U2 | TOTP Rewind

TOTP 30 OCT 1998

It’s a case of someone old someone new in this episode of TOTP with some artists that have been around for literally decades in some cases mingling with acts making their debut on the show. Our host is Jamie Theakston (again!) and we start with a group who were definitely in the ‘old’ bracket. If this had been 1983, an appearance by Culture Club on the show would have been a big deal as they were one of the biggest pop bands in the world. Fifteen years later though, did the pop kids of 1998 know who they were and, if they did, were they bothered in the slightest that they were back? I say ‘back’ but “I Just Wanna Be Loved”, whilst a new song, didn’t immediately herald an album of never before heard material. Rather, it was a solitary new track to promote a Best Of album called “Greatest Moments”, a collection designed to cash in on a reunion tour. The tour was a success and did, a year later, lead to that album of new material with the release of 1999’s “Don’t Mind If I Do”. However, it seemed it was a case of audiences loving the hits live but not being arsed about hearing any new recordings and it floundered peaking at a lowly No 64 in the UK chart.

I’ve got to say that compared to some of the hits from their glory days*, “I Just Wanna Be Loved” does not compare. Some limp lovers rock sir? I’ll pass thanks as should have the band as this was somnambulistic rubbish. How did it get to No 4 then I hear you ask? A good promotion campaign backed with the tour and that Greatest Hits album I’m guessing.

*Apart from “Karma Chameleon” which is and will always be absolute garbage.

And what was the deal with George’s (and Mikey’s) headgear? I think @TOTPFacts sums it up nicely:

#TOTP pic.twitter.com/7S0b09s5Si
— Top Of The Pops Facts (@TOTPFacts) November 28, 2025

Having said all of that, I have a confession to make. I saw Culture Club on that 1998 tour. Me, my wife and some friends went though, in my defence, I was more interested in the two other artists on the bill, The Human League and ABC. I have to say that I got a bit pissed up before we went to the concert and so I can’t remember much about it other than Culture Club played the dog shit “Karma Chameleon” as the last song of the set with Boy George saying that it wouldn’t be a Culture Club gig without them playing that track which I guess is true. Various machinations in the band’s story followed including a period where Mikey Craig and Jon Moss recruited a new singer to replace George who was busy with other projects (it all came to nothing) and a BBC documentary about a planned 2014 tour that didn’t happen. Ultimately though, they got themselves together and have toured and had a Las Vegas residency as recently as 2023.

Next, we get some more of this backstage shenanigans nonsense that debuted last week. If the idea behind it was to demonstrate that the show remains a pull for some of the biggest names in pop/rock music, I’m not sure that Theakston saying that he’s there with Kele le Roc really makes that point. The whole thing is completely undermined anyway by using it as a segue to a performance by a band who aren’t actually there as we get a repeat showing of The Beautiful South doing “Perfect 10” from four weeks back. Yes, four weeks back in which time the single has fallen down the charts consistently from its debut peak position of No 2, albeit whilst remaining inside the Top 10 until it finally dropped out of it this week thereby creating a rather odd looking on screen caption reading ‘The Beautiful South – Perfect 10 – 11’. My first observation is why reshow it now and my second is ‘10 – 11’ – I don’t think it’s going to rival the current ‘six-seven’ slang meme.

From a band who’d been around for nearly a decade to someone making his TOTP debut. I knew the name Lyndon David Hall from working in a record shop and knew what type of music he made but I never actually heard any of it until now. I wasn’t expecting much especially from a song called “Sexy Cinderella” but I was pleasantly surprised. I mean, it’s all very bump ‘n’ grind which isn’t really my thing (I could do without the lyrics about getting freaky with blindfolds if I’m honest) but the guy could sing and, I don’t know, it just feels like a proper song with a degree of musicality to it unlike something like that which Dru Hill served up the other week. For a while, Hall was one of the brightest new lights in UK R’n’B winning a MOBO in 1998 and being the first UK artist to be voted ‘Best Male Artist’ by readers of Blues & Soul magazine in 1999. However, after releasing three albums and appearing in the hit film Love Actually, Hall was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and died in 2006 aged just 31 following complications resulting from the stem cell transplant he received in 2005. He had been in remission at the time of his death.

Theakston’s pinching my lines! In his intro to the next artist he says “Next up, looking more like Blondie than…erm…Blondie, it’s The Cardigans”. I made that connection in my review of the 16 October show when I said of the band’s performance of “My Favourite Game”:

“Persson looks effortlessly cool up there on stage in this performance with her peroxide blond hair backlit by the studio lights making her look more like Debbie Harry than Debbie Harry did in the late 90s”

OK, I’m not claiming that I was unique in coming to that conclusion – it’s hardly a startling revelation that nobody else could possibly have made. In fact, it’s a blindingly obvious comparison but even so. It’s more evidence to add to my increasingly large file named ‘Jamie Theakston’s a bit of a prick’. I may have more to add later.

Seemingly not content with this fake backstage set up, we were now getting more and more personal video messages from artists introducing their own promos. Last week we had Michael Stipe with a segue into REM’s latest release and now here was Bono to lead us into U2’s single “The Sweetest Thing”. Released to promote their greatest hits compilation “The Best Of 1980 – 1990”, it did what it said on the tin in that it is a sweet song with a sweet story behind it. Written by Bono for his wife Ali to apologise for being in the recording studio and forgetting her birthday, it was originally released as a B-side to the 1987 single “Where The Streets Have No Name”. However, it was polished up and re-recorded for inclusion on that aforementioned Best Of album.

The song is simple yet tuneful but is turned into something else by the attendant video which saw Bono on a carriage ride across the Georgian mile in Dublin. In an attempt to apologise to his wife, he enlists various performers to join him along the journey including Boyzone*, the boxer Steve Collins, members of the Riverdance cast, some Chippendales, and the Artane Boys marching band who not only had links to U2 (drummer Larry Mullen Jr was once a member) but to the wider rock world via the appearance of some of their number on the artwork for INXS’s 1992 album “Welcome To Wherever You Are”. All of this undoubtedly adds to the charm of the video but for me, it works mainly because Bono doesn’t attempt to mine along instead remaining facing the camera with his mouth closed throughout. With his hat and wraparound glasses he reminds me slightly of Elvis Costello here. “The Sweetest Thing” debuted at No 3 on a chart that made history with the entire Top 5 made up of brand new singles for the first time ever.

*Apparently Boyzone recorded their own version of “The Sweetest Thing” but the record company suits didn’t think it sounded like a Boyzone track and any plans for a potential release were permanently scrapped. Searches of the internet have not revealed any trace of their version of the song which is probably for the best.

After Lyndon David Hall earlier, we now get another UK R’n’B artist, also from London who also won a MOBO award (two actually), who was also making their TOTP debut and who I was also not expecting much from but whose song I surprisingly thought was not bad. Kele Le Roc (real name Kelly Biggs) whom I’m beginning to think of as a female version of Lyndon David Hall so closely did their career trajectories run in parallel, would have two Top 10 hits to her name by the end of the 90s starting with this one – “Little Bit Of Lovin’” featuring a vocal that reminds me of Randy Crawford. In 2001, she would team up with Basement Jaxx on the No 6 hit “Romeo” and would go on to work with such dance luminaries as Shy FX and T Power. She would trump all of the above though in 2020 when she collaborated on a version of Baby D’s “Let Me Be Your Fantasy” with Gok Wan – no really!

Back to 1998 though and “Little Bit Of Lovin’” was co-written by Robbie Nevil who had that hit “C’est La Vie” back in 1987. He couldn’t have had anything to do with coming up with Kelly’s stage name could he? “C’est La Vie”? Kele Le Roc? Please yourselves!

From a group who’d been around for 20 odd years (U2) to a TOTP debut (Kele Le Roc) to…how would you describe Alanis Morissette at this point in her career? An established artist? Yeah, let’s go with that. Certainly, the monster success of her “Jagged Little Pill” album had positioned her squarely in that category. However, with that level of profile comes expectation and the task of following her breakthrough third studio album was daunting to say the least. In the end, topping sales of 33 million worldwide proved unachievable and “Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie” sold a quarter of the copies of its predecessor. Still, 8 million units shifted is hardly too shabby.

Lead single “Thank U” was a strong introduction to the album. A multi-faceted track based around an hypnotic drum loop sample from Sly And The Family Stone, it was also very suitable for daytime radio play – Morissette was canny enough not to veer too far away from the sound that had made her a superstar. Then there were its lyrics which added an extra layer of depth. Telling the tale of her inner epiphany of self knowledge following a trip to India, they were more personal in nature than many a mainstream hit would normally feature. However, what really caused a splash weren’t its sonic properties but the visual ones that went with the video. Featuring a totally nude Alanis wondering around various public locations in Downtown Los Angeles, it was an arresting promo to say the least. Thankfully there was no chance of Morissette being actually arrested herself on public indecency charges as it was filmed in a closed set. It would become her highest charting single in the UK when it peaked at No 5 as, despite “Jagged Little Pill” containing five hits, none of them got higher than No 7. It’s the video that we see here in another example of the relaxing of executive producer Chris Cowey’s no video policy albeit that we get a personal message from Alanis introducing it (another Cowey innovation).

And so we arrive at an artist whose first hit was in 1965! Yes, it’s Cher who, rather surprisingly, would have the UK’s biggest selling single of 1998 with “Believe”. Our host’s intro does, as I suspected, provide me with some more evidence for my ‘Jamie Theakston’s a bit of a prick’ file when he says of Cher “She’s no spring chicken but she’s still a top bird”. As this will be No 1 for seven weeks, I think I’ll just finish this post with some of its chart facts:

No 1 in 23 countries
As of 2017, “Believe” had sold 1,830,000 copies in the UK making it the biggest selling single by a female artist in UK chart history
As of 2025, it was certified 5 times platinum by the BPI
In the US, “Believe” was ranked the number one song of 1999 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and the Hot Dance Club Play charts

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Culture Club	I Just Wanna Be Loved	Negative
2	The Beautiful South	Perfect 10	Its a no
3	Lyndon David Hall	Sexy Cinderella	I did not
4	The Cardigans	My Favourite Game	Good tune but no
5	U2	The Sweetest Thing	Nope
6	Kele Le Roc	Little Bit Of Lovin’	Nah
7	Alanis Morissette	Thank U	No
8	Cher	Believe	I did not

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002ms9b/top-of-the-pops-30101998

TOTP 19 DEC 1997

Posted on June 10 by 80stastic

Christmas is nearly upon us in the world of BBC4’s TOTP repeats and, unlike nowadays, there is much talk of who will be this year’s festive No 1. Some of the contenders in the race were:

The Teletubbies – “Teletubbies Say ‘Eh-Oh’”
Various Artists – “Perfect Day”
Spice Girls – “Too Much”
Robbie Williams – “Angels”
Chicken Shed Theatre Company – “I Am In Love With The World”

If you can’t remember who clinched the title then here’s a clue – they had silly names and there was a lot of controversy surrounding them. No, not the Teletubbies! It was the Spice Girls though I’m willing to bet a few of them had handbags to rival Tinky Winky’s!

Anyway, we’re not there yet. We still have one last show for the great and the good of the class of 1997’s pop cohort to promote their Christmas wares and we start with Natalie Imbruglia who is still in the Top 10 despite having spent the last two months in residence there. Although this was the era of singles debuting high and crashing out of the Top 40 completely within a fortnight due to record company first week of release discounting, there were still plenty of examples of hits that bucked that trend. Off the top of my head, just in 1997, there’s No Doubt’s “Don’t Speak”, “Tubthumping” by Chumbawamba, No Mercy’s “Where Do You Go”, All Saints’ “Never Ever” and “Encore Une Fois” by Sash! “Torn” was another such song. Look at these chart stats:

2 – 2 – 2 – 4 – 5 – 9 – 8 – 8 – 8 – 9 – 10

This week’s TOTP appearance was for one of those No 8 positions so presumably because it had gone back up the charts or was holding steady. In the week before Christmas, it seems a bit odd to be opening the show with a months old hit which would also feature in the Christmas Day show but there you go. Would there have been a discussion at her label RCA about deleting it to make way for the follow up single “Big Mistake”? If there was, it was clearly poo-pooed in favour of ensuring it wasn’t swallowed up in the festive rush and was held back for the much slower post Christmas sales period. Nearly thirty years on though, it all see seems a bit academic as despite a triple platinum selling debut album and ten UK Top 40 singles to her name, I’m willing to bet the vast majority of people could only name “Torn” when it comes to Natalie Imbruglia hits.

Here’s another of those songs that took up long term residency in the charts – “Angels” by Robbie Williams. This one spent twelve consecutive weeks inside the Top 10 whilst never going higher than No 4 thus undermining the faith that some of the bookies had in it to be the Christmas chart topper. Maybe some of that belief was based on the fact that:

It was a ballad – always a winner at Christmas
There appeared to be some sleigh bells somewhere in the mix in the intro
There was an extra track on the CD single called “Walk This Sleigh”

History tells us, of course, that this was the single that saved Robbie’s career which got me thinking if there were other examples of this. The first that came to mind was “Instinction” by Spandau Ballet. After scoring their biggest ever hit with “Chant No. 1 (I Don’t Need This Pressure On)” in the Summer of 1981, their next two singles released for the “Diamond” album were chart failures. “Paint Me Down” only managed a humble peak of No 30 whilst “She Loved Like Diamond” was a sales disaster failing to make the Top 40 at all. Suddenly, the pressure was on and the band were in desperate need of a hit to resurrect their career. Enter Trevor Horn whose remix of the album track “Instinction” took them back to the Top 10 before the band became global superstars with “True”.

Then there’s the case of Culture Club. Having had demos rejected by EMI, the band finally signed with Virgin Records but after their first two singles had less longevity to them than TACO Trump’s tariff charges, there must have been concern within the record label that their charges were a dud. A last throw of the dice in third single “Do You Really Want To Hurt Me” saw the track receive support from David Hamilton on Radio 2 (which wasn’t the popular music playing station it is today back then) and a last minute TOTP appearance after Shakin’ Stevens cried off saw the world introduced to Boy George. Cue tabloid hysteria but also massive sales and pop superstardom.

Bringing it back to Robbie Williams, Take That struggled to find chart success in their early days with their first three singles getting no further than No 38. After all the promotional groundwork the band had done in clubs and schools, it was scant reward. A fourth single was given the go ahead but only with the safety net of it being a cover version. Their version of the old Tavares hit “It Only Takes A Minute” took them into the Top 10 and Take That are still with us 33 years later (albeit now as a trio).

Now I remember there was a Bryan Adams MTV Unplugged album because I recognise the cover but I couldn’t have told you that the lead single from it was called “Back To You”. However, I do know the song. How come? Because it was a staple of the early guitar classes I attended back in about 2009 as it turns out the chords to it are pretty basic. We used to start with this one to get us warmed up. Does that mean I liked it? It’s an OK track but it doesn’t come near to the power of “Run To You”. It actually sounds a bit twee in comparison. Still, those chords won’t learn themselves and a part of me will always be reminded of sitting in a circle and strumming along to its backing track whenever I hear it. Bryan’s original would make No 18 in the UK but was a No 1, rather predictably, in his native Canada.

I’m not sure if the bookmakers had this one down as a potential Christmas No 1 but then, in fairness to Ladbrokes, William Hill and the rest, the chart journey of “Never Ever” by All Saints was hard to have predicted. In at No 3 in its first week, it then fell for two consecutive charts before reversing the trend to spend three weeks at No 4 of which this TOTP appearance was one. It would finally top the charts for a solitary week in early 1998. Quite extraordinary really.

P.S. I like host Jayne Middlemiss’ intro where she really lets her Geordie accent come through when she says “Mel. Shaz, Nicki and Nat are gonna sing for wuh”. Lovely stuff.

What’s not so lovely though is the link to the next song which comes from one of the band themselves. Yes, introducing “If God Will Send His Angels” by U2 is Bono himself. What was this all about? A demonstration that the show’s profile was still so powerful that it could get superstars to record exclusives for it? Bono’s Christmas message includes him banging on about his kids wanting him to have a bath after returning from being on tour (how festive) before apologising for not being there with us (by which I presume he means in the studio) and therefore we get the promo for the single which was the fifth and last taken from “Pop”. I had totally forgotten about this one probably because it’s totally unmemorable. Even the by now over used record-at-slow-speed-and-then-sped-up video technique employed on the promo seemed old hat. It really is a bit of a dirge but it managed a chart peak of No 12 nonetheless. You could doubt the wisdom of releasing a fifth track from an album at the height of the Christmas singles rush – what did record label Island think was going to happen? The reasoning behind it seems to be the fact that due to the deadline of a pre-booked tour, the “Pop” album was rushed to market in what the group felt was an unfinished state. As such the band either remixed or completely remade the tracks taken from it for single release making them seem like more essential than usual purchases for the die-hards in the fanbase.

“If God Will Send His Angels” would also end up on the soundtrack album for the film City Of Angels (the clue to the reason why is in both titles!). I’ve never seen it but it starred Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan and was about an angel falling in love with a mortal woman. The film was a commercial success as was the soundtrack which also featured songs by Alanis Morissette and Goo Goo Dolls both of whom were managed by Rob Cavallo who was the album’s executive producer. Funny that. Morissette had the follow up album to global smash “Jagged Little Pill” due out whilst Goo Goo Dolls also had an album forthcoming. Again, funny that. The latter’s track contributed to the film was “Iris” which would top airplay charts around the world when released as a single the following year, be nominated for a Grammy and is still a staple of pop/rock radio station playlists to this day and you can’t say that about “If God Will Send His Angels”,

And so to another of those potential contenders for the Christmas No 1 according to the bookies. “I Am In Love With The World” by Chicken Shed Theatre Company was originally included on the “Diana Princess Of Wales: Tribute” charity album due to her patronage of the theatre company that literally started in an old chicken shed and was released as a single from it in time for Christmas. Presumably the bookmakers were predicting another Elton John style flood of sales. It never transpired with “I Am In Love With The World” (why was it ‘I am’ and not ‘I’m’) peaking at a relatively lowly No 15. Maybe its inclusion on an album that went double platinum in the UK reduced its chances or maybe the nation had taken enough time by this point to shake off its collective malaise that Diana’s death had brought on. Or maybe, and I don’t wish to wield harsh criticism against a charity record, it was just terrible. Because it really was.

Say what you like about Celine Dion (and many of us have) but she worked with some of the biggest names in music. Her previous single to this (which was still in the Top 40) was a duet with Barbra Streisand and the follow up – “The Reason” – was co-written by Carole King. My wife introduced me to Carole’s “Tapestry” LP when we first met back in 1986 so it has a special place in my heart but this track was like a paper doily compared to the songs woven into that classic album. A power ballad (of course it was) but it wasn’t a Jim Steinman type powerhouse like “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now” which she’d had a hit with the previous year. It sounded like a Eurovision* entry or possibly an X Factor winner’s song.

*Celine had, of course, won that particular song contest for Switzerland in 1988.

Tellingly, that duet with Barbra Streisand (“Tell Him”) would endure much better than “The Reason”. It peaked at No 3, spent four weeks inside the Top Ten 10 and a further four inside the Top 20 whereas “The Reason” peaked at No 11 and spent just three weeks in total in the Top 20. In the week of the Christmas chart, “Tell Him” held at No 13 whilst “The Reason” dropped to No 16.

Christmas wasn’t just about selling singles though. Albums was where the real money was and what type of album did record companies love to put out at Christmas time? A Best Of compilation of course! Yes, the reliable old staple of festive release schedules was a Greatest Hits/Best Of/Collection (delete as appropriate) and around this time a new strain of the format appeared – a retrospective of a solo artist and their former band on the same album. Although there had already been a Sting Greatest Hits (“Fields Of Gold: The Best Of Sting 1984-1994”) and two collections from The Police (1986’s “Every Breath You Take: The Singles” and 1992’s “Greatest Hits”), record label A&M reckoned they could still squeeze some more readies out of the back catalogue of both their artists by combining them into one album. Was this a genius move or a hateful idea – you’ll have your own opinion but it didn’t sit well with me. I like my retrospectives to be definitive which this surely couldn’t be. Not everything by two artists could be contained in one album. Surely a box set was needed?

Anyway, in 1997 came “The Very Best Of Sting & The Police” (note the use of the word ‘Very’ to signify that this was something different even though it wasn’t). Featuring fifteen tracks (seven from Sting and eight by The Police), it went four times platinum in the UK either matching or beating the sales of those aforementioned previous collections. So which songs didn’t make the cut?

The Police:

“So Lonely”
“De Do Do Do De Da Da Da” (though it was included in subsequent reissues of the album)
“Invisible Sun”
“Spirits In The Material World”
“Wrapped Around Your Finger”
“Synchronicity II”
“King Of Pain”

Sting:

“Spread A Little Happiness”
“All This Time”
“It’s Probably Me”
“Nothing ‘Bout Me”
“All For Love” (with Rod Stewart and Bryan Adams)
“Love Is The Seventh Wave”
“Seven Days”

And those lists aren’t completely exhaustive! Bah!

To promote the album, a single was required and so The Police’s first UK Top 40 hit “Roxanne” was recommissioned for the job. However, it wasn’t the original version but a horrible remix by Puff Daddy who probably reckoned he owed Sting one for “I’ll Be Missing You”. What he came up with featured samples and a horrible rap and was retitled as “Roxanne ‘97” and was just a dreadful mess. Thankfully, we don’t get that version here but a rather affecting acoustic take on it. Although Sting might rival Bono in the holier-than-thou arse stakes, you can’t deny that “Roxanne” is a great tune (Puff Daddy remix aside).

I’m guessing that the bookies didn’t want to get burned by a Christmas No 1 they hadn’t seen coming as happened in 1993 when firm favourites Take That were bounced out of the top spot by Mr Blobby and so didn’t underestimate the Teletubbies. Thankfully, history didn’t repeat itself. It seems the joke was wearing thin by this point as we only get 30 seconds of “Teletubbies Say ‘Eh-Oh!’” as the credits roll. I never thought I’d say this but thank God for the Spice Girls.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Natalie Imbruglia	Torn	No
2	Robbie Williams	Angels	No but I had a promo copy of the album
3	Bryan Adams	Back to You	Nope
4	All Saints	Never Ever	Negative
5	U2	If God Will Send His Angels	I did not
6	Chicken Shed Theatre Company	I Am In Love With The World	Hell No!
7	Celine Dion	The Reason	Never
8	The Police / Sting	Roxanne ’97	Nah
9	Teletubbies	Teletubbies Say ‘Eh-Oh!’	Of course not

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002chnq/top-of-the-pops-19121997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 18 JUL 1997

Posted on March 20 by 80stastic

We’ve made a quantum leap from the 20th June to 18th July 1997 here at TOTP Rewind due to the Puff Daddy/P Diddy issue who has been at No 1 for the last three weeks. Having checked the archive website, we’ve missed a handful of humdingers and a fair sprinkling of shite. In the former category (for me) are The Verve, Teenage Fanclub and the return of Echo And The Bunnymen. In the latter, I would put 911, Sash! and Celine Dion. Swings and roundabouts then. We’ll be making another such jump forward into the middle of August after this particular TOTP for the same reason. We’ll be through 1997 by Easter 2025 at this rate.

Now I should also mention a subject that has been doing the rounds amongst the TOTP online community and that is that the TV channel U&Eden (channel 57 on my television) has started showing TOTP repeats as well as BBC4. Is this a good thing? Well, potentially but from what I gather, they’ve started at the same year that the BBC is currently showing – 1997. In some cases they’ve been showing the exact same shows on that have been on the Beeb on a Friday night the next day. Presumably it’s all to do with some complicated rights issue but it all seems a bit pointless. What does it mean for me and this blog? Nothing. I’m not getting sidetracked after nine actual and fifteen TOTP years into this thing by potentially more work. I’m guessing that they’ll be affected by the same issues regarding cancelled artists and won’t be showing any shows that BBC4 haven’t. Either way, I’m not reviewing anything that deviates from the BBC schedules – it takes enough of my time to write this blog as it is and in any case, I haven’t tried to fill in the gaps as it were for any previously un-broadcast episodes and I’m not starting now. Rant over, let’s get to it.

Tonight’s host is…well, there’s two actually. Jo Whiley and Jayne Middlemiss but they’re not in the studio together. Oh no, Jayne is but Jo is in Rotterdam with U2 as they prepare for a gig there. To emphasise the duality of the presenter locations, there’s some rapid fire editing so that Jo and Jayne speak alternate lines. I’m sure it seemed like a clever idea at conception but it comes off as a bit annoying in practice. As for the whole ‘two presenters in different settings’ brainwave, yeah it’s an interesting way to go but I’m not sure it really adds that much value to the show. Onto the music and the first hit has, in recent years, been the subject of cultural appropriation. OK, I might be stretching the definition a bit with this example but it’s certainly true that “Freed From Desire” by Gala has taken on a life far beyond being a late 90s Eurodance and club favourite. We’ll get to that in a minute though. Back in 1997, I’m pretty sure I’d have dismissed it as being no more than as I’ve just described it – another Eurodance and club favourite with the added caveat that it did very little for me though it was huge across Europe and indeed in the UK where it made No 2 and spent eight weeks inside the Top 10. Some of the music press at the time compared it to “Gypsy Woman” by Crystal Waters and you can understand that with its ‘ner ner ner’ hook aping ‘la da dee, la da da’.

As for the performance here, Gala looks a bit like Sleeper’s Louise Wener but maybe a Louise Wener doing a parody of a keep fit video. What are those dance moves and why does Gala pull a face at the start which makes her look ever so slightly demonic? Watch it with the sound off and it just looks mad. It’s put me in mind of this infamous video…

Long after “Freed From Desire” had disappeared from our lives and we’d all forgotten that it ever existed, it turned out that we hadn’t. Or at least the fans of Bohemian FC hadn’t as they adapted it into a chant in 2011 sparking a wave of similar adoptions of the song by fans of other clubs from Stevenage FC to Bristol City to Newcastle United. However, I first became aware of this phenomenon when Wigan Athletic fans sung it about their free scoring forward Will Grigg by changing the words to “Will Grigg’s on fire, your defence is terrified”. After fan Sean Kennedy uploaded his version to YouTube, it was made into an actual record by dance producers Blonde and released under the name of DJ Kenno. Again, just madness.

Apparently, Gala is delighted that the track was given an extended life by its adoption by sport and football in particular (it was chosen by numerous football associations as their goal music at the 2022 World Cup and was used in the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games). However, as she was excluded from receiving royalties from it due to the original contracting deal, she re-recorded it 2024 to reclaim ownership of “Freed From Desire”.

Right, I think this really is the last time I’ll have to comment on a Michael Jackson hit in this blog as he didn’t release anything after “HIStory/Ghosts” for the rest of the decade. He goes out with what should be a bang with a clip of him from one of his three sold out Wembley gigs that he played in this week back in 1997. However, it seems a bit of a damp squib to me as all he seems to do is run back and forth to the wings of the stage before shouting “Hoooah!”. Look, I’ve never been to one of his concerts so I’m not really qualified to comment and according to the set list, this was the closing number so he might have been knackered but it seems a bit underwhelming.

Anyway, I said I’d devote my last Jacko review to the other track on this double A-side – “Ghosts”. I’m not sure that I’ve ever heard it before but somehow I was expecting something different to this which is yet another dance track that Jackson sounds like he’s performing under duress. It’s all strained sonic sinews and over-stretched vocals built around a metallic sounding sampled backbeat. Then there’s the video which seems like it’s just a pale imitation of “Thriller” but with ghosts instead of werewolves and zombies.

Look, if I wanted to listen to a song called “Ghosts” then there’s infinitely better tracks like this…

Or this…

The arc of a successful band can span years or it can be over in a few months. Or it can be something in between which was the fate of Dubstar. Having gotten off to a less than stellar start with their first two singles peaking at Nos 40 and 37, the ‘dream pop’ outfit upped their game and bagged consecutive Top 20 hits from their debut album “Disgraceful”. Their trajectory was definitely on the up and expectations rose in alignment with their success. By the time it came to recording sophomore album “Goodbye”, they needed to be improving on those chart positions. Sadly, that isn’t the way the band’s story played out when lead single “No More Talk” peaked at No 20. Founding member Steve Hillier takes up the story:

The release of No More Talk also marks the moment when my fears that Dubstar’s rise was over were realised. We were waiting outside BBC television centre to be called in for our appearance on the National Lottery. Jo Power from Food Records came over with the news that No More Talk was number 20 in the midweek charts. That sounds terrific now, but I knew this was a disappointment for everyone, we needed to be in the top ten. We should have been in the top ten. I was gutted, so I distracted myself by shuffling and grinning like a lunatic all the way through the biggest TV performance of our careers.

stevehillier.net, July 24, 2020

That National Lottery appearance couldn’t prevent the single descending the charts and it wouldn’t get any better for Dubstar. Subsequent singles peaked lower than “No More Talk” and third album “Make It Better” tanked completely with Hillier leaving the band shortly before its release. Despite the loss of Hillier and various side projects over the years, Dubstar are still a going concern but the days of hit singles are long behind them which is a shame as they made a very decent sound of which “No More Talk” was a good example.

What is it about Pachelbel’s “Canon in D Major” that lends itself so well to pop songs of every hue. Apparently, it’s something to do with the simplicity and memorability of its chord progression. Anyway, the list of songs inspired by the Baroque period piece is pretty extensive but it seems it wasn’t appreciated by Pachelbel’s contemporaries and remained forgotten for hundreds of years until it was rediscovered in the 1960s. Since then, it has had a notable influence on numerous tracks. Off the top of my head, there’s “All Together Now” by The Farm, “Streets Of London” by Ralph McTell and “Don’t Look Back In Anger” by Oasis (the chords of which are remarkably similar to McTell’s most famous song). However, there’s loads more I’ve never appreciated or indeed know at all. “Spicks And Specks” by the Bee Gees anyone? Songs I definitely know but have never made the Pachelbel connection with include “Basket Case” by Green Day, Bob Marley’s “No Woman, No Cry” and “Go West” by Village People (or Pet Shop Boys if you prefer). Then there’s this one which I’d completely forgotten about but which is undeniably based upon “Canon In D Major”.

I know that Coolio had more hits than just “Gangsta’s Paradise” but I would have struggled to name any but how did I forget this one?* The lead single from his “My Soul” album, “C U When U Get There” would make No 3 and replicate that success in just about every other territory. It’s certainly a big sound with a lush, gospel choir sung chorus that acts as an effective counterpoint to Coolio’s raps. In the same way that he borrowed brazenly from Stevie Wonder’s “Pastime Paradise” for his biggest hit, there’s no attempt to hide Pachelbel’s influence in the track – it’s unmistakably the foundation of “C U When U Get There”. Also like “Gangsta’s Paradise” which credited another artist in L.V., this one featured 40 Thevz (and that’s not a spelling error) but I really can’t be bothered to look into who they were. Obviously, the song’s title gave rise to some playground comments surrounding “C U Next Tuesday” but let’s not be so childish eh?

*I’m wondering if I replaced it in my memory banks with Wyclef Jean’s “Gone Till November” which was also a big hit this year?

We’re back to Rotterdam now and you can actually see U2 warming up over Jo Whiley’s shoulder. Now, we might have then been expecting Jo to introduce the band as they run through a soundcheck version of latest single “Last Night On Earth” which would have been pretty cool but instead we get the official video which kind of devalues the whole point of stationing a host in an outside broadcast location. Anyway, I don’t recall this U2 hit at all. When I think of the “Pop” album era of the band, the only single that comes to mind is “Discothèque” but there were actually five tracks taken from it in the UK and they were all pretty big hits (including a No 1 in the form of the aforementioned “Discothèque”). “Last Night On Earth” was the third of those and is all very typical U2 but it’s quite unremarkable and despite its No 10 chart peak (bought by completists in the band’s large fanbase I’m assuming), I doubt it did much to improve the album’s faltering sales.

Watching the video (which features a very young Sophie Dahl and a very old William S. Burroughs*), I was expecting to see it intercut with clips from a movie as I’d convinced myself it was on a soundtrack to a film called ‘Last Night On Earth’ but it turns out that it’s just my memory failing me – I’d confused it with “Until The End Of The World” from “Achtung Baby” which was from a film (the Wim Wenders movie of the same name) and Night On Earth which is a Jim Jarmusch film for which Tom Waits recorded the soundtrack. Close but no cigar. Again.

*Burroughs died two weeks after this TOTP aired.

Me: “Siri, what’s the definitive example of a classic soul track being s**t all over by someone without an ounce of talent?”

Siri: “The definitive example of a classic soul track being s**t all over by someone without an ounce of talent is “Piece Of My Heart” by Shaggy”.

Me: “Thanks Siri. Thought so”

N.B. Obviously, I’m not including vocalist Marsha in the above scenario. She can clearly sing though her willingness to be involved in such an heinous musical crime brings her judgement into question.

We have arrived at what was billed as a seismic moment back in 1997 and perhaps it was though maybe not for the reason originally intended. Oasis had not released any new material for nigh on two years and not even a single since “Don’t Look Back In Anger” in February 1996. Anticipation for their new single “D’You Know What I Mean?” was through the roof and fearing an overexposure backlash, record label Creation put embargoes in place to ensure that exclusive plays were honoured (though some skullduggery by a commercial radio station controller saw that plan undermined). Come the date of release, record shops were opening at midnight to sell it (more for the publicity than the sales I would think) though the Our Price in Stockport where I worked didn’t – we may have opened an hour earlier though to catch people on their way to work. I recall watching a news report from one of the big Manchester megastores that opened at midnight which interviewed eager punters with one announcing that the single “looks good and sounds good” and that he was, predictably, “mad for it!”. Was he right? Well, if the intention was to make the track sound like an epic rock anthem then…tick! Job done. A sprawling, meandering, wall of sound, monster of a track, it could be said to be the perfect way to announce the band’s new material. On the other hand, it left itself open to accusations of being bloated, overblown and overproduced – it was 7 minutes and 22 seconds long first heaven’s sake! Apparently, Noel Gallagher was expecting to be told that it would need to be edited down for release as a single but nobody had the balls to have that conversation with him. I was intrigued by the spelling of the title of the single – they’d already recorded a song called “D’yer Wanna Be A Spaceman?” as an extra track on the “Shakermaker” single so how come Noel had upped his command of English for the title of his new composition? Talking of extra tracks, one of those on “D’You Know What I Mean?” was a cover of David Bowie’s “Heroes” which was surely an act of musical heresy and yet, such was the profile of Oasis at the time, that nobody seemed to bat an eyelid. Plenty of my record shop colleagues were Bowie-ophiles and I don’t remember any outrage from them in defence of their idol.

The single appeared about six weeks before the release of their third studio album “Be Here Now” and the buzz about new Oasis material hadn’t abated in that time. It would become the UK’s fastest selling album of all time up to that point (and would remain so until 2015 when Adele released “25”) and yet its legacy hasn’t matched its commercial achievements. Widely seen retrospectively as nowhere near the standard of the band’s first two albums, it has come to be seen as too loud, too overproduced and too long – in short, a botched job of what could have been. Noel has long since disowned it whilst, Liam, rather predictably, has defended it. If it was meant to be the album to crown the legend of Oasis it failed. In fact, music critic Jon Savage said its release was the moment that signified the death of Britpop. In its defence, nothing the band released could have satisfied the expectations of them at that time and certainly not an album made by, as Noel rather succinctly put it, “a bunch of guys, on coke, in the studio, not giving a f**k”. Should it be completely dismissed? No, I don’t think so and the super deluxe version of it which includes the Mustique demos is worthy of some exploration.

As to the performance here, Oasis get the whole of the final seven and a half minutes of the show including the long intro and outro such was their level of status and fame at this point. I like the way that Jayne Middelmiss doesn’t forget her North-East roots by replying to Jo Whiley in her intro, “Jo man”. “D’You Know What I Mean?” is so long that Liam sits down during the extended guitar solos before the studio audience storms the stage at the end. Was that planned or spontaneous? If you look closely, Noel seems to be giving a helping hand to the first one up. The keyboard player (whoever he was) seems totally bewildered by the whole thing. For the moment, Oasis looked like they might live forever but in hindsight, had we just reached critical mass? From now on in, would it all slide away?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Gala	Freed From Desire	Nah
2	Michael Jackson	HIStory/Ghosts	No
3	Dubstar	No More Talk	Nope
4	Coolio	C U When U Get There	I did not
5	U2	Last Night On Earth	Negative
6	Shaggy	Piece of My Heart	Never
7	Oasis	D’You Know What I Mean?	Yes but I think it was the last one of theirs that I ever bought

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/m0028x66/top-of-the-pops-18071997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 14 FEB 1997

Posted on January 26 by 80stastic

It’s Valentine’s Day in 1997 so no doubt the charts (and therefore the TOTP running order) will be full of romantic love songs. Erm…no. Of the nine songs on tonight’s show, I’d say only one is an out and out slushy ballad. The rest…well, some are almost anti-love songs but we’ll get to them soon enough. The host tonight is doubtless the target of many a young girl’s romantic intentions in Peter Andre who, the last time he was the presenter, did a pretty good job it pains me to say. As for me, what was my Valentine’s Day like? Well, according to my diary, I was stressed out at work and my wife was away for the weekend in London so I spent it on my own in front of the TV which seems apt for this most unromantic of shows.

So, kicking us off are Mansun with the lead track from their “Five EP” called “She Makes My Nose Bleed”. Yeah, it’s not the most loved up song title ever and neither is its sound and thank god for that. Taken from their brilliant No 1 album “Attack Of The Grey Lantern”, this was 90s indie rock at its very best. They always sounded like they had such sonic power but that they hadn’t even got out of second gear yet and there was so much more under the bonnet. The day after this TOTP aired, I saw them on that tour with Suede that Peter Andre mentioned in Blackburn with my mate Steve. Given that their single was in the Top 10 at the time, I’m surprised that they were the support act. Presumably the tour had been booked loads earlier when their profile wasn’t as big but they were now contractually bound to complete it in the support slot? Later in this year I convinced another mate called Pete to buy “Attack Of The Grey Lantern” even though he wasn’t familiar with it promising him that it might take a little while to get into but that the pay off when he did would be worth it. He never did tell me if he liked it or not.

Now here’s a nice heartthrob singer for Valentine’s Day but his song isn’t a big ballad either. Mark Owen was possibly actively trying to shed that teen pin up status he’d acquired as part of Take That and be seen as a serious artist – he had written all but two tracks on his debut album “Green Man” after all. “Clementine” was the second single taken from that album and would peak at No 3, just as his debut single “Child” (which had been a big ballad) had done.

I recall that we sold out of the single in the Our Price I was working in during that first week of release. I don’t think it had been our fault per se – I think the initial quantities (the so called ‘scale out’) ordered in for us by the buying department at Head Office hadn’t been big enough. Maybe they’d been deceived by the poor sales performance of “Green Man” which had struggled to a chart peak of No 33. Consequently, perhaps they’d not banked on a second single taken from it charting so high. In fairness to the company buyers, they’d would prove to be ultimately right as Owen’s third single “I Am What I Am” (not that one) would flop when it peaked at No 29 – they’d just gone one single too early. Mark would subsequently be dropped by his label RCA. He wouldn’t reappear as a solo artist until 2003 when the aptly titled sophomore album “In Your Own Time” was released. I’d liked “Child” but “Clementine” seems a bit one dimensional – it was just all about that elongated chorus with the rest of it a bit pedestrian. More ‘Oh my, disappointing’ than ‘oh my darling’ Clementine.

Definitely not a slushy love song for Valentine’s Day was “Remember Me” by Blue Boy. I’m wondering if punters referred to it as “That song that goes ‘ging, gi-gi-gi-gi-ging’” when asking for it in their local record shops. I can’t recall if I was asked for it like that in the Our Price in Stockport but it’s quite possible. Other songs that people asked for not by their title would be “Gypsy Woman” by Crystal Waters (“that one that goes ‘la da dee, la da da’”) and “Song 2” by Blur (“it has a bit in it that goes ‘woo hoo!’”).

Ah, here’s the one and only slushy ballad on the show despite it being broadcast on Valentine’s Day. This was just shameless! OTT (not to be confused with the early 80s late night version of Tiswas) were another Irish boyband who clearly were modelled on Boyzone so much so that their debut hit was an Osmonds cover just as their predecessors’ had been. Talk about obvious! Whilst Ronan et al had taken on “Love Me For A Reason” which had been a chart topper in 1974, OTT went with “Let Me In”, a No 2 hit in the UK in 1973. You can’t tell me this wasn’t just cynically following a boy band blueprint step by step, detail by detail! Oh and look, they’re kitted out in that boyband cliché of all white outfits! They weren’t even that good looking were they? There’s one who seems to have modelled his hairstyle to match that of tonight’s host Peter Andre with those horrible greasy strands hanging down. How did their record label Epic think anyone would fall for this but they did! “Let Me In” would go to No 12 in the UK charts after being a No 2 hit in Ireland. This was the first of four hits they would manage over the next 12 months before Epic lost faith and dropped them. There’s five of them in this performance but one of them left the band at some point as there’s a line up of four on their album cover. Two of them did have interesting names – Niall O’Neill and Alan Mates who really should have had the nickname ‘Billy No’ but was known as ‘Adam’ within the band. They couldn’t sent even get nicknames right!

Next up is a track that fuses a hard rock guitar riff (courtesy of Van Halen), drum ‘n’ bass breakbeats, some reggae dub flourishes and a sample from a 1971 sci-fi film (The Andromeda Strain) – yep, to quote Bon Jovi, this ain’t a love song either. Apollo Four Forty’s biggest hit to this point had been the No 23 placing “Krupa” but “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘bout Dub” would seem them crack the Top 10 for the first time. Now, this was never going to be my cup of tea but I can appreciate it for being experimental, pioneering and pushing the boundaries of dance music composition.

Unlike Orbital the other week, the track lent itself more to a ‘traditional’ performance if that’s the right word. I guess it is in that there a vocalist (of sorts) and a guitarist and a drummer (two drummers actually – very Adam and the Ants). Apparently, the guy on the mike is the frontman for 80s ‘grebo’ band Gaye Bikers On Acid but he’s giving me Alex Mann vibes in his Fluminense football shirt. Who’s Alex Mann? This guy of course…

We’ve seen three of the last four hits before on the show so I might have to skip through these without too much comment. What I will say is that two of the artists have amazing longevity. The first of those is Depeche Mode who when you consider had already been having hits for 16 years back in 1997 and are still going today in 2025…well, you don’t have to be a maths genius to work out how long they’ve been around for. Not bad for a band that started out as teen, synth pop stars in frilly shirts. However, if I hear the phrase “Barrel Of A Gun”, the song that comes to my mind isn’t from Depeche Mode but this…

I can’t help it, I’m a product of my era and the songs that we grew up with are the ones that stick in our heads. No, really. There’s been scientific studies conducted into it – it’s called the ‘reminiscence bump’ so it’s not my fault. Look it up if you don’t believe me. I’m not consciously choosing John Farnham over (this era of) Depeche Mode, it’s been psychologically engineered within me.

No! Mercy please! Not this lot again! Not a third time! What am I supposed to say about this Spanish guitar influenced Eurodance trash? No Mercy were the creation of Frank Farian who gave us Boney M and if you were a child growing up in the 70s then they were a huge presence in your fledgling years (it’s that ‘reminiscence bump’ again). However, he also gave us Milli Vanilli and their lip-syncing, deceiving ways and then this trio of berks and their single “Where Do You Go” so his strike rate wasn’t the best. What I wasn’t aware of before now was that a biopic of the Milli Vanilli story was made in 2023 called Girl You Know It’s True but I guess it’s quite the story to be told – success followed by scandal followed by tragedy. I can’t imagine a film about the No Mercy story being made anytime soon.

There’s a lot to unpack with this next hit starting with who does the lead singer remind me of? I refer to Mark Oliver Everett aka ‘E’ who’d released two albums as a solo artist under that pseudonym in the early 90s before putting together the band Eels. It’ll come to me. Anyway, “Novocaine For The Soul” was the lead single from the band’s debut album “Beautiful Freak” and made the Top 10 in the UK straight off the bat. A great, quirky alt-rock song in the vein of Beck or Presidents Of The USA, it was a perfect antidote to all that generic dance crap in the charts at the time. What should have been a time of great excitement due to this success was tempered though by personal tragedy in Everett’s life. Having already suffered the trauma of finding his father, a prominent quantum physicist, dead at home when he was just 19, he then lost his sister to suicide and his mother to cancer between 1996 and 1998. Three years later, his flight attendant cousin was killed during the terrorist attacks in the US in 2001 when on the plane that was flown at the Pentagon. Everett seemed to process all this tragedy by writing songs – to date the Eels have released 17 studio albums!

Although the band’s line up has fluctuated over the years, Everett has remained the one constant presence, much like Mike Scott in The Waterboys or Matt Johnson in The The. Some of the names (or rather nicknames) of those other band members deserve some recognition. Look at these:

The Chet
Koool G Murder
P-Boo
Knuckles
Big/Krazy/Tiny/Honest/Upright/Royal Al
Butch

Take note OTT. That’s how you do nicknames! As for this performance, what was all that with the toy instruments all about? Apparently, they hadn’t told anyone they were going to smash them up at the end – was it meant to be a send up of The Who or someone like that? It wasn’t really working for me until they all did the little bow at the end which turned it from childish to comic.

Got it! ‘E’ reminds me of this guy. It’s E for Epithemiou!

U2 are, along with Depeche Mode, that other band with amazing longevity and this week, rather predictably what with being the biggest band in the world and all, at No 1. “Discothèque” is the song they gave them their third chart topper after “Desire” in 1988 and “The Fly” in 1991. It may have been the band’s third hit to get to the pinnacle but for the record buying public it was the sixth different No 1 single in as many weeks. Was it devaluing that achievement? It felt like it to me but then I was working from inside the trend in a record shop so was looking at it from a business perspective. Kind of sums up this Valentine’s Day show – all very business like with little romance in the air.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Mansun	She Makes My Nose Bleed	No but I had their album
2	Mark Owen	Clementine	Nah
3	Blue Boy	Remember Me	Yes – I bought the 12″ for my wife
4	OTT	Let Me In	No chance
5	Apollo Four Forty	Ain’t Talkin’ ‘bout Dub	Nope
6	Depeche Mode	Barrel Of A Gun	I did not
7	No Mercy	Where Do You Go	Never
8	Eels	Novocaine For The Soul	No but I had it on one of those Best Album Ever compilations
9	U2	Discothèque	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/m0026zt9/top-of-the-pops-14021997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 24 JAN 1997

Posted on January 18 by 80stastic

Two days before this TOTP aired, Billy Mackenzie committed suicide and the world lost one of its truly unique voices. Like most people I’m guessing, I first became aware of Billy in 1982 when the band he formed with Alan Rankine, The Associates, burst into the charts with “Party Fears Two”. I didn’t realise that they’d been going for three years before that. All I knew was that they made the most beguilingly wonderful sound. They followed it up with the similarly marvellous “Club Country” and “18 Carat Love Affair” but the runaway success train got derailed by Rankine’s decision to leave the band. There would be no more new music from The Associates until 1985 when the album “Perhaps” was released. Although none of the singles release from it made the Top 40, they were still quality tunes especially the stunning “Breakfast”. Billy continued to write and record under The Associates banner until 1990 when he struck out as a solo artist. However, any further chart success would prove elusive. A couple of years after his death, his biography, The Glamour Chase, was published which I read and it was a fascinating book. Billy really was an original – one of my favourite anecdotes was when he was let go by his record label, he hailed a cab in London and travelled back to his home city of Dundee charging the fare back to the label. He is truly missed. The Associates are stated to have influenced the likes of Björk, U2 and Ladytron. I wonder if any of the acts on tonight will have left such a legacy?

Before proceeding, I should acknowledge that the host tonight is Phil Daniels who’d had a few connections with music down the years. From fronting new wave band The Cross to his iconic role as Jimmy Cooper in Quadrophenia to his cameo in Blur’s “Parklife”, Daniels was an almost logical choice of TOTP guest presenter. So first on tonight are…you have to be kidding me?! The Outhere Brothers?!They were still having hits in 1997?! How and more importantly why?! You’ll remember this pointless duo from having consecutive No 1s in 1995 with “Don’t Stop (Wiggle Wiggle)” and “Boom Boom Boom” which were horrible, lowest common denominator, call and response chants. Their success was unexplainable to me but as we move into 1997 with these TOTP repeats, I was fairly sure that particular shameful episode in UK chart history was over. I was wrong, so sadly wrong. This final hit was called “Let Me Hear You Say ‘Ole ‘Ole” (of course it was) and it was garbage. It just sounds like a load of drunks at a football match. Who the hell bought this?! No, seriously who?!

Legacy rating: Zero. Nothing. Nada.

In January 1997, Suede were in the middle of the most commercial era of their career. Their third album “Coming Up” had been out for about five months and they were promoting it hard with a tour and five singles taken from it. “Saturday Night” was the third of those and its release conformed to that well worn path of two fast ones followed by a slow one. A ballad written to glorify the beauty to be found in the everyday, it continued the band’s run of Top 10 hits by debuting at a very respectable No 6. Not bad for a third single from an album. As it’s a ballad, Brett Anderson is sat down on a chair for this performance – perhaps he took inspiration from this lyric from the song:

Today she’s been sat there, sat there in a black chair

Office furniture

Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Brett Anderson / Richard Oakes
Saturday Night lyrics © BMG Rights Management

I caught Suede on that aforementioned tour a few weeks after this TOTP appearance in Blackburn when they were supported by Mansun. That was a good gig.

Legacy rating: For a band that could have buckled under the weight of expectation of that ‘The most important band in Britain’ headline early in their career, Suede have sustained remarkably well. A solid 7/10

You know me, I’m a pop kid. R&B isn’t my go to choice on Spotify but if I had to choose an artist of that genre then En Vogue would be up there. It might be the harmonies or the genre-bending tunes like “Free Your Mind” but they just seemed to have an edge to them that made them stand out. “Don’t Let Go (Love)” was another such track. The word seductive’ doesn’t really cover this one. It’s a great track that would end up being the lead single from the group’s third album “EV3” although it was originally recorded for the soundtrack of the heist drama Set It Off . It would also usher in a huge change in the group’s line up as lead vocalist on this track Dawn Robinson decided to leave En Vogue to pursue a solo career rather than record “EV3”. That would trigger a host of changes personnel-wise that would make the band’s members timeline more bitty than “It Keeps Rainin’” singer Mr McLean. Despite all the comings and goings, En Vogue are still together to this day although they are now a trio and haven’t released any new material since the “Electric Cafe” album in 2018.

Legacy rating: They’ve had more US R&B No 1s than any other female group other than The Supremes but the revolving door line up policy undermines their reputation rather. 6/10

In music history, there haven’t been many Byrons have there? In fact, there haven’t been many Byrons full stop. The most famous one is surely Romantic poet Lord Byron but there’s also this bloke – Byron Stingily who not only ticks the Byron box but also the music one too. I’d forgotten about this guy but reading up on him revealed that he wasn’t alone in Byron world. Let’s start with the facts though. Stingily (another unusual name to be honest) hails from Chicago and was a prominent figure in the rise of house music that emanated from that city. Working with another house music legend, Marshall Jefferson, as producer they formed Ten City who you may remember from having a hit in 1989 with “That’s The Way Love Is”. And get this – one of the members of the band was called Byron as well! What are the chances! And…Stingily’s son* is called Byron Jnr! Maybe I was wrong about the paucity of people called Byron!

*Byron Jnr would become an American football player for the New York Giants in the position of offensive tackle (make your own jokes up!).

Anyway, branching out solo, Stingily’s first UK hit was “Get Up (Everybody)” which sampled disco legend Sylvester’s “Dance (Disco Heat)”. Incidentally, Byron would do a full blown cover of Sylvester’s finest moment “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” the following year. I’m sure “Get Up (Everybody)” meant something in Chicago House circles but the only thing I could remember about it before watching this TOTP repeat was the generic Manifesto Records cover it came in. Byron’s final UK chart entry was his own cover of that Ten City hit in 1999 and although he is still involved in music he is also a part time principal at a school in…yep…Chicago.

Legacy rating: I’m sure he remains a big name in the history of house music but, if I’m being stingy about Stingily, he doesn’t mean much to me 5/10

And now for something truly stomach churning. I remember the name Ginuwine (I think Phil Daniels mispronounces it in his intro as ‘Genuine’) but thank god I couldn’t recall how any of his music went because it’s god awful. The lyrics to his debut hit “Pony” are clearly just a metaphor for his penis. That’s it. That’s his angle. It’s schoolboy humour tripe. There’s lots of mentions of ‘riding’ his pony and the things he would do to some poor woman, juices flowing down thighs and lurking all over and through her until he reaches her stream. Oh god, I feel dirty just typing those words. It’s just horrific. All of this machismo bullshit was set to an R&B, bump’n’ grind backbeat while Ginuwine smooches about the stage exhorting the studio audience to make some noise. It’s genuinely disturbing. It’s clear though why this berk created an alter ego for himself as his real name is Elgin Baylor Lumpkin which sounds like a character from The Hobbit. And we thought Byron Stingily was unusual! Begone foul, three-legged warg!

Legacy rating: Do me a favour! 0/10

New U2 material was a huge deal back in 1997 so they were always going to get the big build up exclusive treatment on the show. However, despite “Discothèque” going to No 1, history has not been kind to it and, for many, it ultimately disappointed. Since the beginning of the 90s, U2 had been on a mission of reinvention starting with “Achtung Baby” and progressing via “Zooropa” so that by the time they arrived in 1997 and the “Pop” album, was it possible that we’d all had enough of it? Certainly, it was one of the band’s poorest performing albums commercially and Bono himself has voiced his dissatisfaction with it, with the band going so far as to re-record or remix tracks from it for their second Best Of compilation released in 2002.

It all sounds pretty damning but was lead single “Discothèque” really that bad? I think that I overestimated its potential when ordering the single for the Our Price store I was working in and was left with egg on my face and a huge overstock on the shelves. That probably informed my negative view of it. However, listening back to it, I can appreciate the song and what the band were trying to do with it. Sure, it was pushing the boundaries of what we expected from a U2 track but we had been primed for that by all those previous experimentations. Accusations of jumping on the bandwagon of the dominant and ubiquitous dance genre abounded but, on reflection, I think “Discothèque” manages to pull together a track that dared to both innovate and yet be commercially viable. As for the ‘mirrorball’ video, I like to think it showed the band retained the ability to send themselves up – The Village People indeed! The single would go straight in at No 1 but, as was the increasing trend, only for a single week until it was knocked off by the next ‘big’ release.

Legacy rating: Hard to knock a band who will have been in existence for 50 years next year. As for the song, I think it’s due a reappraisal. 8/10 for the band, 6/10 for the song

Asked to name two songs by Reef, this one, “Come Back Brighter”, would be my second pick after “Place Your Hands”. Asked to name three songs by Reef…forget it. Still, this was the point when they were starting to look like serious contenders for the title of heavyweight rockers. This was a second Top 10 hit in a row, both tracks coming from No 1 sophomore album “Glow”. It would be their commercial peak though. By the time third album “Rides” was released in 1999, that flush of success had dissipated rather and sold only a fifth of its predecessor and furnished just one hit single. What happened? I don’t know do I? If I knew the secret of what makes music popular, I’d have spent the 90s writing hit songs rather than selling them in a record shop. For me, “Come Back Brighter” wasn’t as immediate as “Place Your Hands” but it was a grower and did a decent job consolidating the band’s profile.

Legacy rating: Early promise didn’t turn into megastardom 5/10

White Town are No 1! You may not remember their name but their one and only hit was unforgettable. I say ‘their’ but White Town was really just one person – Jyoti Prakash Mishra – a British-Indian singer, musician and producer who came up with the global smash “Your Woman” before disappearing again – a true one hit wonder but what a hit! This was one of those tracks that, the first time you heard it, you couldn’t ignore, that made you say “what’s this?!”. Sampling a 1932 (1932!) song by Lew Stone and his Monseigneur Band featuring a vocal from South African-British crooner Al Bowlly*, it sounded ‘other’, ‘alien’ even, like it had come from a different planet. This was no “Spaceman” though – it didn’t deceive like Babylon Zoo had a year earlier. No, this was all killer all the way through. It wasn’t just about the beats though. The song had a subverted narrative with Mishra’s distorted, low-fi vocal delivering a story of a relationship mismatch from the point of view of the woman. It was clever stuff or at least it felt like it at the time.

*My only other reference point for Al Bowlly came early in my Our Price career when my colleague Justin announced at the end of the day that he was meeting a girl after work and that he’d been getting in the mood for his assignation by listening to Al Bowlly’s “Got A Date With An Angel”

Mishra had started by releasing his material on his own, self financed record label but when “Your Town” started getting airplay courtesy of Radio 1’s Mark Radcliffe, EMI came calling with a record deal and the rest is history. It wasn’t a good history though in terms of Mishra’s relationship with EMI. A committed Marxist, he was very outspoken about music industry practices and it would ultimately lead to White Town being dropped before the end of 1997. Mishra returned to releasing music on his own record label and is still active to this day.

Legacy rating: 8/10 for the song, 4/10 for the band

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	The Outhere Brothers	Let Me Hear You Say ‘Ole ‘Ole	F**k off!
2	Suede	Saturday Night	No but I had the album Coming Up
3	En Vogue	Don’t Let Go (Love)	Liked it, didn’t buy it
4	Byron Stingily	Get Up (Everybody)	Negative
5	Ginuwine	Pony	Never
6	U2	Discothèque	Nope
7	Reef	Come Back Brighter	Nah
8	White Town	Your Woman	No but maybe I should have

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/m0026qwk/top-of-the-pops-24011997?seriesId=unsliced

TOTP 20 JUL 1995

Posted on December 17, 2023 by 80stastic

One of the interesting things about these TOTP repeats is that they’re a great snapshot of cultural tastes of the time, shining a spotlight on sounds, artists and personalities that were popular and prominent at a specific moment. Obviously, some names transverse any particular juncture; U2 first example who are on this show later can’t be put into a time capsule but then there are people like the presenter of this show. Does the name Gayle Tuesday ring any bells? No? How about Brenda Gilhooly? Nothing? OK. Maybe if you saw a clip…

…anything now? Got her? Yep, Gayle Tuesday was nothing to do with a song by The Rolling Stones (Ruby Tuesday) nor the new Doctor Who’s latest companion (Ruby Sunday) but was a character created by comedian Brenda Gilhooly who briefly rose to fame in the mid 90s. A send up of the traditional image of and persona allocated to Page 3 models, the character appeared on programmes such as !Viva Cabaret! and The Jack Dee Show as well as forming a partnership of sorts with Paul O’Grady’s Lily Savage character. A TV show of her own called Gayle’s World arrived in 1996 but both Gilhooly and her creation seemed to disappear after that. A relaunch in 2010 called Gayle Tuesday: The Comeback appeared on the Living channel in 2010 but Brenda makes her living these days as a writer having penned and starred in the 2019 Radio 4 sit com Madam Mayor. In July 1995 though, she was Gayle Tuesday and a ‘golden mic’ slot on TOTP beckoned…

We start with Corona who were infeasibly onto their third hit single with “Try Me Out”. As the UK went dance music crazy in the 90s, the number of different genres and sub genres of that generic term was bewildering. The scariest part of the Our Price store where I was working at the time was always the Dance Collections section. You really had to have someone who knew their stuff when it came to dance music to sort it out and keep it maintained. Anyway, what would Corona’s music be categorised as? I’ve seen it described online as Euro-NRG, Nu-NRG and, of course, the catch-all term Eurodance. Never having been even remotely qualified to have sorted out the Dance Collections section, I couldn’t possibly give any insight into the discussion other than to say it sounded crap to me. This one comes across like it was written to order, or perhaps formulated by AI if it had existed then. All the essentials are there but it just sounds so cynical and calculated. However it gestated, it worked becoming the band’s third consecutive Top 10 hit.

Next a song and artist I don’t believe I’ve thought about since 1995. Dana Dawson was from Queens, New York but she was more popular in Europe than the US. Not an official one hit wonder (she had two minor follow ups) but “3 Is Family” was by far her biggest. A fluffy but enjoyable bit of dance pop, the online reviews of it I’ve found made comparisons with the output of Eternal and Dina Carroll but it reminds me more of “I Love Your Smile” by Shanice. My comparison wasn’t all the two singers shared – they both released their first ever recordings at the age of just 14 – Shanice brought out her debut album “Discovery” in 1987 whilst Dana entered the world of pop with her single “Ready To Follow You” in 1988.

The latter initially found success just in France as her records were only available there so she signed with EMI in 1993 to open up more territories for her including the UK. The plan worked straight off the bat as she struck big with her first EMI single “3 Is Family” peaking at No 9 over here. A tale of the impending arrival of a first born child, its catchy chorus about a couple becoming a family of three employs some basic maths to great effect. A year later, the Spice Girls would bag the Christmas No 1 with a similarly titled song but in reverse with “2 Become 1” reportedly about the act of lovemaking though the line “Be a little wiser baby, put it on, put it on” suggested that, unlike in Dana’s song, the protagonists weren’t planning on starting a family!

Dana Dawson sadly passed away in 2010 aged just 36 from cancer.

There’s time for a quick boobs gag from Gayle before she introduces Paul Weller whom she describes as “gorgeous, funky, fab” before rounding off with a “phwoar!”. The Modfather as a hunk? Really? Look, I know he has a super loyal fanbase who swear by him (my elder brother is one of them) but I always thought it was about his music not his looks, no?

*watches video for “You Do Something To Me”*

Hmm. Well, he certainly looked better than he does these days but who doesn’t? I guess he has a certain beanpole charm to him. In fact, in the shots in the back of the van with those shades on and that loose, shaggy hair, he has a whiff of Liam Gallagher about him. Anyway, we really should talk about the music and this track was the third single to be taken from his “Stanley Road” album and it would peak at No 9. Not his biggest ever hit but perhaps his most well known solo song? To the casual listener at least maybe. It’s a very charismatic, evocative ballad with a lyric about unattainable love though apparently it’s very popular at weddings. Another one of those totally misunderstood songs that gets played inappropriately like stalker anthem “Every Breath You Take” by The Police. As I remember, this was the point where the ‘godfather of Britpop’ tag really started to circulate in conjunction with the rise of the movement that Weller was supposedly the originator of. I’m not sure if he welcomed it or not but he certainly collaborated with some of its purported proponents on “Stanley Road” including Liam’s brother Noel and Steve Craddock of Ocean Colour Scene. It remains easily his best selling solo album.

The next four songs have all been on the show before so I might just whip through them pretty quickly if that’s alright by you. The first is “Love Enuff” by Soul II Soul. I didn’t have much to say about this one when it was on as the play out track recently and my cupboard is still pretty bare now. I guess I could say that some of the backing singer harmonies remind me a bit of En Vogue or that main vocalist Penny Ford did the singing on Snap!’s early hits. Is that enough? Sorry, enuff?

Gayle gets a gag in about the rude name of the next act before we get another airing of the studio performance from the other week by Shaggy (ooerr!) and Rayvon. As with Soul II Soul, I’m at a loss as to what to say about these two. We all know that “In The Summertime” was originally a No 1 hit for Mungo Jerry in 1970 so that won’t do.

*checks Shaggy’s Wikipedia entry*

Oh, his son is a music artist as well. He’s a rapper and goes by the name of Robb Banks (or sometimes styled as Robb Bank$ inevitably). His influences include Biggie Smalls and…is this right?…Sade?! The list also includes some names I’ve never heard of like SpaceGhostPurrp and Slug. Does his Dad get a mention? Oh yeah, he’s in there (just referred to literally as ‘his Dad’). Now I might regret this but I wonder what Robb Banks sounds like?

*listens to his single “You Kno It”*

Oh God. Why did I bother? What did I think was going to happen? It’s dreadful. I didn’t think I would ever say this but I actually prefer Shaggy!

It’s the video for U2’s “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me” next back for what I believe is a third outing on the show as it is going back up the charts having seemingly peaked at No 2 a month previously. The reason for its reversal of fortunes is pretty obvious – the film it was taken from – Batman Forever – had been released to UK cinemas six days before this TOTP was broadcast. Its eleven week run in the Top 40 (in itself definitely not a regular occurrence in the mid 90s) would yield the following chart positions:

2 – 2 – 3 – 6 – 10 – 6 – 4 – 7 -13 – 17 – 26

The power of a blockbuster film promoting a single on display right there. That’s not to say it wasn’t a good song of course. I always quite liked it and certainly enjoyed it more than the big hits from the other Batman films up to this point. If you’ve forgotten what they were, there was “Batdance” by Prince (where was the song in this track?) and “Face To Face” by Siouxsie and the Banshees (seriously, who does remember that one?).

Another song in the charts enjoying a helping hand from being on a hit film’s soundtrack is “Shy Guy” by Diana King which was featured in Bad Boys. Now, she may really only be known for this one song in the UK but Diana is quite the trailblazer both musically and culturally in her home country of Jamaica. Whilst her blend of reggae, dancehall and R&B pushed back musical boundaries, in her personal life, Diana came out as a lesbian in 2012 making her one of the first and only LGBTQ+ Jamaican artists in the music industry. So it turned out that as well as not wanting no fly guy, she didn’t want a shy guy either really.

And so to the climax of the show and yes, I’m not counting another week at No 1 for The Outhere Brothers – this was a much more seismic event in the world of pop music. It’s not just an exclusive performance of the new Take That single “Never Forget” but our first look at the group in a post Robbie Williams world! Eek! Yes, just three days before this TOTP went out, Williams had officially announced that he was leaving Take That. The fall out, rumours and accusations surrounding this were huge. Did he resign or was he asked to leave by the rest of the band? Would they continue without him or replace him? Would they split up? Double eek! Whatever the truth, there were some very immediate logistical consequences for the band to deal with. Take That were in the middle of a world tour and just about to begin the UK leg of it. How would they accommodate a Robbie-shaped hole? Well, as I recall they offered a refund to anyone who had bought a ticket for one of their concerts if they felt short-changed that they wouldn’t be seeing Williams. As I recall, maybe one person cashed in on the refund for that reason. My wife went to see them with a friend on that tour and said it was a great show and that she didn’t even notice Robbie wasn’t there.

So, tour troubles resolved but what to do about the new single? “Never Forget” didn’t have Gary Barlow on lead vocals for once but Howard Donald. A surprise it may have been but a problem? No, Howard wasn’t going anywhere. However, the song did feature Robbie singing prominently in the middle eight and the bridge part before the final chorus. Well, they didn’t re-record the single that was released to shops because promo copies featuring Robbie had been made available to radio stations weeks before. However, for the purpose of promoting the song on TV shows, they performed a version with the Williams vocals edited out. Watch this TOTP appearance. I’m pretty sure you can’t hear Robbie on it anywhere.

Talking of different versions of the song, the edit that was released as a single is quite different from the album version. It was remixed by Meatloaf producer Jim Steinman who added a boys choir part to the intro and coda and a steal from Verdi’s Requiem right at the very start of the song. These enhancements made for a very crowded stage for this TOTP performance with the lads sharing it with eight choristers and a gospel choir. Who knew it would take so many people to replace Robbie Williams?! Maybe they wanted to make a statement that they weren’t going anywhere and they didn’t need Robbie to put on a show? If so, it certainly worked – the four of them look highly delighted. Nothing forced about their smiling faces; maybe there was an element of (dare I say it) relief in there? Image-wise, Howard has toned down his attempt to turn into the musical version of Chewbacca by tying his hair back and he’s also pre-dated David Beckham by at least a couple of years by his choice to wear a sarong. Mark and Jason look like 70s pin ups with their grown out hair dos that Black Lace would probably describe as ‘girly-curly hair’ whilst Gary just looks like he’s counting the dance steps in his head like he always does. Those dance moves include, of course, that “Radio Ga Ga” style hands aloft move which is actually pretty effective and inclusive (even the two left footed amongst us can pull that off).

Overall, I think they do a pretty good job of displaying a band united despite the potential for derailment caused by the departure of a popular member of the group. The lyrics and theme of the song also help with Robbie’s leaving somehow imbuing them with more significance. There’s also an element of grounded-ness in there as if they’re saying “Look, we’re just a pop group at the end of the day. You’ll move on as we will”. It puts me in mind of John Lennon saying to the fans that they couldn’t stay those lovable moptops forever when The Beatles decided to concentrate on recording and stop touring. He reminded them that those early records were still there and that if they really couldn’t let go of the band’s previous image and style then there was always The Monkees anyway. “Some day soon this will all be someone else’s dream” indeed. “Never Forget” has become possibly Take That’s biggest song – not in sales maybe (though it will go to No 1 for three weeks) but in terms of its profile to the point that the 2023 version of the band chose to sing it at the Coronation Concert for King Charles III and Queen Camilla.

After quite a lengthy dissection of Take That, I’m going to give short shrift to these two berks. The Outhere Brothers are No1 for a third week with “Boom Boom Boom”. There you go. That’s it. That’s the comment.

And that’s nearly it. There’s just time for Gayle Tuesday to say goodbye and advise the watching female audience to remember to stick their chests out and giggle a lot before the play out track kicks in. I’ve never heard of Tecknicolor nor their track “Take 5 In The Jungle” though, of course, I was aware of “Take 5” by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. I’m not sure that this dance version of the jazz standard made the Top 40 and there’s precious little information about it online that I can find. For what it’s worth, my opinion on it would be that with all the dance music around at the time, did we really need to bring jazz into the equation?

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Corona	Try Me Out	No
2	Dana Dawson	3 Is Family	I did not
3	Paul Weller	You Do Something To Me	Not but I had the Stanley Road album
4	Soul II Soul	Love Enuff	Nah
5	Shaggy and Rayvon	In The Summertime	As if
6	U2	Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me	Liked it, didn’t buy it
7	Diana King	Shy Guy	Nope
8	Take That	Never Forget	It’s a no from me
9	The Outhere Brothers	Bom Boom Boom	Ha! Away with you!
10	Tecknicolor	Take 5 In The Jungle	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/m001t61l/top-of-the-pops-20071995

TOTP 15 JUN 1995

Posted on November 28, 2023 by 80stastic

As I begin writing this post, it turns out that today (29th November) is the 40th anniversary of the release of the first ever Now That’s What I Call Music album. Unbelievably, the series that started in 1983 is still going strong in 2023 with Now 116 having just come out. I bought that first album way back when but it would prove to be the first and last Now album I would ever purchase. I wonder why I stopped my allegiance to the series so suddenly? I recall being quite excited about that first album as it did something no other compilation album had ever done before – it was a joint venture between two of the UK’s biggest record labels EMI and Virgin meaning the amount of singles available to be licensed to appear on it was much bigger than at any time before. Plus, they were the original songs not some dodgy knock off covers that appeared on those awful Top Of The Pops compilation albums from the 70s. Incidentally, Mark Goodier had a T-shirt on in one of the BBC4 repeats the other week that was advertising the Top Of The Pops compilation album that got launched in 1995.

Anyway, back to that first Now album and why I never bought another of them after that one. Did I think maybe they were a bit naff and not cool enough? After all, not all the songs on them would have earned any street cred points at school. That first one had the likes of Bonnie Tyler, New Edition and Peabo Bryson & Roberta Flack on it. It’s possible. The next time a Now album appeared on my radar was when my wife bought Now 13 around 1988. Then, in the 90s, I would see them on a regular basis as I was working at Our Price by then and selling them for a living. I remember in 1991 there being a big fuss about the landmark of Now 20 being reached. Incidentally, at one point around 1995, they thought about doing away with the numbers scheme as there was a fear that as the volume numbers got bigger and bigger, it would make the series seem outdated as no compilation series had ever gone on for that long. Anyway, I was still at Our Price (just) to help sell some of the 2.3 million copies that the best selling volume in the series (46) shifted in 1999. I’m getting ahead of myself though. I wonder how many of the songs featured in this TOTP made it onto a Now album?

By the way, tonight’s host is Michelle Gayle in the ‘golden mic’ slot which I guess was a canny choice by executive producer Ric Blaxill seeing as she brought with her both the glamour of being a pop star and the technical craft of being an actress so she could handle a few scripted lines whilst presenting.

Tonight’s opening act are Wet Wet Wet who are in the studio to promote their latest single “Don’t Want To Forgive Me Now”. However, we’ve seen them do this one on the show before as, back in April, they performed the song in the album chart slot to promote their album “Picture This”. As such, I’ve already reviewed this track so what am I supposed to say about it now? Well, there was a reaction of astonishment online to Marti Pellow’s suit, specifically that it consists of a split pattern between stripes and checks (or is it spots?). Even I, about as anti-fashion as it comes and almost allergic to buying clothes, knows that’s a fashion faux pas. It’s like putting tomato ketchup on a Sunday roast; you just don’t do it.

Chart peak: No 7

Now album? Yes – Now 31

Oh no! Not these two jokers again! In a year that included Robson & Jerome, it’s quite the feat to be possibly the worst chart act of 1995. I couldn’t stand The Outhere Brothers with their child-like call and response nonsense and the fact that they wrote filthy lyrics but were quite prepared to peddle a heavily edited and sanitised version of them so as to pursue mainstream success. At least have the courage of your convictions! After “Don’t Stop (Wiggle Wiggle)” went to No 1 earlier in the year, the duo weren’t prepared to be one hit wonders and repeated the trick with follow up “Boom Boom Boom” by inexplicably convincing the UK record buying public to buy another of their moronic tracks in enough quantities to make it a second chart topper.

Enough of those two pricks though. Id rather discuss how the word ‘boom’ historically figures heavily in pop music culture. Look at all these songs that include the word (or variants of it) in their title:

Boom! Shake The Room – DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince
Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!! – Vengaboys
Boom-Shack-A-Lak – Apache Indian
Boom Boom – John Lee Hooker
Boombastic – Shaggy
Sonic Boom Boy – Westworld

Then, of course, there’s The Boomtown Rats and for the fans of obscure 80s bands (like me) there’s Boom Boom Room. I guess it’s such a great word ‘boom’. Onomatopoeia at its finest.

Chart peak: No 1

Now album? Yes – Now 31

A second outing now for the video to “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me” by U2. Now I always quite liked this song. It seemed a good fit for an superhero action movie; all swooping and soaring and dramatic. Plenty of others agreed with me as it was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. However, it also had its fair share of detractors which resulted in a nomination for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Original Song. It won neither so maybe they cancel each other out?

Aside from “Miss Sarajevo” from the “Passengers” side project, U2 wouldn’t release another single until “Discothèque” in 1997 which was another divisive song but then if you have a lead singer like Bono, you’re always going to divide opinion.

Chart peak: No 2

Now album? Yes – Now 32

Still with Bitty McLean? Yep, a whole two years on from his debut and biggest hit single “It Keeps Rainin’ (Tears From My Eyes)”, UB40’s former sound engineer was still cranking out medium sized chart hits most of which seemed to be reggae’d up versions of classic pop songs. This particular one was his take on “We’ve Only Just Begun” by The Carpenters. He’d previously done “Dedicated To The One I Love” made famous by The Mamas & The Papas and indeed that first hit was originally recorded by Fats Domino. Did he write any of his own stuff? A quick check of the track listing for his first album “Just To Let You Know…” reveals that he wrote three out of the eleven tracks on there. Hmm. Not that many then. Poor old Bitty can’t do right for doing wrong by me though. I criticise him for not writing his own stuff but I also don’t like his cover versions. This one is just drivel and would prove to be his final UK Top 40 hit. Still, he did know how to rock a super slick suit. Marti Pellow take note.

Chart peak: No 23

Now album? No

https://youtu.be/ycU1L7Th6H8?si=dQg6-2dHG-BG1Jc7

From a killer suit to a killer tune. Perhaps the most unlikely comeback of 1995 belonged to Edwyn Collins, a man without a UK hit single since 1983 when his ex-band Orange Juice reached the Top 10 with their one and only Top 40 entry “Rip It Up”. The band split in 1985 after being unable to consolidate on that success so Edwyn went solo and despite releasing a couple of albums and a handful of singles, nobody was really listening. All of that changed with “A Girl Like You” from third album “Gorgeous George”. Originally released on November 1994, it became a massive hit in just about every territory on the planet except here where it stalled at No 42. Huge airplay support saw it given a rerelease in the UK in the Summer of 1995. A shimmering, slinky, retro sounding pop song that you could have easily believed came from the soundtrack to a super cool 60s spy movie set in Paris, it finally broke the UK’s collective resistance when it went Top 5.

Having read both the account of Edwyn’s double cerebral haemorrhage in 2005 by his wife Grace Maxwell and a book detailing the history and adventures of Postcard Records, I have to conclude that Edwyn’s had quite the life and is a man of superb character and resilience. He looks great in this performance and yes that is a ex-Sex Pistol Paul Cook up there on drums as he played on the record.

Chart peak: No 4

Now album? Yes – Now 31

Before we get to the next act, we have an interloper in the studio but no need to worry, it’s not a protester with a cause but rather Louise from Eternal who surprises Michelle Gayle with a gold disc presented for sales of the latter’s debut album. Michelle seems genuinely surprised at this turn of events but retains her cool sufficiently to introduce the next act.

As with Bitty McLean earlier, here’s another artist that I’m amazed was still bothering the chart compilers in 1995. After her debut album made huge waves around the world and especially in the US, Paula Abdul went away for a couple of years and pulled off a follow up with second album “Spellbound” including the hits “Rush Rush” and “Vibeology”. Expecting her to complete a second comeback a lengthier four years on looked a forlorn hope but she managed to (sort of). Third album “Head Over Heels” would achieve gold status but those sales were drastically down on 1991’s “Spellbound” (three times platinum) and 1989’s “Forever Your Girl” (seven times platinum). Lead single “My Love Is For Real” sounded like Paula had been paying a bit too much attention to Kylie’s recent comeback hit of her own “Confide In Me” what with its Eastern influences and all. As with Bitty McLean, this would prove to be Paula’s last UK Top 40 hit.

Chart peak: No 28

Now album? No

I quite often rely on chart statistics in this blog to make a point or sometimes (whisper it!) pad the posts out a bit. They can be a barometer of what was happening in the charts but sometimes they don’t always tell the whole story I feel. Look at East 17 for example. I think there’s a decent argument that the band reached the pinnacle of their career with their Christmas No 1 “Stay Another Day” and that inevitably it was a slow descent from that point on. And yet…they had nine more hits after that chart topper of which six went Top 10 including two No 2s and a No 3. However, can you name any of them? Even looking at their discography, the only one that means anything to me is the single they did with Gabrielle. For me, their golden era was 1992-94. Everything past that I kind of struggle with. “Hold My Body Tight” is a case in point. There’s really not much to it at all. Lightweight doesn’t really cover it. It was the last single to be released from their “Steam” album and it did kind of feel (and sound) like an afterthought.

Chart peak: No 12

Now album? Yes – Now 31

Robson & Jerome are still at No 1 with “Unchained Melody / (There’ll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs Of Dover”. At this point, there was talk of it becoming the biggest selling single in the UK ever but in the end such chatter was well wide of the mark. As it stands, it’s No 15 in the all time list though there’s two songs ahead of it that hadn’t been released yet in 1995.

Chart peak: No 1

Now album? No

https://youtu.be/ve___RcnRPM?si=JGuJMZ017Qd04qeu

And so to that exclusive screening of the video for “Scream” by Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson that Michelle Gayle has been bigging up all show. So was it worth the wait for this $6 million promo? Ah, I don’t know. All of these huge, blockbuster videos from past eras are always constrained by the technology that existed at the time they were made. In 1995, it looked impossibly slick and right at the cutting edge of what was possible. The black and white film, Janet’s dark make up making her look otherworldly and a spacecraft themed plot with image morphing special effects all combined well but watching it back in 2023, it doesn’t seem as impressive as my son’s FIFA computer game. It did receive eleven MTV Video Music Award nominations in 1995 – more than any other video had ever received – if that helps answer the question.

Chart peak: No 3

Now album? No

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Wet Wet Wet	Don’t Want To Forgive Me Now	No
2	The Outhere Brothers	Boom Boom Boom	As if
3	U2	Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me	Liked it, didn’t buy it
4	Bitty McLean	We’ve Only Just Begun	Nah
5	Edwyn Collins	A Girl Like You	Surely I did? No? Bah!
6	Paula Abdul	My Love Is For Real	Negative
7	East 17	Hold My Body Tight	I did not
8	Robson & Jerome	Unchained Melody / (There’ll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs Of Dover	Never happening
9	Michael Jackson / Janet Jackson	Scream	Nope

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/m001snq0/top-of-the-pops-15061995

TOTP 08 JUN 1995

Posted on November 24, 2023 by 80stastic

I was never a member of the TOTP studio audience. Despite watching the show religiously since about 1982, it was never really an ambition of mine. It didn’t actually look like that much fun, being herded around a studio, told where to stand and when to cheer in the faint hope you would end up in shot behind the presenter so you could mouth “Hello Mum” to the camera or just generally act daft. Obviously, there was the appeal of occupying the same space as and being up close and personal with a pop star or band but you were completely at the mercy of the running order for whatever show you got tickets for. Take this one for example. June the 8th, 1995 was not a vintage episode. The biggest star in the studio that week by a mile was Annie Lennox. Of the other five acts actually there in person, two are fairly anonymous dance groups, one is a band just breaking through but who would come to be seen as a second tier Britpop artist, a singer who would be remembered for just one song that isn’t this one and two actors turned unlikely and unlikeable pop stars. It’s not a great haul is it?! Even the host is just a Radio 1 DJ (Nicky Campbell) rather than a ‘golden mic’ guest presenter. I think I would have felt short changed had I have been in the audience that week.

We start with one of those dance groups in Loveland who had notched up three middling sized hits before this one – “Don’t Make Me Wait” – took them to No 22 in the charts. Their resident vocalist was Rachel McFarlane who sings on this track but her status within the group seemed to be constantly up for debate. Sometimes their records were described as ‘Loveland featuring Rachel McFarlane’ and sometimes they carried the legend (as this single did) ‘featuring the voice of Rachel McFarlane’. Wonder what that was as all about? A legal / contractual thing? As for the song, it’s a pretty standard house dance tune, the like of which I thought had mainly been in the charts in the early part of the decade. Indeed, it puts me in mind of Ce Ce Peniston’s 1992 hit “Finally”.

Next that aforementioned Britpop band. Although I referred to them as second tier, I did rather like Dodgy and even had one of their albums. I think I used that phrase to distinguish them from the likes of Blur, Oasis, Pulp and Supergrass who I saw as the real vanguard of the movement. In 1995 though, I didn’t really know too much about Dodgy other than their name as someone I’d worked with at the Our Price store in Market Street, Manchester knew them personally. After a debut album with an awful title (“The Dodgy Album”? Seriously?) in 1993 that didn’t set the world alight – it peaked at No 75 in the charts – they regrouped and came back the following year with “Homegrown” that performed much better achieving gold status in the UK. It also provided the band with three Top 40 singles the first of which was “Staying Out For The Summer” which made No 38 in October 1994. Perhaps realising that they’d made a balls up with the release date, label A&M authorised a second assault on the charts in, you know, the Summer and the song was back in June 1995.

It’s a pretty cool track and I was reminded of that recently. To explain, I recently started volunteering as an usher at Hull Truck Theatre and one of the first plays I worked was called Pop Music by Anna Jordan. Set at a wedding where the two characters meet years after they were at the same school together, it tells the story of their lives since; the highs and mainly lows and how pop music has soundtracked their life landmarks. It’s a great play and the version I saw (six times) featured two wonderful actors. Their time on stage is accompanied by a constant playlist of pop songs including a selection from the Britpop era. The first one to feature? Yep, “Staying Out For The Summer”! My time watching the play reminded me what a great (and possibly underrated) tune it is. Sure, it displays its Beatles influences pretty heavily but that’s not a bad thing in most people’s book is it? Dodgy would return in 1996 with their biggest album and single in “Free Peace Sweet” (the one I had) and “Good Enough” respectively. Nigel Clark and Andy Miller would look pretty different from this TOTP appearance sporting peroxide blonde, bouffant locks. Dodgy barnets anyone?

It’s a time for a repeat of that performance by Bon Jovi of “This Ain’t A Love Song” now. Filmed in Milan, this was shown the other week as an ‘exclusive’ but is recycled here as the single is at No 7 in the charts. TOTP had history when it came to re showing Bon Jovi exclusives – the Niagara Falls one for “Always” was on about three times. Maybe executive producer Ric Blaxill thought the band was too big a name to just show it once. To be fair, despite having become globally successful in the 80s with an image of being one of those ‘hair metal’ bands, the stats say that they were more successful in the 90s. In the UK for example, they only had one Top 10 single between 1986 and 1989 out of nine releases. By comparison, the band’s first nine singles of the 90s yielded six Top Tenners. “This Ain’t A Love Song” would become the seventh and the fifth in a run of eight consecutive Top 10 placings. OK, the album sales might tell a different story but TOTP was historically based around the singles chart and this ain’t an album blog so…

That second dance act now and it’s yet another from the seemingly eternal conveyor belt of German Eurodance artists. Following on from Snap!, Real McCoy, Haddaway, Culture Beat, Captain Hollywood Project and preceding Sash!, Fragma and ATB came Jam & Spoon. This duo (real names Rolf Elmer and Markus Löffel) had been having hits all over Europe since 1992 but the UK had proved a tough nut to crack. Indeed, this hit “Right In The Night (Fall In Love With Music)” had already had a tilt at our charts the year before but had to be satisfied with a peak of No 31. As was the trend around this time for minor hits being given a second chance, it was rereleased to become a Top 10 hit. The track would be revived in 2008 by an artist who is also on this very TOTP. All will be revealed later.

As these things go (and I certainly wasn’t a fan of Eurodance), this one isn’t the worst example of the genre and the flamenco guitar interlude serves to distinguish it from some of the dross we’d heard this decade so far. A word on vocalist Plavka. She started her career singing as a soprano with the Santa Monica opera before decamping to London to join electronic dance pioneers The Shamen on their “En-Tact” album and then working with Jam & Spoon. That’s quite the varied career.

Now if we thought Bon Jovi was a big name worthy of an exclusive performance repeat, what about this fella? Not just perhaps the most famous person on the planet at the time but he’s brought his superstar sister along for good measure. I can only be talking about Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson (and indeed I am). “Scream” was their much talked about duet and a taster of Jacko’s forthcoming double album “HIStory: Past, Present And Future Book I” a studio album of new material coupled with his first Greatest Hits package. Much was expected of “Scream” and its $6 million video and the single did debut on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart at No 5, no other single before it had entered the chart at a higher position. However, it got no further than that peak and it was a similar story in the UK where it topped out at No 3. The reason why? Was it a backlash against Jackson following the recent child sex abuse allegations brought against him by Jordan Chandler and his family which were settled out of court by Jackson at a cost of $23 million. Certainly host Nicky Campbell felt emboldened to make a few jibes at the King of Pop calling him “dodgy” and declaring that he had written bigger cheques than the cost of the “Scream” video recently. All fairly distasteful given the nature of the source material. Back to the point about “Scream” and its failure to top the charts though. I think the main reason for its disappointing sales was the fact that it wasn’t very good. There’s hardly a proper song structure in there, rather it was mostly a riff and some trademark Jacko squeals.

As for the video shown here, it appears to be a hastily cobbled together montage of previous videos and clips of Jackson in concert owing to the fact that the official promo wasn’t ready for release yet. Ric Blaxill would have to show it the following week when it was slipping down the charts from No 3 to No 5, thereby breaking the show’s own rule about not featuring songs that were going down the charts. That’s how big a name Michael Jackson was. Eat your hearts out Bon Jovi!

The answer to that query about who did a cover of Jam & Spoon’s “Right In The Night (Fall In Love With Music)” now – yes it was “Saturday Night” hitmaker Whigfield who gave us her take on it in 2008. Wanna hear it? OK…

Hmm. Not bad. Possibly better than the original. Back in 1995 though, Whigfield was pursuing a much more pop vein with this, her third hit, “Think Of You”. Not as annoying as “Saturday Night”, this would still worm its way into your brain and take root for the Summer once heard. Impossibly catchy (some might even say cutesy), it would take her to No 7 in the chart. A one hit wonder she may be remembered as but the reality was that she wasn’t anything of the sort. Two more chart entries would follow this year though one was an ill advised cover of Wham!’s “Last Christmas”. You know that Christmas game Whamageddon where you try and avoid hearing said song from 1st to 24th December? Yeah, I don’t think there will ever be a game called Whigageddon.

After launching her cover versions album “Medusa” with a little known track from the 80s that never even made the UK Top 40, Annie Lennox went to the other extreme in her choice of follow up single by going with one of the most famous No 1 songs of all time. Procul Harum’s “A Whiter Shade Of Pale” was a chart topper around the world in 1967 and went on to sell 10 million copies. In comparison, “No More ‘I Love You’s’” released by The Lover Speaks in 1986 made it to the dizzy heights of No 58 despite being absolutely wonderful. Annie’s version, though not bad at all, was inferior to the original and so it was to be with “A Whiter Shade Of Pale”. Some may say that she was always onto a loser taking on a song which sits on such a pedestal.

The performance here is a continuation on a theme from the drag ballet dancers that accompanied her for “No More ‘I Love You’s’” though this time they are dressed in French maid costumes. The Minnie Mouse headgear is still there though. Annie would release a third single from the album, a cover of Bob Marley’s “Waiting In Vain” which I came across the other day as it is featured in the rather charming John Cusack film Serendipity. Knowing that I would be writing about Annie in this post, that discovery was…well…serendipitous.

No Jacko style video premiere issues for this next song. U2 had not released anything since 1993 before they contributed “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me” to the Batman Forever soundtrack. Apparently the film’s director Joel Schumacher tried to shoehorn in a cameo role for Bono in the guise of his MacPhisto alter ego which he used during the Zoo TV Tour. When that didn’t materialise, Bono agreed to give a song to the soundtrack instead. And it was quite a song. Worked up from a demo from the “Zooropa” sessions and playing on the title of the song made famous by Mel Carter in 1965 and revived just the year before by Gloria Estefan, it swoops and soars around a jagged riff which does admittedly sound very similar to “Children Of The Revolution” by T-Rex.

The video directed by Kevin Godley and Maurice Linnane works pretty well I think even if the animation would be seen as clunky by today’s standards. Working in the MacPhisto / The Fly characters alongside clips from the actual film, it has a certain charm I think. Oh yeah, the film. Was it any good? Well, for me it was inferior to the Michael Keaton movies but so much better than the Batman And Robin flick with George Clooney as the Caped Crusader. Val Kilmer played it straight without the idiosyncrasies of Keaton’s portrayal but then he was probably wise not to try and outdo Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones as The Riddler and Two-Face respectively.

The single would lead a charmed chart life spending eight consecutive weeks inside the Top 10, even going back up the charts after falling initially when the film hit UK cinemas on July 14th. It also benefited from another song from the film being in the charts at the same time as Seal’s “Kiss From A Rose” was rereleased after peaking at No 20 in 1994 but making it all the way to No 4 a year later. I think both singles helped raise the other’s profile.

And so it came to pass that the musical legend that was Michael Jackson wasn’t able to dent Robson & Jerome’s hold on the No 1 spot* as their version of “Unchained Melody” reigned supreme. This was just getting silly now.

*Not only that, he couldn’t even dislodge Pulp from the No 2 position.

The play out tune is “Are You Blue Or Are You Blind?” by The Bluetones. The first chart entry for another band forever associated with Britpop, it would peak at No 31. This was the sound of a band gearing up for the big time. Within eight months they would have a No 2 single in “Slight Return” and a No 1 album in “Expecting To Fly”. I think their success is sometimes overlooked and get remembered by those that didn’t invest in the band just for that one song. In fact, they would have thirteen Top 40 singles in total and two further Top 10 albums after “Expecting To Fly”.

The band continued to release new material and tour long after Britpop had withered before splitting in 2011 only to reform four years later.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	Loveland	Don’t Make Me Wait	I did not
2	Dodgy	Staying Out For The Summer	No
3	Bon Jovi	This Ain’t A Love Song	Nope
4	Jam & Spoon	Right In The Night (Fall In Love With Music)	Nah
5	Michael Jackson / Janet Jackson	Scream	Never happening
6	Whigfield	Think Of You	Negative
7	Annie Lennox	A Whiter Shade Of Pale	Sorry Annie but no
8	U2	Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me	Liked it, didn’t buy it
9	Robson & Jerome	Unchained Melody	As if
10	The Bluetones	Are You Blue Or Are You Blind?	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/m001sfw6/top-of-the-pops-08061995

TOTP 02 DEC 1993

Posted on December 4, 2022 by 80stastic

We’re into December 1993 here at TOTP Rewind and the charts are starting to shape up for the race for Christmas No 1 with many a new release jostling for position on the starting grid as it were. Of the ten songs featured in this show, only two of them have been on previously. Amongst them are two future chart toppers including the festive one but we start by addressing this whole 3D thing. I can’t say I’m any sort of expert on 3D technology but I’m guessing that back in 1993 it probably seemed quite revolutionary. However, according to Wikipedia, the first stereoscope that tricked the brain into combining two separate images to produce 3D perception was developed in 1838! Fast forward 150 odd years and Panasonic introduced the first TV with 3D capability in 1981. Twenty years on from that and 3D screenings of films gained in popularity peaking with the release of Avatar in 2009. In the wake of that film, there was a short period of demand for 3D TVs but sales plateaued quickly and production of them had. all but stopped by 2016. OK, so given all the above, I’m sticking with my original summation that this was probably quite the event in 1993*.

*Apparently, this TOTP was part of the BBC’s 3DTV week (so an event indeed) which included this notorious piece of TV history…

So how did TOTP incorporate 3D into the show? Well, they kind of fudged it. The whole show wasn’t in 3D but there were some sections that lent themselves to some experimentation. The ‘weather vane’ opening titles were accentuated by adding some 3D graphics to them of the glasses that were required to appreciate the effects (proceeds from the sales of the glasses went to Children In Need). Then host Tony Dortie’s links were an obvious opportunity to add some 3D-ness so instead of the usual backdrop of the studio audience he had the show logo in 3D behind him. The show’s producers also hijacked the official promo videos for the Breakers section and showed some specifically put together films instead that highlighted the 3D technology in its best light. This resulted in the most inappropriate visual backing you’re ever likely to see for “YMCA” by The Village People. They do the same thing for the whole of U2’s “Stay (Faraway, So Close!)” video before climaxing with the pièce de résistance of the studio performance by Take That but more of that later. On with the actual music…

We begin with a song that I knew from its recording by another artist but not the actual original. “Don’t Look Any Further” was originally released by ex-frontman of The Temptations Dennis Edwards in 1984 on the Motown label but failed to chart. Four years later, The Kane Gang released their version of the song. You remember The Kane Gang surely? They had a couple of hits in 1984 with “Closest Thing To Heaven”and “Respect Yourself” and their song “Smalltown Creed” was the inspiration behind the ‘Ooh Gary Davies’ jingle for the Radio 1 DJ. After that they rather drifted away despite a second album which included the glorious “Motortown” single and “Don’t Look Any Further”. Sadly, neither of these great tracks could revive their commercial fortunes peaking at Nos 45 and 52 respectively.

Five years on and the song was rejuvenated by the dance act of 1993 M People who were on a roll having already racked up three Top 10 singles during the year including No 2 hit “Moving On Up”. They do a pretty good job of the track with the vocals shared between Heather Small and Mark Bell which I’m guessing didn’t happen too often. To my mind though, I would have thought that the track “Renaissance” would have been a better choice of single given that it already had a public profile from its use as the soundtrack the BBC student documentary The Living Soap which aired this year. That oversight was corrected early the following year when it became the fourth and final single released from “Elegant Slumming”.

https://youtu.be/KfHAuQ4hdJ4

It’s that U2 video for “Stay (Faraway, So Close!)” now or rather it isn’t as it’s been sacrificed for a promo film put together to highlight the 3D sheen that it’s been lacquered with. It seems to be a load of unrelated images of people doing everyday things like sitting in cafes, buying flowers at a market in European city settings like Paris, Amsterdam and Venice. A carnival (?) full of costumed and bemasked participants comes in towards the end. I wonder if the show’s producers had to have a difficult conversation with U2’s management to get approval for showing this instead of the official video that they’d have paid money to make?

Next a song that always reminds me of Christmas 1993. I’ve not been complimentary about Björk in the past but I’ve amended my opinion over time from she can’t sing to she can sing but I just don’t like her voice but I’ll have to modify it again. I have actually enjoyed re-hearing her singles “Venus As A Boy” and “Play Dead” on these TOTP repeats and this one, “Big Time Sensuality”, is the best of the lot. From its brooding, slowly building intro, it moves through the gears of its electronic beats to a pulsating and sustained rhythm that somehow manages to upstage even Björk’s idiosyncratic vocals. It’s a banger and no mistake.

https://youtu.be/gW-ANZjeJvQ

The live by satellite performance here from Rennes means we don’t get to see the actual infamous video with Björk filmed hamming it up on the back of a truck while it moves slowly through the streets of New York City.

Did its black and white filming and use of fast motion special effects influence the promo for The Prodigy’s “Firestarter”? Maybe but it was definitely sent up by those masters of parody French and Saunders though…

And it’s finally arrived. The moment in pop music history when the UK officially lost its collective mind and deemed it necessary to rush out and buy 600,000 copies of a record perceived by many a poll as the worst of all time. The Mr Blobby phenomenon is hard to explain. Initially a recurring character from BBC light entertainment programme Noel’s House Party, he became enshrined in British popular culture and somehow still retains a presence to this day. His original premise was as a tool in the Gotcha Oscars segment of the show, a kind of Candid Camera for the 90s where celebrities were duped into performing humiliating activities. Under the impression that Mr Blobby was a genuine Children’s TV character, they were then left to look on in bewilderment as this pink and yellow spotted costumed figure with a permanent grin proceeded to trash everything in its path and immediate vicinity. Somehow, this walking catastrophe managed to capture the nation’s hearts and his fame transcended his initial purpose. He would crop up on other TV shows including Lovejoy and Keeping Up Appearances and was a regular on other light entertainment programmes and kids TV like Live & Kicking and The Generation Game. Sensing there was money to be made unexpectedly out of this dereliction of duty to the traditions of humour on behalf of the public, merchandisers got in in the act with a number of Mr Blobby products including dolls, slippers, towels and a ‘blobbumentary’ VHS video. A record was inevitable and duly arrived in late November to cash in on the Christmas market.

I can find no redeeming features at all to “Mr Blobby” the single. Sure, there’d been many a novelty record make the charts prior to it. My Dad owned a copy of Benny Hill’s “Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In The West)” which was not only a chart topper but the Christmas No 1 of 1971. There was at least a plot to it though featuring a fair few innuendos to keep the adults engaged. It worked for kids as well – I can remember playing it on the family record player as a child and being entertained. It was a multi level masterpiece compared to “Mr Blobby”. There have also been records that have come out of TV shows like The Wombles in the 70s but at least they had a charm and were written by genuine songwriter Mike Batt. Plus, the Wombles were eco-friendly and ahead of their time. Mr Blobby was just an accident prone, irritating twat. The 80s provided us with another novelty No 1 in “The Chicken Song” by Spitting Image and as lame as it was, at least it had its origins in a controversial, politics lampooning, satirical comedy show with genuinely amusing puppets. Mr Blooby was devoid of any trace of humour and his costume was shit. As for the actual “Mr Blobby” ‘song’ if you an call it that, there are no words but seeing as this is a text based blog, I guess I’ll have to try and write some. It’s just hideous, an assault to the ears, totally devoid of any musical merit, atrocious, excrement…They couldn’t use the character’s voice on account of it being electronically altered and also that he only uses it to say “Blobby, blobby, blobby” so what sort of vocal could they use instead? Of course, the most annoying of all vocals committed to vinyl ever – a St Winifred’s school style kids choir! Heinous!

Oh God, I haven’t even got onto the video yet. I’ll maybe leave that for another post because horror of horrors, this diabolical record not only gets to No 1 (twice!) but it will also be *SPOILER ALERT* the 1993 Christmas No 1.

From the ridiculous to the sublime. The East 17 v Take That rivalry was hardly Oasis v Blur but in 1993 that particular feud didn’t exist so the Walthamstow street urchins meets Manchester’s slick pop idols was much bigger than the Bros versus Brother Beyond battle of 1988 surely? In the war for chart dominance, Take That seemed to be pulling clear of East 17 having bagged themselves two consecutive No 1s whilst Tony, Brian and…erm…the other two were flailing around in the mid parts of the Top 40. Their last two singles hadn’t even made the Top 10. Something needed to be done and it was with the release of the sixth and final single from their debut album everything was suddenly alright again. “It’s Alright” is, for me, the band’s best ever work even eclipsing the smooth sound of “Deep” and Christmas tear jerker “Stay Another Day”.

I’m a sucker for a song that starts slowly and then explodes into life and “It’s Alright” fits the bill perfectly. From that tinkling piano intro courtesy of Tony Mortimer leading into Brian Harvey’s isolated, angelic vocal (whatever else has been said about him, the guy could sing) to the momentary lull and the song taking off with that shouty chorus allied to a breakneck electronic backing – its marvellous stuff. Add in some punchy, racing strings and a return to the soft, lilting piano riff for the outro and it’s almost 1993 pop perfection. The album version was much more lacklustre and so you really needed to buy The Guvnor mix of the single (which I did). The song is really all about Tony and Brian’s parts so they had to find something for the other two to do for this performance. One of them gets a bass guitar to fiddle about with whilst the other is left to his own devices up front – he resorts to some shadow boxing moves at one point. He might as well have been hiding in one of the telephone boxes that inexplicably decorate the stage. At least it would have given them a reason for being there. The nostalgia of Brian Harvey’s chimney style beanie hat is also bizarrely comforting to me.

“It’s Alright” went to No 3 becoming their biggest hit at that point and also kickstarted their golden era which would culminate in that cash cow of a Christmas No 1 a year later.

The Breakers next but as specified earlier, not the official promo videos that should have accompanied them but those specially put together films to show off the 3D effects. We start with the first sighting in the UK charts of Snoop Doggy Dogg. There’s so much to say about this artist (just check out the length of his Wikipedia entry) that I’m not about to try and give a potted history of him in a few sentences here. However, I do recall in 1993 that he was being talked up as the next big rap/hip-hop superstar. He had a credible back story having featured on the legendary Dr.Dre’s debut album and single. A year later he was centre stage with his own debut material released, like Dre’s, on the Death Row Records label. “What’s My Name?” was a Top 10 smash in the US but only managed to peak at No 20 over here which seems odd given that it sold 200,000 copies in the UK. I’m pretty sure we sold many of them in the small branch of Our Price I was working at in Altrincham, Cheshire. I never failed to be amused by the antics of clearly middle class white kids in a market town in Trafford, Greater Manchester who would wander around the store acting as if they were from the hood. They’d affect that ‘-izzle’ vocabulary that Snoop Doggy Dogg is known for popularising (“shizzle my nizzle” and all that), in a faux black patois whilst flicking through our rap section. Who were they kidding? I once heard one lad say to his mate as he browsed the section, “Oh man that’s bad* and that’s badder than that and that’s badder than that!”.

*Bad meaning good obvs

Instead of the infamous dog morphing video, we are dished up some images of rides at a fairground to display the those 3D effects. Man, that’s bad!*

*Bad meaning shite

Alongside Mariah Carey’s “Hero” and “Again” by Janet Jackson, the next Breaker was one of those ballads that hung around the charts for ages, sold loads but never really achieved the chart peak you might imagine it would. Of the three, “For Whom The Bell Tolls” by the Bee Gees achieved the highest position of No 4 (“Hero” made No 7 and “Again” No 6). It spent a total of twelve weeks inside the Top 40 including six in the Top 10. Check out its full chart run:

38 – 13 – 6 – 5 – 4 – 4 – 6 – 8 – 12 – 19 – 26 – 34

It’s solid stuff and that peak of No 4 would make it the band’s biggest hit of the whole decade. For all you tend to think of their massive success being in the 70s (which it was), they didn’t do too badly in the 90s. Eight Top 40 hits of which four went Top 5. Compare that to the 80s when they only had one entry into the Top 40 albeit that went all the way to the top (“You Win Again” in 1987). Having said all that “For Whom The Bell Tolls” seems a fairly unremarkable ballad to me. It does however allow for both Barry (verses) and Robin (chorus) to showcase their rather unique vocals. There’s also something about the bridge that reminds me of Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me” and if it sounds bizarre to mention Shaggy and the Bee Gees in the same breath, remember that the former made an unlikely album with Sting. As for the 3D film, it’s an aerial shot of a mountain range that looks like that one Jon Bon Jovi stood at the top of for the “Blaze Of Glory” video.

If it’s Christmas party season in 1993 then it must be time for a rerelease of a 70s disco classic. Yes, following in the footsteps of the likes of Sister Sledge, Boney M and Gloria Gaynor who all enjoyed small revivals in this year comes The Village People and their huge 1978 hit “Y.M.C.A.”. As far as I can tell, this was its first time back in our charts since which seems remarkable considering its ubiquity. I’m guessing there was a Best Of album out as well to cash in on the “Y.M.C.A. (‘93 remix)” No 12 chart performance but I really can’t remember. The most striking thing about this though is the film that the TOTP producers chose to go with it to highlight 3DTV week. Whose idea was it to sync one of the biggest, campest disco party tunes of all time with some ground level images of a big stick and a Dalmatian dog walking by it?! Even in super duper 3D that must have been boring as hell!

We have reached the TOTP 3D crescendo. Where previously the effects had been restricted to using specifically created videos replacing the official promos for featured songs and some jiggery pokery going on behind host Tony Dortie during his links, the moment had come for some actual 3D-ness whilst an artist performed in the studio. And what better artist for this extravaganza than the biggest in Britain Take That?*

*One in the eye for the overlooked East 17 there

After their last two singles had both gone straight into the charts at No 1, a third looked a sure fire bet and what’s more, they’d timed it perfectly to bag the Christmas chart topper whilst they were at it. The track chosen for the job was “Babe”, an out and out ballad which was a change of direction for the band. Yes, they’d had a hit with a ballad before in “A Million Love Songs” but whilst that was a bit of a sway-a-long swooner, “Babe” was of a different flavour. For a start it was completely overwrought, written to bring teenage girls to a state of high tension and unmanageable emotions. I recall thinking the first time I heard it that it was the drippiest, wettest sounding thing I’d heard since…I dunno…”Seasons In The Sun” by Terry Jacks maybe?

Secondly, the vocals were supplied by Mark Owen for the first time and not Gary Barlow. His saccharine stylings were perfect for the song which apparently had been written specifically for him by Barlow at the request of the band’s manager Nigel Martin-Smith to cash in on Owen’s popularity (like Ringo Starr, he got the most fan mail). Post 1996 when the band first broke up, the talk was all about who would have the biggest solo career – Gary Barlow or Robbie Williams? The claims of a third band member are largely skipped over nowadays but it should be remembered that Mark Owen also has a back catalogue of work including five albums and six hit singles. The first of those, “Child”, was actually pretty good.

Thirdly, Barlow’s construction of the song also had to take into account the guitar playing proficiency (or limits thereof) of Jason Orange. With shades of The Monkees lingering, Orange (and Owen presumably) were wanting to be more proactive in the recording of their songs rather than being pretty boy backing dancers to Barlow’s talent and so Jase had begun to learn to play the guitar. Gary takes up the story:

“Jay had always felt that musically he didn’t contribute to the band like the rest of us, which is what prompted him to take up the guitar. Eventually Mark, whose voice was getting better, and Jay, who had totally cracked the chords for the chorus, had the song down pat; it was time for the middle eight. The trouble was I didn’t want Jay to have to learn any more chords, so I wrote the rest of the song around the ones he already knew. There was one other complication in that Mark was at the top of his range, so it couldn’t go any higher. It’s a hell of a way to write a hit.”
https://www.songfacts.com/facts/take-that/babe

Anyway, “Babe” duly crashed in at No 1 on its first week of release making Take That the first act in UK chart history to achieve this feat*. The Christmas No 1 would elude them though in unlikely and controversial circumstances when Mr Blobby, having been deposed by Take That, went back to the top of the chart on Christmas Day.

*Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s first three singles all went to No 1 but didn’t all top the charts in week one. “Relax” took twelve weeks to rise to the summit

As for the 3D effects, the images used behind and swirling around the band seem to be a very literal interpretation of the song. We get an early 20th century phone and a load of numbers on screen when Owen sings “so I picked up the phone and dialled your number” before the special effects team give up and just have a heart shape with the band members emblazoned on it flying around. It was probably all very exciting if you were a teenage girl and had the requisite 3D glasses at the time. I wasn’t and didn’t.

The No 1 bizarrely seems like an anti climax after all that but then it is Meatloaf who is in his seventh week at the top with “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” so maybe that’s about right. Meat would never have another No 1 record in the UK nor US though he came close in 1995 when another preposterously titled single “I’d Lie For You (And That’s The Truth)” got to No 2 in this country. RIP Meatloaf.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	M People	Don’t Look Any Further	No but my wife had the album
2	U2	Stay (Faraway, So Close!)	No
3	Björk	Big Time Sensuality	No but I should have
4	Mr Blobby	Mr Blobby	What do you reckon?
5	East 17	It’s Alright	Yes, yes I did!
6	Snoop Doggy Dogg	What’s My Name?	Nope
7	Bee Gees	For Whom The Bell Tolls	Nah
8	The Village People	Y.M.C.A. (‘93 remix)	Negative
9	Take That	Babe	I did not
10	Meatloaf	I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)	And no

Disclaimer

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

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001frnf/top-of-the-pops-02121993

TOTP 18 NOV 1993

Posted on November 26, 2022 by 80stastic

What were you doing twenty-nine years ago? I know, I know. It’s hard enough remembering why you’ve just come upstairs some days but I’m pretty sure that I had just begun working at the Our Price store in Altrincham, Cheshire. I’d been employed by the company for three years by this point and was onto my fourth different shop. I’d done nearly two years in Market Street, Manchester then a promotion saw me move to Rochdale for a year. A transfer to a bigger store in Stockport followed but it hadn’t really worked out for me. I never settled and found the whole place a bit overwhelming. When another move suddenly presented itself, I was relieved. Whether area management knew I was struggling and took pity on me I don’t know. I doubt it but I immediately felt better at Altrincham. It was a much smaller store (similar to Rochdale) and just felt more manageable. The staff were welcoming and I really got on with the manager Cathy. I think there were eight of us altogether including Christmas temps and it was a good little team. I loved it there in fact. Sadly, it would all come to an abrupt end immediately after Christmas but that’s for a future post. I wonder if any of the songs on this TOTP will ring any bells with me?

Well, this one should do. Not that I remember it specifically but because it sounds the same as all their other hits. I refer, rather obviously, to 2 Unlimited. I think it was all starting to wear a bit thin by this point wasn’t it? “Maximum Overdrive” was their eighth UK hit in a two year period five of which had made the Top 5 including the No 1 single “No Limit”… and they all sounded…the…same. Too harsh? OK, they all followed a very similar pattern then. I get that they might have gone down well on your local nightclub’s dance floor but could anybody have listened to a whole album full of this stuff?!

*checks 2 Unlimited’s discography*

What?! Two of their albums went to No 1 in this country (“No Limits!” and “Real Things”) selling 350,000 copies between them?! This can’t be true can it?! This is as baffling as who the hell voted for Matt Hancock to stay in the jungle that long!

https://youtu.be/J–XvsaSz6I

When I first saw Anita and Ray’s outfits for this performance – full black and white chequered leathers with a number 2 prominently displayed – I wondered if they’d gone all Two-tone but it was all to do with that motorbike at the back of the stage. Presumably that was meant to be a play on the theme of the single’s title with the backing dancers meant to be pit stop crew? Nah – this is how you incorporate motorbikes into your song. A masterclass from David Essex…

Why were the TOTP producers obsessed with informing us that artists that had been booked to appear in the studio could no longer do so because they were ill/indisposed so we’d have to make do with the video instead? Why bother telling us? Surely we wouldn’t have known they were meant to be there in person anyway would we? Methinks they protest too much. Unless…it was some sort of ploy to make the show still appear credible and valid by showing us that artists did still want to make the effort to appear in person – “we’re still the biggest music show on TV, honest we are!”. Anyway, that’s what happens here with Terence Trent D’Arby who was meant to be in the studio to perform his single “Let Her Down Easy” but had come down with a case of Beijing flu* according to host Tony Dortie so it’s the video instead.

*There was an actual epidemic of it in the winter of 1993/94 though whether TTD had actually contracted it or it was just Dortie trying to be topical I don’t know.

1993 had been quite a year for Terence on the quiet. A No 4 album in “Symphony Or Damn” which was also well received by the critics (it received a five star rating from Q Magazine) with four Top 20 singles from it that achieved these very consistent chart peaks:

14 – 16 – 14 – 18

“Let Her Down Easy” was the final one of the four and though I don’t remember it, I really should have as it’s a striking piece of music. Almost entirely a piano led composition (there’s some orchestration low in the mix) with just Terence’s pure, isolated vocal, it’s quite the stand out track even today. It got the attention of George Michael who knew his way around a decent tune and he performed it live on his 2011-12 Symphonica tour which was recorded for his 2014 “Symphonica” album.

Back in a Eurodance dominated 1993 though, the track must have seemed like a complete anomaly. It should have been a bigger hit but maybe it got caught up in the Christmas rush. I liked the diversity of the album’s four singles with each one quite different from the other. Like I said, he had quite the year in 1993 but Terence Trent D’Arby rarely gets a mention in retrospectives of those twelve months.

Remember in 2001 when Kylie Minogue grabbed herself a No 1 single with the insanely catchy “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head”? Back then, we remarked on how clever the lyrics and title were in that they worked on two levels; the object of Kylie’s affection but also the ear worm that was the actual song. Eight years earlier Culture Beat pulled off a similar coup with “Got To Get It”. ‘Got to get it, got to get it out of my head’ they sang referring to a relationship that had ended but of course it could also have referred to the track itself. Culture Beat are, of course, mostly remembered for that bit of pop trivia about “Mr Vain” being the first UK No 1 not to be released on 7” vinyl whereas Kylie is known as the ‘Princess of Pop’ and revered as a style icon. Get that out of your head Culture Beat!

In 1996 Crowded House released a Best Of compilation called “Recurring Dream”. The TV ad campaign for the album used a tag line that was spoken by a voice over guy who said “you’ll know more songs than you think by Crowded House”. Clever stuff. However, here’s one of theirs that I don’t think most of us will know. I didn’t remember it and possibly Mr Voice Over Guy wouldn’t either as it’s not included in that “Recurring Dream” Best Of.

“Nails In My Feet” was the second track taken from the band’s “Together Alone” album and unlike its predecessor “Distant Sun” and subsequent release “Locked Out”, it didn’t seem like an obvious choice of single. It feels like it should be something special but flounders around in search of a tune and never actually finds one. The rather odd, almost off key middle eight that sounds a bit like the theme to 70s action-comedy series The Persuaders! doesn’t help either.

Neil Finn does his best to sell the song with an expressive performance but it just doesn’t work for me and I say that as someone who’s seen them in concert twice. “Nails In My Feet” was supposedly inspired by Finn’s purchase of a pair of sandals with nails in them that were used to aerate the grass on his home’s tennis court rather than any religious imagery and achieved a respectable chart peak of No 22.

https://youtu.be/ss2TgrfrVaw

Tony Dortie’s at it again next telling the viewers at home that U2 should have been in the TOTP studio but for reasons he doesn’t want to bore us with, they haven’t made it. Tony, you can’t makes statement like that and not give us the whole story. You could have said nothing and we’d have been none the wiser but the cat’s out of the bag now so you have to tell all!

1993 was an odd chapter in the U2 story. Having finished 1992 with accumulated sales of “Achtung Baby” standing at 10 million and ticket sales for the supporting Zoo TV Tour reaching 2.9 million, the band paused for breath as there was now a six month break before the tour resumed with the Zooropa leg. The problem was that the band weren’t ready to just stop after months of touring. As Bono explained it:

“We thought we could live a normal life and then go back on the road [in May 1993]. But it turns out that your whole way of thinking, your whole body has been geared toward the madness of Zoo TV… So we decided to put the madness on a record. Everybody’s head was spinning, so we thought, why not keep that momentum going…?
Scholz, Martin; Bizot, Jean-Francois; Zekri, Bernard (August 1993). “Even Bigger Than the Real Thing”. Spin. Vol. 9, no. 5. Spin Media LLC. pp. 60–62, 96.

With loops created from tour sound checks and unused “Achtung Baby” demos being employed as starting blocks for recording sessions, the next decision was what format this new material would be released as. A four track EP was the original idea but such was the speed of their creativity, Bono suggested a whole album. Then it all got very confusing. The track chosen to promote the “Zooropa” album was “Numb” but in an unexpected turn of events, it was only released as a VHS video. I recall we got a couple of copies in the Our Price store in Rochdale but I’m not sure if we sold any of them. The then chart rules disallowed its sales from counting on the record singles chart so it kind of sunk without trace. After that rather spectacular own goal, a second track was summoned from the bench to promote the album – “Lemon”. Then it was going to be a double A-side release with “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”, Bono’s duet with Frank Sinatra. Then Ol’ Blue Eyes’ people wanted a stand alone release and then finally that track was paired with the confoundingly titled track “Stay (Faraway, So Close!)”. I do remember this coming out but twenty-nine years on, I couldn’t have told you how it went before re-listening to it. Now that I have listened to it again, I still can’t tell you so unmemorable is it. I don’t mind a bit of U2 now and again and you have to admire their longevity and willingness to reinvent themselves but this one is dreary as. Allegedly, Bono has previously labelled it as the band’s greatest song but I can’t hear it. It was actually written for the similarly titled Wim Wenders film Faraway, So Close! but I’ve never seen it.

I suppose I should say something about the Bono/Frank Sinatra duet as well seeing as the single seems to have been a double A-side. How did this come about? Well, Frank had maybe been talking to Elton John as, just like the ‘Rocket Man’, he’d recorded an album of duets and, also like Elt, just called it “Duets”. Featuring collaborations with the likes of Luther Vandross, Aretha Franklin, Tony Bennett and Liza Minnelli, it sold well over the Xmas period peaking at No 5 in the UK. I say collaborations but it was a very mechanical process with Sinatra not actually being in the recording studio with any of his duetters at the same time. They sang along with his pre-recorded vocals with instructions to make their parts complement his. Frank ‘takin’ care of business’ as always. In that respect it was similar to the Natalie Cole (who appeared on the album with Sinatra on “They Can’t Take That Away From Me”) duet on “Unforgettable” with her deceased father Nat King Cole. The track “Under My Skin” recorded with Bono was chosen as a single to promote the album. Bono (along with the rest of the band) had already met Sinatra though in 1987 at a boxing match in Las Vegas between Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvin Hagler. I bet Bono and the guys got a kick out of that.

The Breakers now beginning with DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince who are trying to follow up on the huge and slightly unexpected success of “Boom! Shake The Room” with new single “I’m Looking For The One (To Be With Me)”. This is yet another track that I have no memory of (clearly working in a record shop didn’t mean that I knew every song in the charts) but it sounds a bit like their previous hit “Summertime”. Even the home made style video is reminiscent of that track. Maybe that Summer vibe was a bit misplaced on a record released as Christmas was coming into view and perhaps that’s why it got nowhere near replicating the success of “Boom! Shake The Room” when it peaked at No 24.

This next song has quite the back story. “Demolition Man” was written by Sting in the Summer of 1980 as a potential track for The Police album “Zenyatta Mondatta”. When it didn’t make the album it was offered to Grace Jones who recorded it for her 1981 “Nightclubbing” album and released it as its lead single.

Thinking that they could do a better version themselves, the band recorded it for their next album “Ghost In The Machine”.

Then over a decade later, here it is again as a solo release from Sting to promote the film of the same name starring Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes. As with Faraway, So Close! earlier, I’ve never seen it but reading its Wikipedia entry leads me to believe it’s one of those fun but dumb action movies that are good if you’re recovering from a hangover and have very little brain power available. The video has Sting rather gratuitously performing the song naked from the waist up with very little if any clips from the film inserted. One for his fan base there.

Sting of course has quite the connection with the world of movies. He’s acted in over a dozen films including Quadrophenia, Dune, The Bride and Stormy Monday and has contributed music to many a soundtrack. Aside from Demolition Man, he’s featured on Lethal Weapon 3 (“It’s Probably Me” with Eric Clapton), The Three Musketeers (“All Four Love” with Rod Stewart and Bryan Adams), Stars And Bars (“Englishman In New York”) to name but three of a long list. There’s even a CD called “Sting At The Movies” that collects many of them together. The one burnt into my memory though is “Spread A Little Happiness” from Brimstone And Treacle in which he also starred. This seemed to be played all the time by Terry Wogan on his Radio 2 breakfast show which my Mum used to have on in the background on a school morning.

Oh the folly! Tony Dortie’s casual dismissal of the next act as “apparently once controversial” illustrates perfectly the smugness contemporary music has for its elders. Back in 1984, Frankie Goes To Hollywood were everything and everywhere, exploding onto the charts like nothing witnessed since The Beatles. Three No 1 records amounting to sixteen weeks at the top, every other person in the country wearing a ‘Frankie Says…T-shirt’, a Radio 1 ban for the corrupting nature of the lyrics to “Relax”, a video for “Two Tribes” featuring actors playing out a wrestling match between Reagan and Chernenko at the height of the new Cold War…according to Dortie that just warrants an “apparently once controversial” remark. Know your musical history mate!

Frankie were back in the charts in 1993 thanks to a Best Of album and the rerelease of the “Relax” single to promote it. After that had made No 5, record label ZTT decided it was worth reissuing another of their hits. Surely “Two Tribes”* was the obvious choice or even “The Power Of Love” seeing as Christmas was coming and it had that video but no – “Welcome To The Pleasuredome” was selected. Now, nothing against the song which still stands up today in my book but it does carry with it that stigma of being the first single by the band not to go to No 1 despite ZTT using an advertising campaign declaring it their fourth No 1 before it was even released. As it turned out, it couldn’t dislodge “Easy Lover” by Phil Collins and Philip Bailey and has retrospectively been deigned to be the beginning of the end for the Frankie phenomenon. The 1993 remix still managed a Top 20 position but it seemed a missed opportunity. As it turned out, “The Power Of Love” was hastily rush released the week before Christmas and achieved a high of No 10 but with a bit more thought, a longer lead in time and better promotion, could it have challenged for the Christmas No 1 or would the power of Mr Blobby have easily seen it off?

* “Two Tribes” was eventually rereleased in February of 1994 making it to No 16.

The final two Breakers were both featured in full length on the previous show and are both due to be on the following week so I’ll leave my comments short for both for fear of running out of things to say about them. The first is “Again” by Janet Jackson. After her live by satellite performance the other week, we get the video this time which was directed by René Elizondo Jr. As well as being Janet’s then husband, he is also the man whose hands are covering her breasts on the cover of the September 1993 issue of Rolling Stone Magazine that formed the expanded artwork for her “Janet” album. So now you know.

The final Breaker is from Elton John and Kiki Dee or ‘Alton’ John as Tony Dortie pronounces it. Their rendition of “True Love” is up to No 8 on its way to a high of No 2, not quite the Christmas No 1 the bookies were predicting as per Dortie’s intro. The video is clearly aimed at creating a Christmas vibe with Elton and Kiki wearing prominently placed winter scarves whilst the black and white film depicting them as the guardian angels of the lyrics reeks of It’s A Wonderful Life. Guiding the boy and girl love interests to ensure they don’t miss each other at the train station, the film suddenly turns colour as they find each other. OK, I can live with that but the nun dancing with a homeless looking fella? Really?!

https://youtu.be/sbry5Z8aEXM

Tony Dortie tries to increase his street cred next by getting Public Enemy into his next intro. However, that credibility is stretched to its limits when you realise he’s crowbarred the hip hop legends into a segue into a performance by soprano and opera singer Lesley Garrett. So what was going on here then? Well, Lesley teamed up with 12 year old pianist and leukaemia patient Amanda Thompson to record a version of “Ave Maria”, the Latin prayer set to music by Charles Gounod when he superimposed a melody over Bach’s “Prelude No 1 in C Major”. It was a charity record raising £160,000 for the Malcolm Sergeant cancer fund and came about after Amanda had featured heavily in the ITV documentary series Jimmy’s about St.James’s hospital in Leeds. I think Esther Rantzen was something to do with it as well. There was even some fanciful talk of this being the Christmas No 1 but it topped out at No16.

https://youtu.be/zh5Rs25kJMQ

Right, what are we up to now? Fourth week? Fifth? I’m losing count of how long Meatloaf’s been at No 1 with “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’tDo That)”. I suppose I should mention the incredible business parent album “Bat Out Of Hell 2: Back Into Hell” was also doing. In the UK alone it went six times platinum (1,800,000 sales) whilst in America it went five times platinum equating to 5,000,000 sales. Obviously it was also topped the album charts in both those territories. We sold a lot of it that Christmas in that little store in Altrincham. We did an end of year poll for the staff asking for their Top 3 albums of the year, fave single etc. “I’d Fo Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” was one member of staff’s pick. Didn’t see that coming.

Order of appearance	Artist	Title	Did I buy it?
1	2 Unlimited	Maximum Overdrive	Never
2	Terence Trent D’Arby	Let Her Down Easy	Good song, didn’t buy it
3	Culture Beat	Got To Get It	See 1 above
4	Crowded House	Nails In My Feet	I did not
5	U2	Stay (Faraway, So Close!)	No
6	DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince	I’m Looking For The One (To Be With Me)	Negative
7	Sting	Demolition Man	Nope
8	Frankie Goes to Hollywood	Welcome To The Pleasuredome	Not in 1985 nor 1993
9	Janet Jackson	Again	Nah
10	Elton John / Kiki Dee	True Love	Of course not
11	Lesley Garrett / Amanda Thompson	Ave Maria	It’s a no from me
12	Meatloaf	I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’tDo That)	Unlike my Our Price colleague, 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/m001fh20/top-of-the-pops-18111993

TOTP Rewind – the 90s

My memories of 90s chart music

U2

TOTP 30 OCT 1998

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TOTP 19 DEC 1997

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TOTP 18 JUL 1997

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TOTP 14 FEB 1997

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TOTP 24 JAN 1997

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TOTP 20 JUL 1995

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TOTP 15 JUN 1995

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TOTP 08 JUN 1995

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TOTP 02 DEC 1993

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TOTP 18 NOV 1993

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