Therapy?

TOTP 03 AUG 1995

Posted on January 9, 2024 by 80stastic

Back in August 1995, our lives were about to change. Well, for those of us who were partial to a pint or two. You see, the Sunday after this TOTP aired, public houses in the UK were permitted to remain open throughout Sunday afternoons for the first time ever. Wa-hey! Get the beers in! I have to say it’s hard to recall the effect that this may have had on the nation given our current all day licensing laws but I assume it was quite the seismic cultural shift. I wonder if I can get some alcohol references into all of the artists on this TOTP? Anyone fancy a pint?

We start with my nemesis Therapy? Now, it’s not that I can’t stand them but rather that they kind of passed me by at the time and I never really know what to say about them when they appear on these TOTP repeats which feels like it’s all the time. It makes sense chart-wise –“Loose” was the band’s ninth UK Top 40 hit in under three years but even given how prolific they were at releasing hit singles, I kind of get the impression executive show producer Ric Blaxill must have been a fan for them to have been invited on the show so regularly. Anyway, here they are but they don’t sound like I was expecting. “Loose” – to my ears at least – seems almost…well, like a Busted tune. OK, I’m exaggerating – call it artistic licence – but it’s certainly more Green Day than Nirvana but then Therapy?, according to my online research, forged a career of longevity out of adapting their sound to challenge their fanbase and indeed themselves so maybe nobody should have been surprised.

Perhaps what did take people by surprise though was lead singer Andy Cairn’s appearance. Quite the change from his previous trip to the TOTP studios – he’s gone full on rocker complete with greased back barnet, facial hair and sideburns. It’s a look that is used as the cover art of their album “Infernal Love” so a change in image that was presumably part of a bigger promotional rebrand. I’m probably reading far too much into it – he probably just got bored of his old look. We’ve all experimented with different styles haven’t we? I tried growing a goatee beard myself around this time. When I tired of it, I booked myself an appointment with a hairdresser to shave it off. When I got to the salon, I was greeted by hoots of derision by the guy who was going to do it. He pointed at my face and exclaimed “That’s not a beard!”. I never felt so emasculated!

Alcohol association: Well’ ‘loose’ can be slang for being inebriated can’t it?

It seems to me that Italian Eurodance project Corona managed to amass more UK chart hits than they had any right to. “The Rhythm Of The Night” was a decent example of the genre but did we really need subsequent watered down facsimiles of it that got weaker with each release? No, no we didn’t and yet the hits kept coming. “Baby Baby” made No 5 whilst this one – “Try Me Out” – would peak at No 6.

“The Rhythm Of The Night”, of course, shared its title (save for a definite article) with a famous hit from the 80s. DeBarge took their song to No 4 in the UK but unlike Corona, had the decency to be one hit wonders (over here at least). As well as a link to the 80s, the group also share a connection with the 00s. Do you remember the ITV show Popstars that gave us Hear’Say? Yes? OK, do you recall the five hopefuls that fell at the final hurdle but decided to form their own group anyway (or more likely at the prompting of a rival record label) called Liberty? Still with me? Good. So Liberty had to change their name to Liberty X as there was already a band called Liberty who objected. So what has any of this to do with Corona? Well, they amended their moniker in 2001 to…yep, Corona X. It’s not a great anecdote I admit but then Corona weren’t a great act so it’s all they deserve in my book.

Alcoholic association: Has to be the Mexican beer called Corona.

Next, the first of two tracks on the show that were originally recorded in the 80s. The life and times of “Blue Monday” by New Order is quite the tale. We all know the track but here’s some facts and stats behind it:

Originally released March 1983 on 12” only peaking at No 12
Returned to the chart in August 1983 surpassing its previous chart high by making No 9
Remixed by Arthur Baker in 1988 and released in UK in 7” format for first time. Peaks at No 3
Remixed by Hardfloor and released in 1995. Peaks at No 17
Spent 89 weeks on Top 100 chart over three releases spanning 12 years selling 1.16 million copies
Best selling 12” record of all time

This 1995 release was, rather unimaginatively, officially titled “Blue Monday–95” and was released as a single to promote “The Rest Of New Order” compilation. The band themselves were on a hiatus following the difficult recording of the 1993 album “Republic” and were showing no signs of wishing to work together again anytime soon. Their new record label London clearly wouldn’t have been too jazzed about the lack of any new material from their artist so turned to the back catalogue that they brought with them. We’d already had “The Best Of New Order” album in 1994 which had been a big seller so London wasted no time in trying to repeat the trick with an album of remixes. Having used “True Faith” and “1963” to promote the first compilation, it made sense that they would look to their best known track to advertise the follow up. What a horrible incarnation of an iconic song this remix was though. Maybe that sound was where it was at in 1995 but for me, this version strips away all the power and intrigue of the original replacing it with fuzzy bleeps and beats and turns Bernard Sumner’s vocal into a disembodied, distant ghost of itself. As I write this, we’ve just had the other ‘Blue Monday’, the third Monday in January which has come to be known as the most miserable day of the year but even that day has nothing on the misery of the 1995 remix of New Order’s classic song.

Alcohol association: In 2016, New Order launched their own brand of beer called Stray Dog after a track on their album “Music Complete”.

Black Grape are back with their second single “In The Name Of The Father”. The follow up to their debut “Reverend Black Grape”, this was very much more of the same which was no bad thing in my book. Some funky grooves and nonsensical lyrics (Neil Armstrong having bigger balls than King Kong indeed!)? Yes please!

Kermit’s crutch (he’d broken his ankle at the T in the Park festival) puts me in mind of the infamous Extreme Noise Terror / The KLF BRIT Awards performance…but without the machine gun fire at the end obviously.

Just as I was writing this whilst listening to Radio 2 (no, you do one! I’m 55!), Shaun Ryder appeared as a guest on the Dermot O’Leary show and they were talking about this incident on TFI Friday from back in the day. God, I miss being young(er).

Alcohol association: Black Grape? Wine? Cabernet Sauvignon? Yeah, that’ll do.

Something out of leftfield now from…well…Leftfield. Despite having a No 3 album in debut “Leftism”, huge single success had eluded the electronic duo of Neil Barnes and Paul Daley. “Afro–Left” couldn’t change that though it was pretty interesting. Featuring gibberish, African sounding spoken vocals and a trippy, hypnotic backbeat, it wasn’t your average chart entry. The supplier of those vocals was listed on the record as Djum Djum. In my first draft of this review – and I swear this is true – I referred to Djum Djum as the African Stanley Unwin, the comic actor who was famous for creating ‘Unwinese’ (essentially a gobbledygook version of English). I deleted the comparison though thinking it might be too niche but on researching Djum Djum further, I came across a piece which suggested that he was, in fact, the son of Stanley Unwin! Other ‘facts’ about him was that he also went by the name of Neil Cole and that he was the originator of Jum Jum which is the sound you make whilst chewing an elastic band! I’m not sure I’m having any of this though. I mean, come on! Jum Jum? I should Coco!

Alcohol association: I thought I might struggle with this one but it turns out that there is not only a Left Field Beer company but also a Leftfield vineyard and a Left-Field whiskey distillery.

Next, the second of those songs that were recorded in the 80s. Originally released as the B-side to their 1986 hit “Suburbia”, I first became aware of this Pet Shop Boys track around 1987 when my girlfriend (now wife) bought me a cassette of their remix album “Disco”. “Paninaro” was the fourth of just six songs on said album but always stood out even against the remixes of all the singles from their debut long player “Please”. Starting off with a drum sound that is reminiscent of the J. Arthur Rank gong, it then takes off with an excoriating synth sound before the almost unique happens – a Pet Shop Boys vocal by Chris Lowe. OK, he’s speaking rather than singing but it works perfectly as the normally motionless one of the duo recites just eight words on a loop that speak of the very essence of the human experience interspersed with name checks for Italian designers like Armani and Versace. How so? It turns out that the ‘paninari’ were a 1980s Italian youth subculture who were into designer clothing, pop music and hanging out in fast food restaurants (‘panino’ is Italian for sandwich). Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe identified with the movement which inspired the song.

All very interesting but why was it put out again in 1995 you might well ask? Well, “Paninaro ‘95” was a bunch of remixes including one by Tin Tin Out that was used to promote the B-sides compilation album “Alternative” that was released the Monday after this TOTP aired. Very much like New Order before them I guess.

The performance here is obviously memorable for the role reversal which sees Neil behind the keyboards and Chris up front and centre. The latter clearly isn’t used to the spotlight and looks like he doesn’t know where to put himself even turning his back on the studio audience at one point. To make up for Chris’s shortcomings as the focal point, there’s some serious overcompensating going on with the two oiled up male dancers behind him. Was that really necessary? They could have done with some more clothes on them and talking of clothes, that “Alternative” album that I mentioned earlier featured the track “In The Night” which was adopted as the theme tune to the old BBC fashion programme The Clothes Show…

Alcohol association: Tricky one this…the only thing I’ve got is that in the book Literally which documents the duo’s first ever tour in 1989, there’s plenty of references to the consumption of alcohol with champagne being a favourite tipple.

Talking of tricky…in 1995, trip-hop was a big deal spearheaded by the holy trinity of Massive Attack, Portishead and, yep, Tricky. Having been an early member of Massive Attack but not fancying the idea of fame and fortune, Tricky (real name Adrian Thaws) branched out on his own and found…fame and fortune. His seminal debut album “Maxinquaye” went gold and made No 3 in the charts. The music press lavished it with praise and it topped many a publication’s album of the year poll. It received a Mercury Music Prize nomination losing out to, you guessed it, Portishead’s “Dummy”. As a consequence of this success, Tricky’s face adorned the covers of magazines like…erm…The Face and Wire but he was never comfortable with his celebrity though he did rather court publicity by dating Björk. He also had a relationship with the vocalist on “Maxinquaye” Marina Topley-Bird.

This song- “Hell Is Around The Corner” – was taken from “The Hell E.P.” which was a collaboration with US hip-hop group Gravediggaz though they didn’t contribute to this particular track. It would prove to be Tricky’s biggest ever hit peaking at No 12. The man himself stated that he didn’t like the term ‘trip-hop’ and shied away from claims that he invented the genre. His stance was reinforced by him releasing a song that sounded very similar to Portishead’s “Glory Box” that was released six months earlier. The fact was though that both artists had sampled the same track – Isaac Hayes’s “Ike’s Rap II” – though who actually recorded their song first (as opposed to releasing it) is disputed.

Alcohol association: There is a dessert cocktail called The Grave Digger which is a coffee liqueur comprising brandy, Grand Marnier and is topped with crushed Oreo biscuits on whipped cream with a tiny shovel accessory to signify a freshly dug grave. Tricky stuff.

And suddenly it is upon us. When people talk about the pop music story of 1995, one event dominates. Not just the biggest story of the year but possibly the whole decade. We have arrived at a defining moment in time – the ‘Battle of Britpop’ is here! Now I don’t intend to rehash this story in detail – so much has been written about it already that it’s all out there and easily accessible from just a basic search of the internet. However, I was working in a record shop at the time (Our Price in Stockport) and during that week in the middle of August that saw the dual release of “Country House” by Blur and “Roll With It” by Oasis, I stood in for the singles buyer who was on leave which brought a certain amount of pressure – to run out of either release would have been unforgivable. I was checking stocks of both on what seemed like an hourly basis.

It was though an unbelievably exciting time to be working in record retail with news crews dispatched to shops (not ours sadly) to film pieces that would make headlines on the national evening news. Such was the intense media speculation that the story transformed from the tale of two singles to a class war with Oasis cast as working class northerners and Blur as arty, southern softies. The narrative constructed was that you were either on the side of one or the other and your choice of which single to buy was akin to casting a vote with record shops remodelled as polling stations. The truth is, of course, that plenty of people bought both though not necessarily in the same purchase. I worked with someone who bought one in the first week of release and the other in the second – she liked both tunes but had a preference for one to be No 1 over the other. I can’t recall which way round it was but I guess this was the record shop equivalent of tactical voting.

Anyway, it’s Blur we’re concerned with in this show who have the ‘exclusive’ performance slot to promote the lead single from their new album “The Great Escape”. Now the TOTP caption says that “Country House” was to be released on 14th August which was also the date that “Roll With It” was due in the shops. As such, the decision by Blur (mainly Damon from what I can ascertain) to go head to head with their rivals had already been taken. Reportedly wrong footed by Creation pushing forward the Oasis release date by weeks and fearing that they would trail in the wake of a second successive No 1 for the Mancs, the battle was set up by “Country House” having its own release date shifted to 14th August as well. I’m guessing I would have been aware of all this what with working in a record shop and all but it’s hard to recall at a distance of nearly twenty-nine years.

So what of the actual song itself? Received opinion is that “Country House” is not actually very good and certainly is not a good representation of the band’s canon. Whilst there is some credence to that conventional wisdom, I think history has shown that there was more to the tune than it being what Liam Gallagher described as ‘chimney sweep music’. Yes, the band themselves seemed to disown the song, refusing to play it live for many years but accusations of it being a throwaway pop song are wide of the mark I feel. There’s a sense of unruliness to it but it also has layers. The knockabout fun coexists with some standout melancholy moments like the “blow, blow me out, I am so sad I don’t know why” line when the song pauses for breath. Whether it can ever escape the connotations of that time or not I don’t know but it’s probably better than it is remembered as. We’ll get the whole denouement of the ‘Battle of Britpop’ soon enough but then we all know who won don’t we?

Alcohol association: Bassist Alex James developed more than a liking for champagne to supplement his cheese obsession and he did call his autobiography “Bit Of A Blur”.

Take That are No 1 this week with “Never Forget”. I went into all the Robbie Williams leaving the group stuff the last time I wrote about this one so I’m not going to go over all that again. Suffice to say, due to a clause in his Take That contract, he wasn’t allowed to release any solo material until six months after the band was officially dissolved meaning that the first Robbie Williams single – a rather weak cover of George Michael’s “Freedom” – didn’t see the light of day until the end of July 1996. That will either be a relief or totally infuriating to viewers of these BBC4 TOTP repeats depending on your inclination. I will say though that I recall catching Williams appearing on a breakfast TV show (possibly The Big Breakfast) not long after he had left the group where he was his usual bullish self (no sign of any regret or self reflection) where he kept going on about how brilliant his little bit of singing was on “Never Forget”. What a class act!

Alcohol association: Gary Barlow launched his own range of organic wine in 2021.

The play out video is “Waterfalls” by TLC. I don’t think I ever quite realised quite how much of a big deal this trio was until I checked their discography. Four American No 1 records! Wow! Their level of success over here was a bit more tempered but they still racked up four Top 10 hits including this one which made No 4. A groundbreaking track in many respects, its lyrics made reference to drugs related violence and HIV/AIDS which was one of the very first mainstream chart songs to do so. It’s hard not to fall for the sonic charms of “Waterfalls”. It’s the very definition of ‘slinky’ with a smooth beat that oozes class aligned with some gorgeous vocal stylings and a killer rap from Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes. Those attributes earned it two Grammy nominations for Record of the Year and Best Vocal Performance and a Soul Train Music Award for Best R&B / Soul single.

If the song itself wasn’t enough to tempt you to dive right into it, then there was the video. A combination of literal retelling of the lyrics visually and special effects, it would win four gongs at the MTV Video Music Awards. If the image of the trio performing whilst seemingly standing on water in an ocean wasn’t striking enough then their liquefied, ‘water sprite’ forms dancing in front of a waterfall couldn’t help but make an impression. This seemed like cutting-edge stuff in 1995.

Lopes would tragically die in a car crash just seven years on from “Waterfalls”. The lyrics of her rap from it were engraved on her casket.

Alcohol association: There is a sobriety support group called The Luckiest Club who use the abbreviation TLC as part of their identity. There’s also a non-alcohol beer company called Tropical Lager Coral’ation.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Therapy?	Loose	No
2	Corona	Try Me Out	As if
3	New Order	Blue Monday – 95	I did not
4	Black Grape	In The Name Of The Father	No but I had the album
5	Leftfield	Afro-Left	It’s a no from me
6	Pet Shop Boys	Paninaro ‘95	Nope
7	Tricky	The Hell E.P.	Nah
8	Blur	Country House	See 4 above
9	Take That	Never Forget	Negative
10	TLC	Waterfalls	Liked it, didn’t buy it

Disclaimer

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

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

TOTP 01 JUN 1995

Posted on November 22, 2023 by 80stastic

It’s June 1995 and I’ll be 27 years old in five days time. Where does the time go? Well, I’ve been writing this blog for the last 8 years for a start! Seriously though, time and the passing of it can really bend your head if you think about it for too long. Do you reckon these BBC4 TOTP repeats have a similar effect on the acts who actually appeared on the show? Being reminded of your glory days that have now faded and of a time when you were young and beautiful as opposed to the person ravaged by middle age that they are now?

Take opening act Reef for example. I wonder if lead singer Gary Stringer still has all that hair?

*googles Gary Stringer*

Yes he does! It has gone grey though and he’s grown a huge beard but still. Not a bad effort. I tried convincing myself a few years back that I didn’t look much different from when I was in my 20s. It was complete tosh of course and I was clearly lying to myself.

Anyway, Reef. This lot were pretty big for a while in the mid 90s, somehow benefitting from the rise of Britpop even though they weren’t your archetypal Britpop band. Nothing of the sort really. I think it may have had something to do with them doing a jingle for TFI Friday. Remember “It’s your letters” based around their biggest hit “Place Your Hands”? Somehow Britpop, lad culture and Chris Evans all seemed to mesh with each other, in my mind anyway. I’m getting ahead of myself though. That’s all a year or so away. Back in 1995, “Naked” was the band’s second Top 40 hit from their debut album “Replenish”. It’s not bad either. Hardly revolutionary and highly derivative but a pretty good blues rock work out. I’m sure that descending guitar riff is nicked off something else but I can’t put my finger on what. Somebody else who was having trouble putting his fingers somewhere was Reef’s bass player – what was the deal with those loose strings flapping all over the place. Tighten your tuning heads man! One last thing about this performance – was the stage invasion by members of the studio audience pre-arranged or impulsive do you think? Can’t make my mind up.

Next a man who I was convinced only had two hits (both back in 1992) but here he is again three years later with another one. Curtis Stigers is said man and helpfully he has joined in with my ‘time’ intro by releasing a single called “This Time” from an album called “Time Was”. Nicely timed Curtis. And talking of the passing of time, in those intervening three years since his last hit, he’s lost his flowing locks that he had when he was in the charts with “You’re All That Matters To Me” and “I Wonder Why”. In fact, if you take Reef’s Gary Stringer with all his hair and stood him next to Curtis, it would be like a ‘before and after’ picture. As for the song itself, it’s a radio friendly little ditty but it doesn’t live long in the memory as was illustrated by its No 28 chart peak.

https://youtu.be/2dO_mDKnWlM?si=-eNSO_-8IAMYbhYq

Another song with the word ‘time’ in the title now. Baby D scored a No 1 in late 1994 with “Let Me Be Your Fantasy” but it took them six months to come up with a follow up and when they did it was just yet another dance version of a classic pop song. “(Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime) I Need Your Loving” was basically a straight cover version of The Korgis’ 1980 Top 5 hit but with a skittering jungle dance beat added to it. As if that wasn’t enough to differentiate it from the original, they messed around with the song title by adding a line from the lyrics and putting the original title in brackets. What was all that about? I couldn’t get onboard with this at all. It just seemed lazy and pointless to me. As ever, the record buying public disagreed with me and sent it to No 3. Ah, what did they know eh?

Next a band that I always find hard to write about; not because I don’t like them – it would be easy to crank out a few derogatory words accusing an act of being the shittiest of the shitty – but because I don’t actually have any feelings about them one way or the other. I think my state of mind concerning Therapy? is partly due to the fact that they mostly passed me by at the time. I mean, I knew of them – I worked in a record shop for heaven’s sake – it’s just that my knowledge of them pretty much ended with what their album covers looked like. Somehow I never really heard how they sounded. Or maybe I did hear them but it made no impression on me and so I didn’t retain them in my head? Either way, needless to say, I don’t remember this hit “Stories” at all. Listening to it now, it’s more of their brand of driving rock but this one has a sax thrown in for good measure. Singer Andy Cairns is a supporter of my beloved Chelsea and I’ve heard him interviewed on the Chelsea fancast that I listen to and he seems like a lovely guy but somehow his music just hasn’t cut through to me. Sorry Andy.

Two huge songs of this era coming up now starting with “Fake Plastic Trees” by Radiohead. What a tune this is!*

*Makes that awful T-shaped hand signal*

For me, this could be their best ever song though to be honest my knowledge of their material past “OK Computer” is nearly nonexistent so if you’re a Radiohead super fan reading this and snorting in derision at my suggestion then obviously you have more material to pick from than me. The third single to be released from “The Bends”, it’s a slowly building banger dripping with aura and imagery and Thom Yorke’s vocal that almost sounds like it was recorded under duress, it’s almost unignorable (if that’s a word). Maybe ‘striking’ would be a better one. I think it was probably this track that convinced me that I must own a copy of “The Bends”.

Others weren’t quite as convinced albeit the most famous example was a fictional character in a movie. Alicia Silverstone played Cher in Clueless who describes “Fake Plastic Trees” which features in the film as “crybaby music”. Asked if he was bothered about that line, Yorke said in an interview in Vox magazine that the character of Cher wasn’t the type of person he’d want to like Radiohead anyway as she was a two dimensional Beverly Hills kid and he was all about 3D people. Fair comment I think and it put me in mind of another music artist who felt the need to publicly distance himself from someone famous. In 2006, former Prime Minister and renowned dead pig f****r David Cameron appeared on Desert Island Discs and chose as one of his songs “This Charming Man” by The Smiths. When Johnny Marr became aware of this, he issued a statement that said Cameron was banned from liking The Smiths and rightly so. Also on Cameron’s list of songs? Yep, “Fake Plastic Trees”. Cameron also famously declared that one of his favourite songs ever was “Eton Rifles” by The Jam. In response, Paul Weller said “Which bit didn’t you get?”. David Cameron ladies and gentlemen…a complete bellend of the highest order.

That second huge song now and it’s another appearance by Pulp to perform “Common People”. This was a genuinely a career pivoting time for the band. After being together for sixteen years (most of them in obscurity) the stars were now aligning and fame and fortune beckoned. Not only had “Common People” crashed into the charts at No 2 (NO 2!) but this month they would also headline the aforementioned Reef’s hometown of Glastonbury after the Stone Roses pulled out following John Squires suffering a broken collarbone in a mountain biking accident. Success was now definitely coming at Pulp and fast.

Apparently the band learned of that chart position whilst appearing at a Radio 1 Roadshow in Birmingham. As the chart rundown was announced, the various acts at the event were paraded on the back of an articulated lorry as their chart position was called. By the end, there was only Pulp left to learn their fate and, by now, Jarvis Cocker was pissed. Taking to the stage, he slipped and fell leaving bass player Steve Mackey to observe the irony of finally getting to where you wanted to be after years of trying only to end up on your arse in the rain in Birmingham at the moment of triumph. Just perfect.

What’s this? A rugby song?! Yes, we’d only just suffered the trauma of two football songs in the chart thanks to FA Cup finalists Everton and Manchester United and now we had another sporting related hit. The 1995 Rugby Union World Cup was only the third time the competition had taken place since its inaugural event in 1987 but already we were starting to get used to it being commemorated / promoted by the medium of song. More specifically two songs in particular. The 1991 World Cup had brought us “World In Union” by Dame Kiri te Kanawa based on Holst’s “Jupiter” or “I Vow To Thee My Country” as it is more commonly known. That year also saw the England Rugby Squad release a version of the African-American spiritual song and subsequent Christian hymn “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” which had been sung by rugby crowds as early as the 60s though it was adopted as an anthem by the England team supporters around 1988. The song has been recorded on multiple occasions for the Rugby World Cup by the likes of Russel Watson, UB40 and Blake.

In 1995, it was the turn of the unlikely pairing of “Searching” hitmakers China Black and South African male choral group Ladysmith Black Mamboza. Quite how this pairing came about I’m not sure but I guess it was advantageous to both artists. China Black had failed to build on the success of “Searching” and so “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” provided them with another vehicle to the charts. Ladysmith Black Mamboza were prolific album makers but had never had a UK Top 40 single to this point. Their famous collaboration with Paul Simon on “Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes” from the celebrated “Graceland” album inexplicably peaked at No 77 though they would team up with B*Witched in 1999 for No 13 hit “I Shall Be There”. Ladysmith Black Mamboza were one of those artists that would get a regular airing when Our Price did their specialist music mornings where the shop would only play music from a particular genre that wasn’t rock/pop. Easy Listening morning meant you were guaranteed to hear The Carpenters Greatest Hits whilst Ladysmith Black Mamboza would get a spin on the store stereo when it was the turn of World Music.

This version of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” is not impressive I have to say. The addition of that ubiquitous, nasty dance beat pretty much ruins it for me. It was nice though to see some of England’s Rugby stars of yesteryear in the video like Rob Andrew, Will Carling, Rory Underwood and Jeremy Guscott. China Black would never return to the UK Top 40 singles chart whilst Ladysmith Black Mamboza would achieve a No 2 placing in our album chart for 1998’s Best Of collection.

I said earlier about there being two huge songs of this era being on the show tonight in “Fake Plastic Trees” and “Common People” but how could I have forgotten about this one?! They’re not everyone’s cup of tea but I loved Black Grape. Rising from the ashes of Happy Mondays and the Ruthless Rap Assassins, I remember there being a huge buzz about this second coming of Madchester. OK, it wasn’t really quite like that but I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to indulge in some Manchester related hyperbole. “Reverend Black Grape” was their debut single and calling card and what a fabulous shake up of the charts it was. Sample heavy and funky, big beats-tastic, this was Shaun Ryder back to his twisted genius best after the demise of the Happy Mondays and the nadir of their 1992 album “Yes Please!”. Ably aided by Kermit, it would crash straight into the Top 10 at No 9. What? Bez? Oh yeah, he was there as well doing his usual Bez schtick. The “Talking bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit” lyric is obviously edited out for this TOTP performance but like “Yes” by McAlmont & Butler, “Reverend Black Grape” would become one of my go to songs I would play on my way to work if I really didn’t fancy it that day.

The band’s debut album “It’s Great When You’re Straight…Yeah” would top the charts for two weeks and achieve platinum sales. Packed with great tunes like “Tramazi Parti”, “Shake Your Money” and “Kelly’s Heroes”, it became an essential purchase for me. Sadly, their success would fail off dramatically. Second album “Stupid Stupid Stupid” would underperform commercially and attract criticism in the US for its golliwog and google eyes cover art. It was one of those albums that the buying department at Our Price Head Office had invested heavily in but which failed to sell. We had massive overstocks of it. The band would dissolve in 1998 after Shaun fired the rest of its members. They reformed to release a third album in 2017 called “Pop Voodoo” which I quite liked but which received mixed reviews.

It’s a third week at the top for Robson & Jerome with their double A-side “Unchained Melody” / “(There’ll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs Of Dover”. My amazement at what happened here has not diluted in the 28 years since. What was going on? Why did these two actors appeal so much? It wasn’t just a one off either. They had three No 1 singles and two No 1 albums over a period of 18 months despite the fact that all they ever did was cover versions. I bet Simon Cowell who convinced the pair to record material couldn’t believe his luck. Ladies and gentlemen…Simon Cowell the David Cameron of the music world.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Reef	Naked	No
2	Curtis Stigers	This Time	Nah
3	Baby D	(Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime) I Need Your Loving	I did not
4	Therapy?	Stories	Nope
5	Radiohead	Fake Plastic Trees	No but I bought the album The Bends
6	Pulp	Common People	No but I had the album Different Class
7	China Black with Ladysmith Black Mamboza	Swing Low, Sweet Chariot	Negative
8	Black Grape	Reverend Black Grape	No but I had the album It’s Great When You’re Straight…Yeah
9	Robson & Jerome	Unchained Melody” / “(There’ll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs Of Dover	As if

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001sfvr/top-of-the-pops-01061995

TOTP 10 MAR 1994

Posted on February 20, 2023 by 80stastic

Welcome to TOTP Rewind where I, a man now in his mid-50s, have spent the last six years reviewing every BBC4 repeat of the fondly remembered music show. Why have I done/continue to do this? It’s a question I have repeatedly asked myself especially when they start to back up and I find myself in catch up mode as I am now. Well, I’m a nostalgic person and hiding away from present day concerns with a trip down memory lane seems quite appealing right now. Mark Goodier is our host for tonight’s show so let’s do it…

We start with a belting tune from Primal Scream. After the critical, commercial and chemical highs of the groundbreaking, inaugural Mercury Music Prize winning “Screamadelica” album, the band went in a different direction for the follow up “Give Out But Don’t Give Up”. Rejecting the acid house beats that informed its predecessor, they embraced a retro, rock ‘n’ blues sound that was no more evident than on lead single “Rocks”. The very definition of a stomper, I liked the kitchen sink approach to it in that they threw everything but it into the mix. It kicks off with a purposeful opening drum beat before being joined by that muscular guitar that elicits a searing, slide of the fretboard and then it really gets going. A T-Rex style riff hammers out the song’s template before Bobby Gillespie delivers the those opening eight lines:

Dealers keep dealin’, thieves keep thievin’
Whores keep whorin’, junkies keep scorin’
Trade is on the meat rack, strip joints full of hunchbacks
Bitches keep a bitchin’, clap just keeps itchin’
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Robert Young / Bobby Gillespie / Andrew Innes
Rocks lyrics © Complete Music Ltd.

How did they get past the BBC censor?! I don’t think there’s ever been a sanitised radio edit of the song has there? Apparently, Theresa May walked off stage to “Rocks” following her speech at the Tory Party conference in 2011. For a woman who is on record as stating that the naughtiest thing she had evet done was to run through fields of wheat as a child, it does seem an unlikely song choice. However, if you factor in that she was Home Secretary at the time, the fact that she chose a song that includes lyrics like “dealers keep dealing”, “thieves keep thieving” and “junkies keep scoring” hardly speaks well of her ability to keep law and order.

Reaction to this ‘new’ Primal Scream sound was mixed. Some (like me) loved it while others found it too derivative and accused the band of just doing their best Rolling Stones impression. I think retailers expected “Rocks” to do big things sales wise though. I recall that we had a big scale out of the single from Head Office at the Our Price I was working in at the time but although it performed well initially leading the band to achieving their second highest chart peak ever of No 7, it fell away quickly. Maybe the release of the album just three weeks later had something to do with it.

The original recordings of the album were made in Memphis using the legendary Muscle Shoals rhythm section but were rejected by Creation boss Alan McGee. Said recordings eventually surfaced in 2018 and an entertaining documentary about the rediscovery of them was aired on the BBC. There wouldn’t be another Primal Scream album for three years when “Vanishing Point” appeared which was the first album to feature ex-Stone Roses bassist Mani who had joined the band in 1996. I was working in the Stockport Our Price by then with original Roses bassist Pete as my manager. I distinctly remember Mani coming into the shop one day to have a catch up with Pete but also to buy up all the Primal Scream albums we had so he could learn the bass parts.

The performance here with Denise Johnson on vocals alongside Bobby Gillespie is just glorious. Sadly, the band have seen much tragedy in recent years with three members dying fairly close to each other starting with Robert ‘Throb’ Young in 2014, then the aforementioned Denise Johnson in 2020 and finally Martin Duffy just last year.

Now, what links M People with Primal Scream? Apart from being on the same TOTP together and both having recordings with very similar titles (“called “Movin’ On Up” and “Moving On Up”) obviously. Well, they both have had a song used to soundtrack a speech at a Tory Party conference. Yes, just as Theresa May used “Rocks” in 2011, the six-week Prime Minister Liz Truss used the aforementioned “Moving On Up” in 2022. There’s more similarities though. Both artists were extremely pissed off that their material had been used by a political party they were adamantly opposed to and both songs used included lyrics that were totally unsuited to the purpose for which the song was chosen in the first place. Given her precarious position as Prime Minister, did nobody in her inner sanctum listen to these lyrics?

You’ve done me wrong, your time is up
You took a sip from the devil’s cup
You broke my heart, there’s no way back
Move right out of here, baby, go on pack your bags

Just who do you think you are?
Stop actin’ like some kind of star
Just who do you think you are?

Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Mike Pickering / Paul Heard
Moving On Up lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Royalty Network, Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, Inc

FFS! Anyway, M People are on the show to perform “Renaissance” not “Moving On Up” which was their fifth Top 10 hit in just over a year. Quite the achievement. This was the fourth and final single released from the “Elegant Slumming” album and was a track that many had expected for a while to be given such a release seeing as it had been used as the title song to early reality TV show The Living Soap. It would also provide the title for the band’s 11 disc 2020 retrospective box set.

There’s a little teaser trailer before the next artist as we cross to New York for a roof top chat with Bon Jovi who are on the show later doing an exclusive live by satellite performance. Presumably new producer Ric Blaxill wanted to make more of this slot by working in a bit of extra mileage with it courtesy of this little clip which actually gets Jon Bon Jovi to introduce the next song. It’s quite a neat trick and works quite well in the safe hands of the unflappable frontman.

Said next artist is Janet Jackson and like her music or not (and I don’t especially), you have to admit she’s prolific. Her discography tells me she has released 70 singles during her career and this one – “Because Of Love” – was the 10th of the 90s already. The fourth of six singles released in the UK from her “Janet” album, it was the follow up to the surprisingly robust Christmas No 6 hit “Again”. In a ever more familiar trend for singles in general, it would get no further than its entry week high of No 19 (see also Primal Scream’s “Rocks”). By the end of the decade, singles would be in one week and out the next on a regular basis due to record company pricing strategies with heavily discounted prices in week one.

It’s not one of Janet’s more memorable tunes despite the “shoop, shoop, doop, doop” hook she sings. Apparently, it was her first single since “The Pleasure Principle” in 1987 to miss the Top 5 in the US and is regarded as one of the last New Jack Swing records to make the charts.

From “Doop Doop” courtesy of Janet Jackson to “Doop” courtesy of…well…Doop. This Charleston based dance track was the highest new entry of the week straight in at No 3 on its way to the top of the charts. So what the Hell was all this all about? Well, they were a Dutch production duo who hit upon the ludicrous idea of added a house beat to a big band sample and turned it into a European dance craze. Supposedly this was always going to be a huge hit due to the buzz created in the clubs for this record but nowhere was it a bigger hit than in the UK. Yay, well done us!

As there’s no lyrics in this apart from the occasional “doop”, it’s left to a load of dancers obviously dressed in 1920s style dresses and headgear to deliver some sort of performance. If it wasn’t from the obligatory two male DJ nerds lurking around at the back of the stage (one looking like Rick Wakeman), this could be a dance routine by Pan’s People. I know Ric Blaxill had brought back some of the Radio 1 DJs from the 80s as hosts of the show but this was ridiculous!

Doop would become only the third ever Dutch act to have a UK No 1 after Pussycat with “Mississippi” and “No Limit” by 2 Unlimited. In a bizarre twist of fate, it would become the first instrumental chart topper since “Eye Level” by the Simon Park Orchestra in 1973 which was the theme tune for Van der Valk about a Dutch detective. And that reference just might be more oblique than the angle from which Marco Van Basten scored his wonder goal for Holland in the 1988 European Championships.

A largely forgotten hit next though a pretty good song. Just two short years after Shakespear’s Sister took “Stay” to No 1 for six weeks, Marcella Detroit and Siobhan Fahey’s working relationship had been dissolved and the former was striking out on her own with a solo album. Wikipedia tells me that it wasn’t her debut though as that came in 1982 after a protracted gestation period but failed to sell in any territory. Marcella looks pretty different on the cover with an 80s perm and highlights. Her transformation into a Louise Brooks coiffured model type is almost as huge a change as that of Alanis Morrisette who made a similar image change from her early incarnations to her commercial peak.

So, 12 years and one pop duo later came her sophomore album “Jewel” which got mixed press reviews but which sold reasonably well going to No 15 in the charts. The lead single was “I Believe” which also sold steadily rising to No 11. Its a very accomplished, nicely produced song which makes the most of Marcella’s dynamic yet pure vocals. It probably should have been a bigger hit.

The performance here employs a very basic black and white to colour change just at the moment where the song really blooms at the chorus. I wonder if whoever came up with that were really pleased with themselves? To be fair, I was when, as a student at Sunderland Polytechnic, our group came up with the same wheeze when producing a video as part of a module. Our plot revolved around a bored student falling asleep in a tedious lecture and daydreaming about being pushed into a swimming pool at which point he wakes up. We called it Wet Dream (genius!) and had the lecture part in black and white and the dream sequence in colour (also genius!). I really must find it out and get it online one day.

Anyway, back to Marcella (or Marcy as host Mark Goodier calls her). We (my wife and some friends) were supposed to go and see her live at the Academy in Manchester but she called off the gig at the last minute. We all went out drinking at a pub called Briton’s Protection instead. My friend Robin was delighted as he hadn’t wanted to go to see Marcella in the first place and the pub had his favourite ale (Jennings) on tap. Fast forward 25 years and Marcella and Siobhan would work out their differences and reunite for a tour and EP of new material. I never did see Marcella live but Robin continues to enjoy a nice pint of Jennings to this day.

https://youtu.be/lYE15R-KGfY

Some Breakers now starting with The Beautiful South and their new single “Good As Gold (Stupid As Mud)”. I seem to remember many people believing the title to be “Carry On Regardless” due to the phrase featuring heavily in the lyrics and also possibly because of the Carry On film of the same name. The band hadn’t released anything in 1993 so this was a taster from new album “Miaow”. It was still cast from the same mould as some of their earlier material with catchy melodies and socially observant lyrics to the fore but there had been one big change since we last saw/heard them. Vocalist Briana Corrigan had left the band with rumours abound that she was less than impressed by some of Paul Heaton’s lyrics including on the single “36D” which criticised the glamour industry by making targets out of the models. Briana was replaced by Jacqui Abbott who would stay with the band for four albums before leaving and then rekindling her creative relationship with Heaton in 2014.

Sales of the album would not halt the decline that third album “0898” had suffered from after predecessors “Welcome To The Beautiful South” and “Choke” had both gone platinum but by the end of 1994 they would have the Christmas No 1 album and the second best selling record of the whole year in their first Best Of album “Carry On Up The Charts” (Heaton was clearly a bit of a fan of the Carry On franchise). For the second time in the band’s history, the artwork for the album’s cover got them into hot water. After thejr debut received a ban from Woolworths for originally featuring a woman with a gun in her mouth, “Miaow” had to undergo a change of image as well when HMV objected to the picture of a crowd of dogs seated in a music hall with a gramophone on stage as it impinged in their legendary logo.

“Good As Gold (Stupid As Mud)” remains one of the Beautiful South’s most well known songs I think despite it only making it to No 23 in the charts. The follow up would be the second song made famous by Harry Nilsson to return to the charts this year after Mariah Carey’s take on “Without You” when the band released a cover of “Everybody’s Talkin’”.

https://youtu.be/dMfb9TRbUJc

Hell’s teeth it’s Therapy? again! “Trigger Inside” was these Irish rockers fifth Top 40 hit in the past year and second of 1994 already! Talking of teeth, the band seemed to have a bit of a dental obsession. Having already released a single called “Teethgrinder” with a particularly graphic front cover, this one starts with the lyric

Here comes a girl with perfect teeth
I bet she won’t be smiling at me
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Andrew Cairns
Trigger Inside lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

The very next line name checks serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer which TOTP wisely avoids showing in this short clip. This track seems to be at the heavier end of the rock scale and not especially radio friendly (and that’s before considering the Jeffrey Dahmer reference) but the band’s fanbase was by now large enough to guarantee them a chart placing. “Trigger Inside” was at its No 22 peak despite it being its first week on the charts.

Apart from one solitary entry at No 40, Alison Moyet hadn’t had a UK chart hit since her cover of “Love Letters” made No 4 in 1987. That outcome would have seemed unlikely back then. After all, she’s had two massive hits from her album of that year “Raindancing” in “Is This Love?” and “Weak In The Presence Of Beauty”. However, a delay of four years until her next album “Hoodoo” had seen her lose her place amongst pop’s big hitters and the album sold respectably but significantly less numbers than its predecessors.

Commercial success wasn’t what mattered to Alison though who fought her record company Sony for artistic control of her work which led to a confrontation over the release of her next album “Essex”. Sony refused to release it unless tracks were re-recorded and re-produced to make a more radio friendly pop album that stood a better chance of success. The result of this stand off was “Whispering Your Name”, a 1983 song written by Jules Shear but originally recorded by Ignatius Jones, leader of shock rock band Jimmy and the Boys. In an act of compromise, Alison committed to two versions of the song; an acoustic “MacArthur Park”* style ballad that appeared on the album and the danced up version that was released as a single.

*The Richard Harris version, not Donna Summer’s

The former is clearly the better version to my ears with the latter sounding like something Dusty Springfield might have recorded as a B-side during her Pet Shop Boys collaboration era. Mind you, even that version is a million times better than the Ignatius Jones take which is an abomination:

Mark Goodier makes a big deal in his intro of the fact that Dawn French appears in the video for “Whispering Your Name” just as she’d done seven years prior for the “Love Letters” promo. Now don’t get me wrong, I like Dawn French (we even had a French And Saunders VHS on our wedding present list!) but I don’t think her ‘zany’ antics added anything to the video at all. Maybe I felt differently back then but viewed in 2023 it all seems a bit tired. The single would make No 18 perhaps validating Sony’s strategy but it would be Alison’s last ever chart entry as a solo artist.

Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine’s time as chart dwelling pop stars was entering the final bend come 1994 – in short, it turned out that they could be stopped after all. After the unlikely gold selling albums that were “30 Something” and “1992 – The Love Album” (a chart topper no less), subsequent releases suffered from a dose of diminishing returns. Not that they were suddenly outside of the charts being refused entry but the numbers were in decline. This single “Glam Rock Cops” and its predecessor “Lenny And Terence” were their lowest peaking singles (Nos 24 and 40 respectively) since their first ever chart hit, the 1991 reissue of “Sheriff Fatman”. The quality of their material was still there though. “Glam Rock Cops” is a great song and the performance of it here shows how comfortable Jimbob and Fruitbat had become by this stage with the whole idea of being pop stars. As ever, the lyrics are clever and intriguing though were they influenced by The Jam’s “Going Underground” with the line “The public gets the music that no public could deserve”?

We rejoin Bon Jovi now who have come in off that roof in New York and are performing on, yes you guessed it, yet another nondescript stage that could just as easily have been located round the corner from the TOTP studio as where it actually was, 3,500 miles due West. Really? I thought new producer Ric Blaxill was trying to get away from all that and have artists performing against landmark backdrops.

Anyway, the single the band are plugging is “Dry County” which was the sixth and final single to be released from their “Keep The Faith” album. Remember, this was an album that had been released on 3rd November 1992 and this TOTP aired on 10 March 1994 – that’s 16 months later! This was almost Michael Jackson-esque! As well as the length of time between album and single releases there was also a small (or large as it happens) matter of the length of time of the track itself. Apparently, this is Bon Jovi’s longest song clocking in at 9:52. It was edited down to 6:00 for single release. The band and or their record company clearly had plenty of confidence in the track’s potential for success. Hey! They must have ‘kept the faith’ in it (I’ll get me coat). Or maybe it was just their “Bohemian Rhapsody” moment.

The title referred to a county that prohibits alcohol but here it also acts as a metaphor for the decline of the US oil industry with the song describing the effects of such on the inhabitants of towns whose economies were reliant on the resource. It’s a bit of a retread of Tommy and Gina’s struggles in “Livin’ On A Prayer” or, indeed, most of Bruce Springsteen’s back catalogue. “Dry County” managed a very respectable peak of No 9 in the UK. They would end the year with the 21 million selling Best Of album “Crossroads” which was also the UK’s best selling album of 1994.

Oh and one last thing. The BBC censors were asleep at the wheel again as for the second time on tonight’s show we get the use of the word ‘whore’ in a song’s lyrics:

Man spends his whole life waiting, praying for some big reward
But it seems sometimes the payoff leaves you feeling like
A dirty whore

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Jon Bon Jovi
Dry County lyrics © Bon Jovi Publishing, Polygram Int. Publishing, Inc.

It’s a fourth and final week at the top for Mariah Carey and “Without You”. As successful as Mariah’s version of the song was, she isn’t the only artist to have taken on this monster pop song. The list of those who have tackled it includes Air Supply, Shirley Bassey, Petula Clark, Glen Campbell, Elaine Paige, Rose Marie…wait. Rose Marie? I know a story about her and it involves my time at Sunderland Polytechnic again. My friend Robin (he with the passion for Jennings ale) had a friend named Cess (short for Cesspit) come to visit him in Sunderland. Unfortunately for Cess, Robin was out when he arrived at his gaff and so, in an era before mobile phones, he had some time to kill. Looking for something to do, Cess wandered into Sunderland town centre and noticed that there was a matinee gig going on at the Empire Theatre. “That’ll do” thought Cess and in he went. The gig was by Rose Marie – the Irish Bette Midler as some named her – and the audience was mainly made up of elderly ladies having a nice afternoon out. I should have pointed out that Cess was a bit of a punk back then and at the time was sporting a pink Mohican hairstyle so I’m not entirely sure the rest of the audience were really his people but apparently he spent a great afternoon singing along with Rose Marie and her fans.

The play out song is “Rock My Heart” by Haddaway. Hadn’t we all had enough of this bloke by this point? This was the fourth and final hit from his debut album and, just like the preceding three, went Top 10. After doing a ballad for his last single, he’d cranked up the beats again for this high tempo Eurodance number which was not a million miles away from his biggest hit “What Is Love”. I wasn’t going to any of the clubs that might have played this sort of stuff back then (indie night at Fifth Avenue in Manchester was more my scene) so maybe I wasn’t its target audience but why was this guy so successful? Really though, why?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Primal Scream	Rocks / Funky Jam	No but I bought the album
2	M People	Renaissance	No but my wife had the album
3	Janet Jackson	Because Of Love	No
4	Doop	Doop	Of course not
5	Marcella Detroit	I Believe	Liked it, didn’t buy it
6	The Beautiful South	Good As Gold (Stupid As Mud)	No but I have that Best Of album it on
7	Therapy?	Trigger Inside	Negative
8	Alison Moyet	Whispering Your Name	Nah
9	Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine	Glam Rock Cops	See 5 above
10	Bon Jovi	Dry County	No but I had a promo copy of the album
11	Mariah Carey	Without You	Nope
12	D:Ream	U R The Best Thing	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/m001hyxn/top-of-the-pops-10031994

TOTP 27 JAN 1994

Posted on January 27, 2023 by 80stastic

We’ve reached another milestone here at TOTP Rewind. It’s not the fact that following host Tony Dortie’s departure from the show last time, this week it’s the turn of Mark Franklin to bow out after fifty nine appearances. No, it’s much more seismic than that. This is my 200th post for TOTP Rewind the 90s! In fact, by my calculations, in a few weeks I’ll be clocking up my 500th if you add the posts on the 80s blog to that figure! A huge thank you to anyone who has ever taken the trouble to read any of them.

Back to Mark Franklin and his final show though and as ever, he was presiding over a right mixed bag of artists and tunes starting with some rock. “What a rocky way to start the show” trills Franklin (just in case the watching millions were unfamiliar with the concept of rock music) as he introduces Therapy? performing their latest single “Nowhere”. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; this lot seemed to pass me by somewhat. It’s not that they didn’t make a good sound it’s just I didn’t really hear much of their stuff either on the radio or on the stereo system of the record shops I was working in. I might not know much of their music but I have to admire their work rate. 15 studio albums in 27 years is prolific. Add 31 singles and 5 EPs to that and you have a huge back catalogue.

“Nowhere” was the lead single from the fourth of those albums and the second on major label A&M and would see them at the peak of their commercial powers with it hitting the UK Top 5. Listening to “Nowhere” today, it’s not bad though it does rely heavily on a repeated riff. The CD single of “Nowhere” included some cover versions including “C. C. Rider” (as made famous by Elvis Presley), “Breaking The Law” (Judas Priest) and this classic from The Stranglers…

Guitarist and vocalist Andy Cairns is a big fan of my beloved Chelsea and the way our season is currently going, we could both do with some therapy.

The Top 40 countdown for Mark Franklin’s final show is soundtracked by Depeche Mode and their single “In Your Room”. In my head, there’s a very clear dividing line in the band’s career and that occurs in 1986 and the release of the “Black Celebration” album. Their back catalogue in their first five years is full of gloriously catchy synth pop tunes that culminated in the release of their first Best Of album in October 1985 (which I had). Their material from then on always seemed to me much darker and the pop kid in me sometimes struggled with it. With the passing of time though can come a new perspective and I have to say that the run of eight singles released from their first two albums of the 90s is remarkable in the consistency of their quality. Look at this list:

Personal Jesus
Enjoy The Silence
Policy Of Truth
World In My Eyes
I Feel You
Walking In My Shoes
Condemnation
In Your Room

Wow! Some of them (like “In Your Room”) hadn’t registered with me at the time but discovering them through these old TOTP repeats has been a welcome side effect to accompany all the nostalgia. Depeche Mode have a new album out in March and have vowed to continue despite the tragic passing of Andy Fletcher last year.

It’s that Joe fella up next with his debut single “I’m In Luv”. The performance here, or more specifically, the puffa jackets on display prompted many a ‘won’t feel the benefit’ comment on Twitter. Joe’s rapper mate does a passable impression of Shabba Ranks with his shout outs which is not to be encouraged in my book. Joe has maintained quite the career in the music business releasing 13 studio albums and 30 singles so far. He is also a record producer having remixed for the likes of Barry White and Tina Turner and has been a guest vocalist with names such as Brandy and Mariah Carey. Not your ‘average Joe’ then.

It’s hard to imagine now but there was a time when Celine Dion wasn’t seen (in this country at least) as the multi-platinum selling ‘Queen of the Power Ballads’ and was just the singer who had a hit with the bizarrely named Peabo Bryson with that song from Beauty And The Beast. Or even the woman who won the Eurovision Song Contest for Switzerland in 1988. The turning point was obviously her having a big hit and what do you do when you need a career firing hit? You record a cover version. Of course you do. You’ve got to get the song choice right though. It needs to be something that’s well known but which isn’t so definitive that you’d be mad to take it on. Did Celine get it right with “The Power Of Love” by Jennifer Rush? Well, yes and no. ‘Yes’ from the point of view that it did give her a first major UK hit when it powered its way to No 4 but also ‘No’ as I would suggest that despite that, the song is still associated most strongly with Jennifer Rush. The original was the UK’s biggest selling single of 1985, the ninth biggest selling of the decade and made Rush the first female artist to have a million selling single over here. Maybe I’m being unfair on Celine. After all, if it’s just about sales then she could point to the fact that her version topped the charts in the US, Canada and Australia, was the eighth biggest selling single of 1994 in America and shifted a total of 900,000 units. And yet…surely “The Power Of Love” isn’t the song that springs to kind first when you mention Celine’s name. That must be that ghastly ballad from Titanic mustn’t it? I can’t believe I’m tying myself up in knots over a debate about Celine Dion and Jennifer Rush! Suffice to say, off the back of her cover, the former went on to have a huge career including a No 1 a few months after this with “Think Twice”.

This is starting to look like a very strange show for Mark Franklin to bow out on. There seems little cohesion to the running order as it jumps around wildly from genre to genre. Hard rock, R&B, power ballads and now country music in the form of Garth Brooks. No doubt the outgoing TOTP producer Stanley Appel would point to the show’s diverse make up. Anyway, back to Garth and he’s put together a performance of his single “The Red Strokes” for us from Nashville and you can’t get more country than that! He’s even recorded a little intro for it which is giving me strong Ed Winchester from The Fast Show vibes…

Garth has also forgotten to wear his Stetson hat for the performance (amateur!) but that’s nothing to the change of image he affected five years later for his “Garth Brooks in…the Life of Chris Gaines” project. This was an ill advised attempt to push the country/ rock music boundaries even further than Brooks already had when he assumed the persona of a fictitious rock star (the titular Gaines). Intended for a film that was never made, Garth released an album of rock songs as Gaines anyway and even promoted it in character.

The album actually sold well but the whole concept has since been derided retrospectively. Brooks probably deserves some credit for having the cojones to try something different though. After all, Bowie’s various incarnations are lauded to the high heavens; the less said about Bono’s The Fly/Mirrorball Man/MacPhisto alter egos the better though.

https://youtu.be/6qXEEeYycCs

Just the two Breakers this week starting with…“Hyperactive!” by Thomas Dolby? A song that had already been a No 17 hit exactly ten years previous? Why? It was the old Greatest Hits trick in action again. Although Dolby had actually achieved his first UK Top 40 hits since “Hyperactive!” just two years before in “Close But No Cigar” (No 22) and “I Love You Goodbye” (No 36), the parent album “Astronauts & Heretics” had disappointed commercially. Presumably that’s why his record company EMI thought it was time to raid his back catalogue to try and increase their Dolby revenue streams.

“Retrospectacle – The Best Of Thomas Dolby” was released in the February of 1994 with “Hyperactive!” given a re-release to spearhead the promotion campaign. The CD singles included some remixes of early Dolby classics like “Dissidents” and “Windpower” which no doubt piqued the completist tendencies of his fanbase and may explain “Hyperactive!” making No 23 a second time around. I’ll have reviewed this track when it was a hit initially in my TOTP 80s blog so I’m not going to go through it again. However, I will admit to once giving a rendition of it (with my colleague Mel) to a dumbfounded office of co-workers including the “Tell me about your childhood” opening line.

The second Breaker sees the return of Enigma. The new-age hitmakers who took Gregorian chanting to the top of the charts in 1991 were back but this time they’d replaced monks with some tribal chanting. “Return To Innocence” was the lead single from second album “The Cross Of Changes” which, though not as successful as their debut “MCMXC a.D.”, would still sell 600,090 copies in the UK alone and go to No 1 in our charts.

The track sampled a recording of an Amis chant called “Elders’ Drinking Song” performed by Taiwan husband and wife folk duo Difang and Igay Duana who would end up suing Enigma founder Michael Cretu for unauthorised use of their music. Cretu settled out of court stating that he thought the recording was in the public domain. It also has a more traditional song structure than their most famous hit “Sadeness (Part I)” with vocals added by German pop star Sandra. Listening back to it now, if you take the chanting out, it kind of sounds like a Savage Garden song. That comment, of course, just goes to confirm that the song was all about the chanting.

All of the singles taken from “The Cross Of Changes” had rather pretentious sounding titles suggesting that they somehow might slip you the answer to everything once heard…

Return To Innocence
The Eyes Of Truth
Age of Loneliness
Out From The Deep

Pseuds! Anyway, the Benjamin Button style video (directed by Julian Temple) of the old fella in the orchard passing away and seeing his life flash before him in reverse is quite affecting and definitely added something to the track helping it to a UK chart high of No 3.

Oh and one last thing, remember last week when Tony Dortie made one final gaff on his last ever show by referring to D:Ream’s lead singer as Peter Cornelius rather than his actual name of Peter Cunnah? Well, it turns out that one of the guys behind Enigma was called…yep…Peter Cornelius! Right name, wrong show Tony!

The UK record buying public had an almost dysfunctional relationship with Richard Marx through the 80s and 90s. His debut album was a gigantic success in America but was almost completely ignored over here. Two US No 1 singles failed to even make the Top 40 but then the country suddenly buckled and sent rather wimpy ballad “Right Here Waiting” to No 2. We then immediately reverted to ignoring him for the rest of the decade. Come 1992 though, we decided we quite liked the creepy, story-telling single “Hazard” and it made the Top 3. Marx then settled down into a pattern of middling hits for the next two years before finally being beaten into submission by the UK’s collective refusal to look his way. Given that admittedly glib description of his chart fortunes and that we are in 1994 here at TOTP Rewind, it’s no surprise that we encounter him here with one of those final, medium sized hits in “Now And Forever”. The lead single from his “Paid Vacation” album, it would peak at No 13. It’s a gentle, almost acoustic (except for the sizeable string section behind him in this performance) ballad that was written about his relationship with then wife Cynthia Rhodes.

Marx is of the opinion that the hardest part of songwriting for him is coming up with lyrics that aren’t clichéd. He hasn’t got a problem with hackneyed song titles though. He says this of “Now And Forever”:

“I don’t mind a generic title, as long as the lyrics within it are unique…There are probably 600-700 songs in the world called ‘Now and Forever,’ but there’s not one line of lyric in that song that’s like anything else.”
https://www.songfacts.com/facts/richard-marx/now-and-forever

Hmm. Without wanting to get all Ed Byrne dissecting Alanis Morissette about it, let’s have a look at some of the lyrics then. Here’s the first verse and chorus:

Whenever I’m weary
From the battles that rage in my head
You make sense of madness
When my sanity hangs by a thread
I lose my way but still you seem to understand
Now and forever
I will be your man
Writer/s: Richard Marx
Publisher: BMG Rights Management, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.

Hmm. Well, for a start, every line rhymes with the next one, a pretty conventional song writing style I would wager and is Richard seriously trying to claim that nobody has ever written the line ‘I will be your man’ before?! George Michael just about did with Wham! for a start. And all that stuff about being weary and losing my way? It’s hardly an original concept is it? Here’s some more:

Until the day the ocean doesn’t touch the sand
Now and forever
I will be your man
Now and forever
I will be
Your man
Writer/s: Richard Marx
Publisher: BMG Rights Management, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.

Oceans and sand? Oh come on Marx! You can’t be serious! Listen, by all accounts Richard is a decent bloke – he took on Piers Morgan for not going far enough in calling out Donald Trump’s extremism and helped Korean Air flight attendants pacify an unruly, possibly drunk passenger while he and his wife were aboard a flight bound from Hanoi to Seoul. Admirable stuff but his songwriting claims? Nah.

Wait! What?! After country, R&B, power ballads, new-age ambient, hard rock and soft rock, we now get some boogie rock on Mark Franklin’s last TOTP gig? The poor lad having to deal with a show in the middle of an identity crisis! I really don’t recall ZZ Top having UK Top 40 hits as late as 1994 (a good decade after their commercial heyday) but here they are with “Pincushion”and like Franklin, I think it must be their last ever appearance. This came from an album called “Antenna” and would make a respectable No 15 on our charts. This one sounds like all of their other stuff to me and whilst I don’t mind some of the ZZ Top hits, I would never describe myself as a fan. Sadly, bassist Dusty Hill (on the left here) died in 2021 at the age of 72.

D:Ream remain at the top of the charts with “Things Can Only Get Better”. It’s the video this week but it’s just a run through of the song taken from a live gig (possibly supporting Take That?). It’s been edited into an annoying stop-motion style but even so, I still can’t spot Professor Brian Cox on keyboards. In his final outro at the show’s end, unlike Tony Dortie last week, Mark Franklin makes no mention of the fact that he’s leaving the show though he does state that Radio 1’s Simon Mayo is in the hot seat next week. Franklin always seemed like a safe pair of hands to me – not the most exciting but a competent presenter. I’m not really looking forward to the return of the likes of Mayo, Nicky Campbell and (ugh!) Bruno Brookes!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Therapy?	Nowhere	Nope
2	Depeche Mode	In Your Room	No but it’s a great track
3	Joe	I’m In Luv	Nah
4	Celine Dion	The Power Of Love	As if
5	Garth Brooks	The Red Strokes	I did not
6	Thomas Dolby	Hyperactive!	No but my wife has The Flat Earth album it came from
7	Enigma	Return To Innocence	No
8	Richard Marx	Now And Forever	It’s a no from me
9	ZZ Top	Pincushion	Uh-uh
10	D:Ream	Things Can Only Get Better	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/m001h88t/top-of-the-pops-27011994

TOTP 26 AUG 1993

Posted on October 9, 2022 by 80stastic

August and indeed the Summer of 1993 is coming to an end and so is something else – my time at the Our Price store in Rochdale. After an immensely enjoyable twelve months as Assistant Manager there, the powers that be wanted to move me. In theory, I should have been pleased about this. It was a transfer to a much bigger store at Stockport which, though not a promotion, reflected well on how area management viewed me. Plus, Stockport was a much shorter commute than schleping all the way over to Rochdale. I didn’t want to go though. I really liked the team where I was and the size of the shop was manageable with a great profile in the town. The move to Stockport would prove to be a short-lived one but that’s enough about my personal circumstances; what about the music?

Well, we start with some Therapy? who someone in the TOTP production team must have really liked as they seemed to be on the show regularly in 1993. I think this is their third studio appearance already which isn’t bad going for a noisy rock band on prime time TV. This single is “Opal Mantra” which was nothing to do with those 70s sweets Opal Fruits that became Statburst but rather a pun on the name of the German sports car model Opel Manta. I didn’t pay much attention to Therapy? at the time but listening back to them what I’ve noticed is that they always seem to have too many words in their lyrics to fit in with the tune. Probably just me of course but anyway.

As far as I can tell this was a stand alone single prior to the release of their fourth studio album “Troublegum” the following year although bizarrely the two singles released before “Opel Mantra” both made it onto the album.

Now here’s a song that always reminds me of late Summer/ early Autumn 1993 whenever I hear it except if I was to hear the original version of it, I probably wouldn’t recognise it at all. “Right Here” was first released by SWV (Sisters With Voices) back in 1992 but only in America. Despite being a hit on the R&B chart, it made little impression on the Billboard Hot 100.

A US No 1 record later in “Weak” and the track was given another chance but this time with an added sample from another song – “Human Nature” by Michael Jackson. And so it came to pass that the version we would all come to know was rechristened as “Right Here (Human Nature Remix)”. Who’s idea was it to mash up SWV and Jacko? Well, it was credited to Teddy Riley but weren’t there some bootleg copies in existence well before the official release creating a buzz around the track?

“Human Nature” was, of course, from Jackson’s “Thriller” album and was one of the seven singles taken from it in 1983. Curiously though, it was never given a UK release back then so would it have been less well known in the UK? If true, it makes SWV’s hit even more impressive but I think it’s a difficult idea to sell that the biggest album of all time contains tracks that some countries were oblivious to. It went fifteen times platinum in the UK after all.

“Right Here (Human Nature Remix)” would rise to No 3 in the UK – easily their biggest hit over here – and would only be kept off the top spot in the US by another artist also on this TOTP.

From Sisters With Voices to The Sisters Of Mercy (do you think that was deliberate by the show’s producers?) who are in the studio with their latest single “Under The Gun”. Not only was this their latest single but as we stand in October 2022, it is also the band’s last single. Yes, incredibly, despite the band being an going concern to this day, they have not released any new material since this track which was to promote their second Greatest Hits album “A Slight Case Of Overbombing”. I think I’ve discussed this before but this situation arose out of a dispute with their label EastWest who eventually agreed to receive the final two albums owed by the band according to their contract via the Andrew Eldritch vehicle SSV (almost another link with SWV). Allegedly standing for Screw Shareholder Value, the albums were made with industrial sonic pioneers Xmas Deutschland’s Peter Bellendir and were largely unlistenable loops of Eldritch’s verbal musings. Despite being free of EastWest since 1997, no new Sisters Of Mercy product has been forthcoming.

As for “Under The Gun”, apparently that’s Terri Nunn up there with Eldritch. Yeah, the two-tone haired singer from Berlin of “Take My Breath Away” fame. She looked a bit different seven years on from that global hit but you can hear her influence all over this track. In fact it’s pretty good up until the point where Eldritch does his…’thing’ whatever that is (a Goth rap?). I’ve always considered Eldritch a bizarre yet intriguing figure and found myself wondering what he looks like today. So I Googled him. His Wikipedia picture suggests that he has now gone bald but he still retains those sunglasses that project an air of otherworldliness. I once sat on a train from Sunderland to Newcastle around 1987 next to a bald man wearing shades dressed in black who had a tape recorder with him and for the entire journey played a tape out loud that the whole carriage could hear that was of demonic chanting, blood curdling screams and general devil worship. I was too freaked out to say anything to him but he did turn it off when the guard checked his ticket only to turn it back on once he had left.

Anyway, back to Eldritch though who has tried to distance himself and the band from accusations of gothness and is on record as stating:

“I’m constantly confronted by representatives of popular culture who are far more goth than we, yet I have only to wear black socks to be stigmatised as the demon overlord.”
“Sisters – VirginNet Interview”. Thesistersofmercy.com. Archived from the original on 20 August 2001

“Under The Gun” peaked at No 19.

Next the point where it looked like Ace Of Base might not be the next big pop sensation that was suggested by their monster No 1 “All That She Wants” earlier in the year. So big was that single that it spent sixteen weeks on the charts and was still selling so well that the follow up “Wheel Of Fortune” had its release delayed. I’m guessing that their label London Records would have been hoping for and indeed maybe expecting a bigger chart hit than the No 20 peak achieved here. The outlook would get worse when the title track to their album “Happy Nation” would barely dint the Top 40 when released in November. Luckily for label and band but decidedly unluckily for music fans, that trend was reversed spectacularly in 1994 when they got to No 2 with “The Sign”.

I have to admit to not knowing how this one went and after watching this TOTP performance, I’m still not sure. The very definition of lightweight, it barely registers at all. And those nasally, whiny vocals are the musical equivalent of fingernails being scraped down a blackboard! As for the prop that was the wheel of fortune in the background…talk about lacklustre! It just has some random numbers around the edge. Why weren’t the coloured segments filled in with what you could win?! It didn’t look like it even had the flicker thing that determines which segment you’ve landed on once the spinning has stopped. Bah!

And so to that much trumpeted (by host Tony Dortie if nobody else) song by Meatloaf. Who would have thought that in a year dominated by Eurodance crud and a trend for ragga/dancehall tunes that the biggest selling single of the year would belong to the Loaf. I mean, it’s not as if he had a brilliant track record for massive hit singles in the UK. His last Top 10 hit had been “Dead Ringer For Love” in 1981 and of the eleven singles released after that until this point, only three had made the Top 40 and none of those had managed a position higher than No 17. Yes, of course “Bat Out Of Hell” was one of the biggest selling albums in history but that was already fifteen years old by 1993. A Meatloaf revival was not on the cards.

Hang on though! “Bat Out Of Hell” you say. What if we did…I don’t know…”Bat Out Of Hell II” to help revive his fortunes? Presumably that’s a close approximation of what long standing songwriting partner Jim Steinman said about Meatloaf in 1993. Yes, a return to the original hit formula (not that much of his other stuff sounded any different) was the order of the day and so it came to pass that “Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell” would make Marvin Lee Aday a huge star all over again. The first single from the project was “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” continuing a long line of ludicrous song titles that occur regularly in Meatloaf’s back catalogue. There’s something odd here though as despite this preview on TOTP on a show in August, as far as I can tell the single wasn’t released until October and after the album was released in September. That can’t be right can it?

Anyway, I think I’ll leave it there for now as this will be at No 1 soon enough and for seven (!) weeks so I’ll just leave it with RIP Meatloaf for now.

We’re back to multiple Breakers again this week after just two in the last show and we start with Lenny Kravitz and a third single from his “Are You Gonna Go My Way” album called “Heaven Help”. This is yet again another song I don’t recall even though it made the charts to the tune of No 20. Some of the music press described it as showing Kravitz’s soul influences specifically Curtis Mayfield and Isley Brothers and I can hear why. It’s got a nice feel to it and I’m guessing it got decent daytime airplay at the time. I should probably check out the album. After all, I did but his previous one “Mama Said”.

OK so I’m aware there was a rap/hip-hop outfit called Onyx but that was/is the extent of my knowledge. Until now. Hailing from Queens, New York City, they were formed by Fredro Starr (yes I had to double take on that name as well!), Sonny Seeza and Big DS. This single (“Slam”) would make No 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 – not just the R&B chart, the mainstream chart – quite remarkable for a rap record. It’s also widely regarded as being responsible for introducing slam dancing or moshing to hip-hop as per the promo video. Wait, didn’t House Of Pain already do that with “Jump Around?”

Anyway, Wikipedia tells me that they were notable for loud screaming, aggression, fighting with each other and then these two characteristics which look slightly odd in the written word…rapping with grimy voices and bald head fashion. What?! Surely grime wasn’t a musical genre back then so what were grimy voices exactly? And bald head fashion…? To be honest, if I wanted to listen to a record called “Slam” then I’d go for this…

Yes, there were two Joey Lawrence singles that charted in the UK unbelievably. After “Nothin’ My Love Can’t Fix” came “I Can’t Help Myself” – his song titles were a little egocentric. This one could easily be the template for every Backstreet Boys song ever which is fine if you like that sort of thing I guess but it obviously did nothing for me.

“I Can’t Help Myself” peaked at No 27.

Almost under the radar, Terence Trent D’arby was having quite a year in 1993 on the sly. Nothing like the impact of 1987/88 when he burst into the pop world fully formed from nowhere to both critical and commercial success but quite a year all the same. After looking like he had wrecked his musical career with the poorly received sophomore album “Neither Fish Nor Flesh”, to manage to resurrect himself as a chart act again was quite a feat. The “Symphony Or Damn” album went Top 10 and would produce four hit singles of which “She Kissed Me” was the third. Those singles peaked at:

14 – 14 – 16 – 18

Like I said, not the remarkable success of those early years but he was consistent. Given the quality of the 1993 singles, they probably should have been bigger hits, “She Kissed Me” being a case in point. Slick and with a killer chorus, it also showcased his diversity given how different it was to previous single “Delicate”. As with Lenny Kravitz earlier, maybe I should investigate the TTD back catalogue further although I don’t think I’ll start with the aforementioned “Neither Fish Nor Flesh”.

I think this is the first and only cover version on this TOTP after what seemed like an endless conveyor belt of them recently. Just like Kim Wilde’s treatment of “If I Can’t Have You” the other week, this one is also of a song from the soundtrack of Saturday Night Fever. Tina Turner’s take on The Trammps’ “Disco Inferno” featured in another film also – Tina’s biopic What’s Love Got To Do With It. It certainly suits Tina’s raspy vocal and I think she does a decent job with it. I wonder though if her record company had faith in the track’s chart potential as they made the B-side “I Don’t Wanna Fight” which was her previous hit from just a few weeks before. That was a standard record company practice as I recall to try and insure against a flop record. It worked (kind of) as “Disco Inferno” made No 12.

Bit of a big deal next as we get Mariah Carey in the studio. She was already a superstar in America after a string of No 1 singles and although UK record buyers hadn’t embraced her quite as keenly, this was still a big exclusive. I’m not sure if she had her reputation as a diva at this point but if she was a bit of a nightmare off camera, I wonder how she manifested it? Her tour riders are renowned for some explicit demands like hotel rooms having temperatures of precisely 75 degrees, being festooned with eight (not seven or nine) tall leafy plants and kitted out with Joe Malone candles (and certainly none of those Gwyneth Paltrow mucky scent ones)

To be fair to Mariah, she seems quite low key in this performance of “Dreamlover” with a dress down wardrobe and a discreet trio of backing singers. She holds back on the vocals as well until the very last few notes when she gives her pipes an airing. Somehow this TOTP appearance only managed to nudge the single up one place to a high of No 9 but it went to No 1 in the US keeping the aforementioned SWV off top spot.

Freddie Mercury’s reign at the top of the charts is over and he has been replaced by Culture Beat and their “Mr. Vain” single. Was this the peak of Eurodance or its nadir? More irritating than “No Limits” by 2 Unlimited or even better than Snap!’s “Rhythm Is A Dancer”? The man behind Culture Beat was German DJ and producer Torsten Fenslau who tragically died in a car crash aged 29 barely two months after this TOTP aired.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Therapy?	Opal Mantra	No
2	SWV	Right Here (Human Nature Remix)	Nope
3	The Sisters Of Mercy	Under The Gun	I did not
4	Ace Of Base	Wheel Of Fortune	As if
5	Meatloaf	I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)	I’d do anything for music but I wouldn’t buy that
6	Lenny Kravitz	Heaven Help	Negative
7	Onyx	Slam	Nah
8	Joey Lawrence	I Can’t Help Myself	I had no such problems with restraint when it came to not buying this record
9	Terence Trent D’arby	She Kissed Me	Good song, didn’t buy it
10	Tina Turner	Disco Inferno	Disco Infer-NO
11	Mariah Carey	Dreamlover	Sorry Mariah, it’s a no
12	Culture Beat	Mr. Vain	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/m001crzw/top-of-the-pops-26081993

TOTP 10 JUN 1993

Posted on September 3, 2022 by 80stastic

June 1993 saw the demise of two big names in the world of comedy – one a performer and one a TV show. The former was comedian Les Dawson who died on the same day this TOTP aired aged just 62. The latter was US sitcom Cheers which ended this year after 275 episodes over 11 seasons. Channel 4 broadcast the final three shows over the weekend following this TOTP. Both had a musical element to them. Dawson included his wonky piano playing in his act whilst Cheers had one of the greatest theme tunes of all time…

Let’s see if any of the tunes on this TOTP are anywhere near as good as Gary Portnoy’s famous song…

Certainly not this one! As I said in the last post when confronted by Eurodance merchant Haddaway opening the show, I’d totally had enough of that particular genre of music by this point. This time it’s the turn of Snap! to be the first act on with their new single “Do You See The Light (Looking For)”. The TOTP producers often seemed to top the show’s running order with a dance act. In recent weeks we’ve had Stereo MCs, Felix and 2 Unlimited in addition to Haddaway. I guess it made sense to try and begin proceedings with a bang. The year zero revamp hadn’t quite let go of the party atmosphere era of Michael Hurll. Having said that, the performance here of Snap! featuring Niki Harris seems to suggest a soirée rather than a massive rave-up. I have to say that as objectionable as his views were, the group seemed to lose something when rapper Turbo B left. The performance here seems very lacklustre. Maybe if the set hadn’t been so sparse it might have sparked things into life a bit. And why do the backing singers resemble water nymphs?

This track was taken from “The Madman’s Return” album and the album version of it is quite different with vocals by Thea Austin instead of Niki Harris, a rap by the aforementioned Turbo B and even a (slightly) different title in “See The Light”. The single version peaked at No 10 and No 14 in 2002 when it was remixed and rereleased.

Spin Doctors are still going up the charts? Checking its stats, “Two Princes” remained on the chart for 18 weeks so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s a pretty nifty tune all said and done and there was a brief moment in time when the band seemed to be the next big thing. Parent album “Pocketful Of Kryptonite” went to No 2 and achieved platinum sales in Europe and yet somehow it all seemed to stall and fall away on both sides of the Atlantic.

If I’m honest, the follow up singles just weren’t as good. “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” and “Jimmy Olsen’s Blues” just didn’t capture the imagination in the same way as “Two Princes” although in the case of the latter, in a three way race of Superman themed singles, they definitely finish above Laurie Anderson and Black Lace.

“Two Princes” peaked at No 3 in the UK.

A proper pop moment next as TOTP brings us the return of Pet Shop Boys. Neil and Chris had been away for only 18 months or so but their last release had been their first official Best Of album “Discography” which on reflection felt like a line in the sand drawing to a close the first part of their career. What would the first material of their next phase be like? Well, not too dissimilar to their previous work to be fair. “Can You Forgive Her” didn’t feel like a massive departure from what had gone before but then Neil Tennant’s voice is so distinctive that it overrides sometimes any potential musical deviation on their behalf. Not always of course. For example, something like “Jealousy” or “Se A Vida É” sound nothing like “West End Girls” but in the case of “Can You Forgive Her”, it didn’t seem, to me anyway, like a radical new sound. Not that it wasn’t any good either though. It had a strident feel to it, enabled by a punchy chorus that demanded to be heard. And heard it was as it gave the duo their first Top 10 hit in two years after their previous three singles all failed to make that achievement.

Somehow though it always feels overshadowed by the second single to be lifted from parent album “Very” which was the enormous hit that was the cover of Village People’s “Go West”. Initial copies of the album came in an orange CD jewel case featuring raised bumps which resembled Lego. In those days, the Our Price chain I worked for didn’t use security tagging and so the CDs we sold weren’t ‘live’ on the shelves as it were. The actual CDs were filed away behind the counter so the cases were empty. However, the manager of the store I was working in when the album came out thought the Lego case so nickable that we kept those behind the counter as well and had a dummy case on display that used the inner back sleeve to say what it was. Genius! Except it was a pain in the arse to put together when selling it to a customer and we also had a few people ask if our dummy sleeve was somehow a different version of the album. It would be another five years before I worked in an Our Price that displayed CDs live.

Anyway, back to the show and this performance really does give us the pop moment I referred to earlier. There’s so much to unpack here. The over exaggerated pointy dunce hats, Neil Tennant in a high chair, the cricket bat wielding space cadet backing dancers, a huge egg on stage for no reason but most of all there was Chris Lowe. The perennially motionless man moved more in that one performance than in all his previous ones added together. What had got into him? There were even what passed for dance moves! Maybe I was wrong. Perhaps this really was a different Pet Shop Boys to what had gone before.

1993 really was the year ragga/dancehall took over the charts. After Shaggy, Shabba and Snow came the ludicrously named Chaka Demus And Pliers. Opening themselves up to all sorts of tool related jibes, this pair of toasters joined forces in 1991 and released “Murder She Wrote” the following year in America to great acclaim. The follow up was “Tease Me” and the hordes lapped it up sending it to No 3 in the UK Top 40. The lyrics were fairly clear about the song’s subject matter with references to ‘reaching climax’ and its title of course. There’s also that shout out line which seemed to encapsulate the whole movement – “Number One In The World”. I’m sure that seemed to feature on every song of this type after that.

Chaka Demus and Pliers have bought all their mates with them to the TOTP studio for a jolly up whilst the camera man seemed very intent on giving us multiple views of the gyrating female backing dancers. Ahem. We’ll also be seeing lots more of CD and P before 1993 is out.

And the fascination with all things erotic thriller continues. I’m guessing Indecent Proposal must have been performing well at the box office to generate this much of a profile. It’s another outing for “Ordinary Love” by Sade which was featured heavily in the film but was not actually on the soundtrack. After last week’s glimpse of the mermaid promo video, we get a live by satellite performance from New York this time. Sade Adu looks stunning as ever but it’s the two guitarists in the background who have caught my eye. They spend the first half of the performance not even bothering to mime playing their instruments but doing the nerd shuffle together whilst clicking their fingers in unison. It doesn’t really seem appropriate for an artist as sophisticated as Sade. Bet they got a bollocking when the cameras were turned off.

Therapy? were enjoying a huge breakthrough year in 1993. After the “Shortsharpshock EP” featuring lead track “Screamager” made the Irish rockers bona fide Top 10 artists in March, the follow up was also an EP. “Face The Strange” featured four tracks of which “Turn” was chosen to promote it. Clearly the EP’s title is a David Bowie reference being a lyric from his song “Changes”. I learned recently that I know someone who met Bowie and not just met but took him out for a drink around about 1972 just as he was launching his Ziggy Stardust era. I know! There’s a few Bowie super fans that I know who would be blown away by my friend’s recollections. What’s that? The Therapy? song? Oh, I didn’t like it much. Sorry.

The Breakers are their usual eclectic/bonkers mix of artists starting with the evergreen Cliff Richard. Despite being 52 at the time and having had his first hit 25 years ago, Cliff was showing no signs of slowing down in 1993. In fact, the decade was going pretty well for him so far. He’d already clocked up a No 1 in “Saviour’s Day” and four other Top 10 hits. Also having a fine old time of it around now was Maxi Priest who’d had a hit twice with Shabba Ranks (albeit with the same song in both cases) and who’d supplied the ‘Shabba!’ sample for the massive selling “Mr Loverman” single. To add to his collection of chart connections came “Human Work Of Art”. You see, Maxi had released this as a single from his “Bonafide” album three years prior but it had failed to chart.

It was recycled for Cliff’s 1993 album called…erm…”The Album” and this time made No 24. It sounds every inch a Cliff record and you’d be hard pressed to guess at its reggae-fied earlier incarnation. It’s also utterly awful under his guardianship. Yes, it’s a polished production but then you can polish a turd of course.

I can’t find the official video online so here’s it being performed on Surprise Surprise.

From the despair of another banal Cliff record to…where? Well, fortunately it’s Manic Street Preachers with their new single “From Despair To Where” (ahem). OK, firstly weren’t they have meant to have split up by now? Wasn’t that their mission statement to make one blow your socks off, anarchistic album then dissolve the band? Clearly that was just bravado then. What they actually did was to record second album “Gold Against The Soul” which I liked enough to buy but which the fan base has always dissed as the worst album in their back catalogue. I’m sure I heard an interview with James Dean Bradfield once where he was asked to rank the band’s albums in order of merit and even he put it bottom of the list.

Maybe debut “Generation Terrorists” had raised the bar and expectations too high but the music press gave it mixed reviews at best. Maybe fan favourite and third album “The Holy Bible” would have been a more acceptable choice with its themes of human suffering and bleakness. Was “Gold Against The Soul” seen as too radio friendly, too (gulp) corporate rock? It sounded alright to my ears with the lead single ticking all my aural boxes. It swoops and soars but bites as well with lines like ‘there’s nothing nice in my head’. It had all of that and yet wasn’t even the best track on the album for me. I liked this version of the band a lot but then I’m not a paid up member of the Manics army who could shoot my opinion down in flames I’m sure.

What I’m not sure about is the video which is basically some moody shots of the band (Richie looks especially cool) intertwined with some sepia tinted clips which seem to suggest a sci-fi /horror film but it’s all a bit blurry to make a clear judgement although that look like an alien autopsy in the thumbnail below.

The Manics of course did do a TV show theme tune when they covered “Suicide Is Painless” – the theme tune from M*A*S*H. Better than the theme to Cheers? It’s a tough call but yes possibly.

The Sister Sledge revival bandwagon continues apace with a rerelease of their 1984 hit “Thinking Of You”. Remixed as the (RAMP Radio Mix), it was the last of three singles taken from the Greatest Hits compilation “The Very Best Of Sister Sledge 1973-93” following “We Are Family” and “Lost In Music”. It would peak at No 17 just six places lower than its 1984 counterpart. However the song dated back to 1979 when it was a track on the “We Are Family” album and issued as the B-side to the initial release of “Lost In Music”.

Reading that paragraph back it seems like the group made a 40+ year career based around just three songs that have been recycled over and over again. Lead singer Kathy Sledge even did her own cover version of “Thinking Of You” with house duo Aristofreeks in 2015. OK look, I know there’s also “He’s The Greatest Dancer” and “Frankie” in their repertoire but the former is very similar to the “Family/Lost/Thinking” trilogy and the latter is one of the worst recordings of all time (and I’ve just had to listen to Cliff Richard’s “Human Work Of Art”). I doubt even the Sledge sisters want to be remembered for that one.

Sister Sledge have only released one more single since this. And guess what? It was a rerelease of “We Are Family” in 2004 which made No 93 on our charts.

Who? The Time Frequency? Sounds like a phrase Dr Who might say. Have we seen this lot before? Can’t remember now. So many of these dance acts about. Anyway, “The Ultimate High” was a track off their “Power Zone EP” and sounds very much like a knock off version of “Insanity” by Oceanic to me but then, as I’ve said many times before, I’m no dance music aficionado.

The Time Frequency were from Scotland so I wonder if they knew fellow Scottish dance acts Primal Scream and The Shamen or is that a bit like an American, who on meeting someone from London, asks them if they know their cousin who lives in Notting Hill?

Lisa Stansfield? Again? It can’t be! She seems to be on every week at the moment. Given the high level of exposure it got, I’m surprised that “In All The Right Places” didn’t get higher than its No 8 peak. She’s back in the studio this time and has gone full on Louise Brooks with her haircut. No messing about like the other week with that half hearted Brett Anderson-esque wedge style. The way the stage has been set up with her first name and first name only in lights gives it a feel of a residency at Las Vegas. In fact, I could just imagine Liza Minnelli up there belting this one out.

Lisa will be back in October with her “So Natural” album and single.

UB40 have made it to the top spot deposing Ace Of Base in the process. Were they on tour at this time as it’s the video for “(I Can’t Help) Falling In Love With You” yet again this week? I’m guessing that the director got the band to perform emerging into a tight corridor to link in with the themes of claustrophobia and paranoia that the film it was taken from (Sliver) clearly was based around. Ironically, a few years down the line, the band fractured into two different identities due to internal arguments and there’s no way that Ali and Robin Campbell would ever be in such close proximity to each other like that again.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Snap!	Do You See The Light (Looking For)	Never happening
2	Spin Doctors	Two Princes	Liked it, didn’t buy it
3	Pet Shop Boys	Can You Forgive Her	No but I have it on their Pop Art Best Of
4	Chaka Demus And Pliers	Tease Me	As if
5	Sade	No Ordinary Love	Nope
6	Therapy?	Face The Strange EP	Nah
7	Cliff Richard	Human Work Of Art	Of course not
8	Manic Street Preachers	From Despair To Where	No but I bought the album
9	Sister Sledge	Thinking Of You	No
10	The Time Frequency	Power Zone EP	Not likely
11	Lisa Stansfield	In All The Right Places	Negative
12	UB40	(I Can’t Help) Falling In Love With You	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/m001bdx3/top-of-the-pops-10061993

TOTP 18 MAR 1993

Posted on July 13, 2022 by 80stastic

We’ve got into a very steady pattern with these TOTP shows in terms of the presenters. Back in October of 1991 at the very start of the ‘year zero’ revamp there were more new presenters than Tory MPs in a leadership contest. By March 1993, all those other wannabes had fallen by the wayside leaving a core of just two – Mark Franklin and Tony Dortie. If, like in the race to be Prime Minister, a vote was out to the TOTP fan community as to who was the best, which one would triumph? I think my choice for Prime Presnter would go to Franklin. A reliable, safe pair of hands, he always seemed unflappable and that nothing could disrupt his focus. A bit on the dull side? Maybe but I think I’d take that over Dortie who was always appeared to be one word away from a gaffe or misplaced street slang phrase. Also, I’m not convinced he really was across his brief on…you know…pop music which does seem like a basic pre-requisite of the job. It’s my pick on hosting duties tonight. Let’s hope he serves up a presenting master class to justify my choice and not come across as, to quote that master of the nonsensical put down Boris Johnson, a ‘Captain Crasheroonie Snoozefest’.

Franklin begins in off screen, word perfect style when introducing the show’s opening act Hue And Cry. Just like Heaven 17 recently, Pat and Greg Kane were experiencing something of a revival of their 80s heyday thanks to the release of a Greatest Hits album. Best known for their hits “Labour Of Love” and “Looking For Linda” (they liked a bit of alliteration with the letter ‘L’), their fortunes had been in decline since the turn of the decade. True, their 1991 album “Stars Crash Down” had made the Top 10 but that was a last hurrah. There would be only one more album that graced the charts at all (1992’s “Truth And Love” made No 33) and then nothing but chart wilderness. We hadn’t seen them on TOTP for four years which was how long it had been since their last hit single.

Desperate times call for desperate measures and so record company Circa stepped in with a Greatest Hits compilation album called “Labours Of Love – The Best Of Hue And Cry”. It did the trick but as former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Brandon Lewis might have said, in a limited and specific way. Yes, the Best Of album made the charts but its No 27 peak was surely below Circa’s expectations. And yes, the release of a remixed “Labour Of Love” provided both a hit single and a TOTP appearance but a No 25 chart high paled in comparison to the Top 5 placing achieved by the remix of “Temptation” by the aforementioned Heaven 17. It all seemed a tad underwhelming.

I don’t think their revival masterplan was helped by either the remix of the single nor their appearance here. The addition of that nasty, generic dance backbeat did nothing but dim the splendour of the original version of “Labour Of Love” and then there’s the guitarist and bass player on stage with Pat and Greg. Who the Hell were those two blokes and why had they come dressed like they were auditioning for a part in the musical Rock Of Ages? This wasn’t the Hue And Cry I remembered and liked. Thankfully, I have a more recent and better memory of the band. I saw them do a live gig in Cottingham at the back end of last year and they were great. It was a small venue so Pat’s enormous voice easily filled it and Greg is a fine musician demonstrating not just his keyboards skills but his prowess on guitar as well. That TOTP appearance was a nice reminder thought that they both used to have hair.

Franklin remains off camera as he does the shortest of segues into the next act who is…be afraid…Snow! Ah, the dreaded third component of the unholy trinity of the three S’s after Shaggy and Shabba Ranks. The three dancehall men of the musical apocalypse. Snow (real name Darrin Kenneth O’Brien) was a Canadian reggae musician and rapper who had come to prominence on the back of his “Informer” single which spent seven (!) weeks at No 1 in America before slinking back to obscurity. He was basically the reggae Vanilla Ice.

For me, he wasn’t the most offensive of the three S’s (that was Shabba Ranks clearly) but he was the most ludicrous. For a start, what was he actually singing/rapping about because it sounds like he’s going on about ‘licking bum bums down’! WTF?! The lyrics are actually ‘lucky boom boom down’ which all makes everything much clearer! Here’s @TOTPFacts with a more lucid explanation of the story behind “Informer”:

The lyrics of "Informer" relate to Snow being charged with two counts of attempted murder (related to a knife fight in a pub) in 1989. The charges were later reduced to aggravated assault, and he was eventually acquitted. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) July 8, 2022

OK, so actually Snow was more like the Canadian Smiley Culture than the reggae Vanilla Ice…

Unlike Smiley though who had hidden his ganja before the police pulled him over, Snow was taken downtown to the cop shop where a rectal examination took place. No really. That’s what it says in his lyrics! Look:

“Well the destination reached in down-a East detention, where they whip down me pants look up me bottom”

Apologies for any lingering mental images that may have caused you. “Informer” would peak at No 2 meaning the three S’s would have the Top 3 chart places covered between them with Shaggy bagging a No 1 and Shabba Ranks going all the way to No 3. What a time to be alive!

I think we all need to calm down after that and just in time, Mark Franklin finally appears on screen to reassure us that everything will be OK, even making a quip about trying to sing “Informer” at karaoke. Look how calmly he deals with the jostling from the assembled members of the studio audience. He could teach Rishi Sunak a thing or two about not flapping when under pressure like being asked, I don’t know, say about his family’s tax arrangements.

Talking of cash, here’s Right Said Fred (and friends) to ask us to dig in our pockets for Comic Relief by buying their “Stick It Out” single. The promo video for it is largely unwatchable (though I don’t suppose I felt that way in 1993) with various celebs contributing to the ‘fun’ like Clive Anderson, Hugh Laurie and Linda Robson and Pauline Quirke from Birds Of A Feather. The latter two seem to have no problem leaving their dignity at the door as they leap into the action with some awful dance moves and shouting of ‘stick it aaart!’. Didn’t Linda Robson come out as a big Boris Johnson fan on Loose Women recently? Explains a lot.

“Stick It Out” peaked at No 4.

After The Jesus Lizard were on the show the other week, here comes another unlikely act in the shape of Therapy? It turns out that there was more connecting the two bands than my casual observation. Wikipedia tells me that Therapy?’s sound was influenced by The Jesus Lizard and that the Irish rockers went on to support the Teaxan grunge merchants in their early days. Maybe head TOTP producer Stanley Appel was majorly into his grunge on the sly.

I think the first time I became aware of Therapy? I was sat on a bus in Manchester and glanced out of the window to see a poster advertising their major label debut single “Teethgrinder”. It wasn’t a pleasant sight but it got my attention and put their name in my head. Both the single and parent album “Nurse” achieved Top 40 placings, establishing them as a chart act. The band had signed with A&M after releasing a couple of albums via indie label Wiiija so they could clearly see potential for a big career.

If that early success gave the band a place on the backbenches as it were, then 1993 saw them promoted to ministerial status with three EPs all hitting the charts. The first of those was “Shortsharpshock” with “Screamager” being the lead track. I didn’t think I knew this but the “screw that, forget about that” bridge into the chorus is definitely familiar. It’s a pretty decent tune in fact. They won’t thank me for this comparison but they come across here a bit like a grunge version of early era Busted even down to the bass player wearing long shorts.

Greater success was just around the corner with 1994 album “Troublegum” making the Top 5. The band are still going to this day and have released fifteen studio albums in total.

Mark Franklin is having a good night. Not only has there been nothing approaching a cock up but now he pulls off a difficult segue in slick style. We move from Therapy? across to the neighbouring stage where we find Big Country who launch into action with not a word of introduction. As Stuart Adamson finishes his initial vocal and the guitars kick in, Franklin’s disembodied voice comes in and times his intro to perfection before Adamson restarts singing. A masterclass.

You would be forgiven for saying though, “never mind Mark Franklin, did you just say Big Country are on the show?!”. Yes, yes I did. “Weren’t they just an 80s band though?”. No, no they weren’t though it’s true that their golden era of 1883-86 was well behind them. Like Duran Duran though, those other superstars of the previous decade who were just expected to retire once the 90s came around, Big Country weren’t for giving up. Despite witnessing a downturn in commercial fortunes that began with their final album of the 80s “Peace In Our Time” and a near collapse of the band with 1991’s “No Place Like Home”, they returned in 1993 with a much better received effort in “The Buffalo Skinners”.

The lead single from it was “Alone” and it certainly sounded like a return to form and the sound that had brought them so much success. Those chugging guitars that came to be described as ‘bagpipe rock’ allied to Adamson’s unmistakable growling vocals was a potent brew. Actually, Stuart looked great here, sleek of leather trousers with an into the 90s haircut replacing his previous gravity defying barnet, how many of us watching that night could have predicted his tragic demise just eight short years later at the age of forty-three?

“Alone” peaked at No 24 whilst the album almost mirrored that with a placing of No 25. It would prove to be their last stand commercially. Subsequent albums failed to make any impression and they folded after Adamson’s death. A twenty-five year anniversary reunion in 2007 sparked the band back to life and they are still a live pull to this day with guitarist Bruce Watson’s son now in the line up.

Somewhere in a parallel universe, Mike Pickering never met a singer called Heather Small but a big tall dude called Elton instead, got off his tits on illegal substances, laid down a track called “Crystal Clear”and called his band The Grid not M People. And it sounded like this. This is completely bonkers and yet I have no memory of it at all. The track I mean, not The Grid. I do remember them though my knowledge is limited. This is what I know about The Grid:

Dave Ball from Soft Cell was a band member
They had a No 3 hit in 1994 with “Swamp Thing”

From what I have read online, if you were out clubbing at this time then this track was an absolute banger especially The Orb remixes of it on the 12”. I wasn’t and so I don’t even remember it let alone have good memories of it. The whole thing looks bonkers and yet….it could have been so much more insane. The original plan was for the project to form around the nucleus of producer and DJ Richard Norris and…wait for it…Psychic TV’s Genesis P. Orridge! Holy shit! Talk about avant-garde!

“Crystal Clear” peaked at No 27.

https://youtu.be/xoLOYCitMQA

The Breakers are back this week and finally Mark Franklin makes a misstep when he says in his intro to Hot Chocolate that he can’t quite remember them but he’s told they’re rather good. Oi! Franklin! Enough with your “I’m so young that I can’t be expected to know about old fogey music” attitude! Just how old was Mark at this point? I can’t find a definitive answer but seem to recall Tony Dortie saying that he was only seventeen when he got the TOTP gig. Let’s do the maths then. “It Started With A Kiss” was a No 5 hit in 1982 originally so Mark would have been six maybe? He might have a point I guess. He probably wasn’t even born when they were having hits like “You Sexy Thing” in the mid 70s. Even so, surely everyone knew Hot Chocolate didn’t they?

Well, if you didn’t then helpfully there was yet another Greatest Hits album out in 1993 for you to get acquainted with them. Yes, like Big Country before them, Errol and the boys have more compilations to their name than studio albums. I guess they were more of a singles band to be fair. “It Started With A Kiss” was the track chosen to promote it and it was a good enough choice though maybe the aforementioned “You Sexy Thing” might have been wiser. A horrible early 90s dance remix of it would surely have been a bigger hit. As it happens, that’s exactly what happened four years later when a Ben Liebrand remix of it went Top 10 off the back of The Full Monty film. “It Started With A Kiss” itself got a second rerelease in 1998 and made No 18 beating its 1993 peak by thirteen places.

Unlike Mark Franklin, I was old enough to remember “It Started With A Kiss” first time around and have a memory of hearing Steve Wright playing it and at the point where Errol sings “You don’t remember me do you?” interjecting with “Sure I do, bald fella, sings a bit”. Steve Wright – phoning it in for forty years. Thank God he’s going.

More grunge rock! That Appel fella was definitely into it! This time it comes courtesy of Alice In Chains and their single “Them Bones”. The second single from their “Dirt” album, this is supposedly one of their most well known songs but I can’t say it rings any bells with me. It’s all very stereotypical grunge to my ears but it’s my eyes which are more offended by it. Not the video but the title of the song. “Them Bones”? Surely they meant “Those Bones”? Or even “Dem Bones” as in the ‘leg bone connected to the knee bone etc’ song. Alice In Chains defo referred to the Platinum Jubilee as ‘Platty Jubes’.

“Them Bones” peaked at No 26.

“When I’m Good And Ready” could be the official line coming from Boris Johnson about when he will finally leave No 10 but it’s actually the title of Sybil’s follow up single to the Top 3 hit she had in “The Love I Lost” with West End. This time she totally on her own (except for her backing singers who include the backing singer’s backing singer Miriam Stockley) and it’s another upbeat, breezy Eurodance anthem courtesy of Stock and Waterman (but not Aitken).

I thought this wasn’t anywhere near as good as “The Love I Lost”. It was all a bit forced and clunky. It was a song for Sonia basically. It turns out that Stock and Waterman knew their market though and this was a big hit in the clubs which drove its sales enough for it to peak at No 5. The video missed a trick though. Sybil and her pals are clearly performing against a green screen backdrop but instead of using something interesting as the background image, they’ve got some basic colours (including green) and a sofa that gives it a Friends opening titles vibe.

Remember Ugly Kid Joe that did that anthem to nihilism “Everything About You”? Well, they’re back with a cover of Harry Chapin’s “Cats In The Cradle”.

Now what I knew about Harry Chapin could have been expressed in just four letters back then “W.O.L.D.”. Yes, the 1973 minor hit that DJs often couldn’t resist playing as it was all about…a DJ. Did I know “Cat’s In The Cradle” his platinum selling US No 1 single from the following year? Probably not as it was a flop over here. Reading up on Chapin though, he actually released a lot of material during his career – nine studio albums between 1972 and 1980 before he perished in a car accident in 1981. Apparently “W.O.L.D.” was the inspiration behind an American sit com I used to watch bank in the day called WKRP In Cincinnati. Remember that? No? Well, here’s the theme tune anyway…

Back to Ugly Kid Joe though and their version of “Cat’s In The Cradle” is OK I think though why they retitled it “Cats In The Cradle” without the apostrophe I don’t know. Maybe they went to the same school as Alice In Chains? I presume they were in need of a hit as anything they’d released after “Everything About You” had fallen on deaf ears and so went down the well trodden cover version route. It did the trick going Top 10 here and in the US though they never managed another hit after that.

Anything Harry Chapin can do, Monie Love can do better! You’ve got a song with a four letter acronym title? Well, I’ve got one with five! “Born 2 B.R.E.E.D.” was taken from her second album “In A Word Or 2” and the biggest hit of the four singles taken from it. The title’s acronym stood for ‘Build Relationships where Education and Enlightenment Dominate’ whilst “W.O.L.D” stood for…erm…nothing really. The lyrics tell the story of a DJ being let go by his radio station as he has got too old for their target audience hence the last three letters but I think that’s where the messaging ends. Monie’s message was a strong one though about empowerment and the prejudice facing young mothers and was co written with Levi Seaver Jr and Prince and recorded at the latter’s Paisley Park studio.

Despite the success of “Born 2 B.R.E.E.D.” (it made the Top 20), the album didn’t sell well and Monie disappeared from view. She never released another album but instead transferred to a career in US radio working for various stations including Philadelphia’s WHPI-FM, WTLC in Indianapolis and WALR in Atlanta. Sadly though not WKRP in Cincinnati nor, indeed, WOLD.

He’s done it! Shaggy is No 1 with “Oh Carolina”. Now many of us, me included, may have thought at the time that Shaggy was a prime one hit wonder candidate, riding the dancehall zeitgeist for one huge hit then gone, never to be seen or heard of again. A bit like Jeremy Hunt who can’t seem to get a high profile job again however hard he tries. We were all wrong though (about Shaggy not Hunt). Two short years later he did it again pulling off another chart topper with “Boombastic”. Roll on another five years and he was at it once more with two consecutive No 1s in “It Wasn’t Me” and “Angel”. Even today he’s still around making hit albums with Sting no less. Deliciously, he’s also collaborated with someone called Rayvon which was also the name of the DJ character in Phoenix Nights that used to shout out “Shabba!“ as popularised by fellow three S’s member Shabba Ranks. Sometimes this shit just writes itself.

Mark Franklin rounds of his superb performance with another word perfect outro and we’re out. And that’s how you address an audience Liz Truss, Rishi Sinai, etc etc…

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Hue And Cry	Labour Of Love (Remix)	Not the remix but I bought the original on 10″for my brother for his birthday. Think I’ve got that Best Of album as well.
2	Snow	Informer	Hell no!
3	Right Said Fred	Stick It Out	Not even for charity
4	Therapy?	Shortsharpshock EP	I did not
5	Big Country	Alone	Nah
6	The Grid	Crystal Clear	Nope
7	Hot Chocolate	It Started With A Kiss	No
8	Alice In Chains	Them Bones	Negative
9	Sybil	When I’m Good And Ready	Not for me
10	Ugly Kid Joe	Cats In The Cradle	Not bad but no
11	Monie Love	Born 2 B.R.E.E.D	Another no
12	Shaggy	Oh Carolina	And one final no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0018zsw/top-of-the-pops-18031993

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 03 AUG 1995

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TOTP 01 JUN 1995

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TOTP 10 MAR 1994

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TOTP 27 JAN 1994

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TOTP 26 AUG 1993

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TOTP 10 JUN 1993

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TOTP 18 MAR 1993

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