Savage Garden

TOTP 02 OCT 1998

Posted on by 80stastic

We’ve entered October in these 1998 TOTP repeats meaning that we’re three quarters through the year already. As such, the album release schedules will have been set with an eye on the all important Christmas period. I wonder how many of the artists on this TOTP also had an album to flog and also how well it sold? Our host is Jayne Middlemiss again and we start with Steps with “One For Sorrow”. Despite dropping down the charts from No 7 to No 10, it’s a third appearance on the show for this one because…oh, I’ve no idea anymore and to be honest I’m bored of trying to work out the machinations of the TOTP running order in this era of the show. Or am I just being naive? Was it all about promoting the artist’s album and nothing to do with reflecting the state of the singles chart? Well, let’s look at the factual evidence – did Steps have an album to promote? Yes they did. Their debut “Step One” was in the shops from 14 September so there very much would have been an imperative to advertise it. Maybe it was all as purely cynical as that.

Incidentally, Steps were kept off the No 1 spot in both the singles and album charts in this year by the same artist – Manic Street Preachers. Bizarrely, that chart battle was revived 23 years later when the Manics’ album “The Ultra Vivid Lament” pipped Steps’ “What The Future Holds Pt. 2” to the top spot in 2021. Missing out on a No 1 three times to the same band? It really was a case of “One For Sorrow” for Steps.

Now, this next hit was quite a surprise. Not because the artist behind it was in the charts; as Jayne Middlemiss correctly informs us in her intro, this was the 20th single of their career of which 16 had been UK Top 40 hits. No, it was more its lofty position in the charts. Of those previous 16 hits for The Beautiful South, only five had gone Top 10 (albeit including a No 1). Indeed, their last single release had peaked at No 43 and yet suddenly they were debuting at No 2 with “Perfect 10”. The lead single from their sixth studio album “Quench” (there it is!), it sold 89,000 copies in its first week though it would prove to be the band’s final Top 10 hit. How did this one become such a big hit? The lazy answer would be heavy first week of release discounting but if you check out its chart life, that doesn’t really stack up as it would spend four weeks inside the Top Ten and two and a half months on the Top 40. I’m guessing that it must have been had high levels of consistent airplay but also it was about its sound. Sometimes, The Beautiful South would do reflective, sentimental tracks like “I’ll Sail This Ship Alone”, “Let Love Speak Up Itself”, “Bell Bottomed Tear” and “Blackbird On The Wire” which weren’t always their most successful tunes but they also did little nuggets of perky, breezy pop like “You Keep It All In”, “We Are Each Other”, “Don’t Marry Her” and “How Long’s A Tear Take To Dry?”. It seems to me that these were the songs that, whether by luck or design, got the higher chart positions. “Perfect 10” was definitely in the latter category being one of their finest jaunty pop songs.

Whatever the sonic qualities of the music though, the lyrics were always sharp and incisive and in this case was a biting sexual politics narrative about rejecting the absurdity of ideas about conventional beauty. With a funky rhythm and catchiest of choruses, it’s surely one of their best known and loved songs. As an advert for their sixth studio album “Quench”, it was magnificent and said album duly topped the charts and became the 14th best selling title in the UK for 1998 despite only being released on the 12th October. Incidentally, you can see the original painting of the album’s specially commissioned artwork in Hull (where I live) where it hangs in the Ferens Art Gallery.

It’s happened again – another hit that I have no memory of at all. I’m wondering if by this point, I wasn’t at work in the record shop having been signed off sick with my poor mental health that I wrote about in a recent post. Anyway, the hit in question is “The Way” by Fastball. Jayne Middlemiss describes it as “good old southern-fried entertainment” by which she means…I’m not exactly sure but she clarifies by saying the band are from Austin, Texas. Formed in 1992, this track brought the band their big break by topping the US Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart for seven weeks whilst parent album “All The Pain Money Can Buy” went platinum in America. So how come I’ve never heard of them? Well, the album did nothing over here, they never had another UK chart hit and “The Way” only spent three weeks inside the Top 40. All of which is a shame as “The Way” is rather good, great even. Yes, it’s very derivative with the twangy guitar verses reminiscent of Urge Overkill’s cover of Neil Diamond’s “Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon” whilst the chorus puts me in mind of some of Elvis Costello’s more tuneful moments but a great song is a great song and this one has me hooked. Even its lyrics have an interesting origin story being about the 1997 disappearance of an elderly couple who left their Texan home to visit a nearby festival but were found dead two weeks later at the bottom of a ravine hundreds of miles away from their intended destination. Apparently, the band are still an ongoing entity having last released an album in 2024. I should maybe investigate them further.

Next another act with an album to sell but sadly for Republica, things didn’t work out as well as they did for the artists we’d already seen on this TOTP. Having successfully joined the plethora of female-fronted bands that were around at this time in the charts – I’m thinking Sleeper, Elastica, Echobelly, Garbage etc… – in 1997 with two hit singles and a Top 5 album, Saffron and the lads were quick off the mark with a follow up, so quick in fact that their sophomore album was called “Speed Ballads”. It seemed a sensible strategy – strike while the iron’s hot and all that. However, two obstacles stood in their way to consolidating their initial success. Firstly, their record label Deconstruction folded shortly after the album hit the shops and it never got a full release elsewhere in major territories like America. Secondly, if lead single “From Rush Hour With Love” was any sort of gauge of quality, their new material wasn’t very good. I don’t wish to be mean but it sounds like a jam session in search of a song. Presumably at the end of said session, the band looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders and said “that’ll have to do”. As they trooped out of the rehearsal room, someone might have said “we could spruce it up by giving it a clever title, a pun or something like that. How about “From Rush Hour With Love’?”. I have to admit that I didn’t get the James Bond wordplay immediately perhaps because what Saffron – who seems to be doing her best Toyah impression in this performance – actually sings is ‘From the rush hour with love’. It’s all a bit of a mess. To their credit, Republica are still active to this day albeit after a few hiatuses with an album of new material due for release in 2025.

Sarah McLachlan is one of those names that I was always aware of but whom I knew/know very little of. As such, I was surprised to see her in this TOTP as it had escaped my attention that she’d ever had a UK Top 40 hit. In my defence, “Adia” is the only time she bothered the UK chart compilers despite her very consistent output of material. As ‘The life and times of Sarah McLachlan’ was never going to be my Mastermind subject of choice, I read up a bit about the Canadian singer-songwriter and she sounds like a truly marvellous person. In 1997, she founded the Lilith Fair touring festival to showcase female musicians. In 2002, using funds from Lilith Fair, she founded the Sarah McLachlan Music Outreach program providing music education for inner city children after noticing that music programs were being cut from the school curriculum. Evolving into the Sarah McLachlan School of Music, in the 2024/25 school year, it provided private and group lessons to 1,754 students. Her adverts for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) has helped raise $30 million for the charity whilst she has also appeared at Live 8, a tsunami relief benefit concert and is a member of the Canadian charity Artists Against Racism. A true philanthropist.

Having said all of that, I can’t bring myself to be a fan of this track “Adia”. It’s all a bit overwrought and boy does it go on. When I was watching this, on numerous occasions I thought this must be the end but then Sarah would rev up for yet another lap of the chorus. Clearly, a lot of people disagreed with this analysis though. In America, the single went Top 3 and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance losing out only to Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On”. “Adia”’s parent album “Surfacing” went to No 2 and eight times platinum in the US. Flamin’ ada!

The next artist had an album out the Monday after this TOTP aired and it was that often cited ‘difficult second album’. Having conquered the UK with their debut No 1 album “1977” in…erm…1996, Ash were faced with the dilemma that has plagued many a band before and since, how to come up with a second album under pressure after you’d had your whole life to write the first one. Actually, Ash’s ‘whole life’ didn’t amount to that much time did it when you consider that their debut was named after the year in which the band members were born and that lead singer Tim Wheeler was famously still at school when it was released. Anyway, you get my drift. When faced with the task of crafting songs for a second album, it didn’t help that Wheeler was suffering from a case of writer’s block. Added to that was his desire not just to draft “1977 Pt II” but rather come up with songs with a harder sound that would establish the band as a more serious artist. The addition of guitarist Charlotte Hatherley as a permanent member of the line up proved to be the catalyst for the creation of new material and “Nu-Clear Sounds” was duly released.

Although generally well received by the music press, it failed to do the business its predecessor did, shifting about a third of the units “1977” had. If that was a disappointment to the band and their label, it was also a big let down to record retailers who had been banking on a big seller in the run up to Christmas. In the Our Price chain for whom I was working, an edict came out from Head Office that stores were officially not allowed to sell out of the album – I presume it was some sort of negotiating tactic employed to gain beneficial discounts on the album. Sadly for everyone concerned, we never looked likely to run out of copies of “Nu-Clear Sounds” which is a shame as lead single “Jesus Says” is quite the tune. “Iggy Pop-tastic” is how Jayne Middlemiss describes it and you can see her point. It’s a relentlessly driving, garage rock track the lyrics of which reference the pressures that come with a job promotion and using alcohol to deal with them. Fast forward three years and Ash would release the album “Free All Angels” which would return them to former glories with a handful of hit singles and the No 1 position in the charts. In the era after TOTP had been axed, they made a conscious decision to become a ‘singles band’ embarking on the “A-Z Series”, a series of 26 singles, each represented by a letter of the alphabet and released fortnightly over a 12 month period.

I know I’ve been banging on about this for what seems like ages but this is just nonsense. Why on earth is “To The Moon And Back” by Savage Garden being given another slot in the running order when we first saw it six weeks ago when it debuted at No 3 and since then has recorded chart positions of 4 – 8 – 10 – 10 – 10 and 12? If it had featured on one of those three weeks at No 10 it might have made some sense but to give it a second shot when it’s dropped out of the Top 10?! Perhaps the truth lies in the fact that the duo’s album was residing in the Top 3 at this time some six months after its release and having spent the majority of that time between Nos 41 and 11? Was the murky and mucky business of album promotion at play here again?

It’s another new No 1 (the sixth in six weeks) and it’s from those Irish girls who fight like their da’s. Yes, it’s B*Witched with the follow up to their debut hit “C’est La Vie” and this time they were on a “Rollercoaster”. Two No1s out of two wasn’t unique but it was still a considerable achievement for a new pop act.

I wasn’t sure if I could remember how this one went but it was very familiar when I listened to it but not just because my grey cells were firing into action – there were two extra reasons why it resonated. Firstly, the bridge to the chorus sounds like “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” by The Beatles (no, it does!) and the chorus is very reminiscent of the theme tune to 70s children show Here Come The Double Deckers! I swear down! Anyway, this performance sees the group pull off some of the niftiest dance moves in a confined space in the history of the show. It’s almost exhausting to watch. In fact, one of the Double Deckers characters (Billie) would have been proud of them! And yes, of course B*Witched had an album coming out ten days after this TOTP was broadcast which would go double platinum in the UK.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it
1StepsOne For SorrowNo
2The Beautiful SouthPerfect 10I didn’t
3FastballThe WayNegative
4RepublicaFrom Rush Hour With LoveNope
5Sarah McLachlanAdiaNah
6AshJesus SaysNo but I had their Best Of with it on
7Savage GardenTo The Moon And BackDidn’t happen
8B*WitchedRollercoasterAnd 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/m002m4hl/top-of-the-pops-02101998

TOTP 21 AUG 1998

Posted on by 80stastic

Right, a small explanation as to why I’m so behind with my posts on this blog which has seen me fall of the pace of the BBC4 TOTP repeats schedule. I was on holiday last week and out of the country for a few days during which time I only intermittently managed to write anything and as such I have ended up with four shows to review this week if I’m to catch up. I hate being behind but a family holiday is more important than banging on about the Top 40 from 28 years ago so it is what it is. Right, a bit of housekeeping before we get into it fully. Jamie Theakston is our host and his intro about it being 6.55 and TOTP being on BBC2 was due to BBC1’s coverage of the European Athletics Championships as opposed to some deliberate move to sideline the show. It had, of course, been channel moved before during Euro 96 for example but it wouldn’t take up permanent residence on BBC2 until 2005, a year or so before its ultimate axing.

So to the music and we start with a great song. I used my words carefully there – ‘song’, not ‘single’ and definitely not ‘artist’. “The Air That I Breathe” was one of the first songs I ever knew as a small child as my Dad bought the hit version by The Hollies that made No 2 in 1974 and what a song with which to begin my musical life! A huge, epic track with that massive, soaring guitar and strings in the middle eight – it made a huge impression on the young me and ignited in me a love of The Hollies. This, however, is not that version of the Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood penned song. No, this was the Simply Red version (gulp).

Here’s the kicker though, it’s not as bad as I remembered it. I mean, it’s nowhere near the quality of what is surely the definitive version by The Hollies but Hucknall doesn’t completely butcher it either to my ears. So what gives? Well, apparently there were two versions recorded by Simply Red which is the root of my confusion. There’s this one and another one with the suffix “Reprise” added to it which is a different take on it, sung to a different tune and which, very unwisely and completely inexplicably, incorporates the riff from “Jack And Diane” by John Cougar. That must have been the one I was thinking of.

Both versions were unusually included on parent album “Blue” with the ‘non-reprise’ take also being used in an advert for Sky TV at the time (not sure why Roy Hattersley and his dog were in it!).

They say the mark of a good song is how many times it has been covered and in how many different styles. If that is true, then “Air That I Breathe” is up there in the greatness stakes with it having been recorded by the likes of Olivia Newton John, Julio Iglesias, Semisonic, k.d. lang, Phil Everly and The Mavericks. And that’s not even counting “Creep” by Radiohead the chord sequence of which was so similar that Hammond and Hazlewood had to be given writers credits. Proving its longevity, there’s even a version from as recently as this year by Belinda Carlisle from her “Once Upon A Time In California” album. “The Air That I Breathe”, a song with huge lungs.

From one ‘air’ song to another, sort of. Pop hits based around classical pieces of music were nothing new. Way back in 1967, Procul Harem had a worldwide smash with “A Whiter Shade Of Pale” which used Johann Sebastian Bach’s Air On A G String movement from his Orchestral Suite No 3 In D Major as its basis. In 1985, Sting gave us “Russians” based on Prokofiev’s Lieutenant Kijé and in 1990, The Farm’s “All Together Now” made unashamed use of Pachelbel’s Canon In D Major.

None of those though seemed quite as obvious as the Sweetbox hit “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright”. This German outfit who had plied their trade in the shallow waters of Eurodance previously, decided to switch to hitching their wagon to classical music with a topping of rap. It really was as simple a format as that. The aforementioned Air On A G String was the blueprint for the hit which the non classical music buffs among us would know from the long running series of Hamlet cigar adverts, my favourite of which would be this Columbus themed one featuring Blake 7 actor Paul Darrow…

According to their Wikipedia page, Sweetbox has burned through seven lead singers since forming which must be a record surely? The person on stage here is Tina Harris who was the third of the group’s vocalists (this is starting to get a bit Henry VIII!) and started her music career via her her cousin who is Snap!’s rapper Turbo B (there’s a stroke of luck). He chose Tina’s sister Jackie to mime on promotional activities for their hit “The Power” and that connection earned Tina a place as a dancer in Snap!’s tour and videos. After leaving the Snap! family and spending some time in a couple of Eurodance outfits, Harris was contacted by Sweetbox prime mover Roberto ‘Geo’ Rosan to become their singer and she lent her vocals to their debut eponymous album which became a huge success in Japan. However, in a contractual dispute that made George Michael v Sony look like a playground tiff, Tina tried to renegotiate her contract for the band’s second album with their record label. However, they decided to ditch Harris and replace her with another singer. Not only that but the contract she had signed prevented her from releasing music for eight years! In the end though, everything was alright as she did release her debut album “Sunshine” in 2007. As for Sweetbox, they are still an ongoing entity apparently though they haven’t released anything since 2020.

Two of the first three songs on this show are cover versions as we get Cleopatra comin’ at us with their take on “I Want You Back” by The Jackson 5. It turns out though that their take is almost identical to the original 1970 hit save for Cleo Higgins telling us that it’s 1998 just before the end. Like we didn’t know Cleo. This seemed like a pretty cynical choice of song to record to me and the fact that the girls hardly deviated from the original only convinces me more. Perhaps they were relying on an assumption that their fanbase (whom I’m guessing were very young) wouldn’t know the Jackson 5 original and believe it was the girls’ own work? Even allowing for the fact that it had also been a hit in 1988* as well as 1970, that was still 10 years before the Cleopatra version so maybe?

*A remix titled “I Want You Back ‘88” credited to Michael Jackson with The Jackson 5 peaked at No 8

If it was designed to keep the group’s success rolling, it worked with the single going to No 4. However, aside from their contribution to the ABBA tribute single “Thank ABBA For The Music” the following year, they would never return to the Top 10. Inevitably given the age of the group and their fanbase, the clock was ticking on Cleopatra’s salad days…

P.S. I’ve never seen moves like that on a Twister mat before

Next up are Savage Garden with a textbook display of an established music industry practice. No, not doing a cover version (we’ve had enough of those in this show already) but that of the rerelease. It’s a familiar tale – artist’s early single doesn’t chart but subsequent releases do so said early single is revisited, remixed (sometimes), repackaged and rereleased and becomes much bigger hit second time around. “To The Moon And Back” was originally released in 1997 but stalled at No 55 in the UK. Following the global success of “Truly Madly Deeply” though, it was ripe for another go and debuted at No 3 to become the band’s highest charting single in this country.

Still mining that 80s retro synth pop sound, it didn’t quite have the smooth flow of its predecessor and sounded a bit more laboured to my ears. No, not laboured but like it had spent too long fermenting in the pop song laboratory if that makes sense. Slightly overcooked. What I did like in this performance of the song though was the guy who played electric and Spanish guitar. I’ve seen double fretted guitars before but can’t recall someone playing one guitar whilst having a second one draped around his neck. It’s quite the look.

Now here’s a classic case of an artist being so known for just one hit that it overshadows everything else they ever did, regardless of the quality of those releases. “We’re a band not a song” said 4 Non Blondes singer Linda Perry when it happened to her band but you wouldn’t have blamed Stephen Jones for saying the same thing about Babybird. Back in 1996, “You’re Gorgeous” was everywhere, riding high in the charts and at saturation point on daytime radio. Two years on and despite three follow up, Top 40 charting singles, it felt like it was still the primary association with the band. Those other hits had only achieved relatively minor chart positions which was a shame as they deserved better. It was a similar story with “If You’ll Be Mine”. Spending just two weeks inside the Top 40 and peaking at No 28, no wonder it was quickly forgotten. This acoustic performance displaying its spare and brittle nature should have propelled it up the charts, but no, the record buying public were more interested in homogeneous dance music and so it promptly disappeared. Talking of this performance, I’m not sure why there needed to be the four of them up there on stage. Apart from Stephen Jones on vocals and the guy finger picking on the guitar (who some viewers remarked online that he looked like Eric Bristow) what are the other two blokes doing? The second guitarist hardly seems to play anything whilst the maracas man is surely surplus to requirements?

Sash! didn’t half like what the youth would now call a ‘collab’* didn’t they? Just about everything listed in their singles discography featured another artist ranging from Dr. Alban to Boy George to Boney M and even Sarah Brightman. This hit though – “Mysterious Times” – featured Tina Cousins whom the German DJ/production team would work with again in 2000 on Top 10 hit “Just Around The Hill”.

*Apparently collab is now listed in the Oxford English Dictionary. Is nothing sacred anymore?!

Like Cleopatra earlier, Cousins would feature on that ABBA tribute single and would also have a few hits of her own including “Pray” (No 20) and “Killin’ Time” (No 15). One that didn’t make the Top 40 was “Forever” which peaked at No 46 but, according to Wikipedia, in a chart recount it was shown that it should have been No 38. What?! Back in the day that could have been the difference between a successful career or not. A Top 40 position may have meant a TOTP appearance and in any case would certainly have raised the artist’s profile. Scandalous stuff!

Now when I referred to homogeneous dance music before, I surely wasn’t meaning this next track which would become one of the biggest hits of the year. Stardust was nothing to do with one of my favourite ever films starring David Essex but would turn out to be a one off project involving a member of Daft Punk, a directionless DJ and his mate from boarding school. Having dropped out of university and completed a year of military conscription, Alan Braxe decided to pursue a career in music and a chance meeting with Thomas Bangalter of Daft Punk in a nightclub led to Braxe giving his new acquaintance a demo of a track he had been working on called “Vertigo” which Bangalter released on his own record label. Whilst rehearsing for a performance in a Paris club with a line up completed by Braxe’s friend Benjamin Diamond on vocals, the trio worked up another track called “Music Sounds Better With You” using a looped sample of an old Chaka Khan track called “Fate”. Having recorded the track in Bangalter’s home studio in just six days, it was released (again on his own record label) with demand for it on the continent and especially Ibiza crossing over to the UK resulting in enough sales of the import to qualify for a chart placing of No 55. When eventually licensed to Virgin for an official release, it spent two weeks at No 2 and nearly four months inside the Top 40. After the single’s success, Virgin offered the trio $3 million to record an album but after producing some demos, they gave up on the idea and the Stardust project was at an end leaving a legacy of one track that has consistently polled as one of the greatest dance tunes of all time.

Well, that’s the history of the song but was it really that great? I thought so at the time but listening to it 27 years later, it does seem very repetitive. Very repetitive. Maybe that didn’t matter on the dance floor though. Indeed, was it those recurrent beats that made it such a club classic? The ‘performance’ here is very unusual. Theakston informs us that there was no artist nor video to show so they dressed somebody up in 70s disco garb and superimposed her over the top of what looks like some old footage of TOTP studio audiences from that decade. It’s an odd concoction but at least it was better than ignoring a huge hit. Subsequently, a video was produced by Michel Gondry who would go on to direct the rather excellent if confusing film Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind.

Boyzone remain at No 1 with “No Matter What” despite stiff competition from Stardust who had led the boyband in the midweeks. Significantly, this was the first of their chart toppers to spend more than one week at the pinnacle which many took as a sign of the quality of the song and that it was appealing to more than just their usual fanbase. Crossing over in other words. Yeah, you could perceive it like that or you could, like me, hold firm with the opinion that it was schmaltzy shite. I stand by that, no matter what.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Simply RedThe Air That I BreatheIt’s a no
2SweetboxEverything’s Gonna Be Alright”No thanks
3CleopatraI Want You BackDidn’t happen
4Savage GardenTo The Moon And BackNegative
5BabybirdIf You’ll Be MineNo
6Sash! featuring Tina CousinsMysterious TimesNah
7StardustMusic Sounds Better With YouNope
8BoyzoneNo Matter WhatI 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/m002l6rv/top-of-the-pops-21081998

TOTP 24 APR 1998

Posted on by 80stastic

Ah – and I thought last week’s show was the nadir. Looking at this week’s running order, I am genuinely not inspired to even bother writing this post. If it wasn’t for the completist in me, I might well have given up at this point but nine years of writing the blog which is into its sixteenth TOTP year does cut deep and I can’t quite let it go just yet. I might have to get through this one in double quick time though and with the briefest of commentaries in places.

Jayne Middlemiss is once again our host and we begin with a hit that was on the show as recently as last week but is given some more exposure due to it holding firm in the Top 10 at No 6. Although we just get a repeat of last week’s performance of “Found A Cure” by Ultra Naté, there was also a video made went to promote the single which was directed by one Charles Stone III. Who? Well, he was the director for many a music promo by the likes of Living Colour, A Tribe Called Quest and Neneh Cherry before moving on to feature films like Paid In Full. Still no clue? Well, he was also responsible for this notorious advert which in turn was responsible for men everywhere believing they were suddenly the funniest person alive by dint of saying just one word…

The first comment under the video on YouTube for this is possibly the saddest thing I’ve read in a while:

“This ad made me really excited to have friends when I got older. Sadly that never happened. I drink a lot of beer though.”

@YesOkayButWhy; 2021

As for Ultra Naté, after finding a cure, she seemingly pursued a career in pharmacy – her next single was called “New Kind Of Medicine” and in 2006 she released the song “Love’s The Only Drug”.

Savage Garden are back on the show with “Truly Madly Deeply” – again. What was the deal with this one? It spent five consecutive weeks in the Top 10 being completely ignored by TOTP Executive Producer Chris Cowey but has now been on the show in three out of the last four episodes courtesy of it spending three weeks at No 5. I’m wondering if it was to do with a desire by Cowey to make the show almost completely studio performance based. As with Ultra Naté earlier, the song’s video is never shown but instead we get the same in studio appearance recycled three times. Were the Australian duo ignored initially because they weren’t available to appear in person and Cowey refused to show the video instead? According to the excellent @TOTPFacts, after the early May ‘98 shows, not one video was shown until the end of June when they would appear occasionally.

The word ‘mighty’ has been used a fair few times in the world of entertainment. There’s The Mighty Wah, one of the many pseudonyms of one of my heroes Pete Wylie. How about “The Mighty Quinn”, a 1968 No 1 single for Manfred Mann? Then there’s Wolverhampton indie rockers The Mighty Lemon Drops and, from the world of comedy, The Mighty Boosh. However, I’d completely forgotten about this lot. The Mighty Mighty Bosstones were a ska-punk band from Boston (geddit?) whose only UK chart entry was “The Impression That I Get”. It was an unusual title for an unusual hit. A raucous rampage of ska beat, parping brass and the rip-your-throat-to-shreds vocals of lead singer Dicky Barrett. With this being a live performance, I had to check if the recorded version of the song sounded the same and they pretty much do with Barrett sounding like he’s swallowed a razor blade even on record. Barrett is a supporter of Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the outspoken anti-vaxxer who is somehow the current United States secretary of Health and Human Services in the Trump government. Something tells me that Barrett might not be the best judge of character. His song though sounds pretty good and he sells it to the studio audience even though some of them, I get the impression (ahem), maybe don’t know who him and his band are or how to dance to the sound they are making. The Mighty Mighty Bosstones only called it a day in 2022 with Barrett’s views on COVID-19 vaccines given as the reason for this.

From a hit I’d forgotten about to one I do remember (everyone remembers this one surely?!) but it had slipped my memory quite how big a hit it was – anybody else forget that “Feel It” by The Tamperer featuring Maya was a No 1? It was for just a solitary week but a chart topper is a chart topper. So who were they? They were a bunch of Italian record producers who sampled the old Jacksons hit “Can You Feel It” to create a monster dance anthem with a model-looking woman out front to sell it. So basically another Black Box then.

Anyway, although the Jacksons sample completely dominated the track, what was even more distinctive about it were the lyrics which included the infamous line “What’s she gonna look like with a chimney on her?”. Like many people, I was left scratching my head on first hearing and saying to myself “Did she just sing about having a chimney on her? Surely not”. On second hearing, after the lyrics were confirmed, my fingers were still scraping my skull but this time my question to myself was “What on earth does she mean?”. Well, I didn’t know this back then as a fledgling internet wasn’t widely accessible to all but it turns out the lyrics were nicked from little known track “Wanna Drop A House (On That Bitch)” by Urban Discharge and suddenly the whole mystery is cleared up.

So successful was “Feel It” that The Tamperer featuring Maya would repeat the formula to create two further hits by sampling Madonna and ABBA but that’s all for a future post. For now, let’s marvel at the sight of two consecutive artists on the show having prominent brass sections and in the knowledge that back in 1998, pissed up clubbers would have been winding their way home in the early hours chanting “What’s she gonna look like with a chimney on her?”.

It’s not getting any better (for me at least). This next hit, and this is going to make me sound like a right reactionary old fart, is literally just a lot of shouting. No, correction – a lot of shouting over the theme tune to 80s TV show Knight Rider. This is Busta Rhymes with “Turn It Up (Remix) / Fire It Up”. The third single from his “When Disaster Strikes…” album, it’s apparently radically different from the album version which sampled Al Green’s “Love And Happiness” but I’m not tempted to find out how different. It would spend two weeks at No 2 in the UK chart in its remixed format so I was clearly out of sync (yet again) with the record buying public. I stand by my original assessment though – this was just shouting as this performance evidences. Ah yes, this performance. It’s introduced by Mr Rhymes himself on the now established show prop “the big telly owa there” as Jayne Middlemiss describes it and guess what? He and his mate (no I don’t know who he is) just barks some words at the screen, banging on about No 1. Erm…Busta? You’re not No 1 fella. And what was the idea with the Knight Rider sample? It was a terrible theme tune and a terrible show with a terrible actor as the lead. Ah, I’m done with this. NEXT!

What. On. Earth? Having swiped left on Busta Rhymes, I’ve ended up with what is technically known, I believe, as ‘some right weird shit’. OK, that’s not right. Technically speaking, 187 Lockdown were a speed garage artist but I reserve the right to my original, personal qualification. I dislike pretty much everything about this – the track, the staging… everything. I get they’ve tried to add an Eastern vibe to their sound but it’s just that usual, sub-genre defining, sped-up, skittering backbeat with an culturally appropriated melody and some random spoken word samples dropped into it. As for the performance, quite what is the guy dressed in black meant to be doing? There some half hearted “Kung-Fu” styled movements, some facial grimacing, what looks like some Marcel Marceau trapped-in-a-box miming and…is that a praying mantis yoga stance? Then there’s the two female dancers who start the performance in full kimonos but end it stripped down to bras and knickers. It’s all a bit ‘lads mag’ and also a possible case of cultural stereotyping.

After the popularity of speed garage faltered, 187 Lockdown was shut down while its prime movers Danny Harrison and Julian Jonah continued to release music under the alias of M Factor and remix for artists as mainstream as Robbie Williams and Atomic Kitten. However, there was a renewed interest in the 2010s in their 187 Lockdown material thanks to the popularity of BBC TV series People Just Do Nothing and its characters that made up Kurupt FM. I can’t say I’ve ever watched it but one show I did watch religiously as a kid was Kung Fu starring David Carradine. Now, if 187 Lockdown had remixed that TV theme and had Master Po and ‘grasshopper’ performing on stage…now that I would have been there for.

Now, when I saw this on the running order, I wrongly assumed it was just another entry on the list of dance tracks that was essentially this TOTP and that, of course, I would hate it. However, “Sounds Of Wickedness” by Tzant is rather good. A track comprising some breathless rapping and some breakneck breakbeats with a funky bass line courtesy of Reuben Wilson’s “Orange Peel” (though it sounds like Dee-Lite’s “Groove Is In The Heart” to me), it fair pelts along giving the listener quite the head rush. Apparently, Tzant were the same people behind the PF Project who brought us the Trainspotting themed hit “Choose Life” in 1997 and the rapper is the same guy from all those awful cover versions by Clock. “Sounds Of Wickedness” was nothing like either of those though. In fact, it reminded me of another early 90s hit by Definition of Sound…

Maybe Tzant’s track is a bit more hard-hitting but you get my drift. They would have one more minor hit under that moniker but would score another Top 20 entry in 1999 under the name of Mirrorball and go onto mix the first volume of the “Euphoria” dance compilation albums that were huge sellers at the end of the 90s and early 2000s.

It’s the final week of six at No 1 for Run-D.M.C. versus Jason Nevins with “It’s Like That” so I suppose I should finally comment on the video we’ve been watching for all these shows. There’s not much to it really though – an unconvincing male vs female breakdance-off set in a disused building interspersed with the odd shot of the Run-D.M.C. lads doing their trademark arms folded pose and some of Jason Nevins in yellow tinted glasses which are his trademark apparently. It’s not a patch on their iconic promo with Aerosmith for “Walk This Way” but then they were always going to miss a showman like Steven Tyler.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Ultra NatéFound A CureNo
2Savage GardenTruly Madly DeeplyI did not
3The Mighty Mighty BosstonesThe Impression That I GetNah
4The Tamperer featuring MayaFeel ItI wasn’t feeling this one – no
5Busta RhymesTurn It Up (Remix) / Fire It UpBig NO
6187 LockdownKung-FuNegative
7TzantSounds Of Wickedness‘Fraid not
8Run-D.M.C. versus Jason NevinsIt’s Like ThatAnd 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/m002hf79/top-of-the-pops-24041998?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 10 APR 1998

Posted on by 80stastic

Back in 1998, this TOTP was broadcast two days before my wife’s 30th birthday and as such, we were in our way to New York (baby!) to celebrate. Joined by our friends Robin and Susan, we would be in the Big Apple for a long weekend and so would not have seen this TOTP. So, as I haven’t dipped into my personal life in these posts for a while, I’ll try and interweave some of what happened in New York with my comments about the songs in this particular show. Self indulgent? Possibly but it’s my blog so…OK, before we even got to New York, two huge news stories broke. Firstly, The Good Friday Agreement was signed between the UK and Irish governments that would bring an end to most of the violence of The Troubles. Secondly, George Michael was arrested in a park in Beverly Hills for being caught in “a lewd act” by an undercover police officer operating a sting operation. This would lead to George coming out about his sexuality soon afterwards. I can remember following both stories on the TV screens at Manchester Airport as we waited to board our plane and again when we had a stopover in Dublin to do US customs. Hours later when we arrived in New York’s JFK Airport, they were still dominating the headlines.

Making headlines of his own at this time was the rejuvenated Robbie Williams who is back on the show to promote his single “Let Me Entertain You”. I say back on the show but I think this is just a re-showing of the performance from the other week. In fact, I think hardly any of the artists on the show tonight are actually in the studio with the presenter who is Jayne Middlemiss this week. More of that later.

As such though, I’m going to talk about the video for this one and not what we got to see on TOTP. You know the one, where Robbie does his best Kiss impression? Or is it his best impression of The Prodigy’s Keith Flint doing his best impression of Kiss? In fact, there’s a load of sending up of rock stars (and their cliches) in the video. There’s Robbie pretending to take a bite out of a dove Ozzy Osbourne style, Robbie flying above the stage on wires and a harness like Jon Bon Jovi in the “Livin’ On A Prayer” promo and, of course, the aforementioned Kiss make up. It’s a memorable watch and whoever made the decision to have it all in black and white take a bow – I think it might have been too much in full on Technicolor.

So back in New York, I’d started the holiday by going down with a heavy cold. Brilliant! I could feel myself getting progressively more and more ill as we travelled in the taxi from the airport to Manhattan. I perhaps became germ-infected in the enclosed space of the long flight over. Fortunately our friend Robin had a bottle of Jack Daniels with him and I dosed myself up on that using the only mixer we had available to us at the time – dandelion and burdock. ‘Jack Dandy’ was the name we gave to our newly created concoction I believe. Fortified by Mr JD and Mr DB, we ventured out into New York…

Back in Blighty in the TOTP studio, we find Savage Garden but, once again, as with the Robbie Williams performance, it seems to be just another re-showing of their previous appearance judging by the abrupt cut away from Jayne Middlemiss’s intro. They’d only just been on the week before with their hit “Truly Madly Deeply” but maybe Executive Producer Chris Cowey was making up for lost time on their behalf as they’d been a constant in the Top 10 for weeks but this was only their second appearance on the show.

The band took their name from a phrase in the Anne Rice series of gothic novels The Vampire Chronicles – the character Lestat says that “Beauty was a savage garden” when describing the world as primitive, dangerous and lawless. I didn’t see any savage gardens in New York but we did make a pilgrimage to the garden of peace that is Strawberry Fields in Central Park which was opened in 1985 to commemorate the life of John Lennon five years after his murder. There’s a picture of me somewhere trying to look all sombre and respectful at the Imagine mosaic. Despite the size of their hit, perhaps unsurprisingly there is no memorial to the band Savage Garden. However, the Mark Mills novel Savage Garden is set in a memorial garden in Florence, Italy and in Auckland, New Zealand there is an actual memorial dedicated to the country’s first Labour prime minister Michael Joseph Savage.

Sometimes I think I’m misremembering how the charts worked around this time. In my head, it was all singles in and out of the charts within a fortnight due to heavy week one discounting by the record companies. Clearly there was some of that going on but we’re also encountering plenty of hits that seemed to sell consistently week after week thus maintaining healthy chart positions for prolonged periods. Just this episode we had the example of Savage Garden’s “Truly Madly Deeply” and then the very next song on is another long term chart resident. “How Do I Live” may not have hit any higher than No 7 but it would spend 30 weeks inside the Top 40. THIRTY! That’s about seven and a half months! The first 18 of those saw it never leave the Top 20! This song didn’t just have legs – it was a centipede of a hit!

Strangely, its longevity wasn’t the biggest story behind the track though. Back in the 50s and 60s, the simultaneous release of the same song by different artists, if not commonplace, certainly wasn’t a rarity. By the late 90s, it never seemed to happen. However, in 1998 came the chart battle between 15 year old LeAnn Rimes and established country artist Trisha Yearwood who both recorded and released (on the same day) their own versions of “How Do I Live”. How did this come about? It was all to do with the film Con Air starring Nicolas Cage, John Cusack and John Malkovich. This dumb but fun action thriller is one of those films that I always have to watch if I stumble upon it whilst channel surfing (see also Bridesmaids). The film’s production company Touchstone Pictures wanted a big ballad to end the movie with and Diane Warren’s “How Do I Live” was given the job. Touchstone wanted LeAnn Rimes to record it which she duly did but they weren’t sure about her version deciding it lacked maturity and was too pop sounding. As such, they turned to Yearwood who was twice LeAnn’s age and she provided what Touchstone were looking for and it was her version that featured in Con Air. Now I’ve listened to both takes on the song back to back and there’s not a great deal of difference to my ears. Yes, Trisha’s voice has slightly more depth to it and there’s more instrumentation in the backing including a more prevalent sax sound but to delineate one version as pop and the other as country seems to be splitting hairs to me.

Despite not making the Con Air cut, Rimes’s version was released anyway and would prove to be the ultimate winner spending five weeks at No 2 on the US Billboard Hot 100 (Yearwood peaked at No 23) and was the fifth best selling song in America in 1998. In the UK, astoundingly given it never got higher than No 7, LeAnn’s version was the sixth best selling song of the year (every song above it had been a chart topper). Trisha’s version never even made our Top 40. In fairness though, Trisha did win a Grammy with her version for Best Female Country Vocal Performance so maybe I was wrong about that pop/country differentiation. Just to make us all feel old. I can confirm that LeAnn will be 43 on the 28th of this month.

As huge a hit as “How Do I Live” was in America, I don’t recall hearing it whilst we were in New York but then we weren’t exactly going out of our way to listen for it. No, we were far too busy having a good time doing all the things you’re meant to when in the Big Apple like a helicopter ride over Manhattan, a dash up the Empire State Building (where a young American child spent the whole time shouting at his parents “I’m freaking! I’m freaking!”) and taking in Grand Central Station. One afternoon, me and my friend Robin got it into our heads that we would go looking for the legendary music venue CBGB which my wife and our friend Susan didn’t fancy doing so our group split up. Being two clueless Brits abroad, Robin and I couldn’t find CBGB. However, we did come across a film crew and a huge audience of people on a sidewalk (sidewalk – maybe we weren’t that clueless after all!) and wondering what was going on we walked over to the amassed throng…just in time to be on the live outside broadcast of the 1000th edition of The Ricky Lake Show! Yes, somewhere out there exists the footage of me and Robin (probably with our faces obscured) at the back of that audience. When we met up with my wife and Susan, they said they had a tale to tell us that we wouldn’t believe. We said we’d had an interesting experience as well but let them go first. They’d been walking past Trump Tower and Donald Trump had walked out! We then told them our story and we all agreed that ours…well…trumped theirs. I’m not sure it still does though.

Enough of that though, back in the TOTP studio we find Sash! performing “La Primavera” again. Actually, we don’t because it’s yet another re-showing of their previous performance and they’re not actually there for a second time. What was going on this week? As this one was also featured in the last post, I’ve little to say about it so, in keeping with this week’s post, I’ve looked for a connection with New York. All I can find is that Sash! the dance act have an Instagram account with the handle SashNY which is not to be confused with S A S H | N Y who are a clothing brand in Brooklyn who sell and rent couture gowns. Gowns with sashes presumably.

Seriously though, what was going on with the studio set up this week. As far as I can tell, so far we’ve had three repeats of previous studio performances and a promo video. None of the artists featured so far seem to have been in the studio at the same time as presenter Jayne Middlemiss nor a studio audience. Now, just a head shot of Jayne appears against a white back drop to introduce the next artist who is Billie Myers. Then there’s a white out fade from Jayne to Billie who is in the studio with an audience! So was Jayne not there? Was her performance recorded separately or was Middlemiss just running late and had to do her links solo and in silo as it were?

Anyway, who was this Billie Myers? On the face of it she seemed to be yet another of those 90s female artists who had one big hit and then not much else at all. I’m thinking Donna Lewis, Paula Cole, Meredith Brooks…and Billie Myers whose big hit was “Kiss The Rain”. However, I always assumed that Billie was an American but she’s actually from Coventry but her song was just about as far from that city’s legendary 2-Tone sound as you could get. A huge, sweeping soft rock ballad with an arresting chorus even if the lyrics don’t make much sense (how does one kiss the rain exactly?), it was a hit both here and in the US. Everything after that was a case of diminishing returns though. Follow up “Tell Me” was a minor hit and her album “Growing Pains” sold modestly. She’s released just the two albums since and has been active in The Mindfull Initiative supporting young people with mental health issues. In many ways, she is the forgotten ‘Billie’ of 1998 as the second half of the year would see the rise of 15 year old Billie Piper (what was it with 1998 and 15 year old female singers?!) who would have two No 1 singles. Both were actually nominated for a BRIT award for Best British Female Solo artist in 1999 though neither won (it went to Des’ree if you’re interested).

For a New York connection, Billie Myers was a featured artist at NYC Pride in 2006. We didn’t see the NYC Pride March whilst we were there though we did attend the Easter Parade which was rather undermined by some disgruntled native New Yorker pushing through the crowds yelling “Europeans – get back to where you came from!”. Oh dear.

OK so Jayne Middlemiss is now within a studio audience for her next link but, yet again, the performance she introduces is another recycled one from the other week. It’s all very confusing. Said performance is from Tin Tin Out featuring Shelley Nelson and their cover of “Here’s Where The Story Ends” by The Sundays. On the Sunday that we were in New York, after we’d done the aforementioned helicopter ride, we spent what seems like hours traipsing up and down the blocks of Manhattan looking for somewhere to eat some lunch. Now you wouldn’t think this would have been such a hard task in New York what with its diners and restaurants and you’d be right but then you haven’t tried to do so with our friend Robin who had some very exacting demands about where he might be OK eating. After multiple suggestions were turned down for various reasons by Robin and with our feet aching and our bellies rumbling, we eventually found a lovely place with a menu to suit all our tastes. We were just about to go in when Robin cocked an ear and stopped us in our tracks stating “We can’t go in there, they’re playing jazz!”. Aaaggghhh!

As for Tin Tin Out, what links them with Duran Duran? As well as remixing tracks for the Brummie New Romantics turned pop megastars, Tin Tin was the name used at various points in his career by the wonderful Stephen Duffy who was their singer in an early incarnation of the band. You all knew that though right?

Next, a seismic event if you were a heavy rock fan back in 1998 – it’s the return of Jimmy Page & Robert Plant, four years on from their original reunion which gave the world “No Quarter”, their live acoustic album of new material and reworking of selected Led Zeppelin tracks. As I never got the boat travelling to Led Zep island, this happening didn’t really register with me though I do recognise the cover art of their second album (and reason for their return) “Walking Into Clarksdale”. However, I have zero recall of its lead single “Most High” which I was expecting to dislike but actually found quite engaging. Despite the size of the Led Zeppelin fanbase though, it wasn’t a huge hit peaking at No 26 though famously, the band were not known for single releases. Jayne Middlemiss makes a jibe about giving your Mam and Dad a shout to come and watch the performance which does seem rather ageist and condescending and also undermines the decision to have Robert and Jimmy on the show which is meant to be representative of the most happening chart sounds around (yes, I know that past line sounds wanky). Plus, they were responsible for the TOTP theme tune back in the day courtesy of CCS’s version of “Whole Lotta Love” so you’d think that there would have been a bit more respect shown.

The cover of the second Led Zeppelin album “Physical Graffiti” shows two four story buildings which were based on a photo of two actual five story buildings located at 96 and 98 St. Mark’s Place in NYC. Now, I certainly didn’t make any pilgrimage to witness that location like I did with Strawberry Fields but not far from there is the wonderful bar McSorley’s Old Ale House which we did visit. A real spit and sawdust place where the only drinks available were McSorley’s light ale or McSorley’s dark ale. Marvellous!

It’s a fourth of six weeks at the top for “It’s Like That” by Run–D.M.C. versus Jason Nevins. This really was becoming quite the phenomenon. I’m still not completely sure why it was so popular. It’s a hard-hitting, ultra-pounding, dance floor-filling track for sure but I’m still kind of surprised that it crossed over into daytime radio play and the mainstream pop charts in such a big way. Was it a lack of competition that enabled its long run at No 1? Celine Dion was right there pretty much all the time waiting in the shadows and I would maybe have expected her to pip them to the top spot at least once in the that six week run. After all, she’d already dropped from the peak once and then retuned there later in her chart run. Of course, Run-D.M.C. couldn’t be more New York – or rather more Queens. A visit to the Hollis neighbourhood of that borough was never going to be on our to do list though I’m afraid.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Robbie WilliamsLet Me Entertain YouNo but I had a promo copy of the album
2Savage GardenTruly Madly DeeplyDidn’t happen
3LeAnn RimesHow Do I Live?Without this record? Quite easily.
4Sash!La PrimaveraNope
5Billie MyersKiss The RainNegative
6Tin Tin Out featuring Shelley NelsonHere’s Where The Story EndsNah
7Jimmy Page & Robert PlantMost HighNo
8Run-D.M.C. versus Jason NevinsIt’s Like ThatI 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/m002h46h/top-of-the-pops-10041998?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 03 APR 1998

Posted on by 80stastic

On this day in pop music history, we lost Rob Pilatus. If that name doesn’t mean anything to you then how about Milli Vanilli? Yes, Rob was one part of the infamous duo who were completely discredited after it was discovered that they hadn’t sung on any of their hit records and subsequently returned their Grammy Award. Despite a few attempts at a comeback, there was no way back for Milli Vanilli and Rob spent time both in prison and drug rehabilitation centres before he was ultimately found dead in a German hotel room from an alcohol and prescription drug overdose on the eve of yet another attempted comeback. It’s a tragic tale certainly but I wonder if any of the artists on this TOTP were accused of not singing or playing on any of their records?

Our host is Zoe Ball – is it fair to make an accusation of ‘cheating’ against her in that her career had a leg up due to the show business connections of her national treasure status father Johnny and that she is, in fact, a nepo baby? Some people might think that, I couldn’t possibly comment. Anyway, we start with a new act from Australia by the name of Savage Garden. I say new but they weren’t really although I think this is their first time on TOTP. They’d already had a hit in the UK the previous year when “I Want You” debuted at No 11 but it didn’t get picked up for a slot on the show and tumbled down and out of the charts within three weeks. The follow up “To The Moon And Back” missed the Top 50 altogether (though it would make the Top 3 when rereleased) but they’re finally on the show with their third single “Truly Madly Deeply”. However, despite that song entering the charts at No 4 and spending the next five weeks inside the Top 10, this was the first time it had featured on the show. So ‘new’ they weren’t and yet again I put this to the show’s executive producer…“Chris Cowey, explain yourself!”.

Anyway, as well as sharing its title with the rather wonderful 1991 film starring Alan Rickman and Juliet Stevenson (which is never on TV or streaming platforms by the way), “Truly Madly Deeply” is one of those soppy love songs that ultimately gets under your skin becoming an itch you can’t scratch, a track you desperately don’t want to like but can’t stop humming – well, that’s how it made me feel. Enough people clearly did like it as it would spend another five weeks knocking about the Top 10 making a total residency of just under three months. It was a phenomenally consistent seller evidenced by three consecutive weeks at a No 5 and its No 10 position in the UK year-end chart for 1998. The track would spearhead a period of mega-success for the duo of Darren Hayes and Daniel Jones with two triple platinum selling albums in the UK within three years whilst they were an even bigger deal in America where they achieved two No 1 singles and their debut eponymous album sold seven million copies. However, by 2001 they were gone with vocalist Hayes pursuing a solo career. My abiding memory of the duo though came from the year before. In 2000, I’d left my job working in record shops and relocated from Manchester to York to become a civil servant. One of my new colleagues had tickets to see Savage Garden play but he could no longer go and was looking to get rid of the tickets – he couldn’t give them away. Nobody seemed to even be slightly interested in the band let alone love them truly, madly and deeply.

Did they play/sing on their records? Yes although as a duo, they also employed some session musicians to perform the bass, percussion and drums parts on tracks.

A proper music legend now but the fact that he is only on the show because of a jeans advert belies his legacy somewhat. Zoe Ball’s intro claiming that without this man there’s no ska and no Madness (nor jeans commercial) tries to do justice to his name but I’m not sure it’s entirely convincing. We are talking about Prince Buster who helped shape the history of Jamaican music in its various forms with his influence on reggae, ska and the rocksteady genres. Said influence extended to these shores with the late 70s ska revival movement spearheaded by the 2-Tone label direct beneficiaries. Madness called their first single “The Prince” after him and named themselves after his song “Madness” which was its b-side. Their second single was another cover of one of his songs – “One Step Beyond” – so Zoe was right about that I guess but she could also have mentioned The Specials and The Beat who both recorded versions of Prince Buster songs or borrowed parts of them to shape their own ‘original’ tunes. One of those tunes was “Whine And Grine” which The Beat incorporated into their anti-Thatcher anthem “Stand Down Margaret”. Eighteen years later “Whine And Grine” was back having been used to soundtrack the latest Levi’s ad campaign and it would give Prince Buster only his second ever UK Top 40 hit when it peaked at No 21.

It’s a great track and Prince Buster (real name Cecil Bustamente Campbell) looks effortlessly cool in this performance. Looking at the age of the studio audience, you can only wonder if they knew they were in the presence of a music legend and hope that they didn’t go away saying they’d seen the man who did the song from that Levi’s advert. Prince Buster died from heart problems in 2016.

Did he play/sing on his records? Are you kidding?! A true original.

Zoe Ball’s on the…well…ball again by stating that Janet Jackson has been a regular on the show. In the 90s alone, she racked up 20 UK chart hits – that’s two a year every year. It’s not a bad record. What was a bad record though (to my ears) was “I Get Lonely” which was the third single from “The Velvet Rope” album. On this one, Janet tipped the balance between R&B and pop which had characterised a lot of her hits well in favour of the former and as a pop kid at heart, it was never going to get me longing for its company.

As she couldn’t be in the studio in person, she’s sent a video message introducing her video which seems to be distracting us to the lack of any tune in the song by showcasing Janet’s cleavage. Indeed, it was nominated for the ‘Sexiest Music Video of the Year’ at the VH1 Video Music Awards. It’s all a bit obvious, showy and in your face (literally). By the way, that’s the group Blackstreet up there with Janet who were on the “TNT Remix” produced for the single release and when she rips open her top to reveal a lacy bra and that bosom again, they possibly experienced a Westlife/Mariah Carey moment from the “Against All Odds” video.

Did she sing/play on her records? Yes she did although there were those bizarre rumours that said Janet was really brother Michael in drag in which case she didn’t if you believe them.

If it’s Sash! (and it is) then their single must be at No 2 in the charts no? Erm…no actually. Yes, all their previous three dance hits had all gone to one place off the summit but “La Primavera” (the lead single from their second album) was at No 3 and would get no higher. Shock horror! Fear not though as they would be back at No 2 with their next hit “Mysterious Times” and would collect one more as the new millennium dawned to give them the record of being the act with the most No 2s without ever getting to No 1 in chart history. No sniggering at the back!

So what did “La Primavera” sound like? Well, the apple didn’t stray too far from the tree I think it’s fair to say although was it a bit less frantic than its predecessors? More like the dream trance that Robert Miles was peddling? Oh, I don’t know do I? Nor do I know why the dancers they’ve got in to promote the track look like they’re doing aqua aerobics without the water nor who the Betty Boo lookalike out front was. Life’s too short people.

Did they sing/play on their records? Clearly they didn’t sing on the records as they got a series of guest vocalists in.

As I approach the end of blogging about TOTP (I’m stopping after the 1999 repeats have finished), I’m increasingly encountering the scenario of it being the last time that I have to comment on a particular artist. Such is the case here as I believe this is the final chart hit for Louise in the 90s. The thing about the ex-Eternal member’s solo career it strikes me is that it was consistent without ever being spectacular. She has amassed twelve chart hits (eight between 1995 and 1998) of which six went Top 5 but how many of them were songs that really made a mark on the general public’s consciousness? Obviously her fan base (which is pretty loyal) could name them all but how many could your average punter reel off? I could only come up with “Naked” with certainty and I’ve reviewed most of them. “All That Matters” is a a case in point. A perfectly pleasant, radio friendly pop number if a little derivative of something I can’t quite put my finger on but it doesn’t linger in the memory for long. Still, that loyal fan base of hers sent her latest album “Confessions” into the Top 10 this year and that’s surely all that matters.

Did she sing on her records? Yes, which actually worked against her in her Eternal days when trying to break America where a white woman in the line up was seen as problematic for procuring airplay on R&B radio stations.

At this point in 1998, Ian Brown was awaiting trial for allegedly using threatening behaviour towards an air hostess on a British Airways flight in February. I seem to remember seeing lots of graffiti around Manchester where I was living at the time proclaiming Brown’s innocence. In the end, he went down for four months though actually served just two in jail due to parole.

For the moment though, he was free to perform his latest single “Corpses In Their Mouths” in the TOTP studio. Now that song’s title was pinched from a quote in Belgian situationist Raoul Vaneigem’s 1967 book The Revolution Of Everyday Life. However, that’s not where I know it from. My introduction to it came courtesy of the marvellous Pete Wylie track “The Story Of The Blues Part Two (Talkin’ Blues)”.

As for Brown’s track, it was the follow up to “My Star” which I remembered but this one? Nothing. I’m not surprised as it’s a pretty flat tune with Brown’s deadpan vocals not helping to up the ante. And what was with that miserable harmonica playing? It’s an all round grim performance but then he did have other things on his mind I guess.

Did he sing on his records? Depends what your definition of ‘singing’ is.

A quick word now on the staging of this particular show but not the performances of the artists but the positioning of Zoe Ball. Chris Cowey was obviously in an arty mood this week as he has our Zoe making use of unorthodox parts of the studio. Right from the start, she appears to walk on from off stage to do her intro which is echoey signifying she’s coming from behind the scenes. Then, when introducing Sasha!, she’s contorted herself to fit into the middle of what could be a giant polo but I’m guessing is the letter ‘O’ from the TOTP logo? Finally, she’s sprawled out on top of a piano and shot from above with the camera angle rotating madly as she introduces 911. Was Cowey trying out some new ideas or was he just trying to distract us from the very average quality of the music on the show (Prince Buster excepted)?

So 911. This trio had built themselves quite the career from small beginnings. “All I Want Is You” was their sixth consecutive Top 10 hit but like Louise earlier, could you actually name many of them? I’m going “Bodyshakin’” and didn’t they do a Dr. Hook cover at some point? The rest? I’ve probably written about them but retained any sense of what they were called or how they went I haven’t. Zoe tells us that this is a live performance from the group – is it? Well, lead singer Lee Brennan could be doing a live vocal but the other two up there with him? Well, they’re live in the respect that they’re living and breathing but that’s about their only contribution aside from some “oohing” in the background. The track itself is, again like Louise and her song earlier, a mid-tempo pop song that does a job but is pretty insubstantial. A bit like 911 really.

Did they sing on their records? As noted before, I could believe that Lee did but his two band mates? I’d need to see actual footage from the recording studio and a sworn declaration from the engineer that it was them.

As Zoe Ball says in her intro (before she attempts some embarrassing…well, how would you describe it? Jive talk? Street slang? Urban speak?), “It’s Like That” by Run–D.M.C. vs Jason Nevins is the first single of 1998 to last more than two weeks at No 1. In total it would clock up six weeks on the throne and become the third biggest selling single of the year in the UK. Somehow, despite the fact that I must have sold loads of it whilst working in the Our Price in Stockport, I’d forgotten quite how big a hit this was. Damn getting old and my failing memory. “It’s like that”? It may have been but I can’t quite remember it.

Did they rap on their records? You bet!

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Savage GardenTruly Madly DeeplyI did not
2Prince BusterWhine And GrineLiked it, didn’t buy it
3Janet JacksonI Get LonelyNo
4Sash!La PrimaveraNope
5LouiseAll That MattersNegative
6Ian BrownCorpses In Their MouthsNah
7911All I Want Is YouNever happening
8Run-D.M.C. vs Jason NevinsIt’s Like ThatAnd 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/m002h46f/top-of-the-pops-03041998?seriesId=unsliced