Primal Scream | TOTP Rewind

TOTP 1994 – the epilogue

Posted on July 2, 2023 by 80stastic

After the horrors of 1993, I had high hopes that 1994 would be so much better. And it was in many ways; so why do I feel like it wasn’t. Well, as ever, the really massive mainstream hits were mostly lowest common denominator awful. My usual barometer for this is the list of No 1 singles during the calendar year so let’s have a look at the class of 1994…

Chart date (week ending)	Song	Artist(s)
1 January	“Mr. Blobby“	Mr Blobby
8 January	“Twist and Shout“	Chaka Demus & Pliers featuring Jack Radics & Taxi Gang
15 January	“Twist and Shout“	Chaka Demus & Pliers featuring Jack Radics & Taxi Gang
22 January	“Things Can Only Get Better“	D:Ream
29 January
5 February
12 February
19 February	“Without You“	Mariah Carey
26 February
5 March
12 March
19 March	“Doop“	Doop
26 March
2 April
9 April	“Everything Changes“	Take That
16 April	“Everything Changes“	Take That
23 April	“The Most Beautiful Girl in the World“	Prince
30 April	“The Most Beautiful Girl in the World“	Prince
7 May	“The Real Thing “	Tony Di Bart
14 May	“Inside“	Stiltskin
21 May	“Come on You Reds“	Manchester United Football Squad
28 May	“Come on You Reds“	Manchester United Football Squad
4 June	“Love Is All Around“	Wet Wet Wet
11 June
18 June
25 June
2 July
9 July
16 July
23 July
30 July
6 August
13 August
20 August
27 August
3 September
10 September
17 September	“Saturday Night“	Whigfield
24 September
1 October
8 October
15 October	“Sure“	Take That
22 October	“Sure“	Take That
29 October	“Baby Come Back“	Pato Banton
5 November
12 November
19 November
26 November	“Let Me Be Your Fantasy“	Baby D
3 December	“Let Me Be Your Fantasy“	Baby D
10 December	“Stay Another Day“	East 17
17 December
24 December
31 December

Well, it’s not the greatest collection of chart toppers ever assembled is it? I think I would categorise them like this:

3 x boy bands – Take That (x2), East 17
1 x Levi’s advert soundtrack – Stiltskin
2 x reggae reworkings of old pop standards – Chaka Demus and Pliers, Pato Banton
1 x FA Cup final song – Manchester United Football Squad
2 x novelty record – Mr. Blobby, Doop
3 x dance records by complete unknowns – Tony Di Bart, Baby D, Whigfield
1 x dance record by relative* unknown – D:Ream *”Things Can Only Get Better” had been out before
2 x cover versions of a decades old ballads – Mariah Carey, Wet Wet Wet
1 x original yet very commercial track by legendary artist – Prince

I bought precisely none of them. It all seemed very retro and backwards looking. Four of the 16 titles were cover versions of songs more than 20 years old. The Levi’s advertising campaign team still had their hooks in the population with a song not even by a proper band getting to No 1. Yes, there were three dance chart toppers by new acts but Baby D soon ran out of steam and who really remembers Tony Di Bart? As for Whigfield, some might say “Saturday Night” should belong in the novelty record category alongside Doop. The anomaly of a football club having a No 1 was bizarre. OK, the England team topped the charts in 1990 with the help of New Order but I think there’s a different appeal for the national team. For a club side to do it? I guess it just showed the size of the Manchester United fanbase. It would never happen now manly because nobody releases Cup Final records anymore.

Now, if you discount Mr. Blobby as the previous Christmas No 1 which hangs over into the new year, the total of 15 was the second lowest of any year in the 90s. That, of course, was due to the 15 weeks reign by Wet Wet Wet at the top of the charts. Just three years on from the whole Bryan Adams debacle, another sales phenomenon happened but how? Well, the band were well established and had a fanbase anyway. Plus, the song in question was a ballad and was featured in one of the biggest films of the year. So, basically the same reasons as for Bryan Adams. We didn’t learn much did we?!

So, how did things look albums wise? A quick glance at the best sellers of the year tells a predictable story. Three of the Top 10 were Best Ofs (including the Top 2) whilst the rest of the Top 20 is made up of either rock royalty or mainstream acts that ticked all the right airplay boxes. Pink Floyd, Mariah Carey, Eternal all feature in the Top 10. It’s interesting to note that East 17 trounce Take That with the former at No 10 and the latter at No 22 which kind of upends the received wisdom about who was bigger. That’s the power of having the Christmas No 1 on your album I guess. A mention in dispatches should go to The Beautiful South with their collection “Carry On Up The Charts” ending the year in the runners up position whilst the enduring appeal of The Beatles saw their “Live At The BBC” album make the year end Top 10 despite only being released on 30 November. In a precursor to the following year’s Battle of Britpop, Blur’s “Parklife” comprehensively outsold “Definitely Maybe” by Oasis as it had a 4 months sales head start – the Manc lads may have lost that particular skirmish but they would win the sales war ultimately with their debut selling twice as many copies as “Parklife”.

Talking of Britpop, whether you lived it, liked it or hated it, 1994 seems to me to be the year it really started to gain momentum. Sure, you could make a persuasive argument that its origins lay in 1992 with the emergence of Suede but, in my opinion (and it’s just my opinion), it was this year that it properly gained traction. Not that Britpop was the only game in town. The UK public were still enamoured with nasty reggae versions of old pop songs and the Summer seemed interminably long with some very average songs hanging around the charts for weeks on end. However, the biggest hits weren’t the whole story. All the cool kids were getting into the likes of Portishead and this new thing called trip-hop (actually, when did that term start being used in common vernacular?). Massive Attack were still around and released their second album “Protection” this year.

What about TOTP though? After all, that’s what this blog is based around. 1994 was a year of huge change. Ric Blaxill replaced Stanley Appel as head producer and one by one removed the features of the latter’s ‘year zero’ revamp most notably presenters Tony Dortie and Mark Franklin. The Radio 1 DJs we’re back though most weeks it seemed to be the intensely annoying Simon Mayo in the hot seat. In addition though, one of Blaxill’s master strokes was to introduce the ‘golden mic’ slot where celebrity guests from the world of pop music, comedy and entertainment took over presenting duties temporarily. By February of 1995, it would be as if ‘year zero’ had never happened with a new logo, theme tune and title sequence introduced. 1994 also saw the BBC making use of its extensive archives to launch TOTP2 which featured retro performances from yesteryear. For a show based around the current charts and what was happening ‘now’, it was quite the extension of the brand. It would turn out to be a visionary move. Where once record companies would delete albums from their back catalogues routinely, these days there is a whole industry based around rereleased and super deluxe editions of ‘old’ music.

However, the new features have caused a couple of repeats to not be broadcast by BBC4 as they have included footage of Gary Glitter (both within a TOTP2 trailer and as guest presenter) and talking of songs we may have missed…

Hits We Missed

Dave Stewart – “Heart Of Stone”

Released: Sep ‘94

Chart peak: No 36

After Eurythmics went on what would become a near decade long sabbatical as the 90s began, it was Dave Stewart who was first to get some new material out in the marketplace via his Spiritual Cowboys group though, if you discount his collaboration on “Lily Was Here”* with Candy Dulfer, it was Annie Lennox who was first to taste proper success. Her debut album “Diva” shifted 7 million copies but then she was the singer and public face of the duo so I guess that was to be expected? And yet, Dave Stewart is a master musician with a streak of creativity running right through him so the chances of him not coming out with something good were always going to be slim.

*If we’re being completists, then we should make note of Stewart’s input to wife Siobhan Fahey’s group Shakespear’s Sister who had a No 1 in the form of “Stay” in 1992 I guess.

“Heart Of Stone” wasn’t the massive seller it could and should have been but it was perfect daytime playlist material. I’m wondering if it got a lot of airplay on the local commercial stations that covered Greater Manchester as it sold steadily in the Our Price in Piccadilly where I was working. It’s got a great funky disco feel and a hook so big that Peter Pan would have been intimidated by it. Was there also just a hint of Steely Dan about Dave’s guitar work?**

**Nearly 30 years later, Spandau Ballet’s Gary Kemp would find himself similarly influenced by Steely Dan on his 2021 track “Ahead Of The Game”.

The track, along with the rest of the album “Greetings From The Gutter”, was recorded at Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Lady Studios in New York with the lyrics to the single even referencing the fact:

Two weeks in electric lady land
Two weeks and that’s all for me
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: David Allan Stewart / Shara Nelson
Heart of Stone lyrics © Eligible Music Ltd., Warner/chappell Music Ltd

In short, it should have been a blockbuster Summer hit but the country was enthralled by the likes of Let Loose, Aswad and Big Mountain instead. What the hell was that all about?! Dave and Annie would eventually reunite as Eurythmics in 1999 for the “Peace” album.

The Proclaimers – “Let’s Get Married”

Released: Feb ‘94

Chart peak: No 21

I love The Proclaimers and I don’t care who knows it! They make great pop songs and I, for one, find their distinctive Scottish accents endearing. Right, now my cards are on the table, let’s talk specifics. By 1994, the Reid brothers hadn’t released an album for six years. They hadn’t released a single in four. I’m guessing that they took time out to start families? Anyway, suddenly they were beck with a new album “Hit The Highway” and lead single “Let’s Get Married” which, if you accept the theory that artists tend to write songs about their own experiences, would suggest that Craig and Charlie had spent the last four years concentrating on their private lives.

I love “Let’s Get Married”, their paean to matrimony. Maybe its appeal was that it seemed so out of kilter with the hedonistic culture of the 90s club scene whose music seemed to dominate much of the charts. Or maybe it was the fact that at the age of 25 when it was released, I’d already been married 3 and a half years that it resonated so much. Either way, there’s something joyful about its enthusiasm for wanting to commit to a partner and optimism for a good life together.

Apart from their tunes and voices, I’ve also always been impressed by the duo’s lyrics and “Let’s Get Married” was no exception. My favourite lines would be the one confirming that the brothers are dog not cat people:

Let’s get married
Hold hands when we walk in the park
All right, you can get a cat, just as long as it barks
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Charles Stobo Reid / Craig Morris Reid
Let’s Get Married lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc

Plus, I always liked the confessional conversation bit in the middle eight:

When we’re old if they ask me,
“How do you define success?”
I’ll say, “You meet a woman
You fall in love
You ask her and
She says, ‘Yes.'”
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Charles Stobo Reid / Craig Morris Reid
Let’s Get Married lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc

It’s not so much the words as the fact that when Craig sings the “How do you define success?” line, Charlie actually sings the question to his brother in the background with the lovely suffix ‘man’ to give it a personal touch. Genius.

The album did pretty well going Top 10 and achieving silver sales status despite the lack of a really big single on it. The equally excellent follow up “What Makes You Cry?” only made No 38 whilst third single “These Arms Of Mine” failed to get into the Top 40 at all. However, “Hit The Highway”s sales were significantly down on preceding album “Sunshine On Leith” and they wouldn’t release another album for 7 years (again I’m guessing a second wave of children were born to the brothers). They remain a touring and recording unit though. I’ve seen them a couple of times live and they didn’t disappoint.

Primal Scream – “Jailbird”

Released: Jun ‘94

Chart peak: No 29

One of my favourite albums of 1994 was “Give Out But Don’t Give Up” by Primal Scream. Often derided as their attempt to become The Rolling Stones, I ignored such barbs and loved its out and out bluesy rock sound. Lead single “Rocks” was a banger but so was the follow up “Jailbird” that was also the album’s opening track. Yes, accusations that it wasn’t that dissimilar to its predecessor were hard to refute and yes, there’s another song on the album titled “Call On Me” and that’s not a million miles away from sounding like “Jailbird”. So what? If you like a style of music, you’re going to want to hear it again and again. What’s that? What about all the times I’ve slagged off artists for just releasing the same song over and over again like 2 Unlimited? Well, that’s…erm…well, the thing is…that’s completely different! Anyway, there were other songs on the album that were nothing like those three – “Funky Jam” and the title track spring to mind.

In 2018, the band made available the original Memphis recordings made with the Muscle Shoals rhythm section that were rejected by Creation boss Alan McGee for sounding too flat. I must have a listen to them at some point as the reviews for the lost album were very positive.

Oasis – “Whatever”

Released: Dec ‘94

Chart peak: No 3

I was convinced that “Whatever” was going to be the Christmas No 1 based on the amount of copies we were selling of it in the Our Price store in Market Street, Manchester. We couldn’t get them out of the delivery boxes quick enough. Somehow though, they fell two places short and had to settle for No 3. After the T-Rex-ness of “Cigarettes And Alcohol”, the sublime melody of “Live Forever” and the slinky, meandering indie rock of “Supersonic” and “Shakermaker”, “Whatever” genuinely felt like something different and therefore took me by surprise. Hang on, they can do string laden ballads as well? WTF?! It felt like such a gigantic sound the first time I heard it – seriously epic and I loved it from the get go.

For the band’s detractors though, it was more evidence that they were unoriginal grifters, pinching other people’s ideas and peddling them as their own and as something completely new and different. How so? Well, there’s the middle eight that sounds suspiciously like “Strawberry Fields Forever” era Beatles and then the fact that “Whatever” was subject to a plagiarism lawsuit brought by Neil Innes of Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band / The Rutles / The Innes Book Of Records fame over its similarity to his track “How Sweet To Be An Idiot” which resulted in a songwriting credit for Innes being issued. I neither knew nor cared about any lawsuits though and was just enjoying the beauty of this standalone track. I especially liked the audience applause and cheers sound effect at the end which presumably inspired Supergrass to follow suit on their 1999 hit “Pumping On Your Stereo”.

We only missed this TOTP performance because of the issue of the aforementioned Gary Glitter and so also didn’t get to see again the beginnings of the Blur/Oasis rivalry that would reach its apex the following Summer with The Battle of Britpop. Guest presenter Damon Albarn is very nearly the subject of being given the finger by Noel Gallagher through the rather ridiculous sunflower prop as he introduces the “five pretty boys from Manchester”. Things would get much more ugly between the two parties.

Eddie Reader – “Patience Of Angels”

Released: Jun ‘94

Chart peak: No 33

I could never really get along with Fairground Attraction. I think I heard “Perfect” one too many times and I was done. However, even though my back had been turned in the opposite direction to the band, I couldn’t turn my ears away from the voice of Eddie Reader. After the group called it a day in 1990, Eddie would no doubt have been expected to go solo immediately but she turned a different corner by going into acting with a role in Scottish BBC comedy drama Your Cheatin’ Heart before returning to music. Debut solo album “Mirmama” was generally well received but failed to set the charts alight but by 1994 she’d moved from RCA to Blanco Y Negro for her sophomore eponymous follow up. Led by the single “Patience Of Angels”, it was much more successful going gold and peaking at No 4 in the charts. My wife bought the single (she’d been much more open to Fairground Attraction than me) but I can hear why. For a start, it was written by Boo Hewerdine who had been responsible for some of the best unknown pop songs of the 80s via his band The Bible (I defy anyone not to like “Graceland”). Secondly, Eddie really nails the vocals on it but effortlessly so.

Sadly, Eddie would never be bigger commercially than 1994. Diminishing returns set in but she continues to record (2009’s “Love Is The Way” is a great album) and play live. I saw her at the Beverley Folk Festival around 2010 and she was fabulous; her voice still spectacular and she was charmingly engaging with the audience. You might almost say ‘perfect’.

Hits That Never Were

Redd Kross – “Yesterday Once More”

Released: Sep ‘94

Chart peak: No 45

In 1994, I knew bugger all about Redd Kross. In fact, if I’d met them in a bar and they had introduced themselves as the band Kings X and I had spent the whole evening in their company, I would have had zero reason to doubt their professed identity. As I write this in 2023, I still know next to nothing about Redd Kross. However, what I do know is that in 1994, they contributed a track to a tribute album celebrating the work of The Carpenters and that I loved their version of “Yesterday Once More”. I loved it so much I bought it.

The album was called “If I Were A Carpenter” (clever) and featured ‘alternative’ artists like Shonen Knife, Babes In Toyland and American Music Club alongside a handful of artists who had gone on to achieve mainstream success like Sheryl Crow and The Cranberries. A single was released to promote the album and it was a double A-side. Joining Redd Kross were avant-garde rockers Sonic Youth with their version of “Superstar”. In my time at Our Price, I worked with loads of people who swore by Sonic Youth but I could never hear their appeal. Their Carpenters cover didn’t change my opinion and I must have only played their contribution to the album a couple of times ever. Redd Kross, on the other hand, I played the hell out of. Yes, it’s just a straight, rock through of a classic Carpenters melody but there was something about the soaring guitars and on point ‘rawk’ vocal that had me hooked.

There were two versions of the CD single released; a standard one but also a more limited one which also included The Carpenters originals – I got the latter. Why did it fail to chart? Well, I don’t think the album was an overwhelming success for a start, probably a bit too leftfield. I’m guessing any airplay the single got would have been for the Redd Kross track rather than the Sonic Youth one but which stations would have played it? Radio 1? Maybe in the more late night, specialist slots but I don’t remember it being played much in the daytime. Presumably, commercial radio would have been more likely to play The Carpenters originals? As I said earlier, I have no idea what happened to Redd Kross after they briefly showed up on my musical radar but they remain the architects of one of my favourite cover versions.

Echobelly – “Insomniac”

Released: Mar ‘94

Chart peak: No 47

Here’s a band who have a small but perfectly formed collection of singles which should have elicited more and much bigger hits than was the case. Come the 1995 TOTP repeats, we’ll be seeing a fair bit more of Echobelly as they stand toe to toe with the protagonists of Britpop (although no doubt, seemingly like everyone else associated with that particular movement, they would say that they weren’t). In 1994 though they only pierced the Top 40 once with “I Can’t Imagine The World Without Me” which made it to a humble No 39. Before that single though came non-hit “Insomniac” which was a wonderful example of tuneful indie pop with its slow burning verses leading into a bridge that promised a huge pay off which its soaring chorus duly delivered.

Presumably I heard the track whilst at work in the Our Price in Market Street, Manchester as parent album “Everyone’s Got One” was a sizeable success peaking at No 8 despite the lack of a big hit single. Quite why “Insomniac” didn’t make the grade is a mystery though. Everything about it is great right down to the laid back, understated outro. In fact, the band themselves should have been a much bigger deal. Led by the charismatic and intriguing Sonya Madan, they had all the ingredients but were waylaid at the height of their success when Sonya suffered a life threatening thyroid problem during a world tour. By the time they reconvened in 1997 for third album “Lustra”, Britpop was in its last vestiges and it sank almost without trace. The band are still together (just) although it’s mainly just Sonya and founding member Glenn Johansson these days and their last album was released six years ago in 2017.

Backbeat Band -“Please Mr Postman”

Released: May ‘94

Chart peak: No 69

I’ve included this one mainly so I can talk about the film Backbeat that came out in 1994. Although I’m no Beatles obsessive, like most* people I do love The Fab Four. I’m a particular sucker for their origin story. How exactly did they become four lads who shook the world?

*I know at least two people who can’t abide them.

I think my fascination started one night in the early 1981 when the film Birth Of The Beatles was aired by the BBC (presumably as a tribute to John Lennon weeks after his murder). It’s not a great film (although being made in 1979, it remains the only movie to document the rise the band whilst Lennon was still alive) but it introduced me to the names of Pete Best and Stu Sutcliffe and their roles in the legend of The Beatles. Fast forward to 1994 and my interest was rekindled by the film Backbeat. If I recall correctly, there were some free tickets for a premiere floating around in the Our Price store where I was working and so me and my wife attended at the cinema in Belle Vue, Manchester. I think there was a free brochure and pencil as we entered the screening (how exciting!). The film didn’t disappoint for me. As well as telling the story of the band’s beginnings (especially their time in Hamburg), it’s also an examination of the complicated three way relationship between Lennon, Sutcliffe and the latter’s lover Astrid Kirchherr. The performances by Ian Hart, Stephen Dorff and Sheryl Lee respectively are top notch. I’m sure Beatles super-fans will find fault with historical inaccuracies and examples of dramatic licence but I’m not really interested in those particular rabbit holes.

The soundtrack was performed by The Backbeat Band who were basically a supergroup comprising such names as Thurston Moore of the aforementioned Sonic Youth, Mike Mills of REM and nicest man in rock Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters. Two singles were released to promote the album – “Money (That’s What I Want)” and “Please Mr Postman” originally recorded by The Marvelettes and later covered by The Carpenters (Sonic Youth and The Carpenters again? I love it when a post comes together like that!). In 2011, a stage production of Backbeat opened at the Duke Of York’s Theatre in London and I saw that too. Like I said, I’m a sucker for the Beatles origin story.

https://youtu.be/Z6ZYG2nVLvA

Terry Hall – “Forever J”

Released: Aug ‘94

Chart peak: No 67

I didn’t comment at the time in December 2022 about the awful, untimely death of Terry Hall aged just 63 but I couldn’t let it pass completely without any reference to him. Highlighting his heavenly single “Forever J” from 1994 seems right though. Taken from his criminally overlooked album “Home” (it peaked at a risibly unjust No 95), it has that timeless quality of sounding familiar on even the first ever listen, like a theme tune from an old, black and white TV show.

That evocative quality runs throughout the album despite there being a number of collaborations with different songwriters present. XTC’s Andy Partridge, Ian Broudie of The Lightning Seeds, Nick Heyward and even Damon Albarn all contribute to tracks on it. The biggest songwriting partner though was Craig Gannon, very briefly the second guitarist in The Smiths who was once described by Morrissey as “undiscussable”. Hall’s relationship with Heyward was covered in an interview with the pair in the music industry trade paper Music Week around this time. As it featured two of our favourite artists, my wife and I cut it out and put it on the pinboard in our little Manchester flat where it stayed for years. Not sure whatever happened to it though.

Two further singles were released from “Home” including Terry’s own version of “Sense” which he recorded originally with The Lightning Seeds but it made no difference to the album’s fortunes. Three years later, the equally lovely second solo Terry Hall album appeared called “Laugh”, again written mostly with Craig Gannon” but with contributions by Stephen Duffy and Damon Albarn. I feel fortunate to have caught Terry doing a gig around this time. He was brilliantly sardonic and when he introduced the song “No No No”, some brave punter thought he could take on Terry by shouting out “Yes Yes Yes!”. The reply came back from the stage in that withering brogue “Ha Ha Ha”. Perfect. Terry Hall leaves us with an excellent legacy of songs from The Specials to Fun Boy Three to The Colourfield and beyond. RIP.

Ian McNabb – “Go Into The Light”

Released: Sep ‘94

Chart peak: No 66

Time for my regular name check for Ian McNabb in these Hits That Never Were slots. Pretty much every time I’ve had a McNabb or Icicle Works classic to feature that for unfathomable reasons were ignored by the record buying public. It really is insane that Ian’s sole journey into the UK Top 40 came in 1984 with “Love Is A Wonderful Colour”. By 1994, Mr McNabb was onto his second solo album (for context, his most recent “Nabby Road” came in 2022 and I think was his 18th!) which was the Mercury Music Prize nominated no less “Head Like A Rock”. Recorded in LA with Neil Young’s backing band Crazy Horse, it was and remains his highest charting album when it peaked at No 29. Its lead single was “You Must Be Prepared To Dream” which I was so impressed by that I even bought it but I’ve chosen the follow up “Go Into The Light” to spotlight here. This funky, squelching gospel ballad really should have been able to become a genuine Top 40 hit – I mean, it worked for Primal Scream and “Movin’ On Up”. Maybe that was the problem though; Bobby Gillespie and co got there first and McNabb was therefore seen as retreading old ground or worse, doing his best Primal Scream impression. Whatever. It’s a great track and that’s all that should count.

As with Terry Hall, I saw Ian live in 1994 in the Manchester Academy touring the album and I’m pretty sure members of Crazy Horse were on stage with him but I have a bit of a blind spot when it comes to Neil Young so I could be wrong. As I referenced earlier, McNabb is still recording and releasing music and seems to be permanently on tour, occasionally reactivating the Icicle Works brand though not with the original band members.

https://youtu.be/5-e6EJJXvtg

Their Season In The Sun

All-4-One

Almost the perfect one hit wonders (one massive No 1 and then nothing ever again), they spoilt it by not actually achieving that chart topper status when their hit “I Swear” was kept at No 2 for 7 consecutive weeks by Wet Wet Wet. Just to compound the the disappointment, they completely trashed the one hit wonder template by having a further solitary minor chart hit that got to No 33. Amateurs.

Big Mountain

Ooh. Inches wide! This lot went even closer to that perfect one hit wonder status. Just the one hit- a reggae-fied version of Peter Frampton’s “Baby, I Love Your Way” – but it also topped out at No 2 behind the Wets. Taken from the soundtrack to the ‘you-never-see-it-on-TV’ movie Reality Bites, it probably benefitted from the UK’s almost inexplicable fascination with reggae takes on pop classics in the early to mid 90s. Was nobody in charge of musical taste back then?!

D:Rream

This lot did manage to bag that No 1 that proved too elusive for the first two acts in this section but a succession of sizeable to middling hits put the kibosh on any classic one hit wonder status. Still, they were never bigger than in 1994 when “Things Can Only Get Better” bestrode the charts for 4 weeks in January. Even a reactivation in 1997 as the soundtrack to a successful Labour Party General Election campaign couldn’t stop them from being known as the band that once included Professor Brian Cox in their ranks.

Let Loose

Responsible for a well crafted but perfunctory pop song that hung around the charts all Summer and like the aforementioned All-4-One and Big Mountain, would surely have topped the charts but for Wet Wet Wet. Sadly for these pound shop heartthrobs, it turned out people liked that one song rather than them and they were unable to flog enough copies of their albums to lay any lasting pop foundations.

Lisa Loeb and Nine Stories

Winging into the charts with another hit from the soundtrack to Reality Bites, Lisa had a winning, girl-next-door charm and a pleasant tune that struck a chord with the record buying public on both sides of the Atlantic. Indeed, “Stay (I Missed You)” was a No 1 record in the US. Although she would never scale such heights again, Lisa has continued to make music, creating a catalogue of work that comprises 15 studio albums. She has recorded collections of children songs and a number of her tracks have been featured in TV shows and movies such as Legally Blonde and Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

Whigfield

And so to the act that succeeded where All-4-One, Big Mountain and Let Loose all failed. After 15 weeks, it was left to a Danish model and music student to topple “Love Is All Around”. After linking up with Italian producer Larry Pignagnoli and assuming a stage name based on one of her teachers, Whigfield (real name Sannie Charlotte Carlson) fronted one of the biggest (and possibly cheesiest) dance tunes of the decade. “Saturday Night” was a monster, the second biggest selling single in the UK of 1994 and even spawned its own dance. Despite a couple of further Top 10 hits, Whigfield couldn’t replicate the success of that single and within a year or so, it was all over, a cover of Wham!’s “Last Christmas”, their parting gift. We’ll always have that unwanted present of “”Saturday Night” though.

Last Words

Well, in conclusion I would say 1994 wasn’t as bad as 1993 but that’s a very low bar. Again, I don’t seem to have bought much music released this year; certainly not singles anyway. However, Oasis arrived to shake things up and would become a phenomenon in 1995 as Britpop went into hyperdrive. That’s my memory of 1995 as it stands. Fancy joining me to see if I was right or wrong?

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

TOTP 10 MAR 1994

Posted on February 20, 2023 by 80stastic

Welcome to TOTP Rewind where I, a man now in his mid-50s, have spent the last six years reviewing every BBC4 repeat of the fondly remembered music show. Why have I done/continue to do this? It’s a question I have repeatedly asked myself especially when they start to back up and I find myself in catch up mode as I am now. Well, I’m a nostalgic person and hiding away from present day concerns with a trip down memory lane seems quite appealing right now. Mark Goodier is our host for tonight’s show so let’s do it…

We start with a belting tune from Primal Scream. After the critical, commercial and chemical highs of the groundbreaking, inaugural Mercury Music Prize winning “Screamadelica” album, the band went in a different direction for the follow up “Give Out But Don’t Give Up”. Rejecting the acid house beats that informed its predecessor, they embraced a retro, rock ‘n’ blues sound that was no more evident than on lead single “Rocks”. The very definition of a stomper, I liked the kitchen sink approach to it in that they threw everything but it into the mix. It kicks off with a purposeful opening drum beat before being joined by that muscular guitar that elicits a searing, slide of the fretboard and then it really gets going. A T-Rex style riff hammers out the song’s template before Bobby Gillespie delivers the those opening eight lines:

Dealers keep dealin’, thieves keep thievin’
Whores keep whorin’, junkies keep scorin’
Trade is on the meat rack, strip joints full of hunchbacks
Bitches keep a bitchin’, clap just keeps itchin’
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Robert Young / Bobby Gillespie / Andrew Innes
Rocks lyrics © Complete Music Ltd.

How did they get past the BBC censor?! I don’t think there’s ever been a sanitised radio edit of the song has there? Apparently, Theresa May walked off stage to “Rocks” following her speech at the Tory Party conference in 2011. For a woman who is on record as stating that the naughtiest thing she had evet done was to run through fields of wheat as a child, it does seem an unlikely song choice. However, if you factor in that she was Home Secretary at the time, the fact that she chose a song that includes lyrics like “dealers keep dealing”, “thieves keep thieving” and “junkies keep scoring” hardly speaks well of her ability to keep law and order.

Reaction to this ‘new’ Primal Scream sound was mixed. Some (like me) loved it while others found it too derivative and accused the band of just doing their best Rolling Stones impression. I think retailers expected “Rocks” to do big things sales wise though. I recall that we had a big scale out of the single from Head Office at the Our Price I was working in at the time but although it performed well initially leading the band to achieving their second highest chart peak ever of No 7, it fell away quickly. Maybe the release of the album just three weeks later had something to do with it.

The original recordings of the album were made in Memphis using the legendary Muscle Shoals rhythm section but were rejected by Creation boss Alan McGee. Said recordings eventually surfaced in 2018 and an entertaining documentary about the rediscovery of them was aired on the BBC. There wouldn’t be another Primal Scream album for three years when “Vanishing Point” appeared which was the first album to feature ex-Stone Roses bassist Mani who had joined the band in 1996. I was working in the Stockport Our Price by then with original Roses bassist Pete as my manager. I distinctly remember Mani coming into the shop one day to have a catch up with Pete but also to buy up all the Primal Scream albums we had so he could learn the bass parts.

The performance here with Denise Johnson on vocals alongside Bobby Gillespie is just glorious. Sadly, the band have seen much tragedy in recent years with three members dying fairly close to each other starting with Robert ‘Throb’ Young in 2014, then the aforementioned Denise Johnson in 2020 and finally Martin Duffy just last year.

Now, what links M People with Primal Scream? Apart from being on the same TOTP together and both having recordings with very similar titles (“called “Movin’ On Up” and “Moving On Up”) obviously. Well, they both have had a song used to soundtrack a speech at a Tory Party conference. Yes, just as Theresa May used “Rocks” in 2011, the six-week Prime Minister Liz Truss used the aforementioned “Moving On Up” in 2022. There’s more similarities though. Both artists were extremely pissed off that their material had been used by a political party they were adamantly opposed to and both songs used included lyrics that were totally unsuited to the purpose for which the song was chosen in the first place. Given her precarious position as Prime Minister, did nobody in her inner sanctum listen to these lyrics?

You’ve done me wrong, your time is up
You took a sip from the devil’s cup
You broke my heart, there’s no way back
Move right out of here, baby, go on pack your bags

Just who do you think you are?
Stop actin’ like some kind of star
Just who do you think you are?

Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Mike Pickering / Paul Heard
Moving On Up lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Royalty Network, Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, Inc

FFS! Anyway, M People are on the show to perform “Renaissance” not “Moving On Up” which was their fifth Top 10 hit in just over a year. Quite the achievement. This was the fourth and final single released from the “Elegant Slumming” album and was a track that many had expected for a while to be given such a release seeing as it had been used as the title song to early reality TV show The Living Soap. It would also provide the title for the band’s 11 disc 2020 retrospective box set.

There’s a little teaser trailer before the next artist as we cross to New York for a roof top chat with Bon Jovi who are on the show later doing an exclusive live by satellite performance. Presumably new producer Ric Blaxill wanted to make more of this slot by working in a bit of extra mileage with it courtesy of this little clip which actually gets Jon Bon Jovi to introduce the next song. It’s quite a neat trick and works quite well in the safe hands of the unflappable frontman.

Said next artist is Janet Jackson and like her music or not (and I don’t especially), you have to admit she’s prolific. Her discography tells me she has released 70 singles during her career and this one – “Because Of Love” – was the 10th of the 90s already. The fourth of six singles released in the UK from her “Janet” album, it was the follow up to the surprisingly robust Christmas No 6 hit “Again”. In a ever more familiar trend for singles in general, it would get no further than its entry week high of No 19 (see also Primal Scream’s “Rocks”). By the end of the decade, singles would be in one week and out the next on a regular basis due to record company pricing strategies with heavily discounted prices in week one.

It’s not one of Janet’s more memorable tunes despite the “shoop, shoop, doop, doop” hook she sings. Apparently, it was her first single since “The Pleasure Principle” in 1987 to miss the Top 5 in the US and is regarded as one of the last New Jack Swing records to make the charts.

From “Doop Doop” courtesy of Janet Jackson to “Doop” courtesy of…well…Doop. This Charleston based dance track was the highest new entry of the week straight in at No 3 on its way to the top of the charts. So what the Hell was all this all about? Well, they were a Dutch production duo who hit upon the ludicrous idea of added a house beat to a big band sample and turned it into a European dance craze. Supposedly this was always going to be a huge hit due to the buzz created in the clubs for this record but nowhere was it a bigger hit than in the UK. Yay, well done us!

As there’s no lyrics in this apart from the occasional “doop”, it’s left to a load of dancers obviously dressed in 1920s style dresses and headgear to deliver some sort of performance. If it wasn’t from the obligatory two male DJ nerds lurking around at the back of the stage (one looking like Rick Wakeman), this could be a dance routine by Pan’s People. I know Ric Blaxill had brought back some of the Radio 1 DJs from the 80s as hosts of the show but this was ridiculous!

Doop would become only the third ever Dutch act to have a UK No 1 after Pussycat with “Mississippi” and “No Limit” by 2 Unlimited. In a bizarre twist of fate, it would become the first instrumental chart topper since “Eye Level” by the Simon Park Orchestra in 1973 which was the theme tune for Van der Valk about a Dutch detective. And that reference just might be more oblique than the angle from which Marco Van Basten scored his wonder goal for Holland in the 1988 European Championships.

A largely forgotten hit next though a pretty good song. Just two short years after Shakespear’s Sister took “Stay” to No 1 for six weeks, Marcella Detroit and Siobhan Fahey’s working relationship had been dissolved and the former was striking out on her own with a solo album. Wikipedia tells me that it wasn’t her debut though as that came in 1982 after a protracted gestation period but failed to sell in any territory. Marcella looks pretty different on the cover with an 80s perm and highlights. Her transformation into a Louise Brooks coiffured model type is almost as huge a change as that of Alanis Morrisette who made a similar image change from her early incarnations to her commercial peak.

So, 12 years and one pop duo later came her sophomore album “Jewel” which got mixed press reviews but which sold reasonably well going to No 15 in the charts. The lead single was “I Believe” which also sold steadily rising to No 11. Its a very accomplished, nicely produced song which makes the most of Marcella’s dynamic yet pure vocals. It probably should have been a bigger hit.

The performance here employs a very basic black and white to colour change just at the moment where the song really blooms at the chorus. I wonder if whoever came up with that were really pleased with themselves? To be fair, I was when, as a student at Sunderland Polytechnic, our group came up with the same wheeze when producing a video as part of a module. Our plot revolved around a bored student falling asleep in a tedious lecture and daydreaming about being pushed into a swimming pool at which point he wakes up. We called it Wet Dream (genius!) and had the lecture part in black and white and the dream sequence in colour (also genius!). I really must find it out and get it online one day.

Anyway, back to Marcella (or Marcy as host Mark Goodier calls her). We (my wife and some friends) were supposed to go and see her live at the Academy in Manchester but she called off the gig at the last minute. We all went out drinking at a pub called Briton’s Protection instead. My friend Robin was delighted as he hadn’t wanted to go to see Marcella in the first place and the pub had his favourite ale (Jennings) on tap. Fast forward 25 years and Marcella and Siobhan would work out their differences and reunite for a tour and EP of new material. I never did see Marcella live but Robin continues to enjoy a nice pint of Jennings to this day.

https://youtu.be/lYE15R-KGfY

Some Breakers now starting with The Beautiful South and their new single “Good As Gold (Stupid As Mud)”. I seem to remember many people believing the title to be “Carry On Regardless” due to the phrase featuring heavily in the lyrics and also possibly because of the Carry On film of the same name. The band hadn’t released anything in 1993 so this was a taster from new album “Miaow”. It was still cast from the same mould as some of their earlier material with catchy melodies and socially observant lyrics to the fore but there had been one big change since we last saw/heard them. Vocalist Briana Corrigan had left the band with rumours abound that she was less than impressed by some of Paul Heaton’s lyrics including on the single “36D” which criticised the glamour industry by making targets out of the models. Briana was replaced by Jacqui Abbott who would stay with the band for four albums before leaving and then rekindling her creative relationship with Heaton in 2014.

Sales of the album would not halt the decline that third album “0898” had suffered from after predecessors “Welcome To The Beautiful South” and “Choke” had both gone platinum but by the end of 1994 they would have the Christmas No 1 album and the second best selling record of the whole year in their first Best Of album “Carry On Up The Charts” (Heaton was clearly a bit of a fan of the Carry On franchise). For the second time in the band’s history, the artwork for the album’s cover got them into hot water. After thejr debut received a ban from Woolworths for originally featuring a woman with a gun in her mouth, “Miaow” had to undergo a change of image as well when HMV objected to the picture of a crowd of dogs seated in a music hall with a gramophone on stage as it impinged in their legendary logo.

“Good As Gold (Stupid As Mud)” remains one of the Beautiful South’s most well known songs I think despite it only making it to No 23 in the charts. The follow up would be the second song made famous by Harry Nilsson to return to the charts this year after Mariah Carey’s take on “Without You” when the band released a cover of “Everybody’s Talkin’”.

https://youtu.be/dMfb9TRbUJc

Hell’s teeth it’s Therapy? again! “Trigger Inside” was these Irish rockers fifth Top 40 hit in the past year and second of 1994 already! Talking of teeth, the band seemed to have a bit of a dental obsession. Having already released a single called “Teethgrinder” with a particularly graphic front cover, this one starts with the lyric

Here comes a girl with perfect teeth
I bet she won’t be smiling at me
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Andrew Cairns
Trigger Inside lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

The very next line name checks serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer which TOTP wisely avoids showing in this short clip. This track seems to be at the heavier end of the rock scale and not especially radio friendly (and that’s before considering the Jeffrey Dahmer reference) but the band’s fanbase was by now large enough to guarantee them a chart placing. “Trigger Inside” was at its No 22 peak despite it being its first week on the charts.

Apart from one solitary entry at No 40, Alison Moyet hadn’t had a UK chart hit since her cover of “Love Letters” made No 4 in 1987. That outcome would have seemed unlikely back then. After all, she’s had two massive hits from her album of that year “Raindancing” in “Is This Love?” and “Weak In The Presence Of Beauty”. However, a delay of four years until her next album “Hoodoo” had seen her lose her place amongst pop’s big hitters and the album sold respectably but significantly less numbers than its predecessors.

Commercial success wasn’t what mattered to Alison though who fought her record company Sony for artistic control of her work which led to a confrontation over the release of her next album “Essex”. Sony refused to release it unless tracks were re-recorded and re-produced to make a more radio friendly pop album that stood a better chance of success. The result of this stand off was “Whispering Your Name”, a 1983 song written by Jules Shear but originally recorded by Ignatius Jones, leader of shock rock band Jimmy and the Boys. In an act of compromise, Alison committed to two versions of the song; an acoustic “MacArthur Park”* style ballad that appeared on the album and the danced up version that was released as a single.

*The Richard Harris version, not Donna Summer’s

The former is clearly the better version to my ears with the latter sounding like something Dusty Springfield might have recorded as a B-side during her Pet Shop Boys collaboration era. Mind you, even that version is a million times better than the Ignatius Jones take which is an abomination:

Mark Goodier makes a big deal in his intro of the fact that Dawn French appears in the video for “Whispering Your Name” just as she’d done seven years prior for the “Love Letters” promo. Now don’t get me wrong, I like Dawn French (we even had a French And Saunders VHS on our wedding present list!) but I don’t think her ‘zany’ antics added anything to the video at all. Maybe I felt differently back then but viewed in 2023 it all seems a bit tired. The single would make No 18 perhaps validating Sony’s strategy but it would be Alison’s last ever chart entry as a solo artist.

Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine’s time as chart dwelling pop stars was entering the final bend come 1994 – in short, it turned out that they could be stopped after all. After the unlikely gold selling albums that were “30 Something” and “1992 – The Love Album” (a chart topper no less), subsequent releases suffered from a dose of diminishing returns. Not that they were suddenly outside of the charts being refused entry but the numbers were in decline. This single “Glam Rock Cops” and its predecessor “Lenny And Terence” were their lowest peaking singles (Nos 24 and 40 respectively) since their first ever chart hit, the 1991 reissue of “Sheriff Fatman”. The quality of their material was still there though. “Glam Rock Cops” is a great song and the performance of it here shows how comfortable Jimbob and Fruitbat had become by this stage with the whole idea of being pop stars. As ever, the lyrics are clever and intriguing though were they influenced by The Jam’s “Going Underground” with the line “The public gets the music that no public could deserve”?

We rejoin Bon Jovi now who have come in off that roof in New York and are performing on, yes you guessed it, yet another nondescript stage that could just as easily have been located round the corner from the TOTP studio as where it actually was, 3,500 miles due West. Really? I thought new producer Ric Blaxill was trying to get away from all that and have artists performing against landmark backdrops.

Anyway, the single the band are plugging is “Dry County” which was the sixth and final single to be released from their “Keep The Faith” album. Remember, this was an album that had been released on 3rd November 1992 and this TOTP aired on 10 March 1994 – that’s 16 months later! This was almost Michael Jackson-esque! As well as the length of time between album and single releases there was also a small (or large as it happens) matter of the length of time of the track itself. Apparently, this is Bon Jovi’s longest song clocking in at 9:52. It was edited down to 6:00 for single release. The band and or their record company clearly had plenty of confidence in the track’s potential for success. Hey! They must have ‘kept the faith’ in it (I’ll get me coat). Or maybe it was just their “Bohemian Rhapsody” moment.

The title referred to a county that prohibits alcohol but here it also acts as a metaphor for the decline of the US oil industry with the song describing the effects of such on the inhabitants of towns whose economies were reliant on the resource. It’s a bit of a retread of Tommy and Gina’s struggles in “Livin’ On A Prayer” or, indeed, most of Bruce Springsteen’s back catalogue. “Dry County” managed a very respectable peak of No 9 in the UK. They would end the year with the 21 million selling Best Of album “Crossroads” which was also the UK’s best selling album of 1994.

Oh and one last thing. The BBC censors were asleep at the wheel again as for the second time on tonight’s show we get the use of the word ‘whore’ in a song’s lyrics:

Man spends his whole life waiting, praying for some big reward
But it seems sometimes the payoff leaves you feeling like
A dirty whore

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Jon Bon Jovi
Dry County lyrics © Bon Jovi Publishing, Polygram Int. Publishing, Inc.

It’s a fourth and final week at the top for Mariah Carey and “Without You”. As successful as Mariah’s version of the song was, she isn’t the only artist to have taken on this monster pop song. The list of those who have tackled it includes Air Supply, Shirley Bassey, Petula Clark, Glen Campbell, Elaine Paige, Rose Marie…wait. Rose Marie? I know a story about her and it involves my time at Sunderland Polytechnic again. My friend Robin (he with the passion for Jennings ale) had a friend named Cess (short for Cesspit) come to visit him in Sunderland. Unfortunately for Cess, Robin was out when he arrived at his gaff and so, in an era before mobile phones, he had some time to kill. Looking for something to do, Cess wandered into Sunderland town centre and noticed that there was a matinee gig going on at the Empire Theatre. “That’ll do” thought Cess and in he went. The gig was by Rose Marie – the Irish Bette Midler as some named her – and the audience was mainly made up of elderly ladies having a nice afternoon out. I should have pointed out that Cess was a bit of a punk back then and at the time was sporting a pink Mohican hairstyle so I’m not entirely sure the rest of the audience were really his people but apparently he spent a great afternoon singing along with Rose Marie and her fans.

The play out song is “Rock My Heart” by Haddaway. Hadn’t we all had enough of this bloke by this point? This was the fourth and final hit from his debut album and, just like the preceding three, went Top 10. After doing a ballad for his last single, he’d cranked up the beats again for this high tempo Eurodance number which was not a million miles away from his biggest hit “What Is Love”. I wasn’t going to any of the clubs that might have played this sort of stuff back then (indie night at Fifth Avenue in Manchester was more my scene) so maybe I wasn’t its target audience but why was this guy so successful? Really though, why?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Primal Scream	Rocks / Funky Jam	No but I bought the album
2	M People	Renaissance	No but my wife had the album
3	Janet Jackson	Because Of Love	No
4	Doop	Doop	Of course not
5	Marcella Detroit	I Believe	Liked it, didn’t buy it
6	The Beautiful South	Good As Gold (Stupid As Mud)	No but I have that Best Of album it on
7	Therapy?	Trigger Inside	Negative
8	Alison Moyet	Whispering Your Name	Nah
9	Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine	Glam Rock Cops	See 5 above
10	Bon Jovi	Dry County	No but I had a promo copy of the album
11	Mariah Carey	Without You	Nope
12	D:Ream	U R The Best Thing	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/m001hyxn/top-of-the-pops-10031994

TOTP 1992 – the epilogue

Posted on April 29, 2022 by 80stastic

Look, there’s no way of putting a nice bow on this, 1992 was yet another crappy year. Nothing happened! Well, not literally obviously but it was like the UK was waiting for the next big thing to arrive any minute but whatever it was going to be, it hadn’t even done its packing by the end of the year let alone have any sort of ETA. Nothing sums this up more than this fact. The biggest selling album of the year was “Stars” by Simply Red which was also the biggest selling album of the previous year. Where was the influence of the much vaunted grunge rock movement? It was certainly conspicuous by its absence in terms of both the singles and albums charts. The singles market had a disastrous year with sales slumping dramatically. There were only 12 different No 1 songs, the smallest number for thirty years. I guess we should have a look at them….

Chart date (week ending)	Song	Artist(s)
4 January	“Bohemian Rhapsody/These Are the Days of Our Lives“	Queen
11 January
18 January
25 January	“Goodnight Girl“	Wet Wet Wet
1 February
8 February
15 February
22 February	“Stay“	Shakespear’s Sister
29 February
7 March
14 March
21 March
28 March
4 April
11 April
18 April	“Deeply Dippy“	Right Said Fred
25 April
2 May
9 May	“Please Don’t Go“	K.W.S.
16 May
23 May
30 May
6 June
13 June	Abba-esque	Erasure
20 June
27 June
4 July
11 July
18 July	“Ain’t No Doubt“	Jimmy Nail
25 July
1 August
8 August	“Rhythm Is a Dancer“	Snap!
15 August
22 August
29 August
5 September
12 September
19 September	“Ebeneezer Goode“	The Shamen
26 September
3 October
10 October
17 October	“Sleeping Satellite“	Tasmin Archer
24 October
31 October	“End of the Road“	Boyz II Men
7 November
14 November
21 November	“Would I Lie to You?“	Charles & Eddie
28 November
5 December	“I Will Always Love You“	Whitney Houston
12 December
19 December
26 December

Dearie me! Less than half of the twelve were by brand new artists and of that number only two were British. There were at least four big ballads in there (none bigger than Whitney Houston’s), three cover versions and the return of a man who hadn’t had a hit for seven years and he was better known as an actor than a singer! Three of the total of eight British acts in the list had made their name in the 80s whilst the hang over Xmas No 1 from 1991 was by Queen. The only vaguely interesting song on the list was “Ebeneezer Goode” by The Shamen. Even if you didn’t like it, at least it ruffled a few feathers. Of the twelve, I bought none at all although my wife did buy the Wet Wet Wet album with “Goodnight Girl” on it. There wasn’t quite a Bryan Adams event with Shakespear’s Sister coming the closest with an eight week run at the top. Whitney Houston would better that by two weeks but that run was spread over 1992 and 1993. There were some decent singles like…erm…give me a minute…it’ll come to me…Utah Saints? The Wedding Present “Hit Parade” project? There was an awful lot of shite though from the likes of Tetris, Ambassadors of Funk, The Chippendales and WWF Superstars. What the hell was going on?!

The best selling albums weren’t much cop either. Half of the Top 20 were Best Of / Collections with the highest placing studio albums coming from Michael Jackson, Genesis and Right Said Fred with only the latter being released in 1992 itself. The Top 50 reads like a register of rock/pop royalty. Elton John, Diana Ross, Bryan Adams, Queen, U2, Mike Oldfield, Madonna, Tina Turner, ABBA, Cher…Only the likes of REM and The Shamen (again) stand out as even vaguely interesting. Rock music was represented by some already well established names in Bon Jovi, Guns N’ Roses and Def Leppard. Even Nirvana (oh there’s grunge!) were hardly a new name come the end of 1992 and although their No 20 placing in the best sellers list with “Nevermind” was laudable, where were all the other bands following in their wake? Special mention should go to Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine who did score a No 1 album this year against the odds though it doesn’t appear in the best selling Top 50.

Hits We Missed

This section hasn’t been that busy in reviews of recent years because we haven’t missed any TOTP episodes due to issues surrounding presenters but that all changed again in 1992. I should be clear that the Adrian Rose repeats were not broadcast because he refused to sign the waiver and nothing to do with any unpalatable reasons. I haven’t checked exactly how many shows were missed but it was certainly double figures. Then there were songs that made the charts but somehow never made it onto the show, not even a few seconds in the Breakers. Maybe they could gave fitted a few more in if they hadn’t gone so heavy in all those live by satellite exclusive performances. Anyway, whatever the reason, here’s a few we missed.

Buffy Sainte Marie – The Big Ones Get Away

The name Buffy meant nothing to me in 1992. Not even in terms of vampire slayers as the Joss Whedon TV series* didn’t premiere until five years later. Buffy Sainte Marie certainly didn’t register but my store manager in the Our Price in Manchester knew her and was keen to listen to her first new album for sixteen years on the shop stereo. So it was that I came to hear “The Big Ones Get Away” which sounded like it came from a different time altogether and a million miles away from much of the dross that was populating the charts. No, not from a different time but timeless, shining like a beacon through the grey mists of contemporary trends. So understated yet powerful. Genuinely affecting.

*The original film was out this year but it passed me by.

I said earlier I’d never heard of the name Buffy Sainte Marie until 1992 though I had heard unknowingly one of her songs. She co-wrote the Oscar winning “Up Where We Belong” for An Officer And A Gentleman. Her legacy will be much more than that though. She is also an artist, pacifist and social activist campaigning to highlight the issues affecting the indigenous peoples of the Americas of which she is one having been born in a reserve in Saskatchewan, Canada to Cree parents.

Released: January 1992

Chart peak: No 39

Daisy Chainsaw – Love Your Money

This lot were a riot (or should that be riot grrl?). Forging a reputation for anarchic live gigs with lead singer KatieJane Garside performing in soiled clothes and drinking from a baby’s bottle, these indie rockers gained an unlikely foothold in the actual Top 40 with their “Love Sick Pleasure” EP which featured the track “Love Your Money”. Their USP was Garside’s vocal stylings which ranged from childlike whispering to outright screaming. They hit the spot though on “Love Your Money” which made No 26 in the charts. Perhaps inevitably given Garside’s vocal techniques, the reason we never saw Daisy Chainsaw on TOTP was nothing to do with Adrian Rose nor that they just weren’t asked; they were but had to turn it down due to Garside having a throat infection!

Garside left the band in 1993 becoming a recluse until reappearing in 1999 with Queenadreena.

Released: February 1992

Chart peak: No 26

Jah Wobble’s Invaders Of The Heart – Visions Of You

I just started watching Danny Boyle’s Pistol last night so including this next artist seems appropriate. Jah Wobble’s name is inextricably linked with John Lydon despite him leaving PiL after their first two albums. He formed Invaders Of The Heart in 1982 but it wasn’t until ten years later that they had a bona fide chart hit.

“Visions Of You” featured the vocals Sinéad O’Connor which perfectly suited this blissed out, vibes heavy track that appeared on the “Rising Above The Bedlam” album. This wasn’t the first time the charts had been home to such an Indian influenced song of course. There was The Beatles’ later work and some of George Harrison’s solo material in the 60s and 70s and Monsoon’s “Ever So Lonely” in 1982. It wasn’t the last either with Kula Shaker ploughing that furrow in 1996 with their “K” album and in particular the track “Govinda”. And yet “Visions Of You” seemed like a genuine outlier back in early 1992.

A colleague I worked with at Our Price in Manchester loved this track and it would get a regular airing in the shop stereo which is probably why I know it as I don’t recall hearing it on the radio much.

Released: February 1992

Chart peak: No 35

The Lightning Seeds – Sense

The Lightning Seeds probably get a tougher rap than they deserve. Sure, “Three Lions” has become unlistenable due to it being reactivated every international football tournament that England are in and from “Jollification” onwards it all became a bit formulaic but for me, you can’t doubt that Ian Broudie is one talented guy. Just look at his past history and where he came from. He was a member of Big In Japan with Holly Johnson and Bill Drummond and also in John Peel favourites Original Mirrors. Then he formed Care with ex Wild Swans singer Paul Simpson who came up with one of the best singles of the 80s not to make the Top 40 in “Flaming Sword”. As that decade ended came The Lightning Seeds whose “Pure” single was a highlight of 1989. In between that and the band’s golden period surrounding “Jollification” and “Three Lions” came sophomore album “Sense”.

Remembered mainly for lead single “The Life Of Riley” and its use on Match Of The Day’s Goal Of The Month section, it was also home to title track “Sense”. Released as the album’s second single, this largely forgotten track was co written with the legendary Terry Hall and is a wonderful pop record. Hall recorded his own version of the song in 1994 for his album “Home” and it probably trumps Broudie’s vocals version for me but I can’t put it in a review of 1992!

I bought the single and was delighted to discover that “Flaming Sword” was the B-side! What’s not to love!

Released: May 1992

Chart peak: No 31

Vegas – Possessed

Talking of Terry Hall…Mr Misery (I love Terry but he is quite dour!) was on a roll with collaborations this year. After Ian Broudie came Dave Stewart of Eurythmics. I think there were more than just the two of them in Vegas but all the publicity surrounding the project focussed on them (I think it was a Tears For Fears or OMD type arrangement). The fusion of creative minds generated one album and three singles but the only one to garner even a sniff of chart action was the lead single “Possessed”. This really does come under the title of ‘lost gem’. Literally lost as the album has long since been deleted and has never appeared on streaming services.

In the most recent issue of Classic Pop magazine within an article on Dave Stewart, there is a little box out on Vegas. In it, Stewart texts the head of a music investment firm whilst being interviewed to ask them to investigate making the album available again (fingers crossed!). He also says record company BMG gave them some money to record a making of the album documentary but instead they spent it arseing about in a disused hotel casino in France remaking sections of The Shining. Apparently that footage is in the faults somewhere but I don’t think there is the same clamour for that to be made available as there is for the album!

The single is almost pop perfection with Terry’s downbeat vocals aligning somehow perfectly with an uplifting chorus that speaks of recovery and rejuvenation. There’s a line in there that speaks probably to many of us but certainly to me – “I even like myself again”. A nice trick if you can pull it off.

Released: September 1992

Chart peak: No 32

The Beautiful South – Old Red Eyes Is Back

One of my favourite albums of 1992 was The Beautiful South’s “0898” which contained four great singles including this which was the first to be released. Technically it came out in 1991 (30 Dec) but it was on an Adrian Rose TOTP in the January so I think I’m OK to include it here.

With its clever Sinatra reference in the title, “Old Red Eyes Is Back” was a very literal yet heart wrenching depiction of alcoholism and also a nifty little tune to boot. Despite not making the Top 20, it’s become one of the band’s best remembered tunes I think. Maybe it’s the subject matter that speaks to so many. A sad indictment indeed.

TOTP show featured on: 16 Jan 1992

Chart peak: No 22

https://youtu.be/vt_PIY4gGEA

Primal Scream – Movin’ On Up

This was actually an EP entitled “Dixie-Narco” rather than a regular single release though “Movin’ On Up” was the track that got all the airplay and indeed was the only track on it that came from their seminal “Screamadelica” album. The other tracks on the EP were “Stone My Soul”, a cover of “Carry Me Home” written by Dennis Wilson for the Beach Boys’ “Holland” album (though never included) and “Screamadelica” which had been recorded at the time for its namesake album but which only made it onto the 20th anniversary Limited Collectors Edition.

The opening song on”Screamadelica”, “Movin On Up” was surely destined to always be released as a single (of sorts as it turns out). Who could resist its uplifting, gospel tinged vibe and the sadly departed Denise Johnson‘s vocals? I couldn’t and the EP duly rests in my singles box.

The performance we missed seems fairly restrained for Bobby Gillespie though he does seem to have a case of restless leg in his right one which involuntarily keeps…ahem…movin’ on up.

TOTP show featured on: 6 February 1992

Chart peak: No 11

Everything But The Girl – Love Is Strange

Another EP! Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt have made some great records but the truth is that until the Todd Terry mix of “Missing” went stratospheric, their biggest hits were cover versions. The last time we had seen the couple on TOTP was four years prior to this when their cover of “I Don’t Want To Talk About It” went Top 3. Two albums and no hit singles later, they returned to covers and released an EP of them called…erm…”Covers EP”. The track listing was eclectic rather than obscure featuring “Tougher Than The Rest” by Bruce Springsteen, “Time After Time” by Cyndi Lauper, “Alison” by Elvis Costello and this one, Mickey and Sylvia’s “Love Is Strange”. Originally released in 1956, its use in the film Dirty Dancing brought it to the attention of a whole new generation. Ben and Tracey’s take on it erred towards sweet and gentle but I didn’t mind that at all. Twee did someone say? How dare you?!

Although this was a stand-alone release in the UK, a whole album was cobbled together for the US. Called “Acoustic” it comprised the “Covers EP”, a version of Tom Waits’ “Downtown Train” (that’s how you cover that song Rod Stewart!) and six acoustic versions of EBTG songs. I seem to recall that their record label rereleased their 1991 album “Worldwide”, which had underperformed commercially, with the “Covers EP” tacked onto it in the wake of its success. I could be wrong though.

https://youtu.be/-fWz2ks_eJY

TOTP show featured on: 27 February 1992

Chart peak: No 13

Kim Wilde – Love Is Holy

Damn! We missed a Kim Wilde episode! Oh…erm….yes, anyway…in 1992, after a total of zero chart hits in the decade so far, Kim Wilde set upon a course of reinventing herself as Belinda Carlisle. OK, it wasn’t quite as literal as that but the resemblance of “Love Is Holy” to something like “Heaven On Earth” can’t be ignored. There was good reason why though. It was written by one Rick Nowels who had written some of Belinda’s previous hits. The plan worked with the single returning Kim to the Top 40 for the first time since 1989.

It was only a temporary reprieve though. The album “Love Is…” was a moderate seller and failed to produce any further hit singles. A final chart hurrah arrived the following year when Kim took a cover of Yvonne Elliman’s “If I Can’t Have You” to No 12 to promote her “Singles Collection 1981-1993” album.

Kim is still a massive live draw and her 2018 album “Here Come The Aliens” charted at No 21, her best position since the aforementioned “Love Is…” thirty years ago.

TOTP show featured on: 7 May 1992

Chart peak: No 16

https://youtu.be/P1Gm-bBnN64

Tori Amos – Crucify

My first impression of Tori Amos was that she was an American Kate Bush. Now that might be seen as a compliment by many but there was much more to Tori than my initial crude assessment. She’s a classically trained pianist with a mezzo-soprano vocal range for a start. A child prodigy, she was admitted to the Peabody Institute, John Hopkins University aged just five. She briefly fronted synth pop band Y Kant Tori Read who failed dismally, the demise of whom inspired Tori to write material for herself. One of them was “Crucify” which would become her second consecutive UK Top 40 hit after “Winter” made No 25 in March. Both were taken from her debut album “Little Earthquakes” which was well received by critics and fans alike.

With a title like “Crucify”, the song was bound to cause some controversy and it was duly banned in the US Bible Belt for being sacrilegious and blasphemous. Conversely, the aforementioned Kate Bush changed the title of her single “Running Up That Hill” from its original name of “A Deal With God” so as to avoid such a reaction in certain territories. Admittedly she was under record company pressure to do so but a difference between her and Amos all the same.

Tori’s performance on TOTP couldn’t have been more different from the ‘91 vintage of female singer songwriter sat at a piano as personified by Beverley Craven. She looks like she can barely keep her bum on the seat and that at any moment she’ll cock a leg onto the piano Little Richard style.

Tori Amos returned in 1994 with a huge hit in “Cornflake Girl” and even bagged a surprise No 1 in 1997 when an Armand van Helden remix of “Professional Widow (It’s Got To Be Big”) topped the charts.

TOTP show featured on: 25 June 1992

Chart peak: No 15

https://youtu.be/gNvAdu3gkb8

Hits That Never Were

The Pale – Dogs With No Tails

Having started life as buskers on Dublin’s Grafton Street, The Pale eventually came to widespread public attention with the release of their major label debut single “Dogs With No Tails”. As I recall, the track was picked up on by Radio 1 breakfast DJ Simon Mayo who gave it substantial airplay on his show. I’m pretty sure that will be where I heard it first. He had a habit of trying to break records that he had stumbled on as well as being responsible for the resurrection of songs like “Donald Where’s Your Troosers”, “Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life” and “Kinky Boots” for no discernible reason. He often came across as full of his own importance to me.

“Dogs With No Tails” sounded completely out of sync with the dominant music movements of the time coming on like an Irish Les Négresses Vertes (“Zobi La Mouche” and all that). Maybe that was its appeal. Something to remind us that music didn’t have to be formulaic and homogeneous.

Despite that Mayo endorsement, it just failed to make the Top 40. My wife was one of those who tried to make it a hit and it duly resides in our singles box to this day. Undeterred, the band changed tack, left A&M and released a number of critically well received albums independently. They are still an ongoing entity touring extensively and with their last album being as recent as 2019.

Released: June 1992

Chart peak: No 51

Natural Life – Natural Life

Seemingly now just a footnote in pop history to inform us that this was Shovell from M People’s first band, there was a bit more to this lot than that. They were the only London band to appear on the bill for the two day Cities In The Park mini festival to commemorate the recently deceased legendary producer Martin Hannett in 1991.

More exposure came from Radio 1 who’s listeners voted their debut single “Strange World” as their Record of the Week. Despite not charting, there was enough of a buzz about the band got a second tilt at the Top 40 in the shape of the band’s eponymously titled second single. This was again voted Record of the Week and got decent airplay. I was sure this one would be a hit and I duly bought it. I loved its rock guitar / dance percussion hybrid and memorable lyrics (“Business man you’re 21, said you carry your pen like a soldier’s gun”). Sometimes though airplay doesn’t translate to sales and it fell short once more by just seven places. Had the promised land of the Top 40 been reached, maybe a TOTP appearance would have followed and then who knows what. Sadly, that’s a tale for a parallel universe.

Released: Feb 1992

Chart peak: No 47

XTC – The Ballad Of Peter Pumpkinhead

XTC really are a criminally underrated band. How can the genius of their work correlate to the lack of commercial success they have received. By 1992, they hadn’t had a Top 40 hit for ten years, the last being the incredible “Senses Working Overtime”. Maybe it didn’t matter to Andy Partridge and co by that point. They had a loyal fanbase and had arguably produced some of their best work in the intervening time.

Then, out of the blue, came another chart entry via the wonderful “Disappointed” which made the giddy heights of No 33. I could have gone with that track for the Hits We Missed section as it didn’t warrant a TOTP appearance. However, I’ve gone with the follow up “The Ballad Of Peter Pumpkinhead” as despite missing the Top 40, is probably better known via its association with the film Dumb And Dumber courtesy of the cover of it by Crash Test Dummies in 1995.

It’s a cracking song (oops! Went a bit Wallace And Gromit there or is it Dominic Raab?) which pulls you in right from the deceptively slow intro which then explodes into life via a harmonica riff and keeps you locked in for the next four minutes helter skelter ride. The Crash Test Dummies version is almost identical apart from featuring a female lead vocalist (Ellen Reid) instead of the distinctive bass-baritone of Brad Roberts. Had the Canadian band already got permission from XTC to record it prior to the film coming out or was it specifically recorded for the soundtrack? If the latter, why didn’t the film makers just ask to use the original? The Crash Test Dummies did what XTC couldn’t and took the song into the charts where it peaked at No 30.

I bought the XTC version and the “Disappointed” single which both came from the band’s “Nonsuch” album.

Released: May 1992

Chart peak: No 71

Spinal Tap – The Majesty Of Rock

How many times have I watched This Is Spinal Tap? I’ve lost count but every time I do catch it, I find another little detail of brilliant comedy. And oh please let the rumour that has recently surfaced about a sequel actually happening be true. Back in 1992, the main protagonists of the project had already reconvened but not for a follow up film. No, they had recorded an album – the pun-tastic “Break Like The Wind” – and even did some live dates to promote it. For me, that blurring of the lines between fiction and reality that helped add layers of intertextuality is what’s made the project endure all these years.

The marketing campaign for the album included the brilliant tool of getting the Our Price chain to amend their weekly instore charts to include “Break Like The Wind” going in straight at No 0. Positioned above that weeks No 1 album, it was all too much for one customer I served who came to the counter looking for an explanation as to what on earth had happened to the chart. “But you can’t have position zero” he argued. I tried to explain it was just a promotional joke on behalf of the record company but he wasn’t satisfied with my explanation and wandered off muttering the words “number zero” and “pah”!

The album’s actual chart position was a peak of No 51 and it included two singles – “Bitch School” which was a minor Top 40 hit and this one, “The Majesty Of Rock” which missed the chart altogether. The lyrics are gloriously ridiculous:

To the majesty of rock, the pageantry of roll

The crowing of the cock, the running of the foal

And that’s the majesty of rock, the mystery of roll

The darning if the sock, the scoring of the goal

Lovely stuff. My mate Robin caught the band at the Albert Hall on the tour. Here he is attempting to get some skin off the band…

Released: May 1992

Chart peak: No 61

Tom Cochrane – Life Is A Highway

This was a Top 10 hit in the US which never translated to the UK. I’d never heard of Tom Cochrane before and I never heard anything about him after this track but apparently he was the the leader of Canadian 80s rockers Red Rider. During the Summer of ‘92, my Our Price colleague Knoxy spent a few weeks on holiday in America and when he came back said that he’d heard this song everywhere he went. Based on that, I thoroughly expected it to be huge over here but it just didn’t happen. Maybe it was too formulaic US rock for a a UK population who were enamoured with KWS at that point!

Years later, a version of it by an outfit called Rascal Flatts covered the song and it was used in the soundtrack to the Walt Disney/Pixar animation Cars. See what they did there?

Released: June 1992

Chart peak: No 62

A House – Endless Art

Now I have to admit that I didn’t know of this tune at the time but it definitely is of 1992 vintage. It wasn’t until years later that I discovered it randomly on Spotify (randomly in terms of I wasn’t looking for it anyway. I know the algorithms make pure randomness impossible). Like The Pale earlier, this lot were from Dublin and just like “Dogs With No Tails”, “Endless Art” was not your typical indie rock song. Yes, the idea of a ‘list’ song wasn’t original (think “We Didn’t Start The Fire” by Billy Joel, “Nothing Ever Happens by Del Amitri etc) but the way they executed it made it stand out for me. Maybe it’s just Dave Couse’s Irish accent that brings it to life. The list of artists from various fields and eras is remarkable easy on the ear with a couple of rhyming names placed in close proximity to aid the song’s flow. I think my favourite is “Johann Strauss, Richard Strauss, Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse RIP”. The innovative stop-motion video for the single drew lots of praise but even that wasn’t enough to propel it into the Top 40. They finally creeped in two years later with “Here Come the Good Times (Part 1)” but the band split a couple of years after that.

Their legacy far outstripped their commercial achievements with the Irish Times rock critics voting their “I Am The Greatest” album the third best Irish long player of all time behind only “Loveless” by My Bloody Valentine and “Achtung Baby” by U2. Indeed, some have argued that they were more important than Bono et al.

A House. RIP.

Released: June 1992

Chart peak: No 46

Martin Stephenson And The Daintees – Big Sky New Light

I’d known about Martin Stephenson since the mid 80s when The Daintees (as they just were back then) released “Trouble Town”, a marvellous, uplifting little pop tune on Kitchenware Records. Then came the switch to major label London Records, a repositioning of the band as Martin Stephenson And The Daintees and the “Boat To Bolivia” album which attracted superlative praise from the critics but not much in the way of sales. “Gladsome, Humour & Blue” became their highest charting album in 1988 and then just as I was leaving the bubble of being a student came “Salutation Road” which is just a great album.

Their final album for London was “A Boy’s Heart” and “Big Sky New Light” was the lead single from it. Not my favourite Stephenson tune by any means but in a year that saw Mr Big and Nick Berry very nearly top the charts, I wasn’t going to miss out this little bit of quality to balance the equation. A gently driven yet solid song, it saw Martin enliven it with some shouted vocals and even the odd ‘yeah!’. I bought the single though I have to say it was from the bargain bin.

Martin went onto a prolific solo career beginning with the following year’s “High Bells Ring Thin” album and he has also reactivated the Daintees to re-record all four of their albums on the 30th anniversary of their release.

Released: June 1992

Chart peak: No 71

Pele – Megalomania

Hailing from Ellesmere Port, Cheshire (I once knew a girl from Ellesmere Port – that’s it, that’s the story. Not great is it?) this lot built up a strong live following and were quickly picked up by M&G Records and set to work recording their debut album “Fireworks”. When it finally came out it was a Recommended Release in the Our Price chain and hopes were high that it would accrue some steady sales but ultimately it didn’t really light up the sky. It did however feature three very good singles that received decent airplay but which all failed to chart.

The middle one of those was “Megalomania” which was a bright and breezy pop tune that was perfect for daytime playlists. All the singles were to be fair. Listening back to them now, they’re kind of like a poppier version of Pale Fountains who I loved. Despite being ignored by the UK record buying public, “Megalomania” was a No 1 in South Africa and the band toured with the likes of Del Amitri and The Pogues. A record company dispute caused the band to split but main man Ian Prowse carved out a successful music career forming Amsterdam and striking up a working relationship with Elvis Costello.

Released: February 1992

Chart peak: No 73

Their Season In The Sun

Charles And Eddie

They arrived out of nowhere with a retro sounding yet broad church appealing song that would conquer the charts. Not quite the classic definition one hit wonder of one huge song then nothing – they had three further UK hits though none made it any higher than No 29 – but it was damn close. Certainly Charles And Eddie (terrible name) were never bigger than they were in the Autumn of 1992.

Curtis Stigers

An unlikely pop star, Curtis came from a jazz club background but emerged with the backing of major label Arista as some sort of rock ‘n’ soul artist, Daryl Hall and John Oates style. Amazingly it worked and Curtis racked up two consecutive Top 10 hits in the first half of the year. Suddenly the spell was broken and his biggest hit after that would be a No 28 five years later.

Curtis returned to his jazz roots recording multiple albums for the Concord Jazz label and if his Twitter account is anything to go by, remains a thoroughly decent chap which is all that matters to me.

KWS

The biggest band to come out of Nottingham since Paper Lace. It’s quite an accolade (don’t tell Tindersticks I said it though). Similar to Charles And Eddie, they weren’t quite the one hit wonders people might suspect they are. They actually accrued five UK Top 40 singles including a follow up Top 10 hit but it’s their cover of KC And The Sunshine Band’s “Please Don’t Go” that they will forever be associated with.

This really sounded like lowest common denominator stuff – never mind the quality, feel the sales. They were the soul brother to Undercover’s poppier take on the genre (more of them later). Inevitably, their story ended as all such short lived encounters with fame do – with one of them appearing on the Identity Parade round on Never Mind The Buzzcocks.

The Shamen

It seems a bit unfair to include The Shamen in this section as they existed long before 1992 and for many years after too. This 12 month period though brought them commercial success like no other before or since. A Top 3 album and four Top 10 singles including the controversy raking No 1 “Ebeneezer Goode”. It was a level of profile that they would never reach again. Maybe they took too long (three years) to release their next album “Axis Mutatis” or maybe they were undone by the rise of Britpop? Either way, The Shamen will always have 1992 to remind them how big they once were.

Shanice

Finally the classic one hit wonder! One enormous single and then no further Top 40 entries ever – not under her own name at least. “I Love Your Smile” bounded to No 2 propelled by that infectious ‘de der dup dup der der der’ vocal hook but then nothing. Zip. Nada. Shanice paid the bills by doing backing vocals for the likes of Toni Braxton and Usher whilst also branching out into acting and even reality TV with her show with her husband Flex And Shanice. Flex?!

Tasmin Archer

An intriguing marketing campaign (‘Who is Tasmin Archer?’) helped launch this breakthrough artist into the stratosphere but in reality it was the strength of her debut single “Sleeping Satellite” that achieved success which she couldn’t have conceived of in her wildest dreams. So radio friendly was it that it was surely cooked up in the hit song laboratory. It soared to No 1 and hinted at huge things for Tasmin but those “Great Expectations” were never really fulfilled. Her album went Top 10 and three more singles from it were hits though none bigger than No 16. Even an EP of Elvis Costello covers couldn’t reactivate her career. By the time of her second album in 1996, she’d been mostly forgotten leaving people to ask ‘Who is Tasmin Archer?’ all over again.

Undercover

This lot’s short lived success was almost inexplicable. Lame dance versions of rock/ pop standards fronted by a guy who looked like he’d turned up after his other job as a bingo caller? Come on! Seriously? Two big and one smaller hit was the extent of their success before obscurity beckoned. For a short while though they were Top of the ~~Shop~~ Pops.

Last Words

And it’s done. Another TOTP year reviewed and another stinker. A completely directionless 12 months with the charts full of all sorts of crap. In the non music world, there was another General Election win for The Tories (BOO!) and my beloved Chelsea were still awful and five years away from actually winning anything. Personally, there was a big change for me work wise with an unexpected promotion and move to a different shop which I loved. TOTP itself was still finding its way after the sweeping changes of the ‘year zero’ revamp. For my money, those changes hadn’t worked in that the show wasn’t substantially any better than the complacent dinosaur it had become. The endless ‘exclusives’ were tedious and the four Breakers in under two minutes supremely annoying. By the end of the year, most of the new presenters had gone leaving a hardcore of just Tony Dortie and Mark Franklin. Clearly it wasn’t working for new executive producer Stanley Appel either. And so 1993 beckons. In my head , this year was one of the worst of the whole decade. Please, please let me be wrong…

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/m0015nx8/top-of-the-pops-the-story-of-1992

TOTP 16 AUG 1990

Posted on February 18, 2021 by 80stastic

Here we are once more at TOTP Rewind, still back in the hot Summer of 1990, with a load of UK Top 40 hits to review. Before we get to those though, a bit of context about what else was happening outside of the charts at this time. Four days after this TOTP aired, the final ever episode of Miami Vice was shown on BBC1. Yes, the cop show that popularised the now iconic 80s fashion of no socks, rolled up sleeves, Ray-Ban sunglasses and of course designer stubble was finally put out to pasture after a run of five years, five seasons and 112 episodes. I hadn’t watched the show in years but I do recall tuning in for this final episode (well the last 10 minutes or so anyway).

Back in 1985, it had been a complete phenomenon making stars of its two leads Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas but it was its cultural impact that was the show’s legacy. The Miami Vice ‘look’ of pastel coloured T-shirt under jacket, white linen trousers, slip-on sockless loafers accessorised with shades and stubble may be rolled out these days as a fancy dress costume for an 80s themed party but back in the mid 80s it was genuinely influential. Sales of Ray Bans sunglasses soared and Macy’s even opened a Miami Vice section in its young men’s department. Designers such as Gianni Versace and Hugo Boss were consulted on the show’s fashion choices.

Then of course there was the music used in the series. Not for this show was the usual made for TV incidental music; oh no, the rights to actual, original pop and rock songs were purchased so that bona fide artists were featured. The range of artists employed was diverse; from Devo to Dire Straits and from U2 to Underworld. In the case of some acts, their involvement in the show was not restricted to just the inclusion of their musical output; stars from James Brown to Phil Collins via Sheena Easton also had acting parts. The series spawned two hit singles for Jan Hammer and three volumes of soundtrack albums. However, by the end of the 80s, it was starting to look tired and ratings had dropped. It was time to bow out as the 90s dawned.

And talking of pop songs that have been used in TV and film, tonight’s opening act are best known in the US for just that practice. Go West had not been seen anywhere in the vicinity of the UK Top 40 in nigh on five years since their last visit there with “Don’t Look Down – The Sequel” in their breakthrough year of 1985. Their second album had come out in 1987 to a less than enthusiastic reaction from the record buying public (none of the singles taken from it were hits) and despite touring with Tina Turner, they had been officially listed as missing in action since. An elongated and legally messy changing of record label in the US hadn’t helped matters.

And then, out of nowhere and looking every inch the 80s throwback anachronism, they were back! “King Of Wishful Thinking” was taken from the Pretty Woman soundtrack which was proving to be a goldmine for any artist lucky enough to have found their way onto it. Go West joined Natalie Cole, David Bowie and of course Roxette as acts that had benefited from its all reaching pulling power. How a past their sell by date UK pop act came to be on that record seemed to be a case of luck of the label. EMI released it and as the band’s US label, their executives got to hear the song’s demo and asked for it to be included. It’s actually used quite prominently in the film in the opening scene and titles. Of course, it wasn’t the first time their music had been included on a hit film soundtrack. Back in late ’85 they had contributed a song called “One Way Street” to the Rocky IV soundtrack but it never got an official single release on account of it being as dull as a daily briefing hosted by George Eustace.

“King Of Wishful Thinking” though was a horse of a different colour altogether. With its jaunty rhythm bouncing along pleasantly and its upbeat chorus, it was perfect for daytime airplay. Added to this were Peter Cox’s soulful vocals (for all they were very much seen as disposable pop, Cox’s voice always stood out) and they are to the fore in this live performance. Not to be outdone, his band partner Richard Drummie has turned up not just with their trademark singlet on but also in a pair of cycling shorts! Cox looks a bit nervous to be back in the spotlight but Drummie whoops it up with handclaps (and armpits!) a plenty.

The single’s popularity (No 8 in the US and No 18 over here) would lead to a successful comeback album two years later with the appropriately entitled “Indian Summer”.

Right, it’s that Ben Liebrand remix of “Englishman In New York” by Sting next. Still not sure quite how this remix came about but it remains one of Mr Sumner’s most well known songs I’m guessing. Now, sticking with the pop music in film / TV theme, this track was actually used in a film but it must be one of the most obvious uses of a song in cinematic history. It features in the 2009 film An Englishman In New York which is chronicles the years gay English writer Quentin Crisp spent in New York City. Crisp of course, was the subject matter of the song in the first place. Sting has had a few songs that featured in movies that have become chart hits. Back in 1982 he scored with “Spread a Little Happiness” from Brimstone & Treacle before repeating the trick 10 years later with “It’s Probably Me” from Lethal Weapon 3. By this point he was getting a taste for the movie soundtrack hit and just 12 months later he went to No 2 with “All for Love” (alongside Bryan Adams and Rod Stewart) from The Three Musketeers.

Now I wasn’t aware of this until now but Sting wasn’t the first artist to come up with a song with this title. Godley & Creme recorded “An Englishman In New York” back in 1979 and if you thought Sting’s video was intriguing, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet….

Now then, 1990 just got a little bit more interesting. I haven’t got the space in this one post to do justice to the whole story of The KLF or to be more precise, Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty and there is loads more to their back story that predates this moment but for many (including me) “What Time Is Love? (Live at Trancentral)” was our starting point. I was aware that they were the guys behind The Timelords and their No 1 hit “Doctorin’ the Tardis” back in 1988 but my knowledge of their The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (The JAMs) pseudonym was sketchy at best.

As presenter Anthea Turner notes in her intro, “What Time Is Love?” had been a dance floor hit previous Summer but it was a very different beast to the one we were about to hear in 1990. The original release even had a different name (sort of) – “What Time Is Love? (Pure Trance Original)” with the bracketed part of the title giving a clue to the very different sound that it had. Part of the Drummond and Cauty long term strategy though was the model of reworking tracks into different genres and so “What Time Is Love?” was re-shaped from a trance anthem to a more mainstream version that allowed the duo to the enter the nation’s consciousness. Vocal samples and a new bassline were added alongside a rap and house rhythm and the track became the first entry in the ‘Stadium House Trilogy’ that Drummond and Cauty had envisaged. “What Time Is Love? (Live at Trancentral)” would peak at No 5 and by the end of the year, The KLF were on their way to becoming a phenomenon, the like of which the UK charts hadn’t seen since Frankie Goes To Hollywood (probably).

You can be sure that we’ll be seeing plenty more of The KLF in these TOTP repeats over the next few months.

https://youtu.be/P_ws7Whr-vM?si=NfGJhIQoZ9XuX_4j

“Wow! They were raving!” exclaims Anthea at the end of The KLF’s performance which is possibly the most excruciating thing any one has ever said whilst presenting a popular music show. The next act on could be described as ‘excruciating’ for many a viewer back then but they were certainly ‘popular’. “Tonight” was the sixth of eight Top 10 hits that New Kids On The Block would have in 1990 alone. Such was their fame and appeal in this year that the likes of Smash Hits magazine could guarantee huge sales by merely planting them on the front cover whilst the story inside could be so insubstantial as to hardly warrant the title ‘feature’. The whole NKOTB phenomenon must have been manna from heaven for the pop press. Huge sales for very little journalistic effort.

As for their ‘music’, well… most of it was absolutely dire but then I wasn’t a teenage girl so I was not the target audience. Most you say? You mean some of it wasn’t utter crud? Surely not?! Look, at least “Tonight” had something a little bit different about it to their usual candy floss, lowest common denominator pop shit that they peddled. I mean, I hated it at the time but if I had to (like life depended on it scenario) pick one of their songs it would be this one. Please don’t judge me. “Tonight” peaked at No 3.

Right, what’s Anthea on about now? The Blackburn rave organisation? Who? What’s that to do with “Hardcore Uproar” by Together? Well, it appears that she was on the money with this one. Here’s @TOTPFacts:

Suddi Raval: "'Hardcore Uproar' was named after the Blackburn raves and features the sound of the crowds at the rave…" "Just after we finished recording, police raided it and started beating people." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) February 12, 2021

Yes, it seems Anthea was well prepped for this link. According to Suddi Raval in an interview with http://www.theransomnote.com, he was against “Hardcore Uproar” as a title and was pushing for it to be called “Can You Feel The Beat” which sounds so lame in comparison. The track got its biggest promotion when Paul Oakenfold agreed to play it as part of his set as the warm up at the legendary Stone Roses Spike Island gig when a crowd of 30,000 people (including my elder brother) got to hear it.

As for me, it sounds like “Ebeneezer Goode” by The Shamen performed by Utah Saints. Maybe it had some influence on those two acts? Maybe. Raval’s partner in the band Jon Donaghy was tragically killed a year after “Hardcore Uproar” was a hit in a road accident in Ibiza on the way to perform at a festival.

One of 1990’s breakout stars is back on the show with her biggest ever hit -it can only be Betty Boo and “Where Are You Baby”. There was lots of love for Betty on display on Twitter when this TOTP repeat aired last week. In stark contrast, there was a massive negative backlash on social media against Anthea Turner after her ill-advised Twitter rant that was accused of fat-shaming and ableism. Silly cow. Anyway, back to Betty and this is peak period Boo (peak-a-boo if you will) when she really did seem to have the pop world at her feet. “Where Are You Baby” was her third Top 10 hit on the spin (if you include her 1989 collaboration with The Beatmasters) and would eventually rise to No 3. Although very similar to previous hit “Doin’ The Do”, this one had a bit more musicality about it to my ears with the chorus sounding much more melodic. Above everything else though, it was damn catchy. Betty really channels her inner Emma Peel in this performance whilst the promo video with its sci-fi space imagery sees her cast herself as a cartoon-like of version of Barbarella. I was fine with either look to be fair!

https://youtu.be/0g2w4EC-Ax8?si=rYJaIDdjkPCf3LN0

Right, what’s the name of the next act Anthea? Unfortunately for Anthea, two one syllable words that are phonically similar proved too much for her presenting abilities and she cocks up introducing Jon Bon Jovi when she gets ‘Jon’ and ‘Bon’ the wrong way round! Come on! This is basic stuff for a presenter surely?

“Blaze Of Glory” was a Breaker last week and is up to No 13 this week and for those of us with even a passing familiarity with the Bon Jovi canon of work (and yes I was one), it seemed to be a wholly predictable culmination of a good few years obsession with cowboys on Jon’s behalf. Starting with “Wanted Dead Or Alive” from the “Slippery When Wet” album (originally the song that Emilio Estevz requested to be used in Young Guns II), Jon couldn’t let go of his Cowboys and Westerns theme and carried it forward to the band’s next album “New Jersey”. That album included songs with titles like “Stick To Your Guns” (opening line ‘So you want to be a cowboy’) and this one…

…give it a rest Jon!

Anyway, I read recently that there are plans afoot for a third instalment of the Young Guns franchise with screenwriter of the first two films John Fusco plus their stars Emilio Estevz and Lou Diamond Phillips on board. I’m not quite sure which direction the plot could plausibly go in given that just about all the characters for the first two films were killed off and Estevez and Diamond Phillips are now well into their 50s. Not so much ‘young guns’ then as ‘antique firearms’.

Another of last week’s Breakers now as we get a studio performance from Roxette of “Listen To Your Heart”. Last year, the BMI confirmed that this song has now been played on US radio more than 60 million times! If those 60 million plays were back to back, it would have been played non-stop for 62 years!

As with Go West earlier, whatever you might think of their musical output, it cannot be denied that they had a great singer. Marie Fredriksson belts this one out and then some. After the re-release success of “Listen To Your Heart”, EMI repeated the trick for the duo’s next single when they shoved “Dressed For Success” back out into the market where it peaked at No 18, some 30 places higher than its initial release.

The final week of four at the top for Partners In Kryme and “Turtle Power”. Now before we all start jumping around, throwing our arms in the air and offering thanks to the gods of the pop charts, know this….*SPOILER ALERT*…next week’s No 1 is Bombalurina!

1990 really was the height of Turtlemania so much so that the four dudes even made an appearance (alongside Partners In Kryme) at the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party that year. As far as I can tell, they didn’t actually win anything per se although they did come 5th in the Best Single category and 3rd in the Worst Single category. Go figure.

The comments about the clip above on YouTube are scary. Here’s someone called Blue Jones:

“Dude! I am one of the biggest TMNT fans on earth. I’ve spent thousands of dollars on original art, comics & toys & I even have the fearsome foursome tattooed on my arm. And yet, I’ve never seen this video before! Yowza! Thanks for uploading this gem!”

WTF?! He even gets a reply from someone called Zwoob Zwoob:

“Same here bruh. except that tattoo part. but i did actually buy this replica of one of the original masks from the 1990 movie. (raph’s head). And even though I was only 2 when this movie came out, it’s my favorite, lol, i can literally recited the whole movie line for line.”

OK, I’m proper getting the fear now. Let’s dial it down with a comment from this poor, uniformed gentleman called MagicalPuddinPops:

“It’s weird I always thought mc hammer performed this.”

Farewell Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles…it’s been…awful actually.

Whilst 1990 hasn’t proved to be the antidote to the late 80s that I thought I remembered, bizarrely the play out song is the third single on this show to be featured in Gary Mulholland’s great book This Is Uncool: The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk and Disco. Split into years, the section for 1990 features “Come Together” by Primal Scream along with The KLF and Betty Boo! The follow up to their breakthrough chart hit “Loaded”, this was very much cut from the same cloth albeit with a more conventional song structure than its predecessor. However….the album version on “Screamadelica” remixed by Andrew Weatherall was nothing like the Terry Farley 7″ mix. Clocking in at over 10 mins with Bobby Gillespie’ vocals completely omitted and replaced with samples of a speech by the Rev Jesse Jackson, it’s that version that was a huge hit in the clubs in Ibiza.

I actually own the CD single of this but I can’t claim that I bought it at the time. I got it as one of those import cut out titles from legendary Manchester record store Power Cuts. It’s got two versions of “Come Together” and three of “Loaded” on it plus “I’m Losing More Than I’ll Ever Have” which was the original track that was remixed into “Loaded”. Not a bad little purchase.

In a Smash Hits feature that took a snoop around Bobby’s flat at the time, his record collection was spread across the floor and featured artists you could well have anticipated like The Rolling Stones, The Ramones, Sly and the Family Stone and Funkadelic. However, it also features “Hippychick” by Soho which wasn’t a hit in the UK until its re-release some six months after this article was published. Bobby Gillespie – a man all over trends before they’ve even happened. And his critics said he was just re-hashing The Rolling Stones. “Come Together” peaked at No 26.

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Go West	King Of Wishful Thinking	I did not
2	Sting	Englishman In New York (Ben Liebrand remix)	Nah
3	The KLF	What Time Is Love (Live At Trancentral”	Nope
4	New Kids On The Block	Tonight	No but I think my friend Rachel did
5	Together	Hardcore Uproar	Harcore! You know the score! Erm…no
6	Betty Boo	Where Are You Baby	No
7	Jon Bon Jovi	Blaze Of Glory	No but it’s probably on my Bon Jovi collection CD
8	Roxette	Listen To Your Heart	I did and it said don’t buy this record
9	Partners In Kryme	Turtle Power	This as a crime…against music. No
10	Primal Scream	Come Together	Yes on CD single (but not at the time)

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/m000s4ql/top-of-the-pops-16081990

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 15 MAR 1990

Posted on November 17, 2020 by 80stastic

After weeks of watching aghast at the state of the charts back in early 1990, there seemed to be some online optimism that we were finally embarking on a run of episodes that promised to turn the tide of disappointment. Even the usually disparaging @TOTPFacts seemed to have caught the good times vibe:

It’s a good one tonight. Set an alarm. #TOTP https://t.co/l8RVvPF0nO
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) November 13, 2020

And yet…be warned for despite the undoubted presence of some decent tunage on display tonight, there is an awful lot of shite to have to wade through first. Simon Mayo is the host for tonight’s show who is usually nondescript enough to be considered as a safe pair of hands so let’s get into it…

…hmm. Now which camp do The Mission fall into? Decent or shite? I’m going to go for the former but with the caveat that it’s a risky choice. I definitely like some of their stuff (“Stay With Me”, “Wasteland” and “Tower of Strength” for example) but there was only so much of it that I could handle in one go. “Deliverance” was the second single from their “Carved In Sand” album and I have to say it doesn’t really ring any bells with me. That may be to do with the fact that it was only in the Top 40 for three weeks and was already at its peak of No 27 by the time of this TOTP performance. If I didn’t watch this particular episode (and I’m not sure that I did) then maybe it was just in and out too quick for me to have heard it. Having caught up with it some 30 years later, it doesn’t strike me as one of their better efforts. A rousing enough chorus but the rest of it is a bit of a dirge don’t you think? Well, Norman Cook agreed with me. In a Smash Hits article reviewing the charts back then he stated of “Deliverance”:

” I hate all this macho rock business and The Mission came from a punk new wave background and they really ought to know better“

Ouch!

OK, after a debatable start to the show, I’m nailing my colours to the flag straight off the bat with this one by saying “I’ll Be Loving You Forever” by New Kids On The Block is utter excrement, a complete jobbie of a song. After two uptempo dance pop singles broke them in the UK, it was pretty obvious that they would go for a weepy ballad for their next choice of release. Not obvious enough for Simon Mayo though who declares that T’KNOB have gone “exceedingly early” for a big *hand gesture* ballad *follow up hand gesture*. What’s with the gesticulating Simon? He comes across like he’s giving a paper at some academic conference – it’s not rocket science Mayo!

The song itself is so insipid as to hardly be there at all. Jordan Knight’s reed thin vocal is barely audible (except maybe to dogs). If you want falsetto vocals allied to love songs then The Stylistics had already been there and done it (much better) in the 70s.

“I’ll Be Loving You Forever” broke their run of UK No 1 singles after “You Got It (The Right Stuff)” and “Hangin’ Tough” had scaled the summit by peaking at No 5. It was the opposite trend in the US where it was their first ever Billboard Hot 100 chart topper.

Ooh, now then. Here’s one to split the nation. After I blithely stated in a recent post that the name Candy never caught on as a popular choice for newborns despite the rise to fame of Candy Dulfer, bizarrely there was another Candy in the charts almost immediately afterwards. Candy Flip, as I recall, were briefly hailed as ‘the next big thing’ when they gave The Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever” the ‘rave’ treatment. This caused huge division around the duo; for some this was utter musical blasphemy while for the nation’s clubbers, it was bringing rave culture to the mainstream. In all honesty, and I say this as someone who has never been to a rave, I’m guessing that Candy Flip could have been seen by some in the rave community as betraying the whole movement by becoming pop stars off the back of it. Just a thought.

So who exactly were this pair of chancers? Well, they were Richard “Rik” Anderson- Peet and Daniel “Dizzie Dee” Spencer who had met whilst studying music and recording technology in Manchester where they moved in social circles that included the likes of A Guy Called Gerald and The Stone Roses. Clearly not ones to miss a trick when it came to burgeoning trends, they jumped on the ‘Madchester’ / ‘baggy indie’ bandwagon for their look and bingo! Ready made pop stars! They even made it onto the front cover of Smash Hits!

Apparently they did actually have some musical ability as in later life, Peet became a producer for the likes of The Charlatans and Muse whilst Spencer worked with erm…Robbie Williams…on his least well received album “Rudebox”. Yeah, maybe keep quiet about that. They also had some serious musical heritage in their locker. Here’s @TOTPFacts:

According to Smash Hits, Candy Flip singer Daniel Spencer's dad played guitar for Sandie Shaw and wrote songs for Petula Clark, while keyboard player Ric Peet's mum was in The Vernons Girls, who sang backing for the likes of Cliff Richard and… George Martin! #TOTP pic.twitter.com/OWf0mFyFjr
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) November 13, 2020

Mind blowing stuff. Talking of which they were named after ‘candyflipping’, the slang term for the practice of taking ecstasy and LSD at the same time. So definitely not Candy Dulfer then.

“Strawberry Fields Forever” peaked at No 3 and was their only chart hit. Their was an album which, gazumping Madness by two whole years, was called “Madstock…The Continuing Adventures of Bubblefish Car”. I don’t think a Candy Flip revival will be happening any time soon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Erf4aWJFjc

Is this the third consecutive week that “Love Shack” by The B-52s has been on the show? The TOTP producers must have loved this one. It’s the video yet again (I presume the band were too busy touring or something to pop by the studio) and as such, I’m out of comments so I’ll hand over to Homer Simpson for this one:

“Love Shack” peaked at No 2.

So the Breakers are back but at 1 min and 26 seconds to cover three whole songs, it barely seems worth it! The first of these stretches the description of ‘song’ to be fair. “Handful Of Promises” was the third hit on the bounce by Big Fun and was taken from their “Pocketful Of Dreams” album of which this song gave the album its title. Clearly it’s horrible. Nasty, cynical and lacking of any sort of tune, it somehow scrambled to a No 21 peak. Smash Hits magazine did a Big Fun v Yell battle of the bands piece which Big Fun won by 23 and a half points to 11 but it was a hollow victory – a bit like trying to work out which member of the Tory cabinet is the biggest wanker.

The good news is that I think Big Fun only have one Top 40 hit left in them before they will plague the charts and us no further.

I have to admit that Fish‘s solo career completely passed me by. “A Gentleman’s Excuse Me” is yet another of his recordings that I don’t think I have heard before now. The second of three singles taken from his “Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors” album (incredibly all three were Top 40 hits) it’s actually a pretty little thing (to quote Bing Crosby from his Xmas chat with David Bowie)

It puts me in mind of “Home Thoughts From Abroad” by Clifford T. Ward. In fact, it almost seems like Fish was deliberately trying to rewrite it. In the shite v decent poll, I’m marking this one down as up to snuff.

There is a theory that Wet Wet Wet‘s second studio album (if you discount their demoes / early recordings album “The Memphis Sessions”) “Holding Back The River” should have been their third whilst their actual third album (“High On The Happy Side”) should have been their second. Confused? Don’t be because it does make sense. After their debut “Popped In Souled Out” established their blue eyed soul / pop amalgam sound, the obvious move would have been to follow it up with something very similar. What the Wets did however was to throw caution to the wind and write an album that was much more mature that dealt with more heavyweight subject matters. For example the near title track from their sophomore album “Hold Back The River” deals with alcoholism I believe.

Whilst certainly not a commercial failure (it was a No 2 and went double platinum), it didn’t perform as well as “Popped In Souled Out”. When their career was looking decidedly dodgy two year later, they returned to a more accessible sound and found their way back to the very summit of the charts with “High On The Happy Side” which also furnished them with another No 1 single in “Goodnight Girl”. Did they go for that grown up sound too early (maybe we should ask Simon Mayo – he seems to have an opinion about these things!)? I doubt it. Things worked out pretty well for the band ultimately. “Hold Back The River” remains one of their lowest charting singles though peaking at No 31 but then there is a jazz break down half way through it so what did they expect?!

OK, now we get to the big guns which all the pre-show ‘ooh this is a good one’ fuss was all about. Not just one of the biggest tunes of the 90s but one of the biggest tunes ever – it can only be “Loaded” by Primal Scream. I’m pretty sure I didn’t know anything about Bobby Gillespie and co before this point but then, I don’t think that many people did. Yes, they had been around since the early 80s and had already released two albums by 1990 but they hadn’t got anywhere near mainstream success. Enter Andy Weatherall (who sadly died in February) to alter forever not just the career of Primal Scream but also that of music culture period.

I can’t recall for sure the first time that I heard “Loaded” but I’m pretty sure I didn’t get it straight away. What were all those sampled voices at the beginning and what was with the structure of the track that seemed to be all over the place? And why did it take so long for the singer to come in? Thirty years on and hundreds of plays later, it’s hard to believe I once thought like that. I’m nothing if not consistent though. Having not immediately swooned at Morrissey’s feet as The Smiths broke and then resisted the charms of the emerging Stone Roses, this was par for the course for me. I’m glad to say that I got with the programme in time and own both “Screamadelica” and an import CD single of “Loaded” (purchased some time after the initial single release I have to admit).

For a while I was convinced that those disembodied voices at the start of the track were The Monkees but I subsequently learned that they are actually Frank Maxwell and Peter Fonda from the 1966 biker movie The Wild Angels. I’ve never seen the film but if you ever wondered what was the scene that they were sampled from, here’s the answer:

Bobby Gillespie stated in an February 2011 NME interview about the samples used in the remix:

“Imagine if we hadn’t got the Fonda one though. We wouldn’t be sat here now. I don’t know where we’d be but we would not be sat here talking to you. The gods were smiling on us that day.”

I can’t quite describe what it is that those clipped pieces of dialogue add to the track are but I totally agree with Bobby.

The original track that Weatherall remixed was of course “I’m Losing More Than I’ll Ever Have” from the band’s second album which was on that CD single I bought as an extra track and I have to say, I think that stands up pretty well on its own merits as well…

I managed to catch Primal Scream live at an open air gig in Hull in 2017 and they were belting. Bobby Gillespie definitely has a portrait in an attic at home where he looks absolutely decrepit though.

“Loaded” peaked at No 16.

The second big gun of the evening now as the TOTP TV audience gets its first sighting of Inspiral Carpets with their hit single “This Is How It Feels”. Instead of Simon Mayo blathering on about the sporting exploits of the band’s hometown of Oldham that year, I would rather have seen the current Speaker of the House of Commons Sir Lindsay Hoyle introduce the band in that game show host style that he employs to command Prime Minister Questions… “and now, we travel north to Oldham where we find Inspiral Carpets – Inspiral Carpets everyone!”.

To be fair to Mayo, Oldham Athletic had a monumental season that year (I’ve no idea about the basketball and rugby teams he also mentions). Despite finishing 8th in Division 2 and missing out on the play-offs, it was in the two domestic cup competitions that they excelled. The day before this TOTP aired, they had beaten 1st Division title hopefuls Aston Villa 3-0 to reach the FA Cup semi finals and had already secured a place in the actual League Cup Final. A guy called Frankie Bunn scored SIX goals in one game on the way to the final. I distinctly remember what a big deal all of this seemed at the time. Sadly Oldham would go onto lose that final and also the FA CUp semi final after taking Man Utd to a replay.

Back to the music though and Inspiral Carpets seemed to be promoted in the press as part of some ‘Madchester’ Holy Trinity (despite not actually being from Manchester) alongside the Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays. I’m not sure if that’s how they actually saw themselves having been in existence since 1983. I didn’t know this until now but they had an almost Fall like number of personnel changes in the years leading up to this commercial breakthrough.

As for the song itself, I thought it was great with its prominent, swirling organ sound and heavyweight lyrics. Bizarrely, my elder brother and Paul Weller disciple seemed to be going through a ‘Madchester’ phase at the time and had a mix tape featuring all the aforementioned bands on it (including Inspiral Carpets) which he was fond of blasting out of our shared bedroom at the time. He was also a big Man Utd fan and had been going to the matches for a few years back then and went to all the FA Cup games that season including that semi final. Maybe his fleeting association with the ‘baggie’ was more to do with the football than the music. Incidentally, Man Utd used to serenade their Man City counterparts with a chant based on “This Is How It Feels” with the words changed to :

This is how it feels to be City, this is how it feels to be small

This is how it feels when you club wins nothing at all

I think that one got consigned to the dustbin of terrace chants sometime around 2011.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1nUgoUTJsY

Lead singer Tom Hingley had a very striking look back then. It was sort of Mr Logic from Viz meets Red Dwarf‘s Dwayne Dibley. Most disconcerting. I’m pretty sure I saw him do a solo gig at the tiny York venue Fibbers after he subsequently left the band but I can’t recall whether he still had the same hairstyle or not. Mind you, Clint Boon’s Stooges cut isn’t much better.

“This Is How It Feels” peaked at No 14.

Oh FFS! Seriously! We hadn’t all had enough of Jive Bunny by the time that the new decade had come around?! No, we hadn’t because they racked up another four hit singles before they finally fucked off sometime around 1991. “That Sounds Good to Me” followed the same cut and paste formula that these idiots had already used to mug off the UK public three times previously and featured tracks including “Everybody Need Somebody To Love”, “Long Tall Sally” and “Roll Over Beethoven”. I’m pretty sure that the version of “Everybody Need Somebody To Love” recorded for the Blues Brothers film was re-released not long after this Jive Bunny abomination

*checks http://www.officialcharts.com*

Yes! I was right. It was released about a month or so after this and peaked at No 12. Inexplicably, Jive Bunny peaked 8 places higher at No 4!

Beats International still claim the No 1 slot with “Dub Be Good To Me”. In a Smash Hits interview entitled ‘How To Make A Hit record In Your Bedroom’, Norman Cook admitted that putting together “Dub Be Good To Me” from the initial sampling he did in his bedroom to the finished record took just three days and £400. Wow! £400 for a record that was innovative and well…pretty good actually. By those standards, Jive Bunny, using similar techniques, must have spent about 40p to produce their steaming heap of shit.

The play out track is “You Don’t Love Me” by the 49ers which was their follow up to “Touch Me” and which I don’t remember at all. Apparently it samples Jody Watley’s 1987 hit “Don’t You Want Me” which I also have zero recall of. I’m putting this one in the shite pile which means, by my reckoning, the final tally for tonight’s show is:

Shite Music 7 v 5 Decent Tunes

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S39Knuda5kw

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	The Mission	Deliverance	Nah
2	New Kids On The Block	I’ll Be Loving You Forever	Good God no!
3	Candy Flip	Strawberry Fields Forever	Nope
4	B-52s	Love Shack	Couldn’t be doing with it – no
5	Big Fun	Handful Of Promises	…and a pocketful of shite, NO!
6	Fish	A Gentleman’s Excuse Me	No
7	Wet Wet Wet	Hold Back The River	No but my wife liked this one
8	Primal Scream	Loaded	Yes but some time after the event
9	Inspiral Carpets	This Is How It Feels	No but I’ve got their Greatest Hits I think
10	Jive Bunny	That Sounds Good To Me	Oh this is an open goal….That sounds shite to me..No!
11	Beats International	Dub Be Good To Me	No but my wife had their album
12	49ers	Don’t You Love Me	No I don’t

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000p9v2/top-of-the-pops-15031990

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?

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is imgres-2-1.jpg

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