Morrissey

TOTP 03 MAR 1994

Posted on February 16, 2023 by 80stastic

There’s some veritable veterans of UK music history on the show tonight in amongst all the shiny new pop kids. Sadly, we’ve also got an old timer as host who is Simon ‘Smug’ Mayo returning for his third appearance in five episodes since new producer Ric Blaxill brought back the Radio 1 DJs.

We start with 2 Unlimited who could hardly be classed as a seasoned chart act having first appeared on our charts a mere two and a half years prior but in that time they certainly packed in the hits. “Let The Beat Control Your Body” was their ninth UK hit of which all but two went Top 10. However, by 1994 the formula was starting to flounder and the hold Anita and Ray had on UK record buyers’ habits was starting to wear off. After this single made No 6, they would only return to our Top 10 once more and click up just five more Top 40 entries by the end of the decade.

I’m not sure what this performance is all about though. Are the backing dancers meant to be aliens? If so, why? I think the costumes they’re wearing are meant to be the ones that give the effect of fluorescent stripes moving independently when the person wearing it is obscured in darkness but the studio lights are far too bright and ruin any potential effect. Meanwhile, Anita seems to have styled herself on Betty Boo’s space cadet look from 1990. Interestingly, the single was renamed as “Let The Bass Control Your Body” for release in France as the word ‘beat’ sounded very similar to the French word ‘bite’ (pronounced beet). So? Well, ‘une bite’ is French slang for penis, similar to ‘cock’ or ‘dick’ in English. Sacre bleu!

https://youtu.be/UqDxtiAtCtA

The first of those veterans next. Elvis Costello hadn’t had a UK Top 40 hit for five years before this track – “Sulky Girl” – made No 22 in the charts. This was the lead single from his “Brutal Youth” album which saw Costello reunite with members of his band the Attractions for the first time since 1986. Critically well received and seen as a return to form by the fanbase, the album would go all the way to No 2 in the charts, Costello’s highest chart placing since “Get Happy!!” In 1980.

“Sulky Girl” is a good tune in my book but it still wasn’t up there with those early New Wave classics though my wife may disagree as a big Costello fan. Eight months on from this TOTP, we were at the Manchester Opera House to see Elvis on tour. He played a whopping 27 song set (including “Sulky Girl”) and was supported by a then unknown band called Cast, the members of whom were a few rows in front of us to catch the Costello show after they’d finished their slot.

After enduring 2 Unlimited at the top of the show, Costello’s appearance here is both welcome and an outlier. He seems completely at odds with the charts and indeed is on record as saying he felt the success of “Sulky Girl” was more down to record company Warner’s promotion campaign rather than the commercial appeal of the song.

He would end the decade with a collaboration with the sadly recently departed Burt Bacharach and a cover of Charles Aznavour’s “She” from the film Notting Hill. The latter is a perfect vehicle for Costello’s distinctive voice although its rise to the status of one of his most well known hits potentially undermines his back catalogue it seems to me.

https://youtu.be/e6LWWASqT88

Wait. What?! This is still in the charts? Yes, yes it is. “Breathe Again” by Toni Braxton spent a very impressive eight weeks in the Top 10 alone even managing to move back up it from No 5 to No 4 after it had seemingly peaked at No 2. It literally breathed again (ahem) in terms of its chart life. The performance here is a repeat of that live by satellite one from America where Toni performs to a non existent audience in an empty theatre that was originally broadcast a few shows prior.

https://youtu.be/Pp_OMu3top0

Simon Mayo had a special talent for coming up with one liners in his intros that were so unfunny that even if you heard them whilst under the influence of Nitrous Oxide/ laughing gas then you still wouldn’t crack a smile. The latest nugget from the Mayo repertoire saw Smug Simon trying to make a quip about confusing the name of the next artist with the “Ealing Young Conservatives”. It’s not even that they weren’t funny but they were totally stupid to boot. EYC was actually an acronym for ‘Express Yourself Clearly’ but hey, why let the truth get in the way of a bad joke? “The Way You Work It” was the US trio’s second UK hit single after “Feelin’ Alright” the year before and was more of the same, over enthusiastic, anodyne R&B/pop hybrid. It really was astounding that they managed six Top 40 hits between’93 and ‘95 with such a weak appeal.

Back to that name though and although we’ve clarified what it meant, the band themselves didn’t practice what they preached. The cover of their debut album called “Express Yourself Clearly” included its title printed upside down. Hardly communicating clearly that is it? “The Way You Work It” peaked at No 14.

Mention the name Tucker to many people of my age and you’ll likely illicit memories of Grange Hill and Todd Carty as Tucker Jenkins. Or possibly if your references are a little bit more niche, Wolfie’s cowardly mate Tucker from Citizen Smith. Barbara Tucker though? She hadn’t managed to usurp either of those two in my memory banks. It turns out that Barbara is quite the all rounder though. As well as being a singer, she’s also a songwriter and choreographer and has worked with the likes of Deee-Lite, George Clinton, David Guetta and C+C Music Factory. Apparently she clocked up five UK hit singles starting with this one “Beautiful People” which is revered as a bit of a house anthem it seems. So why don’t I remember it? Oh yeah, I don’t really like house music, that’ll be it. Sorry Barbara.

There’s three Breakers this week starting with Mötley Crüe and a track called “Hooligan’s Holiday”. These California rockers were a much bigger deal in their homeland* than they were here where they were very occasional and meek visitors to our charts. They’d had only five UK chart entries to this point, none of which got any higher than No 23. The only songs of theirs I could have named were “Girls, Girls, Girls” and “Smokin’ In The Boys Room” neither of which I liked. “Hooligan’s Holiday” was never going to convert me.

*They even had a biopic made of them in 2019 called The Dirt which was released on Netflix.

As Simon Mayo states in his intro, this was the first Mötley Crüe material after lead singer Vince Neil had been fired from/quit the band (depending on who’s version of events you believe) and was replaced by John Corabi. The eponymously titled album that he recorded with the band was their first not do the business commercially resulting in their record company refusing to fund any further albums unless Corabi was removed and Neil reinstated. There was only ever going to be one outcome – Corabi was gone and Neil returned to the fold. The band are still together (somehow) touring for the first time in seven years in 2022 as co-headliners with Def Leppard.

Now it’s Beck who we saw in the studio the other week but this time, as he’s officially a Breaker now, it’s his video for “Loser”. Shot on a budget of just $300 plus $14,000 to edit and master it, it certainly has a homemade feel to it. There’s a moment in it where Beck is wearing a stormtrooper helmet which is censored by pixelation due to copyright reasons. I guess there wasn’t any capacity in such a small budget for potential litigation costs.

The song’s lyrics may be nonsensical but that hadn’t stoped it being used for educational purposes. I have a friend who’s a teacher that used it as the source material for a school assembly to promote self confidence and a positive attitude in her students. “Loser” peaked at No 15 in the UK and No 10 in America.

I guess Michael Bolton was a music veteran even in 1994. He was 41 when this TOTP aired and had been releasing music for nearly 20 years though most of us in the UK hadn’t heard of him before his 1990 breakthrough song “How Am I Supposed To Live Without You”. This single – “Soul Of My Soul” – was not just a terrible song title but also his twelfth UK hit. Now twelve sounds quite impressive but his numbers were not great. Since that first hit that went to No 3, Bollers had only managed two further Top 10 hits and one of those was a cover version (Percy Sledge’s “When A Man Loves A Woman”). He would manage one further trip to the hallowed upper echelons with the creepily titled single “Can I Touch You…There?” that made No 6 in 1995. He has not been back there since and quite right too.

Sadly, Michael Bolton’s appearance here gave Simon Mayo the chance to get in another pointless comment. “Michael Bolton One Villa Nil” he toots referring to the result of an FA Cup fifth round tie played nearly two weeks before this TOTP aired. Why did he think this stuff was funny?

Another of those elder statesmen of music now as Mark E Smith joins forces with Inspiral Carpets on a face blistering track called “I Want You”. Now, whilst I can appreciate the legacy of The Fall and their place in musical history, I’ve never been a great fan of the actual music. I think I always found it difficult to get along with Mark E Smith’s voice. And yes, I know that opinion is musical heresy to many people out there. I just struggle with the inflections he puts on everything – the “-ahs” that seemed to follow every line he sings especially. On this relentless track though, his idiosyncrasies are perfect. The sonic power on display here is something to behold as it lays seige to your aural capacities. The difference between it and previous single “Saturn 5” defies the notion that they were all about Clint Boon’s farfisa organ.

Mark E Smith looks like he gives zero f***s that he’s on TOTP as he wanders belligerently around the stage, sometimes referring to a piece of paper that presumably had some lyrics on it though I’m guessing he could have sang anything here and nobody would have challenged him on it. Someone certainly not going to challenge him on anything was Simon Mayo who declines the opportunity to make some barbed witticism in his link by just saying “Right…OK…thank you boys”. Not so smug now eh Mayo?

“I Want You” would peak at No 18 making it the band’s third biggest hit ever and one year on from the single’s release, it was used to soundtrack a Sony In Car Stereo advert to great effect.

And so to another old timer (though he was only 34 at the time of this broadcast). According to Simon Mayo he hadn’t been on TOTP for many years though by my calculation he was on as recently as 1992. Is two years many years? I think not. Morrissey (for it is he) was bang in form in 1994. This single – “The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get” – was the lead track from his fourth studio album “Vauxhall And I” which would prove to be his first chart topper since his debut “Viva Hate” in 1988. Indeed, TMYIMTCIG would become his first Top 10 single since “Interesting Drug” in 1989. However, no other singles released from the album made the Top 40 so was this a devoted fanbase at work desperate for new material? Fair play though, it’s a good song with a lovely, lilting chorus.

I wonder if new TOTP producer Ric Blaxill was aware of the tension between Morrissey and Mark E Smith when he booked both Manchester legends on the same show? Many people had fallen foul of Smith’s ire over the years including Mozza whom Smith always referred to as “Steven”. Oh to have been a fly on the wall of the Green Room/BBC bar for this show!

https://youtu.be/ucJfUTQWFHQ

There’s no shifting Mariah Carey from the No 1 spot as her version of Nilsson’s “Without You” stands strong at the top. It will go onto sell half a million copies and end up the 7th biggest selling single of 1993 in the UK. It would be Mariah’s only solo* chart topper over here until “All I Want For Christmas Is You” finally made No 1 in 2020 after years of trying.

*She did get to No 1 in 2000 when she joined forces with Westlife to cover “Against All Odds” by Phil Collins.

One of Ric Blaxill’s innovations for the show was to use the No 1 record slot to make predictions about which records would be entering the Top 40 the following week. These were displayed in a scrolling ticker tape along the bottom of the screen. Looking at the artists posited on this show, it hardly made TOTP a musical Nostradamus. All very obvious stuff (M People, Janet Jackson etc). That doesn’t stop Mr Smug himself from praising the show by saying all of last week’s predictions came true in his intro. Mayo really was insufferable.

The play out song this week comes from Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine. Somebody on Twitter pointed out that “Glam Rock Cops” sounds an awful lot like “Parklife” by Blur. I think they may have a point although there’s no suggestion of plagiarism on either side as they were presumably written and recorded at roughly the same time? I think another artist beat them both to it by about 10 years anyway. “Steamhammer Sam” by Intaferon sounds like a “Parklife” prototype…

“Glam Rock Cops” peaked at No 24 and came from a collection of B-sides called “Starry Eyed And Bollock Naked”.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	2 Unlimited	Let The Beat Control Your Body	Of course not
2	Elvis Costello	Sulky Girl	Yes I did! For my wife though.
3	Toni Braxton	Breathe Again	Nope
4	EYC	The Way You Work It	Never
5	Barbara Tucker	Beautiful People	Nah
6	Mötley Crüe	Hooligan’s Holiday	No
7	Beck	Loser	Liked it, didn’t buy it
8	Michael Bolton	Soul Of My Soul	As if
9	Inspiral Carpets / Mark E Smith	I Want You	Not the single but I have it on their Greatest Hits CD
10	Morrissey	The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get	Negative
11	Mariah Carey	Without You	It’s a no
12	Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine	Glam Rock Cops	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/m001hyxl/top-of-the-pops-03031994

TOTP 16 JUL 1992

Posted on March 11, 2022 by 80stastic

Right – before I get into this can I just say that the BBC4 schedule for these TOTP repeats has been relentless of late. It’s been two shows every Friday for weeks now meaning lots of content needing to be created by this blogger. Can’t the BBC slip in an impromptu Proms or something to give me a blow?! Having checked the forthcoming schedule I can see there is no abatement pending at least until the end of the month. Thanks very much BBC4.

In keeping with last week, there is only one presenter again this week; the fresh faced Mark Franklin. Unlike last week there’s been a tweak to the format which sees Franklin appear on our screens straight away rather than being a disembodied voice announcing the first act and he then proceeds to go straight into a rundown of the Top 10! It seems to be a nod back to how the show used to begin in the 70s and early 80s with a chart countdown soundtracked by “Whole Lotta Love” before we saw any of the acts.

After that we’re into the music and we start with Wet Wet Wet who, like many an artist this year, seem to be having an unexpected revival of fortunes. “Lip Service” is their third Top 40 hit in succession after chart topper “Goodnight Girl” and follow up “More Than Love”. It’s also the fifth and final track to be released as a single from their “High On The Happy Side” album. I always quite liked this – it sort of frothed and bubbled away until the hook of the chorus brought it to the boil. Marti Pellow has turned up for this performance dressed as a poker playing gunfighter from the Wild West (minus a ten gallon hat) or is it as a member of Showaddywaddy?

The band would not release another studio album for three years so they filled the gap with their first Best Of compilation (“End Of Part One: Their Greatest Hits”) and a live set (“Live At The Royal Albert Hall”). Then came that single in the Summer of ‘94 but that’s a while off yet.

“Lip Service” peaked at No 15.

Our first glimpse of Madonna in 1992 came via her single “This Used To Be My Playground” which was from the film she was currently starring in A League Of Their Own. I say ‘starring’ in but hers was actually quite a secondary role in this account of the US women’s baseball league that was founded in 1943 to keep the sport in the public eye during WWII. I really am rather fond of this film with some great performances from Tom Hanks, Geena Davis and Lori Petty as the three major protagonists. One of those guilty pleasure films that I’ll watch if I stumble across while channel flipping. Madonna’s name was all over the promotion campaign for the film but as I say, her character isn’t one of the principal leads.

As for the song itself, it’s a bit of an outlier coming as it did in between* the provocative “Justify My Love” and the outright society baiting “Erotica” project. Very much a stand-alone single – contractual issues meant it couldn’t even be included on the film’s soundtrack – it’s an accomplished ballad but one which I have to admit I always found to be quite dull.

*I’m not counting the “Immaculate Collection” inspired re-releases of “Holiday” and “Crazy For You” in ‘91.

The video concept of a man flicking through a photo album, the pages of which have Madonna singing in various different settings, was not as original as it was made out to be. Boy George’s video for his “To Be Reborn” single of five years earlier had a very similar look. Indeed, in his autobiography George said he was furious when he first saw Madonna’s promo and renamed it “This Used To Be My Video”. He had a point – Madonna’s video is a direct rip off…

‘Furious’ may not have been the exact word George used to express his anger at the steal. Here’s TOTP presenter Tony Dortie:

#totp Bumped into Boy George not long after that Playground @Madonna song came out he had some very choice words about it consisting (insert multiple 4 letter words of your own choice)
— Tony Dortie (@TonyDortie) March 4, 2022

“This Used To Be My Playground” peaked at No 3.

Next up are The Wedding Present though you’d be forgiven for thinking it was Altern-8 given the hazmat suits and masks that the band are wearing. What was all that about? Well, apparently the outfits were from the promo video for the single “Flying Saucer” but while watching it back, I discovered something else that interested me far more. There’s a bit where there a close up of David Gedge that just shows his eyes and nose and I swear that could be me back then. Hell, it could be me now! Well, maybe.

Anyway, this was the latest in their year long odyssey to release a new single every month in ‘92. “Flying Saucer” was the seventh of such singles and would peak at No 22, the fourth lowest performing of the twelve released. I quite liked this one. Some crunchy indie guitar licks and Gedge’s usual idiosyncratic vocals made for a winning combination. I’m not sure that the band achieved whatever it was they were trying to with this performance though unless it was actually meant to be a send up of Altern-8.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNrzXyVl8DA

Fresh from his appearance on the last ever Wogan the other week, Jason Donovan was back in the Top 40 however implausible that may have seemed in the middle of 1992. A few things had changed since his last hit though. Firstly, he had successfully sued The Face magazine for libel after he argued that the publication had implied he was a hypocrite for lying about his sexuality after suggesting he may be gay. Secondly, he had left the Stock, Aitken and Waterman family and switched labels from PWL to Polydor.

His first album for his new masters was “All Around The World” (incidentally it shared its name with a single by one of Polydor’s most famous acts The Jam) with its lead single being “Mission Of Love”. This is a truly dreadful song. It would struggle not to come last at The Eurovision Song Contest. Actually, it would struggle not to come last in A Song For Europe. I’m amazed it got to even No 26 in our charts. Polydor we’re clearly not impressed and getting cold feet about the album. In an amazing lack of faith in their charge, they licensed some of his previous hits and shoved them on the album to beef up its sales potential. In total they added six old tracks, four from his previous albums and two from the Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat cast recording. Donovan was less than impressed and when the album stiffed, he and Polydor inevitably parted ways. The era of Jason Donovan the pop star was just about over.

Ah shit! It’s time for another wretched track. Why is it that the offensiveness of a song seems to work in direct correlation to how popular it is? “Achy Breaky Heart” by Billy Ray Cyrus became the first ever single to achieve triple platinum sales in Australia and spent five weeks at the top of the US Country charts before crossing over into the mainstream and peaking at No 4 in the Billboard Hot 100. It was a hit all across the world and yet was also voted No 2 in a VH1 poll of the 50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs. The same TV network voted it in at No 87 in their 100 Greatest Songs of the 90s poll. Has there ever been a more schizophrenic hit? There are people who despise it for popularising line dancing whilst there is also a faction who credit it with breathing life into a genre of music that was dying on its arse amongst younger audiences. It’s a basket case of song. Whatever you make of it though (and it’s almost a novelty song for me), it certainly made an impression on 1992.

Cyrus is of course the father of Miley Cyrus who rose to fame as Disney character Hannah Montana and then as a pop star under her own name. Her bio on Wikipedia is absolutely massive. I was literally scrolling for about thirty seconds just to get to the bottom and I didn’t read a word of it.

“Achy Breaky Heart” was a No 3 hit in the UK which probably means we haven’t seen the last of it yet.

If Jason Donovan’s time as a pop star was coming to an end then the next act were just getting into gear as a mainstream chart stars. The Shamen had turned tragedy into triumph when they managed to carry on despite the death of band member Will Sinnott and rack up a huge hit with a Beatmasters remix of “Pro>gen” as “Move Any Mountain” in the Summer of ‘91. Fast forward a year and they were ready to take it to the next level with an album full of hit singles. That album was “Boss Drum” and the first hit from it was “LSI Love Sex Intelligence”.

With rapper Mr. C now a full time member and the face of the band, an all out charge at the charts was ready to go. All they had to do now was get their tunes out there and they began with this No 6 hit. Another crucial addition was vocalist Jhelisa Anderson who’s contribution helped make the new sound of The Shamen.

The performance here is interesting in that that the staging of it is surely what The Wedding Present should have done instead of those hazmat suits. It’s got a goddam flying saucer prop! WTF? Did Gedge and co not see this in rehearsal and think ‘oh yeah, that’s what we should have done’. It’s sort of like the Madonna/Boy George thing but in reverse. Oh I give up trying to make sense of it all!

Just two Breakers again this week starting with that old rascal Morrissey. Surely one of his more memorable song titles, “You’re The One For Me, Fatty” was the second single from his “Your Arsenal” album although it hadn’t actually been released at this point. When it did arrive at the end of July, I was still working at the Our Price store in Market Street, Manchester and I asked our Assistant Manager Pete if he’d heard “Your Arsenal” yet to which he replied that he had no interest in listening to Morrissey’s arse! To be fair to Pete, Mozza was not his cup of tea at all. As for me, I quite liked it with its robust, glam inspired guitar (well it was produced by David Bowie’s mate Mick Ronson). “You’re The One For Me, Fatty” peaked at No 19.

The second Breaker hadn’t had a UK Top 40 hit for a couple of years and indeed only had four all told. Was (Not Was) really should have had more. If Jason Donovan could have sixteen chart hits than surely to goodness these Detroit musical boundary pushers deserved a bigger haul.

I’d first come across Was (Not Was) in 1983 when “Out Come The Freaks” narrowly missed the UK Top 40 but nearly 10 years later, despite some excellent tunes, they were still mostly known for 1987 hit “Walk The Dinosaur”. They were still deemed worthy of a Best Of chart compilation by record company Polygram and “Hello Dad…I’m In Jail” was released this year. To promote it, two tracks were released as singles. A cover of INXS’s “Listen Like Thieves” seemed like an overtly commercial decision not in keeping with the band’s previous back catalogue and it was ultimately proven to be misjudged as the single stalled at No 58.

The second single released to promote the album was a different case altogether. Now I never knew this until now but “Shake Your Head” was actually an early Was (Not Was) song from 1982 that had quite an interesting back story. It always featured the vocals of Ozzy Osbourne (who re-recorded them for the ‘92 remix by Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley) but a pre-fame Madonna had also laid down some vocals for the track that were ultimately not used by the band. As possibly the most famous woman on the planet ten years on, the band approached Madonna for permission to use her original contribution but she refused (surely she didn’t hold a grudge, not Madge) so they asked actress Kim Basinger to sing on it instead. They didn’t miss Madonna at all as “Shake Your Head” provided the band with the biggest UK hit of their career when it peaked at No 4.

Meanwhile back in the studio we find Sophie B. Hawkins though you wouldn’t know it as there is no introduction for her at all. We go straight from the end of the Breakers to a camera shot of her and her rather large backing band on stage. Not even a voiceover segue from Mark Franklin. Bit odd. “Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover” is up to No 16 by this point and Sophie gives a pretty good performance of it here. If she watched it back afterwards though, she may have been alarmed at her achingly stylish ripped jeans. As well as the tears around the knee area, she also seemed to have a big, gaping crotch hole which the TOTP cameraman managed to find in a rather salacious camera angle late on. I hope Bob Geldof wasn’t in the studio that night after his ‘I’m just going to look at you’ comment the other week!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5vlNjvfBds

Jimmy Nail has hit the proverbial on the head and is at No 1 within 2 weeks of “Ain’t No Doubt” being released. How did this happen? Since his days in Auf Wiedersehen Pet, Jimmy’s lost a lot of weight and grown his hair longer but he still isn’t what you would describe as your standard looking pop star.

Nail has crafted a career out of being a professional Geordie to the point where he was used as a tool in Anglo American relations. What am I talking about? Well, my friend Robin (the one who hates every Elton John song ever) is partial to golfing holidays in America. He usually goes with some mates who are proud Geordies and keen to promote the cultural significance of The Toon. When in a bar one holiday, the woman serving them was struggling with their accents and was curious as to where they were from in the UK. When their answer of Newcastle brought a shrug of non recognition, Robin’s mates tried to explain their home by mentioning famous people associated with the city. I think the list went like this:

Ant & Dec
Spender
Alan Shearer

When the Premier League’s all time top goal scorer failed to make her understand, it prompted howls of disbelief:

“Yer dinna nar Sheara? Clive man! She dinna nar Sheara!”

“DINNA NAR SHEARA?!” etc etc…

In the end it was Cheryl Cole who was the celebrity that the woman behind the bar knew, presumably from her stint on the US version of The X Factor. Quite why they thought throwing the name of Jimmy Nail’s TV series Spender in the mix would do the trick I do not know.

In another tweak to the show’s format, the closing song video has been reintroduced. Up until this point, the ‘year zero’ revamp shows had finished on the No 1 single. They’ve gone for a big name to relaunch this in Prince (and the New Power Generation) who are back with new single “Sexy MF”. I say back but a Prince was so prolific it seemed like he’d never been away as he always had new material out. “Sexy MF” was the first single from the album “Love Symbol” or to give it its true title ‘unpronounceable symbol’ as depicted on the cover art of the album.

Now we all know what the ‘MF’ in the title referred to (no Mark Franklin not your name) so the single had to be heavily edited to allow radio airplay. So concerned were record company Warners that they released it in the UK as a double A-side with the more palatable track “Strollin’” but nobody played that. Interestingly, though a big No 4 hit over here, it only made No 66 in the US. Maybe it was that airplay issue.

Of course, any mention of “Sexy MF” has to prompt another viewing of this:

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Wet Wet Wet	Lip Service	No but my wife had the album
2	Madonna	This Used To Be My Playground	Nah
3	The Wedding Present	Flying Saucer	No
4	Jason Donovan	Mission Of Love	Hell no!
5	Billy Ray Cyrus	Achy Breaky Heart	Double Hell no!
6	The Shamen	LSI Love Sex Intelligence	Nope
7	Morrissey	You’re The One For Me Fatty	Negative
8	Was (Not Was)	Shake Your Head	Not the single but I bought that Best Of album it wads promoting
9	Sophie B. Hawkins	Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover	It’s a no
10	Jimmy Nail	Ain’t No Doubt	That’s another no
11	Prince and the New Power Generation	Sexy MF	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/m0014zvq/top-of-the-pops-16071992

TOTP 10 OCT 1991

Posted on October 22, 2021 by 80stastic

Welcome to the brave new world of the ‘year zero’ TOTP revamp where we are into the second show of this new era. My take on the first show was that it was a right shambles and that the new features didn’t really work at all. The presenters Tony Dortie and Mark Franklin were enthusiastic but yet to find their feet and cement their personalities on the show whilst the chart rundown was an abomination. As D-Ream would say two years on from here (and indeed Howard Jones six years before), things can only get better.

An acid test of the new format arrives in the very first act on tonight as we see if the changes introduced by new producer Stanley Appel allow dance tunes to be showcased any more effectively. The person in the test drive seat is DJ Carl Cox with “I Want You (Forever)”. Once again we open the show without seeing a host at all as we get the disembodied voice of Dortie who really is shaping a reputation for himself as a mumbler. What’s he saying? “Everyone is live and firing interaction from Brighton”? What?! Take a breath man – you’re running your sentences together! As for the staging of the performance, I have to say I don’t see anything much different from how dance acts were presented previously. The main man is once again in the background on the decks whilst the singer is up front with some dancers. So far, so same as before. Yes, the vocal is live this time as per keeping with the new edict about artists appearing on the show and there’s a bit of graphic trickery when some trippy colourisation effects are laid over the top for the non-singing parts of the track but apart from that? OK, there’s maybe some more camera angles than usual in an attempt to dazzle us into thinking that there’s more going on here than our brains can take in but I’m not sure it works. They even resort to that old strategy of slipping in some bits of the promo video to try and liven up proceedings. Nah, not for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW1Iu5RCTrk

Oh, hang on. That’s new! As DJ Carl Cox finishes, the camera tracks to a bank of six TV screens and Mark Franklin appears stretched out over all of them to form one big collage of his face. Ooh! Swanky! I take it all back – the whole revamp was worth it just for that moment! Franklin introduces the Top 10 countdown and – oh no – disregard my previous comment as this new countdown is just atrocious. Unforgivable.

Talking of unforgivable, here’s Morrissey! OK, a touch unfair on the 1991 version of Morrissey maybe but some of his more recent comments are truly unpalatable. Here he is a with a fairly downbeat (if not downright miserable) tune called “My Love Life” which was the fourth and final hit single that he had in the calendar year of 1991 none of which got any higher than No 25. It was also the second of two consecutive non-album singles (following “Pregnant For The Last Time”) before he would return the following year with a proper album in “Your Arsenal”.

Mozza’s backing band are now full on rockabilly rebels with quiff-tastic hair which is not a surprise as this was around the time that Boz Boorer, founder of new wave rockabilly group The Polecats, would enter into a permanent working relationship with Morrissey as his co-writer and guitarist. “My Love Life” though wasn’t a Boorer / Morrissey composition but was written with Mark Nevin who used to be in “Perfect” hitmakers Fairground Attraction.

Coincidentally, I recently read the autobiography* of another Nevin, one of my all time football heroes Pat Nevin who himself was a big Smiths fan and indeed, he devoted an entire chapter of his book (entitled This Charming Man) to the time he went round to Morrissey’s house. Pat went to Morrissey’s gaff with his friend Vini Reilly from The Durutti Column and found his host to be overly guarded on first meeting (or “defensive preciousness” as Pat called it). To try and warm him up a bit, Nevin asked Morrissey if he had ever been interested in football to which he replied:

“I can’t say I have ever really thought about it. My mind and my thoughts have never ventured towards that area, my soul was otherwise engaged“.

A typical lah-di-dah Morrissey answer you could be forgiven for thinking. However, there was a sting in the tail. Pat was playing for Everton by this point and one of his fellow players, ex-Man Utd legend Norman Whiteside, lived on the same road as Morrissey it turned out. Nevin followed up by saying:

“I only ask because another player from our team was going to pop round with me tonight, his name is Norman and he lives not far from here.”

Quick as a flash Mozza replied:

“You mean Norman Whiteside who used to play for United and moved to Everton last year?”

You little tinker Morrissey!

Nevin replied:

“Not bad knowledge for a guy whose soul is engaged elsewhere”

The ice was broken and they got along famously for the rest of the evening. They never met again but Morrissey sent Pat a postcard inscribed with ‘From one dribbler to another’ which as Pat says, could have been a perfect Smiths song title.

*All quotes in italics are from Pat Nevin, the accidental footballer published by Monoray, 2021.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F2FUvT8EDM

Next one of those songs that got so much airplay that you end up convinced that it was a bigger hit than hit actually was. “Walking In Memphis” by Marc Cohn had already been released once in 1991 when it peaked at No 66 in June. I’m guessing it was still being played on the radio enough to warrant a re-release just a few months later and this time it would become a UK Top 40 hit. Where do you reckon it go to though? Top 10? Top 5? Nope, it didn’t even go Top 20 peaking just outside at No 22.

I think it’s the lyrics that made the song memorable with those references to Elvis, The King and Graceland but it’s not really a tribute to Presley but rather concerns Cohn’s “spiritual awakening” as he puts it himself. Cohn had come to a realisation at the age of 28 that he didn’t actually like the songs he had so far written so he took a trip to Memphis to try and clear his writer’s block. The lyrics are almost entirely autobiographical, outlining his experiences whilst there like attending the Full Gospel Tabernacle Church on a Sunday morning to hear the Reverend Al Green preach (‘They’ve got gospel in the air, and Reverend Green be glad to see you, when you haven’t got a prayer’). The words also reference visiting the Hollywood Café in Robinsonville, Mississippi to see Muriel Davis Wilkins, a retired schoolteacher who performed at the cafe (‘Now Muriel plays piano, every Friday at the Hollywood’). Cohn also references blues legend W.C. Handy, Carl Perkins who originally recorded “Blue Suede Shoes” whilst that line about the ‘ghost of Elvis’ that security didn’t see is supposedly about a story that Bruce Springsteen once successfully scaled the wall at Graceland, trying to deliver a song he wrote to Elvis but The King wasn’t at home.

Inevitably Cohn drew comparisons with the likes of Billy Joel and Elton John but unlike those two, Cohn’s career was defined by that one song which won him a Grammy in 1992 for Best New Artist. As with so many albums in 1991, the surprise success of the single created a demand for his debut eponymous album which had been released in February but which was now withdrawn by Warners (it always seemed to be Warners) before being re-released meaning that those of us working in record stores had to explain what an album being withdrawn meant to confused customers wanting the album by ‘that bloke who sings the song about Elvis’.

Interesting to note that just like Carl Cox earlier, the TOTP production team felt the need to beef up the studio performance with some clips of the video. So that was dance acts and blokes sat at pianos that the show struggled to accommodate.

For the sake of completists everywhere I should mention the following:

Cher recorded a version of this in 1995 for her “It’s A Man’s World” album and it outperformed Cohn’s version when it peaked at No 11 despite being f*****g horrible.
In 1992, jungle pioneers Shut Up And Dance released a bastardised version of “Walking In Memphis” with the lyrics and song title changed to “Raving I’m Raving”. However, as they hadn’t obtained song clearance from Cohn, he took out an injunction to stop them from making any more copies of the record. The original version had sent the song to No 2 in the UK charts but it dropped like a stone when the shops couldn’t get any more stock. A re-recorded version was then released which sounded nothing like Cohn’s song and which nobody wanted and it fell out of the charts within two weeks.
German happy hardcore ravers Scooter released a version of it entitled “I’m Raving”in 1996 but seriously, let’s not go there.

After last week’s Exclusive feature showed a song that wasn’t even a hit in the UK (“Fun Day” by Steve Wonder), this time it’s a better choice as the video for Queen‘s latest single is showcased. Possibly one fo the most poignant song titles ever, “The Show Must Go On” was the last Queen single to be released in Freddie Mercury’s lifetime. Despite no official statement from the band, rumours were now rife that Freddie was very ill by the end of November, he had gone.

Despite being the last track on the band’s final album with Freddie “Innuendo”, it was released as a single to promote their “Greatest Hits II” album that was released at the end of October. It sounds strange to say it now as the album went to No 1 and 12 x platinum in the UK but I recall that we hadn’t sold as many as expected in the Our Price I was working in (we’d got shed loads of it in). I clearly remember the store manager saying to me that we could do with Freddie dying to shift some more units. It wasn’t his finest hour to be honest.

The video is basically just an advert for “Greatest Hits II” being a montage of clips from some of their singles included in the retrospective including “I Want to Break Free”, “Radio Ga Ga” and “Breakthru” as well as some shots of the band’s legendary The Magic tour dates at Wembley Stadium.

Last week, I referenced a poll that stated that by 2014, Monty Python’s “Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life” was the most requested funeral song by us Brits. However, in 2005, a poll by digital TV channel Music Choice asked 45,000 adults across Europe which song they would like played at their funeral – “The Show Must Go On” came out on top.

The single peaked at No 16 initially but after Freddie’s death, it re-entered the Top 75 spending as many weeks there as it had done on its original chart run.

Tony Dortie’s at it again next with his urban jargon when he introduces the next act Cathy Dennis as “whipping up a storm and creating a flavour all over the world?” Creating a flavour? Actually, I bet he spelt it ‘flava’. Was that really a phrase back in ’91? Anyway, our Cathy is adopting that well worn record company strategy of following two fast hits with a slow one with the release of her ballad “Too Many Walls”. Previous singles “Touch Me (All Night Long)” and “Just Another Dream” had made a star of Cathy (although she was formally introduced to us on D Mob’s 1989 hit “C’mon and Get My Love”) so now was the time to consolidate on her success by demonstrating her diversity and that there was more to her than some sprightly dance/pop tunes. You can tell there has been some restyling of her image to support this new direction as Cathy is wearing a classy looking (albeit day- glo coloured) jacket and roll neck sweater outfit as opposed to the slinky catsuit of her “Touch Me (All Night Long)” appearance on the show and the Betty Boo style space cadet outfit for “Just Another Dream”.

“Too Many Walls” was a decent attempt at a ballad even if the final result is a little underwhelming. I was surprised to discover that it was co-written by Cathy with Anne Dudley of pioneering sound explorers Art of Noise as the song resides squarely in the safer parts of the pop world.

Despite her UK success, Cathy was still a bigger star in the US than over here at this point with this single peaking inside the Billboard Top 10 at No 8 whilst it got no further than No 17 here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtzE_Z-1LeM

After the disastrous decision in last weeks’ TOTP of getting Status Quo to launch the new album chart feature, this week we get Simply Red. Whether this is a better choice or not is open to debate. On the plus side, they were probably seen as more contemporary and they were undeniably popular as “Stars” would become the biggest selling album of the year in the UK. On the downside, it means having to stomach Mick Hucknall. The track they perform here is “For Your Babies” which you would have been forgiven for thinking must be the second single released from the album but that wasn’t the case. The title track would take that slot when it was released a month on for this performance. Maybe new TOTP producer Stanley Appel was fastidious in the details of the show and insisted that an artist must perform a non-single album track if featured in the album chart section rather than just the latest single? As it was, “For Your Babies” was released as the third single in early 1992 and would make No 9 in the charts.

Whatever you say about Hucknall, I would imagine that this new policy of making artists sing live on the show wouldn’t have fazed him in the slightest and he gives a controlled, quality vocal here on what for me, was one of the tracks on the album that I could actually stand. Mind you, by the time the album had been played to death in the Our Price I was working in all over Xmas, I could quite happily never had heard it or Mick Hucknall ever again. We get another of those ill advised interviews at the end of the song as Dortie climbs onto the stage to have a rather obsequious word with the ginger one for no apparent reason other than to plug his forthcoming tour and namecheck the new members of the band. Clearly no lessons were learned from the sphincter clenching embarrassment of an interview with Belinda Carlisle last week.

The Breakers are back to pre-‘year zero’ revamp levels with four of them crammed into 1 minute and 35 seconds. Dortie makes a bit of a mess of introducing them as he refers to “The rugby song” by Kiri Te Kanawa (you couldn’t remember “World In Motion” Tony?) and mispronouncing Public Enemy as Public Enery reviving memories of Sir Henry ‘Enery’ Cooper and this advert:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf-4Gbqyni4

Anyway, the Breakers start with Oleta Adams doing a version of Elton John’s “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me”. This was taken from the Elton John / Bernie Taupin tribute album “Two Rooms: Celebrating the Songs of Elton John & Bernie Taupin” which included covers of their songs by some huge names such as Kate Bush, Tina Turner, Hall & Oates, The Beach Boys, Eric Clapton and Sting. Despite scoring a huge global breakthrough hit with “Get Here” earlier in the year, maybe one of those aforementioned artists would have been expected to be picked as the single to promote the album but Oleta it was who got the nod and I personally think she does a decent job of one of my favourite Elton tunes. I think her take on it got patchy reviews as did the album as a whole despite its platinum sales in this country.

Also on the album was George Michael doing a song called “Tonight” from Elton’s 1976 “Blue Moves” album and yet it is George’s cover of “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me” that is far better known than Oleta’s. Elton and George first performed it together at Live Aid in 1985 with Michael including it in his set list for his Cover to Cover tour of 1991 with Elton being introduced on stage at Wembley Arena for the final show to reprise it. That performance was recorded and released as a single in November and would go to No 1 raising money for ten different charities all of which makes you wonder why George’s version wasn’t used for the “Two Rooms” album.

Oleta’s cover reached No 33 in the UK charts.

Back in 1991, the UK pretty much only knew Mariah Carey for her big ballad “Vision Of Love” from the previous year which went Top 10. Subsequent singles were only very minor hits and we could have been forgiven for thinking that Mariah might have had her day over here already. So when “Emotions” came out, those of us who had been of that opinion had to eat some humble pie. Not only was the single a Top 20 hit but the album of the same name went platinum in the UK alone. Furthermore, the single was a completely different sound and tempo to “Vision Of Love”, being an R’n’B disco stomper. Ah yes, that disco influence. Did it sound ever so slightly like the 1977 No 1 disco hit “Best Of My Love” by (ahem) The Emotions? Yes, yes it did and it didn’t go unnoticed by one of its songwriters, none other than Maurice White of Earth, Wind & Fire who took legal action and received a settlement. “Emotions” was co-written and produced by producers du jour Robert Clivillés, and David Cole of C+C Music Factory and according to one of their touring party, Carl Sturken, this is the story behind the song as he told it in an interview with songfacts.com:

“I am absolutely one thousand percent certain that when they wrote that groove, they labeled it ‘Emotions’ because it’s The Emotions’ groove. Then when Mariah Carey comes in to write over it, she sees ‘Emotions’ written as the name of the groove, so she writes a song called ‘You’ve Got Me Feeling Emotions.'”

Yeah, a likely story.

Was “Emotions’ the song where we really became aware of Mariah’s infeasibly wide vocal range? When she performed it at the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards, she reportedly sounded a G-sharp three and a half octaves above middle C. This was one of the highest notes produced by a human voice in the history of recorded music! I know we’re supposed to be impressed and all but listen to this compilation of her highest notes and tell me if it sounds nice!

~~Public Enery~~ Public Enemy now with their tribute to the newly appointed Foreign Secretary of Boris Johnson’s government Liz Truss. “Can’t Truss It”was the lead single from their “Apocalypse 91… The Enemy Strikes Black” album and was the follow up to seminal long player “Fear Of A Black Planet”. I say follow up but how did you follow up such a seismic album when it included such tracks as “911 Is A Joke” and “Fight The Power” the latter of which has come to be regarded as one of the most influential songs in hip hop history and which regularly appears in polls that try to quantify the best /most important songs of all time. “Apocalypse 91… The Enemy Strikes Black” certainly attempted the impossible performing well commercially but some reviews of it described it as good rather than classic.

As well as the much sampled James Brown and Sly & the Family Stone, “Can’t Truss It” features the more left field sample of “Im Nin’Alu” by Ofra Haza and peaked at No 22 on the UK Top 40.

And so we get to “The Rugby Song”. The1991 Rugby World Cup was only the second time the tournament had been held and this time host countries were England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and France with the final taking place at Twickenham Stadium, London. To celebrate this event, an official Rugby World Cup song was recorded and released by New Zealand opera singer Dame Kiri Te Kanawa. “World In Union” was its title and it was based on “Thaxted” from the middle section of “Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity”, a movement from Gustav Holst’s “The Planets” though most of us knew the melody as being from the hymn, “I Vow to Thee, My Country”. It was hardly “World In Motion” by New Order but it proved to be surprisingly (at least to me) popular earning itself a chart high of No 4.

As for the tournament itself, it kind of passed me by. I had to look up that England actually made the final (losing to Australia 12-6) though when I checked the names of the team that day, I certainly recognised the likes of Will Carling, Rory Underwood, Rob Andrew and Jeremy Guscott. Maybe I even watched the final on TV but I can’t recall. There seemed to be a much bigger fuss about the 2003 final probably because we won it (Johnny Wilkinson and all that) and I definitely remember watching that match.

Just as the era of “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” is coming to an end, we enter another that defies explanation – the time of 2 Unlimited is upon us. This lot were formed by Belgian producers Jean-Paul De Coster and Phil Wilde but those aren’t the people that we associate with 2 Unlimited. No, they would be Dutch rapper Ray Slijngaard and vocalist Anita Doth who fronted the act. “Get Ready for This” for this was their debut hit and it was just dreadful. Totally annoying and basically just a keyboard riff played over and over again. Apparently the UK release was different to the version the the rest of Europe got served up which featured a rap from Ray but all we got was the line ‘Ya’ll ready for this?’ repeated four times plus the occasional ‘yeah!’ thrown in for good measure. Oh and an 808 State-lite middle eight. This was just an awful nonsense.

Foolishly I consoled myself with the thought that this would just be another one off Eurodance hit and we would never hear from 2 Unlimited again. How wrong I was as they would clocked up 14 UK Top 40 hits over the course of the decade including their only No 1 “No Limits:” in 1993. My God! What were people doing in the 90s?!

“Get Ready For This” closes with Dortie dancing on stage with 2 Unlimited (Gary Davies would never have done such a thing!) and we get the aforementioned “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” by Bryan Adams now into its 14th of 16 weeks at the top to close the show. By this point, I think the papers were seriously talking it up as the Xmas No 1! I’ve really got nothing left to say about this other than the parent album “Waking Up The Neighbours” had been released about three weeks before and had gone to No 1 as well. If it’s any consolation to those all Bryan’d out, he would not record another studio album for five years and once he had stopped releasing singles from “Waking Up The Neighbours” in early 1992, he would only release three singles in that time two of which were from film soundtracks and one was a stand alone to promote 1993’s Best Of album “So Far, So Good”. The end is in sight…

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	DJ Carl Cox	I Want You (Forever)	Nah
2	Morrissey	My Love Life	No thanks
3	Marc Cohn	Walking In Memphis	I wasn’t tempted
4	Queen	The Show Must Go On	But I didn’t buy a ticket for it – no
5	Cathy Dennis	Too Many Walls	Nope
6	Simply Red	For Your Babies	NO!
7	Oleta Adams	Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me	I did not
8	Mariah Carey	Emotions	Negative
9	Public Enemy	Can’t Truss It	And I didn’t – no
10	Kiri Te Kanawa	World In Union	Nothing here for me
11	2 Unlimited	Get Ready For This	Away with you!
12	Bryan Adams	(Everything I Do) I Do It for You	It’s 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/m0010k2r/top-of-the-pops-10101991

TOTP 01 AUG 1991

Posted on September 15, 2021 by 80stastic

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I f******g love The Proms! I’m not a classical music buff or anything (though I have been once and actually rather enjoyed it) but the real reason for my appreciation of this peculiarly British and currently devisive institution is that they completely hijack the BBC4 TV schedule and ride roughshod over all the usual programming. The consequence of this is that last week the TOTP repeats didn’t happen at all meaning I get a week off from this blog! Except that I’m always behind so I still have this one to do before it all starts again in earnest meaning if I want to kick back for a few days before this Friday’s resumption, I need to get a shift on with it.

Just before I get into the music though, a little context. Wikipedia tells me that the day after this TOTP aired, a little trumpeted and even less remembered comedy show premiered on Channel 4 that me and my wife used to love. Anybody else remember Packet Of Three? It was a very early vehicle for Frank Skinner and Jenny Eclair and also featured Henry Normal who would go on to write for the Mrs Merton Show and set up Baby Cow Productions which would give us such celebrated comedies as Alan Partridge, The Mighty Boosh and Gavin And Stacey.

Packet Of Three was a mixture of sit com and stand up set in the fictional Crumpsall Palladium showcasing real life stand up comedians whilst behind the scenes the three main protagonists played characters who ran the theatre. Normal was the theatre owner, Skinner the stage manager and Eclair the kiosk attendant. The opening titles festered the three of them as Gerry Anderson style puppets and had a pretty funky sounding theme tune. The whole thing had the feel of The Muppet Show I guess and it certainly helped to fill out many a Friday night when we were skint and had no money for going out. Here’s an episode featuring a very young Steve Coogan…

Anyway, back to the music and we start with one of the most infamous songs of the whole decade. “I’m Too Sexy” would go on to become ingrained in the nation’s collective mind over the course of the Summer – one of the most insanely catchy yet annoying ear worms of all time I would suggest. Remarkably however, the people behind the song would somehow manage to forge a career off the back of it and are still managing to achieve media coverage to this day though not perhaps for the best of reasons. Right Said Fred were of course named after the novelty single by Bernard Cribbins in 1962 and I have to admit that I could only see “I’m Too Sexy” in the same vein – a novelty hit like all those other intensely annoying examples of the genre from charts gone by. Yet what the Freds did to make their hit more durable was that they made it danceable. Now I’m certainly not admitting to ever having strutted my stuff on the catwalk or otherwise to its beats but I can imagine it was a hit at office parties and family dos the length and breadth of the country.

Consolidating its musical credibility (two words I never thought I would have typed about Right Said Fred) is the group’s musicianship that I was not aware of until now. It transpires that Richard and Fred Fairbrass had proficient enough chops to have played with some of the biggest names in the business. They don’t get much bigger than David Bowie who Richard played with as a session bassist in the mid 80s on tracks like “Blue Jean” and “Loving The Alien” whilst Fred appeared as a guitarist in the Bob Dylan drama Hearts Of Fire. No really. Look, here’s @TOTPFacts with the pictorial evidence:

Fred Fairbrass, meanwhile, played guitar for Bob Dylan in the 1987 film Hearts Of Fire. Dylan gave him the leather jacket he wore in the movie. #TOTP pic.twitter.com/Ur2jAf1Jla
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) September 3, 2021

I know. Bloody Hell!

“I’m Too Sexy” was written as a piss take of the narcissistic behaviour of preening body builders at the gym that the Fairbrass brothers ran in the early 90s and was originally recorded as an indie rock song before being turned into a dance track at the behest of radio plugger Guy Holmes. The lyrics supplied as many if not more hooks as the tune itself with suggestive lines like ‘No way I’m disco dancing’, ‘I shake my little tush on the catwalk’ and of course ‘I’m too sexy for my cat, too sexy for my cat, poor pussy, poor pussy cat’ pressing the big red double entendre button. It would spend a record six weeks at No 2 behind Bryan Adams (the jury is out on whether that was a good or bad thing) but made it to No 1 in the US.

A substantial career was to follow for the band but nowadays Richard Fairbrass is most well known for being a prominent anti-vaxxer. Presumably he is too sexy for Pfizer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD68Ln0d0m4

Now I don’t think the word ‘substantial’ probably does justice to Will Smith’s career. A massive TV and film star (he’s been in over 40 movies) he also, of course, has a long and successful music history with multiple hit records on both sides of the Atlantic. It all started though with his collaboration with DJ Jazzy Jeff with Smith assuming the moniker of The Fresh Prince that would make his name in the TV series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. I think that show was probably on UK TV screens at the time so I’m guessing Smith would already have been known on these shores in 1991. He had of course had a small hit in our charts back in 1986 with “Girls Ain’t Nothing But Trouble” but that seemed a million miles away from the cool vibes of “Summertime”. Even allowing for the obvious connection of its title, this track was just perfect for the Summer with its lilting beats drifting out from transistor radios.

The parent album “Homebase” didn’t make the necessary improvements and no further singles released from it were hits in the UK. However, the duo would return in 1993 with the No 1 single “Boom! Shake the Room” before Smith would release a plethora of hits under his own name throughout the rest of the decade racking up three No3s, three No2 s and another chart topper in “Men In Black”.

Voice Of The Beehive now with their “Monsters And Angels” single and wha a pleasant ditty it is too. There was much debate on Twitter after this repeat aired about Tracey Bryn’s guitar which appears to be the wrong way round. The answer to this strange behaviour though lies in the writing on it which the Twitterati’s consensus was that it was an autograph from Morrissey who is on the show later. I can understand Tracey wanting to show it off but why did he sign it on the back? Apparently the band were on tour following this TOTP appearance and Tracy mentioned the signed guitar at nearly every gig apparently. I have to admit that I missed this detail when I first watched this back as I was more struck by how Tracey had the look of Britney Spears. Is it just me or could she be Britney’s Aunt?

“Monsters And Angels” peaked at No 17.

Whilst a student during the late 80s, I’d developed quite the liking for Deacon Blue. Their debut album “Raintown” was an instant classic (in my opinion) and they became hugely successful pop stars on the back of follow up album “When The World Knows Your Name”. However, I’d begun to lose interest a bit by 1991 and, being employed by a Manchester record store (albeit a chain), I kept my liking of them down to a minimum when at work. However, I couldn’t deny that “Twist And Shout” was a great pop song, familiar yet nuanced, unconventional yet radio friendly, it just worked for me and also for the people who bought it in enough amounts to send it to No 10 in the charts.

As ever with any Deacon Blue performance, my eyes are drawn to Lorraine McKintosh and her energy and presence. And those eyes of course. Erm…anyway…err…the band would achieve a further seven Top 40 singles but never again returned to the Top 10.

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

If ever a band should have been a one hit wonder surely it was this next lot? Yes, unbelievable as it may seem, Color Me Badd had more than one hit and here they are with the other one “All 4 Love”. Given that there is an abrupt cut away from host Simon Mayo to this studio performance and we don’t actually see the band behind him at any stage, I’m willing to bet that this was recorded when they were in the TOTP studio in person for their No 1 “I Wanna Sex You Up”. Having checked out that clip on YouTube, although some of the band have changed their outfits for “All 4 Love”, I’m still of that opinion.

If “I Wanna Sex You Up” was all about New Jack Swing, then “All 4 Love” harked back to 60s soul and the performance the band gives here puts me in mind of some of the great groups of that era. There’s a reason for that. The song was pretty much a direct rip off of another song. Here’s @TOTPFacts once again:

"All For Love" has, er, similarities to "Patch My Heart", a 1966 track by '60s vocal group The Mad Lads – enough for its composers (one of whom was Isaac Hayes) to receive credit. https://t.co/glNmhvjuSy #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) September 3, 2021

The first time I saw that tweet I read it as The Macc Lads rather than The Mad Lads but that would have been a different type of song altogether!

“All 4 Love” would give the band a second US No 1 but it didn’t quite achieve that in the UK peaking at a still healthy (and totally undeserved) No 5.

Earlier in this year, my friend Robin had found himself marooned at a TOTP recording after mistakenly believing that Morrissey was going to be on the show. He wasn’t and instead found himself being forced by the studio floor team to clap along to the likes of Kenny Thomas instead. The show he should have been at was this one as Mozza is here and up next. After the video for “Pregnant For The Last Time” the other week, here he is in the flesh and if you look closely you can see his nipples through his sheer shirt!

The song has a rockabilly sound to it and that is backed up by the presence of a double bass player on stage with Morrissey. As with the guy on accordion witnessed earlier in the Deacon Blue performance, you didn’t get many of those on TOTP in the 90s.

Morrissey’s solo chart statistics were pretty predictable out turns out. Look at this tweet from Gareth Windibank:

This was one of only three of those 33 top 40 hits (after “Suedehead” and “Everyday Is Like Sunday”) to reach its chart peak in the second week rather than the first. #TOTP
— Gareth Windibank (@eightiespopkid) September 3, 2021

Very much a case of a loyal fanbase dutifully buying everything their hero released immediately but then the single falling down the charts as it failed to find a wider market methinks.

Of course, Morrissey’s stock is not that high these days thanks to some unpalatable views that he now holds. Very similar to Richard Fairbrass. I wonder who would win this particular fat-headed arse -off?

Despite being “a day out of date already” as Simon Mayo quips, Bomb The Bass is next with “Winter In July”. On vocals here is Loretta Heywood who also wrote the lyrics. Loretta is still recording material and she even laid down an acoustic version of this track on an album called “The Boy Across The Road” and I have to say I much prefer the sparser version…

After giving up making music, Tim Simenon relocated to Prague where he opened a bistro called Brixton Balls with a menu based around meatballs. I wonder if he was so into meatballs back in 1991? If so, I hope he didn’t let it slip to Morrissey in the BBC bar after this show.

“Winter In July” peaked at No 7.

Just when I was powering through this, they go and chuck in four Breakers in a two minute slot right at the death! Bastards! We start with Beverley Craven who, after the surprise success of “Promise Me” earlier in the year, looked like she could become a global superstar in the shape of perhaps Carly Simon or even Carole King. Her record label Epic went for a re-release of her first single “Holding On” as the follow up. Peaking at a very lowly No 95 at the start of 1991, it very much followed the “Promise Me” blueprint and I guess the strategy was to keep hold of the fan base that she had built so spectacularly. No point in putting out something from left field that would have confused and potentially lost her audience. It was a sensible move.

Somehow though, the single didn’t seem to take off in the same way that its predecessor had and it stalled at No 32. Maybe people had splashed out on the album instead which had been out for around two months by this point and spent every one of those weeks in the Top 10. A similar fate would await another single in October when “Woman To Woman” peaked at No 40 whilst the album was in the middle of a 50 week run on the charts. Even so, it seemed like a surprise when neither single could gain any traction in the Top 40.

Simon Mayo never missed an opportunity to plug himself and his Radio 1 Breakfast Show did he? He makes a point of telling us that Marillion‘s “No One Can” is the show’s Chart Beater that week. Not sure that choosing Marillion from this week’s Breakers was the smartest move in terms of credibility Simes. After the departure of Fish they seemed to be a completely different and less interesting entity. Replacement vocalist Steve Hogarth was a decent singer but the material the band were recording had lost the spark that differentiated them from other acts. Maybe it was just Fish’s ungainly and unlikely rock star persona that was missing or the element of the band being deeply unfashionable? Whatever it was, Marillion sounded more accomplished and radio friendly to my ears but ultimately more predictable and boring for all that.

“No One Can” peaked at No 33.

Whenever I think of Saturdays in 1991, my mind immediately fills with images of long days working the counter at the Our Price store in Market Street in Manchester whilst trying to find a reason to go up stairs to the stock area to try and find out the football scores from the radio up there. I also think of this song, “A Roller Skating Jam Named “Saturdays”” by De La Soul. This was another track from their “De La Soul Is Dead” album and was one of the lighter tracks on it, proclaiming, rather obviously, the joys of roller skating and the weekends. It includes a prominent sample from Chicago’s “Saturday in the Park” and you have to acknowledge De La Soul’s vision to be able to base a hip-hop song around such an unlikely source. Something about the track has stuck with me all these years and it’s this – me and my wife will still sometimes quote the song’s ‘Saturday, it’s a Saturday’ lyric to each other come the weekend.

“A Roller Skating Jam Named “Saturdays”” peaked at No 22.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqI5PTYmF3w

The final Breaker delivers us some Acid Jazz courtesy of Young Disciples. Is Acid Jazz still a thing? It certainly was in 1991 with acts such as Omar and Incognito having broken through into the mainstream with Top 40 hits already this year. Both of those artists as well as Young Disciples (like Eurythmics there is no ‘The”) were on the legendary Talkin’ Loud label and its latest chart busting act hit it big with “Apparently Nothin” which peaked at No 13.

Although it would prove to be the band’s only chart hit, it was important in launching the career of Carleen Anderson who would secure a solo deal off the back of it and would indeed release her own version of the song in 1999. alongside The Brand New Heavies (who did have a preceding definite article).

My wife really liked this one and I think she must have bought it as it’s in the singles box.

It’s still Bryan Adams at the top obviously with “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” – this is only week 4 of 16 – and according to Simon Mayo, the last five UK No 1 singles in this year were taken from movies. Is that right?

*checks Wikipedia*

Well, not quite true. The list is as follows:

Artist	Title	Film taken from
Chesney Hawkes	The One and Only	Buddy’s Song
Cher	The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s in His Kiss)	Mermaids
Color Me Badd	I Wanna Sex You Up	New Jack City
Jason Donovan	Any Dream Will Do	Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Bryan Adams	(Everything I Do) I Do It for You	Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

The problem is that Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat wasn’t a film was it Simon? It was a stage musical. Yes, they made some sort of film of the stage show years later in 1999 with Donny Osmond as Joseph but even that was a direct to video release. And yes, there was a soundtrack album to the stage show featuring Jason Donovan but again it wasn’t a movie soundtrack. OK, I’m being a pedant but when you’ve reviewed hundreds of these TOTP repeats covering a nine year period, presenters getting things wrong (or at least not quite right in this case) tend to get on your wick.

Seeing as I’ve got another 12 weeks worth of having to say something about this record, I’m leaving it at that for this one.

The play out video is “The Beginning” by Seal. Ever the wag, Simon Mayo doesn’t let the opportunity for a wry comment pass when he remarks that “The Beginning” coming at the end of the show is “kind of logical”. Yeah, whatever Mayo. The video has Seal messing around with a chain and a bird of prey while dressed in a pair of leather trousers. Did he ever wear a pair of kecks that weren’t leather?

“The Beginning” peaked at No 24.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Right Said Fred	I’m Too Sexy	Of course not
2	DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince	Summertime	I did not
3	Voice Of The Beehive	Monsters And Angels	Nope
4	Deacon Blue	Twist And Shout	No but I have it on a Best Of CD I think
5	Color Me Badd	All 4 Love	Hell no
6	Morrissey	Pregnant For The Last Time	Nope
7	Bomb The Bass	Winter In July	Nah
8	Beverley Craven	Holding On	No
9	Marillion	Not One Can	Never going to happen
10	De La Soul	A Roller Skating Jam Named “Saturdays”	Liked it, didn’t buy it
11	Young Disciples	Apparently Nothin	Yes but I think it was my wife actually
12	Bryan Adams	(Everything I Do) I Do It for You	Negative
13	Seal	The Beginning	Not the single but I had their 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/m000z8dd/top-of-the-pops-01081991

TOTP 25 JUL 1991

Posted on September 9, 2021 by 80stastic

It’s 1991 here at TOTP Rewind and it’s a pivotal period for the grand old show which was in its 28th year. The ‘year zero’ revamp is just around the corner and we have already seen a flurry of cosmetic changes to the programme in the weeks prior to it. Various bits of tinkering with the chart rundown had led to inconsistencies in the show’s core concept and in the last few episodes we have seen a nasty green screen backdrop employed behind the presenters. However, that now seems to have been ditched as tonight’s host Mark Goodier is seen against a background of the real set. However, they do seem to have positioned him away from the studio audience who are all facing towards the stage area and not looking at Goodier at all. This gives the whole thing a rather sparse look, as if this is the dress rehearsal rather than the actual show.

The first act on tonight are making their debut in person performance on the show (I believe) but this landmark event is shot through with tragedy. The Shamen had been building a reputation on the club scene following the release of their “En-Tact” album the previous year but mainstream success had so far eluded them (bar one Top 30 entry for the single “Hyperreal”). However, the decision to remix and releases their “Pro-Gen” track from that album and retitle it as “Move Any Mountain (Progen ’91)” would prove to be a masterstroke as it crashed into the charts at No 9 this week. All of this chart activity however had come heart breakingly late for bass and keyboards player Will Sinnott who had tragically drowned whilst on a trip to Tenerife to film a promo video for “Move Any Mountain”. Founder member Colin Angus decided to carry on under The Shamen name with rapper Mr C promoted to the position of full time band member. I have to say that I prefer the original track “Pro-Gen” where Mr C’s rapping is dialled down a bit. However, if you didn’t like either of those mixes then there were plenty of others to choose from as apparently there were as many as 35 versions of the track circulating in Europe and the band themselves released a whole album (“Progeny”) dedicated to mixes of the track – 19 remixes of “Move Any Mountain (Progen 91)” plus 16 samples and loops according to Wikipedia. Phew!

I worked with someone at Our Price in later years who had a massive crush on Mr C which took me by surprise a bit. He never struck me as the hereat throb type. “Move Any Mountain (Progen ’91)” would peak at No 4 unable to dethrone Bryan Adams but they would return a year later to claim that No 1 spot with the infamous “Ebeneezer Goode” single. Naughty, naughty!

C+C Music Factory again?! How many times is this that the video for “Things That Make You Go Hmmm…” has been on? Three? Four? How am I supposed to keep coming up with stuff to say about this one?! Oh, hang on…there’s a cover version of it you say by a band called Stooshe? Never heard of them. Well, that could be an oasis for my word count desert. Let’s have a listen then…

…well that was ghastly! Harrowing even. Who the hell are these people?

*checks Wikipedia*

So, they’re a British girl group from London formed to be an urban and soulful Spice Girls! The name is pronounced as in ‘pushy’ and originates from the word ‘stoosh’ which is urban slang for either something expensive, a girl who thinks she’s nicer than she is or being stoned! WTF?! The suffix -she was added on the end to represent female empowerment (oh you mean ‘girl power’ then?). The resulting name is pronounced like the Scottish word ‘stooshie’ which means ‘the disruption caused by a disagreement or misunderstanding’. What a load of old ‘tosh’… that’s ‘tosh’ as in ‘what a lot of old bollocks’.

C+C Music Factory’s version of “Things That Make You Go Hmmm…” peaked at No 4.

Still enjoying 1991 was Dannii Minogue who is back on TOTP with her third hit in the last four months. “Jump To The Beat” was of course a cover of the Stacy Lattisaw No 3 hit from 1980 and it completed a peculiar little pop palindrome for Dannii when it peaked at No 8 meaning her three Top 40 entries so far had achieved the following chart peaks:

8-11-8

Stacy Lattisaw was only 13 when she had her hit but Dannii was a whole six years older at 19 when she took it back into the charts. Someone who was younger than both of them was the daughter of a guest at a wedding that I attended around this time. It was the evening do of a friend from school of my wife’s and there was a little girl there who clearly loved this record and was throwing herself around the dance floor as the DJ played it. As the night drew to a close and the DJ announced there was only one song left we all begged him to play “Jump To The Beat” again for this young girl but the jobsworth refused and played “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” instead as he had clearly decided well in advance that would be his final record of the night. Instead of at least one guaranteed person on the dance floor, he got nobody as everyone walked off as soon as the first strains of Bryan Adams came over his disco speakers. Nobhead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry8fTptf2AU

Having introduced themselves to UK audiences with the funk metal of “Get The Funk Out”, Extreme threw us all a curve ball when they followed it up with the spare and brittle sounding acoustic ballad “More Than Words”. Despite Mark Goodier’s warning not to be fooled by the gentle song and that they were a serious rock band, many a pop fan was duped into buying the band’s “Pornograffitti” album on the strength of “More Than Words”. Such a deception had not been put into practice since 1986 when the Doctor and the Medics album “Laughing At The Pieces” was bought by many a chart follower expecting an LP full of “Spirits In The Sky”s.

The joke was on Extreme in the end though as the song became an albatross around their necks and they became known as ‘the More Than Words guys’ (see also 4 Non Blondes and Berlin whose biggest hit was more famous than the band). It’s a pleasant enough rock ballad though I guess and went to No 1 in the US and would surely have done the same over here but for the Bryan Adams effect.

1991 wasn’t all about acts making their first breakthrough into the charts like Dannii Minogue, The Shamen and Extreme that we have seen on the show so far. It was also about this who rose phoenix like from the ashes to rekindle former glories like Feargal Sharkey and Mike and the Mechanics who both returned to the charts in this year after a big gap away from them. And this lot. OMD (who seemed to be basically Andy McCluskey at this point) were enjoying not one but two Top 10 hits in 1991 with the second being this one “Pandora’s Box”.

It was hard not to believe the band were all just about McCluskey to be fair when you watched performances like this and all you can see are his extraordinary ‘Dad Dancing’ moves which have been described as ‘a geography teacher with ants in his pants’ and ‘an epileptic windmill’. My brother-in-law looks a bit like Andy McCluskey I always think (although my wife can’t really see it). I have never witnessed him dancing though.

“Pandora’s Box” peaked at No 7.

After getting Bette Midler into the TOTP studios the other week, the producers have pulled off another coup by twisting the arm of Cher into making a visit. She’s here to promote her latest single “Love And Understanding” and as with Andy McCluskey’s dancing, all you can see in this performance is Cher’s hair. Presumably that was a wig? It’s not as shocking as Madonna’s pink fright-wig back in 1984 for her performance of ‘Like A Virgin” but it was still a bold statement.

Just like Madonna, Cher is up there all on her own with no backing singers / dancers / band which I’m kind of surprised about. You would imagine she would have a whole Mariah Carey style entourage with her. The following single release from Cher was a song called “Save Up All Your Tears” which was the opening track of the “Love Hurts” album and which I recall was also recorded by Robin Beck of “First Time” fame (that cola advert song from 1988) but which tonked when released as the follow up to her surprise No 1. They are almost exactly the same! Here’s Robin’s version…

And here’s Cher’s…

Apart from Cher’s more throaty vocals, almost indentical.

“Love And Understanding” peaked at No 10.

This next bloke is “a bit of a musical genius” according to Mark Goodier. Why? He’s only the ‘The Godfather of House Music’ that’s why! Even a dance tune dodger like me knew the name Frankie Knuckles and of his legendary status within the genre. “The Whistle Song” must be his best known tune in his own right but he has also remixed some massive chart hits like “You Are Not Alone” by Michael Jackson, “Un-Break My Heart” by Toni Braxton and “Ain’t Nobody” by Chaka Khan. Such is his influence that he even has another nickname which is ‘The Man Of The House’ which immediately makes me think of this:

Despite acknowledging his indisputable legacy, “The Whistle Song” did very little for me. A performance that included a key-tar and a flute on the same stage?! Come on! No wonder the TOTP producers got in four backing dancers in hot pants to liven things up a bit. The single peaked at No 17.

Three Breakers this week starting with “Twist And Shout” by Deacon Blue. Obviously not that “Twist And Shout”, this was the second single to be released from the band’s “Fellow Hoodlums” album and was easily the biggest hit from it. In fact, it would turn out to be the last of their only three Top 10 singles. I think there was just something simple and joyful about this song that made UK record buyers sit up and take note. The fact that it was released in the Summer also added to its appeal. There’s plenty of hooks in it as well which always helps and none more so than Lorraine McIntosh’s high pitched squeal on the word ‘upside’ in the lyric ‘turned the big world upside down’.

The single’s success, as with OMD and “Pandora’s Box” earlier in the show, would initiate a welcome spike in sales of the parent album which although a No 2 record, had failed to shift the units that its predecessor “When The World Knows Your Name” had done. The basic but colourful video enhanced the feel good factor of the song with the bond between the band obvious to see.

Despite the phenomenal success of his debut album, Seal‘s single releases were suffering from a dose of the diminishing returns. “Crazy” had been a huge hit just missing the top spot by one place but follow up “Future Love Paradise” hadn’t made the Top 10 and this one, “The Beginning”, didn’t make the Top 20. Maybe it was because so many people had splashed out on the album that had already been out for six weeks and which had gone straight to No 1 that there was little demand to buy more tracks released from it? Maybe Seal was an albums artist? His first two albums both went to No 1 after all whilst he only ever had three Top 10 hits under his own name and one of those was a re-recording of “Killer” (which was officially credited to Adamski). “The Beginning” was a pretty decent tune although were they all starting to sound just a little bit samey by this point?

I really didn’t see this next hit coming. Bomb The Bass? As in “Beat Dis” Bomb The Bass? Tim Simenon’s alias hadn’t been seen ins the charts since 1988 when they had racked up three consecutive Top 10 hits and been one of the breakout sensations of the year. Three years is a long time in the music industry though and I had just about forgotten all about Bomb The Bass. They had also been rather hamstrung to be fair when they had been caught up in the BBC / Radio 1 Gulf War censorship controversy with their band name being deemed far too politically sensitive leading to an airtime black out (see also Massive attack).

Undeterred, they released new single “Winter In July” after the conflict had ended to positive reviews. This new direction seemed much less frenetic than the likes of “Beat Dis” with a more soulful feel (surely the single’s title was a nod in the direction of Stevie Wonders’ “Hotter Than July”) and helped to return Simenon to the Top 10 where it peaked at No 7. Parent album “Unknown Territory” perfumed steadily rather than spectacularly but this would prove to be their commercial peak. Simenon would go on to produce material for the likes of Gavin Friday and Depeche Mode before taking an extended break from the music industry due to physical and mental exhaustion. He returned to the business in 2008 with his “Future Chaos” album.

We’re only into week 3 of Bryan Adams‘ 16 week reign at the top of the charts. How are we all holding up? Given the amount of projected posts that I will have to find content for about “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You”, I’m allowing myself to use one @TOTPFacts tweet a week to help me out. Here’s this week’s :

Bryan Adams had competition: Chicago's Peter Cetera also submitted a version. Michael Kamen: "In all honesty, Cetera's was too pretty. I write sweet melodies, and sometimes they need someone to deliver them with enough authority to make sure that you don't fall asleep." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) August 27, 2021

Well, Cetera did have a proven track record for soundtrack compositions. His 1986 hit “Glory Of Love” was featured in The Karate Kid II for which it received nominations for an Academy Award for Best Original Song, a Golden Globe in the category of Best Original Song and a Grammy Award in 1987 for Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Male Artist. It was also a US No 1 and UK No 3 song. Cetera’s effort doesn’t seem to have ever seen the light of day and even in this digital age of leaks and spoilers, I can’t find a trace of it anywhere online.

In addition to “Glory Of Love”, he also had a song on the hugely successful Pretty Woman soundtrack so the guy had chops when it came to film music. It wasn’t to be but I find it hard to believe that we would have had Peter Cetera at No 1 for 16 weeks in the Summer of 1991.

The play out video is “Pregnant For The Last Time” by Morrissey. This was a non album single that I have no memory of whatsoever. It sounds quite rockabilly and actually listenable which you can’t always say about Morrissey (especially these days). Not sure if Mozza himself still likes it though as he hasn’t played it live since the 1991 Kill Uncle tour apparently.

“Pregnant For The Last Time” peaked at No 25.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Shamen	Move Any Mountain (Progen’91)	No but I easily could have done
2	C+C Music Factory	Things That Make You Go Hmmm	Nope
3	Dannii Minogue	Jump To The Beat	Never going to happen
4	Extreme	More Than Words	Bit too formulaic for me
5	OMD	Pandora’s Box	No but it’s on their Best Of CD that I have
6	Cher	Love And Understanding	Nah
7	Frankie Knuckles	The Whistle Song	Not for me
8	Deacon Blue	Twist And Shout	See 5 above
9	Seal	The Beginning	No but I was one of those who had the album
10	Bomb The Bass	Winter In July	No
11	Bryan Adams	(Everything I Do) I Do It For You	Negative
12	Morrissey	Pregnant For The Last Time	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/m000z2j4/top-of-the-pops-25071991

TOTP 03 MAY 1990

Posted on December 11, 2020 by 80stastic

Can you remember a time before the word ‘Brexit’ even existed? A time when the UK wasn’t being torn apart by rival factions concerning our relationship with Europe? A time even when we didn’t always completely fall on our arses when it came to the Eurovision Song Contest? For yes, that time did used to exist when we were routinely amongst the favourites to win the competition before every other country hated us and gave us a paltry points score (or in the case of Jemini in 2003 the dreaded ‘nul points’). As we reach May in these BBC4 1990 TOTP repeats, Eurovision rears its head again and the final in this year took place on the Saturday after this show was broadcast. We had come 2nd in the previous two years and had only finished out of the Top 10 once in the previous decade which also included an actual win in 1981 courtesy of Bucks Fizz and those mini skirts. Fast forward nine years and our entry is from a 15 year old Welsh school girl but more of her later.

For now, we start with ….Simon Mayo’s shorts and knees! What was he thinking?! In recent weeks we’ve had Jakki Brambles in big Winter coats (twice) clearly freezing, Mark Goodier complaining about being too hot whilst being dressed in full jacket, shirt and tie combo and now this! Most off putting. The first act that the be-shorted Mayo introduces is Sinitta with “Hitchin’ A Ride” who adds some more confusion to this issue about the temperature in the TOTP studio. Without wishing to sound like a perv, I can’t help but notice that Sinitta gives the impression it was not that warm in the studio that day (despite Mayo’s choice of outfit) judging by the…well…’stunt nipples’ that she is sporting. What’s that? What about the music? Oh, well..erm…well, this single was taken from her “Wicked” album which was given the Cherry Pop super deluxe re-issue treatment which was well received judging by some of the Amazon customer reviews of it. Check out this one from a very happy fan:

One of the best pure-pop albums of all time, in my opinion. Not one bad track on it. You won’t be disappointed if you buy this!!

Alternatively, we have this via someone who goes by the username of Too Shy:

Please avoid this, its far too cheesy and friends who examine your record collection while you nip up to the bathroom will be gone by the time you return if they find it.

By the way, I didn’t include that review because of the use of the word ‘nip’ in it just to carry on the subject of Sinitta’s chest! I didn’t! I used it as it reminded me of something that a guy called Pete who I used to work with said to me once. Pete was the original bass player in The Stone Roses and a cool as f**k but he did once say this which I found quite remarkable. The scenario he outlined was that if he was to meet the woman of his dreams who was compatible with him in every single way and he would gladly spend the rest of his life with her, if he found a Phil Collins CD in her collection he’d be out of there in a heartbeat and wouldn’t look back. Not sure what his views on Sinitta were though.

“Hitchin’ A Ride” peaked at No 24.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_tFlv6k_Bk

A new track incoming from Soul II Soul with their latest single “A Dream’s a Dream“. The second single from their sophomore album “Vol. II: 1990 – A New Decade”, I wasn’t sure that I knew how this one went until hearing it again but the “I can see, I can see…right through you” refrain does ring a bell. Why are we getting the video and not a studio performance from the band? Well, in a Smash Hits interview in this year, main man Jazzie B made some cryptic comments about the show and the BBC in general that suggested that he wasn’t completely OK with the corporation. When asked if he ever disagrees with his mother, he replied:

“She’ll say things like ‘Why won’t you go on Top Of The Pops‘? I have to show her that it’s badness to explain what you’re dealing with…”

When asked if he would ever be on Top Of The Pops again, he replied:

“I don’t know. Maybe if it weren’t the BBC. I can’t really say. I can’t be damaging my career. It’s existed for many years and has helped many people but it’s for pop star isn’t it?”

Hmm. Something definitely not quite right there I think.

As for “A Dream’s a Dream”, it did a good job of consolidating the band’s success and profile and paving the way for the release of that second album a couple of weeks later by going to No 6 in the charts.

A highlight of the rock year next, well at least that’s what Simon Mayo says in his intro, as we get the new single by Morrissey. I’m not sure that Mozza enjoys such reverence these days on account of him having turned into a right arse but back in 1990, I guess he was still worthy of discussion. One thing you’d have to say about Morrissey is that he did have intriguing song titles. “November Spawned A Monster” certainly fell into that category for me. What was it about? Here’s Moz himself courtesy of @TOTPFacts:

"It's about a person who's confined to a wheelchair, who can't make much sense of her life, and whose only ambition is to walk down the road in clothes she personally went out and chose and bought herself. And that is as far as her ambitions can stretch." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) December 4, 2020

Apparently the song sparked some criticism of Morrissey who was accused of ridiculing the disabled (the titular ‘monster’) but I’m not convinced that was his intention at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA_WT4aIaQY

With Eurovision having been imminent when he gave this performance, I can’t not mention Mozza’s own little footnote in the song contest’s history. Back in 2007, heavy rumours circulated that he was in negotiations with the BBC to be that year’s UK entry. Apparently, he had been appalled that the previous year’s UK act who had finished in 19th place. Sadly, it was never meant to be although Morrissey had been serious about taking part supposedly. And for anyone thinking I’m making all this up…. look, it was even reported on the news…

Some “Dirty Cash (Money Talks)” next courtesy of Adventures Of Stevie V. I haven’t got much more to say about this one other than Stevie V (real name Stephen Vincent) once described the rave experience as

“…it’s like on the telly when you see the Queen coming out onto the balcony and everyone’s cheerin’ and feeling really brilliant. It’s that sort of crack, except with music.”

And there was me wondering in my middle age if I’d missed out by never having attended a rave. As a firm republican, if that’s what it was all about, blow that for a game of soldiers.

“Dirty Cash (Money Talks)” peaked at No 2.

Three Breakers now and we start with En Vogue. Now, whilst no sort of expert, I thought I had a pop quiz passable knowledge of these ladies in that I can name more than one of their singles but having read up about them, they’re like a singing and dancing eight-legged soap opera that I knew nothing about. Their conveyor belt of line up changes makes The Sugababes look like a model of consistency and longevity. Check this out:

Original members are: Terry Ellis, Dawn Robinson, Cindy Herron, and Maxine Jones
1997: Dawn Robinson leaves
2001: Maxine Jones leaves and Amanda Cole joins
2003: Amanda Cole leaves and Rhona Bennett joins
2005: The original members briefly reform before disbanding again
2009: The original members reform again for their “En Vogue: 20th Anniversary” tour
2011: Dawn Robinson and Maxine Jones leave again while Rhona Bennett rejoins

Confused? You will be…we haven’t even got onto the lawsuits yet! When Maxine Jones and Dawn Robinson left the band for the second time in 2011, they joined forces, added a new singer and hatched plans to record and tour under the name Heirs To The Throne. Then Robinson decided to leave before that got off the ground so Jones got in another singer to replace her and went on the road under the name of En Vogue To The Max (see what she did there?). At which point, the inevitable lawsuit was filed by original members Cindy Herron and Terry Ellis (who were still touring as a duo under the name of En Vogue) against Jones for unauthorized use of the band’s name. The judge ruled in Herron and Ellis’s favour. And we thought that the legal fight for the right to own the name Bucks Fizz was a saga!

Anyway, back in happier times, the original line up are here with their debut single “Hold On” which would got to No 5 in the UK and No 2 in the US. Put together by songwriting duo Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy, they were originally conceived as following in the tradition of some of the celebrated 60s girl groups like The Supremes but without any of the members being the designated star. It was to be a democratic unit in which every member would qualify to take the lead vocals on any given number. Yeah, looking at those multiple line up changes, I’m not sure if that ever worked out.

The return of Billy Idol now who was last seen in the UK Top 40 in 1987. “Cradle Of Love” was the lead single from his “Charmed Life” album and was a massive hit in the US only being kept off the No 1 spot by Mariah Carey. We were less interested back in blighty and the single stumbled to a No 34 peak. I’m not surprised – it sounds completely uninspired to my ears; in fact its sounds like a dodgy rewrite of his 1986 hit “To Be A Lover” – lots of rawk ‘n’ roll growling but very little in the way of a tune.

Never mind what it sounded like though, what the hell was going on in that video?! Well, the song was based around the saying ‘robbing the cradle’ meaning sexual relationships between the individuals where there is a large age gap. The video director obviously took the song’s meaning to heart and came up with a Lolita style plot line. It all looks decidedly creepy viewed in 2020 but back in 1990, TOTP seemed fine with showing it. Billy himself appears in the video only in the background as he had suffered a significant injuries back in February of this year following a motorcycle accident. It didn’t stop him touring to promote the album though against his doctor’s wishes. His injuries curtailed his role in the Oliver Stone The Doors biopic so to make up for this, he released a cover of The Doors “L.A. Woman” as his next single. Nobody was interested in that at all though.

Ah man, it’s Michael Bolton again! Look, I have no intention of reliving my Bolton live concert story every time he’s featured in these TOTP repeats so I’m going to just ignore it. It’s there in all its gory glory in a previous post if you want to read all about it.

“How Can We Be Lovers” was the follow up to his No 3 hit “How Am I Supposed To Live Without You”. Listening back to it now, it sounds like it could be a Rocky theme tune performed by Survivor. Either that or a Belinda Carlisle B-side. At least it had more of a punch to it than its wimpy predecessor but that’s as positive as I can get about it. I was surprised to learn that it had been such a big hit over here (No 10). No doubt Bolton would have performed it when I saw him live three years later and …oh shit! I wasn’t going to go there again was I?!

These songs that I can’t recall at all are coming thick and fast now. BBG (or Big Boss Groove even) anyone? “Snappiness” was their hit but I’ve got nothing about them in the old memory banks at all.

*checks internet*

Not much there either. What I did discover is that “Snappiness” is basically the (featured earlier) Soul II Soul’s track “Happiness” with some added vocals courtesy of singer Dina Taylor. Also I found out that BBG’s main man Tony Newland wasn’t keen on giving any royalties from his hit to Jazzie B although he did admit that Soul II Soul were one of the “best things to happen to British dance music in years”. Oh well, I’m sure some grovelling compliments would have been enough to assuage Jazzie – pay him what you owe him you cheapskate!

“Snappiness” peaked at No 28.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wQ-xoKqwGk

Another airing for “Tattooed Millionaire” by Bruce Dickinson next. Not only is Bruce the lead singer with Iron Maiden, not only is he a qualified commercial pilot, not only is he an international level fencer, he is also a published author! I had no idea until I researched him. He wrote a book called The Adventures Of Lord Iffy Boatrace which was published the same month as this TOTP was broadcast back in 1990. What is it about? Here’s the synopsis from its Amazon listing:

Lord Iffy Boatrace invited some of the Old Boys for a holiday with a difference. But even he, with his penchant for fishnet stockings and stiletto heels, is stunned by the antics of his guests – to say nothing of the Butler who invented the ultimate sex machine.

Ah…erm…well. That sounds erm…f*****g horrible. Judging by its Amazon reviews though, the people that bought it loved it. Dickinson wrote a sequel two years later. Its title? The Missionary Position: the Further Advances of Lord Iffy Boatrace.

Hang on though Bruce. How do you write something like that and then also write a song “Tattooed Millionaire” that supposedly criticises the excesses and bad behaviour of the ‘rock star’ scene? Here’s Bruce himself discussing what the song is about courtesy of @TOTPFacts:

Bruce Dickinson: "'Tattooed millionaire' is a whole area that I just see as a big festering, open sore on the arsehole of mankind, in terms of music. Because the whole vibe about that scene is it's nothing to do with music…" #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) December 4, 2020

"It's nothing to do with being real. It's to do with some bullshit attitude… 'Yeah, we want to ride around in limos. We want to get chicks, man.' I've seen the archetypal tattooed millionaires screwing some 'chick' outside the tour bus, on the sidewalk." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) December 4, 2020

"What's this guy trying to prove? That's not even setting a good example to yourself. It's just garbage – I don't respect that." (Somewhere, Motley Crue's ears are burning…) #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) December 4, 2020

Bruce seems quite conflicted in his values I would suggest. Bruce is also a prominent Brexiteer. I’ll just leave that last sentence there without further comment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7apiYkLf0w

TOTP presenter in correct prediction shocker! After years of Radio 1 DJs pontificating about which record on on the show would go to No 1 and getting it spectacularly wrong, here’s Simon Mayo actually getting one right! Adamski (and not forgetting Seal) will be top of the charts next week with “Killer”. In every TOTP appearance so far though, the presenter has forgotten about Seal and refers just to Adamski in their intro (as Simon Mayo does here). Was it on the insistence of the record label? It seems grossly unfair on reflection. Seal is certainly the visual focus point of the performance while Admaski…well…jigs about a bit whilst twiddling on his keyboards. Maybe he should have gone the Chris Lowe of the Pet Shop Boys route who made standing still an art form.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f-j95oroF0

I’m not sure about the woman in the background either. She looks like she’s limbering up for a ballet class. She should have gone the Tales Of The Unexpected route…

As the camera pans back to Mayo at the end of “Killer”, what the f**k is he doing? Is he trying to replicate the ballet dancer woman’s moves? After giving you credit for a correct chart prediction Simon, I now have to rescind it for that embarrassing display.

Right, onwards and upwards to the No 1 which is still Madonna with “Vogue”. It’s the fourth and final week for her at the top which is a pretty good run. In my head, the parent album “I’m Breathless” didn’t perform so well but on examination of its figures, it did OK. It went to No 2 in the album chart, was certified double platinum for achieving 600,000 sales in the UK and has sold 7 million copies worldwide. However, all of that looks pretty pedestrian when compared to how her next release performed when released at the close of 1990. Her first (and possibly still the best I would argue) greatest hits album “The Immaculate Collection” would go on to sell 31 million copies worldwide making it the best-selling compilation album by a solo artist ever!

Right then, back to where we started from – no not with Sinitta (although she was technically the first act on the show tonight and did release a single called “Right Back Where We Started From”!). No, back to the Eurovision Song Contest of course! Our entry this year was from Emma who performed a song called “Give A Little Love Back To The World”. Mayo is back on the prediction game confidently forecasting a victory for Emma and thereby returning to the familiar TOTP presenter pattern of getting such things completely wrong. Emma would trail in sixth which would be more than respectable in current times but probably seemed a bit disappointing back in 1990. This was her performance that night….

The contest was actually won by Italy whose Toto Cutugno was aged 46 years and 302 days at the time of his victory, making him the oldest winner of the contest to date. He held the record until 2001. This was in stark contrast to Emma who, as Terry Wogan advises in the clip above, was the UK’s youngest ever contestant at the age of 15. Want to hear the winning song? OK then….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b5whZydVZc

When he was announced as the winner, Toto Cutugno splashed water on his face and hair which caused his hair dye to run! Thirty years later, this ‘look’ was replicated by Rudy Guiliani….

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdCNyX5enB4

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Sinitta	Hitchin’ A Ride	Shittin’ a turd more like – no
2	Soull II Soul	A Dream’s A Dream	Nope
3	Morrissey	November Spawned A Monster	Sorry Mozza – it’s a no
4	Adventures of Stevie V	Dirty Cash (Money Talks)	Not for me thanks
5	En Vogue	Hold On	Nah
6	Billy Idol	Cradle Of Love	No but it’s on his Greatest Hits CD that I own. Gulp!
7	Michael Bolton	How Can We Be Lovers	NO!
8	BBG	Snappiness	Negative
9	Bruce Dickinson	Tattooed Millionaire	And no
10	Adamski	Killer	No but I had the Seal album with his version of it on
11	Madonna	Vogue	Not the single but it’s on my copy of that Immaculate Collection CD
12	Emma	Give A Little Love Back To The World	Of course not

Disclaimer

OK – here’s the thing – the TOTP episodes are only available on iPlayer for a limited amount of time so the link to the programme below only works for about another month so you’ll have to work fast if you want to catch the whole show.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000pz18/top-of-the-pops-03051990

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

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

Some bedtime reading?

https://michaelmouse1967.wixsite.com/smashhits-remembered/1990-issues

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 03 MAR 1994

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TOTP 16 JUL 1992

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TOTP 10 OCT 1991

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TOTP 01 AUG 1991

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TOTP 25 JUL 1991

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TOTP 03 MAY 1990

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Some bedtime reading?