REM | TOTP Rewind – the 90s

TOTP 15 APR 1993

Posted on July 31, 2022 by 80stastic

Sometimes I genuinely feel sorry for the kids of today. Sure they’ve got stuff that we never had thanks to the developments of technology – mobile phones and the internet alongside platforms like Spotify have given them access to endless swathes of music at the touch of a button. On the other side of the coin though there’s cyber bullying and trolling and a relentless stream of images of what they are told they should look like. Plus, of course, we didn’t have to go through a global pandemic as kids and teenagers – we still don’t know the full extent of the damage to their collective mental health that COVID lockdown and associated restrictions has caused.

If that all sounds a bit heavy for a blog about TOTP then fear not – I’m not talking about any of that. No, I’m talking about the fact that they never experienced the joy of watching Saturday morning kids TV, not properly anyway. Yes, these days they have their own dedicated TV channels showing programmes designed to appeal to their age groups leaving the schedules for BBC and ITV clear to be filled with cooking shows. That’s not right though is it? When I was a kid, Saturday mornings involved choosing between Tiswas and Multi Coloured Swap Shop – the anarchic fun of Chris Tarrant, Lenny Henry and the object of many a schoolboy crush Sally James or the more respectable and bigger budgeted entertainment offered by Noel Edmonds, Cheggers and Maggie Philbin. I wonder if the BBC won the ratings war in the end? After all, their presenting trio even had a hit record as Brown Sauce with “I Wanna Be A Winner”.

As the 70s gave way to the 80s, both shows were replaced. The new vehicles were Saturday Superstore (basically a continuation of Swap Shop) on BBC1 and No 73 (with its legendary Sandwich Quiz section) on ITV. Five to six years seemed to be the shelf life of these shows and so in 1987 Saturday Superstore was no more being usurped by Going Live and it’s that show that is the reason for this intro as two days after this TOTP aired, the 179th and final ever episode of it aired after a run of six years. Hosted by Philip Schofield and Sarah Greene, it saw me through many a hungover Saturday morning as a student but by the 90s I was working every weekend at Our Price and so rarely saw it. The pop star guests that would come on the show would be very much of the mainstream variety and usually those who would have a large teen fanbase like Bros or A-ha but they sometimes had artists a bit less obvious on like Squeeze and Transvision Vamp. After the show’s finale, it was replaced just six months later by Live And Kicking which was exactly the same format but with different presenters. It would run for a very solid eight years but couldn’t compete in the end with Ant and Dec’s SMTV Live. There’s a good chance some of the acts on this TOTP appeared on Going Live. Let’s see…

We start with East 17 who my research tells me were on Going Live just two weeks before the final episode, presumably performing this single “Slow It Down”. I wonder if they did it like this then? This performance must surely go down in the annals of TOTP history as one of the most awkwardly staged appearances by a group ever! What were the other two blokes doing in the background?! Were they have meant to have ‘slowed down’ so much that they’d actually stopped?! They were literally just sat around twiddling- one with a keyboard and the other with a microphone. If mobile phones had been invented then, they would have had those as props instead. Talk about sidelining! They were always seen as ‘the other two’ who did nothing anyway so this really wasn’t helping their profiles. Who decided on this arrangement? Their management? Were there plans afoot to ditch Terry Coldwell and John Hendy (to refer to them by their proper names and avoid accusations of sidelining myself) and relaunch the band as a duo? It looks so deliberate. Why did they go along with it?!

Their nemesis Take That also had a couple of members in Jason Orange and Howard Donald who were very much seen as ‘the dancers’ in the group’s early days but they were never subjected to public humiliation like this! Take That always seemed a tight unit (until the Gary Barlow / Robbie Williams tension split the band) with each member having fan attention of their own but poor old Terry and John always seemed superfluous to say the least.

As for the song itself, “Slow It Down” always seemed a poor choice of single being nowhere near as accomplished as “Deep” or later single “It’s Alright”. Supposedly it’s about sex (slow it down, don’t rush it – geddit?) but that probably went over the heads of the younger elements of their fanbase.

“Slow It Down” came to a halt at No 13.

https://youtu.be/uu7Nu4XsSfw

As far as I can tell, Dr. Alban never appeared on Going Live – maybe the Tampax ad association scared the producers off – but many a ‘doctor’ has been on TOTP before. There was Dr Hook and Dr. Feelgood in the 70s, Doctor and the Medics and Dr. Robert of The Blow Monkeys in the 80s and tons of songs that featured a doctor. Just off the top of my head there’s “Doctor Doctor” by The Thompson Twins, “Dr. Beat” by Miami Sound Machine and “Doctorin’ The TARDIS” by The Timelords. Any and all of these (and it’s not a great list is it?) are preferable to my ears to Dr. Alban and his song “Sing Hallelujah!”. I mean just listen to him! His voice is so flat and monotonous. Then after you’ve finished listening to him, look at him. Have you ever seen such a spiritless, passionless and lifeless performer? He just aimlessly wanders around the stage, occasionally shrugging his shoulders as some sort of substitute for a dance move and even nips around the back of his gospel choir a couple of times as if he’s trying to hide from the camera. Staggeringly awful.

“Sing Hallelujah!” peaked at No 16.

Duran Duran seemed to be on Saturday Superstore every other week around ‘82 to ‘84 but I’m not sure if they were ever on Going Live as that show’s run coincided with a downturn in the band’s commercial fortunes. By the time they were reviving with “Ordinary World” and the “Wedding Album”, Going Live was nearly dead. “Come Undone” wasn’t though and kept their rejuvenating success going by rising to No 13.

The video has the guys seemingly reverting to their New Romantics heyday with ruffled shirts and frilly sleeves on display. I’d always wanted Simon Le Bon’s hair when I was a callow youth but had failed dismally to recreate it. However, his 1993 locks never seemed to suit him, like he was in between styles and in a constant state of growing out a haircut gone wrong.

“Come Undone” was followed by a third single from the album called “Too Much Information” which I thought was great but it only made No 35 on the UK charts. For shame.

There’s no way that Cappella were ever on Going Live surely? How would the public phone-in have worked? Would anybody have been arsed to ask them a question? The only one I would want to ask them is “Why?”

“U Got To Know” peaked at No 6.

https://youtu.be/WKWRCHTI1g0

Now this next bloke was on twice in the early days of Going Live. Terence Trent D’Arby appeared in Episode No 4 in October ‘97 and episode No 16 in January’ 88. This would have been in his first and most successful period of his career after he burst onto the pop scene with his eight million selling debut album “Introducing The Hardline According To Terence Trent D’Arby”. The album spawned four hit singles. I’m guessing that he was promoting the third and fourth of those on his Going Live appearances – “Dance Little Sister” and “Sign Your Name” with the latter only missing the top of the charts by one place.

What followed two years later has come to be seen as possibly the most infamous example of career sabotage ever. Sophomore album “Neither Fish Nor Flesh” was nothing like its super commercial predecessor. It produced zero hit singles, it spent a paltry four weeks on the charts (“Introducing The Hardline According To…” spent nine weeks at No 1 in comparison) and was widely regarded as self indulgent tosh. Now I’ve never heard any of it so I’m just repeating what I’ve read about it but then the fact that I’ve never heard a single minute of the album speaks volumes of its inability to resonate with pop music fans. By way of contrast, I reckon it would only take 15 minutes of listening to a retro 80s radio station before you would hear “Sign Your Name”. Terence himself says of the album that it was “the project that literally killed TTD and from those molten ashes began the life of Sananda”. Ah yes, I’m sure you know this but D’Arby goes by the name of Sananda Maitreya these days. Although his new identity has no religious significance, Maitreya believes it means ‘rebirth’ in Sanskrit.

His version of the story of his name change doesn’t quite tell the whole story though as he released a further two albums as TTD before taking on his new identity. The first of these was 1993’s “Symphony Or Damn” the lead single of which was “Do You Love Me Like You Say”. The first of four hits from the album, I have to say I don’t remember this one much. It sounds like a song in search of a tune, trying a bit too hard to be a knockout track without finding that crucial punch. There’s a lot going on in it but none of it is very cohesive. Terence / Sananda looks every inch the star up there though, like a soul brother to Lenny Kravitz’s rock persona.

A No 14 hit was a very respectable return to the charts though. The album made the Top 10 and featured a few good tracks like “She Kissed Me” and the theme song from the Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer film Frankie And Johnny which my manager Ian at the Our Price store in Rochdale loved.

It’s that time again! Four Breakers this week starting with a song that would become one of the most well known of this band’s entire catalogue of work despite being the fourth single released from an album that had been out for six months by this point. “Everybody Hurts” is the song and the band is, of course, REM. Written to offer understanding and hope to those with suicidal thoughts, it’s an understated yet powerful piece with Michael Stipe’s vocal completely on point. Many critics used the word ‘melancholy’ in their descriptions of the track which it is but the crucial element to its success is that it wasn’t ‘maudlin’. It was pure and people could identify with it for that very reason.

The video was shot by Ridley Scott’s son Jake and although the band are in it, there’s virtually no performance element to their appearance. Instead they are sat in a traffic jam with the camera picking out other drivers and car passengers whilst their inner thoughts are displayed on screen via subtitles. It sounds as boring as hell but it’s actually very affecting and if you watch to the very end, there’s an even bigger pay off.

“Everybody Hurts” peaked at No 7 in the UK, their second biggest ever hit after “Shiny Happy People” which in many ways was the exact antithesis of the song.

My God, Rod Stewart was all over the charts at this time. “Shotgun Wedding” was the third single taken from his curious compilation album “Lead Vocalist” which was a combination of songs from his own back catalogue (including his work with The Faces) and cover versions. This song was written by one Roy C who may not be a familiar name (he wasn’t to me) but he was actually a great musical influencer. How come? Well, Roy C (Roy Charles Hammond in full) wrote a song called “Impeach The President” that was recorded by The Honey Drippers in response to President Nixon and the Watergate affair. That song included a distinctive drum pattern that would become the template that was used by every big name you can think of in the hip-hop / R&B field. I’m talking Public Enemy, N.W.A, LL Cool J, De La Soul, Ice Cube, 2Pac, TLC etc etc.

See what I mean? Anyway, “Shotgun Wedding” was another of Roy’s tunes. Here’s his original set to a scene from The Monkees for some reason:

Rod’s version is predictably vile and soulless yet it still made it to No 21 in the charts. One month after this single, he released his “Unplugged…And Seated” MTV album that would go to No 2 in the UK. Like I said, he was all over the charts like a cheap (wedding) suit at this time.

The Prodigy are up next with a fifth single from their debut album “Experience” none of which – including this one “Wind It Up (Rewound)” – peaked lower than No 11. Quite a feat. I kind of get the impression though that this one was released just to maintain their profile in between albums. There was nearly two years separating “Experience” and “Music For The Jilted Generation” with the first single from the latter not due to appear for another six months from now.

A radically different remix of the album version, this release would signal the end of the band’s ‘kiddie rave’ era and they would reject that formula in favour of a commitment to pioneering dance music with next release “One Love”.

Now I’m pretty sure none of the Breakers so far ever appeared on Going Live and the final band in this section were unlikely to change that sequence. New Order had of course been on TOTP just last week in the now legendary Baywatch performance but this week we get the official video for the “Regret” single. Apparently labelled by bassist Peter Hook as “the last good New Order song”, it would also be the band’s last Top 5 hit.

Having checked the schedule, I can see they are on the show again next week as well so I’ll leave it here for this one except to say that the video is exceedingly dull (though I think it’s meant to be arty) and I’d rather have watched the oddity of the Baywatch performance again.

If it’s April then there must be a whiff of Eurovision in the air and indeed there is with the next act being the UK’s entry for 1993. This year we’d all known for a while that Sonia was our official entrant though we didn’t know what song she’d be singing until six days before this TOTP aired. You see, in the weeks before, Sonia appeared in four separate preview programmes in which she showcased two potential songs that would go forward as the UK entry. A Song For Europe was broadcast on April 9th and a viewer vote determined the winner. The track that came out on top won easily and so it was that “Better The Devil You Know” was picked as Sonia’s song. Nothing to do with Kylie, this track was written by Brian Teasdale and Dean Collision and here’s a young Dean aged 10 playing guitar with Burt Weedon and then 21 in his own pop group Blue (not them) again, improbably, with Burt Weedon. Apologies in advance for the glimpses of Sa-vile:

Why am I going out of my way to make a big thing of Dean Collinson? Well, in her youth orchestra days as a teenager, my wife knew him. Not very well but there paths crossed due to that musical connection. That’s the whole story. Not very interesting but a story nonetheless.

Anyway, Sonia and Dean (and that Brian bloke) were the team flying the flag for the UK in Ireland and a pretty good job they did too coming in second with 164 points behind the winners Ireland (yep, them again). What was the song like you ask? Oh, it was awful – a horrible, plastic sham of a mockery of an attempt to sound like “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go” (Collinson even admitted that had been his intention). It made it to No 16 in the UK charts.

Oh and though I was sure that Sonia was absolutely the type of pop star that was perfect for a spot on Going Live, I can only find one instance of her on the show when she appeared remotely for the Video Vote section.

Ah, finally! Despite being a going concern since 1986, World Party are finally on TOTP! That it took so long is plain criminal. So many great singles had come and gone – “Private Revolution”, “Ship Of Fools”, “Way Down Now” and their one and only Top 40 entry to this point at No 39 “Message In The Box” and yet none had resulted in a hit big enough to warrant a performance on the show. Suddenly and unexpectedly there was “Is It Like Today” peaking inside the Top 20 at No 19. That wasn’t all. Parent album “Bang!” was a No 2 hit. Their previous album “Goodbye Jumbo” had got no higher than No 36 despite being named Q Magazine’s album of the year. What had changed? Well, rather than just being the name of a vehicle for prime mover Karl Wallinger, World Party were now a proper band with David Carlin-Birch and ex-Icicle Works drummer Chris Sharrock becoming permanent and full time members. Even so, it was quite the turnaround.

As quickly as the success had come, so it also left. The album spawned just one other Top 40 hit (the No 37 peaking “All I Gave”) and World Party retreated to the world of critical acclaim but small commercial inroads. Wallinger saw the royalties roll in when Robbie Williams covered his song “She’s The One” but most people believed it was written by either Williams or song writing partner Guy Chambers (who helped produce the original) including my Robbie worshiping sister. Wallinger suffered an aneurysm in 2001 but recovered to tour again. That I never saw them live despite their playing Sunderland Poly whilst I was studying there remains an eternal embarrassment to me.

Oh and as for appearing on Going Live, it seems unlikely given their struggles to get on TOTP.

https://youtu.be/y7cPYUytcEE

The Bluebells still have command of the No 1 spot with “Young At Heart”. After the original 1984 video was aired last week, they’re back in the studio this week and have clearly put some thought into what they would do. The result was The Bluebells disco complete with record decks and something I’ve never seen at any wedding reception disco I’ve been to, a quartet of female backing dancers. This is the show where we they did the ‘Shabba!’ shout out that we all found hilarious at the time but I’m not sure it’s aged that well. The 2 Unlimited parody didn’t either.

P.S. Has Karl Wallinger copied Bobby Bluebell’s hairstyle or was it the other way round?

https://youtu.be/42i4O5q2wNQ

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	East 17	Slow It Down	No but my wife had the Walthamstow album
2	Dr. Alban	Sing Hallelujah!	As if
3	Duran Duran	Come Undone	Not the single but I have it on a Greatest hits CD
4	Cappella	U Got To Know	Never happening
5	Terence Trent D’Arby	Do You Love Me Like You Say	No
6	REM	Everybody Hurts	No but I had the Automatic For The People album
7	Rod Stewart	Shotgun Wedding	NO!
8	The Prodigy	Wind It Up (Rewound)	Nah
9	New Order	Regret	I regret I didn’t but I should have
10	Sonia	Better The Devil You Know	It wasn’t better. I knew Sonia and I was never buying her single
11	World Party	Is It Like Today?	No but I have their Best In Show CD with it on
12	The Bluebells	Young At Heart	Nope

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/m0019mbn/top-of-the-pops-15041993

TOTP 18 FEB 1993

Posted on June 27, 2022 by 80stastic

I write this as the 2022 Glastonbury festival has just taken place the previous weekend which garnered large viewing figures and reviews a plenty off the back of some massive performances by the likes of Billie Eilish (I didn’t get it) and Paul McCartney (marvellous stuff). It got me thinking about what the festival was like back in the day. Now, I have to fess up straight away that I’ve never actually been to Glastonbury – the myriad bands and music you could see and listen to was appealing but the thought of all that scuzziness was less so. So my recollections of it are all based on radio, TV and press coverage.

Thinking back to the 80s, I don’t remember much being made of it at all in the media, probably because it wasn’t broadcast live until 1994 when Channel 4’s 4 Goes To Glastonbury programming made it available to the masses at home. If I think about say, 1983, when I was first becoming obsessed with pop music, I don’t recall it appearing on my radar at all. A quick search on Wikipedia tells me that the big acts that year were UB40, Marillion, King Sunny Ade and his African Bests and, rather implausibly New York singer-songwriter Melanie who once had a hit with a cover of “Ruby Tuesday”. Hmm. It didn’t cater for my admittedly chart-centric tastes at the time and that would continue for a couple of years although the line up would become progressively more of a broad church as the decade worn on. By the end of the 80s, I was just finishing being a Poly student and was aware that some of my peers were going to Glastonbury but a jaunt to Somerset was never high on my list of Summer priorities somehow.

By the mid 90s, I was working in record retail and therefore much more aware of Glastonbury as just about everyone I ever worked with seemed to have either been or was planning to go. The TV coverage was much bigger with the BBC taking over from Channel 4 and so we all got to see those iconic sets from the likes of Radiohead, The Prodigy and Massive Attack. But what of 1993? That is the year we are up to in these BBC4 TOTP repeats after all. Well, at least a couple of tonight’s acts appeared at the festival that year but the headliners included The Black Crowes, The Kinks (replacing Red Hot Chili Peppers), Suede and The Orb.

Before we get into the nitty gritty , I should note that we have skipped the 11 February edition of the show as it featured the now taboo Rolf Harris doing his version of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway To Heaven”. Incidentally, Harris was also on the bill at Glastonbury that year.

Right, that’s enough preamble. Let’s blog! We start with a rather incongruous and improbable five second message from Sting and Take That from New York saying that their both on the show later. Erm…OK. Cheers for that guys. The first performing act tonight are Stereo MC’s with a single that seems destined to forever remain in the shadow of previous hits “Connected” and “Step It Up” despite being a hit of a comparable size. “Ground Level” was the third release from the band’s “Connected” album and although it’s a decent track, it lacks the immediacy and urgency of its two predecessors.

Such was the visual impact of the spectacle that is/was frontman Rob Birch, I’d almost completely forgotten that they had three female singers complementing him but they are very much to the fore in this performance. For all of them though, their time in the spotlight was coming to and end. There would be one more hit single pulled from “Connected” and then nothing for eight long years until follow up album “Deep Down & Dirty” appeared.

Played Glastonbury? Yes

In 1993? Yes, their only appearance thus far

https://youtu.be/D8zFNomLTKg

1993 was a massive year for Whitney Houston as she released multiple singles from The Bodyguard soundtrack. Her cover of “I’m Every Woman” by Chaka Khan was the second of those and would peak at No 4 both here and in the US. Although the chart topping reign of “I Will Always Love You” was brought to an end in the UK by *spoiler alert* 2 Unlimited, over the pond it remained No 1 even while “I’m Every Woman” ascended and then descended the charts.

Chaka Khan features in the video and even receives a shout out from Whitney on the record at the track’s coda. Chaka’s original was a hit twice; first in 1979 when it reached No 11 and a decade later when a remix of it peaked at No 8. Duran Duran singer Simon Le Bon once admitted that he initially misheard the song’s lyric as ‘climb every woman’ – the dirty dog!

Played Glastonbury? No but the video features TLC who played this year’s festival

Not seen in our charts for nearly two years, 1993 brought us the return of Lenny Kravitz with his new album and title track single “Are You Gonna Go My Way”. Whilst his last hit was the almost sweet sounding “It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over”, this was a full on, all out rocking scorcher of a song fuelled by a heavy guitar riff and powered by the spirit of Jimi Hendrix. This really was the point when the Hendrix comparisons were out in force. I couldn’t tell if they were valid or not on account of not being a big Jimi fan. I don’t think I could hear him…

…an argument that’s kind of nonsense sure but it makes for a good scene in the movie. Anyway, all I knew was that Lenny looked every inch the rock god up there on stage and he was killing it. I’m not sure that I fully appreciated the track at the time but it’s a belter. It peaked at No 4 here instantly making it his biggest UK hit at the time but curiously it was released as an airplay only single in the US meaning it didn’t qualify for the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Apparently this was a common practice back then in America to increase album sales as buying the parent album was the only way to get that groovy tune you’d heard on the radio. What was it about though? Here’s Lenny himself courtesy of @TOTPFacts:

Lenny Kravitz explains "Are You Gonna Go My Way?: "I thought the subject matter was really interesting, because it's coming from the mouth of Jesus Christ… So basically, 'Are you gonna go my way?' meaning 'my way of love.'" #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) June 17, 2022

I liked these two reply tweets to this explanation…

Ephesians – Chapter 5 – Verse 23
— 🎨 ∟ ∪ ∨ 🎶 (@fkaPLuv) June 17, 2022

By the way, I’m currently watching Lenny’s daughter Zoë starring in the TV series of High Fidelity which is based on the book by Nick Hornby and the film starring John Cusack and Zoë’s mother Lisa Bonet. It’s pretty good too. In it, Zoë’s character Rob is involved with a young, up and coming Scottish rock star who, in the story, has just bagged himself a slot at Glastonbury. I love it when a blog post comes together!

Played Glastonbury? Yes

In 1993? Yes and again in 1999

https://youtu.be/5WTWqApTqgI

My god! TOTP were really pushing this latest Sting tune! After last week’s studio appearance he’s back just seven days later with another full performance of “If I Ever Lose My Faith In You” this time live from New York. Thankfully he’s lost the ridiculous Witchfinder General outfit from the previous week but maybe he should have kept it – at least it might have livened up this dreary run through. This was a classic example of why these live by satellite link ups were ultimately disappointing. Look at the setting for it. I don’t know exactly where he is but Sting is singing against a back drop of literally a brick wall. I’m guessing it might be a rehearsal room or sometimes it was an empty theatre venue neither of which worked for me.

I’ve told my Sting tale before haven’t I? The one about how a friend of my mate Robin, who was a guitar player who toured with some major artists, was at a dinner party at Sting’s house and in the middle of the dinner the host made all the guests stop eating and go and watch a documentary…about Sting.

“If I Ever Lose My Faith In You” peaked at No 14.

Played Glastonbury? Yes

In 1993? No. One and only appearance in 1997

https://youtu.be/hoRRq6grPk0

There’s three Breakers on this show starting with REM and “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite”. I think I’m right in saying that despite the popularity of parent album “Automatic For The People” (a No 1 and seven times platinum seller in the UK alone) and despite all three singles released from it to this point making the Top 20, TOTP never featured any of them for more than the few allotted seconds in the Breakers section. A travesty really.

One of the lighter tunes on the album, there’s quite a lot to unpack about this one. Firstly, what the hell is Michael Stipe singing about? Indeed, I could just rephrase that question as ‘What is Michael Stipe singing?’ as the lyrics in the chorus topped a 2010 poll as the most misheard lyric ever. The official words in the chorus are ‘Call me when you try to wake her’ although that doesn’t seem to scan right to me. It is commonly misheard as ‘Calling Jamaica’ or ‘Only Jah waker’ and even ‘Call me Tom Baker’! OK, that’s the line sorted but what is the song about exactly? Well, as you would expect there’s various theories to be found online ranging from a couple being in rehab to a homeless woman sleeping in a phone box to a gambling addiction and finally, inevitably about drugs. Even the band themselves aren’t sure with bass player Mike Mills on record as saying “Half the song is about somebody trying to get in touch with someone who can sleep on his floor. The other half – you’re on your own”.

The song’s opening and title borrows heavily from “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” made famous by The Tokens in the 60s and Tight Fit in the 80s. Apparently REM paid for the rights to use the song and part of the deal was that they had to record their own version of it. They duly did and it appears as an extra track on the single.

According to Wikipedia, despite the song’s popularity, “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite” is one of a very few songs the band has never played live. Is that right? It seems an odd decision. Is it a technical thing that it’s hard to reproduce out of the studio environment? Maybe Michael Stipe himself doesn’t know what the words are that he should be singing?

Played Glastonbury? Yes

In 1993? No in 1999 and finally in 2003

There’s a few comparisons I think between REM and the next Breaker artist Metallica. Not sonically but in terms of career trajectory and intense scrutiny from fans about their songs and their meanings. Both bands had been around for years and been very successful but both, it seems to me, went to another level globally with the release of an album quite some time into their career. For REM it was seventh album “Out Of Time” (though a case could also be made for their sixth and major label debut “Green” I guess) and in the case of Metallica, their eponymously titled fifth also known as ‘the black album’. Again I’m sure hard rock fans could argue that earlier albums were also seminal but I’m talking purely sales and “Metallica” sold three times as many copies as any of its predecessors.

In terms of fathoming what their songs were about , as with “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite” before it, Metallica’s “Sad But True” had lots of fans dissecting the lyrics. Many theories can be found online and many concern the same subjects as REM’s tune – addiction and drugs – but also the concept of religion and the duality of good and evil. It’s pretty heavy stuff but then three members of the band were going through divorces at the time of its writing and recording so…

Predictably, “Sad But True” did little for me. It’s those crunching guitars and the shouted vocals that always put me off. The single peaked at No 20 in the UK charts.

Played Glastonbury? Yes

In 1993? No. Only appearance came in 2014

Did someone mention “Ruby Tuesday” earlier? Well, yes it was me (obviously). It turns out that Melanie would not be the only artist to take on The Rolling Stones classic. If you were to place a bet on somebody doing a cover around this time then Rod Stewart would surely have been the bookies favourite. In recent years he’s carved out a new career for himself of interpreting classic standards via his “Great American Songbook” series but even back in the day, Rod wasn’t averse to a cover version. Just look at some of the singles he’d released leading up to 1993:

“Downtown Train” by Tom Waits
“It Takes Two” by Marvin Gaye and Kim Weston
“Broken Arrow” by Robbie Robertson
“You Are Everything” by The Stylistics
“Tom Traubert’s Blues (Waltzing Matilda)” by Tom Waits (again!)

Plus he’d done a version of “Your Song” for the Elton John / Bernie Taupin tribute album “Two Rooms”. Then, in early 1993, came the “Lead Vocalist” album. This was an odd release which seemed to have been cobbled together by record company Warners just to cash in on the fact that Rod had just been given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the recent BRITS. The album was a mixture of five newly recorded covers and a random collection of material from Rod’s past including tracks from The Faces and his solo career. Those covers included the aforementioned “Tom Traubert’s Blues”, “Stand Back” by Stevie Nicks and of course “Ruby Tuesday”.

Let’s be fair, Rod’s version is horrible. Mechanical of sound and cynical of conception, it has none of the charm of The Rolling Stones original nor the emotion of Melanie’s cover.

Look I don’t mind the odd bit of Rod but there’s an awful lot of crud in his back catalogue as well and this one certainly deserves that description. He would return to covers later in the decade with his album “When We Were The New Boys” which included his take on “Cigarettes And Alcohol” by Oasis and “Rocks” by Primal Scream. Dear God!

https://youtu.be/g4SlcBFbiJI

Played Glastonbury? Yes

In 1993? No, Rod’s only appearance came in 2002

We swing back over to New York now for a performance by Take That with what surely must be one of their least remembered songs. After the dynamic fun of “Could It Be Magic”, “Why Can’t I Wake Up With You” was a turgid, lifeless affair and I can’t understand why they would have gone with this as a choice of next single. Was this a one off release or was it from the album?

*checks Take That discography*

Huh. Well, it was on “Take That And Party” (surely one of the worst album titles ever by the way?) but it wasn’t the version released as a single. Here’s the album version which is a bit of a weepy ballad:

The single version was eventually included on the sophomore album “Everything Changes” and it’s had a dance back beat applied with an annoying, repetitive bleep noise in the mix. Apparently, the lyrics were changed as well but frankly who cares?! We’re they already trying to look for a mature audience less than a year after finally getting some proper chart action and were therefore pushing the whole Gary Barlow as talented singer-songwriter schtick? I thought this was completely yawn inducing. Bore off!

By the way, their live by satellite performance here is as underwhelming as Sting’s with the lads performing against a backdrop of some draped material and a smoke machine. What was the point? Then again I wasn’t a teenage girl desperate for a look at my heroes. Maybe the idea of them being ‘live’ as it were was more appealing than the video?

Played Glastonbury? As if

https://youtu.be/1LwKuaCcw54

Ah well now, this is timely. The hero of this year’s Glastonbury is on the show! The 90s however weren’t peak era Paul McCartney. He didn’t manage one Top 10 single and the three albums he released that decade are hardly amongst his most cherished by fans. “Off The Ground” was the first of those three and, as host Mark Franklin states, had given him a chart entry in “Hope Of Deliverance” but it was all very underwhelming. The follow up was “C’Mon People” which I don’t recall at all, possibly because it didn’t even make the Top 40 despite this TOTP performance. Was it meant to be some sort of anthem of unity? It’s all a bit drab sounding to me. Interesting how they’ve staged Macca’s performance here with members of the studio audience crowding around him and his piano. It’s a bit “All You Need Is Love” isn’t it?

Those audience members in shot seem unsure what to do with themselves. It’s a difficult tune to dance to though the guy in the sleeveless denim jacket gives it a go. He’s got his thumbs inside his waistline at one point. He needs to go some to beat these guys dancing with Mud though…

Seeing some of the reaction on social media to Macca’s Glastonbury set list made me wonder what would have happened if he’d included “C’Mon People” in it. A Twitter meltdown I’m guessing and possibly the breaking of the internet.

Played Glastonbury? Played it? He rocked it on Saturday night. Amazing. Oh and he also performed there in 2004

In 1993? No

Finally a new No 1 but careful what you wish for as Whitney is toppled by one of the most annoying chart toppers of the whole decade. Widely (and perhaps rightly) pilloried for its lack of lyrics (“No no, no nuh no no, no nuh no no, no no there’s no lyrics”) 2 Unlimited’s “No Limit” also had an inane hook that lent itself to many a moronic football chant. I think my favourite was for former Bolton Wanderers forward Mixu Paatelainen. You can work out how it went for yourselves easy enough.

Supposedly there was a controversy over this week’s chart as to who was actually No 1 – Take That or 2 Unlimited – so close were the sales but I don’t remember any such stories in the press and certainly nothing to rival the Deee-Lite vs Steve Miller Band battle of 1990.

Played Glastonbury? Ha! Ha! Never!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Stereo MC’s	Ground Level	Nah
2	Whitney Houston	I’m Every Woman	I did not
3	Lenny Kravitz	Are You Gonna Go My Way	No but it’s a good tune
4	Sting	If I Ever Lose My Faith In You	Nope
5	REM	The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite	No but I had the album it was from Automatic For The People
6	Metallica	Sad But True	Happy to say no and that’s the truth
7	Rod Stewart	Ruby Tuesday	Never happening
8	Take That	Why Can’t I Wake Up With You?	Hell no!
9	Paul McCartney	C’Mon People	No
10	2 Unlimited	No Limit	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/m0018b84/top-of-the-pops-18021993

TOTP 03 DEC 1992

Posted on May 19, 2022 by 80stastic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1 – 13 – 7 – 8 – 14

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001772z/top-of-the-pops-03121992

TOTP 01 OCT 1992

Posted on April 6, 2022 by 80stastic

The new ‘year zero’ TOTP format isn’t so new anymore as this show marked its one year anniversary. Host Mark Franklin makes reference to this in his off screen intro and also mentions the shift of location from Television Centre to BBC’s Elstree base in Hertfordshire. All of the changes involved in the new format were meant to reconnect the then nearly 28 years old TOTP with its traditional youthful audience who were embracing a dance revolution that the show was struggling to showcase. In a case of perfect symmetrical timing, the first act on tonight is performing a song called “Connected”. I refer, of course, to Stereo MCs.

Along with Suede from last week’s show, for a short while this lot were the epitome of hip. Not the same sort of hip that Brett and the boys exuded though. No, this was a more grubby, deep down and dirty type of hip. Not that I’m suggesting that Suede were a bunch of Mummies Boys. No, it’s just that the face of Stereo MCS, Rob Birch, had the look of someone who’d seen some things that you definitely wish you hadn’t. Well, that and Catweazle (Google him if you’re too young to know who that was). I wrongly assumed that they were a Manchester band due to their image and sound and although they had toured with Happy Mondays, they were in fact from Nottingham. They’d also been around since the end of the last decade and had already released two albums before they came up with “Connected”. The lead single and title of their third album, it hit a chord with both the dance heads and the indie crowd with its skanking beat and ‘aa-aa-ye-ah’ chant. It was perfect for lumbering around the dance floor Ian Brown / King Monkey style.

Just like Sade before them on last week’s show, the band were prolific at releasing material early in their career (three albums in three years) but then took nine years to record a follow up to “Connected”. The world felt like a very different place by then (9/11 was only a few months away from happening) and it didn’t sell nearly as well as its predecessor which went platinum, won a BRIT award and peaked at No 2 in the charts. They have released another three albums since with the last coming in 2011.

Some Antipodean rock/pop now as Crowded House continue to mine the wealth of tunes from their “Woodface” album with the release of fifth single “It’s Only Natural”. The LP had come out 15 months earlier but sales of it only really took off after “Weather With You” was a Top 10 hit in February /March of ‘92. I loved this album and got a signed copy when the band did a PA at the HMV megastore in Manchester. I think they did a small set before playing a gig at Manchester Academy on the evening (which I also went to). It was a fine show, probably one of the best I have ever witnessed.

As for this TOTP performance, clearly the producers didn’t know what to do with the band and so they’ve ended up playing against a completely white backdrop with the only concession to props being the dry ice machine being put into top gear. Or maybe it was a deliberate statement that said these guys are all about the music and don’t need any cheap gimmicks getting in the way?

As for the song itself, you have to admire any song they gets ‘this mortal coil’ and ‘circumstantial’ into its lyrics but what was it actually about? Could it be that Neil Finn was singing about his hair? Neil’s barnet must be one of the most odd in music. Not flashy odd (Billy Idol) or designed to shock odd (Sigue Sigue Sputnik) but naturally odd. It’s got a life of its own, stubbornly growing at odd angles and generally behaving in an unruly way. Neil of course has previous in the hair stakes. He was in art rockers Split Enz (get it?) and his hair was even more mental then. “It’s Only Natural” peaked at No 24.

There have been a few changes to the ‘year zero’ format over the past 12 months one of which has been a return to a chart countdown (sort of). They started off just listing the Top 10 but over the last few weeks they’ve expanded that to include the rest of the chart. Here we get Nos 20 to 11 over a video by Chaos for their cover of “Farewell My Summer Love”. Who were these guys? Well, they were Sinitta’s backing dancers who were put together into a pop group by her then boyfriend Simon Cowell and included a 9 year old in their ranks, Don’t remember them? You can forgive yourself as firstly, just like with Omar’s “Music” single that soundtracked this feature last week, their song never actually made the Top 40 peaking at No 55. Secondly, their name. Does Ultimate Kaos ring any bells? That’s what they changed it to two years on from this and it worked as they clocked up six Top 40 hits. The power of the word ‘ultimate’ and some misspelling in evidence there.

If the staging for Crowded House was minimalist, then the producers have gone all Laurence Llewelyn- Bowen for the next act. Hear that noise? That’s the sound of the bottom of the music barrel being scraped. Or possibly it’s the annoying sound of one of the most iconic computer games of the decade. Tetris was that descending blocks puzzle game that was Nintendo’s top selling title and that came as the default game with their Game Boy console bundle. OK, so who’s idea was it to release a song based on the game? Nintendo themselves? Oh no. If you thought about it for long enough I reckon you would come up with the scoundrel’s name. The aforementioned Simon Cowell? Good guess but no. Need a clue? OK – Bombalurina. No, not Timmy Mallett but Andrew Lloyd Webber. The good lord (!) released a Eurodance version of the “Tetris” theme under the name of Doctor Spin and the idiotic British public bought it in enough quantities to take it to No 6.

Obviously the ex-Mr Brightman wasn’t going to perform this atrocity himself so for the sake of TOTP some dancers have been drafted in and dressed in costumes resembling blocks from the game. The absolute state of this. Unbelievably, this wasn’t the only record that was a hit based on this ludicrous idea as simultaneously in the charts came “Supermarioland” by Ambassadors Of Funk. What a time to be alive!

Some Breakers now starting with The Sundays. This is a band I really should have massively been into but yet again somehow they slipped under my radar and through my grasp. I eventually cottoned on when they released their (so far) final album “Static & Silence” five years on from this point but I really should dive deeper into their back catalogue. “Goodbye” was taken from their second album “Blind” and marked their first release on the Parlophone label after Rough Trade had entered receivership leading to the band relocating labels. Their debut album “Reading, Writing And Arithmetic” had been released with the indie legends and had been a huge success going Top 5 despite the lack of a hit single. That statistic was amended in 1998 when “Here’s Where The Story Ends” was covered by London dance act Tin Tin Out and taken into the Top 10. Somehow I always get that confused with Electribe 101’s “Tell Me When The Fever Ended”. Damn my fading memory.

I can name the first three singles from Neneh Cherry with no prompting whatsoever but ask me for anything after that and I’m struggling. There was “7 Seconds“ with Youssou N’Dour and…something on the “Red Hot+Blue” album? I remember the front cover to her second album “Homebrew” but nothing else about it and certainly not this lead single from it called “Money Love”.

Back in 1989 she’d been a huge breakout star with her “Raw Like Sushi” album achieving platinum status for sales of 300,000 units. Three years in pop music is a long time though and by the time “Homebrew” came out though, her era of glory felt like a long time ago. Did she still have the ear of pop fans? Sales of the album suggested no. It crawled to a high of No 27 despite the inclusion of a track featuring REM’s Michael Stipe. The single “Money Love” fared little better not even making the Top 20. Not that it wasn’t any good but how could Neneh expect to compete with a single based around the music used in a hand held computer game? Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber – you truly are an arse sir.

We had an ‘exclusive” performance of “Sentinel” by Mike Oldfield just last week but that hasn’t stopped the TOTP producers including it in the Breakers seven days later. I’m really not sure the video which seems to be a montage of various different takes on the “Tubular Bells” graphic warranted another outing. If you Google Mike Oldfield some of the entries in the People Also Ask section include ‘How long is Mike Oldfield on Tubular Bells?’, ‘How much is Mike Oldfield?’ and ‘What did Mike Oldfield?’. Eh?

By the end of the fourth of tonight’s Breakers we will have achieved optimum capacity for shoehorning the most songs into the smallest amount of time. Eight songs in less than 12 minutes! I really think this was TOTP trying to compete with ITV’s entirely video based music vehicle The Chart Show. This last track really deserved more airtime. REM had gone truly global with the previous year’s “Out Of Time” album. Not resting on their laurels, they released their third album in four years “Automatic For The People” with the lead single being “Drive”. For me this is one of those songs that leaves an impression on you after just that first listen so heavy is its sound. A dark, brooding, menacing track, it’s marked out further by its odd structure- it doesn’t really have a chorus.

There’s various online theories about what the lyrics mean especially around who Ollie is but according to Michael Stipe, one of its influences comes from an unexpected source. The line “Hey kids, rock ‘n’ roll” was inspired by David Essex’s “Rock On”. Actually, I’m sure there’s a scene in his film Stardust when his character Jim MacLaine is doing a gig with his band The Stray Cats and he shouts out “Hey, rock ‘n’ roll!” during it now I come to think of it. As good as “Drive” is, for me it’s not best track on the album with at least three or four other songs ahead of it. It peaked at No 11, the band’s second biggest UK hit at that point in their career yet, unusually for an album’s lead single, it doesn’t feature on subsequent Best Of albums.

Right who’s next? Oh great, it’s Dr Alban who’s up to No 2. Look man, if I need a song called “It’s My Life” in my…erm…life then I’ve got that wonderful song by Talk Talk. Hell, at a stretch I’ve even got the cover version by No Doubt. I have zero need for this Eurodance-ified house track with some terrible rapping tacked onto it. Apparently the track was re-recorded in 2014 by the good doctor and some bloke called Chawki and retitled “It’s My Life (Don’t Worry)” but I really can’t be arsed to check it out not even for the purposes of this blog. Look, it’s my life OK?

Another song now that totally transports me back to this era when I had just started working at the Our Price store in Rochdale. “Iron Lion Zion” was the third posthumously released single by Bob Marley following his death in 1981. We’d already had “Buffalo Soldier” in 1983 to promote the “Confrontation” album of unreleased recordings which went to No 4. A year later came “One Love/People Get Ready” to promote the “Legend” compilation album. Fast forward to 1992 and “Iron Lion Zion” was put out to advertise the “Songs Of Freedom” box set. Like its two predecessors it went Top 5.

Espousing Rastafarian beliefs of Zion as the Promised Land of Ethiopia and the Lion Of Judah representing Haile Selassie, it also featured legendary jazzer Courtney Pine. Appealing to both daytime radio and the clubs via its 12” mix, it was a timely reminder of Marley’s talent and legacy. Apparently his final words to his son Ziggy on his death bed were “Money can’t buy life”. A wise man indeed.

If it’s the early 90s then there’s always room for one more dance tune and here it is – “I’m Gonna Get You” by Bizarre Inc featuring Angie Brown. This was the third hit on the spin for these Staffordshire techno ravers following “Such A Feeling” and “Playing With Knives” and it would prove to be the biggest of the lot when it peaked at No 3. This time they had roped in a female soul singer with the surname of Brown to help but it wasn’t Jocelyn. Nope, but Angie Brown had been recruited to sing like her namesake. “I’m Gonna Get You” featured lyrics from Jocelyn’s song “Love’s Gonna Get You” and rather than pay to sample the original, Angie filled in and re-recorded that part of the track.

So who is Angie Brown? Well, she’s worked mainly as a backing singer with some huge names like The Rolling Stones, Happy Mondays, Kate Bush, Chaka Khan and the aforementioned Neneh Cherry. She’s also on Mark Morrison’s 1996 No 1 “Return Of The Mack” but her first taste of chart success in her own right came in 1992 with Bizarre Inc. Despite having Angie to front the record, there are five blokes up there with her on stage (two dancers and three keyboard players) at least half of which have the regulation ponytail for these times. For all that, I didn’t mind this one.

As it’s an anniversary show, it’s a perfect opportunity to squeeze in a mention that Radio 1 celebrated their own 25th birthday the day before this broadcast. Fair enough so how to mark this event on TOTP? Bit of a video montage of clips featuring past and present DJs perhaps. Maybe back in the day when Radio 1 and TOTP were so inextricably linked you couldn’t see the joins that would have been what happened. This was a new era though where Radio 1 ties had been severed so just a three second clip of all the DJs together on the steps of Broadcasting House (?) saying “Happy Birthday Radio 1 FM!” was deemed more than adequate.

Also celebrating 25 years of existence (just about) were the next act Status Quo. Hang on! Weren’t they on the first show of the ‘year zero’ era? Yes, they were playing a horrible version of “Let’s Work Together” from their “Rock ‘til You Drop” album. One year on almost to the day and they’re still seen by TOTP producer Stanley Appel as the go to party band when you’re having a knees up. Had he learned nothing from the past year?! So what are they playing this time? A medley of course! Just about everything they released around this time was a medley wasn’t it? This one was called “Roadhouse Medley (Anniversary Waltz Part 25)” and featured tracks including “The Wanderer”, “Marguerita Time” and “Living On An Island”. Bigging up the performance by it being live from Amsterdam was neither here nor there as the band were just in a room that could gave been anywhere. What a horrible, pointless waste of everyone’s time!

The Shamen still rule the roost with “Ebeneezer Goode”. Remember when Wet Wet Wet deleted “Love Is All Around” after 15 weeks at No 1 because they were bored of the whole thing by then? Well The Shamen did the same thing two years before them with this single but you don’t hear much about it. There were rumours it was because of the constant press attention about the supposed drug references in the track but the band themselves said it was that its prolonged run at the top was mucking up their schedule for subsequent single releases. Naughty naughty!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Stereo MCs	Connected	Don’t think I did
2	Crowded House	It’s Only Natural	No but I had the Woodface album it was from
3	Chaos	Farewell My Summer Love	Hell no!
4	Doctor Spin	Tetris	I’d rather have eaten my own arm
5	The Sundays	Goodbye	No
6	Neneh Cherry	Money Love	Nope
7	Mike Oldfield	Sentinel	Nah
8	REM	Drive	Not the single but I bought the Automatic For The People album
9	Dr. Alban	It’s My Life	Definitely not!
10	Bob Marley	Iron Lion Zion	I did not
11	Bizarre Inc featuring Angie Brown	I’m Gonna Get You	Didn’t mind it, didn’t buy it
12	Status Quo	Roadhouse Medley (Anniversary Waltz Part 25)	Are you joking?!
13	The Shamen	Ebeneezer Goode	It’s a 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/m0015x90/top-of-the-pops-01101992

TOTP 14 NOV 1991

Posted on November 18, 2021 by 80stastic

Mid November 1991 – what were you doing? Me? I was gearing up for a second consecutive retail Christmas with Our Price having been working for the company for just over a year now. I didn’t know it then but it was probably one of the more stable years of my working life. A permanent job working with an exciting ‘product’ (I’d take music over baked beans any day) and I’d even been given some ordering responsibility in the form of being the chart cassettes buyer. Yes, there was that time earlier in the year when it looked like the shop would be sold off and some of us might lose our jobs (gulp!) but that likelihood had withered and withdrawn and things were back on course. For TOTP though, things were not quite as smooth. The show was six weeks into a new format courtesy of new producer Stanley Appel and it was still finding its feet. The new presenting duo of Tony Dortie and Mark Franklin seemed functional rather than flourishing and the live vocal policy was definitely catching some artists out. More seismic changes were afoot in the football world as on the day of this broadcast, the Football Association confirmed that the Premier League would start next season with 22 clubs. What would that mean for all us footy fans? Was it a good thing? Would we get to see more matches on TV? Like the new TOTP revamp, it was uncharted waters.

What we needed was some faith and happily for us, it was provided by tonight’s opening act Rozalla with her latest single “Faith (In the Power of Love)”. Having hit big with her previous single “Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good)”, Rozalla clearly felt the the best thing she could do to maintain her momentum was to stick to the exact same formula that had brought her initial success. Consequently, “Faith (In the Power of Love)” sounds very like its predecessor and even mimics its inclusion of brackets in the song title. I’ve never really understood the need for brackets in song titles. Does their presence really add anything to the song title or are they just an affectation to add an element of perceived depth and mystery to the song? Anyway, Rozalla has decided to come dressed as…well..what has she come dressed as? It’s like some sort of mash up of Princess Leia from Star Wars and the red Power Ranger. Were people dressing like that back in 1991? Maybe it was just to distract us all from the fact that (as with a few before her), Rozalla’s singing wasn’t quite on point. Not far off but not actually on it. “Faith (In the Power of Love)” peaked at No 11.

As Tony Dortie emerges seemingly from nowhere out of the throng of the studio audience (he seems to do that a lot – he was the TOTP equivalent of the shopkeeper from Mr Benn), he says something that I’ve had to rewind three times before I’ve understood what it was. I think it was that Rozalla wanted to do a duet with Seal. The first two times I heard it as wanting to do a duet with Cyril but Seal makes more sense (especially as he’s on the show next). Before that though we have the Top 10 rundown or as Dortie says, “Let’s check those crisp biscuits which are slamming in style inside this week’s Top 10 boiii like this…” Did he really say that?! He’s such a mumbler it’s hard to tell but I think those were his actual words. Crisp biscuits? Was that slang for something? I checked it out on the urban dictionary. It’s either a very thin reefer or… something else entirely which you’ll have to look up yourself to find out. Either definition was surely not what Dortie meant. And what was the ‘boiii’ thing about? I’m guessing that was also an urban along thing but the only time I’ve heard it used is by those white posh boy twats on Made In Chelsea. Anyway, Dortie then does an actual voice over for the Top 10 countdown which we haven’t had in this new era before when it’s just been the new theme tune payed in the background. Head producer Stanley Appel must have reacted to feedback that the countdown had become an abomination and tried to restore some tradition to it. Even though it was now mid November, “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” by Bryan Adams is still in there at No 6 despite being released back in June.

As with last week’s show, we get a new disembodied voice doing the next intro. Last week it was Elayne Smith and this week we get another new presenter in the form of Claudia Simon. We don’t actually get to see Claudia’s ‘form’ though until two whole performances later. I didn’t really get what the TOTP producers were hoping to do with this voice first policy for its new presenters. Build tension? I don’t think we were that bothered about the presenters, it was the music we were after! The act that Claudia introduces is Seal (definitely not Cyril) who has released this own solo version of the hit that announced him to the pop world the year before when he and Adamski took “Killer” to No 1. To try and convince record buyers to purchase it all over again, record label ZTT have wisely made it into the “Killer EP” with a William Orbit remix of the track added alongside some live versions. Does Seal’s re-recording of the song sound that different to the original? Not to my ears I have to say. To try and emphasise the point that it is a different version, Seal is wearing (and occasionally strumming) a guitar which I’m pretty sure he never did back in 1990. Maybe the whole exercise was all about claiming some justice for Seal who was not actually officially credited alongside Adamski on the original. It’s still a great track but I don’t think the re-release in his own name was really warranted. Case dismissed.

In any other week, Tina Turner would no doubt have been bigged up in the ‘exclusive’ feature of the show but this wasn’t any other week. There is a huge exclusive coming up (no spoilers) so Tina has to make do with being…what is this section? The US chart? There’s an American flag graphic next to her name so I’m guessing so. She’s singing a song called “Way Of The World” which is a new track added to promote her first greatest hits compilation “Simply The Best” (which is what the TOTP title graphic goes with rather than the name of the single which is a bit confusing). We’d already had a horrible 90s reworking of “Nutbush City Limits” to help sell the album recently so surely anything released after that would be an improvement? Well, just about I guess. “Way Of The World” directly pinches the intro from Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” (which, of course, Tina herself covered back in ’83 to relaunch her singing career) but then just sort of meanders off into an unexceptional mid tempo soul ballad. Hardly living up to the “Simply The Best” tagline it was meant to promote. In the end, the album would do pretty well anyway going 8 (EIGHT) time platinum in the UK! For some reason, there’s no backing band up there behind Tina so when the sax solo arrives in the middle eight she has to improvise and rely on her famous legs and her new shaggy hairdo to compensate. Tina’s nothing if not an old hand at this sort of thing and does a professional job of filling. “Way Of The World” peaked at No 13.

There she is! Yes, we finally get to see Claudia Simon as she awaits her cue to do the next link. She literally is waiting, tensed like a cheetah ready to pounce at the optimum moment. Is it just me or does she come across like the female version of Pat Sharp here? I think it’s the hair. So who was Claudia? Like Tony Dortie, she had a background in children’s TV having worked for CBBC and after her stint on TOTP she moved into the world of sports with Sky TV. She moved to the US and was a Fox Sports anchor until the early ’00s but there’s little else about what she’s up to now on the internet. She seems a bit over eager to please here and ends up shouting a lot of her links, the first of which is into Altern-8. These Staffordshire ravers had already had a Top 40 hit earlier in the year with “Infiltrate 202” but it was this single “Activ 8 (Come with Me)” that really made their name. Infamous for wearing face masks (with an A imprinted on them) and Hazmat suits, they also had a penchant for including the number 8 in their song titles (they would release a further three singles with this theme).

On reflection, “Activ 8 (Come with Me)” seems very much to be jumping on the bandwagon that the The Prodigy had set rolling with their “Charly” single and its samples of the 1970s BBC Public Information Film Charley Says. The Altern-8 boys bypassed any copyright restrictions by getting the three year old daughter of the boss of their record label Network to record the ‘top one, nice one. get sorted’ bit which would prove to be the track’s hook. Were people already using those phrases in real life? By people I guess I mean ravers. Certainly the phrase ‘top one’ was in everyday use in Manchester where I was living at the time. Also, was this the point where the phrase ‘hardcore, you know the score’ came into being as per the legend emblazoned above the stage for this performance or was it already in existence? I’m pretty sure that the major labels pickled up on it and ran with it as a tagline to advertise various rave/dance compilation albums at this time. OK, so I guess we have to address the live vocal again here. Without wishing to be harsh, I think it’s fair to say that the female singer here doesn’t give her very best performance though having to follow Tina Turner probably didn’t help her nerves. “Activ 8 (Come with Me)” peaked at No 3.

I’m not sure what the mumbler supreme Tony Dortie says at the end of Altern-8’s performance but it’s something about ragga or rave pressure or …oh God knows. Anyway, it’s the Breakers now starting with Sonia and her version of The Real Thing’s “You To Me Are Everything”. You have to hand it to Sonia, this was her ninth consecutive Top 40 hit in just over two years, all but one of which made the Top 20. None of them came anywhere near replicating the success of her debut single “You’ll Never Stop Me Loving You” though which went to No 1 in 1989 of course. Still, it’s an impressive run all the same. On closer inspection though, three of the last four hits (including this one) had been cover versions which suggested that she was running out of steam and her record label out of ideas. Her next single would also be a cover; Heatwave’s “Boogie Nights”. “You To Me Are Everything” was the third and final single to be released from her eponymous sophomore album and would peak at No 13. She would have to resort to the Eurovision Song Contest to secure one final chart hit in 1993 with “Better The Devil You Know” (not the Kylie Song) in 1993.

The next Breaker was basically record company Warners reminding us that their artist REM had one of the most successful albums of the year in “Out Of Time” and that if we hadn’t already bought it then Christmas is just around the corner you know? To that end, they saw fit to release a fourth single from it in “Radio Song”. This must have been one of the songs that I heard most in 1991 as it was the opening track on “Out Of Time” meaning that even when we’d all got tired of it being played in the Our Price store I was working in and somebody finally pulled it off the shop stereo, this track probably would have had a spin in full. It’s OK but certainly not up there with some of my personal favourites from the band. Even after all those plays, I’d still somehow forgotten about the closing rap from KRS-One of Boogie Down Productions.

A fourth release of the album proved one too far and the song peaked at a lowly No 28 but I guess sales of the single came second in priority for Warners after the album which no doubt benefited from the extra exposure. Unbelievably, ‘Radio Song” wasn’t the last REM single of 1991 as “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” was re-released in December by former label I.R.S. to cash in on their “The Best Of R.E.M.” album that had been released in September, itself a cash in on the success of “Out Of Time”.

Can a single be classed as a Breaker when it’s already inside the Top 10? Well, that’s what happened here with “Is There Anybody Out There?” by Bassheads. Following near geographical neighbours Oceanic into the charts, this Wirral-based house duo went to No 5 with this dance tune. I don’t remember thinking it at the time but there’s definitely some steals from Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime” and The Osmonds’ “Crazy Horses” although they weren’t sampled as they weren’t copyright cleared by the original artist and were in fact recreated by session players. There’s also a bit of Afrika Bambaataa’s “Just Get Up and Dance” in there for which he received 25% of the publishing as a result.

It all sounds like a strange brew that should be interesting but then that familiar Italia house piano riff kicks in and it reverts to sounding like all those other dance ‘anthems’ to me. The track’s title is just about a mash up of two Duran Duran songs – “Anyone Out There” and “Is There Something I Should Know?”. I think I’d rather have the Brummie lads to be honest.

And so we arrive at the moment the whole show has been building up to…so much so that we even had a mini advert for it at the start before we’d even had the first act on. I suppose some context is required here. Michael Jackson hadn’t had an album out for four year since 1987’s ‘Bad” which was a lifetime in pop and hadn’t even had a single in the charts since 1989. Therefore any new Jacko material was bound to cause a stir in the music industry. And so it did. “Black And White” was the lead single from his ‘Dangerous” album and the anticipation for the much heralded video for it was heightened by the simultaneous worldwide broadcast of it across international platforms. So whilst Tony Dortie’s claim that the video hadn’t been shown anywhere before was true, I’m not sure the ‘exclusive’ tag that he adds to it holds water. TOTP weren’t the only broadcaster in the world showing it. The promo actually premiered simultaneously in 27 countries with an audience of 500 million viewers. Maybe he just meant in the UK then.

So, what was the new video going to show us. There’s a lot to unpack here so for starters it was directed by John Landis who also made the “Thriller” video so no doubt big things were expected of it. Could that ground breaking promo be topped in terms of its legacy? It starts with a heavy rock guitar solo soundtrack before locating the action in the home of one Macaulay Culkin who’s loud playing of said music on his stereo has upset his Dad who is Norm from Cheers (who knew?). After a rebuke from Norm, Caulkin’s character sets up some gigantic speakers in the room where his parents are watching TV, hooks them up to an amplifier, turns the volume up to the setting ‘Are You Nuts?’ (no really – that’s what it says – I guess the ‘this one goes to 11’ joke had already been done by Spinal Tap), utters the words “Eat this” and blows his Dad (still in his chair) into orbit with one play of a power chord. It’s quite an opening but on reflection, it’s also all a bit silly. I recall a lot being made of the fact that Caulkin was in the video. He’d been in the film Uncle Buck with John Candy and then had achieved superstardom via Home Alone in 1990. Around that time he became friends with Jackson and would get caught up in the child sex abuse trial that engulfed the singer in 2005, testifying that he had slept in a bed with Jackson but that no molestation had ever taken place and dismissed the allegations as “absolutely ridiculous”.

Meanwhile back in the video, Norm and his chair have landed in Africa where the song proper starts and we see Jackson at last who begins performing surrounded by African warriors. From there, the action moves quickly through multiple scenes with Jacko dancing with people of various nationalities and cultures. After alighting on an image of a black baby and a white baby sitting on a representation of planet earth, Jackson re-emerges through a scene of flames before we get to the rap part of the song which Culkin returns to lip sync. The part of the video that everyone remembers is up now, the face morphing. The collective reaction of the audience to the faces of people of different nationalities and skin colour changing seamlessly into each other before our eyes was one of dumbstruck awe. One big huge wow! It was certainly impressive but hadn’t it been done before by Godley and Creme for their 1985 video fro ‘Cry”? Had people forgotten that already? Yes, the effects in “Black And White” were far superior but the idea was surely stolen by Landis.

For many of us I’m guessing this is the point that our memory tells us that the video ended but in its full, original form, it didn’t. A black panther emerges from the set and morphs into Jackson who pulls out all of his moves before embarking on a dancing rampage of destruction smashing windows, destroying a car and causing a building to explode whilst all the time grabbing his crotch repeatedly. He then morphs back into the panther before the video is finally drawn a close by Bart and Homer Simpson when the latter turns off the TV. These final four minutes caused great controversy with accusations made against Jackson that he was promoting violence and vandalism. Subsequently, this footage was removed from the video to make it more palatable for younger audiences but as this was the global premiere, it’s shown in full here.

Phew! All in all, the video was allocated approximately 10 and a half minutes of the TOTP running time which seems extraordinary but I guess this really was a big deal and the type of event TV that the show’s new producer Stanley Appel would have been looking for. Watching it back in its entirety 30 years on, it all seems like one big mess to me. Very little cohesion and with anything that was culturally popular at the time (Culkin, The Simpsons) thrown in for good measure. “Thriller” is by far the better promo and blows “Black And White” out of the water. Yes, it has some noble intentions but what was all that stuff at the end about? Well, that was the video but what about the song? Ah, it’ll be No 1 next week. I’ll deal with the music then.

Vic Reeves and The Wonder Stuff hold on to the No 1 spot for a second and final week with “Dizzy”. It’s the video again and for all “Black And White”‘s special effects and drama, I’d rather watch Vic and Bob arseing around to be honest. Supposedly, Vic had approached Mark E. Smith to ask if The Fall would do the record with him initially but the band weren’t sure and so The Wonder Stuff got the gig. That really would have been a collaboration worth seeing and hearing. Vic would achieve one final Top 40 hit when he teamed up with EMF for a cover of “I’m A Believer” by The Monkees which went to No 3 in 1995.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Rozalla	Faith (In the Power of Love)	Nah
2	Seal	Killer EP	No but I had the album
3	Tina Turner	Way Of The World	Nope
4	Altern-8	Activ 8 (Come with Me)	Not my bag
5	Sonia	You To Me Are Everything	Oh dear Lord no
6	REM	Radio Song	No and I’d heard the album so may times in store I didn’t even buy that either
7	Bassheads	Is There Anybody Out There?	See 4 above
8	Michael Jackson	Black And White	No
9	Vic Reeves and The Wonder Stuff	Dizzy	I did not

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0011f4t/top-of-the-pops-14111991

TOTP 26 SEP 1991

Posted on October 15, 2021 by 80stastic

And now, the end is near
And so I face the final curtain

What comes to mind when you hear the phrase ‘end of an era’? Alex Ferguson finally retiring as manger of Manchester United? The Beatles splitting? Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts sadly passing away the other week? How about the character of Mike Baldwin being killed off in Coronation Street? Or…the ‘Year Zero’ revamp of that great pop music institution TOTP? I think tonight’s host Gary Davies has justification for describing the 26 Sep 1991 show as the end of an era. This was the final show (until the changes were reversed in 1994) of that grand old programme being presented by Radio 1 DJs. They were replaced by a group of younger unknowns by incoming executive producer Stanley Appel who was hoping to bring about a new youthful feel to a show that had struggled to accommodate the new trends in popular music surrounding dance / house / rave genres. There were more cosmetic changes in a brand new theme tune (“Now Get Out of That”), title sequence and logo and, as Gary Davies advises at the end of the show, the entire programme was moved from BBC Television Centre in London to BBC Elstree Centre in Borehamwood.

I do feel a twinge of sympathy for Davies. He’d been hosting TOTP since about 1983 I think (not long after he joined Radio 1 anyway) and had always been a safe pair of hands* and must have thought he had a shot at stardom across the pond in the US in October 1987 when the CBS television network decided to try an American version of the show. There were link ups with the UK version which were always hosted by Davies. Sadly for Gary, the experiment was short-lived and the US TOTP was cancelled. By the time the old guard of presenters were reinstalled in 1994, Davies had moved to Virgin Radio meaning this is his very last regular TOTP show.

*Except for the Dixie Peach suntan comment of course

Well, enough of the sentiment and on with the show and we start with …who the hell is this? P.J.B. featuring Hannah And Her Sisters? I have literally never heard this in my life before and thank the Lord I hadn’t because now I’ve had their version of “Bridge Over Troubled Water” inflicted on my ears, life in this wretched country at this horrible period of history just got even worse. This is vile – beastly even. Just 100% crapola. Who’s idea was it to do a dance version of the Simon & Garfunkel classic? Well, it turns out it was a bloke called Peter John Bellotte (the titular P.J.B.) who actually had quite an impressive CV. Most notably, he’d worked with Giorgio Moroder producing the peak era Donna Summer sound of “I Feel Love”, “Love to Love You Baby” and “Hot Stuff”. He went on to work with the likes of Janet Jackson, Cliff Richard, Shalamar and Tina Turner and in 2004 was honoured at the Dance Music Hall of Fame ceremony where he was inducted for his many outstanding achievements and contributions as producer and songwriter.

Back in 1991 though, he was responsible for this shit. As for Hannah and Her Sisters, as wells being the name of Woody Allen’s 1986 comedy drama flick, they did actually feature a Hannah who was Hannah Jones who would achieve some hits on the US Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart at the end of the 90s. This dreadful nonsense however peaked at No 21 and whoever bought it should conduct their own root and branch investigation into exactly what occurred here.

Could there be a more appropriate song to help bring the curtain down on this era of TOTP? It can only be “Wind Of Change” by The Scorpions. Of course, it was a curtain of a different kind (the iron one) that was the behind the origin of the song. Written during a visit to Moscow in 1989, these German rockers were amazed at how different the political and cultural climate felt just 12 months on from their previous visit there. The opening lines:

I follow the Moskva
Down to Gorky Park
Listening to the wind of change

were a literal running commentary of a boat trip that the band took down the Moskva river that runs through Moscow, passing the sights like Gorky Park which sits on the shore of the Moskva and witnessing first hand those changes occurring. Lead singer Klaus Meine started whistling that melody and the rest of the song came quickly. Apparently, the band’s record label weren’t keen on that infamous whistling intro and the band tried to record the song without it by reverting to a traditional heavy rock intro akin to the band’s reputation but when that wasn’t working they returned to the original song opening. I seem to recall the song getting a bit of stick for that intro, that it somehow undermined it. I’m not sure why as their are loads of examples of songs with whistling in them that are credible. There’s even a direct rock comparison in the form of “Patience” by Guns N’ Roses and then there’s the classic “Dock Of The Bay” by Otis Redding. Maybe their label were concerned it might take the song in more of an almost novelty direction like Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” or “Walk Like An Egyptian” by The Bangles.

Whatever their reasoning, between them and the band, they arrived at the correct decision commercially speaking as the song went on to sell 14 million copies worldwide. More than the sales though and whatever you think about the sound of the song, its legacy was its cultural and political significance becoming a clarion call for freedom and a message of hope.

As for me, I don’t think I knew anything about The Scorpions before “Wind Of Change” despite them having been around since the mid 60s. Did I like the song? About as much as liked the nasty scorpion spider graphic that the TOTP producers shoved over the start of the video. Let’s hope that sort of nonsense disappeared in the ‘year zero’ revamp.

It’s the tiny person with a massive voice and an even bigger hit next as we get a live vocal from Rozalla on “Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good)”. So ubiquitous was this tune that I could have sworn it was a much bigger hit than its actual No 6 peak. Maybe my confusion is because it hung around the charts for so long – ten weeks in total on the Top 40 and four consecutive weeks inside the Top 10. Eight years later, it did become a bigger hit of sorts when it was slowed down and sampled by Australian film director Baz Luhrmann on his Number 1 hit “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)”.

After starting a trend for female vocalists fronting rave anthems to remove their tops in her last performance that was copied by Jorinde Williams of Oceanic, Rozalla tweaks the routine this week by suggesting her outer garment is about to come off but then keeping it on for the duration of the song. Maybe the stuffy TOTP producers had warned her off that type of thing!

REM are next with “The One I Love“. When it comes to misunderstood songs, this one must be up there with the best. If you didn’t know this song, you could be forgiven for thinking it’s a heartfelt love letter to a loved one judging by its title but one listen or perusal of the lyrics would tell a different story of manipulating people.

Any discussion of misunderstood songs must include “Born In The USA” by Bruce Springsteen and “Every Breath You Take” by The Police of course. The Boss’s song is often misconstrued as an anthem of patriotism when it’s actually telling the story of the difficulties and marginalisation Vietnam veterans felt when returning from the war. The song’s fist pumping sound led to many a politician asking if they could use the song to soundtrack an election campaign starting with Ronald Reagan in 1984. Bruce refused. Had Reagan heard this version of the song, maybe even his little brain would have realised it wasn’t really an appropriate song choice:

As for “Every Breath You Take”, my favourite misunderstanding of this song is the time when dumb as mud X Factor judge Louis Walsh told some hopeful after they had performed it on one of the live shows that they had ‘made it their own’. It’s a song about stalking you imbecile!

REM would release one final single (“Radio Song”) from their “Out Of Time” album before 1991 was up returning just a year later with the stunning “Automatic For The People” album.

Poor Gary Davies is having to introduce some right old shit on his valedictory TOTP appearance. After the car crash of the “Bridge Over Troubled Water” cover version at the top of the show, here’s that dreadful danced up remix of “Nutbush City Limits” by Tina Turner. Released as “Nutbush City Limits (The 90s Version)”, even the song’s new title grates.Why did it need the word version in there? Surely ’91 remix’ is what it should have been called? Also, the video is so lazy as well. Some old footage of Tina performing the song back in the day intercut with her jigging about to the track in the present day. Throw in some shots of lorries driving about (on their way to the city limits perchance?) and that was all the video director thought was needed.!

“Nutbush City Limits (The 90s Version)” peaked at No 23.

Back on a dance tip now with Bizarre Inc who are ‘avin’ it large with their hit “Such A Feeling”. By ‘avin’ it large, obviously I mean having two dancers at the front of the stage doing some arm-waving whilst the three guys in the band mime playing keyboards. Literally that’s all the performance is. Fine if you’re off on one in a club but a bit ridiculous looking for a prime time TV music show. I wonder if Davies was secretly relieved not have to present this type of thing anymore. Leave it for the kids and all that. He himself was approaching 34 by this point. which seems very young to the 53 year old me looking back but he might have been pushing it a bit as a purveyor of what the youth were into. I think I went to a nightclub just once after I turned 30.

“Such A Feeling” peaked at No 13.

Now here was an antidote to all that pesky dance music doing the rounds. Since his surprise No 1 single “Something’s Gotten Hold Of My Heart” with Gene Pitney at the end of the 80s, Marc Almond had not been a frequent visitor to the UK Top 40. He’d only racked up one No 29 hit (“A Lover Spurned”) from his “Enchanted” album in 1990 since then. So what do you do if you need a comeback hit single? You record a cover version of course! Being Marc Almond though, this was no ordinary cover. “Jacky” was a Jacques Brel song originally recorded by the Belgian singer-songwriter as “La chanson de Jacky” in 1965 and Marc was a massive Brel fan having already released an album of covers of his songs back in 1989 (although curiously it didn’t feature “Jacky”). The version that was more known to UK audiences though was the English translated one by Scott Walker who released it as his first solo single in 1967.

Marc’s version is definitely more Walker than Brel albeit with an obtrusive backbeat stapled onto it and a synthesised choir effect tagged on the end. It’s gloriously ridiculous and rather splendid for it. The lyrics are exquisitely bonkers and therefore wholly memorable. For example:

I’d have to get drunk every night
And talk about virility
With some old grandmother
That might be decked out like a Christmas tree
And no pink elephant I’d see
Though I’d be drunk as I could be

Excellent! Then of course, there is the killer hook in the chorus of Cute in a stupid ass way or rather Cute (pause for dramatic effect) in a stupid ass way. I’m sure this caused a trend amongst some young men to wear very skinny T-shirts with the legend ‘Cute in a stupid ass way’ emblazoned across them. The only thing that disappoints me about Almond’s version is that he doesn’t do the Scott Walker phrasing of ‘Jacky’ where he softens the ‘J’ which I always found very affecting.

“Jacky” peaked at No 17 and was the lead single from his first and only album for Warner Brothers “Tenement Symphony” which would implausibly spawn another hit single the following year with another cover version, this time “The Days of Pearly Spencer” which was originally recorded by David McWilliams. Despite including those hits, the album was not a big seller peaking at No 39.

A third TOTP appearance for Sabrina Johnston and “Peace” next. Interesting to note the difference in her performance here and that of Rozalla earlier. Sabrina’s backed by four dancers behind her whilst Rozalla was up there all on her tod.

With the greatest respect to Sabrina, maybe she needed to be helped out in the dance moves department as she comes across like Tina Turner meets Mrs Overall from Acorn Antiques when she’s wigging out.

Not only was she outdone by Rozalla’s much more impressive dancing, Sabrina also lost out to her in the chart positions as “Peace” peaked two places lower than “Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good)”at No 8.

Three Breakers next and we start with Fish. I never fail to be amazed about just how many solo hits this guy had and also how few of them I recall. “Internal Exile” was his fourth and, like all his others, it must have passed me by at the time. Taken from the album of the same name, it had a very obviously Celtic folk feel to it and was about his desire for Scottish independence (still relevant as a subject today of course). The album included a version of “Something In The Air” by Thunderclap Newman. Want to hear it? Nah, nor me.

Another very tall man who used to front a rock band next as we see Ozzy Osbourne back in the charts for the first time in five years. He’s also released the title track from his new album as a single in “No More Tears”. Apparently, Ozzy considers this song to be ‘a gift from God’. Really?! Hell’s teeth! There really was nothing here for me though I do remember the Our Price Store I was working in getting the album in early on import and the only way you could distinguish it from the UK release was that the cover had a slightly different colour tint to it. I think I was (ahem) ‘paranoid’ about selling the wrong version.

It’s a trio of new album title tracks released as singles on the Breakers as Belinda Carlisle returns with “Live Your Life Be Free“. The hits had dried up in her native US by this point in Belinda’s career but here in the UK we were still happy to consume some more of her pleasant if formulaic soft rock. “Live Your Life Be Free” certainly fell into both of these categories and was hardly anything much different from what she had served up on her last two albums “Heaven On Earth” and “Runaway Horses” to my ears but it was eminently listenable. The album would spawn four Top 40 hits (of which the title track was the biggest) and would achieve gold status but it was a definite tailing off of sales compared to its two predecessors.

The video sees Belinda dressed up to look like Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolitte from My Fair Lady or possibly Julia Roberts as Vivian Ward for Pretty Woman (same film basically) at the races. All together now…”Come on, Dover, move yer bloomin’ arse!”

For 36 years Slim Whitman’s chart topping statistics were unrivalled but they’ve finally been brought down by the ‘Groover from Vancouver’ as “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” by Bryan Adams clocks up a twelfth consecutive week at No 1! I think when we’d reached this point and a 36 year chart record had been broken, maybe we were all believing that the spell it held over the UK public would also have been broken. Surely now it had beaten everything else in chart history, that would have been enough, job done or as Roy Castle would have said “You’re a record breaker!”. Alas no, Bryan was good for another four weeks after this meaning his single was responsible for the following chart feats courtesy of officialcharts.com:

With 16 consecutive weeks at the summit, “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” scored the longest ever run at No 1 in UK chart history, a record which still hasn’t been bettered. Just one song has more total weeks at No 1 – Frankie Laine’s “I Believe” which enjoyed 18 weeks at the top across 3 different stints.

“(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” is the UK’s 15th best-selling single of all time with over 1.87 million paid-for sales to date including 340,000 on digital download.
Even in 2021, nine people have picked up a physical copy of the song!
To date it’s clocked up over 55 million streams in the UK since chart records began – including 10 million in the first 6 months of 2021 alone
It was the best-seller of 1991 earning 1.43 million sales that year alone. It even outsold the second biggest (Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” which was re-released following Freddie Mercury’s death) by more than twice as many copies in that year.

The play out video this week is “Try” by Bros and I guess it’s a fitting end to both the current format of the show and Gary Davies’s time as a presenter that they both finish with a song that was also the final ever chart entry for the Goss twins. Bros would split the following year with Matt Goss forging a solo career before making a name for himself in the US where he had his own Vegas Residency at The Palms, Caesars Palace and The Mirage singing the swing classics. As for Luke, he briefly formed a group called Band of Thieves who released a pretty good single called “Sweeter Than The Midnight Rain” before embarking on an acting career that would see him land roles in such films as Blade II and Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

As for Gary Davies, he bows out with a fairly unemotional goodbye although he does give an extra long stare right down the lens before the Bros video kicks in. I wonder who’s benefit that was for?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	P.J.B. featuring Hannah And Her Sisters	Bridge Over Troubled Water	Never going to happen
2	The Scorpions	Wind Of Change	Nope
3	Rozalla	Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good)	Nah
4	REM	The One I Love	Not the single but I must have it on something
5	Tina Turner	Nutbush City Limits (The 90s Version)	See 1 above
6	Bizarre Inc	Such A Feeling	No
7	Marc Almond	Jacky	Liked it, didn’t buy it
8	Sabrina Johnston	Peace	See 7 above
9	Fish	Internal Exile	Negative
10	Ozzy Osbourne	No More Tears	Nothing here for me
11	Belinda Carlisle	Live Your Life Be Free	I did not
12	Bryan Adams	(Everything I Do) I Do It For You	It’s another no
13	Bros	Try	And a final no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0010b3m/top-of-the-pops-26091991

TOTP 19 SEP 1991

Posted on October 14, 2021 by 80stastic

Over the course of nearly 5 years of writing reviews of these BBC4 TOTP repeats covering the years 1983-1991, I’ve now written 380 posts. 380! That’s a lot of words and a lot of songs to have found something to write about. Maybe 380 is my limit as I think I may have hit a wall. I feel spent, done. My creative juice is more like arse juice and the only place it’s flowing is into my pants. Talking of backsides, the very first episode of Bottom starring Adrian Edmondson and Rik Mayall aired on BBC2 just two days before this TOTP went out and “the only place it’s flowing is into my pants” sounds like a line Mayall’s Lord Flashheart character in Blackadder II might have said.

Also looking and sounding like he’s hit a metaphorical wall is tonight’s presenter Nicky Campbell, who, like his fellow hosts in recent weeks, is making his final appearance before he will be axed in the ‘year zero’ revamp and won’t be seen on the show again for two and a half years. They all must have known by this point and Campbell turns in a can’t-be-arsed performance that screams ‘oh what’s the point any more?’. His usual waspish remarks are missing, replaced instead by some very functional intros and segues. Let’s at least hope he doesn’t hit any bum notes before he has to shift his backside out of it. That decision to get rid of the Radio 1 DJs from the show really messed with their profiles and careers – it could have even wrecked ’em – geddit? – wrecked ’em – no? Too many bum/arse/bottom references already? You’re probably right, this blog is going right down the pan.

Last week, the show opened with a dance tune called “Such A Feeling” by Bizarre Inc. Fast forward seven days and its opened with another dance track called “Such A Good Feeling”, this time by Brothers In Rhythm. Not helping refute accusations of the charts in 1991 being a bit samey were they?

I have to admit that I’d forgotten that Brothers In Rhythm were an actual chart act in their own right as my first thought of them is as remixers/producers for other artists. They’ve worked with such stellar names as Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, New Order, Pet Shop Boys, U2, Heaven 17 and many more. The suffix (Brothers in Rhythm Remix) featured so regularly as to almost be seen as part of the track’s official song title. However, back in ’91’ they seemed to just be part of the plethora of incognito acts peddling dance floor anthems like the aforementioned Bizarre Inc, Utah Saints, Altern 8 etc. Talking of incognito, the track samples Charvoni’s 1989 single “Always There” which itself was a cover of US jazz funkers Side Effect’s 1976 original and which of course, the UK’s own acid jazzers Incognito scored a hit with earlier in the Summer of ’91. Got all that? Good.

Photo Cr: startrek.com
https://shar.es/aWCUQp

To be fair, I might have thought this was Incognito performing “Such A Good Feeling” if I hadn’t seen the performance here which is giving me every strong Cruella de Vil vibes or perhaps even this guy opposite…

“Such A Good Feeling” peaked at No 14 and was the only hit they had under their name as a recording artist.

More evidence next of Nicky Campbell playing it straight for what he must have thought was his final TOTP appearance with a serious statement about there being a tendency for rap music to stereotype women but here were Salt ‘N Pepa to buck the trend. Maybe it was a surreptitious audition for those serious presenter roles he went on to for shows such as Central Weekend and Watchdog?

The video for “Let’s Talk About Sex” was directed by Millicent Shelton who’s next music promo was for a song called “Rump Shaker” by US hip-hop act Wreckx-n-Effect. The video was criticised for its alleged exploitation of women in bikinis and banned from MTV. That’s quite a leap from her work on a song with safe sex as one of its messages. I wonder how Salt ‘N Pepa reacted to that news? Or indeed, as Nicky Campbell correctly advises, the song’s writer Hurby Luv Bug? Didn’t he have a brother called Starski?

“Let’s Talk About Sex” peaked at No 2.

Utah Saints, U-U-U-Utah Saints now with their debut hit “What Can You Do For Me”. As with Brothers In Rhythm at the top of the show, this lot would possibly become more famous for their work remixing other artists including Blondie, The Human League, Simple Minds, James, and Annie Lennox than as chart stars themselves though they did score three consecutive Top 10 hits between ’91 and ’93. Hang on, it says here (wikipedia) that they also remixed The Osmonds? The Osmonds? I noted in a previous post that their name was nothing to do with the toothy 70s boy band who hailed from Ogden, Utah but was inspired by the Coen Brothers film Raising Arizona. However, now it seems there was a connection after all. Look:

My God! I also mentioned “Crazy Horses” the other week when talking about Julian Lennon’s “Salt-water” as other songs that had an eco-message. Weird how seemingly random things just fall into place t providing connections and continuity sometimes. And talking of continuity and connections, a nice little segue from Campbell when he says at the end of the track “Oh yes, and I’ll tell you that’s just a sample of what they can do”. See what he did there?

Prince is the next act but wait a minute….it’s with his single “Cream”. What happened to “Gett Off”?

*checks chart rundown*

It’s still at No 11! He was literally on the show just three weeks ago promoting one single and now he’s already onto the next release! Prince has done a Bryan Adams!

I have to say that I much preferred “Cream” to “Gett Off ” at the time. It was funky, slinky and of course, with it being Prince, had an element of smut about it in the lyrics (‘You got the horn so why don’t you blow it’). What I hadn’t noticed until now but having read up on it, this is true – it’s an homage to “Get It On” by T-Rex. Not just the sound of it but also in the little messages he puts in the words like using the phrase ‘filthy-cute’ bringing to mind Bolan’s ‘dirty-sweet’ lyric. “Gett Off” as a song title would surely have been a better tribute to “Get It On” though although in the US it was renamed as “Bang a Gong (Get It On)”. The title he used (“Cream”) sounds like he’s channelling Grease rather than Bolan:

Greased lightnin’, go, greased lightnin’
You are supreme, the chicks’ll cream, for greased lightnin’

Three weeks after “Cream” was released, the “Diamonds And Pearls” album came out which was the first under the new moniker of Prince And The New Power Generation. Initial copies of the album came with a holographic cover which prompted a rush from fans to procure a copy as reorders came with a much more standard cover. I recall that the HMV shop across the road from the Our Price in Manchester where I was working at the time always seemed to be able to get more copies of the holographic cover than us leading to a few lost sales. Bah!

“Cream” peaked at No 15 in the UK but was a No 1 song (Prince’s final one) in the US.

Oceanic are still riding high in the charts with “Insanity” having now made it to No 4 – the clue to their chart position is in the tops the band are wearing! Talking of which, clearly in 1991 if you were a female vocalist fronting a huge dance anthem, the thing to do when performing on TOTP was to take your top off. After Rozalla pulled off (literally) this trick the other week, Oceanic singer Jorinde Williams does the very same here to much applause from the studio audience (and presumably much internal cheering from the TOTP camera man that week). Not sure if that sort of carry on would be acceptable these days!

It’s the inescapable Bryan Adams next but it’s not that single. No, it’s the follow up “Can’t Stop That Thing We’ve Started” whose five weeks on the Top 40 would come and go while “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” was still at No 1. Quite extraordinary. Incredibly, the follow up to the follow up (a single called “There Will Never Be Another Tonight” being the third single from Adams’ “Waking Up The Neighbours” album) was released whilst EIDIDIFY was still in the charts!

As well as being a better song than its predecessor, the video for “Can’t Stop That Thing We’ve Started” was also infinitely better despite not having access to all those clips from a Hollywood blockbuster movie. I particularly liked the bucking bronco in the shape of a guitar scene. Not sure what that says about me to be honest but there you go.

“Can’t Stop That Thing We’ve Started” peaked at No 12.

Aha! Some clear evidence of thinking having gone into the running order from the TOTP producers here as we go from “Can’t Stop That Thing We’ve Started” to “Something Got Me Started” which was the new single from Simply Red who we haven’t seen on the show this decade until now. However, Hucknall and co would make up for lost time in a gigantic way with the release of their fourth album “Stars” from which “Something Got Me Started” was the lead single. As Nicky Campbell correctly pointed out, their last album “A New Flame” sold 6 million copies worldwide but “Stars” would top even that by selling NINE million copies around the world (most of which it felt like I personally sold to punters in Xmas 1991 in the Market Street, Manchester Our Price store).

Despite his undeniable global appeal, Mick Hucknall remains more divisive than Brexit when it comes to music fans opinions of him. My friend Robin hates him so much that in a game of ‘if you could change history, who would you go back and eliminate so they’d never been born?” down the pub one night, poor old Mick was second only to Hitler I think for Robin. Indeed, look at these tweets from when this BBC4 TOTP repeat aired the other week as to how he splits opinion:

I couldn’t stand “Something Got Me Started” at the time but listening now, I seem to have mellowed to it a bit (where’s that thermometer? I must have a fever!). I recall sitting in my work colleague Knoxy’s car just before the release of “Stars” waiting for him to finish his Sunday morning football match before he was driving us off to another game we were playing in for an Our Price team against a team of record company reps at Preston North End’s ground. Whilst I waited for Knoxy, I was listening to Radio 1 in the car and Hucknall was on (presumably doing the promotion rounds for the album’s release) and they were doing a phone in with him. One guy called in and said he’d just bought “Something Got Me Started” the day before. The single was going down the charts by then and the album was out the next day and I recall thinking why didn’t you just wait two days and buy the album. My next thought was ‘if you were that much of a fan to be bothered to ring in into speak to Hucknall, why hadn’t you already bought the single when it was first released?’ Simply Red fans, not up there with Numanoids, but a strange breed all the same.

Making a drama out of a pop song (to paraphrase Nicky Campbell’s intro) come Erasure with “Love To Hate You”. Vince and Andy could do no wrong at this point it seemed. The second single to be released from their forthcoming album “Chorus” that would go to No 1, this single would peak at No 4 after the title track lead single had gone to No 3. These were big numbers (well they’re not they’re small but you know what I mean) and within nine months they would have their first (and only) No 1 single with the “Abba-esque” EP.

“Love To Hate You” would display the duo’s love of another huge 70s star as it borrows heavily from Gloria Gaynor’s disco classic “I Will Survive”. The video for it also owes a debt to another artist it seems to me with a performance of the song to a captivated crowd doing overhead claps and Andy in leather trousers and a red skin tight top mirroring Queen’s “Radio Ga Ga” and Freddie Mercury (sort of).

Nine years on from this, another huge star would base a song around “I Will Survive”. Here’s Robbie Williams…

Yet another single from this era that I can’t remember – the curse of never being one of the cool kids working on the singles counter in the basement of my Our Price store strikes again. Possibly the least successful of the trinity of Stourbridge indie bands after The Wonder Stuff and Pop Will Eat Itself, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin nevertheless had a loyal fanbase and showed the power of having a major label and distribution behind them when, after failing to make the Top 40 whilst on indie label Chapter 22 Records, suddenly scored two chart hits on the bounce in 1991 after signing to Sony.

“Trust” was the second of those hits and this must have passed me by completely as I’m sure I would have remembered a video based around the set of The Banana Splits. I loved that show growing up. Basically the Monkees but with the four bands members dressed in animal character costumes and added cartoons, what was not to love? My favourite was Drooper who was the Mike Nesmith of the gang (he was my fave Monkee too) whilst my fave cartoon was probably Arabian Knights. Then of course, there was the show’s theme song “The Tra La La Song (One Banana, Two Banana)” which The Dickies took into the UK Top 10 in 1978.

Just like The Monkees, The Banana Splits also released proper records some of which were quite out there. Here’s “I’m Gonna Find A Cave” which sounds like Spencer Davis Group or The Animals to me but was actually an old 60s soul song originally recorded by Charlie Starr but which has been covered many times since.

What? The ‘Neds? Oh, well “Trust” became a No 21 hit for them but it sounds very Wedding Present to me.

Three Breakers this week starting with Bros….really? Three years after they were a teen sensation stopping traffic in London with their PAs, they could still muster a Top 40 hit? Apparently so although “Try” would be their last ever visit to our charts. The second single from their third album “Changing Faces” album, it’s actually very far removed from the likes of “When Will I Be Famous?”. There’s a definite Michael Jackson “Bad” era vibe to it with a gospel tinge thrown in for good measure. If they were going for a more mature sound and audience, then it worked. They didn’t appear on the front cover of Smash Hits once in 1991 (when even the likes of Philip Schofield managed it) and having already been dethroned in the teen hero stakes by New Kids On The Block, the deadly threat of Take That was on the move, lurking in the shadows of the lower reaches of the charts. Their day was done…until that 2018 documentary of course.

A quite horrible dance remix of a 70s classic now but instead of being by some faceless DJ hidden behind a mix desk, it’s actually by the original artists (well sort of). “Nutbush City Limits” had been a hit for Ike and Tina Turner in 1973 reaching No 4 but it was recycled as being a solo Tina Turner track for her “Simply The Best” collection as “Nutbush City Limits (The 90s Version)”. Produced by Chris “C. J.” Mackintosh and Dave Dorrell, this danced up version was horrendous, totally ruining the raw energy of the original. However, it did its job of promoting “Simply The Best” which went eight times platinum in the UK alone peaking at No 2. Mind you, this was Tina’s first official Best Of album so it was probably going to be a big seller anyway without the farce that was “Nutbush City Limits (The 90s Version)”.

Nutbush was of course Tina’s hometown in Haywood County, Tennessee. Apparently, it does not have official city limits; rather, its general boundaries are described by signs reading “Nutbush, Unincorporated” on account of it being an unincorporated rural community. “Nutbush Unincorporated” sounds stupid as a song title though with the only song that I can think of coming anywhere near to shoe-horning ‘unincorporated’ into a song lyric being the theme tune to Laverne And Shirley. Altogether now “Schlemiel! Schlimazel! Hasenpfeffer Incorporated!”…

From one old single prompting a Greatest Hits Collection to another. 1991 had seen REM go truly global with the success of the “Out Of Time” album, their second for Warner Bros and seventh overall. Just like any on the ball record company will always do, their previous label I.R.S. Records decided to cash in on the band’s early catalogue which they owned by re-releasing tracks under the umbrella of a collection album called unimaginatively “The Best Of R.E.M.”. The track listing included three songs from each of the band’s first five studio albums and one song from “Chronic Town”, their first EP, making a total of sixteen. One of these was “The One I Love” from fifth album “Document” which had originally been released in 1987 becoming a Top 10 hit in the US but not making the Top 40 over here. However, it was chosen to spearhead the promotional campaign for “The Best Of R.E.M.” and did a decent job when it peaked at No 16 whilst the album went gold in the UK.

A truly great track, it’s not the love song though that many might have taken it for judging by its title with it actually being about using people. I guess the giveaway is the line ‘A simple prop to occupy my time’.

It’s week 11 of 16 for Bryan Adams and “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You”. There’s a bit in the video where a clip from the film has Maid Marian screaming “Robin!!” as Mr Hood risks his life in some daring deed and every time (and I mean every time!) I have ever seen it, it always makes me think of my friend, the aforementioned Robin. More precisely it makes me think “what is she screaming over Robin for?”. Weird how your brain works sometimes.

And so it’s Nicky Campbell’s turn to bow out from presenting TOTP for at least a couple of years. He ends with a simple “I’ll see you very, very soon” and a final quip about how much closing act Julian Lennon looks like his father John when he pretends to get them mixed up (so not a fluffing of lines at all).

As for Julian, “Saltwater” is at No 29 on its way to an eventual high of No 6. Around this time, he did an instore PA at the HMV on Market St, Manchester, just up the road from where I was working at Our Price. It was to promote the single and the release of its parent album “Help Yourself”. As it coincided with my lunch hour, I decided to have a mooch up there and spy a glimpse of the son of a Beatle thinking 30 mins for an instore PA performance would leave me a good half an hour to eat my lunch. Julian turned up so late that it took up all my allotted break and I went back to work hungry. This exchange at the end of A Hard Day’s Night between Norman Rossington who payed The Beatles manager Norm and John Lennon pretty much sums up my feelings that lunch hour:

Norm: Now listen, I’ve got one thing I’m gonna say to you Lennon!

John: What’s that?

Norm: [in a Liverpudlian accent] You’re a swine

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Brothers In Rhythm	Such A Good Feeling	Nah
2	Salt ‘N Pepa	Let’s Talk About Sex	I didn’t – neither buy it nor talk about sex
3	Utah Saints	What Can You Do For Me	Liked it, didn’t buy it
4	Prince	Cream	No but I must have it on something
5	Oceanic	Insanity	See 3 above
6	Bryan Adams	Can’t Stop That Thing We’ve Started	I did not
7	Simply Red	Something Got Me Started	…but it wasn’t this song – no
8	Erasure	Love To Hate You	Not the single but I bought their 1992 Best Of with it on
9	Ned’s Atomic Dustbin	Trust	No
10	Bros	Try	Negative
11	Tina Turner	Nutbush City Limits (The 90s Version)	Hell no
12	REM	The One I Love	See 4 above
13	Bryan Adams	(Everything I Do) I Do It for You	Nope
14	Julian Lennon	Saltwater	After the instore PA farce? Not likely!

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/m0010b3k/top-of-the-pops-19091991

TOTP 15 AUG 1991

Posted on September 26, 2021 by 80stastic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Actor	Character	Single	Year	Chart peak	Was it any cop?
Anita Dobson	Angie Watts	Anyone Can Fall In Love	1986	No 4	Indescribably bad track set to Eastenders theme tune
Nick Berry	Wicksy	Every Loser Wins	1986	No 1	Painful piano weepy
Letitia Dean and Paul Medford	Sharon Watts and Kelvin Carpenter	Something Outa Nothing	1986	No 12	Clunky, mechanical pop. Dreadful
Tom Watt	Lofty	Subterranean Homesick Blues	1986	Did not chart	Astonishingly bad Dylan cover
Peter Dean	Pete Beale	Can’t Get a Ticket (For the World Cup)	1986	Did not chart	World Cup tie in “song” that couldn’t get any sales for obvious reasons
Sophie Lawrence	Diane Butcher	Love’s Unkind	1991	No 21	Passable Donna Summer cover
Michelle Gayle*	Hattie Tavernier	Sweetness	1994	No 4	Credible and catchy pop
Sean Maguire*	Aidan Brosnan	Good Day	1996	No 12	Breezy but nasty cliche of a song
Martine McCutcheon*	Tiffany Mitchell	Perfect Moment	1999	No 1	Surprisingly classy sounding big ballad
Sid Owen	Ricky Butcher	Good Thing Going	2000	No 14	Sugar Minott cover designed to make him the next Peter Andre. The mind boggles

* Biggest of a number of hits

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Summertime” peaked at No 8.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I did it because he did it.”

Oh.

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

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

*checks notes*

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

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

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

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

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

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

*checks YouTube*

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

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

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

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

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

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

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Level 42	Guaranteed	I did not and that’s a guarantee
2	Color Me Badd	All 4 Love	Of course not
3	Sophie Lawrence	Love’s Unkind	Nope
4	Bomb The Bass	Winter In July	Negative
5	PM Dawn	Set Adrift On Memory Bliss	Yes I bought the cassette single but I don’t know where it is now
6	Voice Of The Beehive	Monsters And Angels	Liked it, didn’t buy it
7	DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince	Summertime	Nah
8	Right Said Fred	I’m Too Sexy	A definite no
9	Midge Ure	Cold Cold Heart	Negative
10	Karyn White	Romantic	Never happening
11	REM	Near Wild Heaven	It’s a no
12	Bryan Adams	“(Everything I Do) I Do It For You”	I didn’t
13	Michael Bolton	Time, Love And Tenderness	Hell 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/m000znwp/top-of-the-pops-15081991

TOTP 06 JUN 1991

Posted on August 11, 2021 by 80stastic

When I started out reviewing all these TOTP shows beginning with the 1983 repeats, quite often a show would not be re-broadcast due to the consequences of Operation Yewtree. As the old brigade of presenters began to be weeded out, the unacceptable elements we’re also part of the cull and so the shows that were omitted from the BBC4 schedules began to get less and less. As we pushed on into the 90s, every single TOTP was shown again….until now. Yes, we are missing out the 30 May 1991 edition but it’s nothing to do with any forces of darkness. This is the first episode not to be repeated since 23 June 1988 and the reason is…well, it could be a couple of things. Firstly, the quality of the existing video isn’t up to broadcast standards or secondly, and this is the theory that Twitter seems to suggest was the true reason, oh I’ll let @TOTPFacts fill you in:

This will be due to ongoing licensing issues re: using The Doors' catalogue on TV. (The video for "Light My Fire" plays over the end credits, making it hard to edit out) #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) July 30, 2021

The Doors?! You might well wonder why they were on a TOTP in 1991 and it was nothing to do with an advert this time. No, it was all to do with the Oliver Stone Doors biopic that was released that year starring Val Kilmer. As part of the film’s promotion, a soundtrack album was released (featuring the original versions of the songs and not Kilmer’s vocals which were used in the actual film) and “Light My Fire” was re-released as a single to publicise it. OK, so that explains why Jim and co were back in the charts in 1991 but why can’t the BBC broadcast a show that includes their music 30 year later? It’s because The Doors and their estate have withdrawn from the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society (MCPS), no longer wishing to accept the society’s licensing agreements. This means that the BBC would have to negotiate a deal directly with the artist to play their music and as the corporation is sticking with its policy of single blanket collective licensing, that rules out The Doors from any BBC playlists. The Doors aren’t the only artists to have left the MCPS – Neil Young, Bonnie Raitt and Journey have also done so. I’ll leave you to make up your own minds as to whether this is a good or bad thing.

So are we finished with the whole Doors thing now? Not quite. In orders to maximise the revived interest in the band’s music, their record company Warners withdrew all their back catalogue from sale, presumably to force punters to buy the soundtrack album. Then, when the fuss surrounding the film had died down, they made them available again. Great for Warners, not so good for those of us working in record shops trying to explain tis marketing strategy to customers. Off the back of this comes one of my claims to fame. I indeed did have to explain this to none other than the Rochdale Cowboy himself Mike Harding. Yes, the singer, songwriter and comedian who seemed to be on the TV all the time when I was growing up came in to buy some Doors albums but was dismayed by our poor stockholding. Luckily for Mike, we still had a one copy left of the 1985 Doors Best Of (the double CD with the iconic ‘Lizard King’ photo of Jim on the front cover) so I sold him that instead of the soundtrack album as it was more comprehensive (as I recall the latter didn’t have “Hello, I Love You” on it).

As for the film itself, I wasn’t sure about it when iI first saw it at the cinema. It was 2 hours and 21 mins long for a start (which was very long for a film back then). They even had an intermission in the screening I was at cutting the film into two parts. I watched it again a couple of years ago and found it more likeable.

Anyway, the upshot of all this is a non repeated TOTP. Fortunately, the whole show is on YouTube if you really need to see it but I am already behind in may reviews so I’ll be given that one a miss. For the record, these are the artists that were featured:

Technotronic
MC Hammer
Pop Will Eat Itself
Sonia
Kraftwerk
Siouxie and the Banshees
Amy Grant
Kylie Minogue
Cher
The Doors

If you’re annoyed about missing out on seeing any of the names listed above, take solace in the fact that you have also missed out on having to endure Anthea Turner presenting and get this….it was her last ever TOTP appearance! Hurray!

The decision to axe Anthea would be the tip of the iceberg in terms of changes to the show in 1991. The ‘year zero’ revamp was coming but before then even, some changes were afoot. We’ve already had the truncated chart rundown which doesn’t include records going down, the compressed Breakers section with up to five acts concertinaed into under a minute and a half and now another change that would have been heresy back in the programme’s 80s heyday. A record that isn’t even in the Top 40 opening the show! Apparently this was a regular practice in the 70s but since 1980 the criteria for appearing on the show had been inflexible one of which was your record had to be in the Top 40. Suddenly though, in June 1991, that didn’t matter as here were Northside with a very clear graphic announcing that their single “Take 5” was at No 41 in the charts. None of this made any sense. Even host Mark Goodier doesn’t seem to have got the policy change memo as he says in his intro…

“Good evening and welcome to TOTP featuring the world’s most exciting chart – the BBC UK Top 40”

…and then he introduces an act whose single is outside of that ‘most exciting chart’. Just weird. Who knows what negotiations and deals went down behind closed doors to make this happen but it didn’t really do Northside much good as the single would only rise one place in next week’s chart before falling away completely. At least they could say it was a bona fide Top 40 hit I guess. Of course, the band already one of these to their name as “My Rising Star” had made it all the way to the giddy heights of No 32 the previous year.

The band were part of the Factory Records roster of artists and did indeed hail from Manchester (Moston to be precise) and I remember there being some fuss about them when their only album “Chicken Rhythms” was released later in June. It did quite well as I recall (Wikipedia tells me it got to No 19 in the album chart) whilst “Take 5” was a pretty funky tune to be fair. I like that, despite the privilege of being on TOTP without a Top 40 hit, the band had a dress down Thursday approach to being on TOTP in their choice of outfits. On the other end of the spectrum and also on this show were Marillion and that led to this little Twitter spat when the repeat went out on BBC4:

Always the professionals you know…and who are Northside?😄#totp #marillion
— Marillion (@MarillionOnline) July 30, 2021

Come on lads. Play nicely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHfcQm-VPh8

Oh, by the way, before we get any further, this TOTP was originally broadcast on my 23rd birthday so Happy Birthday to me! I am now 53. This can’t be right surely? Something else which wasn’t right was the fact that rather than doing all his links in and amongst the studio audience, for some of them (those for promo videos and not studio performances) Mark Goodier seems to have been green screened! In this intro to “Jealousy” by Pet Shop Boys he does it against a backdrop of Neil and Chris before being zapped off screen Star Trek like. Not another new innovation?

This was the fourth and final single to be released from the duo’s album “Behaviour” and for me was the best at the time (I may have been swayed by “Being Boring” in later life though). A huge, sweeping, epic ballad with an orchestral outro which was perfectly at odds with Tennant’s dead pan vocals, it should have been a much bigger hit than its No 12 peak. Maybe if it hadn’t been the last track to be released as a single? Apparently it was the first proper song that Neil and Chris wrote together but they waited for years before recording it for an album as they wanted Ennio Morricone to score the orchestral part but they had to settle for Harold “Axel F” Faltermeyer in the end.

I seem to recall there was a guy working at our shop around this time who was going through some relationship problems with his boyfriend and who would play this track a lot on the store stereo. I’m not sure that helped to be honest.

The aforementioned Marillion next though it was a Fish-less version of the band by now. “Cover My Eyes (Pain and Heaven)” was the lead single from their sixth studio album “Holidays In Eden” and guess what? It wasn’t in the Top 40 at the time either! Yes, like Northside earlier, the TOTP producers gave the band a slot anyway. What was going on?! Makes their snarky tweet about who were Northside seem a bit lacking in credibility seeing as they were benefitting from an unusual TOTP appearance just like them. And they were even further down the charts at No 42 that week. In fairness, it did make it all the way to No 34 in the end but even so.

So who was it that took over from Fish? Well it was Steve Hogarth of course though I had to do a double take to make sure that wasn’t cockney comedian Micky Flannagan up there at first. As for the song, I don’t remember it at all but that’s hardly surprising as it meanders along going nowhere for its entire length.

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

Goodier is back with his Star Trek transported trick again next as he introduces Salt ‘N’ Pepa with “Do You Want Me”. His intro is not quite factually correct though:

“Do you remember the 1988 hit “Push It” by Salt ‘N’ Pepa. Well in fact they haven’t really been in the charts for about three years now they’re back though…”

Well actually Mark, since “Push It” they’d had three Top 40 hits the last of which was “Expression” in April 1990 so not really three years then. OK, “Expression” only just sneaked in at No 40 but as we have seen tonight, you could get on TOTP with less of a hit in 1991.

“Do You Want Me” would go all the way to No 5 but I have to say I don’t really remember it. If I think about Salt ‘N’ Pepa and 1991, the only single that comes to mind is “Let’s Talk About Sex” which was a No 2 hit later in the year. Both tracks were from their “Blacks’ Magic” album which despite the success of its singles was largely ignored in the UK. That was largely due to the fact that their record label released a Greatest Hits album in October which was a healthy seller peaking at No 6.

Another Madonna re-release next as, off the back of her whopper of a seller Best Of album “The Immaculate Collection”, “Holiday” was back in the charts. Unbelievably, this was the third time the song had been a hit in the UK! Originally it made No 6 in 1984, then No 2 when re-released in 1985 (kept off the top by her own “Into The Groove” single) and finally in 1991 when it peaked at No 5. So, at the risk of sounding like Craig David, does that make the 1991 entry a re-re-release?

Look, I’ll have covered this song twice before in my 80s blog (https://80spop.wordpress.com) so I don’t propose to spend too long on this one but I have to say I don’t really understand why record buyers would have forked out for this one for a third time especially as so many people had already bough the “The Immaculate Collection” album with it on over Xmas. Was it a rare mix of it? Or were there loads of Madonna completists out there? Or could it have been for this reason courtesy of @TOTPFacts:

This third issue of "Holiday" was released to tie-in with compilation "The Immaculate Collection". As well as the 7" you could also buy CD EP "The Holiday Collection", which included 3 Madonna hits left off the LP: "True Blue". "Who's That Girl" and "Causing A Commotion". #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) July 30, 2021

You’d have to be a real obsessive super fan to buy it just for that though surely?

It’s that nice Kenny Thomas now with his second and biggest ever hit “Thinking About Your Love”. I’ve said in previous posts that back in 1991, I really had a problem with Kenny and it seems irrational to me now. Yes, I thought this music was a bit on the bland side but there have been loads of artists down the years that have fallen on deaf ears with me and I didn’t despise them nearly as much as I did Kenny. From what I can make out he seems a thoroughly decent chap as well but boy did he get up my nose back then. Let me watch this performance again and see if it triggers some of those feelings of loathing…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V1jT84kmV0

…nope. Nothing there to cause such an extreme reaction in me. His backing vocalist looks a bit like TV presenter June Sarpong. Can’t be can it?

“Thinking About Your Love” peaked at No 4.

Some Breakers now starting with the first of two bands on tonight with the US spelling of the word ‘colour’ in their name. “Solace Of You” by Living Color is another one I don’t recall but listening to it now, it has a world music feel to it and a different sound altogether to hear previous hit “Love Rears Its Ugly Head”. Sort of like Paul Simon meets Eagle-Eye Cherry? Maybe not. Presumably they had to make do with a Breakers slot on the show rather than a studio performance despite being 1 and 2 places higher in the charts than Northside and Marillion respectively due to their touring commitments that Mark Goodier outlines. They had the last laugh though as “Solace Of You” was a bigger hit than either “Take 5” or “Cover My Eyes (Pain and Heaven)” when it peaked at No 33.

Another Gloria Estefan single! Wasn’t she just on the other week with a song called “Seal Our Fate”? Well, she’s back again with another track from her “Into The Light” album called “Remember Me With Love”. I really couldn’t tell you how this one went and even after watching it on this TOTP I can’t as the clip cuts off before she’s even got to the chorus! This compressed Breakers section really was pointless, talking of which this single would surely be a jackpot winning answer on Pointless if the subject was Gloria Estefan Singles.

“Remember Me with Love” peaked at No 22.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHxzmUTE0d0

While Michael Bublé was learning to shave, Harry Connick Jr was the guy being talked of as the natural successor to Frank Sinatra in the crooning stakes. He came to global recognition back in 1990 when his album “We Are In Love” tore down the traditional musical genre walls and became a mainstream hit despite essentially being a jazz album. My wife was quite taken with him at the time and had that album. Around the same time he had recorded the music for the Billy Crystal /Meg Ryan film When Harry Met Sally from which this single “It Had To Be You” was taken. The soundtrack album was a also a massive success and earned Connick a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Male Vocal Performance.

There was such a rush of material from Harry at this time that it all got a bit confusing. In September of 1991 he released “Blue Light, Red Light” which was a big band album and was also a sizeable success whilst he also contributed a song to the soundtrack of The Godfather Part III. The albums kept on coming with one released every year throughout the 90s pretty much although that initial buzz about him was never really recovered. Effortlessly cool, Connick Jr ran a career in acting parallel to his music making appearing in more than 20 films but I think I liked him best as tail gunner Clay in Memphis Belle. Eat your heart out Bublé.

Innuendo songs – it’s a niche genre but it does exist. I’m thinking “Love Resurrection”. by Alison Moyet and of course “Turning Japanese” by The Vapours but perhaps the biggest of them all was “I Touch Myself” by Divinyls (as with Eurythmics, there was no ‘The’). Largely unknown outside of their native Australia (where they were a much bigger deal), their only song to make any inroads anywhere else in the world was their homage to masturbation. It was written by Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg who had form when it came to provocative pop songs – they also wrote “Like A Virgin” for Madonna.

I thought this was a great pop song. Immediately catchy but also having an angle with a great vocal delivery from Christina Amphlett. One of the best one hit wonders of the decade. Sadly Christina died in 2013 of breast cancer but her legacy lived on with the founding of the I Touch Myself Project which was created in her honour with a mission to create educational forums to remind women to check their breasts regularly.

“I Touch Myself” peaked at No 10 in the UK and No 4 in the US.

Ah, the very wonderful Kirsty MacColl is back in the charts. Last seen exactly two years prior to this with her version of “Days” by The Kinks, this would turn out to be her last ever Top 40 hit if you discount all of the re-releases of “Fairytale of New York”. Her lack of chart success remains a mystery and travesty. “Walking Down Madison” was the lead single from her “Electric Landlady” album (see what she did there?) and was seen as a change in direction for Kirsty with its hip/hop feel and extensive use of rapping in it. The guitar part in it reminds me of Happy Mondays and that influence would make sense as Kirsty supplied backing vocals for their hit “Hallelujah”. However, it was actually written by Johnny Marr and was one of the first songs that he wrote after the break up of The Smiths. Despite the multitude on stage here with Kirsty, I don’t think Johnny was one of them but is that Roland Rivron on bongos?

When Kirsty died in 2001, I was on a Xmas night out from work and recall seeing her face on the news on a TV screen in an electrical shop window as I walked past. I remember thinking why is Kirsty MacColl on the news? It was tragic news.

Oh and by the way TOTP graphics team, you spell her surname MacColl not McColl. Show some respect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DhGf_yz2hU

A brand new No 1! Cher has finally gone after what seems like ages (mind you if we thought her time at the top was a long one, watch out for Bryan Adams in a few weeks time!). The ‘Badd’ news is that it’s been replaced by that horrible “I Wanna Sex You Up” song by Color Me Badd.

The other week I commented on the fact that two of the guys in the band looked like George Michael and Kenny G. I wasn’t the only one. Here’s Beavis and Butthead making the same connection (maybe I was just regurgitating their take on it subliminally) and they’ve added another name too…

The play out video is “Shiny Happy People” by REM again. I think it’s the third time it’s been on the show and it’s that level of overkill that quickly turned a lot of people off it. I was one of them. Parent album “Out Of Time” was played to death in the Our Price I worked in and “Shiny Happy People” was never off the radio. It became one of those songs that you couldn’t listen to any more after having already reached saturation point. Other songs that triggered me like this would be “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen and “Tainted Love” by Soft Cell (which was also back in the charts in 1991!). Even the band themselves tired of it quickly and avoided playing it live whilst it was not included in the track listing for their 2003 Warner Brothers greatest hits “In Time: The Best Of REM”.

It’s not that REM were always suffering for their art with sombre, melancholic songs though. “Stand” from 1989’s “Green” album is a great pop tune full of hooks whilst 1986’s “Fall On Me” has a wonderful pop structure and melody. And yet somehow, for many of us, “Shiny Happy People” seemed to cross a line. Maybe it’s due a bit of a revisit.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZc5aZud8qk

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Northside	Take 5	No but a pretty nifty tune all the same
2	Pet Shop Boys	Jealousy	No but it’s on my Pop Art Best Of CD of theirs
3	Marillion	Cover My Eyes (Pain and Heaven)	Cover My Ears (Pain and Hell) more like – no
4	Salt ‘N’ Pepa	Do You Want Me	Nope
5	Madonna	Holiday	No but it’s on my Immaculate Collection CD
6	Kenny Thomas	Thinking About You	No
7	Living Color	Solace Of You	Negative
8	Gloria Estefan	Remember Me With Love	Uh-uh
9	Harry Connick Jr	It Had To Be You	No but my wife had his We Are In Love album
10	Divinyls	I Touch Myself	No but I easily could have done
11	Kirsty MacColl	Walking Down Madison	This one is on the singles box though I think my wife bought it
12	Color Me Badd	I Wanna Sex You Up	Away with you!
13	REM	Shiny Happy People	Nah

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/m000y8wx/top-of-the-pops-06061991

TOTP 23 MAY 1991

Posted on August 6, 2021 by 80stastic

To say we were still in the grip of dance music in mid 1991, this particular TOTP seems to be pretty conventional indeed featuring some very established acts, a couple of previously indie bands plotting a course for the mainstream with a more commercial sound and a new name but very much in the traditional singer-songwriter mould. There’s only two acts that would have qualified as dance music and one of them was Color Me Badd so I’m not sure they count.

Gary ‘Safe Pair of Hands’ Davies is the host and we start with a band desperately trying to convince us that they were still relevant in the new decade despite having made their fame and fortune very much as an 80s group. T’Pau hadn’t released an album for nearly three years by this point. Could they really roll back the clock and reclaim their former glories with a new one called “The Promise”? It seemed like a big ask at the time and so it would prove to be. The first taster of the songs they had been working on was lead single “Whenever You Need Me” and it offered very little in terms of a new musical direction. In short, they hadn’t developed their sound at all. Sure, it chugged along like a good ‘un in a power ballad by numbers fashion but it felt like the band had just decided to play it safe. They call it a ‘lay up’ shot in golf.

Reaction to the band’s return was mixed at best and awful at worst. Adam Sweeting of The Guardian had this to say about the album:

This melodramatic and syrupy concoction would comfortably have earned the band the Barbara Dickson slot on The Two Ronnies. Consider the first single, “Whenever You Need Me”, a Eurovision fourth-placer if ever there was one. Here, as elsewhere, Carol Decker’s masonry-toppling vocals are piled up in layers like a particularly indigestible aural lasagne

Ouch! Carol Decker still looked great and delivered the song as best she could but the rest of the band seemed to have decided that they were, in fact, serious rockers and not faded pop stars after all as they have all sprouted long hair. One of them really looks like ex- Duran Duran guitarist Andy Taylor. It isn’t but Andy’s shaggy locks look had clearly influenced him. I hope he had a good time up there on stage because I’m pretty sure this was T’Pau’s final ever TOTP appearance.

“Whenever You Need Me” peaked at No 16.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrRh6_ETtwM

OK, we might as well get this one out of the way early. As indicated earlier, Color Me Badd are on the show.

*sighs*

Quite how this lot got to become a record selling phenomenon in 1991 is beyond me. They had a shitty song and as poster boys for the new jack swing genre, they were totally unconvincing. They weren’t even that good looking. At least New Kids On The Block had that on their side (well some of them anyway).

Regardless, “I Wanna Sex You Up” is headed for the top and is up to No 7 already. Apparently, it had already been offered to and turned down by the likes of Bell Biv DeVoe and Keith Sweat. Not quite up there with Decca turning down The Beatles but still a big mistake on there behalves. The track went double platinum in the US and was the 10th best selling single of the year in the UK.

The band are still going to this day (sort of) although the line up has changed a few times. Original members Bryan Abrams and Mark Calderon were still giving it there all on stage as recently as 2018 but unfortunately Abrams gave it a bit too much at this performance in New York….

…I like the Wikipedia description of the incident:

Abrams allegedly screamed, “I’m motherfucking Color Me Badd!” as he pushed Calderon to the floor. Officers stated that alcohol may have been a factor.

‘Alcohol may have been a factor‘ – d’ya think?! Abrams tried to make it up to Calderon at a subsequent gig by apologising via the medium of a T-shirt….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPq0Twivg4Q

Dearie me. These are the actual guys from the band by the way and not a tribute act called Fuller Me Badd.

One of those established acts next as Simple Minds are back in the TOTP studio with latest single “See The Lights” which was the second single from their No 2 platinum selling album ‘Real Life”. Like T’Pau earlier, the band were hardly breaking new ground here. It felt like they were treading water to me. There had been a big line up change around this time as the album was made without keyboardist and original band member Mick MacNeil so maybe the band were trying to show their fans that the show would be going on as usual. More changes were a foot as drummer Mel Gaynor would also depart after this album when the band went on hiatus to reassess their options. The only album they released over the next four years was their first Best Of called “Glittering Prize 81/92”. These were uncertain times.

As with the Cher album “Love Hurts” that I talked about in a recent post, “Real Life” also swapped the cover art during its sales life. The album initially sported the minimalist and arty image on the left below before re-orders came with the shot of the band on the right which was actually the original rear cover – all very confusing. Maybe the band’s management wanted to reinforce the idea that tight were essentially a trio of permanent members now.

“See The Lights” peaked at No 20.

That singer-songwriter is up next and it can only be Beverley Craven of course with her rather affecting ballad “Promise Me”. I’m assuming her off white trouser suit and white piano in this performance are an homage to John Lennon and “Imagine”. I don’t know enough about pianos to be sure whether it is a Steinway like Lennon’s. Somebody who does know about musical instruments though is one of my wife’s best friends who is a classical musician and who, like us, was also living in Manchester in 1991 and around this time she got offered a place as part of the band for Beverley’s tour which I think included European dates. However, she turned the chance down as she had already booked a holiday with her then boyfriend and the dates overlapped. They finished not long after. I think she asked Beverley to “promise me you’ll wait for me” but she didn’t. Ahem. I’ll get my coat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u19v5j5j18

It’s that REM song next. “Shiny Happy People” may sound like a gloriously uplifting breath of fresh air pop breeze but supposedly the story behind it is a lot darker. Written about the Chinese propaganda machine spreading lies about what was really going on in the country post the Tiananmen Square uprising, Michael Stipe became concerned that rather than highlighting the propaganda, the song was actually modelling it with music fans accepting wholesale that it was just a happy, piece of bubble gum pop with no other levels to it. He may have been right.

Off the top of my head, other examples of songs where their sound is at odds with their subject matter would be “Luka” by Suzanne Vega and “Born In The USA” by Bruce Springsteen. I’m sure there are more.

“Shiny Happy People” peaked at No 6.

Impromptu gigs – they have quite the history don’t they. All the way back in the early 60s when those Cliff Richard films like Summer Holiday and The Young Ones always seemed to have a “let’s do the show right here” scene in them through to The Beatles unannounced concert from the rooftop of their Apple Corps headquarters at Savile Row in 1969 and into the 80s with U2 performing on the roof of a liquor store at the corner of 7th St and S. Main St, LA as part of the video shoot for “Where the Streets Have No Name”. Even in 1991, the practice was still alive and well as James played an impromptu gig on the roof of Manchester’s Piccadilly Hotel on 30 January. Add to that list The Wonder Stuff whose video for “Caught In My Shadow” was filmed in the grounds of St Philip’s Cathedral (otherwise known as Pigeon Park), Birmingham. Not quite a pure impromptu event though as the band had to get permission from the local council and the police had to be consulted so news of its happening had been leaked meaning that 200 indie pop kids turned up on 20 April to watch the band perform an acoustic gig.

It looked like it was great fun and that everybody had a good time (except maybe the guy in the orange top whose hands seemed surgically sewn into his pockets). The closest I ever got to an event like that was when I was on holiday in New York in 1998 and me and my mate Robin happened to stumble upon a live outside broadcast for the 1000th Ricki Lake show. I presume there’s some footage out there somewhere of me and Robin peering at the back of a crowd trying to see who everyone there was crowding round. My wife and another friend had gone off in another direction that day and saw Donald Trump coming out of Trump Tower. When we met up with them, they excitedly told us of their day and about Trump but Robin and I felt that we eclipsed then with our Ricki Lake story. I’m not sure we did given everything that has happened since.

“Caught In My Shadow” peaked at No 18.

Like T’Pau earlier, here are another band who made their name in the 80s returning with new material for the new decade. The only release that Deacon Blue had made in the 90s up to this point had been their “Four Bacharach & David Songs” EP and an album of B-sides and unreleased tracks called “Ooh Las Vegas” the previous year. “Your Swaying Arms” was their first new material since their album “When The World Knows Your Name” had, indeed, made their name and brought them huge commercial success.

Unfortunately for the band, the follow up album “Fellow Hoodlums” didn’t do anywhere near the same business as its predecessor (which had knocked Madonna off the top of the charts) and was generally seen as a mis-step. Yes, it did reach No 2 in the charts thanks to a sizeable loyal fanbase but I would wager that only second single “Twist And Shout” is remembered and indeed memorable from this era of the band. “Your Swaying Arms” was a case in point. A nice enough track that lilts along but it didn’t really go anywhere.

Ricky Ross had got himself an edgy, short haircut for this performance and the young man that I was at the time would have been always pleased to see Lorraine McIntosh strutting her stuff. Lorraine and Carol Decker on the same show! I was spoilt that week!

“Your Swaying Arms” peaked at No 23.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjioGexBj1s

After the “Innuendo” and “I’m Going Slightly Mad” singles, “Headlong” was much more of a traditional sounding Queen song. Very much in the style of something like “Hammer To Fall” or “One Vision” but not as accomplished. I don’t think lyrics like ‘Hoop-diddy-diddy, hoop-diddy-do’ did it any favours to be honest. The video was shot in November and December of 1990. Within 12 months Freddie Mercury would be dead having succumbed to AIDS.

His yellow top in the video here conjures up images of him in a similarly coloured jacket whipping up the crowd into a frenzy at Wembley stadium. Meanwhile, we can assume that Brian May, unlike most of the rest of us, did have access to The Simpsons TV show judging by his T-shirt.

“Headlong” peaked at No 14.

Acting as the cheerleader of the established acts on tonight’s show comes Cher who is still at No 1 with “The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s In His Kiss)”, now in its fourth week at the top. I guess it was one of those songs that maybe appealed to people who traditionally didn’t buy much music and maybe only found themselves in a record shop once or twice a year? In today’s political vocabulary, ‘it cut through’.

According to Wikipedia, her follow up single “Love And Understanding” was released this week back in 1991 even as she was still top of the pile with her previous one. Talk about striking while the iron’s hot!

Probably the only true dance act on this TOTP is the play out video. Technotronic had been having hits for a couple of year by this point but the game was nearly up come 1991. “Move That Body” was a Top 20 hit but it would be their final one and the album it was from “Body To Body” peaked at No 27 whilst debut album “Pump Up The Jam” had been a No 2 hit. Quite the contrast. I shan’t mourn their passing I have to say.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2jNjketgPE

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoLS1KXKxIw

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	T’Pau	Whenever You Need Me	Nah
2	Color Me Badd	I Wanna Sex You Up	Are you shitting me?!
3	Simple Minds	See The Lights	Nope
4	Beverley Craven	Promise Me	No but why wife’s friend who turned down the tour with Beverley bought the album just to torture herself some more
5	REM	Shiny Happy People	I did not
6	The Wonder Stuff	Caught In My Shadow	No
7	Deacon Blue	Your Swaying Arms	Negative
8	Queen	Headlong	Another no
9	Cher	The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s In His Kiss)	Yes but it was all an honest mistake!
10	Technotronic	Move That Body	Do you have to ask?

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/m000y8wv/top-of-the-pops-23051991