The Human League

TOTP 26 OCT 1995

Posted on by 80stastic

After four consecutive shows of not having to suffer the frankly insufferable Simon Mayo as host, the smug one is back and this time he’s brought his mates with him. Yes, lingering around the studio for this TOTP is Chris Evans and his breakfast show crew but more of them later. The last time he was on, Mayo did that whole ‘Rhymin’ Simon’ schtick which was just intolerable. We don’t have that this time at least but he does start with some line that relates to a news story about a supermarket sandwich not being fresh. What that news story was actually about I have no idea but if you asked Mayo today what it was about I bet he would know. He’s the sort of bloke who’d have a spreadsheet of all the times he was on the show, what his links were and a laughter rating system as to how funny he was.

Anyway, let’s get to it with the music. 1995 was the year of rereleases with those afforded another chance becoming a much bigger hit second time around. However, the recipients of this exercise were generally dance tracks – The Lightning Seeds were most definitely and defiantly pop and none more so than the tracks on their “Jollification” album. This one – “Lucky You” – was initially the lead single from the album when released in August of 1994 but somehow missed the Top 40 when it peaked at No 43. Three hit singles and 14 months later it was made available again and this time made it all the way to No 15 becoming the album’s second highest charting single in the process. “Lucky You” is such a model example of a pop song that you would think it had been created in a laboratory. Crafted and perfected to within an inch of its life, it was ideal for daytime radio. The Lightning Seeds were my go to band on a Saturday afternoon in the Our Price store I worked in at the time if we needed to shove something on in a hurry as the last CD had finished playing. As a consequence, many of my colleagues hated The Lightning Seeds with a passion.

Ian Broudie has always maintained pretty much the same look throughout his career – mop(top) of hair, goatee beard and shades permanently attached. Only the flecks of grey these days indicate the passing of any time. As much as he knows how to write a good pop tune, I’ve never been overly convinced about his voice which isn’t the biggest you’ve ever heard. He wrote “Lucky You” with Terry Hall and it would suit the sadly deceased singer’s voice better I think. I much prefer Hall’s version of “Sense” which he also co-wrote with Broudie.

In direct contrast to Ian Broudie comes Meatloaf and his massive voice. In this week’s chart, he found himself in a four way tussle for the coveted No 1 spot. His new single “I’d Lie For You (And That’s The Truth)” was up against another new release from Coolio whilst the previous week’s No1 and No 2 from Simply Red and Def Leppard respectively were both performing well. In the final sales count, Meatloaf would just fall short of repeating the feat of “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” by entering the Top 40 at No 2. It was still quite the achievement though for an artist who had only had one UK Top 10 hit prior to the biggest selling single of 1993 and confirmed how much the success of the “Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell” project had done to revive Meatloaf’s career and profile.

Oof! What on earth is this? Well, obviously it’s a horrible remix of one of the classic pop singles of all time. The more pertinent question is why? After The Human League made a successful if rather unexpected return to the charts earlier in 1995 with the album “Octopus” and its hit singles “Tell Me When” and “One Man In My Heart”, their previous record label Virgin decided to cash in on their ex-artist by rereleasing their first Greatest Hits album from 1988 which had gone double platinum in the UK. In a clever piece of negotiation with the band’s new label East West, they managed to licence the aforementioned “Tell Me When” and a new song entitled “Stay With Me Tonight” to be included on the album’s track listing thereby ensuring it lent it a veneer of authority and comprehensiveness.

A third track was added to the album which was a remix of “Don’t You Want Me (Remixes)” by Snap! and it was this abomination that was chucked out into the shops to promote the collection. Maybe it’s just that people of a certain age who were around at the time of its original 1981 release (like me) have an emotional attachment to it (especially as it was also that year’s Christmas No 1) that we find it hard to accept any deviation from its true form. Or, perhaps more obviously, the 1995 remix was a just piece of worthless shit and that’s why we hate it. There was certainly no love for it on social media when this TOTP repeat aired on BBC4 recently. The 1995 remix somehow got to No 16 in the charts but as for who was buying it, I can only assume completist super fans or the tone deaf.

Next we have perhaps the ultimate rerelease of the whole decade let alone 1995. I say rerelease but it’s actually a remix of a 1994 single that originally only made No 69 on the chart. By 1995, despite critical acclaim and being eight albums into their career, Everything But The Girl had only ever had three Top 40 singles of which two were cover versions. All that changed with “Missing”. Originally a lo-fi electronic dance single from their “Amplified Heart” album, the duo’s American record label suggested that it be reworked by the legendary remixer Todd Terry to be played in New York clubs. His beefed up house beats treatment of the track combined with Tracey Thorn’s enchanting, ethereal vocals and the killer line “like the deserts miss the rain” propelled the song into becoming a monster hit of epic proportions all around the world. In the UK it peaked at No 3 but even more impressively, it spent 14 (!) weeks inside the Top 10. Look at these chart positions:

8 – 6 – 6 – 4 – 3 – 3 – 4 – 4 – 5 – 5 – 5 – 4 – 5 – 8

How’s that for consistency?! It would sell over a million copies here whilst in America it got all the way to No 2 after a 28 weeks climb to get there. It would spend a then record breaking 55 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. These were unbelievable stats – this is Everything But The Girl we’re talking about! They were hardly a gargantuan unit shifting monster. As much as I’d always liked them, I would never have predicted that they could sell this many records but then “Missing” was no ordinary song. It had that much sought after but rarely achieved quality of being able to crossover into lots of different markets. Punters who would never have listened to a dance track let alone buy one were queuing up at the local record shop to purchase a copy. The track transcended its supposed status as a song of the pop charts to become a part of the cultural tapestry. Tracey Thorn herself has said that “Missing” has been played at funerals and memorial services. Given its chart run detailed above and that we’ll likely be seeing EBTG a fair few times over the forthcoming repeats, I think I’ll leave it there for now.

Watching this next video, I’ve realised that I really don’t know that much about The Smashing Pumpkins. Sure, I know the titles of their first three albums and I could recognise their covers from having sold them to punters whilst working in record stores throughout the 90s. What they actually sounded like though? I wouldn’t be so sure. I know their hit “Tonight, Tonight” which I like but that’s pretty much the extent of my knowledge of their back catalogue. Take this single for example. “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” was the lead single from third album “Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness” and reached No 20 on the UK Top 40 and yet I’m not sure I’ve ever heard it before. How is this possible if I worked in a record shop you ask? Sadly, the stereotype of leaning on the counter all day, brew in hand listening to all the cool and groovy new sounds and being rude to any customers who attempted to ask you anything wasn’t true at all. Sometimes you were so busy that if I’d been asked at gunpoint to tell you what had been played on the shop sound system that day, I couldn’t have.

So now I’ve heard “Bullet With Butterfly Wings”, what is my considered opinion of it? Well, it’s OK I guess. An interesting chorus but it seems to take forever to get to it with the verses being as dull as. I wasn’t that keen on Billy Corgan’s voice either. Give me this instead by the Mock Turtles for a song about butterfly wings any day of the week…

“Ain’t Nobody” by Rufus and Chaka Khan is such an enduring song. 40 years old now and it is still a staple of radio playlists whether you’re Radio 2 or Retro Soul Radio. It’s a remarkable legacy for a song that was a big hit but not one of the biggest sellers of all time. It made the UK Top 10 in 1984 and No 22 in the US though it did top the R&B charts over there as well. Its long lasting nature is perhaps partly due to how many times it has been covered by other artists. “Ain’t Nobody” has been recorded by Jaki Graham, LL Cool J, Mary J. Blige, Natasha Bedingfield and as an interpolation with the Human League’s “Being Boiled” by Richard X vs Liberty X as “Being Nobody”.

And then there’s this version by Diana King. Needing a follow up to her mega selling hit “Shy Guy”, she (or her record label possibly) went for that tried and trusted strategy of releasing a cover version of a well known song. And it worked – sort of. It reached No 13 in the UK and made No 4 on the US Dance Club Play chart but it was nowhere near the seller that “Shy Guy” was. Perhaps deservedly so in my opinion. It seems fairly ordinary to my ears despite Diana trying to put a ragga tweak in there early on by randomly shouting out “Have Mercy!” in the intro. There then follows a fairly faithful rendition of the original but with a horrible, tinny sounding backing which loses all the smooth groove of the original. The whole performance is not helped by the location for this satellite exclusive which appears to have been filmed in the car park of Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. Yep, a car park. Diana is joined by two guys in flasher macks one of whom looks like he’s going to have a piss in a flower bed when he turns his back to the camera. At one point there’s a shot which is a close up of a tree because it has a small street sign which says ‘Top Of The Pops’ on it. A close up of a tree! This was a real low for these satellite performances. Bon Jovi at Niagara Falls this was not! Sadly, I can’t find the clip on YouTube though. Diana would have one more UK hit two years later with another cover version (this time of ”I Say A Little Prayer”) before the hits ran out completely.

The aforementioned Chris Evans finally appears on camera for this next link though mercifully he says nothing choosing instead to eat from a packet of crisps. Instead, Simon Mayo ignores Evans (presumably this was cooked up by the pair beforehand) and instead introduces the Radio 1 Breakfast Show newsreader Tina Ritchie to do the link. Ritchie does her job well enough despite Mayo doing a gyrating movement opposite her while she speaks. He seems to lower himself down her body while she speaks (though that may be the camera angle) as if he’s lap dancing for her. It’s a truly sickening sight. Why was he allowed to do it?! Horrible man.

UB40 is the act that Tina Ritchie introduces with a song I have zero recollection of. “Until My Dying Day” was released to promote the band’s second Best Of album snappily titled “The Best Of UB40 – Volume Two” which collected all their hits from 1988 to 1995. The first volume had gone six times platinum in the UK but its follow up did nowhere near the same business despite including their 1993 No 1 “(I Can’t Help) Falling In Love With You”. Its sales can’t have been helped by “Until My Dying Day” which, dearie me, is dreary to the point of being soporific. @TOTPFacts says that the track was originally written for the soundtrack of the James Bond film Goldeneye. That can’t be right can it? Goldeneye? UB40’s song is more like Jap’s Eye!

Wait, wasn’t Cher on the show and in the studio last week? She bloody was you know! As if to distinguish between the two appearances, she’s come in fancy dress as Elvis this week seeing as her hit – “Walking In Memphis” – is all about him (sort of).

It’s an attempt to do something different I guess but she doesn’t really look like Elvis, rather a tired stereotype of a 50s Teddy Boy. It’s all a bit silly and Cher’s dance moves don’t add any authenticity at all. Maybe I’m missing the point and should just accept it as a bit of fun but I can’t get past the fact that Annie Lennox beat Cher to this look by a good 12 years and did it so much better…

And so to another new No 1 and this one has gone straight into pole position in week one making it the ninth single to do so up to this point in 1995 and the third on the bounce following Shaggy and Simply Red before it. Coolio was the winner of that aforementioned four way chart tussle with his “Gangsta’s Paradise” song. I say Coolio but I should also give props to his oppo LV who was also formerly credited on the track. This was an absolute monster of a record and similar to “Missing” earlier in the post, stayed on the UK Top 40 for what seemed like an eternity. Two weeks at No 1 but then three at No 2, two at No 3 and a further five inside the Top 10 on top of that.

Famously interpolated (there’s that word again) with Stevie Wonder’s “Pastime Paradise”, it was also featured heavily in the hit film Dangerous Minds starring Michelle Pfeiffer. Also like “Missing”, it was a huge crossover hit with record buyers who wouldn’t normally listen to rap music purchasing the single. It also garnered airplay support from radio stations that wouldn’t normally touch rap with a barge pole. In a 2020 poll by digital publication The Pudding, “Gangsta’s Paradise” was one of the most recognisable 90s songs amongst Millennials and Generation Z’ers.

I’m wondering now if our appetite for the song hadn’t been whetted by the film Pulp Fiction. The opening line “As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death” from Psalm 23:4 is very reminiscent off this scene courtesy of Samuel L. Jackson whilst the whole film, like the song, is about gangsters…

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1The Lightning SeedsLucky YouNot the single but I think I may have had the Jollification album at some point
2MeatloafI’d Lie For You (And That’s The Truth)Definitely not
3The Human LeagueDon’t You Want Me (Remixes)Love the original but not that remixed shite!
4Everything But The GirlMissingNo but I must have it on something surely?
5The Smashing PumpkinsBullet With Butterfly WingsNegative
6Diana KingAin’t NobodyNah
7UB40Until My Dying DayNope
8CherWalking In MemphisI did not
9Coolio / LVGangsta’s ParadiseNo

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/m001x9fl/top-of-the-pops-26101995?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 16 MAR 1995

Posted on by 80stastic

I can’t remember if I watched this particular TOTP but if I did then I’m pretty sure that I would have had my mind on something else. Immediately after it finished, my beloved Chelsea were playing a European Cup Winners Cup quarter-final. Trailing 1-0 from the first leg, they were attempting to reach a European semi-final for the first time in 24 years. It may not seem it to the club’s younger fanbase who have been used to continuous success but this was a big deal. So big that I recall turning the TV off with minutes still to play and Chelsea winning 2-0 for fear of a late away goal that would knock us out. My nerves couldn’t take it. I turned the TV back on to the sight of a celebrating Chelsea crowd and realised we were through. It would all end in failure (as it always did back then) when we lost the semi-final to eventual winners Real Zaragoza.

I’m not sure that there’s a musical equivalent of that sort of experience. Having said that, just eleven days after this TOTP broadcast, a single was released that used to almost give me palpitations. Josh Wink’s “Higher State Of Consciousness” would set my nerves right on edge when it played on the shop stereo of the Our Price store I was working in. It literally could almost send me into a panic attack. Here’s hoping the tunes on tonight’s show aren’t as triggering.

By the way, tonight’s host is Lenny Henry as it’s Comic Relief the following day and so TOTP has been hijacked to help with the promotion. Lenny’s links are not especially funny but it’s hard not to warm to him.

Well, there’s nothing to make me nervous about the first artist on tonight. Alex Party are on to their third TOTP appearance I think with “Don’t Give Me Your Life”. If anything, I’m completely bored of this track. However, there is one thing that’s peaked my interest in this performance and that’s the presence of a drummer in amongst all the backing dancers leaping about. A drummer? On a Eurodance hit?! Obviously, they’ve got the obligatory two nerdy guys on keyboards in there but a drummer wasn’t usually in the mix surely? Has he always been there?

*quickly checks previous shows to feature Alex Party*

Well, he wasn’t there in the first appearance but then neither were the keyboard players but they were all on stage in the second appearance; I just can’t have noticed them. I wonder why there was the change of line up? Surely they weren’t looking for musicianship credibility?!

Next up is a group which was never going to raise my anxiety levels but this particular performance was a jolt to the system. A single by The Human League where Phil Oakey doesn’t do the lead vocals? This was out of the ordinary to sat the least. In fact it was more than out of the ordinary, it was the first time Susanne Sulley had been lead vocalist on one of the band’s singles. “One Man In My Heart” was the follow up to comeback hit “Tell Me When” which had rather surprisingly gone Top 10 at the start of the year. It also did pretty well chart wise achieving a respectable No 13 peak.

On first hearing, it sounds like a very one dimensional synth ballad but its simplicity is also its strength. An unfussy vocal from Susanne allied to a winning melody elevates it to something above the ordinary. Even the hackneyed ‘Ooh La La La’ backing from Phil and Joanne can’t bring it down. Sadly though, the only subsequent occasions that a Human League single would make the Top 20 would be rereleases of “Don’t You Want Me”. Having said that, the band don’t seem weighed down by their illustrious early 80s history but rather embrace it. They are almost constantly on tour it seems churning out the hits and have only released two albums of new material in the 28 years since “Octopus” (parent album of “One Man In My Heart”) came out. One last thing, what is that contraption that Phil is ‘playing’?

And so to the song that is the whole point of Sir Lenny Henry being on the show tonight – the Comic Relief single. This year it was no novelty song à la “The Stonk” or “Stick It Out” but a proper composition – “Love Can Build A Bridge”, a big country ballad by mother and daughter duo The Judds. It seems rather unfair but I’m guessing that Comic Relief were canny enough to know that The Judds weren’t a big enough name to promote the single (even though it’s their own song) and so roped in four mega star names to do the job. Cher, Chrissie Hynde, Neneh Cherry and Eric Clapton met the brief and indeed would carry it all the way to No 1.

In his intro, Lenny implores the watching TV audience that whatever we do on Comic Relief day, not to do nothing and that we could at least by the single. Well, I didn’t I have to admit but I would hope that I made a donation. They would have involved picking up the (landline) phone, ringing in to the dedicated number and actually speaking to someone. Cast your mind back even further to Live Aid and Bob Geldof was telling us to go to the post office to get a postal order mailed out. It’s so much easier these days. Just text a message on your mobile to a number and you’re done. Try explaining that to the kids today. Though I’m glad to have lived through the eras I did, there’s no denying technology does have some benefits.

Apart from the fear that I may not have made a donation to Comic Relief, there was nothing about the last song to make me anxious. However, my calmness is under threat immediately from the next act. Be afraid. Be very afraid. The time of The Outhere Brothers is upon us. For reasons unclear, these two berks racked up four UK Top 10 hits this year including two (TWO!) No 1s. Quite why the British record buying public had a vulnerability for unequivocally crap records remains inexplicable to me. There must be a thesis or at least a dissertation in it for somebody.

The first of those two chart toppers was “Don’t Stop (Wiggle Wiggle)” which gained notoriety for its sexually explicit lyrics (I looked them up, they are very explicit). Now of course, the version performed on TOTP was the radio edit (or clean version) with the offending lyrics removed which pretty much just left a moronic chant of the single’s title. However, the CD single included the explicit version as part of the extra tracks meaning many a young record buyer ended up with access to innocence corrupting material. Such was the outrage that it even promoted a question in Parliament (raised by the MP from my hometown of Worcester as it happens). Perhaps nobody should have been surprised given the titles of the duo’s first two singles – “Pass The Toilet Paper” and the delightfully named “Fuk U In The Ass”. Its notoriety probably helped propel it to the chart summit. I know from working in record shops for years that we never sold those clean versions of records by the likes of Eminem. The youth all wanted to hear the cussing.

The performance here is deeply unimpressive. Malik and Hula (they weren’t really brothers I don’t think) are wearing basketball outfits for no discernible reason and there are the obligatory scantily clad women dancing behind them. I can feel my anxiety levels rising. Not because of any potentially explicit lyrics but because with this crap going to No 1, we’re going to have to endure it at least once more.

Next a band whose name sounds like it should strike a note of trepidation and indeed they were named after a 1986 horror film but, in truth, Terrorvision weren’t that scary. However, they did have a rather spooky chart statistic which was that their last five singles had peaked between No 29 and 21. This next release – “Some People Say” – would make that six when it got to a high of No 22. The fifth and last single taken from their “How To Make Friends And Influence People” album, I can’t say I remember it at all. Maybe it was unfortunate to have been around at the same time as a similarly entitled single – “Some Might Say” by Oasis was released the following month and would become their first No 1. Terrorvision never had their own chart topper though they came close with “Tequila” in 1999 which peaked at No 2.

Clearly taking a leaf out of her brother’s book of ‘How many singles is too many to release from one album?’*, Janet Jackson is back with the seventh from her 1993 “Janet” album. Yes, you read that right; 1993. Janet was still releasing singles from an album that came out eighteen months previously.

*Answer: There is no limit if your surname is Jackson

“Whoops Now” was a double A-side with “What’ll I Do” and was a hidden track on the album but was deemed commercial enough for a single release. It’s a fairly unremarkable Motown pastiche to my ears; a bit too cute for its own good. The performance here is an ‘exclusive’ live performance from Oslo and to be honest, Janet’s exhortations to the audience to want to hear them make some noise (or words to that effect) whilst singing a song so slight is almost comical.

“Whoops Now” made No 9 on the UK Top 40 but it wouldn’t be long before Janet was back. Just two months later, her duet with brother Michael entitled “Scream” would go all the way to No 2.

Right, if you’re confused as I was about Lenny Henry’s intro for this next track, it’s because we had forgotten about this Levi’s 501 advert. Maybe watch this before proceeding further and it should clear that mystery up…

…all done? Up to speed now? Great! Yes, after a Levi’s advert turned an unknown song by a fabricated band the previous year (“Inside” by Stiltskin) into a No 1 record, the marketing machine rolled on into 1995 and yet again made a huge hit out of a relatively obscure track. The lucky recipients of the Levi’s magic dust this time though were the latest project of a man who was no stranger to chart hits.

It had been seven years since the The Housemartins had called it a day and in that time, whilst Paul Heaton found mass appeal with the wry pop melodies of The Beautiful South, Norman Cook had turned his attention to the world of dance music. Success came early and in some style with Cook’s group Beats International securing a 1990 No 1 with “Dub Be Good To Me”. There was only one way to to go after that though and that particular project withered away. The ever inventive Cook was soon back in the saddle with his next vehicle Freak Power whose 1993 debut single “Turn On, Tune In, Cop Out” was a minor chart hit when it made No 29. Somebody at Levi’s (or the advertising agency working for them) must have noticed the track as just under eighteen months later it was chosen to soundtrack the next 501 campaign. You can hear why. A super slick soul groove with a touch of funk that saw the bass guitar supplying the hooky riff, it sounded familiar the first time you heard it with Gill Scott-Heron springing to mind. It turns out though that the bass line was appropriated from a tune called “Flo” by Red Holt from the 70s. Though that name means nothing to me, I’m sure Norman would have had a copy of said track in his extensive vinyl collection.

The reach of the advert ensured that “Turn On, Tune In, Cop Out” would become a major hit second time around peaking at No 3 though, if pressed, I would have guessed that it made it to the top of the charts like Stiltskin did a year before. I like the fact that lead singer Ashley Slater pulls out a trombone during this performance but then he had been a member of jazz big band/orchestra Loose Tubes in the 80s. In terms of my nerves with regards to this hit, the only thing concerning me was the potential for an unfortunate typo when it came to the name of Loose Tubes.

Lenny Henry might be experiencing some nerves of his own as he introduces the next artist on the show but they’re the good type rather than the anxiety inducing variety. It’s only his all time hero Prince. Sadly for Lenny, the Purple One was in the middle of his dispute with Warners and so what we get here is Prince pretending he’s not really there. As a way of releasing material outside of his existing contract, Prince used his backing band since 1990 New Power Generation to vent his creative spleen. “Get Wild” was the lead single from the band’s second album “Exodus” and, in line with their earlier output, it’s a supercool funk work out in the style of Parliament. For this performance, Prince has assumed one of his multiple alter egos, in this case, Tora Tora and appears on stage in a gauze scarf totally obscuring his face. If you peer closely, I think you can determine that it is Prince but I can’t help thinking it kind of diluted the experience of him appearing on the show.

In the Top 40 at the same time as “Get Wild” was something called “Purple Medley” which, as it says in the title, was a mashup of Prince hits and well known tracks either re-recorded or sampled. Released by Warners, it might appear as if this was the record company trying to squeeze every last drop of revenue from their artist’s back catalogue but it was actually Prince who was behind the single in an attempt to fulfil his contractual obligations with Warners. No doubt he would have raised a wry smile when “Get Wild” peaked at No 19 and “Purple Medley” spluttered to a high of No 33.

Finally! It’s the last of seven weeks at the top of the charts for Celine Dion with “Think Twice”. There was no rapid descent of the charts for the single though as it would spend another two weeks inside the Top 5 and a further four after that within the Top 40. In total it would spend thirty-one weeks on the UK Top 100. My nerves were officially frazzled.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Alex PartyDon’t Give Me Your LifeNo
2The Human LeagueOne Man In My HeartDon’t think I did
3Cher / Chrissie Hynde / Neneh Cherry / Eric ClaptonLove Can Build A BridgeI did not
4The Outhere BrothersDon’t Stop (Wiggle Wiggle)Hell no
5TerrorvisionSome People SayNope
6Janet JacksonWhoops NowNegative
7Freak PowerTurn On, Tune In, Cop OutNah
8New Power GenerationGet WildIt’s a no from me
9Celine DionThink TwiceAnd 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/m001r3g8/top-of-the-pops-16031995

TOTP 19 JAN 1995

Posted on by 80stastic

Well hello there! It’s been a while hasn’t it? The Summer was one of inactivity at the towers of TOTP Rewind due to the enforced break caused by BBC4’s decision to pause their broadcast schedule for TOTP repeats. Having rampaged through 1994 at breakneck speed, the channel came to an abrupt stop just two shows into 1995 and commenced on a two month sabbatical from the chart hits of that year. Some immovable events took precedent like Glastonbury weekend and then there was The Proms but what seemed odd was that the programme schedulers found space to re-show TOTP episodes from the archives we’d already seen previously. Why didn’t they just allocate those slots to the 1995 shows? They’d clearly put some thought into it as the shows chosen for another airing were those that were broadcast on or near to the current date in 2023 – sort of like an ‘On this day in TOTP history’ mini series. I didn’t really get it but I was quite glad of the break from writing if I’m honest. All I had to do each week was tweet a link to my blog archive for my corresponding review of said shows. Brilliant!

Now, given the time elapsed since the last post, a quick catch up might be in order to remind myself about what I was up to in January 1995. Well, work wise I was still with Our Price and had spent Xmas ‘94 in the Market Street, Manchester store where I’d begun my retail career four years earlier. However, times they were a-changin’ and that shop had been sold on to a travel agents. Obviously the company had waited until after the busy Xmas sales period to pull the plug but once that had been and gone the countdown until the end was on. We had the ‘everything must go’ sale but I was focused on what would happen to the staff. As I recall, every full time member was offered alternative employment in another store (probably the Piccadilly shop) but my own future had yet to be decided. A return to Piccadilly wasn’t the most attractive option for me as I’d hated my five months there and to be fair to the company management, they didn’t send me back. All portents seemed to advise that another stint at the Stockport branch was on the cards for me and so it proved when I returned there to spend the next three and a half years in the Cheshire shop.

Before all of that though was the task of closing down the store. Once the shop had shut its doors for the last time, most people moved onto their new locations leaving just a skeleton staff to deal with the remaining stock etc. Come the very end, there were just two of us left – myself and the manager. It was a weird feeling turning up to work in those final few days with the shop basically a hollowed out carcass. My main memory of this period though involved the store’s fire alarm system. I can’t remember exactly why but there was a need for it to be turned off while some work by the shopfitters was carried out. The manager and I believed this had been done successfully but as soon as the work began, the alarm sprang into life. The realisation then hit us that the alarm was linked to the fire station and that a team of firefighters would have been immediately deployed to attend the scene. This wasn’t a pre-planned fire drill exercise after all. As the store was part of the Manchester Arndale shopping centre, we legged it down to the loading bay area below us so that we could be there to head off the firemen and reassure them that the shop was not ablaze. They duly arrived to find me and the manager looking very sheepish and apologetic. They were NOT amused and rightly so though we firmly believed the whole incident wasn’t our fault per se. Once again though, I apologise to the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service.

Back to the music though and it’s time for the nose to become reacquainted with the grindstone so let’s crack on with 1995. Here’s hoping there were some hot tunes burning up the charts! Before the titles roll though we’re reminded that the show still has that direct to camera piece from an artist appearing that week advertising their forthcoming presence. This week it’s ‘The Walrus of Love’ himself Barry White who is back on the show for the first time in eight years. I can’t think of Barry White without thinking of this which I know is very disrespectful to his legacy but I can’t help how my brain works…

However, we start with those little scamps Ultimate Kaos who are back with their second hit single “Hoochie Booty”. Yes, despite having an average band age of 14 as detailed in the TOTP caption, Simon Cowell’s protégés were considered old enough to be singing a song about a sexually promiscuous woman’s bottom. At least I think that’s what the title refers to. I’m not completely clear on the lyrics but at one point they seem to be singing “she’s hangin’ out wit Judy Judy with the big ol booty” and then banging on about taking her home. Blimey! I didn’t know my arse from my elbow sexually speaking when I was 14 and certainly nothing about women’s bottoms! Maybe Ultimate Kaos were trail blazers though, paving the way for All Saints to have a No 1 in 1998 with “Bootie Call” and Destiny’s Child to score big with the track “Bootylicious” in 2001, a phrase that is now so immeshed in popular culture and language that it is listed in all the English language dictionaries and didn’t show up on spellcheck when I typed it earlier in this sentence.

As for the song itself, the newly adopted swing beat direction was clearly an attempt to extend the appeal of Ultimate Kaos to a wider (more mature) audience but it just comes across as inappropriate to me. I think the youth of today might describe it as “giving me the ick”.

Come 1995, the UK trip hop scene appeared to have a new poster group to spearhead it in the form of Bristol’s Portishead who’s debut album “Dummy” would climb to No 2 in our charts. However, anybody writing off OG act Massive Attack were hugely wide of the mark*.

*As a numerical demonstration of this, Massive Attack are at No 14 in this particular chart whilst Portishead are below them at No 15.

Although it had taken the band three and a half years to release a follow up to their iconic debut album “Blue Lines”, sophomore effort “Protection” was worth the wait. Sure, lead single “Sly” hadn’t set the charts alight but when the title track was released it couldn’t be ignored. As with their classic tune “Unfinished Sympathy”, “Protection” benefitted from the talents of a guest vocalist. In 1995, for Shara Nelson read Tracey Thorn from Everything But The Girl. In many ways, Tracey wasn’t an obvious choice. Despite realising a string of great material over the previous decade, their only charting singles since 1984’s “Each And Everyone” had been cover versions – “I Don’t Want To Talk About it” (No 3 in 1988) and their “Covers EP” (No 13 in 1992). However, despite the record buying public collectively cockn’ a deaf ‘un, Tracey’s voice remained and indeed remains to this day both beautiful and immediately recognisable. The song itself is effortlessly and elegantly melancholy yet has a stunning, haunting melody. Tracey herself contributed to the lyrics using her experience of caring for partner Ben Watt through his rare autoimmune condition Churg–Strauss syndrome as inspiration. I read Ben’s account of his recovery from the condition in his auto biography Patient many years ago and it’s a wonderful book. It was out of print for a while but is now available again via Bloomsbury. Worth seeking out. I wasn’t expecting to see Tracey with a guitar strapped to her for this performance and it seems to accentuate her tiny frame but then it does help with the song’s themes and she even sings at one point “Sometimes you look so small, you need some shelter”. Indeed.

“Protection” the single would make No 13 whilst the album peaked at No 4 and would go double platinum. Possibly off the back of this collaboration, Everything But The Girl would be reborn as electronic dance maestros after the Todd Terry remix of “Missing” sold over a million copies in the UK alone. The original version had peaked at No 69 when released six months prior to this TOTP performance.

The problem with having this massive gap time wise between 1995 episodes is that when you return to them, it creates the false impression that the songs featured must have been hanging around the charts for ages when in reality they haven’t. Take “Here Comes The Hotstepper” by Ini Kamoze for example. Even though it was only in its third week on the UK Top 40, it feels like it must be into double figures by now. Something about the progression of time in the present bleeding into the past maybe? Time really can bend your head if you think about it too hard. Having said all that, “Here Comes The Hotstepper” did plant its soles in the charts for weeks including nine within the Top 10 and four consecutively at No 4.

Famously, the track’s lyrics refer to a “lyrical gangster” but what exactly was/is a lyrical gangster? Well, the Songfacts website suggests that although the Jamaican term ‘Hotstepper’ signifies someone on the run from the law, in the case of Ini’s protagonist, he’s guilty of metaphorical murder as opposed to the literal stories of murder contained within the material released by gangsta rapper artists at the time. So that’s metaphorical not literal – got that? Good. Presumably the distinction between the spelling of gangster and gangsta was important too. Well, we’re back to dictionaries again as the Oxford English Dictionary does distinguish between them with the former referring to membership of organised crime groups and the latter as belonging to an urban territorial gang. Not sure that distinction supports the Songfacts metaphor argument to be honest. I think that’s enough of the semantics for now to be honest. One thing I am in no doubt about though is that the film that the song featured in – Prêt–à–Porter– was absolute garbage.

Somebody who definitely has been hanging around for ages is tonight’s host Bruno Brookes who was one of the Radio 1 DJs brought back into the fold at the beginning of 1994 by new TOTP executive producer Ric Blaxill when the ‘year zero’ revamp of 1991 was consigned to the dustbin. Don’t fret though, his charmed run on the show will be over soon. Before then though, he advises us about the new TOTP magazine that was due to appear on the shelves of your local newsagents imminently. Initially earmarked for the spot left vacant by the demise of No 1 magazine (of which I was a reader in the mid 80s and which BBC Magazines took over in 1990), its biggest claim to fame was surely coming up with the nicknames for a then fledgling Spice Girls in 1996.

Anyway, back to the music and here come a band that were inextricably connected to the Britpop movement whether they liked it or not. It could be argued that Sleeper only had themselves to blame having opened for Blur on their Parklife tour but the origins of the band lay way before that when guitarist Jon Stewart met Louise Wener at Manchester University in 1987. Following the familiar route of playing in various bands they finally morphed into Sleeper and were signed to Indolent Records (a subsidiary of RCA) in 1993. A handful of singles were released to critical acclaim but underwhelming sales before they broke through with “Inbetweener”. You can understand why as it’s a real ear worm with some great hooks. Watching Louise up there on stage for this performance she looks so confident and, well, powerful. Inevitably, as with Blondie in the late 70s / early 80s, Elastica rather more recently just twelve months prior and No Doubt three years later, the focus on the band centred around the female lead vocalist, certainly in terms of the media anyway. Louise had that girl next door look but with a glint in her eye and it worked for many a young male fan – I may have even been a bit taken myself. Erm…anyway, Wener was suddenly everywhere; NME front covers (and placing high in the publication’s rather laddish ‘Sexiest Woman’ poll, TV appearances on TFI Friday and The Word and even a turn in the ‘golden mic’ presenter slot on TOTP. All this attention was taken in good humour by the guys in the band who, unlike the aforementioned Blondie, didn’t seem too put out even when the music press coined the term ‘sleeperbloke’ to describe the anonymous other group members who faded into the background when faced with the harsh lights surrounding their more photogenic (and therefore deemed sometimes incorrectly more important lead singer).

As Britpop raged, Sleeper’s profile rose in parallel. 1996 brought a platinum album in the shape of “The It Girl” and four hit singles. They were an undoubted success. I caught them live around this time at the Manchester Academy. They were pretty good too as I remember. However, just as Britpop faded away, so too did Sleeper (thus adding to the perception of the band’s connection to the movement). 1997’s difficult third album “Pleased To Meet You” failed to hit the commercial highs of its predecessor and the band would split in 1998. Wener carved herself a successful career as a writer having four novels and an autobiography published and the band reconvened in 2017 playing live gigs and releasing new material for the first time in two decades.

By the way, if you Google the term ‘inbetweener’, once you’ve got past all the results for the antics of Will, Simon, Neil and Jay, you might see the Urban Dictionary definition of the term which refers to a sub group of people who are not cool enough to be popular but are not nerdy enough to be geeks. That’s a perfect description of my schooldays right there.

R Kelly’s misdemeanours mean that he’s been edited out of this show so it’s straight on to The Human League and their surprise comeback hit “Tell Me When”. The last time they were in the show I remarked on their curious decision to perform in a line rather than in the classic band formation and damn me if they haven’t done it again here! However, this time I’m more drawn to the idea that James frontman Tim Booth has seemingly invented a Time Machine and travelled back from present day to 1995 to be The Human League’s bass player. Complete dead ringer.

“Tell Me When” came from the band’s seventh album “Octopus” which gave them their highest chart position since “Hysteria” in 1984. Despite being around in one form or another for forty-five years, there have only ever been nine Human League albums or rather nine studio albums. There have however been thirteen greatest hits collections. Given the legacy left by 1981’s “Dare”, that hardly seems right but Phil, Joanne and Susan are much more of a live act these days regularly playing gigs and festivals. I caught them myself a few years ago at an open air venue in Hull. They were fine but the audience were not – too many people old enough to know better off their heads and being loud and lairy. In short, I didn’t like the sound of the crowd. I’ll get me coat.

And so to Barry White and I have to admit that, unlike Bruno Brookes who admits to owning all his records in his intro, I never really got his appeal but then I don’t think I was his optimum target audience. Was it just the unfathomably deep voice? Anyway, I don’t recall “Practice What You Preach” at all but it seems to be in keeping with his usual come-to-bed-and-make-sweet-music style. In fact, he actually seems to be in rather a hurry, exhorting his sexual partner to quit with the claims of how pleasure inducing the experience will be and to just get on with it. Heavens! I was rather surprised to discover that the single got as far as No 20 in the UK but then it was a No 1 record on the US R&B chart.

Now according to Bruno Brookes in his next intro, TOTP was a very important show to all the big stars, so much so that the next artist cut short her honeymoon to appear on it. Said star was Celine Dion who is on the verge of bagging herself a No 1 with her hit single “Think Twice” which is currently just one place off the chart summit. Was this true? Well, it could be I suppose – the chance of a No 1 and all that. I can imagine her record company stressing the importance of another bit of promotion on the UK’s premier music show to give the single that extra push. However, one thing doesn’t ring true – I checked the date when Celine got married. It was the 17th December 1994. Now given that this TOTP aired on 19th January 1995, that meant she’d been on honeymoon for over a month by this point! Really?! Well, she did marry one René Angélil who was her manager so I guess nobody was better placed to authorise an extended holiday for her than him!

And so to this week’s No 1 and it’s the same record as the last time I posted on this blog – “Cotton Eye Joe” by Rednex.

Look, I’ve got nothing left for this one so here’s Beavis and Butt-head’s take on it…

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Ultimate KAOSHoochie BootyNah
2Massive Attack ProtectionNegative
3Ini KamozeHere Comes The HotstepperNo but I think my wife may have
4SleeperInbetweenerLiked it, didn’t buy it
5The Human LeagueTell Me WhenNope
6Barry White Practice What You PreachNo
7Celine DionThink TwiceNo thought required – no
8RednexCotton Eye JoeAs if

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 agre

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001qgbk/top-of-the-pops-19011995

TOTP 05 JAN 1995

Posted on by 80stastic

It’s time to welcome in the New Year…of 1995. As I recall I was in a curry house in Rusholme, Manchester with my wife and a friend as the midnight struck on New Year’s Eve. The head waiter announced to everyone in the restaurant the following:

“Ladies and gentlemen; we have just slipped into 1995”

…with a very salacious emphasis on the word ‘slipped’. It was all very unsavoury. Anyway, 1995 it was and what a year it would turn out to be. Britpop exploded, the unfashionable Blackburn Rovers win the Premier League (try telling your kids that) and pubs are allowed to stay open throughout Sunday afternoons for the first time.

Meanwhile, over at TOTP, the first new show of the year is hosted by comedian Jack Dee for the second time and who does he introduce as the first artist as we enter the mid point of the 90s? A synth band from the early 80s. Yep, for all its Britpop associations, 1995 opens with The Human League. If you ignore the single “Heart Like A Wheel” which made a lowly No 29 in 1990 (and I am), this was the band’s first major hit since “Human” made the Top 10 in 1986. That song had been a US chart topper with American audiences unable to resist the band’s attempt at a soul ballad, aided by Janet Jackson producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. However, their 1995 offering “Tell Me When” was nothing like “Human” and was instead a return to their early 80s synth sound on which they’d made their name. The lead single from seventh studio album “Octopus” (terrible title), it really did sound like an anachronism – a pleasant anachronism but an anachronism all the same. Quite why it cut through with the record buying public of early 1995 I’m not quite sure although it did top the airplay charts so obviously that will have boosted its chances.

Phil Oakey’s distinctive vocals sound ever so slightly wobbly in this TOTP performance, not helped by the amount of words in the lyrics of the verses; there seem to be too many causing him to almost stumble. Still, the chorus is an absolute winner recalling the glories of “(Keep Feeling) Fascination” and “Don’t You Want Me”. The band were being promoted as a trio of Phil, Susan Sulley and Joanne Catherall by this point and I have to say I don’t recognise the other three guys up their on stage with them. I think most of the classic line up had departed by then. The sight of all six just standing in a straight line like a New Romantic chorus line is a bit jarring but they just about get away with it with Susan’s Sally Bowles from Cabaret vibe the standout. And Phil still had hair!

The album was their first for new label eastwest since being released by Virgin Records and performed solidly going to No 6 and producing another hit single in the Susan Sulley sung “One Man In My Heart”. Heartened by their success, the band went back out on tour whilst Virgin decided to cash in on their former charges by rereleasing their 1988 Greatest Hits album but with “Tell Me When” tacked onto it. A challenge this year from Pulp to the title of the biggest band from Sheffield not withstanding, The Human League were back.

Despite a new song to start a new year (albeit from an old artist), the charts around this time were usually stagnated after the Christmas rush and the next song is the first of four that we’ve already seen not that long ago on the show. In fact this one, “Eternal Love” by PJ & Duncan, had already peaked at No 12 and started descending the charts but the slow sales after the Christmas rush had created a rather false scenario which saw the record go back up the Top 40 from No 16 to No 14.

I’ve recently been binge watching the Channel 4 sit com Derry Girls (I know, where have I been?!) and there’s an episode where the gang go to see a Take That concert in Belfast. Inevitably, various events delay them on their journey including an escaped polar bear and a bomb scare. When they realise that they are running late, one of the characters points out that they’ve already missed the support act who are PJ & Duncan. Expressions of crushing disappointment ensue amongst the group. This got me thinking – was that based on fact or a work of fiction courtesy of the script writers? So I checked. As Derry Girls is set in the 90s and the episode concerned occurs at a time when Robbie Williams was still in the band, I checked for concerts between 1992 and 1995 and as far as I can tell, PJ & Duncan did not support Take That. The support acts that I found listed were Eternal, Ultimate Kaos and an act called Overlord X.

Just in case my Take That concert research hasn’t made me look sad enough, I think that I should say, in the spirit of full disclosure, that I have actively attended a Take That concert myself! It was in 2009 and I went because my younger sister (a big fan) had been let down by a friend who was meant to be going with her so I stepped into the breach. And you know what, they were great fun making the crowd forget all about the terrible weather (it was at Old Trafford cricket ground in Manchester). Oh and the support that day? It was meant to be a young Lady Ga Ga and some bloke called Gary Go but Ga Ga went doolally and didn’t turn up so we got an extended set from Mr Go. It could have been worse I suppose – it could have been PJ & Duncan.

A future No 1 incoming. For now though, “Think Twice” by Celine Dion is up to No 4 on its 9th week inside the Top 40. It would get held up at No 2 for a further three weeks before finally getting to the chart summit. Its thirteen consecutive weeks rise to the top was a chart record and when it got there it stayed for nearly two months. Why was it so enduring? Well, the UK record buying public had already shown in spectacular fashion in the 90s that it was an utter sucker for big ballads with the towering stretches at the top of the charts of “Love Is All Around” and “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” and “Think Twice” was certainly a big ballad so maybe we shouldn’t have been too surprised by its success. Plus, Celine had already put us on notice of her penchant for a huge love song with her cover of Jennifer Rush’s “The Power Of Love” so she had it in her armoury to inflict some major damage on the charts. Added to all of that, “Think Twice” was written by Andy Hill and Peter Sinfield who had a history when it came to writing UK chart toppers having been responsible for “The Land Of Make Believe” for Bucks Fizz. Even so, the song’s tenure in the charts and slow gestation to becoming a No 1 did seem like an anomaly. I think I’ll leave it at that for now. Seven weeks at No 1? Sheesh!

Becoming more regular than Rishi Sunak reciting his five pledges, here comes another future No 1 and unbelievably it’s worse than Celine Dion’s chart topper. Much worse. We have reached a definite low point in 90s music. The time of Rednex is upon us. Who were these people that were responsible for one of the rottenest singles of the decade? Well, they were a trio of Swedish producers who hit upon the idea / dastardly plot to fuse Eurodance and American country folk music into a diabolical hybrid. The first result of this experiment of the devil was “Cotton Eye Joe”, a bastardised version of “Cotton Eyed Joe”, a 19th century song that possibly had its origins in the slave communities working on plantations in the Deep South. It’s a ridiculous notion cheaply executed.

They needed some stooges to front the single so they recruited this ragtag collection of…well…ragtags. To make the whole project look more authentic, they were given rustic stage names which only made the debacle look more risible. Ace Ratclaw, Boneduster Crock, Ken Tacky and my personal favourite Jiggie McClagganahan were just some of the pseudonyms used. With depressing predictability, “Cotton Eye Joe” went to No 1 all around Europe including the UK where it remained in pole position for three weeks. In fact, it would get to the top of the charts before Celine Dion and would be the record they kept her at No 2 for three consecutive weeks. So, let me get this straight; we are looking at ten weeks at No 1 spilt between records by Rednex and Celine Dion. Yeah, 1995, the year of Britpop my arse!

It’s purveyors of melodic UK rock Thunder next who had been having consistent yet decidedly average sized hits since the start of the decade. Albums wise it was a different story though. Their second album “Laughing On Judgement Day” had gone straight in at No 2 and sold 100,000 copies in 1992/3. This single – “Stand Up” – was the lead single from follow up “Behind Closed Doors” which itself went silver and peaked at No 5. However, “Stand Up” couldn’t disrupt the pattern of middling success for Thunder singles when it peaked at No 23. Of the eighteen UK Top 40 hits the band achieved, none went higher than No 18.

I don’t recall “Stand Up” at all but listening back to it, there’s a definite whiff of “Crazy Horses” by The Osmonds to it. No really, listen to that chugging guitar backing. Well, I guess as a rock band they couldn’t really have done a cover of “Love Me For A Reason” could they?! Ahem.

A true one hit wonder next – one huge, mega smash and then zip, nada, nothing although to be fair to Ini Kamoze, he had been around for years making reggae/dancehall material with the likes of Sly and Robbie before his big commercial breakthrough with “Here Comes The Hotstepper”. I didn’t know any of that at the time though. Like most of us I’m guessing, he was the man with the song that went “naaa na na na naaa etc” who also described himself as a “lyrical gangster” as mentioned by Jack Dee in his intro. You had to give it to Ini, his dancehall/hip-hop/ pop fusion tune was damned catchy but then he had lifted said “naaa” hook from “Land Of 1000 Dances” made most famous by Wilson Pickett.

Two other things spring to my mind when talking about “Here Comes The Hotstepper”. Firstly, its use in one of the worst films I’ve ever had the misfortune to see – Prêt–à–Porter. A satirical-comedy (supposedly) on the circus that is Paris Fashion Week, it is one of only two films I have ever considered walking out of. The other was Young Einstein starring Yahoo Serious which I did leave before the end and whilst I made it to the end of Prêt–à-Porter, it turned out that the two people I went to see it with had spent the entire movie on the verge of leaving as well.

Secondly, and I can find no evidence of this online but I’m sure that it happened, when one of those hit compilations came out around this time that included “Here Comes The Hotstepper”, the track listing didn’t show Ini Kamoze but ‘I’m A Kamikaze’. I swear this happened but 29 years later I can’t remember which hits album it was on. My first thought was the relevant entry in the Now series but all the images online of the track listing for Now 31 show the correct spelling. Maybe it was an error on initial copies and any reorders were corrected? I don’t know but I’m convinced that it happened. “Here Comes The Hotstepper” made No 4 in the UK and was a No 1 record the US.

And so to a band who did feel able to do a cover of The Osmonds’ “Love Me For A Reason” but then Boyzone were hardly Thunder. With Take That still at the height of their commercial appeal at this point, was there really a need or indeed gap in the market for another boy band? Apparently there was as the five, fresh faced Irish lads were up to No 2 with their debut UK hit. Before the 90s were said and done, they would have accrued a further 15 none of which peaked lower than No 4 and included 6 chart toppers. Admittedly, two thirds of them (and all of those No 1s) came after Take That had called it a day (or so we thought) in 1996 and there definitely was an opening down the boy band Job Centre. Even so, despite their obvious credentials for the position, you’d have to say they took full advantage of the opportunity.

The band set out their stall early on with this performance. Ronan Keating was clearly the main guy with his gold coloured jacket while the rest of them are in black but, as co-vocalist, Stephen Gateley gets to share the spotlight alongside Ronan. The other three guys are relegated to the back to spend most of their time doing what can only be described as ‘arm dancing’ – seriously, they hardly move their feet at all during the whole thing. Westlife would take this inaction to a new level when they turned up as the decade was ending and seemed to spend most of their time singing sickly ballads whilst sat on stools.

We end with another boy band (of sorts) as East 17 remain at the top with Christmas No 1 “Stay Another Day”. This was literally the moment when the band were at their peak. A week later they were deposed from their throne by Rednex and they would never return to the chart summit. That’s not to say they weren’t heard of again. 1995 would bring two more hit singles from their “Steam” album plus a third studio album in “Up All Night” with the lead single from it going to No 4. By early 1997 though, Brian Harvey had given that radio interview and things would start to unravel…

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1The Human LeagueTell Me WhenNope
2PJ & DuncanEternal LoveNah
3Celine DionThink TwiceAs if
4RednexCotton Eye JoeNO!!!
5ThunderStand UpNah
6I’m A Kamikaze Ini KamozeHere Comes The HotstepperNo but I think my wife did
7BoyzoneLove Me For A ReasonNever happening
8East 17 Stay Another DayNo

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/m001nq1m/top-of-the-pops-05011995

TOTP 23 AUG 1990

Posted on by 80stastic

It’s late August in 1990 and the new football season is to kick off two days after this TOTP was broadcast. After a rousing performance by the England team at Italia ’90, the country seems to have fallen back in the love with the national game which is experiencing a surge in popularity as it rises phoenix like from the ashes of its nadir in the mid 80s. The same description could be applied to tonight’s opening act who are The Human League. After massive commercial success at the start of the previous decade with the “Dare” album, Phil, Suzanne, Jo and co struggled to replicate that commercial peak and 1984 follow up “Hysteria” was a big disappointment. Licking their wounds, they decamped to the US and hooked up with legendary R’n’B producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis for the 1986 “Human” single which was an American No 1 and retuned the band to the Top 10 in the UK. However, their resurrection proved to be a false dawn and by the end of the 80s, they were in massive decline. The dawn of the 90s saw the band regroup with a new line up and intentions to re-establish themselves in the pop hierarchy. “Heart Like A Wheel” was the lead single from new album “Romantic?” and whilst it did gain them entry back into the Top 40, it was hardly a glorious return to form. The single peaked at No 29 whilst the album struggled to a high of No 24. Its perceived failure led to their long time record label Virgin unceremoniously cancelling their recording contract and the band were out in the wilderness for five years before being picked up by EastWest Records and launching the most unlikely of comebacks just as Britpop was taking hold with the hit single “Tell Me When” and parent album “Octopus”.

Watching this performance back, the band do seem to be in the midst of an identity crisis. Apart from the fact that there were two new band members on view, the core trio of Oakey, Catherall and Sulley appear to be on very different pages image wise. Phil, in the days when he still had hair, has resorted to his early 80s shoulder length cut albeit without the lopsided bit on one side whilst Susan Ann has gone all rock chic with her golden, cascading tresses. Joanne has her hair up but part from that looks pretty much like she always did. Not a lot of cohesion going on there I would argue.

What? Oh the song? Well, to me it doesn’t sound that different to “Tell Me When” which would return them to the Top 10 in 1995. Clearly the 1990 record buying public wasn’t quite ready to embrace The Human League back into their lives at that point in history but give it five years guys. Nowadays of course, the group are stalwarts of the live circuit and indeed, I caught them in concert back in 2019 at an open air gig in Hull where they performed “Heart Like A Wheel” plus just about every other song you could have wished for from their back catalogue. The band were on good form but the crowd were seemingly more interested in getting annihilated on booze and other substances which kind of made for a bad atmosphere. It did strike me though that Joanne and Susan Ann had made a career from basically ‘arm-dancing’ for nearly 40 years – you know, all that rhythmic arm waving they do. It’s a living I suppose.

Move over Whitney Houston – you’ve got competition! Yes, there was a new kid on the block (not not them!) in the huge, pop/soul ballad stakes come 1990 when Mariah Carey appeared seemingly from nowhere with her debut single “Vision Of Love”. Little did we know then that this 20 year old would become one of the biggest selling artists of the whole decade. Not only did this track become her breakthrough commercial moment but it also provided Mariah with her first husband in Tommy Mottola, the then head of Columbia Records who signed her after he had heard the demo of “Vision Of Love” at a record company bash. Has anybody ever punched above their weight in the relationship/looks stakes more than Tommy Mottola?

Anyway, “Vision Of Love” was a huge hit (No 1 in the US and No 9 over here) and introduced us to Mariah’s legendary five-octave vocal range. Ah yes, that voice. The technical terms for her vocal stylings are ‘whistle register’ and ‘melisma’ otherwise known to some of us as screeching. Too harsh?! Ok, how about ‘warbling’? Look you know what I’m referring to – the Mariah Carey effect that influenced a generation of would be singing stars to over emphasise notes and prolong them just that bit too long. I’m not saying she can’t sing – clearly she can – but I always found that element to her vocals to be the wrong side of grating.

Despite the success of “Vision Of Love”, it took Mariah a while to establish herself in the UK. Follow up singles “Love Takes Time” and “Someday” barely made the Top 40 here whilst they were No 1 records in the US. Yes, the album sold well in the UK (300,000 units) but nowhere near what it did in the US where 9 million copies were sold. It wasn’t really until her 1993 album “Music Box” did she really start shifting massive numbers over here when the album went to No 1, went five times platinum and included the No 1 single “Without You”. Incidentally, if there was any fierce rivalry between Mariah and Whitney, there was a show of unity in 1998 when the pair duetted on the single “When You Believe” from the animated feature The Prince of Egypt.

OK, I’ve got nothing in the memory banks for this one. “Look Me In The Heart” by Tina Turner anyone? Apparently this was the fourth single to be released from her “Foreign Affair” album which was pushing it a bit considering the album was initially released just under 12 months previously. Unsurprisingly it didn’t do anywhere near as well as its predecessor singles peaking at No 31. Incredibly, record label Capitol didn’t think even that was enough fleecing of the public for one album and released a fifth single (“Be Tender with Me Baby”) in October.

As for “Look Me In The Heart” itself, apart from being completely banal it also has an embarrassingly awful title. Can you imagine two people being in the midst of an emotional discussion about the state of their relationship and one of them saying ‘Look me in the heart and say that’? I can’t – nobody would come out with that would they? They’d say ‘Look me in the eye…’ surely? Oh well, artistic licence and all that – maybe I’m missing the point. Sadly, Tina was not finished in the cringe stakes for 1990. By the end of the year she was back in the Top 5 duetting with Rod Stewart (!) on a version of “It Takes Two”. Come on Tina. You’re better than that. Look me in the heart* and tell me that wasn’t just money for old rope?

*Oh

My God! I’ve just realised that this particular TOTP includes two of the most heinous crimes against popular music on the same show! Not only do we have a complete git at No 1 (Timmy Mallett /Bombalurina) but incredibly, some 12 months after their first musical misdemeanour, it seemed that the UK record buying public still hadn’t had enough of Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers! You could possibly excuse one novelty record becoming a hit by blaming it on some sort fever that induced a national loss of taste but this was their fifth hit on the trot! What was happening to us? I can only assume that the success of “Can Can You Party” was the result of some illegal chart tactics that involved a massive buying in operation by unscrupulous record company reps.

The monsters behind Jive Bunny didn’t even see the need to tinker with the formula at all. It’s still just a load of hits of yesteryear cut and pasted together and then supported by a video featuring nonsensical and unrelated black and white footage with that f*****g horribly animated rabbit superimposed over the top. And talking of “It Takes Two” as we were before re: Tina Turner and Rod Stewart, if I thought that was bad, Jive Bunny declared ‘hold my beer’ and were involved in a version that featured Radio 1 DJs Liz Kershaw and Bruno Brookes! Thankfully that one didn’t make the charts unlike “Can Can You Party” which peaked at No 8.

Some Breakers now and we start with the Steve Miller Band. The only thing I knew about Mr Miller (and indeed his band) at the time was that song “Abracadabra” from 1982 which I hadn’t even liked that much. So what was this “The Joker” song and why was it in our charts? Well, it had been a No 1 record for the band in the US in 1974 but had never been a hit over here. Cue its strategically well placed use in a Levis advert and…I don’t ned to write anything else do I?

Much was made of the song’s lyrics and in particular the phrase ‘the pompatus of love’. What was that when it was home? Here’s @TOTPFacts with the answer…

Oh, OK – thanks. Anyway, some of the other lyrics, referenced songs including Miller’s own “Space Cowboy” (nothing to do with Jamiroquai then) and The Clovers’ 1954 song “Lovey Dovey” whilst I’m guessing we all knew what he meant by being a ‘midnight toker’.

“The Joker” would go onto become involved in one of the most controversial chart battles ever when it went up against Deee-Lite (more of whom later) and their “Groove Is In The Heart” single for the No 1 spot. Supposedly sales for each single were so tight that a dead heat was called and using a rule that had never been instigated previously, “The Joker” was instilled a the No 1 song that week on account of its sales having increased most from the previous week. This ruling was disputed by Deee-Lite’s record company WEA and it was subsequently scrapped. Chart compilers Gallup later released data that showed that the Steve Miller Band had sold a mere 8 (EIGHT) copies more than Deee-Lite and so were the rightfully crowned chart toppers. All seemed a bit of a rum do to me. Jive Bunny probably had something to do with it as well!

Right, after all that controversy, we need something relaxing to calm us down and here’s a track that fits that particular bill well. “Release Me” by Wilson Phillips was their follow up to smash hit “Hold On” and it sounded like it. It was almost exactly the same song! OK, its got a slightly slower bpm to it and they all seem to sing the whole song in harmony unlike its predecessor which I think had separate vocal parts but its pretty damn similar. For once the record buying public were too aware than to fall for the ‘buying the same song twice’ trick again and it only made No 36 on the UK Top 40. Our American counterparts however had no such discernment and sent it to No 1 for the second consecutive chart topper after “Hold On”.

Look out! It’s “The End of the World”! Not literally of course but this version of the old Skeeter Davis song by Sonia did signify the end of something – this was her last ever single with Stock, Aitken and Waterman. It was also the last single released from her “Everybody Knows” album and after four high tempo, poppy hits before this point, a slowie was well overdue. Sonia had dipped her toe in the ballad market recently with her collaboration with Big Fun on the Childline charity single “You’ve Got a Friend” but this was her first time in that territory on her own. It’s a decent choice of song but Sonia’s version is hardly dripping with the emotion of the original and sounds more mechanical than melancholic in comparison.

I could have sworn that Cilla Black did a version of this (which would have made even more sense of the decision to get scouser Sonia to record it) but she didn’t. I think I was getting confused with “You’re My World”. My abiding memory of Sonia’s version is hearing it piped over the instore sound system in Debenhams in Hull some weeks later. I was back working there as a Xmas temp (after my legendary stint as stand in Father Christmas the year before!) but I knew I had a job at Our Price waiting for me to start in October so I wasn’t there long this time. And no I didn’t let on to Debenhams that I would be leaving as I needed a few weeks work before I could start at my record shop ‘career’ and deliberately misled them. If, by any remote chance, any management from Debenhams in Hull from circa 1990 are reading this, I am so sorry but let’s face it, it wasn’t the end of the world.

That time worn pop tradition of a singer leaving a band to court solo fame was still in evidence as the 90s began. After Nick Heyward leaving Haircut 100, Limahl departing Kajagoogoo and George Michael leaving Wham! behind in the 80s, here comes Lindy Layton ditching Beats International to pursue independence. To be fair, she wasn’t kicked out of the band like Heyward and Limahl were – it was much more amicable by all accounts (Norman Cook even helped produce her debut solo album “Pressure”) but jump ship she did after Cook et al had given her an initial pop platform. It seemed to be the right move when she scored an immediate hit with a cover of Janet Kay’s “Silly Games” teaming up with …erm…Janet Kay to do so. However, subsequent single releases from “Pressure” all failed to dent the Top 40 and by 1993 she did what many others previously had done to revive a career – came calling at Stock, Aitken and Waterman’s door (well, they did have a Sonia sized vacancy on their artists’ roster to fill). Two SAW singles failed to do much business chart-wise and Lindy had all but disappeared from the pop world by the mid 90s.

You can tell from this TOTP performance that this was meant to be a new start for Lindy – she’s got a new short hairstyle and changed her wardrobe dramatically from her Beats International appearance. Her version of “Silly Games” was pretty slick as well. She looked a good bet for a prolonged solo career at this point. Ah, the fickle nature of pop – silly old game innit?

In 1990, Cliff Richard was celebrating the 30th anniversary of his recording career and to commemorate this milestone, he released a live album called “From A Distance: The Event” which was recorded in June 1989 at his The Event concert, held at Wembley Stadium over two nights. Cliff’s version of “Silhouettes“, a No 3 hit for Herman’s Hermits in 1965, was plucked from said album to promote it. It reached No 10 in the UK Top 40. It is also, undeniably, horrible. Not content with inflicting this upon us, the album also contained his next Xmas No 1 in “Saviour’s Day”. Have you ever seen such cruelty?!

I’m guessing that the next tune was intended by the band’s record company as a stop gap release between albums to maintain their profile. It ended up becoming their biggest ever hit. Deacon Blue‘s only release this calendar year so far had been their New Year anthem “Queen Of The New Year” back in …erm…January as the fifth and final single from their “When The World Knows Your Name” album. With the rich seams of tunes having been exhausted from that album and the new one not to be released until June 1991, something was needed to ensure fickle pop fans didn’t forget about them in the meantime. The answer of course was a cover version (the answer is always a cover version) but Deacon Blue took things further by releasing an EP of four Burt Bacharach and Hal David songs called… well….the “Four Bacharach & David Songs” EP.

The track that got all the airplay though was “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again”. There was something about the crystal clean production and the vocals of Ricky Ross and Lorraine McIntosh that bewitched UK pop fans to purchase it in enough quantities to send it all the way to No 2. I was one of them. This EP of cover versions idea obviously resonated with Everything But The Girl who released their own EP in 1992 featuring “Love Is Strange”, Bruce Springsteen’s “Tougher Than The Rest”, Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time” and Elvis Costello’s “Alison”. I bought that as well.

As for Deacon Blue, although it would be harsh to say this was the pinnacle of their popularity, they would only have one more Top 10 single in their career although they continue to tour and record new material to this very day with their last album “Riding On The Tide Of Love” being released *performs some basic maths calculation* 20 days ago!

If Jive Bunny was the bread in this show’s shit sandwich, here comes the filling and it really reeks! Timmy Mallett / Bombalurina have leapt to No 1 with “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini” and consequently he’s been invited back on the show for another studio performance. What makes it all the worse is that Mallett seems to take it seriously in that he mimes the lines correctly and has learnt his little dance moves. If he’s done it all a bit more free form and tongue-in-cheek ,would it have been less odious? Nah, you’re right. Nothing could save this turd from stinking the place out.

The play out video is a huge tune. Sorry, that should be HUUUUGE TUUUUNE! Appearing fully formed from out of nowhere came Deee-Lite with the barnstorming dance floor legend that was and remains “Groove Is In The Heart”. I know this will make me sound like a knacker but the groove on this tune is immense! These self proclaimed ‘groovniks’ hailed from New York City and were composed of Lady Miss Kier, Supa DJ Dmitry and Jungle DJ Towa Tei and had an image as wild as their hit song. Dayglo colours, psychedelic patterns and huge 70s style platform shoes somehow seemed totally appropriate despite being at least two decades out of fashion.

That track though! Listed in in Gary Mulholland’s marvellous book This Is Uncool: The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk And Disco as one of the tracks of the year, I think I’ll let Gary do the talking for me:

“If I was ever asked to play some crazy DJ version of Russian roulette, where you had one chance and one chance only to make a roomful of disparate people dance or you die – I would play ‘Groove Is In The Heart’ and book my cab home”.

Well said Gary.

Order of appearanceArtistSongDid I Buy it?
1The Human LeagueHeart Like A WheelNah
2Mariah CareyVision Of LoveNope
3Tina TurnerLook Me In The HeartAs if
4Jive Bunny & The MastermixersCan Can You PartyCan can you piss off please?
5Steve Miller BandThe JokerIt’s a no
6Wilson PhillipsRelease MeAfter “Hold On” you now want releasing? Make your mind up! No
7SoniaEnd Of The WorldNo
8Lindy Layton and Janet KaySilly GamesNegative
9Cliff RichardSilhouettesSilhouettes? It was enough to give me Tourettes! No
10Deacon BlueFour Bacharach And David SongsYes, yes I did
11BombalurinaItsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot BikiniHow does f**k off sound as an answer?
12Deee-LiteGroove Is In The HeartWhere’s my copy of this?! I must have bought this surely?!

Disclaimer

OK – here’s the thing – the TOTP episodes are only available on iPlayer for a limited amount of time so the link to the programme below only works for about another month so you’ll have to work fast if you want to catch the whole show.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000scfy/top-of-the-pops-23081990

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.

Some bedtime reading?

https://michaelmouse1967.wixsite.com/smashhits-remembered/1990-issues