Toni Braxton

TOTP 07 NOV 1997

With the release schedules geared up for the Christmas rush, 75% of the tunes in this TOTP are hits we are yet to have seen in these BBC4 repeats. Only the opener and the No 1 which top and tail the show have previously featured. Sound good? Yeah well, a third of those new songs are by Peter Andre and Michael Bolton – not so keen now are we? Fear not though as there are some quality tunes as well. Our host is Zoë Ball who begins the show in a bed but it’s not a Big Breakfast / Paula Yates flirting with Michael Hutchence affair. No, this is the BBC after all. No, it’s a lame sketch about Zoë being the new co-host of the Radio 1 Breakfast Show and how she’s working so many hours she doesn’t know what time of day it is. Very poor.

After that we’re straight to the music and we begin with repeat airing of “As Long As You Love Me” by the Backstreet Boys. What was it about boy bands that you had to have five members? This lot did, so did New Kids On The Block, Take That, Boyzone, Westlife and, of course…erm…Five. Now admittedly, many of the above groups lost members along the way but the basic template seems to be five. There were exceptions obviously like Bros who started out as a trio (before slimming down to a duo) and East 17 only had four but even back in the 80s with the likes of Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet (whom I wouldn’t describe as boy bands at all but whom certainly attracted a teenage girl fanbase), the classic line up was five. Was it to broaden their appeal so there was a member to cater for all the tastes of the fans? Said tastes would always include the obligatory small, cute one (Mark Owen, Stephen Gately etc). Who was the cute one in the Backstreet Boys? The blonde one? Must be as the rest of them you wouldn’t look twice at if you passed them in the street if they weren’t famous. I guess they didn’t care though as long as you loved them.

Soap star in decent song shocker! That was essentially the reaction to the news that Natalie Imbruglia had joined the ranks of ex-Neighbours stars to try their hand at this pop star lark. Natalie’s debut offering was no early era, SAW produced Kylie hit though nor indeed anything from Jason Donovan’s career (and don’t get me started on Stefan Dennis’s mercifully short foray into pop music). No, “Torn” was a good, solid, proper song that was perfect for radio playlists and discerning pop music fans alike (myself included). Now, I don’t think I knew this at the time, but the song had a lengthy backstory. Originally co-written by Scott Cutler, Anne Preven and Phil Thornalley (who had previously worked with the likes of The Cure, The Psychedelic Furs, Thompson Twins and Duran Duran and was briefly a member of Johnny Hates Jazz), it laid unreleased for a couple of years until Danish singer Lis Sørensen released it as “Brændt” meaning “Burnt”. Cutler and Preven then formed alt-rock band Ednaswap who released the first English language version of the song which was then superseded by American-Norwegian Trinne Rein’s cover which was a hit in Norway but nowhere else. This low profile gestation period meant that most of us didn’t know the track and accepted it as Natalie’s song – the whole kit and caboodle which possibly helped to give her some extra and unexpected if undeserved credibility.

Of course, not only was the song a winner but Natalie Imbruglia was a great choice to sell it. I’d long since stopped watching Neighbours on a regular basis but I knew who Natalie’s character in the Aussie soap was and she hadn’t looked like the woman on TOTP. She had long hair and played a girl-next-door type but the woman on our TV screens that night had a short, messy-looking haircut that you know was actually very expensive and those amazing, Disney Princess eyes giving her that pop star sheen. “Torn” was such a big hit – Top 5 just about everywhere (No 2 over here) including No 1 in six countries and shifting 2.4 million copies in the UK alone – that it was a double edged sword. It got her career off to a stunning start but everything she released from that point on ran the risk of being overshadowed by that debut. For a while though, the hits did follow – three more singles were released from her “Left Of The Middle” album (itself triple platinum selling) which peaked at Nos 2, 5 and 19. Natalie Imbruglia was a pop sensation even earning herself two BRIT awards. A four year delay before her second album meant momentum was lost though and sales suffered accordingly. However, she continues to record and release music with her last album arriving in 2021. She also won the third season of The Masked Singer as ‘Panda’ in 2022. However, that profile wasn’t enough to save her from this fate when she was a guest judge on The X Factor…

Yes! Yes! YES! Finally, one of my favourite bands makes their TOTP debut. I love Embrace and they are possibly the band I have seen live the most (probably five or six times). There’s something about their particular brand of indie rock that speaks to me – it might be my weakness for the anthemic which they are very good at. Back in 1997 though, I’m not sure that I was on board from the first pick up point. I certainly wasn’t aware of their initial release of “All You Good Good People” on the independent label Fierce Panda but then only 1,300 copies were made so I can be excused for that. The reaction to that limited run release was enough to give the band national recognition and create a buzz around them that would prompt a move to major label Hut Records (a subsidiary of Virgin and an early home for The Verve and The Smashing Pumpkins). Early releases for Hut (the “Fireworks” and “One Big Family” EPs) were respectable but not huge hits but then came this – a rerelease of “All You Good Good People” in EP format – which took them into the Top 10 for the first time. A gigantic song of epic sonic proportions, it slowly builds to a euphoric chorus that just can’t be ignored. And yet…I don’t think it was this song that drew me in. I believe that I only got the boat to Embrace island once “Come Back To What You Know” was released the following year but having arrived, I was more than happy to be marooned there. Their debut album “The Good Will Out” would become one of my favourite albums whilst going to No 1 and going gold on the day of release. Comparisons with Oasis were as inevitable as they were widespread but for me at least, not valid. Sure, on a surface level, you can join the dots but I think there’s more depth to Embrace’s sound whereas their Manc counterparts ploughed a defined seam that they were reluctant to deviate from.

Embrace would experience highs and lows throughout their career from being dropped by Hut after third album “If You’ve Never Been” underperformed commercially followed by a No 1 comeback album in 2004 with “Out Of Nothing”. A poor decision to record the England World Cup song (“World At Your Feet”) in 2006 which rather tarnished their reputation was followed by a seven year hiatus after lead singer Danny McNamara suffered health problems. However, a return to recording in 2013 has led to the release of three further studio albums and a very active touring schedule.

From the sublime to the ridiculous now as Peter Andre fills our screens and he’s in serious mode. Gone is the two-curtains hairstyle and the infamous abs are covered up for Peter is trying to reinvent himself as some sort of 50s teen idol balladeer! Check out his slicked back hairstyle with the exaggerated kiss curl locks at the front and witness how he stares meaningfully down the lens of the camera as if to say “Don’t you get it? I’m a serious artist!”. Then there’s his song – “Lonely” – which starts off sounding a bit like George Benson’s “Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love For You” made famous by Glenn Medeiros but turns into a right old dirge. Although it made No 6, its parent album “Time” was a right old duffer when it came to sales and it looked as if the pop star career of Peter Andre was mercifully coming to an end. Somehow though, this berk is still a name in 2025 and has so far released eleven studio albums! Eleven! That’s three more than Embrace! Make it make sense someone. Please!

Now, from a dirge of a ballad to a…dirge of a ballad. Oh Lordy! Toni Braxton made her name on sad love songs (I mean like literally – one of her hits is called “Another Sad Love Song”!) so we shouldn’t have been surprised to see her back on TOTP with another one but “How Could An Angel Break My Heart” was a real stinker. Everything is wrong with this one from its awful title (Toni had a real thing about songs with the word ‘heart’ in the title – “Un-break My Heart”, of course but then “Make My Heart” and “I Heart You” in the 2010s) to its dreadful lyrics (“I wish I didn’t wish so hard, maybe I wished our love apart”) to its lumbering, mournful sound. Oh and don’t get me started on Kenny G’s sax parts. No, seriously please don’t. I can’t do my Kenny “The G Man” G story again*. Then there’s Toni’s performance here. At one point she sings “oooh, mmmm” (according to the subtitles) where she moves her lips into a Shirley Bassey style tremble. Talk about over emoting! Next!

*Actually, it seems I can. Read on.

Oh no! How can this be?! It’s a hat-trick of dirge-like ballads as we follow Peter Andre and Toni Braxton with Michael Bolton and his single “The Best Of Love”. What dreadful running order scheduling! The saving grace here was that it was Boller’s final UK chart hit – the last of 17 (SEVENTEEN!). This one was part of a double A-Side with “Go The Distance”, a track taken from the soundtrack to the Disney film Hercules. What a terrible way for Bolton to bow out on such a poor song. “The Best Of Love” was written by US songwriter and producer Babyface as was the preceding track performed by Toni Braxton. Right that’s him off my Christmas card list then.

In an attempt to distract us from how awful the song he’s peddling is, Michael has had his famous long locks shorn off. I can’t even make a joke along the lines of Samson losing his strength and power after his hair was cut because Bollers was useless when he was overly hirsute. I probably shouldn’t be making any jokes about Michael full stop as he is recovering from surgery for a brain tumour. Instead, I’ll simply say farewell Mr Bolton. We’ll always have Sheffield in 1993…

TOTP 16 JUL 1987

Read the above post for my Michael Bolton / Kenny G story

How do you follow up an era defining album like “Different Class” that housed such classics of its time as “Common People” and “Disco 2000”? Well, Pulp decided to go with a song about thinking more about our old folks. It wasn’t the obvious direction to go in but it was a reflection by Jarvis Cocker on the ageing process and how he himself was not getting any younger. That he was only 34 when this song was released kind of undermines his musings but then age is relative I guess. He probably did feel older than some of his chart contemporaries having started Pulp in 1978. He’ll be 62 this birthday – I wonder how he feels about his song “Help The Aged” these days?

There were definitely some who weren’t keen on the track, namely the charity Help The Aged (now AGE UK) who objected to their name being used on the single and who were only assuaged by having some of the single’s royalties donated to their cause. Was I one of those who weren’t convinced by this new direction? I honestly can’t recall what I thought of it but listening back to it now, I quite like it. It has that idiosyncratic Pulp feel but it also has a quiet intensity. In fact, is it just me or does its backing sound a bit like “Creep” by Radiohead? OK, just me then. Anyway, its No 8 chart peak was a relief to Cocker at least who was pleased to have got a song about growing old and dying so far up the charts. However, the parent album it came from – “This Is Hardcore” – failed to match the sales of its predecessor shifting a tenth of the units that “Different Class” did. What I remember most about the album is they hugely long final track “The Day After The Revolution” which clocked in at a mammoth 14 minutes 56 seconds the majority of which was what felt like a never ending fade out. We nearly got caught out by that a few times when playing the album in the Our Price where I worked in Stockport.

Aqua remains at No 1 with “Barbie Girl” and for this performance singer Lene Nystrøm is channeling her inner Mike Nesmith as she’s donned a woolly hat. Ironically, their bubblegum hit was just the sort of saccharine, sweet pop that Nesmith rallied against when he was in The Monkees as he strove for creative control of the band. Legend has it that the straw that broke the camel’s back was that they were told they had to record “Sugar, Sugar” and Nesmith refused whilst putting his fist through the wall of a hotel in anger at the idea. The song would be a hit for fictional cartoon band The Archies becoming a No 1 hit in both the UK and the US in 1969. In some ways, “Barbie Girl” mirrored “Sugar, Sugar” both in terms of its chart performance and pure pop sound. However, I don’t think there was any deeper meaning going on in lyrics like “Oh sugar, oh honey honey, you are my candy girl and you got me wanting you” unlike “Barbie Girl” which sought to make a subversive social comment on the inherent misogyny of the values attached to the Barbie doll. Apparently. However, “Sugar Sugar” was bestowed with the honour of soundtracking the Apollo 12 space mission when it was one of the songs astronaut Alan Bean chose to play during the journey to the moon. Not to be outdone, a Barbie doll based upon the first female commander of the International Space Station Samantha Cristoforetti spent six months orbiting the Earth with her in 2022.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Backstreet Boys	As Long As You Love Me	Nope
2	Natalie Imbruglia	Torn	Liked it, didn’t buy it
3	Embrace	All You Good Good People	No but I had the album
4	Peter Andre	Lonely	Of course not
5	Toni Braxton	How Could An Angel Break My Heart	Negative
6	Michael Bolton	The Best Of Love	Never
7	Pulp	Help The Aged	I did not
8	Aqua	Barbie Girl	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/m0026dt5/top-of-the-pops-review-of-the-year-2024

TOTP 15 NOV 1996

Posted on December 5, 2024 by 80stastic

Why oh why didn’t we have more of this calibre of ‘golden mic’ presenter? Having four of The Fast Show cast in character was a genius move by TOTP executive producer Ric Blaxill. Or was it his decision? Did it come from higher up within the BBC to promote the first (and so far only) The Fast Show Christmas Special that was aired on 27 December of this year? Whatever the truth, the turn by Paul Whitehouse, Charlie Higson, Mark Williams and John Thomson was so much better than the usual standard we’ve seen from the majority of these celebrity hosts. It was certainly a vast improvement on the drivel many of the old Radio 1 DJs used to shovel at us (yes, obviously I’m pointing at you Simon Mayo). We start with the characters of Ted and Ralph who are straight into their uncomfortable relationship mode. I especially like the way Ted says he doesn’t know about Boyzone (sir) but then immediately informs Ralph that Take That have split up.

The first act they introduce is Robert Miles and Maria Nayler with a track called “One And One”. Miles, of course, was the poster boy of the dream house movement and had scored a massive hit earlier in the year with “Children”. Unlike that song and follow up “Fable” which were both instrumentals, this one had actual singing in it courtesy of Nayler who had started her music career with the band Ultraviolet who I’d heard of but had no idea what they sounded like. Someone who did though and who liked what he heard was DJ and producer Sasha who sought Nayler out to record the track “Be As One” which became a Top 20 UK hit earlier in 1996. This would peak the interest of Robert Miles who similarly made contact with Nayler to collaborate on the song “One And One” – clearly Maria had a thing about songs with the word ‘one’ in the title.

So what was this ‘new’ sound like? Well, it was like “Children” with vocals wasn’t it? If you liked that sort of thing then good luck to you but for me it was all fairly insubstantial. If I’ve said this once, I’ve said it hundreds of times but the record buying public didn’t agree with me and sent it to No 3 in the UK charts. However, the dream house phenomenon would peter out from this point on (although it probably morphed into something else). Miles would have just one further UK chart hit (bizarrely with a Sledge Sister) and he himself would pass away in 2017 from metastatic cancer aged just 47.

Next up are Mrs Ted’s favourites the Backstreet Boys. I’m sorry Mrs Ted but I could never understand the appeal of this lot. Awful name, useless songs and most of them were not even that good looking. Without wishing to sound too Little Englander about it, didn’t we have enough boy bands of our own without making space for New Kids In The Block 2.0? Take this song “I’ll Never Break Your Heart” for example. It’s just a sub par version of something Boyz II Men might have released. Somehow though, I still hear their songs played on the radio to this day. Maybe it’s me that’s got it all wrong? Nah, couldn’t be but even if liking the Backstreet Boys was being in the right, I’d rather be wrong. In fact, I want it that way (ahem).

Somebody put some thought into this running order (though clearly not “I’ll Get Me Coat” man who does the intro) as we segue from “I’ll Never Break Your Heart” to “Un-Break My Heart” by Toni Braxton. Just like Robert Miles’ “One And One” from earlier, this single had a remarkable chart life partly helped by the fact there was a ballad version and a dance version of the single available to buy. Look at these chart positions though:

4 – 5 – 5 – 4 – 5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 4 – 2 – 4

That’s eleven weeks inside the Top 5 with a climb down the chart being reversed on three separate occasions. Compare that to the chart record of “One And One”:

6 – 6 – 6 – 5 – 4 – 3 – 5 – 5 – 4 – 6

Incredible really that two records in the charts at the same time could display such consistency of sales. Working in Our Price at the time, that pattern of sales would also have been hard to order for with the question “surely it’s going to tail off next week?” always in the back of the singles buyer’s mind. Interesting that “One And One” spent three consecutive weeks at No 6. The devil’s music perhaps?

We were always going to see Jazz Club’s Louis Balfour weren’t we and John Thomson duly delivers. It’s the plausible detail of the script that makes this character funny for me – the names of the fictional artists and songs that Balfour introduces that are simultaneously ludicrous and believable. He’s on form in this link referencing Peter Python and The Bop and a track called “Beat My Feet Sweet”. Nice! Not nice though was the real act that he introduces – The Woolpackers with “Hillbilly Rock Hillbilly Roll”. Whose shameless and shameful idea was this to cash in on the line dancing phenomenon that was sweeping the country around this time?! Presumably some executive producer at Emmerdale from where this grotesque abomination originated. I’ve never watched the soap much – it was the one that I could never really get into – and this single wasn’t going to tempt me in.

Supposedly, the group that consisted of three cast members actually featured in a plot line of the show but I couldn’t tell you what the story was. All I knew was that this was a terrible record engineered to fleece fans of the soap or those people who would only come into a record shop once a year at Christmas. Somehow this pile of crap got to No 5 and spent ten weeks inside the Top 40. They repeated the grift the following Christmas with another line dancing song called “Line Dance Party” (the thought that must have gone into naming it!) and there were two whole albums released off the back of this initial nonsense. Here’s a thought, after you’ve done your cha cha slides, your brushes and your heel fans, here’s another move for all those involved in this record – it’s called the ‘hang your head in shame’ and that includes TOTP executive producer Ric Blaxill for having it on the show.

In 1995, Michael Jackson had the UK Christmas No 1. Twelve months on and his Yuletide offering was still being sourced from his “HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I” album but “Stranger In Moscow” was no “Earth Song”. In fact, despite its chart peak of No 4, I don’t remember this one at all. I think I can be forgiven as it’s the somnambulist’s anthem, sleepwalking its way from start to finish. Indeed, it’s 65bpm makes it one of Jackson’s slowest songs.

A ballad about loneliness, it apparently drew on Jackson’s personal experience of walking through the city at night alone looking for someone, anyone to talk to. The Russian angle was meant to highlight his feelings of fear and alienation though lyrics like “Armageddon of the brain”, “Stalin’s tomb won’t let me be” and “KGB was doggin’ me” all seem rather clunky and ham fisted. Supposedly the track’s origins came from a bizarre source – the credits theme for the computer game Sonic The Hedgehog 3. What this?

Oh my God! I think I can hear a similarity! And here’s another similarity – a cover of “Stranger In Moscow” by a band I’d never heard of before but whose version actually turns the track (for me) into a decent song. Maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to judge and dismiss.

Right, so I’ve now watched the first part of the Boybands Forever documentary on iPlayer and it dealt specifically with the rise of and rivalry between Take That and East 17. It starts with a clip of the latter’s Brian Harvey smashing up a disc for 1 million sales of East 17 records in a fit of rage. The clip was dated as being from 2015 and sees Harvey ranting about grief he’s getting from the police, the CPS, the court system before he finally says turns on the music industry. Now, you may have seen that Harvey has been posting a lot of videos of himself lately where he talks/shouts about conspiracies and cover ups and being censored. His ex-band mate John Hendy got involved by posting a reply video telling Harvey to shut up and move on. Brian, predictably, did neither. Reading between the lines, Harvey seems to be insinuating that events took place during the band’s career that should have warranted an Operation Yewtree style investigation and that they have consistently been covered up and he wants to get the truth out there whatever the cost may be to him personally. He even referenced the recent death of Liam Payne as part of his conspiracy theory. I don’t know where the truth lies in this – why would I? – but all I’m going to say is that, in retrospect, having Ken and Kenneth the “Ooh! Suit you sir!” twins introduce East 17 and Gabrielle perform “If You Ever” hasn’t aged that well.

Ken and Kenneth really push the envelope with their next link to Prince by referring to him as the “purple-headed one” – I think we all understand that double entendre. I say Prince but I think he was officially known as that squiggly symbol thing by this point. Apparently, he’d always wanted to record “Betcha By Golly Wow!” that had originally been a hit for The Stylistics in 1972 but his record company Warners hadn’t allowed it so he got his way once he was free from contractual obligations to them and recorded it for his “Emancipation” album. I have to say that although it seems a logical choice given the range of Prince’s falsetto voice, I’m not sure he does a great job with it. If it was a shout for a penalty in a football match, you’d say that he made a meal of it. It did make No 11 in the UK which suggests the record buying public once again disagreed with me. However, aside from a rerelease of “1999” as the new millennium dawned, he would never have as big a hit in this country again.

In amongst the headlines that were fashioned by the press in the Gary Barlow v Robbie Williams battle, there was another contender for solo artist supremacy who rather went under the radar and yet, for me, his first solo single was better than both his ex-band mates’ efforts combined. The perceived wisdom was that Barlow was the talent when it came to writing songs and was therefore the most likely to succeed out on his own. Williams had generated a lot of press for himself but when it came to it, his first release was a cover version – where were your songs Robbie?

Tiptoeing a path through both came Mark Owen – the ~~pretty~~ young one as described by Ralph in his intro – and therein lay the issue for Owen, that he could be dismissed as just that. Even the TOTP caption adds to the condescending narrative by stating “Wrote this track himself” with the underlying tone being “Who would have thought it?” and yet “Child” is actually very good. Coming on like a cross between Donovan and David Cassidy, Owen delivered a sparkling, shimmering pop song that perfectly suited him vocally. With all due respect, Mark doesn’t have the biggest voice but he didn’t need one for this string drenched ballad. The chart positions for the debut singles by Barlow, Williams and Owen seemed to solidify in the minds of the public some sort of natural order with Gary’s “Forever Love” going to No 1, Robbie’s George Michael cover spinning to No 2 and Mark’s “Child” finding a home at No 3. Those three chart peaks were replicated for all three’s follow up singles as well. It was like some preordained medal podium for ex-members of Take That. Time would show that it would be Williams who would ultimately ascend to the gold medal position in terms of record sales but for Mark Owen it would never get better than a bronze medal. His album “Green Man” didn’t sell in bucket loads (we had a massive overstock in the Our Price where I was working after Head Office buyers mistakenly bought in loads of it thinking it was a surefire winner) and he was dropped by his label within a year. Winning the second series of Celebrity Big Brother in 2002 raised his profile again to the point where he bagged a Top 5 hit with “Four Minute Warning” but it was a case of diminishing returns after that until the Take That reunion in 2006. Mark has continued his solo career in parallel with the band and last released an album in 2022.

In an inspired move, Bob Fleming does the voice over for the Top 10 countdown which obviously means we don’t actually hear much of the Top 10 countdown. In pole position are Robson & Jerome for a second week with their triple A-side single “What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted” / “Saturday Night At The Movies” / “You’ll Never Walk Alone”. Mercifully, this would be their last ever release (excluding a Best Of and a Love Songs collection that would follow in later years) which makes me wonder if that was the reason behind this triple track product. Going out with a bang and a third No 1 single out of three. Would they have risked doing a Frankie Goes To Hollywood if they’d have gone for a fourth single and missed the top of the charts? Or was it as simple as they’d had enough of this pop star lark and wanted to get back to their day jobs? Presumably they had a contract with their record label RCA so maybe they’d just fulfilled their contractual obligations? Whatever the reason, I think this might be their final TOTP appearance (bar Christmas specials) and I think we can all say “thank f**k for that!”. The madness was over. As for The Fast Show, it would go on for a further two series with the cast reuniting for a 30 anniversary tour this year. Nice.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Robert Miles and Maria Nayler	One And One	Nope
2	Backstreet Boys	I’ll Never Break Your Heart	Never
3	Toni Braxton	Un-Break My Heart	I did not
4	The Woolpackers	Hillbilly Rock Hillbilly Roll	As if
5	Michael Jackson	Stranger In Moscow	Nah
6	East 17 / Gabrielle	If You Ever	Sorry Brian – it’s a no
7	Prince	Betcha By Golly Wow!	No
8	Mark Owen	Child	Liked it, didn’t buy it
9	Robson & Jerome	What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted” / “Saturday Night At The Movies” / “You’ll Never Walk Alone	See 4 above

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/m00256xq/top-of-the-pops-15111996?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 01 NOV 1996

Posted on November 26, 2024 by 80stastic

Right, for this post there’ll be no mentions of football or my past drunken escapades like in recent weeks – it’ll just be all about the music and TOTP which is what this blog is meant to be all about after all. So let’s examine what was happening with the grand old show at this point in time. Well, it had been through a number of changes in 1996. An initially temporary but ultimately permanent move from Thursday to Friday was seismic enough but that was added to by the allocation of a new time slot to boot. The there was the whole relaunch of archive show TOTP2 which seems to hijack the parent programme to help with its promotion. We had the ‘flashback’ slot which featured a hit from (mainly) the corresponding week from years back plus the play out video was taken over directly by TOTP2 to preview an old clip that would be on that week’s show. It definitely felt as if the BBC’s iconic music show was being put out to pasture. Whether executive producer Ric Blaxill felt this as well or just thought it was time for a new career, he would bring about another huge change by leaving the show at the start of 1997. Yes, the Blaxill era was coming to an end. On the whole, I think he did a decent job of resurrecting TOTP after the ‘year zero’ revamp experiment ultimately failed. The ‘golden mic’ presenter idea worked for the most part and if nothing else, he consigned the dreadful Simon Mayo to history as a host. Inevitably, I think the ‘golden mic’ feature got used to promote other BBC programmes and projects. Falling into this category were the likes of Dennis Pennis (Paul Kaye), The Fast Show cast and in this week’s episode Julian Clary who had recovered from the fall out of his infamous appearance at the British Comedy Awards in 1993 where he made that joke about Norman Lamont to have his own BBC series All Rise For Julian Clary that was on air at this time.

Anyway, whatever the reason for his filling the slot (he’d make a joke out of that wouldn’t he?), Clary’s first job is to introduce a song called “Place Your Hands” which prompts the first wry smile of the night from Julian. Now the first line of Reef’s biggest ever hit is “place your hands on my hope” but if you have subtitles turned on in your settings whilst watching it on iPlayer (like I did), then they will tell you that the first line is “place your hands on my hole”! Just as well that isn’t the actual lyric – Julian would have had a field day. My crack about ‘filling the slot’ is tame in comparison. What? ‘My crack’? Oh that’s enough now! Just stop it! Let’s get back to the music please! Right – well, “Place Your Hands” was quite the rousing tune, combining a funk feel with some rock riffs, coming on like the UK’s answer to Red Hot Chili Peppers – singer Gary Stringer even had Anthony Kiedis style long hair. However, the bass player looked very un-rock ‘n’ roll with his glasses, sensible haircut and roll up sweater – at one point he seems to do a choreographed stroll on the spot akin to the famous walk like The Shadows used to do. I have to say though that I liked the song even the weird bit in the middle where Stringer takes an age to get out the line “ooh it’s a celebration”. Someone who hated it though was my work colleague Mike who really objected to Stringer’s vocal interjection of “Alright now” which he repeats through the song. I’m not sure why it irked him so much but irk him it did and made the whole ding unlistenable for him.

However, what I’ll always associate “Place Your Hands” with is the parody of it that they recorded as a jingle for a section in the show TFI Friday called ‘It’s Your Letters’…

Is there a better example of a dance act being a great singles artist but lousy at selling albums than Livin’ Joy? Between 1995 and 1997 they had five UK hit singles including a No 1, two that made the Top 10 and two that peaked inside the Top 20 with all of them featuring on their album “Don’t Stop Movin’” and yet said album would only spend two weeks on the charts peaking at No 41. Such statistics would take some explaining for a rock/pop artist and yet for a dance combo it seemed to be industry standard. Was it a case of punters identifying with the song not the singer? Possibly. Would a track that went down a storm in the clubs be all about the bpm rather than any attachment to the actual person singing it? Were dance artists not promoted in the same way as a pop group with less focus on their visual image and more on their sound? I don’t know – maybe I’m just talking b******s. For the record, “Follow The Rules” peaked at No 9 and spent and three weeks inside the Top 40.

Now like me, you may only be able to name one song by Alisha’s Attic without looking at their Wikipedia page but they actually had eight in total. I know – eight! “I Am, I Feel” was the first (which is the one I know) which peaked at No 14 and started a peculiar run of chart positions up until their last Top 40 entry in 2001. Look at these numbers:

14 – 12 – 12 – 12 – 13 – 29 – 34 – 24

Adding to that, their first two albums peaked at Nos 14 and 15. These girls weee nothing if not consistent. “Alisha Rules The World” was the first of that run of three consecutive No 12 hits and on first hearing seemed quite insubstantial and yet it stuck in my mind for hours afterwards. How did they do that? Maybe it was in their genes – they are the daughters of Brian Poole as in Brian Poole and The Tremeloes fame after all so perhaps they were always destined to be able to craft catchy tunes. Both sisters have gone onto have successful careers as songwriters – Shelley has worked with the likes of Janet Jackson, Boyzone and Westlife whilst Karen has written songs for all sorts of people including Sugababes, Kylie Minogue and Will Young. In 2021, she was honoured with the Best Music Creative Award at the Music Week Women In Music Awards. Together as Alisha’s Attic they received an Ivor Novello nomination for best lyrical and melodic composition. Meanwhile, Shelley extended the rock family tree by marrying Texas guitarist Ally McErlaine in 2001.

The careers of Madonna and Jimmy Nail had the rather unlikely habit of running into each other since the mid 80s when they both recorded a cover of the Rose Royce classic “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore”. Nail took his version to No 3 in the UK off the back of his success in the role of Oz in ITV comedy/drama Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. Madonna’s cover was in included on her 1984 album “Like A Virgin” and also made its way onto her 1995 ballads collection “Something To Remember”. They then crossed paths again on the film version of Evita with Madonna in the title role and Nail playing Argentine singer Agustín Magaldi. Finally, would you believe it, they’re on the same edition of TOTP though Madonna isn’t in the studio in person as Jimmy is. Madge’s appearance comes courtesy of the video for “You Must Love Me” from the Evita soundtrack whilst Nail is here to promote the soundtrack from his latest TV series Crocodile Shoes II but more of that later.

Nail’s role in Evita wasn’t the first time he’d played a character who had a connection to Argentina. The aforementioned Oz was shown working in the Falkland Islands at the start of the second series of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet whilst episode eight of said series is based around Oz’s marriage to his wife Marjorie and is called Marjorie Doesn’t Live Here Anymore – I love a bit of intertextuality me.

Julian Clary almost crosses the line into Lamont territory in his next intro by saying that he’d been searching for the hero inside himself for ages but couldn’t find him. However, he did find a couple of lorry drivers. Ooh err and, indeed, missus. Ric Blaxill must have known what he was getting when he booked Julian for the gig so he shouldn’t have been surprised.

Anyway, back to the music and after two consecutive chart hits, Space (or their label) decided that a rerelease of an earlier single that failed to make the grade was in order. “Neighbourhood” originally made No 56 on the UK charts in March of 1996, just a couple of months before their Top 40 breakthrough with “Female Of The Species”. The revisit to “Neighbourhood” would peak at No 11. It’s possibly my favourite tune of theirs just because it’s entrancing in a beguiling sort of way – I can’t help but be drawn to it even though I know it shouldn’t really work. It’s basically one of those ‘list’ songs which in this case is a roll call of residents of a fictional neighbourhood which was based upon the real life area of the Cantril Farm Estate that singer Tommy Scott grew up in. There’s just something very intriguing about the song’s sound, be it the twangy guitar punctuations or Mariachi style vibe that runs throughout it which gives it the feel of a spaghetti western soundtrack.

Then there’s the characters in the lyrics which reference transvestites, “big butch queens” and the “local vicar” who’s a “serial killer “. That last one puts me in mind of another song with a narrative about a vicar who isn’t all he seems to be…

As I write this, this week sees the 40th anniversary of the release of “Do They Know It’s Christmas” and so it seems rather apt that the ‘flashback’ slot features one of its protagonists in all his mid 80s, big hair glory. Here’s what I had to say about “Freedom” by Wham! in my 80s blog…

TOTP 11 OCT 1984

In an era when singles could be in and out of the chart within a fortnight, “Un-Break My Heart” by Toni Braxton was one of those hits that bucked the trend. It would spend 11 consecutive weeks inside the UK Top 5 peaking at No 2 on two separate occasions matching the high of her other big hit “Breathe Again”. I say ‘other’ big hit but she did have more than those two. Indeed, “You’re Makin’ Me High” had been as high as No 7 back in July but I don’t remember that one at all. There are a few other hits but “Un-Break My Heart” and “Breathe Again” are surely what Toni Braxton will be remembered for. Indeed, the former is also the title of a TV film biography made about the singer that premiered in 2016. I was genuinely shocked that she was considered a big enough name to receive that level of attention. Maybe I shouldn’t have been as “Un-Break My Heart” would spend 11 weeks at No 1 in America and has sold over two million copies over there whilst also going double platinum in the UK. Did I like it? Well, R&B ballads aren’t really my thing so I was fairly immune to its appeal but I can appreciate that Toni has a fine set of pipes and gives Whitney Houston a run for her money with her vocal performance with this type of track. If I recall correctly, there was also a dance version of the song which may have helped to extend its chart life, covering all bases as it were. Given its longevity in our Top 5, I’m guessing we’ll be seeing this one on a TOTP repeat coming soon so I’ll leave it there for now.

And so back to the aforementioned Jimmy Nail who is this week’s ’exclusive performance’ with the lead single from the soundtrack to Crocodile Shoes II called “Country Boy”. My mate Robin tipped me off that this was all kinds of wrong and that the last two syllables of the title of his song were redundant. Ouch! Is Robin right? Well, certainly the choice of stage costumes is a bit dodgy. What was with the schoolboy outfits and the fake black eye? Was it some sort of homage to AC/DC’s Angus Young? Was it something to do with the TV show? I’ve never watched either series but I’m guessing not seeing as it was about a Country & Western club singer who makes it big in Nashville. However, I don’t actually mind the song. It kind of reminds me of this by The Big Dish which is a great track…

The line about the “devil’s daughter” though always reminds me of another example of alliteration featuring El Diablo…

I’m on record in this blog as saying that there are worst things you could do with some free time on your hands than listen to Jimmy’s Best Of album called “The Nail File” (see what he did there?). There’s some decent tunes on there including three written by the wonderful Paddy McAloon of Prefab Sprout fame and you can’t go wrong with a bit of Paddy. Robin though will be relieved to know that this was Jimmy’s final ever UK Top 40 hit though he will be back on a TOTP repeat one last time soon for another performance of “Country Boy”. Leave those last two syllables alone Robin!

Now to a collaboration between two acts that came about by a circumstance of scheduling but which would give both artists one of their biggest ever hits (though not the biggest in either case). Booked to appear on the same French pop music show, East 17 and Gabrielle were asked to do a song together to fulfil a regular feature of said show and picked a track that had been massive in America but which had hardly registered over here. “If You Ever” had been a No 2 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 for R&B quartet Shai in 1992 but audience reaction to the boys from Walthamstow and the girl from Hackney’s version was so positive that it was decided that they should record their own version together. The resulting track would make No 2 in the UK charts just falling short of matching the feat of both Gabrielle’s “Dreams” and East 17’s “Stay Another Day”. In the case of the latter, it was used to spearhead their Greatest Hits album that was released three days after this TOTP aired. Its release prompted stories that the bad were about to split which were vehemently denied but Brian Harvey would be sacked within months after a late night radio interview in which he admitted to taking the drug ecstasy. As for Gabrielle, “If You Ever” would become her fourth and biggest hit of 1996.

As with Toni Braxton earlier, the song was an R&B ballad that featured a flourish of Spanish guitar in the middle eight – it must have been a thing back then – and is actually better than I remember (though that’s not saying much). It’s billed as East 17 featuring Gabrielle though in truth it might as well have been promoted as Brian Harvey and Gabrielle as it’s basically a duet between the two. Tony Mortimer plays some keyboards in this performance whilst ‘the other two’ are relegated not only to doing some swaying and backing vocals but physically as well as they are positioned some distance behind Brian and Gabrielle on stage though you could probably make a case that this happened on pretty much every East 17 release. Also like “Un-Break My Heart”, “If You Ever” was also remarkably durable charts wise staying in the Top 10 for five consecutive weeks including three inside the Top 3. We’ll surely be seeing this one again as well.

It’s a second and final week at the top for “Say You’ll Be There” by the Spice Girls. Interestingly, the A&R people at Virgin had wanted this to be the debut single for the group instead of “Wannabe”. Their manager Simon Fuller agreed with the label with both of the opinion that it was a much cooler song but the group got their way and the rest is history. Would it have made any difference to the Spice Girls story if Virgin/Fuller had won out instead? I’m not sure and I guess we’ll never know but I’m thinking that the juggernaut of their success would have been “Too Much” to “Stop” (ahem).

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Reef	Place Your Hands	It’s in the singles box – it’s a yes!
2	Livin’ Joy	Follow The Rules	Negative
3	Alisha’s Attic	Alisha Rules The World	I did not
4	Madonna	You Must Love Me	No I mustn’t
5	Space	Neighbourhood	No but my wife had the album
6	Wham!	Freedom	No but we all had a Wham! Best Of didn’t we?
7	Toni Braxton	Un-Break My Heart	Nah
8	Jimmy Nail	Country Boy	Nope
9	East 17 / Gabrielle	If You Ever	Didn’t happen
10	Spice Girls	Say You’ll Be There	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/m0024zk8/top-of-the-pops-01111996?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 16 JUN 1994

Posted on April 13, 2023 by 80stastic

It’s the middle of June 1994 and before we get started on this week’s TOTP, it’s time I popped back into my personal life to see what I was up to back then. After three moves in four months at work, I’d ended up back where I’d started my career at Our Price at the Market Street store in Manchester. Despite being apprehensive initially, I’d kind of settled into being back there and was about to clock up a solid six months when everything changed again. The store manager took me aside one day and told me that he’d got a job at HMV (traitor!) and would be leaving soon. Fair play, good luck to him and all that but his change of employer would have ramifications for me.

The manager asked to replace him was my old boss at the Market Street store who I liked and so I had no concerns about him coming in. Unfortunately, he had some concerns about me. It was nothing personal but he was overseeing the start up of two new Our Price stores at Manchester airport and would continue with that as well as managing the Market Street branch. As such, he wouldn’t be around that much and wanted a more experienced Assistant Manager than me in place and so a guy from down South who wanted a move up North was transferred into my position.

So where did that leave me? Area management shunted me up the road to the Piccadilly store. It was my worst nightmare come true. The Piccadilly store had quite the reputation for a…let’s say ‘colourful’ clientele. In other words it’s where all the scallies and shoplifters hung out. They employed a full time security guard there (we didn’t have one at Market Street). Plus, they were a single floor store and the trading area was massive which made it hard to police plus a lot of work to make it look appealing to customers. We had two floors at Market Street but they were much smaller in size and much more manageable. To say I wasn’t keen on going there was an understatement. Somebody jokingly wrote in my leaving card that he’d heard they’d installed gun turrets at Piccadilly to control the scallies. Gulp! In the end, I lasted about five months in Piccadilly and hated nearly every minute. Not long after I arrived, the security guard left and a new guy came in. I’d had a look in the previous incumbent’s security log one day and it was full of entries that just said ‘nothing to report’. My experience of the store couldn’t have been further removed from that assessment. The new security bloke was shit hot at catching shoplifters and I spent most of my days sat with him and his latest capture in the shop kitchen waiting for the police to arrive. The previous guy had worn a security outfit and spent most his time chatting to the staff as far as I could see. This new fella wore ‘undercover’ clothes and loved nothing more than apprehending thieves and there seemed to be lots of them to catch. I just wanted to sell some records to punters. I didn’t want any of this. My time there will probably influence my opinions on the songs on TOTP for the next few months as most of them I associate with my miserable experience in Piccadilly. You have been warned.

Right. With all that said, it’s time for the show and we have another ‘golden mic’ guest presenter this week in the form of Angus Deayton. You remember him. The gangly looking bloke who hosted Have I Got News For You and was in One Foot In The Grave as Victor Meldrew’s neighbour. Whatever happened to him? Well, the short answer is cocaine and prostitutes. In May 2002, The News Of The World exposed his extra curricular activities leading to an excruciating appearance on HIGNFY where he was mercilessly teased by Paul Merton and Ian Hislop. After more allegations in the October, Deayton was dismissed from the show and despite continuing to work in TV and radio, his media profile has never been as high since. Back in 1994 though, his choice as TOTP host made perfect sense. He was a confident presenter and his suave demeanour even led to him being labelled as ‘TV’s Mr Sex’ in Time Out magazine. Oh the irony.

The first act Deayton has to introduce are The Grid who are riding high in the charts with their hit “Swamp Thing”. There’s a lot going on in this performance and most of it is pretty weird. I have to start with the banjo player who is hooked up to some machinery which is giving me heavy A Clockwork Orange vibes, specifically the scene where Alex undergoes aversion therapy with his eyes pulled permanently open. Then there’s the guy who seems to have fashioned himself a crown of safety pins. Finally, the fact that everyone on stage is dressed head to toe in white and safety pin guy has the slogan ‘No pain, no gain’ in big black letters on his top makes it all look like you’re watching Wham! performing “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go” in their ‘Choose Life’ T-shirts but if you were coming down from a bad trip. As I said, decidedly weird.

Just when I thought the time of 2 Unlimited was coming to an end and despite their last single being on its way down the charts at No 32 this week, the TOTP producers have still managed to manufacture yet another slot for them to appear on the show. “No One” was a track from their album “Real Things” which, rather surprisingly to me, was the No 1 album this particular week. It would eventually be released as a single three months later and peaked at No 17 which presents the frightening prospect of it being on the show again a few weeks down the line. For all the accusations against them that their songs all sounded the same, this one was slightly different. I mean, it wasn’t a big ballad or anything but it didn’t t seem to have that 2 Unlimited bpm urgency. In fact, it sounds like any other Eurodance hit of the time which wasn’t a good thing either in my book. Oh, and what was with the oversized wrap around glasses the backing band are wearing? Was it meant to represent anonymity, as in ‘No One’. I’m probably overthinking it which I doubt 2 Unlimited did.

https://youtu.be/15ucWhy9eKQ

It’s the video for “Anytime You Need A Friend” by Mariah Carey next. You may recall that she flew over to appear on the show in person to perform the song the other week. Wikipedia informs me that this was the first promo in which Mariah has straightened hair as opposed to her cascading curls. And the world was never the same again.

Talking of world altering events, an NHS choir called Breathe Harmony recorded a version of the song during the COVID-19 pandemic with contributions from over 100 staff recorded at home on mobile phones that were put together into one video. That film came to the attention of Mariah herself who tweeted that it had brought tears to her eyes (in a good way). The recording was eventually released as a single to raise money for two NHS charities. Mariah’s original peaked at No 8 in the UK.

Finally a D:Ream hit that isn’t a re-release of a previous single. After “Things Can Only Get Better” (once) and “U R The Best Thing” (twice) had been given the re-release treatment to great effect realising No 1 and No 4 hits respectively, here comes “Take Me Away”. However, like its predecessors, it was a track on the band’s debut album “D:Ream On Volume 1”. Truth be told, it’s not a great song and this was reflected in its chart peak of No 18. It probably should gave remained an album track. Peter Cunnah sounds ever so slightly out of breath doing a live vocal here and he’s also not wearing his trademark chequered suit. Maybe the two are related – no suit equals laboured vocals, like Samson and his lack of strength once his hair was cut off.

Professor Brian Cox watch update: That’s not him again is it?

Twice in the same show?! After pulling a fast one to get 2 Unlimited on the show once more, the TOTP producers have done the same again for Toni Braxton. Not content with having been a regular on the show for the whole of 1994, Ric Blaxill and co have come up with a way of squeezing her into the running order despite not having a single that was in the charts at the time. Again like 2 Unlimited before her, “Love Shoulda Brought You Home” would would eventually be released from her album and become a No 33 hit. Unlike 2 Unlimited, the song was actually her debut single release (in the US) back in 1992. It also appeared on the soundtrack to the Eddie Murphy movie Boomerang alongside Boyz II Men’s “End Of The Road”.

As for the performance here, is this the first time Toni has been in the TOTP studio in person? In the past she seems to have done a lot of those live by satellite turns. A more pertinent question though might be why has she been styled to look like Halle Berry in the film version of The Flintstones?

We do have a live by satellite performance next but as Toni Braxton was over in the UK anyway, the slot has gone to Spin Doctors who are showcasing their song “Cleopatra’s Cat”, the lead single from their sophomore album “Turn It Upside Down”. I don’t wish to be unkind but this was utterly pointless from start to finish. Firstly, the song is dreadful – it sounds like it was worked up out of a noodling jam session and some nonsensical lyrics were overlaid as a guide vocal. Ah yes the lyrics – some meandering bollocks about Roman general Mark Antony not being able to outwit the cat of his girlfriend Cleopatra, the ruler of Egypt from 51 to 30 BC. I’m sure it’s probably a metaphor for something but really, who cares? It was certainly no “Two Princes”.

Secondly, theres the staging of it. How we were meant to get excited about seeing some disheveled hippy types performing on a boat on the East River surrounded by some skyscrapers, I’m not sure. “Cleopatra’s Cat” peaked at No 29 and was their last UK Top 40 hit.

Still with Chaka Demus and Pliers? In the Summer of 1994? Fear not though as “I Wanna Be Your Man” would be their penultimate UK Top 40 hit. Yet another track from their “Tease Me” album, this one is nothing to do with the Lennon -McCartney song recorded by both The Beatles and The Rolling Stones but rather is the usual staple we’d come to expect from the duo with Pliers singing about a “sexy lady”and getting the “cherry from the cherry tree” before Chaka Demus blows in like a foghorn with his toasting. He even begins with a “Here me know” – please spare us.

After one final hit with “Gal Wine”, they would try (and fail) to score a further hit in 1996 with a cover of “Every Kinda People” by Robert Palmer talking of whom…

I don’t think Robert Palmer had been on TOTP since he performed his Marvin Gaye mashup hit “Mercy Mercy Me / I Want You” in 1990. The most likely reason for this would be that he hadn’t had any UK Top 40 hits since then and this new single “Girl U Want” would not reverse that trend peaking at No 57. So why was he on the show then?Maybe it was a change of direction brought in by new producer Ric Blaxill where the artist’s name and fame was considered bigger and more important than their chart position? In any case, it fitted in with the unconventionality of this particular show being, as it was, the third song on that wasn’t a current hit single after 2 Unlimited and Toni Braxton.

I didn’t know until now that this was actually a cover of a track by US New Wavers Devo but it is although it’s definitely been given the Palmer treatment. He’s made it sound like a companion piece to his 1988 song “Simply Irresistible” which is no bad thing in my book. Bob looks as suave as ever in this performance though I do wonder if many of the youths in the studio audience had a clue who he was. Tragically, Palmer would be dead in nine years from a heart attack.

Right, how many weeks are we up to for Wet Wet Wet’s version of “Love Is All Around” being at No 1? Three is it? Just another twelve to go after this then! Maybe it’s time to discuss the original recording of the song now. Asked to name any songs by The Troggs, I’d have got “Wild Thing” and “Love Is All Around” and probably nothing else. It turns out though that in addition to those two, they had another six Top 40 hits between 1966 and 1968 including a No 1 (“With A Girl Like You”). After that point, the hits quickly vanished and a reluctance to tour in the US until 1968 meant they failed to consolidate on the success of “Wild Thing” topping the charts over there.

Changes of record label failed to improve the band’s commercial fortunes and even resorting to the extreme option of re-recording “Wild Thing” with Oliver Reed and Alex Higgins failed to make a splash (if you don’t count Reed’s infamous drunken promotional appearance on The Word). They did, however, earn some credibility points when they recorded an album with REM called “Athens Andover” in the early 90s. The collaboration came about after Michael Stipe and co had covered “Love Is All Around” in concert. Wanna hear it? OK then…

Better than the Wets version? I’ll leave that for you to decide. Troggs lead singer Reg Presley famously spent the royalties from it on researching crop circles and UFOs releasing his findings in a book published in 2002 called Wild Things They Don’t Tell Us.

The play out song this week is another cover version – “Word Up” as done by Gun. Originally a hit for Cameo in 1986 of course, these Scottish rockers recorded it for the lead single of their third album “Swagger” to reactivate a career which had stalled rather since their debut hit “Better Days” in 1989. As we have seen so many times in these TOTP reviews, cover versions are a great way of securing a chart hit when one is needed and so it was with “Word Up” which gave Gun their biggest ever hit when it made No 8. I always quite liked their rock-tastic take on the track but I would have sworn it came out later in the decade than 1994. Five years on, Mel B also had a hit with a cover of “Word Up” taking her version to No 13.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Grid	Swamp Thing	No
2	2 Unlimited	No One	As if
3	Mariah Carey	Anytime You Need A Friend	Nah
4	D:Ream	Take Me Away	I did not
5	Toni Braxton	Love Shoulda Brought You Home	Nope
6	Spin Doctors	Cleopatra’s Cat	No chance
7	Chaka Demus and Pliers	I Wanna Be Your Man	Never happening
8	Robert Palmer	Girl U Want	Negative
9	Wet Wet Wet	Love Is All Around	I didn’t
10	Gun	Word Up	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.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001kkll/top-of-the-pops-16061994

TOTP 14 APR 1994

Posted on March 10, 2023 by 80stastic

Well, it’s finally happened and it’s only taken just over six years. Yes, this post is my 500th if you combine both my 80s and 90s TOTP blogs. 500! I stopped looking at the word count after I passed the 1 million mark some time ago but it’s big. I started writing when the TOTP repeats got to 1983 which was the year my interest in pop music went into overdrive and the BBC’s flagship music show became unmissable viewing for me. After reviewing that year I really thought I might leave it at that as it was taking up a lot of my time but I persevered and somehow made it to the end of the decade. At that point I had another decision to make. Should I bother with the 90s repeats or leave it there? In the end I carried on mainly based upon the premise that as I’d spent most of that decade working in record shops, I’d surely be familiar with many of the tracks featured on the shows and they might trigger some memories for me. That theory hasn’t always worked out I have to say. Anyway, I seem to be stuck with this what…? Labour of love? Yeah, I guess so. I do love to write but sometimes the relentless schedule of the BBC4 repeats means I get behind and if I get too far behind, I fear I might give up. So I write and I write. Usually between five and six thousand words a week. The number of people reading my posts have grown to a amount I could never have imagined and I thank everyone of you who has ever taken the time to read any of my ramblings. Back in the early days I was getting as few as 17 views a month. I’m now averaging 1,500. From tiny acorns and all that.

Anyway, the TOTP gods have, by happy coincidence, got a rock star guest presenter in for the show that marks my milestone post. Meatloaf was enjoying a massive career rejuvenation following his mega hit album “Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell” and its single “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” so it made sense I guess for him to be asked to host the show. Plus, of course, he dominated the screen with his dramatic persona and physicality and knew how to deliver a line. His first job is to introduce opening act Terrorvision with their single “Oblivion”. Was this their debut TOTP appearance? I think it may have been. They were on as a Breaker for their previous hit “My House” earlier in the year I think. “Oblivion” was the lead single from their album “How To Make Friends And Influence People” which was a Top 20 hit and helped raise the band’s status from also rans to (perhaps unlikely) bona fide chart stars. They were always a curious beast though. What sort of band were they exactly? How would you describe the music they made? Yes, clearly they fall under the umbrella of rock music but that’s a broad church. Take “Oblivion” for example. It’s got an almost doo-wop chorus in it! It didn’t stop them winning the Kerrang! Award for Best Newcomer in 1994 though and you can’t get more rock than Kerrang! Then there’s the way they’re set up on stage with the drummer up front and vocalist Tony Wright on a raised platform at the rear. Sure Genesis had the same arrangement but it was hardly the classic band set up. Despite being at the back here, Wright would very much be the public face of the band even making appearances on the panel show Never Mind The Buzzcocks. With a twinkle in his eye and a cheeky grin, he was sort of like the rock version of Take That’s Mark Owen.

“How To Make Friends And Influence People” would generate five hit singles for the band, all peaking in the charts between Nos 25 and 21. I’m guessing we’ll be seeing more of Terrorvision in these TOTP repeats.

Next a record whose run on the charts feels comparable to the length of time I’ve been writing about these TOTP repeats for. Reel 2 Real (featuring The Mad Stuntman of course) spent a total of 17 weeks inside the UK Top 40 with “I Like To Move It”. Of those, 11 were inside The Top 10! Its presence in the charts started in Feb and carried on until June! Even in 1994, such longevity was becoming a rare event. By the end of the decade it was almost unheard of. You have to admire such durability even if you didn’t like the song (and I certainly didn’t). However, lots of people did and such was its popularity and accessibility that it was licensed for use in multiple adverts. Look at some of those brands that have made use of it:

Chewits – “I like to chew it, chew it”
McDonalds
Durex – “I like to do it, do it”
Toyota
United States Postal Service

Then there’s its presence in the cinematic world most obviously in the Madagascar franchise and of course it has also featured in many a dance themed video game plus it was adopted as a dance emote* in Fortnite in 2022.

* Clearly I only know about this because of my game playing son

Despite the song’s extensive run on the chart, I think this was Reel 2 Real’s first time in the TOTP studio. It’s a bit of a mess, all backing dancer arses and a ludicrous cane being wielded by I presume The Mad Stuntman. Apparently his stage name was inspired by the TV series The Fall Guy, the theme tune of which was a song called “The Unknown Stuntman” sung by its star Lee Majors. Wanna hear it again? Sure you do!

It’s time for another look at that groundbreaking video by Pet Shop Boys next. We saw a bit of the promo for “Liberation” last week when Neil and Chris performed in the TOTP studio with the video running in the background. It takes centre stage this time though and watching it through 2023 eyes it is rather underwhelming. I’m sure 29 years ago though it was quite the event but now it’s like the director was showing off with a new bit of software. That’s not his nor the available technology’s fault of course but inevitably we’ve grown accustomed to ever more mind blowing visuals both on the big screen and in the comfort of our own homes.

The director in question is Howard Greenhalgh who was responsible for loads of pop videos back in the 90s working with Spice Girls, Placebo, Ash, OMD, Elton John etc on multiple occasions. He especially seemed to love working with Pet Shop Boys having directed a dozen or so of their videos over the years. He would also end up directing the promos for the first two singles from Meatloaf’s 1995 album “Welcome To The Neighbourhood”. I wonder if our host tonight clocked the “Liberation” video and liked the idea of working with its director in the future?

It’s just over two weeks to the Eurovision Song Contest 1994 so there’s room in the TOTP schedule for another viewing of the UK’s entry “Lonely Symphony (We Will Be Free)” from Frances Ruffelle. She’s toned down the patriotism this time after she wore Union Jack underwear for her debut performance on the show. Maybe there’d been a lot of stern letters of complaint written to Anne Robinson at Points Of View? They’d probably be letters of congratulations in these current post-Brexit, flag shagging days.

Frances would come a lowly tenth in the contest (though that would have been seen as very respectable in recent years until our 2022 resurrection via Sam Ryder). The winners for a record third consecutive year were Ireland with an entry called “Rock ‘n’ Roll Kids” by Paul Harrington and Charlie McGettigan. However, they quickly became the lost Eurovision winners as the memory that stayed with the watching millions was the interval act. Ladies and gentlemen…Riverdance!

Yes, 1994 was the first time the world witnessed what would become a stage phenomenon that has been performed in 450 venues across the world to 25 million people and made a superstar of principal dancer Michael Flatley. It also, of course, got widely parodied by the likes of Michael Myers and Stavros Flatley but I think this one is my personal favourite:

One of those tracks that I have zero recall of now. “Let The Music (Lift You Up)” by Loveland vs Darlene Lewis anyone? Or is it Loveland featuring Rachel MacFarlane as the single’s cover proclaims? Certainly Meatloaf gives Rachel a name check in his intro. I was never a fan of all these acts that included a ‘vs’ in their title. All very confusing. There seemed to be a glut of them around the Millennium.

Anyway, as far as I can tell, Rachel released records as part of The Family Foundation, Loveland, as a solo artist and most famously LMC who took their Whitney Houston sampling hit “Take Me To The Clouds Above” to No 1 in 2004. As for Darlene Lewis, she was an American soul singer who performed the original version of “Let The Music (Lift You Up)”. Loveland (who were affiliated to the achingly trendy Manchester record shop/ label Eastern Bloc) released their own version of the track without copyright clearance and so, to avoid expensive litigation, both parties agreed to release a version together. Oh, so that’s where the ‘vs’ thing comes from! You live and learn. Despite all that back story though, the track does nothing for me now that I’ve listened to it. Oh well.

It’s not quite the aforementioned Riverdance but there’s quite a crowd up there on stage with the next artist and there is definitely some fiddle playing at one point. The ‘Garth Brooks into the UK’ marketing campaign was in full swing in 1994. After securing a first Top 20 hit earlier in the year with “The Red Strokes”, here he was actually in the country for a TOTP appearance promoting follow up single “Standing Outside The Fire”.

As with Terrorvision earlier, Brooks’s music was quite hard to pin down. Sure he was a country artist but he was no Din Williams. So what was he? Country rock? Country pop? New country? This song has an almost calypso style breakdown in the middle eight for chrissakes! Whatever he was, it was working slowly but surely in the UK. With “Standing Outside The Fire” securing a chart peak of No 28, this was two consecutive Top 40 hits for him. However, this would be the extent of his penetration of the UK Top 40 and he would never again return. His albums continued to sell throughout the 90s but they all suffered from a case of diminishing returns after the pinnacle of the gold selling “In Pieces”. The misjudged Chris Gaines alter ego project was the final nail in his commercial coffin over here. Still, he looked like he was enjoying himself up there on stage in his hideous half blue, half red shirt back in 1994. Maybe he should have stuck with that Chris Gaines moody rock star look after all.

It’s time for the live by satellite performance now and it comes this week from Toni Braxton who also did the direct to camera message at the top of the show this time around. In a continuing theme, there’s yet another gold disc presentation to an artist, this time for Toni’s eponymous debut album. We then get a performance of her new single “Another Sad Love Song”. I say new but it’s actually a rerelease of her first single which got no further than No 51 in 1993 in the UK but which has been shoved out again following the success of “Breathe Again”. It’s all very accomplished and sultry but it doesn’t have the ebb and flow appeal of its predecessor and only made No 15 second time around.

Yet again there seems little point to this satellite performance from LA given it’s just a stage in an empty theatre. Yes, there’s a bit that’s made up to look like a backstage dressing room but so what? I wondered if all the lights in the auditorium were an audience holding up lighters initially but I think they’re just strategically placed lights. The disembodied arms of a drummer in silhouette is mildly distracting (or do I mean disturbing?) but the whole thing is as dull as Toni’s song. Her choice of title for the track was unfortunate given that it left it open to ridicule if you interpreted ‘sad’ as meaning pathetically inadequate rather than unhappy or feeling sorrow. I know my rather indiscreet manager at the Our Price store I was working at favoured the former definition as he told me gleefully “this is truly sad” whilst serving a customer with the single. Oh dear.

Ooh! There’s some new Top 10 countdown graphics! There seem to be in the style of those old fashioned movie countdown images which makes sense but seems a little unimaginative. Anyway, the No 1 this week is “Everything Changes” by Take That which means we get to see the actual Mark Owen as opposed to the rock version supplied by Terrorvision’s Tony Wright at the top of the show. Is it me or does Robbie Williams have a look of Jim Carrey in this performance? Maybe, it’s just the camera angle or his pencil thin sideburns?

“Everything Changes” was the band’s fourth No 1 single on the bounce though that run would be ended by “Love Ain’t Here Anymore” which peaked at No 3. It restarted with “Sure” which beckoned in another succession of six chart toppers which stretched into their second era as a band with 2006’s “Patience” and 2007’s “Shine”.

There’s no play out music this week as inevitably our host gets to perform his latest single. Now, according to your musical reasoning, this is either one of the greatest power ballads of all time and Meatloaf clearly endorses that view with his intro in which he states that Jim Steinman believes it to be the best song he ever wrote; or…it’s an overblown, over long, ridiculously titled Bruce Springsteen wannabe song that should never be spoken of nor listened to again. Or maybe somewhere in the middle. For me, it’s certainly not one of Meatloaf’s best and it does go on rather clocking in at 10:16 on the album and 5:55 in the single edit. And, of course, there is that title. As of 2007, “Objects In The Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are” is the chart hit with the longest un-bracketed song title at 52 characters.

This sprawling epic supposedly outlines a middle aged man reminiscing about his lost youth via a three pronged narrative using the metaphors of the seasons of Spring, Summer and Winter. Not sure what happened to Autumn. Surely ‘the Autumn of My Life’ is an established phrase? It’s certainly a song by Bobby Goldsboro. Meatloaf would return in 1995 with the similarly ludicrously entitled song “I’d Lie For You (And That’s The Truth)”.

And that’s it! Post No 500 done and dusted. For the record Post No 1 from January 1983 included some panpipe music from Incantation, some utter drivel from Keith Harris and Orville, the theme tune from ET and Phil Collins. Maybe 1994 wasn’t so bad.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Terrorvision	Oblivion	No
2	Reel 2 Real featuring The Mad Stuntman	I Like To Move It	I didn’t
3	Pet Shop Boys	Liberation	No but I think I have it on their Pop Art Best Of
4	Frances Ruffelle	Lonely Symphony (We Will Be Free)	Nah
5	Loveland vs Darlene Lewis	Let The Music (Lift You Up)	Nope
6	Garth Brooks	Standing Outside The Fire	Negative
7	Toni Braxton	Another Sad Love Song	Another no
8	Take That	Everything Changes	Never happening
9	Meatloaf	Objects In The Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are	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/m001jn46/top-of-the-pops-14041994

TOTP 03 MAR 1994

Posted on February 16, 2023 by 80stastic

There’s some veritable veterans of UK music history on the show tonight in amongst all the shiny new pop kids. Sadly, we’ve also got an old timer as host who is Simon ‘Smug’ Mayo returning for his third appearance in five episodes since new producer Ric Blaxill brought back the Radio 1 DJs.

We start with 2 Unlimited who could hardly be classed as a seasoned chart act having first appeared on our charts a mere two and a half years prior but in that time they certainly packed in the hits. “Let The Beat Control Your Body” was their ninth UK hit of which all but two went Top 10. However, by 1994 the formula was starting to flounder and the hold Anita and Ray had on UK record buyers’ habits was starting to wear off. After this single made No 6, they would only return to our Top 10 once more and click up just five more Top 40 entries by the end of the decade.

I’m not sure what this performance is all about though. Are the backing dancers meant to be aliens? If so, why? I think the costumes they’re wearing are meant to be the ones that give the effect of fluorescent stripes moving independently when the person wearing it is obscured in darkness but the studio lights are far too bright and ruin any potential effect. Meanwhile, Anita seems to have styled herself on Betty Boo’s space cadet look from 1990. Interestingly, the single was renamed as “Let The Bass Control Your Body” for release in France as the word ‘beat’ sounded very similar to the French word ‘bite’ (pronounced beet). So? Well, ‘une bite’ is French slang for penis, similar to ‘cock’ or ‘dick’ in English. Sacre bleu!

https://youtu.be/UqDxtiAtCtA

The first of those veterans next. Elvis Costello hadn’t had a UK Top 40 hit for five years before this track – “Sulky Girl” – made No 22 in the charts. This was the lead single from his “Brutal Youth” album which saw Costello reunite with members of his band the Attractions for the first time since 1986. Critically well received and seen as a return to form by the fanbase, the album would go all the way to No 2 in the charts, Costello’s highest chart placing since “Get Happy!!” In 1980.

“Sulky Girl” is a good tune in my book but it still wasn’t up there with those early New Wave classics though my wife may disagree as a big Costello fan. Eight months on from this TOTP, we were at the Manchester Opera House to see Elvis on tour. He played a whopping 27 song set (including “Sulky Girl”) and was supported by a then unknown band called Cast, the members of whom were a few rows in front of us to catch the Costello show after they’d finished their slot.

After enduring 2 Unlimited at the top of the show, Costello’s appearance here is both welcome and an outlier. He seems completely at odds with the charts and indeed is on record as saying he felt the success of “Sulky Girl” was more down to record company Warner’s promotion campaign rather than the commercial appeal of the song.

He would end the decade with a collaboration with the sadly recently departed Burt Bacharach and a cover of Charles Aznavour’s “She” from the film Notting Hill. The latter is a perfect vehicle for Costello’s distinctive voice although its rise to the status of one of his most well known hits potentially undermines his back catalogue it seems to me.

https://youtu.be/e6LWWASqT88

Wait. What?! This is still in the charts? Yes, yes it is. “Breathe Again” by Toni Braxton spent a very impressive eight weeks in the Top 10 alone even managing to move back up it from No 5 to No 4 after it had seemingly peaked at No 2. It literally breathed again (ahem) in terms of its chart life. The performance here is a repeat of that live by satellite one from America where Toni performs to a non existent audience in an empty theatre that was originally broadcast a few shows prior.

https://youtu.be/Pp_OMu3top0

Simon Mayo had a special talent for coming up with one liners in his intros that were so unfunny that even if you heard them whilst under the influence of Nitrous Oxide/ laughing gas then you still wouldn’t crack a smile. The latest nugget from the Mayo repertoire saw Smug Simon trying to make a quip about confusing the name of the next artist with the “Ealing Young Conservatives”. It’s not even that they weren’t funny but they were totally stupid to boot. EYC was actually an acronym for ‘Express Yourself Clearly’ but hey, why let the truth get in the way of a bad joke? “The Way You Work It” was the US trio’s second UK hit single after “Feelin’ Alright” the year before and was more of the same, over enthusiastic, anodyne R&B/pop hybrid. It really was astounding that they managed six Top 40 hits between’93 and ‘95 with such a weak appeal.

Back to that name though and although we’ve clarified what it meant, the band themselves didn’t practice what they preached. The cover of their debut album called “Express Yourself Clearly” included its title printed upside down. Hardly communicating clearly that is it? “The Way You Work It” peaked at No 14.

Mention the name Tucker to many people of my age and you’ll likely illicit memories of Grange Hill and Todd Carty as Tucker Jenkins. Or possibly if your references are a little bit more niche, Wolfie’s cowardly mate Tucker from Citizen Smith. Barbara Tucker though? She hadn’t managed to usurp either of those two in my memory banks. It turns out that Barbara is quite the all rounder though. As well as being a singer, she’s also a songwriter and choreographer and has worked with the likes of Deee-Lite, George Clinton, David Guetta and C+C Music Factory. Apparently she clocked up five UK hit singles starting with this one “Beautiful People” which is revered as a bit of a house anthem it seems. So why don’t I remember it? Oh yeah, I don’t really like house music, that’ll be it. Sorry Barbara.

There’s three Breakers this week starting with Mötley Crüe and a track called “Hooligan’s Holiday”. These California rockers were a much bigger deal in their homeland* than they were here where they were very occasional and meek visitors to our charts. They’d had only five UK chart entries to this point, none of which got any higher than No 23. The only songs of theirs I could have named were “Girls, Girls, Girls” and “Smokin’ In The Boys Room” neither of which I liked. “Hooligan’s Holiday” was never going to convert me.

*They even had a biopic made of them in 2019 called The Dirt which was released on Netflix.

As Simon Mayo states in his intro, this was the first Mötley Crüe material after lead singer Vince Neil had been fired from/quit the band (depending on who’s version of events you believe) and was replaced by John Corabi. The eponymously titled album that he recorded with the band was their first not do the business commercially resulting in their record company refusing to fund any further albums unless Corabi was removed and Neil reinstated. There was only ever going to be one outcome – Corabi was gone and Neil returned to the fold. The band are still together (somehow) touring for the first time in seven years in 2022 as co-headliners with Def Leppard.

Now it’s Beck who we saw in the studio the other week but this time, as he’s officially a Breaker now, it’s his video for “Loser”. Shot on a budget of just $300 plus $14,000 to edit and master it, it certainly has a homemade feel to it. There’s a moment in it where Beck is wearing a stormtrooper helmet which is censored by pixelation due to copyright reasons. I guess there wasn’t any capacity in such a small budget for potential litigation costs.

The song’s lyrics may be nonsensical but that hadn’t stoped it being used for educational purposes. I have a friend who’s a teacher that used it as the source material for a school assembly to promote self confidence and a positive attitude in her students. “Loser” peaked at No 15 in the UK and No 10 in America.

I guess Michael Bolton was a music veteran even in 1994. He was 41 when this TOTP aired and had been releasing music for nearly 20 years though most of us in the UK hadn’t heard of him before his 1990 breakthrough song “How Am I Supposed To Live Without You”. This single – “Soul Of My Soul” – was not just a terrible song title but also his twelfth UK hit. Now twelve sounds quite impressive but his numbers were not great. Since that first hit that went to No 3, Bollers had only managed two further Top 10 hits and one of those was a cover version (Percy Sledge’s “When A Man Loves A Woman”). He would manage one further trip to the hallowed upper echelons with the creepily titled single “Can I Touch You…There?” that made No 6 in 1995. He has not been back there since and quite right too.

Sadly, Michael Bolton’s appearance here gave Simon Mayo the chance to get in another pointless comment. “Michael Bolton One Villa Nil” he toots referring to the result of an FA Cup fifth round tie played nearly two weeks before this TOTP aired. Why did he think this stuff was funny?

Another of those elder statesmen of music now as Mark E Smith joins forces with Inspiral Carpets on a face blistering track called “I Want You”. Now, whilst I can appreciate the legacy of The Fall and their place in musical history, I’ve never been a great fan of the actual music. I think I always found it difficult to get along with Mark E Smith’s voice. And yes, I know that opinion is musical heresy to many people out there. I just struggle with the inflections he puts on everything – the “-ahs” that seemed to follow every line he sings especially. On this relentless track though, his idiosyncrasies are perfect. The sonic power on display here is something to behold as it lays seige to your aural capacities. The difference between it and previous single “Saturn 5” defies the notion that they were all about Clint Boon’s farfisa organ.

Mark E Smith looks like he gives zero f***s that he’s on TOTP as he wanders belligerently around the stage, sometimes referring to a piece of paper that presumably had some lyrics on it though I’m guessing he could have sang anything here and nobody would have challenged him on it. Someone certainly not going to challenge him on anything was Simon Mayo who declines the opportunity to make some barbed witticism in his link by just saying “Right…OK…thank you boys”. Not so smug now eh Mayo?

“I Want You” would peak at No 18 making it the band’s third biggest hit ever and one year on from the single’s release, it was used to soundtrack a Sony In Car Stereo advert to great effect.

And so to another old timer (though he was only 34 at the time of this broadcast). According to Simon Mayo he hadn’t been on TOTP for many years though by my calculation he was on as recently as 1992. Is two years many years? I think not. Morrissey (for it is he) was bang in form in 1994. This single – “The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get” – was the lead track from his fourth studio album “Vauxhall And I” which would prove to be his first chart topper since his debut “Viva Hate” in 1988. Indeed, TMYIMTCIG would become his first Top 10 single since “Interesting Drug” in 1989. However, no other singles released from the album made the Top 40 so was this a devoted fanbase at work desperate for new material? Fair play though, it’s a good song with a lovely, lilting chorus.

I wonder if new TOTP producer Ric Blaxill was aware of the tension between Morrissey and Mark E Smith when he booked both Manchester legends on the same show? Many people had fallen foul of Smith’s ire over the years including Mozza whom Smith always referred to as “Steven”. Oh to have been a fly on the wall of the Green Room/BBC bar for this show!

https://youtu.be/ucJfUTQWFHQ

There’s no shifting Mariah Carey from the No 1 spot as her version of Nilsson’s “Without You” stands strong at the top. It will go onto sell half a million copies and end up the 7th biggest selling single of 1993 in the UK. It would be Mariah’s only solo* chart topper over here until “All I Want For Christmas Is You” finally made No 1 in 2020 after years of trying.

*She did get to No 1 in 2000 when she joined forces with Westlife to cover “Against All Odds” by Phil Collins.

One of Ric Blaxill’s innovations for the show was to use the No 1 record slot to make predictions about which records would be entering the Top 40 the following week. These were displayed in a scrolling ticker tape along the bottom of the screen. Looking at the artists posited on this show, it hardly made TOTP a musical Nostradamus. All very obvious stuff (M People, Janet Jackson etc). That doesn’t stop Mr Smug himself from praising the show by saying all of last week’s predictions came true in his intro. Mayo really was insufferable.

The play out song this week comes from Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine. Somebody on Twitter pointed out that “Glam Rock Cops” sounds an awful lot like “Parklife” by Blur. I think they may have a point although there’s no suggestion of plagiarism on either side as they were presumably written and recorded at roughly the same time? I think another artist beat them both to it by about 10 years anyway. “Steamhammer Sam” by Intaferon sounds like a “Parklife” prototype…

“Glam Rock Cops” peaked at No 24 and came from a collection of B-sides called “Starry Eyed And Bollock Naked”.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	2 Unlimited	Let The Beat Control Your Body	Of course not
2	Elvis Costello	Sulky Girl	Yes I did! For my wife though.
3	Toni Braxton	Breathe Again	Nope
4	EYC	The Way You Work It	Never
5	Barbara Tucker	Beautiful People	Nah
6	Mötley Crüe	Hooligan’s Holiday	No
7	Beck	Loser	Liked it, didn’t buy it
8	Michael Bolton	Soul Of My Soul	As if
9	Inspiral Carpets / Mark E Smith	I Want You	Not the single but I have it on their Greatest Hits CD
10	Morrissey	The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get	Negative
11	Mariah Carey	Without You	It’s a no
12	Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine	Glam Rock Cops	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/m001hyxl/top-of-the-pops-03031994

TOTP 20 JAN 1994

Posted on January 24, 2023 by 80stastic

And so the party is finally over. Not the TOTP party as the grand old show will carry on for another twelve and a half years from this point. No, it’s the end of the line for presenter Tony Dortie whose innings finishes after 57 shows stretching back to the 3rd October 1991. So who pulled the plug on Dortie? Well, presumably it was incoming new producer Ric Blaxill who replaced ‘year zero’ innovator Stanley Appel and decided to shake things up by…erm…getting some of those old Radio 1 DJs back in on presenting duties. That hardly sounds like a creative genius teeming with new ideas at work does it? To be fair to Blaxill, he did come up with some other plans to overhaul the show including the ‘golden mic’ where TV celebrities, pop stars and comedians were invited to present the show. Curiously, this change seems to already be in place before Dortie has left the building as he is joined on his final show by Def Leppard’s Joe Elliot as co-host. I presumed initially that this was just to introduce his own band’s video but he does get extra presenting duties later on in the show. The subsequent show would be Dortie’s presenting partner Mark Franklin’s last appearance. The times they were a-changin’…

…talking of which, we start the show with a tune that seemed out of time. It was now nearly four years since Inspiral Carpets burst into our lives as part of the ‘Madchester’ scene and whilst that movement had withered whilst main protagonists The Stone Roses were still missing presumed disbanded and the Happy Mondays having self destructed, these Oldham lads had carved themselves out a little niche which revolved around Clint Boon’s farfisa electronic organ and its swirling 60s retro sounds. By 1994 though, they were coming to the end of their initial incarnation and that year’s “Devil Hopping” would be their last album for twenty years after being dropped by Mute Records. The lead single from it was “Saturn 5” which seems to borrow a fair bit from “Telstar” by The Tornados. Yes, I know that 1962 No 1 transatlantic hit was an instrumental track but it was named after the Telstar communications satellite that was launched into orbit that year. Similarly, “Saturn 5” was named after the space rocket that launched all the Apollo missions. Then there’s the almost distorted, futuristic (back in 1962!) organ sound on “Telstar” which “Saturn 5” isn’t a million light years away from.

According to Boon, the song is about hope and achieving your ambitions. Here’s @TOTPFacts with an explanation of that Rockette lyric:

"Jerry wants to be a rockette" explained: "Jerry is my wife's auntie. She always wanted to be a Radio City Rockette, and now she is one! The song's about optimism and ambition." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) January 20, 2023

I went to New York for the very first time in 1994 and me and my wife did the Radio City Hall tour and met a Rockette. It was a a bizarre experience. Anyway, some of the other lyrics refer to the assassination of JFK (“the lifeless corpse of President 35”) and his grieving wife Jackie Onassis (“the lady crying by his side is the most beautiful woman alive”) and Boon’s mother-in-law going on a first date with her husband in a Ford Mustang (“Lady take a ride on a Zeke 64”). In my head, I’d made the line “An Eagle lands” into a reference to 1970s sci-fi series Space 1999 whose spacecrafts were called ‘Eagles’. Either that or the Eagle comic and its space captain hero Dan Dare. Both theories kind of fit with the space theme but further research on my part suggests it’s more probably to do with the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University where JFK learned to fly and whose nickname is ‘Eagles’. Regardless of its subject matter, I liked “Saturn 5” and its incongruousness with the rest of the charts. Yes, it was a bit formulaic – my work colleague Justin remarked on first hearing it “Ah, there’s the distinctive organ” – but it was well constructed and had charm as well as hooks. It would make No 20 on the chart while the album went to No10.

I saw singer Tim Hingley years later as a solo artist at tiny venue Fibbers whilst I was living in York. Can’t remember if he played “Saturn 5” though. I also caught Clint Boon do a DJ set of ‘Manchester’ tunes as a warm up for a Happy Mondays gig a few years ago. That really was money for old rope.

https://youtu.be/xjWm0OSA6iE

And so to that first Joe Elliott intro which, rather obviously, is for his own band. He actually does a decent job and seems much more at ease than an over excited Dortie. They do have some decent banter (note banter not ‘bants’) as Tony chides Joe for his Sheffield United shirt who responds with with “Hold your tongue philistine Spurs freak”. Nice comeback!

As for Def Leppard’s cover of The Sweet’s “Action”, I pretty much said everything I had to say about it in the last post. Erm…OK, did they do any other cover versions?

*checks internet*

They’ve done loads! Some are obvious like T. Rex, Bowie and Thin Lizzy but some less so. How about these? “Rock On” by David Essex and…No! “Personal Jesus” by Depeche Mode?! I’ve got to hear this…

…well, it doesn’t eclipse Johnny Cash’s take on it but it’s not bad I’ll admit. I suppose that’s testament to how much of a great song it is. “Action” peaked at No 14 but Def Leppard returned with their equal biggest hit ever in 1995 with “When Love And Hate Collide” which peaked at No 2 matching the high of 1992’s “Let’s Get Rocked”.

Here’s something a bit different. Tori Amos might be an acquired taste and suffer from continual accusations of being a Kate Bush wannabe but I’ve always quite liked her. I’m pretty sure we even had her first album “Little Earthquakes” at some point. It sold respectably and steadily but 1994 saw her up the ante with the release of sophomore album “Under The Pink” which went to the top of the charts. The lead single was “Cornflake Girl” which would give Tori her highest charting single by far at that point when it peaked at No 4. I said in the last post that I was surprised that Toni Braxton’s “Breathe Again” was such a big hit and “Cornflake Girl” also falls into that category. Nothing to do with the quality of the song – it’s a great track – but because it felt like such an outlier in the charts. A haunting piece with a striking melody that allows Tori’s otherworldly vocals to flourish, it sounded like nothing else in the Top 40 at the time (and no smart arse remarks about Kate Bush not having a single out that month!).

The song has some dark origins. Here’s @TOTPFacts again:

"Cornflake Girl" is about female genital mutilation, which Amos was discussing with a friend. "We were talking about the fact that the women are betrayed, by a grandmother, a mother, an older sister – that the women you trust the most are taking you into this butchery.." #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) January 20, 2023

Out of this discussion came the song’s title which was a name that Tori and her peers would use growing up to describe girls who would hurt you despite a close relationship. On a lighter note, Amos appeared in an advert for a Kellogg’s cereal in 1984 but apparently that was nothing to do with her writing the song.

Interestingly, Billy Bragg also name checks the phrase on a track called “Body Of Water” on his 1991 album “Don’t Try This At Home”.

Summer could take a hint
Seeing you in a floral print
Oh to become a pearl
In the wordy world of the cornflake girl
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Billy Bragg / Philip Douglas Wigg
Body of Water lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, Inc

In an unlikely turn of events, as I was checking my Tori Amos facts for this post, I discovered that she is a very close friend of the author Neil Gaiman who is actually godfather to her daughter. The book literally next to me on the coffee table as I read that information? The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.

For me though, the one thing that always comes to mind when I hear “Cornflake Girl” is this TV theme for a show that always seemed to be on the late night schedules growing up in the Central ITV region…

Talking of cover versions as we were before about Def Leppard, Tori has quite a few in her live set lists. I think my favourite is this unlikely coming together of styles…

Oh come on! Still with Haddaway in 1994? Surely he was a one year phenomenon? Sadly, he’s still knocking about with his “I Miss You” single. Everything about this performance is just odd, from Haddaway’s cringeworthy spoken intro to the presence of the woman on stage with him? Quite why was she there? She spends the first part of the song sat on a chair looking miserable. I’ve not seen someone look so upset in a pop song since that woman in the video for Eddy Grant’s 1982 No 1 “I Don’t Wanna Dance” when she’s left fuming on the beach whilst Eddy noodles around on his guitar whilst sat on an unlikely floating platform in the sea.

https://youtu.be/ZFT5ZVUsPIw

Back in 1994, the woman on stage with Haddaway finally gets up to wander around a bit before miming some “ooh, woohs” backing vocals. Is that why she was there all along? For that? It really wasn’t worth it. “I Miss You” peaked at No 9.

As with Def Leppard earlier, here’s another of last week’s Breakers getting a full spin on the show. Toni Braxton gets the live by satellite treatment to perform her “Breathe Again” hit. They’ve plonked her on a stool sat between two candelabras on the stage of the Apollo Theatre, New York where she belts out her song…to nobody. They even have a shot from behind Toni facing the empty theatre and its non existent audience just in case anyone was under the misconception that somebody (anybody) was actually there. Madness. I hope Ric Blaxill got rid of this nonsense when he took over the TOTP reins and resuscitated the show. Hey, maybe he made it breathe again! I’ll get me coat.

https://youtu.be/Pp_OMu3top0

Four Breakers this week starting with some bloke called Joe (just Joe) who I hardly remember and couldn’t tell you anything about before reading up on him but who somehow managed to have ten UK Top 40 hits the last of which came some ten years on from this, his debut single, “I’m In Luv”. Tony Dortie is clearly giving zero f***s seeing as he’s been given the chop and this is is final appearance as he says the following in his intro “…I know it’s politically incorrect to say so but there’s some mighty fine ladies in this video”. Well! Tone had some previous with this sort of thing dropping similar comments about Jade, En Vogue etc during his time on the show. He also says that Joe “…at last gives us the missing note between hip hop and R&B…”. Wasn’t that called New Jack Swing?

A genuine sales phenomenon next as Garth Brooks makes his first TOTP appearance. No. Really. Check these stats out from @TOTPFacts

In the USA, Garth Brooks is the only artist to have released nine albums that achieved diamond status by selling over 10 million copies (surpassing the Beatles' previous record of six). #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) January 20, 2023

Garth Brooks has also been certified as the best-selling solo artist when it comes to albums in the USA – ahead of Elvis Presley. As of 13 January 2023, Brooks is on 157 million, with Presley at 146.5 million. #TOTP
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) January 20, 2023

Told you. It was an unlikely occurrence though for a country artist. Or was it? Certainly in the UK, that genre had traditionally struggled to gain a foot hold commercially but in the US? I’m thinking there was a much bigger market and appetite for country music. Randy Travis, Willie Nelson, Reba McEntire, Dwight Yoakam, George Strait and loads more artists had huge careers over there as country acts. However, Troyal Garth Brooks (that’s his actual name! Troyal!) was somehow different. His melting pot of country with elements of rock and pop allowed him to crossover into the mainstream markets and he did so like nobody before him. We’d resisted in the UK for the early part of the decade despite promotion by his record company of his albums like “Ropin’ The Wind”, “No Fences” and “The Chase” but we finally caved to his fifth one “In Pieces” which rose to No 2 in our charts. The single from it that broke the dam was “The Red Strokes” – (actually a double A-side with “Ain’t Going Down (‘Til The Sun Comes Up)”) – a pleasant but unremarkable ballad to my ears and the biggest of only three UK hit singles which peaked at No 13. Hold onto your Stetson though as we’ll be seeing more of Garth Brooks on the next show.

I’d totally forgotten about the final single from Depeche Mode’s “Songs Of Faith And Devotion” album. “In Your Room” was a powerful slab of gloom rock in line with the rest of the album which was influenced by the emergence of grunge. Despite the album having been out for nearly a year by this point and despite it being the fourth track released from it, “”In Your Room” still went Top 10 displaying the loyalty and purchasing power of the band’s fanbase.

The video references much of the band’s past work with homages to “Strangelove”, “Personal Jesus” and “Enjoy The Silence” amongst others. There’s also a heavy David Lynch vibe with scenes of bondage set against the red curtain drapes reminding me of both Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet. The band themselves were in turmoil at this point with Dave Gahan struggling with his heroin addiction whilst the single would be the last to feature Alan Wilder who left the group after the completion of the album. We would not see them again for four years when they returned with “Ultra”.

Well, I suppose this was totally inevitable. Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown had been married for eighteen months when they decided they needed to record a song together to further publicly display their love for each other. I’m surprised it took that long. “Something In Common” was the chosen track but if they were expecting a gigantic hit off the back of them joining forces, it didn’t quite happen. A No 16 peak was all it could achieve over here whilst it also failed to make the Top 10 in the US. How come? I mean, Whitney was on a very hot streak with the success of The Bodyguard whilst Brown’s 1992 album “Bobby” had gone double platinum. Maybe the song was just no good? It’s uptempo and probably right on the New Jack Swing zeitgeist but it doesn’t live long in the memory. Seriously, how far down the list would you have to go when naming Whitney or Bobby Brown songs before you got to “Something In Common”?

Joe Elliott is back to do a link for the next artist who is Phil Collins. How many times was Phil on TOTP as a solo artist doing a mournful ballad? I don’t know and I’m not about to count but I’m pretty sure he did what he does whilst performing “Everyday” on every appearance; that Everyman, shuffling turn whilst wearing oversized, casual clothes to create the impression that he’s only turned up at the studio to sing a song whilst he’s waiting for the first coat of creosote to dry on his garden fence before applying the second. I’m not buying it Phil nor indeed any of your records. “Everyday” peaked at No 15.

They’ve done it! D:Ream are No1 with “Things Can Only Get Better” a year after it originally peaked at No 24. Despite it being his last ever TOTP show, Tony Dortie still has one last presenting gaff in him when he refers to their lead singer Peter Cunnah as ‘Pete Cornelius’! Watching Pete perform here in his trademark checked suit, I can’t help but notice that there’s an element of Robbie Williams about his performance. All that energetic cavorting and arm waving and a desperation to make everything about him on stage. Well, D:Ream had just been on tour with Take That at the time so maybe he did indeed learn from the master!

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Inspiral Carpets	Saturn 5	No but I have it on a Best Of CD of theirs
2	Def Leppard	Action	Nah
3	Tori Amos	Cornflake Girl	Liked it, didn’t buy it
4	Haddaway	I Miss You	…but I don’t miss you. No
5	Toni Braxton	Breathe Again	Nope
6	Joe	I’m In Luv	I’m not – no
7	Garth Brooks	The Red Strokes	No
8	Depeche Mode	In Your Room	I did not
9	Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown	Something In Common	Negative
10	Phil Collins	Everyday	Never!
11	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/m001h88r/top-of-the-pops-20011994

TOTP 13 JAN 1994

Posted on January 20, 2023 by 80stastic

Christmas and New Year are now distant memories – not just in 2023 but in 1994 where we currently find ourselves in the BBC4 TOTP repeats schedule. The charts have pretty much evacuated from their bowels all that Christmas stodge and some new songs are cleansing the Top 40. Well, I say cleanse but there are still some rotten tunes stinking the place out. Oh well, nose pegs at the ready then as we go again..,

We start with the previous year’s Eurodance sensation Culture Beat who are back with a third consecutive hit in “Anything”. There’s no let up in the formula here – they couldn’t have mixed things up with a ballad? – as Jay Supreme performs a high speed rap workout while vocalist Tania Evans chips in with a chorus including lyrics that seem to suggest desperation to please a (potential) partner. I’d like to think such themes were not prevalent today but toxic masculinity is on the increase with hateful figures like Andrew Tate generating headlines. I’m probably reading far too much into it but seeing Tania sing those words does jar a bit. On closer examination of the lyrics online, Jay Supreme seems to be having similar relationship problems where nothing he does, says or wears is good enough for his other half but he’s rapping so fast nobody can decipher what he’s on about. “Anything” was at its chart peak of No 5 already. They would never return to the Top 10.

Get those nose pegs ready as here’s a bona fide toilet bowel dweller in the form of “All For Love” by Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart and Sting. This was proper dog shit, baked for the latest cinematic take on the Alexandre Dumas novel The Three Musketeers. I recall there being a big buzz about the film starring Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Oliver Platt and Chris O’Donnell in the titular roles and I, myself, duly went to see it. Sadly, like its song, it was no good, without merit and, in short, a stinker. There was something very cynical about casting Sheen and Sutherland together to reunite them in some sort of 17th century cousin to their Brat Pack western Young Guns (indeed, some reviewers christened the film ‘Young Swords’). This was just one of a long list of film adaptations of the famous story – I had no idea there were that many – but I’d take the cartoon from my childhood from The Banana Splits TV show over any of them.

Back to that song though and its protagonists were probably more of an unholy trinity than they were The Three Musketeers for many. Certainly there are a fair few musical crimes that can be levelled at Adams, Stewart and Sting individually (though some of all three’s back catalogue stands up to scrutiny) but this collective effort really is a low point. It probably sounded like a good idea in theory – three massive mainstream stars (the musketeers) record a song that borrows its title from the main characters’ motto (‘All for one and one for all’) but the actual song is such a dirge that it can’t fail but to reek. Composed by Bry and his go to songwriting partner Robert ‘Mutt’ Lange, who was also responsible for that other Adams turd “Please Forgive Me”, it really is an awful record. The film did decent business though and so the single was a huge hit off the back of it going to No 1 in the US and around the world though its peak of No 2 in the UK meant it wasn’t quite a case of all for one and one for all.

“All For Love” isn’t the only Three Musketeers inspired pop song though. “You’ve Got Everything Now” from the eponymous debut album by The Smiths features the line “I’ve seen you smile but I’ve never really heard you laugh” and borrows from a narrative description of the musketeer Athos

He was very taciturn, this worthy signor. Be it understood we are speaking of Athos. During the five or six years that he had lived in the strictest intimacy with his companions, Porthos and Aramis, they could remember having often seen him smile, but had never heard him laugh.
— Chapter 7, The Interior of the Musketeers, The Three Musketeers Project Gutenberg.

Proving that it’s not a total clean sweep of new songs in the charts, here’s K7 with “Come Baby Come”. Released in mid December back in ‘93, it would spend a giant sixteen weeks on the charts peaking at No 3. Despite the single’s success, K7 didn’t sustain. Indeed, if you Google K7 these days you will find an entry for him but behind results for an independent music label, a brand of power washer and alongside anti virus software.

What’s this? A Ce Ce Peniston hit that isn’t “Finally”? Well, there’s actually a few of them but to me they all sound like inferior re-writes of “Finally” including this one called “I’m In The Mood”. Nothing to do with The Nolans’ biggest hit but the lead single from her second album called “Thought ‘Ya Knew”. According to reviews at the time, this was meant to have a bit of a jazz slant to it but I’m not sure I can hear it. The single actually did OK chart wise making No 16 but the parent album, unlike her debut “Finally” which went Top 10, floundered to a high of No 31. I have to say that I don’t recall anything of this stage of Ce Ce’s career but she carried on gamely throughout the 90s releasing two more albums before the end of the decade to little reception before scoring one final hit in 1997 with a cover of Jocelyn Brown’s “Somebody Else’s Guy”.

How can I have forgotten about this?! The The on TOTP and I’ve erased it from my memory banks?! What was going on in my life at the time to have dislodged this from a special place in my grey matter?! So many questions but surely the biggest of the lot should be why isn’t Matt Johnson routinely lauded as a national treasure?! I first became aware of his genius in 1983 when I heard “Uncertain Smile”. Then I saw the striking artwork on the single’s cover in WH Smith and, even as a 15 year old pop kid, knew something special was going on here. By the time I was a Poly student, I had the first album “Soul Mining” in pride of place in my cassette collection to make me look…well, I’d have maybe said ‘trendy’ back then but probably I meant non mainstream (even though I hopelessly was).

The album also included the singles “Perfect” and “This Is The Day” and it was the latter of those two which was chosen as the main track on the “Dis-Infected EP”. Remodelled as “That Was The Day”, it was backed up by a take on the title track of 1986 album “Infected” plus remixes of two tracks from the most recent album at the time, 1992’s “Dusk”. Presumably this EP was released to maintain profile in between albums (Johnson’s album of Hank Williams cover versions – “Hanky Panky” – didn’t appear until 1995) and its No 17 peak would make it The The’s biggest ever hit just eclipsing 1989’s “The Beat(en) Generation”.

Coming after Culture Beat, K7 and Ce Ce Peniston in the running order, this incarnation of The The looks every bit the outlier on TOTP. Matt, for all his genius, never looked like a pop star bless him whilst the minimal set up of a keyboard player and a guy on harmonica were at odds with all the synchronised dance moves, rapping and general party atmosphere of the acts before. And thank God for that.

“This Is The Day” was covered in 2011 by Manic Street Preachers to promote their third compilation album “National Treasures – The Complete Singles” thus affording Matt Johnson a sliver of that national treasure status he so richly deserves.

Three Breakers this week starting with “Everyday” by Phil Collins. I don’t remember this at all and there’s a case to be made that I just count my blessings and leave it at that. The reviewer in me won’t allow that though (Damn you!) so I’m going in for a listen – this isn’t going to end well is it?

*manages two and a half minutes before switching off*

Well, it was, as I suspected, not worth the effort. According to Wikipedia, Phil played every musical part on this track which means it was him that ripped of Bruce Hornsby for the piano intro. After that it drifts off into predictable Collins territory with a melancholic melody and lyrics so rank and hackneyed that there should be a law against this form of song composition. Phil bangs on about being knocked off his feet and the fire inside him and his life being worth nothing without the object of his affections…turn it in mate! I can imagine it being used in a lame rom com movie starring Paul Rudd and Jennifer Anniston to soundtrack the bit where the film’s couple have broken up. Nice work for Phil but all rather cynical.

The song was the second single from his “Both Sides” album and though making a respectable chart high of No 15, possibly didn’t allay record company fears after lead single “Both Sides Of The Story” underperformed.

The era of Toni Braxton is upon us. A huge star straight off the bat in the US where “Another Sad Love Song” went Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, that single stalled on initial release over here meaning that “Breathe Again” would become her first UK Top 40 hit. And what a hit! It would eventually peak at No 2 over here which seemed like a slight case of overachievement for an R&B ballad. Clearly the song had something that set it apart from the other examples of the genre we had seen. It did ebb and flow quite nicely and Braxton could clearly deliver the required vocal. Even so, I for one was slightly taken aback by its popularity.

“Another Sad Love Song” was rereleased in this country in the wake of the success of “Breathe Again” and this time was a hit making No 15. However, Toni really came into her own in 1996 when she had another No 2 hit record in “Un-break My Heart”, a single that sold and sold and sold, spending nineteen weeks in total on the charts.

The final Breaker is a cover of a glam rock hit from the 70s courtesy of Def Leppard. Having taken five years to record a follow up to the multi platinum selling “Hysteria” album, these lads were not exactly prolific. “Adrenalize” had been a success but not on the same level as its predecessor and another studio album wouldn’t arrive until 1996. So, how to fill the gap? With a compilation album of course. However, Def Leppard wanted to give something back to the fans that was not just a boring Best Of that would just mean the completists forking out for tracks they already owned so they came up with “Retro Active”, an album of touched up B-sides and unreleased recordings from the band’s vaults. There were also a couple of cover versions including Mick Ronson’s “Only After Dark” and this one, a 1975 Top 20 hit from The Sweet called “Action”. I didn’t think I knew this song but having given both versions a spin, it did ring some bells in the deepest corners of my mind.

Is it just me or do The Sweet not get the recognition they deserve? Whenever glam rock gets mentioned, it seems that the first names to crop up are T-Rex, Slade, Wizzard and even Roxy Music (nobody can talk about Gary Glitter anymore for obvious reasons). Do The Sweet get overlooked slightly? In their early 70s heyday, they tore up the charts with songs like “Ballroom Blitz”, “Teenage Rampage” and “Block Buster!” clocking up ten Top 10 hits including a No 1 and five (!) No 2s making them one of the unluckiest bands ever. By the time of “Action” though, the hits were drying up. This would be one of their last with only a change of musical direction giving them one final Top Tenner with “Love Is Like Oxygen” in 1978.

Def Leppard do a decent version of “Action” though the original is easily better. After the almost philanthropic act of the “Retro Active” release, the band went and released a proper Best Of anyway in 1995 called “Vault: Def Leppard Greatest Hits (1980-1995) which became another platinum seller. It’s all about the Benjamins at the end of the day isn’t it?

Back in the studio we find Eternal who are consolidating on the success of debut single “Stay” with another mid tempo soul/pop track called “Save Our Love”. The buzz around this lot was still very vibrant coming out of Christmas and so another hit was almost guaranteed. “Save Our Love” duly did the business going Top 10 though falling short of the No 4 peak of its predecessor by four places. For me, this follow up was nowhere near as strong as their opener. Sure it was radio friendly with a shiny production but it didn’t have the nuance of “Stay”. It all felt a bit too straightforward – Eternal by numbers. Talking of numbers, the group still had its full complement of them at this stage but by the following year, Louise Redknapp (Nurding as was) would have left the group. She, along with her band mates, were kept busy in 1994 though releasing five singles and promoting their debut album “Always And Forever”.

I’m not sure what the petrol station vibe is all about for this performance. Can’t think of many other artists who have channeled it. Billy Joel was a mechanic in a garage for “Uptown Girl” wasn’t he so not quite the same. Oh yes though – mechanics or more specifically Mike And The Mechanics who used an image of a gas pump attendant asleep on some tyres next to his pump as the cover of their Best Of album entitled “Hits” in 1996. By the way, those combat trousers that Eternal are wearing were all the rage in 1994. I think I even had some. No doubt we’ll be seeing more examples of their popularity in future repeats.

The reggae Rick Astley next as studio tape operator/ tea boy turned pop star Bitty McLean is back with another hit. After the No 2 success of his debut single “It Keeps Rainin’ (Tears From My Eyes)”, it looked as though Bitty’s career was over almost immediately when follow up single “Pass It On” steadfastly refused to do so and stalled at No 35. However, here he was back with another hit in “Here I Stand” that would ultimately make No 10 despite being awful. It was another cover version (originally released by Justin Hinds And The Dominoes in 1967) but Bitty makes it sound completely tuneless in his rendition. I really didn’t get the appeal of Bitty and his music but I’m sure that he’s a lovely chap all the same!

It’s a second week at the top for Chaka Demus And Pliers with their version of “Twist And Shout” despite heavy competition from D:Ream who are up to No 2 this week. Apparently, “Twist And Shout” was selling less at the top of the charts than it was when lodged at No 3 at Christmas. The vagaries of the post festive season sales slump and all that.

There are, of course, many different versions of “Twist And Shout”. Here’s one from Bruce Springsteen which segues into “La Lamba”…

I’m sure I heard a story about the recording of The Beatles’ first album in which “Twist And Shout” wasn’t going to be included on it but a journalist told them that they should record “La Bamba” as he’d heard them do it live and it sounded great. The band responded that they didn’t play “La Bamba” in concert but realised the press guy was talking about “Twist And Shout” which they did perform live and that’s how it got onto the album. This is surely the definitive version of the song…

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Culture Beat	Anything	Never happening
2	Bryan Adams / Rod Stewart / Sting	All For Love	NO!
3	K7	Come Baby Come	I did not
4	Ce Ce Peniston	I’m In The Mood	Nah
5	The The	Dis-Infected EP	No but I had the Soul Mining album which includes lead track This Is The Day
6	Phil Collins	Everyday	Double NO!
7	Toni Braxton	Breathe Again	Nope
8	Def Leppard	Action	Negative
9	Eternal	Save Our Love	It’s a no
10	Bitty McLean	Here I Stand	Never!
11	Chaka Demus And Pliers	Twist And Shout	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/m001h027/top-of-the-pops-13011994

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

TOTP 07 NOV 1997

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TOTP 15 NOV 1996

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TOTP 01 NOV 1996

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TOTP 16 JUN 1994

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TOTP 14 APR 1994

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TOTP 03 MAR 1994

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TOTP 20 JAN 1994

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TOTP 13 JAN 1994

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