The Cardigans

TOTP 24 SEP 1999

On the date this TOTP was broadcast, 45 years earlier, the Italian footballer Marco Tardelli was born. Yes, the guy behind one of the most iconic goal celebrations of all time that happened in the aftermath of him scoring Italy’s second goal in the 1982 World Cup final which became known as the ‘Tardelli Scream’. That guy. I wonder if any of the acts in this show could elicit such a reaction of pure emotion?

Our host is Jamie Theakston and this week the show comes live from the L2 nightclub in Liverpool as part of the Top Of The Pops On Tour project. We start with last week’s No 1 which has dropped to No 4 this week (the weekly changing of the guard at the top of the charts was in full effect by this point). However, the Vengaboys were at the peak of their commercial powers in 1999 with two consecutive No 1 singles of which “We’re Going To Ibiza” was the second.

Although it is a terrible, terrible song, it does have an interesting spin off story which occurred in 2019. The ‘Ibiza Affair’ or ‘Ibiza-gate’ was a political scandal involving Heinz-Christian Strache, the former vice-chancellor of Austria and leader of The Freedom Party and Johann Gudenus, a former deputy leader of the same political party. A sting operation commissioned by Iranian lawyer Ramin Mirfakhra saw Strache and Gudenus discussing their party’s underhanded practices and intentions in a secretly recorded meeting in Ibiza. It led to the collapse of the Austrian government with demonstrators in Vienna co-opting “We’re Going To Ibiza” as a song of protest against the government causing the track to re-chart and the Vengaboys themselves to perform it at the ‘Thursday demonstrations’ protests in front of the Chancellery in Vienna. Well, it’s a step up from this I guess…

Scream connection: In interviews, Vengaboys members have mentioned that they encourage a back-and-forth energy with the crowd, often saying, “If we all scream loud enough, nobody hears the mistakes”. Yeah, there’s no scream with enough decibels to disguise what a mistake “We’re Going To Ibiza” was.

What to say about Sting’s solo career? On the one hand, the case could be made that it’s been both lengthy and stellar. Fourteen studio albums released over a 40 year period including two No 1s with the latest release coming in 2021. On the other, none of his albums have made the Top 10 since 2003’s “Sacred Love” and he has only had one Top 10 single ever if you discount his 1994 collaboration with Rod Stewart and Bryan Adams “All For Love”. I think I could probably name a fair few of his hits but then I spent a decade working in record shops. How many of his solo songs have genuinely cut through to the wider general public? I would say maybe two – “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” because of its title based on a saying already in parlance and the reference in Jimmy Nail’s No 1 “Ain’t No Doubt” and “Fields Of Gold” and that’s only because of the life it took on when it was covered by Eva Cassidy and the Terry Wogan effect. “Brand New Day” was never going to make that list of two which is a shame as it’s not a bad song. The lead single and title track from Sting’s sixth solo studio album, it has a certain charm with its lolloping rhythms and Stevie Wonder vibe (Wonder actually plays harmonica on the track). I like Sting’s phrasing of the lyrics and even the jazzy trombone interjections which I would ordinarily object to don’t trouble me.

The album would sell well, making the Top 5 and going platinum matching the performance of its predecessor “Mercury Rising”. Tellingly though, neither sold anywhere near as many copies as 1997’s “The Very Best of Sting & The Police” which, although a bizarre concept and perhaps not a true barometer of his solo popularity, did indicate that there was maybe more interest in Sting’s past glories than an appetite for new material.

Scream connection: well, there’s the legendary screaming matches between Sting and The Police drummer Stewart Copeland as a result of their toxic working relationship.

The musical transformation of Everything But The Girl from jazz-pop stylists to electronica dance merchants had, for the most part, left me cold. I’d appreciated the milestone making “Missing” (who hadn’t?) but the continuation of that direction via the “Walking Wounded” album had not maintained that regard. I was with the gig-goer who caught the band around this time and who was overhead by the band’s Ben Watt to say, “Well, that was a load of techno bollocks”.

Rather than being a one-off experiment though, Ben and Tracey Thorn doubled down on the dance vibe for follow up album “Temperamental”. Those in the know (i.e. the music press – ahem) divined a slight readjustment of dance sensibilities with the drum ‘n’ bass beats toned down in favour of a more old school house sound but it all sounded the same to my dance deaf ears. Here’s a typical review:

“EBTG’s early bossa-nova folk has been fully transformed into a contemporary sonic physicality that washes the album’s desperation with sweaty, regenerative joy”

Walters, Barry (October 1999). “This New House”, Spin; Vol. 15, no. 10. pp. 151–152.

“Sonic physicality”? Sweaty, regenerative joy”? I think I’ll pass and I did. Having said all of that, listening to “Five Fathoms” which acted as the lead single from the album (although technically that was “The Future of the Future (Stay Gold)” which they released with Deep Dish a year prior), I actually didn’t mind it. There was more of a proper song structure in there than I was expecting and I liked some of the lyrics like:

“Did I grow up just to stay home?
I’m not immune, I love this tune”

Songwriters: Ben Watt, Five Fathoms lyrics © Sm Publishing Uk Limited

Plus, of course, Tracey’s vocals are always on point. However, “Temperamental” would prove commercially inferior to “Walking Wounded” by some distance and would be the last Everything But The Girl album of new material for nearly a quarter of a century.

Scream connection: Their song “Tender Blue” from the “Eden” album contains the lyric “The baby’s screaming down the hall”.

Before the next act, there’s a bizarre little interlude where Jamie Theakston interviews Holly Johnson. Had this been 1989 instead of 1999, it might have made some sense with Holly riding high in the charts back then with his first solo hits like “Love Train” and “Americanos” but a decade on, he hadn’t been near the Top 40 since. The album he mentions as his next release – “Soulstream” – was studiously ignored in every territory despite including a version of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s “The Power Of Love”. It’s all a bit pointless and inexplicable and does nobody any favours with the only retrievable piece of utility being that Holly can introduce the next artist who also shares the surname Johnson.

Paul Johnson was a Chicago house DJ and record producer who started the label Dust Traxx and was known for his big personality. He was also a wheelchair user from the age of 16 following an incident where a stray bullet left him paralysed from the waist down. His wheelchair is clearly visible in this performance making him the first person to appear in one on TOTP since…Robert Wyatt in 1974 and his version of “I’m A Believer”? Did he perform “Shipbuilding” on the show in 1983?

Anyway, his hit was “Get Get Down” which was the penultimate Billboard Dance Club No 1 of the 20th century and a Top 5 hit in the UK. A house anthem that was as likely to fill daytime radio playlists as dance floors up and down the country, it was a curiously sparse track consisting of just a looped bass riff, a driving descending beat in what passed for the chorus and the word “down” repeated over and over. I would have liked it better if it had sampled “Wham Rap” – “I said a-get, get, get on down, I said a-get, get, get on down”.

One of those to play “Get Get Down” on the radio were Marc and Lard who, in a pretence of displeasure at such a negative sounding record, would chant “Up, up, up, up” over the top of it. I still miss those guys. Paul Johnson would have one leg amputated in 2003 whilst the other was also removed after a car accident in 2010. He died in 2021 after contracting COVID-19.

Scream connection: In a 1964 New Statesman essay titled “The Menace Of Beatlism”, a British journalist and historian called Paul Johnson attacked the phenomenon of screaming fans.

Anyone remember NetAid? No, me neither. Band Aid and Live Aid? Yes, of course. Sport Aid? Yep. I even vaguely recall Hear ‘n Aid but NetAid? Zip, nothing, nada. For the record, it was an anti-poverty initiative started by the United Nations Development Programme and American multinational technology conglomerate corporation Cisco Systems. It was launched by a concert event on 9 October 1999 to utilise a fledgling internet to raise money and awareness for the Jubilee 2000 campaign to cancel third world debt. Three concerts in Wembley, New Jersey and Geneva took place with a host of international stars on the respective bills. So, a sort of Live Aid for the 90s then.

To help spearhead the campaign, a single was released. Just as the aforementioned Live Aid had its own such promotional track in Mick Jagger and David Bowie’s desecration of “Dancing In The Streets”, NetAid had the duo of Wyclef Jean and U2’s Bono with an insufferable song called “New Day”. I thought I had zero chance of remembering this but there was something about Wyclef Jean banging on about “nuff respect” that stirred a neurone in my memory into action. I wish it had stayed dormant. This was a hateful mash up of musical styles that just didn’t work. There’s a cringeworthy bit where Wyclef exhorts Bono with the line “Now Bono won’t you sing the hook?”. Oh. Dear. In short, it was a complete and utter mess. Unlike Jagger and Bowie’s equally miserable effort, it didn’t even fulfil its brief of raising lots of cash for its charity, staggering to one week at No 23 n the UK charts. Look, it was for charity and all that but let’s not talk about this ever again OK?

Scream connection: Billedkunst Opphavsrett i Norge or BONO for short is a Norwegian copyright organization that manages rights for artists including Edvard Munch who painted the seminal Expressionist work The Scream.

We continue the internet theme with the return of a music legend. The 80s are often referred to as to as a fallow decade for David Bowie in terms of the quality of his back catalogue but the 90s were hardly a golden period I would argue either. After the albums “Outside” and “Earthling” saw him trying to keep up with ever changing musical movements, his final album before the new Millennium- “Hours” – found him trying to be at the forefront of a technological revolution. It was one of the first albums by a major artist available to download via the internet and specifically via Bowie’s website BowieNet. The ability to do such a thing is completely taken for granted by Generation Z but back in 1999, it would have been a totally alien concept for most of us. Not everyone was an early adopter like Bowie and even if we had an internet connection, it probably wasn’t up to downloading multiple files. However, “Hours” was released digitally before it was physically so it must have been a frustrating experience for many of Bowie’s devoted fanbase.

Bowie predicts the internet in 1999

For those people who did manage to access the album via their computer, would they have been pleased or disappointed by the fruits of their labours? Well, “Hours” received generally mixed reviews and regularly appears towards the bottom of lists ranking Bowie’s albums. Critics seemed to like individual tracks but believed that the album lacked cohesion. Lead single “Thursday’s Child” was one of its more well received songs but it’s hardly classic Bowie though some tried to relate it to his seminal “Hunky Dory” album. An airy ballad of sorts, its title was inspired by Eartha Kitt’s autobiography though surely the traditional nursery rhyme “Monday’s Child” had a bearing as well. If so, Bowie wasn’t the first to incorporate it into a song with the likes of Matt Monro and Spandau Ballet using the motif before him. Am I saying Bowie copied the Spandau boys? No, I wouldn’t dare obviously. “Thursday’s Child” peaked at No 16 despite Bowie’s in person performance here though clearly he wasn’t in the L2 nightclub in Liverpool – that would have been a major coup.

Scream connection: Bowie immersed himself in early 20th century German Expressionism during his Berlin period in the late 70s. Edvard Munch who painted The Scream was a pioneer of Expressionism.

The audience in Liverpool might have missed out on Bowie but they did get another big name in Tom Jones plus the added bonus of The Cardigans to boot. Together. How so? Well, Tom hadn’t released an album for five years and so to relaunch himself, he put together a covers album. Hardly an original concept but Tom added an extra layer of interest by recording each individual song as a collaboration with a different artist including the likes of Stereophonics, Robbie Williams and Natalie Imbruglia. The lead single taken from it was a cover of the Talking Heads track “Burning Down The House” with the aforementioned Swedish rockers The Cardigans.

It appeared a bold choice on initial inspection. For a start, how well known was the song? Sure, it had been Talking Heads’ only Top 10 hit in the US but in the UK it had failed to chart on its release in 1983. So, we were talking about a 16 year old song that had never been a hit. That take is disingenuous though as “Burning Down The House” was hardly unknown. Its parent album “Speaking In Tongues” had charted in the UK and moreover, it was an integral part of perhaps the greatest live album of all time – “Stop Making Sense”. All that said though, there were perhaps more obvious choices for the lead single from Tom’s covers album “Reload” – INXS’s “Never Tear Us Apart” or “Sunny Afternoon” by The Kinks maybe? Obvious isn’t always right though and Tom and The Cardigans’ version of “Burning Down The House” lit the charts up returning Jones to the Top 10 for the first time since 1988 which was, coincidentally, also a cover – Prince’s “Kiss” with the Art Of Noise. I was one of those who bought “Burning Down The House” though mainly for Tom’s version of EMF’s “Unbelievable” which was an extra track on the CD single after seeing him perform it live with EMF on his 1992 TV series Tom Jones: The Right Time which is just a great clip.

Scream connection: Jones is well known for eliciting screams from his audiences at live gigs where the throwing of underwear on stage has also been a regular occurrence.

One of the most memorable/annoying No 1s of the year now as Eiffel 65 top the chart with “Blue (Da Ba Dee)”. This was yet another dance track that had caused a splash over the summer in Ibiza and, like ATB and Lou Bega before it, the record had charted in a minor way just in sales of import copies alone before shooting straight to the summit over here once it had an official UK release. Despite their French sounding name, this lot were actually Italian and they came up with their most well known track after the initial looped keyboard hook was fleshed out with some nonsense lyrics about a blue man living in a blue world (or something). However, the track’s USP was the “da ba dee” line in the chorus which had an almost hypnotic effect on the listener. It also created one of the most infamous misheard lyrics of all time as many people (including myself) heard “Aberdeen I will die”. Surely only Kate Bush’s backing vocals line “Jeux sans frontières” in Peter Gabriel’s “Games Without Frontiers” which was misheard as “She’s so popular” rivals it. “Blue (Da Ba Dee)” was No 1 all around Europe and beyond and would stay at the top of the UK charts for three weeks (one of only three singles to do so in 1999) becoming the second biggest selling single of the year. Yabba-da-ba-dee!

Scream connection: Well, here’s a thing. Aside from the “Aberdeen I will die” mishear, the internet tells me that “Da Ba dee” was also mistaken for either “If I bleed, I would die” or “I will scream” and that some have concluded that they were inspired by a ritualistic, screaming, dancing event. Bloody conspiracy theories.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Vengaboys	We’re Going To Ibiza	As if
2	Sting	Brand New Day	I did not
3	Everything But The Girl	Five Fathoms	Nope
4	Paul Johnson	Get Get Down	Not for me
5	Wyclef Jean / Bono	New Day	Never
6	David Bowie	Thursday’s Child	Nah
7	Tom Jones / The Cardigans	Burning Down The House	YES!
8	Eiffel 65	Blue (Da Ba Dee)	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/m002vr8s/top-of-the-pops-24091999

TOTP 23 JUL 1999

Posted on 28 Days Ago by 80stastic

What’s going on here then. Why have we missed two episodes? This hasn’t happened since the Summer of 1997 repeats and that whole Puff Daddy/ P Diddy business. The ever reliable @TOTPFacts has the answer:

BBC Four are skipping the 9 and 16 July 1999 editions of #TOTP due to a racial caricature. Selected highlights follow.
What that’s all about? it’s included in this video for a track by Dutch trance act Gouryella, featured in the chart rundowns: https://t.co/dHLYEk44yr
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) April 3, 2026

Well, there you go. Some in the online TOTP community were disgruntled at the decision by the BBC with the usual “couldn’t they have blurred it out?” comments and I understand their opinion especially as the Gouryella track was only featured during the chart rundown and not as a standalone showing of the video. Looking at the running order for these two missed episodes though, I can’t say I’m that disappointed not to have watched (and reviewed) some of the hits we missed. Look at this line up from the 9th July episode:

*The unofficial home of TOTP website: https://totparchive.co.uk/episode.php?id=1842*

I would say that there’s only Blur’s “Coffee & TV” and “Secret Smile” by Semisonic that piqued my interest and I certainly had no desire to review S Club 7 and Shania Twain again and I could live without Lolly as well. As for the 16th July episode…

*The unofficial home of TOTP website: https://totparchive.co.uk/episode.php?id=1843*

Manic Street Preachers? I can’t see much else. Well, I haven’t got it in me to dig out those shows on YouTube and review them I’m afraid (especially after seeing the running orders) so it’s full steam ahead with the 23rd July episode which is hosted by Jayne Middlemiss and we start with a new one from Steps called “Love’s Got A Hold On My Heart”. After the almost novelty record debut of “5,6,7,8” and the faux ABBA schtick of their next two releases, their cover of “Tragedy” drew a line in the sand where the group had to taken seriously as a genuine chart entity when it finally made it to No 1 after an ascent that took weeks. The follow up “Better Best Forgotten” leapt to No 2 and so when “Love’s Got A Hold On My Heart” was released as the lead track from second album “Steptacular”, its peak of No 2 was maybe the least that was expected of it. However…talk about playing it safe. Co-produced and co-written by Pete Waterman, this was just a retread of his PWL pomp. You could imagine Sonia (definitely not Kylie though) having recorded this tripe. Everything from its title to its sound was telegraphed. There was nothing new nor original here but maybe it was expecting too much for it to have been anything else.

As for the performance we see here, there’s something curious going on. At the end of the 2nd July show, as Gail Porter introduces the No 1 surrounded by the studio audience, front and centre in the crowd are Steps in the yellow outfits they wore in this, the 23rd July episode. Claire even has the same cowboy hat on. Yet more evidence that there was clearly a time delay between when performances were recorded and when they were broadcast. I assume that the artists had busy schedules and so everything had to be carefully timetabled to accommodate a TOTP studio appearance rather than just show the single’s promo video which executive producer Chris Cowey was very determined not to if he could help it.

Look at this! Madness were back! Had they actually been away though? OK, some clarification is required here. After initially disbanding in 1986, there had already been a number of returns by the nutty boys before this point. In 1988, four members of the original band reunited as The Madness and released one album and two singles none of which troubled the chart compilers. Two years on and now down to two original members, The Nutty Boys were formed before changing their name to Crunch! but there really was no appetite for just the pips of the band and they were soon compost. Everything changed though in 1992 when all seven members came back together to promote the Best Of compilation “Divine Madness” and to play the Madstock! festival in Finsbury Park to 75,000 people over two days. Legend has it that some nearby tower blocks perceptibly shook so loud was the music. Madness were officially a smash again with “Divine Madness” going to No 1 and triple platinum in the UK. Four singles were released from it three of which charted Meanwhile, Madstock was repeated three times as a biannual event.

So, why would I say that Madness were suddenly back in 1999? Ah well, this was the first time that they had released new material since that break up in 1986 when “(Waiting For) The Ghost Train” made No 18. “Lovestruck” was the lead single from “Wonderful”, their first studio album since 1985’s “Mad Not Mad” and listening back to it now, it could easily have been released in the 80s. It was trademark Madness with Mike Barson’s tinkling keyboards back in the fold for the first time since his departure in 1984. Despite sticking out in a 1999 Top 40 like a pork pie hat at Royal Ascot, “Lovestruck” returned Madness to the Top 10 for the first time since “The Sun And The Rain” in 1983. There were a lot of ‘first since’ milestones going on in this comeback!

I’m (love) struck by the unique singing style of Suggs on this track. It’s verges on non-singing which I guess you would almost describe as ‘speaking’ and yet it has served him and his band well for nearly 50 years now. Is it heresy to say that secondary vocalist Chas Smash had the better voice? Certainly, I can hear his harmonies to good effect in this one. “Wonderful” sold reasonably rather than exceptionally well but enough for the band to remain a part of our lives ever since releasing a further five studio albums since and being an almost ever present touring outfit. Embrace the madness!

Some anti-London sentiment now according to Jayne Middlemiss who plays up to her North East roots in her intro to “Londinium” by Catatonia by saying “I dirrn’t knaa wot she’s on aboot like” – they could almost be the words in a speech bubble coming from the mouth of Viz’s Sid The Sexist. Anyway, it’s another regional accent that takes over proceedings next as Cerys Matthews leads us through the second single from “Equally Cursed And Blessed” and although it’s not as immediate as their biggest hits like “Mulder And Scully” and “Road Rage”, it does have some ear worm like qualities that are apparent after a couple of listens. It’s Cerys who you can’t take your eyes off in this performance though as she twists and turns both vocally and physically, bewitching us as she playfully rolls those ‘R’s’ again. Apparently, the band didn’t want “Londinium” released as it could be perceived as negative and wanted “Karaoke Queen” issues instead. That track would become the third single and peaked at No 36 whilst “Londinium” debuted at No 20. Bizarrely though “Karaoke Queen” was not included in the band’s five CD box set “Make Hay Not War – The Blanco Y Negro Years” which brought together their four studio albums when it was released in 2023. Strange glue indeed.

Right, what’s this nonsense? Well, it’s dance nonsense, of course it is and this time it’s delivered to us courtesy of Yolanda (aka DJ Paul Masterson) who took a sample from Liquid Gold’s disco hit “Dance Yourself Dizzy” and turned it into the horrendous mess called “Synths And Strings”. I mean, you can just about hear that No 5 hit from 1980 buried in the mix somewhere but the noise surrounding it is like being slapped across the face constantly. And what was with the staging of this performance with the dancers dressed as toy soldiers? It’s like Trumpton meets Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and to paraphrase Neil Tennant, literally set to a disco beat. Then there there’s a wobbly screen effect laid over the top of it all presumably to replicate the feeling of being off your head in a club. If I could paraphrase again, channelling my inner Queen of Hearts, “Off with their heads!”

There was a third single off the “Gran Turismo” album? That’s what Jayne Middlemiss says in her intro to The Cardigans and she’s right as they are in the studio to perform “Hanging Around”. I remember “My Favourite Game” and “Erase/Rewind” but this one has escaped my memory banks. As with Catatonia earlier, it wasn’t as striking as those two songs or indeed “Lovefool” but unlike Catatonia, it didn’t stay with me for that long after I’d listened to it. Possibly more of a serviceable album track than a single? I mean, next to Yolanda it was like ambrosia from the gods but compared to their own work, it was more semolina than a rich, rice pudding. Erm…not sure where I’m going with this…so I think I’ll move on. No hanging around for me.

Wait, Dina Carroll was still having hits in 1999? In my head she was all about 1992/93 but here she was at the end of the decade at No 13 with “Without Love”. I have written loads about Dina in past posts on account of all those hits back then so I’m not going to retread her entire career story now but suffice to say that at this point, she was undertaking something of a relaunch some three years after her second album “Only Human”. Dina had suffered health problems in the form of a hereditary bone disease that affected her ears – not good if you’re a singer – which had disrupted the recording of that sophomore collection and also the promotion of it. Despite only releasing two singles from it, her record label Mercury decided that work should begin on her third album. It would never be released and we were left with just two singles that would end up as stand alone tracks – mid tempo ballad “One, Two, Three” which never made it into TOTP despite its chart peak of No 16 and this one, “Without Love”.

A definite throwback to her early dance hits, it could have easily been released in 1993 although it came with lots of different mixes to appeal to the various dance markets. Despite its success, the confident performance by Dina here (her final TOTP appearance) and her new image, it would not be enough to convince Mercury to release that third album. One minor hit single would follow in 2001 (a cover of Van Morrison’s “Someone Like You”) and that was that for Dina’s discography and, unless something changes in the future, her whole musical career.

There was no denying it, Destiny’s Child were fulfilling what many had predicted was their (ahem) destiny by starting to rack up some seriously big hits by this point in their career. After “No, No, No” had been an American No 3 hit and gone Top 5 over here, “Bills, Bills, Bills” (they had a thing for repeated three word titles early on) would give them their first US chart topper and a consolidating No 6 hit in the UK. It wouldn’t be long before we were on exactly the same page as our American counterparts with consecutive No 1 singles in “Independent Women” and “Survivor”. I’m getting ahead of myself though. Back to “Bills, Bills, Bills” and many comparisons were made at the time between it and the recent TLC hit “No Scrubs” both lyrically and sonically. There was a solid reason for this which was that both tracks were co-written and produced by Kevin “She’kspere” Briggs and his then girlfriend and former Xscape singer Kandi Burruss. Both songs took the subject matter of denigrating men that were seen as wasters and ran with it and both even used the same slang insult of a ‘scrub’ in their lyrics. Whilst it’s true both employed a sort of skittering backbeat and distinctive synthesised intros, for me, “Bills, Bills, Bills” had more of an En Vogue feel to it than a TLC one. Still, what do I know? I’m hardly an authority on R&B, all female groups of the 90s. I’m a pop kid from the 80s at heart.

What I do know from watching this performance back though is that the TOTP studio audience didn’t seem to know how to dance to this one at all. There’s some collective shuffling about with one poor girl just stood there at the front of the throng, perhaps paralysed by the thought that any dance moves she attempted would be seen on national TV. Just a few people down the line however, one single girl took the exact opposite approach, seized the moment and went for it with arms and hips swaying in unison. Again, I didn’t know anything much about being a young woman in the late 90s but if I’d been in that audience, I’m pretty sure I’d have been the girl stood motionless.

Ah, who could forget “Livin’ La Vida Loca” by Ricky Martin? What’s that? You wish you could forget it? Ouch! Although this No 1 felt like it was a new pop sensation the type of which we hadn’t seen before, we actually had. Gloria Estefan (with and without the Miami Sound Machine) had been having upbeat, Latin flavoured pop hits since 1984. However, it is true that there was a whole legion of super successful Latin artists who had never broken through in the UK like Ricky Martin had managed to do. Sure, he’s had a couple of hits a few years earlier over here but a No 1 record took him to another level (no, not them!). What was it then about “Livin’ La Vida Loca” that enraptured the British record buying public so? Well, the track fair galloped along with a cracking pace which you couldn’t ignore and also had a bit of surf guitar thrown in there which always makes for an engaging sound. Then there was Ricky himself – with his smouldering good looks and gyrating hips he was the perfect vehicle to sell it. And sell it he did with over three quarter of a million physical copies sold in 1999 in the UK alone. It would be the sixth best selling single of the year here.

Ricky Martin’s success could be seen as paving the way for a wave of Latin artists as the new millennium dawned with the likes of Enriquez Iglesias, Shakira, and Christina Aguilera joining him in attaining mainstream chart success without forgetting Jennifer Lopez who was also riding high in the charts at this time*.

*Indeed, it was Lopez’s “If You Had My Love” that replaced “Livin’ La Vida Loca” at the top of the US Billboard chart.

One thing though, Ricky dancing on a podium is giving me strong vibes of Xanadu nightclub in Rochdale that I found myself in one memorable evening out (it’s a long story) which I’m not especially keen to recall.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Steps	Love’s Got A Hold On My Heart	Certainly not
2	Madness	Lovestruck	Nope
3	Catatonia	Londinium	Decent tune but no
4	Yolanda	Synths And Strings	Never
5	The Cardigans	Hanging Around	Negative
6	Dina Carroll	Without Love	I did not
7	Destiny’s Child	Bills, Bills, Bills	Nah
8	Ricky Martin	Livin’ La Vida Loca	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/m002tl5p/top-of-the-pops-23071999

TOTP 05 MAR 1999

Posted on February 4 by 80stastic

Three days before this TOTP aired, the singer Dusty Springfield passed away aged just 59 from breast cancer. My Dad saw her folk-pop trio The Springfields back in the early 60s but I wasn’t really aware of Dusty until I started taking a real interest in pop music around 1983. By that point, her career was totally in reverse with no Top 10 hits since 1968 and just one minor Top 40 chart entry throughout the whole of the 70s. Her 60s glory days seemed a long time ago. An attempted comeback in 1985 with the single “Sometimes Like Butterflies” (which I’d quite enjoyed) failed to restore her fortunes despite an appearance on Wogan when it peaked at No 83. And then, just two years later, enter the Pet Shop Boys and a career resurrection via her part in their No 2 hit “What Have I Done To Deserve This” and a Top 20 album of her own in the silver disc achieving “Reputation”. She would release just one more studio album in her lifetime (the commercially overlooked “A Very Fine Love”) but her profile was maintained via a couple of Best Of collections with 1994’s “Goin’ Back” making the UK Top 5. Talking of going back, let’s revisit this TOTP episode from 1999 and see if there’s any sign of a connection to Dusty…

Jamie Theakston is our host (boo!) and we start with the No 2 record “Tender” by Blur. This appears to be just a repeat showing of the ‘exclusive’ performance from the other week prior to the single’s release and we get the whole 4:30 radio edit version which seems quite generous. Expectations were that it would go straight in at the top of the charts (I fully expected it to). After all there’d been a new No 1 every week for the first nine weeks of the year so far. And it was the band’s first new material for two years and it was something of an anthem. However, the power and pull of Britney Spears and “…Baby One More Time” would not be denied a second week at the summit and Blur had to be content with the runners up spot. Apparently it was a close (ish) run thing. The two singles had been neck and neck for most of the week but Britney would pull away over the weekend and would sell 55,000 more copies than Blur in the final reckoning. Still, “Tender” did outsell just about every other No 1 up to this point in the year and, perhaps more importantly, parent album “13” would spend two consecutive weeks at the top on its way to achieving platinum level sales in the UK.

Can I just say that Damon Albarn looks perhaps the coolest he ever did in this performance with his tousled hair, shades and Fred Perry shirt. Compare that with his look in the video for 1991’s breakthrough hit “There’s No Other Way”. Dearie me.

Dusty Springfield connection: The aforementioned Pet Shop Boys who resurrected Dusty’s career also did remixes of Blur’s 1994 hit “Girls & Boys”.

Next up is a singer who was a peer of Dusty Springfield and, rather incredibly, was still having hit singles in 1999. And not just hit singles but the biggest one in the UK in 1998. So how do you follow up such a success? Well, if you’re Cher, you just repeat the exact same formula. At least, that’s how I remembered it; that “Strong Enough” was just a carbon copy of “Believe” but listening to it now, it’s clear that rather it was more trying to be “I Will Survive Mk II”. I mean, it’s not a million miles away from being “Believe Mk II” either but “Strong Enough” had more of a disco feel to it with some definite 70s sonic stylings thrown into the mix and, of course, it had the same lyrical subject matter. Given the status of “I Will Survive” and Cher’s standing amongst the LGBTQ+ community and that “Believe” had brought her to a new audience within said community, it made perfect sense to release “Strong Enough” as the follow up single.

Watching this performance back, all the backing dancers positioned in straight lines behind Cher make it seem like a fitness video. Has Cher ever done a fitness video?

*checks internet*

Yes, she did two in the early 90s called “A New Attitude” and “Body Confidence”. Well, had she ever made a third then she could have used this routine in it. “Strong Enough” couldn’t hope to match the success of “Believe” but it was a Top Ten hit around the world and was a No 1 on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart so not quite strong enough but not a 10 stone weakling either.

Dusty Springfield connection: Both emerged as significant female artists in the 1960s, both are celebrated as camp icons and both have recorded versions of “You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me” which was a UK No 1 hit for Dusty in 1966 and appeared on Cher’s album “Chér” also from 1966.

Another performance we’ve seen before next as we get The Corrs and the rereleased “Runaway” just seven days after it was last on the show and despite the fact they it had dropped from No 2 to No 6 this week. Except…hold on…this isn’t the same performance…is it? They’ve all got the same outfits on but Caroline, the drummer, is playing the piano in the first appearance and it’s a more acoustic version of the song and in the second show she’s back on the drums. What gives? I can only assume that they recorded two versions whilst they were in the studio that day. Why did they do that? To diversify the promotion of the single? Both the Tin Tin Out remix and the album version were on the 1999 CD single release so maybe they were trying to cover all bases of appeal? Maybe the BBC wanted to stockpile their archives? Who knows? Either way, it didn’t stop the single from descending the charts albeit at a steady rate.

Dusty Springfield connection: According to Sharon Corr, her parents listened to a lot of Dusty Springfield (along with Burt Bacharach and The Carpenters) which served as the soundtrack to her early childhood. Also, Dusty’s parents were both Irish just as the Corrs family are.

Jamie Theakston can’t help himself making a comment about The Corrs (“Runaway. That’s The Corrs. You wouldn’t really would you?”) before he does that thing all the presenters were doing around this time that was clearly a new innovation by executive producer Chris Cowey – walking into the backstage area and introducing the next act who were to be found on a TV screen not on stage. Well, I mean they were on a stage but not actually sharing the same physical space as the presenter if you see what I mean. I’m guessing that many of these performances were being recorded separately from the host’s time in the studio because of scheduling issues? Having said that, there is a studio audience present so there as a certain amount of joining the dots going on. In the old days, unless a video was being shown, it seemed like one big shot jumping from presenter to artist and then back to the host to introduce the next act. This had the feel of lots of clips needing to be edited together neatly so as not to see the seams hence these rather clunky backstage segues.

Anyway, enough of the technical stuff, back to the music – who were the next artist on? Well, it’s The Cardigans and their hit “Erase/Rewind”. Now I could have sworn that this follow up to “My Favourite Game” was released much closer to its predecessor but the time elapsed between the two was four months. Presumably their record label didn’t want it swallowed up in the mad dash that was the Christmas selling period. The other thing I could have sworn was that it was better than this. I mean, I shouldn’t be complaining about it when compared to the rest of the crud in the charts but it did disappoint slightly on re-listening to it. Just ever so slightly underwhelming. It certainly helped reactivate sales of parent album “Gran Turismo” propelling it into the Top 10 after spending the first four months of its chart life outside of the Top 20. This would pretty much be the peak of commercial success for The Cardigans, in the UK anyway*. One more Top 10 hit with Tom Jones doing a cover version of “Burning Down The House” by Talking Heads would follow later in 1999 and a No 31 hit in 2003 was it for chart singles action whilst their two albums released subsequently to “Gran Turismo” gained hardly any sales traction.

*In their home country of Sweden, the band continued to rack up No 1 albums and Top 10 singles.

Dusty Springfield connection: The band’s bassist Magnus Sveningsson participated in a tribute project to Dusty Springfield around 2007, where he played in a band for a live performance featuring songs like “If You Go Away”.

This post is all about female singers what with the Dusty Springfield theme, Cher and Britney Spears. Even two of the groups featured are fronted by women. Add to that list Whitney Houston who appears on the show two weeks on the run with “It’s Not Right But It’s OK”. With the single having entered the charts at No 3, I get why it’s featured but there were other new entries this week that could have been shown instead from Shawn Mullins, Kula Shaker, Sheryl Crow and…erm…Elton John and LeAnn Rimes…OK maybe not that last one!

Anyway, it’s Whitney who got the nod and perhaps rightly so if you read about the song’s legacy. It won a Grammy for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance and in 2019 it was certified platinum for sales of over a million copies in America. It regularly features highly in the various Best Of polls and just last year it was ranked the 45th Greatest LGBTQ Anthems of All Time with Billboard comparing it to…yes, Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” just as Cher’s “Strong Enough” was. Clearly the two were duking it out for the hearts of that particular community.

Dusty Springfield connection: Cissy Houston (Whitney’s mother) was a founding member of The Sweet Inspirations, a group that provided backing vocals for several of Dusty’s records, most notably on her acclaimed 1969 album “Dusty In Memphis” and her classic hit “Son Of a Preacher Man”.

With their last single “The Bartender And The Thief”, the Stereophonics took a significant step up the ladder of commercial popularity. No longer were they a band of minor to medium sized hits but a Top 5 artist. Follow up “Just Looking” would consolidate that position by being a No 4 chart hit. More than that though, it was a great advert for their sophomore album “Performance And Cocktails” which was released the Monday after this TOTP aired. It would go to No 1 and six times platinum in the UK. These boys really were big news. It remains their second biggest selling album after “Just Enough Education To Perform” I liked it enough for it to end up in my CD collection. “Just Looking” maybe wasn’t as rollickingly riotous as “The Bartender And The Thief” but it’s still a decent track worthy of repeated plays. However, I’d have to say I prefer “Just Lookin’” by The Charlatans as a song – that missing ‘g’ clearly making all the difference.

Dusty Springfield connection: Well this is tenuous in the extreme but…the Stereophonics only No 1 single is a track called “Dakota” and in January 2024, singer-songwriter Shelby Lynne performed a set dedicated to Dusty based on her 2008 tribute album “Just A Little Lovin’” at the Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis. Don’t like that? How about that Dusty once recorded the song “The Black Hills Of Dakota” from the film Calamity Jane? Oh suit yourselves!

Britney Spears is No 1 again with “…Baby One More Time” and has therefore achieved something that we were yet to see in 1999 – a record top the charts for more than seven days. Yes, it’s taken ten weeks but finally the constant conveyor belt of a different No 1 has ground to a halt. When you consider though that this was easily the best selling single of the year in the UK, could we have expected a longer ride in pole position? The timings within release schedules probably worked against Britney as in her third week in the chart she was up against that year’s Comic Relief single courtesy of the biggest boy band in the country at the time but even so. That chart conveyor belt would spring back into action though with another 14 No 1s spending a solitary week at the top meaning 22 out of 52 weeks of the year saw a different record at the top!

As for Britney, well I haven’t the time nor space to chronicle her career and personal struggles here but suffice to say she would have two more big UK hits before 1999 was out and followed that by starting the new millennium by topping our chart twice with consecutive singles. That’s two, not one more time.

Dusty Springfield connection: Dusty’s iconic hit “Son Of A Preacher Man” featured in the film Pulp Fiction and was included on its multi platinum selling soundtrack. In 2008, the film’s director Quentin Tarantino considered casting Britney Spears as the lead character Varla in a planned remake of the 1965 cult film Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! The project never materialised though.

We’re still not done with The Great British Song Contest entrants in the BBC’s quest to find a contestant to be the UK’s representative at 1999’s Eurovision but fear not for this is the last of the four finalists. Jay were a band not a singer who was one Jamie Callis seen here fronting the song “You’ve Taken My Dreams” and what an affront to musical taste it is. Dull doesn’t quite cover it – how about ‘insipid’? ‘Soulless’? ‘Banal’? I’ll go for plain old shite I think. Callis was an unemployed karaoke singer at the time of his 15 minutes of fame – I should have just used those three words as my review of this one. Jay came fourth out of four when The Great British Song Contest airedtwo days after this TOTP was broadcast.

Dusty Springfield connection: Surely there’s nothing?! OK, how about Laurie Jay who was the drummer with The Echoes who served as Dusty’s primary backing band for her live performances and several studio recordings during the peak of her early solo career from late 1963 to1966. Jay was a dedicated fan and associate of Dusty, even attempting to organize tribute events in her memory such as a star plaque in Los Angeles and a show at The Albert Hall in 2012.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Blur	Tender	No but I had the album
2	Cher	Strong Enough	No
3	The Corrs	Runaway	Negative
4	The Cardigans	Erase/Rewind	Nope
5	Whitney Houston	It’s Not Right But It’s OK	Nah
6	Stereophonics	Just Looking	See 1 above
7	Britney Spears	…Baby One More Time	I did not
8	Jay	You’ve Taken My Dreams	And pissed all over them – 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.

TOTP 30 OCT 1998

Posted on December 6 by 80stastic

It’s a case of someone old someone new in this episode of TOTP with some artists that have been around for literally decades in some cases mingling with acts making their debut on the show. Our host is Jamie Theakston (again!) and we start with a group who were definitely in the ‘old’ bracket. If this had been 1983, an appearance by Culture Club on the show would have been a big deal as they were one of the biggest pop bands in the world. Fifteen years later though, did the pop kids of 1998 know who they were and, if they did, were they bothered in the slightest that they were back? I say ‘back’ but “I Just Wanna Be Loved”, whilst a new song, didn’t immediately herald an album of never before heard material. Rather, it was a solitary new track to promote a Best Of album called “Greatest Moments”, a collection designed to cash in on a reunion tour. The tour was a success and did, a year later, lead to that album of new material with the release of 1999’s “Don’t Mind If I Do”. However, it seemed it was a case of audiences loving the hits live but not being arsed about hearing any new recordings and it floundered peaking at a lowly No 64 in the UK chart.

I’ve got to say that compared to some of the hits from their glory days*, “I Just Wanna Be Loved” does not compare. Some limp lovers rock sir? I’ll pass thanks as should have the band as this was somnambulistic rubbish. How did it get to No 4 then I hear you ask? A good promotion campaign backed with the tour and that Greatest Hits album I’m guessing.

*Apart from “Karma Chameleon” which is and will always be absolute garbage.

And what was the deal with George’s (and Mikey’s) headgear? I think @TOTPFacts sums it up nicely:

#TOTP pic.twitter.com/7S0b09s5Si
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) November 28, 2025

Having said all of that, I have a confession to make. I saw Culture Club on that 1998 tour. Me, my wife and some friends went though, in my defence, I was more interested in the two other artists on the bill, The Human League and ABC. I have to say that I got a bit pissed up before we went to the concert and so I can’t remember much about it other than Culture Club played the dog shit “Karma Chameleon” as the last song of the set with Boy George saying that it wouldn’t be a Culture Club gig without them playing that track which I guess is true. Various machinations in the band’s story followed including a period where Mikey Craig and Jon Moss recruited a new singer to replace George who was busy with other projects (it all came to nothing) and a BBC documentary about a planned 2014 tour that didn’t happen. Ultimately though, they got themselves together and have toured and had a Las Vegas residency as recently as 2023.

Next, we get some more of this backstage shenanigans nonsense that debuted last week. If the idea behind it was to demonstrate that the show remains a pull for some of the biggest names in pop/rock music, I’m not sure that Theakston saying that he’s there with Kele le Roc really makes that point. The whole thing is completely undermined anyway by using it as a segue to a performance by a band who aren’t actually there as we get a repeat showing of The Beautiful South doing “Perfect 10” from four weeks back. Yes, four weeks back in which time the single has fallen down the charts consistently from its debut peak position of No 2, albeit whilst remaining inside the Top 10 until it finally dropped out of it this week thereby creating a rather odd looking on screen caption reading ‘The Beautiful South – Perfect 10 – 11’. My first observation is why reshow it now and my second is ‘10 – 11’ – I don’t think it’s going to rival the current ‘six-seven’ slang meme.

From a band who’d been around for nearly a decade to someone making his TOTP debut. I knew the name Lyndon David Hall from working in a record shop and knew what type of music he made but I never actually heard any of it until now. I wasn’t expecting much especially from a song called “Sexy Cinderella” but I was pleasantly surprised. I mean, it’s all very bump ‘n’ grind which isn’t really my thing (I could do without the lyrics about getting freaky with blindfolds if I’m honest) but the guy could sing and, I don’t know, it just feels like a proper song with a degree of musicality to it unlike something like that which Dru Hill served up the other week. For a while, Hall was one of the brightest new lights in UK R’n’B winning a MOBO in 1998 and being the first UK artist to be voted ‘Best Male Artist’ by readers of Blues & Soul magazine in 1999. However, after releasing three albums and appearing in the hit film Love Actually, Hall was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and died in 2006 aged just 31 following complications resulting from the stem cell transplant he received in 2005. He had been in remission at the time of his death.

Theakston’s pinching my lines! In his intro to the next artist he says “Next up, looking more like Blondie than…erm…Blondie, it’s The Cardigans”. I made that connection in my review of the 16 October show when I said of the band’s performance of “My Favourite Game”:

“Persson looks effortlessly cool up there on stage in this performance with her peroxide blond hair backlit by the studio lights making her look more like Debbie Harry than Debbie Harry did in the late 90s”

OK, I’m not claiming that I was unique in coming to that conclusion – it’s hardly a startling revelation that nobody else could possibly have made. In fact, it’s a blindingly obvious comparison but even so. It’s more evidence to add to my increasingly large file named ‘Jamie Theakston’s a bit of a prick’. I may have more to add later.

Seemingly not content with this fake backstage set up, we were now getting more and more personal video messages from artists introducing their own promos. Last week we had Michael Stipe with a segue into REM’s latest release and now here was Bono to lead us into U2’s single “The Sweetest Thing”. Released to promote their greatest hits compilation “The Best Of 1980 – 1990”, it did what it said on the tin in that it is a sweet song with a sweet story behind it. Written by Bono for his wife Ali to apologise for being in the recording studio and forgetting her birthday, it was originally released as a B-side to the 1987 single “Where The Streets Have No Name”. However, it was polished up and re-recorded for inclusion on that aforementioned Best Of album.

The song is simple yet tuneful but is turned into something else by the attendant video which saw Bono on a carriage ride across the Georgian mile in Dublin. In an attempt to apologise to his wife, he enlists various performers to join him along the journey including Boyzone*, the boxer Steve Collins, members of the Riverdance cast, some Chippendales, and the Artane Boys marching band who not only had links to U2 (drummer Larry Mullen Jr was once a member) but to the wider rock world via the appearance of some of their number on the artwork for INXS’s 1992 album “Welcome To Wherever You Are”. All of this undoubtedly adds to the charm of the video but for me, it works mainly because Bono doesn’t attempt to mine along instead remaining facing the camera with his mouth closed throughout. With his hat and wraparound glasses he reminds me slightly of Elvis Costello here. “The Sweetest Thing” debuted at No 3 on a chart that made history with the entire Top 5 made up of brand new singles for the first time ever.

*Apparently Boyzone recorded their own version of “The Sweetest Thing” but the record company suits didn’t think it sounded like a Boyzone track and any plans for a potential release were permanently scrapped. Searches of the internet have not revealed any trace of their version of the song which is probably for the best.

After Lyndon David Hall earlier, we now get another UK R’n’B artist, also from London who also won a MOBO award (two actually), who was also making their TOTP debut and who I was also not expecting much from but whose song I surprisingly thought was not bad. Kele Le Roc (real name Kelly Biggs) whom I’m beginning to think of as a female version of Lyndon David Hall so closely did their career trajectories run in parallel, would have two Top 10 hits to her name by the end of the 90s starting with this one – “Little Bit Of Lovin’” featuring a vocal that reminds me of Randy Crawford. In 2001, she would team up with Basement Jaxx on the No 6 hit “Romeo” and would go on to work with such dance luminaries as Shy FX and T Power. She would trump all of the above though in 2020 when she collaborated on a version of Baby D’s “Let Me Be Your Fantasy” with Gok Wan – no really!

Back to 1998 though and “Little Bit Of Lovin’” was co-written by Robbie Nevil who had that hit “C’est La Vie” back in 1987. He couldn’t have had anything to do with coming up with Kelly’s stage name could he? “C’est La Vie”? Kele Le Roc? Please yourselves!

From a group who’d been around for 20 odd years (U2) to a TOTP debut (Kele Le Roc) to…how would you describe Alanis Morissette at this point in her career? An established artist? Yeah, let’s go with that. Certainly, the monster success of her “Jagged Little Pill” album had positioned her squarely in that category. However, with that level of profile comes expectation and the task of following her breakthrough third studio album was daunting to say the least. In the end, topping sales of 33 million worldwide proved unachievable and “Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie” sold a quarter of the copies of its predecessor. Still, 8 million units shifted is hardly too shabby.

Lead single “Thank U” was a strong introduction to the album. A multi-faceted track based around an hypnotic drum loop sample from Sly And The Family Stone, it was also very suitable for daytime radio play – Morissette was canny enough not to veer too far away from the sound that had made her a superstar. Then there were its lyrics which added an extra layer of depth. Telling the tale of her inner epiphany of self knowledge following a trip to India, they were more personal in nature than many a mainstream hit would normally feature. However, what really caused a splash weren’t its sonic properties but the visual ones that went with the video. Featuring a totally nude Alanis wondering around various public locations in Downtown Los Angeles, it was an arresting promo to say the least. Thankfully there was no chance of Morissette being actually arrested herself on public indecency charges as it was filmed in a closed set. It would become her highest charting single in the UK when it peaked at No 5 as, despite “Jagged Little Pill” containing five hits, none of them got higher than No 7. It’s the video that we see here in another example of the relaxing of executive producer Chris Cowey’s no video policy albeit that we get a personal message from Alanis introducing it (another Cowey innovation).

And so we arrive at an artist whose first hit was in 1965! Yes, it’s Cher who, rather surprisingly, would have the UK’s biggest selling single of 1998 with “Believe”. Our host’s intro does, as I suspected, provide me with some more evidence for my ‘Jamie Theakston’s a bit of a prick’ file when he says of Cher “She’s no spring chicken but she’s still a top bird”. As this will be No 1 for seven weeks, I think I’ll just finish this post with some of its chart facts:

No 1 in 23 countries
As of 2017, “Believe” had sold 1,830,000 copies in the UK making it the biggest selling single by a female artist in UK chart history
As of 2025, it was certified 5 times platinum by the BPI
In the US, “Believe” was ranked the number one song of 1999 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and the Hot Dance Club Play charts

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Culture Club	I Just Wanna Be Loved	Negative
2	The Beautiful South	Perfect 10	Its a no
3	Lyndon David Hall	Sexy Cinderella	I did not
4	The Cardigans	My Favourite Game	Good tune but no
5	U2	The Sweetest Thing	Nope
6	Kele Le Roc	Little Bit Of Lovin’	Nah
7	Alanis Morissette	Thank U	No
8	Cher	Believe	I did not

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002ms9b/top-of-the-pops-30101998

TOTP 16 OCT 1998

Posted on November 29 by 80stastic

I ended the last post with the statement that pop was definitely back in 1998 having laid claim to the notion that many of artists who’d had the biggest and most hit singles that year had been almost defiantly of a pop nature. B*Witched, Billie, 911, Cleopatra and Five were just some of the names I mentioned. Well, as if they were forming an orderly queue to prove my point and say “Yes, he’s right”, three of those acts are featured in this show.

Our host is Jayne Middlemiss and we start with what was fast becoming a TOTP tradition let alone a practice – that of starting the show with last week’s No 1 which had now been deposed. I can’t comment about this anymore as I’m boring myself let alone any regular readers of the blog. All I will say is that this means we start the show with “Rollercoaster” by B*Witched who are “staying on for one more ride” says Middlemiss so that explains that executive producer policy decision then. Much is made of the group’s double denim fashion item of choice but for this single, they also employed an unlikely accessory in the form of boxing gloves which are utilised both in the promo video (which we don’t get to see) when they box a strongman in a fair’s boxing ring and on the front cover of the single. Well, they did say they fight like their da’s.

Why are we back in The Riviera again?! After Billie performed in Cannes Beach in the last show, we’re back in the exact same spot with the exact same stage seven days later. Were the BBC trying to sell TOTP to a foreign broadcaster or something at the Cannes TV festival? You know, I don’t think that’s a bad shout actually. On the Top Of The Pops Wikipedia page, it says that executive producer Chris Cowey was actively looking to export the brand overseas with localised versions of the show on air in France, Germany, Holland, Belgium and Italy by the end of his tenure in 2003.

So if that’s what the Beeb was up to, which artist had they got lined up to promote the show? A big name surely? Oh…911…is that right? 911…the trio of a Dec Donnelly lookalike and two dancers who look like bouncers or extras from Brookside? That’s who they went with? OK then. In their defence, they were in the middle of a run of ten consecutive Top 10 hits which was maintained by their cover of “More Than A Woman” which gave them their then biggest hit when it charted at No 2. Originally recorded for a Bee Gees tribute album, it would also serve as the lead single from the group’s third studio album called “There It Is”. A pretty faithful rendition of a song that was recorded by the Bee Gees and Tavares on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, it did whiff a bit of jumping on the bandwagon when you consider how many other artists had turned to that album for a hit around this time. N-Trance, Adam Garcia, Take That, Kim Wilde and Tina Turner had all gone down that route. Buoyed by the success of their decision to join them, 911 would repeat the trick for their next single which was a cover of Dr. Hook’s “A Little Bit More” which actually got them to No 1.

Watching this Cannes Beach performance, the stage looks a bit overcrowded what with the three lads and three female backing dancers all throwing some shapes in a confined space. Indeed, said backing dancers seem to determined to elbow themselves into camera shot. If the performance was meant to create a buzz around the show then an assembled crowd of eight (presumably paid) women in TOTP T-shirts huddled together in front of the stage didn’t really achieve that.

I’ve said it before but here I am saying it again – are Garbage one of the most underestimated bands of this era? Sure, they had a good run of hit singles including six inside the Top 10 and a No 1, multi platinum album but do they get the credit they deserve? Do they routinely get mentioned as one of the top bands of this era? Maybe I should be directing this question at myself as I did pretty much ignore them apart from the big hits back in the day. I really must investigate their back catalogue more. Take “Special” for example. The third single from “Version 2.0”, I don’t remember it at all but it’s a cracking track that with a retro yet up-to-date sound that even references “Talk Of The Town” by The Pretenders in its outro (they did get personal clearance from Christie Hynde for its use). Then there’s Shirley Manson who is magnificent as the lead singer but is she regularly mentioned when there’s any discussion of the best front people of a rock band? I’m not sure she is. The band themselves are still recording and releasing new material so they possibly don’t welcome being talked about in the past tense but the name of this blog is TOTP Rewind so I’m afraid they’ll have to live with that. I’m a ‘special’ interest blogger as it were.

From one female fronted band to another as The Cardigans return with brand new material and a brand new sound. After the quirky but insanely catchy singalong that was “Lovefool” the previous year, the Swedish indie-pop outfit were back with a much harder style in the form of “My Favourite Game”, lead single from their fourth studio album “Gram Turismo”. Built around a recurring two note guitar riff, it fair stomps along until it stops to draw breath whilst Nina Persson teases out the “I’m losing my favourite game, your losing your mind again” lyrics that create an unlikely hook. It almost shouldn’t work as a track as it shuns established song structure but work it does and then some. Persson looks effortlessly cool up there on stage in this performance with her peroxide blond hair backlit by the studio lights making her look more like Debbie Harry than Debbie Harry did in the late 90s. They would follow “My Favourite Game” with another strong single in “Erase/Rewind”’ paving the way for the album to sell three million copies worldwide.

After Brandy last week, it’s time for her partner in crime Monica to re-establish her solo career this time in the wake of the huge success of their duet “The Boy Is Mine”. I couldn’t be doing with Brandy’s song at all but I’m finding myself a little bit more predisposed to Monica’s. A very little bit. A tiny bit. I believe that is because “The First Night” samples Diana Ross’s marvellous “Love Hangover”. Yes, that must be it as there’s not much else to recommend it although my eyes were drawn to Monica’s two backing dancers. No, not for any salacious reasons but because of the high octane dance moves that they’re busting (or something). Maybe they’re so noticeable because Monica only half joins in with them (sometimes) or maybe it’s because the studio audience, who are crammed together in a semi circle around the small stage area, only have room to perform a half-hearted nerd shuffle behind the dancers.

Unless you’re a superfan (and I’m sure they do exist), for the wider population, Natalie Imbruglia is always going to be predominantly known for one song – “Torn”. It’s really unfair and dismissive but it’s true even though she has released six studio albums and eighteen singles over the course of her music career. One of those singles was “Smoke”, the fourth and final single to be lifted from her debut album “Left Of The Middle”. Now this potentially had a lot going for it – intriguing, dramatic and atmospheric but it takes an age to get going and when it does it has an identity crisis. There’s shades of Tori Amos to it but when the strings kick in, it seems to have Bond theme pretensions. I couldn’t really get on with the “what’s up with that?” lyric either. It strikes me that it’s more of an album track than a single.

In 2007, Natalie released a Best Of album called “Glorious: The Singles 97-07” which would seem to dispute my claim about her only being remembered for one song especially as it went Top 5 and achieved gold sales status. However, of the 15 tracks on the album, five of them were new songs which kind of undermines the point of a Best Of collection no?

The time of Fat Boy Slim is upon us. I purposely didn’t use the name Norman Cook as the time of Norman Cook had been with us since about 1986 in his various guises. The Housemartins, Beats International, Freak Power, Pizzaman, The Mighty Dub Katz and then perhaps his most famous incarnation Fat Boy Slim. Even then, that particular alias had been with us a while. There had already been one Fat Boy Slim album – 1996’s “Better Living Through Chemistry” – although it had failed to make much of an impression chart-wise. Then in June of 1998, the single “Rockefeller Skank” had gone Top 10 though I don’t remember it featuring in any TOTP shows for some reason (Chris Cowey was probably still obsessing with Five or someone). However, when “Gangster Trippin’” came out and went straight to No 3, then we all had to stand up and take note. Parent album “You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby” was released the Monday after this TOTP aired and would debut at No 2 which was impressive enough. However, it exploded early in 1999 in the wake of the “Praise You” single going to No 1 and subsequently the album would match that achievement with four consecutive weeks at the top.

Before that though we have “Gangster Trippin’”, a track immediately recognisable as Fat Boy Slim but obviously made up of lots (and lots!) of samples of other people’s work including DJ Shadow and Dust Junkys both of whom were favourites of some of my much hipper than me Our Price work colleagues. Mention must be made of the Norman Cook cameo in the introduction to the video for the track (yes, a rare actual video in the Chris Cowey era). Voicing an intro from behind a cardboard cut out of the kid from the album cover, Cook confirms my earlier suspicion that he hadn’t been on the show before under the Fat Boy Slim moniker by saying it was his first TOTP appearance. That kid from the album cover is a bit of a mystery. The iconic photograph of him was taken at the 1983 Fat People’s Festival in Danville, Virginia and provided by the Rex Features photo library. His identity though remains a mystery despite many attempts by Cook over the years to find him in order to remunerate him for the use of his image. As for the video itself, it’s essentially just a load of furniture being blown up shown from different angles and in slow motion. Well, it was directed by Roman Coppola, son of Francis Ford Coppola whose many film credits include Apocalypse Now. Maybe Roman loved the smell of burning furniture in the morning.

Billie is No 1 this week with her second single release “Girlfriend”. She’s not in the studio because she’s not very well Jayne Middlemiss informs us so instead we get a presumably pre-recorded performance in what looks like a nightclub but without any patrons in it. Was this from her time in Cannes as well? Wasn’t there a video they could have shown? What was Chris Cowey’s aversion to promo videos anyway and why did he make an exception for Fat Boy Slim’s? “Girlfriend” would last just one week at the top but guess what? Billie will be back on the next TOTP performing it because…Cowey wanted her to?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	B*Witched	Rollercoaster	Nah
2	911	More Than A Woman	As if
3	Garbage	Special	Good song but no
4	The Cardigans	My Favourite Game	See 3 above
5	Monica	The First Night	I did not
6	Natalie Imbruglia	Smoke	Nope
7	Fat Boy Slim	Gangster Trippin’	No but my wife had the album
8	Billie	Girlfriend	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/m002mggj/top-of-the-pops-16101998

TOTP 09 MAY 1997

Posted on February 23, 2025 by 80stastic

It’s the 9th May 1997 and I’m in China! Yes, Beijing to be exact visiting my old school pal Rob who is living and studying out there. According to my diary, this date was our second day there (I’d travelled with Rob’s brother Chris) and we’d so far been to Tiananmen Square, Ritan Park and spent a mad night in a karaoke bar. However, one of my abiding memories is that on our plane there had been a French youth orchestra who were going to play some concerts in China and as we flew over rice fields on the approach to Beijing airport, one of their number looked out of the window and exclaimed “Ah, le chinois!”. With my location confirmed, I can categorically say that I would not have watched this episode of TOTP. I wonder what I missed…

…not much if the opening act is anything to go by as it’s the same one that closed the last episode! I guess it’s understandable as Katrina And The Waves had won Eurovision for the UK the weekend before for the first time in 16 years so they probably deserved their moment in the limelight. “Love Shine A Light” was the track that brought the trophy home and although it was a deserved winner on the night, it didn’t live long in the memory. Katrina (Leskanich) herself has explained that the reason the band had never recorded it before was due to the fact that it was “too cheesy, too ABBA, too Eurovision”. Even the guy who wrote it, guitarist Kimberley Rew, didn’t want anything to do with it and Eurovision and didn’t join his band mates for their performance of it on the big night. According to Katrina, the song (and subsequently the band) didn’t endure because they didn’t have a gimmick like Bucks Fizz. What it did have though was an anthemic quality and a feel good vibe that clearly won the voters over at least temporarily. In 2020, it created its own legacy of sorts as its title was used as the inspiration for a show called Eurovision: Europe Shine A Light which was a live, two hour show arranged to replace the full Eurovision Song Contest which was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “Love Shine A Light” was performed by the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra before also being reprised at the show’s finale by all the artists meant to have been in the official show with Katrina herself joining those on stage.

I should have said that Jo Whiley is tonight’s presenter and she’s positively effusive about the next artist who have a great track to be fair to them. There was always going to be in huge interest in what the members of the Stone Roses did next after the band was dissolved in October 1996. Mani* would join Primal Scream, Ian Brown embarked on a solo career to varying degrees of success and Reni went into hiatus hibernation.

*He came into the Our Price in Stockport where I worked one day and bought our entire stock of Primal Scream albums to learn the bass parts.

As for John Squire, he was first out of the traps with a new project in the form of The Seahorses. Unlike the Roses who couldn’t have been more Manc, Squire’s band were York-centric with lead singer Chris Helme having been infamously recruited after being spotted busking outside the city’s Woolworths store. Another feature of The Seahorses story that was being played out in the music press was that the band’s name was an anagram of ‘He Hates Roses’ or alternatively ‘The Rose Ashes’. Squire denied this as pure coincidence and speculation.

Anyway, their debut single was “Love Is The Law” and it was a banger. Recorded with Bowie and T-Rex producer Tony Visconti and naturally featuring Squire’s immense guitar work to the fore, it was an exuberant, indie rock song that had an immediacy that made it sound familiar from the get go. The lyrics though – well, they seemed to go under the censor radar…

“She was a rum old slapper and we always tried to get her pants off when she phoned…

Strap-on Sally chased us down the alley, we feared for our behinds”

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: John Squire
Love Is the Law lyrics © Polygram Music Publishing Ltd. Gb

Hmm. Anyway, in this performance, Squire has decided to come as a member of Mansun whilst Chris Helme looks like a cross between 60s era David Essex and Danny Macnamara from Embrace. The Seahorses would go on to have three further hit singles and a No 2 album in “Do It Yourself” but would split in 1999 after increasing tensions between Squire and Helme (who wished to pursue a solo career in tandem with the band) boiled over. Squire would eventually release two solo albums before the Stone Roses second coming in 2011 and just last year had a No 1 album with Liam Gallagher called…erm…”Liam Gallagher John Squire”. I don’t think that’s an anagram of anything but according to one user on Twitter, said album contains the track “Just Another Rainbow” which is an anagram of ‘Just to hear Ian Brown’!

Four days short of the one year anniversary of the release of his “Older” album, George Michael was still releasing tracks from it as singles. “Star People ‘97” was the fifth of those (and there would even be one more after that) and it kept up the remarkable record of them all peaking within the Top 3 chart positions when it debuted at No 2. And people talked about all the singles released from “Faith”!

This one was re-recorded (hence the ‘97 suffix) from the original album track to make it a bit more funked up and danceable. I’m guessing this performance was from the MTV Unplugged set that was recorded in 1996 where he also did a version of Wham!’s “Everything She Wants” which was released as an extra track on the “Star People ‘97” single. Want to hear it? Yeah you do…

In May ‘97, Mansun were still at the top of their game with “Taxloss” (or “Taxlo$$” as it’s stylised on the single’s cover) being their fourth consecutive Top 20 hit with all of them taken from debut No 1 album “Attack Of The Grey Lantern”. There was something different about this one though – not sonically as it was still that guitar-driven, epic soundscape that characterised the album. No, it was in its naming. All their other releases had been titled sequentially as EPs – hence “One EP”, “Two EP” etc with the last having been “Five EP” (though each was headlined by a lead track). However, for “Taxloss” it was just called…well…”Taxloss”. No reason has ever been forthcoming.

I said earlier that John Squire had turned up looking like a member of Mansun and blow me down, one song later here was the real thing and singer Paul Draper (bless him) confirms my observation by wearing his Army Surplus Store outfit front and centre. Something else about this TOTP performance was that, for a moment, I thought that The Seahorses drummer and the guy on the sticks for Mansun were the same person. I think though it’s just that they both had a goaty beard. I think. Oh and that video that Jo Whiley mentions, that really did happen. Not quite up there with The KLF burning a million quid but still…

As Jo Whiley says in her intro, it’s time to throw your pants at the screen as 911 get another outing for their single “Bodyshakin’” even though it’s dropped from No 3 to No 10 this week – I just can’t get along with these new TOTP appearance rules.

I’ve nothing else to say about this one except what was the deal with those tops they were wearing?! I’m no fashionista but they’re gross. As bad as they are though, nothing beats the legendary Carlisle United away kit from the mid 90s that was labelled ‘the deckchair’ due to its garishness. Why am I randomly talking about Carlisle United? Because it’s not random – 911 lead singer Lee Brennan was born in Carlisle and captained their football clubs under-14 and under-16 teams but was turned down for a professional contract on account of him being too short. A career as a pop star clothes horse awaited…

Jo Whiley goes all Blue Peter presenter in her next intro as she says that Jay Kay of Jamiroquai can’t be in the studio as his band are on tour “so here’s something they prepared earlier” as we get the video for “Alright”. That old cliche could also be applied to Jamiroquai as this track was almost an identikit replica of all their other hits it seemed to my uncultured ears. People who knew more about it (basically the music press so that might be a misnomer) reckoned it was the best track on parent album “Travelling Without Moving” with one Sam Taylor of The Observer commenting on its “effortless swank”. Yeah, he could have lost an ‘s’ there for me. “Alright” peaked at No 6.

Wait…Blackstreet had more hits than just “No Diggity”? Yes, yes they did including a further three Top 10 hits one of which was this – “Don’t Leave Me”. Now, if it sounds a bit like a 2Pac song that’s because it features the same sample used in the rap legend’s track “I Ain’t Mad Atcha” but said sample is from an unlikely source – DeBarge. The “Rhythm Of The Night” hitmakers from the mid 80s? The very same though the track in question is called “A Dream” from 1983. How do I know all this? I looked it up obviously. My R&B/rap knowledge doesn’t extend to those levels of detail. As such, it’s no surprise then that this song means very little to me and in fact, my apathy turned to displeasure when one of the group introduced it by saying “This song goes out to all the ladies in the house tonight”. Eeeww!

Gary Barlow has this week’s No 1 record with a song that wasn’t even his. “Love Won’t Wait” came out of the writing sessions for Madonna’s “Bedtime Stories” album and was a collaboration between Madge and prolific producer and songwriter Shep Pettibone. After all the flak I gave Robbie Williams initially for starting his solo career with a cover version (George Michael’s “Freedom’90”), blow me if Barlow’s second release under his own name wasn’t even one of his own compositions but a Madonna reject! You can hear why it didn’t make the cut – it’s a perfectly serviceable but oh so unremarkable dance/pop tune that isn’t as good as some of Take That’s best work which raises the question of why did Barlow record it? Was he having doubts about his ability to be a solo artist? After all, it had been over nine months since his debut single “Forever Love” which suggests that he didn’t have confidence in the songs he had already got together. Despite my questioning attitude, Gary still had a fanbase large enough to send him to No 1 for the second successive time in his solo career. As the performance starts you can clearly hear someone in the audience screaming “Gaaarrry!”. However, the writing was on the wall as follow up single “So Help Me Girl” would fail to make the Top 10 and within a year he wouldn’t be able to give his records away as Robbie Williams cemented his place as Barlow’s personal nemesis. Still, it all worked out pretty well for Gary in the end didn’t it?

The play out video is “Lovefool” by The Cardigans who spend a second week at No 4. Looking at the singles ahead of them at No 1 on those occasions – by Michael Jackson and Gary Barlow – it does seem somewhat of a travesty that “Lovefool” couldn’t quite get to the top (it peaked at No 2). Being up against new release singles that would have been heavily discounted when your’s had reverted to full price maybe had a part to play. Hits by the likes of No Doubt, R Kelly and Puff Daddy all had extended stays at the top of the charts which would seem to debunk that theory but what is true is that there had been five different hits at No 1 in five weeks earlier in 1997.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Katrina And The Waves	Love Shine A Light	Nope
2	The Seahorses	Love Is The Law	Thought I might have but its not in the singles box
3	George Michael	Star People ’97	Nah
4	Mansun	Taxloss	No but I had the album
5	911	Bodyshakin’	As if
6	Jamiroquai	Alright	All wrong – no
7	Blackstreet	Don’t Leave Me Now	No
8	Gary Barlow	Love Won’t Wait	Three guesses?
9	The Cardigans	Lovefool	No but my wife had the Romeo + Juliet soundtrack with it on

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/m0027xn2/top-of-the-pops-09051997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 02 MAY 1997

Posted on February 20, 2025 by 80stastic

We’ve skipped a month due to the R Kelly issue and find ourselves at the start of May and what a time it was to be alive! Labour have won the 1997 General Election and the Tories have been booted out of power after 18 long years. Hurray! I was on holiday so I could stay up watching the election results come in and I remember waking up in the morning feeling that there was finally some good news and that hope had returned. As I walked into town, I recall that it was a beautifully sunny morning and contemplated that everything had aligned including the weather. Obviously, with the hindsight of 28 years, the promise of New Labour didn’t completely pan out but I hadn’t known anything but Conservative rule for my entire adult life and I was nearly 29 by this point so I was allowed to let myself get carried away a little. It was an exciting time and not just politically – in four days time I would be embarking on a visit to China to see my old mate Rob who was studying out there. I had arranged for someone to cover me at the Our Price store where I worked (we still didn’t have a new manager in place so I was effectively the acting manager) and I would be off for a couple of weeks. I was excited and desperate for a break but a little daunted at such a big trip.

For now though, it was time to kick back and enjoy the good vibes. This TOTP was broadcast at the earlier time of 6.25 and on BBC2 as, understandably, BBC1 was concentrating its content on the General Election aftermath. Whether I would have watched the latest chart tunes or the news coverage I’m not sure but probably the latter not that you could get away for the politics by watching TOTP as we start with D:Ream and “Things Can Only Get Better”. Now you don’t need me to tell you why this was back in the charts but I’m going to anyway. The Labour Party had co-opted it to spearhead their campaign for the election and if the landslide victory was anything to go by then it certainly had a positive impact. It presumably had a positive impact on D:Ream’s career as well which was pretty much in the dirt by 1997. Their 1995 album “World” had sold only a fifth of their debut “D:Ream On Vol. 1” and their last single had peaked at No 40. Step forward Tony Blair and suddenly they were back in the charts, back on TV and with a Best Of album released. Main man Peter Cunnah has lost the yellow and black checked suit this time around and also Professor Brian Cox who was presumably off doing something with the Large Hadron Collider or something. Cunnah also seems to have a little bit less hair. The band’s time back in the spotlight was fleeting though. The rerelease of “Things Can Only Get Better” only made No 19 this time around and their Best Of album flopped and the band split up. They reformed in 2008 and have released new material subsequently but it’s surely this song that they will always be synonymous with. I wonder if Howard Jones ever thinks “if only” when he sees Tony Blair in the news?

I should say that tonight’s host is Cathy Dennis who seems an unlikely choice in retrospect given her profile at this time. Yes, she’s had a hit with her cover of “Waterloo Sunset” this year but her next single released a month or so after this TOTP failed to make the Top 40 which effectively brought the curtain down on her career as a pop star before she became hugely successful writing hits for other people in the new millennium. Anyway, she introduces Robbie Williams as the next act despite the fact that he’s only just been on the previous week and had now dropped down the charts from No 2 to No 8 with “Old Before I Die”. That didn’t matter in this post Ric Blaxill TOTP universe though when songs sliding down the charts were still afforded exposure on the show. Cathy Dennis is given and gives us a line about it being Robbie’s second week inside the Top 10 as a reason for his successive appearance.

As for the song itself, although perhaps not his most celebrated or well known tune, for me it was the one that made me think perhaps Williams might just make a go of being a solo star. Now, the success of “Angels” is widely regarded as being that moment but “Old Before I Die” beat it to it in terms of being a decent rock/pop song. Sure, it drew accusations of being a rip off of his best new mates Oasis but importantly it wasn’t a cover version which his first single “Freedom” had been. That and the fact that one of the extra tracks on his debut as a solo artist had been an interview led me to ask the question “where are your songs mate?” but he answered me with “Old Before I Die”. I liked the play on words inspired by The Who classic “My Generation” and even the rather clunky and childish lyric about the pope getting high. It all hung together quite cohesively. Follow up singles “Lazy Days” and “South Of The Border” would prove to be missteps before “Angels” swooped in and saved the day and Robbie’s career. For now though, he seemed to be doing fine.

Another defining pop career moment next as this was the point when I realised “Shit! This lot aren’t going away!” as a mercifully short chart life is what I had predicted for 911. Alas, “Bodyshakin’” became their then biggest hit when it rattled its way into No 3. My underestimating of their hit potential clearly spilled over into my work life as I’m sure we sold out of this single in its first week of release – a heinous crime for a mainstream record shop but who knew that a Declan Donnelly lookalike, two dancers from The Hitman And Her and a song that recycled that ‘ner nah nah naaa ner nah nah’ riff could be such a big success. Not me clearly. Still, they were very good at synchronised dancing – I’ll give them that.

Next up is a song that has been described as pure pop perfection and who’s to say that’s not 100% true? Not me certainly. “Lovefool” by The Cardigans was originally a medium sized hit in September of 1996 peaking at No 21 but its inclusion on the soundtrack of Baz Luhrmann’s treatment of William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet movie and the success of that film warranted a second stab at the charts and this time it rose all the way to No 2 – I’d forgotten it had peaked so high to be honest. I shouldn’t have been surprised though as it is a brilliant pop song. I must have also not remembered how big a success Romeo + Juliet was and, by association, its soundtrack. I saw the film and enjoyed it and years later, my son would watch it at school as a way of making Shakespeare more accessible to children studying the Bard. As for the soundtrack, my wife liked the music in the film so much she bought the CD which, as well as The Cardigans, featured such artists as Garbage, Radiohead, Des’ree and Kym Mazelle doing a cover of Candi Staton’s “Young Hearts Run Free”. It went to No 3 in the UK charts selling 300,000 copies and affording it gold status. It was even bigger in America and Australia where it sold over 3 million copies in the former and was the second bestselling album of the year in the latter. A choral version of Rozalla’s “Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good)” which was also on the soundtrack would form the basis of a rather bizarre UK No 1 two years later when Baz Luhrmann himself released a single titled “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)” which was essentially a spoken word track voiced by actor Lee Perry of an article published in the Chicago Tribune by columnist Mary Schmich on how to live a happier life. As I said, all rather bizarre.

Anyway, back to The Cardigans and “Lovefool”. The success of the single with its shimmering, seamless pop production full of hooks but with a nod to disco helped parent album “First Band On The Moon” to gold status in the UK. The band were tipped to be on the verge of greatness with the impossibly beautiful Nina Persson dominating their public image (much in the same way Gwen Stefani was for fellow chart stars No Doubt). Someone I worked with was so taken with them that she bought up their earlier back catalogue as well. “First Band On The Moon” wouldn’t provide any further massive hit singles but did pave the way for 1998’s “Gran Turismo” which contained the hits “My Favourite Game”, “Erase/Rewind” and “Hanging Around” helping the album to achieve platinum sales status in the UK and 3 million copies being sold worldwide. The Cardigans split in 2006 but reunited in 2012 as a touring entity only.

“It’s been a great few weeks for DJ Quicksilver. He’s replaced Sasha’s “Encore Une Fois” as the club floor filler that won’t go away. Here he is at No 5 with “Bellissima”

So says Cathy Dennis in her intro to the next act and you know what, that will do for this blogger’s comments about this one because I can assure you that anything else I would say would not be as kind as that.

Next to a young artist who was very much touted as being the next new UK R&B superstar and she won a BRIT and two MOBO awards to back that claim up. Shola Ama was just 18 years old when she burst into the charts with her cover of the Randy Crawford hit “You Might Need Somebody” and it would be another of those singles that defied the ‘debut very high, exit very quickly’ trend of many a chart hit at this time by spending seven weeks inside the Top 10 with five of them at lucky No 7. How did Shola do this? Well, the song that was chosen for her to cover was very radio friendly and also old enough for some young music fans to possibly be unaware of Randy Crawford’s hit with it from 1981. I myself only knew it because my wife had Randy’s “Secret Combination” album that it was taken from. Of course, appearing on TOTP three weeks on the trot probably didn’t hinder the single’s chances (although we missed the first two due to the R Kelly issue). Apparently Shola got so fed up of people not believing that she was singing live on the show that in the third appearance she missed a bit out to prove it was real. Having watched this third appearance back, I’m not sure I can spot this though I think there’s a moment when she appears to go towards the microphone but doesn’t sing. Is that it? Personally, I couldn’t hear what all the fuss was about and that she would disappear once “You Might Need Somebody” finally dropped out of the charts. She didn’t – her debut album “Much Love” made No 6 selling 100,000 copies and included three more hit singles. However, second album syndrome struck despite her working with a host of producers and writers including D-Influence and Babyface and Shola’s time in the spotlight was over within two years. She has carried on recording and has collaborated with artists such as Miss Dynamite and Frisco.

To say they only had four Top 40 hits of which none got higher than No 24, Kenickie’s strike rate for appearing on TOTP was pretty good. This was their second time on the show and I’d forgotten that not all of their songs featured lead vocals from Lauren Laverne. This one – “Nightlife” – sees Marie du Santiago doing the singing heavy lifting and I think I prefer her voice to Lauren’s. This track is a spiky little number that strides along wearing its attitude on its sleeve with pride like a hickey from a certain Grease character. You know, I probably should check out their back catalogue in more detail than I currently possess. After all it’s only two albums deep, coincidentally the same amount of Grease films that there are which reminds me that I used to work with someone who prefers Grease 2 to the original! I know! How do you even begin to explain that?!

I have to say that Cathy Dennis is not very good at this presenting lark – very lacking in any presence but then why should she have been any good at it? She’s made her mark as a pop star then as a songwriter – two successful careers is more than most of us manage. Anyway, Republica are on next with their biggest ever hit “Drop Dead Gorgeous”. Watching it back, I’m struck by what a strange song this is, especially in the verses where Saffron almost speaks the abrupt lyrics which are often just two words at the start. Eventually the chorus kicks in and that point, it sounds like it could have been a hit for Toyah back in the day. It can’t be just me surely? Something in the inflections in Saffron’s phrasing as she almost yelps the words out? No?

Anyway, at this point it seemed, as with No Doubt and The Cardigans, that Republica with their photogenic lead singer were set to conquer the world. What happened next was a complete collapse of their momentum. Second album “Speed Ballads” underperformed so much to the extent that most people didn’t realise that it had been released – indeed it wasn’t in the US after their label Deconstruction Records folded. The band would go into a state of stasis and split in 2001 before reuniting in 2008. Their first album since “Speed Ballads” 27 years ago is due for release in the Spring of 2025.

I know I was busy with preparations for my China trip and distracted by the General Election but how did I not notice what was No 1 this week? I did work in a record shop after all. I have zero recollection of this chart topper from Michael Jackson but maybe that’s a good thing as “Blood On The Dance Floor” is a stinker of the foulest stench. Taken from the remix album “Blood On The Dance Floor: HIStory In The Mix”, it’s just a funky backbeat that goes nowhere and is fleshed out by the usual Jacko yelps and screams as he bangs on about some woman called Susie. Apparently it was initially recorded for the 1991 “Dangerous” album but never made the cut which speaks volumes for its quality. Even the usually impeccable production on Jackson’s output is not up to scratch it seems to me as his vocals are really low in the mix at some points meaning you can’t actually hear him much. Perhaps that was intentional but either way, maybe we should just be grateful for small mercies.

Wikipedia tells me that the album went to No 1 in the UK, achieved platinum status and is the biggest selling remix album in the world EVER! Hmm. When I looked at the front cover of the album, it did bring back one memory which was of massive stocks of the album that we couldn’t give away so its sales figures are surprising to say the least. In conclusion, I say “Blood On The Dance Floor”? Nah, give me “Murder On The Dance Floor” any day. The director of Saltburn agrees with me at least.

We end with a plug for the UK entrant in the Eurovision Song Contest which this year was Katrina And The Waves. I know! Who’d have thought it! Well, Katrina And The Waves presumably as they submitted their entry “Love Shine A Light” (plus a £250 fee) to The Great British Song Contest which was the selection process that year to determine the UK entry. There are also rumours though that Jonathan King contacted the band to see if they had a song that was appropriate so take your pick. Predominantly known for the marvellously upbeat hit “Walking On Sunshine”, the band hadn’t been anywhere near the charts since 1986 when “Sun Street” rather unexpectedly made No 22. Pretty much nothing had been heard of them since but suddenly they were back!…albeit via the much maligned Eurovision Song Contest. I recall thinking that they were bound to win, somehow linking it with the General Election and the new government – if the Tories could be toppled after 18 years of rule, surely the UK could break our 16 year hoodoo and win Eurovision for the first time since Bucks Fizz. In reality, my confidence was probably down to hearing the bookies and media saying all week how Katrina And The Waves were odds on to win. And win they did and like the Labour Party two days earlier, it was by a landslide. Predictably, new Prime Minister Tony Blair was quick to congratulate the band on their victory as he sought to keep the good feeling vibe going. What was New Labour’s legacy ultimately? I’ll leave that for your own private thoughts – this is a music blog after all. As for Katrina And The Waves, “Love Shine A Light” surged to No 3 in the charts off the back of Eurovision though was nowhere near as durable as Gina G’s effort from a year earlier despite it coming nowhere in the contest.

I recall Katrina saying in an interview years later that once they had a hit again, she’d assumed that their career was sorted and they’d no need to worry about that anymore but they were unable to produce a successful follow up and they would split acrimoniously after their credibility as a rock band was tainted by their brush with Eurovision. Katrina herself has maintained ties with the competition though appearing in anniversary shows and even participating in the Swedish national final in 2005.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	D:Ream	Things Can Only Get Better	Not in 1994 and not this time either
2	Robbie Williams	Old Before I Die	No but I had a promo copy of his Life Thru A Lens album
3	911	Bodyshakin’	Of course not
4	The Cardigans	Lovefool	No but my wife had there Romeo + Juliet soundtrack
5	DJ Quicksilver	Bellissima	No
6	Shola Ama	You Might Need Somebody	Nope
7	Kenickie	Nightlife	Negative
8	Republica	Drop Dead Gorgeous	Nah
9	Michael Jackson	Blood On The Dance Floor	Never
10	Katrina And The Waves	Love Shine A Light	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/m0027xn0/top-of-the-pops-02051997?seriesId=unsliced

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My memories of 90s chart music

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TOTP 09 MAY 1997

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TOTP 02 MAY 1997

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