The Corrs

TOTP 27 NOV 1998

Posted on by 80stastic

After featuring nine songs in the last TOTP, we’re down to seven this time though six of them are new to charts (sort of). Our host is Jayne Middlemiss and we start with that ‘start of’ hit which is from Steps. The reason for it’s unclear categorisation is that whilst “Heartbeat” hasn’t been on the show previously, it wasn’t actually a new chart hit being the other track to their double A-side single alongside their cover of “Tragedy” which we saw on the previous programme. Now, I said in the last post that I didn’t think that I’d ever heard “Heartbeat” before such was the ubiquity of “Tragedy” and I stand by that statement having listened to it today. There’s no bells ringing (even though it’s Christmas time) and I’m rather glad there aren’t as it’s a sickly, saccharine pop ballad that cloys but leaves no cultural nor sonic sustenance whatsoever. It’s literally like a musical form of candy floss. Surely punters weren’t buying the single for this track but purely for “Tragedy”?

“Cor! It’s the Corrs!” or so Jayne Middlemiss in her intro would have us believe that’s what the male population would be saying at this point. Bit sexist that isn’t it Jayne? Well, it was the time of lad culture and Jayne herself had spent time as a glamour model early in her career so maybe all that informed her comments. Or maybe she was just reading the lines written in a script (presumably by a man). Let’s not tie ourselves up in knots about all that. On with the music and “So Young” was the third hit on the trot for The Corrs this year. Written by violinist Sharon about her parents and the notion that no matter how old they got, they seemed to her to be forever young in spirit and outlook. All this talk of ageing and youth got me thinking about who are the eldest and youngest Corrs and the order of the ages in the middle. So how about a festive game of ‘Guess the age of the Corrs’? I’ll start. I’m going:

  • Jim – eldest
  • Sharon
  • Andrea
  • Caroline – youngest

How did I do?

*checks Wikipedia*

Ooh! Almost! These are their actual ages:

  • Jim – 61
  • Sharon – 55
  • Caroline – 52
  • Andrea – 51

This, of course, means that even “the beautiful Corrs” (© Ant and Dec) are all now in their 50s.* Time waits for no man…or woman.

*Before you all accuse me of ageism and misogyny, I’m sure they are all still beautiful and absolutely agree that age should have no bearing on perceptions of attractiveness. I was trying to make a point about the passing of youth and how time marches on but I’m regretting saying any of it now. Let’s move on quickly…

…to the Vengaboys! NOOO!!! We can’t have reached that time already. 1998 you really have been a pile of steaming shite and this is the little twist on the turd after it’s been curled out. Too graphic? I care not a jot when it comes to this lot. Which despicable people were responsible for this utter crapola? I’ll tell you who – a couple of Dutch producers who went by the aliases Danski (real name Dennis van den Driesschen) and Delmundo (Wessel Dietrich van Diepen) who threw (according to the official Vengaboys website) impromptu and illegal beach parties from their worn out school bus in the early 90s. Deciding to grow their operation, they recruited some singers and dancers to spice up their DJ sets and then took it a massive step further by deciding to form a record label and produce records. With that concept established, the task of fronting said records would fall to those dancers and singers they had already recruited. After a couple of minor hits in their own country, they went truly international with the release of “Up & Down” which was a Top 10 hit all around Europe and topped the US Dance Club Play chart.

This whole thing has given me some strong 2 Unlimited vibes. The Dutch duo began their run of hits with the track “Get Ready For This”, the single edit of which was essentially an instrumental with the occasional shout out thrown in which many (me included) thought would make them one hit wonders. They made mugs of us though by proceeding to have a run of 14 Top 40 singles including that No 1. Similarly, the Vengaboys, for all the world, looked like being a one-off, almost novelty act with “Up & Down” the lyrics of which consisted of the words ‘up’, ‘and’, ‘down’, and ‘woo!’. Just like 2 Unlimited though, they would follow it with a string of hit singles (including two No 1s) between 1998 and 2001. All of which means we’ve only just scratched the surface of the crust of the Vengaboys planet of which we will all become inhabitants (willing or not) until the end of the 90s.

Ah that explains it! Here’s @TOTPFacts with the reason why there’s only seven songs on this repeat:

Moving on very quickly we find Sash! with yet another hit in “Move Mania”. This was the trio’s* sixth consecutive UK hit but the first not to debut at either No 2 or No 3 when it made its chart entry at No 8.

*Yes, Jayne Middlemiss, Sash was a three man production team not a single person and certainly not an “international man of mystery” as you describe them in your intro.

In their continual conveyer belt of guest vocalists, for this release they have teamed up with Shannon who had a couple of hits in the mid 80s notably with “Let The Music Play” though she also featured on Todd Terry’s 1997 Top 20 hit “It’s Over Love”. Maybe it’s the Shannon effect but “Move Mania” sounds very retro to me by which I mean retro even in 1998. It’s all very frantic, frenetic and furious – dare I say like an 80s Hi-NRG track? Maybe I’m reaching a bit there but it didn’t have the same feel as some of the other Sash! hits to this point. Although the hits certainly didn’t dry up after this slight downturn in chart fortunes for “Move Mania”, they didn’t sustain at that previous high level either with only one of their subsequent six UK entries making it to No 2, the mention of which allows me to trot out this well worn fact about Sash! – they remain the act with the most No 2 hits (five) without ever having a No 1. In the dark times that we currently live in, this bit of pop trivia somehow gives me the slightest slither of hope for the world.

And that slither of hope is extinguished immediately by this next hit. Not another Latin flavoured dance track! How many times have we seen this sort of thing during these late 90s TOTP repeats? Here’s just a few I can think of:

  • Dario G – “Carnaval De Paris”
  • Echobeatz – “Mas Que Nada”
  • Ricky Martin – “(Un Dos Tres) Maria”
  • Bellini – “Samba De Janeiro”

That’s was surely more than enough of that kind of thing no? No, it wasn’t apparently as here were Ruff Driverz and their flamenco inspired track “Dreaming”. Officially, this was credited as being ‘Ruff Driverz Presents Arrola’ who was the vocalist who has worked with loads of dance acts (sometimes under her real name of Katherine Ellis) including 4-2 The Floor, Eruption and Utah Saints amongst many others. Similar to Sash! and the Vengaboys earlier, the people behind the hit were a DJ/Production team who in this case consisted of Brad Carter and Chris Brown whom for some reason thought that it what the charts needed, as Christmas approached mind, was a flamenco themed hit that surely would have been more suited to a Summer release. As ever though, what did I know as it debuted at No 10 becoming, in the process, the seventh new hit to chart inside the Top 10 that week. What a time to be alive!

After coming up with a true banger with their last single “Everybody Get Up”, Five have resorted to the usual marketing trick of releasing a slushy ballad just in time for Christmas. “Until The Time Is Through” is almost mechanical in its construction, adhering to the accepted boy band blueprint at every turn. Perhaps in an attempt to mix things up a bit, they’ve settled on a rather odd performance for this TOTP appearance. As Jayne Middlemiss says in her intro, the vocals on this one are handled by Richie and Scott presumably because it was their turn with Abz and J having taken the lead on rapping duties on “Everybody Get Up” – poor old Sean never seems to get a go in the spotlight.

Anyway, with those two situated at the front of the stage, the other three are sat right at the back on chairs. I’m sure it sounded like a good idea on paper but the optics of it look a bit odd. They never move once from their seated position which created the impression that they’re rather disinterested in what was happening in front of them. There’s something a bit ‘three wise monkeys’ about them with Abz sat with his chair back to front, J with it the right way around and Sean with his angled to one side. Was that deliberate? You know what would have livened things up? If they’d played a game of musical chairs whilst performing. That would have been a first and created a talking point! As it is, the only talking that happens is right at the very end when J turns to Sean and appears to say something to him. I wonder what he said? “Thank God that’s over”? “I could have sung that better than those two”? “Last one to the BBC bar gets the drinks in”?

It’s a fifth week at the top for Cher and “Believe”. What else is there to say about this one? I’ve covered its chart and sales data, the auto tuned vocals, its awards…what else is there? OK, how about who wrote it? Originally it was a demo worked up by Brian Higgins in 1990 who would gain fame via his Xenomania production team who wrote hits for Sugababes, S Club 7, Girls Aloud and The Saturdays. Higgins couldn’t get any interest in the track (apparently Saint Etienne were one of the artists offered it who turned it down) but he submitted it to Warners chairman Rob Dickins after a chance meeting. Dickins thought it was terrible but had a great chorus and so he employed two more songwriters (Steve Torch and Paul Barry) to work on it. Cher herself added some lyrics but did not get a writing credit though three other names did alongside Higgins, Torch and Barry. Cher admitted in 2023 that she regretted not asking for a songwriter’s credit. With worldwide sales of 11 million, I’m not surprised.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1StepsHeartbeat / TragedyNo
2The CorrsSo YoungNope
3VengaboysUp & DownNOOOO!
4Sash! / ShannonMove ManiaI did not
5Ruff DriverzDreamingNah
6Five Until The Time Is ThroughNever
7Cher BelieveNegative

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/m002nd35/top-of-the-pops-27111998

TOTP 04 SEP 1998

Posted on by 80stastic

With Jo Whiley having vacated her seat in the TOTP presenter merry-go-round recently, it’s time for Kate Thornton to take centre stage. Having already passed the audition with her guest stint back in July (when Jayne Middlemiss was ill supposedly), here she was as a fully fledged member of the team. I quite liked her – she seemed like a safe pair of hands and, crucially, didn’t do that knowing head tilt/smirk thing that Middlemiss did ALL THE TIME!

Speaking of things that happened on the show all the time, here are Boyzone singing “No Matter What” for the fourth week in a row. Yes, I know they were also the last artist we saw on the previous show thereby making a curious set of bookend appearances but that was no unusual occurrence in the Chris Cowey era. And yes, I know they had slipped from No 1 to No 3 but again, that was no obstacle to consecutive appearances under Cowey. However, he was really taking the piss this time though as this was literally just a reshowing of the same performance that ended last week’s show! Unlike their previous appearances, the lads weren’t all in matching outfits this time – it was hardly dress down Friday stuff but it was a more casual approach all the same. According to Kate Thornton, the reason for them being on the show again was to acknowledge that that their latest album “Where We Belong” had gone back to No 1 in the album charts off the back of “No Matter What”. Having checked, this is true – it had debuted at No 1 back in June and then spent three months kicking around the upper end of the charts before jumping from No 21 to the top again this week. OK, so you could argue that was, indeed, reason enough to grant them another slot in the running order (I don’t agree as it goes).

What doesn’t make sense here though is that “Where We Belong” originally didn’t include “No Matter What”, the song that was sparking all this interest in the album and generating all those sales. A special edition came out in the November that included it plus “I Love The Way You Love Me” which was subsequently released as a single but back in September, the original UK version of the album didn’t feature “No Matter What”. This clearly didn’t matter to the record buying public as they helped create a Joe Cocker / Jennifer Warnes* moment for the lads pushing “Where We Belong” up to the top spot.

*”Up Where We Belong”? No? Please yourselves.

Steps weren’t helping themselves when it came to dispelling those ‘ABBA on speed’ accusations were they? Third single “One For Sorrow” actively encouraged those comparisons with its pure pop confection ways. I know I’ve previously dismissed them as bubblegum/ candy floss but time retrospectively seems to have been kind to this particular track with the Official UK Chart inducting it into their ‘Pop Gem Hall of Fame’. Clearly taking inspiration from the traditional children’s nursery rhyme about counting magpies, it would peak at No 2 becoming their then biggest hit. For any one of my age though, the phrase ‘one for sorrow’ will always be associated with the legendary kids TV programme Magpie…

For those who don’t know it, Magpie was the delinquent cousin to BBC’s Blue Peter. Way cooler and with much hipper (and attractive) presenters, it was to Blue Peter what Tiswas was to Multi Coloured Swap Shop. So would Steps have been Magpie or Blue Peter viewers?

Next up is one of the shortest chart hits of the year. Clocking in at just two minutes long (though Kate Thornton gets her maths wrong by calling it “178 seconds of pure Mansun action” which by my reckoning is nearly three minutes – maybe she wasn’t such a safe pair of hands after all?) “Being A Girl (Part 1)” was Mansun’s ninth consecutive Top 40 hit. Taken from their “Six” album, in its original format it was 7:53 long but it was chopped up and its opening two minutes were released as the lead track from their “Nine EP” (hence the “Part 1” suffix). Its frenetic, almost pop-punk pace was at odds with the band’s previous output. Apparently, “Part 2” is of a much more experimental rock nature though I can’t say I’ve ever listened to it. Now, when I said that “One For Sorrow” by Steps was inspired by the children’s nursery rhyme about counting magpies, I hadn’t bargained on it being completely trumped by the origin of one of Mansun’s lyrics. Check these out:

Blimey! I reckon Zhou would have been a Blue Peter fan rather than a Magpie viewer then.

Before the revolving door of members that was/is (?) the Sugababes, there was the Honeyz. Yes, perhaps the most notable thing about this lot was the times that their line up changed with individuals leaving and returning multiple times. Here though, they were in their infancy with their original members and debut hit “Finally Found”. Its smooth production and sound with a trip-off-the-tongue chorus was always going to find a home in the upper echelons of the charts at this time when you couldn’t move for all girl groups peddling a pop infused R&B sound. However, I did find myself asking whether saturation point was being reached? I mean, they weren’t really offering anything new were they? It could have been Eternal up there on stage singing that song couldn’t it?

Just like Eternal, the Honeyz had a member leave the group just as their success began but for Louise Nurding read Heavenli Roberts (formerly Abdi) who dropped out after just two singles. Unlike Louise though, she would rejoin the group, leave again, rejoin again, leave again, rejoin, leave one more time before finally rejoining with her current status being a fully paid up member of Honeyz. Confused? You will be. Her replacement the first time she left was Mariama Goodman who we saw on TOTP just the other week as part of Solid HarmoniE. Her time with her new group was short lived (about 14 months) before she left and was replaced by the retuning Heavenli Abdi. She would remain with the group until 2003 when they spilt following diminishing commercial returns and being dropped by their label. However, following an appearance by the original line up on ITV’s Hit Me, Baby, One More Time show in 2005, the group was reactivated and went back out on tour. However, Naima Belkhiati wanted to pursue an acting career and so was replaced for said tour by Candace Cherry, sister of lead vocalist Célena. By August of 2006, it was all change again as Heavenli Abdi departed for the second time and was replaced by Mariam Goodman (again). They continued with this line up until 2010 when the group went into hibernation. Two years on and Honeyz were back once more, lured together by another ITV show The Big Reunion and for this convening, the trio was Cherry, Abdi and Goodman, the first time that the latter two had been in the same line up together. The trio toured throughout 2013 before Abdi left for a third time in 2014. The duo of Cherry and Goodman released the first Honeyz single for 14 years in 2015 but it failed to chart. Over the next few years the duo would appear in reality TV shows such as Celebrity Coach Trip and Pointless Celebrities before, in 2023, Abdi announced she had rejoined the group. Within a year Goodman left again was replaced by Candace Cherry which is the current state of the line up. Phew! I’ve finally found the end of the story of the Honeyz group changes. Got all that? Good.

“Now watch out Songs Of Praise. The big fella’s got a new job. Haven’t you heard? God’s a DJ”. So says Kate Thornton in her intro to the next hit which can only be “God Is A DJ” by Faithless. I can’t recall such casual blasphemy since football commentator Alan Parry called Liverpool legend “the creator supreme” back in the early 80s. As Danny Baker said in his Match Of The 80s series, “The creator supreme? One in the eye for Christians everywhere there”.

Apparently, the inspiration for the track’s title came from a slogan on a T-shirt that the band’s guitarist Dave Randall used to wear to rehearsal if you were wondering. This was the lead single from the band’s second album “Sunday 8PM” and whilst there appears to be a lot going on sonically, my main take away from re-listening to it was that it seemed like there was a void where maybe some lyrics could/should have been. I get that it’s a dance track and so maybe words aren’t the thing but if you call said track a provocative title like “God Is A DJ”, I was hoping for a bit more than the late Maxi Jazz repeatedly telling us “This is my church, this is where I heal my hurts”. I know he says (and literally says, not sings nor raps) more than that and that there are fuller lyrics to be found on the internet that maybe exist in different remixes to the edit we get here but still. Is the message as simple as ‘music is my religion’? Conversely you could say it’s full of words and meaning if, as I suspect, Maxi was doing some sign language of what he was saying in this performance. Was that what he was doing? I think I’m just confused by the whole thing and better move on to…

…The Corrs…for the second time in consecutive weeks with “What Can I Do” despite dropping from No 3 to No 7. The technique of superimposing the presenter over the artist in the intro is already starting to look really tired and jaded, probably even back in 1998. When Kate Thornton moves towards the camera at one point, it really emphasises the clunky nature of the technology and looks like a special effect from a 70s episode of Dr. Who or something. Compare Kate with the guy hovering in this clip…

As for The Corrs, they were on the verge of their imperial phase with their next two singles going to No 6 and No 2 before they scored their first and only No 1 in the summer of 2000.

Back when Madonna was still relevant and hadn’t been totally eclipsed as the most famous woman on the planet by Taylor Swift, her releasing a new single was still a major deal. Faced with such an event, Chris Cowey’s ridiculous no video policy wilted before the power of her Madgesty. However, Cowey would still get his bit in by allowing just 1:45 worth of screen time to be shown of the promo for “Drowned World (Substitute For Love)”. There may have been good reason for Cowey to cut short the video for the third single from and opening track of Madge’s “Ray Of Light” album but he didn’t exercise that here. There was some controversy surrounding the scenes where Madonna is chased in her car by paparazzi on motorbikes which critics likened to the events that led to the death of Princess Diana the year before amid accusations of insensitivity and crassness. However, we get to see those scenes in this short clip so it’s shortened length clearly wasn’t due to the editing out of the offending images. In Madonna’s defence, her publicist Liz Rosenberg said that they were nothing to do with Princess Diana and were a reflection of Madge’s own personal experiences with the paparazzi. As for the song itself, it’s a bit of a lost classic that deserved a higher chart placing than its No 10 peak. That William Orbit production that permeates the whole album is very much in evidence with Madonna, whose voice I’ve never really considered as her biggest asset, giving a great vocal performance. Is it fair to say that “Ray Of Light” is Madonna’s best ever album? Quite possibly.

As we saw earlier, Boyzone no longer had the No 1 single but who had knocked them off? I can’t decide if the next occupants of the top spot were a surprise or not? What do we think about “If You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be Next” by Manic Street Preachers being No 1? I don’t mean the quality of the song but that they could sell enough copies to outstrip everyone else. On the one hand, they’d nearly achieved that chart feat two years earlier when perhaps their best known song “A Design For Life” made No 2. This was backed up by a three times platinum selling album and the fact that all four singles released from it went Top 10. That album – “Everything Must Go” – had seen the band breakthrough into the mainstream so it shouldn’t have been a surprise that anticipation for new material would have increased off the back of it, thus contributing to the sales of “If You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be Next” when it was finally released. Maybe I’ve already answered my question with an earlier comment though when referring to “A Design For Life” as ‘perhaps their best known song’. Is that why, in retrospect, I’m surprised? The fact that ‘their best known song’ wasn’t their first chart topper? Or is it even that the song that did do it for the band has such an unwieldy* title? Is it a purely a case of me being offended by the linguistic aesthetics?

*Apparently, it’s in the Guinness World Records as the No 1 single with the longest title without brackets

So what about the song itself? Inspired by a Spanish Republican propaganda poster warning of the horrors of not resisting Franco’s nationalist forces in the Spanish Civil War, it’s suitably epic sounding with those trademark broad sonic brush strokes whilst James Dean Bradfield manages to make that elongated title fit into a chorus somehow. It’s a good song but not a great one in my opinion and certainly not my favourite Manics tune. In the end though, it was their first No 1 single and so has its own individual elevated place in the band’s history but somehow I can’t help thinking whether it would have topped the charts without that other factor which I haven’t considered before – the dastardly record company tactic of first week discounting.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Boyzone No Matter WhatNever
2StepsOne For SorrowI’d rather listen to the Magpie theme tune
3MansunBeing A Girl (Part 1)Negative
4HoneyzFinally FoundNope
5FaithlessGod Is A DJNo
6The CorrsWhat Can I DoNah
7MadonnaDrowned World (Substitute For Love)No but my wife had the album
8Manic Street PreachersIf You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be NextI 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/m002lj3p/top-of-the-pops-04091998

TOTP 28 AUG 1998

Posted on by 80stastic

We’re at the fag end of Summer 1998 and with Autumn bringing with it new TV schedules, there’s a shake up happening in pop music programming. No, TOTP isn’t being axed (that doesn’t happen until 2006) but over on ITV, a new challenger to the grand old show is emerging. The day after this TOTP aired, cd:uk made its debut. Replacing The Chart Show which had run for nine years on ITV (it was on Channel 4 for three years prior to its move), it was the companion programme to SM:tv LIVE, the new Saturday morning kids show commissioned to rival BBC’s Live & Kicking and was presented by Ant & Dec with Cat Deeley. SM:tv LIVE proved to be a huge success and was the show that cemented Ant & Dec in the nation’s affections and also saw them successfully transform from pop stars to entertainment presenters. The branding of both shows was strong with their distinctively formatted titles (I always thought the ‘cd’ part of cd:uk stood for compact disc but it was actually count down – in my defence, I was working in a record shop at the time!), and the continuity of the presenters with all three just carrying on from one show to the other.

The BBC must have been concerned especially as cd:uk, rather controversially, introduced a ‘Saturday Chart’ which, although unofficial, gave a pretty fair assessment of the Millward Brown compiled chart that would be announced on Radio 1 the following day. The main consequence of this was that it made the chart countdown shown on TOTP on the Friday look out of date as it was, of course, last week’s chart in effect. Again, I wonder what the Beeb made of that? In fact at, lets take a closer look at the two charts for this week:

Chart PositionTOTPcd:uk
1BoyzoneManic Street Preachers
2StardustSteps
3The CorrsBoyzone
4Savage GardenStardust
5SweetboxHoneyz
6Sash!Faithless
7AldaMadonna
8Spice GirlsThe Corrs
9EmbraceSavage Garden
10Pras MichelSweetbox
11CleopatraSash!
12Simply RedMansun
13KavanaAlda
14Puff Daddy / Jimmy PageSpice Girls
15Brandy + MonicaPras Michel
16Apollo Four FortyTruce
17Another LevelCleopatra
18Eagle-Eye CherryElectrasy
19Ace Of BaseBrandy + Monica
20Foo FightersAnother Level

Wow! That’s quite the difference! Five new entries in the cd:uk Top 10 and eight overall. I think the Beeb might well have taken note!

OK, so with that all said and done, let’s get to the music. Our host is Jamie Theakston for the second week running and we start with an act that was only just on last week – Sweetbox with “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright”. This is just a reshowing of that performance but when I commented on it in the last post, I don’t think I mentioned the four backing violinists who have been dressed up in 18th century period costumes and wigs that look like they came from the wardrobe department of the film Dangerous Liaisons. I get that the idea behind it was to emphasise that the track was based around Johann Sebastian Bach’s Air on a G String but it looks so clunky, cack-handed and rather ridiculous, especially when positioned next to a DJ spinning turntables. And is it my imagination or have they made them up with white face powder to create that look that the French aristocracy favoured using, what AI tells me, was called ‘ceruse’? I would like to say that I blanche at the very idea for a nice quip but, in my early teens age years, I used to put talcum powder on my face and pat it off with a towel if my complexion was suffering from a spot outbreak. What was I thinking?!

Someone who definitely knew what he was thinking back in 1998 was Kavana and what was on his mind was his desire to transition from a pop pin-up to a mature, respected artist. Could he do it? Well, he gave it a try with the track “Special Kind Of Something”, the lead single from his second album “Instinct”. Having broken through in 1997 with two Top 10 singles and a Smash Hits Award for Best Solo Male Artist no less, Kavana succumbed to the notion that so many pop idols have considered, that of wanting to be taken seriously and not seen as just a pop puppet peddling catchy tunes and cover versions. Sadly for Kavana, as is so often the case, the record buying public weren’t overly keen on the pop star becoming an artist and “Instinct” bombed leading to the end of his pop music career.

Relocating to America, he had a brief acting career before resorting to the ultimate path of all ex-stars who can’t quite give up on fame, the world of reality TV. Stints in Grease Is The Word, The Voice UK, The Big Reunion and, of course, Celebrity Big Brother followed. After spending time in rehab for his alcoholism, Kavana has been sober for three years and has written a well received memoir called Pop Scars.

I know I say this a lot but how is it possible that at the time of these songs being in the charts when I was working in a mainstream record shop (presumably selling copies of them to customers) that there are some that I have zero recall of. Like nothing. At all. “Real Good Time” by Alda is yet another example. So who was/is Alda? Well, she was born in Iceland but was based in Sweden at the time of her pop career so she was kind of like a cross between Björk and Robyn and get this – her middle is, indeed, Björk!

Geography and nomenclatures she may have had in common with Björk but sonically they were continents apart. Her song was very chorus heavy, catchy yet ultimately insubstantial and say what you like about Björk (and I have in this blog many times) but insubstantial she is not. The other thing that they singularly did not share was hairstyles. Jamie Theakston can’t stop going on about Alda’s towering hair but I think I’ll leave the last word on that subject to @TOTPFacts and one Anna Cale:

I give up! Despite being on the show three times already (twice as the No 1 record and once as an exclusive performance before it was even released) and despite being at No 8 in the charts this week, here, for a fourth time, are the Spice Girls with “Viva Forever”. Why?! Why Chris Cowey?! Why?! And if you insist on including it in the running order unnecessarily, at least show the animated video that took months to create and not this exclusive performance yet again which wasn’t really ‘exclusive’ any more. Cowey could have given one of my faves Embrace a slot who had entered the charts one place lower than the Spice Girls with their single “My Weakness Is None Of Your Business” but, just as with their last hit “Come Back To What You Know”, it was cruelly ignored. Bah!

P.S. I’m assuming that Theakston’s lame intro about the band being all about Baby these days was a reference to the announcement that Victoria Beckham was pregnant with her and David’s first child Brooklyn.

From a song the chart position of which didn’t really justify an appearance on the show (in my humble opinion) to one which wasn’t even in the charts due to the fact that that it hadn’t yet been released. ‘New!’ said the caption for “My Favourite Mistake” by Sheryl Crow where its chart position should have been. When at last released, it would debut and peak at No 9 thus becoming Crow’s last ever UK Top 10 hit. The lead single from her third studio album “The Globe Sessions”, it ostensibly was more of the sound we’d become used to over the previous four years but was it? Apparently, Sheryl had agonised over the writing of the album to such an extent she thought about cancelling the release of it but in the end its release was deferred instead by six weeks. A change of narrative voice in her lyrics had been the issue with Crow struggling to come to terms to writing in the first person. “My Favourite Mistake” was a point in case with it being about an unfaithful ex-boyfriend (rumoured to be Eric Clapton) which created a whole “You’re So Vain” vibe to it. Crow dismissed the speculation saying she was very private about her relationships though, in 2003, she began dating cycling superstar Lance Armstrong in a very high profile and public romance.

As for “My Favourite Mistake”, it’s not my favourite single of Sheryl’s though it has an understated intensity to it but it is, apparently, Crow’s pick as her favourite song of hers and in 2023, The Guardian voted it their favourite Sheryl Crow track out of a list of 20 so maybe I should reconsider my opinion.

Next we find the Foo Fighters in a reflective mood with their hit “Walking After You”. Very much a melancholy tune, it was originally a track on the band’s “The Colour And The Shape” album but was subsequently re-recorded for inclusion on the soundtrack to the first X–Files film. I can’t say it does much for me; it’s very one paced and dare I say it, a bit dull. Maybe in the right setting or environment it might make more sense but performed in the TOTP studio it failed to make much of an impact on me but then I was rather distracted by Dave Grohl’s eyes. They must be coloured contact lenses that he’s deliberately wearing presumably to tie in with the X–Files connection as they do rather make him look alien-like. The TOTP cameramen seem to be in on the ruse given how much they focus on Grohl’s eyes in the lingering end shots.

The discography of The Corrs is a complicated thing, full of rereleases, remixes and special editions. Take this hit “What Can I Do” for example. Originally released in the January it struggled to a peak of No 53. However, after the subsequent success of the Todd Terry remixed Fleetwood Mac cover “Dreams”, it was given a second chance though not before it too was remixed, this time by Tin Tin Out. Replacing its original doo wop sound with dance beats and a guitar riff that was very reminiscent of Eddie Brickell’s “What I Am”* and lyrics half inched from Elton John’s “Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word”, it debuted at No 3 on the charts.

*Tin Tin Out clearly had a thing for that song as they released their own version of it with Emma Bunton the following year.

As Jamie Theakston said in his intro, all of this success has helped propel the group’s album “Talk On Corners” to No 1, one of 10 weeks at the top of the charts. It would spend two whole years (!) inside the Top 40, its presence presumably helped by the release of a special edition of it in the November which included those remixed singles including subsequent ones by K-Klass (“So Young”) and another by Tim Tin Out (“Runaway”) both of which were big hits. We’ll be seeing a lot more of The Corrs in forthcoming TOTP repeats.

Right, what’s going on here? Why are Jamie Theakston and Robbie Williams (dressed like James Bond) having a stilted, on screen conversation whilst seemingly being unaware that the cameras are rolling? Well, presumably this was a pre-planned skit (something about who’s got the best girlfriend?) as a way of introducing another new single that wasn’t even out yet – “Millennium”. I’ve made cases before in this blog that pinpoint sliding door moments in the career of Mr. Williams. “Angels” obviously but also “South Of The Border” and “Let Me Entertain You” but this, I think, is another one – Robbie’s first solo No 1. Interpolating the Nancy Sinatra Bond song “You Only Live Twice”, it sounded impressive right from the very first listen and if there had been any doubt that we were all in it for the long haul with Williams, this was surely the clincher. Yes, it was a bit cynical by being released in between two Bond films (Tomorrow Never Dies in 1997 and The World Is Not Enough in 1999) and also by naming it “Millennium” with one eye on the rapidly approaching end of the century but it just worked. Even the potentially annoying ‘come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough’ yobbish football chant seemed to fit. At this point Robbie Williams could do no wrong. Even the video for “Millennium” won the BRIT Award for British Video Of The Year.

But wait…now what? He’s doing another song? Theakston plays along by protesting that he’s not allowed to despite the running order clearly having been pre-agreed. For the second song, Williams performs “Man Machine” which was never released as a single but was an album track off “I’ve Been Expecting You” which seems an odd choice in retrospect. Surely he would have been better off doing a long tail preview of a future single like “Strong”? Had they not already chosen which songs were earmarked for release as a single by this point? “Man Machine” is OK I guess but it’s not particularly memorable with some lyrics that don’t make much sense but which seem to be a list of rhyming non-sequiturs. Are they vaguely about how the press perceived Williams at the time based around a space theme (“I’ve heard they’re not very well in the sun”)? Robbie throws in a quick arms-behind-the-back Liam Gallagher stance at one point but it all seems a bit too cocky. Maybe he should have left it as just a one song-performance? After all who did he think he was? The Jam? Oasis? Well, there was that Liam Gallagher moment…

It’s a third and final week at the top for Boyzone and “No Matter What” and it’s a third separate studio performance. Unlike week one, Andrew Lloyd Webber hasn’t flown in to be on the piano – presumably he was too busy unlike in 2015 when he flew into the UK on a private plane to vote in the House of Lords in favour of Tory proposed tax credit cuts, the bellend. A lifelong Conservative, in 2021 he said he would never vote for that party again no matter what due to their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and their treatment of the arts sector during that time.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1SweetboxEverything’s Gonna Be AlrightNegative
2KavanaSpecial Kind Of SomethingNah
3AldaReal Good TimeNever happened
4Spice GirlsViva ForeverNot for me
5Sheryl CrowMy Favourite MistakeNope
6Foo FightersWalking After YouNo thanks
7The CorrsWhat Can I DoI did not
8Robbie WilliamsMillennium / Man MachineNo
9BoyzoneNo Matter WhatAnd 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/m002l6rx/top-of-the-pops-28081998

TOTP 29 MAY 1998

Posted on by 80stastic

It’s the end of May and, in international terms, there a lot going on. Civil unrest and riots in Indonesia, nuclear weapon testing being conducted by India and in America, there’s a tornadoes outbreak hitting places such as South Dakota and New York. However, in the UK, there were only two stories making the headlines and they pretty much broke at the same time sending the tabloids into a frenzy – Geri Halliwell announced that she was leaving the Spice Girls and national team manager Glenn Hoddle left Paul Gascoigne out of the England World Cup squad. All leave must have been cancelled within the offices of the nation’s newspapers as they scrambled to get the lowdown and inside story on these two huge events. And they were huge events despite my attempt to add some perspective to proceedings at the top of the post. The Spice Girls were a global phenomenon so losing perhaps their most prominent member was massive. Rumours had been circulating after Halliwell failed to appear with her band mates on an appearance on the National Lottery Show on the Wednesday before this TOTP was broadcast and then, four days later, a short statement was read out by her solicitor outside the offices of the group’s representatives Lee & Thompson in central London confirming that Geri had left the Spice Girls because of “differences between us” and with a cryptic P.S. added saying she’d “be back” which she was almost a year later with her debut solo single “Look At Me”. The remaining Spice Girls vowed to carry on which they did and, on the surface, with their success unaffected as their next three singles topped the charts. However, it was a fragile holding position and come the end of the decade, the group seems to be splintering with solo careers pursued and a hiatus called in December 2000…

Then there was Gazza. Despite coming towards the end of his career, he was still seen as the national team’s talisman and few would have seen his omission coming. The preliminary squad comprised 30 players of which eight needed to be discarded but when two declared themselves unfit and reduced the number to six, Gazza not making the cut seemed even more unlikely. Manager Hoddle wanted to go a different way though and two days after this TOTP aired, Gazza was given the bad news. It didn’t go down well and Gascoigne reportedly started to destroy Hoddle’s office with lamps broken and tables smashed. Was Glenn right all along though? It had been eight years since Italia ‘90 and Gaza’s tears and two years since his Indian Summer at Euro ‘96 and that goal versus Scotland. He was now plying his trade with Middlesbrough in the old first division and although they had won promotion to the Premier League, Gazza had made just seven appearances for them by this point. Internationally, England’s bright new hope was 18 year old Michael Owen and at 31, Gazza had to prove to his manager he was fit. In the end he didn’t and never played for England again. I bet he would have scored that penalty in the shootout against Argentina that David Batty missed though.

Inspiring Gazza-level of fury in me is Chris Cowey and his insistence on featuring the same songs on TOTP week after week. In this show, only three of the eight songs on view have not been on before. This is getting tedious. Our host is Zoe Ball who seems to have some insider knowledge on the whole Geri Halliwell story and is auditioning to be her replacement in her Union Jack design top. We start with The Corrs who have gone back up the charts with “Dreams” from No 10 to No 8 having fallen from its debut at No 6 which is more than enough justification for Cowey to have them on the running order again. To be fair, three consecutive weeks inside the Top 10 does rather indicate a strong, consistent seller so maybe Cowey gets away with this one. Despite being the focal point, Andrea Corr is actually the youngest of the group. I guess it’s a bit like The Osmonds where Donny was the poster boy. What? What about Little Jimmy Osmond? Oh…just forget I wrote that last bit!

Gazza/Ginger Spice connection: In 1999, Andrea Corr dated Robbie Williams briefly whilst in 2000, Geri Halliwell was in a romantic relationship with him which goes to show celebrities inhabit just as small a world as the rest of us.

Less justifiable for a place on the show for a second consecutive week is the rise of one place from No 13 to No 12 for “Kung Fu Fighting” by Bus Stop featuring Carl Douglas. Really? A rise of a solitary position but that still doesn’t crack the Top 10? My perception is that this wouldn’t have happened back in the day though no doubt there would be examples to disprove my theory if I could be bothered to trawl back through the archives (which I can’t). Watching this back, the little bow all those on stage do before the performance starts – it’s actually called Bao Quan Li with an open left palm against a clenched right fist – reminds me of when I saw Morrissey at the Hull Ice Arena a few years back when, as I recall, Moz and his band came on in kimonos and bowed at each other before starting. Bao Quan Lah signifies respect, humility and gratitude so that would make sense as a way to instil a team ethic before kicking off a show. It’s also very theatrical so perfect for Morrissey. Apparently, when Geri Halliwell was in a relationship with Russel Brand back in 2013, the comedian’s cat was called Morrissey and the animal took an instant dislike to Geri’s dog and began attacking it when they first met. Miaow!

Gazza/Ginger Spice connection: There’s no connection between Geri and Kung-Fu that I can find. Now if it had been Mel C and Kung-Fu…all those high kicks she used to do would have gone down a treat in this performance. As for Gazza, he once commandeered a bus (not sure if it was stationary at a stop) when he was stuck in a taxi in traffic and then rode it to a media awards ceremony he wasn’t invited to whilst conducting a sing sing with the passengers which sounds typical of Gazza.

Beverley Knight is one of those artists who seems to have been around for ages and whom you know something about (British R&B trailblazer with huge voice) and yet, how many of her songs could you actually name? I don’t think I could come up with one and certainly not this one – “Made It Back”. This was actually her second Top 40 hit and featured US rapper Redman though heaven only knows what his contribution to the track is as there previous little evidence of him in this performance. Maybe he was more heavily involved in a remix or extra track on the CD single? As for the song, it’s all a bit repetitive and seems more like a vocal exercise to demonstrate the power of Beverley’s voice than a song. Just my opinion of course. “Made It Back” was rereleased a year later as “Made It Back ‘99” where it peaked at No 19, two places higher than the original.

Gazza/Ginger Spice connection: Beverley is a huge Wolverhampton Wanderers fan and in 2003, Paul Gascoigne trained with Wolves in an attempt to regain enough fitness to be able to resume his top flight football career. After three games for their reserve team, no contract was forthcoming and Gazza had to accept the inevitable.

There have been loads of female singers who go by a single name. Cher, Adele, Madonna, Shakira, Enya, Beyoncé…How long though would it take before you got to Robyn in that list? If I hadn’t been doing this blog, I’m not sure I would have ever come up with her name to be honest. I don’t remember any of her three 90s hits and by the time of her 2007 No 1 “With Every Heartbeat”, I’d long since stopped following the charts. For what it’s worth, my take on this one – “Do You Really Want Me (Show Respect)” – has an almost nursery rhyme style chorus that is actually quite grating which I can’t really get past. In fact, it’s like a primary school playground taunt or something Horrible Henry might have said to his nemesis Moody Margaret – “ner ner ne ner nerr!”. It’s not for me. However, having read up on Robyn, there seems to be much more to her than my churlish comments would suggest and she has become quite the influence on modern day artists such as Charli XCX, Lorde and Ariana Grande as well as being the inspiration for the term ‘sad banger’ (which is an actual thing apparently) after the release of her song “Dancing On My Own”.

Gazza/Ginger Spice connection: None, not even one I can tenuously manufacture.

What the…? What is this?! Who were N.Y.C.C. and why were they in the charts with an horrific Beastie Boys cover?! Well, they were a German hip hop act who blatantly sought to cash in on the success of 1998’s uber chart topper “It’s Like That” by pinching its backbeat and laying it over “(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!)” which introduced us to the Beastie Boys back in 1987. Renaming it “Fight For Your Right (To Party)”, these berks somehow managed to take it to No 14 in the UK chart. Now potentially I suppose, there may have been punters who bought it who were too young to remember the original and so got off on its lyrics about teenage revolt (even though they were an ironic attack on such values) but even so. How could anyone have fallen for this horse shit?! It’s no shock, given that the sound of their hit has ripped off “It’s Like That”, that the staging of this performance lends from the Run-D.M.C. promo video with the two break dancers twirling about on a black and white surface the design of which makes it all look like the worst game ever of Twister but in monochrome.

Thankfully, this whole dirty episode seems to have been removed from our collective memory banks. I certainly didn’t remember N.Y.C.C. and they don’t have much of an online presence. If you google NYCC the top result is North Yorkshire County Council followed by New York Comic Con which is apt as N.Y.C.C. the group were absurdly comical. As for the real thing, the Beastie Boys would be back in our charts within a couple of weeks for the first time in four years with their biggest ever hit “Intergalactic” which made No 5.

Gazza/Ginger Spice connection: Well, there is this…

Ah damn! It’s The Mavericks again and, once more, it’s just a repeat of the same performance as every time so far. What else is there to say about “Dance The Night Away”? Well, it’s up to No 4 which would be its highest chart position after five weeks inside the Top 10 and it would spend a further three there before a slow descent of the Top 40 that would take just over two months before they exited for good. A quick search online for content inspiration sadly shows that lead singer Raul Malo is currently undergoing hernia surgery to address complications from previous cancer surgery treatment and, as such, the band are having to withdraw from touring commitments. Let’s hope all goes well for Raul in his recovery.

Gazza/Ginger Spice connection: There’s an obvious one and a tenuous one (of course there is!). Firstly, Gazza? Maverick? Come on – he was the very definition of a footballing maverick bringing back memories of those great 70s free spirits like Rodney Marsh, Stan Bowles, Tony Currie and Alan Hudson. The tenuous connection involves Raul Malo whose name is very nearly identical to someone who loomed large in one of the weirdest chapters in Gazza’s personal story…

You really don’t get many people called Lutricia do you? Apart from Lutricia McNeal who is back on the show with her single “Stranded”, I can only find one other ‘celebrity’ with that first name who is one Lutricia Norris who is an actor and producer who has been in the ITV show Bad Girls and The Importance Of Being Earnest alongside Rupert Everett and Colin Firth. She’s also worked on the music video for “Dancing Is Healing” by Rudimental apparently. As insignificant the above information is in relation to this blog, it’s still more interesting and relevant than “Stranded”.

Gazza/Ginger Spice connection: This one’s a hoot. In 2008, Geri Halliwell was stuck in a lift at the Lakeside shopping centre in Essex delaying her book signing appearance by an hour while firefighters worked to free her. Yes, she was literally stranded.

It’s taken six weeks but “Feel It” by The Tamperer featuring Maya has made it to No 1. Now admittedly it’s not the epic four months journey to the top that Celine Dion experienced with “Think Twice” in 1994/95 nor the nine weeks that it took All Saints to scale the heights with “Never Ever” but it was still not the norm in 1998. It sort of feels like it got there by default though what with no big, week one releases gatecrashing the charts (there were no new entries into the Top 10) and with last week’s No 1 by All Saints having already been at the top twice in non consecutive weeks. Unfair? Possibly but it only just made the Top 20 of the year’s biggest sellers. They would have two further big hits over the next six months so let’s not worry about them too much.

Gazza/Ginger Spice connection: “Feel It”, of course, borrowed heavily from “ Can You Feel It” by The Jackson 5 and there was a bloke in Lindisfarne with whom Gazza had a hit with his version of “Fog On The Tyne” called Ray Jackson. Too tenuous? OK, how about this? There was an American comedy series on Hulu called Pen15 which featured its two main characters dressing up as the Spice Girls in one episode and one of the characters was called Maya. No, you’re right. I’m not feeling it either.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it ?
1The CorrsDreamsN
2Bus Stop featuring Carl DouglasKung Fu FightingNot likely
3Beverley KnightMade It BackNot for me
4RobynDo You Really Want Me (Show Respect)Nope
5N.Y.C.C.Fight For Your Right (To Party)Lord no!
6The MavericksDance The Night AwayNegative
7Lutricia McNealStrandedNah
8The Tamperer featuring MayaFeel ItI didn’t

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/m002j9qn/top-of-the-pops-29051998?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 15 MAY 1998

Posted on by 80stastic

It’s mid May 1998 and my beloved Chelsea FC have just won another cup! Having won a major trophy for the first time in 26 years the previous season when they lifted the FA Cup, they followed it up with two more in 1998. The League Cup was secured in March and now a European trophy as the Cup Winners’ Cup came back to Stamford Bridge after we beat Stuttgart in the final 1-0 two days before this TOTP aired. I couldn’t believe it! Three trophies in two seasons! My whole youth had had seen us in just one semi-final (which we lost) and then, as I was approaching 30, we were suddenly good! I wonder if any of the artists in this show were experiencing a renaissance period after a significant amount of time being shit?

Tonight’s host is Jo Whiley whom I thought for years was a bit shit but I’ve begrudgingly come round to in later years. The opening act are All Saints who I don’t think went through a crap phase, not commercially anyway, at least in their first incarnation. After two performances of “Under The Bridge”, their third consecutive appearance on the show sees them get to grips with the other A-side of their hit – Labelle’s “Lady Marmalade”. Now, if you judge this by just the chorus, and let’s face it that’s how we judge most songs, it’s a pretty faithful interpretation. However, the lyrics in the verses have been completely rewritten with Shaznay Lewis performing them as a rap. It works OK I’d say – better than their cover of “Under The Bridge” anyway. The girls are still wedded to their cargo pants look which has served them well to be fair in terms of their band image. I will comment though that executive producer Chris Cowey clearly had a great affection for them – All Saints I mean not their cargo pants. After their multiple appearances on the show for the seemingly never ending chart run of “Never Ever”, here they were top and tailing two shows having been the final artist on last week’s show as the No 1 and the first on this week’s despite having dropped a place. And there’s more…next week they return to the top spot and perform both tracks of the single on TOTP!

As Jo Whiley says, we have two songs from the 70s starting the show off as, after “Lady Marmalade” (a UK No 17 hit in 1975), we have Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams”. One of the many standout tracks from the legendary “Rumours” album, it made No 24 in 1977. However, that one statistic doesn’t tell the whole tale of its chart history as it has been more successful in the digital age via streaming platforms generating weeks and weeks back in the UK charts. Indeed, it is at No 52 in this week’s chart as I write this post in September 2025! It wasn’t the Fleetwood Mac version that saw it in the charts of 1998 though – we have arrived at the era of The Corrs. Now just as Chelsea weren’t pulling up any trees in the early 80s trundling along in the old Division 2, this family band from Dundalk, Ireland also struggled to make an impression early on in their career, in the UK charts at least.

Beginning their career playing in their Auntie’s bar, they quickly gained recognition via their cameo appearances in The Commitments movie and then via performances on a global stage at the 1994 World Cup, 1996 Summer Olympics and a support slot on the Celine Dion tour. Their debut album “Forgiven, Not Forgotten” sold well in their native Ireland plus Canada, Australia and Japan. However, success in the US and UK remained slight. Follow up album “Talk On Corners” would change all that and then some but not until it was rereleased with the track “Dreams” added to it which the group had recorded for a Fleetwood Mac tribute album and performed live at the Royal Albert Hall alongside Mick Fleetwood. The reaction to that performance convinced the band and their label to release it as a single but with a Tin Tin Out remix to make it more palatable for the dance market. “Dreams” easily became their biggest hit to that point when it peaked at No 6 – none of their previous seven singles had got any higher than No 43. The “Talk On Corners” album would go nine times platinum in the UK alone and become the best selling album of 1998 aided by the release of a ‘special edition’ that included five extra tracks.

Much was made of the group’s image with special attention being given to lead singer Andrea. Now a band’s front person receiving the most press was not unheard of – indeed it was an inevitable occurrence, almost natural especially when you looked like Andrea Corr. However, with her two sisters Sharon and Caroline hardly looking like “a bag of spanners” (as Terry Wogan ironically used to refer to them), it meant that brother Jim would somehow be seen as the weak link, letting the side down as it were which was patently ridiculous but took such a hold in the nation’s collective mind that it led to sketches like the one below. We’ll be seeing lots more of The Corrs in future TOTP repeats. Beautiful!

Ah now, if you ask my mate Robin whether there have been times when Simply Red suffered from, let’s say… ‘not being at the top of their game’, he would probably reply “Yes, of course. Everything they’ve ever released is absolute shit” and many would agree with him. From a purely commercial perspective though, come the end of the 90s, though they were hardly battling relegation to Division 3 as Chelsea did in 1983, they weren’t the title favourites that they used to be either. Gone were the 12 times platinum days of “Stars”. Their 1998 album “Blue” only sold 600,000 copies compared to even previous album “Life”’s 1.5 million and by the time of decade closer “Love And The Russian Winter”, sales were halved again. Now when I used the word ‘only’, it’s relative. Those are still big numbers but Hucknall clearly couldn’t command the sales that he used to. When it comes to singles, Simply Red were never been a big hitter. Out of 26 singles released up to this point, only six had made the Top 10 (although that did include one No 1). Seven didn’t even make the Top 40 at all. Set against those figures, “Say You Love Me” making No 7 was akin to Chelsea having a cup run in the bad old days of my teenage years. Their lead single from the aforementioned “Blue” album, it was hardly anything groundbreaking but it was a perfect daytime playlist track that Hucknall could sell in his sleep. However, he would follow it up with a horrible cover of the old Hollies hit “The Air That I Breathe” and for that alone he should never be forgiven regardless of all his other musical misdemeanours that Robin could list.

It’s LeAnn Rimes next…again. I think this the third time she’s been on the show already with “How Do I Live?”. What else can I say about this one? Well, have I already talked about the fact that two different versions of the song were released on the same day – one by Rimes and another by Trisha Yearwood and that both versions were nominated for Best Female Country Vocal Performance at the Grammy Awards which was the first time such an occurrence had ever happened? Only one version could be performed at the event and LeAnn was chosen. She belted out the song in a career best turn apparently. As soon as she left the stage though, the award in her category was made and they gave it to Trisha Yearwood! Talk about awkward! It’s the football equivalent of Bayern Munich completely outplaying Chelsea in the 2012 Champions League final played at the German team’s own ground and being beaten on penalties. Get In!

P.S. What extremely tenuous connection is there between “How Do I Live?” to this week’s No 1? All will be revealed later.

The links are writing themselves for Jo Whiley tonight. Firstly, she can highlight the connection between two 70s songs opening the show in “Lady Marmalade” and “Dreams” and now she can segue from one teenage singer in LeAnn Rimes to a whole group of them in Cleopatra. Having made No 4 with their debut hit “Cleopatra’s Theme”, they repeated the trick with follow up “Life Ain’t Easy”. It’s a bit smoother on the ear than its predecessor, less jarring somehow though the vocals do have a tendency to grate and why does one of them have a rucksack on their back 3T style? To highlight that they were still school age? Was that good idea? Surely not. Jo Whiley’s comment about “Madonna’s Mancunian mavericks” was a reference to the fact that the group were signed to her label Maverick in America. Just two singles into their career and they had Madonna as a mentor? Maybe life was easy after all…

Next a song I always confuse with “C U When U Get There” by Coolio for no other reason than that they’re both by rappers and the song titles suggest journeys conducted over a period of time. I’m easily confused is my only excuse. “Gone Till November” was the third and joint biggest solo hit by ex-Fugee Wyclef Jean. It starts off all calm and melodic but then when the rapping starts, chaos ensues and it becomes almost unlistenable especially in this performance in which Wyclef’s vocals aren’t the strongest. Maybe the recorded version is better though this single edit is the ‘pop’ version so presumably more mainstream than the album track? Like “The Show” by Doug E. Fresh and the Get Fresh Crew over a decade earlier, it features an awful interpolation of “Michelle” by The Beatles. Compared to his Fugees output, I would say his solo stuff is the equivalent of Chelsea’s 1978/79 team which finished bottom of the league with just five wins out of 42 games. I really suffered for my team in my childhood!

I still haven’t provided the answer to my previous teaser (it’s really not worth waiting for either) but here’s another one. What links Wyclef Jean with the next act on the show who is Adam Garcia? The Bee Gees of course. Wyclef’s debut solo single was “We Trying To Stay Alive” which sampled the disco classic “Stayin’ Alive” whilst Adam Garcia is on the show to perform “Night Fever” from the soundtrack of the jukebox musical Saturday Night Fever based on the 1977 film of the same name. Garcia was starring as Tony Manero, the character played by John Travolta in the movie during the musical’s run at the London Palladium. He’s clearly got those iconic dance moves down pat judging by this performance but as ever with these jukebox musicals, the question remains of why would you want the soundtrack to the show when you could just have the original tracks in their full glory? That’s especially true with Saturday Night Fever with the show following the film’s plot (albeit with the darker elements removed) as opposed to a completely new story that features the songs of a particular artist.

Ooh, here’s another connections teaser – what’s the link between Adam Garcia and LeAnn Rimes? The 2000 film Coyote Ugly which starred Garcia and the soundtrack of which featured four songs by Rimes including the UK No 1 “Can’t Fight The Moonlight”. I love it when a post comes together!

We have yet another new No 1 and I’m not saying anything perceptive nor insightful by stating that nobody saw this song coming from this artist. Yes, Aqua are back at the head of the pack with their third consecutive chart topper “Turn Back Time”. Now, achieving that feat might well have been seen as completely beyond the Danish group based on the cartoon pop of their first (and admittedly) mega hit “Barbie Girl”. Even when copycat follow up “Dr Jones” replicated that position, many must have believed that a third No 1 was surely beyond them? Well, had they stuck to the formula of those first two hits, maybe the UK record buying public wouldn’t have fallen for it a third time but the truth is that Aqua released a song I certainly didn’t know they were capable of. “Turn Back Time” was nothing like its predecessors. A proper ballad with proper singing from vocalist Lene Nystrøm rather than those squeaky noises we’d come to expect. True, there is a weird, incongruous breakdown near the end but I think we can overlook that. Also (thankfully) overlooked was that bald bloke who’d supplied the unsettling “Come on Barbie, let’s go party” line in “Barbie Girl”. Is he even on stage in this performance? Oh, is that him sat on a stool holding a tambourine with a hoodie and glasses disguising his striking look? Might be. A fourth No 1 was a step too far and Aqua would only return to the Top 10 twice more after this and one of those was a remake of “Barbie Girl” in light of the success of the 2023 Barbie film. Still, “Turn Back Time” allowed Aqua to always be able to say that there was more to them than just that song.

Oh, the link between LeAnn Rimes and Aqua? “How Do I Live?” was written by songwriting legend Dianne Warren who also penned “If I Could Turn Back Time” for Cher and if I really could turn back time, I wouldn’t have tried to make such a tenuous link in the first place.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1All SaintsUnder The Bridge / Lady MarmaladeNo but I think my wife had the album
2The CorrsDreamsIt’s a no
3Simply RedSay You Love MeNever happening
4LeAnn RimesHow Do I Live?Negative
5CleopatraLife Ain’t EasyNah
6Wyclef Jean Gone Till NovemberI did not
7Adam GarciaNight FeverNope
8AquaTurn Back TimeNo

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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.