Spice Girls | TOTP Rewind – the 90s

TOTP 04 APR 1997

As widely predicted and discussed within the TOTP online community, BBC4’s repeats for 1997 are facing more disruption than the London Underground during a tube strike due to the various misdemeanours of some of the artists who had big hits this year. The first of these came at the end of March when the show that aired on the 28th of that month featured the video for R Kelly’s hit “I Believe I Can Fly”. The R&B singer is currently serving a 31 year sentence for racketeering and child pornography. Having checked the running order for that episode, my opinion is that we didn’t miss much with only the Pet Shop Boys and The Beautiful South being of potential interest to this blogger.

We’ll be jumping around for a while though as “I Believe I Can Fly” went to No 1 for three weeks and later in the year we have Puff Daddy/P Diddy/Sean Combs who spent six weeks on top of the UK charts with “I’ll Be Missing You” and who is currently facing charges of racketeering and sex trafficking. I’m assuming all shows that feature either R Kelly or Puff Daddy will be pulled and not re shown. For this episode though we are on safe ground with a load of dance tunes and those nice Spice Girls featuring. Our hosts are the irreverent pair Mark and Lard who had recently taken over the reigns of the Radio 1 Breakfast Show following the departure of Chris Evans.

We’re straight in – literally straight in as there’s no to camera piece from a featured artist nor even a presenter intro in these strange, new times – with the latest hit from Cast called “Free Me”. The lead single from sophomore album “Mother Nature Calls”, it was more of that so called ‘Britpop’ sound that had seen them become chart stars over the previous 18 months though possibly a bit more of an earthy sound and not quite as melodic. It was a decent tune – definitely not ‘filler’ but by no means ‘killer’ either. When reviewing their last hit, the standalone single “Flying”, I criticised the track’s lyrics for being basic and superficial. I have to say that this was also the case with “Free Me”. So simple are they that if they were a boy in a nursery rhyme, they’d definitely be called Simon. I mean, look at these:

Give me some time to be me, give me the space that I need

Give me a reason to be, give me some time to be

Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Russell Glyn Ballard
Free Me lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

What? I wouldn’t have submitted that as an 11 year old if I’d been asked to write some poetry in an English lesson. Come on John Power – you were better than that! By the way, I’m not sure about your hat either. Must do better.

After Mark and Lard have reinforced their northern roots by insisting that you pronounce Cast as “Cast” and not “Carst” (they’re right of course), they introduce 3T who, unbelievably, were still having hits two years after their first. Happily, “Gotta Be You” would be the fifth and final time they would feature in the UK charts. Their discography informs me that this one featured a Herbie Critchlow who Wikipedia informs me is a producer and songwriter who has penned songs for the likes of Backstreet Boys, Rita Ora and…erm…Andy Abrahams. Is he the guy that comes on in the middle of this performance and raps something truly dodgy about zombie nymphomaniacs or something? Anyway, even he gets bored of the whole thing and exits stage left before the end of the song and he co-wrote the bloody thing! To paraphrase Morrissey when reviewing a Modern Romance single in Smash Hits, “there may well very well be a worse group than 3T but can anybody really think of one?”.

Next we have…what the actual f**k?! No Doubt?! AGAIN?! After venting my spleen in the last post that “Don’t Speak” had been shown in the 21 March show despite no longer being at No 1 and dropping down the charts, here they are once more. To quote from the extraordinary film Blazing Saddles, “What in the wide, wide world of sports is a-goin’ on here?” OK, the single had gone back up from No 4 to No 3 so in theory it was a chart climber, but this was the sixth time it had been on the show already and only three of those had been as the No 1 record. Sixth you say? YES! SIX! I’ve done my research and it was even on the 28 March show that we didn’t get to see meaning it was in three consecutive weeks after falling from the top of the charts. And it doesn’t even stop there as it was also on the 18 April show (which we similarly won’t get to see) meaning it was given a slot on the running order more often than when it was the actual No 1! This was just ludicrous! Who was the director during these shows?

*Checks internet*

It was that John L Spencer character again! Well, all I can say is never mind The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, this was The John L Spencer Bullshit Explosion!

When Mark and Lard looked at which acts would be featured in the show they would be presenting, what do you reckon they thought? I’m betting that when their fingers descended the list and alighted on N–Trance their reaction wasn’t “Brilliant! We’ve got N-Trance on the show and even better than that, they’re doing a cover of that old Ottawan hit!”. The descent of the people who gave us the dance floor classic “Set You Free” into a naff 70s tribute act was indeed a bizarre career move. It all seems to be down to the recruitment of rapper Ricardo da Force to their ranks who had previously featured on those huge hits by The KLF in the early 90s. He was at the forefront of N-Trance’s reworking of the Bee Gees classic “Stayin’ Alive” which had stunk the charts out in the Autumn of 1995 when it did a hit No 2.

Throwing out credibility for commercial success, they repeated the trick with “D.I.S.C.O.”. The original was gruesome enough but the 1997 version was just vulgar and the performance here, complete with 70s disco wigs and outfits (obviously) turned up the tacky-o-meter to 11. In case you’re not convinced by my argument, then here’s all the proof you need – it was covered by the King of Cheese himself Chico. It’s Chico time!….

What? There’s a counter argument? Which is?

*The guy who wrote and produced “D.I.S.C.O.” – Daniel Vangarde – is the father of Thomas Bangalter, one half of achingly hip dance outfit Daft Punk*

Daft Punk? Seriously? No, I don’t care. N-Trance can, to quote Norman Stanley Fletcher from Porridge, “Naff off!”.

Ah this is better – “North Country Boy” by The Charlatans. I recall that a record company rep turned up at the Our Price shop where I worked a couple of weeks before this all excited and carrying a pre-release copy of this single saying how it was really special and the best thing the band had ever done. Was he right? Well, music taste is totally subjective but he might have been in with a shout with that claim though it’s not my own personal favourite (which I think is “Just Lookin’”, today anyway). It’s probably one of their best known songs though, peaking at No 4 and coming from the album “Tellin’ Stories” which ushered in a period of great chart success for the band. The album itself went to No 1 while furnishing the band with four hit singles that achieved the following peaks:

3 – 4 – 6 – 16

I’m pretty sure that Mark and Lard liked this one – they even did their own version of it (sort of) under the guise of their alter ego spoof band project The Shirehorses. This is The Charley Twins…

This show really is dance heavy. After N-Trance earlier, we now get three more tracks from that (admittedly wide-ranging) genre back to back starting with DJ Quicksilver and “Bellissima”. Anybody whose stage name includes the letters ‘DJ’ in it immediately raises red flags for me and my pop sensibilities and in the case of Mr Quicksilver, I wasn’t wrong. His real name is Orhan Terzi which sounds like he’s Hull City’s latest Turkish midfield signing and I wish he had pursued a career in football rather than dance music. I can only assume that my brain can’t be wired the same way as the dance-heads that bought this single (it sold 600,000 copies- 600,000!) as I can hear nothing in the track that would have compelled me to shell out good money to buy it. It’s just the same beats all the way through with some strings sounds laid over the top of it. Repetitive, monotonous and moronic. I guess if you were tripping off your tits in a club it might make more sense but how could you listen to it in the privacy of your own home? The ballerina type dancer was a novel way to visually stage the track I guess but then she’s usurped by the usual women in PVC trousers and one in suspenders no less. Quicksilver himself gets a brief close up when he gurns down the camera lens and gives a thumbs up. Prat! It’s a massive thumbs down from me.

The second dance act on the show is that rare beast that had achieved a No 1 single. Back in 1995, Livin’ Joy rather surprisingly topped the charts with a rerelease of their No 18 hit “Dreamer” from the year before. They’d followed that up with two further Top Tenners but ultimately they would submit to the trend of diminishing returns.

This fourth single “Where Can I Find Love” would peak outside the Top 10 at No 12 and final chart entry “Deep In You” even lower at No 17. This one sounds a little too frantic for me, too much going on in the mix but who cares about that? What was going on with singer Tameko Star’s hat?! It’s enormous – I haven’t seen one that big since this fella was on our TV screens…

Did I say that dance acts having a No 1 hit were a rare beast? I was clearly talking out of my arse as here’s The Chemical Brothers with their second consecutive chart topper “Block Rockin’ Beats”. I think this might just have taken me by surprise at the time as it’s possible that I dismissed previous No 1 “Setting Sun” as having had an Oasis flavoured boost via the vocal contributions of Noel Gallagher. However, I must have underestimated the appeal of the Manchester duo as here they were again as the kings of the Top 40. Or had I? There was a lot of discussion at the time about how quickly the sales of “Block Rockin’ Beats” fell away in its second week of release as it slipped to No 8 just seven days after topping the charts. At the time, it was the ninth biggest fall from the pinnacle since charts were compiled. Was this down to the nature of it being a dance track with a lack of crossover appeal (say compared to something like “Don’t Speak” by No Doubt) or was it just more evidence of how the charts were being manipulated by record companies and their first week price discounting strategies.? Or perhaps a bit of both? I mean, they weren’t alone – both Blur and U2 had experienced similar chart slippage with their last two singles (though not quite as big as The Chemical Brothers). Did I just say ‘lack of crossover appeal’? Yet again, I seem to be spouting nonsense as when parent album “Dig Your Own Hole” came out a few weeks later, it went to No 1 and chalked up platinum sales. What was it Frank Zappa said? Writing about music is like dancing about architecture?

For the record, I quite enjoyed “Block Rockin’ Beats” and in a completely contrary stance to what I’d just said about Livin’ Joy, I liked that it sounded chaotic and all over the place. Musical opinion eh? Whatcha gonna do? The video features Perry Fenwick a year before he made his EastEnders debut as Billy Mitchell. I met his ex-partner and fellow actor Angie Lonsdale once when she was sharing a house with my mate Robin when he lived in London. She was nice. Yeah, it’s not a great story is it?

The play out video is “Mama” by the Spice Girls despite the fact that they have slipped from No 1 to the runners up spot this week. Yes, following in the footsteps of No Doubt and the nonsensical decision of temporary TOTP director John L. Spencer to show songs going down the charts, we get this one again. There were surely other hits in the Top 40 that could have been shown instead?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Cast	Free Me	Nah
2	3T	Gotta Be You	No
3	No Doubt	Don’t Speak	Nope
4	N-Trance	D.I.S.C.O.	F...K. O.F.F.
5	The Charlatans	North Country Boy	No but I had the Melting Pot Best Of with it on
6	DJ Quicksilver	Bellissima	Never
7	Livin’ Joy	Where Can I Find Love	I did not
8	The Chemical Brothers	Block Rockin’ Beats	Liked it, didn’t buy it
9	Mama / Who Do You Think You Are	Spice Girls	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/m0027pnq/top-of-the-pops-04041997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 21 MAR 1997

Posted on February 12 by 80stastic

How was your life going in March 1997 (assuming you’re old enough to have any memories of 28 years ago)? If you were Tony Blair, you’d just received an endorsement as the next leader of the country by none other than traditional Tory supporters The Sun. Surely sitting Prime Minister John Major must have known the game was up then. If you were me (and I was), then you were stressed out at work and planning a trip to China. Those two things weren’t related – I was stressed at work as the manager of the Our Price where I worked had left a few weeks before and I was effectively acting manager by default whilst the recruitment process for a replacement was taking an age. I’d reluctantly agreed to put my hat in the ring at the behest of my colleagues (better the devil you know and all that) and we were about to introduce a new electronic stock control system which required a lot of preparation work. On top of that we had a new member of staff who was ruffling a few feathers in the team and apparently, according to my diary, one day a member of the public got stabbed in the shopping precinct where the store was located and I had to ring an ambulance, the police and try and patch him up. I have no recall of this at all so I’m either a complete fantasist or I’ve blocked out the memory of it.

That wasn’t the end of my stress though. One Saturday after work, a few of us went for a drink at a local pub and I took the pack of weekly memos with me as I planned to read them on the Sunday at home as I hadn’t had time at work. The memos were delivered to every store in a blue plastic pouch (‘the blue bag’) containing all the relevant information we needed for the next week including stock prices, charts and promotion details. As I sat down in the pub, I put them on the ledge above a radiator behind me so that they were in view of everyone and wouldn’t be forgotten at the end of the evening. What I hadn’t accounted for was the fact that there was a gap behind the radiator and between the seating and the blue bag slipped down the gap seamlessly once I let go of it. Disaster! Try as we might, we couldn’t retrieve it (and we spent the whole evening trying!) despite fashioning various apparatus using string and hooks (maybe even a coat hanger at one point) to pick it up. Either we gave up or the pub closed and I left memo less. I had to send someone to the Manchester store on Monday morning to photocopy theirs (this was the pre-digital age). As far as I knew, the memos would stay there until the pub had a refit, a time capsule from 1997. Almost 20 years later and long after I’d left Our Price, I went back to the pub and it had indeed had a refit so the memos would have been found (and binned) presumably. I resisted the temptation to ask the bar staff if they could check their lost and found for them!

As for China, my old school friend and best man at my wedding Rob was living and studying in Beijing so I’d arranged with his brother to fly out to visit him in the May. I had to get visas and inoculations and all that sort of thing sorted so there was a lot going on around this time. I’m sure I’ll get onto what went down in China in the next few posts.

Anyway, back to the month of March and if you were Kylie Minogue at that time, then you were hosting this edition of TOTP and had invested in a rather unflattering new, messy, plum coloured hairstyle. I think this was her ‘indie Kylie’ phase when she would collaborate with the likes of James Dean Bradfield of the Manics (he co-wrote her “Some Kind Of Bliss” single of this year) so I’m guessing that a new phase meant a new image. Definitely not having a style remodel was opening act Lisa Stansfield who was still very much attached to her brand of smooth R&B soul/dance that she’d made her name on. By 1997, she was onto her fourth solo album but after releasing the previous three in a four year period, it had been four years since album number three “So Natural”. Lisa had carved out a nice little sideline for herself though in recording songs for soundtrack albums – her contributions to The Bodyguard and Indecent Proposal had given her two Top 10 hits. In addition to that, she’d been back there earlier this year when remix team the Dirty Rotten Scoundrels looked to Lisa’s back catalogue to come up with “People Hold On (The Bootleg Mixes)”. However, taking a holistic approach to Lisa’s career up to this point, it’s surprisingly yet undeniably a case of diminishing returns as sales of her albums from “Affection” onwards decreased. Of course, that’s a very statistical approach – Lisa’s albums were still selling well but the UK figures were as follows:

Affection – 900,000 (triple platinum)
Real Love – 600,000 (double platinum)
So Natural – 300,000 (platinum)
Lisa Stansfield – 100,000 (gold)

It’s a definite downwards trend but I guess it’s all relative. Anyway, “The Real Thing” was the lead single from that last eponymous album and, for me, was typical Lisa fare which was fair enough but didn’t show much musical progression. On the other hand, if it ain’t broke and all that. It would return Stansfield to the Top 10 with a song that wasn’t from a film for the first time since 1991’s “Change” though she did feature on the “Five Live EP” alongside Queen and George Michael that would make No 1 off the back of the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert. However, “The Real Thing” would also be the last time a single of hers would be so high in the charts. I sometimes wonder if Lisa gets the credit she deserves though. You rarely hear her referred to when it comes to naming the UK’s most renowned female singers do you?

Ooh now, might this be a bit awkward? Kylie has to introduce one of her exes as INXS are the second artist on tonight. Ah, it was probably alright – Kylie and Michael Hutchence stopped seeing each other in 1991 so I’m guessing both parties might have moved on. Hutchence certainly had – by 1997 he was two years into a relationship with Paula Yates and they had had a daughter together. However, the relationship was intense and played out under a media spotlight and against a bitter custody battle with Yates’s ex-husband Bob Geldof over the three daughters they had together. Within eight months of this TOTP appearance, Hutchence would be dead, having committed suicide in a Sydney hotel room aged just 37. I remember thinking on hearing the news that “Suicide Blonde” would surely never be played on the radio ever again though it subsequently was resurrected after an appropriate amount of time had passed. One song that was cut in the wake of the news was “So Long Suicide” from the Duran Duran set of the gig they played on the night of Hutchence’s death. The band had already recorded a track about their friend called “Michael, You’ve Got A Lot To Answer For” that featured on their “Medazzaland” album that was released a month before his death.

As for INXS, they would carry on intermittently for the next 15 years with various guest singers including Terence Trent D’Arby at one point and then a permanent vocalist in J.D. Fortune who was recruited via reality television show Rock Star: INXS. Returning to this TOTP performance, I think this would have been their last time on the show in person not only because of Hutchence’s subsequent death but also because “Elegantly Wasted” was their final UK Top 40 hit. The title track of their tenth studio album, it sounded much like everything else they’d ever recorded since the “Kick” album. The winning formula of that record had helped the band become global success and saw Hutchence depicted as a rock god. Fast forward a decade and it was a sound that was starting to feel, if not worn out, then definitely not fresh. As with Lisa Stansfield earlier, it had been a case of diminishing returns for sales of INXS albums since the high point of “Kick” and “Elegantly Wasted” wasn’t about to reverse that trend. It was a sad end to the band’s glory days which had coincided with my time as a student at Sunderland Poly and my early years of marriage and living in Manchester. Thanks for the memories. RIP Michael.

Sometimes I look down the running order for these TOTP repeats and think to myself “what on earth do I have to say about this one?” – “Love Guaranteed” by Damage undoubtedly falls into that category. Needless to say I don’t remember it at all and listening to it in the present day, it made as much impression on me as a feather on a set of scales. It was just more of that one-paced, pedestrian R&B /pop hybrid that was popular back then. What’s that? What about Christopher Lee in the video? What about him? Plot wise, I think he’s meant to be in control of some sort of time portal but he looks as bored with the whole thing as I feel about it. Other than that, he does bugger all except stand around and stare down the lens of the camera. What? It’s the way that he stares though? Ah well, you’ve got me there.

As Kylie says in her intro to the next artist, the Aussies had taken over this particular episode of TOTP what with INXS, Kylie herself of course and now Gina G. Yes, lest we forget, the UK’s 1996 Eurovision entrant was actually Australian*. Despite trailing in eight place on the big night, “Ooh Aah…Just A Little Bit” had gone on to become a No 1 single. More surprising than that though was that Gina managed to sustain a pop career for another year or so and rack up four more hits. “Fresh” was the third of those and also the title track from her debut album. I don’t remember the song at all (for the record it was another ridiculously catchy, disco inflected Eurodance number) but I do recall the album – not for its music but for its dreadful cover art. It looked so amateurish and like it had been designed on the back of a beer mat down the pub. Gina is covered in chocolate icing (hmm…) holding a microphone attached to a stand with the microphone plugged into a socket on a wall. The room it’s set in is all in purple for some reason and Gina’s name and the album title look like they’ve been chucked on randomly at an angle rather than positioned with any resemblance of judgement. Then there’s Gina’s hair which looks like Crystal Tipps from 70s cartoon Crystal Tipps And Alistair. Is that some sort of air blower in the foreground (that might explain Gina’s hair) or is it an amp? You can’t tell because the whole thing has some sort of grainy tint to it that makes it look out of focus. The whole thing is an ugly mess. It was shot by renowned and award winning photographer David LaChapelle whose style has been described as “hyper-real and slyly subversive” – yeah, whatever. Regardless of what it looked like, the album continued her run of success by peaking at No 12 and achieving silver status in the UK in recognition of 60,000 sales.

*This theme was continued in 1997 as the UK entrant was Katrina And The Waves whose lead singer was Katrina Leskanich, an American but well be seeing them in these TOTP repeats soon enough.

Now, this is the song of the night so far for me. The Divine Comedy are probably not everybody’s cup of tea – was ‘wimp rock’ the term that some hack came up with to label them with? – but I’ve always quite liked them. After becoming genuine pop stars with chart hits the previous year, the band didn’t rest on their laurels and released their fifth album “A Short Album About Love” just nine months after their last “Casanova”. Despite containing three hit singles, it hadn’t sold that well so a change of tack was required. Rather than a complete change of sound, a different approach was deemed necessary and that was to record their next album at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire with an orchestra (but no audience). The plan worked in that the album made No 13 in the charts though I think I’m right in saying it was sold at a reduced price on account of only consisting of seven tracks so that may have helped its sales. It also produced another hit single in “Everybody Knows (Except You)” which was another ballad (of sorts) following on from previous hit “Frog Princess” though it was a much more…what’s the word?…agile?…unconventional?…love song but tuneful as hell. As for the performance, there was a lot of talk online about main man Neil Hannon’s cheek bones and beard. They are quite impressive though never really having had cheekbones or been able to grow a beard properly myself, I’m no expert.

By 1997, Wet Wet Wet had been having hits for a whole decade and to commemorate that anniversary, they released an album called “10”. Ironically, they wouldn’t release an album at all in the next ten years after their band splintered due to disputes over royalty payments and Marti Pellow’s hiatus to address his drugs and alcohol addictions. For the moment though, it seemed like business as usual as the band continued to churn out the hits. The phrase ‘business as usual’ could not only be applied to the band’s chart consistency but also to their sound. Lead single “If I Never See You Again” was yet more of their sophisti-pop, blue eyed soul style that they had honed over the years. I’d enjoyed their early hits but ten years in and – a bit like INXS earlier – it had all become a bit stale and predictable. Proving my point, the band’s final hit of the 90s would be with the most predictable cover version they could have chosen, the most covered song in history – “Yesterday” by The Beatles. With that and the whole “Love Is All Around” extended episode, “If I Never See You Again” might well have been the words on the lips of many a disgruntled music fan in 1997.

What’s that? Do I fancy a quick win? What do you mean? “Isn’t It A Wonder” by Boyzone has been on TOTP before on the 8 November 1996 show when it was premiered as an album track from their “A Different Beat” album? So I could just add a link to my review of that episode and I wouldn’t have to listen to/think about/ comment on it a second time? Right then…

TOTP 08 NOV 1996

The Spice Girls are holding at No 1 with the double A-side single “Mama / Who Do You Think You Are” off the back of Comic Relief day that happened the previous week. This time we get a performance of “Mama” and the girls have got some kids on stage with them to make the song even more sickly than it already was. I wonder who the kids were? Competition winners? They’ll be in their mid-30s now – you feel old now don’t you? I’m not sure that Mel B’s outfit was appropriate with her sitting next to that young lad. Still, it’ll have given him a good story to tell for the rest of his life.

The play out video is…wait…what? “Don’t Speak” by No Doubt?! But…but…they weren’t No 1 anymore and were at No 4 in the charts this week. They’d already been on three weeks in the trot whilst they’d topped the charts and yet they were back on again? Why? Well, this was all to do with the new appearance rules that had been brought in following the departure of Ric Blaxill as executive producer when songs no longer had to be new entries nor climbing the charts to be given a slot on the show. If you were going down the Top 40 you might yet get the call to appear one more time. Kylie says that “Don’t Speak” was the biggest selling single of the year to this point in an attempt to legitimise its video being given another showing but it seems a bit of a hollow reason to me. If this was the show’s new direction, I wasn’t sure about where we were heading.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Lisa Stansfield	The Real Thing	Negative
2	INXS	Elegantly Wasted	Nah
3	Damage	Love Guaranteed	As if
4	Gina G	Fresh	Nope
5	The Divine Comedy	Everybody Knows (Except You)	No but I had their Best Of with it on
6	Wet Wet Wet	If I Never See You Again	No
7	Boyzone	Isn’t It A Wonder	Never
8	Spice Girls	Mama / Who Do You Think You Are	I did not
9	No Doubt	Don’t Speak	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/m0027pnn/top-of-the-pops-21031997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 14 MAR 1997

Posted on February 7 by 80stastic

The era of Chris Cowey as TOTP executive producer may not have properly got underway yet but there have been some changes made already. Whether it’s down to this John L. Spencer guy who’s listed in the credits as the show’s director for some of this period or from higher above I’m not sure but what I do know is that the direct to camera piece at the start of the show by a featuring act has disappeared and the vintage clip advertising the TOTP2 brand at its end has also gone. I think I prefer it like this. The top and tail approach always seemed a bit clunky. Tonight’s host is Ian Broudie from the Lightning Seeds who’s got the gig for a second time in a short period – somebody on the show clearly really liked him but he’s not the most effervescent of presenters is he?

Anyway, we start with an absolute banger! I have a personal (albeit a bit tenuous) connection to this one – it’s “What Do You Want From Me” by Monaco. With New Order on hiatus following the release and promotion of the “Republic” album, the band members pursued side projects to give formation to their creativity. Whilst couple Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert worked together on their The Other Two material, Bernard Sumner always had the Electronic collective to fall back on. As for Peter Hook, thoughts that he might reactivate his late 80s/early 90s band Revenge were way off the mark as he came up with a new entity altogether in Monaco. I say new but his partner in this endeavour was David Potts who had been a part of Revenge but you get my drift. “What Do You Want From Me” was their first and biggest hit when it peaked at No 11. Accusations of being New Order-lite were as inevitable as they were obvious but none of that detracted from the general consensus that it was a great tune. Hooky’s distinctive bass playing style was allied to a catchy as hell ‘sha-la-la’ chorus that was both suitable for daytime radio and to maintain a lofty position in the credibility stakes.

So then. This personal connection story. Well, there was a lot of excitement about the release of this single at the Our Price in Stockport where I was working as David Potts had been one of us not so long before. Yes, the guy up there on our TV screens opening TOTP? We knew him! Now admittedly some of my colleagues knew ‘Pottsy’ better than me but I had worked with him for a brief period of a few months in the Manchester Piccadilly branch a couple of years before and his then girlfriend worked on a Saturday at the Stockport store at this time. As such, we were very aware of Monaco and were desperate for their single to be a big hit. I guess it was – No 11 was not to be sniffed at. Obviously we all bought “What Do You Want From Me” and aside from that track there’s also a fabulous song as the B-side called “Bicycle Thieves” presumably inspired by the 1948 Italian film of the same name. The CD single also featured an instrumental version of the title track and there’s a hidden bit that kicks in at the end after the track has finished which is basically a man laughing almost maniacally over a what sounds like a Wurlitzer organ. The guy doing the laughing was someone I’ve mentioned before in this blog, a larger than life character who was well known in Manchester as ‘Mirror Man’ on account of the way that he would talk to you through a hand held mirror. His real name was Ray and he used to wear a bus driver’s uniform despite the fact that he didn’t work on the buses and he would come into the shop where I worked and refer to all the staff by pop star names (I was Billy Idol for some reason). Anyway, Ray had this amazing, enormous, fill-the-room laugh and somehow he made it into the end of that Monaco track. RIP Ray.

As for Monaco, that initial success only sustained for one more single though their album “Music For Pleasure” matched the chart high of “What Do you Want From Me” and sold 500,000 copies worldwide. They split in 2000 but have come together again as part of Peter Hook and the Light playing New Order and Joy Division songs to live audiences. I caught them a few years back supporting Happy Mondays at an outdoor gig in Hull. I wasn’t anywhere near the front so there was no chance of Pottsy seeing me but even if he had I doubt he would have remembered me. It was all a long time ago after all.

We’re coming to the end of the era of Ant & Dec as pop stars but we’re not quite there yet. “Shout” was their twelfth consecutive Top 40 hit though only the third to make the Top 10. Sadly, it was not a cover of the Tears For Fears hit (though Wikipedia tells me that the lyrics of the chorus were influenced by it) but thankfully neither was it the duo’s take on that Lulu song. What it was though was quite a change of pace to those preceding hits. A slowed down number that verges on melancholy, one definite influence on it was the bass line from Lou Reed’s “Walk On The Wild Side”.

I recall being almost impressed by their ability to change direction but on reflection, just as with Eternal’s “Don’t You Love Me” in the last post, I think I may have exaggerated its quality. Firstly, there’s the sixth form ‘state of the nation’ lyrics and then there’s the image of Dec on the guitar. Really?! Can he actually play the instrument? I’m no virtuoso but I have had a few lessons down the years and having looked at the chord shapes his left hand is making, they might be correct but his strumming action is not convincing at all. With this change of pace and public face (Ant on solo lead vocals and Dec sat down with a guitar), what then didn’t make sense to me was the fact that they’d ditched the pop star career by the end of the year*. Why try out a new sound if you had no intention of carrying on? I’m sure, given the longevity of their TV careers, that they would argue it was clearly the correct decision and to be fair to them, they’d be right.

*I’m ignoring the 2002 World Cup song “We’re On The Ball”.

A bit of admin for Ian Broudie next as he explains why Kula Shaker weren’t on the show last week despite going straight into the charts at No 2 with their cover of “Hush”. Well, they were meant to be on but singer Crispian Mills had a sore throat and so was tucked up in bed with his actor Mum Hayley looking after him. OK, that makes sense except why have they just shown the video this time. Why wouldn’t they have just done that last week when it was at its chart peak rather than when it had slipped four places down the chart? The way the charts were back then, John L. Spencer or whoever must have known there was a chance the single would slip after its first week position. Ah well, the thing was that with Ric Blaxill gone some of the appearance rules with regard to chart positions seemed to be…well…disregarded. Songs would be featured on consecutive weeks which historically would only happen if it was the No 1 single. Also, those going down the charts would be featured, again in contravention of previous norms and conventions. To disguise this practice, the artist/title/chart position captions have been removed from the start of the performance and added in right at the end. Sneaky.

Anyway, Kula Shaker and “Hush”. I’m guessing this was the classic standalone single to bridge the gap between albums tactic. Debut “K” came out in September 1996 whilst follow up “Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts” didn’t arrive until March of 1999. So long was the wait that the lead single for the latter – “Mystical Machine Gun” – was released nearly twelve months before the parent album. Now, being a pop kid, Deep Purple who had recorded “Hush” in 1968 had never interested me so I’m not sure if I even knew the song before this but when I did finally hear it, I liked it. My research tells me that the Deep Purple version itself was a cover with the original song recorded by country singer Billy Joe Royal and was written by Joe South who also wrote “Rose Garden” that became a hit for Lynn Anderson which I think my parents had. So I’m guessing that “Hush” wasn’t an out and out heavy rock song which may explain why I was open to the charms of the Kula Shaker version? Hush my mouth!

Here’s another band whose name I remember but I couldn’t tell you how one of their songs went. 3 Colours Red (their name came from putting a pin in London listing magazine Time Out and landing on an advert for the final film of the Three Colours trilogy) would rack up six UK chart hits before the end of the 90s. This one – “Sixty Mile Smile” – courted some controversy when rumours circulated that it was about lead singer Pete Vučković’s hospitalisation after a bad ecstasy trip. This sort of thing did not go down well in the media back then – just ask Brian Harvey.

The majority of the band’s hits would peak between Nos 30 and 20 except 1999’s “Beautiful Day” which was their biggest reaching No 11. There seemed to be a few bands in this period like 3 Colours Red that had a big enough fanbase to ensure that every single they released would be a medium sized hit which would then fall away dramatically – I’m thinking Gene, Therapy? and Terrorvision (apart from that “Tequila” hit of course). Having listened to “Sixty Mile Smile” in the present day, my opinion would be that it’s a decent sound without being anywhere near exceptional. 6/10 is about right in my book.

Like “Hush” before it, here’s another hit that had already reached its peak position and was on its way down the charts though this one was at least holding in the same position for two weeks running. “Encore Une Fois” by Sash! would actually prove to be a very hardy and resilient track taking another month after this before it even departed the Top 10 and spending twelve weeks in the Top 40 altogether. Apparently this German DJ/production team hold the record for the most amount of No 2 hits (five in total) without ever having a chart topper. That’s a lot of No 2s! You can make your own jokes up…

Talking of artists who had a run of hits that peaked at the same chart position each time, check out Alisha’s Attic’s chart stats for their first five singles:

14 – 12 – 12 – 12 – 13

Now that’s consistency. “Indestructible” came bang in the middle of that run and was the third track to be released from the sister duo’s debut album “Alisha Rules The World”. I remember this as being better than it was listening back to it now. It’s all very pleasant and has a dreamy quality but ultimately it comes off as a bit insubstantial. Perhaps the CGI video that was probably cutting edge at the time isn’t helping by dating it rather so probably not indestructible after all.

Right, this messing around with the TOTP appearance rules has got out of hand now. Why the hell are No Mercy on again?! Their hit “Where Do You Go” has been on the show at least three times now and this is the fourth week in a row that it has gone down the charts! Make it make sense! I’ve also noticed that as well as shifting the artist/title/chart position graphic to the end of the performance, there’s no longer an arrow indicating that a song was climbing the charts. That used to be a thing didn’t it? Surely the chart countdown graphic had something like that which it doesn’t appear to anymore. It all stinks a bit of hoodwinking the TV audience to me.

Ian Broudie refers to the next artist as his showbiz mates and I don’t think he’s making it up as he did produce their debut album and one of them clearly says “Thanks Ian” as the camera pans from him to the band. Our host was talking about Dodgy whom he also refers to as “probably the best group in the country”. Hmm. It’s a bold claim. Whilst I did quite like them, I don’t think I’d have gone that far. They’re in the studio to perform their latest hit “Found You” which was the fourth and final track lifted from their “Free Peace Sweet” album. Looking at their discography, this could be the last time we see them on TOTP as they only had one more Top 40 hit in 1998 and that only made No 32. What is their legacy? As I said, I quite liked their jaunty, melodic brand of Britpop (if that’s what they were) but sadly if you type the word ‘dodgy’ into a search engine, you more likely to be prompted to look for ‘dodgy fire stick’ than the band.

The Spice Girls are No 1 (of course they are) with double A-side “Mama/Who Do You Think You Are”. We get the latter song this week and it really is a great pop track. An instant floor filler – contemporary sounding but with a retro disco style flavour (I think they called it nu-disco). Despite not having her own solo part on any of the verses, it’s Melanie C’s vocals that stand out and hold it all together with her counterpoint harmonies. In a glorious bit of symmetry, she would appear in 2024 in Series 21 of the genealogy show Who Do You Think You Are, the only Spice Girl to do so up to now.

As mentioned previously, the plug for TOTP2 has gone and is replaced by a play out video of a current song. This week we get “Rumble In The Jungle” by the Fugees featuring A Tribe Called Quest, Busta Rhymes and John Forté. Taken from the soundtrack to the documentary When We Were Kings about the Muhammad Ali /George Foreman boxing match that took place in the former Zaire in 1974, it famously features the bass line from ABBA’s “The Name Of The Game” and the melody from “Angel Of The Morning” made famous by Juice Newton. Now apparently, the Fugees’ record label Columbia had planned to rerelease “Fu-Gee-La” as the group’s next single and had even sent out promo copies to radio stations to plug the track. However, in America, Mercury Records released the When We Were Kings soundtrack and “Rumble In The Jungle” to promote it which led to canny record dealers in the UK getting hold of import copies of the single and selling them over here thus undermining any potential sales for “Fu-Gee-La”. In the end, Columbia relented and the planned rerelease never happened leaving the way clear for an official release for “Rumble In The Jungle” which made No 3. As with Dodgy, I think this might be our last glimpse of the Fugees on TOTP. For a group of such influence, the small size of their discography seems like a contradiction.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen the documentary all the way through which I should probably correct one day. I do know that Ali won the fight and was massively popular in Zaire where he won over the locals with his charm. Of course, the Fugees song wasn’t the first to use the Rumble In The Jungle as its subject matter. There is also this…

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Monaco	What Do You Want From Me	YES!
2	Ant & Dec	Shout	NO!
3	Kula Shaker	Hush	Negative
4	3 Colours Red	Sixty Mile Smile	Nah
5	Sash!	Encore Une Fois	Never
6	Alisha’s Attic	Indestructible	Nope
7	No Mercy	Where Do You Go	As if
8	Dodgy	Found You	No but my wife had the album
9	Spice Girls	Mama/Who Do You Think You Are	I did not
10	Fugees	Rumble In The Jungle	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/m0027fvz/top-of-the-pops-14031997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 07 MAR 1997

Posted on February 5, 2025 by 80stastic

We’ve entered a new phase of TOTP history with this repeat as it marks the changing of the guard of the show’s executive producer role. Outgoing was Ric Blaxill* who been in the post for three years following the ‘Year Zero’ revamp debacle and in his place would come Chris Cowey who had worked on The Tube in the 80s and been the producer of its (sort of) 90s successor The White Room. I’m assuming that Blaxill’s rather sudden departure was due to the viewing figures for TOTP being down to two million though in fairness to Blaxill, the show being moved to a Friday night at 7.30 and going up against Coronation Street was probably the biggest factor in that outcome and that may have been a decision made way above him.

*Blaxill makes a valedictory cameo appearance at the end of the previous show when the Spice Girls are messing about with Ian Wright. He’s wearing a T-shirt that says ‘Bye TOTP Bye’

Cowey was brought in to reverse that trend and he did with viewing figures rising to five and a half million within the six year period he was executive producer. How did he do it? In his own words:

“There wasn’t any one fact why it worked. It was a million and one tiny fixes”

Sunderland Echo, Published 17th Jan 2024

One such fix was a phasing out of the ‘golden mic’ slot which saw celebrities from the world of music and showbiz taking over as presenters. Instead, a regular roster of hosts was assembled being sourced from BBC youth magazine show The O–Zone and existing Radio 1 DJs. This was no return to the ‘Smashie and Nicey’ days of the 70s and 80s though with the DJs being sourced from the cooler, edgier end of the spectrum like Jo Whiley and Zoe Ball. I know that both are no longer seen as cool or edgy in 2025 but they possibly were back in 1997. Look, they were young at least and we should all be thankful that neither was Simon Mayo – OK?! Erm… where was I? Oh yeah, Chris Cowey. Well, he was all about live performances so artists appearing on the show were encouraged to sing live and he also saw the potential to take the TOTP brand abroad which resulted in localised versions of the show being broadcast throughout Europe. He would also favour a bit of nostalgia when he reintroduced a revamped version of the classic “Whole Lotta Love” theme tune and a new logo and title sequence. All of that’s to come though as Cowey wouldn’t officially take over until the Summer of 1997* so I’m assuming there was an interim period where a caretaker producer (or series of producers) was in charge of the show. The credits for this one says the director was one John L. Spencer.

*Credit to loyal blog reader Essor for that info

As for tonight’s edition, it was the aforementioned Jo Whiley as solo host for the first time introducing Eternal as the opening artist tonight. Now you can say what you like about this lot but you can’t deny that they were prolific in their output. “Don’t You Love Me” was their twelfth consecutive UK chart hit in just over three years of which all but two went Top 10. Taken from their platinum selling “Before The Rain” album, it was (at the time) the highest charting of the lot. I recall thinking back then that this was quite classy sounding but I think I may have misjudged it. For a start it rips off the bassline from the Dennis Edwards track “Don’t Look Any Further” (which I knew from The Kane Gang version) and which M People had taken to No 9 as recently as 1993. Secondly, it’s all a bit overwrought with lyrics about homelessness and poverty completely over cooked by adding a children’s choir at the song’s climax along with a harpsichord for some reason. Then there’s all the pointy, angled choreography that accompanies this performance. The song’s subject matter is hardly something to dance along to. It just looks odd and jarring. For all my misgivings and despite the threat posed by the phenomenon of the Spice Girls, Eternal were about to score their only chart topping single with their very next release – “I Wanna Be The Only One”.

Around 1994, I started losing sight of Erasure’s output after they’d been a constant presence in my pop music life since 1985 and their first ever single “Who Needs Love Like That”. By 1997, I could hardly see them at all. “Don’t Say Your Love Is Killing Me” was their 26th UK chart hit but it was also their first not to make the Top 20. It was from their eighth studio album called “Cowboy” the title of which I didn’t recall so I looked it up and I didn’t even recognise its front cover! And I worked in a record shop! I really did have a blind spot when it came to Vince and Andy at this point.

As for this particular single, it kind of feels like it should be better than it is. Some of the trademark Erasure components are in place like a catchy chorus and a jaunty synth pop backing but it just doesn’t quite hang together right for me. Sort of like Erasure by numbers but the finished composition is a bit wonky. Bits of the electronic bleeps in the production sound like they’ve been lifted directly from their 1988 hit “Stop” whilst it goes all “Telstar” by The Tornados towards the end with what sounds like a clavioline prominent. The end effect feels like it’s all been thrown together somewhat. “Don’t Say Your Love Is Killing Me” would be Erasure’s last hit of the 90s but they would return in the new millennium with yet more new material.

The first video of the night comes courtesy of the Bee Gees and their hit “Alone”. Apparently there were two different promos shot for this single – one for the US and another for all other territories. Not sure why. Anyway, the latter features the brothers performing against a clearly green screen created background of a futuristic styled spinning room intercut with images of a woman floating in zero gravity removing her spacesuit – an obvious homage to the movie Barbarella. And that’s it. Nothing else. One single idea to base the whole video on. Wikipedia tells me that the US promo features the band in the recording studio intercut with footage of them from throughout their career and images from the UK video. Both were directed by Nick Eagan who has designed some iconic single and album covers for the likes of Dexys, The Clash, INXS and Duran Duran but he was clearly phoning this assignment in. “Alone” would peak at No 5 on the UK charts.

Any hopes that Peter Andre’s pop career might be a flash in the pan have been dashed over and over as the buffed up goon is onto his fifth UK hit in just under a year. At least this one didn’t go to No 1 like his previous two singles. I think we missed having to endure “I Feel You” which topped the chart not long before Christmas but no such luck this time around as the title track from his album “Natural” is straight in at No 6. This was more of the same nasty, knowing R&B dance pop with lyrics designed to get his female teenage fanbase dreaming of clandestine meetings with their hero. Just to ramp up the sexual tension, there’s even a bit in it that steals from another godawful hit from the 90s with carnal referencing lyrics – “I Wanna Sex You Up” by Color Me Badd. Horrible, wretched stuff. Andre’s ‘music’ really was desperate like going into the only cubicle in a public toilet that’s free when you’re dying for the loo and realising that the bloke who was in there before you has made the most unholy stench and you are left with the despairing choice of soiling yourself or breathing in that rancid air – that level of desperate. Just naff off mate.

Jo Whiley is a bit gushy introducing the next artist though I’m not surprised that she’s jumped on this particular bandwagon. “The muso’s muso. He can do no wrong” she says. Who can she be talking about? Well, it’s Beck of course. Just about everyone I ever worked with during my time in record shops were crazy about Beck. He was effortlessly cool (even when he looked geeky) and his music was a stylish antidote to all that generic dance music and seemingly endless conveyor belt of boybands. This one – “The New Pollution” – was no exception. The third single from his “Odelay” album, it was featured a syncopated (is that the right word?) take on the bass line from “Taxman” by The Beatles forming a wicked groove that pulled you in from note one. The lyrics seem a bit oblique (“She’s got a carburettor tied to the moon”) but I’m guessing it has some sort of environmental message judging by the title or is that too literal a take? A bigger Beck fan than I will put me straight I’m sure. I like all the performers on stage all dressed head to toe in white jumping about at the end like they’re in some sort of Woody Allen movie (or possibly a Madness video). “We salute the godlike genius of Beck” says Jo Whiley at the song’s end. I’m not sure I’d go that far but he was pretty cool. Far too cool for the likes of me though not my record shop colleagues nor my wife who bought the album.

Some smooth, R&B soul next courtesy of Babyface. Given that nickname by funk legend Bootsy Collins on account of his youthful looks (his real name is Kenneth Edmonds), it made me wonder how many other people were given that moniker. Well, there’s ‘Baby Face’ Nelson, the 1930s gangster and Ole Gunnar Solskjær, the ex-Manchester United player and manager who was nicknamed ‘The Baby Faced Assassin’. And that’s where the well runs dry. There’s plenty of people who were known as ‘Baby’ – Emma Bunton was ‘Baby Spice’ for example – but ‘Baby Face’ or indeed ‘Babyface’? I’m not so sure. It appears that not only are there not that many who go by the name of Babyface but even those that do are not that well known to some people. At the 2025 Grammy Awards that took place a few days ago, Babyface was being interviewed on the red carpet when hot new star Chappell Roan walked past. The Associated Press reporters immediately forgot they were interviewing the 13 times Grammy winning producer and recording artist and shouted out “Chappell” clearly smelling a much bigger interview in their eyes. Babyface was extremely magnanimous by allowing the reporters to pursue Roan without taking offence. The fallout from the incident showed that others had taken offence though including Dionne Warwick who tweeted her disgust at the incident and the panel on US talk show The View who balked the disrespect shown to Babyface and the apparent lack of knowledge as to his accomplishments…

Quite right too. Well said. His 1997 hit “Every Time I Close My Eyes” however was never going to inspire me to interview Babyface if I’m honest. Just not my thing and the presence of Mariah Carey on backing vocals and Kenny G* on sax wasn’t going to sway me either.

*No I’m not going to go into my Kenny G story again! It’s in the blog archives if you must relive it!

Despite their longevity, this was only the second ever TOTP studio appearance by Aerosmith. Surprising? Maybe not. Up to this point, they had only achieved seven UK Top 40 hits of which none had gone higher than number 13 and they were still over a year away from Top 5 international smash “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing”. However, an eighth in “Falling In Love (Is Hard On The Knees)” earned them another not just a No 22 chart placing but a visit to the BBC Elstree Centre in Borehamwood. The pop kid that I was, Aerosmith had not been a band that had crossed my path in my youth with my first engagement with them coming via their 1986 collaboration with Run DMC on “Walk This Way”. After that, they occasionally piqued my interest with tracks like “Dude (Looks Like A Lady)” and “Cryin’” but I was hardly a huge fan. Such was my lack of commitment that I don’t even remember this one at all but listening to it now, it’s not a million away from the aforementioned “Dude (Looks Like A Lady)”, being that bluesy yet camped up rock n’ roll sound that they made their name on. As to what the song was about, well, it’s not so hard to work out is it?! No, he wasn’t singing about proposing!

“When I grow up, I want to be a rock chic!” trills Jo Whiley after that Aerosmith performance. Hmm. Anyway, No Doubt are No 1 for the last of three weeks with “Don’t Speak”. What’s the link between this song and the artist we’ve just seen Aerosmith? Listen to the intro to this and see if it reminds you of something…

Yep, very similar. Anyway this week we get the promo video for “Don’t Speak” with its plot about the media focus on singer Gwen Stefani whilst the rest of the band are ignored. This wasn’t a narrative of pure fiction though. Tensions in the band had been riding high perhaps not helped by bassist Tony Kanal and Stefani’s romantic relationship breaking down. That wasn’t the only relationship breakdown in the camp though. Legend has it that the band were on the verge of splitting at the time of shooting the video but they decided to go through with it as a sort of healing treatment – group therapy if you will. I’m guessing it worked as the band carried on until 2005 and are back together today after a couple of sabbaticals.

As Comic Relief was only one week away, we end the show with the official song for that year’s campaign – “Who Do You Think You Are” by the Spice Girls. For the promotion of the song and the event, a video was shot which harked back to 1989’s Comic Relief. I say ‘harked back’ but I mean totally pinched the idea from. I refer to the appearance of Kathy Burke, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. Back in 1989, Bananarama were tasked with delivering the charity’s single – a cover of “Help” by The Beatles – which was credited as being by Bananarama and Lananeeneenoonoo who were a spoof group made up of…yep…Kathy Burke, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. The concept was revisited in 1997. As the Spice Girls had five members, two other celebrities were drafted in namely Lulu and actress, comedian and writer Llewella Gideon. For Lananeeneenoonoo read the Sugar Lumps (a name which would have made more sense if the Sugababes had been around then). I didn’t find this skit funny back in 1989 and was even less enamoured of its 1997 counterpart but hey – it was for charity.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Eternal	Don’t You Love Me	Negative
2	Erasure	Don’t Say Your Love Is Killing Me	Nope
3	Bee Gees	Alone	I did not
4	Peter Andre	Natural	As if
5	Beck	The New Pollution	No but my wife and the album
6	Babyface	Every Time I Close My Eyes	Not my bag at all
7	Aerosmith	Falling In Love (Is Hard On The Knees)	Nah
8	No Doubt	Don’t Speak	Good tune but no
9	Spice Girls	Who Do You Think You Are	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/m0027fvx/top-of-the-pops-07031997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 28 FEB 1997

Posted on January 31, 2025 by 80stastic

It’s the last day of February in 1997 and we’ve just had the BRIT Awards show which featured that Union Jack mini dress worn by Geri Halliwell when the Spice Girls performed at the event. It has come to be seen as an iconic moment in UK music history. At the 2010 BRIT Awards, it was voted the most memorable performance of the last 30 years. The dress itself was auctioned in 1998 at Sotheby’s with the winning bid of £41,320 becoming a Guinness World Record as the most money paid for an item of pop star clothing at auction. The design has been copied by many a fan attending various Pride events or Spice Girls concert. Let’s see if we can spot its influence on any of the artists in this particular episode of TOTP…

By the way, tonight’s host is footballer Ian Wright who is cutting his teeth on TOTP for his staggeringly long and full media career which he built for himself after he finally stopped kicking a ball for a living. The first act he introduces are the Bee Gees who may not be wearing any Union Jack dresses but they did pick up an Outstanding Contribution Award at the BRITS earlier in the week. Whatever you thought of their music, you couldn’t deny their longevity and said award was deserved. Having released their first single in 1963, they scored their first UK hit in 1967 racking up a further eight hits (including two No 1s) before the decade ended. It would be the 70s though that would be their golden era and the period of their career that they are most remembered for with the disco explosion and Saturday Night Fever phenomenon. The 80s were a different story and one of complete extremes – they only released eight singles in total all of which except one failed to make the UK Top 40 but the one that did? Yep, it was a No 1.

And so to the 90s and although it certainly wasn’t up there with the 70s, the Gibb brothers were pretty consistent. Nine chart entries including four Top 5 hits of which “Alone” was the third. That’s not even counting the two cover versions in 1996 by Take That and Boyzone of “How Deep Is Your Love” and “Words” respectively that both went to No 1. Having blown smoke up their collective arses for a few sentences, I have to say that “Alone” tested my patience in terms of its listenability. It’s all a bit predictable and, dare I say it, indistinguishable from their other 90s hits. Even when they tried to shake things up by inserting some bagpipes into the track, it just really dated it. John Farnham* had done that 10 years before on “You’re The Voice”. The Bee Gees final UK Top 5 hit would follow in 1998 when they joined forces with Celine Dion on “Immortality”. Oh deep joy.

*Yes I also mentioned him in another recent post and no, I’m not obsessed with him!

A-ha! The first signs of the influence of the Union Jack dress are in evidence in this next performance by Republica as lead singer Saffron (real name Samantha Sprackling) chooses a Saint George’s Cross T-shirt to wear under her suit jacket. Republica were one of those curious cases where they definitely were not a one hit wonder and in any case, that hit wasn’t even the highest charting of their career but they were destined to be defined by it. “Ready To Go” is the track in question and it was originally released a year before this when it failed to make the Top 40. The 1996 version (often referred to as the Original UK Mix’) was vastly different to the one we would all grow to know with more of a dance sound to it. A piano motif existed where the hit version had guitars and it just had a lighter touch to it in general. The version that peaked at No 13 in our charts was a US remix that would ultimately become the one that was released to Europe second time around which had a much heavier sound and faster tempo making it more like a rock track than a dance anthem though I’m sure many did cut some rug to it. In fact, I bet it went down a storm in the indie discos of the time with much jumping up and down on the dance floor – I don’t think I would have been involved in this myself you understand; being 29 this year I was probably aging out of the club market.

The high octane thrill ride that was “Ready To Go” would lend itself to being the perfect soundtrack to the start of sports events. I believe Sunderland AFC used to run out to this track at their home matches back in the day. As for Republica, they looked like they might be the next big thing for a while with Saffron’s cheekbones and looks allied to a very commercial sound – a UK No Doubt possibly. However it wouldn’t last. Their final UK hit came in 1998 with the band’s fortunes being undone by a poorly received second album and record label Deconstruction going bust. They kind of remind me of a 90s version of Westworld of “Sonic Boom Boy” fame who similarly burnt brightly but briefly though Republica reformed in 2008 and are still a going concern today.

The two highest chart entries of the week are both huge dance tunes and we get both of them back to back starting with “Encore Une Fois” by Sash! This was all very confusing. The track’s title was French for “One more time” yet Sash! are a German DJ/production team. Not only that but it sounded very similar to “Insomnia” by Faithless so much so that Rollo considered his legal options for a while. A trance floor filler, it is almost entirely an instrumental track aside from the title being repeated by vocalist Sabine Ohmes plus her spoken word intro “Mesdames, Messieurs Le disc-jockey Sash! est de retour” which translates to “Ladies and gentlemen, DJ Sash! is back here”. Due to the lack of lyrics, if you watch the performance with the subtitles on, the following words flash on screen:

“Band plays an ambient house beat”

and…

“He plays a phrase again and again”

Bizarrely, that’s almost exactly what I was going to write as my review of the track!

As Ian Wright says, viewers might have had the second highest chart entry of the week in their collection already. “You Got The Love” by The Source featuring Candi Staton was originally a huge hit back in 1991 but was rereleased in 1997 as the ‘New Voyager Mix’ and was a hit all over again peaking one place higher than its 1991 counterpart at No 3. For what it’s worth I much prefer the original but I haven’t got the time nor the inclination to write about this one all over again so this is what I had to say about it when I reviewed the 1991 TOTP repeats in which it featured which numbered three – coincidentally, almost the same amount of times it was released:

TOTP 07 FEB 1991

TOTP 14 FEB 1991

TOTP 28 FEB 1991

Not wearing a Union Jack dress but definitely wearing her British influences on her sleeve was Cathy Dennis who is back in the charts with a cover of perhaps the quintessential English song – “Waterloo Sunset”. With The Kinks very much being talked about at the time as ‘The Godfathers of Britpop’, it must have seemed a sensible choice for Cathy to move away from the dance diva image that had made her name and remodel herself as a singer-songwriter, paying homage to the great Ray Davies and riding the zeitgeist at the same time. Or was it a much more cynical move? Cathy’s career was teetering on the edge and she needed a hit to revive it? We’ve seen that move so many times. Well, it’s true that the hits, whilst not having dried up completely, had certainly shrivelled in size. After debut album “Move To This” had achieved gold status, follow up “Into The Skyline” had not sustained after initial success and none of its singles had got any higher in the charts than No 23. Fast forward five years and third album “Am I The Kinda Girl?” would fail and flail its way to a lowly chart peak of No 78. Cathy’s cover of “Waterloo Sunset” did give her a No 11 hit (her highest position since 1991) but it was a temporary reprieve with the follow up single missing the Top 40 altogether. At this point, Cathy gave up on being a star in her own right and forged a hugely successful career writing songs for other people. A bit ironic then that her final hit was with a composition that wasn’t one of hers.

Cathy does a decent job of selling us “Waterloo Sunset” with this performance and, let’s be fair, convincing people they needed a version of this iconic song that wasn’t by The Kinks was not an easy sell. Her feather boa is a nice nod to the 60s as is her coy, daydreaming looks to the camera. Having her play a guitar gives me Sheryl Crow vibes which perhaps was intentional for her singer-songwriter ambitions.

And yet more evidence of the influence of that Geri Halliwell dress as Bush lead singer Gavin Rossdale is wearing a top with a Union Jack design on it. His British grunge band have finally bagged themselves a UK hit after breaking the US first as “Swallowed” has landed inside the Top 10. Rossdale, of course, was in a relationship with No Doubt’s Gwen Stefani at this point but they won’t have had a chance to spend any time together on this show as they weren’t in the studio simultaneously – the No Doubt performance we will see later is just a repeat of the one from last week. If they had met up, they could have worked on a mash up of their two hits – an ode to not talking whilst you’re eating called “Don’t Speak…Swallow”. I’ll get me coat.

Although he was about to enter that part of his career when he couldn’t guarantee himself a UK Top 40 hit with every release, having Prince (or The Artist as he was known back then) on TOTP in person would still have been a big deal. It certainly was for host Ian Wright for whom he was his idol as he gushed in his intro. Although he hadn’t won anything at the BRITS (he’d been nominated for Best International Male Solo Artist), Prince/The Artist had performed the title track from his latest album “Emancipation” at the show. Whilst he was still in the country, he popped by the BBC’s flagship music show for a performance of his latest single “The Holy River”. Seeing as he didn’t play this one at the BRITS, I’m guessing that this TOTP appearance was very much scheduled – he knew he didn’t have to promote his latest single at the awards show as he had another UK TV slot already booked. We didn’t know it at the time but excluding the rerelease of “1999” in 1998, this single would be Prince’s final UK Top 40 hit in his lifetime. As such, I wish I had something nicer to say about it but it’s all style over substance. It’s a much more toned down, traditional pop/rock song than some of his more funk driven output but it never really goes anywhere – does it even have a chorus? He can call himself The Artistall he liked but it didn’t stop him from going all Prince-like at the end where he gives us a “Purple Rain”-esque guitar solo just for good measure. Ah, well. Thanks for all the memories Mr Nelson.

And this is where we came in as we return to the protagonist of the Union Jack dress story though Geri Halliwell doesn’t have it on tonight. In fact, she’s distinctly covered up this time leaving Victoria/Posh to wear a revealing outfit with an awful lot of décolletage on show. Yes, it’s time for an exclusive performance of their new single from the Spice Girls. As with Prince before them, they’d already done a turn at the BRITS though they were given a two song slot as we got “Wannabe” and “Who Do You Think You Are”. The latter formed a double A-side with the song on the show tonight – “Mama” – which would be the Comic Relief single for 1997. In a remarkably fortunate falling of dates (hmm…), Comic Relief day and Mothering Sunday were within five days of each other this year so with that double whammy of events, there was no way that this fourth Spice Girls single wasn’t going to No 1 and when it did, the group set a new record of all of their first four releases topping the chart. Have that Gerry and the Pacemakers, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Jivebunny and Robson & Jerome!

I have to admit that “Mama” always seemed a bit of a weak effort to me, sweet to the point of being sickly despite its noble sentiments (basically the girls admitting what cows they were to their Mums when they were growing up). I much preferred the sassy, uptempo “Who Do You Think You Are”. The Spice Girls juggernaut would roll on in 1997 albeit there would be a six month gap where they didn’t release anything before they were back with a new single and album, a second Christmas No 1 and even a film. Spice Girls overload is coming!

Even Ian Wright has picked up on the constant revolving door sequence of a new No 1 becoming a weekly event, so much so that he articulates his surprise that “Don’t Speak” by No Doubt has managed a second week at the top of the charts in 1997. To me, it did have that feel of having gravitas to it that would enable more longevity than something like, I don’t know, Tori Amos or LL Cool J. If you examine the sales figures for those records in the week they were No 1, that view is kind of borne out. “Professional Widow (It’s Got To Be Big)” and “Ain’t Nobody” both sold 80,000 copies in their first weeks which was enough to secure top spot for them both. “Don’t Speak” sold 195,000 copies in week one and followed that up with 140,000 copies in week two – both these figures were more than any No 1 single had sold since Christmas. Even in its third week, it sold 85,000 copies to hold on at No 1 – again more than Tori Amos and LL Cool J. However, it couldn’t stand up to the g-force of the Spice Girls single when that was released in March.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Bee Gees	Alone	I didn’t
2	Republica	Ready To Go	Liked it, didn’t buy it
3	Sash!	Encore Une Fois	Never
4	The Source featuring Candi Staton	You Got The Love	Negative
5	Cathy Dennis	Waterloo Sunset	No
6	Bush	Swallowed	No but I had it on one of those Best Album Ever compilations
7	Prince aka The Artist	The Holy River	Nope
8	Spice Girls	Mama / Who Do You Think You Are	Nah
9	No Doubt	Don’t Speak	See 2 above

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/p00fsvld/top-of-the-pops-28021997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 10 JAN 1997

Posted on January 14, 2025 by 80stastic

And here we go again. I’m beginning my ninth year of blogging about TOTP and 1997 will be the fifteenth (!) year I’ve covered. I’ve committed to carrying on until I’ve completed 1999 so I reckon that’s another 18 months of blogging. The things I do for you people! So, new year, new songs as the majority of the hits in this show we haven’t seen performed before in these BBC4 repeats. However, the opening act I’ve only just talked about in my ‘1996 – the epilogue’ post when I discussed their song “Punka” so not great planning on my behalf. Anyway, this single – “In Your Car” – gave Kenickie their first Top 40 hit – no doubt some canny early January release scheduling helped it get there. It’s a decent track if a little basic – the slightly repetitive ‘yeah, yeah’ chorus being an obvious example. Lyrically, it comes over like an updated version of “Leader Of The Pack” but without the tragic ending with the narrative driven by the band shouting out questions to lead singer Lauren Laverne about how she got a lift off some bloke she knew. Yeah, it’s a bit slight but it had enough punk- pop chops to propel it along nicely. It would prove to be their biggest hit when it peaked at No 24. Why weren’t Kenickie bigger? Was it a case of the right stuff at the wrong time? Maybe they were intelligent enough to understand that the music industry was cutthroat and shallow and they ultimately wanted no part of it? Perhaps. What we do know is that they broke up in 1998 just two albums into their career.

As if Peter Andre wasn’t bad enough, here was the UK’s answer to the oiled up, walking six pack. After the demise of Take That the year before, pop puppet master Nigel Martyn-Smith looked to a solo act to get the teenage girls screaming and the cash registers ringing again. Anthony Gerard Kavanagh of Moston, Greater Manchester aka Kavana was the lucky (?) recipient of Martin-Smith’s focus whose backing garnered two minor UK hits in 1996 and a support slot on the Boyzone tour. However, to breakthrough the chart glass ceiling into the upper echelons of the Top 10 was going to require something else and, of course, that meant a cover version. The track chosen was “I Can Make You Feel Good” which was a No 7 hit in 1982 for Shalamar. It was a good choice, a super smooth R&B/pop number that was recent enough to not sound out of place in the 90s but also long enough ago for many a pop fan to potentially not realise that it was a cover and associate it purely with the new artist. Kavana delivers a pretty faithful version but then a radically different take on it wasn’t what was required here. It needed to be a bigger hit than he’d ever had and that was achieved when it missed equalling the original’s chart peak by just one place. Job done.

Having said all of that, I could never quite work out the appeal of Kavana. Yeah, he had pretty boy looks and that floppy, mid 90s hair but what else? I didn’t see enough star quality in him to think he would be anything more than a fleeting presence in the UK charts and yet he hung around for the rest of the decade racking up eight Top 40 hits including two Top 10s. I could see him as part of a five-piece boy band but out on his own? Not for me. In 2013, Kavana did become a member of a group when he joined forces with Dane Bowers of Another Level, Gareth Gates, Adam Rickitt and Kenzie from Blazin’ Squad to form 5th Story as part of the ITV show The Big Reunion. One of the songs they recorded? Yep, “I Can Make You Feel Good”.

Next to a track that would become one of the oddest No 1s of the decade. “Professional Widow” was a No 20 hit for Tori Amos in the Summer of 1996 when it was paired with “Hey Jupiter” as a double A-side. The third single from her “Boys For Pele” album, it was in and out of the UK Top 40 within three weeks so it was quite likely that, like me, you may have missed it at the time. However, it took a further six weeks to depart the Top 100 and then it reappeared in the November for another two months never getting higher than No 86. What was all that about? Well, the version released in the UK and Europe was a remix by American house DJ and producer Armand Van Helden and it was radically different to the original album version. I’m guessing that it was the 12” format that included the full 8 minutes long ‘Armand’s Star Trunk Funkin’ mix’ that was picking up those latterly sales as DJs played it in the clubs of the UK. Such was the continued buzz about the track that another release was planned by label EastWest but this time they went full on promoting the dance remix and not sharing the bill with another song. And so it came to pass that the track was reissued at the start of 1997 and retitled as “Professional Widow (It’s Got To Be Big)”. This time, released during the post Christmas sales lull, it would debut at No 2 before moving to the top of the charts for one week seven days later.

As I said, the remix didn’t sound anything like the original album version (it did get a release in America alongside the remix) which was typical Tori fare with a tortured vocal and a slow, shuffling tempo that bore no resemblance to the dance release at all. Having listened to the original, it has some appeal but then I have to admit to quite liking Tori’s quirky style anyway.

However, Armand Van Helden’s treatment does rather blow it out of the water. He basically cut it up and stuck it back together to produce something completely different yet standout; like a jigsaw puzzle with the pieces in all the wrong places but fitting together to create something wonderfully abstract and arresting. You certainly couldn’t ignore “Professional Widow (It’s Got To Be Big)” as it leapt out at you from the radio or your stereo. Undoubtedly Tori’s biggest UK hit though she’s hardly on it at at all. Like I said, all a bit odd really.

Right, who’s next? Runrig? Really?! I can’t think of anything to say about this lot! What? The song they’re doing – “The Greatest Flame” – has not only been a hit before but the band have performed on TOTP before?! What? When? May 1993? Right. That’s that sorted then. Here’s what I had to say about it back then. I’m sure my opinion won’t have changed. By the way, it was rereleased to promote the band’s Best Of compilation called “Long Distance” if you were wondering though I doubt you were.

TOTP 21 MAY 1993

Next up a hit that would have caused the TOTP producers a couple of staging problems I would have thought. Firstly, because it’s a dance act (surely nobody would quibble with me about my description of Orbital as such) and secondly because their hit was called “Satan”. Well, fortunately, an official video had been made for the single for the show to play but unfortunately it was no more than Phil and Paul Hartnoll (who were Orbital) stood miming behind some synths so basically what was effectively a studio performance with all the aforementioned incumbent visual issues on display. Yes, they were wearing some natty eyewear with lights on and there was a bit of black and white film footage thrown into the mix like a submarine and some snarling dogs but it was essentially two bald blokes banging away at some keyboards. The second issue would have been the track’s intro which went:

Daddy, yes, son
Wha-what does-what does regret mean?
Well, son, a funny thing about regret is
That it’s better to regret something you have done
Than regret something you haven’t done
By the way, if you see your mom this weekend
You shouldn’t tell her…

SATAN!

SATAN!

SATAN!….

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Paul Hartnoll / Phillip Hartnoll
Satan lyrics © Sm Publishing Uk Limited, Dlk Music Ltd, Sentric Music Publishing Ltd

The word ‘Satan’ was said almost demonically and repeated on a loop to make it especially disturbing. The fix for the show was relatively easy though – just edit out the intro which they duly did. As with Tori Amos before, I’m sure its chart placing of No 3 was at least partly enabled by its early January release date and also like “Professional Widow”, it had already been a small hit before. Originally released as a track on the “III” EP in 1991, it had peaked at No 31. Six years on, it was repackaged as “Satan Live” with two of the three versions released over three CD singles having been taken from live gigs in New York and the V96 festival in Chelmsford. 1997 would be Orbital’s most commercially successful year as the follow up – “The Saint” taken from the soundtrack to the film of the same name starring Val Kilmer – also peaked at No 3.

Tonight’s host by the way is Nicky Campbell who rather undoes the work of the producers who edited out the “Satan Live” intro by doing a passable impression of Ian Paisley shouting at the studio audience to “Repent! Repent your sins now!”. Hmm. Anyway, next up is a band who had become a model of consistency when it came to racking up chart hits. “Easy” was the tenth Top 40 single for Terrorvision in just over three years. Clearly the Bradford rockers had built up a sizeable, loyal fan base over this period who would buy anything the band put out – “Easy” was the fourth single taken from their album “Regular Urban Survivors” and yet it only just missed debuting inside the Top 10.

I have to say that this isn’t one of theirs that I’m familiar with and on first hearing it seems rather underwhelming and pedestrian. However, forget Orbital earlier as this is where there must have been some dark forces at work as after just one play, it was still in my head hours later. What black magic was this?! We’re still two years away from their chart peak though. All together now…”That’s the curse of Tequila, it makes me happy…”.

The aftermath of ‘The Battle of Britpop’ saw Blur in disarray despite having secured their first No 1 single as a result of it. Oasis did not accept the status of losers and their powers were certainly not vanquished in the skirmish. The sales of “(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?” went supernova with the band cast in the role of working class heroes whilst Blur were casually dismissed as spurious, middle class chancers. The band retreated not just to lick their wounds but also from each other. It would take a letter from guitarist Graham Coxon to Damon Albarn outlining the direction that he wanted the band to go in to get the disparate members to reconvene. Having rejected all things American after a disastrous US tour in ‘92 and an aversion to grunge rock that informed second and third albums “Modern Life Is Rubbish” and “Parklife”, the new direction championed by Coxon was exemplified by American artists like indie, lo-fi rock band Pavement and the genre straddling Beck. It may seem like quite the turnaround but Coxon is/was well known for his spare and brittle musical tendencies.

The first result of this new direction was the lead single from the band’s fifth and eponymous album – “Beetlebum”. It was about as far away from the likes of “Country House” as could be – if they were British sitcoms then the former would be Mrs Brown’s Boys and the latter The Office. The drastic change of style had their record label fearing the worst for the band’s commercial fortunes and I have to admit to not being sure about the track myself initially. It seemed slow and ponderous and lacking in structure – there was no bridge from the verse to the chorus; it was almost like it was two separate songs glued together. Like Terrorvision’s “Easy” earlier though, it was a grower, an insidious ear-worm burrowing its way into your brain. Their label should have had more faith in their charges as “Beetlebum” would go straight in at No 1 when finally released a whole ten days after this performance showing the size and loyalty of their fan base. It was also a prime example of the way the charts were heading. At the time, it set a then record for a No 1 single spending the least amount of time inside the Top 40 – just three weeks in total at positions 1, 7 and 29 then out. The writing was on the wall – for the charts not Blur.

For various reasons, this is the first time I’ve commented on the No 1 which wasn’t just any chart topper of course but the Christmas No 1. On reflection, the third single by the Spice Girls was always going to be the best selling hit of the festive period though I’m sure, at the time, the bookies would have had lots of runners and riders in the race. After two uptempo songs, the traditional route of the third being a ballad was followed and “2 Become 1” was certainly that. A lush, smooth production that could have made for a sound that was a tad too sugary, it managed to avoid that trap by working a safe sex message into the lyrics. The memorable video that’s set in Times Square, New York was actually recorded over three thousand miles away in a studio in Old Compton Street, London – it was all just green screen trickery. I always thought that the cover of the single looked a bit cheap and nasty I have to say. The image of the group used surely wasn’t the best that came out of that particular photo session?

Anyway, 1997 would see the Spice Girls juggernaut continue at a pace with a further three No 1 singles (including a second consecutive Christmas one) and another multi-platinum selling album. These TOTP repeats are nowhere near done with Ginger, Posh, Baby, Scary and Sporty yet.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Kenickie	In Your Car	Nope
2	Kavana	I Can Make You Feel Good	Never
3	Tori Amos	Professional Widow (It’s Got To Be Big)	Liked it, didn’t buy it
4	Runrig	The Greatest Flame	As if
5	Orbital	Satan Live	No
6	Terrorvision	Easy	Negative
7	Blur	Beetlebum	No but I had the album with it on
8	Spice Girls	2 Become 1	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.

TOTP 01 NOV 1996

Posted on November 26, 2024 by 80stastic

Right, for this post there’ll be no mentions of football or my past drunken escapades like in recent weeks – it’ll just be all about the music and TOTP which is what this blog is meant to be all about after all. So let’s examine what was happening with the grand old show at this point in time. Well, it had been through a number of changes in 1996. An initially temporary but ultimately permanent move from Thursday to Friday was seismic enough but that was added to by the allocation of a new time slot to boot. The there was the whole relaunch of archive show TOTP2 which seems to hijack the parent programme to help with its promotion. We had the ‘flashback’ slot which featured a hit from (mainly) the corresponding week from years back plus the play out video was taken over directly by TOTP2 to preview an old clip that would be on that week’s show. It definitely felt as if the BBC’s iconic music show was being put out to pasture. Whether executive producer Ric Blaxill felt this as well or just thought it was time for a new career, he would bring about another huge change by leaving the show at the start of 1997. Yes, the Blaxill era was coming to an end. On the whole, I think he did a decent job of resurrecting TOTP after the ‘year zero’ revamp experiment ultimately failed. The ‘golden mic’ presenter idea worked for the most part and if nothing else, he consigned the dreadful Simon Mayo to history as a host. Inevitably, I think the ‘golden mic’ feature got used to promote other BBC programmes and projects. Falling into this category were the likes of Dennis Pennis (Paul Kaye), The Fast Show cast and in this week’s episode Julian Clary who had recovered from the fall out of his infamous appearance at the British Comedy Awards in 1993 where he made that joke about Norman Lamont to have his own BBC series All Rise For Julian Clary that was on air at this time.

Anyway, whatever the reason for his filling the slot (he’d make a joke out of that wouldn’t he?), Clary’s first job is to introduce a song called “Place Your Hands” which prompts the first wry smile of the night from Julian. Now the first line of Reef’s biggest ever hit is “place your hands on my hope” but if you have subtitles turned on in your settings whilst watching it on iPlayer (like I did), then they will tell you that the first line is “place your hands on my hole”! Just as well that isn’t the actual lyric – Julian would have had a field day. My crack about ‘filling the slot’ is tame in comparison. What? ‘My crack’? Oh that’s enough now! Just stop it! Let’s get back to the music please! Right – well, “Place Your Hands” was quite the rousing tune, combining a funk feel with some rock riffs, coming on like the UK’s answer to Red Hot Chili Peppers – singer Gary Stringer even had Anthony Kiedis style long hair. However, the bass player looked very un-rock ‘n’ roll with his glasses, sensible haircut and roll up sweater – at one point he seems to do a choreographed stroll on the spot akin to the famous walk like The Shadows used to do. I have to say though that I liked the song even the weird bit in the middle where Stringer takes an age to get out the line “ooh it’s a celebration”. Someone who hated it though was my work colleague Mike who really objected to Stringer’s vocal interjection of “Alright now” which he repeats through the song. I’m not sure why it irked him so much but irk him it did and made the whole ding unlistenable for him.

However, what I’ll always associate “Place Your Hands” with is the parody of it that they recorded as a jingle for a section in the show TFI Friday called ‘It’s Your Letters’…

Is there a better example of a dance act being a great singles artist but lousy at selling albums than Livin’ Joy? Between 1995 and 1997 they had five UK hit singles including a No 1, two that made the Top 10 and two that peaked inside the Top 20 with all of them featuring on their album “Don’t Stop Movin’” and yet said album would only spend two weeks on the charts peaking at No 41. Such statistics would take some explaining for a rock/pop artist and yet for a dance combo it seemed to be industry standard. Was it a case of punters identifying with the song not the singer? Possibly. Would a track that went down a storm in the clubs be all about the bpm rather than any attachment to the actual person singing it? Were dance artists not promoted in the same way as a pop group with less focus on their visual image and more on their sound? I don’t know – maybe I’m just talking b******s. For the record, “Follow The Rules” peaked at No 9 and spent and three weeks inside the Top 40.

Now like me, you may only be able to name one song by Alisha’s Attic without looking at their Wikipedia page but they actually had eight in total. I know – eight! “I Am, I Feel” was the first (which is the one I know) which peaked at No 14 and started a peculiar run of chart positions up until their last Top 40 entry in 2001. Look at these numbers:

14 – 12 – 12 – 12 – 13 – 29 – 34 – 24

Adding to that, their first two albums peaked at Nos 14 and 15. These girls weee nothing if not consistent. “Alisha Rules The World” was the first of that run of three consecutive No 12 hits and on first hearing seemed quite insubstantial and yet it stuck in my mind for hours afterwards. How did they do that? Maybe it was in their genes – they are the daughters of Brian Poole as in Brian Poole and The Tremeloes fame after all so perhaps they were always destined to be able to craft catchy tunes. Both sisters have gone onto have successful careers as songwriters – Shelley has worked with the likes of Janet Jackson, Boyzone and Westlife whilst Karen has written songs for all sorts of people including Sugababes, Kylie Minogue and Will Young. In 2021, she was honoured with the Best Music Creative Award at the Music Week Women In Music Awards. Together as Alisha’s Attic they received an Ivor Novello nomination for best lyrical and melodic composition. Meanwhile, Shelley extended the rock family tree by marrying Texas guitarist Ally McErlaine in 2001.

The careers of Madonna and Jimmy Nail had the rather unlikely habit of running into each other since the mid 80s when they both recorded a cover of the Rose Royce classic “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore”. Nail took his version to No 3 in the UK off the back of his success in the role of Oz in ITV comedy/drama Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. Madonna’s cover was in included on her 1984 album “Like A Virgin” and also made its way onto her 1995 ballads collection “Something To Remember”. They then crossed paths again on the film version of Evita with Madonna in the title role and Nail playing Argentine singer Agustín Magaldi. Finally, would you believe it, they’re on the same edition of TOTP though Madonna isn’t in the studio in person as Jimmy is. Madge’s appearance comes courtesy of the video for “You Must Love Me” from the Evita soundtrack whilst Nail is here to promote the soundtrack from his latest TV series Crocodile Shoes II but more of that later.

Nail’s role in Evita wasn’t the first time he’d played a character who had a connection to Argentina. The aforementioned Oz was shown working in the Falkland Islands at the start of the second series of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet whilst episode eight of said series is based around Oz’s marriage to his wife Marjorie and is called Marjorie Doesn’t Live Here Anymore – I love a bit of intertextuality me.

Julian Clary almost crosses the line into Lamont territory in his next intro by saying that he’d been searching for the hero inside himself for ages but couldn’t find him. However, he did find a couple of lorry drivers. Ooh err and, indeed, missus. Ric Blaxill must have known what he was getting when he booked Julian for the gig so he shouldn’t have been surprised.

Anyway, back to the music and after two consecutive chart hits, Space (or their label) decided that a rerelease of an earlier single that failed to make the grade was in order. “Neighbourhood” originally made No 56 on the UK charts in March of 1996, just a couple of months before their Top 40 breakthrough with “Female Of The Species”. The revisit to “Neighbourhood” would peak at No 11. It’s possibly my favourite tune of theirs just because it’s entrancing in a beguiling sort of way – I can’t help but be drawn to it even though I know it shouldn’t really work. It’s basically one of those ‘list’ songs which in this case is a roll call of residents of a fictional neighbourhood which was based upon the real life area of the Cantril Farm Estate that singer Tommy Scott grew up in. There’s just something very intriguing about the song’s sound, be it the twangy guitar punctuations or Mariachi style vibe that runs throughout it which gives it the feel of a spaghetti western soundtrack.

Then there’s the characters in the lyrics which reference transvestites, “big butch queens” and the “local vicar” who’s a “serial killer “. That last one puts me in mind of another song with a narrative about a vicar who isn’t all he seems to be…

As I write this, this week sees the 40th anniversary of the release of “Do They Know It’s Christmas” and so it seems rather apt that the ‘flashback’ slot features one of its protagonists in all his mid 80s, big hair glory. Here’s what I had to say about “Freedom” by Wham! in my 80s blog…

TOTP 11 OCT 1984

In an era when singles could be in and out of the chart within a fortnight, “Un-Break My Heart” by Toni Braxton was one of those hits that bucked the trend. It would spend 11 consecutive weeks inside the UK Top 5 peaking at No 2 on two separate occasions matching the high of her other big hit “Breathe Again”. I say ‘other’ big hit but she did have more than those two. Indeed, “You’re Makin’ Me High” had been as high as No 7 back in July but I don’t remember that one at all. There are a few other hits but “Un-Break My Heart” and “Breathe Again” are surely what Toni Braxton will be remembered for. Indeed, the former is also the title of a TV film biography made about the singer that premiered in 2016. I was genuinely shocked that she was considered a big enough name to receive that level of attention. Maybe I shouldn’t have been as “Un-Break My Heart” would spend 11 weeks at No 1 in America and has sold over two million copies over there whilst also going double platinum in the UK. Did I like it? Well, R&B ballads aren’t really my thing so I was fairly immune to its appeal but I can appreciate that Toni has a fine set of pipes and gives Whitney Houston a run for her money with her vocal performance with this type of track. If I recall correctly, there was also a dance version of the song which may have helped to extend its chart life, covering all bases as it were. Given its longevity in our Top 5, I’m guessing we’ll be seeing this one on a TOTP repeat coming soon so I’ll leave it there for now.

And so back to the aforementioned Jimmy Nail who is this week’s ’exclusive performance’ with the lead single from the soundtrack to Crocodile Shoes II called “Country Boy”. My mate Robin tipped me off that this was all kinds of wrong and that the last two syllables of the title of his song were redundant. Ouch! Is Robin right? Well, certainly the choice of stage costumes is a bit dodgy. What was with the schoolboy outfits and the fake black eye? Was it some sort of homage to AC/DC’s Angus Young? Was it something to do with the TV show? I’ve never watched either series but I’m guessing not seeing as it was about a Country & Western club singer who makes it big in Nashville. However, I don’t actually mind the song. It kind of reminds me of this by The Big Dish which is a great track…

The line about the “devil’s daughter” though always reminds me of another example of alliteration featuring El Diablo…

I’m on record in this blog as saying that there are worst things you could do with some free time on your hands than listen to Jimmy’s Best Of album called “The Nail File” (see what he did there?). There’s some decent tunes on there including three written by the wonderful Paddy McAloon of Prefab Sprout fame and you can’t go wrong with a bit of Paddy. Robin though will be relieved to know that this was Jimmy’s final ever UK Top 40 hit though he will be back on a TOTP repeat one last time soon for another performance of “Country Boy”. Leave those last two syllables alone Robin!

Now to a collaboration between two acts that came about by a circumstance of scheduling but which would give both artists one of their biggest ever hits (though not the biggest in either case). Booked to appear on the same French pop music show, East 17 and Gabrielle were asked to do a song together to fulfil a regular feature of said show and picked a track that had been massive in America but which had hardly registered over here. “If You Ever” had been a No 2 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 for R&B quartet Shai in 1992 but audience reaction to the boys from Walthamstow and the girl from Hackney’s version was so positive that it was decided that they should record their own version together. The resulting track would make No 2 in the UK charts just falling short of matching the feat of both Gabrielle’s “Dreams” and East 17’s “Stay Another Day”. In the case of the latter, it was used to spearhead their Greatest Hits album that was released three days after this TOTP aired. Its release prompted stories that the bad were about to split which were vehemently denied but Brian Harvey would be sacked within months after a late night radio interview in which he admitted to taking the drug ecstasy. As for Gabrielle, “If You Ever” would become her fourth and biggest hit of 1996.

As with Toni Braxton earlier, the song was an R&B ballad that featured a flourish of Spanish guitar in the middle eight – it must have been a thing back then – and is actually better than I remember (though that’s not saying much). It’s billed as East 17 featuring Gabrielle though in truth it might as well have been promoted as Brian Harvey and Gabrielle as it’s basically a duet between the two. Tony Mortimer plays some keyboards in this performance whilst ‘the other two’ are relegated not only to doing some swaying and backing vocals but physically as well as they are positioned some distance behind Brian and Gabrielle on stage though you could probably make a case that this happened on pretty much every East 17 release. Also like “Un-Break My Heart”, “If You Ever” was also remarkably durable charts wise staying in the Top 10 for five consecutive weeks including three inside the Top 3. We’ll surely be seeing this one again as well.

It’s a second and final week at the top for “Say You’ll Be There” by the Spice Girls. Interestingly, the A&R people at Virgin had wanted this to be the debut single for the group instead of “Wannabe”. Their manager Simon Fuller agreed with the label with both of the opinion that it was a much cooler song but the group got their way and the rest is history. Would it have made any difference to the Spice Girls story if Virgin/Fuller had won out instead? I’m not sure and I guess we’ll never know but I’m thinking that the juggernaut of their success would have been “Too Much” to “Stop” (ahem).

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Reef	Place Your Hands	It’s in the singles box – it’s a yes!
2	Livin’ Joy	Follow The Rules	Negative
3	Alisha’s Attic	Alisha Rules The World	I did not
4	Madonna	You Must Love Me	No I mustn’t
5	Space	Neighbourhood	No but my wife had the album
6	Wham!	Freedom	No but we all had a Wham! Best Of didn’t we?
7	Toni Braxton	Un-Break My Heart	Nah
8	Jimmy Nail	Country Boy	Nope
9	East 17 / Gabrielle	If You Ever	Didn’t happen
10	Spice Girls	Say You’ll Be There	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/m0024zk8/top-of-the-pops-01111996?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 25 OCT 1996

Posted on November 22, 2024 by 80stastic

Three days before this TOTP aired, I travelled the short distance from Manchester to Bolton to see my beloved Chelsea play. They’d been drawn away to Bolton in the League Cup and my Wanderers supporting mate Steve invited me to go with him and his mates to watch the game. Predictably, we lost 2-1 after taking the lead and my hopes of seeing my team finally win a trophy were dealt a severe blow. This was supposed to be the new, exciting Chelsea of Ruud ‘sexy football’ Gullitt, Gianluca Vialli and Roberto Di Matteo and yet we got turned over by rather less glamorous opponents. In short, to paraphrase a football saying, we couldn’t do it away on a cold Tuesday night at Bolton. I returned home a very disappointed man. But at least I returned home. Chelsea vice-chairman Matthew Harding had also been at the game and would lose his life in a helicopter crash on the way back to London. Harding had contributed huge amounts of money to the club helping to finance those exotic signings and also the redevelopment of the Chelsea ground. He also had a great relationship with the fans socialising with them at the games and in the pub. He was one of them rather than a faceless director. He also contributed £1 million to the Labour Party and the helicopter that went down had often been used by Tony Blair as leader of the party and prior to him becoming Prime Minister. In a parallel universe, the future of the whole country might have been different rather than just Chelsea Football Club’s. My wish to see my blue boys finally win something came true just six months later as they won the FA Cup at Wembley. Matthew Harding never lived to see that moment.

After a very sombre opening to this post, let’s get back to the music and hope for some uplifting tunes. Our hosts are Steve Lamacq and Jo Whiley and we start with a bang via a cracking song from Suede. The second single from their No 1 album “Coming Up”, “Beautiful Ones”, for me, even surpassed previous hit “Trash” in terms of immediacy and…well…sparkle. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised as supposedly it was written by guitarist Richard Oakes purposely to be a chart success and was originally called “Dead Leg” after bass player Matt Osman threatened to give Oakes a dead leg if he couldn’t come up with a Top 10 hit. Presumably that particular punishment was not dispensed as the single peaked at No 8.

The performance here is a curious one. Keyboard player Neil Codling is out front for some reason, thumbs in his pockets, occasionally leaning into his mike to mouth a few lyrics. Why wasn’t he behind a synth or something as per usual? Weren’t there any keyboard parts in this track? Was he auditioning for Brett Anderson’s position in the band? As it turned out, Codling would actually take on a lot more of the vocals duties along with an increased input into song writing later in his Suede career. He left the band in 2001 due to chronic fatigue syndrome though he would return when they reconvened in 2010.

The lyric in “Beautiful Ones” about ‘your babies going crazy’ always puts me in mind of this scene from Swingers which was released in America a week before this TOTP was broadcast. “How long till you call your babies?”…

Next, we’re straight into one of the biggest dance tunes of the year, nay the decade…how about ever?! Steve Lamacq rather undermines my ardour by just referring to it as a “really cool track” but “Insomnia” by Faithless is surely more than that. A regular in all those ‘top club tunes’ polls by the likes of MTV Dance and Mixmag, it remains a timeless classic. Indeed, I have a friend in her late 70s and she loves Faithless!

Comprising of Maxi Jazz, Jamie Catto, Sister Bliss and Rollo (yes, Dido’s brother), they’d had two minor hit singles in 1995 with “Salva Ames (Save Me)” and the initial release of “Faithless” which had only made No 27 in the December as it got lost in the Christmas rush. March of 1996 saw another attempt on the charts but “Don’t Leave” could only make one week inside the Top 40 at No 34. Come the Autumn though, “Faithless” was rereleased and this time, it crashed into the charts at No 3 and easily topped the Dance Chart. Its subject matter struck a chord with clubbers who had trouble nodding off after a substance filled night of raving (or whatever it is clubbers did back then). The original album version is nine minutes long but it was edited down to three and a half for radio with the memorable keyboard riff being intended to sound like Underworld. Perhaps unusually for an album by a dance act, their album “Reverence” would go on to sell 300,000 copies in the UK and achieve platinum status and yet weirdly would get no higher in the charts than No 26. Where’s the justice in that? And I thought God was a DJ.

“You’re Gorgeous” by Babybird is up to No 6 on its way to a peak of No 3 which means a reshowing of their studio performance from the other week is required. I recall that when this came on the shop stereo in the Our Price in Stockport where I was working one busy Saturday afternoon, it happens to coincide with a group of ‘lads’ entering the shop and deciding to sing along at the top of their voices very badly. Saturdays were stressful enough in a record shop as it was and I could have done without this as well. I approached the group and asked them to pack it in but this only served to make them sing louder whilst eating their Greggs pasties and dripping flakes of pastry all over the floor (which was another bugbear of mine). Tossers.

Given the song’s much misunderstood subject matter, another thing that springs to mind when I hear “You’re Gorgeous” is another even more unpleasant memory, that of a particularly harrowing episode of the crime drama Prime Suspect the plot of which revolved around a pornographer who murdered a young girl after convincing her that he was a fashion photographer. Bloody hell! Death, murder…this post is bloody miserable so far! Please let there be some joyful tunes coming up to lighten the mood…

Hmm. Future Sound Of London wasn’t really what I had in mind. Experimental, ambient soundscapes are all very well but I need something to cheer me up and “My Kingdom” just isn’t doing it for me. I mean, it’s an interesting sound I guess and the accompanying video was probably cutting edge at the time with its morphing graphics but it’s kind of leaving me cold when I need something to give me a nice warm, fuzzy feeling that tells me everything is going to be OK – there must be a huge demand for such music whatever form it might take given the current state of the world.

You have to hand it to those Future Sound Of London boys though – they were ahead of their time. The album this track was taken from (“Dead Cities”) was promoted by a tour called ‘the f**k rock ‘n’ roll tour’ that allowed them to play live events via ISDN without leaving a studio. This was in 1996, well before the dawn of the digital age we all live in now. Hell, the vast majority of us didn’t even have a very basic mobile phone back then. In 2024, the idea of being separated from our mobiles for even an hour can cause a meltdown amongst many of us – ‘a phone, a phone…my kingdom for a phone’. Ahem.

Hands up who knew that Gina G had more hits than just “Ooh Aah…Just A Little Bit”. OK. Keep your hands up if you can name any of them. I thought as much. You’d have to be a superfan to still have your hands in the air at this point. “I Belong To You” was the first of four further hits and it was almost identical to her Eurovision song. And why not? ‘If it’s not broken…’, ‘Strike while the iron’s hot’ and so on and so on…It would have made sense for her to go with an almost identical sound – anything other than that would have been folly. Gina surely wouldn’t have been expected to reinvent herself as a serious artist within months of only being known as a Eurovision entrant? If she’d returned with a big ballad would people have accepted it? I’m not sure. Repeating the formula certainly worked for Gina giving her a none too shabby chart peak of No 6. And there’s more…she would have a further three hits after and none of them were a remix of “Ooh Aah…Just A Little Bit” meaning that she never had to plead “Ooh aah…just a little hit…please”. Yeah, sorry about that.

This week’s ’Flashback’ slot features “Orinoco Flow (Sail Away)” by Enya. I’m far too behind with this post to comment on this so here’s what I had to say about this one in a post from my 80s blog.

TOTP 24 NOV 1988

If it’s good enough for Enya, it’s certainly good enough for E–Motion. Look, I haven’t got the time nor inclination to review something that I commented on as recently as six months ago especially when it’s as big a heap of shit as “The Naughty North And The Sexy South”. Here’s my thoughts on this one from when it was originally a hit in the February of this year and peaked at No 20 (it was rereleased in the October peaking at No 17).

TOTP 01 FEB 1996

By 1996, Madonna’s career had reached the point it was always meant to reach – i.e. that she would play the part of Eva Perón in a film version of Evita. Rumours had been circulating for years that she was destined for this role and it finally came to be. A cinema version of the Tim Rice/Andrew Lloyd Webber 1978 musical, its soundtrack was always likely to sell in bucketloads even before you added in the superstar factor that Madonna brought to the project. However, the song we all know from the musical – “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” – wasn’t the first one to be released from the project. No, the first track that we heard Madonna singing from Evita wasn’t from the original musical at all – it was a brand new composition written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice to promote the film and to secure an Oscar nomination (it would go on to win the 1997 Academy Award for Best Original Song). “You Must Love Me” was that song but despite its recognition, it wasn’t the massive hit that many may have expected. It made No 10 in the UK, No 18 in America and didn’t top the chart anywhere in the world. It certainly sounded like a huge hit or rather it sounded like a Lloyd Webber/Rice song with trademark haunting melody and a huge string backing – in fact you could be forgiven for thinking that it had been part of the original musical soundtrack so seamlessly did it sit alongside those other songs from the 1978 West End production.

The video shown here is just a plug for the film really with clips from the movie interspersed with a heavily pregnant Madonna singing in a room with her bump hidden behind a piano. The film made $141 million at the box office against a budget of $55 million and received mixed reviews from the press with the main criticism being that it was a case of style over substance though the soundtrack was a redeeming factor. It received a total of 23 film award nominations winning 12 including one Oscar and three Golden Globes. I’ve still yet to watch it though my wife took her Mum to see it at the cinema and her review was that it was one of the loudest films she’d ever sat through.

Cast are back next with their biggest ever hit “Flying”. I was a bit sniffy about this song the last time I reviewed it which on reflection was possibly a tad unfair seeing as it crapped all over most of its chart contemporaries (yes, I’m looking at you E-Motion). Originally a non-album single, it was later included in the band’s 2004 compilation “The Collection” which must be one of the least comprehensive retrospectives ever given that it does not feature the hits “Alright”, “Sandstorm”, “Walkaway”, “Guiding Star” or “Beat Mama”. Presumably a licensing issue, I guess you get what you pay for – it was a budget range album that was ineligible for a UK Album Chart ranking. A definitive collection called “Cast: The Singles 1995-2017” was released on white vinyl in 2018 however.

The Spice Girls are straight in at No 1 with their second single “Say You’ll Be There”. It’s interesting that although it is the desert based, high-tech ninja warriors video that I immediately think of when I hear this song, TOTP did not once show that promo instead having the group in the studio every time (although I think one may have been a just a repeat of a previous appearance). Which raises the question how had I seen the promo at all? On The Chart Show? Maybe but that was on TV on Saturday mornings when I would have been at work most weeks. I can’t think of any other music shows from around that time? They weren’t such a big deal already that they’d made it onto national news programmes surely? However I had seen it, I wasn’t alone. One David Beckham, legend has it, was so taken with Posh Spice in her black PVC catsuit that he vowed there and that they would become a couple. And lo and behold, two became one…or something.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Suede	Beautiful Ones	No but I had the album
2	Faithless	Insomnia	I did not
3	Babybird	You’re Gorgeous	Nope
4	Future Sound Of London	My Kingdom	Never happening
5	Gina G	I Belong To You	You didn’t belong to me though Gina – no
6	Enya	Orinoco Flow (Sail Away)	Nah
7	E-Motion	The Naughty North And The Sexy South	Definitely not
8	Madonna	You Must Love Me	No
9	Cast	Flying	Negative
10	Spice Girls	Say You’ll Be There	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/m0024zk6/top-of-the-pops-25101996?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 11 OCT 1996

Posted on November 15, 2024 by 80stastic

Writing two of these blog posts a week can be quite a drain on the well of creativity. Consequently, I have returned to my 1996 diary for inspiration and it’s certainly thrown a memory up though not one that I’m very proud of. Two days after this TOTP aired, I was out in Manchester with my wife and a coupe of friends. The plan was to have a few drinks and then go to Chinatown first and then for a meal. And we did do all of that so what was the problem? Well, unfortunately I imbibed a few too many alcoholic beverages along the way and by the time I sat down to eat in the Yang Sing restaurant I was completely plastered, off my face, hammered. That would have been bad enough but here’s the real kicker and this was unbelievable. The table next to us had noticed my inebriated state and had engaged in conversation with us along the lines of “dearie me, is he alright?”. In an attempt to prove that I was indeed OK and more than that, not drunk at all, I proceeded to tell them that I had to be at work early the next day as I worked in the Our Price in Stockport and we were having our Christmas merchandising, signage and decorations installed. Back in those days, the company employed outside contractors to come in and do all that sort of stuff. By the end of my time at Our Price, I’m pretty sure the staff were expected to do all that sort of thing. Now we get to the really weird bit. One of the women on the next table the informs me that she works for the company putting up the merchandising and is doing the Stockport store tomorrow. Excellent! So literally in a few hours time when no doubt I will feel as rough as a badger’s arse, I’ll be opening the shop doors to the woman next to me who has witnessed me completely destroyed by drink. So, not embarrassing at all then. My diary doesn’t record what happened at work on the Monday other than it was a quiet day presumably meaning I was hung over and hiding in the stockroom away from the counter and other human beings. I wonder if this TOTP has anyone on it to match my level of humiliation?

Nothing embarrassing about opening act Manic Street Preachers who are in the studio to perform their new single “Kevin Carter”. The third track lifted from their “Everything Must Go” album, it was also their third Top 10 hit on the spin. To give this achievement some context, their previous 13 singles had given them just one. This really was phoenix from the flames stuff given that the band had suffered the loss of main lyricist Richey Edwards. Having said that, “Kevin Carter” was one of the songs demoed for Edwards before his disappearance and which he wrote the lyrics for about the titular Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist who took his own life in 1994 haunted by the images of famine and death that he had taken in Sudan.

It’s a very spiky track with a rhythm that judders and skitters about and not the strongest chorus but then there’s the middle eight trumpet solo by drummer Sean Moore which is actually quite exquisite. I guess it would have been difficult logistically to have him play the solo and be on the drums simultaneously in this performance. Such a striking piece of music was it that it was used as the theme music to the ITV Wales current affairs show Wales This Week. No, really. See…

Ooh now, here’s something that’s truly mortifying! What in the world was this all about?! Well, it’s the obligatory dance tune on tonight’s show and it arrives courtesy of Jeremy Healy & Amos. Jeremy, of course, started his music career as a member of Haysi Fantayzee but went on to carve out a diverse career as a superstar DJ and musical director for fashion house Victoria’s Secret and labels launched by the likes of Jennifer Lopez and Gwen Stefani. Amos was that bloke from Emmerdale who ran the Woolpack pub. No, of course he wasn’t but he might have well have been for all the information I can find out about Healy’s partner in crime and let’s have it right, “Stamp!” was a crime of music. This track is all over the place. There’s some record decks scratching, funk style bass lines, some de rigueur dream trance keyboards flourishes and some repeated spoken word Spanish all in the mix. And then there’s the performance which is absolutely bonkers. I guess it’s trying to reflect the mishmash of styles on display with flamenco dancers, a ludicrously moustachioed man on bongos and in the centre of it all is Jeremy Healy gurning away and generally making a total prat of himself. There’s very little online about this hit – Healy’s Wikipedia page doesn’t mention it at all – and quite right too as we should all try and expunge it from our memories. A total embarrassment.

With their repertoire of sardonic, social commentary yet beautifully crafted songs, I don’t think The Beautiful South could be accused of being a national embarrassment. Indeed, Paul Heaton is more of a national treasure. He even offered to nationalise his songs so that every time they are played on radio the state would receive the royalties revenue and could use it to improve living standards. Predictably, the Conservative government of the time refused his generous offer of a gift to the British public.

One of those songs that would have been included in his proposal was “Rotterdam (Or Anywhere)” the lead single from fifth studio album “Blue Is The Colour”. Perhaps one of their most well known songs and one of their biggest hits (it peaked at No 5), it was inspired by the lack of a welcome Paul Heaton received in a snooty bar in Rotterdam which he perceived didn’t want ‘his type’ as part of their clientele. Paul has refuted the idea that it’s a criticism of Rotterdam itself but more of the type of people who consider themselves the beautiful elite whom you see everywhere. Heaton’s experience of this just happened to be in a bar in Rotterdam. There’s something about its barbed lyrics with its references to Liverpool, Rome and pickled people that appealed to the nation. Interesting to note that Heaton is happy to completely take a back seat in this performance and hand all the vocals to Jacqui Abbott. As of a 2020 interview in The Guardian, neither the band nor the duo of Jacqui and Heaton have ever played “Rotterdam” live in that city nor Rome but it always goes down well in Liverpool and anywhere in Ireland for the line “gargoyles dipped long in Irish stout”. It has also taken on a life of its own as a football chant with the chorus being adopted by home fans to taunt their away counterparts with “insert name of opposition get battered everywhere they go”. I must tell my football obsessed son where that chant comes from.

Next up are a band whose name I remember but as for their hits, I couldn’t name you a one. Apparently Damage were marketed as being the British 3T despite the fact that there were five of them (the clue was in the name guys – bit embarrassing) and despite my inability to name any of them, they would rack up nine UK Top 40 hits including four Top Tenners. This really was a boom time for British R&B/pop artists what with the likes of Eternal, Gabrielle and Michelle Gayle representing the women of the genre and MN8, Mark Morrison and Ultimate Kaos showing up for the men (well, boys in the case of Ultimate Kaos). It makes me wonder how there was room for another such act in Damage but their run of hits proves that there was. “Love II Love” was their breakthrough hit and its title has left me wondering if it was inspired by another UK R&B artist, that of Soul II Soul. Anyway, it doesn’t do much for me although the video is at least diverting with the band as puppets being controlled by a mean alien lady. The only other thing to delay us here is to mention that lead singer Jade Jones has been in a relationship with Emma Bunton since 1998 finally marrying her in 2021. The Spice Girls are on later but this can’t be where they met as it was Damage’s promo video that we saw on the show and not the real thing in the studio.

Now I wouldn’t call this next hit embarrassing, not at all. However, despite it being the artist’s biggest ever hit, it’s also one of their weakest to my ears. “Flying” by Cast was a standalone single presumably recorded and released to plug the gap between their debut and sophomore album that wasn’t released until April of 1997. It’s not that it’s an awful song (and I don’t recall having this opinion of it at the time) but there really isn’t much to it. It’s very repetitive – the chorus is also its intro with its lyric sung four times over – and said lyrics are so basic and uninspiring that they sound like they took about the same amount of time to come up with as the Liz Truss/Kwasi Kwarteng infamous and disastrous mini budget (now that was something that was truly shameful). Look at these:

It’s like flying through the air, you can make it if you dare

You live your life without a care, you know that love is everywhere

Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: John T. Williams
Flying lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Universal Music Publishing Group

I mean, come on. Was that the best John Power could do? I don’t think so. To be fair to him, I saw Cast live this year as part of a three band open air show along with Embrace and Ocean Colour Scene. We arrived late halfway through the set and only caught a bit of “Flying” which they were playing as we entered the venue but I have to admit it sounded better live.

This week’s ’flashback’ section features Madonna and “True Blue” which was No 1 in the corresponding week ten years previously. Here’s the post from my 80s blog in which I discussed it:

TOTP 09 OCT 1986

Next up is the most misunderstood song since Bruce Springsteen’s “Born In The USA”. Babybird was basically a vehicle for songwriter Stephen Jones who had been churning out hundreds of lo-fi demos in his Nottingham flat without being signed to a major label until Echo Records (a division of the Chrysalis Group) offered him a deal. His first single release for them “Goodnight” was a No 28 hit spending just two weeks in the charts but it was second single “You’re Gorgeous” that would become the song that he would forever be remembered for. On first hearing, it may have seemed like a full blown, lush ballad but first impressions can be deceiving. I can’t recall the specific realisation that I (and so many others) must have had that not everything was as it seemed here but clearly the lyrics of the verses were at odds with that joyful chorus. The tale of a sleazy photographer manipulating his model with promises of magazine covers, it was a brilliant example of subverting the established love song narrative. And yet so many people didn’t get it. Even today, if you check out the comments on YouTube against its promo video you’ll find people saying that their Mums used to sing it to them when they were little or that the song makes the commentator’s spirit feel lighter or that the song has such fun, happy vibes. Should those people be embarrassed or is it a case of ignorance is bliss? Who am I to tell people how to consume or enjoy a song?

And for the third time in the TOTP studio we have Donna Lewis performing “I Love You Always Forever”. Seriously? What is there left for me to say about this one? Or should I be the one who’s embarrassed with my lack of creativity? OK, I’m just going to fling some stuff out there and see if any of it sticks or resonates…

The song was inspired by the H.W.Bates 1962 novel Love For Lydia with the lyric of the chorus being lifted directly from the book.
It was originally entitled “Lydia” but Lewis was talked into renaming it by her record label due to there being no reference to a ‘Lydia’ lyrics. Could it also have been to do with the fact that there was already a song out there called “Lydia” by Dean Friedman?
It spent nine weeks at No 2 sat behind Los Del Rio’s “Macarena”. Surely the Ultravox/ Joe Dolce moment of the 90s?
Despite not toppling Los Del Rio’s hit, “I Love You Always Forever” completely trounced it in the airplay chart being heard by 100 million radio listeners in one week compared to 19 million for “Macarena”.

That do ya?

Was this the moment that we all knew that the Spice Girls were here to stay? After the runaway success of almost novelty hit “Wannabe”, the decision on how to follow it up was always going to be crucial. Would they carry on into the extremes of bubblegum pop or go in an altogether different direction? I guess there two ways of reacting to “Say You’ll Be There”:

It was a super smooth and slick pop/dance number with a dash of R&B that was so prevalent and popular around this time. Therefore it showed a maturity to the group that was not apparent in “Wannabe” and was a wise career move aimed at longevity.
It was a safe and boring decision to jump on that pop/dance bandwagon and shows that the surprise of their debut hit had been sacrificed for guaranteed further success.

I’m not embarrassed to say that I was of opinion No 1. It was super radio friendly and the way that they divided up the vocal parts between the five of them promoted that gang mentality and also allowed for fans to pick out a favourite Spice Girl.

It’s another single that’s straight in at No 1 now as The Chemical Brothers top the charts in week one with “Setting Sun”. Working in a record shop, I was aware of Manchester duo Ed Simons and Tom Rowlands via my much hipper than me work colleagues – they had especially liked their debut album “Exit Planet Dust” which was a shop stereo favourite. However, perhaps like many, I didn’t really take that much notice of them until this single the publicity surrounding which was substantially heightened by the presence of the record of one Noel Gallagher. How much the Oasis man’s association affected sales we may never know but regardless, his input helped forge a spectacular dance tune that even I could get on board with. By all measurable criteria, I should have hated this. After all, “Higher State Of Consciousness” by Josh Wink hadn’t so much set my teeth on edge as trigger a full blown nervous breakdown in me every time I heard it and “Setting Sun” wasn’t a million miles away from that with its sprawling, squealing cacophony of sounds that metaphorically slammed you to the wall and kept you pinned there for the duration when it came on. Whether it was the presence of Noel I’m not sure but this track seemed to have more…what?…structure to it? Those sniffy elements of the music press would laud it as the best thing Gallagher ever did which makes for a good line but is a bit embarrassing on their behalf.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Manic Street Preachers	Kevin Carter	No but I had the album
2	Jeremy Healy & Amos	Stamp!	As if
3	The Beautiful South	Rotterdam (Or Anywhere)	No but I must have had it on something
4	Damage	Love II Love	Definitely not
5	Cast	Flying	Nah
6	Madonna	True Blue	Nope
7	Babybird	You’re Gorgeous	Negative
8	Donna Lewis	I Love You Always Forever	I did not
9	Spice Girls	Say You’ll Be There	I can’t because I wasn’t – no
10	The Chemical Brothers	Setting Sun	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/m0024s0b/top-of-the-pops-11101996?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 06 SEP 1996

Posted on October 30, 2024 by 80stastic

It’s early September of 1996 and I’m on holiday in Barcelona. I loved it though I did get a case of Montezuma’s revenge the day before we were due to go back which made for a very uncomfortable flight home I can tell you. Sticking with that theme, although I really enjoyed Barcelona, a friend who visited there after me hated it saying that he’d rather go on holiday in his own toilet bowl. What has any of this to do with TOTP? Nothing really though I wonder how many shit songs we might get in this particular show?

Our host for tonight is Julia Carling (remember her?) and we start with a group that my mate Robin once described as a ‘joke band’ so I presume he thought they were a big pile of poo though I think that’s a harsh description. Space were certainly idiosyncratic and they may not have been to your taste but I don’t think they can be dismissed out of hand as complete shite. After securing themselves a bona fide hit in “Female Of The Species”, the scouse band were back with a follow up in “Me And You Versus The World”. As with its predecessor, it wasn’t your conventional pop song with Tommy Scott’s grainy vocals telling a Bonnie and Clyde type story in which the protagonist admits he’s “just a joke” (maybe Robin was right after all!) before a rather grizzly end is revealed. Scott channels his inner Victoria Wood when he gets the line “a tin of baked beans and a Woman’s Weekly” into the lyrics. The single would debut at No 9 providing the band with their first Top 10 hit. Space were in full launch mode. Who was laughing now?

Hit or Shit? I’m going hit with this one

Now this, this is a complete scandal. How on earth were Clock allowed to do this?! Well, presumably they got copyright clearance from the original artist but it’s still a disgrace. Having decided the only way to score major hits with their yucky brand of Eurodance was to cover previous hit records and polish them into turds, they’d already sprinkled flecks of shit onto “Axel F” and “Whoomph! (There It Is)”. Harold Faltermeyer and Tag Team were one thing but Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons were sacrosanct! How dare they take their 1976 UK and US No 1 “December, 1963 (Oh, What A Night)” and give it the shitty stick treatment! They even had the temerity to rename their version as “Oh What A Night” (unless that was a stipulation of being granted permission to cover it – maybe they couldn’t use the song’s original title?). I mean, you just can’t improve upon the original, you can only make it worse so why try? Were they hoping to appeal to young record buyers who may not know The Four Seasons original? It’s just wrong on every level and yet somehow it was a hit spending four non consecutive weeks at No 13 unluckily for us.

I have to admit to being a bit biased in my denigration of Clock here as I do love Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. I’ve seen Jersey Boys and, in my current job working in a theatre, have seen a couple of tribute acts all of which I’ve enjoyed. As such, this Clock nonsense really offends. They weren’t finished here though going on to cover the likes of Hot Chocolate, KC and the Sunshine Band and The Jacksons.

Hit or Shit? A massive, steaming turd

Next up are Kula Shaker with their No 2 hit “Hey Dude”. I discussed this one in quite some depth in a previous post so I don’t propose to say an awful lot more this time around. However, what I did discover in my research for it is that the band’s keyboard player Jay Darlington was a touring member of Oasis from 2002 until their 2009 break up. So, will he have had the call from Noel and Liam for the 2025 reunion tour and if he has, will he be allowed to go as he is currently back with Kula Shaker? When he was with Oasis, due to his long hair and beard, he was often introduced by Noel as “The Shroud”, “Gandalf” or even “Jesus Christ” leaving to the crowd chanting “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus…”. Never mind Noel and Liam giving him a call, maybe Donald Trump* might reach out to Darlington. What an endorsement that would be!

*For any avoidance of doubt, I despise Trump.

Hit or Shit? Definite tune this one!

What on God’s green earth…? If I thought we’d reached a nadir with Clock, I hadn’t bargained on the sodding Smurfs making a comeback. People of a certain age (i.e. me) will have strong childhood memories of The Smurfs not least because of the ridiculous single “The Smurf Song” spending six consecutive weeks at No 2 in the UK charts during the long, hot Summer of 1978. That bloke with the long flowing beard? No, not Jay Darlington! Yep – Father Abraham (no, not the biblical patriarch but Dutch singer-songwriter Pierre Kartner). He had a bowler hat as well I seem to remember. Anyway, we finally came to our senses as a nation about The Smurfs (though there were two minor follow up hits as well) and left it all behind us after 1978 but across the rest of Europe they never went away and so, in 1996, EMI deemed it was time for their return to our shores (and ears) courtesy of “The Smurfs Go Pop” album which spent 12 consecutive weeks inside the Top 10 of our charts over the Summer and Autumn of that year. Similar to the Clock concept earlier, The Smurfs (or whoever had the licensing rights to them) took modern day hit tracks and smurfed them up with high octane vocals that were enough to give you a migraine. And we thought Pinky and Perky* were bad enough!

*In fairness, I recall there being a Pinky and Perky record in our house when I was a tiny child and presumably the infant version of me loved it.

Brilliantly, they tried to get permission to do covers of some Oasis songs but Noel Gallagher wasn’t having any of it. In the end, the songs covered were fairly awful including “Mr Blobby”, “Cotton Eye Joe”, “Saturday Night” and “No Limit”. However, the single chosen for release was their take on Technohead’s recent gabber hit “I Wanna Be A Hippy”. Clearly, a brand aimed at young children couldn’t feature any references to drugs as the original did so they were all stripped out and replaced with the tale of a small dog and retitled as “I’ve Got A Little Puppy”. A happy hardcore version of The Smurfs sounds appalling and yet the single, as with the album, was a huge hit peaking at No 4. Who the f**k was buying it?! Working in Our Price, I must have sold it to punters many times over but I can’t actually recall doing it. Perfectly for the theme of this post, the lyrics included the refrain “pooper, pooper scooper!”.

Hit or Shit? A huge pile of dog poo

Here’s a curious thing – when an artist’s biggest hit is also one of their least known. I speak of Dina Carroll and her comeback single “Escaping”. I use the word ‘comeback’ as we hadn’t seen her for nigh on three years since her annus mirabilis in 1993 saw her become one of the breakout stars of that year. Four hit singles and a four times platinum selling debut album in “So Close” saw her named Best Female Artist at the following year’s BRIT awards. She was set for superstardom and then just seemed to vanish. Health issues and record label contractual problems caused a lengthy delay to her releasing any new material and so it was not until 1996 that she returned to the charts with “Escaping”. Despite this debuting at No 3 making it her joint highest charting single alongside “Don’t Be A Stranger”, I had real trouble recalling how this one went. That may be a common experience – when was the last time you heard it on the radio? Once I’d re- listened to it, it did sound faintly familiar but I do recall being surprised at how high it had gone into the charts back in 1996 given her low profile for the previous three years. The album it was taken from “Human Nature” also did well going to No 2 and achieving platinum sales status though its predecessor sold four times as many copies.

A mixture of an hereditary bone condition that affected her ears, bad luck (a cover of Dusty Springfield’s “Son Of A Preacher Man” was aborted due to Dusty’s untimely death) and more record label and management wrangling meant that Dina never did release a third album and drifted away from the music industry come the new millennium. She seems an almost forgotten figure somehow which strikes me as unfair I have to say.

Hit or Shit? Hmm. Difficult one this. “Escaping” is pleasant but not exactly memorable but then it was her joint biggest hit. Is this an “all fart, no shit” scenario?

What the heck?! What’s going on here? Why is “Tainted Love” by Soft Cell, a No 1 record in 1981, on TOTP in 1996? Well, this show was the first of ten that had a start time of 7.25pm. So? Here’s @TOTPFacts to take up the story…

For these 10 weeks, producer Ric Blaxill introduced a "Flashback" feature halfway through the show, the idea being that viewers channel-hopping during the commercial break for Coronation Street might stick with #TOTP if they saw a familiar archive performance.
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) October 18, 2024

Hmm. I think Blaxill was hoping against hope with that idea. In reality, it was probably just to further plug the return of TOTP2 that Julia Carling mentions at the song’s end. As my TOTP blog only dates back to the 1983 repeats, I’ve never properly discussed “Tainted Love” before but do I really need to go into the backstory on this one? Actually, there is a little bit of its origin that ties in nicely with this post. After becoming aware of the song due to its Northern Soul profile, Soft Cell decided to insert it into their live set. The song it replaced? “The Night” by the aforementioned Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. For years it was known as the biggest selling single of 1981 in the UK until the Official Charts Company recalculated the data in 2021 and gave that title to “Don’t You Want Me” by The Human League. “And I’ve lost my light” indeed.

Hit or Shit? For years it was one of those unlistenable tracks for me that you can’t hear anymore because it’s been so overplayed. However, it has recently become more acceptable to my ears again and is definitely a hit!

This next one comes charged with emotion for the band performing it. Less than two months before this appearance, Rob Collins, keyboard player for The Charlatans, died in a car crash aged just 33 on his way back to the studios where the band were recording their fifth album “Tellin’ Stories”. Despite the devastating loss, the band decided to carry on and completed the album with Primal Scream’s Martin Duffy drafted in to cover the keyboard parts. “One To Another” was its lead single coming out a good eight months before the album. I remarked in a recent post about how there seemed to be a trend around this time for huge time gaps between lead singles and its parent album being released quoting the examples of Paul Weller and Shed Seven. In the case of The Charlatans though, the loss of Collins more than explains the delay. The band had supported Oasis at their giant Knebworth gigs in the August and just weeks after Collins had died so maybe “One To Another” was released when it was as a tribute to their departed band mate? Perhaps there was also one eye on capitalising on the huge media profile those Oasis dates had generated?

Either way, the single was a banger, a huge, barrelling sound with groovy riffs aplenty. As Julia Carling said in her intro, it was their highest charting single ever when it crashed in at No 3. Interesting to note that there’s not much camera time given to Martin Duffy* on keyboards here. Could that have been at the request of the band who would have wanted to be respectful to Collins’s memory and not make it look like he’d just been effortlessly replaced?

*Tragically Duffy would also die young aged just 55 in 2022.

Hit or Shit? Huge tune this. Definite hit.

From the sublime to the ridiculous – it’s time for Los Del Rio again. Is it time to talk about the dance that went with the “Macarena”? I guess we have to at some point. I don’t propose to give a breakdown of the various moves – go online and find them yourselves if you want a refresher. However, what’s more interesting is the psychology behind why people would want to do it. In 2015, Oxford University published research into collective, synchronised dancing and found that the practice raised tolerance levels, fostered connectedness and friendship and broke down barriers promoting a feeling of togetherness. So there was some benefit to this ludicrous song. It’s still musical excrement though.

Hit or Shit? Definitely shit

And so to Rockets From The Crypt – a one hit wonder but one which I do actually remember. American punk rockers hailing from San Diego, their singular chart entry was “On A Rope” which would peak at No 12 in the UK charts. What stands out most in my memory about this one was that it was released as three different CD singles in cardboard slip covers. As I was working for Our Price, and, as we were not yet displaying stock live on the shop floor, you had to be really careful to get the correct disc from the filing behind the counter. Some of my more rock leaning colleagues were quite into this one but it didn’t do much for me I have to say. It was all a bit repetitive and certainly these days, aged 56, I would say it was too loud. It’s crap getting old isn’t it?

Hit or Shit? Is there a category for the non committed as I really couldn’t give a shit

It’s the last week at the top for the Spice Girls and “Wannabe”. Its success must have exceeded everything that record label Virgin could possibly have imagined for the debut release from a brand new act. It’s interesting to note that although the UK remained enamoured by them for the duration of their career (the first part of it at least) with nine of their first ten singles topping our charts, “Wannabe” was the only one to go to No 1 across the board in every territory globally.

The early copies of the single had a cover which doesn’t actually say Spice Girls on it but rather just ‘Spice’ with images of the individual members depicted within the lettering of the word. I think some of my colleagues were confused by this and actually just wrote ‘Spice’ as the artist name on the master bag for the filing system we used. It’s hard now to imagine a world where we didn’t know the name Spice Girls.

Hit or Shit? Sales phenomenon not withstanding, it was still a bit shit

The play out video is “How Bizarre” by OMC. By my reckoning, this is its fourth appearance on the show and therefore I have nothing left to say about it. Literally nothing. OK, OK…I’ll think of something. How about this? In 2002, “How Bizarre” was ranked at No 71 on the 100 Greatest One Hit Wonders show hosted by William Shatner. That’s William Shatner. Shatner. Shat-ner. The theme of this post? Oh forget it.

Hit or Shit? My wife bought this so I fell duty bound to say ‘hit’

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Space	Me And You Versus The World	No but my wife had their album
2	Clock	Oh What A Night	NO!
3	Kula Shaker	Hey Dude	No but I had a promo copy of their album
4	The Smurfs	I’ve Got A Little Puppy	Are you mad?
5	Dina Carroll	Escaping	Nah
6	Soft Cell	Tainted Love	I did not
7	The Charlatans	One To Another	No but I had it on their Best Of album Melting Pot
8	Los Del Rio	Macarena	Never
9	Rockets From The Crypt	On A Rope	Nope
10	Spice Girls	Wannabe	Negative
11	OMC	How Bizarre	No but my wife did

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/m00241bt/top-of-the-pops-06091996?seriesId=unsliced