Livin’ Joy

TOTP 22 AUG 1997

After rotating a trio of presenters in Jayne Middlemiss, Zoe Ball and Jo Whiley in the first few weeks of his tenure, TOTP Executive Producer Chris Cowey has branched out with his choice of hosts. Recent shows were piloted by Mary Anne Hobbs, Phil Jupitus and Denise van Outen. And then there’s this week – the curious case of Sarah Cawood. Having started her presenting career on Nickelodeon, she’d most recently appeared in Channel 4’s The Girlie Show. You remember The Girlie Show surely? It was a Channel 4 late night magazine show that was in the slot usually reserved for The Word and was hosted by a team of presenters including Cawood and a very young Sara Cox. It wasn’t well received by viewers or the tabloids though I always quite liked it, especially the ‘Wanker of the Week’ feature. Anyway, despite those post-pub beginnings, she was drafted into host the BBC’s flagship, prime time pop music show in 1997 but here’s the curious thing – Cawood wouldn’t present another TOTP for nearly five years at which point she was a regular until June 2003. So what was that all about? Didn’t Cowey think Cawood was any good in this 1997 show but changed his mind in 2002? I think she does a decent job for what it’s worth.

We start with one of the biggest and most unlikely hits of the year – “Tubthumping” by Chumbawamba. This really was an astonishing hit from a band that had never troubled the chart compilers in their previous 15 years of existence. I’d certainly not heard of the anarcho -punk outfit before around 1992 when I worked with a colleague called Emma who was a bit of a Riot Grrrl and was into them. I’d somehow managed to miss their response to Jason Donovan taking The Face magazine to court for claiming that he was lying by denying he was gay – the band had ‘Jason Donovan – Queer as Fuck’ T-shirts printed which they gave away free with their single “Behave”. Fast forward to 1997 and the band had controversially signed to EMI having left indie label One Little Indian. The decision was viewed with mistrust at best and open hostility at worst from their fanbase and peers with accusations of hypocrisy levelled at them not least because they had recorded songs criticising the conglomerate in the past including contributing to a compilation album called “Fuck EMI”. Hmm. Chumbawamba’s stance was that the move would allow them to take their political messages to a wider audience. That was achieved and then some with “Tubthumping”. It spent three consecutive weeks at No 2 and a further eight inside the Top 10. How did they do it? By coming up with a track that crossed over massively. With its terrace chant chorus and lyrics about drinking, it appealed to the ‘lad culture’ who couldn’t have cared less about the band’s anarcho-communist political views because you could shout it as you stumbled from one bar to another on a pub crawl at the weekend and that was all mattered. Obviously, this move to the mainstream risked alienating their original fanbase but the I guess the band deemed it worth it. It was an irresistible, once heard never forgotten track which had enough going on in it to ensure it wasn’t just a lowest common denominator, appeal to the masses tune. There’s an excerpt from Brassed Off in the intro and a sample of “Trumpet Voluntary” by Jeremiah Clarke in the trumpet solo for a start.

For this performance, the band had to compromise even further by agreeing not to sing the word “Pissin’” in the lyric “Pissin’ the night away” so were left with an uncomfortable gap instead. Talking of the lyrics, I read that it was such a big hit in the US as well (No 6) because American audiences had misheard the words “I get knocked down” as “I get No Doubt” and thought it was some sort of tribute record to the “Don’t Speak” hitmakers. I would say that can’t be true but then America did vote in Donald Trump as their president. Twice. In fact, I’m surprised he didn’t try and use it to soundtrack his campaign. He’s too stupid to understand that the song is actually for and about working class people and their resilience in the face of adversity.

There were some ropey old boy bands in the 90s of which I would include OTT and when I say ‘ropey’, I literally mean ‘money for old rope’. The sheer audacity of their record label Epic to think they could launch this lot to global stardom on the back of some uninspired choices of cover versions. Having had their first hit with a cover of “Let Me In” by The Osmonds (blatantly copying Boyzone’s initial route into the charts), they went there again with a cover of a classic MOR ballad – Air Supply’s “All Out Of Love”. What a lazy, banal and uninventive way to go. In the 2001 film Rock Star, Mark Wahlberg’s character (a singer in a rock tribute band) argues with his brother about their differing musical tastes. Whilst he is into heavy rock, he chastises his brother for liking Air Supply. I think that says it all.

The staging of this performance with the studio audience all sat down on the floor cross-legged, gazing up at the four dullards in front of them reminds me of junior school assemblies. Watching OTT is about as much fun as those assemblies. Only two of the four band members sing solo parts while the other two just do the nerd shuffle on either end of the line up. When there’s the “what are you thinking of?” break down towards the song’s conclusion, one of the ‘singers’ does some weird arm movements like he’s cracking a whip or something. It looks really odd and jarring which is also how I’d describe the decision to call these berks OTT as there is nothing ‘over the top’ about them at all – they couldn’t have been more bland and safe.

Two years on from their No 1 single “Dreamer” and Livin’ Joy were commendably still having Top 20 hits though “Deep In You” would be the last. I’m not sure I would have predicted that continuation of chart success back in 1995 years especially for a dance act when the hits were more about the track than the artist. Tellingly though, despite the presence of five hits on it, Livin’ Joy could not shift significant quantities of their only album “Don’t Stop Movin’” which would peak at No 41 in the charts.

OK, so I have to mention the elephant in the room here which is why is singer Tameko Star wearing what appear to be a pair of marigolds throughout the performance? She looks like she should be cleaning the bathroom rather than singing on TOTP. More ‘Deep In The Loo’ than “Deep In You”.

Here’s a comeback I’m guessing we’d all forgotten about – the return of Dannii Minogue. Or should that be just ‘Dannii’? As part of her relaunch, there seems to have been a deliberate attempt to rebrand her with just her first name in the style of Madonna, Cher and…well…her sister Kylie. I’m not sure Dannii would ever be that famous as to only require her first name although, to be fair, how many other people called Dannii do you know or can think of? Looking back through her discography (which took longer than I would have imagined), it appears that this one name promotion of her had actually started all the way back to her first few single releases judging by their artwork. In Australia, it seems her records were always billed as being by just ‘Dannii’ whereas in the UK she was Dannii Minogue at least initially. However, just a handful of singles in and there was parity between the territories. There seemed to be a definite strategy in place for her return in 1997 to reinforce the Dannii only moniker – the TOTP caption doesn’t include her surname and Sarah Cawood refers to her as just ‘Dannii’.

Nomenclatures aside, her last hit had been the very minor “Get Into You” way back in 1994 so where had she been all this time? Well, she’d got married and subsequently divorced in the space of just two years which had taken its emotional toll on her. She modelled nude for Playboy (I’m sure there were also nude calendars as we were selling them in the Our Price store where I worked) and returned to TV co- hosting Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast show. By 1997, she pursued a return to music and if her name wasn’t any different then her comeback single was. Dannii’s biggest hits in the UK to this point had been covers of disco songs like “Jump To The Beat” and “This Is It” and although “All I Wanna Do” was a dance track, it sure wasn’t disco. This was Hi-NRG with a relentless (if repetitive) chorus that aligned itself well with her new adult and deliberately sexualised image. The TOTP performance plays into that with her movements shown in almost slow motion at some points and a couple of knowing winks to the camera. The single would debut and peak at No 4 but it couldn’t stimulate sales of parent album “Girl” which stalled at No 57. However, she would return in 2003 with gold selling album “Neon Nights”.

Next up are a Welsh band who, like their peers Manic Street Preachers, are still going to this day. In fact, there are a few parallels between the Manics and Stereophonics besides their nationalities – they’ve both released double figures amount of albums, they both play a brand of alternative (for want of a better word) rock music and both are referred to incorrectly using a definite article on occasion though, as I have done, Manic Street Preachers are often referred to as The Manics. On that point, I once worked with someone that insisted that Stereophonics was pronounced phonetically as ‘Steree-off-ernics” but he was a bit of a prat.

Anyway, “A Thousand Trees” was the second Top 40 hit for Stereophonics after “More Life In A Tramp’s Vest” earlier in the year and was another great example of the storytelling ability of Kelly Jones. A tale of how rumours in a small town environment can destroy a person’s reputation, I love the metaphor of matches and trees in the lyrics which Jones cleverly inverts to make his point. Parent album “Word Gets Around” was released the Monday after this TOTP aired and I remember putting it straight back on the shop stereo even though we’d just played it as I wanted to hear it again – I wasn’t disappointed. There’s some great songs on there; not just the singles but album tracks as well like my personal favourite “Check My Eyelids For Holes”. I bought the album and the follow up “Performance And Cocktails” but I’d kind of lost sight of them after third album “Just Enough Education To Perform”. I should probably update my knowledge of the rest of their back catalogue though there is a lot of it to go at with a new album due in April 2025 to boot!

As for this performance, I’m left asking the question of whether there was a problem with security in the TOTP studio around this time. After the crowd invasion of the stage when Oasis were on the other week, this time a lone youth seems to spring from out of the audience to jump around (rather uncooly) behind Kelly Jones before disappearing back into the crowd. Was that planned? If not, where were the floor managers/studio security? The show’s reputation was at stake – I’m surprised that Jones didn’t write a song about that!

And just like that, the first era of Mark Owen’s solo career was over. It took less than a year from the release of his debut single post-Take That for it took come off the rails and was emphatically demonstrated by his solo single “I Am What I Am” (not that one) peaking at a lowly No 29. Now, you could argue that this wasn’t the harbinger of doom that I’m making it out to be given that it was the third track taken from his album “Green Man” that had been out for eight months by this point. However, the album hadn’t sold well peaking at No 33 so the suggestion that punters might not have bought the single because they already had the album doesn’t really hold water. Presumably the diminishing sales caused tension between Owen’s label RCA and their artist as “I Am What I Am” has originally been earmarked to be the fourth single released from “Green Man” but a fourth single never appeared and Mark was subsequently dropped. I said earlier the ‘first era’ of his solo career as Owen would return to it six years later with the interesting single “Four Minute Warning” which peaked at No 4. Although album sales continued to be sparse, his fifth album “Land Of Dreams” released in 2022 would go Top 5 and in any case, his solo career was running in parallel with the second coming of Take That from 2006 onwards.

As for “I Am What I Am” specifically, it’s a decent enough little tune but listening to it feels to me like watching my beloved Chelsea play currently – you think they should be better than they are and you’re constantly waiting for them to make something happen and they never do (you win matches by scoring goals lads not by having loads of possession).

I mentioned earlier the connections between Stereophonics and Manic Street Preachers but the former also has one with this band – Suede. Well, sort of. There’s probably a few but the one I’m thinking of is that they both had hits with very similar titles. In 2004, Stereophonics took “Moviestar” to No 5 while back in 1997, Suede went to No 9 with “Filmstar” – ‘movie’ or ‘film’…what’s the difference? This was the fifth and final single from “Coming Up” (who did they think they were? George Michael? Michael Jackson?) and it was another example of that more accessible sound that had run through the album. Built around one of Richard Oakes’s favourite guitar riffs, its chart peak of No 9 meant that all five of the singles from “Coming Up” had gone Top 10 (maybe they were George Michael and Michael Jackson!). In this performance, keyboard player Neil Codling seems to do very little, at some points sitting there with his hands idle looking meaningfully at the camera. Who did he think he was? Brian Jones incarnate?

Will Smith remains at No 1 with “Men In Black” and his intro piece from the other week is recycled with Smith superimposed over the start of the video again. It would stay at the top for four weeks becoming the sixth best selling single in the UK that year. The film of the same name was also a smash hit with opening weekend box office receipts of $51 million making it the third highest grossing opening weekend ever at the time. I caught the movie at the cinema and enjoyed it for what it was though I don’t think I’ve ever watched any of its three sequels. There was also two soundtrack albums released – a score by composer Danny Elfman and a collection of songs by R&B and hip hop artists such as De La Soul, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Alicia Keys and Destiny’s Child as well as two tracks by Smith himself. Despite only the title track actually featuring in the film, the album was a huge success in the US going to No 1 and selling over three million copies. It sold more conservatively over here reaching gold status for 100,000 units shifted.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Chumbawamba	Tupthumping	YES!
2	OTT	All Out Of Love	As if
3	Livin’ Joy	Deep In You	Nope
4	Dannii Minogue	All I Wanna Do	Negative
5	Stereophonics	A Thousand Trees	No but I had the album
6	Mark Owen	I Am What I Am	Nah
7	Suede	Filmstar	See 5 above
8	Will Smith	Men In Black	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/m00293qb/top-of-the-pops-22081997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 04 APR 1997

Posted on February 16 by 80stastic

As widely predicted and discussed within the TOTP online community, BBC4’s repeats for 1997 are facing more disruption than the London Underground during a tube strike due to the various misdemeanours of some of the artists who had big hits this year. The first of these came at the end of March when the show that aired on the 28th of that month featured the video for R Kelly’s hit “I Believe I Can Fly”. The R&B singer is currently serving a 31 year sentence for racketeering and child pornography. Having checked the running order for that episode, my opinion is that we didn’t miss much with only the Pet Shop Boys and The Beautiful South being of potential interest to this blogger.

We’ll be jumping around for a while though as “I Believe I Can Fly” went to No 1 for three weeks and later in the year we have Puff Daddy/P Diddy/Sean Combs who spent six weeks on top of the UK charts with “I’ll Be Missing You” and who is currently facing charges of racketeering and sex trafficking. I’m assuming all shows that feature either R Kelly or Puff Daddy will be pulled and not re shown. For this episode though we are on safe ground with a load of dance tunes and those nice Spice Girls featuring. Our hosts are the irreverent pair Mark and Lard who had recently taken over the reigns of the Radio 1 Breakfast Show following the departure of Chris Evans.

We’re straight in – literally straight in as there’s no to camera piece from a featured artist nor even a presenter intro in these strange, new times – with the latest hit from Cast called “Free Me”. The lead single from sophomore album “Mother Nature Calls”, it was more of that so called ‘Britpop’ sound that had seen them become chart stars over the previous 18 months though possibly a bit more of an earthy sound and not quite as melodic. It was a decent tune – definitely not ‘filler’ but by no means ‘killer’ either. When reviewing their last hit, the standalone single “Flying”, I criticised the track’s lyrics for being basic and superficial. I have to say that this was also the case with “Free Me”. So simple are they that if they were a boy in a nursery rhyme, they’d definitely be called Simon. I mean, look at these:

Give me some time to be me, give me the space that I need

Give me a reason to be, give me some time to be

Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Russell Glyn Ballard
Free Me lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

What? I wouldn’t have submitted that as an 11 year old if I’d been asked to write some poetry in an English lesson. Come on John Power – you were better than that! By the way, I’m not sure about your hat either. Must do better.

After Mark and Lard have reinforced their northern roots by insisting that you pronounce Cast as “Cast” and not “Carst” (they’re right of course), they introduce 3T who, unbelievably, were still having hits two years after their first. Happily, “Gotta Be You” would be the fifth and final time they would feature in the UK charts. Their discography informs me that this one featured a Herbie Critchlow who Wikipedia informs me is a producer and songwriter who has penned songs for the likes of Backstreet Boys, Rita Ora and…erm…Andy Abrahams. Is he the guy that comes on in the middle of this performance and raps something truly dodgy about zombie nymphomaniacs or something? Anyway, even he gets bored of the whole thing and exits stage left before the end of the song and he co-wrote the bloody thing! To paraphrase Morrissey when reviewing a Modern Romance single in Smash Hits, “there may well very well be a worse group than 3T but can anybody really think of one?”.

Next we have…what the actual f**k?! No Doubt?! AGAIN?! After venting my spleen in the last post that “Don’t Speak” had been shown in the 21 March show despite no longer being at No 1 and dropping down the charts, here they are once more. To quote from the extraordinary film Blazing Saddles, “What in the wide, wide world of sports is a-goin’ on here?” OK, the single had gone back up from No 4 to No 3 so in theory it was a chart climber, but this was the sixth time it had been on the show already and only three of those had been as the No 1 record. Sixth you say? YES! SIX! I’ve done my research and it was even on the 28 March show that we didn’t get to see meaning it was in three consecutive weeks after falling from the top of the charts. And it doesn’t even stop there as it was also on the 18 April show (which we similarly won’t get to see) meaning it was given a slot on the running order more often than when it was the actual No 1! This was just ludicrous! Who was the director during these shows?

*Checks internet*

It was that John L Spencer character again! Well, all I can say is never mind The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, this was The John L Spencer Bullshit Explosion!

When Mark and Lard looked at which acts would be featured in the show they would be presenting, what do you reckon they thought? I’m betting that when their fingers descended the list and alighted on N–Trance their reaction wasn’t “Brilliant! We’ve got N-Trance on the show and even better than that, they’re doing a cover of that old Ottawan hit!”. The descent of the people who gave us the dance floor classic “Set You Free” into a naff 70s tribute act was indeed a bizarre career move. It all seems to be down to the recruitment of rapper Ricardo da Force to their ranks who had previously featured on those huge hits by The KLF in the early 90s. He was at the forefront of N-Trance’s reworking of the Bee Gees classic “Stayin’ Alive” which had stunk the charts out in the Autumn of 1995 when it did a hit No 2.

Throwing out credibility for commercial success, they repeated the trick with “D.I.S.C.O.”. The original was gruesome enough but the 1997 version was just vulgar and the performance here, complete with 70s disco wigs and outfits (obviously) turned up the tacky-o-meter to 11. In case you’re not convinced by my argument, then here’s all the proof you need – it was covered by the King of Cheese himself Chico. It’s Chico time!….

What? There’s a counter argument? Which is?

*The guy who wrote and produced “D.I.S.C.O.” – Daniel Vangarde – is the father of Thomas Bangalter, one half of achingly hip dance outfit Daft Punk*

Daft Punk? Seriously? No, I don’t care. N-Trance can, to quote Norman Stanley Fletcher from Porridge, “Naff off!”.

Ah this is better – “North Country Boy” by The Charlatans. I recall that a record company rep turned up at the Our Price shop where I worked a couple of weeks before this all excited and carrying a pre-release copy of this single saying how it was really special and the best thing the band had ever done. Was he right? Well, music taste is totally subjective but he might have been in with a shout with that claim though it’s not my own personal favourite (which I think is “Just Lookin’”, today anyway). It’s probably one of their best known songs though, peaking at No 4 and coming from the album “Tellin’ Stories” which ushered in a period of great chart success for the band. The album itself went to No 1 while furnishing the band with four hit singles that achieved the following peaks:

3 – 4 – 6 – 16

I’m pretty sure that Mark and Lard liked this one – they even did their own version of it (sort of) under the guise of their alter ego spoof band project The Shirehorses. This is The Charley Twins…

This show really is dance heavy. After N-Trance earlier, we now get three more tracks from that (admittedly wide-ranging) genre back to back starting with DJ Quicksilver and “Bellissima”. Anybody whose stage name includes the letters ‘DJ’ in it immediately raises red flags for me and my pop sensibilities and in the case of Mr Quicksilver, I wasn’t wrong. His real name is Orhan Terzi which sounds like he’s Hull City’s latest Turkish midfield signing and I wish he had pursued a career in football rather than dance music. I can only assume that my brain can’t be wired the same way as the dance-heads that bought this single (it sold 600,000 copies- 600,000!) as I can hear nothing in the track that would have compelled me to shell out good money to buy it. It’s just the same beats all the way through with some strings sounds laid over the top of it. Repetitive, monotonous and moronic. I guess if you were tripping off your tits in a club it might make more sense but how could you listen to it in the privacy of your own home? The ballerina type dancer was a novel way to visually stage the track I guess but then she’s usurped by the usual women in PVC trousers and one in suspenders no less. Quicksilver himself gets a brief close up when he gurns down the camera lens and gives a thumbs up. Prat! It’s a massive thumbs down from me.

The second dance act on the show is that rare beast that had achieved a No 1 single. Back in 1995, Livin’ Joy rather surprisingly topped the charts with a rerelease of their No 18 hit “Dreamer” from the year before. They’d followed that up with two further Top Tenners but ultimately they would submit to the trend of diminishing returns.

This fourth single “Where Can I Find Love” would peak outside the Top 10 at No 12 and final chart entry “Deep In You” even lower at No 17. This one sounds a little too frantic for me, too much going on in the mix but who cares about that? What was going on with singer Tameko Star’s hat?! It’s enormous – I haven’t seen one that big since this fella was on our TV screens…

Did I say that dance acts having a No 1 hit were a rare beast? I was clearly talking out of my arse as here’s The Chemical Brothers with their second consecutive chart topper “Block Rockin’ Beats”. I think this might just have taken me by surprise at the time as it’s possible that I dismissed previous No 1 “Setting Sun” as having had an Oasis flavoured boost via the vocal contributions of Noel Gallagher. However, I must have underestimated the appeal of the Manchester duo as here they were again as the kings of the Top 40. Or had I? There was a lot of discussion at the time about how quickly the sales of “Block Rockin’ Beats” fell away in its second week of release as it slipped to No 8 just seven days after topping the charts. At the time, it was the ninth biggest fall from the pinnacle since charts were compiled. Was this down to the nature of it being a dance track with a lack of crossover appeal (say compared to something like “Don’t Speak” by No Doubt) or was it just more evidence of how the charts were being manipulated by record companies and their first week price discounting strategies.? Or perhaps a bit of both? I mean, they weren’t alone – both Blur and U2 had experienced similar chart slippage with their last two singles (though not quite as big as The Chemical Brothers). Did I just say ‘lack of crossover appeal’? Yet again, I seem to be spouting nonsense as when parent album “Dig Your Own Hole” came out a few weeks later, it went to No 1 and chalked up platinum sales. What was it Frank Zappa said? Writing about music is like dancing about architecture?

For the record, I quite enjoyed “Block Rockin’ Beats” and in a completely contrary stance to what I’d just said about Livin’ Joy, I liked that it sounded chaotic and all over the place. Musical opinion eh? Whatcha gonna do? The video features Perry Fenwick a year before he made his EastEnders debut as Billy Mitchell. I met his ex-partner and fellow actor Angie Lonsdale once when she was sharing a house with my mate Robin when he lived in London. She was nice. Yeah, it’s not a great story is it?

The play out video is “Mama” by the Spice Girls despite the fact that they have slipped from No 1 to the runners up spot this week. Yes, following in the footsteps of No Doubt and the nonsensical decision of temporary TOTP director John L. Spencer to show songs going down the charts, we get this one again. There were surely other hits in the Top 40 that could have been shown instead?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Cast	Free Me	Nah
2	3T	Gotta Be You	No
3	No Doubt	Don’t Speak	Nope
4	N-Trance	D.I.S.C.O.	F...K. O.F.F.
5	The Charlatans	North Country Boy	No but I had the Melting Pot Best Of with it on
6	DJ Quicksilver	Bellissima	Never
7	Livin’ Joy	Where Can I Find Love	I did not
8	The Chemical Brothers	Block Rockin’ Beats	Liked it, didn’t buy it
9	Mama / Who Do You Think You Are	Spice Girls	And no

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0027pnq/top-of-the-pops-04041997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 01 NOV 1996

Posted on November 26, 2024 by 80stastic

Right, for this post there’ll be no mentions of football or my past drunken escapades like in recent weeks – it’ll just be all about the music and TOTP which is what this blog is meant to be all about after all. So let’s examine what was happening with the grand old show at this point in time. Well, it had been through a number of changes in 1996. An initially temporary but ultimately permanent move from Thursday to Friday was seismic enough but that was added to by the allocation of a new time slot to boot. The there was the whole relaunch of archive show TOTP2 which seems to hijack the parent programme to help with its promotion. We had the ‘flashback’ slot which featured a hit from (mainly) the corresponding week from years back plus the play out video was taken over directly by TOTP2 to preview an old clip that would be on that week’s show. It definitely felt as if the BBC’s iconic music show was being put out to pasture. Whether executive producer Ric Blaxill felt this as well or just thought it was time for a new career, he would bring about another huge change by leaving the show at the start of 1997. Yes, the Blaxill era was coming to an end. On the whole, I think he did a decent job of resurrecting TOTP after the ‘year zero’ revamp experiment ultimately failed. The ‘golden mic’ presenter idea worked for the most part and if nothing else, he consigned the dreadful Simon Mayo to history as a host. Inevitably, I think the ‘golden mic’ feature got used to promote other BBC programmes and projects. Falling into this category were the likes of Dennis Pennis (Paul Kaye), The Fast Show cast and in this week’s episode Julian Clary who had recovered from the fall out of his infamous appearance at the British Comedy Awards in 1993 where he made that joke about Norman Lamont to have his own BBC series All Rise For Julian Clary that was on air at this time.

Anyway, whatever the reason for his filling the slot (he’d make a joke out of that wouldn’t he?), Clary’s first job is to introduce a song called “Place Your Hands” which prompts the first wry smile of the night from Julian. Now the first line of Reef’s biggest ever hit is “place your hands on my hope” but if you have subtitles turned on in your settings whilst watching it on iPlayer (like I did), then they will tell you that the first line is “place your hands on my hole”! Just as well that isn’t the actual lyric – Julian would have had a field day. My crack about ‘filling the slot’ is tame in comparison. What? ‘My crack’? Oh that’s enough now! Just stop it! Let’s get back to the music please! Right – well, “Place Your Hands” was quite the rousing tune, combining a funk feel with some rock riffs, coming on like the UK’s answer to Red Hot Chili Peppers – singer Gary Stringer even had Anthony Kiedis style long hair. However, the bass player looked very un-rock ‘n’ roll with his glasses, sensible haircut and roll up sweater – at one point he seems to do a choreographed stroll on the spot akin to the famous walk like The Shadows used to do. I have to say though that I liked the song even the weird bit in the middle where Stringer takes an age to get out the line “ooh it’s a celebration”. Someone who hated it though was my work colleague Mike who really objected to Stringer’s vocal interjection of “Alright now” which he repeats through the song. I’m not sure why it irked him so much but irk him it did and made the whole ding unlistenable for him.

However, what I’ll always associate “Place Your Hands” with is the parody of it that they recorded as a jingle for a section in the show TFI Friday called ‘It’s Your Letters’…

Is there a better example of a dance act being a great singles artist but lousy at selling albums than Livin’ Joy? Between 1995 and 1997 they had five UK hit singles including a No 1, two that made the Top 10 and two that peaked inside the Top 20 with all of them featuring on their album “Don’t Stop Movin’” and yet said album would only spend two weeks on the charts peaking at No 41. Such statistics would take some explaining for a rock/pop artist and yet for a dance combo it seemed to be industry standard. Was it a case of punters identifying with the song not the singer? Possibly. Would a track that went down a storm in the clubs be all about the bpm rather than any attachment to the actual person singing it? Were dance artists not promoted in the same way as a pop group with less focus on their visual image and more on their sound? I don’t know – maybe I’m just talking b******s. For the record, “Follow The Rules” peaked at No 9 and spent and three weeks inside the Top 40.

Now like me, you may only be able to name one song by Alisha’s Attic without looking at their Wikipedia page but they actually had eight in total. I know – eight! “I Am, I Feel” was the first (which is the one I know) which peaked at No 14 and started a peculiar run of chart positions up until their last Top 40 entry in 2001. Look at these numbers:

14 – 12 – 12 – 12 – 13 – 29 – 34 – 24

Adding to that, their first two albums peaked at Nos 14 and 15. These girls weee nothing if not consistent. “Alisha Rules The World” was the first of that run of three consecutive No 12 hits and on first hearing seemed quite insubstantial and yet it stuck in my mind for hours afterwards. How did they do that? Maybe it was in their genes – they are the daughters of Brian Poole as in Brian Poole and The Tremeloes fame after all so perhaps they were always destined to be able to craft catchy tunes. Both sisters have gone onto have successful careers as songwriters – Shelley has worked with the likes of Janet Jackson, Boyzone and Westlife whilst Karen has written songs for all sorts of people including Sugababes, Kylie Minogue and Will Young. In 2021, she was honoured with the Best Music Creative Award at the Music Week Women In Music Awards. Together as Alisha’s Attic they received an Ivor Novello nomination for best lyrical and melodic composition. Meanwhile, Shelley extended the rock family tree by marrying Texas guitarist Ally McErlaine in 2001.

The careers of Madonna and Jimmy Nail had the rather unlikely habit of running into each other since the mid 80s when they both recorded a cover of the Rose Royce classic “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore”. Nail took his version to No 3 in the UK off the back of his success in the role of Oz in ITV comedy/drama Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. Madonna’s cover was in included on her 1984 album “Like A Virgin” and also made its way onto her 1995 ballads collection “Something To Remember”. They then crossed paths again on the film version of Evita with Madonna in the title role and Nail playing Argentine singer Agustín Magaldi. Finally, would you believe it, they’re on the same edition of TOTP though Madonna isn’t in the studio in person as Jimmy is. Madge’s appearance comes courtesy of the video for “You Must Love Me” from the Evita soundtrack whilst Nail is here to promote the soundtrack from his latest TV series Crocodile Shoes II but more of that later.

Nail’s role in Evita wasn’t the first time he’d played a character who had a connection to Argentina. The aforementioned Oz was shown working in the Falkland Islands at the start of the second series of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet whilst episode eight of said series is based around Oz’s marriage to his wife Marjorie and is called Marjorie Doesn’t Live Here Anymore – I love a bit of intertextuality me.

Julian Clary almost crosses the line into Lamont territory in his next intro by saying that he’d been searching for the hero inside himself for ages but couldn’t find him. However, he did find a couple of lorry drivers. Ooh err and, indeed, missus. Ric Blaxill must have known what he was getting when he booked Julian for the gig so he shouldn’t have been surprised.

Anyway, back to the music and after two consecutive chart hits, Space (or their label) decided that a rerelease of an earlier single that failed to make the grade was in order. “Neighbourhood” originally made No 56 on the UK charts in March of 1996, just a couple of months before their Top 40 breakthrough with “Female Of The Species”. The revisit to “Neighbourhood” would peak at No 11. It’s possibly my favourite tune of theirs just because it’s entrancing in a beguiling sort of way – I can’t help but be drawn to it even though I know it shouldn’t really work. It’s basically one of those ‘list’ songs which in this case is a roll call of residents of a fictional neighbourhood which was based upon the real life area of the Cantril Farm Estate that singer Tommy Scott grew up in. There’s just something very intriguing about the song’s sound, be it the twangy guitar punctuations or Mariachi style vibe that runs throughout it which gives it the feel of a spaghetti western soundtrack.

Then there’s the characters in the lyrics which reference transvestites, “big butch queens” and the “local vicar” who’s a “serial killer “. That last one puts me in mind of another song with a narrative about a vicar who isn’t all he seems to be…

As I write this, this week sees the 40th anniversary of the release of “Do They Know It’s Christmas” and so it seems rather apt that the ‘flashback’ slot features one of its protagonists in all his mid 80s, big hair glory. Here’s what I had to say about “Freedom” by Wham! in my 80s blog…

TOTP 11 OCT 1984

In an era when singles could be in and out of the chart within a fortnight, “Un-Break My Heart” by Toni Braxton was one of those hits that bucked the trend. It would spend 11 consecutive weeks inside the UK Top 5 peaking at No 2 on two separate occasions matching the high of her other big hit “Breathe Again”. I say ‘other’ big hit but she did have more than those two. Indeed, “You’re Makin’ Me High” had been as high as No 7 back in July but I don’t remember that one at all. There are a few other hits but “Un-Break My Heart” and “Breathe Again” are surely what Toni Braxton will be remembered for. Indeed, the former is also the title of a TV film biography made about the singer that premiered in 2016. I was genuinely shocked that she was considered a big enough name to receive that level of attention. Maybe I shouldn’t have been as “Un-Break My Heart” would spend 11 weeks at No 1 in America and has sold over two million copies over there whilst also going double platinum in the UK. Did I like it? Well, R&B ballads aren’t really my thing so I was fairly immune to its appeal but I can appreciate that Toni has a fine set of pipes and gives Whitney Houston a run for her money with her vocal performance with this type of track. If I recall correctly, there was also a dance version of the song which may have helped to extend its chart life, covering all bases as it were. Given its longevity in our Top 5, I’m guessing we’ll be seeing this one on a TOTP repeat coming soon so I’ll leave it there for now.

And so back to the aforementioned Jimmy Nail who is this week’s ’exclusive performance’ with the lead single from the soundtrack to Crocodile Shoes II called “Country Boy”. My mate Robin tipped me off that this was all kinds of wrong and that the last two syllables of the title of his song were redundant. Ouch! Is Robin right? Well, certainly the choice of stage costumes is a bit dodgy. What was with the schoolboy outfits and the fake black eye? Was it some sort of homage to AC/DC’s Angus Young? Was it something to do with the TV show? I’ve never watched either series but I’m guessing not seeing as it was about a Country & Western club singer who makes it big in Nashville. However, I don’t actually mind the song. It kind of reminds me of this by The Big Dish which is a great track…

The line about the “devil’s daughter” though always reminds me of another example of alliteration featuring El Diablo…

I’m on record in this blog as saying that there are worst things you could do with some free time on your hands than listen to Jimmy’s Best Of album called “The Nail File” (see what he did there?). There’s some decent tunes on there including three written by the wonderful Paddy McAloon of Prefab Sprout fame and you can’t go wrong with a bit of Paddy. Robin though will be relieved to know that this was Jimmy’s final ever UK Top 40 hit though he will be back on a TOTP repeat one last time soon for another performance of “Country Boy”. Leave those last two syllables alone Robin!

Now to a collaboration between two acts that came about by a circumstance of scheduling but which would give both artists one of their biggest ever hits (though not the biggest in either case). Booked to appear on the same French pop music show, East 17 and Gabrielle were asked to do a song together to fulfil a regular feature of said show and picked a track that had been massive in America but which had hardly registered over here. “If You Ever” had been a No 2 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 for R&B quartet Shai in 1992 but audience reaction to the boys from Walthamstow and the girl from Hackney’s version was so positive that it was decided that they should record their own version together. The resulting track would make No 2 in the UK charts just falling short of matching the feat of both Gabrielle’s “Dreams” and East 17’s “Stay Another Day”. In the case of the latter, it was used to spearhead their Greatest Hits album that was released three days after this TOTP aired. Its release prompted stories that the bad were about to split which were vehemently denied but Brian Harvey would be sacked within months after a late night radio interview in which he admitted to taking the drug ecstasy. As for Gabrielle, “If You Ever” would become her fourth and biggest hit of 1996.

As with Toni Braxton earlier, the song was an R&B ballad that featured a flourish of Spanish guitar in the middle eight – it must have been a thing back then – and is actually better than I remember (though that’s not saying much). It’s billed as East 17 featuring Gabrielle though in truth it might as well have been promoted as Brian Harvey and Gabrielle as it’s basically a duet between the two. Tony Mortimer plays some keyboards in this performance whilst ‘the other two’ are relegated not only to doing some swaying and backing vocals but physically as well as they are positioned some distance behind Brian and Gabrielle on stage though you could probably make a case that this happened on pretty much every East 17 release. Also like “Un-Break My Heart”, “If You Ever” was also remarkably durable charts wise staying in the Top 10 for five consecutive weeks including three inside the Top 3. We’ll surely be seeing this one again as well.

It’s a second and final week at the top for “Say You’ll Be There” by the Spice Girls. Interestingly, the A&R people at Virgin had wanted this to be the debut single for the group instead of “Wannabe”. Their manager Simon Fuller agreed with the label with both of the opinion that it was a much cooler song but the group got their way and the rest is history. Would it have made any difference to the Spice Girls story if Virgin/Fuller had won out instead? I’m not sure and I guess we’ll never know but I’m thinking that the juggernaut of their success would have been “Too Much” to “Stop” (ahem).

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Reef	Place Your Hands	It’s in the singles box – it’s a yes!
2	Livin’ Joy	Follow The Rules	Negative
3	Alisha’s Attic	Alisha Rules The World	I did not
4	Madonna	You Must Love Me	No I mustn’t
5	Space	Neighbourhood	No but my wife had the album
6	Wham!	Freedom	No but we all had a Wham! Best Of didn’t we?
7	Toni Braxton	Un-Break My Heart	Nah
8	Jimmy Nail	Country Boy	Nope
9	East 17 / Gabrielle	If You Ever	Didn’t happen
10	Spice Girls	Say You’ll Be There	And no

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0024zk8/top-of-the-pops-01111996?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 19 JUL 1996

Posted on October 3, 2024 by 80stastic

We’ve jumped from the end of June straight into the middle of July ‘96 with these BBC4 repeats having missed two whole shows in the process. Why? Well, general consensus amongst the TOTP community seems to be that there were some issues with the meet and greet competition winners in terms of criminal proceedings being brought against them in later life. Yet another depressing indictment of our society.

With that sombre start to the post, I’m looking for some positive energy now so who’s hosting this week? Well, he’s certainly bringing the energy but whether I’ll have a positive reaction to him is in doubt for our host tonight is Keith Allen or more specifically his alter ego ‘Keithski’. I find Allen the person quite intriguing and his autobiography was a good read but ‘Keithski’ was a bellend. Totally unfunny and intensely annoying. Before we even get to him though, we have the direct to camera message at the top of the show and this one is a little piece of pop music history. Was this our first glimpse of the Spice Girls on our TVs? Probably not as they must have been doing the media rounds to promote “Wanabe” to have got it to debut at No 3 in the charts but it must be their first TOTP appearance and given the show would have been the most obvious choice for pop fans to get their weekly fix of chart music then it might well have been a first for many viewing at home.

Anyway, they’ll be along in due course but we start with …who? Umboza? Yes, Umboza. Surely you remember their first, Lionel Richie sampling hit “Cry India”? Erm, no I don’t actually and I must have reviewed it for this blog. The only thing I recall writing is that their name reminded me of the tropical fruit drink Um Bongo which had that memorable ad campaign featuring the jingle “Um Bongo Um Bongo they drink it in the Congo”. However it seemed that one hit wasn’t enough for these fame guzzlers and so they were back with “Sunshine” using the same formula as before but with a different sample. Instead of “All Night Long (All Night)” we had “Bamboléo” by the Gipsy Kings – it seemed that Lionel Richie wasn’t the one they were looking for this time (I’ll get me coat later). Given the ubiquity of that song (it always seems to soundtrack any piece of film that has a Latin theme to it), I was amazed to discover that it’s never been a hit in the UK in its own right. In fact, the Gipsy Kings have never had a single make the Top 40 which makes you wonder how they became so popular over here. Was it something to do with the late 80s lambada craze?

As for Umboza, this sounded to me like music for bozos. Were committed clubbers seriously out dancing to this on a weekend? Maybe it was popular at some of the more cheesy nightclub establishments? Certainly the guy fronting this nonsense has gone down the cheddar route with his Saturday Night Fever suit and wide winged collars. The whole thing seems very unnecessary on reflection and should be consigned to the pop music waste bin of bad ideas.

As an antidote to the crap that opened the show, here’s some rock music from Terrorvision who were on to their third hit of the year with “Bad Actress”. I say antidote but it was more like a placebo (no, not the band!) as I feel like this particular song gave off the sense that it was better than it actually was. Oh sure, compared to Umboza, it was the best song ever recorded but, in reality, it wasn’t even Terrorvision’s best song. After some great earlier hits like “Oblivion” and “Perseverance”, “Bad Actress” was quite pedestrian or at least was jogging along rather than running at full pelt. Tony Wright has to annunciate the word ‘actress’ as ‘act-tress’ rather than ‘actriss’ so as to enable some rhyming lyrics and the whole thing feels forced as if the band was told to hold up in the studio and not come out until they’d written and recorded a single from scratch. Terrorvision would finish the year with a fourth and final Top 20 hit before disappearing for two years and then returning with the “Shaving Peaches” album and that No 2 hit single.

Oh not this again. Why was the “Theme From Mission Impossible” by Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jnr going back up the charts? Well, it’s an easy and obvious answer – the film had been released in the UK and was doing big business. This caused the ripple effect of blowing out the burning fuse about to detonate the chart life of its iconic theme tune and sending it from a low of No 27 to a second peak of No 16 before finally leaving the Top 40 by stealth four weeks later. I don’t know what else to say about this one other than “What’s done is done when I say it’s done”* and my review of this hit is done.

*It’s a line of dialogue from the film if that doesn’t mean anything to you

Here’s another song that’s been similarly knocking around the charts for a few weeks. By my reckoning, this was the sixth week on the chart for “Don’t Stop Movin’” by Livin’ Joy with all of them spent inside the Top 10. It was a most orderly descent of the chart with one place dropped per week from its debut at No 5 for the first five weeks until a rise of one place back up to No 8 afforded this further TOTP appearance. In total, it would spend three months in the Top 40 and nearly re-entered it in November when it missed achieving that feat by just one place. There was one last week at No 62 before it ignored the instruction of its title and did, indeed, finally stop moving…sorry…movin’.

Next, a charity record for a very worthy cause – The Nordoff -Robbins Music Therapy Centre – whose aim is to help children with psychological, physical or developmental disabilities using the tool of music. Back in 1996, the Rock Therapy project was set up to raise funds for the charity via the release of the single “Reaching Out”. Sadly for the charity, and in a cruelly ironic twist, the song failed to raise much money when it peaked at No 126. Yes, No 126. Not a great example of the power of music and its ability to help change lives. This lowly chart peak was despite the presence of such huge names as Queen’s Brian May, ex-Free singer Paul Rodgers, “Stop” hitmaker Sam Brown, the “Wide Eyed And Legless” Andy Fairweather Low and…erm…the drummer from Wet Wet Wet. The sad truth was though that “Reaching Out” was a stinker of a record. Words can’t quite express how awful it was but I’ll try. How about lumbering, insipid, lifeless, soulless or passionless? No? A sleeping pill in the form of a song? Not quite there? Musical melatonin? Yes, that’s the one. Nailed it which incidentally is what should have happened to “Reaching Out” – a nail put through every copy.

And so it begins. The time of the Spice Girls is here. Sporty! Scary! Ginger! Baby! Posh! Girl Power! An undeniable global phenomenon and it started with debut single “Wannabe” and what a curious thing it was. Musically all over the place but with enough cohesion and charisma to make it a worldwide chart topper. Look, I can’t recount the whole Spice Girls story in one post and I’m guessing you wouldn’t want nor need me to but just a few words about their origins seeing as we’re starting at the beginning. Recruited Monkees style by Bob and Chris Herbert of Heart Management via an advert in the trade paper The Stage, their intention was to create a girl group to rival the boy bands that were dominating the charts of the early 90s. After whittling down 400 hopefuls to just five – Melanie Brown, Melanie Chisholm, Victoria Adams, Geri Halliwell and, with their very own Pete Best figure, one Michelle Stephenson. The group were originally titled Touch of which Stephenson was seen initially as an important ingredient (she’d received the highest scores at the first audition). However, she was removed from the project by Heart Management amid accusations of laziness and lack of commitment. Stephenson naturally refuted such claims stating that she left of her own accord to care for her mother who had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Victoria Adams (later Beckham) wrote in her autobiography that Stephenson “just couldn’t be arsed” to work as hard as the rest of the group. Whatever the truth, she was ultimately replaced by Emma Bunton and the rest is history. Michelle Stephenson would forge herself a career as a television presenter for a while whilst also finding work as a backing singer for the likes of Ricky Martin and Julio Iglesias.

As for this satellite performance from Japan, it’s notable that Posh Spice is the only person in the group not to have any solo lines in the song. Stephenson has her own story behind that as well claiming “Wannabe” was originally written with Stephenson in mind and that after she left, Adams refused to take on her parts. Other accounts suggest that it was due to Adams experiencing scheduling conflicts during the writing of the track (which happened after Stephenson’s departure). Yeah, right. Just one more thing, wasn’t Ginger Spice meant to be called Sexy Spice originally? Stephenson has her own take on that as well claiming she was going to be given that nickname. Ginger does make a lot more sense if we’re talking spices but then I’ve also never seen any spices called Sporty, Scary, Baby and Posh on the racks of my local supermarket either.

As with the Spice Girls, there’s a lot to unpack about the story behind the next song and given the song in question, I’m not sure I can be bothered to go through it all. Damn the completist in me! Right, let’s go through this quicker than a Cole Palmer hat trick. Two Andalusian Spanish blokes who’d had a Latin lounge act called Los Del Rio since 1962 went to a private party whilst touring Venezuela thirty years later and witnessed a dance by a local flamenco teacher. One of the fellas is inspired to write some lyrics in tribute to the dancer’s moves and calls it “Macarena” after his daughter. Initially released in 1993 to mediocre success, the track turned into a true worldwide sensation three years later thanks to a remix by The Bayside Boys who added a dance beat and English language lyrics. Its popularity in nightclubs led to a dance being associated with the song which would become a global craze. Fourteen weeks at the top of the US Billboard Hot 100 followed making it the best selling single of 1996 in America. With Europe falling in line with the track’s dance moves, it clocked up No 1s all over the continent. Dear old Blighty initially resisted the charms of these two codgers and their insanely infectious hit when it spent two weeks at Nos 64 and 77 in June but come July, it leapt straight in at No 11 making it one of the then biggest leaps up the chart in history. It would go on to sell eleven million copies worldwide and is a staple of party playlists to this day. I myself have witnessed teachers and children alike performing its moves at end of year discos when my son was in primary school. And that’s all I’m saying (for now) about “Macarena”. Ay!

Neneh Cherry burst onto the music scene in the late 80s with the box fresh, street wise sound of “Buffalo Stance” and her debut, platinum selling album “Raw Like Sushi”. She was one of the big stories of 1989 though she’d actually been around the industry for years before that performing in the likes of The Slits and post-punk outfit Rip Rig + Panic. Indeed, her stepfather was the American jazz musician Don Cherry. That first blast of success though proved hard to sustain with 1992’s sophomore album “Homebrew” a significant commercial downturn. In the intervening four years though, Cherry had actually come up with two of her biggest hits albeit that neither was completely under her own steam. “7 Seconds” with Senegalese artist Youssou N’Dour was a perhaps unexpectedly huge hit almost everywhere whilst her appearance alongside Cher, Christie Hynde and Eric Clapton on 1995 Comic Relief single “Love Can Build A Bridge” would provide her only career No 1 record.

In 1996 though, she would come up with a last commercial hurrah as a purely solo artist with the album “Man” and hit single “Woman”. Written as a response to James Brown’s 1966 hit “It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World”, it talked of the hardships faced by women in life and very much espoused and sought to empower the female voice. Culturally, in the same week that the Spice Girls were making their debut on the show, the difference in style between “Woman” and ‘Girl Power’ was marked. Still, two techniques to amplify your point however dissimilar they were from each other is surely better than one. Matching its themes was the sound of “Woman” – brooding yet soulful, did it have a hint of Portishead about it? The single would give Neneh one last Top 10 hit whilst the album would achieve silver status for sales of 60,000 copies. She is still releasing music to this day with her last album, 2022’s “Versions” being reworking of songs from her back catalogue. Her two daughters Tyson and Mabel are both singers, with the latter having had both her albums go Top 3.

P.S. Nice to see Bernard Butler up there on stage with Neneh, He has a credit on the song for a ‘Special Guitar Section’ plus a shout out from Keithski.

Ah yes, Keithski. How to evaluate Allen’s alter ego in this TOTP? Irritating? Vexatious? Infuriating? Probably all of the above. He seemed determined to get one over the TOTP producers by slipping in some innuendo into his segues but some of it was so cryptic (“Banging out the round ones”, “Check the pellets in my pistol”, “Bump and grind to the garden tribe”) he just sounded like he was talking crap at high speed. Allen finally drops the act to announce the winner of the latest meet and greet competition before fake yawning as he introduces this week’s new No 1…

Hard as it is to remember, there was a time before the reemergence of Robbie Williams when all signs pointed to another ex-member of Take That being the one with the stellar solo career. Everybody expected Gary Barlow as the chief songwriter of the group to be the one to carry on seamlessly with chart hit after chart hit and sure enough, here he was first out of the traps with his debut solo single “Forever Love” straight in at No 1. The natural order of things was happening just as expected. To nobody’s surprise, his first post Take That hit was a big, slushy ballad with the piano to the forefront demonstrating our Gary’s musicianship as he sought to do a George Michael and transcend from boy band star to mature recording artist. It would sell over 100,000 copies in its first week of release before eventually going gold. There’s a bit in this performance when the screaming audience are at their loudest where Barlow almost smirks to himself. Maybe it was from embarrassment or maybe it was his inner voice saying “You’ve cracked it Gary lad. This solo star stuff is a piece of piss. All your dreams are coming true”. And it looked like they were. Uptempo follow up single “Love Won’t Wait” also topped the chart whilst his debut solo album “Open Road” did the same achieving platinum status sales. Meanwhile, as we shall see in next week’s show, Robbie decided to launch himself with a copycat, pointless version of George Michael’s “Freedom”. Nah, Gary was clearly the true talent. Fast forward two years and the roles were well and truly reversed. Barlow couldn’t buy a hit whilst Williams was unavoidably everywhere, racking up the hits as fast as Keithski could speak. Pop had raised see its fickle finger once more…

After a weak pun from Keithski where he refers to Gary Barlow as Ken Barlow, we’re into the play out song which is “Krupa” by Apollo Four Forty. As you might have guessed, I didn’t take much notice of this electronic dance group from Liverpool who’d made their name as remixers initially before raiding the charts in their own right. After three small Top 40 hits, “Krupa” became their biggest ever (at the time) when it peaked at No 23. Essentially an instrumental track, it was inspired by the jazz drummer Gene Krupa. So here’s the question that needs answering – did I know who Gene Krupa was back then? You know, I think I did. I have a vague recollection of having watched a documentary about the most influential drummers in music history and Krupa was featured. I could be bullshitting myself of course as we all know that the memory shifts and re-edits things to make false recollections but I’m sticking by my stick man story. Apollo Four Forty would go onto rack up a further six UK Top 40 hits including their biggest “Lost In Space” from the soundtrack to the 1998 film of the same name which was a remake of the 60s TV series.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Umboza	Sunshine	As if
2	Terrorvison	Bad Actress	No
3	Theme From Mission Impossible	Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jnr	Nope
4	Don’t Stop Movin’	Livin’ Joy	Nah
5	Rock Therapy	Reaching Out	Never
6	Spice Girls	Wannabe	I did not
7	Los Del Rio	Macarena	Of course not
8	Neneh Cherry	Woman	No but my wife and the album
9	Gary Barlow	Forever Love	Negative
10	Apollo Four Forty	Krupa	Not my bag

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/m00239nb/top-of-the-pops-19071996?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 14 JUN 1996

Posted on September 19, 2024 by 80stastic

It’s mid June 1996 and the TV schedules are full of football as the Euros tournament is in full swing. England have started with a disappointing draw against Switzerland so there’s a lot riding on the next game against Scotland the day after this TOTP aired. As flagged by Nicky Campbell last week, the show has moved to Friday night for the duration of the football but it would never return to that hallowed Thursday night slot. In retrospect, it could be argued that this was the beginning of the end for TOTP with the subsequent decision to change its time of broadcast from 7.00 to 7.30pm an act of wanton self destruction, pitting it against Coronation Street as it did.

Before any of that though came an act of physical destruction that would put football and audience figures for a pop music show into a terrible and shocking perspective. The day after this episode of TOTP was broadcast, the Manchester bombing happened when the IRA detonated a 3,300 lb bomb on Corporation Street in the centre of the city. I was living in Manchester at the time (but working in the Our Price store in Stockport) and had booked the Saturday off to watch the England game. I wasn’t in the centre that morning though my wife had been as she’d gone to pick up her Mum from Piccadilly train station as she was visiting us for the day. Fortunately, they were in and out before the bomb was detonated at 11.17am. Thanks to the efforts of the emergency services (and the fact that an IRA code-worded warning had been made an hour and a half prior to the detonation), there were no fatalities that day though 212 people were injured. The explosion caused a 300m high mushroom cloud to rise above the city and could be heard up to 15 miles away. I was out walking at the time (can’t remember why) and, like everyone else in the vicinity, heard the bomb go off. My immediate thought was that a waste incinerator had exploded rather than a terrorist attack. Sadly, I was wrong. The devastation to the area would prompt the regeneration of Manchester City centre at a cost of £1 billion in today’s money that was paid out by insurers. 400 businesses in a half mile radius of the blast were affected 40 percent of which never recovered. There is a narrative that the bomb was the best thing to ever happen to Manchester City centre though the counter argument is try telling that to people and businesses that were caught up in it. Also, there were already regeneration schemes in place following the city’s ultimately unsuccessful bid to host the 2000 Olympic Games. Whichever side of the argument you came down on, the IRA bomb of 1996 will never be forgotten.

On that sombre note, I’ll try and shift subject to the rather more trivial subject of pop music and there was no greater example of its sometimes redundant nature than Peter Andre. Now the last time I reviewed “Mysterious Girl”, I forgot to mention the contribution of rapper Bubbler Ranx who was brought in as Andre, it turned out, was as hopeless at rapping as Gazza* was when he tried out for the John Barnes role on “World In Motion”. Congratulations then Bubbler for your part in “Mysterious Girl”. Who can forget your cry of “Baby girl” that opens the song and your superb control of language and beautiful phrasing on lines such as “Body weh you have a make de man dem a bawl”. Yes, your legacy to pop music is that you made this dreadful track even shittier than it already was. Well done sir. Reports suggest that Ranx has retired from rapping and is now a preacher. Lord have mercy!

*Thankfully he was much better at football as his iconic goal in that England v Scotland game proved.

A couple of pieces of housekeeping to mention at this point. Firstly, tonight’s host is Mark Owen who is still a few months away from launching his solo career with the “Child” single and “Green Man” album so he seems to have been spending his time since the dissolution of Take That cultivating a look that resembles 1970s TV series Catweazle or at last an extra in a Robin Hood movie. What was going on there Mark? His look isn’t much better these days with someone I work with recently telling me that she thinks Owen looks like a tramp!

Secondly, there’s been a change to the show’s opening with the direct to camera message by a featured artist having been replaced by a montage of clips of the acts to come on tonight’s show. I’m not sure I have an opinion either way on which one I prefer. Thirdly, Owen reminds us of a competition that the show is running in which you can win the opportunity to meet and hang out with a mystery pop star. I don’t remember this at all but what are the chances that said pop star was Peter Andre?!

Back to the music and we now get “Don’t Stop Movin’” by Livin’ Joy. Nothing to do with the chart topper by S Club from 2001, this was the follow up to the act’s somewhat surprising No 1 from the previous year “Dreamer”. This was a case of some things change, some things stay the same as the band had a new singer in the extravagantly named Tameko Star replacing original vocalist Janice Robinson but their sound on this new song was exactly the same as previously. Robinson herself had superseded Penny Ford as the vocalist with Snap! as the Eurodance /Italo House merry-go-round twirled throughout the 90s. She would continue a career in music post Livin’ Joy supporting the likes of Tina Turner on tour before eventually ending up as a contestant on X Factor in 2018. No, really. Look…

Anyway, Janice’s departure didn’t stop the flow of hits as “Don’t Stop Movin’” went Top 5 and was followed by another three UK chart entries. As I hadn’t liked “Dreamer” much, it will surprise nobody (including myself) that its follow up did little for me either. It was all a bit too frantic and energetic and listening to it now, it reminds me of “Don’t Give Me Your Life” by Alex Party but guess what? The two Italian brothers in Livin’ Joy were also members of Alex Party! Clearly, the notion of having two creative ideas as opposed to one they kept recycling was beyond these people!

It’s the theme tune to the biggest movie of the year according to Mark Owen now as “Theme From Mission: Impossible“ by Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton is up to No 7. So, was it the biggest movie of 1996? Well, depends on what you mean by ‘biggest’ I guess. Seeing as the film hadn’t even been released in the UK by this point, Owen was either referring to its reception in the US where it opened in the May or the hype that was surrounding it. Going by gross box office receipts though, no it wasn’t the biggest film of the year – that was Independence Day. It wasn’t even second in that list as it trailed in third after disaster movie Twister. Maybe it got the best reviews then? Probably not. Reviews ranged from mixed to positive with aggregator Rotten Tomatoes giving it an average of 6/10. Indeed, the cast of the original 60s TV series were also unimpressed with one actor leaving the cinema before the film ended. It did, however, open in a then record 3,012 theatres in America becoming the first film to break the 3,000 mark. It also broke the record for the biggest receipts for a film opening on a Wednesday with $11.8 million.

The soundtrack was also a success selling half a million copies in the US. Looking at the track listing for the album, it’s not a bad collection at all featuring contributions from The Cranberries, Massive Attack, Pulp, Skunk Anansie, Longpigs, Cast and of course the reworked theme tune. However, only the Clayton and Mullen treatment and The Cranberries from those names above actually feature in the film.

To get us in the mood for the much heralded Paul Weller double live performance later in the show, here are mod revivalists Ocean Colour Scene as his warm up act. Too harsh? Probably. Were/are they a ‘mod’ band? I don’t think so really but having turned around their initially failing career thanks to a leg up from Weller whom invited them to tour with him in 1993, the lazy labels coming their way from the music press were inevitable. That connection continued when guitarist Steve Craddock and singer Simon Fowler were invited to contribute to Weller’s “Wildwood” album when the whole ‘Modfather’ tag started to appear. Having seen Ocean Colour Scene live just last month, I couldn’t detect much of a ‘mod’ vibe coming from them or their music though there were plenty of Weller style haircuts on middle aged men in the audience.

As for being Weller’s warm up act here, that’s also unfair as the band were becoming firmly established in their own right by this point. This track, “The Day We Caught The Train” – was their third consecutive hit single (and joint biggest of their career) when it debuted on the chart at No 4. My accusation is also undermined by the presence of Weller himself self on piano in this performance so he would have effectively been supporting himself which doesn’t quite work*. As we shall see with Weller later, the vocals here are live. In fact was the whole show meant to be live performances? Tameko Star could have been for Livin’ Joy earlier. Peter Andre? Surely not?

*Having said that, I once saw Haircut 100 at Cadogan Hall and Nick Heyward was his own support act.

As for “The Day We Caught The Train”, this is probably my favourite OCS tune (did people really refer to them in abbreviated form like OMD?) but why didn’t they do the “We’ve got the whole wide world” line as the song comes out of the middle eight? Maybe because it has a definite sound effect over it on the recorded version and they were doing this live? What was the song about? It seems to have been inspired by the 1979 film Quadrophenia with lyrics like “riding the coast” referring to Mods riding their Lambretta scooters down to Brighton whilst the song’s protagonist Jimmy surely refers to the film’s lead character Jimmy Cooper played by Phil Daniels. There’s even a picture of a scooter in the cover of the single. So they were mods after all!

Right, is anyone having it that this was a live satellite link up with Celine Dion? It reeks of being pre-recorded to me. The fact that there’s no actual conversation between her and Mark Owen suggests that the whole thing is staged. A quick search of the internet shows me that Celine did indeed play Quebec for two nights in June 1996 but on the 7th and 8th of that month. Given that this TOTP was broadcast on the 14th, even allowing for the fact that it might have been recorded the day before, there’s no way that link up was live. Celine didn’t play a live concert on the 14th and she was in Sydney not Quebec on the 13th. Pure hokum. Fair play though to Celine for playing along with it and doing a little intro as if she was talking to Owen. Not good enough though – just like your song “Because You Loved Me”.

Right, what’s this nonsense? A horrible, hackneyed dance tune based around the chorus of Blur’s “Girls & Boys”? Oh brilliant! Just what we all needed and wanted I’m sure. Pianoman was actually Bradford producer James Sammon who worked with the likes of Ian Brown, Craig David and…erm…Donna Air whilst still finding the time to be a pirate radio DJ and run a record shop. His only hit under the moniker of Pianoman (he had others, didn’t they all?) was “Blurred”. Confusingly, the TOTP caption says it was originally a hit in March 1994 but I’m guessing that refers to the Blur track itself as I can’t find any record of an official release for “Blurred” other than this one in 1996 though Wikipedia tells me it was a hit in Ibiza in 1995 – a ‘hit’ presumably means it went down a storm on the dance floors of nightclubs.

Even back in the mid 90s this must have sounded dated – the production feels very start of the decade to me albeit the track is based around a song that didn’t even exist then. Why did they need a rapper on it to shout the inane, generic phrase “Move to the groove” or that computerised voice that says “One, two, three” and “Breakdown”?! The guy on keyboards in the red Adidas T-shirt looks like the geekier, younger brother of Graham Coxon (if indeed it is possible to look geekier than the Blur guitarist). The whole thing is just nasty but enough people bought it to send it to No 6 in the charts. Sammon tried to repeat the trick by sampling Belinda Carlisle’s “Live Your Life Be Free” for the follow up but thankfully the British public didn’t fall for this nonsense a second time.

After the Top 10 rundown, as ever, we get to the No 1 but it isn’t the usual climax of the show. No. We still have those two live performances by Paul Weller to come so it’s a bit of a false ending and I’m not sure it worked. From its very beginnings, TOTP always ended with the No 1 record; it was the natural apex of a chart based show; it made sense. What didn’t make sense was having two more songs after the chart topper one of which had already been a hit a year before, live version or not. If this was a new direction for the show, it didn’t feel properly thought through.

Anyway, let’s deal with that No 1 which is the Fugees for a second week with “Killing Me Softly”. With sales of over 350,000 copies in just two weeks, it was always going to stay at No 1 but nobody surely foresaw the phenomenon it would become, not even the band’s record company Sony who would have to actively withdraw it from sale when it was still at No 2 into August to allow follow up single “Ready Or Not” to be released unimpeded.

The song was a No 1 US hit for Roberta Flack in 1973 and was originally recorded by Lori Lieberman in 1972 after she collaborated on the lyrics with Norman Gimbel. Then came the all conquering take on it by Fugees but there exists out there another version which is both dreadful and entertaining at the same time…

There’s one more piece of housekeeping to be discharged before the Weller double bill and it’s the details of that chance to meet and hang out with a mystery pop star that may involve foreign travel. Ooooh! I love the fact that the BBC felt the need to put the ‘Lines are now closed’ caption up for a competition that happened 28 years ago! Also, the price of the phone call to enter was 20p!

Finally Paul Weller is on stage and he kicks off with “The Changingman”, the second single from his 1995 album “Stanley Road”. Quite why I’m not sure. It seems an incongruous choice for a music show that is based around the current chart. Presumably I’ll have reviewed this when it was initially a hit. I wonder what I said about it. If you’re wondering too, well, here’s the link to the relevant post:

TOTP 04 MAY 1995

Here’s the answer to that competition question which Weller helpfully announces. “Peacock Suit” was the lead single to his fourth studio album “Heavy Soul” but it didn’t actually get released until the 5th August, nearly two months after this performance. “Heavy Soul” itself wouldn’t appear until June 1997! Why the long gap? I’ve no idea – all I know is that it pissed off both Weller fans and record shop employees when the former would try and buy the record only to be told by the latter that it wasn’t out yet. Cue lots of “It must be, it was on Top of the Pops last night” type comments. Listening to “The Changingman” and “Peacock Suit” back to back, I’m struck by how similar they sound. That’s not a criticism – they’re both decent enough tunes – but an observation. In the case of the latter, just as Ocean Colour Scene were similarly inspired earlier, it’s surely about those pesky, preening mods again isn’t it? The single would debut and peak at No 5 when it was finally released making it not only Weller’s highest charting solo hit ever but also his biggest since “You’re The Best Thing” achieved the same position as part of the “Groovin’” EP in 1984.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Peter Andre featuring Bubbler Ranx	Mysterious Girl	Never
2	Livin’ Joy	Don’t Stop Movin’	Nah
3	Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton	Theme From Mission: Impossible	Nope
4	Ocean Colour Scene	The Day We Caught The Train	No but maybe should have
5	Celine Dion	Because You Loved Me	As if
6	Pianoman	Blurred	No chance
7	Fugees	Killing Me Softly	No but my wife had The Score album it was from
8	Paul Weller	The Changingman	No but I had the Stanley Road album it was from
9	Paul Weller	Peacock Suit	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/m0022v3w/top-of-the-pops-14061996?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 11 MAY 1995

Posted on November 11, 2023 by 80stastic

We’ve arrived in May of 1995 here at TOTP Rewind and we know what happens in May – finals. The day before this TOTP aired, Arsenal lost the European Cup Winners Cup Final to Real Zaragoza when Nayim famously lobbed Seaman (ahem) from the halfway line and a week later Everton would upset the odds to triumph over Manchester United in the FA Cup final (more of that later). And then there was the annual music final. This year’s Eurovision Song Contest took place on the Saturday following this TOTP (more of that later). Before any of that though, I bring bad news – tonight’s host is Simon ‘Smug’ Mayo. Expect a procession of oblique and unfunny references to news stories of the time that Simon thinks make him sound clever but which in fact make him look like a prick.

We begin with Supergrass and their second UK Top 40 hit “Lenny”. One of the names that always comes up when Britpop is mentioned, Gaz, Mick and Danny also suffered from being associated with one song in particular despite achieving fourteen Top 40 hits including six inside the Top 10 and two No 2s. That song is, of course, “Alright” which will be along in a few weeks on these TOTP repeats. So damaged were they by its notoriety that when I saw them live in York in 2003, they didn’t include it in the set list which seemed a bit churlish if I’m honest. For now though, they were just trying to follow up their Top 20 hit “Mansize Rooster” from the year before and did so ably with “Lenny” which made it to No 10. A muscular, driving guitar heavy track with a galloping drum backing, it’s a thrilling if short ride – we get just over two minutes worth in this performance.

Visually, I was struck by the band’s three person guitar/bass/drums set up which immediately put me in mind of that other famous UK trio The Jam. Paul Weller would never have sported Gaz Coombes’ lamb chop sideburns though. He went in for those carefully shaped side strands of hair grown from the head rather than the face that curled into a point. Very modish and a look my Weller obsessed brother would sport for years. Anyway, as I said, Supergrass will be back soon enough smoking a fag and putting it out whilst keeping their teeth nice and clean whether they like it or not.

The first Simon Mayo ‘gag’ is here – something about Rugby Union administrators. I can’t be bothered to research what he was blathering on about but fortunately here’s @TOTPFacts so I don’t have to:

Simon Mayo's rugby union quip was presumably a reference to the furore over England captaIn Will Carling being demoted after referring to the sport's administrators as "57 old farts". #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) November 3, 2023

Hysterical work from Mayo there. The second act tonight is Montell Jordan who is the latest (or perhaps he was the original?) to use that nah-ner-ner-nah-nah-ner-ner- nah-nah hook that also featured in MN8’s recent hit “I’ve Got A Little Something For You” and would pop up again on Peter Andre’s “Flava” a year later. “This Is How We Do It” was the first R&B release on the legendary Def Jam label and was No 1 in the US for seven weeks. It didn’t do quite as well over here peaking at No 11.

Instead of being a basketball player (he really was 6’8”), Montell chose a career in music and rather cannily came up with a tune that he himself describes as a “universal idea”. Said idea was that the chorus could apply to doing an unspecified activity by an unspecified group in an unspecified location thereby meaning the song could be adopted by anyone for any project or endeavour. As such, “This Is How We Do It” has been used in numerous films and TV shows such as Glee, The Nutty Professor, 8 Mile, Pitch Perfect 2 and Sonic The Hedgehog 2. Montell would have further hits both here and in the US though none as big as his debut hit albeit that “Let’s Ride”, his collaboration with Master P and Slikk The Shocker (no idea) made it to No 2 over the pond.

And so to the first ‘final’ reference of the night. The 1995 FA Cup final was contested by Manchester United and massive underdogs Everton. The previous year they had completed the league and cup double by beating my beloved Chelsea 4-0 in a rain soaked day at Wembley. This season though hadn’t quite gone to plan. Unfashionable Blackburn Rovers would pip them to the league title and they would lose the cup final 1-0 to Everton to finish the season trophy less for the first time in six years. I watched the cup final in a pub in Chester as a group of us were having a Poly reunion there. It was an unpleasant experience as the pub seemed to be full of horrible racist Everton fans spoiling for a fight and going around asking people who they supported. When one of them approached my mate Robin he defused the situation by replying “Carlisle United”* which totally wrong footed the thug. Just as well he wasn’t as well versed about Carlisle as Eric Morecambe:

“What news of Carlisle?”

49 seconds of joy…#PeterCushing joins Eric,Ern and Ann, in the court of King Arthur…👑

What a legend..#HammerHorror #StarWars #DrWho #LaurelAndHardy #SherlockHolmes #StillBringingSunshine 👓🌞♥️#SaturdaySpecial #ChequesInThePost #PassItOn 👈🏻 pic.twitter.com/fsa1IY8o4L
— The Morecambe & Wise Archive 👓🌞♥️ (@eric_ernie_col) February 19, 2022

*Robin does actually support Carlisle United by the way

Anyway, as it was the cup final, back in the 90s that still meant cup final songs. United’s was officially credited to Manchester United 1995 Football Squad featuring Stryker and was called “We’re Gonna Do It Again”. Unlike last year’s execrable effort with Status Quo*, this time they went rap-tastic with this Stryker character. I’d never heard of him before and nobody else has heard from him since it seems. The fact that United lost the cup final meant that there would not only be no repeat of last season’s glory on the pitch but also the chance of another No 1 record was gone as well with “We’re Gonna Do It Again” peaking at No 6.

*Having said that, the bit that goes “again, again, again” does remind me of Quo’s “Down, Down”.

Next something that goes beyond even the realms of novelty offered up by the genre of the football song. How the hell did jazz scatting get into the charts?! Scatman John was John Larkin, a jazz pianist from LA who suffered from a stutter which had blighted his childhood but which he found didn’t hamper him from scat singing – the art of vocal improvisation to turn the voice into an instrument. Now I can’t really be doing with jazz of the freeform kind and don’t understand at all the appeal of an artist like Dame Cleo Laine so just adding some house beats and a bit of rapping to jazz scatting was never, ever going to win me over. What a racket!

I wasn’t alone in my opinion. My aforementioned friend Robin did a nice send up of Scatman John on that weekend in Chester I mentioned but then I was once on holiday in New York with him where there was nearly a jazz incident. We were over there for my wife’s 30th birthday with him and our friend Susan. On the Sunday afternoon, we’d walked for miles after doing a helicopter tour of the Manhattan skyline and were in need of sustenance and a rest for our feet. After deliberating for ages about which diner or bar to go in, we finally decided on one but as we entered the chosen establishment, Robin came to an abrupt halt and said “We can’t go in there! They’re playing live jazz!”. As a consequence, we all turned around and walked out again. Even allowing for my own mistrust of jazz, the other three of us were none too impressed by Robin’s musical proclivities that day. Another group of people who disagreed with him were the record buying public who took Scatman John (the scat Gareth Gates) and his tune “Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)” to their hearts and made it a No 3 hit, despite the fact that he looks like a Chuckle Brother at the ambassador’s reception in this performance.

Who are this lot? Blessid Union Of Souls? Nope, I’ve got nothing. Their only UK hit was “I Believe” which went Top 10 in America but only made No 29 over here. Listening to it, I’m surprised it wasn’t a bigger hit. A piano led ballad with a pleasant melody and some social conscience lyrics, it reminds me of “You” by Ten Sharp. Ah yes, those lyrics. Obviously the ‘N’ word is not sung during this performance by vocalist Eliot Sloan though it’s clear that’s what the word is. Sickeningly, that word was used by one of those Everton fans I mentioned earlier in that pub in Chester whilst he was shouting about Paul Ince. All very horrible. One of the few times in my life when it made me root for Manchester United.

The second band inextricably associated with Britpop on the show tonight are Shed Seven. Having broken into the charts in 1994 with three Top 40 singles and their gold selling album “Change Giver”, 1995 saw them release just one new song – “Where Have You Been Tonight?”. The first single off sophomore album “A Maximum High”, this was the sound of a band preparing to enter the peak period of their commercial success. I’d have to say though that this track in particular didn’t quite get them there. It’s not a poor song per se but compared to what came after it, well it was a bit underwhelming and in my mind, remains a somewhat forgotten Shed Seven single. The fact that the album didn’t come out for nearly another year perhaps adds to my perception. It almost feels like a stand-alone single.

By the time “A Maximum High” appeared, Britpop, lad culture and Euro 96 were happening and Shed Seven entered Shed Heaven hits wise – no artist had more Top 40 hits in 1996 than the five the York indie rockers racked up. The BBC’s Euro 96 coverage used two of them to soundtrack some England montage pieces as the national team progressed through the tournament. It was a heady mix and a case of being in the right place at the right time for the band. They might not now where they had been tonight but they had a good idea where they were going.

The second of the ‘final’ themed songs on the show tonight now with the inevitable appearance of the UK’s Eurovision Song Contest entry. With the competition final just two days away, there was no way that Love City Groove would not have been given one last promotional push via TOTP. Whilst this may have helped propel the song “Love City Groove” up the UK charts, it had no effect on the band’s appeal at Eurovision where they trailed in a disappointing tenth place. “The experiment has failed” Terry Wogan infamously quipped. Also failing was any prospect of a career post-Eurovision for the band. Subsequent single releases failed to break the UK Top 40 and even that fail safe plan of a cover version (Fatback Band’s “I Found Lovin’”) couldn’t reverse their fortunes and the group split for good in 1996. A small part of the UK’s Eurovision history will always belong to those people who sang (and rapped) about the the sun shining in the morning though.

Here comes Celine Dion who’s attempting to follow up a huge, big ballad with…yep…a huge, big ballad. “Think Twice” topped the UK charts for seven weeks having taken an eternity to get there and would end the year as the fifth best selling single in the UK. Following that was always going to be a big ask and “Only One Road” didn’t despite the decent showing of a No 8 peak. It’s all very formulaic and power-ballad-by- numbers which Celine can do in her sleep but which was always more likely to induce zzzzs than ££££s.

The staging of this one is slightly odd. It would appear that the TOTP floor managers have shepherded every studio audience member in grey or pastel coloured clothing to stand at the front of the circle around Celine thereby making her blood red top standout even more than it does naturally. The effect resembles that scene from Schindler’s List with the little girl in the red coat during the liquidation of the Kraków ghetto. Comparing the holocaust with a pop music TV show feels offensive but I guess it does serve to demonstrate the power of that scene and its sustained effect upon me given that it can be brought to mind by even the most banal of incidents.

And so to the No 1 and it’s a third consecutive single to debut at No 1 after Take That and Oasis in recent weeks. At the time, this was only the second occurrence of such a sequence but by the end of the decade, a record going in at No 1 had become a weekly event. Widespread first week discounting by the major labels whereby CD singles were £1.99 instead of £3.99 and the cassette version 99p rather than £2.29 was the major reason behind this with punters cottoning on pretty quick to the strategy and creating huge sales in the first seven days before tailing off immediately in subsequent weeks. Was this the point when that practice started? I can’t remember for sure. Nor can I recall the exact time when record companies started to allow new releases to be delivered to stores ahead of their official release date rather than on the day they came out but I think that was maybe also a factor in driving sales with new singles hitting the ground running from 9.00 am Monday morning.

Whether these factors were in play with making Livin’ Joy the No 1 artist with “Dreamer” or not we’ll never know but No 1 they are despite this single having already been a Top 20 hit the previous Summer. After trundling along the bottom reaches of the Top 100 at the end of 1994, it suddenly crashed back into the top spot when rereleased the following May. I was never a fan of Italo House so the track didn’t do much for me. Nor did I care much for “Show Me Love” by Robin S to which it was compared so it really was a personal non-starter but its legacy is substantiated by those Best Of polls where it regularly turns up in the 90s dance varieties.

The play out track is “Can’t Stand Losing You” by The Police and when I initially saw this on the running order, I assumed it was to plug sister show TOTP2. I was wrong for this was a legitimate chart record despite it having already been a No 2 hit in 1979. How? Because this was a live version. There had never been a live album by The Police though it had been mooted twice before; once in 1982 to plug the gap between “Ghost In The Machine” and “Synchronicity” and again in 1984 after the Synchronicity tour but it was shelved in place of the 1986 “Every Breath You Take: The Singles” Best Of album. A live album finally arrived in 1995 and it was called…”Live!”. Well, it did what it said on the tin I suppose. “Can’t Stand Losing You” was chosen to promote it and made No 27 on the charts – not bad for a ‘live’ single. The original is a classic Police track which I remember my brother having I think (or maybe he taped it off the radio). The lyrics about a teenager committing suicide after losing his girlfriend are entrenched in my brain. It was kept off the top spot by “I Don’t Like Mondays by Boomtown Rats, another song with some pretty dark lyrics.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Supergrass	Lenny	No but we had the album ‘I Should Coco’ with it on
2	Montell Jordan	This Is How We Do It	No
3	Manchester United 1995 Football Squad featuring Stryker	We’re Gonna Do It Again	As if
4	Scatman John	Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)	What do you think?!
5	Blessid Union Of Souls	I Believe	Nope
6	Shed Seven	Where Have You Been Tonight?	No but I had a live album called ‘Where Have You Been Tonight?’ with it on.
7	Love City Groove	Love City Groove	I did not
8	Celine Dion	Only One Road	Never happening
9	Livin’ Joy	Dreamer	Nah
10	The Police	Can’t Stand Losing You (Live)	Negative

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/m001s1j2/top-of-the-pops-11051995

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 22 AUG 1997

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TOTP 04 APR 1997

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TOTP 01 NOV 1996

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TOTP 19 JUL 1996

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TOTP 14 JUN 1996

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TOTP 11 MAY 1995

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