The Boo Radleys | TOTP Rewind

TOTP 18 OCT 1996

Posted on November 20, 2024 by 80stastic

You don’t hear much about him these days but for a while there as the 80s turned into the 90s, Nigel Kennedy was quite the big deal. Tearing up the classical music manual with his appearance, style and attitude, he challenged the predominant perception of what that art form was and who it was for and found himself catapulted into the mainstream by the success of his “Vivaldi: The Four Seasons” album which topped the classical music chart for over a year selling three million copies in the process. What with Kennedy and the extraordinary popularity of The Three Tenors off the back of Italia ‘90, classical music was suddenly accessible to the masses. Our Nige wasn’t to everyone’s taste though. In 1991, he was denounced by the then Controller of BBC Radio 3 John Drummond as being “a Liberace for the nineties”* who went on to criticise his “ludicrous”* clothes and mocked his accent as being “self invented”*. Kennedy responded calling Drummond “pompous”* and of “encouraging exclusivity”* within classical music.

*All quotes taken from Paul Kelso article: Kennedy hits back at arts elitism, The Guardian, Wed 30 August 2000

Whichever side of the argument you find yourself on, none of it explains what Kennedy was doing on our screens in 1996 presenting TOTP does it? Was his profile still so high a good five years on from his “Four Seasons” heyday? His Wikipedia page says that in 1992, he’d announced that he was leaving classical music and he made an album with the marvellous Stephen Duffy called “Music In Colours” which was interesting though I found Nigel’s bits fairly unlistenable. However, by the middle of the decade he’d returned to the work of international classical concerts and just a few months after this TOTP appearance, he received an award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music at the BRITS so maybe he was in the ascendancy again? Anyway, let’s see how he does in the role of presenter…

Straight off the bat, Kennedy (who just introduces himself as ‘Nigel’) weirds us all out with his hair. What. The. F**k.? He has an enormous, towering Mohican fin protruding from the top of his head! Is it real?! If it is, how much product did it take to get it to stand on end like that?! Back in my youth in the 80s, I had ‘big’ hair (didn’t we all?) and would get through cans of Cossack hairspray in the pursuit of trying to get my bonce to look like Morten Harket’s coiffured locks but this was next level stuff. Pure madness and that’s also a phrase that could describe what was happening with the opening act The Boo Radleys at this time. Having broken through to the mainstream with hit single “Wake Up Boo!” and No 1 album “Wake Up!”, the band allegedly decided that all this pop star stuff wasn’t really for them and so made a follow up album that would alienate all those Johnny-come-lately fans (of whom I was one) in the form of “C’mon Kids”. At least, that’s how the story goes but it’s been denied by lead singer Sice that the band deliberately recorded new material designed to kill their previous pop vibe.

I’d bought and been a big fan of the “Wake Up” album but somehow my interest in The Boo Radleys had waned by the time “C’mon Kids” came out and the only songs from it I know are the singles “What’s In The Box (See Whatcha Got)” and the title track. Those who had listened to it included the music press and they were mainly lukewarm in their reaction, with the main takeaway being that the band had committed commercial suicide. Certainly it didn’t sell any where near as much as its predecessor peaking at No 20 but I quite like the singles from it so maybe I should give it a chance nearly 30 years on from its release. After all, it does have some fans within the music industry – Nicky Wire of the Manic Street Preachers said he listened to little else for a year whilst Tom White of The Electric Soft Parade names it as his favourite album ever. Perhaps its greatest accolade though is that supposedly Radiohead went back to the drawing board after hearing it during the “OK Computer” sessions.

“C’mon Kids” the song is nothing like their most well known tune being much more of a harder sound with fuzzy, squalling guitars and an almost shouted vocal from Sice. Jangly, bouncing pop it wasn’t but then why should the band have been expected to come up with “Wale Up Boo! (Part II)”?! They would stay together for another album before the 90s were up before disbanding though some of the members reformed in 2020 and have released two albums of new material since.

I’ve got to comment on a Montell Jordan song that isn’t “This Is How We Do It”? Who knew he even had any other hits? Well, he did and this one is called “I Like” and was the third of five he had in the UK. Watching this back, I’m struck by how lacking in substance it is. There’s hardly anything to it at all which is not helping me in my struggle to find something to say about it. I guess I could mention the lyrics that are so hackneyed that Montell might as well have just called the song ‘Black Cab’ and be done with it. Hackneyed? Hackney? Hackney carriage? Oh please yourselves! Anyway, the lyrics are terrible – ‘lips’ are rhymed with ‘hips’ , ‘walk’ with ‘talk’ and Montell even says “You’re so sexy” at one point. Couldn’t he have just been happy with having the one hit that sustained? After all, “This Is How We Do It” has endured to the point that it’s currently being used to soundtrack a Deliveroo advert.

Kennedy fluffs his lines a bit next as he plugs TOTP2 by saying “By the way, you’ve got to check out this amazing unforeseen…unseen footage of the Stones on Top of the Pops 2”. Probably hard to check out something unforeseen but I’m being harsh on poor Nige, he was just nervous no doubt. And so he should have been, so we all should have been for Mark Morrison has returned with his third hit of the year “Trippin’” and if The Mack is back then that means only one thing – he’ll have his handcuffs with him! I could never understand the appeal of this guy – neither his music nor his image and judging by all his run ins with the law, he was hardly a stand up guy. In the lyrics to “Trippin’”, he starts referring to himself in the third person and there is no bigger indicator of being a massive prick than that! He would crank out another hit before the end of the calendar year called “Horny” and follow it up in 1997 with one called “Moan & Groan”. Delightful.

There follows a really strange segue where immediately after Mark Morrison finishes we just get the voice of Nigel Kennedy (he’s not seen at all) saying “And here is Celine…*big pause*…Dion” before the screen fades and the video for “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now” starts playing. Why wasn’t he in shot and why the large pause? Maybe the camera couldn’t accommodate his huge Mohican hairstyle. Anyway, it is Celine Dion and unlike the other week when we got six minutes worth of the promo, mercifully we only get half that amount this time around. In an interview with the director Nigel Dick, he effused about what a hard worker Celine is and mentioned that he made her run across gravel barefoot for a scene five times until he was happy with the shot. Celine didn’t complain but came to the shoot the next day with her feet in bandages. Fair play to her though I would do the same just to never have to watch this video again.

Nigel is back with us visually now and asking the question why we’ve never seen the next artist on TV before despite them having sold 20 million records. Who is he talking about? It’s Bally Sagoo who I must admit to not being aware of despite this hit “Dil Cheez (My Heart…)” and despite working in a record shop at the time it was in the charts. Having read up on him, my embarrassment of not knowing who he is has multiplied as he really is a big deal. In his early days he was a DJ in Birmingham but he wasn’t spinning the latest chart sounds. No, he was creating his own mixtapes fusing together elements of Western music and hip hop with Indian music. He signed with local record label Oriental Star Agencies as an in house producer collaborating with the likes of Qawwali superstar Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan before signing to Sony Records in his own right. His reworking of an Asha Bhosle song would be played on Radio 1 making him the first Indian artist to achieve national mainstream radio airplay. He then released the album “Rising From The East” which would spend a week in the UK album chart and furnish two Top 40 singles including “Dil Cheez (My Heart)”. Having broken through the glass ceiling, he went stratospheric in terms of exposure by supporting Michael Jackson on the HIStory World Tour. From there he launched his own record label showcasing both his material and other new artists and in 2003 was honoured at the UK Asian Awards with the inaugural trophy for outstanding achievement (presented to him by the Spice Girls no less). His music can be found in films like Bend It Like Beckham and Monsoon Wedding and he has diversified into areas such as film production, artist promotion and management, fashion and technology. Like I said, he’s quite the mover and shaker.

Back to Nigel’s original question about why we’d never seen Bally Sagoo on TV before, I guess it was because there had traditionally been so few UK hit singles that had an Asian influence and sound to them and if they weren’t chart hits the they wouldn’t have been on TOTP. There’s a few exceptions like “Ever So Lonely” by Monsoon in 1982 and are we counting “Im Nin’alu” by Israeli singer Ofra Haza from 1988? By the 90s things were starting to change with the likes of Apache Indian bringing Bhangramuffin to the Top 40 and in 1998, Cornershop took “Brimful Of Asha” to No 1. In these TOTP repeats, we’re not far off from Kula Shaker having a hit with a song sung entirely in Sanskrit in “Govinda”. More recently, there has been the rise of K-pop (which I know barely anything about) and of course the global phenomenon that was “Gangnam Style” by Psy. From the world of film, “Jai Ho” won an Oscar for Best Original Song after soundtracking that memorable dance sequence in Slumdog Millionaire. Finally, in 2023, Diljit Dosanjh became the first Punjabi artist to perform at the Coachella music festival. And I haven’t even mentioned Bollywood…

Nigel’s Mohican is starting to wilt under those studio lights and has flopped on one side. Also suffering a malfunction is the show’s running order as we don’t get to see the advertised ‘Flashback’ feature which was John Travolta and Olivia Newton John doing “Summer Nights” from Grease. Presumably it was cut for reasons of timing to fit in with BBC4’s Friday night schedule. So do I have to review this or not? Look, we all know this song and the film it comes from. I don’t need to make anymore comment on it do I? No I don’t.

Next up is a song that I definitely know but I may have struggled to name the artist behind it. Without looking it up or watching this TOTP repeat, I might have come up with Another Level but I think I would have been confusing “Freak Me” with this song which is “No Diggity” by Blackstreet. Oh, hang on. The album it was taken from was called “Another Level”? Ah well, then my mistake is perhaps forgivable. Perhaps not though as this track was an American No 1 and was the single that knocked “Macarena” off the top of the charts after it had been there for nine weeks. It’s yet another R&B number on this particular show following Montell Jordan and Mark Morrison earlier and also features Dr.Dre (nearly forgot about him) and Queen Pen. It’s come to be recognised as perhaps the definitive New Jack Swing song thanks to the creative input of Blackstreet founder member and lead vocalist Teddy Riley, the man credited with creating the genre. Did I like it? Not really though its title and hook have remained with me all these years. Apparently ‘no diggity’ means ‘no doubt’ but sadly for Nigel Kennedy, he fluffs his lines again and repeats the word ‘diggity’ for no reason and is left with ‘no dignity’.

After the huge success of “Three Lions” with Baddiel and Skinner over the Summer of football, it was back to the day job for Ian Broudie and the Lightning Seeds with another knockabout bit of pop fluff to promote. It may have seemed like an age ago but their last non-football related single had been “Ready Or Not” which had been released way back in February. It was the lead track from the “Dizzy Heights” album but that would not appear until the November after the recording of it was delayed to allow Broudie to concentrate on the “Three Lions” project so effectively “What If” became the lead single.

I have to say it’s not one of their strongest songs (despite being co-written by the wonderful and much missed Terry Hall) and the performance of it here demonstrates that Broudie is not the owner of the most powerful voice in pop. It actually reminds me of something else which I think is this by Sean Maguire and that’s not a good thing by the way…

By strange pop coincidence, there was actually a Lightning Seeds song in the Top 40 in this very week which went under the radar. The cover of “All I Want” from their first album by Susanna Hoffs is actually rather lovely and was at No 32 in the UK Top 40 at the time of this Lightning Seeds performance.

Having not heard it in ages, I’d forgotten what a good song “6 Underground” by Sneaker Pimps is. Pigeonholed in the music press as a cross between Portishead and Garbage, they looked to have the world at their feet but they never seems to be able to go beyond that first flush of success with their debut album “Becoming X”. Maybe it was all the remixes that the band had done of “6 Underground” that seemed to keep them anchored in those initial recordings (there was even an official remix album released called “Becoming Remixed” as a companion piece to their debut). Or maybe it was that the track “6 Underground” wouldn’t go away. After its 1996 chart run, it was rereleased the following year off the back of being included on the soundtrack to The Saint film and peaked at No 9, six places higher then its first foray into the Top 40. That second strata of success and that of follow up “Spin Spin Sugar” was enough evidence for a rerelease of the album which included new artwork and the inclusion of what many saw as the definitive version of “6 Underground” by Nellee Hooper. Then there was the two years of touring in support of the album when they opened for Blur and Neneh Cherry and played with Tricky and Lamb securing the perception of them as a trip hop band. All of this delayed the release of second album “Splinter” until 1999 when musical tastes had moved on and momentum was lost.

However, the biggest event that determined the band’s path was surely when lead singer Kelli Ali was told by fellow band members Chris Corner and Liam Howe that her vocals would not suit their new direction and she was fired from the line up before the recording of “Splinter”. This led to them being dropped by their label Virgin and they would never recapture the level of those early glories. They would go on a decade long hiatus before rebooting the band in 2016 and last released an album in 2021.

After the demise of Take That earlier in the year, the positioning of Boyzone as the UK’s next premier boyband was a foregone conclusion. They’d already spent two years coming up on the rails with a collection of hits that had peaked at Nos 2, 3 and 4 but their first chart topper had proved elusive. With those cheeky Manc scamps out of the way, there was no stopping them. Add to that the fact that they’d returned to the trusted strategy of releasing a cover version and the deal was not so much as sealed as cemented shut. “Words” by the Bee Gees was the song to do it for them and I recall it selling and selling and then selling some more in the Our Price store where I worked. We may have even come perilously close to selling out of it (an unspeakable crime for a record shop). When they released the follow up “A Different Beat”, I was determined not to be in that situation again so ordered in a load of the single. Despite also going to No 1, it failed to sell in anywhere near the quantities of “Words” and we were left with massive overstock. The fickle gods of pop music had farted in my face once again.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Boo Radleys	C’Mon Kids	Negative
2	Montell Jordan	I Like	I disliked
3	Mark Morrison	Trippin’	Nah
4	Celine Dion	It’s All Coming Back To Me Now	As if
5	Bally Sagoo	Dil Cheez (My Heart…)	Nope
6	John Travolta and Olivia Newton John	Summer Nights	No
7	Blackstreet	No Diggity	I did not
8	Lightning Seeds	What If	Nah
9	Sneaker Pimps	6 Underground	Liked it, didn’t buy it
10	Boyzone	Words	Never

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/m0024s0d/top-of-the-pops-18101996?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 27 JUL 1995

Posted on December 22, 2023 by 80stastic

Right, that’s Christmas and New Year celebrations well and truly over with for another year and a return to normality beckons. However, that isn’t on the cards for these BBC4 TOTP repeats. As far as I can tell, we won’t be returning to these 1995 shows until late January at the earliest as the 60th anniversary commemorations of the show via a series of retro programmes focusing on performances from the 60s, 70s and 80s continue. So, after being behind with my reviews for weeks, I now have ample opportunity to catch up. Hurray!

Tonight’s episode is hosted by Craig McLachlan, probably still best known at this time as Henry from Neighbours though he had carved out a brief career for himself as a pop star at the turn of the decade with his No 2 UK hit “Mona”. Quite why he was perceived to be a big enough name to host TOTP in July 1995 though is a question that’s not immediately obvious to answer to me. He’d left Ramsey Street long ago and his last chart hit in this country – a version of “You’re The One That I Want” with Debbie Gibson as part of the cast of Grease – had been two years prior. However, he had just finished starring in the BBC crime drama series Bugs so that could be the reason behind his appearance here. I never watched that show so maybe that’s why I didn’t quite understand the height of his profile. Whatever the reason for his ‘golden mic’ slot, he turns in a pretty lacklustre performance. Giving a pretence of what you perceive to be cool and actually being cool are two very different things though why he thought he could pull off an all-in-one leather singlet outfit with shades accessories, only he will know. Maybe he was trying on a future look for size as there’s something a bit Frank-N-Furter about it, a role that McLachlan would play more than once in productions of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Looking remarkably ordinary in comparison (thank goodness) are opening act The Boo Radleys who have clocked up a third consecutive Top 40 hit. After the ubiquitous airplay hit that was “Wake Up Boo!” at the start of the year, the band had followed it up with what I believed was an infinitely better tune in “Find The Answer Within” but once again I was in the lower percentile of the record buying public when it peaked at No 37. Undeterred, a third single from the “Wake Up!” album was released and “It’s Lulu” would fall between two stools, peaking a whole 12 places higher than its immediate predecessor but nowhere near the Top 10 position of the (almost) title track.

As much as I liked it, I believed there were better tracks on the album (which I’d bought) and had hoped “Twinside” or the beautiful ballad “Wilder” would have been chosen as the third and final single from it. Sadly it was not to be and the perfectly decent but rather obvious “It’s Lulu” was given the shout (ahem). I’m guessing it wasn’t actually about the diminutive Scottish singer as the lyrics seem to tell the story of a teenage girl who feels the angst of her age group admitting that she can’t buy any clothes that fit, gets her facts from Smash Hits and is only understood by the posters on her walls. OK, they’re a bit clunky but they beat the pants off Lulu shouting endlessly about not very much.

Now it’s never occurred to me before but is there something in the verses to “It’s Lulu” that’s reminiscent of a certain cult classic advert from the early 80s?…

OK, this was just getting silly now; silly and confusing. “Stuck On U” was the sixth consecutive Top 40 hit for those cheeky scamps PJ & Duncan including one inside the Top 10 and four registering respectable chart peaks of either No 15 or No 12. Quite how they were mining these hits from a very narrow vein of pop/rap material…well…I can only assume that the people buying their records were actually buying into their likeable personalities as the music was formulaic at best. But was it their personalities or their characters because – and this was where the confusion came in – the lines between the real duo (as in Ant & Dec) and their Byker Grove constructs were really blurred around this time. You see despite still continuing to release records as PJ & Duncan (a trend that would carry on until 1996), they were doing a side hustle as TV presenters (having left Byker Grove well behind them) under their own names. Indeed, just three months before this TOTP aired, the first episode of their own show entitled The Ant & Dec Show (!) was broadcast on CBBC. Identity crisis at all?

To add to the confusion, “Stuck On U” was the lead track from their second album “Top Katz” (an awful, dreadful title) which Wikipedia informs me only made it to No 46 in the charts despite containing four hit singles and yet it went gold selling 100,000 copies. No 46 but it sold 100,000 copies? That can’t be right can it? This is a case of advanced orders from record shops masquerading as actual customers sales isn’t it?

Next, what would be called a collaboration these days but back in 1995 it was probably…what? A duet? Maybe not. Anyway, whatever it was, it featured…oh that was probably it wasn’t it? One of the artists featuring the other.

*checks cover of single*

Yes! Officially, it was Method Man featuring Mary J. Blige. Method Man was one of those rap artists that definitely required a temporary insert in place of the actual CD sleeve when on display in any of the Our Price stores I worked in along with Notorious B.I.G., Wu-Tang Clan, 2 Pac, NWA etc. This single “I’ll BeThere For You / You’re All I Need To Get By”, released on the legendary Def Jam label, was supposedly one of the first examples of the ‘Thug-Love’ genre which I wasn’t aware of at the time but which I understand now to be the combination of a rapper doing the verses and an R&B soul singer doing the chorus (I think). Said chorus plunders heavily the melody from Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell’s hit 1968 hit “You’re All I Need To Get By” which is the only bit which appeals to me I have to say. The track did appeal in its entirety to a lot of people though going to No 3 in the US and Top 10 in the UK. Was it from a film as that might have had an influence on its success?

*checks Wikipedia*

It doesn’t seem so but it was the biggest hit for either artist at the time. Mary J. Blige is one of those names which I know and who have been extraordinarily successful even earning the moniker of the ‘Queen of R&B’ but whom I’m not sure I could name even three of her songs. The same without doubt applies to Method Man. That clearly says more about my musical tastes than either’s profile.

We’re only three songs in and already Craig McLachlan is becoming insufferable in his role as host. In his link to the next act he says “Yo! Top of the Poppers!” Oh dear. I tried out that greeting affectation once when I was a student at Sunderland Poly. My wife (then girlfriend) was with me at the time and nearly dumped me on the spot. I’ve never used it since. McLachlan then goes on to say that people are always asking him what his favourite type of music is. There’s a couple of things about both this revelation and his answer that don’t ring true to me. Firstly, that anyone would be that interested in his musical preferences in the first place and secondly that he would reply with The Lightning Seeds. Yes, I know it was just a lame line, a construct to segue between artists but couldn’t the scriptwriters have done better here?

Anyway, this was the point where Lightning Seeds really got into gear as a chart hit making machine with “Perfect” being their third Top 40 single of 1995, all of them from their “Jollification” album which would achieve platinum sales by the end of the year. Unlike its high speed predecessors “Change” and “Marvellous”, “Perfect” was a much slower, reflective tune, some may even say melancholy. In fact, listening back to it now, it strikes me that perhaps this was actually Ian Broudie’s attempt at writing his own version of Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day”. Now I’m not suggesting that his song is on a par with the classic track from the iconic “Transformer” album – of course not – but it does have a feel of it, possibly.

As for the performance here, the TOTP producers obviously felt that, despite ex-Icicle Works drummer Chris Sharrock doing his best Keith Moon impression, Ian Broudie sat at a keyboard wasn’t the most interesting spectacle. As such, they came up with a special effect that saw his head, detached and blown up in size dangling over the stage like some pop music version of the Wizard Of Oz (before we got to see the real Oz behind the curtain).

A rerelease of “Lucky You” would see Lightning Seeds clock up four hit singles in 1995 before returning in 1996 with the enduring football anthem “Three Lions” the following year and there was nothing cowardly about that song.

Craig McLachlan does some awful Guinness referencing intro for the next act who are, of course, Irish boyband Boyzone. Unlike the Lightning Seeds who followed up two uptempo hits with a slower song, the pretenders to Take That’s crown did the reverse, releasing a pop tune that bounces along after two consecutive ballads. I made the point previously that the group’s second hit “Key To My Life” was surely a forgotten Boyzone hit. Well, if that one is forgotten then “So Good” must be consigned to oblivion. It’s basically just a chorus with some other bits thrown in as an afterthought. Now, I can’t help noticing the dancing on display here (because the music is hardly captivating is it?) and it occurred to me that though there is definite progress from this…

…most of their moves involve wiggling a leg around Riverdance style and generally just jumping on the spot. Yes, at least they do it in time and their matching outfits lend the whole thing a sense of synchronicity but it’s not that slick is it? Still, maybe it was better that they weren’t super tight. I always admired Bananarama for their amateurish dance steps (earlier in their career at least) and couldn’t stand the synchronised swimming precision of some of the boy bands that emerged later in the decade.

After two hits that they’d had a hand in writing themselves, Boyzone would return with a cover in Cat Stevens’ “Father And Son” that would give them another enormous festive hit just as their version of “Love Me For A Reason” by The Osmonds had done the previous Christmas.

Now I could have sworn that I didn’t know this song by REM but having watched the video for “Tongue”, it does ring a fair few bells and so it should as it has a very distinctive sound. The fifth and final single from the “Monster” album, Michael Stipe sings the whole song in falsetto and it seems to my ears that there’s very little instrumentation to the track save for the sustaining sound of a dominant organ. It’s quite striking so how it seems to have escaped my accessible memory banks is bemusing.

Something else that seemed to have slipped my mind (if I ever knew it in the first place) was the song’s subject matter. Michael Stipe is on record as saying that it is about cunnilingus. Off the top of my head, I can only think of “Turning Japanese” by The Vapours as a pop song that is inspired by a particular sexual act though I’m sure there will be more. I wonder if host Craig McLachlan knew the story behind the song. It would certainly have made his intro take on a complete different tone. Replace every mention of Rapid Eye Movement here with the word ‘cunnilingus’ and see what difference it makes:

“Let me talk to you about Rapid Eye Movement . Do you know what that is? Rapid Eye Movement – have you experienced it? You’re about to…R…E..M!”.

It’s time for another appearance by Seal as his single “Kiss From A Rose” is up to No 5. Somewhat surprisingly, despite his profile, Seal would only have another two UK Top 40 hits under his own name. In fact, his chart success fell away pretty spectacularly. Despite his first two albums going to No 1, his third, 1998’s “Human Being”, only made it to No 44 selling 10x less than its predecessor. He did have more of a return to form with “Seal IV” making No 4 appropriately in 2003 but he has not had another Top 10 album since. We won’t see him in the UK singles chart again for nearly 18 months when another song from a film – his cover of Steve Miller Band’s “Fly Like An Eagle” from Space Jam returned him to the Top 20.

It’s the album chart slot now which means a chance for Supergrass to plug their debut album “I Should Coco” which has risen to the top of the charts off the back of the success of their No 2 single “Alright”. To celebrate the achievement, the band are live by satellite from Vancouver performing “Caught By The Fuzz” which was their first ever single which failed to make the Top 40 on its release in the autumn of 1994.

Wikipedia tells me that a mugshot of Hugh Grant – who had been caught by the fuzz (and indeed his short and curlys) receiving oral sex from prostitute Divine Brown on Sunset Boulevard exactly a month before this TOTP aired – was intended to be the artwork for the sleeve of the US release of the single. However, Grant’s lawyers complained and the idea was dropped. Not completely it would seem though as bassist Mick Quinn is wearing a T-shirt in this performance with that infamous Grant mugshot emblazoned all over it. I wonder if Hugh’s lawyers were watching?

As for the song itself, I’m slightly surprised that it never got a rerelease off the back of the band’s subsequent success. Maybe they thought they’d plundered the album enough by this point and wanted to avoid over exposure seeing as “Alright” had been all over radio and TV. Good tune though.

Oh dear. Inevitably, Craig McLachlan has got a guitar out and is singing the next intro (and I thought Mike Read was bad back in the day). Quite who the two blokes with him are or why they are dressed as Arabs I’m not sure. Could the disguised duo be any of the artists that were in the studio that day? Well, having inspected the footage, it’s clearly not PJ & Duncan / Ant & Dec nor any of Boyzone – could it be any of the Lightning Seeds or The Boo Radleys? I’d like to think they wouldn’t have lowered themselves.

Anyway, said intro is for Julian Cope who is enjoying his first UK Top 40 hit since the rather lovely “Beautiful Love” from 1991. “Try Try Try” was the lead single from his twelfth solo studio album “20 Mothers” – wait, his twelfth was in 1995?! So how many has he done in total?

*checks his discography*

My God! He’s up to 36 now! Like him or loath him (and I very much like him), you have to admire the prolific frequency of his output. Listening back to “Try Try Try” now, I’m struck by how conventional a sound it is which is at odds with his outlandish appearance (he does look like a knacker in that druid hat). It sort of reminds me of The Who in places, something about the melody perhaps? I’d sort of lost track of Julian by this point having kind of drawn a line under him when buying his 1992 compilation “Floored Genius” though I’m sure I went to an exhibition he curated at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester around this time.

There’s an episode of Rock Family Trees about the post-punk scene in Liverpool in the early 70s where Pete Wylie talks about Cope having been in the short lived but near legendary Crucial Three with him alongside Ian McCulloch. His relationship with Julian has been antagonistic over the years and he describes him as being this rather unwanted, weirdo type figure tutting “Here comes Julian” whenever Cope arrived. My wife and I still use this phrase today usually when our cat is pissing us off referring to him as Julian even though his name is Peter Pan.

The Outhere Brothers are still at No 1 with “Boom Boom Boom”. Fear not though as their four week reign at the top will be ended in the next show by *SPOILER ALERT* Take That who also ended the run of their other chart topper “Don’t Stop (Wiggle Wiggle)”. This, in some way, almost makes up for the fact that they couldn’t depose Mr. Blobby as the Christmas No 1 in 1993. Almost.

The play out video is “Violet” by Hole. Apparently the lyrics relate to Courtney Love’s past relationship with Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan and it got me thinking about how many other songs are about relationships that have gone bad. Off the top of my head there’s “A Good Heart” by Feargal Sharkey which was written by Maria McKee about the end of her relationship with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench. Then there’s the follow up single “You Little Thief” which is written by Tench and is supposedly his response to McKee’s song. Perhaps the most famous example though is Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain”. For years there was speculation about who the song was about but Carly has finally admitted that it was about ex-lover Warren Beatty – well, the second verse at least if not the whole song. There must be many more out there though surely?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Boo Radleys	It’s Lulu	No but I had the album
2	PJ & Duncan	Stuck On U	As if
3	Method Man featuring Mary J. Blige	I’ll BeThere For You / You’re All I Need To Get By	No
4	The Lightning Seeds	Perfect	Nope
5	Boyzone	So Good	Never happening
6	REM	Tongue	Nah
7	Seal	Kiss From A Rose	I did not
8	Supergrass	Caught By The Fuzz	See 1 above
9	Julian Cope	Try Try Try	Sorry Julian but no
10	The Outhere Brothers	Boom Boom Boom	Hell no!
11	Hole	Violet	Not for me thanks

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/m001tdmj/top-of-the-pops-27071995

TOTP 09 MAR 1995

Posted on October 11, 2023 by 80stastic

We’re well into March 1995 with these TOTP repeats and I’m pretty sure that work wise back then, I was firmly ensconced back at the Our Price store in Stockport following the closure of the shop in Market Street, Manchester. I say ‘back’ as I’d spent a couple of months there in the Autumn of 1993. It hadn’t gone well and I’d been glad to get out of there but now I was on my way back after spending the whole of 1994 in Manchester. I would spend the next four years there. It had its ups and downs but on the whole it would turn out to be a much better experience.

Right at the start of my time there, an album by the first artist on tonight’s show was released which would stay with me until the present day. Its lead single would provide the band with their biggest commercial success but it would also prove to be completely divisive in terms of its appeal. Some may even argue that it did them more harm than good in terms of credibility. The Boo Radleys had been in existence since 1988 but were largely unknown to the great British public despite their 1993 album “Giant Steps” being voted album of the year by NME readers. All that was to change in 1995 with the release of their fourth album “Wake Up!” and its lead single “Wake Up Boo!”. Beloved of breakfast DJs up and down the land (especially Radio 1’s Chris Evans who had a jingle made for his show based on it), it’s an almost perfect example of the bright, bouncy, exuberant pop song. It was impossible to ignore so in your face was it as it dragged you kicking and screaming from your bed and demanded that you face the new day in front of you. It was everywhere and yet that ubiquity worked against it. Some people couldn’t (and still to this day can’t) stand it. Perhaps for the existing fanbase it felt like a betrayal and that the band had sold out and for the wider general public, was it that the track was just a bit too much for the innate misery of the national identity?

For my part, I liked the way it raced along and combined some lush harmonising with perky brass parts. However, it wasn’t that No 9 hit which made me invest in the album. I much preferred the follow up single “Find The Answer Within” which, having been the catalyst for me to purchase “Wake Up!”, led me to other gems within its twelve tracks like “Twinside” and “Wilder”. I stand by the album and still listen to it nearly 30 years later. For once, I was in sync with the rest of the record buying public as it went to No 1 and briefly The Boo Radleys were the bomb.

Inevitably though, they got shoved in the box labelled Britpop despite rejecting such associations (did anybody ever admit to being a Britpop band?) and as the movement floundered so did their commercial fortunes. Subsequent album “C’mon Kids” was perceived as a deliberate attempt to dismantle their pop star / hitmaker status (an accusation the band deny) but it is certainly true that the sound of it was less commercial than its predecessor. The writing was on the wall by the release of their sixth studio album “Kingsize” in 1998 which peaked at No 62 in the charts and they disbanded not long after. Almost miraculously, they resurfaced in 2022 with new material though without chief songwriter Martin Carr within their ranks.

And back to the crap. I really am sick of these brainless Eurodance hits. I mean 2 Unlimited pushed me to my limits (ahem) but at least their songs were originals. Applying the Eurodance formula to existing songs was really taking the piss. Presumably the perpetrators of this musical crime did it to extend the shelf life of the genre in case the punters were tiring of it? We had already strayed into this area with the likes of Rage covering Bryan Adams in 1992 and more recently the Hi-NRG treatment of “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” by Nicki French but this next act would take it to another level. Clock would…erm…clock up thirteen UK Top 40 hits in total of which at least half were cover versions starting with this – Harold Faltermeyer’s “Axel F”. The original made No 2 in 1985 and was, of course, from the soundtrack to the film Beverly Hills Cop and was an instrumental track. The 1995 version though had a rapper and female vocalist tacked onto it in the way of that established Eurodance model. Now I was never much of a fan of the original – in fact I found it quite annoying – but this…THIS! Well, it was every shade of shit. Why did anybody need this in their life?! Apparently lots of people did as it went Top 10 in the UK. To be fair, I could also have lived without the original having ever existed either. Its appearance in the chart meant there were two 90s danced up cover versions of 80s instrumental hits in the Top 10 concurrently alongside Perfecto Allstarz and “Reach Up (Papa’s Got A Brand New Pigbag)”.

As for the performance here, presumably the dancers in police uniforms and the CHiPs style motorcycle that tonight’s host Mark Goodier rather ludicrously sits astride in his intro are to tie in with the Eddie Murphy film but it’s all rather unnecessary and silly. And why was the rapper dressed as a circus ringmaster? If we thought this was bad though, it was literally a musical masterpiece compared to what Crazy Frog inflicted on us ten years later.

It’s another dance tune next (of course it is) but this one’s a definite upgrade on Clock. Bucketheads was a side project by Kenny “Dope” Gonzalez, one half of the classic house music Masters at Work production team. Taking Chicago’s “Streetplayer” as his source material Kenny came up with “The Bomb! (These Sounds Fall into My Mind)”, a fusion of house, disco and funk that had been causing a stir in nightclubs for six months before it got a proper release on the Positiva label. That buzz would translate into sales sending it to No 5 in the UK charts.

You know, I’ve always dismissed Chicago as that band who produced all those sickly ballads like “If You Leave Me Now,” “You’re the Inspiration,” “Hard To Say I’m Sorry” and “Hard Habit To Break” which were, to my ears, all essentially the same song. However, there is so much more to them than I ever realised. They’ve been going for 55 years, have released 26 studio albums, sold 100 million records, have been inducted into The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame and have a list of band members past and present that would rival The Fall. Then there’s the music. They’ve tried everything from jazz-rock to funk to soul to those adult contemporary hits. There’s even a documentary about them called The Last Band On Stage – apparently they were pretty much the last artist to play a live gig on the planet as Covid shut the world down in March 2020.

Anyway, back to Bucketheads and the video shown here was directed by one Guy Ritchie three years before he became famous for Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels. As for the name Bucketheads, was it anything to do with the satirical political candidate Lord Buckethead who stood in the 1987 and 1992 General Elections? The film maker Todd Durham created the character in 1984 for the sci-fi comedy film Hyperspace and when he claimed ownership of Buckethead following the 2017 General Election, the character was renamed as Count Binface by the comedian Jonathan Harvey who was the current incumbent. I guess the idea just fell into his mind.

Enough with the dance tunes! Give us something else! Well, you couldn’t get more of a contrast from Clock and Bucketheads than the moment Radiohead transformed from shoe-gazing one hit wonders into colossal, stadium-filling art rockers. After the indie disco favourite “Creep” had gone Top 10 in 1983, Radiohead had come under pressure from EMI to repeat the trick. What they did instead was so much more than just another isolated crossover hit. Sophomore album “The Bends” would come to be seen as a game-changer, redefining the parameters of rock music and it wasn’t hard to understand why. Compared to the likes of Oasis (whose lad rock charms I had been easily swayed by), it was a much more layered, complex and involved record. The first time I heard it played on the shop stereo, I knew I was listening to something special, something that demanded more exploration, something…well…just more. It was one of the few albums that I’ve ever bought that I felt I had little choice in. It had to be purchased. As with The Boo Radleys earlier, “The Bends” is an album that has stayed with me ever since and which has not diminished over the years.

There’s another reason for linking Radiohead and The Boo Radleys (I do love a bit of synchronicity) and that’s in the Charles Bukowski T-shirt Thom Yorke is wearing. The American writer and poet had died exactly one year ago to the day that this TOTP was broadcast which presumably was why Thom was wearing the T-shirt. So what’s this got to do with The Boo Radleys? Well, their album “Wake Up” has a track on it called “Charles Bukowski Is Dead”. Sometimes this shit just writes itself.

Anyway, “High And Dry” was the second single from “The Bends” (after “My Iron Lung” in the Autumn of 1994) and was a double A-side with “Planet Telex” (the opening song on the album) and its almost achingly beautiful. Originally recorded as a demo in 1993 and almost incredulously dismissed as being too Rod Stewart (!), it has been described as being responsible for the careers of the likes of Coldplay and Travis. I’ll leave you to decide if that’s a good thing or not.

One more thing, they say a song’s quality can be judged by its ability to be covered in a style that is completely different to its original form. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Radiohead as done by ABC. Who needs AI?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Having an artist do an ‘exclusive’ performance of a single yet to be released only to have them back on the show the following week once it’s entered the charts isn’t working for me. Take Faith No More for example. They were on just last week performing “Digging The Grave” and I struggled to find anything to say about it then. Now I’ve got to go through exactly the same torment again this week? They could have at least shown the video to give me something different to go at.

Look, I’ve got nothing so not for the first time I’m going to leave it to Beavis and Butthead…”They just look and sound like everyone else”.

Genuine music icon time now as the venerable Stevie Wonder is on the show. Now while I can totally appreciate why TOTP Executive Producer Ric Blaxill would have jumped at the chance to get such a legendary name on the show, it really does feel like a case of shoehorning going on here. Yes, Stevie had an album due out (“Conversation Peace”) but it wasn’t actually available in the shops for another two weeks. The lead single from it (“For Your Love”) had peaked and was going down the charts so he couldn’t really perform that. The solution was to get Stevie to sing a track from the album called “Tomorrow Robins Will Sing” (it would eventually be released as the second single).

Now I love Stevie’s 60s, 70s and early 80s stuff as much as the next person but most of his material from “I Just Called To Say I Love You” onwards was of variable quality at best. I have to say that the song performed here really wasn’t up to much. A reggae flavoured number that saw Stevie unwisely indulge in some sort of faux rapping in the verses. And here’s my point. Yes, he is a legendary name and yes it was an exclusive to have him in the studio in person (his last performance appearance was in 1974 promoting “Living For The City”) but was there really that much buzz and anticipation about a new Stevie Wonder album in 1995? I’m not sure. “Conversation Peace” did go Top 10 in the UK but it’s hardly regarded as a classic is it?

In amongst the proliferation of R&B artists that the 90s gave us, I always feel that Des’ree gets overlooked somewhat. I’m not sure why as she has the sales/streams and awards to not be but perhaps it has something to do with the fact that of her six UK Top 40 hits, three of them were courtesy of the same song. “You Gotta Be” was first released in April 1994 peaking at No 20. So why the rerelease nearly a whole year later? It was down to its stellar performance in America where it made No 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. And why was it a hit over there? Well, because it was used to soundtrack an advertising campaign for the ABC network magazine programme Good Morning America thereby raising its profile significantly. The UK rerelease saw the single peak at No 14 but it was its third outing in 1999 when it gained its biggest success with it finally made the Top 10. That final release was again due to its use in an advert, this time to promote the Ford Focus car. “You Gotta Be” also won an Ivor Novello for Best Contemporary Song whilst Des’ree herself won a BRIT Award for Best Female Solo Artist. Outperforming all three of those releases though was her 1998 single “Life” which got to No 8 despite it including a lyric that was voted the worst ever in a pop song in a 2007 BBC poll. You know the one – where Des’ree sings that she doesn’t want to see a ghost and would rather have a piece of toast? Yeah, that one. She also duetted with Terence Trent D’Arby on his 1993 hit single “Delicate”.

So why do I think she’s over looked? Well, she never had a massive selling album, at least not in the UK though her 1994 collection “I Ain’t Movin'” sold a million copies in the US. I also think the two years between that release and her debut “Mind Adventures” and its attendant hit single “Feel So High” in 1992 meant she lost a bit of momentum. In that time, the likes of Gabrielle, Dina Carroll appeared on the scene to step into her vacant shoes. Hell, even EastEnders actress Michelle Gayle got in on the act. Did Des’ree just get crowded out of that particular musical genre? Actually, listening back to “You Gotta Be”, it does have more than a hint of Gabrielle’s “Dreams” to it. Did Des’ree see which way the wind was blowing and decide to follow suit?

One person who didn’t overlook Des’ree was my wife who is a primary school teacher. When she was teaching a music unit one year, she decided that there wasn’t enough R&B / soul music represented on the module and so added “You Gotta Be” to it. Apparently her class loved the song and would sing along to it when she found a video on YouTube with the lyrics included. I’m not sure how many pupils my wife had in her class but I’m guessing it wasn’t as many as Des’ree had in a world record breaking event for charity in 2008 when she led 600,000 children in singing the same song simultaneously at the O2 Arena. The song was, of course, “You Gotta Be”.

Now, was it too soon for the return of Wet Wet Wet after their fifteen week stint at No 1 with “Love Is All Around” the previous year? In fact, how do you follow up a hit that big? Is it even possible to achieve such sales with consecutive releases? Erm, no is the short answer though “Julia Says” was no flop either peaking at No 3. Trailing the band’s fourth studio album “Picture This” (though “Love Is All Around” was tacked onto it as the last track), it seemed a rather safe choice by Marti and the gang to be honest. Despite being melodic and tuneful, it was hardly breaking any new ground. The exact opposite in fact as I’m sure I can detect traces of “Strawberry Fields Forever” era Beatles in there at one point. Still Pellow sells it well to the delight of the screaming studio audience (as Mark Goodier says, the band always got a good reaction whenever they were on TOTP).

Ah yes, those fans. I have a memory of Wet Wet Wet fans being a bit of a pain when “Julia Says” came out, a bit precious about when exactly would it be available in the shop to buy. Not Numanoid levels of annoying – Gary Numan’s fans were always ringing up and arguing the toss about release dates – but still the wrong side of polite I would say. They, at least, far from having had enough of Wet Wet Wet, couldn’t get enough of them.

Celine Dion is not finished with the No 1 spot yet as she clocks up a sixth week there with “Think Twice”. In desperation of having to say something about this song yet again, I decided to have a gander at the lyrics. Written by Andy Hill and ex-King Crimson lyricist Pete Sinfield (who also wrote “The Land Of Make Believe” for Bucks Fizz), the words are really not very good. Like, at all. Rhyming ‘dice’ with ‘twice’? I took a guitar class a few years back and we were tasked with writing a song of our own to perform in front of everyone else. I came up with some crap based around life as a board game which included a lyric about rolling the dice. I was almost embarrassed to sing it. Celine clearly had no such qualms.

“Think Twice” also includes these lines:

Babe, I know it ain’t easy when your soul cries out for higher ground
‘Cause when you’re halfway up, you’re always halfway down
Writer/s: Andrew Gerard Hill, Peter John Sinfield
Publisher: Songtrust Ave, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

What was the inspiration for that? The Grand Old Duke of York nursery rhyme?! Thankfully, we’ve only one more week of this crud to go.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Boo Radleys	Wake Up Boo!	No the single but I bought the album
2	Clock	Axel F	NO!
3	Bucketheads	The Bomb! (These Sounds Fall into My Mind)	Nope
4	Radiohead	High And Dry / Planet Telex	See 1 above
5	Faith No More	Digging The Grave	I did not
6	Stevie Wonder	Tomorrow Robins Will Sing	Negative
7	Des’ree	You Gotta Be	Nah
8	Wet Wet Wet	Julia Says	No
9	Celine Dion	Think Twice	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/m001r3g6/top-of-the-pops-09031995

TOTP 1995 – the epilogue

Posted on August 7, 2023 by 80stastic

And there goes 1995. I said in the prologue post for this year that it could be one of the best years for revisiting for some time. Was it? I’m not so sure now. It was the year Britpop overflowed into the mainstream and onto the nation’s radar with the Oasis v Blur chart battle and the success of high profile hits like Pulp’s “Common People”, “Alright” by Supergrass and “Wake Up Boo!” by The Boo Radleys. But how big really was the reach of the movement? A quick glance at the Top 10 best selling singles of the year reveals just one hit that would be categorised as ‘Britpop’ with “Wonderwall” sneaking in at No 10. Most of the remaining names on that list couldn’t be more mainstream – Michael Jackson (twice), Celine Dion, Take That, Simply Red and Robson & Jerome (twice); only Coolio and Everything But The Girl buck that trend. Was it any different in the list of Top 10 albums? Slightly, Oasis, Blur and Pulp all feature but the other occupants are grimly familiar – Jacko, Hucknall, Celine, those two actor berks…Queen, Wet Wet Wet and Paul Weller fill the other places. Only the Modfather was a slight surprise with his “Stanley Road” album completing a remarkable comeback from the washed up Style Councillor that he was at the end of the 80s. This trend of the massive names garnering the massive sales wasn’t anything new of course but in the year of Britpop, were we entitled to expect something different?

Some people wouldn’t have wanted to see that movement proliferate any more than it did – not everyone was a fan and it would be disingenuous to suggest that the Top 40 was jam packed with Britpop tunes every week. This was the mid 90s so dance music was still more than well represented in all its many and varied forms. This year, there was a fashion for rereleasing dance tracks that had been smallish hits fairly recently but which were much bigger smashes second time around. Bobby Brown, Strike, JX, Nightcrawlers, Livin’ Joy, Felix and Happy Clappers were just some of the artists to benefit from this trend.

The tradition of singles slowly climbing the Top 40 to a peak position weeks into their chart life started to disappear this year. I can’t recall if the first week discounting policies by record companies were in full operation by this point or whether it was improved distribution services or bigger promotional budgets for new releases that was the cause but singles were in and out of the charts before you could say ‘Here’s another new entry…’ especially amongst the more niche artists with loyal fan bases. Of the eighteen No 1 singles this year, eleven went straight in at No 1. The exception that proved the rule was “Think Twice” by Celine Dion which hit No 1 in the UK on its 16th week on the chart, a then record climb. If we take a closer look at that list of No 1 singles, we can see that four artists (Michael Jackson, Robson & Jerome, The Outhere Brothers and Take That) had two each accounting for nearly half of those chart toppers. Of the rest, only Britpop heavyweights Blur and Oasis, rapper Coolio and dance act Livin’ Joy could have been categorised as being outside of the established order of artists (at that time anyway). A charity record, a novelty song, a huge ballad and bloody Shaggy made up the rest. I bought one on that list (Oasis). As ever, shite not cream had risen to the top it seemed.

Chart date (week ending)	Song	Artist(s)	Sales
7 January	“Stay Another Day“	East 17
14 January	“Cotton Eye Joe“	Rednex	60,000
21 January			85,000
28 January			70,000
4 February	“Think Twice“	Celine Dion	74,000
11 February			80,000
18 February			86,000
25 February			154,000
4 March			141,000
11 March			120,000
18 March			50,000
25 March	“Love Can Build a Bridge“	Cher, Chrissie Hynde & Neneh Cherry with Eric Clapton	150,000
1 April	“Don’t Stop (Wiggle Wiggle)“	The Outhere Brothers	90,000
8 April	“Back for Good“	Take That	346,000
15 April			185,000
22 April			140,000
29 April			85,000
6 May	“Some Might Say“	Oasis	138,000
13 May	“Dreamer“	Livin’ Joy	106,000
20 May	“Unchained Melody” / “White Cliffs of Dover“	Robson & Jerome	314,000
27 May			460,000
3 June			320,000
10 June			210,000
17 June			145,000
24 June			90,000
1 July			73,000
8 July	“Boom Boom Boom“	The Outhere Brothers	62,000
15 July			74,000
22 July			77,000
29 July			65,000
5 August	“Never Forget“	Take That	115,000
12 August			86,000
19 August			54,000
26 August	“Country House“	Blur	274,000
2 September	“Country House“	Blur	135,000
9 September	“You Are Not Alone“	Michael Jackson	83,000
16 September	“You Are Not Alone“	Michael Jackson	100,000
23 September	“Boombastic“	Shaggy	93,000
30 September	“Fairground“	Simply Red	211,000
7 October			142,000
14 October			129,000
21 October			96,000
28 October	“Gangsta’s Paradise“	Coolio featuring LV	107,000
4 November	“Gangsta’s Paradise“	Coolio featuring LV	166,000
11 November	“I Believe” / “Up on the Roof“	Robson & Jerome	258,000
18 November			224,000
25 November			118,000
2 December			80,000
9 December	“Earth Song“	Michael Jackson	116,467
16 December			149,549
23 December			150,739

TOTP increased its use of the ‘golden mic’ celebrity host slot introduced by executive producer Ric Blaxill the year before with guest presenters seemingly in the studio every other week. This year also saw the grand old programme (then in its 32nd year) introduce a new logo, theme tune and title sequence as well as a new set that saw the last remnants of the ‘year zero’ revamp removed forever. As for me, I was into my fifth year of working for Our Price and after multiple store moves in the preceding three years, saw myself ensconced in the Stockport branch for the second time. I would stay there until 1998 when things started to go wrong both professionally and health wise but that’s a while off yet.

Hits That Never Were

Hootie And The Blowfish – “Hold My Hand“

Released: Feb ‘95

Chart peak: No 50

Here we have that not unique but not everyday either phenomenon of an artist that was huge in America but whom we didn’t really take to over here. Hootie & The Blowfish exploded across the States in 1995 with their debut album “Cracked Rear View” which would top the charts there on five different occasions, selling seven million copies in the process and being the best selling album of the year. It went twelve times platinum in the twelve month period January ‘95 to January ‘96. The band had landed a monster. Over in the UK, the album managed much more moderate sales – 100,000 copies in total. Not an amount to be sniffed at but well short of its impact in the States. Why the disparity? Well, if I knew that then I’d be a music mogul millionaire instead of unemployed of Hull. However, perceived wisdom seems to be that America was ready to embrace some good, old fashioned melodic rock (with a hint of blues) after the extremes of grunge that dominated the start of the decade. Here in the UK, our alternative of choice seemed to be Britpop if the music press were to be believed.

“Hold My Hand” was the lead single from the album and made No 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 whilst it failed to make the UK Top 40 at all. Despite that, I would suggest that’s what the band are most known for over here; that and the episode of Friends where Ross, Chandler and Monica go to one of their concerts.

EMF – “Afro King”

Released: Oct ‘95

Chart peak: No 51

By 1995, EMF had resorted to doing a cover of a Monkees song with comedy duo Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer to get a hit record and it worked when “I’m A Believer” went to No 3. That couldn’t be the way forward for the band though so a brand new song was released as a what would turn out to be a standalone single in October. “Afro King” was a great return to form, prompting memories of the excitement of their debut hit “Unbelievable” five years previously. Somehow though, nobody noticed it (except me) and it petered out at a lowly chart peak of No 51. That was despite the safety net of one of the CD singles featuring the band’s first three hits.

With the failure of “Afro King” to make the Top 40, the band’s gambit had failed and they split. There have been numerous reunions and hiatuses over the years but they are currently together and released an album of new material in April 2022. One last thing, my wife and I used the intro sample (“Long live the king! It isn’t a king, just a queen with a moustache!”) for our answer machine message for a while. I never have worked out what it’s a sample of.

Ash – “Kung Fu”

Released: Mar ‘95

Chart peak: No 57

To the uninitiated like me, “Girl From Mars” was the first time I became aware of Ash but in fact they’d released four singles before that first Top 40 hit including this one – “Kung Fu” – the lead single from their debut studio album “1977”. A typical Ash thrash through two minutes and seventeen seconds of glorious pop-punk, its lyrics name check the obvious (Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan) the malappropriate (Daniel-san and Mr. Mirage from The Karate Kid*) and The Ramones (‘teenage lobotomy’ is a reference to their 1977 song of the same name).

*Karate and Kung Fu are entirely different martial arts with the former originating in Japan and the latter in China.

The cover of the single featured Eric Cantona’s assaulting that bloke in the Crystal Palace crowd with what the press described as a ‘Kung fu kick’. That incident occurred on 25 January with the resulting court case occurring three days after the Ash single was released. They couldn’t have synchronised the two events any better in terms of promotion for the single and yet it still couldn’t get them their first chart hit. “Girl From Mars” would get that particular job done a few months later. I wonder if there was any consideration given to rereleasing “Kung Fu” in the light of that breakthrough success? I guess it mattered not as “Girl From Mars” was the first of thirteen consecutive Top 40 singles for the band over the next seven years. “Kung Fu” got its own bit of spotlight though. In a case of life imitating art, it was featured in the film Rumble In The Bronx starring Jackie Chan.

Scarlet – “Love Hangover”

Released: Aug ‘’95

Chart peak: No 54

Not quite one hit wonders but almost certainly remembered for a single song, Scarlet really should have had a bigger legacy. “Independent Love Song” is rightly held up as a scorching example of how to write a startling track in the sphere of what we call pop music but there was more to them. “I Wanna Be Free (To Be With Him)” made No 21 in the charts and then there was this. “Love Hangover” was the third single released from their debut album and it’s another well crafted, accomplished composition full of melody and hooks. Somehow though, the UK record buying public saw fit to ignore the song, buying the likes of The Outhere Brothers and Shaggy in huge quantities instead.

*Tuts*

Cheryl Parker and Jo Youle went their separate ways after their second album bombed and are now only ‘Facebook friends’. Both continued to write songs initially but Jo is now chief executive of the “Missing People” charity and received an OBE in 2022 for her work with them.

Nick Heyward – “The World”

Released: Sep ‘95

Chart peak: No 47

As ever with these epilogue pieces, it’s time for me to check in on what Mr Nicholas Heyward (the greatest living Englishman) was up to this year as he’ll have not been in either the Top 40 or, by extension, on TOTP having been cruelly ignored by the record buying public once again. In 1995, Nick released his fifth solo studio album entitled “Tangled” which managed to do something his previous three releases hadn’t done, it charted. Admittedly, it was only at No 93 but I guess that was progress. The lead single from it was “The World” which would suffer the same fate as most of his singles – it peaked just outside the Top 40 at No 47. As usual, Nick was probably seen as not being hip enough for these Britpop times and yet, ironically, both “Tangled” and previous album “From Monday To Sunday” were almost blueprints for quintessentially British pop songwriting at its best. That progress I talked about earlier would be extended in early 1996 when Nick actually managed to get a single into the Top 40 with the second release off the album “Rollerblade” peaking at No 37 making it his first such hit since “Warning Sign” in 1984. No doubt I’ll end up talking about that song in the epilogue post for 1996 in the Hits We Missed section.

Hits We Missed

The Boo Radleys – Find The Answer Within

Released: May ‘95

Chart peak: No 37

I didn’t really know The Boo Radleys before “Wake Up Boo!” and its parent album “Wake Up!” and, in all honesty, I didn’t follow their career that closely after it but I loved this era of the band. And it wasn’t all about that single, the staple of breakfast radio shows. “Find The Answer Within” was the follow up and, for me, it was vastly superior but it seemed most people disagreed with me judging by its chart peak.

The case of The Boo Radleys is a classic example of an artist’s biggest hit dwarfing everything else they ever did. Even just within this one album, there’s some great songs like “Twinside” and “Wilder” but aside from individual tracks, it hangs together as a whole entity with design and purpose. 1996’s “C’mon Kids” sustained some of the momentum that “Wake Up!” had brought the band though by the end of the decade they were relegated to the outermost fringes of the charts. They split in 1999 but a twenty-five year anniversary reunion prompted them to release two albums in two years though without original songwriter and guitarist Martin Carr. I really should check in again with them and check out what they’ve been doing and who knows, I might find the answer within.

The Stone Roses – Ten Storey Love Song

Released: Feb ‘95

Chart peak: No 11

The fuss surrounding the release of The Stone Roses’ sophomore album “Second Coming” on 5th December 1994 fell away pretty quickly once people had actually heard it. In a way, it was doomed to fail to meet expectations given the mythical status that had been bestowed upon it by the music press and fans during its five and a half year gestation period. A combination of a release date right up against Christmas and mixed reviews with accusations of over indulgence and criticism of the length of its tracks diluted its impact significantly. However, in amongst those overly long songs was one of a more traditional length despite the claims of its title. “Ten Storey Love Song” was the second single released from the album as the follow up to the rather bloated “Love Spreads” and always felt like a leaner, cleaner track than its predecessor despite its elongated, rather mystic intro – much more radio friendly and yet it only made it to No 11 in the charts. It always seemed rather unappreciated to me. Aside from the album’s third single “Begging You” and a couple of remixes of “Fool’s Gold”, it would be the final release by the band for twenty-one years until “All For One” in 2016.

Gigolo Aunts – Where I Find My Heaven

Released : May ‘95

Chart peak: No 29

Nearly 30 years have passed since “Where I Find My Heaven” by Gigolo Aunts was a hit and I still get it confused with “Hey Jealousy” by Gin Blossoms. My perplexity can maybe be explained and forgiven by the following mitigating circumstances:

Both bands were American
Both bands played a brand of power pop/rock
Both bands had two word names with the first word beginning with ‘G’
Both bands had their biggest hit within a year or so of each other in the mid 90s.

Perhaps I should use the following details to distinguish between them:

“Where I Find My Heaven” was used as the theme tune to the BBC sitcom Game On about the lives of three flatmates in Battersea, south-west London which I quite enjoyed.
The track was also included on the soundtrack to the film Dumb And Dumber.

Gigolo Aunts would never have another UK Top 40 hit whereas Gin Blossons would have four in total (another difference) though you’d probably have to be a bit of a superfan to name them.

Crash Test Dummies – The Ballad Of Peter Pumpkinhead

Released: Jan ‘95

Chart peak: No 30

Canadian band Crash Test Dummies are pretty much mostly known in this country for their 1994 No 2 hit “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm” but they’ve actually had three UK Top 40 records. Follow up single “Afternoons & Coffeespoons” made No 23 and then there was this – their version of “The Ballad Of Peter Pumpkinhead”. Now I did talk about the XTC original in my review of 1992 under the Hits That Never Were section so I probably didn’t need to cover it again here but there’s a nice little link with Gin Blossoms so I’m including it again here. Released as the second single from XTC’s “Nonsuch” album, it was cruelly ignored by the public causing it to peak at No 71. It was reactivated three years later by Crash Test Dummies for the soundtrack of…yep…Dumb & Dumber. It’s not a bad version either but compared to the original, it just sounds like a diluted facsimile. The video features actor Jeff Daniels reprising his role from the film as Harry Dunne in a story that apes the narrative from the song’s lyrics with a rather disturbing scene of his character almost being hung to death, a fate he escapes courtesy of the pumpkin on his head.

Alanis Morissette – You Oughta Know

Released: Jul ‘95

Chart peak: No 22

From one Canadian artist to another. Alanis Morissette created quite the controversy with this expletive laden, snarling rock track at the time. “You Oughta Know” was just so aggressive sounding that you couldn’t ignore it. Those lyrics! I mean…

Is she perverted like me?

Would she go down on you in a theatre?…

…And are you thinking of me when you fuck her?

Songwriters: Glen Ballard / Alanis Nadine Morissette
You Oughta Know lyrics © Vanhurst Place Music, Arlovol Music, Songs Of Universal Inc.

Gulp! The album it came from – “Jagged Little Pill” had to receive the treatment usually reserved for rap artists – a parental warning sticker and the availability of a ‘clean’ version of the album with the offending lyrics muted. The track was picked up by Modern Rock radio station KROQ-FM in America which led to heavy rotation for its video on MTV. Having spent the early years of her career being promoted and received as the Canadian Debbie Gibson or Tiffany, the transformation of her music and image was enormous. “Jagged Little Pill” would furnish six hit singles and sell 33 million copies worldwide (mine was one of them). Alanis Morissette was officially huge…until an Irish comedian called Ed Byrne realised that the lyrics to one of those hits – “Ironic” – weren’t actually examples of irony but rather bad luck and built a routine around it which took lumps out of her reputation as a songwriter. Not that Alanis just disappeared. Follow up album “Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie” was also a US chart topper but it sold a quarter of the numbers its predecessor achieved. She continues to record and release albums to this day but it’s the “Jagged Little Pill” era that she remains best known for and it started with this sweary, angry rant of a song. Lovely stuff.

Their season in the sun

MN8

One big hit with a single that some cruelly mocked as being about their penis size (“I’ve Got A Little Something For You”), and then an oft seen case of diminishing returns. A second album released the year after was as popular as as the Tories. Apparently still together, there has been no new material from them since November 1996.

Rednex

Possibly benefitting from the post Christmas sales slump, this oddball collective combined folk, techno and bluegrass to bring the world “Cotton Eye Joe” and like idiots we lapped it up making it the first new No 1 of the year. An identikit follow up…erm…followed but then nothing and thank the lord for that. The Rednex brand lives on with a pool of band members to rival The Fall and a 24/7 live streaming channel on Twitch. Mind boggling.

Scatman John

In the same vein as Rednex came this guy, a jazz pianist who would overcome his stutter to become a scat singer. Combining that with rap and house beats, he hit big with “Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)” going to No 3 in the UK. A further Top 10 hit followed before we all got sick of the joke and he disappeared from whence he came. Sadly, Scatman John died in 1999 aged just 57 from lung cancer.

The Mike Flowers Pops

Novelty records were all the rage in 1995, even if they didn’t know they were novelty records. Rednex, Scatman John and now this easy listening take on “Wonderwall” by Oasis. Almost the surprise Christmas No 1 when arriving late on chart from nowhere, the bewigged Mr Flowers (no relation to tuba playing, member of Sky Herbie) and his pals enjoyed brief fame in the wake of the success of “Wonderwall” but have not been near the charts since 1996 when a cover of “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” took them to No 30.

The Outhere Brothers

Of all the shite that 1995 delivered to the charts this year (and there was a lot of it), I think these two prats annoyed me the most. What was it about this duo and their call and response moronic chant records that engaged our nation so much. Two consecutive No 1s and two other Top 10 hits in a calendar year suggests either a nationwide dereliction of taste or that I was missing something. I wasn’t though.

Last Words

Well, it wasn’t the worst of years but it also wasn’t the best. History will no doubt forever view it through the filter of ‘The Battle of Britpop’ which felt seismic at the time, an event that not only dominated the musical landscape but also that shook the cultural one too. In retrospect, does it all seem a bit daft now? Maybe. I still didn’t seem to be buying many singles from within the Top 40 though my albums collection expanded this year. A sobering thought is that for all of Britpop’s posturing, for all the media frenzy of Oasis v Blur, for all those bangin’ dance tunes crossing over from the clubs to the charts, the act that had the ability to sell the most singles and albums this year were two actors in their thirties from a TV military drama.