The Stone Roses

TOTP 1995 – the epilogue

Posted on by 80stastic

And there goes 1995. I said in the prologue post for this year that it could be one of the best years for revisiting for some time. Was it? I’m not so sure now. It was the year Britpop overflowed into the mainstream and onto the nation’s radar with the Oasis v Blur chart battle and the success of high profile hits like Pulp’s “Common People”, “Alright” by Supergrass and “Wake Up Boo!” by The Boo Radleys. But how big really was the reach of the movement? A quick glance at the Top 10 best selling singles of the year reveals just one hit that would be categorised as ‘Britpop’ with “Wonderwall” sneaking in at No 10. Most of the remaining names on that list couldn’t be more mainstream – Michael Jackson (twice), Celine Dion, Take That, Simply Red and Robson & Jerome (twice); only Coolio and Everything But The Girl buck that trend. Was it any different in the list of Top 10 albums? Slightly, Oasis, Blur and Pulp all feature but the other occupants are grimly familiar – Jacko, Hucknall, Celine, those two actor berks…Queen, Wet Wet Wet and Paul Weller fill the other places. Only the Modfather was a slight surprise with his “Stanley Road” album completing a remarkable comeback from the washed up Style Councillor that he was at the end of the 80s. This trend of the massive names garnering the massive sales wasn’t anything new of course but in the year of Britpop, were we entitled to expect something different?

Some people wouldn’t have wanted to see that movement proliferate any more than it did – not everyone was a fan and it would be disingenuous to suggest that the Top 40 was jam packed with Britpop tunes every week. This was the mid 90s so dance music was still more than well represented in all its many and varied forms. This year, there was a fashion for rereleasing dance tracks that had been smallish hits fairly recently but which were much bigger smashes second time around. Bobby Brown, Strike, JX, Nightcrawlers, Livin’ Joy, Felix and Happy Clappers were just some of the artists to benefit from this trend.

The tradition of singles slowly climbing the Top 40 to a peak position weeks into their chart life started to disappear this year. I can’t recall if the first week discounting policies by record companies were in full operation by this point or whether it was improved distribution services or bigger promotional budgets for new releases that was the cause but singles were in and out of the charts before you could say ‘Here’s another new entry…’ especially amongst the more niche artists with loyal fan bases. Of the eighteen No 1 singles this year, eleven went straight in at No 1. The exception that proved the rule was “Think Twice” by Celine Dion which hit No 1 in the UK on its 16th week on the chart, a then record climb. If we take a closer look at that list of No 1 singles, we can see that four artists (Michael Jackson, Robson & Jerome, The Outhere Brothers and Take That) had two each accounting for nearly half of those chart toppers. Of the rest, only Britpop heavyweights Blur and Oasis, rapper Coolio and dance act Livin’ Joy could have been categorised as being outside of the established order of artists (at that time anyway). A charity record, a novelty song, a huge ballad and bloody Shaggy made up the rest. I bought one on that list (Oasis). As ever, shite not cream had risen to the top it seemed.

Chart date
(week ending)		SongArtist(s)Sales
7 January“Stay Another Day“East 17
14 January“Cotton Eye Joe“Rednex60,000
21 January85,000
28 January70,000
4 February“Think Twice“Celine Dion74,000
11 February80,000
18 February86,000
25 February154,000
4 March141,000
11 March120,000
18 March50,000
25 March“Love Can Build a Bridge“Cher, Chrissie Hynde & Neneh Cherry with Eric Clapton150,000
1 April“Don’t Stop (Wiggle Wiggle)“The Outhere Brothers90,000
8 April“Back for Good“Take That346,000
15 April185,000
22 April140,000
29 April85,000
6 May“Some Might Say“Oasis138,000
13 May“Dreamer“Livin’ Joy106,000
20 May“Unchained Melody” / “White Cliffs of Dover“Robson & Jerome314,000
27 May460,000
3 June320,000
10 June210,000
17 June145,000
24 June90,000
1 July73,000
8 July“Boom Boom Boom“The Outhere Brothers62,000
15 July74,000
22 July77,000
29 July65,000
5 August“Never Forget“Take That115,000
12 August86,000
19 August54,000
26 August“Country House“Blur274,000
2 September135,000
9 September“You Are Not Alone“Michael Jackson83,000
16 September100,000
23 September“Boombastic“Shaggy93,000
30 September“Fairground“Simply Red211,000
7 October142,000
14 October129,000
21 October96,000
28 October“Gangsta’s Paradise“Coolio featuring LV107,000
4 November166,000
11 November“I Believe” / “Up on the Roof“Robson & Jerome258,000
18 November224,000
25 November118,000
2 December80,000
9 December“Earth Song“Michael Jackson116,467
16 December149,549
23 December150,739

TOTP increased its use of the ‘golden mic’ celebrity host slot introduced by executive producer Ric Blaxill the year before with guest presenters seemingly in the studio every other week. This year also saw the grand old programme (then in its 32nd year) introduce a new logo, theme tune and title sequence as well as a new set that saw the last remnants of the ‘year zero’ revamp removed forever. As for me, I was into my fifth year of working for Our Price and after multiple store moves in the preceding three years, saw myself ensconced in the Stockport branch for the second time. I would stay there until 1998 when things started to go wrong both professionally and health wise but that’s a while off yet.

Hits That Never Were

Hootie And The Blowfish – “Hold My Hand“

Released: Feb ‘95

Chart peak: No 50

Here we have that not unique but not everyday either phenomenon of an artist that was huge in America but whom we didn’t really take to over here. Hootie & The Blowfish exploded across the States in 1995 with their debut album “Cracked Rear View” which would top the charts there on five different occasions, selling seven million copies in the process and being the best selling album of the year. It went twelve times platinum in the twelve month period January ‘95 to January ‘96. The band had landed a monster. Over in the UK, the album managed much more moderate sales – 100,000 copies in total. Not an amount to be sniffed at but well short of its impact in the States. Why the disparity? Well, if I knew that then I’d be a music mogul millionaire instead of unemployed of Hull. However, perceived wisdom seems to be that America was ready to embrace some good, old fashioned melodic rock (with a hint of blues) after the extremes of grunge that dominated the start of the decade. Here in the UK, our alternative of choice seemed to be Britpop if the music press were to be believed.

“Hold My Hand” was the lead single from the album and made No 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 whilst it failed to make the UK Top 40 at all. Despite that, I would suggest that’s what the band are most known for over here; that and the episode of Friends where Ross, Chandler and Monica go to one of their concerts.

EMF – “Afro King”

Released: Oct ‘95

Chart peak: No 51

By 1995, EMF had resorted to doing a cover of a Monkees song with comedy duo Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer to get a hit record and it worked when “I’m A Believer” went to No 3. That couldn’t be the way forward for the band though so a brand new song was released as a what would turn out to be a standalone single in October. “Afro King” was a great return to form, prompting memories of the excitement of their debut hit “Unbelievable” five years previously. Somehow though, nobody noticed it (except me) and it petered out at a lowly chart peak of No 51. That was despite the safety net of one of the CD singles featuring the band’s first three hits.

With the failure of “Afro King” to make the Top 40, the band’s gambit had failed and they split. There have been numerous reunions and hiatuses over the years but they are currently together and released an album of new material in April 2022. One last thing, my wife and I used the intro sample (“Long live the king! It isn’t a king, just a queen with a moustache!”) for our answer machine message for a while. I never have worked out what it’s a sample of.

Ash – “Kung Fu”

Released: Mar ‘95

Chart peak: No 57

To the uninitiated like me, “Girl From Mars” was the first time I became aware of Ash but in fact they’d released four singles before that first Top 40 hit including this one – “Kung Fu” – the lead single from their debut studio album “1977”. A typical Ash thrash through two minutes and seventeen seconds of glorious pop-punk, its lyrics name check the obvious (Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan) the malappropriate (Daniel-san and Mr. Mirage from The Karate Kid*) and The Ramones (‘teenage lobotomy’ is a reference to their 1977 song of the same name).

*Karate and Kung Fu are entirely different martial arts with the former originating in Japan and the latter in China.

The cover of the single featured Eric Cantona’s assaulting that bloke in the Crystal Palace crowd with what the press described as a ‘Kung fu kick’. That incident occurred on 25 January with the resulting court case occurring three days after the Ash single was released. They couldn’t have synchronised the two events any better in terms of promotion for the single and yet it still couldn’t get them their first chart hit. “Girl From Mars” would get that particular job done a few months later. I wonder if there was any consideration given to rereleasing “Kung Fu” in the light of that breakthrough success? I guess it mattered not as “Girl From Mars” was the first of thirteen consecutive Top 40 singles for the band over the next seven years. “Kung Fu” got its own bit of spotlight though. In a case of life imitating art, it was featured in the film Rumble In The Bronx starring Jackie Chan.

Scarlet – “Love Hangover”

Released: Aug ‘’95

Chart peak: No 54

Not quite one hit wonders but almost certainly remembered for a single song, Scarlet really should have had a bigger legacy. “Independent Love Song” is rightly held up as a scorching example of how to write a startling track in the sphere of what we call pop music but there was more to them. “I Wanna Be Free (To Be With Him)” made No 21 in the charts and then there was this. “Love Hangover” was the third single released from their debut album and it’s another well crafted, accomplished composition full of melody and hooks. Somehow though, the UK record buying public saw fit to ignore the song, buying the likes of The Outhere Brothers and Shaggy in huge quantities instead.

*Tuts*

Cheryl Parker and Jo Youle went their separate ways after their second album bombed and are now only ‘Facebook friends’. Both continued to write songs initially but Jo is now chief executive of the “Missing People” charity and received an OBE in 2022 for her work with them.

Nick Heyward – “The World”

Released: Sep ‘95

Chart peak: No 47

As ever with these epilogue pieces, it’s time for me to check in on what Mr Nicholas Heyward (the greatest living Englishman) was up to this year as he’ll have not been in either the Top 40 or, by extension, on TOTP having been cruelly ignored by the record buying public once again. In 1995, Nick released his fifth solo studio album entitled “Tangled” which managed to do something his previous three releases hadn’t done, it charted. Admittedly, it was only at No 93 but I guess that was progress. The lead single from it was “The World” which would suffer the same fate as most of his singles – it peaked just outside the Top 40 at No 47. As usual, Nick was probably seen as not being hip enough for these Britpop times and yet, ironically, both “Tangled” and previous album “From Monday To Sunday” were almost blueprints for quintessentially British pop songwriting at its best. That progress I talked about earlier would be extended in early 1996 when Nick actually managed to get a single into the Top 40 with the second release off the album “Rollerblade” peaking at No 37 making it his first such hit since “Warning Sign” in 1984. No doubt I’ll end up talking about that song in the epilogue post for 1996 in the Hits We Missed section.

Hits We Missed

The Boo Radleys – Find The Answer Within

Released: May ‘95

Chart peak: No 37

I didn’t really know The Boo Radleys before “Wake Up Boo!” and its parent album “Wake Up!” and, in all honesty, I didn’t follow their career that closely after it but I loved this era of the band. And it wasn’t all about that single, the staple of breakfast radio shows. “Find The Answer Within” was the follow up and, for me, it was vastly superior but it seemed most people disagreed with me judging by its chart peak.

The case of The Boo Radleys is a classic example of an artist’s biggest hit dwarfing everything else they ever did. Even just within this one album, there’s some great songs like “Twinside” and “Wilder” but aside from individual tracks, it hangs together as a whole entity with design and purpose. 1996’s “C’mon Kids” sustained some of the momentum that “Wake Up!” had brought the band though by the end of the decade they were relegated to the outermost fringes of the charts. They split in 1999 but a twenty-five year anniversary reunion prompted them to release two albums in two years though without original songwriter and guitarist Martin Carr. I really should check in again with them and check out what they’ve been doing and who knows, I might find the answer within.

The Stone Roses – Ten Storey Love Song

Released: Feb ‘95

Chart peak: No 11

The fuss surrounding the release of The Stone Roses’ sophomore album “Second Coming” on 5th December 1994 fell away pretty quickly once people had actually heard it. In a way, it was doomed to fail to meet expectations given the mythical status that had been bestowed upon it by the music press and fans during its five and a half year gestation period. A combination of a release date right up against Christmas and mixed reviews with accusations of over indulgence and criticism of the length of its tracks diluted its impact significantly. However, in amongst those overly long songs was one of a more traditional length despite the claims of its title. “Ten Storey Love Song” was the second single released from the album as the follow up to the rather bloated “Love Spreads” and always felt like a leaner, cleaner track than its predecessor despite its elongated, rather mystic intro – much more radio friendly and yet it only made it to No 11 in the charts. It always seemed rather unappreciated to me. Aside from the album’s third single “Begging You” and a couple of remixes of “Fool’s Gold”, it would be the final release by the band for twenty-one years until “All For One” in 2016.

Gigolo Aunts – Where I Find My Heaven

Released : May ‘95

Chart peak: No 29

Nearly 30 years have passed since “Where I Find My Heaven” by Gigolo Aunts was a hit and I still get it confused with “Hey Jealousy” by Gin Blossoms. My perplexity can maybe be explained and forgiven by the following mitigating circumstances:

  • Both bands were American
  • Both bands played a brand of power pop/rock
  • Both bands had two word names with the first word beginning with ‘G’
  • Both bands had their biggest hit within a year or so of each other in the mid 90s.

Perhaps I should use the following details to distinguish between them:

  • “Where I Find My Heaven” was used as the theme tune to the BBC sitcom Game On about the lives of three flatmates in Battersea, south-west London which I quite enjoyed.
  • The track was also included on the soundtrack to the film Dumb And Dumber.

Gigolo Aunts would never have another UK Top 40 hit whereas Gin Blossons would have four in total (another difference) though you’d probably have to be a bit of a superfan to name them.

Crash Test Dummies – The Ballad Of Peter Pumpkinhead

Released: Jan ‘95

Chart peak: No 30

Canadian band Crash Test Dummies are pretty much mostly known in this country for their 1994 No 2 hit “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm” but they’ve actually had three UK Top 40 records. Follow up single “Afternoons & Coffeespoons” made No 23 and then there was this – their version of “The Ballad Of Peter Pumpkinhead”. Now I did talk about the XTC original in my review of 1992 under the Hits That Never Were section so I probably didn’t need to cover it again here but there’s a nice little link with Gin Blossoms so I’m including it again here. Released as the second single from XTC’s “Nonsuch” album, it was cruelly ignored by the public causing it to peak at No 71. It was reactivated three years later by Crash Test Dummies for the soundtrack of…yep…Dumb & Dumber. It’s not a bad version either but compared to the original, it just sounds like a diluted facsimile. The video features actor Jeff Daniels reprising his role from the film as Harry Dunne in a story that apes the narrative from the song’s lyrics with a rather disturbing scene of his character almost being hung to death, a fate he escapes courtesy of the pumpkin on his head.

Alanis Morissette – You Oughta Know

Released: Jul ‘95

Chart peak: No 22

From one Canadian artist to another. Alanis Morissette created quite the controversy with this expletive laden, snarling rock track at the time. “You Oughta Know” was just so aggressive sounding that you couldn’t ignore it. Those lyrics! I mean…

Is she perverted like me?

Would she go down on you in a theatre?…

…And are you thinking of me when you fuck her?

Songwriters: Glen Ballard / Alanis Nadine Morissette
You Oughta Know lyrics © Vanhurst Place Music, Arlovol Music, Songs Of Universal Inc.

Gulp! The album it came from – “Jagged Little Pill” had to receive the treatment usually reserved for rap artists – a parental warning sticker and the availability of a ‘clean’ version of the album with the offending lyrics muted. The track was picked up by Modern Rock radio station KROQ-FM in America which led to heavy rotation for its video on MTV. Having spent the early years of her career being promoted and received as the Canadian Debbie Gibson or Tiffany, the transformation of her music and image was enormous. “Jagged Little Pill” would furnish six hit singles and sell 33 million copies worldwide (mine was one of them). Alanis Morissette was officially huge…until an Irish comedian called Ed Byrne realised that the lyrics to one of those hits – “Ironic” – weren’t actually examples of irony but rather bad luck and built a routine around it which took lumps out of her reputation as a songwriter. Not that Alanis just disappeared. Follow up album “Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie” was also a US chart topper but it sold a quarter of the numbers its predecessor achieved. She continues to record and release albums to this day but it’s the “Jagged Little Pill” era that she remains best known for and it started with this sweary, angry rant of a song. Lovely stuff.

Their season in the sun

MN8

One big hit with a single that some cruelly mocked as being about their penis size (“I’ve Got A Little Something For You”), and then an oft seen case of diminishing returns. A second album released the year after was as popular as as the Tories. Apparently still together, there has been no new material from them since November 1996.

Rednex

Possibly benefitting from the post Christmas sales slump, this oddball collective combined folk, techno and bluegrass to bring the world “Cotton Eye Joe” and like idiots we lapped it up making it the first new No 1 of the year. An identikit follow up…erm…followed but then nothing and thank the lord for that. The Rednex brand lives on with a pool of band members to rival The Fall and a 24/7 live streaming channel on Twitch. Mind boggling.

Scatman John

In the same vein as Rednex came this guy, a jazz pianist who would overcome his stutter to become a scat singer. Combining that with rap and house beats, he hit big with “Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)” going to No 3 in the UK. A further Top 10 hit followed before we all got sick of the joke and he disappeared from whence he came. Sadly, Scatman John died in 1999 aged just 57 from lung cancer.

The Mike Flowers Pops

Novelty records were all the rage in 1995, even if they didn’t know they were novelty records. Rednex, Scatman John and now this easy listening take on “Wonderwall” by Oasis. Almost the surprise Christmas No 1 when arriving late on chart from nowhere, the bewigged Mr Flowers (no relation to tuba playing, member of Sky Herbie) and his pals enjoyed brief fame in the wake of the success of “Wonderwall” but have not been near the charts since 1996 when a cover of “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” took them to No 30.

The Outhere Brothers

Of all the shite that 1995 delivered to the charts this year (and there was a lot of it), I think these two prats annoyed me the most. What was it about this duo and their call and response moronic chant records that engaged our nation so much. Two consecutive No 1s and two other Top 10 hits in a calendar year suggests either a nationwide dereliction of taste or that I was missing something. I wasn’t though.

Last Words

Well, it wasn’t the worst of years but it also wasn’t the best. History will no doubt forever view it through the filter of ‘The Battle of Britpop’ which felt seismic at the time, an event that not only dominated the musical landscape but also that shook the cultural one too. In retrospect, does it all seem a bit daft now? Maybe. I still didn’t seem to be buying many singles from within the Top 40 though my albums collection expanded this year. A sobering thought is that for all of Britpop’s posturing, for all the media frenzy of Oasis v Blur, for all those bangin’ dance tunes crossing over from the clubs to the charts, the act that had the ability to sell the most singles and albums this year were two actors in their thirties from a TV military drama.

TOTP 01 DEC 1994

Posted on by 80stastic

Christmas is coming but that hasn’t encouraged TOTP to go the full festive hog and have Santa Claus as a guest presenter in the ‘golden mic’ slot. They might not have the fella with the big white beard on the show but they have got someone with a huge blonde wig. Paul O’Grady’s drag queen character Lily Savage had been around the live circuits and doing residencies at various gay pubs in London since the early 80s but by 1994 was starting to break through into mainstream entertainment. The live tours took in bigger venues and would result in VHS releases. TV and film work was also starting to come through but a presenting slot on the BBC’s flagship music show before the watershed was maybe Lily’s biggest gig yet at the time. Chat shows and panel games would follow but as the new millennium dawned, O’Grady effectively retired the character and it is testament to the appeal of his own personality that in the second half of his career, before his untimely death earlier this year, that he managed to overshadow his drag queen alter ego. I’m sure head producer Ric Blaxill would have been chuffed with the coup of landing O’Grady/Savage. Just the sort of booking to shake up the old format.

We start with an artist who, if not exactly shaking things up, was quietly going about subverting some of the established norms of the traditional TOTP performance. Watching this Sophie B. Hawkins appearance back, the word that comes to mind is ‘kooky’ I think. If I’m remembering correctly, the last time she was on the show to perform her single “Right Beside You”, she had a bongo drum permanently attached to her and a bicycle positioned next to her on stage for no discernible reason. This time, for the follow up “Don’t Don’t Tell Me No”, she’s got a Wintery park bench scene set up and she starts her performance by striding around it purposefully in a circle. It looks a bit batty but I’m just hoping it was genuine and not staged.

As for the song, it’s a lot more poppy than I was expecting with a sweet, catchy hook but sadly for Sophie, it would get no further than No 36 despite this exposure. She would have one more UK Top 40 hit before leaving her record company Sony in a dispute about artistic integrity. She continued to release music on her own label Trumpet Swan Productions and in 2013 appeared in cult US sitcom Community as herself.

In the time I’ve been writing this TOTP blog, I must have covered a dozen or so singles by Roxette stretching back to 1989 but even by the fag end of 1994, they still weren’t quite done with releasing their brand of catchy, soft rock/pop. However, by this point, their spell over the UK record buying public, if not broken was seriously starting to lose its potency. “Run To You” (nothing to do with Bryan Adams) was the duo’s fourth single of that calendar year and yet none of them had hit higher than No 14. This track was never going to reverse that trend. It’s pleasant enough with a jaunty chorus but, at the risk of sounding like my Dad when I was 14 or 15, they pretty much all sounded the same by this point.

“RunTo You” was the fourth single released from their “Crash! Boom! Bang!” album and peaked at No 27. Rather hopefully a fifth was released in the new year and it failed to make the Top 40 at all which I think was the first time that had happened that decade. Maybe spying that the writing was on the wall, a Best Of album was released in 1995 – the magnificently titled “Don’t Bore Us, Get To The Chorus” – which made No 5 in the UK but which did nothing in America where they’d had a clutch of No 1s just a few years earlier. The hits didn’t quite end here – they had a couple more before the 90s were through but their imperial phase had, to paraphrase one of their songs, faded like a flower.

It’s sobering to reflect that two people in this clip died before their time. Paul O’Grady was only 67 whilst Marie Fredriksson was just 61 when they passed away.

And one of the most fiercely anticipated tracks in the history of music (or something) finally drops (except nobody would have said ‘dropped’ meaning ‘released’ back in 1994). After almost five years of pretty much nothing (the last new material had been the “One Love” single in the Summer of 1990), The Stone Roses were officially back. So long had they been away following a protracted legal case to free themselves from their contract with the label Silvertone that the band had taken on an almost mythical persona – would they ever make another album? If they did, would it be any good? Were they actually still even a band? “Love Spreads” gave us the answer and then some. Their first release for Geffen Records (home to rock heavyweights Guns N’ Roses and Aerosmith), this was a humdinger of a tune. A heavy, blues rock out, this was no jangly guitar piece like “Waterfall” or “She Bangs The Drums”. It was a huge sound that seemed to resonate even after the last note had played. That it would become the band’s highest charting single ever was never in doubt and it duly fulfilled its destiny when it crashed into the Top 3 at No 2.

However, I seem to recall that even that wasn’t seen as quite good enough. For a band that had generated such headlines and prose to be written about them and that were responsible for a debut album that had been lauded as almost perfect and untouchable, surely they should be No 1? That sense of nearly but not quite would haunt the release of the album as well. “Second Coming” was released on the Monday after this TOTP aired to much hype and razzmatazz. Just about every record retailer in the land opened early to deal with the expected rush with some even opting for a then rare midnight kick off. Even though we were a mainstream Our Price store, we were slap bang in the middle of Manchester city centre and so had to open early – I think we went for something like 7 as opposed to our usual 9. The album was on display everywhere in store and blasting out of the shop stereo. We only had one person come into the store before we would have opened anyway. She came to the counter oblivious of the Stone Roses vibe going on around her and asked for some gift vouchers! I had to rush upstairs and get her some as we hadn’t even reconciled them from the previous day’s takings yet. What a non-event! That seemed to set the tone for the album as a whole for me. Yes, it sold but not in the numbers that had been predicted (it made No 4 in the charts) and received mix reviews from the critics. Even with nearly 30 years of perspective and opportunities for revisiting, I’m not sure that it has lost that sense of disappointment. I quite liked it though and do own a copy. Me plus Shaun from Shaun Of The Dead made two people at least. I don’t think anything sums up the general reaction to “Second Coming” as succinctly as this scene from the film:

Now does Lily Savage go a bit too far in her intro for Erasure here? After confessing that they are her favourite band, as the music swells up and the cheering of the studio audience starts, does she shout “Andy, sit on me!”? Hmm. Sounds like it. Anyway, as I’ve said before, by 1994 I’d lost track of Erasure. Before then I could have had a good stab at naming all their singles (possibly in order) from their imperial phase but somehow I just fell off the Erasure wagon around this time. Consequently this third single from their album “I Say I Say I Say” – “ I Love Saturday” – must have passed me by completely as I don’t know it at all. Having finally listened to it, whilst it’s no banger along the lines of “Sometimes” or “A Little Respect”, it’s a well constructed, likeable pop song…but that’s it. No more no less. Maybe that’s the reason it didn’t strike a chord with me as it just didn’t stand out enough. That’s based on just one listen though so maybe it grows on you with repeated hearings?

I’m not sure what the deal is with the fruit machines set – something to do with Saturday nights in the pub? Still, it did make me smile which put me in mind of a staple of kids TV during my childhood Tiswas which, of course, stood for ‘This Is Saturday, Watch And Smile’. “I Love Saturday” peaked at No 20, the lowest chart position of any of their standard single releases since the first three singles from their debut album “Wonderland” failed to make the Top 40 between 1985 and 1986. That imperial phase really was coming to an end.

A future No 1 incoming now and one which would spend 7 weeks atop the charts. Not only that but it would stay on the Top 40 for a whopping 25 weeks, 17 of which were spent inside the Top 10. Its appearance on TOTP here already marked its fourth week inside the Top 40 and it had sat outside that exalted company for 3 weeks prior to that. Its run to the summit would take 13 weeks (16 if you count those 3 outside the Top 40) which was the slowest consecutive climb to No 1 in chart history at the time. Impressed? What about when I tell you the record in question was “Think Twice” by Celine Dion? Still impressed? Ah, musical snobbery strikes again. Or not if you are a fan of the artist or record I guess. Whatever your opinion of Celine or her song, its chart life was astonishing. Look at these positions:

30 – 28 – 22 – 20 – 9 – 8 – 5 – 6 – 4 – 2 – 2 – 2 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 3 – 4 – 12 – 17 – 22 – 34

Maybe it’s because Celine herself recorded a version of “The Power Of Love” by Jennifer Rush that it’s put me in mind of that 1985 chart topper. Although, its ascent to the top was much quicker than that of “Think Twice” once inside the Top 40, it took 17 weeks to get to No 1 including an amazing 13 outside the Top 40.

OK, that’s an awful lot of chart positions and stats so I’ll leave it at that for the moment considering we’ll be seeing this one in the near future and for weeks on end…except to say that must have been the most boring live by satellite performance of all time, if indeed that’s what it was. Just looks like a standard promo video to me.

From one diva to another now as we see the first of two songs on the same show that continue to be played every Christmas nearly 30 years later. A diva at Christmas? It can only be Mariah Carey and it is, of course, with “All I Want For Christmas Is You”. Despite its ubiquity every December, the single didn’t make it to the top of the charts on its first release having to make do with the No 2 position instead although it did become a No 1 record in 2020. Not sure that chart had as much gravitas to it as its 1994 counterpart though. By doing so though, it broke the record for the amount of weeks inside the Top 40 before getting to the top of the charts with a tally of 104 (non-consecutive) some 26 years after it was first released. Have that Celine Dion!

In my head, the race for the 1994 Christmas No 1 was between East 17 and Oasis with Mariah Carey a bit of an afterthought. At the denouement though, she ended up splitting the pair with the street urchins of Walthamstow taking the crown with the Burnage boys having to settle with the bronze medal.

Now if you’re thinking that this doesn’t look like the video for “All I Want For Christmas Is You” that you’re used to seeing every year then you’d be right. Where’s the scenes of Mariah messing about on a snowy mountainside? Where’s the Christmas tree she decorates and the rather creepy Santa Claus figure (actually her then husband and CEO of Sony Music Tommy Mottola)? Well, the video shown here on TOTP was an alternate promo shot in black and white with Mariah getting to cosplay at being a Ronette. Seems to me it pretty much rips off the plot of the video for “Chain Reaction” by Diana Ross. Anyway, was this really the live by satellite performance that TOTP make it out to be? Again, it just looks like they’re showing a video to me. This is the second time this show they’ve tried this on after Celine Dion earlier. “All I Want For Christmas Is You” has sold 12 million copies in the US alone and earned $80 million in royalties.

Oh what’s this drivel?! The bloody Power Rangers?! FFS! The 90s were blighted by shit records generated by extraordinarily popular (for a while) children’s TV series, films or cultural phenomenons. The start of the decade saw a chart topper based on the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles courtesy of Partners In Kryme whilst 1992 saw the WWF Superstars forearm smash their way into the Top 5 with “Slam Jam”. The following year the Christmas horrors of Mr. Blobby were visited on us with his pile of crap song and now…this! The Mighty Morph’n Power Rangers was a US children’s TV show that premiered in 1993 and made its way onto UK screens via GMTV and became a runaway success and spawned the must have toys for Christmas that year. As I wasn’t the target market for Power Rangers, the whole thing kind of passed me by. However, I had to endure it years later as my son watched it during a brief phase. It’s the one of the most bonkers things I’ve ever seen. Really tacky looking with cheap production values (presumably due to a low budget), it was a hotchpotch of stock footage from a Japanese show supplemented by additional scenes shot in America. The ‘monsters’ are just ludicrous looking whilst the ‘actors’ playing the Power Rangers were absolutely dire. How did this nonsense take off?

The single – “Power Rangers” – was suitably atrocious. Essentially just the show’s theme tune, if you compare it to some of its Gerry Anderson counterparts from the 60s like Thunderbirds or Stingray…well, there is no comparison. Just horrible and presumably was just bought by children. I think the whole thing was suitably lampooned on an episode of Friends:

And so to the second of those Christmas tunes and this one would be the festive No 1. As with the debate over whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie, “Stay Another Day” by East 17 also divides opinion as to whether it’s a true Christmas song or not. In 2017, a YouGov poll asked if respondents agreed that it was, indeed, a Christmas song. 29% agreed, 34% disagreed and 37% didn’t know. Hardly definitive then. For what it’s worth, I think it is. When the “Steam” album came out and we played it instore, “Stay Another Day” immediately stood out as a potential Christmas hit – it’s got bloody sleigh bells on it for Chrissakes! Obviously though, there is another side to the track. Written by Tony Mortimer about the suicide of his brother, it was based around the premise of what would you do if you had one more day with a loved one. However you view “Stay Another Day”, what can’t be disputed is that it was certainly a huge departure from their usual sound for the band. It was a risk worth taking though. It sold over a million copies in the UK and the repeat royalties on it must be enormous – it’s played to death every December. Somebody (Tony Mortimer?) has a nice little pension pot out of that 4 minute pop song. If you compare “Stay Another Day” to the first time their erstwhile rivals Take That changed tempo to a ballad in “A Million Love Songs”, I think East 17 are clear winners.

It wouldn’t get any better or bigger for Tony, Brian and…erm…the other two after this. Sure they carried on having hits until the end of the decade but none as huge as this and the original line up would not be intact come the new millennium with more comings and goings than The Sugababes. “Stay Another Day” though, having entered the canon of Christmas songs, has ensured that their name will not be forgotten even if they’re only remembered for that one song.

Baby D remain at No 1 with “Let Me Be Your Fantasy” as we enter December but surely nobody thought that they were realistic contenders to be the Christmas chart topper. Now that would have been a turn up for the books – an out and out dance tune as the festive No 1. The UK had experienced a fair few novelty records at the pinnacle of the charts come 25th December – Benny Hill, St Winifred’s School Choir, Renée And Renato, Mr. Blobby etc – but Baby D wasn’t a novelty act more an artist from a specific genre of music. In fact, the only dance records to be No 1 at Christmas that I can think of are “Rockabye” by Clean Bandit and, at a push, “Sound Of The Underground” by Girls Aloud. Given the domination of LadBaby in recent years, maybe it’ll be a long time before we see the like again.

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Sophie B. HawkinsDon’t Don’t Tell Me NoErm..no. Sorry Sophie
2RoxetteRun To YouNope
3The Stone RosesLove SpreadsNot the single but I have the album
4ErasureI Love SaturdayNah
5Celine DionThink TwiceAs if
6Mariah CareyAll I Want For Christmas Is YouNo
7The Mighty Morph’n Power RangersPower RangersHa! No
8East 17Stay Another DayI did not
9Baby DLet Me Be Your FantasyAnd 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/m001mwfr/top-of-the-pops-01121994

TOTP 09 JAN 1992

Posted on by 80stastic

Well, we’ve finally made it into 1992 and the first thing to say is that we’re not starting at the very beginning. No, we’ve missed a week because of the Adrian Rose issue so we start a week later on the 9th of January. In my prologue post for 1992 I was very negative about the prospects for the year but having checked the running order for this show, there’s some artists on that are distinctly removed from the mainstream’s usual suspects. None more so than the opening act tonight who are Iceland’s finest The Sugarcubes.

Now I have to be straight up about this with my cards firmly on the table and admit that I’m no fan of Björk – in fact I pretty much can’t stand her ‘singing’. All that straining and shrieking which I’m meant to find spellbinding but which actually just grates on me? No thanks. That doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate her record as an artist though. Her longevity alone deserves respect – 9 albums, 2 soundtrack albums, 39 singles just as a solo performer plus another 3 albums and 14 singles with The Sugarcubes. Then there’s her acting career, she’s written books of poetry and been involved in charitable endeavours such as the “Army Of Me: Remixes And Covers” project to raise funds for those affected by the Asian tsunami of 2004. Plus you couldn’t accuse her of standing still creatively. Starting with the punk of early band Spit And Snot, she moved through the avant garde indie rock of The Sugarcubes onto her solo career beginning with the dance beats of “Debut” then the experimental eclecticism of follow up “Post” through to the voice only recording of 2004 ‘s “Medúlla” and finally the folktronica of her most recent album “Utopia”. She’s a female version of David Bowie in terms of reinvention. I still can’t stand her voice though.

The only thing I really knew about The Sugarcubes in 1992 was their 1987 single “Birthday” which had been Melody Maker‘s single of the year. It had been far too out there for me though and I certainly hadn’t been tempted to find out more of their work via their first two albums “Life’s Too Good” and “Here Today, Tomorrow Next Week!”. The single “Hit” though found them at their most accessible (to me at least). The track has an almost funky back beat and the bridge into the chorus is actually quite melodic. Even Björk has toned down on her vocal stylings although I’m not sure about the Icelandic version of Bez in the cap in this performance nor his dodgy rapping skills. The album the single was taken from called “Stick Around For Joy” did reasonable business peaking at No 16 in the UK charts but the band broke up at the end of the year despite massive exposure from supporting U2 during the US leg of their Zoo TV Tour in October and November playing to a total of 700,000 people.

By the way, tonights hosts are Mark Franklin and Claudia Simon and its the latter who describes the next song as a “seriously hard dance tune that makes you want to get up and dance”. Ooh! Who could it possibly be?! Well, it’s an ensemble that went by the name of Isotonik. Now back in the early 90s, the only use of the word ‘isotonic’ had come from the lips of John Barnes in his infamous Lucozade advert – “it gets to your thirst…fast” and all that….

…until this lot turned up. Who were they? According to Mark Franklin, they were formed by one Chris Paul who was an ex copper turned DJ / producer who also dabbled in nightclub promotion – he was behind the Orange Raves brand operating out of London. Using his entrepreneurial nous, he used this TOTP appearance for a bit of free advertising (the BBC didn’t notice/care apparently) by having his mate dress up as an orange and jig along on stage with the rest of the dancers in front of an Orange Rave logo backdrop. I have to say that:

a) The costume comes across more like a tomato than an orange under the studio lights

b) It looks absolutely shit.

As for their track “Different Strokes”, it seemed too be a mash up of a load of samples (I know not which ones and I care even less) and there’s a definite flavour of 808 State and “Charly” era The Prodigy that’s been half inched and added into the mixer. Just horrible.

“Different Strokes” peaked at No 12.

We’re onto our first video of the night and it’s “Too Blind To See It” by Kym Sims. Claudia Simon gives her album a plug in the intro to it by saying “if it’s anything like her single, it’s gonna be BIG!”. So was it? Big I mean. I remember the cover to it and we certainly stocked it in the Our Price I was working in but how well did it actually sell? Hmm. Well, according to he officialcharts.com database, it spent just two weeks in the UK charts peaking at No 39 before dropping to No 50 and then slipping out altogether. I think you could find a number of words to describe its commercial track record then but ‘BIG’ would not be one of them.

Kim did have a further two hits released from her eponymous and only album but that didn’t inspire a rejuvenation of its sales and she would not trouble the chart compilers ever again despite continuing to work within the music industry, writing for both herself and other artists. Having said all that, there does seem to be a lot of love out there online for the track “Too Blind To See It” being variously described as ‘a tune’ and ‘an absolute banger’. Indeed.

Blimey! First The Sugarcubes and now Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine! TOTP was really starting the new year with an indie bang! To paraphrase Chris Tarrant from his Tiswas days, this is what the kids wanted! Having broken through the chart barrier that prohibited Grebo rock from infecting the youth of the day in 1991 with not one but two hit singles in “Sheriff Fatman” and “After the Watershed (Early Learning the Hard Way)”, Jim Bob and Fruitbat strode confidently into 1992 with some right old “Rubbish”. Or was it “R.U.B.B.I.S.H” as I’ve seen it alternatively spelt online. Either way, it was more of the same from the duo but although it undoubtedly kicked the rest of the charts squarely in the Schofields, it did sound a bit “Sheriff Fatman”-lite to me. Fair play though to them for getting Mother’s Pride bread into the lyrics a good decade before dreadful boy band Blue managed the same feat in their hit “One Love”.

The performance here seems to channel a Mad Max post apocalyptic industrial world setting with Jim Bob spending most of his time on the roof of a battered old car. Oh and that bandage on his arm? Here’s the man himself with the story behind it:

As you do. 1992 was the peak of Carter’s commercial powers and saw them score a No 1 album (no really) with “1992 – The Love Album”. “Rubbish” itself though was a stand alone single although it did get added as a bonus track to a 2011 re-release of “101 Damnations”.

Incidentally, they recorded a version of tonight’s opening song, “Hit” by The Sugarcubes, as the B-side to their 1993 single “Lean on Me I Won’t Fall Over”. I love it when a post comes together all by itself.

I think they’ve moved the Breakers section to its more traditional spot of being in the middle of the show. It seemed to be positioned just before the No 1 in recent weeks which seemed odd. Mark Franklin does the intro for it and during it, a weird thing occurs. He name checks all the acts featured in the Breakers except for one which he refers to instead as just “another great song”. Did he just forget who was on or was it some sort of indirect slur?

Anyway, the first Breaker (Franklin did name them) is The Stone Roses who despite it now being 1992 are still releasing singles from their debut album that came out in May 1989! What was going on?! Well, the band was still in a state of transition. Having removed themselves from their restrictive Silvertone recording contract and signed with US big hitters Geffen, they’d also just sacked their manager, the colourful character that was Gareth Evans. Their was precious little new music being laid down though. They mostly seemed to be following Manchester United around the country or hanging out in the bars of Chorlton shooting the breeze.

With no new material forthcoming, I’m guessing Silvertone saw a window of opportunity to make the most of the tracks they had licenced to them and put out just about every song from the first album as a single. The latest track to receive this treatment was “Waterfall”, no doubt a great song (I especially liked the line ‘so good to have equalised’) but surely we all knew it by then. Even so the band still had a loyal enough fan base to send it to No 27.

Next the one act that Franklin didn’t mention in his intro and it’s Kiss. Why the omission? Did he have beef with the US rockers? It seems unlikely. Anyway, Kiss hadn’t featured in the UK Top 40 since 1987 brought us “Reason To Live” and more memorably “Crazy Crazy Nights” but they were back via the trusted method of having a song featured in a hit film. That film was of course Bill And Ted’s Bogus Journey for which Kiss had recorded a version of Argent’s 1973 hit “God Gave Rock ‘n’ Roll To You”. It wasn’t a straight cover though as they rewrote the lyrics in the verses to pay tribute to their drummer since 1982 Eric Carr who appears on the track but who died of cancer in 1991 aged 42. The rewrite also caused them to retitle the song “God Gave Rock ‘n’ Roll To You II”. Carr was too ill to play drums on the track but he sings on the a capella break before the song’s finale. He also appears in the video wearing a wig as his chemotherapy treatment had caused him to lose his hair.

I don’t think I knew that it wasn’t a Kiss original at the time but I did always have a soft spot for it. I wasn’t the only one as my work colleague Justin also did specifically that a capella bit. The song’s appeal stretched beyond Justin and I though – enough people bought it to send it all the way to No 4. I liked the film as well. Stupid as mud but good fun all the same and the song works well positioned over the ending.

Yay! Another nice bit of serendipity! After the Carter USM / The Sugarcubes connection comes another link in between two artists on the same show. We saw Kym Sims earlier and I noted that after her brief fame as a chart star she ended up writing for other artists. Well, one of those was Ce Ce Peniston who is the next Breaker with “We Got A Love Thang”. No that isn’t a mistake. Ce Ce really did gave hits that weren’t “Finally”. It’s just that it felt like that was her only song. To be fair to those of us who felt like this, we could be forgiven when you consider that the release before “We Got A Love Thang” was “Finally” and the one after it was… yep…”Finally” albeit the 1992 remix. The original release in October ‘91 peaked at No 26 whilst the remix went all the way to No 2. In between came “We Got A Love Thang” and it also did the business chart wise peaking at No 6. For me though, it didn’t have any of the hooks and charm of its predecessor (and successor) and I always found it quite bland.

The final Breaker comes from The Prodigy. After being the main protagonists in initiating a brief musical sub genre of rave tunes which sampled children’s programming with their debut hit “Charly”, the pressure was on to come up with a more credible follow up. They did it and then some with “Everybody In The Place”. An instant rave classic, it would go all the way to No 2. It would be included on their debut album “Experience” which we sold loads of in Manchester (I guess due to the massive club scene there) but which I am surprised to learn didn’t even make the Top 10, peaking outside of it at No 12. It did eventually go platinum for sales of 300,000 mind. Even though “Everybody In The Place” consolidated the band’s initial success, I don’t think many of us could have foreseen the impact The Prodigy would have over the whole of the 90s nor their legacy beyond that.

Next a track that is so wicked that it will melt your boots according to presenter Claudia Simon. Who could she possibly be talking about? It turns out she’s waxing lyrical about Blue Pearl. Yes, that Blue Pearl who scored a huge hit back in 1990 with “Naked in The Rain”. So, hands up all those who thought that this lot were a one hit wonder?

*blogger raises his hand*

Well, we were all wrong for they actually had four Top 40 singles (although two of them were both “Naked in The Rain”). This one, “(Can You) Feel the Passion” – no brackets, no points – peaked at No 14 but wasn’t include on there only album called “Naked”. If it sounds familiar, that’s probably because it features samples from Bizarre Inc’s “Playing with Knives.” The spoken word delivery from singer Durga McBroom (not a character from the The Worst Witch but her actual name) does make it out stand out rather but clearly not enough to commit it to my memory first time around.

As with Carter USM before them, the staging of the performance has a Mad Max feel to it with those industrial looking drums being struck by some rather sinister looking guys with intimidating black stripes across their eyes making them look like Adam Ant’s evil twin brothers. Durga would go onto tour with Pink Floyd providing backing vocals for “The Great Gig In The Sky” thereby proving that she could also sing as well as speak.

Senseless Things (no ‘The’ for you pedants out there) were probably a band I should have got more into. Pedalling an energetic brand of punk pop and with a name pinched from a Shakespearean phrase, I could have gone big for this lot. Somehow I didn’t and now my main memory of them is that they were signed to Epic, a subsidiary of Sony – damn all those boxes of albums that I opened during my Our Price years and their delivery notes that I perused!

“Easy To Smile” was the first of two Top 20 hits that they achieved in 1992. Listening back to them now, what strikes about them is that they sound very American, like a US Green Day even. Though they never amounted to that much hit wise (they never troubled the Top 40 after 1992), they would demonstrate their musical chops in their careers after the band broke up in 1995. Lead singer Mark Keds (sadly now deceased) became a member of The Wildhearts and also has a co-writer credit on The Libertines’ 2004 hit “Can’t Stand Me Now”, which took a line from the 1998 single “Hey! Kitten” of one of his post Senseless Things bands called Jolt. Rhythm guitarist Ben Harding went on to join charting band 3 Colours Red whilst Morgan Nicholls performed with Muse, Gorillaz, The Streets and Lily Allen. Talking of Gorillaz, one other thing I recall about Senseless Things was the amazing artwork on their album covers and which is seen in the backdrop to their TOTP performance. Here’s @TOTPFacts with the lowdown on it:

“Easy To Smile” peaked at No 18.

Due to the Adrian Rose effect, missed episodes and me not bothering to review the 1991 Xmas TOTP, I think this is the first of my posts that includes Queen at No 1 with “Bohemian Rhapsody”. Re-released off the back of Freddie Mercury’s death on 24 November, its ascent to the top of the charts and 5 week stay there not only secured it the Xmas No 1 spot but also meant that it became the only song to hold that accolade twice by the same artist.

Unlike its initial release in 1975 though, the 1991 version was a double A side which saw “Bohemian Rhapsody” paired with “These Are The Days Of Our Lives”, the fifth and final track to be taken from the “Innuendo” album. I guess I can understand that the fans wanted something to mark the passing of their idol, something to hang on to and what better choice than their best known and most successful song ever? Or was it pure, cynical greed by EMI to cash in on a tragic event and while they were at it, they added a song from the latest (and now last) album to try and flog that as well? A bit of both maybe.

I think at this time, “Bohemian Rhapsody” was one of those songs that I’d heard so many times that it had become unlistenable. I may still be at that stage now. As for “These Are The Days Of Our Lives”, it sounded like very untypical Queen fare to me, a lilting ballad whose title sat perfectly as a goodbye to Freddie. I suppose similar claims of appropriateness could have been made for “Who Wants To Live Forever” and “The Show Must Go On” but I think the chosen track was the most respectful. Interesting that the TOTP producers chose to show the full 6 minute video of “Bohemian Rhapsody” – was that really necessary?

Order of appearanceArtist TitleDid I buy it?
1The SugarcubesHitNo – that voice…
2IsotonikDifferent StrokesHell no
3Kym SimsToo Blind To See ItNah
4Carter The Unstoppable Sex MachineRubbishI did not
5The Stone RosesWaterfallNo but I have the album though don’t we all?
6KissGod Gave Rock ‘n’ Roll To You IIGuilty pleasure but didn’t buy it
7Ce Ce Peniston We Got A Love ThangNo we don’t
8The ProdigyEverybody In The PlaceNope
9Blue Pearl(Can You) Feel the PassionNo
10Senseless ThingsEasy To SmileShould have but didn’t
11Queen Bohemian Rhapsody / These Are The Days Of Our LivesNah

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/m001349m/top-of-the-pops-09011992

TOTP 12 SEP 1991

Posted on by 80stastic

After last week’s massive rave up of a show, surely the TOTP studio wouldn’t be taken over by mad ravers ‘avin’ it large again this week? Well, yes and no. Dance music is definitely represented by the artists in the actual building again but when you add in the videos chosen by the producers to be shown this week, you’d be forgiven for thinking you were back in the 70s or at The Royal Variety Performance. No seriously, two of the artists on this TOTP had either already been on Her Majesty’s favourite night out of the year or would appear on it in the near future, those acts being Cliff Richard (13 times!) and Right Said Fred (once in 1992). The mainstream acts didn’t stop with just those two though. No, also on TOTP tonight were Bryan Adams (twice!), Roxette and Julian Lennon who’s Dad John had also appeared at The Royal Variety Performance as part of The Beatles with his infamous “just rattle your jewellery” remark in 1963. Oh, and despite having only released one new song in the 90s so far, The Stone Roses are suddenly back on the show with a re-release of a track from their 1989 debut album for some reason. This has all the makings of a curate’s egg of a programme.

Before all that though, what’s the rather cryptic announcement from host Simon Mayo at the top of the show all about? “If you got your tickets for tonight’s show through Keith Prowse, you can watch through to 7.30 but cheer and applaud louder because you are watching for free. Seems fair enough to me.” Eh? What was the story there then? Some dispute between the BBC and the legendary ticket agency and music publisher Keith Prowse? Was Mayo legally obliged to say that? It just seems so utterly incongruous and bizarre.

Talking of bizarre, the opening act tonight are Bizarre Inc with “Such A Feeling” and these guys were definitely ‘avin’ it. In an attempt to stand out from the rest of the rave crowd, they have employed a couple of podium dancers to give a visual form to their track. Watching it back, it remains me of the time that I was working in the Our Price in Rochdale and on a night out found myself in the town’s Xanadu nightclub having become detached from my colleagues. My God! The sights I saw – including podium dancers! I loved working at that store but the delights of a night out in Rochdale I was not prepared for.

Bizarre Inc were from Stafford and at one point included a band member who would find their way into Altern-8 who were also having mainstream chart hits at this time. It all sounds a bit incestuous to me.

“Such A Feeling” peaked at No 13 but Bizarre Inc would return before the end of the year with a Top 5 hit in the re-released “Playing with Knives”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9GscEY_LkY

“20th Century Boy” by Marc Bolan & T. Rex is next having been re-released off the back of a Levi’s advert. The marketing guys at Levi’s had struck a rich vein of 70s tunes to help promote their jeans at this time, having worked through a load of 60s songs at the back end of the 80s. They’d already turned to The Steve Miller Band and Bad Company in their pursuit of soundtracks to their iconic advertising campaign but suddenly they had struck on the idea that some glam rock was now what was required. I guess you can’t knock their choice; T.Rex had lit up the charts with some huge tunes that had turned Marc Bolan into a superstar. Between 1970 and 1973 the chart peaks of their singles read:

2 – 1 – 1 – 2 – 1 – 1 – 2 – 2 – 3 – 4

with the No 3 in the list being the original release of “20th Century Boy”. Come 1974 though, the spell appeared to be broken. The release of the “Zinc Alloy And The Hidden Riders Of Tomorrow” album met with a downturn of sales and a critical backlash. The return to all those complex song titles from the band’s psychedelic folk era when they were known as Tyrannosaurus Rex maybe wasn’t the best idea – as well as the album’s title, the tracks on it included “Painless Persuasion v. The Meathawk Immaculate” and “The Leopards Featuring Gardenia & the Mighty Slug”. The album wasn’t even released in the US and the band were dropped from their label. Bolan split from producer Tony Visconti and the group splintered.

Subsequent albums releases fared even worse but the explosion of the punk movement in ’76 seemed to re-energise Bolan and he even toured with The Damned as well as reinstating his public profile with his own TV show Marc. I was too young to experience those early hits in real time being aged just 2 when “Ride A White Swan” bestrode the charts in ’70 but I have faint memories of that TV show and I think my elder brother had a pin badge with Bolan’s image on it.

Of course, tragedy was just around the corner (or more specifically a small humpback bridge near Gipsy Lane on Queens Ride Barnes, southwest London) when Marc was killed in a car accident when his girlfriend Gloria Jones lost control of the mini they were travelling in. His legacy lives on though with names like Johnny Marr and Siouxsie and the Banshees crediting him as being a major influence with the latter recording their own version of “20th Century Boy” as the B-side to the single “The Staircase (Mystery)” single in 1979.

Simon Mayo’s having a nightmare here. After the weirdness of the Keith Prowse comment he’s started going on about Paddy Ashdown now. Was Ashdown in the news back then? Was this when all the ‘Paddy Pantsdown’ stuff was happening?

*checks internet*

No that scandal blew up in the run up to the ’92 election. I can’t find a Paddy Ashdown story for Sep ’91 so I’m not sure what Mayo is going on about. Surely he wasn’t using the show as a platform for his own political views?

Anyway, the act he is introducing via this political lay-by is Roxette with “The Big L.” The circus themed video for this one includes a scene where there’s five greased up body builder types huddled together on a small circular platform all playing mouth organ. What was that all about?! Maybe the video director had been influenced by the recent bare-chested antics of Marky Mark and his Funky Bunch or maybe even the “Do What U Like” video by Take That (the one with the bare arse cheeks and a ton of jelly) which had been creating waves of controversy around this time? With it being a Roxette video though, it just comes across as a bit safe and lame rather than daring.

“The Big L.” peaked at No 21.

Is it me or is there a bit of an echo in the studio tonight? I thought I’d noticed one in a couple of Simon Mayo’s links before but it seems to have spread to the performers now. There’s a distinct trace of reverb on Sabrina Johnston‘s live vocals on “Peace”. Or was that a deliberate sound effect? Sound quality issues aside, this was up there with Oceanic’s Insanity” in the bangin’ tunes stakes. Sadly for Sabrina, she also followed the same career path as Oceanic in that she could never really follow up on the success of “Peace’ . An album was released and two further singles from it but none of them managed to indent the charts. Indeed, Sabrina’s only other chart entry was when a remix of “Peace” made No 35 as part of a double A-side with Crystal Waters to promote the HIV/AIDS charity album “Red Hot + Dance” (the one with George Michael’s “Too Funky” on it). In later years though, she did go onto appear as a backing vocalist on Lauryn Hill’s album “The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill”.

More Paddy Ashdown quips from Simon Mayo next. Give it up mate! “I Wanna Be Adored” by The Stone Roses is the the prompt for him to get in another Paddy joke (as it were). Had Ashdown done a particular poorly received press conference or something back then?

“I Wanna Be Adored” was the opening track on the band’s iconic eponymous debut album from ’89. So why was it being released as a single two and a half years later? Well, I think it was to do with the legal battle with their then-record label Silvertone. The band wished to terminate their five-year contract with Silvertone whose owners Zomba Records took out an injunction against the Roses in September 1990 to prevent them from recording with any other label. The courts ruled in favour of the band in May 1991 but Silvertone appealed the decision thereby delaying the release of any new material from the band further. I guess Silvertone wanted to make as much dough out of the band as they could before they were their act no longer and so released a number of tracks from that debut album that had never previously been released (or indeed intended for release) as stand alone singles. “I Wanna Be Adored” was followed by “Waterfall”, ‘I Am The Resurrection” and a re-release of “Fool’s Gold” in ’92. Bit naughty that.

“I Wanna Be Adored” was also one of the tracks that my one time Our Price manager Pete played on as the band’s original bass player. The Martin Hannett produced album that Pete featured on never saw the light of day as the band weren’t happy with it until it was released as “Garage Flower” in 1996 against the wishes of everyone involved in the original recordings.

I said in the last post that I didn’t think we’d be seeing this act until her next hit in about three years time. I was wrong. Following her appearance in the Breakers Crystal Waters has moved up the charts sufficiently to qualify for another appearance this week with her “Makin’ Happy” single. The single edit of this was remixed by Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley who I very much see as one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse bringing death to music with his “Jack Your Body” No 1 single in 1987.

The video is a typical dance track promo with Crystal’s face superimposed over a background of abstract, dancing figure images and some very literal interpretations of the song’s lyrics – some Rocky Horror Picture Show style lips for ‘She screams Ah ooh’ and a camera for ‘Now picture you with me’. To be fair, most of the lyrics seem to be comprised of ‘ooh-wee ooh ooh-wee ooh ooh-wee ooh-wee ooh-wee’. It’s hardly Proust is it?

“Makin’ Happy” peaked at No 18.

Having gone after Paddy Ashdown for a cheap laugh, Mayo now sets his sights on pop royalty in Cliff Richard. Asking the audience the question who has appeared on TOTP most across its then 27 year history, he mimes us a clue of who it is. For some reason he thinks giving a double thumbs up and waving his arms about as if protecting himself from some falling debris is a dead ringer of an impression of Cliff! Surely the thumbs up gesture would be more likely to be Paul ‘Whacky Thumbs Aloft’ McCartney and although Cliff has been known to do some very odd arm movements whilst performing, Mayo’s interpretation seems very wide of the mark.

As for the song Cliff is singing, I have no memory whatsoever of “More To Life” but then I didn’t watch the TV show Trainer which it was the theme tune for. Apparently Trainer was a follow up (of sorts) to mid 80s yachting drama Howard’s Way but was set in the word of horse racing. As with Howard’s Way, Simon May (not Mayo) wrote the instrumental theme tune for the opening credits but lyrics were added for the version over the closing credits which were supplied by Mike Read (yes, the Radio 1 DJ). In later years of course, Read would pen “UKIP Calypso” for a UKIP dinner that he was attending and, with the endorsement of Nigel Farage, it was released as a single. It was widely panned as being racist for Reads’s mock Caribbean accent and the lyrics ‘The leaders committed a cardinal sin / Open the borders let them all come in / Illegal immigrants in every town / Stand up and be counted Blair and Brown’. That’s Mike Read there, friend of Nigel Farage and writer of racist songs. Arsehole. Read of course was very matey with Cliff as I recall and often did impressions of him. There really was no end to his talents was there?

“More To Life” the song is just bland, Cliff-by-numbers pop and the whole story saga should be condemned to the rubbish tip of terrible cultural ideas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Nv_1GrQiN4

Marky Mark & The Funky Bunch are up next with “Good Vibrations”. Now I’ve always quite liked Mark Wahlberg as an actor. I know some of the films he’s been in have had bad reviews like Planet Of The Apes and The Happening and he’s certainly no De Niro or Pacino but even so, like I said, I quite like him.

However, I didn’t know until now when I’ve read up on him that he did some terrible things as a teenager like racially aggravated assault for which he was sentenced to two years in jail but served only forty-five days of his sentence. Eighteen years later he apologised to his victim in person who stated publicly that he had forgiven Wahlberg. Now knowing this information and reading an interview back with him in Smash Hits magazine as Marky Mark, he clearly was a prick back then. In said interview he refers to women as ‘bitches’ and the Smash Hits writer describes his conversation as “…the blokiest tirade you ever did hear this side of an Eddie Murphy Live video…” – like I said, a prick.

He followed this up a year later in December ’92, while performing on the cult late night Channel 4 show The Word, by praising fellow guest Shabba Ranks who had stated gay people should be crucified for which both he and Ranks were widely condemned and criticised (not least by The Word presenter Mark Lamarr on the show). Supposedly Wahlberg doesn’t like to be reminded or asked about his music career these days. It’s not hard to see why.

The huge dance anthems just keep on coming as Rozalla enters the game with “Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good)”. Having been massively popular on the dance floors of the clubs in Ibiza in the Summer, it was no surprise that it became a huge hit in the UK charts when the returning hordes went searching for a memento of their holidays in the nation’s record shops. Well, at least we’d moved on from those foreign holiday hits like Ryan Paris from back in the day.

Rozalla was born in Zambia though moved to Zimbabwe aged 18 where she scored five No 1 singles. She relocated again in 1988, this time to London where she worked with production duo Nigel Swanston and Tim Cox and the collaboration bore fruit in the form of “Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good)”. Looking at her performance here, you wouldn’t have imagined that such a huge sound could have come from such a diminutive and slight looking person. She absolutely bosses it though and has the crowd in the palm of her hand when she takes her very sparkly jacket. She would go on to have a eight UK Top 40 hits in total including a re-release of this track re-titled as “Everybody’s Free (Ca$ino Mix)” in 1996.

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

Moving the Breakers to just before the No 1 is really starting to piss me off now. It’s lulling me into a false sense of security before hitting me with the realisation that there are at least three more songs to review even though the show is nearly over. We start with a man not seen in the Top 40 for seven years but who topped all the Best Newcomer and Most Promising New Act polls at the time of that success. Julian Lennon had already released three albums by ’91 but they had spiralled into a pattern of diminishing returns since the success of debut “Valotte”. Subsequently, his return to the Top 40 with “Saltwater” was quite the surprise. Tackling the issues of environmental conservation and world poverty in a pop song wasn’t unique but neither was it a regular occurrence back then. Obviously there was the whole Bad Aid project to address famine in Ethiopia and wasn’t “Crazy Horses” by The Osmonds about pollution? Then of course there was “Save The Whale” by …erm…Nik Kershaw. I’m sure there are plenty more examples but my point is that unlike sewers and non disposable wipes, the charts weren’t clogged up with them.

Enter Julian with a rather drippy yet heartfelt take on it all with his 6th form poetry-esque lyrics bemoaning man’s capability to land on the moon but not be able to stop children starving back on earth. Musically, it inevitably drew comparisons with his Dad especially the “Strawberry Fields Forever” beginning whilst the Beatles connection was continued by the guitar part that was written but not performed by George Harrison. I quite liked it and its themes seem more relevant today than ever. Like his debut single “Too Late For Goodbyes”, it peaked at No 6 whilst his only other Top 40 entry was his cover of Dave Clark Five’s “Because” for the 1986 musical Time soundtrack winch literally crept in at No 40.

What?! Shabba Ranks was in the charts?! The Shabba Ranks that was discussed earlier for his vile homophobic comments on The Word? Yep, the very same but this was a year before that controversial moment broke so presumably, in ’91, he wasn’t courting the condemnation that followed. Here he’s teamed up with Maxi Priest for a single called “Housecall” which sounds horrific to my ears and which thankfully passed me by at the time. Fortunately we only get 18 seconds of it in the Breakers, a feature which now seems to be a totally pointless exercise in boosting the amount of songs featured in the show (we’ve gone up from 13 to 14 in recent weeks). Julian Lennon only got 24 seconds and the final Breaker Bryan Adams gets 17 seconds! This was ridiculous and presumably just a ploy to be able to say it was keeping up with ITV competition The Chart Show. Utter nonsense (as was Shabba and Maix’s collaboration).

Hang on! Did I just say Bryan Adams was in the Breakers? But *spoiler* he’s still at No 1 isn’t he? Yes, but both statements are true because he’d been at No 1 so long now that his next single was due for release. “Can’t Stop This Thing We’ve Started” chart life would would come and go within a mere five weeks peaking at No 12 whilst “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” was still riding high in the Top 40. This was the time when it really started to get nuts I think. His new (and infinitely better in my opinion) song had been rejected in favour of a record buying public continuing to purchase his previous single that had been No 1 for over three months. This was just bonkers!

In the US, it would peak at No 2 but you know what they put on the B-side of the US release? Yes, “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You”! It had been No 1 in America for seven weeks! Why make it at the B-side?! In the UK the flip was a live version of his duet with Tina Tuner “It’s Only Love”. I quite liked the speeded up stop animation in the video which enlivened an otherwise straight performance promo.

So it’s a 10th week for good ol’ Bry with that Robin Hood song. The video for “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” was directed by Julien Temple which I don’t think I knew before. Bit of a contrast to his punk origins of the Sex Pistols film The Great Rock And Roll Swindle. Apparently it was shot in Sheffield. You’d have thought that he would have chosen Nottingham as his location wouldn’t you? I mean, it’s only about 30 odd miles from Sheffield anyway. And, the day it was being shot, Nottingham Forest were playing in the FA Cup final against Spurs. All the omens and references surely pointed to Nottingham not Sheffield? I wonder which football team Bryan Adams supports? Oh he must have a team. Look at Sylvester Stallone (Everton), Tom Hanks (Aston Villa) and Kevin Costner (Arsenal). Then you’ve got Robert Plant being a Wolves fan and Dave Grohl supports West Ham.

*checks internet*

I knew it! Bryan is a fan of….my beloved Chelsea! Who said he had/was bad taste?

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

It’s Right Said Fred and “I’m Too Sexy” to play us out but before that, Simon Mayo ends his last show before the ‘year zero’ revamp by signing off with “I’ll see you sometime”. He definitely knew didn’t he?

Back to the Freds and there’s a link between them and the aforementioned Julien Temple as the latter directed the Jazzin’ For Blue Jean short film for David Bowie to promote his 1984 “Blue Jean” single which starred none other than Richard Fairbrass as one of the band for fictional pop star Screaming Lord Byron. As toe curlingly awful as Jazzin’ For Blue Jean is (and I’ve watched it) it still knocks the promo for “I’m Too Sexy” into a cocked hat. What do you think about that Fairbrass?

Order of appearanceArtistTitleDid I buy it?
1Bizarre IncSuch A FeelingBizarre Inc? Godawful stink more like! No
2Marc Bolan & T. Rex20th Century BoyNo but I have a Best Of CD with it on
3Roxette The Big L.No
4Sabrina JohnstonPeaceLiked it, didn’t buy it
5The Stone RosesI Wanna Be AdoredNo but I’ve got the album
6Crystal WatersMakin’ HappyIt didn’t make me happy – no
7Cliff RichardMore To LifeGod no!
8Marky Mark & The Funky BunchGood VibrationsNah
9Rozalla “Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good)”I did not
10Julian LennonSaltwaterNo but I didn’t mind it actually
11Shabba Ranks/ Maxi Priest HousecallNO!
12Bryan Adams Can’t Stop This Thing We’ve StartedNegative
13Bryan Adams (Everything I Do) I Do It for YouDouble negative
14Right Said FredI’m Too SexyIt’s 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/m00103fx/top-of-the-pops-12091991

TOTP 1990 – the epilogue

Posted on by 80stastic

And there you have it – 1990 all done and dusted. As with many of these years that I have reviewed retrospectively, it was quite the disappointment. Very much touted as the year of ‘Madchester’ in the press at the time, if you actually examine the artists that were successful and the songs that were hits in this year, it was very mainstream and very old guard. It reminds me of the year 1977 – the year that punk was everywhere – and yet one of the biggest selling artists of the year was one half of Starsky And Hutch in David Soul. The Top 10 selling albums list was filled by the likes of ABBA, The Shadows, Fleetwood Mac and The Eagles. Fast forward 13 years and we see a similar story – the Top 10 albums are represented by Phil Collins (twice!), Elton John (twice!), The Carpenters, Pavarotti (twice!) and bloody Michael Bolton! 

As for singles, these were the No 1 records of the year:

Chart date
(week ending)		 Song Artist(s)
6 January “Do They Know It’s Christmas?“ Band Aid II
13 January “Hangin’ Tough“ New Kids on the Block
20 January
27 January “Tears on My Pillow“ Kylie Minogue
3 February “Nothing Compares 2 U“ Sinéad O’Connor
10 February
17 February
24 February
3 March “Dub Be Good to Me“ Beats International
10 March
17 March
24 March
31 March “The Power“ Snap!
7 April
14 April “Vogue“ Madonna
21 April
28 April
5 May
12 May “Killer“ Adamski featuring Seal
19 May
26 May
2 June
9 June “World in Motion“ New Order
16 June
23 June “Sacrifice / Healing Hands“ Elton John
30 June
7 July
14 July
21 July
28 July “Turtle Power“ Partners in Kryme
4 August
11 August
18 August
25 August “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini“ Timmy Mallett with Bombalurina
1 September
8 September
15 September “The Joker“ Steve Miller Band
22 September
29 September “Show Me Heaven“ Maria McKee
6 October
13 October
20 October
27 October “A Little Time“ The Beautiful South
3 November “Unchained Melody“ The Righteous Brothers
10 November
17 November
24 November
1 December “Ice Ice Baby“ Vanilla Ice
8 December
15 December
22 December
29 December “Saviour’s Day“ Cliff Richard

18 songs had travelled to the summit of the charts. Of them, I would say they broke down like this:

  • 4 x established stars (Kylie, Madonna, New Order and Beautiful South) 
  • 3 x brand new artists we had not seen before (Snap!, Adamski and Vanilla Ice) 
  • 3 x artists having their breakthrough moment in the sun (Beats International, Sinéad O’Connor and Maria McKee) 
  • 3 x film / TV Advert tie ins (Partners In Kryme, The Righteous Brothers and Steve Miller Band)
  • 2 x old fogeys  (Elton John and Cliff Richard) 
  • 1 x charity record (Band Aid II)
  • 1 x latest teeny bop sensation (NKOTB)
  • 1 x novelty record shite (Bombalurina) 

I bought exactly zero of them. How many of them were halfway decent songs? 6 or 7? The run from July through to October was particularly bad. Where were The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and the Inspiral Carpets? These were the bands the kids wanted weren’t they? Although all these acts had chart hits this year, none of them got higher than No 4 in the charts. Maybe ‘Madchester’ wasn’t about chart positions though – it was a statement of rejecting the old and embracing the new indie-dance hybrid, of fashion, of belonging. Or maybe it wasn’t. I don’t know. 

The charts were certainly influenced by film and TV this year. Levis continued its campaign of resurrecting old pop hits to sell some jeans and scored a No 1 with “The Joker”, Pretty Woman spawned numerous hits for the likes of Roxette and Go West, Days Of Thunder produced an unlikely No 1 for Maria Mckee and the best selling single of the year was from the film Ghost courtesy of The Righteous Brothers. Hell, even film hits from previous years were massive all over again (“Take My Breath Away” by Berlin). We were all so easily manipulated it seemed. 

Euro dance hits were all the rage this year as well. The charts were full of hits from the likes of 49ers, Rob ‘n’ Raz featuring Leila K, Technotronic, Twenty Four Seven featuring Captain Hollywood, Ya Kid K and of course Snap! who bagged themselves a No 1 record with “The Power”. None of it did anything for me really. It all seemed like a very nasty, homogenised form of dance music and couldn’t hold a light to authentic dance anthems by Deee-Lite, 808 State and The KLF. Were punters really dancing to this cheesy nonsense in the clubs? I wouldn’t have known as my clubbing days declined steeply this year after its high point of the last three years of being a student; mainly because I was skint for most of the year. 

Talking of myself, as with previous years, most of my purchases (of singles) seemed to come from outside of the Top 40 (see Hits That Never Were further on in the post). Was I trying to prove some sort of point that I couldn’t be bought or swayed by the forces of film / TV and media promotion? Or was it just that non hits could be found much cheaper in the record shop bargain bins than their Top 40 counterparts? As I said, I did spent most of the year financially embarrassed. I bought the occasional chart hit (The Beloved, Gun, The Soup Dragons, World Party) but they weren’t many, not even when I ended the year working in an actual record shop. Despite being a very memorable 12 months for me personally in which I got married, moved to Manchester and began a 10 year career in record retail, it wasn’t a vintage year musically. 

Hits We Missed

During these reviews of the year in my other blog TOTP Rewind – the 80s, a lot of the entries in this section were songs and artists that had made it onto the show but those shows were not repeated by the BBC for reasons of taste surrounding hosts that were totally unpalatable today or in the case of Mike Smith because of legal restrictions. This was not the case in 1990. Every TOTP of that year has been re-shown on BBC4 so any chart hits we missed seeing was because they never actually featured on any episode. Exhibit A m’lud…

James –  “How Was It For You?” / “Come Home” / “Lose Control” 

James must have seriously offended the TOTP producers in some way in 1990. How else do you explain them having three Top 40 hits and still not getting to appear on the show? OK, they weren’t massive hits (that wouldn’t happen until the following year when a re-release of “Sit Down” hit No 2 and the TOTP bosses could no longer ignore the band) but still. 

I have to admit to not really being aware of James before this point despite them being in existence since 1982. Early albums like “Stutter” and “Strip-mine” hadn’t registered at all and neither had they with the majority of the UK record buying public. Sure, they were big hitters in the indie charts but mainstream success eluded them. When 1989 singles “Sit Down” (the original version) and “Come Home” peaked at Nos 77 and 84 respectively, the band made the decision to shift labels from legendary independents Rough Trade to Phonogram sub-label Fontana Records. 

That move brought immediate dividends with the band’s first Top 40 hit in “How Was It For You?” released in May of 1990. Backed up by some heavy promotion in the press from their new label and a tour in June which included festival dates at WOMAD and Glastonbury, it entered the charts at No 35 before peaking at No 32 the following week. Some sharp (some may say manipulative) record company tactics saw the band release the single in five different formats with new and live tracks split across them all meaning that completist fans would have to shell out multiple times to acquire every bit of the band’s previously unavailable material.  

It turns out that the band did manage to shoot themselves in the foot rather when it came to appearing on TOTP. The promo video that they shot featured Tim Booth singing underwater but also some overly suggestive fruit eating and snogging action that was deemed unsuitable for primetime TV and whoops… there went the crucial TOTP exposure that could have made “How Was It For You?” a major rather than minor hit. Had the video been shown in the show’s Breakers section maybe that would have led to a studio performance and then….ah well. On reflection maybe it was the song’s lyrics that did for it. There was that title for a start and then lines like ‘I’m so possessed by sex I could destroy my health’ surely didn’t help?

  • Released: 12 May 1990
  • Peak Chart Position: 32
  • Weeks On Top 40: 2

Still, a hit was a hit and “How Was It For You?” provided a solid base for the release of parent album “Gold Mother” in June. The album sold well peaking at No 16 (in its original format) and a follow up single was required. It was decided that a re-release of “Come Home” was in order and Flood (who had produced Erasure’s “The Circus” album) was called in to do a remix. To be fair, it doesn’t sound that different to the original to me although it was reduced in length presumably to make it more radio-friendly. The original release of the song had been plagued with issues – pluggers weren’t sent copies and record shops were left without any or with insufficient copies of the single. There was even an error in the charts at Music Week that meant it wasn’t listed in its second week of release. All of these problems led to a stand off between Rough Trade and the band which would ultimately lead to them decamping to Fontana. 

A second Top 40 hit was good consolidation for the band but it still didn’t tempt the TOTP bosses to invite them onto the show. Maybe it was all those naked chests and pant daubing antics in the video that put them off. Despite a second consecutive Top 40 entry, I was still somehow managing to avoid James altogether. Maybe it was the distraction of the World Cup. I didn’t really become aware of “Come Home” until later in the year and after I had started working at Our Price. The track was included on a compilation called “Happy Daze” which got hammered on the shop stereo. Compiled by Gary Crowley, it showcased the year’s breakout indie artists with a heavy (though not exclusive) slant on the dance rock crossover sound from artists like Primal Scream, Jesus Jones and The Shamen. Riding on the ‘Madchester’ zeitgeist (although by no means were all the artists from Manchester or even part of that movement), it had assumed legendary status amongst music fans of that genre and time. Having just moved to Manchester myself, it felt the perfect soundtrack to those days and “Come Home” by James was certainly a part of that. 

  • Released: Jun 1990
  • Peak Chart Position: 32
  • Weeks On Top 40: 2

And so to the last of this trio of TOTP ignored hits. “Lose Control” was originally released as a stand alone single between albums to coincide with and help promote the band’s short UK tour. Not included on the original release of “Gold Mother”, it would appear on the 1991 re-release alongside “Sit Down” with the tracks “Hang On” and “Crescendo” jettisoned to make way for them. Our Price did a promotion whereby fans that had bought the original album could effectively trade it in for the updated version no questions asked – a “Gold Mother” amnesty if you like. I remember one day a colleague called Paul taking back a customer’s vinyl format of the album and swapping it for the new as per the offer but when he looked at the traded in copy it was in a terrible condition. Showing it to the store manager in a ‘check this out’ type of way, poor Paul received short shrift from the boss for agreeing to swap it. It seemed harsh on Paul at best. 

I must admit to “Lose Control” passing me by back then – released close to Xmas and only appearing in the bottom reaches of the Top 40 for one week though are I think mitigating circumstances for which I can be forgiven. 

And so there it is, the curious tale of the chart career of James during 1990. Finally a Top 40 hit and not one but three (waiting for a bus and all that) and yet zero TOTP appearances. However, they now had a much enlarged national platform from which they would leap the following year via the “Sit Down” re-release to spawn a flurry of hit albums and singles throughout the decade, not to mention creating that T-shirt phenomenon that no self respecting, teenage indie kid would leave the house without.

  • Released: 08 Dec 1990
  • Peak Chart Position: 38
  • Weeks On Top 40: 1

The Stone Roses – “Made Of Stone” / “Elephant Stone” 

James were not the only Manchester band in 1990 experiencing multiple hits after years of being ignored by the record buying public and mainstream media. As the new decade unfolded, The Stone Roses star went super nova as they blazed a trail as the de facto leaders of the ‘Madchester’ movement. Having gatecrashed the Top 40 back in 1989 with “She Bangs The Drums” in the Summer of ’89 and then residing in the actual Top 10 with “Fool’s Gold / What The World Is Waiting For” as the 80s gave way to the 90s, there was a sudden rush on to get more Roses product out there to satiate demand. First to try and cash in on the band’s popularity were previous label Revolver (they of the infamous paint incident) who re-released early single “Sally Cinnamon” against the band’s wishes. Although it stalled at No 46, it remained on the Top 100 for 7 weeks. Not bad for a single originally released in 1987 that failed to chart at all. 

Current label Silvertone weren’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth and so they took the step of re-releasing two singles within the same month. “Made Of Stone” was taken from their iconic debut album and had originally been released in March of ’89 peaking at No 90. Exactly 12 months later wit the world at their feet, it was made available again and went straight in at No 20 where it would peak. Many more worthy of commenting on this song than I have already waxed lyrical of its power but it’s my blog so…

…as I’ve said before I didn’t get The Stone Roses initially. My elder brother was in a full on Manchester United match going obsession by this point and so he was more into them than I was as their songs were the soundtrack to many a coach journey up to Old Trafford. I just wasn’t sure though. I didn’t think the lead singer could actually, you know, sing and I wasn’t into the fashion that they were popularising – I’d had my fill of flares growing up in the 70s. And why did all their dongs have to include the word ‘stone’ in the title? On reflection I was wrong. Massively so. “Made Of Stone” is great, a hugely evocative track whose lyrics paint some very full on images (‘When the streets are cold and lonely and the cars, they burn below me’). It should have been a much bigger hit than it was either time. 

  • Released: Mar 1990
  • Peak Chart Position: 20
  • Weeks On Top 40: 2

Released exactly the same month as “Made Of Stone” came “Elephant Stone” (seriously though, what was it with the word ‘stone’?). They’d call it doubling down now. This one had originally been released in 1988 but had failed to register on the national chart. Come 1990, it was prime for a second outing. Debuting inside the Top 10 was a demonstration of the band’s pull and profile and it’s another great track with that searing, scythe of a guitar refrain opening leading into an irresistible, propelling rhythm. The original doesn’t have the same intro but rather has a much less explosive cymbal entrance segueing into a rather laboured drum and bass. The 1990 version is definitive I think.  

And what was an Elephant Stone? Wikipedia suggests it was a reference to one William George Keith Elphinstone, an officer of the British Army during the 19th century. His legacy is one of incompetence as his entire command was massacred during the British retreat from Kabul in January 1842 during the First Anglo-Afghan War. Not your average source of inspiration for a song then. There’s an alternative rock band from Canada who go by the name of Elephant Stone who formed in 2009. Surely not a coincidence – they must be massive Roses fans. 

So why were neither of these singles shown on TOTP? What was more important to feature on the show at this time? Well, according to my research the producers felt that Bros (by now in steep decline) were more relevant to the UK audience and they featured on the show around now alongside Guru Josh and Gloria Estefan. Hmm. The following week’s broadcast featured both Primal Scream and Inspiral Carpets. Surely Ian Brown and co would have been perfect for that particular episode? Had they been banned alongside Happy Mondays in that legendary TOTP back in late ’89? 

Not on the original 1989 track listing of their debut album, “Elephant Stone” has been included on subsequent pressings. 

  • Released: Mar 1990
  • Peak Chart Position: 8
  • Weeks On Top 40: 4

 

World Party – “Put The Message In The Box” 

  • Released: 09 Jun 1990
  • Peak Chart Position: 39
  • Weeks On Top 40: 1

In that parallel pop universe where acts that deserved commercial success actually got it, World Party would have racked up multiple chart hits. Instead, back in the reality that exists, they amounted to just four Top 40 entries of which only one actually made the Top 20. One of those chart interlopers was “Put The Message In The Box” which was the lead single from their critically acclaimed (Q Magazine‘s album of the year) but criminally under bought “Goodbye Jumbo” album.

Released at the start of the Summer when the UK record buying public were in thrall to “Nessun Dorma” and unfeasibly Elton John’s most turgid of tunes, “Put The Message In The Box” sounded somehow both fresh and completely retro. The guitar work was undeniably Beatles-esque (“Rubber Soul” era maybe?) while Karl Wallinger’s vocals could have qualified him as a member of The Travelling Wilburys. The false ending when the final guitar ring explodes out of the ether is also rather marvellous. I thought this was great and duly bought the cassette single, the B-side of which was a lovely 50s style ballad called “Nature Girl”.  

That parallel universe finally materialised three years on from this when their third album “Bang!” unexpectedly went all the way to No 2 but the momentum of that release wasn’t realised and it remains a commercial high point and anomaly in the band’s fortunes. A fourth album “Egyptology” returned the band to the land of disappointing record sales although it did include the ballad “She’s The One” later recorded and taken to No 1 by Robbie Williams. I’m pretty sure that none of Robbie’s adoring fans knew nor cared that the song with that ice skating video was actually written by Karl Wallinger though. Indeed, Williams himself would introduce the song when performing it live as one of the best songs he’s ever written prompting much ire and fury within Wallinger who was not reticent in declaring his opinion of Williams (the ‘c’ bomb was used!). Justice finally prevailed in this 2019 advert for Williams’ album “The Christmas Present”. 

And yes that is Chris Sharrock on drums in the video formerly of the Icicle Works and later drummer for, yes, Robbie Williams. 

House Of Love – “The Beatles And The Stones” 

  • Released: 07 Apr 1990
  • Peak Chart Position: 36
  • Weeks On Top 40: 14

Having finally secured a bona fide Top 40 hit in a re-recording of debut single “Shine On” a few weeks earlier, House Of Love were getting the hang of this pop star business by claiming another one immediately with follow up single “The Beatles And The Stones”. Essentially their version of a ballad, it’s a gentle, melodic sound and much more laid back than its frenetic and urgent predecessor. There’s even some “A Day In The Life” strings shoved in the mix. What was it about? Going by the lyrics, I’m guessing it was something to do with The Beatles relationship with the press which turned sour after John Lennon’s ‘more popular than Jesus’ quote and how they were then pursued for their political views on subjects such as Vietnam. 

It probably should have been a much bigger hit than its No 36 peak but this being 1990, that was probably never going to happen. Sadly for the band, it would prove to be their last ever chart hit. 

Hits That Never Were

The Blue Aeroplanes – “…And Stones” 

  • Release date: 26 may 1990
  • Peak Chart Position: 63
  • Weeks On Chart: 2

From “The Beatles And The Stones” to “…And Stones”. I always thought that I should have really been into The Blue Aeroplanes in a big way but somehow it never really happened for me although I did like this single. These Bristolian art rockers had been around for nearly a decade by this point albeit with a revolving door policy on band line ups (Wikipedia lists 88* names as either a primary or supporting member over the years) but the mainstays were Gerard Langley, brother John Langley, and dancer Wojtek Dmochowski  – yes, a dancer was one of the group members who stayed for thew whole duration. To put it in context, that would be like mime artist Jed ‘Mental Chains’ Hoyle having been on every single Howard Jones performance from 1983 onwards. Or just being Bez I suppose. 

By 1990, the band had reached a critical peak with the release of their album “Swagger” from which “…And Stones” was taken. The single had a…erm…swagger to it with a driving, rocking beat that also would have appealed to dance heads and Gerard Langley spoken word style vocals setting it apart. Was it not quite radio friendly enough for day time audiences? Their loss. Ultimately they had to settle for being influential rather than commercially successful (that old chestnut)  – you can hear their style in bands like Flowered Up and A House I think – but they could have been as big as Happy Mondays in another world. 

The band are still together and released an album as recently as 2017.

*Is that more than The Fall?!

Power Of Dreams – “100 Ways To Kill A Love” 

  • Release date: 02 Jun 1990
  • Peak Chart Position: 94
  • Weeks On Chart: 1

I bought this! I have no recollection of how I came to know about it but presumably I must have heard it on Radio 1 – I’m guessing Mark Goodier’s drive time show as this would have been the sort of stuff he liked to champion. I’m also guessing I picked it up cheap in the bargain bin of whichever record store I got it in but we shouldn’t judge it purely on its historical monetary value. It’s quite an urgent, rock sound that has a hint of The Wedding Present about it in terms of its incessant, jangly guitar back bone.

Not sure that I knew much about Power Of Dreams at the time but thankfully the internet was invented in the intervening 30 years and I can now rest easy in the knowledge that they were from Dublin and were nominated by the NME no less as one of the ‘stars of tomorrow’ in late ’89 alongside Cater USM and The Charlatans. Unlike their peers though, Power Of Dreams never managed to achieve a UK Top 40 hit despite releasing numerous singles and five albums before they spilt in 1995. The band reformed in 2009 and have gigged sporadically since. 

The Shamen  – “Make It Mine” 

  • Release date: 22 Sep 1990
  • Peak Chart Position: 42 * 3 straight weeks at No 42
  • Weeks On Chart: 5

Do The Shamen get the credit they deserve? Indeed, do they deserve any credit at all? Whatever your answer to those questions, nobody can deny that theirs is an engaging story featuring tragedy, critical acclaim and ultimately accusations of being a sell out as commercial success came their way. I first became aware of the band in 1990 (although they had been around since 1985) when I heard “Pro-Gen”. I wasn’t a massive dance music fan and yet despite undeniably being a dance anthem, the track also had a great pop tune lurking under the layers of production and endless remixes which appealed to me. The single would miss the Top 40 but, as it was re-released the following year as “Move Any Mountain” and became a Top 5 hit, I’ve chosen another single from their “En-Tact” album that should have been a hit in 1990. 

“Make It Mine” was the follow up to “Pro-Gen” and was of a similar flavour combining an industrial strength guitar riff hook with an infectious rhythm to great effect. It missed out on being the band’s first bona fide chart hit by the tiniest of margins. Indeed, you could make a case that it was the unluckiest record ever to not make the Top 40 when it remained at its peak of No 42 for three consecutive weeks! That close encounter was followed by definite chart contact when “Hyperreal” (the fourth single from the album) made No 29 in early 1991 and then a full on visitation with “Move Any Mountain”.

That moment of chart success though was engulfed by the tragedy of the death of the band’s bass player/keyboardist and songwriter Will Sinnott when he drowned off the coast of La Gomera, in the Canary Islands, while the band were shooting the video for “Move Any Mountain”. Deciding to carry on the band in tribute to his former band mate, Colin Angus recruited rapper Mr C as a permanent full time member and in 1992 they would achieve a platinum selling album in “Boss Drum” and a controversial No 1 single in “Ebeneezer Goode”…and that’s where it all went a bit naughty, naughty, very naughty… 

Billy Joel  – “I Go To Extremes” 

  • Release date: 03 Mar 1990
  • Peak Chart Position: 70
  • Weeks On Chart: 4

While the whole country seemed to be going rave mad in 1990, I, perpetually behind the zeitgeist, found myself increasingly embroiled in Billy Joel’s singles release schedule. What on earth was I thinking? After Joel had returned to our Top 10 for the first time in five years with the often ridiculed “We Didn’t Start the Fire” from his “Storm Front” album, it seemed he may be about to embark upon a run of hit singles akin to his “An Innocent Man” period.

However, despite releasing a further four singles from the album, none of them pierced the Top 40 even. I didn’t own “Storm Front” but seemed to afford the singles released from it an inordinate amount of attention. “Leningrad” was the follow up to “We Didn’t Start the Fire” written about a clown whom he met while touring the Soviet Union in 1987 (there’s surely  joke in that sentence somewhere) while “The Downeaster ‘Alexa'” depicted the plight of an impoverished fisherman off Long Island struggling to make ends meet against the depletion of fish stocks and restricting environmental regulations. Fast forward 31 years and it could be an allegorical tale of the woes of Brex-shit. The final single to be released was “That’s Not Her Style” which was sort of a sequel to “Uptown Girl” in that it again it was written about/for Christie Brinkley although it was infinitely better than that piece of crud widely recognised as Joel’s worst ever song.

The one I have highlighted here though is “I Go To Extremes” which was the third single from “Storm Front”. There was something about the way the rolling piano drove the song forward that appealed. Apparently written from the point of view of a manic depression sufferer, it certainly made an impression on troubled actress Linday Lohan who allegedly has its lyrics ‘clear as a crystal, sharp as a knife I feel like I’m in the prime of my life’ from this song tattooed on her rib cage. I wasn’t that affected by the song though I did buy it (yes I actually bought it!) and I stand by my actions. It’s a good song. Bloody music snobs! 

 

Age Of Chance – “Higher Than Heaven” 
 
  • Release date: 03 Mar 1990
  • Peak Chart Position: 53
  • Weeks On Chart: 8

Another peculiar pop tale now. It’s that weird story of how a band starts out as one thing and morphs into something almost unrecognisable from their origins later in their career. I can think of a few examples where the artists has almost completely changed musical genre as it were – the Roxy Music of “Virginia Plain” is a million miles away from their slick  “Avalon” era, whilst those early Simple Minds albums bear little resemblance to the bombastic, stadium rock hits of their commercial peak. Similarly, when the Beastie Boys advised us that “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)” in 1987, few would have imagined that they would come up with such a musically diverse album as “Ill Communication” a few short years later. And who could have foreseen the almost teen bop version of Depeche Mode with hits like “Just Can’t Get Enough” building a career of huge longevity making brooding and dark electro-rock songs? And tht’s befpre we’ve even mentioned Talk Talk…

Back to Age Of Chance though and this lot started out as a Leeds based industrial rock/ dance hybrid and like most people, I only first knew of them via their striking cover of Prince’s “Kiss” in 1986. Favourites of John Peel, they even contributed a track of the now legendary NME C86 cassette compilation (described by writer and broadcaster Andrew Collins as “the most indie thing to have ever existed”). They played a gig at Sunderland Poly whilst I was studying there but I failed to attend for some reason. A move to major label Virgin followed but, almost inevitably, that seemed to be the point where things started to change. Debut album “One Thousand Years Of Trouble” was a critical success but failed to deliver the required commercial sales.

By the time that second album “Mecca” was being recorded, founding member and vocalist Steven Elvidge had had enough and jumped ship leading the rest of the band to recruit a replacement  – gospel voiced soul singer Charles Hutchinson was chosen. The result meant that “Mecca” was much more of a polished effort but crucially wildly different from the band’s previous sound. Being the pop kid that I am/was though, I liked this incarnation better and thought lead single “Higher Than Heaven” was almost the perfect pop song and felt compelled to buy the single. Hutchinson could have been a star as big as Seal (but he was beaten to it by…erm..Seal) and their sound was reminiscent of the similarly criminally overlooked Ellis, Beggs And Howard from a couple of years before. Despite being voted Record of the week by BBC Radio 1’s breakfast show listeners, the single failed to make the Top 40 and the band would ultimately spilt in 1991. Shame really. 

The Icicle Works – “Motorcycle Rider”
 
  • Release date: 17 Mar 1990
  • Peak Chart Position: 73
  • Weeks On Chart: 3

You can’t do a Hits That Never Were section without an entry from Icicle Works. They’ve been in multiple reviews of the year that I’ve done. 1990’s representative was “Motorcycle RIder” – however, this was a very different Icicle Works to the outfit who had gone so close to chart glory before.

After 1988’s “Blind” album had taken the band’s commercial fortunes backwards and nullified the small gains made by preceding long player “If You Want to Defeat Your Enemy Sing His Song” and with tensions within the band on the rise, the original line up disintegrated. Drummer Chris Sharrock decamped initially to The La’s before embarking on a career as an in demand musician working with the likes of The Lightning Seeds, Robbie Williams, Del Amitri, Oasis and Beady Eye. He is currently the drummer for Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. In addition, bassist Chris Layhe also departed finding an alternative career as events organiser in Liverpool and teaching guitar at the Manchester Adult Education Service. No disrespect to the guitar teacher I had in Hull when I finally tried to master the instrument who was great but I would have loved to have been taught by Mr Layhe! I believe he still does some live gig work – somebody I used to work with in Our Price knows him and by all accounts he is a top bloke.

In the light of these departures, the band’s were dropped by their label Beggars Banquet and their future looked uncertain to say the least. Remaining founder member, Ian McNabb kept the name going though and recruited a new line up (including Zak Starkey for a period) and released their final album “Permanent Damage” on Epic. “Motorcycle RIder” was the lead single and though I liked it (it was a bit like “Evangeline” part II), I’d kind of lost track of the band by this point and took little interest in discovering the rest of the album’s material. When the single stumbled its way to No 73 and the album failed to chart at all, the game was up and the band broke up officially in 1991.

McNabb would continue to write, record and perform his solo material to this day and even achieved a Mercury Music Prize nomination for 1994 solo album “Head Like A Rock”. He has reactivated the Icicle Works name a few times in the intervening years without Sharrock and Layhe – I caught them/him live in Manchester around 2006/7 but it wasn’t the same. Sometimes you really can’t go back but a part of me will always have real affection for the original Icicle Works. 

The Lilac Time – “All For Love And Love For All” 

  • Release date: 28 Apr 1990
  • Peak Chart Position: 77
  • Weeks On Chart: 2

My allegiance to Stephen Duffy would have been five years old by this point dating back to “Kiss Me”, “Icing On The Cake” and the vastly underrated “The Ups And Downs” album. However, much like with Icicle Works, I was starting to lose track of him as an artist. Having ditched both his ‘Tin Tin’* and ‘A.J.’ affectations and with his commercial fortunes waning to the point of being dropped by his label, he switched his attention to new, folk-rock project the The Lilac Time. I’d liked their debut single, the very hummable “Return To Yesterday” but they’d disappeared from my view by the end of the decade – they’d recorded and released two whole albums by this point but I hadn’t invested in purchasing them and radio didn’t seem that interested in playing them so I had little clue what their sound was. 

Come the new decade though, come two new producers in XTX’s Andy Partridge and the man at the helm of The Stone Roses’ mixing desk John Leckie. The result was a more beefed up, polished production on third album “& Love for All”. Almost title track “All for Love And Love for All” was the lead single and it seemed to be a definite attempt to court that missing airplay that could give them a chart hit. Unusually it begins with its catchy chorus, hammering its hooks into your brain from the off. Deriving its title from a word play on the Three Musketeers motto, it undoubtedly borrows its sound a little from “Magical Mystery Tour” but at least Duffy acknowledges his influences with a lyrical reference to early Beatles incarnations The Quarrymen and Johnny & the Moondogs whilst sonically there’s the inclusion of the harmonica riff from “I Should Have Known Better”. As ever with Duffy compositions, this was well crafted, perfect pop and yet also as ever with Duffy compositions, nobody seemed interested. The single failed to make the Top 75 and the album bombed completely.

*’Blistering barnacles!’ indeed!

The Trash Can Sinatras – “Obscurity Knocks EP” 

  • Release date: 24 Feb 1990
  • Peak Chart Position: 86
  • Weeks On Chart: 4

A bit like The Lilac Time, this lot seemed to be peddling a genre of music that was an anomaly in 1990. Drawing comparisons from the music press with The Smiths and Aztec Camera, their brand of melodic, jangly guitar driven pop tunes seemed out of kilter with the Eurodance dominated Top 40 charts of the year. Hell, even Aztec Camera didn’t sound like Aztec Camera in 1990! As I recall though, their was a definite buzz around them. Hailing from Irvine, Scotland, they were signed to the Go! Discs label whose other artists like Billy Bragg and The Beautiful South gave them some credibility by association. 

Also like The Lilac Time, their single carried a title that was nice word play on an established phrase which was continued in the lyrics with lines like ‘Looking at my watch and I’m half-past caring’. On reflection, their sound was derivative but they definitely had musical ability and knew their way around a decent tune. Parent album “Cake” only made No 74 in the charts and despite having some success stateside (especially on the Billboard Modern Rock chart) the band never managed to hit it big in the UK. They are still a going concern to this day last releasing an album in 2018.

Del Amitri – “Kiss This Thing Goodbye” 

  • Release date: 24 Mar 1990 *
  • Peak Chart Position: 43
  • Weeks On Chart: 4

*Originally released 12 Aug 1989 and peaked at No 59

You would be forgiven for thinking that this one didn’t belong in a section called Hits That Never Were at all. This wasn’t a hit?! What even with all that radio play it got?! Yes, taking its place alongside the likes of “Summer Of ’69” by Bryan Adams and “I Would Die 4 U” by Prince, “Kiss This Thing Goodbye” was not a Top 40 hit for Del Amitri despite being released twice! It originally chanced its arm in the singles market in 1989 to no avail but was shoved back out again in the wake of breakthrough hit “Nothing Ever Happens” but still the UK record buying public said ‘nothing doing’. Bizarrely, it was though the first song by the band to break the US Top 40, reaching No 35. 

Quite why it failed to chart in the UK is not easily explained. Perfect for daytime radio with its rousing chorus, it seemed much better placed than the much more unusual sounding “Nothing Ever Happens” which would have been an outside bet at best. Maybe it was the banjo picking that put people off? It didn’t matter too much in the end as, far from kissing goodbye to chart stardom, the band would notch up 11 consecutive Top 40 entries after the failure of “Kiss This Thing Goodbye” between 1990 and 1997. Sometimes UK music fans had to be given a bit of a run up before taking an artist to their hearts it seems. 

The Blow Monkeys -“Springtime For The World” 

  • Release date: 26 May 1990
  • Peak Chart Position: 69
  • Weeks On Chart: 2

And what were The Blow Monkeys up to in 1990? I’m glad you asked because not many were enquiring after their health back then. Having finally achieved proper mainstream success with 1987’s Top 5 hit “It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way”, they’d seemed to reject the sophisti-pop sound that had made them pop stars by pursuing a distinctly dance-orientated direction with the release of their next album “Whoops! There Goes The Neighbourhood”. Dr. Robert had doubled down on that decision when he collaborated with ‘The First Lady of House Music’ Kym Mazelle on Top 10 single “Wait”. That success apart, their new sound wasn’t as popular with the fans (me included) and the album peaked at a lowly No 46. Record label RCA panicked and released a Best Of album entitled “Choices – The Singles Collection” which was a big seller peaking at No 5 and becoming the band’s highest-charting record. But if that Best Of album was meant to be a reminder to the band of the formula for more chart success, they didn’t heed it. Standing at a cross roads as the new decade dawned, they chose to follow the signpost pointing to dance world.

Their first (and it turned out only) album of the 90s saw them continue with their dalliance with that genre when they released “Springtime For The World”. The lead single was the title track and though I hadn’t been expecting much, I honestly thought it was OK. There was more of a tune in it than on the material I’d heard from “Whoops! There Goes The Neighbourhood” like “This Is Your Life” and it had some interesting elements to it like the jagged sounding strings and the repeated crash of the Rank Organisation style gong. Dr Robert (with his new smart mod haircut) sounded in good voice backed by some lush gospel backing vocals and the while thing had a nice vibe to it. ‘Yeah, this could work and be a hit’ I thought at the time. I was wrong, crushingly so. The single stalled at No 69 and the album failed to chart at all. The band would split shortly after its release and would not reconvene for another 17 years. Since reforming though, they have been very active recording five studio albums and performing live gigs. You can’t keep the good doctor down it seems. 

Energy Orchard – “Belfast” 

  • Release date: 27 Jan 1990
  • Peak Chart Position: 52
  • Weeks On Chart: 4

Following a rock band from Dublin in Power Of Dreams, we return to Ireland but the northern part of it. Energy Orchard hailed from Belfast and were led by singer-songwriter Bap Kennedy who would go on to work with such musical heavyweights as Steve Earle, Van Morrison, Shane MacGowan and Mark Knopfler. Their debut single “Belfast” was also their highest charting just missing out on the Top 40.

Their sound was more folk-rock in nature than their indie inclined, post -punk peers Power Of Dreams, more U2 than Undertones. They maybe suffered from coming across as too earnest at a time when the UK was still under the influence of dance music, club culture and having a good time. It did however feature on Eastenders apparently. I’m guessing it was on the Queen Vic’s juke box? Sting’s “Love Is The Seventh Wave” was similarly featured back in ’85. 

Energy Orchard carried on until 1996 with Kennedy forging a successful solo career until his death in 2016. 

Their Season In The Sun

  • Bombalurina– Why oh why oh why oh why oh why…?

  • Deee-Lite – They came, they brought us a gigantic and wonderful dance hit that should have been No 1, they left. 
  • Guru Josh – 1990 was indeed time for the guru but it was definitely a time limited offer.
  • Halo James – “Right, first item on the music genre agenda. Can I just confirm that we are all done with the sophisto-pop movement? Any objections? What’s that Halo James? You haven’t had your turn yet? Oh alright but just one hit and that’s it. Agreed? Motion passed.” 
  • New Kids On The Block – Filling the gap between Bros and Take That, this bunch of pretty boys had some terrible tunes. Thankfully, the collective insanity that gripped the nations teenage girls only lasted 12 months. 
  • The Soup Dragons – It looked for a while like these Scottish groovers would become major stars. They had the right sound at the right time. “I’m Free” and “Mother Universe” were great singles. And then, one minor hit and the inevitable band break up. What a waste. 
  • Vanilla Ice – To quote the character of Porter Lee Austin played by Larry Hagman in one of my favourite ever films Stardust:  “He was a monster, I’m telling you, a monster! We couldn’t ship enough of that mother’s records he was so big. You know, at one time, both Capitol and Columbia had plants over in Detroit and Cleveland pressing for us. He was that big, that big. Like King Kong, he was, for a time. And then the branch broke. After that…no kind of hype in the world was going to get him back up on his perch. Ooh! You couldn’t give that mother away!” 

Last Words

In many ways,1990 has been one of the most disappointing of these TOTP years that I have reviewed. So much excitement and anticipation for a new decade but the charts were a massive let down, full of generic Euro dance, pop and rock ‘royalty’ that refused to abdicate and a stack of movie and TV generated hits. It was different outside of the Top 40 and TOTP though wasn’t it? ‘Madchester’ had become a vibrant movement, uniting the youth who wanted something other than Mutant Ninja Turtles and Elton John. Yet it would quickly dissipate as its two prime movers The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays struggled to create new material leaving a gap that would be filled by…well…we’ll have to wait for those 1991 BBC4 repeats won’t we…

TOTP 20 SEP 1990

Posted on by 80stastic

We’re pushing on through 1990 now and find ourselves entering the final third of September. The year has brought us a dramatic World Cup, a Summer heatwave and a seemingly endless conveyor belt of awful, awful records in the Top 40…but all of those things would pale into insignificance for me as I was exactly one month away from getting married! Yes, my girlfriend and I had been reunited over the Summer when I secured some temporary employment in her hometown of Hull and now we had decided that we weren’t going to be separated again. We were only 22 by this point and none of our friends and peers had got married or were even talking about such a happening that I was aware of but we were determined and confident in each other and our relationship.

We had decided we would move to Manchester. We had very little connection to the city other than we both knew one person each who lived there. To this end, I had applied for jobs in record shops there to have some employment set up for our arrival. Why record shops? I loved music and thought that I would be working in a field that engaged me. I also figured that somehow it would be a springboard into some sort of career in the music business, that I would be headhunted to some record company position and end up running a record label or some such other fantasy. In my defence of this folly, I was very young, just starting out in life and I didn’t have a f*****g clue! The first record shop that I heard back from was the Our Price chain and they invited me to interview for a temporary Xmas sales assistant position. So it came to pass that in this very week of September 1990, I travelled over to Manchester and rocked up at the offices above the Manchester Piccadilly store where I was interviewed by a very pleasant guy (whose name I forget), sat a music quiz and was told that I would be a suitable person to work for Our Price. I remember him asking me if I though the money they were paying was enough (£100 a week as I recall) and I said absolutely! I wasn’t going to talk myself out of the opportunity before I’d even begun. Success!

My other brief whilst I was over in Manchester was to try and find some accommodation for us to live in once we’d moved across the Pennines. On this point I was less successful and I returned to Hull with nothing in place on that subject. Still, one out of two wasn’t bad. I had a start date for late October agreed and had familiarised myself with Manchester a little at least whilst I was staying with one of the two people we knew there for a couple of days. I recall travelling back to her flat on the bus on the Saturday afternoon and wondering how my beloved Chelsea had got on that day. This was before the days of mobile phones, live score apps and the rest. I was unsure about outing myself as a Chelsea fan on public transport in the centre of Manchester but fortunately they had been playing Man City that afternoon so I simply asked somebody on the bus who had a pink ‘un (remember them) sports paper the City result*. Bingo! I was already getting used to this living in Manchester lark!

*It was a 1-1 draw by the way.

As a consequence of all this grown up stuff, I had taken my eye off the ball as to the pop charts and am pretty sure I didn’t even watch this particular TOTP. Let’s see what I missed….

….we start with one of those awful, awful records I referred to earlier. Twenty 4 Seven featuring Captain Hollywood were one of those Eurodance outfits that we’d seen so much of in this year like 49ers and Bizz Nizz. The Captain himself was a guy called Tony Dawson-Harrison who earned his nickname when stationed with the US Army in Germany. Hang on! Wasn’t that the same back story as Turbo B from Snap!?

*checks Wikipedia*

Yes, it was! And didn’t Sydney Youngblood of “If Only I Could” fame follow the same route to chart glory?

*checks Wikipedia again*

Yes! What the hell was the deal with American army soldiers based in Germany becoming pop stars in the early 90s?! Anyway, he was joined by vocalist Nancy “Nance” Coolen (not hard to work out where her nickname came from) and a couple of dancers and hey presto! A massive hit called “I Can’t Stand It”. After that single hit big, Captain Hollywood left to pursue a solo career (he had a couple of minor hit singles in the UK in the mid 90s but was a much bigger deal in the rest of Europe) and was replaced by Stacey “Stay-C” Seedorf (they really needed to work on those nicknames a bit more!). From that point on it became a carousel of band members and line up that would put The Fall to shame (well, The Sugababes at least). Apparently they are still a going concern to this day. As for me, I couldn’t stand “I Can’t Stand It” which peaked at No 7 over here.

Wait a minute! What’s going on here? The Stone Roses in the charts with “Fools Gold”? Again? It had already spent 14 weeks in the Top 100 between Nov 1989 and Feb 1990 – why was it re-released so quickly afterwards? Well, after the band’s commercial breakthrough in 1989 with “Made Of Stone”, “She Bangs The Drums” and of course “Fools Gold”, there was a rush to get more of their product out into the marketplace, not all of it with the endorsement of the band. Early single “Sally Cinnamon” on their ex-label Revolver came out again with a video that the band hated. They tried to stop the release and when they couldn’t, it led to the legendary office trashing incident when the band, on route to the recording studio, stopped by the FM Revolver headquarters and trashed the offices by hurling paint all over them and former manager Paul Birch. The inevitable court case followed with the band fined £3,600 each.

After “Elephant Stone” was also released from their iconic debut album came the much heralded single “One Love”. Tipped to be No 1, the band’s mythical aura had slipped after the debacle of the Spike Island concert and it stalled at No 4, unable to dislodge Elton John or indeed get the better of Craig McClachlan! Given its relative failure, was “Fools Gold” re-issued to remind us of their former glories? Its original release had seen it double A-sided with “What The World Is Waiting For” but was it just a standard A -side this time? Or was it just the original release propelled back into the charts by demand? I’m not sure. he waters are muddied further by the fact that it has been re-released at least a further two times since. I’m pretty sure that the debut album was re-released with “Fools Gold” included as an extra track at some point in the early 90s as well.

The 1990 release made it to No 22 in the charts whilst the 1989 original release made it all the way to No 8. I have to say it’s not my favourite Stone Roses tune by some distance, whilst Ian Brown seems to be making quite the fool himself these days without any recourse to gold.

I had to jinx it by mentioning Snap! before didn’t I? Here’s Turbo B and co with their third hit of 1990 “Cult Of Snap”. After “The Power” and “Ooops Up”, this one at least had a differential to it in the form of the African sounding drumbeats and chanting. Indeed, it proved to be popular in that territory as it peaked at No 2 in Zimbabwe. When this TOTP repeat aired, a few social media commentators said that it reminded them of that “In Zaire” song by Johnny Wakelin which I just about remember from my childhood. Let’s see if they had a point then…

…ooh yeah, maybe. Anyway, back to “Cult Of Snap” and I found this one a little less irritating than their previous efforts (maybe it was Johnny Wakelin subconsciously drawing me in from the 70s). It turns out though that Snap! didn’t have the very first release of this track. Here’s @TOTPFacts:

The ever generous Turbo B (who had already been involved in a homophobic instigated nightclub incident by this point) declared of Hi Power’s version in a Smash Hits interview:

“These people, they’re ridiculous. If he was a good rapper, it would be OK but he was a shit rapper, he has no timing. “

What a pleasant man! It’s a bit rich anyway given that “The Power” included the unauthorised sampling of vocals by Jocelyn Brown which led her to commence legal action. The legally complex world of sampling eh?

“Cult Of Snap” peaked at No 8 in the UK.

One of the constants of this blog throughout the 80s and now the 90s has been the persistent existence of hard rock acts within the UK Top 40 whatever the current musical milieu dictated. House music? Not a problem? Overblown ballads from film soundtracks? Out of our way, we’re coming through! Boys bands and teeny bop idols? We give zero f***s! We’re here to play loud rock music and nobody will stop us! The likes of Megadeth, Skid Row and Whitesnake had steadfastly refused to budge from the Top 40, presumably propelled their in the first pace by a sizeable, loyal fan base. Another such act were AC/DC for whom “Thunderstruck” was already their 14th UK Top 40 hit and followed the likes of “Who Made Who” and “Heatseeker” into the Top 20. As I’ve said many time previously, I never got the boat going to AC/DC island and this did nothing for me. I can’t be doing with their song titles for one thing – they all seem to just constant variants on the whole ‘power’ theme.

The song inspired a whole movie called Thunderstruck which was released in 2004 and was a comedy about five guys who go to an AC/DC show in 1991 and agree to bury the first one who dies next to Bon Scott. No really. Look, here’s the trailer….

…yeah. It looks well shit doesn’t it?

Some Breakers next and we start with the return of S’Express. Despite cornering the market as the commercial face of house music when arriving with a bang back in 1988 with the No 1 single “Theme from S-Express”, Mark Moore and co had suffered from a case of diminishing returns ever since with each subsequent single release peaking lower than its immediate predecessor. Their fortunes were not helped by a two year gap between album releases with sophomore long player “Intercourse” not arriving until a whole three years after the bomb that was “Theme from S-Express” had exploded into the charts.

“Nothing To Lose” was actually the second single to be lifted from “Intercourse”, the first had been “Mantra For A State Of Mind” nearly a year before – see what I mean about them not being fussed about maintaining momentum with regular release schedules? Indeed, the four singles that were released from the album covered a period of three years!

I have to say that I didn’t mind “Nothing To Lose” though and my wife liked it so much she bought the 12″. However, their appeal was definitely on the wane. It peaked at No 32 and became their last ever Top 40 hit until a remix of “Theme from S-Express” retitled as “Theme from S’Express – The Return Trip” made the Top 20 in 1996.

Is this the same DNA who were just in the charts with Suzanne Vega with that remix of “Tom’s Diner”? It is apparently. I had no idea they had more than one hit. A quick check of their discography shows that they had five Top 40 entries although this one, “La Serenissima”, seems to be the only one in their own right. Including “Tom’s Diner”, all the other ones were with additional artists with the most successful and famous being Kylie Minogue whom they remixed “Shocked ” for as “Shocked (DNA Remix)” (it did what it said on the tin) in 1991 which peaked at No 6.

Featuring that ubiquitous James Brown “Funky Drummer” sample, “La Serenissima” was actually a cover of a piece by Rondò Veneziano who Wikipedia tells me are ‘an Italian chamber orchestra, specialising in Baroque music, playing original instruments but incorporating a rock-style rhythm section of synthesiser, bass guitar and drums’. That sounds…erm…like an Italian version of ‘Hooked On Classics’?

“La Serenissima” – the Byzantine title for Venice if you’re asking – peaked at No 34.

Who’s up for some Monie Love? Last seen in the charts at the back end of 1989 with her Top 20 single “Grandpa’s Party”, she was back there again with “It’s a Shame (My Sister)” which was her hip-hop take on “It’s a Shame”, the old 70s hit by The Spinners. Is it my imagination or was Monie Love briefly tipped to be the next hip-hop superstar? Well, there’s still a lot of love for Monie online where she is routinely referred to as a hip-hop icon. Interviewed by http://www.pbs.org and asked what her greatest contribution was to hip-hop, she replied:

“Oh, wow, that’s easy for me. My greatest contribution to Hip-Hop was allowing the United States of America to know and understand exactly how far they reach, and how influential they are to children in completely different countries because I am the import. I’m one of the first successful imports on the Hip-Hop tree of life.”

Import? Ah, you see Monie was born Simone Johnson in Battersea in 1970 before relocating to the US permanently where she carved out a successful career in radio. Oh, and I’ve no idea who True Image are/were who are also credited on the record. Sounds like one of Louis Walsh’s X Factor boy bands to me.

After The Stone Roses earlier in the show, we get another of those acts closely associated with the baggy sound of Manchester (although they were actually from a combination of the West Midlands and Northwich in Cheshire). The Charlatans were bona fide pop stars by this point but this was actually their debut appearance on TOTP never actually having made it on the show for previous single “The Only One I Know” despite it going Top 10 (the promo video had to suffice instead). “Then” was a worthy follow up and very nearly made it two Top Tenners on the bounce, peaking just outside at No 12.

Lead singer and now near National Treasure Tim Burgess has obviously been to the barbers with his bowl cut look replaced with something altogether more sharp. The decision to lop off his locks was made because Tim felt that too many people trying to copy his floppy fringe look apparently. These days of course, he has adopted a hairstyle that seems to be a mash up of Andy Warhol and Purdey from The New Avengers. Haircuts aside, he remains a rather wonderful human being.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wR-LTttw2pk

If this TOTP was a football match, it would be between the indie/dance baggie sound and heavy rock and this would be the match report:

“After The Baggies (no, not WBA!) went 1-0 up early doors via a strike from The Stone Roses, Heavy Rock equalised via the ever reliable AC/DC. Shortly after the break(ers) however, The Baggies were back in front via a good follow up from The Charlatans. Not to be out done, Heavy Rock fired a second equaliser from veterans Iron Maiden.”

Yes, just like AC/DC earlier, Iron Maiden were still rampaging up the charts as the 80s became the 90s. We could have been forgiven for thinking they were on a sabbatical given the solo career of Bruce Dickinson earlier in the year but they were back with new single “Holy Smoke” which was the lead single from their “No Prayer For The Dying” album. By this point, the band’s fan base was so big that they could guarantee a high chart placing for anything they released as demonstrated by “Holy Smoke” which entered the charts at No 3. The band (or possibly their record label) saw a way to exploit this to the max with their next single “Bring Your Daughter… to the Slaughter” which was released in the week after Xmas when there was traditionally a lull in sales after the Xmas rush. This meant that far fewer copies need to be sold to have a massive hit and so it came to pass that Iron Maiden would score their first and only No 1 single as 1991 dawned.

I don’t really recall “Holy Smoke” at all and on hearing it on this TOTP repeat iI did wonder if it was an instrumental. It isn’t but the reason for my confusion was that the show’s producers started the playback of the track from the point of a guitar solo which I’m guessing was a strategic move to omit some of the song’s more profane lyrics which occur early on such as ‘Flies around shit/bees around honey’ and ‘I’ve lived in filth/I’ve lived in sin/and I still smell cleaner than the shit you’re in’. Ooh, they were scary rebels weren’t they Iron Maiden?

Breaking News! There’s a last gasp winner in The Baggies v Heavy Rock match as the former seal the win with a goal from late substitute The Farm. Hang on, it’s gone to VAR! There’s a debate about whether the goal should stand as Stockley Park look at evidence that The Farm were not actually a baggie band and therefore they should be disqualified from playing. According to a Smash Hits interview with Tim Burgess of The Charlatans, he had this to say about the “Groovy Train” hitmakers:

“I saw them live five years ago and they were a crap R’n’ B band.”

Damning stuff. The decision is in though and the goal stands on the basis of this angle from @TOTPFacts:

If holy trinity indie /dance member Happy Mondays were concerned about The Farm, then they must have been baggy! However, I’m pretty sure that I saw an Expedia advert on the TV the other day that used “Groovy Train” as the soundtrack to it which kind of undermines its indie credentials a bit in my book. Apparently, Duran Duran have turned down multiple lucrative requests over the years from various food outlets asking to use “Hungry Like The Wolf” in an advertising campaign but they have always refused. So there you have it – Duran Duran have more credibility than The Farm. Maybe.

Steve Miller Band are still at No 1 with ‘The Joker” holding off Deee-Lite’s tilt at the top for a second week. The previous week of course had raised the whole chart controversy of the two acts being tied for the No 1 position. Using a clearly unfair ruling, “The Joker” was given the number one as its sales had increased more from the previous week. To diffuse chart rigging accusations, the compilers Gallup subsequently announced that “The Joker” had actually sold 8 (EIGHT!) copies more than “Groove Is In The Heart”. How convenient. Did someone have to look for those 8 sales a bit like Donald Trump going looking for missing votes in the US presidential election?

Wanna hear Homer Simpson singing “The Joker”? Of course you do…

Confirming that he wasn’t a one hit wonder, the play out video is “Tunes Splits The Atom” by MC Tunes and 808 State. This track also confirms, Geoff Hurst in the final minute style, the victory for The Baggies over Heavy Rock with both MC Tunes and 808 State hailing from ‘Madchester’. As if that wasn’t enough, “Tunes Splits The Atom” samples a bass riff from “I Am The Resurrection” by The Stone Roses. Done and indeed dusted.

For posterity’s sake, I include the chart run down below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7OgnxrnCRY

eqwrt

Order of appearanceArtistSongDid I Buy it?
1Twenty 4 Seven featuring Captain HollywoodI Can’t Stand It…and therefore I didn’t buy it
2The Stone RosesFools GoldNo but I must have it on something
3Snap!The Cult Of SnapI was not a member of this cult
4AC/DCThunderstruckClusterfuck more like! No
5S’ExpressNothing To LoseNo but my wife bough the 12”
6DNALa SerenissimaNah
7 Monie Love It’s A Shame (My Sister) Nope
8The CharlatansThenNo but it’s on my Melting Pot Best Of CD of theirs
9Iron MaidenHoly SmokeThey could blow their smoke out of their arses for all I cared -no
10The FarmGroovy TrainNo but I easily could have
11Steve Miller BandThe JokerIt’s a no
12MC Tunes / 808 StateTunes Splits The AtomNo

Disclaimer

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000st47/top-of-the-pops-20091990

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

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

Some bedtime reading?

IMG_0001

TOTP 12 JUL 1990

Posted on by 80stastic

So Italia ’90 is finally over, English pride in their football team has been restored and Gazzamania is upon us. Thankfully we have a few weeks yet before Mr Gascoigne enters the world of pop music. In the meantime, we have seven ‘new’ tunes to feast on at the top table of TOTP. If music be the food of love, play on…

…and we start with with Scottish rockers Gun (terrible name*) and their single “Shame On You”. When the band appeared in the Breakers section of TOTP with their debut hit “Better Days” back in the Summer of ’89, another band featured in that section that same show were The Stone Roses. In an unlikely turn of events, the Roses are again on TOTP alongside Gun tonight. In the blog post of that ’89 programme, I revealed that I should have been absolutely ripe to be swept away by the baggy movement spearheaded by Ian Brown and co and yet somehow I managed to nail my colours to the Gun mast! Fast forward a year and let’s see how that choice worked out. The Stone Roses are the coolest band in Britain and their debut album can be heard coming out of the bedroom window of just about every music fan who knows their stuff. And Gun? Well, they followed up “Better Days” with three further single releases none of which made the Top 40. Still, as presenter Anthea Turner (dressed like a tube of Opal Fruits tonight) says, they have been on tour with none other than The Rolling Stones (more of whom later).

It seems though that Gun’s luck is beginning to turn as they are back in the charts with “Shame On You” (the fifth single from their debut album “Taking On The World”). And guess what? I was still sticking to my guns (ahem) and that original choice of band as I bought this single! Yes, after months of never having bought any of the singles featured on the show, two songs come along at once that I purchased with this one and Bob Geldof’s “The Great Song Of Indifference” from the other week. I bought it on cassette single (cassettes were still my format of choice back then) and it was backed with a live version of “Better Days” on the B-side as it were. I loved the driving back beat that builds gradually and that twangy guitar riff. Unfortunately for me and for the band, it would stall at No 33 (the exact same peak as “Better Days”). Sophomore album “Gallus” released two years later was a moderate success but it was only when they released a cover of Cameo’s ‘Word Up” in ’94 that they would finally achieve a Top 10 hit.

Gun split in ’97 but reformed in 2008 and are still a going concern today…and you can’t say that about The Stone Roses can you?

*Previous incarnations of the band went by the monikers of Blind Allez and Phobia – not sure they are any improvement on Gun to be fair!

Who’s next on? Oh, yes River City People – I’d almost (but not quite) forgotten this lot. Wasn’t there a bit of fuss about them being the next big thing at this time or am I making that up? Why is Anthea Turner so enthused about the band? Well, she used to work with lead singer Siobhan Maher as presenters on Children’s BBC’s summer holiday morning programme But First This! apparently ( I’ve no recall of it at all). Maher was also an actress and appeared in Brookside spin off Damon And Debbie which I do absolutely remember (especially its tragic ending – heartbreaking it was).

Anyway, in addition to presenting and acting ambitions, Maher was also a singer and formed River City People in ’86. After a couple of false starts, they hit it big with a cover of The Mamas and the Papas’ “California Dreamin‘”. I’m guessing that after those initial mis-steps, their record label reverted to that tried and trusted career saving trick of a cover version. Cleverly they doubled it up with a River City People original in “Carry The Blame” as the other A -side though how much radio play it got, I’m not sure.

Siobhan certainly had a smooth voice and despite all the retro hippy trappings on display in this performance, it stands up pretty well I think.

The single rose to No 13 but despite its placing, it wasn’t the spring board for success that the band (and record label) must have hoped for. A re-release of debut single “(What’s Wrong With) Dreaming?” (they had a thing about dreams seemingly) only scraped into the charts at No 40 which was a shame as it sounds a bit like Lone Justice which is no bad thing in my book.

As Anthea announced, their debut album called “Say Something Good” was released later in ’90 and a second album followed in ’91 but the band split not long after that. Shame really.

OK, after some 60s folk pop, we get back to some dance music (well it is 1990) with “Naked In The Rain” by Blue Pearl and indeed this record does scream 1990 to me. I always though they were a one hit wonder but a glance at their discography tells me otherwise albeit that two of their four chart entries were with this track.

Fronted by the distinctively named Durga McBroom, this dance floor smash would make it all the way to No 4 in the UK charts. As with Siobhan Maher before her, Durga was also a multi-skiller being an actress as well. She appeared in the film Flashdance as a character called Heels and was also in music videos for the likes of Eurythmics, Janet Jackson and David Bowie no less. As Anthea mentioned in her intro (get her dropping her Knebworth references), Durga was very closely associated with Pink Floyd touring with them between 1987 to 1994. That might explain why they covered Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” for their debut album “Naked” as Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour helped produce the 16 year old Kate’s initial demo tape.

When asked in a Smash Hits interview what “Naked In The Rain” was about, Durga replied :

“It’s not a literal naked that I’m talking of. It’s not about running to Trafalgar Square and ripping all your clothes off and jumping into the fountain. It’s more an emotional naked; stripping oneself of frustrations and the things that hold us back from being really calm and really cool.”

Hmm. Not sure anybody explained that to the video director…

Not Glenn Medeiros again?! This is the third time “She Ain’t Worth It” with Bobby Brown has been on. This track was meant to represent a change of image and sound for the boy from Hawaii and looking at the titles of his albums, he did seem to suffer an identity crisis during his career. Starting with his debut album (the one with “Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love for You” on it) which was rather uninspiringly entitled “Glenn Medeiros” he then released an album called “Not Me” before a third album came out in 1990 (that included “She Ain’t Worth It”) which was called “Glenn Medeiros” again! So that’s:

  • Glenn Medeiros
  • Not Me
  • Glenn Medeiros

Wow! I bet his therapy bills were big!

Although, “She Ain’t Worth It” was a US No 1, Glenn only managed one more chart hit over there (another duet, this time with Ray Parker Jnr of all people) and his chart career did not sustain beyond that.

A band who have flown in all the way from LA to be on the show next (according to Anthea) but I’m not sure it was worth the bother to be fair. Thunder had entered the chart with their version of the old Spencer Davis Group hit “Gimme Some Lovin'” at No 38 but following this TOTP performance it only went up two places to a peak of No 36 before crashing out of the Top 40 altogether. This was however their third chart hit of the year and indeed the third of five singles to be released from their “Backstreet Symphony” album in total. The album was produced by ex-Duran Duran guitarist Andy Taylor who also produced “Shame On You” by the show’s opening act tonight Gun. Andy had clearly moved well beyond his new romantic pop star beginnings by this point and had fully thrown in his lot with his true love, heavy rock.

Unlike producer mates Gun who were looking to re-start their chart lives after a drop in commercial fortunes when they covered Cameo’s “Word Up”, I’m not quite sure why Thunder (or possibly their record label) felt the need to release a cover version over their own material at this very early point in their career but there you go. It didn’t seem to add anything much to the original to me.

Tune! A great song up next from The Soup Dragons featuring Junior Reid with “I’m Free”. Looking a bit like a hybrid of Primal Scream and Happy Mondays, it was easy to labour under the misconception that this lot were part of the ‘Madchester’ movement (pretty sure I did). The Soup Dragons were in fact from Scotland (Bellshill* near Motherwell specifically). A few months later when I was a wet behind the ears sales assistant at Our Price in Manchester, a distributor rep called in to the store with some product on his van he was trying to sell in. I can’t recall which distributor he worked for but it was one of the small ones so a lot of his stuff was quite niche. One of the artists he had on the van were BMX Bandits whom he triumphantly announced went onto be chart stars The Soup Dragons hoping this would influence the store manager to take a punt on their stock. I believed that story for ages but it wasn’t strictly true. BMX Bandits existed alongside The Soup Dragons although they did often share band members including lead singer Sean Dickson.

The group’s origins weren’t the only thing I wasn’t aware of at the time – I also was oblivious to the fact that “I’m Free” was a Rolling Stones song. It’s not a strict cover of it though. The lyrics were changed slightly, necessitated by the fact that they didn’t have them (this was pre the internet remember) so Dickson sang what he could remember and made up the rest.

Can I say that I loved the groove on this record or will I sound like a middle aged man (which is what I am)? OK, sod it – I loved the groove on this record and the toasting from Junior Reid made the song their own (as Louis Walsh would say). By the way, Reid doesn’t rap ‘Free from the Loch Ness Monster, free from the deep’ but ‘Free like a butterfly, free like a bee’ just in case you had been wondering all these years.

The song is featured brilliantly in the Simon Pegg comedy The World’s End where main character Gary King is still living in 1990 in his head.

“I’m Free” would be the band’s biggest ever hit peaking at No 5.

*The little town of Bellshill was also home to Teenage Fanclub, Mogwai and erm…Sheena Easton. Quite a roll call.

If The Soup Dragons weren’t part of ‘Madchester’ then the next act certainly were. The time of The Stone Roses was now. Everyone was talking about them and ‘Madchester’ and the legendary Manc nightclub The Hacienda. I recall reading earlier in the year in the Daily Mirror (my parents’ choice of newspaper) about coach trips being organised throughout the country to take hordes of ravers up to Manchester to visit The Hacienda like it was some sort of spiritual pilgrimage.

“One Love” was a non -album single that should have been released to coincide with the band’s infamous Spike Island gig (that my elder brother went to) but it took so long to mix, its release was delayed. Having naively chosen Gun over the Roses the year before, I was ready to be bowled over this time and to get fully on board with the whole sound. “One Love”, yeah, too right! This is going to be mega I thought. And then I heard the song. I was completely underwhelmed. It seemed very laboured and didn’t really go anywhere and the chorus was lame. Even Ian Brown agreed with me on that in time…

There was no way I was wasting my money on this and so for the second time, I chose Gun over The Stone Roses when I bought their current single instead. The band’s fan base was big enough by this point to take the single to No 4 in the charts but it was a false dawn. It would be the last original material released by the band until “Love Spreads” some four and a half years later!

Ah bollocks! Elton John is still at No 1 with “Sacrifice / Healing Hands”. Three months on from this, Elton would release a career retrospective double album called “The Very Best Of Elton John” spanning 1970’s “Your Song” through to “Sacrifice” (though not curiously “Healing Hands”). The album was hugely successful going to No 1 and nine times platinum in the UK alone. It was also the very first item I ever sold to a customer when I joined Our Price in October of 1990 – and I needed some help from the Assistant Manager to do so!

The play out video is “Rockin’ Over The Beat” by Technotronic. This lot of Belgian Eurodancers were becoming chart regulars by this point as this was their fourth consecutive Top 40 hit and the second to feature Ya Kid K. As with all their other stuff, I couldn’t stand it. To rub my face further in their shit, the next single they released called “Megamix” was just as it said on the tin – a mash up of all four of those previous singles! And guess what? The British public lapped it up all over again sending it to No 8. “Rockin’ Over The Beat” by contrast only made it to No 16. I guess the four in one option seemed better value.

For posterity’s sake, I include the chart run down below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkqAkeiawP0
Order of appearanceArtistSongDid I Buy it?
1GunShame On YouI did! No shame on me though – great song!
2River City PeopleCalifornia Dreamin’ / Carry The BlameNope
3Blue PearlNaked In The RainIt’s a no
4Glenn Medeiros and Bobby BrownShe Ain’t Worth ItAnd neither was this song
5ThunderGimme Some Lovin’Nah
6The Soup Dragons featuring Junior ReidI’m FreeThought I did but singles box says no. I did however by the follow up single Mother Universe
7The Stone RosesOne LoveNo love from me for this one
8Elton JohnSacrifice /Healing HandsNot knowingly but I’ve since discovered that Healing Hands is on a Q Magazine compilation LP that I bought. That doesn’t count does it?!
9Technotronic featuring Ya Kid KRockin’ Over The BeatThis beat is…shit. No

Disclaimer

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000rgm6/top-of-the-pops-12071990

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

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

Some bedtime reading?

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