The Wonder Stuff

TOTP 08 SEP 1994

Posted on May 22, 2023 by 80stastic

Well, this is a curious thing. Tonight’s ‘golden mic’ presenters are from a band that couldn’t be more 90s but a lot of the acts they introduce are from or have associations with the 80s. Yes, following Take That’s Mark and Robbie earlier in the year, East 17 are in the hot seat tonight and as with their arch rivals, the two members of the group chosen for the gig are probably the two most popular. I’m talking about Brian Harvey and Tony Mortimer but then can you imagine the other two geezers in the band doing it?!

Opening the show tonight are Blondie who you could argue went back to the 70s but they did have three consecutive No 1 singles in 1980 so they certainly count as a name from the 80s. Now there’s a few questions to be answered here. For a start, what were they doing in the charts in 1994? I thought Blondie’s 90s resurrection was much later in the decade.

*checks their discography*

Yeah, I was right. “Maria” wasn’t No 1 until 1999. So what gives here then? Well, it was to do with yet another compilation album. Despite there being two Blondie Best Ofs and a remix album in existence already by 1994 with “The Complete Picture” being as recently as 1991, Chrysalis/EMI decided what the world needed was another remix collection. “Beautiful: The Remix Album” was the what we got and it was trailed by a number of remixed, rereleased tracks that all made the UK Top 20 but as I say, I don’t remember any of this. The first one was “Atomic (Remix)” which made it to No 19.

OK, so the second question is “where we’re the rest of the band?” because there’s only Debbie Harry up there on stage all on her lonesome. Well, they were nowhere to be seen because they’d split in 1982 and Debbie had embarked on a subsequent solo career. So it seems that the band weren’t reforming then it was just a marketing stunt to promote the album. I wonder whether Debbie was already contractually obliged or if Chrysalis had to pay her a decent wedge for this promotional work? I hope it was the latter as the performance here does nothing but tarnish her fine legacy. Why is she dressed like it’s a come as Shirley Bassey themed party? Then there’s her vocal (which is the third question that needs answering) as there’s something screwy going on with it. Is she miming or at least singing along with a vocal backing track because it really doesn’t seem like she’s singing live? The whole thing is a mess and an undignified one at that.

Now it would appear that my theme of 80s acts on a 1994 TOTP show has fallen at the second hurdle with Corona, a most typical example of the Eurodance genre that dominated the charts in the early to mid 90s. I’m nothing if not tenuous though and so I make the connection to the 80s via the name of their debut and surely best remembered hit “Rhythm Of The Night”. Anyone else recall DeBarge? They were like an American version of Five Star (who themselves were a Tupperware take on The Jacksons) being a group made up of family members who had one (and just one) hit in the UK in 1985 with a calypso flavoured dance track called…yep…”Rhythm Of The Night”. A sickeningly upbeat number it made it to No 4 over here and No 3 in the US.

With the 80s theme dealt with, what about Corona then. Well, their song “Rhythm Of The Night” was considered by many to be an absolute banger and almost definitive example of Eurodance and it was certainly popular peaking at No 2 in the UK. As was an almost obligatory turn of events with Eurodance artists, the woman we see here fronting the act (one Olga Souza) wasn’t the person who supplied the vocals on the record. That was Giovanna Bersola who suffered from stage fright and so could only sing within the confines of the recording studio. Talking of confined spaces, when the world went into lockdown in 2020 due to the pandemic, the group received an unexpected profile boost on account of sharing their name with the group of viruses that caused COVID-19. Various memes arose from this association leading Olga to comment on it thus:

“I have seen a lot of memes. We are all alarmed right now. This kind of news surely brings us a lot of anxiety, because we don’t know how to deal with [the virus] yet. It would be a lot better if the world was infected by the song instead of that dangerous virus.”
“Cantora Corona desabafa após ser associada ao Coronavírus” [Singer Corona speaks out after being associated with Coronavirus]. RD1 (in Portuguese). 8 February 2020. Archived from the original on 27 March 2020. Retrieved 14 March 2020.

I’m guessing Olga would rather be remembered as per US American internet news and entertainment company Buzzfeed who ranked “Rhythm Of The Night” as No 2 in their ‘101 Greatest Dance Songs Of The 90s’ list.

Next a band who may have had their most successful period commercially in the 90s but they definitely started in the 80s and that’s a good enough link to my theme for this post for me. By September 1994 though, The Wonderstuff were actually no more having announced a split in June in a fan club newsletter. They’d even performed live for the final time in July so what were they doing in the charts again? Well, their label Polydor had decided to cash in one last time on their recently liquidated asset by releasing a Best Of album – the wonderfully titled “If The Beatles Had Read Hunter…The Singles” – and a single was required to promote it. With a decision that would unintentionally help out this post 29 years later, Polydor chose 1987 track “Unbearable”. Bingo! Another 80s connection! Originally released as their debut single, it failed to chart back then but would make No 16 seven years later and deservedly so as it’s a quality tune with its distinctive, rat-a-tat chorus “Ididn’tlikeyouverymuchwhenImetyou” spewed out by Miles Hunt a real winner.

The Wonderstuff’s story didn’t end in 1994 though as they reformed in 2000 and have played live and released new material since then amidst various line up changes with Hunt the only constant.

N.B. In a curious pop footnote, in their final foray into the Top 40, the Stuffies were joined in the chart this week by fellow Stourbridge grebos Pop Will Eat Itself who were having their own final hit with “Everything’s Cool”. Nice.

You can’t get more 80s than “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” by Cyndi Lauper can you? This wasn’t quite the same song though. Re-recorded with a reggae lilt (as was the overriding style of the time) and retitled “Hey Now (Girls Just Want To Have Fun)”, it was released to promote her Best Of “Twelve Deadly Cyns…And Then Some” (another great title like The Wonderstuff before her). The album was a big hit rather surprisingly peaking at No 2 and going double platinum in the UK. I say surprisingly because I wouldn’t have thought that there would have been that much appetite for Cyndi in 1994 but what did/do I know? The single also prospered peaking at No 4 just two places lower than the 1984 original.

Now whatever you think about Cyndi’s voice (and I don’t mind it), you’d have to admit it’s distinctive (some may even say unique). Sometimes it can grate – her vocals on “We Are The World” by USA For Africa are the musical equivalent of tearing polystyrene – but she does a good enough job here. We should probably give her credit for reworking an old hit as well – it would have been easy to have just rereleased the original. I think she has the look of Columbia from The Rocky Horror Picture Show here and talking of Columbia…

Making just their third appearance on TOTP but already celebrating going straight in at No 1 on the chart with debut album “Definitely Maybe” are Oasis. At the time it was the fastest selling debut in UK chart history and, of course, featured a track called “Columbia”. To commemorate this achievement, they’ve been invited on the show to play a song from the album and they’ve gone for its opener “Rock ‘N’ Roll Star”. And what an opener! More of a statement than a song, it bristles with energy and drive. It was never released as a single (except as a radio single to American stations) but it easily could have been and it is so recognisable that maybe some people would be surprised to learn that it wasn’t.

The fact that the album went straight to No 1 and was selling so quickly was irrefutable confirmation that something special was occurring – a phenomenon no less. It all seemed to happen so effortlessly and at such speed that it couldn’t be anything less. After just three singles of which only one made the Top 10 to suddenly this…it was extraordinary. Or was it? I’m sure Noel Gallagher is quoted somewhere as saying that they wanted to be the biggest band in the country and they just went out and did it and it was easy; words to that effect anyway. Oasis we’re here to stay and for the rest of the decade (and beyond).

OK, so I can’t make any viable links from Oasis to the 80s but we’re back on theme with the next band whose imperial phase was definitely in that decade. Not that Pet Shop Boys didn’t continue to have consistent and significant commercial success into the 90s as they certainly did but they didn’t have any No 1 singles throughout the whole decade whereas they achieved four in the 80s including three within five releases. Fast forward to 1994 and Neil and Chris were just coming to the end of the “Very” project with “Yesterday When I Was Mad” being the fifth and final single released from the album. Now I do like Pet Shop Boys and went to see them live almost 12 months ago exactly but this track is not one of my favourites of theirs. It’s almost as if they forgot to put a tune in there. Also, I’d had enough of the Howard Greenhalgh CGI videos by now (he’d directed every one for all five singles released from “Very”) although this one at least has a bit more of a human participation to it even if it is Neil Tennant in a straight jacket (the Chris Lowe lampshades are really too creepy though). We wouldn’t get any new material from the duo for 18 months though another remix album (“Disco 2”) appeared in the interim.

Kylie Minogue has had many incarnations but she started out in the 80s as a Stock, Aitken and Waterman pop princess so there’s my post theme ticked off. 1994 though was an important year for her as it saw her release her first material since leaving PWL and enter her ‘Dance Kylie’ phase. Signed to trendy label Deconstruction, home of M People and responsible for some huge house anthems by K-Klass and Bassheads, “Confide In Me” was chosen as her first post Hit Factory single. It was a good choice. Combining dance beats with a string section hook and a flavour of Eastern culture, it couldn’t have been further removed from what she had done before. When you consider her last single before this had been a cover of Kool & The Gang’s “Celebration” to promote her Greatest Hits collection, well…the contrast couldn’t be starker. “Confide In Me” oozed class and proposed Kylie as a serious artist not just a hit-making pop puppet. Credit should be given to the producers and song writers of the track Brothers In Rhythm for their vision of what a fusing of dance and pop could sound like. Critics adored it with gushing reviews whilst the record buying public embraced it by sending it to No 2. For Kylie though, it was proof that she would not just survive life after Stock, Aitken and Waterman but thrive within it.

Here’s another act who achieved huge success in the 80s though the hits certainly didn’t stop once 1989 tipped over into 1990. Bon Jovi began the decade with a huge album in “Keep The Faith” which sold 8 million copies worldwide and generated six hit singles. The promotion of the album via said singles and a world tour stretched from the album’s release in 1992 into 1994 and there would be a new album (“These Days”) in 1995. Despite that hectic schedule, record company Polygram decided that there couldn’t be any let up in the release of Bon Jovi product and so a Best Of album called “Crossroads” was put together. The performance of it would prove that Polygram knew a thing or two about sales – it went six times platinum in the UK and has sold 21 million copies globally. It was the best selling album in the UK in 1994.

To help promote “Crossroads”, the track “Always” was released. A huge, dramatic, swooping rock ballad, it would give the band their biggest ever UK hit when it peaked at No 2. Now it’s not like Bon Jovi had never done a slow song before – I’m thinking “Never Say Goodbye”, “I’ll Be There For You” and “Bed Of Roses” but “Always” seemed different somehow. Grander, more epic but probably most of all (to me anyway) more cynical – a definite move to capture a specific market. I may be wrong of course and they did do it well. Just my own opinion as ever.

We’re finally here. Week 15. The very last week of Wet Wet Wet’s reign at the top of the charts with “Love Is All Around”. The story behind its demise is well known. The band themselves insisted that the single be deleted as they were not enjoying the backlash they were getting from people completely fed up with the song (some radio stations reportedly banned it from their playlists). It was a bold move. Given its slow descent down the charts, it could perhaps have outlasted Bryan Adams who spent 16 weeks at the top with “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You”. A rumour that copies would actually be recalled from record stores proved incorrect but it was no longer being pressed. There must have been significant amounts of it still in the shops though as it would spend weeks travelling down the charts rather than dropping stone like straight away. At the time, the only record to be deleted whilst at No 1 previously was “The Fly” by U2 but they had always been upfront beforehand about the limited time it would be available for. With “Love Is All Around” not being on any Wet Wet Wet album at the time of its deletion, some cynics took the view that it was a calculated attempt to force punters into buying the soundtrack album to Four Weddings And A Funeral which the Wets record company Phonogram also had the licence to but I’m not convinced by that theory.

And so the story of the second long running No 1 in a matter of three years comes to an end. Did it help or hinder Wet Wet Wet’s career ultimately? Did people actually like it or not? Can you bear to hear it on the radio again today, some 29 years after the event or is even that too soon? I guess what I’m asking is this…”Is your mind made up by the way that you feel?”

And so to the record that knocked the Wets off their perch. Incorrectly but understandably remembered as a one hit wonder, Whigfield was quite the sales phenomenon herself. The week after this TOTP aired, her single “Saturday Night” would crash into the UK charts at No 1 making her the first unknown artist to do so with their debut single (Gabrielle’s “Dreams” entered the chart at No 2 before going to No 1 in 1993). She followed that up by selling 220,000 copies in one week giving it the highest selling figures for a single in the UK since Band Aid and Wham!’s “Last Christmas” a decade earlier. It would spend four weeks as our No 1 and end the year as the UK’s second biggest selling single of 1994 behind “Love Is All Around”. The buzz around the song was huge and it was totally expected to top the chart eventually. Tiny and Brian even predict that Wet Wet Wet wouldn’t last another week because of Whigfield. They were right. And that will do for this post. Dee dee na na na…

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Blondie	Atomic (Remix)	No
2	Corona	Rhythm Of The Night	I did not
3	The Wonderstuff	Unbearable	Good tune but no
4	Cyndi Lauper	Hey Now (Girls Just Want To Have Fun)	Negative
5	Oasis	Rock ‘N’ Roll Star	I bought the album
6	Pet Shop Boys	Yesterday When I Was Mad	Nah
7	Kylie Minogue	Confide In Me	No but my wife did
8	Bon Jovi	Always	Nope
9	Wet Wet Wet	Love Is All Around	It’s another no
10	Whigfield	Saturday Night	And finally… 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/m001lst4/top-of-the-pops-08091994

TOTP 25 NOV 1993

Posted on November 30, 2022 by 80stastic

I write this a couple of days after Wales were knocked out of the World Cup in Qatar by England. Twenty-nine years ago to the month, Wales also tumbled out of the World Cup at the qualifying stages when they looked set to make it to the finals for the first time since 1958. Needing to win against Romania and with the scores tied at 1-1, Wales were awarded a penalty. Up stepped the unfortunate Paul Bodin, an accomplished penalty taker, who slammed his kick against the crossbar. Almost inevitably, the game slipped away from Wales and with it their chance to become legends. Redemption for the nation would not arrive until 2022. I wonder if there’s any acts on this TOTP that messed up their shot at legendary status?

Does one big hit and a clutch of middling ones make you a dance legend? I’m not so sure but that was the fate of K–Klass. 1991 had seen them in the Top 3 with “Rhythm Is A Mystery” but they had struggled to solve the puzzle of how to follow that up. Neither of their two subsequent singles hit higher than No 20 but they were back in 1993 (a whole year since their last release) to try again. Another monster hit looked on the cards when they crashed into the charts week one with “Let Me Show You” at No 13 and the attendant TOTP appearance seemed likely to push it into the Top 10. Needless to say, I couldn’t have told you how this one went without hearing it back first but I found it better than I was expecting actually though I’m not sure why. I mean, there’s a bit of a tune in there which always helps – it reminds me of “Show Me Love” by Robin S though I was no fan of that – and singer Bobbi Depasois sells it well but I can’t put my finger on its appeal. Maybe it’s the comedic value of the obligatory anonymous blokes on keyboards who do a cracking job of being long haired, tech nerds who really can’t dance – no seriously, they REALLY can’t dance.

Despite this performance, “Let Me Show You” got no higher than the No 13 peak it was already at here. One further Top 40 hit followed before the collective embarked upon a career of producing and remixing for the likes of Pet Shop Boys, Kylie Minogue and M People.

https://youtu.be/MneTIKeRnos

Whatever you think of him (and I know somebody who has dismissed any and every song he’s ever recorded as unlistenable), surely you can’t deny the status of legend that Elton John carries. He’s sold over 300 million records worldwide and has been in the music business for 60 years! For a third week on the trot, he’s on the show with his duet with Kiki Dee of “True Love”. Kiki is an interesting character. In my head, she was one of those artists that would be the musical interlude in light entertainment programmes like Barbara Dickson on The Two Ronnies (though I don’t know if that’s actually true) but there’s so much more to her than that. For a start, she was the first white British artist to be signed to Motown and in her early career as a session singer she sang backing vocals for the likes of Dusty Springfield*. Her early recordings on the Fontana label all failed to chart but one of them – “On A Magic Carpet Ride” – remains a firm favourite on the Northern Soul scene. After signing to Elton’s label The Rocket Record Company, she started to have hits in her own right like “Amoureuse” and “I’ve Got The Music In Me” before that duet with with The Rocket Man himself on “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart”*.

*Coincidentally, there was another link between Kiki and Dusty Springfield as the latter was Elton’s original choice of duet partner but she was too ill to do the recording at the time. She would eventually duet with a current pop act to great effect in 1987 with Pet Shop Boys on “What Have I Done To Deserve This”.

She’s supported Queen at Hyde Park in front of 150,000 people but topped even that figure by reprising “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” with Elton at Live Aid in 1985. She’s also had a career in musical theatre appearing in Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers on the West End taking on the role originally performed by Barbara Dickson (ah! Maybe that’s the reason for the connection in my head I mentioned earlier). So, Kiki Dee; maybe not a musical legend but it’s been quite a life.

https://youtu.be/sbry5Z8aEXM

Now I think legends might be too big a word for the next act but they certainly knew their way around a good tune or two. The Wonder Stuff were onto maybe the fourth period of their career by this point by my reckoning. Having started out as indie grebo darlings with tunes like “It’s Yer Money I’m After Baby” and “Wish Away” they expanded their sound on second album “Hup” with the addition of new band member and multi instrumentalist Martin Bell (not ‘the man in the white suit’) before becoming major chart stars with out and out pop singles like “Size Of A Cow”. By 1993 they were onto their fourth studio album “Construction For The Modern Idiot” and seemed to me to have developed a more mature rock sound with songs like “On The Ropes” and this one, “Full Of Life (Happy Now)”. However, the chart placings had dropped off alarmingly. Yes, “On The Ropes” had made the Top 10 but it seemed to be a fanbase purchase thing. It had gone straight in at No 10 but dropped out of the charts completely three weeks later. “Full Of Life (Happy Now)” followed a similar trajectory but on a diminished scale entering the charts at No 28 where it would peak and spend just two weeks inside the Top 40. It was a decent tune nonetheless. A Best Of album restored them to the Top 10 the following year before they took a six year sabbatical.

https://youtu.be/hE3aB22fecs

This next band may not amount to more than a few soft rock hits in the late 80s and early 90s over here but in America they are bona fide legends I would suggest. If I judge them by the same criteria I used for Elton John then that suggestion becomes a full on statement of fact. They’ve been in existence in one form/name or another since 1967 and have sold 35 million records worldwide. They were inducted into The Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 2013. I speak of Heart who are back with a new single called “Will You Be There (In The Morning)”.

I think I was first aware of Heart around the mid 80s when I used to listen to the US chart rundown show on Radio 1 hosted by Paul Gambaccini. Back then, they were having those soft rock hits like “These Dreams” and “What About Love”. I had no idea of their more rockier back catalogue from the 70s. The UK market was resistant to them though and it wasn’t until “Alone” broke through in 1987 that they had a seriously big UK hit on their hands. In the wake of that success, their previously ignored US mid 80s hits were rereleased and became successful in our country as well. I recall that they were huge airplay hits, inescapable whilst I was a second year polytechnic student. As the new decade dawned and the UK went baggy-tastic, enthralled by the sounds of ‘Madchester’, Heart seemed unwanted and no longer relevant. Somehow though, they bagged themselves a rather salacious Top 10 hit in “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You”. Then…nothing. A live album bombed over here but improbably they managed one more UK chart hit in this year of Eurodance anthems. Well if Meatloaf could be huge all over again, why not them?

“Will You Be There (In The Morning)” would be the band’s last chart entry in both territories (UK No 19, US No 39). It’s a more toned down sound to some of those shiny, over produced 80s hits but it never really gets going for me. The band are still together surviving a rather unsavoury family incident when Ann Wilson’s husband assaulted her sister Nancy’s 16 year old twin sons after they left the door to his RV open.

https://youtu.be/NT6wj9ICe4o

Just like Elton John and Kiki Dee’s “True Love”, this next single is on the show for a third consecutive week. As such, I’ve very little left to say about “Again” by Janet Jackson. What? Is she a musical legend? Well, you can’t deny her success but can you really be regarded as legendary when you’re not even the most famous artist in your own family? “Again” peaked at No 6.

Just the three Breakers tonight starting with an act that is completely out of the leftfield in terms of being on TOTP in 1993 but who is regarded as one of the most influential artists in electronic music ever. A legend then. Probably. Aphex Twin is Richard James, a Cornwall DJ who rose to prominence by featuring on the achingly trendy Warp Records compilation “Artificial Intelligence” which was ground breaking in terms of redefining dance music identity and giving birth to the genre of Intelligent Dance Music (IDM). The “On EP” was his first Top 40 chart entry although he’d already released four previous EPs and an album prior to this and that was just under the Aphex Twin moniker. He also recorded as Polygon Window, The Dice Man and Bradley Strider to name but three.

Unsurprisingly I never got the boat going to Aphex Twin island being a pop kid at heart and all but he/they were all the rage with some of my more dance aware colleagues in Our Price who would always be trying to get the likes of them and Rochdale electronic pioneers Autechre on the shop stereo on a Saturday afternoon when we really should have been playing…erm…I dunno…Lightning Seeds?

Right. Quick question. Kate Bush – legend or not? Here’s what Graeme had to say in his comments posted against the video for “Moments Of Pleasure” on YouTube:

I class her in the same company as Shakespeare, Vincent Van Gogh and Mozart

Blimey! Talk about superlatives. Having said that, I once made the case to a friend that Brian Wilson should be considered in the same breath as Beethoven so…Anyway, this was the second single from Kate’s “The Red Shoes” album and is typically representative of her work in that its an epic, swooping, tender ballad though it never seems to quite reach full bloom to my ears if that makes any sense. It made No 26 in the charts which was pretty much par for the course with Kate’s singles around this time. Her last massive hit had been “Running Up That Hill” which made No 3 in 1985. Her last Top 10 hit came the following year when she duetted with Peter Gabriel on “Don’t Give Up”. The chart positions for the singles after that and up to “Moments Of Pleasure” were:

23 – 12 – 25 – 38 – 12 -12 – 26

Still, it’s not all about hit singles is it? Her albums sold consistently, every one making the Top 10 with two of them topping the chart. Legend? Yeah, she must have a shot at it surely?

The Doobie Brothers?! The Doobie Brothers in the UK charts in 1993?! What was going on here?! It was all down to a remix of their 1973 song “Long Train Runnin’” doing the rounds. The remix was by a duo called Sure Is Pure one of whom had previous in turning classic songs into awful dance hits. Remember Candy Flip who did that dreadful version of “Strawberry Fields Forever” by The Beatles back in 1990? Well, one of their number was Danny Spencer who formed Sure Is Pure with his brother Kelvin. That was just the start though. Do you recall the mini disco revival earlier in 1993? Those remixed Sister Sledge singles that were a big part of it were the work of Danny and Kelvin. Quite why they chose the Doobie Brothers as their next target though I have no idea. The band behind 70s hits like “Listen To The Music” and “What A Fool Believes” which were big in America but not over here hardly seemed ripe for a revival. I suppose the guitar kick on “Long Train Runnin’” was pretty funky so maybe that was what attracted the remix duo. The 1993 version went all the way to No 7 making it easily the band’s biggest UK hit ever. A Best Of album was inevitably released off the back of it. As for the legends question, like Heart before them, The Doobie Brothers were inducted into The Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 2020 and have sold 40 million albums worldwide but legends? Not in my universe.

Belinda Carlisle has been a regular performer on TOTP since the ‘year zero’ revamp – I think she may have even been on the first show of the new regime back in October ‘91 – but I wasn’t expecting to see her on the show in November of ‘93 as I didn’t know she had a hit single to promote at that time. She did though and here it is. “Lay Down Your Arms” was the follow up to “Big Scary Animal” (which I did remember) but it only got up the charts as far as No 27. It doesn’t sound like traditional Carlisle fare but then it is a cover version. The original was recorded by a band called The Graces featuring Belinda’s ex-Go-Gos band mate Charlotte Caffey who co-wrote it. It’s not a bad little tune with some twangy guitar riffs even giving it an “Out Of Time” era REM vibe.

None of Belinda’s releases were becoming hits in the US at this time and maybe it seemed like they were drying up in this country as well. However, she regrouped for one final hurrah in 1996 bagging herself a gold selling album in “A Woman And A Man” and four hit singles from it including two Top 10s before the well of commercial success finally ran dry. She remains a live draw (she’s touring in the UK early next year) and is probably a legendary figure to many a young lad growing up in the late 80s and early 90s.

https://youtu.be/jhvYQqokvNk

We’re up to six weeks for Meatloaf at No 1 with “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” so I’m nearly out of content for this one. Oh yes! The legend question. I think it has to be a ‘yes’ doesn’t it? His “Bat Out Of Hell” trilogy of albums has sold 100 million copies alone with the first of those staying in the charts continuously for nine whole years and still sells an estimated 200,000 units per year. That sounds like a legend to me.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	K-Klass	Let Me Show You	Nope
2	Elton John / Kiki Dee	True Love	Never happening
3	The Wonder Stuff	Full Of Life (Happy Now)	I didn’t
4	Heart	Will You Be There (In The Morning)	No
5	Janet Jackson	Again	Nah
6	Apex Twin	On EP	Not my bag
7	Kate Bush	Moments Of Pleasure	Not for me
8	The Doobie Brothers	Long Train Runnin’	Negative
9	Belinda Carlisle	Lay Down Your Arms	I did not
10	Meatloaf	I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)	And no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001fh28/top-of-the-pops-25111993

TOTP 23 SEP 1993

Posted on October 25, 2022 by 80stastic

Living in the digital age is great isn’t it? Like most of us I suspect, I often find myself asking the question “How did we do [insert a commonplace task] before we had the internet?”. Life is so much easier now. Even as I type these words on my mobile phone, my wife is sat next to me turning off the TV with the remote control app on her mobile phone as she can’t be bothered to find the actual remote which has no doubt slipped down the side of the sofa again. These are the sort of everyday problems that technological advancements were created to solve. As for music consumption, we now have voice activated access to millions of songs thanks to platforms like Spotify and hardware like Amazon Echo Dot/Alexa.

Back in 1993, although the internet had been invented and the World Wide Web put into the public domain in that year, most of us didn’t have a clue what it was or how to access it. Some people who were keeping tabs on technology were, perhaps unsurprisingly given their own musical development, Depeche Mode. Three days before this TOTP aired, they were one of the first bands to utilise the internet to interact with fans in a Q&A session via AOL. As this was 1993, there were plenty of technical issues with many users (including the band themselves) not able to log onto the chat. To be fair though, our 2022 digital world isn’t trouble free either. Didn’t WhatsApp go down the other day?

Anyway, we’ll be seeing those early adopters of technology Depeche Mode later on in the show but we start with a band that we hadn’t seen in the charts for nigh on two years. The Wonder Stuff’s last Top 40 hit had been “Welcome To The Cheap Seats EP” in January of 1992 from their “Never Loved Elvis” album. Since then, I’m assuming that they had been recording their fourth studio album “Construction For The Modern Idiot”. It would be the band’s last for eleven years. The lead single from it was actually another EP. The “On The Ropes EP” would peak at No 10 and would be the band’s last ever time inside the Top 10. The only track from the EP to feature on the album was the title track performed here and I have to say that I don’t really recall it. Listening to it now though, it sounds like a much more out and out rock sound than their previous quirky, knockabout material like “Size Of A Cow” and the aforementioned “Welcome To The Cheap Seats” that made them mainstream chart stars. I think that was probably the right career move and the album made No 4 which was none too shabby but the end of the band (temporarily at least) was near. Two more Top 40 hits from the album would follow and that tour that host Tony Dortie mentions in his intro would be the band’s biggest ever including 78 dates but 1994 would see them split before, as Jarvis Cocker nearly sang, meeting up in the year 2000.

It’s those IT geeks Depeche Mode now with an EP of their own called “Condemnation”. The third single from their “Songs Of Faith And Devotion” album, the title track is a quite staggering piece of work which has me reaching for my handy book of superlatives. It’s a beautifully haunting and emotive song based around a powerful vocal from Dave Gahan with a clear and deliberate gospel feel to it. A truly striking and indeed staggering composition. Gahan is on record as saying it’s one of his favourite tracks by the band but due to his health/addiction problems, he stopped performing it live in 1994 and Martin Gore took over on vocal duties. This seems quite an apposite decision as “Condemnation” puts me in mind of their equally atmospheric ballad “Somebody” from 1984 that was also sung by Gore.

Tony Dortie invites us to try and work out what the video for “Condemnation” is all about in his intro so here’s my two pennies’ worth. There’s definitely a nod to The Wicker Man in there with Gahan being led by a cowl wearing throng to a destination of what appears to be bales of hay to meet with his lover to whom he is then shackled. Are they to be sacrificed Lord Summerisle style or is it some kind of pagan wedding ceremony? The sepia tint on the film adds to its unsettling feel. “Condemnation” peaked at No 9.

Talk about making a statement! Not only have M People racked up their third Top 10 hit of 1993 with “Moving On Up” but it’s gone in at No 4 thus making it their biggest ever hit after just one week of sales! The single would eventually…ahem…move on up to a high of No 2 paving the way for the release of the “Elegant Slumming” album that would achieve the same peak in the album chart and go three times platinum in the UK. M People were no longer a club phenomenon but bona fide, mainstream pop stars.

The track was back in the news recently when it was used as blink-and-you’ll-miss-her Prime Minister Liz Truss’s walk on music at the Tory Party Conference. I was listening to James O’Brien on LBC when he was the first to speak to the band’s founder Mike Pickering for his reaction. He wasn’t pleased…

The voice behind “Unfinished Sympathy” is next but I have to say it doesn’t sound in good nick here. There’s no doubting Shara Nelson’s vocal talents just from the evidence of that Massive Attack track alone so I can only assume she was feeling under the weather for this TOTP performance. Either that or she was distracted by trying to track the close up camera revolving around her but her singing on “One Goodbye In Ten” here doesn’t sound the best. Not that it’s a great litmus test of musical quality but if she’d have been auditioning for the X Factor, she’d have had Simon Cowell grimacing. Shame.

Now I know that Haddaway had more hits than just “What Is Love” but I couldn’t have told you what they were called let alone what they sounded like. However, if I’d given it a moment’s thought (but then again why would I spend any time considering Haddaway’s back catalogue?) then I would surely have come to the conclusion that the follow up to “What Is Love” would sound pretty similar. And so it does with “Life” recycling the annoying synth riff from its predecessor.

It seems to me that writing songs just generically called “Life” is a tricky challenge. Surely the subject matter is just too big?! Look at Haddaway’s lyrics here:

Life will never be the same, life is changing
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Dee Dee Halligan / Junior Torello
Life lyrics © Hanseatic Musikverlag Gmbh & Co Kg

What tosh. Still, it’s an improvement on Des’ree’s attempt with her 1998 single of the same name…

I don’t want to see a ghost, it’s a sight that I fear the most, I’d rather have a piece of toast
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Des’ree Weekes / Prince Sampson
Life lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

Dear oh dear oh dear etc…

Excellent! Just the two Breakers this week means less writing for me and one of them was on last week so I’ve already commented on it. This shouldn’t take long and indeed why would anyone want to dwell on the first of them. Worlds Apart – remember them? They had four UK Top 40 singles of which their cover of Love Affair’s “Everlasting Love” was the second. None got any higher than No 15 and yet their bio on Wikipedia suggests that they were absolutely massive literally everywhere else in the world racking up global sales of ten million records. And get this – such was the demand for them that their licensed merchandise products totalled 138 in number including lamps, bubblegum and motorbikes! This can’t be true surely?! None of it makes any sense which is encapsulated by the very first line of that Wikipedia entry that says they are ‘an English multinational boy band of the 90s’. English and multinational? How does that work then? Well, I’m not going to delve into the subject of identity politics but…wait…are an English multinational boy band? They’re still in existence? My god they are. They split in 2002 but reformed in 2007 and are still a going concern. Their line up these days includes that bloke from Brother Beyond. This is all nonsense and is summed up perfectly by the fact that they recorded a song called “Arnold Schwarzenegger”. No really, look…

All I remember of them was that the buyers at Our Price head office ordered in loads of their album which would then sit behind the counter gathering dust for the rest of the decade. “Everlasting Love” peaked at No 20. Again I say dear oh dear oh dear etc..

Next the song that was on just last week and a quick check of the BBC4 schedule tells me is on the next show as well. Somebody at TOTP loved Belinda Carlisle and her “Big Scary Animal” single. After her studio performance last week, we get the promo video this time which seems to involve Belinda sat at the end of an enormous dinner table waiting for her date who arrives on a motorbike, spends ages trying to find the room she’s in before pushing her down a staircase on a chaise longue. Just…just…why?!

A new hit now from a new artist who would prove to be a one hit wonder but would go on to show that making quirky dance records wasn’t their only talent. Stakka Bo hailed from Sweden and brought us the No 13 hit “Here We Go” which shared its title with the first words of the chorus of that Belinda Carlisle hit from immediately before but that’s where the similarities ended. An artist who Stakka Bo did share similarities with though were Stereo MCs and they were duly made in the music press. Probably no bad thing at the time.

Stakka Bo were basically Johan Renck, a man whose later career would far outstrip his achievements in the world of pop. Right, this is actually quite weird. Me and my wife were late to the Breaking Bad party and so have been on catch up via Netflix for a while (we’re halfway through series 3 so no spoilers please!). We’d just finished watching another episode so I thought I’d do a bit more blogging and the first thing I saw when researching Stakka Bo was this:

Stakka Bo's real name is Johan Renck. He went on to become a successful TV director, helming three episodes of Breaking Bad, and winning an Emmy Award in 2019 for Chernobyl. #TOTP pic.twitter.com/ketDcZTioK
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) October 21, 2022

What?! That’s quite the career change right there. He’s also produced pop videos for everyone from Madonna to Robbie Williams to Lana Del Ray. Renck obviously directed the promo for “Here We Go” as well. As for the song itself, I quite liked it with its flute flourishes and insanely catchy hooks. It was played to death on MTV which helped to break it in just about every territory. There was a follow up – the prophetically titled “Down The Drain” – but we don’t need to concern ourselves with that here. Renck looks like he might pop up in an episode of Only Fools And Horses here whilst his mate looks like a diabolical merging together of East 17’s Brian Harvey and Frank Spencer. Ah 1993 – what were we all thinking?

https://youtu.be/ITN1b_ZJZbI

So big were Take That by this point that it seemed they were just about headlining every TOTP they were on. I mean, obviously there was the No 1 song on after them here but you get my drift. Their appearance on the show was always the top of the bill moment. Their latest single wasn’t even out for another four days after this TOTP aired. That single was “Relight My Fire” featuring that dreadful woman Lulu.

I don’t think I knew at the time that it was actually a Dan Hartman song with my knowledge of his oeuvre restricted to “Instant Replay” and “I Can Dream About You”. His original was released in 1980 with Loleatta Holloway (her again) doing the female vocals that Take That’s management dragged Lulu in for. As much as I dislike her, the introduction of Lulu halfway through the song does create quite the impact in the performance here as a counterpoint to all that spinning and twirling the lads were doing. The single would go straight in at No 1 once released making them only the second artist ever to have two consecutive singles do that with Slade being the first in 1973.

https://youtu.be/KYKxZlZsq0M

Culture Beat have gone from the top spot with the new incumbents being DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince with “Boom! Shake The Room”. Will Smith was already a well established star of TV due to his titular role in The Fresh Prince Of Bel–Air at this point which was about to start its fourth season in late September back in 1993. Within two years he would be starring in the film Bad Boys and his global stardom would be confirmed. Fast forward 29 years and Smith’s career is now in serious jeopardy after he shook the room at the Oscars by slapping Chris Rock. Boom!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Wonder Stuff	On The Ropes EP	No
2	Depeche Mode	Condemnation EP	How did I not buy this?!
3	M People	Moving On Up	No but my wife had the album
4	Shara Nelson	One Goodbye In Ten	See 3 above
5	Haddaway	Life	Never
6	Worlds Apart	Everlasting Love	As if
7	Belinda Carlisle	Big Scary Animal	Nope
8	Stakka Bo	Here We Go	Nah
9	Take That and Lulu	Relight My Fire	I did not
10	DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince	Boom! Shake The Room	And no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001d7qt/top-of-the-pops-23091993

TOTP 30 JAN 1992

Posted on January 19, 2022 by 80stastic

As with last week’s show, all the songs on tonight are ones we haven’t seen in these TOTP repeats previously bar the No 1. All the congestion in the bowels of the Xmas charts has been evacuated and there are new entries galore in the Top 40. Talking of new entries, the world of football was days away from a player making an explosive entrance into the English league who’s legacy is still remembered to this day and not always for how well he could play the beautiful game. I talk, of course, of Eric Cantona.

The day after this TOTP aired, King Eric rejected the offer of a contract at Sheffield Wednesday and 24 hours later signed for Leeds United instead. His galvanising arrival and goals helped power them to the final 1st Division title before the Premier League began and the first for Leeds since 1974. A move to Manchester United followed where he would become a legitimate legend. Then came the 25th January 1995 and the ‘kung fu’ incident where he launched a kick at Crystal Palace ‘fan’ Matthew Simmons leading to a lengthy ban and that “when the seagulls follow the trawler” press conference. His rehabilitation into an Old Trafford idol was astonishing. All of that though was still to come. For now, I, like most football fans, had no idea who he was.

Unfortunately, I did know who the first group on the show tonight were. The Pasadenas burst onto the UK music scene back in 1988 with their Top 5 hit “Tribute (Right On)” and Top 3 album “To Whom It May Concern”. Briefly they were going to be the next big thing in UK R&B though they did absolutely nothing for me. In their TOTP performances, they seemed more interested in doing back flips than singing – they were the JLS of their day in that respect – and so I wasn’t arsed in the slightest when they seemed to have disappeared completely by the end of the 80s.

A change of musical direction however saw them return to the charts for a short stay with 1990’s “Love Thing” but when the follow up single stiffed and their second album’s release was delayed for a year, I really thought it was the end for The Pasadenas.

However, if we have learned one thing from these TOTP repeats it’s that when an act is in need of a career rejuvenating hit, just record a cover version. So what did this lot do? No, they didn’t record a cover version, they made a whole album of covers! “Yours Sincerely” included their takes on songs by such legendary names as Bob Marley, The Beatles, Marvin Gaye and…erm…Steve Arrington. Oh and “I’m Doing Fine Now” by 70s US R&B group New York City. I mean it was a canny choice in terms of getting them played on the radio and by logical extension back in the charts but if they’d played it any safer they might as well have called themselves Steve Davis and be done with it.

To be fair to them, they’ve cut down on the dance moves for this performance and concentrated on their harmonies – presumably the TOTP live vocal policy had forced a rethink on back flips!

“I’m Doing Fine” lived up to its name by becoming the group’s biggest hit reaching No 4. Three more Top 40 hits followed but by the mid 90s, their story had reached the final chapter. The epilogue came in 2005 when they appeared on ITV show Hit Me Baby One More Time. They lost to T’Pau’s Carol Decker. Pop careers eh? Like china in your hand.

By the way, the presenters tonight are Tony Dortie and Claudia Simon who are literally serving up the most banal, hackneyed and embarrassing gibberish in their segues. For example:

TD: We are cool rockin’ down here with just an unbelievable collection of happening tunes

CS: We are gonna be movin’ and groovin’ live down here bringing some hot sounds to your ears

Was this stuff scripted or was this how they really spoke in normal life?! Claudia compounds the crime by shouting every line as loud as she can.

Now when I mentioned Eric Cantona earlier it wasn’t with one eye on an act that was on the show that would make a nice little link with him however fortuitous it may seem. Still, Cantona’s taking out of Matthew Simmons could have easily been described as him being someone who Kicks Like A Mule and no mistake.

So who were these guys? Apparently they were Richard Russell and Nick Halkes who both worked at the XL Recordings label who were responsible for recent successes by The Prodigy and SL2. The label would become a huge player in the dance scene but would also diversify to sign artists like Badly Drawn Boy, Super Furry Animals and Electric Six. Having said all of that, their single “The Bouncer” wasn’t on XL Recordings but came out on Rebel MC’s independent Tribal Bass label. Talk about contrary!

This sounded like so much peripheral nonsense to me – almost a novelty record of the ragga genre with all that ‘Your name’s not down, you’re not coming in’ bullshit. There was meant to be an album of this stuff but thankfully it never materialised. They have continued as an occasional project though, their most recent incarnation as K.L.A.M. supported The Prodigy on a 2010 tour. In their day jobs, Russell is still the owner of XL Recordings whilst Halkes left to form the Positiva label that brought us Reel 2 Reel, Bucketheads and The Vengaboys. Yeah, cheers for that mate. Halkes also goes in for a spot of lecturing on the music industry at University of Westminster. I don’t think any of my lecturers at Sunderland Poly were ever that cool.

“The Bouncer” peaked at No 7.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5JE7InPMSw

Some proper music now courtesy of James who are back in the charts with their new single “Born Of Frustration”. Having finally become bona fide chart stars when a re-recording of “Sit Down” went to No 2 the year before, the band followed up on that success with a Top 10 hit in “Sound” (which we didn’t get to see due to the Adrian Rose issue) in the November. “Born Of Frustration” followed soon after with both tracks being forerunners of new album “Seven” which was released two weeks after this TOTP appearance.

Now if you google ‘James Born Of Frustration’, one of the things you’ll find out about the song which I never knew until now was the criticism it attracted in the music press for sounding like Simple Minds, specifically “Don’t You (Forget About Me)”. I’d never made that connection in my life before but now I know of it, I can’t unhear it. It’s the ‘la, la, la, la, la’ refrain. God, it is the same isn’t it?! Tim Booth swears down that he’d never heard “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” before writing the song (really?!) so any influence must have been unconscious. This didn’t satisfy the press though with the inkies accusing the band of selling out after becoming commercially successful after years of being indie darlings. For me, it wasn’t that it sounded like Jim Kerr at all but that it sounded like…well…James in that it sounded a bit too like “Sound”. When “Ring The Bells” came out in the March, that sounded like its predecessors as well. I did like what I was hearing but was it all becoming a bit too samey?

Regardless of all of those accusations, their performance here is still pretty convincing. I’ve always thought of Tim Booth as a UK Michael Stipe somehow and seeing him in his youth here is quite startling with his fresh facedness and hair. He looks like a Bond villain these days. It’s a similar story with Stipe if you see images of him in REM’s early days with all his hirsuteness. I also like the guy who’s come in his nightshirt (or is it a dress) on trumpet.

“Born Of Frustration” peaked at No 13.

The first video of the night is from The Wonder Stuff with “Welcome To The Cheap Seats” Now as I recall, this was an EP wasn’t it?

*checks Wikipedia*

Yes it was. In fact it was two EPs, one of which featured this rather straight version of The Jam’s “That’s Entertainment”:

As for the title track of both EPs, it was another song lifted from their “Never Loved Elvis” album and of course featured the wonderful Kirsty MacColl on backing vocals. I’m guessing that its release stemmed from a rather cynical decision by record label Polydor to cash in on the success of their recent No 1 collaboration with Vic Reeves on “Dizzy”. The album had been out for eight months by this point and the last single from it called “Sleep Alone” had been released in the August of ‘91 and hadn’t even made the Top 40. Surely they weren’t thinking of plucking another track from it for release as a single until “Dizzy” happened? And weren’t Polydor The Jam’s record label which would explain the “That’s Entertainment” cover. The whole cynical operation is being exposed. It did the trick though as “Welcome To The Cheap Seats” went Top 10 peaking at No 8.

I was listening to Magic radio today (don’t judge, I’m 53!) and the DJ was playing “Come On Eileen” (for the eighth time this week probably) and she started going on about what a floor filler it was at wedding discos. She then tried to name other such tunes and came out with (and I swear to God this is true) “Size Of A Cow” by Dizzy! Excellent product knowledge! Not sure I’ll listen again.

Did someone mention Steve Arrington before? Well, yes that was me obviously and it was on purpose as I needed the “Feel So Real” hitmaker for a nice link into the next act who are Dream Frequency with their single…yes of course…”Feel So Real”. Despite their vocalist Debbie Sharp being an American, the rest of the combo were actually from Preston, Lancashire. Founding member Ian Bland (chortle) had this to say about writing the track:

Ian Bland: "I remember listening to Sylvester’s disco hit 'You Make Me Feel So Real (Mighty Real)' on the radio, and bingo I’d got the chorus for the song.' #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) January 14, 2022

So influenced by the Sylvester song was Ian that he would eventually record a cover version of it as a subsequent single in ‘94 but it failed to chart. As for “Feel So Real”, it would be Dream Frequency’s biggest hit when it peaked at No 23 but for me it was just another house track on the endless conveyor belt of house tracks with nothing to distinguish it from any of its peers.

The Breakers are back this week starting with an artist who only has two Top 40 hits to her name but that statistic doesn’t tell anywhere near her whole story. Back in 1988, Julia Fordham was going to be the next big UK female singer-songwriter off the back of a gold selling debut album and hit single “Happy Ever After”. She’d even been on Wogan, a sure fire sign of having made it back in the 80s. Sophomore album “Porcelain” came just a year later and consolidated her profile with sales of 60,000 units despite the lack of any hit singles.

1991 would deliver her second and final hit single “(Love Moves In) Mysterious Ways”. Nothing to do with the recent, similarly titled U2 single, it was actually from the soundtrack to a film which I can’t remember at all called The Butcher’s Wife starring Demi Moore. The film was a flop but Fordham’s song sustained. In a twist of irony for an artist who has 18 albums to her name, her biggest ever hit (it peaked at No 19) wasn’t actually written by Julia. Its success led to her third album, 1991’s “Swept”, being re-released in 1992 with the track cobbled onto it. Even with that re-promotion, the album struggled to a high of No 33.

Julia continued to release albums throughout the 90s to diminishing returns but has continued to record material to this day and is a popular live draw having toured with Judie Tzuke and Beverley Craven under the Woman To Woman banner.

I just about remember this next lot, their band name anyway, though what they sounded like I’m not sure. The Blessing released an album called “Prince Of The Deep Water” as their debut long player and such must have been the buzz around them that it was promoted as a Recommended Release in the Our Price chain where I was earning a living at the time. It featured guest musicians such as Toto’s Jeff Porcaro, Ricki Lee Jones and Bruce Hornsby. OK, I’m getting a feel for how it might have sounded now. Let me have a listen to the single “Highway 5 ‘92” and I’ll come back to you. Talk amongst yourselves….

OK. A few points to note:

As the No 92 in the single’s title implies, this was a re-release. It originally came out in ‘91 and peaked at No 42. I’m not convinced that addition was really necessary.
It did finally ring a few bells with me. I wouldn’t have been able to tell you who it was though if I’d stumbled across it in the radio without resorting to Shazam.
The initial vocal sounds like Chris Rea. The verses sound like “Ain’t No Doubt” by Jimmy Nail.
I thought it was unspectacular but OK. Presumably that was the judgement most people came to as it only got as far as No 30 despite being remixed and repromoted.

The album sold 125,000 according to Wikipedia. We’re they a bigger deal in the US? Their sound was very American though the band actually hailed from London. The cost of that album and restructuring at record label MCA, The Blessing we’re considered commercially unviable and disbanded soon after.

Right. Who’s this bloke then? Well it’s Cicero and against all odds, it turns out that was actually his real name and not some pretentious affectation involving the Roman philosopher. David John Cicero was born in Long Island, New York but relocated to Livingston, Scotland in his youth. A big Pet Shop Boys fan, he got to live out his dreams when, after seeing them live and giving a demo tape to their personal assistant, found himself being offered management and a recording contract by Chris and Neil themselves!

His debut single on their Spaghetti label failed to find an audience despite his idols patronage but second single “Love Is Everywhere” did the trick taking Cicero into the Top 20. This one must have passed me by completely at the time as I’m sure I would have remembered that distinctive Scottish brogue in the spoken verses followed by the uplifting chorus. If The Proclaimers were ever to record a song inspired by “I Beg Your Pardon” by Kon Kan (unlikely I know), it might sound like “Love Is Everywhere”. It also conjures up images of Ewan McGregor and Trainspotting. Maybe it should have been on the soundtrack.

Sadly for Cicero, it never got any better for him than early ‘92. Subsequent singles failed to crack the Top 40 and even a Pet Shop Boys produced album and a support slot on a Take That tour couldn’t save him from the ignominy of appearing in the identity parade on Never Mind The Buzzcocks.

Now, is this the debut studio appearance on TOTP by Manic Street Preachers? I think it is. It’s quite a thing even 30 years on. James Dean Bradfield stripped to the waste with “You Love Us” emblazoned across his naked chest, Nicky Wire with an intimidating black stripe painted across his eyes and Richey Edwards with his Andy Warhol / Marilyn Monroe print T-shirt making a statement that they weren’t just some dumb rock band but that they had a whole creative agenda to push (probably). I’m guessing the incongruous use of a bubble machine was not the band’s idea though maybe the controlled explosions later were.

As with The Blessing before them, the single had actually already been out once before in May ‘91 on the Heavenly label but had been re-recorded for Columbia and released as the third single from debut album “Generation Terrorists” after “Stay Beautiful” and “Love’s Sweet Exile/Repeat”. It would end up achieving the highest chart placing of all six singles released from the album (a peak of No 16) and became an anthem uniting the band and their fan base.

And me? What did I make of it all? Well, I’m afraid my reliable instinct for dodging the zeitgeist when it came steaming down the road that had already seen me fail to fall in life with The Smiths and The Stone Roses was at it again. I knew there was a band out there called Manic Street Preachers and that the music press was getting very excited about them but I seemed to ignore them. It wasn’t until “Motorcycle Emptiness” was released six months later that I finally cottoned on. I even bought their next album “Gold Against The Soul” (generally considered to be their weakest amongst the fans) and have seen them live twice (albeit that one was supporting Oasis at Maine Road) though I don’t think I have bought an album of theirs for myself since “Everything Must Go”. I did listen to their latest “The Ultra Livid Lament” on Spotify the other week and liked it if that’s any form of redemption. I even watched a documentary about them the other day. And enjoyed it.

DNA? They were the people who did they remix of Suzanne Vega’s “Tom’s Diner” weren’t they? Yes they were and here they are again, this time teaming up with soul star Sharon Redd for a remix of her minor 1980 hit “Can You Handle It”.

I’m not sure I understand the criteria for the differentiation between those tracks they just remixed and were credited for by the application of the does-what-it-says-on-the-tin suffix ‘DNA remix’ (e.g. Kylie’s “Shocked”) and those that they released with themselves as the artist like this one. Oh well.

Sharon has come dressed as a cross between a zebra and Jay Kay from Jamiroquai (or is it the Mad Hatter). Nice. As for the tune, if asked before this TOTP repeat aired, I would have said this was by somebody like Incognito or The Brand New Heavies. Clearly I would have been wrong.

“Can You Handle It” – the DNA version – peaked at No 17.

Wet Wet Wet are No 1 again with “Goodnight Girl”. On the surface this seems to be a fairly straightforward love song but there is plenty of intrigue online as to what the lyrics mean. Some think it’s a tale of forbidden love, some about a man who can’t express his true feelings whilst at least two people thought it was about prostitution! I’m not sure but I do know that although my wife really liked this song and I bought the album for her off the back of it, she had (and still has) an issue with the line “It doesn’t matter how sad I made you” because…well, in a relationship, it does. Wise words from my better half.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Pasdenas	I’m Doing Fine Now	Nope
2	Kicks Like A Mule	The Bouncer	I’d rather have been kung fu kicked by Eric Cantona
3	James	Born Of Frustration	No but I have it on a Best Of CD of theirs
4	The Wonder Stuff	Welcome To The Cheap Seats	I did not
5	Dream Frequency	Feel So Real	Of course not
6	Julia Fordham	(Love Moves In) Mysterious Ways	No but I think my wife may have a Best Of CD with it on
7	The Blessing	Highway 5 ’92	Nah
8	Cicero	Love Is Everywhere	But not here for this song – no
9	Manic Street Preachers	You Love Us	No
10	DNA featuring Sharon Redd	Can You Handle it	I couldn’t – no
11	Wet Wet Wet	Goodnight Girl	No but my wife had the album

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/m0013cfk/top-of-the-pops-30011992

TOTP 14 NOV 1991

Posted on November 18, 2021 by 80stastic

Mid November 1991 – what were you doing? Me? I was gearing up for a second consecutive retail Christmas with Our Price having been working for the company for just over a year now. I didn’t know it then but it was probably one of the more stable years of my working life. A permanent job working with an exciting ‘product’ (I’d take music over baked beans any day) and I’d even been given some ordering responsibility in the form of being the chart cassettes buyer. Yes, there was that time earlier in the year when it looked like the shop would be sold off and some of us might lose our jobs (gulp!) but that likelihood had withered and withdrawn and things were back on course. For TOTP though, things were not quite as smooth. The show was six weeks into a new format courtesy of new producer Stanley Appel and it was still finding its feet. The new presenting duo of Tony Dortie and Mark Franklin seemed functional rather than flourishing and the live vocal policy was definitely catching some artists out. More seismic changes were afoot in the football world as on the day of this broadcast, the Football Association confirmed that the Premier League would start next season with 22 clubs. What would that mean for all us footy fans? Was it a good thing? Would we get to see more matches on TV? Like the new TOTP revamp, it was uncharted waters.

What we needed was some faith and happily for us, it was provided by tonight’s opening act Rozalla with her latest single “Faith (In the Power of Love)”. Having hit big with her previous single “Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good)”, Rozalla clearly felt the the best thing she could do to maintain her momentum was to stick to the exact same formula that had brought her initial success. Consequently, “Faith (In the Power of Love)” sounds very like its predecessor and even mimics its inclusion of brackets in the song title. I’ve never really understood the need for brackets in song titles. Does their presence really add anything to the song title or are they just an affectation to add an element of perceived depth and mystery to the song? Anyway, Rozalla has decided to come dressed as…well..what has she come dressed as? It’s like some sort of mash up of Princess Leia from Star Wars and the red Power Ranger. Were people dressing like that back in 1991? Maybe it was just to distract us all from the fact that (as with a few before her), Rozalla’s singing wasn’t quite on point. Not far off but not actually on it. “Faith (In the Power of Love)” peaked at No 11.

As Tony Dortie emerges seemingly from nowhere out of the throng of the studio audience (he seems to do that a lot – he was the TOTP equivalent of the shopkeeper from Mr Benn), he says something that I’ve had to rewind three times before I’ve understood what it was. I think it was that Rozalla wanted to do a duet with Seal. The first two times I heard it as wanting to do a duet with Cyril but Seal makes more sense (especially as he’s on the show next). Before that though we have the Top 10 rundown or as Dortie says, “Let’s check those crisp biscuits which are slamming in style inside this week’s Top 10 boiii like this…” Did he really say that?! He’s such a mumbler it’s hard to tell but I think those were his actual words. Crisp biscuits? Was that slang for something? I checked it out on the urban dictionary. It’s either a very thin reefer or… something else entirely which you’ll have to look up yourself to find out. Either definition was surely not what Dortie meant. And what was the ‘boiii’ thing about? I’m guessing that was also an urban along thing but the only time I’ve heard it used is by those white posh boy twats on Made In Chelsea. Anyway, Dortie then does an actual voice over for the Top 10 countdown which we haven’t had in this new era before when it’s just been the new theme tune payed in the background. Head producer Stanley Appel must have reacted to feedback that the countdown had become an abomination and tried to restore some tradition to it. Even though it was now mid November, “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” by Bryan Adams is still in there at No 6 despite being released back in June.

As with last week’s show, we get a new disembodied voice doing the next intro. Last week it was Elayne Smith and this week we get another new presenter in the form of Claudia Simon. We don’t actually get to see Claudia’s ‘form’ though until two whole performances later. I didn’t really get what the TOTP producers were hoping to do with this voice first policy for its new presenters. Build tension? I don’t think we were that bothered about the presenters, it was the music we were after! The act that Claudia introduces is Seal (definitely not Cyril) who has released this own solo version of the hit that announced him to the pop world the year before when he and Adamski took “Killer” to No 1. To try and convince record buyers to purchase it all over again, record label ZTT have wisely made it into the “Killer EP” with a William Orbit remix of the track added alongside some live versions. Does Seal’s re-recording of the song sound that different to the original? Not to my ears I have to say. To try and emphasise the point that it is a different version, Seal is wearing (and occasionally strumming) a guitar which I’m pretty sure he never did back in 1990. Maybe the whole exercise was all about claiming some justice for Seal who was not actually officially credited alongside Adamski on the original. It’s still a great track but I don’t think the re-release in his own name was really warranted. Case dismissed.

In any other week, Tina Turner would no doubt have been bigged up in the ‘exclusive’ feature of the show but this wasn’t any other week. There is a huge exclusive coming up (no spoilers) so Tina has to make do with being…what is this section? The US chart? There’s an American flag graphic next to her name so I’m guessing so. She’s singing a song called “Way Of The World” which is a new track added to promote her first greatest hits compilation “Simply The Best” (which is what the TOTP title graphic goes with rather than the name of the single which is a bit confusing). We’d already had a horrible 90s reworking of “Nutbush City Limits” to help sell the album recently so surely anything released after that would be an improvement? Well, just about I guess. “Way Of The World” directly pinches the intro from Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” (which, of course, Tina herself covered back in ’83 to relaunch her singing career) but then just sort of meanders off into an unexceptional mid tempo soul ballad. Hardly living up to the “Simply The Best” tagline it was meant to promote. In the end, the album would do pretty well anyway going 8 (EIGHT) time platinum in the UK! For some reason, there’s no backing band up there behind Tina so when the sax solo arrives in the middle eight she has to improvise and rely on her famous legs and her new shaggy hairdo to compensate. Tina’s nothing if not an old hand at this sort of thing and does a professional job of filling. “Way Of The World” peaked at No 13.

There she is! Yes, we finally get to see Claudia Simon as she awaits her cue to do the next link. She literally is waiting, tensed like a cheetah ready to pounce at the optimum moment. Is it just me or does she come across like the female version of Pat Sharp here? I think it’s the hair. So who was Claudia? Like Tony Dortie, she had a background in children’s TV having worked for CBBC and after her stint on TOTP she moved into the world of sports with Sky TV. She moved to the US and was a Fox Sports anchor until the early ’00s but there’s little else about what she’s up to now on the internet. She seems a bit over eager to please here and ends up shouting a lot of her links, the first of which is into Altern-8. These Staffordshire ravers had already had a Top 40 hit earlier in the year with “Infiltrate 202” but it was this single “Activ 8 (Come with Me)” that really made their name. Infamous for wearing face masks (with an A imprinted on them) and Hazmat suits, they also had a penchant for including the number 8 in their song titles (they would release a further three singles with this theme).

On reflection, “Activ 8 (Come with Me)” seems very much to be jumping on the bandwagon that the The Prodigy had set rolling with their “Charly” single and its samples of the 1970s BBC Public Information Film Charley Says. The Altern-8 boys bypassed any copyright restrictions by getting the three year old daughter of the boss of their record label Network to record the ‘top one, nice one. get sorted’ bit which would prove to be the track’s hook. Were people already using those phrases in real life? By people I guess I mean ravers. Certainly the phrase ‘top one’ was in everyday use in Manchester where I was living at the time. Also, was this the point where the phrase ‘hardcore, you know the score’ came into being as per the legend emblazoned above the stage for this performance or was it already in existence? I’m pretty sure that the major labels pickled up on it and ran with it as a tagline to advertise various rave/dance compilation albums at this time. OK, so I guess we have to address the live vocal again here. Without wishing to be harsh, I think it’s fair to say that the female singer here doesn’t give her very best performance though having to follow Tina Turner probably didn’t help her nerves. “Activ 8 (Come with Me)” peaked at No 3.

I’m not sure what the mumbler supreme Tony Dortie says at the end of Altern-8’s performance but it’s something about ragga or rave pressure or …oh God knows. Anyway, it’s the Breakers now starting with Sonia and her version of The Real Thing’s “You To Me Are Everything”. You have to hand it to Sonia, this was her ninth consecutive Top 40 hit in just over two years, all but one of which made the Top 20. None of them came anywhere near replicating the success of her debut single “You’ll Never Stop Me Loving You” though which went to No 1 in 1989 of course. Still, it’s an impressive run all the same. On closer inspection though, three of the last four hits (including this one) had been cover versions which suggested that she was running out of steam and her record label out of ideas. Her next single would also be a cover; Heatwave’s “Boogie Nights”. “You To Me Are Everything” was the third and final single to be released from her eponymous sophomore album and would peak at No 13. She would have to resort to the Eurovision Song Contest to secure one final chart hit in 1993 with “Better The Devil You Know” (not the Kylie Song) in 1993.

The next Breaker was basically record company Warners reminding us that their artist REM had one of the most successful albums of the year in “Out Of Time” and that if we hadn’t already bought it then Christmas is just around the corner you know? To that end, they saw fit to release a fourth single from it in “Radio Song”. This must have been one of the songs that I heard most in 1991 as it was the opening track on “Out Of Time” meaning that even when we’d all got tired of it being played in the Our Price store I was working in and somebody finally pulled it off the shop stereo, this track probably would have had a spin in full. It’s OK but certainly not up there with some of my personal favourites from the band. Even after all those plays, I’d still somehow forgotten about the closing rap from KRS-One of Boogie Down Productions.

A fourth release of the album proved one too far and the song peaked at a lowly No 28 but I guess sales of the single came second in priority for Warners after the album which no doubt benefited from the extra exposure. Unbelievably, ‘Radio Song” wasn’t the last REM single of 1991 as “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” was re-released in December by former label I.R.S. to cash in on their “The Best Of R.E.M.” album that had been released in September, itself a cash in on the success of “Out Of Time”.

Can a single be classed as a Breaker when it’s already inside the Top 10? Well, that’s what happened here with “Is There Anybody Out There?” by Bassheads. Following near geographical neighbours Oceanic into the charts, this Wirral-based house duo went to No 5 with this dance tune. I don’t remember thinking it at the time but there’s definitely some steals from Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime” and The Osmonds’ “Crazy Horses” although they weren’t sampled as they weren’t copyright cleared by the original artist and were in fact recreated by session players. There’s also a bit of Afrika Bambaataa’s “Just Get Up and Dance” in there for which he received 25% of the publishing as a result.

It all sounds like a strange brew that should be interesting but then that familiar Italia house piano riff kicks in and it reverts to sounding like all those other dance ‘anthems’ to me. The track’s title is just about a mash up of two Duran Duran songs – “Anyone Out There” and “Is There Something I Should Know?”. I think I’d rather have the Brummie lads to be honest.

And so we arrive at the moment the whole show has been building up to…so much so that we even had a mini advert for it at the start before we’d even had the first act on. I suppose some context is required here. Michael Jackson hadn’t had an album out for four year since 1987’s ‘Bad” which was a lifetime in pop and hadn’t even had a single in the charts since 1989. Therefore any new Jacko material was bound to cause a stir in the music industry. And so it did. “Black And White” was the lead single from his ‘Dangerous” album and the anticipation for the much heralded video for it was heightened by the simultaneous worldwide broadcast of it across international platforms. So whilst Tony Dortie’s claim that the video hadn’t been shown anywhere before was true, I’m not sure the ‘exclusive’ tag that he adds to it holds water. TOTP weren’t the only broadcaster in the world showing it. The promo actually premiered simultaneously in 27 countries with an audience of 500 million viewers. Maybe he just meant in the UK then.

So, what was the new video going to show us. There’s a lot to unpack here so for starters it was directed by John Landis who also made the “Thriller” video so no doubt big things were expected of it. Could that ground breaking promo be topped in terms of its legacy? It starts with a heavy rock guitar solo soundtrack before locating the action in the home of one Macaulay Culkin who’s loud playing of said music on his stereo has upset his Dad who is Norm from Cheers (who knew?). After a rebuke from Norm, Caulkin’s character sets up some gigantic speakers in the room where his parents are watching TV, hooks them up to an amplifier, turns the volume up to the setting ‘Are You Nuts?’ (no really – that’s what it says – I guess the ‘this one goes to 11’ joke had already been done by Spinal Tap), utters the words “Eat this” and blows his Dad (still in his chair) into orbit with one play of a power chord. It’s quite an opening but on reflection, it’s also all a bit silly. I recall a lot being made of the fact that Caulkin was in the video. He’d been in the film Uncle Buck with John Candy and then had achieved superstardom via Home Alone in 1990. Around that time he became friends with Jackson and would get caught up in the child sex abuse trial that engulfed the singer in 2005, testifying that he had slept in a bed with Jackson but that no molestation had ever taken place and dismissed the allegations as “absolutely ridiculous”.

Meanwhile back in the video, Norm and his chair have landed in Africa where the song proper starts and we see Jackson at last who begins performing surrounded by African warriors. From there, the action moves quickly through multiple scenes with Jacko dancing with people of various nationalities and cultures. After alighting on an image of a black baby and a white baby sitting on a representation of planet earth, Jackson re-emerges through a scene of flames before we get to the rap part of the song which Culkin returns to lip sync. The part of the video that everyone remembers is up now, the face morphing. The collective reaction of the audience to the faces of people of different nationalities and skin colour changing seamlessly into each other before our eyes was one of dumbstruck awe. One big huge wow! It was certainly impressive but hadn’t it been done before by Godley and Creme for their 1985 video fro ‘Cry”? Had people forgotten that already? Yes, the effects in “Black And White” were far superior but the idea was surely stolen by Landis.

For many of us I’m guessing this is the point that our memory tells us that the video ended but in its full, original form, it didn’t. A black panther emerges from the set and morphs into Jackson who pulls out all of his moves before embarking on a dancing rampage of destruction smashing windows, destroying a car and causing a building to explode whilst all the time grabbing his crotch repeatedly. He then morphs back into the panther before the video is finally drawn a close by Bart and Homer Simpson when the latter turns off the TV. These final four minutes caused great controversy with accusations made against Jackson that he was promoting violence and vandalism. Subsequently, this footage was removed from the video to make it more palatable for younger audiences but as this was the global premiere, it’s shown in full here.

Phew! All in all, the video was allocated approximately 10 and a half minutes of the TOTP running time which seems extraordinary but I guess this really was a big deal and the type of event TV that the show’s new producer Stanley Appel would have been looking for. Watching it back in its entirety 30 years on, it all seems like one big mess to me. Very little cohesion and with anything that was culturally popular at the time (Culkin, The Simpsons) thrown in for good measure. “Thriller” is by far the better promo and blows “Black And White” out of the water. Yes, it has some noble intentions but what was all that stuff at the end about? Well, that was the video but what about the song? Ah, it’ll be No 1 next week. I’ll deal with the music then.

Vic Reeves and The Wonder Stuff hold on to the No 1 spot for a second and final week with “Dizzy”. It’s the video again and for all “Black And White”‘s special effects and drama, I’d rather watch Vic and Bob arseing around to be honest. Supposedly, Vic had approached Mark E. Smith to ask if The Fall would do the record with him initially but the band weren’t sure and so The Wonder Stuff got the gig. That really would have been a collaboration worth seeing and hearing. Vic would achieve one final Top 40 hit when he teamed up with EMF for a cover of “I’m A Believer” by The Monkees which went to No 3 in 1995.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Rozalla	Faith (In the Power of Love)	Nah
2	Seal	Killer EP	No but I had the album
3	Tina Turner	Way Of The World	Nope
4	Altern-8	Activ 8 (Come with Me)	Not my bag
5	Sonia	You To Me Are Everything	Oh dear Lord no
6	REM	Radio Song	No and I’d heard the album so may times in store I didn’t even buy that either
7	Bassheads	Is There Anybody Out There?	See 4 above
8	Michael Jackson	Black And White	No
9	Vic Reeves and The Wonder Stuff	Dizzy	I did not

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0011f4t/top-of-the-pops-14111991

TOTP 24 OCT 1991

Posted on October 31, 2021 by 80stastic

So the week has finally arrived. One month into the revamped TOTP and its time has come, its race is run, it’s over. No, not Man Utd’s 13 match unbeaten run to the start of the 1991/92 football season (that would arrive two days later as they lost 3-2 to Sheffield Wednesday). No, it’s the 16th and last week of Bryan Adams being at No 1 with “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You”. 16 weeks! That’s four whole months, a third of a year, people who had got pregnant in the first of those 16 weeks were now nearly half way through their pregnancy. My own personal milestone was that our first wedding anniversary had just been and gone and we were just about to clock up one whole year of living and working in Manchester. Despite being skint a lot of the time, the year had gone pretty well and we felt settled there. I was working in the Our Price store in Market Street Manchester and gearing up for my second Xmas there. I think I may have graduated from ‘best seller’ CD orderer to being in charge of chart cassettes by this point. Chart cassettes! I’d only been trusted with TDK blank cassettes and accessories at the start of the year. It felt like a big deal. The store was probably starting to recruit for Xmas temps by now – most of their names and faces have long been unretrievable from my memory banks though one or two I can recall. I felt established amongst the permanent members of staff though my best mate there Steve had left at the start of the year. Fortunately, I have kept our friendship going these past 30 years.

We start this week with 2 Unlimited and “Get Ready For This” who are up to No 2 in the charts somehow. Why didn’t they call the track “Y’all Ready For This?” which is pretty much the only lyric in the whole sorry fair. Well, that or “Yeah!” I guess. Tony Dortie promises us “the busiest dancers around” in his intro. He can’t mean those people hanging around at the back of the stage surely? And by the way, exactly who were they? Clearly they’re not part of 2 Unlimited – are they really just some people out of the studio audience? If so, how did they get the gig? Did they have to audition their dance moves in front of the producers because all they seem to be doing to me is jumping up and down a bit?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyrROpMXf4Q

As this is a dance track though, the TOTP graphics team have added that green haze effect at certain points in the performance as they did the other week with Carl Cox. It reminds me of that old Dr Who story with the maggots…

After the godawful mess that is the Top 10 countdown, we’re straight into the album chart feature which this week is Kenny Thomas who was only just on the other week with his latest single “Best Of You”. The song he sings tonight though is an album track (well it is the album feature) called “Something Special” which starts off sounding a bit like Labi Siffre’s “(Something Inside) So Strong” but soon turns into a weedy soul ballad about telling his love that they are…erm…well…special.

By my reckoning, this is the sixth time that Thomas has been on TOTP in 1991 and as such, I’m all out of Kenny info and trivia. I can say that his album “Voices” went to No 3 in the charts which would be its peak and I recall selling plenty of it over the Xmas period meaning I had to place many an order of the cassette version with EMI to keep up with demand. He’s turned up at the TOTP studio for this one wearing something that resembles a 50’s drape jacket and with his hair slicked back like that, he could almost pass for a Teddy Boy. Well, not really but I’m filling furiously here so give me a break! Actually, this bloke Tom on Twitter has probably got the whole thing bang to rights…

Leg it Kenny Thomas, Mike Baldwin wants his coat back #totp
— Tom (@Tommy_1972) October 23, 2021

After the Monty Python performance of “Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life” last week, we get another memorable turn this week as Vic Reeves and The Wonder Stuff get together to do “Dizzy”. This version of Tommy Roe’s 1969 No 1 was the follow up to Vic’s first hit (also a cover version) “Born Free” from earlier in the year and would go onto replicate Roe’s chart peak by making it to No 1.

The performance here is full on Vic Reeves Big Night Out which is allowed in my book given that the series had only just finished screening in the April. The Whirlpool washing machine and microwave props were a carry over from the promo video and which were a nice play on the lyrics but for me, Bob Mortimer just about steals the show with his cavorting in the background with Miles Hunt which climaxes with his back slide through Vic’s legs halfway through. As it’s a live vocal, Vic’s voice is pretty exposed but he just about gets away with it although he is just shouting on occasion and also seems to forget the words at one point. Was something meant to happen when Vic goes to look inside one of the washing machines? The fact that nothing does seems to put him off a bit. Maybe it was a piece of staging that went wrong or maybe they were all just too drunk to remember what they were doing? There seems to be damning evidence that everybody concerned had spent far too oolong in the Green Room beforehand.

At the end of the performance Tony Dortie emerges from the studio audience throng to say “Absolutely unbelievable, I can’t keep a straight face”…whilst keeping a straight face.

It’s the Queen video for “The Show Must Go On” next whose screening the other week was billed as an ‘exclusive’ to TOTP. This week it’s in the chart at No 19 and whilst the official line for the promo consisting entirely of a montage of clips of previous Queen videos and live shows was that it was to promote the band’s imminent “Greatest Hits II” album, the lack of any new footage of Freddie Mercury stoked even more rumours already circulating around his health.

After his death on 24 November, there was the inevitable rush of Queen’s music made available in the marketplace. As well as that “Greatest Hits II” album, “Bohemian Rhapsody” was re-released (twinned as a double A-side with “These Are the Days Of Our Lives” from the “Innuendo” album) which would become the ’91 Xmas No 1. In between those releases came Brian May’s solo single “Driven By You” which would go Top 10 and indeed, “The Show Must Go On” itself would resurface in the charts despite having already peaked once at No 16. It all felt very reminiscent of John Lennon’s death 11 years earlier when his music flooded the charts although he was denied the Xmas No 1 by (unbelievably) “There’s No One Quite Like Grandma” by St Winifred’s School Choir.

As for Queen, they would patch together one last studio album from the remaining recordings Freddie had managed to lay down before his passing that weren’t included on “Innuendo” which comprised the “Made In Heaven” album of 1995. One month after its release, that symmetry with John Lennon was evident again when “Free As A Bird” was released being a demo that John had recorded in 1977 that the remaining Beatles added to in the studio and which went to No 2 in the charts.

It’s ‘the rugby song’ as Tony Dortie called it the other week next as Kiri Te Kanawa is in the studio to perform “Word In Union”. She looks for all the world like she’s just arrived off the set of Dynasty with her big 80s style hair, shoulder padded jacket and…is that a diamond encrusted brooch in the shape of a lizard on one of them?! It could be a Tuatara which are reptiles endemic to New Zealand and are regarded as a ‘taonga’ or a special treasure in Māori culture (Te Kanawa’s birth father was Māori). Whatever the reason for the brooch, it’s quite a thing and maybe the studio audience crowding around Dame Kiri in a circle are all transfixed by that rather than her performance.

“World In Union” would have a life beyond the 1991 Rugby World Cup and has been recorded by multiple artists for subsequent competitions. In 1999, a version was recorded as a duet by Shirley Bassey and Bryn Terfel whilst the 2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand was launched by soprano Hayley Westenra’s version of the song. Paloma Faith did it for the 2015 competition although her rendition didn’t go down well – one twitter user described it thus:

Paloma Faith absolutely murdered World in Union. My non-existent cat could of sung it better.

Meow! In 2019, ITV used a version recorded by Emeli Sandé for their 2019 World Cup coverage. In tandem with all those releases came various versions of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” which is associated specifically with the England team and was taken into the charts by Union featuring the England World Cup Squad (1991), China Black (1995), Russel Watson (1999) and UB40 (2003).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hn19vBdpR_A

Talk about from one extreme to another! As the camera pans away from Dame Kiri at the end of her performance you can see the next act awaiting their cue on the other stage who are Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine! After their chart breakthrough earlier in the year with the re-release of “Sheriff Fatman” came “After the Watershed (Early Learning the Hard Way)” which was a non album single presumably to plug the gap until their next album “1992 – The Love Album” would be released in …erm…1992.

The contrast between Jim Bob / Fruitbat and Kiri Te Kananwa couldn’t be more pronounced with their raucous, in your face track and their non conformist, counterculture look (Boris Johnson would no doubt describe them as ‘crusties’). With it being the early 90s, nobody in team Carter USM thought to gain copyright clearance for the use of the “Ruby Tuesday” lyrics and they were subsequently sued by The Rolling Stones’ publisher. The resulting legal battle forced the song off the airwaves and was only resolved by the track being officially credited to Morrison, Carter, Richards and Jagger.

This wasn’t the only infamy that the single generated though. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, this was the song that Carter USM played at the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party of 1991 when Fruitbat rugby tackled host Philip Schofield to the ground on live TV when he had attempted a pathetic put down of the band after they started smashing up their instruments after the performance. His exact words were:

“Blimey! That was original. “After the Watershed” from Jim Bob and a Fruitbat pushing back the frontiers of music otherwise known as Carter and I think they’re still smashing it up out the back somewhere. Now not only…OOOOMMMMFFFF!”

Good work lads! I can’t be doing with Schofield and I find it baffling that he was deemed worthy of a Smash Hits front cover in 1991. Unsurprisingly, given Schofield’s connection with them, the publication backed Phil in a review of the Poll Winners Party referring to Jim Bob and Fruitbat as Bobbins and Dingbat. How original.

“After the Watershed (Early Learning the Hard Way)” peaked at No 11.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxi4AywDU_k

Is this the first time we’ve seen this feature? The US Album chart? Tony Dortie’s intro doesn’t make any sense though as he says that Mariah Carey is No 1 in the American Hot 100 singles chart with “Emotions” and No 10 in the UK album chart. He definitely said UK and not US despite the on screen graphic saying ‘US chart’. I don’t get it. Anyway, Mariah is in the studio which means she must be doing a live vocal doesn’t it? We’ll see if she can do that famous four octave vocal range for real then won’t we?

*watches Mariah’s performance*

Well, yes she can but I still don’t like to listen to it. As she sings that last hight note, co-host Mark Franklin appears from within the studio audience to do the next link and has to wade through a gaggle of young men who somehow seem to have made sure that they were at the front of the stage to get a bird’s eye view of Mariah from up close. Funny that.

“Emotions” peaked at No 17 in the UK.

So to the Breakers and we start with Simple Minds and “Real Life”. This really was a case of a release too far. The title track from their latest album, it was the fourth single to be lifted from it and was subsequently the worst performing in the chart peaking at No 34. The album had already been out for six months by this point but I guess the record company wanted to give it another push for the Xmas market. Its chart performance wasn’t helped by it being promoted by yet another boring live performance video just as previous single “Stand By Love” had been. The band really weren’t putting much effort into their videos in 1991 as lead single “Let There Be Love” had just been a straight run through performance of the song as well (although it wasn’t taken from a gig) but had some added dry ice for effect. Poor, very poor as Vic Reeves might have said.

Possibly one of the most famous songs ever next as we get an old clip of Don McLean performing “American Pie”. So much has been written about this song – just google ‘Don Mclean American Pie and you’ll immediately get a flurry of results offering the ‘story behind the song’ or the ‘hidden meaning of…’ etc – so I’m not going to forensically dissect the song line by line partly because it’s too long and I can’t be arsed but more significantly because McLean himself fessed up to its true meaning in 2015. Why then? Well, the original manuscript for the song was put up for auction (it sold at $1.2 million) and McLean agreed to tell all about those lyrics. He basically said it was an allegorical tale describing how the world was heading in the wrong direction whilst also clearing up some of those hidden references. Clearly the famous “the day the music died” line referred to the death of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper in a plane crash in 1959 but he also confirmed that “the jester” was Bob Dylan and that the song built to a climax that referenced the death of Meredith Hunter at the Altamont Free Concert headlined by The Rolling Stones in 1969.

None of the above answers the question why this 1972 US No 1 and UK No 2 hit was back in the charts in 1991 of course but it’s a simple explanation – to plug a Don McLean Best Of album released for the Xmas rush. The re-release of “American Pie” reached No 12 in the UK but of much more acclaim is that in March 2017, it was designated an ‘aural treasure’ by the American Library of Congress and ‘worthy of preservation’ in the National Recording Registry ‘as part of America’s patrimony’. Yeah, that’s as maybe but he was wrong about ‘the day the music died’ – that was in 1987 when Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley went to No 1 with “Jack Your Body”.

The final Breaker sees Pet Shop Boys finally relent to the inevitable and release their very first Best Of album – “Discography: The Complete Singles Collection”. After 5 years of solid hits, a collection album was certainly warranted but, as was seeming to be the done thing back then, it was a new track that was released to promote the album. “Now I’m not suggesting that “DJ Culture” should be enshrined in any Halls of Fame for its cultural significance like “American Pie, but its message was prescient. According to Neil Tennant via Wikipedia it was about:

The insincerity of how President George H. W. Bush’s speeches at the time of the First Gulf War utilised Winston Churchill’s wartime rhetoric, in a manner similar to how artists sample music from other artists.

Fast forward 30 odd years and replace Bush with Boris Johnson and…where’s the difference? Johnson’s obsession with Churchill and his enablement by the right wing press and its obsession with the war and the ‘Blitz spirit’ and it’s not hard to see why we live in a country that has created a hostile environment for ‘outsiders’. We are a much poorer country for it. The parallels with Brexit also echo in the lyrics:

Imagine a war which everyone won
Permanent holiday in endless sun
Peace without wisdom, one steals to achieve
Relentlessly, pretending to believe

Let’s pretend we won a war
Like a football match, ten-nil the score
Anything’s possible, we’re on the same side
Or otherwise on trial for our lives

I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to imagine these words as a criticism of the leave campaign narrative of ‘sunlit uplands’ and ‘Brexit is good, you just have to believe in it enough’ – there’s even a reference later on about empty shelves! Tellingly there’s also the line “Wondering who’s your friend” which could speak of the divisions between families and friends that Brexit has caused. Actually, there’s a couple more Pet Shop Boys song titles that sum up the shitshow that is Brexit and this corrupt Tory government in a much more succinct way- I’m thinking “Was It Worth It?” and “Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money)”. Bit of politics there as Ben Elton might have said back in the day.

For all that, I didn’t actually rate “DJ Culture” that much. It was a bit too repetitive and lacking in melody for me. It peaked at No 13 in the UK Top 40 whilst the “Discography: The Complete Singles Collection” album went to No 3 and achieved platinum status sales.

This week’s ‘TOTP Exclusive’ performance is from David Bowie….HURRAY! Hang on. Let me finish. I was going to say David Bowie’s side project rock group Tin Machine….BOOOOO!!!. Hang on didn’t they do an exclusive performance for TOTP the other week? Yes they did when they appeared on the show to promote previous single “You Belong in Rock ‘n’ Roll”! You can’t claim this to be an exclusive if its the second time in a few weeks can you?

Enter new show producer Stanley Appel, stage left: “Ah, but that first exclusive was in the pre- year zero revamp era. This is a whole new show so yes, of course we can claim it as an exclusive.

Me (not having it): So definitely not flogging a dead horse then?

Stanley Appel: How dare you?!

Is dead horse unfair? I think when it comes to Tin Machine it’s justified. Of the five singles they released only one made the Top 40 (the aforementioned “You Belong in Rock ‘n’ Roll”) whilst all the others were flops including this track “Baby Universal”…or “Baby Unusual” as Tony Dortie announces it. Clearly Tony had got the jitters being in the presence of the legend that was Bowie as he seems to fluff his entire intro. He mispronounces the word ‘exclusive’ and then nearly forgets the name of their album which couldn’t have been much easier to remember being “Tin Machine II” and all.

As for the song itself, it’s all very urgent sounding filled with moments for Bowie to deliver his unique vocal stylings but it’s just not quite there for me. Actually, listening to it back, it reminds me of “The Cabaret” by Time UK who were the group that drummer Rick Buckler formed after The Jam broke up. Don’t know it? Have a listen…

Time UK there, only the band that Tin Machine could have been (ahem)….oh and that tattoo on the drummer’s knuckles that we get a shot of at the end of the song? it definitely says HUNT and not anything else as his name is Hunt Sales!

And finally Cyril….

…and finally Esther. FINALLY. After 16 (SIXTEEN!) long weeks, we get to the final time that Bryan Adams is No 1 with “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You”. Obviously no record should have been at the top of the charts for that long – it was a nonsense. Was it Bryan’s fault though? I can’t see how. He just wrote a song for a film and it got released as a single. I think he only did one TOTP studio performance and the rest of the time the show just broadcast the video with the the film clips montage. He wasn’t busting a gut to be in the studio every week to promote it. The way people moaned about how long it was No 1 for, you would have though that this sort of run could never happen again but just three years later Wet Wet Wet almost eclipsed it with their “Love Is All Around” single also taken from a film (Four Weddings And A Funeral). They probably would have done had the band not taken the decision to delete the single and so it fell just short at 15 weeks. Their chart buster was of course a cover version of The Troggs – at least Adams had the good grace (and financial sense) to write this own tune!

No artist got near that sort of feat until Drake in 2016 whose “One Dance” single was No 1 for 15 weeks in the UK. It occurs to me that I don’t even know how that one goes. I’m not inclined to find out.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	2 Unlimited	Get Ready For This	Get ready for what? No.
2	Kenny Thomas	Something Special	I did not nor have I ever bought any Kenny Thomas records
3	Vic Reeves and The Wonderstuff	Dizzy	Liked it, didn’t buy it
4	Queen	The Show Must Go On	It must but it did so without me
5	Kiri Te Kanawa	World In Union	No thanks
6	Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine	After the Watershed (Early Learning the Hard Way)	See 3 above
7	Mariah Carey	Emotions	Nope
8	Simple Minds	Real Life	No
9	Don McLean	American Pie	Nah
10	Pet Shop Boys	DJ Culture	Not the single but have it on their Pop Art Collection CD
11	Tin Machine	Baby Universal	Negative
12	Bryan Adams	(Everything I Do) I Do It For You	I did not

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0010rl6/top-of-the-pops-24101991

TOTP 23 MAY 1991

Posted on August 6, 2021 by 80stastic

To say we were still in the grip of dance music in mid 1991, this particular TOTP seems to be pretty conventional indeed featuring some very established acts, a couple of previously indie bands plotting a course for the mainstream with a more commercial sound and a new name but very much in the traditional singer-songwriter mould. There’s only two acts that would have qualified as dance music and one of them was Color Me Badd so I’m not sure they count.

Gary ‘Safe Pair of Hands’ Davies is the host and we start with a band desperately trying to convince us that they were still relevant in the new decade despite having made their fame and fortune very much as an 80s group. T’Pau hadn’t released an album for nearly three years by this point. Could they really roll back the clock and reclaim their former glories with a new one called “The Promise”? It seemed like a big ask at the time and so it would prove to be. The first taster of the songs they had been working on was lead single “Whenever You Need Me” and it offered very little in terms of a new musical direction. In short, they hadn’t developed their sound at all. Sure, it chugged along like a good ‘un in a power ballad by numbers fashion but it felt like the band had just decided to play it safe. They call it a ‘lay up’ shot in golf.

Reaction to the band’s return was mixed at best and awful at worst. Adam Sweeting of The Guardian had this to say about the album:

This melodramatic and syrupy concoction would comfortably have earned the band the Barbara Dickson slot on The Two Ronnies. Consider the first single, “Whenever You Need Me”, a Eurovision fourth-placer if ever there was one. Here, as elsewhere, Carol Decker’s masonry-toppling vocals are piled up in layers like a particularly indigestible aural lasagne

Ouch! Carol Decker still looked great and delivered the song as best she could but the rest of the band seemed to have decided that they were, in fact, serious rockers and not faded pop stars after all as they have all sprouted long hair. One of them really looks like ex- Duran Duran guitarist Andy Taylor. It isn’t but Andy’s shaggy locks look had clearly influenced him. I hope he had a good time up there on stage because I’m pretty sure this was T’Pau’s final ever TOTP appearance.

“Whenever You Need Me” peaked at No 16.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrRh6_ETtwM

OK, we might as well get this one out of the way early. As indicated earlier, Color Me Badd are on the show.

*sighs*

Quite how this lot got to become a record selling phenomenon in 1991 is beyond me. They had a shitty song and as poster boys for the new jack swing genre, they were totally unconvincing. They weren’t even that good looking. At least New Kids On The Block had that on their side (well some of them anyway).

Regardless, “I Wanna Sex You Up” is headed for the top and is up to No 7 already. Apparently, it had already been offered to and turned down by the likes of Bell Biv DeVoe and Keith Sweat. Not quite up there with Decca turning down The Beatles but still a big mistake on there behalves. The track went double platinum in the US and was the 10th best selling single of the year in the UK.

The band are still going to this day (sort of) although the line up has changed a few times. Original members Bryan Abrams and Mark Calderon were still giving it there all on stage as recently as 2018 but unfortunately Abrams gave it a bit too much at this performance in New York….

…I like the Wikipedia description of the incident:

Abrams allegedly screamed, “I’m motherfucking Color Me Badd!” as he pushed Calderon to the floor. Officers stated that alcohol may have been a factor.

‘Alcohol may have been a factor‘ – d’ya think?! Abrams tried to make it up to Calderon at a subsequent gig by apologising via the medium of a T-shirt….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPq0Twivg4Q

Dearie me. These are the actual guys from the band by the way and not a tribute act called Fuller Me Badd.

One of those established acts next as Simple Minds are back in the TOTP studio with latest single “See The Lights” which was the second single from their No 2 platinum selling album ‘Real Life”. Like T’Pau earlier, the band were hardly breaking new ground here. It felt like they were treading water to me. There had been a big line up change around this time as the album was made without keyboardist and original band member Mick MacNeil so maybe the band were trying to show their fans that the show would be going on as usual. More changes were a foot as drummer Mel Gaynor would also depart after this album when the band went on hiatus to reassess their options. The only album they released over the next four years was their first Best Of called “Glittering Prize 81/92”. These were uncertain times.

As with the Cher album “Love Hurts” that I talked about in a recent post, “Real Life” also swapped the cover art during its sales life. The album initially sported the minimalist and arty image on the left below before re-orders came with the shot of the band on the right which was actually the original rear cover – all very confusing. Maybe the band’s management wanted to reinforce the idea that tight were essentially a trio of permanent members now.

“See The Lights” peaked at No 20.

That singer-songwriter is up next and it can only be Beverley Craven of course with her rather affecting ballad “Promise Me”. I’m assuming her off white trouser suit and white piano in this performance are an homage to John Lennon and “Imagine”. I don’t know enough about pianos to be sure whether it is a Steinway like Lennon’s. Somebody who does know about musical instruments though is one of my wife’s best friends who is a classical musician and who, like us, was also living in Manchester in 1991 and around this time she got offered a place as part of the band for Beverley’s tour which I think included European dates. However, she turned the chance down as she had already booked a holiday with her then boyfriend and the dates overlapped. They finished not long after. I think she asked Beverley to “promise me you’ll wait for me” but she didn’t. Ahem. I’ll get my coat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u19v5j5j18

It’s that REM song next. “Shiny Happy People” may sound like a gloriously uplifting breath of fresh air pop breeze but supposedly the story behind it is a lot darker. Written about the Chinese propaganda machine spreading lies about what was really going on in the country post the Tiananmen Square uprising, Michael Stipe became concerned that rather than highlighting the propaganda, the song was actually modelling it with music fans accepting wholesale that it was just a happy, piece of bubble gum pop with no other levels to it. He may have been right.

Off the top of my head, other examples of songs where their sound is at odds with their subject matter would be “Luka” by Suzanne Vega and “Born In The USA” by Bruce Springsteen. I’m sure there are more.

“Shiny Happy People” peaked at No 6.

Impromptu gigs – they have quite the history don’t they. All the way back in the early 60s when those Cliff Richard films like Summer Holiday and The Young Ones always seemed to have a “let’s do the show right here” scene in them through to The Beatles unannounced concert from the rooftop of their Apple Corps headquarters at Savile Row in 1969 and into the 80s with U2 performing on the roof of a liquor store at the corner of 7th St and S. Main St, LA as part of the video shoot for “Where the Streets Have No Name”. Even in 1991, the practice was still alive and well as James played an impromptu gig on the roof of Manchester’s Piccadilly Hotel on 30 January. Add to that list The Wonder Stuff whose video for “Caught In My Shadow” was filmed in the grounds of St Philip’s Cathedral (otherwise known as Pigeon Park), Birmingham. Not quite a pure impromptu event though as the band had to get permission from the local council and the police had to be consulted so news of its happening had been leaked meaning that 200 indie pop kids turned up on 20 April to watch the band perform an acoustic gig.

It looked like it was great fun and that everybody had a good time (except maybe the guy in the orange top whose hands seemed surgically sewn into his pockets). The closest I ever got to an event like that was when I was on holiday in New York in 1998 and me and my mate Robin happened to stumble upon a live outside broadcast for the 1000th Ricki Lake show. I presume there’s some footage out there somewhere of me and Robin peering at the back of a crowd trying to see who everyone there was crowding round. My wife and another friend had gone off in another direction that day and saw Donald Trump coming out of Trump Tower. When we met up with them, they excitedly told us of their day and about Trump but Robin and I felt that we eclipsed then with our Ricki Lake story. I’m not sure we did given everything that has happened since.

“Caught In My Shadow” peaked at No 18.

Like T’Pau earlier, here are another band who made their name in the 80s returning with new material for the new decade. The only release that Deacon Blue had made in the 90s up to this point had been their “Four Bacharach & David Songs” EP and an album of B-sides and unreleased tracks called “Ooh Las Vegas” the previous year. “Your Swaying Arms” was their first new material since their album “When The World Knows Your Name” had, indeed, made their name and brought them huge commercial success.

Unfortunately for the band, the follow up album “Fellow Hoodlums” didn’t do anywhere near the same business as its predecessor (which had knocked Madonna off the top of the charts) and was generally seen as a mis-step. Yes, it did reach No 2 in the charts thanks to a sizeable loyal fanbase but I would wager that only second single “Twist And Shout” is remembered and indeed memorable from this era of the band. “Your Swaying Arms” was a case in point. A nice enough track that lilts along but it didn’t really go anywhere.

Ricky Ross had got himself an edgy, short haircut for this performance and the young man that I was at the time would have been always pleased to see Lorraine McIntosh strutting her stuff. Lorraine and Carol Decker on the same show! I was spoilt that week!

“Your Swaying Arms” peaked at No 23.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjioGexBj1s

After the “Innuendo” and “I’m Going Slightly Mad” singles, “Headlong” was much more of a traditional sounding Queen song. Very much in the style of something like “Hammer To Fall” or “One Vision” but not as accomplished. I don’t think lyrics like ‘Hoop-diddy-diddy, hoop-diddy-do’ did it any favours to be honest. The video was shot in November and December of 1990. Within 12 months Freddie Mercury would be dead having succumbed to AIDS.

His yellow top in the video here conjures up images of him in a similarly coloured jacket whipping up the crowd into a frenzy at Wembley stadium. Meanwhile, we can assume that Brian May, unlike most of the rest of us, did have access to The Simpsons TV show judging by his T-shirt.

“Headlong” peaked at No 14.

Acting as the cheerleader of the established acts on tonight’s show comes Cher who is still at No 1 with “The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s In His Kiss)”, now in its fourth week at the top. I guess it was one of those songs that maybe appealed to people who traditionally didn’t buy much music and maybe only found themselves in a record shop once or twice a year? In today’s political vocabulary, ‘it cut through’.

According to Wikipedia, her follow up single “Love And Understanding” was released this week back in 1991 even as she was still top of the pile with her previous one. Talk about striking while the iron’s hot!

Probably the only true dance act on this TOTP is the play out video. Technotronic had been having hits for a couple of year by this point but the game was nearly up come 1991. “Move That Body” was a Top 20 hit but it would be their final one and the album it was from “Body To Body” peaked at No 27 whilst debut album “Pump Up The Jam” had been a No 2 hit. Quite the contrast. I shan’t mourn their passing I have to say.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2jNjketgPE

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoLS1KXKxIw

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	T’Pau	Whenever You Need Me	Nah
2	Color Me Badd	I Wanna Sex You Up	Are you shitting me?!
3	Simple Minds	See The Lights	Nope
4	Beverley Craven	Promise Me	No but why wife’s friend who turned down the tour with Beverley bought the album just to torture herself some more
5	REM	Shiny Happy People	I did not
6	The Wonder Stuff	Caught In My Shadow	No
7	Deacon Blue	Your Swaying Arms	Negative
8	Queen	Headlong	Another no
9	Cher	The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s In His Kiss)	Yes but it was all an honest mistake!
10	Technotronic	Move That Body	Do you have to ask?

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/m000y8wv/top-of-the-pops-23051991

TOTP 11 APR 1991

Posted on July 16, 2021 by 80stastic

Right, I’m starting to get behind on writing up these TOTP reviews. I’m averaging over 3,000 words per post so with two shows being shown on BBC4 a week….I could have easily written multiple books over the number of years I’ve been doing this. With that in mind, I’m going to have to whizz though some of these acts with just a cursory nod to detail and research.

Tonight’s host is Anthea Turner (groan) and we start with The Wonder Stuff who have arrived at that crossroads that most indie type bands arrive at eventually. The one where they look at the sign that points to ‘Megastardom and riches but hand your soul in at the door’ one way and ‘stay credible, critically acclaimed and penniless’ the other. A fork in the road encountered by many before and since. Spandau Ballet started out as the pin up band for the New Romantics cult but made the decision to go mainstream and be one of the biggest bands in the world when they recorded the “True” album. One year on from this TOTP broadcast, The Shamen would go from an underground indie / dance hybrid to being all over our TV screens with a No 1 single and a gurning pop star rapper in Mr C. For now though, it was the turn of Miles Hunt and the gang and they chose fame and fortune with the release of “Size Of A Cow”. The lead single from new album “Never Loved Elvis”, this was a catchy, knock about, shout-a-long tune that was much more pop than anything they had ever done before. It’s almost like a prototype for Blur’s “Country House”. It was hard not to like it though. Hunt himself throws himself into the song with a tartan suit borrowed from Andrew Ridgely and his ruffled shirt. It’s almost like an audition to be the next Dr Who (had it still been on air back then ).

The album would be a huge success going Top 3 whilst “Size Of A Cow” peaked at No 5. Around this time they played a gig at Walsall’s Bescot Stadium to 18,000 fans but had they lost any of their original fan base? If they hadn’t, their loyalty may have been tested to the limit when they teamed up with Vic Reeves for a cover of “Dizzy” later in the year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P-vjvP6b1Y

Madonna‘s only single of 1991 was “Rescue Me”. Nothing to do with the 1965 Fontella Bass single of the same name, this was the second of two new tracks from her mega selling “Immaculate Collection” Best Of album. The first had been the controversial “Justify My Love” and initially there had been no plans to release “Rescue Me” as a follow up but after extensive airplay, Sire Records changed tack and gave it an official release. The video shown here was hastily cobbled together using footage from Madonna’s 1987 Who’s That Girl World Tour.

I have to say it’s not one of my favourites of hers by some distance. I wasn’t that keen on all the spoken word verses although I suppose the chorus is catchy enough. Apparently, when it debuted at No 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in March 1991, it was the highest new entry for a song since The Beatles’ “Let It Be” went straight in at No 6 in March 1970. That can’t be right can it? Whilst we’re talking about the song’s chart performance, it should also be noted that it peaked at No 3 in the UK (Madonna’s fourth of nine singles to peak at that position ) and was the 27th of her 70 UK hit singles! 70! That’s nearly one for very year she’s been alive isn’t it? Actually how old is Madonna now?

*checks Wikipedia*

She’s 62. Close enough.

A bit of a patronising intro from Anthea next as she says of Alison Limerick‘s “Where Love Lives”:

“Alison Limerick first released her debut single last year. It didn’t do so well but she’s released it again and now it’s a hit….”

It’s the tone in her voice, the small grimace on her face and the downwards motion hand gesture that seem a bit snide to me. If this was a text message it would have a sad face emoji at the end of it. Enough of Anthea though.

Alison is one of those names that have been around for ages like Ruby Turner or Beverley Knight but who surprisingly doesn’t have the number of hits that you would think they do. “Where Love Lives” is one of just six Top 40 UK hits. Actually its two of six as it was a hit again in 1996. As Anthea correctly pointed out, it was first released in 1990 when it peaked at No 87 but after extensive play in the clubs, it warranted a re-release – with the addition of the suffix (Come On In)’91 – and it was a No 27 hit. It reached its highest peak though when remixed in 1996 when it made No 9.

Alison looks damn cool here as she gives a slick performance with her Grace Jones style crew cut and sharp dance moves. She has worked with acts as diverse as The Style Council, This Mortal Coil and The James Taylor Quartet and she continues to record and sing live to this day.

It’s another showing of the Gary Clail On-U Sound System performance of “Human Nature” from the other week next although I think Anthea stuffs up the intro by saying Gary Clail and the New Sound System. I’ve played it back three times now and I’m pretty sure that’s what she says. I know I sound pedantic but her job on TOTP was literally to say the names of artists and their songs. You can’t get that shit wrong, you really can’t.

As for Gary, although “Human Nature” was the only hit he had that enabled a TOTP appearance, he had his eyes on the prize as way back as 1985 when he featured on an On-U Sound System track called “Half Cut For Confidence” The backing musicians on it were industrial hip-hop legends TackHead but they were credited as TOTP an acronym for The Occult Technology of Power but surely it was also a deliberate pun on the BBC music show?

“Human Nature” peaked at No 10.

Not sure I remember this one. Monie Love and Adeva together? Nope it doesn’t (and yes I’m going there) ring any bells. When I saw the title of their single, I assumed it was a cover of the Anita Ward disco classic “Ring My Bell” that went to No 1 in 1979 but no, it isn’t. This was the sixth and final single to be taken from Monie Love’s “Down To Earth” album so we had heard quite a lot from her over the last year or so. The same could not be said of Adeva who had not been near the charts for nearly two years when her debut album provided her with four Top 40 hits including three that peaked at No 17. Would it be mean to suggest it was Adeva whose career needed a shot in the arm off the coat tails of Monie Love? Probably yes but it is true that “Ring My Bell” would be her last ever Top 20 hit.

The video rather predictably goes with a boxing match concept thereby including both the ringing of a bell theme and setting up a confrontation as in Monie Love vs Adeva. There’s no actual punches thrown though as all the action is done from the safety of their respective corners.

This wasn’t really my cup of tea at all and I’d rather it had been a cover of Anita Ward.

Now here’s a line that you would never have expected to hear and which actually doesn’t make any sort of sense but then it is from the mouth of Anthea Turner so….

“We’ve got a real treat for you now. A stage full of expensive suits. In those suits are Mike + The Mechanics…”

A bit to unpack here. What is the big deal about some middle aged men wearing expensive suits? Were we meant to be jealous? If so, how is that a treat for us? Or were we meant to admire how good they looked in them? With the greatest respect to Paul Carrack, Mike Rutherford and Paul Young (not that one) et al, I don’t think the suits made that much difference in the looks department.

“Word of Mouth” would peak at 13 whilst its parent album of the same name went silver certifying 60,000 sales. Its cover art seemed to influence a much cooler band 14 years later. Have a look…

It’s the top selling albums of the month feature next and for March 1991 they were:

1.Eurythmics – “Greatest Hits”

2. Chris Rea – “Auberge”

3. The Farm – “Spartacus”

4. REM – “Out Of Time”

5. Debbie Harry / Blondie – “The Complete Picture”

Well, that seems a bit better than recent months. Yes, two are Best Of compilations but what Best Ofs! The Eurythmics one was their first ever and I for one was certainly looking forward to it coming out. It would go on to be the second best selling album of the year after it was pipped at the post by Simply Red’s “Stars”. Although it wouldn’t stand the test of time, at least “Spartacus” was by a new, up and coming band after months of the Top 5 being populated by the likes of Elton John, Madonna and Pavarotti. Talking of time, REM’s “Out Of Time” was really starting to establish them as a world conquering band. It was only really Chris Rea that was letting the Top 5 down.

Another glimpse of patronising Anthea next as she seeks to make us all dismiss the fact that Dannii Minogue is not just Kylie’s sister by pointing out that Dannii Minogue is actually Kylie’s sister. After highlighting her genealogy, Anthea says “she’s a great little actress, she’s got a charming personality…”. No doubt Anthea thought she was being complimentary but it just doesn’t come across like that. The use of the word little seems unnecessary and the charming personality vibe indicates that there is a silent ‘though’ implied.

“Love And Kisses” was her debut hit but I don’t think time has been kind to it. There’s not much of a tune in there and it seems to hinge on an energetic dance routine rather than any musical virtues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-CdWiqRNo4

Chesney Hawkes is still No 1 and we get the video this week although there seems to be some confusion over this as I have found two different promos for “The One And Only”. The one that TOTP shows is a straight forward performance of the song in a gig setting intercut with some scenes of Chezza arriving at the venue, being mobbed by fans and signing some autographs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mk82Ns6vdk

However, there is also another video that seems to have an A-ha “Take On Me” inspired plot to it. In this one, two female friends go to the cinema to watch Buddy’s Song (the film that launched Chesney and that features “The One And Only”) and Chesney steps out of the film and into the cinema auditorium to beckon one of the girls to come to a storage room with him. It’s not really a winning chat up line. There then follows some intertextuality themed escapades as Chesney gets pulled in and out of the film pursued by his father played by Roger Daltrey in hot pursuit. Eventually Chesney and cinema girl both end up in the film together before a climatic snog. Now apparently, ‘cinema girl’ is played by Saffron from Republica and if this is true, then this is the second time in a matter of weeks that I have been unaware of her presence on the show. We saw her recently as the vocalist for N-Joi on their “Anthem” single. I don’t know, a character from soap opera Families turning up in The Mock Turtles and now someone being in a Chesney Hawkes video whilst also fronting a dance act. These were strange times indeed.

Did someone mention The Shamen before? Well, here are the very fellows with “Hyperreal”. Taken from their “En-Tact” album, it achieved what previous singles “Pro-Gen” and “Make It Mine” hadn’t by becoming the band’s very first Top 40 hit. I have to say that I didn’t think it was as good as either of those but it was still pretty decent tune anyway.

Tragically, this would be the last single release before band member Will Sinnott drowned whilst swimming off the coast of Canary Island La Gomera. Electing to carry on, Colin Angus pressed forward with the release of “Move Any Mountain” (which was basically a remix of “Pro-Gen” under a new title) and it would cement the band’s reputation as chart stars when it peaked at No 4 in the Summer.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgUCeaSM8co

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Wonder Stuff	Size Of A Cow	I didn’t
2	Madonna	Rescue Me	No but I did have The Immaculate Collection with it on
3	Alison Limerick	Where Love Lives	Nope
4	Gary Clail / On-U Sound System	Human Nature	Liked it, didn’t buy it
5	Monie Love / Adeva	Ring My Bell	Nah
6	Mike + The Mechanics	Word Of Mouth	And the word was no
7	Dannii Minogue	Love And Kisses	Definitely not
8	Chesney Hawkes	The One And Only	It’s a no
9	The Shamen	Hyperreal	Negative

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/m000xp0h/top-of-the-pops-11041991

TOTP 10 MAY 1990

Posted on December 15, 2020 by 80stastic

I haven’t done this in a while but here is a quick retread of what this blog is about. I, a 52 year old middle aged man, am reviewing each of the TOTP repeats broadcast on BBC4 whilst also trying desperately to remember what I was up to 30 odd years ago when they were originally aired. I’ve been doing this for four years since the TOTP shows got up to 1983 and we are now into 1990! The years ’83 – ’89 are covered in my blog 80spop.wordpress.com whilst ’90 onwards will all feature in this blog. Why am I doing this? I ask myself this question constantly. I guess it’s not to discover ‘new’ music although there are often songs and acts that come up that I have forgotten about or never took any notice of in the first place. I can’t think of many though that have inspired me to delve into any deeper cuts by said acts and discover new musical frontiers. I guess I must just be a sucker for nostalgia and given the state of the current world, who wouldn’t want to escape to a different era for a while to pretend 2020 isn’t happening? Come on then, let’s flee back to 1990 – I’m 21 (soon to be 22) and with my whole life ahead of me…..

Up until this point, Kylie Minogue had pretty much always been regarded as a Stock, Aitken and Waterman pop puppet, singing and dancing and smiling along to their conveyor belt of formulaic songs that they seemed to have an endless supply of. And it had served her well. Her nine single releases with The Hit Factory had yielded four No 1s, four no 2s and a No 4. Not too shabby at all. However, by 1990, following in the footsteps of many other manufactured pop stars stretching all the way back to the 60s and The Monkees, Kylie wanted to be taken more seriously. “Better The Devil You Know” is undoubtedly the starting point for that journey into credibility. Acting like a ‘year zero’ marker, it appeared fully formed out of the changing rooms of pop and said in a confident tone “What do you think?”. After getting over the ‘wow!’ factor of this performance, I think I must have been taken aback at the accomplished sound that SAW had managed to come up with for Kylie. For let’s not forget, “Better The Devil You Know” is a SAW creation in its entirety from its writing through to its production. However, the parent album “Rhythm Of Love” was the first time that Kylie was allowed more creative freedom and resulted in working with producers other than SAW on four tacks that also resulted in credits as co-writer for her. However, the four singles that were taken from the album that really solidified this new era of Kylie were all SAW productions.

Kylie is nine days older than me so, just as I was about to turn 22 and facing up to those big life decisions of what to do next, she was also making some major life choices*. She had already left Neighbours and had starred in a much more gritty vehicle in the film The Delinquents, a coming of age romantic drama. More influential than any of this though was the fact that she was now dating INXS frontman Michael Hutchence. A lot has been made and written about the corrupting effect of wild man of rock Hutchence on little girl next door Kylie but I am of the opinion that Ms Minogue had more than enough about her to be making her own career and life choices. I’m sure Hutchence was an influence but let’s face it, “Better The Devil You Know” doesn’t sound like any INXS song I know.

Generally referred to as the ‘Sexy Kylie’ era of her career, certainly this release ushered in a change of image with the video for “Better The Devil You Know” featuring Kylie recreating the replicant chase scene from Bladerunner where Deckard guns down a see through mac clad Zhora and cavorting about in a black dress with the straps constantly falling down.

“Better The Devil You Know” would peak at No 2 (kept off the No 1 spot only by Adamski with “Killer”) but the album would not sell nearly as well as her first two long players. She would complete her contract with the PWL label in 1991 with the release of “Lets Get To It” before resurfacing in 1994 as ‘Dance Kylie’ with the release of her “Confide In Me” single on Mike Pickering’s Deconstruction label.

*Obviously we took very different career paths on the back of those decisions – my time as a gay icon is yet to happen I have to admit.

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

The Wonder Stuff up next with “Circle Square”. Miles Hunt and co had been making steady inroads into the business of being a chart act for a couple of years now. After their first chart breakthrough in 1988 with “It’s Yer Money I’m After Baby” which made No 40, the Stuffies had notched up a further three hit singles peaking at Nos 28, 19 and 33. “Circle Square” would continue that consolidation by topping out at No 20.

As far as I can work out, it wasn’t taken from their then current album “Hup” but rather was a stand alone single although it was included in the track listing on its 21st anniversary rerelease in 2010. I liked this and the lyric “I’ve been a long term disappointment to myself” has stuck with me these past 30 years like a personal statement (see also “I failed my own audition” from “Up Here In The North Of England” by The Icicle Works).

However the band would have to wait another year before becoming a massive commercial success when the release of their hit single “Size Of A Cow” propelled them into the Top 5 and parent album “Never Loved Elvis” into the Top 3. Their decision to hook up with Vic Reeves for a cover of Tommy Roe’s “Dizzy” in October of that year would grant them a bona fide chart topper. However, would that be the moment it all came right or the moment it all went wrong?

It’s the man known as Mantronix next alongside vocalist Wondress with a tune called “Take Your Time”. This was the follow up to their No 4 hit “Got To Have Your Love” and it did / does absolutely nothing for me. I’m not the world’s biggest electro-funk fan it has to be said but this sounds as convincing as a Boris Johnson promise.

Asked in a Smash Hits interview who he would rather go out with from a choice of Margaret Thatcher (!), Tanita Tikaram or Kylie, Kurtis Mantronix replied none of them on the basis that:

Mrs Thatch had no compassion (fair point)
Tanita was in a different frame of mind to him
He didn’t know what Kylie looked like!

Hang on, you’re on the same TOTP show as her! Weren’t you watching her perform at the top of the show Kurtis? When pressed on this by his manager Chuck (“You didn’t see her yesterday at Top Of The Pops? She’s real cute man.”) Mantronix replied “No! You guys saw her. I was back in the dressing room. She has no sensuality.” Whaaat?! No sensuality?! Kylie?!

“Take Your Time” peaked at No 10.

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

Teen sensations New Kids On The Block are back with their latest offering “Cover Girl” and if you though their previous hits like “You Got It (The Right Stuff)” and “Hangin’ Tough” were drivel, then I advise you not to watch the video below. “Cover Girl” is bubble gum pop taken to a new saccharine low. Propelled by a Wurlitzer sounding organ backing and some of the dodgiest lyrics of all time, this one not only reeks but it stinks the place out. The video is just the band performing live to an adoring audience (didn’t they do the same thing for the “Hangin’ Tough” video?) with Donnie Wahlberg taking lead vocal duties and making a right arse of himself. He absolutely honks at some points in the song and just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse he gets a pre-pubescent little girl on stage with him and sings to her that she’s his ‘cover girl”. Jeeze! Could he be anymore inappropriate?!

“Cover Girl” peaked at No 4 and be warned. New Kids On The Block are not yet done with 1990; not by a long chalk.

1990 didn’t just belong to New Kids On The Block though. Here are one of the year’s biggest break out stars Beats International back in the charts with “Won’t Talk About It”. Having hit on the perfect pop / dance formula with “Dub Be Good To Me”, could Norman Cook, Lindy Layton et al repeat the trick with this new track? I say new but it had already been released as a double A-side together with “Blame It On The Bassline” under the name of Norman Cook back in 1989. That version included Billy Bragg’s vocals alongside his guitar riff from “Levi Stubbs Tears”…

When reissued under the name of Beats International the following year, Lindy Layton and Lester Noel’s had laid down their vocals on the track instead and it sounded much more polished and chart friendly though not necessarily better in my book. To answer the question of whether they could repeat the success of “Dub Be Good To Me”, the answer was yes…and no. “Won’t Talk About It” was another chart hit and even made the Top 10 but its No 9 peak was nowhere near what its predecessor had achieved. It would also prove to be their last ever Top 40 entry before they eventually disbanded in 1992. Whilst Cook went onto massive success under various pseudonyms (most notably Fatboy Slim), Lindy Layton secured herself a solo career via a recording contract with Arista. Her first single was a cover of Janet Kaye’s “Silly Games” (which Kaye also featured on) and was a No 22 hit but it was a case of diminishing returns after that for future releases. Lindy is still in the music business as a song writer and co-runs house label Good Lucky Recordings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4zkj40jCWg

I’m being absolutely tortured by the Michael Bolton appearances in these TOTP repeats. Here he is again with “How Can We Be Lovers”. I knew he would be coming up and that I’d have to confess my Bolton concert story at some point but I wasn’t planning on having to reference it so many times. Look, it was a long time ago and it wasn’t my idea OK?!

“How Can We Be Lovers” was written by Diane Warren and Desmond Child who between them have also penned the following soft rock ‘classics’:

Cher – “Just Like Jesse James”
Bon Jovi -“You Give Love A Bad Name”
Bon Jovi – “Livin’ On A Prayer”
Aerosmith – “Dude (Looks Like A Lady)”
Aerosmith – I Don’t Want Miss A Thing”
Starship – Nothings’s Gonna Stop Us Now”

Depensing on your tastes, that’s either some track record or a charge list of crimes against music.

In 1991, when I was working at Our Price in the Market Street store in Manchester, Bolton released an album called “Time, Love And Tenderness” (the title track was written by the aforementioned Diane Warren) and the picture of him on the front cover looked remarkably like one of our Assistant Managers called Rob (if you ignored all that hair which Rob didn’t have). I’m guessing it wasn’t the most flattering thing anyone had ever said to him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVzV63dld-w

“Hold On” by En Vogue is the next song on tonight’s TOTP playlist. This was not only a No 2 hit in the US and a No 5 hit over here but also an award winning track picking up the R&B Single of the Year pot from Billboard and the Best Single by a Duo/Group title from Soul Train. Given those accolades, it’s fair to say that En Vogue very much paved the way for a slew of female R&B groups of the 90s including Brownstone, Jade, Destiny’s Child, SWV and TLC.

I could never really get on board with “Hold On” though. It really wasn’t my scene in 1990 (if indeed I had a scene) but I did go on to appreciate En Vogue more as the decade progressed with songs like “Free Your Mind” and “Whatta Man” expanding my musical horizons. Free your mind indeed.

It’s new No 1 time and as confidently predicted by Simon Mayo on last week’s show, it’s “Killer” by Adamski and Seal. It’s another studio performance and the ballet woman from the other week is back and is still doing her thing in the background. And I thought Howard Jones’s mime artist Jed was annoying!

I saw Seal live in the early 90s at the Manchester Apollo but I can’t recall much about it other than his voice was amazing. I’d forgotten that, following in the footsteps of Frankie Goes To Hollywood, his debut album was on the ZTT label and was produced by Trevor Horn. Apparently there are two versions of the album in circulation. One is a ‘premix’ version and the second and more common is the updated remix. According to Seal, the two versions exist because he and Trevor Horn had very little time to finish the first version (due to needing to get some single releases mixed and out into the market) and also because of never knowing when enough tinkering is enough or as Seal puts it “a bad habit that Trevor and myself share, the inability to let go” (thanks to http://futureloveparadise.co.uk/ for that quote).

Do you get the impression that I’m finding it easier to comment on Seal rather than Adamski?!

Despite the seemingly endless smorgasbord of dance tunes populating the charts in the 90s, there was also room for some hard rockin’ dudes and I don’t mean the established acts like Def Leppard and Whitesnake. No, these were new names that emerged within the new decade. Tearing up the Top 40 with their brand of hard but melodic rock were the likes of Little Angels, The Quireboys, Terrorvision and this lot Thunder who are back on the show with their new single “Backstreet Symphony”. This was the title track from their debut album, an album that would generate five Top 40 singles – not bad going although that statement is tempered by the fact that none of them actually made it into the Top 20. Even so, it was a pretty impressive start. With former Duran Duran guitarist Andy Taylor producing it, the album was certified gold for shifting 100,000 units. However, in a piece on the band on rock journalist Dave Ling’s website, Thunder guitarist Luke Morley says of working with Taylor:

“He’d just say, ‘Do it louder and faster, and I’ll mix the drinks’”

Hmm. A genius at work no doubt.

I didn’t mind this track although I’d preferred their previous single, T-Rex rip off “Dirty Love”. One more thing, why is it that there always seems to be at least one member of these long haired rock bands that stands out by either having a short haircut or actually being bald?

“Backstreet Symphony” (the single) peaked at No 25.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87BRGJf3wTU

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lDfZTyCyhY

fdghjkl;

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Kylie Minogue	Better The Devil You Know	No but I think my wife has a Greatest Hits album with it on
2	The Wonder Stuff	Circle Square	Nope
3	Mantronix featuring Wondress	Take Your Time	I could take all day but I won’t change my mind about this – no
4	New Kids On The Block	Cover Girl	Away with your nonsense!
5	Beats International	Won’t Talk About It	No but my wife has their album with a version of it on
6	Michael Bolton	How Can We Be Lovers	NO!
7	En Vogue	Hold On	Nah
8	Adamski	Killer	No but I had the Seal album with his version of it on
9	Thunder	Backstreet Symphony	I did not

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/m000q5l5/top-of-the-pops-10051990

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

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 08 SEP 1994

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TOTP 25 NOV 1993

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TOTP 23 SEP 1993

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TOTP 30 JAN 1992

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TOTP 14 NOV 1991

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TOTP 24 OCT 1991

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TOTP 23 MAY 1991

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TOTP 11 APR 1991

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TOTP 10 MAY 1990

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Some bedtime reading?