The Divine Comedy

TOTP 25 SEP 1998

Posted on by 80stastic

I’ve long talked about the number of hits featured in these TOTP repeats that I can’t recall despite working in a record shop at the time. However, I sometimes think that the proliferation of new entries ushered in by first week of release price discounting worked against the show and my poor, overworked memory. Six of the eight hits on this TOTP are new entries (including an obligatory new No 1) and I don’t think any of them featured on the show again. This rapid turnover of songs is not conducive to prolonged residence in the brain.

Anyway, Jayne Middlemiss is our host and we start with one of the two non-new entries this week – “Crush” by Jennifer Paige. Now, I should probably give some thanks at this point to Jennifer as she didn’t give the world a load of minor hits as a follow up to her one big smash that I would have no doubt not been able to remember either. No, with her it was one huge song and then nothing. A classic one hit wonder. That hit though has proved to be remarkably hardy and must provide Jennifer with not insubstantial royalties. Aside from any airplay it continues to receive (of which there must be plenty), it has also featured in many a TV show and film soundtrack including Sabrina The Teenage Witch, Beverly Hills 90210, Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City (that’s what it says here!) and The Crush (natch). It’s also been covered in long running Fox comedy-drama series Glee but then hasn’t just about every song ever recorded? You might even say it was caught up in the crush. Ahem.

Now, if you looked at Lutricia McNeal’s UK chart stats (and I have), then you would understandably get the impression that she pretty much disappeared from public view after the end of the 90s. The latter part of that decade had given her four hits (including three Top 10s of which “Someone Loves You Honey” – which obviously I don’t remember – was the last) but then nothing. Correction, not nothing – nothing in the UK. In other territories, Lutricia continued to have success especially Sweden, Germany and Japan. Although she hasn’t recorded an album since 2004, she has released a number of non-album singles and continues to perform live at festivals across Europe. All of which proves that, even today, someone (still) loves her honey. As minimal as it is, that’s all I’ve got for this one. Sometimes, ain’t that just the way.

Now, this one I do remember but then, wouldn’t most people be able to recall a song with the word ‘sex’ (or derivative of) in the title? Through pop music history, any hit that dared to go there was almost guaranteed some form of notoriety and more often than not success. Look at this list of such songs:

  • “I Want Your Sex” – George Michael (No 2)
  • “Let’s Talk About Sex” – Salt-N-Peppa (No 2)
  • “I Wanna Sex You Up” – Color Me Badd (No 1)
  • “Sexual Healing” – Marvin Gaye (No 2)
  • “Sex On Fire” – Kings Of Leon (No 1)
  • “I’m Too Sexy” – Right Said Fred (No 2)
  • “You Sexy Thing” – Hot Chocolate (No 2)
  • “Do You Think I’m Sexy?”. – Rod Stewart (No 1)
  • “Sex On The Beach” – T-Spoon (No 2)

Add to that list “Generation Sex” by The Divine Comedy. The lead single from sixth studio album “Fin De Siècle”, it features a spoken word intro by TV presenter and newspaper columnist Katie Puckrik (who seemed to be everywhere in the 90s) before Neil Hannon’s distinctively theatrical vocals annunciate some typically satirical lyrics about millennial attitudes to sex, promiscuity and the hypocrisy of the media. Lines like “telephoto lenses that chase Mercedes-Benzes” and “a mourning nation weeps and wails” seem to reference the death of Princess Diana just over a year before. Then there’s “Generation Sex injects the sperm of worms into the eggs of field mice so you can look real nice for the boys” which must be one of the most out there lyrics of the decade and yet you understood the intended meaning. It’s all delivered with Hannon’s trademark impish, tongue-in-cheek style and deservedly returned a Top 20 hit. In early 1999, perhaps the band’s most famous tune “National Express” with perhaps Hannon’s most famous line (“It’s hard to get by when your arse is the size of a small country”) would give them their biggest ever hit. The Divine Comedy were on a roll.

It’s time for the second non-new entry on the show and it’s “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing” by Aerosmith. Again. It’s a third week on the trot for this one and you could be forgiven for thinking someone at TOTP (*cough* Chris Cowey) was determined to make this a big hit by giving it repeated exposure even when its chart status didn’t warrant it. The band even get their own, specially recorded intro for it this time though, ironically, given the name of their hit, it’s so blink-and-you-miss-it that it really wasn’t worth the effort. I said in a recent post that I hadn’t ever seen the film the song was taken from – Armageddon – all the way through but there was another rival film released in 1998 that had a very similar plot that I’ve never seen a second of. Deep Impact told the tale of humanity’s attempts to abort a comet on a collision course with Earth that could cause mass extinction. Although Deep Impact would be the sixth highest grossing film of the year, it ultimately lost out to Armageddon which topped that list. Crucially perhaps, although it had a soundtrack composed by James Horner, it didn’t have a huge hit single associated with it as its rival did so yes, Armageddon didn’t miss a thing whilst Deep Impact did miss a trick.

No, I’ve got nothing for this one either. Deetah and her song “Relax” anyone? Nothing to do with Frankie Goes To Hollywood, this rap hit was all based around a sample from the unlikely source of the Dire Straits track “Why Worry” from their blockbusting “Brothers In Arms” album. Eh? Dire Straits and rapping? I know. I did say it was unlikely. Or was it? Hadn’t we already seen a rap track in the charts in this year from Sweetbox that was based on “Air On The G String” by Johann Sebastian Bach? Well, yes we had (that was meant to be a rhetorical question) so if a German Baroque period composer who had been dead for nearly 250 years could be used for a contemporary rap hit, why not Dire Straits? What’s that? Because their sound was more dead than Bach? Ouch! For the record though, having listened to Deetah’s track, I don’t mind it. No idea what she’s going on about mind.

If asked, how many Eels songs could you name? I could do one without cheating I think which would be their first hit “Novocaine For The Soul”. There have been others though – follow up “Susan’s House” also went Top 10 whilst 2000’s “Mr. E’s Beautiful Blues” missed three-peating that feat by just one place. Then there’s this one – “Last Stop: This Town”. The lead single from what would prove to be a difficult second album in “Electro-Shock Blues”, it would spend just this solitary week in the Top 40 when it debuted at No 23. And yet it warranted a TOTP appearance and therein perhaps was the issue; it felt a bit like TOTP was chasing its tail rather, a perception that was magnified by the emergence of cd:uk and its more up to date chart format. With the case of an artist like Eels, despite having had two big-ish hits 18 months previously, there must have been doubts that such a streak would continue and the fact that their first new material since entered the chart much lower was maybe a good indicator of their trajectory. I guess what I’m saying is…actually, I’m not sure what I’m saying. I spend enough time slagging off Chris Cowey for platforming the same old hits week after week and here I am slagging him off for showcasing new entries!

Maybe I should just talk about the music because it’s a pretty good tune. Written by Mark ‘E’ Everett about the suicide of his sister (a subject which informed the content of much of the album), it’s an interesting yet tuneful* bit of alternative rock. Its chord structure reminds me of something else as well…is it “Closing Time” by Semisonic? Or is it (whisper it) “MMMBop” by Hanson? Surely not.

*I’m not too sure how tuneful the bass guitarist’s singing is though

OK, I’m still trying to organise my thoughts about what I’m trying to say about the show seemingly wanting to feature all these new chart entries and I’m still not sure what that is. Whatever it is though is amplified by following Eels with PJ Harvey. Maybe it’s that it appears that Chris Cowey was trying to hard to prove the show’s (and his?) eclectic music credentials? “Look, we’re not all about bands like Boyzone and Five. Here’s some more serious artists” Cowey seemed to be saying and I should be welcoming that but it’s confusing after all those boy band and pop fluff repeat performances. Maybe I’m just a natural moaner.

Anyway, the reasoning behind P J Harvey getting a look in this week according to Jayne Middlemiss is that “when you get a chance to get this turn on, you always say yes”. That clears that up then. Did PJ not like playing pop music shows? Or was it that she rarely had a Top 40 hit? “A Perfect Day Elise” was just Polly Harvey’s fifth in five years and it’s peak of No 25 made it her highest charting ever. What to say about this one? That it’s ’interesting’? I think that’s the kindest thing I can say. Alternatively, I could say it’s relentlessly miserable. I keep thinking I should explore her back catalogue more – she does have an MBE for services to music after all – and then I hear a track like “A Perfect Day Elise” and I think “No, I’m alright thanks”.

Was it inevitable that after Geri Halliwell splintered the Spice Girls by leaving the group earlier in 1998 that it would usher in solo careers for every member? All five would have hits in their own right but if I’d had to say who was the first, I’m not sure I would have gone with Mel B. I’d have maybe plumped for Geri (who has the most No 1s of them all totalling four) but I’d have been wrong. Maybe Mel B was first past the post because she had someone else doing the heavy lifting for her? Supposedly, rap artist Missy ‘Misdemeanor’ Elliott just rang her up while she was on tour with the Spice Girls and said that she had a song all ready for her and would she record it. Within a month it was all done including the memorable green hue video. Simples!

Sadly, the track – “I Want You Back” – wasn’t very memorable. In fact, I would say it was one of the weakest No 1s of the whole year. Elsewhere, it didn’t get anywhere near the top of the charts with No 6 in Holland being its second best chart position. Clearly in the UK we were still under a Spice spell. Either that or it’s that pesky first week discounting again creating an inflated demand for it. It certainly didn’t hang around too long. Just one further week in the Top 5, one inside the Top 20 and then three at the bottom end of the Top 40. Apparently, it was taken from the soundtrack to a film called Why Do Fools Fall In Love which was a biopic of 50s teenage pop sensation Frankie Lyon but I have zero recall of that. Having been first out of the traps as a solo artist, it would take Mel B nine months to release a follow up (her dreadful cover version of Cameo’s “Word Up”) by which point Mel C had released “When You’re Gone” with Bryan Adams and Geri Halliwell had announced herself on the solo stage with No 2 single “Look At Me” and suddenly it wasn’t just all about Mel B. Even a name change to Mel G following her marriage to Spice Girls dancer Jimmy Gulzar (as referenced by Jayne Middlemiss in this TOTP) couldn’t return her to the top of the charts with “Word Up” stalling at No 13. What I will say about her debut solo hit though is that it pulls together nicely a couple of this post’s themes by including the words “deep impact” and “sex” in its lyrics.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Jennifer PaigeCrushIt’s a no
2Lutricia McNealSomeone Loves You HoneyNegative
3The Divine ComedyGeneration SexNo but I had their Greatest Hits with it on
4AerosmithI Don’t Want To Miss A Thing”Nope
5DeetahRelaxNah
6EelsLast Stop: This TownGood song but no
7PJ HarveyA Perfect Day EliseI did not
8Mel B I Want You BackNo

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/m002lvjt/top-of-the-pops-25091998

TOTP 21 MAR 1997

Posted on by 80stastic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TOTP 08 NOV 1996

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

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

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Lisa StansfieldThe Real ThingNegative
2INXSElegantly WastedNah
3DamageLove GuaranteedAs if
4Gina GFreshNope
5The Divine ComedyEverybody Knows (Except You)No but I had their Best Of with it on
6Wet Wet WetIf I Never See You AgainNo
7BoyzoneIsn’t It A WonderNever
8Spice GirlsMama / Who Do You Think You AreI did not
9No DoubtDon’t SpeakAnd no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0027pnn/top-of-the-pops-21031997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 28 JUN 1996

Posted on by 80stastic

It’s another of those episodes where the climax of the show isn’t the No 1 but an exclusive appearance by a featured artist doing a two strong song performance. After Paul Weller the other week, it’s the turn of the Sex Pistols this time around who have reformed for the Filthy Lucre tour. As for the rest of the line up, there’s only six other chart hits on the show of which we’ve seen three previously. I have to say I’m not liking this new format that’s been adopted since the move to Friday nights. Thankfully, this is the last of these I understand. Maybe audience reaction to them wasn’t great? By the way, our host tonight is Gina G who is as famous as she’ll ever be at this point after her Eurovision entry “Ooh Aah…Just A Little Bit” topped the UK charts just a few weeks back.

We start though not with Gina but with David Howe from Chingford in Essex. Don’t ask “Who he?” – he literally tells you in his direct to camera message that he’s the first winner of the TOTP meet and greet competition and his prize was a trip to Madrid to hang out with Shampoo. I pondered in my last post what David would have thought of that and he looks rather underwhelmed despite the gloriously sunny backdrop behind him. The Shampoo girls Jacqui and Carrie look miserable with the whole situation. Maybe David was star struck whilst Shampoo were cultivating their abrasive ‘riot grrrl’ image?

It’s one of those ‘new’ songs to kick off the show from Everything But The Girl and “Wrong”. Despite being their most commercially successful period with three consecutive Top 10 hits as opposed to just three Top 40 singles in their entire career previously, I was having serious trouble getting on board with this new direction that they’d taken. I could appreciate that Todd Terry remix which had single handedly rejuvenated their career but I was missing their old stuff like the deserts miss the rain as the song went*.

*It was also the title of a 2002 Best Of album that tellingly didn’t include “Wrong”.

The gorgeous “Baby, The Stars Shine Bright” album was a particular favourite but all this electronica dance stuff was becoming a big turn off for me. Would it be wrong of me to suggest that this latest hit was basically just a retread of “Missing”? They’d even got Todd Terry back in to remix it! Tracey’s voice was as affecting as ever but the track didn’t stand up to repeated plays for me. “Wrong” would effectively draw a line under this era of the band being their last ever single to visit the Top 10 and ushering in a return to more conservative chart positions before Tracey and Ben took a quarter of a century off from Everything But The Girl only returning in 2023 with the “Fuse” album which went Top 3.

By 1996, Britpop had totally embedded itself in UK culture and its musical landscape. The movement’s swagger was hard to avoid but there were signs that a different type of genre was emerging as an antidote to all that Britpop brashness. From small pockets, intelligent, wrily observed, quirky pop music was sprouting. We’d already seen Space in the charts recently with a single that featured a glockenspiel and now came The Divine Comedy. Channeling the spirit of 60s baroque pop, this outfit from Northern Ireland was mainly just a vehicle for the creative genius of Neil Hannon. Having formed in 1989, they’d already released three albums into the pop void before Radio 1’s Chris Evans championed “Something For The Weekend”, the lead single from fourth studio album “Casanova”. With that backing, a first ever Top 40 hit was achieved when it debuted and peaked at No 14. Hannon’s distinctive, almost spoken vocal delivery style might have almost put the song into the novelty bracket à la The Mike Flowers Pops but there was something more substantial to it. Maybe it was the storytelling in the song which relates the tale of a suitor’s unwanted advances to a young woman who tricks him into looking in the woodshed only for her friends to knock him unconscious and steal his car and money. You don’t get songs detailing that kind of stuff everyday of the week. The line “There ain’t nothing in the woodshed…except maybe some wood” was typical of the humour Hannon would bring to his idiosyncratic songwriting. He even looked unconventional for a pop star but that was also part of his appeal I think. I have a friend who adores him and when she met him and got him to sign something for her, he included the famous woodshed line alongside his signature.

“Something For The Weekend” would usher in a run of chart hits that would last the entire 90s and into the middle of the next decade. Perhaps their best known tune is “National Express” with its lyric about having an arse the size of a small country which made the Top 10 in 1999. That same year, the marvellous Best Of album “A Secret History” was released achieving gold status sales and peaking at No 3. It’s a great starting point for anyone wanting to investigate the band’s catalogue. In a bizarre turn of events, psychedelic Welsh rock band Super Furry Animals would have a hit with a track also called “Something For The Weekend” just a couple of weeks after The Divine Comedy had done so though they changed the title to “Something 4 The Weekend” for the single release.

I saw The Divine Comedy live back in 2017 when they supported Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott at Craven Park, home of rugby team Hull Kingston Rovers. As good as Hannon was, I wish it had been in a smaller setting rather than a stadium gig. Maybe something like that woodshed if they cleared out all the wood.

It can’t be time for Celine Dion again already can it?! I think this is the third time she’s been on with “Because You Loved Me” and to add insult to injury, it’s that concert performance once more that the TOTP producers tried to convince us was a live satellite link up when it obviously wasn’t. I hadn’t noticed before but the camera picks out members of the audience some of whom are visibly touched by what they are witnessing. One woman had clearly been crying. Now, I’m not going to go down the musical snobbery route – people like what they like and may have a strong emotional attachment to a song based on some event from their own private lives – but it did take me by surprise. Haven’t seen tears on TOTP like that since that teenage girl was highlighted sobbing on the Duran Duran video for “The Reflex”.

Right, it’s time for that exclusive performance from Madrid by Shampoo now that was the mystery prize for the meet and greet competition won by Dave from Chingford. Presumably he was watching from the sidelines off camera. Shampoo were one of a number of female duos that were successful in the 90s including Shakespears Sister, Scarlet and Alisha’s Attic. Jacqui and Carrie though were a curious outfit. A handful of moderately sized hit singles in the UK and yet they sold a million copies of their debut album “We Are Shampoo” in Japan and Asia. There’s probably some deep connection at play there which warrants some detailed cultural analysis but I haven’t got time to go into all that now. All I will say is that their sound and image didn’t seem to be anything particularly new. Hadn’t we seen something similar from the likes of Transvision Vamp and Fuzzbox previously?

Anyway, it’s time to address the elephant in the room which is the title of this their last ever hit. Literally in the week that the phenomenon that would become the Spice Girls released their debut single “Wannabe”, Shampoo were in the charts with a song called “Girl Power”. Yes, the slogan that Sporty, Posh, Baby, Scary and Ginger used to promote themselves around the world was already out there in the cultural vernacular. Now, I’m not suggesting some act of dishonest appropriation not least because Shampoo didn’t invent the phrase themselves. The origins of ‘girl power’ are recognised as belonging to US punk band Bikini Kill who used it as the subtitle to their second feminist zine in 1990. However, it is quite the coincidence don’t you think? Could the Spice Girls management have been influenced by the Shampoo single or is that just me forcing an event that never happened to create my own narrative? Surely the marketing strategy for the Spice Girls had been months in the formulating and hadn’t just adopted something as pivotal as the ‘girl power’ mantra on the hoof? Well, apparently it was. The Spice Girls did just nick it off Shampoo! Here’s @TOTPFacts with the story:

Ha! Well, I guess Shampoo themselves must have nicked it off Bikini Kill then. After all, it was sometimes spelt ‘grrrl power’ after the ‘riot grrrl’ movement they aligned themselves with in their early days. What’s undeniable is that the fortunes of Shampoo and the Spice Girls went in wildly different directions from this point on. The latter would conquer the world in less than six months while the former never returned to the charts and whose last single release was a desperate cover version of a song by Christmas playlist perennials The Waitresses. Rubbing salt in the wound, whilst Jacqui and Carrie were having to entertain Dave from Chingford in Madrid, they were missing out on being in the TOTP studio at the same time as their heroes the Sex Pistols. For what it’s worth, I preferred Shampoo’s brand of “Girl Power” to anything the Spice Girls released under that banner.

Right, what’s wrong with this picture with said picture being Black Grape performing “England’s Irie” with their mates Keith Allen and Joe Strummer? Well, two days before this went out, the England football team lost their Euros 96 semi final with Germany in heartbreaking fashion on penalties. Thus, the timing of this exultant performance of a song about them seems slightly off. Surely they should have released it a few weeks earlier when “Three Lions” came out? By the time it was finally in the charts, all the expectation, excitement and general sense of positivity that had engulfed the nation had completely dissipated. I did mention recently that the release schedule for Black Grape’s singles had been too tight when “Fat Neck” came out the month before “England’s Irie”. Maybe someone at the label messed up? Or maybe they’d banked on England making the final which would have given the record a whole weekend’s trading before the game on the Sunday evening to rack up some monster sales? Either way, this performance was rendered a bit after-the-Lord Mayor’s-show by the events of the Wednesday evening.

Talking of which, who can forget Gareth Southgate’s tortured face after being the only person to miss his penalty? I recall that the next morning, the aforementioned Chris Evans conducting a debrief of the match on his breakfast show (he always was a bandwagon jumper and being a footy fan was now seen not just as acceptable but the done thing in the era of ‘lad culture’). He pronounced that Southgate was a “top man” and played “Walkaway” by Cast as a tribute to him and the team whilst the nation cried into our cornflakes. As for Black Grape, they would only trouble the Top 40 compilers once more after their second album “Stupid Stupid Stupid” was poorly received though they are still releasing new material to this day with latest album “Orange Head” having come out earlier this year.

The Fugees reign supreme still at the top of the charts with “Killing Me Softly”. Yet again we have the same studio performance we’ve always had, presumably as it was the only time they were in the country. They could have mixed it up a bit and showed the official promo video for it at least once. After all, it did win an MTV Video Music Award for Best R&B Video. Interestingly, the TOTP producers let the ending credits roll over the top of it even though we still have the Sex Pistols to come creating a false ending effect. There are no further credits when the Pistols finish.

Lauryn Hill had a small acting career that briefly ran in tandem with her singing one. Most notably she starred in Sister Act 2: Back In The Habit. I think this is my favourite scene from the film:

Somebody remarked on Twitter that Gina G must be really tall as she seems to be stooping in every link that she does and they’re right. It’s like she’s a mime artist performing being trapped in a cube. Most odd. Not as odd though as the ‘punk’ outfit she has on to introduce the Sex Pistols. What’s with the feather headdress? That look is more Hiawatha than high priestess of punk.

Anyway, the Sex Pistols are finally here to perform for us. I was just too young when they were at the height of their fame/infamy in 1976/77 to be caught up in the punk phenomenon though I was aware of the band’s name (which seemed very dangerous to the then eight year old me) and that two of the band were called Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten. I couldn’t have named any of their songs or told you what they sounded like though. My next encounter with the band came a few years later in a music lesson at Grammar school (I’d passed my 11 plus exam) when the hardest kid in class Paul Dukes convinced the recently qualified and wet behind the ears teacher that “Friggin’ In The Riggin’” from “The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle” album was a suitable song for composition appreciation. Inevitably, the needle was abruptly removed from the record long before the song’s end. As I got older and more into music, I expanded my knowledge of rock history which included getting to know the band’s story and music though mainly the holy trinity that is “Anarchy In The UK”, “God Save The Queen” and “Pretty Vacant”. I eventually bought the “Never Mind The Bollocks” album as well.

There had been a mini Pistols revival in 1992 when Virgin raided the band’s rather limited back catalogue to release the “Kiss This” compilation that achieved gold status and made the Top 10 on the charts. Four years later, a full on reunion including original bass player Glen Matlock was put into effect for the six month long Filthy Lucre tour. One of the dates was at Finsbury Park on the 23td June, the day after England had defeated Spain in a quarterfinal of the Euros on penalties. Yes, the one with that Stuart Pearce celebration…

Pearce and Gareth Southgate somehow found themselves at Finsbury Park introducing the Sex Pistols on stage the following day. No, really look:

Also there that day was my manager at the Our Price where I was working, the late, great Pete Garner original bassist with the Stone Roses. I had to cover his Sunday shift in the shop so he could go. I only know this as it’s all in my recently found diary that handily covers the whole of 1996. It also tells me that I listened to the Sex Pistols gig live on the radio that evening. Back to this TOTP performance though and inevitably the band do one of the ‘holy trinity’ tracks. “Pretty Vacant” made No 6 in the charts when released in the Summer of 1977 and would usher in the band’s first ever appearance on TOTP so I guess there’s some history and symmetry at play in the band choosing to perform it here. It was the follow up to the press baiting and BBC banned single “God Save The Queen” released at the height of Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee celebrations. That ban clearly had zero effect on the band’s sense of daring as they then released a song that included John Lydon’s surely deliberate annunciation of the word ‘vacant’ as ‘vay-c**t’. Twenty-six years later, The Darkness tried a similar linguistic trick on their festive hit “Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End)”. Bells End? Bellend? We all caught up? Good.

For the second track, the band went for a less obvious choice in “New York”, a song generally perceived to be about US glam rockers New York Dolls whom, of course, Malcolm McLaren used to manage before switching his attention to the Pistols. Clearly the passage of time had softened the band’s edges as they presumably relented to BBC demands about the song’s lyrics with the word ‘shit’ sung by Lydon as ‘it’ and ‘faggot’ as ‘maggot’. Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Everything But The GirlWrongI did not
2The Divine ComedySomething For The WeekendNo but I had that Best Of album
3Celine DionBecause You Loved MeNo
4ShampooGirl PowerNah
5Black Grape / Joe Strummer / Keith AllenEngland’s IrieNope
6The FugeesKilling Me SoftlyNo but my wife had the album
7Sex PistolsPretty VacantI have the Never Mind The Bollocks album
8Sex PistolsNew YorkSee 7 above

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00233z0/top-of-the-pops-28061996?seriesId=unsliced