McAlmont & Butler

TOTP 02 NOV 1995

Posted on by 80stastic

Woah! We’re into November in these 1995 TOTP repeats – that year is nearly over already! Not that I would have been thinking like that working in a record shop with the hectic festive trading period looming. I did ten Christmases with Our Price and they seemed to get progressively harder with the passing of every year. Maybe it was just the ageing process (I was 22 when I did my first and in my early 30s at the time of the last one) that meant I found them more and more tiring. Or maybe it was that the company expected us to get through them on less and less staff each year whilst simultaneously beating last year’s sales. I’d felt energised by the hustle and bustle of my very first Christmas but that feeling had dissipated over the years and coming to work had lost its sense of fun.

Presenting this TOTP though was a man who looked like he’d had loads of fun during his career as the lead singer of Madness what with all those wacky videos throughout the early part of the 80s. Whilst the band were on one of their hiatuses, Suggs undertook an initially successful solo career in this year keeping his profile high and affording him this ‘golden mic’ opportunity and what an opportunity! He got to host the show that had Madonna on it in person in the studio for the first time in eleven years! Suggs used this chance to hone his presenting skills and went on to secure the job of host on…oh yeah…Channel 5’s karaoke show Night Fever. Oh dear. Unbelievably, that show didn’t ruin his TV career and he went on to present shows including Salvage Squad, Inside Out and Disappearing London which won three Royal Television Society awards including one for himself as ‘Presenter of the Year’. Wow! Literally a few of days ago, I was listening to Gary Davies’s Sounds of the 80s show on Radio 2 and he announced that he was being joined by Suggs as co-host next week. I then saw him on The Jonathan Ross Show performing with Madness their new single “Round We Go”. All this proves that you can’t keep a good man down.

Right, that’s quite the lengthy intro so let’s get to the music and we start with a great tune. Echobelly were really hitting their stride by this point in their career with new single “King Of The Kerb” the second hit from their Top 5 album “On”. With this, “Great Things” and “Insomniac” (from their debut album “Everyone’s Got One”), the band had come up with a really strong trio of tracks. I wasn’t the only one who thought that – Madonna had shown an interest in signing the band to her Maverick label. Do you think they had a chat about it in the green room after this show? They ultimately didn’t sign due to their existing contractual arrangements and it was a change in said arrangements that would derail the band’s career. Having signed to Rhythm King with their records released on offshoot label Fauve, when the former’s distribution deal with Sony subsidiary Epic came to an end in 1996, a new deal was signed with Arista Records of the BMG group. This had the effect of Rhythm King being essentially shut down and subsumed by Arista. The band had reservations about the change of label and decided to stay with Epic. The contractual wrangling and singer Sonya Madan’s health problems (a potentially fatal thyroid issue) meant a third album “Lustra” wasn’t released for another two years by which point the band’s shine (and indeed that of Britpop) had lost its…well…lustre. The album only made No 47 in the charts. Echobelly have had various lengthy hiatuses since but are still a going concern and indeed are on tour later this year.

Talking of commercial declines, here’s another band who were starting down the other side of their own particular hill of success. MN8 began the year with a bang and a No 2 record in “I’ve Got A Little Something For You” and followed it up with two other Top 10 hits. By the time of fourth single “Baby It’s You” though, their chart positions were more of a knoll than a mountain. And rightly so by my reckoning. Although that first hit was annoying, it was catchy. This though, well it was just bland R&B styled pop wasn’t it? Its peak of No 22 could perhaps be explained away as the natural state for a fourth single from an album that had been out for six months as could the No 25 peak of its fifth “Pathway To The Moon”. However, when the lead single from the second album could only get to No 15 the following year, the alarm bells must have been ringing. That second album – “Freaky” – was a complete sales fail peaking at No 114. There has been no new material released by MN8 since though supposedly there have been talks over the years about a reunion.

Next, another showing of the video for “Heaven For Everyone” by Queen. The promo features footage from the films A Trip To The Moon, The Impossible Voyage and The Eclipse: Courtship of the Sun and Moon all by French filmmaker Georges Méliès. This wasn’t the first time that the band had used this technique – the video for 1984’s “Radio Ga Ga” incorporated images from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. Perhaps not surprising as they were both made by the same director, David Mallett. However, this isn’t the one that’s shown here. A second video directed by Simon Pummell was included on the VHS release of Made In Heaven: The Films featuring performance artist Stelarc operating a robotic hand.

The Monday after this TOTP aired, the album “Made In Heaven” was released. It went straight to the top of the charts and despite only being available for two months was the 7th best selling album in the UK in 1995. The power and pull of Freddie Mercury was still very much alive after four years after his death.

It’s another performance of “Thunder” by East 17 now as they’ve landed in the charts at No 4 following their ‘exclusive’ appearance two weeks ago. Although they were hardly down the dumper at this point, for me at least, this period of the career was less than impressive. I’d liked their early singles – “Deep” was a great song- whilst you couldn’t help but take note of their scoring the previous year’s Christmas No 1. By the time of third album “Up All Night” though, the formula seemed to be failing. Sure they were still having hits and the album sold well but it did half the amount predecessor “Steam” had done. In a sure fire move that the wobbles had set in with record label London Records, their next album release was a Greatest Hits collection. Just fourteen months on from this TOTP, Brian Harvey (who looks a bit like Phil Mitchell in this performance if you squint) would give that radio interview and the band would start to implode. By the way, had they been giving fashion advice to MN8? Those big jackets looked very East 17.

P.S. The Walthamstow outfit’s erstwhile rivals Take That would release a single in 2009 called “Up All Night”. What are the chances eh?

And another band who have been on the show in recent weeks! This time it’s UB40 with their hit “Until My Dying Day” taken from their “Best Of Volume Two” album. Admittedly it’s not just second studio appearance as this time they are live by satellite from Brooklyn in the shadow of its famous bridge. As a location, it’s a step up from the university car park that Diana King performed in the other week but it’s still not great. For one thing, hasn’t this location been used by other artists before (or perhaps from the Manhattan side of the bridge?). Secondly, it’s not quite the shot of a tree we got during that Diana King performance but we do get a couple of views of just the bridge without the band on camera at all. Now some might say less of UB40 filling your TV screen was a good thing but it does seem rather odd in retrospect. These ‘satellite’ performances were really outstaying their welcome by this point.

Here’s yet another song I don’t remember at all but in my defence, there’s a good reason for that – it wasn’t a hit in the UK. Yes, it’s one of those rare occasions when the TOTP producers decided to give an ‘exclusive’ slot to a single that would fail to break into our Top 40. On reflection, giving such a platform to “Rock Steady” by Bryan Adams and Bonnie Raitt seems a strange decision. Sure Bry had become a units shifting behemoth in the 90s due to that Robin Hood song and indeed, had been at No 4 in the UK earlier in the year with “Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman” from the Don Juan DeMarco soundtrack. But Bonnie? A huge star in the States no doubt but over here, she’d only ever had one minor hit single when “You” made No 31 in 1994. In my head, she was the sort of artist whose albums would be featured in the Recommended Releases section in Our Price – not a hot enough record to guarantee sales but maybe a few could be squeezed out of it if it was discounted for a couple of weeks. The UK just didn’t really get her fusion of country/blues/rock. Look at these contrasting chart positions:

AlbumYearUS Chart PeakUK Chart Peak
Nick Of Time1989151
Luck Of The Draw1991238
Longing In Their Hearts1994126

“Rock Steady” was taken from Bonnie’s first live album “Road Tested” – yep, a live album. For an artist who had failed to set the UK charts alight with her studio albums, the idea that a live album would suddenly reverse that trend seemed an audacious strategy by her record label. Predictably, it did nothing over here.

Having spent a lot of words decrying Bonnie’s appearance on the show, I should say that my wife quite likes her. Well, she likes one of her songs to be more accurate. “Something To Talk About” featured on the soundtrack to the 1995 film of the same name starring Dennis Quaid, Julia Roberts and Kyra Sedgwick. One last thing to note here is that in his intro, Suggs depicts the duet as a ‘battle of the larynxes’ and pits Bonnie versus Bryan with a “ding ding round one” remark. Now isn’t that reminiscent of the aforementioned Night Fever show he would go on to host?

Suggs goes old skool for his next link by donning a bowler hat and sporting an umbrella – all classic props from the ‘nutty boys’ video heyday. It seems though that there may have been some sartorial collusion with the next act who are McAlmont & Butler with vocalist David matching Suggs in the chapeau department. Whatever this duo released after the towering epic that was debut single “Yes” it was destined not to match its magnificence. So it was with “You Do”. That’s not to say it wasn’t a good song – it was, it is but inevitably it felt a bit after the Lord Mayor’s show.

Their album “The Sound Of…McAlmont & Butler” appeared in late November though it was really just the two aforementioned hits and all the extra tracks from their CD singles which may explain its minor chart peak position of No 33. By then, the duo had parted ways anyway. An interview in the NME given by McAlmont about the lack of substance to his relationship with Butler plus some unfounded accusations of his homophobia hastened the split. Both pursued solo projects (Bernard’s debut album “People Move On” is a personal favourite) before a reunion in 2002 ushered in second album “Bring It Back”. Another prolonged sabbatical then occurred before the duo toured together in 2015.

And so to the big, nay HUGE exclusive performance. With her first appearance on the show in person for eleven years it’s….Madonna! I’m pretty sure this would have created some headlines back in the day. Not seen in the TOTP studio since that performance of “Like A Virgin” with that pink wig, Madonna suddenly found the time to be in the country to promote her latest single “You’ll See”. A new track written for her ballads collection “Something To Remember”, it’s a mature, emotionally charged love song who that Madge delivers competently which I think was the point of the whole project – to get people talking about her as a recording artist again , as a singer with an actual voice rather than the controversy courting, media baiting spectacle she had become. To that end, she appears here decidedly grown up in a dressed down yet stylish all black outfit and a classic, soft hairstyle. No gimmicks, no button pushing flashes of flesh – just a woman, her voice and a song to sing. And it works, though I have to say listening back to it now that it almost seems like a rehash of her 1986 ballad “Live To Tell”. It would return Madonna to the UK Top 5 whilst the album sold 10 million copies worldwide.

In 2024, is Madonna still relevant? I’m sure she still has a huge, global fanbase but is she as big a deal these days as a Taylor Swift (announced just yesterday as a billionaire!), a Miley Cyrus or even a countrified Beyoncé? I’m not sure. I think I would wish for her a more demure tail end of her career. All that Madame X stuff seemed a bit desperate. Madonna became one of the most famous people on the planet but even she’ll see that you can’t hold back the march of time.

Coolio and L.V. remain at No 1 with “Gangsta’s Paradise”. This record really was a phenomenon sales wise. Over two million copies sold in the UK alone, it would be our second best selling single of the year (only the bizarre Robson & Jerome craze prevented it from being top of the pile). Despite only being No 1 here for two weeks, it would spend the next five weeks either at No 2 or No 3. There was no quick descent down the charts for this monster. So how come it only got those two weeks at the top here? *SPOILER ALERT* Bloody Robson & Jerome again wasn’t it! Their single “I Believe” knocked it off the top spot and remained there for four weeks. Add that to their version of “Unchained Melody” (the aforementioned best selling single in the UK of 1995) and they had quite a lot to answer for this year.

Back to “Gangsta’s Paradise” though and its presence in the film Dangerous Minds meant that the movie’s soundtrack was also a massive seller topping the American album chart and going triple platinum. Despite it no longer being the UK No 1, we’ll be seeing it on TOTP twice more in the repeats to come. Like I said before, it was an absolute phenomenon.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1EchobellyKing Of The KerbNo but I had a Best of with it on
2MN8Baby It’s YouNever
3QueenHeaven For EveryoneNegative
4East 17ThunderNope
5UB40Until My Dying DayNo
6Bryan Adams and Bonnie RaittRock SteadyNah
7McAlmont & ButlerYou DoNo I didn’t but I had their album
8MadonnaYou’ll SeeI did not
9Coolio / L.V.Gangsta’s ParadiseI was one of the few that didn’t

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/m001xhz8/top-of-the-pops-02111995?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 25 MAY 1995

Posted on by 80stastic

With one notable exception, the line up for this TOTP is one of the most underwhelming and uninspiring I’ve seen for a while. An horrendous No 1 and a load of dance tunes I don’t remember and probably wouldn’t like if I did. At least it’s a ‘golden mic’ presenter slot with an interesting choice of host(s) this week. Stewart Lee and Richard Herring were a comedy duo who met at Oxford University and were contemporaries of the likes of Emma Kennedy. After writing for Chris Morris’ Radio 4 comedy vehicle On The Hour, they switched to Radio 1 writing and starring in Fist Of Fun which would eventually transfer to TV via BBC2. The first series had only just finished by the time of this TOTP so Lee and Herring’s profile was presumably pretty high and bestowed upon them a shot at presenting the network’s flagship music show. I’m not sure that the pair were on my comedy radar at this time though I have seen Stewart Lee live subsequently and he was very funny. The double act seems to be based on Lee being sarcastic and cutting and Herring being frivolous and silly. He strays into something a bit more uncomfortable though at the top of the show by asking if he might be in heaven as he’s surrounded by sweaty, teenage girls. Such a remark possibly wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow back then but in these post Operation Yewtree times, it doesn’t sit well.

Anyway, we start with Incognito who I had forgotten were still having hits as late as 1995. To be fair to myself, my knowledge of them only extends to “Always There” from 1991 and their cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing” in 1992. However, there is much more to them than that starting with the fact that they had been in existence since 1979 and have a roster of members past and present (they are still a going concern) they could rival The Fall and The Waterboys. Talking of Incognito members, I had to do a double take but my suspicions were confirmed by @TOTPFacts that the guy on bongos would go on to be pretty famous for something else…

Well there you go. Professor Brian Cox wasn’t the only celebrity to play in a 90s band before becoming famous in a different profession. As for Incognito’s tune, “Everyday” is actually quite pleasant as far as it goes but it does smack of being a rewrite of “Always There” which wasn’t even their song in the first place.

After Lee and Herring have a discussion about Jon Bon Jovi’s unusual pronunciation of Milan as ‘Milarn’ from his to camera piece at the top of the show, we move onto a dance tune I certainly wouldn’t have liked back in 1995 (I don’t actually remember it) and definitely don’t like 28 years later. Nightcrawlers were coming off the back of a huge hit in “Push The Feeling On” – you might know it as the “Just Sold My Car” song for the We Buy Any Car ad – and “Surrender Your Love” was more of the same though a bit watered down and (clearly in my case) not as memorable.

Despite or maybe because of his rather extreme look of long blond hair and shades which ages him terribly – he was 31 at the time of this broadcast – the TOTP cameras seem to deliberately avoid having vocalist John Reid on screen for longer than a couple of seconds at a time preferring to focus on the multitude of dancers on stage. It really is quite noticeable. Maybe the show’s producers were trying to recreate the feel of a nightclub where this track would have no doubt gone down well with mid 90s house music fiends. “Surrender Your Love” peaked at No 7.

Next an exclusive live by satellite performance of “This Is How We Do It” by Montell Jordan but, as with many of these ‘exclusives’, it fails to live up to its title. Coming in direct from Los Angeles, you might have thought the location would be the Hollywood Walk Of Fame, the TCL Chinese Theatre, Venice or Santa Monica beach or at least somewhere with the Hollywood sign in the background wouldn’t you? What we get is an outdoor basketball court that could be anywhere. Montell doesn’t even have a cordless microphone so he can’t move around much and it’s left to his three backing dancers to try and liven things up a bit – they don’t. Honestly not sure what executive producer Ric Blaxill was thinking here.

Some more comments from Lee and Herring that have not aged well next. Describing Scatman John as “an old, stuttering man” (Herring) who “didn’t let age or his inability to speak get in the way of having a No 3 hit” (Lee) before introducing him with a stutter (Herring again) might get you cancelled these days or as Lee might say in his stand up shows, “you can get put in jail these days just for presenting Top Of The Pops”. Or something. “Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)” was indeed up to No 3 but it would go no further. Nonsensical novelty hit or genre bending innovation? You decide.

Lee and Herring indulge in a bit of sexual innuendo now reminding the watching audience that if it hurts, you’re not doing it right before introducing “Hurts So Good” by Jimmy Somerville. As with Incognito earlier, I’d totally forgotten that Jimmy was still having hits as late as this. In my head, his chart bothering days pretty much ended with his very successful singles collection album over Christmas 1990. I wasn’t too far off to be fair but I’d forgotten about “Dare To Love” which became his first album released since then when it appeared in 1995. “Hurts So Good” was the second single from it and was a cover of a song made famous by Susan Cadogan who had a No 4 hit with it in 1975. I don’t know Susan’s version and I don’t remember Jimmy’s but I have to say I don’t feel like I missed out on much. Somerville had form for doing reggae-fied covers. He did one of the Bee Gees song “To Love Somebody” to promote that singles collection and “Hurts So Good” falls into the sane category for me. I just don’t think Jimmy’s high falsetto voice suits reggae. For me, he’s always been better on a barnstorming Hi-NRG type track. This would prove to be his final UK Top 40 entry with his first coming back in 1984 with “Smalltown Boy” as part of Bronski Beat.

It’s time for the second live by satellite exclusive performance on the show tonight as Bon Jovi perform “This Ain’t A Love Song” live from Milan (or is it Milarn?). Lee and Herring cue it up for us by the former declaring that he hates Bon Jovi and I, for one, believe him. A simple search of ‘What music does Stewart Lee like’ on Google gives loads of results including a list of his favourite 13 albums. Some of them, I’ve never even heard of the artist let alone the album but the ones I did know include REM (despite him saying how much they’ve disappointed him and are awful), Miles Davis, Madness and The Byrds. He’s also a lifelong fan of The Fall but can no longer listen to Morrissey despite his attachment to The Smiths. I don’t see any room in there at all for Bon Jovi’s brand of rock.

As for said brand, the band were at a bit of a crossroads as to what direction to take after the mega selling “Keep The Faith” album that they’d toured and promoted for two years. That album had seen them develop a more mature sound and lay off the hair metal histrionics of “Slippery When Wet” and “New Jersey”. The change hadn’t affected their commercial appeal with sales of 8 million worldwide so which direction should they go in now? Some early demos were trashed by Jon Bon Jovi as not being up to scratch and the gap where a new album should have been was filled by a Best Of called “Crossroads” (oh I get that title now) and a couple of new songs. A rethink was required which led the band to a darker album entitled “These Days”. Yet again, a new sound didn’t result in a downturn in sales with the album selling even more than “Keep The Faith” worldwide. It also achieved critical acclaim being ranked No 2 by Q Magazine in their “Top 50 albums of 1995” list. Lead single “This Ain’t A Love Song” would be the first of four consecutive Top 10 singles in the UK taken from the album when it peaked at No 6. It’s an accomplished rock ballad though its verses remind me of their 1987 forgotten hit “Never Say Goodbye”. A word on this TOTP appearance. What’s so exclusive about performing to an empty venue regardless of it being in Milan/Milarn?

Ah, some more dodgy rhetoric from Lee and Herring about following Michelle Gayle around and restraining orders. It sounds awful now but again, was it deemed acceptable back then? Maybe these TOTP repeats should come with those sensitivity warnings that say ‘this programme is from *insert the year* and features themes and attitudes from the time”.

Anyway, Michelle is back with her fourth chart hit “Freedom” though I don’t recall this one either. Nothing to do with George Michael (though Robbie Williams was just a year or so away from a cover version of that particular song), it’s a pleasant if insubstantial pop ditty which Michelle sells enthusiastically even impressively high kicking her way through it at one point. Her all woman set up of two keyboard players and two backing dancers could almost have been designed to flick the V’s at the hosts and their misogyny. I was rather distracted though by the singalong ‘Okay’ bit towards the end which put me in mind of Lenny Henry’s unfortunate early ‘comedy’ character Algernon Razmatazz and his ‘Ooookaaaay’ catchphrase. My god, reviewing these TOTP repeats is a culturally sensitive minefield.

Yes! The notable exception to tonight’s underwhelming running order is here. After being an ‘exclusive’ last week, McAlmont & Butler have crashed into the charts at No 10 with…ahem…”Yes”. There was some debate online about whether Richard Herring calls his co-host a ‘wanker’ or a ‘wassock’ in the intro to this one after this repeat aired but he clearly says the latter. The man himself took to Twitter/X to confirm:

This brilliant song has helped me through some difficult times at work in the past and remains a permanent in my life. I was meant to see Bernard Butler live in Manchester around 1998 when he was touring his fine debut solo album “People Move On” but he cancelled at the last minute. Years later though I did catch David McAlmont live in Hull when he did a show of Prince songs. An engaging storyteller, he did a fab version of “Raspberry Beret” restyled as “Guyanan Beret“ – his mother was from Guyana. Sadly I can’t find any clips of it online.

Aargh! I’d forgotten that Robson & Jerome’s No 1 was a double A-side! Not content with hacking their way through “Unchained Melody” they’ve also taken the musical equivalent of a dull spoon to “(There’ll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs Of Dover”. The song recorded by ‘Forces’ Sweetheart’ Dame Vera Lynn in 1942 and one of the songs most associated with WWII has also been covered by the likes of Connie Francis, Bing Crosby, Jim Reeves, Acker Bilk and Steeleye Span. It was also recorded by The Righteous Brothers and was a hit for them in the UK in 1966. Was that the reason why Robson & Jerome laid down a version of it? Because it dovetailed neatly with “Unchained Melody” which Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield also famously recorded? Or is that just me trying to add some synchronicity that isn’t there? It’s just that it seems an odd choice of song – or was it? Was this just more cynical positioning from Simon Cowell. Did he look at the Soldier Soldier audience and work out that an album and single by two of its characters might be most likely to be purchased by an older demographic who maybe wouldn’t normally buy anything that was in the charts and so a version of “(There’ll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs Of Dover” would be the perfect track to reel them in?

We end with one of the weirdest song titles of the year, no any year. “The Far-Out Son Of Lung And The Ramblings Of A Madman” was the latest of EP by The Future Sound Of London. As a pop kid, none of their stuff ever made any sense to me. This one is no different. It sounds like the incidental music to Blakes 7 put through a high spin washing cycle. Thankfully we only get a few seconds of this as the credits kick in.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1IncognitoEverydayI did not
2NightcrawlersSurrender Your LoveNo
3Montell JordanThis Is How We Do ItNope
4Scatman JohnScatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)Never happening
5Jimmy SomervilleHurts So GoodNah
6Bon JoviThis Ain’t A Love SongNegative
7Michelle GayleFreedomIt’s another no
8McAlmont & ButlerYesYES!
9Robson & JeromeUnchained Melody / (There’ll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs Of DoverWhat do you think?!
10The Future Sound Of LondonThe Far-Out Son Of Lung And The Ramblings Of A MadmanAs if

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/m001s8tj/top-of-the-pops-25051995

TOTP 18 MAY 1995

Posted on by 80stastic

We have a new presenter tonight as Lisa I’Anson makes her TOTP debut. Lisa was the new weekday host of Radio 1’s lunchtime show and presumably was given an opportunity on the BBC’s flagship music programme to raise her profile and promote her appointment. Lisa stayed in that slot until 1996 when she shifted to the weekend lunchtime show. However, her tenure at Radio 1 came to an end in the aftermath of a no show for her…erm…show in August 1998 after a night out in Ibiza where Radio 1 had decamped to for its annual Summer jaunt. The writing was on the wall and she left the station six months later. After the shenanigans Chris Evans had put the Radio 1 management through just a few years earlier including demands for extra holiday and Fridays off and a 17 hour bender that only ended 2 hours before he was due on air, they were always going to come down hard on subsequent misdemeanours. It was a different story over at Talksport though where Breakfast Show presenter Alan Brazil was sacked in 2004 for missing a show only to be reinstated three weeks later.

For now though, Lisa was a fully paid up part of the Radio 1 gang and loving her first TOTP appearance even allowing herself a quick “Hello Mum” to camera before she introduces tonight’s opening artist who is Billie Ray Martin with “Your Loving Arms”. When I first started working for Our Price in the Autumn of 1990, all the hipper members of staff loved Electribe 101. Their album “Electribal Memories” could always be found near the store’s CD player so often was it played. I was never really onboard with the whole thing though probably because I wasn’t one of the hipper members of staff. Anyway, Electribe 101 drifted towards a break up but singer Billie Ray Martin’s vocal talents meant she was never going to just be allowed to disappear without trace and so at the very end of October 1994, her debut solo single “Your Loving Arms” was released. Hang on…October 1994 you say? But we’re in May 1995…what gives? Well, it’s yet another case of a minor dance hit single being rereleased a few months later and becoming a major one. This was all the rage around about now. Think Strike’s “U Sure Do” and “Dreamer” by Livin’ Joy and now this one. Its original chart peak of No 38 was completely eclipsed second time around when it went to No 6. How and why did this keep happening? Were the rereleases remixed by happening DJs or was it just a case of there being a lot of money sloshing around in record labels marketing budgets so giving a record another go was always an option? I’m not sure but “Your Loving Arms” was sleek, stylish and fronted by an artist who was also both of those things so it shouldn’t have been a surprise to us that it became a big hit eventually. Sadly for Billie, she would never have such success again though she did manage two No 29 follow ups from her album “Deadline For My Memories” though the album itself failed to shift in huge quantities.

Now this performance here, what were the angels all about? I’ve checked the lyrics to the track out and can’t see any tie in. Admittedly, their wings are impressive but it all seems rather disconnected and over the top. Billie herself is rather static due to the length of the train her dress has. All a bit odd but I probably accepted it as completely normal back then. Billie Ray Martin’s career choice meant that she continued the timeline of singers called Billie. Before her came Billie Holiday, Billie Jo Spears and she was followed by Billie Eilish and…erm…well Billie!

Celine Dion is back in the studio for another crack at propelling “Only One Road” up the charts “Think Twice” style. It’s yet another power ballad (of course it is, did she ever record anything that wasn’t?) but I would wager that it’s not one that is easily remembered compared to “My Heart Will Go On”, the aforementioned “Think Twice” or even her cover of Jennifer Rush’s “The Power Of Love”. It sounds like it could be from a Disney film which was indeed a road Celine had traveled before when she recorded the theme song to Beauty And The Beast with Peabo Bryson. Whatever you think of her music (and that’s not much in my book), let’s wish her well battling against the neurological condition stiff-person syndrome that she was diagnosed with last year.

Wait, what?! Ali Campbell had a solo career? Yes he did and irony of ironies, he did it whilst he was still a member of UB40 so presumably with the band’s blessing? Given what happened between the two parties subsequently, it strikes me now as a peculiar state of affairs. Was it an authorised project to fill the four year gap between the UB40 albums “Promises And Lies” and “Guns In The Ghetto”? Whatever the reasons behind the endeavour, Ali found himself riding high in the charts with a song called “That Look In Your Eye” and an album called “Big Love”. I don’t remember the single at all which seems quite a slight thing with some very reedy singing on it from both Ali and his duet partner, one Pamela Starks who very little seems to be known about. I can find reference to a Pamela Starks who is a casting director and worked on the Prince film Sign ‘o’ the Times but they can’t be the same people can they? From casting for a music legend to singing a twee little number with the bloke from UB40? It seems an unlikely journey.

Campbell would squeeze out two further solo hit singles, both of which were covers – a version of “Let Your Yeah Be Yeah” by Jimmy Cliff and another duet, this time with his daughter Kibibi on “Somethin’ Stupid” as made famous by Frank and Nancy Sinatra. Blimey! Come back Ozzy and Kelly Osbourne – all is forgiven.

Next, the first of two iconic songs in the show beginning with “Yes” by McAlmont & Butler. What a track this is! An instant stone cold classic. The huge Phil Spector-esque wall of sound, the joyously uplifting chorus, Bernard’s immense guitar work and David’s stunning vocals. Not just one of the songs of the year but of the decade too. If there were any doubts about the ex-Suede guitarist’s career potential, they were surely blown away by this track. As for McAlmont, I’d certainly had no idea who he was before this but once you’d heard that voice, you would never forget him.

Despite working in a record shop and selling loads of this single during the week, remarkably, I hadn’t actually heard “Yes” once. This was corrected in some style when I met up with some old Polytechnic friends in Chester at the weekend. My friend Robin had bought “Yes” and brought it with him and insisted on playing it to the group continuously on the first night. When the track had finished and the next track on the CD single began, Robin would shake his head, say “uh-uh” and restart “Yes”. This went on for some time but although people in the group were getting a bit fed up, it certainly resolved my issue of not having heard the track up to that point.

As good as this TOTP performance is, you really have to see their appearance on Later…with Jools Holland to appreciate the true majesty of the song. Bernard wigging out with his guitar, David and his extraordinary vocal range and even more extraordinarily long fingers that gave him an otherworldly quality; it’s quite astonishing and a clip I keep returning to after all these years. The duo will return to the TOTP studio on the next show so I’ll have more to say about them then.

It’s that song from the Guinness advert next. “Guaglione” by Perez ‘Prez’ Prado was the music that soundtracked said advert called Anticipation which you may remember as featuring the guy doing weird dancing whilst waiting for his pint to settle. What you may not be aware of (as I wasn’t until now) is that the campaign started a lawsuit battle. British director Mehdi Norowzian launched the litigation against advertising agency Arks claiming that the company had based Anticipation on a short film called Joy that he had presented to Arks as part of a show reel whilst trying to secure employment with them. Arks did offer Norowzian a job, that of directing an advert for their client Guinness based around Joy and its distinctive jump editing sequence. When Norowzian turned them down as he wanted to do something completely different, Arks went ahead and made the advert without him. Norowzian lost his legal battle and had to pay £200,000 in legal costs. Here are both Anticipation and Joy so you can compare them. I definitely prefer Joy.

wait for it…

The guy in the advert is called Joe McKinney and he spent two years making personal appearances around Europe promoting Guinness. Sound like a dream job? Not for Joe. That lifestyle became too much for him and he gave up alcohol in 1997. He did go on to have a successful acting career but he did not take part in the Guinness 250th anniversary celebrations in 2009.

Next a man who’s singing a song that sounds like it could be Elton John’s latest single followed by…yep Elton John and his latest single. Joshua Kadison is the young pretender in this scenario with his single “Jessie” which has been stuck at No 20 for three weeks (this appearance would push it up to a peak of No 15).

It’s a nice enough song I guess though it does try to be Elton’s “Daniel” a bit too much I think. The irony here is that Kadison sounds more like Elton here than Elton does himself these days…

And so to the man himself. Elton John wasn’t quite as prolific in the 90s as he had been in the 70s and 80s but he was still churning out albums on a pretty regular basis. After 1992’s “The One”, “1993’s “Duets” and 1994’s “The Lion King” soundtrack came “Made In England”. When I think of Elton’s output this decade, what comes to mind first are ballads, mostly of the mawkish variety. The title track of this, his 24th studio album, was nothing of the kind though being a jaunty, upbeat, classic pop song with a singalong chorus.

By the end of 1996 though, it was back to the ballads with a collection called simply “Love Songs”. It included two tracks from the “Made In England” album the song titles of which were all just one word apart from the title track. This performance was from the British ambassador’s residence in Paris. I guess Elton was trying to be humorous.

Time for that second iconic song of the evening. There can’t be many people who aren’t aware of “Common People” by Pulp. Instantly recognisable and perhaps one of the songs most linked with Britpop (whether they liked it or not), it remains the band’s calling card. After years of swimming in the shallow waters of indie-dom followed by breakthrough bona fide chart hits from their “His ‘n’ Hers” album, with “Common People”, their success and fame exploded. Jarvis assumed national treasure status (only increased by his Michael Jackson protest at the BRITS) and sales of their “Different Class” album went through the roof (four times platinum in the UK). In the end it just took one song to cut through to the masses to enable all of this and “Common People” was the perfect vehicle even down to its title.

Written about a real life encounter Cocker had with a Greek art student at Saint Martins College who wanted to move to Hackney and rough it with ‘the common people’, it has become completely entrenched in the national consciousness even transcending the world of pop music to wider cultural realms. Look at this for example…

Such is the song’s legend that it even warranted an hour long BBC3 documentary in 2006. Sadly the film makers failed to locate the Greek art student who inspired the track though the Athens Voice newspaper suggested the wife of a former finance minister and daughter of a wealthy Greek businessman. In 2012, in true Lambert Simnel style, a woman called Katerina Kana came forward stating that the song is about her though Jarvis has not commented on her claim. “Common People” was voted the nation’s favourite Britpop song in a BBC Radio 6 Music poll in 2014 whilst that accolade was repeated the following year in a Rolling Stone magazine poll.

From the sublime to the ridiculous. Never reluctant to shoot itself in its collective foot, the good old British public decided that it really couldn’t live without a shonky cover version of a song so well known it had been No 1 in our charts just five years earlier. It’s not quite the national leave of senses that Mr. Blobby was but it’s up there.

I’ve never watched the TV series Soldier Soldier that made pop stars out of actors Robson Green and Jerome Flynn but enough people did that when their characters performed a version of “Unchained Melody” in an episode broadcast in November 1994, it started a desire amongst the show’s fans to own a copy of it that only one man could satiate. Step forward the scourge of the charts Simon Cowell to give us Robson & Jerome. Never one to miss out on a sales opportunity regardless of its artistic merit, Cowell pursued the two actors to record an official release of “Unchained Melody” to such an extent that Green threatened him with legal action to stop the harassment. He eventually relented though and the single was released on May 8th.

What happened next was nothing short of a phenomenon. First week sales of 300,000 easily took it to the No 1 position but incredibly it outstripped even that the following week with 470,000 units shifted; the biggest one week sales of a record since Band Aid in 1984. At one point it was selling 10 times more than the No 2 record “Guaglione” by Perez ‘Prez’ Prado and more than the rest of the Top 10 combined. It would become the UK’s biggest selling single of 1995. I distinctly recall the beginnings of its sales story. The morning it was released, we kept being asked for it in the Our Price store I was working in but so under the radar had it been that the buying team at Head Office hadn’t bought in any copies for the chain initially meaning none of the company’s shops had it in stock. Trying to be proactive, we placed our own order for some copies just to meet local demand before Head Office cottoned on to what was happening and placed a massive order for the whole chain. All of this proved that retailers should never underestimate how suggestible the public are to the power of a popular TV show.

Right, I’m nearly done. Just the play out track to go and it may not be an iconic song but it’s certainly by a legendary artist. Despite being dead for 14 years by this point, Bob Marley’s back catalogue kept being raided for ever more releases and chart entries. “Keep On Moving” came from a compilation album called “Natural Mystic: The Legend Lives On” which was kind of a continuation of the 1984 Best Of “Legend”. I don’t recall this single at all but it did make No 17 in the UK charts. Right, I’m out. See ya!

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Billie Ray MartinYour Loving ArmsNo
2Celine DionOnly One RoadNegative
3Ali CampbellThat Look In Your EyeI did not
4McAlmont & ButlerYesYES!!!
5Perez ‘Prez’ PradoGuaglioneNah
6Joshua KadisonJessieNope
7Elton John Made In EnglandIt’s a no
8PulpCommon PeopleNot but I had the ‘Different Class’ album
9Robson & JeromeUnchained MelodyAre you kidding?!
10Bob MarleyKeep On MovingAnd 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/m001s8tg/top-of-the-pops-18051995