Maria Nayler

TOTP 29 NOV 1996

Posted on by 80stastic

We’re getting close to Christmas both in present day 2024 and 28 years ago in 1996 here at TOTP Rewind where the BBC4 repeats are knocking on the advent calendar doors of December. Back then, I was about to work my seventh consecutive Christmas at Our Price and my second on the spin at the Stockport store. I can’t remember all the specifics of what went down that year – over time the details such as who my work colleagues were have become jumbled up as my memory has shifted and re-edited – but one thing I do recall is that Oasis were selling their fans empty boxes for Christmas. Yes, with no new album available until the following year and no single having been released by the band since “Don’t Look Back In Anger” in the February, their record label Creation needed something to flog to the legion of Oasis followers – it was Christmas after all. What they came up with was unbelievable and yet somehow they sold. To house all those CD singles the band had released, you could purchase two boxes designed to look like a packet of cigarettes – one for the tracks from “Definitely Maybe” and one for the songs from “”(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?”. The latter was gold and the former silver and both carried the warning ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Can Seriously Damage Your Health. I can’t remember exactly how much they cost but I’m guessing a fiver each. What a racket!

Anyway, tonight’s hosts are Ronan and Stephen from Boyzone – nice lads who would never attempt to fleece their fans by selling them some old tat I’m sure. Ahem. After an ill advised impression of The Prodigy’s Keith Flint from Ronan at the top of the show, we’re off with the first artist of the night who is Belinda Carlisle who was experiencing her penultimate UK Top 40 hit with “Love In The Key Of C”. Now, I’m no musician but I did take a few guitar classes over the years which did cover elements of music structure so I know the chord progression in the key of C major is C – G – A – F for example. What I don’t know though is what love in the key of C is. A quick google of the phrase ‘Key of C’ tells me that it’s one of the most common keys in music as it’s also one of the simplest with no sharps nor flats making it easier to play as its key signature is a blank staff. It’s also a neutral key that doesn’t evoke strong emotions making it versatile for various genres and moods. Hmm. A blank staff and doesn’t evoke strong emotions – why that’s a perfect way to describe “Love In The Key Of C” as it’s as dull as Tess Daly’s presenting skills. What’s worse is that one of the lyrics says:

Love in the key of C, you’re my life’s sweet harmony,

It’s the key of Amazing Grace

Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Rick Nowels
Love in the Key of C lyrics © Spirit Music Group

Well, I’m sorry Belinda but that’s just not true. “Amazing Grace” was written in the key of F Major. Not since Alanis Morissette came up with “Ironic” had a lyric been so wrong.

Next, it’s another artist whose poster would have adorned the wall of many a teenage lad’s bedroom back then. Following Belinda Carlisle comes Louise with her fifth hit single in a just over a year, all taken from her debut album “Naked”. This one was called “One Kiss From Heaven” and was…hang on a minute…didn’t her ex-band Eternal have a hit called that?!

*checks Eternal discography*

My bad. Their third single was called “Just A Step From Heaven” so I was close – just round the corner you might say. I thought Louise had been recycling a tune for a minute. Anyway, her song was all sultry and sensual but it sounds to me as if it was trying a little too hard to be those things. It was co-written by Simon Climie of Climie Fisher fame who knows his way around a decent pop tune but I’m not sure slinky seduction is his thing really. I guess it was the logical next step in the master plan to change our perception of Louise from wholesome, girl next door to sex goddess but it doesn’t quite convince for me although I’m sure it would have for all those aforementioned teenage boys.

It turns out that Louise did record her own version of that Eternal song for her 2023 Greatest Hits album and called it “Just A Step From Heaven (Reimagined)” and guess what? It sounds just like the Eternal version. Never has the word ‘reimagined’ been so misused since Tim Burton reimagined Planet Of The Apes.

Nice to see Roman Keating get in a name check for my beloved Chelsea in his intro to Robert Miles and Maria Nayler. How so? Well, they feature in his list of things you associate with Italy (Miles was Italian) as, at the time, their team included Gianluca Vialli, Roberto Di Matteo and Gianfranco Zola. Club legends every one of them. Sorry? What about the music? Oh, well “One And One” was holding for a third week at No 6 and so was deemed due another TOTP appearance. The showing of the video would move it up the charts in increments one place at a time until it peaked at No 3 before undertaking a descent down them that would take nearly two months. You’d think given the amount of time it spent inside the Top 40 that I would have strongly associated it with Christmas ‘96 but I don’t, I really don’t. To be fair, there aren’t many singles that do spring to mind when I think of that particular festive period. There’s the Spice Girls obviously and Madonna’s version of “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” but after that, nothing much. The Christmas chart had Toni Braxton at No 4 but it had already been in the Top 10 for nine weeks by that point so maybe it was inevitable with long running hits like that and Robert Miles’ that it would be hard to connect them to Christmas when they’d been with us for months. Or maybe, yet again, my memory has just failed me. Always a possibility.

1996 saw a number of artists put together consistent runs of multiple UK Top 40 hits. I’m thinking Shed Seven, Manic Street Preachers and indeed, from this very show, Louise. All of them had at least four singles make the charts and to that list can be added Skunk Anansie for whom “Twisted (Everyday Hurts)” was their fourth hit of the year. Unlike those other acts though, it also started a run of three consecutive songs that would not only chart but which had brackets in their titles. Following this, they had hits with “Hedonism (Just Because You Feel Good)” and “Brazen (Weep)” and it got me to thinking why people put brackets in their song titles. Well, let’s start with what brackets are used for grammatically which is to provide clarity or add extra information. Do we need either of those in a title of a song? Maybe but I would say not. Surely the art form of the musical composition should be about the emotional response that it illicits rather than its syntax? So why do any song titles feature brackets? To add an element of mystery or intellectual rigour to them? I’m not convinced that any song title should have brackets to be honest. And in any case, some of the songs that have employed brackets that I can think of haven’t made any sense at all. Take George Michael and Aretha Franklin’s 1987 duet “I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)” for example. What was the need for the brackets here? Or what about the near hit single by The Icicle Works called “Birds Fly (Whisper To A Scream)” that was retitled “Whisper To A Scream (Birds Fly)” for the American market? What was that all about?

As for Skunk Anansie’s foray into bracket world, were they trying to distinguish themselves from the Sad Cafe 1979 hit “Every Day Hurts”? Surely not including those words in the title would have done that? Enough of the linguistics though, what about their song? Well, as with previous single “All I Want”, I actually quite enjoyed it though I couldn’t have told you how it went before watching this TOTP repeat. And there was I thinking that all there was to them was “Weak”.

So what sort of banter or should I say craic did Ronan and Stephen have together as a presenting duo? Well, it was a little bit stilted but their winning Irish accents saw them through even the most cringey of exchanges such as the Bob Marley/ Bob Geldof one that happened in the segue to the Fugees. There’s one bit in it where Ronan sounds as if he’s saying a line from Father Ted. Anyway, “No Woman, No Cry” is straight in at No 2 but I like previous single “Ready Or Not” that also debuted in the same chart position, it wasn’t able to make that leap to the top of the charts the following week.

Was it sacrilege to cover a Bob Marley song? I think they probably just about pulled it off but did Bob himself ever indulge in the art of the cover version? Well, I did find this which is quite extraordinary in its unlikeliness…

Now, I like to think of this blog as irreverent in nature (though many who have read it might use the word ‘irrelevant’ instead) but that tone isn’t really going to cut it for this next song so I’m going to stick to the facts rather than pass any judgement on it.

On 13th March 1996, 43 year old Thomas Hamilton entered the gymnasium of Dunblane Primary School, Stirling and shot dead one teacher and 16 pupils aged between five and six and injured a further 15 people before turning the gun on himself. It remains the deadliest mass shooting in British history and led to the introduction of the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997 and the Firearms (Amendment) Act No 2 1997 that banned all cartridge ammunition handguns in England, Scotland and Wales. This legislation was the result of the official enquiry into the incident (Cullen Report) and a public campaign (Snowdrop Petition) to ban private ownership of all handguns.

On 9th December 1996, a version of Bob Dylan’s “Knocking On Heaven’s Door” was released accredited to Dunblane which was Scottish musician Ted Christopher with the help of Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler and featuring singing by children from the town of Dunblane itself (including the siblings of some of the children who were murdered). I can’t find anything online which connects the single explicitly to the Snowdrop Petition campaign but no doubt the two would have been linked in the minds of some parts of the public. The song was rewritten (with Dylan’s consent) to refer specifically to the events of Dunblane with the proceeds from its sales going to children’s charities. The release schedules were cleared by the record labels of all other major artists (including the Spice Girls) at the time so as to give the single a clear path to becoming No 1. Bookmakers agreed to not take bets on it being the Christmas No 1, not wanting to appear to be making profit out of such a tragedy, with a promise that bets on any other artist being honoured if they were at No 2 and Dunblane topped the charts in Christmas week. Although the single did indeed go to No 1, it would only stay there for only one week.

There appears to have been some thought given to the running order by TOTP executive producer Ric Blaxill as the Dunblane single is followed by the aptly named “Child” by Mark Owen. Not only that but there is no intro from the Boyzone lads just a respectful segue from performance to performance. And not only that but the first line Owen sings is “Sleep peacefully now, my child”. Definitely some consideration there of how to schedule the Dunblane song into the show. As for Mark, he gives a curious delivery of his single, hardly moving and when he does it’s in faint, jilted movements as if he’s the worlds worst escapologist, half-heartedly trying to work out how to get out of the straight jacket he’s in. It does make him look quite vulnerable which was maybe the image he was looking for to match the tone of his single but it’s slightly at odds with the four lads backing him who look like they want to be in a Britpop band – one of them even breaks rank to turn and give a little smile to the camera. Cheeky!

The last artist in the studio is Sheryl Crow who was really getting into her stride by this point. After “All I Wanna Do” had been her massive breakthrough hit two years earlier, her next four singles had underwhelmed in the UK but she bounced back with eponymous, sophomore album the lead single from which “If It Makes You Happy” had restored her to our Top 10. She followed that up with “Everyday Is A Winding Road” which sounded even better than its predecessor to me. Inspired by Crowded House drummer Paul Hester whose character and joie de vivre had a lasting impact on her when she toured with the band as support act, it fair stomps along with a slide guitar and tom tom drums to the forefront. Some critics lambasted it for stealing from “Sympathy For The Devil” by the Rolling Stones but I can’t hear it.

If the line “He’s got a daughter he calls Easter” is about Hester, then there’s a bit of creative licence going on as his daughters are called Olive and Sunday but to be fair if she’d used the latter name, it wouldn’t have scanned at all and might have prompted images of Olive Oyl or Olive from On The Buses (for me at least). Tragically, Hester struggled with depression and lost his battle with it in 2005 committing suicide at the age of 46.

I was in good company with those who liked the song – Prince was such a fan that he recorded a version of it for his “Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic” album and has even performed it live with Sheryl herself.

The Prodigy remain at No 1 with “Breathe” for a second week – a fine achievement for a dance act but there was no way that they would ever cling on to be the Christmas chart topper. Indeed, three other artists would occupy top spot before the actual festive No 1 was announced. That probably said much of how record company release scheduling and promotional campaigns had changed. I can’t imagine such activity could have happened just 10 years prior. To The Prodigy’s credit, “Breathe” would still be in the Top 10 in the Christmas week chart.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Belinda CarlisleLove In The Key Of CNope
2LouiseOne Kiss From HeavenNah
3Robert Miles and Maria NaylerOne And OneI did not
4Skunk AnansieTwisted (Everyday Hurts)No but its not bad
5FugeesNo Woman, No CryNo but my wife had the album
6DunblaneKnocking On Heaven’s DoorNo but please don’t judge
7Mark OwenChildSee 4 above
8Sheryl CrowEveryday Is A Winding RoadNo but I had her Best Of with it on
9The ProdigyBreatheNo but I had it on one of those Best Album Ever compilations

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/m0025gmv/top-of-the-pops-29111996?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 15 NOV 1996

Posted on by 80stastic

Why oh why didn’t we have more of this calibre of ‘golden mic’ presenter? Having four of The Fast Show cast in character was a genius move by TOTP executive producer Ric Blaxill. Or was it his decision? Did it come from higher up within the BBC to promote the first (and so far only) The Fast Show Christmas Special that was aired on 27 December of this year? Whatever the truth, the turn by Paul Whitehouse, Charlie Higson, Mark Williams and John Thomson was so much better than the usual standard we’ve seen from the majority of these celebrity hosts. It was certainly a vast improvement on the drivel many of the old Radio 1 DJs used to shovel at us (yes, obviously I’m pointing at you Simon Mayo). We start with the characters of Ted and Ralph who are straight into their uncomfortable relationship mode. I especially like the way Ted says he doesn’t know about Boyzone (sir) but then immediately informs Ralph that Take That have split up.

The first act they introduce is Robert Miles and Maria Nayler with a track called “One And One”. Miles, of course, was the poster boy of the dream house movement and had scored a massive hit earlier in the year with “Children”. Unlike that song and follow up “Fable” which were both instrumentals, this one had actual singing in it courtesy of Nayler who had started her music career with the band Ultraviolet who I’d heard of but had no idea what they sounded like. Someone who did though and who liked what he heard was DJ and producer Sasha who sought Nayler out to record the track “Be As One” which became a Top 20 UK hit earlier in 1996. This would peak the interest of Robert Miles who similarly made contact with Nayler to collaborate on the song “One And One” – clearly Maria had a thing about songs with the word ‘one’ in the title.

So what was this ‘new’ sound like? Well, it was like “Children” with vocals wasn’t it? If you liked that sort of thing then good luck to you but for me it was all fairly insubstantial. If I’ve said this once, I’ve said it hundreds of times but the record buying public didn’t agree with me and sent it to No 3 in the UK charts. However, the dream house phenomenon would peter out from this point on (although it probably morphed into something else). Miles would have just one further UK chart hit (bizarrely with a Sledge Sister) and he himself would pass away in 2017 from metastatic cancer aged just 47.

Next up are Mrs Ted’s favourites the Backstreet Boys. I’m sorry Mrs Ted but I could never understand the appeal of this lot. Awful name, useless songs and most of them were not even that good looking. Without wishing to sound too Little Englander about it, didn’t we have enough boy bands of our own without making space for New Kids In The Block 2.0? Take this song “I’ll Never Break Your Heart” for example. It’s just a sub par version of something Boyz II Men might have released. Somehow though, I still hear their songs played on the radio to this day. Maybe it’s me that’s got it all wrong? Nah, couldn’t be but even if liking the Backstreet Boys was being in the right, I’d rather be wrong. In fact, I want it that way (ahem).

Somebody put some thought into this running order (though clearly not “I’ll Get Me Coat” man who does the intro) as we segue from “I’ll Never Break Your Heart” to “Un-Break My Heart” by Toni Braxton. Just like Robert Miles’ “One And One” from earlier, this single had a remarkable chart life partly helped by the fact there was a ballad version and a dance version of the single available to buy. Look at these chart positions though:

4 – 5 – 5 – 4 – 5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 4 – 2 – 4

That’s eleven weeks inside the Top 5 with a climb down the chart being reversed on three separate occasions. Compare that to the chart record of “One And One”:

6 – 6 – 6 – 5 – 4 – 3 – 5 – 5 – 4 – 6

Incredible really that two records in the charts at the same time could display such consistency of sales. Working in Our Price at the time, that pattern of sales would also have been hard to order for with the question “surely it’s going to tail off next week?” always in the back of the singles buyer’s mind. Interesting that “One And One” spent three consecutive weeks at No 6. The devil’s music perhaps?

We were always going to see Jazz Club’s Louis Balfour weren’t we and John Thomson duly delivers. It’s the plausible detail of the script that makes this character funny for me – the names of the fictional artists and songs that Balfour introduces that are simultaneously ludicrous and believable. He’s on form in this link referencing Peter Python and The Bop and a track called “Beat My Feet Sweet”. Nice! Not nice though was the real act that he introduces – The Woolpackers with “Hillbilly Rock Hillbilly Roll”. Whose shameless and shameful idea was this to cash in on the line dancing phenomenon that was sweeping the country around this time?! Presumably some executive producer at Emmerdale from where this grotesque abomination originated. I’ve never watched the soap much – it was the one that I could never really get into – and this single wasn’t going to tempt me in.

Supposedly, the group that consisted of three cast members actually featured in a plot line of the show but I couldn’t tell you what the story was. All I knew was that this was a terrible record engineered to fleece fans of the soap or those people who would only come into a record shop once a year at Christmas. Somehow this pile of crap got to No 5 and spent ten weeks inside the Top 40. They repeated the grift the following Christmas with another line dancing song called “Line Dance Party” (the thought that must have gone into naming it!) and there were two whole albums released off the back of this initial nonsense. Here’s a thought, after you’ve done your cha cha slides, your brushes and your heel fans, here’s another move for all those involved in this record – it’s called the ‘hang your head in shame’ and that includes TOTP executive producer Ric Blaxill for having it on the show.

In 1995, Michael Jackson had the UK Christmas No 1. Twelve months on and his Yuletide offering was still being sourced from his “HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I” album but “Stranger In Moscow” was no “Earth Song”. In fact, despite its chart peak of No 4, I don’t remember this one at all. I think I can be forgiven as it’s the somnambulist’s anthem, sleepwalking its way from start to finish. Indeed, it’s 65bpm makes it one of Jackson’s slowest songs.

A ballad about loneliness, it apparently drew on Jackson’s personal experience of walking through the city at night alone looking for someone, anyone to talk to. The Russian angle was meant to highlight his feelings of fear and alienation though lyrics like “Armageddon of the brain”, “Stalin’s tomb won’t let me be” and “KGB was doggin’ me” all seem rather clunky and ham fisted. Supposedly the track’s origins came from a bizarre source – the credits theme for the computer game Sonic The Hedgehog 3. What this?

Oh my God! I think I can hear a similarity! And here’s another similarity – a cover of “Stranger In Moscow” by a band I’d never heard of before but whose version actually turns the track (for me) into a decent song. Maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to judge and dismiss.

Right, so I’ve now watched the first part of the Boybands Forever documentary on iPlayer and it dealt specifically with the rise of and rivalry between Take That and East 17. It starts with a clip of the latter’s Brian Harvey smashing up a disc for 1 million sales of East 17 records in a fit of rage. The clip was dated as being from 2015 and sees Harvey ranting about grief he’s getting from the police, the CPS, the court system before he finally says turns on the music industry. Now, you may have seen that Harvey has been posting a lot of videos of himself lately where he talks/shouts about conspiracies and cover ups and being censored. His ex-band mate John Hendy got involved by posting a reply video telling Harvey to shut up and move on. Brian, predictably, did neither. Reading between the lines, Harvey seems to be insinuating that events took place during the band’s career that should have warranted an Operation Yewtree style investigation and that they have consistently been covered up and he wants to get the truth out there whatever the cost may be to him personally. He even referenced the recent death of Liam Payne as part of his conspiracy theory. I don’t know where the truth lies in this – why would I? – but all I’m going to say is that, in retrospect, having Ken and Kenneth the “Ooh! Suit you sir!” twins introduce East 17 and Gabrielle perform “If You Ever” hasn’t aged that well.

Ken and Kenneth really push the envelope with their next link to Prince by referring to him as the “purple-headed one” – I think we all understand that double entendre. I say Prince but I think he was officially known as that squiggly symbol thing by this point. Apparently, he’d always wanted to record “Betcha By Golly Wow!” that had originally been a hit for The Stylistics in 1972 but his record company Warners hadn’t allowed it so he got his way once he was free from contractual obligations to them and recorded it for his “Emancipation” album. I have to say that although it seems a logical choice given the range of Prince’s falsetto voice, I’m not sure he does a great job with it. If it was a shout for a penalty in a football match, you’d say that he made a meal of it. It did make No 11 in the UK which suggests the record buying public once again disagreed with me. However, aside from a rerelease of “1999” as the new millennium dawned, he would never have as big a hit in this country again.

In amongst the headlines that were fashioned by the press in the Gary Barlow v Robbie Williams battle, there was another contender for solo artist supremacy who rather went under the radar and yet, for me, his first solo single was better than both his ex-band mates’ efforts combined. The perceived wisdom was that Barlow was the talent when it came to writing songs and was therefore the most likely to succeed out on his own. Williams had generated a lot of press for himself but when it came to it, his first release was a cover version – where were your songs Robbie?

Tiptoeing a path through both came Mark Owen – the pretty young one as described by Ralph in his intro – and therein lay the issue for Owen, that he could be dismissed as just that. Even the TOTP caption adds to the condescending narrative by stating “Wrote this track himself” with the underlying tone being “Who would have thought it?” and yet “Child” is actually very good. Coming on like a cross between Donovan and David Cassidy, Owen delivered a sparkling, shimmering pop song that perfectly suited him vocally. With all due respect, Mark doesn’t have the biggest voice but he didn’t need one for this string drenched ballad. The chart positions for the debut singles by Barlow, Williams and Owen seemed to solidify in the minds of the public some sort of natural order with Gary’s “Forever Love” going to No 1, Robbie’s George Michael cover spinning to No 2 and Mark’s “Child” finding a home at No 3. Those three chart peaks were replicated for all three’s follow up singles as well. It was like some preordained medal podium for ex-members of Take That. Time would show that it would be Williams who would ultimately ascend to the gold medal position in terms of record sales but for Mark Owen it would never get better than a bronze medal. His album “Green Man” didn’t sell in bucket loads (we had a massive overstock in the Our Price where I was working after Head Office buyers mistakenly bought in loads of it thinking it was a surefire winner) and he was dropped by his label within a year. Winning the second series of Celebrity Big Brother in 2002 raised his profile again to the point where he bagged a Top 5 hit with “Four Minute Warning” but it was a case of diminishing returns after that until the Take That reunion in 2006. Mark has continued his solo career in parallel with the band and last released an album in 2022.

In an inspired move, Bob Fleming does the voice over for the Top 10 countdown which obviously means we don’t actually hear much of the Top 10 countdown. In pole position are Robson & Jerome for a second week with their triple A-side single “What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted” / “Saturday Night At The Movies” / “You’ll Never Walk Alone”. Mercifully, this would be their last ever release (excluding a Best Of and a Love Songs collection that would follow in later years) which makes me wonder if that was the reason behind this triple track product. Going out with a bang and a third No 1 single out of three. Would they have risked doing a Frankie Goes To Hollywood if they’d have gone for a fourth single and missed the top of the charts? Or was it as simple as they’d had enough of this pop star lark and wanted to get back to their day jobs? Presumably they had a contract with their record label RCA so maybe they’d just fulfilled their contractual obligations? Whatever the reason, I think this might be their final TOTP appearance (bar Christmas specials) and I think we can all say “thank f**k for that!”. The madness was over. As for The Fast Show, it would go on for a further two series with the cast reuniting for a 30 anniversary tour this year. Nice.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Robert Miles and Maria NaylerOne And OneNope
2Backstreet BoysI’ll Never Break Your HeartNever
3Toni BraxtonUn-Break My HeartI did not
4The Woolpackers Hillbilly Rock Hillbilly RollAs if
5Michael JacksonStranger In MoscowNah
6East 17 / GabrielleIf You EverSorry Brian – it’s a no
7PrinceBetcha By Golly Wow!No
8Mark OwenChildLiked it, didn’t buy it
9Robson & JeromeWhat Becomes Of The Brokenhearted” / “Saturday Night At The Movies” / “You’ll Never Walk AloneSee 4 above

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00256xq/top-of-the-pops-15111996?seriesId=unsliced