Michael Jackson | TOTP Rewind – the 90s

TOTP 25 FEB 1993

Posted on July 1, 2022 by 80stastic

After having last week off due to Glastonbury, we’re back with a double helping of BBC4 TOTP repeats to review. To be honest, I wouldn’t have said no to another week’s holiday. I’ve only just caught up and suddenly were off again! At least there’s only eight artists on the show this week as there aren’t any Breakers and, with one notable and entirely permissible exception, they’re all in the TOTP studio.

We start with Bizarre Inc with a track I don’t recall at all entitled “Took My Love”. As with previous hit “I’m Gonna Get You”, it features Angie Brown on vocals and was taken from their album “Energique”. Actually, I don’t remember the album either. I thought they were a singles band.

*checks Bizarre Inc discography*

Nope. I don’t recognise that album cover but then I probably didn’t sell many copies of it in the Rochdale Our Price I was working in as, despite the presence of three hit singles, it only got as high as No 41 in the charts. In fact, did any of the dance acts from this period have big selling albums? Did the likes of Altern 8, K-Klass, Felix, Shut Up And Dance, Rozalla, Kym Sims, U.S.U.R.A. etc translate their singles success into album sales? Check these stats out:

Artist	Album	Chart peak
Altern 8	Full On… Mask Hysteria	11
Felix	#1	26
K-Klass	Universal	73
Kym Sims	Too Blind to See It	39
Rozalla	Everybody’s Free	20
Shut Up And Dance	Death Is Not the End	38
U.S.U.R.A.	Open Your Mind	Did not chart

OK, it’s not an exhaustive list but all of these acts had decent sized hit singles in the proceeding twelve months to this point and I’d have to say I don’t see a massive crossover trend for the parent albums. Anyway, back to Bizarre Inc and I didn’t find this track anywhere near as effective as their previous hits. It followed the same formula but didn’t quite have the same immediate impact. Also, what was the deal with the synths on swings? Didn’t another dance act use this prop on the show recently? I’m sure they did but I’m not going back in the archives to check who it was. Just chalk it up to another failed attempt by the TOTP producers to make dance acts look visually interesting.

“Took My Love’ peaked at No 19.

https://youtu.be/x-gOzlWnwcg

From a single I don’t remember at all to one which always brings to mind early 1993 when I hear it these days. The repositioning and relaunch of Annie Lennox as a solo artist after Eurythmics went on a decade long sabbatical had gone as well as it could possibly have been expected to. Her debut solo album “Diva” went straight in at No 1 and furnished Annie with two Top 10 singles. Then, just nine days before this TOTP aired, it won a BRIT for Best British Album. Annie won another for Best British Female Artist. It was heady stuff but she still wasn’t finished.

“Love Song For A Vampire” was a track Annie recorded for the Francis Ford Coppola directed film Bram Stokers Dracula starring Gary Oldman, Anthony Hopkins, Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves. For me, it was easily the best thing about the film. I just couldn’t get past Keanu’s disastrous English accent or the odd way that Oldman glided around the set as Dracula. The sexual imagery seemed like it existed just to create a headline and the whole thing just felt like a big letdown and a missed opportunity to reboot the classic tale.

Annie’s song (no, not John Denver’s) though was a fine piece; with her vocals being hauntingly beautiful and yet unsettling at the same time. Its unusual structure helps to create that feeling of otherworldliness that resonates from it. It doesn’t have a chorus as such and is built around a constant, pressing synth refrain. The track wasn’t on “Diva” so not wishing to miss out on a chance to plug it again, her record label made it a double A-side with “Little Bird” which was from the album. It was “Love Song For A Vampire” though that got all the airplay and it was an enormous hit peaking at No 3.

For Annie’s turn here, it looks like the TOTP production team have been busy repurposing sets from previous performances by other artists. We saw those candles and burning torches just the other week when Sting was on and the dry ice coming from that little run of steps looks familiar as well though I can’t think who else used that as a prop. They’ve added a window behind Annie presumably for a vampire to fly through. Thankfully there are no fake bats anywhere to be seen on stage.

https://youtu.be/HBmLGUlMJLA

Of course, Annie’s song (still not John Denver) isn’t the only hit single to come from a film about vampires in the 90s…

The only act not in the studio tonight is Michael Jackson and in all honesty I don’t think the show can be criticised for not pulling off the coup of a personal appearance by the self styled King of Pop himself. Despite it being 1993, in true Jacko tradition, he’s still releasing songs from an album that came out two years ago. “Give In To Me” was the seventh single of nine in total to come from “Dangerous” and was released an astonishing fifteen months after the album. That didn’t seem to matter though as it scaled the UK charts all the way to No 2 (it wasn’t released as a single in the US).

Jackson’s profile was higher than usual though even by his phenomenal standards at this time owing to the recent broadcast of his Oprah Winfrey interview that host Tony Dortie references in his intro. Maybe that helped shift a few units. I’m sure the tabloids would have been full of comment about Jacko’s explanation of his ever whitening skin which we now know was due to a condition called vitiligo and nothing to do with deliberate skin bleaching. Nobody was buying it at the time though (his explanation not his single).

As for the song itself, it just sounded like a rehash of previous hit “Dirty Diana” from the “Bad” album to me. As if to confirm my opinion, the CD single came with “Dirty Diana” as an extra track along with another song that included a heavy metal guitar solo in “Beat It” from “Thriller”. That came courtesy of Eddie Van Halen whereas the solo on “Give In To Me” was the work of Slash from the aforementioned Guns N’ Roses. As with previous single “Heal The World”, the 7” came in a poster bag sleeve. I hated those things! Such a faff to put back together if you dared to open it up to look at the poster.

The ubiquitous Dina Carroll next who seemed to be on the show every other week around this time. Having released three singles in 1992, none of which got any higher than No 26, Dina was back on the chart trail in 1993 with a song called “This Time”. Nothing to do with the Bryan Adams song of the same name nor indeed the England World Cup squad of 1982’s ditty ( I would have liked to have heard Dina tackle that one!), this was another slushy sounding ballad just like previous single “So Close”. It could just as easily have been sung by the likes of Eternal.

I’ve said it before but why were her record label A&M pissing about with these nice but average tracks when they could have just released “Don’t Be A Stranger”. The album had just come out but they didn’t release the ace up their sleeve until nine months later. I’ve never worked in marketing nor promotions but the strategy behind Dina’s release schedule still leaves me baffled.

“This Time” peaked at No 23 thereby becoming Dina’s worst performing single at the time. Even then, A&M didn’t turn to “Don’t Be A Stranger”, instead opting for the uptempo “Express” as the next single. You deserve a big, Johnny Rotten style raspberry for that A&M!

https://youtu.be/T2bJs7MR0YM

We arrive now at one of the names that I will always associate with 1993 though the artist concerned has gone onto successes way past those twelve months. I speak, of course, of Shaggy or as I think of him, one of the three ‘S’s – the unholy trinity of Snow, Shabba Ranks and his good self. Now when I was growing up, the name Shaggy only meant one thing – Scooby Doo’s best mate. Not in 1993 though. Shaggy was a chart sensation with his ragga / dancehall take on obscure ska song “Oh Carolina”. With samples of James Brown and the Peter Gunn theme thrown into the mix alongside Shaggy’s gruff vocals, it sounded fresh and new in 1993 despite actually having quite the retro roots.

Needless to say, I didn’t like it. I couldn’t be doing with all that growling, wind-it-up, raggamuffin ‘toasting’ Shaggy did although the song was as catchy as hell. In his defence, I would say that if I had to choose (with a gun to my head), I found Shaggy to be the most tolerable of the three ‘S’s. My Dad taught me as a kid that the three ‘S’s referred to your daily ablutions routine – shit, shower and shave. If I had to associate those with the musical three ‘S’s of 1993, I think I’d go:

Shit – Shabba Ranks (because he is/was)
Shower – Shaggy (because you felt dirty after listening to his record)
Shave – Snow (because he looked like he needed one to get rid of his bum fluff)

Back to “Oh Carolina” though and I always thought that it sounded like Shaggy was singing “yer arse” in the chorus. You know that bit is immediately after the words “Oh Carolina”? There. The actual lyrics are “Prowl off, jump and prance” but if you watch The Story of 1993 video on iPlayer, Shaggy suggests that him and his mates in their youth used to sing an expletive in there when listening to the original by the Folkes Brothers.

A success all around Europe, “Oh Carolina” was nowhere bigger than in the UK where it went to No 1 so we’ll be seeing it again soon and for that reason I’ll leave the Shaggy discussion there for now.

https://youtu.be/raZ5vIGcCs0

Here comes another young female solo artist who was a big deal for a short while in the 90s but who, like Dina Carroll before her, didn’t quite manage to sustain a career of longevity. Tasmin Archer scored one of the biggest hits of 1992 with her No 1 single “Sleeping Satellite” but, of course, that’s a double edged sword. Yeah, the initial success is great but how do you follow it up? If your next single doesn’t go to No 1 as well, it’s deemed to be a failure and you’re all washed up already. Even if you manage to repeat the trick and bag another chart topper, it only prolongs the eventual fall. Look at the case of Frankie Goes To Hollywood – three No 1 singles straight off the bat. A phenomenon. Then the fourth only goes to No 2 and the band are immediately written off as being down the dumper.

Given that piece of history, poor Tasmin was really up against it. Many may have thought that she didn’t give herself a decent chance by choosing a follow up single that dealt with the subject of child abuse and includes the radio unfriendly line ‘son of a bitch, you broke my heart’ in the lyrics. That view though assumes songwriting to be a commercial transaction – write an unchallenging, catchy tune, get a hit. Tasmin chose another path, the path of songwriting as an art. It was a brave choice and one that didn’t bring in the sales but which should have sustained her credibility as a serious recoding artist. I’m not sure it did.

The song in question was “In Your Care”, written from the point of view of a child experiencing abuse. It was angry in tone and delivery with Tasmin spitting out the ‘son of a bitch’ line. The first time you heard it, the moment was genuinely arresting. Another unusual decision was for a new artist to allow their second ever release to be a charity single but that’s just what Tasmin did with the profits from it going to Childline. You couldn’t argue that it’s subject matter wasn’t on point but was it too much for record buyers? After all, previous Childline singles had been much more jolly Beatles covers by the likes of Wet Wet Wet and Tom Jones. The latter had only just been in the charts the other week back then so maybe there was even a case of charity fatigue?

To try and signpost the gravity of the single, the TOTP producers have put a grainy, black and white picture effect at the beginning and end of the performance. I’m not sure it really makes its point. Still, nice to see a double bass on the show.

“In Your Care” peaked at No 16.

Has anyone, anywhere ever referred to Bryan Ferry as ‘The Guvnor’ before as host Tony Dortie does here in his intro? ‘The Guvnor’?! This is Bryan Ferry we’re talking about Tony! Not Viz comic mobster Big Vern, not self styled hard man footballer Paul Ince who actually went by the nickname of ‘The Guvnor’. It’s Bryan f*****g Ferry Dortie! He studied fine art at Newcastle University, he’s the archetypal lounge lizard, one of the most stylish rock stars of all time. You make him sound like Grouty from Porridge, the top dog feared by his fellow inmates who intimidates even the prison wardens. Dear God!

Anyway, rant over. Ferry is on the show to plug his new single, a cover of the Screamin’ Jay Hawkins song “I Put A Spell On You”, the lead single from his latest album “Taxi”. This was Bryan’s first album since 1987’s “Bête Noire” though there had been a compilation album in between called “The Ultimate Collection” which had given him a hit single in the form of the rereleased “Let’s Stick Together”. As with much of his 70s solo output, “Taxi” was essentially a covers album (the very last track is a Ferry original) that actually did pretty well going to No 2 in the charts and achieving gold sales status. I remember being mildly surprised at its success as it seemed an anomaly in a musical landscape dominated by dance music but then, as we saw earlier, albums by dance acts never sold that well. As well this single, the album included tracks by the likes of Lou Reed, Carole King and a version of the Christian hymn “Amazing Grace”. I think I may have had a promo copy of the album though I’ve no idea where it is now.

The staging of the performance here is suitably pretentious for a Ferry production with dancers strutting about pointlessly while Bry tinkles the ivories on the piano. Is that Gail Ann Dorsey up there with him on bass? I think it is – well you can’t deny the class she brings to the proceedings I guess.

Although much of his back catalogue is outstanding, this does sound a bit dreary on reflection. It managed a chart high of No 18 but if you want a different (and in my opinion superior) take on the track, here’s the aforementioned Annie Lennox…

Those cheeky rascals 2 Unlimited are still ripping up the charts with their lowest common denominator dance anthem “No Limit”. It really was amazing how this lot managed to have so many hits (fourteen in the UK!) when their songs were so flimsy. There really is not a lot of flesh on the bones of “No Limit” but that didn’t seem to matter to the masses who sent it to No 1 for a whole five weeks!

https://youtu.be/8pmwsZ3J-uI

They’ve got a couple of masked up dancers in for this performance and the one on the right looks oddly familiar. Oh, I’ve got it. The smaller monster in this clip from 70s sci-fi show Space 1999 – dead ringer…

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Bizarre Inc	Took My Love	Nope
2	Annie Lennox	Love Song For A Vampire / Little Bird	No but wife had the Diva album with Little Bird on it
3	Michael Jackson	Give In To Me	Nah
4	Dina Carroll	This Time	No
5	Shaggy	Oh Carolina	Didn’t do it for me – no
6	Tasmin Archer	In Your Care	Great song but it’s not in the singles box
7	Bryan Ferry	I Put A Spell On You	No but I had that promo copy of the album. No idea where it is now
8	2 Unlimited	No Limit	Never!

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/m0018s7m/top-of-the-pops-25021993

TOTP 17 DEC 1992

Posted on May 27, 2022 by 80stastic

It’s only a week until Xmas 30 (!) years ago and I’m working my arse off in Our Price, Rochdale doing long days and serving even longer queues of customers as the panic of not getting all your shopping done sets in. I’m enjoying it though as the team at the shop were great. Everyone was hard working and got on with each other. That bonhomie amongst the staff was needed though when it came to dealing with the public, especially on Xmas Eve when many of the punters who entered the store that day were manic and had no time for any basic manners or civility. In short, they slaughtered us. Many an exchange went like this:

Me: I’m sorry but we’ve sold out of Gloria Estefan’s Greatest Hits on cassette madam.

Customer: You f******g what?! You’ve ruined my daughter’s Xmas you have!

Something like that anyway. No doubt I would have sold some of the singles showcased on this final regular TOTP before Xmas…

N.B. I’m not reviewing the Xmas day episode. It’s too long and most of the acts on there have already featured in previous posts.

We start with The Shamen who are getting in the Xmas party spirit by dressing up as characters from Alice In Wonderland. Eh? Why? Where are the Santa hats and Xmas jumpers? If they really wanted to go down a literary route, surely Dickens’ A Christmas Carol would have been the way to go? Scrooge in his bedclothes, ghosts, Tiny Tim, Jacob Marley and his chains….hey, they could have even called themselves Jacob and the Marley Chain. OK, the last bit is a crap idea but surely no worse than what they actually came up with. Again I ask, why? Oh, hang on. The ever reliable @TOTPFacts might have the answer…

Given the book's long association with psychedelics – Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" et al – I think we can guess why The Shamen decided to dress up as characters from Alice's Adventures In Wonderland. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) May 20, 2022

Ah well possibly I guess. An overindulgence of some illegal substances might explain why Mr C is dressed as the Knave of Clubs. Surely it’s the Knave of Hearts (who stole some tarts)? As for the song itself, “Phorever People” sounds like “Ebeneezer Goode” part II but then, why re-invent the wheel when the first one is spinning so well? The four singles taken from their “Boss Drum” album achieved the following chart peaks:

6 – 1 – 4 – 5

Pretty impressive stuff. That run of success helped earned the band the Smash Hits Best New Act award for 1992. Quite an achievement for a band that had been in existence since 1985.

A quick word on the presenters tonight. One is regular Tony Dortie but the other is rising BBC star Mr Blobby. This character achieved the seemingly impossible feat of being more annoying than Noel Edmonds despite the latter being responsible for Blobby’s rise to fame on Noel’s House Party. How on earth was the Blobby phenomenon allowed to happen?!

A third appearance on the show next for the video to “Deeper And Deeper” by Madonna. This became Madge’s first single to fail to make the Top 5 in this country since 1987’s “The Look Of Love”. None of the subsequent three singles released from the “Erotica” album managed to outdo “Deeper And Deeper” although they all went Top 10. It was a mixed bag of a time for Madonna. Her profile was as notorious as ever thanks to her X-rated coffee table book Sex and yet her album “Erotica” only sold half as many copies as its predecessor “Like A Prayer”. Nowhere was this dichotomy witnessed more succinctly than in the fact that Madonna’s managed to be simultaneously the most and least fanciable female at that Smash Hits poll winners party.

The people who started the early 90s trend for dance versions of pop standards have returned to the scene of the crime to remind us all that they were the original culprits. I speak of East Side Beat who kicked this ghastly movement off in 1991 with a cover of Christopher Cross’ “Ride Like The Wind”. In their wake came acts like Undercover, Rage and KWS but this Italian duo were back to remind us they were alive and kicking with their version of…erm…”Alive And Kicking” by Simple Minds. You’ll remember that this 1985 track had only recently been back in the Top 40 promoting the Scottish stadium rockers Best Of album. Was that in the thinking behind East Side Beat’s choice of song to cover? The fact that it had been reinforced in the minds of pop fans just a short time ago and had proved to retain its popularity? Could they jump on the bandwagon of its promotion and marketing campaign? Or was it all just one big happy coincidence?

Whatever the truth of the matter, their song choice worked. A Top 40 hit meant a TOTP appearance and there’s a lot to unpack about this particular performance. We start with the intro to it by Tony Dortie who, not for the first time I may add, uses the description drum ‘n’ bass erroneously. WTAF?! How is some naff Eurodance in any way, shape or form anything to do with drum ‘n’ bass?! By Goldie’s teeth!! I think Tony has retrospectively admitted he had no idea what he was talking about during some of his links but that just begs the the question why go there at all?!

Secondly, what was going on with the backing dancers? They appear to be wearing Italian club football shirts but were seemingly not allowed to wear any shorts with them. Hmm. All a bit dubious. Hang on. Is football the reason that East Side Beat chose “Alive And Kicking” to cover? Wasn’t that the song that soundtracked the advertising campaign for the launch of Sky’s coverage of the inaugural season of the Premier League? Yes it was…

Again I say hmm. Thirdly, and I’m really not wishing to get into racial stereotyping here but the lead singer must be the least stylish Italian ever!

East Side Beat’s cover of “Alive And Kicking” peaked at No 26.

Now I can’t find a clip of this live by satellite performance from Miami by Gloria Estefan so if you’re reading this after the episode has fallen off iPlayer, you’ll have to take my word for it but there’s something off about it. I couldn’t put my finger on it for ages but I think it’s the way the backing musicians have set up so they’re not actually facing the same way as Gloria as she performs. It’s quite off putting once you’ve noticed it, like they’re part of a different performance altogether but where somehow the two parallel worlds have collided like an episode of Star Trek. Talking of which, in what universe was it appropriate to add a bit of a 2 Unlimited keyboard riff to a Latino pop medley?

The “Miami Hit Mix” peaked at No 8.

The running order for this TOTP has now taken us from cover version to megamix and back to cover version in the space of three records. The second cover of the night comes from The Lemonheads whose version of Simon & Garfunkel ‘s “Mrs Robinson” was a Breaker last week. This week however, they’re in the studio and their performance has a definite Nirvana / Smells Like Teen Spirit vibe to it. Just looking at them, they look incongruous and like they don’t really belong on TOTP. Too counterculture, too anti-establishment, too slacker? Too tall in the case of Evan Dando. He looks enormous here. Apparently he’s 6ft 3” and he looks every bit of it bestriding the stage in his red duffle coat. Well, bestriding it until he attempts an abortive forward roll. Presumably that was supposed to put the watching audience on alert that something unexpected might happen and that there was an element of chaos at play as per that Nirvana performance. He even tells us audibly by singing “you don’t know what’s gonna happen next” at one point. What does happen is that he breaks into an impression of Morrissey. I mean it’s unmistakably Mozza – Dando has been known to boast about how great his impression of him is – but isn’t that just copying what Kurt Cobain did when he was on the show? I mean Cobain’s impression was terrible and Dando’s is clearly better but where’s the originality? Furthermore, isn’t Evan’s oversized coat derivative of the Nirvana lead singer’s fashion style? Too harsh? Maybe. Perhaps Evan should have stuck with his Beatles head wobble impression instead of branching out into Mozza territory.

One final thing. At the start of the performance, he shouts over to the bass player “louder man!”. Those instruments weren’t actually plugged in surely?

To the Breakers and guess what? We begin with the aforementioned Nirvana! Just like Guns N’ Roses before them the other week, here was a band still releasing tracks as singles from an album that was well over a year old. “In Bloom” was the fourth such single taken from “Nevermind” and there is a school of thought (championed by Courtney Love no less) that this should have been the lead single from the album on the basis that it’s a much better song than “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. For what it’s worth, I think she’s right. She also once said that “Hungry Like The Wolf” is the best song ever written so she knows her stuff. Ahem.

The Ed Sullivan Show pastiche video works pretty well as it remains faithful to the source material and it’s that element of realism that completes the humour of Nirvana as clean cut boys à la those lovable moptops.

“In Bloom” peaked at No 28.

OK. Just when you think the bottom of the barrel can’t be scraped any harder…We really did witness some truly ghastly acts in the UK charts during 1992. Wrestlers (WWF Superstars) strippers (The Chippendales), two acts peddling singles based on computer games (Tetris and Ambassadors Of Funk) and now this. After Shut Up And Dance delivered “Raving I’m Raving” based on “Walking In Memphis” by Marc Cohn earlier in the year, now came “We Are Raving – The Anthem” by Slipstreem. Using Rod Stewart’s “Sailing” as its blueprint, this load of arse juice was an abysmal idea that sounded even worse. Who were these berks and why didn’t Rod but an injunction out to stop this atrocity? After all, it’s what Marc Cohn did. I’ve got no words left for this type of garbage. Next!

As well as being remembered for some terrifyingly dreadful chart hits, 1992 will also rightly be recalled as the year of The Wedding Present “Hit Parade” project. Twelve singles in one calendar year and all made the Top 40 meaning that they equalled Elvis Presley’s 1957 record. Except their achievement was better as they wrote all their songs whereas Elvis’s were written for him. They did however do some cover versions for the B-sides including for the final release “No Christmas” which had Elton John’s “Step Into Christmas” on the flip and a fine version it is too.

The highest chart position attained by any of the “Hit Parade” singles was No 10 while the lowest was No 26. It still stands up as quite the achievement I think.

Now working in a shop in Rochdale at this time, I lived in hope that the next artist might pop in one day as she grew up there from the age of 11. Sadly, the day Lisa Stansfield glided into the store was my day off! FFS!

Anyway, there was much hope that her latest single “Someday (I’m Coming Back)” was going to be a huge seller coming as it did from the soundtrack to The Bodyguard. It was certainly a decent sized hit peaking as it did at No 10 but there was genuine belief that it could have been a Top 3 contender. I have to say it seemed a bit lacklustre to me. Maybe it was overshadowed by all those Whitney Houston power ballads that packed out the rest of the album. Lisa’s track was the only one to be released as a single from the soundtrack that wasn’t by Whitney so I guess she deserves some kudos for that.

Do you think that Lisa was having a bad hair day when this performance was recorded? How else do you explain her decision to wear a cat burglar’s hat otherwise?

Now I’m not sure why the TOTP producers chose to show this next video instead of the official promo for “Heal The World” by Michael Jackson. It’s a concert clip from the Dangerous World Tour. I’ve put in some footage from the Bucharest date below but I don’t know if that’s the one shown on the programme. It’s looks like Jacko’s wearing the same jacket in both so I’ll go with that. The five UK dates had already been and gone so it can’t have been to increase ticket sales and in any case, wouldn’t all the gigs have sold out almost immediately anyway?

I guess if anyone had the best shot of beating Whitney to the Xmas No 1 it was Michael Jackson. Possibly the most famous person on the planet and with a huge, goodwill to all ballad, it seemed like a decent shout. And yet I never felt like he would actually do it. Maybe that was purely based on what we were selling in the Rochdale store but I just never doubted it would be a Houston Xmas chart topper. For once, I was right.

It’s a second medley on the show tonight. After Gloria Estefan earlier, here come Boney M. Ever wondered why they were called Boney M? Here’s @TOTPFacts with the answer…

Frank Farian named Boney M after Boney, an Aussie TV drama about a half-aboriginal detective called Bonaparte. The series featured a white actor badly “]
blacked-up in the title role, and was a bit of a joke in Germany. https://t.co/qXtEsd7L4w #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) May 20, 2022

I remember Boney! It used to be on Sunday afternoons on ITV in the Midlands where I grew up. When it came on, me and my brother used to say (in a very un-PC way) “first he was fatty, then he was skinny, now he’s Boney”. We thought we were hilarious!

Their 1992 “Megamix” was the third such single released by the band – or whatever assembled line up passed for the band at that time – in the last four years. This was by far the biggest hit though peaking at No 7.

It’s still there, it will be the Xmas No 1 and it will continue to occupy top spot in the charts for weeks to come. Whitney Houston’s cover of “I Will Always Love You” was a sales phenomenon. It was on the way to being just the second single in the last six years to reach one million sales in the UK. It would end up selling over 1,550,000 copies. The Bodyguard film wasn’t even released in the UK until Boxing Day. Presumably that gave it a second wind sales wise (as if it needed it).

Mr Blobby is back to say goodbye just before the credits roll. One year later he would be on the show again, this time with the Xmas No 1 crown. What a time to be alive!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Shamen	Phorever People	Nope
2	Madonna	Deeper And Deeper	No
3	East Side Beat	Alive And Kicking	Never!
4	Gloria Estefan	Miami Hit Mix	Nope
5	The Lemonheads	Mrs Robinson	Liked it, didn’t buy it
6	Nirvana	In Bloom	Ditto
7	Slipstreem	We Are Raving – The Anthem	NOOO!
8	The Wedding Present	No Christmas	No but I have their version of Step Into Christmas on something
9	Lisa Stansfield	Someday (I’m Coming Back)	I did not
10	Michael Jackson	Heal The World	No but I had a promo copy of HIStory with it on
11	Boney M	Megamix	No but my wife’s first ever album purchase was Nightflight To Venus
12	Whitney Houston	I Will Always Love You	No but god knows how many I sold that Christmas

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/m0017ftn/top-of-the-pops-17121992

TOTP 03 DEC 1992

Posted on May 19, 2022 by 80stastic

We’ve clicked over into December 1992 here at TOTP Rewind which means that the population would officially have been starting to get into Xmas mode. Working at the Our Price store in Rochdale, my own days were getting busier and felt very long as sales got brisker. So what were some of the albums that were doing the business as Xmas loomed 30 years ago? The Top 10 albums were made up of eight Best Of / compilations from the likes of Cher, Erasure, Genesis, Gloria Estefan and Simple Minds. Only two were proper studio albums which were “Automatic For The People” by REM and “Stars” by Simply Red which was still in the Top 10 after being the best selling album of 1991! Now I’m all for a good Best Of album but 1992’s Xmas offerings did seem quite cynical on behalf of the record companies.

Whilst the record shops were getting prepared for a frenzy of activity, something else in the world of music was coming to a full stop. Cult TV programme The Hitman And Her broadcast its final show two days after this TOTP went out. It seems odd to recall now but there was a time when TV stations didn’t broadcast all night, when there weren’t any late night schedules and when if you suffered from insomnia then there were no old episodes of Come Dine With Me to keep you company during the wee small hours. So when Pete Waterman’s nightclub based show appeared in our screens in 1988, it felt truly transformative.

Filmed on a Saturday night in various clubs throughout the UK but with a definite North/Midlands bias, it would be televised in the early hours of Sunday morning. Performing hosting duties alongside Waterman and securing her cult status amongst the UK’s young male population was Michaela Strachan. Ever the businessman, Waterman ensured that the programme showcased a number of his PWL artists as well as some of the acid house tunes that he loved. The clubbers themselves were as much the stars of the show as the hosts, with many a punter, eager to get themselves on TV, happy to embarrass themselves by participating in some ‘hilarious’ games. Some of the regular dancers on the show included a pre-Take That Jason Orange and the two blokes who weren’t the singer in naff 90s boy band 911. I wonder if any of the tunes on tonight’s TOTP made the Hitman And Her playlist?

Well, possibly this one. If you’ve finally had a hit after years of trying, what’s your next move going to be? Yes, release a very similar sounding follow up of course! OK, “Step It Up” isn’t an exact replica of “Connected” – its got a faster bpm for one thing – but it didn’t fall far from the tree. Stereo MC’s were on a roll by this point. Their third album “Connected” missed the top of the charts by one place and would go on to sell 420,000 copies. “Step It Up” was their second consecutive Top 20 single after the album title track. They were the bomb (or something). This performance is surely the mental image that most people who were around at the time would conjure up when hearing the name Stereo MC’s. The main protagonist of course is the Catweazle-esque Rob Birch. With his oversize trousers and glimpse of a bare chest, he was a Frankenstein’s monster mash up of MC Hammer and Peter Andre. Then there were his moves. The knees bent, hip swivelling action that Birch brings to the party surely influenced Vic Reeves and his thigh rubbing antics on Shooting Stars. In fact, the whole thing reminds me of our Maltese puppy rolling on his back exposing his bits when being sniffed by some of the local neighbourhood dogs. Yeah, sorry about that mental image. Anyway, you have to give it to Rob; he certainly left it all out there as it were. Here’s his take on his performance courtesy of the ever excellent @TOTPFacts:

Rob Birch on this Stereo MCs #TOTP performance: "You know you've only got three minutes to try to get the crowd going. You're like, 'I've got to go at it like hell for leather. And because you're buzzing on nerves, your voice starts jumping out of your body."
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) May 13, 2022

Rob Birch: "I could just be a bit like some kind of plant in a gale and just, like, let it all hang out… That #TOTP wasn't a pretend performance. it had a fluidity to it."
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) May 13, 2022

Letting it all hang out indeed. “Step It Up” peaked at No 12.

If it’s TOTP in 1992 then there must be a Michael Jackson video due and here comes the latest. “Heal The World” was Jacko’s fifth single released in the UK during the year and the sixth from his “Dangerous” album overall. I’m guessing this was always going to be the track released for the Xmas market given that it’s a huge, saccharine drenched ballad with oh so worthy lyrical subject matter. So about the song’s sound – you can’t ignore its similarity to “We Are The World” which Jackson co-wrote with Lionel Richie. I mean it’s essentially the same song. Supposedly though, it is the track that Jackson was most proud of. It even inspired him to create the Heal The World Foundation, a charity dedicated to improving conditions for children throughout the world. You can’t deny the philanthropy but it doesn’t make the song any more palatable.

I really remember the rather clunky and obvious design on the cover of the single of a plaster covering a crack across the globe which is held between the hands of a black child and a white child. It was one of those fold out sleeves that turns into a poster as I remember that were awful to refold once opened to its full extent.

Sensibly, the video for the song doesn’t include Jackson himself only children set against a backdrop of images depicting war, guns and even the Ku Klux Klan. The theme of healing is portrayed by the final scene of a candle lit vigil of children coming together as one. That restraint was not in evidence at the BRITS in 1996 when Jackson celebrated the receipt of his Artist Of A Generation award with a performance of “Earth Song” that depicted him as a Christ like figure surrounded by children. Thank God for Jarvis Cocker! In any other year, the mawkish song would surely have gone to No 1 but this was 1992 and it was up against the all conquering “I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston and had to make do with the runners up spot.

Next we have another studio performance of the reactivated “Temptation (Brothers In Rhythm remix)” by Heaven 17. There’s a couple of differences between this and the previous 19th November show turn. Firstly, Carol Kenyon has a proper name check in the title graphics this time and secondly, she’s up there belting it out alongside Glenn Gregory without the two blokes on keyboards (the titular brothers presumably) for company. Still conspicuous by his absence though is Martyn Ware. Carol and Glenn don’t really need anybody else though certainly not the former who gives a masterclass in doing a live vocal performance for TV.

The original recording of “Temptation” featured a 60 piece orchestra and I’ve heard the aforementioned Ware say in an interview how mad it was back in the early 80s that they would just say to their record label that they required the services of an orchestra to play on one track and the label didn’t bat an eyelid at the cost. The 80s really were a time of excess within the record industry it seems. The Brothers In Rhythm remix of “Temptation” peaked at No 4.

The curious case of Dina Carroll next. Curious? Well, just in the respect that her success seemed to come in stages rather than via the classic overnight sensation mode. Sort of the musical equivalent of that ref who went down in stages when pushed by Paolo Di Canio back in the 90s…

Anyway, Dina had first come to national attention as the vocalist on Quartz’s dance version of Carole King’s “It’s Too Late” in 1991. Despite that flush of success, the Quartz project fizzled out and Dina disappeared from view. Behind the scenes though, a decision by her management company to launch Dina as a solo artist led to her being signed to A&M and the following year she returned to the charts with “Ain’t No Man”. “Special Lind Of Love” replicated its predecessor’s success exactly by peaking at No 16 before this single “So Close” made it a hat trick of Top 20 hits in 1992. Pretty impressive stuff which led to host Tony Dortie describing in his intro that Dina had enjoyed “an amazing year” and that she was “definitely in contention for female vocalist of the year”.

Come January 1993 her album was released and debuted at No 2 staying in the Top 20 for six months. And yet, it seemed to me that the album only really went into hyperdrive sales wise when the sixth single “Don’t Be A Stranger” was released in the October. I’ll type that again. The sixth single which was by far the biggest of the lot taken from the album when it peaked at No 3. Now surely that is curious?! We sold loads of the album in the wake of that single. Did A&M have it up their sleeves all the time, holding it back until the optimum moment? The single was different from the album version in that it was re-recorded with added orchestra strings to give it a dramatic feel. When was that decision taken? Either they got lucky or they had a long term strategy all along. Her success in 1993 led to Dina being named Best Female Artist at the BRIT awards in 1994 – again a marker that her success came in stages with her becoming award winning a whole year after Tony Dortie’s prediction.

As for “So Close” the song, it’s pleasant enough but never had the capacity to rival the sales of “Don’t Be A Stranger”. Maybe it was meant to just keep Dina‘s profile ticking over until the album was released? Surely the clamour for the album would have increased if “Don’t Be A Stranger” had been the third single anyway? Oh I don’t know. The bottom line is that it all worked out pretty well for Dina in the end unlike Paolo Di Canio who received an eleven match ban for his shove on ref Paul Alcock.

We’re back to cramming in the Breakers again this week with four of the little blighters in total. We start with one of REM’s best known songs I’m guessing which makes me wonder why these few scant seconds are all that were ever shown of it on TOTP. “Man On The Moon” was the second single to be released from the “Automatic For The People” album and is one of those songs that just works. Beautifully.

It manages to combine genuinely eccentric lyrics with ear worm producing hooks. Nominally about surrealist performance artist Andy Kaufman with references to his Elvis impersonations and work with wrestler Fred Blassie, it also seemed to be asking the listener to open their mind to multiple different realities. What if the moon landings were fake? What if Elvis wasn’t dead? Ultimately it returns to Kaufman and the conspiracy theory that he faked his own death. It’s a heady concoction. The black and white video with the image of Michael Stipe wearing a cowboy hat walking nonchalantly down a desert road before hitching a ride with a truck is in turns memorable and befittingly random. The original demo without lyrics was known by the band as “C to D slide” due to the opening which includes that shift of chords. When I attended a guitar class a few years ago, this was one of the songs we learned including that slide. It’s actually OK to play but does have some quick chord changes. By the way, I’m really not much of a guitarist. Just a chord strummer really. “Man On The Moon” peaked at No 18.

Another huge band that we only got to see a glimpse of as a Breaker were U2. To be fair they were promoting a fifth single from “Achtung Baby”, an album that had been released almost exactly a year ago so maybe they were pushing it a bit. Did the TOTP producers think that a fifth single from a year old album wasn’t a big enough story? It hardly qualified as an ‘exclusive’. Indeed, perhaps the real reason that a fifth single was released was to complete the last piece of the jigsaw that formed a picture of the band driving a Trabant car when you put all five single covers together. A nice bit of marketing by record label Island there.

The single in question was “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses” which I always quite liked. Apparently the gestation of the song had been quite laboured and the band had several failed attempts before they laid down a version they could live with. I always presumed that the song’s title was inspired by The Rolling Stones track “Wild Horses” but I haven’t seen anything online that comes anywhere near confirming that.

The singles from “Achtung Baby” achieved the following chart positions:

1 – 13 – 7 – 8 – 14

It’s not a bad haul for an album that was seen as a gamble in many ways with it being a definite shift in musical direction from where their success had led the band. It remains their second biggest selling album after “The Joshua Tree”.

Think of Xmas and then think of Cliff Richard. What song is currently running around your head? “Mistletoe And Wine”? How about “Saviour’s Day”? Bet it isn’t this one. It tends to get forgotten given the success of those aforementioned festive chart toppers and their ubiquity in Xmas playlists but Cliff didn’t just do those two Chrimbo tunes. There was “Little Town” in 1982, “We Should Be Together” nine years later and this one – “I Still Believe In You”.

This completely passed me by despite me working in a record shop at the time and despite it going Top 10. That’s probably because it had about as much staying power as wrapping paper come mid morning on Xmas day. In fact, it hardly even qualifies as a Xmas song with the only reference to Yuletide in the lyrics being one mention of Santa Claus. Just terrible. Cliff didn’t give up on the concept of making festive records though. In 1999, he scored an unexpected No 1 with “The Millennium Prayer”, in 2003 went Top 5 with “Santa’s List” and in 2006 got to No 2 with “21st Century Christmas”. There have also been numerous chart re-entries for “Mistletoe And Wine”, “Saviour’s Day” and even “I Still Believe In You” down the years when December rolls around once more.

The final Breaker comes from Rod Stewart and his cover of “Tom Traubert’s Blues (Waltzing Matilda)” by Tom Waits. We saw this the other week as an ‘exclusive’ live by satellite performance and the video here looks very similar to that as it’s just Rod wandering around an empty stage with a solitary piano player for company. I defy anybody to watch the video in full and be able to look at anything other than Rod’s beard for the whole four and a half minutes.

What on earth was this all about?! Boney M on TOTP?! In the 90s?! Well, it’s a straightforward answer. It was clearly another case of money for old rope. Record label Arista released this “Megamix” single with an eye on the Xmas party scene figuring the UK’s work force, pissed up and ready to party, wouldn’t be able to resist these 70’s tunes all over again. And so it came to pass that the single – a medley of “Rivers Of Babylon”, “Sunny” and “Daddy Cool” – returned Boney M to the UK Top 10 for the first time since 1979. I say Boney M but was this really them? Where was the guy with the mad Afro (Bobby Farrell) who used to leap about all over the place like he’d sat on an ants nest? Yes, there was a guy in the line up doing his best impression of Farrell but it’s clearly not him. In fact, there’s only the lead singer up there on stage that looks vaguely familiar. A bit of research tells me that it’s original member Liz Mitchell doing the singing but the rest of the group were just some randoms that were drafted in to promote the single. In an act of utter shamelessness / good business practice depending on your point of view, a cash-in “Greatest Hits” album was released early the following year which made the Top 20.

Apparently there were a number of different touring line ups of Boney M after the original line up was finally disbanded in 1986. I know! Boney M were still a thing in 1986?! They were not alone in this of course. There are plenty of examples of concurrent versions of groups following the disintegration of the originals. Off the top of my head there’s been The Temptations, Bucks Fizz, The Bay City Rollers and more recently UB40. All three female members of the original line up are still with us though sadly Bobby Farrell died of heart failure in 2010 while on tour with his version of Boney M. Unbelievably, he died on the same date and in the same city (St Petersburg) as Rasputin who was of course the inspiration behind one of the band’s biggest hits and whom Farrell used to dress up as when performing the song.

1992 had been a busy old time for Madonna. She starred in a well received film in A League Of Their Own and wrote a hit single for its soundtrack. She founded her own entertainment company called Maverick with production arms in records, film, music publishing, book publishing and merchandising. Not content with that, she released her controversial coffee table book Sex and her fifth studio album in “Erotica”. She was only 34 at the time and yet still had been a global superstar for nearly a decade.

“Deeper And Deeper” was the second single taken from “Erotica” and seems to have undergone some retrospective critical revisionism. It seems to me at the time that it didn’t create much of a fuss – how could it compete with Sex and the “Erotica” single for fuss to be fair? It now though seems to be recognised as one of Madonna’s better tracks. Indeed some may even say a banger. Certainly it was a return to that more mainstream dance sound on which she made her name but also embracing the house music movement. I have to say it never did that much for me though. At least the Andy Warhol inspired video with Madonna playing an Edie Sedgwick style character isn’t laced with whips and dominatrix style imagery like those for her recent singles “Erotica” and “Justify My Love” though there is some very loaded and deliberate peeling of bananas. “Deeper And Deeper” peaked at No 6.

This seems like a bit of overkill on behalf of the TOTP producers. This is the second time Simply Red have been on the show with two different tracks from a live EP recorded at a jazz festival. Really? “The Montreux EP” had four songs on it and after “Drowning In My Own Tears” was on a couple of weeks ago, this time we get “Lady Godiva’s Room”. Apparently this song had originally been released as the B-side to the band’s 1987 single “Infidelity” which kind of makes sense as it really sounds like B-side material to me. Uninspiring and a bit of a dirge, I was surprised that the EP got as high as it did (No 11). Make the most of this appearance though as we won’t be seeing Hucknall and co again for nearly three years (hurray!) when they will return with 1995’s “Life” album including No 1 single “Fairground”.

Right, strap in for a ten week run at the top of the charts for “I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston. Not quite Bryan Adams but still ten weeks of having to find something to say about this song. I’m going to start off by not talking about the song but about the film it was taken from. The Bodyguard seems to get quite a bad rap from critics but I don’t mind it actually. My theory is that the negativity stems from perceptions of Kevin Costner or more specifically his lack of acting ability. OK, he’s done some turkeys like Waterworld and The Postman but he’s also been in some decent films. His run of four films in the late 80s of The Untouchables, No Way Out, Bull Durham and Field Of Dreams is impressive and then there was Dances With Wolves which won seven Oscars including Best Director for Costner. Not too shabby. I actually think he’s decent in The Bodyguard too.

Maybe a lot of the anti-Costner stuff comes from his lack of an English accent in Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves (which is ludicrous) and Madonna sticking her fingers down her throat in reaction to him describing her show as ‘neat’ in her documentary In Bed With Madonna. Seems a bit unfair.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Stereo MC’s	Step It Up	No
2	Michael Jackson	Heal The World	Nah
3	Heaven 17	Temptation (Brothers In Rhythm remix)	No but my wife has the Luxury Of Life album
4	Dina Carroll	So Close	…but no cigar. No
5	REM	Man On The Moon	No but I had the Automatic For The People album
6	U2	Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses	No but I had the Achtung Baby album
7	Cliff Richard	I Still Believe In You	…but I don’t believe in you Cliff. No
8	Rod Stewart	Tom Traubert’s Blues (Waltzing Matilda)	No but I think my wife has the Tom Waits album it’s from
9	Boney M	Megamix	No but one of the first albums my wife ever had was Night Flight To Venus
10	Madonna	Deeper And Deeper	Nope
11	Simply Red	The Montreux EP	Never!
12	Whitney Houston	I Will Always Love You	I did not

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/m001772z/top-of-the-pops-03121992

TOTP 10 SEP 1992

Posted on March 30, 2022 by 80stastic

It’s a rare consecutive TOTP after weeks of skipping shows due to the Adrian Rose issue. I think we might be getting to the end of his 14 episodes that we are having to miss. We’re exactly a third of the way through September of 1992 and the biggest album release of the week is “The Best Of Belinda Volume 1” by, unsurprisingly, Belinda Carlisle. Singles wise, the two new releases doing the briskest trade are probably Bob Marley’s “Iron Lion Zion” and “Theme From M.A.S.H (Suicide Is Painless)” by Manic Street Preachers.

As for me, I’m pretty sure I’d have started my new post as Assistant Manager of the Our Price store in Rochdale by now. I got off the bus that first morning and went into the first newsagents I saw to ask where the shop actually was. Once I found it, I realised how much smaller it was than the two trading floor store I’d left behind in Manchester. So small in fact that they had sale stock on display in cardboard boxes shoved under the racking. Behind the scenes there was a small processing area and staff kitchen but quite a large, cavernous stock room that wasn’t really used other than as a dumping ground for various unsold stock that had accumulated over the years. Nobody spent much time in there. The staff consisted of Adrian the manager who was about to leave for Virgin, Emma and Rachel both of whom I’d worked with briefly at Manchester and Phil who was also about to leave the company for pastures new. And then there was newbie me. It was a time of significant change for the store.

I spent much of that first morning serving customers on my own whilst the regulars sorted out the new releases upstairs. However, as I didn’t know where anything was filed I kept having to buzz them to help me out. I probably didn’t make the best first impression. Presumably the product I sold that first morning would have included some of the songs on this TOTP. Let’s see if I remember…

Opening the show are a band who were very much billed as the anti-Take That and a rivalry was developed (or at least created by the press) between the two that brought back memories of Duran Duran vs Spandau Ballet from the 80s. East 17 were the brainchild of former Pet Shop Boys manager Tom Watkins who came up with the genius idea of launching this tougher, more street wise version of Take That after song writer Tony Mortimer was offered a recording contract on the condition that he form a band around himself as a vehicle to sell the songs. Taking their name from the postcode district of their hometown Walthamstow (after which they then named their debut album), they scored an immediate hit with first single “House Of Love”. Mortimer’s version of a rave anthem, I thought this sounded great. Think of the twee, cynically put together hits Take That started their career with and then listen to this. There’s no comparison. It put me in mind of the chart battle between Girls Aloud and One True Voice that same out of the Popstars: The Rivals TV show in 2002. The former’s single “Sound Of The Underground” was so superior to the latter’s…I can’t even remember what it was called it was so forgettable…it was almost embarrassing.

For a while these boys from Walthamstow traded blows with their nemesis and matched them punch for punch. They even bagged themselves a No 1 (a Xmas chart topper no less). Ultimately though they would lose the pop war and imploded after singer Brian Harvey encouraged drug taking on a late night radio interview. The ramifications included both Mortimer and Harvey leaving the group and returning multiple times and a change of band name. A number of tabloid headlines including the frankly bizarre incident of Harvey being run over by his own car after eating too many jacket potatoes damaged the band’s reputation beyond redemption. Currently they perform as a trio with only one original member (Terry Coldwell) in their ranks.

Back in 1992 though, they were fresh faced lads who looked like they could just as likely be working in McDonalds as performing on TOTP. Somehow though, instead of dying on their arses in this frankly ludicrous performance (what the hell was the washing line all about?) it all somehow just worked. Instead of being laughed off stage, we took them on face value as proper pop stars. Things were just starting to get interesting in the boy band stakes.

I’d totally forgotten that The Christians were still having chart hits this far into their career. It had been over five years since they burst onto the scene with their eponymous debut album (the biggest selling debut album in their label Island Records’ history) but here they were still in the Top 40 and still on TOTP in the Autumn of 1992. Listening to “What’s In A Word” it sounds vaguely familiar though I couldn’t have told you how it went before reacquainting myself with it. Didn’t their last chart hit feature ‘word’ in the title?

*checks The Christians discography *

I was right! “Words” made No 18 over Xmas/ New Year in 1989/90. They seemed to be as fixated on the subject of the lexicon as Martin Fry. I bet they were elated when that bloke invented Wordle.

Anyway, it’s a nice enough tune though hardly outstanding which may explain its lowly peak of No 33. Lead singer Garry Christian feels the needs to hold a drum stick throughout this performance that comes live from Paris for no obvious reason. Meanwhile, it seems Henry Priestman was still with the band at this point as I’m pretty sure that’s him on keyboards. I saw him as a solo artist live at Beverley Folk Festival in 2010. He was great. Barbara Dickson was also there and I stood next to her at one point watching the worst game of football I’ve ever seen on TV (England 0-0 Algeria in the World Cup). She was tiny.

The Christians, like East 17, still exist today (albeit not in their original form) and released a single in December 2021 called “Naz Don’t Cry” in support of the recently released Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe who had been detained in Israel since 2016.

Here’s a question. If you’ve made your name by covering other people’s songs, is the decision to call yourselves Undercover genius or incredibly lame? I’m going for the latter. The ‘drum and bass’ version of “Baker Street” as host Tony Dortie ridiculously describes it is up to No 3 so another trip to the TOTP studio is in order for the band. Vocalist John Matthews looks like he should be playing in midfield for Newcastle United (I think it’s the slight resemblance to Gazza) but he’s actually a massive Arsenal fan. Look at this interaction with a Spurs fan on Twitter when this TOTP repeat aired:

Not as bad as your trophy cabinet sunshine! #Spursy 😂👋👋👋
— John Matthews (@UNDERCOVER_JM) March 25, 2022

Ha! Talking of fans, someone who wasn’t a fan of Undercover at all was the man responsible for “Baker Street” Gerry Rafferty. According to Wikipedia, he had this to say about it:

“Dreadful- totally banal. A sad sign of the times”

Presumably he was happy to pick up the writer’s cheque their version brought in though that Tony Dortie refers to in his intro which was for £1.5 million! Like East 17 and The Christians before them, a version of Undercover featuring John Matthews are still a going concern today.

Freddie Jackson hadn’t been seen in the UK charts for six years before he turned up rather randomly with a cover of Billy Paul’s “Me And Mrs Jones”. Taken from his album “Time For Love”, this could be the most pointless cover version of all time. Firstly, he gives a completely straight take on it hardly deviating from the original at all. Secondly, he was never going to rival Billy Paul’s original. I’m putting this out there – I suspect some chart rigging was afoot getting this into the Top 40. Even if there was, it wasn’t that successful as it only made No 32 and the album bombed just about everywhere.

One of my favourite albums of 1992 was “Welcome To Wherever You Are” by INXS. The eighth album by the Aussie rockers was meant to be a rejection of the more polished studio sound that they had perfected on previous album “X” with an emphasis on a rawer sound. To my ears though it still had plenty of hooks to draw me in and includes one of the great album segues from opening track, the Eastern sounding “Questions”, into the album’s lead single “Heaven Sent”. We haven’t seen the latter on TOTP – I’m not sure why. It only made No 31 on the chart so it could be that it never made the cut at all or maybe it was in the Breakers on a show that we skipped because of the whole Adrian Rose debacle? Happily, second single “Baby Don’t Cry” has made it onto the show and it’s an unashamedly bold and out there stadium rock anthem with an exuberant, singalong chorus. Apparently it was recorded with the 60 piece Australian Concert Orchestra – so much for that raw sound the band was supposedly going for.

I thought this was going to be a massive hit but it stalled at No 20 and wasn’t even released in America. The album debuted at No 1 here making INXS the first Australian act to have a UK chart topper since AC/DC with “Back In Black” in 1980. However, that success was not repeated in the US and the album marked a decline in their commercial fortunes over there. The decision not to tour the album was probably not the correct one in hindsight.

Back in the studio we find Del Amitri who are in the midst of probably their most commercially successful period of their career. Their “Change Everything” album had been as high as No 2 in the charts and it would furnish them with four hit singles which all made the Top 30. “Just Like A Man” was the third of those and though I rather dismissed it as ‘just another Del Amitri song’ at the time, it’s actually a pretty decent tune. Do they get enough credit for their back catalogue? I’m not sure they do. My perception is that they’re somehow not seen as cutting-edge enough, not quite the real deal, perhaps even too…comfy? Also, for all that I said about the success they were having at this time, they never had one Top 10 single in this country. They’re not alone in that of course. Goth rockers The Mission clocked up 12 Top 40 singles without ever getting any higher than No 11. I guess they were more album than singles bands. “Just Like A Man” peaked at No 25.

Four Breakers now but we’ve seen three of them before as ‘exclusive’ performances/videos. To quote Ian Dury, “what a waste”. First up is Sinéad O’Connor with “Success Has Made A Failure Of Our Home”. This was the lead single from her covers album “Am I Not Your Girl?” which I don’t think I’ve ever heard properly. Looking at the track listing, there a few songs I know like “Secret Love” (Doris Day), “Love Letters” ( Ketty Lester/ Elvis /Alison Moyet) and of course “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” from Evita. The latter was released as the second single from the album and I would have thought it was a safe bet for another chart hit given that it is surely better known than its predecessor. After all, it had been a No 1 for Julie Covington in 1976. Sinéad’s version didn’t even make the Top 40. Four years later, Madonna did what Sinéad couldn’t and had a massive No 3 hit with it over Xmas 1996 but then she was starring as Eva Perón in Alan Parker’s film version of Evita so a hit was almost guaranteed. “Success Has Made A Failure Of Our Home” peaked at No 18.

Even the only Breaker we haven’t seen on the show before we actually have. What am I going on about? I mean it’s a rerelease of a song that was a hit back in 1985. “How Soon Is Now?” was the latest element of WEA’s release strategy for their newly acquired back catalogue of The Smiths. Possibly the greatest song in their canon, it’s certainly one of their most well known. Johnny Marr himself describes it as their “most enduring record”. It was originally released as the B-side to “William, It Was Really Nothing” alongside “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want” which surely must make it the best B-side of a record ever.

The 1992 rerelease peaked at No 26, eight places higher than its 1985 outing. Maybe it benefited from a younger audience knowing it from it being sampled in Soho’s hit “Hippychick” of just one year earlier. The band detested the promo video for the song which was made by their US label Sire and which Morrissey described as “degrading”. I wonder what he thought of this one made for Psychedelic Furs spin off project Love Spit Love’s cover of it for TV series Charmed and movie The Craft?

Oh come on now! How many times have I had to find something to write about yet another Michael Jackson video recently?! OK, well there is a school of thought that says the video for “Jam” was the inspiration for the 1996 film Space Jam starring Michael Jordan. Is that likely? Well, Jordan was in the “Jam” promo in which he teaches Jacko to play basketball while in Space Jam MJ teaches some Looney Tunes characters to shoot some hoops to win a b/ball match against invading aliens so there might be something in it I suppose.

The final Breaker is “Rest In Peace” by Extreme. The video for this one really should have been prefaced with a warning about flashing lights. If the stop motion sequence of two neighbours fighting over a TV set didn’t induce queasiness then the band performing against that flickering black and white backdrop would surely bring on a migraine. It’s a real sensory overload. It was also litigious as it copied rather too closely the 1952 anti-war film Neighbours by Norman McLaren and the band got sued but settled out of court. “Rest In Peace” peaked at No 13.

Time for another ‘exclusive’ now as we see yet another return of Boy George, this time with a cover of the sixties hit “Crying Game” So was this the third time George had been on the comeback trail? After Culture Club imploded in the mid 80s, George had fashioned himself a swift and initially very successful solo career with a No 1 single with his take on Ken Boothe’s “Everything I Own”. Three more smaller hits followed but the album “Sold” didn’t sell well and he disappeared from the charts for four years. He reappeared in 1991 under the pseudonym Jesus Loves You and the gloriously quirky “Bow Down Mister”. Again the parent album (“The Martyr Mantras”) failed to shift many units and another George revival had finished almost as quickly as it had started. You couldn’t keep a good Boy down and George was back on TOTP once more.

His rendition of “The Crying Game” was recorded for the soundtrack of the film of the same name, a thriller starring Stephen Rea set against the backdrop of of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The real pull of the film though was the plot twist which I won’t reveal for those who have never watched it but which was seen as very controversial at the time. Maybe it would be today but no way am I getting into that subject on here.

I didn’t mind George’s version – he seemed like a good choice to sing it to me (not that he was serenading me personally Romeo And Juliet style you understand). Was this the start of him always being seen in public with a hat on? He’s permanently got some design of chapeau on his bonce these days. Actually, he always wore a hat when he was with Culture Club didn’t he? Am I talking bollocks again?

That’s it! I knew there must be a reason. When I said earlier that Undercover vocalist John Matthews looks like he should be playing in midfield for Newcastle United because he looked a bit like Gazza, there was a memory lurking in my mind that was the trigger for my observation. I couldn’t put my finger on it before but I have it now. Do you remember The Comic Strip Presents… The Crying Game? It came out in 1992 like the Stephen Rea film but it was a football based tale of a young English player called Roy Brush (clearly a parody of Paul ‘daft as a brush’ Gascoigne aka Gazza) with the world literally at his feet after scoring an important goal for England. He is also gay and a tabloid paper tries to out him. Keith Allen stars as Brush and at one point in the story he records a single – yep you guessed it – a cover of “The Crying Game” (Gazza’s tears and all that). He even appears on TOTP and is introduced by Mark Franklin! Go to 11.45 in the YouTube video below:

After all that excitement, the No 1 brings us back to earth rather than takes us to a peak as it’s Snap! yet again with “Rhythm Is A Dancer”. I think this is the last week though. Don’t worry though! They’ll be back before the year is out with another big hit and another line up change. You lucky people you!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	East 17	House Of Love	No but my wife had the album Walthamstow.
2	The Christians	What’s In A Word	Nope
3	Undercover	Baker Street	Nah
4	Freddie Jackson	Me And Mrs Jones	Definitely not
5	INXS	Baby Don’t Cry	No but I bought their album Welcome To Wherever You Are
6	Del Amitri	Just Like A Man	No but I have their Best Of with it on
7	Sinéad O’Connor	Success Has Made A Failure Of Our Home	No
8	The Smiths	How Soon Is Now	No but I have Hatful Of Hollow with it on
9	Michael Jackson	Jam	I did not
10	Extreme	Rest In Peace	Nah
11	Boy George	The Crying Game	Didn’t mind it, didn’t buy it
12	Snap!	Rhythm Is A Dancer	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/m0015nq2/top-of-the-pops-10091992

TOTP 20 AUG 1992

Posted on March 23, 2022 by 80stastic

Right – a correction to start off with. I said in the last post that we’d missed the 6th August show due to the Adrian Rose consent issue. That was incorrect. It was because of the BBC’s coverage of the Olympics taking over the schedule. Presumably there was no slot left for even just 30 minutes of pop music. Thanks to those people who pointed this out to me.

So, on with the show (if that’s OK with you Mr BBC). This week’s ‘highlights’ include some British rockers, the return of a Mod hero and as it’s TOTP in 1992, a video exclusive from Michael Jackson (yawn).

We start though with some more of that horribly naff dance sound that added a lazy backbeat to an old classic tune and sold it to the masses by the bucket load. Was there a name for that sub genre of dance music? Who said ‘shite’?!

After pilfering KC And The Sunshine Band’s “Please Don’t Go” for their surprise No 1 a few weeks before, this time KWS have covered a song written by one Harry Wayne Casey – yes, Mr KC himself! This was starting to look like an unhealthy obsession! The chosen track was “Rock Your Baby” as made famous by George McRae who took it to the top of the charts here and in the US in 1974. I guess it made sense as a safe bet for another hit but they must have known there was a very short life span for this sort of thing and that they would be a fairly insignificant footnote in pop history. Surely they didn’t expect anybody to be talking about them and their hits in say 30 years time? Oh…which is exactly what I’m doing right now isn’t it? OK, how do I get out of this then. I need a Boris Johnson style dead cat on the table distraction. Ah, how about a realisation that I’ve remembered who KWS remind me of? Yes, that’ll do nicely. OK, well do you recall back in 1983 a guy called Forrest? He had two hits off the back of covers of old 70s soul hits “Rock The Boat” by The Hues Corporation and “Feel The Need In Me” by the Detroit Emeralds. And then promptly disappeared never to be heard of again. KWS were like a 90s version of him.

There seemed to be a trend around this time for overly energetic brass sections backing artists performing in the TOTP studio. The other week Jimmy Nail had some with him on stage and now KWS have four guys doing their own little dance routine mid song. They’re like a 90s version of The Shadows but with saxophones instead of guitars. One of them has a trumpet rather than a sax and he looks a bit like M People’s Mike Pickering. It couldn’t be could it?

KWS’s version of “Rock Your Baby” peaked at No 8.

It’s a live satellite link up now, this time from Boston where we find “Pornograffitti” artists Extreme. After the world wide success of “More Than Words” and a slot at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, the band’s profile had never been bigger but with a bigger profile came even bigger expectations. The pressure was on for their next album to rack up even more sales. So how do you follow up success with bigger success? What you don’t do is record a ‘concept’ album but that’s exactly what the band did. “III Sides To Every Story” contained 15 tracks split into three sections (the titular ‘sides’) each with their own name – ‘Yours’, ‘Mine’ and ‘The Truth’. The sides were differentiated from each other by their musical style and lyrical subjects – ‘Yours’ featured hard rock, ‘Mine’ displayed a more sensitive side with the band experimenting with different arrangements and instruments whilst ‘The Truth’ showcased their prog rock credentials and featured a track split into three parts (‘III Sides’ geddit?) entitled “Everything Under The Sun”. Not at all pretentious. The album sold poorly in comparison to predecessor “Pornograffitti” and the three singles released from it did not include anything like the huge mainstream crossover hit that “More Than Words” was.

The first of those three singles was “Rest In Peace”. Inspired by peace protests against the Gulf War, it offers up the rather unpalatable theory that sometimes war is necessary, or at least that war is complicated and can’t be reduced to such simple terms. Was it possible to convey such a subject effectively during the course of a rock song? This was no “Get The Funk Out”. Was it too much of a leap for fans of their previous work? Certainly in America it failed spectacularly to replicate the success of “More Than Words” for example which had been a No 1 record. “Rest In Peace” peaked at No 96 over there though it did top the Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart (whatever that was). We were more receptive to it in the UK where it reached a surprising high of No 13.

The performance here stands out due to the kid sitting in front of the drum kit for its entirety. Who was he and why was he there? Twitter offered up several opinions as to his identity ranging from a young Caleb Followill of Kings Of Leon to Eminem to the band’s manager’s son. It just looks odd.

As for the track itself, I thought it was OK and preferable to some of the crud in the Top 40 but that they were taking themselves way too seriously. I could have well done without the overindulgent Jimi Hendrix tribute riff towards the end. In any case, I’m really not convinced that the world needed an Extreme concept album at all.

It had to happen eventually. In the long, tortuous and indeed torturous search for how to stage a dance act on TOTP, the producers have finally turned to podium dancing. The lucky recipients of this innovation were Felix who are in the studio to perform their Top 10 hit “Don’t You Want Me”. It’s your basic, standard set up of the singer, the obligatory guy behind some turntables but now there’s added dancers positioned on towers of TV screens overlooking the stage. The banks of monitors are showing the promo video which intercuts with the performance whilst the studio audience are ‘avin’ it large like they’re at an actual rave. It sort of almost works until you notice the outlandish costumes of the dancers. There’s one that has an actual full face mask over their head! It reminds me of Cillian Murphy’s The Scarecrow from Batman Begins. The only time I’ve been in a nightclub with podium dancers was in Rochdale in the mid 90s, a place called Xanadu’s. Think it was a work colleague’s leaving do. Very scary but even there the posers on the podiums didn’t look like one of Worzel Gummidge’s mates.

“Don’t You Want Me” peaked at No 6.

After the dissolution of The Style Council in 1989, Paul Weller, without a record deal for the first time in his professional career, went on a two year hiatus from making records. As 1990 became 1991, he was back on the road under the title of ‘The Paul Weller Movement’ playing small venues with a set list derived from his Jam/Style Council back catalogue. There was also a spattering of new material like “Into Tomorrow” which was released as a single and returned Weller to the Top 40 but in a minimal way when it peaked at No 36. It was hardly the comeback of comebacks. However, he had more tunes up his sleeve and the small success of “Into Tomorrow” was enough to convince him and new label Go Discs to release more recordings. “Uh Huh, Oh Yeh” was the next single (released purely under his own name without the ‘movement’ suffix) and this time it really did fell like he was back. Previewing his first, eponymous solo album, it felt like a return to form and duly went Top 20.

Weller looks lean and dressed down in this performance and though his Steve Marriott influenced haircut probably drew a few guffaws back then, he looks the epitome of cool compared to the haggard, raggedy Iggy Pop impersonation he peddles today.

I’m not sure what my Weller-obsessed elder brother made of it but I’m guessing he bought it along with the rest of The Jam army who still couldn’t quite let go of their hero. The album made the Top 10 and paved the way for the reinvention of Weller as ‘The Modfather’ with the release of the “Wildwood” and “Stanley Road” albums (both of which I bought actually) as Britpop dawned.

By the way, check out the saxophone player who requires not one but two saxes for this performance one of which is the biggest I have ever seen! Uh huh, oh yeh. Nudge nudge, wink wink.

From Paul Weller to “Jam” (nice!) as it’s time for yet another Michael Jackson video exclusive! By my count that’s the fourth of this calendar year and the fifth in total from the “Dangerous” album. I’m not quite sure it really deserves that ‘exclusive’ label though on account of the fact that the single (and therefore the video) had already been released in the US back in July (the US and European release schedules weren’t in sync). Presumably millions of people globally had already seen this promo by the time it was shown over here. I suppose we didn’t have access to all the TV channels we do today not to mention YouTube so maybe people in the UK hadn’t been able to catch it before now? I don’t know- it was all a long time ago. What I do know is that this glut of what seems like monthly Jacko videos is starting to get on my wick. It’s like he was trying to outdo The Wedding Present’s 1992 singles release project.

I suppose I do have to talk about the video then. Well, this one is set in a run down neighbourhood in Chicago where Jacko teaches basketball superstar Michael Jordan to dance whilst, in return, he shows The King of Pop how to shoot some hoops – as you do. This sort of shit happens all the time obviously. Just the other week Adele was down our street teaching Mo Salah how to sing from his diaphragm whilst he showed her some keepy uppy tricks. Just preposterous nonsense. There’s some cameos from rappers du jour Heavy D and Kris Kross but the whole thing feels like the track was written to be a video rather than a song in its own right. It’s just a vehicle for Jacko’s dance moves – there’s not a proper song in there.

They’ll be one more Jackson single release before 1992 is up -the sickly ballad “Heal The World” whist “Jam” peaked at No 13.

In the light of Extreme’s new direction that we witnessed earlier, there is a vacancy in the acoustic rock troubadour circuit. Early applicants for the role are Thunder with their new single “Low Life In High Places”. This was the lead single from their second album “Laughing On Judgement Day” which would debut at No 2 when released (only kept off the top spot by Kylie Minogue’s first “Greatest Hits” album). Thunder had been churning out Top 40 hits since the turn of the decade (this was their sixth in eighteen months) and the release of “Laughing On Judgement Day” would be the crowning glory of their popularity.

“Low Life In High Places” – a social comment on homelessness in New York – is very much an acoustic number for the first two thirds of its running time but then bursts into more familiar heavy rock territory on the final lap. It’s as if the band are suffering from imposter guilt and don’t really believe they can pull this acoustic lark off and, losing their nerve, revert to type as full on electric heavy rockers. If that bloke who shouted “Judas!” at Bob Dylan at the Manchester Free Trade Hall in 1966 had been in the studio audience he would have spontaneously combusted. Talking of which, were the pyrotechnics when the track goes electric really necessary?

One last thing. What was it with performers having two instruments in this show? After Paul Walker’s sax player earlier, Thunder have a guitarist with an acoustic guitar and an electric one!

“Low Life In High Places” peaked at No 22.

Back to the usual three Breakers tonight after last week’s five song extravaganza starting with Bobby Brown. After flogging his 1988 “Don’t Be Cruel” album to death, Mr Whitney Houston’s only chart appearance had been his frankly bizarre collaboration with boy next door Glenn Medeiros on “She Ain’t Worth It” back in 1990. Now though he was back with a new single “Humpin’ Around” and new album “Bobby”.

I have to say I don’t recall this one though I do remember another single that was released from the album called “Two Can Play That Game” which was a hit a whole two years on from “Bobby” coming out when remixed by K-Klass. That one hung around the charts for ages being a hit twice. “Humpin’ Around” though – I’ve got nothing. It was a medium sized hit peaking at No 19 over here but going Top 3 in America. Apparently it was originally entitled “Fuckin’ Around”. Given Bobby Brown’s rap sheet, why am I not surprised.

It’s “Crying” by Roy Orbison and K.D. Lang next and my timeline for this song is a bit skewed so let’s start at the beginning. Originally a No 1 hit on the Cashbox chart in the US for Orbison on his own in 1961, it was taken to the top of the UK charts in 1980 by American Pie-ster Don McLean’s cover version. Fast forward seven years and The Big O re-recorded it with then little known country singer K.D.Lang for the soundtrack of the film Hiding Out starring Jon Cryer (Duckie from Pretty In Pink). The song was a middling No 28 hit in the US though it was much bigger in Lang’s native Canada where it reached No 2. It also won a Grammy award for Best County Collaboration with Vocals. In 1989, it was recycled as the B-side to Orbison’s single “She’s A Mystery To Me”.

OK, that’s all fine but why was it then released in the UK in 1992? Was it related to Lang’s breakthrough album “Ingénue” being released that year? Was K.D. a known name in the UK by this point? In my head, 1992 was the year that non country music fans became aware of her but apparently her best known song “Constant Craving” wasn’t a hit until the following year when it was rereleased. Again my memory is failing me. Whatever the truth of the matter, “Crying” the duet was a No 13 hit.

They’re still doing that thing with the Breakers where they feature a song that we have already seen in full as an ‘exclusive’ performance. I’m sure this was down to negotiations between the record pluggers and the producers with the major labels jostling for prime time TV slots but it seems like a missed opportunity to highlight Top 40 entries that we would otherwise miss. The latest artist to benefit from this policy is Annie Lennox who is in the charts with her “Walking On Broken Glass” single.

The video to this one is based on the 1988 film Dangerous Liaisons starring John Malkovich who has been roped into appearing in the promo alongside Hugh Laurie who is basically reprising his Prince Regent role from Blackadder III. The costumes alone must have made it quite expensive to film. Would major film stars like Malkovich have done a music video for free or would they charge a fee?

“Walking On Broken Glass” peaked at No 8.

Thunder’s nemesis now as Kylie Minogue has turned up to promote that Greatest Hits album of hers. The first of two new singles released to promote it, “What Kind Of Fool (Heard All That Before)” was her last original song to be released on PWL before she left for pastures new (her very last PWL release was a cover of Kool And The Gang’s “Celebration”). You could hardly describe it as going out on a high on account of the fact that it’s dreadful. It sounds like it should have been a Sonia B-side. Even Kylie herself can’t stand it apparently and she hardly ever performs it live. It peaked at No 14 – it was very lucky to make even that chart placing. A real backwards step after some of her recent work had been a lot more mature. What a waste of everybody’s time.

Snap! remain at No 1 with “Rhythm Is A Dancer”. In the comments about this song on the Songfacts website, someone called Sioraf said this about the infamous ‘serious as cancer’ line:

“Cancer is very serious though. Nobody calls Waterfalls tasteless for mentioning HIV.“

Sioraf mate. The TLC song ‘mentions’ HIV as part of a whole narrative about discouraging self destructive behaviour and raising the issue of AIDS and safe sex. They do so in an affecting, insightful and subtle way – in fact, the acronym HIV is never used but rather the line “three letters took him to his final resting place”. The Snap! track on the other hand just drops the word ‘cancer’ into a rap as it rhymes with ‘dancer’ – there is literally no comparison. Honestly.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	KWS	Rock Your Baby	Nope
2	Extreme	Rest In Peace	I did not
3	Felix	Don’t You Want Me	Nah
4	Paul Weller	Uh Huh, Oh Yeh	I think this might be in the singles box you know
5	Michael Jackson	Jam	Negative
6	Thunder	Low Life In High Places	No
7	Bobby Brown	Humpin’ Around	Buy it? I don’t even remember it
8	Roy Orbison and K.D. Lang	Crying	Didn’t happen
9	Annie Lennox	Walking On Broken Glass	No but my wife had her Diva album
10	Kylie Minogue	What Kind Of Fool (Heard All That Before)	No but my wife had that Greatest Hits album
11	Snap!	Rhythm Is A Dancer	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/m0015f91/top-of-the-pops-20081992

TOTP 30 JUL 1992

Posted on March 17, 2022 by 80stastic

The TOTP repeats are still coming thick and fast. We’re already at the end of July ‘92 whilst in real time of 2022, we’re only halfway through March. Keeping up with them is becoming increasingly difficult. I may not have a job currently but I have got other things to do you know like…erm…well, there’s the daily wordle and…look, never mind about that. I need to get on.

Thirty years ago Alan Shearer – the all time top Premier League goal scorer but as we found out in a recent post, an unknown in the US – has just broken the English transfer fee record by signing for Blackburn Rovers from Southampton for £3.5 million. Two days after that, another big transfer went down as Nottingham Forest’s Des Walker signed for Sampdoria for £1.5 million which must have upset Nottingham group KWS whose recent chart topper “Please Don’t Go” was released as a tribute to the defender (apparently). As for me, I was still trundling along working for Our Price in Manchester but a transfer of my own would soon be in the offing but that’s for a later post.

So here’s a question. How many Top 40 singles do you reckon The Shamen had? Three? Four? I think I would have gone with five. I’d have been miles out. It’s actually twelve! I know! To be fair to myself, four came well after their annus mirabilis of 1992 and were minor hits one of which was a remix of “Move Any Mountain” anyway. In my original guess, I’d miscalculated how many singles were released from their “Boss Drum” album (six if you’re counting) including this one “LSI Love Sex Intelligence”. Now I did include this in my guess of five as it was a pretty big hit (No 6 if you’re still counting) and therefore much more memorable. This really felt like the moment that the band consciously decided to pursue chart stardom with rapper Mr C pushed out front and centre as their public face. I say that but watching this performance, it’s vocalist Jhelisa Anderson that stands out with Mr C restricted to a few shouts of “Come On!” and of course his obligatory rap halfway through. I think the reason that it’s his face that comes to mind when I think of this era of The Shamen is because he looked off it most of the time. Apparently that’s because he was. Here’s @TOTPFacts:

Mr C: “We did Top Of The Pops about seven or eight times [It was eight]. Every single time I was on acid or E or both. I wasn’t on three pills, I was on one. So I remember it. It’s only when you bosh that third pill you start losing it." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 11, 2022

That’ll be it then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHrSxpx0vQM

Michael Jackson is next with a proper showing of his “Who Is It” video after last week’s insulting slot in the Breakers. Many in the music press made comparisons between this track and “Billie Jean” which got me thinking about some of the other tracks on “Dangerous”. The conclusion I came to was that “Who Is It” may not have been the only time he recycled some of his own source material. The sixth single from the album was the syrup drenched, sickly ballad “Heal The World” which was a direct rewrite of the Jackson penned USA for Africa charity single “We Are The World”. The one after that “Give In To Me” has more than a whiff of “Dirty Diana” about it. Hmm. “Who Is It” asked Jacko. The answer was clear. It’s you Michael. Endlessly you.

“Who Is It” peaked at No 10.

Just about teenagers Kris Kross are next but for some reason host Mark Franklin (back to the solo presenter this week) gives them no intro whatsoever and then at the end of their performance gives them a meagre three word mention (“There’s Kris Kross”). Had they upset the show in some way or was it yet another attempt to shake up the show’s format. It just looks incongruous like they aren’t really part of the show (is that even the TOTP studio they’re performing in?) and somebody has hacked the BBC broadcast and interrupted the running order to get the rapping duo on illegally.

On they were though with their new single “Warm It Up” which is another song I don’t remember from this period. Lacking the immediacy of “Jump”, it comes over like they’re trying to convince us all that they really are proper gangstas (yes, I meant to spell it like that) with lyrics that mention guns and knives but in the end the most threatening they manage is with the line “You can get the finger, the middle”.

A year or so later, the UK version of Kris Kross was unleashed on the world. They were a little bit older (18 years of age) and as with their US counterparts where we didn’t know which one was Mac Daddy and which was Daddy Mac, we also had trouble distinguishing between them but boy did they have some tunes!

The first of two exclusive performances tonight is next and it’s from someone who caused quite a reaction on Twitter when this TOTP repeat aired, most of it of a salacious nature (including the rhyming slang J. Arthur). Betty Boo (for it is she) went missing for the whole of 1991 after she had taken the UK by storm the previous year with hits like “Doin’ The Do” and “Where Are You Baby?” (note the use of a question mark Michael Jackson!). Presumably she was writing material for her second album.

The first glimpse of her labours came in the form of the single “Let Me Take You There” and what an underrated single it was. Like most of the work from her second album period, it’s largely forgotten despite its No 12 chart peak. A gloriously lilting track, it also had plenty of little hooks thrown in throughout for good measure. Betty is really selling it in this performance. She’s ditched the space cadet togs and bob haircut of the “Boomania” era and has returned with grown out locks and a revealing outfit (hence the Twitter reaction). She’s also ditched the Booettes but her all female backing band have followed her sartorial lead.

I’m pretty sure I had a promo copy of the second album entitled “GRRR! It’s Betty Boo” and it was pretty good especially follow up singles “I’m On My Way” (not The Proclaimers song) and “Hangover” but neither made the Top 40 despite being excellent pieces of pop confection. After the failure of the album, Betty withdrew from the music industry and was seemingly lost to the world of pop forever until she reappeared as a songwriter for the likes of Hear’Say, Girls Aloud and Dannii Minogue and lookee here…a brand new single released just this year that samples The Human League! Open your heart!

Something weird has happened to the Breakers section. Two of the four songs featured have already been on the show before. Enya had her own ‘exclusive’ slot just last week and Billy Ray Cyrus was shown recently as part of the US chart and yet they’re both designated as Breakers this week. I’m guessing the TOTP producers would argue that neither was actually in the UK Top 40 when first on the show and now they are classified as big movers within it and therefore Breakers? Surely this section was for singles we hadn’t seen before and had now just got into the charts? Seems a waste to show a short clip of artists we’ve already seen in full before.

Anyway, a song that we hadn’t seen before was “Jesus He Knows Me”, the fourth single from Genesis’s “We Can’t Dance” album. After the Genesis by numbers ballad “Hold On My Heart” and the indulgently epic “No Son Of Mine”, this was more like the well crafted pop of “Invisible Touch” but with the added bit of jeopardy of having the word ‘Jesus’ in the title. Would that have scared off some US radio stations? Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” was originally called “A Deal With God” but changed due to fears of being on an airplay black list. Well, it was a No 23 hit over the pond so it didn’t do too badly.

The video was similarly provocative sending up as it did the cult of the televangelists like Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker who as critic Christopher Thelen put it were “more concerned about fleecing their flocks than shepherding them”. Fair play to Phil, Mike and Tony for trying to do something challenging with the video rather than just have some in concert footage cobbled together for example.

What?! Sarah Brightman and José Carreras had a song in the charts in the 1992? I don’t remember this happening. Apparently “Amigos Para Siempre (Friends For Life)” was recorded for the Barcelona Olympics and was sung at the games closing ceremony. I can’t have watched it I guess. If it’s Sarah Brightman then it must have been written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and indeed it was.

The only song I associate with those Olympics was “Barcelona” by Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé but both tracks were included on a compilation album called “Barcelona Gold” which was released to coincide with them. I’d forgotten all about this and its utterly bizarre track listing. It’s bookended by the two aforementioned tracks but what comes in between is ludicrous. There’s DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, INXS, Rod Stewart, a couple of soul divas in Anita Baker and Natalie Cole, Marc Cohn, a live version of “Wonderful Tonight” by Eric Clapton and “This Used To Be My Playground” by Madonna which couldn’t be licensed for the soundtrack of the film it featured in (A League Of Their Own) but which was OK for this bonkers hotchpotch of an album. It also had one of the worst album covers ever. Madness.

Marc Cohn celebrates his inclusion on the “Barcelona Gold” album

And so to those hits by Enya and Billy Ray Cyrus starting with the former and her “Book Of Days” single. Haven’t got much else to say about this one except, in keeping with the sporting theme, it was used as background music during the medal ceremonies at the 2009 IAAF World Athletics Championships in Berlin.

As for “Achy Breaky Heart” by Billy Ray Cyrus, I literally have nothing else I want to say about it.

My use of the word Madness to describe that “Barcelona Gold” album was deliberate as here are the Nutty Boys themselves in the second ‘exclusive’ performance of the night with a re-release of “My Girl” to promote their “Divine Madness” Best Of album. Originally their third ever hit in 1980 when it went to No 3, the song is also a small but special footnote in the history of TOTP as it was the first to be performed on the show at the start of the 80s.

After officially splitting in ‘86, the band being back together on TOTP six years later was quite the throwback. I saw them years later at one of their pre-Xmas concerts in Hull. They were fabulous though I have to say I haven’t seen so many middle aged men trying to relive their youth under one roof before or since.

Back in the 90s though, 1992 really was the year of a Madness revival. Aside from the three times platinum selling “Divine Madness” retrospective, there was also the very first Madstock! festival as referred to by Mark Franklin. This two day jamboree at Finsbury Park in London was supposedly so loud that it caused nearby tower blocks to shake! The event was repeated in ‘94, ‘97, ‘98 and ‘09.

The reissued “My Girl” peaked at No 27.

https://youtu.be/N4p6cu628hQ

Blimey they’re slamming them in tonight! Here’s the tenth artist on the show and we’re only two thirds of the way through. It’s Roxette who seemed to be on TOTP every other week around this time. They don’t seem to be friends of the show though as Mark Franklin doesn’t utter one word about them. No intro, no outro, no name check, nothing. Even worse than his treatment of Kris Kross.

With no plug from the programme, they’re going to have to promote their latest single “How Do You Do” by the sheer power of their performance but the song doesn’t lend itself to a cohesive turn at all. The lead single from their “Tourism” album, it’s a light, bright daytime radio friendly ditty but the vocal parts don’t work for me. Per Gessle takes the opening lines rather than powerhouse singer Marie Fredriksson and he seems to be doing his best Jimmy Nail impression as they are mostly spoken and not sung. Compare Per saying this line:

‘Well here we are crackin’ jokes in the corner of our mouths and I fell like I’m laughing in a dream’

With this from “Ain’t No Doubt”:

‘She says it’s like in the song remember? If you love somebody, set them free. Well that’s how it is for me.’

OK. The words are not the same but the intonation is similar I would argue. The similarities continue as Marie joins in for the chorus just as Jimmy has a female vocalist (who seems to change with each TOTP appearance) do the same for his song. Although Jimmy has grown his hair longer since his Auf Wiedersehen Pet days and I’m really not sure about it, compared to Per’s barnet he’s the epitome of stylish. What was he thinking?! Unbelievably, his isn’t even the worst on stage as up there with him is a bass player with an incongruous 80s cut (long at the back, short at the sides). It’s the 90s now mate!

“How Do You Do” provides another nice sporting tie in for this post as the video for it was played at half time in the recent Euros ‘92 final between Denmark and Germany. It doesn’t excuse that hair though. By the way, the track was recorded in a studio in Sweden called Tits & Ass Studio talking of which…

https://youtu.be/m5MQ1ERb_D0

It’s one of those satellite link ups next as we cross live to Seattle for…nope not Nirvana despite the city being the home of grunge but for some fella called Sir Mix A Lot who has been No 1 in America for five weeks Mark Franklin informs us with his single “Baby Got Back”. As my friend Robin would say, this is like pissing off the top of a multi story car park – wrong on so many levels…or is it? Ostensibly a rap objectifying women with large buttocks, could it also be a challenge to the mainstream norms of female beauty? Sir Mix A Lot himself says of the track:

“The song doesn’t just say I like large butts you know? The song is talking about women who damn near kill themselves to try to look like these beanpole models that you see in Vogue magazine.”

I’ll be honest; I think I may have been more on board with this argument if he hadn’t performed the song against the towering backdrop of a pair of naked butt cheeks.

At one point the video for the song was banned by MTV and yet despite all the controversy it generated and its five week run at the top of the US charts, we never got it over here in dear old conservative Blighty and the song never made our Top 40 peaking at No 56. Maybe we got confused and bought the wrong thing as his album was called “Mack Daddy” as in those cheeky scamps we saw earlier Kris Kross.

Jimmy Nail still reigns at the top of the charts with “Ain’t No Doubt” which would shift enough copies to end up as the 8th best selling single in the UK in 1992. The parent album “Growing Up In Public” would achieve gold status yet curiously there were no other hit singles from it. The follow up to “Ain’t No Doubt” was called “Laura” and it didn’t even make the Top 40. Maybe it’s predecessor was do ubiquitous that nothing else Jimmy released could compete.

That ubiquity was taken to extraordinary lengths by a guy who drove his neighbours insane by playing the song at top volume for 24 hours solid after splitting with his girlfriend after she’d cheated on him (“she’s lying…”). At least I’m think that’s what I read in the paper at the time though I can’t find any mention of it online anywhere.

Despite his success being cut short, Nail would return in ‘94 with the soundtrack to his next TV series Crocodile Shoes the title track of which would score him a No 4 hit.

It’s that Madonna track from the “Barcelona Gold” album to close the show. “This Used To Be My Playground” was a short stopping off point before Madge unleashed her controversial “Erotica” album and “Sex” book on the world. For some it was a step too far. I recall seeing a local news item where a Madonna super fan who had slavishly bought everything she had ever done on every format drew the line at “Erotica” and turned his back on Madonna forever. Instead he directed his obsessive tendencies towards someone much more wholesome – Gloria Estefan. I have a mental image of him holding up the picture disc of “This Used To Be My Playground” and saying this was the last Madonna product he would ever buy. I’m not sure she was that bothered.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Shamen	LSI Love Sex Intelligence	Nope
2	Michael Jackson	Who Is It	I did not
3	Kris Kross	Warm It Up	No
4	Betty Boo	Let Me Take You There	No but I had that promo copy of the album with it on
5	Genesis	Jesus He Knows Me	Negative
6	Sarah Brightman and José Carreras	Amigos Para Siempre (Friends For Life)	Jesus no!
7	Enya	Book Of Days	Nah
8	Billy Ray Cyrus	Achy Breaky Heart	See 6 above
9	Madness	My Girl	No but I had the Divine Madness album
10	Roxette	How Do You Do	How do you don’t more like – no!
11	Sir Mix A Lot	Baby Got Back	I was far too mature for such nonsense
12	Jimmy Nail	Ain’t No Doubt	It’s a no
13	Madonna	This Used To Be My Playground	And a final no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00156d2/top-of-the-pops-30071992

TOTP 23 JUL 1992

Posted on March 14, 2022 by 80stastic

We’re in mid Summer ‘92 at TOTP Rewind. The Euros have been and gone (and with them Graham Taylor’s credibility as the England manager) and the Olympics in Barcelona are just about to start and we all know what that means…yes that bloody song by Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballe will be everywhere including the top end of the charts very soon. For now though, we have a TOTP which is, yet again, a right mix bag of music and artists. We’re back to a presenting duo rather than the solo host we have seen recently with Tony Dortie being paired with Claudia Simon. The producers are sticking with the small changes to the format they made recently meaning we get to see Claudia and Tony do an intro even before the titles roll and then do the Top 10 countdown before we see/hear any artists. I’m not convinced about any of it.

When we do get to the actual music, the first intro is very odd. As the camera alights on Claudia and Tony, the latter says “This record is massive on the dance floor” but the camera keeps moving down towards the stage. Claudia says out of shot “Making their debut on Top of the Pops…” and then…nothing. Surely Claudia was teeing up actually saying who the first act was?! What happened? Did her mike fail? Did she forget who she was introducing? Or did the producers say “Just forget it. Too late now anyway. They’ve started and the artist graphic is on screen already”?

That artist graphic told us that the band were Sunscreem with “Love U More”. So who were these lot? I remember the name but the only other thing I recall about them was that they were a Sony artist (the curse of opening all those deliveries while working for Our Price in the 90s strikes again!). Turns out that they weren’t just another anonymous dance act put together to front a hit single. They were a house band from Essex- no I don’t mean they were the resident band for the whole of the county but that they played ‘house’ music – and actually performed live concerts.

Having been tipped as the next big name in dance music during ‘91, they finally broke into the UK Top 40 with “Love U More”. Listening to it now, it does ring a few bells one of which reminded me of “Sunshine On A Rainy Day” by Zoë. If that bell was ringing though then there was an air horn going off in my head about their performance which is giving me heavy D:Ream vibes. It’s not just their sound, the lead singer even has a tartan suit on!

That singer is Lucia Holm who recorded a fine version of one of my favourite ever songs “Heaven” by The Psychedelic Furs in 2005.

Not only that, check out this fact from @TOTPFacts about her involvement in another of my favourite tunes:

Sunscreem singer Lucia Holm also played cello on "Life In A Northern Town" by The Dream Academy – from which her playing was later sampled by Dario G for his dance track "Sunchyme". https://t.co/s2CrslZ6jO #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 11, 2022

I had no idea! I was also in the dark that Steps covered “Love U More” on their debut album. Look!

Nice to see some actual, proper musical instruments on display in a dance outfit performance though I’m not sure about the two dancers throwing some shapes. Sunscreem would go on to have eight UK Top 40 hits though none would get any higher than No 13. “Love U More” itself would make No 23.

Snap! are up to No 2 with “Rhythm Is A Dancer” and it’s obvious now that it’s going to be a chart topper. I’m not sure I would have predicted it spending six weeks as the nation’s best seller though but then what did I know eh? Oh yeah, I was working in a record shop at the time so maybe I should have had my finger in the pulse a bit more.

The track routinely features in the ‘Best No 1s /dance anthems of the 90s’ polls but I bet nobody involved in the record could have foreseen its influence extend to this extent…

Thought Shakespear’s Sister only had one hit? You are sorely mistaken for they had six UK Top 40 hits in total though I’m guessing this one would have a decent chance at being a very low scorer on Pointless. “Goodbye Cruel World” was actually the lead single from their “Hormonally Yours” album and not the all conquering “Stay” but nobody noticed it when it was initially released in late September ‘91 and it struggled to a high of No 59. Maybe that would have been the end of the band had they not had that Dave Stewart penned No 1 song up their sleeves but up their sleeves it was and the rest is (you’re) history.

Essentially a straightforward rock/pop song, it had enough quirkiness about it to make it stand out from the crowd. However, it never made it above its chart position here of No 32 in spite of this TOTP exposure. To be fair, the whirling dervish routine of Siobhan Fahey was starting to irritate and they did seem to shoehorn in a platform for Marcella Detroit’s to display her operatic range every song. Siobahn seems to think it’s Xmas time judging by the white fur trim in her outfit but it’s their bass player that my eyes are more drawn to. She looks ever so familiar and judging by the #TOTP tweets for this show, a fair few people thought the same and wanted to identify her. General consensus was that its Claire Kenny who has worked with the likes of Orange Juice, Sinéad O’Connor and Brian Eno though I think it’s Amazulu that I recognise her from which probably says quite a lot about me.

The Breakers are in a much more sensible place in the show this week and we start with the poster boys of grunge Nirvana. To say how influential they were, their career was pretty short and their back catalogue fairly small. Three studio albums and six UK Top 40 hits in a seven year existence. Yes, you could argue that The Beatles only existed for a decade and look at their legacy but they released thirteen albums in that period. You could also make the case that Nirvana’s potential for longevity was truncated by Kurt Cobain’s death but I think that the band were never likely to pull a U2 and carve out a 40 year career. Cobain’s heroin addiction was always an issue and the group almost broke up after disagreements surrounding Kurt’s attempts to reorganise their royalties structure so that he got more to reflect his songwriting input. There’s also that theory that those who shine the brightest burn out the quickest and that the band were always destined to fulfil that particular narrative but is that just a lazy take on their story?

Anyway, one of those six hit singles was “Lithium” which was the third track to be released from “Nevermind”. It’s a good song and all that but it doesn’t stray far from the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” template in that the verses are subdued lulling us into a false sense of security before the violent eruption of the go apeshit chorus.

The video is a collage of gig footage. Cobain had originally had an idea for an animation to tell the story of a girl called Preggo who lives in a forest and takes some eggs she found in her closet to a king in a castle. This was shelved when it became apparent that it the video would take four months to make. They couldn’t think of anything else to do than just cobble some concert clips together?

“Lithium” peaked at No 11 in the UK singles chart.

Still bleeding the “Stars” album dry are Simply Red or more accurately their record label EastWest. I’m wondering about the wisdom of releasing a fifth single (“Your Mirror”) from an album that had been out for 10 months by this point and which had sold so many copies in the first three of those months that it became the biggest selling album of the whole year.

Were EastWest hoping that there were still some punters out there who hadn’t yet been persuaded into buying “Stars” by the first four singles off it but who might be convinced by the fifth? Surely not. Was it designed to appeal to completist super fans who couldn’t resist the lure of Simply Red product? Did such people exist? Were there exclusive extra tracks on the single? Or was it as I first thought just a case of milking the label’s elite cash cow as much as they could?

“Stars” was the band’s fourth album – would that have bought them to the end of their current record deal? Were EastWest concerned they might lose their lucrative charges? As it turned out they didn’t but it would be four years before the next Simply Red album. Had they thought that might be the case and so wanted to maximise sales of the current one by going all Michael Jackson on its singles release schedule? Were the band on tour and so the single was to promote that?

So many questions to which I’m not sure I actually care what the answers are. This is Simply Red and Mick Hucknall we’re talking about here after all! Suffice to say “Your Mirror” did nothing for me but it reached a respectable No 17 on the charts which presumably meant something to EastWest.

Talking of Jacko…after the first three singles from Michael Jackson’s “Dangerous” album had been given the ‘exclusive’ treatment by TOTP, the video for his latest single only warrants a slot in the Breakers! Possibly to prevent litigation from The King of Pop’s lawyers, it gets a full outing on the following week’s show.

The single in question is “Who Is It” and the critical reception it received at the time suggested that it was “Billie Jean” 2.0. I can certainly hear that in the bridge into the chorus but is there a bit of “Dirty Diana” in there as well?

It managed to get to No 10 in the UK despite it being the fourth single off the album but curiously wasn’t released simultaneously in the US where they went with “Jam” as the fourth single release. I didn’t really care for it at all. Oh, and never mind ‘who is it’, the question I wanted to ask was why doesn’t the song title have a question mark at the end of it? Answer me that.

So who did get the ‘Exclusive’ slot this week instead of Jackson? It’s gone to Enya? Really?! Are you sure?! Yes, for she was in the studio to promote her single “Book Of Days” from the album “Shepherd Moons”. As Tony Dortie says, it also featured in the Tom Cruise/Nicole Kidman film Far And Away. I think I went to the pictures to see that one. It was OK but far too long and the ending is one of the worst in cinematic history.

As for the performance here, there’s a few things to unpack. Firstly, is she singing live as per TOTP policy? She could be but with all those vocal effects on the record it’s hard to tell. Secondly, what was the deal with the platinum blonde wigs on the cello players? Was it a tribute to Gerry Anderson’s UFO and the purple wigs worn by the female staff at moon base? Finally, the flowers on the piano and studio floor – was that an influence on the cover to the Oasis single “Don’t Look Back In Anger”?

“Book Of Days” peaked at No 10.

https://youtu.be/5hTo-3TF0Nw

Obviously “Sexy MF” by Prince was never going to get any airplay if the true word behind the acronym hadn’t been blanked but it’s not like the rest of the lyrics were squeaky clean. Some of them were filthy:

You seem perplexed I haven’t taken you yet

Can’t you see I’m harder than a man can get

I got wet dreams comin’ out of my ears

I get hard if the wind blows your cologne near me

Sheesh! Where was the censor? Presumably on the dance floor.

“Sexy MF” peaked at No 4.

Action from the US chart next as we get a first look at an artist who’s about to bring his success over here. I say first look but if we’d have been watching Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine carefully we’d have seen his guy before. I have to admit that as a teenager I was probably more interested in directing my gaze at Gloria rather than her band! Anyway, enough of that! The guy in question is Jon Secada and “Just Another Day” would be first and biggest hit.

I could never see the appeal of this song and found it quite laborious and dull. I seemed to be in the minority though as it went to No 5 both in the UK and the US. Now I’m not saying the guy can’t sing but, as someone commented on Twitter, he doesn’t half make a meal of this performance which is a flurry of gurning expressions, mike stand wielding and fist clenching. He makes Spandau’s Tony Hadley look like a wallflower. No doubt we’ll be seeing more of Mr Secada in future repeats.

You wait ages for one ‘Exclusive’ (that never comes if you’re Michael Jackson) and then two come along. The second one after Enya earlier is from Elton John and Eric Clapton who have collaborated on a little ditty called “Runaway Train”. The second single released from Elton’s “The One” album, I have to say that this is utter garbage. A right dirge and money for old rope for the pair of them. This did nothing for either protagonist’s reputation. Even the video effects are horrible and only serve to increase the strength of the headache listening to the song will give you.

Unfortunately Claudia Simon stumbles over her words in the intro to this one saying that the video was “shot at the Wembley during Elton’s worldwise tour’. Sadly, there was nothing wise about this train wreck of a release and it peaked at a lowly No 31.

Jimmy Nail is No 1 again with “Ain’t No Doubt” and he’s in the studio again doing his weird, shambling performance that he’s done every week so far in that same dark suit and T-shirt ensemble. He almost motionless and it’s left to his brass section to provide all the movement on stage. The dinner jackets, black bow ties and shades they’re all wearing remind me of the backing singers Nick Heyward had for his single “Warning Sign” back in 1984:

Jimmy was riding high on the back of the success of his Spender TV series which was huge back in the day and regularly pulled in audiences of 14 million. I’m pretty sure I was one of them though I can’t recall any of the episodes or stories now. In keeping with my own memory, it’s almost as though that it’s entirely forgotten now. Never repeated on TV and never even released on DVD or video and yet his first big hit series Auf Wiedersehen Pet is never off the likes of ITV 4 or the Drama channel.

We play out with “Shake Your Head” by Was (Not Was). Some of the things that the lyrics say you can’t do are palpably untrue. ‘You can’t win money at the horses” for example. I’ll wager some of the thousands attending this week’s Cheltenham festival would disagree. The biggest whopper though is “And you can’t influence the masses”. Vote Leave campaign anyone?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Sunscreem	Love U More	Nah
2	Snap!	Rhythm Is A Dancer	Nope
3	Shakespear’s Sister	Goodbye Cruel World	I did not
4	Nirvana	Lithium	No
5	Simply Red	Your Mirror	Certainly not
6	Michael Jackson	Who Is It	Negative
7	Enya	Book Of Days	It’s a no from me
8	Prince	Sexy MF	Not the single but I have it on a Best Of CD I’m sure
9	Jon Secada	Just Another Day	Never happening
10	Elton John and Eric Clapton	Runaway Train	I’d have rather bought Runaway Train by Soul Asylum and that’s shit as well
11	Jimmy Nail	Ain’t No Doubt	And no
12	Was (Not Was)	Shake Your Head	Not the single but I bought their Best Of album Hello Dad…I’m In Jail with it on

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/m00156d0/top-of-the-pops-23071992

TOTP 30 APR 1992

Posted on February 17, 2022 by 80stastic

It’s the last day of April 1992 at TOTP Rewind and the UK charts are in the middle of a run of being topped by eleven different albums by eleven different artists in consecutive weeks. This was due partly to the release schedules being full of new albums being released by established artists including Bruce Springsteen, Def Leppard and The Cure. I’ll include Annie Lennox in that category as well despite “Diva” being her debut solo album. Right Said Fred’s “Up” made it to the top spot off the back of “Deeply Dippy” giving them a No 1 double whammy. There are two Greatest Hits albums in there courtesy of Madness and Lionel Richie, a loyal fan based generated chart topper from Iron Maiden, a Eurovision Song Contest driven album from the UK’s entry Michael Ball and of course the ubiquitous Simply Red. The only album in this sequence that was a real surprise came from Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine.

The singles chart was stagnant by comparison with only twelve different songs making it to No 1 all year, the lowest number since 1962. Were any of this week’s offerings on TOTP amongst them? Well, yes obviously there’s this week’s actual No 1 but apart from that is obviously what I meant!

We start with Marc Almond whose version of “The Days Of Pearly Spencer” is ripping up the charts and currently residing in the No 4 spot. Host Tony Dortie promotes it as a future No 1 later on. Was his prediction correct? Well, *SPOILER* no but No 4 was a damn fine effort by Marc. With the exception of his No 1 in 1989 with Gene Pitney, his biggest ever solo hit before this was his cover of Jacques Brel’s “Jacky” which peaked at No 17.

Like Vanessa Williams the other week, Marc is backed by a seated orchestra in full performance dress code. The effect is rather spoilt though as Marc is isolated away from the orchestra on a small circular stage and surrounded by the studio audience clapping along enthusiastically. The sound of the hand claps is rather incongruous drowning out as it does the strings of the orchestra. Marc gives a professional turn though, all serious mannerisms and intense staring at the camera.

Marc would only make the UK Top 40 would more time in 1995 with “Adored And Explored” but continues to release material both in his own right and as part of a rejuvenated Soft Cell.

It’s another one of those live satellite link ups next. I’m not sure they have quite been the success that new producer Stanley Appel must have hoped they would be. It all seems very clunky and the talky bits between the presenters and artist are excruciating. That’s if they can even hear each other. In the last such link up, either Roxette couldn’t hear guest hosts Smashie and Nicey due to a technical fault or they were ignoring them.

This week’s ‘satellite’ artist are En Vogue who are coming at us live from LA on the legendary Soul Train TV show. We hadn’t seen En Vogue for a whole two years since their debut hit single “Hold On”. I’d pretty much forgotten all about them but suddenly they were back with a track that would become another huge success in “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)”.

I remember not being sure about this track when I first heard it – I think it was all those ‘ooh bops’ and that a capella breakdown half way through. It was a bit too far removed from my pop sensibilities. However, my wife loved it and I can see why now. If you Google this song, the word that keeps coming up in all the online reviews is ‘sassy’ and it’s a spot on description. These ladies were all about sassy and female empowerment.

The lead single from their “Funky Divas” album, it was a hell of a way to announce that they were back. A No 2 hit in the US and No 4 in the UK, this wasn’t even the best single released from the album for me with that honour going to anti-prejudice anthem ”Free Your Mind”.

Their performance here is great but was it live? It almost sounds too perfect. Maybe you could get away with miming if you weren’t actually in the TOTP studio and therefore didn’t have to abide by the live vocal policy? I’m sure that’s the loophole that Boris Johnson’s legal team would be pursuing.

At the start of this post I commented on how the album charts were being dominated by established artists but was that true of the Top 40 singles? Well, in this show we’ve got some R’n’B, some goth rock, some metal, two 80s acts showing there was still life in them into the 90s and…erm… Right Said Fred. And this lot who presenter Claudia Simon described as when rave meets reggae whilst also claiming that TOTP brought us all kinds of music. Hard to dispute that given tonight’s running order. Fellow presenter Tony Dortie said it was his favourite current Top 40 hit. SL2 were the act that were the apple of Tony’s eye and their hit was “On A Ragga Tip”. This was the second consecutive hit for these London hardcore ravers after 1991’s “DJs Take Control /Way In My Brain” and would be the biggest of their career when it peaked at No 2.

Not being much of a rave nor reggae fan, this didn’t really do anything for me. Apparently it’s built around a sample from Jah Screechy called “Walk And Skank”. I’ve no idea who Jah Screechy is or was but I’m betting that you can’t see his song title for the first time without doing a double take after reading it as something else completely!

In this performance the dancer on the left clearly loses her place in her moves at one point and has to count herself back in. Don’t get me wrong, they’re impressively complicated steps but it was quite noticeable.

https://youtu.be/_ff7Dr0d-4w

What’s the difference between The Beatles and The Sisters Of Mercy? Yes, obviously one were the lovable mop tops who’s sound ate the world and the others are some dour goths from Leeds but that’s not what I meant. No, I was after the answer that one gave up touring to concentrate on recording studio albums and the other gave up recording studio albums to concentrate on touring. Incredibly, Andrew Eldritch and co have not released any new material since 1993 due to a dispute with their record label EastWest. The band went on strike against the label in 1993. Why? It seems to be about accusations against the label of incompetence including a disastrously planned tour with Public Enemy. Unfortunately for the Sisters, they still owed the label two albums according to their contract and were forced to re-record 1983 single “Temple Of Love” as “Temple Of Love 92” for a compilation of their early back catalogue called “Some Girls Wander By Mistake”. To jazz it up a bit (can you jazz up goth rock?) they’ve got in Ofra Haza of “Im Nin’alu” fame on backing vocals.

This version went straight into the charts at No 3 which seemed slightly surprising to me back then and still does today. In my teenage years, going goth was a cool statement to make. I flirted with the fringes of it but never quite had the conviction to dye my hair black so I’m hardly a knowledgeable commentator on this but it still seems an unlikely chart high. Maybe I’m doing them a disservice. I’m sure they had/have a loyal fan base of hardcore devotees.

A second compilation album, “A Slight Case Of Overbombing”, released in 1993 covered the band’s back catalogue from 1984 onwards but their recording contract stipulated that they still owed EastWest two studio albums. In the end, the label accepted two albums under the moniker of SSV which were a project constructed by Eldritch just to fulfil their contractual obligations. The albums consisted of just some synths, no percussion and some mumbled, spoken word vocals by Eldritch on a loop. EastWest accepted the master tapes without listening to them first. The recordings were never released. This story reminds me of that scene in 24 Hour Party People where Shaun Ryder and Happy Mondays manager Nathan meet Tony Wilson in Dry bar in Manchester to deliver the master tapes for the band’s eagerly awaited “Yes Please” album. Listening to the tapes, Wilson starts getting into the first track until he realises there are no vocals on them with Ryder and manager giggling in the background as they’ve spent all the money Wilson fronted for the album to be recorded in Barbados on drugs.

Eldritch looks here like he’s been to a health spa since the last time we saw him on the show when he looked like a living waxwork. I guess even goth rock gods have to grow up eventually .

https://youtu.be/X8WH-vqGm3Y

I guess there was no way that TOTP wasn’t going to show Michael Jackson’s video for “In The Closet” again given the chance. Although it’s only at No 8 in the charts, that’s good enough for a second outing for it. The track was actually credited to ‘Michael Jackson and Mystery Girl’ the latter of whom provides some whispered vocals in the middle. It turns out that was Princess Stéphanie of Monaco who had a brief career as a pop star in the 80s but who was completely washed up by 1992. Maybe she thought she could relaunch herself off the back of this Jackson track. If so, might have been BBC a good idea to get yourself a proper credit rather than a lame pseudonym. Hands up who else now has the execrable “Mysterious Girl” by Peter Andre in their head after reading the above paragraph? Many apologies.

Now this next link was unusual. The Cure were meant to be playing in the studio performing “Friday I’m In Love” according to Tony Dortie but there’s a problem. Singer Robert Smith is not available due to illness so they’re going to have to play the video instead. Nothing that out of the ordinary except…why are band members Simon Gallup and Perry Bamonte in the studio to deliver this news? Was Robert taken ill at the very last moment? What gives? Simon and Perry look they’d rather be bungee jumping into a live volcano than being interviewed on TOTP. They also don’t seem too convincing with their story. Were they not on the level? Here’s @TOTPFacts:

So… was Robert Smith really "not very well"? At The Cure's Nottingham Rock City gig on 27 April 1992 he asked the audience whether or not they should bother doing it. The majority of the audience said no… #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 11, 2022

Cheeky scamps! As for their song, this is surely one of the band’s most radio friendly and therefore well known singles. The chaotically simple video with its fast cuts, set pieces and ever changing backdrop curtains just adds to its charm and won an MTV Video Music Award. The Cure were never as big commercially again as they were in this moment but then Robert Smith probably wouldn’t have had it any other way.

They’ve moved the Breakers again back to that incongruous position just before the No 1. There’s also four of them which is deeply unhelpful to this blogger who is already behind schedule writing up all these TOTP repeats. The intro for this feature sees Tony Dortie and Claudia Simon as disembodied heads on multiple giant video screens which was presumably meant to be cutting edge at the time… or was it just a blatant Max Headroom rip off? The script for the intro sounds like it was written just 10 seconds before being spoken with Extreme described as having “one hot song” and Metallica being about to “rock in at 12”. Oh dear.

And it’s Metallica that we start with “Nothing Else Matters”, the third single from their eponymous ‘black’ album. Apparently this is one of the LA heavy metallers best known and most loved songs but I’m afraid it must have passed me by. I’m trying to remember who I was working with in the Market Street Our Price shop in Manchester at the time who was a big rock fan who might have played the album in store but I can’t think of any which may explain my unawareness of it. Hang on! Our Price legend Knoxy was there and he was a true rocker. He must have given the album a spin a few times surely? I loved working with Knoxy. King of the one liners (not all of them PC back then I have to say) and possessor of an epic quiff. He later grew a huge mane of rock god hair. Top bloke.

“Nothing Else Matters” peaked at No 6.

Now this was a chart (ahem) curiosity. Back in 1987, Curiosity Killed The Cat were the dog’s bollocks when it came to being the next happening chart stars. “Down To Earth” took them to No 3 and their debut album was a chart topper. The newspapers and glossy music mags were full of these four groovy hipsters (not that sort of hipster!) with their good looks and danceable pop tunes especially lead singer Ben Volpeliere- Pierrot and his ever present beret. By the end of the year though, they were pretty much done with just one further Top 40 hit arriving in 1989.

A 90s comeback was surely not on anybody’s cards but never underestimate the power of a cover version. Trimmed down to a three piece and with a truncated band name of just Curiosity, they recorded Johnny Bristol’s innuendo heavy 1974 No 3 hit “Hang On In There Baby”. They may not have had nine lives like the felines that inspired their original name but they must have used up at least three to be back in the charts five years after their first hit. This really was a last hurrah though despite the single equalling the chart peak of Bristol’s original. Two subsequent singles failed to scratch the Top 40 and a third album “Back To Front” went straight in the bin like so much cat litter.

While the rest of the band gave up on the idea of being pop stars after that, Ben Volpeliere- Pierrot clung on to the notion that he still was and carried on performing at retro festivals. I even saw him at one of those 80s Rewind concerts in Manchester around 2001. I think he was advertised as ‘Ben from Curiosity Killed The Cat’. He was first on a bill of about seven acts. Miaow!

It’s that “hot song” from Extreme next. “Song For Love” was the fifth and final single to be released from the band’s “Pornograffitti” album and *guilty pleasure alert* possibly my favourite. It’s completely prosaic and hackneyed but I kind of like it anyway. It sounds like the band had been listening to “God Gave Rock ‘n’ Roll To You” by Argent that was covered by Kiss for Bill And Ted’s Bogus Journey which I also had a soft spot for.

The band would return later in the year with their concept album “III Sides To Every Story” which despite receiving acclaim from their fan base sold poorly due to the absence of a genre bending, mainstream appealing hit single like “More Than Words” had been.

After opening the show last week, EMF find themselves with just a few seconds in the Breakers this week. Last week’s appearance was billed as an ‘Exclusive’ so I’m guessing their “Unexplained EP” hadn’t actually entered the charts at that point. It’s in at No 18 this week. Its spot in the Breakers didn’t do much for its chart prospects though as it didn’t get any higher.

I’m still not convinced about the legitimacy of the Breakers. In reality it was probably just the second tier of exposure that the show’s producers could offer to record labels wanting to promote their acts with the first tier obviously being a full in studio performance or playing of the promo video.

There’s a weird addendum at the end of the section when Claudia Simon bigs up the diversity of artists featured but reserves a special mention for one of them when she says “as for Extreme, they are just so good”. Odd.

Right Said Fred are at No 1 again with “Deeply Dippy” and the talk on Twitter was all about what Richard Fairbrass was wearing which seemed to be some sort of Lycra onesie. More accurately it was what his outfit highlighted that was the hot topic of conversation. It’s hard to unsee his package once you’ve noticed it. And how could you fail to notice it. Not since Stuart Adamson of Big County wore his tight white strides back in the 80s had such a lunchbox been spied. I think this tweet from Lee Roberts probably summed up most people’s reaction:

Ffs put it away mate
— Lee Roberts (@MrScoops76) February 11, 2022

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Marc Almond	The Days Of Pearly Spencer	I did not
2	En Vogue	My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)	Yes this is in the singles box but I think my wife bought it
3	SL2	On A Ragga Tip	Nah
4	Sisters Of Mercy	Temple Of Love 92	Nope
5	Michael Jackson	In the Closet	Negative
6	The Cure	Friday I’m In Love	Not the single but I have a Greatest Hits of theirs with it on
7	Metallica	Nothing Else Matters	But neither did this – no
8	Curiosity	Hang On In There Baby	No
9	Extreme	Song For Love	Liked it, didn’t buy it
10	EMF	The Unexplained EP	It’s a no
11	Right Said Fred	Deeply Dippy	And a final no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00149b0/top-of-the-pops-30041992

TOTP 23 APR 1992

Posted on February 15, 2022 by 80stastic

The curse of Adrian Rose has struck again meaning we have missed the 16 April show. As such we arrive in the week that the race for the last ever First Division title was decided before the juggernaut of the Premier League arrived the following season. The day before this TOTP aired. Manchester United had suffered an unexpected 1-0 loss at relegation threatened West Ham. This set up a scenario whereby title rivals Leeds could become champions at the weekend if they won and United lost again. Both teams were due to play on the Sunday with Leeds playing first away at Sheffield United and Man Utd facing the daunting task of a trip to their old enemy Liverpool.

As it turned out, at the same time that Leeds were playing their game, I was also involved in a match of high stakes when I played for an Our Price team against a team of record company reps on some playing field somewhere in the Greater Manchester area. I have very little recall of the game (certainly not the result) though I do remember thinking I could be watching Sunday morning TV rather than doing this shit for absolutely nobody’s benefit. As we left the field after somebody had decided enough was enough (there was no ref to call full time), Leeds were securing a 3-2 win courtesy of a ludicrous own goal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtT3mDAECNU

Later that day I watched ITV’s coverage of Man Utd 0-2 loss at Liverpool which made Leeds the champions. They had a TV crew at Leeds striker Lee Chapman’s house who had some of his team mates with him including the talismanic Eric Cantona and dour Yorkshire man David Batty. As the final whistle sounded at Anfield, a live link to Chapman’s living room enabled an immediate reaction from the Leeds players. Asked how he felt at winning the title by the interviewer, Batty replied “well, it’s a bonus”. Now that’s what I call an exclusive scoop!

TOTP start the show this week with their own exclusive scoop – the return of EMF! Hmm. The underwhelmed David Batty or a new EMF single – which was the bigger scoop? I think we’ll call that one a draw. Don’t get me wrong, I loved “Unbelievable” it’s just that everything that came after that was all a bit samey but not quite as good. Some 18 months on from their moment of magnificence, were we all still on tenterhooks awaiting new material from the band.? Whether we were or not, new material was what we got and not just one song but four in the form of the “Unexplained EP”. I say four new songs but one of them was a cover of Iggy And The Stooges’ “Search And Destroy” but let’s not be pedantic.

The song performed here is “Getting Through” and it didn’t tinker with the EMF formula too much, basically being yet another rehash of everything they had gone before. The result wasn’t terrible just a bit…meh. Lead singer James still has his terrible trademark headgear on and nothing seems to have moved forward at all.

In September they released their second album “Stigma” (which included “Getting Through”) to a lukewarm reaction when it peaked at No 19 and spent just two weeks on the chart before dropping as fast as David Batty’s excitement levels.

The “Unexplained” EP peaked at No 18.

Not this fella again! I think this is the third time for Curtis Stigers and his second hit “You’re All That Matters To Me”. This performance is a carbon copy of the one he did the other week even down to the white shirt and waistcoat combo he’s wearing and has forced the members of his backing band to as well. He’s even in in the same spot in the running order just after the Top 10 countdown. He has changed his backing singers and has got them a bit more coordinated in their dance moves although it’s pretty much your basic nerd shuffle. Enough of this. Next!

Well, this is as far removed from Curtis Stigers as it gets. Here’s Iron Maiden! You have to hand it to these lads, they had a loyal fan base and knew how to utilise them. Since 1988, the chart peaks of their seven singles released in that period were:

3-5-6-6-3-1-2

The final number in that sequence relates to this track “Be Quick Or Be Dead”, the lead single from their ninth studio album “Fear Of The Dark”. Never mind EMF sticking to a formula, this lot had been churning out variations on the same theme for years. I know that opinion is heresy to their fans but, like I say, it’s just an opinion.

The CD single came with a hidden extra track called “Bayswater Ain’t A Bad Place To Be” which is basically Bruce Dickinson ripping the piss out of the band’s manager Rod Smallwood in an accent that sounds a bit like Bill Oddie. I managed about two and a half minutes of the eight minutes and eight seconds of it. Can you do any better?

They’ve moved the Breakers to a more sensible position in the show as opposed to just before the No 1 so here they are starting with Marc Almond and “The Days Of Pearly Spencer”. I had no idea initially that this wasn’t an Almond original but it is of course a cover version of a David McWilliams tune. Who? Well, he was a Belfast singer songwriter who scored a No 1 hit with his “Harlem Lady” single in France but remained largely unknown in the UK. “The Days Of Pearly Spencer” was on the B-side of “Harlem Lady” and gained a lot of attention due to a massive advertising campaign launched by his manager Phil Solomon but it failed in the UK as Radio 1 refused to play it due to Solomon’s close ties to pirate radio station Radio Caroline. Supposedly written about a homeless man in Ballymena, County Antrim, its heavily stylised chorus came about from recording McWilliams’ vocals using a telephone line from a phone box near the studio.

Marc’s version was taken from his “Tenement Symphony” album and was quirky enough to prick the curiosity of the record buying public who made it a huge No 4 hit. Considering the majority of his solo singles were minor hits at best and often chart flops (with the obviously huge exception of “Something’s Gotten Hold Of My Heart”) this was both a big deal and very surprising. Unfortunately the single’s success didn’t translate to the album which peaked at a low lowly No 39.

https://youtu.be/4NlGAVdkqKA

If Leeds United were having a stellar season in 1991/92 finishing as First Division champions, then Kylie Minogue was having a distinctly mid table time of it. Her album “Lets Get To It” had seriously underperformed with two of the four singles from it not making the UK Top 10, the first time this had ever happened to her.

The second of those singles was “Finer Feelings” which at the time the critics were talking up as indicating a more mature direction that she would surely be following once her much predicted uncoupling from Stock, Aitken and Waterman was complete. Maybe the press was just reacting to the fact that the lyrics referred to ‘sex’ and ‘sexual healing’. Like “Word Is Out” before it, “Finer Feelings” is very much a forgotten Kylie single although it was also a line in the sand as a demarcation between her eras. Her next studio album would be on dance label Deconstruction and would usher in a whole new phase of her career.

After I’ve moaned on about the Breakers section bring a waste of time recently with it featuring singles that would amount to very little chart wise and which would not be seen on TOTP again, it seems to have been repurposed to highlight those that have been on the show as recently as the previous week and are now moving up the charts. Two of this week’s Breakers fall into that category. Kylie was the first and now comes Michael Ball who was on the show just seven days before.

After a brief but very successful time in the charts during 1989 when “Love Changes Everything” was a No 2 hit, you could have been forgiven for thinking that was it for The Ballster as a pop star. However, never underestimate the influence of the Eurovision Sing Contest. Well, at least not in the early 90s.

After the failure of Samantha Janus the previous year, the BBC took the decision of who would represent the UK out of the public’s hands and pre chose Ball. They did though allow us to choose which song he would sing out of a choice of eight. Yes, that meant that A Song For Europe show this year featured a lot of Michael Ball! “One Step Out Of Time” was the track given the honour of representing the country and what a fluffy, little lightweight thing it was. I never felt like it really suited Ball’s voice but maybe that’s because all I’d ever heard him sing before that was “Love Changes Everything”. However, it very nearly did the business on the big night coming in second to Ireland (obviously).

The sliding sections video has a feel of Duran Duran’s “Rio” to it though Michael was hardly the Simon Le Bon type. An album was released off the back of the single’s success which included “Love Changes Everything” despite it having been released as a single a whole three years prior. And if you thought Michael Ball was bad, the following year’s entry was Sonia!

The second mention in this section for the Deconstruction label comes courtesy of K–Klass. These arch mixers had a massive hit in their own right at the back end of 1991 with “Rhythm Is A Mystery” so they thought they’d have a go at doing it all over again with follow up single “So Right”. I don’t remember this track so couldn’t tell you how this went at all but I’m guessing it sounds exactly the same as the first hit.

*listens to 30 seconds of the track*

Yep. I was right. Next!

Rivalling Leeds United in the annus mirabilis stakes in 1992 were Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine. They even named their No 1 album (No 1!) after the year -“1992 – The Love Album”. How did this happen? A fervently indie act with a defiantly anti-mainstream sound and subversive image as chart topping pop stars? Well, being signed to major label Chrysalis Records who picked up the band after the demise of Rough Trade probably helped but was it just that? Was there also a desire for something reactionary in an era of the conventional and the ordinary that CUSM were in the right place at the right time to take advantage of? Was it to do with their infamous Philip Schofield felling appearance at the Smash Hits Awards show a few months earlier? Or was it just a case of a talented duo with some great songs naturally rising to the top?

Whatever the reason, “Only Living Boy In New Cross” would become the band’s first and only Top 10 hit. A clear play on words of the Simon & Garfunkel song “The Only Living Boy In New York”, its performance here is reminiscent of some of those ‘party atmosphere’ shows of the mid 80s with balloons galore and a stage full of audience members. Didn’t The Smiths do something similar in terms of having a crowd up there with them? I’m pretty sure Wheatus did years later whilst performing “Teenage Dirtbag” on the show.

Inevitably with all peaks, their commercial zenith couldn’t last and it didn’t. Their descent came about just as they’d reached their high point. Headlining that year’s Glastonbury Festival was confirmation of their elevated status and yet it went sour after Fruitbat, infamous rugby tackler of Philip Schofield, insulted the legendary Michael Eavis after being annoyed that their set was cut short due to some bands who were on before them overrunning. It led to a lifetime ban from the festival.

“Only Living Boy In New Cross” peaked at No 7.

https://youtu.be/kUqaoBALGFM

I hate it when the show has an ‘exclusive’ showing of a Michael Jackson video because there’s so much to read about them online whilst doing research for the blog. Anyway, here’s the next one for the third single from his “Dangerous” album “In The Closet”. If the internet had been around in 1992 like it is today then this song title would have been the ultimate click bait. Michael Jackson? In The Closet? Is he coming out of said closet? However the song didn’t reveal anything about Jacko’s sexual orientation but instead dealt with the story of a clandestine relationship. The lyrics were pretty suggestive though with lines like ‘Cause if it’s aching you have to rub it’ and ‘touch me there, make the move’ but then it was co-written with Teddy Riley who also penned such salacious tunes as “Rump Shaker” and “No Diggity”.

I have to say that although I knew there was a Michael Jackson song called “In The Closet”, I couldn’t remember at all how it went. Listening to it now I forgive myself as it’s entirely forgettable. Also suffering from amnesia was Jackson himself who forgot to put any tune into the track – it’s as if it was created purely just to construct a dance routine for the video. Ah yes , the ‘exclusive’ video – that’s crap as well. It’s just Jacko and Naomi Campbell cavorting about on a sepia tinted set. Compared to the mini epics that were his last two videos for “Black And White” and “Remember The Time”, it’s a huge let down.

“In The Closet” only made No 8 on the UK Top 40 and the next two singles did even worse before the trend was reversed with a perfectly timed Xmas release of saccharine ballad “Heal The World” – basically a rewrite of “We Are The World” – just missing the top spot when it peaked at No 2.

We have a new No 1 after eight weeks of Shakespear’s Sister sitting on the throne. Actually, Right Said Fred were No 1 the week before but we missed that show due to the Adrian Rose conundrum but they’re still there this week with “Deeply Dippy”. Now in an interview on the songfacts.com website, the Fairbrass brothers told the story that they nearly toured with Faith No More. Apparently both sides liked what the other did and there was a definite motivation to make it happen but management got cold feet. They were also rumoured to be offered a support slot with Michael Jackson but the band were put off by all the rules, regulations and restrictions surrounding Jackson and being in his presence. Both stories got me thinking about unlikely touring partners or support acts. Surely the most infamous one is Jimi Hendrix supporting The Monkees but there must be other outlandish examples surely?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	EMF	Unexplained EP	Nope
2	Curtis Stigers	You’re All That Matters To Me	Nah
3	Iron Maiden	Be Quick Or Be Dead	Certainly not
4	Marc Almond	The Days Of Pearly Spencer	Liked it, didn’t buy it
5	Kylie Minogue	Finer Feelings	No but I think my wife had it on a Greatest Hits album
6	Michael Ball	One Step Out Of Time	Did I bollocks!
7	K-Klass	So Right	So wrong – no
8	Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine	Only Living Boy In New Cross	Don’t think I did
9	Michael Jackson	In The Closet	In the bin more like – no
10	Right Said Fred	Deeply Dippy	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/m001499y/top-of-the-pops-23041992

TOTP 13 FEB 1992

Posted on January 21, 2022 by 80stastic

We’ve missed another show due to Adrian Rose’s still unexplained refusal to sign the repeat waiver for the TOTP episodes on which he presented and so we arrive in the middle of February, 24 hours before Valentine’s Day. That means it’s been four whole months since the new, ‘year zero’ revamp of the show. How do we think it’s been going?

I have to say that I can’t think of anything that’s been introduced that’s improved the show. The live vocal policy has just found people out rather than given the performances an extra edge. The relegation of the chart rundown to just the Top 10 (with no voice over initially) seems to have been just for the sake of drawing a line under the old format and the studio set up with the audience visible running in between stages seems chaotic. The on stage interviews of the artists from the early weeks has been ditched thankfully (they were excruciating and pointless) but the new sections such as the ‘exclusive’ showing of new videos and the US charts seem shoehorned in for the sake of it.

And then there’s the presenters. It’s not that I think they were terrible – heaven knows that the old guard of Radio 1 DJs have prompted reams of ire from me during these TOTP posts – it’s just that they didn’t seem to add anything other than youthful over enthusiasm which in the case of some resulted in a lot of shouting of links (yes I’m looking specifically at you Claudia Simon). To be fair, Tony Dortie and his silly urban yoof slang has grown on me and he seems to be a decent fellow who tweets along to the repeats with good humour.

Tonight’s show has tinkered with the formula rather. There are only three studio performances and the three of the nine acts on tonight are just the Breakers which have been moved back to that incongruous position just before the No 1. It just doesn’t feel right.

The opening act tonight are…WTF?! It’s those talentless bozos Color Me Badd. Now if like me you thought this lot’s rise to fame and subsequent descent to the wilderness all happened within the calendar year 1991, then also like me, you’ll be wondering what the hell they are doing on TOTP in 1992.

Well, it’s all to do with what I was talking about earlier and those new sections. This time it’s the turn of the US charts which is why Color Me Badd are on the show except…as far as I can tell this track “Heartbreaker” wasn’t released as a single in the US. It seems to only feature in the lower regions of the chart in New Zealand, the Netherlands and this country. Yes, the lower regions, so low it didn’t actually make our Top 40 peeking at No 58. So it wasn’t in the American charts nor was it in ours? What’s that Claudia? It’s No 6 on the Top 100? What the hell does that mean? The US album chart? The graphic in the corner of the screen just had an American flag and the No 6. It must be the US chart mustn’t it? I think a bit of behind the scenes negotiating between the BBC and the band’s record company must have been afoot. I think the Beeb were out manoeuvred though as I can’t imagine that many TOTP viewers would have been excited at the prospect of this ‘exclusive’. They were literally last year’s news. That and the fact that “Heartbreaker” stinks the place out.

Do you think they had their eyes on New Kids In The Block’s crown? The track sounds a bit like them. Clearly the lead vocalist can’t do the dance moves his three band mates behind him are cranking out as he remains motionless when one of them steps forward to do a rap halfway through. No effort is made to to swap places with him and take up the slack in the dance steps. This must have been the boy band template that Take That followed early in their career. Didn’t Gary Barlow famously struggle with bustin’ his moves that the rest of them could do effortlessly?

At the end of their performance, co-host Steve Anderson says we may well be seeing “Heartbreaker” in the British charts next week. I’m guessing that line was definitely scripted in some forlorn attempt to justify it opening the show and pretty sure that nobody in the UK had heard “Heartbreaker”again in the 30 years between the original TOTP transmission and this repeat.

“Remember The Time” when the biggest scandal in the press about Michael Jackson surrounded the rumour that he bleached his skin? Sadly for everyone involved, there would be scandals of a much more serious, damaging and distinctly horrible nature to come in the years that followed.

Back in early 1992 though, Jackson was just getting started on another round of releasing every track from his latest album as a single. Seven singles were lifted from “Thriller”, nine from “Bad”. His 1991 album “Dangerous” would follow suit with another nine tracks making it into the UK singles chart. That’s twenty five singles generated from three albums. David Coleman would surely have described it as “quite extraordinary”.

Following up global No 1 “Black And White” was always going to be a hard act even for Jackson but he gave it a good go with “Remember The Time” which was a No 3 hit in both the US and the UK. Written and produced by Teddy Riley, the creator of the New Jack Swing sound that was sweeping the world, it was no surprise that the song was in the same vein. It was all a bit too slick for my liking and didn’t hold my attention anywhere near as much as “Black And White” had.

The video was a lavish affair (of course it was) but we missed the exclusive first showing of it on TOTP the previous week as it was one of those shows that was Adrian Rosed. We still get another whopping five minutes of it tonight though. Quite why it was set in ancient Egypt I’m not sure. The track has no Egyptian connection and indeed the only country specifically mentioned in the lyrics is Spain! There’s the by now routine roster of stars in the promo including Eddie Murphy and super model Iman who would marry David Bowie later in the year. Jackson plays a wizard brought to the palace to entertain the Pharoah’s bored wife but who angers him by flirting with her instead. Cue some laborious chase scene involving Jacko and the Pharoah’s royal guards. Apparently this is the first video when Jackson kisses his female co-star. However, I’m more interested in how this particular conversation may have played out.

When a video pops up on YouTube & you have to explain to your kids why grandma was married to Eddie Murphy in ancient Egypt. 😂 @The_Real_IMAN pic.twitter.com/L5VasTjlzh
— Duncan Jones (@ManMadeMoon) July 13, 2020

The song won the 1993 Soul Train award for Best Male R&B single. Jackie performed it at the awards show sat in a chair having twisted his ankle earlier. I think I prefer him sat down instead of doing all those exhausting to watch dance moves.

https://youtu.be/Waf31G22TR4

Next we have one of two distinctly and defiantly indie bands both inside the Top 10 this week. The Jesus And Mary Chain are at No 10 and one place above them are a band that the Scottish feedback monsters gave a helping hand to at the start of their career. Apparently Jim Reid heard an early Ride demo via DJ Gary Crowley which led to interest from their former manager and founder of Creation Records Alan McGee. A recording contract followed and the band became one of the pin ups of the ‘shoegaze’ movement.

By early 1992, Ride we’re nearing their commercial peak which they would reach with their biggest hit single “Leave Them All Behind” and parent album “Going Blank Again”. Apparently the single was written about the second rate groups (in the band’s perception) that had trailed in their dust after their success came. Bit arrogant. They would be undone by a combination of touring fatigue and the advent of Britpop and they broke up in the mid 90s before reforming a couple of times in the new millennium.

Lead singer Mark Gardener would stay in the music business working with various artists and also recording as a solo artist whilst guitarist Andy Bell went onto form Hurricane #1 before famously joining Oasis and Beady Eye. However, I’m more interested in bassist Steve Queralt who was working as the singles buyer in the Banbury Our Price store when he joined Ride. Wow! There must be a few stories of pop stars working in record shops either before or after their fame. I’ve said a few times before about working with Pete the original bass player in The Stone Roses at the Stockport Our Price. I also worked with long time Peter Hook collaborater (Monaco, Peter Hook And The Light) David Potts in Manchester. Must be loads more though.

Time for one of those TOTP ‘Exclusive’ videos now but, as with Color Me Badd at the top of the show, I think the producers have seriously misjudged the demand for and excitement to be generated by the latest Bryan Adams promo. After his 16 week run at No 1 the previous year, I think we’d all had our fill of the Groover from Vancouver but that didn’t stop Steve Anderson trying his best to big up Bryan’s latest single “Thought I’d Died And Gone To Heaven” in his intro.

This was already the fourth single to be released from his “Waking Up The Neighbours” album that had only been out since September and it’s quite the plodder. There’s a definite Def Leppard vibe to it, not surprising though seeing as it was produced by the man responsible for all their big hits Mutt Lange.

As for the video, was it worth the build up and airtime? It’s a resounding no from me. It features Bry and his band in a sepia tinted hue, playing in a barley field (as you do) whilst some dolphins occasionally leap out over their heads. What?!

“Thought I’d Died And Gone To Heaven” peaked at No 8.

Almost exactly 12 months on from this TOTP, broadcast, the aforementioned Michael Jackson performed the half time show at Super Bowl XXVII. So? Well, the game took place in Pasadena, California and who are the final act in the studio tonight? Yep, The Pasadenas (I don’t just throw this stuff together you know) who are up to No 4 with “I’m Doing Fine Now”. In scenes not witnessed on TOTP since The Leyton Buzzards performed “Saturday Night (Beneath The Plastic Palm Trees)” in 1979, the band are singing their hit…yep…under some plastic palm trees.

https://youtu.be/yeHKQLke35M

Why? Who knows. Pretty sure there’s nothing in the lyrics about beaches or palm trees and the middle of February is hardly holiday season is it? To make the palm trees look even more ludicrous and indeed incongruous, the lead singer is wearing a full length leather coat and hat whilst the rest of the band all have warm looking jackets on. Just crazy.

The Pasadenas would have three more minor chart hits (all of them cover versions) so it’s possible we haven’t quite seen the last of them yet but the end is nigh.

The Breakers start this week with “For Your Babies” by Simply Red which had already been on the show before Xmas as an ‘exclusive’ performance basically to plug the “Stars” album for the festive market – as if it needed any more help in pushing sales. As such I haven’t got much else to say about it apart from if I was forced at gunpoint to pick a song from “Stars” that I could most tolerate then it would be this one.

“For Your Babies” peaked at No 9.

Macaulay Culkin appearing in TOTP was starting to become a regular occurrence. After his cameo in Michael Jackson’s “Black And White”, here he is again on the promo for a re-release of “My Girl”. His involvement here is of course because he was starring in a film that took its name from the title of The Temptations’ most well known song. I’ve never seen said film and have to admit I’d always assumed it was some cutesy, young love nonsense but having read the plot summary for it…well, without wanting to give away any spoilers, it does seem to be quite a bit darker than that.

Obviously “My Girl” the song is included both in the soundtrack and the film itself and given its success and Culkin’s then profile, it was given a re-release. I’d always assumed that it had been a massive hit in the 60s when originally recorded but although it was a US No 1, it didn’t even make the Top 40 in the UK. The 1992 re-release righted that wrong though when it went all the way to No 2.

It’s always sounded a bit like “The Tracks Of My Tears” by The Miracles to me but then it was written by Smokey Robinson so that’s hardly surprising. For the record, I think “The Tracks Of My Tears” is infinitely the better song. As for The Temptations, this was their first time in the UK Top 40 since 1984’s “Treat Her Like A Lady” and inevitably there was a Greatest Hits compilation album released off the back of it which duly went Top 10. They are still a recording entity with a new album due this very month but with a list of line ups changes that makes The Sugababes look like U2, you’d need a Tory minister to make the case that it was the same group.

And the grunge bandwagon keeps on moving….Were Pearl Jam actually a grunge band or was it just that they happened to come from Seattle? To me, debut single “Alive” sounded more like classic stadium rock than the punky, garage offerings of Nirvana but then I’m no expert on Eddie Vedder and co. I did like “Alive” though and the other singles from debut album “Ten” but I lost track of the band after that. Most rock fans didn’t though if their sales figures are anything to go by (which clearly they are). “Ten” went 13 x platinum whilst follow up “Vs.” sold 7 million copies in the US alone. Third album “Vitalogy” sold 877,000 copies in its first week making it the second fastest selling album in history only behind their own “Vs.”. Pearl Jam were and are a big deal. Somehow though, TOTP managed to avoid them and this Breaker appearance is the only time we got to see “Alive” on the show. Maybe the producers had got their fingers burned by that chaotic Nirvana studio performance of “Smells Like Teen Spirit”.

“Alive” peaked at No 16 on the UK Top 40.

The No 1 spot still belongs to Wet Wet Wet and “Goodnight Girl”. The band are still going to this day albeit without Marti Pellow in their ranks anymore. A split between the two parties back in 2017 now seems permanent, especially as there is a new lead singer installed in the form of ex Liberty X star Kevin Simm. The rift apparently surrounds Marti’s unwillingness to concentrate solely on the band and his determination to try new musical projects. A sad tale but definitely not unique. Spandau Ballet find themselves in a very similar situation with Tony Hadley.

Pellow’s real name is Mark McLachlan but he adopted his stage name which was based on his school nickname ‘Smarty’ and his mother’s maiden name. Funny that the surname McLachlan was good enough for Craig.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Color Me Badd	Heartbreaker	Not a chance
2	Michael Jackson	Remember The Time	I did not
3	Ride	Leave Them All Behind	Nah
4	Bryan Adams	Thought I’d Died And Gone To Heaven	And no
5	The Pasadenas	I’m Doing Fine Now	Nope
6	Simply Red	For Your Babies	No
7	The Temptations	My Girl	Negative
8	Pearl Jam	Alive	Liked it, didn’t buy it
9	Wet Wet Wet	Goodnight Girl	No but my wife had the album

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/m0013cfm/top-of-the-pops-13021992