host. I don’t really see why this change was made apart from for the obvious benefit of shutting Bruno Brookes up for a couple of minutes.

Next up are New Kids On The Block who, contrary to my recall, were still having hits after 1990. I thought that the spell they had held over the world’s female teenagers had ended Cinderella-esque as soon as the clock struck 12 to usher in a new year but no. Here they were back in our charts with a single called “Games”. This was taken from their “No More Games: The Remix Album” which, fairly obviously, was a collection of remixes of their previous hits. It wasn’t just an exercise in squeezing as much out of the cash cow as possible though. The band were sensing that their popularity may be on the wane and saw this album as a chance to beef up their sound and update their image. To this end, they promoted it under the ‘NKOTB’ acronym, thereby dispensing with the word ‘kids’ from their name. Alongside the image change came the for new sound which was meant to demonstrate a harder edge to them and realign them with a more mature fanbase. “Games” was a rap heavy funk work out with the lyrics written to prove the the boys were the real deal…

‘Cause we’re five bad brothers from the bean town land
No sell out
So get the hell out
We do it our way
Who gives a damn about what critics say?

Well, quite. They go on to say that they’re kicking ass and calling non-believers out there suckers! Ooh! Get them! I think they believed that this made them sound hard like Public Enemy but they were more Vanilla Ice than LL Cool J. The single did OK peaking at No 14 over here but it was also their first to miss the Top 10 in the UK. By Xmas they would be releasing a proper Best Of album called “H.I.T.S.” that would stall at No 50 in the charts. Roll on the end of the year.

From rap (sort of) to crap. There really is very little to commend “Wiggle It” by 2 In A Room for. A terrible, repetitive record promoted by a video which is basically some gratuitous arse shots of various women ‘wiggling it’ on a beach. Its legacy, if you can describe the following as such, was that it was covered by Alvin and the Chipmunks for their album “The Chipmunks Rock The House” and that it has featured on various compilation albums including one entitled “Strip Jointz: Hot Songs For Sexy Dancers” and one called simply “Monster Booty”. Their Mums must have been very proud.

“Wiggle It” peaked at No 3.

The last week at the top for The KLF with “3 a.m. Eternal”. After the infamous Anthea incident of last week, the clip the TOTP producers have chosen to show is from an earlier appearance and not the KKK / KLF one. Should we read anything into that? Did the BBC receive complaints? Or were they just trying to convince us all that it had never really happened in the first place by expunging it from the show’s history?

Whatever the truth, the BBC were definitely going to tread carefully in future. When the band released a limited edition mail order only single in January ’92 containing a new version of the song featuring heavy metal hardcore punk band Extreme Noise Terror called the “Christmas Top of the Pops 1991” version as they had hoped to perform it on the festive year retrospective, the Beeb declined. Undeterred, the band would create huge controversy when they performed it at the BRIT Awards ceremony in February 1992. Yep, it’s this one with the machine guns…

Quite extraordinary and quite the WTF?! moment. Although the declaration at the end of the performance by the band’s promoter Scott Piering that “The KLF have now left the music business”, it was treated as a prank at the time but 4 months later Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty confirmed that they had indeed retired from the music business and that their back catalogue would be deleted with immediate effect. Nearly 30 years would pass before the band would make versions of their music available to streaming services. Talk about courage of your convictions.

The play out video is a huge dance tune, one so big in fact that it has been a chart hit (in different mixes and for various artists) four separate times over the years. The Source were a songwriting team comprising Anthony B. Stephens, Arnecia Michelle Harris and John Bellamy and they collaborated with soul / disco legend Candi Staton to produce “You Got The Love” which floundered to a high of No 95 on its original release way back in 1986. Five years later and with a legendary house DJ and producer Frankie Knuckles adding some magic into the mix, it catapulted up the charts before resting at No 4. Six years later it went one better when a New Voyager mix brought it to a new generation of clubbers but it didn’t stop there as it even pulled in the sales into the new millennium when a Shapeshifters mix returned it to the Top 10. Got all that? Good because the story didn’t even end there as in 2009 it was covered by Florence and the Machine who scored a Top 5 hit with it. Phew!

It’s this 1991 version though that remains definitive for me. I remember covering downstairs on the singles floor one lunchtime and couldn’t believe the amount of 12″s of it that we were selling. Was it even released in a 7″ format? I can’t recall now. I was definitely not a dance head but even I could appreciate that this was a tune and it routinely appears in those Best Dance Singles of all time polls. How could it not?

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gOXdDc0UOs

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I Buy it?
1	Kim Appleby	G.L.A.D.	I did not
2	Gloria Estefan	Coming Out Of the Dark	Nope
3	The UK Mixmasters	Night Fever Megamix	Certainly not
4	Oleta Adams	Get Here	Liked it but not enough to buy it
5	The Simpsons	Do The Bartman	Excuse me? NO!
6	Kenny Thomas	Outstanding	I thought it was anything but back then – sorry Kenny!
7	NKOTB	Games	I would have been ashamed
8	2 In A Room	Wiggle It	Hell no!
9	The KLF	3 am Eternal	Thought I might have but it seems I didn’t
10	The Source featuring Candi Staton	You Got The Love	See 9 above

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/m000wn3k/top-of-the-pops-07021991

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 01 NOV 1990

Posted on April 1, 2021 by 80stastic

It’s November 1990 and having got married just 12 days earlier, another huge moment in my life has occurred – we’ve moved to Manchester! Yes, despite knowing only two other residents of Manc land between us, my wife and I have chosen to move to that great city to begin our married life together. We arrived back from our honeymoon exactly one week after the wedding day and moved that very day to Manchester. I hadn’t even seen the rented flat we were going to be living in as my wife had sorted that out. That small studio flat would be our home for the next four years and we loved it. The big events kept coming as after the wedding, the honeymoon, moving city, moving into a flat, I then started work on the Monday at Our Price. After two days training in the offices above the Piccadilly store, I was despatched to the Market Street shop down the road. By the time this TOTP was broadcast, I would have completed two whole days there (If my dates are correct). Given that this was such a momentous time for me, I must surely remember all the songs that were on the show?

Tonight’s host is Simon Mayo who I don’t recall being so smug but that’s the exact word I would use to describe his performance here. Certainly not smug though is the opening act – if anything I would think she was the exact opposite – unsure and apprehensive. Kim Appleby was of course one half of Mel & Kim who had torn up the charts in the late 80s with their SAW dance tunes and ‘up yours’ attitude. Tragically, Mel had died of cancer-related pneumonia at the start of 1990 but Kim resolved to carry on and record some of the songs that they had been working on during her sister’s illness. “Don’t Worry” was the first of those to see the light of day but Kim’s hesitancy about going it alone was revealed in a Smash Hits interview:

“I don’t know how people are going to react to my record but all I can say is I’m doing my best.”

She needn’t have… erm…worried because “Don’t Worry” was a fantastic pop song. Was it a million miles away from her Mel & Kim era? No, of course not (even though it was not produced by SAW) but it had an added sense of maturity to it from that unexpected, gentle fade in to the uplifting lyrics promoting positivity – there was no showing out or getting fresh going on here.

If Kim was nervous about her return to the world of pop music, she disguised those anxieties with an energetic performance here although quite what she thought being dressed like Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen would add to the overall effect, I’m not sure.

“Don’t Worry” surely exceeded Kim and her record label’s expectations after being away for so long by peaking at No 2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLBC43xoNE0

Robert Palmer already had a reputation for being a musical chameleon with his back catalogue combining elements of soul, jazz, rock, pop, reggae and blues. Quite what he hoped to get credibility wise out of a collaboration with UB40 then I’m not sure. Not only that but it wasn’t even an original song that they might have cooked up between them but a cover version. “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” was a Bob Dylan song from his “John Wesley Harding” album and given how many artists have interpreted Dylan songs down the years*, was Palmer just jumping on a well ridden bandwagon? To be fair, the version he and the Brummie reggae boys came up with didn’t sound much like Dylan with its calypso lilt and jaunty rhythms. It still doesn’t explain the reason why the two acts chose to record it though. It wasn’t as if either had been languishing in the chart doldrums for a sustained period. Indeed, both had clocked up Top 10 singles within recent memory. Maybe they just knew each other and got along?

Palmer’s album “Don’t Explain” (from which “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” was the lead single) would go onto be certified Gold although the only other chart hit from it was another cover version – “Marvin Gaye’s “Mercy Mercy Me” whilst “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” would peak at No 6.

*The history of recorded music is littered is with Dylan covers by a multitude of artists but if you want a really out there one, how about “Subterranean Homesick Blues” by Lofty from Eastenders?

After coming over all smug and superior with his ‘look at how much I know about pop music’ tone when advising us all that “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” was actually a Bob Dylan song, Simon Mayo is at it again when introducing Black Box.

“Well, cover versions are all the thing. We’ve already had one, that was the UB40 song. Here’s another one…” he starts off. He’s like the most patronising Jackanory presenter ever. ‘Let me tell you a story about cover versions…’ he might as well have said. Git. Technically he is right of course in that “Fantasy” is the song by Earth, Wind And Fire but his tone is so condescending.

This was Black Box’s fourth consecutive UK chart hit but it would prove to be the last time that they would visit the Top 10 when it peaked at No 5. I’m not sure that their version actually adds anything at all to the original being a fairly faithful reproduction of it. Also, surely the cat must have been out of the bag by this time that the woman up there front of stage (Katrin Quinol) wasn’t the actual vocalist on any of these hits. The singer on this one was Martha Wash who did most of the vocals on their “Dreamland” album. Apparently the guys behind Black Box didn’t care a jot though and were boldly brazening it out like Boris Johnson shamelessly disregarding yet another cronyism scandal. In ‘Borisworld’, the PM would no doubt have Jennifer Arcuri up there lip syncing away whilst declaring that all her vocals had been laid down in complete propriety and that the recording sessions were all there on public record for anyone to see.

More ‘look how clever I am’ – ness from Mayo next as he references Robert Palmer / UB40’s “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” (yet again) with Whitney Houston‘s “I’m Your Baby Tonight” as the song titles sound very similar. Well done Simon, what an amazing insight you provided. In all honesty though, whilst I’m criticising Mayo, I’ve very little else to say about this one myself other than I have a memory of selling the “I’m Your Baby Tonight” album on tape whilst working at Our Price that Xmas and the shop chart cassette buyer (a guy called Steve who I am still friends with all these years later) sitting near the chart cassette filing one Saturday afternoon trying to order some more as we had almost sold out and asking me to go away and sell something else as he was nearly out of stock. Yeah, right, not sure how that was supposed to work Steve? I don’t think I had an ‘Actually, would you mind awfully buying something else otherwise the buyer’s going to have a breakdown’ in me. Oh, hang on – was it the Jimmy Somerville Best Of album now I come to think of it? Amazing insight from your blogger there I’m sure you’ll agree.

“I’m Your Baby Tonight” (the single) peaked at No 5.

Some Roxette next with a re-release of their “Dressed For Success” single. When I started at Our Price there wasn’t much of a dress code; certainly there wasn’t a staff uniform (although that would come in later years). You could pretty much wear what you wanted within reason. One woman turned up in a catsuit one day and asked me if I thought it was a bit much for work. I didn’t know where to look! I’ve no memory of what I’d chosen to wear for my first day in the shop but I do remember being mercilessly ribbed the day I decided to come in wearing a white shirt and a black waistcoat. Cue lots of comments about Ray Reardon, snooker and…erm…cues.

Back to Roxette and Mayo is still shoehorning in references to Bob Dylan b-sides (even though there is no relevance here whatsoever). Some eagle eyed viewer reckoned that this performance must have been recorded for the initial release of the single back in ’89 (you could tell by the BBC logos or something) and that does make sense as the cut to the duo clearly indicates that they were not there for the actual recording of the show. This of course raises the question of why a performance would have been recorded for a song that didn’t get in the chart on first release? I thought the show was meant to have a strict Top 40 only policy? What? They had ‘the look’ and were ‘dressed for success’ and that got them the gig? Sorry – that was lame.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKY6ec7HSdg

Another song we’ve seen before recently now as Rita MacNeil sings us a tale of a “Working Man”. Although the song’s sentiments were very worthy, there was very little here to hold my attention. It was all a bit Lena Martell (who had been a favourite of my parents during my childhood) meets “Every Loser Wins” by Nick Berry. Rita never had another UK chart hit and sadly died in 2013.

When I think of The Cure‘s remix compilation album “Mixed Up”, the track that comes to mind is “Never Enough” which was the single chosen to promote it. I had totally forgotten that a second single was released from it. “Close to Me – Remix” was that single and of course was a remix of their 1985 track from their “The Head On The Door” album. I really cannot see the point of this 1990 version though. It sounds exactly like the original but just slowed down a bit doesn’t it? Or am I missing something? The gentle intrigue of the 1985 original gets lost in the mix for me.

It took me a little while to realise that the video for the remix single was a continuation of the original promo which I thought was very clever, playing on the theme of claustrophobia with the band performing under duress within the confines of a wardrobe. Unfortunately, the second video doesn’t really work as well. Carrying on where the first video ended with the wardrobe (and its content of band members) falling off the edge of a cliff into the sea Young Ones style. The story board of the second video had the band escaping from their potential watery grave only to be attacked by an octopus and a starfish. The 1985 video was genuinely ingenious – there didn’t seem to be much thought gone into its 1990 counterpart although I’m guessing they were both directed by the band’s long time collaborator Tim Pope. The sea creature costumes make it all look a bit Mighty Boosh but without the laughs. Actually, maybe the video was was a source of inspiration for Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt. I can imagine Fielding in particular being a big Robert Smith fan.

“Close to Me – Remix” peaked at No 13 (as did “Never Enough”) which was 11 places higher than the much better original. We would not see The Cure in the charts for another 18 months when they would return with their “Wish” album.

OK, for me, this next song is peak Kylie Minogue. I might be looking back through nostalgia-tinted glasses of a much happier and simpler time but “Step Back In Time” was a great pop-dance track and yes, I realise that means I am commending a SAW produced track! Essentially one of those tribute songs like “Nightshift” by The Commodores and… erm…”Tribute (Right On)” by The Pasadenas with its 70s disco referencing lyrics, it’s got a great hooky chorus whilst the bridges that lead into them (‘Remember the O’Jays…’) are brilliant. One of my Xmas co-workers at Our Price in 1990 was a girl called Lucy who loved this track and she was bang on the money. Also, the dance routines on show in this performance really are impressive. Say what you like about Kylie but she really was very good at jumping in time.

“Step Back In Time” was the second single from Kylie’s “Rhythm Of Love” album and peaked at No 4.

Well that didn’t take very long did it? “Unchained Melody” by The Righteous Brothers is No 1 after just two weeks! Know-it-all Mayo feels the need to once more furnish us with his pop music knowledge by giving us the details of other artists who have recorded the track by name checking Jimmy Young, Harry Secombe and Des O’Connor (all the greats then). Look Mayo, if you wanted to dazzle us with charts statistics then here’s how you do it courtesy of @TOTPFacts:

"Unchained Melody" was first a UK hit for Les Baxter in 1955, peaking at 10. The top 20 for 17-23 June 1955 included four different recordings of the song: Al Hibbler's version at 2, Jimmy Young at 3, Les Baxter at 17 and Liberace at 20 – a record! #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 26, 2021

Last week I mentioned that the video for this had confused me when I first saw it as there was only one person (Bobby Hatfield) singing and I wondered where the other Righteous Brother Bill Medley was. Well, Simon Mayo, the guru of pop trivia , had the answer for me in his closing link. At the song’s end, he says “the other one was in the loo or something, I don’t know”. Simon Mayo there doing his best Mike Read impression.

The play out video is George Michael with “Waiting For That Day”. Another video mystery with this one as last week I posited the notion that I didn’t think George had done a promo for this (much as he had refused to film one for previous single “Praying For Time” due to his dispute with Sony). All that I could find was a clip from The South Bank Show which showed George discussing the song’s origins in the studio. However, TOTP seemed to have secured a video which was solely a performance of the track in the said same studio. I’ve worked out what the deal was here though. If you go to the final minute of that South Bank Show clip, there is that very performance. Bit of clever editing going on there then I think by the TOTP producers.

“Waiting For That Day” peaked at No 23.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yvHXM9Ur5E

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Kim Appleby	Don’t Worry	Don’t think I did – great pop song though
2	Robert Palmer / UB40	I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight	No but it might be on my Robert Palmer Best Of CD
3	Black Box	Fantasy	Nope
4	Whitney Houston	I’m Your Baby Tonight	Negative
5	Roxette	Dressed For Success	Nah
6	Rita MacNeil	Working Man	No
7	The Cure	Close To Me – Remix	Another no
8	Kylie Minogue	Step Back In Time	No but I think my wife has her Greatest Hits with it on
9	The Righteous Brothers	Unchained Melody	It’s a no
10	George Michael	Waiting For That Day	No but my wife had the album

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000th90/top-of-the-pops-01111990

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?

Page 1 - Smash Hits - Issue 311 - 31st October - 13th November 1990

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 18 JUL 1991

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TOTP 04 JUL 1991

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TOTP 07 FEB 1991

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TOTP 15 NOV 1990

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Some bedtime reading?

TOTP 01 NOV 1990

Disclaimer

Some bedtime reading?