PM Dawn

TOTP 03 JUN 1993

Posted on by 80stastic

In a recent post I made a reference to the ex-footballer Chris Waddle who had just been voted the 1993 sports writers’ Player of the Year. As this is a music blog, I obviously had to mention Waddle’s almost surreal attempt at pop superstardom in 1987. I even inserted a clip of him performing on TOTP. Unfortunately that seemed to cause the misapprehension amongst some that I was mixing up my TOTP years. As such, I need to be careful in this intro as I am going to talk about his partner in crime, Glenn Hoddle. You see, the day after this TOTP aired, Glenn was appointed as the new manager of my beloved Chelsea. Back in 1993, this was big news for Chelsea fans. Growing up, I’d seen my team managed by a succession of useless gaffers like Ken Shellito, Danny Blanchflower and Geoff Hurst. The latest incumbent Ian Porterfield had been similarly challenged. Hoddle, by contrast, was in demand after taking unfashionable Swindon Town into the Premier League. Plus, he brought some glamour with him. At 36 years of age, he was young for a manager and of course he had been a pop star (of sorts) in the 80s. Let’s see if there’s anyone in this show who can hold a light to Glenn in his “Diamond Lights” pomp…

…oh God no! Not him! I knew it must be coming as it’s one of the big hits of 1993 but I always, always hated it. I talk of Haddaway and his Eurodance song “What Is Love”. This guy was like a German Sydney Youngblood in that both served in the forces before deciding they’d give this pop star lark a go – Haddaway was in the Navy (you can sail the seven seas) and Youngblood the US Army. His debut single was pretty much No 1 in every country in Europe apart from the UK where he had to be satisfied with a No 2. Yes, it was catchy but all those Eurodance hits were catchy – it didn’t guarantee any measure of quality though. It’s not even that Haddaway couldn’t sing as the guy clearly had some pipes on him. It’s just that there seems to be a never ending conveyor belt of this sort of stuff this year and even by early June I was sick of it all. Yes, I guess it’s got a bit more soul to it than something like “No Limit” but that stabbing synth riff used to make my skin crawl.

The other reason I couldn’t take Haddaway seriously was that, having spent three years in Sunderland as a student, hearing his name immediately sent the synapses in my brain firing to arrive at the North East phrase of ‘hadaway n’ shite’ – a proclamation of negativity or disbelief to put it politely.

Look, if I want a song called “What Is Love” there’s one right here which is infinitely more preferable to me…

Isn’t this No 1 yet? Must surely be next week then. UB40’s version of “(I Can’t Help) Falling In Love With You” has exploded sales wise – we were shifting loads of it in the Our Price store in Rochdale where I was working – though I was never quite sure why. It just sounded so clunky and mechanical and…well…ham-fisted in its production. All the charm of the song seemed to have been sucked out of it. Nothing wrong with putting a completely different spin on a song of course but it felt like they put as much love into it as they would have writing a shopping list. Compare their laborious take on the song with this joyous version from 1986 by Lick The Tins…

I know the UB40 version was on the soundtrack to the film Sliver but surely that wasn’t responsible for its popularity was it? I’ve never seen the film but it was an erotic thriller so surely didn’t have that mainstream appeal of something like Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves and we all know what that film did for Bryan Adams. Surely the age rating it would have been given would have precluded some potential record buyers from even getting into the cinema? I’m guessing that the promo video for the single is based around CCTV scenes featured in the movie some of which clearly indicate that Sharon Stone’s character has gone further than just crossing her legs as per her Fatal Attraction character. I’m no prude but I’m surprised the BBC didn’t edit them out.

Right here comes Jamiroquai to “Blow Your Mind” except that this track was hardly going to do that. It’s just a watered down version of their first hit “Too Young To Die” isn’t it? A jam session that’s been told it’s a song and believed the messenger. Jay Kay just scats his way through it with a lot of Fast Show jazz club free-styling – the wearing of his trademark silly hat doesn’t convince. Neither does the staging of this performance. Why has the stage been made to look like someone’s living room? There’s two sofas with members of the band sat precariously on arms and a backrest (that’s the sort of thing I’d tell my child off about) plus a fruit bowl on a coffee table possibly featuring plastic fruit. Why? How is that a depiction of blowing your mind? Just nonsense.

“Blow Your Mind” peaked at No 12, a chart position so high that it is the only thing that is mind blowing about the whole release.

Now, host Tony Dortie informs us that the next artist should have been performing live in the studio but she’s unwell so we have to make do with the video for “Lords Of The New Church” by Tasmin Archer. On reflection, surely this track should have been the follow up to her No 1 smash “Sleeping Satellite” rather than the excellent but commercially challenged “In Your Care”? It’s much more up tempo and certainly more radio friendly and, according to Tasmin herself, was written about a new breed of politicians in the early 90s and definitely not the 80s post punk band of the same name.

All of the above theory though is debunked by the chart position the single attained – a lowly high of No 26, ten places lower even than its predecessor. Was Tasmin losing her audience already at this point? If so, could it have been halted if the release order of “In Your Care” and “Lords Of The New Church” had been reversed? We’ll never know but what is a fact is that she suffered from a case of diminished returns when it came to her five hit singles whose chart peaks were:

1 – 16 – 26 – 30 – 40

I’m not sure what’s going on in the video which seems to revolve around a man in a gold lame suit and a Stetson hat travelling through Nevada on his way to Las Vegas. Perhaps a studio performance from Tasmin might have sold the record more. When you consider that she was scheduled to do just that but couldn’t due to ill health, was that single event a sliding doors moment in her career? Yeah, I’m probably reading too much into that aren’t I?

Here come this week’s Breakers starting with Sade and their (Sade are a band not a singer remember) single “No Ordinary Love”. A little bit of a chart curio this one. I’d forgotten this but this was actually the second time it had been a Top 40 hit in under a year. How so? Well, originally released as the lead single to fourth album “Love Deluxe”, it had peaked at No 26. Sade had even performed it in the TOTP studio. However, subsequent singles from the album had failed to chart and sales of the album were less than its predecessor. In fact, much like Tasmin Archer, Sade had suffered from diminished returns as well but with their albums. “Love Deluxe” sold half of what third album “Stronger Than Pride” sold which in turn sold half of sophomore album “Promise”. All of them performed less well than the iconic debut “Diamond Life”.

As such, were Epic Records in a panic about their artist’s commercial value and that’s why they rereleased a single that had proven to be popular (albeit in a small way)? Maybe but it seems more of a case of opportunism as the rerelease* was surely due to the inclusion of the song in the film Indecent Proposal. Yes, if a song was in a film in 1993 it was more than likely to be an erotic thriller and probably this one. Strangely though, despite featuring in the actual film proper, it didn’t make it onto the official soundtrack. Maybe that’s why the promo video doesn’t include any clips from the film in it – probably some complicated licensing issues. Ah yes, the promo video that sees Sade Adu as a mermaid. Hmm. I wonder what angle the director was going for?

The rereleased “No Ordinary Love” peaked at No 14.

*When is a re-release actually a re-entry? Apparently the 1993 version had the same track listing and catalogue number as its 1992 counterpart.

And talking of Indecent Proposal…here’s a song that is on the official soundtrack to the film. We saw Lisa Stansfield on the show in person last week performing “In All The Right Places” and that exposure has helped propel it into the charts at No 13. As she’s in the Breakers section, it’s the video this time which does include scenes from the film. As I mentioned last week, rumours persisted at the time that Lisa had been offered the Demi Moore role in the film. Whether she was or not, what is true is that she did finally get to appear in a film some six years later when she starred in musical comedy Swing opposite Hugo Speer. I’ve never seen it but it gets decent reviews online so it might be worth a watch plus she recorded most of the music for it.

So who remembers this? “Three Little Pigs” by Green Jellÿ? Yeah, I know. You’ve tried to forget it. I really wasn’t excited by the concept of a comedy rock band from America I have to say but that’s what this lot were having been around since 1981. One of their early songs was called “I’ve Got Poo-Poo On My Shoe” so we shouldn’t have been surprised by this god awful retelling of the Three Little Pigs fairytale. They had form.

The musicianship is intentionally bad (that’s part of the joke you see) whilst much was made of the ‘hilarious’ stop motion clay animation video. It was hardly original though was it? We’d already seen this sort of parody single back in the 80s from the likes of Weird Al Yankovic and The Firm, the latter of which had also used the same video technique to great effect on their No 1 single “Star Trekkin’”. I didn’t get why this was so popular (the single went Top 5) unless it was kids buying it thinking they were being rebellious.

They followed this up with a cover of “Anarchy In The UK” that they interlaced with references to The Flintstones. Again, not original as The Screaming Blue Messiahs beat them to it by about five years with their “I Wanna Be A Flintstone” hit.

Ah, some proper music now or as host Tony Dortie describes it “some solid musical nourishment” courtesy of A–ha who are back with new single “Dark Is The Night”. Nothing to do with the Shakatak single of the same name, this was the trio’s first UK Top 40 hit since “Crying In The Rain” three years before and was the lead single from their fifth studio album “Memorial Beach”.

By 1993, A-ha’s days of being teen pin-ups were well behind them but then they’d never really pursued that anyway. It was kind of a byproduct of their Scandinavian good looks. However, they definitely seemed determined to shed that image with a song like “Dark Is The Night” which is such a more mature sound than something like “Touchy” or “Take On Me”. I liked it but not too many others seemed to. Its chart trajectory petered out at No 19 whilst the album got no higher than No 17 and produced no further hits. The commercial failure of the project convinced the band to take a seven year hiatus before returning with the “Minor Earth, Major Sky” album.

That means that this could well be the last time we see A-ha on TOTP which also means one final chance for me to indulge in an activity I had been doing since I was 17 and which I was still doing in 1993 despite it being my 25th birthday three days after this TOTP aired. I am, of course, referring to ‘Morton Harket hair watch’. My fascination with Morton’s barnet had been with me through A Levels, Polytechnic and even getting married. My aim – to get my hair to look like his. Here he seems to have grown it and let it flop with no product aided quiff to be seen. Surely I could achieve that?! Sadly, even if I could, my complete lack of cheekbones meant I would never pull off the Morten look convincingly.

https://youtu.be/Whk9qSC3D-Y

As the Tory party leadership contest draws to a close and we stand at the dawn of a new PM, what better act to mark the event than P.M. Dawn?! You think I’m done with the crappy puns? Hell no! It seems now that it is “More Than Likely” that Liz Truss will be the next UK Prime Minister. Heaven help us all. OK, now I’m done – back to the matter at hand. This was the very last of six UK Top 40 hits for both artists concerned here P.M. Dawn and Boy George though this one only just made it peaking at No 40 despite this TOTP appearance at Disneyworld no less. It’s not quite as bonkers as New Order on the set of Baywatch on Venice Beach but it’s up there. It’s a decidedly odd vista, the two of them togged up in completely inappropriate clothes for the weather, sat down metres apart for the whole performance with the Disney castle towering above them in the background. @TOTPFacts has the story behind the location:

The song itself is another gorgeous P.M. Dawn melody which suits Boy George’s vocals perfectly. It really should have been a bigger hit. I had a promo copy of parent album “The Bliss Album…?” which includes a rather wonderful version of “Norwegian Wood” by The Beatles:

It all ended tragically for the original line up of the group. DJ Minitemix was accused of sexually assaulting a 14 year old relative and was subsequently fired from the band whilst Prince Be died of renal disease in 2016.

This is starting to feel like overkill now as we get the third song on the show from the film Indecent Proposal and a fourth from an erotic thriller if you include UB40’s from Sliver. A Breaker last week, Bryan Ferry is in the studio this week (with everyone’s trusty sidekick bass player alongside, the ubiquitous Gail Ann Dorsey) to perform “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow”. As with P.M. Dawn and Boy George earlier, this would be Bryan’s final UK chart single although he would continue to have big selling albums.

As usual, Bryan is effortlessly cool but it all looks a bit too comfy and predictable for me. The reaction he provoked with his debut TOTP appearance in 1972 with Roxy Music performing “Virginia Plain” is a million miles away from what he’s doing here. Maybe it’s unfair to compare them. Maybe.

https://youtu.be/qx9jD87obTA

I’m not sure that I ever knew until now that “All That She Wants” hitmakers Ace Of Base were a family group (well almost). Three of the four members were siblings – they’re basically the Swedish Corrs. It got me thinking about other famous family bands. There’s Oasis obviously plus the Campbell clan of UB40 (pre and post their splintering). The Beach Boys featured three brothers and a cousin and then of course there’s The Osmonds and The Jackson 5. How about Kings Of Leon or the Bee Gees? There’s been a few. Where do Ace Of Base rate in this list? For me, they’re below The Partridge Family* and they weren’t even a real family! I’d almost even have Glenn and Chris before them. Almost.

*Yes, I know Shirley Jones was David Cassidy’s stepmother.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1HaddawayWhat Is LoveHadaway and shite!
2UB40(I Can’t Help) Falling In Love With YouNah
3JamiroquaiBlow Your MindNo but my wife had the album
4Tasmin ArcherLords Of The New ChurchNope
5Sade No Ordinary LoveNegative
6Lisa StansfieldIn All The Right PlacesNo
7Green JellÿThree Little PigsPigshit – no
8A-haDark Is The NightNo but I have it on a Best Of CD
9P.M. Dawn / Boy GeorgeMore Than LikelyNo but I had a promo copy of the album
10Bryan Ferry Will You Still Love Me TomorrowI did not
11Ace Of BaseAll That She WantsAnd 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/m001bdx1/top-of-the-pops-03061993

TOTP 11 MAR 1993

Posted on by 80stastic

1993 was not a year I was looking forward to reviewing and one of the main reasons for that has now arrived in this TOTP – the unholy trinity of the three S’s. I speak of Shaggy, Shabba Ranks and Snow. The first two are both on tonight’s show whilst the latter makes his debut entry into the Top 40 this week. Somehow these three crystallised for me everything they was wrong with the charts around this time. The fact that they all arrived together at the same time probably had something to do with it. Could I have been wrong in my initial assessment? Let’s see if a gap of twenty-nine years has changed my perspective.

Opening the show though are another act who were all about the S’s so much so they had two of them in their name – it can only be Sister Sledge. Well, it could also have been Sam Smith or Sandie Shaw or Shakespear’s Sister or (God forbid) Shakin’ Stevens but let’s not go there. Seriously.

After they’d scored a hit for the third time in fourteen years with yet another remix of “We Are Family” earlier in 1993, perhaps the most obvious rerelease of all time was unleashed upon us – yes it was time once more for “Lost In Music”. Why obvious? Well, every time one song was released as a single, the other came out shortly after. Look at this lot:

  • 26 May 1979 – “We Are Family”
  • 21 Aug 1979 – “Lost In Music
  • 07 Sep 1984 – “Lost In Music”
  • 17 Nov 1984 – “We Are Family”
  • 24 Jan 1993 – “We Are Family”
  • 13 Mar 1993 – “Lost In Music”

I mean they’re both disco standards but is that just a teeny bit of overkill? Couldn’t they have mixed it up a bit? How about a rerelease of “Thinking Of You” instead? What? They did do that as well! It was their third hit single of 1993 when it came out again in the June. Oh come on! Wait…

*blogger is gripped by sudden panic*

They didn’t rerelease “Frankie” as well did they?! Please God no!

*checks Sister Sledge discography*

Oh thank f**k for that. They didn’t. I couldn’t have hoped with a second helping if that on the show. I’d have barfed for sure.

The 1993 version of “Lost In Music” peaked at No 14.

What’s that you say Tony Dortie (in your daft hat)? Bruce Dickinson is leaving Iron Maiden? Did he? I have to say that this piece of blockbusting news must have passed me by at the time. Having read up on the story, it seems that Bruce had announced he was leaving the band before they headed out on a forty-six date world tour. It doesn’t sound like a good idea and indeed it wasn’t. Both his band mates and their fanbase were pissed off with Dickinson for putting the group’s future in doubt. Maybe keeping schtum about leaving to pursue your solo career until after the tour is done may have been the way to go Bruce?

Anyway, this live single “Fear Of The Dark” wasn’t from Dickinson’s final tour as it hadn’t yet happened. Instead it was, rather obviously, from the previous year’s Fear Of The Dark tour which was enshrined forever in the resultant album “A Real Live One”. Now, I wouldn’t need every finger of one hand to list the number of Iron Maiden songs that I like but this one starts off in a rather un-Maiden-esque style with Dickinson laying off on the over the top throaty vocals and with a low key intro but then they resort to type and it loses my interest immediately. It peaked at No 8 thanks to that newly pissed off but still sizeable fanbase.

And so we return to those pesky S’s now as we find Shaggy on his way to the top of the charts with “Oh Carolina”. Up to No 2 this week and with 2 Unlimited now in their fifth week at the pinnacle, Tony Dortie’s prediction of it being No 1 the following week was hardly the stuff of Nostradamus. Yet it was, at the same time, an unlikely chart topper. Apparently “Oh Carolina” would be the first ‘reggae’ No 1 since Aswad’s “Don’t Turn Around” in 1988 if you can classify that as a reggae track and if you ignore the dub reggae of “Dub Be Good To Me” by Beats International in 1990. The following week, Snow’s “Informer” would storm to No 8 meaning there would be three reggae influenced singles in the Top 10 simultaneously for the first time ever. It was a strange time in the UK charts but why and how had this shake up of the charts come to be? Maybe it was just the law of averages and probability – it had to happen some time.

I worked for Our Price throughout the 90s and we used to source the majority of our reggae stock from the supplier Jetstar. In my memory, they are who we ordered the Shaggy single from though I could be wrong about that. Whenever you used to ring their telesales team with an order, you were guaranteed to talk to someone effortlessly cool on the other end of the line. It always sounded like the atmosphere in the Jetstar office was just one long, chilled out sesh with the occasional bit of work done now and then if they felt like it. I’m sure they are all really hard working but that was the vibe that was projected. I was jealous. Also having a good time is Shaggy who is clearly enjoying himself in this performance probably riding on the confidence of knowing he’ll have a No 1 record soon enough.

And so we come to easily the most objectionable of the three S’s of 1993 – “Mr Loverman”, Shabba Ranks. I hated everything about this; the song, its success and of course Ranks himself not least of all because of this interview on The Word:

https://youtu.be/8WQ_xoCkSds

Let’s have it right, what a f*****g arsehole! Thankfully Mark Lamarr was on hand to call him out unlike Dani Behr who wanted to sweep it all under the carpet and move on. That took place in 1992 and by March 1993, Ranks had put out a public apology for his grotesque words. Funnily enough it coincided with the rerelease of the “Mr Loverman” single. Do you think his record company Sony put some pressure on him to retract what he had said so that their product wasn’t dead in the water before it started? Yes, I did say rerelease as the single had already been a hit once the previous August when it got to No 23. Presumably the rising profile of dancehall and the success of Shaggy convinced Sony to roll the dice again and so it became a No 3 hit second time around.

The track became infamous for the use of the ‘Shabba!’ shout out which became a catch all catchphrase for just about any situation. My favourite use of it though was by Ray Von from Phoenix Nights…

It’s a third time on the show for Bryan Ferry and his treatment of “I Put A Spell On You”. Now originally I had thought that this might be just a rebroadcast of the first time Ferry did a studio performance as the staging is almost exactly the same but it isn’t as the cut away to the next act reveals. This raises the question of quite why Ferry just gave an identikit performance again? I mean I think there’s less dancers this week but everything else including the performers outfits are the same. I guess I expected a bit more creativity from Bryan than that.

“I Put A Spell On You” peaked at No 18.

I find it hard to remember but there was a time when Jamiroquai’s sound was regarded as fresh and new and exciting. That sensation didn’t last long as petty soon everything they released sounded exactly the same as..well…everything else they’d ever released. Back in 1993 though Jay Kay was a hip, young groover bringing his brand of acid jazz, soul/funk vibes to the nation. I guess he’s always been a divisive figure though. Early on he suffered from accusations of plagiarising Stevie Wonder and of being a hypocrite for espousing environmental themes in his lyrics whilst having an obsession with the collection of fast, expensive cars. Subsequent misdemeanours like being charged with assaulting a photographer and waxing lyrical in concert about how great his then partner Denise Van Outen’s breasts were didn’t do his image any favours.

I always thought “Too Young To Die” was Jamiroquai’s first single but there’d been one before it called “When You Gonna Learn” in 1992 which had made No 28 on the charts but which had escaped my attention completely. It was their first single for Sony though which may account for my confusion. As for the performance here, you have to admit that Jay Kay (it’s all about him really in much the same way that Simply Red is all about Hucknall) makes quite the impression. His vocals are good (though the ‘de de de de do’ chorus is unmistakably Wonder-esque) but it’s his look which grabs the attention. Watching him now, the first thing that springs to mind is how hot he must have been under the studio lights in his oversized clobber. Ah yes, the clothes or more specifically that hat! It would become Kay’s signature look and inform the ‘buffalo man’ logo that would be the face of the band’s brand featuring on the art work for the covers of their first four albums. Some thought had clearly gone into this from a marketing point of view.

Did I like their sound? Yeah, initially. My wife liked it so much she bought that first album “Emergency On Planet Earth”. I think I got bored with it quite quickly though. “Too Young To Die” made it all the way to the Top 10 and the album was a platinum selling No 1. The time of Jamiroquai had begun.

Next a band who, like many before them, suffer from the misguided belief by many that they were a one hit wonder. PM Dawn really weren’t though their biggest and most memorable success did rather overshadow the rest of their back catalogue which is a shame. The Spandau Ballet sampling “Set Adrift On Memory Bliss” was that huge hit of course from the Summer of 1991 and we hadn’t heard that much from the duo since. The follow up single “Paper Doll” had been scrunched up and binned when it failed to make the Top 40 whilst two further singles had at least charted though neither got further than No 29. “Looking Through Patient Eyes” would correct that though when it peaked at No 11.

Turning from Spandau Ballet to George Michael for inspiration on this one – the track heavily samples “Father Figure” – it was another great example of their wordy rapping (hood) allied to a mellow yet catchy sound. It was taken from their second album the title of which confirmed their verbose credentials – “The Bliss Album…? (Vibrations Of Love And Anger And The Ponderance Of Life And Existence)”. They really did have a thing about word heavy album titles. Their debut was called “Of The Heart, Of The Soul And Of The Cross: The Utopian Experience” whilst their fourth carried the title of “Dearest Christian, I’m So Very Sorry For Bringing You Here. Love Dad”. Like the Ferry album “Taxi”, Our Price got a promo copy of the album which ended up in my possession. My wife even made a cover for it.

Sadly, Prince Be died in 2016 after suffering for years from diabetes related conditions including having one of his legs amputated at the knee due to gangrene.

If it’s…we’ll any year since 1958 actually…then there must be a Cliff Richard single out. 1993’s first offering of that particular year was a song called “Peace In Our Time”. This is yet another song I don’t recall at all. I wonder what it sounds like?

*watches Cliff’s performance back*

Oh this is just a glorious tune. So full of life and positivity and…nah, you got me. It’s just the same old Cliff shite that he’d been peddling for years. Apparently a hit for Eddie Money in the US in the late 80s, it’s just sanctimonious crap about having faith, putting songs in our hearts and building a heaven on earth. It even goes on about turning water into wine! Just horrible. If I want a song called “Peace In Our Time”, there’s always this…

Cliff’s got all his usual mates with him here backing him up – Janey Lee Grace, that bloke from Modern Romance – whilst the main man himself does his usual weird arm movements. At one point he’s only a flick of the wrist away from doing a Bruce Forsyth pose. Cliff, of course, was at Wimbledon last week doing his usual cringe fest crowd singalong. For the love of God Cliff, give it a rest and grant us some peace in our time! By the way, I can’t find the TOTP performance so here’s a clip from some German pop show:

It’s the final week at the top for 2 Unlimited with “No Limit”. After positing the theory the other week that dance acts couldn’t sell albums, Ray and Anita completely debunk this by having a No 1 with parent album “No Limits” (note the plural). Released on the PWL label in the UK, Pete Waterman made the decision to remove Ray’s raps from the tracks which only increased the ‘there’s no lyrics’ jibes in the press. The ribbing was continued in later weeks by some unlikely critics – the Scottish popsters The Bluebells who had some fun at 2 Unlimited’s expense by shouting out ‘Techno, techno, techno, techno’ during a TOTP performance of their rejuvenated hit “Young At Heart”. Those cheeky scamps!

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I Buy It?
1Sister SledgeLost In Music ’93Nope
2Iron MaidenFear Of The Dark (Live)Never
3ShaggyOh CarolinaNah
4Shabba RanksMr LovermanHell no!
5Bryan Ferry I Put A Spell On YouNo but I had a promo of the album
6JamiroquaiToo Young To DieNo but my wife had the album
7PM DawnLooking Through Patient EyesSee 5 above
8Cliff RichardPeace In Our TimeWhat do you think?!
92 UnlimitedNo LimitNegative

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/m0018zst/top-of-the-pops-11031993

TOTP 29 AUG 1991

Posted on by 80stastic

The Summer of 1991 has nearly shed its last vestiges as we look towards the Autumn. And what happens in the Autumn? Yes, a new football season begins. Despite enduring years of disappointment, I still retained some small hope that 1991/92 might be the season when my beloved Chelsea actually win something. Back in the early 90s, we were a mid table side, we could beat the best one week and lose to the worst the next. We were consistently inconsistent. On the day this TOTP was broadcast, Chelsea signed a new player to help take us to the next level. There was just one problem. It was Vinnie Jones. The renowned hard man and one time member of Wimbledon’s ‘Crazy Gang’ was signed from Sheffield United for £575,000 and his main contribution that season was to break his own record for getting booked when he was cautioned for a tackle after just 3 seconds against his former club. Oh great.

Not only did Vinnie follow Paul ‘Gazza’ Gascoigne so closely that he was infamously photographed grabbing him by the balls in 1988, he would also follow Gazza into a music career. For “Fog On The Tyne” read “Wooly Bully” which Jones recorded a version of in 1993. It failed to chart. Vinnie still thought he had a talent for singing though and in 2019 took part in The X Factor: Celebrity where he finished 6th out of 14 entries and performed covers of “I Fought The Law” and “Should I Stay Or Should I Go” by The Clash in Live Show 4 which is possibly the worst thing I have ever seen or heard…

Talking of ‘hard men’, this show starts off with someone who would make a name for himself as an actor playing some ‘tough guy’ roles along the way in flicks such as The Yards, Four Brothers and Shooter before branching out into lighter roles in Ted and Ted 2 and Instant Family. Back in 1991 though, he was more known as the brother of one of the guys in New Kids On The Block. It is of course Mark Wahlberg or as he was known in his pop career Marky Mark.

Having originally been involved in the NKOTB project but dropping out before they found fame, Wahlberg took his music career in a hip-hop direction with the creation of Marky Mark And The Funky Bunch and the decision brought immediate dividends with debut single “Good Vibrations” which was a huge global hit including being a US No 1 record. Nothing to do with the Beach Boys hit of the same name, this track instead based around “Love Sensation” by Loleatta Holloway which, of course, was famously sampled by Black Box for their mammoth No 1 “Ride On Time”. Had Wahlberg not heard that record before deciding to re-use its famous sample for his own track? He couldn’t have come up with something different? There was one difference between the records though and that was the acknowledgment of Loleatta Holloway who appears on stage here with Wahlberg. Presumably record label Interscope had taken note that Holloway had sued the heck out of Black Box for their uncredited use of her vocals and didn’t want to enter into litigation with such a formidable person.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6jDxmLxL78

The other thing that Wahlberg was known for back then was his pants or more precisely his Clavin Klein pants and his naked torso both on show in this performance. He would go onto star in Calvin Klein adverts the following year. Having watched them back, they really are quite repugnant.

“Good Vibrations” peaked at No 14 and was the only UK hit for Marky Mark And The Funky Bunch.

PM Dawn are next with “Set Adrift On Memory Bliss” having slotted snuggly into the No 3 spot behind Right Said Fred and Bryan Adams. I had high hopes that they would displace both on its surge to a triumphant No 1 but in the end they made no inroads on either as both stood firm against the onslaught of dreamy, Spandau Ballet infused R&B.

The video features a very brief cameo by Spandau’s Tony Hadley at its denouement. Well, his band were totally inactive at the time so why not earn some extra cash? The director of said video was a guy called Mark Pellington who sounds like he should have been playing centre midfield for Sheffield Wednesday but who actually went on to produce promos for the likes of U2, Pearl Jam, INXS, REM and Public Enemy amongst a host of others.

As for their album that host Mark Goodier plugs in his intro, “Of The Heart, Of The Soul And Of The Cross: The Utopian Experience” would go gold in the UK and platinum in the US off the back fo the success of “Set Adrift On Memory Bliss”.

Apparently, after the death of the band’s Prince Be, remaining member DJ Minutemix re-recorded all the vocals of the band’s catalogue to ensure he got more royalty money and for a while they were the versions of the duo’s output that you could hear on Spotify. Didn’t Squeeze do a similar thing to get around the issue of their record label owning the rights to their back catalogue?

Back in the studio we find EMF with their latest single “Lies”. I know they weren’t a one hit wonder as some seemed to believe and could name maybe four of their singles at a push but this one has clearly escaped my memory banks. Listening to it now, the formula was starting to wear a bit thin. This really did sound like all their other songs with the exception of “Unbelievable”. Apparently this was the track they issued as a follow up to that single in the US as they skipped the UK follow up “I Believe” thinking it wasn’t right for the US market. I’d have to day that my mind really isn’t tuned in to the finer nuances between those two songs to have made such a distinction other than “Lies” has a very slight Spaghetti Western feel to it. As for Mark Goodier’s claim the the band had sold a million albums in the US, I can’t find anything online to corroborate that but certainly they were a big deal over there with “Unbelievable” going to No 1.

As well as being commercially successful across the pond, they also attracted controversy and notoriety surrounding the track “Lies”. Initial pressings of “Schubert Dip” originally had the song beginning with 8 seconds of a sample of the voice of John Lennon’s assassin, Mark Chapman, reciting the first two lines of the lyrics to Lennon’s “Watching the Wheels”. Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, objected to its inclusion and as a result all subsequent pressings of the album have omitted the sample. Apparently pressings that include it are very rare and much sought after. Not up there with the A&M pressing of “God Save The Queen” by The Sex Pistols a mint copy of which sold for £13,000 in 2019 maybe but worth keeping an eye out for all the same.

EMF would return with their second album “Stigma” in 1992 but it seriously under performed – it was only on the charts for two weeks while its predecessor reached No. 3 and charted for 19 weeks. It would take a link up with Vic Reeves for a cover of “I’m A Believer” by The Monkees to take them into the Top 3 one last time in 1995.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tP1ZkqpFVY

Now I don’t think I would ever have described Prince as a ‘tough guy’ but he certainly didn’t flinch when it came to courting controversy. “Gett Off” was the first single to be released under the public billing of Prince And The New Power Generation and was the lead single from the “Diamonds And Pearls” album. It was also filthy. So filthy in fact that it had to undergo a drastic edit before it could be shown on TOTP. So, the first line of the chorus “Gett off, twenty three positions in a one night stand” was deleted for starters. Next, the lyric “Now move your big ass ’round this way, so I can work on that zipper, baby” hadn’t a hope of making the cut and finally the couplet “She said you told her a fantasy, that got her all wet (wet)” was included but had the word ‘wet’ drowned out by …a woman moaning?! How did that work?! In the immediately preceding lyrics, Prince used the word ‘jizz’ that also got past the BBC censor so maybe they weren’t on top of their game that week. Or maybe they just didn’t know what the word ‘jazz’ meant? I know I once worked with someone who’s never heard of it before.

As for the sound of the song, I wasn’t that impressed at the time much preferring subsequent singles off the album “Cream”, “Money Don’t Matter 2 Night” and the title track. However, listening to it in 2021, I can hear how it really was damn funky.

However, I can’t actually hear it without thinking of this sketch from The Fast Show...

Dear God no! Not Steve f*****g Wright with another of his ‘hilarious’ comedy records. FFS! There he is with the tin hat on miming with a guitar. Bellend! Of course he had previous for this sort of shit. As way back as 1982 he’d released a single called “I’m Alright” under the name Young Steve And The Afternoon Boys and follow it up a year later with “Get Some Therapy” as Steve Wright And The Sisters Of Soul. “The Gay Cavelieros” followed in 1984 (no, not at all offensive!) and finally in the 80s “I’m So Angry” by Mr Angry featuring Steve Wright. All were based around catchphrases or characters employed by Wright on Radio 1 afternoon show and they were all f*****g awful. Not content with having tortured us with this crud throughout the 80s, he decided we needed some more of his ‘humour’ in the 90s with “I’ll Be Back” by Arnee And The Terminaters. Obviously playing on the current popularity of the Terminator 2: Judgment Day film, this just stank the studio out. Not funny, no musical talent, it was idiotic and anyone who bought it must have been as well. Some f*****s did though as it went all the way to No 5. Completely and utterly inexplicable.

Simple Minds with a third single from their “Real Life” album next. This one was called “Stand By Love” and one generous soul tweeted while watching the BBC4 TOTP repeat that it was ‘The Most meaningless song ever written’. Ouch! To be fair, this was stadium rock by numbers by this point. All the ingredients for a Simple Minds song seemed to be there but it tasted as bland as the guy introducing it, Mark Goodier. Even the video is anonymous with it just being yet another in concert promo of the band.

“Stand By Love” was already at its peak of No 13.

The story of a band starting from humble indie beginnings before scoring a huge hit and bagging a major record deal is one that permeates the history of pop music. Yet for every James who switched to major Fontana from Rough Trade in the wake of “Sit Down” and set themselves up for a career of longevity and success, there is also the other side of the coin as exemplified by The Farm. Their 80s indie singles garnered them acclaim but no sales but when “Groovy Train” and “All Together Now” hit as the new decade broke, their popularity was enough to earn them a No 1 album in “Spartacus”.

Taking note of this success were Sony Records who signed the band and even gave them their own record label called End Product. With the backing of a major, what should have been a continuing tale of hits and fame turned into a footnote in the story of 90s music as the band struggled to re-establish themselves in the charts. Second album “Love See No Colour” bombed whilst the only Top 20 hit from it came from that ever desperate ploy of doing a cover version, this one being “Don’t You Want Me” by The Human League.

Before all of that though came “Mind”, the lead single from that sophomore album. It’s not that it’s a terrible record, it’s just that it’s not a very good one either. The chorus is pleasant enough but the rest of it is as sluggish as its progress up the Top 40 (where it petered out at a peak of No 31). And those shockingly awful lyrics like these:

Remember all the good times that we had
Some of them happy, some of them sad

Seriously though, what were they thinking?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7COZMoVjni4

A genuine rock legend now as David Bowie is back in the TOTP studio after what seemed like forever but this time with his new(ish) band Tin Machine. This appearance was part of a big publicity push to relaunch the project with the release of their second album due out on the following Monday. They had already done Wogan in the week. For me though, once you’d got past the fact this was yer actual Bowie up there, the music just didn’t cut it. “You Belong In Rock ‘n’ Roll” was dull, dull dull. It actually belonged in the bargain bin (which is probably where it ended up). I even preferred Bowie’s much maligned late 80s output to this. Then of course there was all that nonsense with the chocolate eclair being shredded by guitarist Reeves Gaberels. What was that all about? Well, here’s @TOTPFacts with the answer:

Just ridiculous. What a load of jizz! Talking of which, how overexcited must the other acts in the studio that night have been to be appearing alongside David Bowie?! Let’s remind ourselves who they were again. Well, there was EMF (could be worse) The Farm (dreary), Marky Mark & The Funky Bunch (oh deary) and Steve Wright (Dear God!). Bowie must have felt like he’d stepped into a parallel universe. I hope he thought it was all worth it.

“You Belong In Rock’N’ Roll” peaked at No 33.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDV55U5UAps

Third time on the show for Right Said Fred and “I’m Too Sexy” but first time for their promo video. Had they been in the studio alongside Bowie*, Richard Fairbrass could have had a reunion with him as he worked with David as a session bassist in the mid 80s and appeared in the videos for “Blue Jean” and “Loving The Alien” alongside him.

As for the video for “I’m Too Sexy”, well, it’s all very knockabout fun made on a cheap budget by the looks with the scenes within it a direct correlation to the lyrics. There’s catwalks, shirts being pulled off, cars, images of Milan, New York and Japan, and of course a hat. According to IMDB database that bit where Fred Fairbrass pulls off his brother Richard’s hat as the three Freds walk down the street was improvised and Richard’s reaction of surprise is genuine. Oh come on! There’s a string attached to the back of the hat which Fred used to yank it off. Was Richard really not aware of that and not in on the joke?

“I’m Too Sexy” stayed at No 2 for six consecutive weeks.

*Late update:

There’s only time for two Breakers this week but they were both memorable for different reasons. “Let’s Talk About Sex” by Salt ‘N’ Pepa would be another of those records that peaked at No 2 behind Bryan Adams and would surely have been a No 1 if the UK record buying public weren’t behaving so bizarrely as to keep the same record at the top of the charts for 16 weeks.

With AIDS very much acting as its backdrop, this was basically an upfront discussion about the dangers of unprotected sex in the form of a pop/rap song. The track was originally released on the trio’s “Blacks’ Magic” album but in the UK, it is more well known as being on their “Greatest Hits” album that seemed to appear very rapidly in October, possibly rush released to cash in on the single’s success?

The lyrics included some memorable lines none more so than the three way conversation in the middle 8:

Yo, Pep, I don’t think they’re gonna play this on the radio
And why not? Everybody have sex
I mean, everybody should be makin’ love
Come on, how many guys you know make love?

The brilliance of the track was the dichotomy at the heart of it. Whilst the subject matter was decidedly heavy, it was addressed in such a playful manner and backed up with an insanely catchy sound. A very clever rerecord all round. A huge hit globally (though not especially in there native US), it went to No 1 in eight countries including Germany where it was the first original song by an American hip-hop act to achieve that feat.

The second Breaker was significant mainly because of who it was by. Dire Straits had not released an album since the all conquering “Brothers In Arms” in 1985, an album so massive that it is the eighth-best-selling album in UK chart history. More than its commercial feats though, it was its cultural influence that made its legend. It was the first album to be recorded entirely digitally which perfectly lent itself to CD and would promote sales of that format within the rock/pop genre like never before. Despite being around since 1982, CDs had mainly sold within classical music markets but “Brothers In Arms” changed everything and became the first album to sell a million copies in that format. It became the default demonstration disc used by shops to persuade customers to turn to CD players. So huge was its perceived connection to the CD technology that it almost became a well worn joke.

Up against that legacy, anything the band released next was on a hiding to nothing. “On Every Street” was the album they came up with and despite going to No 1 and achieving double platinum sales in the UK, it was still dwarfed by “Brothers In Arms” which had gone 14 times platinum in this country.

“Calling Elvis” was the lead single and I have to say I found it a particularly drab affair. The Gerry Anderson themed video is fun though and reminds me of the Team America: World Police film from the makers of South Park. Very bad taste but very funny as well. “Calling Elvis” the song on the other hand was just very bad. If I wanted a song about Elvis Presley then there are loads of other songs that are more worthy of attention. How about “Blue Moon Revisited (A Song For Elvis) by Cowboy Junkies or “Tupelo” by Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds. Hell, I’d take “Walking In Memphis” by Marc Cohn over “Calling Elvis”! Mark Knopfler seemed very preoccupied by Elvis as he would write a song called “Back To Tupelo” as a solo artist.

Anyway, the single that announced the return of Dire Straits wasn’t a big hit peaking at No 21 but then I guess they weren’t really a singles band and the record company would have been more concerned about sales of the album. I was slightly more tolerant of the follow up single “Heavy Fuel” which was a very obvious but desperate attempt to rewrite “Money For Nothing” but that missed the Top 40 altogether. I did say they weren’t really a singles band.

We’ve reached the halfway point of its reign at the top as “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” by Bryan Adams racks up its 8th week at No 1. It’s hard to recall what the reaction of the press and media to this astonishing chart story that was unfolding was. I suppose by week 8 there must have been talk of and reference to Frankie Goes To Hollywood and “Two Tribes” which was No 1 for 9 consecutive weeks in the Summer of 1984. Once that milestone was passed, I’m guessing all bets were off.

Looking at the songs that have been No 1 for the longest (discounting anything this century like Drake and Ed Sheeran) then once Adams got into double digits then he really was out on his own. Queen had been No 1 for 9 weeks with “Bohemian Rhapsody” in 1975 and indeed spent another 5 weeks atop the UK charts on its re-release in 1991 after Freddie Mercury’s death but that was obviously not a consecutive run. Apart from that, Slim Whitman spent 11 weeks at No 1 with “Rose Marie” in 1955 but that was so long ago that any reference to it felt like talking about another universe. By the time Adams’ run was into the teens it felt like nothing would ever dislodge it.

Of course, rather than being a once in a lifetime event, the phenomenon of “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” started a mini trend. The following year, Whitney Houston took “I Will Always Love You” to the top for 10 weeks with yet another song from the soundtrack to a Kevin Costner film in The Bodyguard and two years after that Wet Wet Wet were No 1 for 16 weeks with “Love Is All Around” from Four Weddings And A Funeral. I believe they would have even eclipsed Bryan Adams had the band not asked for the single to be deleted so sick of it themselves were they. None of them though could match the feats of “I Believe” by Frankie Laine which spent 18 weeks at No 1. Initially at the top for nine weeks, after a week at No 2, he went back up to spend a further 6 at the top. He was then toppled by Mantovani before Frankie struck back by regaining the top spot for a further 3 weeks. Quite remarkable.

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

The play out video is the re-released “20th Century Boy” by Marc Bolan & T.Rex. My favourite story about Marc is that he chose the surname Bolan (he was originally born Mark Feld) because he liked the name of a young actor that he was flat sharing with in Landale Road in Barnes – a certain James Bolam of The Likely Lads fame. Apparently James wasn’t too keen on the idea.

Marc had been going by the name of Toby Tyler before this which would have been great alteration for his act had he stuck with it (Toby Tyler & T.Rex). Mark became Marc after a trip to Paris and at one point he adopted an absurd affectation of adding an umlaut to the ‘o’ of his new surname making it Bölan. Thankfully it dropped off somewhere in the mists of time.

“20th Century Boy” (the 1991 version) peaked at No 13.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Marky Mark And The Funky BunchGood Vibrations Nope
2PM DawnSet Adrift On Memory BlissYes on cassette single! No idea where it is now mind
3EMFLiesI didn’t and that’s the truth
4Prince And The New Power GenerationGett OffNegative
5Arnee And The TerminatersI’ll Be BackGet to f**k!
6Simple MindsStand By LoveNah
7The FarmMindThanks but no thanks
8Tin MachineYou Belong In Rock ‘n’ RollDefinitely not
9Right Said FredI’m Too SexyNo
10Salt ‘N PepaLet’s Talk About SexDon’t think I did
11Dire StraitsCalling Elvis100% no
12Bryan Adams(Everything I Do) I Do It For YouIt’s a no
13Marc Bolan & T.Rex20th Century BoyNot the re-release but I have it on a Best Of CD

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/m000zwr1/top-of-the-pops-29081991

TOTP 15 AUG 1991

Posted on by 80stastic

It’s mid August 1991 and the nation is still in the grip of Robin Hood fever with the Kevin Costner film having been out at the cinemas for around a month and doing great business whilst the theme song from the soundtrack by Bryan Adams is not even half way through its historic run at the top of the charts. Now obviously Costner’s performance in Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves was rightly put in the shade by the over the top portrayal of The Sheriff Of Nottingham by Alan Rickman but for my money, Rickman produced an infinitely better turn in another film that came out the day after this TOTP aired. It received critical acclaim but made peanuts at the box office compared to Robin Hood. Long before Savage Garden had a hit with a song called Truly Madly Deeply, it was also the title of a film starring Rickman and Juliet Stevenson written and directed by Anthony Minghella and it was kind of like a British Ghost but understated and without the Hollywood sheen and was so much better for it. It remains my favourite Alan Rickman movie. Despite Rickman’s character being a cellist and there being a motif of music running throughout the film, there was no chart-chomping hit single from its soundtrack thank God as that would have really spoilt the whole thing.

Back to TOTP though and we start this particular show with a band who would definitely have benefited from a huge hit single. Level 42 hadn’t been seen once yet in the new decade and had last released an album back in 1988 but they were back with a new single and album both entitled “Guaranteed”. Come 1991 though, they looked and sounded like a complete anachronism. The single had all the composite Level 42 elements with Mark King’s driving slap bass to the fore and Mike Lindup’s falsetto vocals still there in the background and centre stage in the bridge section but where was the tune? The whole thing just sort of meandered along for a while before giving up and disappearing up its own arsehole.

Although it was the second highest entry in the Top 40 that week as host Gary Davies advises, it never got beyond that number despite this TOTP appearance. The album did achieve a high of No 3 but its sales were nowhere nears those of previous albums like “World Machine”: and “Running In The Family”. I certainly can’t remember selling any in the Our Price store I was working in. Their imperial phase of the mid 80s was long gone and the band would split in 1994 before reforming in the new millennium.

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

Oh come on now! Color Me Badd again! I’m plain out of anything to say about this bunch of chancers. I mean just look at them. How did anybody fall for this crud?! Watching this video for “All 4 Love” back, they kind of remind me of Pinky and Perky the singing puppet pigs with their high pitched squealing voices and jerky dance moves.

I think Color Me Badd’s legacy (if it can be described as such) is summed up by the following: if you google their name, in the questions that appear in the People Also Ask section after the Wikipedia entry, the second one down is ‘Was Kenny G in Color Me Badd?’.

Now there was some unexpected Twitter love for this next act when the TOTP repeat was broadcast. Sophie Lawrence was never going to be the British Kylie but her version of Donna Summer’s “Love’s Unkind” seems to be much more fondly remembered than I had bargained for. It was produced by one Pete Hammond who had left the Stock, Aitken and Waterman team earlier that year and although it is an out and out sugary pop production, I think I prefer it to what SAW did to the actual Donna Summer when she teamed up with them in 1989 for hit singles like “This Time I Know It’s for Real” and “I Don’t Wanna Get Hurt”.

Of course, Sophie wasn’t the first EastEnders star to infiltrate the pop charts. Back in the mid 80s there seemed to be an Albert Square resident featured in the Top 40 countdown every week. So how does Sophie compare to those who went before and indeed after her…

ActorCharacterSingleYearChart peakWas it any cop?
Anita DobsonAngie WattsAnyone Can Fall In Love1986No 4Indescribably bad track set to Eastenders theme tune
Nick Berry WicksyEvery Loser Wins1986No 1Painful piano weepy
Letitia Dean and Paul MedfordSharon Watts and Kelvin CarpenterSomething Outa Nothing1986No 12Clunky, mechanical pop. Dreadful
Tom WattLoftySubterranean Homesick Blues1986Did not chartAstonishingly bad Dylan cover
Peter Dean Pete BealeCan’t Get a Ticket (For the World Cup)1986Did not chartWorld Cup tie in “song” that couldn’t get any sales for obvious reasons
Sophie LawrenceDiane ButcherLove’s Unkind1991No 21Passable Donna Summer cover
Michelle Gayle*Hattie TavernierSweetness1994No 4Credible and catchy pop
Sean Maguire*Aidan BrosnanGood Day1996No 12Breezy but nasty cliche of a song
Martine McCutcheon*Tiffany MitchellPerfect Moment1999No 1Surprisingly classy sounding big ballad
Sid OwenRicky ButcherGood Thing Going2000No 14Sugar Minott cover designed to make him the next Peter Andre. The mind boggles
* Biggest of a number of hits

I’d say that puts Sophie about mid table. Could have been worse although the competition wasn’t up too much.

Although lacking that star quality of the aforementioned Kylie, Sophie seems likeable enough in this performance although the suggestive eye wink that she has deemed necessary does jar a bit by the end. There was some also a Twitter reaction to Sophie’s backing singers and you have to say that the TOTP cameraman does seem to give them at least as much screen time as Sophie herself. Can’t imagine why.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjMbxf7s2Nk

It’s the video for “Winter In July” by Bomb The Bass up next. There seems to be a lot of love still out there for this period of the band’s career with comparisons between their album “Unknown Territory” (from which “Winter In July” came) and Massive Attack’s classic “Blue Lines” made by fans. Somehow though, whilst “Blue Lines” routinely appears in various best album polls of varying categories, the same can’t be said of “Unknown Territory” – odd really as both albums achieved similar chart peaks (No 13 for the former and No 19 the latter) whilst “Winter In July” was by far the biggest hit single of those released from both albums peaking inside the Top 10 at No 7. Apparently there’s a sample of “Ghosts” by Japan in the there somewhere but I’m not sure I can spot it.

Ah, this next track is peak summer of 1991. “Set Adrift On Memory Bliss” by PM Dawn was basically musical Radox washing over you and gently smoothing out the wrinkles in your aural senses. Now admittedly I couldn’t hear the Japan “Ghosts” sample in “Winter In July” but nobody could miss the sampling of Spandau Ballet’s “True” in this track. Much was made of its use at the time and I’m sure that many a customer asked for “that song that has Spandau Ballet in it” rather than “the PM Dawn single”. What a great choice of sample though – it totally makes the track.

As for PM Dawn, they’d had an earlier minor hit “A Watcher’s Point of View (Don’t ‘Cha Think)” but I don’t think that had registered with me so, as for many people, they were a pretty new name to me. There seemed to be something transcendental about “Set Adrift On Memory Bliss” though that made me take notice from its trippy sounding title to its lyrics that were at turns both indecipherable (“Rubber bands expand in a frustrating sigh”) and existential (“Reality used to be a friend of mine”).

The duo behind this wonderful sound were New Jersey brothers Attrell and Jarrett Cordes who went by the stage names of Prince Be and DJ Minutemix respectively. Looking like the missing members of De La Soul in their D.A.I.S.Y. Age phase, they scored a huge global hit with this single which went to No 1 in the US. It would peak at No 3 over here kept off the No 1 spot by Bryan Adams and even denied a No 2 berth by Right Said Fred. Where’s the justice eh?

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

A second screening for the video to ‘Monsters And Angels” by Voice Of The Beehive next (and the third outing in total for the song on TOTP). I watched Gary Davies very carefully during this link. Why? Well, at the end of the song he advises us that the band’s latest album had been released on the Monday of that week. Yeah and…? The title of it of course! The pun-licious “Honey Lingers”! I can’t be sure if Davies has grasped the cunnilingus connection by his expression but he does seem to take extra care to make sure he pronounces the album title correctly.

The Beehive sisters certainly weren’t shrinking violets when it came to naming things. Apart from “Honey Lingers” there was also an album called “Sex & Misery” and some live appearances in London in the Summer of ’91 that were entitled Orgy Under The Underworld. Blimey!

A staple of Summer compilation albums next as we get DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince with “Summertime”. Whilst it is an indisputable seasonal anthem, for me the song of that year’s Summer was “Set Adrift On Memory Bliss” that we saw earlier in the show. I mean, I thought “Summertime” was good and all that but PM Dawn’s track was shimmering perfection in comparison.

One of the landmarks that features in the video is the Philadelphia Museum of Art – yes, the building where Rocky runs up the steps at the end of his legendary training routine montage. That act of adrenaline pumping and lung bursting physical exertion being pretty much the opposite of what DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince were doing as they saunter past.

“Summertime” peaked at No 8.

This lot were inescapable in the Summer of ’91 and I’ve already mentioned them in this blog but here they are in the flesh (as it were) – it can only be Right Said Fred with “I’m Too Sexy”. Did any body else get a ZZ Top vibe off this lot back then. Not a musical vibe obviously but looks wise. Ok Ok, they clearly did not look like the Texas blues rockers but the make up of the band with two bald geezers (brothers Richard and Fred Fairbrass) who looked very similar and the guitarist (Rob Mazoli) who looked nothing like them. Compare that to ZZ Top and the very hirsute Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill out front with the clean shaven and most ironically named musician ever Frank Beard on the drum stool behind them. No? Nothing? Just me then.

The Freds were defiant about their image though. In a Smash Hits interview Richard Fairbrass stated:

“When we were on Top Of The Pops the other week, everyone else look really boring like Deacon Blue and their stupid student look. We’re different.”

Well, he was right about them being different. Nobody elsel looked like that on TOTP. I thought they might have shaved off their hair due to encroaching male pattern bald ness but it seems not. Fred Fairbrass went on to say in that Smash Hits interview that:

“When I had it in a ponytail it always looked a bit naff so I just thought ‘Shave it all off’.”

And his brother? Why did he shave off his hair? Here’s Richard Fairbrasss again:

“I did it because he did it.”

Oh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I-5uOII4mE

Three Breakers this week starting with the lesser spotted Midge Ure who had not been seen on the show since…

*checks notes*

Wow! Since 26th June 1986! That’s a lifetime in pop music! Yes, very nearly five years on from his last appearance on the show when the video for his “Call Of The Wild” single played over the closing credits, Midge was back with a new hit called “Cold Cold Heart”.

What had he been up to in those missing five years? Well, he’d reconvened Ultravox in the latter part of 1986 to record the “U-Vox” album which I’d always assumed was a commercial failure but apparently went gold and achieved a chart high of No 9. However, all was not right in the band. Drummer Warren Cann had been sacked and the album recorded with Big Country’s drummer Mark Brzezicki. The singles taken from it were only minor hits – “Same Old Story” peaked at No 31. ‘All Fall Down” No 30 and “All In One Day” an unimaginable No 88 – and the band’s chemistry was no longer intact. Maybe Midge’s successful solo career in 1985 with the No 1 single ‘If I Was” had pissed them right off?!

Anyway, the band split in 1987 after the U-Vox tour and Midge returned to his solo career releasing “Answers To Nothing” the following year. Despite including a duet with Kate Bush and a couple of decent singles in the title track and “Dear God”, the album was only a minor commercial success. And then….not much. I’m guessing he was still touring but no new material was released over the next three years. Maybe he spent much of it in dispute with Chrysalis who had been Ultravox’s record label since the “Vienna” album in 1980 and also for all of Ure’s solo output up to this point? Come 1991, he was with new label Arista for his “Pure” album from which “Cold Cold Heart” was taken.

So what was his new material like? I wasn’t a fan of the single to be honest. It sounded like a twee folk infused nursery rhyme bulked up with some synths and a plodding bass. I really couldn’t see why this had propelled Midge back into the charts. He’d already experimented with a Celtic sound much more successfully to my ears on the aforementioned “All Fall Down” Ultravox single which had been recorded with The Chieftains. “Cold Cold Heart” sounded amateurish next to it. Still, it did provide Midge with one final trip to the UK Top 40 to where he has yet to return if you’re not counting the 1993 re-release of “Vienna” (which I’m not).

A US No 1 next from Karyn White in the form of “Romantic”. Although I remember her album “Ritual Of Love” from its cover, the actual music doesn’t ring any bells. It sounds very much like a Janet Jackson song to me and there’s good reason why as it was produced by regular Miss Jackson collaborators Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis.

Didn’t Karyn White have an earlier hit that sounded nothing like “Romantic”?

*checks YouTube*

Yes she had this slushy slowie called “Superwoman” in 1988…

Think I preferred that version of her rather than the Janet tribute act. “Romantic” couldn’t repeat its US success in the UK as it peaked at No 23.

REM‘s run of hit singles in 1991 continued with “Near Wild Heaven”. The third track to be lifted from their “Out Of Time” album, it consolidated on the success of previous singles “Losing My Religion” and “Shiny Happy People” when it peaked at No 27. It was the first single to be released by the band that had its lyrics both co-written and sung by bassist Mike Mills. He had written the lyrics to early single “(Don’t Go Back To) Rockville” and sung lead vocals on a cover version called – and get this for a nice little link with the previous Breaker – “Superman” but never both writing and vocals on the same track before. He does a pretty good job as well I think. I certainly don’t recall thinking it would have been better if sung by Michael Stipe. REM would garner a fourth and final UK Top 40 hit for the year when “Radio Song” was released in November.

We’re at week number six of sixteen of Bryan Adams being at the top of the charts so not even half way through his reign yet. It’s worth remembering that prior to this single, Adams hadn’t had a UK Top 40 hit since “It’s Only Love”, his 1985 duet with Tina Turner. Indeed, up to 1991, he’d only ever had four hits in this country at all and none had made the Top 10. So he hadn’t always been this interminable music figure that the Summer of 1991 made him into. I guess he certainly made up for lost time with “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You”.

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

The play out video is “Time, Love And Tenderness” by Michael Bolton. There’s bit at the very start of the video which we don’t see on TOTP where Bollers is sat at his piano surrounded by members of a gospel choir rehearsing the song and he says “Ok , so we come right in with …”and then sings the words ‘Time, Love and Tenderness’. I say sing but he rasps them out. It sounds horrible.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Level 42GuaranteedI did not and that’s a guarantee
2Color Me BaddAll 4 LoveOf course not
3Sophie LawrenceLove’s UnkindNope
4Bomb The BassWinter In JulyNegative
5PM DawnSet Adrift On Memory BlissYes I bought the cassette single but I don’t know where it is now
6Voice Of The BeehiveMonsters And AngelsLiked it, didn’t buy it
7DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh PrinceSummertimeNah
8Right Said FredI’m Too Sexy A definite no
9Midge UreCold Cold HeartNegative
10Karyn WhiteRomanticNever happening
11REM Near Wild Heaven It’s a no
12Bryan Adams “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You”I didn’t
13Michael Bolton Time, Love And TendernessHell no

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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/m000znwp/top-of-the-pops-15081991