The Shamen

TOTP 04 NOV 1993

Posted on November 13, 2022 by 80stastic

Finally it’s that time of the year. No, not bonfire night that was upon us in 1993 but that cherished but fleeting period that us synchronists look forward to – when the BBC4 TOTP repeats and the present day month match. November 1993 meet November 2022. We can watch these old shows safe in the knowledge that the tunes featured were from almost exactly 29 years ago. Indeed, when the second TOTP was aired on the Friday just gone they synchronised to the very day – 11th November. Perfect! I’m getting ahead of myself though. Let’s trawl through the 4th November show to see what fireworks and bangers await…

We start with the first of two Scottish electronic dance bands featured tonight (what were the chances eh?). I speculated in a previous post about why The Time Frequency felt the need to include the definite article in their name. Reading up on them some more, it seems founding band member Jon Campbell was in an 70s synth band called Thru The Fire and when they broke up, he kept the initials of the name as a template for his next project. Well, that’s what Wikipedia tells me but it seems a bit of a lame reason to me. Anyway, after scoring a Top 20 hit earlier in the year with “The Power Zone EP”, the decision was taken to rerelease their debut single “Real Love” which had missed the charts the previous year. A remix was made of it and it was shoved back out into the market under the title of “Real Love ‘93” – there was very little imagination around in record label offices when it came to naming rereleases it seems. Lacking in imagination they may have been but their business case was sound and the rerelease became the band’s biggest ever hit when it peaked at No 8. To me though, it sounded like the poor relation to “Insanity” by Oceanic.

https://youtu.be/2LFM8cZWvCQ

The performance here with the two dancers dressed in full metal robot outfits brought back memories of a rather cheesy but somehow endearing chart hit from 1985…

https://youtu.be/Xfoxz6aBNsI

Next a song that I would have thought was a much bigger hit than it was. However, its chart peak of No 7 doesn’t tell the whole story. I’m talking about “Hero” by Mariah Carey which was the second single taken from her “Music Box” album. We sold loads of this over Christmas ‘93 when I was working in the Our Price in Altrincham, Cheshire and if you check out the single’s chart run, it backs up my claim. It just wouldn’t go away. Yes, it only had three weeks inside the Top 10 but it had another seven where it ricocheted around the Top 20 between positions 18 and 11. It actually stood solid for three consecutive weeks at No 18 before going back up the charts. It reversed its decline in sales another time during its chart life to move back into the Top 10 having fallen out of it the previous week. These were not normal chart manoeuvres. It eventually fell out of the Top 40 around mid January ‘94. Why was it so durable? It could be that ballad at Christmas time always being a winner theory in action again. Maybe it was to do with the lyrics about self-belief, inner courage and finding the hero within oneself that struck a chord with record buyers.

Its durability would lead to longevity. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks of 2001, Mariah re-recorded the track as a medley with a song from her “Glitter” album called “Never Too Far” and released it as a charity single. In 2008, the X Factor finalists covered the song to raise funds for the Help For Heroes and Royal British Legion charities. It would become a sales phenomenon selling 100,000 copies in its first day of release and becoming the best selling single of that year. They performed the track with Mariah in one of the live shows.

Proper rock legends next though their list of UK chart hit singles up to this point belied that status. Not counting their collaboration with Run-D.M.C. on 1986’s “Walk This Way”, “Cryin’” was only the fifth ever Top 40 hit for Aerosmith up to that point in time. It was, however, their third hit on the bounce (all from the “Get A Grip”) album). “Livin’ On The Edge” (like ex-Home Secretary Priti Patel, the band had a habit of dropping their ‘g’s at the end of words) had made No 19 and “Eat The Rich” No 34 earlier in the year. “Cryin’” would be the biggest of all three when it peaked at No 17 over here though it was more successful in the rest of Europe going Top 10 just about everywhere and even topping the charts in Norway.

This was the band in proper power ballad mode but with that bit of Aerosmith cheek thrown in for good measure. Or as Steven Tyler described it:

“It was country – we just Aerosmith’d it.”
“The 20 Songs That Can Represent The Career Of Aerosmith”. Society of Rock. Retrieved May 23, 2022.

I have a distinct memory of a young Zoë Ball, early in her TV career, interviewing Tyler on some music programme about how to be a rock music fan (or something) and her finishing the piece by wandering off camera singing “Cryin’” whilst performing the Chuck Berry duck walk though her version of it made her just look like she was constipated.

Though the TOTP producers have pulled off a coup here by having the band in the studio, it means we don’t get to see the award winning video that promoted the single. Featuring a sixteen years old Alicia Silverstone plus pre fame Stephen Dorff (Backbeat) and Josh Holloway (Sawyer from Lost), it won three MTV video awards in 1994.

As host Tony Dortie says, 1993 saw loads of solo female artists break through with the likes of Dina Carroll, Gabrielle and Michelle Gayle all having big chart hits. Add to that list Pauline Henry. Late of The Chimes parish but now striking out on her own, her cover of Bad Company’s “Feel Like Making Love” (note the ‘g’ in making Aerosmith and Priti Patel!) was her second and biggest hit when it peaked at No 12. Just about as far removed from The Chimes’ soulful take on U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” as it could be, Pauline really belted out this raucous rock standard. Fair play to her by the way for daring to take on the mighty vocals of Paul Rodgers – if it was a football match, it would certainly go to extra time.

Sadly for Pauline, her single success didn’t translate into album sales and her debut LP staggered to a high of No 45. A second album of more cover versions resulted in two minor hit singles before Pauline decided on a change of career and studied for a Bachelor of Law degree and a masters in Intellectual Law Property.

After dicking about with the Breakers feature for a couple of weeks, the section is now firmly re-established by the TOTP producers with five acts in it this week. We start with a collaboration between Faith No More and Boo–Yaa T.R.I.B.E. (that’s the second time I’ve had to type a rap act’s name in that format this post!). “Another Body Murdered” was a track from the soundtrack to the film Judgement Night, a crime thriller starring Emilio Estevez, Cuba Gooding Jnr and (joy oh joy for us synchronists again!) Stephen Dorff. The soundtrack followed an idea by Cypress Hill manager Happy Walters that each track should pair a rock artist with a rap act. Alongside the Faith No More Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E. (third time!) meet up, there was Teenage Fan Club and De La Soul and Living Color and Run-D.M.C. (fourth time!!) to name but two. Critical reaction to the premise has been mixed. Some saw it as laying the groundwork for bands such as Korn and Limp Bizkit to thrive (was that a good thing?) whilst others saw it as jumping on the Anthrax/Public Enemy collaboration “Bring The Noise” bandwagon. I have to say judging by the twenty-five seconds of “Another Body Murdered” we get here, I’m unlikely to search out the soundtrack album though that meeting of Teenage Fan Club / De La Soul does sound interesting.

Just to prove Tony Dortie’s point about UK female solo artists in 1993, here’s another one and like Pauline Henry before her, she had a solid CV behind her already. Juliet Roberts first came to chart prominence ten years prior with Funk Masters’ Top 10 hit “Its Over” before she became the vocalist for Smooth jazzers Working Week. Critical acclaim but little commercial success led her to move on finding work as a session singer for the likes of Cathy Dennis and rather improbably Breathe before taking the plunge on her own. Having breached the Top 30 with her hit “Caught In The Middle” earlier in the year, she was back with another tilt at it with “Free Love”. It would attain a similar chart peak of No 25.

Sadly for Juliet, also like Pauline Henry, a collection of middling hit singles didn’t convert into a hit album and her debut effort “Natural Thing” could only manage a high of No 65. Her last chart entry came as vocalist on David Morales’s “Needin U II” in 2001, a title that makes Aerosmith and Priti Patel look like linguistic experts.

By late 1993, Soul II Soul had reached the point in their career where diminishing returns were starting to set in. “Club Classics Vol. One” and the track “Back To Life” especially had made the band global superstars but four and a half years on their commercial fortunes, though by no means flatlining, were not what they were as the 80s ended and the 90s began. The remedy? A Best Of album of course and so it was that “Volume IV The Classic Singles 88-93” was put together and released for the Christmas market. I actually liked the fact that they continued with the ‘Volume’ theme even though this wasn’t a studio album and included tracks that had already been part of the previous volumes. Except this one. “Wish” was a brand new track recorded to promote the collection as was the established trend (see also contemporary chart peer “Please Forgive Me” by Bryan Adams). The album sold well enough going to No 10 in the charts but subsequent releases failed to reverse the sales drift.

As for “Wish” itself, I’m no Soul II Soul expert but it seemed to me to promise a lot but deliver little or as a rather posh sounding woman I heard on Radio 4 recently delightfully put it whilst describing Liz Truss, it was ‘all fart and no shit’.

Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston on the same show?! One year on from the sales phenomenon that was her cover of “I Will Always Love You” comes the final single released by her from The Bodyguard soundtrack. “Queen Of The Night” was the fifth track taken from it recorded by Whitney (though seventh including other artists) and it stood alone from the other four in its sound. With three of those four being big ballads and the other a cover of Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman”, there was space for something different and “Queen Of The Night” was. Or was it? A few critics at the time cited its similarities to En Vogue’s “Free Your Mind” and Janet Jackson’s “Black Cat” with its hard rock guitars and Whitney’s growly vocals though personally I think it just about stands up on its own legs.

The video is pretty much the performance of the song in the actual film – the scene where Whitney’s character has to be rescued by Kevin Costner when the security arrangements at her gig are shown to be lacking and a riot breaks out. The Bodyguard film generally gets slated as being substandard with Costner especially being highlighted for a wooden performance but I always quite liked it and thought Whitney gives a decent and convincing turn but then if she couldn’t play a pop star diva then what character could she play?

“Queen Of The Night” peaked at No 14. We wouldn’t see Whitney in the charts again for two years when she would return with songs from another soundtrack for a film in which she starred, Waiting To Exhale.

The final Breaker comes from Culture Beat who are straight into the Top 10 with “Got To Get It”. I’ve shared this anecdote before but I’m going to use it again – well, if Culture Beat can recycle their No 1 single “Mr Vain” and just blatantly release it as the official follow up as if it’s a brand new song then I’m certainly allowed to use a story twice! I was in the last days of working at the Our Price in Stockport when this single came out. On the day of release, a young girl came up to the counter and asked for the single by Culture Beat. As “Mr Vain” had still been selling and had only just dropped out of the Top 40 the other week, I thought I’d better check which one she meant and so asked her “Got To Get It?”. Her reply? “I just really like it”. Lovely stuff.

It’s time for the second of those two Scottish electronic bands now as The Shamen are in the studio with “The SOS EP (Comin’ On)”. This was the sixth single released from their “Boss Drum” album that had been out for nearly fourteen months by this point. Those singles attained the following chart peaks:

6 – 1 – 4 – 5 – 18 – 14

Not too shabby you’d have to say. This was peak era Shamen. They were never as big again with only four more Top 40 hits throughout the entire decade none of which got higher than No 15. I have to say I don’t remember “Comin’ On” (they must have attended that Aerosmith songwriting class) but it sounds better than I was expecting. Sort of starts out a bit like The Prodigy and then spins into an infectious dance anthem but with a pop song structure. By the way, what had happened to Colin Angus’s hair. Were those long tresses real or extensions?

A conversation between Soul II Soul’s Jazzie B and Wet Wet Wet’s Marti Pellow* sometime in early Autumn 1993:

*with massive apologies to anyone reading this who is Scottish

JB: Marty my man! How’s it hanging?

MP: Jazzie! Och, aye, no bad ye ken. How urr ye?

JB: You know me man. A happy face, a thumpin’ bass, for a lovin’ race!

MP: Aye.

JB: Marti man. You look down. What gives fella?

MP: We hae nae got a record oot for Yule. Oor label ur nipping us tae sort it oot.

JB: No worries man. Put a Best Of album out.

MP: Crakin’ yin! Och hing oan, whit aboot a single tae promote it?

JB: Just knock a new track out one afternoon. That’s what we did. Any old shite will do.

MP: Aye Jimmy!

It could have happened like that! Anyway, the Wets Best Of was called “End Of Part One: Their Greatest Hits” and was a big seller over Christmas ‘93 originally peaking at No 4. The following year, the band did a Bryan Adams and were at No 1 for fifteen weeks with “Love Is All Around”. To cash in, their label Mercury added it to the album and rereleased it at which point it returned to the charts straight to No 1. As for that new track, “Shed A Tear” was duly shoved out to promote it. I have zero recall of it but it sounds like it possibly was recorded in an afternoon with band’s collective thumbs up their bums and minds in neutral. It peaked at No 22.

Watching the performance here, the front three Wets (including Marti) all have ponytails whilst the keyboard player looks like he’s trying to grow his hair to catch up but his naturally curly locks are hampering his endeavour. Drummer Tommy Cunningham looked the same as he ever did and continues to do so to this day. Maybe it’s a drummer thing – Blur’s Dave Rowntree has similarly always maintained the same look.

Meatloaf still bestrides the charts like a colossus with the epic rock ballad “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)”. As with my Culture Beat anecdote, I’ve told this story before but the big guy’s at No 1 for weeks yet so I’m having to resort to recycling. My mate Robin has a friend who is a musician who has toured with the likes of Westlife. His own band was booked to play at the wedding of one John Hartson, the ex-professional footballer and now pundit. His best man was one of my footballing heroes, ex-Chelsea striker Kerry Dixon. Apparently the drinks flowed and everybody over indulged…including the groom. So pissed was Hartson that when Robin’s friend’s band finished their set, Hartson asked them to play one more song, especially for his new wife. The song Hartson chose to dedicate to her was Meatloaf’s “Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad” the lyrics of which include:

I want you, I need you, there ain’t no way I’m ever gonna love you

Now don’t be sad, ‘cause two out of three ain’t bad
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Jim Steinman
Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad lyrics © Carlin America Inc, Warner Chappell Music, Inc

Oh…my…God.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Time Frequency	Real Love ’93	Never happening
2	Mariah Carey	Hero	Nah
3	Aerosmith	Cryin’	Nope
4	Pauline Henry	Feel Like Making Love	I did not
5	Faith No More / Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E.	Another Body Murdered	No
6	Juliet Roberts	Free Love	Negative
7	Soul II Soul	Wish	Definitely not
8	Whitney Houston	Queen Of The Night	It’s a no
9	Culture Beat	Got To Get It	I didn’t unlike that young girl I served
10	The Shamen	The SOS EP (Comin’ On)	Like it, didn’t buy it
11	Wert Wet Wet	Shed A Tear	No. not a patch on their earlier work
12	Meatloaf	I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)	And no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001dzyf/top-of-the-pops-04111993

TOTP 17 DEC 1992

Posted on May 27, 2022 by 80stastic

It’s only a week until Xmas 30 (!) years ago and I’m working my arse off in Our Price, Rochdale doing long days and serving even longer queues of customers as the panic of not getting all your shopping done sets in. I’m enjoying it though as the team at the shop were great. Everyone was hard working and got on with each other. That bonhomie amongst the staff was needed though when it came to dealing with the public, especially on Xmas Eve when many of the punters who entered the store that day were manic and had no time for any basic manners or civility. In short, they slaughtered us. Many an exchange went like this:

Me: I’m sorry but we’ve sold out of Gloria Estefan’s Greatest Hits on cassette madam.

Customer: You f******g what?! You’ve ruined my daughter’s Xmas you have!

Something like that anyway. No doubt I would have sold some of the singles showcased on this final regular TOTP before Xmas…

N.B. I’m not reviewing the Xmas day episode. It’s too long and most of the acts on there have already featured in previous posts.

We start with The Shamen who are getting in the Xmas party spirit by dressing up as characters from Alice In Wonderland. Eh? Why? Where are the Santa hats and Xmas jumpers? If they really wanted to go down a literary route, surely Dickens’ A Christmas Carol would have been the way to go? Scrooge in his bedclothes, ghosts, Tiny Tim, Jacob Marley and his chains….hey, they could have even called themselves Jacob and the Marley Chain. OK, the last bit is a crap idea but surely no worse than what they actually came up with. Again I ask, why? Oh, hang on. The ever reliable @TOTPFacts might have the answer…

Given the book's long association with psychedelics – Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" et al – I think we can guess why The Shamen decided to dress up as characters from Alice's Adventures In Wonderland. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) May 20, 2022

Ah well possibly I guess. An overindulgence of some illegal substances might explain why Mr C is dressed as the Knave of Clubs. Surely it’s the Knave of Hearts (who stole some tarts)? As for the song itself, “Phorever People” sounds like “Ebeneezer Goode” part II but then, why re-invent the wheel when the first one is spinning so well? The four singles taken from their “Boss Drum” album achieved the following chart peaks:

6 – 1 – 4 – 5

Pretty impressive stuff. That run of success helped earned the band the Smash Hits Best New Act award for 1992. Quite an achievement for a band that had been in existence since 1985.

A quick word on the presenters tonight. One is regular Tony Dortie but the other is rising BBC star Mr Blobby. This character achieved the seemingly impossible feat of being more annoying than Noel Edmonds despite the latter being responsible for Blobby’s rise to fame on Noel’s House Party. How on earth was the Blobby phenomenon allowed to happen?!

A third appearance on the show next for the video to “Deeper And Deeper” by Madonna. This became Madge’s first single to fail to make the Top 5 in this country since 1987’s “The Look Of Love”. None of the subsequent three singles released from the “Erotica” album managed to outdo “Deeper And Deeper” although they all went Top 10. It was a mixed bag of a time for Madonna. Her profile was as notorious as ever thanks to her X-rated coffee table book Sex and yet her album “Erotica” only sold half as many copies as its predecessor “Like A Prayer”. Nowhere was this dichotomy witnessed more succinctly than in the fact that Madonna’s managed to be simultaneously the most and least fanciable female at that Smash Hits poll winners party.

The people who started the early 90s trend for dance versions of pop standards have returned to the scene of the crime to remind us all that they were the original culprits. I speak of East Side Beat who kicked this ghastly movement off in 1991 with a cover of Christopher Cross’ “Ride Like The Wind”. In their wake came acts like Undercover, Rage and KWS but this Italian duo were back to remind us they were alive and kicking with their version of…erm…”Alive And Kicking” by Simple Minds. You’ll remember that this 1985 track had only recently been back in the Top 40 promoting the Scottish stadium rockers Best Of album. Was that in the thinking behind East Side Beat’s choice of song to cover? The fact that it had been reinforced in the minds of pop fans just a short time ago and had proved to retain its popularity? Could they jump on the bandwagon of its promotion and marketing campaign? Or was it all just one big happy coincidence?

Whatever the truth of the matter, their song choice worked. A Top 40 hit meant a TOTP appearance and there’s a lot to unpack about this particular performance. We start with the intro to it by Tony Dortie who, not for the first time I may add, uses the description drum ‘n’ bass erroneously. WTAF?! How is some naff Eurodance in any way, shape or form anything to do with drum ‘n’ bass?! By Goldie’s teeth!! I think Tony has retrospectively admitted he had no idea what he was talking about during some of his links but that just begs the the question why go there at all?!

Secondly, what was going on with the backing dancers? They appear to be wearing Italian club football shirts but were seemingly not allowed to wear any shorts with them. Hmm. All a bit dubious. Hang on. Is football the reason that East Side Beat chose “Alive And Kicking” to cover? Wasn’t that the song that soundtracked the advertising campaign for the launch of Sky’s coverage of the inaugural season of the Premier League? Yes it was…

Again I say hmm. Thirdly, and I’m really not wishing to get into racial stereotyping here but the lead singer must be the least stylish Italian ever!

East Side Beat’s cover of “Alive And Kicking” peaked at No 26.

Now I can’t find a clip of this live by satellite performance from Miami by Gloria Estefan so if you’re reading this after the episode has fallen off iPlayer, you’ll have to take my word for it but there’s something off about it. I couldn’t put my finger on it for ages but I think it’s the way the backing musicians have set up so they’re not actually facing the same way as Gloria as she performs. It’s quite off putting once you’ve noticed it, like they’re part of a different performance altogether but where somehow the two parallel worlds have collided like an episode of Star Trek. Talking of which, in what universe was it appropriate to add a bit of a 2 Unlimited keyboard riff to a Latino pop medley?

The “Miami Hit Mix” peaked at No 8.

The running order for this TOTP has now taken us from cover version to megamix and back to cover version in the space of three records. The second cover of the night comes from The Lemonheads whose version of Simon & Garfunkel ‘s “Mrs Robinson” was a Breaker last week. This week however, they’re in the studio and their performance has a definite Nirvana / Smells Like Teen Spirit vibe to it. Just looking at them, they look incongruous and like they don’t really belong on TOTP. Too counterculture, too anti-establishment, too slacker? Too tall in the case of Evan Dando. He looks enormous here. Apparently he’s 6ft 3” and he looks every bit of it bestriding the stage in his red duffle coat. Well, bestriding it until he attempts an abortive forward roll. Presumably that was supposed to put the watching audience on alert that something unexpected might happen and that there was an element of chaos at play as per that Nirvana performance. He even tells us audibly by singing “you don’t know what’s gonna happen next” at one point. What does happen is that he breaks into an impression of Morrissey. I mean it’s unmistakably Mozza – Dando has been known to boast about how great his impression of him is – but isn’t that just copying what Kurt Cobain did when he was on the show? I mean Cobain’s impression was terrible and Dando’s is clearly better but where’s the originality? Furthermore, isn’t Evan’s oversized coat derivative of the Nirvana lead singer’s fashion style? Too harsh? Maybe. Perhaps Evan should have stuck with his Beatles head wobble impression instead of branching out into Mozza territory.

One final thing. At the start of the performance, he shouts over to the bass player “louder man!”. Those instruments weren’t actually plugged in surely?

To the Breakers and guess what? We begin with the aforementioned Nirvana! Just like Guns N’ Roses before them the other week, here was a band still releasing tracks as singles from an album that was well over a year old. “In Bloom” was the fourth such single taken from “Nevermind” and there is a school of thought (championed by Courtney Love no less) that this should have been the lead single from the album on the basis that it’s a much better song than “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. For what it’s worth, I think she’s right. She also once said that “Hungry Like The Wolf” is the best song ever written so she knows her stuff. Ahem.

The Ed Sullivan Show pastiche video works pretty well as it remains faithful to the source material and it’s that element of realism that completes the humour of Nirvana as clean cut boys à la those lovable moptops.

“In Bloom” peaked at No 28.

OK. Just when you think the bottom of the barrel can’t be scraped any harder…We really did witness some truly ghastly acts in the UK charts during 1992. Wrestlers (WWF Superstars) strippers (The Chippendales), two acts peddling singles based on computer games (Tetris and Ambassadors Of Funk) and now this. After Shut Up And Dance delivered “Raving I’m Raving” based on “Walking In Memphis” by Marc Cohn earlier in the year, now came “We Are Raving – The Anthem” by Slipstreem. Using Rod Stewart’s “Sailing” as its blueprint, this load of arse juice was an abysmal idea that sounded even worse. Who were these berks and why didn’t Rod but an injunction out to stop this atrocity? After all, it’s what Marc Cohn did. I’ve got no words left for this type of garbage. Next!

As well as being remembered for some terrifyingly dreadful chart hits, 1992 will also rightly be recalled as the year of The Wedding Present “Hit Parade” project. Twelve singles in one calendar year and all made the Top 40 meaning that they equalled Elvis Presley’s 1957 record. Except their achievement was better as they wrote all their songs whereas Elvis’s were written for him. They did however do some cover versions for the B-sides including for the final release “No Christmas” which had Elton John’s “Step Into Christmas” on the flip and a fine version it is too.

The highest chart position attained by any of the “Hit Parade” singles was No 10 while the lowest was No 26. It still stands up as quite the achievement I think.

Now working in a shop in Rochdale at this time, I lived in hope that the next artist might pop in one day as she grew up there from the age of 11. Sadly, the day Lisa Stansfield glided into the store was my day off! FFS!

Anyway, there was much hope that her latest single “Someday (I’m Coming Back)” was going to be a huge seller coming as it did from the soundtrack to The Bodyguard. It was certainly a decent sized hit peaking as it did at No 10 but there was genuine belief that it could have been a Top 3 contender. I have to say it seemed a bit lacklustre to me. Maybe it was overshadowed by all those Whitney Houston power ballads that packed out the rest of the album. Lisa’s track was the only one to be released as a single from the soundtrack that wasn’t by Whitney so I guess she deserves some kudos for that.

Do you think that Lisa was having a bad hair day when this performance was recorded? How else do you explain her decision to wear a cat burglar’s hat otherwise?

Now I’m not sure why the TOTP producers chose to show this next video instead of the official promo for “Heal The World” by Michael Jackson. It’s a concert clip from the Dangerous World Tour. I’ve put in some footage from the Bucharest date below but I don’t know if that’s the one shown on the programme. It’s looks like Jacko’s wearing the same jacket in both so I’ll go with that. The five UK dates had already been and gone so it can’t have been to increase ticket sales and in any case, wouldn’t all the gigs have sold out almost immediately anyway?

I guess if anyone had the best shot of beating Whitney to the Xmas No 1 it was Michael Jackson. Possibly the most famous person on the planet and with a huge, goodwill to all ballad, it seemed like a decent shout. And yet I never felt like he would actually do it. Maybe that was purely based on what we were selling in the Rochdale store but I just never doubted it would be a Houston Xmas chart topper. For once, I was right.

It’s a second medley on the show tonight. After Gloria Estefan earlier, here come Boney M. Ever wondered why they were called Boney M? Here’s @TOTPFacts with the answer…

Frank Farian named Boney M after Boney, an Aussie TV drama about a half-aboriginal detective called Bonaparte. The series featured a white actor badly “]
blacked-up in the title role, and was a bit of a joke in Germany. https://t.co/qXtEsd7L4w #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) May 20, 2022

I remember Boney! It used to be on Sunday afternoons on ITV in the Midlands where I grew up. When it came on, me and my brother used to say (in a very un-PC way) “first he was fatty, then he was skinny, now he’s Boney”. We thought we were hilarious!

Their 1992 “Megamix” was the third such single released by the band – or whatever assembled line up passed for the band at that time – in the last four years. This was by far the biggest hit though peaking at No 7.

It’s still there, it will be the Xmas No 1 and it will continue to occupy top spot in the charts for weeks to come. Whitney Houston’s cover of “I Will Always Love You” was a sales phenomenon. It was on the way to being just the second single in the last six years to reach one million sales in the UK. It would end up selling over 1,550,000 copies. The Bodyguard film wasn’t even released in the UK until Boxing Day. Presumably that gave it a second wind sales wise (as if it needed it).

Mr Blobby is back to say goodbye just before the credits roll. One year later he would be on the show again, this time with the Xmas No 1 crown. What a time to be alive!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Shamen	Phorever People	Nope
2	Madonna	Deeper And Deeper	No
3	East Side Beat	Alive And Kicking	Never!
4	Gloria Estefan	Miami Hit Mix	Nope
5	The Lemonheads	Mrs Robinson	Liked it, didn’t buy it
6	Nirvana	In Bloom	Ditto
7	Slipstreem	We Are Raving – The Anthem	NOOO!
8	The Wedding Present	No Christmas	No but I have their version of Step Into Christmas on something
9	Lisa Stansfield	Someday (I’m Coming Back)	I did not
10	Michael Jackson	Heal The World	No but I had a promo copy of HIStory with it on
11	Boney M	Megamix	No but my wife’s first ever album purchase was Nightflight To Venus
12	Whitney Houston	I Will Always Love You	No but god knows how many I sold that Christmas

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/m0017ftn/top-of-the-pops-17121992

TOTP 05 NOV 1992

Posted on April 30, 2022 by 80stastic

It’s Bonfire Night in 1992 which that year happened to be a Thursday so there’s a TOTP on TV as well. I wonder if the show was a festival of fireworks or a sad, lonely sparkler?

OK, getting the party started are Little Angels who are about to enter the most commercially successful period of their career. Having already lit the fuse on some Roman Candles in the shape of a string of minor Top 40 hits, they would light the blue touch paper on a rocket of a third album called “Jam” that would fly all the way to No 1. That album would appear in January of the following year but was trailed by lead single “Too Much Too Young” which was nothing to do with The Specials but was a punchy, brass section animated rock romp that leapt out at you from the radio. Not that their previous hits hadn’t had any hooks but this felt like a definite decision to go for the commercial jugular. No messing about with the gentle whooshing of a fountain firework, this was a firecracker!

I think I’ve mentioned this before but I caught the band doing a small set in a PA at the Manchester HMV megastore to promote the album and they were pretty good. The album wasn’t bad either and I took home the promo copy of it that we got in the Our Price store I was working in.

Although I’ve droned on and on in this blog about how the UK charts were dominated by dance music at this time, there was also a vibrant British rock scene in the early 90s. Besides Little Angels scoring a No 1 album, their pals Thunder took “Laughing On Judgement Day” to No 2 this year whilst The Quireboys also had a No 2 album with “A Bit Of What You Fancy” in 1990.

Lead singer Toby Jepson’s live vocal in this performance is convincingly strong though I’m not sure what those sidebar graphics were meant to be adding just before the guitar solo halfway through. I can’t find the TOTP clip on YouTube though so the official promo will have to suffice.

“Too Much Too Young” peaked at No 22.

The nostalgia section is still with us and this week is filled by one of the biggest rock bands of all time. Yes, it’s The Rolling Stones with one of their most iconic songs “Honky Tonk Women”. Iconic and pivotal. It remains their last No 1 single in the UK and the recording sessions that were part of its gestation (when it went by the title of “Country Honk”) would be Brian Jones’s last with the band before his death. The final version that we all know was actually released on the day after he died. It also marked the first appearance on a Stones recording of his replacement on guitar Mick Taylor who also featured in this clip.

An unlikely choice of Rolling Stones album from my Dad

“Honky Tonk Women” was released as a stand alone single initially although a version called “Country Honk” made it onto their “Let It Bleed” album. It has been included on many a Best Of album and this was how I initially thought I first heard it as a child as my Dad had a Stones album called “Rock ‘N’ Rolling Stones”. However,Wikipedia tells me that it’s not on the track listing so I’m guessing my Dad must have had the single as well. That album in his collection was an odd one. It was released in 1972 by Decca post contract as the band had left them to form their own label.

Essentially it was Decca squeezing what they could out of the band’s recordings that they owned. It features five Chuck Berry covers and the only Jagger/Richards composition on it is “19th Nervous Breakdown”. One for the completists I think which my Dad certainly isn’t so I’m not sure how he came to possess a copy.

1992 really was an extraordinary year for Shakespear’s Sister. A Top 3 album in “Hormonally Yours”, an eight week run at No 1 with “Stay” and a further three Top 40 hits all in a packed twelve months. The final of these was “Hello (Turn Your Radio On)”. I have to say I’m not sure I could have told you how this one went before hearing it again but it’s quite a tune. The very last track on the “Hormonally Yours”, it’s clearly meant to be a towering finale to the album and it just about achieves it. Clocking in at just under four and a half minutes, it was a bold choice for a single. Would that have been too long for daytime radio playlists? Or maybe they were just relying on that old adage that DJs generally couldn’t resist playing a record with the word ‘radio’ in the title?

You can tell that we’re meant to understand this is a tune with gravitas as opposed to the poppier end of their catalogue like say “You’re History” as Marcella and Siobhan are sat down for the entire performance. Yet again the latter’s live vocals aren’t quite up to it though they obviously sound OK on the studio recording. Listening to the lyrics it’s a sort of existential, meaning of life ballad that I could imagine on a film soundtrack. It hasn’t been yet though it has been covered by both a German girl group and German punk band. The original made No 14 in the UK charts.

Another band having an annus mirabilis in 1992 were The Shamen. If anything they outperformed Shakespear’s Sister as they also had a No 1 in “Ebeneezer Goode” plus they had three Top 10 singles. The second of these was also the title track off their fifth and most successful album “Boss Drum”. Released in September, it made No 3 on the charts securing their place as one of the year’s top acts. I’m not convinced though that time has been kind (or possibly fair) to this era of The Shamen. Firstly, there is the theory that mainstream success somehow diluted the creativity of the band and made them less worthy. It’s not an original idea of course – off the top of my head Simple Minds have come under similar scrutiny – but is it true? Well, possibly though it’s easy and maybe lazy to draw a line between band eras based around the death of Will Sinnott. I’m probably guilty of that myself though I stand by the opinion that “En-tact” is much more interesting than “Boss Drum”.

Secondly, there’s peer comparison. Released almost simultaneously with “Boss Drum” was “Experience” by The Prodigy which seems to have aged much better whilst The KLF’s “White Room” has also received some retrospective love. The Shamen’s “Boss Drum” though? Not so much. Maybe it suffers from the length of the shadow cast by the all encompassing “Ebeneezer Goode”. Maybe.

“Boss Drum” the song though deserves better. Far more accomplished than its headline grabbing, masses baiting predecessor, it’s much the better track to my ears. It came close to emulating “Ebeneezer Goode” but in the end settled at a high of No 4.

What on earth was this? Well, the short answer is that it was a charity record but that doesn’t really cover it. It was the brainchild / fault of Heavenly indie label bosses Martin Kelly and Jeff Barrett who got three of their acts to record versions of the Right Said Fred singles released to that point. Calling it the “The Fred EP”, it featured Saint Etienne taking on “I’m Too Sexy”, Flowered Up putting “Don’t Talk Just Kiss” through its paces and this one; The Rockingbirds doing “Deeply Dippy”. Maybe they got the idea after the recent “Ruby Trax” album of covers to celebrate the NME’s 40 year anniversary. After all, it featured one of their previous artists Manic Street Preachers whose first two singles had been released on Heavenly. Or maybe the stimulus was of a different nature altogether. Here’s Jeff Barrett courtesy of @TOTPFacts:

Heavenly boss Jeff Barrett: "I’d be lying if I said the idea of doing the ‘Fred’ EP – getting the bands on the label to cover the entire musical output of Right Said Fred – didn’t come out of drugs." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) April 29, 2022

That might explain it. Drugs or no, they’ve gone full commitment on the idea even getting in Liam from Flowered Up (who seems to still be suffering the effects of that original idea conversation) and Sarah from Saint Etienne onto TOTP to introduce The Rockingbirds. Quite why did they go with them and not either of the other two artists to promote the record? Presumably to raise the profile of their charges whilst also rising some cash for the Terrence Higgins Trust. Here’s Rockingbirds guitarist Andy Hackett:

Rockingbirds guitarist Andy Hackett on The ‘Fred’ EP: "[It] was probably not, in retrospect, one of the greatest promotional tools for The Rockingbirds…" #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) April 29, 2022

"It was the beginning of the end of the band in a lot of ways. I did actually campaign against it vehemently at the time, but Jeff was convinced it would go to number one." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) April 29, 2022

It’s not a great performance it has to be said. More deeply drippy than dippy. The whole thing puts me in mind of this:

Never realised before that was Nicola Walker of Unforgotten and The Split fame up there. Talking of which, The Rockingbirds never did recover from this and did in fact split in 1995 though they did reform in 2008.

“The Fred EP” peaked at No 26.

Four Breakers this week one of which went onto be a No 1 record but we start with Metallica who are still releasing singles from their eponymous ‘black’ album that came out 15 months earlier! “Wherever I May Roam” was the fourth single lifted from it but still there was one other to be released after it a whole 18 months after the album. Metallica – the heavy metal Michael Jackson. The track gave its name to the Wherever We May Roam tour in support of the album, a mega 224 shows whopper which began on the first day of August 1991 and didn’t finish until the week before Xmas the following year. Given that, I suppose the band (or record company) were always going to carry on releasing singles off the album in a reciprocal support of the tour.

“Wherever I May Roam” peaked at No 25.

What a song this next Breaker was! Possibly my favourite of theirs, “Free Your Mind” by En Vogue was taken from their “Funky Divas” album and combined hard rock guitars to their R’n’B harmonies to come up with an anti prejudice anthem that still resonates today. After the spoken word intro which was adapted from US sketch comedy show In Living Color, it’s straight in with a crash, bang and wallop to a tune with definite attitude. I guess R’n’B / Rock hybrids had been done before by the likes of Janet Jackson on her “Rhythm Nation 1814” album but that didn’t detract from what En Vogue achieved here. It peaked at No 16 in the UK. It should have been Top 10 at least.

From one extreme to the other. I always hated Charles And Eddie though I’m not entirely sure why. I mean their song was a fairly inoffensive number that fused modern production with a retro soul sound and a dash of Motown pastiche but I absolutely loathed it from the get go. I think I believed the duo to be talentless chancers though I knew nothing of their musical backgrounds. Fortunately @TOTPFacts has the lowdown on that and it has an unexpected link to another of this week’s Breakers:

When he was 12, Charles & Eddie's Eddie Chacon had a garage band with future Faith No More drummer Mike Bordin and future Metallica bassist Cliff Burton. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) April 29, 2022

Hmm. Who knew? Anyway, back to me and maybe it was the pathetic name they went by which sounded like something you would hear at the X Factor open auditions. Even Jedward changed from their original moniker of John And Edward to something slightly more interesting. See, someone was even tweeting about it the other day:

I sometimes feel sorry for John from Jedward. Not in a personal way but the fact their name Jedward consists of 100% of his brother's name And only 25% of his own name. JOHNWARD makes more sense.
— Listen, Steve… 😡🗯 (@anon_opin) May 4, 2022

I have a friend who called her two dogs Charles and Eddie which is kind of appropriate as I thought the “Would I Lie To You” hitmakers were proper dogshit. This pair wil be at No 1 soon so I’ll leave it at that for now.

The final Breaker is “Who Needs Love (Like That)” by Erasure. This was the 1992 Hamburg remix of their debut single from 1985 rereleased to promote their first Best Of album “Pop: The First 20 Hits”. As far as I can tell the video shown is the original 1985 promo or at least I can’t find a separate one for the 1992 remix but I could be wrong.

The album went to No 1 (their fourth consecutive chart topper at that point) and was the 11th best selling album in the UK for 1992 even though it wasn’t released until mid November and yet my abiding memory of that Xmas working in the Our Price in Rochdale is that we didn’t sell as many as I expected. Maybe we just ordered too many copies and I was therefore looking at a major overstock for the whole of the festive period and it’s skewed my memory of how many we did actually sell. I do recall thinking it would fly out and it just didn’t feel like it did. Again, I could be wrong.

Meanwhile, something definitely selling well is “People Everyday” by Arrested Development which is up to No 2. Like Charles And Eddie, this record was distributed through EMI and the cassette version of both singles had those annoying cardboard slipcase covers rather than a proper moulded cassette case. These were a real pain as you had to put them in cassette cases anyway to display them. This could well be another reason for my dislike of “Would I Lie To You?” but then I didn’t mind “People Everyday” so that kind of debunks that theory. Oh look, I just didn’t like it OK?!

It’s time for the finale of the fireworks display, even if it is one song too early. Taking the role of the sky rocket and making their TOTP studio debut are INXS with “Taste It”. Seems crazy that in the five years that the band had been having UK Top 40 hits, they’d never been on the show previously.

I’ve said before that their “Welcome To Wherever You Are” album was one of my favourites of 1992 and this was a solid track from it. Not the best but solid. Straying from their usual rock sound ever so slightly, “Taste It” channels a more soulful vein but is still unmistakably INXS.

Michael Hutchence looks like he hasn’t slept nor washed for a week in this performance but then when did he ever look any different? A fourth and final single was released from the album in the UK early the following year in the shape of “Beautiful Girl” (the bewitching “Not Enough Time” was only released in the US and Japan territories) before the band went straight into recording their next album, the not altogether well received “Full Moon, Dirty Hearts”.

Sadly, as with Little Angels, I can’t find a clip of their performance on the show so here’s the official promo instead.

Bonfire night ends on a bit of a damp squib. I think this is maybe the fourth appearance on the show for “End Of The Road” by Boyz II Men and it feels like it really has outstayed its welcome now. I mean in the real world back in 1992 it hadn’t outstayed its welcome as it was still selling enough copies a week to top the charts but on these TOTP repeats it’s a bit much. It’s such a slow and laboured sound as well. Hardly the equivalent of the final flourish to a firework spectacular.

Two years on from this, Boyz II Men would return with an exact replica of “End Of The Road” called “I’ll Make Love To You” and had a massive hit all over again. There’s a reason why fireworks have to have safety instructions all over them as some people just won’t listen. Or rather they do instead of standing well back.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Little Angels	Too Much Too Young	No but I had a promo copy of the album
2	The Rolling Stones	Honky Tonk Women	Not in 1969 when I was one but it’s on my Hot Rocks compilation
3	Shakespear’s Sister	Hello (Turn Your Radio On)	No but it’s a decent tune
4	The Shamen	Boss Drum	Nope
5	The Rockingbirds	The Fred EP	Nah
6	Metallica	Wherever I May Roam	No
7	En Vogue	Free Your Mind	No but maybe should have
8	Charles And Eddie	Would I Lie To You?	Hell no!
9	Erasure	Who Needs Love (Like That)	No but I had Pop: The First 20 Hits with it on
10	Arrested Development	People Everyday	No but my wife had the LP
11	INXS	Taste It	No but I bought the album
12	Boyz II Men	End Of The Road	And no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0016spl/top-of-the-pops-05111992

TOTP 08 OCT 1992

Posted on April 9, 2022 by 80stastic

By 1992, TOTP was into its 29th year. The very first show had been broadcast on New Year’s Day 1964 and was produced in Dickenson Road Studio in Manchester which was just a short walk from where I was living in 1992. Anyway, whilst the show could boast an enduring longevity a new music vehicle debuted on this very day. Yes, a few hours after this TOTP had finished, the very first Later…with Jools Holland hit our screens. Whilst TOTP would eventually peter out and be deemed unwanted in 2006, Later… is still part of the BBC’s broadcasting schedule today albeit that it had undergone some changes of format, times of transmission and even some tinkering with its name in that time. Its remit was vastly different from TOTP in that it was not bound by charts or hit records (mind you those time honoured rules seem to have gone by the by in recent TOTP repeats as well). Showcasing a wide variety of musical genres, its circular arrangement of stages, jam sessions with the host and a studio audience of 300 meant that you couldn’t really mistake Later…for its older sibling. Musical guests on that first show were The Neville Brothers (Gary and Phil!), The Christians, Nu Colours and D’Influence – I’d have maybe been interested in The Christians but nothing else. Over the years it has received accolades and criticism alike both for its choice of artists and its host but whatever your opinion of it, you have to give credit to a show that has lasted that long. I wonder if any of the acts on TOTP tonight ever received an invite from Jools?

We start with M People. They must have been on Later…surely? I’m going to have to check the list of episodes for 59 series to be sure. Hmm. Not sure about this post’s theme all of a sudden.

*checks anyway*

Yes! They first appeared in series 4 nearly two years on from this TOTP broadcast alongside Nick Lowe and an all female Bulgarian state choir. By 1998, they were so successful that they qualified for their own Later…Special with the whole show dedicated to them. Back in 1992 though they were struggling to establish themselves as a consistently successful chart act. They had achieved three consecutive Top 40 hits but diminishing returns had set in and each one peaked at a lower chart position than the one before. Not wanting to leave anything to chance, the band returned to the studio to record two new tracks to not only reverse that trend but to add to their debut album “Northern Soul” for a re-release. One of those tracks was “Excited” which was put out as a single. It did what it was designed to do but only just when it peaked at No 29.

In his intro, host Tony Dortie (more on him ‘laterz’) encourages us to jump about to the song which is the exact opposite of what plays out as the band give the most static of performances with certainly no jumping going on. The track is all about the chorus which is perfect for Heather Small’s enormous, swooping vocals. The rest of it is a bit meh – yes, not the most articulate of critiques but then I’m writing 6,000 words a week on this blog so I’m allowing myself the odd bit of lazy writing OK?

The band should probably have just gone straight to Plan B which is what they ended up doing eventually anyway. In the February of the following year they rereleased “How Can I Love You More (Mixes)” which did what it said on the tin and remixed their debut single (including a mix by Sasha) and the combination of radio and club versions was enough to take then into the Top 10 for the first time. Then came the Mercury Music Prize winning “Elegant Slumming” and the rest was history.

It’s the mini chart rundown from 20 – 11 next over the video for “Sentinel” by Mike Oldfield. He’s a big name, he’s surely been on Later…Yes, of course he has on series 12 in 1998 appearing alongside Fun Lovin’ Criminals amongst others. He played the intro from “Tubular Bells” – of course he did. We’ve seen both the video for “Sentinel” and an ‘exclusive’ performance of the song before so do I have to comment on this one again? I do? Erm…well, obviously this was from “Tubular Bells II” and six years later Oldfield released “Tubular Bells III” and then a year later “The Millennium Bell”. It didn’t stop there though as he re-recorded the original album for its 30th anniversary in 2003. And I thought Later… had some longevity.

Next up are Ned’s Atomic Dustbin. Did they ever appear on Later…? What do you reckon? Well, they didn’t as far as I can tell. Their stock was pretty high in 1992 though. They’d headlined the NME stage at Glastonbury in the Summer and had toured extensively in the US where MTV had picked up some of their videos for heavy rotation. Indeed, this single “Not Sleeping Around” topped the Modern Rock / Alternative chart over there. The lead single for second studio album “Are You Normal?”, it peaked at No 19 in the UK making it their second biggest hit ever. Apparently Jools Holland wasn’t a fan though.

As for the song itself, I don’t remember this one but listening back to it now it has hints of EMF, The Wedding Present and Jocks Wa Hey. Who are the last name on that list you say? Only the greatest band that never existed! Still not sure? The Young Person’s Guide To Becoming A Rock Star? Channel 4? Late 90s? Here they are in all their glory…

What a time the next artist was having around now. Not only was Tasmin Archer on her way to No 1 with “Sleeping Satellite” but by the time it got to the top of the charts she was also appearing on the third ever edition of Later…and who was she sharing the bill with for that show? Only Motown legend Smokey Robinson! She must have been pinching herself. Nobody had ever heard of her six weeks before that.

Although her fame was fleeting, she isn’t the one hit wonder many may think. Her album “Great Expectations” provided her with a further three hit singles including the dark but powerful “In Your Care” which was written about child abuse and raised money for the Child Line charity. The song’s subject matter showed that Tasmin wasn’t one for shying away from issues and was a brave choice as a follow up single to a No 1 record.

Two years later she demonstrated her self belief by covering not one but four songs by one of the most respected songwriters of a generation when she released the “Shipbuilding EP” which included four Elvis Costello songs. It took some balls to record her version of the EP’s title track . Not only was it written by Costello but there was already a version in existence that was recognised as the definitive take on the song by Robert Wyatt. My wife is a big Costello fan and she liked Tasmin’s version enough to buy it. There really was more to Archer than just “Sleeping Satellite”.

Now a tricky one to predict for many reasons next but I’m specifically referring to whether they ever appeared on Later… Prince was certainly a big enough name to have done so but did his schedule ever allow it? It didn’t according to Wikipedia and Jools Holland never got to accompany the great man but there is this rather lovely tribute to him by Gregory Porter from the show:

The follow up to “Sexy MF” and the second single from the “Love Symbol” album, “My Name Is Prince” peaked at No 7 on the UK Top 40. Oh the irony of that song title given his battles with his nomenclature! The naming of the song was surely deliberate. It’s a typical, full on Prince funk out of a track and I quite liked it at the time but it’s not up there amongst the very best of his work on reflection. Apparently that is actually Prince in the video behind that chainmail face covering sending fans wild as he performs in an alleyway which is quite appropriate as the full video features Cheers actress Kirstie Alley. I’m guessing that wasn’t deliberate though.

The next artist we last saw on the show as part of Quartz performing their dance version of Carol King’s “It’s Too Late” back in 1991. The following year she was back in her own right, striking out on her own as Dina Carroll (Dina bring short for Geraldine). She’d already clocked up one Top 40 single in 1992 called “Ain’t No Man” but it didn’t make it onto TOTP. She’s made the cut this time though with her second single “Special Kind Of Love”. This was a jaunty little number if a little generic. I could imagine Whitney Houston or Mariah Carey belting this one out – in fact it does sound a bit like the latter’s “Emotions” track come to think of it. There’s even a little bit of vocal dynamics Mariah style in the middle. Not unpleasant though. Dina would go supernova the following year with her Top 3 hit “Don’t Be A Stranger” propelling sales of her “So Close” album through the roof. Said album would eventually furnish Dina with six chart hits.

She looks ever so slightly uncomfortable in this performance up there on her own like she’s not entirely sure where to put herself. At one point she nearly misses her vocal cue and at another seems to look to the side of the stage as if hoping for someone behind the scenes to tell her where to stand. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have noticed anything at the time but writing a blog makes me look for the slightest details now.

As for her Later…credentials, she appeared on the very first Hootenanny in 1993 which would have coincided with the height of her success. Ah yes, Hootenanny, Jools’ annual New Year’s Eve shindig. My wife and I used to watch this religiously but our commitment has waned in recent years. I think it was when we found out it wasn’t live and was in fact recorded some time in October I think. You can’t trust anything or anyone these days can you?

“Special Kind Of Love” peaked at No 16.

Next a bloke who really should have been a none hit wonder rather than the one hit variety but here he is with a second Top 40 entry. Billy Ray Cyrus was responsible for one of the year’s cringiest songs in “Achy Breaky Heart” but here he was trying to prove that he was a proper artist really and not a novelty song singer. “Could’ve Been Me” was his follow up to that ~~turd~~ song and he’s doing his best Merle Haggard impression to convince us of his credibility. That ain’t working for me at all and neither is the fact that his performance is being broadcast live from Nashville, the home of country music. This guy was pure (Dwight) hokum surely?

Cyrus never had another UK hit despite releasing 53 singles and 16 studio albums during his career. The figure for his appearances on Later….? That would be a big, fat zero. Oh and a final quiz question before we’re done with Billy Ray. Can you name another artist who is only known really for one hugely successful song but who had a follow up hit that included the words ‘Could’ve Been’ in the title? Yep, it was the shopping mall princess herself, Tiffany.

Four Breakers this week two of which we’ve already seen in full before. Why did the producers keep doing this? It seems like such a waste especially when you consider that one of those two songs is by Status Quo!

Yes, we’re stuck with the Quo putting in a halfhearted shift at the money for old rope factory. Even Jools Holland couldn’t be doing with them and they were never invited on Later…The video for “Roadhouse Medley (Anniversary Waltz – Part 25)” seems mainly to just be the promo for their 1984 single “The Wanderer” which is one of the tracks in the medley intercut with some live gig footage but really, who gives a s**t?

The second artist who’s already performed in full on the show previously is Sade who, we must remember, are a band not a singer. At least the video for “No Ordinary Love” has singer Sade Adu costumed as a mermaid to…erm…retain our interest (as opposed to some blokes in denim arseing around on a bus as per Quo’s video). And Later…?What do you reckon? Yes, of course they’ve been on but not until November 2000 presumably to promote their “Lovers Rock” album.

Now here’s a real forgotten song – “Sometimes Love Just Ain’t Enough” by Patty Smyth and Don Henley. Hands up who remembers this? Well, if anyone is reading this in the US or Canada they might well have raised an arm as this was a No 2 record in America and the biggest selling single of the year in Canada. Over here though, it petered out at No 22.

So who is/was Patty Smyth? That’s Patty Smyth not Patti Smith the legendary US punk rock icon. Well, Patty was in a band called Scandal (never heard of them) who had one major hit in America in 1984 but it didn’t translate to the UK. By far her biggest hit was this one as discussed above but that shouldn’t define her career. She has written multiple songs for film soundtracks, worked with bands like The Hooters and – get this – she was invited by Eddie Van Halen to join the rock giants as a replacement for singer David Lee Roth but she declined as she was pregnant at the time with her first child. That was with her first husband Richard Hell of Richard Hell & The Voidoids fame. I only really know about this guy through my wife who’s elder brother listened to a lot of Hell’s music when they were growing up. As if that partner wasn’t interesting enough, guess who Patty is married to now? John McEnroe the tennis legend! I know! John is also a musician having been taught to play the guitar by his friend Eric Clapton. And I thought my guitar teacher was good.

Back to the music though and “Sometimes Love Just Ain’t Enough” is a nice enough country rock ballad that you could imagine The Eagles having recorded (no surprise given Henley’s involvement). I could also picture it being on the soundtrack to a romantic drama probably starring Matthew McConaughey and Sandra Bullock.

Neither Don Henley nor Patty Smyth (nor John McEnroe!) have ever appeared on Later…though Patti Smith has.

The final Breaker comes from Simple Minds who are back in the charts but not with new material. Back in 1992, the band were at the start of a four year hiatus between albums. Record label Virgin wisely decided that now would therefore be a good time to raid the band’s back catalogue and release a Best Of album. “Glittering Prize 81/92” was that album but as it was a Virgin endeavour it precluded the inclusion of tracks from the band’s first three non-Virgin albums. Sadly this meant marvellous songs like “I Travel” were missing from the track listing. Still, you couldn’t say it wasn’t jam packed with hits. Sixteen of them were on the album and the appeal of that was enough to send it to No 1 and triple platinum.

To promote it, a double A-side single was released, that being “Love Song/Alive And Kicking” The former was a track from 1981 that had been a minor hit peaking outside of the Top 40 whilst the latter was that well known behemoth of a rock anthem that went to No 7 in 1985. Interesting that Virgin chose the lesser known “Love Song” to promote the album (it’s that song that TOTP play) though in my memory it was “Alive And Kicking” that picked up all the airplay.

We sold loads of this album in the Our Price in Rochdale where I was working whilst the single also sold well peaking at No 6. There’d already been an unofficial Greatest Hits album by the band in the form of live album “Live In The City Of Light” from 1987 – Phil Collins did a similar thing by releasing “Serious Hits Live” before a formal Greatest Hits – plus the “Themes” box sets from 1990. Subsequent years would see the band release multiple Best Of albums including an acoustic one in 2017.

Despite their status and longevity, Simple Minds have never been on Later… though Simply Red have. Where’s the justice?

And so we arrive at the moment that I realised that this Take That thing wasn’t going away anytime soon. Having achieved the status of genuine pop stars with bona fide hits, it was time to consolidate and how do you do that after your first two hits have been uptempo numbers? With a ballad of course and Gary Barlow had just the thing. Written when he was 15 and presumably when he knew little about the whole love thing, “A Million Love Songs” was perfect for cultivating the affection of thousands of teenage girls up and down the country. Tuneful yet simple, there was nothing very complicated going on here although the self referential use of the phrase ‘love songs’ did add an extra layer to it. Kind of like the innocent, wide eyed younger sibling to “Song For Whoever” by The Beautiful South.

It’s not often mentioned but the single wasn’t actually a single at all but an E.P (“The Love Songs E.P.” to be exact). The CD single and vinyl formats all contained three other songs in addition to “A Million Love Songs”. The cassette version only had a different mix of it. There was also a limited edition 7” that came with transfer tattoos that had the same track listing as the cassette. So what were the other songs on the E.P. and were they any good? They were “Still Can’t Get Over You”, “How Can It Be” and “Don’t Take Your Love”. As for their quality, I have no idea (nor wish to find out) as they lay largely redundant and attracted very little radio play. The group themselves can’t have been that enamoured with them as none made the cut for their debut album though one of them was included as a bonus track on a 2006 expanded edition.

This TOTP performance seemed designed to establish two things. One, that the band could do more than just dance about like pop puppets to some disco-lite tracks and two, that Gary Barlow was the talent here. I defy anybody watching this back then to have looked at the group and say that the guy second left in the hat doing backing vocals will have a bigger solo career than the bloke on the piano. The fact that he did also led to Robbie Williams appearing on Later…something that neither Gary Barlow nor Take That managed.

“A Million Love Songs” peaked at No 7.

Before we get to the No 1, a little more on presenter Tony Dortie. Tony has been revisiting his past and tweeting along with some of these TOTP repeats. He seems like a decent sort, quite self deprecating. Anyway, he announced that last week’s repeats would be the last he would engage with but promised to bow out with a story that couldn’t be shown on any of The Story Of…TOTP documentaries. He also promised to reveal the real reason why the much reviled Adrian Rose refused to give consent for his TOTP presenter shows to be aired again. There was much build up to Tony releasing this video and he prefaced it with an explanation that all the legals had been cleared and the story was ready to go. Wow! This was surely going to be explosive and blow the lid on the show’s secrets. Are you ready to hit that play button? Go for it!

Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for the loss of 10 minutes and 35 seconds of your life that you won’t get back if you do.

Thanks for nothing Tony. Laterz!

It’s a final week at the top for The Shamen and “Ebeneezer Goode”. With the single deleted by the band to clear the release schedule for the next single, they would be back near the top of the charts again soon enough when “Boss Drum” went to No 4. A final trip to the Top 5 was squeezed in when “Phorever People” was released just before Xmas. The Shamen were never anywhere near as big again.

P.S. They never appeared on Later…either.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	M People	Excited	No but I think my wife bought the album
2	Mike Oldfield	Sentinel	Nah
3	Ned’s Atomic Dustbin	Not Sleeping Around	I did not
4	Tasmin Archer	Sleeping Satellite	Nope
5	Prince	My Name Is Prince	Didn’t mind it, didn’t buy it
6	Dina Carroll	Special Kind Of Love	No
7	Billy Ray Cyrus	Could’ve Been Me	Hell no!
8	Status Quo	Roadhouse Medley (Anniversary Waltz – Part 25)	Never!
9	Sade	No Ordinary Love	Nah
10	Patty Smyth and Don Henley	Sometimes Love Just Ain’t Enough	Negative
11	Simple Minds	Love Song/Alive And Kicking	No but I’ve got one pop those Best Of albums
12	Take That	A Million Love Songs	Never happening
13	The Shamen	Ebeneezer Goode	Don’t think I did

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/m001648s/top-of-the-pops-08101992

TOTP 01 OCT 1992

Posted on April 6, 2022 by 80stastic

The new ‘year zero’ TOTP format isn’t so new anymore as this show marked its one year anniversary. Host Mark Franklin makes reference to this in his off screen intro and also mentions the shift of location from Television Centre to BBC’s Elstree base in Hertfordshire. All of the changes involved in the new format were meant to reconnect the then nearly 28 years old TOTP with its traditional youthful audience who were embracing a dance revolution that the show was struggling to showcase. In a case of perfect symmetrical timing, the first act on tonight is performing a song called “Connected”. I refer, of course, to Stereo MCs.

Along with Suede from last week’s show, for a short while this lot were the epitome of hip. Not the same sort of hip that Brett and the boys exuded though. No, this was a more grubby, deep down and dirty type of hip. Not that I’m suggesting that Suede were a bunch of Mummies Boys. No, it’s just that the face of Stereo MCS, Rob Birch, had the look of someone who’d seen some things that you definitely wish you hadn’t. Well, that and Catweazle (Google him if you’re too young to know who that was). I wrongly assumed that they were a Manchester band due to their image and sound and although they had toured with Happy Mondays, they were in fact from Nottingham. They’d also been around since the end of the last decade and had already released two albums before they came up with “Connected”. The lead single and title of their third album, it hit a chord with both the dance heads and the indie crowd with its skanking beat and ‘aa-aa-ye-ah’ chant. It was perfect for lumbering around the dance floor Ian Brown / King Monkey style.

Just like Sade before them on last week’s show, the band were prolific at releasing material early in their career (three albums in three years) but then took nine years to record a follow up to “Connected”. The world felt like a very different place by then (9/11 was only a few months away from happening) and it didn’t sell nearly as well as its predecessor which went platinum, won a BRIT award and peaked at No 2 in the charts. They have released another three albums since with the last coming in 2011.

Some Antipodean rock/pop now as Crowded House continue to mine the wealth of tunes from their “Woodface” album with the release of fifth single “It’s Only Natural”. The LP had come out 15 months earlier but sales of it only really took off after “Weather With You” was a Top 10 hit in February /March of ‘92. I loved this album and got a signed copy when the band did a PA at the HMV megastore in Manchester. I think they did a small set before playing a gig at Manchester Academy on the evening (which I also went to). It was a fine show, probably one of the best I have ever witnessed.

As for this TOTP performance, clearly the producers didn’t know what to do with the band and so they’ve ended up playing against a completely white backdrop with the only concession to props being the dry ice machine being put into top gear. Or maybe it was a deliberate statement that said these guys are all about the music and don’t need any cheap gimmicks getting in the way?

As for the song itself, you have to admire any song they gets ‘this mortal coil’ and ‘circumstantial’ into its lyrics but what was it actually about? Could it be that Neil Finn was singing about his hair? Neil’s barnet must be one of the most odd in music. Not flashy odd (Billy Idol) or designed to shock odd (Sigue Sigue Sputnik) but naturally odd. It’s got a life of its own, stubbornly growing at odd angles and generally behaving in an unruly way. Neil of course has previous in the hair stakes. He was in art rockers Split Enz (get it?) and his hair was even more mental then. “It’s Only Natural” peaked at No 24.

There have been a few changes to the ‘year zero’ format over the past 12 months one of which has been a return to a chart countdown (sort of). They started off just listing the Top 10 but over the last few weeks they’ve expanded that to include the rest of the chart. Here we get Nos 20 to 11 over a video by Chaos for their cover of “Farewell My Summer Love”. Who were these guys? Well, they were Sinitta’s backing dancers who were put together into a pop group by her then boyfriend Simon Cowell and included a 9 year old in their ranks, Don’t remember them? You can forgive yourself as firstly, just like with Omar’s “Music” single that soundtracked this feature last week, their song never actually made the Top 40 peaking at No 55. Secondly, their name. Does Ultimate Kaos ring any bells? That’s what they changed it to two years on from this and it worked as they clocked up six Top 40 hits. The power of the word ‘ultimate’ and some misspelling in evidence there.

If the staging for Crowded House was minimalist, then the producers have gone all Laurence Llewelyn- Bowen for the next act. Hear that noise? That’s the sound of the bottom of the music barrel being scraped. Or possibly it’s the annoying sound of one of the most iconic computer games of the decade. Tetris was that descending blocks puzzle game that was Nintendo’s top selling title and that came as the default game with their Game Boy console bundle. OK, so who’s idea was it to release a song based on the game? Nintendo themselves? Oh no. If you thought about it for long enough I reckon you would come up with the scoundrel’s name. The aforementioned Simon Cowell? Good guess but no. Need a clue? OK – Bombalurina. No, not Timmy Mallett but Andrew Lloyd Webber. The good lord (!) released a Eurodance version of the “Tetris” theme under the name of Doctor Spin and the idiotic British public bought it in enough quantities to take it to No 6.

Obviously the ex-Mr Brightman wasn’t going to perform this atrocity himself so for the sake of TOTP some dancers have been drafted in and dressed in costumes resembling blocks from the game. The absolute state of this. Unbelievably, this wasn’t the only record that was a hit based on this ludicrous idea as simultaneously in the charts came “Supermarioland” by Ambassadors Of Funk. What a time to be alive!

Some Breakers now starting with The Sundays. This is a band I really should have massively been into but yet again somehow they slipped under my radar and through my grasp. I eventually cottoned on when they released their (so far) final album “Static & Silence” five years on from this point but I really should dive deeper into their back catalogue. “Goodbye” was taken from their second album “Blind” and marked their first release on the Parlophone label after Rough Trade had entered receivership leading to the band relocating labels. Their debut album “Reading, Writing And Arithmetic” had been released with the indie legends and had been a huge success going Top 5 despite the lack of a hit single. That statistic was amended in 1998 when “Here’s Where The Story Ends” was covered by London dance act Tin Tin Out and taken into the Top 10. Somehow I always get that confused with Electribe 101’s “Tell Me When The Fever Ended”. Damn my fading memory.

I can name the first three singles from Neneh Cherry with no prompting whatsoever but ask me for anything after that and I’m struggling. There was “7 Seconds“ with Youssou N’Dour and…something on the “Red Hot+Blue” album? I remember the front cover to her second album “Homebrew” but nothing else about it and certainly not this lead single from it called “Money Love”.

Back in 1989 she’d been a huge breakout star with her “Raw Like Sushi” album achieving platinum status for sales of 300,000 units. Three years in pop music is a long time though and by the time “Homebrew” came out though, her era of glory felt like a long time ago. Did she still have the ear of pop fans? Sales of the album suggested no. It crawled to a high of No 27 despite the inclusion of a track featuring REM’s Michael Stipe. The single “Money Love” fared little better not even making the Top 20. Not that it wasn’t any good but how could Neneh expect to compete with a single based around the music used in a hand held computer game? Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber – you truly are an arse sir.

We had an ‘exclusive” performance of “Sentinel” by Mike Oldfield just last week but that hasn’t stopped the TOTP producers including it in the Breakers seven days later. I’m really not sure the video which seems to be a montage of various different takes on the “Tubular Bells” graphic warranted another outing. If you Google Mike Oldfield some of the entries in the People Also Ask section include ‘How long is Mike Oldfield on Tubular Bells?’, ‘How much is Mike Oldfield?’ and ‘What did Mike Oldfield?’. Eh?

By the end of the fourth of tonight’s Breakers we will have achieved optimum capacity for shoehorning the most songs into the smallest amount of time. Eight songs in less than 12 minutes! I really think this was TOTP trying to compete with ITV’s entirely video based music vehicle The Chart Show. This last track really deserved more airtime. REM had gone truly global with the previous year’s “Out Of Time” album. Not resting on their laurels, they released their third album in four years “Automatic For The People” with the lead single being “Drive”. For me this is one of those songs that leaves an impression on you after just that first listen so heavy is its sound. A dark, brooding, menacing track, it’s marked out further by its odd structure- it doesn’t really have a chorus.

There’s various online theories about what the lyrics mean especially around who Ollie is but according to Michael Stipe, one of its influences comes from an unexpected source. The line “Hey kids, rock ‘n’ roll” was inspired by David Essex’s “Rock On”. Actually, I’m sure there’s a scene in his film Stardust when his character Jim MacLaine is doing a gig with his band The Stray Cats and he shouts out “Hey, rock ‘n’ roll!” during it now I come to think of it. As good as “Drive” is, for me it’s not best track on the album with at least three or four other songs ahead of it. It peaked at No 11, the band’s second biggest UK hit at that point in their career yet, unusually for an album’s lead single, it doesn’t feature on subsequent Best Of albums.

Right who’s next? Oh great, it’s Dr Alban who’s up to No 2. Look man, if I need a song called “It’s My Life” in my…erm…life then I’ve got that wonderful song by Talk Talk. Hell, at a stretch I’ve even got the cover version by No Doubt. I have zero need for this Eurodance-ified house track with some terrible rapping tacked onto it. Apparently the track was re-recorded in 2014 by the good doctor and some bloke called Chawki and retitled “It’s My Life (Don’t Worry)” but I really can’t be arsed to check it out not even for the purposes of this blog. Look, it’s my life OK?

Another song now that totally transports me back to this era when I had just started working at the Our Price store in Rochdale. “Iron Lion Zion” was the third posthumously released single by Bob Marley following his death in 1981. We’d already had “Buffalo Soldier” in 1983 to promote the “Confrontation” album of unreleased recordings which went to No 4. A year later came “One Love/People Get Ready” to promote the “Legend” compilation album. Fast forward to 1992 and “Iron Lion Zion” was put out to advertise the “Songs Of Freedom” box set. Like its two predecessors it went Top 5.

Espousing Rastafarian beliefs of Zion as the Promised Land of Ethiopia and the Lion Of Judah representing Haile Selassie, it also featured legendary jazzer Courtney Pine. Appealing to both daytime radio and the clubs via its 12” mix, it was a timely reminder of Marley’s talent and legacy. Apparently his final words to his son Ziggy on his death bed were “Money can’t buy life”. A wise man indeed.

If it’s the early 90s then there’s always room for one more dance tune and here it is – “I’m Gonna Get You” by Bizarre Inc featuring Angie Brown. This was the third hit on the spin for these Staffordshire techno ravers following “Such A Feeling” and “Playing With Knives” and it would prove to be the biggest of the lot when it peaked at No 3. This time they had roped in a female soul singer with the surname of Brown to help but it wasn’t Jocelyn. Nope, but Angie Brown had been recruited to sing like her namesake. “I’m Gonna Get You” featured lyrics from Jocelyn’s song “Love’s Gonna Get You” and rather than pay to sample the original, Angie filled in and re-recorded that part of the track.

So who is Angie Brown? Well, she’s worked mainly as a backing singer with some huge names like The Rolling Stones, Happy Mondays, Kate Bush, Chaka Khan and the aforementioned Neneh Cherry. She’s also on Mark Morrison’s 1996 No 1 “Return Of The Mack” but her first taste of chart success in her own right came in 1992 with Bizarre Inc. Despite having Angie to front the record, there are five blokes up there with her on stage (two dancers and three keyboard players) at least half of which have the regulation ponytail for these times. For all that, I didn’t mind this one.

As it’s an anniversary show, it’s a perfect opportunity to squeeze in a mention that Radio 1 celebrated their own 25th birthday the day before this broadcast. Fair enough so how to mark this event on TOTP? Bit of a video montage of clips featuring past and present DJs perhaps. Maybe back in the day when Radio 1 and TOTP were so inextricably linked you couldn’t see the joins that would have been what happened. This was a new era though where Radio 1 ties had been severed so just a three second clip of all the DJs together on the steps of Broadcasting House (?) saying “Happy Birthday Radio 1 FM!” was deemed more than adequate.

Also celebrating 25 years of existence (just about) were the next act Status Quo. Hang on! Weren’t they on the first show of the ‘year zero’ era? Yes, they were playing a horrible version of “Let’s Work Together” from their “Rock ‘til You Drop” album. One year on almost to the day and they’re still seen by TOTP producer Stanley Appel as the go to party band when you’re having a knees up. Had he learned nothing from the past year?! So what are they playing this time? A medley of course! Just about everything they released around this time was a medley wasn’t it? This one was called “Roadhouse Medley (Anniversary Waltz Part 25)” and featured tracks including “The Wanderer”, “Marguerita Time” and “Living On An Island”. Bigging up the performance by it being live from Amsterdam was neither here nor there as the band were just in a room that could gave been anywhere. What a horrible, pointless waste of everyone’s time!

The Shamen still rule the roost with “Ebeneezer Goode”. Remember when Wet Wet Wet deleted “Love Is All Around” after 15 weeks at No 1 because they were bored of the whole thing by then? Well The Shamen did the same thing two years before them with this single but you don’t hear much about it. There were rumours it was because of the constant press attention about the supposed drug references in the track but the band themselves said it was that its prolonged run at the top was mucking up their schedule for subsequent single releases. Naughty naughty!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Stereo MCs	Connected	Don’t think I did
2	Crowded House	It’s Only Natural	No but I had the Woodface album it was from
3	Chaos	Farewell My Summer Love	Hell no!
4	Doctor Spin	Tetris	I’d rather have eaten my own arm
5	The Sundays	Goodbye	No
6	Neneh Cherry	Money Love	Nope
7	Mike Oldfield	Sentinel	Nah
8	REM	Drive	Not the single but I bought the Automatic For The People album
9	Dr. Alban	It’s My Life	Definitely not!
10	Bob Marley	Iron Lion Zion	I did not
11	Bizarre Inc featuring Angie Brown	I’m Gonna Get You	Didn’t mind it, didn’t buy it
12	Status Quo	Roadhouse Medley (Anniversary Waltz Part 25)	Are you joking?!
13	The Shamen	Ebeneezer Goode	It’s a 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/m0015x90/top-of-the-pops-01101992

TOTP 24 SEP 1992

Posted on April 2, 2022 by 80stastic

OK, the relentless BBC4 schedule of two TOTP shows a week combined with 14 episodes that we missed due to Adrian Rose’s unwillingness to sign a repeats waiver has delivered us into late September back in 1992. On the day this particular show was broadcast, Conservative MP David Mellor resigned from government in the light of his adulterous affair with actress Antonia De Sancha. Remember that? Can that really be 30 years ago?! I actually find myself longing for the days when a sex scandal dominated the news rather than the utter existential misery that we have these days. What I found must upsetting and shocking about this little tale of sleaze wasn’t the revelation that the wretched Mellor claimed to be a fan of my beloved Chelsea (though the shame of association with this vile man was bad enough) but that he apparently made love in a Chelsea strip. Eeewww! The Sun mocked up a picture of Mellor in said kit with the tag line ‘Night he scored four times with actress’. The whole thing was repulsive! Now of course, those stories of existential misery I mentioned before also apply to Chelsea – life was so much simpler back then David Mellor and all.

We start tonight’s show with an act called Messiah who have covered Donna Summer’s shimmering Giorgio Moroder co-written and produced disco classic “I Feel Love” (one for David Mellor there – eeewww!). Yet again, despite the real possibility that I may have sold this record to an eager punter while working at Our Price in Rochdale, I have zero recall of this track. The Donna Summer original? Obviously. Bronski Beat and Marc Almond’s cover from 1985? Of course. This techno rave up? Not a flicker.

Apparently that’s Precious Wilson doing the vocals who was in Eruption of “I Can’t Stand The Rain” and “One Way Ticket” fame back in the 70s. Backing her up is a man playing a fiddle who seems to be doing an impression of Jerry Sadowitz’s “Ebeneezer Goode” character, a guy on keyboards at the back channelling his inner Chris Lowe of Pet Shop Boys (even down to the very tall hat) and, randomly, two people in Star Wars stormtrooper headgear. It looks a bit of a mess visually. The ‘Hail the Messiah!’ sample is from Life Of Brian.

Messiah’s version of “I Feel Love” peaked at No 19.

Reminder to self: Sade is the name of the band not the singer. Same as Toyah. Do not forget this when writing the next few paragraphs.

Sade is a bit of a mystery isn’t she? DOH!! I mean, Sade are an enigmatic band aren’t they? Making huge waves in 1984 with their BRIT award winning, four times platinum selling debut album “Diamond Life”, their sound seem to be completely fully formed immediately and created the cultural trope of the ‘coffee table album’. Two more albums followed in the next four years peaking at Nos 1 and 3. They played Live Aid. And yet…what do we really know about them and why, given their popularity, have they only ever had one Top 10 hit?

Well, aside from the fact that they are a band not a singer that I addressed before, three of them were from my home of the last 18 years Hull while the band’s singer Sade Adu was from Nigeria originally. They were like the Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars of sophisti-pop. Sade (the individual) had worked as a part-time model and fashion designer before settling on music as her career of choice. I think she was part of the Blitz scene at the start of the 80s hanging out with New Romantic heroes Spandau Ballet who didn’t realise she could sing. By 1983, the buzz about her and her band was enough to attract the attention of Epic Records and contracts were duly signed.

Then came that genre defining first album and the whole world seemed to know their name. Or rather Sade Adu’s name. Could anyone name any other member of the band without googling them? As for their lack of singles success, maybe they’re just an album artist but the truth is that apart from debut single “Your Love Is King” going to No 6, none of their singles got higher than No 14. Which brings us to 1992 and “No Ordinary Love”. As well as having a song title that could make a David Mellor/Antonia De Sancha playlist (eeewww!), this would prove to be their second biggest hit ever (yep that No 14 hit) and was from the band’s fourth album “Love Deluxe”.

The release of that album made it four in eight years giving a rate of one every two years which was pretty consistent. However, it would be eight years before the next long player (2000’s “Lovers Rock”) and a further ten years after that before their sixth and so far last album (2010’s “Soldier Of Love”). Back in 1992 though, the fanbase had little idea that this batch of new songs would have to sustain them throughout the rest of the decade.

Despite having been away for four years during which there had been a dance music explosion, the TOTP producers still believed in Sade’s blend of sophisti-pop / neo soul enough to give them an ‘exclusive’ slot on the show. To be honest though, they did rather dish them out as prolifically as fixed penalty notices to a Conservative government. Sade (the individual) gives her usual sultry performance and doesn’t seem to have aged at all in the eight years since she first burst into the charts.

“No Ordinary Love” was originally a No 26 hit but achieved that No 14 peak when rereleased eight months later in June of 1993. I have no idea why that was.

Right, there’s two ‘what’s going on here then?’ moments in one next. Firstly, there’s a change of format with an extended chart rundown now included which covers places 20 through to 11 – previously we’d had to make do with the Top 10. It’s just a rolling ticker tape display over the top of a video but still. It’s a nod towards the format of old I guess.

Secondly, said video this week is from Omar but it’s for a song that isn’t “There’s Nothing Like This”. Eh? What gives? Omar had more than one Top 40 hit?! Well, he did but one of them wasn’t this single “Music”, the title track from his second album which peaked at No 53! What was going on here?! Singles that weren’t actually hits being given airtime on the show? And then irony of ironies, they play it as the backdrop of a new Top 40 centric feature! To top it all off, the track is only given 40 seconds before it’s yanked off screen. I’m guessing that the producers negotiated with Omar’s label and came up with a way of getting him on the show but the payback was it was for a very small amount of airtime. It’s basically a Breaker slot but they couldn’t call it that as it wasn’t actually in the Top 40 and so technically couldn’t be said to have ‘broken’ into the charts. What a mess!

Ah, that’s unfortunate. It’s Boy George next with “The Crying Game”. Not unfortunate because I didn’t like the record – I didn’t mind it really – but because it was literally the second to last song reviewed in my last post so I’m completely spent when it comes to saying anything else about it. OK well, George’s version of this song that was originally a hit in the 60s for Dave Berry (not that bloke on Absolute Radio in a morning) was taken from the soundtrack to the film of the same name and and was produced by Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant.

I like the nod to George’s past with his twangy guitar player dressed like the Culture Club singer from ten years previous.

This is more like it *TOTP! This is what the kids wanted! In Autumn of 1992, you couldn’t be more achingly hip than Suede were. Lauded as many things including the antidote to grunge and the spearhead of a new wave of British rock music, they rode the zeitgeist hard with Melody Maker dubbing them “The Best New Band in Britain”. They appeared on the publication’s front cover before they even had a recording contract. They weren’t just big news, they were the news.

Inevitably given lead singer Brett Anderson’s androgynous image and the band’s glam rock influences, Bowie comparisons abounded. Impact wise, they were talked of in the same breath as The Smiths. Retrospectively, they have been allocated the status of the John the Baptist of Britpop, paving the way for the likes of Blur, Oasis, Pulp et al to dominate the mid 90s. It’s a role the band don’t sit comfortably with. Not everyone was sold on them initially though. My friend Robin who was living in London at the time caught an early gig of theirs and his three word review was “Suede – I wasn’t”. Clever sod.

“Metal Mickey” was the band’s first Top 40 hit though not their first single released. That’s honour went to “The Drowners” which had come out a few months before but failed to make the Top 40 despite being a great tune. By the time their debut eponymous album was released in March the following year, they had clocked up a Top 10 single in “Animal Nitrate” and the album duly went to No 1 becoming, at the time, the fastest selling debut album in UK history in a decade. It won the very first Mercury Music Prize and went on to sell 300,000 copies in the UK. I can remember playing it very loudly in the Our Price store in Rochdale where I was working before opening.

Four years later I saw the band live myself in Blackburn with my mate Steve on the tour for the “Coming Up” album. They were supported by Mansun. Both bands were good as I recall. We’ll no doubt be seeing lots more of Suede in these TOTP repeats.

“Metal Mickey” peaked at No 17.

*Interesting how in his intro host Mark Franklin actually says “TOTP” rather than “Top Of The Pops”. I just use the acronym to save on typing in my blog. What was Mark’s reason for using it?

Today may have been the end of the road for David Mellor’s political career but it was the start of a journey for one of the biggest selling singles of the year and indeed, one of the biggest selling of the decade in the US. “End Of The Road” by Boyz II Men was No 1 over there for 13 weeks straight and was certified platinum for shifting a million units and won two Grammy awards. It topped the charts in the UK for three weeks and was the sixth best selling single of the year here. In short, it was a monster.

As with Boy George’s hit earlier, it was from a film soundtrack but unlike George’s one I’ve never seen, at least not all the way through. Boomerang was the latest Eddie Murphy in which he plays a character who is an advertising executive, a womaniser and male chauvinist. Hmm. I think made the right choice.

Anyway, so popular was “End Of The Road” that Boyz II Men’s debut album “Cooleyhighharmony” – which didn’t include the song initially – was rereleased with it now on the track listing. Their sound has been described as ‘hip-hop doo wop’ and helped establish R’n’B as the dominant music genre into the new millennium. For me though, “End Of The Road” was quite a straight forward big ballad albeit that unusually it featured all four members taking the lead vocal at various points in the song.

The performance here was from New Orleans and the most striking thing about it was their wardrobe. What were they thinking?! Matching suits and ties is fine but with baseball caps and shirt trousers?! It just looks weird. I mean not disturbing like David Mellor in his Chelsea kit but weird all the same.

“End Of The Road” will be No 1 soon enough so I’ll keep the rest of my powder dry until then.

An artist who is remembered for one song next though she really wasn’t a one hit wonder. The rule of diminishing returns after soaring the highest highs with her debut single was the possibly unfair fate that befell Tasmin Archer. That single was of course “Sleeping Satellite” and I definitely remember the advertising strategy for the single included a bill poster campaign which asked the question ‘Who Is Tasmin Archer?’ with very little other information. Loads of these posters just started appearing overnight. Quite clever in terms of building anticipation I guess.

The single was perfect for daytime radio. A well crafted pop song built around a swirling piano riff and a swooping chorus, the record buying public’s resistance was futile. This was always going to be a hit and a big one. I’m not sure even the most committed of Archer’s record label team could have predicted a No 1 though. Surely Tasmin herself couldn’t have expected that outcome first time out despite her debut album being called “Great Expectations”. In a way, “Sleeping Satellite” flew decidedly in the face of its chart peers with the Top 40 being populated by dance track after dance track but then hadn’t Chesney Hawkes scored a huge No 1 with a decidedly pop record the year before? Was it just a case of history repeating itself?

My wife and I saw Tasmin live years later kind of by accident or at least it wasn’t planned. We were in Glasgow for a birthday weekend away and wandering around the city centre stumbled across the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall and saw that she was playing there that night. We decided on a whim to go and bought tickets. Tasmin’s star had fallen a fair way by this point though (1996 I think) and the Strathclyde Suite in the venue was half full. She did her best but the audience reaction to her set suggested that they were just there for one obvious song. She told us punters that she’d been watching Stars In Their Eyes in her hotel room before the gig and let it slip that “I’d just die if someone did me”. I’m pretty sure nobody ever has.

Three Breakers now beginning with Def Leppard and a third single from their “Adrenalize” album called “Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad”. I don’t recall any singles from this album after the first two, the execrable duo of “Let’s Get Rocked” and “Make Love Like A Man”. I probably couldn’t handle any more after those two and deliberately avoided them. The soul searching title of this one sounds like it should be a ballad. OK, just for you lot I’ll break the habit of 30 years and give it a listen…

Well, I was right it is a ballad but it’s hardly a thing of delicate beauty is it? It’s all very soft rock by numbers sounding with crunchy guitars and Joe Elliott’s strained vocals. It’s sort of like Nigel Tufnel’s “Lick My Love Pump” in reverse if you get my drift.

“Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad” peaked at No 16.

Some proper rockers now as we get the video for “Jeremy” by Pearl Jam. I didn’t know the back story to this one nor about the controversy surrounding the video until now. Written about 15 year old Texas high school kid Jeremy Delle who shot himself in front of his classmates in 1991, it was the third single to be released from the band’s all conquering “Ten” album and peaked at No 15 in the UK.

The video follows the source material pretty graphically and caused MTV to order that the scene showing ‘Jeremy’ with a gun in his mouth to be edited out. The network’s outrage didn’t stop the video from picking up four MTV Video Music Awards including video of the year though. The controversy surrounding the video caused the band to recoil from them and didn’t make another one for six whole years. MTV rarely broadcast the promo after the Columbine High School massacre of 1999 though the uncensored version was released on Pearl Jam’s YouTube channel in 2020 to mark National Gun Violence Awareness Day.

If you asked the average punter to name a tune by The Prodigy that had the word ‘fire’ in it, I’m betting the vast majority would respond with “Firestarter”. There is another possible answer though. “Fire/Jericho” was the band’s third single and paved the way for their debut album “Experience” which was released the Monday after this TOTP aired. A double A-side, it’s “Fire” that gets an airing on the show tonight. Sampling The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown’s “Fire” amongst others, it was written to reflect that not all ravers were off their heads on ecstasy but some were blazing up on weed as well. One in the eye for Mary Whitehouse there.

The band seemed to have disowned the track in that it does not feature on their Best Of album “Their Law: The Singles 1990-2005” and that they hated the video that was made to promote it. Apparently it was the quality of the computer graphics that really irked them. Viewed by 2022 standards then yes, they look prehistoric but we’re they really so bad in 1992? I suppose it depends what you are comparing them to. Alongside the video for “Money For Nothing” by Dire Straits then they hold up. Viewed against A-ha’s “Take On Me” or Michael Jackson’s face morphing “Black And White” then they do appear amateurish at best.

“Fire/Jericho” peaked at No 11.

From rave to…Mike Oldfield? Yes, you can criticise the show for many things but you have to admit that TOTP did its best to reflect all musical genres. Oldfield of course had just released “Tubular Bells II” but, inverting the release schedule, hadn’t trailed it with a lead single. This was rectified by the release of “Sentinel” a couple of weeks later.

Was I excited about “Tubular Bells II”? Hardly. Though I did have a dark Mike Oldfield secret – I’d bought his “Moonlight Shadow” single almost 10 years before – I’d never been inspired to seek out his back catalogue. Obviously I knew of the original “Tubular Bells” album from 1973 but my knowledge of it was limited to the introduction theme from it that was used in the film The Exorcist. That brings us nicely back to “Sentinel” which was a re-imagining of that piece. The performance in Edinburgh that Mark Franklin references in his intro was a live concert at Edinburgh castle on 4 September with 6,000 people in attendance. Oldfield’s performance here though really is that of the stereotypical muso even down to his carefully coiffured but meant to look carefree hair. He’s playing guitar and keyboards but still has two other keyboard players with him as well as a guy on piano. Alright we get it Mike! Your art is so elaborate and complex that you need all that entourage with you.

Researching Oldfield’s discography, I had no idea he’d made so many studio albums- 26 and counting! Mind you he does go in for big numbers. He’s been married four times and has seven children. I didn’t know that he wrote the score for The Killing Fields, a film that had a profound effect on me the first time I saw it. Presumably it wasn’t Oldfield’s choice to use John Lennon’s “Imagine” at the film’s denouement? Having said that, there were rumours that the aforementioned “Moonlight Shadow” was written about Lennon’s murder in 1980. Oldfield had arrived in New York on the same day and was staying just a few blocks from the Dakota building so…

“Sentinel” peaked at No 10.

We arrive at the No 1 and it’s still “Ebenezer Goode” by The Shamen. I wonder if there is/was a real person called Ebeneezer Goode? There must be surely? I know someone who has an uncle Ebeneezer but there surname isn’t Goode. When you Google the name, if you scroll down enough you get to a result that talks about a Methodist chapel in Suffolk that has been converted into a weekend retreat and it’s called Ebeneezer Goode! Either the owner used to be a raver in his youth or it’s named after a person who really did exist surely?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Messiah	I Feel Love	Nah
2	Sade	No Ordinary Love	No
3	Omar	Music	Never happening
4	Boy George	The Crying Game	Nope
5	Suede	Metal Mickey	No but I bought the album
6	Boyz II Men	End Of The Road	I did not
7	Tasmin Archer	Sleeping Satellite	Didn’t mind it, didn’t buy it
8	Def Leppard	Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad	Hell no!
9	Pearl Jam	Jeremy	It’s a no
10	The Prodigy	Fire / Jericho	Jeri-no
11	Mike Oldfield	Sentinel	Sent me to sleep more like – no
12	The Shamen	Ebeneezer Goode	He’s ever so good…but I didn’t buy it

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/m0015x8y/top-of-the-pops-24091992

TOTP 03 SEP 1992

Posted on March 26, 2022 by 80stastic

We’ve moved into September 1992 here at TOTP Rewind and Summer is officially over. We’ve had the last hurrah of the August Bank Holiday and the Olympics in Barcelona have been and gone. The new football season is well under way. The two biggest album releases of the week are “Tourism” by Roxette and, with quite some fanfare, Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells II”. None of this is what is occupying my mind though for I am about to embark upon a new stage in my work life. I mentioned the other week when discussing big football transfers of the day that I had my own transfer looming. Well, now it was here – I had a job promotion for the first time in my life! The last time I had been picked out for a role of higher responsibility was when I was made deputy head boy at my junior school. Fast forward 14 years and my time had come around once more as I was offered the job of Assistant Manager at the Our Price store in Rochdale.

I’d been working as a sales assistant in the store in Market Street, Manchester for nearly two years by this point and was quite happily ticking along not really thinking of moving up the ladder as it were. Then one day the Area Manager came into the shop and asked to speak to me in the manager’s office. With slight trepidation I entered the room and she told me of the vacancy and that she wanted me to fill it. Apparently the usual reaction to the offer of promotion was to say thank you very much and snatch the company’s hand off. I did something different – I asked for some time to think about it. I think the Area Manager was a bit wrong footed by my less than enthusiastic reaction but agreed to my request and I was given a few days grace. Why did I hesitate? The commute mainly but I think I’d been considering whether staying in retail was still my best option two years on. In the end, as I didn’t have any other choice on the table, I took the promotion. It would prove to be a pivotal decision that shaped my working life until the end of the decade.

I can’t remember the exact time I started in Rochdale but it was in September so a lot of the songs from around now really remind me of that time. I’m pretty sure I’d been back to my hometown of Worcester for a visit over the August Bank Holiday and caught Alien 3 at the cinema whilst there and that was just before the Rochdale era. It was hard leaving the shop in Manchester because it was all I had known and I’m not great with change but off I went on the 7.00 am bus from Piccadilly Gardens that first day not even knowing exactly where the shop in Rochdale was. I recall that I’d recently had a very severe, short haircut just before. I think I’d been influenced by the barnet of Roy Keane who was one of the hottest properties in English football at the time. It really was all change.

There was a huge change also in tonight’s opening act as we see the return of Bananarama but now they were a duo. After Siobhan Fahey left the group in 1988, she was replaced by Jacquie O’Sullivan. Three years later, with Jacquie still being referred to as ‘the new girl’ in the press and feeling like a paid employee rather than an equal member of the trio, she up and left. Instead of just recruiting another third person, Keren and Sara decided to continue with just the two of them. The first material in this new beginning was the single “Movin’ On”.

Renewing a rather tempestuous relationship with producers Mike Stock and Pete Waterman (deliberate omission of Matt Aitken who wasn’t involved), it was a calling card for the rest of the new album “Please Yourself”. Waterman’s vision for the album was ‘ABBA-Banana’ – a collection of songs in the style of the Swedish supergroup updated with a 90s sound. He didn’t get it right initially as the album bombed or at least he hadn’t hit upon the right vehicle for the songs. People didn’t seem ready to accept an ABBA’d up slimmed down Bananarama but by the end of the decade the record buying public were quite happy about some of the same songs being peddled by two guys and three gals boot scootin’ their way to glory. I talk, of course, of Steps who recorded “Movin’ On” for their second album whilst their cover of “Last Thing On My Mind” (the second Bananas single from “Please Yourself”) was a Top 10 hit for them.

So why did Steps succeed where the Nanas failed? After all, weren’t we in the throes of an ABBA revival in ‘92? Erasure had recently been at No 1 with their “Abba-esque EP” whilst only this month Polygram would release the “Abba Gold: Greatest Hits” compilation which would sell 5.61 million copies in the UK alone making it the second best selling album here of all time behind Queen’s “Greatest Hits”. We were Abba mad all over again yet the Bananarama Swedish reinvention failed to convince the record buying public. Maybe we couldn’t accept a duo version of the group after a decade of being used to three of them racking up the hits? Or could it just be that (whisper it) they’d come to the end of the road? It had been a great run that surely couldn’t have been predicted all those years ago when they first hit the charts alongside Fun Boy Three.

The performance here certainly bares no resemblance to those early, chaotic days. Where there was once home made, tomboy chic and DIY dance steps were sleek, evening dresses and synchronised arm movements. It didn’t look like that much fun to be honest.

“Movin’ On” peaked at No 24 whilst the album “Please Yourself” made a paltry No 46. It would be another 27 years before they would return to the album chart Top 40.

One of the biggest (and most notorious) tunes of the whole year next. “Ebeneezer Goode” may well be to The Shamen what “Merry Xmas Everybody” is to Slade – a cash cow but also an albatross around their neck. The infamy surrounding the track was so high profile that the question of whether the song itself was any good(e) seemed to get lost in the furore. The idea that a pop song was encouraging drug use was distinctly unpalatable back then and there were numerous calls for it to be banned (presumably Mary Whitehouse was at the front of the queue of those with objections to it). You don’t need me to recount the whole tale of ecstasy references contained within it though the band themselves, whilst not denying said references, also say it wasn’t quite as clear cut as just encouraging ravers to get off their tits. Here’s @TOTPFacts:

Colin Angus: "It was intended to be celebratory and cautionary, like holding up a distorting mirror to rave culture." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 25, 2022

For what it’s worth, I think the track works – though I wasn’t much of a fan back in the day – not least because the band understood it had the potential to be controversial and made it work for them by making it instantly memorable and most importantly quotable. Lyrics like “Naughty naughty, very naughty”, “Has anyone got any Vera’s?” and “Got any salmon? Sorted” must have been repeated up and down the country especially in school playgrounds which only increased its notoriety. For this TOTP performance Mr C changes that last line to “Got any underlay?”. Here’s the man himself on that, again, courtesy of @TOTPFacts:

Mr C: "When we went on Top Of The Pops, I changed the line "Got any salmon?" to "Got any underlay?" and people said, "That's not in the song! Drug reference!…" #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 25, 2022

"I was asked about it on Radio 1 by Mark Goodier, and said that salmon was rhyming slang for salmon and trout – snout, cigarettes – a legal drug that has killed thousands, so I'd changed it. He said, 'So what's 'underlay'?' I said it was a gratuitous rug reference." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 25, 2022

A fine example of the art of winding people up there. The performance starts with a small clip of the promo video which features Scottish comedian Jerry Sadowitz as the titular Ebeneezer who gives a maniacal turn that is only rivalled in my mind by Reece Shearmith’s Papa Lazarou in The League Of Gentlemen.

“Ebeneezer Goode” will be No 1 soon enough.

https://youtu.be/vukqGn68wug?si=pPFk3zPa6GpFYlpp

Despite it being September 1992, we now get a plug for the next Eurovision Song Contest which won’t take place until May 1993. The reason for this incredibly early heads up was that we’d already chosen the artist who would represent the UK and she was, by happy circumstance, on the show tonight. The career of Sonia, for she was the chosen one, had degenerated into a string of cover versions by the early 90s – three of her last four hits had been covers – but her record company Arista had seen the uplift of success that Eurovision could bring with that year’s contestant Michael Ball. He hadn’t even won the contest and yet his album released off the back of it had gone to No 1. Arista pinned their hopes on lightning striking twice when their charge was picked to take the baton from Ball. I say picked but I’m assuming that there were some negotiations between Arista and the Eurovision committee.

That was all months off yet though so in the meantime, to keep Sonia in the public’s thoughts, here was…yes, another cover version. This time it was Heatwave’s “Boogie Nights” which, in my humble opinion, has one of the best intros ever.

However, Sonia’s version does away with that completely and just goes into the track full pelt like a Nadine Dorries rant and does away with any of its subtlety. It doesn’t get any better after that; in fact the whole thing is just an exercise in how not to do a cover version. It’s got that horrible, genetic 90s house beat and then they’ve arsed about with the chorus so when Sonia gets to the line ‘always the best in town’ a “Ride On Time” vocal effect comes in on ‘always’. Awful, awful and indeed awful. Sonia does her best to sell it with an energetic performance as ever but it’s beyond redemption.

Nine months later, she would compete at Eurovision and emulate Michael Ball’s runner up position. It was a different story with her album though. Whilst Ball topped the charts Sonia dropped the ball when hers peaked at No 32.

Is there a doctor in the house? The good news is that there is, the bad news is that it’s Dr. Alban. Apparently this guy was a proper doctor (of dentistry) who passed his exams and opened a practice before turning to music full time. From what I can make out “It’s My Life” was one of those holiday hits that UK tourists had heard on the continent and made popular back in Blighty on their return. No wonder it was dreadful then. Wikipedia describes Dr. Alban’s music as “Eurodance/hip hop reggae in a dancehall style”. Hmm. Covering a few bases there. Maybe there was something in it though. Was Dr. Alban an early adopter of a musical movement that would hit a peak the following year when The Three S’s (Shaggy, Snow and Shanna Ranks) dominated the charts? Or am I just talking bollocks?

Of course, you can’t mention Dr. Alban without mentioning that Tampax advert. You know that one with the roller skating woman and the beach football scene that’s soundtracked by “It’s My Life”? You know, this one…

I have to say that the doctor delivers a completely lacklustre rapping performance here. Talk about half-hearted. I think I’ve only ever seen one less enthusiastic rapper in my life…

One last thing. What links Dr.Alban and Sonia? No, not that they’re on the same TOTP together. Not that, obviously. No, it’s the Eurovision Song Contest. Twenty-one years after Sonia did her bit for the UK, Dr. Alban teamed up with someone called Jessica Folcker (yes I had to check that spelling) to take part in the Swedish equivalent of A Song For Europe for the right to represent his native country in the 2014 competition. He came fifth.

The Breakers now starting with some American glam metal and you know what? I couldn’t give less of a toss about the seemingly endless conveyor belt of bands peddling this stuff like W.A.S.P. and Mötley Crüe and this lot – Skid Row. From what I can ascertain this was a double A-side featuring their debut single “Youth Gone Wild” with “Delivering The Goods”, their cover of a Judas Priest track. It all seems to have been in aid of promoting their album “B-Side Ourselves” (see what they did there?), an EP of covers the majority of which had all been on the B-side of previous singles. Erm…so what was the point of it all then? I suppose it’s only like Oasis’s “The Masterplan” compilation album which collected together their B-sides and additional tracks that had featured on their singles but had not appeared on any studio albums but still.

“Youth Gone Wild / Delivering The Goods” peaked at No 22 and was their last UK Top 40 hit. Hurray!

It seems ABBA really were inescapable in 1992! Here they are again with a re-release of “Dancing Queen” to promote that “Abba Gold: Greatest Hits” I mentioned earlier. Released by Polygram who had acquired the rights to the group’s back catalogue, it has become one of the biggest selling albums of all time. To heighten the impact of its release, all previous ABBA compilations were deleted which presumably included one that we had in my family home when I was growing up. You know the one with Björn and Agnetha sat on a park bench on the cover? Yeah, that one.

“ABBA Gold” was a phenomenon of marketing and sales. It has been certified 20 x platinum in the UK alone and has sold 30 million copies worldwide. It seemed to sell itself without the need of a single to promote it but I guess if you really wanted to pick one to do so then “Dancing Queen” was a logical choice. Perhaps their best known song – I say perhaps because there are so many that could take that accolade – it had been a No 1 on its original release in 1976. The 1992 rerelease made a respectable No 16.

The marketing strategy for “ABBA Gold” was so successful that Polygram (or it might have changed its name to Universal by then) attempted to repeat the trick when it set its sights on The Carpenters whose “Carpenters Gold: Greatest Hits” even had the same cover design as the Swedish superstars album.

Richard Marx had two hits in 1992? He had three actually but I only knew the big one “Hazard”. The follow up was “Take This Heart” which even after listening to it didn’t ring any bells with me. After the dark but bewitching story telling of its predecessor, Marx returned to his safe space of soft rock ballad with this one. It’s pretty unremarkable stuff to my ears but pleasant in a bland sort of way.

The video sees Marx getting to indulge in his sporting fantasy of scoring a home run in the World Series for his beloved baseball team the Chicago Cubs with the plot twist being it was all a dream. I wrote a story in English class when I was about 12 where the ending was that it had all been a dream and I got marks knocked off for that being a lame idea. My teacher would definitely have knocked marks off Marx for that video.

“Take This Heart” peaked at No 13.

The final Breaker is a song that reminds me very much of starting at the Rochdale shop. You know how some songs (whether you like or loathe them) just remind you of a time without actually being linked to a specific memory? Yeah, that.

It had been nearly a whole year since Brian May had been in the Top 10 with “Driven By You” but when he did finally get around to releasing a follow up it wasn’t with a new song but one that he’d had up his sleeves for a few years by that point.”Too Much Love Will Kill You” had been written by May for inclusion on Queen’s 1989 album “The Miracle” but a band decision that all songs for it must be group compositions and not individually written meant it didn’t make the cut for legal reasons. It was recorded though with Freddie Mercury on vocals and finally released on their 1995 album “Made In Heaven”.

Before all that though, Bri’s original ended up on his solo album “Back To The Light” and it gave him his second consecutive Top 10 hit when released as a single. It actually performed better than the Queen version which peaked at No 15 when given its own release in 1996. Which version did I prefer? Probably May’s if I really had to choose as it hasn’t got the powerful hysteria lurking in Freddie’s vocals which I don’t think this particular track benefits from.

The video with Brian looking straight down the camera lens at us with that curly mop of hair is giving me heavy David Essex Stardust vibes – the bit where he performs his rock opera “Dea Sancta”:

Another song that really reminds me of starting at Rochdale now, primarily because we sold loads of it. We first saw Lionel Richie perform “My Destiny” on the show back in June as an ‘exclusive’ to promote his “Back To Front” Best Of album. It was one of three new tracks released as singles. The first was “Do It To Me” which didn’t set the charts alight and peaked at No 33. “My Destiny” was a different story. Perfect daytime radio fodder, it received airplay by the bucketload and secured it a place in the Top 10. A third single “Love, Oh Love” failed to crack the Top 40 at all.

If you’ve been watching ITV’s Saturday night show Starstruck – a reinvention of Stars In Their Eyes for the 2020s – you will be familiar with the format that sees three music artist impersonators perform as their hero in a group before the winning group is whittled down to one overall winner. Last Saturday saw three guys take to the stage as Lionel Richie. Yes, that’s right they were ‘once, twice, three times a Lionel’. I’ll get my coat.

What the Hell is this? Well, clearly it’s a horrible noise but who was responsible for it? They were called U96 and their track “Das Boot” was a techno cover version of the theme tune to a German film/TV mini series of the same name about the crew of a U-boat. I got a bit confused when I saw the running order for this episode and noticed the name U96. I was expecting some British jazz-rap until I realised that was Us3 I was thinking of and their hit “Cantaloop” from 1993. This right load of techno bollocks was a huge hit all around Europe although the UK was notably a little less receptive with it just grazing the Top 20 at No 18.

The TOTP producers have gone all out with their graphics for this one with the initial part of the performance viewed as if through a periscope before ultimately resorting to some dry ice to try and hide the fact that it’s just some blokes in keyboards up there on stage.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Das Boot though I do have a memory of Iain Lee screaming “Das Boot” on early noughties Channel 4 breakfast show RI:SE because fellow presenter Kate Lawler was wearing some knee high boots one morning. I need to have a word with myself about my cultural references don’t I?

P.S. What links Sonia, Dr. Alban and U96? Yep, it’s Eurovision again! Here’s @TOTPFacts with the details:

U96 mainman Alex Christensen went on to represent Germany at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2009, as half of combo Alex Swings Oscar Sings! "Miss Kiss Kiss Bang" finished in 20th place. https://t.co/GfdFoLd7HY #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 25, 2022

Another live satellite link up now as we find Sinéad O’Connor in New York. The interview beforehand between her and host Mark Franklin is a hard watch as Sinéad is clearly not in the mood for a chat. Mark took to Twitter to defend himself against the not very pleasant criticism he received for his part in what went down explaining that the whole interview had lasted three minutes and had been edited down for transmission. If what we saw was the best bit it does make you wonder what was in the rest of it.

As for the music, Sinéad is performing “Success Has Made A Failure Of Our Home” from her third album “Am I Not Your Girl?”, a collection of cover versions including this single originally recorded by country singer Loretta Lynn. We’ve seen a few artists in recent shows backed by either a small string section (Vanessa Williams) or a few brass players (Jimmy Nail / KWS) but Sinéad blows them all out of the water with what looks like a whole orchestra with her. It makes quite an impressive sight and an even more impressive sound.

This is the standout track and performance for me on the show tonight. Whatever you say about Sinéad, she can deliver a song. People did have a lot to say about her exactly one month on from this TOTP when Sinéad appeared on Saturday Night Live to promote “Am I Not Your Girl”. She sang “Success Has Made A Failure Of Our Home” and was scheduled to also perform “Scarlet Ribbons” but changed it to “War” by Bob Marley on the live show which she intended as a protest against sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church. That wasn’t enough controversy for Sinéad though so she whipped out a photo of Pope John Paul II and, looking straight down the camera, tore it up whilst saying “Fight the real enemy”. Cue an explosion of outrage. The NBC network received 4,400 calls of complaint none of which stopped O’Connor’s accusations being proved ultimately true. NBC have never rebroadcast the show as it originally aired much in the same way that the infamous Sex Pistols/ Bill Grundy interview was banned for many years.

Snap! remain on top of the pile with “Rhythm Is A Dancer” and yet again it’s the promo video that we are served up. Why haven’t they been in the studio as yet? Could it be because Turbo B was in dispute with the act’s management and left before the next single “Exterminate!” was released? Also departing after “Rhythm Is A Dancer” was vocalist Thea Austin who’d only just joined the group. And I thought Sugababes held the monopoly on the revolving door approach to band membership.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Bananarama	Movin’ On	Nope
2	The Shamen	Ebeneezer Goode	I didn’t as it goes
3	Sonia	Boogie Nights	Never!
4	Dr. Alban	It’s My Life	As if
5	Skid Row	Youth Gone Wild / Delivering The Goods	Hell no!
6	ABBA	Dancing Queen	Not the single but we’ve all got Abba Gold haven’t we?
7	Richard Marx	Take This Heart	No thanks
8	Brian May	Too Much Love Will Kill You	I did not
9	Lionel Richie	My Destiny	Nah
10	U96	Das Boot	Das Boot!! No
11	Sinéad O’Connor	Success Has Made A Failure Of Our Home	No
12	Snap!	Rhythm Is A Dancer	And no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0015nq0/top-of-the-pops-03091992

TOTP 30 JUL 1992

Posted on March 17, 2022 by 80stastic

The TOTP repeats are still coming thick and fast. We’re already at the end of July ‘92 whilst in real time of 2022, we’re only halfway through March. Keeping up with them is becoming increasingly difficult. I may not have a job currently but I have got other things to do you know like…erm…well, there’s the daily wordle and…look, never mind about that. I need to get on.

Thirty years ago Alan Shearer – the all time top Premier League goal scorer but as we found out in a recent post, an unknown in the US – has just broken the English transfer fee record by signing for Blackburn Rovers from Southampton for £3.5 million. Two days after that, another big transfer went down as Nottingham Forest’s Des Walker signed for Sampdoria for £1.5 million which must have upset Nottingham group KWS whose recent chart topper “Please Don’t Go” was released as a tribute to the defender (apparently). As for me, I was still trundling along working for Our Price in Manchester but a transfer of my own would soon be in the offing but that’s for a later post.

So here’s a question. How many Top 40 singles do you reckon The Shamen had? Three? Four? I think I would have gone with five. I’d have been miles out. It’s actually twelve! I know! To be fair to myself, four came well after their annus mirabilis of 1992 and were minor hits one of which was a remix of “Move Any Mountain” anyway. In my original guess, I’d miscalculated how many singles were released from their “Boss Drum” album (six if you’re counting) including this one “LSI Love Sex Intelligence”. Now I did include this in my guess of five as it was a pretty big hit (No 6 if you’re still counting) and therefore much more memorable. This really felt like the moment that the band consciously decided to pursue chart stardom with rapper Mr C pushed out front and centre as their public face. I say that but watching this performance, it’s vocalist Jhelisa Anderson that stands out with Mr C restricted to a few shouts of “Come On!” and of course his obligatory rap halfway through. I think the reason that it’s his face that comes to mind when I think of this era of The Shamen is because he looked off it most of the time. Apparently that’s because he was. Here’s @TOTPFacts:

Mr C: “We did Top Of The Pops about seven or eight times [It was eight]. Every single time I was on acid or E or both. I wasn’t on three pills, I was on one. So I remember it. It’s only when you bosh that third pill you start losing it." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) March 11, 2022

That’ll be it then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHrSxpx0vQM

Michael Jackson is next with a proper showing of his “Who Is It” video after last week’s insulting slot in the Breakers. Many in the music press made comparisons between this track and “Billie Jean” which got me thinking about some of the other tracks on “Dangerous”. The conclusion I came to was that “Who Is It” may not have been the only time he recycled some of his own source material. The sixth single from the album was the syrup drenched, sickly ballad “Heal The World” which was a direct rewrite of the Jackson penned USA for Africa charity single “We Are The World”. The one after that “Give In To Me” has more than a whiff of “Dirty Diana” about it. Hmm. “Who Is It” asked Jacko. The answer was clear. It’s you Michael. Endlessly you.

“Who Is It” peaked at No 10.

Just about teenagers Kris Kross are next but for some reason host Mark Franklin (back to the solo presenter this week) gives them no intro whatsoever and then at the end of their performance gives them a meagre three word mention (“There’s Kris Kross”). Had they upset the show in some way or was it yet another attempt to shake up the show’s format. It just looks incongruous like they aren’t really part of the show (is that even the TOTP studio they’re performing in?) and somebody has hacked the BBC broadcast and interrupted the running order to get the rapping duo on illegally.

On they were though with their new single “Warm It Up” which is another song I don’t remember from this period. Lacking the immediacy of “Jump”, it comes over like they’re trying to convince us all that they really are proper gangstas (yes, I meant to spell it like that) with lyrics that mention guns and knives but in the end the most threatening they manage is with the line “You can get the finger, the middle”.

A year or so later, the UK version of Kris Kross was unleashed on the world. They were a little bit older (18 years of age) and as with their US counterparts where we didn’t know which one was Mac Daddy and which was Daddy Mac, we also had trouble distinguishing between them but boy did they have some tunes!

The first of two exclusive performances tonight is next and it’s from someone who caused quite a reaction on Twitter when this TOTP repeat aired, most of it of a salacious nature (including the rhyming slang J. Arthur). Betty Boo (for it is she) went missing for the whole of 1991 after she had taken the UK by storm the previous year with hits like “Doin’ The Do” and “Where Are You Baby?” (note the use of a question mark Michael Jackson!). Presumably she was writing material for her second album.

The first glimpse of her labours came in the form of the single “Let Me Take You There” and what an underrated single it was. Like most of the work from her second album period, it’s largely forgotten despite its No 12 chart peak. A gloriously lilting track, it also had plenty of little hooks thrown in throughout for good measure. Betty is really selling it in this performance. She’s ditched the space cadet togs and bob haircut of the “Boomania” era and has returned with grown out locks and a revealing outfit (hence the Twitter reaction). She’s also ditched the Booettes but her all female backing band have followed her sartorial lead.

I’m pretty sure I had a promo copy of the second album entitled “GRRR! It’s Betty Boo” and it was pretty good especially follow up singles “I’m On My Way” (not The Proclaimers song) and “Hangover” but neither made the Top 40 despite being excellent pieces of pop confection. After the failure of the album, Betty withdrew from the music industry and was seemingly lost to the world of pop forever until she reappeared as a songwriter for the likes of Hear’Say, Girls Aloud and Dannii Minogue and lookee here…a brand new single released just this year that samples The Human League! Open your heart!

Something weird has happened to the Breakers section. Two of the four songs featured have already been on the show before. Enya had her own ‘exclusive’ slot just last week and Billy Ray Cyrus was shown recently as part of the US chart and yet they’re both designated as Breakers this week. I’m guessing the TOTP producers would argue that neither was actually in the UK Top 40 when first on the show and now they are classified as big movers within it and therefore Breakers? Surely this section was for singles we hadn’t seen before and had now just got into the charts? Seems a waste to show a short clip of artists we’ve already seen in full before.

Anyway, a song that we hadn’t seen before was “Jesus He Knows Me”, the fourth single from Genesis’s “We Can’t Dance” album. After the Genesis by numbers ballad “Hold On My Heart” and the indulgently epic “No Son Of Mine”, this was more like the well crafted pop of “Invisible Touch” but with the added bit of jeopardy of having the word ‘Jesus’ in the title. Would that have scared off some US radio stations? Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” was originally called “A Deal With God” but changed due to fears of being on an airplay black list. Well, it was a No 23 hit over the pond so it didn’t do too badly.

The video was similarly provocative sending up as it did the cult of the televangelists like Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker who as critic Christopher Thelen put it were “more concerned about fleecing their flocks than shepherding them”. Fair play to Phil, Mike and Tony for trying to do something challenging with the video rather than just have some in concert footage cobbled together for example.

What?! Sarah Brightman and José Carreras had a song in the charts in the 1992? I don’t remember this happening. Apparently “Amigos Para Siempre (Friends For Life)” was recorded for the Barcelona Olympics and was sung at the games closing ceremony. I can’t have watched it I guess. If it’s Sarah Brightman then it must have been written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and indeed it was.

The only song I associate with those Olympics was “Barcelona” by Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé but both tracks were included on a compilation album called “Barcelona Gold” which was released to coincide with them. I’d forgotten all about this and its utterly bizarre track listing. It’s bookended by the two aforementioned tracks but what comes in between is ludicrous. There’s DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, INXS, Rod Stewart, a couple of soul divas in Anita Baker and Natalie Cole, Marc Cohn, a live version of “Wonderful Tonight” by Eric Clapton and “This Used To Be My Playground” by Madonna which couldn’t be licensed for the soundtrack of the film it featured in (A League Of Their Own) but which was OK for this bonkers hotchpotch of an album. It also had one of the worst album covers ever. Madness.

Marc Cohn celebrates his inclusion on the “Barcelona Gold” album

And so to those hits by Enya and Billy Ray Cyrus starting with the former and her “Book Of Days” single. Haven’t got much else to say about this one except, in keeping with the sporting theme, it was used as background music during the medal ceremonies at the 2009 IAAF World Athletics Championships in Berlin.

As for “Achy Breaky Heart” by Billy Ray Cyrus, I literally have nothing else I want to say about it.

My use of the word Madness to describe that “Barcelona Gold” album was deliberate as here are the Nutty Boys themselves in the second ‘exclusive’ performance of the night with a re-release of “My Girl” to promote their “Divine Madness” Best Of album. Originally their third ever hit in 1980 when it went to No 3, the song is also a small but special footnote in the history of TOTP as it was the first to be performed on the show at the start of the 80s.

After officially splitting in ‘86, the band being back together on TOTP six years later was quite the throwback. I saw them years later at one of their pre-Xmas concerts in Hull. They were fabulous though I have to say I haven’t seen so many middle aged men trying to relive their youth under one roof before or since.

Back in the 90s though, 1992 really was the year of a Madness revival. Aside from the three times platinum selling “Divine Madness” retrospective, there was also the very first Madstock! festival as referred to by Mark Franklin. This two day jamboree at Finsbury Park in London was supposedly so loud that it caused nearby tower blocks to shake! The event was repeated in ‘94, ‘97, ‘98 and ‘09.

The reissued “My Girl” peaked at No 27.

https://youtu.be/N4p6cu628hQ

Blimey they’re slamming them in tonight! Here’s the tenth artist on the show and we’re only two thirds of the way through. It’s Roxette who seemed to be on TOTP every other week around this time. They don’t seem to be friends of the show though as Mark Franklin doesn’t utter one word about them. No intro, no outro, no name check, nothing. Even worse than his treatment of Kris Kross.

With no plug from the programme, they’re going to have to promote their latest single “How Do You Do” by the sheer power of their performance but the song doesn’t lend itself to a cohesive turn at all. The lead single from their “Tourism” album, it’s a light, bright daytime radio friendly ditty but the vocal parts don’t work for me. Per Gessle takes the opening lines rather than powerhouse singer Marie Fredriksson and he seems to be doing his best Jimmy Nail impression as they are mostly spoken and not sung. Compare Per saying this line:

‘Well here we are crackin’ jokes in the corner of our mouths and I fell like I’m laughing in a dream’

With this from “Ain’t No Doubt”:

‘She says it’s like in the song remember? If you love somebody, set them free. Well that’s how it is for me.’

OK. The words are not the same but the intonation is similar I would argue. The similarities continue as Marie joins in for the chorus just as Jimmy has a female vocalist (who seems to change with each TOTP appearance) do the same for his song. Although Jimmy has grown his hair longer since his Auf Wiedersehen Pet days and I’m really not sure about it, compared to Per’s barnet he’s the epitome of stylish. What was he thinking?! Unbelievably, his isn’t even the worst on stage as up there with him is a bass player with an incongruous 80s cut (long at the back, short at the sides). It’s the 90s now mate!

“How Do You Do” provides another nice sporting tie in for this post as the video for it was played at half time in the recent Euros ‘92 final between Denmark and Germany. It doesn’t excuse that hair though. By the way, the track was recorded in a studio in Sweden called Tits & Ass Studio talking of which…

https://youtu.be/m5MQ1ERb_D0

It’s one of those satellite link ups next as we cross live to Seattle for…nope not Nirvana despite the city being the home of grunge but for some fella called Sir Mix A Lot who has been No 1 in America for five weeks Mark Franklin informs us with his single “Baby Got Back”. As my friend Robin would say, this is like pissing off the top of a multi story car park – wrong on so many levels…or is it? Ostensibly a rap objectifying women with large buttocks, could it also be a challenge to the mainstream norms of female beauty? Sir Mix A Lot himself says of the track:

“The song doesn’t just say I like large butts you know? The song is talking about women who damn near kill themselves to try to look like these beanpole models that you see in Vogue magazine.”

I’ll be honest; I think I may have been more on board with this argument if he hadn’t performed the song against the towering backdrop of a pair of naked butt cheeks.

At one point the video for the song was banned by MTV and yet despite all the controversy it generated and its five week run at the top of the US charts, we never got it over here in dear old conservative Blighty and the song never made our Top 40 peaking at No 56. Maybe we got confused and bought the wrong thing as his album was called “Mack Daddy” as in those cheeky scamps we saw earlier Kris Kross.

Jimmy Nail still reigns at the top of the charts with “Ain’t No Doubt” which would shift enough copies to end up as the 8th best selling single in the UK in 1992. The parent album “Growing Up In Public” would achieve gold status yet curiously there were no other hit singles from it. The follow up to “Ain’t No Doubt” was called “Laura” and it didn’t even make the Top 40. Maybe it’s predecessor was do ubiquitous that nothing else Jimmy released could compete.

That ubiquity was taken to extraordinary lengths by a guy who drove his neighbours insane by playing the song at top volume for 24 hours solid after splitting with his girlfriend after she’d cheated on him (“she’s lying…”). At least I’m think that’s what I read in the paper at the time though I can’t find any mention of it online anywhere.

Despite his success being cut short, Nail would return in ‘94 with the soundtrack to his next TV series Crocodile Shoes the title track of which would score him a No 4 hit.

It’s that Madonna track from the “Barcelona Gold” album to close the show. “This Used To Be My Playground” was a short stopping off point before Madge unleashed her controversial “Erotica” album and “Sex” book on the world. For some it was a step too far. I recall seeing a local news item where a Madonna super fan who had slavishly bought everything she had ever done on every format drew the line at “Erotica” and turned his back on Madonna forever. Instead he directed his obsessive tendencies towards someone much more wholesome – Gloria Estefan. I have a mental image of him holding up the picture disc of “This Used To Be My Playground” and saying this was the last Madonna product he would ever buy. I’m not sure she was that bothered.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Shamen	LSI Love Sex Intelligence	Nope
2	Michael Jackson	Who Is It	I did not
3	Kris Kross	Warm It Up	No
4	Betty Boo	Let Me Take You There	No but I had that promo copy of the album with it on
5	Genesis	Jesus He Knows Me	Negative
6	Sarah Brightman and José Carreras	Amigos Para Siempre (Friends For Life)	Jesus no!
7	Enya	Book Of Days	Nah
8	Billy Ray Cyrus	Achy Breaky Heart	See 6 above
9	Madness	My Girl	No but I had the Divine Madness album
10	Roxette	How Do You Do	How do you don’t more like – no!
11	Sir Mix A Lot	Baby Got Back	I was far too mature for such nonsense
12	Jimmy Nail	Ain’t No Doubt	It’s a no
13	Madonna	This Used To Be My Playground	And a final 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/m00156d2/top-of-the-pops-30071992

TOTP 16 JUL 1992

Posted on March 11, 2022 by 80stastic

Right – before I get into this can I just say that the BBC4 schedule for these TOTP repeats has been relentless of late. It’s been two shows every Friday for weeks now meaning lots of content needing to be created by this blogger. Can’t the BBC slip in an impromptu Proms or something to give me a blow?! Having checked the forthcoming schedule I can see there is no abatement pending at least until the end of the month. Thanks very much BBC4.

In keeping with last week, there is only one presenter again this week; the fresh faced Mark Franklin. Unlike last week there’s been a tweak to the format which sees Franklin appear on our screens straight away rather than being a disembodied voice announcing the first act and he then proceeds to go straight into a rundown of the Top 10! It seems to be a nod back to how the show used to begin in the 70s and early 80s with a chart countdown soundtracked by “Whole Lotta Love” before we saw any of the acts.

After that we’re into the music and we start with Wet Wet Wet who, like many an artist this year, seem to be having an unexpected revival of fortunes. “Lip Service” is their third Top 40 hit in succession after chart topper “Goodnight Girl” and follow up “More Than Love”. It’s also the fifth and final track to be released as a single from their “High On The Happy Side” album. I always quite liked this – it sort of frothed and bubbled away until the hook of the chorus brought it to the boil. Marti Pellow has turned up for this performance dressed as a poker playing gunfighter from the Wild West (minus a ten gallon hat) or is it as a member of Showaddywaddy?

The band would not release another studio album for three years so they filled the gap with their first Best Of compilation (“End Of Part One: Their Greatest Hits”) and a live set (“Live At The Royal Albert Hall”). Then came that single in the Summer of ‘94 but that’s a while off yet.

“Lip Service” peaked at No 15.

Our first glimpse of Madonna in 1992 came via her single “This Used To Be My Playground” which was from the film she was currently starring in A League Of Their Own. I say ‘starring’ in but hers was actually quite a secondary role in this account of the US women’s baseball league that was founded in 1943 to keep the sport in the public eye during WWII. I really am rather fond of this film with some great performances from Tom Hanks, Geena Davis and Lori Petty as the three major protagonists. One of those guilty pleasure films that I’ll watch if I stumble across while channel flipping. Madonna’s name was all over the promotion campaign for the film but as I say, her character isn’t one of the principal leads.

As for the song itself, it’s a bit of an outlier coming as it did in between* the provocative “Justify My Love” and the outright society baiting “Erotica” project. Very much a stand-alone single – contractual issues meant it couldn’t even be included on the film’s soundtrack – it’s an accomplished ballad but one which I have to admit I always found to be quite dull.

*I’m not counting the “Immaculate Collection” inspired re-releases of “Holiday” and “Crazy For You” in ‘91.

The video concept of a man flicking through a photo album, the pages of which have Madonna singing in various different settings, was not as original as it was made out to be. Boy George’s video for his “To Be Reborn” single of five years earlier had a very similar look. Indeed, in his autobiography George said he was furious when he first saw Madonna’s promo and renamed it “This Used To Be My Video”. He had a point – Madonna’s video is a direct rip off…

‘Furious’ may not have been the exact word George used to express his anger at the steal. Here’s TOTP presenter Tony Dortie:

#totp Bumped into Boy George not long after that Playground @Madonna song came out he had some very choice words about it consisting (insert multiple 4 letter words of your own choice)
— Tony Dortie (@TonyDortie) March 4, 2022

“This Used To Be My Playground” peaked at No 3.

Next up are The Wedding Present though you’d be forgiven for thinking it was Altern-8 given the hazmat suits and masks that the band are wearing. What was all that about? Well, apparently the outfits were from the promo video for the single “Flying Saucer” but while watching it back, I discovered something else that interested me far more. There’s a bit where there a close up of David Gedge that just shows his eyes and nose and I swear that could be me back then. Hell, it could be me now! Well, maybe.

Anyway, this was the latest in their year long odyssey to release a new single every month in ‘92. “Flying Saucer” was the seventh of such singles and would peak at No 22, the fourth lowest performing of the twelve released. I quite liked this one. Some crunchy indie guitar licks and Gedge’s usual idiosyncratic vocals made for a winning combination. I’m not sure that the band achieved whatever it was they were trying to with this performance though unless it was actually meant to be a send up of Altern-8.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNrzXyVl8DA

Fresh from his appearance on the last ever Wogan the other week, Jason Donovan was back in the Top 40 however implausible that may have seemed in the middle of 1992. A few things had changed since his last hit though. Firstly, he had successfully sued The Face magazine for libel after he argued that the publication had implied he was a hypocrite for lying about his sexuality after suggesting he may be gay. Secondly, he had left the Stock, Aitken and Waterman family and switched labels from PWL to Polydor.

His first album for his new masters was “All Around The World” (incidentally it shared its name with a single by one of Polydor’s most famous acts The Jam) with its lead single being “Mission Of Love”. This is a truly dreadful song. It would struggle not to come last at The Eurovision Song Contest. Actually, it would struggle not to come last in A Song For Europe. I’m amazed it got to even No 26 in our charts. Polydor we’re clearly not impressed and getting cold feet about the album. In an amazing lack of faith in their charge, they licensed some of his previous hits and shoved them on the album to beef up its sales potential. In total they added six old tracks, four from his previous albums and two from the Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat cast recording. Donovan was less than impressed and when the album stiffed, he and Polydor inevitably parted ways. The era of Jason Donovan the pop star was just about over.

Ah shit! It’s time for another wretched track. Why is it that the offensiveness of a song seems to work in direct correlation to how popular it is? “Achy Breaky Heart” by Billy Ray Cyrus became the first ever single to achieve triple platinum sales in Australia and spent five weeks at the top of the US Country charts before crossing over into the mainstream and peaking at No 4 in the Billboard Hot 100. It was a hit all across the world and yet was also voted No 2 in a VH1 poll of the 50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs. The same TV network voted it in at No 87 in their 100 Greatest Songs of the 90s poll. Has there ever been a more schizophrenic hit? There are people who despise it for popularising line dancing whilst there is also a faction who credit it with breathing life into a genre of music that was dying on its arse amongst younger audiences. It’s a basket case of song. Whatever you make of it though (and it’s almost a novelty song for me), it certainly made an impression on 1992.

Cyrus is of course the father of Miley Cyrus who rose to fame as Disney character Hannah Montana and then as a pop star under her own name. Her bio on Wikipedia is absolutely massive. I was literally scrolling for about thirty seconds just to get to the bottom and I didn’t read a word of it.

“Achy Breaky Heart” was a No 3 hit in the UK which probably means we haven’t seen the last of it yet.

If Jason Donovan’s time as a pop star was coming to an end then the next act were just getting into gear as a mainstream chart stars. The Shamen had turned tragedy into triumph when they managed to carry on despite the death of band member Will Sinnott and rack up a huge hit with a Beatmasters remix of “Pro>gen” as “Move Any Mountain” in the Summer of ‘91. Fast forward a year and they were ready to take it to the next level with an album full of hit singles. That album was “Boss Drum” and the first hit from it was “LSI Love Sex Intelligence”.

With rapper Mr. C now a full time member and the face of the band, an all out charge at the charts was ready to go. All they had to do now was get their tunes out there and they began with this No 6 hit. Another crucial addition was vocalist Jhelisa Anderson who’s contribution helped make the new sound of The Shamen.

The performance here is interesting in that that the staging of it is surely what The Wedding Present should have done instead of those hazmat suits. It’s got a goddam flying saucer prop! WTF? Did Gedge and co not see this in rehearsal and think ‘oh yeah, that’s what we should have done’. It’s sort of like the Madonna/Boy George thing but in reverse. Oh I give up trying to make sense of it all!

Just two Breakers again this week starting with that old rascal Morrissey. Surely one of his more memorable song titles, “You’re The One For Me, Fatty” was the second single from his “Your Arsenal” album although it hadn’t actually been released at this point. When it did arrive at the end of July, I was still working at the Our Price store in Market Street, Manchester and I asked our Assistant Manager Pete if he’d heard “Your Arsenal” yet to which he replied that he had no interest in listening to Morrissey’s arse! To be fair to Pete, Mozza was not his cup of tea at all. As for me, I quite liked it with its robust, glam inspired guitar (well it was produced by David Bowie’s mate Mick Ronson). “You’re The One For Me, Fatty” peaked at No 19.

The second Breaker hadn’t had a UK Top 40 hit for a couple of years and indeed only had four all told. Was (Not Was) really should have had more. If Jason Donovan could have sixteen chart hits than surely to goodness these Detroit musical boundary pushers deserved a bigger haul.

I’d first come across Was (Not Was) in 1983 when “Out Come The Freaks” narrowly missed the UK Top 40 but nearly 10 years later, despite some excellent tunes, they were still mostly known for 1987 hit “Walk The Dinosaur”. They were still deemed worthy of a Best Of chart compilation by record company Polygram and “Hello Dad…I’m In Jail” was released this year. To promote it, two tracks were released as singles. A cover of INXS’s “Listen Like Thieves” seemed like an overtly commercial decision not in keeping with the band’s previous back catalogue and it was ultimately proven to be misjudged as the single stalled at No 58.

The second single released to promote the album was a different case altogether. Now I never knew this until now but “Shake Your Head” was actually an early Was (Not Was) song from 1982 that had quite an interesting back story. It always featured the vocals of Ozzy Osbourne (who re-recorded them for the ‘92 remix by Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley) but a pre-fame Madonna had also laid down some vocals for the track that were ultimately not used by the band. As possibly the most famous woman on the planet ten years on, the band approached Madonna for permission to use her original contribution but she refused (surely she didn’t hold a grudge, not Madge) so they asked actress Kim Basinger to sing on it instead. They didn’t miss Madonna at all as “Shake Your Head” provided the band with the biggest UK hit of their career when it peaked at No 4.

Meanwhile back in the studio we find Sophie B. Hawkins though you wouldn’t know it as there is no introduction for her at all. We go straight from the end of the Breakers to a camera shot of her and her rather large backing band on stage. Not even a voiceover segue from Mark Franklin. Bit odd. “Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover” is up to No 16 by this point and Sophie gives a pretty good performance of it here. If she watched it back afterwards though, she may have been alarmed at her achingly stylish ripped jeans. As well as the tears around the knee area, she also seemed to have a big, gaping crotch hole which the TOTP cameraman managed to find in a rather salacious camera angle late on. I hope Bob Geldof wasn’t in the studio that night after his ‘I’m just going to look at you’ comment the other week!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5vlNjvfBds

Jimmy Nail has hit the proverbial on the head and is at No 1 within 2 weeks of “Ain’t No Doubt” being released. How did this happen? Since his days in Auf Wiedersehen Pet, Jimmy’s lost a lot of weight and grown his hair longer but he still isn’t what you would describe as your standard looking pop star.

Nail has crafted a career out of being a professional Geordie to the point where he was used as a tool in Anglo American relations. What am I talking about? Well, my friend Robin (the one who hates every Elton John song ever) is partial to golfing holidays in America. He usually goes with some mates who are proud Geordies and keen to promote the cultural significance of The Toon. When in a bar one holiday, the woman serving them was struggling with their accents and was curious as to where they were from in the UK. When their answer of Newcastle brought a shrug of non recognition, Robin’s mates tried to explain their home by mentioning famous people associated with the city. I think the list went like this:

Ant & Dec
Spender
Alan Shearer

When the Premier League’s all time top goal scorer failed to make her understand, it prompted howls of disbelief:

“Yer dinna nar Sheara? Clive man! She dinna nar Sheara!”

“DINNA NAR SHEARA?!” etc etc…

In the end it was Cheryl Cole who was the celebrity that the woman behind the bar knew, presumably from her stint on the US version of The X Factor. Quite why they thought throwing the name of Jimmy Nail’s TV series Spender in the mix would do the trick I do not know.

In another tweak to the show’s format, the closing song video has been reintroduced. Up until this point, the ‘year zero’ revamp shows had finished on the No 1 single. They’ve gone for a big name to relaunch this in Prince (and the New Power Generation) who are back with new single “Sexy MF”. I say back but a Prince was so prolific it seemed like he’d never been away as he always had new material out. “Sexy MF” was the first single from the album “Love Symbol” or to give it its true title ‘unpronounceable symbol’ as depicted on the cover art of the album.

Now we all know what the ‘MF’ in the title referred to (no Mark Franklin not your name) so the single had to be heavily edited to allow radio airplay. So concerned were record company Warners that they released it in the UK as a double A-side with the more palatable track “Strollin’” but nobody played that. Interestingly, though a big No 4 hit over here, it only made No 66 in the US. Maybe it was that airplay issue.

Of course, any mention of “Sexy MF” has to prompt another viewing of this:

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Wet Wet Wet	Lip Service	No but my wife had the album
2	Madonna	This Used To Be My Playground	Nah
3	The Wedding Present	Flying Saucer	No
4	Jason Donovan	Mission Of Love	Hell no!
5	Billy Ray Cyrus	Achy Breaky Heart	Double Hell no!
6	The Shamen	LSI Love Sex Intelligence	Nope
7	Morrissey	You’re The One For Me Fatty	Negative
8	Was (Not Was)	Shake Your Head	Not the single but I bought that Best Of album it wads promoting
9	Sophie B. Hawkins	Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover	It’s a no
10	Jimmy Nail	Ain’t No Doubt	That’s another no
11	Prince and the New Power Generation	Sexy MF	I did not

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0014zvq/top-of-the-pops-16071992

TOTP 08 AUG 1991

Posted on September 19, 2021 by 80stastic

Whilst we are into Autumn in the real world in 2021, back in TOTP Rewind and 1991 it’s still the Summer and this particular show reinforces just how bizarre the charts were back then. We have a couple of metal bands (albeit one is singing an acoustic ballad), a pair of electronic dance acts, some acid jazz, some hip hop, some singer songwriter types, an indie rock band who would become Britpop legends, yet another soap star chancing their arm as a singer, a joke rapper, Michael bloody Bolton and with it being 1991, we also have Bryan Adams of course. Pick the bones out of that lot.

As for me, the worry of the Our Price store I was working in being sold and what that meant for my job security had been resolved by this point I think as the decision to sell the unit was reversed. Phew! My wife had set herself up working as a freelance dressmaker so the work she was doing meant that we had two incomes for the first time in a while. I’m guessing we still didn’t have too much spare cash for record buying though. I wonder if any of the songs on tonight’s show would have been on my shopping list?

Nicky Campbell is tonight’s host and he’s employing his usual ‘I’m cleverer than you with my flourishes of vocabulary’ schtick. The first act he introduces are De La Soul and their “A Roller Skating Jam Named “Saturday”” single.

This pretty much marked the end of the trio as chart entities in the UK with only one more minor Top 40 hit during the 90s and none in the last 20 years. The reach of their music has not been helped of course by being hamstrung in terms of digital platforms like Spotify due to the sample heavy nature of their early back catalogue. Said samples were only cleared for physical music distribution and the wording of the contracts negotiated didn’t take into account the impact of unforeseen technologies. Disputes with the owners of their catalogue Tommy Boy Records further complicated matters and negotiations to bring those early hip hop classics to online listeners are ongoing with new owners Reservoir Media. For now though, type De La Soul into Spotify and you won’t find anything earlier than 2004 on there.

I mentioned in a post that me and my wife still often quote the ‘Saturday, it’s a Saturday’ lyric to this day when the weekend rolls around but there’s another reason this song still reverberates which is the Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah reference which of course is in Disney’s Song Of The South film. For years I was convinced that the lyrics were ‘plenty of sunshine, plenty of rain’ when they are actually ‘plenty of sunshine coming my way’. Why I was under this impression I have no idea but I argued my corner for years with my wife in the pre-internet days. Not for the first time, she was right and I was completely and utterly wrong.

“A Roller Skating Jam Named “Saturday” peaked at No 22.

Campbell starts blathering about ‘funked up fairytales’ when introducing Extreme. I’m not quite sure what the point is that he’s trying to make. I think he just lost his way trying to say that their single “More Than Words” is a rather delicate ballad as opposed to their usual funk metal style but gets bogged down in his own nonsense. Bloody pseud.

As for Extreme themselves, they’re up to No 2 but are the latest in what will become a long line of acts to hit the Bryan Adams bottleneck and never get to No 1. Incidentally, that list includes 2 Unlimited, Right Said Fred, Heavy D And The Boyz and The Scorpions. Given that extremely low bar, I’d say Extreme perhaps had the most plausible case to take before the court of pop injustice although I’d have also been OK with “Let’s Talk About Sex” by Salt ‘N’ Pepa making it to the top which was the final No 2 single to be Adams’d.

Apparently Extreme’s management didn’t see “More Than Words” as a hit record and only released it as a single after guitarist Nuno Bettencourt badgered the label leading them to testing it in several markets and territories to check out audience reaction. They’d wanted a more traditional sounding power ballad with crashing drums and kitchen sink production values. Bettencourt won out though AMA the rest is history with it making up for just missing out in the UK by going to No 1 in the US.

Campbell tells us how he’s all about ‘real’ music next referring to the next act as a songsmith in a techno-led age crafting songs like an ornament rather than a computer print out. He really was a pretentious, verbose wanker back then. So who could he have been waxing lyrical over? Why Beverley Craven of course who’s back in the charts with “Holding On”, her follow up to No 3 hit Promise Me”. Unfortunately for Beverley, she couldn’t turn her lyrics into reality as she failed to hold onto her previous success when the single peaked at No 32 despite the TOTP exposure.

Beverley wrote a song for her then baby daughter Mollie on her second album “Love Scenes” called…erm…”Mollie’s Song” and her daughter repaid her years later by appearing on ITV dating show Take Me Out causing her Mum to have to endure the embarrassment of performing on Take Me Out: The Gossip. Ungrateful kids eh?

If Extreme weren’t going to do this hard rock thing properly then stand aside as the real deal is here. “Enter Sandman” by Metallica is just huge whether you’re a devotee of that genre or just a music fan. Absolutely massive. I would certainly put myself in the latter category and my knowledge of Metallica at this point was limited at best. I knew they had released a few albums as we stocked them in the Our Price store I was working in but they were never played on the shop stereo. Not really seen as suitable playlist material for a mainstream record shop chain. I still held this view two years later when I was Assistant Manager at the Altrincham store as Xmas approached.

Whilst I was upstairs with the manager having a no doubt very important meeting planning something or other, the staff downstairs on the counter thought this was a perfect time to test my stress levels by playing some inappropriate music in the shop. After a couple of tracks had led me to ringing down to the counter and telling them to play something more shop friendly, they decided to really push my buttons by playing “Enter Sandman”. I was verging on apoplectic by this point but I could see the funny dude once I had calmed down.

“Enter Sandman” was the lead single from their self titled fifth album otherwise known as ‘The Black Album’ on account if it’s all black cover. Surely they must have taken inspiration from Spinal Tap’s “Smell The Glove”?

“Enter Sandman” peaked at No 5 on the UK chart.

The Shamen are back in the studio next to perform their hit “Move Any Mountain: Progen 91”. A retitled re-release of their 1990 “Pro>Gen” single, it was taken from their “En-Tact” album which had made a high of No 31 on the charts at the back end of the previous year but somehow, the success of “Move Any Mountain” didn’t trigger a renaissance period for the album and it struggled to a second peak of No 45 despite re-entering the charts for a seven week run.

I’m guessing it was the curse of the record label practice of temporarily withdrawing an album that had been out for a while before releasing it off the back of an unexpected hit single. That was happening all the time in 1991. The band needn’t have worried as the following year’s “Boss Drum” would go to No 3 and be certified platinum.

The second of those two singer songwriters on the show now as Amy Grant proves she was not a one hit wonder after all. “Every Heartbeat” was her follow up to No 2 hit “Baby Baby” and was also taken from her “Heart In Motion” album. It’s pretty twee stuff though I have to say, one of those airhead, superficial songs that would be on an album called ‘The Best Songs To Convince Yourself That Life Isn’t Shit After All Whilst You Do The Ironing…Ever!’. Or something.

Any would have one further UK hit single in 1995 when she covered Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” and took it to No20, five places higher than the peak of “Every Heartbeat”.

I’d completely forgotten that Blur had a second Top 40 hit in 1991. I’d been labouring under the misapprehension that there was a sizeable gap between “There’s No Other Way” and their “Modern Life Is Rubbish” sophomore album but here’s “Bang” to show that there was a second hit single from debut long player “Leisure” after all.

I must have not watched this TOTP as surely I would have remembered “Bang” as the one with the chicken placard. What the hell was that about?! Cue lots of comments about Damon Albarn waving his big cock about on Twitter. There were also lots of tweets about Graham Coxon’s Oxford That University t- shirt (he didn’t actually go there) but I was more impressed by drummer Fave Rowntree’s Teenage Fanclub t-shirt.

As for the song itself, it’s just a poor man’s “There’s No Other Way” isn’t it? Even the band themselves weren’t keen:. Here’s TOTPFacts with the story:

"Bang" was apparently bashed out in 15 minutes in response to Blur's label's demands for another hit. The band are not fans (it's not on their Best Of LP). "'Bang' was just shit", Damon Albarn later said. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) September 17, 2021

“Bang” peaked at No 24.

Some more wise ass word play next from Nicky Campbell as he introduces Young Disciples and their one and only hit “Apparently Nothin’”. This lot were essentially a springboard for the solo career of well connected soul singer Carleen Anderson (Bobby Byrd was her stepfather and James ‘The Godfather Of Soul’ Brown was her actual godfather).

Talking of being well connected, isn’t that Mick Talbot of The Style Council up there on keyboards? Yes it is but why? How? Well, their album was recorded at Solid Bond Studios (Paul ‘The Modfather’ Weller’s personal studio) and both he and Talbot featured on it. Simples.

The album was shortlisted for the inaugural Mercury Music Prize but lost out to Primal Scream’s “Screamadelica”. Being in such exalted company makes you wonder why the band weren’t bigger than they were or at least why they didn’t last longer. Maybe it really was all about Carleen Anderson as the band split after she left in 1992.

“Apparently Nothin’” peaked at No 13.

I hate the way they’ve started putting the Breakers just before the No 1 song. It keeps killing me into a false sense of security that I’m nearly done. Also nearly done (thank f**k) are Technotronic whose appearance here in the Breakers will be their last on the show possibly ever. I think the only other UK chart entries they had were remixes of “Pump Up The Jam” years down the line so with a fair wind at our backs we might just be about to steer a Technotronic free course through the rest of the decade.

For the record, this one was called simply “Work” and featured someone just called Reggie. Who was Reggie? She’s the singer on this one I believe and also collaborated with “Last Night A DJ Saved My Life” hitmakers Indeep though to be honest she might as well have been Reggie Perrins for all I care. Just as the founder of Grot walked off into the sea never to be seen again (sort of), Technotronic are finally doing the decent thing and disappearing.

Ah shit. It’s Michael Bolton again, this time with the title track from his “Time Love And Tenderness” album which would produce five hit singles for him in this country! My Michael Bolton story has been well documented in previous posts so I don’t propose to wheel it out again here. Despite his sanitised image as a shaggy dog haired singer of bland soft rock ballads, Bolton did mix it up a bit with some of his song titles. “Said I Loved You…But I Lied” is not your archetypal love song message but my favourite is “Can I Touch You…There?”. WTF?!

Now if we thought that the whole soap star to pop star thing that dominated the end fo the 80s would disappear come the new decade, we were wrong. In 1990 we had Neighbours and Home And Away Aussie actor Craig McLachlan chancing his arm with an attempt at being a serious musician and now here was the UK’s very own Sophie Lawrence giving it a whirl with a version of Donna Summer’s disco classic “Love’s Unkind”. Sophie, of course, played Diane Butcher in EastEnders from 1988 until 1991 (her last few appearances in the soap coincided with her attempt at pop stardom in fact).

I remember wondering at the time whether Sophie’s character was popular enough to be able to attract an audience of pop fans. I mean no offence but she was hardly Kylie Minogue / Charlene Robinson was she? I mean she wasn’t even the most well known of the Butcher family I would wager being outshone by her Dad Frank (played by Mike Read) and her dopey brother Ricky (Sid Owen). Maybe I wasn’t a big enough EastEnders fan to truly understand her draw. To be fair to her, she looks like a pop star in the video; like a cross between Olivia Newton John and Debbie Gibson. Sadly for Sophie, her pop career didn’t\’t extend beyond this one single and she returned to acting after her moment in the charts.

Bryan Adams is still No 1 with “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” obviously. He hasn’t even got into his stride yet. I think by this point he was selling twice the number of copies of any other record in the Top 10. I recall a colleague called Pete in the Our Price I worked in struggling to keep up with demand. When asked by the manager if he had any more copies on order as we had sold out again, Pete turned to me and whispered “No, I thought I’d leave it” in his best sarcastic tone. I would encounter my own singles buying crisis a few years later when I found myself being in charge of orders in the week of the Blur v Oasis battle but that’s for a future post.

And so we come to the joke rapper. No not Honey G of the X factor. It can only be Vanilla Ice who is back in the charts with “Satisfaction“. This take on the Rolling Stones classic “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” was Ice’s fourth UK Top 40 hit. Fourth? Who’d have thought he’d had so many hits? Well, not the BBC who included him in their One Hit Wonders programme which aired on BBC4 just before this TOTP repeat. As if all the pro-government news reporting wasn’t enough, now the Beeb do this!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	De La Soul	A Roller Skating Jam Named “Saturday”	Nope
2	Extreme	More Than Words	I did not
3	Beverley Craven	Holding On	Nah
4	Metallica	Enter Sandman	No
5	The Shamen	Move Any Mountain: Progen 91	Liked it, didn’t buy it
6	Amy Grant	Every Heartbeat	Negative
7	Blur	Bang	Another no
8	Young Disciples	Apparently Nothin’	Yes it’s in the singles box but I think my wife actually made the purchase
9	Technotronic	Work	F**k off!
10	Michael Bolton	Time, Love And Tenderness	Never happening
11	Sophie Lawrence	Love’s Unkind	Ditto
12	Bryan Adams	(Everything I Do) I Do It For You	It’s a no
13	Vanilla Ice	Satisfaction	As 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 agree.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000znwm/top-of-the-pops-08081991

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 04 NOV 1993

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TOTP 17 DEC 1992

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TOTP 05 NOV 1992

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TOTP 08 OCT 1992

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TOTP 01 OCT 1992

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TOTP 24 SEP 1992

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TOTP 03 SEP 1992

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TOTP 30 JUL 1992

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TOTP 16 JUL 1992

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TOTP 08 AUG 1991

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